Transcript
Steve Gordon: Welcome to the Unstoppable CEO Podcast. I’m your host, Steve Gordon, and we got a really special guest for you today. I’ve been excited for this interview for a while. The gentleman I’m going to introduce you to has got, I think, just an incredible story of unstoppability to tell. And I’m excited to dive into that. And then we’re going to get into some of the work that he’s doing with entrepreneurs, which I think will benefit everyone.
So today I’m talking with Joseph Warren. He’s a serial entrepreneur. He started his first business at the ripe old age of 19. When I think about what I was doing at 19, it certainly wasn’t starting businesses. And then he scaled that business to over $2 million in revenue in the first 12 months. At age 24, he’s semi-retired and partied away all of his money, as he says, until he was flat broke. And then during that time was almost killed twice. And then something really extraordinary happened.
And even though he says he’s a broken Catholic and a former atheist, God reached out, pulled him out of his dark twisted world and really brought him into a higher purpose. And I know he’s going to share that with us today. And it’s got some very practical implications, I think, for you and for your business. And so I’m excited to have him here. Joseph Warren, welcome to the Unstoppable CEO.
Joseph Warren: Steve Gordon, it is my honor, sir. Thank you for having me on. And I am at your disposal. So whatever you want to ask, go for it.
Steve: Yeah, well, this is going to be fun. We’ve spent a little bit of time together. You were gracious enough to have me on both of your podcasts here recently. And we’ve spent some other time together just kind of getting to know each other. And I think you’ve got a powerful story to tell and I’m looking forward to that today. So give everybody a little context. What’s beyond the bio that they need to know about you so that they understand where you’re coming from?
The Arduous Path to Salvation
Joseph: I think I’m like everybody else in the regard that at a young age, I had the desire to win and to succeed, and I thought my path to happiness would be what I think everybody else thinks which is, get more stuff. Make more money so I could get more stuff so I can look good, really is what it came down to. And fast forward when I got all this stuff and I got to the top and as you said, 24 years old, semi-retired. Yeah, money, girls, cars. I was empty, alone. I considered taking my own life. Just bottomed out. Miserable.
And what I realized was that it was all a lie, that what the world and society tells us is going to make us happy, make me happy didn’t. And I had to come face to face with the mirror at that point and really question things. Well, if this is a lie, then my whole life’s been a lie. Now what? What do I do with that? And that was a place of vulnerability I wasn’t comfortable with, especially at 24 years old where I was riding on the top and had a team of 50 people in my business, you know, that were making money and for me.
And then bottoming out, losing it all, almost being murdered twice and realizing that my whole life was a lie. Yeah, that’s where those suicidal thoughts came in. And I didn’t have any hope. And I know, you know, I look at people around me and I see we’re living in a society of hopelessness. And it’s become prevalent. And there’s just despair on people’s face, there’s sadness, and lack of joy, etc. And I think much of it, people can relate from my story into their own lives. Maybe it’s not, they weren’t almost murdered twice or anything like that, but they don’t need to be, right?
To experience anxiety, to experience worry, to feel like they’re not good enough, to feel like everybody’s winning except them. And these were the thoughts that went through my head and it’s taken me years to really resolve some of these thoughts and get to the place of where I am right now. So I could go as deep as you want to go back into that story so unpeel this onion as far as you’d like my friend.
Steve: You know, it’s interesting because I’ve talked to so many people through the podcast where they’ve had a level of success, and they got knocked down pretty hard. And whether you want this distinction or not your story may be one of the biggest knockdowns from where you were at the top of the mountain down into the valley.
And it’s always really interesting to me to kind of peer into the learnings that happened out of that, you know? I’ve been through that same process, very different circumstances than you. But I know when I look back at it, though, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I don’t ever want to, you know, I don’t want to go through it again but I also wouldn’t trade it for the world.
And so as you think back to that journey, you were, I mean, at the age of 24 to have a $2 million a year business, I mean, I the business stats I think only 4% of businesses in the United States make it over a million a year revenue ever. And to get beyond that up to two is an even smaller number. It gets, the numbers get really, really small. So to have that kind of success at such a young age, and then kind of come crashing down, and then build yourself back up, what did you learn through that journey up and down the mountain?
