Finding Your Way: Transformative Journeys with Chuck Chapman

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the work at home rockstar podcast today. I am talking to a counselor, a coach and author at chuckchapman. com. And what he does is he helps mostly men with relationship issues, making their needs a priority and living in alignment with their values. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Chuck Chapman.

Hey, Chuck, you ready to rock?

Chuck Chapman: Let’s do it.

Tim Melanson: tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Chuck Chapman: Sure. Yeah. So, I think the most inspirational pieces is that, you know, I was stuck in a. A career that I kind of hated. I was working in advertising and marketing and I had gone through my own personal development and. one of the things that happened to me along the way was I got cancer, I got thyroid cancer, I was 38 years old and this was really kind of a wake up call for me.

I’m like, what am I doing with my life? And, you know, why am I showing up at a job that I hate every day? And I started working with a counselor [00:01:00] and so I was a client first. And what I realized after working with this counselor was it was a gift and such a gift. I wanted to be able to give it to other people.

And so I decided to go back to school and change careers and the mid part of my career and become a therapist. And as I started working as a therapist, I also really realized how underserved men were and not just that, but that men just, they didn’t have anybody to talk to. And so, as I started providing more services geared towards men, what I found was not only did my business and success in business take off, but my personal gratification and happiness also took off.

So, it was a decision that I made [00:02:00] to make a shift because I wasn’t happy with what was going on. I had a crisis, which made me really evaluate what was important to me, and I couldn’t see myself stuck in a career for another, 20, 25 years and hating it. doing something that for me felt like I was not only giving back, but being a service, that’s where I found my gratification at.

And so I think that, you know, the most successful thing I think was just making that decision to do it. It was tough. I mean, I was working full time, had a family and going to school at night to try to make this thing happen. But, I’ve never looked back And thought, you know, I want to go back to work for somebody else.

fact, one of the things I sort of told, tell my friends is like, I’m a terrible employee. You know, that’s why I quit my job is because I needed, I needed to work for myself. I’m not a, I’m really not good at taking orders and, you know, [00:03:00] being told what to do.

Tim Melanson: I hear you man. I’m definitely employable anymore and I’m surprised that some people are

Chuck Chapman: I know.

Tim Melanson: you know, it is one of those things, but I mean, there is something for everybody, for sure. yeah, I mean, your story is great and, Pluto’s for you for actually seeking that help.

’cause I mean, we talked about this a little bit before we hit record. You know, men tend to not really look for help. You know, sort of suffer in silence, right? And just say, well, just gonna suck it up and walk it off and all those terms that we hear, right?

Chuck Chapman: Absolutely.

Tim Melanson: Why did you decide to reach out?

Chuck Chapman: well, I think there were a number of things happening. One was my wife at the time was also going to counseling and it was one of those things where, you know, she suggested, you know, maybe you should go see a counselor. I, you know, kind of thought about it a little bit, but [00:04:00] ultimately, like, my life was such a train wreck.

That was like, okay, I’m willing to do anything to try to figure this thing out. So, it really was in some ways, less of a choice and more of like, I’ve got to do this because I don’t know what else to do. and so that’s why I started going to see a counselor. And like I said, I think just the fate, you know, when you’re faced with your mortality.

You know, given a diagnosis of cancer or something like that, and thank God it was caught early, you know, I haven’t had any issues with it since, but still the idea of, like, how fragile life is and how quickly life can kind of turn on a dime. And if I’m not in the driver’s seat of my own life, then. What the hell is the point, you know, and so that was, and I think I got really lucky in that.

I found a really good male counselor. There’s not a lot of male counselors around. In fact, 1 [00:05:00] of the things when I was going to school to work on my counseling degree, when I would go to class, 99 percent of the people in the class for women, it would generally be me. Maybe 1 other guy. But throughout all of my classes, it was a field a lot of women are in.

And that also made me concerned in terms of, like, men having other men that they can talk to, because I, like, I think a good woman counselor can absolutely be helpful. but I think men. Only know what it’s like to truly be a man and what the, some of the struggles are and things like that. And 1 of the reasons why I work with men is because I, I know what being a man is.

