Ep. 69 - Christian Ray Flores - From Refugee to Star: A Tale of Reinvention

Christian Ray Flores has led a fascinating life, from a child refugee in Chile to becoming an Eastern European pop star, and now a leader in philanthropy and entrepreneurship. Discover how an economics graduate followed his passion for music and found success against all odds. Christian's journey is a testament to the courage it takes to embrace change and listen to your inner calling, even when it means stepping away from the status quo.

Reflecting on personal experiences, we discuss the difficulty of juggling multiple responsibilities. Learn the importance of listening to insight from friends, mentors, and spouses, and how a supportive community can foster growth. We share lessons learned about focus and the power of sometimes humbling personal realizations.

Thanks for listening!

Click here to take the LeaderImpact Assessment and to receive the first chapter of Becoming a Leader of Impact by Braden Douglas.

Remember, impact starts with you!

Chapters

• 0:05 Journey of Spiritual and Professional Pivots
• 12:22 Learning to Listen
• 15:27 Cultivating Creativity and Success
• 22:58 Balancing Outer and Inner Success
• 31:48 Legacy of Alignment and Joy

Transcript

Lisa Peters: 0:05

Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We're a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments or suggestions to make this show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpact. ca or on social at Leader Impact. If you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpactcom.

Lisa Peters: 0:39

I'm your host today and our guest today is Christian Ray Flores. Christian is an entrepreneur, international recording artist, philanthropist and performance coach. His extraordinary journey from a child refugee in Chile to entertaining millions as a pop star in Eastern Europe, leading philanthropic projects internationally, to founding entrepreneurial projects in the US, makes Christian a uniquely dynamic speaker and compelling leader. With a master's degree in economics and fluency in four languages, he is a versatile communicator. Based in Austin, Texas, he co-founded Third Drive Media, creating award-winning media projects and raising millions for startups, and the non-profit Ascend Mission Fund serving children in Mozambique and Ukraine. Through Exponential, Christian empowers business and non-profit leaders to reach and stay at the top of their game. He is the host of the podcast Headspace by Christian Ray Flores and author of Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America. Welcome to the show, Christian.

Christian Ray Flores: 1:45

Thanks for having me, Lisa.

Lisa Peters: 1:48

An amazing bio and I'm super excited to talk to you, but I have to share that when someone calls me and says you need to talk to Christian, that makes me think of the people you surround yourself with. Absolutely love you. Huge, huge kudos to that, that person that called me, and so thank you for just taking the time, because reading this was just... Your bio is incredible and looking you up was a joy, so thank you.

Christian Ray Flores: 2:19

Was it? There's a lot, there's a lot there. A lot of it could be joy, it could be huh, really? A lot of hair. If you look it up on youtube YouTube 90s hair, right.?

Lisa Peters: 2:29

So when you were the rock star. Yes, yes, there's a great flow.

Lisa Peters: 2:39

We definitely talk about our journeys, and I want to hear a little bit about yours, about your professional journey and how you got to where you are today. And, most importantly, we want to hear about those pivots. You know the pivotal turning points along that journey and I was excited. Interestingly, I listened to a podcast of yours today and you talked about the three secrets to lasting fulfillment and one of those was knowing where to pivot and knowing sort of when to pivot. So you know if you can share a little bit more. I know we had a quick bio, but what about your life and those pivots?

Christian Ray Flores: 3:15

Okay. So thank you for asking that question, because I think that is the one thing that people ignore. We ignore the whisper of the soul, and the whisper usually doesn't go away when we ignore it. It just gets louder and louder and louder. And we can suppress it, we can rationalize it away, but if we pay attention, if we just quiet ourselves, it might give us the next thing, the next term, the next season, the next opportunity, the next portal to a new reality, a new future. So I really believe in healthy pivots. The painful thing about that is that everything about us resists potential suffering, and that's why we don't pay attention. So status quo is what we want to maintain, even if we're suffering, even if our status quo is terrible, right? Leaving it in any fundamental way is a painful uncertainty. So we just go oh, maybe not today, maybe I won't fix this today, maybe I won't change things, maybe I won't change. So I'll give you a very few, like a splattering of pivots, and then we can go into whatever rabbit hole that you choose to go down to.

