Meet The Global Superstar Who Chose Family Over Fame with Christian Ray Flores – EP 215

Justin Donald: Hey, what’s up, Christian? Good to have you on the show.

Christian Ray Flores: Not much, my friend. Happy to be here with you.

Justin Donald: Well, this is fun. You and I have had a chance to talk business and life for quite some time now, and I’m really excited to share your story. And even this new business, this new pivot, kind of like a new niche or genre that it’s funny, It’s kind of come full circle. It’s something that you did a long time ago. It’s something that you know well. You maybe thought you might abandon it and try something different and all of a sudden, you’re back right where you started in the area you know best.

Christian Ray Flores: That’s true. Yeah, it’s very interesting. Circle of life.

Justin Donald: No kidding. So, I would love to share your story, like talk to people a little bit about your story because yours is really neat. You grew up in Russia, and there’s a certain regime and understanding and economy that you grew up with, and then you shifted here. By the way, you had a lot of success while you were in Russia. And so, it’s interesting that you still came here to the US because I feel like a lot of people with the stardom that you had would have just stayed and soaked in the glory, but you made a big move to come here. So, I’d love to talk about your early life.

Christian Ray Flores: So, my early life gets even more confusing because I’m half Chilean, half Russian. My dad’s Chilean, so I don’t look Russian at all. And essentially, my life was going to be in Chile. I was born in Moscow, but my parents moved there. But there was a military coup there. My dad was in a concentration camp. I was like, literally, my first childhood memory was standing outside of a concentration camp looking in.

They would put people by the thousands in these soccer stadiums because they couldn’t fit them into the jails. And so, my mom, I was holding my mom’s hand and she’s passing some food through a soldier, like a guard trying to get to my dad. And of course, they didn’t pass, they just ate the food. But then we ended up sort of in a refugee facility, United Nations refugee facility, when they released him. And he was lucky to be released in the first place.

And that sent us just traveling, went to Germany and Russia and Africa. So, I ended up at age seven going four different countries, three continents by age seven. And it’s drastically different cultures, languages, the whole thing. And I basically grew up in Mozambique in Africa, which is Southeast Africa.

And I only came back to Russia when I was a teenager. So, I saw essentially lot of drama growing up, a lot of change. And I’ve experienced poverty. And I saw like a military coup in Chile, a civil war in Africa. And then by the time when I went back to Russia, when I graduated college with a master’s degree in economics, literally, the year the Soviet Union falls apart and there’s like tanks in the streets, another attempted military coup. So, just this madness is like a Forrest Gump sort of situation.

And I was just super lucky because as sort of there was this window of freedom in Russia from ‘91 to around 2001, like about a decade. And I was very musical my whole life. I was an entertainer. And like, I’m going to give this thing a try. Like, everybody’s going into bank. All my buddies were going into banking and international trade, and I was just really bored with that. And I thought, I’m going to give it a try. And everybody thought I was crazy.

About a year, I was on national television. In two or three years, I was playing sports arenas. Boris Yeltsin used my song as an anthem for his election campaign against the Communists, which was another full circle because I grew up with parents that were Marxists and I was very, very anti-communist by that time already. So, that’s sort of the wild story in like broad strokes for you.

Justin Donald: Well, and I don’t want people to miss the stardom, the fanfare. I mean, you were what we would call a Hollywood celebrity. I mean, that’s what you were there. And like, how did this meteoric rise to fame and popularity happen?

Christian Ray Flores: I think it was a combination of obviously, like it was just that there was a need for something like that. And I think what happened was when the Iron Curtain came down, the demand for Western music that we were deprived of, I mean, we literally were deprived of all of that, I had a glimpse because I could travel internationally because I had double citizenship. But well, in Russia, I mean, I was in my teenage years tuning in a shortwave radio to Voice of America to get a glimpse of any American music because they didn’t have any. There was a black market, but anything new, you had to literally find it somewhere. And they were jamming the stations and stuff like that. So just terrible stuff, right?

So, there was this hunger for Western music and of course, the locals didn’t know how to make Western music. And of course, I grew up all over the world. I had this cosmopolitan vibe to me. And so, I had talent, I had a voice. I could dance, I could sing, I could choreograph. And when I came out with the thing, the sort of almost like a product, right? And of course, I’m an economics major, so I think in those terms as well. I would read books about the record label deals and who produced what and how much money they got and who did, like the behind-the-scenes stuff I was very interested in.

