Built for the Cold

What if what happened to you really WAS unfair?

What if they betrayed you?

What if you got fired when you didn’t deserve it?

What if someone broke your trust?

What if you lost something you genuinely earned?

You don’t have to pretend it didn’t hurt.

You don’t have to convince yourself it was somehow your fault.

And you don’t have to be grateful that it happened.

But eventually, you have to answer a much harder question:

How much more of your life does that event get to own?

There’s a massive difference between feeling like a victim and living like one.

You can be angry.

You can grieve.

You can feel betrayed.

You can acknowledge that something happened to you that never should have happened.

But eventually, you have to decide whether that experience becomes part of your story—

or whether you allow it to write the rest of it.

In this episode of Built for the Cold, Joe tackles one of the most misunderstood ideas in high-performance culture:

What does taking ownership actually mean when something genuinely unfair happens to you?

We’re often given two options.

Stay angry, blame everyone else, and allow yourself to remain stuck in what happened.

Or embrace an extreme version of ownership where you convince yourself that everything that happened was somehow your fault.

Joe argues there is a third option.

You can acknowledge that you were victimized without building your identity around being a victim.

You can tell the truth about what happened.

You can acknowledge what someone else did.

You can grieve.

You can be angry.

And you can still take complete responsibility for what you do next.

Joe shares several deeply personal examples from his own life.

In college, he was fired from his resident assistant position after what he believed was an unjustified situation—losing his free room and board and eventually reaching a point where he had just $7.34 to his name and was months behind on rent.

Years later, after investing more than four years into building a business, he discovered practices he believed violated the organization's rules and his own standards. After leaving, he learned that others had allegedly been told he left because of mental-health issues—an experience he eventually had to process through therapy.

Then came divorce.

After more than a decade with his former partner, Joe describes the breakdown of the marriage, the grief that followed, and eventually taking a personal retreat to Door County, Wisconsin.

At negative-30-degree wind chill, he stood alone overlooking the bay, praying and processing what had happened.

And then came another professional loss.

After helping build infrastructure for a company, contributing to its fastest-growing branch, producing at a high level and managing successful salespeople, Joe received a phone call telling him he was no longer a fit for the company.

No detailed explanation.

No closure.

No exit interview.

He could not control the decision.

He could control what happened next.

Within approximately 30 days, Joe had tripled his monthly income.

The lesson wasn’t that getting fired was secretly good.

The lesson was that radical ownership does not mean taking responsibility for everyone else’s decisions. It means taking responsibility for what you do next.

This episode breaks that process into three steps:

Tell yourself the truth.

Own what belongs to you without accepting responsibility for someone else’s behavior.

Feel it without becoming it.

Pain is an experience. It does not have to become an identity.

Take back the pen.

You may not control what happened to you, but you still have authority over what you build from what remains.

Joe also introduces the idea of becoming your own Adversity Architect.

An architect doesn’t get to choose the terrain.

They look at the terrain they’ve been given and ask:

“Given what exists, what can I build here?”

That’s the challenge of adversity.

You didn’t order the materials.

You didn’t ask for the situation.

Sometimes life simply dumps broken pieces onto your construction site.

The question becomes:

What are you going to build with them?

