Today on the show I’m excited to have Dr. Chris Zaino, who is a world-renowned speaker, author, entrepreneur, and HERO. After winning Mr. America in 1998, and being a leader in the fitness industry, he found himself defying a deadly disease in his late 20’s. Dr. Zaino leveraged his experience to establish one of the largest health and wellness clinics in the world, seeing thousands of patients per week (yes, per week). The Core Premise of his work is that everybody is born with seeds of greatness and capable of heroic things if given the chance. That each person has the noble qualities inherent in them to drastically shift themselves and their work. Dr. Chris seeks to unlock this in each man, woman, and child he reaches. Rather than let people silently grieve their potential, he exists to wake up the hero that we know is hidden within each of us. Dr. Chris Zaino takes us on his journey and his transformation, with lots of great advice and inspiration on becoming your own hero.
Podcast
Key Takeaways
[4:15] The early years of Dr. Chris Zaino
[6:31] The health crises that ultimately changed Dr. Zaino’s life for the better
[15:28] Advice that changed Dr. Zaino’s thought process forever
[18:27] Dr. Zaino’s transition from victim to taking 100% responsibility for his recovery
[22:39] How to discover your blind spots
[24:50] What is future pacing and how to use it
[29:10] How to discover your own story
[34:12] The secret to getting over tough experiences
[37:15] How to strengthen your thought process to lead the life you really want
Dr. Chris Zaino Information
Instagram (drzaino)
Transcript
Kyle Gray:
Hello everybody and welcome to The Story Engine Podcast. My name is Kyle Grey and today we have a really special episode obviously. We are doing a video podcast with Dr. Chris Zaino.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Thanks so much for having me, buddy.
Kyle Gray:
This is really exciting and we’re just in a room that’s filled with so many cool things. I’m just like… just stepping into this place I was blown away. So start us off by telling us a little bit about where we are since this is a video podcast, people can really enjoy this-
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Welcome to Hero Headquarters. So this is what I call Hero Headquarters, with the whole I’m a Hero Project. The whole vision room concept, you know people talk about vision boards, right? And they have their vision booklets, but it’s like, would you look at a board with a bunch of pictures on it, but my kids really taught me when I walk in their room, I see the GI Joe’s fighting the Transformers, and then the posters and pictures on the wall are meaningful. They’re posters of celebrities they like or awards they’ve won. And when I walked into their room, there was literally an imagination, creative scene going on. There was a story going on at all times with the way they set up stuff.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So I realized, “Well wait a second. What a great way to cultivate imagination and excitement”, and they literally made their room theirs. So it’s like, as adults, you know I walk into someone’s…and there are bowls of fruit on the wall. It’s like, “What the hell is about the bowl of fruit”, you know? We take down those posters of the people we enjoyed and the creative things and aspects, and then we start putting up paintings and pictures that mean really nothing. So I brought back the vision room. I coined it the vision room where everything in this room for me, even on a subconscious level, brings back excitement, amazing, wonderful memories. Not just visually, but even olfactory, smelling-wise and sight-wise, and texture wise. So everything in this room, when I walk in this room, it brings me to the level of the utmost creativity. Imagination, happiness, joy, great memories.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And Napoleon Hill said that a mindset sometimes when your mindset is off, it’s not as easy as just saying good affirmations. It literally has to be rebuilt. And so I use a vision room as actually rebuilding my mindset or my state to be able to curate and innovate all the amazing things I want to do in my life and help create my life. I believe everybody needs to have a vision room.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Even at work, let’s say this is my house, but even at work, have pictures, have things, have smells, have…anything that brings you joy, satisfaction, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm. If you’re in that state most of the time, you’re going to work better, you’re going to produce better, you’re not going to get tired, you’re not going to fatigue, and so I believe, I believe, the vision room essential for where you create.
Kyle Gray:
Yeah, I think it creates a lot of inspiration, and this is something I’ve been working on myself and learning more about, but having good inspiration is the fuel to really execute and to achieve the difficult scary things that you want to get done. So we’ve kind of explored this room a little bit, tell us a little bit about yourself, and I’d love for you to start with kind of a moment that’s defined who you are because you are an extremely versatile man. You’ve done many different things that will be so exciting for everybody to hear about. So yeah, I’d love to hear like a moment that really has defined who you are and everything you’ve achieved up until this day.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yes, so I do have many lifetimes. I think the best way to start is the whole terminal disease experience that I had. Back in 1998, I won Mr. America, so I looked a certain way, I felt a certain way, and I have my degree in Exercise Physiology so I’m painting the picture. Now, when I’m speaking, when I’m going to do is I might take a side step to teach a life lesson that everybody could actually apply to their life today, alright, on purpose, because I don’t want you to have to go through my story, what I’m about to tell you, to figure this stuff out, right? Do I have permission to do that?