I know how hard it can be sometimes now challenging. And sometimes fucking disappointing, you know, in life, and this isn’t what I signed up for. And I think that’s 1 of the [00:06:00] things that a lot of men struggle with because they don’t have anybody to talk to is they struggle with this feeling inside

This isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t what I dreamed of, when I was a child, and they said, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, and here I am, 35, 45 years old, and I am not doing what I thought I was going to be doing when I was, 10 years old or whatever.

oftentimes we’re in relationships that are less than satisfying. we get married young, get married in our twenties, have kids. all of a sudden you wake up and you’re 40 years old and you’ve got, high schoolers, you’ve been married for, 15, 20 years, and you realize.

I don’t even know these people, and yet I’m working my ass off to try to serve them.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, no, I hear ya. And you’re right. I mean, it is. I think that because we tend to put on that strong [00:07:00] face and that mask, I think that we don’t really get taken seriously if we do have a problem. And, I get it. I mean, most men, I think maybe I am upset for a little bit, but I get over it pretty quickly.

Or at least I, say that I got over it and I move on to something else, right? however, it’s probably not gone, right? It’s just buried somewhere and

Chuck Chapman: Yeah. Well, that’s what we tend to do, right? Yeah. As we tend to stuff things, I always kind of use the analogy is, you know, something happens, we stuff it down and pretty soon it’s like trying to hold, you know, three beach balls underwater at the same time. You know, 1 of them is going to pop up someplace and that’s generally what happens with us.

Guys is, you know, we were trying to hold everything down and then something pops up, you know, and that could be something like addiction. That could be something like an affair. That can be something like, you know, just being depressed and then we don’t know what to do with it.

I think that. a lot of this [00:08:00] too is like men absolutely have let women down and that, we talk a lot about toxicity or the toxic masculine, and I think that there’s this underlining idea then that it’s bad to be a man, you know, don’t be a man instead. You know, be more in tune with your feelings, be more, feminine in a way.

And I think that the message that being a man is bad is incorrect. And what I want to express to people is actually being a man is good. It’s good. And when you come from a place of love and grace and compassion, that’s strength. That you can provide to the people around you. Now, what we all struggle with, because we’re human is we all have a shadow side.

And so there’s a shadow side to the masculine, just like there’s a shadow to the feminine. [00:09:00] What we want to be able to do then is embrace, the parts of ourselves that is good as men and good as women and become. Well balanced members of society, but if you’re constantly told you’re bad or your gender’s bad, or you’re toxic, then why would I want to identify with that?

Tim Melanson: Well, and then there’s a huge contradiction too, because even though they tell us that masculinity is bad and we should be more in touch with our feelings and all that kind of stuff, it tends to be that when we do go to that side, we get ridiculed pretty hard from

Chuck Chapman: Yeah, yeah.

Tim Melanson: And also from other men.

Chuck Chapman: huh.

Tim Melanson: we supposed to do, we’re supposed to just, and that’s probably leads to the next part of it, which is write it down. Says, can’t talk about that. If you bring that up, well, then now you look weak and what woman wants a weak man, right?

Chuck Chapman: All [00:10:00] right. Yeah. I mean, think about it like this. So typical interactions, you know, male, female interaction, she comes to her husband, boyfriend, whatever, and says, I’m thinking about, Doing something, you know, what do you think? And so the guy goes, oh, she’s asking for my opinion. Let me give her my opinion.

So I say, well, this is what I think. And what she’s really asking is not what do you think, but do you agree with me? and then when he’s like, well, okay, let me give you. Approach you as if you’re a man, because if a man comes to me and ask for my opinion, it means he’s seeking counsel. He wants to know.

and then she gets upset because, you know, you’re not supporting me. You’re not taking care of me. You’re not listening to me, these kinds of things. And so he says to himself, okay, next time she asked for my opinion, I’m [00:11:00] not going to give it to her. I’m going to hide this part of myself instead. So she says, what do you think about this?

He just is like, happy wife, happy life. Okay. Yeah. Whatever you want to do, babe, at the expense of his own emotional needs

Tim Melanson: And then gets in trouble for that, for

Chuck Chapman: they get to drill over that.

Tim Melanson: checked out, I guess, is that

Chuck Chapman: Right. Exactly.

Tim Melanson: right?

Chuck Chapman: yeah,

Tim Melanson: yeah, I know it’s difficult. And then, but I mean, it’s great that we now, you know, men that are out there trying to, trying to help that. I’m sure that when you walked into your class, you probably got asked if you were in the right place, right?

