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Successful Life Podcast
Self-Improvement Podcast for Contractors that want to learn about how to grow their business through management and marketing. Develop business ideas to improve your business experience and be successful. Real stories from real business owners.
Successful Life Podcast
Transformative Strategies for Modern Trades with Mike Agugliaro
Unlock the secrets to transforming your business mindset with our special guest, Mike Agugliaro. Have you ever wondered how your personal timeline and identity can predict your success? In this episode, we dissect the human brain as a software system and explore how memories stored in both the brain and heart influence decision-making. Mike and I dive deep into the contrast between professional and personal personas, shedding light on how generational influences and societal expectations mold our behavior. This conversation is packed with insights to help you uncover the hidden factors that drive business leaders toward true alignment and success.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it can also be the key to your success. Join us as we explore the journey from confusion to clarity, emphasizing the power of curiosity in personal and professional growth. We discuss the significance of identifying core personal values and how curiosity can be a motivational force. Hear compelling stories and analogies that stress the importance of balancing hard work with relaxation to prevent burnout. Even the most successful figures must remain open-minded, and we'll show you why continuous learning is crucial for maintaining growth.
Expand your horizons with insights from multiple philosophies and methodologies for self-improvement. Mike shares his experiences with various belief systems and mentors, illustrating the benefits of cross-industry learning and innovative approaches in business. We tackle modern methods for revolutionizing trades, address issues like addiction, and explore the importance of grieving and finding peace. Plus, get a sneak peek into two transformative events designed to elevate your personal and professional life. Whether you're looking to scale your company, plan a successful exit, or achieve freedom, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge for anyone striving for success in business and life.
FuDogGroup.com
https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
https://bit.ly/4bFz4yc https://www.housecallpro.com/successullife
https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, corey Barrier, and I'm back here with Mike Aguilero. What's up, brother? Hey? How you doing Good man, super happy to have you back. We went pretty deep into some conversations a couple of weeks back and I want to talk to you a bit about you know, I know you that you transform business owners' minds and I know that you do that in a pretty unique way, and we talked a little bit about this last week, about how you get into what's important to them. I think is what you said. Maybe, I believe, but more so, what's at the center of the problem?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's talk to me a little bit about how you get to that spot with these guys, because we deal with some hard. You know we deal with some hard. I don't want to say hardheaded people, but we deal with people that you know their egos get involved and they build a business and their way is the right way. But you have a special way of breaking through that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know people use these, frame these words like ego. You know there's there's good ego and there might be a destructive ego. Let's let's cut to how we can identify things. If we go back and I think I mentioned it last time, corey there is a software system built inside of the human. The software system happens to be the brain and how the brain stores things. Now, probably won't go deep in this unless you ask, but there's actually multiple brains inside the body.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't realize your, your heart actually stores memories and it launches these memories into make decisions. That's why people go. Oh, you know I'm thinking about this or I felt this. Well, let's just go to the head brain, the top part, and this is the conscious thinking, the me talking to you and you're right now everything I say. You're going back in that file that's been in there from the beginning of time and you're trying to reference it and say does this make sense what Mike's saying? And if it does make sense, do I want to agree with that moving forward? Does it replace something? Do I want to agree with that moving forward? Does it replace something?
Speaker 2:And when I did, corey, and I'll get back to how to just get to the root of this. I started to question with curiosity so everybody wants to follow a pill, right? The red pill, the blue pill? Give me the pill, solve the problem. You know that you work with people. They're just like give me the answer. The answer is like Tylenol, it works to mask the underlining things. So I started to ask myself things that everybody's running around, including myself.
Speaker 2:Back then, like four hour work week, right, and everybody's like I go to events and people go, I only work four hours a day. And I said I'm sorry to hear that. Well, what are you sorry for? I said that you hate what you do so much. You don't only do it four hours a day, but see, because they have a framing of what they think life should be with or like. We talked about that with the comparison effect.
Speaker 2:But let's just go to timeline, your timeline. If we drew a line on a piece of paper and we said from the earliest thought that you can remember the earliest thing that empowered you, the earliest thing that disempowered you, and we looked at that timeline first, we would see your identity. And it takes some time to do this, but it doesn't take a year to do it In a period of time. If you looked at that timeline from today one, I could predict someone's level of success. I'll go. Well, let me guess.
Speaker 2:At 18, you might have felt like this this is not Nostradamus, this is not crystal ball. Like you went by and it said for $25, read my palm. I'm not against that. I think there's a lot of skilled people. This is just looking at the facts here. At 18, you probably felt like this and did this. At 25, you probably did this. You started your business, you thought this and now you're here. Some people have vulture success. They don't even know how. At the end of the timeline which is right now, today, I can normally read that and say let me describe your identity for you and your identity is very different, corey, than what people would say.
Speaker 2:You might have heard these things like alter ego and stuff. I'm not a super fan of alter ego because alter ego and a really good friend of mine wrote a great book. There's tons of value in it. But the thing is you're strapping on a Superman cape and you go amongst the world and you're saving your company and you're saving people. Then you get home and you pull your cape off and maybe your kids aren't happy with you or your wife or your partner's not happy because the cape's off now. So now you're back to who you are.
Speaker 2:So I had this. I had almost what I would call I don't want to say split personality, split roles. I would be at home and, corey, I don't know about you, but I'm at home and I'm chasing my son around when he's little and I'm kissing their belly and I'm silly and doing all kinds of. I got pictures, I got dressed up and all kinds of things on my head and my daughter's doing my nails. But, man, when I walked out that door in the morning and shut it to go to work, slip here I am now.
