The Small Business Safari
Have you ever sat there and wondered "What am I doing here stuck in the concrete zoo of the corporate world?" Are you itching to get out? Chris Lalomia and his co-host Alan Wyatt traverse the jungle of entrepreneurship. Together they share their stories and help you explore the wild world of SCALING your business. With many years of owning their own small businesses, they love to give insight to the aspiring entrepreneur. So, are you ready to make the jump?
The Small Business Safari
From Prison To Purposeful Entrepreneurship | Fleet Maull
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What do you do when your biggest mistake costs you 14 years in federal prison? Fleet Maull turned that experience into the foundation for building a successful business, a life of purpose, and a mindset every entrepreneur can learn from.
SUMMARY:
In this powerful episode of The Small Business Safari, Chris and Alan sit down with Fleet Maull, entrepreneur, author, mindfulness teacher, and Inc. 5000 business founder, to explore the extraordinary journey from federal prison to business success. Fleet shares how radical responsibility, self-awareness, and nervous system regulation helped him rebuild his life after incarceration and create opportunities where most people would only see obstacles.
We dive into practical lessons for business owners, including overcoming imposter syndrome, leading under pressure, managing stress, and navigating today's increasingly distracted and polarized world. Fleet also explains why AI is creating unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs and shares a simple breathing technique that can help you think more clearly, stay calm, and make better decisions.
Whether you're trying to scale a business, overcome setbacks, or simply become a more effective leader, this conversation offers actionable insights you can put to work immediately.
🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari
💡 GOLD NUGGETS
• How Fleet transformed a 14-year prison sentence into a masterclass in personal growth
• The power of radical responsibility in business and life
• Building a successful consulting business after prison at age 50
• Why nervous system regulation is a competitive advantage for leaders
• Straw breathing: a simple technique to reduce stress and improve decision-making
• Managing anger, distraction, and polarization in today's world
• How AI is lowering barriers and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs
• Moving from overwhelmed operator to strategic CEO
🔗 Guest Links
• Website: https://heartmind.co
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fleet-maull-13306812b
🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another business owner who could benefit from Fleet's remarkable story and practical leadership lessons. Every entrepreneur faces setbacks—this episode shows what's possible when you take ownership of what happens next.
Thanks to our sponsor Smart Hire Solutions LLC!
Big Brain Banter And Welcome
SPEAKER_01I tell you what, big words, big brain.
SPEAKER_02I mean, what does he do in his spare time?
SPEAKER_01I tell you, man. I tell you, there was a download right there. Wow, fleet. That um obviously uh great work on the nonprofit. We'll touch on that a little bit. I want to go back to the heart mind work, but um I guess we gotta go. You started out as a young man. He put it out there. You you you you brought it in, so we gotta hit it. All right, man. How long what'd you do time for? We know you weren't guilty. So what did you guilty as hell, but um welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls, and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your step to that moment. It's gentle up there, and I want to help you to first get the levels of running your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from getting your own personal professional goals. So, let's take a five minutes.
Listener Shoutouts And Why It Matters
SPEAKER_01Probably walking around, maybe doing a little walkabout. Hopefully, you got good weather while you're listening to this one.
SPEAKER_03Did you say walkabout for our Australian fan?
SPEAKER_01I did. I you like how I did that. And the reason I did is because I just got hit up by another Australian uh who has been listening to the podcast, and he's a tradeie in the Australian market.
SPEAKER_03Look at you dropping the lingo.
SPEAKER_01He did, yeah. He's a plumber in Australia, listens to the show, and uh shout out, appreciate you doing that. Um, talked with another uh another couple guys over the last two weeks who have listened to the show. Um, had a guest reach out to me and said, Hey man, thanks again for having me on, because I've had two people in the industry because he's my uh he's our guy, Steve Lang, who was my supplier. And so the guy or the industry that we're in is home improvement. And uh he said, I said, so they were guys who listen all the time. And they go, he go, as a matter of fact, yes, they do. And I said, They're here in Atlanta, and he said, No, they're not. I said, Oh, that's cool, man. So broad audience, kind of fun, had a great week. Uh just kind of getting out there and and talking with some people, uh, talking with them.
SPEAKER_03That Steve Lang episode was one where I didn't realize how good it was until I re-listened to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was uh I mean what a good guy.
SPEAKER_03And then at the end, when you wrapped it up with all the stuff that he's done without any fanfare, he's not doing it for likes or anything. He's just doing really cool things for other people who need help. And it's not part of his business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think that's the part that's probably why he got that call, I think. And so I just think that's cool. I mean, again, if you're listening, man, tell your friends, tell your family, get it out there, give everybody the word, man. The small business safari, we're dropping dimes, bringing the heat. I just again can't say it enough. Enjoy doing this, love getting together with Alan. Get a chance to expand our mind a little, Alan. Kind of, you know, get into that zen moment, you know, kind of bring myself back to center because I'm so good at that. I'm not a really emotional, excitable guy.
SPEAKER_03I'm wearing a pastel shirt just to try to calm you down.
