Overcoming Addiction and Healing Trauma with Mike Diamond

 Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation! Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. Very excited to be back with you with another episode with my great friend Mike Diamond, who is the author the brand-new book, A Dose of Positivity: Tools, Techniques, and Strategies to Live Life on Your Terms. Brother, I'm super excited to have you here, how are you, Mike?

Mike: I'm great. I'm very grateful to be here, very happy to be here, pretty stoked to be actually in Las Vegas, like, you know, just taking this time with you. I'm really good.

Michael: Yeah, dude, I'm super excited to be connected with you. You know, I think about a couple of different things when it comes to predominantly, obviously your work in how you help change and transform people's lives. How now A Dose of Positivity is something as a tool for people to really step into gratitude radically, which is so incredibly important. But most importantly, like I think about my core values as a human being, and number one above all for me is honesty. And you are just this incredibly powerfully honest person but I'm gonna throw this out here and you can tell me if I'm wrong or not. I am going to assume that's not how you've always been.

Mike: No, that's why I'm honest ‘cause I was so dishonest and authentic and I was living such a lie because you're such a great question. It's so great you said this ‘cuz what people don't understand is that if someone doesn't give you the opportunity to be authentic and be honest with what you are, then you bury it and then you play whatever character to survive. And like we were talking about before, right? We've had pretty chaotic upbringings, a lot of dysfunctionalities, a lot of toxic people, toxic environment. So, your true self is hidden so when people say, oh, that person's not honest, I'm like, yeah, but imagine why they're not honest, where did they come from? What stories do they have to tell themselves to survive, to just get by? So, my first part of my life was so toxic, and I was never allowed to express who I was, that I had to put on all these characters and then after a while, it's like a method actor, you get lost in the role and you forget who you are because you're never yourself because you don't have air to be yourself, you know? And it's f** up, unfortunately.

Michael: Yeah, I resonate with that so much. For us to understand you and to go deep today. What do you think is one of the most important foundational understandings about who you are that we need to know about you?

Mike: That's such a good question. I'm a guy that came from nothing that could think greater than his environment, which was a small town in Australia. And I am ridiculously consistent self-discipline, self-reliant. And I would say, this is how I say it, I've got the stamina of a hyena, ‘cuz people don't know, hyenas have f** stamina, they just don't have the back legs to be the king of the jungle. I have the heart of a lion, but I have the fire of a f*** honey badger.

So, I've got full of heart, full of fire, but I'll go all day. And if I love, that's why I'm an addict. Right. I love all the way, and I've gotta be careful because if I hate, which I don't hate anymore, but when I go down that road, I still admit it. I'm a savage. I've gotta be very careful. Right. So, I'm all in. I don't believe in, like we get along, that's it. I don't need any references. If I click with someone and I feel it, I feel it. I figure out the rest. My reference is how I feel. I trust my gut if my gut is right that's all that matters.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it's funny you say that because one of the things I constantly am trying to teach people is don't trust your brain, your brain is a liar. Mike, you've never one time in your life, ever said, ah, I knew I should have trusted my brain, but f*ck, man, how many times have you been like, I knew I should have trusted my gut.

Mike: And you know why? I'll tell you why. Because when we intuitively feel something, we can't describe the feeling because it comes from the unknown, it comes from source energy, it comes from infinite intelligence like Napoleon Hill talked about, right? The secret talks about the source. It comes from something that super conscious. Right? Now, what happens is, is part of the human experience as spiritual beings, having the human experience we're flawed, having a human experience, right? We then try to overthink and intellectualize the feeling. No, don't worry about, just follow the feeling and more will be presented to you. Right? So, this is why we're all f*** up right now because technology is what? Brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, right?

Michael: Yeah. Such a good point.

