Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - Nick Koumalatsos: Military Service to Business Brilliance

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Prepare to be inspired by Nick Koumalatsos, an ex-Marine and dynamic entrepreneur who has turned adversity into triumph. From a tough childhood in trailer parks and section 8 housing to building multiple eight-figure companies, including the organic grooming brand Johnny Slicks, Nick’s story is one of resilience and relentless pursuit of excellence. Discover how his challenging upbringing instilled a drive that shattered limiting beliefs and propelled him toward extraordinary achievements.   Our conversation takes you through Nick’s riveting journey in SOCOM and the Marine Raiders, where a pivotal decision at 16 led him from a lucrative job to the Marine Corps, despite facing setbacks due to a juvenile felony. Hear about the serendipitous moments and life-changing encounters that guided his path through special operations and beyond. Nick's candid reflections on his transition from military to civilian life offer profound insights into embracing new experiences and redefining one's identity beyond their profession.   Nick also shares his thoughts on broader societal issues, highlighting the need for strong male leadership, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the decline in physical fitness and communal responsibility among men, contrasting modern America with the 1960s. The episode concludes with powerful discussions on fatherhood, goal-setting, and finding purpose and meaning in life. Whether you're looking for motivation or practical advice on achieving greatness, this episode of Escaping the Drift is packed with actionable insights and inspiring stories.   Highlights:   (04:49 - 05:42) Overcoming Adversity Through Growth and Grace (14:25 - 16:19) Special Operations Military Service and Selection (23:44 - 24:45) Job Security Illusion in Corporate World (37:55 - 38:43) Gym Raided by Cops Discussion (44:14 - 45:06) Friendship and Tough Love (54:08 - 55:43) Bedtime Routine and Aging Recognitions   CHAPTERS    (00:00) - From Trauma to Triumph (08:40) - Life in SOCOM and Marine Raiders (16:49) - Transitioning From Special Operations (26:03) - Transitioning Beyond Military Life (38:07) - The Need for Strong Male Leadership (45:06) - Finding Purpose and Meaning in Life (56:01) - Fatherhood, Business, and Beard Products (01:01:46) - The Power of Setting Goals   💬 Did you enjoy this podcast episode? Tell us all about it in the comment section below!    ☑️  If you liked this video, consider subscribing to Escaping The Drift with John Gafford  ************* 💯 About John Gafford: After appearing on NBC's "The Apprentice", John relocated to the Las Vegas Valley and founded several successful companies in the real estate space.   ➡️ The Gafford Group at Simply Vegas, top 1% of all REALTORS nationwide in terms of production. Simply Vegas, a 500 agent brokerage with billions in annual sales Clear Title, a 7-figure full-service title and escrow company.   ➡️ Streamline Home Loans - An independent mortgage bank with more than 100 loan officers. The Simply Group, A national expansion vehicle partnering with large brokers across the country to vertically integrate their real estate brokerages.   *************   ✅ Follow John Gafford on social media:   Instagram ▶️ / thejohngafford   Facebook ▶️ / gafford2   🎧 Stream The Escaping The Drift Podcast with John Gafford Episode here: Listen On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7cWN80gtZ4m4wl3DqQoJmK?si=2d60fd72329d44a9 Listen On Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escaping-the-drift-with-john-gafford/id1582927283    *************   #escapingthedrift #nickkoumalatsos #entrepreneurship #adversity #resilience #limitingbeliefs #achievements #military #specialoperations #identity #selfworth #mentalhealth #masculinity #covid19 #lockdowns #leadership #physicalfitness #community #purpose #meaning #fatherhood #business #beardproducts #goalsetting

So if I want to take over a country and not have to deal with that threat, what do I do? Submersively, through psychological warfare, I want to make them addicted to devices, overweight, unhealthy, distracted. And what do we have in America? And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another Man, I Got a Banger Today episode of Escaping the Drift. The podcast, like the opening says, gets you from where you are to where you want to be.

Before I get too far into this, if you're watching this on the YouTube, man, do us a favor. Give us a subscribe so you can catch all this awesome content as it comes out. And if you listen to us on one of our many providers through the podcast world, man, go check it out. Go check it out. I actually have some good-looking people. Not so much me, but I have some good-looking people come through. Check it out on YouTube if you would, too. Today on the program, ladies and gents, I got a dude. And sometimes, you know, you got like, I got a business guy, I got a professional guy. This is a dude. And I mean that like the way that like a defensive coordinator would like

describe like his best linebacker like i gotta this dude's a dude one of my dudes he's an ex-marine i think you're not an ex-marine ever i think once a marine always a marine so he served many many years in the marine corps he's the author of the book the excommunicated warrior seven stages of transition and after that as if that wasn't great enough serving our country, then he gets out and he finds, he founds three eight figure companies and that don't include the period folks. That is not the period in the sense that is eight figures to the left side of the period, if you will, including the company, Johnny slicks, it's an organic grooming brand and it goes, just coaching program. Ladies and and gentlemen welcome to the program today we have nick cumulatos nick bam what's up man i need to like record that intro

and just play it on all my videos you know what dude i'm probably here's the thing most people are only going to listen to about 45 seconds of this and i figure if i could entertain the shit out of them for the first 45 then it's good no i'm just kidding they're going to stay with this for a while that's what i was telling me. That's what I tell my podcast. I'm like, I want to appreciate you six listeners. You guys are like really rocking it. No, dude, we stay pretty consistent in the top 10 of entrepreneurship. So I'm happy with that. I'm very happy with the growth of the podcast over the years and the amount of subscribers we have. I'm super pleased with it. It's, you know, the fact that we can come on here and we get to help people that maybe are trying to level up in their life.

The ones that want it. That want it, right? Because holy shit, you just, I was talking about that yesterday. If you don't want to help yourself, listen to this, they can help you. I'm out. I can tell you that right now. I've fought for years trying to help people that don't want to help themselves, and all they end up doing is resenting you. Well, let's talk about you dude so starting out i like to i like to get your origin story if i can because hyper you know high performers

i love the saying that you know tough times create great men great men create good times good times create soft men and there's either one of two things here so you're either going to tell me some some tough time story that there's built you into this machine or even better you're going to tell me yeah not that bad middle class but i overcame my my i overcame this terrible yearning to be average which is even better sometimes so tell me the story give it to me definitely was not the latter okay um raised by wolves yes um man it's even it's like hard sometimes like i've talked about it so much but it's hard it's hard to say uh single mom uh basically a single mom met me and my little brother growing up we moved around every six months uh i used to make it i used to think that maybe she was running from the law um but come to find out later in life she literally was

just jobs it was just kind of you know moving up in jobs But come to find out later in life, she literally was just jobs. It was just kind of moving up in jobs and trying to find a job that will support two kids. We were surviving. So trailer park, Section 8 housing, getting our clothes at Goodwill. Goodwill clothes had lice in them, so then we would get lice and have to deal with that and use all the different old tricks to get rid of the lice. I mean, it was just… Did you know as a kid? Did you know, tricks to get rid of the lice. I mean, it was just, did you know, as a kid, did you know? No, I mean, I knew, I knew it was different because I would

see kids in school with nice houses and nice stuff and things like that. So like, I knew that things were different. Um, which, you know, we'll, we'll talk about later, which fast forward, a lot of that stuff created a lot of limiting beliefs about me and entrepreneurship and what I could accomplish. And, um, which is the killer of all dreams, you a lot of limiting beliefs about me and entrepreneurship and what I could accomplish. And, um, which is the killer of all dreams, you know, your limiting beliefs.

