In this episode of Push to Be More, host Matt Edmundson interviews Chris Mader, founder and CEO of MTA Consulting, about his journey from professional athlete to successful business coach. Chris shares insights on making life adjustments, finding purpose, and balancing success with personal happiness. Discover how Chris overcame challenges, wrote a book, and built a thriving consultancy focused on leadership development and sales coaching.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

2:48 Meet Chris Mader

8:37 Writing a book and starting a business

33:35 Managing work-life balance and personal growth

39:21 Shifting from success to significance

45:41 How to connect with Chris Mader

46:54 Closing remarks and show wrap-up

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Key Takeaways:

1. Make the adjustment - Take ownership of your situation and be willing to change. As Chris says: "You're the one that has to make the change." He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and taking action to improve your circumstances.

2. Find your purpose - Identify what truly motivates and fulfills you. Chris notes: "Once you establish the purpose. All the studies have been done on, once you're purpose driven, you'll get up earlier, you'll stay later." Aligning your work with your purpose leads to greater satisfaction and success.

3. Focus on balance and wellbeing - Don't neglect your health and relationships in pursuit of career success. Chris shares: "I wanted to spend more time with my kids, I want to spend time with my wife, I want to spend more time with my friends. And I was over invested in work." He emphasizes the importance of finding balance for overall happiness and fulfillment.

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If this episode of Push to be More piqued your interest make sure to keep up to date with everything we do here on the Push to be More Podcast.

Matt Edmundson [0:14 - 2:48]: Well, hello and welcome back to Push to Be More. My name is Matt Edmundson and we're gonna jump into another exploration of what fuels this thing called life. Yes, we are. Today I am chatting with Chris Mader from MTA Consulting. We're gon diving into his unique life experiences, the hurdles he has had to push through, what he does to recharge his batteries, and the steps he's taking to be more. In other words, we're going to be looking at Push to be and more. Yes. Now, don't forget, you can find all the detailed show notes and the complete transcript of our conversation on the website at pushtobemore.com so if you can't take notes, don't panic. We've got them for you. They're all there. You can go get them for free. Yes, you can. But if you're like me, you're an avid note taker, join in as well, because I have a book just full of notes from guests, which is amazing, and I dare say Chris is going to bring some today as well. Now, let me take a brief second to thank Podjunction, the company that makes this show possible, headed up by the wonderful Sadaf Baynon, who has also started up hosting some of these podcasts and doing some of the interviews, which is fab, means we can get more out there. But if you want to understand how podcasting can help your business grow like it's helped mine grow in insane ways, then go have a conversation with Sadaf. She would love to have a conversation with you. This is an unbelievable networking tool, podcasting. It really does open doors like nothing I've ever seen. And I get to have great conversations with great people like Chris, who probably being realistic, would never have met had we not have got the podcast. And so it's just a wonderful thing. Go check it out at podjunction.com. go talk Sadaf. Tell her I said how's it? And she will help you as much as she can. Now let's talk about Chris, the founder and CEO of MTA Consulting, with 27 years of experience coaching leaders, consulting and developing talent from entry level roles to the C Suite. A former professional athlete, which is not something we can all say. Let's be real. Chris combines insights from elite sports and business to help individuals and leaders. Leaders achieve greatness. Based off the beautiful south coast of Massachusetts, he enjoys family time, beach days, because why would you not golf? Okay, playing the guitar with you on that one, Chris. When he's not inspiring the next generation of leaders, that's what you'll find him doing. Chris, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing? I'm great.

Chris Mader [2:48 - 2:51]: It's really great to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation today.

Matt Edmundson [2:51 - 3:44]: Matt, that's great. And also should probably give a quick shout out to Neil Roberts, who's been on the show recently. He introduced us, he said, matt, you really need to speak to this guy. He's an absolute legend. So, yeah, very nice. I'm looking forward to it myself. So, Chris, let's get started. Let's start with my. My favourite question that I like to ask everybody. And it's the. To be fair, if you're listening to the show, we ask this question at the start of every conversation. It's the only question I've told you that I'm going to ask. Right. And so it's great because when people come onto the show, if they, you know, if they. I mean, you've done podcasts, but not everybody has. And I think knowing the first question just puts everybody at ease really a little bit and it just starts the conversation going. So let's do it. Chris, if you had your own podcast and you could interview anybody on your podcast, someone that's had a big influence on your life, past or present, who would you interview and why?

Chris Mader [3:45 - 4:07]: So it is a great question and it required some thought because there were many names that came up and if you would ask me on the spot, I would have given you four or five and you would have pinned me down for one. So the one person that. And eventually I do want to start doing podcasts to support my business and like you said, Matt, expand the network. But it would have to be my first manager in business. His name is Bob Dickey.

Matt Edmundson [4:07 - 4:08]: Okay.

