Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY EP.39 Feat. Dakota Malone - Men's Health Journey & Reaching Clients in a Meaningful Way!

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Embracing Life After Near-Death: Dakota Malone and the Path of Self-Discovery In this episode of Good News York, host Matt Major welcomes his friend Dakota Malone, a multifaceted individual with an inspiring life story, to discuss his journey from his upbringing in Central New York to his current endeavors in renewable energy and men's mental health advocacy. Dakota shares his transformative experiences with heart surgeries, his unexpected career in door-to-door sales, and the profound impact of facing mortality head-on. He also delves into his involvement with Midwest Men, a group focused on supporting men through vulnerability and shared experiences. The conversation highlights Dakota's unique approach to life, resilience, and community building, offering listeners a blend of personal anecdotes and strategic insights into content creation and personal growth. 00:00 Introduction and Greetings 00:29 Meet Dakota Malone 01:34 Dakota's Journey and Career 05:15 Content Strategy Insights 13:24 Podcast Guesting Strategy 22:41 Men's Mental Health and Masculinity 24:29 Confidential Conversations and Core Themes 25:21 Personal Journey and Heart Surgeries 28:59 Therapy and Overcoming Abandonment 30:27 Generational Trauma and Healing 31:50 Men's Group and Brotherhood 35:12 Heart Surgery Experiences 39:51 Facing Death and Personal Growth 45:12 Upcoming Projects and Closing Remarks

You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts,

chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your Start free at RSS.com. All right. Hey guys. I'm Matt Major from Growth Mode content.

Welcome to another edition of Good News York. I am very excited because next to my good buddy, Mike, Hi. Good morning. Good morning, buddy. Evening. Evening, afternoon. It's a podcast.

People could be listening to this at like 4 a.m. Just guess what time it is. But if you're listening to us at 4 a.m., we won't. Way better things to listen. Joining us in the studio is one of my most favorite humans on the planet. His name's Dakota. Dakota Malone. He's from the Oswego area but doesn't live there anymore.

But he comes and he graces us with his presence and we're able to learn so much and have a great time. So Dakota Malone, welcome to Good News York, buddy. Thank you. So we're pumped to be here. Dude, listen, I don't want to put the pressure on, but these guys, Danny, our great producer, Danny Chapporte, and Matt have really spoke very highly of you. And obviously in the research process, I saw a lot of the things you were doing. So we're very excited to have you on the phone.

The bar has been set eye. They've talked you up, man. Okay. Well, listen, you know, here's what's interesting about this guys. He's got so many different things going on. I really got to, we only have so much time. So I need to be respectful and try to pick the best elements of everything. But before, we should kind of give some people some context.

So if you wouldn't mind, buddy, just give us the general pitch of what you do, how you spend most of your time. And we can get into it from there. Awesome. Yeah. Cool. Well, my name's Dakota. Again, thank you guys so much for having me. Our pleasure, man. I've been a fan of the show since day one.

I was talking to Matt before we kind of started it. I was like, hey, good luck with everything. I don't know if you remember our first live broadcast at the fairgrounds. I told you, one of my buddies texted me out of the blue and said good luck and, like, how awesome that was. That was him? That was him. Oh, dude, thank you. That was me.

We were nervous as hell, so that we needed that. And even before this, I was thinking about this because I just got off my flight here. I was thinking about why I love you so much, Matt. And when I first met you, you were talking about this show before it was a thing. And one of the things I admire about entrepreneurship in general is the ability to solve problems and actually create solutions. Sure. And I remember when we first met, Matt was like, man, I'm so sick of these bullshit media channels and bad news. And it's like, I just want to create something that just talks about good news.

And I remember you saying that. And, you know, fast forward, what, maybe three, four years ago at this point? It's like, here it is. The studio's built. You've literally renovated your, you know, home base for what you're doing in IT and created the solution. And so, first and foremost, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for bringing things to life. Very much appreciate that.

I think it's so cool and inspiring. I spend most of my time. I'm getting married this year. So, you know, first and first of my first of my time. I try to be the best fiancé I can be and really leaning into... He's such a good guy. You know, I, my... Hello, Heidi, if you're watching this.

Hi, hi. I love you. Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, so, you know, I spend a lot of time with my fiancee. I moved to St. Louis. I'm originally from Central New York. I always tell people I grew up in between two cornfields in the middle of nowhere.

I went to Hannibal High School. I graduated with, you know, 99 kids in my class. And it was an interesting upbringing. You know, I went to community college 15 minutes down the road. And it's so funny because I share with people, that was really the first time my mind had expanded beyond the cornfields where I grew up. But I was like, whoa, diversity, like different opinions. And it really opened me up. And, you know, then I started my career in, you know, what I now do in the renewable energy space, but as a door-to-door salesperson.

And that brought me all over the country, all over the country, all over the world. world and really expanded my vision for what was possible for me, what I wanted to do with my life. And, you know, that plus an epic journey of five heart surgeries, which, you know, Danny knows and Matt, you know. I do not know. Many deaths in between and lots of ceremonies. He's like a cat. Sky.