SPEAKER_01I can't do
Meet Fleet Mall And His Name
SPEAKER_01it. Can't do it. We're gonna see if this guy can know. I think um all time one of the best names we've ever had on. Yeah. I mean, if you are rocking a name like Fleet Mall, you are definitely cool. Fleet, welcome to the show, man.
SPEAKER_03It's like a Star Wars.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thanks for having me. He was Fleet Mall before Star Wars, man.
SPEAKER_03I know.
SPEAKER_01All right, we gotta we gotta ask before we jump into what you do and how you do it. Great. How did you get the first name Fleet?
SPEAKER_00Uh it's actually my grandfather's middle name. And uh his uh his first name was Myron, so I've I've always been grateful that I got his middle name and not his first name because Myron's a bit of an old-fashioned name. I'm not sure I ever would have got used to that. When I was young, Fleet, you know, if you got something unusual about you when your kid has put up your dukes, right? So it took a little while to get used to it, but I like it now, and it's a distinctive name, so yeah, it's great. But it's a family name, and uh what it's not manufactured. I love that. I'll tell you a quick story. You mentioned you mentioned uh Star Wars um part of my backstory is I did time in prison, and I don't know if you guys are aware of that. We'll get into that, but uh yeah. Oh, you got me on that one. That is not in the profile that I read. I've been out I've been out I've been out for quite a while. Uh but shortly after I was out, uh I was out to the movies, and this was um uh around that um I think it might have been Star Moon, and some somebody uh somebody talked about Darth Maul, uh first of all, from Star Wars, and then it was also when that controversy was going around the John what was her name? Bonet Murders, a young girl that got a bigger one. John Bene Ram Benet Ramsey Atlanta. And that just happened. And and the the friend of his who was getting investigated by the police ended up not being a person of interest in the end, I don't think, but his name was Fleet Something. And so these people behind us in line thought they heard somebody call me by name and they thought that's who I was.
SPEAKER_01Oh boy.
SPEAKER_03That's a little uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01Who I tell you what, you you dropped a I mean, we're gonna hold that. We're gonna we're gonna not. Or I mean just get right into it. No, we're not we're we're gonna hold on to the prison thing and come back to it. So let's rewind a little bit. Why don't you tell everybody real quickly what what you do and how you help people, and then we're gonna dive back into the stories.
HeartMind Work Plus Nonprofit Mission
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh I have a company, Heart Mind, Heart Mind Institute. We do big online summits and uh courses and coaching programs and in-person events and retreats, all kind of at the intersection of current neuroscience, positive uh psychology, and uh what we call ancestral wisdom, contemplative wisdom, all the science of the both East and West from the contemplative traditions, mindfulness and meditation, the inner yogic traditions, all that science combined with cutting-edge current neuroscience and positive psychology. And uh, we're helping people deal with their overwhelming anxiety, helping them rewire their brains for optimal performance and happiness and well-being, helping them heal trauma. Uh, and so it's kind of in that realm. We also do some summits in the psychic assistant psychotherapy space because that has been offering so much promise for uh vets, especially healing from PTSD. And uh so that's kind of the general uh realm that we're in. Uh I'm also uh still that's my for-profit company, HeartMine, and we hit the Inc. 5000 that's two years in a row. We're gonna hit it again this August. We actually shrunk a bit last year, but our three-year growth, which is what that's based on, will he'll still get us on the list for a third time. And um we shrunk a bit because AI is really having a major impact on the online education space, which we're pivoting around and figuring out, but it's something worth talking about. But then I also have a nonprofit I've been responsible for for uh more than 30 years that um uh that brings mindfulness and meditation into the whole criminal justice public safety space for the incarcerated, for at-risk incarcerated, returning youth and adults, but also uh for the last almost 15 years, the correctional officers, the probation and parole officers, community police, other first responders. So that's another part of my life as well. Wow.
SPEAKER_01I tell you what, big words, big brain.
SPEAKER_02I mean what does he do in his spare time?
SPEAKER_01I tell you, man, I tell you that was a download right there. Wow, fleet. That um obviously uh great work on the nonprofit. We'll touch on that a little bit. I want to go back to the heart mind work, but um I guess we gotta go.