So yeah, growing up. Um, and then there was a stepdad involved, abusive stepfather until I was 11, uh, joined a gang at 11. Um,

by the time I was 13, two felonies as an adult, two felonies as an adult, multiple misdemeanors. Had to do, you know, grace of God and my mom being who my mom is with the judge and everybody. I didn't do any long, you know, I went to juvie, but I didn't do any long time in juvie. I didn't get like a full sentence. I just had to be there until court and that sort of thing.

And I got, I think once it was three years probation so you're talking about from 13 to 16 i'm on probation having to do community service and um anyways so uh knocked that out and uh really it's funny like i gave up drugs and alcohol and life of crime at the age of 13. I mean, I, yeah, I guess, uh, I guess that's as good as times they didn't give it. And you know what really happened was I got arrested. Um, the second time it wasn't the second time I got arrested, the second time I got locked up, um, what was, was that 13? And, and this kind of tells you of like this the situation that we were in in our area juvie was full this keep in mind this is in the 90s so this is early 90s um juvie was full and so they they put me in county at 14 13 13 with grown ass men, grown ass men. And that's when I realized I'm not so bad-ass.

Yeah. This little, that's like scared straight for real. Straight up. Like I went through this like scared straight bootcamp thing. They put me through court ordered and I was like, that did nothing for me. You know what I mean? Of course, fast forward to the military. I was like, whatever.

But when I, when they processed me through County and i was in there with a bunch of grown men i was like this ain't the light i'm out this ain't the life for me that was a big wake-up call for me um because i'm like these guys these guys like i don't know what's gonna happen but dude like there's no business in me being here with a bunch of like grown grown uh Anyways, so that was it. And then straighten myself up. By the time I was 16 years old, I was at a small little beach house in Panama City Beach, Florida.

I was making about $4,000 a week legally. Doing what? So from 6 a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. I was at the Bay Point Marriott you remember the oh yeah sure bay point buddy yeah so i worked at the bay point marriott what year was this when the shit 90s it'd be like 96 okay so like spinnaker's was still there oh yeah it was all this was like

spring back kick you know oh yeah that was the capital of the world. Oh yeah, dude. That was Florida state central then back in the back of the day. Yeah. So, um, yes, it was, I got some funny Florida state. Uh, I don't know if we can talk about it on here. Anything, anything. Um, so anyways, yeah, I was from, I was working in the conference center, setting up projectors and microphones and lights and everything.

Um, and getting paid, this was, you know, late nineties. So I think I was getting paid like $20 an hour. Almost like union wages. Yeah. Like it was ridiculous. I was like, you're going to pay me that. How'd you get that gig? Uh, networking friend of a friend. Yeah. Friend was working there and, and he put a word in for me and then I would take a, I would take a 30 minute break and at 2 30 i was a bellman at the same place until 10 30 at night so i would work from 6 to 10 30 how are you how are you knowing that as a 60 like oh i dropped out of school sorry yeah let's pass up did you get gd

yeah i got a gd so i i well actually the summer of my 10th grade year i finished the 10th grade the summer of my 10th grade year i moved out i got that job so when it was time to go back to school for my 11th grade year i was like yeah this doesn't make physical sense i'm gonna give up four grand a week to go talk about osmosis and dissecting frogs pass photosynthesis i'm good uh so i did that and uh and and was rocket loving life and uh and was rocking loving life and uh but then i had this realization about a year in maybe not even a year in i mean i had plenty of money i was doing all kind of i mean i was living life for a 16 year old 17 year old but this realization hit me that in 20 years i'd be doing the same damn thing and i just i that thought of me being in the same place doing the same thing for the next two decades and i knew that like i would obviously move up you know there's positions what was the

moment you realize it um and the reason i say that is because steve sims is a good friend of mine okay on the show and steve's entire life changed he was a he was on a bricklaying job and he's he's he was just he was a bricklayer in london yeah and he looked he was he was on a bricklaying job and he's he's he was just he was a bricklayer in london yeah and he looked at and he was on this job and he looked over and he was standing next to his dad laying bricks and his grandfather was on the same job he saw his future he said i'm fucking done right now yeah i think it was kind of something like that it wasn't a family member but it was another guy it was another older gentleman it was two so i had an older gentleman around the that was the bot like the manager of the conference center job and i would take that 30 minute break

and then there's another probably in his 50s that was like the senior bellman and i just remember one day i i just was like it just all of a sudden hit me like a wave. Like, oh, this is my life for the next 20 years, 20, 30 years. And I just, I call it, I hit the nuclear option. I just blew up my life. I was going to, well, what's the way out in the 90s for a kid with a GED and, you know, a background like that? Stockbroker. Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

Actually, that was a that was it was a thought but but the military i said you know what i'm gonna go do the hardest thing that i can go find and at the time the marine corps seemed at the entry at the entry level the marine corps you know they were fighting dragons on tv i don't remember that old commercial i think i do yeah that commercial that was back when military had really good recruiting commercials. Um, but yeah, I, I,

I went to join the Marine Corps and they were trying to sell me on their process. And, uh, I was like, listen, dude, I'm sold.

I just, I just want out. Like, let's just make this happen. And, uh, I try to skip all the process and he goes, well,

let me run your, let me, let's run your information. Let's get some paperwork involved and we'll get you to take a maps. And I honestly didn't think anything of it. Like there was paperwork involved, and we'll get you to take the maps. And I honestly didn't think anything of it. There was not a thought that I wouldn't be accepted in the military. That should get a sponge because you were juvenile, right?

