Travis Bader: Show me your friends, and I'll show you who you are.
That's a saying that's stuck with me for a long time.
The importance of community cannot be overstated.
In fact, there's an 80 year study Done by Harvard, where they looked at people from
all different backgrounds and beliefs.
And they found that the number one predictor of happiness in their
lives was strong social connections.
The people that you surround yourself with and the depths of those relationships
have a lasting impact on your life.
And it's not just our connection with others.
It directly influences how we connect with ourselves.
And with the natural world around us.
Today, I'm sitting down with my good friend, Chance Burrells.
After suffering both physical and psychological trauma from an IED explosion
that occurred underneath his vehicle, he's been on a long road to recovery.
In our conversation, Chance shares how becoming more mindful of his mental and
emotional state has not only just helped him heal, but it's helped him connect with
nature and be a more successful hunter.
He talks about how being truly present and in tune with your surroundings Can have a
direct impact on the animals around you.
It's a fascinating insight on how your energy and your emotions can have
an influence on your natural world.
If you enjoy what you hear today, you've got to check out The Collective.
It's a podcast at Chance co founded with Sean Taylor.
And I should probably refine that a little bit.
Cause it's not just a podcast.
It's a place where hard charging men and women will come together to tackle
big issues and try to better themselves And those around them, I put a link in
the bio for you to check that one out.
If you want to deepen your connection with nature and build your skills
in the outdoors, make sure to check out the Silvercore club.
Now, without further ado, let's get on with the podcast.
Today's guest is an ex combat engineer who has dedicated his
post military career to supporting fellow veterans through the power of
shared experience and storytelling.
Alongside former JTF2 sniper, Sean Taylor, he embarked on an ambitious mission
to produce one high quality podcast every single day for an entire year.
Featuring dynamic and driven professionals together, they aim
to inspire, inform, and ignite the spirit of perseverance and success
in the veteran community and beyond.
Welcome to the Silvercore podcast, Chance Burrells.
Chance Burles: And my pleasure being here.
That's a beautiful intro.
I really liked that.
I might have to steal it from you.
Travis Bader: Well, I'm not going to lie.
AI did help a little bit on that one.
I typed it up, got it looking how I wanted and then pumped it into a AI.
I said, can you make me sound better?
Chance Burles: Better.
That's the beautiful part about AI.
I've used it a few times now for, for the collective and it really
helps just, you know, crystallize some of the words you want to use.
And it has a much larger vocabulary range than most people do.
So you get that.
You know, it uses words like bombastic and things like that, you
know, like, it's like, all right,
Travis Bader: cool.
It makes me sound better.
I'm down with it.
Bombastic.
Yeah.
I think it was Scrooge McDuck who, uh, there was the first
time I heard about that one.
I think it was Bombastium was the element that he created and it was
like ice cream with like any different flavor that he could use it for.
Bombastic.
Yes.
Chance Burles: Bringing it back to the eighties cartoons.
I
Travis Bader: love
Chance Burles: it.
Travis Bader: Oh, this was a comic book.
It's like, Oh,
Chance Burles: even older.
Travis Bader: I love it.
You've made the road trip all the way down to beautiful British Columbia.
And I'm betting, can't wait to leave.
A hundred percent.
Get out of
Chance Burles: the city.
Super excited to get out of here.
But, uh, we're, we've got another few days.
We've got some more people I got to link up with and the family and I are
going to go do some really cool things.
Like we're going to go see the, uh, the anthropology museum at UBC.
It's supposed to be really cool.
We're going to hit a Fort Stanley as well.
It's supposed to be really cool as well.
We're really just here as a, Exploration or anything.
And yeah.
Travis Bader: And you're just exploring why you don't live in the big city.
A hundred percent.
Chance Burles: Yep.
This is exactly why, you know, as soon as we hit BC.
Everything kind of changed the, uh, you know, the drivers changed
the way the roads work changed, how people interact with you changes.
And then as soon as you hit the city, everything changes from there too.
We got past Chilliwack and then we spent an hour and a half of traffic on the, uh,
on the one, just coming into the city.
And we're like, this is awesome.
Travis Bader: I just got back from Nova Scotia, spent a
couple of weeks over there.
It was in Toronto and then back to BC and I tell ya.
It's even in there, in the big smoke of Nova Scotia, it's a lot more laid
back than what it's like over here.
And it's got me wondering why I live in the lower mainland.
Chance Burles: It's, it's, it's beautiful.
It's low maintenance in general.
Um, I think like weather wise and stuff, which is why I think a lot of people
are drawn here, but my wife and I were chatting about it too, when we were down
at the beach and I was looking around, I'm like, man, nobody seems to care.
About anybody else at all.
Everyone's in their own little world doing their own little thing without
any regard for, you know, other people's space or time or like, it just, I saw,
I don't know how many near misses with bicycles and people just like shrug it
off like, yeah, and like off they go.
Travis Bader: You know, I read, and I'm just playing around with our audio
a little bit as we're talking here.
But I read a study about road rage, and it said that it is directly correlated to the
size of the city or town that you live in.
And over a certain size, you don't.
De what's the word you depersonalize.
A hundred percent dehumanize.
Dehumanize basically instead of, Oh, that's Gladys driving down.
She's probably sleeping, or maybe she's had a couple of drinks or whatever it is.
Right.
It's why that, why did that person do that to me?
Completely different person.
I'm going to get them back.
I'm going to run them over.
They must've done that to me on purpose.
A hundred percent.
Chance Burles: And it's very, it's.
Self centric as well.
I mean, when you think about the larger, the larger city that you're
in, the more the population increases, the less community you have, the less.
People you actually know, and so then therefore your, your mind becomes that
much more closed to yourself, right?
Then it becomes, well, that guy obviously did it to me.
How dare that person, whoever they are, you know, versus You know,
when I'm driving around Sherwood Park, it's a pretty small town.
It's, you know, it's pretty relaxed atmosphere.
That's why we moved there.
Everything is within walking distance.
We wave at people.
We, I know my neighbors, I have a community and, you know, uh, even people
I don't know when I was doing the Nijmegen march a little while ago, I was walking
around and people would be like, I saw you this morning with your pack on.
Have you, you're still walking that thing?
And I'm like, yep, yeah.
And they're like, what do you do?
And like engage in a conversation immediately.
Travis Bader: It's funny you bring up community because that's something
that's, uh, that I think a lot of people can really benefit from.
And whether they live in a very remote area and they don't really have much of a
community around them, or quite often what I find, they live in a very built up area
and it's difficult to find your people.
Yes.
It's difficult to find that community of people that are there to help you,
to help support you, that want to see nothing from you other than for
you to be the best that you can be.
Yeah.
And that kind of brings us to the collective.
A hundred percent.
Tell me about the
Chance Burles: collective.
Oh man.
The collective has been a, it's been a passion project, but it's
also been a, some massive stress factor in my life at the same time.
So Sean came to me, um, November, December, uh, not last, 2022.
And he was like, you know, I've been looking at the veteran community.
We need to do something.
Are you in?
And I was like, well, yeah, I like, I, I'm absolutely, I've
been an advocate for years.
I'm doing my own podcast.
Yeah.
How can I help?
What are we, what are, what's the plan?
And he goes, well, I'm going to push a pace that you're not quite used to.
And, uh, you know, are you, are you good to keep up?
I said, well, I do my best.
Let's get after it.
And so he was like, okay, well, we're going to do a podcast
today for the whole year.
And I was, you know, having done many podcasts, so it's like, whoa.
How, like, what are we to talk about?
We're like, what are we, he's like, we'll figure it out.
So we started January one and you know, first, first guest we
had on with you and, uh, it was.
That's right.
You were the man right off the bat.
And, and it, so it, it became what it is in my belief
through you initially, because.
Right after that conversation, you engaged us and said, well,
you know, what is the value?
What is it that you're trying to provide to the world with that?
And I had to stop and think about it.
And Sean and I thought about it for a while.
And eventually we came to the fact that it is about the community.
It's about bringing people together to a central location where we can all
discuss, we can talk, we can engage, we can think, we can develop ideas,
we can throw stuff off of each other.
We can, all of these great things that, that Most people don't have, they don't
have an opportunity to do that, especially with the caliber of people that we knew.
And then it kind of blossomed from there and the community has built itself.
Like I would ask on a regular basis, I've asked you a couple of times, you know, who
do you think would be good for the show?
And I think you've asked me and many other people have asked me too, it'd
be, well, what are you looking for?
I'm like, are they cool?
Can they hold a conversation?
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Yeah.
Those are two very different things too, right?
You can have the coolest people out there that are just doing their thing,
but they have a difficult time when the microphone's in front of them.
Chance Burles: Yes.
Travis Bader: So finding that special person who can relay that is, um,
And that's a learned skill because I would say, I am that former person.
I am the person who has a difficult time when the microphone's in front
and I swear to God, every single time, the best conversation happens before
we press record and after we press record, the conversation that you
and I had before we pressed record.
I think a lot of people could get a ton of value out of, but I'm
just, I'm not at that point yet.
Chance Burles: Well, and we're, we're going to get there.
Don't worry.
I took some notes.
So we're going to get back to it, but, and I think this, this comes
from the fact that, you know, it's hard to be natural when you have
unnatural things in front of you, right?
The microphone wasn't pointed at me when we were talking, it wasn't pointed at you.
It was still in the room.
And we had like, we weren't all miked up.
We didn't have the headset on and stuff, but it was just a natural conversation.
We started talking about this and then I brought up that and then
you brought up this and then it be created its own, um, direction and
we weren't trying to control it.
But the moment you put something unnatural in front of you, then
there's a level of control.
I think in our own minds that we have to kind of, we try to let, well,
I, you know, the audio and then you start processing things all at once.
And then it becomes very difficult to find that natural flow, which is reps.
Travis Bader: If it wasn't so highly unethical, pressing record
and then afterwards saying, okay, everyone, let's sign off on here.
Are you happy with what we said?
Blah, blah, blah.
If you don't, we can, we can mix it.
That would make for a pretty interesting show because the amount of like.
Every single time I have a conversation with somebody on the
Silvercore podcast, and even on the collective, when we wrap up.
The green room is killer, man.
It's killer.
That's when, that's when stories start flying, got X, SAS, SBS, special
forces folks, just telling stories that would just light up the internet.
If, if they were able to go
Chance Burles: out.
I think that's part of it too, is the awareness.
Of the fact that you're, you are being recorded.
Right.
And it is like, this is going to go out to the world.
So there's for many people, and I know from the many podcasts I've done now, um,
there, there's a level of reservation.
Sure.
Whenever there's a recording happening and I made it my personal
mission to completely remove that.
I just, didn't matter what, I'm open to talking about
it, hit me, whatever you got.