Speaker 2:Now I'm just a monster. I'm intense. I'm like just do the job. I'm taking generational stuff from my dad and a lot of you listening, acknowledge this stuff from my dad and a lot of you listen and acknowledge this. We could see you. How many of you had a dad who was just shut up. Do your job. Stop your whining and complaining. That's who I became. So it's like go home one person, go to work, the next person Just split identities.
Speaker 2:Until I merged it and said you know what, why can't I just bring myself to it? So that's the identifying part. Let me hand it back to you, and if you want to go to how to shift these things, we could talk about this. One more thought before I hand it back to you. A good friend of mine about a decade ago he said to me Mike, you know, you can't build a million dollar business with a hundred thousand dollar mind and thinking because you can't build a 10 million dollar business with a million dollar mind and million dollars thinking. So I pondered that and said, wow, that makes a lot of sense. Well, I'm going to tweak it a little bit. What I've learned over the last couple decades now you will only build a little more above what you are not with your thinking, with your past programming. Let me pause there a minute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, you know, I'm certainly guilty of well, before I say I'm certainly guilty of preventing myself from going forward on certain things because of that program. I've done a lot of work to try to change that program, but that doesn't mean I always entirely believe it. So I'm going to go back for a second. How exhausting was it to put on that cape every day and then to come home, take the cape off and be dad? And how do you think that? You know how much energy did you burn up with that split not split personality? I forgot what you said split Identity, yeah, split identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, first off, if you look at let's just look at some of the things you're saying yourself to help you and serve you here, Like I felt guilty, right? Or you said I tried and you must've been exhausted. Well, you don't really know you're exhausted.
Speaker 2:You just know that there's something you want different and you're not getting there. So I wasn't exhausted, I was confused. Why am I working so hard and people are quitting me? I mean, I'm showing up early in the morning, I'm dedicated to growing this company and serving them so they could pay their bills, but they leave me. So I went into a state of confusion, through the state of confusion and a whole lot of coaching and spending a lot of investing a lot of confusion Through the state of confusion and a whole lot of coaching and spending a lot of investing a lot of money and write people that that been through this journey.
Speaker 2:They said when you get confused, get curious. I'm actually curious right now. I've had in the last couple of weeks because I am I'm a big believer, corey, in identifying your minimum five core personal values that drive you. I'm not talking about integrity, like what makes up your values, like my number one value is learning. So if I had a choice this morning, like if I had a seminar, to go to a workshop, a training I invest at least a quarter of a million a year in my own education still, and if I could find more, I'd invest more or getting on here, well, I'd invest more. Or getting on here, well, I wouldn't have scheduled it for here, I'd say, corey, I have to move it there. So people have to identify those things. And when I got curious, like for me, one of them is longevity. Right now, why At level 54, feel good, now I've had to get a couple. You won't know it, but I got some stitches in my head here and I got like a little heat thing on my side because I don't know what went wrong.
Speaker 2:But I don't sit here and say I'm falling apart. I sit here and say I'm curious, I'm optimizing my longevity, which means it's showing me the areas now that are not strengthened enough to keep it going to that maximum level. So what do I do? I get curious. I've been having well today and I'm sharing this real time for all of you. So I hope all of you listening could appreciate it, because I think what a lot of people may not do is they don't share real time insights. So today I'm doing which I've done it before. We're doing vitamin IVs at 3 pm today and they have this thing, corey, where now they like ozone. They like kind of pull some blood into a bag, they throw ozone in it or oxygen in it and they pump it back in. And I'm like this is fascinating, I'm curious about it. So that's how I start to step into that, that, the next steps of of solving things.
Speaker 2:But back to your question. Was I exhausted? No, I was confused. Why am I? My dad told me, you know, get up every morning, work harder than everyone else and you'll win. And that's true. But if you hold down a drill and never stop that drill and let it cool down a little bit, you know what happens. Right, the drill burns out. And now, when the drill burns out, you either have to go buy another drill or rebuild it. So that's more of what I was feeling like a confused drill. There's got to be a better way. Why is that company and only Corey Till? I went and visited a company and when I visited that company it shifted my belief system. I was like, if that person can do that and I probably was judging the hell out of him, right. So I'm like, if that person could do that, what could I do? And click, there was a new belief system put in place. Click, there was a new belief system put in place.
Speaker 1:There's something about experiencing other people's success, other people's way of living, and being open-minded and aware that there could be a different way. And so to your point, when you went out to see that company, you had to be open-minded to take the first step, to go out there to begin with, and then be aware enough that if this person, who puts his pants on the same way I do, can do this, there's zero reason I can't do it. And so it sounds like you leveraged his success, or whatever, I guess, success in that business, I guess to drive your own to a degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to tell people like my thing I program my mind with is I just don't know any different. So whatever I choose, I don't know. That it's not possible. The other thing is, if you look at this realm of learning from people, you go and learn and you learn from what you consider top gurus in the world, and I'll share my own personal positioning where I like to be. You have these top gurus in the world talking to two or 3,000 people. So they're here, but they're sharing things that seem so out of reach or maybe not even possible for you, because they say I'm doing it 50 years and I have a boat and a plane and a car and a wife and children. It seems unattainable to feel that way, and the first time I spoke to thousands of people, corey, they put you there like, oh, you're going to like go to the green room and I'm like can I just sit here on this bench? Like, can I just sit here? They're like no, no, no, no. The speakers. The speakers don't like sit in the room.
Speaker 1:They, they go to the green room.
