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Navigating Life's Obstacles: Insights from Nick Koumalatsos on Finding Purpose and Building Community · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:10
Speaker 1: Nick, come aos, did I get anywhere close to that?
0:15
Speaker 2: It's your accent. It's just it's an accent thing.
0:17
Speaker 1: It's not well, tell you what, in Australia, very few
0:22
Speaker 1: people can understand me because of an Irishman living in Australia.
0:26
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, so we'll just run with that thing,
0:31
Speaker 1: like welcome to the podcast. You are lots of different
0:35
Speaker 1: things to lots of different people, right, So you are
0:38
Speaker 1: a coach, you run Man's health for teacher, you're an
0:42
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and you've been in a fitness industry. You're ex military.
0:46
Speaker 1: So just give people a bit of a sense of
0:50
Speaker 1: your story from a high level, like just starting starting
0:57
Speaker 1: as a kid, and take us through the journey.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I grew up without an active father in the home,
1:09
Speaker 2: not something that I even realized was unnormal. And obviously
1:15
Speaker 2: that plays into a lot of different things, right, I
1:17
Speaker 2: mean we know the statistics really worldwide, any first or
1:21
Speaker 2: second world country that doesn't have a father in the home,
1:24
Speaker 2: how that kind of plays out with you know, education, crime,
1:28
Speaker 2: et cetera, success later in life. Anyways, So yeah, I
1:33
Speaker 2: didn't grow up. I had my brother and my mom.
1:35
Speaker 2: We used to, you know, make jokes that my mom
1:38
Speaker 2: was running from the law because we were literally we
1:40
Speaker 2: would move every six months to a different school. Wow,
1:44
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, as an adult, you know,
1:46
Speaker 2: like why were we moving around? You know? And she
1:48
Speaker 2: was like, honestly, it's just jobs. If I could get
1:52
Speaker 2: a job making this much money and I would move,
1:54
Speaker 2: I'd move us. As we were just trying to survive.
1:58
Speaker 2: And I asked her when I was like, how much
1:59
Speaker 2: were you making, you know, take care of you know,
2:01
Speaker 2: she was laughing. I was like thousand a months. She
2:04
Speaker 2: was like sometimes like five hundred a month, five hundred
2:08
Speaker 2: to one thousand dollars.
2:08
Speaker 1: A month, and trying to bring up two boys on that.
2:11
Speaker 2: Trying to bring up two boys on that. So like
2:13
Speaker 2: later in life, I honestly was like, man, it's actually
2:15
Speaker 2: pretty impressive. Like we're survivors, you know. And it never
2:20
Speaker 2: took really a handout from anything, but no stateside, you know,
2:23
Speaker 2: we never got on welfare. She always worked. That was
2:26
Speaker 2: kind of like one of our family things. You know.
2:28
Speaker 2: I come from kind of a poor family, and but
2:31
Speaker 2: they never they just valued hard work. I think I
2:34
Speaker 2: had a lot to do with my grandfather. My grandfather
2:36
Speaker 2: was a Korean War and Vietnam veteran, and he just
2:41
Speaker 2: had a very like we had a very high work
2:43
Speaker 2: ethic and realizing that what you make is based off
2:48
Speaker 2: of comes off your own hands. And and that was
2:52
Speaker 2: very Even as a kid, I remember that kind of
2:57
Speaker 2: that core value, if you will, kind of being an
3:00
Speaker 2: and it stuck with me. At eleven years old, I
3:01
Speaker 2: started got my first job. Like you know, in the States,
3:05
Speaker 2: we get this thing called it's like a social Security statement,
3:08
Speaker 2: and you pay in like you take they take it
3:10
Speaker 2: out of you know, most in most countries they take
3:12
Speaker 2: wages for taxes and for different things. Right, one of
3:15
Speaker 2: the things is for social Security for your for your
3:18
Speaker 2: your retirement, if you if when you reach that ripe
3:21
Speaker 2: old age, right, well, if you go back on my statement,
3:26
Speaker 2: it says that I've I've been paying social Security since
3:30
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, which was I was eleven years old. Wow. Yeah,
3:34
Speaker 2: and uh and I think we lie. I don't even
3:36
Speaker 2: know how it because that's like at that point, I'm
3:38
Speaker 2: not even sure that was legal, but somehow we squeezed
3:41
Speaker 2: through and my social Security started started nineteen ninety three.
3:45
Speaker 2: So it was just always a thing that like you
3:48
Speaker 2: if you want money, if you want things, you got
3:50
Speaker 2: to work for it. That's how that's how it goes.
3:54
Speaker 2: So anyways, you know, long story, stort I hated moving moving,
3:57
Speaker 2: but I'll kind of come back to that when I
3:59
Speaker 2: get them to the military. Because I didn't have an
4:03
Speaker 2: active father in the home, I did have a stepfather
4:06
Speaker 2: that was coming in and out. I believe he worked
4:10
Speaker 2: on like gash ole pipeline type stuff like rigs, and
4:13
Speaker 2: so he was kind of coming and going from the
4:16
Speaker 2: time I was about five until the time I was
4:17
Speaker 2: about eleven.
4:19
Speaker 1: I'm nick was not was did you find that to
4:22
Speaker 1: be helpful or more disruptive? Having this guy who used.
4:26
Speaker 2: To I'll tell you he was. He was physically abusive
4:30
Speaker 2: to me and emotionally abusive to my brother, right And
4:35
Speaker 2: obviously I'm a kid at the time, so it's you know,
4:38
Speaker 2: you take you gotta have to take it. And at
4:42
Speaker 2: eleven years old is the time that I fought back
4:46
Speaker 2: and I got thrown through a closet door. We had
4:50
Speaker 2: a little tussle. Obviously there's a grown man. I'm eleven.
4:53
Speaker 2: You know, we know how that's going to go. But
4:56
Speaker 2: that tussle is what woke up my mom and she
4:59
Speaker 2: was able to she got that's when she found out
5:01
Speaker 2: of the situation. And then it all came out. I
5:04
Speaker 2: jumped through a window, I excaped, you know, I escaped
5:06
Speaker 2: the house and ran away and that was the end
5:09
Speaker 2: of that. And she left him that on the spot,
5:12
Speaker 2: kicked him out, left him on the spot. And to
5:14
Speaker 2: be honest, you know, she never knew any of the
5:15
Speaker 2: other stuff was going down. But through that, the lack
5:22
Speaker 2: of a you know, lack of an actual, you know,
5:24
Speaker 2: positive real mole model, I went straight into this need
5:29
Speaker 2: for community, this need for acceptance, which landed me in
5:35
Speaker 2: a basically a quote unquote a gang.
5:38
Speaker 1: All I was just about to say, there is a
5:41
Speaker 1: bit of a phenomenon in Australia about young meal gangs.
5:46
Speaker 1: And you know a lot of people are pointing the
5:49
Speaker 1: finger that a lot of them are immigrants, but a
5:52
Speaker 1: lot of them tend to have absent fathers and you know,
5:56
Speaker 1: brought up with no role models, and they just gravity
6:00
Speaker 1: towards their own groups, don't it because they need that
6:03
Speaker 1: sense of connection.
6:05
Speaker 2: And you know what, and and because I didn't have it,
6:10
Speaker 2: they were right there waiting on it. And I tell
6:12
Speaker 2: people all the time, I'm like, guys, if you don't
6:15
Speaker 2: man up and be that there is a there's a
6:18
Speaker 2: group of people out there that is waiting for that
6:23
Speaker 2: young man to show up and be like, yeah, come on.
6:26
Speaker 1: And that's where you then get your values from and
6:29
Speaker 1: all on your behaviors and all of that stuff.
6:31
Speaker 2: Right, that's right, that's exactly it. Now, that becomes your
6:34
Speaker 2: core values, that becomes the rules of engagement for life.
