Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 635: Order of Man with Ryan Michler

Episode Date: November 9, 2017

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Ryan Michler of the Order of Man podcast (www.orderofman.com). This episode was recorded at the Spartan Races at Lake Tahoe (www.spartan.com) and the conversation covered a variety of topics including what it means to be a man, raising children, the role of women in men's evolution, masculinity and a lot more. What got him into podcasting? (3:35) Roots of masculinity (6:45) Ryan tells his origin story (7:52) What does it mean to be a man? (9:50) Protector, provider and presider Rite of passage for his kids (12:24) Boys/Men being conditioned? (19:20) Pornography affecting the modern male (23:00) Talk with your kids Ryan talks about his parenting / Raising his kids (25:40) The Mask of Masculinity (26:50) What is the motivation behind his message? (28:08) If you want to grow, you have to take responsibility Create margin in your life (32:45) The curse of being human (39:30) Does he overcompensate? / Trouble showing emotion? (41:45) The man who fears nothing, is the man is ok with anything happening (47:20) Give yourself permission to experiment How do you find your purpose? (50:40) Be true to who you are Related Links/Products Mentioned: The Hard Truth for Men: Declining Testosterone Levels Worldwide Geocaching Women on the Pill Choose Less Manly Men (article) Why girls do better at school than boys (article) 136: Lewis Howes | The Mask of Masculinity - Order of Man (podcast) The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest Lives – Lewis Howes (book) The Pursuit Podcast : TPP #228 Adam Schafer (podcast) Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team – Simon Sineck Featured Guest & People Mentioned: Ryan Michler (@ryanmichler)  Twitter Order of Man - Protect, Provide, Preside (website) Ryan Michler/ Order Of Man (@orderofman)  Instagram Would you like to be coached by Sal, Adam & Justin? You can get 30 days of virtual coaching from them for FREE at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Get our newest program, MAPS Prime Pro, which shows you how to self assess and correct muscle recruitment patterns that cause pain and impede performance and gains. Get it at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Also check out Thrive Market! Thrive Market makes purchasing organic, non-GMO affordable. With prices up to 50% off retail, Thrive Market blows away most conventional, non-organic foods. PLUS, they offer a NO RISK way to get started which includes: 1. One FREE month’s membership 2. $20 Off your first three purchases of $49 or more (That’s $60 off total!) 3. Free shipping on orders of $49 or more Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Get Organifi, certified organic greens, protein, probiotics, etc at www.organifi.com Use the code “mindpump” for 20% off. Go to foursigmatic.com/mindpump and use the discount code “mindpump” for 15% off of your first order of health & energy boosting mushroom products. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Also includes 20% if you purchase! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Have questions for Mind Pump? Each Monday on Instagram (@mindpumpmedia) look for the QUAH post and input your question there. (Sal, Adam & Justin will answer as many questions as they can)

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. We're still here at the Spartan World Championship. We haven't even left yet. 2017, we've done a bajillionary... We're camping out. This one, though, one of my favorite people that we met while we were out here,

is the first time I had a chance to meet Ryan from Order of Man podcast, really fucking like this dude. He's a cool guy, he actually came to the house that we rented, we got this incredible house, beautiful views, there was a perfect room to record, we all sat down in the couch, had a little bit to drink and had a great podcast, and great conversation, he's a very smart guy. His podcast is very interesting to

talk about, you know, optimizing health, wellness, fitness, but also, you know, motivation and lifestyle and all that kind of stuff. So it's a really interesting podcast. Again, he's a great podcast host as well. Well, we did one with him and one with us. So these are actually two episodes that are going out, right? So we got we episode one where we interview right you guys are listening to one of the episodes. If you really enjoyed this, make sure you go check out his podcast. We did another interview completely

different. So it's the same conversation entirely. Yeah, we did back this guy. We had such a great time talking with him that we ran back another podcast. So lots of good information on both of them. It's awesome. You can find out more on the Order of Man podcast at orderofman.com. And you can find him on Instagram at Order of Man. Also, I do want to talk about our math super bundle. We have a lot of new listeners. We've been doing a lot of outreach. And we have a lot of new people listening. And get a lot of questions You know which program should I enroll and which maps program is right for me? We always recommend the best

Method of action is to get the super bundle now It's called a super bundle because it includes all of our core programs and it's organized in a way to where you follow one program And then you move to the next program and then you move to the next program and then you move to the next program and so on. It's almost a year of exercise programming. In other words, every month, every week is planned out for you. So you know, what your workouts are like, you know, how to progress, there's different forms of adaptation,

you'll be addressing everything from maximal strength, to agility, to endurance, to, you, to bodybuilding style hypertrophy. Pretty much everything is in this year's worth of exercise program. We know you're going through all of these progressions. We know what your plan is. That way, we have it all set out ahead of time. It's step by step and we have videos in there that show you the exercises, blueprints that tell you the workouts.

If you follow this from beginning to end and you're consistent, you will see significant changes in your physique, in your strength, with fat loss, and muscle building, and, you know, connection skills. You're muscle acquired. New skills, you know, better recruitment patterns, correction of muscle imbalances. It's the most comprehensive bundle or fitness program. And now you save right away instead of like purchasing them all individually.

That's the other thing too, is we've took, take them all, combine them and then cut the price way down. So that's the MAPS Super Bundle. You can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. So without any further ado, here we are interviewing Ryan, the host of Order of Man. Ryan is taking good care of his ears, all these years.

I don't know, man, I feel like I'm going deaf actually. Oh really? Oh no. How old are you right now? I'm 36. Oh yeah, this is what's happening to all of us. I'm a real fucked. When I joined the military, actually, I joined, and and I did a I had to do like the audio test where they You know, you hear the sound whatever ear it's on and I was at a basic training

They did this and the drill sergeant came and he got in my face He's like you the leopard you're lying like cuz he I didn't pass the test initially. Oh really? So it's like you do it again. You pass it this time like dude I really couldn't hear the beeps and so I had to take it again and I passed the second time. Oh shit And he's like see I knew you were lying Because he didn't think I wanted to be there or something. He thought I was trying to try to bail out I'm like music when you're a kid or like were you in a band or anything? I know I don't I don't know what it is I just don't know if it's bad ears or what?

Well, that is kind of I worry about that though. You know jammed hard. I always like maybe but I don't know, I don't know what it is. I just don't know if it's bad ears or what. That is kind of strange. I worry about that though. You know? Jammed hard. I always like, maybe, but I don't, I don't think it was anything to do with that. I always like to ask my fellow podcasters, what got you into podcasters?

Like, why did you even get into that medium? Like, there's not a lot of us. Yeah. When did you see it? Why did you do it? What made you head that direction? So I was telling these guys, my background is financial planning and I was looking at a new way of doing things

because I've seen all these guys do it one way and frankly I wasn't having any success with my financial planning practice. It was miserable. I almost washed out. I'm like, man, I gotta do this a different way and I'd been listening to podcasts and so I thought maybe I can do that. I said, and then I thought to myself, there's nobody And I'd been listening to podcasts. And so I thought, maybe I can do that.

