John Lee Dumas: Entrepreneur on Fire, 767. Boom. Shake the room, Fire Nation. John Lee Dumas here, and I am fired up to bring you our featured guest today, Christine Hassler. Christine, are you prepared to ignite?

Christine: I am.

John Lee Dumas: Yes. Christine is author of the new book Expectation Hangover as well as the best-selling books Twentysomething, Twentyeverything, and the Twentysomething Manifesto. Christine believes once we get out of our own way we can show up to make the meaningful impact we are here to make. Christine, I’ve given Fire Nation just a little insight. So, share more about you personally, then let’s expand upon the biz.

Christine: Me personally? Gosh, where to begin? You know, I think – I think what I am most fired up about right now is I’m at a place in my life where I really, really can say, “I love my life.” And that has less to do with external circumstances and more to do with how I am with myself on the inside. I just went back to my high school reunion this past weekend, and it was such a trip. To really kind of see how far I’ve come, not necessarily externally, but internally.

Because growing up I was bullied, I was teased, I was very insecure, and I compensated for that by being a high-achiever. And I can get anything done in the external world, but I never had that sense of fulfillment or contentment. And doing this work I do now as a coach and a speaker and an author, I’ve had to be my own best reader and client. And to be at a point right now where like life is just good, you know, and I know I don’t have control of the external circumstances, but I have control over how I respond to them inside. And I get to go around and watch people transform their life and speak and connect, and talk about real stuff, and watch people get vulnerable. I mean, it’s just unbelievable.

John Lee Dumas: So, Christine, your life has been a rollercoaster, but guess what? Everybody’s life is that rollercoaster, especially when we choose a life of an entrepreneur.

Christine: Yes.

John Lee Dumas: I mean, you’ve had your ups, you’ve had your downs, and I’m really excited to be analyzing some specific stories within that rollercoaster ride. But, Christine, before we do any of that, we always start with a success quote, and why you chose that specific one.

Christine: So, this is Byron Katie, and the quote is, “When you argue with reality you lose, but only 100 percent of the time.” And why I – I love Byron Katie, why I love this and why this really is a success mantra is because I have learned that we cannot control external circumstances completely. But we do have dominion and choice over how we respond to it. And that is how I live my life. It’s like I do my best, I have my vision, I have my goals, but the quality of my life really depends on how I respond internally to the external situations.

And when I accept my reality and work with it rather than fight against it, things get a lot easier, and more fun.

John Lee Dumas: And what I love about this, too, Christine, is it does get more fun when you just are willing to stand up and take responsibility for these actions, you know what I mean? We can spend so much time as human beings just being like, you know, “I’m going to blame this for that, I’m gonna blame this for that, and I’m just going to blame the universe for that,” but if just are willing to stand up and take responsibility for things that are happening to us, and just realize that, “Hey, this is reality, now how am I gonna best react in this situation that I’m finding myself in?”

That’s where like the true joy can come from, because then you are doing just that, you’re taking control, and nothing feels better than having that control. And, Christine, you again, you haven’t always had this great mental outlook in life. I mean, you’ve just shared a little bit of the intro that, you know, you were bullied as a kid, you had some issues that, you know, of course we all face growing up. I mean, that’s part of going through adolescence, but what I would love for you to share, Christine, with us specifically right now is a story.

But not just any story, a story of a time that you failed, that you fell flat on your face. Because we can learn so much from this, Christine, and just open that door, take us to that moment in time, and let’s talk about it.

Christine: So, it was in my twenties, and I was the youngest ever female agent. And I got very successful at a very young age. And I had the money and the title, and the fancy Hollywood life and all of that kind of stuff, but I wasn’t happy. It’s like I was living in “When thens,” you know, “When I get promoted then I’ll feel happy. When I make this much money, then—” blah, blah, blah, I was constantly living in the future. And no matter what I checked off my checklist, I just wasn’t feeling that way.

And I remember one specific day riding up in the elevator to the agency, and there were two women in the elevator, and one of them was one of the muckety-mucks at the company. And she was looking at her phone, and she said, “Oh, my daughter just said her first word, and it was ‘hola,’ because she spends more time with the nanny than me.” And I remember thinking, “Is this my future?” And I had my first panic attack. Like, of just not being able to control my breathing, feeling really dizzy, and it was really, really scary.

