The Real Reason You Can't Break Your Income Ceiling | Nick Komodina

I think every single person listening to this podcast is somebody that God said, "I have bigger plans for you." And that is why these people grapple with, "I know I meant for more, but I'm afraid because right now I'm safe. Comfort is very, very expensive." The second I hit 10k, I self-sabotage, I stop showing up and I drop down to three, help me break this cycle. You already know this cycle. The goal is probably to convince yourself that you can't do it. My goal is, "How do I protect people from taking on everybody else's definition of success?" That's the hardest part. I remember thinking to myself, "I had everything that people are convincing themselves matter and I almost took my life." The most important thing about success, you have to [bleep] thank you for coming out, man. You have a really cool, rags-to-richest story, like a proper underdog story. Yeah, man, it's cool. Take us on a bit of a journey and then we'll set the ground for everything that's going to come there after. Tell me about that. Okay. Well, Spark notes. I grew up in a trailer park with a single mom, good old eight mile, and then I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yep, so I just didn't wrap well. I tried, but I didn't go anywhere for me. It was an interesting way to grow up because I'm in this trailer park. I'm in the middle of the mountains. My mom worked at a church. So we didn't really, we didn't make a lot of money, but I didn't have a concept to know that we didn't have a lot of money. Does that make sense? Interesting. So I never felt poor growing up. I never felt like I was in poverty. My mom is literally the most incredible mom on the planet. It's insane. You said I have a rags-to-richest story. I honestly think I have a really lucky upbringing. I got fucked up as a kid, but every way I got fucked up was exactly what I needed to go through in order to make me the person that I am today. It would be super successful. So for that, I just genuinely think I got lucky. And my mom just made everything was fun. Going to the grocery store was fun. Having our Friday night crazy dinner of bagged tilapia canned green beans and instant mashed potatoes was this celebration. You know, and so I didn't know any better. I'm like, oh my god. Yes, boxed mashed potatoes. This is amazing. I'm so lucky. But as I started to grow and I started to go to school and I started to meet friends that had a lot of money. And I remember there was this kid Logan. That was a third grade Logan's house. He had a sleepover for his birthday. And I remember showing up at this house and walking into his home and thinking to myself, oh, I don't belong here. People like me don't belong in places like this. I mean, I'm looking at these these hallways and I'm thinking these are these are built for giants who lives here. And I just remember all the other kids coming in and that was normal. And they had an upstairs. I'm like, upstairs. What's up there? Yeah. You know, I had no concept of an upstairs. I just a single wide trailer with a little add-on. So that started to, you know, the perspective started to shift. Okay. I'm living differently than these people. And then money started getting involved as I got older, eighth grade, high school stuff like that. I remember the first time I ever stole money. I was, I think I was a junior in high school, a senior in high school. And I had a girlfriend at the time and we had a party. And it was at her best friend's house her parents ran out of town. Me and her got to sleep in the parents room. And I remember going in the parents room to change. And I opened up their address her. Don't know why. But I saw a zip lock bag, $200 of 20s in it. And I remember my nervous system just staring at it freezing. And I remember back then it was like, man, I could buy so many California burritos with this. You know, it wasn't anything of substance, but it was like I could do this. I could get my girlfriend something. I could put money in my car or gas in my car. And I thought, okay, let me take $60. Now, take $60. And then I'm like, oh, maybe 80. So I took $100. And I remember this moment thinking, if I hide this somewhere like my shoe or my bag, they're probably going to find it. But I bet they won't check underneath my sock. And so I put it in my sock on my heel. And sure enough, they found out the money was gone. They started searching everyone and I'm thinking their bags and they were like, oh, it must have been somebody who left. And that right there was this identity that started rooting, oh, and I told myself, I'm a thief. Okay, I'm a thief. And then I just kept doing it. I stole money from one of my best friends, Trevor, out of money as well. So I was wallet. He had a $20 bill. I took it same thing. I know he's not going to check in the bottom of my sock. So I had this, I had this thing, this monster starting to build inside of me, if you will. And coincidentally, when you start to identify as something, the world starts to reflect back to you that you are that person. So as I started to not be able to trust my intentions, I stopped being able to trust other people's intentions. So I always felt like people were trying to get something from me or trying to steal from me or whatever. And that was, that's how you kind of create this hell on earth. You know, you do the actions first. And it's pretty interesting from an identity standpoint. When you take a negative action, you immediately identify with it. But when you take a positive action, you don't. Yeah. So you do something good. That's whatever you do something bad. I am. I am. Yeah. And it's pretty interesting to see that that bias inside of human psychology. But anyways, I'm getting way off off track here. So I grew up single mom, Trevor Park. No father. That was really hard for me growing up. And I didn't really have any guidance around entrepreneurship or striving for more. My family was very much, hey, we're good. Let's not, you know, let's not get anything. Let's just focus on stability. Like, we're okay. Let's not reach for the stars or anything. And I just always, I really felt like the black sheep of my family growing up. I love my family. But now that I'm out of it, I realize, like that was just the family I was meant to be born into. I don't really resonate or connect with any of them anymore. We have nothing in common. And it was me being born into that and having this own self realization of, I don't belong here either. That's really tough as a kid who just wants to be accepted, just wants to belong, wants to figure out the story for why he wasn't enough for his father to be around. But now I feel like I don't belong in my family at all. And I think most people feel that and they get too scared to act on it. So they stay. And then they resent their families their whole life. But I knew like, there's something inside of me that is different. There's something inside of me that is I'm seeing things in the world that they are not seeing. I was the guy. My first job there was Kmart. I was working at Kmart men's fashions. I could fold a pair of dicks like nobody's fucking business. Let me tell you that right there. And I remember being on my shifts at Kmart and getting done with the men's section and then going over to the sports section to just keep working. And I got in trouble because I left my area. And I'm thinking, why are you mad at me when I'm performing the best in the story? Just didn't make any sense. And so very early on, I realized I don't think I can work for people. So I mean long story short to pilot and like that's just kind of where I came from. I didn't have any real guidance on inch entrepreneurship or leadership. But it was almost like being so immersed in a life of people that were settling for the bare minimum. It made me feel so uncomfortable because I just knew deep in me. I don't know what it was yet. But deep inside of me, I knew I don't belong here. I'm sitting a lot personally in the question of like, what is that difference? Like what's inside of one person that makes them kind of see through the matrix for once for better term and say like, I don't belong here. And then the rest of the people that seem to be blindly just operating level of comfortable in that system. Man, this is a yeah, we can go on a rather whole of this. Let's go down there and let's see what's going on. There's so many school thoughts. You know, we always we always make the joke of somebody being an NPC. Yeah, a non playable character. Basically, a human that is not really sentient. They're just unconscious and they're going through the same patterns, the same routines every single day. Nothing in their life ever changes. So it's just like a video game every time you walk into a certain town, you see the same people doing the same things. And that's kind of you don't know if you know game theory. Yes. Yes. So this is basically kind of the same the same situation here. And so I think the pause, I think anybody who took the time out of their day to click on this podcast and listen to it with the desire to get better or learn is inherently and obviously objectively not an NPC. Correct. It is somebody who is striving for more. So therefore, it is somebody who is meant for more because you typically don't strive for something that you can't be that that's not aligned with you. Like I'm not I'm not striving to be president of the United States. I can't see myself being president of the United States. However, no, I'm just kidding. I can't see that for myself. So therefore, I know it's not meant for me. But when I look in my future now and I see things that I can be I see that that path forward that scares me, but I can see myself winning in it. That's how I know that it's for me because it's not possible to see a vision that's not meant for you. Right. Do you do you think do you operate from the belief though that every person does fundamentally have something for them and they're just unable to see it for whatever reason? It feels that way, right? That is the entire ethos of my entire company. That's my brand. That's what I've built my success on. I