Getting An Upgrade: Chris Harris, The Warrior Maker On How Anyone Can Build Habits For Optimal Wellness, Performance, & Focus
In my most recent book, “Mindset Grit,” I teach that countless people spend too much time contemplating their future when they should be creating productive habits. After all, our habits create our future. In fact, our lives are essentially the sum of our habits.
As a part of our series about “How Anyone Can Build Habits For Optimal Wellness, Performance, & Focus”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Harris.
Chris Harris, known as The Warrior Maker, is a renowned expert in performance mindset with over 25 years of experience training elite military and special forces operators around the world in close-quarters combat. As a private contractor, he earned a legendary reputation for forging warriors through intense mental and physical conditioning. Today, Chris brings that same high-performance mindset to the world of business, coaching sales professionals and leaders to break through mental barriers, sharpen focus, and perform at elite levels under pressure. Through keynotes, training, and executive coaching, he equips individuals and teams with the mental tools to thrive in high-stakes environments.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
Born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, I experienced a tumultuous childhood due to my mother’s addiction to drugs. Although I was separated from my sisters permanently and battled homelessness on several occasions, I remain grateful for the invaluable life lessons I learned during these formative years. My childhood taught me how to face adversity with a healthy perspective and the unwielding power of mindset and resilience. I also had my first martial arts lesson at 10, establishing a positive and fulfilling career path as an adult. In short, I feel fortunate (and stronger) for the lessons I learned as a child.
What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
While living in Raleigh, NC, I frequently spoke to middle school, high school, and college-student audiences for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) for seven years. For the first dozen speeches or so, I felt nervous and awkward. I eventually became comfortable with the microphone, and one day, while speaking to a gymnasium filled with 800 high schoolers, I realized I was passionate about it. However, because I was teaching close-quarters combat to elite warriors full-time, I had to put the pursuit of keynote speaking as a career on hold, at least for the time being. After 25 years of teaching combatives globally as a private contractor, I retired my black belt and have been pursuing speaking and teaching, in one form or another, ever since.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?
Without question, my biggest supporter and greatest encourager to become a professional keynote speaker and published author is my wife, Corrie. She has always believed in me and my purpose in being on the global stage, sharing my story, and inspiring others. Without her by my side, there’s no telling what I’d be doing.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you during your career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?
I stood on stage, speaking to the Fraternal Order of Police Officers. It was their annual conference, so it was a large and lively audience. At the end of my speech, when I stepped off the stage, a prominent Chief of Police walked up to me and said, “Young man, your zipper was down the whole time.” After he told me this, everyone in the front row laughed. Needless to say, I’ve never made that mistake again!
The road to success is challenging and requires tremendous dedication. This question is a big one, but what advice would you give to a young person who aspires to follow in your footsteps and emulate your success?
If someone tells me they want to be a full-time keynote speaker, I encourage them to reduce their fees until they become proficient at their craft. They should ask for honest feedback as part of their compensation. Once they become proficient and the feedback is consistently positive, they should establish higher rates based on the quality of their content and their level of expertise. In most professions, climbing to the top requires us to pay our dues–and keynote speaking is no different!
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you?
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie has been a very influential book in my personal life and professional career. Not a week passes that I don’t intentionally utilize or practice important life advice I learned from reading this book several decades ago. If someone tells me they are interested in sales or leadership, I first advise them to read this book–its principles are timeless and profound.
Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?
“The evidence of desire is pursuit.” For me, if you are genuinely passionate about doing something, you won’t just talk about it–you will take immediate action towards achieving it–even if it’s the tiniest of steps. It is your pursuit of a thing that will speak loudest of all–not mere words.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How might that help people?
My latest book, “7 Rivals of Success,” will soon be published. In it, I teach readers how to overcome the seven rivals competing for their future selves: fear, doubt, the past, idleness, adversity, distractions, and mindset. I also teach them how to defeat them consistently every day.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. This will be intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out directly. Can you help explain why it is so essential to create good habits? Can you share a story or give some examples?
In my most recent book, “Mindset Grit,” I teach that countless people spend too much time contemplating their future when they should be creating productive habits. After all, our habits create our future. In fact, our lives are essentially the sum of our habits.
How have habits played a role in your success?
The fundamental definition of success is “the attainment of an established goal or a milestone that leads to that goal.” Without productive habits, I would not achieve goals or milestones, and therefore, I would not succeed.
Can you share some success habits that have helped you in your journey?