A 14 Year Prison Wake Up Call
SPEAKER_01You started out as a young man. He put it out there. You you you you brought it in, so we gotta hit it. All right, man. How long what'd you do time for? We know you weren't guilty. So whatever.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, I was guilty as hell, but um uh I think I got more time than I deserved, but I was guilty as hell. Um, you know, I'm a baby boomer and I came up to the counterculture. I graduated from high school in 1968, a very tumultuous year in U.S. history, the uh the year of the Kennedy and King assassinations and the Kent State murders, and quite a just incredible amount of cultural and political tumult. And uh and I was an angry young man due to alcoholism in my childhood, uh, not my own alcoholism, but more of my parents, and uh and uh so you know I emerged into young adulthood with a big hole in my gut, angry, uh strong propensity towards addictive behaviors, and went headlong into the counterculture of the time, majored in drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And before I could figure all that out, I earned my way into a uh 14-year federal prison uh sentence or sabbatical. Um, and uh I'd always been a spiritual seeker as well. So by the time I uh got myself into prison, I'd been training in deep meditative traditions for a long time. I've been trained as a teacher, been really training pretty deeply for at least 10 years, been interested for in involved in it for 20 years. I'd uh also done a three-year clinical training program uh as an integration of Buddhist and Western psychology and psychotherapies, and and um uh so I had that clinical training behind me. Um so I had a lot of training preparation before I landed in prison. So fortunately uh I was able to do a lot with the time I spent there. It was a big, huge wake-up call for me. I, you know, I knew I I knew what I'd been involved in. I I'd I'd I'd left the country as an ex as an angry uh young man, became an expat living down in South America, and then fell into small-time drug smuggling, originally just being a source for other smugglers, and then uh and then doing some smuggling myself, just as a way to live outside the system, and I justified it with all this us versus them thinking. Um and uh before I could straighten all that out, uh I heard my way into that prison sentence. But um uh, you know, I'd been a secret for a long time, had a lot of training and preparation. So uh when I did get locked up, it was a huge wake-up call. My son was nine years old at the time. Now he was going to grow up without a dad. I was originally sentenced to 30 years with no parole, so the next paper next morning said I'd be 65. I was 35 then, I'd be 65 before I had any chance of release. And I thought that was the case for at least the first six months that I was in federal prison. I'd already spent seven months in a county jail going through trial and sentencing, and then it took me about six months because they don't tell you anything, but I finally figured it out that because I was sentenced prior to 1987, um that uh, and in fact that was the reality back then, that when I figured this out, it was still before 1987. Um, I was sentenced under what they call the the old law, where you got a lot of good time. I had a no-parole sentence because of the statute I was uh convicted on, the so-called Kingpin statute, the continuous criminal enterprise statute, which is like uh a criminal RICO statute, uh conspiracy, a very elaborate conspiracy statute, which actually there was one thing I didn't feel I was guilty of, which is why I went to court. Otherwise, I probably just would have, you know, pled um um or put myself at the mercy of the court. But uh I didn't feel I was guilty of that, and that's the one that carried the no parole sentence, potentially up to life. I could have gotten life in prison. Um, but I got 30, and um but uh before 1987 there was parole. I I had a non-parole sentence, but other people could get parole, but uh also you got a lot of good time. So on a sentence, a long sentence beyond 10 years, you got 10 days a month statutory good time up front, so that gave you your statutory release date. You could lose that. They take it away in chunks if you're getting in trouble in prison. And then uh they also uh if you kept a job while you're in prison, you didn't have to do a good job, but if you just kept a job, you got five days a month that you earned as you go, ex what they call it, extra good time. Sometimes they call it camp good time. And so once I figured all that out, I knew I would serve 18 and a half on the 30. And then it took my appeal about two and a half years to go through the courts, and on my appeal they knocked off one count, should have given me a new trial, but it didn't. And uh so my aggregate sentence went from 30 down to 25, and then I knew I'd serve 14 and a half. And at that point, I probably still had about 12 to go. So it still looked like and felt like forever, uh, but it was a lot better than 30. And uh that is what I ended up serving. I ended up serving 14 years in prison and then six months in a halfway house, and then another, and then the rest of the time uh uh you serve under supervision. So I was under supervision and a lot of restrictions for another another 10 years or so. But um, yeah, so that was uh that was my prison thing. And I spent all that time in federal prison working on myself. I was a school teacher, it was my day job. So it was a good professional experience training myself how to uh help really angry men uh learn to read or get their GD or study for college courses and uh work with really angry men who didn't want to be in school, whose memories of school were a nightmare, but they were being forced to go to school, or they'd put them in a hole so they're even more angry. And so, and you live on the same units with them, so uh you don't want to piss people off because anybody can, you know, you gotta go sleep at night. You don't have locks on your cell doors, so the littlest guy in the joint can can kill you very easily. So learning how to be skillful and and be a school teacher and work with folks like that was really in-depth professional training for me. Uh I led a meditation group because I was a trained meditation teacher, so I led a twice-weekly meditation group for 14 years. Uh, was very involved in my own recovery work from alcoholism and addiction, so I was very involved in AA and NA 12-step groups all that time. And then because I was at a US um U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, which is the maximum security hospital in the federal prison system in Springfield, Missouri, the patients all come from the high-level penitentiaries. And um, so uh this was the AIDS epidemic was just going into full swing in 1985, and so men were dying there of AIDS and cancer and liver disease under terrible, horrific, even I would say criminally negligent uh conditions. And we started the first hospice program in a prison anywhere in the world, and uh trained, got outside professionals coming and train prisoners like myself to be hospice volunteers, and uh I did that work on all my meal breaks, my free time in the evenings for the remaining 11 years of my sentence.