wholeheartedly believe that God has a mission for everyone. And unfortunately, some people, not anybody listening to this podcast as we just alluded to, but some people's mission is for us to see what it looks like if we don't follow God's calling. So you look at these NPCs and you go, how could you possibly settle for a life like that? That's just mere that's their purpose. For me to look at that and get, okay, I know exactly what I should not do. And if I don't listen to this calling on my heart, if I don't listen to that nudge that God is consistently giving me to grow and expand and serve the world, I'm going to end up like that. And I know I'm not meant for that. So some people's role is to just be the mere, for what it looks like if you don't evolve consciously. But I think every single person listening to this podcast is somebody that God said, "I have bigger plans for you." And that is why these people grapple with, "I know I meant for more, but I'm afraid because right now I'm safe." And comfort is very, very expensive. There's a lot of hidden costs for comfort. When you stay, when you have a life that's comfortable or actually rather set another way, if everything in your life is currently stable, nowhere in your life are you testing your faith. And the only way that you can connect further with God and your mission is to go in the place that scares you that your faith is tested. Faith is not certainty. It is the opposite. Faith is uncertainty. If I have certainty that I don't need faith. So cleaning to everything that I know is actually me saying, "I don't need God." And I think that that's probably the worst path to go on, regardless of your religious beliefs. Well, it seems to be antithetical to life itself. Yeah, that's a really great way to put essence of life is to grow and to take what is yours and to run with it and to basically get the universal telephone ring in, so to speak. Like, "Yeah, I'm not going to pick it up. I'm good." It seems like it's a bit of a slap in the face to life. And I think that life supports that which supports life. That's my personal philosophy because words like God and religion and stuff, and I personally have an intense and deep relationship with the creator. But sometimes they come with a lot of baggage, right? Because you've got different views on what God is and different religious paths. But I do know that we were definitely sharing life. Pretty confident of that. I mean, it could all be a hallucination video game, maybe. But it does feel very real. Admittedly. So for me, that's kind of what I've been trying to do is like support life with what I do. Support life through conversations, encourage people to support their own life through growing, etc. So I think you hit the nail on the head. The kind of person that listens to shows like this that consumes your kind of content is the kind of person that knows they are meant for more. Now we get to where the rubber hits the road of. Okay, I feel this calling. I want to do more. But then like you said, the fear or the comfort, how do you shake people out of that stupa though? Because this is millions of people, right? Like I know I want to do more. But maybe they then get trapped in just the consumption side of it because it feels like a little bit of inspiration. But then it's not being met with that action. Watch your like sledgehammer. Well, boy, how much time do you have, dude? So the first thing that there's so many layers that we could do to go in this. So the first thing is going back to what I said, my whole ego. So I think you have a gift inside of you. Everyone, not just you, but you do. Thanks, bro. I think everybody has a gift inside of them that God gave them. Mine came from getting born into a childhood that was suboptimal, a childhood that wounded me, a childhood that made me feel like I wasn't up. Made me feel very misunderstood. My number one core wound in my life is not being understood. And thus it sparked this massive desire and almost obsession to understand people so that I can help somebody to understand them more than they understand themselves. Because when somebody is struggling with something and I can mirror back what they're actually thinking, if they're willing to accept it, you actually see it's almost like this massive sigh of relief that happens of, oh my God, you get me. And that I've never had. I know where in my life had I have that. You know, so I was like, I know what it's like to not have that. What a gift. What a gift to know not to have that. So therefore I can make other people understand themselves more and give that back to them. So you have this gift and it gets buried underneath your childhood trauma. Let's call it. It gets buried because this is all the stuff you have to unpack to remember that you have a gift. But if you don't unpack the shit, then all you see when you look in is the shit. So when somebody says, I know I meant for more. It's because that light that God put in you, it shines so bright. It doesn't matter how much stuff is on top of it. Raised light are still going to get through. So that's what you see. That's what you feel. I know it. I can feel it. You can see it. Yes. But remember when you were five and that thing happened to you and you've convinced yourself that you're over it, even though you think about it all the time, even though you still snap on people, even though you still get triggered, that's actually something that's stopping you from accessing it because that's an aspect of your shadow. And shadow is an aspect of darkness. All darkness is unresolved light inside of you. So if you can think of, there is a part of me that is desperate for me to love it again. So that, let's just say when you were five, your parents got a divorce, they told you it was your fault and that you're never going to be worthy again. Somebody goes, holy shit, I'm the reason they broke up. I broke up my parents. I'm never going to be worthy of love. I'm not worthy of anything of success. And then they're shame and then they're skilled. Shame is this thing that can only exist when you are in solitude. So shame creates this separation and separation by definition of scarcity and scarcity is right where you go to that solitude. So as long as you stay alone in your shame, it controls you. And that's why even in our live events, we do a shame exercise where people write it down and they get into group and they talk about it because once you bring shame to light and people go, oh yeah, that's right. Oh yeah, we did that. Yeah, I did that too. Oh my God. Oh, same thing happened to me. I'm still alive. Same thing happened to you. My shame was convincing me that this was just a me thing. This whole, my whole life, I thought that I was broken. No, no, everybody's broken. And if everybody's broken, then that means I don't have to create a story about what it means about me being broken and how I have to stay broken for the rest of my life. But when you get somebody like me, business coach, leadership coach, etc. When people sign up for me, they don't sign up for me because with me because they say, I want to heal. They sign up because they want to make more money. Cool. I get it. Now, those people that are super successful inside of my company and there are people that are not successful. And the main difference is their willingness to check their ego and say, damn, maybe this work is something that's going to help my business grow because the people who go, why would I unpack that or why would I focus on that? That's not going to grow my business. I just need the script so that I can get more clients. Your clients are going to be either attracted or repelled by the energy that you radiate. And you can feel someone's energy before you hear them and before you see them. So if you think that you have all this hate and resentment and guilt and shame in your heart and you go on social media and you try to make a piece of content to tell people to love themselves and you wonder why nobody's attending it, why nobody's paying attention and engaging. It's because energetically, you can feel that it's fake. You can feel there's a difference between regurgitating information and talking from lived experience. And most people don't want to live the experience. They don't want to go through the hardship to develop the ability to talk about something. And that's why most people are stuck. That's why most people don't ever access what's actually inside of them. Yeah, there's an abundance of that online in particular, right? Lots of talking heads, not sure how many people are walking the walk. And it is very funny because you can give two people the exact same script, the same hook. You could map it out perfectly to the second and one will land and one won't. And what is that? Because it's clearly not the words that were spoken. It's something like resonance and there's something like energy. And it's this thing that permeates all and can't really be seen necessarily on the screen, but can be felt. There's just something about people. If you wanted to give a physical illustration of this, it's the overweight person who's preaching fitness. What are we talking about? You are 20 pounds overweight and you're trying to tell me healthy protein for fat loss. And you're wondering why your content isn't hitting. I love you, but you have to realize that you are unwilling to do the work on yourself first, that you are demanding other people to go through with your guidance. So you are not a guide. You're positioning yourself as a hero. A guide is somebody who is walking the path with you. Biggest mistake people make in content positioning themselves as a hero and not the guide. I'm the guide. And I say this with all my clients, all my content, I am also a fucked up individual. I also have trauma. I also have patterns. I also have things that have been conditioned into my brain for the last 32 years that I don't realize until I get a mirror in the present moment. And in that moment, I get the opportunity to say, "Do I practice what I preach?" Am I somebody who can look at my shadows and say, "Oh, fuck, that's not who I want to be. Now, I'm going to immediately course