From Immigrant to Influencer: Christian Ray Flores on Freedom and Faith
Get ready to dive into an inspiring conversation with Christian Ray Flores, a man whose life story reads like the ultimate adventure novel! Born in a communist dictatorship and raised across continents, Christian is now a powerhouse of positive change as the founder of Exponential Life Coaching and author of the uplifting book, *The Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America*. In our chat, we explore the deep-rooted values of freedom, entrepreneurship, and faith that make America unique and worth celebrating. Christian brings a fresh perspective, especially as he reflects on the cultural shifts that challenge our understanding of identity and purpose. So grab your favorite drink, kick back, and join us as we uncover how gratitude and perspective can pave the way for unity and healing in these divided times!
In this vibrant episode of Becoming Bridge Builders, we sit down with Christian Ray Flores, an inspiring figure who defied the odds and found purpose in his journey from a communist regime to becoming a celebrated author and life coach. Christian's tale is one of profound transformation, as he shares the trials he faced growing up and how they catalyzed his mission to help others discover their true potential. His book, 'A Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America,' serves as a testament to his appreciation for the freedoms and opportunities this country provides, especially from the unique perspective of an immigrant. We delve into the themes of freedom, entrepreneurship, and the moral framework that drives success in America. Christian challenges us to confront the self-loathing that can sometimes dominate our national discourse and instead embrace a narrative of hope and gratitude. With humor and candor, he invites us to join him in celebrating the strengths of our nation while also recognizing the challenges we face, urging a return to the core values that foster prosperity and innovation. This episode is a call to action, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own contributions to society and to strive for a life that matters.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we dive into the inspiring journey of Christian Ray Flores, who embodies resilience and purpose, having transitioned from a life in a communist regime to becoming a beacon of hope and leadership.
- Christian emphasizes the importance of deciding where to give before seeking personal gain, suggesting that planning our contributions can lead to a more fulfilling and aligned life.
- He shares his belief that America offers unparalleled freedom and opportunities for entrepreneurship, which he views as essential for prosperity and personal growth.
- The discussion touches on the cultural challenges America faces, highlighting the dangers of self-loathing versus healthy self-criticism in national discourse, especially for immigrants.
Links referenced in this episode:
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Welcome back to Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we explore stories that inspire connection, purpose and transformation.
Speaker A:I am your host, Keith Haney.
Speaker A:Today's guest is someone whose life reads like a global adventure novel.
Speaker A:Born in a communist dictatorship, raised across continents, and now a purpose driven leader helping others live lives that matter.
Speaker A:Christian Ray Flores is the founder of Exponential Life Coaching, a Ascend Academy, co founder of Third Drive Media, and author of the powerful new book the Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America.
Speaker A:Fluent in four languages, with a master's in economics and a background as a pop star, entrepreneur, motivation, movement builder, Christian brings a unique perspective on freedom, leadership and what makes America worth living.
Speaker A:Let's dive into his story and the heart behind his latest book, Culture.
Speaker A:Christian, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Keith.
Speaker B:Hank, thanks for having me.
Speaker A:It's a pleasure to have you on, my friend.
Speaker A:Looking forward to this.
Speaker A:So I'm going to ask you my favorite go to question, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker B:Decide where you're going to give before you get the money.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I think that's one of the best.
Speaker A:And why does that resonate with you?
Speaker B:Well, I think if you plan your life around where you want to give, who you want to help, magically it aligns better to how you're going to get to a place where you can give.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:That's good.
Speaker A:Most of you don't think about that when they're looking to earn money or a career.
Speaker A:They think, you know, it's like I always look at the, this will make me happy.
Speaker A:A certain level will get me to the place where I'm happy.
Speaker A:And then you get there and like someone said to keep moving the goalpost on you.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So it just, I think intuitively I got some of it, Some of it was said to me very specifically.
Speaker B:I think it was crystallized later as advice.
Speaker B:But then I looked back and I go, oh, I think I intuitively knew some of the stuff before.
Speaker B:I just couldn't put words around it.