Speaker 2:So I was like all right, let me go to this green room. So now I'm in this green room it's not green, it's just what they call it, to make it fancy, I guess and there's, you know, fiji water and M&Ms and stuff like that. Now I'm an speaker. When people come and they're going to hire me to speak and I'm not saying that to brag but I'm at that point where they pay $35,000 an hour for me to come out I'm like, look, I'm really easy. Like I want to get there early, I want to sit amongst the people. I don't need green M&Ms and I don.
Speaker 2:Out was, when you have these people at these caliber, you think they're there. But Corey, now I'm listening to him and the guys over there I'm like I know him. He's on TV. Like every other day he's on TV. His wife can't stand him. He's almost bankrupt. He's losing the plane. He doesn't even own it. They're taking it and I'm like wait, is that where I want to be?
Speaker 2:I want to be in a place that's known for my knowledge and wisdom, but not so high. So I only share the level of success that I want people to believe is attainable for their next step. Yeah, of course. I mean, I sold two I eight figure companies, right, so I fall into that caliber, but people don't. They they admire the caliber, but they don't listen to that. That that high echelon, they're not listening.
Speaker 2:You know Damon John, of course. You know he owns all these things. So it's like you inspire but you don't know what to do with it. And I'm not mocking him, he's a brilliant guy too. All these guys have brilliance, but I don't know if they have the brilliance to implement where you can move so fast. And that's all I want. The other day, I did a training. We're running an online training now and the only thing, corey, I want from everybody is I don't want motivation. Of course they're going to be motivated, because I'm naturally energetic and unique in my own way. I want transformation and I want action. So my rule of thumb is if you're in a training with me, if there's not transformation, don't leave. I'll stay on all day, all night, and if you don't have action, don't go, because you're going to go feeling good, but you're not going to get to the point. You feel really good and rewarded.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, I agree with you. So how do you reinforce making sure those two things happen? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is, most people that are training today not all, but the majority are trying to give skill sets before mindset. And you have to frame the thinking, you have to frame the mind, you have to make the mind ready to be curious for change, to be curious for change. And people don't do that. And the mind is that look, if we could examine deep inside, it's a million little vibrations put together through your stories and history. But look, if there was somebody in the rainforest and we said this is a bird, and they came on your podcast and you said, hey, what's this? And that's all they knew. They would say that's a bird. They wouldn't know any different.
Speaker 2:So the first thing is I always want to do this kind of pre-audit on people. Tell me what you're thinking, what you're feeling, where are you at now, what is your mind saying? Because anybody, look, I'm a marketing guy, I'm a sales guy, I'm an operations guy, I'm an everything guy. That puts it together. Because I look at what is the emotional state and when I'm teaching, training, helping people expand their companies quickly, I'm talking to their inner mind. Most people are talking to the outer mind, like what they just hear. I'm talking to the inside. Tell me how you feel when you think about this in this moment. Now, how did you used to feel about this?
Speaker 2:So same thing after this podcast. I want people to go wait a minute. How have I been thinking about it and where is that thinking from? And do I still want that thinking and then change it? This is how, now, I think, some people consciously figure it out. This is how, now, I think, some people consciously figure it out. Corey, they go, man, I know how that happens. I became a study of others and myself. That I believe that's one of the big differences that created for me. I studied others, I looked at myself and studied myself and then, in between studying others and studying myself, I said what should I change? What do I want to adapt different? What new belief system do I want to take on and then have systems to put those belief systems in place?
Speaker 1:So all right. So let me ask you this since you've had, you know you've learned from multiple people. So no one person is going to be able to show you the way, necessarily, unless they have, unless they've learned from multiple people, right? So when you? So, I think it's important that when we are learning from different modalities, so to speak, different gurus, whatever it is, that you take what resonates and leave the rest. But my question is how you know, sometimes it's hard to not try to take those little pieces and put them into one bucket and make them work. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if it's hard, I like to use things as they're different. Okay, when I went and I was questioning what journey I wanted to follow, right, I was brought up Christian. I then was a Buddhist. But when I thought I was going to become a Buddhist, my instructor who I was with he said you don't become something, you study the things and you find the congruency in it that makes you feel like this is a path you want to walk now. So I did a lot of study, like over six months, and I had to hand over to my instructor. I turned with him 19 years and you're like martial arts, like martial arts. He did this, yeah, because his job was to build, not just a warrior, it was to build someone who would walk the journey to their greatest awakening, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, expansion, personal expansion and I started to connect the dots. So I don't care what anybody studies, but when I studied bud, studied Buddha, and then I studied Jesus like man, there's a whole lot of similarities there, right, a ton of them. So, but I think if you study, dan Kennedy is the first one. If anybody doesn't know he's like the godfather of marketing, he's the first one.
Speaker 2:I heard him say anything of one is dangerous. One belief system, one person you train under one book. You have one truck it breaks down, it's bad. You have one bank account the bank goes down, it's bad. And I've used that theory now for probably over 25 years, making sure I don't have anything of one, and that's what led me on the path. Well, wait a second, let me study. I just shared with just yesterday Corey. I was sharing with somebody. You know the problem, and I don't want to say problem.