But do you want that removed?
I do.
Yeah, I think that is a, uh, I think it's a key proponent in
being able to build a community of people that truly benefit you.
Because if you are holding something back, if you're, if you're not a hundred
percent honest with the people that you have in your circle, how are you a
hundred percent honest with yourself?
Travis Bader: I think there's a difference between being a hundred percent honest
with the people in your circle and airing everything for the internet, airing
everything for people to hear, because a hundred percent honest with the people
in your circle, give them everything you have expect, give them 110, expect 40%.
Cause guaranteed they've, they'll feel like they're giving a hundred and 10.
It's from your own personal perspective.
It's always feels like you're given more.
Yeah.
But do you want, and that's the difficult part.
Like what I show my kids through social media.
No, I'm not going to share that part.
There's parts of my life that I'm going to make sure are kept away because you
want to protect them and you want to protect certain parts of yourself from
those who would wish to do you harm.
Chance Burles: Absolutely.
For sure.
And there's.
And I'm going to caveat this in the fact that yes, this is for the internet and I
know we're recording it and I know, I know we're going to be in, uh, putting this out
into the world, but for this conversation, I want to give you anything that you
have, uh, that you are interested in.
I'm not going to sit here and verbally diarrhea all of my life out to you.
Cause there's no value in that because it's just mass information, but in no
way, am I going to hold anything back.
If you're asking me about, you know, a time in Afghanistan,
that was really rough.
I will tell you those issues, those things that are rough for me, because I've seen
what happens when you don't, and I've told the story in the collective many times,
but my grandfather, World War II vet, also a combat engineer, um, he thought
himself a coward for 70 plus years based off of one incident that he never talked
about until I got home from Afghanistan.
And it was very simple.
He was working on a railroad in France, trying to rebuild one that had been
bombed out before the allies took it over.
They called for volunteers to go up to the front.
He did not raise his hand.
He's already in a war zone.
He's already doing a job.
Travis Bader: Didn't raise his
Chance Burles: hand.
Didn't raise his hand.
Coward.
70 years of self destruction.
That he was a coward for that one incident.
Never talked about with anybody.
Not once.
And like, how did that manifest itself throughout his life?
Oh, if so, my, my mom would tell me stories about her getting.
Belted, like the big, thick, uh, leather belts for doing stuff wrong.
Um, he would have rage incidences.
Um, he would never allow himself to believe that he was worth what he was.
And he would constantly be seeking more knowledge and trying to learn more.
Like he got his pilot's license.
He was building himself a plane in his garage.
Like he was an electrician.
He was a mechanic.
He was like, he had all of these skills.
Would never put himself out to the world with the fact that he had those skills.
Mm hmm.
You know, he ran a small shop for a little while that, uh, him and
his, my grandmother would, they owned a shop in Shonovan and,
uh, Saskatchewan for many years.
And then eventually they just sold it and then they moved in.
He worked for, for as an electrician for a while.
Like he would always take the back seat because he totally
believed that he did not have the value or the courage to stand up.
And do the thing, even though he volunteered for the war, he
volunteered for a hazardous duty in terms of being a combat engineer,
you're dealing with explosives and hike, uh, you know, construction of
big structures and stuff like that.
Easy to get taken out pretty fast that, that one decision and the
fact that he did not talk about it.
Affected everything else he made in his life.
Travis Bader: Worth is such a funny thing, isn't it?
A hundred percent.
I mean, what is worth when you, when you look at it, like, what is something worth?
Well, I've got a pencil in my hand here is worth, I don't know what a pencils go for.
Right.
But Oh, hold on a second.
It's a Stadler.
It's got some branding on it.
So it's got a white eraser, not a pink eraser on it.
I mean, that's, that's probably worth a little bit more cause it's
got some fancy branding on it.
It's still a pencil, still like every, how is one thing going
to be worth more than the other?
And so many people will place their worth on external factors.
Yeah.
On what they feel other people think that they are worth.
A hundred percent.
And many of these people are hanging around the wrong people,
myself included, yourself included.
I mean, in the past, looking at these different things, that
Chance Burles: was the first thing we said, when you walked in, you're
like, what do you want to talk about?
I'm like, you know, one of the things I struggle with is my own self worth and
a lot of it, you know, we, we went into it forehand of like family and all this
other stuff, but it really comes back to the fact of what value are you adding?
So let's use this pencil for an example.
This pencil on its own is worth, you know, the wood and the tin and the rubber and
the graphite that it is comprised of.
But what is it capable of?
Well, it depends on whose hands you put it in.
Exactly.
And what are, what does that in the further in the, like, if you
expand that into the next realm, like the fact that you and I are
sitting here taking notes and what we write down is what we speak about.
And the information that we're giving out to the world is then
taken upon by those people.
We can.
Literally change the world with this pencil, because this expands into the
ideas that come out of my head that expands into what we engage in terms
of conversation that expands into what people hear on a regular basis when
they listen to the podcast that can inspire the next person, which goes
back to the collective, which is why we got it started because we just needed
a place that the ideas could flow.
They could be challenged.
They could be accepted.
They could be.
Engaged upon so that, that value could just be multiplied and expanded and
developed on, and then engaged again, and then rebrought in that thought of from a
different angle and so on and so forth.
So like, yeah, this pencil by itself is worth what, 15 cents, but
what it can produce is priceless.
Travis Bader: Okay.
So my head's going in a bunch of different, different areas on this one.
Um, and,
You know, and maybe it's something for after the show as well, but, uh, a boots
on the ground portion of the collective.
Have you put much thought into that?
Yeah, we have.
We've talked about it a lot.
Because there's an action piece in there.
In your own example that you give here about the pencil, the pencil without
action, exertion without action, right?
Or, um, ideas without exertion, without effort are basically meaningless.
Um, having an, an actionable piece on there, I think would be an interesting
piece of the puzzle to really get into.
Grow the collective and bring everybody into it.
Chance Burles: Well, that's one of the other things I wrote down here.
That's really difficult for me to self promotion.
That's what it comes down to.
It's like, again, my own personal worth, what I value myself as
integrates itself into the collective.
So how I promote the collective, how I engage in it, how I actually run
the show is very I minimize myself in order to highlight the conversation.
I, I try to step aside personally to moderate the conversation
and pass it around to the other people that we have on the show.
But we do that specifically because the highlight of the show is the conversation.
It's not me.
It's not Sean.
It's not the, you know, our stories, our backgrounds.
It is the conversation.
We want that to be the key proponent of it.
But the, to your point, the physical aspect of it, the community is.
What the collective, it's the people that are engaging.
So it, that's a very tough subject of creating a boots
on the ground kind of deal.
And we've talked about it a lot.
Sean and I have, uh, come up with lots of ideas about, you know, possibly
a speaking event or maybe, uh, you know, a live action engagement where
I could like run a show up on a stage and have people in the audience that
could actually ask questions physically and be there and like, take it all in.
And then.
Engage people or even smaller things like going out to a cabin in the woods with
15 people and just sitting down to really discussing some of the issues that we
all struggle with, that kind of thing.
So that's a tough one.
We've, we've talked about a lot about it, try to figure out what to do.
And the other thing is, Sean is very specific that the first one
has to knock it out of the park.
We cannot, at this point where we are right now, same
thing with the shirts, right?
Like.
We had to make a shirt that was going to be outstanding, be taken
on by every single person that looked at it and was like, yes.
Travis Bader: So I disagree.
Chance Burles: Yeah, I know.
You know, it's funny.
We've had that conversation too, but hit me.
What do you, what part did you, so I
Travis Bader: disagree.
Um, okay.
A few different things.
I I've told you about the, uh, the value of Story of the rifle in the past, the
rifle work I did with, uh, had a guy come in looking for some rifle work done, did
so much work on this thing, gave him a absolutely silly little cheap price tag.
He walks out.
Okay, great.
Like, what?
He didn't say he liked it.
He didn't say,
yeah,
came back the next week, wanted me to do the exact same thing in a
different caliber on a different rifle.
Parker has a cut crown thread, right?
Headspace to specifications within a few thousandths of an inch.
And I'm like, forget this guy's taking advantage of me now.
I'm going to charge right.
And so I charged him not even a terrible amount, but just kind of what
the blue book median line would say.
And he left and he came back with white gloves on and he
said, this, this is quality work.
I did the exact same thing.
I just charged him more.
And that's always stuck in my mind when it comes down to, to worth.
Um, it's when you say we've got to knock it out of the park, it's
got to be just stellar because we're at this certain point, right?
Uh, you know, the story of the, uh, the pottery class, you That
would be where my head goes.
So a teacher says, okay, class, this half of the class, you have to make the
perfect pot, spend the entire semester, read it, learn it, make it perfect.
The other half of the class, make as many as you want, go nuts, right?
Make 10 a day if you want, right?
Throw them out.
Just keep going.
At the end of the semester, the class that was allowed to repeat.
Repeatedly make, destroy, learn, make, destroy, learn, go through
it, had a far superior pot than the ones that were tasked was
just making that one perfect pot.
I would say start small and just do it.
Because if you, from my perspective, if it's going to be perfect and
it's going to go to the door.
Uh, that's a bottleneck done is better than perfect.
And if I'm sitting there trying to make this perfect thing and
then hot, it's not perfect.
Okay.
Next week, next week, next week.
Whereas if, and a person we both know has reached out and he
says, I can get this auditorium.
I can get this thing set up.
Let's do something.
Right.
So I said, okay, now I'm waiting for him to do it.
And if he's listening, he knows who he is.
Yeah.
Um, but done's better than perfect.
And if, if the.
If our own sense of self worth is the same as my second rifle that I
put out, if I just say, I'm worth it, you guys will get value and you'll
get value because I care about you.
I care about what I'm doing.
And I want to give you 110 percent of what I have.
They will see that value and they'll get it too.
Yeah.
Ah, that would be my approach to it.
Chance Burles: I, I.
I agree with you.
And I think that the, uh, I think the challenge at least is that for
me, and I can't speak for Sean here on this one, but for me, I really
want it to be, well, I know it's going to be successful regardless.
Like that's not a question.
Depends
Travis Bader: on how you measure success,
Chance Burles: right?
And that's what I, so my measure of success is that are people
going to gain from being there?
Obviously I don't want them to show up and us just kind of sit around and
hang out and shoot the shit and be like, you know, it's a great time, but
I want to, I want to put on a show.
I want to make people think I want to create an environment that we can
have deep, thoughtful, meaningful conversations without the trappings
of, you know, everything else, all of the, uh, all the other stuff.
So I guess more than, more than anything, I want it to be truly valuable for the
people that show up, especially if people are going to be spending money, because
I, I do not want anybody walking away from a collective event thinking that
they wasted their money, or wasted their time, or wasted any of that, because it
really should be a value added project.