Mike: So, we get caught in these instant moments, and that's why everyone's stuck with interesting gratification, right? Because they don't feel processes feeling sitting in the process, feeling your feelings, digging down, mastery is not created in a minute, some things take more than 10,000 hours. When you look at the great masters, right? They had mentors at five years old. The great renaissance movement with all the mentors and Michael Angelo and Da Vinci and then you look at, that was all the process of feeling their way through things and then pushing through those feelings. And then looking back and then, ah, that's how you do it. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. Right? And learning that. So, if you can follow your intuition and your gut in life, you are golden.

Michael: Yeah. You'll never be wrong.

Mike: Never.

Michael: And I had literally in real time have this thought as you just said, that I thought to myself, of course, I would turn out the way I did in my teens and twenties because the mentors when I was five years old were these massively inconsistent men, these abusive people, these drug addicts and alcoholics. My first memory I've two very vivid memories of men in my life as a child. One was the one and only time I ever met my father one time on my birthday and he spanked me and my brother, that's literally the only memory I have of him. The other earliest memory I have of manhood of men is going to visit my uncle in prison when I was six years old. And so, I remember being six years old and I was like, I will never ever go to prison, ever. I've run from the cops I've gotten shot at, there are moments in my life where I'm like, this is about to be death by cop because I was like, I'm not going. I don't give a f***. And so, looking at that level of mentor in conjunction with the community that I come from, it's like, no wonder I end up where I was. So, for you, take us back, what was childhood growing up in this little town in Australia? What was the mentors that you were seeing at that age?

Mike: It was fucked. And I'll tell you why. I grew up in a small town, my parents did the best they could with the resources they had. My older brother got sick when I was seven with measles encephalitis and was in a coma. And I remember going to see my older brother in a coma and like, what is going on? And my little sister was 13 weeks premature. So back then my dad was a hardworking European, you didn't have a lot of resource, you didn't have a lot of help that he'd worked 12 hours a day. My mom had zero ability to control her emotions. So, I was the problem child, I was undiagnosed, dyslexic, ADHD, right? So, they just downloaded all their stress on me, they didn't mean it. I don't blame them now; they just didn't know. Like no one taught them to no, there was no one sitting down going, okay, what you're going through is really f*** intense and f**** up, you need to do breathe work, right? You need to regulate your emotions. You need to do f*** yoga, you need to write down, you know, there was no therapy. It was like, that's what you did. And back when I was a kid, if you f**** up at school, the teacher hit you with a piece of wood.

Michel: Yeah, same.

Mike: You know what I mean? So, then you go like, I didn't have any positive mentors. The only people that were positive to me was I had my cousins down the street, I had an incredible cousin who helped me, she edited the first draft of this book who was a very successful journalist. I had my uncle down the street who I had looked up to because he was just wealthy and just had so much swagger. So, I was like, okay, what does he do? Like, how do these people make money? No one gave me any information, ‘cuz I was undiagnosed dyslexic. So, I was bad at school but I was at a great athlete. But what's f**** was when I was a kid, it was like, if I succeeded, everyone called me a show off. But if I failed, everyone called me a loser. So, at 12, I mood altered, I was drinking at 12 and just taking in whatever, I can because the environment was so stressful, not one f**** person at night. I remember my sister's got such a great parent, my sister, such a great parent with her boys, and I sent her my track times. My mom never kept any of my medals, even my wife couldn't believe I have a bag of metals that I took from Perth to back here. And I remember at nine years old, I ran the 70 meters in 10.9 seconds and she looked up the record, she's like, my kids are running two seconds slower than that, you were like a weapon. And I said, no, I was so quick. Now I didn't mature till later, so from like a young age to 12, I was so great at track. Then everyone got big and I was a little kid, but I played rugby, I played these sports, but not one person pulled me aside and said, you've got talent. And I was so talented and gave me any encouragement or any love. The only person that interjected in my life by default, I had a neighbor called Judy Turner. I got kicked outta school. I wanted to kill myself. I went from a private school to a public school, was getting the sh*t kicked outta me, no friends, miserable, no love at home, no love anywhere, just abuse and I was like, f** it, I'll kill myself. F***k it. So, I grabbed a handful of pills and I jumped over her fence and she saw me and she just walked over to me. She didn't know what I was doing my hand was in my pocket and she gave me a real f**** moment, dude. She just looked at me and she goes, are you okay? And I'm like, no. Not at all. I'm f*** up. Like, I'm a f*** up kid. She's like, it's okay. And she f*** hugged me, man and loved me. My parents never told me they loved me when they, when I grew up, not their fault, they just didn't get, they didn't no one loved them, so they didn't know how to love. Right. It was generational trauma and abuse passed down. It's not their fault. They just didn't have tools. And she goes, in 30 years from now, none of this will matter. I wrote about her. I put her in the acknowledgements, we still communicate on Facebook. My parents won't read my book, my siblings won't read it. My parents won't show up to my book signings. My in-laws didn't even show up to my book signings, it's just what I am. I'm a transitional character, I broke the lineage, I'm the black sheep, I stepped outside of the box. Right. And the reason I love people so much and the reason I'm so kind is ‘cuz Judy just did one act of kind isn't it changed the course of my life.

