Reclaiming Masculinity: A Journey of Self-Mastery | Nick Koumalatsos

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Your wife, your family, your friends are not going to respect you until you can master yourself, until you've installed self-discipline.

Self-mastery is number one.

You can't lead your family until you can lead yourself.

There's not going to take you seriously.

But through

example of yourself, then you can turn around and lead your family.

So then phase two is leading your family, rebuilding the relationship with your wife, whether there's resentment, whatever it may be,

and then kind of going from that to your finances.

And like, well, Nick, I could work on my finances now.

Well, no, because you don't have the discipline to put the cookie down.

You're not going to be able to have the discipline to save and invest and make smart choices with your money.

Dude, incredibly excited to have you on the show.

I think your story is incredible.

And really what you're, what you're doing to help people, especially, I think, you know, men in particular, although I think your your story resonates regardless.

You know, I'd love for you to dig, and we don't have to do the full download because I really want to get into some kind of, I want to talk about some topics that I think are really relevant, but just like the

backstory a little bit

and kind of how you got to the book.

That's because the topics in your book are where I want to spend time because I personally have and very selfishly have some questions for my own life as well as I know a lot of people who listen to to the show are dealing with some of the things that you address.

And I want to give them some tactile takeaway.

So give us a little bit of the tour on how you got to the topics that ultimately became your book.

Yeah.

And

before that, I want to kind of hit on what you said before we started recording was like these men are white and knuckling through their life.

And man, that's what...

And it's funny, I've used that term myself on podcasts and with talking to guys.

And it breaks my heart to watch guys, and they are like good dudes are just holding on for dear life trying to keep things together with their families their life themselves and they're just white knuckling through life and it doesn't have to be that way but um

yeah the book obviously that it's it originated uh through my own story of leaving special operations um i left i left in two i left marine uh marine special operations command in 2012 after 12 years and thought i had it all figured out thought i had me figured out and it was like, this was the culmination of like the next thing that was just going to be freaking amazing.

Right.

And it was anything.

I mean, I guess it was to some extent, but it was really anything.

It was, it was a colossal, just really meltdown of life.

And it seemed like every time I turned around, it just got worse

once I left.

So that's where it started.

It started the story of me transitioning from the military.

And then where it went was I

several years, a couple years later, I started working with

a nonprofit called Gallant Few, helping, well, I was helping veterans, I was helping guys in my unit doing some networking, going on some trips, trying, because they were transitioning out too.

Cause, you know,

in 2012, things drastically shifted in the global war on terror.

So a lot of guys that were really active in that fight started to kind of cycle out.

Things, deployment started to slow down politically, things started to shift and change.

And so guys kind of started cycling out of the military and especially special operations.

And

so they started coming to me and I was already contracting.

I had done really well networking.

So all the business professional side appeared to look like it was going really well.

Meanwhile, my life was falling apart on the inside.

But so I started working with these guys, trying to network them and get them jobs and this and that based off what I've done.

And I met a guy named Carl Munger, who is the executive director at Gallant Few.

And he goes, Hey, man.

And I was doing this on my own dime.

We were pulling money together.

I was just figuring it out.

And he goes, hey, what you're doing is

nonprofit work, you know, veteran service, veteran service work.

You need to get organized so that you can scale this and help more veterans.

So that's what we did.

We created an organization, you know, a project called the Raider Project.

And me and a teammate kind of worked with help guys transition.

So it turned into the excommunicated warriors or actually the seven stages of transition portion of it um

really became a keynote was actually a keynote that i was giving and it was a thing that i had seen in guys that it was this cycle of these stages that these guys go through and the ones that are successful make it all the way through the seventh stage right and then there's a lot of guys unfortunately that don't make it through they get kind of stuck in stage five that sink or swim area, and they kind of sink.

Or they just build a house, as my good friend Kirk Weiser says, they just build a house in that misery and they just, you know, they pitch a tent there and they start reinforcing the walls and they just stay in that area.

And

so it became a keynote.

But as I was giving or traveling around talking with veterans and giving these, giving this story, I started to realize that it wasn't really a veteran issue.

It was a human being issue.

It was an issue of identity.

It It was an issue of being afraid to turn the page.

And so guys would get, you know, guys and women, you know, it was crazy.

Sports athletes, and I wrote that in the book.

You know, you take the kid who's played like little league football since he was four years old, PvE football,

and he played middle school,

you know, elementary, middle school, high school, college, gets drafted for the NFL or pros or semi-pros or whatever, and he's 23 years old and blows his

knee out.

This guy

doesn't know anything other than being a footballer.

And now he can't do that thing anymore.

He can't be that thing anymore at the ripe old age of 23.

I mean, how do you think that plays out?

It plays out really negatively

because that's all that that person knows.

And then law enforcement,

fire service, any first responders, medical community.

And you know what's even crazier?

Stay-at-home moms, career stay-at-home moms.

They dedicate 20-plus years to raising kids.

And then what do we do when we grow up and we turn 18, 20 years old?

We bail with little to no thank you.

You know what I mean?

It's just a hug at graduation and they're going to be.

Yeah,

it's the most unfulfilling job ever, right?

So this woman dedicates her life to raising her kids.

Honorably so, right?

My hat's off to those women out there that do that.

But then it's done and it becomes part of their identity as well.

And then they have the whole empty, like, what, like, I've just dedicated two decades to this and now they don't need me anymore, which they do in different capacities.

But nonetheless, that's part of their identity.

And so women would read this story or hear the keynote and

just resonate heavily with it.

Everyone across the board, and that's when I started to realize, I'm like, oh, this is not a veteran issue.