Kyle Gray:
Absolutely
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Alright, so just paint the picture. 1998, win Mr. America, I’m on the cover of the magazines. I just got my degree in Exercise Physiology from the University of Central Florida. I’m a personal trainer. But with those titles and everything that’s going on, I’m writing for online sites such as Bodybuilding.com, some billion dollar sites today, they grew into. We know the internet’s coming up. So with that title and personal training and word of mouth, I got to work with the celebrities from Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules, because Universal Studios is right there. Florida. So they did all their stuff in New Zealand, just to let you guys know. When they film, a lot of stuff is in New Zealand. But they did a lot of B Role and other stuff they had to do on the set in Orlando. So I got to work with them. I got to work with some of the Orlando Magic privately. So I had awesome jobs. “I’ll do this the rest of my life. This is great. I’m there”.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And so that’s what I did. So at 26 now, I’d met my wife Whitney. So a couple years later, meet my wife Whitney at the gym, and we get married. Everything’s cool. So here, I’m going into this marriage. I’m the knight and shining armor, right? I’m strong. You know? Just understand my character. So as far as bodybuilding goes, you must understand at 12 years old I started working out, and I responded very well. So I started getting my significance and attention from my peers from the muscle or from responding working out, the AC Slater type of Saved by the Bell stuff. So, of course, my identity, that drove me to do that more cause I was getting positive reinforcement. I was getting significance from it. So my identity was really on how I looked, right? It was how I looked. It was how I performed in training. So, that was my identity up until that point. I mean, by in your 20s you can only really have one identity, right?
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Going through high school and college, and at 26 when I married my wife, about six months into our marriage I just started going to the bathroom a lot. I was like, “No big deal. Stomach bug”. Then I started bleeding every time I go to the bathroom. Now I’m getting scared. And so I think it’s going to go away, but it didn’t. So I played Google MD. SO I get on Google and type in “Blood in stool” and the first thing that pops up is, what do you think?
Kyle Gray:
Well, I know the answer.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Well, if someone typed in “Blood in stool”, what comes up in Google Search?
Kyle Gray:
Oh well, I would think Ulcerative Colitis or-
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Cancer
Kyle Gray:
Crohn’s
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Cancer, yeah, you know.
Kyle Gray:
Cancer, bad parasite.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yeah, all that stuff pops up. It’s not good.
Kyle Gray:
It’s scary.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
You know, when I see cancer because I didn’t know what Ulcerative Colitis and all that stuff was, but I see “cancer”. So I had a dad who died from cancer. He was 68. He had a 10-pound tumor. I had a grandfather I never met. He died of cancer. So I was led to believe in that moment of my life and in my education, schooling, that health was predetermined by your genes. Almost like duck, duck, damn, which was a bunch of bull crap. Alright? Cause now we know through genetics we can control our circumstances in that area of health. So I thought “Wow, it’s in my genes but at 26, you know that’s just not right”. So I kind of disassociated. I mean, what else are you going to do? I didn’t go into denial. I just kind of pushed it off to the side. Just didn’t want to do anything about it because I didn’t know what to do about it. Held it from my wife, Whitney, and as I started losing weight, she just thought I was dieting down or getting ready for a shoot.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And then it became not just a physical experience, it became an emotional and mental and spiritual experience as far as, I changed the way that I lived. If I had to be somewhere, I would not eat six, seven hours before so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom. Or if I did go to a place I would check out where the bathrooms were first. So I had this whole routine that was developing. I started carrying extra clothes in my car, just in case, because I always had the urge and the feeling of having to go to the bathroom. I was always tired and fatigued and just trying to put on that smile. And no one knew what was going on.
Chris Zaino:
And then, the day that I couldn’t hide it from anybody, it was on a Sunday. I was at a TJMaxx. I did my routine. I walked in, I went to the back to see where the bathrooms were and they were under construction. I told the guy, I’m like, “Hey, where are the bathrooms?” And he’s like, “They’re under construction. Just go outside. There’s a Sports Authority out there”. And because of the mental issue that was happening, the fear, I’m trying to walk out of there. I’m getting emotional. “What happens? Can I make it? Can I make it? Can I make it?” And that’s inducing for me to have to go to the bathroom more.
Chris Zaino:
And right in front of at least 40 people, just imagine yourself standing there, and you lose your bowels in public. But now losing your bowels is one thing. Like we’ve seen a baby crap their pants, right? No big deal. Or even if you have solid movements, you can kind of get away with that. But imagine wearing jeans like I’m wearing now, and you just see blood, or even your pants, blood seeping through.
Kyle Gray:
Oh, no.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That scares the crap out of people because they’re horrified. Cause number one, they’ve never seen that. Number two, it’s blood, and there’s a mixture of empathy and horror, and I’m standing there. I remember that moment I was standing there, and it’s happening. It’s like the point where you can’t hold it and just letting go and it’s just happening, and it was slow motion. And I was thinking to myself, “What the hell has become of me?” Like, “What is happened?” From this Mr. America, this statue, to broken and nothing left. So I ran out, there was a door, like an exit door, so I ran on the loading dock, called my wife, freaked her out. She picks me up with towels over the front seat and went to the hospital. They did tests and colonoscopies, and that was the day I was diagnosed with an incurable, terminal disease called Ulcerative Colitis.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And so this is autoimmune where your body is attacking itself. So they put me on harsh drugs like Prednisone, and they gave me this other drug that was so harsh on my liver, that it gave me medically induced Tempotitis. So I got Hepatitis from the drugs they were giving me but they didn’t stop the drugs. They just treated the Hepatitis. More and more drugs. Over and over again. Then we went to Baylor and Dallas, Texas and had the top four doctors in the country in the world for a digestive disease and the put me on a low-dose chemotherapy, Remicade infusions for autoimmune disease, interferon shots for the Hepatitis, and three Norco injection drugs. So if you’re listening, or watching, if you…God-forbid you ever had to get an organ transplant, your body will attack it. It will attack a foreign organ and destroy it. So what an organ rejection drug does, it actually shuts your immune system down at the DNA level, not allowing it to reject something. Not allowing it to fight.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And it still fights, it just prolongs it. So that’s why if someone gets an organ transplant, it lasts five years or six years because the body’s going to get to it anyway. The immune system will get there but it shuts it down, but now I’m wearing a mask. So now they’re shutting down my immune system, nothing is working, and I went from about 230 pounds, down to 158 pounds in about four months.
