Chris Ruden, as seen on The Rock’s TV Show Titan Games, is an amputee keynote speaker, published author, disabled pro athlete, and adaptive model who uses his disability and disease as a way to inspire people to turn adversity into advantage. Chris speaks on overcoming adversity, diversity, and inclusion especially in the disability space, helping people see their world without limits.
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Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Chris Ruden about turning adversity into advantage.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
- Why you need to learn how to quit hiding and start living.
- How challenging defeatist perceptions is the first step towards fulfillment.
- How communicating with yourself and being self-aware can give you the upper hand in business.
- Why writing a book can start a cycle of building credibility around you, creating other streams of income.
- How there is no finish line to self-fulfillment and success in business.
Connect with Chris:
Links Mentioned:
chrisruden.com
Guest Contact Info:
Email
chris@chrisruden.com
Twitter
@ChrisRuden
Instagram
@chrisruden
Facebook
facebook.com/chrisruden
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/chrisruden
Rob Kosberg:
Welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here for another episode of the Publish. Promote. Profit. Podcast. I have Chris Ruden here with me today. I think you’re going to love him; what an amazing inspirational story. Chris was seen on The Rock’s TV show, Titan Games, which obviously how cool is that? Who doesn’t know and love The Rock? Chris is an amputee, keynote speaker, best-selling author of, The Upper Hand: Leveraging Limitations to Turn Adversity into Advantage. He is a disabled pro athlete, adaptive model who uses disability as a way to inspire people to turn their adversity into advantage. I am really excited to have you on the show today my friend.
Chris Ruden:
I appreciate you having me on, honestly. Just being able to do this and listening to you say those things I’m like, “Is he describing me?” It’s crazy how the years of work stack up.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. Now, there’s a lot to cover or at least there’s a lot on my mind. I think most people, after hearing that bio and even seeing the title of your book, they may have in their mind, what they kind of envision turning adversity into advantage means. Those are words, and it’s difficult, right? It’s difficult to do anything to create an advantage, let alone to turn adversity into an advantage. Talk to me a little bit about that idea and how much, as a topic, that means to you and what you see it meaning to other people.
Chris Ruden:
I was born with a physical disability. I was born with two fingers on my left hand and a shorter left arm. I actually hid my disability for 17 years. Up until a few years ago, I had a glove on my residual limb, and I didn’t get this until a few years ago. For 17 years, or pretty much my whole life, I felt like I was broken. I felt like the synonyms of disability; weak, broken, useless, helpless. Like any of these things, I just felt because of the way I was born, something I never asked for, I was less than. I lived with adversity and then I lived with it so much that I accepted it. When we start accepting it, it starts becoming our identity, not because adversity did this, but because we allowed it to. When I speak on the concept of turning adversity into advantage, adversity has a negative connotation, but it doesn’t need to. Adversity is just our perception of what’s difficult. How do I know this? I’ll ask you this. I’ll ask you right now. What are some emotions that come about with a flat tire? What do you feel?
Rob Kosberg:
Anger. Disappointment.
Chris Ruden:
Let’s go with that. I’m going to say you’re actually lying. Here’s why. When you pass someone on the road with a flat tire, do you feel anger?
Rob Kosberg:
Oh, no, no, no.
Chris Ruden:
So, it’s only when it happens to us. It’s not the adversity itself, but it’s the fact that it’s happening to us. If we have the ability to change our perspective around, maybe if we look at it from a different perspective, we can turn adversity, which is negative, into advantage, which is positive. Negatives and positives only exist with the way we tell ourselves the story. I just decided at a certain point, 17 years later, to change the narrative.
Rob Kosberg:
Wow. You’re talking about going through childhood, going through adolescents, going through your teenage years like this. Look, in one sense, this is a topic for everybody. It doesn’t matter if you have a physical limitation or not. People grow up through all kinds of abusive situations, difficulties, divorce, death, all these things. Life itself is suffering in one sense, even though there are so many wonderful and beautiful, incredible things. How do you just decide to say, “Okay, I’m going to make this an advantage.” Did you get pissed off one day? What are the motions that led up to that? There are people that are thinking about their own thing. Where does it start?