Yeah, you know, and that's ultimately how I ended up doing what I do now, which, you know, I run a company called Community Solar Authority. we help large energy users with their sustainability strategies. And so in between, I'm hanging out with my fiancé, you know, exploring and traveling when I can, entrepreneurship. And, yeah, I'd say that's a little two-minute bio. Beautiful. I met this guy on a boat in Miami. And I got on the boat.

He was already there. He was already there, and I got on the boat. And on the bow of the boat is this guy in a leopard print shirt and shorts. sitting cross-legged, meditating, looking out of the water. And I said, you know what, this guy's going to be all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was absolutely true. It was a great time.

Dakota, what I love about you, and again, there's so many different things that we can talk about. But I want to dig into just a little bit of your strategy, because for some context, some months ago, I don't know, a year ago, time doesn't work for me anymore. But a while back you came here, you put on a presentation for a bunch of us on social media and content and things of that nature. And a couple of the things that you said in that particular training has stuck with me has become actually part of our business model here at Growth Mode content. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Specifically, you mentioned to us how as you create and curate your content, it's not to go viral. It's not to get 10 million views, but it's more to build a detailed profile for the folks. who are already kind of looking into you.

And I don't know if, and forgive me if I'm not saying that right. But could you talk about that concept a little bit of just kind of your strategy for growth and what you've done on social for your business? I love this question because it's so relevant. I just had a guy reach out to me a couple weeks ago and he's like, hey, he did a whole. And I really appreciated the work that he did. He went through and watched every single podcast I've done, all of my content, all of my YouTube shorts, put it into this pretty package and basically said,

hey, I want a revenue share. I can become your content strategist, an SEO partner. We can do all of this stuff, et cetera. And I was like, this is a great presentation, but I'm not trying to go viral. And we actually really flip the content model on its head because, as you just mentioned, Matt, you know, when I think about building content, I think about showing, you know, the four to five people it's going to matter to. So our YouTube shorts, they get nine to 13 views. But those nine to 13 people are some of.

the, you know, decision makers at the largest clients that we can even dream of. And unfortunately, I'm under NDA at this point, so I could just leave it at one of the largest companies in the world. But this just happened to us, you know, three weeks ago, I made a maybe, maybe a month ago at this point. I posted on LinkedIn, I was like, I just posted episode 65 of my podcast and three people listen to it. Like, nobody listens to it.

And then a week later, I get a DM in the Bahamas. And it was like, hey, Dakota, I just heard your, you. know, episode, I want to connect. And it's, you know, with one of the largest energy users in the United States. And they're like, we appreciate your expertise. We appreciate your value-first approach. And we want to understand how we can work with you. And that's always been the method to what I do is not trying to go viral or come up with the greatest hooks, but really to put the education first and build a community around that. And, you know, I think about if 20, 20 people watch your video for people that are just starting or, you know, people who have a backwards

strategy like me. If you have 20 people watch a YouTube short or a piece of content, if you imagine this room filled with 20 people, that's an audience. That is an audience. It just comes down to getting it in front of the right people. And so for me, I make hyper-specific niche content. Our clients right now are essentially large energy users in the states of New York and Illinois. And so that total addressable market is only so many people. It's not hundreds of millions. It's not millions. It's probably not even tens of thousands.

It is like less than a thousand people that we actually want to connect with. And so for us, I make the content first and then I just send it directly to them. And a lot of the other stuff I taught in that LinkedIn class or social class was, you know, like I'll send voice notes to, again, some of the biggest decision makers at companies. and to this day they don't receive voice notes. They receive a massive block of text. Yeah. Immediate, you know,

second you connect with them on LinkedIn. And it's like, Hey, man, let me sell you something. I know you're a huge fan of that. Big old pitch slap, you know? I hate that.

So it's a combination of doing things differently, but then also like addressing them with actual value. And again, they go to the podcast and even though only three people listen to it, they see, wow, this guy's put out 70 plus episodes, 10 minutes each of hyper-specific needs.

content of problems I'm trying to solve for. So that's kind of how I think about strategy. It's so brilliant from my perspective because when I got hired here, I kind of had the point of view about social media that most people do. And what I learned from Matt, which now I'm learning, I in turn

learned from you, is that I compare everything to what I've known, which is I've always been in front of a microphone on stage my whole life. And I remember there were times when my band would play for I don't know, hundreds of people. maybe 5% were interested.

Then there were times where we played for 20 people who were fucking losing their money. Yes. And we were like, that's way better. You know, it's almost like what I've learned from you and you is that it's like it would be like opening a restaurant but we're marketing to people across the country. Yeah.

Like why aren't we marketing for around us? It's so people don't think about it's a great analogy. We think about viral. We think about views and it's like, how about meaningful views and like, I love that. I see it as like a resume. You know what I mean? Like everybody's got their resume online somewhere,

but nobody's Googling around and randomly discovering resumes. Right. When someone reaches out to me and says, hey, I want to apply now you're looking in and you're digging deep. And that kind of bank, you know, and one of the things that we talk about, what's interesting is,

I want to say I got into an argument. I didn't get into an argument. I didn't say anything back. I kind of went off on this guy on LinkedIn last week. Traditional marketing guy, traditional video marketing guy. He puts out this post, video podcasts are dead. Yeah, yeah.

