How Men Can Overcome Isolation, Depression, and Victimhood | with Vincent Infante

Michael: What is up brothers. Welcome to another episode of unbroken man. I'm joined by my homie, Vincent and Fonte brother. How are you? Welcome to the show.

Vincent: What's up, Mike? How are you, dude?

Michael: I'm so good. You and I connected through just the internets and the way that this goes when you have the really what I think about is like the energy, like we have a similar energy and attracts and as you're sitting here, for those of you who aren't watching this on YouTube or streaming Ben has on Live Lucky hat, Tony Robbins hat, one of, one of my mentors, one of the guys that I've looked up to a lot in the world and your energy is one that, that I find to be very palatable and more so when I sat and I thought I was like really assessing the men that I wanted to have on this podcast, I was asking myself like, who are the men that I look up to in the world? Who are the men that when I see them out being who they are, I feel inspired because of who they are as husbands or fathers or leaders or entrepreneurs or healers and brother, you're one of those men. So thank you for being here and thank you for being a part of this.

Vincent: Thanks, man. That's really touching and I appreciate that because I've considered you a friend since we met and I always look forward to hearing from you and hopping on a call and just being able to connect and chat and doesn't have to be about anything in particular. I'm just, I genuinely just enjoy being a part of your life. So thank you for being a part of mine. Thinking so highly of me.

Michael: Yeah, of course, man, your journey is fascinating and we live in this really interesting time where Mental health is at the forefront and yet men still struggle with it more probably now than ever Men are more isolated than they've ever been having less sex than they've ever had, suicide rates are higher ever than any time in history as the number one leading cause of death between 18 to 34 years old. We live in a time where it's go and do the work, but I don't think it's really happening. And then you have the backside of it where being a man is under scrutiny. It's almost dangerous to walk down the street if you have a dick and we live. And it's but yet there's guys like you. who are still persevering and your journey is phenomenal and very spectacular because for 13 years you've been a therapist. You've worked with every walk of life. You've worked and struggled through anxiety, depression, panic, suicidal ideations. You name it, you have seen it. You are in the war. Talk to me about what you think is happening right now in men's mental health. And what we need to do.

Vincent: I think what's happening in men's mental health is that men are being told to speak and then at the same time being told to shut up. And I think a lot of men are actually just confused in general. About everything. About what it means to be a man. What it means to be a man in today's society. What it looks like to actually speak, right? Because I've seen this so many times as people say, Oh say how you feel. And then a man might say how he feels. And then all of a sudden you see the woman maybe lose some respect for him or you might see him say something. And then people like, shut up, you're a man, you have no input or shut up. And then obviously, the more adjectives that come in, shut up, you're a straight white man, you get no input on this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so Men are consistently being shut down and shot down every time they try to have a discussion, have a conversation. If they do something unintentionally, there's no grace. It's more oh, there you go, toxic masculinity. It's what if the guy just wasn't aware? And now it's like, why would he want to try and understand when you're already shaming him? And so there is a definite heaviness or a very interesting Dynamic going on in today's society of what it is to actually be a man. How do you show up powerfully? How do you step into your divine masculinity? And I always hate the term toxic masculinity because I think it's bullshit. I don't think there is toxic masculinity, but conversely, I don't think there's toxic feminine. I think that there's underdeveloped men underdeveloped women. And that's where the toxic. Quotes come in, but the reality is masculine and feminine. They are both divine. They're both these elements that we all should strive to have and improve upon and step into our best and fullest version of that. And so every time we try to destroy or attack a masculine or feminine, I think what happens is it takes more and more away from the people trying to step into that because now you're confused. It's but Is masculinity toxic, or is it divine? And it's no, it's always divine. It's always divine. It's just, there's guys out there that maybe are men children, or they're just straight up assholes, or perhaps they're just unaware. There's so many different things it could be, but it's never about toxicity.

Michael: Yeah, I agree just this morning. I want to read this because I wrote this morning And I think it really hits home on what you just said and I want your opinion on it. I wrote Some of you guys in your 20s, 30s, and 40s, act like little boys and not men You need to do work and get your shit together. You're making excuses because of your past, but you are the one screwing up your life. You need to grow up, go to therapy, get a coach, get in the gym, learn to dress, put down the controller, and make a decision to be greater than you have allowed yourself to be. It's no one's fault that you suffered in boyhood and you didn't have what you needed, but you have to make a new choice. You should be embarrassed. This is where I'm going to get canceled. You shouldn't be embarrassed of your decisions and the actions you have taken to this point. And people will say I'm shaming people. Maybe you should be ashamed. When I was 350 pounds, smoking two packs a day and cheating on my girlfriend, I was embarrassed. And that pulled me out because it was true. And guess what? The truth will set you free. Do not deny the power of your self accountability. Do not deny your manhood. Do not deny your dreams.