And I got off the elevator, and the office was all marble and there was weird art all over, and I walked to my office and in front of my office was this painting of this pregnant woman in this yard sale being abducted by aliens. I mean, that’s what I looked at every day. That was my reality. And I was like, “I have to get out of here.” And I left, and I kind of walked around, it was Beverly Hills, and I came back up to my office and I just knew I wanted to quit. I knew I wanted to quit. And I really did feel like I had failed, because I couldn’t make myself like this.

And I had worked so hard to get to this point. And I called my dad, because I really wanted someone to give me permission to quit. And he said the best thing he could’ve said, which is, you know, “I can’t make this choice for you, you have to do it.” And I ended up doing it, and I – instead of feeling liberated, I felt like a failure, because I had identified myself with what I did. And it got worse from that point. So, I ended up quitting my job and thought I’d go – I was really into health and fitness, and thought I could just go be, you know, a famous personal trainer and build this other business.

And that didn’t work. I was going into tens and thousands of dollars’ worth of debt, then I got diagnosed with an diagnosable autoimmune disorder, then I didn’t speak to my family for a while because of the decision I made, they didn’t agree with. And then I got engaged, and then six months before my wedding my fiancé dumped me. So, I felt like I failed at life. Like, job, health, money, family, relationship. It was all just gone. And I felt like the biggest failure, like I failed myself, I let other people down, and I really did not know where to go from that place.

John Lee Dumas: So, Christine, there’s a lot that we can unpack here, because that is a really difficult period in your life. And I love how you started off as that you were living in the “when thens,” you know, I’ve actually never even heard that phrase before, but it just makes so much sense and so, Fire Nation, I want you to ask yourself, like, “Are you living in the when thens? Or can you remember a time that you were living then?” I mean, that’s just not a happy time to be saying, “When this happens, then I’ll be happy,” you know, waiting to be happy and just always waiting, waiting, waiting, and never realizing that, “Hey, every time you’re getting to that when, you’re just bumping that when up to the next level.”

Christine: Yeah.

John Lee Dumas: And you’re never actually there. So, that was – that’s kind of my biggest takeaway, Christine, from what you’re going through and how Fire Nation can maybe look at their lives and analyze it. But what do you want our listeners here today to really take away from that experience? If you could just share one powerful takeaway, what would it be?

Christine: Get out of your comfort zone. That’s what it did for. All of those things I’ve clung to, those were all the things I clung to for my identity. And that’s why I was “when then-ning,” you know, I was looking for those things to make me feel better. And I had to be basically thrown out of my comfort zone, because I wasn’t willing to choose it for myself. You know, I still wanted to do the checklist things. I wasn’t the time to stop and ask myself, “What do I really want?” I was just following a formula, following a plan.

I never checked in: “What’s important to me? What are my values? What do I want?” And those are the questions I needed to be asking, instead of obsessing so much about checking things off a checklist. So, really be willing to ask, you know, “What do you really want? What really drives you? What are you values?” Instead of looking at your checklist and your goals, and be willing to get out of your comfort zone, or the universe will come and bust you out. Literally, bust you out, and it probably won’t be gentle.

You know, and if you are someone who is in an expectation hangover or thinks you failed or is in disappointment, I’m so excited for you. I’m so fired up for you. Because I know if you’re willing to leverage it and go into it and ask, “What am I learning?” versus, “Why is this happening to me?” as soon as you “Why is this happening?” you’re out. Because you immediately go to victim. Like, you were saying, John, you stop taking responsibility. But when you ask, “What am I learning about myself, about life, about the universe?” like really become a student and a seeker, that transforms everything.

John Lee Dumas: A student and a seeker, I love that phrase, Fire Nation. So, Christine, you know, let’s kind of take that and kind of tie a bow on it, because I mean, you just ended it so eloquently. And let’s kind of turn the page now to the other end of the spectrum. You know, you shared a really difficult obstacle that you faced in your life. The reality is you know with every dark and storm cloud there is that silver lining.

Christine: Yeah.