Project cross the board,
but you're right.
We do need to get it.
And we did it with the collective anyway.
I mean, the first episodes we had out there were not great.
It took a lot of reps to really hammer those out.
And it wasn't, we hit our stride probably mid June after 120, 140 episodes,
something that we really hit our stride.
And then we, you know, we had the men's mental health month.
30 days of talking about men's mental health stuff.
Yeah, and like from everything from you know, sexual dysfunction and pornography
to worth we talked about to You know community to fatherhood to like we
we talked about as much as we could.
Travis Bader: Mm hmm.
Chance Burles: It was a great month But after that, we were like, okay, we need
to dial this back a little bit because it was getting It was becoming a struggle
to have those conversations, right?
then We hit our stride from there.
We just went to town.
We found the right people to have the right conversations.
We started engaging the public.
We started engaging the, the, the, the social media community
to get ideas and get concepts.
And what is it that you guys want to hear?
Like, As much as I can put out ideas I can come up with.
I'm not the end all be all say all about information.
Travis Bader: So, uh, that brings, so we're talking about worth my second
thought on this whole worth thing, if we take the rifle analogy and okay, we're
going to, we're valued at this and people will see that it's kind of like iPhone
is an iPhone really worth that much more than another phone that can probably
have a faster processor and all the rest, but they say, no, we're worth it.
We integrate, we do all this stuff and, you And that's part
of their value proposition.
But the other side as well, when you say, I want people to leave and have something
worthwhile, it's your audience too.
So if you have the wrong audience, if you've got the wrong people
that you're attracting to you.
You're.
Always going to have this sense that, uh, either my, my worth is inflated
or my worth is deflated depending on your, your type of audience.
And I've given, I've talked about in the past, before I started this
podcast, I had been on one friend asked me to be on their podcast.
And that was kind of neat.
We had a couple of beers and then just a little recorder in the center and actually
recorded in the next room over here.
And I was like, man, that was, that's kind of fun.
I enjoyed that.
Right.
Good.
Yeah.
And I'd never listened to a podcast, save one that I'd seen live.
And that was a present from my wife for Christmas.
And she says, okay, Trav got this wicked present for you.
We're going to go see meat eater, perform a live podcast in Seattle.
That'd be cool.
And I said, what's meat eater.
And I said, I don't listen to podcasts.
Why, why would I want to go see a podcast and sit down and watch these
people who have no clue who they are.
And.
I wasn't the right audience.
So I sat down and I, you know, there's a meet and greet ahead of time.
There's a handful of us.
I meet with Steve and Janice and the whole crew there, or going
back and forth, actually made some friends off of that one, which is,
which is, I think the biggest value off of that is the connections
and the friendships that you make.
Um, but I watch a podcast.
I'm like, okay, like, like I was not the target market for that one.
Yeah.
Uh, so, but people beside me left and right that were, they
were just beside themselves.
They said, this is fantastic.
Oh, this is one of the best episodes we've heard and they're going into it.
And I'm like, okay.
So I think that would be the second part for like the collective ensuring that
you prime and set up the right people.
The right audience that will be there and guaranteed they're going to be,
they're going to be leaving with value.
It's similar to that thing recently, the, the event that, uh, suction put on.
Chance Burles: Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That was a
Travis Bader: fun
Chance Burles: one.
The night to inspire.
Yeah.
I wish I could have made it out there for that one.
That was, uh, that looked like a great time.
I, I really like the idea of.
Passing on knowledge is one of the reasons why I like teaching so much is that I love
watching people get these I call them aha moments where they you know, they garner
the concept not just the information and you can see it They just oh Right.
That's why okay that and then everything else makes sense and
then they're they're Progression just kind of skyrockets from there.
Those moments for me are gold.
I just love watching that happen.
And you see it in speaking events when people are kind of, you know, nodding,
nodding, nodding, and then they go.
Uh, and like you made a connection right there.
Okay, cool.
I'd like, I see you in the third row.
Okay, let's hit it up.
Um, when I was doing the walk for veterans, the same thing, I would
see people come out and they'd kind of be a little wary initially,
and then start to kind of get a little closer to certain groups.
And then they'd hear a story and be like, Oh, I know that guy I was on tour with.
Like, Oh, okay.
And then the connection would happen.
And it'd be like, yes, yes, do that more and stuff like that.
Um, And that's what I really want to have for people, especially
so anything that we do with the collective boots on the ground style,
that's what I'm gonna be looking for.
And you're right.
It comes down to the community.
We got to get the right people in the seats that are there for that purpose
to engage in that kind of conversation.
Cause it's, but as you know, I mean, you, you know, You, uh, plan
events and all kinds of things.
You plan hunts and you have classes and all those things.
That is not an easy task to create that kind of thing.
So.
Travis Bader: No, but you have a framework of people who've
gone down that road before, who can, uh, who you can lean into.
So when did you first kind of come to the realization that, um, you would like
to have a better sense of self worth and have you had your aha moment yet?
Chance Burles: I've had a number of aha moments.
Uh, initially the first, the very first one, Was I had just
gotten out of the military.
I had a five month old son and he did not respond well
to master corporals very well.
And that's who I was at the time.
I was a recruit instructor.
I was a hundred percent knife, hand ready, do this and expect people to just go.
Um, and I walked into the room at one point in time and my son was just like
playing with toys or something like that.
And the moment I walked into the room, he flinched just like a,
Travis Bader: And
Chance Burles: in that moment, I was like, okay, this is not working.
I need to, I need to do better.
Something's wrong here.
So I started going to therapy.
I started researching therapy.
I started researching post traumatic stress.
I started researching all the things that I was dealing with
instead of just kind of accepting.
What the military had offered me at the end of it.
And that's the big thing was when I got out of the military, they
were like, okay, we'll go see the OSI clinic here in Edmonton.
They'll get, they'll hook you up with a doc, have a good life.
Travis Bader: With a dog or a doc?
Chance Burles: A doc.
Sorry.
Okay.
Yeah.
No, I
Travis Bader: thought it was like a support dog or something.
Chance Burles: Um, and so I started seeing him and I just expected
that he would know what to do.
So I.
And so he spent a year there and I just got worse every F every time I saw
him, I'd get worse and I'd get worse.
And there was at one point I realized that I would see him on like a Thursday
and then I'd be just emotionally wrecked Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday would
come around and I'd, I'd have like maybe a couple hours of just, okay, relief.
And then later that night I'd realize, Oh God, I gotta go see him again on Thursday.
And then Tuesday, Wednesday became this.
Just anxiety of like, Oh, Fred, now I've got to go back there.
And like, so I was just jacked up six days of the week.
What kind of doctor?
He was a psychologist.
Do you know what kind of, uh, modality?
He really went into what he wanted us to work on was exposure therapy directly.
So it was like, it's like talk, talk, uh, therapy, but he just had me
repeat the same story over and over and over and over and over and again.
And it just,
Travis Bader: how'd you find that?
Chance Burles: It was, it was horrific.
It was horrific because at the end of the session, it'd be like,
Oh, okay, well, our time's up.
And I would just be like,
and he'd be like, are you okay?
And I'm like, yep, I'm fine.
Let me at like, just get, get me out of here.
And, uh, it was, it was horrific.
And it took a friend of mine and I, again, I had no knowledge.
Or wherewithal to go, man, this, this isn't, this can't be right, right?
Uh, and if I was talking to a friend of mine, uh, another vet and he was,
he was like, man, how's the docs going?
And I'm like, Oh God, I gotta go see him in like three days.
And I just, I hate his guts and I don't want to be there.
And I, it took, one of the things that clicked in my head was it took him, uh,
he could not remember the name of my son.
And And I saw him every week and I talked about my son every
week because he was one of my
Travis Bader: trickers Yeah, let's show us how much he cares
Chance Burles: and he just like every time he'd be like, so your
son, um, and he would check his notes Arden yeah Arden, I'd be like,
Travis Bader: yeah
Chance Burles: So that was bad.
Anyways, so I talked to my friend and he was like, oh man, you should
just go see somebody else I'm like, I can't that's who they sent me to
He's like no, no, dude, dude, you're like You don't have to see the guide.
Like you can just go see anybody you want.
If they're blue cross covered, like you're good to go, go
look, go find somebody else.
And I was like, Oh, Oh, Oh, okay.
Uh, so brilliant advice, by the way.
A hundred percent.
It is.
And I've told hundreds of veterans, the same thing.
How many doctors did you see before you found one that clicked with you?
One, just one more.
Yeah.
The, the next one I saw was, is still my doc.
And well, the key is, is that I went, I did a deep dive on what it is I wanted.
What did you want?
I wanted a trauma specialist that has experience with veterans and PTSD.
And, and I was going through the list of modalities was a equine therapist.
And I was like, Equines.
I grew up on a ranch.
It's like, yeah, I fricking love horses.
Absolutely.
Let's do this.
And I didn't know what it was.
And then I think my first, my F after my first session with her,
um, I just, I walked out of there and I was like, calm and I was like,
we've just talked about some pretty rough stuff and I'm like relaxed and
I'm pretty good.
And then the next time I saw her, Again, same thing.
I walked out of there going, this is very different.
I feel pretty good right now.
Um, and then we went out to the horses and we started working with
horses and man, I just huge leaps.
Yeah.
In my own recovery, just working with horses, because they are
mirrors to your emotional state.
So at any point in time, if you are agitated or if you start
going down the rabbit hole and you start feeling all the feelings
again of that particular incident, they make you aware very quickly.
Travis Bader: Do you fake it with a horse?
No.
Okay.
I haven't spent much time.
Chance Burles: Zero, none at all.
It, one of the interesting things was, I walked into a session with
them at one point and it's, you know, it's a horse pasture, right?
And there's horses out, they're wild.
There's running around in the pasture.
And, uh, when you walk in, they're going to feel your energy immediately.
Interesting.
Long before you even get into the paddock, they're going to
know what you're, you're feeling.
Because for a horse in the wild, they're prey animals, they get predated upon,
so they have to be aware constantly of their surroundings and whether or
not that particular, um, entity that's walking up on them is dangerous or not.
Right.
And that's one of the things that like, when you walk into an area and
you're agitated and you're, you're trying to either suppress something or
you're trying to engage in something, or like if you're hunting, I mean,
you've had the jitters, right?
And you know what it's like when you're sitting there on the rifle and your
hands start to shake and the adrenaline started to pump and you're like, Never,
Travis Bader: never, never happened to me.
What are you talking about?
Chance Burles: So that feeling, prey animals can pick up on.
Right.
And if you can't be calm within your own body in that moment.
That's where you see deer or something like that will be completely,
you'll be absolutely quiet.