And then he goes into details how the reason they're dead is because they're, you know, not getting as many millions of views as they were, you know, whatever. And you can pick stats in different times than any of those and make those say any either way you want to go. But, you know, the whole point of my kind of reply there that I posted was exactly what we're talking about. The reason we do this, it's not like really any other medium, and it doesn't replace those. I think that's the thing that a lot of people, they think it's in competition, you know.

This is not, you know, not taking the place of your billboard or your TV ad or your search engine ads and things like that. This is a different piece. And what it does is develop that long-term content of who are you. Right. You know, we can all pitch our product and here's a great sale and here are the features. You're listening to a podcast right now. driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too.

With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too.

With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at RSS.com At the end of the day, especially with something like your business, very in-depth, high-ticket, serious stuff. You want to know who you're working with.

You know, is this some schmuck fly-by-night who, you know, got this job yesterday and he'll be moving on to the next one tomorrow? Like, no, this guy's a genuine industry expert. He's respected by others. And you can see that just from the conversations that they have. And that's the piece that I've tried to get across. And I think luckily all of our growth mode. content client creators get that and they understand and have already seen the value of letting people know who they are. Yeah.

Even sometimes without even mentioning the product. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Beyond the billboard, beyond the, you know, however else you market, those pieces of content is an integrated approach, especially if you're a local business. Back to the restaurant point. Yeah. There's a lady in St. Louis.

She's about an hour north. It's called Judy's Pancakes. and her stuff goes viral because she takes the hook and has, you know, like whatever, those jump cut hooks where, like, they're like, get water thrown on them. And then she's like, come get my pancake. Sure. But she sends all of that traffic through Facebook ads locally and then uses that to drive as an integrated approach. And then you add things like podcasting and content and you do get to see the human behind it. So now it's not like, oh, there's a billboard for XYZ.

it's like, oh, no, I just saw a clip of them talking about their family or whatever it is. And all of a sudden, I'm way more likely to do business with them because I know, I know them now. Even if it's not like a known first person connection, it's I know them. And that makes a huge difference. Absolutely. It absolutely does. What are the other things I want to ask you about? You have, and I don't know if you've still maintained this strategy, but I think either last year or the year before, you had a goal of being a guest on X number of podcasts. And you had a strategy of creating this content, I think, is kind of a hack, and I really don't want to give it away because it's kind of the opposite of what we're doing here.

But he's figured out how to leverage other folks and be a guest exclusively to grow this. Can you talk about that a little bit? It's brilliant. Yeah, so I learned this from a guy I met in a coffee shop about a half hour from St. Louis. His name's Dustin Reekman. And he is a buddy of mine who ran an accelerator group for podcasting, guest podcasting particularly. So he's like, hey, it's $10,000. And I was like, wow, it's a lot of money for an accelerator class.

And I was like, whatever, I'll do it. Because I was really interested in this idea of leveraging other people's audience to be able to build, again, for the sake of becoming known, having content created for me, and really being able to put the message out there, not so much on getting the client's side, but really partnering with people. Sure. And so the idea would be, you know, for me, I went on a bunch of podcasts for land. there's a whole niche of real estate of land flipping where people will buy dirt and flip it and they'll make a lot of money from it.

Wow. No tenants, no toilets, no problems. Really interesting space. Damn. And there are some really large podcasts and communities around that. And so my target was, hey, you're starting podcast talking to landowners about for people how to get into land flipping or land investing. Why don't I come in and talk to them about, you know, being able to generate passive income with solar? So instead of selling the property, you buy it, dirt cheap, pennies on the dollar for, you know, a number of different reasons why people sell properties, especially raw land for dirt cheap. And now you can come in and add a solar component to it. And that was just a approach that really had not been talked about in that specific niche. So it was about finding that right market. And then I went on a podcast circuit and talked on every single major community, you know, podcast on that niche. And it works in every industry. Yeah. And so Dustin really taught me the idea that you can leverage other people's audience. to be able to come get your message out there.

And again, I think it's an integrated approach to what you were doing. If I were a client at Growth Mode, which if I lived in New York, I would crush. I know I would. We would have you. And what I told you guys before we started the show is like, dude, it's so possible for you guys. You could even go on other people's podcasts and talk about growth mode content. And they used that to fly people in. No, absolutely.

It's like the reverse inception of the strategy. In fact, I think that that would be brilliant for you guys. It's like you could do the virtual podcast from your studio talking about what you do on other people's audience and now they're flying in to see you and it's this whole like unique offer. I just think that that would crush because people would fly in from all over.

I know that Matt, you in particular, you love talking about upstate, all of the good stuff that's going on. The whole point of this podcast, Good News York is to talk about the good things going on in Central New York. More people would be exposed to the Central New York region. They would get up here and they'd say,

wow, I didn't think that there was anything beyond New York City. Right? Every time I say, oh, I'm going home to New York, we're like, oh, what borough do you live in? Exactly. It's like, no. No. Exactly. So, yeah, you know, it's one of those things where it's a super integrated approach.