Kyle Gray:
Wow
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yeah. Stripped of everything, man. Just think my entire identity is gone. And I’m sitting there, and they’re like, “Listen.” And these medical doctors are great. I’m not saying anything bad about medical doctors. I’m just saying that their approach was not working, and it still doesn’t work today. Cause I speak to people today, they’re still the same drugs. So nothing’s being done with millions of dollars or billions of dollars being raised. So they’re like, “Listen, nothing’s working. So, next week, we’re going to actually do surgery. It’s going to consist of this. We’re going to take out your colon. You’re going to have a colostomy bag. You’re going to have a hole, a gaping hole, at the right side of your body, that we’ll have a colostomy bag. It’s going to break. It’s going to leak. It’s going to get infected. You’re going to be on 6,000 dollars worth of drugs for the rest of your life. Okay? We don’t even know if you’ll get through the surgery. Because we put you on organ rejection medication, your immune system is so low”.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
“There’s no way we could take out your colon and some bacterial or parasite is not going to kind of get loose. So we’re looking at ICU. Not days, months. Maybe up to a year”. So I’m sitting there, “This is the sentence. This is the only option.” And, on top of it, they said you still have an 80% of getting cancer, because with any type of bowel disease…and the big, big blow was I was sterile. They said, “You’re sterile”. You mean, like I could donate and then have… “No, no”. They’re like, “There’s no chance of you having kids cause, you know, the drugs we’ve given you destroyed that part of your body”. I’m like, “Oh my god”. But at the same time, I’m the person that’s like, “I did everything they told me to do. I took the drug when they wanted me to, so I got it. This is the only option. We’ve got to go for it”.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So I went home to see my mom. And so I have a mom. You remember your health affects every part of your life but also affects your family. So I have a mother who lost her husband and lost two sons. I had two brothers that died. So this is a mom, my mom’s going through a third son. She sends out the email like every mom would do, the pray email, and it was like a foxhole prayer email. It’s at the end of the day. It’s like there’s no other option and let’s now pray. Hold our breath. Cross our fingers. And you know people are sending back, “Hopefully the surgery goes well”. And then one person did something different. It was actually my anatomy teacher from 10th grade in high school.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And he emailed my mom and he’s like, “Listen. When Chris comes into town, I want to see him because I think I know something that will help him”. SO I fly into town, I got the mask. I’m the bubble boy, right? I go in there, and there’s my anatomy teacher. He goes, “Listen. I need you to go see my doctor. He’s a corrective care chiropractor. It will change your life”. And if you’re listening, you might be thinking, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Not only did I think that I was actually insulted. I was like, “Listen”. You know how people like “Oh thank you for being empathetic and trying to help me”, but I go, “There’s no way this muscle modality, cause all I knew about chiropractic was someone will take my ankles and stretch my hamstrings out when I played sports. But I realized that that person who just taped my ankles and stretched my hamstrings never had the balls to tell me what it really was. What chiropractic really was. And so in my perception of what it was, was someone who did a muscle modality
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So how is this going to do anything for an incurable terminal disease that the best in the world, 250,000 dollars in debt so far, couldn’t help? And I said, “Listen. I appreciate you so much”. And this is what I said. I said, “Well, thank you but I tried everything”. Now if you’re watching this right now, this is my side step. In life, finances, business, relationship, or even your health, you know it’s easy. When things are going bad, it’s almost like a slow disease that you don’t see, that you don’t realize that you could…it compounds over time, what you don’t realize is that you start becoming a victim and you actually lose hope. Cause the fact that I said, “Listen. I appreciate you but I tried everything”, that I mean that I believe there are no more options. Right? I believed that I’m the product of my circumstances.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And then he told me something that woke me up. And he says, “Well, you didn’t try everything because if you tried everything you would have your health”. And, it woke me up cause like at that moment I realized, holy crap, I lost hope. I became a victim because I thought I tried everything and he’s right. If I did try everything I would have had my health. And if you guys are watching, if you’re going through a tough financial time, relationship, business, or health, understand that you’re not where you want to be, and if you’re thinking to yourself, “Well, I’m not where I want to be and I tried everything”, I challenge you that if you tried everything, you would’ve had your goal.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So clearly, allow that to be the glimmer of hope for where you’re at. Pick yourself out of the pit and say, “He’s right. I didn’t try everything”. No matter how crazy it sounded to me, I didn’t try everything.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
No matter how crazy it sounded to me, I didn’t try everything. I went to see this doctor and he just talked to me about my health, very easy stuff I knew, then I went back and I looked at my spine, which I never really saw, and that’s when I saw a blind spot. That’s the key too, because again, relationship, finances, business or your health, a lot of times we didn’t hit our goals, because there are blind spots that we didn’t see or that we don’t know about. A lot of times, we actually put ourselves in those positions, because of those blind spots, by default. No one would be like, what do you mean, I didn’t want to be in this financial predicament, I didn’t want to have bad health. I know, but sometimes you do it by default because there are blind spots you didn’t know about.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So I’m looking at my spine, and you know your brain controls everything, I think everybody, easy to know that. And we’re wired, so nerves take it there. My lower spine was so damaged and curved and twisted, I didn’t feel pain, but all those curves and twisting in my lower spine that you could see. It’s like there it was. Those nerve roots go to my digestive system. So they’re not going to get the life they need from the brain. So over time it compounded and became and showed itself as ulcerative colitis. It probably took years. Then right below your skull here, there’s a bone that protects your brain stem. We talked about that earlier.