Episode Transcript
Alara Sage (00:01.627)
Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Wealth Embodied, where we activate and inspire you in your wealth consciousness, your creative genius, and your visionary impact. I'm your host, Alara Sage. And a topic that I am very passionate about and I feel needs to be brought up, being discussed, spoken about is how trauma in our personal life, in our childhood, or in our adult life, can
affect our businesses, can affect our decision making, and oftentimes is not even fully recognized. I know that I had this experience where trauma within me was really the underlying energy behind some decisions that fundamentally destroyed my business. And we have another similar conversation, very profound conversation with our special guest today, Brad Chandler.
who is a successful entrepreneur who built a thriving real estate investment company that has flipped over 4,500 houses. Where now with that company running independently of him, Brad is dedicating his life to his true passion, which is really helping others break free from their past, this trauma that we're speaking to today, overcoming their limiting beliefs and creating the life and the relationships that they desire and they deserve. Brad.
Welcome to the show.
BradChandler.com (01:31.906)
Thanks for having me. Excited.
Alara Sage (01:34.705)
And I wanted to read off something that you had in your profile that really hit me and really made me say, yes, yes, yes, I want to hear this man speak. I want to hear his story. And that was really that you had this internal struggle that cost you two marriages, $9 million, $9 million in business mistakes.
and you were reliant on alcohol and marijuana as an escape. Those are profound realizations. Can you tell us a little bit of how all of that transpired from that past trauma?
BradChandler.com (02:18.006)
Yeah, and I'm gonna clarify like I try not to use trauma because it scares people away. I'd say out of the hundred clients that I've helped profoundly change their lives. If I asked them, there'd probably only be about five or six who said, I had a trauma in my childhood. Trauma can be as little as your little sister coming home from the hospital from being born and your parents paying a bunch of attention to her and your little six year old or two year old self said, Mommy and daddy must not love me. They love her more. So
Don't get confused with the word trauma. You don't have to have been locked in a cage or sexually molested. It's anything that you made a story about in your childhood that's affecting you. So to answer your question on Laura, about three and a half years ago, trying to get my son help for anxiety, I was on a zoom call with a performance coach and she said, you have a tick. And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, you blink like crazy. When you talk about your childhood, you may have some underserved childhood trauma.
that's affecting your son's anxiety. And I'm like, me? No way. I'm a, I've been a single dad for years. I'm amazing dad. Okay. But if you think so, I'll try. I'll do whatever you say. And I, and I was, I was at the point where I would try anything. And so I flew to park city. She invited me out to work with her ex Navy seal husband herself. And in this three hour session, a Laura, my life forever changed in such a profound way. And how did it happen?
We simply, is, it's not complex stuff here. We all suffer from the same thing. It's these meanings and these stories that we tell ourselves in our childhood to get us through these stressful times. And that's exactly what they should, our brain should be doing at six years old. Daddy's hitting me with a belt in my case and daddy's making fun of me and my parents are always fighting about money because there's something wrong with me. If it's my parents' fault, I'm completely helpless. I am screwed. But if it's my fault, I can control it, right?
I can be a better boy and then dad will stop making fun of me and stop spanking me and parents will stop fighting about money. So that's what we did in that three hour session after going to three decades of therapy and 50 different marriage marriage counseling sessions. It was that three hour session where everything changed. We just reversed the stories and through neuroplasticity, we told my myself a new story. And then I was free. I was free to be my authentic self. And that's when my life changed in a profound way.
Alara Sage (04:33.105)
Mm, so delicious. I love two things you said first, bringing up the conversation about trauma. I think we don't need to hide from that word, but we do need to rephrase it and reidentify and understand that, yeah, it doesn't mean radical trauma. can be very simplistic things that actually from an adult point of view doesn't seem traumatic, you know, that a child went through. We're like, that just happened. That was pretty little.
But again, from your little version of you in that moment, you created stories around and it became a trauma in your body. It's so important to re-identify, redefine is what I mean. Redefine that word, make it more available to all of us. And the second thing you said was, no, but I'm a great father, right? Which is so impactful because it's important to understand that we've all experienced these moments of emotional pain.
and created, as you said, these stories and these belief structures about ourselves around that pain. That doesn't make us a bad person. That doesn't make us a bad father, a bad mother, a bad parent, a bad entrepreneur, any of this. It just means that we need to address it and that we are to some degree bringing that into.
our physical reality. And that first little thing of just recognizing doesn't make us a bad person is important because we have to be able to accept that about ourselves. Was it hard for you to accept that you were bringing this energy in and having this effect on your son?