6:37
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened. And so that happened right
6:41
Speaker 2: out at eleven. It was ironic, like look, being at
6:44
Speaker 2: the age I am now and looking back at it,
6:46
Speaker 2: like you know, that altercation happened in me feeling in
6:50
Speaker 2: danger or me feeling weak or something like that, and
6:52
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I'm not going to be a victim,
6:54
Speaker 2: and I'm going to go I'm going to go get
6:56
Speaker 2: someone who is going to have my back and be
6:58
Speaker 2: a part of a community that is going to protect me.
7:01
Speaker 2: And and if you look at it, and ironically enough,
7:06
Speaker 2: it was the gang was called the the Irish Shenanigans.
7:12
Speaker 1: There you go, the token there.
7:16
Speaker 2: And what's funny is my my actual father, like you know,
7:19
Speaker 2: he wasn't around, but when he found out, he was
7:21
Speaker 2: pissed and he was he was like, He's like, you're
7:24
Speaker 2: not Irish or Greek? What the you know? Anyways, it
7:27
Speaker 2: was funny, but yeah, man, by the time I was thirteen,
7:30
Speaker 2: So that happened when I was eleven. By the time
7:32
Speaker 2: I was thirteen, I was a two time convicted felon
7:35
Speaker 2: as an adult. Yeah, so just two short years U
7:39
Speaker 2: two short years, had two felonies under my belt that
7:44
Speaker 2: would not get expunged when I turned eighteen. I thought
7:48
Speaker 2: it was going to but it did not. Yeah, cost me,
7:51
Speaker 2: cost me something in the future. So that happened, and
7:55
Speaker 2: I got rolled up with the police and obviously got
7:58
Speaker 2: thrown in juv That was a that was a long
8:01
Speaker 2: It was a whole long time right there. And I
8:04
Speaker 2: make a joke. I say, by the time I was fourteen,
8:06
Speaker 2: I was cleaning on the straight and arrow. I'd stop drinking,
8:09
Speaker 2: stop doing drugs, stop breaking laws. So by fourteen, I'd
8:14
Speaker 2: cleaned up my life, you know what I mean?
8:17
Speaker 1: Wow? And what then led you to the military?
8:22
Speaker 2: That's where it goes. So I am seventeen years old.
8:27
Speaker 2: I just turned seventeen years old. I'm working at a
8:30
Speaker 2: place called Baypoint Marriott. In the morning, I was an
8:33
Speaker 2: audio visual consultant for I want to say, I was
8:37
Speaker 2: making like fifteen dollars an hour in the mid nineties
8:44
Speaker 2: hooking up you know, a conference center, so like hooking
8:46
Speaker 2: up projectors, lights, microphones from six am to two pm,
8:50
Speaker 2: and then I would take a thirty minute break. I'd
8:52
Speaker 2: have a club sandwich and fries. Every single day at
8:56
Speaker 2: two thirty to ten thirty. I was a bellman at
8:59
Speaker 2: the same resort. It became very consistent and and I go,
9:04
Speaker 2: I don't I don't want that for my life in
9:06
Speaker 2: twenty of thirty years. Like, that's not where I want
9:08
Speaker 2: to be in twenty or thirty years. So I make
9:11
Speaker 2: the joke saying that I like, I hit the nuclear option,
9:14
Speaker 2: I like blew up my life. And I was like, well,
9:16
Speaker 2: screw it. The only way out that I know is
9:18
Speaker 2: the military. My grandfather did it. And you know the
9:21
Speaker 2: time in the nineties that I don't know if you
9:23
Speaker 2: know this, but the Marine Corps marketing tactics in the
9:28
Speaker 2: nineties was spot on. I mean spot on. You had
9:33
Speaker 2: guys battling dragons with swords, and they're saying that like,
9:41
Speaker 2: you know, we don't promise you a rose garden, and
9:43
Speaker 2: they're like this is the hardest thing. And they had
9:45
Speaker 2: sexy uniforms, and I'm like, dude, if I'm gonna do
9:48
Speaker 2: join the military, I'm obviously going to go fight dragons
9:51
Speaker 2: and be a marine. Yes, And what young man doesn't
9:54
Speaker 2: want to go fight a dragon right with sword? And
9:59
Speaker 2: so I went and talked to them recruiter, and he
10:02
Speaker 2: did his thing, and then he got my information down,
10:04
Speaker 2: went in the back and I'll never forget the look
10:06
Speaker 2: on his face when he came out and was like, kid,
10:11
Speaker 2: you're not joining the Marine Corps nor any branch. You're
10:15
Speaker 2: a high school dropout and a convicted felon. And keep
10:18
Speaker 2: in mind Clinton was in was the president at the time,
10:22
Speaker 2: so that he was like he was crushing. He was
10:24
Speaker 2: in the middle of crushing the military. He was. It
10:27
Speaker 2: was a huge draw down. So like there, So I
10:31
Speaker 2: had medical issues, a drug I didn't need a drug waiver.
10:35
Speaker 2: I had to. I had to have a waiver for
10:37
Speaker 2: my criminal background. I was a high school dropout. And
10:41
Speaker 2: he told me no. And I'll tell you right now, Paul,
10:44
Speaker 2: that was the biggest mistake he could have done, was
10:47
Speaker 2: tell a rebellious kid no, because all I did was
10:55
Speaker 2: like that became my mission. M HM, quit my job,
11:00
Speaker 2: moved in with my grandmother, and you're talking. I threw
11:03
Speaker 2: that all that money away and moved in my grand
11:06
Speaker 2: with my grandmother, started working nights at a movie theater
11:09
Speaker 2: for like four fifty an hour. I remember getting my
11:12
Speaker 2: first check after two weeks and it was like one
11:14
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five bucks, and I'm like, how are
11:17
Speaker 2: people surviving off of this? And then joined the college
11:23
Speaker 2: to do a semester, because if you join a college,
11:28
Speaker 2: get accepted, and do one semester and then drop out,
11:32
Speaker 2: you're no longer a high school dropout.
11:34
Speaker 1: You're ah, you're a college drop fight.
11:37
Speaker 2: And we know the military loves a college dropout. So
11:43
Speaker 2: that's what I did. So I did that. It almost
11:45
Speaker 2: took me two years to get in, and so that's
11:50
Speaker 2: what I did. I got a one hundred letters of
11:52
Speaker 2: recommendation from from bosses and friends and family and people
11:56
Speaker 2: my mom knew about me, and I just made it.
11:59
Speaker 2: I just went on a man that was my mission
12:02
Speaker 2: and uh and joined them and ended up joining the
12:04
Speaker 2: Marine Corps at eighteen turned nineteen and recruit training. And
12:10
Speaker 2: in two thousand.
12:10
Speaker 1: And how did you how did you find the training
12:15
Speaker 1: for the Marines and that whole community. Was that something
12:19
Speaker 1: that you just I mean.
12:22
Speaker 2: It was I guess you could say it was hard
12:26
Speaker 2: in a way. I mean you got to keep in
12:28
Speaker 2: mind that, you know that that era of youth was different,
12:32
Speaker 2: Like we grew up outside. We did that. We didn't
12:35
Speaker 2: have social media, we didn't have the internet. You know,
12:38
Speaker 2: the Internet came around late nineties for us. Yeah, but
12:42
Speaker 2: it wasn't nothing to sit around on. It was like,
12:44
Speaker 2: you know, we used I remember using Aol messenger. Hey
12:47
Speaker 2: where are you at? Okay? Cool, I'm going to meet
12:49
Speaker 2: you over there, you know what I mean. It was
12:50
Speaker 2: it was more of a way to message people. And
12:55
Speaker 2: so we just we were very I was very physical.
12:57
Speaker 2: I was already lifting weights, you know what I mean,
12:59
Speaker 2: Like I wanted to get jacked all the time, you know,
13:02
Speaker 2: eating protein, following old you know, our old bodybooks. Yeah, yeah,
13:07
Speaker 2: that's that's just what I That's just what we did.
13:10
Speaker 2: And so it was very, very different. It wasn't nothing.
