In the Trenches 002 ｜ Chris Gachko
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
194.52148
Summary
Chris Gatchko is a 43-year-old entrepreneur, father, husband, and battle leader in the Iron Council. He is also the Director of Events for the IC and Director of Special Events for Order of Man. In this episode, Chris shares his story of how he became a better man.
Transcript
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Gentlemen, welcome to In the Trenches, an Order of Man podcast dedicated to interviewing
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ordinary, everyday men like you and me who are currently in the battle of becoming better
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You'll hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from guys who are striving to become stronger
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husbands, fathers, business owners, and community leaders.
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It's our mission to deliver the stories that will inspire you to become the man you are
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Your host for this podcast is a man who is not only in the trenches, but has drastically
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changed his life for the better over the past two years.
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So, Chris, tell us a little bit about yourself, man.
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So, I am kind of getting started on a lot of things really late in life.
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I just started my own sales consulting business in the middle of 2017.
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I just started my family towards the end of 2017.
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My wife and I are going on five years of marriage this year.
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I did a lot of the things that a lot of people do for a very long time.
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I sat in the car for an hour and a half on a commute.
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I lived in Virginia for a little more than a decade as well, right outside of D.C.
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And then I lived right outside Washington, D.C. for a spell as well.
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And in regards to Order of Man and Iron Council, I've been in the Iron Council for two years.
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This month, February, I started out just like everybody else does.
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And it's kind of grown into being a little bit more.
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I'm currently a battle team leader in the Iron Council.
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I'm a battle team leader mentor for the IC, which means that when new battle team leaders are promoted into the positions,
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I'm one of four people that they get paired with to make sure that they're on the up and up.
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I was the curator of the book club until this month.
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We actually have a book club every month that kind of goes with our monthly topic.
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I just actually turned over the reins starting in March.
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And for Order of Man, I actually have a slightly larger role as well.
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I'm the director of special events for Order of Man.
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So, I take care of planning and setting up the live events for Order of Man.
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So, for those of you that follow, my first event was the meetup that was in Nashville, Tennessee recently.
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And we'll be looking at doing another one in July as well with the location West Coast to be determined.
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It's interesting because it's actually a path that quite a few people in the Iron Council followed.
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I lie to myself quite a bit and, you know, that naturally goes into others.
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And I tell stories to try to cover myself and make myself seem better and things like that.
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And that was a terrible pattern that I had fallen into.
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And I had fallen into it again with my marriage.
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And I finally kind of let everything out in a very made-for-TV dramatic moment.
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I just knew that I needed something to kind of help me get my shit straight.
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I needed to get steered in the direction that I did not have the kind of support in my own personal life where I could do that.
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As a man, it's kind of hard to kind of take advice from your wife and, like, listen to your wife tell you what to do.
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You know, it's not the easiest place to do that.
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So I found an online mastermind from some people that I followed online.
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And through that mastermind, I came across Ryan, who was actually in that mastermind as well.
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And I came across him and his group, Order of Man, Iron Council.
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And, you know, one of the things that you find out when we talk about, like, the Iron Council or some of these other ones is that you got to find one that fits.
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Just because somebody is a successful business coach doesn't mean they're a successful business coach for you.
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You know, you got to find someone that works in your style and whatnot.
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And that first mastermind didn't work in my style.
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So I ended up kind of sticking with it and staying with it.
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So, you know, my journey was definitely one of, you know, feeling like I was kind of getting close to the bottom.
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And then I was very, very fortunate to kind of come across Ryan in Order of Man and Iron Council when I did.
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So you touched on something there that I thought was kind of important.
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You said that a successful business coach might not be a successful business coach for you.
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And that's one of the things that I think is really powerful about what we're doing is because you don't just have one business coach.
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I mean, and it's interesting because, you know, everybody thinks that it's like snake oil, like all these coaches and all that.
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And, I mean, on some level, I understand the skepticism.
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There are so many people out there trying to do things like Order of Man, the Iron Council.
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People get nervous about, you know, oh, why would I spend money for doing the things that I need to do?
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Well, because you're not doing the things you need to do when you have the ability to do them for free.
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Like, it's so like that when I hear that question, it's so obvious the answer.
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The number of people that have the motivation to do these things on their own, most of those people don't need the coaches, don't need the masterminds, don't need everything else because they're, quote unquote, doing it on their own.
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You know, other people need that little bit of push, need that motivation, need to be able to kind of be put in a structure that works for them.
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So, you know, when people ask me about Iron Council, I don't sell it.
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I tell them this is what it does and it works for me.
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And for a very long time, I was doing them in barefoot shoes.
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People would be like, wow, those are awesome, really great, blah, blah, blah.
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I would never tell anybody to buy those because it took me six months to transition into them.
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You got to find the shoes that are right for you.
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So, like, you got to find the thing that works for you.
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For other people, there might be some other coaching and things that work great for them.
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You just got to find the one that's right for you.
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That kind of brings me to one of my questions, which is, what are some of the biggest hurdles that you've overcome?
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For me, you know, it's not the easiest to talk about.
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But, you know, I have been much more honest in my life and my relationships.
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But in real major things, I'm much more forthcoming and straightforward with the things that I talk about and what I do.
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It's not like you join the Iron Council and everything goes away.
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And I still have to do everything that I'm doing.
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You know, I still, business-wise, I overcame some major hurdles.
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I was really in a rut from a professional standpoint.
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And it's really kind of pushed me to a level where I'm at a point now where I'm creating my own business based on my expertise.
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I was very much that person that played it safe and just took the next corporate job and took the next corporate job.
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It was a lot of strain on me mentally, emotionally.
