Episode 169

anything was better than what I had going on. Um the amount of shame that I had felt at that time and the amount of hope um that was instilled just because of that single phone call was huge. You can go from feeling like you’ve been thrown away and discarded and you can get two weeks of recovery and somebody will ask you how you did it. I mean, dude, that’s like that is so wild, man. And it feels like your entry into recovery was just getting you back to that baseline, that foundation of be of service. And that’s that’s powerful. We’ve got to do this side really well and this side really well is sitting with people in some of the loneliest and darkest moments of their lives. But I’m honored to be able to do it. Such a special privilege, man.
Good morning everybody. Welcome back to another enthusiastic, energetic episode of Finding Peaks. I am not your host, Christopher Michael Burns. My name is Coover. Typically, I’m on the other side of the camera, but here in September, we’re celebrating 12 years of Peaks Recovery Centers. We thought there was no better way than to interview a very special guest, Christopher Michael Burns. Thank you, sir, for joining us on this podcast. Dude, it is it is kind of cool and a little bit overwhelming to be on this this other side of the camera, but uh man, I’m grateful to be here with you. Grateful to be here with you. Yeah, I think it’s kind of strange. I don’t know if a lot of our viewers would know this, but your first appearance on Finding Peaks was episode 12. We brought you in as a guest at that time. So, we’re about 150ish episodes removed from that. How’s it feel to relinquish that host seat that you’ve come so accustomed to and sit back in the guest seat and just kind of have it coming at you? How does that feel? That’s wild. Introduced in episode 12. Episode 12. Lots have changed. It’s a long time ago. You know, it’s very empowering sitting in that seat. And and something that I’ve really enjoyed over the last year, 18 months of cultivating the show with you producing in the background is is the opportunity to just kind of like be real with our guests and to not necessarily have anything that I need to say, impress upon or move forward, but genuinely just like want to connect with our guests. And so I’m grateful that that has been the energy over the last 18 months because when I was riding driving up here today, I was like, you know what, if I can just go and just be with Coover, um, we’re going to get an A+ for the day because really, you’ve been so special to me throughout this journey. Um, and you’ve kind of been a voice in the background, but a really, really cool voice of which I’ve gotten to connect with outside of like the Peaks employee Millu, just you and I here, you know, or you and I in the downtown studio. And and so you probably know more about Peaks, you know, than you should. And you probably know more about ownership than you should. You probably know more about the relationships than you should. But there’s nobody that I trust with that information. and there’s nobody I trust to walk this journey that is like our 12 years and and for me this 11th to 12th year has been the absolute most special um for a variety of reasons. So to get to hang out with you for a little bit and do a little Q&A man like I’m inspired and um yeah I appreciate the opportunity. I appreciate it too. I know it for me it is a little bit strange. Obviously I hide behind the cameras. So, I don’t do a lot of talking in front of people, but it felt like a good moment where we can kind of focus on not what is Chris Burns cuz people see that as the host, as the the entrepreneur, the owner, but now we can get to a little bit of like who are you? So, that our guests and our our viewers all around can kind of get that closer, more authentic connection. And that’s the original idea why we brought in some coffee cuz one of the special things at Peaks has always been coffee talks. So, I figured why not get a little bit overcaffeinated and just get into it. Yeah. I would actually not been two minutes early today if I would have had to go get my own coffee. I really appreciate you doing that. I was like, “Oh, that’s perfect. Happy to do it.” Well, man, I feel like one of the best ways to get us kicked off is to really get an authentic and good story from you. And one of my favorite ones, which I believe we haven’t actually shared on Finding Peaks before, and I’ll kind of paint the scene, and if you can kick us off, it was back in 2007 2008. Your life is pretty chaotic at this time. You’re in the back of a restaurant washing dishes. You sit on a crate. You get a call from your uncle. A life-changing call where he has an opportunity, a scholarship opportunity for you if you’re willing to take it. Do you remember that story? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to share that with us? Yeah. It’s wild, man. I had thought about that in a long time. A really long time. So, I got sober back in 2008. Actually just celebrated 18 years of sobriety back in July in July here. And um so the crate the Grasshopper Grill, dude. You got the name down in everything. Grasshopper Grill. Yeah. It’s the only dishwasher job I ever had. Not that it was a bad job. I was just really tough employee. Um, so there’s these situations I think that that humans go through in life and and sometimes the the seasons of those situations feel very disconnected and and it can feel very isolating. And it just so happened for me that I had experienced that at at a younger age. And I kind of felt that emptiness for a variety of reasons, I think, um, from a younger age. And so, um, by the time I was 22 years old in in 2008, um, I was pretty hopeless. I had tried to enroll in the army. We were at war at the time. And so, I took an ASVAB and just like, you know, just mutilated the test, barely passed the drug screen, did the thing, was on probation. Well, anyway, I was facing some time in prison and a lot of things were going wrong and I was on probation at the time and I couldn’t stop using drugs and not a lot of my family had a lot of resources, but my grandmother happened to work at a place called Cottonwood Day Tucson. My uncle obviously knew that. So on and so forth. I had a really good relationship with my uncle at the time and he had stayed in communication with me and so I literally had a probation meeting within 3 days. I’m going to tell you, Coover, like if I go to this probation meeting, I’m just another one of those. At the time, it would have been like an ADC number. Y um Arizona Department of Corrections, but my uncle reaches out. It’s like this intervention from God. He’s like, “Hey, man. I don’t know what you’re doing, but maybe you want to give this, you know, this treatment thing a roll.” And I was like, “Boom.” I in the moment I remember sitting on that trick crate smoking a cigarette and just being like, “Oh my gosh, like this is going to be perfect.” And why was it going to be perfect? I had never done it, never been a part of it before. Anything was better than what I had going 100%. Um the amount of shame that I had felt at that time and the amount of hope um that was instilled just because of that single phone call was huge. And I had heard about friends of mine going to treatment and experiencing some success. Um and I had been through as a kid family programs of which we didn’t experience a lot of success. So that day was really really pivotal for me um because it was a really serious inflection point to understand that actually recovery was