BradChandler.com (06:06.382)
It wasn't. And I'll tell you what the turning point was. A couple of weeks after that, I continued. I took my son to another program. And at that program, the lady was like, well, you're a shitty father or you're a pothead or something. She goes, and I was like, just crushed, right? And then she followed that up with, what else could you expect coming from the father that you came from? So everything that we talk about today, you're not going to hear either of us say like, it's your fault. This is not your fault. It wasn't my fault. So it wasn't hard.
How can you so children only misbehave? I believe in and got this from dr. Gabor Matei He says children only misbehave for one reason one reason only they lack connection with a parent If you lack connection with yourself, which I did Even though I was a good parent and I didn't hit my kids make fun of them My lack of self-worth which was created from the stories that I told myself from childhood my lack of self-worth Created pressure on my kids
My lack of self-worth created disconnection with myself. If I had not connected with myself, how in the world can my kids be? They weren't. And that's why they both had behavioral issues and anxiety. Again, was I a bad father? No. If your kids have behavioral problems and you want to get to the core of it, just grab your spouse, go into the bathroom and look in the mirror. You're likely the cause of it. It's not your fault, but you're likely the cause of it. So if you want to help your child, what you do is you learn to reconnect with yourself.
Learn how to find the self-love inside yourself and then everything in your world will change.
Alara Sage (07:40.738)
Absolutely. And so how did this come into your business?
BradChandler.com (07:46.303)
which part.
Alara Sage (07:46.64)
How did it affect your business, this lack of self-worth?
BradChandler.com (07:51.758)
Oh my goodness. uh, from 2005 to 2017, I made five business mistakes that cost myself and my partner $9 million. And when I look back after going through this transformation, I could pin every single one of those mistakes to this. I'm not worthy, but if I can make a bunch of money, people are going to think I'm worthy and people will love me because that's how my dad showed me love. He didn't know how to love himself.
He thought life was all about money. So I thought life was all about money. So from ninth grade reading a book on how to buy real estate with no money down, I knew I wouldn't get into real estate because it makes you can make a ton of money. I didn't know why I was so motivated by real estate, but that was it. It was all about if I can make a bunch of money. And that's what a lot of entrepreneurs think. They started business thinking when I get to be worth five or $10 million or make a million dollars a year, everything's going to be great. And I'm here to tell you that's complete BS.
we can show you how to get to the state that you think that's going to bring today. And when you get to that state today, which is inner peace and inner self love, then the chances of you making that money go up astronomically, because you're not going to be chasing money for the sake of making yourself feel better. Hopefully you'll be making an impact. And then when you when you strive to make an impact in other people's lives, the money always comes.
Alara Sage (09:15.736)
super important because money doesn't solve issue. Money doesn't solve problem. And in fact, it will actually amplify it. If you feel low self-worth and you bring in more money, it's not going to create a feeling of worthiness. It's going to amplify that lack of self-worth and create that inner anxiety, right? That feeling of like, my gosh, if I lose this now that I have this money, now that I have the success, if I lose it,
I will be seen as not worthy. Right. It comes back again. And then wonderfully what you put is also it also doesn't create that fulfillment. Right. But when we connect to that self love that you're speaking to and that self worth first, then what we create is that self fulfillment because it's already rooted in that self love. First and foremost, it's such a delicious conversation because again, I don't see often self love.
and entrepreneurship, those two words coming together.
BradChandler.com (10:17.614)
Well, look, when you, when you look for 47 years, if we'd had this podcast five years ago, we wouldn't have, but let's just say we were on the podcast and you're like, Brad, do you love yourself? I'd have been like, of course, a Lara. Do you care what other people think? I'd have been like, no. Do you have, do you have high self esteem and confidence? Yeah, I'm very confident. All of that was a lie. So if we're going to go and start talking about self love and I have low self esteem, I'm going to be terrified. Cause I'm going to be like, Ooh, I don't want to go there because my subconscious mind
doesn't want me to go there because it's protected me. It's kept me alive for 47 years. So it's addicted to this feeling. And it was only through this, the reprogramming of the subconscious mind that my entire world changed. And that's what everyone's, everyone's problem that is listening today is a thinking problem. And that thinking problem is created from beliefs and, stories that were told as a child. And most of them are stuck in the subconscious mind. I didn't wake up every day and say, I'm no good. And I'm, I'm a piece of shit.
But my subconscious mind was telling me that driving my behavior.