Christian Ray Flores: 4:33

So, for example, I'll give you very quick ones. So I graduate with a master's degree in economics. I speak four different languages. My people, my peers are going to banking, finance, international trade. And I was musical, my whole life, and I danced and I was an entertainer. So I have both these worlds in my heart. And I go, You know, the odds of somebody succeeding as a musician is like zero, or very close to that. But what if? That was a whisper from my soul and I remember sort of wrestling with it. I was working in this international trade company, bored out of my mind, and I'm like you know what I need to stop. So I just stopped, went away. I went to Chile, to the Andes mountains, and I thought about it and I'm like you know what I'm gonna do it.

Christian Ray Flores: 5:22

Just just years later I I was playing sports arenas across 15 different countries. Then I'm riding on a train ride with my crew. Now I have an entourage, 21 people work for me. We're going from city to city to city and I'm looking out the window and I sort of scare myself with this one very specific thought. And the thought was is this all there is for me? And I find myself dissatisfied because there's these areas of me that were dormant, even though I'm enjoying this incredible life. I mean just what a joy and a privilege and how lucky I am that I would write songs in my kitchen table or in the subway and then all of a sudden I see thousands of people singing those songs back to me. right From 15 different countries. But there were parts of me that were dissatisfied.

Christian Ray Flores: 6:15

became a Christian at the time. I wanted to help people spiritually. I grew up in the third world. I wanted to do philanthropy. I wanted to do entrepreneurial things. I wanted to do not things just in that area, because I'm an international guy and I felt a little claustrophobic, let's put it that way. So all these dormant parts that I mean, I have . nothing It's certain, I just have this whisper. So I go back to my team and I go hey, guys, I'm going to transition out of it. Everybody freaks out, thinks I'm crazy, and I start doing spiritual work, ministry work, philanthropic work.

Christian Ray Flores: 6:52

Then we moved to the US a few Texas years later with my wife Deb. She's American and we philanthropy. So I am over nine countries, projects for a big charity it's fantastic and a national project as well. So like double roles and I've learned so much. It's remarkable and we help a lot of people. And then I'm sitting there and we're in LA by the time, and I'm sitting there with Deb and I remember she like brushing her teeth and I go I think I want to start my own company. Like there's a whisper, there's you whisper, there's a shift in the force. And she goes what are you talking about? You're doing this other stuff. And I go I think I want to do music videos and music production, because there's all these Hollywood producers here and I know all these people over there and you used to work for MTV and VH1. Maybe we can do a little niche thing here. And that's how our production company was born and it was like complete. We don't know if anything's going to work at all until it does.

Christian Ray Flores: 7:54

A few years later we're in Austin, Third texas Drive and we're sort of doing a businesses of everything right. So we have this production company and It we decided to plant It was church because it was and Craigslist That's community. That is a non-mega church small. Everybody knows each other's name. It's very connected, very authentic, and we had this vision and we go well, let's go plant a church. We have this business to support us. Let's go plant a church. So we plant a church. And that's another whisper. Right, right, we should make that shift.

Christian Ray Flores: 8:26

And course it's risky and sometimes you pay very dearly for the pivots and we did, because the business that was supported us there. It sort of fell through because the market went away. So now entertainer we're going into debt. Things are really rough. Okay, we can leave the high- or and do something else. so I can go look right, or we can pivot.

Christian Ray Flores: 8:49

So we start a new company called third drive and we start doing marketing for businesses non-profit, non-profits, startups, that kind of thing from nothing. I was just nothing. I like me a camera in craigslist. You know that's, that's the company. And then that evolves, you know.

