The show’s guest in this episode is Chris Romulo. He’s a retired Muay Thai champion. He’s a youth empowerment speaker and author, and he’s joining us through his champ up philosophy. Chris has transformed the lives of 1000s of students teaching them mindfulness and determination, get ready to be inspired as we delve into his incredible journey to learn how He empowers youth, with his champions uprising curriculum.

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Unleashing Youth Champions: Empowering with Chris Romulo

Hello, everyone. I’m Melanie Parish, and I’m one of the CO hosts of The Experimental Leader Podcast. 

Hi, I’m Mel Rutherford, I’m the other co host.

I’m super excited to be here today. And I was thinking I went to the collision conference in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, and I went with our son, and our son is pretty sure he’s 18 years old. And he’s pretty sure that he’s hacked networking. So I’ve been thinking about that today. And I’ve been thinking about sort of, in leadership, like, you know, what’s the purpose of LinkedIn? What’s the purpose of networking? What’s the purpose of creating sort of collegial relationships with people that you don’t see that often. And, and I’m thinking about him, it’s such an obvious line, because he’s starting computing and Finance Management at Waterloo in the in the fall, and so he knows he’s going to have six coops over the next five years. So he’s trying to create relationships so that he can get hired as a co op student, which is actually pretty easy, because people that that is such a clear sort of relationship, like people are excited about Co Op students. And he’s excited about them and all the possibilities. So that’s so linear, but I was thinking about it for me, and for my clients, like, you know, what does it mean to network as you get more senior in your career? And so I’ve just been sort of pondering that I don’t have any brilliant answers, other than connections are really useful for context. Especially like when things go bad. Like, if you’re trying to create credibility, if you have a boss that doesn’t work out well. Or if you have something, you know, then you have connections, and you never know who’s going to join your organization, or who’s going to come into your circle where a connection might be really useful. So that’s just what I’m thinking about in my leadership today. What are you thinking about?

Yeah, no, that’s, that’s really interesting. Melanie, I was just reflecting yesterday about networking seems like a lot of work when things are going well. But when when things are not going well, that’s when you notice that you’ve got your networks and you can really lean into your networks. What I was thinking about this week was leadership across different domains. I’ve had a lot of leadership, leadership experience in well, in academia now. Originally, a lot of my leadership training came from my religious community. And I think that the, the the best practices and the approach to leadership in academia and religious communities, and even in government contrasts with business leadership, because in, in academia, and in a religious community, even in government, you’re really there to serve the people you’re leading, and you can really lean into listening and hearing the values and hearing the goals and really organize your leadership around the goals of the people that you’re leading. Whereas in contrast, in business, who are you serving your serving the owner or shelf shareholders who really require you to create a profit? So you still want you still want to engage in a lot of listening and think about incentivizing but you’re not serving the people that you’re leading? And, and the reason that that contrast is important, I think is because if we’re in academia or another context, I think a lot of people where I am reading, leadership books that come out of business, I think you just want to be aware of of that contrast, like I’m not here to make a profit. I’m here to listen to what people in my department want. to be doing, and then and then help facilitate those goals and dreams.

Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. And I’ve, you know, I’ve heard the term social profit, you know, applied to, you know, organizations that are trying to serve a common good, as opposed to profit. So the profit isn’t financial is so that that there’s social profit in some way. And I can see how academia is that. And I think that’s really interesting. And in, in those organizations, often there’s two people, two groups, that you’re serving your serving sort of the mission, and you’re also serving you have the opportunity to serve the people that are working in your organization to develop them to grow them to create positive careers for that, which I think it’s I think it’s a sad common, I think it’s sad that we have decided, as a society that the most profit is the way to measure success in business, especially if they’re shareholders, because I think there’s a, there’s a middle ground where it’s not, you can also serve the people that work in the organization. But I know that that CEOs and boards often believe that the highest profit is what they serve. And I actually questioned that assumption a lot. But now we’re getting super theoretical.

Anyway, I’m super excited about our guests today. We are really honored to have Chris Romulo. He’s a retired Muay Thai champion. He’s a youth empowerment speaker and author, and he’s joining us through his champ up philosophy. Chris has transformed the lives of 1000s of students teaching them mindfulness and determination, get ready to be inspired as we delve into his incredible journey to learn how He empowers youth, with his champions uprising curriculum.

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Welcome, Chris. We’re so excited to have you on our show.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mel for having me here. I’m honored. It’s a pleasure.

Yeah. So I’m super curious, just to start out, how are you experimenting in your life and work right now?