Michael: It's a powerful man.

Mike: So, I just try to be that one person to someone, you know what I mean? Give 'em a hug, tell 'em it's gonna be okay ‘cuz I know, I know if you can get through the f*** moments, it's gonna be okay.

Michael: Yeah. There's something really powerful about that and I resonate ‘cuz there's so many parallels here and you know, I remember being a kid, started doing drugs when I was 12, getting drunk when I'm 13, same journey. Right? And I think that unfortunately for a lot of kids who come from the backgrounds like we do, we are the black sheep. Like I was a great athlete as a kid, right? I played four sports, I was captain of the wrestling team, blah, blah, blah. But I kept getting kicked off the teams because I didn't have the grades. I hated school. I didn't want to be there. I'm in the streets. I'm trying to make money, like living in this crazy ass world that we live in. And it's like I had one teacher –  Mr. Hollingsworth, I always call him out as often as possible, who one day after I got in a fight, he sat me down and he just goes, you're not supposed to be here. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, I'm not supposed to be here. He's like, you're not supposed to be in this school, in this environment, you're one of the most astute kids we probably ever we're probably the smartest kid I've ever had as a student. He literally goes, just make it through this, and that was powerful. I didn't understand it then, right? ‘Cuz I'm like, fucking 16 or 17 but we need that. And when you look at research, you know, most people who fall down the path of addiction come from backgrounds like this.

Mike: All trauma. It's all trauma-based addiction. Any kind, that's why I love Gabor Maté book, The Myth of Normal. No one gets out in the sense of we're all flawed in this human experience, every spiritual being is flawed. We've got to figure our sh*t out. Right? And you're going to be tested. It didn't matter that you I came from obviously more wealth in that sense. Right. But the abuse was there and if you don't get the love and no one is there for you, some of the celebrities I take care of, some of the people I take care of. Right. They come from so much f*** money, but the kids are f***. It's not the parent all the time. It's not the parent's fault. It's just that if no one gives us air to breathe and no one gives us love, that's all we want. We want to be accepted unconditionally.

You know, the greatest, there's 2 speeches. Well, the greatest speech that I've ever seen in my life is Jim Valvano, the great NC State coach. And he tells this f** story, everyone should listen to this. And he tells this story about his dad. Right. And he goes, dad, I'm going to, we're he changes and he's trying to make it to the NC State and his dad goes, my bags are packed, my bags are packed. And every year my dad, he would never go anywhere with the teams and my bags are packed and they finally f*** make it. And he said, my bags are packed and they win, they win. Right. And he's running around the court and he hugs his dad, and the next year, my bags are packed, and the next year my bags are packed and they don't win again. Right. And when his dad died, he goes, I don't know what it was, its f*** really hurt me. And he goes, I was sitting there alone, and he goes, I was in a hotel room on the road and it finally come to me, it didn't matter if I measured up or not, my dad always believed in me. And if you don't have that, we never have that we instill that in others. I believe in others' potential. Kobe said the same f*** thing. I watched this thing, he was crying, he couldn't get a win and couldn't get a point in summers league. Right. He wasn't that good. Kobe, everyone thinks he started good. No, he had to struggle. And the dad said, what's wrong? He's crying and he goes, Kobe, I love you unconditionally. Like, I heard that and I cried, I was like, no one told me that, they told me I was a f*** loser. I was never gonna make it, like my life wouldn't have end. I wouldn't have paid the dummy tax. I wouldn't have tried to climb the wrong mountain so many times, they wouldn't have done fistfuls of cocaine and f*** up my life and made millions of dollars and blown millions of dollars and just gone into this f**** dishwasher. Right. This just round in circles if someone just would've pulled me aside and said, you're enough.