SPEAKER_01So so the obvious question is so uh what formed you? No, I'm kidding. So clearly you get out, uh you're
Starting Over At 50
SPEAKER_01out now. Um now you now you're you're a felon, and uh obviously work release, you can't go teach people uh uh can you? I mean, so what was your path coming out? What what got you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00Well once I figured out once I figured out the good time, and it's and you know that I uh I served 14. If I stayed out of trouble, it's not easy to stay out of trouble in prison. Not easy at all, but I managed to for the most part. And um so I knew I'd be 50 when I got out. And it's not easy to start a life at 50, especially when you have a serious criminal record and you're in debt. I uh the IRS had an assessment against me for about 300,000, and so you know, a pretty difficult way to start your life. And so, but I spent those 14 years training myself, and I knew I just really had to work hard and train myself. I wanted to really serve that community I was in and really make a difference, but I was also really training myself. I I did all the finished all the coursework for my PhD while I was in there, and I was just, you know, really training myself how to bring value to life. And so when I got out, I I had nothing, I've had nothing but opportunity ever since I got out in 1999. I was eventually able to travel and uh uh I I presented at the uh at the National Um American Psychiatric Conference, a big national conference for the field of psychiatry. I presented there in New Orleans just six months after I got out. So I I very quickly elevated into a professional level. Um uh teaching, I got a job teaching at a at the same university where I got my master's degree in Colorado, Naropa University, they invited me to join faculty there, so I was on faculty there and uh teaching courses in Buddhist uh psychology and uh um uh lots of different courses, meditation-related courses. But I started my um business career right then. I mean, I grew up in a business-oriented family, small business. I elected not to make that my career path. My brother did. It was a it was a Midwestern food manufacturing company that my great-grandfather started. Um, but you know, I had that kind of in my bones probably. Um, but when I got out, I started a uh management consulting business. Uh and uh uh originally, you know, I was living in a halfway house, and I would uh I would walk to or once I got a bicycle, I would bicycle the potential clients, hide my bicycle in the bushes, and walk in there wearing a suit with my briefcase and tell them why they should hire me as their uh management consultant. It took me six months to get my first client, but I negotiated a $5,000 a month retainer with my first client, and then I was off and running. So for the early period I was out, I was running the nonprofit that I'd started while I was in prison, Prison Dharma Network. I was teaching uh a lot at university and I was developing this uh management consulting business.
SPEAKER_01Just amazing. Uh obviously the resourcefulness when you get out. Uh, how about that, right? How many of us, you know, when you think about being in small business, how many of us are willing to uh get on the bike, get over there? I mean, this is the imposter syndrome to the exact uh explanation. I am riding a bike, I have my suit on, I put my bike in the bushes, and I go in and tell them I can help you make your business better. And I sit there, you think about small business. We always say fake it till you make it. We think about the imposter syndrome that we go through. That is, I think, the best image that will explain what the imposter syndrome probably is. But you had the resourcefulness, you had the background, you had the information there. You just had to have people willing to give you a shot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Actually, my first client, um uh I I was going around doing free, I I learned I I got trained in and learned a kind of uh strategic planning, creative planning process. It was very visual with uh storyboards and lots of stickies on the wall and stuff, and I I learned how to do that, and so I was going around doing that for people for free, whoever would let me do something for them. I did stuff for the University of Colorado and the other university where I was teaching, and I did it for a few number of businesses. But actually, the way I got my very first client, I put an ad in the yellow pages and just a little, you know, two, three-line ad. And somebody called me and they told me that they were uh interviewing uh consultants to they needed to create a business plan. They were baby boomers like myself. They had a company that was kind of killing them. They were they were wearing all the hats, and they either wanted to they wanted to grow it so they could either uh not have to wear all the hats and just do what they enjoyed doing and have a company they could drive in, or they wanted to sell it. Either way, they didn't care, but they couldn't stay where they were, it was killing them. And so um they asked me if I could do that. I said, of course I can do that. And uh I'd never done a business plan before. And uh, but they interviewed ten consultants and hired me for some reason, and uh I negotiated a $5,000 a month retainer, and um I actually ended up running their business for them for about six months while they were in Europe at one point. But um uh years later, they they uh happened uh uh I I think it was about a year after that. I uh that engagement lasted a couple years, and before that ended, I had two or three more clients. But uh they came by my office and they saw on my bookshelf, they saw a whole bunch of books on uh business plans. And uh they said, Was that the first business plan you ever did? And I just looked at it and said, Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_03Nice. I wanna I want to ask you a question. I want to I want to go back to something that you said because I I think this is gonna be really important.
Channel Anger Into Creative Work
SPEAKER_03Right now we're here, we are in 2026, and all we're hearing is the country is more divided than it's ever been. And then you just brought me back to my childhood, 1968, the assassinations, Vietnam War, Kent State shooting. Do you think the country's more divided than it's ever been? And what advice would you have to somebody listening who's one of those angry young men that you were back then?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think we're divided in a different way. I do think we're more divided and more polarized. Um and uh there back then it was a generational divide, right? Uh it was a generational divide. But the culture itself wasn't that, you know, Republican, Democrat, what your religion was. People didn't make such a big deal out of that. Um, and uh, and you know, we were still governed from the from from the middle, more or less, right? You know, you always had the extremes on the fringe, right? Uh, but you know, in the last decade or so, the the middle has disappeared and the extremes have taken over, the extreme left and the extreme right, and there's no conversation anymore. It's all extremely polarized, and social media has made its contribution to that. A lot of different factors, but I think our culture and uh and our politics is more divisive and more polarized than it ever has been to the extreme. Much more. Back then, it was really it was a generation that was opting out of the system and angry about. About the system and feeling like the system was hypocritical and and uh and then the system itself. But the mainstream political cultural system was nowhere near divided like it is today. It was a completely different world.