Chris Mader [4:08 - 4:27]: And so I'll tell you why, Bob. Bob is a blue collar guy from New England and he actually went to college at San Diego State, came back home, built his family and started his career in sales. And he was an individual contributor for about five years. Selling. I mean, I'm going to date us here. Back in the 90s, fax machines and copy machines.

Matt Edmundson [4:27 - 4:29]: Oh, wow. I had one. I had one.

Chris Mader [4:29 - 4:49]: Yeah. You know, back in the 90s, we all did. And so he happened upon a company that did IT consulting and staffing, and he was selling copiers to them and ended up working there because there was so much energy in the building. So after three years of selling, he got promoted to be a manager and. And I backfilled his seat as a salesperson. I was the first person he ever hired.

Matt Edmundson [4:49 - 4:49]: Wow.

Chris Mader [4:49 - 5:57]: As A. As a manager, Bob went on every three years to earn a promotion from branch manager to regional regional VP, VP to President, President, CEO. Ended up running a $1.4 billion company. You know, coming from this little brick building that looked like a bomb shelter back in Hoover, Massachusetts, back in the 90s. So Bob taught me. I mean, he taught me everything about sales. He taught me so much about leadership and managing. He had that tough love. He was tough on me, but I knew it was coming from a good place. And so I just entrusted my career to Bob for 20 years. I worked for 20 years. I then moved on to a new opportunity in a new industry, in healthcare. And then a year later, he was looking for work, and we needed a president. So I told the founder of the company, Joe. I'm like, joe, you gotta hire Bob. This guy's the best I've ever worked for. Bob Start, he jumped into that company, helped it grow from 175 million to 500 million. So, you know, he's touched two. He's touched two big companies in his career that turned to gold. But I. I credit so much of it's his work ethic, his discipline, his coaching style. There's just so many things I could.

Matt Edmundson [5:57 - 6:00]: Say about Bob Dickey.

Chris Mader [6:01 - 6:25]: So I gotta get him. If you can get him. If you can get him, get him. But, you know, I hope I. I know him well enough that I think maybe he would consider doing a podcast with me, because he's very. He's one of those, like, really private guys. Like, he's hard to get to know, you know, and so I've seen behind the curtain of how Bob thinks about things, and we were obviously good friends, and he's always been a good. He's always been a great mentor to me.

Matt Edmundson [6:25 - 7:03]: That's fantastic. You know what, Chris? I. One, I love the story. Thank you for sharing. And two, I. Every time I ask this question, I'm always intrigued by the answers that people give, because obviously these people like Bob means a lot to you, right? He's very well connected to you. And people give answers which are usually very meaningful, which is wonderful. Not many people have given answers where it's like a direct mentor like that. This guy's had such a big impact on your life for such a long period of time. And I love the fact that, you know, when you went and worked in a different company like Bob, you need to come work in this company as well.

Chris Mader [7:03 - 7:12]: Is to say, everything he told me about sales, I used on him to sell him on coming to work. With us, you know, it's like a Jedi mind trick.

Matt Edmundson [7:12 - 8:36]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I remember the first, really the only boss I've ever had because I've worked for myself most of my life. But there's. He's also been on the show, actually, the guy called Simon. Still very good friends. He moved out to New Zealand, sold the business and moved to New Zealand. Great guy, but a really fascinating salesperson. Right. Not your archetypical, kind of Zig Ziglar. And I love the Zig Ziglar approach, I really do. I learned a lot from him. But this guy is just unusual. An unusual personality, looks, the way he carries himself, everything was quite unusual. He had this trick though, Chris, that I picked up quite early on. I started working for him just outside, just about a year or so after I graduated university. And we were selling saunas and I watched him and whenever he was in the room, he would talk slowly like this, and everybody would be sort of waiting, you know, for the next word to come out of his mouth. But he would do this thing where he would just slowly nod his head like this. And what you found yourself doing as you were, you sort of, you drawn into the way he spoke, you would find yourself nodding along. It was a really interesting thing that I noticed quite early on. I'm like, what? I've started doing it myself. It's, it's really fascinating, just these little things that you pick up from your mentors, isn't it?

Chris Mader [8:37 - 8:48]: It is. No, it really is. Like you said, I, I, and I, you know, I just wrote a book that came out two weeks ago, about three weeks ago. Congratulations. Thank you. It was a 14 month journey. It's something I've always wanted to do.

Matt Edmundson [8:48 - 8:48]: Yeah.

Chris Mader [8:48 - 9:05]: And of course Bob, he didn't want to be directly quoted in the book because that's Bob, he doesn't want to be interviewed. However, he's like, Chris, everything I taught you put in the book, it's fine. Just make sure you reference me and footnote me. I'm like, no problem, Bob. So, you know, he, he just taught me so much about so many things.

Matt Edmundson [9:06 - 9:23]: Yeah, yeah. No, excellent. So tell me about the book. For, I mean, we all, anybody that's been in business for a while has this mad idea one day that they're going to write a book. Very few people actually do it. So you've managed to do it and launched it a few weeks ago. What made you decide to do that?