Michael: Yeah. Well, the difficult part about that too, Mike, is you wouldn't be in this chair.

Mike: True.

Michael: Right. And so that's one of the things I always come back to, it's like, people will ask me like, do I have gratitude for the past? And I'm like, I don't know that I necessarily have gratitude for my mom cutting my fucking finger off. Right? But I have gratitude for a lot of the experiences that led me to this moment. And I think back to like that young version of me and it's like, man, if I could just remember the thing that and I'm leading somewhere with this, I was stubborn. I was like, I'm gonna get this. But my this was in misalignment. I'm gonna guess if I were to title young Mike, he was probably stubborn as sh*t.

Mike: Stubborn as a mule outta my f*** mind. So stubborn, like no quit, but like, stubborn to flawed. Like, what are you doing? I'll prove you wrong. Do you know what I mean? Like, but it's because we know how to say we had no safe grounds. We had no boundaries. Had no baseline. You don't have a baseline if you don't have good mentors. See, what I talk about in the book is indirect mentors. And if someone comes to you on me, we're a direct mentor, that you can deal us directly. And indirect mentor is having the ability to look at someone else's life and emulate it. So, what I did is I would look at someone, I was very good at narrowing in successful people. So, when I wanted to go to acting school, I was in Perth and I spotted a guy who was a successful actor and I was in Perth and wanted to move to Sydney. And I just had the questions, where did you study? What should I do? How should I do it? And I took his blueprint and then when I went to Sydney, right? And then studied, was studying American. I was always coming to America. Now you're crazy, now I'm coming to America. I studied America. I wanted to learn everything about America, I wanted to, what does it smell like? ‘Cuz I always say, right, the menu's not the food. The territory is not the map. You can see, oh, this is in the New York? No. Get on the streets in New York. And that's why we talked before, like you can tell if someone's walked the talk. You can tell if someone's been in the ghetto. You can tell if someone's been in a street fight ‘cuz you smell it on them. You're like, you're full of sh*t, can smell it. You choke in a f*** second. You're not ready to go for the vault. You don't even want to be in the getaway car. And I grew up with people that were straight killers. I grew up with people that like I knew, you know, you, they, they'll f*** kill you. And they're doing time now, you looked in their eyes and you're like, oh yeah, you're gonna stick me. I shut my f*** mouth here. Yeah. And that's why I say to people like, you can't lie, at the end of the day, dude, you get smelt out. You can't be a paper champ ‘cuz the gym rat who's doing the work in the dark is eventually gonna shine in the bright lights.

Michael: Yeah. And I think that's what's so incredibly interesting about that is sometimes you have to be that underdog.

