Start and Grow Online Business Growth Guides/Mindset/Episode #1 How to Turn Failure Into Success with Bo From Chill Champ

Episode #1 How to Turn Failure Into Success with Bo From Chill Champ

Saturday, April 01, 2023

In this episode, Bo from Chill Champ and I talk how he helps men with mental health with coaching and resources to help them deal with the challenges of life.

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https://twitter.com/TheChillChamp

https://chillchamp.podia.com

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All right. Awesome. Thanks for joining today, Bob, super stoked you're on the show. Again, we want to talk today about kind of mental health, men's mental health, things like that I'm really excited to jump in. So, you know, let's, you know, why don't you start off by introducing yourself, you know, let us know who you are, you know, and then we'll kind of learn about this journey you've been on and you know all about children, champ. So

perfect. Thanks, Craig. Appreciate you having me on. Very excited for this interview. My name is Bo. I started chill champ a few months ago now. It's it's flown by over the last couple of weeks, but, but really chill champ is a culmination of a lifelong journey for me. Starting back as young as I can remember, and, you know, early memories of even my parents going through a divorce and how that impacted me. And, you know, formed my, my teenage rebellion and young 20s and allowed me really to turn that around, went back to school, got my college degree, got married, had my kids now now 10, and seven, and no doubt that interrupt me, interrupt us at some point during this interview. And really, through my own divorce roughly three years ago, is when I really started to hone in on mental health. I found that I didn't really have good practices of my own, I found that there wasn't a lot of resources out there that are available to men. And this is men going through any trauma, right. So whether it's anxiety, depression, financial issues, men just being there for other men, just isn't a thing. Society tells us from when we're young boys that, you know, suck it up and deal with it and be a man and take care of the house and all these things. But, you know, that comes with some baggage along the way. And the longer we hold on to that, and the longer we don't reach out to somebody for some help. The worst things get, and that's where we see drug addiction, you see suicide, in some cases, you just see a lot of loneliness and a lot of depression and just makes things worse. And so that's really the, the, the goal of Champ is to empower men to feel, to feel that it's okay to be vulnerable. And to know that there's someone else out there, that I'm going through this, whether it's you know, a divorce, or whether whatever they're going through, there's somebody there to help them. I'm not a licensed therapist, I'm not a professional coach, I'm just another guy that's been there. And sometimes that's all that's needed. So yeah, again, I'm very happy to be here. This is very exciting for me. And I look forward to sharing some more of my story.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. That's a That's a great story. And, you know, again, challenging to go through those types of events, especially as a kid and you know, just the, the mental load that that brings on can be quite challenging. So what kind of made you take the entrepreneur route with this? So, you know, obviously, there's, you know, I understand the problem, you know, you're right, men's mental health is, you know, not talked about enough, is huge challenge, but I like what made you feel like, you know, this is something I want to like jump into, and really kind of, like, turn this into a business. What was kind of that point that?