correct and start getting better. I'm going to be perfect. Right. Can't promise perfect. But I'm somebody who I'm so willing to see shit eventually. I'm so willing to see shit. And once I see it, I'm like, "Okay, I know what to do. I don't want to be that anymore. I've gotten the mirror. I'm going to, my own integrity, how I want to be in my life. Everything's a spiritual challenge for me, potentially to a fault. But I see everything as an opportunity for me to grow my spirit. Everything as an opportunity to show me an area of my life where I'm not currently free. And so when I see those areas, I don't go, "Oh my God, I'm such a bad person. I've been doing that for so long. I go, "This is amazing. I've been doing this for so long and I had no idea. Wisdom." In that moment, you get wisdom. Wisdom is probably the most valuable thing that you can have on earth. That's really cool. I think, get an excited about, "Oh, I've found my task." Where your triggers are, is where your therapist is, or whatever, however you want to call it. Yeah, find the trigger. There's your therapist. It's like Peter Crown. Peter Crown. And you said that. Another line of his is similar to what you just said. He basically says, "A lot. Life is constantly presenting you situations and circumstances to show you where you're not yet free." Goddamn that's so good. Then let's go. So when you get little trigger, little, "Oh, that's me." It's not like, "What's not free in me?" And I think that's wonderful. You said this guide thing. I think that's really cool. There's a quote I've always loved because previously before, there's a lot of coaching. I always took on that moniker of the guide. You can only take a client on a journey as far as you've been. I never wanted to be disembodied and yelling at people to do things that I wouldn't be willing to do. I think you juxtapose the guide against the hero. Is the hero more of the guru, I guess, is pretending to have it all figured out? I think you hear it. So let's look at it like this for anybody who's watching this. This will be good visual for you. So when most people make content, the audiences here, they are here. And what they do in their content is they try to position themselves up here because they want to inspire the audience to be more like them. That's I'm the hero. Do as I do and you're going to be okay. I've got this all figured out. But really what's going to happen is if instead of trying to make people be like you, you show them that you're like them. That's a guide. Yeah. I want you to resonate with me. I don't want you to sit here and think, well, Nick got lucky. He's got it all figured out. He's I didn't objectively, statistically, I should not be right now. There are kids that I grew up with in my trailer park that have died of heroin overdoses. There are kids that are still there in that trailer park, dude. And like no hate on them. That just wasn't my life path. But statistically growing up single mom trailer property, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be the successful, but I had to kill off a lot of parts of myself. Of course. And in doing so, I developed a lot of empathy. I developed a lot of understanding. I've been so many different versions of myself. A lot of versions I did not like. But because of that, I started understanding why was I that person? What was that person thinking? What was he doing? What was his motive? What was his? And then the next version. Now I've lived probably 50 lives, sure you can resumfer anybody can resonate. But because I take time to stop and reflect, I get the wisdom from each fuck up of my life. And that allows me to have this deeper understanding. There's a quote, I don't know if it's, I don't know who's it, honestly, I don't even be mine. But if you want to understand, if you want to understand people more, understand yourself more. Because we're all the same. Everybody thinks that they have the most complicated problem. I see it all the time. We scale so many people. We help so many people. Nobody thinks that they have a super complex problem to solve quite like an entrepreneur making less than a million dollars a year. There is nothing you can say to convince them otherwise that they do not have this massive complex problem. And once you get them, it's like it's literally this simple. You're just not embodying it. You're just not speaking boldly enough. You're just, you're too afraid to be judged or you're making a piece of content in your plain chest thinking five moves ahead. Let me make this piece of content because that will make somebody opt in, sign up for me, and then I can pay my rent. You're not present. You're not in your body. You're not embodied with what you're talking about. You're trying to manipulate people on the other side of the camera to get your needs met. And there's not necessarily, there's not necessarily like something wrong with that. But if your intention is to build a following, you have to first be somebody worth following. You have to be somebody, people looking you and say, I trust you to lead me. But if all you're doing is selling me on smoking mirrors to get my money, I can feel it. It's energy. So the hero is, I'm amazing. Give me your money and I will help you be amazing. The guide is, we're all going through this together. I'm still fucking up with the same shit you're fucking up with. So we need each other. And you're struggling financially. I'm not. Let me show you that you can be financially successful while still doing this work that you and I are both doing at the same time. That is somebody where you connect with. That is somebody where you feel, I guess, called humility from being able to openly say that you're fucking up and learning as you go. And I think, you said guru and that's another great example where people are just like everything I touch turns to gold. That's not true. Or so many fuck ups that I, so many times I've posted something or launched something and gotten crickets. So many times, but nobody cares about those. Nobody cares about those. Nobody looks at them. So within the same people, they go, I don't want to launch something because what if nobody signs up and then I look stupid? Nobody signs up. Nobody saw it. No one saw it. So it's good. What if I go live and there's only two people on I look stupid? Nobody saw it. Only two people are going to think you're stupid. Yeah. And one of them's probably you. Yeah. The other people are probably going to be pumped so they get an intimate audience with you. I think you can serve them, but it's attachment to vanity metrics. I don't want to go live unless I have at least 100 people on there because then that makes me think that it's worth it. How do you expect the 100 people to give a shit about you if you don't even give a shit about two? We have it very, very backwards. It is backwards. It is backwards. What do you think, you know, being in the space, especially as a business coach and stuff? Where do you think, I hate that terminology? The line of discernment that's required on the consumer of the information and the person that's put it out. Like, here's what I think. I think you're right. You said something before that was quite profound about you can't really see what's not meant for you. But then I also, you know, see a bunch of people out there that are they're accounting people essentially. Yes. You know, and they're not they're not an integrity and they're selling people whatever it is. A copy and paste bullshit PDF and like, you know, follow me guru. There's a there's a quote like success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. I imagine those people might be successful on paper in terms of monetary income, but I'm not sure they can be ever that happy with what they're giving people because ultimately they're not giving them truth. I'm just curious. Yeah. I differentiate that as rich versus wealthy. Hmm. So yeah, you can make a lot of money, but you're not wealthy. Yeah. Well, there's a is an energy. It's a state of being. It's a state of consciousness and it's right. Well, wealth is biblical, right? A wealthy person is living out biblical principles in their lives and making profit from ill, ill intent actually does the opposite, right? It's a death. And so you get these people that are conning them, so to speak and even going back to how do you see something that's not meant for you. This is where consumer side people struggle because everybody's so distracted and in that distraction, they're so desperate for salvation. So they're seeking everything external to save them. And if you're desperate and I come on and I paint you the picture and I can make you see yourself in a picture that I create for you, that's why it's so important to get away from distractions, go within, connect to God and let that vision be what you see. If I'm out here watching the play, it's like somebody going to the movies and believing it and then going, they conned me. I thought that was real. No. You went in because you wanted to be distracted. You went in and you knew deep down this was not actually going to solve your problem. You actually knew that if you paid this person, you were going to get scanned. And if you paid this person and got scanned, then that could bring validity to you that you can't trust anybody. So therefore you can't get help. So therefore you can't grow. So therefore you stay safe and you don't actually carry out your purpose. We see this all the time. So actually what happened is you were manipulating the people that conned you. You conned yourself. You just use them as the tool. People don't want to listen to that when they've been in that situation. But deep, deep down, you're telling me the guy driving three lambo's, having huge homes that told you, hey, for 40k, I'm going to help you make $250,000 a month and six months. You know, I don't know. I'm making that up. I'm not targeting anybody. Probably pretty close though. But we see it. You know, and unfortunately, when I was fitness coaching, I got a lot of clients because people's hormones would get fucked up working with coaches. And they would be backstage with my competitors. My competitors