43: How To Find Your Purpose, Identity, And Community With Chris Do (Part 1)

I've been a member of the FuturPro Community for quite some time now, and it's with great honour that I introduce my special guest, Chris Do, onto the show.

Chris and I delve deep into the fundamental questions that resonate with many throughout their journey in life:

• What is our purpose in life?
• How do we go about defining our authentic identity?
• Where can we discover a sense of belonging within our community?

Drawing from his extensive experience and wealth of wisdom, Chris offers invaluable insights and practical advice aimed at helping creatives and introverts boost their self-confidence, unearth their life or career purpose, and carve out a unique identity within our community.

Join Chris and me in this engaging and powerful conversation as we uncover the answers to these profound questions together.

Here are the key takeaways from this episode:

02:45 - How Chris Do discovered his purpose and zone of genius
07:43 - How to adapt and avoid labels becoming limits in our identities
12:05 - Finding your two-word personal brand
20:20 - How the Futur Pro community helps creative entrepreneurs 
26:48 - Be the person that you needed in your own journey
32:16 - The value of having diverse voices and different points of view
34:36 - Why Futur Pro is not a cult
40:31 - How to operate on a generosity principle

About the Guest

Meet Chris Do, the Emmy award-winning designer and visionary behind The Futur—an online education platform that captures the essence of a private art school, without the crippling debt. 

Chris' journey is painted with a bold ambition to teach an impressive one billion people the art of earning a living by pursuing their passions. This mission isn't just a number for him—it's a testament to his deep-rooted belief in empowering individuals to unlock their potential.

With over 15 years teaching at ArtCenter and Otis College, he's also graced global stages from AIGA conferences to Digital Design Days in Milan.

Connect with Chris and be a part of his billion-strong vision on various platforms:

• Twitter
• Instag

Resources:

Join my fearlessly curious community and SIGN UP to JOIN my Fearlessly Authentic Living Community Newsletters for real client success stories and life strategies, reflections, contemplations and support you won't find anywhere else.

If you enjoy this episode, please SHARE, RATE and REVIEW the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

About Me:

I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma.

Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be.

Explore mindfulness, music, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.

Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris: I would lose job after job after job. I'm like, what is wrong with me? So it starts to affect your self confidence, your self worth. And I'm starting to have a lot of doubt. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. And so in that moment, I'm thinking, I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. I believe in my talent and my skill, but I don't know how to win business. So now I'm like, what am I going to do? I got to figure this thing out. I'm like this autodidact. Just give me a little information. I'm going to learn. I'm going to grow. This little snowflake going to turn into an avalanche. Right, we're going to do this and I start to win work, starts to build up my confidence. I start to try other things and I'm able to afford more people to help me figure this game out. So I spent the next two to five years just figuring things out on my own until I was able to hire a coach.

[00:00:52] Melissa: Hey there. Welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, your safe space to listen, lean in and learn the diverse. Of human experiences through the lens of fearless curiosity. When we learn more about each other, we also learn more about ourselves. How? Because when we listen to each other's curiosities and experiences, we relate to that which is in common, and that which sets us apart, gives us something to reflect on. We learn through and with each other. I'm grateful to you, the global community for your curious questions. The fearlessly curious podcast cannot exist without you.

[00:01:34] Melissa: And welcome to another episode of the Fearlessly Curious Podcast. Today, I have none other, we have none other than Chris Do on the podcast. And before I even let Chris speak, I just want to say, Chris, I'm so grateful to have you here. I've been in the Future Pro Group for over a year now, and I just want to let everybody know, even before I hit record, the minute I saw Chris on my screen, just to say hello, all you've done, Chris is give, give, give, give. Support, support, support. And just be the mentor and amazing coach and person that you are. So thank you for being here on the Fearlessly Curious Podcast. How are you doing, Chris?

[00:02:18] Chris: I’m doing fantastic. It’s Friday. I'm just sailing into the weekend. So I'm in a good mood. So good to see you.

[00:02:22] Melissa: Well, that's an extra bonus for me. I'm going to jump straight into it. For those people out there who don't know who Chris Do is, you're in for a huge, a huge, a huge, incredible rollercoaster ride. Chris, I know that your one liner is that you want to teach one billion people how to make a living doing what they love. Why Chris? 

[00:02:45] Chris: I used to describe myself as a graphic designer, a person who designs graphics, right? That seems to make sense, and I carried that identity for a really long time. But there's an identity that supersedes or precedes designer, which is teacher. I've always loved teaching, sharing, giving. And I think as a young person, I thought, I don't want to get too high on myself here.

[00:03:06] Chris: What is it that I actually know how to do? But I'm excited to share things and to see someone's eyes light up or to see a smile or you can almost hear it as a teacher when that switch is flipped and you hear that. And it's such a great feeling in the world. And I struggled with that identity. I suppressed it like I did by designer tendencies because I didn't think.

[00:03:27] Chris: Teaching or doing design work would actually lead me to a career or a life that I wanted to have. So I suppressed those concepts until much, much later in my life, until I found a way to share this with people and build a business model around it. I found, I think, my perfect happy place, my zone of genius.

