Unbound with Chris DuBois

Ready to move from worrier to warrior? Today's guests show you how are you a leader trying to get more from your business in life? Me too. So join me as I document the conversations, stories and advice to help you achieve what matters in your life. Welcome to unbound with me, Chris DuBois. Martin Salama is a veteran entrepreneur with over 40 years in business and 10 plus years coaching, he prioritizes practical tools to help other entrepreneurs break the chains, holding them back and uncover their greatness. And today, we are going to explore the mindset and tools he uses to help do it. Martin, welcome, Chris, thank you so much. I am so excited to be with you. Yeah, this is going to be a fun episode, the we're gonna talk about this. But for anyone not watching the video version holding up a copy of Martin's book, which was awesome for a poolside read. And to kind of recenter myself on some of the things to talk about here. I won't go too deep on it yet. But I think a great place to start would actually be just what's your origin story. So let's just go right to the beginnings and how you've gotten to where you are. Absolutely. First thing is I want to say thank you for getting the book. And you are the first person that's interviewing me that has read the entire book. So I'm excited about that my podcast, as a podcast, or somebody who's who's interviewing me after they've read the entire book is what I meant to say by that. So thank you so much. Everyone else needs to pick up. Faster. Yes. So as as you will already know, but I'll tell the audience. I've been an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, basically my whole life. And let's go back to the beginning just to touch on it a little bit. When I was 10 years old. I had a tragedy in my life that I can honestly say, set me up for the next 40 years. I was 10. I have four older sisters, and I have a brother, that was five, his name was Michael. Unfortunately, one day Michael was getting off the school bus. And he dropped something in front of the bus and the bus driver didn't see him and drove. And four days later, he succumbed to his injuries and he passed away. And I can easily say that that was a defining moment in my life looking back now. You're I am a 10 year old, I have four older sisters, I'm now the only boy. And I'm thinking to myself, well, it's on me. It's on me to carry the legacy. It's on me to make sure that my parents never feel pain again. They just went through the most devastating, terrible thing that anybody could go through. This is a 10 year old talking. And there's nobody there. This is the 70s where there's not anybody to put you through therapy and tell you, you know, you'll get through this, you'll figure it out. There's nothing like that. Right? Right. So I'm putting this all on me. Nobody's telling me oh, you're the man. Now you got it was me telling it to myself. But at that moment, I can easily go back now it took me 40 plus years, almost 40 years to figure this out that I became a people pleaser at that moment. Because my job to me was make sure my parents were happy. And as that develop that, as it continued, became I want to make everybody happy. And looking back what I was was a people pleaser. I took everything personally. I was a control freak. I needed to have the recognition of people telling me oh, wow, you did a great job. You know, you're a people pleaser. And you please me, thank you so much for doing that, you know, all those things. And when all those things weren't falling into place. I had a short temper, I would react to the point that I was like an overreact. I couldn't even reference myself in the book as a nuclear reactor. I would blow up and I would leave Fallout all over the place that I'd have to go back and fix later, and usually would be something like this. You know, Chris, I'm sorry, that happened yesterday. But you know, you set me off. You did this and you did that. It's not really an apology. So that set me up for the next 30 plus 40 years almost. I got married, I was trying to please my wife was trying to please my parents. And I rationalize all of the things that I was doing was for the greater good. But what I've come to now realize that the word rationalize is really towards rational lies. That it's rational to do something that goes against what you believe. Because you think it's for the greater good or for whatever reason that is so I think rationalizing is really morally rational like a rational lie. I wish everyone was sending could have seen the the actual cue card you were able to vote for that. But yeah, so you've done you've done a lot Want to just reframe your mindset? Right in order to to achieve certain things in life? What are some steps you would recommend that people actually start taking leaders start taking in order to do so at the beginning of my course it's or, or coaching or something with someone, they come to me with issues? Right? I'm not happy in my life, I don't know what's going on. So first, it's the first step of admitting that the way things are going are not working for you, and you're not happy admission. Right? Admit that this and you got to change. Right? Once you do that, you're opening yourself up for willing to be changed to change. And that takes take some take some work, take some commitment, right? So then the next thing is, okay, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to start changing this, and this, I'm going to do this better or whatever. Now you're what I do in what I call the cleansing stage. By doing the things differently, you're beginning to cleanse. And then as things start to happen to you, or for you, or through you, as I like to say, you could start the celebration. And that's admission cleansing and celebration. Let's let's take a simple example, like losing weight. I gotta lose 50 pounds. Okay, well, I admit that I