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