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That bone, there was 50% pressure crushing my brainstem and your brainstem controls the coordination of all your organs and your immune system. So I was like, “There it is.” I saw my blind spots. But here’s the thing. When you’re presented with something that’s new, that’s different, that’s a blind spot and you’re thinking in the old way, I just wanted one thing to be answered. When am I going to get better? That’s all I want to know. If you guys are watching this and you’re going through a tough time, you just want one thing: when’s it going to be over? When am I going to move on and get my life back? And the way this doctor answered me was the reason why I chose this method because he looked at me. He goes, “Well as long as there’s that blind spot there that’s interfering with your body to heal, your body’s not in the environment to be able to heal itself.” Then he did this. He took his finger and he pointed at me and he goes, “But when you choose to correct your problem that you have that’s affecting your life and your future, then your body will then be in the environment to heal itself because then your body will heal and get well.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
He goes, “But the day and the hour you’re asking me is like, that’s not up to me because that’s up to you and your body.” He goes, “But you will get well if you don’t quit on yourself.” So he literally put all the power, he put all the determination of if I get better or not on me. It was the first time he gave me all the responsibility. I realized I had to take 100% responsibility. I couldn’t be a victim anymore. I couldn’t blame the circumstances. I had to say it’s up to me. I literally, and it’s one of my favorite quotes I give to myself, “No one’s coming to save me. I have to rise up.” And I have to do what I have to do. And I have to fix this problem and I have to take 100% responsibility for this. So I did. Even though I didn’t have the money.
[bctt tweet=”No one is coming to save you. You have to rise up and do what you have to do to fix the problem. -Dr. Zaino ” username=”kylethegray”]
Dr. Chris Zaino:
My wife and I didn’t have the money at the time. But guess what? When you want something, it appears. So we became resourceful. We got some credit cards. And this whole, I don’t want to go into debt. Listen, let me tell you right now. If debt gets you your goal, or if a little bit of debt gets you the opportunity to change your life, the opportunity to start your business, the opportunity to make a better relationship, you best go that way. Because if I know I had my health, it didn’t matter how much debt I had, I’d wipe it away. I’d easily be able to pay for it versus being under the sick debt. I’m like, well I don’t want to know because I was given false hope. Once we changed this drug and that drug and this surgery and they were failing me.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So my wife says, “Listen, we know that if you do the surgery you’re not going to make it. It’s impossible.” She’s like, “And if you do, we don’t know how your quality of life or our quality of life would be.” And she’s like, “We always wanted a family and they’re telling you you’ll never have a family.” And she’s like, “We’ll never be able to get out of this sick debt ever.” I would always be under that weight of sick medical debt for the rest of our lives. And she’s like, “I need you here as long as possible.” So we did what we had to do. I wish I could tell you a week later everything was great. No. That’s the tough part. When you start making a change in your life in those areas; finances, business, relationship or health, when you start making the change because it compounded. It took you a while to get to your position that you’re at. You didn’t get there overnight. It was really tough for me to see the manifestation of what I didn’t want on a daily basis, meaning that I saw blood every single day.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
I’m correcting this problem, but I’m being reminded of what I don’t want. There’s the blood, there’s the blood, there’s the blood. Then three months later, I’m off half the meds. So, a little bit of momentum. So you’ve got to hang in there guys until you start getting momentum because the biggest thing we’re afraid of in life is making a decision.
Kyle Gray:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Because we’re worried we’re going to make the what? Wrong decision. So we stay like this and procrastinate and lose our opportunity. So at five months, I’m off all the drugs. I’m bleeding less. I gain some weight. So now I have my momentum. Here’s the great thing: when you get momentum, there’s no more need for faith. Faith is hoping, but when you know it’s working, there’s no more faith needed. You know. You go from faith to knowing. You go from faith to not just believing, but to knowing. Then that’s all the momentum you need there. Then at seven months, my body was totally healed. My body healed itself of an incurable, terminal disease, ulcerative colitis. That was 16 years ago.
Kyle Gray:
That’s amazing.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yeah.
Kyle Gray:
You have totally, that’s a defining moment that you’ve not only taken that momentum and built an incredible chiropractic business, helped probably many more people with similar conditions recover their health. Now you’re also creating amazing content to work with the mind and to empower people in that way. Through this story that you were just sharing with me, some of the big things, the big turning points were self-discovery. Discovering your blind spots and also I think you discuss a lot, discovering your superpowers.
Kyle Gray:
I would love to explore your process and your methods for helping people find their own blind spots and how people can discover what makes them unique, what makes them powerful that they can take and then have their gifts to share with the world.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Right. Well, I really think self-awareness is huge, but a lot of times we’re not self-aware of our self. I could talk to you and be like hey, these are your powers, this is your gifting. But when it comes to analyzing myself, it doesn’t really work that way because we’re so critical of ourselves. So, when it comes to your super powers or what they are, it’s always the things we take for granted. And you don’t even realize it because you think, oh, no one’s going to really, would be interested in this, but everybody watching, there’s something that you do that’s easy to you. Whether it be cooking, whether it be counseling, whether it be just having intuition on certain things, that you don’t even think about it, but for someone else, it’s such a blind spot to them.