[00:03:45] Melissa: And what is it that happened in your life that guided you to discovering this? Because you said it wasn't until I found it.

[00:03:53] Chris: Well, if we all look back in our lives, the people who made a difference, it could be a family member, it could be a parent, but oftentimes they're teachers. And for me, I went to public school and I didn't have access to the best teachers in the world.

[00:04:07] Chris: Let's just say as part of public school system here in America, it's not exactly great, but there were some who showed me a little kindness, gave me a little extra rope, or for whatever reason, took me under their wing. And I got to tell you as a. Young person still figuring out my own voice in the world and that's sure of myself.

[00:04:28] Chris: Those gestures of kindness and generosity have really stuck with me. Or it could just be the way that the teacher taught using a Socratic approach asking us to frame the problem or just think about things differently. I mean for me who I don't love math, my math teacher got me excited about math and he made us think.

[00:04:45] Chris: I carried those lessons unknowingly and so later on of course I meet the person who ultimately pushes me into the public speaking teaching space, which is my former business partner, Jose Caballero. And here we are in 2014, I'm 42 years old, and he says to me, let's go make some YouTube videos. And I was thinking, why would I ever want to do that?

[00:05:07] Chris: There's just a bunch of Yahoo wannabes near to do wells that don't know anything that are on YouTube. And I was being very judging. And I don't think I was wrong in that assessment, because that's typically who is making YouTube videos. The logic goes, if you're a busy, successful professional, if you're credentialed, if you're acknowledged and recognized in the world, what are you doing on YouTube?

[00:05:30] Chris: This is a platform for kids. So we all thought. But something happened. People started to realize the transformative power of distribution of social channels and professionals started getting involved. So you could see at first it was a little trickle and then it was a torrential downpour and it was like now we see former JPL NASA scientists creating content.

[00:05:53] Chris: We see people who are professional chefs close their restaurants to create content on social because they find more fulfilment and it allows them to develop a direct relationship with their audience, their fans, their community, their students. And I think it's such a wonderful thing. So I'm going to give credit where credit is due.

[00:06:11] Chris: There's a couple of people who are involved. One is my wife for challenging me to reach beyond private art school and give and share my gifts to more people. Jose Caballero, who said, let's use YouTube to fulfil that desire. And number three, probably one of the most important characters in my life, besides my parents is my former business coach, Kira McLaren, who passed away last year. He said, Chris, you're trying your best and you're doing a really good job of being the best kept secret in the world. I need you to go out there, get outside of your introverted self, say hello to people, stop being so antisocial and do some public speaking.

[00:06:47] Chris: And I think what he was doing was setting the foundational layers for me to be able to say yes to Jose. years later. 

[00:06:55] Melissa: Wow. Chris, I'm like getting emotional just listening to you. There's so much there that I'd love to continue to explore with you. Let's start with identity. Well, there's two things. You mentioned identity and what is typical.

[00:07:07] Melissa: First of all, you talked about being a graphic designer, but actually ultimately deep down inside, you identified with the teacher qualities. And in fact, it would seem, and this is me interpreting. So if at any point, I've misinterpreted, please, please, please, please correct me. And then you went on to say that it was the teacher type.

[00:07:25] Melissa: There's a certain quality within a teacher that actually helps you open up. And that was the turning point for when you changed your direction. And then you talked about how you pivoted into. video and YouTube, a platform that was typical for the Yahoo type dot, dot, dot, all the other adjectives that you describe it.

[00:07:43] Melissa: So let's start with the identity because this is something I'm also passionate with. Like as humans, we thrive in connection and where there is a need to have a sense of belonging, which I believe is where identity shows up. How do we navigate, how do we become more adaptable to the identities that we identify with or the labels that we identify with so that our labels don't become limits?

[00:08:08] Chris: Well, this one's going to be a tough one because anytime you try to reduce down complex ideas, nuances into a singular word or words, you are going to limit yourself and it's helpful in external communication. So, like, if I introduce myself at a party and someone says, what do you do? How do you identify?

[00:08:29] Chris: And I go in this diatribe tribe that's 25 minutes long, they're like, uh, I'm bored, I'm getting out of here. This is a blowhard full of himself. And it would sound like that even though you're not, you're trying to give this very nuanced picture. So what we don't want to do is we don't want to do that because it makes a lot of assumptions that are really interesting and people are interested in us.

[00:08:48] Chris: So what we have to do is we have to pick a language that people understand or are familiar with. We might put a little twist on it and so that it provokes curiosity. Yeah. Fiercely curious. So then we invite people to ask us more if they're interested and if they're not, we don't have to say any more. So I'm a big believer and proponent of trying to make complex things simple.

[00:09:12] Chris: So if I were to try to tell you my whole life story, it'd be too much for you and you're probably not that interested in it. And so something that I try to help people in our community, community being our coaching group, is to find their two word brand. To find two words that straddle a true vulnerability, a shadow self in the kind of Jungian description, things that we feel shame or guilt around, our weakness, things that we'd rather not admit to the world, and to find strength in our weakness and our vulnerability.

