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Chad Kneller: No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. So most people are out on that. Right? You're like, you're doing something that you don't have to do and it gets painful? Oh, I'm done. So so no discipline seems pleasant. It's kind of painful. Later on, however

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Stephen Licciardello: Why is it that yoyo dieters always gain the weight back?

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Sharlene Licciardello: Is it the fact that their why is less compelling than the how?

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Stephen Licciardello: In today's episode, we chat to Chad Kneller, entrepreneur and author of Finding Happy, 10 Keys to an Extraordinary Life.

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Sharlene Licciardello: You will come away with practical keys to not only achieving your goals, but maintaining and soaring above them. Let's dive in.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Welcome to rewrite your story, the podcast where change begins with you.

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Stephen Licciardello: We're your hosts, Steven and Charlene.

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Sharlene Licciardello: As professional coaches and mentors trained in various modalities, we have helped hundreds of people

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Stephen Licciardello: bridge the gap between the person they are

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Sharlene Licciardello: and the person they want to be.

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Stephen Licciardello: We bring you conversations with real people who have overcome real setbacks.

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Sharlene Licciardello: You will walk away with practical steps to find more clarity, alignment, and success in any area you want to improve.

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Stephen Licciardello: So join us and discover how you have the power to overcome, to change, and to rewrite your story.

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Sharlene Licciardello: So pick up the pen. Your new chapter starts now.

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Stephen Licciardello: So, Chad, you've got a really interesting background, as in you've done a lot of things, you're creative, you're an entrepreneur, and I would say by knowing you for a little while, your life is quite fulfilled. My question is what is the biggest misconception people have when trying to create that fulfilling life?

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. Great question. I think for me the basement misconception is just thinking it's gonna be easy peasy lemon squeezy, you know, like, oh, I've got an idea. I want it to look like this. And then you spend about a day or 2 or a month or 2 and you're just gonna have it because it just doesn't work out like that. It's a journey. It's a process. It's a fight.

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Chad Kneller: It's like building anything in life, right, whether you're trying to build muscles or build your bank account or build a family. It takes time.

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Sharlene Licciardello: So if you were to break, down, like, the the whole extraordinary living, how would you break that down in, everyday practical terms?

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. So for me, extraordinary living is just walking on a path that you're proud of, that's fulfilling, that you look in the mirror every day and you say, did I spend my day wisely? It's looking in the mirror and feeling pretty dang good about what you did. And you know, it's developing a life of significance. I think a lot of people internally, we want that but we don't know it. You know, I chased a lot of different types of dreams when I was younger that I was I'd get there and I'd be left holding an empty bag that just didn't have the happiness in there that I thought would be there. And then we see that all the time, right, with, you know, whether it's professional musicians or actors or people that have what we would say fame and success, and then you'd find out they killed themselves or they're so depressed and you think, why? They seem to be, you know, they're wealthy, they're rich, but it doesn't always equate to happiness. So, you know, just, really just looking at your family, looking in the mirror, and going, man, I feel good about where I am in life right now.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Yeah. Wow. So really, putting meaning into what you do and not just looking for happiness, just for the sake of happiness.

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Chad Kneller: Yes. Yeah. Meaning, you know, I think it was Martin Martin, some author, he basically said there's 2 amazing days in your life, the day you're born and the day you find out why. And I think a lot of people just kinda drift through life, and they don't think that way. They don't think about why am I here. But when you figure out why you're here and you get to operate in that space, it's just you live a life of significance then, and significance is far better than any type of success.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. How has fatherhood and how has marriage impacted happiness, and what were some of the challenges in writing this book that you're reflecting back and like, wow, I wish I knew that when I first got married, or I wish I knew that when I was first a dad. Tell us about that journey with you. Well, for me,

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Chad Kneller: it was all it was all an experiment, honestly, because I didn't when I got married, I didn't really have a good role model. You know, I didn't have people that had had what I would say would be the model marriage. And then when we started getting involved with church, I had this so I thought there was reality here, which I had kind of experienced with my parents and family and people around me. And then there was up here that seemed pie in the sky, you know, some of the pastors I knew, and I'll never forget, I sat down with 1 pastor and I said, how is your life so perfect? How come you and your wife never get in a fight? And he he started, like, laughing like a hyena, and he was like, I was yelling at my wife last night.

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Stephen Licciardello: I was like, what?

