The lesson that he shared with me in those next few minutes, was so simple and yet so profound, I found myself wanting to shout it from the rooftops so everyone could hear. On planes, at meetings, over dinner, it didn’t matter; I shared it with every person I came in meaningful contact with, for the next several years. I probably scribbled it on no less than a hundred napkins or scrap pieces of paper over that period. It was a huge “Ahaa” moment and it seemed to be that way for almost every person I shared it with. The day I learned of this principle, was the day I recognized truth in a new and almost tangible way. I knew I had just stumbled upon one of the most timeless, authentic and important success principles I had ever heard or ever would hear in my life.
He picked up a scrap piece of paper off his nice executive desk, pushed it over where I could see it and he began to write three upper case “M’s” on it, one on top of the other. He stopped writing, looked up at me and said “Have you ever heard of the 3 “M’s” principle, Michael?” I said no, but now I was anxious to learn what he was about to tell me. I knew that if this successful and very busy man was taking the time to talk to me and cared this much about sharing it with me, that it must have been important.
As he finished drawing the last “M”, I was getting very anxious and I was literally hanging off the edge of my chair to hear what he was about to say. He seemed to be in no hurry to tell me what the “M’s” stood for, so I piped in and said, “So, what do the 3’ M’s stand for?” He began slowly writing these words one on top of the other, Master, Mate, and Mission. He said “Michael, you can hold this test against any person in the world and you will know instantly if they are headed towards true success or failure. He then explained to me that true success, the way God designed and orchestrated it, can only be experienced by keeping our 3 “M’s” in order. He explained that in order to experience true, success and fulfillment in this life, we must all first honor our Master (God), then our Mate and finally our Mission (Career). He said, “As you go throughout life, evaluating the lives and the success of others, when you come across someone that is truly successful, you will know that they have their 3 “M’s” in order. And likewise, if you see anyone headed towards failure or disaster, you will know that 100% of the time, they have their 3 “M’s” out of order. Astonished with what I was hearing, but puzzled, I asked him if it was really that simple and if it really worked on everyone. He exclaimed, “Michael it works 100% of the time…wait and see as you hold this up to people you come in contact with”. He went on to give me illustrations of countless wealthy businessmen, he knew, that had placed their 3rd “M” above all the rest and were in personal or family ruin, behind well-financed doors. He then spoke of countless people he knew that never made a place for the 1st “M” Master, in their life and the resulting frustration and lack of fulfillment and unrest that they experience. Likewise he also told me of many “Men of God” like pastors or clergy that stubbornly place their 3rd “M” Mission above the 1st and 2nd, who then experience family and spiritual ruin.
He finished by fervently asking me to give myself a success self test each day, by asking the question… “Are my 3 “M’s” in order?” and then making any necessary adjustments. He promised me that I would live a life of total and wonderful success and fulfillment if kept this principle close.
You know what? That man was absolutely right! In the last 11 years, I can look back at my life and know for a fact that I was the happiest and most successful when I had my 3 M’s in order, which brings me to the humbling reason I decided to write this blog and suspend KickstartMyDay.com.
As you know, the purpose of KickstartMyDay.com is to inspire people to achieve authentic success in their lives, by being real, transparent and sometimes very vulnerable about my own short comings and mistakes. Now is one of those times.
The past year has been very trying for our family and once again, we’ve seen more than our fair share of adversity and stress. I will spare you the details for now, until I’m completely on the other side of it and I’m able to extract and articulate the lessons that may help you in your own life, but here’s what you need to know. For the past 18 months, I’ve been extremely out of balance and have had my 3 “M’s” so far out of order, that sometimes I couldn’t even find all of them. During that period, I almost completely lost my main business and worse, I almost lost my family. I did lose my direction and became quite disoriented.
The last several months worth of Kickstart videos were all pre-recorded right before my plane took a nose dive. If I’m being totally honest, my wife and I both wonder what happened to the person we see in those videos each day. I lost myself for a while and until I feel comfortable back in my own skin, I can’t continue to be the “Kickstart Guy”, pretending that everything is just peachy over here in Kickstart land. Most of the time it is, but for several months, it’s been anything but. The good news is that he recognizes it and is doing something about it.