possible through a very maybe a more simple approach, a more human approach and um yeah man I was I was really really inspired by that opportunity. Yeah. And what came obviously was incredibly significant. Absolutely. Especially sitting on this side of that experience. It feels like that could have been very much a keystone moment that was preparing you for what was ahead. Because in that moment, instead of somebody just kind of pushing you through the system, it was somebody who cared about you, being like, “Hey, we care about you. We want to give you this opportunity.” And you made the right choice to take up that opportunity. And at this point, we can kind of look back and say, “Well, the rest is history.” But in that moment to you, how did it feel to get off that phone call you’re about to choose to go back into this time for more intentional recovery? How did that feel? Was it scary? Like you’re you’re about to change your whole life. Um I remember it it feeling was certainly scary. Yeah. However, it was like a breath of fresh air cuz Kay had just been making such bad decisions for so long, man. I just hadn’t had good people around me. I had really known I’d had a lot of issues since a real young age. And um you know, I I’d kind of been told that in a way, you know, and and so when I thought that maybe there was a way to say something different about myself, like maybe like I was in recovery or like maybe I was sober for 30 days, I saw people do that and and I thought it looked really cool. And I I thought to myself when I would go to a meetings with my mom when I was a kid, I’d see people get chips and do stuff like that and they would have their kids and they would have lives and they would have things and stuff and I thought that would be pretty pretty cool. And gosh, it was just an overwhelming sense of a new opportunity and a new path, you know. Absolutely. If you can continue in those early days of recovery, do you remember who you felt you were trying to be at that time? cuz here on the show you’ve shared a couple times that you were a little bit more rigid. You always had this feeling that you needed to be right in this situation and obviously we can go into so many stories, but there were some specific humbling moments in your early days of recovery where you’re the guy getting coffee and that’s how you were showing up. Do you feel that in those early days were you were you trying to hide from something or or protect yourself from something and that led to that kind of rigid approach to it? Yeah, I mean it’s a good question. I think both and I think the you know there was this I was 20 to 22 when I was going to treatment and kind of doing that thing. And so when I finally found recovery at 22, there was this part of me like this kid inside of me that was so [  ] mad and so pissed off that like here I am at 22, I’m the first one to get sober. Like why the [  ] Why? I don’t even get to have fun. Yeah, cuz I just friends are allowed at college. call it, right? And like, you know, my family at the time, like they’re doing their thing, but I had a different type of experience with my addiction. I wasn’t functional, and it it pissed me off. And so, I was upset. And so, when I got into recovery, I I really believed in this one approach. Um, because that’s what I was met with when I found my recovery. You know, back to your question, was like I had this opportunity to be of service. Um, and it inspired something in me that felt really really good. And I hadn’t felt that in my entire life. And I had glimpses of maybe what it that could feel like. And and because I’d been around it and I’ve seen other people experience this excitement and this joy and this connectivity and this this reverence and community, but I had never really experienced it for myself. And so these opportunities popped up in early recovery to be of service. And um I had made some pretty bad investments and not taking those opportunities seriously in past goarounds. And so I was really inspired to prove that they didn’t work and prove that there was like, you know, all this recovery business and it’s all cool and stuff and you guys seem to have this tribe thing going on, but for people like me, it’s just not going to it’s just not going to pan out long term. Um, but you know, making coffee at Crazy Birds Group, Alcoholics Anonymous, back in the day was was something that was really impactful for me. And and to show up early and stay late with people that were on the same mission and on the same path and cultivating and inspiring things alongside each other was really really empowering, you know. Yeah. It felt good. Oh, yeah. So, I was like, well, I’ll just keep coming here, you know, and and that’s what they say. They’re like, you know, you just you keep you keep coming here until you you want to come here. And I found myself just kind of always being there. Um, and in lie of therapy of which I wasn’t doing a lot of, I found a home in Alcoholics Anonymous and I found a community in that and the rigidity helped protect what I wasn’t able to access and what I wasn’t able to tend to as a 22-year-old showing up as a 12-year-old emotionally. Okay. And so Alcoholics Anonymous was really great for me. Not that you can’t have both, but for me as a young kid, it was able to encapsulate or freeze in time a little bit some of the hurt and some of the pain that I couldn’t speak to. And it allowed me to fortify something that was positive. And as you know throughout my experience and my story, that stuff has to be revisited. Yeah. Absolutely. I like how much you focus on service in that too because I think that’s something that’s so important that you can see even when we we had Sebastian Younger on the show at one point he the author of Tribe where he he speaks so much about how there’s low rates of anxiety, low rates of substance use, low rates of depression in a lot of these tribal communities because they all feel that they serve a purpose. And it feels like your entry into recovery was just getting you back to that baseline, that foundation of be of service. And that’s that’s powerful because it feels like that’s what continues to push you today. I mean, when you walk around the the halls of Trail Head, you see you walk around, you’re serving every single human that you interact with. And I don’t know I mean, I don’t want to speak too far out of bounds, but I don’t I don’t know many other facilities that are led by that kind of leadership where it’s it’s beyond the, you know, um follow my example. It it’s it’s this is me showing up and my act of service is this and you guys can all be a part of this. Like that’s that’s powerful. Mhm. Definitely. It’s um
