The SaltyMF GOAT
The SaltyMF GOAT Podcast highlights engaging stories from entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, veterans, and others making an impact in their life. Each episode delves into the real and raw experiences of the guests, providing meaningful insights into their lives and journeys.
The Attitude Wears Well.
The SaltyMF GOAT
Zac Sweat- Author & Creative Director - The 14 Principles on How to Not Suck, a book written for Radical Pilgrimage
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The SaltyMF GOAT Podcast with Zac Sweat Author, Creative Director and Entrepreneur
Join the conversation as Brad Banyas of SaltyMF Enterprises interviews Zac Sweat on his book Start with the Breadsticks: Principles on How to Not Suck, a book written for Radical Pilgrimage to finding who you really are!
About Zac Sweat:
With deep insight, structure, and strategy, Zac provides tools, guidance and wisdom. He blends and weaves together elements of self-growth, Buddhist psychology, depth psychotherapy, bodymind connection, and discipline/ structure to create a gut punch tool kit of empowerment for the individual.
*Everyone has a story to tell, it may not be perfect nor ideal, but it is Real. The Attitude Wears Well!
www.saltymf.com
Let's fucking roll. Alright, everybody. Welcome back to Midmaster Studio here in Foco, USA. You're listening to the Salty Enough Go podcast. Today we're really excited to have Zach Sweat on. Uh Zach, if you if you don't know who Zach is, he uh he's a podcaster, he he wrote a book. Um Open Heart Uh Media does our podcast today. So I'm gonna kind of preface this because Zach and I have been uh friends now for a little over a year, but we were going to LA to do a video shoot and do some photographs, and uh and uh he says, Yeah, I wrote a book. And I was like, Really, dude? You wrote a book? And he's like, Yeah, and I said, Well, bring it, I'll read it on the plane. So today's book is about a book that Zach wrote that says start uh with the breadsticks, and it's 14 principles on how to not suck. Allegedly.
SPEAKER_01Allegedly, 14. Welcome, Zach. Sweat to the Go podcast, baby.
SPEAKER_02Good to see you, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh, likewise, man. It's awesome that you you brought me on here. It is interesting because we do record this podcast, uh, and I help set this one up. So don't fuck it up, man. That's what I kept saying before we hit record. Don't fuck this up. This should be the best one.
SPEAKER_02It better be the best one.
SPEAKER_01The audio better be the best, the video quality be better be the best. But yeah, man, um, no, I appreciate it. It's it's fun.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, it's interesting because you you know people, and you know, we've become friends outside of this stuff, but like you know people, and you're just so casual about like, yeah, I wrote this book or whatever. And I, you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a like I'm a re if I get on a plane, I'm reading because I'm not, I can't stand being on the plane. But on the plane, so I read the book through the plane, I'm a I'm a speed reader. Harvard Summer School Speed Reading. Lot of pictures, a lot of pictures, big work. Harvard Summer School speed reading. That's about the only thing I could do at Harvard. Is it really? Are you serious? 100%. But we we we'll we'll we'll get out, we won't get into that because it's a long story. I'm a I'm a Yeah, I don't really want to hear it.
SPEAKER_01I'm a manager. It's interesting, though. Interesting fact about you.
SPEAKER_02So I read the book. This guy next to me was the headfund hedge fund manager. By the end of the book, he goes, I saw you reading that book, go, yeah, it's a great book. Whatever you want to read, and he said, sure. So the guy did end up texting me after, by the way. No way. Yeah, he goes, Hey man, that was a good book. So the point, now that I'm my ADD and ADHD is kicking in, uh, the point in that is is you know, you meet these people, they do some pretty cool things, they really pour out you know their life through the book and how to get back on track. And uh really I wanted to give you I wanted to give you kudos and acknowledgement for that. So I'm gonna shut the hell up for a second. It's all good, man. Where's your questions?
SPEAKER_01I'm just playing, no, you're good, you're good. I thought this was like an interview, man. What's going on here? You think we're just here to talk casually? No, it's cool, and I I think I am because when I when I wrote that book, I wrote that book and I started in Hawaii. And I remember I kind of just like completely just took a you know a 180 with my life, man, and started heading in a different direction. And I landed in Hawaii, and I remember calling my mom and saying, I'm gonna write a book.
SPEAKER_00She's like, Nah, okay, sweetie. Yeah, okay, dear. Awesome.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, no, seriously, but this is you know coming from a son who, you know, uh a year before that was, you know, um still borrowing money. You know, I was on the tail end of my second divorce, I was in bankruptcy, a couple repossessed cars, uh, addictions, jail time. So it's just like, okay, cool. Like, you what are you gonna write a book about?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But at that point are people too. Right.
SPEAKER_01It's a good title. Write that down, back pocket idea. But I I just I found myself on this other side of like a new life, and um, I had this incredible urge to start kind of just sharing how I came from one space to and moving to another. And you know, I wanted to encourage people that change is completely possible, and I was like, well, let me tell my story, my experience, because it might not resonate with everybody, but uh, and that's where I based all the whole book on these principles that I had applied in my life and were currently applying and still apply, um, and started to write that book in Hawaii, and then I ended up moving back here about two years after I moved to Hawaii, and I finished it here. Um, I took like a maybe a six-month break and I came back to it because I had a new experience here, and I finished it and uh self-published. I sent it out to like 20 publishers. Yeah, got a lot of no's.