You'll start, the adrenaline will start to come up and they'll go like this, right.
It's them picking up on that energy.
Travis Bader: Nikki van Schendel.
She was, uh, the show alone, I think it was 61 days that she survived.
I think it was 61 days before she was medically RTU'd and she said, she
was on the podcast here in the past.
Whenever she goes into the woods, she was told this little trick and she
says, it's really silly and it sounds goofy, but she does it all the time.
And she goes out into the woods.
She says, hello, forest.
It's me, Nicky.
I'm here.
And she introduces herself to the forest.
And she says, the energy that she has, if she comes out of the city and goes into
the forest, all the little brown birds are chirping, all the squirrels are chirping.
And about three days later, everything you notice starts to calm down around you.
By introducing herself to the forest, she's able to very quickly.
Assimilate, she says her energy and the forest energy and, and it sounds
true, frou, airy, fairy, but there's something to it and I do it and I practice
it and there is something to that.
And I noticed that when I'm out in the woods, not around horses, but if I want to
see the animals, I got to check my head.
I got a gut check and I essentially send out the vibe.
Yeah.
Chance Burles: That's it.
You, you become 100%.
Yeah.
Um, in the moment that, then that is, you know, true mindfulness is you
check your, like you said, you check your brain, you check your mind, you
check your soul, you check all your things like, okay, how am I doing?
Okay.
I'm pretty good.
All right.
Let's go chill out.
And you just become a pattern part of the pattern versus when you were looking for
animals, you are looking for something, you're not going to see anything.
And if you do see something, it's going to be four or five kilometers down that way.
And it's just going to disappear over a ridge.
And you're going to.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Right.
Had a, uh, older German fellow and was a moose hunting with a group
of friends and, uh, weren't having much success in the early days
trying to learn what we're doing.
And this guy comes up, he was like, What you're doing wrong is you're
trying to find a moose to shoot it.
I'm like, what do you mean?
It's like, don't think about shooting a moose.
Think happy thoughts.
And everyone thought this was funny.
And then next day got a moose, right?
But it was, and then I got asked this a fluke and this guy swears by it.
And he lives by it.
You don't go out there trying to find the animal, you go out there
enjoying yourself and the animals will present themselves to you.
Chance Burles: Yep.
I mean, I've been hunting for years too.
And it's the exact same thing.
Anytime I go out and I'm, if I'm anxious or I'm looking hard
for something, I rarely see it.
Or if I do see it, it'll be so far away that it's beyond reach.
Right.
They're like, Oh, that's not going to happen today.
Um, but it's the same thing when we're, when I was dealing with the
horses, when I was doing my therapy is if I walked in, they're going like,
okay, I'm going to fix this problem.
They would be off on the other side of the pasture.
Like I would never even get close to them because.
They were just not going to deal with me in that manner.
It, because it becomes basically when you're working with horses and you're
calm, you become part of the herd.
So they just kind of accept you as part of the group and they walk
in and amongst like in and around you as they would other horses.
And if you are, if you're really agitated or, you know, I was working
with a particular horses, Beautiful, uh, he's a big saddle bread and he's
got a giant white cross on his head and his name is Dante and I thought
it was fantastic and, uh, love it.
Uh, absolutely beautiful horse, but he was, he was the herd boss and if you
came in there with a negative mindset, he was going to engage you immediately.
So there were lots of times I'd walk in there kind of agitated
or pissed off or, you know.
I have something in my head and he would walk up and he would like step
on my toe, or he would bite my elbow or he would like lean into me so that
I would have to move or push him away or something to engage me in my body.
Bring me back to this moment rather than being, you know, years ago in
Afghanistan, that kind of stuff.
So I cannot state how much equine therapy got me to where I was.
And that was one of the huge leaps was just work with the horses until you're,
you know, At peace inside the herd.
Travis Bader: So I, I, there's something I've toyed around with a bit in my head
and I think that, you know, Number one, for most people that have problems out
there, they don't actually have problems.
Right.
Uh, the problems are more what manifests or that they look at it cause they
haven't looked at it in the right way.
They haven't, uh, you know, what does Shakespeare say?
There's neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so right.
And sometimes all a person needs is just that little bit different perspective.
Yes.
They feel really bad because they're running away from their problems.
And someone says, hold on a second.
Are you running away from your problems?
Are you running towards something more desirable?
And then click that little frame and like, Hell yeah, I'm going to go full force and
run towards that more desirable thing.
So I think for a lot of people, the problems, if they look at it and say,
what I'm feeling right now is a natural by product of sort of my life experiences
and the way that I, my body and mind deals with it and how I go through it.
And rather trying to fight it, maybe explore it, and then.
You see somebody else around yourself in the community of different people
who can accept and maybe help you frame it in a more positive way.
But then there's, so I'm, I'm a little torn because I truly do believe that for a
lot of things, it's just, there is a snap.
Sometimes it takes, it's like people say, Oh, Travis, you're really successful.
It's like, just happened overnight.
Oh yeah.
I mean, 12 years ago, 12 years of work for an overnight success.
Right.
Um, and, and maybe that's it.
You've got to try all these different paths and you've got to look in these
things and you have to, You have to, I guess, fully visualize, understand,
and then commit to make it work.
So I do believe there's that snap moment, but there's also the whole concept of, uh,
repetitive patterns to make it a habit.
And like, when you say you're still seeing the same person, you're
still doing the equine therapy.
You know, the right path, you know, the area to go, but
you're still doing these things.
Cause you can see that there's work.
Chance Burles: 100 percent and I would say more so than just work,
but there is consistent benefit.
And that's, I think that's the key is that a lot of people, a lot of people
I know that struggle with therapy or they struggle with, um, their own
issues or they, you know, Oh, that's too woo woo for me or whatever.
I actually got a buddy of mine who was like, man, you're looking great.
I, you know, we hadn't seen each other in years.
He's like, you know, what have you been doing?
And I'm like, Oh, equine therapy, man.
And you got to like, go see some horses.
And he's like, I'm allergic to horses.
I'm like, don't go see horses.
It is a, you know, a particular lane or a particular modality.
If you find something that you actually get benefit out of.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Chance Burles: Yeah.
Keep going.
Like, absolutely.
There are going to be hard times.
There were times that I was working the horses that nothing seemed to
work, but I knew that if I kept working with the horses, I would see benefit.
Sure.
Same thing with jujitsu, right?
There are times that I try a technique that.
It doesn't make any sense.
And my body doesn't seem to work.
And I don't know why I can't get to that position.
And this, I just like, it didn't, I don't like it.
Okay.
Well, I'll come back to it in six months, you know, after I get some
more work and I can maybe look at it from a different angle or get to
hear from there, or maybe, maybe just the route that I'm taking is wrong.
Yeah.
Maybe I need to back up, do three more steps off the left and
then come at it from the right.
Like who knows?
Okay.
Travis Bader: I think for doing something physical in nature, like jujitsu and
trying to find that right move, uh, trying to improve yourself mentally,
physically, what, whatever the new skill is, that mindset shift is massive.
And you have, you actually have to believe it.
It's not okay.
Just to lie to yourself and say, oh, I can do this.
And then you, you totally can't because your body knows your
mind knows, and you're just sitting there lying to yourself.
Something I've never, I don't think I've ever told anyone this, definitely not
on the podcast, but, uh, I didn't know how to say my asses until I was in grade
11.
So I went, uh, for about, well, whatever that time period is, I ended
up going through a bunch of schools, like I kicked out of a bunch of them.
And I was going into a new school for grade 11.
And I said, there's no way.
I want to go into this new school and I can't say my asses.
I could fake them pretty good unless I smiled.
So I learned never smile.
Right?
It's second, I smiled and come out and I had people, I'd saw so many
different people and they're like, oh, it's cause you need braces or you got
a gap in your teeth or whatever it is.
And I was given the choice as a kid, you can get braces, or you can get a bike.
And I said, I want a bike.
I got neither, but, um, anyways, um, I learned my asses in one day and it took
two weeks of just kind of consciously thinking about it and practicing in order
to kind of make it a bit of a habit.
And it was.
But I did that on my summer break between grade 10 and grade 11.
I saw a woman out at the Surrey Memorial Hospital in their speech therapy clinic.
And she came in and she says, try this.
And I tried it and I came back the next day and she says, well, we can do one more
day if you want, but I don't think you need to, you just need to practice now.
And I tried so hard all the way up into that point of always
practicing, always trying, And I think a lot of things are like that.
I think if you're having a physical, um, challenges, things that you're
trying to do in jujitsu, all of a sudden you have to find that right way.
When people say practice makes perfect, that's completely wrong.
Practice makes what?
Progress.
Practice makes permanent.
Permanent.
Sure.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Practice makes perfect.
There you go.
So you actually have to practice the thing properly.
And.
When you said you saw one more person, you may have that aha moment.
Your friend says, go see somebody else.
I think that's something that a lot of people could use because they go in
and they say, I talked to the doctor.
They say, I got these problems.
I've been working on it.
It's not working.
Yeah.
Because everyone's different and their approach or their, they can say
the exact same thing that somebody else can say, but that somebody else
connects with you and it makes it work.
Chance Burles: That connection is key.
And I've told many, many people.
Many people this that say they struggle with therapy and I'm like,
how many therapists have you seen?
And they're like one.
I'm like, okay, go see another one.
But I've talked to people who have been like, I've seen 16.
Yeah, and you're like, okay, go see somebody else and just keep having, like,
if, if therapy is the realm that you want to go down, keep hitting that realm.
Until you find what you need to find, if, you know, I, I hear this a
lot too, and it drives me nuts when people are all like, Oh, the gym is
my therapy or the range is my therapy.
And I'm like, no, that's a bandaid for the issue.
You're not actually dealing with the issue.
You're just.
You're going to the gym, you're not actually doing anything you're, you're,
you know, it's a mindful moment and yet there's lots that can be done in
there and same thing with jujitsu and same thing with all these other things.
Great.
Keep doing those things.
But if you want to actually explore what the issue is, I mean, we, you and I sat
down, we had this great conversation before we got recording family issues
and you know, self worth and where do you, where do you think that comes from?
And perhaps what about this?
And I wonder, and it's those moments of curiosity of.
You know, I, I took the time to think about the issue that I was having with
my sister and then by doing that, that opened the door to the next realm of,
oh, well, where did that come from?
Oh, well, it came from these actions.
Oh, well, those actions started with this.
Oh, okay.
And you just did it back to the core of it.
And you go, oh, that's so, you know, the issues with my own self worth
come from the fact that I always was the fall guy growing up as a kid.
And because of that, I put myself into a position to be the fall guy
on a regular basis, so I would always be the dude that took the brunt of
whatever was coming down the pipe because that was going to happen anyway.