Christian Ray Flores: 9:06

And and then a few years later, another whisper is look you, you've done all this stuff. You've mentored all these people for your whole life, as a pastor, as a business leader, as an attainer. Coaching is an interesting thing because you get the undivided attention of a high level professional who you can help and you can. They have impact and you have impact through them. And I had all this, all this massive amounts of research and knowledge and life experience, and I've interviewed some of the top, you know experts in human flourishing on my podcast. Like this is something. This is a treasure, right, I need to put it somewhere. And then we start Exponential, which is my performance coaching. So this is just literally a series of small pivots and they all start with a whisper in your soul, somewhere that you either pay attention or you ignore it.

Lisa Peters: 9:59

And have you ever ignored a whisper?

Christian Ray Flores: 10:03

That's a good question. I think I can tell you at least one time where I started a YouTube channel, and I think it was 2007 or something like that, 2008. And it was just too hard. I was insecure, I didn't know if YouTube is going to be anything. And I look back and I go, oh my gosh, if I had started a YouTube channel and kept going every week, I would have improved, I would have been massive right now. And I didn't do it. So I did ignore at least one whisper. I'm sure I ignored more than that.

Lisa Peters: 10:36

When you ignore a whisper, so the YouTube example, did it ever come back to you? I found I am loving when you talk about the whisper. I feel the whisper and when I ignore the whisper, the whisper comes a little harder at me. And then I feel like at times it's like there's a brick coming at me, like, look, I'm telling you, do this. Does that happen to anyone else but me?

Christian Ray Flores: 11:01

Oh totally, it totally does. And then you struggle with regret. You go, oh my gosh. I wish I had a podcast 10 years ago. I wish I had a YouTube channel. But, yeah, I wish I'd written a book 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

Christian Ray Flores: 11:16

have done it perfectly well, you know, and I just didn't do it because it's hard, because there are other things going on and also, maybe maybe at the very core, I didn't know if it was going to be successful and if people are going to go, whatever, and that's sort of the normal thing. So I think there's a lot of things like that that were whispered to me that I ignored. Eventually, it sort of doesn't go away, especially if you're paying attention. And I think overcoming that regret it's a big part of moving on and just grabbing on to success. And now I have a podcast, I have a newsletter, you know. I have a YouTube channel. I just wrote a book that I'm releasing in the fall, and the best time to write a book is 10 years ago. I get it, but the next best time is now, you know. So so I'm doing all those things now and I'm really excited about it.

Lisa Peters: 12:09

I'm glad you brought up the word regret, cause I think a lot of people may feel they regret. I never want to look at regret Like I should have. You know I'm just. I'm going to move forward and learn. I want to believe that I made the best decision at the time that it happened and you know, so I didn't have a YouTube channel 10 years ago. The best time is right now.

Lisa Peters: 12:33

I want to believe that and you know I have no scientific theory, it just makes me happy.

Christian Ray Flores: 13:43

Another brick is another whisper, rather in the form of a brick is the things that you keep doing that are not helping you, and you sort of know, and you know this, and then you sort of push it away or rationalize it or delegate it or just completely ignore it and then eventually that that comes back as a brick. So, for example, for me, you know I have sort of this professional ADHD condition. I do like more than one thing. So I eventually ended up doing like four different things. I'm pastoring this church, I have a nonprofit that I started in Mozambique, a school academy, I have the Third Drive Media Company and the coaching four things. And I'm at this and then I start, you know, I think about it and you know it sort of catches up with you because now you can't really do it all well. There's cash flow problems because you're not focusing, there's time management problems, there's all kinds of things that suffer, right. So you become excellence, starts suffering tremendously, even if you're a high-performance person. I am right and so you feel the pain, you feel that brick really landing on you and you start talking to people that know you, like my wife, like you know what I get it. I feel like I need to focus and they look at you, your friends you know, who love you, who've talked to you a thousand times about it, and they go. You think? Like it's like everybody knows this, everybody knows this. I don't understand how you don't know this right. So I think that the lesson from that is listen to your friends. Stop ignoring when people hint on things. You know people don't want to be getting in your face, but stop ignoring the loving advice of good mentors, and your spouse especially your spouse. Listen to your wife, because they will save you from a lot of pain if you pay attention.