It's a great question I get, I get asked that very often. To me, it comes down to a short story. So I remember sort of that point. And if anybody has been divorced, they understand the point where it's over. And I reached that point mentally. And I realized, you know, if I wanted to, I was in a really bad mental place. And I know that if I needed if I wanted help, if I call 911, they're going to send out a state police officer. And they're going to send me to a crazy house and make me feel like, you know, I'm on suicide watch. I didn't need that. If I wanted to professional therapists, I'd have to wait a week. And I'd have to go through a huge onboarding session. But if I just wanted to talk to somebody that wasn't a family member, or a close friend, or just somebody that was there to listen, that's not available. That's not out there. That's that's not something that is, you know, in your moment where you just need somebody at that moment. You don't you don't want to, you don't want to be thought of as crazier than what you are and getting on suicide watch and all those kinds of things. You just want to talk to somebody. And so really, that's the idea of Joe champ. And so I thought to myself, I'm not the only one. I can't be the only one as men, we don't have those resources. I would even argue that a lot of women probably don't even have a resource like that. And so that's the challenge is how do you take that you turn your you take your passions, and you turn them into a profitable business. Now at the end of the day, this thing has to make money. But it doesn't have to make money just for me, this has to make money for the community, the tribe of men. Because this is bigger than me, this is bigger than just chill champ. This is about improving men's mental health across the board. So that's really been, it's been a part of the focus over the last couple of months, is coming to the realization of like, what's important to these guys? And and how can we make the biggest impact. The one of the things we launched yesterday, I don't know, you can't see the shirt, but we sort of started making, this is an athletic shirt that I'll wear to the gym tonight. And so we we got, I can't remember the name of the printer, but we're starting to make shirts at home. So we're investing a few $100 in North cells, and start promoting merchandise, so shirts, coffee, mugs, journals, things like that. And a big portion of the profits are going to go towards men's mental health, whether that's coaching resources that somebody can't afford, you know, I'm, I'm fortunate that I can afford a professional therapist that I see every two weeks, and I've been with her for four years. Now, a lot of men don't have that resource, that's a luxury for me. And so I want to be able to pay that forward and, you know, started like a little foundation that can help men, you know, have those resources. And so that's, that's one of the thoughts, you know, a coaching business is another one of those thoughts. Really, it's about just doing what I love doing and then sharing it with the world and in a way through Twitter, it's sort of guiding the narrative like what what is really important, what's resonating with people? What's not resonating with people? What are people willing to pay for? What would they use, even if it was free, like what's really the value of this as a platform. And so it's sort of a work in progress. But I've learned a lot along the way, for sure.

I find Twitter such a great testing ground, you know, and it's a great place to kind of put your ideas out there and see and refine them as people respond to them. And are you finding that is that are you using the platform in that way?

It's interesting. I just had this conversation with my girlfriend this morning. And I was saying to myself, you know, Twitter's is amazing. And the reason that Twitter's amazing, I can do a video every day on Tik Tok, and YouTube and Instagram. But it's not yet driving the conversation. I'm meeting people, I'm getting followers, it's, it's the videos are resonating. But I'm not developing the level of connections that I'm looking for. I want to talk to men, I want to I want to learn what they want, I want to learn what they need. I want to be there for their time in need. There's no better platform to do that, in my opinion on Twitter. And, and the culmination of that conversation this morning was, well, if you're if you're having these great meaningful conversations on Twitter, just translate them to a video on Tiktok and YouTube to spread that message in a video format, rather than just 260 characters. So that that's sort of a revelation for me is where the like, if we have a great tweet, and we have great dialogue and engagement on a particular topic, expand on that in video format, through YouTube and Tiktok.

Yeah, it's definitely a great strategy. I think a lot of creators are doing that. And I've seen a lot of people and myself as well, you test it on, on Twitter, because it's a low barrier, kind of engagement, you know, like someone that can be, you know, anonymous with their picture, you know, someone that's very shy and introverted, like in your case, you know, is less afraid to comment, you know, in that kind of medium, I think, and I think it just draws people out. And, and I 100% agree with you that community on Twitter, I think has evolved even over the last few years. You know, so it's, yeah, I relate to that, as well. I think it's a great tool, you know, not just for, you know, testing your content and ideas, but also engagement, you know, so, you know, you've you've just started on Twitter not too long ago. So, you know, how is your experience been? And you know, how did you kind of get started on Twitter? What are some of the challenges you've been having? And some of the successes? Yeah, I'm really curious about that.

