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For Veterans by Veterans. Discover and execute on the most important mission of your life. Join host, Mike Bledsoe, as he delves into transformative journeys, exploring the challenges and triumphs of transitioning from military to civilian life. Through compelling stories and expert insights, we uncover the keys to personal growth, resilience, and purposeful living.
Mike Bledsoe (00:00)
Welcome to the mission after podcast where we help veterans discover and execute on the most important mission of their lives. I'm your host, Mike Bledsoe. Our guest today is Chase Toloson, a Navy veteran who served from 2010 to 2014. Chase is a serial entrepreneur and a lifelong fitness and personal development enthusiast. Upon exiting the Navy, he opened his own gym and quickly realized that there were more important levers to pull for lasting change in fitness.
and mindset journeys. He now focuses on coaching individuals to unlearn and rewrite the stories in their heads, starting with the words that stories are made of. By the end of this episode, you'll discover three major takeaways. One, the importance of belief and action in creating the life you want and how to align your thoughts, feelings, and actions with your desired outcomes. Two,
the power of words in shaping our reality and influencing our experiences and interactions. And three, the significance of personal development, genuine coaching, and finding teachers who provide valuable insights and guidance. But before we dive in, I want to tell you about our new resource available at the Mission After website.
It's called the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide will help you identify and overcome those habits. So be sure to download it at the mission after .org. Now let's get into the conversation with Chase Tolson.
Mike Bledsoe (01:25)
This is gonna be a nerdy one today.
guys that really love words. Really, really stoked to talk to you. One chase is on the leadership team for the mission after and we've had interactions in the past. I would say they're they've been fairly limited, less than what I desired. I was like, I want to know this guy better. And when we were putting the mission after together,
I intuitively, you know, okay, Chase needs to be involved. And then I was sitting with, David Robinson had come to town and I told him, I snagged you up for the cause. And he goes, dude, you got like the best guy for that. And I go, okay. Well, my intuition was on point. And it was so good to hear other people sing your praises. Cause it wasn't just him. There were some other people. I.
I talked to you afterwards and dropped your name and they were like, shit, that's, that's really special. So I appreciate you, joining the team and being here and contributing to, helping veterans, do better in the civilian world.
Chase Tolleson (02:47)
I appreciate you bringing me on board and I appreciate all those people singing my praises out there too. Dave told me about that conversation. He's like, man, it's the one time that I wish I had served in the military because then I could get to be a part of that too.
Mike Bledsoe (03:07)
Yeah, yeah. That's probably like the only time anyone's ever said, I wish I had served. And I, and I go, well, yeah, if you got to be a part of this, it was probably the good thing to commit. Most people go, I wish I had served. Like I thought, I feel like I messed out. I'm like, yeah, probably not. I don't think anyone who served looks at people who like didn't serve. I'm being like, dude, you should have done it. It's like obvious that, you know, whoever's there was supposed to be there and whoever's not there wasn't supposed to be there.
Chase Tolleson (03:35)
100%. Yeah. My uncle, he was in the Air Force. He was a linguist back towards the end of the Cold War. And when asked about his service, he would say it was the best, worst decision of his life.
Mike Bledsoe (03:52)
Yeah. Yeah. So.
What? Why did you join the Navy? Why'd you go in?
Chase Tolleson (04:06)
this is a, this is an origin story kind of thing. Well, in 2008, I had, I graduated high school, six, and I did a year of community college in 2007 and my GPA was like 0 .6 something. Yeah, dude. So, so the next summer I picked up a job as a, like a storm chaser, you know, going around, Hey, you're.
your siding could be replaced by, you know, from hail damage by insurance. And then when I was buying a truck for that, I got a job at that dealership. So I started working in a couple of dealerships. I don't know. I want to I want to go be a pilot. Well, still in 2007, 2008, the airline industry was was not all that I would have been a third generation United pilot. I was like, well, I can work around aviation, still be an air traffic controller.
What's a great way to do that? The Air Force. So I started talking with the Air Force in the first half of 2008. They said, well, you can't get the clearance for air traffic controller. It's like, cool, can it be a combat controller though? They're like, no, you can't get the clearance for that. And your eyes aren't good enough. Here, sign this paper. I had.
Mike Bledsoe (05:18)
can't get the clearance, what did you do?
Chase Tolleson (05:24)
When I was 28, I got picked up with. As far as the Lake and Hills, Illinois PD is concerned, I got picked up with some some glass pipes with cannabis resin in them. If they had checked my buddy's stomach, they might have found some cannabis and some hash. So he may or may not have eaten that while the cop had me out of the car talking to me. So that was on my record.
And also I was like 2400 or so. I was I was legally blind. And the Air Force just recruiters, right? The guys that came back to the ship would tell me it felt like used car sales and it sucked the soul out of them. And this guy had me sign this piece of paper, which unbeknownst to me was, hey, you're leaving when we want you to leave and you're just going to have whatever job the Air Force wants to have. So I I managed to get out of that. Went and talked to the army.
The Army said, well, we can't give you a guarantee at Ranger School because of your record. But, you know, we can send you in 11 Bravo. So, yeah, but like I'm a testosterone laden meathead who drives a fast Camaro. I want to go do something cool. And I went across the hallway to the Navy and they had an EOD poster up. I was like, what about what about that? Like, yeah, or like you're in shape. You want to try and go to Bud's. So I got this arrest. I will get you a waiver for that. Just go get your eyes fixed.
So my second cousin at the time, retired Air Force officer or enlisted officer, he was the senior civilian at the time at the Department of Missile Defense. He was on a military channel dock back in the day about when they shot down a satellite from an Aegis destroyer. They interviewed him about it. And he got wind of this and he sent his cousin, my mother, a book to try and dissuade me because it was.
a true story of a Navy SEAL getting stuck on a mountain and being stranded until he got rescued by Army Rangers. And anybody who's seen the movie or read the book knows I'm talking about Marcus Luttrell and Lone Survivor. Dude, I read it in 72 hours, ripped through it, put the Camaro up for sale that I said I'd never sell and paid for LASIK. I would swam and I run. I would run two miles to the gym.
in under 13 minutes with a pack on my back swim, run two miles back home to push up some pull ups. I was blue in the face. And then the Navy said, cool, you've had enough time. We can we're good on the LASIK. Let's go up to MEPs now. January 26, 2010, I go to MEPs and they say, sorry, new instruction was sent out five days ago. We can't waver that misdemeanor.
At which point I go home, I beat, I punch things until my knuckles are bloody. And I go out and I smoke a lot of weed. And my second cousin, even though he didn't want me to be a trained hitman for Uncle Sam, as he told my parents, he handed my package to the deputy chief of naval personnel, the admiral. And this guy flips through, he's like, sorry, I don't believe his story, can't help him.
Well, the story was one the recruiters told me to write so it would get pushed through faster. So at this point, I got a chip on my shoulder. I've talked with every branch except for the Marines and I got. What I get like a 87 or 92 on my ASVAB, I was like, I'm not going to go be a Marine. Love, love my Marine brothers out there. And I walked, I went back up to MAPS. I was like.
get me out of town as fast as possible. And at this point, we're in late February 2010 and fast was like two or three months at the time. Cool. You're an engine man and you leave in nine days. It's like, so that's why I joined the Navy. And when I went in, they were like, well, you can serve your time and rate and then drop a package and then go to Bud. So I was staying in shape. But I got sent to a MCM class, a minesweeper.