• Feeling victimized and living like a victim are different things. Something can legitimately happen to you without being allowed to dictate every decision that follows.
• Ownership does not require dishonesty. You don’t have to rewrite history or pretend something was your fault simply to call yourself accountable.
• Own what is actually yours. Ask: What happened to me? What part was mine? What part wasn’t mine?
• Radical ownership has limits. You are not responsible for everybody else’s decisions. You are responsible for what you do next.
• Joe’s college firing. Losing his resident assistant position also meant losing free room and board, contributing to a period of severe financial hardship.
• Business betrayal and therapy. After leaving an organization over practices he believed were unethical, Joe later had to process the anger and resentment through therapy—including writing a letter he never intended to send.
• Grief requires processing. Anger, sadness, counseling, prayer, solitude, and grief are not evidence that you’re weak.
• Feeling is not surrendering. The danger begins when an emotional wound becomes your permanent operating system.
• Joe’s divorce and Door County retreat. During one of the most painful periods of his life, Joe traveled alone to Wisconsin and prayed outside in negative-30-degree wind chill while processing the end of his marriage.
• You cannot control other people’s choices. Eventually, your responsibility shifts toward deciding what you will do with the reality in front of you.
• Getting fired despite high performance. Joe describes receiving an unexpected call ending his employment despite strong individual production and leadership results.
• No closure doesn’t mean no future. Sometimes you will never receive the explanation, apology, accountability, or resolution you believe you deserve.
• Joe tripled his monthly income within roughly 30 days of being fired. The event remained painful, but it did not receive authority over his next move.
• Pain is an experience—not an identity. There is a dangerous transition from “this happened to me” to “this is who I am.”
• Repeated adversity can rewrite your internal narrative. “People always screw me over.” “Nothing works out for me.” “Every time things get good, something happens.” Those narratives can follow you into future relationships, careers, and businesses.
• Treat emotional injuries like physical injuries. An athlete acknowledges an injury, treats it, rehabilitates it, and eventually stops identifying as an injured athlete.
• Grief doesn’t operate on your preferred timeline. There is no arbitrary deadline after which pain suddenly needs to become inspirational.
• Your adversity can eventually become material. Once processed, the experience that hurt you can become part of the story that helps someone else.
• Someone else may need your story. The adversity you overcome can eventually become the breakthrough another person needs to hear.
• Become your own Adversity Architect. You don’t always choose the terrain on which you have to build your life.
• Build with what remains. When adversity breaks the original structure, you may not recover every piece. You can still construct something from what remains.
• You don't have to embrace toxic positivity. You don't have to believe everything happens for a reason.
• Decide that it won’t be wasted. You may never understand why something happened, but you can determine what you build from it.
• The three-step framework: Tell the truth. Separate the pain from your identity. Reclaim authority over what happens next.
• Ask the harder question:
  “How much of my life does this event get to own moving forward?”

THE CENTRAL MESSAGE

You don’t have to pretend it was fair.

Maybe they really did screw you over.

Maybe they lied.

Maybe you deserved the promotion.

Maybe you didn’t deserve to get fired.

Maybe somebody broke your trust.

Maybe something happened to your family that never should have happened.

You don’t have to pretend it didn’t hurt.

You don’t have to be grateful for it.

And you don’t have to accept responsibility for decisions that weren’t yours.

But eventually, you have to decide what happens next.

Because feeling like a victim and living like one are two completely different things.

What happened to you is part of your story.

It doesn’t get to write the rest of it.

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

What if the thing everyone praises you for is actually the place you’ve been hiding?

High performers don’t always fall apart when life gets hard.

Sometimes we do the opposite.

We work harder.

We make more money.

We train harder.

We chase another goal.

We keep producing.

And because we’re still functioning, everyone assumes we’re okay.

But there’s a dangerous difference between performing through pain and actually processing it.

I learned that firsthand.

At 19, I experienced more loss, financial pressure, grief, and instability than I knew how to process. And instead of stopping, I turned all of it into fuel.

It worked.

For years.

Until I realized that achievement had helped me survive the pain—but it had never actually healed it.

So here’s the question:

Are you chasing the dream because you genuinely want it… or because it’s safer than confronting what happens when you stop?

In this episode of Built for the Cold, Joe tackles a side of high performance that rarely gets discussed:

Sometimes achievement isn’t just ambition.

Sometimes it’s a coping mechanism.

When people experience adversity, we often expect dysfunction—drinking, addiction, weight gain, poor decisions, or visible collapse.

But high performers can respond very differently.

They can become more ambitious.

They keep selling.
They keep training.
They keep building.
They keep winning.

