Own the Outcome with Tyler Deveraux

Transform Your Health and Mindset with Chris Holt

• Tyler Deveraux • Season 2

Share episode

Fitness and nutrition expert Chris Holt joins me to share an empowering journey of transformation and self-discovery. As an identical triplet, Chris offers a unique lens on individuality, challenging preconceived notions about appearances and the fitness lifestyle. Today you'll learn the importance of shifting from a victim mindset to one that embraces challenges as growth opportunities. This episode promises to leave you inspired by Chris's message of resilience and the transformative power of changing self-perceptions!

Follow Chris on Instagram 

Check out Chris's Coaching Services

Thank you for listening to today's episode. If this podcast has brought a smile to your face or sparked some new ideas, I'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review would mean the world to me. Appreciate you!

Connect with Tyler on Instagram: @tyler_deveraux

Interested in multifamily investing? Attend one of our events!

Tyler Deveraux:

All right, aloha and welcome to another episode of Own the Outcome. My name is Tyler Devereaux and today we're here with Chris Holt. Chris, thanks for being on the podcast, bro. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited, yeah, I'm excited to chat with you. Man Chris is a fitness beast great with nutrition, exercise, workouts we're going to talk about. You know, beyond the tats those of you who watch it on youtube you'll see as a number of those I would love to know. Actually, let's just dive into that, bro, like what's the? What's the? I love the, the name from the very get, but I want to know your deeper purpose behind that name.

Christ Holt:

Oh, my handle yeah Because.

Christ Holt:

I think I mean, I think we all naturally do it. But you know, I think a lot of people look at me and it's very easy to place preconceived notions or judgment based on what I look like. And I think, let's be honest, the first time I saw someone with face tattoos and neck tattoos and hand tattoos, I was like, ooh, you know. So I think a lot of people, especially my you know what I do and how I look. I think a lot of people think, oh, he's just like a gym bro, um, just lots of tats, when really there's a lot more to me than the ink.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah Well, I have to be honest with you. I started following you because, dude, you're in great shape. I strive to be in great shape. I like to follow people that inspire me to be in great shape, and obviously you talk about things that help you know with that. You have a whole program about that as well. But then I get to know you more about your topics and what you talk about, and you are way more than that, you, you know, like you're actually.

Tyler Deveraux:

in fact, you're very deep in your content. You know, and one of the things that I loved about it is that you're very open with what you share. You know, you you've done amazing things in your life and and you know as you go through your, your, your resume of what you've done. And those of you who don't know Chris or don't follow Chris you're one of a few on the planet who don't, so you're going to get to know him today for sure. But go follow him if you don't, and you'll see that when you've done a bunch of things. But you've also struggled. You've had struggles and the podcast the name of the podcast is own the outcome podcast, like that's the name of it. So when I, when I say own the outcome to you, what does that mean to you?

Christ Holt:

the outcome to you. What does that mean to you? I think a big inflection point for me in my life was once I changed my mindset of believing that things happen to me rather than or yeah, things happen to me, but I changed that things happen for me. You know, when you play the victim card, you take no ownership over your situation and it's a blame game. It's like, well, I'm not here because of that person, I'm not here because of that situation, and then it's just like things are happening to me and it's like look, in my life, no matter how terrible the situation was, it happened for me and you can choose to use that as fuel, can? You can choose it to use it as a scapegoat. And I think that that's what comes to mind when I think about the title of your podcast that's.

Tyler Deveraux:

I agree with that. I mean, that is literally the and I, I. That's what fueled the name of the podcast for me, because I played the victim card far longer than I played the ownership card and in fact, I would go into a new situation and I would look for people to blame just in case it didn't go right.

Christ Holt:

You know it's easier, right, it's always easy to do that and I always, you know, in my life, at this point at you know, my brothers and I are going to be 42 next month. You know I obsessively seek out difficult things right, because that's the only way you grow right.

Tyler Deveraux:

That's it, dude. You said you obsessively seek out is that the word you used? Yeah, oh, that's a great word, man Obsessively seek out things that are challenging. And you said your brother, he's a triplet. For those of you who don't know a triplet, which has to be a crazy. Are they, those of you don't know, a triplet, which has to be a crazy? Are they, as I don't know, your brother, they as cut and fit as you uh, justin works out.

Christ Holt:

Um, I don't think he's as stringent with his nutrition than I am. And then jeremy uh, you know I think he's gone out of his way to just be different. Um, just because you know, I think he had a lot of his way to just be different. Um, just because you know, I think he had a lot of issues growing up being identical triplet. Um, he felt like that took away from his identity. So he went out of his way to just be very different. So I mean, I know that he has a rowing machine at home, which is great, but I don't. He doesn't lift weights and he very different body type and just different lifestyle.

Tyler Deveraux:

So got you, you Got you. Okay, let's talk about your program. And you have an online coaching program and it's based to be. You'll do some fitness routines, but it's basically mostly on a nutrition. So help me understand. I love how you said it, because you say that it it's something along the lines of you help people change their relationship with food.

