Episode 04: Chris Thompson - Sober Sidekick
Chris Thompson is the founder and CEO of Sober Sidekick, a fast growing tech company that has created an app with a mission to power the greatest wave of comeback stories the world has ever seen. With several hundred thousand users, notable investors and partners, and incredible results for helping people get and stay sober. Chris and Genevieve dive deep into the spiritual and life principles of addiction, struggle, entrepreneurship and life to unpack core spiritual principles.
Some of the major takeways from this episode (more in the show notes below).
We are powerful in our sameness and in our unity. It’s our belief in our differences that keeps us isolated, weak and disempowered.
As we end 2022, I am reflecting on such an incredible year and taking an exhale for what comes next. I am often asked how we accomplished so much in a short amount of time. Aside from the obvious reasons such as hard work, discipline, and staying focused, there definitely has been something more behind the meteoric rise that is Suncoast Ventures and Expert Dojo Healthcare that my conversation with Chris helped to exemplify.
Claiming the ultimate power through realness, authenticity and connection and using this to create a business, and a purpose that is bigger than you. This is the root of the multiplier effect that powers us and so many other high performing purpose-driven startups. When your vision for what you are creating is bigger than you and bigger than things like money or meeting short term goals, you unlock a power that is unmatched by force or effort, and is almost unstoppable. From there all you have to do it take action that is aligned, and share about your vision with those around you and you’ll see growth and expansion that feels almost like magic.
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[Music] Hi adventurers it's Genevieve here with Chris from sober sidekick I am so excited to share with you about his inspirational story and we're going to talk about how Sober Sidekick is creating what I love the greatest wave of comeback Stories the world has ever seen so before we dive in talking all about
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ahead so Chris Welcome to The Adventurous podcast thanks Jen excited to be here I'm thrilled to have you I've and I'm so glad that you were able to make it today you have just this story you allude to it a little bit on the web website you can tell there's just so much richness and it's so nuanced and I
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mean just it's an incredible story I'm going to go ahead and Link that in the show notes for everybody but Chris I'd love for you to start off sharing with our adventures here about sober sidekick and then let's dive into what led you to starting this incredible company that you have today yeah yeah
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so Gen as you mentioned mission of sober Sidekick is to scale the most epic wave of real-life comeback Stories the world has ever seen and for us, one of the things we recognize is that alcohol is no one's problem but for many people, it's their only solution and it's their solution for what we view
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the big enemy to be which is isolation I look at you know unfortunately some of the friends I've had over the years who are no longer here and you know their deaths you know whether it was an overdose or whatever it was not because they love drugs or they loved alcohol or they loved anything in specific it's because
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they were isolated and they didn't know how to break that cycle of isolation so psychic exists to create a world where there's no scenario of which if you're struggling if you're suffering with anything you won't write a post and receive written support from strangers around the world and nothing but positive support we call
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it Skilling empathy we call it our empathy algorithm so what we're here to do is we're here to break the cycle of isolation research says that isolation is the second leading cause of early death so yeah we're here to fight isolation and as a result, more people get sober yeah you know one of the things that I
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think is so special about what you're doing and is there's so much Drive behind it because it's not really about a business it just so happens that a business is a mechanism for creating the purpose and the impact in the world that you're meant to create and you know I don't know about you I
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hope you believe this would be true but I truly believe that you were meant to create this and I believe that you were chosen and you know I'd love for you to share a little bit about your story because I think you know kind of that moment you had you know I feel like that was the moment where it was maybe
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awakened in you or put into you so I'd love to you know dive a little bit into you know where were you before you started sober sidekick that led to you creating this amazing company we'll call it that we have today yeah well 30 days before I wrote the first line of code for sober psychic it was Thanksgiving Day and 2018 and I
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was waking up on the sidewalk for the fourth day in a row was completely isolated you know no phone no wallet no idea where I was and you know the question of how did I get here was a tough pill to swallow yeah and you know that day I I didn't have a ton of hope that day but you know I I asked myself like what if just a what if
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question What If today was day one of my own comeback story and you know the concept of one day or day one is really a theme throughout sober sidekick and throughout everything we do and throughout personal development in general even you know for me today as an entrepreneur with anything it's a