Speaker 2:The situation with a lot of people is they're studying the one direction, a lot of people, especially since I'm from the trades right, electrician by trade, I built a big contracting company in plumbing, heating, cool and electric drain cleaning one day, bathroom solutions I mean air quality. We did over a million dollars and what I did was I stopped studying what everyone else was doing and started studying because Jay Abraham taught me this. He said you know what you want to build something that people can't compete against, that you'll grow faster than everyone else and they'll just scratch their head and puzzling. I'm giving you my words because I trained with him for three and a half years one-on-one. You know he's the highest paid consultant on planet earth, and most people can't, even Corey. Most people can't. Even I. Have a lot of friends of mine. They're like I'd never have Jay come and speak. Nobody would understand them. So I used to sit on stage. Many times I was on the stage and I translate it. He said Mike, learn from what other people are doing outside of your industry and bring that into what you're doing. Nobody will ever be able to keep up with you. And that's what I did. So I started looking at Zappos, amazon, disney.
Speaker 2:What did Disney do when you checked into the park? Why did they have a transition? You ever notice that you go to like, especially in Orlando like. You check in. Then you got to go on this journey of this either boat or monorail. It's kind of like. It's not kind of like it is. Let me take you from the outside world and find a transition to bring you to the happiest place on earth.
Speaker 2:Now what if they just like great adventure? If you've ever been there, they just throw you right in the park. You just walk through the gate. There it is. There's no transition for you to finish Like. And if you even watch your own kids not on the way out. On the way out it's different because the kids are burnt out, they're crying, they ate too many cookies and sugar and stuff. But on the way in, the family goes from you know, get in the cart and sit in the thing, and did you remember your jacket? And then you get in the park and you're just like all my worries are gone. So I said, what if every service call was just like that? What if, from the first call to the time the person arrived, it was like the transition from pain to a knight in shining armor was going to arrive and save the day on a white horse with a sword and shiny silver gear, and I would put processes in place to do this.
Speaker 1:Man, that makes total sense and Disney is a phenomenal example. They have a system that's just unreal. And you're right, there's something. They call it the magical kingdom. For a reason. It is very magical, and I love that you mentioned bringing stuff from outside of the trades in, because lots of times guys don't think outside of the box.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm the business development manager for a company called WhoHire and the reason I joined this company I talked to the CEO for several, several months and got to know him and got to understand his values and got to understand why he developed this process for the trades and they took an enterprise software that helps hiring. That is, you know, labor shortage is one of the biggest issues in our industry and will continue to be if we don't figure out a way to do a better job, and will continue to be if we don't figure out a way to do a better job. And so one of the reasons that I really decided to join this organization is because they've taken an enterprise model that works for massive companies like Mercedes-Benz, and the list goes on and on, and they've taken it and brought it into an industry where there's nothing like this and brought it into an industry where there's nothing like this, and so the reason I fell in love with this product or this technology is because I believe it's going to change the way the trades are being, how people are being hired. I believe it's going to help from the smaller guy to the bigger guy and all in between. And so bringing yeah, I agree with you bringing stuff, bringing information, bringing new processes, bringing um the technology, even from outside of the industry, is a game changer, because most of the guys in most of our industry, they do it like their dad did it or they do it like their grandfather did it, and that's just how we do things around here.
Speaker 1:But people are opening their minds to a different way, and I maybe it's generational, I'm not really sure, but are you seeing that same? And that's what you were referring to, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Look, I felt the same thing when I was two employees, that there was a shortage of people. Here's what we know for sure. There's not a shortage of humans. I just looked at the global clock and we want to say that we're trying. There's a declining in population, but the reality is there, there's not. For almost every one death, the last time I checked, there's two born. Okay, so so we're, we're advancing. That's why we got to become an interstellar. Maybe in a hundred years I mean, we'll be there sooner, but where it's just the norm, it might be 50 to 100 years. We have to be interstellar because the globe's only so big, the resources are only so big.
Speaker 2:Unless we start stacking up and there's probably a tilting point on planet Earth, I believe the first situation if you're dealing about recruiting is we have a leadership problem. Why, like today? And if we just talked about the trades and Corey I don't think it's my own ego, maybe it is I believe if I opened a plumbing company today or electrical company pretty much almost anywhere in at least the US and maybe Australia and Canada, because I got a solid following there too I believe I would get 100, 200, 300 best fit applicants in a week immediately. Why Not? Because I'm brilliant, because I'm a leader that fights for people, and it's not because I'll give them the best benefits. Because at Gold Medal I had 200 employees and they could look. I was a breeding ground. They could go anywhere and make more money. Why? Because they're already trained. They already do amazing and someone could throw 50 cents a dollar, but here's what they would never get. They're not going to get a leader, so one we have.
Speaker 2:The leadership Number two is I believe there is a strategy issue that you guys handle what you do. The strategy is you don't even know how to think my recruiting. I'm not telling you it's good, I'm just sharing mine and none of you should even do mine. Mine is like this I don't care if you have a high school diploma, I don't care if you went to college. I'm like number one rule does cursing ever bother you? Because if cursing bothers you, I'm going to curse every now and then and you're going to freak out and we're not going to be a fit. So let's just is that did you? That's like application part 101 in all my companies. Is cursing going to bother you? Matter of fact, in my service company I paid $8,000 a year for insurance, my partner that I was in business there. He says it's just in case you say stupid stuff out of your mouth and I'm like there's a good chance I'm gonna say something pretty offensive out of my mouth. So you should just pay that eight to ten grand a year if mike says something.
Speaker 2:Because I don't want to, I don't walk around with, uh, I'm not a lion, you know, you know, wearing some other type of skin. Like, if I'm a lion, I'm a lion. You don't, you're not confused. I like to think listeners aren't confused about it. Number two I need to know, like you know, are they going to fit me? Right? Do you fit like, do you enjoy intensity and different ways of thinking?