Christ Holt:

Yes. So I think everyone can understand that. You know you can work out great, you know. But we see millions of people go to 24 hour fitness, working out six days a week, and they all look the same right. They never change. And because you can crush yourself for an hour in the gym every day, but the next 23 hours you can quickly undo.

Christ Holt:

And I think the problem is that now more than ever, people are struggling mentally, psychologically, and food is just a quick comfort, it's a quick little bandaid, it's a quick hit of dopamine, it's you know. And so my program really helps people not only address daily issues that they face and how they use food to cope, or some people starve themselves. It's either or. And learning how to create you know stress management tools, giving them reframing, helping them develop. You know other tools to work through those moments that are never really going away. You know I mean people look at me and they're like wow, man, like you got it all figured out, it must just get easier. I'm like I mean people look at me and they're like wow, man, like you got it all figured out, it must just get easier. I'm like I don't know what world you live in, but I feel like it's harder, right.

Christ Holt:

I think the difference between me and other people is that my tolerance for difficult is higher than yours, and that's it right. So we all heard the adage like you live outside your comfort zone, growth happens outside your comfort zone, which sounds cliche, but it's true, right, because being comfortable is easy. So let's just, you know, get you out of that comfort zone. Which is what I provide is just 24-7 daily accountability. So I call it extreme accountability, where my clients have to send me three food pictures a day. They have to reach out to me when they're having a difficult moment. If they're in a social setting where they have a lot of temptations around them, they're unprepared, they're going to a restaurant, they're having a moment where they're just super anxious or depressed and they wanna use something to cope. They can text me. I'm on call 24 seven. So giving that type of support because, at the end of the day, without daily accountability, consistency drops to zero over time and without consistency it's physically impossible to create a new habit, let alone a new lifestyle.

Tyler Deveraux:

That's so good, dude. There's so much to unpack from what you just went through. So the consistency portion, I believe that that is the shortcut.

Christ Holt:

Consistency is the shortcut for any result always outworks and is greater, in my opinion, than motivation. I think motivation fallacy. I think too often people are like how do you stay motivated, how, how do you get motivated? And I tell people the number one thought I think every morning and I'm just, this is my default. It's unfortunate, but I just think I look in the mirror and the first thing I think is what's the point? And so for a long time struggling with my mental illness, like I just realized look, you know how many times do I want to work out? I never, rarely, want to work out, right, but I've just made it a routine and I'm consistently doing it, so that now it's like, okay, it doesn't take me a lot of bandwidth to do it. But I know I chased the feeling of how I feel afterwards because I never really want honestly, I don't, I'm not motivated to work out. So it has nothing to do with motivation, it's just about consistency. You know your appearance is a consequence of what you do every day.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, that's dude, I love there's. You just said so. I I love working out. Not because I love the workout process, I don't. I'm the same thing I like I love it. It's a hack man. It's you chase the feeling that you get at the end, and there's never been one time, never been one time that I've walked out of the gym and be like shit. I wish I would have just sat home and done nothing.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, you always regret not working out. You never regret working out, so you never regret working out. So that's that's for me, that's how it is, and I play mind games with myself. So, if I like, I do my my workout every day and then I'll go for a 75 minute walk. And there were so many days where I'm like every time I say to myself I don't feel like walking, damn it, Now I have to do it, right?

Tyler Deveraux:

So I just do a little game with myself, so yeah, and it works, but these are the hacks that I want people to tap into. You gamify, chasing the feeling. At the end you gamify man. Now I have to because I said I don't want to. It's like you reframe it. You literally reframe. I also love one of the things that you said is that when one of your clients has something that they're being tempted by or they're wanting to cope with something, cause a lot of people think of drug addiction, alcohol, all those things are big things, but there's nothing that kills people more than the other stuff, which is food. People just poison themselves with food.

Christ Holt:

Look, I have had many clients who are people that have overcome heroin, cocaine addictions, alcohol, opioids, and they all say the same thing.

Tyler Deveraux:

What is up y'all Listen. If this podcast has brought joy or value at some point as you're listening to it, we would love it if you would be so kind as to leave us a review down below. That is how we keep this thing moving and finding individuals just like you to pour value into. Now let's get back to the show.

Christ Holt:

Kicking processed sugar has been more challenging than kicking those things, and that's pretty profound, right? I never want to demonize sugar. I think that that's where we get kind of like. That's where I separate myself. It's like I will never say something's good, bad, healthy or unhealthy. I think those labels reinforce negative relationships to food that we all have from our childhood, right? So I like to change those words to easy. It's either on plan, off plan, favorable or unfavorable, because, at the end of the day, I have nothing against processed sugar If you are where you want to be and you have control over your choices. But if you're using those things to cope with stress, to cope with emotions, that's more of the issue rather than the food itself, right? So you know, by demonizing things which people do all the time, especially on social media and it bugs the shit out of me, you know this is only reinforcing all the issues, right? So it's about just reframing, like you said, you know, changing the words that we use, right, and that can have a profound impact long-term.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, language you use is powerful.