Mike: I think we are always the underdog. I don't ever think you and I ever get the credit that we're supposed to get, and I think that's what keep us driven. I think transitional characters, I think people like, or I'll give you a perfect example. So, Brian Holliday, who I love, right? He's a white dude that worked at American Peril, and Robert Green is his mentor, right? One of the best. He talks about stoicism, right? That's all he talks about, right? He's a great author, but he basically reproduces stoicism. Let's look at Seneca, he talks about Seneca all the time. Seneca mentored Niro, do some research on Niro. He was one of the biggest pieces of sh*t there was, one of the worst emperors. So, he sits there all day and he talks about Seneca, like Seneca's a hero, be bizarre, right? Marcus Aurelius, he wrote a great book, right? He didn't expect anyone to discover it, they were his meditations, right? His private meditations, right? He suffered. Socrates, suffered right, was a game changer. He didn't write anything down, Plato did and taught his work. Epic Titus was a slave, he got outta slavery, he didn't write anything down. The people under him wrote it down and taught it, right? All these people suffered or were suffering, or were in suffering or some kind of pain, right? And we take the work and reproduce it. The transitional character is the underdog that you're not supposed to, it's like, by default. The greatest story I ever heard; Gavin Rossdale from the band Bush, put together that album, 16 Candles, whatever it was that had come down on it was painting houses never thought the album would hit and got a call. He'd given up, he was told never sing again, given up. He was just, I'll put the album out or go nowhere. I'm painting these houses. Oh, the album's really big on K Rock. He said, what the f** is K Rock? That's the point. It's not fabricated. Arts messy. People are messy. You know what I'm saying? The people that no way in the world, anyone would've wanted to be in Jeff Bezos when he started Amazon, like a f*** idiot. Yeah. Used book *****. Seriously.

Michael: Yeah. I heard John Maxwell; I was lucky enough to be at an event with him. John's sitting up there on stage and he is amazing. He's one of the greatest authors of all time. He says, people always want to be where I am and they never want to be where I was. And I thought to myself, that's really fascinating because it's true in a lot of ways and there's always that element of the work that you have to put in. But when I rewind and I look at the journey, it's like, I don't even want to f*** be where I was. There was so much pain and suffering and torment and turmoil, but I think without it, you don't get to figure out who you are.

Mike: You can't, it's not, life is too complex, the human. I'll give you a perfect example, right? I remember when Joe Rogan started his podcast back in 2010, ‘cuz I was at the comedy store doing some comedy right? And he was in the original room and there was Whitney Cummings and it was Paul Shaw and all the guys, right? I was in the first room, the small room where a guy called Vagus Mason doing standup. And then we'd rotate every two weeks and you get on the main stage. And I remember he started his podcast. Now think about this for a second. Joe Rogan, after all these years, gets a hundred million from Spotify by mistake. He never set out to get a hundred-million-dollar deal from Spotify. He just wanted to start a podcast with his friends. Now here's this, let's just say, it's a straight line, to get the a hundred million you have to do standup comedy like Joe Rogan and suck and go through hell. Call out Carlos Mancina at the Comedy Store, which no other comedian would want to do, lost his deal with Gersh ‘cuz Gersh was sign had Carlos as well, and Carlos was still in everyone's jokes. No one wanted to beat Joe Rogan there, got banned from the Comedy Store. Start a podcast, had no one really following him, then do Fear Factor, which was the dumbest show of the world. It's f*** streaking horse come weird, right? Doing The Man Show, which was another stupid show, right? Which I think Jimmy Kimmel did The Man Show, right?

Michael: Adam Corolla, right?

Mike: Like, think about this. No one would've signed up to do it was the dumbest f*** show, right? They cheer this out, right? Be a UFC commentator when no one was watching the UFC. No one. Go through all that pay your f** dues. Right. Be called a loser. Be called a chauvinist, whatever it was. Go through that to start a podcast and do so many episodes with no idea where it's gonna go, or not planning to sell it. He just wanted to interview his friends. Right. And interview interesting people to do all that. If you are told, if Joe Rogan said, that's the blueprint to make, to get a hundred million podcast, no one's signing up for it. Everyone wants the trophy, but no one wants to f*** train.

Michael: Yeah. Well, here's what I think about Mike, how much of that is fear? When you sit across to me right now, if I were to label you with a singular word, it would be fearless. Why? How do I know that, that this is the question?

Mike: You mean Joe Rogan?

Michael: No. How do I know that you can sit across from me and I can label you as fearless because I have that traited because I'm willing to say, f*ck it. Let's see what happens. I've already been through the worst thing I've ever been through, so why am I worried about this thing?