I think it's complementary, not necessarily in competition with what you guys are doing. And anyone thinking about, again, wanting to leverage their brand or grow their audience or just get more exposure, this whole idea of reaching out to other people and saying, hey, Mike, Matt, I know you guys run growth mode content. I talk about XYZ. I think it would be valuable for XYZ reasons. Are you opposed to me coming on or at least sending you another clip of some stuff I've done? Right? Just a very

simple, you know, that's kind of the wind-up in the pitch to it. Yeah. And, you know, again, as long as it's not a giant, and there's even creative ways to do it, right? So like if you want to get on top podcasts or you want to meet with top people, I send voice notes. I saw another ridiculous thing today. It was called

Suno S-U-N-O. And it creates AI jingles. And this dude copied and pasted people's LinkedIn information, so name their photo and buy-outs. Created a custom AI song and then DMs it to them. And it's like a jingle singing about that. Wow. It's how you break in. Yeah.

And we do a lot of creative direct mail stuff to, I mean, I've sent cartoons to people and empty donut boxes saying, hey, like I wanted to, you know, circle back with you, but I got tired of waiting and ate all these donuts. So you just send them a donut box of sprinkles. Like, there is creativity to getting in touch with the right people. And so, again, it's not only about identifying which podcast you want to go on, but how do you actually reach out to them in a way that it's not lost amongst all the messages? Because everybody wants to be on those. Sure. But if you do break the mold and you do crack it, I mean, there's amazing things to happen. To this day, I have people book on my calendar every single week.

I haven't done a land podcast in, I don't know, this year at all. I have people book on my calendar every single week. I have XYZ parcel. I saw you on this show. I want to talk about solar. And that's been a consistent lead machine for us. And so that's the power of it. And that's what we did.

Haven't done it nearly as much this year. It's still a huge focus of ours, but as our business has kind of evolved, it's changed the direction. Tell me, just remind me, you did, you had a particular number of goal like last year or something, right, didn't you? Yeah, I did.

I wish I could remember. Definitely a vanity metric. I don't think I hit it either. Yeah? Yeah. I feel like you had to have come close because... I was pushing hard. I mean, there was every single week,

I was on, on at least two podcasts for a few four. I was going really hard. That's almost more than us and we'd do it for a living. Yeah. No, but you know, and you're still applying the method we talked about earlier, which is you could have went on 100 podcasts, like throw a dart at the wall. You went for ones that made sense for what you do and what you're trying.

Really dug into those particulars, yeah. And those are the little details that people overlook. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, back to the SEO guy. He's like, hey, I can get you a million views. I'm like, great. like how much money does that generate?

Like, where's the revenue in that? And it's like, I don't want 13-year-olds watching my YouTube channel on solar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, but like not. Yeah. And, you know, here's the thing. Maybe that for different types of businesses, maybe that's a better fit. Right.

Maybe you're selling a Chotchky to everybody in the country. Right. That might. But, you know, in my experience, that's actually a very small number of businesses. Yeah. And it seems like the majority of even bigger-sized businesses are at least region. They're not even necessarily national. So I think that mass market number is definitely there.

But as we look at these strategies for most businesses, at least the primarily B-to-B folks that we're doing business with. It's no different than the old school model of, you know, when I was homesick as a kid watching Price is Right, I'd see all the hand soap commercials and all the for the stay-at-home parents, right? You know, so it's no different than knowing your demographic and trying to reach them. Well, it's also all about networking,

and I think that's one of the reasons that I've always been drawn to it. You know, my whole business from the technology side and now into content side, we've been completely bootstrapped and never had any piles of money to throw at this and try it.

It's... It's 100% networking, though. You know what I mean? And I've tried other advertising and things like that. Content creation is the only one that has even any sort of drive, but still, I'll be honest,

the majority of my business has always been that personal networking. You know, profound has developed, I don't know how many business relationships. Before that, I'm a member of a local business club

that meets every Friday. That's brought in well over a million dollars a year in revenue. You know, and it's just that human piece that there's a hundred guys in town that can work on your computers. People have signed up with me

because they like me, which is weird. But, you know what I mean? That's how it works. Podcasting. it's the whole model. I talk about this all the time,

you know, with all this emphasis on AI, and it's amazing, all this technology and digital and podcasting. But for me, I really have a hard time believing that guerrilla marketing, face-to-face interaction will ever die. And I think it's still the most important. You know, years ago,

I was bartending on a slow night and like five or six people came in, and I was making them laugh and pouring them shots and just making, building a relationship with these people. and I happened to mention they saw a flyer on the bar my band I was in a band at the time What kind of music did you play?

Rock and roll man, rock and roll. I was in a metal core band Growing up in Central New York. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I was rock. But yeah, so we, you know, so they sell the flyer. They're like, oh, you're playing here?