Joseph: I learned the distinction of, that it wasn’t me. Here’s what I mean. I chased the money, I chased the glory, I chased the success but I was relying on my own capacity to get there. And I had people around me, it was, I wasn’t successful. It was the people beneath me and beside me that were successful. They were the ones that I trained and they went out there and made the money and that just elevated me, right? And anyone who’s listening right now that runs a team runs a business, you realize it’s not you that makes you win. It’s the people around you that make you win.
So there was that part of it, but I didn’t, back then I didn’t look at it that way. I looked at people as a means to an end. I looked at people as a cog in the wheel of my agenda, which was to be successful, to be happy, to be wealthy, to be healthy, etc. And I didn’t, I was not focused on them winning. I was focused on me winning. Now that doesn’t mean I didn’t show up and put on a good show. I put on a great show. We had sales meetings every day. I pumped them up.
You can do it affirmations all that, and I pretended I truly cared about them. But here’s the dirty little secret, back then I didn’t. I cared about Joseph. I cared about me winning and my life and I cared about me escaping the pain that I grew up in and doing something different. So I can look back with full transparency now and say that I was wearing a mask. I wasn’t truly successful. This, I had signs of success around me and that attracted people to me. But on the inside, I was more broke than everyone else around me really. I was spiritually broke.
I had left God at that point in my life, even though I was raised with faith. I had pretty much abandoned my family. Like, I was still in contact with them, but they were on the east coast and I flew to the west coast, right? And I’m opening up different locations. $2 million $2 million in every city and just kind of duplicating the original one. We nailed it within 12 months and now we’re scaling it. And I spent my time, my energy worshipping false gods and looking back that’s really what I see.
It’s like I’m, I replaced the Judeo Christian God I was raised with, the God of love, peace and joy, those promises and I replaced him for a cheap substitute. Money, success, pleasure. Those became my gods. And when I got everything that those Gods promised that they would give me, and they did give it to me, again, it was false promises, because I felt terrible on the inside. And that really, I had to wrestle with that and question my childhood.
Like going back and saying, Well, if these gods didn’t do it, and these are the gods that everybody in the business world is chasing, and I got there, you know, in an accelerated, you know, pace, well then what am I missing? Like, is the Judeo Christian God, you know, the one? I fully explored that. And I don’t want to, in any way act like, you know, at 24 years old I had all these thoughts going through my head. You know, I’m wrestling with a deeper purpose, and I didn’t. I was, I, when I got to the top I realized it was all lies, Steve. I, the only thing I can do to cope with that false reality was, well obviously I don’t have enough. That’s the problem.
Let me go get more. And it was at that point, it wasn’t more money, it was more pleasure. And so I had the money, I had that success, so now it’s like okay, let me go take it out on women now. And that became my pursuit of happiness. And I lived that lifestyle and I hurt a lot of women emotionally, right? Because I was just out getting mine. And I wasn’t a bad person, I was just a very selfish person. I didn’t wish harm on anybody. I didn’t intentionally harm anybody, but I wasn’t focused on the hurt that I was causing. And just leaving this path of like human wreckage and emotional suffering behind me. And, you know, now God has shown me all this.
He’s shown me that I’ve hurt, you know, his precious daughters, and I’ve had to go back and clean up all those relationships. And let’s just say there was a lot, and it sucked, and it was painful, but it was right and just. And I don’t want to pat myself on the back and say, hey, look at me. Rather, I’d say, Man, I was the worst with you. I was worse than most. And just that God has had mercy on me is something I still sit with today. And that’s why I feel obligated to serve people the way I do.
Steve: Well, what you’re really describing this, I think we see this a lot in the current culture. That there’s never an end. In other words, no matter what level, you know, if we look at the business context, no matter what level you grow the business to, there’s always someone that’s going to be bigger than you. There’s always somebody that’s going to have more that you’re going to look at. And I think this is the danger sometimes. I see it with a lot of the business owners we work with, and they, the way they tend to express it is in frustration that they haven’t achieved more.
