Many of us chase the external dream – the fancy title, the big bank account – only to find ourselves feeling empty; but what if true success isn’t about external validation? What if the key to unlocking your full potential lies dormant within you? Join Brad Chandler, President of Brad Chandler Coaching, as he exposes how limiting beliefs hold us back from success and overcoming them with inner transformation. These subconscious thoughts, formed in childhood, can hold you back from achieving everything you deserve. You might be chasing money, relationships, or career success, but a hidden belief about your worthiness is keeping you from reaching it. Plus, you can uncover your limiting beliefs with Brad’s FREE Self-Love Quiz! Listen now and embrace your limitless you with Brad Chandler.
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Building Success From The Inside Out: Limiting Beliefs, Inner Transformation, And Success With Brad Chandler
Everybody, welcome to another episode of the show. We’re going to talk about something cool. I mentioned when I did the relaunch of season three that we were going to talk more about isolating yourself and taking care of yourself and putting things out there that need to be addressed and so on and so forth. My guests, Brad Chandler and I are going to have some cool conversations that are going to be more about an entrepreneur and making sure that you have the right pieces personally in place. I’m assuming that’s where we’re going, right, Brad?
We’re going to teach you how to have inner success so you can have more outer success.
I know most people who are tuning in are probably on the newer side, but I also know there’s a large portion of people who have been in it for a while. I know for myself, as somebody who didn’t come from money, I had stability in my life to a certain degree, but I didn’t have a success mentor. I didn’t have success father figure, mother figure, uncle figure, or aunt figure.
I didn’t know what it was like to be successful other than hurry up and break a whole bunch of stuff and try to figure out how to do what people were telling me I couldn’t do. A lot of us forget about the whole part of success being not just the money side of things but also health and your inner peace and everything else. This is an exciting conversation for me. Before we jump into that, let’s talk about who you are and how you got started in real estate as an entrepreneur. What brought you to the point you’re at now?
Brad’s Journey To Entrepreneurhsip
I’d love to. I want to comment on one thing that you said. I’m so glad you came around and said that because I was going to ask you what is your definition of success. Growing up, every piece of a new segment and everything that talked about success, what was it always? It’s always about money. Let’s fast forward. You’re tuning in to this and in twenty years, you have $10 million in the bank, but your kids both have addiction problems. Your marriage is about to be divorced and you’re 65 pounds overweight.
Would you consider yourself a success? It’s your definition, but success has very little to do with money because what we all are going to be doing one day is lying on our deathbeds minutes or hours away from dying. I promise you, you’re not going to be like, “God, I’m so glad I made X amount of dollars.” You’re going to be asking yourself, what were the relationships like in your life that counted and what was the impact that you made in this world? You were put here to make a massive impact in this world. I promise you, despite what anyone told you.
Jumping into my story, I had an investor buy my neighbor’s house back in 2002 in Vienna, Virginia. I wouldn’t talk to him. He said, “You can buy real estate. I buy real estate 30% below market.” I was like, I read a book when I was in 9th grade, but I don’t remember that.” I was like, “I’m going to do this.” This was in November 2002. For eight long months, I worked my ass off.
I was working a full-time job. I come home at 6:00, spend from 6:00 to 8:00 with my newborn son, and from 8:00 to 11:00 every night, pounding “We buy houses” signs and addressing envelopes. Each week that went by, I wasn’t getting a deal. I was showing up to these meetings and everyone was holding up their checks like, “I made this.” I was like, “If they can do it, I can do it.” In July of 2003, I bought my first house. In July and August, I bought six houses.
In October, I went to my boss and said, “I quit. I’m going to start Express Home Buyers.” I came home and told my wife at the time and she’s like, “Have you lost your mind? We have a newborn son and I have two kids you’re supporting.” I’m like, “It’ll be fine.” Here we are 4,500 deals later and we’re not still married, but everything has been fine. If you’re struggling to find your first deal, know that I did it struggling for eight months and I didn’t have a guy like Don to turn to. I didn’t have anything. I had one investor that I would call periodically and he was a help, but he wasn’t mentoring me or I didn’t have any program. That’s my story.