And because they’re producing results, nobody—including themselves—recognizes that they may still be carrying unresolved pain.

Joe shares one of the most difficult periods of his own life. At 19, within a short period of time, he experienced multiple family crises, the death of a close friend and mentor, a breakup, his grandfather’s stage-four cancer diagnosis, losing his job, severe financial instability, and nearly becoming homeless.

At one point, he had $7.34 to his name and had to choose between eating dinner or attending a business event.

He chose the event.

Joe turned that adversity into motivation.

He told himself it would eventually become part of his story.

And in many ways, it worked.

But he didn’t actually begin processing much of what happened until roughly eight years later.

During those years, unresolved pain began leaking into his relationships, attitude, energy, and the way he treated people around him.

The lesson:

Functioning and healing are not the same thing.

Achievement does not automatically equal emotional health.

This episode challenges listeners to perform an Achievement Audit and ask uncomfortable questions about the goals they are chasing.

Would you still want the goal if nobody knew you accomplished it?

What emotion appears when you stop chasing it?

What part of your life receives less attention because your ambition keeps you busy?

And perhaps the hardest:

If you stopped chasing your biggest goal for 30 days, what would you finally be forced to confront?

The goal isn’t to become less ambitious.

It’s to stop requiring unresolved pain as the fuel source for your ambition.

Because the highest level of performance isn’t simply producing under pressure.

It’s being able to process what happened, recover from it, and deliberately choose where you’re going next.

• Achievement can be a trauma response. Not everyone who is hurting visibly falls apart. Some people become more productive, ambitious, disciplined, or successful.
• Performance can hide pain extremely well. If you can still sell, train, work, build, and win, both you and everyone around you may assume you’re fine.
• Functioning is not the same as healing. Being capable of performing through adversity does not mean you have emotionally processed it.
• Joe’s experience at 19. Within one period of his life, Joe dealt with suicide in his extended family, a significant breakup, his grandfather’s stage-four cancer diagnosis, the sudden death of a close friend, losing his job, and severe financial hardship.
• $7.34 to his name. Joe describes having to choose between buying dinner and attending a business event—and choosing the business event instead.
• Adversity became fuel. Joe consciously decided that what he was going through would become part of the story he would someday tell rather than a reason to quit.
• Fuel is not healing. Turning adversity into motivation helped Joe keep moving, but it did not remove the emotional consequences of what happened.
• Unprocessed pain eventually leaks. Years later, it showed up as bitterness, negativity, abrasiveness, and difficulty in relationships even while outward performance remained strong.
• You don’t need to kill your ambition. The problem isn’t the gym, money, business, goals, or working hard.
• Ask a better question:
  “Am I chasing something I genuinely want, or running from something I don’t want to feel?”
• Identity can become attached to achievement. “I’ll prove I belong.” “I’ll become successful enough.” “I’ll become strong enough.” “I’ll become respected enough.”
• Your dream can become your safest hiding place. Something can genuinely be your dream while simultaneously giving you permission to ignore another part of your life.
• The Achievement Audit: Examine what you’re pursuing, why you want it, what happens emotionally when you stop pursuing it, and what areas of your life receive less attention because of it.
• The anonymity test: If nobody knew you accomplished the goal, would you still want it?
• The 30-day question:
  “If I stopped chasing this for 30 days, what would I be forced to confront?”
• Avoidance has a bill. Problems ignored today can resurface years later in relationships, businesses, families, or decisions where the consequences are much larger.
• Critical mistakes usually have roots. What looks like one catastrophic decision from the outside can sometimes be the result of years of unresolved internal issues.
• The goal is not less performance. It is cleaner performance. Perform with peace rather than requiring anger, fear, insecurity, or pain to keep the engine running.

THE CENTRAL MESSAGE

Achievement can save you during a difficult season.

But if achievement becomes the only way you know how to deal with pain, eventually the thing that helped you survive can prevent you from healing.

You don’t have to stop chasing the dream.