13:15
Speaker 2: It was hard, but it wasn't something like we didn't
13:18
Speaker 2: have this belief that we couldn't do it. I couldn't
13:20
Speaker 2: do it. The issue came into play where after working
13:24
Speaker 2: for almost two years to get in the military. On
13:26
Speaker 2: training day seven, I broke my wrist and I got
13:29
Speaker 2: dropped to a medical rehabilitation particular.
13:32
Speaker 1: This is this is post. This is post when you
13:34
Speaker 1: finished all your training.
13:35
Speaker 2: No, no, this was in boot camp. This is in
13:38
Speaker 2: recruit recruit training. I got there, I was like, yes,
13:41
Speaker 2: I made it, I'm going in. Everything was going good.
13:45
Speaker 2: On training day seven, I broke my wrist and I
13:47
Speaker 2: got dropped, and that spired me for a little bit,
13:50
Speaker 2: and like there was that was a whole weird experience.
13:53
Speaker 2: But once I got over myself and stopped being a
13:56
Speaker 2: little baby about it, because I had a moment, you know,
14:00
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, Paul, I had a moment where I
14:02
Speaker 2: was I turned into a little baby and threw a
14:04
Speaker 2: tempotenttrum a little bit. But once I got over that,
14:08
Speaker 2: I realized, Okay, how can I turn this negative into
14:12
Speaker 2: a really good positive? So, honestly, the criminal, the criminal
14:15
Speaker 2: in me, just came out. I'm like, I learned all
14:18
Speaker 2: the drill instructors, habits, their rotations, how the island worked,
14:24
Speaker 2: the timing of everything, who's who in the zoo, how
14:27
Speaker 2: the system works on the island, And I just learned
14:30
Speaker 2: everything and when I did, and then after two and
14:34
Speaker 2: a half months, I went back to two and a
14:36
Speaker 2: half months, I went back to training picked up on
14:39
Speaker 2: twenty Ay seven, but I had been there for almost
14:41
Speaker 2: three months, so like nobody could hold a candlestick to me,
14:43
Speaker 2: I was the leader. I became the guide and the
14:46
Speaker 2: leader of the platoon, and I held that and ended
14:48
Speaker 2: up graduating number one, all because I made the decision
14:52
Speaker 2: that I was going to utilize this as a positive
14:56
Speaker 2: to learn as much knowledge, like what's on the test,
15:00
Speaker 2: what's on the test in two months? Well, I'm going
15:02
Speaker 2: to learn all of it. And I did. I studied
15:04
Speaker 2: all the books. I paid attention to what was coming
15:07
Speaker 2: and going. I knew all the cycles of all the
15:09
Speaker 2: journal instructors and what platoons, and like if anybody wanted
15:13
Speaker 2: to know something, I knew it. I knew all of
15:15
Speaker 2: the history, I knew all of the data. I knew everything.
15:18
Speaker 2: So before they knew, before they came in and said
15:20
Speaker 2: what they were going to say, I'm like, oh, it's
15:23
Speaker 2: it's week four. This is what we're going to go.
15:25
Speaker 2: Do you know? This is the cycle that we're in.
15:27
Speaker 2: So I'll tell the guys and like Okay, get ready,
15:29
Speaker 2: this is what's going to happen. Just the old thing
15:31
Speaker 2: is like I turned you know, I turned lemons and lemonade. Yes, yes,
15:36
Speaker 2: you know that's as it really is. Like I got
15:39
Speaker 2: handed a bad deal and I just manipulated it for
15:41
Speaker 2: a positive. I could have sat there and been sad
15:44
Speaker 2: for two and a half months and made no progress
15:46
Speaker 2: and then picked right back up. But I chose differently.
15:50
Speaker 2: And it's little things like that over a period of
15:52
Speaker 2: a life that really changes where you're at.
15:56
Speaker 1: That's a big philosophy of the ancient stoic for loss
16:00
Speaker 1: of verse is to to make the best of a
16:03
Speaker 1: bad situation, right.
16:05
Speaker 2: It's a lesson that it's a tuition payment if you
16:07
Speaker 2: if you want it to be right, that's the that's
16:09
Speaker 2: the real school. And uh and you know, now being
16:13
Speaker 2: forty three, almost forty four, looking at life, I'm like, oh,
16:17
Speaker 2: there's a there is a reoccurrence, reoccurrence of the same
16:22
Speaker 2: situation over and over and over, and I keep making
16:25
Speaker 2: the same decision. And a good friend of mine said,
16:29
Speaker 2: you know, we have the freedom of choice. We don't
16:31
Speaker 2: have the freedom of consequence. Yeah, yeah, yeah right, and
16:35
Speaker 2: we we but we do have the freedom of choice
16:37
Speaker 2: and in which direction and how you're going to perceive
16:39
Speaker 2: something as one hundred percent on you. And over a
16:41
Speaker 2: period of time I've just through I think it all
16:44
Speaker 2: started in my youth of just having to persevere through
16:46
Speaker 2: adversity and not really having a choice. That that just
16:49
Speaker 2: became like a like a core DNA thing of me,
16:52
Speaker 2: almost to a fault, because there's sometimes that I get
16:55
Speaker 2: told no or something gets you know, I have this thing,
16:58
Speaker 2: and man, I'm like a freaking bulldog.
17:01
Speaker 1: And this is the thing. The bit that all the
17:04
Speaker 1: positive psychology in the world can't teach you is the
17:10
Speaker 1: lessons that are learned through adversity and through doing hard stuff.
17:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now I teach that's funny. I have this
17:19
Speaker 2: on my have this on my thing. If you can
17:21
Speaker 2: see that hard over easy and now, so I teach
17:26
Speaker 2: this concept of choosing hard over easy, because you can
17:30
Speaker 2: choose hard now and have it easy later, or you
17:33
Speaker 2: can choose easy now. And I promise you hard is
17:35
Speaker 2: going to come.
17:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I often say in workshops, like it's not
17:41
Speaker 1: easy getting up early in the morning and going and
17:45
Speaker 1: doing a work hard. It's not easy turning a lovely
17:48
Speaker 1: warm shower to cold right. It's not easy choosing the
17:51
Speaker 1: healthy food over the unhealthy attractive food. It's not easy
17:56
Speaker 1: to have to do the work right. It's all hard,
17:59
Speaker 1: but it's a shit load harder when you talk to
18:02
Speaker 1: people and later in life who you are in shocking sheep,
18:06
Speaker 1: riddled with disease and nowhere near the potential. So it's
18:10
Speaker 1: all hard. So choose your bloody heart right, Choose.
18:13
Speaker 2: Your heart, man, that's it, you know, and now And
18:16
Speaker 2: it's so funny, like that became like we've done this
18:18
Speaker 2: for so long, and now it's become like I got
18:21
Speaker 2: my wife saying that, like we'll say something about our
18:24
Speaker 2: you know, our relationship, and it's like, well, choose your
18:27
Speaker 2: heart right. You want to have a hard conversation now
18:29
Speaker 2: or you want to ruin a relationship later, you know,
18:31
Speaker 2: two years down the road.
18:32
Speaker 1: So I mean, this is and the reason that this
18:35
Speaker 1: is top of mind for me is I've I've just
18:38
Speaker 1: submitted the manuscript for my second book, which is around
18:42
Speaker 1: thank you run something called Heartiness, which you'll be a
18:45
Speaker 1: fan of now, And I start with a story that
18:50
Speaker 1: has has influenced a lot of Western philosophy, and actually
18:55
Speaker 1: what we're talking about right, now, and it's the trials
18:59
Speaker 1: of Hercules, you know, way back in Greek mythology, where
19:04
Speaker 1: the young Hercules ends up at a crossroads and there
19:08
Speaker 1: are two paths, and one of the paths is shown
19:11
Speaker 1: to him by Kakia, who is this very beautiful young
19:16
Speaker 1: woman and promises a life of ease and all of this,
19:20
Speaker 1: and then the other path is the path of Arite,
19:24
Speaker 1: and where she says, if you choose this path, life
19:28
Speaker 1: will be hard, but it will be meaningful. And that's
19:32
Speaker 1: the path that Hercules chooses, right.