You’ve been an entrepreneur for a number of years. I’m sure at one point, you were intoxicated by the money and the lifestyle and everything else that came with it. I know we run in some of the same circles and rub elbows with people who make quite a bit of money. When you’re running in circles with people who make quite a bit of money, you don’t have a lot of the same problems that people have early on in entrepreneurship. You always have problems but you have also a lot of opportunities. You have a lot of fun and a good time. It can be intoxicating. Through your entrepreneurial journey, what led you to decide that you needed to not just be chasing money? You need to be chasing somebody else.
Up until three years ago, everything I did was around proving my worth because I didn’t feel worthy. It was real estate. I picked real estate for two reasons. One, because when I was ten years old, my dad stopped paying when he moved out and helped us out. My mom said, “We might lose the house and move into public housing.” My little ten-year-old brain said, “I heard about shootings there.”
Here’s the learning that I imprinted on my brain, “If you don’t have money, you move to public housing and you get shot.” Number one, I got into real estate because I didn’t want to ever be without a home. Number two, I knew by reading that book in ninth grade that there was an unlimited income potential. That’s why I got into real estate and I did all of these crazy things trying to prove my worth.
I lost $9 million in five business mistakes, my partner and I. I had two marriages that didn’t work out. I used to use weed and alcohol on a regular basis. I had kids with anxiety and behavioral problems. I didn’t have great relationships with them. The list goes on and on. What changed? Three years ago, trying to get my son help for anxiety, I was on a Zoom call and the performance coach said, “You have a tick.” I was like, “What are you talking about?”
She said, “You blink profusely when you talk about your childhood. You may have some unresolved childhood trauma that is affecting your son’s anxiety.” I’m like, “No way, lady. I’m a single dad. I do everything for my kids. I’m there in the morning and the night. I take my son around the country playing golf and golf tournaments. If you think, I’ll come out because I’ll do anything at this point.”
In a three-hour session in this Airbnb bedroom outside of Park City, Utah, my life forever changed. I came back a completely different human being than the one that went out there. I looked around at all the people that I knew who were suffering from addiction, depression, anxiety, weight issues, divorces, and infidelity. You name it. I’m like, “They are suffering for the very same reason that I was suffering. I’m going to try to start talking about my story to some of these people.”
I started talking and people were opening up to me. I had so many people the first six months say, “I’ve never told anyone that in my life,” or “You’re the only second person I’ve told. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” Some of these people didn’t even know me that well. I was like, “Maybe I have a gift for this,” then I started studying and I studied under some of the best people. Now, my full time is as a happiness coach helping people overcome these hidden limiting beliefs that were created in childhood to get them through stressful situations.
Now, my real estate business runs without me. I spend an hour a week. I show up to a manager’s meeting on Thursdays at 9:30. We didn’t even have one this Thursday, so I put in zero hours. It allows me to do what I was put here. My massive mission is to help a million people break from these limiting beliefs that we all have that are keeping us from health, business success, relationships, kids with behavioral problems, depression, anxiety, and everything. That’s what I do now and there’s a little formula in there that we’ll get to in a second.
One of the reasons why I want to have this conversation, I kicked off this season by wanting to be more open with the audience about some of the things that I go through as an entrepreneur, a husband, and a father. There are a lot of things I’m grateful for. I have three amazing kids. They’re all close. My son drives home purposely from college to spend time binging on stuff with me like Game of Thrones or Sopranos. That stuff is all in line.
One of the things that I do and a lot of entrepreneurs do when they struggle, whether it’s personally or financially and business. Sometimes your business isn’t where it’s supposed to be. We’ll isolate. We won’t communicate with the people around us who are there to support us. One of the things I take pride in is I will usually open the conversation for the weekend with some of the things I’m struggling with in business to give people permission to come to that meeting to solve their problems. Not just pound their chests if that makes sense.
We see so many people around us being successful that we isolate and we don’t seek out help from our mentors, leaders, our community, and our friends. I want to hit on that a little bit. Is that something you’re seeing as well? How do you get over that? How do you find the bravery or purpose or whatever it is to give yourself permission to seek help from somebody and have those deep conversations to work through things so you’re not doing it alone?