You just need to make sure you’re actually chasing the dream—

and not running from yourself.

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

What if the reason you’re struggling isn’t because you lack discipline?

What if you’re already pushing as hard as you can—but you’re fighting an opponent you can’t see?

For years, I thought exhaustion meant I needed to work harder.

Wake up earlier.
Build better systems.
Drink another energy drink.
Become more disciplined.

Then I found out I had severe sleep apnea and was stopping breathing roughly 30 times an hour while I slept.

I wasn’t lazy.

I wasn’t weak.

And I didn’t need another motivational speech.

I needed to identify the invisible opponent.

In this episode of The Cold Standard, I break down why performance starts before mindset—and why sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop blaming your character and start examining your physiology, environment, patterns, and programming.

We live in a culture obsessed with one answer:

“You just need more discipline.”

But what happens when you’re already disciplined?

In this episode of The Cold Standard, Joe challenges one of the most common messages in the performance and self-development world: that every struggle can be solved by simply working harder.

Joe spent decades building routines around training, academics, work, business, and performance. From waking up before dawn as a kid, to early-morning practices, multiple jobs, college internships, building businesses at night, and eventually climbing through his professional career, discipline was never the missing ingredient.

Yet in his early twenties, crippling fatigue began taking over.

He slept 12–14 hours, took multiple naps, relied heavily on energy drinks, struggled to stay awake while driving, and continued telling himself the same thing:

“I need to be more disciplined.”

Years later, he discovered the real problem: severe sleep apnea. During testing, he was found to stop breathing approximately 30 times per hour while sleeping.

That experience exposed a much bigger lesson:

Sometimes you are not fighting laziness.

You are fighting an invisible opponent.

Those opponents can include poor sleep, health issues, environmental conditioning, childhood programming, trauma, relationships, emotional patterns, or beliefs you absorbed long before you were consciously aware of them.

Joe breaks down why performance must begin with physiology before psychology, how sleep, training, nutrition, therapy, and environment can influence your ability to perform, and why simply forcing positive thinking can actually create more internal conflict.

Instead, he introduces the concept of realistic optimism:

“This is hard—but I’m going to get through it.”

Not pretending everything is great.

Not catastrophizing everything that goes wrong.

Learning to see reality clearly while maintaining belief in your ability to respond.

The ultimate standard isn’t becoming emotionless.

It’s becoming shock absorbent.

Life can hit you.

You can feel it.

But you don’t allow every hit to dictate how you show up.

When your physiology supports your psychology, and your psychology supports your standards, your baseline performance begins to rise.

Eventually, what used to require extraordinary discipline simply becomes who you are.

• Not every problem is a discipline problem. Sometimes greater effort cannot compensate for an unidentified physical, emotional, or environmental constraint.
• Joe’s battle with severe sleep apnea. He spent years assuming extreme fatigue was a personal performance problem before discovering he was repeatedly stopping breathing during sleep.
• Discipline becomes systems. After decades of consistent training, going to the gym no longer requires a daily motivational battle—it has become part of Joe’s automatic operating system.
• Your physiology can override your psychology. Sleep, fitness, nutrition, fatigue, and health can influence your capacity before motivation or mindset ever enter the equation.
• Invisible opponents exist everywhere. Health conditions, sleep problems, environmental cues, childhood experiences, learned behaviors, and unresolved emotional patterns can quietly influence performance.
• Childhood programming matters. Beliefs developed during formative years can continue shaping money, success, relationships, confidence, and decision-making long after childhood.
• Professional help is not weakness. Therapy and coaching can provide an objective perspective capable of exposing behavioral patterns that are difficult to identify from inside your own experience.
• Optimize the body before attacking the mind. Before labeling yourself lazy, unmotivated, or undisciplined, examine sleep, physical health, movement, and nutrition.
• Fitness should eventually serve your life. Training can evolve from purely chasing numbers or aesthetics toward supporting cognition, energy, longevity, and overall performance.
• Stop majoring in the minors. If extreme commitment to one area is preventing progress across the rest of your life, it may be time to reconsider where your effort is producing the highest return.
• Positive thinking can become dishonest. Telling yourself “everything is great” when your life clearly isn’t can teach your brain that your own internal dialogue cannot be trusted.
• Use realistic optimism instead.
  “This sucks right now—but I can handle it.”
  “This didn’t go how I wanted—but I can learn from it.”
  “I didn’t win—but I gained wisdom.”
• Sometimes you don’t win—you get wisdom. And the wisdom from adversity can eventually become more valuable than the original outcome you wanted.
• Watch for catastrophizing. One negative event does not automatically mean the next 15 things will go wrong.
• Emotional stability does not mean emotional numbness. It means shortening the time between getting hit and returning to your standard.
• Become shock absorbent. Life will continue throwing pressure at you. The goal is to absorb the impact without allowing every emotion or circumstance to control your behavior.
• The Cold Standard:
  Align your physiology. Strengthen your psychology. Build systems. Raise your standards.