[00:09:40] Chris: And when we find that two word pairing, it's a beautiful, magical thing. It doesn't have to be serious. It doesn't have to be deeply emotional or philosophical. It could just be funny. But the thing it needs to be is true, valuable, and memorable. It needs to have those traits. So I'm on Instagram. I'm looking at people who work out.

[00:09:58] Chris: And then I stop on this guy's workout videos, mostly because of his one word brand. So he took two words, smashed them together. Cause idea is if 30 words are good and two words are better than 30, then one must be better than two. It's a reductive process. And he refers to himself as a Swoldier. So he's swol.

[00:10:18] Chris: He's worked out Swoldier. And I'm like, this is brilliant. I don't know how you did it, but that's excellent. And we have a friend in common, Phyllis Strouder, who goes by grandma or grandmother. Yes. Taking the word grandmother in brand. And creating grandmother And grandma's house is an excellent example of how to do that.

[00:10:40] Chris: I wish I could tell you I taught them how to do this, and I didn't. One is a stranger, one is a friend, but they instinctively know how to do these things and make it memorable. You see, when you take your weakness, and I describe this to people, I'm trying to reverse engineer a friend, Phyllis Strouder, who is, I think, 57 years old, or 58.

[00:10:57] Chris: I forgot and I should know. And you say, well, what are my vulnerabilities? Well, I'm old. Maybe I'm over the hill. Maybe I'm too late. I'm Jane Come Lately. And I'm past my prime. And people are going to say I'm out of touch. And I'm a geezer, a boomer. Whatever it is that they want to say about you. And those are all your vulnerabilities.

[00:11:13] Chris: And no one wants to be old. No one wants to be old. You want to be wise, but you want to be old. So that would be your shadow self, your vulnerability. And so how do you make a negative into a positive? So she takes like, I'm old enough to be your grandmother. I'm your grandmother. So brilliant. And that's what we're trying to find.

[00:11:31] Chris: So we're trying to find a way to create a heuristic for people to remember us, to become curious so that they can ask, tell me more about what it means to be a grandmother. What do you mean swoldier? Well, let me tell you, I teach people how to get really super fit, fit after 40. Let's just say that's his thing.

[00:11:48] Chris: It's not his thing, but now it becomes really interesting. Taking a sharp contrast to, yeah, tell me a little bit about yourself and you go on and on about where you're born, where you grew up and, oh, then I did this and I got my master's degree. I'm just drooling of boredom. 

[00:12:03] Melissa: I love that drooling with boredom.

[00:12:05] Melissa: First of all that curiosity. I was sort of being strategic and walking down this path, hoping to bring you along down with me so that you would use the word curious. So first of all, thank you. And just bringing that magic to the table immediately about how it's so easy for us to fall because that's how the system is created.

[00:12:25] Melissa: That's also how we're conditioned. Identify yourself according to these labels. But You actually want to be the outlier from that system. You want to be not typical and you've created for me, at least within the Futur Pro Group, that two word brand was such a fantastic exercise to go through because it really took the whole concept of distilling to a different level.

[00:12:48] Melissa: So before we go further with that, I'd like for you to tell everybody what your two word brand is. 

[00:12:52] Chris: Yes, I have many two word brands. One of the benefits of being a public person is once people get to know you, they give you two word labels and they go by all kinds of nicknames. And so I'm like, okay, I'll roll with that because part of branding isn't what you say it is.

[00:13:07] Chris: It's what they say it is. So if they feel this from you and they see your actions. Maybe that is more true you than what you're willing to say about yourself. So people have called me a charming razor blade. It's pretty accurate. I think, right. Yeah. Cause I do make some cutting remarks. I'm very direct. I believe in some form of radical candour, and I do that.

[00:13:28] Chris: So, somebody else says, Chris, you're so wise and zen, you're like a business buddha. I'm like, I like that too, and I'm bald, so it just works. I don't want to be fat, but you know, okay, there you go. But I've been telling people I'm a loud introvert, and that gets their eyebrows to raise a little bit. Like, what do you mean?

[00:13:46] Chris: You cannot be an introvert, they say. I'm like, well, you should have seen me a couple years ago, and then you would totally believe me. And I'm painfully shy. Socially awkward. I'm a wallflower. I'm anti social and I use social media so that I don't have to be good at socializing. I tell people on stage like, I want my social media game to be so good I don't actually have to develop social skills.

[00:14:10] Chris: Because if you become well known enough, people will just walk up to you and say, Hey! I know you, and that's great, because I don't know how to talk to you, and I'd love to talk to you, but I'm so weird, I don't have an opener, and yeah, thank you, hi, how are you doing, and I do that. These two words, you can use many of them if you want, and if you're a complicated individual like myself, and you have fun with this kind of stuff, I just play with all different kinds of labels.

[00:14:33] Chris: Somebody called me disciplined fire. I don't like disciplined fire. They come up with very interesting combination of words, more unique and memorable than the ones I could come up with. So it's kind of cool. 

[00:14:43] Melissa: What I find intriguing is that by using this two word brand that leans into the vulnerable part of you, and you mentioned the Jungian shadow side of you, is that you have given people an opportunity to own fully the spectrum that they are, right?

