Today, we’re catching up with Chad Collins, a very interesting person who has taken his passion for training from the boardroom to the schoolroom and is now expanding it to help more people on the Internet. He’s a teen coach and mentor teaching kids the skills they need to succeed in life.
SBT: Chad, can you tell me a little bit about what you’re doing?
Chad: What I do is I help teenage dudes get an all-around better attitude and outlook on life through personal expansion and growth, through what I’ve called the four core areas of life that will be most important to them. These revolve around family, faith, finance, and fitness. I take them through a journey of self-discovery, put a new lens on things, and give them the tools, mindset and outlook on life that will forever change them. They will apply these each day to their life and able to achieve a better success and outcome through that.
SBT: Is this just for high school boys? Is there anyone else that you would counsel?
Chad: My passion is really for the high school-age teenage guy. Having once been one myself, I know all the struggles and what it was like and what type of issues that you go through, so that’s always been my passion. When I start working with high school-age youth and implement this mindset or perspective shift, it creates what I call an “awakening moment” with their parents, specifically with their fathers.
As a father, I relate to being a dad and the struggles that role entails. As fathers hear what their kids are going through and see the progress and results they want for their kids, they realize that there’s a balance in their life that they haven’t achieved, either. So I sometimes coach and mentor fathers of teenage guys. These dads, who I call a “daddy on fire,” go from everyday dad to being a daddy on fire through this transitioning process.
SBT: Now that you’re working with high school kids directly, what are the problems they have?
Chad: I don’t think there’s a high schooler out there that would say life is always great. I remember it was a struggle every single day. But now that I look back, I know, “Man, high school was a cinch, I can’t believe I thought that was an issue or a problem. What I’m dealing with now is so much greater.”
The thing that I hear most is they’ve got stress. That’s everything from the shame and blame game that they put upon themselves, to dealing with all the junk and funk in their lives, academic pressures, social pressures, peer pressure, relationships, relationships with their family, sports performance, time management problems, and finding a balance between all the million things that they have going on.
We often talk about confidence and self-esteem, and there’s also cases where they’ve struggled, dabbled, or have a problem with drugs and alcohol. They are choosing sedation and not liberation. I’ll put this disclaimer out; I am not a licensed therapist or anything like that. I am strictly a coach and mentor. If they have problems of that nature I suggest that they really need psychological counseling and help. My program is completely different from dealing with those issues.
SBT: So, what are some of the common questions that your high school kids or their parents bring to you?
Chad: Nine out of ten times each high school dude asks, “How do I balance everything that I have going on? It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. How do I get my parents to understand me? They don’t seem to get anything?” Which often leads to, “How do I get my parents to show up? It seems like they don’t even care. They have no investment in me.”
It goes down to the deepest darkest areas of their lives like, “Who am I? What do I believe? I’m learning and hearing all this stuff. Why are people different from me and why do they think different things then me?” And, “Is this extreme, is it not? What will I be when I grow up? What major will I choose in college? What college will I go to?” That’s where that stress is, and they put a lot of it on themselves.
And that’s one of the key codes that I bring them back to is, it’s not about ‘what,’ it’s about ‘whom.’ So let’s work on you, and we can better answer all these questions that you’re asking. We can address through this expansion process and this challenge that we’re going to go through when you awaken up to the truth that’s around you, you activate everything that you’re learning; you learn how to apply this to your life so you can set yourself up for success.
SBT: You just mentioned the challenge they go through. When you say that do you mean just their everyday life or do you have some other meaning to “challenge”?
Chad: Yeah, the challenge. It’s called the Brofist 90 Day Challenge. It is part of my coaching program. It’s the actual, repeatable success formula.
I’ve found through life that there are four common threads that get woven together; those are faith, finances, family, and fitness.
Faith is what you believe in, your spiritual development and belief systems. Family is people close to you, your relationships. Fitness is your health, your body, working out. Finances is where your money is eventually going to come from, how you’re going to make a living, what you’re going to do with it.
The Brofist 90 Day Challenge takes them through an awakening process where they take an honest look at themselves, but they must be willing first to make the changes that support their goals, and those are goals we come up with together. And that’s where the coaching piece comes into with accountability.
But these dudes need to be able to try on new ideas, just like you might try on new clothes. They’re really becoming responsible for their thoughts. They go through this awakening “aha” process, and then they’re going to activate these four core areas and we’re going to get really detailed into what I call the ‘C’s, all these ‘C’ words like clarity. You’ve got to know what you want and what you’re after in order to get it. How to go through a change process, or challenges, and making choices, and being consistent; the commitments and confidence and control, the community and connecting that’s going to go through all this in their life.
And once they are armed with all of this knowledge, it takes simple successful singles, not home runs. It is doing the work each single day to apply all of this, to be a part of making this transition and this commitment. That’s the accountability piece that I hold them to, but they’re not in it alone.
Part of this Brofist 90 Day Challenge is introducing them to other teenage dudes from across the country that are going through the same challenge, and others that have done this challenge and graduated from it. They connect through a Facebook group where they interact and share their stories. It is a mutual support system. Because having gone through it, they want to help others and want to be a part of that journey with somebody else.
So it connects them on a much bigger scale and it does a lot of the follow-up work that’s required. It builds that bond and that community. It’s like a fraternity in college, just at the high school level. We’re creating that family, that support system, their buddies, their bros that they can text message, or phone call, or interact with on social media. They get the message out that’s now important to them and other people just like them.
SBT: That sounds great. So the problems that these kids have, the results of them dealing with these things on their own are apparently are not currently working if they are under all of this stress? Is that correct?
