Adam Torres and Clinton Crawford discuss mindset.
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Show Notes:
How did utilizing EOS help Clinton cure his autoimmune disease? In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Clinton Crawford, EOS Implementer at EOS WorldWide. Explore, mindset, supporting entrepreneurs and Clinton’s amazing story of perseverance.
About Clinton Crawford
Clinton is a successful entrepreneur with over 9 years of experience in leadership positions as a business owner, growing his own Medical Record Review company while also serving as a Vice President of Sales for a Health and Wellness Start Up. Clinton was introduced to EOS while serving as a VP of sales and experienced EOS from a client perspective, and after seeing the power of the EOS model he decided to self implement EOS into his own business. He then came to realize he had a true passion to help other entrepreneurs through becoming an implementer himself.
Clinton is passionate about helping entrepreneurs get what they want from their business as well as their personal lives. In 2020 Clinton experienced a major health scare leaving him with a fairly terminal diagnosis at an early age in life that had no cure. Over the following year and a half, Clinton set out to do exactly what no one had done before and successfully cured his ailment. Clinton’s current mission is to not only help entrepreneurs achieve financial and operational success with their business, but also internal success in their personal lives as well.
About EOS Worldwide
The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) is a set of simple concepts and practical tools used by more than 257,000 + companies around the world to clarify, simplify, and achieve their vision. Look at your business in a whole new way – through the lens of the Six Key Components
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I have Clinton Crawford on the line, and he is an EOS implementer over at EOS Worldwide.
And he also runs several young entrepreneur support groups in Southern California, which we’re going to get into. First off, hey Clinton, just welcome to the show. Thanks Adam. I’m very stoked to be a part and beyond mission matters. All right. So so we met was it this week? No, last week, man, time is flying Clinton.
We met over at the Newport beach investor conference, man. How was it? I had a ball. How, how, how was your time? Oh, that was an awesome conference. I personally loved the fact that there was an outdoor sauna and cold plunge to be able to do something for your health at an event like that. I, I have yet to see that.
So that was really cool. Yeah. I was amazing. Oh, man. I did. Well, first off I was working. So I’ll be, I’ll be candid. I didn’t know about that, that dang thing. I was behind a booth promoting the show and and, you know, doing what I do, but, but I didn’t know I would have partook. I didn’t even know that was it.
Was that that big tent? Yeah, that probably was. I should have came and grabbed you, that was my bad, man. Ah, no, it’s okay, it’s okay. Alright, well, that being said, now that I missed out on that, no, just playing let’s get, so today’s topic for everybody that’s listening we’re going to be talking about we’ll be talking about, of course, some EOS, and really, one of the things that I’m really interested in about your story is how, you know, you, you were able to work with Through an autoimmune condition by really changing your thoughts and changing your mind.
Like, like, where do you want to start with that one? Like that, that’s a big one. Yeah, no, for sure. That’s definitely a lot to unpack there, but I kind of want to start with that one with backtracking. So I was at the time 27, I was a VP of sales at a health and wellness startup and running my own medical record review business at the same time.
Doesn’t sound like you were very busy to me. No, I didn’t really have much going on. Go ahead, go ahead. And as I’m on the leadership team of this company, they implement EOS, the Entrepreneur Operating Systems, the company. And I fell in love with this process because it was a simplified approach to helping scale an organization.
I loved it so much that I started implementing it to my own business. While being the VP of this company and it it opened Pandora’s box and I saw all the things that I didn’t realize I had done wrong. So I’m working way more than I had been initially. And at the time going through relationship issues with a girl that I had been dating and living with and my entire life, I’d been a very intentional individual manage my stress.
Well, never let things really get to me too much. And I kind of hit a breaking point and I wasn’t equipped to handle that level of stress. So at the time, you know, there’s a woo, there’s a woo component to this. I want to just let, let’s go to that, that just a little bit longer. Let’s let’s hang on that part.
Cause I feel like there’s a lot of you know, entrepreneurs and people that, you know, I mean, we’re post pandemic, there’s some other things happening in many lives, a lot of disruption, like, and I just, I appreciate you sharing that. That’s all I appreciate you saying that. Cause it’s not always easy to talk about that.