would be fine drinking gallons of water, eating tons of food. Everyone's like, how are you able to do that? Then I would get a bunch of clients. So now even in this new landscape, we get a bunch of people who come to us because they've invested in other people, gotten scams, didn't get, got false promises to get their money, and are kind of hopeless. They feel hopeless. Yeah. And I fucking hate that. That's my enemy right there. My enemy is how entrepreneurship, specifically the coaching space, but entrepreneurship as a whole is being run. That is why the ethos of my company is to change the landscape of entrepreneurship. I don't think you have to worry about lying, cheating, stealing, or paying for ads even. Nothing. We've never paid an ad for an ad today in our lives. I truly believe that God will always provide if the next step you're taking is carrying out the mission that He has for you. So if anybody has a relationship with God, the God, the guy who created everything, the guy who can give you anything and every story in the Bible is him providing what you need right when you need it. So long as you are walking the path forward, the path of the unknown, there is no story in the Bible where God asks somebody to do something and they go, "Oh, that's it. Okay. I can do that." Everything alone, I'm like, "Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" And then he goes, "Trust me. Walk the path. I'll give you everything that you need when you need it." So if I'm stuck financially and I'm trying everything, I'm trying everything. Have you tried walking the path that you're afraid to walk? Have you tried that unknown that you know? Have you tried serving, really serving and going above and beyond from where you currently are? Well, no, I'll do that once I make my money. That's why I like that. God never said, "Here's all the resources. Now go to your next step." He said, "No, take your next step and then I will give you your resources." So I think like me, for example, this year has been our best year ever. We're in business. We're crushing it, honestly. And I'm very, very proud of my team. And every single month, I look at these numbers that I can't even conceptualize them right now currently. And like, I'm a small fish in a big pond. I'm fully aware of that. But I look at these and they don't even do anything to me because it's like, "Well, yeah, it's obvious to me." Well, of course, we're making that money. Look at everybody we're helping. And so it's just, it's just, it's expected almost, which is very interesting. It's a very interesting thing to kind of see the numbers in the bank account happen after you've already done stuff. stuff because then you look at it, you go, yeah, it feels matched. That feels matched. Do I want more? Cool. Let's get on my hands and knees and let's serve. Yeah. Yeah. This, that tension of being able to go down the path of, there's no guarantee. And they call it a leap of faith, not a leap of safety. So there's, you know, your book is aptly named surrender. Yes. What does that word mean to you? I have it tattooed on my neck even because that word means so much to me. So I had built a life that on paper was perfect. I was making a couple million a year. I had a lot of status, a lot of influence was with a girlfriend. We had dogs. We had a home. Everything on paper was great, but inside I was completely miserable. I was depressed. I didn't love my life. I had built everything out of self hate. Everything out of trying to prove that the trailer part kid was enough to prove to myself that I was worthy enough even though my dad wasn't around. So there was just like this constant chip on my shoulder. So everything I built was on the foundation of me not being enough. So no matter how much money I made, I found the next way to pretend that I was poor. Once I made my first million, I was already a piece of shit because I hadn't made five. And that, and I bought a super car. And the second I bought a super car, I went, I'm a fucking idiot. Why didn't I buy that Lambo? And it was crazy to be in that state no matter what I did, it made me feel worse. I was like, I can't buy myself out of this. And so I long story short, the whole thing just crumbled, everything crumbled. And I didn't know who I was because my ego had attached its identity in this false life. And because when I lost everything that I had identified with and I didn't know who I was without it, it felt like I was dying. So I felt like I would rather be dead. And that's what made me grab a gun, got in my backyard, put it to my head. And something, something happened. If you don't know what happened, you can get my book. No, I'm just kidding. I heard a voice say, no. And it freaked me out. It turned around and looked. Nobody was in the backyard. It's crazy. It's crazy. So as this whole thing crumbled down, I moved back to San Diego and I got invited to a men's church retreat by three different people within five minutes. They didn't even know each other. So I was like, okay, that's a confirmation right there. And at that church retreat, I remember I'm like, okay, I'm going to, you know, whatever I'll do it, I was just a universe guy. It's like, I do shrooms. I understand, you know, religion is ridiculous. And I get in this tent, there's 3,000 guys around this tent. And the pastor says, raise your hand, the Holy Spirit's in here. You know, I'm like, okay. And I remember closing my eyes and I said, God, if you're real, I just, I really, now's the time. I really need to know. And as I was having that conversation, somebody from behind me grabbed my arms, like, to turn me around, I'm like, what the? And I'll turn around and nobody was around me. And it, man, I'll never forget filling those chill, that chill go up my spine. And I stopped and I said, God, okay. You know, if you're real, then why did you just put me through all of that? Why did you just do that to me? And I just remember the distinct because you weren't paying attention. And I instantly knew, I instantly knew the meaning. And it was like this, this, like, knowing or, you know, him speaking to me or whatever you want to call it, he said, what I'm asking you to do next is too big for you. And I need you to prioritize a relationship with me because I need you to feel what it feels like to have a father that loves you unconditionally now. And I never had that in my life. And that broke me wide open. That's for sure. And that was how my relationship with God started. But throughout this whole thing, there was a bunch of negative backlash on social from people just being stupid. And everybody kept telling me, just surrender, man, just surrender. I'm like, what the fuck does that mean? And so I started writing. I started writing my book. And I said, I'm going to figure out what it means to surrender. I'm going to figure out. I think people just saying that blank word and not being able to back up what it means or help me. So I lived it. I lived the process that I put into that book to get me into a state of surrender to let go of things that didn't serve me and quite literally surrender my path to what God had intended for me. Even though it was really scary and I didn't understand what it was going to look like, that's surrender. I don't know. But I'm going to be there regardless. And whatever happens happens. I trust me. That's full surrender. Hello, friends. I have a really quick favor to ask. We are honored that you are listening to this show and I hope you're enjoying it, but we can make it even better with your help. If you like, subscribe and share radical health radio. We promise to make it even more radical. Your support means the world. Let's get back to it. There's a quote from Boyd Varty where he says that feeling, I think he describes it really well. He says, I don't know where I'm going, but I know exactly how to get there. It's, yeah, damn it. It's that feeling, right? It's just this deep trust that I'm guided and I'm safe and I'm held. And then I've got to meet the world with the actions. I have to reprogram that's the power. It gets real tricky. And that's again, I think people get lost in that. They really want this and they feel it and then it's getting over the hump of doing it. How, going through these chapters, how did it reshape what success meant to you? Because you had, it's not like, when you had the money and it kind of all crumbled and it caused this ego death, essentially, that felt it was. Exactly what it was. Now, how do you step in back into the arena, but like, there's a different vision now, like what's different about it? I remember thinking to myself, I had everything that people are convincing themselves matter and I almost took my life. Right. And I thought, how many people pull the trigger? How many people get to that point and actually pull the trigger because they don't know there's another path forward. And now, here I go, wisdom again. This was my fuck up. So let me reflect. What did I do wrong? People, could I have done better? Why is everybody chasing this? Why does that matter to people? What matters more? What matters? And I mapped out this whole thing and I thought, I think I've got a way to help people build a business that is really aligned with what they're meant to do. And now, my goal is, how do I protect people from taking on everybody else's definition of success? Because that's the hardest part. For me, I'm a trailer part kid. I, couponing was my super bowl. We love that shit. So you're taking this, you're taking this trailer part kid who was pumped to have instant mashed potatoes and canned green beans and album of pieces of shit because I didn't buy a super car that was nice enough. Like, what, what the hell is going on? Oh, it happened in between. Yeah, something, something. Something. Why are got crossed or something? That is not realistic. But I realized that the most important thing about success, like you have to define your definition of success. That's what I realized the most important thing is. I have to define it before I enter the arena. Otherwise, I'm going to look for other people to tell me what success is. And same thing with your identity. If you don't know