So, I approached that from a very Western standpoint, not just as an artist, but this is a product, this is a brand. We’re going to be better than anybody else. I mean, we rehearsed for six months before we even auditioned anywhere. And then when we auditioned, we were hired on the spot because we’re just better than everybody in that particular genre. So, that was sort of, I think, the backstory of why it succeeded. It was luck, work ethic, having the right secret sauce to the thing. And yeah, I had three record labels. They were battling to get me on the contract. By the end of year one, I was in national television.

Justin Donald: Wow. And so, why leave all that? I mean, it seems like as a young person, this is everything you could have ever dreamed of, right? So, why leave it behind?

Christian Ray Flores: I’ve thought about this quite a bit, obviously, right? Because it comes with risks if you have something certain over here that’s succeeding on a high level, but I think that’s the choice that every professional, every entrepreneur, every successful person eventually becomes a prisoner of the thing that made them successful. And those who stay and just sort of slug it out, they usually regret, they have too many regrets, but those who are at least self-aware enough to question, do I want to do this particular thing or this particular way right now? And that was sort of my dilemma.

I remember very distinctly, I was on a train ride with my crew. It was like a multi-city tour or something like that. And I was just looking out the window and I had this very distinct thought. Is this all there is for me? And I even surprised myself with the thought because I was like, for a musician to doing what I was doing was like, nobody gets to do that, like 0%, 0.1% gets to do that, to live that kind of life and that kind of success where, like, millions of people know every word of my song of my first album, it’s incredible. Like, it’s insane.

Justin Donald: Such a small percentage.

Christian Ray Flores: Very small.

Justin Donald: To experience a life like that.

Christian Ray Flores: Precisely, yes. And it’s just so fulfilling. I was so lucky. And yet, at the moment, I was thinking, yeah, but it’s this very Soviet space, it’s this very specific slice, right? Or post-Soviet space, rather. There’s like 15 different countries, still it’s big territory. But I grew up on three different continents. I speak four languages. I have an economics degree. I became a Christian by that time. And I was like, gosh, I mean, there’s so much spiritual. I want to be able to help people spiritually, not just entertain them. I was inspired by, like, we have the world and Band-Aid and those times, I’m like, I want to help the poor. I grew up in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, and I’m not doing any of that stuff, right?

So, basically, the gist of it was I was super lucky, incredibly grateful, and yet, incomplete. There were big parts of me that were dormant. I also wanted to build a family, and I knew that this kind of lifestyle was not going to coexist with family, like, it just won’t, right? And I really wanted a family.

So, there’s all these dimensions that are dormant to you and you ignore them usually as a successful person because you’re getting paid, because you’re getting the respect, you’re getting the status, you’re getting the accolades. And it’s fun, it’s fantastic, right? But then, if you ignore those empty spaces that are still uninhabited, unfulfilled, eventually, it catches up with you. And I just didn’t want to be that person who lives with regrets. So, I basically went home and I started talking to my crew. Hey, I want to transition out over time and I’m not going to do anything crazy. And they all thought I was crazy, of course, immediately.

Justin Donald: I’m sure. They all wished that they could have what you have.

Christian Ray Flores: Yeah. And of course, their livelihoods depend on me. I had sort of maybe 20, 21 people working for me at the time. And I was scared, too, because I’m like, what if I suck at whatever it is that I’m trying to do? And it’s going to be a financial sacrifice and all. I mean, the press went crazy when I started sort of transitioning out and I got a lot of bad press and it hurts.

So, there’s a cost to be paid to live a genuine, authentic life and build the life that you want. And that’s why I respect you so much is because that’s what you do. You teach people to envision the life that you want and how to create the financial sort of dimensions of that, which to me, I’m actually really bad at that. So, I don’t know why you have me on the show because I’m the poster child of what not to do.

Justin Donald: There’s some great lessons for me to learn in that too. I love telling people, though, the show is not for people that have it figured out. The show is for people to figure it out along the way, share the successes they’ve had, share the failures so that people can choose to live vicariously and learn lessons vicariously through other people. I love the screw-ups because I’m a screw-up and I love bringing people on that have just made poor choices that have then shifted and pivoted to making better choices in life.