Chad: Yeah, absolutely. When a parent that brings the dude to me, they are at their wits end, where they’ve discovered, “Hey, all of these threats, all the punishment, all this anger is not working. I need something else. I need something outside of myself. My family and my relationship with my son is not working.” That’s when they realize they might need a coach to be there to help give them guidance.
When it comes to me from that angle, often people have been following me on social media where I post motivational stuff. I tell like it is, I tell the truth, and I liberate minds. When kids connect with me they go to their parents and say, “I want to be a part of what’s going on over here. This is right up my alley. You guys need to get me in this program ASAP.”
SBT: So do the parents wind up becoming a part of the programs, since you mentioned the parents might already have some of these problems that they need to deal with?
Chad: They do; parents want to be involved. I’ve learned this from working in the classroom myself in special-ed. Parental involvement is key, it’s very important to a child’s development and accountability at home as well.
So yeah, parents do get involved, the way that works in my coaching program, is I will work specifically with the dads and take them from an everyday dad to the daddy on fire. They say, “I want this balance in life. I want to be able to juggle having a successful business, and time for my family, because I’m putting everything off and working long hours, and not getting to see my kids. How do I find this balance?”
So, it has evolved into working with the fathers. I focus on teenage dudes and dads who want to be ‘dads on fire’ for their kids. That’s what I know, that’s what I do on a day in and day out basis, and what I’ve done since I began working with youth. It’s what I’ve done in corporate America, and as an entrepreneur, and I’m the most value to these targeted people.
SBT: So would you say that your success rate is better when you work with the entire family unit or just by working with and coaching the high school student?
Chad: Well, I focus directly on the high school student. What comes out of this is they learn better how to deal, and handle, and communicate with the relationships in their lives; that being the parents. So they involve the parents and share their journey, what they’re learning, and experiencing and how to improve that relationship. That gets the dialog going between the parents and the student.
So a lot of it’s done internally behind the scenes. I will have follow-up and accountability to the parents. They’re obviously getting to see the fruits, seeing the results in their life and they’re couldn’t be happier. But I will talk with them and say, “Here’s the program and a high-level overview of what we’re going through. Here’s the progress that I see your son making. Here’s some things.”
Now a lot of stuff’s said in confidentiality and we keep that. I let them know, “Here’s what I’m seeing. I’m sure this is what you’ve seen too. Here’s how we’re working on it. Here’s some of the goals that we’ve set. Here’s how you can help at home to better do this too.” So it’s very high-level stuff with the parents for ways to get them involved, but often times my dudes are getting involved themselves with their families and with their relationships.
SBT: So your dads on fire program is actually something that’s an additional program, and not really your main thrust.
Chad: It’s more of a value added program that I offer. When I go through what I do with the parents on the phone call, or in person, or on Skype, or whatever it is, the dads understand and say, “Oh yeah, that’s totally my struggle too. What is going on with my son is also going on with me, just in a kind of an adult version.” And they ask, “Can you do anything here?” I tell them, “Yeah, I got you man.” I’ve got the bro dudes and I’ve got the daddies who want to be on fire too, because I’ve done it in my own life.”
I wasn’t always the best father to my son. I got caught up in the trappings of success and thinking that if I work super hard right now that one day I’d make the money and be able to step aside from all of that, working myself out of a job, and be able to have the time for my family relationships, and going on vacations.
I realized I’ve never done any of those things even though I have achieved massive success in corporate America. When was I exactly going to do this? I lost track of my vision, so I had to make that balance and say, “Hey, you know what? What’s important to me is having time with my family and my relationships, to be financially okay as a provider and live within my means, to have health, because I’ve been working so much I’ve gotten fat and lazy and that’s made me unmotivated.”
My relationship with my son was horrible. He didn’t even know who his dad was for the first three years of his life. Even though I was home every single weekend. I was fat and lazy and I didn’t want to get off on my butt, and I didn’t want to go do anything with him. Other dads connect with this story. It’s the everyday dad story. When they have this awakening, it is just like the teen dudes go through, “Aha! That’s something I want for myself too.”
SBT: As I understand it, you help the individual kids and they open the bridges to dealing with their parents, and when necessary you can help the actual parents too, so it sounds like it’s a win, win, win all the way through.
Chad: Exactly. In the modern world, the modern man or teen is one or two dimensional. So if you look at faith, family, finance, and fitness, oftentimes you can have a lot of people are successful in one or two of those, but not all four.
So if you work towards achieving balance you’re getting more power in your life and more time, and you’re really hitting on all cylinders and able to achieve more results than searching the Internet or buying self-help books.
SBT: As a parent myself, I can relate to all of these problems that you’ve had as a high schooler and adolescent. It sounds like a tremendous program that you’ve got going. So where can people go to get more help?
Chad: The best way to catch me is on Facebook, you can find me at https://acebook.com/breakthroughcoachmentor. I am also on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/chadtcollins. I will be happy to connect with you and you can find some information out about the program there. I put my email up as well as my phone number. I’m usually accessible. I’ve built a lifestyle where I have the time to connect with you guys. I’m happy to engage in the conversation and see where it goes.
SBT: Great, I want to commend you on being a counselor that’s got the time to deal with people that are in the pains that we all know teenagers go through.
Chad: I thank you for the opportunity to share with you today and encourage everybody to grow through life, not just go through life.
SBT: I like that. That’s a great saying. Chad, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it.
Chad: Absolutely, my pleasure.
About Coach Chad Collins
Chad Collins is a breakthrough Coach Mentor for teen dudes and daddys-on-fire. He’s creator of the Brofist & Ignite Your Light 90-Day Challenges as well as an educator and advocate.