gotta lose 50 pounds, well, what am I going to do about it? I'm going to eat better, I'm going to workout better, whatever those you know that just as an idea. So now you start this thing. So the cleansing process is, I'm gonna eat better, how am I gonna eat better? Well, I'm not gonna eat so much carbs, I'm gonna be able to cut down on my calories, whatever it is that works for you. I'm going to start exercising I've never exercised before. Okay, I'll start with a five minute walk, or a 10 minute walk and build up. That's the cleansing stage. Now, the celebration stage isn't when you get to the 50 pounds. Because along the way, you get to say, Why am I doing this? You got to have little goals a while away. So when you get the three pounds or five pounds, you're like, Okay, so I'm doing is working. That's a celebration along the way. Yeah. And so as long as you can get all all three of those going, then you're becomes much easier, I guess. Who is it because if you're looking for you to lose 50 pounds in a week, it ain't gonna happen. Unless you do some kind of radical surgeries. It's not happening. Chapa Lego. So, I'm going through. So in every book I read, I use a piece of paper as my bookmark, so that I can just I can just take notes and like, write in there and I highlight. I've got a whole system for dog eared pages and everything. I got plenty, plenty of dogs. Well, I hope mine is gonna get a lot. The you have a lot of acronyms in here to make it easy to remember various, just things that I do, you know, so that, like one of the big things that we teach with dynamic leadership processes awareness, and one of the easier ways to do that is right by having an acronym where it's like, Oh, I see these little triggers. Let me just act out this or follow through with this acronym. And so I really appreciated how you had this setup. Thank you. Can we let's let's talk about some of these acronyms, though, because I feel like it would be valuable for the audience. Cool. Cool, cool. Absolutely. You had a lot of them. I'm gonna give you feel their choice here. What, uh, let's start with life. How's that? The big one, right? The big one. So So let me give a little bit of a history of how that happened. So 2008 comes along, right. And my wife and I are working on a project for five years to build a multimillion dollar health club and Tennis Center in New Jersey. All right, now, it's taken us five years, because anybody that goes to development knows that it just doesn't happen like that. You come up with the idea, then you gotta go find the land, then you got to negotiate. And then you've got to start the feasibility study, and the engineering and the architecture and then go to the city. And they go, Oh, you need to go get a civil engineer to make sure you have the right amount of park acre. And this is taking us five years. Now, if we've gotten approved in 2006 or 2007. Walking into the bank would have been like walking into Costco and going to the old lady, can I have a sample? You know, they give it to you freely. Yeah. But in my luck, it was 2008. I walk into the bank, I go, Okay, we did it last night. We got the final approval from the city. We're ready to go and they go. Yeah, we're not lending right now. What I have over $3 million of my money and investors money and family money in this project. Well, things have changed. Well change your back. Doesn't work that way. A month later. I realize that there's Bernie Madoff and the subprime loans and the The entire financial world crash is like a house of cards. And I'm on the bottom of this. I'm the Joker in the House of Cards, but I ain't laughing. So I'm like, Okay, now what, and I go through a full year of depression. I'm like, I can't get out of bed. I, it's situational depression, obviously. But I have nothing. And my families even kind of come in and figure out the the finances that I do have and get me through things. So it's about a year later, it's more than a year later. And I Okay, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? Well, I've been a business man my entire life. And I never loved doing it. But I did do things like I was involved in the community. I was always a leader in the communities. Matter of fact, I'm just a founder of the first synagogue in Eatontown, New Jersey. Alright, it's now has over 400 families and spawning off other synagogues close by because they can't hold them. All. Right. So I'm very proud about those things. But as a leader, what I learned was people would walk in and all the time and saying, Well, I don't have very much time, but I want to help. What can I do and like the hour or two that I can give you a week or a month or whatever? And I'd sit with them. And I talked to them and said, Well, tell me about yourself. And what I realized what I was doing is, and they would go and do some great stuff for the organization is that I was a life coach. I was a coach. So I was like, well, maybe I should find out what this is all about and start doing it. So I went out, I looked at around that I found a great coaching school. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna go to that school in the summertime in July, June, whatever it was, and a few months before, that was my 24th wedding anniversary. And my wife said, I'm done. I want a divorce. I'm like, Oh, my God, why does everything keep happening to me? Because that was the mindset I had, that the world was against me, and everything was just gonna keep piling up. Especially at that moment. Could you blame me for thinking that? So that's just that was the way it was. But something tapped me on the shoulder, maybe it was God, I don't know. Maybe. He said, Okay, you want to become a life coach? Well, maybe you should start with yourself. And before I went to coach training, they sent me a list of books and an email, they said, read a couple of these books, prepare yourself for coaching. One of them was called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And I read the second agreement, which was don't take anything personally, I was like, holy moly, this guy just blew my mind. He told me something was like a secret that everybody been telling me my whole life. But until that moment, it just wasn't ready to hear it. Right. Now I was. And I went to that first weekend. And they said, You don't have to be who you think you have to be. You could be whoever you want to be. And you don't have to. And then the deeper message was, you don't have to go around pleasing everybody. Take care of yourself first. And what I heard was the airplane message, put the mask on yourself first than everybody else. And that started me down the road. And as I started first, I was a divorce recovery coach. I wonder why? Because coaching got me through my divorce a few years later, I was loving life. I was the thinnest I ever was, because I'd done the work on myself and figured out that I was way too heavy. And that I needed to figure that out. And I did. And I was I'm ADHD. So I was like, I was meditating. Can you imagine an ADHD guy meditating? Yeah. It took it was only 10 minute guided meditation. But I had this download of information that I loved my life. And I wanted to help others with it, too. I wrote for two and a half hours after that, and out of that came life, live incredibly full every day. And to me, that means being happy and having a meaningful life. So that's life. Yeah. It's amazing how you you came to that too. But what do you say uncover or should we just go into the warrior? Oh, uncover is actually the beginning of seven steps. It's an acronym that covers seven different steps in my program, okay. So I have I have a car deck that as well as the book, and you know, it's the snippets of the book. So uncover is seven words, seven letters, each one with its own phrase. You unlock and unleash unlock what's keeping you stuck and unleashed the frustration you're holding on to so you can start your journey. That's like the admission that we were talking about earlier. Right, right. And navigate navigate how your emotional roller coaster holding you back. Again part of the admission In C, choose choose the values that are most important to you in your life. Now you're starting to do the cleansing. Oh, obtain the tools, you need to correctly respond to all situations. continuations of cleansing, V, visualize who you want to be from here on out. IE, embrace the new life you're creating and enjoy your endless potential celebration. Our reclaim your strong, confident, happy life, to live incredibly full every day more celebration. It's awesome. You so had this thought when reading it, but also just again, I think the Visualize element spoke to me the most because you're, you're visualizing who you want to be. I feel like a lot of times in life, we get stuck in this. What do you want to be when you grow up? Right? What do you want to be not? Who do you want to be? And so like, I've, I've just taken on rephrasing it for my kids. I don't care. I don't care what job you want, you can do a ton of different things. Right. But who do you want to be as a person who you want to show up as? And it's a it's just such a such a different way of viewing life? That? Yeah, vision board, guys, it's okay to do vision boards and not just for women. Yeah. Mine on Canva. That's a good but I don't even think about doing one there. Now we're using technology like that. So let's let's get to it during during the pre interview, we talked about a couple other topics as well. Yeah, one of them was the idea that very often leaders can get stuck in the the minutiae of work. And they start having difficulty with separating the forest from the trees. Yeah. How do you counter that in your own work? In my own work as a coach, or business owner, however, you want over attempts easily, okay. So first thing is I want to make clear to somebody to everybody out there, that everyone is a leader, they are a leader of somebody. And at the end of the day, if you're a leader of nobody, you still a leader of yourself. So you are a leader. And it's about you defining that and embracing it. And then it's about understanding that you're not a boss, where you're going to bang out orders to people and expect to get it done. You want to be inclusive, you want to feel like the people around you are felt like they're important. I'll give you a perfect example. When I was growing up, my father owned a factory. He manufactured plastic tablecloths. They don't even make those plastic table. They were plastic flannel back there. Because this was back in the 60s and 70s and stuff like that. And my mother any day, any day I had off from school, she sent me off to work with my father because she didn't want my ADHD, which we didn't know that that's what it was called back in the 60s and 70s in her face, or wherever, daddy. But I'd watched my dad, as he would walk every morning he would walk, walk through the factory and say good morning to every person in that place. Yet over 100 employees, and every day he would stop by somebody different. A Mary, how's your husband? What's doing, John, what's going on with you? Every day was somebody else. He connected with that. He let them know that they were an important part of the machinery that was going on the whole the overall life machinery of the business. So that was great training for me. Because I've always felt that people work with me. They don't work for me. Right? Yeah, I love that. That mindset to this. Yeah, especially with many team members. It's getting hard to keep track, something I had to do. When I first took over a platoon in the army. I would wait for someone to mention their kid's name. And I would write it down so that I could remember it later. Because that was only 36. Guys. Right? But you would only imagine you were building trust you were building a relationship. You were building something where they knew that you cared about them. Right now, and it goes a long way people people know, right. I think the quote, some people aren't going to remember everything you've done, but they're going to remember how you made them feel. That's right. A perfect example of good, good and bad. Right, right. 