Expert Strategies for Wealth, Healing Trauma, and Personal Excellence

How to Overcome Self Doubt as a Man with Angel Carmona

Michael: And I created sustainability and that's obviously one of the cornerstones, but what kind of discipline do men need to have about wealth? And actually also, can you define wealth?

Angel: Wealth is an acronym. It stands for whatever allows for long term happiness. So yeah, wealth is being able to do what you want when you want with whoever you want to do it with. Tony Robbins said that. And when it comes to discipline and health, here's what I'm gonna tell you. If you don't tell your money where to go, you will soon wonder where it went. So you have to be disciplined about telling your money where to go before it comes. And I learned that during the pandemic with Grant Cardone, he was like, guys, everybody's going to try to live off this, their savings is if you have money in your savings account, you're going to get operate from fear. He was like, you need to invest it all and, keep yourself at zero. So that was a discipline that I applied and it completely transformed my life and multiply my income by 3 by 4 by 5 year after year. And one thing I'm going to tell guys is to be disciplined about investing in yourself, in your personal growth, personal development, learning a high value skill. That is the only way that you are a high value man. If you add value to the marketplace, if you are a valuable person, the universe has no choice but to pay you more money. So invest, starting with self, stop looking for all these shortcuts or what can flip your money, invest in yourself, whether you want to learn a high paying skill to trade, whether it's communication, whether it's podcasting, whether it's whatever, trading, writing, learn a high paying skill and basically You gotta invest in yourself in order to do that. And it takes discipline not to waste money on distractions, right there. There's a quote that I love that says there's a thin line between enjoying your youth and messing up your future. So be dislike, I never clubs spent money on clubs and strip clubs, and I never did any of that because of the discipline, right? Money is valuable if you invested. 

Michael: I just, I had this thought literally in this moment, or I just thought to myself, if Angel was in my life when I was 20, my life in my twenties would have been very different because I'm the opposite of you because I probably, bro, I was about the Jays, the bottles, the cars, the limos, the 500 dinners, the flex in the diamond earrings, the 2,000 chains. And look I'd figured out corporate America. And so by the time I was 25, I'd made a million dollars working cells for a fortune 10 company, which is almost impossible. Nobody I knew at my age was making that money. And dude, I was out here just getting it like focused on the wrong things, focused on girls and clubs and showing off. And I will tell you this, the reason that I brought that up is because the relationships that men have with other men are going to dictate their future. When I look at the community of guys that I'm with now, we just had a VIP dinner here in Las Vegas, and I put together this group of these, eight unbelievable men. They all make multiple six figures, if not millions of year, they're all in shape, they all have great relationships. They all have good friendships, we push each other. Now, are we guys, do we talk about dumb shit? Yeah, for sure, we do, ‘cause we're guys and we're not that smart, but we're like fucking rough. But when I look at these men, angel, the one thing that I know to be true is there's no way in hell that a 25 year old version of the man that I used to be would ever even get in that room. The only way I got there was by getting in the other rooms. How did we meet? I paid thousands of dollars for that event too, bro. How did I get there? I paid thousands of dollars for the event before that. How'd I get there? I started all of this whole journey started with a 50 investment in myself, I saw a Brendan Burchard course, I was 27 or 28. I was dead broke. I had spent all my money ‘cause I didn't have angel in my life, I don't know what you're doing, man, I don't know where you were, but I nobody smacked me in the fucking head and said, Hey man, maybe you need to spend your money on you and not on girls, and so I take this course, I'm fit angel. Listen to me, 50,000 in debt. When I took that course, I didn't even have 50 dollars. And I look at my life now, and I know one thing to be true over everything. Your friends will show you your future. How important is it to be around men of value, if you want to be a man of value?

Angel: man, 1000 percent man. And, for the people listening, I don't want everyone. I was always disciplined, right? Especially with the not smoking and not drinking, but I want you guys to know a little bit more about my past, even though I was disciplined, I was not doing personal growth and development in my teens and in my early twenties, which led to me surrounding myself with other guys who were also listening to gangster rap music. And we ended up forming a crew that was influenced by these gangster movies. And we were trying to get money by any means necessary. And these guys, we ended up selling drugs together and robbing together just to get money to buy clothes and impress women. I remember being in high school, right? Before I started doing all of that, I was working three jobs and I was I remember I had 2,000 worth of fitted caps in high school and I had all these Jordans, right? ‘Cause that's what I thought was valuable today. I don't even wear Jordans cause they're too cheap for my feet. It's like my dude, you get what I'm saying? But that was my association, the law of association is everything. And guess what? Elevation requires separation, there's power in proximity. When I got in the right rooms and slowly but surely I was intentional and disciplined enough about changing my associations, my entire life changed. The brokest person in my inner circle makes six figures.

