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11: Superhero By Design w/ Ace Hagerty · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is harder than life a podcast about self-love self-awareness business and health We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple practical advice. You can start using today. Let's get living
• 0:15
  Being available for positivity and creating space for good things to happen led me to meet this amazing individual. I was asked to be on a superhero by design podcast and instantly liked this guy. I mean, come on, anyone with a nickname Ace is okay in my book. Matthew Ace Haggerty is a businessman by trade and invests in the communities as well as looking to improve himself and possibly you.
• 0:38
  He recently wrote the book also named Superhero by Design that provides simple ways to transform your life and change the world. Welcome, Matt. Hey, thanks for having me on. It is an honor and a privilege to be sitting in front of you again. That's good times. Matthew, let's jump right in. Do you prefer Matthew or Ace? Ace?
• 1:00
  Let's go with Ace. I love it. I love it. Tell the listeners about the superhero by design quarter quest challenge available on your website. And it says you can change your life in less than 30 days. How, why is this important? And is this the hundred day challenge? Lots there. So jump right in. Man, you're, you're hitting me with a whole, whole, a ton of bricks to begin with. Well,
• 1:27
  Once again, thank you for having me on because your message, I'm going to switch up here real quick. Your message is absolutely powerful. I know we connected really well when you came on to my podcast. And I am just so privileged to be sharing my story with your audience. And it's my goal to help empower and lead people to live meaningful lives. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't say that enough.
• 1:57
  The quarter quest is a breakdown of the 100-day challenge. What the 100-day challenge is, for anybody that's familiar with guys like Andy Fursella, he has 75 hard. There's programs like that. Well, the 100-day challenge, take 75 hard is like preschool. No offense to Andy, but the 100-day challenge. You hear that, Andy? Yeah.
• 2:23
  Yeah, so it is 25 days longer, so almost a month longer. And I did everything that there is in 75 hard, not even knowing what it was at the time when I first did this. So what the 100-day challenge is...
• 2:39
  is there's eight categories of our lives. I'm not going to get into all of them, but there's things like health and fitness, relationships, emotions and meaning, finances. So these, these eight different parts of your life, and you can choose as little as one, or you could do all eight, or you could do.
• 2:58
  Somewhere in the middle. It doesn't really matter. This challenge is designed to meet you where you're at, what you want to change in your life. And for 100 days, you are pushing yourself from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep. It is like a boot camp for changing your life and transforming yourself from the inside out.
• 3:20
  Now, the quarter quest I have on the website, and essentially what that is, it's just a quarter of the 100-day challenge. It's very similar, but it's a much shorter time frame, and the reason for that is 100 days is a long commitment. When I did this challenge the first time, I committed to diet, I committed to exercise, getting up early, cold showers, breathing.
• 3:44
  super oxygenated breathing, all these crazy things. I wrote the book Superhero by Design within that 100 days. So I went, I just jumped in feet first.
• 3:56
  The quarter quest is just a breakdown of that because there's been a lot of studies on how long habits take to come in. You know, it could be as short as 25 days. It could be 150 days. There's many factors that go into establishing new habits and breaking old habits. So I started with the 25 days because most people can do something within a month. They can start going to the gym.
• 4:25
  They can get on a diet. And so 25 days is a good barometer to test, okay, what's working, what's not working? Because in the 100-day challenge, every quarter I would do an assessment. Okay, what's working, what's not working? Am I gonna take this off because I just don't wanna do it? Or is it leading me towards my goals or not? So I have found when I do the 100-day challenge that about every quarter of it,
• 4:54
  I'm able to evaluate, like I said, what's working, what's not working, adjust my course, and then continue on with my mission.
• 5:04
  100 days sounds good. Just to, I read the same study. The study says that it takes 78 days to form a habit. So I ask people in my book, Harder Than Life, to do something for 90 days. It says you can cinch that habit and those extra 12. So 100 sounds great. It's a good marketing thing. And you may get 100 days and...
• 5:25
  I don't know. We're going to shout this out to Andy for selling and say that, you know, you're a little B. I'm kidding. I love that. I'm smaller than him. I'm, I'm in a cut phase of, of my diet. So I'm doing another a hundred day challenge right now. I am on day 18 and I am in a massive cut. I am down to 134 pounds. I'm five foot 10. I weigh now a buck. Nothing. So soaking wet. Like my body fat percentage right now is probably in the seven to 8% range.
• 5:53
  Andrew for sell is a big dude. I don't know if I want to mess with him. However, during this challenge as well, I'm starting to, uh, go to Brazilian jujitsu classes. And I know if you know jujitsu pretty well, you can pretty much take anybody down size doesn't matter. So come to me at day 99 and Andy and I can have a challenge and we'll see, uh, we'll see who'll win at the end of, uh,
• 6:16
  at the end of my hundred days. Well, I'm probably about 6% body fat and I'm 220 pounds. So I'm not afraid. I'll call him out. I'm not just messing with him. He and I would get along. We'd be fast friends. So eventually where I'm coming and where I'm headed is I will be on a stage with him someday and we will, I will give him, I will give him some good ribbons. So it is well documented that a divorce was the catalyst to your transformation. What's your story and why does it matter?