[00:15:02] Melissa: The shadow. The weakness, vulnerability, the fragility, whatever words you want to describe that, alongside what you see as being your gift. Owning that fully because We're not two dimensional, neither are we three dimensional. We're multi dimensional. And by owning that fully, we become a magnet to exactly the people we're meant to be serving, the people we're meant to be inspiring.

[00:15:25] Melissa: And so you've given a whole different meaning actually to the word niche for me. And this is something I learned in the Futur Pro group along with you. I have a curious question for you. I've got two, two word brands. I'd love to throw it to you and ask you what your thoughts are. I'm ready for the full charming razor blade.

[00:15:40] Melissa: I'm laying myself bare. So there's two, there's one that, well, they've, I've given both to myself. So one is Disruptive Empath. And that's the one I came up with in the Futur Pro group. And the second one is Professional Misfit, which I actually use on my LinkedIn. If you're open to it, I'd love for you to sort of break that down from the Chris Do perspective.

[00:16:02] Chris: Yes. Of the two, I prefer professional misfit. Okay. There's a couple different reasons why. Because when you say you're a disruptive empath, I'm not seeing a lot of vulnerability there, per se. I'm not seeing the shadow. And a lot of times this is what happens when I ask people to come up with two word brands.

[00:16:21] Chris: They're like, creative genius. I'm like, yeah, thanks for being real vulnerable there. Like, tell me what you're good at. I'm like, uh, okay. And I think this is the problem. We're so conditioned to try to show up. And again, Jungian thing to be like a persona, how we show up in the world to get along with people because we don't want to be ostracised.

[00:16:42] Chris: We don't want to be alone. We've longed for connection and it's a terribly depressing thing, especially in the last three years where people have been isolated because of COVID. Kids can't go to school and be around their friends, they can't get outside. And so we can see what this does to the psyche.

[00:16:57] Chris: And it's natural for us, for most of us, not all of us, of course, to want to be around some amount of people. Maybe not a lot, but some people. And a lot of people do tell me that they're empathic. And so it starts to lose its power. And it's such a 21st century word that people say we should aspire to have, right?

[00:17:15] Chris: Yes. So I like misfit. Because it says a lot about your personality that you're not going to fit in some box. But if you're just a misfit, it's pretty negative mostly. And then you own it by calling yourself a professional misfit, meaning I make it my business to not fit in. And the Fearlessly Curious podcast fits in that.

[00:17:37] Chris: So what we start to find is if you find two words that really describe you that feel right, like you try it on for size and it fits. And it's like, well tailored and you can breathe and you can grow, then it starts to create other ideas of products and concepts, right? So what was interesting was I recently had a conversation with Phyllis Strouder and she's like, somebody came up to me and said, Hey, Phyllis, I'm your brand son.

[00:18:01] Chris: Oh my God. Love it. And she's like, what? You see, like the name is playful enough where you can start to create other things and come on into grandma's house. Yeah. And she has a lot of terms and phrasing and I think that's great. When you come up with your identity, your two word or even better, your one word brand, it's a jumping off point, a springboard for ideas and themes that you can link together. So then you know you're on to something. So I like professional misfit a lot. 

[00:18:31] Melissa: Thank you, Chris. And thank you for sharing your vision with that and how you also connect that with the Fearlessly Curious podcast. Another part of what I do is advocate for fearless authenticity, which is why I admire so much what you do, because not only do you embody that, you walk that talk, right?

[00:18:50] Melissa: But you also have created this incredible community, the Futur Pro community, which I'd love to talk a little bit more about as well, because I want to be mindful of the time that we have together. This amazing community that you lead and that you also hold space for incredible facilitators and coaches as well.

[00:19:07] Melissa: So for those of you who don't know Futur Pro, Chris leads it. It's a place where you learn, basically, to make a living doing what you love, right? So it ties into Chris's purpose to teach one billion people. And it's, we have courses and workshops and group coaching and cohorts and consulting. I mean, it's.

[00:19:26] Melissa: Jam packed with value, um, and you know, you hear that word a lot. Oh, there's a lot of value here and there's a lot of value there. Well, I'm part of that community and you know, I have nothing to benefit extra by saying this. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. In fact, it's so jam packed. To be honest with you, Chris, the first three months I was completely overwhelmed.

[00:19:45] Melissa: I am an introvert. I identify as an introvert, although many people will say there's no way you're an introvert, but that's their opinion. So much going on. I actually couldn't participate because it was so overwhelming, but I sat with it and I was committed to it and I allowed a lot of that information to be taken in by osmosis where it was effortless.

[00:20:06] Melissa: I didn't need to try, but it was just incredible. So. I know that, that you, we talked about your mission. What do you think is, how does Futur Pro stand out among all other coaching communities that are out there right now, for you at least?

[00:20:20] Chris: It's a good question. I wish I could give you a good answer, but I don't belong to many communities, if any at all.

[00:20:28] Chris: So I don't really have a strong reference point. Okay. But I can tell you what I think. Makes it unique for me, but not necessarily how it's unique compared to other organizations and communities, and you would probably be more qualified to answer that question. I just look at it very simply like this, and it's kind of hilarious, but I'm going to make a reference to the movie Robots, starring Robin Williams, a 20th Century Fox CG animated film, and I think his dad was like, see a need, fill a need.

[00:20:55] Chris: See a need, fill a need. Okay, it's a simple expression. And what does that really mean? Like, you know, it probably better as scratch your own itch. So here I am, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm in my early 20s, I think I'm 22, 23 years old when I started my business just months out of school. I don't know the first thing about running a business, but I'm so impatient and stubborn and maybe cocky that I'm like, I could do this.

[00:21:22] Chris: I fantasize about having a business forever. I've tried different things, failed many times. And now that I have my design degree behind me and a portfolio, I'm like, I'm going to start my own company. I'm going to do this. And I struggled mightily for two years. And what was really painful. There's lots of different kinds of pain, so I'm speaking from a place of privilege here.

[00:21:40] Chris: I'm living in Los Angeles, so already you can dismiss everything I'm saying, because I live in a pretty good part of America, and I'm getting opportunities that are far outsized my experience level. I'm talking to Shydate, the agency that does the advertising for Nissan, for Apple, and for so many other brands, and they're calling me to bid on a project for Nissan.

[00:22:06] Chris: And so we're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars of business where just the other month I was trying to figure out how to eat lunch by using my credit card. So I just want to put that in context. Okay. Yeah. So I'm bidding on projects that have no right being invited to because of one thing.

[00:22:25] Chris: The number of people who could do what we do or did could probably fit two hands. Which is extremely fortunate to be at the right place at the right time with the right set of skills. Although I didn't know how to run a business. And here's the heartbreaking part. Call after call, I'd get on, didn't know how to conduct myself, didn't know how to answer questions, didn't know how to ask questions more importantly.

[00:22:46] Chris: And then would submit a bid that looked total amateurish with numbers that just, I kind of pulled out of my butt. Because I didn't know how to put together a bid. And would lose job after job after job. Sudmicrosystems, gone. Janus funds, gone. Like I mentioned, Nissan, gone. Just project after project. I'm like, what is wrong with me?

[00:23:09] Chris: So it starts to affect your self confidence, your self worth. And I'm starting to have a lot of doubt. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. And so in that moment, I'm thinking, I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. I believe in my talent and my skill, but I don't know how to win business. I don't even, I've never been in a class or was ever offered the opportunity to learn how to pitch six figure jobs at 22 years old. And I reached out to friends who were directors, people who graduated before me, thinking they knew something. And they gave me some horrific advice. They told me to have more attitude, essentially, and tell them who's boss. And I tried and that was really bad. It was really, really bad.

[00:23:50] Chris: That's bad advice. Please don't listen to that. So now I'm like, what am I going to do? I got to figure this thing out. And luck would intervene and I would meet producers. And I would meet creatives who would give me a little piece of a puzzle. It was enough because I'm like this autodidact, just give me a little information, I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna grow.

[00:24:11] Chris: This little snowflake gonna turn into an avalanche, right? We're gonna do this and I start to win work. Starts to build up my confidence. I start to try other things and I'm able to afford more people to help me figure this game out. So I spent the next two to five years just figuring things out on my own until I was able to hire a coach.

[00:24:29] Chris: This is a long way to say, I wish, I wish someone was there that could call up and ask for help. I called up competitors, so called industry peer friends, and they're like, you know, why would we help you? Can you show me how you bid that project, the one that you want to hang up the phone? I'm like, great. I wasn't surprised.

[00:24:51] Chris: I was just hoping that people would be a little bit more generous, a little kind, a little bit more kind, but they weren't. And they were very protective. They operated from a place of scarcity. So, and I can understand you don't want to help your competitor down the street. I understand. I'm not blaming them.

[00:25:07] Chris: So I wish I had this. So years later, I'm running my business. I know what I'm doing. I know how to pitch. I've done hundreds of projects, maybe thousands at that point. I'm not sure. I'm feeling pretty good. So now we create the original pro group, which was with my former business partner, Jose, and it was for free.

[00:25:24] Chris: It was to support people who purchased our products just to help them around the rough edges because we knew there were rough edges. But then I saw the value in this group and that's when it became its own thing. So that's what I think makes this group unique. First of all, my own lived experiences, hard fought battles, wins and losses, W's and L's.

[00:25:47] Chris: That I posted that I can share with you through my experience to help your entrepreneurial journey to be a little less painful so that you don't have to endure those moments where you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself, do you know what you're doing? So we create tools and resources. Based on a person who spent over two decades teaching, working in the most competitive market in entertainment capital of the world.

[00:26:13] Chris: So I do know what I'm talking about there and that's all I can say. Now you can map that against your other experiences with people who are professionals but not teachers, teachers who are not professionals. Professionals who think they're professional are just really pretending. And you can say, yeah, I see where you stack up in that and you make your own decision.

[00:26:32] Melissa: Thank you, Chris. That speaks to why I personally feel very comfortable within the community because it really comes from a place of. heart. You mentioned scratching your own itch, something along those lines that I get that right. Okay. For me, it's, I hear it as being the person that you needed on your own journey and putting in real lived experience.