Speaker A:You know, I love that.
Speaker A:So let's talk about your book titled A Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America.
Speaker A:What inspired you to write it?
Speaker B:Well, I found myself as an immigrant sort of shocked at the amount of almost self loathing that has been happening in the sort of national discourse.
Speaker B:And I'm sure if there are people in your audience who are immigrants, most of us were puzzled by this.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Cause, cause we come here, I'm a legal immigrant.
Speaker B:I came in, I've worked here and paid taxes and contributed for 21 years.
Speaker B:And I'm just so grateful for like a myriad of things that America has given me over the decades that, you know, when it goes from self criticism, which I think is very healthy in a democracy, we have to criticize ourselves and be better, to self loathing, that's a line that you can feel the difference.
Speaker B:And I think most of us who are immigrants, that's the line where it's crossed, almost like a cultural saturation of that kind of talk, where immigrants go are probably the first one to perk up and go, wait a minute, there's something wrong with picture.
Speaker B:So I wrote this book essentially as almost.
Speaker B:It's a very easy read.
Speaker B:Three and a half, maybe like you can read it in three and a half hours or three hours, something like that.
Speaker B:And it's 10 chapters, 10 reasons to love America.
Speaker B:And it's really an optimistic book.
Speaker B:It's not political.
Speaker B:It can be interpreted as such because everything people interpret as political.
Speaker B:But it's not, it's true, you know, like there's an American flag on the COVID and people go, oh, you must be, you know, like an ultra conservative.
Speaker B:Like, it's an American flag.
Speaker B:Are you serious?
Speaker B:You know, is that what it's, you know, you know, American flag should be a unifying thing, right?
Speaker B:But it's turned so politicized, right.
Speaker B:That people sort of react like that visually from an American flag.
Speaker B:My gosh, seriously, this is a flag of your country.
Speaker B:But that's how polarized that's become.
Speaker B:But really, it's 10 chapters, 10 very optimistic views of America.
Speaker B:And there's also some sober criticism in there as well.
Speaker B:And a lot of the stories that I tell are the stories of an immigrant who can see America through that lens.
Speaker A:For someone who doesn't have your experience, because your background is really interesting, you've lived under communism and traveled extensively.
Speaker A:How has that shaped your view of America's strengths and its challenges?
Speaker B:Well, I think strengths, it's just bottom line is freedom, right?
Speaker B:I would say freedom, entrepreneurship, faith as well.
Speaker B:And let me just point those three out real quick, right?
Speaker B:There's like 10 chapters.
Speaker B:So there's other angles.
Speaker B:But I would say freedom is at the very core of people trying new things.
Speaker B:And if you are worried about punishment or the rug being pulled from under you in one way or another, if you're worried about what you say and what you choose, you're not going to try new things.
Speaker B:Which brings me to the second thing, which is entrepreneurship.
Speaker B:Well, entrepreneurship is trying new things.
Speaker B:We're all having this discourse, from communism to socialism to capitalism to conscious capitalism, to all kinds of things in between.
Speaker B:And really the only solution to poverty is prosperity.
Speaker B:And the only solution to creating prosperity is entrepreneurship.
Speaker B:There's really no other way.
Speaker B:Entrepreneurs are the ones who turn scarcity into prosperity.
Speaker B:That's just it.
Speaker B:So if you create a climate where more people are free to try new things, you will bring prosperity to the land you own, the land you live.
Speaker B:And where I grew up, I mean literally in the Soviet Union, for the longest time before it fell apart and it became what it is now, which is sort of a hybrid thing, entrepreneurship was literally illegal, quite literally, you cannot own any property, you cannot own a business, you can't promote a business.
Speaker B:So hence lots of mediocrity, lots of poverty, and also freedom sort of goes hand in hand with that.
Speaker B:Because you might not have a communist dictatorship, a communist regime where entrepreneurship, it's discouraged or illegal, but you can create a climate where people just can't choose, can't say, can't try.
Speaker B:And that creates another roadblock to entrepreneurship as well.
