Chandler Walker - AKA The Care Hacker: Creating a Culture of Care Through Wellness, Mental Health, Social Health, Sleep, Nutrition & Habits

Voiceover: 0:00

The SUCCESS Coaching Podcast is a partner of the SUCCESS Podcasts Network. Visit success.com/podcasts to discover additional SUCCESS Podcasts, including Rich & Regular with Julien and Kiersten Saunders, SUCCESS Stories with Madison Pieper, The SUCCESS Line with Ben Fairfield, and Brilliant Thoughts with Tristan Ahumada. That's success.com/podcasts. Welcome to the SUCCESS Coaching Podcast. On today's episode, our guest, Chandler Walker, shares his own personal journey to success. Because success is a journey, not a destination. Here's the hosts of the SUCCESS Coaching Podcast, Todd Foster, Alyssa Stanley, and Kelley Skar.

Alyssa Stanley: 0:55

Hey everybody, welcome back to the SUCCESS Coaching Podcast. My name is Alyssa Stanley. I am here with Kelley Skar and Todd Foster. Bringing in the second podcast of the New Year. I hope everyone had a great ringing in of 2022. Today we get to sit down with Chandler Walker, aka the Care Hacker. Thanks for hanging out with us today.

Chandler Walker: 1:16

Yeah, thanks for having me. Hopefully, we can get people some value. And it's not super boring. And people don't fall asleep at the wheel while they're driving listening to the podcast. So let's do this.

Todd Foster: 1:25

With the name of Chandler Walker, it's tough not to get excited in the first place.

Chandler Walker: 1:29

That's true. It's like you've got Chandler from friends. And you got Walker Texas Rangers. So I've got two movies to star things in that name.

Todd Foster: 1:36

It's great.

Alyssa Stanley: 1:36

So why don't you start out by telling us a little bit about the care hacker name that you carry?

Chandler Walker: 1:43

Yeah, so my whole life and my philosophy has been create a culture of care. And ultimately, we call our business, the culture of care. And when people ask what I do, it's not like well, I run a business, I'm the CEO, I do things, it's I I hacked people's ability to care about other people. And we do that through conversational to through therapeutic conversations. And we do that in a sales environment. And ultimately, the way I sort of figured this out was, as a kid, I had a mother who was bipolar. And so growing up, it was really challenging to learn to communicate with her because there's very deep highs and very deep lows. And I think a lot of people learn to hate their parents for that, because they don't recognize or understand it. And when I was a kid, it was very much you don't talk about mental health problems don't exist. And you just need to put a smile on your face and pretend there's not an issue. So from a young age, I started learning how to communicate in a neutral way. So if someone says something not to get offended or upset, but to try to define the problem and understand what's happening, and what's really going on, which really put me a step ahead of the game in my ability to communicate moving into my adult life. And from my experiences with her, I moved into a biochemistry realm, I was going to pursue med school. But I got really disenfranchised by the system. I was going into this thing to help people I was going in this thing to make a difference. I was going into this thing because as a kid, I saw what this kind of suffering could do to people. But I found myself just walking into a room and prescribing medication. And so it really hit me hard. And that that was not the environment in the life that I was willing to live. And I didn't feel like I was helping people. And it's not a shot at doctors, it's a shot at the system. If I tell you to eat an apple, I'm going to get sued. But if I give you a pill, you're happy fine and dandy. And so that just wasn't my life. And, and that's the moment I really decided that I needed to break off and I needed to do my own thing. And that's when we built our first business, which was a brick and mortar called Stone Age school where we help people in six areas of wellness, mental health, social health, sleep, nutrition, and ultimately habits.

Alyssa Stanley: 3:35

That's really cool. You go against the grain of what everyone is so used to I mean, this this instant fix and instant gratification of I have this issue. Let's get a prescription and pop a pill. You go against that which, you know, caveat here, I take prescription drugs for multiple sclerosis. I think there's a place for that in I think there's a place for Western medicine, but also what you offer as well in the more holistic sense to help people live more well balanced and rounded lives through what it sounds like nutrition and mental health. So you're really kind of hacking the system as far as your care hacker.

Chandler Walker: 4:15

Yeah, exactly. And part of the moniker was we wanted to say medication isn't a problem, but it can't it shouldn't be the only answer. And in some cases, it needs to be the answer. But so for us, we worked on those six pillars and we also set it up so we could get permission to speak with the patient, the customer prospects doctor and work with them in tandem to create health care plans and to create long term plans so that people could be successful and, and healthy long term. And we end up getting people coming in. I remember one guy was in his late 70s Just got off a year worth of throat cancer and he needed a place to gain weight or end up in the nursing home. And so we ended up with him, which resulted in that person and us all speaking together with their doctor to make sure we had the right treatment plan. We had the right protocol, the doctor was on the same page. And ultimately we were able to help change lives at a standard of care that was much higher than you would just get regular health care realm.

Kelley Skar: 5:05

Very interesting. My wife is a psychologist, and we, you know, one of the things that I learned early on once my wife was licensed, was the massive difference between psychiatry and psychology, in psychology is essentially helping to rewire the brain through thought process and discovery and whatnot in psychiatry, although has some of the same aspects it has has a greater emphasis on utilizing drugs to help with that rewiring and reprogramming. How did you come up with this? I mean, it wasn't Chandler, just your experience with your mom, and that that sort of thing. But have you gone through some depression, like where it was there? Were there instances in your life where you had to kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps? I mean, what was it that kind of propelled you into into this profession? And, you know, I guess health? I mean, your your background is in physical health, right? Like you're your nutrition coach, and all that kind of stuff, are you not?