Right. Okay. So that's what I thought. And the plot thickens. And he comes out from behind. I'll never forget. He comes out the door, and he's holding a thing, and his face is like, his demeanor completely changed. He's he's like kid you're never joining the marine corps your matter of fact you're never joining any branch of the military like you're

a convicted felon i was like i was 13 i was 13 bro like come on and he goes not happening man i mean keep in mind this is clinton error You know, this is when they were like, they were literally Clinton. He set the brag up, the base realigning thing. He was shutting bases down, downsizing the military, taking weapons away from people. Like, it was nuts. I ended up in force recon, but at the time, force recon guys and a couple other special operations units could carry their pistols off duty. They wanted SOCOM guys pistols off duty they wanted so calm guys to carry off duty because you know obviously yeah because if you want who do you want

carrying guns yeah in the nation right the military you know well not even just military but so calm guys yeah and uh clinton got rid of that too and um anyways so it was, it was a difficult time to get in. And as soon as he told me, no, bro, worst thing he could ever do. That was it. It's that you just, because you told me no, which the, you know, this is, can be a negative of my personality, but you told me no. And that just lit a fire under me. I said, okay, we'll see about that. And it almost took me two years, but, uh,

went to college because, you know, military hates, military hates a high school dropout, but they love a college dropout. They're like, come on, come on. And we got, didn't work out a good old Brevard community college. We got you buddy. Come on down. Yeah. And, uh, so it took me a little while. I had had over 100 letters of recommendation had to do a bunch of you know i had to jump through a bunch of hoops but i quit those jobs moved in with my grandmother went to work at nights at a movie theater i'll never forget my first check after two weeks so you keep in mind i'm making four grand a week yeah you know anywhere from two to four grand depending on the season um A lot of it cash. And my first check at this movie theater as a projectionist at night

was like $175. And I just remember going, how do people support themselves? What did I do? What did I do? But it was a means to an end. And eventually, after a year and a half, and then there was more tragedy. I got in, finally got my shot training day

seven i broke my wrist got dropped to a medical rehabilitation platoon after almost two years of trying to get in so i ended up spending five and a half months in recruit training and then you know and then after that you know i leveled up and there's a lot of stories there but you know ended up in force recon uh and then we we started socom in 2006 force recon became marine special operations command uh i took selection i was already there but i took selection for that went through the uh assessment selection for marine special operations uh became a marine raider in my last half of my career from then to 2012 was serving in in socom um as a marine raider deploying to afghanistan basically wow back and forth yeah so in afghanistan yeah iraq afghanistan and then a whole bunch of other

places yikes yeah man that's where i spent my 20s yes yeah yeah that seems like a while uh the rest of your buddies were still sitting on the beach you were doing that so did you go back to your original point yeah there's always a story man there's and it's funny uh most of the guys in socom uh don't have a relationship with their fathers and then came from something like that background it's a very similar personality driven unit. That's interesting. And you, and you go through a lot of psych stuff.

You go through a lot of psyche vows and it, and I think they're looking for a very particular personality to be in. So calm. And that they're looking for, they're looking for an edge of that. Wow. Okay. Almost like a sociopath,

stable individual. You know what I mean? Yeah. We want you to have the ability to kill other people just not us if we can if we can just it's really like it's like an individual process like almost almost to the point that we want you educated but we aren't you very street smart so that you can solve problems on your own yeah when when like if essentially you're talking about a strategic national level problem that you're dealing with that could affect national policy and you've got this young guy in

his 20s navigating that problem it takes a very special person yeah and that's why the situation that's why the selection process is what it is yeah did you ever get to fly in a blackhawk absolutely i'm going to fly one on the 12th it's fun yeah so random story we're gonna go total sidebar yesterday yesterday i'll one up that though can you please no please blackhawks are cool they're cool but nothing is cool as riding your motorcycle in bad guy land out the back of a ch47 and having it just parachute down no no no parachute like they land and the ramp drops and all you just ride out and you and all your homies just ride out on motorcycles. Right.

Like that's. We had, yeah, I've been lucky enough to get to do some really cool shit in my life. Right. Just randomly. Just do some randomly cool stuff. Not like enlist in the military and like that, but just randomly. And like yesterday I sold my boat. Right.

Which is, you know, say it's the first the happiest day is the day you buy it and day you sell it yesterday i sold it and this guy flew in to buy it and uh just through talking to him like what what's your job he's the aerial stunt coordinator for everything that paramount films so if you see a helicopter on yellowstone he's fucking flying it if you see an airplane or dc-10 or whatever you see 727 any of those planes in a rad job yeah he's orchestrating getting the stuff there yeah if he can fly he's flying it and i'm like he's like yeah we got this shoot we're finishing up this movie and you know in texas and blah blah blah and i just keep adding aerial stuff

it's crazy and so i i was out with my buddy showing the boat last yesterday at the lake and i was telling my buddy about it and he made the joke he goes hey if he flew here in a blackhawk we gotta go for a ride so i said to him and i'm like i told him that and he goes no no no i flew my jet up here um i flew that up here and uh we got here quick by one i told him a joke and he goes i'll just tell you what he goes if you want if you want to come play hollywood for the day he goes we're doing shooting the aerial finale for this movie on the 12th because i got three black hawks we're gonna be shooting like live round guns and like blowing shit up like it's like if you want to go play hollywood yeah welcome to you i'm like

yes i do yes i do want to do that so yes do. So I will be adding amateur aerial stunt man to my reference. Shoot. You know life is just rad if you'll live it, right? Dude, just say yes. I never say no to anything. That's it. I spent so much of my life saying no to shit that probably would have been really cool because either I didn't know how to do it or I was embarrassed how I looked doing it

or something else. Yeah. And dude, I think you're just at a certain age when you really don't care what people think. Don't care. Just say yes. Don't care. know how to do it or i was embarrassed how i looked doing it or something else and dude i think you're just at a certain age when you really don't care what people don't get just say yes don't yeah i mean i i can't i can't really put anything specifically but i'm sure there's stuff that i said no to like i don't want to do that like yeah yes because of fear of whatever yeah you know like a bunch of my buddies took a surfing trip to like somewhere crazy once and i was like you want to go and i was like ah i'm busy blah blah

just because i'm a shitty surfer and i'm going it would have been a rad trip yeah rad trip it would have been it would have been i mean yeah when you have people do things at a high level it's hard if you suck sure but like i'd rather suck it you know and have fun than just what are you gonna do work sit on your couch well i i turn it into fuel though like dude one of the guys i play group of guys i play golf with normally every friday i'm not playing today because i shit to do but every friday we play one of these dudes shot a 65 two weeks ago 65 not like mulligan bogey you know no the dude shot 65 i immediately went and rolled golf lessons i just can't even humiliate myself out here with these people this dude's rolling out a tour level score yeah here's the deal though if you're if

you're hanging out and you're the best one there you're in the wrong group oh well here's the worst part these dudes are all rich yeah at one point i was down eleven hundred dollars on the course because they they're all playing for money and i'm like you guys are expensive to hang out with dude yeah i mean luckily i made a putter too and got it back like i think we only was like 220 dollars but dude it could have been like a car it could have been like a serious car payment at some point it was bad yeah but you get out of the military back to you you get out of the military and uh and what now man so i get out of the military and and to be honest everything went to shit uh you know and and this is where the book kind of steps in this the book is me leaving special operations

me explaining what that lifestyle is and that's really it comes down to like you have to understand what the lifestyle is and what the identity is and what the your personality type to be in that kind of unit and then once you decide to exit you think you have it all figured out and you don't and life is just different and you got to keep in mind also like my time in service was 2000 2012 we were very busy during those years yeah you know post september 11th i mean it was all go yeah all go and you you know you you know get some baggage and i and i have this analogy in the book of talking about you know basically you're going 300 miles an hour because it's always the next deployment the next thing the next workup the next training session the next mission even and what's sad is even when guys on your team get killed you don't