So may as well just put myself in the door anyway.
Right?
That's one of the reasons why I wanted to be a machine gunner,
as we were saying earlier.
They're always in the worst position anyway.
That's where all the rounds go to anyway, right?
If, if people are going to shoot at me.
I'm going to be the guy everybody shoots at, because then
everybody else can do their job.
Travis Bader: And you were telling me before that you'd mentally role play.
So you're prepared when it goes wrong.
Here's what I'm going to do.
Not if it goes wrong, when it goes wrong.
And so much of that mindset, I find we will create our own destiny.
We will create our own future when this happens, guess what?
It's going to happen.
So if we have the power to be able to do that, why don't we input a.
When it goes right, here's some, I'm going to steal from your old
podcast, old tools from the toolbox that I can put in just in case.
So I can understand and get myself back on that track for when it goes right.
Yes.
Chance Burles: Yeah.
That's one thing that I, that's a great line.
I'm going to steal it too.
Um, that's one thing I didn't do for many years.
I never looked at what was going to go right.
I always wondered why I wasn't doing it.
You know, why am I not getting promoted when these other
guys are getting promoted?
Why are these getting guys getting courses and I'm not versus why am I not putting
myself in a position to be promoted?
Why am I not?
Acting in a way that's going to get me on this course, I just kind of
expected things were either going to come to me or they weren't.
And at no point did I take the mindset of, if I work towards
that, then I'll get there.
Yeah.
I just was always like, well, if I work towards that, I'm going to get
thrown in a frigging in the bin anyway.
So what's the point of working?
It's going to, it's either going to show up or it's not.
And that was, that was a huge leap for me later on in my life after I was out
of the military and so on and so forth.
Where I got to the point that I could, I knew that I could succeed if I
worked towards success, rather than I'm going to put the work in and fail.
And that's, that's where I'm going to sit versus I put the work in and I just keep
putting the work in because I know that at the end of that success will show up.
Yeah.
So like, you know, I always wanted to be, I wanted to be a jumper.
I wanted to go airborne.
I was like, yeah, throw me out of a plane.
This could be great.
Huh?
But I never did any work.
I never put myself in a position to, um, to be that guy that when the
unit goes, Hey, we got some, we got some slots on the next jump course.
Who would you recommend?
My name was not on that list because I didn't put the work in to do that.
I like, I could have, I could have started reading them pams.
I could have started doing pull ups in the hallway.
Like I could have put myself in a position to succeed in that moment.
Travis Bader: But did you actually want that?
I mean, there's, there's a, the mindset of, Hey, that'd be cool.
That's what I want.
And then there's a reality of, Oh my God, I'm going to be jumping into airplanes.
I'm going to be a hard charger.
I just look at all this work that goes in there.
Yeah.
I want the end result, but maybe I don't want that.
Uh, I like the idea of it, but not the actuality of it.
And maybe that's not a bad thing.
If you can realize that if you don't actually like the actuality
of it, maybe we just find out the actuality of something that we do like
Chance Burles: and where
Travis Bader: you are
Chance Burles: suited.
I wanted to be a hard charger.
Like that's the, that's the thing I really wanted to do the job when I,
especially, it's one of the reasons why I volunteered for the engineers was, I
was Um, in Afghanistan, they're going to be in the worst possible position.
Right.
Let's hit it.
Right.
Um, but to your point, I had no idea what it took to get there.
I just knew that I wanted to get to this end result and I just kind of
expected that I'm in, I'm in line.
I'll eventually get there without any real thought as to what it took to get there.
So I was, it was very, I mean, I got offered my dive course and,
They were like, Hey man, you want to go on the dive prelim?
And I was like, no, I want to be a jumper, not a diver.
Had I had some forethought, I would've, you know, understood that
by completing the dive course, I would be a shoo in for the jump course.
So
it's a, uh, it, yeah, it's personal.
It's learned experience.
Unfortunately for a lot of us, we have to.
Yeah.
To your point though, you know,
I think, had I known, had, had I either had a, you know, some leadership that
actually sat me down and was like, man, you have, you have the skill, you have
the capability, you have the, uh, the mindset for it, but the physicality
portion, this is what you need to do.
You need to be able to do that.
You did it.
Uh, you'd like, give me some, a little bit of direction.
Unfortunately, the, the engineer regiment was not, uh,
Travis Bader: So the few kinds of people that I've met in my life that
seem to be really successful in, in life and be able to achieve these goals
that they're looking for are either a, the ones that have others around
them that have succeeded, and they can see that path forward and they
can talk with it and they Understand.
And that's, you know, not necessarily nepotistic, but it provides a framework
that, you know, if one man can do another can do it's like a, the miracle mile.
Yes.
Okay.
So for those who are listening here, who, who ran it?
It was Roger Bannister and there's Landry.
Was it?
Uh, I can't remember.
Somebody will correct me on here.
We got a statue down in Vancouver, the two of them doing a, so Roger Bannister ran a
mile in under four minutes prior to that.
Everyone thought the four minute mile was impossible.
However, after the four minute mile, I think there was seven other people who
ran it the next year, and then it was like 60 something the year after, and now
everyone runs a mile under four minutes.
What happened?
What's changed?
All that changed was people knew it was now possible.
And so the people I found do well are the ones who know it's possible based
on the structure, the people around them that have done it and they've associated
and they say, Hey, you can do it.
I can do it too.
Right.
Or the people that just blindly know that I'm going to do what happened.
Chance Burles: Yeah, right.
Travis Bader: And they're so pigheaded and stubborn and they push
it forward and they just consume anything they want and around.
Now that's a difficult path because you're going to make a lot of mistakes.
And when you finally get there, I mean, it'll be hard earned.
You'll look back, did the ends justify the means?
I mean, I look at that in business.
I mean, I've done things.
I remember our first bookkeeper, Trav, you can't afford a bookkeeper.
I'm like, yeah, but I need someone to help me with this.
I need to understand what's going on.
I'm going to hire a receptionist, Trav, you can't, you can't
afford to have a receptionist.
Right.
But I did it anyways.
And by the, I said, okay, first receptionist, tell you what, come
on for a few hours a day, a couple of days a week, we'll do this.
Right.
And by the end of the first week was like, okay, when can you come on full time?
I didn't realize how much business I was actually missing
by not having these pieces.
I always know I will achieve what I'm putting my head towards.
However.
When I get to the end result and look back, maybe there's a much
smarter way I could have got here.
Did the ends justify the means.
And so sometimes there's gotta be a gut check and a recalibration.
Am I moving towards the right area?
Am I doing this in the right way?
Yeah.
This is where I see the biggest value of the collective, because you humanize
people who would otherwise be, uh, sort of, it would be illusory for
a lot of people to think, I'm just going to pick up the phone or I'm
going to talk with, uh, Delta forest operator or Greenberry, so and so.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, or people who've been successful in business or people who've done things
that are extraordinary in their own life.
And then you talk to them and you realize, Holy crow.
They're just like me.
They've had the same sort of background.
They've had the same sort of things.
They just took a, a left one.
Maybe I took a right.
And that's where I think if people haven't tuned into the collective or
listened to it, have would, should, and they pick up some really good value.
And I got to wonder out of all the episodes that you've done, you've
probably had some Interesting stories from listeners who's come up and say, you
know what, because of this, this happened.
And I was hoping maybe you could talk about a few of those sort of powerful
stories, either from guests who've been on, who've really impacted the, uh, the
direction of the collective or people in the audience who said, you know
what, this has really made a difference.
Do you have any of those just to put you on the spot?
Chance Burles: So many, uh, it's actually hard to, to narrow it down to one or
two, but, um, for, for guests, uh, the coolest thing that I've seen in terms
of for guests been on is the amount of collaboration that's happened afterwards.
So like, we talked about the green room, you know, after we shut down the
recording and everyone's sitting around talking and, and then it's like, Oh, you
know, Oh, you're in, you're out here.
Oh, I'm out here.
Oh, okay.
Well, you know, I have this, uh, business opportunity in that area.
You mind if I check it out?
Can we talk like, and then it just, the, The guests themselves start
working towards the collective in and of themselves, right?
They start creating a community and they start working together and there
have been, uh, I'd say at least a dozen collaborations between guests, businesses,
and things like that, that have been on the collective that would never have met
had I not scheduled them on the same day.
Interesting.
So there's that.
And then.
The, for the, you know, the listeners, the people that are
watching, I've had so many messages.
I couldn't even tell you.
It was like, man, this particular episode got me out of my rut.
I'm now running.
I'm now active.
I'm eating right.
I'm doing this.
I started jujitsu.
I joined the military, joined the police force.
Like, I could, I couldn't tell you how many of those I've had where
people have completely Changed their life from listening to a episode.
Travis Bader: They've kicked off the Dorito bag slippers.
Chance Burles: A hundred percent.
They've kicked off the Dorito bag slippers, which I still got to
make a shirt or maybe some slippers with Dorito bags that people
can kick off or something, but.
Travis Bader: They actually do make Dorito bag slippers.
Chance Burles: Oh, okay.
I got to get some of those.
Travis Bader: Or at least Dorito slippers.
Yeah,
Chance Burles: I'm going to have to get some, cause those are, uh,
Those would be perfect for the show.
But, uh, the, in terms of powerful stories, honestly, the biggest one is
for me and my own personal growth from the collective has been exponential.
Just like I went from trying to help out who I could to.
Actively seeking out different ways to change the world.
Like there was, I got tools for toolbox started because I saw a hole.
Yeah.
I saw, you know, a bunch of people who were struggling.
I saw people who had information and they weren't connecting.
So how do I do that?
I get the podcast together, you know, well, let me interview you.
And what tools do you use for, you know, keep your.
Your mindset and your self worth and all that stuff.
Sure.
That's great.
But I was kinda, it was like a hobby and you know, I would talk to this
guy and maybe that guy, and you know, I'd reach out to certain people, but
I wouldn't reach out to other people.
Why?
A lot of it was worth, a lot of it came down to like, who's going to,
this guy, isn't going to talk to me.
Like, there's no way.
And then through the collective, I was constantly in need of guests.
, that was one of the big ones.
Just like I had to have guests every day for, you know, a whole year.
So I was just spamming people.
Like it was just like that.
I,
Travis Bader: Instagram dm, TikTok, dm, bam,
Chance Burles: dm, Instagram, Instagram, Instagram Messenger, email.
And I just out to whoever I, and it would take me, you know, five, six
minutes to kind of scroll through someone's Instagram and be like,
yeah, oh yeah, they're pretty cool.
Send 'em a message.
And what are you looking for?
Again, looking for, you know, cool and capability.
So someone that has had a life.
That is full.
They've done a bunch of different things.