Mike Bledsoe (09:21)
Mmm.
Chase Tolleson (09:38)
Billeted for 84 guys. In my engine room, we at any given time had a work center soup and two guys under him. Well, I'm really good with a wrench in my hands. I scored like the Air Force broke it down. The mechanical section, the Air Force told me I got like a 96 on the ASFAB in the mechanical section. So they didn't want to let me go. And they told me straight up to my face, XO will be down in the engine room. He was a car guy, small command. So.
Mike Bledsoe (09:38)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Chase Tolleson (10:08)
you get face time with the senior leadership and he's like, hey, listen, like as much as we'd love to let you go, we won't. So you can drop the package, you can get accepted so you can say you got accepted or keeping you here. So at that point in time, Chase grew slightly disenfranchised and continued to grow disenfranchised with what at the time I saw as a broken leadership structure and advancement and pledged to get out after four.
Mike Bledsoe (10:39)
Wow.
Chase Tolleson (10:39)
That's the long story of why I joined and what happened.
Mike Bledsoe (10:41)
I wonder how many guys joined the Navy because they wanted to be a SEAL and then ended up doing something else. I mean, that was me too. It's like, that's what I'm going to do. And then, yeah, I did get to go to Bud's showed up at 19 years old. Didn't realize that that was actually young for that program. And, and well, I washed out long story short.
Chase Tolleson (10:48)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (11:08)
And then the idea is, yeah, after two years, you can put a package and go right back. Many of the guys that were there, it was their second time. Some of them is a third time. And yeah, if you do well, if you're at a command and you do well, you're not a complete ship back. They have a really hard time letting you go. So that was like similar for me. Like I got out because I didn't actually get to do the thing I wanted to do, even when the.
the initial contract was up and it was trying to re up. Yeah.
Chase Tolleson (11:41)
Yeah. Yeah, they, they tried to sweeten the pot by sending me to rescue swimmer school. So I went and I made it through a week and then I got an ear infection. And I also I was the current rescue swimmer was a fellow engine man. And and I knew what they. How he felt about how they ran that program on that small command and.
Mike Bledsoe (11:48)
Mmm
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (12:09)
how many times he got pulled eight different ways during drills and I was like, cool, ear infection. Bye guys. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (12:21)
Yeah. Yeah. So when you decided to get out, what was, it was pretty obvious. I mean, how long were you in before you knew you were going to get out?
Chase Tolleson (12:31)
let's see. I entered on March 2nd. I was at my command by what, August or September after sea school. January of 11, I'd say less than a year. Well, no, that's that's inaccurate. It was into my first deployment. So it's likely a year and a half in. I believe I got that news like our first trip to Bahrain. So.
Mike Bledsoe (12:55)
Yeah.
What was it like needing to wait those three and a half years?
Chase Tolleson (13:05)
Well, I started, I set my sights on something different. And after my LCPO, he was for the bulk of when I was in. He would show up in Bahrain, took quarters, coming down to the fantail with his belt missing loops and his hard hat on backwards and still half drunk. And then talk to us about standards.
I had a 12 year E five who I picked up each advancement cycle and the 97th percentile and got paid early and picked up E five in about three years and like as quick as I could. I had a 12 year E five who like technically I think I was supposed to work for him, but he worked for me because of the way things went. I would get, I would get called out of bed at two 30 in the morning to handle something because they didn't trust him.
Mike Bledsoe (14:02)
Mm.
Chase Tolleson (14:06)
So I decided relatively early that I wanted to go be my own boss. And I started setting my sights on that. And I was like, I'm going to open a CrossFit gym. Yeah, yeah, I got out and I had 30 days of leave to use. So I got home in February of 14 and I drank for a little bit while I was still getting paid. And then I started looking for a space and
Mike Bledsoe (14:18)
Yeah, what year was that? That was like 14.
Chase Tolleson (14:35)
CrossFit had already approved the name and it had my hometown in it. And there was like one industrial section where rent was affordable enough. So I had to make do with what I found there. Fun, fun fact for any CrossFit heads out there. Dave Castro actually waived my first year's affiliate fees because of a chance interaction with one of his buddies in a bar in Point Loma.
Mike Bledsoe (15:00)
Nice. Dave and I, we've had the opposite type of relationship. He's come gunning for me a couple of times. It's all right though, because we are living in different worlds at this point.
Chase Tolleson (15:10)
That's the only interaction I've had with him.
Mike Bledsoe (15:27)
So yeah, what, what was what was that transition like? And you were lucky in a way like I mean, how many guys got out between the years of I'd say 2012 and 2016. It's like almost almost, I'd say over half the CrossFit gyms out there being run by a veteran during that time. I think it's a little different now, but there was that period that was you were in that sweet spot of get out. Obviously, I'll open a gym.
Chase Tolleson (15:56)
Yeah. All right. It was like off the main street. You took a turn, depending on where you come. You make a different direction. That was right turn, left turn. And then we were back at this court and you drove into our parking lot. You had to turn around the parking lot to see us. And I still had people signing up my first month because CrossFit in 2014, we were still riding that bubble. And it was interesting, you know, because I got out and I was like.
All right, cool. Yeah, I have this space and I have this equipment and I cashed in my was it the the TSP thrift savings plan? I cashed that in with three tax free deployments worth of money in there. I'm going to be good. Until about it had to be less than six weeks into Benjam and I shut down the lights one night and I pulled out a bench.
laid down on it and I knew exactly what I was doing. I was burnt out. I had been there from like 5 a to 9 p each day, but I had worked 36 hour days in the engine room, right? So I could do this. And I broke down. It's like all my friends are still back on the ship or at different commands. They're still in the Navy. They're in San Diego. We can go get routing in Pacific Beach together. Like I'm living at home. I have a business that's bleeding money because...
I didn't know what I was doing, open a business, surprise. What am I doing? And that was that was likely the most difficult and the biggest event for me of like, did I make the right choice?
But turns out I did. It took some time to really accept that though.
Mike Bledsoe (17:43)
Yeah, how long were you out when you had that that burnout phase?
Chase Tolleson (17:48)
Less than a year, man.
Yeah, less than a year, because I got out in March and that would have been September or October. So, yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (17:56)
Mm. Like six months. Yeah, that I witnessed I imagine you did too. Just witnessed so many people get out and then come right back in. Like I remember seeing guys like I'm gonna get out. And then I had there was one guy that came back for the same command. He was out for a few months. And then he was back and I was like, what what how did
I would imagine they would at least send him to a different command, but he comes back to the command. He was like, he was shameful in a way. What happened? It's hard out there. It's really hard out there.
Chase Tolleson (18:36)
There was a, I believe he was a EM1 and he had come back in. He was at the ship when I got there. He was at the command when I got there and he's like, dude, I got out. I tried to open my own electric business. He said the same thing. It's like, man, it's hard out there though. It's so much easier here. All you gotta do is show up. I mean.