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Chad Kneller: You're yelling at your wife? And and so there's just this this reality, but for me, it was a learning curve when we we tell our 19 year old that he was our first experiment because, you know, we wanted to learn. I didn't wanna raise my children exactly like I was raised, and my wife was the same way. So, like, okay, the formula's simple. You go find some really great kids that you had to spend some time with and you know they're great, and then you go find their parents and you say, how did you do that? Like, we like the product. We we like how your kid turned out, so can you kinda tell me what should I read? How what should I do? And so that process of that pursuing of wisdom and understanding was, instrumental. I mean, for my wife and I, when we first got together, one of our first decisions was we need to get around good people. Where do we find them? We argued for 5 months what kind of church we'd go to, but we kind of agreed, there's probably some good people at church. Let's start there.

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Chad Kneller: And so that led us to getting away from our hometown and going and starting our own family on our own so we could just start from a clean slate, got involved with the church, started doing small groups, met some great couples, and then just learned a lot. You know, we were willing to say, Okay. What I've been taught may not be the best way to do this in marriage or parenting, so let's start with a clean slate and really be open to how to do this the right way. And, you know, and I'm we're really proud of our our children. We've got a 19 year old son, a 16 year old daughter, and a 13 year old son, and for the most part, they've, done very, very well, and we're really proud of everything that's happened in their life so far. So but a lot of, the marriage was a lot of, trial and error, you know? And, a lot of iron sharpening iron, some big fights, some things like that. But it's funny, though, you talk to anybody that's been married a long time, they'll say, we've been married about 25 years, and probably 15 of them were really good.

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Stephen Licciardello: It's so true. So true. And you know, in your book, you speak about 10 keys, the 10 keys of finding happiness. And I'm really curious, what is your interpretation of the 10 Keys?

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. So for me, it's the little it's it's kinda like the slight edge. Right? It's a philosophy. You know, it's just simple philosophies that if you live by these philosophies, they're gonna make your life a little better. They're gonna make you a little happier. Like dreaming big. You know, one of them is dreaming big. One of them is always having hope.

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Chad Kneller: You know, there's people out there that say, don't get your hopes up. And and what a horrible philosophy that is because if you don't have hope, then what what you have to look forward to tomorrow? I mean, in in my opinion, I think the best should always be coming. Like, enjoy what you have while you pursue all that you wanna be happy with where you are, but understanding that it's even gonna get better. Right? Because if you think that you're a one hit wonder or back in your college football days was the best days of your life, then it makes it kinda tough Yeah. Just to live life. So believing in other people, you know, I think, selfish people end up very not happy and, people who are givers, you know, when you give, you actually you're stretching your hands out and it begins the receiving process. Yeah. And so just little little things like that, you know, relationships, cultivating relationships, I mean, some need to be, cultivated, some need to be initiated, some need to be terminated sometimes, but it's just understanding your relationships and being disciplined.

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Chad Kneller: I mean, Hebrews 12:11 talks about discipline, and and basically it says that although discipline seems to be difficult at the time, that it pays dividends and it pays rewards over time. So it's not it's not that one moment of being disciplined. It's a lifestyle. It's just doing what you said you would do. I mean, it's being who you want other people to be, right? The golden rule. Like if I'm gonna ask you to honor your commitments, then I better be honoring my commitments. And I better be modeling that to my wife and modeling that to my kids. Otherwise, I'm a hypocrite and I just don't wanna be a hypocrite.

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Chad Kneller: So growing in wisdom, always growing, you know, because you go through when you're having a baby, you go through grown labor, growing pains. And when you're a kid and you're getting taller, growth spurs, right? So growing is something that just should never stop, and as long as we're learning and we're growing, that we're happier because of that. We're like a river instead of like a a pod that just sits there and kinda gets stale.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. That's brilliant, and it's you know, that, like, you've really touched on some of your home truths there, like, you're so right. People don't have hope these days, and and people, you know, like if you look at the major discussions, it's always tainted towards the negative side, like the cost of living and and things like that. And and people Complaints. Complain. So, you know, not having that hope is is so important.

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Sharlene Licciardello: But I also feel like sometimes people say that or they have this thing in their head that it's like, almost a self preservation thing that they don't wanna get disappointed if nothing actually happens.

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Chad Kneller: You know what I mean?

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Sharlene Licciardello: But then, you know, like, how do you balance that? Like, still have heart, but that's in, like, a way that they are doing things that can actually have control over rather than just having this pie in the skies of hope.