Speaker B:And you just, people are very creative, people are brilliant, people are incredibly courageous.
Speaker B:If you give them an opportunity, they'll make something good that serves other people.
Speaker B:And that's what creates the cycle of prosperity.
Speaker B:And then the third piece, which actually also all of these things are interrelated, is faith.
Speaker B:If you don't have a critical mass of people who believe in a God, who have acquired almost like integrated, a moral framework, right of honesty, sanctity of life, respect, freedom, love, forgiveness, any number of other things, just name the things in the Ten Commandments and beyond.
Speaker B:If that becomes a cultural norm that drives how people behave, that leads to freedom, and freedom leads to entrepreneurship.
Speaker B:And all of these things play together and dance together.
Speaker A:You know, I want to dig that cause you know, what I'm hearing today, that's interesting shift in our culture, in our country, is the freedom part.
Speaker A:We keep debating what freedom is.
Speaker A:You have freedom, but you can't offend people with your freedom.
Speaker A:You have freedom, but we have to kind of monitor your speech.
Speaker A:You have freedom, but we keep quantifying what freedom is.
Speaker A:But that also leads to the other part of that is entrepreneurship, because freedom is kind of being suppressed.
Speaker A:Entrepreneurship is also being suppressed, going, well, you didn't get that without hurting someone else to get there.
Speaker A:So we need to take away from those people because they didn't really earn it.
Speaker A:So we're destroying the two foundations of what you're talking about.
Speaker A:The freedom and, and the Ability for people to innovate and be entrepreneurs.
Speaker B:You're absolutely right about that.
Speaker B:And you know, bottom line is, look, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing.
Speaker B:And as a matter of fact, freedom of speech entails offending somebody.
Speaker B:That's the whole point.
Speaker B:The whole point is, you know, I may say something you disagree with and it will rub you wrong and you will push back, but we can do it in a way where you can be offended.
Speaker B:You can say something to me that's offensive to me, but I can answer that question or question it, or push back and debate.
Speaker B:But that's how truth is arrived at.
Speaker B:So when people shut down that you are shutting down truth seeking, essentially.
Speaker B:And truth seeking is really understanding how the world really works.
Speaker B:So now you're living in a lie, which most dictatorships that suppress free speech end up living in a lie.
Speaker B:Lies upon lies upon.
Speaker B:Lies upon lies.
Speaker B:And that is a prescription for just extreme misery and poverty.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:In entrepreneurship, it's the same thing.
Speaker B:Those ideas that if you have built a business, you have taken from somebody is a completely Marxist sort of thing where basically there's only two types of people, the oppressed and the oppressor.
Speaker B:And if you're not being oppressed, then you're probably the oppressor.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we'll take from you.
Speaker B:Okay, who's the we?
Speaker B:Well, the we is usually the enlightened elite.
Speaker B:Usually.
Speaker B:Which is the state.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And we know how that works in the long run.
Speaker B:But the truth is scarcity and poverty can only be solved by prosperity, and prosperity can only be created by entrepreneurs.
Speaker B:There's just literally no other way.
Speaker A:Yeah, because.
Speaker B:So you're literally.
Speaker B:Yeah, you're undermining the very thing that creates prosperity.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:Because the argument is, well, we can create fairness by taking away your prosperity.
Speaker A:So it's like there's something awfully wrong with that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But the person who takes away becomes then the oppressor and the judge and the God and the sort of.
Speaker B:The elite, but the person who sort of redistributes that doesn't produce anything.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:To the point, to the point of creating wealth.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So, you know, the.
Speaker B:The entrepreneurial among us are the ones who generate everything.
Speaker B:They're the ones who create jobs.
Speaker B:Even if you're not an entrepreneur.
Speaker B:Do you want a job?
Speaker B:Do you want to.
Speaker B:You're going to be a salary person.
Speaker B:Fantastic.
Speaker B:Champion the entrepreneur, because those are the ones who give you the jobs.
Speaker B:Those are the ones who are going to grant you.
Speaker B:Do you know, give you the grants for Your research, Those are the ones who are going to back your.