And I think that people, like your story is a beautiful story because you had it all made, but it was like surface-level amazing, but deep down, you weren’t passionate about it. It wasn’t satisfying. It wasn’t quenching your thirst for impact. And it’s great that you were able to pivot away from that. So, I’m so glad to have you on the show because so many people have had this type of experience, maybe not the stardom thing, but being lost in one space thinking that you’re typecast into this role or into this job or into this business. You don’t even love the business, but it’s yours and you don’t own it. The business owns you. And how do I pivot to something new? So, your story is beautiful for that. And so, I love exploring it.

Christian Ray Flores: Thank you, thank you. And while I do think that from the financial standpoint investment, I want to be like you when I grow up, 100%. Like, I really admire what you do and how you teach other people to do it. But from the perspective of impact, I’ve literally helped thousands and thousands of people in need on three continents. I’ve spoken all over the world in four different languages, right? I’ve been able to work, not only in that sort of Eastern European space, but in Hollywood, I had a company for a few years that did music production and music videos with literally directors whose videos I admired on MTV. And I was like hiring them to do work for me now or working with incredible Grammy Award winning producers in jazz and rock and pop.

I mean, just none of those things would have happened, right? I was able to do spiritual work as a pastor. I planted churches. I co-founded networks of churches as well. I’ve done so much really cool stuff. And that was sort of the thing. It was like, yes, of course, I mean, the 0.1% of musicians who have this kind of life, but there’s more to me than that. And there’s nothing wrong with being a musician and an artist who wants to do just music for the rest of your life. I’m just not that guy, that’s all. So, I felt guilty. So, I was like, I’m dissatisfied. I’m like, the most ungrateful guy on earth.

But then, in my core, I was like, yeah, but okay, this is just how I messed up this way, but I’m going to pursue a full life. I’m definitely not going to live with regrets. I’m going to build a great family. My family will come first. And that’s a big thing is that so many of my friends, so many of my friends are just wealthy, exceptionally successful, very, very smart, and they’re on their second, third marriage.

Justin Donald: Yep. I’ve seen a lot, too.

Christian Ray Flores: And the kids, and of course, yours and my friend, Jon Vroman, is an amazing guy who teaches people how to be Front Row Dads and be dads that have businesses rather than business people that happen to have a family.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Christian Ray Flores: And of course, I have gears, right? I have gears, I have talent, I know that. But when I got married to Deb and we had our kids and all three of them were born over there and we moved to the States, I just decided, look, I know I can go out there and make more money if I just completely hustle, right? But I’m never going to get those 18 years back with my children, ever. In fact, there’s statistics that say that the average American family or parent in the years after they leave the house classically at, let’s say, 18, cumulatively, you would spend with your kid for the rest of your life one year.

Justin Donald: Wow.

Christian Ray Flores: And the question is, yes...

Justin Donald: That’s tough to think through.

Christian Ray Flores: It really is, right? And it’s not bad, I mean, they have their own lives, right? That’s totally fine. But do you really want to be away during the 18 that you’re together? Like, seriously? Like, what is that going to cost you?

Justin Donald: That’s so good.

Christian Ray Flores: And the millions that you might get, is it worth that? And to me, it’s not. And I made that decision. We homeschooled two out of three kids. I missed nothing. Nothing. And because of our presence, because of my wife’s presence and mine and our love, and we traveled the world together, we showed them the Paris and we showed them the most depressed shanty towns in Brazil, for example, or Africa. They’ve seen the world and they grow up these mature, powerful women, that they’re crushing it because they have a worldview that is not fragile, that is well rounded. They’re well read. They’re excellent at what they do and whatever, two of them in college, one of them is out of college, but they’re all three of them are shaped by this experience of 18 years of organic loving, well-rounded parenting, right? To me, you can’t really replace that with any level of income to be honest with you or fame.

Justin Donald: You’re so spot on. I mean, I love that you knew you were called to something greater. And something greater, by the way, could have just been a present parent, right?

Christian Ray Flores: Yes, exactly.

Justin Donald: Even just that could be greater because that’s the greater impact on the people you know and love the most. But you are called beyond that, too, and you are called to have impact on a large number of people and not just entertainment, but actual impact. And I love that. My wife is great about saying, she says this not as frequently today because I think I’m getting it. Like, I’m getting better, right? But she’ll say, when you say yes to these other things, you’re saying no to the family. You might not physically be saying no to it, but if you’re not there, then you’re actually saying no. And that’s such a good wake-up call for me to say, you know what? That’s right. I need to be saying yes to the family and no to these other things because that window is small.

Christian Ray Flores: It really is.