I said, and then I thought to myself, there's nobody in the right mind who's gonna listen to what I have to say through a podcast and then become a client of mine. For whatever reason I did it anyways. So I started a podcast, I called it Wellthinatomy. And we focused on financial advice, financial information, financial planning for healthcare professionals.

So doctors, dentists, chiropractors, veterinarians, and I remember the first guy that called me. It was a pediatric physician out of Pennsylvania, if I remember, and he brought me on as... Yeah, that's why I found that, right? And yeah, so I brought him on as a client, and that's when I knew I'm like, man, this is pretty cool. So I did about 20, 25 episodes there, and I realized that I love the medium of podcasting. I just didn't want to continue to have that conversation. This was at what time?

How many years ago? This was early 2015. So I started about the same time you guys did. You started what January you said? January, 2015. Yeah, so I probably started podcasting around the same time, and then I started the new business now That we're running now order a man in March of 2015 now when you went into it

Were you thinking like you saw the direction like that podcasting was taking off or do you thought this is just a cool place where I could talk and That's it. Oh, I had no idea like I didn't I didn't have any foresight that oh This is the direction and this is the path and I'm gonna make money even when I started this business I just want to have some good conversations about masculinity and talk with some cool people and that's what I did. And it took off quickly. And I realized pretty quickly, I'm like, oh, I stumbled onto something here. And frankly, that's all it was. I stumbled onto something. It'd be nice to say like, I planted all that. But I did, man.

Now, you say you talk a lot about things like masculinity and what it means to be a man or whatever. That seems to be kind of a hot topic these days. Yeah, for sure. Why do you think that is? What's your opinion on that? Because I feel like, you know, had you talked about that. Well, tell them, we did an episode early on. One of our first episodes, I really take off,

was the decline of the modern male. The modern male. Yeah, yeah. So, I think that's the reason. I think the timing is right. And I said stumble upon it. I mean, truly stumbled upon it. I stumbled into a topic that was relevant to me. And we can maybe talk about why it's relevant to me

later, whatever. I think I entered the market at the right time, but I think there's a lot of guys who are growing up without without dads, for example, I don't know if you're guys a situation, but I grew up without a permanent father figure in my life. I know there's a lot of guys dealing with that. I went through a separation near divorce. I know a ton of guys are dealing my life. I know there's a lot of guys dealing with that. I went through a separation near divorce. I know a ton of guys are dealing with that. I know there's a ton of confusion. You get into gender confusion and sexuality and attractiveness and all that kind of stuff. There's a lot of confusion about what it even means to be a man and masculinity.

And so I just think it's a good time. It's a good time. People are confused. People want to maybe return some of that roots of masculinity. So let's go there. What led you there? You started to say that. Let's talk now about that. What sent you that direction? Why you? Yeah. So I mean, we could rewind till the time I was I was three. My dad was out of the picture. I had two step dads coming to my life. Both of them were, I'll just say less than stellar examples of what it meant to be

a man. One was an alcoholic who's was never abusive, but just not present. I remember doing some stuff, we did like a Pinewood Derby cars together. In fact, I still have those Pinewood Derby cars. He would take us to Sprint Car races. And so there was moments where I was like, oh, this is cool, this is what it's supposed to be, but that didn't work out.

And I had another stepfather coming to my life. And he was charismatic and successful as a business owner, but he used his talents and his skills and abilities to push people down rather than lift people up. And so he was verbally and emotionally abusive. So I never really had a great role model. I mean, I learned a lot through, we talked a little bit about football and sports. I wrestled, I played baseball, I played football. So fortunately, I had some really good coaches. Coaches that I stay in contact with almost 20 years later. Oh wow. Yeah, so that's kind of cool.

Now did you, so you have a similar childhood upbringing? Did that force you to kind of rise above and become a man early on and young? Or did you think you had suppressed it and then later on you kind of did? Well, I think it was more of that because the biggest thing a lot of people ask me, like just in this journey,

even over the past two and a half years, what's changed for me? And it's this level of confidence. And I never had that confidence growing up. And I always ask, you know, if I would have had a permanent father figure, somebody in my life who could teach me what it actually means to be a man, I wonder what that would do to my level of confidence. And so that was what I really struggled with as a kid. I struggled with confidence. I was awkward. I was that was what I really struggled with. As a kid, I struggled with confidence,

I was awkward, I was uncomfortable, I was really introverted, I didn't wanna put myself out there or take any risks. And so yeah, I did suppress that quite a bit. And it's only in the last maybe handfully years, five, six years where I feel like, I feel like, I don't know, it's kinda cheesy, but like I'm figuring out who I am, if you will.

You feel like yourself. Yeah, I mean. It's an interesting time too when we talk about what it means to be a man because relatively recently, it's almost been demonized, anything that has to do with being a man or male or masculine has been demonized to the point where

there's a lot of question, you know, what does it mean? I mean, people now are talking about how chivalrous, being chivalrous, excuse me, is a form of sexism, you know, opening someone's door, helping someone, you know, helping someone, lift something or whatever, it's sexist or any type of, any sign of, you know, mail, you know, just mailness is bad.

And then on top of that, you have interesting statistics showing testosterone levels declining. This has now been happening for the last, I don't know, four or five decades. You've got, just, and like you said, this explosion of children being raised without fathers, and if you look at all cultures, all especially ancient cultures,

there's been this right of passage that men have, or boys have gone through to become men, and they've been kind of eliminated out of society to where we kind of remain adolescents for, you know, such a long time. For sure. So it's very interesting. What does that mean then?

What does it mean to be a man today? You know, it's almost like you can't say it without offending anybody. I know. People get upset, and that's actually a question. I ask that question out of every single one of my guests, and everybody has a different answer. But what I found is that through that question, it usually translates into one of three areas. And in my mind, a man is a protector,

he's a provider, and he's a presider. So he protects himself. He protects his loved ones, those who cannot protect themselves. That's his responsibility. He provides not just financially. I know the dynamics for family have changed right a lot of guys are staying at home Women are entering the workforce. So it's not just financial provision, but it's mental and emotional and spiritual provision as well and then and then preside leadership. I mean look around from businesses to National politics the lack of male leadership Noble leadership is significantly declining in my mind

and from my perspective. And so that's what it means to be a man. The other part of this is a man is also accountable and responsible for himself. And those he has an obligation for. I look at my boys, I've got three boys and a little girl and my boys are boys. And part of the reason they're boys

is because they don't have any accountability really, they don't have any responsibility. They gotta clean up after the dog or do the dishes or whatever it is. We haven't do around the house. If they get into trouble at school, ultimately, falls upon me and my wife. So they don't have any responsibility or accountability. And at that point, where they start to become

accountable and responsible for themselves is where that transition of masculinity manliness. What are those conversations look like? What are those look like when you're, I mean, are you having those now with your boys already? Absolutely. You talked about right of passage, for example having those now with your boys already? Absolutely, absolutely. You talked about right of passage, for example. So my oldest son, he's nine years old.