Speaker B:Your new startup or finance your book, champion those people.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And the culture is really interesting.
Speaker B:Like, if I ask you right now, I'll put you on the spot.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:In the last five years, do you like movies or TV shows?
Speaker A:I do love movies.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:In the last five years, name three movies that has put an entrepreneur on a business person as the hero of the movie.
Speaker A:I can't think of one.
Speaker A:In the last five years.
Speaker B:I can't even name one.
Speaker A:I can't either.
Speaker B:Think about that.
Speaker B:Think about what that says about a culture.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Not one.
Speaker B:Wow, that's deep.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I could think of one where we stole from the entrepreneur and now you see it.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:There's all kinds of Robin Hood sort of style kind of stuff.
Speaker B:It's fun.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker B:It's entertain.
Speaker B:But to really deeply appreciate somebody who built something, created tens of thousands of jobs, for example, gave away all kinds of money.
Speaker B:There's great stories in America of those things.
Speaker B:And people don't create movies around that.
Speaker B:They don't tell those stories.
Speaker A:You know, something else you said I want to get back to, because it was fascinating, because you led into the third point that you made too, about faith.
Speaker A:The people that take away from those who have achieved and then redistribute it.
Speaker A:What they're also doing is they're redefining faith.
Speaker A:Because now they're the gods.
Speaker B:That's a religion.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Because now you need to come to me to be your savior, your rescuer.
Speaker A:And so you look at me as the one who helps you sustain life because I'm providing the resources you need.
Speaker A:So they've even taken faith and they've distorted that.
Speaker A:So it's not a higher power, but it's the person who now has all the things.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And a lot of these almost like subsets of neo Marxist sort of ideas and ideologies that basically derive their derivatives of Marxism, you know, essentially, like widely described as the woke kind of stuff.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They're all really, truly religions at the very core.
Speaker B:Like, they have all the signs of religion.
Speaker B:You know, there's virtue, there's sin, there's some sort of way to get out of it.
Speaker B:And there's a savior and there's sort of this utopia of some sort.
Speaker B:And they're all really false religions.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we got your three strengths.
Speaker A:Let's get to your challenges.
Speaker A:What did you identify as?
Speaker A:Some challenges.
Speaker B:I think, for me, what I see is this Is actually this is going to probably speak to the.
Speaker B:To the ones in the audience who are faith people, right?
Speaker B:Is that how we see work through the lens?
Speaker B:We can't really see work other than through the lens of our culture.
Speaker B:We're all sort of biased, right, One way or another.
Speaker B:But when we see work as a noble, sacred thing, we'll act a certain way.
Speaker B:When we see work as a job, it's sort of meaningless.
Speaker B:We'll see it another way.
Speaker B:If we see work as just a means to get wealth and nothing else, we'll act a certain way.
Speaker B:Each of those scenarios will give us a sense of fulfillment.
Speaker B:And not fulfillment, joy.
Speaker B:Not joy, peace or creativity and flow, depending on how we see the world.
Speaker B:So the criticism is the Christian church, the Christian faith.
Speaker B:I would say the Christian church institution, not the faith, but the institution.
Speaker B:We've always gotten it wrong.
Speaker B:Cause we're people and we're messy, right?
Speaker B:So for a period of time, the Catholic sort of church created this cultural norm of view that there's the sacred realm and then there's the profane.
Speaker B:They call that, literally the profane, let's call it the secular, to use a softer word, which is the sacred, is basically prayer and worship.
Speaker B:And anything has to do with the church.
Speaker B:The occupation, the sacred occupation is one of the, you know, the pastor, the bishop, the, you know, the priest.
Speaker B:And then everything under that, which is like 99% of the rest of us, is the profane, you know, so that doesn't really inspire high levels of creativity and passion and sacrifice.
Speaker B:And, you know, then Martin Luther came around and the Protestants basically destroyed that hierarchy, and they made work as sacred as everything else.
Speaker B:And every occupation is sacred.