Vincent: Man, there's definitely some good stuff in there. There's one piece or there's a few things actually to address. One is the idea of shame. I hate the fact that society has gotten to this place where it's like, Oh, you shouldn't shame anyone. It's no, you need to feel shame. You know why you feel shame because you recognize what you're doing is wrong and unacceptable and you should feel bad about that. Like you need that because if you don't have that, it's going to be very hard for you to start correcting behaviors and changing what you're doing. Number two is there's a level of accountability in the shame. It's if you could feel ashamed, it means that you understand that there's this thing that's wrong. So how are you going to be accountable? How are you going to analyze where you're at and accept that, own that and then start shifting that? And the other piece that I wanted to bring up is you're looking at with men in this specific speech that you just gave there, which I think is great, is a lot of these guys are just they're not seeking productivity. Men feel fulfilled when they have purpose. Purpose comes from productivity and also they feed into each other. It's like this loop that will just keep going and going. A lot of the times in society, especially today, everybody's pushing. It's like happiness. What the hell, how do you get, or more importantly, how do you create happiness because everybody's do what makes you happy? Go be happy. Strive for happiness. But nobody actually puts the what is happiness and especially for men because our brain runs really well on dopamine, which is the achievement drug. Which comes from task completion or getting something done that might have been difficult. Happiness is sustained through productivity. When you are productive, you ultimately feel better. So you have these guys out here that are eating like crap, they're skipping the gym, they're making excuses, they're not trying to do better. Of course they're gonna be miserable, but society's saying that's okay. It's don't worry, you can binge games all you want. Don't worry, you should have fast food. It's on every damn corner anyway. Skip the gym if you don't feel like going. Society is pushing this narrative of you just need to feel and step into every feeling. But what I've come to learn, even through my past and my experience, is that feelings aren't facts. They're just indicators. So if they're just indicators, and they're not facts, why are we treating them as such? Why is it that every time I feel something, I should treat it as a fact? I don't feel like going to the gym. That's factual. Stay home. Be lazy. How about You don't feel like going to the gym. That's fine. Build up the muscle to overcome, to be stronger, to discipline, to persevere. And that's when you start actually finding purpose. That's when you start feeling happy. That's when you start creating progress and we need to strive to embrace strength and discipline again, because we are not doing that very well as a society.

Michael: No, we're not. And you're seeing the downfall of it and relationships and marriages in the homestead in the amount of money that men are making. This is the first time. Do you know this? This is the first time ever in the history of ever that men will under earn their fathers.

Vincent: Wow.

Michael: It's never happened before. First time in modern history that it'll happen. And, I interviewed Anna Lamke who wrote a book called dopamine nation. She's a research fellowship out at Stanford. Amazing researcher and scientist and our phones, this dopamine hit the video games, the porn, the movies, the Netflix, the tech. And it is destroying us. Now, let's be clear. Look, I'll be honest. Like I don't ever hide anything, especially in this context. We were just talking about video games before we recorded when I was sick. I was like dead. And I played a video game. I put. 40 hours in, in a week. Like I went to work, bro, but that was a different occasion. I was not functional. I could not record a podcast. I cleared my whole schedule. I had a fever. I went to the doctor twice, and it's there's always an exception to the rule. And I don't want to sit here and Vin. I don't want to sit here, Vin, and tell people, tell men, especially you should feel guilty about the thing that you get joy out of. But what, but I think you and I, what we're saying is very similar. It's if you look at your life and your life sucks, maybe it's not so bad that you feel a little bit of shame about it. And I think that what you said, and here's the thing too, I'm a coach. You're a therapist coach. You've been in this game for 13 years. I'm going on a decade. You have the college degree. You have all the accolades. I can see them behind you. I got the street knowledge and the half a million dollars invested, right? And we're both telling you the same thing from two different perspectives. And I'm going to guess if you're anything like me, this has been learned for you. So what has been your journey to you, discipline to self accountability to dealing with the shame and the bullshit that you know you need to take care of.

Vincent: Man, there, there has been so much, right? And let's not leave out, because I often forget this myself, is I was also a former firefighter for FDNY for at least a year, did it during COVID and the protests. And there's so many times in my life, and I actually saw a recurring theme, is that when I took a step back and just looked at my life, it has consistently been shifting. And having to adjust usually as things were impressed upon me or if I decided to do something following through despite how I felt because I think these are extremely important and these are the things that we overlooked so often. So when I was younger, I was bullied heavily. The things in movies thrown down steps thrown into trash cans pants by my middle school crush in the schoolyard. There, there was no end to the ways that I was, I don't know, tormented, in my school years, always being the outcast. And so I lived in victimhood. And it's interesting, right? I am what am I now? I'm 30. Oh jeez, I forget my age. I think I'm 32. I want to say I'm 32 going on 33 and I lived in a state of victimhood for pretty much my entire life until I was 23. So I actually. To this day, it hasn't shifted sides yet. I have still lived longer as a victim than I have as somebody who's been empowered. And I think even that, I'm still fresh out of the victimhood, so I can easily explain a lot of these things to people, is, my whole life has been living in victimhood, letting life and circumstance drag me through. Everything feeling like I had no control that everything was everybody else's fault that I couldn't be happy because I had a bully or I couldn't be excited about life because I don't know. Games were the only source of happiness I had. And if I wasn't gaming, I wasn't going to be happy yet. There wasn't any ways I was trying to improve myself, etcetera. Over this span of time from whenever until 23, and when I say whenever, let's just say kindergarten, from this time of 0 to 23, I was basically sitting here as somebody who felt completely helpless to change circumstances or their life. I had to learn that all of your power is already within you. It's always been there. Whether you've chosen to give it away or not, it's always there. And so you have to come to these understandings and these realizations, and I study a lot about psychology. I actually have also, and this is a big one that I always recommend, is I studied a lot about stoicism, and I started studying about coaching, much like how you love Tony Robbins. I was inspired by Tony Robbins. He's the whole reason I quit being a traditional therapist. He's the guy that I looked up to start looking at how can I support people in a better way. And so even as I was navigating those difficulties and I eventually got into the space where now I felt empowered at about 23 years old, I still had to figure out what's the right profession for me? Let me keep trying things. Let me keep going at it. Am I? I had three careers in three years. I was a therapist, then I became a firefighter, then I quit firefighting, went straight into entrepreneurship. And so I look at it as your ability to pivot and navigate adversity and circumstance and just consistently be fluid and dynamic and change with the flow of the river is what can ultimately help you get through life because that's what it's always going to be. The river is going to flow. You have to just decide if you want to fight against the flow or if you're willing to embrace it, go with it.