19:34
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that when I when I talk
19:37
Speaker 2: to people about joining the Agogi, our men's community, my
19:41
Speaker 2: coaching group, I'm like, I will be one hundred percent
19:43
Speaker 2: honest with you. Your life will not get easier by joining.
19:47
Speaker 2: It will be actually much harder. All of the easy
19:49
Speaker 2: choices that you're choosing now won't be there. You're going
19:53
Speaker 2: to have to choose the hard choices. But your life
19:55
Speaker 2: will be so much better and so much more meaningful.
19:58
Speaker 1: And so let's jump in to that. So why why
20:02
Speaker 1: particularly did you start to focus on man's health and
20:07
Speaker 1: man's coaching? Was that just because of the journey that
20:11
Speaker 1: you'd gone through and seeing lots of people on the
20:13
Speaker 1: wayside and actually going, hey, there's a different path here.
20:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess it really started my transition. I
20:19
Speaker 2: wrote a book called The Excommunicated Warrior, The Seven Stages
20:22
Speaker 2: of Transition, and that story kind of outlined my exit
20:28
Speaker 2: from Special Operations. So what I didn't really talk about
20:30
Speaker 2: is once I got into the Marine Corps, I joined
20:33
Speaker 2: a unit called Second Force Reconnaissance Company. I was with
20:37
Speaker 2: recon for you know, a number of years, and then
20:40
Speaker 2: Marine Special Operations Command stood up. I took selection for that.
20:43
Speaker 2: I spent the last half of my career working with
20:45
Speaker 2: SOCOM under Marine Specials as a Marine raider and you know,
20:52
Speaker 2: doing special operations in the support of global warrantrorism until
20:56
Speaker 2: twenty twelve.
20:57
Speaker 1: Wow.
20:58
Speaker 2: And then I exited from that. And when I exited,
21:02
Speaker 2: I thought I had it all figured out, but unfortunately
21:04
Speaker 2: I did. I did not, and I had a very
21:07
Speaker 2: rough Like you hear, a lot of veterans have a
21:09
Speaker 2: very challenging transition back to normal life.
21:12
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, what was the most difficult thing for you?
21:17
Speaker 2: When it comes down to it, it's you know, if
21:20
Speaker 2: I strip away all I could say a lot of things,
21:22
Speaker 2: but if I strip away all of it. It comes
21:24
Speaker 2: down to identity. You really start, you really lose your
21:27
Speaker 2: identity of who you are. Because Nick, it was a
21:31
Speaker 2: reconnaissance marine, I was a force recomrane. I was a
21:34
Speaker 2: marine raider and that and what that means is it's
21:37
Speaker 2: how I train, That's like, that's while my brain works.
21:39
Speaker 2: It's the clothes that I wear, the neighborhood that I
21:41
Speaker 2: live in, the job that I do. It's it's how
21:44
Speaker 2: what I look up on the internet, it's who I
21:46
Speaker 2: can conversate with. It's it's everything, right, And if you
21:50
Speaker 2: take that away from me, then who who and what
21:53
Speaker 2: am I? And I didn't know. And there's a lot
21:56
Speaker 2: of rhetoric for like saying software life, you know, Special
21:58
Speaker 2: Operation Forces for life, Marine raider for life, this and that,
22:02
Speaker 2: recount for life. But the reality is when you leave,
22:05
Speaker 2: you're done. The phone stops ringing, Yeah, your buddy, stop call,
22:08
Speaker 2: they're they're moving on. They think that you're good. So, like,
22:12
Speaker 2: we could talk for hours about that. And what's what's
22:15
Speaker 2: interesting about that is that is the same across the
22:18
Speaker 2: board anything law enforcement, firefight, the fire service, medical community.
22:25
Speaker 1: A lot of athletes right have similar I said.
22:28
Speaker 2: It is the story I put in my book is
22:30
Speaker 2: like this about about a young man who starts like
22:33
Speaker 2: little like pee wee football at four years old, and
22:37
Speaker 2: he plays football there. He plays in elementary, middle, high school, college,
22:43
Speaker 2: gets in you know, or gets drafted straight into the NFL,
22:46
Speaker 2: and then blows his knee out at twenty three years old.
22:49
Speaker 2: This man does not remember not playing football. He is
22:52
Speaker 2: a footballer, that's what he does. And at twenty three
22:56
Speaker 2: years old he blows his knee out and can't play anymore.
23:01
Speaker 2: And Paul, I cannot tell you how many of those
23:03
Speaker 2: people have reached out to me and how many people
23:05
Speaker 2: I've met, and that same exact thing. At that young
23:08
Speaker 2: of age, they go, if I can't play the sport,
23:10
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm supposed to do in life.
23:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's it's it's across the board, right,
23:17
Speaker 1: is that when people have their identity wrapped up in
23:21
Speaker 1: their job and then that changes that that often people
23:26
Speaker 1: have a very very hard landing. And then and then
23:31
Speaker 1: often it will then coincide with age and the whole
23:36
Speaker 1: midlife crisis thing and changing hormones and all of that shit.
23:40
Speaker 2: That it's like a colossal, just epic shit chill, shit
23:46
Speaker 2: show all at once. That's exactly what happens, and that's
23:51
Speaker 2: the reason why. So so going back to your question
23:54
Speaker 2: is like one, it really started with me. I mean here,
23:57
Speaker 2: I am a six foot tall, two hundred and four
24:00
Speaker 2: ten percent body fat, you know, in my early thirties
24:03
Speaker 2: to a couple of years later, six foot tall, two
24:07
Speaker 2: hundred and forty almost thirty percent body.
24:09
Speaker 1: Fat, jumping jasus.
24:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love sharing that photo because to me, that
24:14
Speaker 2: the photo of me on the beach in Greece with
24:17
Speaker 2: my family looking like that shows how far you someone
24:21
Speaker 2: can get lost. And the truth of it is that guy,
24:26
Speaker 2: you know, and people go like, well, that wasn't that bad.
24:28
Speaker 2: You didn't look that bad, blah blah blah blah blah.
24:30
Speaker 2: You know, I think I did because the way I look,
24:33
Speaker 2: But you know, like I wasn't, you know, four hundred pounds,
24:36
Speaker 2: like we get guys that are coming in. I was
24:38
Speaker 2: out of shape. I was softened out of shape. And
24:41
Speaker 2: uh but the reality is, Paul, like I was depressed.
24:44
Speaker 2: I hated myself. I had a lot going on in
24:48
Speaker 2: my head that like that guy was miserable that lot,
24:51
Speaker 2: and that guy was living a life of quiet desperation.
24:55
Speaker 2: So through through a friend and actually a good friend,
24:59
Speaker 2: Nick Bear and BPN, I was doing a lot of
25:01
Speaker 2: media stuff and I became an athlete through Bear Performance
25:06
Speaker 2: Nutrition and one of their first actually and I said, hey, dude,
25:10
Speaker 2: I want to get in phenomenal shape. I want to
25:13
Speaker 2: show people what you can do. So I started this
25:15
Speaker 2: thing and I just like snapped out of it. I
25:18
Speaker 2: remembered who I was, and I did the did this
25:20
Speaker 2: thing called the ninety day vlog where I launched a
25:23
Speaker 2: business in ninety days. I went from like twenty eight
25:26
Speaker 2: percent body fat to ten percent body fat in ninety days.