Mike Bledsoe (18:57)
Yeah, there's a there's a thing about the challenge of being in the military. There's there are there are challenges, there are opportunities, there are things that don't exist anywhere else. And the military holds some of the hardest things you could ever do. I took to this date. I did, you know, I was hell weak of buds. Hardest thing I've ever done. Hardest thing.
But, you know, there are things that I psychologically have done that may be as difficult, but nothing where physically in that place, psychologically in that place day after day with no sleep. And it doesn't prepare you. It really develops one gear. Mark England talks about this like.
Mark and I had tons of conversations. You'll probably hear Chase and I talk about Mark England. He's a guy that we've both learned a lot from. And he talks about, you know, the mental toughness gear. And people in the military, the idea of mental toughness is relied on, it becomes a crutch of...
Anytime I need to get something done and it's difficulty, I go to the gear of mental toughness. And when you get out into the world, there are certain things that works really well for, but there's a lot of things that doesn't work well for it all. And if you just try to bring mental toughness to every situation, it's going to get, your life is going to suck. Like if you have to meet mentally tough every day, like what kind of life is that?
Chase Tolleson (20:47)
I mean, the mentally tough, you know, engine room persona that I ran had me with a bruise knuckles, waking up with vomit all over the floor of my bedroom, my flat and Bahrain. you know, and I didn't drink that often when I did though, like I, because I wasn't, I only had one gear. Well, I only had one gear when I went out, you know, and
Mike Bledsoe (21:14)
Mmm.
Chase Tolleson (21:16)
And that, that gear, if I had kept that gear, I'd likely be back in and dude, you talk about going back to the same command. I've had dreams. And it's been, it's been a bit now, likely probably since my daughter's been born. I I've had dreams of like back at the command with the same guys and like, I'm enjoying myself and I wake up like in a cold sweat.
Mike Bledsoe (21:43)
Dude, for, for the longest time, I had dreams about being in like, being at the old command, recurring dream of being at my old command, not shaving. Cause I so enjoy having a beard now. Like I've been clean shaven maybe five times in the last decade. And, and I used to have this recurring dream that I'm back in my command and I'm like,
no fucking way I'm shaving this beard. And and I'm just like, going on about my day waiting for someone to say something and then someone saying something and then me telling them it's not happening. And they're creating like this tension and all this. But yeah, I've been on I've, I've had dreams of like sinking ships so many times of being on a ship, it's sinking firefighting. Just just just like,
being on a ship and knowing I'm going to be there for six more months on a deployment and just rarely positive rarely do I have like, I'm having a positive dream about my time in the Navy. But I had a really big shift in just so the dreams reduced in frequency over time and they definitely lost the energy. So over time and then I went to a retreat a few months ago where
I had this really big release around a very specific thing that happened when I was in the Navy. It's like as if I were to tell the story now, people would go, that's obvious, obviously very traumatic. And at the time, I had like, kind of forgot about, you know, packaged away that as even though it was a very emotionally challenging during the time.
Chase Tolleson (23:29)
Right.
Mike Bledsoe (23:41)
because there was no major negative repercussions for me at the end. I filed it away is not a big deal. And then I'm in this week long retreat and I'm like, this is where this is coming up right now. This energy is coming up all I'm telling this story. And so I have this really big release around it. And then I come home and I start having dreams about being in like, I would have a dream about being in the Navy. And it was like, I'm in charge of everything and everything's good and easy.
and fun. I go holy shit from because I've been out for 18 years for for there to be 1718 years of nothing but negative dreams about the Navy to like having dreams where it's like, not a big deal and everything's cool. Just because of this one memory that I had that I didn't think I needed to process at all that once processed.
Chase Tolleson (24:12)
Hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (24:37)
gave me a sense of relief around everything, so much so that it shows up in my dream state consistently. Pretty wild.
Chase Tolleson (24:45)
very wild and even those of us that are well versed in the work can, I don't need to process that. And I've experienced it, I've seen it with clients. One story in particular is coming to mind with a client of mine who like, yeah dude, write that down, we'll get it on our next call. We're gonna four step it, go through the story work process, the enlisted method as it's coined these days. And,
We get it written down and we jump on our next call and he's like, I mean, I think I'm good. Like writing it down was enough. Like, cool. Just, just humor me. Like, let's just go through the steps, man. I get a text the next day. I woke up at 3 a sweating like I was detoxing a night of drinking.
Yeah, sometimes I've heard it said that our subconscious and our nervous system can have an almost autoimmune response to try and protect us from looking at the things that will help us.
Mike Bledsoe (25:47)
Mmm.
Yeah, there's two ways that people tend to look at the world, the materialistic, the materialist view. And then the the more meta view of consciousness. And one is
Chase Tolleson (26:03)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (26:11)
The physical world creates consciousness and that's where consciousness arises. And that's where you'll get a lot of people who believe that AI is going to become sentient and put humans out of business, which makes sense. Like, and, and the way that science is taught in school is from a very material list perspective. So no matter what your spiritual or religious background may be, the fact that.
the majority of the culture is living in a materialist perspective makes it very difficult to hold a different one. And the perspective from consciousness creating everything and the material world is actually a manifestation of consciousness is if you do enough research, I have found way more.
And coming from a perspective of very materialist thinking, and then over time, adopting a much more consciousness based reality perspective. I would not say that I wanted that to be true. It was, I have been shown evidence over and over and over again that would overturn what I previously believed. And when we, when we're holding that perspective, there's also way more power over
our reality when we're living from more of the consciousness -based perspective.
Chase Tolleson (27:43)
100%. I mean, I have a John Galt quote from Atlas Shrugged on my ribs, right? It's not that I don't suffer, it's that I know the unimportance of suffering. I know the pain is to be fought and thrown aside, not to be accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existence. All the negations aside, like I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 22. It's still one of my favorite books. I'm making my way through it on a second pass between smaller books right now. And...
Yes, but essentially what you said, like I'll say in a different way here, Hank Reardon, Dagny Taggart, like they're all material world. And there's been too many funky, like it's hard to call anything a coincidence anymore. And from things like seemingly,
We'll go really deep first. I really heavy for a second when my brother passed. I was supposed to go down to Dallas, Texas with my wife because PepsiCo is trying to relocate her. We were going to go humor them and see the the Plano area. So he passed on a Saturday. Our flight was on Monday. I didn't get on that flight. The guy who got my seat and sat next to my my wife.
He was going down to see his nephew who was in hospice and had less than 72 hours to live. And it was the only flight he could jump on. Two instances that involve our buddy Mark England who as much as he only talks about the words and says his...
Mike Bledsoe (29:18)
Mm.
Chase Tolleson (29:33)
Mark has a way of showing up. And I think this was last year sometime when I had taken the gas off my business a little bit, I decided to put the gas pedal back down. And in the same week, Mark just decides to refer me to people. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (29:47)
Mm -hmm
I've, I've had that, happen before where I had it happen this week where I decided I chose to take on more clients or a specific type of client. And I sat down and I wrote down how I was intending to work with them. Two referrals coming in one week. So almost identical story, right? Like it's just like, it was like one person came from this direction. Another one came from this direction.