I said, oh, yeah, yeah. And like next week. And they went, dude, we're going to come. We're going to bring a bunch of people. I'm like, okay, you know, well, wouldn't you know, fast forward to that show? They all showed up, dude. I mean, and they brought all

their friends and they were up front and they were going, you know, just going nuts. And I truly believe if they had walked in and just saw that flyer, there's no way they would have come. Right. But because we made that connection, it's just so important. 100%. That's a great segue actually to one other thing I want to ask Dakota before we get out of here. You've been talking a lot, and I think maybe you have a group or something, but you've been talking

a lot about kind of men, mental health and masculinity and things of that nature. Can you tell us about that a little bit? Yeah, so my experience with that was I was in Costa Rica last year when I got engaged to my fiancé. We were down there to explore the country. We went to a music festival. And at the music festival, there was this group under a tent called Sacred Sons. And it is really this idea of rebirthing masculinity. And I went to a couple of their workshops, was really interested in it.

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Ultimately, you know, came back to St. Louis after the festival and found a guy who was a part of their leadership team. actually in St. Louis, is Jeffrey Carver. And so, you know, Jeffrey and I have been working to craft what we call Midwest Men, which is really very similar idea. It's a masculine embodiment network. And we have weekly meetups every Tuesdays. We are, you know, doing live events.

I'm going on a 12-mile kayak trip and overnight camping where we get men together. We put them in the same room. And, you know, traditionally, when you think about maybe men in a, single space together. There's maybe drinking or, you know, other socialing. But we like to get deep. We like to get vulnerable. And so, you know, we essentially put together these containers that allow men to really unwind, get vulnerable, and talk about the things that light them up and the things that also, you know, they're dealing with that they are unable to talk about. And so every single week, you know, keeping everything confidential, every single week I'll have.

guys come in and they're like, man, I feel like I can't talk about this with anybody else. I feel like nobody understands me in my daily life. And like just this last Tuesday, I cried three separate times and I'm just like trying to facilitate the conversation. And, you know, we never really know where we're going to go. We love the, you know, the big three themes of just sex, money, and death. Those three core topics seem to really resonate with everybody, but especially with men as far as, as shadows or parts of ourselves that we don't normally like to see. Yeah. You know, we're all about bringing the lantern, bringing the light to those conversations.

And I always say inside your darkest caves are your deepest treasures. And that's just been my personal experience. So through my, you know, journey having five heart surgeries, you know, when I was a kid, you know, of course I don't know if this was a past life. I was ripped out of my mother's arms as soon as I was born. You know, I struggled with abandonment. That was the real big wound for me that I was unconsciously programmed and had no idea that I was dealing with abandonment until I came face to face with it. And it wasn't until I was able to move through that in a sacred way, which is also a big piece to what we do.

So we don't have any religious ties, but we say keep it sacred. And that's whatever it means to that individual man. For me, it's been through many ceremonies, many rebirth and death ceremonies. that I was able to, you know, transform from that, along with, you know, things like internal family systems therapy, which has also been like such a highlight and positive uplift to my life. So I'm really big into this idea. One, just as personal exploration, I, maybe there was a time in my life where I was a

seeker and I was looking for something. Now I just look at the unconscious mind as the final frontier and I'm like, I want to explore this. I think it's endlessly fascinating. You know, I got really big into NLP, Neurilingualistic programming and hypnosis as a way to work with my own physical pain and mental pain from five heart surgeries. You know, I was wide awake for my third heart surgery on the operating table. And I remember disassociating out of my body. And, you know, there's a really good book called The Body Keeps the Score. And it's all about this idea that we need to revisit the trauma that we experienced in our life one last time in order for it to heal. And so there is this really hard

moment that you have to go through where you do have to face the thing that broke you. You do have to face the thing that you may have not known as even there. And so the point of the men's group is to put men in a container where there is brotherhood, there is camaraderie. You know, I believe that this healing is very personal. It's done in the privacy of our own hearts. But there is something really magical about getting a bunch of men together, having the right container set to do that work. and then just watching it unfold. I love this so much. This is something that we've been talking about,

and we've actually got some content ideas in the hopper to sort of address this. But what we find is everything you're talking about is so incredibly necessary and needed. And guys are, in many cases, neglected in these ways. Because we think, and oftentimes it's put on us. You know, you can't cry. What are you a bitch?

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And then the other side of that, is as much as that's needed, there isn't a whole lot like you're discussing that fills that void. And instead, we get some of the worst stuff. And we get a lot of young men following some of the most scumbag, misogynist pieces of shit on the planet.

And 100%, you know, guys like that, you know, we're pro men because we hate women sort of thing. And unfortunately, you get some of, even when you get to single parents. and men's rights. Men do have rights, and there's a lot of places where men are in a very disadvantaged place in family court and things like that. The problem is the people that talk about that the most

are the same ones that go, women shouldn't be allowed to have a child period, and the men should, you know what I mean? So it's such a challenge, and so to hear some folks that just have some, I think, genuine values and aren't about, you know, our life is rough because of this other group.

Yeah. I love hearing that. I'm incredibly moved by what you just said because I, you know, for the sake of being true to you, our guest, I'll be vulnerable for a second. Abandonment has been my number one issue. I've been in and out of therapy for over 15 years. I lost my brother to leukemia. I was six years old. He was three.

