Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Ray Coleman.
Hi Christopher Ray, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My origin story began 14 years ago when my life after sports transition started. I spent my childhood, adolescent, and teenage years identifying myself as a student-athlete. And at 18 years old, I found myself lost after failing to walk on to hoop for the Tuskegee University basketball program. After spending one semester anxious to make the team and spending the next deeply depressed that I didn’t, I dropped out and returned home to Mobile, Al.
I then started working a string of 9-5 jobs. At one point I was consistently working 85+ hours a week, juggling between a day job at a grocery store and working at a gas station at night. I went from highly excelling in academics and playing in championship programs to casually clocking into a shift and counting down until it was time to clock out. This affected my mental health more than I’d like to admit and placed me in a dark place.
In 2023, I started an entry-level sales job as a representative. The environment was completely different from the many 9-5 jobs I worked, and the advancement was performance-based like all of the sports teams I had been a part of. I stood out as a team member and leader within the Mobile office. So much so that I ended up passing six promotions in nine months to become a District Manager. I then moved to Florence, AL where there had never been a District HQ before. At the age of 23, started my sales organization from scratch. And after 18 months, I had recruited 150 reps who generated over $100k in sales.
I stepped down from that position after learning all the universal, essential skills I needed as a business owner. Plus, I realized the business wasn’t aligned with my purpose, which showed in my behavior, which led to a lack of results. I then spent the rest of my 20s starting businesses, publishing a book, public speaking, being a guest on podcasts, hosting events, and mindfully failing forward. Now at the age of 32, all the wisdom and experience I’ve gained serves me with the student-athletes I impact today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I experienced an avalanche of struggles while navigating through my life after sports transition, during my time as a District Manager, and then as a 2X Founder in my 20s. But the biggest challenges of my life didn’t come until I turned 30. It’s a year I’ve always considered a milestone to symbolize stability and maturation. But life was everything but stable in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and reached the point of having to pivot and start from scratch.
I was close to being a decade removed from successfully navigating through my life after sports transition to now being lost again and having to transition again. The pandemic lockdowns did give me the opportunity to be still and go inward, which led to an awakening of me embracing being unapologetically my authentic self. This also allowed me the chance to reflect on my 20s and decide what niche, market, and community I could serve for the rest of my life. The glaring answer was student-athletes.
We’ve been impressed with Triggered 2 Triumph, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Today, I’m a keynote speaker, peak performance coach, and author. My book is titled “Triggered 2 Triumph: A Student-Athlete’s Playbook To Winning Before, During, & After The Game”. As a speaker/coach, I help student-athletes transition to play the infinite game of life while making a living doing what’s aligned with their purpose.
I spent my 20s speaking while leading my sales teams, painting the vision for businesses I was a Founder for, and using podcasts and speaking gigs to build awareness. After having over a decade of experience getting reps from stages and fine-tuning my communication skills, I’m committed to becoming a leader in the public speaking industry. It’s the perfect activity to spread my message, impact student-athletes, and use my journey to add value to audiences overall.
Triggered 2 Triumph is not just my book but my coaching program for student-athletes. While pivoting through the pandemic, I used that time to dive deep into the study of neuroscience. It’s the field of study/research that backs the strategies with peak performance, which is defined as getting our biology to work for us rather than against us. This is primarily done with flow, an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. Flow is ubiquitous, universal, and shows up anywhere, in anymore, provided certain initial conditions are met. These initial conditions are called flow triggers. They’re one of the many aspects of peak performance I unpack in the book and coach student-athletes on.
Student-athletes are very familiar with flow. In sports, it’s referred to as “being in the zone”, “runner’s high”, or “being unconscious”. Peak performance strategies help take the guesswork out of the process and help to build a high-flow lifestyle. Peak performance is also an infinite game. Something I learned from my mentor Steven Kotler, who’s the world-leading expert in flow and peak performance. Finite games have clear winners and losers and a clear number of players (sports, politics, and war). Infinite games have no clear rules or winners or losers. The purpose of the game is to continue to play (life, business, art, and love). When I learned this, I realized I’d been playing the wrong game all along. I didn’t have to transition from being a student-athlete. I needed to transition from playing the finite game of my specific sport to the infinite game of life. By doing this, I fully and proudly embraced being a lifelong student-athlete. I’m now on a mission to create a billion lifelong student-athletes and reimagine how “life after sports” is viewed.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I’ve noticed there are three types of mentors that have worked well for me.
I call the first one a Winged Mentor. It’s someone that takes you under their wing and shows you the ropes. They teach you everything they know, with the expectation you’ll immediately duplicate/apply what you’ve learned. This can be the case where you’re part of their organization in some form or capacity. Or it can be a seasoned veteran in the same industry who’s on their way out and wants to impart their knowledge to you. Danny Feldman was my winged mentor as a sales rep and District Manager. He was my Division Manager at the time and is now the Founder of MyFRSH; a FinTech platform that supports the justice-impacted communities by providing banking solutions built for and by the community.
The second one is called a Gated Mentor. This mentor has some sort of paywall set up or even an application process, where you have to go through steps to gain true access to them. It’s usually in the form of a course, a coaching group, or a mastermind community. Although they add value publicly for free, it’s just the tip of the iceberg for what’s inside the gate. I’ve had a few mentors like this over the last decade. Chris Do and Steven Kotler are two that I have now.
The last one is called a Silent Mentor. This can even be someone who’s no longer living. You don’t have direct interactions with them, yet you learn from them from a distance. I never got to talk to Booker T. Washington or Fred Hampton, but I learned from books/documentaries covering their lives. And although I have interactions with them today; for years, I silently learned from Alex Wolf, Morgan DeBaun, and Mike Rashid.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://christopherraycoleman.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherraycoleman
- Other: https://triggered2triumph.com