being with people gave me everything, you know. Yeah. Gave me absolutely everything that I have today. And so to be able to get to share that like what I was just toring a bank, man. And I said to him, I told him the Super Bowl. I said, “Every day is the Super Bowl, man.” He’s like, “I really love what you said there.” And I said, “Boy, I just I mean it.” And so like that had been missed in some points in my career. I’ve had a long career and um for a young person and uh when you go from and this is available to everybody. That’s what I love about Alcoholics and Hon. I love about Smart Recovery. It’s what I love about some of these communitydriven things is like you can go from subzero to plus one real fast. You can go from feeling like you’ve been thrown away and discarded and you can get two weeks of recovery and somebody will ask you how you did it. I mean, dude, that’s like that is so wild, man. And people when you share that with them, just like in a little interaction and I don’t like I don’t like some every day I’m at the office, I stand up and I do my thing and I’ll just be like boom, I’ll just put everything on pause and I’ll just go walk around and try and find some people to talk to. You’re like, “Well, the CEOs don’t do that.” Well, this [  ] CEO does, you know, because it’s like it’s everything. And so, I’m back to touring the bank earlier talking about these things that we need to do as a business. And I’m like, what’s been missed is like this real simple, dynamic, fundamental, foundational, super important thing of just being with people. And so I think I’ve really been able to realize that and and and find an extra layer of gratitude for that in this last year. Um because it’s been because of the people that have been next to me that like like we get to have a conversation today and not just a conversation about surviving but a conversation about thriving% you know. Absolutely. Dope. Yeah. And that’s something, you know, it’s brought up on the podcast often. It’s it’s been mentioned even in like the winter symposium that that when you tour or when you come to Peaks as a guest or you leave as an alumni, there is just something different. There’s something special through the halls there. And and I think a large part of that is that from the beginning, it has always been structured as a human focused endeavor. You don’t come in as a number. You don’t come in as a you come in as your person. Hey, you’re John Doe. Welcome, John Doe. Let’s get to know you and let’s move into something. And I think that that that holds such a foundation to who we are as peaks. I mean, to disrupt the industry through our quality of care, that’s the quality of care that we’re we’re we’re with humans. We’re human focused. That’s the whole point of it. And I think that that’s so powerful that I mean, obviously, I get to see it on the media side. People talk about that often that it’s it’s something that you can feel when you’re around. Even if it’s just walking the door and Pat says, “Good morning. You never met her before and now you’re talking to Pat for 15 minutes.” It’s it’s it’s different and it’s hard to it’s hard to quantify but it’s hard to ignore cuz it’s definitely something that is observable for sure. Well, that’s what Yeah. I was talking to the bank about earlier was actually this new thing that I brought up is like there’s 13,000 treatment providers and a lot of them aren’t family-owned and operated and and sometimes that’s cool and sometimes it’s not and that’s okay. Um, but we don’t have a million dollars a month to go throw into the ad space. We don’t have a million dollars a month to go spread and just throw out a big parachute and catch a bunch of people and get 15,000 callers and then just cherrypick the ones that will go into our program. And so, like, we literally have to be better. And so I was telling the bank, the way that we do that is through these very human, authentic, simple, yet wildly impactful things that we do. And so with 44 beds and being family-owned and operated and not having the types of resources that our competitors do, like we get to cultivate a new human experience. It is human services but um from the word go and that’s what differentiates us is this very simple touch the only requirement is you have to ensure that you have 70 badass mofos that are down to clown. Yeah. Because if there’s any link that’s not there it doesn’t feel safe. Absolutely. And that’s something we’ve done in the last year is we’ve really cultivated a team Absolutely. of people where all the links are synergized and synchronized. And if they’re not, we build them up and do whatever we need to do in order to get them synchronized and synergistic so that we can flow together because it really is about an ecosystem about knowing that like this person’s got my back and this person’s got my back and we move into this thing together. And if not, it’s okay. And there’s certainly places in healthcare that are great spots for people. Um, but with Peaks, we have to be that subtle difference. Oh, absolutely. each and every individual. And that doesn’t matter if they come in for three days and they’re like, I can’t I’m not I don’t I can’t get well here. You will always know when you come to Peaks Recovery that there’s a team of people in Colorado Springs that’s cheering for you. You will know that the rest of your life. Yes. That’s powerful for me. You know, absolutely. And something that I believe even KJ was saying on the last episode that we released that to be at Peaks, you have to have the heart for it. And everybody who’s there has the heart to show up and serve. as we’re talking about every single day because it can be it can be challenging obviously working in this industry it comes with some hurdles it comes with some potholes in front of you but it when it’s the right people doing the right things for the right reasons the rest will be laid out in front of us absolutely I kind of want to take just one more step closely looking at what was it that the seed for peaks recovery originally what was it something that hit you all at once like a light bulb like oh we need to create this or was it more of a slow burn? You saw things in the industry. You saw how it how it was going and you were like, “No, we can build something different outside of this.” Yeah, it’s a great question. I I got a lot of experience early on in the field, which I was really really grateful for. Um I don’t know if the guests were, but I was, you know, I was like playing a lot of different roles. But um in Arizona, I came on as a as a house manager. Okay. And I’ve told you before, you know, my first day of training, I was like I was so excited and I’m going through my thing and I’m going through the training and I’ve said it before on the show, but there’s a and this is a place like that you work at. It’s like the place in town, man. You know, it’s um it’s a spot. It’s good good spot and it’s where you send people like you really like. So, I was like, I’ve been applying to this place. He wasn’t calling me back. Applied around 14 months sober. I got the job. I was doing house manager my first day of training. We go to go train and Billy’s got his clipboard. We’re doing the thing. and he goes, “I just walked by this guy that’s like in in acute distress.” It was he was probably at intake because what Billy said is, “It’s someone else’s problem. It’s not ours.” And we moved on. And so like so I’m sure what he meant was he’s an intake and that it’s the intake team who’s going to help him. But I just thought in that moment like because like I 22 years, man, I have [  ] clue who I was. I didn’t know I maybe I was a tra I was going to be a personal trainer and it was all external. It was nothing internal. And then this thing happened where we talked about earlier and then I started to really care about this demographic of people. I couldn’t really care a lot about most other things. But this demographic was so deeply ingrained in my soul and the fabric of my being and I wanted nothing but the best for them and I was willing to fight for them and and so that’s why I got into the field cuz that’s what I want to do. And then I was like whatever I guess we can get paid too, right? So that was an extra credit thing but for some people they really got to get paid and then they do the thing. But so I knew in that moment that I could do it a little bit better. And then and for me by the time I had gotten the experience in Arizona, which was about four years, I was going back to school to be a therapist. Obviously, God had a sense of humor, be an owner. I got my degree in counseling with an emphasis on chemical dependency and and addiction of course because that was all the fad at the time. Um, but I had the opportunity to work as a BHT, as a case manager, as an aftercare therapist. I got to sub in in certain situations where before I had my degree um through some indirect supervision and by the time I had worked just about every position in treatment, I knew for sure that I could do this better. Not even me cuz I can only do so much. Um but we could do this better. And and there was there was a handful of people that I thought they were doing it really well. And so I I looked up to them and I spent a lot of time with them and and we um compared notes, but I didn’t know how and when I was going to be able to open up my own treatment center, but I knew I was going to be really successful in this in this industry. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That’s powerful. It’s almost like there was that path ahead of you and you were ready to walk it. That makes perfect sense. If I could just slow the [  ] down. Honestly, if I could just slow down and like just be more organized, that was like that was We all get ahead of ourselves a little bit here and there. Yeah. If we jump forward just a little bit to September of 2014, you just unlocked the doors. We’re opening up. We’re for these purposes going to say it was Peak Recovery Centers. We open the doors. We’re open for service. What is the difference between your original expectations that you had in your brain leading to it versus what those first few months actually looked like as operating as a service environment here in the Springs? Yeah, it’s a good question. So, I’ll never forget I had a I had an office right up the road. just a couple miles, maybe a mile, two miles from here. And um because I had only had experience back in Arizona, you have a lot of insulated support. There’s, you know, 50 other treatment providers within a stones throw away from you. Yeah. So you can refer and you can compare notes and you can do these things. There was no extended care in southern Colorado. That’s why we were cultivating the model. There was no cost effective extended care for young people. And so I’ll never forget we got the La Montana office. It was like 5,000 square ft. Okay. I don’t know. I probably had probably had two group rooms and 10 12 offices. Okay. And I went and um I went to Costco with Cassidy and I got a pallet and I got some like couple like printers, XP printers or something, maybe some Dell computers, like five or six of them. And I thought I got a lot of stuff like some paper and some pens and [  ] And I got back to the office and I put it on the floor and it like took up like this much and I was like, “Oh man, we got a long way to go.” Um, but even thinking back to the beginning, man, you know, I’ I’ve been rocking this Rich Roll quote for a while, but the heart is true, the universe will conspire to support you. Everybody in their mother believes like their model is the best and their bias to it. Um, but I I really believe what what we were doing and and what we were growing here was something that southern Colorado had never seen before. The whole outside of like Jaywalker Lodge in Carbondale, Colorado, I didn’t feel like anybody was really kind of doing this thing. They certainly weren’t doing the gender specific thing. Sure. You know, they weren’t doing gender specific groups, clinical programming, things of that nature. and they didn’t weren’t having a lot of community integration and great followthrough was to like show people that you care and walk with them into community being with people for sure, you know, long term. And so we were able to come in and um pretty quickly make a name for ourselves for just caring pretty deeply. And I knew at the time that we weren’t going to I knew we had a lot of holes. Yeah. You know, we had just opened up, but again, back to the point that I make today is like you’re not going to be able to serve everybody. There’s going to be something when somebody comes in that’s going to prick their toe in just the right way and it’s just not going to work. But can you intimately care for somebody in a way that most certainly they haven’t been cared for cuz they’re walking in your door and can you allow that to stick and allow that to be the outcome that always comes back around, right? You know, and so that’s been pretty inspiring. That’s been pretty cool. And and some of those early phases were nothing different. People were in, people were out. Um, but we just hammered home that care thing like you’re valuable, man. And people care about you. Absolutely. So, what was it about Colorado, but the spring specifically? Was were you aware that there was an underserved population out there? Cuz you had to uproot everything. Your family, you guys had, if I’m not mistaken, just purchased a house in Arizona and you said, “Actually, we’re going to pack up, head up to Colorado, and we’re going to start this thing.” Yeah. What was it about specifically the Colorado area? That’s a great question, man. So I I was in Tellide when I was 18. Okay. I went on a snowboarding trip. Okay, cool. And I barely remember it, but it was the parts that I do remember. I thought it was phenomenal. Okay. And I always I didn’t travel a lot as a kid and I just thought Colorado was pretty cool. And I love snowboarding. Got it. So when I got the opportunity to do some marketing, I just Googled the five best places in Colorado. And I just came out here. And so I just absolutely love the trees. I love the woods. I love seasons. I grew up in Tucson. We didn’t have seasons. It snowed like one time in 16 years. Wow. Awesome. Yeah. And they like shut it down, you know, like 2 in. We rolled big old snow grass snowballs at the park. For sure. You know, but Colorado, there’s always something about um kind of the metaphysical the mountains. Something’s always encapsulated me. And I had no idea it was going to speak to me so profoundly as it does today. Uh [ __ ] I don’t even know if I’d ever been to a on a hike before I got to Colorado. Um, but when we got here, I knew that this was going to be the spot, specifically southern Colorado and kind of the Pikes Peak region. And our first logo, it’s kind of like this triangle and does this thing, but it was kind of like just to kind of encapsulate Pikes Peak with a little bit of like my 12step spin on it without like, you know, still keeping to the singleness of purpose, but not really. Um so when we finally developed a relationship with someone out here um they started sending us you know young adults to Arizona to the program I was working in. So we certainly saw that there was a huge need and uh we were working with them for about 6 to 12 months. They were send I mean every meeting in Prescuit Arizona was full of like Colorado people. Wow. It was insane. Okay. And they were like you need to open a program in Colorado. So, um, we knew we were going to be able to come specifically and be not just a resource in southern Colorado, but be a tremendous resource for northern Colorado because at the time in the addiction space, it was about getting out of the city that you lived in. Yeah. And so, change of scenery. Exactly. So, the Denver population was like huge for us. Um, especially when we first started. For sure. Yeah. Absolutely. I also like a little bit ago you were talking about the modality that we were setting up and how it was structured so intentionally but I feel like there was a very clear shift in early peaks where we moved away from kind of that rigid 12step approach to more of a clinically informed trauma focused approach and you’ve shared that that came slightly from your own trauma focused experience I believe that you had at the Meadows but what what was so profound about that to you that you felt we need to to evolve the core principle of peaks to being more I mean I believe you’ve even claimed that like the world should be more trauma focused and and because that is what can move forward that needle in recovery for more than just substance use or mental health for most things. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great question and I think real valuable in like what we’re talking about because