So go ahead, please continue. Yeah, no, so at this time, you know, I’m living in Southern California, I’m 27, you know, the social life is, you know, a lot going on and I hadn’t been drinking a ton, but I drank with my friends going out and I felt that I needed to make some sort of change in my life. Wasn’t sure what that was, but I knew I needed to do something different to get a different result and get control of my emotions and handle my stress better.
So I told myself, Hey, you know, why don’t you just stop drinking? You’ll feel better the next morning. You won’t feel like crap. You’ll have more clarity and hopefully that will allow you to assess things more clearly. So, you know, I set out this determination to be able to stop drinking and I just kept falling into peer pressure.
I never, I just couldn’t do it. And at the time, the company I was with. Told me I needed to go through an energy clearing. So I was like, what in the world is an energy clearing? So I’m like, you know what? It doesn’t matter. Like I might as well, if I’m going to do this, I have to, I should probably give a hundred percent effort because if you don’t go a hundred percent, you get nothing out of it.
It was like, here’s a perfect opportunity for me to clear whatever blockages I have to find the willpower to stop drinking. So I go into this energy clearing. It’s a phone call with a random stranger. To me, at least he had been brought on by the company and we’re just having a conversation. There’s nothing special about it until he mentions the word mentors.
And I broke down and cried for an hour. And that’s not, that’s not my MO, not what I normally do. So we start digging deeper and we kind of unearth that I was grieving the loss of this mentor that I had had. So when I was 14, I met a man who was 87 and we just had this instant soul connection, really unique relationship.
He was a human studies professor at a university in New Jersey, which is where I’m from. And his name was Richard and Richard and I would go for multi hour walks in the boardwalk when I’m 14. And he explained to me kind of like the executive summary of his human studies course, and everything was just stuff that, you Click to me, it all made sense.
It was all things I had thought before, but never been able to verbalize, which was obviously a unique situation, looking back on it, that I was able to understand those concepts. So Richard had been very impactful in my life and understanding how to actually manifest things into your life, which is a combination of thought process and action.
So super impactful, kind of gave me a more clear path on how to achieve what I wanted in my life. Fast forward, Richard passed away when I was 22. He was in his 90s. I didn’t think much about it. So this energy clearing was actually me grieving the loss of Richard. And so super impactful. And then the guy took me on what was called a hardcore meditation.
And this is the woo woo part, but He basically said, you’re going to go to this dimensional plane called the quantum, which is a plane of existence where only pure energy exists without attachment to a physical form. I’m in my head saying, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You sound, this sounds super weird, but you did just make me cry for an hour.
So I will concede and I’m, I’m in like, let’s do it. I’ll go a hundred percent again. So we do it. And I, As crazy as it sounds I fully transcended my body and entered to this different dimensional plane where there was only pure energetic existence. It was just this dark space, and the same feeling you get is if you’re about to like fall asleep in a warm room and someone passes through the room, your eyes are closed, you’re still a little conscious, and you can feel something pass by.
You don’t know who it was, but you know something was there. I’m in the quantum. And he says, open up the space for Richard to come to you. And lo and behold, I was, had the opportunity to reconnect with Richard on an energetic level. He was told me. You know, I love you. You’re doing great. I’m super proud of you.
I’ve been downloading everything you need to know along the journey. You’re prepared for what’s ahead and then he leaves. I come out of it being like, what was that? Super just like, that was the most insane thing I’ve ever experienced. And I’m like, okay, but like, whoa, what do I do with this information?
Like, that was really cool, but I can’t even tell anybody about this because I found it absolutely insane. And I probably do to a lot of people right now. And basically the guy didn’t really give me much info. So I was like, okay, I guess I’m just going to go back to living my life, whatever. And a couple of days go by.
I just gotten back from a trip. I’d surfed in the ocean after it rained. So there was a multitude of operative, like variables for me to get sick. Peak COVID time at this point. And so I started getting sick. I’m thinking it’s COVID body aches, chills, fever, the whole nine yards. And then it started getting.