Alara Sage (11:18.67)
I really love what you said because I had the same thing with the do you love yourself? Are you confident? Before I was aware of all of this, I really had a fantastic facade of confidence. Nobody in my life had any idea of the deep lack of self-worth that I felt because of the air that I portrayed and put out there. And just as you said, it was a defense mechanism. I was so scared.
BradChandler.com (11:31.394)
Me too.
BradChandler.com (11:39.778)
Me too.
Alara Sage (11:46.683)
deep within subconsciously, again, not consciously of be exposed in my belief of unworthiness that I would do whatever it took to continue to bring that facade forward, which is really quite exhausting.
BradChandler.com (12:02.99)
Yeah, wearing a mask is not being your authentic self self as I, it creates a lot of stress. just, it just piles on. It's just like this virtuous cycle. It's no good.
Alara Sage (12:13.818)
So when you're working with clients and we're really speaking here primarily about entrepreneurship, even though of course this affects everything in your life, you know, as we mentioned earlier, it can affect your relationship to your children, you know, your intimate relationships, all relationship. There's only that's the only thing that exists really is relationship. But when we speak to entrepreneurs, when you're helping entrepreneurs through these, what are you really seeing the evolution of how this deep inner work resolving
this lack of self-love, this lack of self-worth in themselves transforms in their business.
BradChandler.com (12:52.162)
Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to make a point about that and then come back to your question. So many people come to us with things around business or anxiety or depression, racing mind working too much. And so much of it leads back to relationships as you were saying earlier, so that people that are sticking with the program and having the most success are like, wow, it was really all about the relationship. So I mean, there's so many stories, but one that's was a review we just put out like last week on social media.
I reconnected with a client I talked to him a couple months and he wasn't doing the work and so he reached out to me when I was on vacation over Christmas in Stowe Vermont and I had this like 10 minute conversation with him I said dude do these three things right ever and then we scheduled a call because I didn't have time then in two weeks later he's like Brad I there's not much to talk about because I did what you said and I'm like right back to being this an amazing in this amazing place I go well tell me about it what's the amazing place like and he started to tell me about how he's not drinking and he's not using drugs and his relationship with his girlfriend is better
His relationship with God is better. He's studying the Bible again. His relationship with his parents has never been better. He goes, Brad, do you know that last quarter, the last quarter of 2024, I made more money than I've made my entire life. And he's like, it's not like I didn't make money before I'd made millions. And I said, David, and the only reason I'm saying this is because he's publicly put this out there. He's like, I was like, how, how much of the coaching, how much did the coaching affect that? He was like a ton, a ton. I would not have done that.
without your coaching. Cause he was like, I was a mess. I was a mess trying to work a hundred hours and going hard and drinking and not doing, not taking care of myself. And that all changed.
Alara Sage (14:29.454)
And so what was the problem that he came to you with?
BradChandler.com (14:34.062)
just kind of out of control, racing mind anxiety out of control, had issues with his partner. He said, had it not been for the coaching, he would have separated from his partner and him and his partner have been integral, obviously, and, know, making as much money as they did.
Alara Sage (14:52.635)
Wow. So again, I just really love sharing this stuff with the audience, right? The transformation of out of control anxiety, like borderline about to lose important relationships and drinking alcohol, right? Kind of like finding these other ways of numbing and shifted into.
and improve, not even just like letting that relationship go and starting over again, like improved relationship, best relationship with these very important people in their life. And then also this magnificent year in business, profound transformation indeed. Is there something that you find?
where people really struggle with this process.
BradChandler.com (15:43.928)
You know, a lot of people, have been shy or delayed the program because I talk a lot about this comes from your parents and this is a multi-generational curse that we just keep passing down. And I say a lot, the greatest gift that can give your child is to break this multi-generational curse. And how do you do that? You teach your child how to love themselves unconditionally. How in the world can you teach your child to do it? How could I have done it when I didn't, I didn't feel it myself. So that's one of the, the, challenges is just the.
I think people think that I'm gonna like, because I say it's the parents fault, like I'm gonna trash their parents or, and it's just the opposite. It's, I'm gonna show you that your parents did the absolute best that they could do, just like I did the best, just like you did the best. And you'll actually have a better relationship with your parents after. So that's one struggle. Another struggle is, this is a lifelong journey. My transformation happened in three hours.