I gave him a bone marrow transplant. I learned later on in life through therapy that I kind of took the blame. Like, it didn't work. And so one day he was there and one day he was gone, literally gone. Like I never said goodbye. And so I think I just stuffed it down. And for so many years, I had all these issues. And anytime someone said, well, you know, I think it's obviously because you lost,

I don't want to talk about that. I'm over that. It's never over that. That was the crux of all of it. And I've had this fear of abandonment. And people don't understand that fear of abandonment doesn't mean like, you know, oh, God, I'm afraid everyone's going to leave me. Yes, it is, but it trickles into every part of your life,

into relationships, into work, into everything. And therapy is one of the most amazing things that I've ever experienced, and I'm still working every day to get better. And so when I meet people like you, I just have to say thank you, because, I mean, it's so important for not only people in general to take their mental health seriously,

but that's how we're going to progress as a society. That's right. There's no mystery as to why my dad's dad was a fucking angry asshole. Yeah, right. Right? And why sometimes my dad was an angry asshole at times because they were dealing with stuff. They didn't have the resources we have. Sure.

They didn't have guys like you that were out there saying, hey, man, come to this thing. And so, and then what happens, it's generational trauma. But if you get ahead of it, you know, we... And we get that whole stigma, you know, the hot-headed guys, because he doesn't know how to deal with that. And then it finally comes to a head and explodes. And that's unfortunately. what we see far too often and far too many good dudes, you know, you think of an asshole because he snapped that day and that's all you'll ever remember.

But the reality is, you know, he just had he got that compassion from others previously, maybe wouldn't be there. It's like, I mean, there's so much I could talk about, but it's like if you're a barrel, right, and you wake up and your barrel's already three quarters full, it's going to, it's, no, it's not. Okay. It's going to take just a little bit of rain for that to spill over. And so the idea is through therapy and through self-healing is that you get all that stuff in your barrel down so that you can take more and more and you don't explode.

Look at this guy with the metaphors. No, but that's just that's one thing. No, it's great. But that's what therapy does. It gives you those things. So I think what you do with that group, I'm to talk to you about that. And so, yeah, and we'll leave it on that. I just, out of curiosity, is that group, is it outside of your areas or other places where folks can look into that sort of thing?

from Costa Rica, Singapore. We call ourselves Midwest men because we have this idea of reviving, you know, St. Louis especially. There's a revival going on. And, you know, it is this awakening process. We call ourselves Midwest men. It's totally, you know, free to jump into our Zooms.

Tuesday night at 6.30 Central, 7.30 Eastern. So you can find. So people are able to participate from other areas. That's cool. Yep, they just jump in. And we do have our, you know, live events. or in-person events where, you know, people can fly in or come through. And we're going to be building this a lot more.

We're doing a couple festivals this summer just to have representation out in the world. So you can find that at Midwest Men. I don't have Instagram, but you can hit up my buddy Jeffrey, Jeffrey Carver, 23. Jeffrey's an amazing dude, former world champion motorcross racer. And he's really just led the way for Brotherhood. And Mike, I just also want to acknowledge that, you know, hearing you say, all of that and willing to be vulnerable, hearing you talk about your brother, you know, I could feel my heart just lift. And, you know, it's that exact container. Just talking about the idea of the

container opens the container, right? So it's kind of like this self-serving thing, which is so beautiful about it. And that may be, you know, that could have been a moment that we totally could have missed if you didn't ask the question. So one, thank you for asking. It is something that's extremely close to my heart. You know, growing up, I always wished that I could have been a better brother. And I really didn't even know what that meant. I think a part of it was self-blaming for different things going on at different points in my life with my family. But I've really taken that to a more human level, humanity for everybody. And so I look at every man in my life and the strangers I haven't met yet as my brother. And so taking on that context and being willing to have those conversations is so

important. So I just want to say thank you for everybody. Thank you. man. I appreciate that very, very much. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's, um, it, and it's like, it's one of the, like, I don't talk about it and it's not because I don't want it. When do you talk about? Yeah. What am I going to, when am I going to, what he's talking about. You know, so here I am on this podcast and, and I feel, you know, I feel like I owe it to us to, to bring it up anyway, but I, but I, you gave me, you made me feel comfortable with to bring it up. And it's good. It's good, man. Hopefully this conversation reaches people and it helps them.

I told you this guy was awesome. Dude, fucking. It's unbelievable. Unfortunately, though, we're running out of time. No. We just started. It's been almost an hour. I want to know about his heart and I want to know about solar energy.

I think that's probably a good reason to bring him back on a very regular basis. But last question, we do have time for that. So out of all those, let's hit him with a good one, Mike. Oh, you're making me do it? Yeah, well, you had a bunch of top of mine. I got a thousand things I could, but I figured I'd give you a chance. Well, I would like to hear about your experience with your heart surgeries, what would happen if you're comfortable talking about that. And then obviously some plugs of what you got going on.

