From a Long Travel Day to a Room Full of Realtors
We started the day early.
The alarm went off around 5:00 a.m. East Coast time. By the time we landed in Phoenix, it had been eight or nine hours of travel, delays, and airport sitting. No sleep on the plane. No rhythm. Just movement.
When we checked into the hotel, the easy choice would have been a nap.
Instead, we went to the gym.
Not because we wanted to.
Because we have a standard.
An hour workout. Shower. Reset. Then dinner with a friend and preparation for what really mattered: speaking to a room of roughly 300 realtors at an event supported by Windsor Mortgage and Barrett Financial.
Before the event, there was one quick non-negotiable stop.
Walmart.
Why? Because in the rush of travel, I had forgotten the Sharpies I use to sign books. When you have committed to bring value and connection to a room, you do not cut corners on the details. Those signatures matter. Those conversations matter.
Why My Story Starts With What Was “Not Supposed” To Happen
When I stepped onto that stage, the introduction from my friend set the tone. He shared how we had grown together through the chaos of the COVID market, navigating turn times, volume, and pressure. Then he handed me the mic.
Here is how I opened:
“I am not supposed to be here today.”
That is not a dramatic line. It is the truth.
I am the son of a drug addict.
I was born with a limb difference.
I am a survivor of infant loss.
I was a victim of child abuse before I was born.
My mother was a heroin addict, and this arm is the gift she handed me before I ever took a breath.
At fifteen, my aunt told me:
“Your mom is so messed up that if you went to jail, we would be okay with it.”
In other words, I had permission to fail. Permission to quit. Permission to become a statistic.
That is why I tell people this:
“The stories of your past are not anchors. They are keys. They unlock your future if you let them.”
For more than forty years, I did not understand that. I just carried it. Quietly.
The Moment Everything Shifted
In 2023, I sat in a room with nine other people in Miami. It was a coaching session focused on story and speaking.
I had always wanted to be on stages. I had always wanted to be a speaker. But in that room, I finally realized how much I had been holding back.
The adversity I grew up in
The losses I had endured
The pain I kept stuffed down
Those were not things to hide. They were lessons. And I had a responsibility to use them to help people who were facing their own storms.
On the drive back from Miami to Orlando that day, I made a decision. I was going to change the trajectory of my life. I was going to move from “nice corporate job” to a life fully centered around coaching, speaking, and impact.
I did not know exactly how that would look yet. But I knew it required bold, different action.
Discovering the One Jordan Strategy
One night, while scrolling TikTok like most people do, I came across a video.
A guy was talking about a strategy he used to connect with high-level people: sending a single Jordan shoe to start the conversation.
I am a big fan of Jordans. I am also a big fan of R&D:
Rip off and duplicate.
So I ran with the idea.
A few days later, I was sitting in the Charleston airport after giving my first keynote. There was a hurricane back home in Florida, so I was facing a nine-hour delay.
That delay turned into one of the most important work sessions of my life.
I pulled out my notebook and created my first One Jordan List.
These were people who:
Were further along the path I wanted to walk
Could compress my learning curve
Might challenge my thinking
Represented the level of impact I wanted to create
I knew I did not have fifty years to waste. I was fifty years old at the time, and I wanted to compress twenty years of growth into three to five. The One Jordan strategy was one way to do that.
How the One Jordan Strategy Works
The strategy is simple:
Identify someone you deeply want to connect with.
Find out their shoe size.
Buy them a single Jordan shoe.
Send it with a handwritten note that says,
“If you want the other shoe, give me a call.”
That is it. Bold. Different. Impossible to ignore.
Damon West, Dan Martell, and a Returned Shoe
The first person I used the strategy with was Damon West, co-author of The Coffee Bean and a powerful speaker on transformation.
I DM’d him and asked:
“Hey, Damon, you like Jordans? Which ones?”
“Jordan 4s.”
“Curious, what shoe size are you?”
“10.5. What about you?”
I ordered a Jordan 4, boxed up one shoe, wrote the note, and sent it to the P.O. box he had given me.
Then I waited.
Nothing.
Eventually I messaged him again: “Hey man, have you checked your mail?”
He replied, “That is my P.O. box. I check it maybe once a month.”
The next day, the phone rang. Texas area code.
It was Damon.
“Man, this is the most unbelievable way someone has ever tried to connect with me.”
The strategy worked.
I kept going. Five people. Six people. Seven people.
Then one day, a shoe came back.
A high-level coach sent it back with a clear message: he wanted nothing to do with the “shoe game.”
My ego flared. I had started to build an identity around this.
“Do you not know who I am? I am One Jordan Chris. I am 8–0.”
It was the wrong reaction, but it exposed something important: you have to be bold without tying your worth to the response.
Around the same time, I targeted Dan Martell, author of Buy Back Your Time. Dan operates with precision around his time and energy. He eventually agreed to a ten-minute phone call, which is exactly how he describes his boundaries in his book.
It was another lesson:
Bold action gets attention, but you still have to respect other people’s standards and boundaries.
Sending a Shoe to John Maxwell
After testing the strategy with several people, I asked myself a bigger question:
“Who is the top coach in the world, in my opinion? Who is the GOAT?”
For me, that answer is John Maxwell.
Ninety books. Global leadership influence. A lifetime of impact.
So I found out his shoe size.
I sent him a single Jordan. I included the same handwritten note.
Then this happened.
He sent a video back:
“Hey, Chris. It is John Maxwell. I just got your trouble, buddy. Where is my shoe?”
Later, he shared the story from stage. John Maxwell now has a keynote that includes my One Jordan story and uses it as an example of getting “out of the people pile” by being bold and different.
Eventually I had the chance to meet him in person. At an event in Atlanta, he pointed me out from the front row and retold our story.
I want to be clear about something:
I am not sharing that to brag about who knows my name.
I am sharing it to show you what can happen when you decide to be bold and different with your outreach.
One shoe changed the trajectory of my business.
The question is:
What could you do to stand out in your market, your niche, your industry?
Writing One Jordan and Fighting the Urge to Quit
The One Jordan strategy became the backbone of a book I eventually wrote, titled One Jordan.
I wrote it to:
Share the strategy
Show what is possible when you take bold action
Challenge others to be different instead of blending in
I wish I could tell you that I was confident the whole way through. I was not.
In October, right before the manuscript deadline, I called my publisher and said, “I do not want to release the book. I do not think anyone will read it.”
They told me, very directly, “That is not how this works. You are under contract. You are going to release the book.”
My wife backed that up. She is my biggest fan and my strongest accountability.
“Finish your book. Get it done. Your story matters.”
So I finished.
The night it launched, One Jordan became a bestseller in six categories.
Then, on a plane one day, I received a text from my publisher:
“Incredible news. One Jordan just became an international bestseller. Your story is now impacting lives around the world.”
I read it and cried. I am 6’5 and not ashamed to say I am an emotional guy when it comes to impact.
I always joked that if I ever ended up on a billboard in Times Square, it would be on America’s Most Wanted.
Instead, I ended up there because of a book about boldness and authenticity.
Your Past Is Not a Sentence. It Is Proof.
In that room full of realtors and lenders, I reminded them:
I had every excuse to give up.
I went to eight different schools before graduation.
I lived with five different families.
My mother’s addiction shaped my childhood.
I lost my son, CJ, in 2020.
Nobody would have been surprised if I had quit.
But everything changed when I stopped hiding my story and started owning it.
I used to be terrified people would find out my mom was a drug addict. Later I realized all my friends’ moms already knew. That is why they kept inviting me over for dinner.
I used to position people on my left side in photos so my arm would be hidden. I was embarrassed about what was “wrong” with me, instead of owning what was strong in me.
The moment I embraced my story as a strength rather than a weakness, the game changed.
“Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it is inspiring.”
That does not mean you have to be perfect. It means you have to be honest.
Impact as a Standard, Not a Slogan
For the last three years, my word has been impact.
When I walk into any room, my goal is simple:
Impact at least one person.
That is it. One.
You can have five thousand people in an audience, and it still comes down to one person who hears what they needed to hear and decides to change their life.
From that room of realtors, some may use the One Jordan strategy. Some may simply take away the courage to be more authentic with their own stories. Some may decide to stop hiding what they have survived and start using it as fuel.
That is impact.
What This Means For You
If you are reading this as a realtor, loan officer, leader, or entrepreneur, here is what I want you to ask yourself:
What are you holding back from your story?
What are you ashamed of that might actually be your greatest strength?Where are you blending in when you should be standing out?
You may not send a Jordan shoe, but what bold, different action could you take that nobody else in your market is doing?Are you letting your past trip you, or are you using it as proof?
Every challenge you have survived is evidence that you can handle the next one.What is your standard for impact?
When you walk into a room, are you just trying to “get through it,” or are you committed to leaving one person better than you found them?
Fortune does not just favor the bold. Opportunities do.
The doors that opened in my life did not come from playing small, hiding my story, or waiting to be discovered. They came from:
Telling the truth about where I came from
Doing the hard work on myself
Taking bold, uncomfortable actions that most people would never attempt
You are not defined by what happened to you. You are defined by what you decide to do with it.
So go be bold.
Own your story.
Reach out differently.
Set your standard higher than your feelings.
The people you are meant to serve are waiting on the other side of that decision.