But it wasn't over then I keep, I keep working at it every day. I remember the, the gentleman who took me through the program the night before the program, he said, I want to be in a place where no person can negatively affect me. And I thought this guy is a fool. Like, what is he talking about? And here we are three and a half years later and I'm not there. I'll never get there. But am I so much closer? Like I used to be angry a lot, ticked off a lot trigger a lot. I am hardly ever angry. And if I do it, it stays for seconds because
I've got this program called the Joy Regenerator where it's just a process. Every thought, every emotion begins with a thought. So a thought creates an emotion, emotion creates an action. It's to keep us alive. You see a lion, the thought is, he's gonna eat me. You get scared, your brain pumps blood to your legs so you can run. But guess what? Fear and anger are the two things that have kept us alive for six million years. We don't need anymore. There's no lions chasing us. But yet fear and anger dominate our relationships, our health, our businesses and everything.
So I think that would be another thing is just, I spoke so long I forgot where I was going with this. just knowing that it's a journey. It's a journey and in three hours we can make profound changes, right? But if you don't keep up with it, just like if you lost 60 pounds and you started eating donuts and sitting on the couch, it's gonna go away. You've gotta keep working at it. But here's the thing, the more you work at it, the better and better and better and better it gets.
Alara Sage (17:44.208)
Well, you were
Alara Sage (18:06.672)
It's such an important comment. We just said the better and the better and the better it gets because it does it. There truly is no ceiling. This has been my experience. My partner, I say this all the time to each other. We're like, we think we've reached this. Oh, we're so much in love with ourselves, with each other, with life. And then there's more and then there's more. And it's just incredible because you really feel fulfilled. You feel like this is plenty. This is overflowing. And then there's more and
I love that you speak to it being a journey because I think in our society, you know, the quick fix is such an addiction. And as you mentioned, yeah, in your process and with how you work with clients, you can do a lot in a one session. You can already transform so much, but it's the journey that actually makes it fun. It's not meant to be just one thing. We would be so bored.
if we didn't have this opportunity to continuously evolve ourselves, become better people, do things better, do things more effectively, do things more efficiently, do things more from our heart in this profound aligned way. So it's very important to understand that a lot can happen in a short amount of time with what you're bringing forth and what you're bringing to the audience and your methodologies. And then also that beautiful awareness that, it is a continued
journey, what would you recommend for people who are listening to this and they're recognizing that they didn't have necessarily connection with their parents, self-love, self-worth all through their childhood, the vast majority of people, and they really want to take those first steps. What are those first steps that you recommend?
BradChandler.com (19:58.316)
Yeah, so I created a quiz for the old Brad, the one that would have said, I love myself because had I had this quiz, I would have seen my gosh, I really have some issues. It's just a self love quiz. It's 12 questions. takes about three minutes. That's on our website at unlock limitless you.com. I'd start there. So we all change begins with awareness. So we want to see where are you at? Do you have lack of self love? Do you have mild self love? Do you have extreme self love? If you've got the lower two, I promise you every area of your life is negatively affected.
The second thing is to realize that whatever you're struggling with, whatever negative behavior you have, it's not your fault. And here's why every single negative behavior. And we could literally spend an hour talking about, but I'll just highlight five drinking too much, eating too much, shutting down with your spouse, anxiety, depression, racing mind, workaholism. All of those are actually your brain solution to a problem. It thinks is even worse over here. So what is our subconscious mind supposed to do? It's supposed to take us from pain to pleasure.
So even though the drinking six beers at night is bad, your brain is like, it's okay, because it's better than this thing over here. When we do the work, Alara, we find out that this thing over here that your brain thinks is worse is that untruth that was formed during childhood. So what we do is we use the science of neuroplasticity to show your brain a true that when in your life, this was not true. So now your brain can't hold an untruth and a truth at the same time.
a mismatch detector goes off. So the truth literally rewrites the neural pathway holding the negative belief or the thought that's driving this negative behavior. Guess what happens to the negative behavior? It vanishes because now it's got nothing to fuel it. Your anxiety, your fear to get on stage when you don't like that, your brain is like, but if you get on stage and you mess up and someone makes fun of you like my dad did, then you might get kicked out of the tribe. And we've been around for 6 million years. We've only not lived in tribes like,
a small fraction, you get kicked out of the tribe, you're dead. So when you walk up on that, when you're getting close to that stage and your heart starts racing and you start feeling blush, your body's protecting yourself from ultimately thinking, my God, if I do this, I could die. So realize that it's not your fault. And that's how, that's how you begin the journey is, just to figure out where you are and then to know, okay, we've got to go do a deep dive and figure out what is the stories and meanings that are causing the negative behavior.
Alara Sage (22:22.274)
Yes, beautiful. So awareness is definitely the first step and we'll have that link to the quiz here. Do you know any of the questions off the top of your head?