How am I experimenting? So I would say through the 55 schools that I’ve spoken to over the past school year, the experimental process of going in and, you know, speaking and sharing my message, you know, you get to understand, you know, you guys are talking about leadership. And what I’ve learned through doing my best as a leader is understanding, learning to understand the kids and understand what the challenge is, that they’re going through, and, and hearing, you know, questions from kids that are going through challenges, and experimenting with, you know, understanding and how to respond to these challenges that they’re going through through each and every presentation that I would deliver, you know, throughout the school year. So, I would say that that is, you know, the audience and auditorium or even the gymnasium, any gymnasium that I’ve spoken in? That was the laboratory of experimenting with the philosophy and the thoughts and how that resonates with the kids.

Well, I think it’s amazing, because with 55 iterations, and an audience’s a feedback loop, that’s almost a perfect experiment.

Oh, absolutely.

I’m guessing you found yourself responding. I know I respond as a speaker, you know, you get nods of heads and you start to do more of that and you start to respond to the audience. So you improve through direct feedback, which is something that with our experiments we so rarely get, we don’t get people you know, viewing them and giving us feedback on thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs up thumbs down all the time. So that’s really interesting. 

Does it mean to champ up?

So my definition of champ up is that we are all champions we are all in this fight of life. And the real fight is not against the things that are happening outside of us the real fight is against what I call the seven dictators right the seven dictators of our emotions in our mind and to champ up is to accept that challenge right to accept how you how you want to battle these dictators and, and move on and persevere in life because It’s, you know, talking to the kids and having adults at these presentations, it’s absolutely apparent that, you know, we all face these dictators and, you know, they don’t you know, what I like to tell the kids is they they don’t go away, we don’t, we don’t overpower them and get rid of them, we learn how to be aware of them. And then when they show up, we can make a choice or make a decision on how we want to respond.

And about the seven dictators?

So the seven dictators are self doubt, fear, disappointment, hardship, confusion, our ego, and our self talk. Those are the dictators that try to control us on a daily, even a minute by minute basis.

And how the kids respond when you tell them that?

I mean, they to again, like whenever I hold that q&a session afterwards, like the questions that I get are so profound, you know, actually, there was one specific example where we were talking about self doubt. And I always ask, you know, what, what is self doubt? And this 1/5, or sixth grader had this profound answer of self doubt is when you don’t trust yourself, you know, coming from a fifth or sixth grader that was just amazing to me. So, their response is great, they’re obviously they’re thinking about what the, what the message is, you know, that it’s not against the bullies, you know, right. The physical aspect of bullying is detrimental. But obviously, it’s not just about the bully, it’s about how we’re internalizing situations that happened in school or in our lives. And I feel like they are internalizing it themselves and, and trying to understand it, and that is super gratifying.

What does it mean to be a Muay Thai champion?

Well, Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand, it’s a form of kickboxing. And I got involved in that sport. Pretty, you know, as far as its popularity here in the United States, I would say early on in the in the 90s, back in New York, and to be a champion of Muay Thai is one of the most amazing feelings in the world, considering, you know, how I grew up where I was the scared and confused and kid that was full of self doubt and fear, and basically letting you know, the dictators control me. So to be to go through that journey of, you know, training and becoming an amateur and eventually becoming a professional. It was, you know, the epitome of what it means to jump up, I believe,

How do you walk down the street differently? Because of that experience?

I would say, again, looking back on my childhood, I didn’t have a lot of confidence. And now the confidence I have, it’s, it’s not I wouldn’t say it’s overinflated confidence, I would call it confidence through competence. Meaning not just because I can physically handle myself in a situation but knowing that not only that I develop myself physically through the art and the training and competing on Muay Thai, but mentally and spiritually, I’ve developed an internal strength that I can carry with me, you know, for as long as I live. So I would say, Yeah, confidence through competencies. It’s what it’s how I carry myself.

I’m wondering if there’s, if there’s this well, if champing up is if is champing up decision that somebody makes? And is there, is there something other circumstances that are required before somebody can make that decision?

