174: Resilient Leadership Starts With You, with Chris Harris

Would you follow someone up the hill if they’ve never taken one themselves? 

That question sits at the center of our conversation with executive coach and keynote speaker Chris Harris, whose warrior mindset approach strips leadership down to what people actually feel: credibility, trust, and the calm confidence that comes from real resilience.

We get personal fast. Chris shares a defining moment from childhood homelessness, sitting on a curb and eating donuts found in a dumpster, and the decision that changed his trajectory: choosing self-worth. From there, we connect the dots between lived adversity and the kind of compassion that isn’t just empathy, but empathy in action. If you’re thinking about leadership development, mindset coaching, or building a resilient organization, this story is more than inspiration. It explains why care, standards, and accountability can coexist without becoming performative culture talk.

From elite special operations lessons to corporate reality, we unpack what makes teams strong under pressure: psychological safety that’s real, shared purpose that’s clear, and leaders whose character, values, and integrity align without friction. Chris also teaches a practical metacognition tool, “Sit, Stand, Open, Close,” to help you break autopilot, notice what you’re thinking, and adjust in real time, especially when stakes are high and stress is loud. And we end with a reminder worth borrowing: you’re under no obligation to be the same version of yourself you were ten minutes ago.

If this helped you think differently about resilient leadership, mindset, and trust at work, subscribe and share it with a colleague. What’s one leadership behavior that instantly builds trust for you?

Chris Harris is a coach, author, and keynote speaker. He is an accomplished black belt and U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame inductee, and has trained thousands — from the U.S. military to its global allies — in close-quarters combat and mental toughness.

Website: https://chrisharrisllc.com/

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Transcript

Chris Harris 0:01

So, first and foremost, that leader is going to have to understand resilience in their own life. And I wouldn't want to follow someone in battle who's never been in battle.

Manya Chylinski 0:15

Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. My guest today is Chris Harris. He is an executive coach and a keynote speaker, and he empowers leaders with a warrior mindset to achieve peak performance. We talked about that today, and we talked about the importance of being resilient and taking care of yourself in order to build a resilient team and build a resilient organization. It's a great conversation. I think you're really going to enjoy it. Chris, I'm so excited we're getting to talk today. Thank you for being here.

Chris Harris 0:53

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Manya Chylinski 0:56

All right. First question out of the gate. What would the title of a book be about you if your worst enemy wrote it?

Chris Harris 1:06

The guy you call the carrot didn't work.

Manya Chylinski 1:10

Ooh, okay. I like that title anyway, but why would your worst enemy be the one to write that?

Chris Harris 1:17

Well, I don't have a lot of enemies. I'm a big fan of not burning bridges. And so I had to really think about who would I even consider to be an enemy, let alone a worst enemy. And the only people I could really come up with, like a visual image, were people that I had to really show some tough love to. And speaking truth to power is one of the hardest things we'll ever have to do. I have a lot of experience working with the Department of Defense. I would say equally as difficult as speaking truth to power is when you have to speak truth about power. In the military, you do not violate the chain of command. And so when you've got someone very high ranking asking you to speak truth about power, that's very tough. So probably the closest thing I would have to an enemy. Now, look, there could be a lot of people out there who hate me who've just never told me. Okay. So I'm I'm going by the ones that I think may possibly have an issue with me, but they're they're the ones that for whatever reason the carrot didn't work. And uh and eventually you got to use the stick. And sometimes the stick is just speaking truth to power or really tough love.

Manya Chylinski 2:24

Yeah. Okay, that's great. Thank you so much.

Chris Harris 2:28

And you really stumped me on that question, by the way. I had to really put some thought into it. I even went to uh AI and said, Hey, I'm struggling with this question. Could you help me here? And so it kind of got me on that thread.

Manya Chylinski 2:42

Oh, good. Well, Chris, I don't know if I could answer the question. And the thought of having enemies, as you're saying, that's I don't know that I have a lot of enemies or not that I know of. And so, how do you even conceive of that? So thank you for doing the work. I love the title.

Chris Harris 3:02

I think a better question for me would have been what would be the title of the book if your ego wrote it? Oh, because sometimes sometimes my ego is my greatest enemy.

