How to Boost Your Mental Health in 2025

From Addict to Healer | with Brandon Novak

Michael: Here's how I hate that we're in this club together, right? But here's the reality of it. I would sit and I would just scour the internet trying to find these chicks to hook up with. And my idea was because my drug was women. I grew up with a mother who cut my finger off, I grew up with a racist grandmother, I grew up with women who were abusive and who molested me. And so it was like, I will do whatever the fucking takes to get your love and admiration for 6 to 13 minutes, depending on the night. And my idea was every single night. It was like, I have to go out on dates to the most expensive restaurants in town and flash this cash and make sure that they know I'm important. And then you realize that you're, it's not that you're not important. It's that you're actually worthy before that moment even occurs, and I think about constantly trying to define addiction, and I want to ask your definition, but mine is the willingness to do whatever it takes to fill an in external source of goodness that makes you internally whole for a moment.

Brandon: And the reason why I smile or laugh because my answer is literally the exact same, just spoken a little differently. With a slight tweak of a few words, but it's just simply filling this internal void with an external solution to alter the way I feel about this exact moment, time, place, feeling.

Michael: Did you ever have a moment in where you like, I feel good. Did you ever actually, you talk, you often hear about, and I've never done heroin. Let's be very clear about this is one of the few things I haven't done. Was there ever a moment where you're like, I actually feel amazing on the backside of the high. 

Brandon: Under the influence. I'm like do while I'm caught up? Sure. Like it was amazing, I had some of the best times in my life while under the influence of whatever I may have been on. But the truth of the matter with my story is at first it started out as this amazing party doing things that people could like only even dream of at times to at the end, turning into a full blown hostage negotiation where I was not allowed to leave, ‘cause I wanted the party to stop and the party had stopped at the end. But with my addiction, the power, the magnitude, the reality of the situation is that I lost the ability to have a say so in the matter when it came to my life anymore.

Michael: Which is probably necessary.

Brandon: Oh, absolutely. It 1 million percent is because like you were saying before, to get to that place, to to work on the problem, how do I even know it's a problem until I find myself in a position where the pain becomes so un fucking bearable that I'm willing to do the thing that, I've never really done before, which is admit, maybe what I do know is that I don't know. And furthermore, taking a step further, picking up that phone that feels like 10 billion pounds and reaching out and not only asking for help, but be willing to show up for an open minded, to believe what you're saying and blindly step out on faith without reverting back to my comfort blanket, which is a nice speedball that allows me to disconnect reality because all of a sudden I'm not under the influence I'm walking around at this very moment like a stranger in my own skin, trying to figure out who the fuck let me in and why. So there's a lot of steps to get to that point where then I can start acquiring some knowledge, building up a defense, and learning that, hey, it wasn't until I uncovered the problem that I actually discovered the real problem, and then I had hopes of recovering from the fucking problem. Before that I had no idea it even existed because they were great times.

Michael: Yeah, and that uncovering is inside of honesty, which is the real fucked up part about it.

Brandon: I'm only telling the truth and I'm only honest when my back's against the wall.

Michael: That's exactly right, and you're like, it was me, I admit it. 

Brandon: And I’m only saying that because it might get me out of this. 

Michael: That's right. And you will do anything to get out of it. Which is so fucking crazy, and you're in a position where. It is your lifestyle celebrated like I was thinking about this in the lead up to talking with you today. Growing up, watching you and you guys being this, you guys being jackass CKY, the skateboard community, the shit that you guys did growing up and watching that and seeing like the disclaimer on MTV before it would air on Sunday afternoons at five o'clock, right? Right after church, of course, it's always don't ever do anything that these guys ever would imagine, do it right? Yeah. And you're this impressionable kid looking up to you guys as role models and my thought was like, why the fuck are these guys role models? 

Brandon: Totally. Which appeals to our demographic, ours meaning, a lot of addicts and alcoholics, because what I know to be true in my story is that when I put my hand up and I qualify myself as an addict or an alcoholic, all that means is that I'm defiant by nature, I hate authority, and I refuse to conform, because I possess this job that generally places me in a lot of positions I don't want to be in, and it allows me to feel a lot of feelings I don't like to feel, and that job consists of knowing everything. The moment that you kindly suggest to me what I could ultimately do to save my life, I kindly suggest why you should fuck off. Yeah, because I know so you tell me not the point of that is tell me no I'll tell you yes and show you how it's done. 