Justin Donald: And it goes by fast and I can see mine shrinking because I’m down to the last, what, six years. So, now, they’re counting more than they’ve ever counted before. And that’s the top of mind. It’s like, well, let’s say that I miss out on this deal, or let’s say I miss out on this experience. Well, if I had done it, I’m actually missing out on the investment into my family. And for right now, these next six years, it’s more important for me to invest in my family than whatever money or whatever opportunity might exist. Now, I can probably do a good job of balancing both, but I don’t want to miss anything important. And I love that you’ve modeled that for so many people. That’s powerful.

Christian Ray Flores: It is, thank you, yeah. That’s the stuff that I don’t regret at all. And the gift just keeps on giving. Like, every time, the family gets together, you see a different level of love. And I mean, the warmth that we have is nothing like the warmth I see in many of my friends’ families, unfortunately, right? I mean, my kids’ friends want to hang out with us as parents.

Justin Donald: That’s awesome.

Christian Ray Flores: And they’re like, yeah, we love your parents.

Justin Donald: You know you’re doing something right.

Christian Ray Flores: Yeah, exactly. Yes. That’s not normal, right? But I think all of that is just thanks to saying, look, this is what’s important and it’s going to build me up and it’s going to make me a better business guy as well, right?

Justin Donald: That’s right. And just a quick shout-out, I have attended your church before. You are a masterful speaker. You’re a great pastor. You’re great at delivering content and messages. And so, I know you’re having an impact greater than just the amazing gift of your voice and the music that you created, but you’re going beyond that, right? You’re a pastor who can’t be contained by typical confines of the church. Like, you’ve got other things that you want to do and visions that you have.

Christian Ray Flores: That’s true.

Justin Donald: This entrepreneurship brain. And so, you’ve had many iterations now of different businesses that you’ve done, whether they be coaching businesses or other businesses from an operation standpoint, like an operating company. So, I’d love for you to share a little bit about that, and then I’d love to unpack some of the lessons that maybe you’ve learned or carried with you in the financial space growing up in a different country, right?

Christian Ray Flores: Yes. Oh, yeah. I have many.

Justin Donald: And maybe some other things that people hear and the US take for granted.

Christian Ray Flores: So, yes, the coaching, I’m doing performance coaching. And basically, it’s very, very simple. I’m doing for others what somebody else did for me. I was literally at the peak of my career. I was literally playing sports arenas and stadiums. And I was clinically depressed. And the reason for that is because, and that’s very classic actually, with high achievers is that we have such drive and such talent and zeal, and we overinvest in our game and we underinvest in our game the thing that actually can drive our game to incredible heights and forever, right?

And because of that, we get this sort of shortsighted success, lopsided successes. It’s not a holistic success. And then it starts catching up with us. And we can’t do even the thing that we invested so much towards. We can’t do it well either. And that was sort of my reality. So, I was like just really bad, in a bad shape. And I had many weaknesses, many weaknesses, but I think the main thing that brought me to my knees into faith actually, originally, was my romantic life, my parents were divorced.

It’s funny because you experienced three lifetime’s worth of trauma, right? So, military coup in Chile, civil war in Mozambique, tanks in the streets of Moscow. And the thing that breaks you is the divorce of your parents. Like, that always gets me. Like, it’s so strange. And I was confused because when you’re a sort of a pop idol, like, there’s all this female attention, but you have no idea who, if people are interested in persona or in the person.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Christian Ray Flores: Then on top of that, you layer sort of the fact that I am convinced that marriage doesn’t work, that it’s not even a real thing, that it always breaks people’s hearts and with a desire to actually love and be loved just like everybody else. So, I was like a big mess, right? And so, that was just one of the many other inner game problems that I had and somebody took– there was this Canadian guy who was a pastor, a missionary who comes from actually a really wealthy family, but left it all and was like in post-Soviet space preaching the gospel. And he took me under his wing. And I said, “Can you teach me how to do it, how to live life well, basically? Can you be like my Mr. Miyagi?”

Justin Donald: That’s amazing.

Christian Ray Flores: And he was like, “Yeah.” And the smartest thing I did is to just listen to this guy and submit to his advice, right? Because people can give you advice, you won’t listen to it most of the time. And he reshaped me and helped me. It’s like, he opened a portal to holistic success for the rest of my life. That’s what he did for me. And it never went away for me. I just never forgot that, wow, one person can do this for you. And without that person, you can be talented, successful, driven, and still write your life. And that one special person can come in and change all of it for you, right? And so, that never went away.