Chase Tolleson (30:15)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (30:21)
and, yeah, it does seem that when you're, when you've got your mind in the right place, or what I like to call it, like when you're in alignment, the miracles happen, right? And miracles happen when you're expecting miracles.
If you don't expect a miracle to happen, then they're not going to happen. You're not creating them.
Chase Tolleson (30:51)
I love that you kept, you know, said you're not creating them because if you, what I was going to say is if you expect them to happen, you're likely also taking some action to help them happen, you know, to, to, to seize that opportunity that's laid in front of you. I believe, I'm familiar with the, is it a parable from the Bible? It's a story of God sent a boat, right? The guy that lived on the river and,
The town was flooding and he's like, come on, we'll get you out of here. No, no, God's going to save me. So the car pulls off and then the rivers flood in and somebody comes by in a boat. Come on, we'll get you out of here. No, God will save me. Then he's up on his roof and somebody comes by on a helicopter. He's like, no, God's going to save me. He gets up to heaven. He's like, God, what the heck? Well, I sent you three opportunities. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (31:35)
Mm -hmm.
Mm hmm. Yep. Yep. I've had a client a while back who was he's a new Christian. So less than a year old in that lineage, what do you want to call it? And
And I loved it. I love working with somebody who is newly Christian and because I also, I have a very deep background in theology. Well, I want not compared to like a preacher. I don't have a deep back, but to the average person, I can sit down with people who went to college to be to seminary or something. We can jam philosophically and start pulling out Bible verses. This has happened a few months recently with my fiance sitting there going.
I had no idea you know so much about the Bible. Yeah, childhood. My parents put it in. You know, that was I was required required reading. But I was organist client and he was he was he he went into a deep meditative experience and in this deep meditative experience, I helped him achieve.
He comes out and he goes, I just need to, I need to listen to God more. And we're talking about listening to God. And I, and I asked him, you know, can you know, where is God? You know, and he's a bit confused. And I was like, could God be, you know, God is love. The Bible says God is love. yeah. Yeah. God is the word. The word is God.
Okay. And words do create a reality and is God in everything? And does it work? Does he work through all people? Well, yeah, of course. God is all these things. Okay, I have not once gone against what the Bible says. And so could it be possible?
it was, it was, it was, the conversation was about asking for help. I need to ask God for help more. What is the conversation? I go, you can ask me for help because well, I want, I want to ask God for help. I was like, is, is God not in me? He goes, well, of course God is in you. I go, I'm here to help you. Like asking for help from people around you is asking God for help.
Chase Tolleson (34:38)
Yes.
Mike Bledsoe (34:39)
For you to sit there in a room in isolation and go, please help me, please help me, please help me. And then to never go out and request help from a being which God created and is living through in every moment, you just cut yourself off.
Chase Tolleson (34:58)
100%. And that's a beautiful example of an older faith and representing that. And I've seen it like in more new age circles to the whole manifestation. And, you know, I'm just going to manifest my dream life. Cool. And like, what if you took a little action to help all that meditation and vision board? You know.
Mike Bledsoe (35:12)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (35:27)
I'm all for aiming the reticular activating system. And like you said, like words create our reality. If everything is vibration, spoiler alert, I'm pretty sure it is. And sound is vibration and words are sound, then the words we use and the intonation with which we use them is a little bit important.
Mike Bledsoe (35:49)
Yeah, Dispensa talks about the, the, the, the feeling coming, like he talked about the, what was that old documentary that put out the,
It was really popular. he was part of it. It some, maybe something code. I forget. choose remember. So he, he was like, yeah, we were did really good. We're talking about you create your reality by how you perceive the world and what you project out into the world and through your mind. But we really didn't talk about, and I think he dressed in one of his books. you know, the feeling has to, your feeling world has to come. He doesn't say feeling world. That's my word.
Chase Tolleson (36:04)
with with the Spencer.
I'm drawn blank.
Mike Bledsoe (36:31)
But like your feeling world has to go along with the vision of the future. We actually do this in the mission after it's, I just put together like, one of the last weeks of the curriculum. And we get into this is how do we fine tune what's going on in your body, where the subconscious lives to get it to agree with this vision, these words that we're speaking. And, it's, let's see if I can remember where I was going with that. I mean, I lost my track.
Chase Tolleson (36:58)
We're talking about words and vibration and feeling and words, I said words and intonation are paramount because everything is vibration.
Mike Bledsoe (37:08)
Yeah, yeah, there's something before that. All right, we'll just keep rolling. Yes. Look, everything comes down to vibration. There was a was it is it Howard Terrence was just on Rogan. I don't know if you watched that. Dude.
Chase Tolleson (37:21)
I have yet to watch it.
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (37:25)
I cannot be overstated, but he was talking about how everything goes down to frequency, like basically everything, the vibration and, and, sound light becomes sound when it's a certain frequency and all this stuff. And then, everything that's in the, periodic table is actually just a frequency. and the way he lays it out, it's dense. It's really dense as he lays it out. My brain is unlocking in all sorts of different ways.
And I think it was just a really good example of someone and somebody going, this all comes out of vibration, like you were saying, the intonation, the vibration of you speaking it. I was going to say is it comes down to got to get your feeling world. You create the vision and get your feeling world to come along with it. OK, if I if my heart cares about it, if I get my mind to agree with it and then I get my subconscious mind that lives in my body to agree with it as well. Well, that's belief.
I now believe it. And if I'm believing it, what the person who does the vision board, like you were talking about the person who does the vision board and believes it, what do they do? They actually go out and start acting like it's already true. And, and, and they're the actions follow. But for the person who does the vision board, but doesn't actually believe it, they haven't, they haven't tuned their subconscious, their body to be on board with this vision board. Now it's just a vision board in the corner and it doesn't work.
Chase Tolleson (38:41)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (38:54)
because they don't believe it enough to be out there taking the actions, which changes the frequency of the rest of the universe.
Chase Tolleson (39:02)
That's so paramount. I brought this up on a mission after call. Mark Gaffney and the episode is it's on Luke story's lifestyle is podcast about 30 minutes in. He gives a beautiful, deep dive into the word Abracadabra. Cause you and I know that Abracadabra is with my word. I create with my word. I influence comes from Aramaic. I have it tattooed on my back in Hebrew because I couldn't find anybody to confirm Aramaic and I'd rather.
Mike Bledsoe (39:09)
Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Chase Tolleson (39:32)
get a language that's accurate. Yeah, exactly. So he talks about in there that, and if you guys want to hear this explained better after you get done with this episode, cue that one up next. And,
Mike Bledsoe (39:35)
Good idea. You don't want to be that guy.
Yeah, Luke story is a personal friend here in Austin now. We both both escaped SoCal.
Chase Tolleson (39:52)
Yeah, I'm sure.
But Mark says in there that one symbol in abracadabra stands for word. And then there's another one that stands for silence. So what we're talking about here, the feeling aligning when abracadabra, the word can either uphold the silence or betray the silence. And when the words uphold the silence, that's when abracadabra with my word I create, with my word I influence holds its magic.
Mike Bledsoe (40:24)
Mm -hmm.