So, yeah, in my presentations, the way I help kids understand how to battle the dictators I talk about, or I share the ABCs, of deciding to live like a champion. And yeah, so I would say the ABCs A is accepting reality, accepting your reality. You know, we’re all going to face challenges in our life. And, you know, setbacks or hardships, but the main thing is to accept what we have in front of us and not wish that it would go away but say, okay, how can I, you know, how can I take one more step forward in my life no matter what. So that would be the first part of the decision. The second part, become your dream. And I know when I, there were times in my life where I didn’t focus on my dream things, you know, I made decisions that weren’t the best for me. So when you can become your dream by deciding that you have one or understanding that you have one, and envisioning that every single day, that’s how you can become your dream, and not let the again the outside forces overpower us. Right. So focusing on your dream, I call it when when you have a dream, I call it having that lighthouse on the shore, when you’re out in the dark storm, you at least have that guiding force, you know, you know, leading you towards, you know, what you want is to find yourself coming out of that dark storm. So your dream can be your salvation. Okay, and C would be the or the third part would be changing the way you think. Right. And they really get this because after talking about self talk, and how our thoughts dictate, you know, whether it’s destructive self talk or constructive self talk, dictate our actions, when you understand how to change the way you think that can that will be the the anchor, in deciding how you want to move forward, or how you want to decide to live as a champion.

How do you think about things like racism, sexism, homophobia, you know, the things that are sort of external pressures, marginalization, privilege, as you put together your talks, as you work with kids.

So in my opinion, I would say those things are always going to be a part of humanity. And it’s, you know, obviously, we want to do our best as a society to curb and rid ourselves of, of injustices. But when it, what it all boils down to is our response. I you know, I like to think of my philosophy based on stoicism, where we can control the things outside of us, I mean, we can do our best to speak up and have a voice about the things that are happening, you know, the injustices that are happening outside of us, but when oil all boils down to it, how are we going to internalize, think about, you know, change our thoughts, in turn to change our thoughts and our feelings and emotions, which will lead to our actions. So that’s how I feel about the injustice is of society. It’s unfortunate. But, you know, the concept of fall seven times stand up, eight, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get knocked down, we are going to get knocked down in life, multiple times, right? Whether, whether it’s racism, whether it’s, you know, again, any of those injustices that you mentioned, but it’s how, how can we decide to take one more step forward towards what we want in life.

I have this feeling as, as you say, you get knocked down that you’ve had, you know, this experience as a as a champion, you’ve been knocked down more than most. So it resonates differently. For me, when you say that as a metaphor, it’s interesting.

appreciate that. And yeah, definitely. It’s happened many times in training and in the ring, but, you know, thinking about it, all it did, all those knock downs or those setbacks, all it did was prepare me for the knock downs of life. You know, and going into a lot of, you know, a lot of the presentations I gave over the past year, you know, we talked about or we touched upon the setback of COVID-19. And what that did to society and the world. And, again, we had no control over that, you know, I mean, yes, we have control, in a sense that, okay, we could do the things that were going to keep us safe as as individuals, but we had no control over what that virus was, you know, doing as you know, what, what viruses do, they just, they spread. So, it was up to us to say, okay, what can I do to make sure that I’m doing what’s the bet? What’s the making the best decision for myself, my family, and my community.

I did some work with kids this year, and one of the most profound sessions I had with them. It was a sports team was talking about what they lost during COVID. And I think anyone who’s working With University aged kids, you know, those kids are coming up coming out of high school, having had so many losses. And I think adults had ways to talk about it. And I’m not sure the kids had the, the skills, or the forums or the relationships that were deep enough to talk about those losses in a really real way. So I, I can almost get teary just thinking about that work of, you know, we all have losses, but I know I process them pretty well. And my clients processed them really well with me, and I got tired, but I didn’t feel unprocessed. By the end of it all. I knew what was happening. I knew what my emotions were, but I think the kids really didn’t, it wasn’t something we’ve taught kids to do, to process emotions over an event like that. I mean, I think we send therapists in if there’s, you know, a tragedy in a school, but this was a societal happening. So we didn’t, we didn’t give them many resources to process this.

I completely agree with you, I would boil it down to what what we have hopefully, as adults, not every adult, but we have the emotional maturity. Right. And kids unfortunately, don’t have that maturity. But that I guess, that’s my mission to help them understand what and the thing about the dictators. Those are feelings and emotions, you know, self doubt, and fear and disappointment, you know, and if they can be aware of these things as early as possible, that might give them a better chance for when that hardship kicks in and life and how can you know, how can you be vocal about it? How can you reach out? How can you say, oh, I need help. Because, you know, for me, as a fighter for a long time, I didn’t ask for help, you know, with a fighter mentality, you think, okay, I can do this all on my own. I don’t need help. All right, yes, you have coaches and training partners to help you. But the fighter mentality sometimes is restrictive. It’s a fixed mindset, like, I can figure this out on my own. But after I retired, I learned that the fighter mentality, it’s, it’s not perfect, it doesn’t work for life, necessarily, in a way of reaching out for help communicating that I have emotions that I need to express, and I need to learn how to manage it and handle. So yeah, I definitely agree that it’s important that the youth have an outlet for their emotions and feelings in some way, shape, or form.