Limiting Beliefs
When you are comparing yourself to other people or you are afraid to tell your true story and be your authentic self, it all has to do with pain from childhood every single time. As children, we have two primary needs. One is to be attached to our parents because without attachment, how many days can we survive? If we’re not getting food and water from our parents, we’re going to be dead. The other is authenticity and that’s the ability to be ourselves.
When mom doesn’t give you a cookie when you’re six years old and you tell her that you hate her. She goes into a tailspin and cries for two hours, then Dad comes home and spanks you. What do you learn in that moment? You learn that if you are your true self, love will be taken from you. Ultimately, if love is taken from you, you lose the attachment and you die.
All of the negative stuff in our life is our brain’s attempt at trying to protect ourselves from something it thinks is worse. We eat a ton because eating makes us feel better about maybe not being the person that we thought we were. Drinking keeps us from feeling these negative feelings. Working a hundred hours a week helps us to prove our worth by becoming successful with a lot of money.
All of the negative stuff in our life is our brain's attempt to protect ourselves from something it thinks is worse. Click To Tweet
Self-Love Quiz
Back to your question, if you’re isolating, you are not being your authentic self and using your resources because you don’t want people to judge you. How do you fix that? Everything becomes clear with awareness. One of the things I did is I created this self-love quiz that takes three minutes. It’s only twelve questions. This is going to tell you if you have these limiting beliefs that are driving you. Go to UnlockLimitlessYou.com/quiz and take this quiz because you cannot change without awareness.
I’m going to say this again because it’s probably the most important thing I can say. If you’re suffering from anything, you have a negative behavior that you cannot stop. You overeat and overdrink. You have depression and anxiety, and your business is in chaos. It’s not your fault. It’s your brain’s attempt at protecting you from something it thinks is worse.
I have major anxiety. I’m making this up. When I get on stage, my body feels sweaty and my face gets red. My chest feels tight. I don’t like it, but what is it protecting me from? It’s protecting me from this untruth that’s driving the negative behavior. That untruth is if I get on stage and I mess up, I’m going to get disparaged and made fun of like my dad did. Therefore, if my dad did that, then there goes the attachment and I’m going to die.
Our body is protecting us. We don’t hear this stuff in typical psychology, therapy, and marriage counseling. It’s all counteractive measures, “You have anxiety before getting on stage. Let’s teach you how to do some breathing exercises. Do you have an alcohol problem? Let’s teach you how to drive home so you don’t go by the liquor store. You eat too much. Let’s do you a diet plan.” Why does none of that shit work? It’s because you have to get to the source.
Every single problem you have is being driven by an underlying limiting belief that’s untrue. When you show your brain that, your brain can’t hold two conflicting thoughts. It’s like, “All these years, I thought I wasn’t enough. If I spoke out, no one would love me but here, I can speak out and people will love me.” The negative thing vanishes forever. This is taught by less than probably one-half of 1% of every therapist life coach and psychologist because they don’t even know about it. It’s like new science that has been out in the last twenty years.
I can throw a personal thing out there. My wife and I went to marriage counseling for a number of years. It’s probably about a decade throughout our marriage. In a lot of those cases, they take notes and they listen. They’re whole premises that have you work through your own problem. They’ll guide you with some questions here and there. I found that it very limiting in the sense that they’re not coaching, not helping, and not guiding. They’re basically taking notes. How does that feel? What does that mean? It’s like, “What’d you learn from this? What should I be doing? You can’t get that advice from them anyway. Hopefully, that makes sense.
This is great because there are going to be a lot of people tuning in to this who are in bad relationships. Here’s why marriage counseling doesn’t work. The problem with relationships is never the actual relationship. It’s the relationship that each individual has with themselves. You go to these marriage counseling sessions and by the way, I went to 50 with two different wives. They’d be like, “Hold your wife’s hand more. Be more affectionate. Take her on more date nights.”
The problem with relationships is never the actual relationship. It's the relationship that each individual has with themselves. Click To Tweet
All of that shit doesn’t work when you feel you’re not enough and you have no connection to yourself and you’re fighting for your worthiness. When you are fighting for your worthiness, you feel not enough, and you lack self-love, you’re not going to go marry someone with extreme self-love. You’re going to match to someone on your level. Now you have two people who are fighting for their worthiness. It either ends up in a codependent relationship where one person is like, “I don’t deserve any better, so I’m just going to take whatever,” or it ends up with what I did, constant fighting and intention.