SPEAKER_03So again, what advice would you have to that angry young man today?
SPEAKER_00Uh get engaged, take that anger and channel it into something creative. Um, you know, I I wish I had channeled my anger into more creative pursuits than uh than doing drugs and um becoming uh, you know, kind of an outlaw living out as an expat um and ending up time in prison. And in many ways, I mean that was my formation, and uh on on some level I have no regrets. It's I I have a lot of regrets over any harm that anybody experienced as a result of drugs that I had anything involved with. Um and I also have a lot of regrets over the impact it had on my son, um, who grew up uh with his dad being in prison. But other than that, um in many ways I don't have regrets. It was my journey, but I still the regrets I do have is uh, you know, I could have done some many more creative things uh with uh, you know, a lot of creativity came out of that. My generation created the whole digital age, created the the personal computer and everything that flowed out of that, right? And so, you know, I could have put my creative energies into that um and and many other things, right? So I would encourage somebody who's angry today, uh, get help with your anger and fuel that energy into being creative. Uh, you know, there's we've never been in a time when we have access to more powerful creative tools and access to more knowledge uh across all disciplines from the entire world and from all cultures and from all time. It's just there at our fingertips. And uh, you know, you're in our you know, one one way to look at how, you know, how as human beings, how we fall on two sides of a of a line here. We're either we're either consumers or we're creators. Now, most of us are uh even the creators, we're all consumers as well. But what what's the dominant thing, right? The culture is trying to train us to be passive consumers, right? And uh, and so you know, don't become a passive consumer. Become a creator. Uh become a creator, and you know, just find what your juice is, find what your instincts are, find what your passion is. I mean, there's anything, there isn't any little niche of human interest that couldn't be turned into a successful business today. And, you know, the pathway to uh self-empowerment and personal competency and and really and personal wealth at whatever level today is entrepreneurship. And uh and the barrier to entry has never been lower. Uh, you know, some maybe think, well, it's extremely competitive, uh, and the fact that the barrier to entry is lower makes it more competitive. But, you know, there's so many wannabes that are playing around with it. If you're serious, you're gonna rise to the top very quickly. So I don't say wannabes to be pejorative or disrespectful to people. I I'm glad they're wannabes. But you know, for whatever reasons, there's it's a smaller subset of us who really get in and and do the work and do it, right? So if you're angry, fuel that into some drive and go find out what any little thing you're passionate about and and learn how to excel at it using all the creative tools we have from AI and and and create a business and get going. Add some value to life. Absolutely. Turn your anger into passion and value.
SPEAKER_01Anger into passion. That's the gold nugget. That's somebody is a while. I'm an angry man. You know, I don't think uh you talked about that. I think at all at all some levels, unless you have really made peace with things. I think we all have it. And it's interesting when you talk about the polarization and that the the fringes have taken over the middle, is that it's very interesting when people get into those conversations on the fringes, and you're like, I I actually knock it down and say, look, I just I don't have the time for that one, man. I uh I'm trying to run a business, uh, so let's go back over here and talk about something else. And I think a lot of times maybe either it's uh the mental candy that people like to chew and get into those areas to not really address what they can do to become successful. And because that's what I took away, what you said.
SPEAKER_00The thing is, it dominates the mainstream today. I mean, the only place, the place where real conversations happen is in the world of podcasting, a long-form podcasting, really, is where there are people center-left, center-right, who want to have real dog dialogue and real questions. But that's not what happening, that's not happening in either one of our political parties. It's not happening in Congress, it's not happening in the mainstream media, right? Um, it's really only happens in mostly in the world of podcasting, where where you have reasonable, intelligent, left to right, left to center folks that want to have real conversations, real dialogue, and and they recognize that nobody's right all the time, none of us have all the answers, but but we can find our way together, and uh, and you know, that's where the best solutions are, is uh the more diversity uh in ideas you can bring together among reasonable people who are willing to have real conversations, you're gonna get to the best solutions. A hundred percent. But they gotta be willing to have conversations and not just be, you know, focused on blaming and shaming each other to death for they think that's the their route to power. Yeah, well said.