Confronting Your Childhood Trauma to Become Unbroken with Brett Kaufman

Michael: But what I want to try to understand is where does the turning point start to take place? ‘Cause there's so many people who, man, even though they might be going to therapy or they're coaching or they listen to this podcast. They're still repeating so many of the behaviors that they learned from their parents and it's fucking their life. Sub, how do you navigate that? 

Brett: It's a great question. Somebody said, and I don't really know who to attribute this to, but it was attributed to Barack Obama who said, somebody said but that men spend most of their lives either trying to prove their fathers wrong or doing the opposite of what they saw. I suppose there's a third option, which is you just repeat it. I think in my case I never was repeating the behavior of my dad exactly. But I was like a better version of him in some ways, if I'm really being honest and maybe I'm hard on myself, but that's how I saw myself more of an acceptable version of him. So I wasn't cheating on my wife, but I was using porn or I wasn't beating my kids, but I was, yelling at him. And what I'll just, this isn't the answering your question, but somebody, my, my former therapist who passed away told me once and I think it's a really important thing for people to know. And maybe it help will help be helpful to answer your question in how you get out of that pattern. But somebody once told me it's not important that you get it right beginning to end as a parent, as a father, you don't have to be perfect beginning to end. In fact, it's even more powerful if your kids see you change. That if they see that you're imperfect, if they see that you were somebody that you didn't like, and you changed and became somebody that you do that message is way more important for people, for kids, because they too are going to have to figure shit out. They too are not going to be perfect. Nobody is. And so if they can see that you also, therefore parent, their role model, they're not perfect and they changed. That is a powerful experience for them. More impactful but really, how did I do that? How did I do that? I have always been somebody who naturally gravitated to self-help. When I was eight years old, my mom took my sister and I to therapy, my sister, came out crying, said, I'm never doing that again. I came out and said, when can I go back? And I've been in therapy on and off, mostly on my entire life. I've been in therapy my entire adult life, used to listen to Wayne Dyer books on tape when I was in high school. I've just loved this shit and ‘cause it helps me, I feel better when I do it. And now, I have like bolt down disciplines, routines with all the things that helped me because, cause I feel that. I get the benefit of that, I love it because it works. And I just have done the work and keep doing the work and I see it working. And so that's how I've made the change over a long period of time, doing a lot of little things on top of each other over and over again, over a period of time is how change happens. 

Michael: Yeah, it definitely is. And I wrote this down. It's more powerful. If your kids see you change, dude, that's that hits home for me in a really deep way, because it's like, you have to be willing to transform like this journey. Here's what I think about all the time. Nobody's going to come and knock on your door, Brett and be like, Hey, dude, you're fucking up everything in your life right now. You might want to consider doing something different. Generally, it's wow, I'm taking notice. I have awareness that something in my life is off. I need to do something about it. And those around you will bear witness, whether they're your children or your partner or friends or family or coworkers, people will bear witness to that. Now what's interesting is often, and I don't know if this was your experience or not, but often people will want you to stay the same. They like the old version of you. They liked that version of you that was partying and doing drugs and being a maniac because that's how they know you, that's their connection. And then you start to shift and it becomes different. One of the things I think about a lot though, and that's not the path I want to go. Cause I think I've probably gone down that path to death, but one of the things that I'm really curious about having now been in a relationship for 25 years, which is unbelievable. Congratulations. How do you navigate change? For yourself while you're in a relationship, like what does that dynamic look like? Because I think that a lot of people get. Into this space of change, their partner doesn't support them. They're now becoming that different person. Things are strange for a period of time. Can you talk about that? I think it'd be really helpful one for me, but also for people listening.