Lisa Peters: 14:33

Yeah, I believe that, and you know, in one of your podcasts you talk about nourishing that ecosystem of people around you.

Christian Ray Flores: 14:40

Yes, that's true.

Lisa Peters: 14:41

So they can help you grow and nurture. Those are the people that love you, those are the people that'll be there thick and thin, you know, yeah, I love that you think.

Christian Ray Flores: 14:53

It's just embarrassing. You go they're laughing at me quite frankly. You go, I deserve that . i h .

Lisa Peters: 15:01

Yeah, you had to find out yourself. Though sometimes, yeah, you just arrive at a place where you can't ignore it anymore.

Christian Ray Flores: 15:10

That's true.

Lisa Peters: 15:11

, second Our question talks a little bit about bitabout a aprinciples principles p I'm wondering if you have a best principle of success and if you have a story that would illustrate that.

Christian Ray Flores: 15:21

Gosh, I do have one and I do have a story. I became friends with this brilliant musician. His name is George Duke. He's Grammy award winning. Has worked with some of the brightest stars on the planet musically jazz, pop across the board, composer, producer, singer, all of it and we were working on a project together. And I mean, I grew up listening to this guy. So I find myself in his studio hanging out with George Duke and being friends with him, which is just insane. So I'm like I'm going to interview, I need to interview George, and sort of soak in the wisdom.

Christian Ray Flores: 16:00

So I did this interview with him and one of the questions that I had was so you've worked with some of the top people on the planet. Is there a common trait that you saw from the geniuses that you work with? And I thought I had these questions or answers in my head Probably hard work, creativity, talent. There's a number of things. And he told me he said no, no, he says I think what they all have in common is that they can imagine themselves succeeding and to me, that became one of the core things. Now that I think about it. One of the core things for success is creating a rhythm of life and the ability to be in a state where you can imagine, where you can really picture what the future holds. And the thing is, you can't really do that if you're always stressed out, if you don't rest, if you don't have spaces to imagine, if you don't have delight and joy. That doesn't happen. That's why creative people are always the top everything in creativity. You can be a writer, a painter, a musician. I don't know if you know this, but as somebody like that, I can tell you we have, if we're in that top place of creativity, we have lots of downtime, Like complete downtime. We do nothing, we don't do nine to five, seriously, like. Talk to any painter, any writer. They have months, weeks, days, for sure in the week, where they're just there, right, why? Because in the emptiness, something happens Imagination starts stirring up, right, and imagination is the key to imagining a new future.

Christian Ray Flores: 17:54

Now, obviously, most of us in the audience probably don't have that luxury. I used to have that luxury. I don't have that luxury anymore, right, but I used to have that luxury where I can go. Eh, I'm going to do nothing for a week. Then I'm going to write some songs, right, because the best songs are written that way. It's not a machine. You have to nurture this thing.

Christian Ray Flores: 18:16

So now I think it's creating the spaces, even in a busy schedule, where that is nurtured and protected, a space for quiet, a space for imagination, a space for joy, even that sort of sense of delight. That is the vitamin. This is a catalyst of creativity, right Delight. And we live in a society that is so high strung, so distracted and so stressed out. Delight is the least people think as a normal thing. This is like the privilege of the few, but that's what they think. But the truth is that's the essential part of actually being a successful person. I can promise you that. Talk to anybody who looks very, very busy and they have these times of nothingness, of just pure joy, relaxation, because that's where the ideas that are game changers come about.

Lisa Peters: 19:15

Yeah, and as you know, and just coming out of being a full time working mother, I'm on the empty nester side now.

Christian Ray Flores: 19:22

Me too.

