Fear Kills Growth: Chris Widener’s Advice on Leadership, Sales, and Personal Development

Chris Widener (00:00)
Yeah, they get stuck on themselves. There’s always a way forward and people end up, they get afraid. That’s one thing that keeps them from, well, what if this happens? And the funny thing about fear and worry is it’s most of the time it’s a projection into the future. It says, what if this happens down the road? And we make decisions today based on what we think might happen down the road.

Dylan Silver (01:57)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Chris Widener, is one of the most recognized speakers in the world, consistently ranked among the top voices in sales and leadership. He’s been named one of the top 50 speakers globally and is a member of the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame. Over the course of his career, he has delivered more than 2,500 speeches across the globe and is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author of 26 books, many of which have been translated into 14 languages.

He also had the rare opportunity to be personally mentored by legendary figures like John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, and Jim Rohn, shaping the philosophy and principles he shares today. Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Widener (02:36)
Thanks for having me. I appreciate

Dylan.

Dylan Silver (02:39)
Great to meet you. Now, mentored by some of the greats, what’s one lesson that still drives you today?

Chris Widener (02:48)
Well, you know, it’s kind of funny. I get asked this question a lot because I spent two years working with John Maxwell, ghostwriting for him. I spent two years co-hosting Zig’s television show, and I spent seven years working with Jim Rohn and wrote his last book. And people ask me this question a lot, like, what did you learn from them? And it’s kind of a funny answer. The thing I learned most about working with those three guys was to be myself. Now you kind of go, OK, that’s kind of an interesting thing to learn. Well, think about it. If you know anything about those three guys, or even if you just know any two of those guys,

You could not be any more different than those three guys. And yet they were all at the highest levels of the speaking business. know, Jim Rohn was very professorial. He was very, you know, like a professor in college and he always stood behind the lectern and he talked like this and he kind of had a weird drawl and, know, he never got out of hand. He never got aggressive. He never got demonstrative, right? That we always used to joke that we knew when he was getting really serious, when he would be sitting there with his readers like this.

And we knew he was getting serious when he’d do this. We’re like, whoa, Jim’s taking his glasses off, right? I mean, he’s just very mellow. And then there’s Zig prancing the stage and talking and pumping his fist and making all those actions, you know, where he’s pumping the water and, and, you know, and then he’ll go to the front of the stage. You’ll get down on his knees and he’ll talk like this, a very different style than Jim. And then John’s probably in the middle of those two, you know, from one side, very introverted.

Dylan Silver (03:51)
Bye!

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Widener (04:14)
to very extroverted. know, John is more of a casual, friendly, it’s like he’s talking with you rather than at you. And so, you know, when I worked with those guys, I looked at three wildly successful guys and said, they couldn’t be any more different and yet they all succeeded. So the lesson that I pulled from that was, I don’t need to be John Maxwell. I don’t need to be Zig Ziglar. I don’t need to be Jim Rohn. I’d just be a bad copy. But what I needed to be was the best Chris Widener.

And so it’s kind of a funny lesson to learn from working with three great legends. You would think there’s really this one profound truth that somebody taught me. It was really to be myself.

Dylan Silver (04:49)
yourself from being behind the scenes working with those guys. What’s something that you saw that most people wouldn’t understand either from not having the access or it’s just something that they wouldn’t think about?

Chris Widener (05:52)
Well, I’ll tell you one thing that’s actually really encouraging about those three guys is they’re the same guys off the stage as they are on the stage. They are literally just the same people as you see on stage. ⁓ Unfortunately, there’s a lot of phonies in this business. There’s a lot of people that learned how to give a good speech. You know, I know of one legend who almost everybody would know long, long passed away, but he would get up there and talk all this lovey dovey, you know, warm hearted stuff. You get off the stage and mock the audience. Like it was just.