John Lee Dumas: And you were able to find that. But what I want to talk about now is another story. And this story’s gonna be of a time that you. Christine had a Aha moment, an epiphany, a light bulb that just went off at some point in your journey. And, Christine, I mean, I mean, you’ve written three amazing books, you’ve done some incredible things. I mean, you’ve had many of these light bulb moments, but which story would you say would impact our listeners most? I want you to tell that one of that epiphany, and then walk us through, Christine, the steps that you took to turn that idea, that Aha moment into success.

Christine: Well, it comes from this story that was really the Aha moment that was the transformation for me. And my Aha moment in that is that in living by a checklist I wasn’t being vulnerable, and I wasn’t being authentic in how I was showing up in the world. And I had a night on my bathroom floor where I really just was thinking about how I could take my own life, because I really was depressed. I was also dealing with chemical depression. That’s another part of my story; I was on antidepressants from 10 until about 29. So, that’s a whole other journey, a whole other podcast.

But part of, you know, that down moment, and just being like, “I don’t know if I want to be here,” what happened was I had kind of a God moment, a universe moment, a spiritual awakening, use whatever word we want to use, but something powerful kind of came in for a moment. And it was this sense of presence and love and just unconditional compassion, everything I was looking for on the outside I felt internally.

And, John, it only lasted for a second, because my mind came in and tried to analyze it and figure it out.

John Lee Dumas: Right.

Christine: But it was long enough to be a reference point, and go, “Oh, wow, like that thing I’m seeking outside is really inside of me.” And my Aha was, “I need to start being vulnerable and authentic. I need to start sharing what’s really going on with me, instead of pretending to have it all together, and be this person, be this image of who I think I should be versus myself.” And so, kind of the next day I woke up with the idea to start writing. And I also had the idea to reach out to people and see if other people were going through what I was going through.

And I sent – I didn’t have many friends back then, but I knew about five women in L.A., and I sent an email to them, and I said, “This is what just happened,” because I was trying to like pretend I still had everything together. And I was just really honest about my debt, my broken heart, like not knowing where I was, being confused, laying it all out there, not in a pity party story, but just in a very vulnerable way. I said, “I’d love to create a circle where we can talk about this and support each other, we’re in L.A. where people are kind of fake, like, let’s get real.” And I sent the email out and I was very, very nervous.

And I remember going to Trader Joe’s and getting, you know, a plate of cheese and crackers, hoping that like two people would come. I had 29 women show up at my house that night.

John Lee Dumas: Wow.

Christine: 29 women. The email got forwarded around. And that was the beginning of doing what I do now, and going, “Wow, just by being honest and vulnerable and authentic, this is what can be created.” And that’s really was the pivot for me, and still remains the how – the compass of my business.

John Lee Dumas: That is a really powerful pivot on a lot of different levels, Christine, and as you know, one thing I want to kind of pull back out that you shared very early on that I thought was powerful, that I want to make sure Fire Nation really absorbed is that you were living in a checklist instead of living authentically, and, Fire Nation, how many of you right now are just living in that checklist, living that to-do list, and knowing that you’re somehow forcing, you know, that internal fire down? You’re not letting it come out and being that authentic person. I mean, that’s the big takeaway that I want Fire Nation to walk away with from this segment of your story, Christine.

What is that one thing – if you could just kind of unpack that for our listeners that you want Fire Nation to make sure that they definitely absorb?

Christine: I love what you just highlighted and, you know, I would add it’s like, “Be authentic rather than strategic.” I think we spend too much time being strategic and not authentic. So, I would definitely say that. And then, I’d also say, you know, one of the things that I learned from what I just shared was that in being vulnerable and being authentic I also started being a lot kinder to myself. And I learned that I had used being hard on myself as a way to motivate myself. And I see this with a lot of entrepreneurs. Because it’s effective. I mean, you get things done when you’re hard on yourself.

John Lee Dumas: Right.

Christine: And have these high standards. I mean, it is definitely effective in the external world. But it’s so depleting. It’s so depleting. So, really check in and investigate your internal dialogue and your relationship with yourself, and how hard you are on yourself, and put that inner critic under a spotlight and look at it. And you’ve got to find another way to inspire yourself versus hard drive yourself by incessant criticism.