I am going to place a total focus in my life right now on getting my 3 “M’s” back in order. I’m very sorry that I have let you down and I hope you will understand, but there is nothing in the world more important than my relationship with my creator and my family. I cannot continue to try to help people around the world that I don’t even know, until I’m doing a tremendous job of taking care of my family inside my own home. I know of too many self-help experts or gurus who preach while standing on the broken glass of their own lives, to tell you how to put yours together. I REFUSE TO ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN IN MY LIFE and when I get through this tough season, I will be even better equipped to send more meaningful and positive messages your way.
I don’t plan on being gone too long, so please keep your subscriptions active and you will begin receiving your messages as soon as I start recording again. Trust me; I’m going to have some incredible insights to share with you, about what we’ve been through.
Thank you so much for your understanding and your support during this period.
Michael Chriswell
P.S. “Are YOUR 3 “M’s” in order?”
]]>In a committed effort to downsize, simplify and refocus our business life, my wife and I drastically scaled back our operations at www.RevelationsTraining.com about two months ago. So far, it feels fantastic...sort of like a "jail break". Not that I know exactly what that feels like, but you get the idea. We moved out of our big fancy and expensive office and we're moving back to a smaller space....mostly just for the studio, next week. So for now...I'm working back at home. Try that with 5 kids!!! HOLY MOLY!
And behind the scenes, I've been keeping and working on a BIG secret. I'm so EXCITED and so TIRED all at the same time! If you like KickstartMyDay.com, then just wait until you see what's coming soon. I'll be introducing the second member of the Kickstart family....VERY SOON! I've been working my hiney off to get it done...it's taken months, but I can smell the finish line and it will be well worth it. It might not apply to you, but I've already let a few KS insiders take a peak and they were blown away, so I'm sure you'll know some people that will want to know about it.
So stay tuned and I'll be back with another post shortly....I'll get the hang of this blogging thing...you just wait. By the way, I plan on using the Blog, mostly just to keep you updated on the behind the scenes stuff and just random happenings in our life or in my head. I'll leave the good stuff for the videos.
To your success,
MC
Thanks so much for the great question Brenda. Be sure to check out this Friday's video. It's going to be called "Take some Risks". I think I'll go into more detail in a future KS video about your question, but here's my simple opinion on this for now. One of my favorite sayings is "Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain". The challenge is in mustering up the faith to really do it though, right? I understand first hand how much FEAR can control your life. When I lost the gym at 28 and was left with over a half-million in debt, I became a paralyzed victim of fear like never before. My life coach would constantly catch me saying things or making decisions that we were based on the fear of what happened to me during that disaster and the lies that I believed about my future. I believed my past experiences were a reflection of what would happen again in the future and the experience was so painful for a time, that I did anything to avoid going down that road again.
In my opinion, you first have to ask yourself what the source of your fear is. If you are standing on the edge of a cliff and you are afraid to jump, the fear is of dying and that's the healthiest kind of fear you can have...FOR SURE! However, if you're standing on the edge of your life looking up at your dreams and you afraid to start climbing for them, then you need to ask yourself first...."What exactly is it that I am afraid of". Don't just say "failure". Go deeper...what is it about failure that you really fear? What is the worst thing that can happen?
My experience has shown me that most fear is founded in lies that we believe about ourselves, a certain situation or the possible consequences. Realize this...every single decision you will make in your life results from one of two motivations....the fear of loss or the hope for gain. Sadly, most people are motivated by the fear of loss, rather than the hope for gain. That's one of the reason why insurance companies are SO successful...they play to our fears.
The key is to get a nice sober look at your fear and then above all else, realize these two things. 1) The risks associated with failure are almost NEVER as bad as we imagine they are going to be and 2) even if they are, you will learn more and grown more as a human being from failure, than you EVER will from success. I can tell you for a fact that the worst thing that ever happened to me, ended up being the best! When you realize that character and reward come through adversity, you learn to embrace the adversity and lower you fears. PLEASE DON'T BE AFRAID TO FAIL. Make and plan, get good counsel, and take appropriate and steady action...you will fly to altitudes you never imagined in your life. Fear will no longer own you.
