What Should You Give Up For Growth?

What Should You Give Up For Growth?

Sean: So amazing how you are still continually growing, even though, you know, a lot of people would say, why do you need to do what you do? Craig, you mean you’re there, you’re made. Why do you need to do all these things? What would you tell these kinds of people?

Craig: Look, I’m just super passionate about what I do like I get up every day and go, wow, you know, I’ve built from nothing to something. I feel that I’m contributing to the planet every single day. Through this pandemic, I created a bit of a side podcast where I call it “Navigating the fog and driving on the other side,” and that there is to help people understand some ideas and bring together some really interesting people, in medical, and law, and so on, to help them navigate their way through this situation but thrive on the other side is about my original vision of helping people maximize their one shot at life.

Craig: So, you know, I’m in a situation at the moment where I’m actually getting in front of some really interesting people that are opening some interesting doors, and the thrill of the chase of being on the journey excites me. And again, if I retire financially probably, I feel a part of me is permanently dying. So, yeah, I’m always excited, when I’m not excited about what I’m doing, I just won’t do it. I don’t have to.

Sean: Yeah, makes sense. How do you continuously grow today, Craig? I mean, when I ask you, how does your day look like and where – which points of your day do you read books, listen to podcasts, talk with your mentors? What would it be?

Craig: All of the above. But every day I would listen to, probably because, you know, the last two years I haven’t been doing what I normally do, so my days are changed to what I would like them to be. I was on an incredible adventure of traveling the world 20 weeks a year, you know, Philippines one day, India the next, Africa the day after. But my days now because of lockdown and that I probably do spend the best part of three hours a day learning, listening to podcasts, you know, continuing to grow. I like networking time, continually networking with the right type of people.

Craig: Last year, I did something that I wanted to do for a long time. A mentor of mine, name’s Gerard Adams, sold his first business for $50 million before age 30, and I did some private work with him last year. And now we’re really good friends and this wasn’t working out with my schedule, his schedule. But because I was in lockdown, I said, You know what, I’m going to do that, and because I did that, I spent a lot of money doing that.

Craig: I ended up doing work with Jay Shetty and Aubrey Marcus, which are two incredible entrepreneurs that have done amazing things and then built a great relationship with a guy called Brandon Collinsworth, who runs high performance at Nike and launch Nike yoga. So, you know, I love learning and connecting with people and having good conversations and then adding value to shows like yours. I do get excited by doing what I do now.

Sean: And we have had a lot of value already. I mean, the stuff that you shared, my gosh. Now let’s take your god-like level down a little bit, and I’m going to ask you a question like, what do you do for entertainment, Craig? I mean, do you ever, you know, do something normal human-like, like the rest of us?

Craig: My whole, I would call, the number one value and mantra in my life is the idea of freedom, the ability to do what I want, when I want, with whoever I want, without any restriction. Now I’ve been in a lockdown for two years, two hundred and fifty days, the most locked down city in the world. I haven’t been able to travel more than five kilometers of allowed to leave my house for one hour a day. I’ve got a curfew at nine o’clock at night.

Craig: Schools have been shut for two years like it’s – I feel like a bird in a bird cage. So I asked that question two years ago. My answer to that question is to experience, everything I did in life was about experience. So I played in a charity basketball game in the Philippines. A wonderful experience. I’ve traveled into Africa and done some amazing things there. I spent time in Russia. You know, I’ve traveled all through Europe, spent eight weeks at a time basically living in different cities around the world.

Craig: So I wanted, my whole entertainment is intertwined with life. You know, people used to say, “Craig, you spent 20 weeks here traveling the world” and it’s a bit like “Yeah, that’s just my life,” know I’m taking my young family with me, I’ve had the joys of staying in three thousand dollars a night bungalows in Bora Bora, two castles on Lake Geneva – to extreme poverty in India, where you know one-star accommodation doesn’t even do it justice type of thing.

Craig: So, yeah, I’ve been caught up in terror attacks in Turkey, cult situations in India, Lebanon. I was in Lebanon the last day before the country got locked down for 30 days, where all roads are blocked and there were fires everywhere. And I was having dinner on the Champs-Élysées in Paris two days before where the major attack happened there a couple of years ago. And you just, life’s a bit of a whirlwind. But you know what? My number one form of entertainment is living life. You know, that’s it.

Sean: That’s amazing. When you said that, I could only imagine what the lockdown is doing to you.

Craig: So that’s why I did some work with Gerard last year as he’s done a lot of sort of that conscious entrepreneurship and spiritual stuff. So I said, you know, that’s a good time to do some self-care and really work in that space around meditation more, you know, a lot of deep work. And I was probably saved myself because it is for someone like me not being able to travel more than five kilometers. I’ve got a holiday house on the beach in my dream location, 50 minutes drive away. I haven’t been there for well over a year.

Sean: Oh my gosh, that’s tragic. Craig, I don’t want to take any more of your time is so precious and I’ve had like, this is already platinum levels. I’m so blessed to have you today. You know the lockdowns also happened here. It’s pretty bad in the Philippines, and we’ve been in a stop-and-go situation where we thought that we’re going to be stopping the total lockdowns and we can resume some businesses, and a lot of business owners resumed marketing only to have them be shut down again.