Christ Holt:

How do?

Tyler Deveraux:

you do that? Because it takes some self-awareness for somebody to be, to recognize that they're coping with it instead of just being like well, no, I'm like cause, you said, as long as you're where you want to be and you're not using it to cope, well, some people would say that they're where they are and want to be and they'll justify it. So it takes some self-awareness. How do you help people gain that?

Christ Holt:

So it's really um, it always boils down to confession sessions. That happen, right? So they're supposed to text me anything that they eat or drink. They need to text me a picture of it, and we're really sticking to three balanced meals in the beginning. So avoid snacking gets most people in trouble. But what happens is obviously they don't take a photo, they do something and then they come to me later with that confession right, I call it a confession session. And so what happens from there?

Christ Holt:

Someone might say well, you know, I didn't, I didn't send this picture, but I ate a cookie. And most people's reaction is don't yell at me. I was like, first and foremost, I'm not going to yell at you. I think that's just more of a projection of you yelling at yourself. But you know, I don't really care about the cookie.

Christ Holt:

Like, what were the circumstances surrounding the decision and 100% of the time? Well, I got in a fight with my spouse, or someone said something to me at work that really upset me, or I lost my job, or my dog died or something which is part of life. And then I say look, we need to recognize that, that you chose the cookie because you're using that to cope with whatever that situation is. So now, we first engineered that because, guess what? You know, death is part of life.

Christ Holt:

You know you can't control what people say, or do you know? I work with primarily women and mothers, and I work with a lot of women that are single mothers or women that are coming out of abusive relationships or have terrible ex-husbands or ex-spouses, and you know that's the number one thing. Oh well, I saw my ex today and it just triggered me, and then I had some ice cream, and then I'll give them a reframe, say, hey, now look at like this If that person did something that you have no control over and it caused you to go eat ice cream, which is not benefiting you right now, that person controls you and in my life I'm controlling me and then right off the bat, they're like, holy shit, no, I don't want him controlling me.

Christ Holt:

I'm like, yeah, so then that's kind of like it. Or people will come to me and they'll say this is so hard. And I was like, look, if you say it's so hard, it's going to feel 10 times harder. Let's change the word, and I say this all day. Let's call it a challenge. It's challenging, right, challenges are meant to be overcome. You overcome a challenge. I equate that to slaying a dragon. Now we have empirical evidence. You can slay dragons. And guess what? There's gonna be more dragons in your future. So you can choose to be a dragon slayer or just victim. Right, my life, I don't want to slay fucking dragons. Let's go right. That's enough to be like, oh man, like okay, right.

Christ Holt:

But it's all in the go ahead, sorry, no, it's also just teaching people that most people just need to take a second, take a breath, don't be reactive, and I try to explain. When you have emotions that are overwhelming, by all means feel them, but observe them. Don't let them take you away with the time right. And so it's like I always equate the, you know, with headspace. It was a great app. It's a great app, right, and there was a huge takeaway in the beginning when I watched one of these cute cartoons. It was like the goal of being present and feeling emotions is to essentially be sitting on a bench watching the cars go by. Each car is an emotion. Your goal is to just watch them go by. Don't chase that car down the road, right, and it's really challenging, right, but it's a skill like anything else, that the more we are consistently aware of it, the more we can practice those things as they happen. And that's why I'm on call 24 seven, so we can talk about those things in real time.

Tyler Deveraux:

That's so good, bro, and so valuable, like there's a massive any of y'all who are. I mean, this is coming out. You know this will come around right around. You know black Friday time time and people are preparing for the new year and it's like it's people just do. If you're struggling with that or you want to actually start getting results, you're done with plateauing Dude. You need to reach out to Chris, because that value is so powerful, man, and it's one of the greatest blessings I believe you can give somebody is their physical vitality. And I want to drill in on something, because you talk about reframing it and I believe owning the outcome is literally just that. It's. Whatever the situation is, you reframe that situation, your perspective, into something that's serving towards the outcome that you desire, and it's an. You can change your ability to do that, and that fast, by changing your physical like how are you holding yourself physically, your, your physiology, also your language, like we've talked about. And there's also what are you focusing on, like headway?

Tyler Deveraux:

it's funny you mentioned that app yeah, there's a thing, oh yeah thing on the headway app is because I, I loved that when I first started meditating, because in my thought was okay, my, my thought is, meditation is not thinking about anything, and sure, that's what you're trying to get to, but the thing is not. It's not that it's, it's literally to feel. How are you feeling you, but you're not reacting to it. You're feeling the emotion, but you're not controlled or responding to the emotion, you're just observing it.