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. I read a book one time called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. Yeah. And one of the habits is begin with the end in mind, and there's a there's a basically an exercise to go through there. And I went through it. I took soldiers through it. I've taken people through it over the years, and it helped me out so much. It was literally like close your eyes and picture you're at a funeral, and you go up there and in the casket and you see it's you.

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Chad Kneller: So here you are at your own funeral. You get to stand in the back of the room. You get to hear what your spouse says about you. You get to hear what each of your kids say about you. Your parents, your family, your friends, everyone. And then the concept of it all is, Hey, you get to determine that now. You get to make choices now where it's not going to be a surprise. Like, if you want them to have to rent out the biggest building in town, you can ensure that happens by serving a lot of people, like helping a lot of people, and so for me, going through that exercise, it helped me kind of highlight the most important parts of life, which are those key relationships, right, and just pouring into them and sowing into them and leaving people better than you found them because some people and you kinda wonder, will they get the 6th? Will they have enough people to carry their coffin? Because they've done a whole lot.

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. You know? It's like serve and help.

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Stephen Licciardello: How do you balance your own personal happiness with the responsibility of others? So how do you how do you take that approach where, you know, I'm responsible for my happiness. I'm not necessarily responsible for these other people I'm serving and their reaction to my happiness. Because sometimes when, you know, we choose happiness, not everyone is on board.

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Chad Kneller: So there's a couple pieces there. So first of all, I'm I don't really personally believe in balance because I think I believe in seasons and, you know, I could say I'm balanced and then someone in my house gets sick and they're in a hospital and I'm sitting there at their hospital bed for a week. That's just gonna become my focus. So I believe in alignment. Right? So so as a Christian, first of all, I have to be connected with my father and have to be totally dialed in there because I'm no good. If I'm empty, I have nothing to give. So first of all, I have to be full. And then out of that overflow, I get to pour into my wife.

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Chad Kneller: And then out of that overflow, I get to pour into my children. And then I get to pour into family and friends and business. So that's I always make sure that I've got that I've got that alignment that's set up. And then understanding too that every person isn't my assignment. Just because they come along and they need me, they want my time, they want my energy, I'm always weighing that against the cost because there's always a cost, right? There's a cost to mentor somebody. There's a cost to give your energy and your time to somebody and you hit a point in life where you just can't. If you want to be a great, you know, spouse and you want to be a great father and you want to be great at these different things, you have to and I'm always asking, Lord, is this my assignment? Because if the person's not, then I don't want to put in the energy or time there because that's just not my season for that person. And so sometimes it's making sure that people when you're when you're gonna mentor someone, are they teachable? Are they willing to put in the work? And, you know, are they applying it? Because if they're not, then I don't wanna I don't wanna I just don't wanna waste time, especially the older I get.

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Chad Kneller: I think you guys would relate to it because the older we get, it's like the more you see the class class ticking. Yeah. You're like, oh my gosh. My time is becoming more and more and more valuable, and I just don't waste it like I did when I was young.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. Yeah. Chad, you're you're very successful in your own right. You know, you're you're an entrepreneur. You've developed a a few streams of income to support your family, And, you know, I love the fact that you're talking about alignment and working with those that you really wanna work with. My question is, what was your biggest moment when it came to all of this? You know, when it came to this is the one piece that makes me or or fulfills my happiness. And I know you've talked spoken about your relationship with the Lord being key to the overflow, But is there one piece that you would say that was the lynch pinch?

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. I think for me, it's it's really mindset. It's just that mindset adjustment because I was so ingrained, you know, my old mindset was so ingrained, and it was like I had my own lid. I had my own ceiling in my life that I couldn't I could say the words all things are possible, but I'm like, yeah. All things are possible and other than these things. You know what I mean? Other than I'm I'm not gonna slam dunk a basketball. You know, there's things like that. But I remember sitting in an audience one time in a big auditorium, and I saw all these people had done incredible things.

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Chad Kneller: And I was just like, man, if they could do it, I could do it. And I started to feel that way about more and more things that if they could do it, then I could do it. And it's really when all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me. I really begin to understand that if that's my assignment, then nothing is going to hold me back from it other than me, and I'm not going to give someone else the power to hold me back. Right? And so that's when it really, I kind of got that download that, yeah, I can become a top money earner in in whatever company. I can become an officer in the military. I can become an author. I could become a pastor if I wanted to.