This is just a human being life thing.

This is just something that happens.

We have different stages and chapters of our life.

And sometimes we get stuck in one thinking

that that might be the best chapter of our life.

So instead of turning the page and start writing the next chapter, we kind of just get stuck and we spin our wheels in this thing without actually having the courage to start writing the next one.

And what's sad is the next one might be the very best chapter of your life and you're waiting to start it yeah you know i and i think it goes you don't have to hit and as you as you described again with with stay-at-home moms and

you you don't necessarily have to hit pros or or or be in the military whatever you know i i felt this even you know i played college baseball

That, you know, baseball, football was most of my identity.

And then I got hurt playing football my senior year.

And I was lucky to transition to baseball and able to

make a college team.

But sports were always my thing, right?

Like it was,

I wasn't, unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to make it anywhere sports-wise

or probably talented enough, but good enough to get to college, right?

But it was always my identity.

It was always what I cared about.

That's who you were.

I picked my major based on the, you know, my, you know, its ability to facilitate me, you know, practicing and all this different stuff.

And then all of a sudden, you graduate from college and it's over.

And you're just like,

okay, who the hell am I now?

Right.

And

there's like micro moments of this, and then there's these big, huge moments that happen.

And the reason that I brought up, you know, kind of before we went live, that the idea of white knuckling is, you know, I think even in my own life, the last few years, and I've shared a little bit on the show in the past, like I've had some events that have kind of shaken, you know, my, you know, I thought like, hey, like I read, hard worker, keep myself fit, healthy, like try to be a good person, like believe in God, have a very strong relationship with Creator, God, you know, I'm a Christian, uh, raised Catholic.

And, you know, I was like, man, I, I, for the most part, I, I, I'm doing good, you know what I mean?

Like, as I explained, I came from a town in 900 and kind of, I remember at 12 looking around that town going,

I got to get the fuck out of here.

Like, like every male role model is either an alcoholic or a drug addict or a criminal.

And like it just was going nowhere.

And I was like, man, I pulled myself out of that.

Like, look, first, first member of my entire family to go to college, all this stuff.

Like, oh, I'm doing great.

And then, you know, here I am in my early 40s and I'm looking around and I'm like, wow,

I'm kind of like fucked this up.

Like, I'm not.

I'm not like in a great spot here mentally.

And even though, and this is where I want to, this is, this is where this question is going.

You said something that like, that really hit me.

I was able to maintain the appearance that everything was great, that I was doing great, that I was fine, that, you know, we're, I'm good.

But behind the scenes, it literally felt like I was holding on for dear life.

Like at any given moment, I could take a step off the path and just fall into the abyss.

And,

you know, a year out of that scenario, I feel very good today.

I feel like I'm working my way back, but I'm certainly not all the way back.

But I know so many people, and particularly men, but so many people, women too, that just, this is what they're doing.

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Sod that they put out that, like, hey, I'm good.

You know, you don't have to ask how I'm doing.

Like, I'm all right.

Like, I, you know, I don't need your charity or whatever.

But behind the scenes, they're masking it with drinking or, or, you know, they're, they're, they're cheating on their spouse or doing stuff that is really self-destructive.

And like,

how do you work with that?

Like, how do we start to break that down?

And,

like, where do you go from there?

Like, taking that situation of you have this appearance, but you're behind the scenes, you're holding on for dear life, or at least it feels that way.

Like, when you're talking to a guy, whether it's a former team member or someone from the military, et cetera, how do you start to break that down and help that person start to crack this problem open?

It's a, it just feels like so many people today are struggling with this.

First, it really comes down to do they want to fix it?

Like, if, at the end of the day, Ryan, if, if, if someone doesn't want change, there's nothing you can do about it.

Like, it breaks my heart.

But, like,

and then I'll take it to the next level.

You know, first, they need to want the change.

Two,

they have to be willing to do the work to get the result.

There's a lot of people, my wife and I talk to about this a lot of times.

There's a lot of people out there that want the result, but not, don't want to commit to the work that has to get it done.

So you have to have both.

You have to have the courage to be able to want to change and you have to have the commitment to do the work

in order to change, right?

For instance, you kind of brought some things up.

Things like anxiety, depression, anything that you're feeling like that, those are subconscious cues that something in your life is amiss, that you're not living congruently with the things that matter most to you in your life.

So if you are white-knuckling through life and you feel like this way,

then these are the things that are like, hey, knock, knock, there's something wrong that you need to address.

So instead of addressing it, what do we do?

We turn to coping mechanisms and you already did it, other women,

drugs, alcohol, you know, the nightly half bottle of wine or, you know, six pack of beer or pornography or whatever it is that's going to give you the dopamine hit that you need to make yourself feel good for a momentary time here's the problem with that it is a it is a black hole that you will never fill you can no no amount of no amount of pornography no amount of chasing women no amount of affairs no matter gambling no matter drugs alcohol it doesn't matter what it is you will never satiate that portion of your appetite like that's never oh if i can I just need this thing to take the edge off.

And then tomorrow it's again.

And then the next day, and it's never going to get better.

You're never going to fill that void.

It's a, it's an abyss.

Yeah.

Dude, not to interrupt you, but I'll tell you, one of the things that caught me really off guard, right?

When I was going through my, my kind of darkest moments a few years ago was

like, I think the first thing I started doing was, you know, I've always had a few drinks or whatever.

Alcoholism runs in my family.

So I've always had to be very careful with that, but seemingly, you know, been able to break that.

It's never caused a problem in my life.

And I've always kind of been like a few drinks on a weekend or, you know, you go to a barbecue, whatever, all good.