If you have relationship problems or if your kids have behavioral problems and you want to look at the source, go in the bathroom mirror. It’s you, but it’s not your fault. It’s you trying to protect yourself from this limiting belief that you probably don’t even know exists in your mind. That was me for 47 years. That has been 120 of my clients. That’s why our prisons are full. That’s why hospitals are full.
That’s why we have a 73% divorce rate. That’s why 70% of Americans are on a prescription drug and 33% of Americans, 100 million people are on an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drug. Do you know how many of those people should be on those drugs? Probably 1/100 of a percent because here’s what therapy and modern medicine do. You got a problem, let’s mask it. You’re hemorrhaging from your arm, let’s stick a Band-Aid on there. Let’s not figure out why you’re hemorrhaging. Let’s put a Band-Aid on there.
What we do that’s so different is we go to the source of the problem. We heal it from the source. Not from trying to come up with these silly counteractive measures that may get you a half-percent increase. It’s not going to change. You’re always going to go back to your old ways until you figure out what’s driving you.
It is core that people look at the things that drive them. They look at the things that hold them back and they solve those things. For me and a lot of entrepreneurs, we just want to make money. We want to make freedom, but it’s to prove something. A lot of what I did was to prove to people that they were wrong about me that I could succeed, I could overcome that obstacle, or I was smart enough to do it. Whatever it was. I know that was a lot of my journey.
I also know that you put me on a time clock. It’s like putting me in prison. I can’t do it, but a lot of my drive was proving that I could. The funny thing about that though is you think that once you achieve success, you’re going to get validation, accolades, and praise from the friends and family around you. What happens is you end up separating yourself from them in a lot of ways because now you’re on a different path and a different trajectory.
You have different options, opportunities, and problems. You’re having different conversations. Alex Hormozi talks about going home at Thanksgiving being like going back to a time capsule situation where they want to hold him to the person he was a decade ago and that’s not the person he is now. He doesn’t even want to go home anymore. Those accolades and validations you’re chasing aren’t going to be there in a lot of times when you’ve achieved your success. If you don’t have your personal self in check, you’re going to end up with a lot more struggle along the way.
I got into business, and probably a lot of people got into business for the same reason, it sounds like you did, because I wanted to prove something. When I have $10 million, then I’ll be worthy. I’ll be worthy of love and I’ll be happy. Here’s the secret. You can get that today, whether you have a dollar in your bank account or $10 million in your bank account. I can teach you. I can show you how to get that feeling that you think $10 million will bring you. I can show you how to get it today.
Here’s the irony. When you have that inner self-love and happiness today, the chances of you making $10 million in the next five years go through the roof. People think money brings happiness. It’s been proven scientifically that it’s the opposite. Happiness brings money. I got into real estate for one reason, to make a bunch of money. I never cared about real estate. Look behind me at these books. I have hundreds of books on psychology and trauma, reversing childhood programming, and neuroscience.
I could go now and get a little beach umbrella and sit on a beach for eight hours a day for the rest of my life and never ever get bored. Do you think that I’m good at what I do and I’m going to get better? Yes, because I love it. I invested with a friend of mine who sent me the paperwork years ago on this partition lawsuit he’s doing and he wanted some money. I gave it to him and he sent me the paperwork. It was twenty pages. I didn’t even read it all. It was so boring to me. I couldn’t care less. When you find something that you truly love to do, you never work another day in your life.
When you find something you truly love to do, you never work another day in your life. Click To Tweet
Is there anything that I haven’t hit on that you feel needs to be said in this episode or a message needs to be delivered to the audience in any way, shape, or form?
There’s so much we can talk about. Why do I have a business that runs itself? Why is it that in the last three years since I’ve gone through this transformation has my health never been better? My intimate relationship has never been better and on and on. Why is that? It’s because I stopped trying to make money to prove my worth. I shifted to making an impact. Why am I on this call with you now? It’s not about making money. It’s because someone is going to tune in to this.