Christ Holt:

It's powerful it's tough and it is. I think, um, there's a great, uh, it's a, it's a viral video. But there's a man named randy pausch and he gave uh, he wrote a little book but he gave this. There's a viral if you look it up, randy pausch's last lecture and he's going for what he was, like, I think, one of the first pioneers in pixar and, like the, phenomenal book.

Christ Holt:

It's a book right right, yeah, but the great thing is, at the end he comes full circle and it's really emotional because you don't know where he's going with this but he's dying of pancreatic cancer and so this he thinks. He says you think that this talk is for you? It's not, it's for my kids. And then it's like gets all emotional and stuff. But he says, look, you cannot control the cards that you're dealt, only how you play the hand. And that's really. It's so powerful.

Christ Holt:

And stuck with me right Is that we can't choose a lot of things, we can't control a lot of things. All we can control is you know the moment and and you know through my four lung surgeries, I remember my basketball coach in high school sat me down and it was like my first deep bout of depression and I was 16, I was angry. And he just looks at me and he says hey, you know, um, I'm going to give you some advice that my football coach at Harvard gave me. I'm not going to explain it to you, you'll just figure it out. And I'm like, okay, what? And he says picture yourself straddling the line, your left foot's in the past, your right foot's in the future, and you're pissing on the present and at 16, I was like ew, like what does that mean?

Christ Holt:

He's like get out of my office. And for years it haunted me. And then what I realized is that what ifs? I lived in the what ifs right, but you can't control any of that, so you just need to let that go and all you have control of. You really want to dictate where you want to go in life. You have to control the present right and there's tons of Eckhart Tolle, power Now and all these things. They're great books, but ultimately it's like just let go of the things you don't have control over. And I have my clients venting to me about laundry list things, right, and I'll just say reread what you wrote.

Tyler Deveraux:

all that stuff is outside your control, so let it go right so yeah, that's phenomenal, dude, like an exercise that I have done is and I do, it usually happens listed out, I get out of here and I just purged out and then I circle the things that I can control versus the things that I, and then I don't circle the things that I can't. The things that I can't or I usually use the whiteboard are erased. The things that I can control. Now I prioritize and put a plan of action in place. That's powerful.

Christ Holt:

I don't actually. I've never really told any of my clients to write it down. I just tell them like, think about all they text me. So it's physically there. But I think that's a good exercise to do, like kind of like pros and cons, like all right, just write it so you can visually see it, and then I mean that's great, that's a great exercise. I, I'm going to steal that.

Tyler Deveraux:

But I, you, you led into this a little bit. But people look at you. You said four. You suddenly said four lung surgeries. You had open heart surgery. You've struggled in the past. You've struggled with, you know, depression, mental illness, type stuff. You talk about it all the time. Most people will look at you and, like you said, they would look at you and be like everything's just easy or he has it. No, you've experienced struggle. You still experience struggle. That's a part of life. But it's like do you believe that that's what separated you and makes you so uniquely qualified to serve those who you do?

Christ Holt:

10,000%, because I think I used or I thought that my anxiety, depression, ptsd and remember like being a transracial adoptee, meaning my brothers and I were born from Korea, my entire family's white, so I identify all that, yeah, so I identify as a white person, until someone's racist to me and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot. But I think, uh, you know, that has been a struggle, right, and those are things that I'm slowly onpeeling and unpacking. You know, I started a birth parent search when I was 32. That's a long story, but, yeah. So set that all aside, all the anxiety, depression and the trauma I think I've had from the surgeries and I almost killed me and my brothers in a car accident when I was in college and you know, I think for a long time I viewed them as like, I use them as the like, a scapegoat. I was like I'm never going to reach my potential because I'm plagued with these issues. And then, once I realized a like stop being a fucking victim then I realized it allows me to use what I once thought was a negative thing as almost a superpower, right. So I can empathize.

Christ Holt:

And there's a great book that I love. It's called First Rate Madness and it documents a lot of world leaders like Lincoln, churchill, even to people like Stalin, hitler, martin Luther King, jfk. All of them struggled with mental illness, whether it's mania, depression, but their mental illness actually proved to help them serve and lead in times of turmoil. So, like Lincoln believed in you know like, because of his depression, he had three deep bouts of it, almost suicidal, of that depression, you know he truly believed. Like you know, it's not right to own someone, right? But if it wasn't for his mental illness, our history completely different. So it's a great book because it's saying what, wow, these people struggle with these things, but it actually it gave them like a superpower, right.

Tyler Deveraux:

So they reframed it like oh my god, I just hope people hear what you just said and internalize what you just said, because that is reframing it. It's either a detriment or it's your superpower, and sometimes we think our past or we think that things that we struggle with disqualify us or hold us back. No, no, no. They uniquely qualify you to, to connect with and serve others.