Michael: Yeah, you're contrarian by nature.

Brandon: Yeah, if I'm already cut from the cloth of if it doesn't make sense to me, it's wrong.

Michael: Agreed, my best one of my very close friends one of my best friends Jason. He's amazing tattoo artist He's tattooing me a couple weeks ago and obviously I'm covered you're covered and we're having this conversation I was just like dude I don't know anyone who had like a good childhood who was tattooed and he was like, I don't think I've ever tattooed anyone who had a good childhood and that, that point that I'm leading in that are you familiar with Dr. Gabor Mate? No. So we wrote a book called the myth of normal. And it's amazing. I interviewed him a couple of years ago. He's the most world renowned childhood trauma expert on planet earth, okay. And he said that all addiction, he also wrote an amazing book, dude, you should absolutely, I don't ever recommend people should do anything, but if you would take into consideration that books find people.

Brandon: I don't think that people find books. So I love these kinds of recommendations.

Michael: There's a unbelievable book, a change in my life called. In the realm of Hungry Ghosts.

Brandon: Yes, I have it at my house. Okay, yeah. I've read it.

Michael: That's Dr. Gabor Mate.

Brandon: Okay, I'm very familiar with him. 

Michael: His presupposition is that all addiction stems from childhood trauma. Mine is that all childhood trauma eventually leads you to where you are in this moment, right? Both of these things being true, however you want to look at it. Was there like some outside of was there a key awful? Some moment that you think you were trying to get rid of by chasing the drugs and the adrenaline and the chaos and all of the things that shape to create that. Insane couple of decades of your life?

Brandon: I think, looking back, there were a few different reasons that spawned this outcome. I was insatious, incestuous with work ethics, and it came from skateboarding as a child, and just being relentless. And, but the only way I became a guy who didn't fail is by failing enough until I figured out the method that would lead to success, and that takes a lot of fucking work. And I did that through skateboarding, and I tried a trick for days, weeks, months, years. And it really instilled in me a lot of ethics and core values that I live by today, which is. That failure is not an option. No is unacceptable. Skateboarding leads out the quitters, for sure, I believe this. But in doing so, that becomes fucking tiring, it becomes tiring. That, coupled with the fact that I believe I'm genetically predisposed for my father's addiction, and his father's addiction, It runs in our bloodline. I was raised and morphed into, something that wasn't gonna be good. My father would take me to the strip joint, and he'd be in the back conducting business, and the dancing girls would sit me at the bar and pour shots of ginger ale and Coca Cola in the shot glasses. I would do the shots, the girls would applaud, my father would give me that look of approval.

Break Toxic Relationship Cycles | with Kel Cal

Michael: Whenever I'm speaking with someone and they are willing to accept the role that they play, I know with certainty they've done the work because at first you're like, nope, this is their fault. This is all on them, there's no way that I could ever have been wrong. And then it's actually, okay. It's not necessarily about right or wrong, it's about what role did you play? And I love that you said that partnership was mirroring and they've really are like you, you heal. What's so interesting about the dynamics of relationships when you have this need to be seen by another human being, it's really a need to see yourself and that mirroring what that does is it presents with you for you an opportunity to really show up and do the work. And even though it's an incredibly, unbelievably uncomfortable, the only reason that I know with certainty I'm here today and that I live the life that I live, that I date the people I date, that I have the relationships with friends and business and in my communities that I have is because of these moments of deep reflection of being across from someone, whether interpersonally or intimately, and just being like, man, there's something that drives me crazy about this person. What is my role in that? Man, there's something about this person that just they get under my skin, why? And one of the biggest lessons I've learned in the last. 14 years of my healing journey, almost 14 years, which is incredible is to think about my thoughts and to just take a step back and be like, why does this person do this to me? And if you're not willing to do that, like you can't be helped. And I know that's so hard for people to hear. And I've interviewed incredible human beings, both male and female who have been on this show, who have left abusive relationships. And they always acknowledge their responsibility. What did it really take to you? What did it really take for you to get to that place where you could acknowledge your role in this?