Michael: Yeah, and the hard part is you're the one driving the boat. Oh, yeah, and so and look I don't want to take victimhood away from people people know my story mom drug addict homeless as a kid Blah, blah, all the things right and it's that victimhood served a purpose.

It truly did and it's embarrassing to admit it But it was the cornerstone to my sex addiction. It was the cornerstone to my obesity It was the cornerstone to all of the markers that have created and shaped who I am today I had to go through dude. I had to go through that suffering Of course you had to go through that suffering the difficult part in it though is like it does strip you, right? It does strip you down being bullied. I dude I was bullied so much We were the poorest kids in the poorest neighborhood at the poorest school I remember one time I got busted wearing another kid's coat that I found in the lost and found and just being like Oh my god, this is the most embarrassing moment of my entire life. I was probably like in sixth grade Fairly certain it was middle school. Yeah, and I looked at you know As I've been in this journey now coaching and leading men plus the other thousands of people over the course of this decade I was looking back and I was trying to assess something and it's a very simple question I was like, how did I learn how to become a man? And if I go and look at childhood My measures for what it meant to be a man were action movies james Bond Top Gun basically anything that Bruce Willis was in the nineties. And then rappers and rock stars and none of those people are real. Sure. You could look at it and go, Kanye's this guy or Jay Z's this guy, but what they propose and promote is bitches and money. And Vin, do you know what I did? I got real good at getting bitches and money. There you go. I'm not being defamatory towards women, I'm just, it's real, I'm just calling it what it is. And I look back and I was like, I don't have a dad, never met him, stepdad is a monster, a fucking coward beating up his stepkids cause he has no balls cause he's a fucking weak man. And I was raised almost entirely by women. And so I sat in this deep feminine energy for a long time, scared, just terrified of my power, my strength, what it means to show up. And so the thing I've been trying to get to in this equation is like, how does one learn how to become a man? Then what was, obviously we talked about the bullying, which is like a big fucking deal. That shapes you so much. And I don't think people understand it, but it makes you a little resilient. I don't necessarily always hate that you get a little bullied every now and then I think you need it. There's a reason why I'm not saying it's the best thing in the world. Let's be clear. It's fucking horrible and kids die over it. There is something to it. So outside of just that, tell me about boyhood. What was it like growing up? What was it like being little then? And what were your points of what you thought masculinity or manhood were in those years?

Vincent: I would say before the bullying, I was a pretty happy kid. My bullying really was it was on the extreme side. Like I say, the stuff that happened to me is the stuff you look at in movies and you're like, does that crap really happen? Cause it's just so far fetched, but it's yeah, no people really get thrown in trash cans sometimes. Yeah, no, my, my crush did in fact pants me in the schoolyard during recess in front of everyone, and it's. So interesting because you start feeling so many things, but as a kid, you don't actually have the words for it. Like in middle school, I started having really bad body issues and not talking about like the physical issues of, I didn't like my body, which was true, but I'm talking more about the physical manifestation of anxiety. But at the time you don't realize that because you're too young to understand. So I was having issues like, I would throw up a lot, or I would have upset stomachs, or I would have to go to the bathroom and, do a really aggressive number two.

Michael: Just pure anxiety.

Vincent: Pure anxiety, right? And that's the thing, is I didn't, you don't understand this, because when you're young, you can't really figure that stuff out. And my mom would even get curious. She'd be like, I pick you up from school, and then you get home, and you play video games, and you're fine. Meanwhile, every time you're in school, you're sick. Are you lying to me? And it's no, I'm not lying, but I don't know why. Yes, that's true. But I don't know why it's true. I just know that it's true. And so my personality changed a lot because I went from being this happy kid to this kid that was just really withdrawn, played a lot of video games, played World of Warcraft a ton, played RPGs, anything that would give me an escape. And that's where I'd rather spend my time. And so I became withdrawn from my family. I became more closed off to everybody. I didn't really have any friends, so it didn't really matter, right? And I would just play a lot of video games, and I wasn't doing well in school, and I had no confidence, and I figured I probably shouldn't even live anymore, so there was a lot of things that really started shifting. And my mom even asked me, she was like, what happened to my happy son? And I'm like, there ain't no happy son.