• 6:46
  Well, that, that day still, it's hard to bring up. It was the worst day of my life in so many different ways. We have these milestones in our lives that we remember just like everybody remembers nine 11, right? Well, I guess if you're old enough, you remember nine 11. And I can distinctly remember that day. Like it was yesterday.
• 7:17
  And I was, the backstory up to that day was I just wasn't living to the person I knew I could be. I wanted to be that man. I wanted to be the great husband. I wanted to be the guy who was in control of my quote unquote vices and things that held me back from really...
• 7:40
  giving everything to every day and accomplishing everything I set out to do that I knew in my heart I could do. But I wasn't living up to that man. I was not, when I looked at the man in the mirror,
• 7:53
  I saw what I thought was a good man, but it was kind of a facade. It was a facade to my now ex-wife in a lot of ways. It was a facade to myself. I wasn't being genuine or real with who I am. On the outside, it looked great. I was working hard. I had successful businesses. I was providing above and beyond for my family.
• 8:15
  But really the important things, the relationships, the connection, the love, the growth, the contribution, all of those things that really matter in life that really make us happy, they weren't there. And I was miserable and I would mask it with things like alcohol or pornography and all of those things. And that obviously caused issues in my marriage. And so...
• 8:40
  I outlined this in the book, so I'm not going to get into all the details, but my wife at the time came up to me and she was like, Hey, like I found these receipts, were you drinking on your business trip to Texas? And usually I would try to, well, I couldn't get out of that one, but usually I'd try to get out of that one and skirt my way through it. And she was tired. I was tired and I was like, you know what I did?
• 9:08
  I'm sorry, I didn't tell you. There's a lot of shame that comes with this. There's a lot of...
• 9:15
  junk in my head that I've used in the past for my upbringing and my family history that just really disempowered me. And her coming to me, not only was the catalyst for that, but me also responding to her and owning it. This is on me. And I am going to do everything I can from today, moving forward to fix this. No more excuses, no more bullshit, no more trying to
• 9:42
  take the easy way out. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right. I know it's going to be hard. I'm going to have to transform myself from the inside out. There's no pill to fix this. There's no quick fix. There's no product I can buy or some influencer I can follow that's going to change my life. I have to do the work myself. And from that day forward, that's what I did. It sounds like we missed some of the story though. So was there...
• 10:08
  Obviously, there was something that happened before that, that she didn't want you drinking when you're out of town. Just don't go into detail. I'm sure it's in the book. So what was... Oh, no, no, no. Hey, I'm an open book, so read on, pun intended. Superhero by design. That's right. My parents met in AA. Yeah.
• 10:32
  So if that's not enough of a backstory, for those of you that don't, I'm sure everyone knows what AA is, but for those that don't, Alcoholics Anonymous, that's where they had met. I grew up in a family of addiction. My mother would drink periodically and become this completely different person. Rage of emotions. My dad was clean my entire life, except instead of alcohol, it was like prescription medicines like Percocet, things like that. And they were heavy smokers. And so...
• 11:03
  In my upbringing, it was pretty chaotic at times. I had a great upbringing, parents that loved me unconditionally, but they didn't know how to deal with their traumas. Because as I got older and started to learn more about them,
• 11:17
  And what they went through, oh man, it makes it look like I had it easy compared to their upbringings, but they weren't given the tools nor taught or shown the way to really get past those traumas, work through them and pick up better habits or better tools that they can use to deal with emotions and stress and everything that life throws at us, the good, the bad, the ugly. And so that was the household I grew up in. I have an identical twin brother.
• 11:47
  We were very codependent on one another. So codependency was huge in my house. Communication was not existent. You didn't communicate. You didn't speak up. And so I learned all these defense mechanisms as a child.
• 12:01
  that worked and got me through my childhood. But as you grow into adulthood, those things that you used as a child, codependence, all those things, they no longer work anymore. And so I started to get a lot of anxiety. I would have panic attacks, especially when my mother was dying of cancer.
• 12:22
  all these fears. I didn't know what to do. I was in my mid to late twenties at that point. And things like alcohol would take me away from it for a little bit. I never used it to not be a responsible person. I took care of my parents. I took care of them during hospice. Both my brother and I did. We always stepped up when we needed to step up. We didn't let any of that crap like derail us.
• 12:48
  off our lives. We went to college. I have multiple engineering degrees. I had a really good job, uh,
• 12:55
  Well, ever since I've gone out, I've had really good jobs. I'm a business owner now. So I'm always been driven and pushing myself to be the best version of myself. But I just didn't have direction. I didn't have proper mentorship. I didn't have a proper masculine father. I love my father to death, but he just wasn't that person in my life. And so... Do you still have a relationship with them? Both my parents have since passed. I'm sorry. So, but...
• 13:24
  On that point, I did finally, I fell into mentorship.