Yeah, we'll definitely get those in. You know, what's going on in your world. Yeah, no. So I was born with a narrow aortic valve, which is the main valve in your heart that pumps all the blood to the rest of the body. And as soon as I was born, I had two emergency surgeries that were. would ultimately save my life. So the first one was a balloon surgery where they went in and they popped my aortic valve,

which created a leakage in my heart. And the second surgery, they went in through my back. I have no idea what they were trying to do to this day. I think it caused my scoliosis, which I'll show you photos of my x-ray. I don't know if you've seen my X-Rae before. It's pretty crazy. I've got like a spines as well. And so essentially I had two emergency surgeries

as soon as I was born. I grew up going to the cardiologist, actually right here at Krause in Syracuse. And every single year, I remember going as a kid, they would basically say, okay, you got to come get these tests done once a year. And when you stop growing, which was unfortunately, you know, five foot seven, you could have this replacement surgery and you know, you're going to be okay. And so that was kind of the mindset, you know, growing up, I couldn't play sports. I could barely run more than 20 yards without a whole chest heating up. And definitely had a typical childhood compared to, you know, the average experience. experience.

Junior year or senior year of high school, I couldn't play sports, so I was actually managing a baseball team. Of course. Yeah, just managing a baseball team. The kids wanted me to be included. I was friends with everybody, and I wanted to do it, but I couldn't. And so they were like, hey, you know, why don't you just come manage the team? And so a couple of weeks before that, I actually woke up in the middle of the night.

It was like 3.30 a.m. and I had a very rapid heartbeat, and something felt intensely wrong. and my mom is a home nurse or she wasn't home nursing at the time I wake her up and she's like oh it was probably just a bad dream and I was like no I feel terrible and I was 16 years old and my dad rushes me to Oswego ER as soon as we get there my heart rate goes back to normal and he's like what the fuck is wrong with you why would you do this and you know that would happen leading up to that baseball game five minutes at a time once a week oh wow three minutes at a time once a week very come and go and then you know I was at the baseball game man managing it, whatever, bottom of the third, two outs. And all of a sudden, I get the rapid heartbeat. Five minutes turns into 10, 10 turns into 20, 20 turns into an hour. And by that time, I'm being rushed to the ER. By the time I get hooked up, my heart rate was 214. Holy shit.

For two and a half hours. 16 years old. The ER was packed. I had to share a room with a guy who was much older than me. I watched him have a heart attack and die because... Holy shit. Doctors chose to work on my life instead just because I was younger. Yeah.

They pulled the curtain on him. I remember them smashing my face into buckets of ice trying to slow my heart rate down. And ultimately, you know, the doctor came in. Yeah. Interesting, right? Yeah. This is like before cold plunges, we're cool. Yeah, yeah.

And doctor comes in and he's like, I remember my dad and my grandfather are behind him, and they're like, Dakota, we have to shut off your heart. And 16 years old, I just remember. And by that time, you feel like you're dying because your heart rate is just using all of the energy in your body. and I just remember looking at my dad and my grandfather, and I was like, wow, like this, I'm not going to know anything past this story. Yeah.

The men who raised me are going to outlive me. And the doctors put what's called adenosine in through an IV drip. And it is essentially just a way to reset the heart. And so it starts in your fingers and toes. They go in through the IV. It happens instantaneously. Your whole body heats up and it just sucks into your heart. And it went from 214 to my resting heart rate of 76, like that.

lost. And that had to happen four or five times after that event. Oh, shit. Before they figured out that I had tachycardia, which is just rapid heartbeat. And what happened was my bicuspid valve made an extra pathway on my bicuspid. And so the blood that was leaking from my broken aorta was being recycled. And then it was just beating super, super, super, super fast. Jesus. And so my third heart surgery was the one I was wide awake for. They went in through my arteries and in my legs. and I you know they burned off that extra pathway and then I haven't had tachycardia since. But it left me with a lot of physical trauma. Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah, I'm traumatized. Just listening to it. Left me with a lot of physical trauma from that, just from being awake. It's such a weird feeling to remember that you disassociated and you watched yourself being utilized in that way. And so that took a lot of work for me to get through. But, you know, shortly after my fourth and fifth heart surgery came my senior year. and ultimately I had open heart a week after I graduated high school.

Wow. But see this, but that, you hear that cliche of like, you know, I went through such and such, but it's made me who I am today. But it is 100% why you are the person you are. And it contributes to all the things that you've done. I'm not taking away from your drive and your talent and anything like that. But when you're faced with something like that, when someone says, we have to turn your heart off, you're facing death. You're coming to the realization that I'm not going to be here in a little while. and that will change any man, any human being. And it makes you approach things in life differently. And that's why I've been able to make relationships that I've, you know,

easier than maybe others and why I've just seen things differently and cared about things and noticed things in people more because I know what it's like to lose it, you know? And I'm not saying I hope everyone should go through some sort of trauma. But I think the really great. kind of upside to that story is now here you are today. You're doing these physical activities. So you're doing hikes and it seems like it's in good order. Are you clear to do all the typical kind of athletic type of stuff? Yeah, I'm healthier than ever. Awesome. And yeah, I'm a big believer in just

inspiring other people just through the way that I live my life. You know, I grew up where my doctors are like, don't leave your house. Don't move. Sure. Too hard. And I'm just like, dude, I'm going to send it. And it's just really been my philosophy sense. But you're so right, Mike. Like, totally reshape my life. You know, even getting into my career of door-to-door sales, I was like, I have already experienced what it's like to be so close to death. I was like, I want to experience more. I remember it was my third day knocking doors. I was in Albany, New York. I hadn't ever done sales before. I had zero sales. It was the middle of winter. I was in a Stewart's gas station like this because it was so cold. And my dad calls me.