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Chad Kneller: Like, I took away those limits, and that's a very, very empowering day because I I spent most of my life with all these these left and right limits, and I was kinda stuck in a box. You know. Yeah. And I had to continue to believe and just read the stories. You know, Jim Rohn once said, through testimonials and personal experience, we have enough information to conclude that it's possible to design and live an extraordinary life. And he said that if you'll change, everything can change for you. And I was like, oh, and it was just so empowering to know that I have I made choices, you know, because we're all we're all born naked and afraid, right, equally. And along the way, some people develop a confident mindset and some people are shy, and they just don't have that type of mindset.

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Chad Kneller: And so I was fortunate to have great parents who always said to give you anything, which helped me because now that I've been in the world and gotten to know a lot of people, I see how hard of an obstacle that is for a lot of people to get past when their parents say, you know good, nothing, you know, and then they have a hard time getting past that because that's the boundaries and things that we're what we're put on. That really helped me a lot is just hearing it, being around people who have done it, and I think that's been so powerful just to have people speak those words. I was at a I was a sergeant in the army and I hadn't finished college yet. I remember one time I was I was at this training and they said, Talk about the army values for 5 minutes. So I got up and I did my best speech I could. And later that guy took the time to come to me and he said, have you ever thought about being an officer in the military? Because the way you just did that was just as good as any officer I've ever heard. And those words, those seeds came in and they went in down deep and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And from that point on I was like, maybe I should maybe I am worthy enough to become an officer in the military.

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Chad Kneller: Maybe I could go back and finish college. Maybe I could get all these waivers and do all these things and go do it, and I did, and I would say that sergeant was a big reason why.

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Stephen Licciardello: Tell us a little bit about your your, yeah, your military days and how that shaped who you are today.

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Chad Kneller: Man, so, you know, it changes you for sure. You know what's funny is I went into the military right out of high school for 3 years so I was in from 18 to 21, got out of the military, and I went back in 11 years later at a lower rank than I got out. So now I'm 32 and I have, you know, some 20 year olds bossing me around, which is very humbling by the way.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Taken by Tim.

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Chad Kneller: But the military is great because it teaches you camaraderie, you know, it it it levels the playing field. So I mean when you go to basic training, they shave everybody's head, it doesn't matter your accent, it doesn't matter your color. I mean we had we had gangsters from Detroit becoming best friends from guys from West Virginia, and I couldn't even understand what they were saying when they were talking to each other. I'm like, only in the army are these guys gonna hang out and become besties, you know? And I was like, that is so cool, but the discipline you learn and just the the brotherhood, you know, and it's like I saw a guy speak the other day and and there was a one the one big battle, it's in the movie Lone Survivor, they had 1 Navy SEAL stuck in this valley and they sent a 1,000 people in there to save this 1 guy all knowing that they could lose their lives to go rescue the 1, you know, and I just thought, man and all those guys were honored to do it because they're like, yes. And that gives you the confidence when you're in the military that, you know, if something bad happens to you, you got people that are gonna come get you. And that's a it's a beautiful thing. So it's it's like a brotherhood. So you're in the military and you get out and you can kind of walk through a crowd and say, I think he's military.

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Chad Kneller: Right? Right? And then when you find out someone is, you're like, okay. We can talk another language because a lot of people just don't under don't understand until you're there. It shaped me for sure, and I was an athlete growing up. I wrestled from 4th grade through my senior year full time in the army for a little bit. So 1 on 1 sports, I think that does a lot a lot of good for people too and just confidence, and the military was a it was great. It was great to me. Enjoyed my 12 years there for sure.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. Like, you've then you've gone from a military where you've got brotherhood to running a home business, different there, and creating some great success in your home businesses. You'll be right at the top of income earners in those companies. You've created great teams. What were the transferable skills, and how did your book around happiness change your team's perspectives?

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. So for me, a lot of it was personal development. It was like a light switch for me. You know, whenever I think it was 2,000 when, I met a guy, and he said, oh, man. Have you read this book? You know, have you read How to Win Friends and Influence People? I was like, nope. Read that book. That book changed me. Have you read Think and Grow Rich? Nope.