• 13:29
  an old boss of mine became a personal mentor to me. He turned me on to Tony Robbins and self-help books and tools and ways of improving my, my life. And so that was around the age of 30, I'm 40 in a couple of weeks. So that was almost 10 years ago that I had met my first mentor and he finally started to give me direction and guidance. And I didn't even realize it, but he is just.
• 13:57
  man, I just have so much respect and love for that man. He is the most masculine man I have ever met in all the right ways. And he showed me what it is to be a man. He showed me how to step up. But it was a learning process. So I would let things, coping mechanisms with stress of work, the stress I put on myself, really. I would drink. I would hide it from my wife. I would lie about it.
• 14:22
  I would use pornography and not to say that it was all on me. Obviously, every relationship, there's two people involved, but I have to only I can only own my part of it. And if I don't own my part of it, then I'm just going to carry this along to the next relationship and the next relationship. So she was the catalyst. Yeah.
• 14:46
  but I had to do the work from there on. And she had enough. That was, that event was the straw that broke the camel's back. And I thank God every day that that happened. I'm gonna stop you right there, because did you, we tend to not go right into the personal development self-help work.
• 15:05
  is how much you may be different because there's so much more to you beneath the surface like an iceberg man there's i did not pick any of this up when i was on your podcast so i am so grateful that you agreed to come on the harder than life podcast because i get to really know you and i i give this sneaky suspicion we're going to be lifelong friends so i'm grateful and i love you and i'm proud of you but i gotta ask you
• 15:33
  What did you do after the divorce or after she asked for the divorce and separation? Did you go on a bender, on a spiral? What did you do? I started working on myself. So I went through a couple of days.
• 15:47
  Uh, immediately. So a couple of days after that had happened, there was an event called undisputed mastery, my mentor and coach, Dr. Keith Wagner puts it on every year. It's an event for men and it it's one of those immersion events. So you're there for three or four days and we box. So there's professional MMA fighters there.
• 16:08
  And I've never worn gloves before. I'm not traditionally a physical guy. So it completely pushed me out of my comfort zone. But we do things like boxing. We do other emotional and physical exercises to really push ourselves out of our comfort zone. Dig up a lot of that stuff. During that event, I didn't even realize how much resentment I held towards my parents for their life choices. And I got all of that out in...
• 16:37
  Those events are so amazing because in a matter of days, if not a day, you can make such a monumental, a paradigm shift in your life. So I went to that event. Part of me, I call them my saboteurs, were telling me, no, focus on your marriage, focus on your marriage. But-
• 16:58
  I didn't listen to them. I was like, I have to do this. My life is in complete shambles right now, but I need to go to this event, be around like-minded people, people that want to better themselves, help me and really push through these barriers that I've, that I had for myself. So I went to that event, phenomenal event. That's where I got the name ACE. It was given to me. It was called a championship name because at the end of the event, we got into a boxing ring
• 17:27
  with a Hall of Fame MMA fighter. And we called it the championship round. So we went at it with this fighter. And he gave me a couple good blows. I think I tell the story at the beginning of the book. And man, it was just a life-changing event. Now, I love immersion events. Love them. Love them.
• 17:50
  But they only get you so far. Like I said at the beginning, it was a paradigm shift, a shift in my perspective, a shift in my thinking. And so that event was probably October of 2021, October, November. And the 100-day challenge didn't start till January of 2022.
• 18:12
  So from that time to January, I was like, okay, I need to do all these different things. I need to get in shape because at that time I kind of had a beer gut and I had never been in shape my entire life and I needed to clean up my diet. I needed to start...
• 18:30
  working on my relationship with my wife, but I knew I had to work on myself too. So I started to take cold showers because I knew that gave you a lot of energy. And there's a lot of health reasons for it as well, but I mainly used it so I could have more energy at the beginning of my day. I follow Wim Hof a lot. And so I started to do what's called the Wim Hof method of breathing.
• 18:55
  And that also too is another way of getting your adrenaline up. I didn't know any of this at the time. I just knew I learned these things, taking little things from like Tony Robbins events here and there and, uh, undisputed mastery. And so I started to implement them in my life. And so from about November to January, I made little shifts, you know, I was headed in the right direction, but I wasn't making massive changes and I was doing a lot of things right, but I was still doing a lot of things wrong.
• 19:25
  I wasn't drinking anymore because I knew I had to cut that out completely if I wanted to make a serious change. But if I'm being completely honest, I was still watching pornography a little bit here and there, but I was still watching it. Right. So I still was using some of these coping mechanisms. So when the 100 day challenge hit and going through that event, it's not a two to three day immersion event. It is 100 days off.
• 19:52
  of grinding, getting up early, putting in the work, doing your job, going to bed, resetting, and doing it the next day. No days off. Saturday's not a day off. Sunday's not a day off. It is a hundred day bootcamp. And that is what really changed my life, was the consistency, the commitment, the determination, and just doing everything.