The first thing that happened was I started having a beer or two or a drink or two a day, right?

Like first COVID.

And then I then, you know, kind of kicked in, hey, man, that's not good.

I know that's not good for me.

You know, I've spent a lot of time in fitness.

Just one, though, Ryan.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, it's just one.

No big deal.

Okay, so I cut that back, right?

And then I was like, well, you know,

smoking pots not as bad for you.

I'll just take a couple rips off a joint or have it edible, right?

Right.

And then, so I did that for a while.

And I was like, well, I feel like shit every morning.

My brain doesn't work as well when I wake up.

So not that I'm against it.

You know, no problem.

Hey, teach their own.

It's all good.

But I found for me that, okay, so then I cut that out.

And it was like, I literally, because I wasn't solving, as you said, solving the actual problem, then all of a sudden, you know, now I'm betting on football games.

And I was like, no, that doesn't work.

Then I'm buying random shit that I don't need.

It's like, you just cycle through all these things.

And I was shocked at how like I always found like the next little, like you said, dopamine hit.

And, and because I wasn't solving the problem.

Like, okay, I'm not drinking every night anymore, but Instagram, you know, I'm buying.

You validate your, your brain validates the excuse.

Excuse me,

buying random t-shirts on fucking Instagram at 1145 at night while I'm binging Netflix.

You know what I mean?

Like, what are you doing?

And what that is, is that's an amygdala hijack, right?

Yeah.

And I take that back over to the simplest thing.

Like, think about it at school.

You have a paper due on, you have a paper due on Friday.

When do you write the paper?

You know, most people are like the last minute, Friday morning, Thursday night.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

The last minute.

And what the reason for that is, is your brain is like, that's hard.

So when your brain's saying, hey, this is the actual, like you start identifying the issue, or maybe subconsciously, you don't even know.

But your brain's like, don't do that because that's going to cause pain and hurt.

That's going to be hard.

So instead, go watch Netflix,

go clean out your car, go vacuum.

And you can take this down to the most simplest task.

And it's every single time your brain, you know, just kicks in ADHD mode.

And it's like, oh, I got to go do this thing over here.

Or I got to do this.

Or why don't you just go do this and avoid that discomfort but the problem is this this is what's this is what this is where the uh the trick fuck is

um

if you're listening or you you yourself if you think about the thing that you're most proud of in your life

the most

the biggest accomplishment you have in your life and it could be a lot it could be several it could be you know doing a fitness show running a marathon doing the spartan race building a business you know, making a success here, raising your kids.

I don't know, whatever it is for you.

Never,

never

is it something that was given to you or came easily.

So if the things in our life are the absolute

Like the things that we're most proud of in our life are the absolute most difficult to achieve, the required the most hard work, the most sacrifice,

why don't we choose that every day?

Why don't we choose the sacrifice?

Why don't we choose hard?

Why don't we choose the things that

are difficult that we potentially could fail?

If those are the things that we're most proud of in our life, why are we choosing easy over hard?

If the hard things is what gives us the most satisfaction in our life.

You know, I had this moment.

It was about, you know, I've probably a little more than a year ago sitting there.

wallowing by myself.

I'm sorry for yourself.

Yeah, just, you know, because I'm.

all we all do it.

Right.

Yeah.

And, you know, so like, and it's particularly what's interesting is that like

it was this weird diet, you know, as I'm working through all this stuff and,

you know, I didn't have my kids that night because I'm like I said, I'm divorced.

And, you know, I'm sitting there and I was like, instead of optimizing for like, let me numb something right now.

I know what makes me feel the best, which is working out, eating the right foods.

I love being creative, writing, et cetera, all these different things.

I run a business.

Like,

why don't I just optimize for those fucking things?

Like, those make me feel good too.

You know what I mean?

Like, big sale, you know, putting a new product out for the company, you know, whatever the thing is, like, those make me hitting publish on a post that I'm very proud of.

Like, those things make me feel really, why don't I just optimize for those?

And, you know, kind of started slowly working out, working myself out of it.

But that is not

like we don't, for whatever reason, like that, that is like a tough thought for a lot of people, right?

They're like, like, it feels, is it because it takes longer?

Like the, is that literally what it is?

It's just the time frame to feel good.

Delaying gratification.

Delaying gratification.

Every single thing, all of these things that you're you're proud of all require delayed gratification.

So like then we can talk about like if you really want to get into it, it's like, okay, then what do I do?

Yes.

Like this is where I'm sitting.

I'm white knuckling

then you have to take ownership of where you're at like extreme ownership one your happiness is is yours your spouse doesn't make you happy your kids don't make you happy your job doesn't make you happy and happiness comes from internal like that's your decision to be happy or not

what's around you and your circumstances like you can disagree all you want but the reality is like it it's a choice Yeah, it's a choice to be grateful that you have, there's a lot to be grateful for.

And even the somebody that has it really, really bad has

a lot to be grateful for the fact that you were just one in one in what one trillion or whatever five trillion to be on this planet to exist like that's that's a gift right the we live in we live in an earth that has infinite possibilities and and opportunities if if you so choose if you believe that they're there which they are there but you have to believe that they're there So one is like you have to take extreme ownership of your life and where you're at.

Like that's just, that's just it.

And then this other thing that

things are supposed to be a certain way.

Like we have this society that

almost dictates like, well, things, you know, and we create these stories in our head that like, no, I'm supposed to be this way and my life's supposed to work out.

And we have this grand plan,

which is all bullshit.

