Hi, guys. I am Charlie of Charisma on Command and you voted that I should do
this video so this is Draw My Life and I really shouldn't have done this myself and you'll see why in just a second.
So I was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania which is a small suburb outside of Philadelphia.
My mom was a nurse and my dad was a salesman but
more than that, they were both awesome parents who loved me a lot
and any success that I've had in my life is really completely their doing
so I love you mom and dad.
I was the first born and my sister, Jackie, was born two years after
me, my little brother Henry was born two years after her
and he instantly became my sidekick in trampolining and video gaming
and sometimes in beating up my sister when she wouldn't get off the computer
so that I could use AOL. And I am sorry, Jackie; I swear I'm past that.
My childhood was really pretty awesome suburban fare.
I love Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers and playing make-believe and sometimes,
I would pretend that this tree and my friend's yard was Zordon
and he'd give me missions to go beat up my siblings which I'm pretty sure that they never appreciated
so yeah, I was kind of a pain in the butt as a big brother.
When I was six, I spent a month begging for a cat because I loved animals so much.
I used to scribble messages on printer paper and then leave them over the house.
The most ingenious spot was stuck to the back of the toilet seat so that when
my parents went to the bathroom they would know that I really wanted a cat.
Eventually, they gave in and we got this black cat named Jack
who was a girl but that was her name and I loved her.
I even slept indian-style so that my legs would make this little bed for her
and somehow, I managed not to move the entire night for years on end.
She got sick though and died when she was only three
and even though I was only nine I felt so guilty that I couldn't save her.
I felt like I should have loved her more and that feeling of always needing to do
more for the people around me really stuck with me and kind of led to trouble
later in my life but I'll get to that.
I was a smart and introverted kitten and as I grew up, my interest shifted to
fantasy books like Animorphs then to RPGs including every single Final Fantasy
and all the variants and finally into paintball which at least was semi social.
I almost never made new friends beyond the three or so that I hung out with but
in 10th grade, I met this guy named Ben in health class and he liked paintball
and RPGs too so we became best friends pretty quickly.
As I grew into senior year, my interest shifted again;
this time to something I knew nothing about — girls.
And Ben and I would play video games and discuss who we'd liked but outside of conversation with him, I was so shy.
I would have these year-long crushes on girls and never speak to them.
Other people noticed me for being so shy which is ironic, I know,
and I won the senior superlative for most likely to break out of a shell in college.
My other friend won most likely to be President so yeah, we were pretty much tied.
I really did try to break out of my shell when I got to college and
there was this one girl that I had a huge crush on
and this time I stepped way out of my comfort zone and we actually spoke.
In fact, we became good friends.
After several months, we kissed though she had to make the first move
and it was the highlight of my life; I thought I was such a stud.
I'd already planned how I would be dating and all the things we do together so I was happy that it had finally become a reality.
But the next time we hung out, we didn't kiss.
I was confused and on her way out, she admitted that she didn't like kissing me; I was bad at it.
And she said that I was so nervous around her that I could barely look her in the eyes
which was true and made me immediately stare at my feet.
A few days later she had another boyfriend and we stopped talking so much.
I felt so stupid and embarrassed and hurt
and I made a vow to never feel that way again.
I decided that I needed to get the heck out of my college town; after all, I hadn't broken out of my shell, I'd made
basically two friends in my first year, and now, the girl that I had a crush on was dating someone else.
So the first chance that I got, I joined a study abroad program.
That turned out to be one of the most pivotal decisions of my entire life.
When I arrived in Costa Rica, no one knew me and so I could reinvent myself.
I spoke to everyone, I'd walk up to people on my college campus, look them
in the eye and ask the dumbest questions — anything to just be more social.
I said yes to every single invite I got to go anywhere and I took salsa dancing classes to meet more people.
I even managed the courage to ask a girl in my class out and we wound up dating.
My schoolwork wasn't the best but I had more important project
and that was learning to be charismatic.
One day, about halfway through the semester, we were out at a karaoke bar
and a girl said to me, "Charlie, you are naturally the most confident outgoing person I've ever met."
I was stunned. I told her that, "No, I'd only started being social three months ago," and she didn't believe me.
After a year abroad, I came back for one final college semester in the US
and it felt like everything had changed — people were responding differently to me,
girls were saying that I look good even though I hadn't changed it all physically.
One girl that had flat-out rejected me when I asked her on a date
was now back-channeling through a mutual friend to let me know that she had noticed me and, I won't lie,
that built my ego up quite a bit; I felt special, I felt like a leader, like I was in control... it was wild.
But the real world hit and soon after school, I got a job as a consultant in Washington DC and I was almost instantly miserable.
My work consisted of Spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations
and meetings about things that I just really didn't care about.
Every morning when I got up and put my suit on, I felt like a fraud like I was
living the one precious life I had doing something that wasn't meaningful to me.