Chuck Chapman: I felt like that for

sure.

Tim Melanson: of the women in there. but awesome. So now on the, on your journey though, I mean, you know, not everything goes as planned, so was there any sort of bad notes that things that didn’t work out?

Chuck Chapman: So the bad note was. it’s back in 2008, I’d been married for 19 years. you know, we had our difficulties and one of the [00:12:00] difficulties was we have a daughter who has a developmental disability. So, in 33 years old, but in her brain and her mentality, she’s really more of like a 9 or 10 year old.

I just kind of say she’s forever young. And while that’s a real blessing in many ways, that’s also a lot of pressure as a parent. when she was younger, that took a lot of toll on our relationship. Both my wife and I were raised very fundamental Christian. one of the things that she struggled with was she, she’s a lesbian, right now, her religion and faith, that kind of thing helped she repressed that down well, 19 years into the marriage, she came out.

As being gay, meant she didn’t want to be with me and, that kind of hit me out of left field [00:13:00] and, you know, broke my heart in terms of, you know, the, the, the breaking up of, of the relationship in the marriage. And we had struggled so much through my cancer, through her depression, through my daughter’s disability, like here was just another big.

The thing that happened and the way I dealt with it, and this was actually before I became a therapist, was I just numbed out, I drank, you know, and then I ended up just kind of like hooking up with the first woman that showed me any kind of attention because, you know, my heart was broken and, you know, and then I ended up actually marrying her.

You know, the ink on the divorce paper was hardly dry before I, you know, married this next woman and then because I was hiding all of this stuff about myself, pretending to be a nice guy when reality was, I was really hurting inside and I was covering it up and I was hiding my [00:14:00] drinking and hiding my addictions.

And when all that came out, rightly so she divorced me. And so I was, you know, here. I am like within a year, married, divorced, married, divorced. and that’s when I really kind of started moving into a program of recovery for myself. And, part of that recovery was my journey of becoming, you know, coming to counselor, working with men.

but also my own recovery from alcoholism and addictions and, just being more honest with myself about who I am and not hiding these parts of myself anymore. And I think that that was a huge turning point for me to be able to kind of look at myself clearly and go, I am, you know, I am not going in the right direction.

So what are you going to do different? And, and that was about the time in my life [00:15:00] where I decided to make some significant changes. And also when, you know, about the same time that I ended up graduating from grad school and becoming, I’m going to therapist and opening up that. So all of these things kind of happened simultaneously.

Tim Melanson: well, so you’ve got some life experience to help

Chuck Chapman: I bit.

Tim Melanson: so tell me about how you get. And how do you get people to even want to, work with you?

Chuck Chapman: Yeah. So, a number of ways, I mean, people find out about me and the work that I do from, podcasts like this or, I have a YouTube channel. social media and that kind of thing. part of the journey was in this time of recovery. I read this book called no more.

Mr. Nice guy by Robert Glover. And the book sort of I was reading. It’s like, this guy has been following me around and writing my life story. And the premise of the book is. [00:16:00] The nice guy is actually not really a nice guy. The nice guy tells you what he thinks you want to hear. The nice guy kind of hides his truth.

the nice guy goes ahead and does what he wants to do. And then when you call him on it, he was like, Oh, I misunderstood. I didn’t know what, you know. and so the nice guy really isn’t nice. He is, Fraudulently nice, and that the opposite of a nice guy isn’t a jerk. The opposite of a nice guy is what he calls an integrated man and integrated man is somebody who likes himself, loves himself for, you know, warts and all he accepts himself as a man.

He accepts his sexuality. He accepts his mistakes as well as his successes. And as I was reading through the book, I reached out to the author. it’s like, man, this book has changed my life. Thanks so much. And he was living in Seattle at the time, and he had a couple of, different programs.

1 of his programs was to become a certified no more. Mr. Nice guy [00:17:00] coach slash slash therapist. So, I signed up for that, went up to Seattle, met with him, went through 1 of his trainings there. We got to know each other a little bit better there. Over the course of some time, I started working with him, in a couple of different capacities.