Speaker 2:That's rule number two. If you don't like intensity, I'm sitting on the beach. If I'm sitting on the beach with my feet in the water, I'm pretty damn intense, right, like I'm building things and I'm watching everybody's damn children. I tell my wife it's stressful going to the beach. My kids are grown up. But like I'm the guy that's like I'm watching. I'm like, oh my God, this parent's not watching their, their damn child. The kid's going to drown. So my wife's like just leave him alone. I'm like no, I'm like the lifeguard above all the lifeguards, right, I'm just watching everybody. So I got to get that out of the way.
Speaker 2:Number three is this a pastime or are they looking for a place that's going to be for life? Right, and I'll probably give you number four. They have to want their life to get better and every interview I've ever done I said look, are you okay if your life gets better, like working here, if your marriage gets better, would you be okay with that? Because if you don't want your marriage to get better, you shouldn't work here. Do you want your health to get better? Because if you don't want your health to better, don't work here. Do you want to be happier about? Every morning you wake up and every night you go to? Because if you don't, don't come work here.
Speaker 2:And if you look on social media query, if you follow me at all, you'll see people that have worked for me 10, 15, 18 years and even if they were there that long or three years, they're always on there saying my life has changed. I don't care about their career changing Change the life their career will enhance no matter what. But I do love what you're doing in the system, because people without a system, they have nothing at all, they can't even get started and then they're suffering, going and it does bother me. There's two things bother me in the service industry. One is addiction. This really bothers me a lot, the blue collar space we'll call it blue collar for people to understand.
Speaker 2:You know, the was what 50, early 50s and died. You know, yes, he was overweight, some and stuff, but I mean it was. It was hard to go to the thing. I cried a lot and I just told someone else that asked me for a call because people, corey, sometimes they reach out and I'm just like, let me help you, because I'm that guy, I don't need a penny for every damn thing I do and I just told him, like, get your health in line, don't make me have to cry earlier than I have to cry for you. You know my dad said you know you're going to get to a stage when you watch a cartoon with your kids and you're going to cry. And like I got there years ago. I guess I'm a sensitive guy. Most people don't get it Right Because they're Look, I'm as emotional as any other human.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you you know you mentioned addiction. That's a you know it's a big part of I mean, it's a big part of my life and I agree with you there's a lot, a lot of addiction. Mental health, yeah, concerns in our industry. So let me just ask you a hard question. You know you've never struggled with addiction in terms of drug addiction or alcohol addiction, right? Is that correct? Right? So what is a guy like you? How do you help people with addiction? What are you? How are you? Are you doing stuff to help change this? Yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, first off, I've never met anybody not suffering with a form of addiction. We frame it Look, talking negative to yourself on a regular basis is an addiction to negative self-talk, right. And if you work and never stop, and they would call it maybe workaholic, they would call that addiction. And they were called maybe workaholic, they would call that addiction. So I feel. But also there's controlled addiction, which means, like you know, if you work out five times a week, I don't know, you could be called addicted to working out at five times. Maybe someone else says one time. So there's these framings on it All. Addiction is trying to solve a problem that that, and especially if it's a chemical addiction or, you know, liquid addiction or something like that. They're trying to solve inside something that they can't.
Speaker 2:They haven't figured out how to solve it themselves, so what they do is they have to sedate it by hacking their own emotion, right, so it's a look, sugar is, I'm pretty sure, killing more people than any other addictions in it, but but it's not stopping kellogg's frosted flakes, which, by the way, I used to love if you want to get a jolt like you don't. Now they got red bulls and all this, which I never drank. But you know frosted flakes. You get a bowl of that, a handful, on the way out the door, man. You could go until you crash a little bit, but you could go a good 15, 18 hours just eating some frosted flakes.
Speaker 2:I go back to the same thing if I ask people um, there's, there's some form of guilt, shame or trauma, right, and at one time, look, when does somebody become addicted to chewing their nails? I know exactly when it happens. They were in a state of something happening in life and in that point of regulation fear, nervousness. I mean, I'm from a divorced parent and my dad was an Italian, so I've heard a few things get thrown across the room A couple of broken glasses right, slam doors, random hole in the wall, right. So you get that and as a kid you start to go oh, my goodness. And you get that fear and nervous. What's going to happen? Am I going to get hurt. You go into that reptilian mind and all of a sudden you go like this your hands are by your face and you notice there's a little hangnail, so you bite it and right, there is anchored fear with biting nails. And now, like you start biting your nails because every time you get that slight emotion of something, you bite it and now you're addicted to nail biting, right? So if you could go back in time which I don't know, this is not.
Speaker 2:I watched people do and I don't think it solves all things, but I do think it solves some things. I've watched people go back in time and I've learned the skills over two decades myself and and time they'll call it timeline therapy or stuff like that Reframe the mind. Go back and I did it myself uh, go back in time to when you were 15 and you had these thoughts destruction thoughts and all this and reframe thatolor it, reshape it, resent it and boom, you could change that where someone can go and stand on stage and talk about the most traumatic thing they could be tied up, beaten, raped, abused and talk about it without any destruction and go. Here's where I up, and anytime I hear a query, somebody telling a story about their past trauma and they're like, yeah, you know, this is what happened and they start to break down. I go man, you're still reliving the trauma. You haven't reframed it into the upside, because if you reframed it into everything that that did for you, you would be smiling on stage and people would be like, how is this person smiling?