I started developing a shoulder pain and I was like, man, something’s up. This doesn’t feel right. And I go and I look in the mirror one morning and my body is completely yellow. So I’m experiencing an episode of jaundice. I’m like, okay, this stomach pain is starting to make a lot more sense now. And. Go to the hospital.
The doctors run a bunch of tests and they come back and I’m like in a probably like a nine out of 10 pain, very uncomfortable. They’re like, you just had an episode of liver cirrhosis. And I was like, Oh, okay. Well, why do, why? They start asking more questions. And then we come to the conclusion. They’re like, we think you have this rare autoimmune liver condition.
Called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis, PSC for short. And, they’re like, you’re gonna have these cirrhotic liver episodes every year to two years, and if you want to control the severity of them, you can never drink or do drugs again. Hmm. I’m like, come again. They’re like, you can never drink or do drugs again.
And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of. I’m excited. Yeah. I just went through this energy clearing and had a connection with an Ed mentor. And he tells me I’m prepared for what’s ahead. I was looking for the willpower to stop drinking. I was like, this is the most aligned scenario I’ve ever heard of.
I was like, cool, done deal. This is supposed to happen. Like end of story. And my whole life, I grew up very privileged. I, my father’s a physician. I grew up in a suburban upper class neighborhood on the beach. I’ve never, I’m, I’m a white guy. Like I’ve never had trials or tribulations. There’s been nothing but opportunity and open doors.
And I recognize that, but I’ve been told by Richard, if your character goes untested, It remains undefined. So I was kind of like, I need something really messed up to happen to me. I need something bad to happen. Otherwise I’ll never actually know who I am. Like I got to put it to the test. Can I be this positive guy who can overcome anything?
It’s kind of hard to tell if you don’t have to overcome anything. Yeah. So. All these things line up and I go, this is my challenge. I will this disease into existence. So like now it’s time to take it head on. So I’m prepared. I’m like, let’s do it. They’re like, well, you don’t do anything. And I was like, what do you mean?
They’re like, this disease is understudied, underfunded. The only thing that we know about this disease is that. You’re going to have these thoracic liver episodes and in 20 to 25 years, you’re going to get cancer or you’re going into total liver failure. 100 percent chance. Oh, wow. And I’m 27 at the time.
That’s a pretty Jeez, that’s a pretty young age. You’re like, so wait a minute, I’m not going to make it to 50? Ugh. Yeah. So like, obviously a bunch of thoughts raced through my head, but then I just come back to everything that just lined up for this. I was like, doesn’t matter. I got this. This is my challenge.
So like, let’s backtrack. Why do you think I got sick? They’re like, well, you sound like you were stressed out for a really long period of time. And I was like, yeah. They’re like, well, you most likely our guess is you increased your cortisol levels, shifted your biochemistry, and then your genes started interfacing differently with your biochemistry because of the change.
And you turned on a predisposed gene. And I had really cool doctors that were very upfront with me. So I was like, I got sick because of the way I thought and my thought process, cause that’s the only reason you can get stressed. And they were like, well, yeah, they’re like, we know that sounds crazy. And I was like, okay, so if I change the way that I think I could, in theory, change my biochemistry again and reverse the disease.
They were like, I guess. Yeah. But like, we don’t know how you do that. And then from there, the decision was made. That was now my mission. Nothing else mattered besides curing this disease and changing my thought process. So I started getting really detailed about my life because my life depended on it. So I started looking at, you know, I knew I was on the right path to the level of success I wanted, but the only thing that I needed to shift was my perspective.
My activities in the day to day, weren’t going to change where I was living. Wasn’t going to change nothing besides just purely how I viewed it all. So I started diving in and I said, okay, I have to bring awareness to how all of my external influences in my life affect me energetically and emotionally from worst to the best, from the things I enjoy doing to the work things that I hate.
And once I gained an awareness of understanding how all of those things affected me emotionally and energetically. Then I had an understanding. And once I had an understanding of how those things affected me, I was able to act with intention and start changing the placement of activities based off of how they affected me emotionally and energetically.