Christ Holt:

Why do you think everyone loves superheroes? There is not one superhero that has a happy origin story. They're all coming out of the fires of trauma and just pain and suffering. But that's why we love them, right, and that's what sets them apart. So I always say, like, look like there are modern day superheroes everywhere. Right, and I think that's why I'm I love superheroes, because it it it makes me feel like all right, you know, batman could choose to use his trauma and just be a victim. Then we don't have Batman Right, and it's just like no, they're using as fuel and, and that's that. We don't have Batman Right and it's just like no, they're using as fuel, and and that's that's a choice, right?

Christ Holt:

Yeah, I'm a product of you know abuse or what, and look, I'm not discounting that that stuff is terrible and I'm a big advocate for therapy. But there comes a time where you can say, look, I'm going to let this define me or I'm going to use this as like a tool, right? Yeah, you know, it's again. All this stuff is easier said than done.

Tyler Deveraux:

But yeah, yes. It's so much easier to talk about the things that other people struggle with, then face your own struggles, because we all struggle with different things, and so you know it's so easy. It's way easier to chat about it than it is to do it, but I believe the only reason that you can sit here and confidently chat about it is because, dude, you've overcome a ton Once again. You've used it as a superpower instead of as a detriment, and that's huge.

Christ Holt:

And I think hitting rock bottom is okay, it's a good thing, right? I mean my rock bottom moment. I remember I was in the middle of a divorce. I had made a cross country move for a new job for all intents and purposes. I was broke. My grandmother passed away in that same month and I ran over and killed a dog. Like it was a rock bottom moment. I remember I called one of my best friends and he's a former SEAL and I called him.

Christ Holt:

I left him a message, actually, and all I said to him was this is the last message you're getting from me. I can't deal, I'm out. And then he called me right away and he said dude, you know, you know all about what I've been through. You know, I struggle with it every day. And he says but if you check out early, you're a fucking coward. And he says we don't check out early. And that's all he said we don't check out early. And then it just snapped me out. I was like oh god, what? Yeah, I'm not a coward, you know like no, that's the easy way out, right? The hard thing is to live, right. So I'm like all right and for all intents and purposes, I mean, you know. I will say that you know he saved my life.

Tyler Deveraux:

So he did with you the same thing you do with your clients, which he knew the leverage he could use. And he knew the leverage that he could use because he knew you and he loved and cared about you. You know the leverage that you can use with your clients you mentioned it when you talked about the phone calls you have with their ex-spouse when they saw somebody. But you know that because you love and you care about them, that way you can use that as leverage for good. That's beautiful man, it's so beautiful, so, and it's, you know, it's. It's crazy how we can see that in other people and we so many times we'll do things for other people but sometimes in the moment with ourself, we forget that. You know we got to love ourselves and see ourselves even more.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, I think that that's been a real challenge for me is learning to love myself, and I still struggle with it. I'm not going to lie, I was doing a sound bath meditation and the woman running it we were doing this thing afterwards. She's like close your eyes and picture the one person that you love the most. Right, that you want to. That just is a super important person in your life. And the first person popped in my head was my mother, and then I can picture her and then she says okay, now that person that you see, tell them that you love them. And I'm like, okay, easy. So I'm like saying in my head I'm like love you, mom. And then she says, okay, what you just said to that person, I want you to now say it to yourself. And I was like, no, that I feel uncomfortable. And then I was like, oh, no, that's not good and you know. So that's all. I mean, look, we're all works in progress, right? Oh, yeah, you know I struggled just as much as the next person. Um, but I think you know it's, it's important to, I don't know, just understand that.

Christ Holt:

Uh, I mean, I think of like, most of my clients, like I said, are mothers, and what I see the most in mothers is that they, to me, are the modern day superhero. These women always put themselves last. They never asked for anything in return, always put themselves last. They never ask for anything in return. And it's very difficult, specifically in this country, for them to ask for help, right, and now what happens is you're pouring from an empty cup and yet we see all the airplanes, plane safety videos like God forbid those oxygen masks fall down. Whose mask you put on first, right? God forbid those oxygen masks fall down. Whose mask do you put on first, right?

Christ Holt:

Okay, so, working with mothers and helping them a dispel mom guilt, but B I say this all the time the most selfless thing you can do as a parent is to be selfish, right, because if you're not taking care of yourself, you're showing up as a subgrade version to the people that rely on you. But, more importantly, what do you want to see? Subgrade version to the people that rely on you? But, more importantly, what do you want to see? You want to see those kids grow up. You want to see those kids potentially get married, have children, grandkids. You want to play with those grandkids. Guess what? None of that is going to be a reality if you don't start taking care of yourself.

Christ Holt:

So I think my program is really geared towards giving mothers the support that they desperately need. And even my clients who have great marriages, they, they can't, they don't, they, they find it difficult to ask their spouse for that. And plus, more importantly, you don't want your spouse being your nutrition coach, like that's a divorce, right? Let me be that person, right? Yeah, and I see it a lot, you know, and it's, it's challenging for them. And you know I think you know even my own mother how much she sacrificed for all of us. I think a lot of us take it for granted.