who you are, or rather, if you don't decide who you're going to be, you are going to be victim to the very first person that gives you an answer. So I don't know who I am. And so this is, you're this. You go, oh, okay. Yes. And you take it on because you don't have a, you don't have an access point. You don't have an orientation point to say, no, that's not me. Somebody says, Nick, you're this. No, it's not. Because I know deep down who I am and who I've built myself to be. And I'll be it. I'm not perfect guy. I choose to be better every single day. And I choose to continuously learn more about myself. So I really create this unshakable understanding of who I am. So therefore, the world can say whatever they want about me. I'm not going to let it shake me off anymore. And I'm not going to let it sway me and try to please them. Yeah. And that's where everybody gets, gets taken away. So for me, success and my, am I healthy? Are my relationships thriving? And I have three, three main levers for wealth. Yeah, outside of like the very important things, right? Love and happiness. But three things for me that make me know that I am wealthy. Do I have time and location freedom? Can I work from wherever I want, whenever I want? Can I work not not work? Can I work from where I want whenever I want? The next one is financial freedom. What's up? Do I have to say no to life, experiences or people because of finances? If no, great. If yes, okay, let me look at that lever real quick. And then the third one is body freedom. Can I say, or do I have to say no to some trip or some voyage because I physically can't do it or execute on it? If yes, huge problem. Hard stop right there. That needs to fix before anything else. What good is having all of the money, all of the finances, all of the freedom if you don't have the body to use it. Right. What good is having an amazing wife and kids, if I don't have the body that I feel safe enough and capable enough to protect them if time comes for it. And so I think all of these things are a very delicate balance. And I also think you need to have an orientation around God. I do. So that's my success right there. You have health, wealth, relationships and faith. Yeah, those are the four pillars that govern all human experience. So I've got to make sure each four of those, I define what it looks like for me to have a successful life in all four of those pillars. And then I have to make sure that I don't neglect the ones that feel the hardest or the ones that I'm the weakest in. That's a lot of me to piece of content about this. I'll riff on it if you don't mind. Health, wealth, relationships, faith is kind of like working out body parts. So if I have really strong chest and really strong shoulders, so I don't train back in legs that much, but I always train my shoulders and my chest. I'm going to create an imbalance. Yeah. And when I create an imbalance, my posture starts to change. And if my posture starts to change towards my marriage, or towards my business, or towards my health, because, well, let's use relationships in business. That's a big one that a lot of people struggle with. Well, let's say my marriage is failing, because it's hard for me, but my business is thriving. It's really easy for somebody to look at the struggle of a marriage and go, well, let me just double down on my business. Right. Just what makes me feel good. Right. And my posture is starting to change. I'm going to develop an imbalance. I'm shielding. I'm walling myself off from the person that I care about the most. And I'm diving into my strong muscle. And now eventually, over time, you get chronic pain. Right. And so now you don't understand why your life always feels painful. And you look at you, like, I don't understand. I'm so strong right here. Why do I have all of this over here? It's because you need balance. You need to hit everything. Your weak muscle group actually needs to be trained the most. So if you have a couple million dollars in the bank, and you're in shape, but you don't have a relationship with God, I think that that's a deficit. If you have all three of those things, and you don't have a healthy relationship that is really thriving, I think that's a deficit. So I don't praise anybody for having a great physique, an amazing body, a good relationship, or seeing them in church, unless I can see every aspect of their life. And I can say, is that how I would define success in those areas? Does it mean that you're doing those things as wrong? But is that how I would define success in those areas? And if it is, okay, maybe you're somebody that I actually want to talk to, somebody that I want to take some advice from. But just because somebody has flashy cars and a lot of money, people project everything else that they want on that person. Oh, he's got the cars, he's got the jet, he's got this, and there's a girl next to him in the photo. He must have life figured out doubtful. Yeah, and there's a great many people that have sat in that chair or the stories of had everything and was silently suffering. You know, desperately lonely. Or you know, you can never get enough of something that almost feels the desperation when I sat in this chair. You can feel the remnants of their trauma. You can never get enough of something that almost works is like, it's that perfect analogy. I love that training part, like body part analogy because like, yeah, if you only blast the mirror muscles because they feel really good, you can get really strong in them until it causes such an imbalance that it's a tragic injury. It's a detriment to your health. Drenth literally destroyed you at the same time. Yep. So you said something before, which I want to circle back to, because then this is really important. You said everybody should seek balance across multiple domains. Balance is really interesting. How does one find balance in a world that seems desperately out of balance? So there's a subjective element to it, but you said earlier that you have to stop looking so much for what you see out there and deciding that's what it is. And you have to go inward, yeah, to like have a relationship to God, you have to ask yourself these kinds of questions. You just live, took us through, you pull in these levers, you're asking these questions. Yeah. Practically, what does it look like for you? Is there a routine? Are you just spending a lot of time in contemplation? Are you praying a lot? Are you gin, because you're also-- Don't like leave sitting for hours and hours. Like just chin scratching, but you're a tree and zilk or something, because it also seems like you walk this line very well between that, like the wisdom and the introspection and the get shit done. Like you're out there, you're doing things-- The whole Trinity. Right? So how do you do it? That is a very loaded question, but I will try my best. I think when you take the word balance, people think easy. And it's not. An extraordinary life cannot be balanced. But if I realize, if I do two months all in on my relationship, and then I do two months all in on my business, technically that's scale balances. Technically. So there's going to be times where you oscillate between them to keep building them higher. It's like you trying to build your home by yourself and expecting everything you build on each wall has to be the same high at all times. I'm going to have to build this corner up higher first, then go to that one and build it higher. But eventually if I do that, and I just don't keep building these three corners and letting that one hang back, I'm going to build the house. I'm going to build the home. I'm going to build the life. So great example of this is my health is my weakest lever right now. My health and my business-- I don't know if you see my content about my labs and stuff. Yeah, it's not great. But thank God I have testicles to eat now. My health is my weakest lever by far. Business has been on the tear. I've been prioritizing business. And I'm looking-- now I'm in the space of my life. Now where I'm looking at the business, being the best it's ever been, and simultaneously saying, it's time for me to step back. Most people can't do that because the business becomes the most important thing when it's thriving. But I'm not going to build a house that's stable if I just build one wall as high as I can. It's bound to tumble over. And it's probably going to fall over on everything else that I've already built. So I'm going to lose all my progress. I don't want to do that. I've already done that before in my life. So I'm now looking at this. And this is where the introspection into the wisdom and the actions comes into place. I introspected. My labs don't look great. My stress is very high. My emotions are not super regulated. My energy is very low. I'm seeing myself do things. And then afterwards, why the fuck did I do that? Don't like that. Oh, but the business is great. So who cares? I care. Because my definition of success is well-rounded. So now I'm looking at the business, being the best it's ever been, and saying, now I'm pulling back. I'm pulling back from one-on-one mentorship. But we still have all of our business going. My team doesn't even freaking need me anymore. But now I have to build up my business, my faith, my relationship. Business is great. It's going to take care of itself for a while. But now it's time for me to go into the other three levels more. So I think from a practical standpoint, it's really subjective. And it's going to come down to the first thing as you have to define what the success looks like in all those areas before you even know what you're fighting for. Yeah. If you don't know what you're fighting for, everything looks like an opponent. Yeah. And so it's not my battle to fight right now to take our business to a million dollar months right now. I will get there. But in order for me to maintain a half million dollar months, I'm going to have to make sure that my health, my relationship, and my faith are all coming back up to where it's at first. So then I have another, a new foundation that's stable. Totally does. You're like to use an old train, you're periodizing different