Michael: Then where was, where was your father during this time?

Vincent: My dad was around, but he worked three jobs. He worked and he would leave the house at six. So before I'd wake up and then most nights he'd get home around eight or nine. So I would be in bed. And he would work half the day on Saturday and he was off on Sunday. So my dad was a dean at a school. He had his own private practice for psychotherapy, and he was also a director at a hospital. And so my dad was working, killing himself basically to just make sure that we had things that we needed. And, he didn't make a ton of money. We're in like maybe the lower middle class, I think. And my, or at least I felt like that because my mom was always buying me non name brand crap from Kmart. And I was getting made fun of because I didn't have fat farm and end one. So truth, though, he. It's sad, too, because I now have a kid, so I know how much I miss my kid when I don't get to see her, or when I come home and she's already asleep, or whatever the case is, and I never really understood that my dad cared about me until I was older, just because of the fact that he wasn't around and I was going through a lot of stuff, and, it's not that he wasn't around, I want to rephrase that, it's just He was working a ton and he would do what he could. He would spend time with me on Sundays. We would go to the movies or we would go play golf and we, he would play video games with me. Honestly, he would usually do anything he could to spend time with me. It's just, the time was so limited because he was trying to make it work for the family. And so I felt like one of the biggest reasons I never committed suicide was because I didn't want my mom to find my body, but she was really the only reason I didn't consider that my dad would be a factor that my brother would be a factor. I really just thought about my mom, but it wasn't until later in life when my dad would tell me like, Oh, when you were younger, I would get home and you'd be sleeping. I would try to stomp on the steps so that you would wake up and then I could read you a story and put you back to bed. And those are the things that I grew up not knowing, I didn't know how much my dad I knew my dad cared, but I didn't know how much he cared. And that was something very interesting to learn as I got older, and me and my dad became more like friends, and then he started telling me things about what it was like growing up with me, and how he loved so many things I did, and all that stuff.

Michael: Yeah, that's powerful, man. And you don't know that, right? As a child, you would never understand that. No, and you can't, right? I look at these moments of just a purely chaotic childhood in my own right But there were these very rare occasional moments where it was like so evident that even though my mother was a fucking drug addict and alcoholic and bipolar and schizophrenic and suicidal And she'd been institutionalized five times and all the things there was these very small moments. Sometimes it was like, she does care. That's part of the healing journey though, man. Like you got to look back at that shit and access it and assess it and then do something with it. And I think for a lot of men, like we put up these giant walls, and the guys who were bullied as kids, you see it, most of them. We'll go one of two directions. Either one, they're incredibly weak. They're incredibly weak. They're doormats. They date women who just fucking shit all over them. A lot of people call them beta males. Not my wording. It's just reality. And on the other side, you see these guys who become, monsters in the gym, fast cars, all the money. I'm this side of it, right? I'm the I'm all the money, all the women, at one point, ripped six pack abs, traveling the world, hooking up, just this chaos of a lifestyle. And then I realized it's really about this internal journey. And there's nothing external that's going to fill us up. But that wound from childhood about not enough ness, dude, it's so big for guys. Oh, I didn't make the basketball team. Or my dad works six days a week and he's never around. Or my mom is actually raising me. So now I have this feminine energy. And then when I'm in school, I get bullied. I don't know how to defend myself. So on and so forth. And it's like at some point, You have to be able to take these true experiences. And look at them, but most men run from it going back to where we started this conversation. What would you, what was your journey? Like, where did this really begin? Because I believe healed masculine energy is like the most powerful fucking tool in the world, right? When you're a man that's a servant leader, you take care of your family, you get it done. You figure it out, you raise your kids the right way. You're a standup dude. You have disciplined, like that is the. Fucking you win the game, dude. That's what it is. How did you get, where did the shift happen?