I want to get back into your story now. I love this. We're going to like do a little bit of story and then like veer off. Come back. The. So you open a cross gym. You're you're like, what the fuck have I done now? Now we're having a conversation. You're part of the mission after you. You're doing bigger things, which I'm sure I covered in the intro. I'll tell my future self to do that now. And then.
Chase Tolleson (40:33)
Alright.
Yeah, it's my style.
Mike Bledsoe (41:02)
But at one point you're in the gym, you're a CrossFit gym bro who's burning at both ends.
Chase Tolleson (41:09)
Yeah, I mean, full on knee socks, board shorts, following outlaw programming for 90 minutes a day, five days a week, and still trying to run a business. I'm like not knowing what I'm doing running a business either. And I had a couple of coaches that...
were like coaching on trade for me. And then one had an opportunity to open up his own spot. And so next thing you know, I'm down to like one coach that I brought a guy in who was coached for me. It's just.
Mike Bledsoe (41:46)
classic, I can do it better.
Chase Tolleson (41:48)
Yeah, yeah, 100 % side note as I opened my second location four years after I opened. Well, as we moved into a second location, my co my members that would travel, be like, hey, the only nicer gym I've been to is Max Effort in Vegas. And all that aside, yeah, 2014 to 2016, even 2017, we were.
CrossFit, CrossFit, CrossFit. Like I opened in 2014. I was like, we're going to get a regionals team together and we're going to, we're going to go to regionals. And I realized that there was parents and grandparents and people with mortgages and lives that just want to feel good about themselves again. And fitness was the way they were doing that. And then, you know, on my personal journey, about 2017, I was like,
It started, you know, Marcus Philly was really popular doing the functional bodybuilding thing, and he was affiliated with OPEX and James Fitzgerald. And so back up a little bit. Twenty six, twenty sixteen, I had a blog and I was I was writing that blog because one of my members was like, you ought to write a blog like you say a lot of good stuff in here, like good mindset stuff. Twenty seventeen, I listened to an episode in January, I believe it was January 2017. If I remember.
Mark quoting it correctly of Mark England on Barbell Shrugged. And then I really started going deep. I listened to that one when it dropped and I used the code and went through core language upgrade like twice back to back. My wife didn't want to watch it because she said Mark had beady little eyes. So, you know, so.
Mike Bledsoe (43:14)
Hmm.
He's got that hard to trust face.
Chase Tolleson (43:39)
She's it was she she'll admit this. It took her a year and a half to start working out at my gym as opposed to the one that was on the way home from work. Now, it's it's been an evolution even still when I bring something to the table, if she hears it in a podcast a week later that it's valuable. It's still easier to to land and I. Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (44:05)
my gosh. Yeah, I totally get it. I've got so many tools that I've offered to share with my fiance and then years, years of hanging out for it to sink in. Same way too. I'm sure there's things she tried to tell me about where I'm like, all right, I'll finally read that book.
Chase Tolleson (44:20)
Yeah, she just.
There's a hundred more so Sarah's intuition on people has been correct before mine in the past. And like a couple of the coaches at the gym, she's like, I told you he left and he took like 20 members with him. So, yeah, you're right. And he's going through a tough time and I thought we were doing the right thing. So love and listen to your woman, guys. And like she when she comes around, she.
Mike Bledsoe (44:33)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Listen to your woman.
Chase Tolleson (44:55)
She sent me an Instagram post today and she's like, I love you. Thank you. And I think I think I get to do more journaling now because there was some posts that highlighted some stuff. I'm like, cool. Awesome. Yeah, you know, 2018, I took the OPEX CCP. And the first six months of 2018 went out to Arizona and it says that their certified coach program, I think that's.
Mike Bledsoe (45:20)
What's the CCP?
Chase Tolleson (45:25)
I think that's their program, OPEX. I may have it off because it's been six years now. And, you know.
Mike Bledsoe (45:36)
Yeah, I did some of their stuff real early, like 2012, 13, 14, somewhere in there.
Chase Tolleson (45:40)
Yeah, it was a six month cohort and in May of 18, I was out in Scottsdale for a weekend, got a in -person weekend, listening to James Fitzgerald talk about program design, which 2018 chase just ate up. And then we went, we're like, everybody needs individual attention. Group class is broken. And everything has its purpose in this world, right?
Mike Bledsoe (46:09)
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (46:10)
I took a real hard line on this and we opened a second location and then we moved into a bigger location and there was room for an individual design floor and the group floor. Well, now all my group members were angry at me because the individual design people had a nice yoke. I don't have space or money for 12 yokes for the whole class to use or even three to rotate them. So sorry. And with the OPEX,
OPEX for me is the first time I can remember like in a coaching space, them saying, hey, each one of your clients has seen the world through a different lens. And if you can wrap your mind around that on the consult, you're going to have a lot easier time serving them. And even with all the mindset stuff that I, it helped to break down a thin wall that was between me and like, Hey, this is mindset and these are words. And this is why.
everybody's already looking at it from a different angle. And that really helped. And from there, you know, we were in the second location. I started standing up a team and 2019 we had a solid team where we went through active life, our ex pro path and we were Sean actually had me on a YouTube live because we're one of the first gyms to like.
really do some stuff with that program. And then 2020 hit. We had our best, you wanna know when we had our best month ever?
Mike Bledsoe (47:45)
February 2020. March 2020.
Chase Tolleson (47:46)
March 2020 on a partial month, we had our best month. We were rolling, steamrolling on intake. And then we lost like half those enrollments, probably three quarters of those new enrollments because they didn't have the trust built or know us enough. So soon as old JB Pritzker shut Illinois down for two weeks, AKA two months, we...
Mike Bledsoe (48:05)
now.
Chase Tolleson (48:15)
We lost them. We opened back up and we shifted to a more semi semi custom program and it went well. And we already had a podcast going. And on that podcast, we had. I late summer fall of 2020, we had Angelo Cisco. And then on that one with Angelo, we're talking about just pro -cabulator came up. So, yeah.
I know Mark, yeah, look at this picture of us partying in like Belarus or somewhere, right? Like they're both wearing tracksuits over in Europe somewhere. And he's like, you want Mark on the podcast? Yeah, cool. And at this point, Mark wasn't talking about Enlifted yet, but he was talking about words and stories and their power.
Mike Bledsoe (49:03)
We, we started and lifted in 2018 and yeah, it was, it was started and then it, I, I was a part of that for like from 2018 to maybe mid 2019 for about one year I was there to like ship.
Chase Tolleson (49:11)
It had been started and it took, yeah, go ahead.
Mike Bledsoe (49:32)
Cause I go, this is a brand that like needs to, I like the product, but the marketing needs to be upgraded. And part of that is the brand. And, I did not come up with the name by the way, but the overall, like how the approach to the customers. so it was really cool to, even though I stepped away, like those guys just kept pushing and lifted forward in that, in the direction it needed to go.
Chase Tolleson (49:50)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, you know, and on that podcast, Mark, we get to the end of it. And I'm like, hey, what's this enlisted thing that I see your name on to like you're on the vocabulary website? What's this over here? It's like, actually, let's let's you and I get on call. You got time after this podcast. And at that point, level one group nine had had their first their kickoff introductory call. He's like, hey, we got this one rolling. You can like all we did was introduce everybody to each other. You can.
jump in on week two and so I level one group nine, I think they just graduated group 42. Got it on group nine, I was level two, group three, level three, group two, all back to back to back. And we went, we implemented it at the gym. Everybody who came in got a goal setting session that turned into a story work session. I took it into my online business.
