We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chase Chapman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chase below.

Chase, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

There are a lot of defining moments I have endured in the shaping of my career, but the one that stands out the most was the one that really put my mortality in perspective. I don’t want to sound so “doom and gloom” but this moment was the catalyst to what “Live The Seven” is and how it was created.

I was in my late 20’s, and at that time I had built a successful sports performance coaching business in San Diego, CA. But to get to that point almost killed me, literally. I had begun my coaching career fresh out of college at the age of 21. Paid my dues working in numerous commercial gym settings, internships and continuing education opportunities. Building a reputation and a loyal client base in the private sports performance training space takes time and a whole lot of effort. I was game for all of it. I really enjoyed building my name, my business and watching my athletes and clients thriving on and off the field. However, this success came with a lot of sacrifices.

These sacrifices came with the usual lack of sleep, chronic stress, hustling, grinding and putting in the hours. I’m sure most entrepreneurs can relate to this recipe. But I was also busting my butt making sure I trained 5-6 days per week, tracked my food and stayed just as dedicated as I preached to all my athletes and clients. In the fitness business you have to walk the walk, because you’re literally a walking, talking business card for your business. After years of keeping up with this pace (barely) I found myself making more money than I ever had, too busy to take on anymore clients and I was “good”…or so I thought.

But as I saw my business thriving I was battling massive sleep deprivation and sleep problems, chronic joint pain, mood swings, digestive issues and relenting stress. I was seeing zero results in the gym (even though I was eating “clean” and training consistently) but the rest of my lifestyle was a mess. The hardest part was this was negatively affecting my relationship with my fiance (now my wife) at the time.

But my business was doing great and the money was coming in, but at what cost. Well I was about t find out….

It was the height of my business success and at the same time the lowest of lows in my own personal, physical and mental health. I finally allowed myself to break away and go on a family vacation, but as soon as we made it to our destination I found myself in our hotel room with chest pains, shortness of breath and a dangerously high resting heart rate. My fiance rushed me to the ER and there is where I sat as a 28 year old health and fitness expert sitting in front of an ER Doctor no more than 1-2 years older than I was telling me my lab work came back showing I have damage to my heart and could be at risk for a serious cardiac event.

There is a defining moment for ya.

To keep this short, this was the point where I knew that building a business, being successful, making more money and building a name for myself was in no way worth the exchange for my own health. I left the hospital and made a decision right there that I would never again put myself and my family in a situation like that again.

The stress, the lack of sleep, the nutrient and mineral deficient diet, the over training (working out too much for what my body could bounce back from), and the lack of proper self care rituals in my lifestyle almost cost me everything.

The birth place of Live The Seven was where I had to rebuild myself from rock bottom to get my health and happiness back . So that, I could help guide other entrepreneurs and hard charging career driven people avoid this same type burnout I suffered. This type of story is not uncommon, so many people running their own business or working in a fast tempo corporate leadership role know the pain points of handing over your energy, happiness, health and wellness for the greater good of your brand, business or organization.

I took a step back from my brick and mortar coaching business and my wife and I created “Live The Seven”. LT7 is an online, immersive coaching platform to help hard chargers like myself build and live an optimal lifestyle that not only helps support their well being mentally and physically but helps to bulletproof them to the demands of their high intensity personal and/or career life.

Breath, Stress, Sleep, Hydration, Nutrition, Movement and Rituals are the 7 Pillars of an Optimized Lifestyle so that you can infuse energy back into your life to meet and exceed the demands of the crazy world around us all.

“Built through burnout” is how I describe where LT7 came from and now that you have heard about this defining moment in my career, I hope it can provide some insight and guidance into what many entrepreneurs and business leaders need to prioritize in the world today.

Chase, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As I outlined a bit in my last response, My wife and I own and operate Live The Seven. THE lifestyle optimization coaching program to equip and bulletproof entrepreneurs and business leaders to leverage an optimal mind and body to crush it in their professional endeavors.

I have been in the health and wellness coaching space going on my 16th year now. My wife has worked closely with women in regards to weight loss, self care and health coaching for over 8 years.

We have seen many of the same trends and issues across many of the different populations and demographics we have worked with up to this point. No matter if people came to us with a weight loss goal, preparation for an event or specific athletic performance or needing to commit to a health journey as they battled chronic heath issues. Diet and exercise was just one small piece to the puzzle to achieve these goals. Even though all that we have been taught for years from the mainstream advice is “eat healthy and exercise”. But what does that really mean and look like?