Now, don't get me wrong; my co-workers and bosses were all very nice people
and they even liked me despite the fact that I obviously wasn't fully engaged.
But I miss the adventure of traveling abroad, I miss
learning about things I cared about, and I miss my best friend, Ben,
who was in New York City and putting in 16-hour days at an investment bank.
But a book came to the rescue and that was The 4-Hour Workweek.
When Ben and I read it, we instantly saw a way out of the corporate climb that was going to be our futures.
All we had to do was start a successful business and that is something neither of us
knew anything about so easy peasy and that's how BCX Parkour was born.
We made a DVD teaching people how to learn parkour and it worked.
People were buying it but it still wasn't enough money to support me
and I was slowly losing my mind in DC.
I wanted to be in the same city as Ben so that we could grow our side business but I couldn't afford to just quit my job so I tried something bold.
I asked the president of my company if I could just not come into work anymore.
I told him how I was feeling in DC I asked if I could do remote work from New York
where Ben lived. I was shaking because this was a ludicrous request from someone
who hadn't even gotten a single promotion at the company.
Shockingly though, he said yes so yeah I made a ludicrous request
and got a life-changing answer thank you so much to both Leto and Raj for that.
I spent the next five months sleeping on Ben's floor happy as a clam
to be reunited with my best friend. Our parkour business puttered around
making a little bit of money but our hearts weren't in it.
We didn't really care about parkour and we were having too much fun just hanging out with one another.
And then the rug got pulled out from under me; my company let go
of everyone that wasn't a full-time office employee which was corporate lingo for
Charlie-no-longer-had-a-job-or-income and that created crossroads in my life.
I was now unemployed with a struggling side business.
Would I scramble to find another job or would I do something else?
I thought back to how I felt putting on that suit every morning and the answer was clear.
Even if it cost me everything, I was all-in on this entrepreneurship thing.
But given how BCX Parkour went, I knew my only chance of success
was if I made my business about something that I loved which terrified me.
Failing at parkour, that was one thing.
But failing at something I loved, I felt like that would rip me apart.
So with my finances dwindling, desperation finally kicked in and I just started.
Because I had personally become more confident and seen success in my relationships with women,
I started helping other guys to learn the same thing and I began sharing dating tips
on different forums with my new business being named Kickass Academy
which I thought was the coolest name ever.
Now to make some cash, I held an in-person class on how to get a date
by meeting a girl in the park and I know it's cheesy but that was the only thing that existed back then — dating coaches.
The idea of teaching charisma or confidence really wasn't out there.
So I posted it online and I gave away five seats to my class.
I charged 15 bucks for the remaining five seats and we, last minute — I swear, sold out.
And after paying for the room and splitting the money with Ben
who taught the class with me, we each made 18 bucks.
It wasn't much but it felt amazing to make any money doing something that I cared about and even better,
there was this 19-year old Australian kid who stuck around after class.
He loved what we were doing and he offered to help in any way that he could.
We said, "Sure," and our first fan actually wound up becoming a business helper
and one of my best friends; he wound up dropping out of college
and traveling the world with us but I'm getting ahead of myself.
You see, Ben and I had this dream.
It was bigger than just running our own business; we wanted to live on the beach
in Brazil with our best friends and we wanted to do work that we loved
to never have to wear a suit again and to become the best versions of ourselves while we had a blast doing it.
So even though Kickass Academy was getting clients in New York, the answer was clear.
As soon as Ben's full-time work contract ended, we'd leave our clients, our income,
and our families behind to move to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
But we would take our friends because when we started telling people
about this dream, some of them got super excited.
Benji, the Australian guy who came to our first class didn't even hesitate;
he dropped out of college with pretty much no money and didn't even tell us how tight he was.
He couldn't afford a mattress so he slept on this box spring for the first month in Brazil
and somehow he convinced all of us that he didn't mind it saying,
"It's good support for my back, mate!"
Sorry for the terrible Australian accent, Benji.
All in all, seven other people left jobs, school and their lives behind to come live with us in Rio.
It was a blast. We played football on the beach, we set up house work sessions
to do our business, and we were always exploring for fun parties.
Our new housemates even gave us a huge business tip —
kill the name Kickass Academy; it sounded like a lame martial arts dojo.
Ugh. I knew that they were right so I had to give in; Kickass Academy was done.
We also started focusing on more than just dating since
our real interest was in confidence that permeated all aspects of life —
the type of confidence that inspired us to quit our jobs in the first place.
So with that, Charisma on Command was born.
Now, Brazil wasn't all roses; I was pretty tight on cash after quitting my job
and firing all the clients in my new business so to save money,
I survived off of eggs, weight gainer powder, and acai bowls
which made me really grossly sick.
I'm going to spare you the details even though they make me crack up today.
To make rent, I had to Airbnb my tiny room and sleep on the couch
but even that wasn't enough.
Within a few months, I had to face the truth —
I was failing as an entrepreneur, again.
Charisma on Command wasn't covering my bills and I was facing the prospect of the dreaded suit if I didn't do something.