They feel like they should have been achieved more and they’re looking at I think the way I said it to you yesterday and I can’t remember who said this, I didn’t come up with this. Somebody else said it. But they’re comparing someone else’s outside to their inside. And, you know, we see this on social media all the time now. All we see are people’s outsides and not just their outsides, but the cleanest, most pristine curated version of their outside, right?
Life is grand. And it’s the grandest of grand. And it’s not reality. And so we see that kind of thing, I think whether it’s in that context or looking around in business. We look at competitors and we go Well they’re ahead of me. I don’t have enough yet. I need to do more. What’s missing? I think that can be really, really destructive. And it sounds like it had a big impact on you.
The Impracticality of Comparing Yourself to Others
Joseph: I think you’re absolutely right. Looking now at the world of business with a different set of eyes, based on all that pain I went through I now see what you’re seeing. And that’s when I look at my competitors and I go, Wow, they’re ahead of me. Now I ask the question, at what cost? What did they give up to be ahead of me financially, right? And I’ve seen it enough times with my coaching clients, the cost. I’ve seen what they’ve sacrificed to win in business. I did it myself. I gave up God. The Creator, my Creator. That’s quite a cost. I give up my family, right? My siblings, I was just distant from everybody. I gave up true happiness, true joy.
I gave up love. Like, I made an unconscious decision at eight and a half years old when my parents got divorced. And I was told that my father never loved me. That it was all a lie. He was pretending my whole childhood. Like I made an unconscious decision never to love again. Never to let anyone in my heart again because of that betrayal, that feeling of betrayal. I never wanted to experience that again. So I closed myself off to love. Like, that’s the ultimate cost. And that obviously played out into all my romantic relationships, right? I wouldn’t let anyone in and it was just a use and take what’s mine and take what’s not mine, really.
And so, wrapping that all up I really get that business owners, even Christian business owners, are giving up so much, so many things that matter In pursuit of what doesn’t matter. They’re giving up the things that truly bring them joy, like their spouse. And their marriage and their time with their children. They’re trading those real valuable things for cheap substitutes that won’t fulfill them, that won’t bring them joy, that won’t bring them happiness and we’re all chasing the same rabbit and it’s the wrong rabbit.
Steve: You know, the thought that popped into my head and for folks listening you’ll know by now we don’t really script these interviews out. These are just conversations and they’re important conversations on topics that I want to learn more about. And the thought that popped into my head, Joseph, was is it an either-or? So is it possible to build a business and at the same time have a relationship with God? Have a great relationship with your spouse? Have a great relationship with your kids? I mean, is it that kind of an almost a, you know, a binary thing? I think for a lot of people, it lives out that way but I want to question the premise. Does it have to be that way?
Joseph: I think it’s a good question. And I think it’s a question that’s already been answered by someone who has far more authority than I do. And that’s Jesus Christ. Biblically he says, seek me first, and I will give you all the desires of your heart. Well, all means everything. He’ll give us everything if we seek him first. See, I did it backwards. The world tells us do it backwards. Do it your way. You don’t need God. You can be like God. That’s the original lie of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, right? It’s like, you don’t need God. Did God tell you that? No.
You don’t need him. You could be like God. Bite that apple. And we’re all biting from the apple of success, right? And we’re chasing it viciously and sacrificing people along the way and relationships along the way. And we got broken marriages and divorces and kids. And there’s just all this human suffering around us chasing that shiny apple. Because we’re putting that illusion first rather than our Creator. And God doesn’t say you have to give up all those things. He says, No, you have to put me first. There is only one God. I am he. Come to me.
Worship me. Spend time with me. Then I can bless you with all these things because now foundationally you’re centered. Now when I give you all these blessings, they’re not going to knock you over and destroy you, in essence. That’s why we see so much of Hollywood destroying their lives are living destroyed lives. They have all the human success that they could ever want and they’re popping pills and they’re killing themselves. I look at Robin Williams and what a great, amazing comedian, like brilliant comedian borderline like insane.