I kind of just, he said, you know, I get these emails all the time. He’s like, I need somebody to answer him, but I need somebody who’s qualified to answer him as well. would you think about doing that? I’ll pay you for it. It’s like, absolutely. You know, and then, I helped him out and kind of assisted him on a couple of a different.

his programs, and then about a year and a half ago, him and myself and 5 other certified coaches, we built an online community called integration nation, which is for men, to be able to come and talk about their nice guy tendencies. and it’s been a really great experience

So a lot of guys will hear about me through the nice guy work. I also wrote an addendum to his book called no more. Mr. Nice guy, the [00:18:00] 30 day recovery journal in which I take his 30 rules of nice guy recovery. And I put that into a journal format where there’s a reading and then some questions about it.

And then a place for guys to write their own thoughts. So oftentimes guys will find me, you know, they find his book. My book comes up and they find me and, find me either through him generally, or through, my other social media stuff, my podcast and things that I’m doing.

Tim Melanson: So basically what you did is you found somebody in your space that was further along than you, most of you could help them. Right

Chuck Chapman: I highly recommend it. I mean, I think that people are oftentimes a whole lot more approachable and available than maybe you think they are. I mean, maybe you’re not going to get Tony Robbins, right? But there’s probably somebody who you followed that has been an inspiration to you that when you reach out to them, you know, they’re the [00:19:00] most helpful, helpful people.

And maybe you found that as a musician. And I mean, when you reach out to other musicians,

Tim Melanson: percent to music. Yeah. Because I mean, there are clearly levels. I mean, you know, you’ve got like sort of beginner and then you’re intermediate and expert. And, you know, maybe if you’re a beginner, you’re not going to be able to go straight to an expert and say, Hey, can you teach me?

Chuck Chapman: Right.

Tim Melanson: but you can always find, someone who’s just a little bit further than you are could help you along. Right. And that sounds like what you found somebody that was able to help

Chuck Chapman: Yeah.

I’ll just kind of throw out a little, claim to fame here, you know, when talking about musicians and everything, my brother in law is the guitarist for the band called Faith No More. and he’s one of the most approachable guys I’ve ever met. I think that’s the funny thing you know, you would think that, I mean, I always tease him.

His rockstar status is wasted on him because he, drives a Honda and lives pretty frugally. But he’s just [00:20:00] like super approachable. And I think that’s the thing. Sometimes we put people upon a pedestal. Oh, I can’t talk to them. They’re famous or they have notary or something.

And oftentimes if you just approach somebody from the standpoint of, Hey, like, I love what you’re doing. Who doesn’t want to hear that? and you find yourself pretty soon, like, being in the same room as people that you once looked up to as, you know, your heroes,

Tim Melanson: So now we already talked a lot about, learning from other people as well. how did you get in touch with him in the first place?

Chuck Chapman: he had a website, Dr glover dot com. He had an

email address on there. I just emailed him, and, It was like, thanks for letting me know. I really appreciate it. you’re a therapist. Maybe you’d be interested in doing my training sometime. I’m up in Seattle. I live in Portland.

He’s in Seattle. So it’s like a 3 hour drive. It was like, okay, yeah, let’s do this.

Tim Melanson: That’s

Chuck Chapman: And it was just,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, I think that that’s such a great story because you’re right. I think people sort of look at these books and they think, oh, there’s [00:21:00] no way that they’re going to respond even. And I thought, the same thing when I look at something, sometimes I’ll go, oh yeah, they’re not even going to respond.

And they almost always do. It’s actually rare that you contact somebody and no answer.

Chuck Chapman: Yeah. Or, I mean, you might get an answer from an assistant or something along those lines, you know, and that’s fine. But, you know, I think in general, a lot of people, most of these people that I know anyway, like they read their emails and they ask their assistant, Hey, would you respond to this or that, you know, they’ll respond themselves.

Tim Melanson: So let’s move into a little bit about, making sure that you’re positive cash flow,

keeping that full and all that stuff,

Chuck Chapman: yeah,

Tim Melanson: it comes down to it, that’s one of the toughest things I think, you know, is making sure that you’re pulling in enough money than you’re, than you’re spending.

And that’s also when you’re getting started, you know, there sort of is a bit of an expectation that you might be in a little bit first, or is there like, is [00:22:00] there a way to be, positive cash flow right from the beginning?