25:31
Speaker 2: And I was going to make a video every single
25:33
Speaker 2: day for ninety days and just document this journey of
25:37
Speaker 2: how basically it was like a New Year's instead of
25:40
Speaker 2: having New Year's resolutions, because everybody has a New Year's resolution,
25:43
Speaker 2: but without a plan, your new year's resolution is just
25:46
Speaker 2: a wish, right, Yeah, So I want to show people
25:49
Speaker 2: how to execute. So I just threw myself in this
25:51
Speaker 2: hopper and I got in phenomenal shape. When I did
25:56
Speaker 2: the next year, people started asking me and I said,
25:59
Speaker 2: and it changed so much, Like as soon as I
26:01
Speaker 2: got in shape, I had you know, and I got
26:03
Speaker 2: my hormones figured out. On TRT, I had a lot
26:07
Speaker 2: more clarity in my life. Right the brain fog lifted,
26:10
Speaker 2: I had more energy and more drive. I had clarity
26:12
Speaker 2: in my vision of where I wanted to go. And
26:15
Speaker 2: I was like, holy shit, man, this is really this
26:17
Speaker 2: is the real deal. And then guys started hitting me
26:20
Speaker 2: up and I was like, oh, man, well you just
26:22
Speaker 2: need to get in shape. So Josh and I started,
26:25
Speaker 2: who was a teammate of mine, started what now is
26:29
Speaker 2: the AGOGI in twenty eighteen, and it was like old
26:32
Speaker 2: school fitness and nutrition coaching. I send you a Google sheet,
26:36
Speaker 2: you know, we worked off Google sheets and or whatever
26:39
Speaker 2: they were at the time. People would put in their
26:41
Speaker 2: macros and then we'd issue training and very rudimentary and go.
26:48
Speaker 1: Ahead before we dive, because I do want to dive
26:51
Speaker 1: into that, but I just want to rewind a little.
26:54
Speaker 1: How much of the how much of that descending fog
26:58
Speaker 1: and the difficulties of leaving the marines. How much of
27:03
Speaker 1: that do you think was that loss of identity as
27:08
Speaker 1: I'm no longer a marine reator, and how much of
27:11
Speaker 1: it was a loss of purpose? Have you ever thought
27:14
Speaker 1: about those elements.
27:16
Speaker 2: I think it was. I think it was one and
27:17
Speaker 2: the same. I think I think it was one and
27:20
Speaker 2: the same one, you know, one it's not who I
27:23
Speaker 2: am and then I And the thing is is I
27:26
Speaker 2: still had a job to do, like I still always
27:30
Speaker 2: created something. But I didn't know. I think I was
27:33
Speaker 2: just doing Paul, I don't think I had a true purpose,
27:36
Speaker 2: which is okay. I think people, I think we give
27:38
Speaker 2: too much weight to purpose. Purpose can be whatever you
27:41
Speaker 2: make it to be. It doesn't have to be this like,
27:44
Speaker 2: you know, like the heavens open up for the sins,
27:47
Speaker 2: you know. But I think people are waiting on that.
27:50
Speaker 2: They're like, I don't I haven't had this epiphany of
27:52
Speaker 2: my purpose. I'm like, dude, your purpose can be whatever
27:55
Speaker 2: you want it to be.
27:56
Speaker 1: I also say people are waiting for the purpose fairing.
27:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm like, dude, like there's so much weight
28:03
Speaker 2: given to this word purpose. And I'm like, dude, purpose
28:07
Speaker 2: can be whatever you want it to be. This week,
28:09
Speaker 2: like change it and it should change in a year
28:12
Speaker 2: it would be different. But to give your point, I
28:15
Speaker 2: didn't really know. I guess what direction I was just doing,
28:19
Speaker 2: which is good, right if you don't know what to
28:20
Speaker 2: do just do just that. Yeah, yeah, and then through
28:23
Speaker 2: that execution you'll find and that's exactly what happened to me.
28:26
Speaker 1: Well, I think they're doing is you're you're in forward
28:30
Speaker 1: motion towards something, right, and that that is what that's
28:34
Speaker 1: what brings them. We're talking about fairies, purpose veries, but
28:37
Speaker 1: that's what brings the motivation fairy. This is a lot
28:41
Speaker 1: of people are sitting waiting for the motivation fairy when
28:44
Speaker 1: they don't realize that if they start acting and have
28:49
Speaker 1: a goal and say they're in forwards motion towards your goal,
28:53
Speaker 1: that's what releases still puming in the brand and gives
28:55
Speaker 1: you further motivation.
28:57
Speaker 2: And through this journey right of this this this meat transitioning,
29:01
Speaker 2: it's all in the book me transitioning out of military
29:03
Speaker 2: and learning. I threw myself into like different therapies, and
29:07
Speaker 2: I threw myself. I became a guinea pig because I
29:09
Speaker 2: was running a nonprofit helping other veterans and so and
29:12
Speaker 2: that's and there's something to that, right, there's this this
29:15
Speaker 2: idea of service. You know, if you're depressed, go help somebody,
29:18
Speaker 2: go help, go help three people that are worse off
29:21
Speaker 2: than you. So I started doing I started doing that
29:24
Speaker 2: more and more, and because I was on this journey
29:28
Speaker 2: that was really no there was no destination for this journey.
29:31
Speaker 2: I was just doing. I was just executing. But through
29:34
Speaker 2: that I started to find different people and different things
29:38
Speaker 2: that would come across my life that I would gain
29:41
Speaker 2: more even more clarity. And it was like a positive
29:44
Speaker 2: snowball effect, and that I think that's it was. It wasn't.
29:49
Speaker 2: I didn't have this like idea of purpose other than
29:52
Speaker 2: I did this idea that I just needed to keep
29:56
Speaker 2: moving forward. And and that's when I developed my kind
29:59
Speaker 2: of like there was this thing that I say, and
30:01
Speaker 2: people even say it back to me now, and I
30:03
Speaker 2: have a shirt forward is never quit, never surrender, always forward,
30:06
Speaker 2: and it's just you know, by with and through. It's
30:09
Speaker 2: kind of like the old Special Operations idea of things.
30:12
Speaker 2: It was just continue if you you know, if you've
30:16
Speaker 2: got to go to move forward. If you hit a wall,
30:18
Speaker 2: maybe you need to go through it, maybe you need
30:20
Speaker 2: to go over it, maybe you need to go around it,
30:22
Speaker 2: you know, but regardless is don't stay where you're at,
30:25
Speaker 2: just keep moving forward. And and that's where I was
30:29
Speaker 2: for a long time. I was like, I'm just going
30:31
Speaker 2: to move forward. Now. Obviously, the more you lean into
30:34
Speaker 2: personal development, the more that I leaned into growth, the
30:38
Speaker 2: more that I kept doing that, things became I got smarter,
30:42
Speaker 2: and things did become more clear, and then I start realizing, like,
30:45
Speaker 2: what my you know, there was a thing that happened
30:49
Speaker 2: that I realized what my personal mission was. And once
30:53
Speaker 2: I realized that, things became even more clearer. And then
30:57
Speaker 2: and then we just dialed everything in over the Now.
31:01
Speaker 1: That's really interesting that you talk about that, because often
31:04
Speaker 1: if I'm in workshops and I'm talking about purpose, so
31:07
Speaker 1: and I'll say, very similar to what you're doing. There's
31:10
Speaker 1: a lot of people think that their purpose in life
31:13
Speaker 1: needs to be running a multimillion dollar startup and an
31:16
Speaker 1: orphanage in Nepal at the same time. And I'm like
31:19
Speaker 1: that that's bootshit when you look at all of it.
31:22
Speaker 1: It's about being of service, being an integrated part of
31:27
Speaker 1: the of your community, right, And I'm like, just just
31:31
Speaker 1: just start with something. And I get people to write
31:34
Speaker 1: a little tombstone statement about how they would like their
31:39
Speaker 1: life to be viewed when they've passed.
31:41
Speaker 2: And yeah, eulogy too. Yeah, it's powerful.
31:45
Speaker 1: And it's powerful right. But it then what it does
31:49
Speaker 1: is it starts to get people to think about how
31:52
Speaker 1: they want to be. And then I say, all I
31:55
Speaker 1: want you to do now is what you've written down here.
31:58
Speaker 1: Spend five to ten minutes day deliberately acting on that.
32:02
Speaker 1: So if it's about being a great dad or a
32:05
Speaker 1: great mom, spend five minutes a day deliberately being great.
32:09
Speaker 1: Because then when your attention is on it, your brain
32:14
Speaker 1: is going to commit sales to it, and it's you're
32:16
Speaker 1: going to get clarity over time, right, which is exactly
32:19
Speaker 1: what you just said.