When he turned eight, we actually went on a little mini right of passage. So what we did is we went on a camp out and he planned the entire camp out from the packing list to what we were going to do, to where we were going to go, to what we needed, to the food, everything. He planted all out. And what I did is I gave him a knife, a little multi-tool knife. And I said, this is for you, this is a gift for you,

this is your birthday gift, but you're gonna use this on our camp out. And so we did different tasks, you had to set up a fire, and we did some fire arms safety, and we did some different things. Together, we did some geocaching. I don't know if you guys have ever done that. That's kind of cool. Did some hiking.

Geocaching is basically you have grids or coordinates that you'll plug into your phone. And so you'll go from place to place. You go find them on the screen. You find them. Yeah, it's like a scavenger. Yeah, a lot like that, except for like the real version of it. And they'll make it really hard, like certain.

Yeah, obstacles. You have to get through. Yeah, very, very under rocks. It's pretty cool. So, and then what you do is when you find it, you'll usually take something out of there, leave a note that you were there, and then put something in the box.

Is that an app or something? What do you mean? Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of different programs and apps that are available based on where you are. So we did some of that. And then, so he went through this series, and what I did is I talked to him about what I just told you guys, protect, provide, preside.

And what I did is I actually bought some lion figurines so I bought a little lion cub and then a male lion and I pulled out the lion cub and I said this is you right now and so I showed him I said this is where you are in life this is what you're doing this is what you're striving to become and I showed him the lion and I said in order for you the cub to be here you need to understand protect provide pres. So we went through this whole thing, through the, at the fire, did a fireside with him. And then at the end, since he did all of that, he earned his first 22 rifle.

So I got him a little 22 rifle that he shot and he loves. And the best part about it for me was, a couple days later, he came up to me and he said, Dad, can I take these figurines to school? I'm like, yeah, you wanna do show and tell them? He's like, yeah, I wanna talk to him about the three P's of masculinity. I'm like, yeah, man, that's sunk in.

So this is a one time thing for us, though. I've got him planned every two years. We're just gonna start doing these things. So my next son, he's six years old and two years, we'll do something very similar. And so every two years, we'll continue to do this. And, that's great. I just think it's great that you're doing that

because it is very interesting considering the traditional roles that men have played in society. And some people argue the reason why we evolved men in the first place, those reasons don't necessarily exist anymore. Life is pretty safe. You don't need a guy to protect you from people killing you or else anything from you.

You know wars are, you know, they're wage now much more technology. So that's a little different, but you know, that's still male dominated. Earning potential and stuff like that, you know, women get jobs. So it's almost like men feel kind of lost. Like what do I do?

You know, who am I? What does it mean? And I think, you know, those roles you're right, I think those looked like they've gone away, I don't think they've gone away as much as they've changed. Because if you look at natural disasters, or you look at active shooter type situations, the need for a protector, a man who is capable,

who has situational awareness, who has the training, and the skills, and the tools available to be able to protect in a natural disaster or some catastrophic Crime that they might experience is important and that's why I talk about in the other side you talk about provision You're right women are entering the workforce. So it's not just that financial provision And this is where we start talking about more of a I think maybe more of a a deeper man if you will Brett McKay with art Manliness, yeah, I is familiar with his work.

One of the things he talks about is he says, there's a distinction between masculinity and manliness. So masculinity are the raw virtues that we generally would think of when it comes to being a man. So aggression, dominance, competitive, this violence, all these things. Those aren't necessarily bad, but when they go unchecked, they create problems.

It's the extreme form. Which by the way, the extreme form of the feminism, of the feminist side or, you know, women's side is also, can also have some pretty bad effect. Absolutely, absolutely. And anything, take health. I mean, something that I don't think anybody would argue is a bad thing for you.

Going to the gym, eating, right, working out. We talk about this all the time. It can be taken overboard, right? It can be taken to the extreme. More often than I, so I shared on our show a lot, the whole process of going through competing with in men's physique, you would think that, because you're looking at some of the fittest people

in the world when you look at the IFBB, as far as all the professional level bikini body bills, but actually when you actually really dive in, they are some of the most unhealthy people. And not just from a physical and what they're doing with their habits, their behaviors, their relationship with themselves. Like there's a lot of bad stuff going on within it

and you don't realize it. So in a lot of it's rooted through insecurities that's driven them, that's given them that much drive to be at that level. Well, what's interesting is that some people will say that women actually drive how many evolve in two different ways, testosterone levels, although they can be genetic, there's definitely a genetic component.

There are things that can happen, that can affect your testosterone levels almost instantly. Besides things that you do to your physical body, for example, if you win a game against someone, you'll see a spike in testosterone. If you're in a room with other alpha males, another female present, you'll see testosterone tend to spike. And they've shown in many studies that women will prefer men with more masculine features or these visible signs of testosterone around times of natural disaster

or when they feel like things. And without knowing, this is the things that they tend to desire more. Same thing with birth control. Here's an interesting one. When women are on birth control, they desire men with less signs of masculinity versus when they're off.

And then with especially when they're ovulating, they're more attracted to these signs of testosterone. And now, if we consider birth control's been on the market for how many decades, we may be breeding out this kind of, these masculine men and creating lower and lower testosterone. It may be one of the factors that that's important. Yeah, you know, you bring up really good point. I mean, think about this hurricane that they just dealt with in Houston, for example. Did you see anybody complaining about masculinity? That's not right.

No, because there was hundreds, if not thousands of men who were going down, serving, volunteering, giving time, energy money, resources, doing what I believe men should do, nobody complains about it then. It's when things are going smooth. It's like, oh, man, I don't want to. Exactly. I had a guy who, I was at a conference, I don't remember what conference it was, and he said, man, how do I develop testosterone? I'm like, you do manly things. You go workout, or you go shoot, and you eat meat, and you compete, and you have sex. You do manly things. That's what boosts testosterone. And I think a lot of that is being stripped away from

society. That's funny. It's actually a very simple, it's very simplistic to think about that way, but it's so true. All those things will lead to that. We talked to that indirectly on the show all the time. Yeah, it's interesting where things that are going, and I know we're constantly told how bad the Patriarchy is and how bad men have done things. And there's definitely been some bad sides, but There's some some trends now that are emerging that we're gonna see more in the next in the coming decades That are gonna show the opposite for example women graduate

College at much higher rates now than men do boys do worse in school schools are designed To do better for girls to do better. Absolutely. There's definitely a, and of course, the individual variance is pretty big. So I want to be clear, like, you can have general masculine traits, general feminine traits, but within, you know, women and within men, there are these variances where you'll have some men that are far more feminine than some women and vice versa. But generally speaking, boys learn differently than girls do and schools have been designed around girls to the point where boys are medicated at much, much higher levels

or higher rates to fit into this mold. So like ADD, ADHD, so much higher rates among boys. And it wasn't that long ago, they were just called hyperactive around. Because I can't go outside and fucking throw rocks and kick cans. It's a deep shit, right? I mean, I look at my boys, I can trouble for making a stick right. Right.

I remember when I was little, I remember climbing, I couldn't have been more than seven, eight years old climbing up on my roof. And I put a napkin somehow on a GI Joe. And I stood up there with my buddy and we were throwing GI Joe's with napkins off the roof. For parachutes. Yeah, and my mom would pick me outside, and she would say, don't come in until night, and she would literally lock the door,

and I came in when she called me for dinner. We used to do that, that's what we're doing. We had an neighborhood where we lived in this big area where it was like a, all your, what do you call the houses that are all the same, right? Yeah, like townhouses. Townhouses, your houses that are all the same. Yeah, like townhouses. Townhouses. Everyone's all the same homes and there's a local park.