SPEAKER_02Hey, you know, you're gonna do that. It's a good book, though. I mean, I'd say if you're Dale Carnegie, it reminded me a lot of Dale Carnegie, uh, Norman Vincent Peel, um, those type self-help kind of books.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was really standing, and that's cool that you say that because I was essentially standing on the shoulders of giants when I wrote that, man. A lot of my main inspiration, I call them my online mentors, and I give them shout-outs in the book. It's like Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor, Robin Sharma, Les Brown, um, Abraham Hicks, all these beautiful minds that have did they did the same thing. So I was like, man, who am I if I don't share my own experience? Because that those stories resonated with me, and it just it just it encouraged me, man, because again, I had this incredible urge to share. Because I think that's what we're you know, I think mainly here to do is to kind of like experience this world in our own way and learn and then share that with others so they can kind of heal a lot of people. 100%.
SPEAKER_02And and and just so you know, as a reader, you probably didn't think I could read, but that's okay. A lot of people don't. Not really.
SPEAKER_00A little bit. It wasn't like it was like third grade. At least at least middle school level.
SPEAKER_01I'm like, surely he has his own company.
SPEAKER_02But in all honesty and all sincerity, that message came through, and that's really, you know, in my life in our last podcast behind me, it was sitting on the table, you know, and it just sparked my memory. And I was like, you know, that that really needs some like to bring it out because it it really did resonate. And I think it's like it's kind of a workbook style where you know the the 14 principles of how not to suck, right? And it's it's easy though, like because you know, some books get into too deep a stuff, you know, you you you really gotta, you know, you kind of get esoterical about it and all this shit. And it it it was very simple, I think, that um that like I thought people could benefit from it. And I went I wanted to highlight it to be honest.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. Um it it's it's been out for fuck, I don't even I don't know.
SPEAKER_00But I remember seven years?
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, just a few years. Oh just a few years. Uh maybe uh actually just yeah, this so 2024 will be three years um in in the summer, and I remember getting that, and again, I self-published it through Book Baby. Shout out Book Baby, they're awesome. And I hired you know, people to format it, people to do the illustrations, and um, I got it formatted, send it over to Book Baby, you pay a fee, and they send you it's like, hey, here are your options. Do you want us to promote it? Immediately put it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and you can have this whole marketing package, right? Or do you want to um you know pay the fee, and then you can set up their own like they'll like it's uh print on demand through Book Baby. You have that, and then you can get a hundred copies.
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, that's the beauty of the of you know technology today. I mean, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_01I mean, but you know it's easy, it's an easy thing. I mean, it's like if you want to write a book and go fucking write a book, you don't have to wait on being published. It's like you know, independent artists, it's the same thing, right? But I chose the option where you can get a hundred hard copies. Yeah, because I was like, you know what, before I sell this thing, yeah, I want to give it away.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I like I said, I this was this was not planned. I mean, you know, I called you what last night? Yeah, I mean, I called you last night, I said, hey, I want to talk about your book. And he's like, You, you know, he's actually, but he really? I was like, absolutely. I mean, I I I read it and then I went back through it, and uh, and I just thought, you know, 14 simple steps, you know, there's there's I we won't go through every one of them so people can see it. You know, please don't, I might not remember. Yeah, you got me. I was telling me it's 14. Well, this is what it is right here. Uh so Zach, uh, you know, he can we'll tell you later how you can get it or whatever. But um the things that really resonated with me out of the 14 principles were were Hey, what are your favorites? Okay, my favorite, you're gonna know what my favorite is. My favorite is is number five, which is you know, learn how not to give a fuck. So that's my favorite because that's really kind of the whole premise of why Salty was started, right? To not be impacted by what others thought about you, to be yourself. You know, uh everybody has a story to tell. It it it might not be real, it may not be ideal or perfect, but it's real, and that's that's in our ethos. It's about the founding. And so I like I like that part about it. So explain what you're like, it means something to me, and it'll mean something to everyone, but what did that mean to you at that point?
SPEAKER_01Uh stop giving a fuck. Um, you you yeah, it's that that's it. It's principle five, stop giving a fuck. And it it really comes from a space of um, I think we get caught up in letting others dictate who we become, yeah, our actions, um, the way we behave, the way we carry ourselves, the way we dress, the way we think, what we choose to like. Like, who's got you talked into what you're doing right now? Is it you? Or you have given so many fucks that you have let this uh these other people, these external sources, friends, family, teachers, whatever, dictate what path you took. What happens along that path is you start getting these results that deep down, unconsciously, you don't want. Absolutely. Because they're not meant for you, because you've been following somebody else's path for so fucking long. Absolutely. And while you do that, you lose yourself. And so that stem from that, you gotta stop giving a fuck at what others think, feel, and say about you. Yeah, it's one, it's none of your business. Absolutely, it has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with them.