even have time to really process and mourn them because it's the next mission or you're on a mission you got to continue on to the next and then when you get back it's just the next mission again and you clean up you clean up and you refit and you go again there's no stopping so you don't ever have time to process anything you just go you know over a decade of you know or more just piling it up and just piling it up and you're going 300 miles an hour so it's not really honestly it doesn't really bother you until you slow down yeah and then that that freight train that you've been carrying behind you the the front car you know the engine goes back from 300 to 10. well your caboose is still going 300 miles an hour and

it smacks you right in the back of the head i just got this visual in my head of like a station wagon where you just keep putting boxes in the back of it and all of a sudden you just slam on the brakes and it's all coming it's all exactly and that's what happens and so that's what happened to me and i was thinking about my dad i was thinking all of a sudden i'm thinking about dead friends and i'm having weird dreams and i'm seeing i'm like in a way i'm seeing visions like i'm catching people in groups i'm like i thought that was my dead friend it's just wild shit but it's because you've never processed it and you've been carrying around for so long so i went through this kind of what it is is identity crisis like nick was a marine ra. He was a forced recon Marine. And if you're not that,

who are you? Who are you? And this, and what's wild is when I wrote the book, I, I, I need, well,

first it was a speech. It was a keynote that I was giving. Then it turned into a full fledged book. And I thought that it was a veteran issue. Initially I thought it was just a mill. No. And, and I quickly through my keynotes, because now I had all kinds of people,

cops, firefighters, moms who had been a career stay-at-home mom, and then their kids bounce. And when kids bounce after 18, 20 years, they bounce hard. Yeah, identity crisis. They're like, peace, peace, not even a thank you. No idea what the what the parent like sacrificed for 20 years to raise them they're just like deuces and and then the person's just like well what do i do now like they put their life on pause for two decades to raise these kids which

is honorable like yeah no no but so you know moms were reading my book firefighters cops uh people that you know corporate people that and this is in your book this is all in the book you know what's funny the same line of thinking is in my book because it's because it's a real thing you can't let what you do become who you are yes because especially if it's based on a job right that can be taken away from you exactly because that happened to me at one point and so. So I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of people, one of these guys I will never forget, I think the time for retirement in UPS was like 30 years. Pension, everything, he had locked up.

They let him go at 28. So all of these people that think that they're safe with their corporate job, it's a facade. it's all a facade and this guy worked there for 28 years i don't know i don't know the back the backstory i just know that he got let go and that was it yep yeah at one point i was running the esquire magazine called it the top nightclub on the East coast, United States. It's cobalt lounge in Atlanta. And that was my identity. Cause when that place was popping, dude,

I could, you were the dude. Yeah. You're the dude. I mean, I could go anywhere and I'm not just talking about Atlanta. I mean, I could go anywhere in New York.

I killed her in Miami. I could go anywhere and it didn't matter. And then we had an incident during the super bowl where a for an nfl hall of famer got into a little bit of a murder murder problem i'd heard about that yeah yeah i was on the espn for all the wrong reasons my dad said yeah for all the reasons he didn't want me on espn commenting on that which was awesome um but yeah when yeah, when that happened, that nightclub went from amazing and printing money to dead. I mean, just like play fell off the planet. Right. Yeah. And I had done a really good job of training our staff and the guys that, you know,

the money guys that owned it, you're looking around ways to cut costs. I've trained everybody to do my job pretty much as you're supposed to go. Yeah. And when I went out the door, this is, it's, it's novel compared to, look, I understand the novelty of what I'm saying compared to what you're dealing with. Yeah. But you can't, I can't compare like everybody has their own journey and it's all, it's all based off of their individuality. It is dumb as it was. Right. So they were opening a new club around the corner. This is maybe two months after this happened. And I was just, you know, I had enough money. I wasn't worried about jumping into something else.

I was just kind of chilling. The club ended up closing. You know, they shut it down. And they were opening a new bar in town. And I knew the guy that was opening the bar, right, at this club. It's called Lava Lounge, downtown. My buddy Ray was opening it. And I knew it was opening the bar right at this club it's called lava lounge downtown my buddy ray was opening it and i knew it was opening and i'm like i didn't call to get on the guest list i said i'll just go we'll just go with some buddies the line is around the planet and i'm like just like i have

for a million times walk right up to the front door of that club and i'm like hey what's up man i did not know the guy at the front door i'd never seen him which was weird because normally the same door guys just bounce from place to place i did not know this person what's up man i'm john from cobalt blah blah blah blah you know it was right here bye bye and he just looks at me goes cobalt i placed my business two months ago back in line i was like oh shit and as dumb as that is it it wasn't about not getting in the club it was about shattering the perception of who i thought i was in that moment and that's when i was like i will never i will never let what i do or become who i am your self-worth and dude when i'm at networking places it's so funny this this skips people's brains like crazy some of my best networking

tips and i do it for that reason when i'm out networking and i'm like oh bro so tell me about you in a networking thing people like well i own this and it's blah blah blah and that but i'm like no no no no dude i didn't say what do you do i said tell me about you you married where you're from you got kids and people are like huh they just they're so dumbfounded by that question because everybody has their elevator pitch you're just trying to get the elevator pitch and see if we can actually do this. And when you do that, people will remember you in large groups of people because you're the guy that looks like you actually want to know if they're a good person and you want to connect with them as a human. Right.

What's your morals? What's your character? Tell me who you are. I don't give a shit what you do. That could change tomorrow. It can change tomorrow. Exactly. Tell me who you are.

So, yeah, I love that you're all about that. Because I had to walk through it myself and I was helping some other people through it. And that's really what it came down to. So once I did that and I realized that it wasn't a veteran issue, it was just a human being, that we all have these chapters in our life. And the problem starts to happen when you you think that this is the best chapter yeah right that this was this was the best part of my life so for like think about the nfl guy right you play this guy plays peewee football and you know from the time he's five years old he becomes a star ends up getting you know drafted to the nfl 23 years old blows his

knee out done career's over 23 all he knows is that he's a football player what happens to that guy oh dude i so implodes yeah completely you know i was in an event in newport a month ago and it was a network of of ex nfl nba major league baseball players and it's a big group of people and they're in their money managers and projects and stuff they have an annual meeting and i was at it and eric red was speaking with like metal world peace was up there they were on a panel and a lot of the guys in the room had just gotten out of whatever they were doing they just retired or gotten retired if it would be the league, and they're there. And Eric was like, how many people in the room,

this is your first season not playing? And a bunch of hands went up, and he goes, the first thing you need to do is get a psychiatrist. He goes, you have not been living in the real world since you've probably been about 12 years old. Right. And I think it's similar with the military, just in the worst possible way.