Speaker B:And they derive this from this guiding story of the talent, right, that God gives you some resources and he expects some kind of increase.
Speaker B:And that produced what later was described as the Protestant work ethic in a book called the Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which basically means capitalism had a spirit, an animating spirit about it and which was in the Bible, was rediscovered by the Protestants.
Speaker B:Actually.
Speaker B:It was actually originally in the Jewish community that was like, if you go to any synagogue, people will go, yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:That's exactly how we think.
Speaker B:But we sort of forgot about it for a few hundred years and then came back, right?
Speaker B:And so that spirit of capitalism, the people carrying that spirit, that view, came to America.
Speaker B:They sort of laid the seeds of how things are.
Speaker B:And that created the wealthiest period in human history that was exported from the United States to other places, et cetera.
Speaker B:Et cetera.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Okay, here's the critique.
Speaker B:Comes here.
Speaker B:We love the capitalism here in America for the last couple hundred years, eventually we loved capitalism more than we loved the spirit of capitalism.
Speaker B:We forgot about the spirit and we just stay stuck with capitalism, which basically gives you a distorted view of money, of work, of labor, of value creation.
Speaker B:And it becomes selfish, it becomes cold, sometimes destructive, sometimes oppressive.
Speaker B:That's the critique.
Speaker B:I feel like we've lost that spirit.
Speaker B:And if we can go back to the spirit that made capitalism in the first place and integrate it, I think it makes for a much more ethical, holistic view of entrepreneurship, capitalism, value creation, and it will help more people in better ways.
Speaker A:So a conscious capitalism, a capitalism with the spirit.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what are one or two big reasons from your book that you think America's most need to be reminded of?
Speaker A:So I think the conscious capitalism is a big one.
Speaker A:Are there a couple more that you think we need to.
Speaker A:We've kind of lost sight of or forgotten in our recent discourse.
Speaker B:Well, I think, yeah, I think the recent discourse is forgetting who we are.
Speaker B:And so there's like an identity crisis.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And there's a shame, there's a self loathing, which I described in the beginning, is that, you know, when you start questioning the very things that made you who we are, who you are, you will start self destructing.
Speaker B:And you'll see a lot of those tendencies in the west, in Western Europe, for example.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:The Western culture where people literally are self destructing whole countries.
Speaker B:And I think what America has on that is that it has actually much more faith still.
Speaker B:It's not a secular country.
Speaker B:More than half of the people believe in God.
Speaker B:And that gives me hope because that allows us to tap into the source and go, wait a minute, these are the things that made us who we are.
Speaker B:We need to push back against ideologies that are just not, first of all, they're false religions, they're not true, they're destructive, and they're being imported, financed even, and really perpetuated by people who just don't know any better.
Speaker B:But I think more people should just be aware how great civilizations almost never collapse from the outside.
Speaker B:They collapse from the inside.
Speaker B:And I think that's definitely a risk that we have here in the United States.
Speaker B:And I'm optimistic.
Speaker B:I think there is pushback already against sort of these completely false narratives, but I think there should be more.
Speaker A:As an immigrant, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the recent discourse around immigration, because we all have different views of it.
Speaker A:And I like a lot of the.
Speaker A:What you said about we've lost our identity.
Speaker A:How do we regain that with new imports coming into our country?
Speaker A:How do we help them to have that same love of America that you just talked about?
Speaker A:I think because that's also part of the discourse we're having today.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I think that's a great.
Speaker B:That's a really good thought.
Speaker B:Question.
Speaker B:I was a refugee at age 5.
Speaker B:We lived in Chile, and there was this military coup.
Speaker B:Tens of thousands of people got arrested, tortured, killed.
Speaker B:My dad was in a concentration camp for a while, and we were lucky to get out with our lives.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So we were in a refugee facility in United nations, run in Santiago for a little bit of time, and then we got asylum in Germany.
Speaker B:So I was that kid with his parents that came out of pretty bad things happening into a new opportunity, but also with zero promises.
Speaker B:You know, I think I have compassion towards anybody who finds themselves in these extreme situations.