Chris Ruden:
You said a word; suffering. It’s probably blurred out, but that saying in the background is, “We often suffer in our imagination more than we do in reality.” Suffering is often worrying in advance, or suffering in advance, of things that haven’t happened. I went through frustration, pain, anger, sadness, depression, really dark things. It just became numb. I wish there was this one Disney moment that was just like, boom, “I made it.” I have people ask, “How did you beat adversity?” I’m like, “I’m still waiting for that moment.” There’s no finish line for mental health. There’s no finish line for success. It’s the process. I know that sounds kind of cliché, but there is no end destination when it comes to quality of life. So, there were little moments. I’ll never forget. I started building my speaking business. I’m a professional speaker. That’s what I do full-time. Also, I’m a social media influencer. I just hate that word. I was speaking and I was still hiding my disability and I’ll never forget. I was speaking at this event with 2000 people and I’m walking down this long hallway. There’s this little girl who had watched me speak. These people came to see me speak. I was still hiding my hand and she grabbed my hand that I was hiding, and I was mortified. She looked at me and she was swinging my hand. She’s like, “It’s okay. You don’t have to hide around me.” This is while I was a speaker and a few years before I started being open about my disability. I was like, “Damn. There are 2000 people are here to see me speak but this little girl is the only person that actually sees me. If she could accept me, why can’t I accept me?” Maybe acceptance is not an external thing. Maybe it’s an internal thing. When I started taking, I took my glove off. I posted a YouTube video of this coming out moment for me. Anyone watching, we all have some sort of glove. I wore a glove. Maybe you wear a mask, maybe it’s makeup, maybe it’s something you hide about your physicality, or your past, or traumas that you’ve had, or anything, your business, maybe your business failed. I’ve had more businesses fail than I can imagine. It’s something. We all have that thing we sweep under the rug. When I stopped hiding, I just started living. I did a funny talk at St. Louis University and I titled it, Turning Health Issues into Wealth Issues. I have an autoimmune disease and I have a disability, but I also have an ability to build value and impact, which turns into business, which turns into profit. So, ideas are valuable. Perspectives are valuable. I’ll be honest, no one cares about my story. They care about what my story does for them, just like a book, like an author. It’s not about your story. It’s about the message. Your story is a vessel for the message. I vow to be the person I never had growing up. That’s why I packaged my experiences into conceptual ideas that benefit other people.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. Now you, as a primary speaker, as far as your business goes, it must mean that you’re on the road a lot. You’re traveling, going place to place. Obviously, most of my clients, all my clients, are authors and most of them are speakers. I always shudder to think about traveling. I love my dogs. I love my house. I love my bed. I love my view. The idea of all of that travel, even just thinking about it, wears on me. You either A, super love it and are energized by the crowd, which I sense that there’s a part of it, or B, have you thought about doing other things with your influence, with your abilities, coaching maybe large groups, things of that nature as far as your magic, your secrets?
Chris Ruden:
I do a few things. I always wanted to be a motivational speaker. I didn’t really know, at the time, what that meant. That was high school. I didn’t think that was a real thing. I got my degree in exercise science and it was cool, but my true passion is speaking. I want to speak for the rest of my life, whether it’s on stages or virtual. Virtual events have really opened up the door to be home and do those things. Coaching and consulting are a part of my business. Being a published author, that’s a whole new avenue. Everything kind of stemmed from speaking. I truly do love speaking. My ultimate goal is to create a speaker mentorship to help people communicate more effectively, to become leaders in those communities that I can’t reach.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. That’s great. That opens up my mind a little bit more. I think about like Michael and Amy Port, good friends of mine. They’re fantastic. Michael in some ways, took some failures and turned them into amazing things. Of course, he’s a New York Times bestselling author and, Book Yourself Solid, was kind of his big breakthrough. Now he runs, Heroic Public Speaking, which is one of the biggest speaker training Institutes around. Is that your vision, teaching people to really share their magic with the world?
Chris Ruden:
That’s truly what I want to do; the art of charisma and understanding how to communicate in a way that people listen. Ideas are only effective if you get people to listen. You can’t sell an empty seat; you can’t fill an empty mind or a mind that’s not willing to listen. I want to help people, especially people in underserved communities, or people with disabilities, or adversity, turn adversity into advantage for their communities.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. Everybody has like their secret sauce, if you will. In a book, we try to convey that in units, or steps, or milestones, or whatever. Is there a way that you can convey somebody that is feeling discouraged because of their limitations, because of adversity, whether emotional stuff, physical stuff, disease, difficulty, how they begin? What are the steps or milestones that you might take someone like that through to create their own advantage from the adversity?