Like with athletes, it's the best possible way. You're living in this fairytale land, but with military, I think you're living in this nightmare land a little bit. I mean, yeah, but you still live in this, I would consider it fairytale land because, let's be real, first of all, in our military, this is something I had to come to grips with. It's all volunteer.

Nobody made you do that. And if you're in special operations bro you volunteered multiple times yeah like you it's you can be like i don't want to be here anymore and they'll watch out that day yeah because you gotta want to be there you have to want to be there you need to want to be there and all the stuff you go through it's it's all like you can quit at any time you can be like i quit they're like there's the door so how did you get through it's it's all like you can quit at any time you can be like i quit they're like there's the door so how did you get through it what what was you obviously realized life was different now everything's hitting me obviously like you know my background like i talked about like i've i had some grit built into like i knew hard things uh i did have some failures early on i remember one of my uh i i failed a course one time because honestly it just came down to like,

I got in my hood, my own head and I talked myself out of doing something. It was young. I was probably 19, 20 years old. Um, you know, a 19, a 19, 20 year old person's grit compared to a 40 year old man's grit. It's a little bit different. Yeah. You know, um, our bodies aren't the same, but our, but our minds are way hardened, you know? And so I failed. And I remember that feeling and what I did. And the guy told me, he's like, you know, if you just would have toughened up and stuck it out, you would have graduated. And I remember, that's like the worst thing you can say to him. He wasn't even mad. He was just like, and, and it literally was the day of the, it was the final exercise and the day of graduation. I made a video about that on my channel.

And, and that, that was like a, that was a very key moment for me in my life. Cause that's when I said, you know what? I'm I'd rather die than ever feel this again. So when I started taking selection for force recon and going through all the courses that I went through, I was like, I I'm going to die. I'll die on this road. I'll die on this mission before I tap out or throw in the towel. Yeah.

I'm not quitting again. And that's never quitting again. And that's really the- So when you got out of the military, you understood you had a problem. Yeah. So it got really bad. And in the book, I talk about it. It ended up to where at one point I was on the beach with, with my, with my, with a weapon and I was ready to call

it quits. Um, and yeah, it was rough, rough kind of go at the time. And, you know, people that fight depression, there's a lot of different things, you know, TBI, post-traumatic stress. And I was a big believer that, uh, at the time that post-traumatic stress. And I was a big believer that at the time that post-traumatic stress wasn't real, that if people dealt with any sort of thing like that, they were just mentally weak and not cut out for the job. And I literally said those things when I was younger. And then now I'm going through it and I'm like, oh, and I don't think, you know, on the, on the depression and suicide thing, I don't believe that people want to end their own life. What it is is they're so tired of feeling the way that they feel.

They want just some reprieve from that feeling. Yeah. They're so exhausted. They want to break. I don't think they want to kill themselves. Just want to break from that. They want to break from that. So they make a permanent decision off a temporary problem.

And that's the problem and so luckily for me there were some things that happened that that pulled me back a little bit but i didn't have any tools so of course i just hit the bottle uh do you know kel do you know kelsey sharon you know kelsey i gotta connect you she's got a very similar story yeah she was she was a gunner in the marine corps yeah it happens a lot awesome it happened it happens to a lot of people. But I tell, so like that was the part of the keynote in that book. I was like, listen,

in six months, you're going to want to take your own life. And everybody's like, no, no. I'm telling you right now, in six to 12 months, you're going to want

to take your own life. Here's the reason why. So then I go into the reasons why that you feel the way that you feel. And immediately, it takes the power away from that oh nick talked to me about this in the past because like for me and a lot of people that get

there they don't know why they feel they the way they feel they just feel like they're not cut out for it they whatever you know all the all the limiting beliefs that that does sneak up in their head um but if you can educate them saying, you know, on the identity stuff, on the health things, on the, on the traumatic brain injury, on the hormone stuff, what's happening with their hormones, what's happening with their health, what's happened to their brain. You feel this way because of X, Y, and Z. And this is what you need to do to get out of it. Well, all of a sudden now it takes that power away.

Yeah. You still feel the way that you do, but it's not this conundrum of why do I feel. I know exactly why I feel the way that I do, and I have a tool to solve the damn problem. And that's where you can save a lot of people's lives. And I think that tool is probably useful outside of just, I mean, obviously great for PTSD, but just for everyday folks that don't have that kind of PTSD.

And that's kind of where the birth of our coaching business came because we realized that it wasn't, like I said, it wasn't a veteran issue. It was a human being issue. And I started looking at the state of men and we pivoted towards, you know, helping men. And that's really where the pillars came from. And, and this process that we have in the Yagogi. Yeah. Well, I want to talk about the coaching thing first. I mean, we're going to get to the beard product. Cause let's face it. If you because let's face it, if you're listening to this, this dude's beard looks like it's about to knock some Persians through the hotcakes at Thermopolis. It is a Spartan level quality beard. I got to honor my roots, my ancestors. Yes, you do. Yeah. So the coaching company started four and a half years ago and right before

covid happened we were doing some fitness things so it really started out as a fitness-based training program and i just wanted to get men fit because we have an epidemic of obesity and unhealthy men in this in this nation and i always talk about i'm like if you ever want to take over a country just look at you know any country do you worry about the the elderly no no women or children no who do you who's your threat if you're going to take over a country rednecks military age male yeah right so if i want to take over a country and not have to deal with that threat what do i do submersively through psychological warfare i want to make them addicted devices overweight unhealthy distracted and what do we have in america

overweight addicted and distracted a bunch of men that are supposed to be leading our country right leading our communities and um so they've done a very good job our own government our corporations in our in our country and to be you know the people's republic of china china russia have worked over the last four decades to ensure that our country and our people are distracted and overweight and worrying about bullshit instead of what's actually what we need to be focused on. And so we started out as a fitness thing, but the problem was men were not hitting the marks. They kept self-sabotaging. So me and my business partner, he actually, my former teammate, he was, that was with me on my last deployment in special operations. Um, we ended up starting this thing together,

Josh Hansberger, a mountain of a man. Um, and we realized that the war and the problems were between the ears and that's where the mentorship side and the actual coaching and, and the process is like, I have to take men's perception of what's important and realize, like you were talking about the drift, like you guys are drifting through life. You're drifting through life. And we need to start being way more tactical, way more intentional about the way we show up, what we do and how we do it. And we need to give the power back to these men and these families

where they can start being leaders in their communities again because it looks like rewind to covet i don't really care what your opinion on what it was or anybody's opinion i have mine my gym was raided by the cops um it was just a total freaking yeah i'm sure you heard about it or saw it on fox yeah okay i didn't realize that was your gym now that you say that i'm like yes i do i was gone there was a several there was several but we all kind of connected there were several gyms that got raided i was one of them uh we did shut down like it wasn't a complete thing we shut down for i think three weeks and see here's here's the crazy thing you got to shut down because you're a gym this is a real estate company we were here working because

we were a necessary business yeah um i don't really understand the whole health thing of like shut like it so they opened certain things back up three weeks later but our governor rory cooper who's just a tyrant and a horrible person um never mentioned jim's strip clubs. Where was it? This was in North Carolina, North Carolina strip clubs opened up before he allowed Jim's to open up. Wow. I mean, necessities, right?