]]>If you've never had this opportunity before and you don't really know what it feels like, fret not, I can now tell you! That's right, I just had a miraculous, face drooling, pants wetting, heart racing, bug eyed opportunity to sit down with not one, but TWO of my super heroes! But wait, it gets BETTER because not only did I get a chance to sit down and chat like I was one of their bros, but I got to catch both interviews on camera for Kickstart Baby....YAHOOOOO! That's right and they were both so generous with their time that we'll never be able to fit the interviews into one Kickstart video, so it looks like they will each be "triple" play interviews...that's 3 x the FUN factor.
Now you must be wondering..."Who in the world did Mike get to interview?" Too bad, so sad, I'm not telling ya! But you can guess if you'd like. In fact, if you have a guess, just post it as a comment on this blog entry. I'll give you a hint. One of them has been talked about almost every weekend for the past several months on CBS Sports Sunday coverage. The other one won a Gold Medal in the X-Games and several other Championships and they are both in different sports.
These videos are coming soon, so stay tuned and keep your eyes peeled. Speaking of keeping your eyes peeled, wait til you see my eyes during one of the interviews...I was a bit start struck and it's absolutely hilarious for me to watch it. Also, you're going to get to hear some very important things about success in these interviews. It's going to be exciting!
Keep sharing Kickstart with everyone you know and help us get to our goal of 1,000,000 people!!!
MC
]]>I had recently read his book "The Big Moo" and thought it was absolutely awesome! I purchased the audio version of it and I listened to it all the way through two times. The book was actually contributed to by like 32 other brilliant people. I was so inspired by what I read that I decided to make a "maverick" business move and offer Kickstart on a "Pay What You Can" pricing model as opposed to a fixed price of $14.95 a month.
Here's where the incredible coincidence comes in. Two Saturday's ago, I'm at home checking my email and I get one of those emails from PayPal telling me that I have a new subscriber. This was right before we decided to make Kickstart FREE. When I glanced at the name Amit Gupta, I did a double take because it was a very unique name and I became very curious about who it was. I Googled his name of course and to my SHOCK he was one of the co-authors of the book "The Big Moo" and a personal friend of Seth Godin's. What are the chances of that?
We have since spoken via phone and exchanged several emails. Amit even invited us out to San Francisco to tour the hot spots and sit down with me for a Kickstart interview, so stay tuned and I'll introduce you to a very talented human being very soon. Thanks again Amit for your time. I got a tremendous boost of confidence when you told me you thought Kickstart shouldn't be FREE!
]]>For breakfast, he would always order two glasses and 8 raw eggs. I’d sit there and dry heave for like 10 minutes, watching him crack 4 eggs in each glass and then straight up chug the slime. He jokingly offered me some one time and with my eyes watering, I quickly directed my focus back to the safety of my French toast and bacon strips. To this day, I can’t figure out why, but I find “cooked” food so appealing.
Of course, I haven’t seen him since he became so famous…funny how he forgot his little breakfast buddy “meatball” when the money started rolling in. I see how you are Hulkster; you subject me to weekly routines of watching you drink raw eggs, induce childhood trauma, and then just run off and conquer the wrestling world, while little old “meatball” is left to pick up the pieces of a dysfunctional childhood. Just kidding man…I absolutely loved the attention you gave me and you really did go out of your way to make me feel special as a kid and I’ll never forget you for that! Seriously…just look at the little “meatball” from Cape Canaveral now. He’s all grown up with a few meatballs of his own and he actually followed directly in your footsteps and became a Professional Wrestler with WNWF (World Negativity Wrestling Federation). Not sure if you’ve heard about it or not, but it’s still a pretty serious battle. I fight it daily, here at www.KickstartMyDay.com
Hey, if you ever want to pay me back for the childhood trauma, I’ve always had a dream to meet you again as an adult, and the coolest thing in the world would be to sit down and do a Hulkster Kickstart video with you; maybe over 8 raw eggs and some French toast, just like old times, you in? Don’t I wish!