Chris Ruden:
You have to start with this, if you are practicing tennis for 10 years, and then you immediately try out for the NFL, you’re not going to be the best at it. You’re going to be really good at what you practice and really bad at what you don’t. A lot of people subconsciously practice, not only negativity, but self-sabotage. The first step is being aware of what you do, being mindful of what you do. In my book, I have this three C challenge – catch, challenge, change; really catching the feeling that even exists, challenging it to say, “Am I a loser? Do I really suck? Is this really not going to work? Is this just a negative feedback loop trying to protect myself from potential pain of loss,” and change it. Like, “Okay, I appreciate you mind for trying to protect me, but I don’t need that protection because I’m willing to go out there and give this value.” It does take a little bit of awareness and mindfulness because we often get on autopilot and self-sabotage. We get on autopilot and the way we react, instead of choosing our response, we just react, and there’s a big difference. Anyone struggling with adversity or hardship, you have to truly ask yourself, “Is it the hardship that’s the hard part, or is it the story I tell myself about the hardship?” Is the way you’re talking about yourself, about your struggles, the same way you would talk to someone you love about their struggles? Probably not.
Rob Kosberg:
So, catch, challenge, change. Catch is the idea of catching the feeling, or the emotion, or the thought that is negative and driving you down. Is that it?
Chris Ruden:
I’ll actually show you what I went through. When I first decided to become a speaker, I wasn’t charging any money and I did probably 20 events for free. I didn’t know if I was worth the money. Boom, catch. Am I not worth the money, or have I just not asked for money yet? Can I ask for money? Yes. If they say no, will I be destroyed? No. Does someone not recognizing my value or decrease my value? No. So why don’t you just do it? Change it. Let’s try asking for money. Okay. I got my first $3,000 gig, and then when you go from a four figure, to a five figure, 30-minute talk virtually, you’re like, “Dude, I used to get in trouble in school for speaking and now I get paid for it. How is this working?” That growth comes from being aware. My book is not about communication. My book is about self-communication. It’s not about getting the upper hand over anyone else. It’s about getting the upper hand over yourself because how can you expect other people to communicate with you effectively, if you can’t communicate with yourself effectively?
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. Let’s change gears just a little and talk about the business if we could. You’re speaking to tens of thousands of people. You’re making a great impact doing that. You wanted to obviously put something in their hands, whether it’s people that could come to your engagements or not, you wanted to spread your message more, so you wrote your book, The Upper Hand. The book is doing well. People are enjoying it, but you also wrote the book for yourself. You wanted it to do something for you, for your message, for your business. Talk to me a little bit about that. What was your vision? How did you want to use the book? How is it working for you thus far?
Chris Ruden:
Yeah. So, my ultimate goal was, I always wanted to speak, and I started speaking and I built my business over years and I’m like, “Man, this is awesome.” Then I met a few other speakers and they’re doing so many other things like consulting, coaching, having a book. I’m like, “Oh, why am I not doing that?” I almost feel like I was being selfish in maintaining the value that I had only four stages when I could also add value in different ways. As a businessperson, I needed to make income from different streams. Anyone who works for themselves understands that you’re not just going to get all your stuff from one thing, maybe a majority, but you’re leaving a lot on the table and you’re leaving a lot of value off other people’s tables by not doing those things. I’m one of those few, or less common people, who want to speak primarily but be an author as a secondary stream. I do now add books to talks and stuff like that to sell more books, but it’s a secondary thing. To be able to utilize the social media following that I was fortunate enough to build; people sharing my book, sharing the picture of the cover, or sharing parts of the book and sharing quotes becomes more viral. That virality adds to PR and PR adds to more booking, more booking adds to more exposure. It’s just a cycle. I made that cycle more effective.
Rob Kosberg:
I talk to a lot of authors that in many cases, decided to write their book because they were losing speaking opportunities to speakers that had books. I know on some stages and in some places, the book is kind of the necessary next step.
Chris Ruden:
It’s funny that you say that. That’s kind of the dirty parts of the industry. You do kind of need those fluff areas. PR for me, being featured in a two-page spread in People Magazine does a lot. Doing that TV show with The Rock does a lot. That definitely helps. Now, that’s not to say that if you don’t do that, you’ll never be successful, but in some areas that I dropped the ball, other areas I picked up. Anyone in business, we have our specialties. PR happens to be one of mine that really helped me using the books, speaking, and all that. This is a necessary step as a professional speaker. You do want a book, you do want PR, you want those big names to refer you and recommend you. You kind of have to check the boxes to play the game.