Speaker 2:Because I do believe almost all suffering I can't say everything because I don't know everything. Almost all suffering is a choice. So if we could just sit there and suffering is very rewarding. I have like relatives that soon as you get the Thanksgiving they can't wait to tell you about their ass hurts, their knee hurts, their arm hurts, because suffering creates significance. Look, I'm broken bird and you love me because I'm broken.
Speaker 2:And you know, and I used to show up at Thanksgiving and just I don't want to mention here not that she would listen to it, but one of my relatives I'd say, okay, so why don't you just get all your problems out early so I don't have to hear it while I'm eating the apple pie about your ass, your knee, your leg, your money, your car, your, your, your house, like, let's just get that. And of course they don't love when I'm at Thanksgiving, I guess, but I'm like get it out now, cause like I just don't want to hear the drama and the bleeding and the problem and the excuses and all of this stuff. So when you go and when I would do events, corey, I would have people with military trauma that 20 years and we would do these breakthrough exercise looking in a mirror, breaking a board, walking fire, beating up heavy bags, whatever it was I had. Every one of my exercises was not to show the world oh look, that's so intense. It was to break through a part of the mind and release the trauma and put back in a new sense of power and belief.
Speaker 2:And someone came up to me and they did a share at the end of the night which sometimes our nights ended at 12 or one and he said I've been suffering with this. He was a military guy. He said I've been suffering with this for over 20 years and I feel free. And he never went back, which proved to me that this is not a let's sedate it, let's drug it. And I'm please everybody, I'm not giving you what to do, do not? You got to do your due diligence and talk to your doctors and all this, but I just watched it my whole life. And if all of you just sit there and go, let me go back in time.
Speaker 2:The first time my dad smacked me, the first time your mom yelled at you, the first time you were in school and were embarrassed standing up. People say this I'm not a public speaker. No, no, no. You speak in public every day. You were publicly embarrassed at one time in your life and you shut down. When was that? And they go. I remember third grade. I stood up, my pants were wet, or my pants were torn, my mom dressed me or I had different socks, or you know.
Speaker 2:Or especially when you're young, right, if you're a young guy, you're certain parts like they don't have any mind. You're a young girl, you probably have parts that don't have a mind. You know what I mean. Things are growing through age and you get up and you're like it's like you're lopsided for a lot. A lot of your life is you're growing. You're like your head's too big, your body's too small, your belly's too big, your chest is too small and what happens is that creates trauma for people. Just go back to that and it doesn't take. You do not need a decade to solve this. I promise you need someone with the right skills to do a process that will start to chip away at this. So let me pause there and let you go deeper on it if you want.
Speaker 1:So this is all identity, right, this is exactly how we started this conversation. It's the identity of you know, I've got a hurt knee or my asshole's broken or whatever. It is right, and you're right and you're right, it feeds. If you were, if people didn't get some sort of satisfaction, some sort of relief from telling you about all of those things, they wouldn't tell you about those things. And there's a need for that attention, that attention, and I think you also mentioned that. You know my third book is going to be coming out shortly and it's called Alcohol is the Solution. And the reason I named it Alcohol is the Solution is because it was the solution. It was the solution to me. I was the problem. It wasn't the alcohol. I just used the alcohol to get over whatever I was feeling, or drugs, or fill in the blank, or telling stories about my knee or foot or eating disorder, it doesn't really matter. Whatever it is, that's the solution to how you feel and that's the only way you know how to deal with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I go in pretty deep about how that affected my life. And the other thing I wanted to say to your point about, kind of you know, the elephant in the room, so to speak, whether it's that trauma or that past experience In my first book I talk about. I talk about where in sixth grade, I was at a pool party and there was three girls three cutest girls and they asked me if I needed a training run, and you can imagine at that age what that felt like, and so I immediately went on a diet and I've never gained the weight back, but it was. It was extremely freeing writing that in the book and putting it on paper into the public Cause I didn't have to carry it around anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's. There's a person, um, some people may know if, if not a friend of mine, joe Polish. He says, uh, you're only as sick as your secrets, and that's a hell of a phrase right there. You're only as sick as your secrets. And when you open, like someone I worked with this woman, jane, I call her my hippie mom.
Speaker 2:She's a therapist, slash coach, and when you open up the kimono like and you show everybody what's there. You're now free from it. And this is a great conversation to have with everybody here, corey, because I don't know anybody that's not suffering in one aspect. They might even be suffering on a very light level, like what happens when I die, or or grief man death when I die, or grief man death. You want to see, like I have a relative that his dad died and like you would just think he died, I mean, his just whole life is never recovered from this. And then other people, they experience death and they go. Man, I am going to live life like there's no tomorrow and I wish there was the one answer for all answers.
Speaker 2:But it's not. It's where you're at, on your journey, and you do have to examine, like I won't poke holes at certain things out there, but I think there's phrases like when you repeat, like I'm sober, I'm sober, I'm sober, your identity is not someone that went past, it's someone that and they say, oh, it's, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Well, no, that's because your identity, you're saying, is still the same. You're just trying to control it. And when you get past that, where I don't try to control, it's just who I am now.
Speaker 2:It's my dad with this smoking thing, right the minute he says I would ask him once he's finally didn't stop. When I helped him reframe it I don't know if I shared this last time, but you know he reframed it into I said dad, stop saying you quit, just say you're not a smoker. So every every week when I'd see my dad, I go hey dad, if you quit smoking, he goes what do you mean? I'm not a smoker. And he never smoked for over 50 years, never smoked all the way to the day he died. Why?