I think I think therapy is really much more simple than it than it uh and then not to cuz for me you know I I went to the meadows right so we we did we did this 12step thing we hung our hat on it for six years seven years 12step very driven the longer in treatment, the better the outcome. That’s actually not true. Um, at least that’s not what our outcomes say. Um, I think it’s about safety and I think it’s about being safe in relationship with people and then being able to walk with those people into uncharted territory or scary places that you were unwilling to go before. And so, uh, my life was falling apart. Uh, consequently in 2018, 2019, you know, making more money than ever, Peaks is more successful than ever. about my relationship with my wife, my kids, and it’s all over the place. So, I go to this place called the Meadows, and I’m like, “What am I even doing here?” And in that week, I learned things about myself um that I hadn’t known. And and and I I felt safe to do it because of a myriad of of factors that were set up relationally. Yeah. Um that allowed me to walk in a space that I didn’t think I could ever walk in. Coover. I would go and we buried hundred people by the time I was 5 years sober. You know, it’s like I’ve been to so many funerals and I just couldn’t be sad. Like they’re sad and I wanted so bad to be able to feel sadness, man. I feel it all the time, you know. Um and I couldn’t. And some people are like, “Why the [  ] do you want to feel sad?” I’m like, well, I just want to feel something, you know, because it it’s required to have a good marriage, you know, and these things that saved my ass for the first 5 years will really be coming in a detriment um to my life and lifestyle and really just my family, my business CEO, nobody, everything was fine on that side of things. Nobody was asking good questions. And so, I went to this place and this space to maybe learn something. And they opened up doors that I didn’t think could be opened up. and and through that experience, I wanted so badly to come back and be able to allow that for our guests. But the Meadows, in my opinion, is the best treatment program in the country. They have the best model, specifically their Wikcinberg situation they got going on. And they have it because they’ve been doing it for 30 something years. So it’s a tall mountain to climb to provide that type of care and to provide it safely and to provide it in an ecosystem where people get better and not worse% it’s a delicate dance and so um when I got back I still had quite a bit of work to do. Um, but through that experience, we began to cultivate a curriculum at Peaks informed by researchbased modalities that have been around for eons and some newer stuff that really spoke to the human and the heart of the human in the story of the human. Yeah. And our our goal is to our mission is to save lives. In order to do that, we have to build trust. So, some people built some trust with me and I was able to do some things and and and we started to build trust with people and I started to get this really really really really cool experience that I hadn’t gotten for the first time in my career. Sure. Which is just through aiming to build trust with people instead of getting people to do what I wanted them to do. I began to come into relationship with humans that called peaks home for the first time in a way that I had never experienced before. People’s shoulders settled. They kicked back. They wanted to stay longer. Yeah. They invited me in. They opened the door instead of me barging in. And that was kind of the old approach. And so it actually was a breath of fresh air. It didn’t require me to get you to do anything. It just required me to take better care of me. And so it’s basically what the journey’s been over the last six years is taking better care of me so I can show up with you to inform without saying anything that we’re all in this together. Yeah, but I can’t say that. You got to feel that. Absolutely. And I think you maybe Oh, someone asked me that. We talked about on the other podcast, but it’s like we’re all in this together. Yes. Joseph asked me that the other day. Okay. He said, “Well, what’s the difference?” I said, “We’re all in this together.” Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Curious just about the timeline. When you got back from that little stint at the Meadows, is that when you started looking into sematic experience therapy for yourself and start exploring that? because that’s always been something that was very powerful to me. You you gave this man, this is four years ago now, but you gave this this example that a lot of therapies will sit you at the campsite and talk to you. Seatic will start taking up those tent pitches and start packing it up and teach you how to pack that up so you can put it on your back and you’re no longer stuck in that situation. I think that’s something that’s really it just kind of came to my mind when you were talking about that that that that idea of being safe and secure with who you are, how you got where you are and what you’re moving towards. I think that that opens the possibilities for so many people to feel more comfortable and okay cuz they can look at you somebody who who they can see as the recovery cheerleader and they can be like, “Wait, but I can do that just by opening up and feeling safe and secure.” And it’s hard. It’s definitely hard. I mean, we we’ve experienced, you know, guests who if they’re in a yoga session, they don’t want to go into shabbasa cuz they don’t want to be like that. But couple weeks later, here they are opening themselves up. And I think that’s one of those those hard to quantify but easy to observe things that’s different about peaks. And it is really that that that care 100%. Mhm. I was talking about this earlier today and um because if you’re going to be in that heart and you’re going to be in the ecosystem with people cuz dude we go like right if you checked in yesterday I’m about to spend the the best 30 days of your life with you and you didn’t read that on the website and you’re not thinking that’s what you’re about to do. Yes. But but that’s what I’m going to get to do is I’m going to get to spend some of the best 30 days of your life with you. Absolutely. Absolutely. And especially like man over the past 12 years, you truthfully you you’ve seen miracles. You’ve seen humans enter on the worst day of their life and leave with breath, leave with a motivation that is unlike anything that some people get to touch. And and that’s as as amazing as that is, that comes with a different side of the coin where there’s been