Chandler Walker: 6:03

Yeah, my background was biochemistry and molecular biology and university and right, I got really good at negotiating with my advisors. So I was able to focus on biochemistry and molecular biology, immunology and microbiology as a sort of mainstay. And the other thing, unique thing that I can add that came about was because of what I went through with my mother, and what later in my 20s, when I was in college, she was able to figure out what was going on through cognitive behavior therapy and a couple of other modalities. And so then I started to learn what that aspect of psychology and science looked like. And I was able to gain a mentor who was a PhD in cognitive behavior therapy and focused on sleep modalities and that stuff. And so I was able to start learning during my college career about cognitive behavior therapy, about motivational interviewing about acceptance, commitment, therapy, and ultimately, what thoughts and beliefs are, how thoughts and beliefs are formed and constructed how people operate as emotional animals. And then it really helped me start to design this, this sort of curriculum that was my like my dream animal for this business. And so then I took those thoughts and ideas, and I built a Facebook page off of it. We went from obviously zero followers, and ultimately up to about 30,000 followers, testing these concepts, and just putting things out live and talking to people and getting feedback. And it started to help me evolve this curriculum, because I was able to say, hey, here's the concept I'm thinking about, here's what it means to you. And then I would get immediate feedback from it, I would go and rebuild it, rewire it, readjust it. And over the course of five or six years, I was able to build this cohesive, constructive curriculum that had the mental health component, the social health component, the sleep component, the nutrition, fitness and habits, components. And in my opinion, at the end of the day, the most important components were the mental health, the social health and the sleep. It didn't even matter if people focused on fitness and nutrition in the beginning, because if they didn't take care of those first three aspects, everything else was gonna get crushed. Right?

Todd Foster: 7:53

When you were doing your studies. At some point, the light bulb clicked right? Where you were like, Okay, this is not really the path I'm looking to go towards in terms of the medical doctor prescribing drugs. Was there a point at in college or during your studies that that happened, where you said, Okay, it's time to switch gears and actually go to the lipstick, we're out instead of the pill and we trust you're better.

Chandler Walker: 8:17

Yeah, I remember the exact moment at the same time. So I was precepting down in Vegas, one of the medical centers and I was sitting in the back watching the doctor do his thing. It was an internal medicine doc. And he had a patient who came in and he said, Hey, did you work on your diet? Did you work on nutrition, some of the stuff we talked about, and the patient just looked at him and said, Nope, I just I like my steak and my steak and taters and I would just like a refill on my medications. And he left and the doctor would just he, they're defeated a little bit and like, you just can't help everybody. And we just don't have the resources to make it happen. And in that moment, I just, I wasn't ready to accept the fact that I had to accept defeat right off the bat.

Kelley Skar: 8:56

Alright, so I'm curious, your you know, in kind of the preamble, we talked a little bit about, you know, compassion conversations, and I'm just looking at the the message that you sent us and in, you know, wanting to be on the show. And one of the things that you had said that you wanted to share with our audience was selling high end services through compassion, conversations, maybe we can dive into that a little bit and kind of have that discussion.

Chandler Walker: 9:20

Yeah, for sure. happy to chat about that aspect. And so this goes into the next piece of my obsessive life with not being able to settle for something and changing the game or changing the way it works. So the same thing that I had with the med school route, when I got into the business, I got into the realm of entrepreneurship now. So it's a whole different world. Nobody's telling you what to do. My dad owned a business for siding and windows. So as a kid, I went with him he would give me a donut and oranges six in the morning, take me to customers houses and I would watch him communicate and do things which was, which was pretty neat and probably gave me a little bit of the strength to really break off and move into that brick and mortar business that we had. But my next problem was our services were fairly expensive for this realm because we had this holistic approach, we were working with physicians and we had this really neat thing going on. So to come in and work with us, it was about $2,500 for less than three months. And then when we shifted to an online realm, once the pandemic hit, it was $3,200 to work with us for three months. And so there's a fairly high end sales environment for a health business. It's not like people are getting an ROI. Well, a financial ROI off of this. So it's usually seen as as challenging hill to get through. And so as I was learning the process of being able to sell these services, I obviously hired coaches to help me with sales. And most of the coaches I hired, were telling me, you have to be aggressive, you have to push these people into making a decision, you have to my favorite one, you have to assume the clothes, just tell them Visa or MasterCard and and collect their info. And, and I looked back and I was like, this is another defining moment, I was like, I got into this world, to change lives to help people I left the other world because I wasn't going to accept defeat. And now I'm in another world where I have to manipulate to get people to make a decision to help them. This makes no sense. And so I looked back, I was like, alright, what am I doing? I've enrolled a lot of people in this program without sales coaching. And I thought this was going to level me up. But this put me in an existential crisis. And so then I looked back and I said, Okay, what was I doing, I took the concepts that we had in our mental health modalities, motivational interviewing, cognitive behavior, therapy, acceptance, Commitment Therapy, and I combine those to create a therapeutic sales process to where we could not just find the pain. But we could connect the dots to the past, we could take the past that we connected to move it into the future, help them understand triggers associated with why they weren't seeing success, and then reframe and redefine the problem to a much bigger problem at hand. And then you have a magical lightbulb moment that goes off in these people's heads. They say, Wow, nobody's ever talked to me like that. Nobody's ever told me this. I never even understood this was a problem. I've tried this so many times. But it's been here all along. And when people have that, that lightbulb moment, almost like this, this magical moment, their entire thinking process changes to what do I do now? And so that's the process, I sort of developed to be able to say, we don't have to manipulate you, we just need you to come to your own truth in the conclusion of it's probably not what you're thinking it's probably a much bigger issue.