Tyler Deveraux:

So oh, my gosh, gosh. I watched what my wife does and it is crazy to me, like a common theme in my prayers is just like thank you for brit, obviously, and then her and I, but the theme is like the selflessness that she has, because it's crazy and she's able to give so much, because she very much takes care of herself, like I look at physical energy is, you know, like, like, like physical vitality is like your. I just look at energy is powerful. But I look at physical is like the, the capacity that you have, right, the, the amount of energy that you can give, not get the mental side, and it's like the quality of it, right, so, so physical is quantity, mental is quality. And then you have your um, you know, spiritual side, and I believe the spiritual side is the force behind it, the impact, the true impact that you're able to make there, and she, she has all those things man Cause, she put cause, she, she makes sure that she has them, yeah, and I.

Christ Holt:

But I think it's it's a mixture of a couple of things, like I think most people that get married and have kids obviously it's no longer about the relationship in the beginning, it's just about kids, and like we just need to put that first and you put your relationship on the backburn. And so, even owning a CrossFit gym for 10 years in Miami, I saw many marriages right after that 20 year mark. I mean, people are just different and if you don't grow together, then you're just basically roommates and you're going to get divorced. So I think, with mothers that you know if we can help them understand that, mothers that you know if we can help them understand that, you know it doesn't need to be like that. And I think oftentimes when that does happen, it's very easy to just say, well, this is just the way, it is Right. You just become very accepting of it, you know, and I'm like like it's never too late, like literally, like literally right.

Christ Holt:

I think a lot of people think, oh, I'm in my 40s, I'm old, I'm like that's actually not that old. It's not old. Yeah, life expectancy for humans is growing. So like it's growing. Yeah, like so, if you want to use that, that story, then cool right. But for all of us, we can impose self-limiting, limiting beliefs on ourselves. And, and like a great example, um, one of my my business part, one of my business partners from the gym in miami uh, his name is tony graff. I think my entrepreneurial spirit and uh drive. I owe a lot to him. I learned a lot opening a gym with him and my other partner, who we bought it later.

Christ Holt:

But anyway, so Tony uh was the alternate for uh two Olympics, um for Taekwondo. So he was a resident athlete at Olympic training center in Colorado Springs. He was the alternate in 2008. And I think it was either 2004, 2008 or 2008, 2001. Either way, so you know he's all about. You know he has a Taekwondo school. He teaches kids. He's like a kid whisperer. This guy is like amazing. But I remember, you know, when I was a kid, if you look at most baby photos of me and my siblings triplets, because there's eight siblings in my family- but just me and my brothers sorry brother sibling, jeremy's non-binary.

Christ Holt:

So if you look at those photos, I'm always crying right, and so my grandmother dubbed me Chris the Crank, and so for my entire life I've just identified oh, I'm Chris the Crank, and Tony pointed out one day he's like dude.

Christ Holt:

I don't like that, like that's negative. He says do you realize that you've created? Now you believe that. You believe that you're moody, you're irritable because that's what you've been told since you were a child. It's like, why don't we call you Chris the coach or Chris Like you've just like, think about that. And I was like, oh my God, I'm like, yeah, you're not wrong, you know. You know my grandparents, they thought it was cute, but I think, it really shaped a lot of who I thought I was right and that's powerful.

Christ Holt:

The story we tell ourselves is the words that we use um. It's so impactful. It's so impactful.

Tyler Deveraux:

It's so impactful, man. I mean, I had mentioned earlier where you got your. You know your physiology, your physical state, like how you're, how you're carrying yourself. You have your focus on what you're focusing on, then language, and language is so powerful because it's the minute you put language around, is the minute that you have meaning, you give the event, the circumstance whatever meaning. It's your identity, man, and if you're not feeling a certain way, it's because you need to change your focus. And you know, as achievers, you're an achiever, I'm an achiever.

Tyler Deveraux:

Those who are listening to this, they're not listening to this unless they're an achiever. But we're also hard on ourselves, and so what I've realized is I'm very hard on myself and I I've never told anybody this, bro, but I was doing an event, I do a bunch of events and I speak at these events and I do. They're just, you know, I wasn't in the best mental state, you know, and it's in the morning and I have like, oh, I have very consistent habits that I've created that helped me right in the mornings, cause my morning is just like it gets my whole thing going. But I was not in the right state. And I'm going to circle back to one thing that you mentioned, which is to tell yourself you love you, right, the, the sound, the sound bath, meditation or healing that you did, and sound baths are amazing men.

Tyler Deveraux:

And I remember standing in the in the mirror and I was doing my, my affirmations in the mirror and I was doing my, my affirmations in the mirror and but I'm like kind of, looking at myself in the mirror is like a like, not really in my eyes, but I had just I think it was something from Mel Robbins, maybe that I'd listened to. I just what makes me think about it? But it was looking your eyes and I looked and, dude, I build people up all day. I will breathe life into people all day, and I know you do the same. But I stand in the mirror and I look at myself in the eyes because I'm trying to, you know, say these affirmations. And then I just I just stopped and I looked at myself and just stared at myself in the eyes and then I told myself I love you and it's the first time that I've ever done that in my life, staring at my eyes in the mirror, and I said I love you and I just started crying bro.