Eventually, your floor can become what someone else still considers their ceiling.

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

What if you do everything they tell you to do?

Wake up early. Put in the work. Stay consistent. Sacrifice. Grind when nobody’s watching.

And it still doesn’t work out?

That’s the part nobody likes to talk about.

Sometimes the business fails. Sometimes you get cut. Sometimes the relationship ends. Sometimes you get overlooked, demoted, fired, injured, or forced to start over.

But that doesn’t mean the work was wasted.

Because sometimes the biggest result isn’t what you achieved.

It’s who you became while pursuing it.

In this episode of Built for the Cold, Joe challenges one of the most common messages in personal development: that if you work hard enough for long enough, success is guaranteed.

Because real life doesn’t always work that way.

Joe shares stories from his own life—from waking up at 3:30 in the morning to take the bus to basketball practice only to sit on the bench, to missing a chance to compete at the state level because of injury, spending years building businesses that ultimately didn’t work out, struggling through the early years of sales, experiencing divorce, and eventually being unexpectedly let go after becoming one of the top performers at his company.

On paper, many of those chapters could be called failures.

But each one built something that couldn’t be taken away:

resilience, character, perspective, experience, speed of decision-making, and certainty in himself.

The lesson?

Failure doesn’t have to become a life sentence.

When you put real effort, intention, and intensity into something, you gain perspective that people who spend years overthinking from the sidelines will never have.

And when the right opportunity finally appears, that accumulated experience allows you to recognize it—and move.

In this episode:

• What to do when hard work doesn’t produce the result you expected
• Why failure should never become your identity
• How years of effort can create decades of perspective
• Why action builds clarity faster than overthinking
• How adversity creates certainty in who you are
• Why the work still matters even when the scoreboard says you lost
• The danger of allowing past failures to dictate your next five or ten years

The question isn’t only:

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

There’s another question that might matter even more:

What if you stay the same?

Because sometimes the greatest return on the work isn’t the win.

It’s the person the work forced you to become.

This is The Cold Standard.

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

Everybody has a plan when life is going right.

But what happens when life hits you with something you never saw coming?

That’s when you find out whether you actually built yourself for the cold.

Most people ask, “How do I fit everything in?”

Wrong question.

The better question is: What matters enough that I’m willing to make time for it?

In this episode of Built for the Cold, Joe breaks down the mindset of intense intentionality—building your life around standards, systems, priorities, and preparation instead of hoping motivation shows up when you need it.

Because you don’t get the life you intend to have.

You get the life your standards allow.

From 23 years of consistent training, to building businesses, coaching high-performing sales organizations, being a husband and father, and navigating responsibilities and adversity that don’t conveniently fit into a calendar—Joe shares why “balance” isn’t about doing everything.

It’s about knowing what deserves your time, eliminating what doesn’t, creating margin for the people who matter, and building systems strong enough to keep you moving when life gets heavy.