Lisa Peters: 19:23

Yeah h, I think I'm, and I'm free. Sorry, Ellie and Ty, my kids listening it is. You know, empty nesting is awesome, but we just came out of that busy time where I think we never made time for ourselves right. We were always running, we were always filling filling cups of everyone else and not our own. I loved your comment about imagine yourself succeeding, because if you don't, no one else will.

Lisa Peters: 19:49

Right, and if you don't and I always think of if I don't write my day and how my day will happen someone else will.

Christian Ray Flores: 19:56

I just show my calendar.

Lisa Peters: 19:58

And so if I don't believe, why would anyone else believe?

Christian Ray Flores: 20:02

But you can create the habits to be in that place over and over and over again. Quite literally, I think it's important to have it every day.

Lisa Peters: 20:09

Yeah, do you get it every day? Do you have like?

Christian Ray Flores: 20:12

I do.

Lisa Peters: 20:13

Do you have? I'm up at 5.15 to find that time to have my quiet time.

Christian Ray Flores: 20:16

That's exactly, I'm the 5 am club 5 am club Yay, high five.

Christian Ray Flores: 20:24

I'm up on average between 5 and 5.30, with no alarm. I'm just up and that's the time, that's the treasure, that's where I can write for two hours straight with no distractions, listening to Johann Sebastian Bach and lighting a candle, and journal and think and write and be in this sort of place where nothing demands my attention. And then you add to that learning, you read something that you want to be better at. It could be anything from having a better marriage, better relationships, be better in sales, all of that. Then you add physical exercise to that. That's my formula. So I have like three hours of that.

Christian Ray Flores: 21:07

In the beginning of the day, before people are having breakfast, I'm already supercharged with rocket fuel, you know, and the rest of the day is now fueled by that and shaped by that, and that's sort of that's the life of a high performer and you can develop that. Anybody can develop that. I don't. It doesn't. It doesn't require resources. It requires your desire to live a life of impact in a life of joy, right?

Lisa Peters: 21:36

yeah, I think uh, well Yeah wonder if sometimes look at you and they go I wonder how he does it, or you know uh, they just think it happens and it doesn't just happen? No, it does not no, and you have to make an effort, you have to have the discipline yeah, so you either lower your goals or you

Christian Ray Flores: 21:55

That's it, that's it those are your choices. I mean seriously, yeah, like you can. And and that's where imagination runs out as a resource right, if you, if you, if you can imagine yourself succeeding at a high level, you aim high. Now you have to develop the habits to actually get you there. But if you don't develop the habits, your goals are not going to get you there. Aspirations and goals you imagine, you manifest, all of that stuff is nothing without habits and skills.

Lisa Peters: 22:23

Right. Well, this kind of leads into my next question about failures and mistakes, because I think, I mean, we both know we probably learn more from our failures and mistakes than our successes, and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share a great failing and what you learned from it.

Christian Ray Flores: 22:39

I can share all day long. Right, I would say one and I'm sharing this because I see that in the people that I work with, because I am one of those people High achievers over- invest in their outer game and under-invest in their inner game. And inner game, I mean, it's the thing that the world doesn't reward you for. They will reward you for a music show that moves an audience. They will reward you for a best-selling book, a design as an engineer, a well-done piece of architecture, something like that. They will reward you, give you money, you will be published, you will be respected, you'll have higher status, You'll have a staff, you'll start your own company or you'll be a VP of something right. The world will reward you and you keep investing in that because you're rewarded for those visible, short-term things. What the world will never reward you for is character, wisdom, love, being a good husband, being a good parent. None of those skills are rewarded by the world at all, in any shape, you know, because it's invisible and it's also a longer arch. It's just not noticeable. So what happens with high achievers is that we double down on the outer game, that we ignore the inner game that we need to not ignore. And then the inner game catches up with our outer game. And now we can't do our outer game well at all because we're stressed out, divorced, our kids resent us. We're burned out emotionally because we didn't get to care of our emotional health, our bodies falling apart because we didn't respect and love our body all of those things right.