Speaker 2:Because I would tell him months later years later hey dad, do you ever start smoking again? He goes what do you mean? I'm not a smoker. He changed that identity permanently and all of you can do it. But I don't want to make it easy because it's not positive. I know a lot of positive idiots. I know a lot of positive assholes Like they're like, very happy they're in the nastiest humans on earth, but they're positive. I know a lot of negative people that are really really valuable insight because they're negative.
Speaker 2:It's about getting to the point of if we haven't talked about it homeostasis. It's about getting to the point of neutral right, where I'm just living in this. I'm living in a state that you just love it so much Like that's me and my wife were removing stuff from the house. I'm selling all my buildings. I got one more to sell because you know what, if you look, I think there's hidden secrets and I don't know if it's written in the Bible and stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm not, no, like scripture guru or nothing, but if you look at the most enlightened, awakened humans that ever walked to earth, did you ever notice? None of them have anything. They have a robe right and my instructor said to me that I trained with for 19 years, he says you'll own material things, or those material things will own you. And when people ask me like I understand, you're 54, you've been debt free. I haven't had a mortgage, corey, since I'm 28 years old. No mortgage on any houses, buildings, anything. Since I'm 28 years old, I mean when I bought the building, I had it, but they're all debt-free. When I sold them and they said how? I said I own the material thing, I don't let any material thing own me. Now, that doesn't fit the real estate gurus that say you know all of them. That taught everybody, you know the game. They taught everybody how to leverage everything.
Speaker 2:And then the decline came and people bled to death. And that's happening again right now with like right, how many people this Airbnb and VRBO stuff, like they're buying them, like they're all going to be this Airbnb guru yeah, it's great Till there's a pandemic and nobody wants to travel. And then now you have this irregulation. You don't have enough money to regulate the investment over the period of time, but they were stuck in that fantasy and they didn't know how else to get there. And I think that's and I'll hand it back to you. There is a point that's happening in the world. That I would say to people is guard yourself slightly. Have a filter, a really good filter that allows you to take risks but based on really regulated understanding, like that's why, when people Corey, I got some events coming up in September and stuff.
Speaker 2:One's a three-day intensive event how to scale, partner and get ready for an exit right and I have a two-day one called Speak your Impact and I make people apply for it. You know why I don't want someone to come there, spend money on this thing, show up and then it's the wrong time for them the wrong information. So I ask them questions Like I got to know it's the wrong time for them, the wrong information. So I ask them questions like I gotta know it's the right time.
Speaker 1:And this is why I've been able to coach over a thousand business owners because I want to make sure it's the right time for them yeah, yeah, I agree, I want to go back really quick for something with something, and then I want you to tell us more about when those dates are and how people can get to them. You mentioned your friend who passed or your friend who had someone pass, something like that. I don't remember exactly what you said. Yeah, so you know my mom passed yesterday and you know my. I went and did yoga before we did this and at the end of it she said to me I feel like I don't know, maybe that'll come, but it just hasn't come yet.
Speaker 1:I was fairly prepared in a short time that this was going to happen. This was going to happen, and so she said to me you know, she said I don't know, I didn't know whether to tell you this or not, but your mom is free. She, you know, she lived in this world with a lot of struggles. Now she doesn't know my mom very well. She had no basis really to say the things that she said and it was. It was exactly what I needed to hear to be completely at peace with what's happened, and it was really wild. It was almost the most profound thing I think anybody has ever said. She just put it in a way, and she was right.
Speaker 1:My mom, you know, with health and decisions and whatever you know, she really did live in this perpetual state of well. For sure everything in the world was wrong with her and she's the aunt or whoever you said that you know. Let me tell you about all the things and that just tells me that you know she was internally not very happy and for a long time I felt this way and, and so when, when, when maddie said that, I really did feel like she was right, she's not struggling with whatever those things are now, and there was just um a sense of peace that came over me when she said that, and I don't know, I just think that sometimes the spirit or whoever you believe in just speaks through people. If you're present in the conversation and if you can, I guess, almost accept that. I don't know, I guess it's also discernment. I don't know if you need that. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, grieving, grieving is the, it's the, the timeline of where people try to come to an understanding of the past, the present and the future. And my wife says it's really good present and the future. And my wife says it's really good. She says, you know, everybody grieves a different way but, like, not everybody seems to give themselves permission for it. And because a lot of people say sorry for your loss but, um, you know, it's only because, like, I would say sorry for your loss and I'm excited for your gain, but people might hate this episode because of that. They might say, how is there a gain? Well, the gain is just because people don't understand conscious. Now, wait, most people do have a belief, and I don't say most, but a lot of people have the belief like you're going to go from one place to another, so you're going to go to heaven, heaven, so we believe in a heaven. But then all of us and we believe in a god, but I haven't shaken his hand, but but we don't believe that we could communicate. My mom just did a post the other day. She said to like a post, I wish my mom was here so I can, uh, talk to her, or for her support or something. And I said, well, I just talked to her, like what are you waiting for? And she's like I tried. I said then talk louder. It's only because if you look at the consciousness and if you do believe you have a soul and you believe your soul and I don't want to go too deep because maybe it's not the right platform or maybe it is, and people, if you don't want to hear it, don't hear it now. And you believe your soul is going to go somewhere. Well then, do you think it can't be communicated? So I would say later on today, like, don't guess about your mom, just talk to your mom, just talk to her because it's a vibration, it's a frequency, it's an understanding. No-transcript.
Speaker 2:In November, you know, I, I watched my son, my son the next day he got this tattoo. Now, my dad used to have these stories, corey, this, this one story he used to say is remember the whale, and uh, the story had nothing except he would say say is remember the whale and uh, the story had nothing except he would say you know the biggest whale in the ocean, only have a throat about that big. And I'd go. So what he goes? Well, just remember the whale and it had no like nothing meaning to it, but my son went and got it tattooed.