Kel: Yeah. It actually was another rock bottom in the form of COVID where my greatest fear came true. And that was I was forced to be alone with myself. 

Michael: Terrifying…

Kel: The time, that was terrifying, especially when all of the distractions that I was using to avoid and escape myself because I was still carrying a tremendous amount of trauma were removed. And I really realized oh, fuck, and it was then that I recognized that the most toxic relationship of all was not the relationship with the then abusive now ex husband, it was the relationship with myself and it was in recognizing that the relationship with myself is not only the most important relationship that there is, But that every relationship in your life is just a mirror of that, that I really allowed myself to recognize the patterns that I was still living. It allowed me to recognize all the coping mechanisms I had developed to avoid the trauma that I was still holding onto. And that's really when I began, I would say, the real healing journey, because before then, I thought I could just think my way out. I thought I could use mindset and personal development to just high vibe my way through the trauma and avoid the part where you actually feel.

Michael: Yeah, that doesn't work. 

Kel: Yeah, no, that doesn't work. Hello, toxic positivity. That was me. I was, like, the high vibe chick. And it was incredibly toxic. And meanwhile, I had substance abuse problems. I was using drugs. I was basically snorting Adderall every single morning and a pharmaceutical crackhead because I could just be more productive and I could do more. And if I could do more than maybe I could finally feel like I was enough and I had addictions to exercising and I was always doing more and it was still never enough and eating disorders and all the things. I drank a lot of dumb bitch juice and dumb bitch juice is the metaphorical concoction of using things outside of yourself to change how you feel inside. And it wasn't until I allowed myself to just pause and COVID was that pause and to stop running and hiding from myself and allow myself to have the courage to peek beneath the covers of what I was really hiding from and see all that was still there, see the trauma, see the parts of myself that were carrying so much shame and pain and tracing that back all the way to childhood that I actually began. The real healing and reconnecting with my body and using somatic practices and real like true deep healing tools that I was able to actually start to experience the internal shifts that were necessary to change my external reality. And it was within transforming the relationship with myself that my life began to transform in a true, genuine way, not just Oh, it looks good on the outside again, but inside I still feel like shit. I still feel like I'm not enough. I still feel all this pain and shame, but I actually began to experience, love and compassion and inner peace and to not have panic attacks every single day, and it was a different experience in life, but it wasn't until I began to do that deep inner healing work.

Michael: I have, I actually, one, I appreciate you sharing that and I reflect a lot in that. Luckily for me, I had that experience much earlier when I was 30, I moved to Portland, Oregon, and I was single for the first time in my, since I was like 16 and for years. I was just alone and I forced myself in the discomfort of it. I would date here and there and maybe meet somebody, but I was in no relationships. And I kept realizing like, why do I keep attracting these same women? Because you are what you attract. And I'm like there's nothing wrong with these women. It's just that they're vibrating out of frequency that I no longer want to vibrate at. And so I'm sitting here in connection with them and I'm, and this was my friend's group too. I'm like, why are these people the opposite of what I want right now? And when I pulled myself back and I really started to evaluate it, I realized even though it was. Honestly, to this day, it was the most uncomfortable, lonely, isolating, painful, handful of years of my life. It is the only reason I was able to like, course correct and look, there's still work to be done. I'm still doing the work, I'm still unraveling decades of abuse and suffering and indoctrination and grooming and emotional incest and things like we don't even have time to get into right now, but the reality is in that space of being with oneself, you will discover who you are, whether you like it or not. And one of the things that you said, looking at coping with dumb bitch juice, which I think is hilarious, we do that in almost involuntarily because our brains are trying to help us survive. So it's like the coping mechanism, it's the next hit, the next drink, the next hookup, the next, whatever that thing is. It makes us feel safe, even though it's destroying our lives. And it's not until you choose to take a look at your actions and become cognizant that you realize it. And similar to you at one point at 28 years old, I was having panic attacks five times a day. It was absolutely crippling. But guess what? My lifestyle was drinking and smoking and drugs and hookups and hiding and running and not telling the truth and avoiding reality if somebody is listening to this right now and they're in this dark, ‘cause that's fucking dark Kel, like it's dark, like you've been there, I've been there. Almost nothing in life sucks more than waking up every day and realizing that you are the problem, where do you begin the healing journey? You talk about these experiences and these rock, bottoms and falling back into it. But where do you really truly start? If I'm like, fuck, I've left this relationship or I'm in this relationship and I have all these addictive behaviors and I keep dating the same people, my health wealth relationships are disaster. Where do I begin?