Christian Ray Flores: 24:16

So for me, I was literally had a number one hit in the charts. I was campaigning for Boris Yeltsin's campaign against the communists. He used my song as the anthem for his election campaign and at the same time, my inability to build a romantic relationship, all of my anxieties to build a romantic relationship, all of my anxieties, all of my trauma from my parents' divorce, all resulted in a breakup with a girlfriend who happened to be pregnant and then had a baby, and then she cut me off because I was such a jerk to her. And I know I became very aware that I do not know how to build a family at all, like I don't know how to pick somebody to love. I don't know how to build a relationship, how to court a woman, how to keep a woman. I don't know any of those things. My inner game in that area is zero. That's it, you know.

Christian Ray Flores: 25:11

And then what you do is you need to decide okay, are you going to lower your goals and basically say, yeah, I'm going to be that idiot rock and roll guy who could never keep a woman, could never build a strong family, probably goes to two, three divorces, which is actually a lot of my friends. That's what they are. Or you can elevate your habits, your skills and your worldview, and that's one. For example, and luckily, I had a friend who was my first coach actually, he's a pastor Canadian pastor, by the way missionary and I basically said, hey, can you teach me how to do this? I don't know how to do this. And he said, yes, I've been now married for 25 years. Happily, my kids don't resent me and love me, and that's a mistake that turned into a victory, and I have many of those. I can go all day long about my faults.

Lisa Peters: 26:05

Yeah, I love in that about overinvest in the outer game and underinvest in the inner game.

Christian Ray Flores: 26:12

Yeah.

Lisa Peters: 26:13

That is powerful and the story is powerful.

Christian Ray Flores: 26:17

Yeah, and it happens with people high achievers everywhere. Yeah, that is that is powerful and the story is powerful. Yeah, yeah, and it happens with, with people high achievers everywhere, you know it's just classic.

Lisa Peters: 26:24

Basically, yeah, thank you for sharing that. That was a good, a good reminder, thank you. A leader impact and I know that we haven't talked a lot about leader impact, but I think you know, I, I think you can get it. We want to grow personally, professionally and spiritually for increasing impact. You talked about it earlier. We want to increase impact. I'm wondering if you're willing to share an example of how the spiritual makes a practical impact in your life as a leader.

Christian Ray Flores: 26:52

Well, for me it was a turning point. I became a Christian late. I grew up in a Marxist, atheist household. I know nothing about God. I've never opened the Bible in my life until the thing that happened that I just told you. And that pastor, that Canadian pastor. He said I can teach you how to do this, how to build a family, but I'll teach you from the Bible. I said all right, and before that I had complete disregard and actually disrespect for the Christian faith. I thought it was just for naive, stupid people. That was sort of my posture and I started reading the Bible and basically I mean I can tell you very quickly that, look you can. I love science. I like I love psychology, neuroscience.

Christian Ray Flores: 27:44

I interview some of the top people on the planet on my podcast that specialize in research. All of that stuff is really really good and really important. But it's been around for maybe 150 years. The Bible has been around for thousands and thousands of years. Ancient wisdom is not less relevant with time. It's actually more relevant because science discovers what changes in the human nature. But the deepest things that never change, this is faith.

Christian Ray Flores: 28:11

This is ancient wisdom, and the bible taught me about everything that matters actually, fundamentally, it teaches you about how do you deal, what's the place of money in your life. You know that's a journey just on its own, like how do you think of money? How do you think of impact and leadership in general? Leadership without faith is self-seeking. Leadership with faith is servant leadership. That's like foundationally different, like opposite things. You build a life on servant leadership. You're going to have a very different outcome. And the list goes on and on Power, sex, marriage, parenting, legacy, death, eternity. How do you fit in the in the, in the plan of the universe? Is there a moral code? And if there is a moral code, what would you give to learn it and how would that influence reality? And to me, that's, that's it. That's, that's the stuff, right? Everything else is secondary and easy to learn.