Yeah, it's, it's a great question. So I've been an active Twitter user for probably a few years. But as a consumer, I'm willing to admit that I sat back and I watched other people. And I was a normal consumer of tweets. And so to me, because I've always enjoyed Twitter I've always gotten I've always received devalue. But I've never contributed to the conversation. It was a bit of a transition, I started this account. Right around November 1, this actually started as a New Year's resolution for me, really just making an impact on one man's life. And and so there's been some peaks and valleys for sure. One thing I noticed, tweet threads are a great means of engagement. For those that already have a following. It is, for me, it is not a way to get a following. I don't yet have when I first started, I didn't have a presence online, I didn't have any credibility. And so why would somebody invest 30 seconds to two minutes to read a series of five to 15 tweets about my thoughts, nobody cared. And so what I'm finding more valuable, I'm perfecting my writing skills. So I'm learning about storytelling, I'm learning about what's resonating. It really is about being as simple and direct and concise in a particular message as possible, not trying to elongate and use these big words like elongate, just keep it simple. Yeah. And you know, that's really a, so I'm just starting to feel I'm starting to find my way and find my voice and what's really making an impact. Also, I'm finding it helpful, to be engaged in the conversation from larger follow larger accounts. So I had one this morning. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the account, the holistic psychologist or something like that, almost a million followers. And that topic this morning was abandonment. And so if I go back all the way to my childhood, and having abandonment issues from my father and a divorce and not seeing him for a few years, and then in my divorce, my own divorce, feeling that abandonment arise again, from my now ex wife, I can resonate with that story. And so I commented, and there were some other people that had some questions about, you know, they have a spouse who is feeling abandonment issues, how can I help them? Well, I can talk about that topic, we could spend a whole 30 minutes talking about that topic today. And so really, getting into that community developing a rapport with one person and allowing the world to see it. It's such a mindset shift for me, not just a one to one, conversation, DMS are great. It's a way to build even more credibility with that person, but really just talking to one person and allowing the world to see it, and countless people getting value from it. So those are some of the things I would I would do more, as, as the following gets bigger, I'll probably start doing one tweet thread a week, things like that. But it would have to be a very, very specific topic that I have my own expert expertise in. And last point, really authenticity and vulnerability for me has been number one, it's been therapeutic for me personally, being able to tell my story, and have other people say, That's amazing, keep doing that, that's, you know, it's helping me I'm learning something from it. And definitely something I'll be leaning into more going forward.

Ya know, that's great, you know, thanks for sharing that and just kind of, you know, your observations, you know, just kind of starting out. And that's one of the things I definitely, with all my coaching clients, it's one of the things I say is like you and you're starting off on this, like, just get in the discussion, it's not so much about publishing content, because being in part of the discussion is publishing content. And that's, you know, you're doing the right thing, you go to those others that have your audience, you know, that already have the people you are interested in, in, in becoming part of their community and, and then becoming clients are just part of your audience. And so you got to go, that people have already done this. So you know, go and borrow their audience. And just by engaging, you'll attract the right tribe and the right kind of people that you want, you know, into your community. So it's very good to hear you. And

I really, really tried to apply that to other platforms as well, Instagram being one. And I can tell you, from my experience, it's just not the same. You know, the end game, I don't know if it's the algorithms or what it is, but the engagement is just not the same on other platforms. There is nothing better in my opinion and Twitter for that.

That's great. So I noticed that you've set up a website and things like that I'm kind of curious, a bit more about, you know, some of the tactics you know, like so you, you kind of have your why right you like you know what it is that you're why you're doing this, you I think you understand you're going after men, I don't know if you've kind of niched down into specifics if it's, you know, male men in entrepreneurship, or what have you, or if it's just men, but then you kind of have your messaging and all that, you know, it seems pretty key that you've got that in place. So what was it like now going Okay, I gotta turn this into a business. You know, a Twitter account is one thing, but You've got a website and some other things. So let's talk a bit about that kind of journey, you know, of maybe some of the challenges you had, you know, where you came from, not everybody's technical. So, you know, I'm curious, you know, how did you kind of overcome that? You know, I know what I want to do now. Now I'm gonna actually do the things.