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question of one day or day one going to the gym one day or day one yeah reading a book one day or day one and you know it's just it's a mindset shift that you know once unlocked it can change everything as I saw within my own life that's amazing I think you know one of the things I think about as you tell
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that story is the Judgment that we often have on people that we see on the street thinking you know these people are this or These people are that I bet there were people who passed you by during that time and never thought you know even once about who you were who you might be capable of doing and all it
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took was one thought in your mind to change everything to say what if this could be different you know and I love the phrasing of that question that we compose ourselves what if because that's possibility versus why is this way which is like a closing off if you say what if this it opens ourselves up
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to things that are beyond our comprehension mm-hmm yeah yeah 100 and one of the things I remember that day is I I had tried to get help in the form of walking into an emergency room in a hospital and as I was walking away like they told me this isn't this is not a homeless shelter here's a number you can call
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and you know apparently, you know the days before I didn't remember it I had tried the same thing and as I was walking away I I heard the security guard say I [ __ ] hate this guy he keeps coming back and that was a hard pill to swallow at the time but in at the same time in my head it was just like me too like I
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hate this guy also yeah but also at the same time it's just like I still had the what if thought going through my mind and it's like what if this really is day one of my recovery and what if you know this guy is wrong about me you know and it's the traffic guilt in shame that you know many times in all aspects of life
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it's easy to fall into where we believe the story We Tell ourselves or we believe our past to be our future and you know it's in all aspects of life it's so easy to fall into that trap and negate the opportunities for change so what if the possibilities as you said so you had the what if this
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could be the last you know the start of me not being this in this situation what then happened to have you say what if I were going to write that first line of code like where did that come from yeah yeah so I was 30 days into my sobriety Journey that's not very long yeah I will say like I mean it's a lifetime in some ways
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and it's also not very long in a lot of ways so yeah and in the grand scheme of things it's not a long period of time but for me at that point in time it was a very long period of time but at the same time not a lot of time but I was in a sober living and it was either Christmas or it was the day after Christmas and I'd
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gone to an AAA meeting and I'd gotten a 30-day trip and I was sort of thinking like I really think this time is different because I had told myself I was gonna quit times in the past and I got in a couple of weeks this and that and I you know also part of the story I've been telling myself all these years is I used to be
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I used to be an entrepreneur I used to I I did all these different amazing things some of them worked out some of them didn't like will I ever get back to that point again right and I remembered my first startup which was an app for undiscovered musicians that went viral on Twitter on launch day and there was a
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concept of musicians helping musicians which was the one thing about the concept that worked so I was sitting in that meeting and watching people support each other and who has like realizing like what if I could make the same support that's going on in this room right now available around the clock 24 7 in real
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time 100 of the time and that's where you know in my mind I rebranded the give-to-receive algorithm for undiscovered musicians as to empathy algorithm in this space and it just clicked it made so much sense and I got home and I I just started coding and 30 days later their apple approved first version of sober sidekick
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in the App Store so the empathy algorithm it works and it is I mean I don't want to go into all this stuff about you know psychic but it's actually helping people in the way that you envisioned it would and you know I look at this and I think how big is this problem and how simple really is the algorithm
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you don't have to tell us where you and then you put it very simple you just say basically you kind of were like what if these people helped each other and I made it into an algorithm and you started writing code like where did that come from where did the idea flow from yeah well where did the idea
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for the empathy algorithm come from well you were inspired by the room but then you somehow translated that into this very powerful algorithm yeah you know that is I I feel like that is a creation that isn't it's like that's flow right there yeah well I had the advantage of I had already tested this algorithm with
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thousands of musicians in my first startup oh okay so you kind of just like tweaked it for a different thing and rebuilt it you know and but you knew that it was going to yeah I have proven I've proven the concept you know and just for context this was an app where if you're an artist you can guarantee feedback on your own
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content by providing feedback to others so app would play a song for me I listened to it and gave it a rating and as soon as I gave a rating my music then plays in real time for another artist to listen to and read so that was the concept that worked obviously a few layers of iterations in order for