Alyssa Stanley: 12:08

Well, I think you're able to transfer that from a quote on quote, sale, close a sale, to giving them a service. Because you're allowing them the opportunity to see how their life can be changed. You're not selling them anything, you're offering them a life changing service and helping them connect the dots, dots to how you can truly impact their life.

Chandler Walker: 12:29

Exactly. And so people go through the process, and it's not me telling them do you want in this at the end of the day, we just say, that's all I have for today. What do you want to do from here? And it's always what can I enroll? And then I have this concept of challenging leadership. So well, well, yeah, of course, you can enroll. But is that the best thing for you? Do you think this will make you successful? So we challenge them, so then they have to sell themselves on to why it might be appropriate for them to enroll. And some people, I tell people, I'm gonna fight with you to make sure you don't buy this thing. And it's true, because I want that decision to be so solidified and so strong and so powerful, that they come into the onboarding call pumped, they're excited, there's no refund request, there's no I don't know what I did. I spent so much money, there's, I just made the commitment to change the rest of my life. And I'm proud of myself for doing.

Todd Foster: 13:18

How do you get people from the belief of whatever that belief is, and it's usually against something? And maybe people could say, Okay, I'm against the holistic thing. Others could say I'm, I'm against pharmaceutical drugs, once you have them in your program, it's great, right? They've actually made the decision to change. What's the process of getting them there in the first place where they're finally being more open minded and willing to hear that there's other ways of doing things?

Chandler Walker: 13:49

Yeah, that's a good question. And I think that comes into play in our marketing. So we have this tenant in marketing, and this is gonna sound crazy, but we don't produce helpful content. Because helpful content is a commodity, a commodity puts you in the market of everybody else. If I teach you five tips to lose weight, well, guess what? So is everyone else so nobody cares? But if I've talked to you about why diets are as addictive as cigarettes, and why you're fighting the wiring inside your brain, by continuously doing diet, some of her care attention, because it's like, Hold on, why would they be as addictive as cigarettes, then we start talking about diets being as are an addiction to hope, the hope that it will work, but then the hope never comes into play you take before pictures. And so our marketing plays into these deep held beliefs and these deep held reasons to why they think they haven't been successful. And we reframe, redefined it to the bigger problem at hand, or create an analogy to help them understand that there's something else going on. And when we look at belief patterns in human beings, we're not going to connect with them logically, we're going to connect with them emotionally. So the deeper we can drive into them emotionally, the more we can tell a story about that emotion and that feeling and why it exists, the more likely that we're going to establish the idea that we have something unique, we have something safe, and we're someone they can trust.

Todd Foster: 15:00

I'm assuming you have some knowledge on NLP is that correct?

Chandler Walker: 15:05

I've studied NLP as a subset of a lot of what I've done, I believe we're more focused on sort of the idea of the cognitive behavior therapy side. But I do think NLP has a lot of value in it, I feel NLP is a little bit more short term versus CBT. And stuff like that can be a little bit more long term. So you can use them in tandem to really create these strategies and really design these belief changing paradigms in LP is more of a short term solution than what you're doing long term wise. Yeah, and the reason I believe NLP is a more short term is because NLP is about changing beliefs and reframing in the moment, but it doesn't have the ability to solidify or anchor that moment long term for people. And when you look at a modality, like CBT, cognitive behavior therapy, it's about creating that anchor point, it's about creating that core belief and understanding that core identity, and then recognizing and working through how to spot that trigger over time and how to manage that trigger. That's the difference between NLP and CBT. And that's really why I emphasize with our team and our people why we're a lot more CBT focus, because I am, I'm not doing therapy, but I am focused on long term change for people I don't want a decision to be made. And then well, logic brain gets into play, did I make the right decision? Or was I manipulated? And so often in our teachings, I tell people, we teach you how to do this without an over reliance on NLP or an over reliance on a short term strategy. So Kelley lives in Canada. I'm in the United States. When it comes back to pharmaceutical drugs, it seems that North America in general, loves to have here's the pill, take it, if it doesn't make you better. Here's another one that should help you get over the side effects of the other one. And your opinion when you go around the world and you see the health care, and what's available outside of North America. Do you think we'll ever catch up to other countries that are doing things such as what you're doing at a high level and stuff being driven by pharmaceuticals and stock prices and bonus payouts to executives?

Todd Foster: 17:11

Yeah, that's a really good question. And it's such a challenging question to answer for the North American market for lack of a better term. Because I've seen the Canadian market and I've seen the Netherlands and Europe, Europe and just a lot of other places who are light years ahead of us in terms of that environment. And in my opinion, I'm not convinced that North America is prepared to handle anything outside of the pharmaceutical fix on on problems. I think our next big problem is going to be a mental mental health epidemic. And it's going to be and we're going to try to solve it with a pill. We already have a an obesity epidemic, and we're trying to solve it with a pill, everything's coming out with a pill. But when we fundamentally mentally look at it, those aren't helping, what we're doing is we're putting a bandaid on problems. But the problem is insurance companies make prices and make pills and or they don't make pills, but they set the prices with hospitals and they own the market. And so if they continue to own the market, there is no change that can be made. And they are going to continue owning the market because they have the money to lobby. And if you have the money to lobby, there can be no change created because there's no industry as large as, as those industries who could precipitate and create change through high level lobbying.