Mike Bledsoe (50:57)
Tell everybody what EnLift it is and how it works.
Chase Tolleson (51:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
forget that we're we got other people listening. Yeah, just you and I sit here, shoot the shit and yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (51:06)
Yeah, there's a, and let there's a certificate. I'll give like big picture. It's a certification. It's an educational program on how to work with the mind. what I, the reason I got behind it really early on is because I saw how powerful it was and how powerful it is. And one of the things that makes it powerful over
other language programs like you may have heard of NLP, Neuralistic Programming. It's more powerful than NLP. And for the one reason is that it's far simpler and just as effective. There are layers and levels to this. And when you get down to the core, which in Lifted gets really down to the core of language. When you get that deep, all those other things that are at the surface that you might find at NLP,
just unravel. You're like, that's just taken care of. CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is used by therapists all around. It's got 21, 22 different principles and CBT, the core principles. Well, guess what? I've studied all those core principles and every one of them is handled by the core of what EnLyft does. So it is, it's, it seems so simple that it's easy to overlook until you've put it to use in your own life. And then it's like a, what the fuck?
So I just wanted to give that broad strokes and then I'll let you fill in whatever the actual details of what it is.
Chase Tolleson (52:43)
Yeah, thank you. Well, we've talked about, you know, with my word I create, abracadabra, and EnLifted looks at the mechanisms of, you know, the enlifted definition of mindset is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves. And the mechanism in that story is the words and the breath. So for EnLifted, we're looking at the words we're using day to day and...
the words we've been using and the stories that have been constructed, maybe about our past, about the future, about our present, or about our past, and using a, like you said, a surprisingly simple and yet very effective methodology to go in and unravel those stories. I said it at a workshop that I ran back in January. A lot of people are wearing a torn and tattered sweater.
of stories that don't serve them. And when you pull on one thread, you just take a look at one story. Sooner or later, if you keep going, you unravel that whole sweater and you get to knit it back into something that you want to wear. And you could start with something, a great example, somebody from my gym. She looks at me, she's like, Hey, I think I need a chase psychology session. It's like, I don't think we can legally call it that. And yeah, let's sit down. What do you want to talk about? She want to talk about nutrition. She was snacking all the time.
like, cool, let's start in present. And we wrote that story down. At night when I know I shouldn't be snacking, I still went for the chocolate and I ate the whole bar and whatever is longer than that. And we read that story out loud and read it slower. And then we read it with a breath at every natural break.
And while we were reading that, we were checking in each time. OK, what do you feel? What what emotion is coming up? What do you feel in your body? What's present for you? One one to ten. How strong is it? What does that remind you of? And the amount of times I've seen this look. I didn't know that was in there. Just when I was 12 years old, my mom pressured me to have a certain body type for cheerleading.
And then we went in and we ran the same process for that story. And I forget exactly how we worked that story. You know, we did those four steps. The cool thing about enlifted talk about, and this, I had tucked this away from when we got to the process. When we talked earlier about, words and feelings lining up, when we take a story like, our parents pressuring us to have a certain body type or.
to go to college because they want us to have the degree or our mom coming after us with a knife in the kitchen or whatever it is. All stories I've heard and I've heard more benign and much more gnarly.
When we can go to the sentence or a sentence in that story that holds emotional power, that has, seems to have a hold on us and our energy. And we can read that one, take a big deep breath until it, until it might have some hold. Cool. Now we there that one out and we just switch one word, switch it one word at a time. And my favorite thing to do is before we know it, we had a sentence that was like holding us back and now we've crafted a, an affirmation out of it.
And when you take the energy and you move it nice and slow and gradually like that, now instead of scrolling Pinterest for an affirmation to put up on your wall, you have something right on your bathroom mirror that came from a story that was holding you back that you didn't even know was holding you back.
Mike Bledsoe (56:31)
Yeah, the, yeah, the, the, the one word game, the changing one word at a time. there's like, there's two ways to approach creating those affirmations, that, that I've found to be really effective. One is one is the one word game, which is, which makes sense from a biological perspective where.
Chase Tolleson (56:37)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (56:56)
We can't just yank the neuron from over here and place it over here. So we do one word at a time. It starts to loosen up. The idea of it starts loosing up your ego kind of starts letting go. And then you get to slowly and gently place it on a new track. And that is that's one way to do it. I think so.
And then there, and then following that as repetition, you know, that's how we learn us through repetition. And then the other way I found that's been really effective, which I, I discovered post and lifted is creating a statement that is so much more powerful than the statement that was holding you back, which, call calling on a power beyond, you know, the yourself.
it becomes a much more spiritual conversation. I think that one word game is very good for those who want to, for most people, there's a little skepticism. They're not quite sure. I don't know how this works. And then there's, there's another layer of like, yeah, just, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a statement that is so that, that,
they don't even sound like this one sounds so much more powerful that if I simply repeat this over and over again, even if it doesn't feel true right now, it it makes this one that was holding me back to seem ridiculous. So yeah, I love it and taking something that's holding you back and transforming it as something better is way better than like you're saying picking out some some mantra off of Pinterest.
Chase Tolleson (58:29)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (58:44)
that may not really be related to anything that's going to help you out right now.
Chase Tolleson (58:48)
Now you said, you know, some of those affirmations can come from something bigger. And, I, the one time I, I, I saw Mark say this was in Austin. He's like, we're in Austin. I can talk about it this way. This stuff has an energy of its own. I just go where it takes me. and I've been on calls with clients. There's like, sometimes they're like, how, how'd you know that that's what I needed to.
needed to see on the Google Doc, my hands just started moving. There's one time in particular that I'm, that's coming up right now that we're talking about his late father. And what do you think he would want to say to you right now?
Mike Bledsoe (59:22)
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (59:36)
I mean, I'm kidding. Full body chills talking about this.
Everything that he said, I heard in my head before he said.
Mike Bledsoe (59:46)
Mm. Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (59:51)
there's it's really easy to get lost in the sauce with, like you said, and lifted, make it, makes it simple. It can be so easy to get lost in the sauce with the seeking and this and that, and that stuff can be fun. Like there's, there's, I'm sure there's valuable pieces and everything. And like I worked 14 weeks, one -on -one with an intuitive mentor and in 2022 to hone my skills. Cause in a past lives reading, she said I was, I spent time as a, an ageless monk at a monastery only for the chosen.
I was also apparently a famous philosopher in the toga days. But when she was recapping the monk lifetime, Mike, I cried spontaneously twice. I was remembering something I didn't know I missed. And I was like, hey, if my soul has been there before, can we work together? I see you do one -to -one. And when I worked with her, things would happen like she would, when we were starting, she would give me names of...
Mike Bledsoe (1:00:31)
Mm.
Chase Tolleson (1:00:49)
unbeknownst to me on the session, it was kids because they're easier to read. Like, well, what's a food that excites them? What's their favorite place to go? And I would I did well, like I and then there was one or like I got this vivid flash of a cup of chocolate ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. And I was like ice cream chocolate with rainbow sprinkles. And she's like, I had to like bite my tongue because that name, that was my son. And that's exactly what he gets when we go out.