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this to work for Sidekick for this space but so I mean that experience that's where you know there's no such thing as failure it was just learnings and yeah you know without those failures I wouldn't have been in the position to come out with an idea on the spot right for this space so if you were to meet somebody today
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and let's even say they were an entrepreneur you know like you and they're struggling with addiction and they are maybe they're in a place similar to where you were at and you were to run into them at the park I don't know anyone who is in a very dark place and is having a lot of difficulty on their
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on their Journey based on what you know today what would you want to tell that person yeah yeah first thing I would do is listen because many of us feel trapped when we feel we aren't heard so the first thing I would do is listen and I would probably relate probably many things that they say many thoughts that
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they express our thoughts at I also feel and you know also can relate to and I guess taking a step back I consider my entrepreneurial journey to be very very similar to my recovery Journey yeah one thing I say when it comes to my own recovery Journey is I'm not a better person than I was before I'm not a stronger person than I
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was before I've just had a change in perspective you know yeah I think it's Jim Rohn who says like something like it's very easy to live a great life and then someone asks him why doesn't everyone live a great life and he says because it's very easy to live a bad life and you know the perspective change that
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has happened for me as a result of you know letting the guilt and shame go and learning to be vulnerable and learning to be real and learning to be honest you know someone asked me how I'm doing it's always easy to say good Yeah fine great yeah yeah yeah but I now have people in my life that I trust where
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they ask me how I'm doing I can be real with them and it's keeping those emotions and those feelings trapped inside which leads to alcoholism that leads to depression it leads to Suicide it leads to so many different things and learning to let go of that internal stigma that internal guilt and shame
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and recognize that it might not be your fault that you're in this position but there's some opportunities to learn from it Grow from it and then turn it into some turn it into your purpose I believe that purpose comes from suffering yeah and you know it's the problems that we experienced in this world the problems that we've suffered
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through when reframed the right way it becomes our purpose and our source of Life absolutely I think you're hitting on something that I think is so so powerful just being a human in the world but especially what I've discovered in business is the illusion that we're separate from each other this
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person is that and I am this and therefore we are not the same and this person is not an addict and I am therefore we are different and or vice versa and you we look at this and you realize as soon as you're willing to kind of drop that belief that we might be different and entertain the idea that
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we might all actually be the same you learn and I've learned that age you know socioeconomic geography culture were all the same and for me, it's like you I've learned sometimes if I go first and share something they are right there with me and then suddenly we have a real connection but the thing that keeps us trapped is that
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belief in separation and you know the shame and the guilt and all of that that we carry that keeps us separate but like were the same we're not different whatsoever and but I think it takes courage to be able to step forward and be the one to say I'm going to explore how myself and this person are actually this are actually the same
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rather than get into my stories about how we're different yeah yeah I I so relate with that and one of the bullet points on Sidekick is we're a Wii platform we being with empathy and without ego and where I agree with you very strongly is ego like I used to think ego was pride and you know since then I've learned that
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it's your entire self-conception and we spend so much of life trying to protect that conception of ourselves and also the perception that others have of that self but none of that is the self it's all a projection of self and when you let go of ego we are all the same you know we're just the universe observing itself
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you know and yeah when you're able to and you know guilt and shame can only come from ego because that's a those are adjectives for a self that's not real and yeah yeah I relate to everything you're saying there so much they're well so obviously you we could grab a hole on this topic probably for
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three hours yeah maybe we'll do another one but I think that when it's really scary to drop your ego because your ego is designed it's there for a reason it's to protect you and your self-perception and so we have this fear automatically where we say if I'm to drop this then who am I yeah you know it almost feels like
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you're free-falling when you let go of a piece of something that you have decided as your identity then you have nothing and you can see it as two things fear scary or you can see it as another thing Freedom now I'm free do you have you read the untethered Soul yes okay yes I love that book in fact it's like dog-eared because I