In that desperation, I realized that I needed a way to impact more people.
Now I was doing Skype-coaching at the time but that was just one person at a time.
And on a per-hour basis, it was more than our younger fans could afford.
So I took everything that I knew and I packaged it into a video course — the first time I'd ever done anything like that.
I called it Charisma University which is very grand, I know,
and I was so close to having zero dollars in my bank account that
I had to ask 25 of our biggest fans to pay for the course before it was even done.
Luckily, they trusted me enough that they took a chance on me.
Overnight, I had enough money to pay my way through Brazil
without Airbnb-ing my room and that was a huge success
and because I wanted to do such a good job for the fans that supported me,
I wound up creating a video course that is the core of our business to this day —
no motivation like desperation, I guess.
We spent the next three years travelling Brazil, Colombia, Vancouver, Las Vegas...
it was amazing and I was finally able to afford rent, finally.
I assumed that this would be my life — a modest business in an industry that I'd loved
funding a lifestyle that wasn't extravagant but it was full of freedom; I had it made.
Then one day, I was just clicking around and I wound up on this old YouTube video
that I put up back when I was shooting Charisma University on the effectiveness of Bill Clinton's eye contact.
It was the one that I happened to put up on YouTube just for the sake of it
and when I glanced at the view counter, I was shocked.
It had 100,000 views without me even realizing it
so I thought, "Hmm, maybe this side project needs to become the main project."
I did a video on Conor McGregor, then Trump, then Game of Thrones, and we
started getting millions of views each month and our modest business exploded.
Not only did it completely change my finances but it opened my eyes
to the magnitude of the impact that I could make if I used YouTube as a platform.
Now, it was around this time that I started dating a girl
and I swear, I fell for her so hard like I was obsessed and she felt the same way.
When we weren't in the same city, we were on the phone for several hours a day
and eventually, she just moved abroad with me.
We had this intense connection that was phenomenal
and I've never felt anything like it.
At this point, I really felt I had it all figured out because I had everything.
I mean I had the friends, the girlfriend, the successful business that I loved...
I had achieved my dream and then some.
I would never feel those feelings of sadness or rejection again and I was like,
"Okay, cruise control from here to 90 years old because you have done it, my man."
What a joke because our relationship had issues
and our mutual obsession only served to cover those up.
After a few years, we broke up and I was sadder than I've ever been which
is crazy because after years of work, I had finally achieved my ultimate dream.
I was living with my best friends, running a business that I loved, affecting millions of people... how could I be sad?
But I was. I was so upset that I couldn't sleep at night
and as thankful as I am for the many things that I learned from my ex,
the biggest gift that she gave me was that sadness
because it forced me to take an honest look at myself.
I realized that I'd spent years focused on the outer world —
the charisma, the confidence, the friends, the girlfriend, the business — all wonderful things.
And I thought that I had created the circumstances
that would make it so I never felt the pain of rejection again but here I was feeling something even worse.
And so I had no choice, really, but to look inward so I grieved.
I flat out cried for the first time in a long time
and I faced the feeling of not being enough —
that I'd run from ever since I was a shy introvert getting rejected way back in high school.
I confronted the guilt that had driven me since I was six years old when my cat died
and heck, maybe it had even been there before that.
This was not a fun experience but on the other side of it, there was this of peace.
I don't know that I can do it justice here but I feel more integrated — more in balance with myself —
kind of like there was this background fear of being alone that got instilled with me from those early rejections and now I'm just not really afraid of it.
I've more embraced an idea that has always served me well; no matter what happens, I'll be okay.
So here I am — the beginning of 2018, 30 years old, living in Santa Monica, California —
and I don't want me ending this video to give you the impression that I am done with my journey.
Truthfully, I've never felt like I had so much to learn and discover about myself
and the world which is awesome.
In terms of what the future might look like, well,
I have a vision of Charisma on Command that is beyond just YouTube —
I dream of having in-person centers across the nation where an amazing community can get together all in one space to practice
those important life skills that most schools just don't teach.
I see it integrating with our current online program so that you can have the benefit
of a community to push you through those big hurdles but
also simple reminders in your normal life to help make those improvements unthinking habit no matter where you are.
It's going to be a multi-year journey but keep an eye out for that.
And if you're curious about joining Charisma University today,
we would love to have you so I'm going to put a link in the description
where you can learn more if it's your cup of tea.
I'm also taking singing lessons and while you won't see any of that on this channel,
you can keep track of that on my Instagram if you're interested, @charliehoupert.
Perhaps another multi-year journey, I don't know where it's going
but I am enjoying the ride on that one as well.
No matter what the future holds though, I cannot wait to share more of it
with you guys knowing that any breakthroughs I have could
potentially positively impact millions of people makes me feel like the luckiest guy
in the world so thank you for watching
and thank you for learning alongside me.
I hope that you enjoyed this video and I'll see you in the next one.