100% even more so if you make them feel bad. Right? Yeah, if you're the culprit there. Yep. So we also talked about how you differentiate being self conscious. From vers being self aware. Yep. Can you Can we go deeper into that? Absolutely. So pretty much everybody I talked to says yeah, I'm self aware, I know what's going on in my life. And that's awareness. That doesn't necessarily make you self aware. Okay, and it took for me to understand that I always thought that I was self aware, until I understood what self conscious meant. And then I was all I've been self conscious for the last 50 years. Now, let me switch that around. So in the book, I talk about it. And of course, I have a card in my card deck. That just brings it down to a little bit so I'll read some of it. Is that okay? Yeah. So self consciousness comes from a place of negative energy, guilt, conflict in doubt. self consciousness is more outward directed. It's being more concerned about what others are thinking of you, and how the situation is going to affect you. You probably react to uncomfortable situations, instead of respond. There's a little more but you get the gist. Self awareness comes from a place of positive energy, acceptance, contentment, self assuredness, self awareness is more inward facing, you have an accurate, realistic understanding of how you are responding to situations and how you feel about things. So in a nutshell, self conscious is negative energy. Usually, the ego coming into play. And self awareness is positive energy, usually about humility, self, assuredness, and working to be inclusive. Yeah, that's great. I think it's a that's in itself is a great lesson for leaders to be able to differentiate those. So, okay, I'm going back to your book for a second. Okay. I like your different spin on Stop, drop and roll stuff, stop thinking respond, right. The ability to disconnect from your triggers, and all that, I think this is a super valuable concept to explore for leaders. Yeah. to kind of be able to pull themselves out of the situation and actually think clearly, rather than emotionally. What's a song about that? Absolutely. I'm glad you put it that way. Because what happens is, when you start to think emotionally, you're allowing the emotions to control the actions. Right? And that usually doesn't end well. Right. So here I am, going through a divorce, starting to learn about my triggers, the things that set me off. And I'll give you a perfect example. My ex wife would call me up while we were getting divorced. And she say, and this was happening before, but I wasn't as aware of it, because of the fact that it was deep down inside, we were married and I was accepting thing or whatever, I don't know. But she would call up and she say, you know, I don't want to fight. But that was a trigger. That was telling me, let's get ready to rumble verbally, anyway, so in my head, okay. And I would like she tell me what's going on. And I was already my emotions were ticked up, she she hit the button. And I would just ram into it. And then she said, But I told you, I didn't want to fight. So I was like, you know, so I now I'm going through life coach training, and becoming more aware of understanding about my awareness and understanding about my emotions and how I'm putting them out there. And I say, You know what, I'm gonna have to change this. So she'd call me up and she'd say, I don't want to fight but and I'd say, okay, and I'd hang up. Now, that's the other side of the of the spectrum. They go, what the heck did you just do? Why'd you hang up? Well, you said you didn't want to fight. So I decided not to fight. And then I conditioned myself and kind of like, without even realizing it, I was conditioning her to, we're both kind of like to Pavlov's dogs. When I started to say different things, and it took me a while to get to the point where I wasn't freaking out. But eventually it got to the point where she stopped saying, I don't want to fight but because it was no longer gonna have the effect that subconsciously she wanted it. So yeah, now I'm doing this, and I'm putting together my course and I'm helping people grow. And somebody asks me, somebody who's coaching me, saying, can you explain some of the things you do with your clients? So I said, You remember when your kid or your kids were in school, and the firemen came into the, into the, into the school and taught them about fire safety? And they said, they came home they learned three words. Stop, drop and roll. I said, You know what, that's kind of what I'm doing here. Except I'm going to change to stop, think and respond. So he goes, What do you mean? I said, Well, what happens now for me and what I coach my clients is, when someone comes to you with what has in the past but a confrontation, you've got to decide, are you going to take the invitation and jump into the fight? Or can you first stop and say, Wait a second, just stop. And don't do what you usually did, which is freak out nuclear reactor, leaves fall out all over the place. That's number one. Think, wait a minute. Am I taking this personally? Is this about me? What did Chris have a bad day, and he's taking it out on me. And whatever it is, and then number three is respond instead of react. Now, it doesn't take overnight to do this. So those are the principles, but you're like, Okay, I can't do that tomorrow. So I came up with an idea. When I was a kid, there was a basketball game, we used to play two guys, two people called 531. Right? If you took a free throw shot, and