Vincent: So the shift happens. I, there was a fake shift from high school into college. And when I say, and this, I think this is important for the listeners to recognize that sometimes you think you're making a shift, but you're not. So as you pointed out before, I have these degrees hanging on my wall to say I'm qualified to talk to people, but that's what it comes down to. But the funnier and more interesting part about these degrees, which is actually even funnier and a great reminder for me is that they say the name Vincenzo on them. They don't actually say Vincent. Because, when I was going into college, and I was tired of being this weak guy that, got picked on, had no girlfriend couldn't have any friends, and was just utterly this pitiful man. I said, something needs to change. And so I wrote my name as Vincenzo on all my college applications. And It, nobody checked it, which is even weirder. They're like, nobody was like, is this matched? Yeah, sure, you're Vincenzo. I was like, okay, cool. If everybody's gonna believe it, great. Which is like such a mafia dude name, by the way. Right to the origin of the Italian roots. And I felt like that was my opportunity to be cool. If anybody's ever seen that movie, the new guy, that's how I felt. It's like this opportunity that I was this big loser that nobody liked. And I didn't even like myself, but now I can be somebody and it's worked. And that's why I say it's I made the change, but not really. I started working out. Cause I was a little bit chubby and I always struggled with gyno. So I would always get made fun of like man tits and this and that. And so I started really working out, taking a lot better care of myself. I changed up my hairstyle. I grew out a beard. I started wearing cooler clothes and I just started becoming a little more detached from people because I was always like this awkward kid. And so I had more of a cool guy vibe now. But the funnier thing was that those were just external changes. They weren't internal. So I still struggled with severe self esteem issues, severe confidence issues, codependency issues, anxiety, like crazy panic attacks, depression, sadness, suicidal. I would drink a lot at 18, 19 years old. I was drinking a lot because I met some kids that were older than me. And I was always going to the bars and stuff. And it was really interesting because seemingly now is this cool person. I had friends, girls were interested in me a lot. I couldn't, I could not maintain a girl and if I did get into a relationship, she cheated on me and it was a bad relationship. I couldn't maintain friends. I would get extremely sad or jealous if they went out without me or whatever the case was. And so all of these things to say that I made a fake change from high school to college, but my real change was at about 23 years old when I graduated with my master's degree and I actually took some time for myself to try to figure out my life. Because now, much like Mike described over here, was, I had the fast car, I had a Camaro SS with a performance exhaust. I had a hot girlfriend, every girl loves, by the way.

Vincent: Oh, they did. Oh, they did. I could pull up in that thing, man. It was great. And so it made my life easier. So I worked out. I'm now this I'm now this quote unquote, good looking guy. I got tattoos. I have a hot girlfriend. I got a fast car. I have money in my bank account. I have my license to practice psychotherapy and I'm 23 years old and I was miserable still. And that's always the funny part because society, as we started this conversation with society told me, if you have a hot girlfriend, money, a car, your job ahead of you, all this stuff, you should be happy. And the other part of it is, which is the fun stuff society does is if you have all that and you're not happy now, you're just ungrateful. Now you're this person who just has terrible perspective, right? So I didn't even feel comfortable talking to people about how I felt because I already felt like I shouldn't be feeling this way. So, at 23, I just, I wound up having this honest conversation with myself in the mirror. And I went to the bathroom and I just slammed my arms down on the counter. And I was like, dude what is wrong with my life? Like, why am I still miserable and angry and sad and upset and anxious and all this crap? Like why? And I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. And then I looked up at myself and I was like, oh man, I actually, I get it now. It's because you're Vincent and you see that was so powerful because that was the first time in seven years that I said my actual name and in there was something that I didn't even realize, but it was about to change the whole trajectory of my life because it's what I call the or it's ownership, accountability, and responsibility, how we were talking before about like you're in this river in a boat. You can't steer the boat if you don't at least have an oar. And the ownership is important for accepting my past. I have to own that, right? I have to own that everything that has happened up until this point, I had a role in. Whether it was the way I was looking at it, thinking about it, feeling about it, acting or reacting towards it. I have to have this ownership of it. Then I have to have the accountability of the fact that my life in the present is just a result of everything that I did not own in my past. And then I had to take the responsibility that if I wanted my life to be different, it was going to be different only by me taking an active participating part in it. So, I just sat there in this conversation with myself in the mirror and I was like, dude, who are you? It's you're a loser. You're sad. You're pitiful. You're depressed. You're anxious. You're suicidal. Nobody admires you. Nobody cares about you. Nobody wants to be in your vicinity. And that's just God's honest truth. And I needed that because you can't start creating change if you don't have a basis for where you're at. And so once I had that, it said, do you still want to be this way? And the answer is no. And then it's who do you want to be? So I want to be this leader. I want to be inspiring and powerful and helpful. And I want to heal others. And I want to be strong and empathetic and enthusiastic. And then the last question is really, who must you become to live out all of those things? What would a leader do? How would they show up in this life? What would they say? What would they think? What do they talk about? Who do they hang with? Et cetera. And so that conversation in the mirror was so pivotal to me. Changing the trajectory of my life forever and that's where it all started.