Kelley Skar: 18:23

I appreciate what you're doing. I my wife practices CBT. And it's a large part of her practice. And you know, she's continually she deals with people that that have that deal with depression and deal with anxiety and deal with substance abuse. And you know, she's continually having these conversations, we get in fairly deep into these conversations and in what she does to help people out. Can you kind of maybe run us through a little bit alleged a small piece of your program, like if I were to come into your program, and I had, you know, a problem with weight loss, for instance, this being you know, obviously a fairly big topic, what would be you know, some of the first things that we would be talking about?

Chandler Walker: 19:02

Yeah, that's a good question. So when someone comes in with a problem with weight loss for us, typically, they've gone through 5000 different diets, they've gone through the vegan diet, they've gone through the Hollywood cookie diet, they've gone everything under the sun. And so the first thing that we want to do is help them recognize that their identity is attached to dieting. So the first thing we do is we explore their identity, like who are you outside of diets? Who are you outside of this person trying to lose weight? Who are you outside of being a mom, who are you outside of work? Just who are you? And most people can't answer that question. Because they haven't thought about it. They don't know. They don't understand how to answer it. So we work with them to be able to answer that question like, What is your identity? Then our next step is to recognize values, like our diets, the highest value proposition in your life right now. And typically, obviously, the answer's no. So it's okay. Let's look at family. Let's look at work. Let's look at spirituality. Let's look at all these different modalities. And let's assign them a rate of one through 10. And then next to that, once you assign those rankings, I want you to assign one to 10 How closely you're living up to those values. And then once we create that value, sort of that values KPI worksheet, we set up a plan, like how are we going to move you to a position to where you're living closer to those values. And it sounds like we're not focusing on weight loss. But what we're doing is we're shifting them away from this lifestyle of dieting, this lifestyle of focusing on losing weight, and this, this neuroticism surrounding it and moving their their brain into thinking about what's more important to them, which allows us to then shift into a process of weight loss without actually having to do anything with it.

Alyssa Stanley: 20:31

There's so many quote on quote gurus and industry professionals that claim to battle diseases through nutrition and claim to help you lose weight through certain programs, yet, their background knowledge and there, they don't have the credentials needed to follow through on their promise. So you know, other other than what you've clearly stated, you're very educated, you grew up seeing what happens when someone doesn't have that care and that need, but what sets what you're doing apart from, from other people who say, Well, I can come on, and I can help you lose 20 pounds through keto and blah, blah, blah.

Chandler Walker: 21:21

Yeah, that's a good question. And so I recognize where my limitations are, I know that I can build something. And I know I've designed something new and interesting. But I also recognize that I'm not a therapist, I'm not a doctor. So I bring people on who do have those credentials. So we do have a PhD in Clinical Psychology, who is on on staff with us, and who is available for the program, who can chat with clients and do that kind of stuff. We have other people involved who are health coaches, and who have different modalities, for lack of a better term, who are able to work in different environments for people relating to mental health relating to the social side of things relating to the sleep side of things, nutrition. And I guess fitness is kind of a catch all. So people who can help with fitness. And so we are able to bring a team together that can work together to create this cohesive evolution to help people and not just say, like, Look, I'm a guru, and I know everything, I'll be the first person to tell people that I don't really know anything. And that's why I've been able to accomplish so much. And I'm not afraid to bring people on board who know more than me, I don't have an ego, I think it's been beat out of me a few times. So that's gone. And now at this point, I'm my goal is to have a 97% or higher client success rate. And so if that ever dips away or falls, we go into DEFCON five mode to figure out why what we can do to improve how we can fix it, how we can adjust it and make sure that what we're producing is gold standard.

Alyssa Stanley: 22:43

So I want to peel some layers back a little bit because I really, I really enjoy when I talk to professionals who are in the profession that they're in, because of a core purpose or something that happened in our life, such as your mom, you grew up, where she was fairly unstable. She had bipolar At what age was she diagnosed?

Chandler Walker: 23:04

She actually didn't recognize what it was bipolar disorder until I was in my 20s.

Alyssa Stanley: 23:08

Okay

Chandler Walker: 23:08

So we with our whole childhood, just thinking, and this is gonna sound terrible, just thinking mom's crazy.

Alyssa Stanley: 23:12

Yeah

Chandler Walker: 23:12

Mom's sad all the time. I'm sleeping all the time. And, and I can tell you, most kids end up hating their parents for this, and they don't repair that relationship. And I'm lucky enough to have been able to recognize how to communicate with her how to work her out of these issues, and ultimately how to love her for who she is not what should not hate her for what she's suffering from. And so, to this day, I still have a really good relationship with her. And it's really allowed me to propel myself forward and recognize that you have to put your ego aside, you have to put your emotions aside sometimes when we're working with people and when speaking with people so you can meet them where they're at. There is no real right or wrong. There's no Yes or No, there's just the world they live in the world I live it. And that's dictated by the way we grew up and the things that happened along the way.

Alyssa Stanley: 23:56

How did you learn to cope with that as a child because that what you just described? Is it that takes a lot of growing up to understand, probably, you know, late teens, early 20s is when you might have probably come to that realization but when you were younger and didn't have that maturity. How did you cope with that?