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Chad Kneller: Read that book, and that changed me. Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki, hadn't heard of him. Hadn't heard of any of that. And I just started soaking it up. I started listening to everything I could, reading everything I could, and every single one of those programs, books, everything, it just became a little bit of piece of me, and it just made me a little better. And it made me better as a, as a soldier to lead troops, made me better in business, to lead people, and I just really fell in love with learning leadership. And I still to this day can't get enough of it.

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Stephen Licciardello: I love that. Fall in love with Flodie. So good.

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Sharlene Licciardello: Chad, you mentioned a little earlier about the 10 keys that you write in your book. So what do you feel like one of the 10 keys that people struggle with the

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Chad Kneller: most? I think discipline is so, so hard for people. And I I usually I put my

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Stephen Licciardello: head out for that.

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Chad Kneller: Try to remember the exact quote. It's Hebrews 1211. Oh, and here's how it goes. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. So most people are out on that. Right? You're like, you're doing something that you don't have to do and it gets painful? Oh, I'm done. So so no discipline seems pleasant at the time of painful. Later on, however, it provides a harvest of peace and righteousness for those who have been trained by it.

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. So discipline is a great teacher, but you have to do it. I mean, I've done some hard, hard things. I did this program called 75 Hard for 75 days. You do these like 10 dance each and every day and most people don't get through it. You know, in America for New Year's resolutions over 80% of people give up on them within a couple weeks. I mean it's and it's stuff it's good stuff. It's like, hey, look in the mirror.

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Chad Kneller: I wanna lose £20 this year. About day 5, it's like, is it really worth skipping the pizza again? Mm-mm. You know? So it's, it's just, it's challenging. The discipline piece is challenging, but it's absolutely instrumental. Anybody I know that operates at a high level in anything in life is very, very disciplined. And so it's just it's it's part of it's part of the puzzle. Right? You gotta put it together or you're just not gonna have really what you want. There's no there's no shortcuts, no way around it.

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Chad Kneller: I trained for, my buddy turned 50, and he when he was 25, he did this, it's called the battalion death march, and it's 26.2 miles, you put a backpack on, and you're going through sand, and then mile 20 through 22 they actually had a guy come in, a family come in, and they they paid how much money so that 2 miles is sand that's deep like this, like very deep, like foot so you're going through this whole thing, and there's no way we would have done it. So what we had to do is say, okay, it's it's in March, beginning of the year January, every Tuesday, we're gonna go get on a treadmill together for at least an hour. Every Friday we're gonna do it longer and longer and longer so we start at like 10 miles, the next Friday 12, 14. We got all the way up to 20. And I had never in my life gone more than 15 miles. But it's it's the predict when you have discipline involved, the the the outcome becomes very predictable. Because, you know, if you put the card in the ATM machine, the money comes out. If you put in the effort and you put in the discipline and you execute the plan you had in place, you get the result because you know a 1,000 other people have gotten that result, so you know you'll you're gonna get it too.

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Chad Kneller: I mean, it's it's very predictable, but it takes discipline and your reasons, here's the hard part, there's a scale every morning when you wake up and your reasons to do it have to become higher than your excuses not to, And most people just don't build their reasons up enough, and so their excuses went out. And they, instead of putting on the discipline shirt, they put on the non disciplined shirt that day.

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Stephen Licciardello: I think that's so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. That's so powerful because, you know, like, the reality is, like, if you if you do a Google search on discipline, you're probably not gonna get, you know, discipline to get results. You're probably not gonna get as many articles and stuff like that if you put an article, if you put on in the search bar, how to get results quickly. People are looking for that instant gratification. People are looking for that, you know, I want results now, and and, you know, and that's why people are falling victim to scammers, and falling victim to

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Sharlene Licciardello: because they wanna get rich quick. Yeah. They wanna get the results quick. They wanna get everything yesterday.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. So that's Yep. Yeah. That's a really, really powerful lesson, and, yeah, you're right. It hurts. You know? Like, if you were to, you know, like if you look at the discipline, how would you, you know, just say you're working with someone in your team who's actually not a disciplined person. And, you know, that lack of discipline could be, you know, either modeling their parents, it could be ADHD, where they, you know, just don't have focus or things like that. What are some of the ways that you would say, hey, I'm gonna mentor you and these are the things that I want you to do to maintain that discipline.