Mike: Your opinion…

Michael: Not just that, but the implications of failure, right? Which keeps people baffled and stuck constantly. So, tracing back, going back into your journey, these moments, here you are, thank God for Judy, all these experiences that you had, on the brink of potential death, ending yourself, which I've been there as well, you get this little bit of support, this little bit of love this hug that was so desperately overdue and needed. Now what?

Mike: When you mean when I went to Sydney?

Michael: What happens next?

Mike: So I moved, I graduated high school and then I moved to Sydney, so I was born on the West coast and I auditioned. I didn't know, I knew I could act, but I didn't know the dyslexia thing. Like I had so many issues with like, ADHD and dyslexia, but I could act, I knew I could remember monologues. So, I auditioned for a school and they accepted me. Now again, problem was I had a horrible f*** mentor, like the worst mentor in the world and this is why intuition is the key. So, my plan, and this is why plans are meant to be flexible and you never know the linear, it's not a linear journey, there's gonna be bumps on the road. My plan was to come to America. I thought if I go to acting school, I get an agent ‘cause that's what everyone did, that's what you're supposed to do. Get an agent and you come to America. Now, I was in a acting school with Hugh Jackman, he graduated four years before me that worked for him. But Hugh didn't come from where I came from. Hugh was not a drug addict. He's a very good-looking linear guy, and it worked, right? He got think, he got on Beauty and the Beast, the first thing he got on Broadway great musical, you know, theater presence. I had a really bad mentor. He got me and another person intoxicated, we ended up back at his place. He took advantage of the girl, practically f*** raped her. I wasn't in a position to defend her or myself I was so f*** up. And the next day I went to acting school and I spoke to her and I said, what do you want me to do? She said Nothing. And then a friend of mine at acting school, I said, what do you want me to do? She goes, you got to say something. He needs to go, he's doing it to all the students. And he's been doing it for years. And I'm like, okay, okay. So, I went to the dean and I said, hey, this is what happened and they were kind of investigating him, but she wasn't going to say anything. So, it was his word against hers and obviously she's going to fold, why would you want to be embarrassed? She shouldn't have been there. She felt shamed. And I said, you know what? F*ck it. I was like, I'll leave and kick his ass out and just leave it like that. So, this is why it's so incredible.

So, I was walking down this mall where I used to see these guys selling clothes and there's a Greek guy, I'm part Greek and a bunch of other things. And I saw the guy Dean and I said, Dean, I need a job and he's like, why? The place was called Politics Men's Wear in Sydney, Australia, on Pit Street Mall. And I said, well, I want to go to America. And he's like, aren't you at acting school? I said, I'm gonna just save my money and go to America. And he's like, so you're gonna come and get a job in my clothes store and then just f**king leave? I said, yeah, and he's like, whatever. So, , a little bit of a back and forth, I sold some clothes in the store, he gives me a job. So, I'm grinding away, killing it, still going to classes and a lady walk in and I do my song and dance to sell her clothes for her husband. And she's like, what are you doing here? And I said, oh, well I'm saving my money to move to America. And she said, why don't you enter the green card lottery? And I was like, what? What the f*ck are you talking about? And she's like, there's a lottery, you can win a green card. I'm like, yeah, okay. I'm like, she's f*cking smoking crack and she must be smoking the crack I get.

So, it's like the next day, it's so funny ‘cause I was stoned with the guy I work with and we're dressing the front of the windows and I could see her walking down the mall. We weren't open yet, it was an open-air mall and she had bags from the store and I was like, fuck, she's going to return the clothes ‘cuz it was for her husband. So, I hid in the bag and she's knocking on the window and my buddy Al goes, what's up? And she's like, I wanna see if Mike was here and he's like, oh, he's in the stockroom jean ing. He goes, I bought him the green card lottery ticket. I came out and I was like, Hey and she said, what's up? I said like, I'm going to be honest. I thought I was f*** hiding. I thought you're going to exchange the clothes. And she said, no, you were great, we love the clothes. We love you. We hope you win. Gave me the f*cking ticket and hugged me. And I was like, it's like a hug from Judy. I was like, I'm going to win a f*cking green card. Six months later, I want a fucking green card in a lottery. Now here's an important lesson for all your listeners. If I would've overthought it and not went with the right thing, doing the right thing isn't easy, but doing the easy thing isn't right. I wouldn't have stuck up for that girl and changed her life like Judy changed mine. Right. You see a theme here? And guess what, the lady never would've given me the f*** green card ‘cause I wouldn't have taken a job in a clothing store.