Speaker B:I don't care if they're Christian, Muslim or atheist.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Could be from the socialist bloc or Syria or Venezuela.
Speaker B:I have the.
Speaker B:Obviously, compassion is very human.
Speaker B:It's universal.
Speaker B:We should all have compassion.
Speaker B:And yet, just like your family and your household, and my family and my household has limited resources, we should understand logically that every country has limited resources as well.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:If you have 10 people at your door asking you for food, there's something that happened.
Speaker B:You'll probably, as a compassionate person, feed them, give them a corner to spend the night or whatever.
Speaker B:But there's going to be a limit in time and how many people you can get in under which.
Speaker B:What kind of behavior would you expect in your home?
Speaker B:I think it extrapolates just fine for sort of a macro level.
Speaker B:I had a conversation, and this is how far some sort of discourses have gone through, through that sort of very common sense thing.
Speaker B:Most.
Speaker B:Most immigrants in the United States agree with what I'm saying right now.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Telling you.
Speaker B:Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker A:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:People who already hear, they're like, there's gotta be common sense.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:It's common sense.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But I was on a podcast in Great British.
Speaker B:The British.
Speaker B:And when I said those things, people were like, well, I think most of our audience is not gonna agree with you.
Speaker B:And I'm like, I mean, that's fine, but wow, seriously, you know, this radical, you know, but it's true, right?
Speaker B:And I think some of this narrative that's been sort of flaring up, this is just artificial stuff.
Speaker B:I mean, most people, most immigrants Agree with this.
Speaker B:Very simple.
Speaker B:You know, open borders means there's no nation, right?
Speaker B:Like, if you, you know, it's like not having a front door.
Speaker B:Like, you need to have a front door.
Speaker B:Somebody needs to knock on the front door and ask permission to come in.
Speaker B:And you should tell them you can come in for this long and if you behave this way, you can have this thing, right?
Speaker B:Like that's what you're going to do.
Speaker B:I mean, it's just not complicated.
Speaker B:But if you apply it to a nation, somehow it doesn't apply.
Speaker B:I think it applies fine.
Speaker B:You need to qualify to come.
Speaker B:I came in as a legal immigrant.
Speaker B:I've worked hard, I've paid taxes.
Speaker B:I was lucky enough that I was just married to an American.
Speaker B:So I got a green card, you know, through that.
Speaker B:And, you know, we lived.
Speaker B:We actually had no intention of coming to the US until my wife's health sort of started deteriorating in Eastern Europe.
Speaker B:She's an American.
Speaker B:And we're like, all right, I guess we need to go.
Speaker B:So we went and all our children were born abroad and all of those things.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:But I would say, again, I'm getting off topic here.
Speaker B:Like, if you think about when we go, we're a nation of immigrants, okay, that's true.
Speaker B:Well, how was it in the heyday where people came in and who built this country, you know, okay, they come to the front door, they were let in under conditions, right?
Speaker B:They had an interview, they were checked for whatever.
Speaker B:You know, they were let in.
Speaker B:When they were let in, were they given everything they need?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Were they a burden to society?
Speaker B:Were taxpayers paying for their food, the shelter, the schooling of their kids?
Speaker B:No, they were not.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:They were not.
Speaker B:But the people who come in now, they're immediately given all those things and somebody has to pay for it.
Speaker B:And it's not going to be the government, because government doesn't produce anything.
Speaker B:It's going to be you and me.
Speaker B:So, okay, so then what are the numbers?
Speaker B:And that's fine to a degree, but there's a limit, right?
Speaker B:There's inherently a limit.
Speaker B:So you have to understand, okay, what's the limit then?
Speaker B:What are we agreeing to as a taxpayer, right, as free people agreeing to this, this kind of taxation so we can support people that are in need?
Speaker B:Okay, what are the limits there?
Speaker B:These are all very common sense conversations.
Speaker B:Doesn't mean that you don't give.
Speaker B:But if you think about in the beginning, where we sort of appeal to that nation of immigrants, say, okay, how did it happen?