It was literally like a good half mile from our house just enough to where when my dad wanted us to come back in the house, I could hear his whistle from over. That was the call that you had to come back. We would literally be set off and say, all the way till the sun comes down and we would all, as kids, push those limits. We know we're supposed to be home before it's dark. I can still see a little bit of light. Yeah. You hear dad whistle and you know, I didn't hear you dad. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just talking from school, man. And like there's like rattlesnakes and there's all kinds of shit. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'm not even joking. But you know what's really interesting is I think a lot of that has been conditioned out of boys.

Because I look at my boys and I think naturally the natural inclination is to go outside, pick up rocks, burn ants with a magnifying glass and figure stuff out, roll around in the dirt. That's what boys naturally do, but I think we conditioned them. You talk about that Dr. Leonard Sachs. Have you heard of him? He's got some great material and information on this. He's written two books, more than two, but the two that really are relevant to this discussion are why gender matters and boys and drifts.

And both of them are really good books and very well researched and get into why school systems are set up this way and it's stacked against young men. And of course, that's gonna create problems down the road when these young men get to 18, 19, 20 years old and now we ask them to go get a job and now we ask years old, and now we ask them to go get a job, and now we ask them to lead, and now we ask them to go to battle, and now we ask them to do all these things that men should be doing, and yet they haven't been trained to be able to do these.

No, and you know, one of the things that I can see now that's going to be, I think a detriment to, or as a detriment to everybody, but in particular to boys, is the accessibility of pornography. We've talked about this several times in our podcast, but if you look at rates of things like erectile dysfunction and, you know, men going to the doctor to get prescriptions for those types of things, the fastest growing segment of the population that requires that or wants that is men in their 20s. It's exploding. This was non-existent not that long ago, and it's directly the result

of this ease of accessibility to pornography, which also of course changes now how men go out and court women, you know, when I do all that stuff. So. And how anonymous it can be too, right? Like you can hide behind your computer screen and nobody's gonna catch you. And there's no accountability for it.

How do you manage that as a dad right now? I always like talking, because I always get these guys to talk about their parenting because I think it's such a fascinating time right now as a parent or challenging time, I should say, for a parent with all these tools of iPads and all the gaming systems and the ability to stream everything to their phone.

Do you set rules with your boys on how long they can be on the phone or do things like that? Like how's that work? Yeah, I mean rules are important. You have those, we've got a computer, but it's in the family room, you know, so we've got things like that set up, but the other side of it that I don't think a lot of people are talking about is like, talk with your kids. Like sex isn't bad, you know, boobs aren't bad. Like we're attracted to these things. Why are we attracted to these things? Because biologically that's kind of how we work. And so I have conversations with my boys,

maybe not as explicit as I could get with you guys. But we have conversations. My oldest son, nine years old, I told you guys that. We've already had kind of the birds in the bees talk, right? Part one, my six year old, my wife and I were talking and she's like, I think we, I think you need to have the conversation with Eli a little bit about birds and bees.

I'm like, oh man, and it's never fun, right? Which is why most people don't do it until it's too late. And they let their boys learn from their buddies or from a magazine or whatever, or a website. Just how we all learn. Right, right. And I think you just, man, imagine if we learned a more healthy environment, it's okay

that you're attracted to women. It's okay that when you're around them, they smell good, they smell intoxicating or that they have a nice figure that you're attracted to. That's okay. That's okay. Yeah, that's all right. It's okay.

So I think coupled with some, of course, some systems and, you know, in place at your household, I think. Now you have four, you have two boys, two girls? Three boys, one girl. Oh, three boys, one girl. Yeah, she's the youngest? No, she's the third. Okay.

Yeah, so I've got, so she's four, and then my youngest is almost two. Now, are you seeing what a difference it's going to be to raise her in comparison yet, or is she still pretty young? Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, it's with kids, they all have their own personality, and there's not a thing you can do about it. My oldest is timid, and he's passive, and he's really sensitive. He's in tune with other people.

He knows when people are off, he loves animals. And my second, it was funny. My oldest got in a fight at school or a little pushing match or something and he was kind of heartbroken. He was sitting on the steps and he's a big kid. And my second son, he's six. He comes up to him.

Little guy, little scrawny, kind of a runt, but just a fireball of like energy is like, you want me to punch him in the face for you? And I'm like, man, I raised these boys the same. We do the same activities. We have the same conversations. And yet, every single one of my children, even down to the two-year-old who can't relieve in so much, I know he's got a new personality, a different personality.

That's such crazy. Yeah, I think the suppression of all that just leads to the hypermasculinity, which is false, you know, he's got a new personality, a different personality. That's such crazy. Yeah, I think the suppression of all that just leads to the hyper masculinity, which is false. For sure. For sure. Expression of aggression and anger and, you know, when it comes out and it's because we suppress the natural things and we don't maintain the balance.

I think that's a bad thing. I just did a interview, it was yesterday, an interview with Lewis Hous, and he's got a new book coming out called The Mask of Masculinity. And as I read this book, it challenged me, man. It challenged me. I caught myself saying, this isn't true, this isn't right. No, Lewis doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'm like, well, I'm having them on the show, so I got to continue to read the book and research. And as I read it, I'm like, man, maybe this is my own mask coming out. And so he talks about nine different masks. Yeah, I mean, he talks about these nine different masks from the material mask, the athletic mask, to the sexual mask and nine different masks that we as men tend to put on to either overcompensate or hide the way that we truly feel and think about things. That makes perfect sense. Oh, for sure.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense that you would do that. I think that's true for anybody though. Not just man and man. Exactly. Yeah. But I think you're going to see more and more of that as society continues to make being a guy or being a man. Such a bad thing. Right. Even saying the words be a man is now frowned upon. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So was this like your main, was this your motivation to really address these types of things or was it other, you know, the, you know, the reason I started it and it's gone down a rabbit hole and and it's been a good one for sure is that I went through a separation with my wife and we got an argument one even I can't remember what the argument was about but I remember saying to her I don't even want to be married anymore. And she agreed with me. And the next morning she took, she left with my six month old son.

Oh, shit. Dude, it was brutal. How long ago, how many years ago? This was nine, eight, eight years ago. So yeah, because my oldest is nine now. Okay. Eight and a half years ago. And dark is time of my life, man.

Dark is time of my life. But I came to a realization that the marriage might be over. This was like two and a half, three months into a separation. And for the first time I recognized, maybe I had more to do with this than I initially thought. I'd pond it all, how could you do this? Why would we be in a bitch? Why would we be doing all this stuff?

How could you take my kid away from me? Those are the things I told myself and I came to that realization that, now maybe I've got something to do with this. And I realized at that point that our marriage might be over for the first time, which I didn't want that to be the case, but it was the most liberating moment,

I think potentially of my life. And the reason I say that is because for the first time in my life, because I owned it, I recognized it, I could take the power back that I had given away to her, that I had given away to society, that I'd given away to the economy and all the other factors that I was blaming for my circumstances. And so at that point, I realized it and made the decision,

I'm just gonna go to work on myself and let the chips fall where they may. And so I went on this journey and long story short, we ended up salvaging our marriage. And I can do everything that I wanna do on my own without her, she can do everything that she wants to do in her life without me. And that fact makes us stronger together.