And he's like, hey, I got you an interview at Novellis, where he's like been a plant manager and he's worked there for 38 years now. And he's like, you can come home. You don't have to knock doors anymore. And I was like, dad, I think I want to knock doors instead and see where this goes. And he's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Right. But I wouldn't have made that decision if I was programmed for comfort and ease. You know, I could have easily turned that into a steady, whatever, six-figure job, raised a family in my hometown, never have left. Sure. But as a result of approaching death, that's the same reason why I welcome these like death rebirth ceremonies. You know, I just recently did my first Temescal.

which is a sweat lodge with, you know, one of my friends from Peru who's a shaman and some Lakota, you know, Native Americans, they invited us back for the Lakota Sundance this summer, which is just such a beautiful initiatic principle to be invited to. And to sit in, you know, the dark with these hot fucking rocks that dumping water on singing songs. Immediately with as soon as that flap of that tent close, I was like, I am going to die again. I just immediately knew it. And without understanding and getting close to what that feels like, those big topics, sex, money, and death, the death one has been a real honor for me to talk to other people about because it's been an experience of mine. And so it's almost like being able to walk people into that so that they can find their own experience. Do you fear death? I mean, I would love to say like, no, I don't.

But every time I touch it, I'm like, oh my God, I forgot what this was actually like to feel. You know, for me, like it started with heart surgeries. Then it was I did a 10-day ayahuasca initiation in the jungles of Columbia. Then it was, you know, like sweat lodge rituals. And so, again, like these death, rebirth, and even in men's work, like there are certain things that Jeffrey will lead on where I'm just like, oh, my God, that is such an edge for me. And it could be such a simple prompt. We could be in a completely safe room. and it's like, oh my God, like I feel like I'm touching that again.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's not something I necessarily welcome with open arms. But again, if the treasure that you're seeking is in those darkest caves, you have to be willing to go into that cave, even if it's scary. And that's really how I try to live my life. Jesus. I got to talk to my therapist to make him go in a tent with hot rocks. Listen, we have to go in a tent with hot rocks. Do you do that? You don't do that?

All right. You're going to find somebody else. Dude, you are an amazing guy. He is. These guys told me, you know, that, you know, look, yes, you've accomplished a lot. And it is amazing. But you're an amazing human being and you can see that, which if Danny wants to throw this up, I had this prepared just in case because if you really were the most interesting man in the world,

I told Danny, I told you what. I said, you need to grab the Dosecchi's guy and put his face over it. But I said, I'm only going to show it if he really is the most interesting man the world. And so for whatever that means to you, I have donned you the most interesting man. You know what? It's kind of the way that I've described you a few times. You know, imagine this guy the most interesting man in the world. But in the ad campaign, you know, he's in his 60s or 70s. He's had all these experiences. Imagine if you could meet that guy while he was still, you know, young as hell. That's Dakota. And he can be along for the wild

stories that he will tell to his grandkids and the onlookers in the crowd. I could talk to you for hours. Tell us we gotta go, I know I'm sorry. What do you got coming up? Come on. Yeah, what can we plug? What can we plug? What can we talk about? Oh, man. God, I have no idea, guys. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Yep. LinkedIn.com slash in slash Dakota Malone. That's about it. Wish me a congratulations when I get married in October. Yeah. 10, 10, 25. Oh, great date. And that's all I got. That's awesome.

That's all you got. I mean, you've given us plenty of time. Dakota is the man. We will have him. back. There's so many different things that we can dig into. We're also going to invite you. So I started this new show. The episode hasn't dropped yet, but it's called Where's the Money in there? Saw that. Recorded the first one with our buddy Joe Doherty. And the idea is to have more and more folks. And it's just a super fun, relaxed business. You know, here's a goofy idea. Is it really a goofy idea?

How would it play out? It turns into a fun conversation. And we're going to have, obviously, you and a bunch of our kind of profound friends in a way that it's kind of a neat, just dreaming out loud as many of us do all the time already. Absolutely. I love it. With that, thank you to our man. Danny. Danny Tripod back there running the board.

Which, by the way, he has sex, money, and death tattooed on his lower back. That is actually, yeah. Yeah, when you said sex money and death, I was like, Dr. Danny's tattoo. It is ironic. Yeah. That's crazy. With that, folks, join us next week. We're off tomorrow for Friday, but join us next week for an all-new week.

Yeah, Brian inks coming on Monday. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We've got many other guests. That's awesome. Dakota Malone, we love you. Thank you for having me, guys. All right.

Peace out.