It’s such a weakness to them. What I really think is amazing is having wise counsel around you. There’s a difference between wise counsel and people’s opinions. Very different. Wise counsel is someone I could trust that’s not going to yes me, that’s not going to be biased and could be like, “Hey. Here’s a blind spot that you’re not seeing and I need you to see it.” That’s how that doctor was to me. It’s like there’s your blind spot, and you need to do something about it. So he was my guide. But I had to do the work. So a lot of times we’re not going to see our blind spots on our own. That’s why it’s a blind spot. That’s why you need someone who’s non-biased, doesn’t have the emotion attached to something the way we may have to say there’s a major blind spot in your relationship. There’s a major spot in your finances.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
There’s a major blind spot in your health. So we need to work on that blind spot because you’re living the same equation every single day, you’re going to get the same results. So we’ve got to change that variable, we’ve got to fix the blind spot. Once you change the variable, it’s scientific. You have to get a different outcome. But what I really think is tremendously important on getting the enthusiasm to even, because how many people desire to find their blind spots? How many people really desire to be critiqued constructively to see their weaknesses so they could improve upon them?
Kyle Gray:
That’s right. Most people try to avoid that, yeah.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Right. So this is where future pacing really, really helped. Knowing that I sat there, knowing that if I keep going this same recipe or this same equation, one five six, ten years down the road it’s like, I had the ability to future pace. Most successful people will say they can predict the future because they take themselves down that road. They don’t just deny it. Or they don’t say I’ll get around to it. No, they literally, viscerally … what I mean viscerally is they’ll future pace until they feel that future and the feeling might be so painful, it will cause them to act right now.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
What I’m going to tell you about that story of mine, so in 2005 I went back to school, got my Doctorate. In 2005, we opened up our clinic, became the largest clinic in the history of the profession, the world. We saw over 2,800 people per week. That’s 28 times the amount of any other office. So how can we 28X an average office is because of the power of my story, the power of the experience. Words don’t teach, experience does. But I was able to future pace and translate that, meaning that guys, what if I went for the surgery? I’ll tell you what would have happened. I would have either died. That would have been quick, or alive as a victim.
[bctt tweet=”Words don’t teach, experience does. -Dr. Zaino” username=”kylethegray”]
Dr. Chris Zaino:
My Instagram would have been colitis or Crohn’s survivor. My identity, my significance, would have been that of the disease or the circumstance. So, if that became my significance, why would I ever want to not have it? There’s a lot of sick people. There’s a lot of people that are in a bad situation. It has given them so much significance, why would they want to lose it? I know it sounds messed up, but that’s the truth. I would be divorced because when you’re not doing well in your bad time, you’re going to vent out. Do you think Whitney would take … how much can Whitney take of me venting at her? Being depressed, being in a funk, just mad at myself. She would have left.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
I just saw everything where it was going. In the last 17 years, to have what I have now, to have one of the largest clinics, to meet the most amazing people, helping hundreds of thousands of people traveling all around the world, be able to take care of my wife, having two beautiful boys that are awesome and I never would have had, having financial freedom and security that I never dreamed of in my life. What I’m trying to say is what I’m telling you right now, which is the reality. We’re living in it right now. If I went for the surgery, that all would have been erased and I wouldn’t have known any better. So how many people because they didn’t take the opportunity, there’s this whole entire life that they were worthy of having, they were created to have, it was erased. They never would have known that what they could have had and should have had and they weren’t even able to be in regret because they never knew it was possible.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So looking back, what scares me, even more, when I talk to you guys when I talk to you is because of one choice that I made. It wasn’t the doctor. I had to make that choice. All this was created and all of this has happened and all of this is real. All of this is true, checked off every single box you could ever want in your life because of that choice I made 17 years ago. Or I could have made a choice and I could have been dead. Or I could have been divorced. I would have not known anybody and I would have said this is the card that I was given. You see how people sit in the ashes. They sit in the ashes versus when you could future pace, you could trade the ashes in for beauty.
Kyle Gray:
Wow. That is so powerful. Like I said earlier, I think a lot of people would rather avoid the circumstances or ignore them as much as possible. Yeah, I’ve seen that.
Speaker 2:
That’s a, sorry.
Kyle Gray:
Yeah.
Kyle Gray:
All right. A lot of this is drawn from your really powerful story. You said that was one of the core elements. We’ll try again. So a lot of the success in your chiropractic agency you said was based around your story and people resonating with your story. For people out there who are listening and watching and maybe thinking well, I don’t have this kind of life or death intense story in my own life. I’m just a normal girl or guy. What do you say to them? How can they create their story and boost their own personal value?