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sometimes I just read it a couple of Pages yeah because it's just so profound and yeah I love that book but there was something I wanted to ask you about and I'm just like I keep like it keeps flittering out of my mind but it's on that topic that we're just discussing what oh purpose so you were talking about how like when
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we are torn down that's where we find it and you know I meet a lot of entrepreneurs and some who are really successful and are grasping for that purpose they've got the money they've done this and that whatever but they don't feel aligns they don't feel the purpose they don't feel the impact and they're
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looking for that and you know it's really interesting because you just alluded to the idea that because you have it I have a very you know I didn't have I don't have an addiction story but I have a rock bottom terrible story, of course, we all do but you basically kind of what you're saying
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is like the place that we're all avoiding going is the place where you're going to find that you know that dark depths you know facing there's a quote for that which is and I forget who it's from what is the KB fear holds the treasure you speak are the cave you fear holds the treasure you seek
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[Music] I have that you know good I don't know show notes guys I'll Google that quote but yeah it's amazing and I think you know I don't want to say oh some people never had a struggle everyone has had a struggle but I think being present with what is when you're in that bad place is where you're going to find
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the purpose that's yours and you know the purpose that's yours isn't necessarily like make some money so I can provide for my family or you know any of those things that's why I said sober Sidekick is a purpose that just so happens to have like a business attached to it and some in a component but it's
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not really about a business at all it's just that's what it was that was created I'm curious you know as you're building this you're growing this overcoming you the worst has basically already happened to you so it's sort of like come at me life because you can't do anything worse than
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what's already occurred have you had a moment you know since writing that first line of code where you just were like I'm gonna quit this is too hard this is not gonna work this is rough you know yeah yeah I've had a lot of those moments so context first year and a half of my recovery I was living in a sober living
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there was not a scenario where I wasn't sharing a bedroom with at least one other person there was a point in time where I was sharing a room with three other guys and a house with 15 people in it and new people every week because people are relapsing people are leaving yeah this and that just a constant cycle so
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all this chaos going around me while I'm working a job and then coming home and coding sober sidekick at night and you know in the beginning as is true with almost every startup outside of your early adopters you don't get much positive feedback you know your opportunities to network your opportunities to pitch are very
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limited so staying focused on the early adopters and one thing I'm grateful for is Sidekick had early adopters day one and that people found us in the App Store through search that I didn't know and it was only like five to ten that's very inspiring like yeah it's nice yeah I know for me to like sending out email
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lists or emails to my email list or you know things like that it's like great I'm super glad my mom opens my emails yeah you know it's really motivating when you have people you don't know so yeah absolutely yeah and it really was a shitty shitty ux in the beginning but people used it for its purpose which
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was this was the one place in the world where if they speak out about what's going on someone will reach out to them yeah peers will reach out to them and that value proposition was stronger than the bad ux and you know the ugly colors and ugly logo that value proposition rung true so like you know as I'm living in a sober living
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you know scraping by you know barely eating and you know like I had a really tough month where I was I was one of the people who broke down a bathroom door to find one of our roommates no longer alive oh my God and you know so like just constant reminders of how real this is and it was
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a realness that kept me going but also made it easy to quit so it was kind of a double-edged sword but yeah but what I'm grateful for is it kept me going and you know why I feel my entrepreneurial journey and my recovery Journey are so intertwined is you know I I mean I I think of like you know it was like six
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months in and I did I went to San Francisco to do a pitch event and it was like my first pitch event for sober sidekick it did not go well what was worse is after it didn't go well I didn't realize that the hotel I booked for myself you had to check in before 9 pm and it was 9 30 so there was no way to
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get to the hotel that I had paid for and also at that point in time I was literally spending like I had no wiggle room when it came to budget yeah and I was like 50 in my bank account thinking how am I gonna find a place to stay for the night it's cold this and that and then the thought came to mind I know how
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to stay warm I'll buy whiskey and that was six months into my recovery so I walked into store-bought a bottle and like was about to go completely back to where I started and I just sat there on the curb and you know tried to lift the bottle up and I just couldn't do it and it's just like all these reminders like
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remember why you started like you know one bad day doesn't have to mean like this can be either the end of everything or this can be one bad day yeah looking back you know after walking away and finding a hostel that I could stay in for forty dollars stayed on the fort bunk bed I woke up the next morning
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happier than I ever was because it was I realized like you know the enemy is not outside of me the enemy is within me and as long as I'm willing to look inward there's no scenario that I can't push through and then looking back like looking back I recognize the significance of that day because if I
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had drank on the street that day there would not be a hundred fifty thousand members I have chills right now I'm like that this is so amazing like yeah wow wow yeah yeah and it's in like I say that in for that reason I say this to our members all the time like the day you want to quit is the most important
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day of your life and I literally just told that someone that 30 minutes before this call because he shared a story of walking and wanting to quit walking through 10 bars he decided if I'm gonna relapse it's got to be on my brand so he walked to like 10 different bars none of them had his brand
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and he went home and went to sleep and you know he felt shame about it and you know the reframing that was happening was no that's that is a victory that is way better that is way more of a victory than the days where it was easy you know it's the days that you want to quit that are the defining moments because it's
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when most people would quit yeah ever you know so I'm about to just rant and rant and rent so I'm gonna stop myself no I think that's just such an incredible story and you told such a great sound bite there which is like the day you want to quit is the day that is like your most triumphant day you know
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the day you want to quit and that you don't and I think that Rings true you know not just for people who are on a sobriety Journey but for people who are just doing something really hard the day you know you're always going to be tempted I feel like in a way it's we sometimes get tested I think
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it's like are you gonna go back to the thing that you did before are you gonna go this route and it's really hard to not do the thing and you have to say I'm not going to do it and you know that's the that's almost for me also like when I take I get to up level to the next step of you know whatever it is
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I'm trying to accomplish so wow I think that that's just like that's an amazing story and I love that so many people it gives so much perspective too because there's a lot of people listening to this who might have a bad day maybe they got a parking ticket or something like that you know but it definitely puts some perspective
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on it for sure so when you're when you are thinking about what it is that's possible now you know you've got this amazing mindset you know in terms of saying What If This Were possible instead of saying why is this way and What if this what if that and you know sober psychic has definitely had some great success Chris has won
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some awards and sober Sidekick has won some awards recently that are very impressive and you know when you think about what if what is possible for you guys what do you see happening for you now that you have this mindset yeah yeah I mean a big what if question is what if our health care was Community Driven
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and what if we were less dependent on medical professionals and expensive care in so many areas what if we were more dependent on each other because in many especially in behavioral health and especially Mental Health so much of the need for you know prescriptions and services and all these different things that do
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have value in themselves but part of the reason for the high demand and lack of access is because of what we're missing in our real world right and you know the myth the community that we're missing and the isolation that we feel like across the board and not just substance abuse even at when it comes to
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diabetes there's there are studies that show the more isolated you are the less you stick to your diabetes medication and your plan you know it's a big thing for Alzheimer's disease too the onset of Alzheimer's accelerates the more isolated that people are and you know I feel like I hear a lot of
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younger people criticizing the older generation for you know their medical problems you know and the onset of them but I think about how we proliferate their isolation as a society and it's like you know if you stigmatize people who have hypertension or people who have obesity or something like that
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and you stigmatize people who are older or whatever we as a society are proliferating the very problems that we want to see because it's a driven by isolation mm-hmm yeah yeah and no one wins when it's me versus you and we like you said realizing that we're all the same that we're all one when you know I can when I'm focusing on you know
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what I see in myself and another person we can do nothing but help each other but when I am in ego and when I am you know in comparison mode then that's where you know I miss out on an opportunity to not only build someone else up but build myself up and you know it's these small interactions