Yeah, it's been an incredible journey. And honestly, that's where my two passions align. So I, I've been working in industrial automation for 20 something years, you know, people would know that as robots and, you know, building packaging machines and, you know, serving manufacturers across the United States. So now, that's a complete shift from automating online. Right. So how do I build as a solopreneur? How do I build out systems that allow me to do the work of five as a one man band? That's really like the challenge, right? So how do we how do we, how do we nurture one person, and along the way to eventually get to a sale, I can say the first challenge I had was, I went in early with the niche of divorce men, men are that are are divorced, or that are going through a divorce or separated or they're having relationship issues, whatever the case may be. It was too narrow. It was too narrow as a beginner in this world. And and so quickly, sort of stepped back to, okay, well, I'm passionate about men's mental health and divorcees are a small niche within that. But so are people that deal with anxiety and depression and drug abuse and whatever the whatever the trauma is that you're dealing with, and so yeah, so the thought process was, okay, well, I have an idea. Now I need a website. And social media accounts, social media accounts are easy. I didn't want to go the Gumroad route, I felt like that was just, it didn't allow me to show my personality, right. So Gumroad is nice if you have a document or a service you want to sell and you don't really care about developing a rapport with someone and it felt it felt a little bit like solace to me, like, Here I am, this is what I do, go buy it or don't. I wanted something that could be a community one day, I wanted something that I could still sell products on, I could sell a coaching service on, I found Podio. This is not promotional in any way, I'm not getting paid for for this. But podio.com is a website that I have I've done well with, it's got a great easy website tool. And if you do coaching, if you do products, if you do community building, it's it's a great resource. Also with automation, so I use Integra mat, which is now called make sort of a Zapier competitor, I look for ways to build out as much automation as possible. And honestly, for me, the best automations are the ones that actually solve a problem. And so early on, I thought, well, I can just schedule a bunch of tweets, I can just follow a particular account, I can use G chat GPT, to write a response and just tweet it. And to me, after about three days of doing that, I said, This destroys me like, this is the opposite of what I am. Because I am authentic, and I need to be vulnerable. And this isn't just about growing a following this is about impacting lives, and there's no robot in a world that can do that. At least I haven't found the prompt to do that. And yeah,

I relate to that, you know, and I'm actually starting, it's interesting, I'm starting to see more blowback. You know, I saw a tweet this morning about, you know, you know, these AI replies, you know, where people are just trying to, like, you know, automate the AI replies and, and, and I get that, you know, I guess it's, it's easy and all that, but I think people, like the BS filters, kind of clicking in for a lot of people, you know, they start to see it and and recognize it. So. Yeah, I agree. I'm not, that's not the automation I'm looking for, you know, there's things to automate. And that's not it, you know,

yeah. So, I agree, I wholeheartedly agree. And so now the thought is, now the focus is, alright, let's automate back end systems that are just routine, and allow me to click my mouse fewer and spend less time in front of a computer. So one of the ways we do that, it's easy, right? So somebody wants to sign up for a coaching session, they go through, they sign up for the website, there's a Calendly link in inside of the invitation, they can choose the time that they want. automatic notifications are sent as reminders. It's automatically recorded and then automatically shared, the videos are automatically shared with them afterwards. So that's I mean, that's that's five or 10 minutes of work every coaching session that that I get back. Also looking at forms, right, so input data for a coaching session, for example. You know, doing a pre screening, I can do through a tally form and have that integrated into make and so I'm building a profile of that person. So six months from now Now I can go back to, you know, one of the questions I asked him that form is, what's your primary goal? What is it that you want to achieve? What is your problem to be solved? And if we ever get off track, and we ever go down a particular lane, I can always go back to that and say, let's, let's reset, let's remind ourselves why we're here. And why we're doing what we're doing. So yeah, really like meeting scheduling, recording, input data, less, less, less social media engagement, which, in the beginning, that's what this thing was all about was like, I want to build an automated platform that makes money on its own. And I can't tell you how far how much different that is today.

It's so true, right? I think I encounter that to a lot of entrepreneurs coming in, and like, you know, I just want to set up a system that, you know, auto generate, you know, the cash machine, and it's just, it's not the reality, business is hard. It's not always fun and easy. And, you know, it's, it's probably one of the hardest mental journeys to go on, in a lot of ways. Because you, you as a solopreneur, you like, you got to face yourself every day, you got to start, you got to keep going. You know, and it's all on you. So yeah, that's a huge one. Let's talk a bit about let's go back to kind of like mindset and stuff like that. So, you know, great to share some of the tools you use, I think that's awesome. I think everyone's always looking for tools and, and how people are using the tools. So let's go back to like, your mindset. So you know, you came from a difficult, you know, divorce and trauma and things like that, and, and picking yourself back up to kind of like, do this kind of stuff, like, you know, what are some of your kind of mindset, your own personal mindset things? Like how did you get through that? What are the things that kind of keep you going day to day and get you kind of, you know, moving, you know, get you kind of doing the work it takes to kind of build and you know, grow your business?