Chandler Walker: 24:16

Yeah, I think that's that's a good question. I think as a kid, I've always been able to I've always been a patient person. So as a kid, I didn't have a lot of like emotional fluxes or anything, which was my mom being the way she is you think that it would be passed on to me genetically. So as a kid, I kind of learned and I think this may have been a defense mechanism, but I kind of learned that if I go on emotional outbursts, I can't protect myself. And then if I go on emotional outbursts, I have two sisters. I can't protect my sisters. And so I think I had to grow up fairly young to be able to protect myself and the other members of my family to make sure that things stay stable.

Voiceover: 24:57

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Todd Foster: 25:06

What you're doing for mental health is amazing. And I truly desire for the role to change where people are doing more of what you're doing. Because you brought up the fact that we are becoming more and more mental, right? And it's not just mental smart, it's mental about everything in a negative way. Do you see us eventually ever getting to where we all picture this happening, or do you believe it's gonna be a continuous struggle? Of Okay, yeah, you have some mental issues. I'm gonna go back to my pill thing. Here's a pill.

Chandler Walker: 25:41

Yeah, that's a good question. And sadly, I'm of the mindset that we are not in any sort of capabilities to solve this problem. I think we're going to continue trying to solve it with pills, I think it's going to continue to get worse. And I think it's going to essentially, it's going to do what COVID is doing to our medical system in the future, it's going to collapse the system, because we already can't sustain it, you look at the market right now. Say you want to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist in California, it's going to be an eight week week to talk to somebody. And that's ridiculous. Because if someone's suffering from mental illness, and they have to wait eight weeks, they're going to do things that they probably shouldn't do within that timeframe, because they're going to move into an irrational mindset. We have people who are veterans who are tier three, which means like, they need to talk to somebody now, they can't talk to someone for weeks at a time. So the only way to combat that is give them someone to talk to. And the reason that we've been successful in that environment is because we talk to them every day, every every evening, they get a text from us, it says how to go one through 10. And they're able to open up, they're able to be real about it, they're able to give us their true emotions. And that's what gets people to move from I don't know what I'm doing, I hate myself to I'm starting to learn how to manage this. I'm starting to learn how to talk about this. And I'm starting to feel better about who I am. And I just don't think we're ever going to be in a position to be able to handle this. With the current thinking and philosophy we have and modern and current, at least the US based medical system.

Kelley Skar: 27:10

Yeah, I think you touched on on something there and made a really good point and that there's, you know, an eight week waiting period in California I know in Kelowna, BC, where I'm at, there's a massive waitlist right now to see psychologist as well. This sounds to me like a personnel problem, you know, there just aren't enough psychologists out there to to help and serve the public at large. You know, and I don't know if that's because there's, you know, people aren't, it takes a living with and no, having been with my wife for 18 years. And you know, her being a psychologist for the last six or seven years, I see the type of personality that it takes to be successful in their field. And this is not for everyone, right, there's a certain level of empathy and compassion that you need to have. And, and not just that, but be able to absorb what what people are telling you on a daily basis. And then, at some point, be able to have an outlet for release, you know, to release some of that emotion that's been projected onto you. So I think that you kind of nailed it in a nutshell. That's, I think, ultimately, it comes down to personnel. And it comes down to being able to have a system that's going to support people getting into helping other people with mental health issues. And it's like, how do you solve the healthcare crisis? How do you solve that, while you hire more nurses? Okay, great. Where do we get more nurses from? Right? Like, it's, you know, you encourage more and more people to go into into those into those areas of work. Right, which isn't always going to happen. It's it's incredibly difficult. So it's almost like we're in this perpetual loop.

Chandler Walker: 28:49

Exactly. And it's this loop that we can't seem to figure out how to solve because it's like, we need more nurses how to get more nurses, you do recruiting campaign, okay, now we have nurses burning out, okay, now, how do you deal with nurse retention, and then it's this huge problem. And when you look at the world of psychologists, they need almost a step below them, like an empathetic listener, whatever you call it, like a physician's assistant for the psychology realm to where you can amplify the psychologist ability to speak tenfold across the board. But then it comes right back into what you're saying, you get provider burnout, you start getting people with real problems, and all of a sudden, the provider starts experiencing those problems. And so then you get burned out there. And so it becomes this problem that maybe in the beginning is solvable, but in the end becomes cataclysmic and it's something that's cascading. So it becomes really difficult and really expensive to solve long term.

Kelley Skar: 29:36

You know, I love this conversation. We're going fairly deep on some of these topics, but I do want to dial this back kind of more into a sales, you know, perspective sales environment, so you would talk instead, you know, something, again, you know, a little while ago here, are you talking about storytelling? I think some of the most successful conversations that I've had with people regardless of whether I'm trying to sell them a house or sell them on coaching or whatever the case is, is being able to tell my story or tell a version of my story or tell something a story about what's happened to me or my experience, you know, around that, you know that that purchasing that home or selling that home or, or being coached by somebody else. So how how would you coach someone on from a sales perspective? Is it just from from a storytelling perspective? Or is there like a list of questions that you've that you've developed that that you pass along to people that you're coaching? Like, what? What is it? What is compassionate conversation with respect to sales?