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Chad Kneller: Yeah. So, you know, there's a saying a friend taught me. He said, success begets success. So one discipline leads into the next discipline. So really, if you're coming in with someone, first of all, you have to identify, like, what is serving them, like, what are they what's moving them forward and what's holding them back. And a lot of times it's e, when you remove something out of your life, you kinda have to, you have to replace it a lot of times because there's a hole, right? When you say the word remove, removing stuff, there's a hole. So when you remove it, you have to you have to replace it with something good. Like, maybe that person eats pizza every Friday, and you're like, alright.

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Chad Kneller: No more pizza on Fridays. From now on, on Fridays, you're gonna eat steak instead of pizza. So we're replacing something better with something worse, you know, that they used to be bad and not serving that person. So it's it's the small things. I mean, one guy wrote a book called Make Your Bed. You know, how hard is it really just to wake up in the morning and make your bed? But see, psychology the psychology behind it, you wake up and you make your bed, you're like, I just accomplished something. I made my bed. What can I do next? And then next thing you know, you're doing 2, 3, 4 things and so and then you start exercising.

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Chad Kneller: Now you have more energy. Now you're doing 5, 6, 7 things. And then next thing you know you're getting more done by Wednesday than you do in a whole week. And then next thing you know, maybe you're getting more done on Monday than you did in a whole week. And it's just all it's the snowball. But it starts with just, you know, you can get the whiteboard on these things are for me. These things are not for me. Yeah.

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Chad Kneller: And just understanding the difference.

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Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. So take account of where you are and where you wanna be.

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Sharlene Licciardello: You you've been through the military, and you mentioned that you've had this whole, like, discipline. You learned all this discipline yourself. You've managed to develop that, mindset. For someone who's not in the military, what steps could they take to start to actually develop that discipline mindset?

[00:24:41]

Chad Kneller: Yeah. So one thing I like to say is it's okay to be a copycat if you copy the right cat. Right? So what do you want? You can start with what do you want? I wanna be I wanna lose £20. Who do you know that's lost £20? Pick 3 or 4 people that you know lost £20. Okay. Buy them Lush and say what did you do to lose £20? Tell me step by step how long did it take you? What did you change about your life? Because then what you're getting is you're getting evidence, and you're getting facts, and you're getting a game plan all at the same time. And then if you're serious, you just do what they did, and then you're gonna get what they got. Yeah.

[00:25:13]

Chad Kneller: Like, it's a pretty simple philosophy. Right? It's like if you wanna have what you've never had, you have to do what you've never done. There's just no other way around it. It's just the way it is.

[00:25:22]

Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. True. And, you know, if we look at, for instance, NLP, one of the modalities we're trained in, NLP is all around modeling behavior and modeling excellence. So, you know, it it's so important. Chad, just as we draw to an end, what's next for you? What's your next chapter?

[00:25:40]

Chad Kneller: That's a great question because I'm always like, what am I going to do when I grow up? Right? What's this next season have? So I'm always just, man, I'm like just always in mourning, like praying, like, what do you have for me, Lord? I wanna tell me the next step. Give me my daily bread. You know, what am I gonna attack today? Give me something to attack. And I always feel like he'll give me something and I just go for that. Attack it and I attack it and I attack it until I feel like it's time to pivot or there's something better. Right? Because God always wants exceeding exceedingly more than I want for myself, so my pro my prayer is let my will for my life line up with your will for my life because the reason you made me is much better than what I think I'm made for, so help me to continue to make those slight adjustments, understanding that like a rocket ship on the way to the moon drifts, you know, it's off course and you always need to adjust to get back on track, so I call it the slipstream. Sometimes you're going through life, and you're and you're like, you're like, man, I know I am right where I'm supposed to be right now in this moment, And then maybe 2 weeks later, you're like, I feel so far off track right now. What is going on? To me, it's always plugging back into the source and just saying, you know, Lord, teach me, guide me.

[00:26:45]

Chad Kneller: What do you have next? And that's the safest, best place any human can be, has been my experience.

[00:26:50]

Stephen Licciardello: Amen. What advice would you give to someone that's, you know, I don't I'm stuck. I don't have the discipline. I don't And they really wanna rewrite their life story.

[00:27:01]

Chad Kneller: Yeah. So, you know, the why is always so much better than how. You know, like it's the story there's a guy, he weighed like £400. He knew he needed to lose weight. He knew his health, all the doctors that said, Hey, you're gonna die way too young if you don't lose some weight. So he'd lose 50, and he gained it back. He'd lose 50, and he gained it back. One day, he took his daughter out for lunch, and she was there having lunch, and she passed out.