You know, and if you like, go to school, go through grade one through 12, go to college, get a degree, you know, get a job, and then get married, have 2.1.5 to 2.5 kids, a house and the white picket fence, pay the mortgage, the car, blah, blah, blah, and live happily ever after.

That's somebody else's fabricated life.

Yeah.

It is.

And we fall into this trap thinking that I have to do it.

And then when somebody wants to change, they're like, well, I can't because I have this mortgage and I have these cars and have these bills.

I'm like,

Who says you have to have all of that?

It's a facade.

You're making a choice to live the way that you want to do and if you're not happy well you have the power to make that change in your life like i can't i can't change my job i've i've dedicated 50 years 15 years to this profession so you're miserable change it

who cares well then the money downgrade your life yeah i'm all for making money like i make a lot of money and i think people should make a lot of money i come from nothing but i've also done a done it in a very hard like i've had I've done it in a very hard way a lot of the times where I didn't need to I was I was my own worst enemy.

Yeah, what could you break that down a little bit?

I'm interested in what you mean by that.

So like

Basically, I came from the world that and this is one of my limiting beliefs that I had

That I could achieve success.

I come from nothing grew up in you know like trailer trailers and section eight housing and just poor man.

We were poor.

No dad in the house, you you know, abusive stepfather for six years until that blew up, you know,

one night.

So, like, literally come from nothing, you know.

And then I built everything myself.

I mean, I can't say I built myself.

I've had amazing teammates, like nothing, no one's ever self-made.

I've had amazing mentors

because I have plowed forward and I've done the work both externally and internally, the path has been laid with amazing people in my life that will

accelerate what i'm doing right and that continues to happen but i believed that i had it in me to be successful but here's here's the toxic trait or the or the limiting belief i believe that i had to work 10 times harder than you ryan to get the same success as you i know i could be successful but i just the universe dealt me a different hand and i had to work for me to achieve the same level of success i had to work 10 times harder than you success comes easy to you, but for me, the universe was going to make me work for it.

So what happened?

I manifested my own reality.

I manifested my hardship.

It was 10 times harder.

Everything was.

Because I was thinking that way.

Can you give me an example of that?

I think that's a wonderful,

wonderful from an insightful purpose, not so much from that.

You had to deal with that.

But like, Just, can you break that down a little bit?

Because the concept of like, basically, like, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself.

No one can do it better than I can.

So, if I've got to, I've got to be the one at 5.8, 5, you know, 4.30 in the morning to 12 p.m.

Like, I, no one, I got to outwork everyone.

It's a, it's just, I've got to outwork you.

So, everything has to be done by me.

Um, and then because you're thinking this way,

you fall into this weird vein of just uh and it reminds me of uh

what's the author if I have it on my shelf

Great great guy 10x is better than 2x yeah dr.

Benjamin Hardy.

Yes, but hit the act Dan Sullivan Dan Sullivan.

Yeah, yeah Dan Sullivan his concept

That's really that's what you know, so what changed was this and starting in 2018 I started to get my own coaching and then really went in 2020 when everything happened I really started to kind of 2018 things that's when things really changed.

And then

and then I just went all in on it.

I just like started to double down on that.

And that's really where I started to kind of level up.

And it wasn't through necessarily hard work.

It was hard work on myself, but it wasn't like I wasn't trying.

I was trying to figure out what is the easiest

road.

Like what is your zone of genius?

What flows?

Yeah.

What is flowing in the business?

What's working?

And at one time, Ryan, I had seven different businesses because I was like, more's more.

More businesses, more money, right?

Work harder.

I have the infrastructure.

I got the team.

Let's fucking go.

But I was exhausted, out of shape, like not living good.

You know, everything was work.

I wasn't prioritizing my own health.

I wasn't taking a moment to, you know, check out and refill my cup.

And I know that sounds counterproductive, but then you start realizing that you can create systems that literally make money for you.

And I'm not talking about like internet schemes and things like that.

I'm talking about your business.

You know what I mean?

Like you have to scale your business and you have to put the right people in the right seats.

And when you do that and you let go of the vine, that's when you can, you have the clarity to really, you focus, like you said, you focus on your unique ability, you focus on your zone of genius and the rest you let go.

And it's amazing what happens when you can do that.

this is why it's so hard is because it challenges people's ego.

It challenges people's pride and then their self-worth.

Because they're like, well, wait a minute.

If I'm not doing it,

if I'm not grinding hard, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle, grinding, whatever that means, right?

And I did all that.

I said all that, but it got me nowhere.

It got me a 2X.

I want a 10X.

Who doesn't want a 10X?

Well, for a 10X, you've got to self-analyze.

You've got to see

where you're the bottleneck, where you're holding people back.

You said something earlier around identity, right?

And I think that this is one of the core pieces.

You said, you know, misery becomes someone's identity.

And I think a lot of people, like, I got a good buddy, incredible athlete when he was younger.

Smart guy.

He's a good dad.

But he's,

he's fat as fuck.

And I just feel so bad because I'm like, dude, you don't see fat 80-year-olds.

Like, you have this amazing family and you're such a, you're, he's a, he's a great dad.

He's a good husband.

You know what I mean?

Like, good, great husband.

You know what I mean?

Like, just solid human being.

But he is, he's like.

He's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's good.

He's identified as like dad bod.

He's like, oh, I got my dad bod, you know, whatever.

And I'm like, dude, I just, you know, and he, that has become now his identity.

And like, he sees, you know, some of the stuff that I do and, you know, the different, and and he's just like, ah, that's, you know, that's not me, or I don't have time, or blah, blah, blah, all this different.

He makes all the excuses.

And I'm like, bro, you think I have time?

Like, I don't have time to do this stuff.