So then I could reframe myself properly because I had an awareness and an understanding. And through this process, you know, there was a lot of tools that I had to come up with on my own. But also going through EOS at the time. The entrepreneur operating system. There’s a lot of people management tools within it that I actually saw as an opportunity to modify for my own personal life because they were structured and objective because I had to take an objective approach to managing my emotions.
So I was able to lean on some of the tools, like a people analyzer a 10 year goal, and really starting to dive in understand how I could, how I Objectively view these very emotional things in my life and started documenting this process. Once I started documenting the process, I was like, okay, if you can figure this out, dude, you’re going to have something really valuable that you can share with the world and other people that can be super positive.
Yeah. So after a year and a half of taking myself through all these different exercises, getting blood work done regularly, MRIs, biannually, and checking with my doctors. The key indicators that give you an understanding to the state of your, of the disease is your liver enzymes. the only indicators they currently have.
And after a year and a half, I was effectively able to bring my liver enzymes back to baseline because normally they stay elevated. And the doctors told me, you know, we’re not really sure what you did, but whatever you did brought you back to normal. And we’ve never seen someone do that before. So whatever you’re doing, keep doing it, keep working.
Oh, man. Yeah. It was a powerful thing. And since then I’ve done, I called it my intentional lifestyle design. I’ll eventually come up with a better name, but I’ve done it with over 50 CEOs. I’ve done a couple international keynotes on the topic because like my mission is to be able to share this program with other people to be able to help them just have a full awareness of how their outside world affects their internal.
So they can live a more intentional life. And how was your, I’m, I’m curious, like during this whole time, I mean, wow, you must have had a, an amazing support system. I mean, this is a lot to go through at 27, I feel like, like being diagnosed and all these other things, like how, how was the support system around you?
Like, I don’t, this is this is deep. Yeah, I think, you know, my family is crazy, crazy supportive, you know, every wild endeavor I’ve ever taken supported me through it, which has been really, really lucky and I have a great group of friends. And a lot of it was the support system was fantastic from the core of it.
But you can’t do anything without other people. It is, it takes a village, but a lot of it, I did have to go inside myself and kind of just be like, Hey, you need to learn how to be your own support system here and like really learn how to calm yourself down and get your own mind. Right. Cause that was the objective.
Like no one else could change my perspective for me. It was really only me, but You know, it was a scary thing for sure, but I had a great, you know, great family, great friends. Yeah. So I was very, very lucky to have that. I’m sure if I didn’t have my family on my side and they weren’t as supportive as they were, the close friends that I had, you know, Sparingly, I told people slowly because it wasn’t something I felt that needed to be shared with a bunch of people.
Yeah. I started getting all my friends sending me books and cookbooks and all these different mindset books and Joe dispense a book. So I, I had an in incoming flow of just, you know, a lot of appreciation and gratitude for all my friends. That’s awesome. And I feel like, I feel like you know, as you, as you shared and you saw that feedback, like that must have been not gratifying from the standpoint of you want to go through anything like this, but just understanding like the, what, like that support system and even having additional appreciation for those in your life.
So I think it’s a, it’s an amazing story. And I do want to jump around a little bit here, Clinton. So I want to spend a little bit of time with what we have left here, getting into your The support the speaking of support groups and now from what i’ve known in our couple of conversations we have some of this other stuff makes sense like why you would why you would run Entrepreneur support groups and why you put yourself out there and you’re a connector of sorts in the in the community of entrepreneurs So maybe talk to me a little bit about the about the what you’re doing with entrepreneurs in socal Yeah, for sure.
So, you know, as I’m going through my EOS journey, I had gone through being a VP, having my own company. It was, it was a lonely road being younger and doing something like that. A lot of your friends are working nine to fives, which there’s no There’s nothing wrong with that, but they just couldn’t relate to a lot of the things that I was dealing with, the stressors, the problems didn’t have a lot of people to lean on that understood the stage of life that I was at.
You know, you obviously have mentors that are older, which is great. They have a bunch of wisdom. But like what we’re experiencing today at this age is a different world than your mentors experienced at that age. So I didn’t have a bunch of people to lean on from that perspective. I’ve tried finding networking groups in Southern California.