SPEAKER_02Right, and I think people, I don't mean it wrong too. People take uh uh like, oh, you're you're just you know, you're just isolating, or you're just saying, you know, you don't care about anything. That's not true. That's not what that means. It doesn't mean that you don't have empathy for others or you can't relate to others and you don't really care what the world does. It it means exactly what you said. It's what's your path? What's your path now? What are you supposed to be doing? Who really are you? And anyone outside, they can criticize. Critics are great, they don't do anything, but they're worth a shit, but they're good for you to kind of check yourself, right? Check yourself at the door. But at the end of the day, um, most people that were successful in life, and success is not just money and fame and all that. Success is did you live a good life? Were you a decent person? You know, did you give a shit about people on the lower?
SPEAKER_01Success is self-defined, there's no doubt about it, man. But it's like I let others dictate what I was doing for so long and I didn't realize it. And that's kind of where I had my epiphanies. It's like you gotta be able to isolate, and most people think, oh, like what, like we're, dude, we're we're supposed to evolve, we're supposed to change, we're supposed to go through these phases, like, yeah, I'm not the same. No shit. I'm not trying to be the same dude I was last year. But you have to be able to be, I like this saying a lot, you have to be selfish in order to be selfless. You have to I have to get me good first. Yeah, if I don't get myself good first, my girl, my family, my work, my co-workers, my community, they're gonna be affected. I can't just give my my shit away. First, I gotta get me right. And I don't know what that looks like until I start diving into it. And that might look like me moving to Southwest Florida, me moving to Hawaii, to try to like, I don't know, try to find different parts of myself and uncover this stuff that's been so fucking diluted down by what I've allowed others to do to me. Yeah. Okay, and so I have to strip that away.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And in order to do that, you gotta stop giving a fuck.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And I I I you know, I reflect a lot just on my life, and I mean I'm you know, I'm way over I'm moving over the middle, I miss the middle age part a little bit. Oh bastard. But I thought about it, like uh I heard this guy talking about the way like parents raise their kids, right? And so I have four kids from 14 years different from 32 years down, and it says, you know, you're not the same parent you are, like in the it was going sibling order and whatever, and you're not the same parent that you are later in life. And it's absolutely true because when you're starting and you're a young parent, you're stressed out, you're trying to do what's right, you're you know, you're worried about this, that, whatever. And so that that stress probably impacts everybody. And then by the time you've been around and you've kind of matured, you parent totally different. It's just the life phase you're in, the experiences you have, and you realize, uh, all right, so the kid crashed my car. Who gives a shit? Happened. How many cars have you crashed? Well, I've crashed a few in my life, so a lot a lot, but so with that, that really that really resonated with me. And then uh my other favorite is um uh number nine, and that says that you know you can't live uh an awesome life. Please quote this correctly. All right, you quote it. It's but I'm my thing is you you can't do awesome things unless you feel awesome.
SPEAKER_01You can't do awesome things unless you feel yeah, that was perfect. Yeah, um, I I like that one a lot, man, um, because it's so true, and I think it's again, uh it's success is self-defined. Okay, you gotta define it for yourself. And to for for me, success and real wealth is is health, man. I'm sorry, man. If you don't have a healthy mind, body, and spirit, you ain't doing shit. You can't you can't do awesome things unless you feel awesome. So, how do you start to feel awesome? You start taking care of yourself, man, because like no matter what, whenever you're sick, whenever anybody's sick or they get diagnosed with something, what's the first thing? You just want to feel better. And everything else fades away. When you're sitting there and you know, maybe you had COVID or you had flu or you have a wicked migraine, everything else in the world, no matter if your job's going good, your relationship, you got a shitload of money in the bank, like you just got this promotion, none of that even fucking matters, but you know what does matter? Feeling better.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So why don't and why do we only react when we start to feel like when something catastrophic happens, like even with a sickness, yeah. It's like, why don't you, what I call preventative maintenance, and it's mentioned in the book plenty, it's like, why don't you prepare yourself? Not because you expect something bad to happen, but why not just go ahead and put in the reps? So when something does maybe come your way, you're like, yeah, fuck you. I'm I've already been doing the fucking work, dog. I'm already prepared. And so preparation for feeling awesome would be check your fucking diet, man. Yeah, do you one go ahead and get butt naked and stand in front of the fucking mirror? Do you like what you see? Yeah. If you don't, let that be the fucking motivation. And that's that's fucking principle one, baby boy. It's get some fucking brutal truth. Oh, yeah. Stand in front of the fucking mirror and and or look at your bank account and look at yourself and like, hey, I I I feel I look like shit, I feel like shit. Okay, what's the game plan to get out of that? And that's not just with your body. Yeah, obviously, the dude, the the highest uh prescribed medicine is uh diet and exercise. Yeah, what's the first thing your doctor says?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you need to do it.
SPEAKER_01Are you exercising? How's your diet? Yeah, first thing, man, let thy food be be thy medicine, man.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I I'm I agree, and I I mean you you've you've heard me talk before on health and discipline and whatever and all that stuff. I mean, I I've been at that place where you shouldn't be. I've been a big, really big dude, right? And you wake up and you just like you just it it you don't have any energy that the you know the energy is so key, and if you're healthy, you have more energy, right? You know, I want to go back to one thing. So I have a lot of older friends, uh, you know, they're on in their late 60s, 70s, some 80s. And and some of these people are very like what would you classify as successful people, right? They had successful businesses, they did this, blah, blah, blah, blah. The number one thing they say. Number one. Yeah. If you have your health, you have everything.