You know, it was really kind of sad when you think about how cynical the guy had gotten in his career. but, ⁓ they were the exact same people. And to me, that says the most important thing, whether it’s real estate investing or any, or any other thing, your marriage, anything, and that’s integrity. Integrity means you’re the same on stage as you are off stage for a speaker. It means in the, in the real world, you know, it means that you, ⁓

Dylan Silver (06:42)
Yeah.

Chris Widener (06:47)
You don’t have multiple ethics or morals or values. You have a single set of morals, ethics and values.

Dylan Silver (06:54)
Yeah, that congruency I think is huge. And being able to marry that with how you are on stage and off stage and in business and when you’re in personal is I think a real challenge for some people because you always have to feel like you’re on. But you mentioned, you know, being yourself. If you’re yourself, then it’s not as much of a switch. Now, for folks who may feel like they’re stuck, and I think this is a lot of people who are getting a lot of value from

Chris Widener (06:56)
100%.

Hmm.

Dylan Silver (07:23)
these types of events and from listening to speakers like yourself, is there one main bottleneck that you see when folks do get stuck or they’re not growing?

Chris Widener (07:34)
Yeah, they get stuck on themselves. There’s always a way forward and people end up, they get afraid. That’s one thing that keeps them from, well, what if this happens? And the funny thing about fear and worry is it’s most of the time it’s a projection into the future. It says, what if this happens down the road? And we make decisions today based on what we think might happen down the road.

And the reality is worry and fear are just a misuse of the imagination. Let’s say that you have

something due on, you know, three months from now. Now you can sit around for three months and you can think, this is great. It’s going to go through. It’s going to be fantastic. I’m going to keep working hard. I’m going to make sure the deal is, you know, still going forward. I’m going do what I need to do, but I’m going have faith that this is going to, you know, close or take place in 90 days. Okay. Or you could go, what if I don’t get the money? What if he pulls out? What if this, that, and the other thing? And so here’s the funny thing, whether it works out or it doesn’t work out.

You don’t know until 90 days from now. So now you have to ask yourself, how am I going to spend the next 90 days and out of fear or out of faith? If you operate out of fear, you’re going to, your internal state is going to be horrible for 90 days. Right? So what happens if you, if you operate out of fear and it, and it actually goes through? Well, now you’ve wasted 90 days of your life. If it doesn’t go through, it wasn’t going to go through anyway.

If you spend your time with faith for 90 days and it goes through, that’s fantastic. If you spend your days in faith for 90 days and it doesn’t go through, it’s fine, it wasn’t gonna go through anyway, but at least you didn’t waste your 90 days. So I’ll give you an example. I have my youngest daughter’s brilliant. She’s getting her doctorate now in macroeconomics from the University of Wisconsin. She went to Vanderbilt, double major, single minor, took her SAT at 15.

Dylan Silver (09:15)
Don’t worry.

Chris Widener (09:28)
Missed two questions. She got a 1560 perfect on the math, know, missed two questions on the verbal. She wanted to get a perfect score, took it again, still missed two questions, but still perfect on the math. So about six months ago, she was ending one of her quarters or something like that in her doctorate program. And she was worried and worried and worried and worried for months on end. She was worried for this test. She calls us up. I passed my test. It’s great. Blah, blah, blah. said, okay, you know what you need to start doing now?

And she said, what? And I said, start worrying for the next one.

And she laughed. She goes, I know, I know, I need to stop worrying. I’m like, when was the last time you even got a B on a test? But she is more prone towards worrying. And I think there are people who are prone towards worrying. And then I think there’s people that get sucked into worrying. Don’t worry. You’re smart, you’re strong, you’re good at what you do. Put your faith in yourself.

Dylan Silver (10:43)
Yeah.

Chris Widener (10:55)
You know, the word confidence literally means, so I love words, it’s one thing you’ll find out about me. is a prefix which means with. And how do I know that? I was raised by a single mom. I ate a lot of chili con carne, chili with meat, right? So con is a prefix which means with. Fide is the old Latin word for faith. You know that confidence literally means with faith. So self-confidence is with faith in myself. What do I do well?