They’re going to go take the self-love quiz at UnlockLimitlessYou.com and their life will forever be changed because they’re going to start this journey. If you’re in business, you have to do some soul-searching because you deal with a lot of new investors. Ask yourself, “Is this what I was meant to do or am I doing it to make money to think that it’s going to prove my worth?” That’s one important thing. If you’re struggling, know that I struggled for eight months. Now, twenty-something years later, I have a company that runs without me and I do well financially.
The last point is that if you’re suffering or struggling, life wasn’t meant to be that way, despite what people tell you or what you may think. You deserve to be in an amazing relationship that you look forward to coming home with. You deserve to have a healthy fit body. You deserve to have a business, if that’s what you choose that works. You should have kids that are close to you. All of the stuff you deserve, and if you don’t have it, it’s not your fault.
How To Be Happier For Entrepreneurs
It is your childlike brain trying to protect you from something that this thought that we keep talking about that’s driving the negative behavior. It had its purpose when you were 2, 3, 4, 10, or 12 years old, but now it’s destroying you. Know that if you’re willing and ready to do the work and you’re suffering in any aspect of your life, it can change wildly and drastically. It doesn’t take 30 years of therapy now. I have this method where in 3 to 5 hours, my clients have massive breakthroughs. If you like this type of information and you want more, I have a podcast that has soared to the top 3% in just eight months. It’s called How to be Happier for Entrepreneurs. Check it out.
I don’t want to beat this to death. I think we got the message across. As an entrepreneur, as you’re starting out, know your why and know why you’re doing this. By all means, we’re not saying. “Don’t chase money. Don’t chase success. Don’t chase freedom.” Know why you’re doing it, have a purpose behind it, and fix the issues that are going to limit you. I know a lot of people will get to a certain point of success, and then they’ll throttle themselves back for whatever reason in belief, whether they know they’re doing it or not, and more sabotage.
I look back and the $9 million and I lost my partner and me over these fifteen years, maybe it was my subconscious saying, “You don’t deserve this money. You got to give it back.” It’s so crazy when you hear that. Most people are like, “That could never happen.” Let me tell you, it happens more often than you think.
It does and it has happened to me. I fully agree. Check out Brad’s podcast.
The website is UnlockLimitlessYou.com and the show is How to be Happier for Entrepreneurs. Do yourself, your family, your business, and your friends a favor and go now. It only takes three minutes and take the quiz. See where you stand.
Definitely do that. Take the quiz. Let’s fix the issues that hold us back. Let’s fix the issues that don’t allow us to become who we deserve to be so they make the best impact we possibly can. I want to continue this conversation. I’ll probably have you back on periodically. My mission this season is to hammer people with the fact that you can’t self-isolate. You should have the tools to achieve your maximum success. Our job as entrepreneurs is to get the freedom so that we can help impact lives and touch another generation. I want to have you back on to hit that more often.
Let me say one thing that your students and your audience would appreciate. You provide great information on how people can be financially successful in real estate. If you have this limiting belief, this hidden thing that I keep talking about, Don may say, “You need to go cold-call sellers or you need to go call realtors.”
You get this sensation over your body, this anxiety, and you’re like, “I can’t do it.” You’re like, “I’m a failure. I’ll never amount to anything.” That’s not your fault. Why is it that some people can go through Don’s program and be wildly successful and others can’t? For the ones that can’t, it’s not because you’re dumb. It’s because these limiting beliefs are holding you back. If you focus on these, you crush those, then the sky is the limit for you.
I can’t say a negative thing about anything that we’ve had a conversation about, especially that. Brad, thank you very much for your time. If you’ve gotten value from this show, check out Brad’s podcast and go take that test. If you want to find out more about what’s going on in the Flip Talk universe, go over to FlipTalk.com. We have all kinds of tools and resources and some amazing new things we’re going to be launching here in the very near future. We have a Facebook community that we’re very proud of. I would send an email to Don@fliptalk.com if you’re interested in being part of that and we’ll get an invite out to you. Brad, thank you very much for being here and I appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Brad Chandler – Twitter
- Express Home Buyers
- UnlockLimitlessYou.com/quiz
- How to be Happier for Entrepreneurs
- FlipTalk.com
- Don@fliptalk.com