• 20:20
  All of those rituals, morning rituals, evening rituals, writing the book, researching the book, going to the gym, meal prepping, meal planning, sticking to it, saying no to that ice cream, saying no to going out with the guys or anything like that. And I loved it. I loved it. I'm sorry. There's so much impact there. Did you go to any, did you,
• 20:48
  Did you go to AA or use anything to quit the alcohol? No. I tried AA in the past several times because that's what my parents did. And I would get through it. I went through the 12-step process a couple times. But I'm not here to say AA is good, bad, right, or wrong. Everybody's different and everybody has a different approach at what they need. The thing I realized about AA, and this is just my opinion...
• 21:18
  I saw people taking one addiction and swapping it for another addiction, whether it was drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes. And I thought to myself, I just don't want to replace one thing for another. I want to solve the problem. And the biggest problem I have with AA is step one says we are powerless over alcohol. I never want to be powerless over anything. The only thing I'm powerless over is God. And that's it.
• 21:46
  I don't want a substance to have power over me. I want to have power over the substance. I want to have power in my life over everything I can control. Hence superhero. I get it. I get it. What was your demon porn or drinking?
• 22:08
  Well, so those were the byproducts. So I name, I talked about the sages and the saboteurs. Essentially the saboteurs are the voices in our head.
• 22:19
  that disempower us, that tell us we're not good enough, that we're never going to be loved. And the sages are like the angel and the devil, right? Let's stop right there. I have a follow-up just because you're talking, going into it. So oftentimes, and I'm going to want you to go into this, but oftentimes when there's a vacuum, it's filled with negativity. So you're going right into that. And you obviously have turned the corner, and I just want you to end it with what was missing? What was missing?
• 22:49
  And so you're going down your sage and saboteurs. So that's the, instead of doing the negativity and filling it with negativity, which is booze and porn or gambling or drugs or whatever, you did this, but keep going down your sage and saboteurs because I want the listeners to understand that if you give it, give space, it's usually filled with negativity, but this is what ACE does instead. Yeah, well, it's, what are you feeding, right? Like with our bodies, when we feed ourselves good food,
• 23:18
  what's going to happen? Well, we're going to lose weight. Like we have to work out to gain muscle, but if you're feeding yourself good food, your body's going to be healthy. You're going to lose weight. You're going to feel better. You're going to have more energy. If you're going to, uh, Taco Bell every day, how are you going to feel after it? Lethargic sluggish your body might get used to it because that's what you're used to having, but you're going to have health issues,
• 23:42
  And all of that. So every choice we make, it's either going to benefit you or it's going to hurt you. There's no way around that. It's going to be one way or the other. So what I started to do was really feed the sages. Because if I feed the sages with my thoughts, my words, and my actions, they're going to get stronger. If I starve my saboteurs, they're going to get smaller and weaker. Now, they're never going to go away. This is a daily...
• 24:13
  battle, a daily fight. Some call it good versus evil. But every day I wake up, I do the habits that I need to do. So I do Tony Robbins priming now. I still do my cold showers. I read good, uplifting, self-help books every day. I'm feeding my mind positivity and good energy. I'm not familiar with Tony Robbins'
• 24:41
  the habit that you can tell me, tell us what that is. Yeah. So Tony Robbins, he does this thing called priming and you can look it up on YouTube. There's like a 15 minute video. Absolutely incredible. And I do it every morning. So it encompasses a few different things. Gratitude.
• 24:59
  So I used to write in a gratitude journal, but now I get my gratitude through the priming, essentially Wim Hof breathing, hyperventilation breathing. That's to get my arousal system up in the morning. So I go from being more calm to more alert, more focused. So it wakes me up by the breathing. I do the gratefulness. So I get some serotonin kicking in. So I feel better. I feel grateful for...
• 25:27
  what I have, other parts of the priming include visualizations, visualizing what's going to happen in the future, visualizing all the amazing times that I've had in my life with my parents, with my brother, with my friends, all the things I've accomplished. Because like you said earlier, if by default, we're going to go towards negative, by default, we're going to see what's wrong.
• 25:55
  But there's all these amazing, great things that happened and are going to continue to happen in all of our lives. And so it's really changing your perspective. I do it every morning. And I didn't do it for the first 100-day challenge, but I'm doing it for this 100-day challenge. And that priming exercise, it's 15 minutes, that gets me pumped for the day. It gets me more pumped than cold showers now. I love it. And it's feeding those sages.
• 26:23
  I'm probably going to sound like I'm on repeat. What are you feeding? The good stuff or the bad stuff? I want to point out that I ask you questions and you go into, instead of answering the question, you go back to what you do. So I'm going to call you out again and I'm going to ask this question. All right, I'm going to hit this one straight. What was missing? You keep telling me what you do. I think I know the answer, but I just want to hear you say it. What was missing in your life?
• 26:52
  for you to do this, for you to entertain these saboteurs? Well, I didn't have a strong enough purpose. I didn't have a mission in my life. I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing with my life. I was keeping busy. I wasn't keeping up with the Joneses. That was never my thing. But I was living the life that I thought I should live. I call it my version of the American dream. I thought that if I worked hard...