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Well, it’s kind of how we talked about before. Number one, you don’t need a story like mine, life or death. The reason why I’m telling you these things to apply to your life is so you don’t have to get there. I’ll tell you why I had such a story that I do is because I was stubborn and I wouldn’t listen and pay attention to the warning signs. I didn’t listen to good counsel. I didn’t use my brain. I was stubborn.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So a train needed to hit me. For those of you out there that are much smarter than I am, that you could take the words of wisdom that I learned from that experience, I always say experience. I didn’t have a disease, I had an experience. And you don’t have to go through any of that. So the thing is that all of you have a story. But you take it for granted. I was raised, I had two parents that were together the whole entire time. I was tucked into bed and they told me they loved me. Every night. I have great parents. But you know where the story is? I would love, and I enjoy hearing the story of the person who grew up where their dad walked out on the family at three years old and they had to take care of their mom and the three siblings that they had.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
It’s like, you don’t think that’s a story? Everything in your life, every experience in your life teaches you. It builds your story and I don’t believe, there are no failures. You can’t say I had a failed childhood where my parents abandoned me. No, no, no. That was all an experience and from that experience, it creates contrast. That’s what people are not looking at. Failure, there’s no failure. There’s contrast. So when you have contrast, for instance when I got sick, I knew here’s the contrast. On one end, I knew what I didn’t want. I did not want to be sick anymore, but when you know what you don’t want, it clarifies what you do want. So I don’t want to be sick, so what do I do want? I want to be healthy.
[bctt tweet=”There are no failures, there are only experiences of contrast. -Dr. Zaino” username=”kylethegray”]
Dr. Chris Zaino:
I had such an abundant appreciation for health at 26 years of age than when I was 25 and not sick. So you see, when we go through an experience in life or a hardship in life, we’re so focused on the hard, the failure of it. We’re so focused on what we don’t want, we’re failing to realize that it’s clarifying what we do want. It’s clarifying that I want this and then you desire to want that you never had before because of that experience. If you went through a bad relationship, now you clarified what you really do want in a relationship. So we’re so focused on one side of the coin.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Everybody has a story. Everybody has a story, but you take that story for granted. It’s your experience. You don’t need the story. All of your experiences, and the reason why I was able to use my story, and I only really used that story that you guys heard to build my practice, is because it was a form of communication that I could get to the deepest, darkest times of my life. And I believe that if you could become transparent and get so deep and so dark and literally open up your chest cavity and be like, “I have no more darkness to share. I gave it to you all.” That creates a trust and a connection. So I use my story of near death or crapping my pants in public like I do with you guys because I can’t go any deeper. I can’t go any more transparent to you guys.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So you’re sitting there and number one, that makes me real. Then we connect on a real level because, in any business relationship or a business relationship you do, you can give the greatest information. And I could give you great scientific information on health. But at the end of the day, this is what had to happen. When someone heard me speak, or when someone hears you talk, they literally have to say this: in my case with health, that’s the person I want to lead myself and my family to health. Someone has to say, “that’s the person I want to lead me.” That’s what that story does. It’s trust. Not only trust, but that person wants you to be the thought leader of their lives in that area.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That person wants you to be the thought leader of their lives in that area. So the only way I could connect on that level is taking myself and making myself vulnerable to a point where they’re like, “Yeah, when I cut him open,” meaning me, “there’s nothing but truth there. He’s real. He’s been through a battle. He’s been through a story, and I can trust him with the health of myself and my family.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So we don’t realize that we’re doing that every day in a relationship. The more transparent you are the better. We’re doing that every day at work. The more transparent the better, but being a real person. We’re living in a day with social media. There might be so much social media, but we’re also living in a day where people are … they’re thirsty, and they’re absolutely seeking human connection.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So your story connects human connection, so for me, that’s my story. I could tell you 10 other stories in my life that as long as I take myself to the deepest, darkest moments, or vulnerable places in my life, I could build a connection, a human connection. I call it innate to innate. It’s our spirit and our spirit connect. It clears through all the façade on an Instagram or on a Facebook.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Because what is Facebook and Instagram? It’s not real, it’s an illusion. It’s a delusion of the life that people want to project, but it’s not real. But when you could have a real human being say, “Listen, I’m going to be vulnerable first, so here’s my vulnerability. I’m not asking you …” I’m going to be vulnerable, and then we can continue the conversation from there.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
This is where everybody has a story. Everybody has time, but we have to use the time … Also, what I noticed, and this will really help you guys out too. If anybody’s watching or listening and you went through a health crisis, a financial crisis, a relationship crisis, if you went through molestation, rape, any type of ridiculous, gruesome hardship, because a lot of people do, and because they went through something like that, they’re embarrassed, and they clam up, and no one knows. It’s in the dark.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
What I realized, and it was a side effect, but the side effect became a primary teaching point that I help people. Even massive CEOs, hundred million dollars a year CEOs that hold these things in the dark, I realized that when I spoke about my story over and over again, and I brought this into the light, when I bring it to the light, it doesn’t own me anymore. I own it.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So all of the sudden, this ulcerative colitis disease I had, it wasn’t a disease, it was an experience I got to go through. Then as I talked about it more, it’s like not only was it an experience, it was a blessing. It was the greatest teacher of my life. I literally now could touch it with love. I could laugh about it. I could tell you some funny stories that weren’t funny then, but thinking about it now, they were funny.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
I mean, they’re comical what would happen just losing your bowels, but how can I laugh about it? How can someone laugh about being raped? How come, someone … You would think it sounds ridiculous, but something happens when you share it so much, and you see it as a teacher. You see it as the thing that created who you are today. You see it as a guide, as an experience, where now it was never yours, it was just an experience that actually made you so much better as a human being, and allowed you to be on a platform to help so many other people.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So there’s something about telling your story, even if it’s a rough time in your life, that creates so much healing. It was never me, it was just an … I went through a health experience that led me … I would have never been a chiropractor. It wouldn’t have even been the 10,000th thing on my list to do, but this experience of me on a journey that I never thought possible. All these unknowns opened up, and it created the most amazing, beautiful, awesome, killer, superhero life that I ever … I could have never dreamed this possible without that beautiful experience I went through.