Justin Donald: It’s beautiful.

Christian Ray Flores: And I think I started doing that right away because it was such an amazing shift for me that even back when I was in Eastern Europe, I would coach Olympic athletes, like five of them, right? And all kinds of entrepreneurs, fashion designers, artists, Russian mafia members who became Christians, like, I have several pretty intense stories, okay, involving that.

Justin Donald: That’s unreal.

Christian Ray Flores: And then they turned their life around and they became incredibly faithful people, family people, nonviolent people, wealthy people, right? So, I see it over and over again. And at the time, I was like, well, maybe I have a propensity for that, but I’m sort of a celebrity here that’s going to stop in America. And it didn’t. So, we moved stateside and I sort of attracted people like that for some reason because I think I have an insight into the human soul, but I also have an insight into the mind of the high achiever. And I’m not intimidated because I’m like one of those guys, right? So, I can talk to anybody.

So, it’s sort of that’s the origin story for Xponential, which is sort of the brand that I developed. And it’s sort of this coaching program, it could be cohort, one-on-one, hybrid, but the idea is basically, how do you get your natural talent and drive and love to do building things. It could be businesses, nonprofits, whatever, music, and create for yourself the habits, the high-level habits and skills that will sustain your high-level goals for life without sort of imploding on yourself, which is what happens with many people. That’s basically the core idea of the whole thing.

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, if I understand this correctly, you’ve built a media company, and this media company does some coaching, and you coach primarily at least in the beginning, entrepreneurs, but it seems like you’ve shifted a lot to coaching about personal brands, which you’ve had a lot of experience with over the years in different markets, in different countries. And I’d love to even talk about the power of the personal brand and why maybe you feel like you shouldn’t have abandoned your personal brand when you did, but how you kind of came back and said, you know what, I’m going to reinvest back into this again.

Christian Ray Flores: Yeah, so thank you for that because, look, we were talking before this and I was mentioning this to you. So, basically, what I’m doing now is two things. One, Xponential is a coaching program that helps people really succeed on a high level holistically for the rest of their lives. That’s basically the goal. On the other side, I have a media company that I started maybe 12 years ago, and we primarily focus on nonprofits and founders of tech startups because of sort of the space that we’re in. And we did media, like very high-level videos, like award winning. We have a small but very award-winning team that does brand web video, graphic design, right? So, the observation was very interesting. You and I were talking the irony, right, is that I’m a huge fan of personal brand development because never in the history of humanity, until literally like the last maybe 10 years max, have we been able to reach anybody, sort of anyone, anywhere at any time.

Justin Donald: That’s right.

Christian Ray Flores: Never. Never. Like, it’s unbelievable.

Justin Donald: It’s a whole new world.

Christian Ray Flores: It’s a whole new world. So, to not, and basically, personal brand is just reputation of scale, what problems do you solve? Who do you solve it for? How do you solve it at scale? So, the people, they learn to know you, trust you, and come to you for the thing that you do. That’s personal branding, right?

And the irony, what I mentioned to you is that when I moved to the States, maybe part of it was just I thought, oh, I’m just going to do something not glamorous because I was tired of it, I guess, right? Maybe. I don’t know what it was, but I basically didn’t do anything personal brand wise for a long time, like maybe 15 years, the first 15 years I was here.

Justin Donald: Wow, that is a long time.

Christian Ray Flores: It is a long time, right? And the irony of it is that I know how to do this inside and out. This is literally what I did.

Justin Donald: The early days of personal branding.

Christian Ray Flores: I know.

Justin Donald: Creating content, but it’s funny because you were ahead of your time back then, and that model had really taken off. So, it’s actually funny to now be like, wait a minute, this thing that is now the thing everyone does, I did this like a decade before it was ever a niche, a thing.

Christian Ray Flores: Yeah, I know how to do this. So, now, I’m definitely like, oh, my gosh, I’m such an idiot, right? So, now, of course, when you Google my name, you see me and I’m podcasting, I’m guest podcasting. Thank you for the opportunity to please your audience as well. So, it’s all about basically saying, look, this is my life. This is what I believe holistically. This is stuff, the problems that I solve. And if it appeals to you, you can get a lot of my content for free. If it appeals to you on a such higher level that you need to work with me, we can talk about that as well, but that’s basically the idea of a personal brand. But I think everybody should have one. You don’t have to even be an entrepreneur to do that. You can be in the corporate world and have a personal brand just fine.