Chuck Chapman: Well, I guess what I usually would tell people is, you know, unless you are independently wealthy, you probably need to make money. And so oftentimes I think it’s a side hustle that then you work into being a full time gig and,

that what you want to be able to do is know what your value is. Okay, so you have something of value, you know, something that other people don’t know, and other people will pay you for that knowledge. It may not seem like it, but there is, 7 billion people out in the world.

So there’s going to be a percentage of people who want the knowledge that you have, and you can take that knowledge and you can give it to the man, so to speak, and, you know, do your job and, do all of that. Or you can [00:23:00] decide to become an entrepreneur and either teach that or do whatever you’ve been doing for, somebody else on your own.

I was watching this video the other day and the guy was saying. if you work for somebody else, you are working for less than you’re worth simply because that person has to make a profit.

And so they’re going to pay you less for what you do. So you’re working for less than you’re worse. You might as well work for what you’re worth. Working for yourself. And I, I just, you know, I found that to be true that anytime I’m, if I’m working for somebody else, I’m giving them my service at a discount so they can sell that same service to somebody else at a profit.

So why not do it for yourself? So creating positive cashflow, I think is, first of all, it’s kind of a mindset. Oh, I don’t have anything anybody would pay for. Oh, I don’t have anything. I don’t, I don’t have anything. You know, [00:24:00] nobody would listen to me. You know, these are the kind of things

At this job to be able to quit and do the thing that I really like and love, which is why I think side hustles are a great place to start now. So, when I started out as a therapist, I was working, I was basically working 3 jobs. I was working at a community mental health facility, helping people with severe, persistent mental illness.

I was working at a hospital part time, as a counselor. And I was trying to build a practice on the side. So I basically, was trying to work myself out of these, out of three jobs into just one. So I got to the point where. You know, I had Fridays off from my jobs, and I figured out how to schedule that.

So Friday was my day to see clients. And so I opened that up, you know, and I started with, some online advertising, some Google ads, like psychology today has a [00:25:00] therapist finder and, pretty soon people. Started saying, hey, I want to talk to you. I need somebody to talk to.

And then my Friday filled up. And so I was like, well, if I can fill up Friday, maybe I can fill up another day. So I quit my weekend job Now, I just had Fridays and Saturdays that I was working and then when I got that fallen up to a point, it was like, okay, I think I can do this now. Let’s go ahead and make the leap.

And it was a struggle. I mean, I, there was, there were times, especially in those, you know, the first couple of years where, you know, I would have, you know, out of a, I’d have, I’d work whenever anybody wants. So I’d have a client at. 8 am in the morning and then, you know, a client at 4 and then I’d have a client at 8 PM, you know, and something like that.

And so I’m really working these long days, but pretty soon I was practiced enough and I had enough people coming in and coming to see [00:26:00] me that I was able to, you know, to, to make my own schedule. So now I, I pretty much, I see clients, from about 10 AM till 3 PM. And, and then, you know, I, you know, do my other business stuff,

Whether I’ve hired a team, you know, as far as like accountants and somebody to do my billing So that frees me up to be able to have more spaciousness in my life.

Tim Melanson: How did that take, in terms of days or months or years to get from the point where you were just getting started to now full time?

Chuck Chapman: Yeah, it took two years and that was something, And that was also something that somebody else told me, you know, I was talking to another person that had a private practice and she said, it takes about two years, you know, and that was really true.

Speaker 8: Yeah.

Speaker 10: You

Chuck Chapman: that doesn’t mean you’re going to starve, but that means that to and so again, it’s important to have You know, whether it’s a part time job [00:27:00] or, you know, I had a spouse who was, also helpful to me, in terms of like, supporting me, it was like, okay, I know you don’t make as much as you will, but I know you will make more money.

So, finances will be a little bit lopsided for a little while, but I love you and I want to support you and I want to see you do this. So,

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Especially as men, we don’t get that

Chuck Chapman: no, not often,

Tim Melanson: You found a good one.