phases of life. There you go. It's kind of like, it would be like having a pyramid set. Right. Yeah, exactly. Reverse pyramid set, actually. No, like you mentioned you had a super car, and it would be like trying to be like, I'm going to drive this really fucking fast everywhere, but I'm also going to get 25 miles per gallon out of the tank. Like, no, you've got to pick one. Do you want to drive really fast? Or do you want to preserve, and there's a time to drive fast and there's a time to drive conservative. But if you're trying to do all of it at the same time, it's messy. The signal to noise ratio is so high, you're not going to get anything from that, you know? Yeah, I mean, I just think for the last, just to really hear from this for people, it's like if you're somebody who just wants to drive fast, that's amazing. I love that for you. I've never really been a materialistic person. I think it's a joke with my audience. I buy all my watches on Timo, and I did this thing where I bought a bunch of fake Rolexes and was wearing it in like, I just like to troll those people. That's like, I don't, I would never spend a hundred thousand dollars. I actually never say never. At this point in time in my life, I couldn't conceptualize spending a hundred thousand dollars on a Rolex. So that's just never been my thing. And if you love watches and watches light you up, and that gives you a higher quality of life, it enhances your experience, right? There's some people that spend $50,000 on one Pokemon card, and they are pumped. Every time they walk in their office, and they see that, they're like, "Mm, I love that for you." There's nothing wrong with that. It's just not my definition. So I'm not going to know judgment and also no striving for that. Yeah. What are you doing right now? You're pulling the lever kind of guy. So you're pulling the lever on health. What does that tactically look like? In January, I came off of TRT. I had been, I started bodybuilding competing when I was 24. So for the last eight years, I had been on some, and dude, I was, I was blasting a lot of you right there. I know I don't look like it right now. I was a big boy back then. And after I was done with all of that, I never, I was always on some form of TRT, 'cause I was afraid to come on. Yeah, right. And in January, I just had this kind of intuitive notion of I think I want to come off altogether, get my hormones back naturally, prioritize fertility, you just get everything going. And I felt really good for the first few months. I work with Dom Kuzah. He's absolutely incredible. I recommend every single person in the functional health space follow him. He's probably the smartest person I've ever met in my entire life. He's just genuinely an amazing guy. And we were feeling really good. And then all of a sudden stress was a huge component of it. And all of a sudden I just hit this wall and started feeling awful, awful, awful, awful. So we got labs done again and they were not pretty. And I looked at those labs and I'm like, okay, it's time to, like that's a sign, but we still had our three day live event. We had a bunch of stuff to do. So I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna power through, 'cause that's what I do. And then after the live event, I'm gonna take some time and a figure out what I want to do. And so now lever-wise, Dom, I'm also doing this gut healing protocol 'cause I've had gut infections for like six years. There's just a whole, how much time you got? - Really. - But so I'm just going through all of these different things and it's just depleting my energy. It's my body's not digesting food properly and uptaking the nutrients so I can't even, you know? So it's just every single thing just feels like it all, my body was like, stop. So I'm stopping. And so like what it looks like to pull back and focus on health right now is really I'm just pulling myself out of one-on-one of fulfillment. And all my current clients are still there and stuff, but I knew it was wrong. I knew I was done when I was getting my sales team posting that they signed up a very high-ticket client for a month to month package with me and I saw the money come in and I saw and I knew what I had to do for a fill and I went, (sighs) - Fuck you. - Yeah, fuck you. I'm like, if that amount of money is making me look at something and say, uh, that right there, I feel like is, is a clear sign that I'm done with this blood of my life. For right now, and that's again, I feel like God will make the thing that's no longer for you kind of seem black and white, kind of like loses its color, it loses its vibrance. And that's where I feel like one-on-one mentorship has taken its thing for me. And so now I'm kind of to prioritize my health and my own well-being. It's like, where am I going that feels colorful? Where am I going that makes me feel like I'm having fun or getting outside? One of my big things is I have spent so much time in the room. Everybody always says that, "We've got to get in the room, you've got to get in the room, you've got to get in the room." I have been in the room and in rooms for the last 14 years. I've built my business from inside my house. I host events inside of hotels, like everything is inside. And for this next phase, I am really, I need to prioritize being more in nature because nature has so many lessons to teach you that you can't possibly learn inside of a room. So I'm kind of creating this new offer right now. I'm doing like a 15 person really, really intimate mastermind for a year. I'm going to do four different travel locations for entrepreneurs who kind of are in the same spot to me and feel like, "Hey, it's time to get back outside and reconnect to self and build the next level of the business from that place." So that's me kind of like still tying in my work with the phase that I'm in because same thing, right, embodiment on the guide. Hey, I know there are at least 15 people in my audience who are very successful financially but they're dead inside. So, hey, 15 of you guys want to come in and have this awesome experience for me for a year. Let's do it. Let's reconnect together. Yeah, that's cool, man. And that's kind of, you know, you get to, when you get to a certain level, you get to just make up your own game, essentially. Yeah. You can do and serve your gifts, but you can do it in more of an environment that feels matched to you. And I genuinely, a huge nature guy, love working and supporting the life around me. And personally, I also think that God speaks loudest in nature. I agree. And it's just a wonderful place to be in and you can also do all the business, strategy, content stuff in nature. You know, your next live events might be in a park somewhere or in the forest somewhere. But I know. That's pretty cool. You can let you get to be, you mentioned before, like prioritizing more fun and stuff. Yeah. I think life is so, it's so heavy for, and I know why, because life is serious business. I mean, you know, serious business more than most people, you know, if you get to the point where you put a gum to your head, it gets pretty heavy, right? But then there's a levity also at all times, like a kind of cosmic giggle of like, what even is this great mystery? That's a great mystery. Giggle is funny. It's wild. Yeah. Well, it's kind of like, right, life is hard on its own. I don't have to try for life to be hard, but I do have to put effort in the life-filling fun. Yeah. So fun is a choice. Hard ships going to take care of it. But some, everybody has hardships. Everybody has a reason to be depressed. Everybody has a reason to be upset. There's a reason to give up. Can you smile still? That's the choice. That's the choice that changes everything as far as I'm concerned. When it feels the most impossible to crack a smile, that's what you need to do with the most. That's what's most important. Yeah. It might have been you. You're so prolific with the content, but there was a post that was similar to that yesterday and I know you don't want to hear this, but when you're feeling like a bag of shit, the most important thing you need to do is go be kind to someone. And it's exactly that. You want the world to smile at you then smile first. The world is a mirror as far as I can see it. If you want to change the world, you see it change the person who's looking into it. So at every single fiber of your being, you're like, "Fuck this sucks." That's when you've got to turn that frown upside down sunshine and put out love because I think it's a boom around. It's coming back to you. What you're throwing out is coming back. Not always on your timeline and sometimes with a bit of turbulence, but what goes around comes around. And if you just keep in the game enough and you're doing things that are helping empower people and supporting life, it's going to come back around. It's going to come back around. It's the way it's the way it's the way it's the way it's going to come back around. It's a beautiful system for you to know that you're carrying out what God wanted you to do. If I do things that are right by him, right by my mission, then good things come back to me. If I'm doing things that aren't in that alignment, then I experience things that I don't want to experience. Yeah. It's genuinely that simple. Is this bringing you the results that you want? No. Okay. Why don't you do the thing that you don't want to do so you get the thing that you want? That's the coin flip. Do the things that you want to do, the lazy things, the easy things, you get the results that you don't want. Do the things you don't want to do, the hard thing, and you get the things that you want. Right. And if you can just understand that that's the coin flip, it's really easy to look at your life and go, "Oh, shit." Yeah. Well, it's to borrow from a mutual friend. Michael always says it's simple, not easy. Right? It is simple. It is very simple. It's not always easy. But in doing the hard thing that you know you need to do in order to become who you want to be. You need to get the fruits of that if you do it for a long enough period of time. But you mentioned something earlier in the conversation. You kind of teased