32:20
Speaker 2: Where your focus goes, your energy flows.
32:22
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely so, So let's let's let's then
32:27
Speaker 1: tase apart. So I think we've established the importance of
32:31
Speaker 1: being in forwards motion and of of that. I loved
32:35
Speaker 1: what you said about was it by round and through
32:38
Speaker 1: in terms of all and through, by with and through,
32:42
Speaker 1: which is which is is awesome? So what what are
32:46
Speaker 1: talk me through some of the elements of your coaching,
32:50
Speaker 1: Whether you know how much of its mindset, how much
32:53
Speaker 1: of its physical? Why is the physical important? All of
32:56
Speaker 1: that stuff?
32:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely? So it started out physical pretty much only, and
33:02
Speaker 2: then Josh and I we get this stuff back because
33:05
Speaker 2: you do like weekly check ins, right, and we would
33:07
Speaker 2: get their stuff back, you see their weight, you know,
33:11
Speaker 2: and then we'd see their logs and we're like, dude,
33:14
Speaker 2: why can't these guys, these are grown men. Why can't
33:17
Speaker 2: these grown men stay consistent? Why can't they hit their numbers?
33:21
Speaker 2: Why can't they do the things that they're supposed to do?
33:24
Speaker 2: They wanted, they signed up, they're the ones paying. Why
33:27
Speaker 2: can't they do it? And so we started talking to
33:29
Speaker 2: these guys and we realized that they didn't have a
33:34
Speaker 2: fitness to nutrition problem. They had a mindset problem. They
33:38
Speaker 2: had a limiting belief problem, had a trauma problem. There
33:42
Speaker 2: were just broken men really on the on the inside
33:45
Speaker 2: that knewbody nobody knew. And so so we turned it
33:49
Speaker 2: into almost a men's mentorship community. So we started hosting
33:56
Speaker 2: I started hosting coaching calls. And this is really when
34:00
Speaker 2: things started to like we started to actually build a
34:02
Speaker 2: real company away from Excel sheets. So we had like,
34:05
Speaker 2: we developed an app and we started having zoom you know,
34:08
Speaker 2: group zoom calls, and we developed the thing that we're like,
34:10
Speaker 2: they could all be talking to each other like in
34:13
Speaker 2: social media, yeah, and really build a community. And we
34:17
Speaker 2: realized that when we started to attack the deep underlying
34:23
Speaker 2: issues of why they're self sabotaging, why they're choosing food
34:26
Speaker 2: as comfort, why they're choosing all these bad habits, that's
34:31
Speaker 2: when we started to see results and it wasn't enough.
34:35
Speaker 2: We started to like last year we actually just went
34:38
Speaker 2: through another revamp where we created I was like, it's
34:41
Speaker 2: not enough, man Like, still not enough. So two things
34:44
Speaker 2: that we did was we created this educational We have
34:48
Speaker 2: our pillars, which is our fitness pillar. Like I feel
34:50
Speaker 2: like fitness is a gateway drug to success. I love that. Yeah,
34:55
Speaker 2: it is because through fitness you find discipline, you find consistency,
34:59
Speaker 2: you find delayed gratification, which transfers into all areas of
35:04
Speaker 2: your life. Right, So fitness and then discipline, discipline in
35:08
Speaker 2: your life, discipline with your marriage, your children, your time,
35:12
Speaker 2: just being disciplined over well, being able to say no
35:15
Speaker 2: to things. Right.
35:16
Speaker 1: And it's interesting Nick that the discipline, it's like the D,
35:21
Speaker 1: the bad D word that people don't talk about right
35:25
Speaker 1: when it comes to behavioral change. And you read all
35:29
Speaker 1: the research and I'm thinking, where the hell's the discipline
35:32
Speaker 1: element to this? Because your motivation is great when it's around,
35:36
Speaker 1: but when motivations not there, that's when you're discipline is.
35:40
Speaker 2: And I love that you brought that up, because, Paul,
35:42
Speaker 2: how are you.
35:44
Speaker 1: I'm fifty three fifty that's a lie. I'm fifty four
35:47
Speaker 1: fifty four.
35:49
Speaker 2: That's what happens over fifty. I don't think it matters
35:51
Speaker 2: when you say that I.
35:53
Speaker 1: Just started fifty four last week.
35:54
Speaker 2: There you go, So at fifty four, are you motivated
35:58
Speaker 2: to get your body up and go train every day?
36:01
Speaker 1: That there's not a shitload of motivation, but I do
36:04
Speaker 1: it exactly.
36:05
Speaker 2: That's motivation is great. It's like a drug. It's like
36:08
Speaker 2: doing a line of cocaine. But it fades, Yes, it fades.
36:12
Speaker 2: And that's what people hit me out there, like, you
36:14
Speaker 2: don't need motivation. You don't need motivation, which you need
36:17
Speaker 2: as a plan. What you need is a why. And
36:19
Speaker 2: that kind of goes back to the third pillars. That is,
36:22
Speaker 2: we wrote belief for our third pillar, and belief being
36:27
Speaker 2: belief in yourself, believe in that you're worthy of love,
36:31
Speaker 2: being believing that you are worthy of success, that you
36:35
Speaker 2: don't have limiting beliefs, that you don't think that your
36:38
Speaker 2: past failures are going to be your future failures. That
36:41
Speaker 2: you're stuck in this whatever the system is, that you're
36:43
Speaker 2: in the belief that you can have the body that
36:46
Speaker 2: you want, that you can have the relationship that you
36:49
Speaker 2: want with your wife, that you can be the father
36:51
Speaker 2: to that you need to be with your kids, that
36:53
Speaker 2: you believe that. We found that when people don't believe that,
36:57
Speaker 2: they'll never achieve it until they start believing it.
37:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's I think that concept of belief is
37:03
Speaker 1: heavily wrapped up in hope and optimism. Yeah, if people
37:08
Speaker 1: don't have hope for the future, like Jesus, the wheels
37:12
Speaker 1: can come off big.
37:13
Speaker 2: Time, right, and then at the joint, right, if they
37:15
Speaker 2: don't have that, then what's the point? And the last
37:18
Speaker 2: one being tribe and we kind of it's kind of
37:21
Speaker 2: a tricky one because what it really comes down to
37:24
Speaker 2: for us and Josh and I and the rest of
37:26
Speaker 2: the guys is why do we Why do you get
37:28
Speaker 2: up in the morning and go sacrifice? Why do you
37:30
Speaker 2: go to the gym? Why do you why do you
37:32
Speaker 2: delay gratification? And for us, it's really about our tribe.
37:35
Speaker 2: It's it's our why because when we find a guy
37:37
Speaker 2: that's like, I just want to look good, naked for me. Well,
37:40
Speaker 2: when it's four o'clock in the morning, it's it's it's
37:42
Speaker 2: thirty degrees out in the garage and you got to
37:44
Speaker 2: go do burpies for you know, for time for ten
37:47
Speaker 2: minutes Like that doesn't sound real fun, but it's so
37:51
Speaker 2: that my son looks at me and doesn't think that
37:53
Speaker 2: I'm a fat piece of shit. It looks at me
37:55
Speaker 2: as a superhero and a role model and says that
37:57
Speaker 2: on when I grow up, I want to be like you.
37:59
Speaker 2: That's what will get you out out of the bed.
38:00
Speaker 2: You know, looking good naked, that's only going to get
38:03
Speaker 2: you so far. It's like motivation. We have to have
38:05
Speaker 2: a deeper why of why we are doing the uncomfortable things,
38:09
Speaker 2: why we're choosing hard over easy every single day. And
38:11
Speaker 2: it's got to be greater than ourselves.
38:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and not three welbins. Find your why, you'll
38:16
Speaker 1: find your way. But he stole it from Frederick Nietzsche,
38:20
Speaker 1: the German philosopher one hundred years ago said he has
38:23
Speaker 1: a why to live for can bear almost any high.