Chandler Walker: 30:36

Yeah, that's a good question. So it comes into what we call become becoming a cognitive questioner and an empathetic listener so that you can connect the dots. And what that means is someone will come in and say, Look, I want to I want to buy this house. Okay, well, what makes you want to buy this house? Why this neighborhood? Well, because of this, and that, Oh, okay. Well, well, what makes that important? What Why do you like that? And so it's similar to the way you would ask questions like a CBT environment, I'm working to figure out and understand where the core belief and identity behind what they want is, then once I connect that it's like, okay, well, this is the reason you want it. Okay, well, maybe it's it's this, but maybe it's also this, then we can start using maybes to start moving them into the analogy. We want to take weight loss. For example, someone says, I can't lose weight. Well, why can't you lose weight? Well, I've tried 74 diets, which ones? Oh, I've tried keto. I've tried pescetarian I've tried the 48 hour Hollywood cookie diet. Gotcha. What well, how long? Have you been kind of trying to figure this out? Well, I've been trying since I was a kid, really, I've always had weight problems. Oh, well talk to me about what life was like as a kid. Well, every night at dinner, we had to eat our entire plate and, and oh, okay, and now I've just connected the dots. So now I say, Okay, well, maybe it's not the diets, maybe it has nothing to do with diets, it might be the fact that you had to eat your entire plate as a kid. And that's turned into a trigger. And so now whenever you have a plate in front of you, you need to finish the whole thing. Because that was essentially beat into you as a child. And so right now you're fighting the wiring inside your brain that says eat that whole plate when you're trying to lose weight. So maybe it has nothing to do with nutrition really, at all, it has to do with portions and removing this trigger. So I've essentially helped them go from diets to past to the real issue, we've been able to redefine the problem to the real problem at hand. And so I think we teach people how to do that how to speak in a way to where we can uncover the real problem, move it to connect the dots to the past, take the past connects the future, connect that to the triggers associated with why there hasn't been success, or why they don't have what they want, and then use that to reframe to the bigger problem at hand.

Todd Foster: 32:35

When it comes to people having certain conditions like being addicted to diets or cigarettes or having a mental health issue, is there ever a time where they self discovered themselves before someone brings up to them? Where they almost do their own self intervention?

Chandler Walker: 32:54

Yeah, I think people can self discover and really figure out what's going on, someone can all of a sudden figure out like, you know what, I haven't been sleeping well. And when I don't sleep well, again, wait, maybe there's a connection here. And they can start to sleep better. And all of a sudden, they fix their problem on their own. And I think it happens with people who are fairly self aware, and people who pay attention to what's going on and people who question themselves. And I think that's a really high level quality. I think for a majority of people, they're not capable of doing that, because they're not present with themselves. And they don't recognize that these things are happening. But I definitely think it's possible. And I've definitely seen people do it before. Even for myself, I constantly questioned myself. So if something's going on, well, why is it happening? What's going on? What did I do yesterday? How did I sleep? What went over and over here? So I think if you have that sort of mindset, you can create that change, and you can do it on your own. And so I don't think you necessarily always have to go find someone to hire someone. But if you have no idea what's going on, that's really where it comes into play to help. Have you discovered any personality types. Let's say a driver compared to someone who's a deep thinker, having more success, and others are having more of a failure rate, in terms of getting out of their own heads and accepting change. Yeah, I think the the personality types that have the most trouble adapting to change are sort of the scattered personality types. We've found in our practice, that these are the kinds of people that we always have to sort of move the goalposts for and adjust the rules for and create the change for and so if that starts happening, that's a pattern we recognize. And that's a moment where we can refund the person if we've actually enrolled them or tell them like we're not going to be a good fit. I think that personality type needs a higher level standard standard of care, they need more and holding, they need almost a clinical setting to recover and get better. And so I think that's the one that really has a big problem adapting to and actually creating change and following through with that change.

Todd Foster: 34:49

If you have someone in your life, such as the people that you describe their personality that you described, and you tell them you know what, we just cannot help because you need more help. How do you do that in a nice way, or caring way, or empathetic or sympathetic way? Where you're showing that you care about them instead of rejecting them and letting them down? Yeah, that's a good question. And I think this comes into what I call suggestive leadership. So if I tell that person, like you need to make change, you need to figure this out. Because it's a problem, they're going to get upset with me, and they're not going to listen, and they're going to do the exact opposite of what I told them to do. So what I do in those environments is if I notice someone has this repeated pattern of behavior, I tell them, hey, my first thing is to stroke their ego and validate what's going on, make sure they feel okay about it, like, Hey, I noticed that your schedule is kind of all over the place. And sometimes it's kind of hard to make make appointments and stuff. And I know you like to live by the seat of your pants, which is awesome. But have you thought about maybe having someone help you out to maybe get a little bit organized, I did it one time. And it was it was amazing. It took me from this person who had things all over the place to my my stuff together. And now I'm at this point to where I'm actually moving forward, and things are going well. And so I thought it would really help you and, and I thought it might make sense for you to possibly jump into it if you're interested. So the way I speak spoke there was I was very non aggressive, I dropped my tone, I stutter a little bit on purpose, because I want to come off as more of a beta in this environment, I don't want to attack them as an aggressive alpha. And I'm going to be suggestive. So maybe this would make sense. And, and, and blah, blah, blah, and what you're doing like you are awesome, I love your personality and you as a person, but maybe Have you ever considered this. And maybe this would make sense because I did it and it made me from a mess to awesome. And I just I thought it might be something you might be interested in. So I say I thought it might be might be something you're interested possibly, but I never tell them to do it, I never say you should do this, you would be interested in this, this would be great for you. Because now I'm telling them what to do, and they're not going to do it. But if I suggest it, I planted the seed, and it'd be much more receptive to actually do what I told them to do, or what I suggested that they do.