I was inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame because of the habits I formed early in my career as a martial artist–and repeated those habits for decades–such as training every day, whether I wanted to or not. I am about to release my 9th book, “7 Rivals of Success,” not because I enjoy writing but because I get out of bed at 3 am when I am working on a new book–and I continue to do so until the manuscript has been submitted to the editor. My wife Corrie and I have established the habit of never criticizing each other, no matter what, resulting in 29 years of a successful marriage. Show me your habits, and I will show you your future self–habits are everything!
Speaking in general, what is the best way to develop good habits? Conversely, how can one stop bad habits?
The habit loop consists of a cue (trigger), a routine (action), and a reward (feedback). Create productive routines by using the framework this loop provides. Make the cue easy to identify, the routine easy to access, and the reward very satisfying. Your brain doesn’t know a good habit from a bad one, so it all comes down to consistency. To break bad habits, I consistently remind myself of what the habit costs me: my relationships, career, and well-being. I don’t stop reminding myself of the negative impact until the habit has been broken, once and for all.
Let’s discuss creating good habits in three areas: Wellness, Performance, and Focus. Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimum wellness? Please share a story or example for each.
For wellness-related habits, I establish and protect boundaries on relationships, especially those that take more from me than they give. For performance-related habits, it all begins with establishing timebound and measurable goals that consist of small daily wins, medium weekly wins, and large monthly wins. For focus-related habits, it’s all about time-blocking, which means I schedule time where I can focus on something important without distractions, and I protect this allotted time like my future depends on it!
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
You cannot create new habits without motivating yourself from within. Most people believe self-motivation is the spark that moves us to action, but nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, self-motivation results from doing things we don’t want to do, which releases dopamine, making us want to do it again. In short, habits are the result of self-motivation, and self-motivation is the result of doing things we hate or that we don’t feel like doing.
Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimal performance at work or in sports? Please share a story or example for each.
First, wake up early during the week before any distractions occur. When I’m writing a book, I rise at 3 a.m. until the book has been submitted to the editor and my work is done.
Second, schedule time to exercise, even if it’s walking a mile, at least three days per week, and don’t cancel on yourself, no matter what. If you lose your health, everything suffers. I go to the gym at least three days per week. Day one is push exercises, day two is pull exercises, and day three is leg exercises.
Third, establish and protect personal, relational, and work-related boundaries. Spending too much time with people who are not aligned with your interests, values, and/or goals can harm your joy, fulfillment, and success, so be sure to prioritize boundaries.
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
You must discipline yourself to say no to destructive things and yes to productive things–despite your mood, feelings, attitude, or energy.
Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimal focus? Please share a story or example for each.
First, eliminate distractions. I don’t watch TV or scroll through social media until I have completed my work-related tasks for the day.
Second, I don’t answer the phone or respond to emails when I’m in the middle of completing an important task or facing a deadline for the day.
Third, I don’t visit people at the gym. When I’m there, I’m there to protect my body from breaking down in the future and to develop mental toughness–not to visit others socially. It’s not personal–I get in, train, and get out.
Can you help explain some practices that can be used to develop those habits?
Productive habits result from knowing what you want and why you want it and being able to do the hard stuff when you don’t feel like it. Repeating this process makes it easier each time.
As a leader, you likely experience times when you are in a state of Flow. Flow has been described as a pleasurable mental state that occurs when you do something that you are skilled at, that is challenging, and that is meaningful. Can you share some ideas from your experience about how we can achieve a state of Flow more often in our lives?
Flow results from being free from distractions while working toward a time-bound and measurable goal. You must know what you want and why you want it and create (and protect) the environment to achieve it. Flow rarely happens by accident–it needs to be planned and scheduled.
Okay, we are nearly done. You are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most significant amount of good to the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I want to see our country unite towards the common goal of reducing (or mostly eliminating) homelessness. Having slept under bridges as a child, I have firsthand experience with the state of helplessness and despair that homelessness can bring to bare on a human being–especially a child–and am passionate about this national crisis. My wife, Corrie Harris, is the Chief Development Officer for the Center for Transforming Lives (CTL) in Fort Worth, Texas, and this is their full-time mission–their cause–and their calling. We need more organizations like CTL to continue to fight the good fight so that all may know the comfort of sleeping in their own bed at night and the warmth of being loved.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? They might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)
I would thoroughly enjoy meeting with Jocko Willink. His book, “Extreme Ownership,” is one of my favorites. I admire his military service to the United States and am diligently working to achieve what he has accomplished as an international keynote speaker.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way to reach me is by visiting my website at www.chrisharrisllc.com or by sending me an email at chris@chrisharrisllc.com
Thank you for these excellent insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on them and wish you continued success.