SPEAKER_03And I know Chris, you want to go, but I gotta I gotta ask. That first sale, you're riding a bike, five grand a month, that's a life-changing thing. Just do you how did that feel? That first close deal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it felt great. Um uh you know, it's kind of uh um I'd had money before, you know, because I mean I didn't grow up with money. My my family had a family business, but if people are old enough, I grew up in the suburbs, but kind of at the level of, you know, just on the edge of working class uh white-collar, you know, kind of leave it to beaver, fathers knows best, that kind of suburban, those shows from the 1950s. So money was tight, you know, stretch, you know, every everything was tight like that. My you know, my family did better later after I left home. They kind of moved more towards the I guess upper middle class, but I I didn't grow up in that world. And uh, but you know, then later on, involvement smuggling, I wasn't trying to get rich, but I had money, you know, and uh so uh um so you know $5,000 a month was less than I'd been making before I went to prison. But it was still uh it was no small thing. It was great. And it was uh and you know, it wasn't long uh before I got out of prison that I was actually making more money than before I went to prison, and I was doing it legally. Because I I was never making millions as a smuggler. I would, I would, I would do a run, make some money and spend it, you know, and live outside the country, and when it was almost gone, I'd go do it again, right? Or once I moved back to the States, I put myself through school. Uh, you know, I would uh again, I'd once or twice a year I'd disappear, do that, make some money, and when it was almost gone, I'd go do it again. So I wasn't really trying to get rich doing it. But in general, um, you know, um, but it wasn't long before I was making more than that legally, and that was great because I didn't have to be looking over my shoulder anymore. I wasn't freaked out that the door was going to be broken down any moment of the day, right? So that was a huge relief to be able to be. I'd always been kind of entrepreneurial and self-supportive. I mean, I I, you know, I left home uh in college and never asked my parents for a dime or or anything or got a dime from anybody. Uh so I've been self-sufficient for a long time. But it was great to be self-sufficient legally and to be able to be relaxed and not worried about somebody breaking down my door.
SPEAKER_01So let's uh let's talk a little bit about now what you're doing
Radical Responsibility And Self Awareness
SPEAKER_01today. One of the things we we we didn't touch on yet, but you help people who kind of get unstuck or or rethink or reimagine themselves. Maybe uh let's share maybe a tool or two that you use with people uh when you engage with them that people could probably pick up on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, um you know, I use a lot of self-awareness tools and the context of what I call radical responsibility, which is the name of my first major book. Um, and uh radical responsibility was the philosophy I developed in prison. Uh really quickly when I got there, I realized that if I was gonna have any hope of having any kind of life inside, survive inside, have any kind of a life with dignity and have any kind of any hope for a life if I ever got out, if I survived, I was gonna have to embrace like 1,000% for having got myself in there, what I was gonna do with my time there. And I there were a lot of people I could blame. You know, I did a lot of people's time, um, but I just knew focusing on that was just completely a complete waste of time. I also realized very quickly I was in a really corrosive negative environment, and that uh and everybody had a huge victim story, and if I didn't proactively do otherwise, I could end up just broken and bitter and angry and you know and full of all that kind of stuff. I didn't want to live that way in prison. Uh portion had a lot of contemplative training, a lot of psychological training, and uh, you know, I'd had a lot of good models and mentors, and so um that's not who I wanted to be. So I realized I had to just embrace really 1,000, I got myself in here and what am I gonna do with it? And and focusing on anything else was just gonna be a waste of energy and waste of time. So, you know, that's the philosophy I I lived by then and continue to live my life by, and that I try to help people around is realizing, realizing the power and choice. And it's not that there aren't circumstances, right? And it's not that you can't attribute some causation of some circumstances we deal with to people and forces outside ourselves, but we can't control any of that. The only thing we have any real power over or even influence over is ourselves and our own choices, right? So that's where we want to focus our energy. Any any any other focus is just kind of an inefficient use of our energy when it comes down to it. So, I mean, we when stuff happens, we may need to convection, complain for a moment, but you know, give it 30 seconds and then move on, right? I mean, stuff, horrible stuff happens to people and for which they may need to have that really validated, right? And they may need a lot of support. But at some point, if they don't say, okay, this horrible thing happened to me, it shouldn't happen to anybody, but here it is. What am I gonna do with it? At some point, that's the really sad question. Am I gonna let this take me down and you know develop a permanent victim mindset and identity, or am I gonna find the most creative way I can respond to this to move my own life forward, even in my own online self-interest? And if I do that with any kind of long-term view, that's usually in everybody else's interest as well. So there's that. That's that's the context, and then the how really has to do with developing deep self-awareness on how this machine runs, right? Understanding our own neurophysiology, our own biology, our own trauma, our own conditioning, and understanding how to transform that, developing the self-awareness to be able to live a choice because you know we have conditioning individual patterns that have been running since our childhood, and they're still running until they're not. And for most of us, they still will rear their ugly, ugly head any time of day or night. So if we don't have the self-awareness around that, we won't have choice. We'll already be in the behavior and the result of the consequence before we even realize what's going on. So we have to have the presence of mind and develop the neural buffering in our system to recognize, okay, here I am. I feel that reaction, I see that pattern, I know where this could go. I'm gonna make a different choice. I'm gonna make a choice that's really in my own enlightened self-interest and probably in the interest of others. And that takes presence of mind to do that. It takes literally transforming your own neural architecture, your own nervous system. And there's a lot of tools to do that from the uh contemplative tradition. So I teach a uh very deeply