[00:26:54] Melissa: And the most important part for me is despite or in spite of all the tools and systems that you provide and the coaching that you provide, there is still so much space for people to lean into their curiosity to express. Who they are uniquely using those tools. So it isn't like, here's a cookie cutter, integrate it, implement this and go ahead and be successful.

[00:27:18] Melissa: It's like, here are some tools. Now you take this and make this yours. And this is the generous spirit that I was referring to right in the beginning. This is exactly the opposite of the competition you just mentioned. It's like apples. What's the point of comparing apples and pears? They're different. So I've never really, truly understood the concept of.

[00:27:37] Melissa: competition other than I want to compete with myself. How can I be a better version of myself from the day before? So I've definitely found my home within the Future Pro community. And for those of you listening, I'm going to say it. If you don't know anything about Futur Pro community, then go and explore it because we go to school.

[00:27:55] Melissa: We learn how to read, how to write. We learn actually how to abandon who we are to become someone that we're not, right? We're not being taught life skills, let alone entrepreneurial skills. This day and age. We wanna live our purpose, which I believe is to be the unique version of you. There's only one, Chris Do.

[00:28:12] Melissa: There's no point Chris, trying to be someone else because all the, the wisdom of Chris through his lens will be lost. And what a loss that would be for everybody. So that goes for everybody listening. But our mission is to apply that purpose of who you are. to impact others. And the Futur Pro Group is really that place for that, Chris.

[00:28:29] Melissa: So if I can take this opportunity to say thank you for all that you're doing and managing and having the vision to grow this community as well, because I know that recently, maybe you can share a little bit about that if you feel you'd like to, how you've moved into sort of this cohort format. Yeah. And maybe share a little bit more about future pro for people listening out there, if you will.

[00:28:49] Chris: Yeah, I just appreciate you pointing all these things out because sometimes I'm two inches away from the problem or the solution and I can't see that. That's why we all could use an external objective point of view to help us see into our blind spots to recognize both our strengths and our weaknesses.

[00:29:07] Chris: Because it's hard to see, it's hard to read the label inside the jar, and we're in the jar most often. So I really appreciate that. I started getting something that felt like a feeling, and then I suppressed that, and I put that away. I'm just... So one of the things that you said, uh, which was just very gratifying for me to hear is that we try to teach life skills.

[00:29:30] Chris: Not cookie cutter, one size fit, all plans. Now that's great, and it's also horrible, and I'll tell you why. Because sometimes people do need steps A through Z, and they want to learn, and one system not be provided with many choices. And we all can feel this. When you go to a restaurant like Cheesecake Factory, there's 16 pages of things you can order.

[00:29:52] Chris: Literally that many things. I'm like, oh my god, it takes 30 minutes just to find a pasta or the salad page. And then, okay, there it is. Or you go to a buffet, like a really good one in Las Vegas and a high end hotel and you're like, Oh my god, where do I start? How do I pace myself here? Because I cannot fit all that food inside my belly.

[00:30:12] Chris: I can see how it could be overwhelming and it might not be a good fit for all kinds of people. People who need clear, linear direction. Maybe the Futur Pro is not a great place for you. But for the naturally curious, the explorers, the misfits, The square pegs in the round holes is a pretty great place because there's different tracks and you can find yourself and there's space and you also don't emerge from that feeling like, Oh my God, there are 1000 clones just like me doing the exact same thing, following a highly scripted formula.

[00:30:44] Chris: We provide frameworks and guide rails, but you got to pull out from it what you want and apply your own secret sauce to it. And there's many things that you can do. So I want to put that out there. Now, the big shift that we've made in this last six months and finally have implemented, because it takes a while to change the direction of a ship the size of the pro community, is we moved away from having a peak performance partner towards cohorts. And I'm just going to unabashedly say what the goal is of the Futur Pro Group, which is to be the EO for creative entrepreneurs. Ooh. EO is a wonderful organisation. It's an entrepreneur's organization. And I work with EO, so I have mad respect. And I see these tight bonds that form over months and years, and I'm jealous, I'm envious, and I want that for our community.

[00:31:37] Chris: The problem with having a single accountability partner, accountabuddy, is that if you have a good one, it's great. But if you have a not so good one, it could really colour your experience in a way that's not productive and conducive to you. Plus, people are in different rhythms of their life, so you might meet someone in the group who then gets real busy, moves away, moves into a different time zone.

[00:31:59] Chris: And now you're kind of left alone at sea, and I don't want that. Whereas with cohorts, groups under 10, 11 people, you're going to find somebody in there that has been through what you've gone through, or is about to go through it, and you can really lift each other up. You're not dependent on one person.

[00:32:16] Chris: And they say it takes a tribe to raise child. I think it takes a group of people to raise a company. And why wouldn't we have diverse voices, different points of view? So one person could be really annoying, one person could be super loving, the other person can be very direct, somebody can be very strategic, and then you build off that energy so you're going to pull and naturally connect to different heights of people.

[00:32:40] Chris: within your cohort. And I think it was, there was a lot of groaning about it. Like, Oh my God, nobody likes change. Especially creative people. You know, the champions for thinking different. Yeah. We don't like to think different when it comes to us. And they're like going along, kind of digging their heels in, but eventually there will come a time when people are in the group and they'll have known no other time except for when the cohorts existed.