Kyle Gray:
That’s incredible. What I really admire about this, and something that you’re kind of saying between the lines, is your story not only impacts the people that you reach out to, build trust, build empowerment in them, but by changing the language that you’re using, you’re empowering yourself, and you’re creating meaning. I think something that I’ve noticed just speaking with you is you’re very, very careful with the words you use to describe things and your situation.
Kyle Gray:
I think that that’s a really important place for a lot of people to start. Not only in the way you talk about things, but in the way you think about things. Do you have any good advice for how we can start to change our thoughts, and change the language around our thoughts, and how that works so that we can change things from disease to experience, as you were saying?
Dr. Chris Zaino:
It’s deliberate consciousness. You got to deliberately do it. It’s almost auditing. I started catching myself, saying … Anytime I said something that came from the place of being a victim or the circumstances, it was like, “No, no, no.” I turned that around like, “This didn’t happen to me,” or, “Hey, I chose to do this, and by choosing to do this, this happened.” So I always take personal responsibility. So that whole cue, “No one’s coming to save me.” That means that I take 100% responsibility.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That’s the most important thing when you take 100% responsibility. The way I teach people is this. When you take 100% responsibility, I want you to own up to it, realizing that why’d you do this, or why’d you do that? People want to know why, and they expect you to justify it. Why’d you cheat on your relationship? Why’d you overspend that money? Why’d you eat that cookie and drink that beer, and why’d you not exercise?
Dr. Chris Zaino:
We’re looking for justification. A lot of times, because we feel everybody needs to be justified of our actions, we start creating what I call success 101 answers, such as this, I’ll use one. “God first, family second.” No, it’s not, because when I look at your paycheck, and when I look at your credit card statement when I look at your checkbook, I’ll tell you who’s first. It’s success 101 answers because we want to see the answers that people want to hear, that make us sound great.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
And you know, we believe it. Our attention might be there, but we start lying to ourselves because we’re lying to others. When you really say, “Listen, how come my relationship isn’t doing well?” Watch this. “Because I didn’t want it to go well.” I could have easily got the rose. How easy is that? I could have easily bought the card. I could have easily gone on the date night, but I didn’t want to.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
How come you didn’t work out and take care of your health the way you need it to be? Because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go to the gym. I don’t want to eat right. I just didn’t feel like it. But I’m not saying this is guilt, or shame, or judgment, I’m saying this out of peace, meaning that when you could own it and say, “You know what? I chose to. I didn’t want to.” Because it’s all easy. It’s easy to walk on the treadmill. It’s easy to get a card for your wife or your spouse. But it’s like, “Wow. I just really didn’t want to.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
But this is not out of guilt or shame, it’s like saying, “I didn’t want to. That was my decision. I own up to it, and I accept that. I accept what happened because of that …” But see, but being honest with yourself, not saying, “Oh, it has to be this beautiful answer that fools everybody else and me,” but when you realize that you do not have to justify yourself, the only thing that you really need to have is an answer. When someone challenges you or says why you did this, is this. “Because I wanted to.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
I remember back in the day, Michael Jordan, he had 32 different cell phones when he was talking to all these different women when he was having an affair. He wanted to. Right? I mean, you’re like look at the work he went through. How come you’re not a millionaire? You say you want to be a millionaire. How come you’re not there? Because you really don’t want to.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Being a millionaire sounds good, but deep down inside, probably the things to get there, or the sacrifices, you’re like, “Eh, I just didn’t want to.” Then you’re judging yourself by not having the certain number. When you can realize that you’re in the current state that you’re in, health-wise, financially, relationship, and business, because it’s exactly what you truly want to be in right now.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
So the self-awareness becomes in owning that. “Hey, I’m here my body’s the way it is. My health is the way it is. My relationship’s the way it is, exactly the way it is because it’s what I chose it to be, or what I chose it not to be. Meaning that I don’t want to do that. Why? Because I just didn’t want to.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Sometimes it takes an act of health terrorism to make someone get enthusiastic. So like when I lost my health, or someone loses their health, it’s like an act of health terrorism. Then what happens? They know what they don’t want. Then it increases their enthusiasm to want something more than they used to.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
What I’m trying to say, is to change the mindset, realize that when you could say, “You know what? It wasn’t the circumstances that put me in this place. When I really get back to the … I’m judging … not even judging myself. When I can realize that I’m exactly where I’m at, in the place that I want to be, because I wanted to. I really wanted to.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Not wanting to and wanting to are the same thing for me. It’s like you didn’t want to exercise, so that means that you wanted to eat whatever you wanted to eat. You wanted to just sit on the couch and watch TV. Yeah. This is what I would tell them. “Great. I don’t judge you one bit, I love you, unconditional appreciation. I love you for that because that’s the first step in changing your life because then you’re truly honest. The only relationship that matters is the relationship with yourself.”
[bctt tweet=”The only relationship that matters is the relationship with yourself. -Dr. Zaino ” username=”kylethegray”]
Dr. Chris Zaino:
When you could fully be honest with yourself and say, “Yeah, I wanted to.” I’d be like, “all right, so what do you want to do? I mean, you could keep doing that. I still love you and appreciate you, or you could make a change.” That’s where change starts, is by almost deconstructing it to get to a level of knowing that I wanted to or not wanted to. Actually, I call this bit my chop suey. You know System Of A Down?