heartbreak, there’s been pain, there’s been hurt. And I’m kind of curious if we can just step away from the the CEO and the founder and just like Chris is the human. How do you deal with that emotionally where you still wake up every day energized to show up to be the leader that people want to follow and to to be that recovery cheerleader, to be that that that pinnacle person in so many people’s lives? How do you how do you get that? How do you foster that very strategically? Yeah. Um, you know, I do this thing in addition to like taking extraordinarily good care of myself and putting myself first every single day before I put anybody else first. I always say it on my video. I said, I’m going to put myself first so that I can move out into the world and put others first. Um, I was sitting with a friend of mine, a dear friend of mine. Um, and I was at her daughter’s funeral and is an open casket funeral. And I don’t like open casket funerals cuz they’re very sad. Y and there’s a dead person in the room, you know, and so like, but I’m there, right? I’m what you’re talking about. That’s why I’m there. Yeah. Cuz that person wants me there to be there for them. because my name’s Chris and that’s what I do. And and uh she came over to me and she said, “I don’t you got to say something to me, but her daughter is in a box.” And I remember saying to her cuz I don’t know what to say. Yeah. I remember saying, “I think I think what you got to do is you just got to feel what you got to feel, you know?” And and so that’s what I try to do. I try when um things are really sad, I try to experience sadness so that it doesn’t bottle up and when things are lonely, I I try and talk about it and um I ensure that I surround myself with just phenomenal people who are willing to do the same thing because I think that’s the issue and that was the issue with me before I went to the Meadows was we weren’t talking about this work that we’re doing and the things we’re overcoming and what we’re doing together is brilliant. It’s beautiful. It’s badass and the impact is yet to be seen. But also, let’s honor in that that if we’re going to do this side really well, we’ve got to do this side really well. And this side really well is sitting with people in some of the loneliest and darkest moments of their lives. But I’m honored to be able to do it. Such a special privilege, man. And to be able to be present for it and to be able to experience all the emotions that come along with it. Yeah. Um more than ever and maybe for the first time in the last year, I really see um the opportunity I have the position I have to walk with people in a very uh special way. Yeah. So, absolutely. And as somebody who I feel like I can say I know you pretty well, I’d like to just hold a second right here. you were just speaking about where there was a time in your life where you didn’t have the ability to hold that emotion to hold this space even for people around you on a deep level. And here we can talk about how that’s what drives you is the fact that you get to feel these emotions. You get to not experience them but experience them with the people that you’re around. And I think that’s powerful. Not a lot of people can do that. Not a lot of people can do that. It’s very emotionally draining. But it’s something that truthfully I feel that’s what separates the leaders from just another person up there, right? Like somebody who has that deep passion, understanding, and just genuine love, leading with your heart first. There’s not always a correct thing to say in a situation where you’re at a funeral. Mhm. But it’s not always about that. It’s just the fact that you’re there and that you can share words with them. Like that’s that’s powerful. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a new season of uh of Chris. That’s been really nice. Yeah, it’s been really nice cuz it’s it’s difficult to carry all that stuff unnecessarily or um disproportionately. And so just to be like to be with that the present moment has been a really, you know, people are like, well, I thought everybody was present all the time. Not me. I just So it’s been a really And it’s required that in this last year. It’s required a lot of one days at a time. Yes. And I’m really really grateful for that because we we’ve proven like who and what we are and what we’re capable of. And um yeah, it’s been the most rewarding year of Peaks Recovery hands down because we faced the most trials, the most tribulations and we’ve overcome the most. Absolutely. Um so that’s been super wild. Yeah. Speaking about Odette, one one day at a time. I feel like you were the champion of that of that mindset of that modality. And it actually even makes me think a little bit ago we were talking about how at the bank you brought up the Super Bowl and that’s something that I wanted to ask you about. We we tell the staff that every day must be treated like the Super Bowl. You preach it as you’re walking through the halls. Every day is treated like the Super Bowl. But you as as well as everybody knows that there are days where your tank is empty and it’s hard to show up in that way to fight that Super Bowl day after day. And I just want to pull back a little bit too like just for the viewers to understand like you’re so much more than just the founder and the entrepreneur and the CEO. Like you’re a father, you’re a husband, you’re a brother, you’re a fighter, you’re an explorer, you’re all these other things. How do you feel like especially those days where you’ve depleted your tank in so many areas, how do you still show up like it’s the Super Bowl? Yeah, dude. I um So, Dr. Lonardi wrote The Depression Cure. Yes. Right. Shout out Dr. Lonardi. I got to meet him once or twice. I had lunch with him. You might have been there. Mhm. Were you there? Chick-fil-A. Yeah. Yeah. So, I’m sitting down. I had like a salad or something. some maybe I had Chick-fil-A salad and like he’s like analyzing the [  ] out of me, man. And like they’re just doing this thing and he’s like, “Oh, I’m in grad school.” And and um he was in grad school at the University of Kansas, of which he’s like tenered there now, 30 years. He said, “I met this guy. He was like a physician. He was super like had tons of energy. He was super manic, but he didn’t like have the part in the mania that like really hurt him.” And anyway, so like he Dr. Lonardi was asking the guy his mentor. He’s like, “What do you call this guy?” And he’s like, he’s like, “What do you what’s the diagnosis?” And he said, “Well, you’re [ __ ] lucky.” Yeah. And he looks at me and he’s like, “You got that, man.” He’s like, “You got the thing where you got the mania and you’re like, cuz I’m going a million miles an hour.” But back to your question, it’s like, Cooper, like