John Lee Dumas: So, Christine, I love how you said, “Be authentic rather than strategic.” And you know, we all find ourselves trying to be strategic, you know, when we’re you know just looking for the bottom line, looking to generate revenue, or looking to become more popular or more social media-friendly, or whatever it might be. But you know my question to you is, “How much better does it feel, how much more natural does it feel when you choose to be authentic rather than strategic?”

Christine: Oh my God, it’s such a load off, it’s a huge relief. And you don’t have to lose so much time comparing yourself to other people. You know, because you just get to be you. And then the right situations and opportunities just really show up. I’m not saying you don’t have to work, there’s still effort, of course, but it just flows so much easier when we’re just ourselves and we’re working in our zone of genius.

John Lee Dumas: Love that, “zone of genius,” I love using that phrase. Where did I first see that, I think I saw that in The Big Leap with Gay Hendricks.

Christine: Yeah, great book.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, awesome. So, Christine, let’s talk now about another story. You can see I’m very story-focused, because you know us as humans, I mean, there’s a reason why history broken down is his-story, like we learn from stories; we resonate with stories. And your stories are so powerful. So, take us to another moment in time, your proudest entrepreneurial moment.

Christine: It actually just happened this Friday.

John Lee Dumas: Yay!

Christine: Yeah. And I may get like, I get all like teary-eyed.

John Lee Dumas: That’s cool, we can see you. Just kidding, we can’t.

Christine: So, Friday night, I’m on a book tour right now and I’m doing workshops all over, and Friday night I had an event in Austin, and in my 10 years of doing it, it was the first time my mother and daughter – my mother and father and sister were in the audience. And it was the first time my family has ever seen me speak or facilitate. And being – and my sister introduced me, which was amazing.

John Lee Dumas: Ah, that’s awesome.

Christine: So, being able to do what I do and share that and have my family in the audience just looking up at me and I could feel their pride, that has been my proudest moment.

John Lee Dumas: That absolutely gives me goose-bumps. And I can tell you that it wasn’t actually too long ago that I was so fortunate to have been able to really experience something pretty similar to that when I went back home to my home state in Maine, just this past September, and I was able to get up on stage and present, and my family was in the audience. And like when they’re there they can see you doing what you do, being your authentic self, they can see it, you can see it.

Christine: Yeah.

John Lee Dumas: You can feel it. And it’s, you know, that pride that comes from them, and from them seeing you doing, you know, what you’re called to do in this world is so utterly powerful that it’s just an amazing experience. And I mean, Christine, speaking of that, you know, we talked a little bit in the pre-interview chat, you have a lot of exciting things going on. I mean, you just were on TV this morning, literally, you finished a massive book tour, you know, you had to drive really fast to get to this interview today, maybe a little too fast, but that can another podcast story, too.

Christine: A little too fast.

John Lee Dumas: But, you know, share with our listeners, share with Fire Nation one or two things that just really have you fired up right now.

Christine: Well, I’m really so fired up about this book, because what it is is it’s – so my term “vision mission” is to ease suffering on the planet, that’s why I’m here. Because I believe that when we – first of all, I believe there’s great value in our suffering. The word passion, actually the original definition of the word passion is “suffering.”

John Lee Dumas: Wow.

Christine: Passion of the Christ. Over time we’ve evolved it to mean our greatest love. And I really do believe that it is in our suffering that we often find our greatest love, our love for ourselves, how we want to contribute in the world. You know, we have – it’s like you said, like “Dark Knight of the Soul, Hero’s Journey,” that we often find our calling. So, I am so committed to helping people navigate through that suffering because once we do then we can serve, then we can show up, then we get out of our way and we’re on fire, you know, we’re unstoppable, and we can make the impact we’re here to make.

And that can be a big impact in terms of business, or it can just be the impact you make on the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis. Because you’re a happy, fulfilled, content person. So, that fires me up, just the possibility of people’s potential. I just, I get so excited about transformation and people getting out of their own way, it’s really, really, really awesome.

John Lee Dumas: So, Christine, let’s talk about Expectation Hangover for a second, like what exactly does that title mean? What is an Expectation Hangover?