What am I good at? What am I world-class at? And putting your faith in that to make the deal turn out right rather than sitting around worrying and being fearful about it.

Dylan Silver (11:32)
Now, is that the difference from folks who choose to scale versus those who prefer to say small or is that more of a personal preference and how large

Chris Widener (11:44)
Well, I think some

people, I think it’s a little bit of both Dylan. think some people prefer to be small. I always tell people you have to, if you opened a burger stand, you now have to ask yourself, am I a one burger stand guy? Or maybe I want one in the north side of the city, the west side, the east side, the south side, and one in the central. Maybe I’m a five burger guy that I grew up in Seattle, born and raised in Seattle. And there’s the best, best drive-in I’ve ever been to. It’s a Seattle legend. It’s called Dick’s drive-in.

started by a guy named Dick Spady, Richard Spady. And I think, I mean, we have begged them, I’m friends with the family, everybody, the city of Seattle begged them, go national, know, create, you know, franchises. I think they own seven. I think they’re all around Seattle. I think they have one in Spokane or something like that. They are a seven or eight hamburger stand family. And they’ve made a fortune doing it because they’re really, really good at what they do. But then there’s people like, what a burger.

and McDonald’s and you know, those places, they are chain hamburger stores. So sometimes it’s just personal preference. But if you’re a one hamburger stand guy and you want to become a five hamburger stand guy, but it requires taking out a loan or it requires doing this, that or the, and all of sudden you’re like, what if I can’t pay the loan back? What if, I’m doing well with one, but five might be too many. What if I can’t find somebody to help me? Now you’re, you’re tracking in that fear and you say,

just going to stay with one hamburger stand. You never know if you could have been a five hamburger stand guy, let alone a franchise hamburger stand guy.

Dylan Silver (13:15)
Yeah.

And you know.

I’m in Texas right now and I think of a restaurant that I was at recently, Hop Dottie, which is like a burger. Yeah, and they’re not everywhere, but they are great. They’ve got the shakes, they’ve got the burgers and ⁓ some others as well. And I think about these regional brands that people really, really resonate with. And you mentioned the one from your neck of the woods in Seattle.

Chris Widener (13:27)
Hot daddy, yeah.

Yep. ⁓

Dylan Silver (13:46)
That’s one of these things where it’s like, well, when you’re in that neck of the woods, you’re going to that place and they’ve got that niche carved out for themselves. I did want to pivot here though, Chris, and ask you about speaking and for folks who are getting into speaking or in a role where there’ll be speaking in front of others often, ⁓ what tips would you give folks for connecting with their audience if they’re getting into speaking?

Chris Widener (14:05)
Okay.

Yeah. So there’s two kinds of speakers. People who speak for work, senior VP has to talk at the sales thing. And then there’s people who want to do it for a living. So I’ll talk first to those who are want just to, you know, they’re doing it for work and they got to give three or four speeches a year, something like that. Number one, I can help you. If you want some help, like crafting something, reach out to me, Chris at chrisweidener.com. But secondly, I would say this. Number one, nobody expects you to be good.

That’s the first thing you have to understand. Nobody expects you to be good. So there’s an old statistic that came up. In fact, Seinfeld used it as a joke in one of his standup routines. He talked about this statistic that came out that said most people are more, the number one fear of people is public speaking. The number two fear is death. That means that most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. That’s how Seinfeld put it.

Very funny. But think about that. And it’s true.