[00:33:02] Chris: And I think if people trust me enough, then they trust my leadership. And the vision that they can't yet see for themselves, three, six, nine months from now, they're going to come back and say, well, that was the best decision. I couldn't see it at that point, but now I'm loving it. And I hope that that's what's going to happen.

[00:33:22] Melissa: Ooh, very exciting. Watch this space and I'm going to be fully transparent. I have not been able to transition from the PPP, peak performance partner, into the cohort yet. And that's wholly and entirely on me as a matter of timing. Um, but I love that concept. It really resonates with me because yes, when you just have that one person, you know, we all have lives that another life, another part of our lives that sometimes pulls us away, different time zone. And the idea of being part of a group where each person has something unique to bring to the table, oh my God, that speaks to diversity on so many different levels, diversity of skills, diversity of perspective, diversity of culture, and what we bring that richness, like this tapestry, um, it just makes so much more sense.

[00:34:09] Melissa: So I'm excited. to find it to get there when the time comes for me, but to see how the future pro group is going to grow and be so enriched by this, this new framework and using EO as a, as something to aspire to. But in your own expression, what a great touchstone right there. Um, Chris, I know that this conversation has come up a couple of times in the pro group and, and outside as well.

[00:34:36] Melissa: Is the, is the pro group and Chris Do. Uh, a cult or is it a culture, you know, you know what, what, what just recently prompted me, um, sort of validated me asking this cause I going to ask this question? Am I not going to, is he going to be bored of this question is what I saw on LinkedIn with Phyllis. 

[00:34:57] Chris: I know, I know. I thought I put the baby to bed, but the baby woke up again and Phyllis dragged her back out. 

[00:35:03] Melissa: Yeah, so I'm like, well, if Phyllis is going to do it, I'm going to go there. And the worst that can happen is Chris is going to say, come on now, I don't want to talk about this anymore, which I'm also fine with. So I'm going to give it a go.

[00:35:13] Melissa: Cult or culture. 

[00:35:14] Chris: Okay. Okay. Well, you can't spell culture without the word cult, right? And I think cult has a very strong negative connotation used in a certain perspective. And so let's go there first. Let's go with the negative. So we think of cults and I'm not an expert at cults. I've watched a couple of films, but that's about it.

[00:35:35] Chris: So help me out if you belong to one or trying to get out of one, I don't want to make light of it. Sure. Of course. So cults tend to be run. By very charismatic individuals who realize maybe because they've spotted patterns, they have a slightly higher intelligence quotient and are able to manipulate people.

[00:35:53] Chris: They know the emotional triggers to get people to do stuff. And they set themselves up in that power structure where they're, they cannot be questioned and they are up to no good. It's nefarious motivations and it's horrible. It's a way to subjugate other people under your power to manipulate others, usually for financial or sexual power.

[00:36:15] Chris: And I find that very, very problematic. So the cult leader exists to capitalize on people's vulnerabilities. to better themselves, I think. And then if you want to leave the cult, part of the doctrine is you cannot leave and you use the power of the other members of the cult to keep people from leaving.

[00:36:38] Chris: And if you even whisper a voice of dissent, or leave, you're ostracized immediately. You're shut off from your real family, your blood family and otherwise. And it's, it's a horrible thing. And they practice a lot of pseudoscience, weird theories to maintain the power structure so that they're absolute in their authority.

[00:36:59] Chris: And that's problematic for me. That's a cult, right? Did I miss anything? 

[00:37:03] Melissa: That was incredibly detailed and on point, Chris. 

[00:37:06] Chris: Now there are People who are fashionistas who say I'm part of the cult of Gucci or the cult of Louis Vuitton or more lowbrow, I'm part of the Nike cult. And in fact, Nike used to run ads that won awards with soccer, aka football players.

[00:37:27] Chris: And they were depicted as stained glass portraits from a church and Sony PlayStation ran ads with Lara Croft hanging like this with her guns and her cut off shorts in the Christ crucifix. And there's a kid who's there in bed praying. It's like, it's the cult of Sony. And they would show really beautiful images and very thought provoking, very kind of emotionally compelling and resonant.

[00:37:58] Chris: Like somebody's eye with red veins in their eyes, like they've been staying up all night playing video games. But instead of regular veins, the veins form the circle, the triangle and the square of the Sony PlayStation, part of their visual language. And we're like, clever, clever, good on you. We get that, right?

[00:38:15] Chris: So when we say like, we are part voluntarily belonging to something, because it's, we... Desire, connection, and sense of belonging. So I'm not a Sega person, I'm not a Nintendo person, I'm not an Xbox person, I'm a PlayStation person. It's how I identify. So when I see you on the street... We recognize each other and we're part, happily volunteering to be part of that community.

[00:38:40] Chris: But here's where it differs drastically. There is no power structure, no one telling you what to do. There's no problem for you leaving. It's just how we find community. It's how we define our culture. I'm an Apple guy. I'm not an Android person. And you just have to understand that I'm an Apple guy, I'm not a PC person, I'm not an Intel person.