So he just has, he just had something against Jim's. So anyways, we went to the CDC and the affected, um, a little chunky. I don't know. He just,

you know, and this is the reason why i know he's he's full of shit and he's shady is two reasons one pool companies were didn't need to be plumbers they needed they didn't need a plumber license to install pools or to service or to service pools okay okay he changed the law in north carolina requiring them to be to be because plumbers were essential right and he wanted his pool because he wanted his pool to be serviced and taken care of so he changed the law to require them to get a plumber's license so all the pool companies during covid had to jump through hoops in north carolina and get their plumber's license

and once they did they could service all their clients and they became essential so he changed the law for his own freaking benefit and then the second thing when he destroyed i mean destroyed north carolina destroyed it i mean there's businesses been around for 35 years and they didn't they didn't make it during covet and he didn't run and this other guy this other guy was running for governor and he was the whole state you couldn't go drive anywhere in the state without seeing his signs he can't make he was cleaning house roy cooper didn't even campaign not one commercial nothing it's still one. And one by a landslide. Huh.

Yeah. Huh. I'm not saying there's a conspiracy there. I'm just saying it looks weird. Yeah. Anyways. So we opened the gym. We CDC, we opened the gym and cause the guys were hitting me up.

A bunch of, a bunch of special operations guys trained at my gym. U S Marshall's trained at my gym. A bunch of cops trained at my gym and they were like, dude, I've got to get like, I can't be just sitting at the house. This is ridiculous. This is affecting my mental health. gym u.s marshals trained at my gym a bunch of cops trained at my gym and they were like dude i i've got to get like i can't be just sitting at the house this is ridiculous this is affecting my mental health so we we put some guidelines from the cdc and then we opened back up and we just got

smacked two-year legal battle that went nowhere you know you don't really you don't really win by suing the government not really but i felt But I felt like it was a breach of the fourth. They had no search warrant. They had nothing. They just were operating on the guides of a statewide executive order, which had no statute to back it up. But I bring all that up to bring up this. I started to look at the state of us, our community as men in this nation,

and I really started to look at the state of us, our community as men in this nation, and I really started to realize if men were men the way they were in the early 60s, leaders in their community took no shit. They made decisions based off what was best for their community and their families. They weren't overweight. Well, dude, all you have to do is look at a school fitness video with JFK on it from the 60s. Dude, they show a random, have you done, do you know what I'm talking about? 100%. Last year at high school.

Yeah. And there's like just a random sprinkling of high school dudes and they're all like Vikings. You cannot, you will not find, you will not find a group of men like that anywhere. No. Not like, not at that scale. No. Not at that scale. No. Those were high school kids. It was wild.

Yes. Because that's what they did. I share that stuff all the time. Yeah. And just look at what, before cell phones, before anything, look at the men that showed up with Martin Luther King. Yeah. The fact that he was able to pull that off in that era is amazing.

That was men. Men were like, we need to do this because this we're going to do, we're going to get together because this is not what's in the best interest of our families and our communities. Those were men. So you fast forward to now, bro, we folded, folded like some loose, dirty laundry with no fight, no voice. We just took whatever they said. And I'm saying, listen, people fought. I get that.

I'm talking about why it is a community. If you would have had the same men five decades ago, never would have put up with it. They wouldn't have been able to pull it off because they would have said, this is not in what's best interest of our families or communities or community businesses that have been around here for decades because we're not going to allow this to happen. You have to come up with a different plan. Yeah.

But we didn't actually collectively refold it because we're distracted. We're overweight. We were there. We were right where they wanted to be. And that's where the fight started to happen for me. But I say also during during covid i mean i think a lot of people and this is terrible they wanted to sit home well that because that was the dream that was the dream that's the dream i'm just all right you sit around i can get doordash yeah i can i want to do nothing i can do nothing watch netflix yeah that's all i want to do check out that's all i want to do yeah and i think a lot of people i wanted that initially initially there it was easy it's an easier road right but then what happens what happens when you choose the easy road and this whole like of a long like a 90 minute no dude it's like we look it's like

we started easy good times produce weak men weak men produce hard times hard times produce strong men yep so where do you think we are in that in that cycle right now as a society i think that because of what they did i think we're on just because of what i do in the agogi and the community that we've created internally and listen you know i'm not i'm not for. I know that I'm for a very particular person. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to sugarcoat your shit. I'm like me.

That's why like me and Brad kind of, uh, a line. Cause like, I'm just going to tell you the fucking truth. And it's because I care. Like most people, most friends will not say anything to their friend when they're,

you know, 300 pounds and looking pretty rough. And they're like, dang, man, they'll talk about it. Like, I think he's not going to make it. Like, he's and looking pretty rough. And they're like, dang, man, they'll talk about it. Like, I think he's not going to make it. Like, he's probably gonna have a stroke. Like, well, if he's your friend, you'd be like, Hey bro. Like, well, it's, it's the, it's the running joke. It's like, you know, you get to a point where like,

there's no candlelight vigil. Like, like some music, do you hear so-and-so died? You're like, yeah, dude. I mean like, uh like uh yeah not really that surprised about it i had a client he's one of my tier one clients um he was over 300 pounds and then he joined us and got down to like 230 looks great better family man better husband got his own business multi-million dollar business um now he's just thriving he's ready he's like kicking ass and he ran into one of his friends after he lost all the weight. Like, damn, dude, what happened to you? He's like, last time I saw you, man, to be honest, I didn't think you were going to make it. I thought I was going to hear about you dying.

He was like, well, why wouldn't you say something to me? It's not a friend. Yeah, it's not. A friend's going to tell you the truth and hold you accountable. That's because they care about you and they care about your family. And I think, I think people are so scared that if you try to hold a friend accountable, they're going to,

they don't want to hear it. They're going to resent you. You lose a friend. And I think that's why people do it. But I mean, I guess if they're going to die from terrible fitness, you're going to fucking lose it. I freaking care about you,

dude. Like, I don't want you to like the same thing. Like you're flirting with your receptionist. Hey what's going on at home yeah you know do you really want to blow up your life like if you don't like your wife and you're not in love with her more fucking end it yeah but don't create don't create this whole don't create a hell for you and your kids and your and your wife you know because you're distracted and that's where and that's what it comes down to is like that napole That's why I love, I love the name of this podcast. By the way, just to be clear, I love my receptionist

here, but she's a seven year old woman. So he was not talking about, she's not talking about me. She's a very nice lady. He just met her. So it was not towards me just to be clear. But nonetheless, that's where it came down to is like, if I go back to that, the opposition, the enemy wants you distracted. So how do they distract you? Over 100 years ago, Napoleon Hill wrote in his book, vices, gambling, alcohol, nicotine, pornography, women, whatever it is to distract you from your purpose. And all of those things rob you of your potential they rob you of your relationship with your wife relationship with your kids how much money you're going to make it's all a distraction and i don't care how successful you are it's it comes for us