[00:27:22]

Chad Kneller: And they're like oh my gosh and they they rushed her to the emergency room and they find out real quick she has a kidney that's failing and her dad is a match but guess what? He can't give his own daughter his kidney because he's too dangerous because he's too far away. So this father says, what do I need to do? I need to get my kidney. He said, You'd have to lose like a £100 in 90 days to be able to give your kidney. And guess what? All the other times he had a hard time losing the 50, he gained it back, lose 50, gain back. Do do you think that father maybe easily lost the £100 this time because he had enough reasons to do it? Mhmm. Of course he did. He lost it, gave his daughter his kidney, and, as far as I know, he kept the weight off. So again, it just goes back to having a strong some people say have a why that makes you cry.

[00:28:08]

Chad Kneller: Right? I mean, some of the healthiest people are some who they survive their first heart attack and you see they get real healthy real fast. And so it just has to someone needs to come on, you know, you gotta hopefully someone comes along in your life and knocks you over the head a little bit and turns you on, but if someone never does come along you got to figure that out for yourself and just find out what you want, make it important enough, and that's the only way anybody ever gets there is it becomes very, very important. So for me, like a quick story, I was in the army and I was in Afghanistan and my 2 year old got really really sick And I wanted more than anything at that moment in time to go straight home to be with my family, but because I was in the army and because of my commitments, I had to stay there because I had to fly. I was in the airport when I found out. I'm like, reroute my flight, please. My son could die. And they said, well, you're in charge of these 6 guys. We need you to come back here, fill out some paperwork, try in your weapon.

[00:28:59]

Chad Kneller: And by the time I did all that and got back to that same airport, 2 days had gone by. So now my whole flight home in my mind, I'm retiring from the military because I'm like, that is never gonna happen again. I put myself in a position where when my wife and son needed me the most, I couldn't do it. That's not ever gonna happen again. 73 100 miles from home. So on that whole flight home, I'm like, I'm getting out. So you can believe me when I say I dabbled in network marketing, you know, in business, and I sat the next month in that chair and I looked at everything through a whole different lens. This has to replace my income, and we went from, like, 2 grand, the next month, 9 grand, next month over 20, and the next month over 40, and So we easily replaced my 8,000 a month from the army, and I put it in a packet, and it got out early 2014.

[00:29:44]

Chad Kneller: And so I've been a full time entrepreneur since. But that's what led up to that was a big why. Just something that life came and smacked me around a little bit, and I said, I I'm not getting smacked like that again. No. No. Yep.

[00:29:56]

Stephen Licciardello: Now your book, the 10 steps, how did you come up with that concept, and and what made you actually put pen to paper?

[00:30:04]

Chad Kneller: Yeah. So I think I I don't know how many years ago it was. When I first started, I had a friend who wrote a book, first of all, and I thought if my friend wrote a book, I know I could write a book. So I've been intimidated by different things in life, like I was intimidated to become an army officer because I thought I could never do that. I'd have to finish college and get a degree. And so a friend of mine wrote a book and I started thinking, I should I should think about it, and he said, you should write 1. And so years, and I had this idea of finding happy because for me, when I was younger, I battled with depression. I was just very, very I was at a point in life where I kind of would say I was hopeless.

[00:30:37]

Chad Kneller: I didn't have hope for anything and and just very I was suicidal at one point. And so getting through all that and getting on the other side of that, I thought, oh my gosh, I know I've I've been through it. I've I've I've traveled the the trail, and I know what it means to go from being very depressed to very happy. And so this idea of finding happy, which really is is finding joy, and I thought if I use the word happy, I'll get everyone to read it. So it's, like, also kind of a covert Mhmm. Evangelism tool, you know. And for me, I wrote the book that I wish someone would have gave me when I was in, like, my twenties, because if I would have read that book, I would have saved myself a lot of time.

[00:31:12]

Stephen Licciardello: Thank you. Thank you so much. That's awesome. Now if people wanna get a copy of your book, we'll have the links on our podcast notes, and they can go or go to Amazon and order it directly. You can look up Chad Chad how do I pronounce your surname, Chad?

[00:31:28]

Chad Kneller: Kneller. Kneller. Chanela.