Manya Chylinski 3:15

I get it. I get it. Um, that might be true for a lot of us and at some point. So everyone has had a moment in their life that changes how they think about leading or about how they take care of other people. What's one of those moments for you?

Chris Harris 3:32

Oh, that's that's an easy question because I just uh I just wrapped up uh a book that I wrote. Uh just went live literally on Audible last week. But in that book, there is a chapter that I wrote about a moment like that in my life. And I was uh middle school age, actually. I don't know if I was 12 or 13, but I was I was in the middle in middle school, but I was homeless. And I was digging through the dumpster looking for food to eat, and I found a bag of donuts, which was a great find because they weren't damaged and they were, you know, protected by the bag and they were edible. And I just remember sitting on the curb eating those donuts that I got out of the dumpster, and I had a I just had a moment, a very direct moment with myself that I'll never forget. But it was it was that time in my life where I made the decision that I'm better than this and I deserve more than this. It was a moment of self-value, a moment of self-worth, but it was also that moment, you know, I read something uh literally just a few days ago, and it was written by Alan Watts. And it said, the people who have spent the most time during their childhood feeling unnoticed, unappreciated, unloved. He said, those are the people who usually become the greatest caregivers to others, the people who like show up, pick you up at the airport at 2 a.m. to help you move last minute. And I and I just really resonated with that. But I thought back to that moment, you know, sitting on the curb as a child, eating donuts from the dumpster. That was a real pivotal moment for me. And it really changed the trajectory of my life. But one of the things that came from that is how I just love to be there for others in their time of need and the empathy that it put in my heart. And I would even say that that moment put more than empathy in my heart because empathy is more or less a noun. It put compassion in my heart. And that's when empathy takes action.

From Special Forces To Coaching

Manya Chylinski 5:34

Right, right, absolutely. Oh, thank you for sharing that story. That I can imagine how meaningful that moment was for your life. So, and you've accomplished much since then. So I think you that decision, that that recognition for yourself, I think was clearly very valuable. And now you work with people that on their mindset and focus and motivation. And, you know, in our pre-call, we talked about how important those things are to then building resilient systems. So, how did you end up doing what you're doing now?

Chris Harris 6:16

Well, as a private contractor, uh, I trained military special forces around the world for for 25 years. And I loved it. These men, they're the epitome of mindset. You know, when you think of Navy SEALs and Green Berets and Army Rangers, they literally are the epitome of mindset. And I, over those 25 years, I learned more than I taught, actually, at least as it relates to mindset. And in my 40s, I couldn't do it physically anymore. I lost my reaction times and I just my heel rate slowed down. And it's just what happens to people when they turn 40. And I had to pivot into corporate America. And um, I did not deal with it well. It was a major identity shift for me. And identity shifts are good things. We need to have them throughout our lives. We get our first job after college, you know, we get married, we decide to have kids, we become empty nesters, we retire, we lose a loved one. There's just a lot of different times in our life to where we should have identity shifts. Our why should change as a result of those identity shifts. But I wasn't ready. I rejected it. And I was feeling uh sorry for myself and, you know, woe is me. And I was probably a difficult person to be around. But I made the decision that I was going to shift into corporate America, and I was going to take all of this information that I'd collected, and I was just going to find a different way to be useful. And I made the decision I was going to throw down the rope. And I'm not, I wasn't going to pull people up, but I was going to throw down the rope, hold it firmly, and encourage them hand over hand. And I and I thought, what is the best use of this 25 years of mindset? What is the best use? And I thought, I don't want to be a motivational speaker. You know, to me, motivation is like cotton candy at the fair. You know, it tastes really good, and five minutes later you're hungry. What I wanted to be was a self-motivational speaker. I wanted to teach people how to motivate themselves intrinsically from within when they don't feel like doing it. And so when I started down the path of being a keynote speaker and an executive coach for mindset, performance and fulfillment through mindset, I just really started teaching people about mindset. And it wasn't enough. It was coming up short. And so I made another shift and I said, I'm going to teach people how their operating system actually works so they can basically make these adjustments on their own as needed. And um, so rather than kind of being someone who gives you some information that's useful, I'm going to teach you how to use the tools that you already possess and make really transformative changes in your own life as needed on the fly. And so I started teaching people about how their operating system works, why it resists change, how to get past that firewall, that mental firewall, so so to speak, that protects the subconscious mind from any kind of change. And that was when I really felt like I was back to a place of uh self-actualization, as Maslow calls it, that place where I love what I'm doing, I'm compensated fairly for what I'm doing, and I'm really good at what I'm doing. And when I started throwing down the rope and teaching people to change their own operating system, really to become their own IT specialist for that programming that goes on below the surface, really started feeling that that sense of fulfillment and purpose again.