Speaker 2:Remember the whale, which now that tells my son about all these stories and all this knowledge and all these things that came out that weren't coming out when my dad was alive. So now my son and daughter and sometimes we sit on the couch and we're watching a show like ah, that's just like grandpa, like and um. So I'm excited for your processing of this to find the, the balance of both sides, the gift and I guess you could say the, the curse for some people. Right, the both sides of this thing.
Speaker 1:And when you find that it's going to be incredible yeah, depends how you look at it and I do like I do prefer to look at everything that happens in life and I think we even talked about this a little bit last time is it's a gift, whether it's painful or whether it's not Just like you really changed my thinking on being grateful for the things that happen in life that maybe they don't feel that great the flat tire, the whatever right. In fact, I had a bad. My battery died this week and I just looked at it. I'm like I'm just grateful that it's just a battery. It's just a battery. I'm just changing it out Like it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1:Was it inconvenience? Slightly, but maybe it prevented me from getting into a wreck and that's why I had to sit there in the parking lot. Who knows? Um, but I do like to look at things that way and and and I am grateful that she passed away, she did because it was the right thing to do um, and as I look back after, she said that there was a struggle and she is a lot more peaceful now, without a shadow of a doubt, wherever that may be. So, yeah, very impactful, very, very impactful. So really quick, mike, I know we're getting close to time. Where are the two events and how do people find them?
Speaker 2:I'll put the link just so it's here anyway. The one is called Speak your Impact. They're both in New Jersey, at the Jersey Shore. It's actually right around the corner from my house. We rent this house. We could fit 30 people in it really comfortably. The ocean's down the road, the bay you can see the bay from the roof of this house. It's incredible. And so that's one. And the date for that one, if anybody is interested, it is September 13th and 14th, and that's an incredible event. That is like anything.
Speaker 2:If you think that you are not the leader of all leaders of your life, it's. It's not about speaking skills, it's not like how to hold your hands. Speaker impact is about you want to impact the world if that's just your family, your company, your community, your church and you want to show up in a whole new way. Over two days, we're going to show you how to unlock and unload and then move powerful into your most powerful self. It is not a motivational training. It is a brand new understanding of shifting your belief system. So when you leave after two days, you are ready to just show up in life at a whole new level. And that one still has 18 spots to it, and it's only we haven't marketed yet on social, so that will start over the next week. The other one's called Venture Velocity. Now, venture Velocity based on even when this goes out, so nobody be mad when you watch when Corey puts this out, there is only three seats left. So when you go to the website, if it says three, it's not because there's 20. There's only three, it could only have 30, and this thing sold out 27 of the spots without even going public, just with people that are in my world.
Speaker 2:This is how do you scale a company really really fast without the wheels falling off? How do you do partnerships and partnerships? The way we do partnerships today is we'll take a 20 to 40% equity of a company. There's a lot of structures to it, we don't put any money down at all and we show people how to build a portfolio of partnerships. And what I wanted to do was show people how to demystify, how to do partnerships in a very scalable way where you don't need 100 employees to get to the point of exits way where you don't need 100 employees to get to the point of exits. And I'm giving you the stuff we're using, like the contracts, the agreements, the simplicity of things, and I promise you if you haven't learned from any of these podcasts here that we're doing, I come at it from a very different way and by the end of three days, you've already identified and reached out to some of them.
Speaker 2:And the last part is how to exit. So this is three intense days. How to exit Doesn't matter if you're going to exit in six months, six years or 60 years, when everybody's going to exit their business. Right, you're either going to die I hope it's not that way You're going to hand it, you're going to hand it down, you'll sell it for a world-class win or you'll go out of business, which I hope not too. And the goal is to understand the cycles of exits, the timing of exits, the positioning of it and all the things I learned. I'll give one tip real quick. They could just take this one, corey Like.
Speaker 2:One thing I learned about exiting was when I sold my service company. I didn't even have an office in my building for the last five years, so, of course, when I went to market, they didn't need to keep me on the payroll. They didn't say oh, I need you to stay for six months and show up and be an employee. I was like did you see my office in this building? No, where is it? I don't have one. I built a company that produces money, world-class service, without me having to show up at 7 and leave at 6. So we teach people also.
Speaker 2:The other thing, corey, is I learned a lot of things that I did by scaling the service company, the Jersey Shore. We own this house about five or six years living down here, four or five years full-time. I had an excuse for a decade why I couldn't live here, even though my headquarters of my company was an hour 15 away. And I learned I now I don't care if it's a brick and mortar, you could run it, build it, scale it. If you have the understanding, you could do it from anywhere in the world and have a life like you can't even imagine. And I've learned all that now without being a slave to the system. So those three days, I will just tell you they're game changer.
Speaker 2:We might actually do that one again, maybe virtually or in person, I'm not sure, because we had such a quick sign up on it so fast. Both of them, everybody. If you are interested and I'm not here to sell anybody anything, it's cool, it's cool. If not, it's fine. Fill out the application. Me and everybody Corey have a quick conversation. I have to make sure it's a fit. If it's not a fit, I'll let you know some other stuff we got going on. If it is a fit, boom, maybe you'll get one of the spots up.
Speaker 1:Love it. Mike, I really Really appreciate you spending time with me today and really appreciate you sharing everything that you have. It was a pleasure. Yeah, thanks, thank you, brother.