• 27:19
  And I had a good job and a good education. And I married the woman that I had been with for seven years before asking her to marry me. And that's a whole different conversation of why I waited seven years. But I thought that if I live this picturesque American life...
• 27:38
  that that would make me happy. And that wasn't the life I wanted. That wasn't the life. That was not my mission in life. And so once I figured out my mission, now I had a target that I could hit. And so you're absolutely right. All the things that I talk about are tools that you can use to keep your energy levels up, keep you focused, keep you excited and ready to attack your day. But if you don't know what your why is, why you're doing it all, what you're
• 28:08
  End goal is you're just going to spin your wheels and you're not going to be happy or content with life. So that's what I wrote down, your why. You need to figure out what your why. And I heard something yesterday on a podcast saying that it's their passion, your passion to serve. It's your passion, mission, why, all the same thing. And you're big in the self-help, so I'll go on to Joe Dispenza says, you figure out your what and your why and the how will appear.
• 28:38
  So I just like to throw that out there. I'm very happy that you went to that. I just want to make sure that you're not using all of this as a crutch. So I'm going to call you out because I love you. And you go right into those stores. So just acknowledge that why because that why will carry you through everything. I'm a little bit ahead of you. Just a couple of years. Not better. Just a little bit ahead.
• 29:02
  That why will carry you in the tough times. You have 13 chapters in your book. Which one touches you the most? It changes. It evolves. At first, when I wrote the dopamine chapter, I was just so excited. I didn't even know what dopamine was. I would hear, oh, you get a dopamine hit every time you have a like on Facebook or something like that. And so people think of it as the pleasure molecule.
• 29:31
  And so I followed a guy, Andrew Huberman, Huberman lab, huge podcast. The guy's blown up in the past couple of years. And, uh, he went to Stanford. I went to Cal. So we kind of have that rivalry, but I'll, I'll give him a pass. He's, he went to Cal, uh, for schooling, even though he teaches at Stanford, little known fact, kind of a Huberman fan. Um, yeah.
• 29:52
  Once I started learning about dopamine and how we can, that's what really started the book. Because I was like, I know people have superpowers. I know they have these crazy abilities, but what is it? And then once I learned about dopamine and other neuromodulators, I was like, the ultimate superpower is your nervous system.
• 30:12
  We all have a nervous system. For the most part, it all works the same for everybody. And the best part of it is we can change it at will. So that's why I do cold showers and all these crazy habit things is because I am changing my nervous system. I am changing the neural pathways that have been set for years and decades. And that is no easy task because when we learn to walk, when we're a child, when we're a baby,
• 30:40
  We're setting neural pathways. And most people that know how to walk don't even think about doing it because it is so ingrained and set in stone. And as we get older, those neural pathways are harder and harder to change. That's why people will say stupid things like can't teach an old dog new tricks. That's bullshit. It can be really difficult at times. Or just do it.
• 31:08
  Don't tell me that. I'm a totally different man than I was a month ago. I had to do the audio portion of my book, which my book I wrote, the meat and potatoes of it, almost a year ago. And I'm like, I wanted to change so much in reading the audio book because I've changed in a year. And I have a dear friend who says, if you're not...
• 31:30
  embarrassed by the person you were a year ago, you're not growing fast enough. So I'm very surprised that you didn't say chapter 13 of the habits and rituals, because you go right into those habits and rituals all the time. And you talk about, you know, what you do in the morning and what you do daily. And
• 31:49
  I'm a huge advocate of that. I literally am always a creature of habit and standards and rituals and consistency. And I'm a definition of discipline. I think that's probably why we're friends. You probably picked up that I pretty much will live my days.
• 32:06
  as your hundred day challenge. I do, I don't do it. Yeah. It's a lifestyle. I do it intent. I don't, I just picked it up and that's what I built for myself. So you're not going to throw one by me. I don't take days off of anything. There's not a cheat day. There's not a day that I'm, Oh, I'm not going to go to the gym or I'm not going to meditate today or I'm going to, nope. Every day is a, we punch in and we go to work and going to work is fun because winning is fun and I love winning. So, uh, in your book, uh,
• 32:34
  You say it took you 38 years to discover who you were truly meant to be. Congrats. You beat me by five years. What are you meant to be, and what do you want your legacy to be? Well, the purpose of my life is that
• 32:53
  Through my thoughts, my words, and deeds, I am a humble servant of God who leads people to live meaningful lives. That means every day I need to improve myself so that I can help others better. I have this little slogan that I say, be more to do more.
• 33:14
  And those are the two pillars of my life that I now live by every day. How can I be better so that I can serve others better? And that's it. That's my mission. And I love that. Be more to do more, be more to do more. I'm trademarking it. So hopefully, hopefully now that it's on the airwaves. So you're just, you're a mind reader because my next question is, what are you most passionate about? You just, you just answered it. Why didn't,
• 33:43
  Can I bring up something about passion real quick? Absolutely. I appreciate you. Yeah. So a lot of people talk about passion, especially in the industry we're in. And passion sounds like almost like this kind of foo-foo thing where like it's emotional, right? If you're passionate about something, you're very, it drives your emotions and you just feel something that you want to do.