Sean: And the second in proceeding shutdowns, that actually makes it worse because you spent again for marketing and in hiring and then boom, things just get halted again. So as we close, as we end this session, what would be some words that you would want to give to these business owners who are not only frustrated at the government, at some of their people, maybe at their business but are also in a desperate and depressing situation right now?

Craig: Yeah, it’s a great question, and I’ll take myself back to that situation in the global financial crisis. So I went 18 months where my lunch was a bread roll and salad that my wife made, it was probably worth less than $1. And I did that for 18 months, and during that time I made some decisions. So the key bit of advice here is, you are at a crossroads in your life where you are required to make some decisions. Are you going to continue to bang your head against the wall like this for however long? Or are you going to make a decision to make a change in your life?

Craig: So for some people, it’s going to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back on what was always inevitable. They yeah, their business was never going to be any good anymore because of these restrictions, and the answer is already there. For some people who could be in their job where they don’t like their boss, they don’t like what money they’re making. They don’t like what they do on a daily basis. They’re there for a long period of time.

Craig: The decision might be “Ok, this is now I’ve made my decision that I’m going to move forward and what I need to do. There is a need to grow and evolve. I need to build my mindset. I need to build my skill set. I need to find an opportunity that will allow me to fulfill my true potential.” So low cost, low risk and limited potential opportunity which is what I’ve done in the Philippines. I used to run events in Makati for thousands and thousands of people would turn out when I would turn up in there. So budgetary wise a low-risk, low-cost opportunity, could be as much as two hundred dollars. And then you get a website and a product and a, you know, this something to help you work. Yes, some business tools, et cetera, that could be the thing.

Craig: But the point is if you keep taking the same skills, the same mindset, the same attitude in the next ten years when the next pandemic comes along with the next global financial crisis comes along, and the next lockdowns, and the next whatever. If you haven’t made the change today, you’re going to be in the same position again back then.

Craig: If I didn’t make that decision back in 2008 and I had five gyms, 222 new franchises 10 years later, it’s own 10 gyms and 44 franchises. I was bankrupt this time because of two hundred and fifty days of retail business where gyms haven’t opened. You can’t afford to pay for your equipment, your laces, your insurances, and when you can’t get customers in this business.

Craig: So the point is you need to make a decision. Life won’t bless you if you don’t bless yourself. I think it’s good as ‘if it is to be, it is up to me.’ You know, the 10 two letter words that I heard in my grade 10. When I was leaving Grade 10, I left home from there and it was, the principal said. ‘If it is to be, it is up to me. Now go and spread your wings and go and make something of your life. And from that point on, I’ve made something of my life.

Sean: That’s amazing. So get off whatever it is that you’re doing. It’s not going to work. Innovate, change. You know, that’s -.

Craig: Your business might be salvageable. You might be passionate about it. I’m not saying you have to quit your business. It might be something temporary and then you can soar like an eagle, but you might if you’re in that situation where you go, you know, even if everything opens up, this is a dying industry or I’m not passionate about it or I’m not making enough money out of it, or, you know, it doesn’t give me the lifestyle that I want to leave. You know, they’re the reasons that this injunction in life should lead you in a new direction.

Craig: I feel that I’m leaving into a new direction myself, again get it to innovate and evolve and what I say to people, what I’m building now is going to make quantum leaps of speed this time. You know, I went up in exponential. Next time is going to be quantum leaps, for sure.

Sean: And Craig, if people want to get in touch with you, where’s the best place to do that?

Craig: Yeah, simply my name. Craig Schulze. So craigschulze.com. I got lots of great tools on there. There’s an e-book called, “you work-life vision” book. You can download that. And it’s seven areas to master your life. So go and fill it out. Do it as an activity. I do it with all my coaching clients. I also and I can give you a link to this as well. I created a course that I used to charge a thousand dollars for that during the pandemic. I’ve just been giving it away to people in need.

Craig: So it’s called Rapid Freedom Framework, which is four modules to help people speed up their freedom. So I’m happy to give you that link as well. But just on the usual socials LinkedIn Instagram. Come and say, Hi, send me an email if you send an email to craig@craigschulze.com, you got value out of what I said or you read my blog or do anything like that. I answer all my emails. So yeah, I love hearing people’s stories. I’ve got hundreds of life-changing stories of people that have read my book, and I feel that it’s a real game-changer.

Sean: That is amazing. We’re all we’re going to have all of those links in the show notes. Just go to leadershipstack.com. Look for the episode with Craig Schulze, and we will have all of his links there to make it easy for you guys to download his stuff, get all of that really, a really important and precious resource that he has made available to you all. Craig, thank you so much for being on the show. We are better for it.

Craig: Absolutely. And thanks for having me on and as my book says, my brand says, “you’ve got one shot at life. Go out there and give it your best shot, whatever that is here. Live life with passion and purpose. You’re in the game. Go make the most of it.”