]]>On a serious note, I was at a funeral not too long ago where sadly that is the exact point they were trying to celebrate in the face of a life that had a terrible start and was then largely squandered. While it was comforting to know that the person made some significant changes towards the very end of their life, I couldn’t help but walk out wondering what their life might have looked like if they only had a better start.
Here’s the truth. Most of the time, you will have more control over the start of something than you ever will over the finish and the fact remains that the start of something, which you CAN control, plays heavily on your finish. One of these days I’m going to show you the video we have of the best Motocross Champion that has ever lived (Ricky Carmichael), talking about the start of his very last race at the Motocross of Nations race. He openly tells almost 70,000 fans that we all got to see him at his very best, because he got a terrible start and had to fight his way all the way from dead last to 2nd place. He goes on to say that he was hoping to make it easy on himself by getting a GOOD START, but since it didn’t happen, he had to work extra hard and fight for it. Every podium finisher in our sport will have a comment about their start, because the starts are critical!
Having been a part of the #1 Technology Incubator in the country, (UCF Technology Incubator), where I got to be right next to about 50 other start-up or growth companies, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the finish of almost anything is completely unpredictable and as time goes on, circumstances and things outside of your control will begin to affect the finish. I honestly believe if you spend more time focusing on the thing you do have control over, the START, then you will increase your chances of finishing strong; it’s just a change of focus. Don’t just take Ricky Carmichael’s word for it; look at the entire world of professional racing and ask any champion how important the start is. Ask any successful entrepreneur how important the start-up stage is? Ask any salesperson how important the first impression is. Ask any personal trainer how important the warm-up, the start of an exercise, or the start of a program is? Most will tell you the start is at least 50% or more of their success. Sure, you can always come from behind and finish strong like Ricky did, but that should be your last resort or last chance and not the norm. I’m thoroughly convinced that you have a much better chance of succeeding in business and in life if you get a tremendous START at everything you do. If life is a daily race that you have chosen to run and you are running to win, shouldn’t you be focused on your starts? I’m still convinced that the control you and I think we have over most of our finishes is just an ILLUSION, that's why it's called KickSTART and not KickFINISH…you follow me?
]]>So, this morning finally comes and I'm still anxious and still nervous, but I'm also still running on my wife's words of encouragement. When I arrived at my office this morning and someone started showing me the real time reports of people logging into the system (by the minute) to get their day Kickstarted, I immediately began feeling like an over anxious, cross-eyed, kid in the candy isle and I almost couldn't calm myself down. It seems silly, but I literally started feeling like I do when I have too much coffee. I actually feel jittery inside even as I write this. I am so full of energy and excitement, but at the same time, the "perfectionist" in me is screaming, "Oh God, it’s alive…please let everything work just right, please...please...no whammy's!" I'm sure you know the feeling. Unfortunately, perfection is not something to be achieved in this world, but that doesn't seem to prevent me from still striving for it every once in a while...and this is one of those times.
The road ahead of us is largely unpaved and our whole team is filled with great anticipation for how Kickstart might make a difference in people's daily lives. For now, we'll continue to put one foot in front of the other and continue to look for ways to improve the site and for more ways to get the word out to let people know about this valuable (we sure think so) tool that can impact their daily lives.
In the meantime, if you are reading this, I want to thank you so much for stopping by or for becoming a member. It's our desire that KickstartMyDay.com becomes more than just a place for people to get their daily motivation, but that it becomes a community of people that are passionate about starting their day positively, intentionally and with the desire to grow and become the best they can be. I believe that if you and I work together, even just a few us can make a BIG difference in this negative world.
Thank you again for visiting and I'd love to write more, but I have to run and go check the reports again...It's been a whole 5 minutes since I last checked:)
Staying Excited!
Michael Chriswell
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