• 34:11
  To me, passion means I love something so much that I am willing to suffer and sacrifice for it. I put two parts to it. Because if you're not willing to suffer for something you love, if you're not willing to sacrifice for something you love, are you really passionate about it? And so I want to make that distinction because my definition of passionate is a little bit different than what I hear a lot of people say.
• 34:42
  And you are the epitome of somebody who knows how to sacrifice and suffer for something he loves. And I think that's one of the reasons we get along so well is you are a passionate man too. It's so...
• 34:58
  there are no coincidences. And if being sober and being present, you start seeing the coins that you start seeing the signs of the universe and you, you call it God. And, and, and I am spiritual, not really religious. I'm Jewish, but it is what it is. Uh, I respect all religion. I love religion. Um, I just had two, I just quoted two Bible verses, um, that just were sent to me out of nowhere. And, um,
• 35:27
  It was about, you do not, was it John 16, 9? I think it was, where you do not know what I'm doing, but you soon will. And then today I was on another one where it was Jeremiah 29, 11, where it said,
• 35:47
  I'm forgetting what it is. I put them both on Facebook. It's so good. And I'm not religious, but it just keeps coming to me. So it just keeps coming to you. And there are no coincidences, and the signs just keep coming. And I'm loving it. And I'm loving where we're going with this.
• 36:04
  And I want you to talk about your non-negotiables in life because, oh, I know we're talking about passion. I just heard the same thing, very similar, explained in a different way on Jay Shetty's podcast with two young ladies who were amazing. So passion is, you know, it's thrown around a lot like I love myself.
• 36:29
  And so I love your definition. It is very fitting, and you have to be willing to die for it. And that's how I feel about serving others and doing the right thing. You're not...
• 36:45
  I say this over and over and over again, and I put this out there so the world can challenge me on it. You're not going to find a chink in my armor. I do what I say I'm going to do every day. I don't secretly sneak and watch porn. Never even liked porn, no offense. I don't sneak drinks. I don't negotiate with myself. I don't negotiate with anybody.
• 37:08
  I don't lie to myself. I don't lie to anybody. I've ran out of fear. I just said that to somebody. I was so scared growing up. My parents tried to kill me multiple times. I am no longer afraid of anything. I don't care what anybody thinks about me, what they say about me, whether it's good or bad. I've run out of fear. Yeah.
• 37:26
  So I'm coming to disrupt this industry and I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. And I got to remember to have fun with it. So I'm passionate about helping others and it's almost a cultuous, if you will. So that's why we are friends and we're going to be friends and we're going to do some great things together. So again, what are your non-negotiables?
• 37:48
  my non-negotiables is I will never compromise with myself again. I will never go back to being that man. I call it killing my clone every day. Every day, what can I do to kill the version of me from yesterday? So every day, my goal is to be better than the day prior and kill that clone every single day. If you ever slip up, my friend, I will be there to get you. And what I mean is I will...
• 38:18
  I'll call you out on it. I'll hold you accountable. That's what friends do. Friends tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, man. I hate when people are like, it's okay, you're having a bad day. No, no, no, no. We don't have bad days. We freaking win here. And we do it daily through consistency and discipline and being accountable. That's right. Which, having said that, this is a gear to love this next question. I'm so excited to ask you. Who is your favorite superhero and why?
• 38:47
  Oh, my favorite superhero. I'm a big fan of Spider-Man. I grew up a huge Spider-Man fan. I guess being kind of a skinnier guy, I kind of saw myself, and being an engineer, science guy, I saw myself kind of like Peter Parker. And who wouldn't want to date Mary Jane?
• 39:13
  Did you ever find it funny that her name was Mary Jane as otherwise known as cannabis or weed? You know, I'm in love with Mary Jane. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't dabble with the cannabis, but I always thought about that when I would hear her name. Yeah. Mary Jane Watson. So I saw myself a lot like Spider-Man. And the thing that I love...
• 39:39
  about Spider-Man. So his whole origin story was, most people know it, but for those listening that don't know Spider-Man's origin story, he got these superpowers by being bit by a spider. And then he used them to make money. Like once he had these powers, he worked, there's different iterations of it, but essentially he used it to make money doing things to entertain people.
• 40:03
  And there was a guy who had robbed somebody when he was walking home and he ignored it. He's like, that's not my job to take care of that guy or to arrest him or anything. And then that guy ends up killing his uncle, Ben, who was his caretaker, him and his wife, his, his aunt. And he felt so guilty. So what he carried with him is when I make mistakes, people die. And so he vowed from that day forth.