Chris, what’s your, what’s your favorite age to work with?

I would say the middle schoolers. And when I go into a talk, I specifically in my mind, I think about talking to the 14 year old boy, that I was where I didn’t have a father figure in my life. And I was, again, being controlled by these seven dictators. And so I go in there thinking, okay, there’s at least one, you know, one kid in this audience who’s feeling the way I used to feel. And if I can speak to that one to one kid, and hopefully reach and connect with that kid, that’s no, that’s a mission mission accomplished.

What’s your dream for the next couple of years?


My dream is to be, you know, more my outreach with the champ a message to reach out to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and eventually actually had this thought earlier in the week, which was, you know, starting a nonprofit, a non for profit, where I work with kids, again, that are what I’ve termed, going through father trauma, and who could be facing, you know, who potentially could be making decisions that are leading them down the wrong, I don’t like to say wrong, but leading them in a direction that’s self destructive. And I want to help those kids, you know, make sure that, you know, they’re aware of the seven dictators, they can build values, they can, you know, understand that this is, you know, if you’re not, if you don’t have a father figure in your life, or a toxic father figure in your life, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It’s not your fault. That’s just an unfortunate circumstance. But there’s a way around it. Because I said this to somebody last week. You know, because of what I went through. I should have been a statistic, right, whether it was in jail did drugs, alcohol, whatever I should, I should have been one of those statistics. But luckily, I did it, I made some decisions that led me down a more constructive path. And I want to make sure that I’m that guy, that lighthouse for any other 14 year old or any other youth that might be, you know, lost.

That’s really, it’s really inspiring. What you’re doing, you have a book out as well, can you tell us about that?

Champions Uprising: Fall 7 Times, Stand Up 8

Yeah, actually, that book is more more of a memoir. And I’m working on a second book right now. But the book is called champions uprising. And I self published that in 2017. And it’s just a little bit more about my story. And, and again, I would feel, I feel like anybody that would read it would definitely be inspired by the challenges, you know, sometimes, you know, fighters, you know, talk about their accolades, but I really share and I get as vulnerable as possible about all the times that I’ve failed, but I was able to bounce back and still, you know, be here to talk to you guys.

Where can people find that book?

That book is on Amazon right now.

That’s great. And where can people find you?

So I’m on Instagram. It’s https://www.chrisromulo.com/ I also have a website. Actually, I just put up a quiz for anybody that would like to go to my website, it’s Chris romulo.com. Forward slash quiz. And it would help you determine your champion archetype. And there are, I feel like there are three champion archetypes. And the quiz would actually, the questions are based around the seven dictators, and it will determine whether you are an awakened champion, a tenacious champion, or an empowered champion. So yeah, you can definitely you can be, I’d be grateful if you weren’t there, and check that out and took the quiz.

Great. And where do you speak?

Right now, I’ve done most of my talks in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. I actually, I live in Jersey now. So I’m looking to do more talks here and in my home state, and I’m open to, you know, speaking at conferences, and you know, anywhere where I could potentially connect with the youth.

Amazing, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s been a pleasure to have you, and thanks for talking with us in here.

Thank you, I really appreciate your time. And and I love what you’re doing with the experimental leader. I mean, it is I like to think of being a champion as being a leader, right? A leader is leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. And if you can live your life as a champion, you are definitely a leader.

Thanks so much for that.

Thank you guys.

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It was so great to have Chris here today. And I love his idea of the seven dictators. I think it’s so interesting. I’ve done work a lot in coaching around just the voices that are in people’s heads. And sometimes I think of it as the committee in your head. But I like the idea of the dictator. And, and sort of silencing the dictator because you want to make sure you’re driving your own ship as a leader and driving, steering, steering your own ship as a leader. So I really love what he’s up to helping youth. It’s so important that we help our kids start to be the people they want to be in the world. It’s been great being here with you today. Go experiment!

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Chris Romulo

Chris Romulo is a youth empowerment speaker, author, and retired Muay Thai champion who’s passionate about transforming the lives of today’s youth through his Champ Up philosophy.

With his Champions Uprising curriculum, Chris has taught thousands of students how to uncover the champion inside them with mindfulness and determination. Chris has spoken at schools and fellowships throughout NYC.

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