Justin Donald: Well, and you can build your personal brand and it gives you some offshoots to do other things. And if those other things don’t continue, you can always come back to that personal brand. So, it provides opportunities, it gives you a chance to venture out, but you can always come back, as long as you’re not doing things that are going to tarnish your reputation.

Christian Ray Flores: It’s all about people, success in life. And honestly, the joy of life is all about people. And if people trust you, they’ll want to work with you.

Justin Donald: Well, I love that. And I’m sure there are tons of people listening or watching this that say, hey, actually, I do need to work on my personal brand, or I would like to take a foot, step in that direction, and put a foot forward. Or maybe, it’s I need to clean some things up or I want to get better. So, hopefully, people reach out to you on that.

Something I thought would be really interesting to talk about, you grew up in, and I think it’s important that we discuss this because there’s a movement right now that I think is kind of an unhealthy movement away from capitalism towards more of like, a communist and Marxist ideology. And you grew up in this, right? You grew up with a Marxist ideology around money and around finance. And I’d love for you to talk about that a little bit and the dangers there and even just what you’ve discovered coming here to the West because I know it’s kind of like night and day.

Christian Ray Flores: Everything is, yeah.

Justin Donald: But there’s also something that sometimes is hard to kick to the curb when it has been ingrained for so many years through your youth. So, I’d love for you to talk about that. I think this is super relevant to our audience.

Christian Ray Flores: Okay, so thank you for asking, because this is something that really is super meaningful to me, honestly. And I’ll tell you a couple of quick just illustrations and we can go into any rabbit hole you desire. So, the first one is this, my parents were these essentially secular missionaries, right? They were in Mozambique, and the Mozambique had just gotten independence from the Portuguese powers. And so, the locals were running it. No one knew what they were doing.

So, they imported these people who were experts and they put them in everything, and for some reason, they imported a bunch of Chilean ex-pats, right? So, we had like 150 families, and they were literally teaching university run gold mines, big companies. They were just there and they paid them very little. So, they were sort of the secular missionaries that were there for the idea of helping a nation get back on their feet after being oppressed for, whatever, 300 years.

So, it’s a very idealistic climate, right? And my parents were all about causes, and that sort of came a little bit from the Marxist space because of sort of this criticism of capitalism. So, it’s almost like this unhealthy contrast. So, that stayed with me. And I mean, that’s why I say I want to be like you when I grow up, is that the aversion to money, although I’m an entrepreneurial person, somehow co-exists in me. So, somebody said to me like Jesus in my heart marks in my bones kind of thing.

So, I was like a little ADHD professionally. I’m a pastor. I have a nonprofit, an afterschool academy in Mozambique, by the way, and I have these two businesses. And from those four things, which is definitely too much, right, you can’t be doing four things and do it well, I will always lean naturally towards causes that don’t bring revenue away from things that can bring them more revenue. So, it’s a terrible thing, actually. Like, I don’t like this about me and I’ve been trying to fix it for a few years now. But my point is, if it creates almost like a cultural DNA, like a filter in your mind that is not healthy and leads to poverty and no one enjoys poverty, I don’t care who you are, idealistically, right? So, that’s one thing.

The other is that I experienced very uniquely so, Marxism in three different continents because the first country, Chile, was actually run by a socialist president that was overturned by the military people who are actually ultra-right fascists, both bad things. So, I knew what he was doing. Later, I was small, but I learned what he was doing. And he would have actually taken the country in the wrong place also.

Then we were in Mozambique that was a Marxist government. And the stuff that they did after taking freedom, acquiring freedom for their people, and not giving them more free market opportunities, prosperity. They didn’t. They didn’t know how to do that because they were Marxists. And then, of course, in the Soviet Union, I was like, awful stuff, right? Like, mediocrity central, just depressing stuff. So, I lived all those things.

So, I became an intensely anti-communist. But I also studied economics in college, so I actually read Karl Marx. So, when I moved to the States, eventually, when this whole wave of sort of Marxism becoming popular or socialism becoming popular, sort of in vogue, going from the fringes to literally like mainstream people, politicians, publications, speaking, those things, I was actually freaking.

Justin Donald: University curriculum even, which is pretty mind boggling.