Alyssa Stanley: 37:05

So to me, that sounds a little bit on the line of NLP. Do you interconnect your NLP and your CBT? In your sales process sometimes? Or am I off base?

Chandler Walker: 37:18

No, you're probably right there. And so I think we can we don't want to demonize NLP is like a horrible thing. But what we what I, what I do is, if I drop that anchor, I'm going to continuously drop that anchor, and I'm going to continuously I'm gonna follow up with them, I'm going to chat with him about it. And so I'll use these subtle pieces, the subtle language pieces to continuously bring it up until they start asking me about it. So what I want to do is plant the seed, then I get the wheels moving and turning in the brain, then they'll come back to me and they'll start Hey, what were you talking about with that with that thing? To help me get organized? Oh, are you open to maybe chatting about that? Oh, yeah. And then we can start having a deeper conversation about it, because the first step is allowing them to be open to it and not upsetting them in the process. And the second step is being able to drop the anchor. And then the third step is to get them to create and make change. And so I think sometimes we can use the ideas of NLP, to be able to get the person to open up and to be able to get the person to essentially be available, then we can move into the principles of CBT and acceptance, Commitment Therapy, to get them to continuously make that change and follow through so they can be successful long term.

Alyssa Stanley: 38:25

I just think about how, you know, NLP, and CBT can be used in a manipulative way, which is total opposite of what you're trying to do.

Chandler Walker: 38:35

It can be horrible. I can tell you from personal experience, I was at a mastermind. And they brought a very prominent sales trainer on on stage to sell their thing. And he had these people come up and show them $1. And then he had them talking about religion and God. And then he had them talking about how God came down and told them that they should make this purchase and was a $30,000 mastermind, these people couldn't afford it. And I was my mind was blown. And at that moment, I recognized why they told us not to record that thing. And I walked out, I was like, I can't be party to this disaster to this complete shit show it like, this is the most manipulative thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And so, like in our programs, now, we bring people on board, and we record their sales calls, and we listen to them. And if they won't submit them, we just refund them and kick them out. And if we get the hint of like, I'll do anything to make a sale, this stuff starts coming up, we have to talk, it's like, look, you're not here to manipulate, you're not here to do this kind of stuff. And so I try to be a little bit more hard on that environment, because I don't want to produce people who can do that, because this stuff can be used in a really terrible way at the same time.

Kelley Skar: 39:38

Where do you think the intersection between NLP and CBT is like, I can see a lot of correlation there. I can see, you know, the whole idea of asking the right questions and chunking up and then chunking down to you know, get the the prospect or the you know, the person that that you're counseling to kind of come to this realization that they're, you know, that it could be like the, you know, being forced to finish their plate at the dinner table when they were, you know, 11 years old sort of thing? Where do you think that the the intersection between the two between NLP and CBT is? And in to that point to that end? Like what are the subtle differences? Like, if if I'm using NLP in a sales process? What would be the difference between using NLP and CBT?

Chandler Walker: 40:21

Yeah, that's a good question. And so I think the big difference between NLP in the way I tried to create an analogy surrounding this as NLP is like may early stage CBT, and it CBT that hasn't really been tested or proven in sort of a scientific realm. It's, it's a pseudoscience at its core. And so I think the way NLP can start the engines for lack of a better term is it can allow you to understand thoughts and beliefs and how they can be reframed, and what the process of thought and belief works and how it works. And then you can take that and use CBT, to ask questions to define the beliefs, and then you CBT to continuously dropping little anchor points to be able to shift and, and change that belief and then start to spot the triggers. When that's where CBT comes into play, we spot the triggers, we can start to learn how to work through the triggers, we can help people recognize that they exist, and then we can use that to actually create action long term. And that's really where NLP drops the ball. Because NLP is about drop the anchor, drop the bomb, that's it person's changed, don't kick them out. But CBT is like, well, we understand now. But it's not going to go away, it's going to come back. So to recognize a trigger, let's spot the trigger. Let's talk about the trigger. And let's figure out why you haven't been successful solving this. And I think that's why when you look at CBT, you can help someone create a manageable process within eight weeks with NLP, you'll see a lot of the gurus talk about how they have a massive change in a day. But they don't talk about the fact that that goes away two days later. And so that's a massive, that's a huge problem. And I think it's it's rather manipulative in the way NLP can be portrayed.

Alyssa Stanley: 41:56

But I also think in any industry practices can be used for good and bad, you know, not just mental health, CBT, NLP, any industry practices and part of the that profession can be used poorly, lawyers, bankers, doctors, coaches, you know, we face that in our industry where there's there is very unethical coaching practices and sales processes, where it makes our entire industry looks poor, and I'm sure you face that as well. So it's not just NLP and CBT that we're bringing attention to, it's across all industries.

Chandler Walker: 42:33

Exactly. I've been obsessed with this for a long time. And so it's, I'm an open book with this kind of stuff. I'll often say things that most people won't say, not like an offensive way, but just talk about NLP. Nobody will talk about NLP in a way that I like we're talking about, because they're afraid I could care less like, if the NOP gurus hate me and make a video about it. It's awesome, because then it pulls people deeper into your sphere. And the things we say here and what we're saying is logical, it makes sense. You understand the manipulation, people who have been on sales calls have been manipulated to make a purchase and people going to like NLP practitioners have been saved and fixed and then broken two days later. So I think a lot of this needs to be said, but it's not, especially if you have a good message to bring about. And I always say like, if you're going to say something that offends people have a good point to defend it. And if you can defend it well, and you can articulate your point across and you don't look like just an idiot chilling stuff, you'll be able to support yourself and sustain because you'll build people who will follow you and back you and what you're saying.