Kel: Yeah that's a great question and it can feel so impossible, it feels so impossible to be in that dark place and to feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. And if there is even like a little glimmer of a light, you're Like oh fuck, that's probably a train. It's just coming to take me out, like it just feels so hopeless.

Michael: And a great analogy.

Kel: I would say the number one thing is get support. You don't have to do this alone. It can feel so, so isolating, especially when we are carrying so much shame. And I carried a tremendous amount of shame about the experiences that I had, but shame really thrives and breathes in silence. And shame, I don't believe, is an emotion. I believe shame is a pattern, it's a program, that is designed to keep us stuck, and to limit us. So get support, reach out to a coach, a therapist, someone that can be a resource for you, and guide you, because you truly do not have to do it alone, and it's in having this support and recognizing that there are resources available to you, that you are able to start to take those baby steps. And think of it as just taking one, one step at a time. When we start to look at the bigger picture of, I'm here, I'm at A, and I want to get to Z, and all is fucking alphabet soup. It's I have a fork. I don't even know what to do with this. It's never going to happen. It's too much to think about getting from A to Z, literally go from A to B. What's one small step, what's one small way you can, be honest with yourself, love yourself, support yourself, create internal safety. Safety is so important in healing because when we are living in that space of survival mode, like we're not thriving, like if you're surviving, you're not thriving. And it very much is in that state of nervous system dysregulation where all your mind and body care about is keeping you safe. So starting to create ways to create that internal safety so that your nervous system can begin to deregulate and down regulate and actually create that space of Being in your parasympathetic nervous system, which is where healing occurs, which is where that sense of safety occurs. So looking at how you can create internal safety and stability, how can you meet your personal needs? So often we aren't even meeting our own personal needs when we're in that dark place because we're just feeling so stuck. So actually supporting yourself, beginning to take care of yourself. It's going to start to build self trust and you're going to show yourself that you have your own back.

How to Avoid Worst Health Conditions | with Dr. Prarthana Shah

Michael: One of the things that you and I talked about in the lead up to this conversation was not only your journey, but the work that you're doing around the gut heart health right now. And really helping people be able to take the most advantage of the body that they're given to live a happy, healthy, fulfilling life. And as many people on this show know, I previously was morbidly obese. I was 150 pounds overweight, smoked two packs a day, drank constantly, blood pressure was that of a 50 year old, everything was out of control. And today my lifestyle is very different. And Part of that is in due to education, and part of that I think is due in a big element and aspect to my willingness to do what is required. And for those who don't know you, tell us a little bit about your background and what has led you down into this field of work.