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Working in the hospitality industry is not nice.
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Anybody that's worked in hotels or restaurants kind of understands how that goes.
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But this has given me a huge opportunity to be able to be more present in my life, in my family, with my new son, with my wife even more.
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You know, we were heading down a pretty dark path, I think.
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You know, in the first couple of years that we were married, you know, we were just not heading in the direction that happy newlyweds should have been going.
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Because I've been able to – there's still some areas I need to work on.
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You know, still haven't gotten over the diet hurdle yet.
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You know, I'm still really struggling with that.
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You know, I used to be, you know, almost 370 pounds.
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But I haven't consistently been moving down to the other end either.
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So, you know, I've been maintaining kind of in the same spot for a little while, and I need to kind of get that back into gear.
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But I know I have the support and the resources here once I can get my shit straight in my head that I can do that.
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So, you know, that kind of brings me to my next question is what are some milestones that you've made?
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Well, I think the biggest one is starting my family because if we hadn't gotten our stuff straight,
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as a married couple, like, I wouldn't have started my family.
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I think the ability to start my own business was another one.
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You know, I'm still kind of in the beginning stages of kind of getting this squared away.
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But being able to be surrounded by so many different resources to allow me to do this
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and to help me understand that I can do – that this is something that I can accomplish has been huge.
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So I think understanding my ability to be able to – this is going to sound so, like, overdramatic – to be something, to be somebody,
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You know, the term that you hear a lot in the Iron Council, the lighthouse.
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You know, that's something that's uncomfortable for a lot of people to understand how to do that.
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Everybody wants to be the tugboat, which is the example, lighthouse versus tugboat.
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Everybody wants to be the tugboat, the one that has to rescue everyone,
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as opposed to being that lighthouse that just does and lets everybody kind of gravitate towards that.
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Being able to be a team leader, being able to be a mentor, to be a team leader,
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being able to be someone that Ryan has entrusted to be able to do these live events,
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you know, to put together these live events for him.
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You know, that's a big responsibility, and I take that responsibility very, very seriously.
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And knowing that that responsibility falls on my shoulders for my battle team,
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for the team leaders that come on that I'm mentoring,
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and then the people that are coming to these events,
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knowing that hopefully they're going to come out changed in some way.
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Knowing that I have the ability to affect people in that way has been a huge change.
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And a lot of people talk about, oh, my marriage is better, my workouts are better,
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But I mean, for me, like, just to be just knowing the kind of leader that I can be
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and the kind of man that I can be in my community, in my home, and in myself
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has been one of the biggest changes I've seen as well.
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All right, what advice would you give some of these guys
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that are just now starting this journey to better themselves?
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The biggest thing is don't be skeptical and don't think there's a magic pill.
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Don't go in and question everything and feel like that you're the outlier that's different.
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Like, I guarantee you that if you come into the Iron Council,
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someone's gone through what you're going through.
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And if you come in, there's going to be people that are in the same career as you,
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that are in the same place in their marriage as you,
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There are people that you can connect with that can relate to you
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and that you can kind of have a kinship with that can kind of help you through this.
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And the other part is that don't walk in and, you know,
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There's an expectation for you that when you come in,
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you're going to do X, Y, and Z within the first couple weeks that you're in.
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It's not like, oh, I'm just going to hang out and talk to some guys.
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And honestly, man, I think that goes for just about anything you do in life.
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Say the Iron Council isn't a fit for you or you're not ready for that.
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If you're going to step into it, get ready to do the work.
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You come into the Iron Council and you're like, yo, man, like, I'm not really happy.
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There was, you know, there was a gentleman that came to Nashville.
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And again, you know, it's very personal to me that I'm planning, you know, planning this stuff.
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And I noticed that he was there on day one, but he wasn't there on day two.
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And I was like, you know, like, I can't get this out of my head.
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And basically, this guy did not expect it to be what it was.
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He thought it was something completely different.
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He thought it was a completely different type of event.
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He's like, listen, like, I'm in a similar space as you.
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I thought this was very specific to this type of event.
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Like, but this type of event is things that I do professionally.
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So, like, I almost feel like I shouldn't be there anymore because I'm not trying to, like, take trade secrets and do all this kind of stuff.
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It doesn't mean it's the worst thing in the world.
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And honestly, you could talk to guys in the Iron Council and they'll probably help you because we've all been in a bunch of different ones.
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And make sure you're just prepared to do the work.
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But that's the thing that people run into the most.
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So, just those two things more than anything else.
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But I do want to ask you a question real quick.
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If you can challenge these guys to do one thing this week, what would that one thing be?
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What I would challenge anyone here listening to do.
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And I'd love to actually see it in the Order of Man group page.
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I'd love you to reach out to one person who you would like to either coach or mentor you.
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It can be an individual or it can be a mastermind group.
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Reach out to someone to try to start to make your personal relationships better.
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If there's somebody in your community that you respect, that you're like, I'd love you to be my mentor.
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If there's someone you want to start working with, to be like, what do I need to do to hire you as a coach?
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Even if it doesn't work out, take a step to start that conversation.
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Take that step to just try to advance yourself, whether it be personally, professionally, in your relationships, whatever.
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Well, we are, like I said, we're coming up against time.
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Chris, thank you so much for being here, brother.
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If you've been inspired by this conversation, we encourage you to learn more about the steps,
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tools, strategy, and resources these men are using inside of our exclusive brotherhood,
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The Iron Council is a band of brothers dedicated to leveling up their lives and committed to helping
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You can learn more at orderofman.com slash inthetrenches.
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Until next week, take action and become the man you are meant to be.