And, um, and isn't self righteous in there, in the way that they
were presenting themselves online.
So that was the big one was my, my instant turnoff was the moment I saw somebody who
was all like, I'm so frigging awesome.
Come take my class, buy my book, buy my book, blah, blah, blah.
Versus the people that I really like are.
Oh yeah.
I got a book out.
Just came out a couple of weeks ago.
I really appreciate any feedback you guys had sent me.
Travis Bader: Cool.
Chance Burles: Yeah.
Those are the building of the elite.
Travis Bader: Yes.
Have you seen that book?
Of course you have.
Yes.
I mean, it's a Bible, right?
It is.
Yeah.
Craig Weller.
And it's just humble with massive information.
A
Chance Burles: hundred percent.
And we've had Craig on a number of times.
We've had Jonathan on a number of times.
Freaking awesome dudes, super relaxed.
And they, again, they're similar type of people.
They just want more information.
Yeah.
How do we gain more information?
Well, we start talking to people.
How do we talk to people?
I put them in a room together and then See what happens.
And I think we've had over, so last I did the mass, we were over 700 guests
total, or we're over 400 episodes total, um, in terms of unique guests,
because obviously we've had, sorry, how many 400, uh, 400 episodes we're over.
Yeah.
We're over 700 guests total.
But again, those are like repeated, but in terms of unique
guests, we're over 200 as well.
So like.
I've been hammering the internet with just trying to get new, and
I'm still looking for new people.
Right.
So I'm constantly bringing new people onto the gold mine.
And then we use that as kind of a, uh, kind of a tryout, you know,
see if the person's all right.
And then they come on the collective for the longer form podcast.
But it is a, um, the, the growth in myself and like, Broadcasting,
like being able to speak clearly and concisely, um, being humble in a
conversation, not having to be heard.
That was a big one for me that I had to get over with.
I, I really struggled with like, I'd sit in a conversation with a bunch of people
and I'd have to make my opinion known.
Like people have to know what I have to say.
And then I'm like, no, they don't.
Cool.
Like if the conversation is flowing, let the conversation flow.
Don't, I don't need to be in there.
Just.
Um, so those two, and then like, uh, my own self worth of the fact of the
collective is it's, this is a big deal.
This is a professional production.
This is, I'm a professional podcaster.
Like this is a key to who I am as a person at this point.
And, People need to be involved.
So get out there, get talking to people, engage people.
And like, when we first started, somebody asked me, Oh, what do you do?
And I'm like, I'm, you know, ex military and kind of run a little
podcast off the side, right?
And now people ask me what I do.
And I'm like, Oh, I got this, I'm a podcaster.
I got this wicked show.
It's called the collective.
We talk to these people and like, we're like,
Travis Bader: That's awesome.
You know, people ask me what I do.
I've never said podcaster.
I've never once said that.
I usually say, well, as little as little as possible, right?
Chance Burles: But this is a, is an interesting point is that earlier we asked
you, you kind of, I mean, uh, almost a, I wouldn't say throwaway comment, but,
you know, you'd say, oh, well, you don't want to burn bridges or you don't want
to blow up bridges or anything like that.
But in my mind, especially coming from an engineer background, sure.
If you need to blow a bridge, blow it up, get rid of it.
You can build a new one.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
We were talking about relationships and a mindset of like, do I
have to blow up this bridge?
Do I have to, like, you, you want, Go through life, maybe, maybe I just
don't go over that bridge or, or yeah, but there are times you need
to absolutely detonate that bridge.
Chance Burles: And in your own mind too, like in your own person, if you,
if you don't remove that section of your life, even for just a little bit.
You'll never know what it's like to live without it.
So like, you know, I quit smoking.
I've basically quit drinking.
I've done a bunch of like, I'm working out more often, I'm doing all these things,
but had I kept the piece of me that was like, ah, you know, just kind of relax on
the couch and chill out for a little bit.
Travis Bader: Tell me about quitting drinking and the why.
Chance Burles: So that was an interesting one.
Um, There was a point in time I, I was in the fridge and I went to go
for a beer that was in the fridge and I wasn't a super heavy drinker, but
I would have a drink or two a night.
And my doc always says that makes me a heavy drinker, but
Travis Bader: how did you, are we counting beers too?
Yeah, well, I guess like, geez,
Chance Burles: but I, you know, I would enjoy, Yeah.
A drink with dinner.
Sure.
Or with lunch.
Yeah.
You know, but I, I never considered myself like, oh man, I need a drink.
Yeah.
And yeah, I went to the fridge one day and there, I was out of beer and
I was like, oh man, I need to go to the store and get some more beer.
Hmm.
And in that moment I was like, do I, do I need to?
Travis Bader: Hmm.
I
Chance Burles: don't think I need to.
You know what?
I'm going to try.
And so I just stopped drinking for, I think it was like two, three months.
Yeah.
And then just right off the bat, I was just like, oh, okay.
So I don't actually need to drink.
Travis Bader: Hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Chance Burles: Okay.
Well, that makes sense.
And so I, but at that point I was like, I'm still going to go buy some beer.
Cause I do enjoy the flavor and I enjoy having it.
And then, uh, Sean and I were talking at one point in time and he was
like, you know, I, he has a rule.
He gives himself six drinks, six ounces, six drinks a year.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Period.
I want him to remember his day.
Chance Burles: Yeah.
And that's, you know, there's, you, you start locking those in
and it made me think of like, why was I drinking to begin with?
Uh, and it was more of a, just cause everybody else was drinking and you
came eventually became a habit that I just was drinking and my boys used
to laugh about it and they'd be like, uh, they'd fight over who could run
to the fridge to get me a beer first.
Kind of thing.
Like,
Travis Bader: it's like, why am
Chance Burles: I doing this?
Like, and I'm wasting money on alcohol that I, and at the, at that
time I wasn't even recognizing.
What I was doing, it was just so rote that I would have a beer with dinner.
Um, and now I've taken the attitude of make it worth it.
So, you know, if I'm going to go out with some friends that I haven't seen in
15 years and we're going to sit around and, you know, swap old war stories or
whatever, or we're going to get into a deep philosophical discussion, you know,
make that drink worth it, pick one.
That's like, that's gonna, you're really going to enjoy.
And you're really going to like, it's going to mark the occasion.
Travis Bader: I've heard doctors talk about how there is absolutely no.
Benefit to alcohol, there's only downside.
And I've heard others say, well, hold on a second.
There is that social side and there is, there is a benefit and you're a social
group and the gatherings and it's, uh, that whole moderation, of course, is key.
I, you know, I thought, well, maybe I'll stop drinking.
Give it a year, see, see what happens.
Right.
And I said today, I wanted to see what I do for my cognitive function.
And I also noticed that like I wasn't a heavy drinker, but you know, have
a couple drinks and my head wasn't in the happiest place the next day.
I was maybe a little bit more short.
And that was the biggest thing that I found that alcohol can do is it robs
you, it robs you of your time, it robs you of your patience, at least for me.
And, uh, so I gave it a year, actually, I think it was closer to two years and
I was like, well, I kind of like maybe a glass of wine with a, uh, with a steak
or, so introduced a little bit here and there, but it's an interesting one.
I think if people are having, uh, difficulties and a lot of people
who've listened to the collective or people who are looking for something,
looking for help, looking for answers.
And I got to say, if you can start cutting that piece of the puzzle out, the
alcohol, substances, whatever it might be.
And if that substance is even like your phone scrolling, doom
scrolling, social media, limit those substances, get out and move, right.
Get a bit of exercise, even if it's just going for a walk, sleep, get some proper
sleep and have some form of purpose, something you're doing things for.
Holy crow.
The number of people that I've seen just turn their lives around.
By keeping those vital four things in their mind.
It's,
Chance Burles: it's, it's beautiful.
And it goes to the point, you know, sometimes you gotta blow that bridge up.
And sometimes you got to like, sometimes you just got to say, I'm
not going to drink for a year, I'm not going to drink for two years.
Just completely remove it from your life.
Boom.
Bridge is gone.
Okay, cool.
After a while you can build a footbridge or you can put a little carabiner line
across like whatever you need to do.
Travis Bader: And I like it.
Cause you'd never know what it would be like without that bridge.
Exactly.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
And you brought something up.
One of the biggest values from the collective is the relationships.
So, you know, everyone's looking for the secret to success, and I've
said this before, and people have told me, Travis, it's not personal.
It's just business.
And I said, bullshit.
Yeah.
Everything about business is personal.
It's created based off of relationships.
These relationships take time to establish.
They're based on trust.
You hurt that trust.
You hurt that relationship.
You hurt that business.
Yep.
And I would say that so much of what I've done in, in life and, and in
business is just based off of those personal relationships, making sure if
you said you're going to do something, you do it, even if it hurts you, maybe
next time, I won't say I'm going to do that, but that relationship key, I
think is one of the, um, uh, the other.
Huge aspects to the collective that people who actually go out and engage,
because there's a lot of people who listen and who watch, and I'm sure
they get something out of it, but there's those people who engage.
And I've watched it from the sidelines.
I've been on a few episodes.
I see it happening.
I've watched these people's arcs and, you know, I like to pay attention.
I like to watch human behavior and I've watched their social
media and the arcs that people are actively out there engaging and
how much better their lives are.
Not the next day, not even a month later, but that progressively little
bit that they go in, that success is an accumulation of Of small habits over time.
Yeah.
Chance Burles: And it, I mean, all these things are learned behaviors.
Everything that we do is a learned behavior, right?
Every negative aspect of our life, every negative coping mechanism,
everything, it's a learned behavior from some sort of stimulus from prior.
So if you can learn how to do something negatively, you can learn
how to do something positively.
And that's part of the community is that I, I was talking to my wife about
this actually on the way here, it just kind of sparked was the fact that for
the, for the average veteran or first responder or something like that, by
being a service modality, a lot of times what we do is we put ourselves in the
back seat, we make sure that, you know, other people get taken care of constantly.
Yep, and by doing that, it creates this almost this habit when it basically
does become a habit to learn behavior of that when, when other people are
struggling, I need to take a step back.
So you start to learn that if I'm struggling.
I don't want other people to have to take a step back to put me on
that pedestal, put me forward.
So I'm going to start restricting myself and you start to slowly
work away from that community.
You start to slowly siphon yourself away from the isolate and you just isolate
a little bit more and you start to get in your little box and then you, you
know, it becomes smaller and smaller.
And by doing that again, you're inside your own head in a negative filled box.
Travis Bader: Is that isolation something you've struggled with?
Oh
Chance Burles: yeah, for many years, many years.
Are you still struggling with that?
Less so now.
Um, my wife actually told me when we were dating that, uh, she was like,
you know, you're a social butterfly.