Dr. Prarthana: Okay, so basically I'm a doctor in preventive cardiovascular medicine and I'm also an integrative health coach. This all started for me while I was in medical school. So I feel like it was a two part story. Initially, I knew I didn't want to do, the usual and I wanted to do something different and actually create a difference. And I got into fitness while I was in medical school. As a way to maybe cope or, find a way to actually, enjoy my life besides just studying and spending all that time at college. And so fitness really found me or I found it. I don't even know how it went really, but it. And it gave me a sense of confidence. It gave me a sense of, belonging. I started CrossFit and I was again obese, fat. I was eating anything and everything on the world. I wasn't looking at my diet or health at all. And somehow getting into CrossFit helped me lose some amount of weight. I was still quite fat at the time. But It was more the confidence in the beginning for me that really got me sticking and I got good at it and I got good fast and so that was something that made me feel like I was worth it in a way and that I was suddenly very capable and the second bit was really, I was, I had some issues with my health and so I visited the doctor and that is really the turning point for me because he told me that it was borderline PCOS at the time. I was working out six days a week and things like that. So yeah, she told me that my exercise was preventing it from going into full blown PCOS, but I needed to be looking at my diet and things like that, which I wasn't doing at that time as much as I should have. And that really was the turning point for me where I made it like a hundred percent and I made the changes and I got really healthy. I got really fit I was very conscious about what I eat. I used to be eating fried foods and you know saturated fats and things like I stopped everything lost about 15 odd kilos of weight, which is about 20, 30 pounds. I was about 63. But because of the PCOS and that thing really was the turning point for me at that point in time. And I felt like suddenly I was this new person, I was so much fitter. I was healthier, more confident. I was glowing. My skin was better, all of that. I was viewed differently by people, although that is not something that. People should be doing essentially. I just feel like I was being respected more. I was being taken more seriously and It just changed my perspective on life, and I'm now addicted to this kind of life really.

Michael: I love that. For me, that's one of the things that, you know, whether or not you like to admit it, the world is going to see you differently. That is the nature of the world. We are always judging people. It is a part of the journey. I wish we would just openly admit it and be okay with it. I think what's important though, and probably the thing to know, is how you feel about yourself, especially when you're on that journey is a big part of how I look at the world is through this eye of if I feel good about myself, when I look in the mirror, if I'm staying within my boundaries, my values, my virtues, my morals, who it is as a man. I do not care about what the outside world thinks about me. I in fact could not care less. And so what I think is really interesting is like you're in medical school, you're getting ready to become a doctor and yet you're tremendously out of shape. And it's okay, wait a second. There's a big like disconnect here, but you do see this in the medical field all the time. You're overstudying overworking yourself. God knows what it takes to actually become a doctor. I passed. That is not for me, but I'm so curious, like as you were in that journey, you started, you said confidence, right? I think that's a big key of the cornerstone that is missing in so many people's lives. What was it like for you to start to get confidence, to lose the weight, to have a different understanding of your body, of who it is that you were in the outside world? What started to transpire for you mentally in that journey?

Dr. Prarthana: I think mentally also I was going through a tough time at the time I lost my grandmom at that time. I was going through some stuff in college with friends and stuff So it was anyway a bit I wasn't the best mentally at that time, but I also feel like when I started exercising, I felt a new sense of belonging and suddenly being able to, lift that kind of weight because with CrossFit, you lift so heavy and you do these things that are not normal for people who even go to the gym every day. They just, it's quite out there, crazy. So I feel like, looking at yourself and looking at the fact that you're able and capable of doing such things really boosted my confidence levels, helped my mental health. I felt better, like you said earlier, when you said that you don't care about what the world thinks and what people think. I just felt like that switch happened for me at that point when I started getting healthy and fit. Just seeing this much better evolved version of myself was, really rewarding to me.

Michael: Yeah. And it is, and here's the hard part. You have to earn it. And I think that also applies like to our health. So you're, in medical school, you're getting deep into this understanding of probably our most important organ, our heart, our health in this arena. Like, why did you, why, before we get into kind of the details and the meat of this conversation around health, why did you decide to go that path? And why was it important to you?

Dr. Prarthana: So I always enjoyed a cardiovascular medicine and that sort of system while I was in med school and It I mean it I felt like it was something that was calling to me in a way But I knew at the end that I didn't want to do the very traditional thing. And so I found preventive health and also because I was exercising at that time seeing the changes happening to my body like my when I go my metabolic health. And when I check it, I'm like 19 or 20, which is like much younger than I actually am. And so just seeing those kinds of things and knowing that this is preventable and reversible and seeing that this is a new and emerging field, it intrigued me, and that's why I decided to get into it.

Michael: What was the part about it that intrigued you?