Like he was that good. He was genius. And he took his own life. The guy who laughed more than anyone we could see, was the saddest of all and took his own life. So it must be an illusion. We have all these examples of people that got everything that we’re chasing and then ended their lives. Why? If it’s real, and if it makes me happy, and it will make you happy, then why did they kill themselves? We have to ask these questions.
Steve: If I’m understanding what you’re saying then it’s maybe a question of what’s the order of priority that I’m pursuing things.
Joseph: That’s correct. It’s not a this or that. It’s a this and that. But this comes first and this is God. Put God first and you’ll get all the other stuff. I’m living it now. I’m happier. I have joy. I have, I just married the girl of my dreams. We’re pregnant on our wedding night. We got a baby on the way. I’m going to be a father. I’m gonna be an excellent father. I can’t wait for this. It’s so amazing the blessings God has given me but it only happened because I put him first. I surrendered everything to him. Finally.
I gave him my business, everything. And that’s not to pat myself on the back and make myself a hero. This is available to every person listening right now to your shows. They can do this. They can choose to put God first. And it’s not some theoretical thing. There’s actual spiritual disciplines any person can learn. I was taught by other guys.
My Baptist brothers taught me like, how to get quiet and listen to God for the first time in my life because I was raised in a denomination where when you pray, it was you doing all the talking and God just sits there and listens and answers your request like some big genie in the sky. And none of us want to admit that’s how it is but that’s how it is. And prayer looks like me showing up and going God, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, listen to me. Why? Because I’m God, and I have needs and I have wants, and I have struggles, so serve me.
And this is how we show up in relationship with God. We make God into our image and likeness, rather than us realizing we’re made in His image and likeness. And we try to make God small. Like he’s here to do our bidding. He’s here to make us happy. Oh, God wants you to be happy. God wants you to be rich, right? All this prosperity gospel. Why? What does God get out of that exactly? He’s God. He has everything. What does he get out of you being happy or being rich? Like, explain that to me. And if you can’t, you may want to question it.
We’re here to serve Him, the creator of the universe. He’s not here to serve us. And I think when we really get that, and then we start to ask these clarifying questions, and then we start to seek Him. and search for Him and say, God, I don’t know who this guy Joseph is on Steve’s podcast right now, but he’s pissing me off.
Because he’s causing friction right now. He’s rubbing something in me the wrong way and I don’t like it. It’s making me uncomfortable. Well, as we know, as entrepreneurs, anyone who’s successful in business, growth, true growth comes from friction. It doesn’t come from comfort. And if you’re comfortable right now in your relationship with God, then I submit, you’re no longer growing. You’ve become stagnant and God’s calling you to deeper growth.
There should be friction, there should be uncomfortableness, there should be a seeking. God, I want more. I want more of you. I want more of these promises that you’ve made. Show me how to get them. These are the questions we should be asking and there are real ways to do it. This is what I coach people on Steve. And I just, all I do is I share what God has done for me and I give it to them. And then they get the same results.
Steve: Well, want to come back and I want to talk about the work that you do with entrepreneurs because I think that’ll be eye-opening for folks. So let’s, we’ll be right back. We’re going to take a quick break. And stay tuned for more with Joseph Warren.
Commercial Break: Hi, this is Steve, I hope you’re enjoying this interview. We’ve got more to come in a minute. But what I’d love for you to do right now is rate this podcast. Leave us a review. Rate us on iTunes. It’ll really help others discover the podcast and help us help other CEOs, other business leaders become unstoppable. So if you go to unstoppableceo.net/iTunes, you can find instructions there and links that will take you right to where you need to go to review the podcast. Thanks so much. Now back to the interview.
Steve: Welcome back. This is Steve Gordon, and I’m talking with Joseph Warren. And Joseph, where we left off, you just mentioned the way that you work with your clients, with entrepreneurs in your coaching program, and we talked before that about kind of getting the right order of priority of things. You know, getting things aligned.
And you’ve, you know, before we did this interview, we were having some other conversations and you were telling me about these just amazing transformations. And, you know, in business with your clients, once they got the order of priority right, they were able to go and serve the people they serve more powerfully. And I’d love to dive into how you do that.