Brett: Sure. Yeah. It's great question. I think that it's an important question and I don't. I want to say what worked for me, what's right for me is right for other people, because I really believe that there's a lot of different ways to be in relationship. And there's a lot of different ways that people are doing things now that, maybe work for them. Maybe they're better. I don't know. I think, we have this this sort of societal norm about, marriage that isn't really working for the most part. If you look at the stats, half of them are ending in divorce and there's some large portion of the other half that aren't happy. So the model isn't Certainly working for everybody. But here's what, I have chosen and has worked for me. And you're right, my, my wife married me under one assumption, which was that I was that person. And then somewhere along the way, along the line I changed and became someone else. And that was an adjustment. But what I think mattered for us. And still matters for us is there was some real shared values and beliefs and commonality at our core.

How to Overcome Alcoholism Infidelity and Societal Pressures with Michael Chu

Michael Unbroken: I think it's really important. There's this really interesting juxtaposition of this ideal that as men, we show our power, our dominance, our ability to conquer by having, drones of women and at the other side of it completely lacking any and all intimacy and yet continually chasing it by trying to fill it with more women. And it is one of those things that becomes this Ouroboros. It is a self-eating, self-maintaining system where it's I feel less about myself. I need more. I feel less about myself. I need more. And the next thing, and this was my experience, I was in a relationship with, and this woman, obviously I've apologized to her and I've done my work. And I don't think, I don't even know if I'm owed forgiveness for this necessarily, but a six year relationship with this person and I must have cheated on her a hundred times and every single time what it was and look, and you can be like, Oh, you were 25. It's not that big of a deal and bullshit bullshit. But what it was, and especially now as a man looking back at this 15 years ago, almost, and 14 years ago and sitting in and looking at it, dude, I was just trying to fill that gap of having no mother, of having no father, of being invisible. And I would take any person at any time under any capacity until I came. And then on the backside, I'd feel like shit.

Michael Chu: I relate to, yeah I love the part you said until I came and then I felt like shit. Because of that pursuit, whether it was through strip clubs, whether it was through paying for sex, whether it was seeking out sex, but you said some things that were interesting of a lot of women, but also you, I think you use the word dominance in there somewhere. I think for me growing up as an Asian and an all Caucasian area, I remember like one of the most shameful moments of my childhood with, there's a bunch of guy friends over my house. We're having a sleepover and eight and 10 year old boys do, they start learning their own bodies. And I remember they were, we were comparing penis sizes. And one kid was like, my penis goes past like his belly button or like whatever. And I remember feeling like the shame, like mine doesn't go right that far, but I'm pointing that out. It's still a little vulnerable. I feel like for me to even, I just got clear. I just remembered that story this January, but what that, did inside of me is like, it created this if I can't get women, so to speak through just who I am, because again, minority, I remember in childhood as well when kids are all pairing each other up there, with this guy's dating, this girl, this guy's dating, all of like our friend circles, they decided that I was going to pair up with this one other girl who was the one other Asian girl in the school, like that's her girlfriend, like they're assigning her for me. She happened to be. Adopted by a Caucasian family, but yet that's who you're supposed to date. So it felt like you created this deep insecurity that like, if I can't get women for who I am, then I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to dominate. I'm like, just became this, like you mentioned like just this unhealthy relationship lacking intimacy, but yet, yeah, it looks like you're getting all right. I realized that the last thing I want to say to that is that moment, that point you said until I came and then I felt like shit, anytime I would pursue validation through women like that, I remember for the next 12, 24, 48, 72 hours after getting it in that nature, just like walking around with so much like shame and guilt in one sense, but then like right afterwards needing it again, 72 hours later. And it was such an unhealthy back and forth internally trying to battle that because it was so unhealed here. 

Michael Unbroken: How did you, tell me about marriage? How old were you when you got married and why did you get married? 

Michael Chu: I started laughing the minute you said that you said, tell me about marriage because I'll answer your actual question. Somatic therapist about my relationship with marriage. Do I actually ever want to get married again? And if I was to ever get married or propose, I promised myself and I promised my partner that I would only ever propose if it felt like it was in complete integrity and complete alignment, but not driven by any external pressure or forces, the reason I started to laugh somatic therapist practice where I was getting into my body and the coach, the therapist said, okay, now that in your body. What's the first thing that comes to your heart and mind when you hear the word marriage? And immediately I blurted out a black fucking hole.

Mindfulness for Success with Dr. Pete

Michael: If I'm at the starting. If I'm at the starting point, and I'm pretty unsure about the direction in general, where do I begin formulating these ideas about values?

Dr. Pete: You just take one step. That's the thing. So being at the starting line is the greatest place to be. One of the concepts we have in mindfulness is beginner's mind. So even if you're super satisfied, successful and in whatever area of your life and career, personal, all that stuff there's still a beginner's mind.