Chuck Chapman: yeah, I got remarried again after about 3 years of, you know, wandering around and, you know, we’ve been married for 10 years now and, she’s been amazingly supportive. And I think that that’s also, you know, a little bit of side note on when it goes back to working with men, you know, is, oftentimes I’ll say, you know, men will spend.

the most important financial decision you will ever make is your life partner. [00:28:00] And men, we will spend more time researching a computer that we think we’re going to buy than we will a relationship. so it’s important to really seek out, and find a relationship where you feel really good about the partnership.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s incredibly good advice. I’m divorced as well. my current partner is amazing. that was one of the realizations that I came to eventually was that I was looking for a woman that would be, I called it a power couple. I just wanted somebody who was gonna work towards the same goals as me it was more or less like from a, who is this person perspective, whereas when I was young a lot of men sort of make decisions just on looks

Chuck Chapman: is she attractive and won’t she have sex with me?

Tim Melanson: He’s

Chuck Chapman: and if those two things are yeses, then yeah, let’s go all in.

Tim Melanson: Go, let’s go for it. And then we sort of like, you know, I remember just being [00:29:00] super cocky going like, ah, it doesn’t matter, I’ll be able to make all the money, be fine. You know, it just, she just has to do that and we’re good to go. Right. And then eventually you get to the point where you’re like, no, and even when you’re speaking to, successful men, it’s really rare that you find a very successful man that does not have a woman that is.

Chuck Chapman: So true.

Tim Melanson: Like really supporting him and not just Like actually active in his life and supports the decisions that he makes and actually goes out and makes his life easier. Right.

Chuck Chapman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: And then when you think about the men that are, struggling, you tend to find the exact opposite and that, their women are making their lives harder,

Chuck Chapman: yeah. They are in the.

Tim Melanson: all that stuff, right?

Chuck Chapman: Exactly. And I think that’s the part in which we start to, feel powerless and feel depressed and get anxious and feel hopeless about our future, our marriages, we oftentimes we’ll get, you know, guys will get into a relationship, you know, you know, like I said, you can get into a relationship and you’re, you know, 20s, 30s or something like that.

And then, [00:30:00] you know, 10, 15 years goes by and all of your finances are meshed. You’ve got children that you’re taking care of. and you find yourself in a relationship. That really isn’t complimentary anymore because you’ve grown and changed. And so is she. divorce isn’t always a bad option.

You know, I mean, sometimes I look back on my marriages and I think I’m really grateful for them, you know, and I needed to go through those things in order to where I’m at today.

Tim Melanson: Me too. I agree a hundred percent. It’s all learning. you don’t really know who you are.

Chuck Chapman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: when we’re getting together in our twenties, or even in our teens, right?

Chuck Chapman: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: you know, after some life experience, you start to realize, okay, well, this is what I want in life.

And then you find that your partner is like, well, no, what I want this.

Chuck Chapman: Right.

Now

what?

Tim Melanson: So tell me what’s exciting your business.

Chuck Chapman: Yeah. What’s exciting I think is the, I [00:31:00] just wrote a book. And it took me about five years to write this book. but essentially It’s a book about integrity, and one of the things I talk about with a lot of my guys is, you know, when you’re in pain, when you’re depressed or anxious, generally, it’s because you’ve made compromises in your own values, and most of the time, we’ve never really sat down and defined what are my values.

You know, what is it that I find important, somebody might say, well, you know, honesty. Oh, yeah. I think honesty is really important. Courage. Yeah. I think courage is really important. Well, are you really courageous? Are you really honest? You know, I’m kind of honest is the answer I’ll get.

I’ll say, well, okay, what ways are you dishonest? Well, you know, sometimes I’ll make a mistake and I’ll try to cover it up. Or sometimes my wife will ask me a question and I’ll give her a half truth, okay. So maybe you’re not quite as honest as you thought you were.

What about courage? Tell me about courage. Oh, yeah, I’m really courageous. You know, [00:32:00] that’s a, that’s a high value for me. So, when you were going to have a conversation with your wife about sex and money. How’s that go? Oh, I try to avoid those topics at all costs. Why? Because I’m afraid of her reaction.

Okay. Are you really being courageous then? You know, so, so we may think we have these values, but we’ve never really sat down and defined them. And so the book is called finding your way without losing yourself. The path of integrity and it’s a, it’s a framework for living in integrity. So there’s 16 chapters

Each one covers a different, different virtue or value. So I’ll just read them through quickly. So courage assertiveness tenacity, Loyalty, wisdom, honesty, humility, generosity, temperance, excellence, patience, self mastery, justice, empathy, grace, forgiveness. [00:33:00] So, as I was kind of trying to define values for myself, I was like, I want to come up with a list of values or virtues, and these were the ones that I came up with.