• 40:34
  to do what's right, knowing that if he messes up, it could cost someone he loves dearly, could cost them their life. And so that's how he did. But that did not stop him from going into battle every day, knowing that he could lose and that there are consequences for it. And that courage that he had going into a situation is,
• 41:01
  Being aware that he might not win, but just doing it anyways, that has always inspired me to do things even before becoming ace. And that is one of the reasons why I love Spider-Man so much. You look like many of the actors that played Spider-Man. I don't know the backstory of your parents' death, but
• 41:28
  Is there more to it that makes you, do you resonate with that a little bit? Do you feel responsible for their death? I don't know the story at all. So I'm just, I saw your eyes change a little bit. Do you feel responsible for your parents' death in any way? No, my parents battled their own demons and they were heavy smokers. Like I said earlier, they had their own addictive issues and smoking is one of those habits that's absolutely horrible for people
• 41:58
  And whether they realize it or not, anybody that knows somebody who goes into older age as a smoker, especially a heavy smoker.
• 42:05
  that cuts out your life fast, and especially at the end. So my mom died from breast cancer. My dad died from his third collapsed lung, which turned into a heart attack. Completely lifestyle choices, smoking, not eating healthy. And so from what I learned from that part of their lives is that's why I stay fit. That's why I stay healthy. And I'm about to turn 40. Like I said, I look at my friends and I love them to death.
• 42:35
  But the ones that don't take care of themselves, even at 40, I don't look anything like them. I look 10 to 15 years younger than them. And I feel better. I have more energy right now than I did when I was 22 years old. Because when I was 22, I was just chasing tail, going to the bars, having a good time, being a college and past college student. Like, I was just enjoying life, but I felt like crap every day. And I was unmotivated. And I can't blame myself.
• 43:03
  for living that lifestyle at that time. I didn't know how to deal with my shit. That's okay. I figured it out. That's why I was reborn at 38. How old were your parents when they died? They were 71 and 67. Yeah. My dad died when he was 46 from drinking. So drinking and drugs. So
• 43:28
  You know, those crutches are not the way to a long life. If nothing else, use that as motivation. I just realized why I like your be more to do more. It's because I've always said feel good and do good. It's kind of similar. Yeah. My brother from another mother. What are you going to do for your 40th birthday? It's a big deal, bro. Especially sober. What do you...
• 43:57
  Yeah, yeah, there's a couple things. I am going to go to Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon and spend a couple days hiking and camping and being completely cut off from the external world. So it's going to be a great time just to see a beautiful part of the country. I was actually at the Grand Canyon a week ago.
• 44:18
  leading an immersion event with a group of people and the Grand Canyon is absolutely breathtaking breathtaking. So I'm gonna do that and then I'm also gonna do this thing called a death song where I'm gonna go out into the woods for a couple days by myself and essentially I'm gonna write myself my death song and it's gonna be very introspective it's gonna be very spiritual and
• 44:44
  Yeah. That's where I'm at in my life. What are you going to do with the death song? What do you, what do you do with it? Well, essentially you, you write a song about your life, about what you did in your life and also as a celebration of your life. And so I'm going to spend probably two days just by myself. I might,
• 45:11
  I might bring a buddy that is on a similar walk to me. You know him, Joshua Gillow. And so, yeah, it's just a time to be introspective. And it's also a time to enjoy the world, enjoy the creation of this world. Havasu Falls is such a...
• 45:32
  iconic place to visit and experience. And I just feel completely blessed that I have that opportunity to go away for a few days and do both of those things. If you feel compelled to it, however you record that, I'd love to hear it. I just love hearing that what you're doing for your 40th is so much better than what I did. It's in my book, Heart of the Life.
• 45:55
  Mine was on Thanksgiving and I got here in Michigan, the Detroit Lions play every Thanksgiving day. And I that was a ritual. You had to go because to drink on Thanksgiving Day is what I did for years. And it was just fun. It's to numb the pain of being me.
• 46:10
  And I got especially intoxicated, took some drugs, just totally out of control. I was hosting Thanksgiving Day at my house and my whole family was there. And then all my friends showed up and there was 100 of my closest people there and I was
• 46:27
  so not coherent and I wasted a day and I will never waste another day. And there was stories and stupid things I did. I gave up toast and somebody recorded it. It's just stupidity and not where it's at. I thought that was love and it's not. So I, I envy you. I've all the utmost love for what you're going to do. And I'm very happy for you and very proud of you. And I love you. Yeah.
• 46:51
  We'll get a couple more questions and we're going to wrap this up. And I'm just so grateful that we got to do this again. And we're going to be lifelong friends. If you could have dinner with one person alive or dead, who would it be and why?
• 47:06
  Oh, man. I would have it with my mother. She was my entire world, and she got taken too early. But I understand life choices lead to these things. So I accept it.
• 47:24
  but to be able to show her and tell her about my journey in the last 12 years, because it would be awesome to, you know, meet guys like Theodore Roosevelt. I love, you know, just different people from the past, but,
• 47:46
  for me, life is all about relationships, connections, love, and there's nothing more. I think about this, not incessantly, but I think the thought comes into my head almost every day. Like the next time I'm going to be reunited with my mother and in my spiritual walk, I believe that's going to happen when, when my day comes for me to, to move on. But if I got a chance to do it,
• 48:14
  While I'm alive, it would be her 100%. I would just hug her, embrace her, just get her scent, touch her hand, her arm. Like, I would love to do that. I know it sounds kind of weird saying it out loud, but just talk to her. She was so interesting and engaging and loving and...