it and we came back onto the tracks, but you said, "It's so easy for people when they do something bad to adopt that as a limiting belief. Like I am a thief." Was how you start this conversation because you had that momentary lapse of judgment. Yeah. But when you do something good and you get the rewards of that, it kind of like washes off your like, "Tet Thump Plan." How are you trying to marinate a little bit more in the goodness of what you've accomplished and not so quickly identify with all of the moments where maybe you fall short of and get potential? This is, I'm smiling because this is my hardest thing. I really, really struggle to give myself praise or give myself kudos or acknowledge anything good that I've done ever in my life. Our last three day live event was the first time I ever stood on that stage and allowed people to clap for me. Never. I'm usually like, "No, no, no, no. Like this is you guys. I don't want that because I just don't feel like I deserve it." Right. I just feel like it's almost like, it's like I wouldn't do my homework and turn it in for the teacher and expect her to be like, "Oh my God, congrats." So because I feel like everything I do is expected of me by my father, I'm like, "I don't need the praise, but that's created a story that I don't need it so therefore I don't give it to myself." And then you create that and you also put somebody, you know, and again, I say this humbly, I'm not saying that I'm this huge person, but you put somebody in a successful position and everybody thinks, "Oh, well, that person doesn't need praise. They know that they're good." And thus the person who ends up needing it the most doesn't get it at all. And then that's what creates that story and that's been my life. You know, it's very, people don't think that I need it so they don't give it. And so I think when a lot of times what kind of what we're talking to is the work. Yeah. Do the work. Do the work. What's the work? The work happens in the moment. There's no like prompt that you can do. The work is, "I have this negative thought right now on my head. Can I pause?" So maybe it's, "I'm not good enough." Some of it's super simple. "I'm not good enough for that. If I can become aware of that and I can stop and I can say, "Wait a minute, I am good enough and insert some sort of supporting belief here." What I just did in that moment was I caught one thought that was constantly running in my brain and I re-corrected it to a positive one or a desired thought, so to speak. Maybe two minutes later another thought comes. And what happens is as you do this, it feels like you're having more negative thoughts than ever, but really you're just aware of them now. Right. You're actually locating them so that you can redirect them and reprogram your brain. And so maybe you have 30,000 negative thoughts like that a day and you start catching ten a day, but now you're aware of a hundred a day. Well, now I can catch a hundred a day. And then over time, the scale shifts. I've got way more positive thoughts about my life than I do negative thoughts. That's coming from a guy whose scale was like this for his entire life. It's just simply because I gamify it. It's not, "Oh, I thought I was done with these thoughts. Oh, I'm so broken. I'm never going to get better." That right there, you just created another story that you know. So it's like, "Well, it's not that serious. I have a thought. Do I want that thought?" No. Then choose a different one. Yeah. It's so cool. You're probably familiar with the term "ant's" automatic negative thoughts because it's exactly what you just know. I actually know. It's a cool little way of remembering it. So what you're saying is essentially what I would say a long time is like just track your ants. Automatic negative thoughts. You don't actually know where they come from in the moment. You can track the story and assign meaning to it. Oh, it's probably that belief because of this and I don't feel worthy and I don't feel loved. But in the moment, they're just running all day long. And you can either track your ants and kind of like steer them or kill some of those motherfuckers, whatever you want to do. Oh, you do what most people do, which is they get on the back of their ants and ride them off into the sunset like a cowboy and just believe them to be true. But if those aren't useful, if those automatic negative thoughts that have populated in your mind and not useful and are not creating the world that you want to exist in, are you not treating yourself well because you believe yourself to be a worthless person, then they're not useful by my definition of what is useful. And you can change them. Are you familiar with Adelirian psychology? Yeah. So Adelirian psychology and Freudian psychology is what we adopted. Yep. How convenient for a society that wants to control people. Has Freudian psychology is basically, oh, I feel bad. Okay, why? I dive really deep. You can't fix this until you find the root of it. Adelirian psychology is, hey, you are where you are as of right now and you are taking actions based on a goal that you have for yourself. And that's really hard for people to conceptualize when they're like, why do I keep self-sabotaging? Well, what's the goal you're trying to achieve? Well, I'm not trying to achieve you are. Let's back up because all goals are action oriented. If I'm sitting here right now and my eyebrow edges, I have a goal for that itch to stop. So what do I do? I cut my hand and I itch it and I put it back down. That's an action. All goals are action oriented. So how come every time I do this, I do this. Well, there's a goal that you're achieving when you do that. No, that's not true. This one's my share. It's not a worry about it. Every time it's like something, it's always people that are like less than, and I'll say this to Raga Torelli. It's always people that are less than six figures a year. Yeah, they just like, the mythical 10K month is what everybody's striving for. The second I hit 10K, I self-sabotage, I stopped showing up. "I dropped down to three, help me break this cycle." You already know the cycle. What's your goal for the cycle? Well, I don't have a goal. We do. What's your goal? I want to get more than 10K. Well, if that was true, then you wouldn't stop everything that you were doing once you hit 10K. If you're telling me that in a month of locking in, you hit 10K, then that would mean if you lock in for the second month, you'll hit another 10K. That's math. It's very simple. Just do the exact same thing. You've got the formula. Or maybe there's a goal to create this massive experience inside of you because you have a lot of fun saving yourself. You've actually become obsessed with the feelings of, "Oh my God, I don't know if I'm going to make my rent." But you know, once you're back against the wall, you can lock in and there's a massive dopamine hit saving yourself from point A to point B. But you've never gone into the unknown to take yourself from B to C. Right. So you don't actually want to go above 10K. 10K is your ceiling of what you think you're worth and you're trying to prove to yourself that you can't make more than it so that you don't actually sit down and figure out how to break past it. Fuck. Yep. Yeah, dude. That's so good. That's so good. And you arrive at this, like you just said, the only word for it is fuck. Yeah, but that's dude. That right there. That's the mole. That's the mole. That's the mole. Holy shit. There is nothing I love more on a freaking coaching call when I see somebody's face hit the. Yeah. Well, we've arrived at that. Come to Jesus moment where you recognize your. You are simultaneously the cause of and solution to all of your problems. Oh, so it's like. Oh, great. Well, that's a lot of responsibility to bear. Or it's like, well, you can have the other path if you want. You can just continue the cycles and, you know, doing what do they say? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It's insanity. Or you, you know, you can get busy growing. And like you said, it comes back to that. It's not going to be super easy. It's going to require some courage. It's going to require a step into the unknown and fundamentally leaving your comfort zone. Which we all know there is nothing inherently comfortable about a comfort zone. It's that the moniker that there is no growth in comfort and there is no comfort in growth. Like it requires. It's that friction point. That squeeze point. You've kind of got to go through it. Yeah. The only comfort that people find in a comfort zone is just abdicating the responsibility that's required. It's a story. It's a story. Yeah. It's predictability. That's what the comfort is. Yes. I can predict that I'm going to have fun. And the mind lights up every two months. Yeah. I predictability that I'm going to barely make it, but always do. I have predictability that, you know. Right. So it's that the safety comes from being able to predict everything. It's crazy because it'll feel unstable, but deep, deep down, it's on such a consistent routine that that feels stable. Where are you currently continuing to kind of step into the unknown? I think for sure in this new phase of business that I was just telling you about, I have, for the last 14 years, there has always been, I would say, a minimum of 20 people that have been able to have one-on-one direct access to me for four, ten plus years. So long. When I was finished coaching that 147 clients at my peak. No, sheesh. And, you know, maybe like two years ago, I had about 80 plus one-on-one business mentees. So, yeah. And so I'm going into this phase where I'm stepping away from taking the new one-on-ones for the first time ever and really exploring business from a way that is actually doing what I need to do to heal. And I'm just kind of like taking whoever wants to come with me on that path and us figure it out together. And then my relationship, obviously, I'm with the most amazing woman I've ever met in my entire life, who I intend to make babies with. Yeah, baby. And so there's so much unknown in staring into the eyes of somebody that you see you're forever in and never having experienced