You gotta love that. I remember when Katrina and I had been together six and a half years, I remember the one of the first things she ever said to me is that I want you, I don't need you. Yes. And I used to love that though. I love having a woman that truly feels that way. It's an amazing feeling to feel that she doesn't rely on me or any of me.

Together, we are better. And without each other, we'd be fine. But together, we're that much better. And I mean, how sick do you, like how fast do you get sick of that? You know, that's kind of fun. You got this girl that likes you and needs you around. It feels good for a little while. And it's like, oh, this is boring. That's all ego driven. I just want to feed that ego or those insecurities. So, yeah. Well, you know, taking on that responsibility and understanding that you play a role in so much of what you experience in your life and your even in your and the shit that goes wrong

It sucks because you have to accept it which means oh shit I'm I played a big role in that but it's fucking awesome. It is because now you're empowered right and you know I talk about this with clients all the time when it comes to fitness It's like you know you got here because not because you're genetics, not because, you know, of, you know, circumstances that were at your control. You got here because the choices that you made, but this is a good thing because now you know that you can change this yourself, but it's so hard for people to accept responsibility because it's so easy. It feels so good in the short term to be a victim and it really does

It really does feel good for a short period of time to be like, it's not my fault Right. I'm a victim right now. I don't shit sucks because of somebody else Yeah, you know, it's so much easier, but when you say to yourself, okay, I just got divorced about God has been about two years now. Maybe a year and a half and You know the same thing going coming out, I was married for 15 years. And a lot of, I thought most of it was her. Yeah. You know, definitely most of it was her.

But I was forced to look at myself and realize the roles that I played in it. And you're right, it's at first it sucks, but then it's amazing. Right. Because now I can see, okay, what can I change? And how can I become a better human being? If you wanna grow, you have to take responsibility.

I tell people, it's always you, you know? It's always you. It's never the other, even when it's the other person, I still allowed myself to get into that circumstance, right? I allowed myself to get in that situation. So what is it that I did to allow that to happen to myself? No matter how bad it seems like it's got to be the other person I think when you learn to take that kind of ownership then true growth happens every time other words

Otherwise you're always blaming others or thinking oh, yeah, it won't happen that way I won't put myself in that situation. No, what what did I do in this situation that made that get this outcome? You know, right? I just did a podcast with a pursuit podcast in an interview. And he was out. He, he, he's a big fan of the show. He listens a lot and he says, you know, you talk a lot about that, you know, did you have, do you have like some tips or tools to give to people to get there? He says, because I think very, I think everybody wants to be at that level, but don't know how to do that. I said, well, I remember starting off like this. And I, and I remember at the end of the day,

I would look back at everything that happened in that day, and the things that got me excited, the things that got me frustrated, all the emotional changes, all of us right now in this room, we have kind of like a even kill person. It's whatever our person, whether you're a high energy person,

or even kill whatever, that's like, that's your homeostasis, right? Your baseline. Your baseline, right? And then things happen to us throughout the day, good and bad that caused this change. And when I learned at the end of the day to go back and reflect on all those things,

and then know that any time that I was upset, angry, frustrated, to dive deeper into that and unpack it, and then it always led to an insecurity in my own. If I truly could have good perspective, pull myself out of it and go, okay, that made me angry. Well, why did it make me angry? Or did it get me frustrated? Why did it make me frustrated?

And then when I started looking deep, well, not because that person said that or did that, it's because I get offended by that. Why do I get offended by that? Why do I get offended by that? Yeah, right. Why does that even bother me? You know, and when you learn to look at every situation like that, and I think I started by doing it as a thing

before I went to bed, and then over years, I've trained myself to do that real time while you're talking, catching yourself in those moments of like, ooh, what is that? What is that feeling? Yeah, what is that? I think there's, so there's two things. The one that I've used that's been helpful for me is margin.

Like if you look at most people in their life, they wake up with just enough time to maybe grab a quick bite, get a shower, head straight into the office, they have an hour, maybe even two hour commute, right? They're wasting time listening to music on the commute, they get into work, they've got to stack a paperwork up to their eyeballs, they get through that, they can't take a break because they got to get through that, they punch out the clock, they get home, they say hi, they kiss the wife, they've got some chores or whatever they do, they go to bed and they do the same thing over and over again.

It's like, yeah, I mean, you can't get to that level if you don't create any space and margin in your life, right? So find some time, find a couple minutes to reflect so that you can think to yourself, man, I'm frustrated right now, Like you said, why am I frustrated? Like that, but that requires margin. No, it's true. And then the second side of that is an after-action review, which you alluded to as well. This is like a military term.

A lot of first responders understand this, but this is something that I've learned to do after every day, every engagement, after every encounter, conversation, project. It's five simple questions that I've asked myself. So number one, what did I accomplish? Like, what did I get done today that I set out to do? Number two, what did I not get done? Number three, what did I do really well? Like, where did I thrive?

What characteristics and skills and abilities and things that I do that went really well? Number four, where did I fall behind? Like, where did I struggle? What things that I had not accomplished in the way I would have liked to have gotten and accomplished? And then step number five, what will I do better tomorrow? Imagine if you just asked yourself those five questions after this podcast even. Okay, what did I get done?

What did I get done? Next podcast I do, what I'm gonna do better? Like that's the way that you improve. I think the important part of that too is to not identify with what you didn't do and what you did do. And what I mean by that is if you do that at the end of the day and you judge it and you say, oh shit, I didn't do that.

I'm a loser at a point. Oh, I did that, I'm a champion, I'm the best. When you start to do that, then you start to create bad behavior. No, you treat it like you're a person. And you identify, you identify with these things. And once you identify with things, that's where the ego steps in.

And that can become a problem. It's no different than when I'm coaching someone through nutrition and I'm telling them the track and I'm working them towards intuitive eating. And I tell them, listen, don't judge some of the decisions you made. You can be objective about them and look at them. But when you start to judge yourself, you create a layer on top of what you've done.

So you've eaten something bad, that wasn't good for you, you didn't make you feel good, but now you feel guilty on top of it, now you're angry that you're guilty, and you're creating all these different layers. So it's important at the end of the day to understand those things, but also don't identify with them. Those aren't the things, that's not who you are. You're not your thoughts, you're not the things that you do, you're the thing that is seeing this all, the observer.

And when you can do that, then you can move forward with any problem. This was a big learning lesson for me, just learning how to not be angry at people. When someone did something wrong to me, I had this problem where I would just hold on to it. I never forgot, like I never forgot what you would do to me and you're never going to do that again or whatever.

And I realized that forgiving someone wasn't about forgiving them. It was about me not feeling it anymore. Like why am I, why am I only giving your power away? Right. But why am I, obviously it's because my ego likes this. It likes to feel angry and shittiest. Chris, it's hard as that is to believe. It's true, otherwise we wouldn't do it.