Christine: Great question. So, it’s when a few things happen. Either you do not reach your expected outcome or plan, like the checklist, the bullet point you’re trying to check off, you don’t reach it, you pour all your blood, sweat and tears – it doesn’t happen. You experience letdown, disappointment. Or you reach a goal, but you don’t have the feeling you thought you would. It doesn’t bring you the fulfillment, the creativity, the money, the love, everything that you banked on it for. And then, like you mentioned earlier, you just have to keep raising the bar.

Or life throws you a total unexpected and undesirable curveball that you’re just like, “Where did this come from?” You know, you get fired, your house burns down, someone dumps you, things like that. And the symptoms are similar to a regular hangover, but more severe. Your head’s aching from all the thinking and figuring out and obsessing, because no one likes uncertainty. You lack motivation, there’s a sense of regret, you’re spinning in confusion, and you just want it to be over. So, that’s what an Expectation Hangover is. It’s basically, disappointment.

John Lee Dumas: You know, what kind of pops into my mind, and, Fire Nation, I’d love for you guys to be thinking about an Expectation Hangover that you’ve had at some point in your lives. And obviously we’ve – most of us have had many, and you know, one that I can really kind of just point towards right now, Christine, that pops into my mind happened about 10 years ago. You know, I was an army officer, I spent eight years in the army, and you know, right out of college, and I joined the military – I was you know commissioned as an officer, and did a 13-month tour of duty in Iraq.

And it was an incredibly difficult tour of duty, you know, it was in 2003-2004, we were the first U.S. soldiers to push west of Bagdad. So, it was a very, very bloody year, it was a very dangerous time. You know I actually lost four soldiers under my command. It was a really difficult tour of duty, and I can just remember so clearly thinking multiple times throughout those 13 months that literally did feel like 13 years, you know, “If I just get back to the U.S., like I will be so happy, I’ll be so, you know, it’ll be amazing, I’ll have this – I’ll be so excited, so happy, so thrilled, so fulfilled, I’ll be – I’ll feel so blessed to have made it back.”

And it was something that I was just really, really looking towards as like the end all be all. Like, “If I can just get back to the U.S. after this tour of duty, like, you know, life will be amazing.” And I remember getting back and you know I immediately crumpled to my knees like on U.S. soil and like kissed the asphalt there, like right there at the airport itself. And you know, life was good for a couple days, but then I can remember waking up and then all of a sudden I’m just like, “Man, why am I not as happy as I am expecting myself to be here?”

Like, I was building up for these 13 months that I was just gonna love going to Walmart, because I can now go to Walmart, you know, and I can jump in a car and drive somewhere and go out and have drinks at a bar. And it was gone, you know, like I didn’t have that happiness, I didn’t have that joy. And then, actually I found myself at times even saying, “Man, you know, life wasn’t that bad in Iraq.” Like I had this amazing camaraderie with my fellow soldiers and officers, and we were doing things that really mattered, you know, building schools, fresh water, saving lives. You know, what can you kind of share with that?

Christine: Wow. Well, I love – I mean, that’s a very powerful Expectation Hangover, it really, really is. And I think what – a couple things come to mind. You know, wherever we go, there we are.

John Lee Dumas: Yeah, yeah. Is that Dr. Seuss? I love that.

Christine: Yeah, “Wherever we go, there we are.” And it’s like, your coping skills for how you were dealing with whatever wasn’t working for you when you were abroad were to think about “What could the next thing be?” You know, we tend to go to the future. And then once we get there, if we’re still not feeling the contentment, then we jump back to the past. And what the opportunity is in any one of these Expectation Hangovers, and especially the one you know you’re talking about, which I think you’ve done, and which inspires so much of the work you do today is, you know, what’s going on inside of you that’s producing the discontent?

You know, what are you really looking for in the external world that you need to generate internally? Because we get really tripped up with form versus essence, you know? We have a longing, we have a desire, there’s a feeling we want to feel, and we attach a form to it. You know, like you thought it was gonna be back at home, and then when you’re back at home you’re like, “Well, maybe it was better over there?” But it’s really, like what we’re looking for on the inside we can generate no matter what we’re doing, no matter where we are.