I was telling the boys last night, I’m like, “I’m so grateful that I do one thing like so well and your mom does everything else so much better than me.” Cuz like I just literally like I I feel like if there was a God and he was putting people on this earth or there’s like this boom thing that happened or whatever happened, boom, there’s Chris Burns and like this is what I was supposed to do. Exactly what I was supposed to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Every what I do on a daily basis as a chief executive officer and the founder of Peaks Recovery is what I was put here to do. It is not a heavy lift. Some days are very heavy though. Yeah. So, I have to be honest with my family. The boys know Peak’s story intimately. They know if I’ve had a bad day. Cass is such a good mom and she’s such a good wife. She knows like I can tell when I come home if she’s curated already what I’ve been through for the day like in our home to ensure that like I just get to show up and it’s like a special spot, you know, and it’s not too intense. And so my my this is like a familyowned and a family operated. I’m not like out on an island like they know everything. In fact, the reason we’re here is inspired a lot by my family. I’ve told the story millions of times. So they’re always like, “Daddy, house peaks. Daddy was it a rough day. My kids are vibrantly integrated. I mean, they do arts and crafts with the guests. They come in, they do these things. They know these humans. I refer to them all as my friends. And so they also understand, too, that sometimes daddy goes into work and he loses friends.” And they’re like, “Holy crap.” because they have friends and they can’t imagine losing a friend, you know, and we lose them more often than most, you know. So, um, so one of the things that really really helps me is being really open with my family and really being able to talk about and speak life into days that are just really really hard. You know, like someday I’ll be sitting at the table and Cass’s like, “Are you all right?” I’m like, “What do you mean? Is everything all right? Is everyone all right?” I mean, you know, like cuz you’re Dude, I mean, you can go from having one of the most intense conversations and then you’re making chicken thighs. Yeah. You know, in rice, it’s like and people are like, “How’s your day?” And you’re like, “Oh, it’s great.” Is good. Yeah. How’s your day? Yeah. You know, but that authenticity at home, man. I mean, ju just for me personally, like what a role model for your for your boys, you know, like what what an opportunity for them to to grow up. And you’re not always perfect. You’re not always smiley. You’re not they they get to see dad. Sometimes dad has a hard day. And you know what? That’s when I get to show up for him and help him out. And like that’s beautiful, man. And I think you’re right that that is something that’s so special being a family-owned facility. Like it it’s it’s so hard. It comes with a lot of challenges that not a lot of people think about or consider. And you just painted it perfectly. Going home and making chicken nuggets at the end of the day. Or I believe it was a few maybe four episodes ago you brought up the Oprah eating Cheerios story that has stuck with me ever since cuz it’s about the Cheerios, man. Yeah. And your boys get that. They understand that. That’s powerful. Yeah. It counts as uh I don’t give her enough credit for sure. uh I get all the glory, you know, it’s like I do and I have for all these years. Um, but like she’s the backbone of everything and and she’s done things like not to not to say like to completely put her career to the side to like follow my dreams, but in 12 years she’s worked like five different positions at Peaks where you need a [ __ ] case manager, you need marketing, you need billing, you need this, you need AR, you need this, you need like she has done like anything and everything I’ve ever needed in moments where there’s nobody else that would do Yeah. So, like in this 12th year, I think it would be a absolute disservice. So, I appreciate you bringing it up to not mention her and the support she’s given me, dude. Cuz like me by myself, I’ll go home. I’ll ask people with doctor degrees all day what they think. Y only to go home and get my answer from my wife. Yes. And know I’m going to do that the whole time. Yes. I pay these people hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know what I’m saying? And so like that’s my girl, man. And um so she creates an environment too that is really holistic and connected and we get to talk about things. And my boys, dude, they got no problem being like I’m like I’m not yelling. They’re like, “Yo, maybe you should stop yelling.” And I’m like, “Oh.” Like, “Yeah, cuz you’re yelling, Dad.” I’m like, “I’m not yelling.” They’re like, “No, you are, Dad.” I’m like, “Oh, yeah, then I am.” Yeah. So, yeah, man. We got a cool thing going. And they’ve been raised in it, man. Like Peaks is almost synonymous with their life. They’re very proud. Yes. They’re very proud and I’m very proud. I’m very proud of pigs. It’s amazing, man. I feel like first of all, I feel like I could continue to talking this for a couple hours just going back and forth on all this kind of stuff. I mean, we have wonderful conversations in, you know, offices, but to put it on camera, I think is special because a lot of times people get to see one side of you, right? And it’s the leader. It’s the one that we show up day in and day out to follow. But what you’re talking about right now, that authentic humility of like, no, this is I’m a person and I’m living life just like you. There’s something powerful to that, especially in what we do for who we serve that they can click onto this and see you, authentic you, not putting on any. They can connect to that and they can they can take that and use it as almost a catalyst to move them forward. And I think that that’s something powerful. But I feel like we do need to hit a couple of those just cliche questions. Let’s get it. Let’s say we’re sitting here in 12 years from now, 24 years of Peaks Recovery Centers. What do you think the vision of that looks like? And how did we get there? We we’ve gone through so many seasons and phases. And I’m going to put my head out there. I think that we’re in one of the strongest places Peaks has been in my five and a half years. Like this is this feels momentous like we’re moving towards something. What does that look like as we continue going towards it? It’s a great question, but I’ve been dubbed lately saying as like we’re just getting started. I really I really feel like that, you know, in our 12th year. Um, but
we’re going to change the world, you know, and I don’t know where where you go and who you hang out with when you do that, but we’re already doing it. And that’s what we inspire for our guests on a daily basis. It’s like these moments and we’ll do it through this kind of thing, right? meaningful moments at a at a time like they matter and and we’ll continue to focus on those meaningful moments because what we’ve learned over the subtotal of the 12 years of meaningful moments is that they matter the most. And so in 12 years from now, whatever that looks like, man, we’re going to be extraordinarily successful in changing the ecosystem and the dynamic of our behavioral health industry, one human at a time, just through being a little bit more curious and a little bit more dynamic. And so 12 years, I dude, I can’t even tell you what I’m going to do next week. Um, but if we’re if we’re blessed and opportunistic enough to be around in 12 years, I believe wholeheartedly, man, will be the best thing going um in the entire world. Maybe some international stuff. It’d be really fun. I’ve really enjoyed our international guests. Yep. Absolutely. I mean, even last week we were talking couple Swedes have come on. Uh, somebody from Estonia in the Baltics, you’re saying I believe Estonia, the Baltic. We got a couple Swedes. We had some folks from London. Um, some Austrians. Um, did you expect that within your first 12 years, you would have gotten to an international voice to where people would know, oh yeah, there’s this place in the middle of America, in the middle of Colorado that is available and wants to help change lives. Did you see that being a possibility? No. Honestly, I