I tried finding, you know, I just couldn’t find anything where I was like, these people are doing the stuff that I would do on my own. And they’re the type of people that I’d want to spend my time with. I couldn’t find that combination anywhere. So I just decided that, you know. The age old quote, be the change you want to see in the world.
I was like, there’s gotta, there, there has to be other people that are feeling like I am. So I started reaching out to all the young entrepreneurs that I knew, talking to anyone who’s connected with young entrepreneurs and telling them that I was doing these groups where I bring them to a breathwork studio in Carlsbad and we do called Breathe Degrees.
And what we’ll do is we do a breathwork session. That’s a guided one. And then we’ll do a cold plunge together in a group tub. And then after we’ve done that, we sit down for dinner and I facilitate a kind of like mastermind round table. Everyone will bring up what their business is, who they are, a current win personal and professional, and then everyone raises up their largest challenge and each person gets 10 minutes and the group helps walk that person through that issue by asking questions and I will facilitate that.
I do it Virtually for international people that I know. And then I run several groups in San Diego and I’m part of a couple up in Los Angeles as well. But it’s kind of like the whole objective is to create a trauma bond. And it’s a funny word, but or phrase, a trauma bond that brings everyone together to have a common shared experience that lowers their walls and brings everyone together.
So that way we can have a more. Open discussion about the things in our business and it’s something that. The objective is to create friendships. Of course. You know, it’s not to facilitate any business of anything like that. It’s purely to create a support group of friends that you can call when you have a problem, or you need a referral for something.
You can know these people have your best interest in mind. So that’s what I’ve been doing in Southern California because it’s been super beneficial for me, selfishly, to have this group of people that are there supporting me. Yeah. I’m a big fan. I mean, I love that’s part of why I do what I do is I just, I love bringing together the entrepreneurial community.
I love, you know, connecting people and seeing them do, you know, great things. And I feel like just being an entrepreneur is hard enough. Doing it by yourself is it’s, it’s hard, like, it’s not, it’s not an easy thing, even, and so to bring these people, bring people together, because even outside of, you know, your teams and the people that work for you, right?
Like, you need those other, you, that commonality of other entrepreneurs that are out there doing the same thing, because, you know, it’s different, it’s different, and having that support group. Can not only help in making you successful from the standpoint of exchanging best practices resources ideas But also just enhance your quality of living like and just make sure that like this is This is it’s hard enough to be an entrepreneur and go out here and do this route.
So at least While you’re on that journey, I like the word you said, it’s trauma bond. I like that. I feel like all of, all of us entrepreneurs have a certain level of a trauma bond going in the ecosystem of entrepreneurship because we experience things differently for sure. So this is a more, I would argue, concentrated version of that, where you get to not just be part of the.
Quote unquote collective, but but you know, to build, you know, real meaningful friendships and relationships. So Clinton, I think what you’re doing is great there. We’re about, we’re about out of time for this episode, but I know you have so much more to give. So that being said, I, there’s a bunch of people listening right now that are going to want to hear more about.
You know, your story more about the, the support groups and the entrepreneurship groups you have more about EOS worldwide. So in short, how do people connect? How do they follow up with you? 100%. I appreciate your time today as well. So the best way to reach me would be at my email, which is Clinton dot Crawford.
At EOS worldwide. com, or if anyone wants to follow me on social media, it is on Instagram at crawfish ish. So crawfish and then followed by I S H. Anyone can reach me on there if they have any interest in learning more about the entrepreneur support groups, more of my story. Or if they’re interested in the entrepreneur operating system for their organization, or just learning more about what it is, they can reach me there.
Wonderful. And for everybody listening to this, we’ll put up, of course, put Clinton’s info in the show notes. And so you can connect with him on social media or otherwise. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with us and you haven’t hit that subscribe button, Hey, this is a daily show each and every day.
We’re bringing you new entrepreneurs. stories new insights, and we don’t want you to miss anything. So definitely hit that subscribe button because we got a whole lot more to give and programmed for you over here. And if you’ve been listening for a long time and haven’t left that review you already know how I’ve already asked you at least once, once, once a day for the last couple of months, you better get that review in there.
And Clinton, again, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s really been a pleasure. Thanks again, Adam.