Christ Holt:

That gives me chills, because I don't. I'll be honest, I don't. I don't know if I can do that Like that's wow, but it completely changed my state. So from there do you find it easier to have that self-love? I think it's a daily battle. It's a daily battle.

Tyler Deveraux:

It's a daily battle, for sure, but the more self-work that I do, the more that I realize like man, becoming a parent has changed my relationship with myself and with god a lot, because I look at my kids and I look at my little boy, paxton primarily because paxton is marley. My little girl is like she's just like she, just she, just she'll go conquer the world. You know, like that's like the, the mentality that she has. And paxton is so talented, so smart.

Tyler Deveraux:

But because he's so smart, sometimes he's a thinker so he overthinks, and I see this be detrimental to him in certain areas like sports. It's like he sees himself lesser than those other kids. What I see is his greatness. I see that he's playing at half pace because he doesn't realize, he doesn't believe or have the confidence to go full pace. And so becoming a parent and seeing that and like coaching him through that and walking him through that, I can't help but sit back and be like, damn it, I'm coaching myself, like I'm coaching myself. Sometimes I go half pace because I don't see me. And so I believe becoming a parent has been so beautiful for me, man, in so many areas, but for me, yeah.

Christ Holt:

No, absolutely.

Christ Holt:

I mean, I find myself struggling with imposter syndrome a lot and you know it's, it's challenging and I don't like for me also, I disassociate a ton and it's my. You know, it's just a coping mechanism. But I think once I you know work, once I started working with people one-on-one and you know getting them to places of sustainability and helping them achieve things that they never thought that they could do, you know that to me I mean, I'm originally an architect, right. So I left my profession in 2008 to open that gym in Miami, the CrossFit gym. But what I realized that I'm, I was never making a difference in architecture, right. So I felt like I can make a bigger difference on a smaller scale with an individual, and to me, that's that's more meaningful to me than you know doing architecture.

Tyler Deveraux:

So oh my God, especially with what you do, bro, like I, literally I said this earlier, but I believe this to my core. It's one of the greatest blessings you can give somebody. It's one of the greatest blessings you can give somebody. It's one of the greatest blessings their physical vitality. And you do it through a mental capacity changing their viewpoints. It's like, bro, that's damn, it's so beautiful, you know, it just is so yeah, I'm grateful um, you're a beast, bro, and I see this in you and you know.

Tyler Deveraux:

I'll mention one more thing. You mentioned something about creating abs through laughter, or six packs through laughter, or something like that, and I absolutely love that approach so much because I just believe that happiness breeds positive, positivity breeds happiness, and happiness and positivity breeds success, and so it's finding ways to laugh through it and man no, absolutely.

Christ Holt:

I think that that's how my platforms really took off, like so that's comedy too.

Tyler Deveraux:

You have comedy on that. It's funny as shit bro.

Christ Holt:

It's pure comedy. So like I my manager back in, like March of 2020, which we're all very aware of, that date. He says hey, get on a new platform. I'm like what are you talking about? He says get on TikTok. I was like that's for 12 year old girls. I'm not getting on TikTok. Just get on, do some just scrolling, find a niche. He says but I want you to do something that has nothing to do with fitness.

Christ Holt:

You want to showcase it personally because at the time, my instagram was just serious mental toughness, you know, inconsistent blah, blah, blah. And so I was scrolling through tiktok and lip-syncing videos were popping up back then and they were just funny to me. And there was a show on Comedy Central I don't think it was on anymore. It's called Drunk History and so it's just like people lip sync. I think it's funny. So I was like, okay, so I'll do that.

Christ Holt:

And during the pandemic, I was like, okay, I'm going to talk about, you know, maybe coping with alcohol, because I think we're all doing. You know, that's all I did. It was all comedy. And within 18 months I hit over a million followers and I was like, well, like this is awesome. And then Instagram was late. So then, once you know my, my team wanted me to focus a little more on Instagram because obviously there are more people that are that have disposable income on Instagram than TikTok. There are more people that have disposable income on Instagram than TikTok. I was like I don't know what to do because I don't like Instagram. And then, right now, instagram is very much what I think TikTok was in 2020. And so then I realized, look, laughter is a universal language.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, that's a great way to put that.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, and I think we all can agree that the world needs more laughter right now. Right, it's a lot of doom and gloom. It's scary out there, I get it. But you know, I'm like look, I want to talk about serious topics, but through a comedic lens. That's kind of what I do. So I my content. Some of it is just pure comedy. I just think it's funny or relatable. But other stuff, you know, I, I, you know it's talking about these deeper issues, right, In a way that's lighthearted, Right, and so that's that's really more of my, my, my brain.