The Awesome Power of Choice
Joseph: That’s correct, Steve. So, clients come to me with one or more areas of their life broken. Or maybe it’s not broken. Maybe they just want more in that area. They want more growth, more improvement in that area. So they don’t have to be bottomed out and in crisis mode by any means, but many are. And many of them don’t even know it. When they arrive, and they say, hey, Joseph, I asked them, What do you want? Like, what do you want in your life right now? Such a revealing question. And they’ll say, oh, man, I want more sales. I want more growth in my business. And I’m like, Why? Why do you want those things?
And it all comes down to the same thing, Steve, when you ask why seven or eight times it’s like, well, I want to be happy, right? Well, what does that even look like, right? And most, many of clients want to spend more time with their kids. They want to be more present as a parent, as a mom, as a dad, they want to have a marriage that feels fully alive. They want to be in love with their spouse again. Like that, you know, those goosebump dating kind of love. The first date. You remember that first date, right? When you met your spouse and you were so nervous.
And you’re just like, Oh my gosh, I hope I don’t say something really dumb where they never want to see me again, right? And you really were careful and intentional with them. And then years later, fast forward, now you’ve really just are tapped out. You’re tuned out in your relationship and you’re just going through the motions. And there’s, I believe, a deep-down desire within each of us for more. We don’t want that life of mediocrity. We don’t want that life of comfort. We weren’t built for comfort. We were created for greatness, I believe.
And it’s been orchestrated in every human DNA and each and every one of us by the Creator of the universe. To grow, to be, to want more, to create and I think many of us have stopped creating in our relationships. And I think that’s the problem, right? And we’ve just settled. But in our business, we’re still creating. So that’s our outlet. And we keep pushing for that and pushing for that. And so these clients come to me and they think more of that. More business success, more everything will make them happy. Kind of like me when I was 24, right?
And I’m able to just kind of reframe the conversation and say, listen, all those things are great. They’re good, right? You can do good with them, but is it really going to make you happy? Let’s define what that even looks like, right now. And we just start to drill down and I’m a question guy. I’m very curious. So I just ask them questions and let them come up with their own answers. Because when clients come to me, this is what I see Steve, is every human being is already whole and complete. They’ve just forgot how to do it.
They’ve been so beat up and kicked down by the world and by others and hurt and betrayed and, you know, broken trust and everything so many times that they forgot that they’re already whole and complete and fully capable of creating any change they want in their life. They forgot that they’re loved by the Creator of the Universe just for who they are. They don’t have to do anything. They don’t have to perform perfectly. They can just be. And that’s enough. So they’ve forgotten they’re whole and complete.
My job as a spiritual coach is to remind them of that and show them how to get back to that. They’re already that. I’m not creating anything in them. I’m not the source of anything. I just point them back to the one who is the source of everything and remind them who they are. And when I’m able to do that, Steve, man, doors just started opening. They now, of course, I don’t want to make the illusion of Oh, when I coach with Joseph, it’s going to be all like sunshine and roses.
This is really fluffy and Okay, I’ll pay, you know, thousands of dollars, Joseph, for you to make me feel good about myself and pump my tires and remind me I’m whole and complete. Yes. No, right? That’s part of it. But then there’s also Okay, let’s look at your life. And let’s look at what’s your part in it? What’s your part in all those broken relationships and those hurts and those wounds? And all those relationships of your past that you just kick to the curb because they did you wrong or they hurt you or broke your trust. What was your part in that?
And how can you go and restore some of those relationships? Not all of them. Some of them are meant to be part of the past. But how do you restore those relationships that are meant to last? Like one of my clients is like, Hey, I have this, you know, a person in my life and they’re part of my family. So that’s a life long relationship. And I’m like Do you want it to work more than it is right now? Because there’s a lot of unworkability in his relationship with that person. And he’s like, Yes, of course I do. Okay, what’s your part in it? But what do you mean?