embodied, neuroscientifically informed approach to meditation called neurosomatic mindfulness meditation, which helps people Is that one word? That's one word, or it's a group of words. Um it helps people um completely transform their own neurophysiology and their own neural arc to literally rewire their brains so they can live consciously, live a choice, and optimize their own health and well-being and optimize their own success. But it's really getting in there and and doing that work. So the tools I give people are the self-awareness, embodied self-awareness mind training tools. And then I also give people um experiential um uh practices, uh experiential opportunities that help them see the value in the in the philosophy of radical responsibility, see that that's not a burden, but it's actually where all their power is. So it's really the combination of those things. The context and getting people to not just think that some should, but realize, oh my God, that's actually the doorway to freedom. The more radically I can take ownership from my own circumstances, day in and day out, the ones I can see I had something to do with, but even the ones I can see I I don't see I had anything to do with, I'm gonna still take ownership over what I'm gonna do with those, the choices I'm gonna make, and then I'm gonna train myself so I can really make choices instead of having, you know, my childhood running my life. I mean, we all live at this interface between our childhood programming and the world around us. Now, if our childhood programming was completely benevolent and we lived in a bubble of benevolence, then maybe we could be in there somewhat mindlessly, somewhat mechanically, and things might work out okay. But for most of us, our childhoods were a mixed bag at best, and the world around us is certainly not a bubble of benevolence. And for mostly, we're just in there kind of getting shoved around in this in this intersection between the reactivity between our childhood programming and the world around us. So, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can take ownership for our own nervous system, we can take ownership for our own mind, our own neurophysiology, and we can, despite whatever challenges are going on, we can have the ability to stop, assess what's going on, and make a conscious, creative choice about what is the best way for me to respond to this rather than living a life of habitual mechanical reactivity, which is where we all live until we don't. And most of us are walking around thinking we're adults, free-thinking adults, making free-thinking adult decisions all day long. Be nice if it were true, but it's really not. Stimulus A1 comes in, we respond with response or reaction B2 every time. We're very highly programmed, very habitual, very reactive until we're not. So becoming conscious is really the human game. That's the game of human evolution is becoming conscious.
SPEAKER_03So without giving away how the sausage is made, can you give an example of of one or two of the tools that you help uh people rewire their brains this way?
Straw Breathing To Calm Fast
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So uh really the way I approach um mind training and meditative training and so forth is all about feeling the body. We've we've all been inculturated not to feel, right? You see, feel the slightest discomfort, you know, take a pill, get some clothing, do something, eat some food, shift your attention, uh, watch Chris and Alan on on their podcast, uh anything, but don't feel, right? Just don't feel. And so we've all been inculturated that way, and and and to much to our own detriment. We tend to live up here in our heads. We're very visually auditorially oriented, we're very cognitive naturally, and so we we lead these very disembodied lives. So it's about training ourselves to come back in the body and feel the body because the body has all the wisdom we need. The body will teach us how to live our lives. Getting in the body physically, it's literally feeling physical sensation, like feeling the breath, not just feeling the idea of breath, but literally feeling all the micro-sensations involved in a contraction and relaxation of the muscles that drive our breathing. Coming back into the body all the way down to our toes that way, will retrain our our re reshape our neural architecture. It'll help us move in from intentional self-regulation, which most of us don't even do that. That would be a godsend. For most of us, the world is regulating our nervous system all day long. We have this autonomic nervous system that has two branches that go either rest and digest or up into stress and activation, bite, or flight, and they're all happening all the time. And for most of us, that autonomic nervous system is being regulated by everybody but us, by the world around us. So you can learn breath work and different tools to regulate your own nervous system quite easily. But then if you really do the deep work, really get grounded deep in your body, it'll create this internal neurobiofeedback loop where you'll auto-regulate, where you'll just naturally be in balance, you'll be naturally spacious, your mind won't be cluttered, you'll be making good choices because you're in flow with life. But just to give you a really simple tool, there's a simple tool, it's out there, you can easily find it, just put it in your search engine. Straw breathing. So, straw breathing, you breathe in through the nose with the mouth closed, and you breathe out through purse lips like you're blown through a straw. You can actually use a straw if you want, but you can just use it with purse lips. And you breathe in a poor count. So let's just do this together real quick, okay? Let's go. All right. So you're breathing in through the nose, out through purse lips, and let's give an exhale together and then we'll start breathing in. I'm gonna count. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, in to the nose, two, three, four, out to press lips, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Just keep breathing like that. I encourage you to close your eyes for just a moment. Just feel into the body. Not if you're driving.
SPEAKER_01Not if you're driving. If you're driving right now.
SPEAKER_00But otherwise, close your eyes for a moment, feel into the body, and as you're doing the strawberry, you notice if you notice any physiological changes. Almost certainly within a minute or two, you'll notice yourself chilling out. You'll just notice yourself calming, slowing down, and chilling out. What's happening there, because you're emphasizing the outbreath, and because you're blowing out through press lips, which requires more effort and creates a different uh uh gaseous exchange, creates more nitrous, nitrous dioxide, it creates more carbon monoxide, I mean not carbon carbon dioxide. So, anyway, it's a combination of effects that move your nervous system into the rest and digest response, your relaxation response, the parasympathetic response. So that's a simple tool, straw breathing, that no matter how upregulated, stressed out, or angry you are, you stop and do straw breathing, you stop.