So just let it go and all of a sudden you're free. And if you know, living your life this way is incredible, man. The power that it gives you, it's not a feeling of power as much as it's a feeling of peace. Yeah, for sure. I remember, there's one exercise that somebody told me and they said, I can't remember who it was, but they said, be careful of the I am, the core I am.

Like if you do something, I am dumb, right? Now you're not dumb, you may have done something dumb, but that doesn't mean you're dumb. Now you correct the behavior and I love the word that you use objective. It's just an objective look at what's going on so that you can make the best decision moving forward. Well, I am as you identifying with it

Right, you say I have now you identify you own it. Yeah, yeah, you know what to say that Well in our field and fitness, you know people really say all the time. I am fat. Yep. You're not your fat Body has fat. Yeah, you are something else completely You are not your fat and when you when you can separate the two then you can Move forward and solve some of these problems that plague is because if you can separate the two then you can move forward and solve some of these problems that plague us because if you really think about it if you really break it down to the issues that we tend to suffer throughout life and even if you go big and we get all as otaric and we look at humanity as a whole a lot of our problems are really

simple they're not I'm not saying they're easy but they're kind of simple right you talk about you know the issue of, you know, progressing society forward so we can feed people or whatever, like if they just work together, that would happen. Sounds pretty simple, right? It's not though, because people have their agendas and their egos and whatever.

And their baggage, yeah. And their baggage, you talk about doing better at work. I wanna succeed at work. Well, you know the steps, you know what to do, but you make it so fucking complicated on yourself. It's actually quite simple, right? I wanna lose weight. Here's the formula.

What do you think, why can't I do it? Why do you think we are that way, as a whole, why do you think for the most part, that's the majority? I think, so I think I have an answer to that. I think that we have been lying to ourselves for so long and coming up with the excuses that we talk about, that we actually believe they're true.

Like we've been conditioned since we're little, right? And I'm sure I do this to my kids in some capacity. I can't think of a way I do it right off hand, but I'm sure that I've told my kids something that's just gonna be programmed into their mind and now they're gonna start believing that lie or that excuse and they're gonna tell themselves that for 10 years, for 20 years, for 30 years,

and then somebody comes along and says, no, no, no, that's not right. No, what do you mean? It's like a Rex, they're a universe where they just can't overcome it because that reality is ingrained in indoctrination. It is part of the blessing of language. It is part of the blessing.

It's actually the cursed part of being human, of being able to think in language, be able to write and read. And we end up, because of that, we think we are, we become our thoughts is what ends up happening we're never quiet that voice in your head is not you that's that's a voice that you're observing and listening to and this is part of meditation this is part of mindfulness in fact most major religions most major spiritual practices we'll talk about this in one way or another but

I really think it's the it's our I, I mean, even if you look as into Christianity and talk about how Adam bites the apple, it's almost like the discovery of the ego. Like, oh, I know things now. And now you've- And now you've got this almost. And that's exactly what it is. And now you've got the curse of that.

Now you've got the curse of living in places that don't exist, like the future, like the past, either of which actually exists. There's only now, you know, we're always just trying to define, you know, who we are consciously or subconsciously. And so, rather than just being, rather than just, yeah, like experiencing.

So, this is like half of what I'm always trying to, I catch myself doing this all the time, I'm trying to define myself, like, is this me? Is this me? I'm getting, you know, like a confirmation with that, with other people, and I'm kind of bringing that in just to help me sort of figure this out, the validation. I'm going on these experiences, is this me, you know,

my tough, and my funny, and my cool, and you know, am I this, it's really tough to be able to associate yourself from that mentality. You're a very self-aware guy. What do you see? What insecurities do you see still surfacing from that are rooted all the way back? For me personally?

Yeah, personally. Yeah, I mean, I, well, you guys can see I have this big beard, right? And so I was talking to my wife about this. It's a luxurious, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It's gonna like Aslan. I think you said that. Yes, thank you. Yeah, so my wife and I were talking about this. It's a luxurious. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It's gonna like aslan. I think you said yes. Thank you. Uh, yeah. So my wife and I were

talking about this and and we were talking about my childhood and and I don't know how we got into it. But she's like, yeah, sometimes I think you overcompensate. You know what I mean? Like the masculine and he's stuck. Sure. Cause I didn't have that growing up. Right. So I'm now now I got my boots on and I I got my beard, and I drive my truck, and I run order a man. I have tons of flannels, bro. Yeah, and I've got them too, dude. I've got them packed too.

And so I think there is even, even to my degree, I think, yeah, I think I do overcompensate sometimes for that, like trying to, like, what am I doing? Like, making up lost time, or like, what is it that I'm doing? So there's that, and then, as I was reading that book, I was telling you about the mask and masculinity.

I kind of feel like I fall into the stoic mask. And the stoic mask is the mask that says, you have to keep your calm. You have to keep composure. You have to keep like your head about you, even when you're feeling something or you're disappointed or you're sad or you're frustrated. I can't show people that stuff.

I'm the man, not a man. You want to give out all your own cards. Right, and so I keep that stuff close to me, even with my wife, I mean, she'll tell you like the connections that I have with other people, I don't have a lot of deep connections with people, and I wonder if it's just because like I'm, like I'm a shower.

I gotta keep it right here. It doesn't feel, it maybe doesn't feel familiar or comfortable to do you have issues hugging and kissing your sons? No, that's never been an issue. I mean, I love you, given them hugs. Last night as I was getting done with football practice with my son, I just wanted him to know. I appreciate him playing hard and so we were walking down

the driveway and I grabbed him. I just put my arm around and said, I wouldn't guess that. I him I just put my arm around I wouldn't guess that I wouldn't guess that from his from him I wouldn't guess that but it tends to be yeah that that sometimes can happen especially if you're raised Yeah, we got a father figure. Oh, yeah, but I think that's what you also that normally will make you try You're gonna be that much better of it. Yeah, it could yeah, it could go different ways right like it could be like Hey, I'm not I don't want anything to do with that or again, overcompensating it or whatever. But I feel like we have an affection there that's appropriate between me and my boys

and my wife and dog. I would think he's more like you where you're both probably really good-ass dads but you probably overcompensate and you worry and stress about that because of that reason for you You're just for different because you have your you had a you have a different relationship with your dad growing up Yeah, no, I had a great, but you I think you are way hard on yourself

For what kind of father that you absolutely my my so I I grew up with the insecurity of not being Strong enough big enough, you know tough enough or whatever I grew up in a you know kind of an old school Sicilian family and the there's it's very masculine and very feminine at the same time The bomb runs the household, but the dad is the you know, he's the dude that you know calls the shots and and And there's very you know specific roles and so I didn't feel you know I was a skinny kid and I lifted weights to get bigger and do a lot of stuff. And I really came to terms with that years ago to the point now where I'm extremely confident with those displays of masculinity. And it doesn't bother me at all anymore.