Lisa Peters: 29:15

Learn the foundational laws of the universe and you'll be a winner in life yeah, yeah, uh, that was good, good example, um, I think, of people that are listening and, uh, um, your comments just about a leader without faith and a leader with faith, and the difference and, um, I wonder if people don't get it. Sometimes they just think you know leadership, right, we, we have so many books and I'm not sure if, and I'm sure you can actually define, when you read a leadership book, you know that that a Christian wrote it, can you?

Christian Ray Flores: 29:56

would you say that? Yeah, I think so. Servant leadership is the defining characteristic, that is, you know, like you look at the history of humanity and the powerful always wins, and Christian leadership is the weak are victorious. I mean it's literally impossible to fake Like this, is it? This is the one prophet who was weak, who was put on a cross, and he was victorious over death, over everything, and we are victorious through him over death. I mean it doesn't get more powerful than that and more opposite than that, and of course, everything downstream from that is very, very clearly Christian. I mean, it doesn't get more powerful than that and more opposite than that, right, and of course, everything downstream from that is very, very clearly Christian.

Christian Ray Flores: 30:50

As a matter of fact, it's really interesting because in the West we have more and more people that say they're not Christian. Right, or some of them are atheists, of course, and stuff like that. But the values that they have, the ideals of freedom, of the sanctity of life, of marriage, of family, of justice, of social justice, of women's rights, of how things should be, all of these things are from the Bible originally. So there's somebody who said that I forget who I quote. But basically, even atheists in the West have Christian dreams Because it's there, it's in the air in the United States and Western Europe and places like that, and you can be a completely secular person, but your values are still derived from these ideas that we read in scripture, so you can't get rid of them if you're in the West. You are the product of them.

Lisa Peters: 31:48

Right, good, we have two last questions for you, and the one is just about lasting impact. So, when you leave this world, well, as you continue through your own journey, yeah, you know, one day you are going to leave this world and wondering what you want your faith legacy to be when you leave this world.

Christian Ray Flores: 32:06

Oh man that's a big, that's a big one, yeah.

Lisa Peters: 32:08

I have to tell you, I was listening to I podcast and it was um, what happens after death and how it?

Christian Ray Flores: 32:21

yeah, yeah, yeah and uh oh it was good, oh my gosh.

Christian Ray Flores: 32:23

Yes, john burke. Yeah, for you in the audience. I interviewed john burke and he wrote several books on life after death, near-death experiences, and he interviewed a bunch of people that are completely from different religions, ethnic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, and what they saw in how it match matches what we read in the Bible. It's just incredible. So you can look it up on my podcast, but you know, I I it's. It's a very good question and I think for me, and all I want is to sort of hear the voice well done, good and faithful servant. Honestly, that's it right, Because it doesn't really matter what my aspirations are. What really matters is what his aspirations are for me and that I match those aspirations. That's really the aspiration. That's the aspiration is the person who is now living, breathing, making all kinds of mistakes, messing up, trying. You know, again and again and again, when I get to that time where you transition into eternity, the person I meet on the other side matches the person that was here.

Christian Ray Flores: 33:39

That's the aspiration you know, and that's the legacy, I think right, because if I can get you know many or a few people just my family even to look at that and go, that's how he lives, like what he says on camera, what he says on stage is exactly how he lives, this, how he behaves, how he talks, how he walks, and it's true, you know, um, I think that's an important legacy to live that is a yeah, that is a great legacy to live and to leave.

Lisa Peters: 34:09

Yeah, thank you. And my final question and I'm excited is what brings you the greatest joy, christian?

Christian Ray Flores: 34:18

oh, wow, uh, is what brings you the greatest joy, christian, oh wow, alignment with divine purposes. I think, like you know, when you feel like you're exactly where you're supposed to be, you know just any given moment right with your wife, and you're present and you're loving her wholly fully. When with your friend, when you're on stage, when you're helping someone in coaching or doing branding and telling a story, and you go, yeah, there's a smile on God's face right now. Yeah, you know, those are the moments I live for.