SPEAKER_01You're right. I tell you what, if you bring you right back down. You guys listen to this. Uh, when he said your toes, if you wiggled your toes, you were listening. If you weren't, you weren't. Yeah, uh, because I started wiggling my toes. He said, complete said, Hey, what did you feel? I said, you know what? I uh for me, I started feeling my fingers uh actually pulsing with the beat of my uh heart. Uh so you can get there. Guys, we'll cover it.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely get the basic. There's also box breeding, which they train the military in. Uh, and then there's four, seven, eight breeding, which is a variation on straw breathing. You can look these up very easily. These are simple tools that anybody can start to take charge of their own nervous system. And again, the world is divided, you know, into creative and passive consumers. The world is divided into people who manage their own nervous system and people who don't.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. We're coming to the end of this, and uh, I I love the straw breeding. That was a great gold nugget for all of us. Uh go out there, the breathing techniques.
SPEAKER_03I think I mean I was kind of getting into it just after three of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was. I was too. Again, if you're driving though, man, keep your eyes open. If you're driving in Atlanta, you can do it with your eyes open.
SPEAKER_00You can train yourself to do it with your eyes open. I used, you know, I used to be a road warrior before the pandemic and drive in the airport two, three times a week back and forth. A lot of bad weather, white knuckle drives, and I'm doing straw breathing the whole time. I stay relaxed. I get to the airport on time, I don't get triggered into any road rage. I go through security, stay relaxed the whole time, make my flight. I'm doing straw breathing the whole time.
SPEAKER_01Take that note, especially if you're in DC, you're in LA, you're in Texas, you're in Atlanta, eighth worst uh traffic in the nation, as I just found out this morning. And I had to drive in the middle of it for an hour and 15 minutes this morning. I needed to have the straw breathing techniques. Fleet, uh, this has been great info, and I know you've got some great, uh, great classes and great things that are coming up for entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneur Summit In The Age Of AI
SPEAKER_01Can you give everybody a place where we can go find all that as we start wrapping this guy up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so we have a summit called the Entrepreneurial Mastery Summit in the age of AI, and we have some of the leading business minds and marketers on the planet there. Um, incredible people. Uh Jack Canfield, uh, the who started the whole uh chicken soup for the soul publishing uh empire, Dan Sullivan, strategic coach coaching, um people like Ryan Dice and Roland Frazier, uh really, really incredible people. And uh we're gonna have Jay Abraham live. Uh if people are familiar with uh Jay Abraham, he's a legend in the world of business. And um, so that's gonna be uh in July. And then we'll we'll we always do online reaps. So it'll be available in various forms going forward. But if people are able to join it uh in July, that'll be there. And then following that, we'll be launching a three-month um what we're calling operator to CEO accelerator training. It's a three-month intensive training. We're gonna help people develop the mindset of the CEO, learn all the learn how to use and discover the latest AI tools, uh, really learn to understand marketing, learn to understand scaling, and learn how to start exit planning from the beginning of your business, even if you don't plan to sell it anytime soon because you're gonna build a bit better business that way. So we're gonna teach all the practical tools of how to move out of the overwhelmed operator into a true CEO visionary who can build a company that will actually give you the freedom you got in business uh to achieve in the first place. So many people you know want to leave the corporate world or leave the you know the 40-hour week uh uh you know uh punch, punching the clock job and start a business, and then they find out the business owns them and they're completely overwhelmed and so forth, and you know, they got in there for that freedom and they never realized the freedom. Well, you have to learn how to not be a business operator and how to become a true CEO. And so that's what this training is. It's the operator CEO accelerator, and so that's gonna follow uh this summit, the entrepreneurial mastery in the age of AI summit.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful fleetmall, and then how can everybody reach out and find you?
SPEAKER_00Heartmind.co.
SPEAKER_01Heartmind.co. How cool is that?
SPEAKER_00Heartmind.co. You knew it was gonna be so. They can also go to fleetmall.com and if they want to say my book, radical responsibility, and go to radical responsibilitybook.com, but they can find it all by just starting at heartmind.co.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Heartmind.co, guys.
Final Takeaways And Sendoff
SPEAKER_01You know, there's been another great mind expanding uh episode where you start to really think, and you know what? Sometimes let's just call it like it is, man. You think you think you're at the bottom, you think you're down, you think you're out. Did you do 14 years in prison? You know, you know what? I hate it when people say, well, it could always be worse. You know, screw you. It can always be worse. But you know what? It's how you take it. Take that radical responsibility, make that thing happen for you. Find a way, get yourself unstuck, keep moving up that top. We gotta keep going up that mountaintop. Let's get to the success. We gotta keep rocking. We're gonna do this again. We'll do this again next week. Alan, we gotta go. Fleet mall, you crocked it today, baby. And I love it. He's got nothing. Darth Moldo got nothing on Fleet Mall. You gotta go check him out. Alan, we gotta go. Let's go make some money. Cheers, everybody.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Department. Remember, positive attitude will help you achieve that higher attitude you're looking for.
%20png.png)