Speaker B:Well, nobody gave anybody anything at the time, anything, what did that do?
Speaker B:It really sobered up the people who wanted to come.
Speaker A:Very true.
Speaker B:The people who wanted to come, they were all very self reliant.
Speaker B:They were confident they're gonna work their butts off.
Speaker B:They had maybe a family member who can house them.
Speaker B:They had a plan and they roughed it sometimes for a generation before something happened that was good for them and they came anyway.
Speaker B:Which attracted the most bold, the most entrepreneurial, the most resilient people on earth.
Speaker B:And that's why we are where we are.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker B:Well, if you want to attract those people, create the conditions for that.
Speaker B:Or you can open the door and go, whoever comes in, you open the door.
Speaker B:You have a family?
Speaker A:Yeah, I do, Keith.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So tell me about your family.
Speaker B:Kids.
Speaker B:I have six kids in the house.
Speaker A:Still or no, we have four still in the house.
Speaker B:Okay, great.
Speaker B:So somebody comes at your door, to your door and say, hey, we need some help.
Speaker B:And you go, sure, come on in, eat all of my food, sleep in whatever room you want to.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You know it's going to be like half, five seconds before your family has a revolt against that and kick me out.
Speaker B:They'll kick you out of the house?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:They'll make you an immigrant and refugee.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Well, it's just, it's that's, it's that uncomplicated in my opinion.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But I think a lot of the debates are, have just.
Speaker B:They're so, they were so divorced from reality and they're stoked up by people who want to stoke up controversy.
Speaker B:It shouldn't even be a scandalous discussion.
Speaker B:I don't think we can debate the fine print.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How many, for how long?
Speaker B:What are the conditions?
Speaker B:All those things.
Speaker B:But the macro things, open borders versus a border.
Speaker B:These are things that shouldn't even be debated.
Speaker B:These are artificially created debates, I think.
Speaker A:But we are living in divided times.
Speaker A:So as you think about the divided times you're living in, how do we bridge the gap between the ideologies and our cultural divides?
Speaker B:That's a good question, I would say.
Speaker B:I mean, education comes to mind.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And for those who are born here, I mean, and for those who are not, actually, because I was very American in spirit, years and years before I even came, I was just very interested in the culture.
Speaker B:I was interested in what made America the thing that it is.
Speaker B:That was very appealing to me.
Speaker B:So I studied biographies, I read a lot of books as a matter of fact, as an entrepreneur, I succeeded.
Speaker B:As an artist, I succeeded.
Speaker B:My first success was Due to me learning about these American ways of thinking in the place I was living at the time.
Speaker B:And it gave me quite a bit of success.
Speaker B:So I came in a fan.
Speaker B:I mean, it's sort of ironic that I do high performance coaching, personal branding coaching for professionals, business leaders, people like that, pastors as well.
Speaker B:And in an ironic sort of turn of events, what I'm teaching them and helping them change their lifestyle and create a different future for themselves is to be more American, you know?
Speaker B:So here I am, an immigrant, teaching, helping Americans be more American, because I think Americans, you know, if you have a good life, that creates a weak person oftentimes.
Speaker B:And if you're a weak person, you create a hard life.
Speaker B:And that's how the cycle goes, right?
Speaker B:And hard life creates strong people, and strong people create a good life.
Speaker B:But that cycle can be broken very easily by a strong person creating a hard life on purpose so they can overcome obstacles, build a different future, create a legacy for their children.
Speaker B:And that's essentially what I do as a coach, right?
Speaker B:I create harder conditions that are constructive hardships so that people can create a new career path.
Speaker B:But all of that comes from essentially education of how the world really works.
Speaker B:And if you have schools, middle schools, high schools, universities that don't allow debate, diversity of ideas, don't educate people about what made this civilization, this civilization, the good, the bad, and the ugly as well, right?
Speaker B:You're creating essentially whole generations of people who don't know how the world works, and then they're offended when their life doesn't come together.
Speaker B:And I think that's a problem, right?