Christ Holt:

I think that's why a lot of people follow me because they just laugh and I was like, look, if I can make you laugh, then that's a win right, totally, bro.

Tyler Deveraux:

It's what made me like you, like I followed you because I respected your physique and what you do, but I started to like you because I saw more of you, which is your comedy.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, it's just you. Yeah, and I think also, I make it very clear and I do my best to be as transparent as possible, because I think the one issue I have with social media is that most people just want to show the highlights and I'm like that's all great, awesome. But you know, when I was going through my heart surgery, my team was like, hey, this is going to sound a little odd, but can you just film all of it and post it? And I'm like, hey, I don't know what type of state I'm going to be in coming out of open heart surgery. B, I'll do my best and honestly, those were viral videos because again, you're going looking at someone that's super fit to then literally starting back at zero.

Christ Holt:

And then I wanted to show not only people that follow me but my clients that, hey, look, it's very easy for me to compare myself to where I once was. That old me is gone. So I need to learn and everyone needs to learn to enjoy the process of rebuilding, because too often my clients show me pictures of when they were younger. I was like this and it was like that and all the stuff. And I'm like, look, that's neither here nor there, that's great, but you're living in the past, right, and I guarantee you we can get you to a place that's even better than that, right, yes, so, um, I don't care how many followers you have, just be honest.

Christ Holt:

And then what bothered me is like I think, six months after my open heart surgery, I think Jamie Foxx was going through some health issues and I just saw on the news or some, I saw some like interview or whatever, and he's like I didn't want to post about that on my social media platforms. I was like, man, that was a missed opportunity, right, because you're talking to Jamie Foxx, right opportunity, right because you're talking jamie fox, right, like I think, like, really, uh, connected you with a lot of people, because now you're just showing the good, good stuff, right, and it's okay I'm guilty of that, bro.

Tyler Deveraux:

I definitely fall guilty of that. It's a call out for me. I do. It's a lot more fun to record the fun stuff, you know. Yeah, of course, but it's a missed opportunity.

Christ Holt:

There's lots of shit every day.

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah, I talked about record the fun stuff you know. Yeah, of course, but it's a missed opportunity. There's lots of shit every day.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, I talked about my divorce. I talked about, you know, me ending my engagement right after my heart surgery. I talked about, you know, every day, like any day, I have like a struggle or I have a deep bout of depression, like I talk about it because you know there are too many people out there that are struggling alone and we know, you know, men are four times likely to commit suicide. Right, and we need to dispel this idea that, oh, you're less manly when you talk about your feelings and so that's what I. You know, I just want to. If I can share that and if that gets one guy to reach out to someone and talk, I mean that, just want to. If I can share that, and if that gets one guy to the reach out to someone and talk, I mean that's a win, right?

Tyler Deveraux:

That's a win, bro. That's a win, that's a hundred percent of win. Enjoy the process of rebuilding. That has to be the name of the title of that episode, bro. Enjoy the process of rebuilding, because it should be an enjoyable process, dude, even the struggles, you can find joy in the struggles. You can find joy in the challenges by reframing them and because you know what you're working towards right and you're proud of yourself for putting in the work right now to do it.

Christ Holt:

Yeah, yeah. And you know, having to rebuild every time after a lung surgery. You know, that's where I started learning early on. I was like, look, I can be, you know's where I started learning early on. I was like, look, I can, I can be, you know, boohoo, look at me, you know. Or I could say look, I mean, these are the cards. Right, how am I going to play this hand? Right, that's it.

Tyler Deveraux:

Thank you for the work that you do, bro, and just for the person you are and for being willing to share it. It's a selfless thing. And listen, I'm just going to stress it again. I'll put all your links and things in the in in the show notes. But for those of you who are ready to start producing results, get help. Get help to produce the results. Like you said, your spouse can't be that person and they can't. Don't put them in that position because they don't want to say the tough things that need to be said, because they love you too much and sometimes, man, we need people to love us, but don't have the the, the emotional tie that, uh, you know a spouse does looking at you over your shoulder, it's like are you really gonna eat that cookie?

Christ Holt:

yeah, are you sure? Yeah. Or how are your pants fitting? Are Are they like? Can you imagine?

Tyler Deveraux:

No shit, no no. Rick can say that to me, rick can say that to me. I'll be like let's go.

Christ Holt:

Exactly exactly. It's a completely different dynamic, right, oh my God?

Tyler Deveraux:

Yeah yeah, Dude. Thank you, brother, I'll put everything in the show notes. Those of y'all who don't follow, go follow Also. Go share this episode. Man, People need to hear this, these tools, these things, and they definitely need to connect with Chris. Chris, thank you for owning the outcome. Thank you for taking the time to be on here Appreciate you man.

Christ Holt:

Thank you for having me. This was awesome and I'm sure we'll talk soon 110.

Tyler Deveraux:

And everybody else out there live always with aloha Peace.