SPEAKER_00That's it.
SPEAKER_02The number one. Now, these are people that are, you know, they're they're in in the they're on the last leg. If you have your health, you have everything. Money, all the money in the world won't make you healthy. All it so uh I I do I do like that a lot. Yeah, and then you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it starts with your body, right? You wanna be able to feel good in the morning, be energized. Um, and it starts with, yeah, it starts with bulletproof coffee. That's all I've had today. Like, I'll I'll typically push my meals back, but you gotta figure out what works for you, and that's like a whole nother podcast. But look, move your fucking body every day. My God, yeah, you can't go out for a fucking hour and take care of your body. Or go walk. You're a fucking liar, man. You're a bum. You're a fucking loser. I love it, man. The brutal truth, principle number one. Well, dude, I had to do that with myself. I was a fucking loser. Yeah. And when I said that, I said, oh my god, I don't want to be a loser. Well, what do I gotta do not be a loser? Yeah, and so health, and then you start with not just the food you're consuming, but you start with also the material and the media that you're consuming, and and what kind of words you're consuming, what kind of music, who are you surrounded by? It's all in there, but you know, mind, body, spirit, man. Are you spiritually fit and you figure out your own thing with God? That's not for me to say, but you figure out your own because hey man, we're spiritual beings, baby, having a human experience. So figure that out. But mind, body, spirit, you you feel awesome in all three of those categories, and you can take one to two hours a day and do the preventative maintenance in order to feel really good and perform at an optimum level, so you can go out there and take care of your family, take care of your uh your business and your co-workers and your community, and then you you know, like it's true though.
SPEAKER_02I mean it's I forget the guy who says it. I'm terrible because I can't remember famous people that say these things, but the guy was saying that even like when you when you walk into your room when he was doing business and whatever, if you're fit, that's Andy Elliott together, like you're already you're already heads and tails above everyone else, because it whether people say it or not, they may like give you shit for going to the gym or running or hiking or whatever yoga, whatever you're doing. Uh, but at the end of the day, you you're at an advantage because you've got that energy.
SPEAKER_01It commands it commands respect. Yeah. Andy Elliott, I I follow him, he's a salesperson, and he just, you know, he's famous now. He went viral for saying, if you don't have a six-pack, you can't work for me. And it's not the vanity thing. It's it's it's people get so confused. Yes, I want to look good. Yes, I want to feel sexy, yes, I want to look good in clothes, yes, of course. Right. But it's also uh a self-respect and it's a self-discipline, it's a self-love thing. I love myself too much to allow myself to be unhealthy and overweight and and and feeling like shit. I I just won't let that happen, man. I agree. But I used to not be like that. I used to not give a fuck. Yeah. Like to read. That's why I say you gotta go back.
SPEAKER_02Because number five is my favorite, learn not to give a fuck. But it's not, it's giving a fuck about the right things. Of course. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Stop giving a fuck. And that that dives into just what other people are really saying, allowing you to to do. But you know, you you gotta you gotta care, of course. You gotta, it's again the self-care, the self-love, and self-re respect. And it starts there in the byproduct of doing those things, eating good, taking care of your body and soul and spirit and mind, you you and it expresses itself on the outside. Yeah, you look good, you radiate this certain type of energy, you do walk into a room, you command respect. Yeah, and uh you feel good, man. And it's it's uh it's a discipline thing. Discipline is a self-love thing, it's the highest act of self-love. It's discipline.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I oh I agree. And people are scared of discipline, you know. But discipline, you know, someone um Mark McDonald was on here, he's a you know, famous nutritionist and fitness guy, and he was saying, you know, he had certain issues earlier when he was when he was younger, and his dad said, I want you to get one percent better every day. Yeah, like a one percent's not a lot, but over the cumulative time and the compounding effect, um, over time, those small kind of you know things that you do make you better as a whole over time. And I think the hardest thing for people to think is we're in such a we want it now society. We we want I want to be rich now, I want to be good looking now, I want to be famous now. Okay, I want to be rich now, whatever it is, that takes time, right? In a business and fitness and whatever it may be, and uh, you know, you just gotta do it. Because if you don't, if you work out for a year like on like on a diet, and you you know you lose 50 pounds and you go back to eating whatever you were doing, and in a month, less than that, probably three weeks, you're gonna look like shit and feel like shit again.
SPEAKER_01No, that's facts, man. And I think it uh a lot of people um don't achieve what they really want to or get to a certain level in life because it it just starts with your self-image, man. If you can't literally see yourself, one, how do you see yourself now? Right, what's the narrative you constantly run with yourself? Because you're going to um express that through your your behavior, and that behavior is gonna cause certain action, and that action is gonna produce certain type of results in your life, and that's your reality. So, how do you see how do you see yourself right now? Do you see yourself as that thin, successful, wealthy person? You know?