Mike Bledsoe (1:01:17)
Hmm
Chase Tolleson (1:01:17)
I was, we were doing a, we had a woman on, we were doing a, I was doing a reading on her, my mentor, Krishanti, was on. And it's like, I feel like you're standing at the top of a waterfall and it's like, you're, you're waiting to jump. And I'm getting the sense that it's time to jump. And this woman, for some reason, had decided, and she was in the middle of building a model of a waterfall in her living room.
So I've waded into deep waters. I've had psilocybin, LSD, 5 -MeO experiences. I keep coming back to the words.
Mike Bledsoe (1:01:56)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Makes things solid. Makes things solid. Yeah.
The, I think I like about that psychedelics is, I think about the, that's how I think about the development of consciousness. I've heard so many different ways of people thinking of how it works. And I'm talking about the consciousness of an individual human being as, the, before the age of five, six, seven years old,
I ask people, I ask people, you know, like, you know, what's your first language? And they go, it's English or Spanish or whoever I'm talking to. I go, no, no, it's energy. It's emotion. If we break down emotion, we break it down into its etymology in Latin. Yeah. Emo tear is where emotion comes from. Emo tear is energy in motion. So when you start.
You know, looking around the more alternative, quote unquote alternative, original health world. Yeah, the original health world may hear some people talk about energy and, you know, if you hear that, just translate it into emotion. Emotion is energy in motion. And and that's how you communicated. That was your first language and.
Chase Tolleson (1:03:16)
Good switch.
Mike Bledsoe (1:03:38)
Everybody is speaking with their energy all the time. It's, it's dictating how people move. it's dictating the tone of voice. It's, it's, it's dictating, you could change the actual words you're using, but the tone and the frequency and all that's going to tell the story. And so, which will also dictate what is can dictate what's happening in the mind and does for most people.
And so this, this is your first language. And the thing that most people don't think about is that you develop energetic patterns, you develop emotional patterns before you have language patterns. So if you look at most of psychology, modern psychology is mapped primarily off of cognitive patterns, not emotional patterns. It's cognitively based first.
But, and if you're in talk therapy, all you can do is cognitive. You actually, that modality is not built to work in the emotion. Emotions may emerge, they definitely will, but that doesn't mean you're working with them. And so these energetic patterns are laid down. And sometimes if you're under stress, your energy is going to run like a river.
Chase Tolleson (1:04:53)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:05:07)
differently in your body than in my body. Right. And so we have different patterns and those get, those are groove, just like cognitive patterns are grooved. And then you start layering on language and we learn words in a different order and they mean different things. And they're, they attach to the foundation of energy in different ways. And your pattern is different, my pattern. And then I've got a different cognitive pattern. It's not, holy fucking shit. We're, we're all snow like,
Everyone really is a snowflake in that way, right? And that too, going back to your realization in the gym, when someone comes in, they're experiencing the world, they see the world in a completely different way than you. It's impossible that they don't. They have to see the world differently because their energetic patterns are different, their cognitive patterns are different. And then you're laying that on top. And what I like about this,
psychedelic work and then also somatic work is you rearrange the chairs on the energetic level and then the cognitive patterns have to find a new place. They have to go somewhere and this is why it's important. This is the conversation of integration from a psychedelic experience is well, how are we going to rearrange the words? You know, you're standing in a place of new choice.
Chase Tolleson (1:06:15)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:06:32)
where are we going to put them? And if we don't, if you're working with the old word still, that will have an impact on the energy. It's not a one way flow. It's not energy is having an impact on just the mind and the mind. The mind is also has an impact there. So you both are are important and the words are absolutely necessary.
Chase Tolleson (1:06:57)
Yeah, I'm glad you, I'm glad you extrapolated on that because sometimes when I, when I make that point, it can seem like I'm brushing off some of that stuff. and I became much more receptive to the words, to my stories via psychedelics clients who I've worked with, who just start a microdosing protocol, much less like if they decide to go and have their own full experience.
big, big shifts. You know, it was, I think it was my third 5MEO experience that I laid down on the ground and at this point, it was my third experience, right? And it was less of a ceremony and more of a, yeah, man, let's do it. And so there's, there's,
somebody made a run for two inch steaks from the local shop and I get handed the number four, five and six pen. It's like you're going to hit four, you're going to rip five, you're going to rip six all in a row. You're going to hold your breath and I'll see you on the other side.
And I mean, my second experience, I went to six and I disintegrated into a rainbow, a rainbow river of source consciousness is how I would describe it. This experience, though, I was plugged into the power grid. And like the whole time I was on my just on my back reaching for the sky, just. And while I'm out there, I'm thinking this is the force.
This is what we use. This is the thing to tap into. This is power. This is like the ultimate power. And then as I come back down, my arms dropped to my side. I'm just kind of like intuitively scooping. I mean, you can see I'm scooping into my chest. And I just get overcome with this feeling of bliss and gratitude. And I realized that that that thing, that supernova, that power station that I was standing in out there. Was love.
Mike Bledsoe (1:09:08)
Hmm.
Chase Tolleson (1:09:09)
Yeah, so yeah, emotion, energy emotion, 100%, super vital. And any work like psychedelics or somatic work that helps to tap on that and get that rearranged plus solid integration work, like looking at the words and the mechanisms, that's a recipe I'm a big fan of.
Mike Bledsoe (1:09:34)
Yeah. And there's not that many people with that recipe. They're usually good with one or the other. Very rare to find someone who can hold both. That's why we're here. the, and you don't have to do psychedelics or there's a lot of somatic therapies out there. I'm about to go and, next month I'm going to go to this retreat. It'll be the third time in a year where it's.
Chase Tolleson (1:09:39)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:10:01)
It's both its language, body language and somatics all built into one week long retreat and holy shit, it's effective. It's effective. I'm going to be putting together a I think they can only the biggest group I've been a part of out of the two times I've been there so far is six people. So for the week, so I'll probably be putting together.
put the word out there right now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be, I'm talking to them about doing a veterans only program retreat at the beginning of November over veterans day holiday. I think that would be the best way to celebrate that. So, just putting on people's radar. I may put a call out for that if you want to make sure you're, in on that.
you need to be on the email list, which means you've been over to the website and you've clicked the buttons and opted into the email and said you're good with me sending emails and you probably replied to an email I sent you so That's how you ensure you get invited the coolest things ever
Chase Tolleson (1:11:17)
The coolest things ever. I mean, one of the coolest things ever is the weekly calls too.
Mike Bledsoe (1:11:24)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so much of my coaching has improved from those retreats I was just talking about. Yeah. Yeah. she learned from the guy, the conscious language guy.
Chase Tolleson (1:11:33)
Yeah.
Mike Bledsoe (1:11:43)
I think Mark spent some time with as well.
Chase Tolleson (1:11:45)
Yeah, yeah.
I know. And like I've, I've had conversations with Mark and I have a episode on my podcast that I had of like him telling all the teachers he spent time with. And I'm still, it's locked away in the recesses. We'll see if we'll see if my subconscious can find it while we're talking.