it got in, you got five points. And you played 100, right, so you've got it. And then when you get the rebound, wherever you take that shot, got the rebound, you take a shot, you get it in three points. And then if you take a layup, you get another one point, that's nine points. And because you made all three, you get an extra point 10 points. Great. So I'm writing, I'm putting my course together, I'm doing these things. And it's COVID. And I'm happy to say, five years ago, I got married again, to a beautiful woman who sees me as I am I see her as you are, we're not trying to change each other, each other, our values are well aligned. So it's COVID. And she's outside playing basketball with her. The time I'd say he was about 12, or 13 years old, maybe 14 year old son. And they come back in and I go how's the game? And Ralph says, I lost in 3d says, I want 100 to nothing. I said, How was that possible? How can you get no boys? He goes, Well, I kept on going for the fives. I know, besides the fact that the game got played that way. It's okay to go for the ones to have some points and to like build up. It's like, you know, I became a big shot by taking a lot of little shots. Take some of the little shots. You know, Michael Jordan says I missed 18 million free throws before I made the 8 million, you know, something like that. Got to practice it. So I said, Okay, how am I going to show people in a way that they can they need to work on this, because there's no way you can score 10 the first time. So I go, Okay, let's take 531 and spin it around. And say if you stop before getting into that computation, give yourself one point, if you think about what's going on and do something different. Or think about how it's going to affect you or whatever. Give yourself three points. And then if you respond instead of react, give yourself five points. Okay, great. If you do all three, great, you got a 10. But now, I got to tell you 99.999% of the time, nobody's gonna get even a one the first time. So what happens if you go back the next day? You go, I had a fight with Chris yesterday. It really affected me and affected him to stop, you stop what you were doing. And you were thinking about what happened yesterday. Now you think about it. What can I do differently the next time. And then the five comes in. If you call up, Chris, and you go, Chris, I'm so sorry for what I did. Please accept my apology, and there's no blot dirt. And you're not looking for anything. Give yourself a five. Now you're building your muscle memory on that. Okay, Martin, this has been a great conversation. I'm going to recommend if anyone wants to learn more of the acronyms or get more of the stories and stuff that you use to kind of flush some of these these things out. Grab a copy of your book, worrier to warrior. available everywhere. Well, Amazon amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, got picked up by Barnes and Noble. So that's a good thing. And I'm very happy to say that I'm a best seller. So hey, congratulations. So I got three more questions for you. First, besides your own book, because I've already recommended it, what book would you recommend? Everyone give a read? Well, I can easily say, The Four Agreements because I already talked about that. But I'm gonna mention a different book, because I was very fortunate to have her write my foreword Genevieve Davis, and it's called Becoming magic. And because of what I learned from her, I was able to write my book. And because of the things I learned from her, I was able to meet her and learn from her and grow so much Because of her becoming Magic by Genevieve Davis, she's not well known. But her stuff is fantastic. Awesome. Okay, hello everyone, can you ever pick that up becoming magic? What is next for you professionally, professionally for me, I'm starting to put together masterminds for entrepreneurs who are successful, but maybe they're not profiting as profitable as they think they should be. And on a deeper level, maybe they got to look at what's going on in their organization, and understand how they're contributing to the culture. Because it starts from the top down, and understand that if you come one way, they'll come one way, if you come another way, they'll come another way. And building that up, but it's, and you know, we want to talk about profitability. So we'll build an eyebrow by building the profitability into there as well showing you how you can make X amount of dollars by doing what we're talking about, and having, you know, measuring sticks along the way. That's awesome. Where can people learn more about your masterminds and find you so the best way to find me is to go to connect with martin.com. I made it easy. You go there, yeah, you could buy the book, buy the book. You go there, you could find the link to the cards, Okay, you go there, you can get free things. I have free downloads always going on there. It could be it could be it could be stopped and think and respond. It could be the cycle of A's, which you read in the book, it could be build your emotional strength. Guys, these are things you can learn more about by buying the book. It couldn't be any of those things. Those are free downloads for you to learn how to take the techniques and build on them. Yep. And then also, you could even click on to find that about me and make an appointment with me and all that. Connect with martin.com Awesome. Well, everyone, be sure to look up Martin. Martin, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great conversation. Thank you, Chris. This has been fantastic. And one last thing Tell everybody else out there live incredibly full every day. If you enjoyed today's episode, I would love a rating and review on your favorite podcast player. And for more information on how to build effective and efficient teams through your leadership. Is it leading for effect.com As always deserve it