BradChandler.com (22:30.72)
Of course. One of the questions is, you, do you have problems with, deeply connected intimate relationships? If you have a repeated, my God, I get in these bad relationships over and over and over again. Cause if you lack self love, you're always going to match almost always going to match with someone black self love. Do you have self destructive behavior? Do you get, can you not take criticism? do you often get irritated with small things that others wouldn't self destructive behavior?
Do you need stuff to cope with emotions like drinks or porn or shopping or something like that?
Alara Sage (23:05.464)
Yeah, definitely. I love that because I'm thinking back to the old version of me too. And I definitely would have said yes to the lack of being able to take criticism. I remember I wouldn't necessarily react to it. I would just kind of I don't remember how I reacted, but I wouldn't deny it to the person. I would pretend to receive it. But my God, I would just then go into these mental places where I was just
BradChandler.com (23:16.61)
Me too.
Alara Sage (23:34.426)
beating myself up and beating myself up with that criticism. And I would never tell anybody about it. Never.
BradChandler.com (23:44.526)
That's interesting. I did the opposite. would I would fight when my spouses would come to me and be like, well, you just did this. I'd be like, well, you did this, this, this and this. And then I would retreat and I'd flight and for three or four days, I had this massive anxiety in my chest, I didn't want anything to do with them. And now it's so different when my life partner comes and says, you know, this upset me. I'm like, okay, let's talk about it. I didn't mean upset you. Because now we don't have two unworthy people fighting for their worth. It's it's a beautiful thing.
Alara Sage (24:07.162)
Yes.
Alara Sage (24:13.136)
It really is. Yes.
BradChandler.com (24:14.22)
Now conflict actually brings us closer together. The problem in relationships, we have a 50 % first divorce rate and the third marriage divorce rates like 72%. It's never about the actual relationship. It's the relationship each individual has with themselves. So if your marriage sucks, and you're like, I got to go to marriage counselor, I gotta get my spouse to go to marriage counseling. No, you don't. One of my one of my most, I don't know, proud client proud moments as a serving a client was when he
wrote me a text that said thank you for changing my life and my family's life. He was about to get divorced like 18 months ago. I never met with his wife. I never had a marriage counseling session, but he changed the relationship with he had with himself. And then she was able to change and now their marriage is flourishing.
Alara Sage (24:56.891)
So beautiful. We're coming to the end here, but you're wearing a shirt that says you deserve it. And I remember saying that out in your intro. What what does you deserve?
BradChandler.com (25:08.706)
So Mark Minkola, another guest I had on my podcast, I have a podcast called how to be happy for entrepreneurs. He says, take a six year old picture. If you lack self love, put it on your desk. And every time you look at that little child, think innocent and deserving. So you deserve it. It is whatever you want. You deserve to be happy, deeply connected. And if you're not, it's not your fault. It's just these stories that you tell yourself and
Alara Sage (25:29.433)
I love it.
BradChandler.com (25:36.067)
It helped you at a time in your life. It really helped you. But now it's probably hurting or destroying your life.
Alara Sage (25:43.28)
So beautiful. I love the shirt and I love the image of saying that to yourself, your little version of you.
BradChandler.com (25:51.618)
I've got like six, six or seven of these. I've got love yourself. I've got be your own best friend. I stole this one from Jenny Craig. says the only diet that works is self love.
Alara Sage (26:00.113)
Did you make those shirts? Awesome. I love it. So how can people find you? We'll have the link to the quiz below. Anything else on social media? Anywhere else that you want to call attention to?
BradChandler.com (26:01.792)
I made them,
BradChandler.com (26:11.926)
Yeah, we're all over social media. If you go to unlock limitless you forward slash Brad, it has everything it has the quiz, it has the podcast, it has all my social media links, the website, everything can be found there.
Alara Sage (26:25.818)
Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. But more deeply, I just want to say thank you for your own process, your transformation, the courage it took you to recognize your trauma and how it was affecting the people in your life and yourself, and for taking the steps to transform yourself. It's people like you that hold the light for others and really change the world. So thank you very much, Brad, for who you are.
BradChandler.com (26:53.944)
Thank you so much.
Alara Sage (26:56.249)
And to the audience, thank you. Thank you. As always, I deeply appreciate you. And again, you know, this is stuff that the more we talk about, the more it becomes known and we all get to recognize it and we all get to become better people and it's a ripple effect and we get to change the world through that self-awareness. share this episode, go take that quiz.
I have no doubt it'll be very eye-opening and start that journey if you haven't already. As always, much love until next time.