At LT7 we take a holistic approach to your wellness, so that we can build a body and brain that is capable to charge after whatever health and performance goal you have in front of you. ( all while exceeding the demands of your professional life)

The world we live in now is filled with stress, toxicity, poor foods, distractions, technology and trends that quite honestly is getting us further way from living our most optimal life.

Breath, Stress, Sleep, Hydration, Nutrition, Movement and Rituals are the 7 Pillars of an Optimized lifestyle that must be mastered so we can thrive, infuse more energy into our body and rise above the generic “one size fits all” health advice to truly uncover what works best for YOU the individual change maker.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

This is a great question, as I searched for advice from my peers when I made this move myself. As I have mentioned, I owned and operated my own in person sports performance and training business for years. And as I have also shared, I loved it but it definitely took its toll on me physically and mentally.

The pivot came obviously after my defining moment when I knew I needed to operate my business differently, so that this pivot would allow me to have joy, happiness, health and more time with the people I loved. When I took a step back to evaluate my business where it stood and who I needed to become to ensure that evolved with me, I really focused on the type of impact I truly wanted to make in the world. And even though I loved my business, my client base and where I had come, I still felt like I needed to reach more people. And when you trade your time for a dollar amount, you only have so many hours in a day and can help only so many people. I had larger plans for myself and the type of impact I wanted to make in the space of health and wellness. I saw so many people around me: my colleagues, friends, family and even clients that needed help and guidance to live a more optimal life, but I didn’t have the bandwidth to do so with a one man show. That is why taking a step back, getting outside of my business to work ON it and not IN it really helped me see what my next move would be.

The answer was that my current business model, even though successful, was not scalable and would eventually top out at the money I could generate and most importantly the number of people I could reach. This is when, as well as taking my own personal defining moment (shared earlier) is where we birthed and created “Live The Seven”. However now, our sights were set on a little bit more of a specific niche, while also designed to scale as we grew. Now we could provide them with the information and coaching they needed quicker, easier and more efficiency over having to try and figure out a way to clone my wife and I do pull this off….

This pivot, and most importantly, taking the time to get outside of my business allowed me to look at the problems I saw so many people suffering from and finding an easier more efficient way to reach them where they were at, no matter where they were on their own health journey.

Pivoting is a very sexy word in the entrepreneurial space, sometimes it can be used as another way of describing a failure we may have encountered on the way to our goals. In that case, I have made a lot of pivots along the way, but this one sticks out the most because it not only allowed me the space to create an offering and service that can reach more in dire need of a helping hand, but also it allowed me to be able to create something that still brought me the gratification and joy of helping others but also still protected my time and energy with my family so I wouldn’t become a slave to my business ever again.

My best advice, is look at the skill set you have been blessed with. The problems you’re uniquely equipped to solve. Now if you’re finding yourself overwhelmed, stressed and not really showing up as your best self for your clients or customers just to keep the business you love so much alive, take a step back. Maybe take a “business vacation” or your own personal retreat where you can get quiet and clear about all the great things you have to offer. Find what is working and also find what is not. Then try and find a way where you can do the same great work you already do but scale it in a way that provides you with more time and space for family, or creativity or even innovation in your business. Like I mentioned this “pivot” I took helped to redefine my purpose/business but the real pivot was stepping outside of the daily grind and finding a better or more novel way to serve my people while protecting me, my time and my health.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I would have to say this one would be answered by a book that has came to my along my journey more recently.

Ego Is The Enemy, By Ryan Holiday

This book was powerful because it really opened my eyes to the downfalls and unknown dangers in business we can succumb to as our success grows. As a driven person that is very ambitious and is always chasing a potential to fulfill, as I gain ground on my aspirations and goals I also deposit a few cents here and there in my “Ego Bank”. “This is precisely what makes us so promising as thinkers, doers, creatives and entrepreneurs. What drives us to the top of those fields, makes us vulnerable to this dark side of the psyche.” (author)

Even though we have the best of intentions to support, create and build things and businesses that help others and make an impact there is that need as Holiday would puts it “To be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility- that’s ego.”

The most impactful part that has really helped me redefine my purpose and my own philosophy as an entrepreneur is that I have learned (through past failures) to suppress my ego before it takes hold in the form of bad habits around my business. This book has taught me to replace the temptation of ego that is around every corner, with humility and discipline.

Holiday writes:

“Cultivate strength and fortitude so that when fate turns against you, you’re not wrecked by failure.

“Humble in our aspirations, gracious in our success and resilient in our failures.”

Contact Info:

• Website: livethe seven.com
• Instagram: optimized.entrepreneur (me) & optimizationbabe (my wife, Loren)
• Facebook: Live The Seven
• Linkedin: Live The Seven

Image Credits
Gwen Corona Photography