all yeah it comes for us all well i think you just have to if you catch yourself i mean look i i i'm i'm guilty as anybody who's doom scrolling on occasion yeah and it's like you just have to catch yourself and and you have to start trying to do things that change that behavior like when I'm at home now I try not to have my phone within arm's reach right I just want to call it an IED anything just put it six feet away from me right so it's if it rings and I have to answer it I can ring it I can answer it but I don't just check it to check it. You don't have to, right? No, but, but I tell you one of the things also is, is really finding that why to change that behavior. And for me, like recently I've become very hyper aware, hyper aware. I got two summers left with

my son. And like you said, he's gone. And, um, and so, yeah, so I've, I've done some things that really focus on, on spending as much time with him as I can. As a matter of fact, he's the one that booked you on the podcast. It's my 16 year old son that booked you on the podcast. Cause he's working here now. Um, after school he's working here. That's what he does. So, um, so yeah, but, but now when I'm home, you know, we've got a fairly large house, and it's big enough to where if everybody goes to their four corners, you cannot scream and they can hear you. They're gone, right?

So now we've tried to close that gap a little bit and keep everybody a little closer together as much as we can and stay focused on that. And, again, it's one of those things where I caught it where me and the wife would just be on the couch you know just fucking doom scrolling yeah and it's like this is not this is not helping no it's not helping your relationship at all like you guys need to connect i think the doom scrolling is the worst thing that that is the worst vice you can again it's just making it's keeping you distracted and you really pull it back and you're like, what are my goals in life?

And what am I doing to move closer to those? And how am I communicating that with my partner? How am I talking about what we're going to do? It's that the whole thing is, I forgot who said it off the top of my head, but small minds talk about people. Average mind talk about events. Talk about ideas. small minds talk about people. Average mind talk about events. Talk about ideas. Great minds talk about ideas. And that's what me and my wife are constantly, my people,

like, let's talk about ideas constantly. Yeah. I'm constantly, we're lucky enough that my wife has just been, we wanted to do that when the kids were, you know, learning. She's been mom. That's her thing. And my wife is incredibly- So crucial. She's incredibly bright and that's great. But like you said earlier, when the kids are gone, she's going to have an identity crisis.

So I'm already- Well, and that's like my wife wrote a book called How Not to Be a Miserable Cow. It's great. Good for her. Yeah, great book. I don't know how men buy that book through their wives. That's a tough one.

That's a tough one. That's a tough one to crack. But on hindsight, maybe a different name. their wives that's a that's a tough it's a tough that's a tough tough to crack but um you know maybe a different name it's right next uh maybe we should have a threesome in the bookstore both to drop them on her pillow yeah exactly um women have to buy that book for themselves but really she talks a lot about that and she talks about how even if you're a stay-at-home mom you really have to and this goes back to identity, right? You have to have something for yourself. Yeah.

Like mom has, like even if you're in business, like that's why guys that do jujitsu, for instance, that do the military or law enforcement, when they get out, there's something that's the same. So the same thing with a mom, right?

They have something that they're passionate about. So when the kids leave, there's this normality still. Like I still do this thing, even though I'm not doing the other stuff anymore. So it just keeps them a little bit more rooted for them, for their own, their own self-worth and their own purpose. I find that the majority of people that are struggling or doing this, like, you know, one of my favorite quotes is, you know know a boat with no destination will sail to nowhere yeah right you'll never get there and i have most people you ask them why they're doing something

they can't answer that like in any aspect like i love when because it's the way we've always done it right no no no no what i mean is like people will come interview here yeah and like they'll want to work at our company we're pretty selective about who works here and i'll ask this question i'll be like okay what are your financial goals and i'm like i want to make two hundred thousand dollars a year and i'll go okay cool why what's the money for they can't answer the question i don't know it just uh just seems like good not just seems like good number by the way so no vision yeah you have no idea what you want what you're trying to do and then it's like so because of that you won't ever get there no and then you have people that come in there like i want to buy i want to build generational wealth i want to have

10 rental properties i'm going to use this money i'm going to reinvest it here i'm going to do that and that's a plan right that's a plan that's going to make you get up every day instead of turning on maury povich to find out you know who the father is you're actually going to grind out exactly that's a great thing i talked about the same thing as i get out of bed early in the morning like i did a line of cocaine yeah and the reason why and i don't do a lot of cocaine obviously but i we figured that i'm not flirting with my 70 year old uh receptionist either so just just to be clear be clear i gotta say that again be clear um so i do that that because the things that I'm building, the men that I'm helping, my businesses that I'm building,

the customers that we service are more important than staying in that bed under the warm covers with my hot-ass wife for an extra 30 minutes. Yeah. It's not worth it. What I'm doing, my purpose, my passion, the things that I'm driven to do is more important than an extra 30 minutes yeah it's not worth it what i'm doing my purpose my passion the things that i'm driven to do is more important than a extra 30 minutes of sleep do you have a morning routine you're

religious about yeah pretty crazy see so do so do i and i'm trying to i'm trying to be i'm trying to make it okay when life serves up that i can't get through all of it yeah that's hard i'm trying because dude i found myself like if i don't like this all of it yeah that's hard i'm trying because dude i found myself like if i don't like this is what i do and this is how i do it and same thing every morning every day and then and then all of a sudden like oh shit i gotta take an east coast zoom that's gonna happen at 7 30 instead of my normal i'm like oh man well when am i gonna get that in and it sends me so i'm trying to stop trying to stop doing that. Yeah. And that's a, it's a good thing that you have to, you have to be able to be flexible and not let it derail you and just blow your whole life up. But for me, I know that I operate better when I take care of me.

Yeah. I can, I'm more creative. I'm more clear headed. I can communicate better. So I have to do my morning routine. So if my day is going to change, well, then guess what? I'm getting up earlier and I will sacrifice sleep. I know that, you know, sleep's a huge portion of health and I'm a big component of it. But hey, sometimes you got to, sometimes you got to, you got to grind out and you got to do some hard things. And so sometimes, you know, maybe it's a three 30 wake up, but, but I operate because of that.