Mike Bledsoe (1:11:58)
Mm -hmm.
There are some amazing teachers out there. They're usually very terrible at marketing themselves. And they are, they can be saboteur -like in that you look at them and they might be a little messy or they may seem a little off, but I can tell you after...
was in 2012, I started podcasting and fitness and I realized several years in that the smartest people are really quirky. Like the true geniuses are a bit quirky. so don't quite, don't judge a book by that, but if they have a very specific skillset, even though they may not be paying attention to other things in their life, they're very good at this one thing. And
So I've run across several of those. I would, I would put Mark in that category. He, he's a, he is different. Some of the people he's learned from are different. And this woman that I train with here in Texas, Faith is her name. She is also very different. And they've all, you know, been learning from each other over time. They've always been in the background.
Chase Tolleson (1:13:00)
Yes.
Mike Bledsoe (1:13:23)
These are not people you're gonna find in academia. They're not gonna be. They will not have reached tenure at a in the psychology psychology department at a university. It's not happening with but they hold some really great wisdom and I imagine that give chase and I 20 years and will probably be those quirky weird dudes as well standing on the shoulders of giants.
Chase Tolleson (1:13:49)
I'm here for it.
Mike Bledsoe (1:13:50)
and just letting people know like.
The good stuff is not always the easiest to find. You're not gonna walk into the VA office and say, I need help and they're gonna send you to faith at this little farm in the middle of nowhere, Texas.
Chase Tolleson (1:14:08)
I learned early on with my gym that a lot of the most successful people in fitness were the best sales and marketing people. They were not necessarily the best coaches or the most knowledgeable or the people who even cared the most about their people.
Mike Bledsoe (1:14:25)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (1:14:31)
And sales and marketing was, I mean, that's something that I've had the pleasure of learning and I'm still refining it over the last decade. And it's a fun skill to learn.
Mike Bledsoe (1:14:45)
You know, the the just to give everyone an idea of how the world works in regard to these things is.
The best customer that you could get, if we're just talking about business and the numbers, the best customer you can get is you sign, you make a sale one time. You make that sale one time and you've got that contract and then they bring you a hundred thousand clients and everything's just paid through that, their, whatever system they have and you just sell one time. Right. Now, if you're, if you're a coach in the original health space, like Chase and I, the,
Chase Tolleson (1:15:01)
Mm -hmm.
Mike Bledsoe (1:15:26)
Usually we have to sell to every individual customer and which means that every time we serve somebody there has to be a sales process every person goes through and they have to voluntarily agree and they have to think about and be introduced to the ideas that are being presented and so forth. But if all you want to is money, you would go find one company that you would sell to.
You would sell it once and then they would just hand you customers and money. And that's what you're getting at the VA. I love the VA. There's a lot of great things happening there, but know, but know what you're getting. Somebody in that bureaucratic organization was sold something to do it this way, to use this prescription.
to use this machine to do whatever. And now that's what you're going to have access to for free. It's being paid for. It was already sold. It's already been bought and sold and paid for. But if you want to get something for yourself, there are some really great things in the day. And if you really want to take charge of your own shit, you're going to, you got to go, you have to go beyond that, go further.
Chase Tolleson (1:16:54)
Yeah. Yeah, I'd imagine anybody, any veterans listening know that male spec is not what it's cracked up to be. Yeah. And at the VA, you're getting male spec health care.
It's the nature of the beast. And I prefer, you know, one of my hobbies that I'm getting back into is building that 88 Camaro that I sold because I found it again when I was in my barracks in San Diego on a Friday night, laid up with my ankle in a boot, drinking a fifth of Jack to myself, feeling sorry. And my dad called me on Monday and said, hey, you owe me $4 ,800. Your car's in my garage. So I still have it.
Mike Bledsoe (1:17:30)
Yeah.
Chase Tolleson (1:17:44)
and I'm building it again and I could get stuff that's like, it's not mil -spec car parts, right? But I could get stuff on that grade or I could get really nice stuff for my ARs. I can get mil -spec triggers or I could get Geissele triggers. You know, I prefer Geissele.
Mike Bledsoe (1:18:03)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Nice. All right, Chase. Let's, I got a feeling Chase is gonna be a regular.
Chase Tolleson (1:18:14)
Hehehehehe
Mike Bledsoe (1:18:17)
on the show. You have your own podcast. You're also running your own business. Yeah, feel free to let loose. Let people know where to find you.
Chase Tolleson (1:18:28)
Yeah, so the podcast is in the middle of a rebrand as the business shifted gears this year. So search up Chase Tullison. Chase Tullison dot com is the website at coach underscore chase underscore Tullison on Instagram. Right now, the business is I hope. I, for the longest time, resisted all my past lifestyle clients coming to me and say, hey, how did you build this?
I realized that resistance was because I saw an opportunity in the market because I could see what a lot of others had an opportunity to capitalize on a lot of the really good marketers who weren't necessarily serving. So I started taking people on and they started seeing results. So helping people build businesses, helping coaches build businesses that actually thrive. And. Yeah, I mean, that that that's. That's what I've got going on where you can find me and part of the reason that.
I do that. Part of the thing that makes me comfortable doing that, I'll say, is I'm also in business acquisition. I tripped, fell, and landed into that because I kept listening to the opportunities that God, Source, Universe, Energy sent me. And I don't necessarily need to coach, but I love it. I love it.
Mike Bledsoe (1:19:55)
Mm -hmm.
Chase Tolleson (1:19:58)
So that's where you can find me.
Mike Bledsoe (1:20:00)
Right on. And you'll be able to find chase inside the mission after where, we're, we're coaching vets to get better. What, what, that's a really vague comment for me. what, what do you, we're in the beta of the mission after we're coming up on next week, it'll be three months deep into the beta program. what do you see as,
happened in the last three months for the veterans that have been involved.
Chase Tolleson (1:20:36)
From the other side of the zoom screen, I see, things that I notice, body language shifts. Guys are more, open to sharing. And what all of that says to me is, and their shares are more aware of what's going on in their lives and how they're operating. And I know when I left, like that, that meltdown I had in my gym and even how I would run my team,
there were patterns that weren't serving me. And we could hold onto those for longer than some of us care to admit. And I've seen these guys become aware of those. And even if they were previously unaware of them and start shifting them and...
Some of them fully shift these and it's super cool because the doors that have opened for some of these guys and the opportunities that they've started season in their own life. It's rad.
Mike Bledsoe (1:21:38)
Nice. Nice. Yeah.
Progress is made in two and a half months. And the results, it's, it's always cool because we make a 1 % shift now and then fast forward two, three years and holy shit. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the results are over that time. Chase, thanks for hopping on with me. This has been fantastic. Love you brother. And we'll see y 'all next time.
Chase Tolleson (1:22:08)
Sir, love you, man.
Mike Bledsoe (1:22:08)
Thank you for tuning into this episode of the Mission After. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about our free resource, the 10 surprising military habits that are sabotaging your career and your life. This guide is packed with valuable insights to help you overcome common challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take control of your career and life. Head over to the missionafter .org to download your copy now. It's completely free and could be the game changer you're looking for.
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