Todd Foster: 43:37

You just do it in a nice guy way. You're like almost like a modern day hippie Jesus. I'm the Jackass who comes across very shrewd and loud.

Chandler Walker: 43:46

Yeah, I even have a man been going on. So people are like, he's got to be nice. His name's Chandler, like friends, Walker, Texas Ranger. Maybe he knows karate. He's up in the mountains. He wears a flannel. He's got an eagle in his background. He's got to be a nice guy.

Kelley Skar: 44:02

Is anyone ever truly fixed?

Chandler Walker: 44:05

I don't believe so. I think everyone's a work in progress. Human beings are driven by emotion first, logic second. And so I think what we can do is learn to manage and spot and work through triggers. But they're never going to go away. For example, if someone say they were beat as a child, that's not going to go away. They're gonna have mistrust issues, they're gonna have problems making friends. And if those things have been presented, and they can learn how to spot those triggers, then they can learn how to work through it when it comes about, but it doesn't just magically go away. Nothing ever magically goes away. We just learn how to self manage and become comfortable with the fact that it exists.

Kelley Skar: 44:46

Yeah, I think you nailed it there. That's that was kind of you know, during this conversation, that's kind of what I had thought you know, in terms of the the trigger points and then you know, bringing people to this realization of this is where the the correlation slash causation is and and then this is how we fix it right? Really good points Chandler for sure.

Alyssa Stanley: 45:04

Chandler you have a heart for helping so many around the world in ways that are unconventional in a good way. Like I said, you're hacking the system you're calling yourself the care hacker you're going against the grain trying to teach people how to help themselves in a more holistic way. How can anyone interested in who loved this conversation learn more about you?

Chandler Walker: 45:26

Yeah, you can follow me on Instagram. So it sends it to instagram.com/Chandler_SAF. If you want my nine step framework to creating compassion conversations, just go to 9step.cultureofcare.life. And if you're interested in the work we do in mental health and our holistic program, you can just go to StoneAgefuel.com and you'll see all of our health and fitness focuses and be able to communicate with us there. And then lastly, if you want to talk with me on Facebook, you can go to facebook.com/ChandlerSAF and communicate with me there. SAF if you're wondering me and Stone Age, fuel, our original brand name, we've gone from a holistic business to a gym to an online environment, we help with weight loss, and then the compassion conversations is obviously our sales system to where we teach you how to sell without manipulation, or aggressive tactics.

Todd Foster: 46:13

And you've never said that before.

Chandler Walker: 46:14

Yeah right. Once or twice. It's like a switch that gets flipped.

Voiceover: 46:23

The lightning round.

Todd Foster: 46:26

Are you ready for the lightning round? I've never I've never done this. So this is going to be my rookie time at this.

Chandler Walker: 46:31

Let's do this!

Todd Foster: 46:32

Camping or motel?

Chandler Walker: 46:34

Camping.

Todd Foster: 46:35

Your favorite color?

Chandler Walker: 46:36

Blue.

Todd Foster: 46:37

The last book that you read that you did that like?

Chandler Walker: 46:40

Oh, it was it was a woowoo book. I can't remember the title. Power vs Force. I couldn't listen to it. It was awful. The narrator was so boring.

Todd Foster: 46:47

Tell me more. No don't.

Alyssa Stanley: 46:51

Audible versus paperback.

Chandler Walker: 46:53

Audible all the way. Audible first and then maybe move into paperback if I'm still interested.

Alyssa Stanley: 46:58

Do you listen to it on speed one, you have to speed it up. Tell me you do.

Chandler Walker: 47:03

Yeah, I'll listen to it on 1.5 times speed. And then if it's a super interesting part, I'll go back like I lost that part. I'll go back and listen to it regular and I get completely lost in the book.

Alyssa Stanley: 47:13

I love it.

Todd Foster: 47:14

What was your favorite subject in school?

Chandler Walker: 47:17

Biology was always my favorite outside of accounting because I just got to go to the weight room. Didn't have to study accounting.

Alyssa Stanley: 47:24

What is one thing you're willing to share here that most people don't know about you?

Chandler Walker: 47:27

Yeah, most people don't know the fact that I've been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for probably about 10 years now on and off.

Alyssa Stanley: 47:34

That's really cool.

Chandler Walker: 47:35

It's kind of cool. It's kind of fun. I don't broadcast it very much. But yeah, I'm a lifelong practitioner.

Todd Foster: 47:41

Wow, many people don't know that I'm also a practitioner of Toddkwondo. When you see the T, yo better flee.

Chandler Walker: 47:49

Certified killer.

Todd Foster: 47:51

Certified something.

Alyssa Stanley: 47:52

I thought you're gonna say you're a black belt in BS but...

Todd Foster: 47:55

Oh, that was definitely flowing there.

Chandler Walker: 47:58

And that's that defining moment. What am I doing with my life?

Voiceover: 48:03

Thanks for listening to this episode of the SUCCESS Coaching Podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to the SUCCESS Coaching Podcast at your favorite podcast provider. For special access to past recordings, videos of past episodes and more, please become a SUCCESS Coaching Podcast Companion at successcoachingpodcast.com.