In this episode:

• Why “finding time” is the wrong mindset
• The difference between intention and intense intentionality
• Why your smallest daily decisions are constantly shaping your self-image
• How systems create freedom instead of restriction
• Why preparation matters more than opportunity
• How to build margin for your marriage, family, health, and career
• Why adversity exposes the standards you actually live by
• How to recognize when something that once served you needs to be left behind

Anyone can look disciplined when conditions are perfect.

The question is who you become when they're not.

Stop drifting. Build the systems. Raise the standard. Make time for what matters.

Because the goal isn't to build a life that only works when things are easy.

The goal is to become Built for the Cold.

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

What if the worst thing that ever happened to you ended up building the best parts of your life?

At 21 years old, Chris Kiefer lost his father to pancreatic cancer.

It could have broken him.

Instead, it forced him to confront something most people don’t confront until much later in life:

You do not have unlimited time.

That loss changed the career Chris chose, the woman he married, the brother he became, the father he wanted to be, the businesses he built, and ultimately the man he became.

And Chris says something in this episode that may stop you in your tracks:

He’s reached a point where he can actually be grateful for what happened.

Not because losing his father wasn’t devastating.

But because of the fruit that grew from the pain.

This episode is about what happens when adversity doesn’t just hurt you—it reorders your entire life.

In this episode of Built for the Cold, Joe sits down with entrepreneur, father of five, and founder of Boolean Automation, Chris Kiefer, for a conversation about loss, fatherhood, faith, technology, entrepreneurship, and what actually matters when life strips away the illusion that you have unlimited time.

Chris was only 21 when his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away.

Before that moment, Chris was headed toward what looked like a successful and predictable future in aerospace engineering. He interned at Lockheed Martin, performed well, and had a job waiting for him after graduation.

Then his perspective changed.

Instead of moving across the country and chasing the career he thought he wanted, Chris returned home, became deeply involved in his younger brother’s life, eventually walked away from engineering, became an entrepreneur, married young, and began building an entirely different life.

Chris explains why one question transformed the way he processed his father's death:

“What is the worst thing that ever happened to you—and how was it also the best thing that ever happened to you?”

The conversation goes deep into the small moments that define fatherhood—the five-minute phone calls, showing up to games nobody else cares about, celebrating insignificant victories that are significant because your child cares about them—and why Chris now measures fatherhood by whether his children will someday want to call him with those same little wins.

Joe and Chris also examine the battle modern entrepreneurs face between ambition and presence, especially as technology, business, social media, and AI constantly demand more attention.

From there, the conversation turns toward AI and the future.

Rather than approaching technology purely from fear, Chris explains why he chooses “Team Optimism,” how he uses AI creatively with his children, why technological efficiency tends to create more—not less—opportunity, and why he believes entrepreneurs with a strong moral compass need to actively participate in the next technological revolution.

Chris also breaks down how he built Boolean Automation, an extremely specialized company helping large painting contractors automate their businesses, and why the internet and AI are creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to solve problems at a level of specificity that previously would have been impossible.

Ultimately, this episode isn't just about grief, AI, entrepreneurship, or parenting.

It's about deciding what adversity is going to produce in you.

You don't get to rewrite what happened.

But you do get to decide what you build from it.