38:26
Speaker 2: And I'm sure it probably came even further from that
38:29
Speaker 2: than you know, lots of and you know, and probably
38:32
Speaker 2: they stole it from who knows what you know prior
38:34
Speaker 2: to that, but it is true the human body. I
38:37
Speaker 2: like Simon Sinek's talk on how great leaders inspire if
38:41
Speaker 2: you ever if anybody's ever seen that, and he really
38:43
Speaker 2: breaks the psychology down of the why and the humor
38:46
Speaker 2: with why yeah, and how we associate with things at
38:51
Speaker 2: a very deep emotional level, and then you get people.
38:54
Speaker 2: If you want to inspire people, you have to give
38:56
Speaker 2: them the why. And that's part of the one of
38:58
Speaker 2: the reasons why we do so we had those are
39:00
Speaker 2: our pillars. Those are the foundation, a bedrock of what
39:03
Speaker 2: we stand on. But then we took another phase. We
39:06
Speaker 2: took it another step further. We developed these four phases,
39:10
Speaker 2: and the first one was mastering yourself, Like you have
39:13
Speaker 2: to master yourself. You can't do anything until you can.
39:16
Speaker 2: You can master yourself in all areas, your fitness, your belief,
39:21
Speaker 2: those pillars that we told you about. And a lot
39:23
Speaker 2: of guys like, well, I want my money better and
39:25
Speaker 2: I want my relationship better. I'm like, well, none of
39:28
Speaker 2: that's going to be better until you are better. Like
39:31
Speaker 2: you can. If you don't have the discipline to put
39:33
Speaker 2: the cookie down, you're not going to have discipline to
39:35
Speaker 2: save a tenth of your earnings.
39:37
Speaker 1: I think it's Leonardo da Vinci who talks about dominion
39:41
Speaker 1: over yourself and having master and he says, he said,
39:45
Speaker 1: without that and you got nothing.
39:48
Speaker 2: You got nothing. So we developed this educational platform and
39:52
Speaker 2: we broke down what does it mean to master yourself?
39:54
Speaker 2: And so what we did was we created that, right,
39:56
Speaker 2: we created this platform to to really dive into how
40:02
Speaker 2: do I master myself? With all the worksheets, all the coaching, everything,
40:05
Speaker 2: the videos, and then we and we make it sequential
40:08
Speaker 2: because like the second one is leading your family, Phase
40:11
Speaker 2: two is leading your family. You cannot lead your family
40:14
Speaker 2: until you can lead yourself. Because if you come in
40:16
Speaker 2: and we saw this and we used to do these
40:17
Speaker 2: thirty day challenges, Paul and these guys would jump on
40:20
Speaker 2: the challenge and they'd pay their little ninety nine dollars
40:22
Speaker 2: and they'd do this thirty day challenge like, oh yeah,
40:24
Speaker 2: I got my Macros, this is my food list, and
40:26
Speaker 2: they go into the kitchen they start throwing stuff out
40:29
Speaker 2: and Okay, tell the whole family that we're doing it.
40:32
Speaker 2: I'm doing a challenge. You're doing a challenge. We're all
40:34
Speaker 2: doing a challenge. And the wife's like, you are the
40:37
Speaker 2: one puking picking cheetos out of your belly button last
40:40
Speaker 2: night while you were sitting on the couch watching Netflix.
40:43
Speaker 2: Who what are you talking about? No sugar and all this,
40:46
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like just trust, absolutely, no belief, no,
40:51
Speaker 2: you know, like absolutely, just you know, a complete hypocritical person, right,
40:56
Speaker 2: And I was like, guys, and we saw this time
40:57
Speaker 2: and time again, like my family won't get on board,
41:00
Speaker 2: et cetera. I'm like, of course they're not going to
41:02
Speaker 2: get on board, Like you're not consistent, they don't believe you,
41:05
Speaker 2: you're full of shit.
41:07
Speaker 1: You got to earn the right to lead in any
41:09
Speaker 1: any to me in.
41:10
Speaker 2: Right, heks? Right, So so that's what we did. And
41:14
Speaker 2: then and then we start to and then phase two
41:17
Speaker 2: is really diving into with the significant other leading the family.
41:20
Speaker 2: Being an intentional father. What kind of father are you?
41:23
Speaker 2: You know, truly being an intentional one, not a present one,
41:26
Speaker 2: but an intentional one, having rebuilding rebuilding trust from broken promises,
41:32
Speaker 2: you know, and having to kind of you know, there's
41:35
Speaker 2: some workshops in there of having needed what we call
41:39
Speaker 2: the need a needy conversation with your significant other where
41:42
Speaker 2: they kind of down, they kind of get to download
41:44
Speaker 2: everything that they've that you've potentially done to them, vertally
41:48
Speaker 2: or invertly. It doesn't really matter right or indirectly or whatever.
41:52
Speaker 2: Not on purpose maybe, but how how it affected them,
41:56
Speaker 2: And maybe there's some resentment that's being built up. And
41:58
Speaker 2: resentment will kill any relationship. It's like a cancer. We
42:02
Speaker 2: have to get rid of resentment. So we have these
42:05
Speaker 2: things in there, and it's only then that we can
42:07
Speaker 2: get the phase three, which is master your finances. Funny
42:11
Speaker 2: your financial plan. Well, then you're going to have You're
42:14
Speaker 2: gonna have problems there, You're going to have rub there,
42:16
Speaker 2: You're going to have strife in your relationship because you
42:19
Speaker 2: guys are not heading in the same direction. You don't
42:21
Speaker 2: have the same vision. So all this financial stuff that
42:23
Speaker 2: you want to do and I talk about online or
42:26
Speaker 2: I talk about in the group is not all or
42:28
Speaker 2: not because it's going to create havoc in your in
42:30
Speaker 2: your house. She has to be aligned with you. The
42:33
Speaker 2: only way she can be aligned with you is if
42:35
Speaker 2: we go back to mastering yourself and that you're leading
42:38
Speaker 2: with intention and purpose. Right, she has trust you guys
42:42
Speaker 2: are on the same page. You've rebuilt your relationship, you're
42:45
Speaker 2: dating your wife, your wife is now your girlfriend, you
42:48
Speaker 2: know what I mean? Yeah, And it's only then that
42:52
Speaker 2: we can master your finances. And then we get into
42:55
Speaker 2: really really diving into what that means and really unconvinced
43:02
Speaker 2: wealth wealth growth, like really how wealthy people utilize wealth,
43:06
Speaker 2: you know, utilizing debt and how they use debt and
43:10
Speaker 2: life insurance and a lot of different things for investments
43:12
Speaker 2: and whatnot. So we dive heavily to that. And the
43:14
Speaker 2: last phase is the legacy, the leadership. You know, what
43:18
Speaker 2: is what is your legacy? What is that going to build?
43:23
Speaker 2: And kind of go from there.
43:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like the step wise approach through that that
43:28
Speaker 1: it's that it's it's built from the bottom up. And
43:32
Speaker 1: I think that I mean a few elements of that
43:35
Speaker 1: that basically, trust really comes from doing what you say
43:39
Speaker 1: that you're going to do. And if there's broken promises
43:42
Speaker 1: that that will kill the trust in and if people
43:44
Speaker 1: are not aligned. You got two different people rowing in
43:48
Speaker 1: different directions, the folk's going breaking now.
43:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how many times have we met people or
43:53
Speaker 2: seen that where it's like, oh, you guys are a mess.
43:56
Speaker 2: You guys are going nowhere fast right. Yeah?
43:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, So me, what's the what what is the biggest
44:04
Speaker 1: thing that kind of comes out from guys who've gone
44:08
Speaker 1: through your program, Like, what what is the biggest difference
44:12
Speaker 1: you see from the start to the finish?
44:14
Speaker 2: Man, I'll say this, I got a text from a
44:18
Speaker 2: guy just as we got on chance down in Florida
44:22
Speaker 2: with the fam riding roller coasters left and right. Last
44:24
Speaker 2: time here, I was too fat to write anything. Now
44:27
Speaker 2: I'm making memories with the kids. Thanks for giving me
44:30
Speaker 2: this gift.