I make the time, right?

I make the time.

So if you find yourself, if someone's listening to this and they're, you know,

they've put some sort of negative trait or negative emotion, feeling, et cetera, and they've applied that third identity and they're kind of living with that.

How do we start to break that identity down?

Like,

how do we start to get past that?

So, so I've learned, I've learned that

whoever that guy is, I guarantee that

you scratched the crust off of that surface and there's something pretty deep going on there.

Nobody looks in the mirror and sees a dad bod and goes, fuck yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just not the reality.

They, you know, when they're alone, like you can lie to other people, but when you're alone and you're, you're honest with yourself, you don't want that.

You know, you're accepting that because you think that's

the hand that you've been dealt.

Um, but it really is misery.

And I've worked with enough men over the years that when you scratch the surface of this thing, people are in a lot of pain.

And, and, for instance, and a lot of this, where this comes from, I just talked about this

at

one of the retreats, and we kind of break this.

Is what I, in the men's retreats that I do, this is where I break this stuff down.

Is

one in three men are

physically abused in their life.

One in four men, and this statistic reigns true every single time.

If I get enough men in a room and get them to break, you know,

drop their guard and to be honest,

this stays true.

One in four men are sexually abused.

Blew my mind.

Blew my mind.

I was like, there's no freaking way that can be true.

And over the years,

it maintains truthfulness.

One in three men physically abused, one in four men sexually abused.

and

that's not something that is macho.

It's not something that people want to talk about.

Men don't want to admit that because it makes them look weak.

You know, it looks, it's a, you know, it makes them feel a certain way, right?

Out of control.

They weren't able to protect themselves.

In reality, a lot of it was when they were kids, right?

And it's like, that's a tragedy, right?

You're a kid.

You're supposed to be protected by other men.

And instead, you're being traumatized and taken advantage of.

And that's, it's pretty sick.

But the problem is men carry this weight, this trauma around with them that they don't deal with for a very, very long period of time.

And this is how it shows up.

It shows up in the self-sabotage, it shows up in the coping mechanisms.

It's the reason why guys will start a diet and then fall off the diet.

It's the reason why they'll start saving something or have this new idea and then don't follow through.

It is the number one reason that men can't follow through on what they say is because they get to a certain level and then they have this

subconscious idea of themselves and then they falter.

And until we deal with that thing, the root cause, then we're always going to be treating symptoms.

And how do we treat symptoms?

Kind of going back to what we were talking about, right?

And until you get down there and you carve that cancer out of your of your life, you're always going to have this up and down thing that you're never going to be able to fix.

Do you think some of this has to do as well with

like the

feminist movement around toxic masculinity and that this idea of men

spending time together, of being strong, of being a protector, like these ideas are frowned upon?

You know what I mean?

You know,

I take, I do, I don't fight, but I, I, I take, I go to boxing and learning how to, right, that kind of stuff.

Like good, You know, and, you know, people bust my chops and stuff and be like, oh, you know, what are you going to do?

You're 44.

You're going to fight.

And I'm like, no, I don't want to get pit in the head.

You know what I mean?

Like, the reason I'm not a football player is because I got three concussions in high school.

However, if someone's fucking around and I can throw a decent right hook, I got a chance of getting out of that situation without the people I care about.

You know what I mean?

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i've been trying to like that's their own insecurity showing.

Yeah, you know, and so, so,

how do you, I guess, I have a lot of guys who,

you know, and I talked to a lot of men about this, especially in the last few years with the podcast, uh, you know, trying to bring these topics up.

And as I was dealing with my own stuff, you know, I mean, this is quasi-therapy for me as well.

So, you know, just in a very selfish way, but um, guys that are, you know, I, a lot of guys are hesitant to be that like kind of more classic male role role of of the the the protector the builder um the the the the kind of rock of a household

how

one like

how do we start to break through this mindset i feel like it's being torn down a little bit now i feel like the world is corrected and you know the timeline we're on where the bullet missed trump's face and it hit his ear seemingly has put us on a timeline where well i think that i you know to kind of go back on like what started this journey for me five years ago like I've been in this for since 2000, I got out in 2012, stopped contracting in 2014.

So I've been on this path since 2014.

And what really

lit my tires was

COVID.

Because, you know, I felt like John Rambo.

Like I got out of special operations.

I had my businesses.

I grew my hair out.

I'm surfing.

I'm skateboarding.

I'm spending time with my family, running my businesses.

No one, you know, I did media and I did stuff online, but no one knew my political affiliation, my religious.

I didn't talk about that stuff.

I was just like, dude, listen, I dedicated 12 years of my life to this, my youth, to this thing.

Good, bad, or indifferent, doesn't matter.

That's what I did.

And now it's my time.

Now it's now I'm gonna live for me.

And then I had a business, I had a gym during COVID that got raided by the cops.

And yeah, so here I am going,

How

on earth did my gym get raided without a warrant?

Like straight up, cops entering the gym, cars, boom, boom, put the dumbbells down.

That was really a line from a cop.

I swear to God.

One of our members is a chef in the area

was doing curls and the cop came in there and was like, put the gun, put the dumbbells down.

And he's like, are you kidding me right now?

And we're in a town of like 2,500 people.

This is before mask.

There wasn't one COVID outbreak.

It was just nothing.

We shut down for a couple of weeks and then nobody said anything.

Like there was just no guidance whatsoever.

So I'm like, all right, what is the CDC saying?

All right.

Open doors, check temperatures, limit

certain people per square footage.

All right, we'll do all that.

Cool.

And people were like, dude, Nick, I'm losing my mind.