Christian Ray Flores: Yes. I read an article in Teen Vogue for some reason that had whole sentences lifted from Karl Marx, and I was like, my brain was exploding. I was like, “Deb, what the heck is going on? Don’t you guys see this is evil?” And basically, she was like, “No, we don’t actually, I’m sorry.” Like, you see it because you’re in it.

And so, I ended up, she was like, “You should write these things down.” So, I wrote a book that I’m releasing in the fall called Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America. And basically, in that book, it’s 10 chapters. It’s a quick read. It says all kinds of pictures, illustrations, like a coffee table book. And it has 10 reasons why Americans should pay attention that what you have here is unique, what we have here, I’m an American citizen, really proud of it. Best country in the world. So grateful. Honestly, so grateful to be here.

There’s 10 reasons that people should pay more attention to. And there’s sort of these warnings, right? Okay, if there’s no spirituality and no faith in a country, that country is going to fail. If there’s cultural Marxism, even if it’s like this mutated Marxism, that country is going to go down. And if the family is not central in that cultural DNA, that’s not going to be. If a country is not generous and charitable, the country will suffer.

So, there’s all these reasons where I highlight the strengths, the incredible strengths that America has and what not doing that will do to us here because it’s happened everywhere else. Seventy-two percent of the population on the planet today live under an authoritarian regime. Today, 5.6 billion, I think.

Justin Donald: That’s so crazy.

Christian Ray Flores: Today. And we think...

Justin Donald: I would never guess it to be that high.

Christian Ray Flores: Yes. We have this freedom that is absolutely rare and precious, not compared to like 300 years ago, compared to today, the rest of the world. And this freedom is actually shrinking even in western countries like Western Europe. And it’s now also under scrutiny and attack and sort of out of vogue even in America. And that really worries me, right? So, I wrote the book because I really want people to know about it.

Justin Donald: Well, I think it’s great that you’re sharing your perspective. I think we need more people. It’s funny, the people that are coming up with this curriculum and teaching these things, they never lived through it. They’re not experts on it. And so, it is so head scratching how pervasive this is and how people will promote these ideologies when they don’t have any formal education, they don’t have any practical life experience. And the people that have scream that this is the hugest mistake. And so, I love that you’re putting this out there. We need to hear more voices from people that have lived it and experienced it like you.

Christian Ray Flores: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. That’s why I wrote it. Like, the book has no sort of connection to my business, my lifestyle, but it’s really more of an act of service to people who live here, hopefully, that they would be inspired and more grateful to be here.

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, Christian, this has been so much fun. I appreciate your candor and your time and just all these lessons that you’ve shared and really being vulnerable enough to tell us about your past and kind of how it’s set you up today, but also some of the shortcomings and some of the failures along the way and even being able to tell us at the peak of your fame and fortune, you felt the most empty. And I love that you were able to make that pivot and say, you know what? Something’s better, right? There’s a better way. And that you were able to use your faith to kind of help guide you and take that step. So, your story is brilliant. I love it. I’m so glad we got to share it here today. Where can people learn more about you?

Christian Ray Flores: I have a newsletter that goes out every Sunday, ChristianRayFlores.com. It’s my name basically. So, they can find that. If you want to– there’s a really cool tool that I use with all my clients. It’s called the Xponential Scorecard and it’s a tool to sort of be able to measure, at least self-assess the most important dimensions of life. And you can find it at Xponential.Life, exponential without an E, starts with an X slash score. And it’s free. I use it, but I give access to everybody. And it’s a really cool tool because look, if you feel like I felt on that train ride, maybe you’re even super successful.

But there’s these dimensions, man, they just don’t give you peace, right? There’s something missing. Pay attention to those intuitions, those whispers of your soul. And this tool basically gives you permission to say, okay, this is pretty flat. I need to understand that. And it takes about maybe eight minutes to complete 40 questions and you get a report that is very honest and it’s a good starting point to at least start thinking about holistic success, not just one-sided success.

Justin Donald: I love that, Christian. Thank you for sharing that. And I just love ending every episode that I do with a question to our audience. So, to those of you watching or listening, my question to you is the same each week, but what is one step that you can take today to move towards financial freedom, to move towards living a life that you desire on your term, so again, not a life by default, which most people are accustomed to, but rather a life by design? And maybe that one thing is just taking what Christian said here and listening to the whispers of your soul and trusting your intuition, but pick one thing and move forward to that this week and today. Thanks. And we’ll catch you next week.