44:30
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty cool. That must give you goosebumps when
44:34
Speaker 1: you get stuff.
44:35
Speaker 2: Like that makes you want to cry, Paul, that's every day,
44:38
Speaker 2: that's every day. I think the biggest thing out of
44:40
Speaker 2: is that I give people the permission to take over
44:43
Speaker 2: their life, to be the capital of their own ship
44:45
Speaker 2: and the CEO of their own life. Yeah, that's very cool.
44:48
Speaker 1: I mean the last question and how much building a
44:54
Speaker 1: community and how much is it done for you? Having
44:58
Speaker 1: been the guy who's been through several different identities and
45:04
Speaker 1: now you've got that community, what's the impact on you? Man?
45:08
Speaker 2: I'll tell you. I literally will post in our group
45:11
Speaker 2: all the time because I'll link up with people there
45:13
Speaker 2: isn't a problem or a place that I can go
45:18
Speaker 2: that I don't find somebody from our community and have
45:22
Speaker 2: the most wholesome, real world conversations that men aren't having
45:28
Speaker 2: anywhere else. And the fact to think that me and
45:31
Speaker 2: my best friend built this over years from nothing, and
45:36
Speaker 2: I learned so much just being just linking up with
45:39
Speaker 2: these men and having them kind of open up. And
45:43
Speaker 2: it's to have to give them an opportunity to just
45:47
Speaker 2: be open and real with really what's going on, because
45:50
Speaker 2: everybody's pat this facade, right, nobody, nobody ever. You know,
45:53
Speaker 2: you ask a man how he's doing, fine, the reality
45:56
Speaker 2: is you scratch just a little bit of crust off
45:59
Speaker 2: the surface and there's a lot of pain going on,
46:01
Speaker 2: a lot of lone a lot of loneliness, a lot
46:03
Speaker 2: of heartache, a lot of frustration and uh, and to
46:07
Speaker 2: be able to create have created something that gives them
46:11
Speaker 2: a place to be open and honest. But not just
46:16
Speaker 2: like don't get me wrong, we're not a cry like
46:19
Speaker 2: a crying place. You know, we'll acknowledge the pain, we'll
46:22
Speaker 2: acknowledge the trauma. And I kind of want to talk
46:24
Speaker 2: about the retreat real quick, but we'll acknowledge all that.
46:28
Speaker 2: But we're a very because I think of our background,
46:30
Speaker 2: we're a very tactical community. Like I like, that's why
46:36
Speaker 2: the phases were so important. I have to give a
46:38
Speaker 2: man needs a task. Okay, this is broken, this is
46:42
Speaker 2: not right. What is the tool that's going to get
46:45
Speaker 2: me to the next level? Right? Like, I don't want
46:48
Speaker 2: to just give it to God, I don't, you know.
46:49
Speaker 2: And I understand that I'm a faith guy as well,
46:51
Speaker 2: but like God doesn't drive a park car, like, we
46:54
Speaker 2: have to actually do.
46:56
Speaker 1: Something, and he's not coming to sort your shd eyed either, right.
47:01
Speaker 2: Right, He's already given you the tools. You got to
47:04
Speaker 2: do the work, right. And so I think that's what
47:07
Speaker 2: it comes down to is just the fact that we've
47:10
Speaker 2: been able to like I feel so fulfilled that we
47:14
Speaker 2: have created a place for the men that raise their
47:17
Speaker 2: hand and say, you know what, that's the type of
47:20
Speaker 2: guy that I want. That's the type of guy that
47:22
Speaker 2: I am, and the inside I just got to get
47:24
Speaker 2: I just got to get all this other stuff out
47:27
Speaker 2: of it, you know. And I think it's designed because
47:29
Speaker 2: you take men and you isolate them and they lose
47:31
Speaker 2: their power. Unite men in a community can't beat them. Yeah,
47:38
Speaker 2: you can go to my website Nicko Molassos dot com,
47:42
Speaker 2: Orthegogi dot com. Thank you Paul very much. Oh so
47:55
Speaker 2: this is yeah, Paul, this was This was the biggest
47:58
Speaker 2: thing man, because we've been running events for a long
48:01
Speaker 2: time and you can only do so much online. I
48:05
Speaker 2: was literally talking to my wife. I was like, I
48:07
Speaker 2: just need to get my hands on these guys, like
48:09
Speaker 2: I want to get my hands on them and have
48:11
Speaker 2: and online is great. Online's great, but there is something
48:16
Speaker 2: kind of magical when you get a group of men
48:20
Speaker 2: in a room together. I and I can prove that
48:24
Speaker 2: to you because if any man listening to this thinks
48:27
Speaker 2: about when there's no women around and they go link
48:29
Speaker 2: up with all their bros, whether it be for positive
48:32
Speaker 2: or negative reasons, whether they're drinking or they're doing something
48:36
Speaker 2: like a camping trip, it doesn't really matter what it
48:38
Speaker 2: is doing jiu jitsu doesn't really matter. When guys link up,
48:42
Speaker 2: the weight comes off their shoulders, they laugh more, they
48:46
Speaker 2: tell stories. That's what we created. But with intention. What
48:54
Speaker 2: I learned was that through doing this and I really
49:00
Speaker 2: they didn't believe it. I didn't know one in three
49:02
Speaker 2: men are physically abused one in four men are sexually abused,
49:10
Speaker 2: and that statistics rain true every single time I get
49:13
Speaker 2: a group of people in their inner room. And this
49:17
Speaker 2: is the reason why men continue to step sabotage, and
49:21
Speaker 2: they do. They do the roller coaster because they haven't
49:25
Speaker 2: dealt with that. And I have this thing where I
49:27
Speaker 2: talk about I can take shit and turn into apple pie.
49:30
Speaker 2: And I really believe. I really do believe that, and
49:33
Speaker 2: I've got I've proven it multiple times in private rooms
49:36
Speaker 2: where the worst of the worst and you're like, there's
49:38
Speaker 2: no way, how do I turn this into a superpower?
49:40
Speaker 2: And we do it every time, but I can't. That's
49:42
Speaker 2: not something I can do online. I've got to break
49:45
Speaker 2: bread with you. I've got to sweat with you. I've
49:48
Speaker 2: got to earn your trust. I've got to give you
49:51
Speaker 2: permission to know that my heart is your heart and
49:54
Speaker 2: your heart is mine, and we're good to go. We're friends,
49:57
Speaker 2: we're brothers. And when all of that, and I know
50:00
Speaker 2: it sounds crazy, but when all of that weight comes away,
50:02
Speaker 2: all of that verbado and all of that ego comes
50:05
Speaker 2: away and stripes down, that's when men can open up
50:09
Speaker 2: and the most amazing thing happens and when you when
50:14
Speaker 2: a man can shed that weight that's he's been holding
50:18
Speaker 2: on for years, is when he can really really his
50:22
Speaker 2: life will sore. He can be the leader that he
50:26
Speaker 2: can be the leader that he knows he was supposed
50:27
Speaker 2: to become. He can he can be the husband that
50:31
Speaker 2: he knew was supposed to become. He can have the
50:32
Speaker 2: body that he was always meant to have. And it
50:35
Speaker 2: was those little things that was that was keeping him
50:38
Speaker 2: from that. It was the obstacle. And that's what we
50:42
Speaker 2: do on these retreats is we break bread. And it's
50:46
Speaker 2: crazy twenty twenty five, we're more connected. I'm talking to
50:49
Speaker 2: you in Melbourne, Australia. I got family there, and I'm
50:52
Speaker 2: in North Carolina. We're more connected than we ever have
50:55
Speaker 2: been ever in the history of men. Right yet we
50:59
Speaker 2: are more disconnected than ever before as well. And that's
51:04
Speaker 2: what that's why I think this mission is so important
51:06
Speaker 2: is online communities are great, but we have to break
51:10
Speaker 2: bread together. We've got a sweat together.