I operate better. And the reality is you can do it most men just don't want to yeah it's uncomfortable what time do you get a bed though oh man somewhere between eight and nine oh yeah 9 30 9 30 i'm done oh 9 30 it's like i'm pissed it's 9 30 and i'm not in bed like yeah i'm better than 30 yeah so yeah we should and when dad goes to bed everybody goes no it's funny because i remember like the moment i knew i was old right like today you know just you're old and this is this will tell you how long ago it was i realized i was old and the wife were riding home one night and she goes uh hey do you want to stop a blockbuster and get a movie and i went i mean it's already 9 30 you want to get a movie now 9 30 are you crazy i'm like it sounds like my wife i'm like holy shit i'm old and just happened that quick

and i feel bad for her because when we met we've been together october would be 10 years so when she when she met you know i'm in my early 30s and we were just like having a blast and at some point in that decade i turned into like a grandpa and she's like god you're so old now i'm like easy lady yeah she's a little bit younger than me but but she's right i have i'm like oh no dude i'm hell on wheels till 9 30 don't get me wrong right i'm a good time right up until 9 30 but then it's done but then i shut the whole house down so everybody has to go to bed everybody has to go to bed i don't do i don't i don't do that i grab i grab the dog head upstairs my wife normally comes up about 10 maybe it's because of my background but like any little noise really yeah you're jumpy i'm jumping jumpy i'm a little jumpy so the house has to for me to go to sleep the whole house has to shut for me to go to sleep. The whole house has to shut down. Yeah. But I have kids.

I got three. I got a 22 year old, an 18 year old, a beautiful, wonderful woman. And, uh, and I hit the reset button with my, my wife and,

uh, we, we have a four year old little boy. Oh, wow. Just turned four. It's kind of cool. You get to do it all over.

It is. I get a second shot. I always tell my other girls, I'm like, sorry, that dad didn't know what he was doing. This one's like so easy. Yeah. It's fun. And it's so easy. No stress. Yeah. second shot i always tell my other girls i'm like sorry that dad didn't know what he was doing this one's like so easy yeah it's fun and it's so easy no stress whatsoever well my experience too

especially when they're little the boys are always easier than the girls are and i started yeah i started out with two girls so yeah you know i don't know yeah they're they're difficult i would say they're difficult later yeah um no No, my daughter pretty much, dude, every picture that I have of my daughter when she's like under two years old, she's just looking at me like, and the look on her face is you're suspect. Like you, suspect, every look.

But I always tell people, it's so funny, my son is an exceptional student and he has Ivy League aspirations. Yeah, and he'll probably go to school and get an incredible job working in his field and in a big beautiful building that'll be owned by my daughter because she is a gangster yeah she yeah god help us out because she she looks like mom and acts like me so yeah so like it's funny you say that because my son is, is high energy, like going to go crush the world.

But my daughters are sneaky. Yeah. Like they're, they're calculated. They're calculated. Yes. And like you said, like, like, I like the way that you said gangster, because they're both very much like so calculated that you're like, you're dangerous. Oh dude.

No. Dangerous. Trust me. like so calculated that you're like you're dangerous oh dude no dangerous trust me the day i can be put in the home by my daughter i'm at sunny sunny acres the day it can happen there's no question you're gonna set set yourself up for success yeah no yeah no i'm just kidding no my daughter is the is the she's the uh the apple of my eye now so she's uh she's definitely but it's it's a it's a rad experience. And I'm actually, we're actually trying to have another one more. Cool. Good for you.

Well, let's talk about, so we talked about the coaching business. And if somebody wants to hear more about that, how do they find that? Just message me or go to theagogi.com. Straight up. Yeah. All right.

And real quick, I got to talk about the beard products, man. Because it's just, the beard's magical. Not gonna lie. I just made the commitment just to give up and go gray. I just said, I got a little bit. It's man and it's yeah how old are you 53 you look great for 53 thanks brother yeah because no you dude you do like that you do like the just for

men thing and then like the one time you do it the wrong color and you just look so fucking weird i haven't ever done it i don't think for you i don't think i can do it don't don't wife's like let it go let it go she's like it's hot i'm like that's weird that you think it's hot but i'm down for it you just gotta have some sun if you go pale and have the gray now you look like a corpse you look like one of the dudes hand and you look like you're the haunted mansion one of those guys that are the hitchhiking ghosts so so johnny slicks is an organic organic grooming company with the fastest growing organic grooming company in the country. And you'll love this, man.

We started this company with $400. I love it. $400, and we hit eight figures. We'll hit eight of those figures this year. I'm an eight-figure company. Good Lord. Are you CEO there? I'm CEO there.

Okay. How did you scale up? How many employees now? We're at 25. We're at 25 or 25 employees. You only have 25 employees to do eight figures. Yep. And we are completely vertically integrated. We manufacture our own products.

We fill in house. We have our own mark media marketing team. My wife's marketing director of the company. Yeah. I should have talked about this the whole time. Man, I might have to have you back now just to talk about that. Actually,

it's funny. I'll be back and I'll be back at the end of august dude i may want to have you back i may want to hold i may want to hold johnny slicks because that's scaling a business that's a whole nother podcast i could talk about that for over an hour yeah dude yeah yeah we're gonna have you back yeah we're gonna do a part two with you brother i'll do part twos but i'm interested in that this one this one's amazing man because it's really coming down to and there's a lot that goes into it but we're american made american manufactured uh we source all of our ingredients from americans um so we have a really big uh mission to help bring manufacturing back to the states love that and to give people good paying jobs here.

Love that. Because we've been pushed. We've been pushed so hard to outsource everything. Everybody's like outsource to this, outsource your customer service to the Philippines, outsource manufacturing, outsource fulfillment. And I'm like,

well, how does that help our community? How does that help America? Like, sure. That makes like, I can add a dollar to my, I can add a dollar per product to my bottom line right for me but on a bigger scale how does that help anyone

dude that reminds me the arizona iced tea guy do you see what he did recently no it was an interview with him and they said you know with inflation everything how are you still selling the big iced tea for 99 cents yeah he goes because that's what we charge for it he goes they aren't you making less money he goes absolutely he goes what am i gonna i'm gonna make another 45 cents but i'm gonna hurt our consumers that are already hurting with everything else yeah i heard with everything else and i'm gonna hurt my i'm gonna hurt my customer yeah like over money like no well we believe that and we will we will continue to make our own money but we're going to do it the right way love that yeah we're gonna do we're totally doing part two on johnny

six but they want to find that how they find that real quick yeah johnny slicks.com it will change your life be careful though i'll tell you this be careful when women get a sniff of you wearing our fragrances our essential oils all organic are essential oil fragrances that John makes, my business partner. I don't know what's in it, but it makes women go crazy. We have 20 confirmed babies from men wearing Johnny Slicks. All had by women. Okay, because that was going to get weird. No, no, no.

We're on that level. Okay, there you go. All right, you're good. Okay, there you go. You're good. All right, cool. Good enough. Well, brother, man, it was a pleasure to sit here with you.

I can't wait to have you back because I love talking to you because we're totally vertically integrated here. Everything that has to do with a house, we do here. All of it. Everything from top to bottom. So anyway, we'll have you back. But guys, let today be a lesson to you, man. If you don't have goals, if you are not dealing with your shit,

if you're, I mean, the things that are holding you back are between your ears. It's not the outside influence. It's how you choose to react to them. We'll see you next week. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about

the show, you can always go over to escaping the drift.com. You can join our mailing list, but do me a favor. If you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.