Yeah, that's a great question. And really, that's the, that's the swansong for why I'm here, right? So there are things that I know I have to do on a daily basis to be the best version of myself. And so really, my, my mantra is, I want to grow every day. You know, Kobe Bryant was famous for the mamba mentality. And, you know, famous for, you know, when he tore his ACL and sort of went on a rant on a Facebook post about like, I'm supposed to be done, I'm supposed to be over. I'm just starting. Like, really, that's the antithesis, antithesis, I can't talk to that, of why I'm here. So there are a few things that I know I need to do on a daily basis to be the best version of myself, I need to meditate. I need to do that as often as I can, as often as I need to. almost as important as the actual meditation is recognizing when and why. So I have I have two daughters. They're 10 and seven. They have busy lives, they have a lot of demands. I have a girlfriend now she has a daughter, I have a full time job. I have my own mental health. So I gotta go to the gym three or four times a week. I do yoga at least one time a week. I like to walk in nature when it stays like this. And it's 50 degrees and bright, sunny skies. I have a lot of demands of myself, and a lot of people that I'm responsible for, but I can't do anything for anyone else, if my mental health is not strong. And So meditation is the is the number one thing that helps me and it could be as easy as a one minute just breathe in, hold it and let it go. And you know, it's a mindset thing or it could be I've done 6060 minute Sambo meditations at my local yoga studio. I'll be going to Costa Rica next Sunday for a week long retreat, which is going to expand on anything I've ever done. I don't know how far how deep into that rabbit hole you want to get. But that's a Iosco retreat for eight days. It's going to be incredible. So that's

it. Yeah, I've heard much about that. I spent a few months in Costa Rica did not do Ayahuasca this was in the early 2000s. But it's a beautiful place. And yeah, maybe we'll bring you back on the show after learn a little bit more about you know, that journey because, you know, very interesting and you know, from a mental health I've, I've done some research on that kind of ritual as well. So yeah, I'm sure you're excited about that.

I'm very excited, a little nervous. I haven't done it before. I've watched a lot of videos and done a lot of studying and have a good friend who just went through the same experience. And I could tell when they came back. It was life changing for them. So it's

amazing. It's very excited. Yeah, well, we'll definitely have to talk more about that in the future. That's awesome. So, you know, I'm curious, let's kind of like we'll wrap things up here. I'm curious, you know, what's kind of like the one message you would give to maybe somebody in your shoes that's kind of looking at starting and growing, you know, a coaching business or, you know, this type of community or something that's building impact, you know, what, what kind of advice would you give them? You know, if they were starting out,

yeah, I the first thing I would say is do it. Like get started, whatever it is. The first thing is that you have to do that you want to Do like, really dive deep into what do you love? So for me, I love mindfulness meditation, holistic practices. I love automation. And I love telling my story. I love feeling like if I tell my story, I can impact the next man, like really hone in on what it is that you love. But do it, start with something, do not worry about being perfect. When they say, Perfection is the enemy of progress, like just do it and just build every day and get better every day, you're gonna have some bad tweets, you're gonna have some bad videos, I know I do. You're gonna have a bad website, you're gonna have a bad message you're gonna like, but it gets better, every iteration improves. Just just get started. Do it.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Thanks so much for coming on and chatting for this little bit with me. You know, where can people find you if they want to learn more about chill chap. And, you know, I will put some links down below that people can kind of click to find you and check out your websites.

Yeah, I would say check out the website show champ.podia.com Still in the free plan. Once I get rid of that free plan the the dot parodia goes away. So that's, that's my next step. Certainly, I'm most engaged on Twitter on Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok Instagram. They're all nice accounts. But let's have a let's have a real discussion. Let's do it on Twitter.


Awesome. Thanks so much for hanging out today. Learned a lot Bo really cool to hear about your journey and you know, excited to follow. You know where you're going with this. Again, everybody here, you know, make sure you go check out Bo can follow his stuff. And, you know, we'll look forward. Hopefully you hopefully everyone's learned a little bit about what we're doing here. And you know, thanks again for showing up. Everyone. Have a great day. Thanks so much, Bo. Cheers. Thanks.

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Hi, I Am Craig Cherlet

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