Michael: There's nothing easy about doing the hard thing, you know, and I think about that constantly and more so, Mike, it's almost impossible to do the right thing when you've only been taught to do the wrong thing.

Mike: Oh, you know, the unraveling we have to do when the programming… Look, I'm gonna be straight with you, my son's five years old, you'll meet him tomorrow. I did not download all my f*** b**sh*t on him. He is so clean, dude. Dude, we both know the first eight years, the subconscious mind is programmed. Dude, I went to the book signing, I took him to the book signing in LA and originally, he wasn't gonna go and he told my wife, no, no, I've gotta greet daddy's guests. And every person that walked in, he had to hug. I don't teach him this sh*t. He's just been around me so much and there's no conditions, there's no yelling. Dude, the other day, you'll love this, you'll love this so bad.

I was on the phone with someone and I never yell in front of him. Like, every now and then I'll snap human. But I was like, dude, you're not getting this together. I was on the phone. He's like, dad that's too loud. And I was like, m**f****, like seriously, he checked me. And I go yell and I'm like, that's how great it is that he is like that, you don't talk like that. And then the other day I was messing with him and I jabbed him in his leg and he was like, what are you doing that's too hard? I'm like, dude, I used to like you and me get the sh*t kicked out of us, I'm like, he doesn't know that. He doesn't know violence. He doesn't know screaming. He doesn't know putdowns. He doesn't know you're never gonna make it. He doesn't know you're a loser. He, he lives in the f**king zone. I have one kid. Right. And I didn't f**k him up ‘cuz you know why I live vicariously through him.

He's got discipline, but he lives a great life. If he wants to get up some days, he wants to be him and he wants to have a meltdown, the other day he came home from school, they say he's the greatest student. He flipped the whole house upside down and my wife, I'm like, I was like, what are you doing? Are you preparing? Just in case someone breaks in? So, they go to the next house. He goes, huh, I don't know. And then I let him freak out, destroy everything in the house. I'm like, can we pack it up? He's like, okay, and then he makes everything meticulous. I'm like, he needed a moment. 34:42 inubo

Michael: Yeah. As we all do. I mean, sh*t, I still need moments. Right. That's why I practice martial arts. I don't know what the f*ck I would do without martial arts to be honest with you. The reason I said thank you when you said that is ‘cuz when I rewind my journey, if I would've said something in that capacity to my stepdad, I would've got thrown through a f**king wall, literally. It would've been probably the worst day of my life.

Mike: It would've been a punching bag.

Michael: And I think how important this idea of changing and ending generational trauma is. But there's a lot of things that lead to that moment for you, Mike. And so, you get the green card, you get the opportunity, it's like f**king Willy Wonka's golden ticket, literally. But here's what I think is really fascinating, there's a lot of you needing to require yourself to listen to the universe, and I think people are terrified of that.

Mike: I have so much faith in the unknown. I live in the stretch, in the gap.

Michael: I wanna go deeper. How can you, when you've had all the experiences of suffering?

Mike: I don't know, it's gonna sound weird. There was a famous quote from Marlon Brando, and they asked him if he believed in acting school. And he said, look, there's nothing wrong with acting school to learn your craft, but you never have to send a tiger to jungle school, so, I'll lead into, is this. People freak out when a tiger at the circus snaps. And I think it's Chris Rock made the joke; the tiger just went Tiger.

Michael: Yeah, that's a great joke.