• Losing his father at 21: How pancreatic cancer and the death of Chris's father radically changed his trajectory.
• The question that reframed tragedy:
  “What is the worst thing that's ever happened to you—and how was it also the best thing that's ever happened to you?”
• Pain can reorder your priorities: Why Chris walked away from the expected Lockheed Martin engineering path and returned home.
• Adversity accelerated maturity: Chris believes losing his father forced him to develop perspective he otherwise may not have gained for another decade.
• Presence over prestige: Chris once felt embarrassed that his father was “just” a PE teacher. As an adult, he realized his father's presence mattered infinitely more than an impressive title.
• The moments your kids remember: Why a five-minute phone call after basketball practice can matter more than accomplishments, money, or status.
• The left-handed layup: Chris shares the emotional story of winning a meaningless recreational basketball game—and realizing the only person he desperately wanted to call was his dad.
• A different definition of fatherhood: Success isn't simply providing for your children. It's becoming the person they still want to call when something small goes right.
• Ambition versus presence: The internal battle entrepreneurs face when their mind is constantly trying to consume, learn, build, and stay ahead.
• Breaking the technology addiction: Chris discusses removing social media from his phone during Lent and realizing just how automatic the habit had become.
• Raising kids in an AI world: Instead of immediately fearing AI, Chris is experimenting with ways to use it to create, teach, connect, and reinforce positive messages with his children.
• “Team Optimism”: Why Chris would rather believe technology can be used for good and be wrong than spend his life expecting the worst.
• AI as an amplifier: Technology itself isn't necessarily the problem—the character and intention of the person wielding it matter.
• Why cheaper creation creates more creation: Chris explains why dramatically reducing the cost of software, music, automation, and content may increase human experimentation rather than eliminate it.
• Faith in the age of AI: Why technological advancement doesn't change Chris's belief that humanity remains extraordinarily small compared with God and creation.
• His bigger mission: Chris wants to help 1,000 Christians start or acquire businesses during his lifetime.
• The power of extreme specialization: How Boolean Automation built an entire business around automating systems specifically for painting companies.
• The opportunity of the internet: Hyper-specific expertise that once couldn't support a company can now attract precisely the right customers from around the world.
• The central Built for the Cold lesson:
  You cannot control every adversity that enters your life. You can control what you allow that adversity to build.

Connect with Chris

The Pursuit of Purpose Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pursuit-of-purpose/id1337457439

https://helloboolean.com/

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

"Entrepreneurship is like running a race, but no one's telling you where the finish line is. Just run. We'll tell you when to stop."

David grew up in New Jersey with teenage drug-addicted parents, lived in 20 different places before high school, and battled his own 20-year heroin addiction. After hitting rock bottom on his grandmother's pullout couch with nothing but two bags of clothes, he got clean in 2012 — and built a $15 million insurance business from scratch.

In this raw conversation, David shares his entire journey: the $20K he made in his first 6 months selling insurance, why he turned down millions in disaster relief work to stick with his vision, and how he went from sleeping on a futon to making $1 million passively in year four.

🔥 Free Resources
The Cold Call Resilience Method™: https://perform.peakperformanceprospecting.com/performanceprograms
Built for the Cold Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/built-for-the-cold/id1792647112

Chapters
(0:00) The Race With No Finish Line
(1:24) Growing Up With Drug-Addicted Parents
(3:17) How Rock Bottom Became His Advantage
(6:38) The Millionaire Dream Started Early
(10:23) Why Adversity Kills Fear of Failure
(14:24) $20K in 6 Months — Then Everything Changed
(19:59) The 12-Step Meeting That Saved His Life
(24:44) Tony Robbins, Grant Cardone & Obsession
(33:13) No Alarm Clock: Sleep as a Weapon
(38:23) Business Is Like Video Games
(45:50) There's No Such Thing as Balance
(48:50) $200K → $500K → $1M Passive
(59:40) One Conversation Changed Everything

Connect with Joe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joewannerofficial/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-wanner-19632bab/
Website: https://www.thejoewanner.com

#entrepreneurship #addiction #recovery #insurance #salestraining #mindset #builtforthecold

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

"I love being the underdog." – Milind Gupte

The Underdog Advantage

Milind was told he was too analytical to sell. He failed the sales assessment. They said he should be an engineer. Most people would’ve accepted that label. He didn’t. He kept the letter, hung it on his wall, and used it as fuel. That underdog edge became the fire behind everything he built. This episode is about what happens when doubt becomes drive.