Rob Kosberg:
You do. I call it the hierarchy of desire. The book is kind of the foundational piece. As you go up the hierarchy, the more desirable you are, the more your ideal client, your stage that you want to get, which is a person that’s booking that stage. It’s not done magically or by machines. It’s a person that you have to impress. When you have the foundation of your book, and then you build on that foundation, real media, like television, like Titan Games, magazines, like People Magazine, these kinds of things just add to your credibility and desirability. Now more and more people want you. Media loves media.
Chris Ruden:
It’s competitive. That’s really what it is. As a speaker, I helped some people ask, “How have you developed authority? How have you developed credibility? Is your message something that you spent time on?” It’s kind of a funny saying, but I’m sure you can’t polish a turd. I tell people, “I don’t care how much PR you have; I don’t care how good your cover is on your book, have a core message.” It’s not about being better than other authors. It’s about being authentic to the message and problem you’re trying to solve. Most people have a hard time identifying the problem they’re trying to solve. If you don’t have clarity in your message as an author, as a speaker, as anyone in business, you’re going to really struggle to keep it together.
Rob Kosberg:
I totally agree. Tell me what are you working on now? I mean that a couple of different ways; from a business perspective and a personal perspective. I loved what you shared about the little girl. That shows, even while you’re the speaker, you still have a place to get to. You are changing and working on yourself. What’s next for you? What’s the stuff you’re working on, both for yourself, as well as for your business or your goals?
Chris Ruden:
So, for me, professionally, I’m definitely working on the backend of building that speaker mentorship in terms of crafting your message and learning the business side of things. I’m working on another book already, which is going to be more of a short form book before I go to a longer form book again. Honestly, I love speaking. I am just building myself and my consulting business and slowly branching out into other things like changing management, and diversity, and inclusion. I have other businesses like a protein bar business and some other things in the fitness industry. I’m just building my brand and I love it. Every day I get to add value in one facet of life that adds to my passion and purpose. I just want to keep doing that. I feel like I’m doing that. Personally, I always want to break through those barriers of the perfectionism thing. It is still something I battle. I almost didn’t put the book out because I didn’t think it was good enough. There’s little battles all the time, mental health, things like that are never just like, “Oh, I made it. I’m here. We’re good now.” There’s always going to be doubt. Doubt is a good thing because it’s a cautionary tale from your brain. Like, “Hey, make sure you dot your I’s, cross your T’s,” but it’s when we give into doubt that that becomes a problem. That’s a constant, I don’t want to say battle because it’s not a negative thing, it’s a constant work in progress.
Rob Kosberg:
I love that. It’s interesting when you think about very successful people that ended badly like a Robin Williams. Sometimes the more successful you get, the more you can isolate yourself and not realizing that you have to change the word battle to improve. It’s still a challenge that you have to face no matter how successful you are. I mean, you’re speaking in front of tens of thousands of people, but then you’ve got to go be with yourself.
Chris Ruden:
That can be the hardest thing for a lot of people. I’ll challenge you. I don’t care if you’re making 5,000 a month, or 50,000 a month, if you are not happy with who you see in the mirror, what you’re doing, you’re not proud of your work, you’re not successful, you have money, but you’re not successful.
Rob Kosberg:
I agree. There’s a lot more to life than just money. There’s wealth and relationships.
Chris Ruden:
Money is important. We all want it. I think it was Jim Rowan who said, “Money’s not everything, but when you don’t have it, it seems like it is.” It’s important, but other things are important too. We tend to fixate on one thing. Like, “I have to be this, or I have to have money, or I have to have a book. I have to make a bestseller.” There are multiple facets to life. Why can’t you do each of those things in due time. As long as you’re putting in the work and you know you’re growing, and progressing, and helping people around you, isn’t that success?
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. I would hope so. I would certainly hope so. Chris loved talking to you, my friend. Tell us where people can go to find you.
Chris Ruden:
My name is Chris Ruden. My website is chrisruden.com. All my social medias are just @chrisruden. For fellow authors, if you ever have questions or anything like that, feel free to pick my brain. Just shoot me a DM on Instagram or send me an email and I’d be glad to respond.
Rob Kosberg:
I love it. Well, thank you. I’m going to follow you on Instagram right away, as well as the rest of the social media stuff. I love your story. I love what you’re doing, Chris. I’m really, really encouraged by the things that you shared today. I’m sure the authors listening today will be as well. So, brother, thank you for being here with us today.
Chris Ruden:
I appreciate you, man. Thank you.