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on a daily basis but in general how we operate as Society we just our mental health problems and our behavioral health problem as a result of a lack of community and we can't depend on the Health Care system to fix you know the basic human needs that we're missing in the real world yeah
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yeah I thought of something as you were talking just there that it's like you know when you're sitting across from somebody and people are just thinking in their head what can I get or sometimes they think what Can I Give that's still transactional right even if it's altruistic whether you're giving or
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taking it's still you're still participating in a transaction what if we asked ourselves when we were in an interaction with someone who can I be and even if you're only going to be like who can I be in this moment here with Chris you know and it doesn't that takes away any aspect of saying I have to give this
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or I have to get that or whatever who can I be and then what comes from that is what's possible because of the ability to just B in this moment you know and you know I like the idea of that because I feel like in especially in entrepreneurship there's so much pressure to transact all right the time
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what can I get what can I give how do I add value how do I take value blah blah blah you know and it's exhausting you just want to stop and be like can't we just hang out like sorry you know and so that was just that just kind of hit me when you were telling that when you were talking
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yeah yeah and I'm I've noticed that when it comes to pitching is like and I've been more and more intentional as of late to start a pitch stating Who I Really Am not in that way but you know more of an intense internal intention like I'm just going to put myself out there in the first 30 seconds
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and be real and it's being real in that first 10 to 15 seconds where then no one in the room has any power over me and my insecurity like there my insecurities are out the window and once those insecurities are to the side then I can connect and then and then the pitch is about connecting and seeing what different people relate to
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and seeing what is inspiring or is resonating and connecting out of human love on them for me like I get to turn a pitch into just human connection and like seeing the look in people's eyes and seeing head knots and see and then after the pitch hearing people talk about how they relate you know I'm not an addict but I was
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depressed all of last year and I was stuck in this rut and I completely agree with you that this is the problem that we need to be solving like you know I've talked to people at levels that I didn't think I'd ever be talking to and I've seen them open up and be real right back with me and share
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things that I don't know if they've shared with others yeah and for me that that is inspiring to see and that's what keeps me alive in this pitching process because and I think you're dead you're infusing your business with something that means more than just money and opportunity so even
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if these people that you're meeting don't invest or get involved or whatever it doesn't matter because I almost see it as this like inertia that you're creating when you're out there it's like I know there's people watching you that you don't even know are watching you and it's because of who you're being and
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it's because of these conversations and it's because of this connection not because sober psychic is growing fast AF and you guys are doing amazing things like that's cool but you know what lots of platforms are growing faster so like it's not that there's something else when you are out in the world by
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you I mean you yes but people and you're just connecting with people real some people are going to be drawn to the universe that is sober sidekick and others aren't and it starts to become this thing that's bigger than itself and I talk about that a lot with what we've what we're doing and over here at Suncoast and and
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things like that is like it's growing so fast because there's a multiplier effect some people don't understand the multiplier effect and so I'll say oh you know everyone's aligned on the vision and we all care about Health Equity no no no no it's because we're out there in the world speaking this truth and the people who
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believe it are coming in and they're doing the same and it just it feeds itself and there's something there that I can't really put into words but it's more of like a movement or energy than it is an alignment of values yeah thesis yeah whatever that might be and you know you use these words because
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they're the ones they're the words you're supposed to use you know you get the pitch deck out because you're supposed to use it but at the end of the day there's something beneath that and that's what people are getting involved in you know yeah yeah because we're all gonna die [Laughter] one day yeah yeah I mean on
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on our deathbed were gonna think about different things and we think about on the day-to-day and yeah I think it's it's those types of connections that you know will be proud of one day when we're on our deathbed and those the mission you know it's like what am I what do I want my life to mean is the question but you