[00:31:30]

Stephen Licciardello: Chad Kneller. And you can get his book, but you could also get his link directly in our show notes. Chad, I wanna end this program. We do this sometimes, sometimes we don't, but we wanna end the program. If you could pray for for our audience today that are struggling to really get a strong why and then put the discipline around that. Absolutely.

[00:31:54]

Chad Kneller: I would love to. For sure. Father God, Lord, I just thank you for this opportunity. Lord, I know there's people listening to this right now that are in fact struggling in life, Lord, and they know they want a different life, Lord. They know they wanna be healthier. They know they wanna be more successful, Father, but they just haven't been able to put it all together. And I just pray today, father, that you would give them the courage, lord. I give pray you give them the courage to do things they've never done before in their life.

[00:32:17]

Chad Kneller: And in that faith walk, as they take a step, father, towards you and towards the best life that you have for them, lord, and and the destiny and calling the very reason that you created them, father, that they would walk towards that, take that one step in boldness. And I pray, lord, that just that 1 third of 1 percent each and every day, they would just move and they would just change, father, and they would become exactly who you created and designed them to be, lord. And I just take authority over the atmosphere in their life right now, and I bind up every demonic spirit in Jesus' name. And, Lord, and just ask that you would silence the enemy, father God, and you would give them strategies to move forward, Lord, put on the full armor in Ephesians 6, Lord, and to walk in strength towards anything that you call them to. In Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:33:01]

Sharlene Licciardello: Amen.

[00:33:02]

Stephen Licciardello: Chao, it's been great having you. Thank you so much.

[00:33:05]

Chad Kneller: Thank you. Well, thank you guys, man. I love you guys, love getting to know you. It's always a blessing for me to talk with you both.

[00:33:11]

Stephen Licciardello: You know, when I think of speaking to Chad, and I think about his areas of discipline and and his his conversation around discipline, It really makes me wonder, is that actually where a lot of people are failing in rewriting the story? Because sometimes, you know, the the instant gratification, we don't actually put the work towards it, you know. And and Yeah. You know, like, do we want quick and easy, or do we want that delayed gratification? And I I know, like, if I look at me, you know, when we look at the modalities we use, there are instances where there can be rapid change.

[00:33:47]

Chad Kneller: Yes.

[00:33:47]

Stephen Licciardello: You know? And there can be instances where there actually is a working of your change. I think Paul said work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You know, and I think there's, you know, even though when we accept Christ, we're saved in an instance, there's a journey as well of the working out.

[00:34:05]

Sharlene Licciardello: Absolutely. You know, I just feel like a lot of the times that circle of rapid change, it's happening because the people have been putting in the work without actually thinking about it. They're much you're getting caught up in that whole pain of this one. So by the time that come to a change, it's like, where does that sound go? You know? It's like, it just seems so quick. You know? It seems to have happened just instantly because they haven't actually thought about they've just been committed to the actual discipline, committed to the routine, committed to doing what they need to do. And before they realize it, it's there.

[00:34:38]

Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. Yeah. It's like totally get it. It's like the the the book or the theory that you've gotta put 10000 hours into something to actually gain mastery, and sometimes, we could actually be putting in the work unconsciously.

[00:34:51]

Chad Kneller: Yeah. Absolutely. Do you know what I mean?

[00:34:52]

Stephen Licciardello: Like, people say, oh, wow. You've done this, and and you've done that, and you've achieved this, but they're like, hang on. We've been working at this for 20 you must be lucky. I'm like, no luck. I got luck.

[00:35:02]

Sharlene Licciardello: There's nothing

[00:35:02]

Chad Kneller: to do with it.

[00:35:03]

Stephen Licciardello: There's sweat, tears, and more tears. Discipline is definitely one of the key areas that probably we don't speak enough about, and I really thank Chad for highlighting that in in today's episode.

[00:35:21]

Sharlene Licciardello: Thank you for joining us on the Rewrite Your Story podcast.

[00:35:24]

Stephen Licciardello: We hope you found this episode enlightening.

[00:35:26]

Sharlene Licciardello: For more information on the topics discussed, please visit our website at stephenandcharlene.com.

[00:35:31]

Stephen Licciardello: Don't forget to subscribe podcast on your favorite platform. Share with your friends and follow us on social media atstevenandsharlene.

[00:35:38]

Sharlene Licciardello: Until next time, stay informed and inspired.

[00:35:41]

Stephen Licciardello: This is Steven and Charlene signing off from the rewrite your story podcast. Thank you, and stay blessed.