What’s my part in it? Like, they’re the ones that are broken. They’re the ones that have hurt me. They’re the ones that blame, blame, blame, blame, blame. We’re professional blamers. This is why most of us are struggling in areas of our life. So I just show my clients Well, okay, got it. They’re to blame. Clear. What’s your part in it? And just get them to sit with that question. Then they start to show Well, I guess I could blank or I guess I should blank or I guess I did this. And well, what do you think that was like for them? Oh, well, I never really considered that. Yeah.
And that’s what we don’t do. We don’t consider the impact of our own actions on the people in our lives. And that they then had a reaction to what we did that caused a trigger maybe from a childhood wound or some trauma in their own life that made them now respond and come at us aggressively. All we saw was their aggressive reaction. But we didn’t see that we caused the trigger. And when we’re able to really do that, and start to take ownership, Steve, of just our behavior in our relationships in our life, things start to open up. And then we get, we now get a choice in the matter.
We don’t have to stay in those broken relationships or in relationships that don’t have any workability in them. We could say okay, now that Joseph showed me the blind spot in my life, what’s my choice now? I now have a choice in the matter. And choice is everything, right? When you have choice and you can use your free will which is the second most powerful gift God gave you. He gave you a life and He gave you free will. The power to choose. And now you can use that to go clean up and restore a broken relationship, one that you actually want to work. Man, that changes everything. But it’s hard work and it sucks.
And I say to my clients, you have to go through the suck. But on the other side of the suck is the exact thing you told me you wanted. So do you actually want it or are you just pretending you do? Because if you want it, this is how you get it. Go through the suck. It’s gonna sting temporarily. But then it’s going to be awesome. So do you want it? And as you can imagine, see most of my clients are like, Yes. I want it. Plus they’ve paid me 10s of thousands of dollars, right? So they got skin in the game. So they’re like I want results.
Show me how to get results and then they do the bleepin’ work, Steve. And when they do the bleepin’ work, what do you know, things start to open up. They show up differently in their life. Their income obviously goes up exponentially in their businesses. Their businesses start to scale even more. Why? Because they’re the bottleneck. Like, every CEO is the bottleneck in his own life, or her life. And the bottleneck in their own business.
So if you want your business to grow, know that you’re the one that’s blocking. And when you do spiritual coaching, I help you to unblock and pop that cork so that maybe you can pop another type of cork. A champagne bottle with all the explosive success that you’re going to have financially, etc. But again, it’s more than just those external signs. It’s like, man, you know, some of my clients, Steve, they came to me, Joseph, I’m headed for a divorce.
I don’t know how to stop it. It’s going to cost me everything. She’s going to ruin me. What do I do? And Steve, you’ve shared on your show, you know, and you shared with me you’ve been through that. You know what that looks like. You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.
Steve: Absolutely not.
Joseph: Right? And through a 12-week spiritual boot camp, 90 days, these clients get their spouse back and they’re deeper in love and it turns out that they had a choice in it and they didn’t think they did. They thought it was all hope was gone like it there’s nothing I can do Joseph, but when they own their part in how it went wrong and then they went and did forgiveness conversations. I call it forgiveness calls.
What do you know, the person met them halfway and they got their spouse back. And what was that worth to them? Put business aside. I mean, just they got their, the love of their life back. They just won. But then on top of it, they didn’t go into financial ruin from a divorce. You just won because you can grow your business as big as you want. But if you’re going to lose more than half of it in a divorce, a year or two from now, what’s the point?
Steve: Absolutely. You know, you said a couple of things that I think are important that I want to explore a little more. But I think the first most important one is you’re talking about really getting to the core of altering who you are as a person. And how others experience you in the world. And it’s funny. The thing that popped into my head there, Dan Kennedy is a guy that I’ve learned a great deal about marketing from over the years. And he has this saying that people are attracted to you in business, not because of what you do, but because of who you are. And that is the area that for most people, they don’t clean up.
They don’t pay great attention to who you are. And as I’m listening to you throughout all of this conversation, what you’re really talking about is going from someone who’s inwardly focused to someone who’s outwardly focused. You know, instead of being focused on your own internal self, you know, desires and self issues, it’s really transforming to become outwardly focused on how can you impact others, hopefully in a positive way? How have you impacted them in a negative way in the past, that you need to clean up? But taking that from looking inwardly and, and being focused on yourself to going out. That’s a transformation in who you are.