Lisa Peters: 35:04

Yeah, Do you find those in every day? Are there little moments of your day that you're like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be?

Christian Ray Flores: 35:13

I do, yeah, I do, and I think that's sort of probably the secret, right? Yeah, I do, and I think that's sort of probably the secret, right? Is that you? How do you navigate a life that is full of fallen things, including fallen things inside of you, where you, you know, you experience the messiness of who you are. You know the trauma, the PTSD, the doubts, the fear, the anxiety, all that stuff that you don't want but it's still there. It sort of pops up the envy perhaps, the jealousy, the resentment.

Christian Ray Flores: 35:48

So how do you combine that with moments of pure alignment and joy? And then that pure alignment and joy they sort of displace this other stuff. It just pushes it out and then it comes again. But you know how to displace it again and again, and again. And that's why I say that if you want higher goals, you have to create these higher habits, this ability to be in a certain state of being. But it has to be every day, because you live every day. It has to be in the mundane, in the small things that nobody sees, because from those little moments is how you build just great achievements that impact other people and serve other people.

Lisa Peters: 36:30

Well, that's a perfect way to end. Christian Is it? It is. It's just. You know, live our moments and keep living. I want to thank you, christian, for taking the time today, because you are a busy guy to catch up with and, as I said before, when someone calls me and says you need to talk to Christian, it's like I need to talk to Christian.

Christian Ray Flores: 36:52

I appreciate it very much.

Lisa Peters: 36:52

So you know, you've surrounded yourself with an amazing family friends, people you work with. They are loving and supporting you, so thanks for joining us today. Now, if anyone wants to find out more about you either and I know you probably have a few different when I found you, it's like finding your podcast, finding your blog, but what is a great place for people just to find you, connect with you.

Christian Ray Flores: 37:16

Well, I mean, I'm very easy to find because you can just Google my name, my full name, christian Ray Flores, and you'll see it on the first page. And I think two places that you might want to look into. One is I have this newsletter. I think we have like 21,000 subscribers now on Substack and the URL is christianrayflorescom. And it's free. All new posts are free. You can support us for like a latte a month if you want to help support the production team. It goes a lot of work, does a lot of work for it. Um, but that's where I sort of you know, I just put everything I love there, so it's text, it's videos, it's it's a podcast like yours. Like I'm going to put that somewhere right on the newsletter and send it out. Books that I'm reading, movies I even put there hey, don't watch this movie, it's terrible, right? I did that recently for the first time.

Lisa Peters: 38:08

You're de-influencing.

Christian Ray Flores: 38:09

I'm de-influencing, that's right, but that's a really good sort of central thing. Another place, if you want a little bit more intentional influence there's on my coaching website, which is exponentiallife without the E starts with an X, the cool way to spell exponential. There's a button there you can access a scorecard that I developed that I literally use with all my clients, which is basically the ability to assess the most important dimensions of life, from one to 10. And then you see like a picture, like a snapshot of where you're at, and it's a really good way, like it's a reality check, right? And whether it's, you know, high or low, it doesn't matter, as long as you know where you are, because at least you can use that as a starting point to get to your goals and start building a different future.

Lisa Peters: 39:00

Yeah, got to mark a starting point somewhere.

Christian Ray Flores: 39:03

That's right. Yeah, all right.

Lisa Peters: 39:04

Well, thank you, Christian, for spending time with us today.

Christian Ray Flores: 39:07

Lisa, it was just a joy and a pleasure. Thank you All, right.

Lisa Peters: 39:11

Well, if you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you are not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find more, grow your leadership. Find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpactca and check out our free leadership assessment. You'll also find on our webpage chapter one of Braden Douglas's book Becoming a Leader of Impact. You can also check out groups available in Canada at leaderimpactca or, if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out leaderimpactcom or get in touch with us by email. Info at leader impactca. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us and remember impact starts with you.