Michael: Oh we share that, and I wrote about this in my first book the reason why I have not written the name Mike or use that in any capacity in 13 years is because at 25 heading into 26 years old I'm 350 pounds smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep, watching all the football, hanging out with the boys, eating the pizza, cake for breakfast, just a disaster of a man and everybody called me Mike and I would be like, yeah, what's up? I'm Mike. I'm the party guy. We all know Mike. Mike. He shows up in the fucking Eagles jersey to the Patriots game. You know what I mean? He's the contrarian. He's the guy who doesn't really take care of himself. Who's overweight, who, his girlfriend is amazing, but he fucking treats her like shit. He's not a good guy. And I'm sitting here in front of this mirror, and it's, dude, the mirror's so powerful. If you can just stand in front of that thing and be dead ass honest with yourself, look yourself right in the fucking eyes and go to war, the outcomes incredible because what it is, like you talked about it, men need progress, they need progression, they need something in front of them to pull themselves forward and what it is really, it's a challenge, like without a challenge, manhood's pointless. And so I stood in front of this mirror and I asked myself dude I want it was some of the meanest shit you could ever say Yeah, because it had to be because you're a fucking loser. You're a piece of shit. Look how fat you are. Bro. I was wearing a size 47 pants and 4XL shirt and I was a four star athlete in high school, right? And I'm making a hundred and fifty plus thousand dollars a year. I'm 50,000 in debt. And I'm sitting here in a house where I have just had to borrow money from my girlfriend who I'm cheating on to pay the fucking rent because my business isn't working. Yeah. Mike's a real good motherfucking guy. And I just, dude, I just destroyed myself. Everything that I could say. I said. And I looked at myself in the mirror and it was hard and I fucking cried and it pissed me off and it's the reason why 13 years later, I'm here because I made a fucking decision and I cut a line in the sand and I said, never again. And it's look here and this man, as well as I do, there is in this journey, there are peaks and there are valleys. And I have gone to all the events and read all the books and done all the psychedelics and all the therapy and all the blah, blah, blah. And there are still times where, in a moment, I can step out of the man I've become. And allotting this patience and grace has been a huge part of my journey. But more it's the worthiness. That is the thing that I have probably taken and brought into my life that has brought more success. And I don't mean monetarily. I mean that I can go look in that mirror and be good with who I am. There is more success in my life through allowing myself worthiness, through doing incredibly difficult things consistently that has changed me. You talked about that. Earlier in your journey, you were like, you didn't feel worthy. You don't feel like you mattered. You've felt like it'd be better if you weren't here and you'd kill yourself. If not for your own mother, bad relationships, women, cheating on you, no friends. You, I would imagine you were a chameleon. You would do whatever it took to get people to like you. How do I know? Cause I was that guy too. And then one day you stand on your own two feet. You go, I'm Vincent. This is who I am. If you don't like it, I don't give a fuck. How does that moment impact your relationships? How does that impact your family? How does that impact your friendships? And how does it lead you to the path of a family and children and like now being this other man who's on the other side?

Vincent: It's very interesting because when you can step into your own truth of who you actually are, it allows you to do, and I believe this is probably the most important thing anybody could do is it allows you to set standards. We don't get in life what we want, we get in life what our standards are. And if you're not setting proper standards, I would probably argue that you most likely don't have a good understanding of who you truly are, of how you're trying to show up in this world, and why people should be meeting you at those standards. And in my relationships, in my life, I have pretty good standards, I would like to think. Now, I think This is something I want to actually dive into real quick before I go further with standards. I think people also confuse standards and expectations. Because That's a great point. It's important to understand that. Because people tend to put expectations on others because of their standards for themselves. Without realizing that standards are supposed to be a personal game. It's not about how do you have these standards. To elevate the people around you or to challenge them to meet them. It's more about, and this is my favorite quote from Marcus Aurelius. It says, be strict with yourself and tolerant with others. And that was something that I actually had to really work on because I went to the other extreme as I lived as a victim and I had no standards and I wasn't ever holding anyone accountable to now everyone's accountable for everything. And they need to rise to my crazy standards. And that was me. Which is nonsense. It is. It's ridiculous, but expectations kill all types of relations. And I've come to, I've come to understand that because I've also done that. I've destroyed relationships because of expectations. And now as I practice having standards for myself, the most interesting thing is I don't really have expectations for others.

I just allow them to see me. And I think that's really important. I allow people to see how I carry myself. I allow people to see my standards. And I decide if I want to connect with other people based on their standards not my expectations.

Michael: Can you, I think that's important, Vin. Can you define standards?

Vincent: A standard to me is a measure that you set for yourself. It is how you want to conduct yourself in this world. And the way that you are committed to showing up an example of a standard might be, for instance, every day, no matter if you're tired, no matter if you're about to go to sleep, or whatever the case is, right before you go to bed, your standard is that you will have a clean kitchen. And so you're committed to getting everything out of the sink, putting it in the dishwasher, running that load, no matter what, and leaving your kitchen tidy. We call that a standard. Because it is you setting a benchmark for how you want things to be. And you are challenging yourself to hold not only yourself, but your environment to the standard.

Michael: You'd like to set what standards had to change in your life. Because for me, when I look at this journey, dude, it was diet exercise, friends, alcohol, drugs, sex rock and roll dude, every standard has to change, bro. Because it was like, I had none. There was a photo of me. On New Year's Day when I'm 24 and I'm wearing this extreme couture was a big thing back then. So, it's a very bro y t shirt and like fucking foil gold on it. And it is a, it's it was one of the last pictures I had for like probably two years. I wouldn't let people take pictures of me. I was so fat. It was disgusting. And look, and people are gonna make your fat shaming. I'm not fat shaming. It's true. Stop lying. You're fat. So I made a standard and look it's to this day, I work out five to six times a week, no matter what. Unless I'm sick, even on the road, I will find 20 minutes, push ups, sit ups, do something, move my physical body. I've raised my standard around my physical health because there's a direct correlation between your mental health and your physical health. And anyone who denies that is a fucking moron. I'm just calling it what it is. And when you see these people who celebrate obesity in this country, you're doing people a disservice. Because these obese heroes, which we are coining them, and I'm not trying to be a fucking asshole then, I promise. As a former fat motherfucker, I know what it's like. And the thing that they do not have, I don't care what any of them say, or how they want to pretend on the internet that they love themselves. It's, there's no way you can convince me that's true. You raise your standards by pushing yourself to do things that make you a better man. And being in better health made me a better man. No questions. A better brother, a better leader, a better business owner. Because the physical challenge, I would argue, is the hardest challenge that I've ever faced. So that was a standard I raised for myself. What are standards that you've had to raise for yourself to be the man you are?