Manya Chylinski 10:23

Right. Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing that. I, as you were talking about the Navy SEALs and the elite teams, and uh that that's all about mindset. I flash back to an article that I read one time that talked about how Navy SEALs can sleep at any time because they need to sleep at any time, and that it was the this person was trying to teach anybody how to do this, but it was it was mindset. It was, I am now going to sleep, and here are the here are the three steps I do that make me go to sleep. And I found that so fascinating that people could have that kind of control.

Chris Harris 11:01

I would like to be the person who got paid to teach Navy SEALs how to go to sleep really fast. Because to me, that would be the easiest job in the world, because they never get rest. I mean, they're going 24-7. And so, like they're they've got to be the tiredest people on the planet. So if I if I was a teach you how to go to sleep fast coach, that would be a great audience or client to have. That would be great. All right, guys, I know you haven't slept in two days. You got 15 minutes, go.

Leaders Build Organizational Resilience

Manya Chylinski 11:31

Go. Exactly, exactly. Um, okay. So, you know, you and I, as we were chatting on our pre-call, were talking about kind of that relationship between somebody themselves understanding their operating system and then how that expands out to making the system or the organization resilient. And what is that relationship between our own personal resilience and mindset and the system or organization that we're part of?

Chris Harris 12:05

Let's just frame it from the perspective of like an executive leader.

Manya Chylinski 12:08

Okay.

Psychological Safety And Shared Purpose

Chris Harris 12:09

Someone who's responsible for outcomes on a corporate level. And they kind of have to outsource that success to the human resources that that are, you know, under under their uh well on their team. So first and foremost, that leader is going to have to, they're gonna have to understand resilience in their own life. And I like I wouldn't want to follow someone in battle who's never been in battle. I mean, that's just me. If you're my leader, if you're my general and you're telling me, hey, Chris, we're gonna take this hill and we might get hurt or worse, I'm gonna have a lot more confidence in taking that hill for you or with you if I know if I know that you've taken hills before. So first and foremost, I think it's important that leaders who are chosen to take a team through something that's going to lead to a lot of adversity, to where resilience is going to be required. That's the first thing I'm gonna look for in that leader, someone who's been there and done it. Um, the second thing that that now that that leader has been chosen based on those qualities, I would say that psychological safety within the company, within the team at minimum, um, is going to be very important. If you look at there, there's some articles that are written about this and they're fascinating. I actually wrote an article for Forbes about this, but it's it's called relative superiority. And it basically talks about why special forces teams, which are usually made up of about six people, why they are so effective, why they win so often and lose so infrequently. They're just, but the bottom line is they have this thing called relative superiority. And at the root of that superpower that they have, that collective power that makes them such an indomitable force, is they have shared purpose. That is what makes them so great. So the first thing that leader is going to have to do is going to have to make sure that there's a firm foundation of psychological safety, of trust. Okay. When you say psychological safety, it basically means there's trust. If you say that there's an open door policy, you mean it. If you say that what you're about to share with me is confidential between you and I only, and it's in privacy mode, and two days later I find out that you shared it with HR, you have violated all the core principles of psychological safety. If I, you know, come to you with an idea because you told me you had an open open door policy, and you end up taking credit for my idea, or you end up criticizing my idea, um, these are things that violate that. So you're gonna have to be a leader who leads from the principles of psychological safety. And then the next thing is you're going to have to instill, you've got to be the orchestrator. We all play different instruments, and you've got to be the one who's in front of us, you know, with the baton, who's getting us to play in harmony. And that that harmony that we play together in is our shared purpose. And that's real effective leadership. But choosing a leader that has experienced overcoming adversity, there's there's the resilience. Not I've been through adversity, I've actually overcome adversity. Yeah, if you've gone through adversity a hundred times in your life, but you're still bitter about it. That's not resilience. Cockroaches can survive a lot. But uh, but and then someone who can come in and establish a firm foundation of psychological safety, and then someone who can create that shared purpose amongst the team members, and then someone that the team members can look at and say, this person's taken the hill before. Now you have all of the components, and now you just got to get them all to align, and you have to be very a good leader who is taking a team through resilience, is going to have to, I don't, I'm not gonna say they have to master the art of metacognition, but they definitely have to be very in tune with metacognition and how it works. And metacognition goes way beyond awareness. Metacognition is thinking about what you're thinking. And so a a good leader who's taking people through turbulent waters is constantly gonna have to be thinking about what they're thinking, but also thinking about what the team's thinking. They're gonna have to always be reading the room. Wow. That sounds like it takes a lot of energy. Metacognition is like a muscle. Um, in the beginning, it's exhausting. Uh, but but once you practice it over and over, and and here's one of the ways that I tell people if you if you want to become really good at metacognition and you want to develop that, it's one of the greatest skills for transforming our own mindset, breaking old habits, creating new habits, getting rid of uh limiting beliefs, squashing unhealthy biases. One of the best ways to do that, quickest ways to do that, and most lasting ways to do that is thinking about what you're thinking. And if you want to develop that, I tell people sit, stand, open, and close. Every time you sit down today, I want you to stop and say, I'm gonna think about what I'm thinking. Just it takes microseconds. Every time you stand up today, I'm gonna think about what I'm thinking. And every time you open something, whether it be a book, a drawer, a door, getting in the car. And every time you close something, every time I sit, every time I stand, every time I open, and every time I close, I don't care if it's opening the oven door, the microwave. What happens is you're you're you've you've now created these triggers that are gonna force you to stop and pause for a moment and think about what you're because look, we're on automation 95% of the day. And what you're doing is you're breaking that automation. And you know, you ever like be talking to a friend in the car on Bluetooth, and all of a sudden you look up and you're in your driveway? I mean, it's kind of scary, isn't it? That well, that's the subconscious mind. And so we we need to be breaking that automation to where we are literally intentionally thinking about what we're thinking. And there's really no faster way than for me than sit, stand, open, close. And you if you told yourself today that you were gonna do that, by the end of the day, you do. I cannot believe how many times I sat, stood, opened, and closed. My goodness. Yes.