SPEAKER_02I'm never gonna be thin, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01And but you're in good shape, but like you know, we could always always be better. Yeah, like the work never ends. Absolutely. And that's the thing. It's like, dude, you're not gonna get to a certain point, be like, oh, I'm good now. No, no, no, no. It's just and after a while it doesn't feel like work because that self image. Is in alignment with the the work that you're doing. So now it just it becomes who you are, just what you do.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And and a lot of it is not just like you're talking about, a lot of it's more like mental and even intellectual or spiritual to that thing where you can't really you can't measure that by physically looking someone. What I find is I get older, I'm more interested in people that are deep thinkers and they think about things and they they ponder about things. Why did this happen? How could it be better? What are you doing? And you can have a good conversation with them and you can solve problems, or you can you know find answers. Most most things where you're very just kind of, you know, how's the weather? Or you know, uh well, it's it's raining or it's sunny.
SPEAKER_01I don't really have I can't do small talk. Yeah. I'm sorry, man. Call me an asshole. But yeah, I I typically, I mean, dude, I'm I'm you know, I I go I ride pretty solo uh pretty often. I I love my solitude and it allows me to think clearly because I can I can tune out the chaos and distraction and dilution that is the society we live in. It's just it's just consumer world, and I just want to be able to have that solitude and peace of mind because it is all imagination. Yeah, it all it all starts with thought. Absolutely. Everything starts with thought, absolutely, and thought mixed with emotion is what? It's called prayer. Yeah, that's true prayer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, and it's true. I mean, I I think I think solitude, like if you you you need to be comfortable by yourself. I mean, in the end, you're gonna be by yourself. You have to be comfortable with yourself.
SPEAKER_01It's all it's only you, man. It's only you, and no one's coming to get you, no one's gonna come and hold your fucking little hand and walk you through life. Yeah, 100%. Your mommy's not always gonna be there. You gotta figure it out.
SPEAKER_02The perception is is you think that they are. And people have helped me in my life, and there's no doubt about it. Sure, sure. But reality of it, when it comes down to grind, when it comes down to doing the work, when it comes down to making it work and doing it, their their support. It's it's like a thing my dad, my dad, my dad used to tell me this. I mean, he he would tell me he was my mentor, and I'll I'll talk a little bit. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull this in right now because uh so I'm wearing this Lynch 34 uh sweatshirt. If anyone's wondering what the hell this is. So uh this was uh Lynch, Kentucky. My dad's high school was the uh Lynch Bulldogs, and uh he was born in 1936 on today, and uh he was one of the greatest guys um I've ever met. My mentor, he he he took me in and raised me like his own. He's the greatest, greatest guy ever. So I want to give a call out to him because he he was very impactful in my life, and he really is probably the primary reason where I am today in my life, why we started salty and other things. But he but he he got to a point in life, he was always my mentor, he's always there with me. But in the end, he mentally got to a thing, like you'll go to advice, he's like, I can't help you anymore. Not because he didn't want to help you, sure, sure, not because he didn't care about you, but like it it was really it was probably my 30s, and I realized like, oh shit, you know, these people are your cheerleaders, they're they're support, they'll help you. But in the end, you gotta you gotta make your shit happen. Like, yeah, you know, they're there for you, and it's important for people to care about you about it. Uh anyways, no, peace out, Mike.
SPEAKER_01You're the man. That's awesome, man. I love that. Lynch baby.
SPEAKER_02Coal miner, tough son of a bitch up there in uh Lynch Kentucky, coal miners, baby. The Lynch Bulldogs.
SPEAKER_00Damn. So coal miner?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they were well, he wasn't, but he got out with my granddad and uncles and all that. That's hardcore.
unknownSo yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's you wanna you wanna talk about being tough, you want to talk about being soft. Yeah, right. Go underground for 14 hours and and breathe all that shit in. But uh God, dude, you like Dan Pina? I do love him, dude. I love him because it's even on the edge, but I I love the guy.
SPEAKER_01He says it like Well, he's not PC, but I just like look, man, it's I think that's what it takes. That's kind of like, and I I I wrote this book in a coaching space. I I was previously in my previous life, I was an online coach. That's where I started to really get into entrepreneurship. It's like I started my online coaching business, and you know, at first I was kind of scared to be direct, but then when I moved back here and helped start a therapeutic use center, is when I finished the book, we worked with super resistant teens. Now I'm not a licensed therapist, but I'm trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, behavior change specialist, life coaching, therapeutic mentor. I had this knowledge, right? And I learned from somebody who's really, really good at what he does. Shout out Wes, he's fucking very talented at what he does. Eternal Strength is still a business, and they do cool work, and they and I I was in that environment for two and a half years.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_01And I learned how to just be a little bit more direct and and show and be able to be super transparent or transparent enough to connect with someone and be direct and open and honest because love doesn't lie, right? But sometimes it takes that direct, aggressive energy to push people out of their space. That's what it helped me. It's like the brutal truth part, and that's why I love Dan Pina, man. It's like, dude, there's no fluff. Yeah, he just cut straight to it, baby. And yes, he said, I mean, he's pretty dude. I mean, he's gnarly on the edge, man. Like still using the C words, but his message don't get it lost. Yeah, he gives a shit. That's just his delivery method. Yeah, you see cut through all the bullshit. That message underneath that is beautiful because he's trying to teach you something, man. If you just let your ego go.
SPEAKER_02Did he did so that's where I got that from him? Uh he said for for uh Harvard did a study for 40 years. This is from Dan Pin's saying 40 years on the most successful people in the world use the F-bomb and cuss more than anyone else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I'm not saying you should, there are certain things in church probably should be dropping the F-bomb. But the the point in that is his point was you're getting the point across, you're not wasting time. Yeah. I mean, if I sat here and all of a sudden I knew something was wrong with you, like I like I said, hey man, you're going down the wrong road, man. And I knew that. And I'm watching you burn, I'm watching you crash. And it takes six months before Rai could have just said in the first, hey, you know, dude, you're you're gonna crash. You need to get your shit together, you're wrong, you're not doing the right things, you don't have to listen to me, but I gotta tell you. I I feel all my heart, I gotta tell you the truth. Yeah, the world would be a much better place because then you know where you stand with people. You're either you're either you're either in their in their court or not in their court. And whoever's not in the court, you know, number five. Good luck.
SPEAKER_00Fuck them, man.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I don't dude. I yeah, because I know at the yeah, it's it's tough, man. It's tough. You you it's I just don't vibe with the soft approach. I think that that aggressive, and it's there's there's passion in it too. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, man, I mean I care about I care. There's a there's a certain level of caring, but the way it's delivered might not be the way you want, yeah, but there's still something in there. And dude, there's the message is always the fucking same. Yeah success leaves clues, kids. That's what Dan Vinya says. And he's and he's right. Out of all the personal development books I've read in the last six years, they're all the same fucking thing. They're just spoken in a different way because the message is. My book is not saying anything different than what Tony Robbins is, uh awaken the giant within. It's the same fucking thing. It's just your perspective. It's just my perspective, but it's all the same thing. It's all the answers are within. Nothing out here is gonna help you at all. So stop fucking searching for it. Yeah, no, you can't look, nothing on this external, everything external is from within. So it's all coming from within you.
SPEAKER_02You know what I think it is? You're gonna give you why people do that? Because it's it's it's an ability to find an excuse.
SPEAKER_01Correct. It's it's because you don't want to take fucking responsibility for being a fuck up. What being a fuck up in your life? You don't want to take responsibility for it because you're fucking scared to be with yourself and admit the truth that you're fucking up. And honestly, man, I'm telling you what, if you took me back five years ago and told me I'd be in this space, I could be this totally different person, I would have spit in your face. I would have laughed in your face. But you can you have because like you just didn't feel you could do it? No way. But it's the ability to just say, hey man, I'm the one fucking up. There's nothing else that's doing it to me but me. It's all me, and it's always gonna be me. And if you think it's other people, it's what you've allowed other people to do and and and and and persuade you in certain ways. But it's always gonna be you. And once I learned that, I was like, oh my god. And I've spent the last six years trying to uncover the real me that's inside, that's been again buried under piles of bullshit that I've allowed in my life. And the more I uncover, the more I find I'm I'm capable, I'm powerful, I'm a I'm a loving person. It's all it's all comes from love, and it's I can find this like true authenticity that I can live from that feels good, yeah, and it's infectious. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's it's it happens a lot in different areas, but even like I've got friends and they're going on their you know third divorce or whatever, and I'm like, I'm like, dude, it it's not the lady. It's you.
unknownIt's you, it's you, bro.
SPEAKER_02And they and they don't like they they get mad at me. I'm like, I've known you for I've known you for like a long time. It's you, dude. It's you, it's not her, it's not her in-laws, it's not your whatever, it's you. So if you're not gonna man up, you're just gonna keep going through, you're gonna keep going through the same cycle and you're gonna keep blaming everyone else for what's going on.
SPEAKER_01Man, that's a beautiful point. The same cycle. You it's like Jordan Peterson has this video, it's called circum circumambulation, and it's a Carl Jung theory where you it's like you circle, it's it's not a linear growth path. It's uh you're you're spiraling in towards your higher self. So when you pass this point, you pass it again, it's almost the same experience, yeah, but it's different, and it's like your life keeps cycling through these things, and it's the same thing every year, and you fucking wonder why. Because it's gonna keep showing up until you take what you've learned and apply it to that situation to get a different result, and then you can move on from it. And until you do that, until you do the work, because you're right, it ain't your girl, it ain't the in-laws, it ain't the government, or your man, it ain't the fucking weather, it ain't your boss, it ain't your job, it's you, motherfucker.
SPEAKER_02But it's it's it's it's it's structural things though, like that, like we've been we've we talked about this in a previous podcast. It's a framework that you've grown up in, right? And you you have this framework that this framework is what what life's supposed to be, right? Or what you're supposed to do. And some of that's not wrong or bad, right? It's not it's not wrong or bad. Some of it's good because society may fall apart if it wasn't. But you breaking a habit or breaking a pattern or breaking that constrained framework is very difficult because you literally have to make decisions where some people that you've you've had relationships with or friendships with aren't gonna make it. That's very true. They're not gonna make it to the next they can't come with you, bro. And it's not because you don't love them, it's not because you don't care about them, it's not because they don't love you. It's it's like they're not gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00And that's we don't need roads where we're going.
SPEAKER_02I don't need no jick. It's true. Yeah, and so anyways, that's no, it's no philosophy.
SPEAKER_01And you're right, it's a perfect philosophy because the conditioning that you receive as a child, right? All you can do is observe and record. You're going to carry that into your teenage years and your adulthood years. And if you never take the time and have the consciousness awareness to dive back into that belief system, you're gonna be trying to get things out of life, and there's this wall up and you don't know why. Well, because there's this block from your childhood that you're unaware of because you refuse to go within and see what it is and be like, I don't really believe that anymore. That doesn't make sense for my life anymore. Why do I keep operating from this? And once you recognize it, you have the ability to fucking like reject it, and then you clear a space to make space for a new belief system that you act from. So, unless you go and deconstruct the inner belief system, which I I engage in heavy therapy for a while, and it helped me. Yeah, it helped me on just clear, and there's other ways of doing it. You can journal, you can again do therapy, um, you know, you can have a group like men's groups and and stuff.
SPEAKER_00So there's these spaces where you're consistently clearing. No, it's uh it's it's ideation. You're clearing the space. Yeah, it's ideation too.
SPEAKER_02It's it's getting with people, it's ideation, it's hearing viewpoints, perspectives. You don't have to accept it, you don't have to do it. Right, right.
SPEAKER_01But you start you start getting these new ideas, and in in my belief system, you you think from your ideas. So if you never like get new ideas to plant, you can never think differently, which means you can never feel differently, right? Which is means you can never act differently, and then get the results that you want to get.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that doesn't mean though, that doesn't mean that you don't have an ideology that's your core. And you know, you're you know, you you most people have a base, like you you gotta have some base core of something. It means your growth through ideas, your growth through kind of the meeting other people. You may still have the you may totally not flip on your base ideology or who you were, but you you grow in it. So or may or maybe you do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, it's like again goes back to the self-image. Do I always have to be the person I am today? And the answer is no. You can be something and then say, Well, I don't really agree with that person. I'm going to create this new image that I want to live by. Okay, who is that person? What is that? Visualization. You talk about visualization in your book, dude. It's all everything in this world and in this room was just once an idea. And then they they acted from a feeling. Whoever invented this fucking couch, this Chesterfield couch, this denim jacket. It's all just an idea made manifest from the creator. We are, dude, we're creators, man. So what the fuck are you creating every day?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, call out to Matt Kahn and Con Creations for our lovely bourbon bureau behind it. Does a hell of a job. Khan Creations out there. Where's ours? There's our advertising. Yeah, we gotta we gotta put them up. Yeah, I don't want you to.
SPEAKER_01I'm in I'm forever indebted to you uh because of the LA trip. Oh, that was fun, dude.
SPEAKER_02That was fun. Yeah, that was that was LA. I I don't need to go back to Lington. No, that no, I don't need to go back to LA for about another decade. I'll be dead by then.
SPEAKER_01But Huntington Beach was cool, man. It was I love Venice Beach. That's the first time I've been to Venice Beach. Oh, sorry, Venice Beach. Yeah, it was um cold.
SPEAKER_02It was cold.
SPEAKER_01I didn't get a fucking punch.
SPEAKER_02They got a picture of me and you on the beach. Dude, that's I'm gonna put that in here, yeah. We're standing on the street. Austin took that, man.
SPEAKER_00That's one of the most epic fucking pictures, dude. That's the coolest. When I saw it, I was like, oh my, is that that's real?
SPEAKER_02We're on the beach, the mountains are in the back, the wind. It was that I'm gonna I'm blessed. I want to we can make that the whole backslide. I do want to say one thing though. Like, if you've got a motor, like they're trying to get all these little kids and stuff to sit in a chair and and you know, what? Where are we going with that? If you've got a motor and you know, you you've got energy, you be whoever you're gonna be. Because that motor, that energy, that drive is gonna make you be who you are one day. You don't have to sit in a friggin' chair or follow in the box. You know, if you believe in something, get your ass out there and do it. But I'm it's just been on my head already trying to make all these people fit into these kind of like you know, sheep lines, and it just pisses me off. So that's I'm sorry I just had to say that. No, it's good.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of been the basis of this thing. It's that, hey man, like you gotta be a forever student, man. Like, and I alone I was following it. I was following, no, no, no, not like a brick and mortar school, but you have to be your own student, dude. There's the info everything that you want to know is it you already know, you just have to clear out the bullshit, like I said, but there's so much information out there, and so there's so much to consume, of course, with social media, and it's just everything. There's it's everywhere, all this information. So you gotta be able to cipher through the shit and make sure what and then use whatever resonates with you, right? And it doesn't have to make sense to anybody else, man. It shouldn't, you dumb fuck. It's your thing, it's you. Yeah, like yeah, I think we all operate off of one collective consciousness, but we're our own individual experience this life, experiencing this life through our own eyes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I mean I I think I think that's what's great about humanity, right? I mean, we we're we're we're all the same, we're the same species and everything, but we're all we're all different. I mean, do you want to sit in a room with everybody who, you know, I don't know, likes to eat cheesecake or you know, yes, likes like that would be a dream. Whatever he likes soccer or whatever the hell it is, absolutely not. Because you know, that's what makes that's what makes stuff like this podcasting stuff fun because you get to see people that are different views and whatever. And if if there's you can find something with everyone that resonates with you. Well, yeah, because we're something now and I done you may have to be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because we all come from the same energy, man. Like we're created from divine love, man. So we all have that in common, as cheesy as that sounds, man. And and that's and then somewhere along the way, we got all fucky, and then we're like, oh, we all gotta be like one another. No, we don't, man. Like we can all create our own little things, we can look look the way we want to, we can express ourselves in the most authentic way, and that's what you should be doing. That's the that's the encouragement here. It's like, yes, you just see everybody doing the same stuff, man. It makes me sad. You see so many clones of one another.
SPEAKER_02But I but I don't like I don't. You on a on from a societal or from a cultural, oh yeah, you're eating these, you're drinking these things or eating these food or using this makeup.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I'm saying their whole fucking personality is like the same. It's like all these clones, they all dress and act and talk the same way. It's like, what are we doing, guys? It's okay to not look like that dude. Yeah. Or look like that.
SPEAKER_02The point of the matter is confidence, uh, confidence comes from within, and if you uh if you're confident in yourself, it will exude and people will recognize it and they'll be drawn to you. Uh that's why people like you know, kind of cult of personality, people see confidence in people and they're drawn to that because they want that confidence, right? Right, and then we should be teaching, hey, it's cool that I got confidence. I had confidence when I came out of the womb, but you but you need to get it.
SPEAKER_01But it's from authenticity. That's that confidence, right? And then you're shining your light, so you're can you're kind of like Gandhi's like, let my life be my message. Like, do your thing, let your light shine, and you're showing that they can do others can do the same thing. Actions, not words. Well, that guy's doing like his own thing. I can shit, I can go do my thing, and then you know, feed off everybody, man.
SPEAKER_02Actions, not words, man. That's what that's what someone told me. Your your your life, really in the end, will be determined by your actions, not what you think or your words. Yeah, because not what you think you are, it's what you do, right?
SPEAKER_01People can say a bunch of shit, dude. You can say a bunch of stuff, but just go and do do do it, man. Do the work, man. Wild.
SPEAKER_02Well, you got anything else for the audience? Let's promote my book. I don't really promote it to you.
SPEAKER_01I don't really promote it. What do you promote it?
SPEAKER_02Hey, look, I read it, so if I hadn't read it, I wouldn't have been reading it.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna I don't think my mom might not have read this. She claims to have read this. Connie, her name's Connie.
SPEAKER_02Connie. We're gonna have to have call around Connie on the show, so uh so that'd be wild. Yeah, show me. I need to tell you about little Zachy.
SPEAKER_01She's uh she's a beautiful woman. She's she's a uh she's an awesome mom. She supported me through even when I was being a dumbass. Yeah. She never called me out. You had the right to. But no, I every time I go over to her crib, it's like out, but it's like perfectly brand new, never creased. I'm like, come on, dog.
SPEAKER_02Hey, what are you doing? For Christmas moms, get your kid this book, just leave it on the table, even if you even don't read it, just put it as there is a staple on the table. But uh, hey man, I really I really appreciate you coming today. Yeah, man. And uh this this was fun. I I think there's a lot of good things in that book. Just a simple read.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so before you sign me off, start with the breadsticks. You can get it on um bookbaby.com, you can go to Barnes and Noble online, you can also go to uh Amazon um and buy this when you know it's fucked up. There's like used ones of these for sale. I'm like, so wait, wait, somebody bought it and then they're selling it?
SPEAKER_00Hey, you got hey, you got it.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, dude. That makes me feel a certain type of way. It's like, man, give that knowledge away. It's like, damn, you're reselling my shit. Well, that hedge funds. It's like on eBay. I'm like, this shouldn't be on eBay. But yeah, start with breadsticks, man, uh, based off principles that I've uh experienced in my own life and applied. And and look, it's like not I'm not trying to encourage people to be like me, but the only encouragement I have is that you you're more than capable of doing some pretty amazing things in this life. You just don't know it. But once you start to go within and kind of uncover all the bullshit that you've been fed your whole life, you'll discover that, man. And once you do, it's eye-opening, it's an emotional experience, and life becomes like a fucking true adventure, man, and it's gnarly, and you start accepting everything because you realize that it's all serving you. Nothing's out to get you, nothing's trying to weigh you down and put you down and bury you. Um, it's all serving you. And once you can figure that out, man, everything just becomes education and experience to level you up to the highest version of yourself. And once you do that, man, your light will shine so much, man, you'll affect the world. So um this book can it's a good starting point, man. If if you feel lost, um I was 35 when I started to figure out my life. I'm now 41, and my life looks dramatically different. All the things that I've could ever imagine have been coming true for me. So it's all possible, man. And I'm not uh it's a good starting point for the book. That's all I got, man. I can rant. I like it. Yeah, yeah, that's all I got.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm gonna close honoring once again the greatest man in the world, Michael Banyas. Uh that today was his birthday. Uh without him, I wouldn't be the person I am. So uh some of these people can have a positive influence on you. Uh, to be a father to someone or a dad to someone, they don't have to be your kid or your blood. Uh you just have to commit to them, love them, take them in as your own, and uh treat them the right way. So that's all today on the Salty MFGO podcast. Let's go.
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