Vincent: Conversely, just like you, man, it was all of them. There, there was such a, when you go through what I did and you did you have this understanding that you typically come out on the other side with no standards. Like I felt worthless. I had no confidence. How can I have a standard when I have no confidence, when I see no worth, it makes it a lot easier to do anything with anybody for anything, because you don't actually have any internal guidance. I believe a standard is based off of your values. I do. However, you can't know your values if you don't know yourself. So the ability to actually go through all of this crap and then main standard, maintain standards, it doesn't make any sense. You have to actually just become this new person in this self discovery process, this healing process to start developing an identity that then dictates some sort of value that then that value carries into a standard. Because I'm under the assumption or not even the assumption at this point, I know for a fact. Our standards are just a reflection of our identity, and our identity shapes everything we do. Your outcomes in life, your results, are based on your identity. I tell people all the time, I am, and maybe it's because I'm so good at what I do, or not, I don't know. But, I could sit with you for an entire day. And I could just watch how you live a day of your life, and I could tell you exactly what your life is like. I don't need to do anything else. I could listen to the way you talk about things. I could watch how you conduct yourself throughout the day and I can get in probably within a 99 percent accuracy of the kind of life you're living in that moment. And I could tell you verbatim where you need to shift, what's problematic in your life, etc. And it's really just because of the fact that I'm very good at understanding everything comes back to your identity and the identity is what actually shows more than anything else you could do. Because it will come out in all these ways, right? When we talk about and think about the subconscious mind. And we know that it's always on. We know that the subconscious loves to keep us connected to who we believe ourselves to be. It actually looks for supporting information. When it looks for the supporting information, it matches behaviors, thoughts, language, emotions, actions, all of these things are in so much alignment that you can just observe people and know exactly what their identity is. So for me, I had to shift everything just like you. I had to shift. I had freaking, I wasn't as fat as you, but I was a little chubby and I had man tits and I got teased all the time for that. I had to set a standard for going in the gym. I also had to be honest because you would, it's a matter of not just going, but also being honest of like, how are you showing up when you're there? Cause maybe I would go to the gym and I would do a half ass workout. And this was true. I would go to the gym and I started trying to like make friends. And so then if I would go for an hour, I might spend 40 minutes talking to people. All right. And so it's I'm going to the gym. Why am I still fat as hell? Because you're not actually working out. You're going to the gym, but you're not doing the thing you need to do at the gym. I believe that there was that other process that had to occur. I not only had to fix my standards, I had to be dedicated to what I was trying to achieve. Because people confuse showing up and actually doing the thing you need to do. Like we probably, you hear it probably all the time. Like I do. It's Oh, it's not always about going and getting a great workout. Sometimes it's just about showing up even when you don't want to. And yes, that's true. But I also look around the gym and I see people scrolling on their phone while they're lifting. And I'm like, there is no way you're getting a good workout. It's impossible. How do you have a good mind body connection right now when you're focused on whatever the hell you're scrolling on, wherever you're texting, and you're sitting on the leg machine and I see your leg flap up and down like a freaking, I don't know, like a sausage flapping in the wind. There's no way you're getting an actual workout. Because it's impossible. So not only setting the standard, but being intentional in reaching it.

Michael: I agree. What has that done for you in terms of fatherhood?

Vincent: Man. So we had talked about this before in our friendship conversations. And I think the biggest thing was, I was very scared to have a kid. I didn't want kids. And I was like I shouldn't have one. And I really had a super strong stance on it, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure why. And then when I found out my girl was pregnant and yes we found out because she missed her period and she just wasn't feeling well and it was not planned. I had a mental breakdown. Like a straight up mental breakdown and mind you, right? Like I'm this guy who's been doing all this work on himself. And I'm like, now this dude who's coaching people and I'm very successful and yet here I am having a mental breakdown because I just found out my girl's pregnant. And it was funny because I could have done better. I really could have, I could have done better during the pregnancy. I think that I didn't give my girl the best experience I could have. And I, to this day, feel that I am trying to atone for that by just continuously working on myself and being a better man or as good a man as I could be. But it's because of the fact that I was very scared of being incapable. And I think a lot of men don't understand this. There are a lot of men and actually. I need to point this out. My girlfriend had received advice from somebody who instead of telling her to break up with me, actually encouraged her to hold space for the fact that I might feel afraid. And I think that's so important. That's so important, right? Because a lot of girls might encourage their girlfriends. Or even the guy, his friends might encourage him to not have the baby or screw this guy because he's acting a certain way, et cetera, when we can't recognize that our fear might be taking over because the worst place anyone could be, especially men is in this space where they're fearful and feeling like they're not going to be able to move forward and take care of what they need to, and that was definitely me. And so my girl had done a lot to reassure me and just be like, Hey, like you are a very capable man. Don't forget that about yourself. And I think I did for a little, cause I let fear overtake me. But as I started to readjust. This kid's gonna come, and I have a sense of duty. I have to be there for this child. I have to show up. My girl and I, in talk, she was like, Hey, if you don't want to have this kid, I will sign away. I will sign a piece of paper that says this kid isn't yours. You won't have to pay me any alimony. I will just do my own thing. You don't even have to be involved. I'll never even tell the kid you existed. And at one moment I was like, yes! Yes, freedom!