Dr. Prarthana: The fact that, a lot of people look at a heart attack or heart disease and feel like, okay, I'm done now, I can't do this, I can't do that. They restrict their lives and they don't even know or a lot of people actually, a lot of these risk factors are actually modifiable and a lot of people are doing these kind of things and are not looking at the fact that they're modifiable and that They can actually, reverse their risk and they still continue to do it even after being detected with heart disease and things like that. And just the fact that it is and looking at all the emerging data now and seeing how you can actually turn your life around, that sort of inspired me to help because I realized that this is a field I can actually help people get healthier because with things like maybe cancer and things like that, there is sometimes only so much that you can do while you're choosing your post graduation. So I felt like this is something I can actually create change in.

Michael: I love that and I remember when I was young, I was the one at home when my grandmother had a heart attack and I was the one to call 9 1 1 and at the time she was smoking, she was drinking, she was vastly overweight, I imagine the stress of her life of raising her own grandchildren does not help and trust me, I probably played a role in that, and she had this heart attack and the doctors put a stint in her heart and she came back home and nothing changed. She continued to smoke, continue to drink, continue to consume fast food, and you mentioned something that this heart disease and heart attacks are preventable. And I can't help but wonder, what are some of the, let's go into this. One of my things that I try to take very seriously is my health. It's my number one priority over really everything, including business, relationships, friendships, everything, because, sick man only has one wish, and that's health. Heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, these things are really a pandemic. If you think about it, they're taking so many lives every single day, especially in the states and in westernized countries where you have these people who are on this diet of fast food and soda pop and junk and stress and chaos. If we were to, really create an impasse and help people start along this journey of taking control of their health, especially their heart health, where do we begin?

Dr. Prarthana: So you have to look at the risk factors really. So you have to look at the various, they're mostly modifiable lifestyle risk factors. So the number one risk factor is of course, smoking. That is the first and foremost reason for preventable deaths in the entire world. Actually, the next is high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These are the three largest after this. You look at diabetes, you look at CRP, you look at your sedentary lifestyle, you look at your diet, things like that. Obesity is a big cause for heart disease. Now all these things are really very modifiable except for maybe diabetes if you already have it. But still managing that is something that you can do and not just let it go haywire.

Michael: Let's go a little bit deeper into it because I want to really leverage your expertise here. When we're looking at this, what are some of the other risk factors? Are there certain things that are innately a part of DNA or genetics that we need to be aware of? Is it just simply our diet, our exercise? What are some of the things that we can control and we can't control?

Dr. Prarthana: One of the things that you really can't control, but it is only one of the many risk factors is LPEA. This is a genetic predisposition, so if you inherit this from your parents or something like that, this gives you a genetic predisposition to heart disease, but again, this is something that is one of the many. So this is really a role of the multiple risk factors at play and not just one. So controlling all that you can control reduces your risk very drastically. Like I would say between a 60 to 70 percent reduction in risk if you get your risk factors in check, the ones that you can modify, I would say, because things like these genetic things, like even if you have diabetes, okay, so if you exercise every day, if your sugars are in check, you really won't go there unless you push yourself there.

How to Reach Your True Inner Power | with Pedro Jerez

Michael: That have been most profound for you. Is it in the way that you navigate relationships, friendships, business, your own personal talk mindset? What are the core tenants of who it is that you are today? 

Pedro: First thing is I built a deep trust in life on the other side of all this healing. I knew that if I can make it through life for me has been a series of moments of making it through really tough shit or things that felt like the end of the world to me at the moment. Getting on to the other side of that, seeing that I made it through, and through those experiences, instead of just having those experiences, actually it, helping mold my trust in life. So I would say like that's one of the things that I have, but I have that to an unreasonable level.

Michael: What does that mean?