was like, if I figured this would do it for a few years, few years and then I don’t know, we’d go up in a gym or something. I didn’t know that it was going to be like no way, shape, or form did we ever think. And that’s it’s like I’m like tickled or maybe it’s smitten. What do you say? Like it’s just like I’m so humbled. I I just mean that so much. Like it’s just I live two miles from the campus. I drive up every morning and and I and I have to do this and I just like I tap my chest and I look at Pikes and I’m driving into the thing and I’m just like, man, it’s so cool. This is so cool, man. I’m in just a season of loving what we’re doing, loving who we’re doing it with and and even more inspiring to me is like the people that we’re doing it with are loving who they’re doing it with. Yes. And they’re inspired. Yes. And everybody’s kind of rocking to the beat of the drum, man. And we’re moving and grooving. Absolutely. So, yeah, man. That’s we’re just getting started. I’m also going to just kind of piggyback on that, man. The the drive-in to work when you get off the highway and you start driving down Old Ranch, there’s something special. And my time obviously started kind of we we were at um Kelly Johnson right down the street down here. So very office building. We had a couple of h it was very different than it is now. And now I drive every morning heading straight. I see Pikes right behind us and it sets the mood for the day. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s different. and you drive on to our our campus where everything is available right here. And man, once you’re there, you’re there, you know, and it’s time to to clock in and be available, bro. They say 10%. Decrease depressive symptoms. You can drive by a green space every day. Okay. That’s like New York City people. Yeah. Like, oh, I saw Central Park. Yeah. I was like, I saw the sun for a moment. You know, I put these two chairs. I don’t I’m sure you see them. They’re at the ranch, dude. People sit in them. They’re right in front of my office. They just sit out there. Two chairs. They used to be over here. I put them over here facing right towards generally one person will go sit. Yes. So it’s like once a week I go sit in the chair. I don’t care. Usually it’s a new person. Yeah. And I just walk right up and I talk about Pikes Peak. And they’re generally in like from Tennessee. Yep. Like oh I you know about Pikes Peak. I’m like well this is America’s Mountain and this is where Treeine is and up there you can see the thing. I start co railwaying them you know like I’m telling the history and bringing them up with the oldest race and the thing and the I’m like, but and then by the end of the conversation, like I feel my heart rate lower, five beats a minute. Yep. And here we are at Peaks Recovery in the middle of Colorado Springs in this ecosystem that has an ability that we have the ability to not only turn down the whole volume but because of set and setting because you get to see that. Yeah. I think you get to turn the volume down even lower. Absolutely. Whereas like if you’re off the I25 corridor in an old red in an old hotel or something then you can get that then we maybe wouldn’t have that experience. So it’s not missed on us the opportunity we have on our 13acre campus to do sessions outside to sit under the tree to play a little bit of frisbee golf. It’s very very unique what we have going on over there. 100%. The campus alone trail head it we could talk about that for hours. It’s something that like I even intentionally while I was preparing for this left out because I feel like it’s it’s something that you just need to experience down to meeting chef down to the little walking past everything. It’s as I’ve coined in this episode, it’s different. Mhm. But I feel like I very much appreciate how authentic you’ve been during this entire thing and how I I’m very hopeful that it comes across to the to the audience that like this is this is you. This isn’t a show. You don’t put something on. You don’t you don’t put on a mask when you’re coming into work. Like this is Chris Burns. And I think if I were to end the show with one final question, if you could take me and say that I am you in 2007, you’re sitting across right now. What would you say to that version of yourself sitting here 12 years? Well, more than that now, but removed from that here we’re sitting. What would you say to him? Is it advice? Is it, hey, it’s going to be okay. Is it, hey, there’s going to be a lot of hard things, but you’re going to get through it. What would you say? It’s very it’s a great question and and it’s very very simple. I once was asked a similar question in a group setting. Um I uh it’s 2021 and there was this guy named Mark in my group because I wanted to be a therapist, right? I’m sure they would let me do these things sometimes. And um he’d been to like 10 different treatment providers and one of them I was very familiar with in Prescuit, Arizona. And he had been there for a year and they’re very very rigid and we had just come to life and kind of our new holistic mental health trauma-informed very very synergistic and relational program. Um,
so I was like, “Well, what have you learned like through all these experiences? Cuz like you’ve been through so much and I’m sure you’ve been told a bunch of different narratives about yourself, some true, some untrue.” And uh, what have you learned here? You know, and he said, he said, “It’s easy. I’m perfect the way that I am.” And so if I could go back to the individual, I would find a way to a 22-y old person to let them know like there’s nothing wrong with something happened to you and you’re perfect the way you are. Yes. Absolutely. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, thank you for coming on to this wholeheartedly and allowing yourself to be presented. Obviously, you know, when we’re at the office or we’re out to coffee, any number of of us at peaks, like we we get to see this side of you when we have these deep connecting talks, but I don’t think that this is a side that we really put on camera that often. So, thank you very much for your vulnerability and for your authenticity at the end of the day. It’s something that, you know, I facilitate the orientations, the new staff orientations at Peaks now, and a lot of times when we bring up your name, I always say, “Yeah, this one my personal superheroes.” He is a leader worth following. And I’m not just trying to gas you up. Like there’s I have been in many different industries. I have been doing a lot of odd jobs in my life and I have never seen somebody that I’m like, “Yeah, no. I’m going to follow him. He’s jumping off that bridge. Probably calculated the depth. I’ll jump with him.” And I think that that’s something really special. I’m very grateful that you bring that not only to me, not only to Peaks, but to every single human that you interact with during the day, during your weeks. Like you give so much of yourself to so many people. Thank you for all of that. Yeah, man. Thanks for uh allowing me to be a part of this bad boy. You know, I’m humbled and honored to walk with amazing humans, man, and looking forward to a lot more um one days at a time in this 13th year. 100%. Love you, bud. Love you, bro. I’m going to try my best to channel my inner you for this, but thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of Finding Peaks 169. And we got a lot more coming for you. So, make sure that you tune in, continue to see what we got going on for you. Peace. Peace. Yeah, dude.