And that’s what we really have to invest our time and energy in. And then, the outside circumstances then don’t matter as much. Does that make sense?

John Lee Dumas: No, it makes a lot of sense, Christine. I’m really glad that, you know, I was kind of able to give you an opportunity to kind of break that down into what that means in a real-world scenario, because you know it’s something that I struggled with for a long time, and I know that our listeners right now, you know, maybe some of them are actually experiencing you know an Expectation Hangover as we speak. And so, I kind of want to dive more into this and you know share a little more details about this at the end of the interview.

But for right now, Christine, we are going to enter the lightning rounds. But before we do, let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors. Christine, welcome to the lightning round, where you get to share incredible resources in mind-blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Christine: Definitely.

John Lee Dumas: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Christine: A fear of rejection, putting myself out there and having people not want it, saying “no,” thinking it was not good, fear of being judged.

John Lee Dumas: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Christine: Know what you’re good at and delegate the rest.

John Lee Dumas: So true. There’s a great book called Virtual Freedom by Chris Duckard, that dives just into that. Christine, share one of your personal habits that you believe contributes to your success.

Christine: Daily meditation. Start every day, before I check my cellphone, before I do anything, I meditate for about 15 minutes.

John Lee Dumas: And do you use any app or what do you specifically do to meditate? Is it you just closing your eyes?

Christine: In the beginning I did, now I do it on my own. I’ll sometimes read. I have an affirmation, like a mantra that I do internally. And I’ll just set a timer.

John Lee Dumas: Beautiful. Do you have an internet resource, like an Evernote that you’re just in love with that you can share with our listeners?

Christine: Okay, so I’m a road warrior. Like, I travel a lot. So, I want to share a travel thing. I’m all about miles and flying, you know, Business or First Class, and doing lots of upgrades.

John Lee Dumas: Right.

Christine: So, if – airlines have shopping mall sites. If you just Google: United Shopping Mall, American Shopping Mall, Delta Shopping Mall, whatever, and you just login with your frequent flyer number and all the stores you shop at like Nordstrom, Target, Amazon, whatever, you can search for them, and any purchase you make you get like quadruple, triple, double miles. So, anytime you buy anything on the internet, go through one of those sites, and you will rack up thousands and thousands of miles.

John Lee Dumas: Wow. Love it. For any road warriors out there, golden nuggets. And, Christine, if you can recommend one book for our listeners to join the Expectation Hangover on our show notes page, what would it be and why?

Christine: A book I just reread that is one of my favorites is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I think it’s such a great story, and a reminder of how we all have a personal legend, our personal destiny, and that the universe is doing everything it can to conspire to help us find it. It’s just up to us to get out of the way. Yeah, it’s a great book.

John Lee Dumas: I love that book. Well, Fire Nation, I know that you love audio. So, if you haven’t already you can get an amazing audio book like this one for free at E-O-Firebook-dot-com. That’s E-O Fire Book-dot-com. Christine, this next question’s the last of the lightning round, but it’s a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world identical to earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have, your food and shelter taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Christine: Are other people on this place with me – new world?

John Lee Dumas: It’s identical to earth.

Christine: Okay. I would definitely – I would go talk to people. I would go do interview after interview talking to people, connecting to people, find out who they are, what they want, what the needs are, how people are connecting. I would get away from my computer and go talk to people.

John Lee Dumas: Christine, love that answer. And let’s end today literally on fire with you sharing just one parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye.

Christine: I’m gonna repeat something I said earlier, because I think it’s so important, parting piece of guidance, “Do not use being hard on yourself as a form of motivation. Find a way to inspire yourself and really leverage your superpowers.” And people can connect with me, you can go to get the book at the Expectation Hangover-dot-com, lots of free gifts for you there, including a video series from me.

John Lee Dumas: Yay.

Christine: And then, I’m Christine Hassler, Christine Hassler-dot-com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that good stuff.

John Lee Dumas: Well, Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have been hanging out with Christine and myself today. So, keep up the heat and head over to E-O Fire-dot-com, type Christine in the search bar, her show notes page will pop right up. And don’t forget to go and snag Expectation Hangover, and you can check it out with all those gifts at Expectation Hangover-dot-com. And, Christine, thank you for –