that before. So there's like that. Our relationship is quite literally the biggest mirror for me that I've ever had and I fucking hate it. But it's all good things. So I think right now, me going into a phase of business that is prioritized around vitality and then me going into a relationship that is forcing me to become who I need to be as a husband. Those are my two main unknowns that I'm in right now. I love that, man. That's beautiful. Lily's in the room with us right now. She's watching over there. Those beautiful eyes. What's something she's taught you? What I think she's teaching you? I think the biggest thing that Lily is teaching me, honestly, is. I don't want to say she's teaching me how to be a husband, but she's teaching me how to look at myself and find all of the areas where I'm currently not. And there's something about the way that she's able to challenge me that triggers the fuck out of me. And then once I calm down, it's all good. But it's like she's simultaneously teaching me how to be a better man simply by mirroring back to me where I could be better. Or mirroring back to me parts of my life or conditions that I've had for so long that aren't things that you take with you into a marriage that I've just been blissfully unaware of that I've done because I've never been with somebody that I've actually seen a future with. You know? So, yeah, that's what she's teaching me most. I resonate a lot with that. That's the most potent mirror, I think. I mean, well, children. You know, they're pretty potent mirror too, but they believe it. The relationship, when you find the one that the potency of that relationship mirror and it's this. This like. The simultaneous energy of a woman that loves you so deeply that she would be under a bridge with you, and it is also in the energy of calling you into the man that you could be. Like that will just light a man on fire. That's it. Right there. I actually found Lily under a bridge. That was how we met. That's so romantic. You're gonna. You can buy her a whole bridge now. But no, yeah. If you were to put Lily into a category of woman, she is the woman who would sleep with you under a bridge and simultaneously love you into the man that you need to be. Yeah. There's no more powerful activating force on this planet, my friend. And I hope to see you make beautiful babies one day as well. Me too. Dude, it's so fun. I got one more for you just because you've been a really fun follow for me since I came across your content six months or so ago. Just like the resonance that we were speaking about earlier. That just can tell this is a guy that walks the walk. He's not just a yapper that's trying to get money. Like this is just a human who's saying like, it's the same bad trip for all of us. We're all fucked up. There's a way out. Here's what I'm doing. It's amazing. But you also demystify content in a way that's really potent, I think, and really accessible to people. I think there's a lot of people that watch this show and will consume your content and mind that might have ideals of being a content creator or launching something in the future. These are people that know that something more is meant for them. And social media is a part of this weird universal game that we get to play now. So what do you think the biggest mistakes people make when approaching sharing themselves on social media? I want to preface. These are coming from a guy. I had a massive, I think we talked about it right, gain all those followers last year. My engagement has not changed. It's one of the preface that I get the same amount of shit engagement with 110k followers that I had when I had 62k followers. Whatever. But my intention is not necessarily to be a massive influencer. I'll be it I would love to grow my influence. My goal is to resonate deeply with people who resonate with my work so that I can help carry out my mission. That's it. So I would much rather have 110 people that are super aligned than have 500,000 people that are liking me for some superficial metric. I think the biggest mistake is that people will really feel like they have things that they want to talk about, but they'll convince themselves that they can't talk about it because it doesn't pertain to insert thing that's supposed to make me money. And when you realize that's fine, but you're not being yourself. You're not building a brand around you. And you don't have to do that. But for most people, I'm assuming most people watching this podcast want to feel like they are free and have fun with content. And in order to do that, you have to rip off the mask. In order to do that, you have to say what you say what you mean and mean what you say. And that is so fucking hard for people. And the issue with that is you'll chase vanity metrics as a confirmation. So if you love talking about this, but you talk about this one time and it goes viral, you change everything about yourself. And you say, well, that's what works for me. So I have to just make that content. And then two months goes by and you forget who you are. Content's dreadful. You have anxiety. You don't know what to talk about. It's draining your energy because that's a distraction. Distractions drain your energy. When you're on purpose, it gives you energy. And I think that if you want to build a brand where people trust you, where people resonate with you, ask you to be on their podcast, stuff like that. You have to be so authentically yourself. Who you see on socials, who you talk to in the DMs, who you talk to on the phone, and who you talk to in person should be the exact same. I have never once, never once met somebody in person and then said anything like, "Wow, you're not like how you are online." That's not true. Lily did that. Lily goes to do this real quick. Lily ghosted me for eight months after I asked her out. She created a story as most women do. But she created this story about my social media persona. I was like, I know what kind of guy he is. I'm not about that. And then she went on a date with me because I forced her. And then she was like, "Oh, he's amazing." That's so funny. It's actually something. The first time I heard somebody say that to me, it kind of like, it smacked me upside the head, but I had somebody actually look at me in the face. I was like, "You're exactly the same person I thought you was through your Instagram." And I was like, "And people are not?" Right. It's like, jarring. And then because of you, just being in the space and podcasting and meeting different influences and stuff, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I see that. I see this persona." I see that this crew. When I see the. It was crew. Yeah, it was crew. I thought I knew it. And you see it, man. And it's like this. I guess, like, you know, on social media. You will perform a little bit. Sometimes I'll put like a stupid mushroom hat on and stuff. Like it's, but I'm having fun with the ponds and it's very natural because it's what I want to do. It's not chasing after vanity metrics and it's something that, you know, my former coach and mentor and friend Rachel Bell. I think you know Rachel. - I do know Rachel. - Yeah. - Love Rachel Bell. - Rachel is the best. - She is probably, I'll show her our question. She is probably the number one women's business branding coach on the internet. She is fucking genius. - Gangsta. - She's a gangster. - She's a gangsta. - Yeah, no, her and Yeager. - She just had a good-- - Yeah, so cool. - But like her and you and this radical authenticity, like I love your content because I feel like nine times out of 10, you're not even talking about business. You're just sharing who you are and then you drop these banger like heaters that are like, wow, that's so good. But you'll post on there about your coffee art or you'll post on there about a lesson that's just like, it's so natural and it flows. And I think that buys, it buys real estate with people 'cause they just know that they're getting what they see on the 10th. - The last tip I'll say for this is, when you're online or in a business, you are creating a world and your job is to market that world so that people decide whether or not they do or don't want to be a part of that world. And you actually, a most people are like, I want everybody to follow me, I want everybody to get in my world. I want as many people as possible to be able to see me and say that's not for me. That's the goal for me. Now, I'm not trying to piss people off for anything like that, but I'm trying to be so radically authentic that somebody can instantly say, oh, no, no, no, no, I don't belong in that crowd. Amazing. I don't want you to follow me then because I'm not going to change who I am, like for you. I'm going to evolve as a human and stuff, but I even think like with Lily and I first started dating, we were both like, all right, I'm going to scare this person away. I'm going to be like really fully myself. And then here we are. - That's beautiful, man. Well, thank you for sharing your world. And thank you for giving me more of the story and more of the context. It's been fun, man. And I've resonated with you for a long time. So it's good to share the conversation in person. - I appreciate it, brother. - Thanks for having us out here. - Absolutely, man. - And I think people go to follow along. - My name is Nick Comodina. If you look that up on Instagram, I'm right there. I think our TikTok is Nick Comodina official, but I post everything on TikTok on Instagram. So you could just follow me on Instagram. Our YouTube channel is Nick Comodina official. And if you guys want to read my book, it is called Surrender and it's on Amazon. - Beautiful, my friend. - Thank you so much for the chat. - All right, you lot. Stay radical, take the risk, go for the win. What have we got to lose? - It's not that serious, right? - It's not that serious. Eat the testicles. - Eat the testicles. Bye. - Thanks for joining us for another episode of Radical Health Radio. If you liked that episode, good news is, we've got hundreds of others just like it and YouTube things you would love this one, in particular. So I think you should check it out. We'll see you next week.