And I was like,
Travis Bader: what?
Chance Burles: No, no, I, I hate people.
But at the time.
You're just a butterfly.
I hated myself.
That was the big issue was that I didn't, I didn't want myself to get out there.
Why?
Okay.
Um, mostly just through the fact that I knew how messed up I was.
I knew how angry I was.
I knew how all of the issues that I was dealing with was going to put extra
weight on anybody else that I engaged in.
Travis Bader: So what would
Chance Burles: you do?
Well, what I did was start working on myself.
I don't know.
Travis Bader: What would you do in the time as opposed to going out?
Chance Burles: Oh, instead of doing that, I would.
I would come back into the house.
I wouldn't go out.
I would, uh, as soon as then it went from the house, it went to the basement and
then from the basement, it went into, usually went into my gun locker because
that becomes a security thing, right?
I try to like become, uh, uh, like a little fortress with it and myself,
like, you know, I can't let anybody in.
Everybody's got to stay out.
And.
It again, working with horses and dealing with my doctor and
engaging in the veteran community.
That's what started to draw me out.
That's what started to bring me out to the world of like, Oh,
well, first off, I'm not alone.
I'm not the only person that are dealing with the struggles.
I'm not the only person that is, uh, going through this stuff.
Um, one of the things I like to say is we are unique, but not special.
And that is like our experiences don't make us special or the difficulties that
we go through doesn't make us special.
To everybody else around us, we are still unique people.
We have unique experiences.
Sure.
But we're not special.
At no point does any one person's issues make them more special than
anybody else, but we are different.
So that's something I had to get in my own head was the fact that
we are unique, but not special.
Travis Bader: So this isolating behavior and why I wanted you to kind of paint
a little bit of a picture of what it looked like is so other people, some
people might not even recognize it.
Yeah.
They're like, Oh, I just, you know, going to go down and clean my guns or I'm going
to the shop for a while and be away from everybody or plug in front of a screen or
Chance Burles: yes.
Travis Bader: Um, what do you, do you ever, do you notice that coming on?
Is that something that you seek?
Okay.
What does that look like?
Chance Burles: So usually that, uh, I, my biggest issues are crowds.
That was one of the biggest things I don't like crowds and it's, and
it's not even so much the crowd, because if I'm on stage or if I am.
Like when I was doing the walk for veterans, we'd have hundreds
of people in front of me.
I have no problem with that if they're in front of me.
But if I'm in the crowd, that just drives me absolutely nuts.
I can't, there's too many things for me to, I'm just like, uh,
hyper aware of all the movement and all the sound and all the things.
And the fact that I can't hear very well means that I'm down one of my senses.
So everything else has to, like, I start moving around really hard.
It's.
Challenging, but what'll happen is I start to get really agitated
and then I become very direct.
This is what I need to have happen.
We're going to go here.
I'm going to add, I'm like, I'm leaving and I'm out.
Um, and in those instances now I can actually see it happening.
And now I'm like, okay.
I can start feeling it.
I'm like, okay, I'm starting to get agitated and I'll look
at my wife or whoever I'm with.
I'll be like, okay, you know what?
I'm not feeling great right now.
Can we step off the edges and, you know, towards a wall or whatever.
And, and then I'll run through some very basic things, stuff that I used
to have to do with the horses, breathe.
That's a big one.
Box breathe.
Breathe.
Box breathing is great.
Um, the, I think it was Hubern was talking about, uh.
What is it?
The neurological sigh or something like that.
The big deep breath in and then the second one, uh, doing those is a good one.
But again, it was just get in touch with your body.
Recognize that you're not breathing.
Recognize that my back is like jacked straight up and not, um,
I'm not relaxed.
Okay.
Where's my shoulders at?
Okay.
You know, relax everything.
Just let myself, let it all go.
Be in this moment.
Are you in danger right now?
No, I'm not in danger right now.
Okay.
Is what is the like, this is one thing my doctor did for me.
What is the likelihood of danger happening right now?
And then you have to kind of like process that information.
It was like, well, I mean, it's pretty low.
Travis Bader: That's a real male thing too.
Analytical, right?
Just rather than going with the feelings and how do you feel, it's an
interesting approach for the doctor to make, okay, think it through.
Chance Burles: And well, cause my, my biggest issues were like, well,
there's, you know, could be an ID there could be a dude with a knife.
There could be a dude, like, there's so many things that a
crowd that you can't control and like control was a big one for me.
So the fact that I couldn't control the crowd from the inside.
Made me agitated, so I tried to remove myself from the crowd and then I would
remove myself from Basically my own life and then I would ruin myself for my family
and then I wrote and so you can see where that starts to go downhill So if I can
gauge it ahead of time now, that's where I got caught in my doc used to inject
that where she'd be Okay, so you're in a crowd you're starting to get agitated.
What's your first thought?
I'm like, well somebody's got a weapon.
Okay Well, what's the likelihood of that happening?
And you start running the math in your head and you're like, well, I mean,
pretty damn low, pretty low we're in Canada, you know, you're in, you know,
uh, say like, let's say Calgary and the stampede or something like that.
Okay.
What's the likelihood of somebody having a weapon pretty low when you talk
about crime stats and all these other things, you get into all that stuff.
But, um, the likelihood of it happening is pretty low.
Okay, good.
So you you've, what's the percentage, let's give yourself a percentage.
Well, it's like a 2 percent level of an attack happening in this moment.
Is it possible?
Sure.
Yeah, it's possible, but it's not very likely.
So, you know, you bring that right back down you go, okay Well, so if that's
the if that's taken care of then what what's bothering you at that point?
Oh, well, it could be this could be that it could and then you just start
to run through those Analytically, okay The likelihood of this happening is
low Likelihood of this happening is low likelihood of this happening is low and
by doing that again, you're just getting inside your body You're getting inside
your head, you're allowing yourself to process the information that's happening.
Being a bit more present.
Be a bit more present and let it all, and then you can kind of re
engage in, or just hang it where you are, you know, hang it on the
peripheral for a bit and just watch.
I see what happens.
Travis Bader: You, you've read that Harvard study, that 80 year study.
80 year study on Harvard, on happiness, and they looked at different
ethnicities, genders, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds
and track them over 80 years.
What's the number one predictor of happiness across the board, across
all different groups, community, strong, social connections.
Chance Burles: We are gregarious by nature as humans.
That's why horses work so well with humans.
Actually is the fact that horses are gregarious by nature.
They require a social structure in order to, like, if you put a horse alone in
a paddock by itself, it'll go crazy.
It'll just like, it will literally start, it starts chewing at the fences
and it starts running for gates and it start, like it does things that
are not natural horse behavior.
What happens when you put a human alone in a box?
Yeah.
That's the same thing, right?
They don't tend to do well.
Exactly.
And so.
Absolutely.
It's all about community.
It's all about understanding that you are biologically driven to be in a group.
And I mean, there's outliers.
There are people that are You know, they prefer solidly look, Sean, right.
He's a pretty solo dude.
You think so?
He likes the community, but he likes to do it on his, on his terms.
Travis Bader: Sure.
You know, but that's okay.
That's still, there's still, I mean, there's going to be different people
in different roles and it's like you're saying, if you're up on stage,
you're around the group, it's okay.
Right.
You're, you're sitting in the, uh, group.
Auditorium with everyone jostling around, around you, maybe not as great.
Chance Burles: And, but some people love it.
My, again, my wife and I were talking about in van, right?
People move to van to Toronto, to New York, to LA, because they want that vibe.
They want that, like that noise that.
They feel a comfort.
They feel a comfort in there, right?
Because they're surrounded by people.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Well, you kind of, it's.
I wonder, so when you're talking before about like going to the
ranges, my therapy going, there's a forced presence, let's say surfing.
Hey, that's great therapy.
Hey, rock climbing, but you have to be in the moment.
I have to think about where my next hand hold's going to be, where I'm
going to set my protection or how I'm going to tie into the next anchor
and otherwise there's consequences.
You're done with that.
You're out.
You still got that underlying thing.
You just had a little bit of an escape from it.
Chance Burles: Yeah.
Travis Bader: Um, people who love to be in built up areas, you've just turned
that noise up and everything else that was going on is sort of masked by this
radio being turned up to full blast.
And, you know, I'd find it, I'd go out in the woods.
And I'd have so much work going on, stress, different things happening.
And my head's running and I'm having arguments in my head.
And the next thing I know I'm talking out loud, there's nobody around me.
I'm having a full on argument.
And it's like.
That doesn't happen in the city.
I just feel the energy, but you've now got this opportunity to decompress.
And I think it's another sort of, uh, protectionistic sort of masking thing
that people, a lot of people can't be outside of that, lest they're alone
with themselves and their own thoughts.
Chance Burles: That's the tough part.
And, uh, I stated earlier when my wife and I were walking around, it was like,
everybody here is, they're surrounded by people, but they're all alone.
Yes.
Right.
And it's just.
No one has the community, you know, we're staying in my brother in law's apartment.
And yeah, it's a massive apartment.
There's 15 floors on it and there's, you know, people all over those seven or
eight rooms, a floor, that kind of thing.
Like it's, do
Travis Bader: they know everyone's name?
Chance Burles: No, right.
And the fact that, you know, there's walls in between the balconies,
so you can't see each other.
And like, it, it creates this anonymity That, you know, when I first sat down,
I started talking about, or when we first got here and I was like, man, it's
just this, this pressure of constant noise and things are always happening.
It dehumanizes people.
Yes, it does.
Because who knows what that person is.
But again, back in my community, Sherwood Park, like I know my neighbors,
I know both sides of my neighbors.
I know the neighbors across the street.
I know the people by sight that live four or five houses down that way.
I know it.
Like, it's not so much that I think you need to be.
You know, like, intimately knowing of all the people around you.
You don't need that.
But, you know, if you walk out your house and you see your neighbor across
the street and you, Hey, how's it going?
Nice to see you.
Have a good day.
Like little things like that.
Travis Bader: Have you heard of rat park?
Yes.
Okay.
So interesting.
I think it's from North Van actually, I believe I reached out a year or so ago.
Maybe I should reach out again and talk to the guy.
Um, I think he's, I think he's still there.
He put forward this hypothesis about, um, Uh, addiction, and he came up with this
harm control strategy and it was based on, they said, you know, if you give a rat
a water bottle and one laced with, let's say a stimulant, cocaine or whatever.
Inevitably that rat will just get addicted to the drugs and they'll die.
And it's all they want more, more, more, more, more.
And he says, well, what if we don't just lock this rat away by
itself in a small case with cage with these two different options?
What if we take these rat and they put them in Big place.
And we put other rats in there that it can play with and we have tunnels
that can go through and it's got a whole bunch of things that can do and
by and large from a study, they found that his words, some rats like to
party, but not to the point of death.