Pressure Is Privilege

From corporate America to building his own company, Milind didn’t chase comfort — he chased growth. He leaned into pressure instead of running from it. While others slowed down after small wins, he stacked momentum. Follow up. Service. Work ethic. Discipline. The things no one sees are the things that compound. Pressure isn’t punishment — it’s proof you’re playing a bigger game.

Freedom Through Responsibility

Milind has walked through the D’s — divorce, doubt, difficult seasons. He’s built, rebuilt, and refined who he is. Today, he values time as much as money. He’s self-employed, competitive, still evolving, still sharpening his edge. The market changes. Sales changes. Technology changes. But character, consistency, and resilience don’t. That’s what keeps you relevant. That’s what keeps you dangerous.

If the information in these episodes have helped you in your business journey, please subscribe to the show and leave an honest review.

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

"Clarity doesn’t create movement. Execution does." – Joe Wanner

Why Goals Alone Don’t Move You
In this episode, Joe Wanner breaks down why goal setting without execution leads to frustration, not progress. Most people don’t fail because they lack goals — they fail because they rely on motivation instead of systems. Joe explains how hidden assumptions, limiting beliefs, and the perfection complex quietly sabotage momentum before it ever starts.

Systems Beat Willpower Every Time
Execution requires structure. Joe unpacks why systems create consistency when life gets chaotic and motivation fades. From urgency and decision-making to eliminating friction, this episode shows how forward movement is built through repeatable actions — not perfect plans. If you’ve been waiting for the “right time,” this conversation will expose why urgency matters more than confidence.

Moving Forward Through Real Life
Life doesn’t pause for your goals. Distractions, stress, and unexpected challenges are part of the process — not excuses to stop. Joe shares how to move forward anyway, even when conditions aren’t ideal. The Forward Formula isn’t about doing more — it’s about removing the barriers that keep you stuck and choosing progress over perfection.

If the information in these episodes have helped you in your business journey, please subscribe to the show and leave an honest review.

Book Recommendation: The Science of Getting Rich By Wallace Waddles

Chapters
00:00 New Year, New Opportunities
01:23 The Science of Getting Rich
03:41 Executing Your Goals
08:38 Overcoming Barriers to Success
12:13 Empowerment and Control

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

"I didn’t just survive the pressure. I found purpose in it." – Moritz Lohr

Thrown Into Life Too Early
 At just 12 years old, Moritz had to grow up fast. There was no clear plan, no real guidance — just pressure. His dad was doing the best he could, fully focused on caring for Mo’s mom through a serious health battle. That left Mo emotionally on his own. And when he really considered what it would mean to lose his mom, the weight of that fear hit deep. This episode explores what it means to become a man before you even know who you are.

The Mask of Performance
 Moritz opens up about how success became his mask. From bodybuilding to high-ticket sales, he bulldozed his way forward — driven by pain, hiding the cracks. We talk about the “D’s” that tried to destroy him: depression, debt, and destructive relationship patterns. He shares how pushing through became a way to avoid healing, and what it took for him to finally stop performing and start becoming.

A Man With Love and Legacy
 Mo had to get real about the man he was in past relationships — and do the work to become someone better. Now? He’s married to an incredible woman, looking forward to raising strong, grounded kids, and living from a place of purpose. He’s traded aesthetics for utility — no longer chasing bodybuilding trophies, but training for tactical races that demand more than muscle. From faith to fatherhood, healing to legacy, this episode is what Built for the Cold really looks like in a man.

If the information in these episodes have helped you in your business journey, please subscribe to the show and leave an honest review.

Connect with Mo: @ernsthetics 

Chapters

00:00 – Intro: Built for the Cold
 02:11 – Sent Out at 12
 07:49 – Growing Up Alone
 12:35 – Performance as Protection
 18:22 – Success and Pressure
 24:41 – Suppressing Pain
 30:58 – The Panic Attack
 38:19 – Starting the Inner Work
 43:02 – Faith and Fatherhood
 49:18 – Building Financial Legacy
 55:27 – Final Reflections

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram