Transcript
Craig Siegel (0:00)
I want to help people, and I want to do a lot of good, and I want to be around positivity, and I want to share and not have everything be so transactional and what I learned on Wall street. And just to be clear, I wouldn't have changed a thing on my journey. I learned a lot there, Became a man there. I learned discipline, and there's a lot of skills that were transferable for me, but there's also a lot of lack of integrity. Everything, for the most part, is very transactional. There's usually an agenda. I just didn't resonate any longer with the consciousness. As I began to spread my wings and grow and become more spiritual, I just didn't have as much in common with the energy over there. And for me at that time, it. It was time to do something a little bit more meaningful with my life.
Roland Frasier (0:51)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Business Lunch podcast. And today's guest is Craig Siegel. Craig, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Craig Siegel (0:58)
I'm doing phenomenal. No place in the world I'd rather be than right here with you. Every time we get together, it's magical. Let's have some fun.
Roland Frasier (1:05)
Well, I don't know. You said you just got married, so if I'm you, I think I'd probably rather be on a honeymoon than here with me. As much of a honeymoon as it is, of course, to be with, you know, each other.
Craig Siegel (1:15)
We had a little bit of a honey, more like a mini moon after the wedding. We didn't really want to think too hard part, so we just went to Bahamas for a little bit. We're gonna probably book Greece for a couple months out, but I'm glad to be back. You know, when you love what you do, you don't really want to leave it for too long, and nobody knows that better than you. So definitely an exciting married. I got the New York City Marathon in two weeks, which I'm training for, and business. But all good things, all abundance not overwhelmed you.
Roland Frasier (1:41)
You have had. We. We did your podcast before and the CLS experience. Right. And you have had kind of an interesting career starting in the world of Wall street and then kind of getting into motivation and drawing on your experience with marathons and stuff. Would you give people a little bit of kind of the quick entrepreneurial journey that you've been on so far?
Craig Siegel (2:03)
Yeah. So I spent 13 years on Wall street, and I was making money, and at that season of life, I. That's what I basically define success as. And I was doing the stock thing Trading. And that became very stressful and I didn't love it anymore. And so I left that and I started my own company. Was supplying businesses across the country with working capital, loans and so forth. Pretty trendy industry, very lucrative, but wasn't exactly lighting my soul on fire. And so look, we're going to spend about a third of our life in our career, another third sleeping, so you better love what you do. And it occurred to me that there was a lot more to success than just making money. Is it possible that you can connect to your purpose, find what you're called to do, share your unique gifts with the world and make a lot of money doing so? And as it turns out, you can. And so when the pandemic happened, I shut down my office for what I thought would be two weeks. At the time, I think that was a good opportunity for the whole world to just take a second and reassess something I know now to be so productive. If I'm being honest, that was kind of a forced pivot for me. And when I got really quiet and connected, I was able to be that channel and start getting those downloads. And I realized just how obsessed I'd always been with personal development. And so I put together a whole strategy, kind of created like a 10 lane highway, like to be very strategic, 10 different ways to make an impact and also unapologetically make money. And so I was thinking coaching, community speaking, book, podcast, TED talk, et cetera. And then I reverse engineered it. And at the time I had no following, no connections, no celebrity friends, nothing. I said, what's step one? I said, let's start putting out content and sharing and building a personal brand. And so I started my CLS brand. For the first time in my life, I was in alignment universe. Definitely like that left Wall street for good. I'm a big believer in, for me personally, can't really have a safety net. I need to be all in and shift my energy. And I say very humbly, over the last few years, it took off and never had more fun or made more money.