The majority wouldn't touch the laced water bottle.
And I know it's come under, uh, some Peer review and people looking back and forth
and, and having different thoughts on it.
But that concept was used for a harm reduction strategy.
I think there's a lot to be said for ensuring that people have enough space and
are properly integrated and socialized.
And when you start getting into the big cities, I, you know, I, I.
Not that I've spent a ton of time out in the country, but I'm sure even in the
country, there's going to be different social norms and ways that people
socialize, which might not, uh, might not jive, which can cause isolation.
Chance Burles: Well, I mean, it used to be, you know,
where would people congregate?
Their church, church, um, the Legion, right.
The dance hall, those places that, you know, yeah, you'd go off and
work and you'd be in your family.
And like, when I go down to the ranch, the nearest neighbor is like 20 minutes
down the road, like it's not close, right.
You got to, and it's a gravel road and they're in the middle of the road.
Um, we'll have to take you out there at some point, we'll go
get you an elk or something.
Cause it is.
That'd be amazing.
Um, beautiful out there.
Travis Bader: Figure if you can pee in your front yard and not have
to worry about annoying anybody.
Exactly.
You're good to go.
You're doing
Chance Burles: pretty good.
But those, the people there, they, how they congregate is through sports,
through religion, through community, through all these things, right?
Because you have to have that congregation point at some point, uh,
Southern Alberta, where the ranch is.
Yeah.
You know, the wind is wind is driven.
People Matt literally mad just from the wind.
Really?
It's there's wind, you know, signs on the side of the road.
They're all like, uh, that'll give you accurate readings of the wind
for truckers because it'll knock trucks over vehicles off the road.
And there's a lot of times I've been driving where you're like,
Pinned into the wind and like, you can feel it as you're driving.
Just try to hold against it.
Travis Bader: You just need mountains
Chance Burles: Yeah, it's like a hundred and twenty hundred and fifty
kilometer an hour winds like just ripping through that Valley Wow and
But that the community is what brings people back.
It's when people are off on their own out in the bush with nobody else I
mean, that's one of the reasons why the show alone got created, right?
It's like look at people what happens when they're in the bush by themselves
See what happens and then you got those boys There were people that
were, you made it like a day, two days.
Yeah.
You
Travis Bader: know what the number one, uh, the number one enemy to
these people in the show alone is.
I see it time and again, it's all in their head.
And they'll remember watching a guy, he made a beautiful
shelter, he had everything set up.
He's got some food, he got it all right.
And he did all this in like a couple of days.
He's okay.
I did my part.
I'm going to go home.
Yeah, I'm done.
Yeah.
I want to be with my family.
And that's, that's good.
Good for him.
I mean, I, I support that.
It'd be nice if he figured that out before going on the show that,
that he values his family to the point where he doesn't want to be.
Missing out on their lives for a short period of time, whatever it is.
But, um, I can't fault a person for that.
Chance Burles: That's one of the things that, uh, you know, I,
as I said, rats, uh, for the rat park are gregarious by nature.
They have a social structure, humans, gregarious horses, like look at a lot
of the mammals actually across the board and throughout the planet are naturally.
Community driven.
Yeah.
Everything comes, come together for survival, right?
The trick is, and I think this is what I've learned the most from The
Collective, is the fact that the quality of your community matters.
Mm.
Like to such a high degree.
So when I was in high school before I joined the military as a bit of a stoner
I was hanging around with the wrong crowd And I made a very distinct decision.
I was actually I was dealing pot.
I was doing all kinds of things I went to my dealer at one point.
I put in a large order and she looked at me.
It was like, you know You basically order what I order.
So maybe you should just talk to my dealer.
And, uh, you can just skip me as a middleman.
And I was like, well, okay, who's your dealer?
And he was like, she was like, oh, he's one of the health angels.
And I was like, sure.
Nope.
Just flat out.
No, I'm done.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Chance Burles: I'm not getting engaged in that, but my life would be very
different had I engaged in that, like, if I had just been like, oh yeah, sure.
No problem.
I'd like.
Like that, that would be.
Think of the bag wheels you could get.
Right.
Make a lot of money.
I definitely would probably have a bike at a patch and like, uh, at that
point in time in my life, that wasn't, that could have been a very easy
decision to go down a very bad road.
Yeah.
And the quality of the people that I was hanging around
with were not quality people.
Travis Bader: Mm.
Chance Burles: Then I was like, okay, I can't do that anymore.
And I got a phone call from my brother who was in South Korea at the time.
And he was teaching English and doing Taekwondo and all kinds of stuff.
And he asked me, he was like, well, are you going to go join the army?
I was like, well, you know, maybe I'd always kind of kept
it in like my back pocket.
It was like, I'd wanted to, since I was little, but, and I was
like, yeah, maybe, I don't know.
And he's like, well, what's holding you back?
And I'm like, Good question.
Nothing.
And he's like, well then go fucking do it.
Yeah.
Okay.
And the next day I went down to the recruiting office and I started the
process and went like, and that again, same kind of decision of like, he made
me, he asked the right question at the right time, which made me realize that
where I was was not where I wanted to be.
And that's the power of having the right group and the right people around you.
Exactly.
Like he could have just sloughed it off and like, yeah, sure.
You know, go get a job or whatever.
It's that the quality of the community.
And so now the collective is I am surrounded by quality people, quality
people that want nothing but the best for me and my family and are going
to push me to degrees that I'm not comfortable with, but they're doing it.
And I know they're doing it for what they see as my best.
It's all out of love.
Yeah.
And.
At, if I get to a point where I'm like, no, screw off, I'm not doing that.
They'll be like, okay, cool.
And move on.
Right.
It's, it's that quality of community and it comes back to
Travis Bader: here.
Yeah.
I'm going to put links in the bio to the collective.
Um, social media, website, all the rest.
You guys are on YouTube, you got your YouTube channel, podcast comes
through now too, which is nice.
That's a good one.
Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should talk about, or
should we keep it for a future one?
Chance Burles: That's a tough one.
I mean, we were going to get into self promotion, but we never really
got into that one, but I think that's a whole podcast in and of itself.
We did a little bit.
I mean, I've touched on
Travis Bader: it.
Yeah.
About self promotion comes under self worth.
Right.
Yeah.
So, I mean, we didn't talk about tactics or ways to self promote.
And I think for those who have a difficult time self promoting, and
I'm one of them, I mean, I don't want to stand up on the mountaintop
and say, Hey, I'm awesome at this.
Right.
Come over here.
It's like that Sports Illustrated curse.
You've heard of that?
Yep.
Okay.
You're on the cover.
You've heard of everything.
Damn it.
I've been around.
I've talked to a lot of people.
You're, um, You're on the cover of the sports illustrated magazine and
people say, well, that's a curse.
Right.
Well, I mean, you're at the top of your game.
That's why you're on the cover of the sports illustrated magazine.
You kind of only have one place to go is down.
You brag yourself up to such a huge point.
Where do you got to go?
So for those that have a difficult time self promoting, I think
surrounding themselves with other people who can promote them.
Is a very important thing.
Yes.
Chance Burles: And interestingly enough, there's also the same thing
happens with the, uh, EA curse.
Back in the day, uh, with video games, when EA was putting out their, you know,
the NHL and the NBA, uh, every single time that person was on the cover,
they had a crap year the next year.
Travis Bader: Yeah.
Cause where, where else can they go?
They can maintain or they can go down.
So if you're going to promote yourself as if you're the sports illustrated cover,
it's kind of a recipe for, for failure.
Yeah.
Um, from my perspective, and I mean, there is an art form for
people to be able to self promote.
And I think a big part of that comes into self worth where
you're not actually bragging.
You're just making honest statements.
And I think the Dutch are really good about that too, right?
They can say some very blunt, honest things.
Um, how does this dress make me look?
Well, it makes you look fat.
Okay, thanks.
I'll put something else on.
Yeah, right.
And it's okay.
Well, that's, they're not dancing around it, they're very blunt,
very pragmatic to the point.
Well, you know, I'm kind of the best.
Yeah.
I mean, like if you, if you look at me in the industry and there's so
and so here and so, and so there, but what I do, I'm, I'm the best.
Right.
And they can put it out in a certain way.
North America, our culture, it doesn't, uh, it doesn't jive with
that sort of, um, just brutal honesty.
Chance Burles: Now that would be a podcast and a half in terms of
why the Western world has gotten to a point that we cannot, we
can't be honest with each other.
Travis Bader: You dance around issues and have little platitudes and niceties.
And yeah,
Chance Burles: and it's all, again, it's all about behavior, right?
Yeah.
Passive aggressiveness drives me absolutely nuts, but, um, yeah.
To your point in terms of the collective and the community and
the, uh, the capacity for growth.
I think that I think that's the key is that that's what
makes the community great.
Everybody in it wants to be better.
It doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter where you come from, doesn't matter
who or what you've done in your life.
Every single person that's a part of it wants to be better.
Travis Bader: So what I'm going to do here is lean into my first statement, which
is surround yourself with other people who can help promote for you by showing
through their actions what they've done well, like it's all great if they want to
post it up on social media and post the next thing and have other people around.
I think the real value comes from them actually implementing the advice and the
tips and tricks and different things that they see implementing that in their own
life and other people will be like, Hey.
You used to be down here.
Now you're over here.
What are you doing?
Right.
That's where I see the value.
Not so much in posting and reposting, which is fantastic,
but in actually taking those next steps and implementing the things.
So I'm going to put the challenge out.
People who listen to this podcast, you find value, please.
Share that with others.
A lot of people that listen to this podcast have listened to the collective
because I've mentioned in the past, share what you see, engage with
others on the collective through here, throughout each other and, and share
that essentially, uh, share it through your actions by all means, show us
what, what, uh, what it means to you.
I, I put that ask out, if they've made it this far into this podcast,
we made it to the end, yet.
We will know because you'll see people doing that.
Chance Burles: Well, you know, I think what you're asking for is for people
to be the community that they want.
Just be the community and you can, it's very simple, but not easy.
And it comes down to daily actions.
How are you going to present yourself?
How are you going to engage your, how are you going to engage?
Your best self that says on a mug, do your
Travis Bader: best.
Do your best.
Nothing in my life I've ever gotten has ever come easy.
Do your best.
That's it.
That was the, uh, the mug you gave me.
Yeah.
Chance.
Thank you so much for being on the Silver Pearl podcast.
Really appreciate getting to meet you in person and I'm looking
forward to the next time we record.
Chance Burles: Maybe we'll see if I ever make it back to Vancouver.
Travis Bader: I'll come up to your place
Chance Burles: you get on the road.
That'll be awesome.
Ready?