Those are things I've actually, but now I'm dealing with new insecurities. And here's what's interesting about that is you're going to, if you are a person that's growth oriented and self-aware and you work towards your things, what you will end up, what's going to happen is you're going to end up dealing with one and then that's going to be solved and then another one tends to pop up. And it's just the way life works. And more recently, just through my divorce, it was just, am I being a good father? I'm guilty for with my children with this. Am I, you know, is this, how is this gonna affect them, you know, growing up and, you know, anytime something happens with my kids, if they wake up in the middle of night,

now I'm thinking, oh, it's because of the divorce, even though maybe just a bad dream. But I'm, you know, I'm dealing with it and I'm very conscious of it and I'm getting a lot better with it. But the, it's interesting how insidious insecurities and these things can be to the point where they become a part of who you are so deeply

that you literally cannot identify them at all unless you start to maybe listen to the people that are closest around you, which is very difficult. It's very difficult to hear someone tell you, hey man, you're overcompensating or whatever. I'm pretty tired of that. I feel great, I'm a cool guy, what are you talking about?

Or, you know, even to some case, I think a lot of people can't even function. Like, I know for me, we're in Tahoe this weekend, right? And I know for me, one of the things I hate, just more than about anything is flying. Like, I really do not fly, like flying. But I flew out here, and I started thinking about this a couple of years ago as I knew it was just I hated flying.

What do I hate so bad? Well, I hate that I could potentially die in a plane crash. That's the bottom line. So I'm like, well, why? What's so bad about that? And nobody wants to die, right? But the conclusion I came to is that my kids

will grow up without a dad. Yeah. That's why I'm afraid of planes. That's the truth. Because I'm afraid that my kids will grow up without a dad. And so if I don't have a healthy level of understanding what that is and still being able to like function, like it'd be really easy for me to never fly anywhere,

never experience life, all because of an insecurity. Do you ever go through, and this was a trick that I learned, I don't know if I call it a trick, but it's a technique that I learned a long time ago where when I have fears, I will literally sit down and think about the worst case scenario, place myself in the worst case scenario that I'm so afraid of, and I get myself okay with it. Yeah, I get myself being okay with it, and then I no longer fear. You're a treasure, you're a treasure.

Yeah, so like if my, exactly, so like if my biggest fear is, you know, you know, oh crap, I'm going to get sick or I'm going to, you know, I'm going to become paralyzed from this accident or whatever. I put myself in that scenario, worst case scenario. Now what do I do with that? I get okay with it. I accept it and then you end up losing that fear. It's a very powerful technique. It's awesome.

It's very difficult to do though because you have to literally sit there and place yourself in that. With my fear, right? Yeah, big time. But it's a super, super effective one to the point where, you know, the man who fears nothing is the man that is okay with anything happening. You know what I'm saying? Doesn't mean you like it necessarily, but if you're like, well, if shit goes down, what's that going to be like? And can I be okay with it?

Let me make myself okay with it. And you're like, well, if shit goes down, what's that gonna be like? And can I be okay with it? Let me make myself okay with it. And you're no longer scared. You're not scared of natural disasters. You're not scared of anything. It's pretty awesome. That's interesting. That's where I'm at. But no, but I like that perspective.

Definitely. Yeah. I think that's the same formula for success in business. Oh, I've done it with business so many times. I think it's the same thing with business, but I think you know, most entrepreneurs are afraid to take that step and fear of losing or not be able to pay this or do that. And you can't have that mindset. You got to have the mindset. So what? You know what? So not at the end of the world. That this fails.

X amount. Yeah, I always look at that going into any of these like ventures that we're doing. It's just like, well, what's the worst that can happen? Right. And then we just like go through that. How are we going to bounce back? And so you already have that in line. Well, if you're that, what, you know, what's left? Well, if you treat it as no matter what, no matter what you win, if, if you get growth out of it, right? So you learn, and let's be honest, most of the time, when we sell when we lose or we hurt or we fail, the most growth happens. That's, that's the only time growth doesn't happen when things are great. I believe it. Otherwise, just just stay this way. It doesn't happen as a very, very gradual pace. And we tend to not look at it the same way when we are successful. But yeah, absolutely.

So if you learn to embrace that, it's, I think it's, I think you have to, do you start seeking that, right? You almost seek the fear you seek the failure. You know it's another opportunity. Yes, it's either I'm the way. Right. I another opportunity yes it's either either way right I'm either gonna accomplish this and when or I'm gonna come out even better than what I was when I went in so well I think the most successful people do that when they are kicking ass as they put themselves in uncomfortable situations in

order to keep themselves growing right because otherwise you get comfortable and then nothing happens the perspective I've always take not always but that I like to take is, you just got to give yourself permission to experiment. If you're going at it, I have to win, I have to make this a success, I can't fail, you're not going to do it. Versus, hey, I need to experiment. That's how I define success, experimentation, so podcasting. That was an experiment, participating in a Spartan event, experimentation, so podcasting, that was an experiment, right?

Participating in a Spartan event, like we're here this weekend, that's an experiment, doing a new business venture, that's an experiment. And so you're not guaranteed success with an experiment, if you approach it like that way, I think you give yourself more opportunities. Do you, are you purpose driven? Do you feel like, because you've made some pivots,

do you feel like you're just following what you're supposed to do? I do now. I do now. I think there's a lot of people that feel like they're entitled to know their purpose. Like I should just know. No, you gotta earn that, right?

And so a lot of people say, how do you find your purpose? It's not like something that's like out there and you strip over it. That's what it is. It's like you just do stuff. And then you're like, oh, I like that. And I don't like that. And so you move left and I like, it's like, you remember those books when you were a little choose your own adventure. That's what it's like. It's like

you read and then you come and just fork and then you're like, I think I'll go this way with the information I have and you take that course and I think we're going to go back. Right. Right. You know, and I think what people do is they get so hung up and like, oh, it's got to be right. And I got to find find my purpose and so they can't make a decision at all and they sit the sidelines and then they ask guys like us, how do you find your purpose? Dude, you knew you just didn't do it. I think one of the best gauges to find your purpose

is really to do what fulfills you in the true sense. The difficulty with that is I don't think people know what that feels like, or what does that mean to be fulfilled, doesn't mean I make a lot of money? Not necessarily. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does. It doesn't mean I'm having a lot of fun.

Not necessarily. It's feeling fulfilled when you understand what that feels like for you. When you move towards that, you, in my personal belief is you do what your purpose is. And when you're doing your purpose, when you're on that path, you're your best version of yourself. And many times, many times, it is something you recognize in the hindsight. There's been a few times while it's happening,

like this is my purpose. But many times it's like looking back and be like, oh shit, that was totally what I was supposed to do. You know what I mean? I mean, I feel like in the work that I do now, I quite honestly, I feel called to do this. Like I almost in a way feel like, and I've always felt this from the time I was supposed to do it, I mean, I feel like in the work that I do now, quite honestly, I feel called to do this. Like I almost in a way feel like, and I've always felt this from the time I was little,

I know a lot of people feel this way, is that like I was destined, right? Like I'm destined for something more. And I was like this hamster wheel of like spinning and spinning and spinning, and I couldn't figure it out. And I just had this like plaguing thought in the back of my mind like I know I meant for something greater.

I feel like I'm getting to that point now, but honestly, what that took is me starting a podcast for my financial planning practice. Like me hearing a podcast, I'm like, oh, that sounds kind of cool, I should try that. And now, two and a half years later, which is not a long time, I feel like, man, this is my calling.