• 48:40
  Man, she was my guide, my best friend, and also my mother. Who doesn't love their mother? She was a great mother. She was very motherly. She, my biggest fan. And I would just, yeah, I would just love to spend a day with her, a meal with her. Shit, I'd take a phone conversation with her. That was amazing.
• 49:06
  Beautiful. I, you triggered the snot out of me. I, I don't love my mother, by the way. And I, that's hard to say. I don't, I don't talk to her and I never will. I'll see her when she's at her funeral. But I, the reason why it triggered me is because my father died at 46. He was the smartest man I knew and he didn't live a life. So every cool thing I do.
• 49:33
  I think of my dad and I wish I could have a conversation with him and just say, I figured it out, dad. I figured it out. Took me long enough and I really figured it out. My dad died at 46. It was when I was 46. It just, my whole, everything fell into alignment last year when I was 46 and I just won massively. Everything clicked, but every cool thing
• 50:03
  I talked to my dad and I wish that I could just say, man, I'm living the life that you didn't get to live. And like this podcast of meeting you and many parts of me, even though my dad died when I was so young and he was addicted to drugs and he was not the person that he could have been. He taught me so much. He taught me how to live. He taught me that everybody's equal.
• 50:31
  and everything in his own way. He's as messed up as he was. He taught me that everything was love and yeah, that resonated with me, man. I'm, I love you. I'm just so grateful to know you. Um, is there, excuse me, is there something I haven't asked today that you feel compelled to share?
• 50:54
  Well, I just want to tell you personally that I am honored to be on this journey with you. My life has changed in the past year and a half. I'm reborn in every part of my life. I have this new challenge that I'm doing the new hundred day challenge. I told myself instead of waking up at 530, I'm going to wake up at five every day. I've been getting up between three and 4. A.m.
• 51:18
  Every day. And I go till about nine, 10, maybe 11 if I'm pushing it. So I'm getting four, five, at the most six hours. And I understand, like I talk about sleep in the book and all those things. It's one of your chapters. I was just going to say, it's one of your chapters. I got to read it because I suck at sleeping and I got nothing on my mind. Nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And so I don't get a lot of sleep at night.
• 51:44
  But I do something that Andrew Huberman coined called NSDR. It's called non-sleep deep rest. Certain things, I do power naps. There's also things I do called sleep hypnosis. And there's these things you could do, I guess, down south of the border of us. They call them siestas.
• 52:04
  In the early afternoon, I rest for about 25, maybe 30 minutes. And that rejuvenates me. That gets everything clicking again. I get rested because you work out. I work out rest days are just as important as the workout days. And by doing things like that, I don't have to have seven, eight, nine hours of sleep every night.
• 52:30
  I get up before my alarm goes off and I just am so excited to hit the ground running that day because I've got so much I want to do. I don't want to. It's like that kid that tries to fall asleep and keeps waking up and the parents are like, he just wants to experience everything life has to offer. That's me today at 39 knocking on 40. And that's you. That can be anybody at any age, no matter what.
• 52:59
  I love it. I tell you, may God have mercy on this universe if I can sleep through the night. Because I run out of gas every day. Because I am just go, go, go, go. This is my third podcast today. I still run an IT company. I'm a father. It's just...
• 53:20
  I love, I wake up every day and I'm like, there's certain nights I don't sleep. And I'm like, what's on your mind? I'm so excited. I start, I start writing things down. I start drilling. I just, I take in more content daily than most people do in their life. I just sent you this, you keep saying Andrew Huberman. And I was flipping through because I was wanting to send the Heart of the Life YouTube to somebody. And the first thing that popped up was Andrew Huberman with Jordan Peterson talking about alcohol.
• 53:49
  And it was, I just texted it to you, by the way. And it's the only reason it was just talked about. Jordan Peterson has an amazing way of explaining things in just simplest terms. And then Huberman tells you in the scientific terms. And they break down alcohol so well.
• 54:08
  that, I mean, I don't, I don't have, I'm never going to drink again. Cause I just would never want to go through a day not present, but this was something I needed to send to a bunch of people. So I sent it to you so you can send it to people. Cause what we're here to do is to inspire and educate and motivate and a little bit of entertaining. I I'm, I'm a pink shirt on today. So I like to entertain and eventually, you know, you and I are going to be on a stage somewhere, uh,
• 54:33
  ribbing Andy for Sella, hopefully. And, you know, my whole journey is for charity, man. My IT company allows us to do these passion projects, and we're going to continue. And I thank you for coming on, and we're going to wrap it up.
• 54:52
  I just want to remind everybody that each and every episode is sponsored by National Technology Management, the easy and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. And until next week, be harder than life. Thank you for listening. Please rate and subscribe to Harder Than Life. And let's take this to the next level. Get connected at the links below.