[00:39:01] Chris: I identify with certain brands because those brands, at least in my own mind, say something about me. So, a long time ago, we bought things for survival. Now we buy things as part of identity. And so, Ana Lappe said this, Every dollar you spend is a vote for the kind of world you want. This is kind of really an important concept, okay?

[00:39:24] Chris: Yeah. So if you buy certain things that are cheap or expensive, it says something about your value system, your beliefs, and we are trying to support companies and therefore brands that do more of what we want. It's a good vote if you think about it. Yeah. So if you give money to a company you hate, you're in conflict with your own values.

[00:39:46] Chris: Because you're allowing them to do more of what you hate. So be mindful of that. And it's very low friction if you think about it, because you could just walk across the street and buy the alternative, therefore not supporting the company you don't like. It becomes much more difficult these days because there are multinational corporations that own umbrella companies.

[00:40:05] Chris: And now it becomes really weird, right? Something that you love, the parent company can own a company you hate. Becomes very confusing there, but okay. So now we're there. Now we're back to cult, right? Yeah. So I argue with people, I want to develop such a strong bond and relationship. with our community, our audience, by giving them so much value that they feel so guilty for not buying something.

[00:40:31] Chris: That's how we do it. We operate on a generosity principle in a thank you economy where I don't ask you for things up front. Give what you want, when you want, whenever you can, and I don't even care. So I want to be so far on the plus side of giving value, creating value for others. That at some point, their reciprocity kicks in to say like, I need to support you.

[00:40:53] Chris: And we have so many people who support us, and I gotta tell you, I'm delighted. We have people who are looking out for us all the time. Hey, somebody's using your materials over here. Bootleg. Oh, wow. Hey, somebody's trying to slip in my DMs pretending to be you. I'm blocking them right now. Hey, I just recently had a win.

[00:41:12] Chris: I just want to tell you about that as a testimony. Hey, I want to send you money. Great. Now, if we're a cult, then I think I'm doing this all wrong and I'll tell you why. And you might know this about me, Melissa, I actively seek out dissenting voices and put them on our platform so we can have a healthy, rigorous debate for full transparency.

[00:41:38] Chris: I readily admit things that I know and things I definitely do not know. I'm not the all knowing person. Please question me whenever you can, whenever you want to, so that I can learn with you. And it's a strange power structure. When I try my best to live as a servant leader, I'm here to serve the community, not the other way around.

[00:41:59] Chris: So Simon Sinek said this beautifully, being a leader is not about who's in charge, but who's in your charge. Are you supposed to be taken care of? The captain goes down with the ship. The captain thinks about all the people and their safety and their well being before thinking about his or her own. And that's an important concept.

[00:42:21] Chris: So again, if I'm running a cult, I need to reread the playbook because we're doing this all wrong. But people jokingly, lovingly refer to it as, I'm part of the cult. I'm drinking the Kool Aid because I get your vibe. You my people. And I take that as a compliment, not as a diss. 

[00:42:40] Melissa: I love how you broke that down, Chris, because yes, of course, with respect, and I appreciate how you open that because we're not minimizing the very destructive definition of what a cult can be, its origins, like it or not comes from, has a religious slant on it. But really as we're moving, as we're going through evolution, right, and we're creating more and more communities in our building up so that we can go back to living as a community and not like these silos. We are craving connection and there is a devotion. So I think that because cult speaks of a devotion to a person or an object or even a vision.

[00:43:23] Melissa: So as we're going through, as we're, evolving and communities are now becoming not less autocratic, but more collaborative, then the devotion becomes towards a greater vision and a vision that honours individuality still within collaboration. And that's really where the world needs to go. So I'm so grateful that I got to ask that question and that you allowed us to get in your head and see how you receive those words when you're given it.

[00:43:53] Melissa: Because who are we, going back to labels again, we can be limited by the labels, or we can allow for these words to evolve as we evolve as well. I think being able to leverage on the words that people use and lean into the way that it's expansive for us is very, very powerful. Thank you. I'm for one, I'm very grateful for this new collaborative community that some people call a cult because of the devotion and the heart centred leadership that is a servant leadership.

[00:44:25] Melissa: We need more of that. I'm just very grateful for the Futur Pro group. Thank you so much for joining me and Chris today, where we've been delving deep into Chris's personal story and finding his purpose and identity and how he's sharing his gift to the world through the Futur Pro community. I hope you've enjoyed this episode as much as I have, but hold on, there's more to come.

[00:44:45] Melissa: We're not wrapping up this discussion just yet. In fact, I'm splitting this exploration into two parts. So listen out for the next episode for part two. In fact, part two promises to be even more intriguing than part one as I invite Chris to get a little bit more personal. Now, I'm not going to give away too much just yet, but trust me, you won't want to miss it. So until then, my friends, stay Fearlessly Curious.

[00:45:22] Melissa: If you want more, Make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode every Friday. And please leave a review if you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send me your curious questions and experiences as inspiration for future episodes. Your anonymity will be respected if that's what you prefer. For more guidance and support, join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community over at melissaindot.com. See you next week!