Do it as if it's the first time you're doing it. But to start with the value, there's lots of inventories out there. You could probably just Google values inventory. Colleague of mine that I work very closely with who developed this back in the eighties. There's the eight dimensions of wellness, Peggy Swarbrick, so these are things that are out there. There's lots of tools. That's the thing, like you could Google and get anything. And so just start with a inventory, my website, my clinical website has a bunch of inventories on them for people just to, it's PDF just to check out and see, and you just go through and see Hey, what, one of the, one of the inventories has, you say, like, how happy are with your Romantic value. How important is it? And how satisfied are you? Because, or parenting, how important, how satisfied, because somebody might not have any children but they might be totally satisfied with that. And even though society tells them that they should have, which is a cognitive distortion should have children, it's not within their value system. And so if you can get a sense of that then really you're not as impacted by these, societal kind of stressors that come in and really mess with us.

Michael: And when you do that, are there mistakes or pitfalls that you see people fall into?

Dr. Pete: Yeah, and Ellis, you would say just you should all over yourself. That's not explicit. You should all over yourself. Because the shoulds, I should be married. I should have kids. I should have a good job. I should have a full-time job. I should, whatever it is, these might be expectations, but are they your, value-based expectations? And that's what we look at. So those are the pitfalls usually. So sometimes people will fill it out. And they'll come back and they have the perfect, it's all clean and everything's filled out in a really nice way and it's all the proper responses and then I'll push a little bit and I'm like that's probably what you felt like you were supposed to like family, for example, right? Like everyone feels like family is supposed to be like the highest rated of importance. And again, maybe it is but is it in everyone's case? It's not and that's okay. But I think a lot of people feel like this pressure that it's supposed to be, or shame that it's not.

Michael: and I think that pressure and shame leads down this road of massive stress. It's something I've even faced, when I was first building this career in this business, I had all these notions and ideas of like, how do you really be the number one trauma coach in the world? How do you write the best book and have the best podcast and stand above the rest and do all these things? And the press dude, the fucking pressure I put on myself was crippling 200 days a year on an airplane, speaking at all these events, traveling the country in the world, just going. And then I realized that I was like, unbelievably unhappy. And in fact, I almost shut the business down last year. I ended up calling one of my best friends cause as a high performer, and this is where I'm going with this, but as a high performer, man, we, we go places that are dark, not necessarily in the best way. And I was pushing and pushing. And I call my best friend and I say, I think I'm going to close think unbroken. And he's I think you just need a vacation and a vacation wasn't enough because it's actually burned out, right? And that's a thing that I did not think that existed because I was in my values. I was doing the thing. I was going hard. I was helping all these people. Then I realized like a high performance also requires rest and recovery, right? You talked about this sweet spot. That I am still in the phase of like on the tell end of getting back to the full strength and level that I was at, how as high performers, how do we get into the sweet spot and does being in the sweet spot help avoid burnout?

Dr. Pete: Yeah, a hundred percent it does. So I, and in social science, behavioral science, we don't say much. Anything is a hundred percent. We don't like to speak in absolutes, but I would say a hundred percent the sweet spot does prevent burnout. That's one of the hardest. Compromise resolutions, if you will, for high performers because they feel like they have to grind and grit, so full circle moment, how we started talking about this and it's not until you can let go and say, I need to check out, I need one of the things I thought about Michael, as you're talking was like psychological immunity. Yeah, 200 days on the plane, sitting with other people's traumas, all this stuff. What am I doing to protect my own psychological, health and wellbeing. So that's the psychological, immunity that you really want to make sure that we're protecting around this because, we have depending spiritual beliefs, we have this one life to live. And so we want to get the most out of it, hopefully. And especially in high performing, you want to do what you can. And that's one of the things where like I have some of these finance folks with lots of money in the bank, but they're miserable. So it's cool. What's that doing for you? Okay. It's, does it make you like, how good is that? Maybe you can't even enjoy it. You can't take it. So the sweet spot is probably the most important thing, for one for these high performers to establish. And it sounds like you're still even just finding it, which is beautiful, right? ‘Cause it's not, there's not a one size fits all. And it's not like you find it and you're done. It's you find it, it moves. You got to play around with it a little bit really see. But I'm glad that your friend told you just to take that vacation.