Joseph: Now, I know your audience can’t see this right now but we’re on video chat and if you look at your body language, when you said outwardly focused and you just had your arms up and out to your sides, who did you look like biblically? what’s that position?
Steve: Yeah, it’s like I’m on a cross. Which thank goodness I’ve not been on and hopefully won’t be on.
Upward Than Outward
Joseph: Right. And then I don’t mean to get too deep into religious for one or two of your listeners and it’s not a religious thing but it’s a sacrificial thing. It’s the God of the universe humbled himself, became man, died on a cross because he loves you so he could set you free, right? So that, we’re also called to do that. Jesus says no servant is greater than his master. So if Jesus had to suffer and extend his arms and outward sacrifice to others, then we are called to do the same and we forget that.
So yes, I think you’re absolutely right. However, I do want to add to this, it Yes, you’re right, in that it’s an outward focus on others in the world and impact rather than an inward focus of selfish and what can I get and how do I, you know, what’s my personal agenda or motive. So I definitely think that’s a part of it, but there’s a super huge piece in the middle that must happen before you could go outward focus, you have to go upward focused. And that’s the key to everything. So, a lot of my clients, when they come to me, I’m like, I asked them how much time do you spend with God in quiet?
And, you know, for most people, they’re like I was. I don’t spend any time with God or, well, you know, I do my five minutes in the morning or whatever. And I say my quick prayer and pretty much it’s a selfish prayer. It’s God bless my day, bless the people in my life and, you know, do for me and protect us from evil. Protect us from harm. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want my family to get hurt, right? That’s pretty much the scope of our prayers. I hate to oversimplify it, but we are just selfish, broken human beings, right?
So when I teach my clients how to spend quiet time with God and to learn to listen rather than talk, because at the end of the day, what God has to say about your life is actually the only thing that’s important, isn’t it? What you have to say really isn’t? That’s what got you into the trouble you’re in some of the areas anyway, including myself, right? So it’s really getting clear. And I help people just to reframe what does a relationship with God actually look like? And it’s not this theoretical thing. It’s a practical thing.
What are the practical daily habits and holy habits and daily disciplines that you can do in your life right now to align your calendar. And calendars are very important to us as business owners, to align your calendar to the hierarchy of God. And we get into what that looks like, what is the hierarchy of God? Well, it’s God first, others second, you’re last. That’s the hierarchy of God if you put it in a nutshell. And now if you look at your calendars, does your calendar look like that?
Does it match up? What’s the saying, you know, some, you know, coaches, business coaches, they’ll be like, you know, I know exactly what your priorities are just by looking at your credit card statement. Like I can tell what a person values by looking at the credit card statement, great. I can tell what matters to you most and any of my clients by looking at your calendar. Period. It’s the same principle. And here’s the great part. It’s not to make you feel bad about it and go haha. power of You said you love God, but you don’t spend any time with him. Look at your day. You suck as a Christian, right?
It’s not that at all. It’s saying, Okay, do you really want this? Do you really want that relationship? Do you want spiritual growth? Do you want, you know, just that peace of mind? Do you want that spiritual overflow where you could pour outwardly into others? But you can’t do it right now because you’re pretty much just starving yourself, right? You’re choking. Do you want that? And if they do then it’s like, Okay, let me show you how to clear up that calendar. And we just align your calendar to match what you say is important to you. It’s really that simple.
Steve: Yeah, absolutely. And the other word that you mentioned earlier is choice. And I think this is something that I’ve observed. So I, you know, what I went through my own journey from what was the top of the mountain, very early success in my career, and then down to a low valley and learned through that process, one of the things that I learned in that process is that there’s great power in choice, and that we always hold the power. We always hold the power.
Now, you may not hold the power of choice of your circumstances, but you always hold the power of choice in your response to the circumstances. And you know, the thing about choice though, is you have to bring your understanding of a situation into consciousness to then be able to make the choice. And what you’re talking about there with the calendar, it’s very easy for us to go through the motions and the calendar gets filled up. I’m looking at my calendar next week and my calendar next week is full. It is full. It’s, you know, I look at it like, what did I do, right?