Most people are terrified of public speaking. So now they’re at the sales meeting and up walks the sales manager. Nobody expects you to be Tony Robbins. They don’t, you’re the sales manager. The only thing they’re thinking is, it’s better him than me. I’m glad I’m not up there talking, right? And if you are even remotely good, you’re gonna be a superstar because nobody expected you to be good. I mean, they already know you, they know you’re not a professional speaker. Now, if you’re a professional speaker and they pay me to come in,

I darn well better be good because they’re like, we paid how much for this guy? Right. And so the reality is, if you’re doing it for, ⁓ you know, if you’re doing it for, for work per se, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Learn your product, get it down cold, learn your service, know as much as you possibly can, because the key to delivering a great speech is having your content down pat. That way, if you lose your

space or your paper all falls off, your notes fall off and now you had 12 pages and they’re in every certain order. You don’t need them because you know what you’re going to talk about because you know your content cold. If you’re a professional speaker, there’s a lot more to it. You have the business side, you have the social media, you have the website, you have the marketing, you have all those kinds of things. I actually have coaching programs for people. It’s one-on-one coaching programs for people who want to build that out.

But I would end by saying this, particularly in the real estate business. ⁓ I think that there are certain professions where everyone ought to write a book and everyone ought to give speeches. And real estate would be one of them. And I know you have a wide variety. I don’t care if it’s an agent, a real estate agent, a loan broker, an ⁓ investor, doesn’t matter. Write a book. And here’s why you should write a book and give speeches on that book. So you’re going to write the book because you’re the expert.

Now imagine this, you’re a realtor and you’re going in and you’re gonna make a presentation to get somebody to list their house with you and they’re looking at four agents. Everybody and everybody comes in with the same stuff. Here’s my glossy flyer, here’s everybody saying how great I am, here’s three references. What’s the difference? You’re the difference when you plop a book down on there that says seven things you need to know before selling your house. Now they say, wow, we should go with the author. She must be an expert, she wrote a book on it.

I’m like, thank you for the book. We’re going to read through this. You helped us so much through the book. We’re going to take you on as our, as our real estate agent. When they ask the most respected professions in America, author is almost always in the top three. People respect people who write a book. If you need some help writing a book, I do that as well. But the other thing is then going out and giving speeches on those books. And you say, well, who’s going to hire me? Nobody might hire you, but there is more than one way to make money.

You can make money giving free speeches. If you hit every Rotary town, if you live in a big city, if you live in a big city with 250,000 people and there’s 50 Rotary groups, you can speak at a different Rotary group every single week. And they’re looking for speakers. you know, Rotary has some affluent people in it. You go in there, you talk about your book, and now you walk out, somebody says, Hey, do you do listings? Yeah, I do listings. okay, great. I’m about ready to sell my house. Million dollar house.

That’s 30 grand in your pocket. You just made $30,000 giving a free speech to a rotary club.

Dylan Silver (19:07)
I don’t know.

Yeah, and I think that there’s a lot of, I’m a realtor in Texas, there’s a lot of realtors who are looking for new niches to ⁓ mine leads, right? And they don’t want to do the same thing because it feels like, maybe that’s a method that’s been tried out too much. ⁓ We are coming up on time here, Chris, any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you?

Chris Widener (19:27)
Yep.

Yeah, I think for your audience, probably the best things would be, ⁓ I do personal coaching, executive coaching. These are for successful people who want to take their life and career to the next level. And it’s holistic coaching. So it’s not just business coaching. It’s business, life, all of it together, because frankly, life and business go together. People say, how does that work? Well, you ever had a fight with your spouse and then tried to have a good day at work? It doesn’t work very well, right? So happy home, happy business. We cover all of that to help you.

⁓ Succeed in achieving your life if you want to become a speaker you want to have somebody take a look at your speech that you’re giving maybe just in business I can help you with that or writing your book I have a six-month coaching program and I help you walk through the whole steps and get you going and get you ⁓ Moving towards getting your book done. They can reach me at [email protected] they can actually just go and look me up if they’ve never heard of me ChrisWidener.com and ⁓

In the last two years, I’ve been named by Global Gurus as one of the top 30 sales speakers in the world. So I can help you if you’re in sales, which almost everybody’s in sales. ⁓ But would love to have you reach out to me and connect and see if there’s any way that I might be able to