I got to get back in the gym.

It's a, it's a mental therapeutic thing, you know.

training for sure.

I got to get out of my house.

And so we did.

And then a couple weeks later, we got raided, ended up all over, you know, went viral all over Fox News, etc.

I was one of the gems.

And, and I really, I just like, how did we get here?

How did this happen?

And I started to look at it from, you know, I kind of put my special operations hat back on.

I started looking at it from like an asymmetrical, you know, environment.

And I was like, oh, this goes back even longer.

Like, you know, and if I want to take over, like, you know, say, say, you know, a group of us, Ryan, we're going to, you know, invade Canada and take over, which probably wouldn't be hard.

But

I say this all the time.

Would we be worried about

the children if we had to invade the country and take over?

No.

Would we worry about the women?

No.

Will we worry about the elderly?

No.

Who's our threat if we're going to invade a country?

Military-aged males.

That's the threat.

So if I look at a long-term campaign,

how do I remove the threat to taking over a country without firing a shot?

We'll take military-age males, make them distracted, make them decentralized, get them addicted to

various of things, and just completely

remove them from the equation.

Well, that's what over decades, that's what's happened.

You can look at, you know, look at the look at the shows in the 80s, you know, Al Bundy, The Simpsons, the Doof, the Doofus Dad, what is, you know, the silly man, the silly dad.

And then we just slowly, very slowly eradicated manhood.

But you look at men, and I'm not saying they were perfect.

They were not emotionally intelligent.

They had a lot of trauma.

They had a lot to deal with.

But you look at men prior, you know, 60s and prior.

They had a set of morals and guidelines that they followed.

The family unit was stronger then than ever.

And at that time is when they started to erode the family unit.

And that's when the country started to become weak.

And that's the rise of the federal government.

So you started seeing more federal government power and the reduction of strength in the family unit.

And why is that?

Men, men.

That's what got here.

We allowed, we allowed somebody else to take control of our family, our community, our schools, our kids, everything.

And we just sat by and watched it happen.

But since then, I think they showed their hand to it because of what I do in our coaching community and the guys that I work with.

I've definitely seen

it.

It was about a year after, obviously there was certain people that were already on board in 2020, but about a year after, even people that really believed it, the guys that had gotten, you know, had gained 40, 50 pounds, you know, and then stuff started to come out and things started to start looking a little hokey.

And they were like, I think I got duped.

I think I got duped.

And it's time for me to kind of, you know, step back into the role that I was meant to be.

And I think there's been a big course correction.

Yeah.

And it was funny.

I was talking to my kids about this because

I tried to take, for all the reasons that you just described, you know, I'm a firm believer that parents have abdicated or abdicated so much of their responsibility to educating their children, right?

I mean, obviously, you go to school.

My kids go to Catholic school because I don't trust the public schools in New York State.

But

outside of that, right?

That's math and letters and that kind of stuff.

But none of the lessons of life

that are important, that are actually going to materialize in any way that are going to help them be successful are taught in schools.

It's just not, right?

You learn those things through

community, whether it's sports.

You know, I'm obviously a huge believer in sports or, you know, community groups or, you know, just being around other kids.

And it was funny, you know, we were, I was talking to my kids about something.

My, my older son's 11, and he was explaining

a situation at school.

And, you know, some kid was talking shit and different stuff.

And, you know, he was asking me kind of, not to him personally, but to one of his friends.

And he was asking me about the situation.

And, you know,

obviously you don't want to,

I'm not advocating for violence in a lot of these situations.

But I explained to him, I said, dude, you know, when I was growing up and, you know, this is 80s, 90s,

if you said some stupid shit, there was a chance you were going to get hit.

Yeah.

You know, and like.

There was a consequence to your actions.

Yes.

And when that consequence got removed and we started seeing stories about people who were defending themselves and they were being classified as the criminal or the wrongful actor versus the instigator,

that to me was a very clear sign that something was off because

I don't understand a world where

you can say something or do something to me, but then if I react to that, I'm the one who's, you know, respond in a fairly reasonable way.

You know, I'm the one that's actually wrong.

And that was a huge wake-up call for me, you know, watching them kind of grow up and

that question and seeing the way the youth interacts where people essentially feel like they can say and or do whatever they want.

And there's zero consequence on the back end unless somehow that misaligns with the values that have been pushed upon us in this kind of postmodern liberal belief system.

Right.

And,

you know, you look at what's happening now where we're starting to actually police our streets again.

You can act, you know, we're starting to be able to re-express ourselves through our First Amendment and these different battles that we see being fought.

It does feel like things are correcting.

But, you know, I still, Ryan, I still do think that there's a cost.

I think that it's not immediate.

It's not like you say you run off of the mouth and you get punched in the mouth.

But you got to look at the, you got to look at the type of individual.

I think it's delayed.

I don't think that you can, you can, you don't get, you have the freedom of choice, but you don't have the freedom of consequence.

So you can make a choice and there might mean they're not, there might not be a direct consequence right now, but over your lifetime, like if you look at the individuals that do these sort of things and act out and just run their mouth and like if I really analyze their life, they're they're not successful they're they're not making money they're not taking care they're not a stand-up person they're not taking care of really anyone they're really selfish

it's all about how that how things make them feel personally

and i think that they they they do have i think it's a negative snowball effect of what happens to them i think that's the reason why that they act out and they say the things that they do because life is not happening for them so they're angry but they become the victim in their story.

Yeah.

That victim mentality is so incredibly toxic to our success and to our, you know, I don't love talking about the word happiness.

To me, I've always seen happiness as a, as a derivative of

positive action.