Metacognition And Sit Stand Open Close

Manya Chylinski 18:25

Um, that's so interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Now I'm already afraid to stand up when we're done. Because I have to think about what I'm thinking. Exactly. Exactly. Oh my goodness. So you work on the individual piece and that metacognition and building on ourselves and awareness and mindset and our own motivation, because that is a necessary precursor to being a leader who does that for the organization. Am I hearing that correctly?

Chris Harris 18:58

I don't believe you can be an effective leader if you've not first fixed yourself. Look, I I've written books on leadership, and I can tell you that they're very hard books to write if you want to write them from the perspective of I have all of these experiences of being under great leaders. I don't know a lot of great leaders. I I know a handful. I know a lot of people in leadership positions, I know a lot of people who I have served under that leadership. But how many people could I name that, in my opinion, based on firsthand experience, were great leaders? A handful. It's not an easy thing to find. Have you ever heard the saying, Manya, that uh you know, people don't leave companies, people leave bad bosses? That is so true. People will tolerate all kinds of stuff, they'll tolerate poor working conditions, not being paid enough, long hours, having to do stuff over the weekend, you know, never being able to really turn it off, a boss that wants you to pick up your dry cleaning. There's so many things that we will put up with. But I tell you, a bad leader will run people off. That's kind of where they draw the line. And um, so I tell anyone who wants to be in leadership or who is in leadership and wants to go higher, or who's as high as they can go, but they want more productivity, work on yourself. It's the best thing you can do for your team.

Manya Chylinski 20:26

Okay. Well, now you mentioned very few people that would fall under the category of great leader.

Chris Harris 20:32

What's from my experience?

Manya Chylinski 20:34

From exactly from your own experience, but what's a quality that that person had that somebody who isn't in that category didn't have? Is there is that something you can name?