Pedro: It means that, I can literally be in the ocean drowning and I know I'm going to make it out like the most difficult situations you can possibly imagine, being in that and knowing that there's always a way through and because I believe that there's always a way through. I always make it through even about the things that might create anxiety for me or where I'm being invited into. Go through something that I've never gone through that's really stretching me. Because I have that trust, I respond to life differently. I would say that's one of one of the really big things for me. And also, as a result of that, I discovered the word that now runs my identity and runs my life. And for me that's the word is generosity, and what I always tell myself and now what I'm really encouraging others to really step into because I've seen the gifts of how this manifested in my life is to be generous. I believe because of my unique life experience, you have to live your life to come to this truth for yourself, whether you ever come to that truth. But for me, what I believe about generosity is that generosity is like one of those words that when you're ready for it in your life. Like I was at a particular time in my life, like it lands viscerally it's almost like God herself, himself is coming to you and saying, Hey, do you want to be all you can be with all you've been given? Here's how you do that, be generous in your life. Be generous in your relationships, right? Just ask yourself a question. Are you being generous inside of your relationship? Are you being generous inside of your business? Are you being generous inside of your customers? Are you being generous with yourself as a man? What does it actually look like to be generous with yourself as a man for me? I can answer that question selfishly You got to be able to answer it for yourself, but for me what that looks like is when life gets hard to open up to that wider like more hey, this is happening for me I can open up more little by little creating my capacity to be with what is and to move through that gracefully and to move through that, you know there's shit that I experience in my life now, whether that's in a relationship, in my relationship or whether in business that would have crushed me years ago. And now I'm chilling, right? But you build that capacity. You build that capacity by choosing to be generous with emotions, by choosing to be generous with your healing, by choosing to be generous in your business and how you spend your money and how you give your time to others and how you serve others. For me, generosity, on the other side of generosity is everything that I've ever wanted in my life and what that is still being revealing itself to me But I know like as long as I keep showing up in that way It will reveal itself to me in all the ways that I'm meant to be of service in this world.

Michael: That's powerful and you think about that as I think about you saying that I immediately just rewound to a relationship that I had that if I would have been more generous and not so focused on the business, that probably is the mother of my children.

Pedro: Dude, that's a big one, man. That's a big one. It's like something that I'm exploring right now for the first time and like meeting somebody who can be that and to really go there, requires vulnerability. That's an example of generosity right there. To be generous as a man, means to be generous with your vulnerability. If you want to know what scares the shit out of me today, is leaning into that. Yeah. But I don't want to be that guy who looks back and wishes to do things differently standards. Standards are so big in life, like you get what you tolerate. If you don't have the love you want, then are you showing up in love?

Michael: Yeah. No, it's spot on. And I think for a lot of men, and I obviously include myself in this, that journey to love is incredibly difficult. Like when I think about the four core pillars of Unbroken Men, it's courage, love, strength and honor. And I see I know automatically from a Ford, obviously we'll touch this from a business perspective, but from a forward facing marketing perspective, the word love and the word man, and the same fucking sentence is a death sentence. However, I know one thing to be true, the men that understand the power of love. For themselves, for others, for the world, for their partner, their family, their children, those are the guys who are gonna win, ‘cause I'm telling you dude, when I was shut down, when I was a robot, when I was a recluse, when I was terrified of intimacy, and I was chasing the bag, bro, my life sucked. And when I opened up and I shared intimately with my brothers and I cried and I talked to my sister and I healed the death of my mother from drugs and never meeting my father and losing my three best friends who got murdered and all of those things and then stepping into deeply hard moments and intimate relationships with women, opening myself up to love. For them, even in the moments where I'm like, I just want to get in the fucking car, never talk to you again, ‘cause it's easier to walk away. This as well as I do, it's easier to walk away, but to sit in it and to do it with patience and grace, like that's where you win, that's the game.

Pedro: Yeah, it's not only where you win, man, but that's where you build character. 

Michael: A hundred percent. 

Pedro: I think every man who has any sense of emotional intelligence and awareness. It's wise enough to acknowledge that women are gifts for sure in the lessons that they give us.

Michael: They're gonna carry lessons.

Pedro: In the character that we get to build by being in love I don't know if you're familiar with Tantra of people inside of your community are familiar with Tantra, but what I really Resonate with in terms of the tantric path is that in yoga you can be the person who like pushes away life And say, I'm just gonna sit in a cave, I'm gonna meditate, and I'm, this is how I'm gonna reach enlightenment. But Tantra is one of those things that you deliberately choose to make money build businesses, have a family choose a partner. And you know it's gonna be fucking chaos. And that it's gonna fucking challenge you and stretch you, but you do it anyways, and that's a choice. And what Tantra says is, how do we make money? How do we make that the fucking sweetest, most beautiful piece of art that you've ever seen? And make magic out of that, and make music out of that. That requires generosity. That's why it resonates with me. 