Yeah, it's a byproduct.

Yeah,

you can't seek happiness.

I'm, I'm, I immediately become skeptical of it.

You can seek it.

You're just not going to find it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Anyone who's selling happiness, i immediately become skeptical of because i'm like you know

that's not how you get there you know what i mean like it's purpose meaning sense of connection you know it's never the i sell the opposite i sell i sell the the difficulty and through difficulty and through challenge you will find happiness but that's not that's not that's not that's a byproduct of doing it and that goes back to what i was saying man like you want to be you want to be fulfilled you got to do hard things yeah i want to hit you with a concept, and

you know, it might be face value, but let me know.

You know, I've been working through this construct lately or filter.

I like to think about my decision-making structure, how I think about things through different filters.

And,

you know, I think one of the keys, one of the major filters that we've missed here, especially through COVID, I think COVID lit this up like a Christmas tree, was this idea that our society had stopped living in reality, right?

When you see, you know, men can be women, women can be men,

that, you know, all these different constructs, you know, that somehow we should trust, you know, trust the science, even though none of it makes sense or they're, you know, they're not,

we're not living in reality.

And I've really started, I've taken this step back and said,

what are, what are the actual receipts from these actions?

If you can show me a receipt that produces positive long-term results from this action, I'm open to anything, right?

It's why, though technically I'm probably considered a conservative based on where my views are, that's not the way I've been my whole life.

And it's certainly, I have no problem going anywhere on a political or spectrum if there's a receipt behind it that shows me long-term success, right?

One, does that play for you?

Do you think that's a filter that works?

And

how do you, how do we start to manifest this more in our lives?

Like, so many people just take shit at face value.

And I'm like,

why do you do that?

Well, you know, this is what I've always done.

And I'm like, are you getting anything from that?

Like, there's

the idea of, you know, you talk about the whole society thing and like, we don't know what reality is.

Remove yourself from society and reality for a moment.

Go out in the middle of the woods.

Disconnect from your phone.

How do you feel?

You know, if I take some, if I take you, right, and we go somewhere out in the mountains and there's no phone, there's no society, there's nothing.

We're just living, doing things on an adventure.

How do you feel then?

I feel fucking amazing.

So then

is it all this other stuff?

Is it you or is it this other stuff?

Are we allowing,

what input are we allowing to

effect

our perception or our mood?

So I think the biggest thing, and that's kind of what I, that's kind of going back to the beginning of this thing is like, we are no longer, majority of people are not the captain of their own ship or the the CEO of their own life.

And I think that's the biggest thing it comes down to is like, you need to,

you are in charge of your life.

All of it.

You're not a victim.

No one hands you a raw deal.

And even if they did, so what?

So what?

Bad shit happens to a lot of people.

Bad shit happens to me.

It's okay.

It's all right.

How do you, how do you combat this when you're constantly being bludgeoned with, let us take care of you?

Essentially, the message for, I'd say, up until,

you know, maybe a year or two post-COVID, when people really started to wake up to some of the shit that's been shoved down their throat, for so long, it was, you know, we'll take care of you.

We'll make sure.

Why would you want somebody else to?

Yeah,

I don't, but it's seemingly a lot of people.

Maybe, maybe it's not even what they actually want, but they're willing to accept that narrative versus

standing out or being different or putting their phone down.

A great book by uh and unfortunately i i hate to believe these statistics but i hate that it's just true for you know century after century it's true

napoleon hill's book outwitting the devil you ever read that or listened to it yeah highly recommend the audio book it will like it will blow your brain up um it was written well over a hundred years ago uh and it was finally released once he died his wife died and then they released it um and she wouldn't let him release it because she said that basically the government would kill him, the church would kill him,

billionaires would kill him.

So

they wouldn't release it until he died.

And then she never released it.

So it was the foundation that released it afterwards.

Highly suggest reading the audiobook, but it talks about control and talks about how basically 98% are going to think like this, like what you're saying.

And there's 2% of the people that are going to think for themselves.

And that's, unfortunately, that's a reality.

And you have to choose, the individual has to make, has to make the decision.

Are they going to think for themselves and be that, be the CEO of their own life?

Or are they going to fall into the herd of everybody else and just consume and be told exactly how to think, what to believe?

You know, it's wild.

I have a,

one of my audience members made this.

I show it on the show every once in a while.

It's GNF, the letters, maybe on video, it looks better that way.

Stands for give no fucks.

And it came out of a couple years ago.

I was kind of diagnosing my own life, right?

Like when were the moments when I was the most successful, when things were really driving forward, and when were the moments where I felt stalled?

And there was one

core thing that I kept coming back to was the idea that you just shared.

When I was operating based on my own belief structure, regardless of how it impacted status, how it impacted, you know, relationships.

And I don't mean that like in a, you know, obviously there's certain relationships you, you want to nurture, et cetera.

But

when I was operating as my own individual, making my own decisions as the way I saw the world was when I saw the most progress in myself.

And in the moments where I abdicated that responsibility to what I was being told on social media or by the news or what I felt was expected of a person in the position that I was currently in in that moment.

That is when I saw the most stagnation, the most unhappiness, and

my mind's willingness to drop back into these negative, toxic traits.

And I've kind of dedicated this show since that moment to talking to people like yourselves and trying to draw out ideas on thinking for yourself.

Like

that one concept, if you can just

Just just kind of nail yourself to this idea where you're making the decision based on what what you need in your life and not what your neighbor's gonna think or your mom's gonna think or your friend.

Shit, what happens is insane and you can't guess it.

It tends to be very serendipitous, but it is hard,

but it comes with purpose and meaning and fulfillment that you just literally, you can't.