16 is a lot to remember. So you tell people like pick 5, you know, pick 5 that are your the ones that you’re going to practice on. but the book is essentially takes you through what each 1 of these virtues kind of what it means to me personally, things that I’ve found and then secondly, you know, to help you, the reader think about, okay, what exactly is courage?

What is, you know, Humility, what does that mean? You know, what is excellence actually mean? And to help you kind of define these values for yourself. and then, what I realized in reading and writing the book was that all of these things that I just read are not. Natural things, which is why we struggle with them, and

It’s not natural to be [00:34:00] honest. and so, since these, the natural thing is really kind of the shadow of these virtues, we need a supernatural power to override.

in order to do these things. And so I talk a lot about how integrity is actually a spiritual act. And by spiritual, I don’t necessarily mean God, Jesus, Buddha, Odin. I mean, like, what’s important to me and where did these things come from? You know, and ultimately the act of integrity is an act of love and love is the most supernatural thing I think that we can do because the natural thing is to not love.

When we are able to love, we’re actually connecting with that spiritual part of ourself. And so, integrity is always an act of love for myself and for others. So, I’m honest with myself and others. I’m courageous [00:35:00] with myself and others. I have humility with myself and others. And I have grace with myself and others.

So, that’s a nutshell version of integrity. Of the book and what it, in its basic form, it’s a framework for understanding and applying integrity into your life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, That’s so deep.

Chuck Chapman: I know.

Tim Melanson: Well, and I think when it comes down to it, I think a lot of the, there’s going to be some struggle, that you’re going to have to go through, and it’s either you do it up front, And you’ve had those difficult conversations with yourself and with others right away, or eventually they’re going to creep up and they’re not going to be under your control.

Chuck Chapman: And then it’s going to be worse, and it’s going to, you know, it was the Buddha said something like, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. You know, that suffering is the bigger pain. the suffering is thinking about this conversation that I need to have.

I don’t want to [00:36:00] have and ruminating about. What may or may not happen I’m actually suffering in that as opposed to just, I’m going to practice courage and say, hey, I need to talk to you about something and then it’s done. It’s over and you move on.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And oftentimes, I mean, not all the time, sometimes it actually is really terrible, but oftentimes it’s actually less bad than you think it’s going to

Chuck Chapman: it’s less. Right. Exactly. And that’s what I found in general. It’s going to be less. Painful than I really think it is. In fact, oftentimes I’m surprised that it wasn’t painful at all. oh, wow, I really grew and learn something in that.

Tim Melanson: Yep. And there’s probably a pretty good correlation to how long you left it for. This is how difficult that ends up being.

Chuck Chapman: Yeah, exactly. Right. Because now it’s like, not only do I have to, address this thing that happened, 2 weeks ago. now I’m like, it’s probably not worth addressing because it happened so long ago, you know, and that’s one of those beach balls that pops up.

Tim Melanson: Well, you end up having [00:37:00] to address now why you didn’t bring it up two weeks ago.

Chuck Chapman: yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: doubling, you’re doubling the things you have to now

Chuck Chapman: I like that. I think clean up that is the, that’s the thing, right? It’s like, I’m just cleaning up and I know in recovery, we talk about cleaning up my side of the street. And that’s what I think, integrity is, is just keeping my side of the site, my side of the street clean.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more?

Chuck Chapman: Yeah. So, you can get the book on Amazon. You can search my name, Chuck Chapman. You can search finding your way without losing yourself. you can go to my website, which is chuckchapman. com. And we had a link there for Amazon and Barnes and Noble. it’s also where you can find information about my coaching.

And if you find yourself struggling and you want somebody to give you some coaching, some tips, I always say, like, I’m kind of a Sherpa, I’ve been up the mountain a few times. I know where the pitfalls are. So, I can help you avoid some of those things in [00:38:00] your life.

you can find me, I have a YouTube channel where I do videos every week on the nice guy syndrome. so it’s YouTube at Chuck Chapman. I also turn those into a podcast you can just search the recovery nice guy on your favorite podcast app and find me there.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Chuck Chapman: Hey, Tim, thanks for having me as A guest artist.

Tim Melanson: No

Chuck Chapman: appreciate it.

Tim Melanson: Right on. And to the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment.