E383: Mike Malatesta - If you are at Rock-Bottom THIS will GET YOU UNSTUCK

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation. Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with you with another episode with my guest Mike Malatesta, who is an author inventor and the host of the How’d It Happen Podcast. Mike, my friend, how are you today? What is happening in your world?

Mike: I am unbelievable. Thank you so much for having me, Michael I'm I'm on the road, I'm in North Carolina. My youngest daughter is graduating from Master's program at Highpoint University. And so, we're excited to see her tomorrow, and yeah, so I'm doing great.

Michael: It's amazing, man. Congratulations. For those who don't know, you tell us a little bit about your backstory and how you got to where you are today.

Mike: Sure. Yeah. So, I identify as an entrepreneur, Michael, so I'll kind of go down that track and then if you want to go somewhere else, we can go anywhere you'd like. When I was four years old, my parents lived across the street from a construction company and in the afternoons in the summer times, I was sitting on the curb outside of our house and I would watch the guys bring their trucks back, their dump trucks and their low boys and their equipment and all that and so into that environment I love the sound and the smells and the dust and the guys, I thought everything about it was really cool. And, you know, as a four-year-old, I didn't know what to make of that, I suppose, but I feel like there was an entrepreneurial seed planted in me on that curb when I was four. And then like a lot of things in life it went dormant for a long time. You know, grade school, high school and beginnings of college, I just wasn't thinking about starting a business or even, you know, just other stuff got in the way. And when I was a junior in college, Michael, I got a job in the summertime driving a garbage truck in Philadelphia, which is where I'm originally from. And man, that's just kind of got me, you know, back into trucks and back into this sort of idea of doing something cool with trucks in my life. And it also introduced me to, I think the first entrepreneur that I really had ever met, I mean, my dad was like a side hustle guy, you know, cutting grass and doing stuff for old ladies around their house and stuff. But this guy, Bill was his name I mean, he really had something amazing to me I thought, you know, this big trash company. And so, I just got really enamored with the business and I went to Bill and I asked him for career because I'd be graduating in a year or so I thought, well, maybe this is a career path for me. And he said to me, look, you know, this is a family business I really don't have any room for college graduates, but he steered me in the direction of bigger companies. He said, I think you should go talk to the bigger companies, try to get a job as a salesperson or a management trainee. And I went back and I was like, okay, that makes sense. And so, when it was the proper time near graduation, I started applying and I got a job as a management trainee at a large trash company. And I loved it and I was doing great. You know, two weeks after college, I was driving to Detroit, Michigan, which was my first assignment. And after that I moved, you know, four different times to different states, always in my mind, thinking whenever anybody asked me to do something, I would say yes. And the last move I made was to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a divisional Vice-President's job or a district manager, same thing they called it and I was twenty-five when I got the assignment and I was the youngest person in that role in the company, as far as I knew, and I was just on top of the world and I just wanted to do the best job I could and I thought I was doing a great job. And then on St. Patrick’s Day, 1992, which was about 15 months after I had arrived there, my boss called me. And he said, Hey, I want to come up and talk to you this afternoon. And I said, sure, he was in Chicago, so it's two hours away or so, and I said, sure, I'll be here. And he came up that afternoon and he fired me and I was, you know, I don't know if devastated, maybe that's too strong of a word, but I was hurt, let's put it that way and I didn't know what to do. And my first reaction was, you know, I gotta get another job. And so, I started applying for other jobs and I did get another job and I thought, okay, here's my rebound, you know, I got this other job. And I was there for 30 days and I had to quit Michael, because the person that I interviewed with who was the entrepreneur the guy running the business I really got along with, I thought this is gonna be great working for this guy, but it turned out that when I ended up there, when I got to work, I got assigned to what I'll call his right-hand man and his right-hand man, didn't see me as someone helpful to the business. I think he saw me as a threat to the business and he just made my life not pleasant to be there. And the last straw was I came to work and he had emptied dollar, we were working out of an office trailer. I mean, this wasn't fancy stuff or anything, but he had emptied dollar, all the file drawers and stuff all over the floor and stuff was blowing outside the door. And he told me I had to go pick 'em all up, put 'em back and I did it. I went and I picked them all up and I put it back. But then I called the, you know, guy who hired me and I said, Jimmy, I just can't do this anymore with this guy. And so, by that time I'd been fired and then quit within like 60 days, two jobs and I felt like a real loser because at that time, I mean, I was near, I was newly married as well, Michael, but I was placing a lot of my worth on what I could do at work. And a short time after that a guy named Butch Weiss came along and I knew Butch just a little bit, because like I said, I'd only been in the area 15 months. Butch and I had worked together briefly, but I didn't know him, and he said to me, he had me over to his house and he said, you know what, Mike, if you ever have thoughts about or wanna start a business, I would love to do something with you. And this was weird because like, as I mentioned, I didn't really know Butch, but beyond that, he was 15 years older than I was, he was a very hard-working man with four children, a house, a wife, I mean, he had obligations and he had this conversation with me and he was basically willing to roll the dice on a partnership with me. And I guess I was dumbfounded by it at first, but then I was like, wow, well maybe I do have something that's worth something, you know, maybe somebody sees something in me that I wasn't seeing at the time, for sure. And ironically, Butch spent most of his life on the family farm and they had lost the farm probably five or six years, maybe a little bit longer before I had met him. And, you know, I remembered back to when I was sitting on that curb, when I had this notion that, I had this seed planted in me and here comes this farmer that I barely how to knew, how to fertilize it or water it or nourish that seed or whatever and it sprouted and Butch and I became partners and we started our first waste management company in 19 at the beginning, or end of 1992 when I was 26.

Michael: You know, the thing that comes to mind in that is, you know, we often have these ideas about who we're supposed to be, right? You're in this position, you're looking at life, you're going down this path of doing the thing that everyone says you're supposed to do. And what comes to mind is, you know, when I probably about the same age you made that decision of quitting. I was working for a fortune 10 company, right? Which is improbable considering my background, no high school diploma, no college education, it's almost impossible. And yet there, I was looking at life and going, I'm wearing fucking khakis, I hate this. And showing up every day for years, doing the things that everybody always told me to do. What was going through your head in those moments where you're just like, I can't believe I'm doing this?

Mike: So, working for that guy, I call him Don the Dick, that's my pet’s name for this guy. And you know, I just kept think thinking it was a 30-day period. Right. But I kept thinking to myself, I can prove to this guy that I'm am not an ally, you know, that I'm not a threat to him. And I just, you know, it wasn't like I saw him as the problem, it was like, I saw me as the problem for the first couple of weeks. Like, what am I doing wrong? And then ultimately, I think he taught me one of the best lessons in life. One, you know, always bet on yourself. Two, when you come come across someone who appears to be a big jerk, there's probably something going on in their life that's making them that way, but there's nothing I can do to solve that so, I just want to get away from that. It's like, they're actually doing me a favor by being that way because it's a good clue for me, like, okay, I need to get away from somebody as opposed to someone who's sort of a jerk behind your back Michael, but not it to your face. And so, it takes a little longer for you to figure that out in a lot of cases. So, I think it's meeting him and working with him has definitely helped me in those two things. And I mean, I owe the guy a debt of gratitude, if he hadn't been the way he was, maybe I'd still be working there and maybe I wouldn't have had the opportunity to work with Butch and work with hundreds of people. Since then, to build a couple of pretty significant companies that have that have fortunately done okay. I think there's a lot there, there's a lot with that guy.

Michael: Yeah. And I think about that a lot, man. I'm like, you know, if not, for some of these terrible people in my life, respectively I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be able to be the person I am. And I think, unfortunately, one of the things that happens is we get so tied into what these other people think we should be, that we forget that we can be us. I mean, you talked about, you know, you said you learned to bet on yourself and that's like, honestly, dude, the crux of this show that's what this is about. All of Think Unbroken as entirety, top to bottom, the books, the speaking podcast, like whatever, it's about giving people that permission to recognize, like, you can do this. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but like, you have the opportunity here. And my fear is so many people just get stuck they fail to realize how incredible it is once you are willing to cross that chasm. So, as you're in this, and I would imagine that must've just screwed with your head so badly, right?

Mike: So, while it was happening, you know, first the firing and then this, like I mentioned earlier, I felt like a loser, but I also had a lot of shame and I don't know why but I felt like, have you ever felt like this where you're walking around with these things going on in your head and you think that everyone around you knows what's going on in your head and is making a judgment about you because of what you know and how you are feeling. So, it's almost like, so I'm feeling this shame, I'm feeling like a loser and everywhere, I look, I'm seeing people, you know, look at me and I'm thinking they know. I'll tell you that took me a long time to get through and some days I'm not actually sure that I'm through it.

I think I'm pretty well through it, but I'm some days are a challenge, right? Cuz I can get up in my head about stuff and those two things have been, I'd say amplified by the fact that, you know, after I started the first business, we were a couple years in. I got a call from an FBI agent, Michael, and he wanted to talk to me about some of the activities that were happening at the company, the big company I was working at before I got fired and that was a holy crap moment. And that first phone call ended up to be like a six-year ordeal, you know, going through personally and professionally, you know, an FBI investigation, an indictment, and ultimately a conviction for things we were doing that weren't quite right at that former company. So here I had started my own business and I'm partnered with Butch and we're going along and I get this call and then man, the next six years of my life are what's gonna happen. What are people gonna think? All of these things that had nothing to do with what was happening now, you know, in the business. So, I always had those things in the back of my mind, and again, as I said, I kind of always thought that whomever I ran into knew what was in my mind and they were looking at me and going, you know, shaking their heads sort of thing.

Michael: So, it's fascinating and my thought, you know, being very deeply into this work and trying to figure out who I am and going through this whole process, it's like, dude, I don't know that there's a day that goes by where for millisecond, that idea about the past me doesn't pop up, right? That there isn't some sense of like the shame and the guilt and the judgment of self for the actions that I did. You know, 15 fucking years ago and it's like when I was a, a psycho and a monster and I look at it now and I go, yeah, but you know what? You can't be who you are today without that. And there's this feeling of this massive need that I have to remind myself to just like, let go.

Mike: But you know such an easy thing to say, like, you know, I am the summation of all of my experiences and so that's a good thing. For me, at least that's an easy thing to say, and I can even believe it sometimes and I'm talking in the past because now I think I believe it more often than I ever did, but man, that can be fleeting like I could be feeling good and I could be not thinking about it at all and then somebody says, something. Maybe completely innocent, but it reminds me fuck and I'm like, what do they know? You know? And really, it took me to the point where I wrote my book and I needed to explore that part of my story to get free from it.

Now I feel almost most of the time, a hundred percent free because I say, well, it's all out there. So yeah, I'm just gonna assume, you know, cuz it's out there and I'm not hiding or not that I was hiding, but it just I'm no longer wondering whether, you know, and whether you're making a judgment about me because it's out there and I've been able to get to that point where I say something like what you were saying, you know, I mean, things happened to me, a lot of things happen to me, right? I'm 56 years old, a lot of things have happened to me. Some of them I would love to have on a billboard and some of them, I don't really wanna have on a billboard, but they're me and there's lessons for me to learn from sharing them. And I think there's lessons for other people to learn from sharing them as well.

Michael: There's a lot of truth in that. One of the things that came to mind, I used to have this nightmare, it was this recurring nightmare that I was in this log cabin and I had to go to the grocery store with my mother and then Freddy Krueger came, you now, from nightmare and Elm Street and killed everyone except me. And I'm like screaming at the top of my lungs and dude, this nightmare used to haunt me. I mean, I must have had it every single day for 15 years like it was crippling. And one day I'm watching this movie and to the life of me, I can't remember the name of the movie, it drives me crazy. And he goes, you know, when you talk about your nightmares, they lose power. And I remember that being this really provocative moment of my life, this was probably seven or eight years ago. And thinking to myself, do you get your power back by speaking your truth? And part of it actually became a catalyst for like where I'm at today was just recognizing like, wait a second, maybe I don't have to keep this in, maybe I can share it. When you were in the process and you're like writing this book, you're going through this journey, you're sharing your truth like I recognize that for many people and I include myself in this, there's a catharsis in that, there's a healing in that, but there's also a bit of terror in that. Right. And so, talk about that journey, cuz I think it's really important and I think it's missed and like swept over in this space so often when we don't talk about what it was actually like.

Mike: Well, first thing I'll say is I didn't want to do it. I could have, and I was on the path to easily, I could have easily written a book that skipped all over that stuff. Like I have enough other things that people would have not missed it cuz they wouldn't have known it. That one particular experience had such a profound impact on me in a lot of different ways that I didn't think and I wanted to move past it. Right? In real life I had moved past it for sure, but in my mind, I had not moved past it and I wanted to move past it. And so, I actually, you know, started down one path with the book that would've not included that and I went down another that did, and it was a very difficult decision and I wondered not just when I was writing the drafts for it, but as we're getting closer and closer to putting a lock on the book, whether I had made the right decision and I didn't let anybody read it until the editor read it, like my family, my wife, I didn't let anybody read it cuz I thought if they read it, they might tell me not to do it. And I was already telling myself not to do it so I thought like if someone else told me not to do it, I might not do it. And what was interesting is when I did it with the editor did it, you know, the feedback I got from her was, well, this is thing, but I think there's something more here so she actually wanted me to go deeper and tell more of it than I was willing to tell. And not just with that story, but a few others, but with this one in particular that we're talking about and I was frightened by that but I did it and I think it, I think it made it better and it made me better too. It's weird cuz as I'm talking to you thinking about it, it's like man, there were a lot of opportunities to take what I call the easy route and the less painful route or at least the seemingly less painful route but I'm really happy that I went the way it did, you said, you know, if you talk about your nightmares, you take away their power or something like that. When you said that, I was like, man, that's how I should talk about this cuz that is exactly what happened. I wanted that power to be taken away and I wasn't strong enough to take it away without telling it, I guess.

Michael: That's an interesting thought. I've sat and contemplated this a lot. Right. You know, I look at my life, obviously, you know, my story we've connected before and everyone on this show knows my story. And it's like, the more I kept it secret, man, the more, it was just burning down everything around me. You know, in my first book I wrote this line, I was like, it was like standing inside of a house that I had set on fire, just constantly. And it wasn't until stepping into and just being like, man, fuck. All right, just do it right. It was like this weird sensation of like standing on the edge of the diving board going all right, I'm gonna go in. I'm gonna do this because if I don't, I don't know what else to do. And in some aspect, like being willing to even go to therapy and get coaching and step into this journey was like desperation cause like I was like, what else do you do from this point? And I love what you said about not showing it to your family and not asking their opinion because like the truth is they probably would've told you not to do. And I think that's a truth that we face so frequently in our lives is, you know, the more people's who opinion come into our lives, the more it muddies the water, we lose clarity, we lose traction, we lose the ability to figure out who we are through I mean, unfortunately like the truth about it is through the data we learned through making mistakes. And, you know, you had to go through that to be where you are today. When you think about you know that process and stepping into it was it just writing the book that became cathartic for you? Or were there other elements of this journey that helped like position you to step into where you are today?

Mike: Yeah, I think there definitely were other elements. One was time, you know, I had let 20 plus years of distance that you had mentioned 15, 20 plus years of distance between when it was when I call it, you know, finalized. And when I wrote about it, as I mentioned, I struggled with it during that whole time, but I also, I think, came to feel like it less and less like it could really hurt me if I shared it, so that was one.

Two, you know, I had a decent amount of success in business, and I had sold two businesses that I hadn't sold the second one yet, but I guess I had established a lot of credibility and I had a lot of trust in the bank with a lot of people, so to speak that I felt better about it now, because I didn't think that it would have adverse consequences to me or as adverses I thought it might, if I had shared it earlier. And I think the other thing is I had built a life, Michael, that it wasn't demonstrative of what if you just read about, you know, what me and the other people who were involved with me went through I'd build a life that was sort of contrary to what you would've thought if you read that. In other words, I had been very intentional about being the person who I really am.

And I think that made it a little easier to finally write about it too, because I thought people would understand, at least people who knew me and people who didn't know me would probably understand because it's a story that's likely to be well understood I guess, with all the context in the book and stuff.

Michael: You talked about, like building your life and having clarity on that. You know, I think one of the areas people get most often stuck is being just trapped in that experience of this must be who I am because I made a mistake. You know, people get trapped so often, and man, my one fuck up, this is who I am forever. How were you able to craft and create your life? Like what did that look like? Did you sit down and just be like, okay, cool, I totally screwed up, life's a freaking disaster. Let me see if I can fix this or was it like, where does the shift come is I guess where I'm getting at, because you know, when I think about these rock bottom moments, we get just so inundated with it.

Mike: Yeah, it's an interesting dichotomy because the whole time I was let's say struggling with this, there was no one on the outside who was giving me a reason to. But I thought everybody was thinking about it the same way I was, the fact was the real fact was nobody thought about it at all, you know, except for me, nobody was thinking about it at all. And so, I I think one of the biggest things was that, I made some poor choices as did my colleagues and we justified it and we talked ourselves into why it was okay and all of this stuff but when I really looked at it, even though I made those poor choices, I was still a good human being. If that makes sense, like, I was still a good human being. I remember a guy wrote something about me that stuck with me, you know, he said Mike's the kind of guy that I would trust all of my money and my whole family with.

And I was like, okay, that's a weird thing to say about somebody. If you just look at sort of that one event in my life, Michael, right? That's a weird thing for somebody to say, but when he said that, I thought, okay, so I have been doing a lot of the right things. The real me, who I am is shining through in a way that I was maybe questioning too much in my own head. I guess I finally came to a point where I said, I think there's something to learn from this story, as opposed to that I have something to hide from this story, it that makes sense?

Michael: That actually resonates a ton with me. Was there any aspect of like the word that the thought that came to mind as you were sharing that just now was, I wonder if he was scared when he was figuring out who he was.

Mike: Yeah. I was scared a lot. I was scared about what people would think of me. And then, you know, it's so weird because everybody that sort of knows anything now will say, don't care what people think of, you do your own thing, march to your own drummer and all that stuff. And really, I don't think many people can do that. I think people care what people think, it's how you get past caring about what people think that I think is the power, you know, not caring at all about what somebody thinks. First of all, I think a lot of people who say that are probably, you know, the most scared of what people think of them, but they're also maybe completely deaf tone to things they shouldn't be because other, what other people think it does have a bearing on you and sometimes it has a good bearing, it's the matrix that you're able to put it through and continue to move forward that I think is the most important and I had to develop that over a pretty long period of time. But I will say that it's, you know, I had this going on, but it wasn't like every day I was everyday crushed by it, that wasn't the case. I could go long periods of time and never think about it but then there'd be that one thing, like I'd read something or someone would say something or I would hear someone mention something and I would be like, oh crap. And then I was back down, you know, wallowing in it for a period of time so I could talk myself out of it or just have enough time pass between when I heard it. And then I was back, you know, just doing my thing, so it was like an, a chronic, not acute thing most of the time it would have acuteness every so often and that would prolong the chronic I think if that makes any sense.

Michael: Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And I think like, I tell people all the time, I do not care what people think about me but that is filtered through this understanding that I've come to recognize about the only way I believe that that works is when you can go and look at yourself in the mirror and be okay with the choices you've made. And I think where people so often get caught up and that's where I used to get caught up, cuz the only thing I ever cared about was what people thought about me. And when I discovered actually it's really about what are your values? What are your personal boundaries? What's your personal mission and motto? And when you can kind of like congeal those things all together, it actually helps you put up this incredible filter. But I agree with you, I think there are a lot of people running around saying I don't care about opinions of other people, and yet they're like burning their house down, i.e me 12, 13 years ago.

Mike: Yeah, that's a good point because clearly you think about what people you respect think about you. Like, that's like how we live, we're trying to, so clearly you think about that, if you think about nothing else, you definitely think about that. Like, I've heard you talk about, Grant Cardone and some others, and I'm just using his name just cuz I remember it but I'm pretty sure you care, how he thinks about you, your business partners, you care, how they think about you, your family, you care how your family thinks about you or at least you do if you're enlightened enough to know that you're imperfect, right? And sometimes they're going to think things and share things about you that you don't see that are relevant and appropriate.

Michael: Yeah. And you should shut up and listen when that happens, you know? And I think you're look, dude, I think you're spot on because you know, I do, I care tremendously about the opinions of the people who I have invested my time, effort, energy, and money into. Right. Strangers on the street who like, I hate your tattoos or your nose ring or the gold chain where I'm like, I could care fucking less does not matter to me. You know, I was at Tony Robbins event when I had taken my little brothers back in November and one of them pointed out something followed, then proceeded by the partner I was with and they were like, dude, you're like fathering hovering over them and I was like, holy fuck, you're right. Why? Well, because I had to protect them to the best of my ability as a kid, and I was like, oh shit, wait a second, they're like fucking 30 years old they can take care of themselves. And it was like, if I would not have had the willingness to your term enlight to be enlightened, to understand who I am, I would've just thrown that to the side, but instead, because I was able to address it, I actually feel like our relationships are stronger than they've ever been before because I shut the fuck up.

Mike: Good point. Nice story.

Michael: Mike as you're going and you look at your life and you look at the transformation that you've been able to make and really kind of the impact you've been able to have on people's lives, especially where did this place of stepping into being of service to people come from? You know, I think people don't truly understand how incredibly difficult something like having a podcast is, having hundreds of episodes, writing books, you know, there thing that we have to step into as creators. What’s that journey like for you now that you're on the other side of this?

Mike: It's weird. So, this probably won't surprise you, but you know, dealing with what I told you about before made me, and I was always a shy, introverted, private person and doing dealing with working my way through those things made me even more so. Like I feel like most of the time I was a wonderful team member, a good employer, I cared about people, I was able to inspire people to a mission, you know, I think I had a good ability to connect with people, but only I was only willing to share so much of me so I could do the company thing. Fine. I could do, you know, all the mission stuff, the development stuff, the giving people second, third, and fourth chances, I could do all of that really well, but inside I was only gonna let you get to a certain point.

And after I sold my first business in 2015, Michael, as looking at my life and I was looking goals that I had set that I had never accomplished. And a few of the goals just to generalize them were about me expressing myself in a way that I hadn't either, I mean, I guess the kind thing to say is that I hadn't had the time to do, but the real thing to say is maybe that I hadn't had the courage to do or the confidence to do. And the first thing I started doing was writing, writing a blog and I was obsessing over these blogs and you'd think well to write a 500-word blog post, that's easy to take you 15 minutes or so and it probably would. But me, it would take 15 minutes to write a draft. And then I would obsess over the draft for a couple hours, you know, and then I thought, well, nobody even cares. You know, nobody can tell the difference between the draft and what I finally put out and I thought this is in my head of course, I don't really know what people thought, but as I was doing that I started listening to podcasts, which I had never done prior to like 2017. And I never even heard of a podcast, which I don't know what that makes me sound like, but I hadn't heard of a podcast by then and I started listening and I thought, huh, well, this is like maybe right in my sweet spot because it's an opportunity, you know, I've always been curious, I've always been very comfortable and good having one on one conversations with people. It's when I get outside of that, that I start to feel a little bit weird. Now, I was still very private when I started the podcast, but I thought, well, that's okay because I'm gonna be exploring my curiosity with someone else. And so, it doesn't really matter what I'm comfortable sharing, but as I got into it and I started having these great conversations with other people, it started to make me think, well, boy, if they're willing to come on and let me explore their story, you know, I need to give a little something to here because otherwise it's like an interview instead of a conversation. And I have conversations with people I don't consider what I do to be an interview. And I'd say that, you know, going down that path for a couple now, you know, almost 300 episodes and getting that book out and also having the freedom to meet and explore so many people both inside the podcast and out, because I wasn't tied day to day to running this business, really helped me to get my arms around the fact that one, whatever my experiences are and I've like every person I've had a ton of them, some of them could be helpful to other people. Why sit on all of that, why lock that sort of value up inside of me? Why not share it. And then ultimately when I wrote the book that I don't know, it just sorts of like tore down the dam at that point where I was like, okay, I'm just gonna stop backing up stuff, I'm gonna take this sort of artificial wall out and I'm just gonna let people know who I am. I mean, that can come off, like who cares, who you are. Right? But not for me, but for them, like, you know, my podcast, my mission there is to inspire and activate the greatness that's inside of everyone listening. And I really believe that if my guest is sharing and I'm sharing that encourages people listening to share and it also encourages them to move past obstacles in their life because they look at me or they look at the guests and they go, well, geez, they look at you and they go look at this guy, you know, he had to steal water from his neighbor, right? I mean, and look where he is now, if that kind of value, and if that kinda sharing provides value to other people, then I'm gonna do more of it.

Now, if you just meet me somewhere, you know, I'm not gonna be like, do you have a half hour? Let me tell you all my story, I don't do that but if in these kinds of situations, I feel like that's what we're here for is to provide as much value as we can to people and if my stories and experiences do that, then I want to that.

Michael: Yeah. And they matter, you know, someone said recently, you never know who's paying attention. And I think that's such a beautiful part of this human experience that we get have together. Mike, this conversation's been incredible, my friend, before I ask you my last question, can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Mike: Yes. The best place to find me and everything about me, my podcast, my book, my coaching, just everything I do, my investing is at, my website, which is my name, mikemalatesta.com

Michael: Brilliant. And of course, we'll put the link in the show notes for the Unbroken Nation. Mike, my friend, my last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Mike: I love the question because to me being unbroken means that I am a human being like everybody else. And I don't have something that I need hide and I also don't have something that makes me any better than anyone else. What I have is me and what I can offer is me. So just having those two things makes me free. Like, I feel like I'm completely free and I'm also by doing the work that I do, I'm hoping that I can free other people and to me, being free is being unbroken.

Michael: Brilliantly said my friend. Thank you so much for being here. Unbroken Nation. Thank you so much for listening.

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