Kyle Gray:
Yeah.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
They had a song, “Wake up, put on your cover and your makeup.” The whole thing was you wanted to. You wanted to. I call it chop suey because, at the end of the day, it’s what you wanted to. That is the first, that is the purest, purest form of self-awareness, because now from that level, all the bullshit’s gone, so to speak.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
It’s like, it’s not God or family first. I don’t have to make up sweet sounding melodies to you. I could be like, “Oh, I chose to,” or, “I didn’t choose to, and so now I am empowered to choose or not to choose to make that better.”
Kyle Gray:
That’s incredible and very empowering, and just a simple place to start.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Dude, you nailed it. It becomes empowering when I realize that I wanted to, or I didn’t want to go to the gym. So the power’s all on me. It’s always all on me. No one told me to do that, or no one told me not to do that. I did.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That’s what I said, this should be no judgment, guilt. This should be very empowering. I know you might feel bad when you realize, “Oh, I chose not to get the card or to get the flowers.” Uh. That is kind of lousy. But it’s like, “No, no, no, no. Don’t get guilty.” Don’t apologize, so no guilt, no apology. Just say, “Yeah, I wanted to.” That’s why you did or didn’t do it, because you wanted to. It was all your choice, and it’s very empowering because now you know. “Well, it was my choice, and my choices got me there, and my choices will pull me out of the pit too.”
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Going back to Michael Jordan. Not that I love Michael Jordan, but it’s just like, it amazes me the work that man went through to sneak around. A lot of work, a lot of thought, because he wanted to. Then he got caught, and he didn’t want to as much anymore. I would think like, “Why would a celebrity cheat on their spouse, and then have to give $400 million over?” Like Arnold, like the maid keeper. Why would he … because they wanted to. See, there’s no rationale. They wanted to. That’s it.
Kyle Gray:
What impresses me is the amount of time and energy to … they’re still deceiving themselves, and the big take away, is a lot of us, when we are not just saying, “Oh, I want to,” we’re investing all of that energy to trick ourselves, and to try to change reality when that energy can best be used to create what we actually want.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
That’s when you own up to it, it releases all that energy again. So now it releases this energy up from self-sabotage to blaming circumstances, to let’s transmute that into success, into great relationships, into finances, into health, and all the other important things and desires of your heart.
Kyle Gray:
Dr. Chris Zaino, this has been such an incredible experience for me. I hope everybody else out here-
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yeah
Kyle Gray:
… watching and listening. To wrap it up, I would love just maybe one quick thing that somebody can do today to start changing the course of their lives, and then tell us a little bit about where we can get in touch with you, where we can follow you, how can everybody here who’s been inspired and excited by what they’ve heard today connect with you?
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Well, I think we just … Let’s follow up that one thing. Let’s say like, you know, look at the areas of your life that you would love them to be better, and then become self-aware without guilt, shame, or judgment, and with no apologies, and a bit … I just chose not to. Well, I chose to. I think that’s a really good standpoint because that’s a very empowering … because we got to clear all that stuff out first before there’s change. I cannot be lying to myself and change for the better.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
You can’t be running a crappy race. A crappy race doesn’t turn out good. The end of a crappy race is a crappy result. Self-empowering by realizing, “Hey, I take 100% responsibility for this.” Other things that will help them will be where you could find more about me. If you want to find more, I have something really good for you guys that’s called The Hero’s Secret Sauce.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Whether it be other accomplishments like I was top honors in piano when I was a kid. Winning Mr. America, building the largest wellness clinic in the world. Going back and winning Mr. Universe, starting this I Am Here project. All of this, like how can you be the top in different areas, and they’re not even related? I write down all the qualities, and I kind of distilled it down to five main principles that everybody could apply to their life right now today, and see a change in any area of their life.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
All you have to do to get that, it’s on me, you go to iamhero.com/secret, all right? Then there you’ll get some PDFs and some videos there that go over that, so please enjoy that. Then let’s keep this conversation going as far as Instagram. I put out content every single day. I do live videos, I answer all the comments. I answer all your messages. That’s a great way.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
The content I put out is like we were talking today, because when I go through Instagram … because time is our greatest commodity. I mean, we can’t make more of it. We can make more money, you can’t make more time. So if you’re going to take two minutes to watch something, or one minute to watch something, I want to make sure that my content moves you one degree towards your desires and goals in life, so all my content is as deep and rich as what we talked about today. So just follow me on Instagram, tell your friends and family, and make sure you give this podcast or this video a thumbs up, five stars, and hopefully, we can do this again. I’d love to do this.
Kyle Gray:
I would love to. This was so much fun.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Yeah, we’re neighbors.
Kyle Gray:
Yeah, yeah. Very first video podcast. Amazing experience. Thank you for joining me on this.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Oh, absolutely. Thanks so much, guys.
Kyle Gray:
All right, and thanks for everybody for joining us today, and yeah, be sure to check out more episodes of The Story Engine Podcast. Woo, that’s a wrap.
Dr. Chris Zaino:
Dude, great job, man.
Kyle Gray:
Thanks for listening to The Story Engine Podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes and resources mentioned in this episode and every episode at thestoryengine.co. If you want to tell better stories and grow your business with content marketing and copywriting, be sure to download the content strategy template at contentstrategytemplate.com. This template is an essential part of any business that wants to boost their traffic, leads, and sales with content marketing. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.