Chris Harris 20:47

Yeah, absolutely. Their character, their values, and their integrity all align. There's no friction between the three. There's there's alignment between what they say, what they do, and who they portray that they are. There's alignment. Because if you stand up in front of the room with a microphone and you give us a big rah-rah speech about 2026 and how we're gonna do all of these things, but I'm sitting there and I know that you're having an affair on your spouse, there's no way I'm gonna be motivated by that. I want to follow someone who we don't have to be aligned in our interest, but I would definitely follow someone who we were aligned in our values.

Integrity And Clear Outcomes

Manya Chylinski 21:27

I guess that goes back to something you said earlier, which is you're gonna go up the hill with a leader who's been up the hill and or been up a hill and knows how to do that. You're not gonna, you know, try to take a hill if I tell you to take the hill, because I've never been in that arena. So to me, that those two things go together, that alignment of you'll follow someone because you believe them and you believe them because you trust them.

Chris Harris 21:59

Yes. And but then the values piece has to be a part of that. Um I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put my life on the line um for someone who for me, I want to, I want to know the motives. I want to know the why. If look, if it's a deal to where I'm just being paid and just shut up and and eat your porridge. You know, sometimes that's the unfortunate situation. You know, we're at work and we don't want to lose our job. And what you know, I'm a single mom and I've got three kids to feed and uh, you know, a mortgage to pay, and I barely make enough right now, and my boss is telling me to take. The hill, and I don't even think my boss has ever taken a hill. And now you're telling me to take the hill. And uh I've got to pay rent and I've got three kids at home. I mean, those are really tough decisions, and at the end of the day, you gotta eat. And but I'm not really talking about those situations where you have to or you'll lose your job. I'm talking about situations to where leader leadership has a maybe an impossible task, a massive turnaround. If we don't get this fixed, we may be out of business in a year. Or, you know, we've got a competitor who's coming up on our tail and they'll probably overtake us if we don't do something drastic. So I'm talking about situations where there's a very clearly defined either an advantage we are trying to gain or a problem we are trying to solve. And the metaphor is so here's the hill we're trying to take. And from the military standpoint, we know what the hill is. It could be life or death. But in a corporate arena, building a resilient team, you better be very clear about what the desired outcome is, first and foremost, because how can we all have shared purpose if we don't know the desired outcome? People can tolerate almost anything if they know what the like when does this end?

Manya Chylinski 23:48

Yes. I have said that at times. I almost don't even care what the answer is, just tell me what it is, and then I can deal with it. It's then it's a fact and I know what to do with it.

Chris Harris 23:58

You you know, one of the things that makes uh Delta uh so so so Delta Force is their tier one special operations. So that there's two tier one special operations groups. There's Delta and there's SIL team six. All right. So you could be a Navy SEAL and be tier two, but if you get tapped to be either Delta or SEAL Team Six, you're now tier one. You're the tip of the spear. Delta training or selection is considered to be the hardest in the world. And the reason is is because before every task that they have to do, intentionally, they're never told what the end or desired outcome is. So every day they wake up and here's your task. Well, how far do we go? When's it over? What does winning look like? Just go. And that's really messing with your psyche. Yes. Hey, I want you to sit down and start writing. Okay, how many words? I'll let you know. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, that does. That's so we have to be as leaders, we have to be very clear. Um, we have to be very articulate. We have to make sure that we get buy-in. And we can't get buy-in if we're, you know, if if you ever just you're on a bus, you know, with a group of people, and like, where are we going? You know, you know, does anybody know where we're going? How far away is it?

Where To Find Chris And Final Quote

Manya Chylinski 25:23

Right. Oh, thank you, Chris. You know, we are at the end of our time, and um, thank you so much. It's been lovely talking with you and very educational. But before we go, can you let our listeners know a little bit more about yourself and how they can reach you?

Chris Harris 25:42

Sure. Uh, my website is thewarriormaker.com, and that's the easiest way to find my books. Um, my latest book is The Book of Mindset, which is on Audible and paperback. And then I would like to leave the listeners with one of my favorite quotes um from Alan Watts. And he says that we are under no obligation to be the same version of ourselves we were 10 minutes ago.

Manya Chylinski 26:10

I love that. Chris, thank you again. I so appreciate you being here today.

Chris Harris 26:15

My pleasure.

Manya Chylinski 26:15

And thank you to all our listeners for listening to this episode, and we will catch you next time.