Michael: Yeah. No, that's beautiful. That's a great way to look at it. And it's not just sex, right? ‘Cause people hear Tantra and they go to sex. 

Pedro: Dude, that's 5 percent of it is that, which is beautiful, by the way.

Michael: Yeah, for sure. And I think what's interesting is a lot of the books that I have read about Tantra, they all literally, like the first paragraph is like, This isn't about sex. 

Pedro: Literally. But somehow it's just whoops everyone thinks it is. 

Michael: I know that's poor marketing, right? You look at it and I think you're spot on, man. And I encourage guys to be willing to step into that level of vulnerability and it is generosity because you're giving yourself. I want to go back to something because I think it's really important and I don't want to overshadow it. I've had my own battles with mental health. I've shared publicly about multiple suicides attempts when I was young, I've shared publicly about my own struggles with depression and addiction and different things throughout this healing journey. And I've shared publicly about the only reason why I'm here right now, and that was my willingness to ask for help. You talked about being on that island and feeling man, I'm in this beautiful place, but I want to take my life. Why did you ask for help? And what would you tell guys who are in that position? 

Pedro: So what's interesting enough is I think that was the first time that I willingly asked for help. I'm not saying that there weren't other moments that people showed up for me, but it was the first time that I reached out to somebody and said, I want your help, and I wasn't in a good place. I wish I had a great answer for that, other than, I didn't think it was going to end well for me if I didn't. And I really felt like I was in a place in my life where my back was against the wall and I really didn't know how to move through it. I felt lost. Like you, you expressed this beautiful sunset that you painted a little bit ago. And yeah, that was my reality, which is most people's dreams, and I was still feeling this way. And something that this man said was enough for me. To have enough curiosity about it, to want to know where that was going to go, and I think life is really just a series of moments of that. Something happens, and you build a little bit of curiosity about it, and you have the courage to lean into that, and say yes to that, and then it ends up turning into this thing that you look back on and it's the greatest fucking gift. And I feel this is what this was for me. I didn't know that this was going to turn out like this. Here's the part you don't know. So I probably spent, I kid you not a few hundred hours with Chris after this initial meeting. And here's the wildest part, which I can't believe to this day, which probably has a lot to do with the kind of human I am and why I like to show up for people in my life in this way. Chris never asked me for a single dollar. Let me just say this, make sure everyone gets this. I spent hundreds of hours with him. He never asked me for a single dollar. His commitment to collapse my ego was unlike anything that I've ever experienced in my life. So he was adding all this value to my life and I was like, Hey, how can I help you? He was talking about him and his girlfriend. They were writing a book and I was like, Oh my gosh, I got to connect you to this person. And he would immediately, not because he didn't want those things. But because he knew that was my pattern, of trying to be significant, he saw right through it. And he would just poke at that shit, and just have none of it. And he just shut it all down. Literally just shut it all down, and I would just be like, woah. Like what is this?

Michael: What am I supposed to do? How will you acknowledge me? 

Pedro: Yeah, exactly He saw this right here and he would like just on the spot He's like he would call out my dad and like all these different things and like I didn't know Chris was to be that person for me but like I'm so grateful and one of the biggest things that I can encourage people to do is keep an open mind Because you have no freaking clue what gifts life has in store for you through the people that you meet in your life and or things that you come across I had no clue that Chris would literally He was a guide. He guided me to the point where then I became my own guide. And honestly, I learned more from myself today than I do from anybody because I trust myself. Now I trust the lessons that are coming through me independent of any voice. I learned more from myself than anybody that I paid thousands of dollars from. If I have the courage to really receive the lessons and really listen to what life is saying. I, and I really feel to the capacity that I've been able to do this is what's been allowing me to be successful in other areas of life. And I think the greatest gift as a man, at least for me, is to look at yourself in the mirror, and fucking love what you see.