It's, you know, I've explained the sensation and it kind of, it's like sex, right?

Like you can hear about it, but until you experience it, you have no fucking clue.

That's right.

And then, you know, and you wake up one day and you're like, oh my God, I'm like my own person.

This is pretty incredible.

Like I have my own views and I have reasons for those views and they guide the decisions I make.

And you don't have to like them, but if you do, come on along.

And

that to me is just one of these ideas that it seems like is being purposefully.

Now, thank God for people like Jordan Peterson and others who have really come out and tried to make some of these things mainstream.

Like I love his concept and try to live by this idea of

be a monster, but know how to control it.

Like, you're not, you're not a good person if you're weak and good, because you have to be good or kind.

But if you're a monster,

it's the old warrior thing.

Um, you know, it's better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener at war, you know?

Yeah,

it's it's the it's the balance.

Men, men need to have the capability of violence, really.

And it's like you go into boxing, like you people can make like, why?

Like you default

in a dangerous situation, you default to the lowest level of your training.

And if you have zero training, you default to zero.

Yeah.

And now you are a victim.

Yeah, it was funny, man.

I had a buddy that, you know, I was coaching and a bunch of my coaching buddies and friends with the, you know, around the teams.

you know, I had posted

a story on Instagram or something just of me hitting the bags with like a quote behind it or whatever.

It's more like keeping myself motivated than it.

I'm not like trying to become a boxing influencer or any of that.

Trust me, all the boxing guys on Instagram love to tell me how they would knock me out based on the way I throw punches.

So I'm not, yeah, I get that I'm not good.

However, I was sitting there and my buddy, you know, they're kind of busting my chops.

We're having a good time.

And one of my guys, and one of the guys goes, you know, honestly, like, why do you do that?

I go, bro, I have two kids.

If someone comes knocking at my door at

2 a.m., I'm going to grab my shotgun.

I'm going to grab my hunting knife.

And I'm going to, my job is to make sure those two little humans make it out of that situation.

That's my fucking job.

Like, you know, like, well, how am I gonna do that if I have no way of protecting myself and no even basic martial skills?

Basic.

I mean, in mine argument, very basic.

And literally, they looked at each other and they all went silent.

And I was like, that's why I do it, man.

Like, I hope that day never happens.

But if it does, I want that to be just as bad a day for the guy knocking on my door as it is for me that he knocked.

And

I I just hope more men embrace that idea.

And I think they can do that by getting involved with individuals like yourself and falling into their world.

So, you know, as a way to kind of wrap up our conversation, and I appreciate the hell out of you, man, like, how do people get deeper into, besides the book, you know, and guys, we'll have, you know, wherever Nick points us, I'm going to have it linked up in the show notes.

So whether you're watching on YouTube or listen to the podcast, just scroll down.

Where can they go to get deeper into your world and start following along with what you teach and how you talk about these things?

Yeah,

so that, you know, it's funny you say that about the book because that's really where it came from.

Like the book started and the Agogi happened.

And that's really our community.

And we have kind of these four phases is master yourself.

And that's like in all areas, mentality, dealing with your shit, physically, your nutrition.

Because

The reality, your wife, your family, your friends are not going to respect you until you can master yourself until you install self-discipline, right?

Self-mastery is number one.

You can't lead your family until you can lead yourself.

They're just not going to take you, you know, seriously.

But through

example of yourself, then you can turn around and lead your family.

So then phase two is leading your family, rebuild,

rebuilding the relationship with your wife, whether there's resentment, whatever it may be, you know, and then kind of going from that to your finances, right?

And like, well, Nick, I could work on my finances now.

Well, no, because you don't have the discipline to put the cookie down.

You're not going to be able to have the discipline to save and invest and et cetera, and make smart choices with your money, right?

Like this, this is all faceted.

And then also, if your family's not on board, if your wife's not on board with investing and saving and the way you spend money as a family, then that's just going to create more strife in your family.

So there's a reason why it's phase three.

And then phase four is that, is like really like leadership.

Like, what does that dynasty look like?

What is the legacy?

What kind of leader are you going to be?

And

once you've mastered yourself, you've got your family rock solid, you've locked down your finances and building generational wealth.

What is the fourth phase?

What does that look like?

You know, what comes next?

And that's kind of what we do.

And then we...

And then we coast through people through that.

I mean,

we've changed so many people's lives.

Guys, I just got a text the other day from one of our guys who's down in Disney World and

with his mom and his kid.

And he's like, dude, before you guys, I literally could not fit in a roller coaster.

Now I'm running around like crazy playing with my kids he's like thank you for this opportunity you know he would have been dead the reality is he would have been dead he was well over 300 pounds his dad died at like 47 of of a coronary uh basically coronary disease um and he's thriving man he's gonna live you know several several more decades because of this um

And because of that, he has, you know, and this is not just him.

This is so many different people.

We have guys that he's, he's got a promotion.

He's making like three times what he was when he was 300 pounds because it changes everything.

And so that's what we do in the Agogi is that.

So you can get the book and then you can look into the Agogi and kind of go from there.

But yeah.

Nick, I appreciate you, man.

Keep pushing, dude.

I love your YouTube channel.

I love the shit that you're doing.

This is so incredibly important, not just to men, kind of our age and where we are, but to the next generation of men and women and leaders that are coming up behind us.

Like,

you you know, these are the people who are going to be taking care of the world that we leave them.

So it falls on us to continue sharing these messages.

And I think you're just completely dialed in, bro.

And I appreciate

your time today.

Thank you, Ryan.

Let's go.

Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

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