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can be proud of that today and you can ask yourselves that today because why wait until we're dead we're dying yeah to be like who am I being today I know you know I mean anyone who's been in like a terrible place when you're grasping and you're like what is it that I most want it's not usually like more
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money or this or that like like I remember one of the things that I just most desperately wanted was peace I just want to feel at peace I can't like this turmoil and torment has to end and you know so now one of the things I most want is peace and seeking that and then the other thing too of course
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is you know what drives me the most and what means the most to me and it's you know true connection and realness and you know having so I I seek to create real relationships with our investors' real relationships with our Founders and everyone in the ecosystem not just transactional because
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you know not just when I'm dying but when I'm when it's Friday afternoon and I'm tired you know I want to feel the way that I want to feel about what it is that I'm doing you know yeah yeah and yeah I I brought up the deathbed Point Justin that like I I think it was Les Brown who said it but like there's a there's a
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test that I kind of put myself through whenever I'm like stuck or whenever I'm whenever I'm you know conflicted and it's asking myself what will I care about when it comes to today when I'm on my deathbed and I'm probably not going to care about what the outcome of the meeting was I'm going to care about the fact that I
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showed up I'm probably not going to care about whether or not I got funding in this pitch or a different pitch but I'm going to care about whether or not I was willing to be honest and real about myself and you know not hold back or you know stay true speak boldly about what the mission was that you were on the court
42:41
yeah you were on the court you know even I always feel that way I'm like even if I fail because I failed many times and what's the likelihood I'm going to fail I don't know hi let's knock on wood but you know I'd like to say at least if I'm on the court every second and I'm playing full out I won't regret my
42:58
failure because I will regret it if I wasn't on the court and if I wasn't playing full-out regret City you know oh yeah yeah the only thing you can't do or the only thing that can't be undone is not making a decision that's the only thing that can't be undone wait a minute go unpack that a little bit
43:18
more yeah yeah also not my quote but I listened to so many podcasts but the statement is the only thing that you can't undo is not making a decision because if you make a decision you can learn from it but not making a decision all you have is looking back and saying I wonder what would have happened if I
43:45
had made a decision or if I take an action so like the only thing you can't undo is not taking action yeah I love that yeah I love that I kind of feel like you were talking about how we we take the past and we didn't get means something about us today and then therefore we live that every single day and so when
44:08
you thought when you think about taking action it's like really the only thing that matters is now now now now you know because either you're taking action or you're not taking action and for a long time I was telling myself I was taking action I was justifying why I wasn't taking action I had lots of great reasons why
44:32
but at the end of the day all I had were my own reasons and my own excuses for why I didn't why I wasn't who I wanted to be and why I didn't have what I wanted to have as soon as I started to take action were things kind of messy sometimes you know but life shook loose and then when you get
44:54
on the court and you start doing things you know you're only it's gonna be messy and you're gonna get elbowed in the face and you know like you know get a bloody nose from time to time but you're playing the game and I think I don't know most people aren't playing the game they're just talking about playing the
45:13
game yeah and that also comes back to Ego because who are you to say that you can't deal with something like who are you to say you can't do it and it's you know I heard a point about Michael Jordan which is a really interesting reminder and they were talking about him picture Michael Jordan junior year of
45:41
high school right I cut from the high cut from the varsity team playing JV if you were looking for reasons to say he couldn't be the greatest ever they were all around him and right you know so so the point here is it doesn't really matter how many reasons out there exist for why you can't do something it's just who are you
46:06
to say that you can't you know the what if question yeah I'm gonna think about that for a while today gosh well Chris so much wisdom and time has just flown by is there any final words you'd like to leave for our adventures here who are listening in on this podcast whether it's the final piece of wisdom or
46:34
something about what you're up to any last words for everybody here yeah I guess I would say like because this has come up in multiple conversations today I guess my last word would be the day you want to quit is the most important day of your life fabulous it's amazing I think you should get that printed on
47:04
some swag actually it hand it out to people all right adventurers well you met him here Chris Thompson CEO of sober Sidekick I'm gonna go ahead and put some links in the show notes for you I'm also going to encourage everyone I have ever met has had someone who has struggled with addiction or they have themselves
47:27
Share with them sober sidekick it could be the greatest gift you ever give them and you know with that thank you so much for coming on today Chris and we will see all of my Adventures back here next time for our next episode awesome thanks so much for having me [Music] foreign
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“The cave you fear holds the treasure you seek” - Joseph Campbell
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