Michael: I was like a coward in you talking.

Vincent: At one moment I was like, this is everything you want, take it and run! But in the other moment was, if you have this child, there is no way I cannot be a part of their life. Because That is my responsibility. That is my sense of duty. That is my sense of purpose that whether I wanted to have a kid or not, whether I was ready or not, this was going to be something I needed to step up and do because and I even said to her, I'm like, even if you don't want to be with me, I still have to be a part of that kid's life. You having this child is an act of me having to be a father. I cannot live with myself knowing that I have a kid that I just rejected. I can't, especially the kid didn't do anything to deserve that. Think about that. The kid didn't ask to be born. The kid was created and then born. And now it's just like you're unwanted the minute you've been born or before you've been born. I can't do that. So I had to hold a standard that I would be this capable man and that if I didn't feel capable, I better learn to feel capable. And then if there was a reason I didn't feel capable, I had to figure it the fuck out because this was my duty, my responsibility as a man to show up and take care of, protect and provide for his family, his child. And Now I can safely say, it's I'm glad I did. I'm very glad I did, because my daughter is, she's the love of my life. I don't, I, it's so crazy to me that I didn't want to have her. Because I am so madly in love with her. I will do anything to spend time with her. I will do anything to see her smile. I will do anything to anyone who hurts her. It's just crazy to even to me to just watch the shift within myself and it makes me happy It makes me very joyful and sometimes a little tearful because it's like how could I have almost fucked this up so badly for myself.

Michael: Yeah, that's beautiful man And there's a lot of men who go through that space of not feeling worthy not feeling like they deserve it of feeling fear my biggest fear ever was the idea that I have a kid And now that I'm dating, looking at a hopeful relationship at some point in the near future again. After doing just again, tremendous amount of work and understanding and getting into preparedness is if something happened, it's like you need to fucking man up. Yeah, you've got to and that's a hard thing for a lot of men to hear because there is question about worthiness and capability and knowing that men are under earning their father and that masculinity is on trial and that all of these things that we've talked about today can get in your way. And then I think that inherently for those who are willing, it's just, it's another challenge. Like it really, like it's a human and again, this is me speaking as not having any children, but I've always interpreted as it's the ultimate challenge. Are you going to do the thing that you are supposed to do? Because in a lot of areas in life, it's very gray. It's very gray. But in raising a kid, it's not so gray. How are you going to show up? How are you going to execute? How are you going to be honest? So I applaud you for that. It's admirable. And yet again, another one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on. Then for, I asked you the last question here, how can people learn more about your coaching and connect with you?

Vincent: So everybody could find me virtually anywhere on the internet. If you just look up Vin.Infante or Vin Infante, that's me on, especially on Instagram, that's where I'm pretty active. You can go to my website, it's vincentInfante.life. And if anybody's curious about how they could get in touch or dive a little bit deeper, I offer a free session on there. You can just go ahead and book it, or you can take advantage of my free resources, which I'd love for you to have. I have a newsletter and a free thing called a mission board. Which is better than a vision board because one, I made it and two, it's more intentional. So go check it out and connect with me and let me know what you loved about the episode.

Michael: Amazing, dude. Hell yeah. And my last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Vincent: To be unbroken is to learn to transmute your pain into your potential, to use your adversity to your advantage. And most importantly, and this is what I preach, is to unleash the leader within. I believe that everybody has a power within them. I had a conversation recently where I said I was giving my power away and somebody Or somebody on that conversation decided to say that's not true. You can't give away something you've never had. And if you were feeling powerless, you couldn't give away your power because you didn't have power to begin with. And I've I probably should have just said, I think that's bullshit. Because the reality is you have power. You've always had power. Being alive is your right to power. It exists within you. The question is, are you tapping into it or not? Are you giving it away to others because you don't realize your unlimited capacity and potential because you don't understand just how strong you could be if you just give yourself the opportunity to step up and step into yourself. So to me, that's how you unleash the leader within step into your power and transmute anything that doesn't serve you to being your biggest form of potential and drive to make this life, not only amazing for yourself, but for those that you would do it with.

Michael: And that is your responsibility as a man. Yes. My friend, thank you so much for being here. Gentlemen, brothers, thank you for listening.

And Until Next Time,

Be Unbroken, My Friends.

I'll See Ya.