For this weeks episode of The Founder Podcast I join Bridger Rodgers on her show, Bridging The Gap! This episode features an inspiring interview where Chris shares his story of filing for bankruptcy at a young age with $2.2 million in debt, and how he was able to bounce back from that low point. He discusses the lessons he learned around living for external validation versus his own goals. Chris also details how he grew his solar installation company Soldier Energy to $233 million in annual revenue and a $100 million acquisition, becoming one of the fastest growing companies in the US. Listeners will learn Chris's insights on skills like sales, marketing, team building and culture that he attributes to his success. It's an empowering story of perseverance and what it takes to scale a business to nine-figure exits! Highlights: "I stopped caring about what other people thought., it's been a gradual process. It wasn't all at once. But, you know, early in my career, I was doing things to like, look at me, business owner, drive the nice car, have the nice this or that or whatever, create the facade of success rather than being a successful person." "I want to be the highest priced in any industry I ever operating from, there's really only two ways that you can operate an industry either you got to be the cheapest, you got to do a make a sliver of profits across large scale billions and billions of dollars, or you got to be the most expensive otherwise, you're screwing yourself." "As a business owner, you have to understand sales, and I'm not talking retail sales, I'm talking high ticket getting being able to identify pain, create a motion, and close based off of a gap of pain and a solution that you provide." 00:00: Introduction 05:01: Growing Up 10:11: Overcoming Bankruptcy 15:31: Skill Development 20:09: Building Winning Culture 24:16: Leadership 35:51: Partnership 45:08: Mentorship 54:30: Building A Business