Joseph: But it’s also a boost to our ego. And it’s really self-talk saying, Look how important I am.
Steve: Yeah, I used to look at it that way. I don’t look at it that way anymore. I go, Oh, goodness, what if we made a mistake here? And, you know, but for a lot of us and for me earlier in my career, that, it was just sort of the way things happened to me. I let that happen to me. I did not make a choice.
What you’re really doing with the calendar and with all of the other work that you’re doing with your clients is you’re taking the things that they sort of take for granted in their lives and you’re saying, well wait a second, let’s pull this out. And let’s examine it. And let’s bring it to your consciousness so that then you can make a choice and whatever choice you make is great.
Take Your Power Back
Joseph: That is so spot on. Like, you just nailed it right there. It’s become intentional in your life, rather than powerless. And most of us, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, we feel powerless in many areas of our life. That’s why we must win in this one area that we’re good at called business, right? It’s really to make up for that feeling of powerlessness in the areas that matter. That’s why we don’t clean them up. That’s why we don’t go in and do the work and we just suffer for a lifetime.
And then we die with regret going, why did I spend so much time in my business? It didn’t matter. This is what mattered and I didn’t do it. Because we didn’t know how. We felt powerless in it. So to your point, Steve, we every person listening right now has choice. Again, it’s a gift from God. But how do you choose when you don’t know what’s so? You got to know what’s real. You got to get real about what’s real is how I say it. Let’s get real about what’s real. What’s the thing under the thing that’s keeping you from doing the thing you say you want?
Like, what is that? And most of us don’t ask these provocative questions because it causes discomfort. So when a coaching client comes on with me, and they spend 10s of thousands of dollars with me or whatever, their skin’s in the game. They’re like, Joseph, like, let’s go, like, I’m ready. So a client has to be ready for change. They have to be seeking something more in order to work with me. If they just want Well, I just want to, you know, improve this one little area of my life, but I actually don’t want to look at the big thing that’s causing all the problems in my life.
Listen, I’m not your coach. Go to some spiritual whoo whoo person that’s going to pump up your ego and make you feel like you’re actually doing something. That’s great. But I’m not your guy. Now, if you want real change in your life in the areas that matter most and you can still win in business and still make the money and have the nice things, if you want both, like Steve is saying, then I am your coach. But you got to come in willing to do the work.
Steve: Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to wrap us up. So before we go, how do people find you? Where can they go learn more about the work you’re doing?
Joseph: The next step for anybody who is willing to do the work in their lives, to own their messes, and then have a breakthrough in those areas and start winning and creating workability, the next step is simply schedule a spiritual clarity call with me at josephwarren.net. That’s josephwarren.net. And we’ll jump on a video chat together and you get me one on one. My time pouring into your life. And we get clear on what do you want in your life right now.
Whatever that is you get to choose. But what is it? Let’s get intentional about it. And then we’ll chat if we want to work together. It’s not a sales call in any way. I’ve had people jump off the call and say, You know what, Joseph, I’m good. And we don’t work together and that’s totally fine. But the majority of people, once they have that breakthrough, once they get real about the thing, holding them back from getting what they actually want, they’re like, man, I want more.
How do I get it? How do I work with you? So josephwarren.net. And Steve it’s been an honor to be on your show, and I love what you’re up to in the world, my friend. I really do. And as far as business is concerned and referrals and your book around referrals, I think any business owner that is not pulling in referrals effortlessly is 100% missing out by not working with you.
And I think that if they want to win, they need to step in and do something with you. I’m looking to work with you. And I just again, sorry, I was a little redundant there and loose with my language. But I like who you are Steve. I like what you’re up to. I see your heart. And I want to be in a relationship with you going forward and really just helping each other grow.
Steve: Awesome. Well, thank you for that. And I appreciate the compliment. Folks, Joseph Warren. Go to josephwarren.net, and we’d love your feedback on this episode and all of our episodes. You can reach out to me. Send me an email at steve@unstoppableceo.net. Love to hear from you. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks.