And it might change next year. Now, was that the first time you ever felt that feeling where you did something, you're like, this is what I'm supposed to do, or how do you felt that before? I don't think I've ever felt the way I feel right now. That's awesome. Yeah, I really don't.

What an exciting time. It is, man, it's exciting, and I feel fired up, and I get messages and people, you know, hey, I love what you're doing, and I'm inspired by what you're doing, and that sense of satisfaction, fulfillment of feeling in me is like, you got a whole community in a tribe now, kind of by and that's right. I was very, very fortunate to feel that at a very young age, I was 18 years old,

the first time I ever felt like I was doing something that I was supposed to do and I remember it, I remember my first day with my first day working in a gym as a personal trainer. Really? And I wanted to work in the gym. I loved the gym. I loved working with people. I loved people. But I remember my very first day, you know, doing these orientations with people. And that first day I got more clients and did more in revenue that one day than the top trainer had done the previous, really, a whole month Yeah. And, but it was, it was almost, and I explained it to people like this, it's like it felt effortless. And that it was easy, it was like, I just felt like,

this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm good at this. And it was just the first time I'd ever felt that feeling and it was so addicting that I lived there and breathed it. And I didn't get that feeling again until I managed my first team and then I felt like this is what I'm supposed to do. And then it was years. It was years where I own my own wellness facility and I liked it.

I loved it. It was a great time. But I didn't get that feeling that I had for such a long time to point where I almost thought I lost my mojo or something. I believe the signs are there. I believe the signs are there for everybody. I think people just don't know how to see them. I think that finding your purpose is like finding the right woman.

The people that always struggle with that finding a perfect relationship or a partner, they want it so bad that that's what they're focused on, when really what you should focus on is being true to who you are. And I think the same thing goes for finding your purpose when you're true to who you are and you follow your path like that, the signs are there. But when you're looking so hard

and you're trying to find it so hard, it's such a hard thing to do. Dude, I'll tell you what, when I had a wellness facility, I owned for about 14 years and I liked it and everything And it was good, but it wasn't I didn't feel like I had that first time where I felt like I was supposed to be doing You know, I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and I had a client Doug was actually my client We're training together and we ended up creating this program together and he tells me we're not gonna make this a book We're actually gonna sell it online and we're gonna do videos

So I'm gonna need you to, so what you're gonna do is you're gonna sell on camera and talk to people about the programs on camera. And I'm like, I've never fucking done that before. I've never been on camera and talked about these things. I don't know if I can do that. That sounds kind of intimidating, but let's go ahead and give it a shot.

And he turned the camera on, put it on me, I started talking, and then that was the third time. It's awesome. That I felt like this is what I'm supposed to do, and it's just to turn into this podcast. And it's when you're in that space, where you understand the why behind what you do in your purpose, everything else tends to fall into place.

And every time I veer off that track for my own individual self, is when I find myself stressed or when I find things, I feel like I'm forcing things. You know, I enjoy business, I enjoy entrepreneurship, but money has never been my purpose earning money. And I know I say that and some people may roll their eyes and I think it comes, I think it comes as a side effect for me at least. But it's never really been that important to me and every time I focus on money, I feel

like I lose who I really am. When I take my eye off that and I focus on my passion, which is disseminating information, meeting people, influencing people, the money tends to come. And I got to keep reminding myself, 38 years old, I still fucking forget that lesson. And it's almost like I have to relearn it every few months where I'm like, wait a minute, that's not the shit that drives me. It's not about the number so much.

I like looking at him. I like to see what's happening with the business, but what drives me is like, what's my passion when I get in that? That's your finding your why, man. That's my own sin and sin. Oh, I fucking explode, man. And everything else when you do that,

I think too, what I've experienced is that things just tend to become insignificant. Like other stuff, I'll give you an example. I had a shirt design that I did about two months ago, and in hindsight, it looks just like those other company shirts, and I had them out. They reached out to me, they're pissed, and I'm looking at them, like, yeah, I get that, right?

So I pull these shirts, I'm like, I'm not gonna sell these shirts, so I pull these shirts, And I'm out several grand on the design and the print and everything else. And I'm like, that sucks. But at the same time, like learning experience, that was cool. Like that sucked. But at the same time, learning experience, insignificant. Let's drive on. Let's move forward. Because you are on your purpose, right? And I can just get back on track really quick and not get derailed by these things that I think have a tendency to completely wreck people's lives and they just really aren't that significant. Well on the issue. I know.

I had a client once who, and one of the things I love so much about working in the fitness industry, is I got mentored by so many people. Most of them didn't know that they were mentoring me. Most of them were just very successful clients or whatever, but I would ask them questions, have conversations, luckily people tend to like to talk about themselves and don't have a problem, sharing information, and they would just become my mentors. For different things, I'd have this guy over here who'd mentor me on business

and this person over here would mentor me on personal life or whatever. There was this gentleman I trained, Jim was his name and he was a very successful self-made entrepreneur. He was 70 years old, he was worth millions of dollars. I don't even think that in high school education, to be honest with you, grew up extremely, extremely poor.

And one day I'm training him and I asked him, I said, Jim, I said, I wanna ask you a question about business because I own my own business and I think you're extremely successful and I wanna learn from people like you. I said, how did you succeed? Like, what's the secret to it all? I could, you could tell me one thing. And he goes, you're asking me the wrong question.

And I said, well, what do you mean? He goes, don't ask me that. He says, ask me how many times I failed. And it was like a bomb went off when he said that. And so I asked him, I said, how many times you failed? And he told me about the three times he went bankrupt, the three times he made millions of dollars, and the three times he lost all of it.

And I mean all of it. And every each time he learned something from it and grew and got better each and every time. And you see this with the most successful people, and we're speaking about business, but in the most successful people in business, you see this over and over again, these extremely successful individuals,

they've lost more money than most people will earn in ten life-hands. You can't throw Joe Ducena's name in that, since we're here representing the Spartan race this week. Oh man, we did a podcast with him. He is a perfect example of it. I mean, I don't know if you know this or not, Ryan, but I mean, this guy was worth millions of dollars before Spartan came around.

Right. And he spent almost all his money. And the last time he made Spartan work. And it's barely took off just like a couple of years ago. Yeah. And really did he just now start making his money from that, but he damn near went broke forcing this to make it happen. So it's pretty, it was a neat story to listen to. Yeah, it's awesome.

That's cool. Life is definitely, you know, it's interesting. It's like baseball, except there's no three strike rule. So you just swing the fuck out of the bat. Over and over and over again. And you're gonna hit something. And you're gonna hit something. I just was saying, well, Sal doesn't even watch sports.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's for an hour time all the time. He's just a player, really. You did goodness. Yeah, well, listen, yeah, yeah. Eventually, you're gonna hit that ball and make all the things. I was like, you can cut it. And say, like, touch down or something.

Oh my God. Go to MindPumpMedia.com. We have 30 days of coaching. It's available for free. Also go to YouTube. MindPump TV, there's a new video every single day. In fact, today, there's a new video every single day in fact today there's a surprise video go check it out thank you for listening to mine pump

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