Speaker B:You create weak people.
Speaker B:Weak people create hard times because they just can't hold a job.
Speaker B:They can't build a company.
Speaker B:They feel like they're victims.
Speaker B:I think education is a big part of it, and it could be all kinds of ways of doing it.
Speaker B:But I feel so strongly about it that I pulled two out of my three children out of school, and we homeschooled for 13 years because the education where we were.
Speaker B:They were in public schools.
Speaker B:It was just pathetic.
Speaker B:It didn't make any sense to me.
Speaker B:And I didn't want my children to be essentially brainwashed into being cogs in a machine.
Speaker A:That's very commendable.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This is a fascinating conversation.
Speaker A:Christian, I want to ask you my favorite question because I could talk to you all day because I think we have to have such a great rapport.
Speaker A:But what do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:I want to.
Speaker B:I want my children to have incredibly meaningful impactful lives, strong families, and a sense of joy and purpose.
Speaker B:That's the number one legacy.
Speaker B:And I want my clients to create generational legacies of their own.
Speaker B:And I think that's the stuff.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And also perhaps, maybe through the content, I create the writing.
Speaker B:I have a newsletter that goes out every day, couple of weeks.
Speaker B:I have a YouTube channel.
Speaker B:And a podcast is to tell stories that offer perspectives that might be helpful to people, a reframe of certain things that are just not true.
Speaker B:And I think that's the whole purpose, I think, of us listening to this, for example, is that we don't want to live in lies.
Speaker B:We want to live in truth.
Speaker B:And truth is sort of complicated to find, but if you seek it, you'll find it.
Speaker B:It's not that complicated in that sense.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:So I want to create content that sort of diffuses lies, excuses victim mindsets and allows people to be empowered to create a new future for themselves.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:So, Christian, in season six of the podcast, we're doing something new.
Speaker A:We're doing a surprise question.
Speaker A:Pick a number between one and six for your surprise question.
Speaker B:One and six, that's three.
Speaker A:Oh, I love this one.
Speaker A:If you got stuck in an elevator and were forced to listen to only one song, what song would you pick?
Speaker B:One song.
Speaker B:How deep is your love by the Bee Geese.
Speaker A:Oh, cool.
Speaker B:I just think it's so almost like sunshine in a song.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:It's one of those songs where you go, who writes like this?
Speaker B:You know, I'm a songwriter, so.
Speaker B:Envy.
Speaker B:Songwriter envy.
Speaker A:I thought you were saying Careless Whisper by Wham.
Speaker B:I mean, there's so many genius.
Speaker B:Genius songs, obviously.
Speaker B:But you told me to pick one, so I picked this one.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:So, Christian, where can people find you, find your content and connect with you on social media?
Speaker B:Christian.
Speaker B:Ray Flores is on Instagram.
Speaker B:I think LinkedIn as well.
Speaker B:ChristianRayFlores.com is the newsletter that's a really good resource to just sign in, get a couple of emails a week.
Speaker B:One thing, if you are building a personal brand, if you're thinking about it, which is, by the way, the best way to serve people.
Speaker B:The easiest way to reach anyone, anywhere this day, go to Exponential Life.
Speaker B:Exponential starts with an X without the E, and you'll find a really cool free tool.
Speaker B:That's my coaching website that basically helps you really evaluate how ready you are to do that.
Speaker B:And it's a good place to start because you can go, okay, here's what I have.
Speaker B:Here's what I don't have?
Speaker B:How do I bridge the gap?
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Well, Christian, thank you for taking the time to share your story, your insights, and your heart for America.
Speaker A:Your book reminds us that gratitude and perspective are a powerful tool for healing and unity for our listeners.
Speaker A:You can find the little book of Big Reasons to Love America wherever books are sold and learn more about Christian's work at Exponential with an X Life Coaching.
Speaker A:Until next time, keep building bridges, keep seeking truth, and keep living a life that truly matters.
Speaker A:Thank you, Christian for being a guest on the podcast.
Speaker B:It's my pleasure.