Mike: When the killer whale snaps at SeaWorld, it's a killer f*cking whale. So, I inherently, there is something in me and I don't know if it happened in a previous life or whatever it is, I have an incredible ability to just know, I just know I can feel it. And when I feel it, it's so f*cking strong that I can't turn it off. And when I turn it off or try to, I do it through drugs. I mood alter when I try to turn off my authentic knowing, my authentic self, ‘cuz I know I'm guided. I'll be honest with you; I never have to worry. I don't worry, I don't stress. I know I'm taken care of. I just know it. And I have so much faith in the universe, I believe, when people say synchronicities, I don't look, I believe the path it's there, the path is open. We have to remove the obstacles. And the obstacles are people, places are in our environment, things that come in information. And the reason that so many people have lost that, that sixth sense is because everything tries to take you away from yourself and everyone wants you to be what I want ‘cuz then I can control you and I don't have to work. See if I manipulate you enough to be my worker, what is that? A cog? I've always been a linchpin. See, I could sit through school and go, this doesn't make any sense. I don't need Pythagoras's theorem to make money. I can, I'm making money now. Hustling. I was always hustling. I was always making money so I could look at someone when I played sports, I knew when someone was better than me. I'm like, I gotta train harder, that guy's really f*cking good. How much more do I need to beat him next year? Right. Or if I met with someone and they were bigger than me and stronger, I'm like, he's f*cking gonna kill me. I have to work. I gotta talk my way out of this, this guy, can fucking hurt me in the club business, when I'd stand in front of with someone.

I remember I never forget, we'll, throwing a guy out one night, I said to Kerry, don't put your hands on him. He's like, why am I do not put your hands on that mother*cker? He's like, I'll tell you later. We took him out. I said, I'm gonna put my hands on you, your friends outta line. Can we talk about it tomorrow? He's too drunk. He said, absolutely. He goes, but that security needs to talk to me correctly. I said, I got you. They're like, how did you know? I said, first of all, look at his f*cking ears. He had the worst cauliflowers I've ever seen in my life. I'm like, you don't get ears like that from playing table tennis. He's a f*cking killer. Look at those guys, you didn't getting ears like that cauliflower is like, I go, he's a legit f*cking wrestler. He is going to tear your arms off, that's years of training. Right? And I said, now look at the scar. And he had a scar down this face. I said, do you think he got that from playing volleyball? They're like, no. I said, that guy is gonna f*ck you up. Two weeks later, we found out he was like, he like fought in Brazil, bare knuckle. This is back late nineties, right? Like the full-on bare-knuckle Valley tudo. I think he fought Wanderlei Silva back in the day. I said, what'd I tell you? He's crazy. He's a gun. He's a killer.

Michael: Only crazy person would fight Wanderlei Silva.

Mike: Yeah, bare knuckles. We we're bare feet back in the day with Mark Coleman and those guys, and what was Mark Kerr? And they're like, so I've always had that ability to know. I'm like, trust this. Ooh, so it's no know when to push, when to pull 'em, when to pause.

Michael: You said something really interesting about this idea of the drugs, the alcohol, whatever those things are numbing your path. I'll share this story, first time I got high was 12 years old. My best friend Brian, who lived three doors up and, on the right, comes to my house, I was living at my grandma. She had just adopted me, I had been living homeless in like this abandoned house, for like six weeks, eight weeks, while my mom had disappeared ‘cuz my mom was always disappearing and she had left my stepfather. So, they were going through a divorce, nobody knew who he was. He took my little brother and my other little brother was in a group home. So, it's just all chaos everywhere you can imagine. And Brian comes to my house, he knocks on the door. We we're new friends at this point. I've maybe known him for two weeks, if that right? It's summertime, Indiana. He's like, hey, let's go on a bike ride because you're f**king 12, what else do you do when you're 12? Nothing. You play, go on your f*cking bike and you go like, dig up worms and sh*t. So, on a bike and he pulls out this bag of wee, he goes, do you wanna smoke this with me? He'd never been high; I'd never been high. But as parents, you could walk in their house, always smelled weird, Mike, you know what I mean? You know those parents; the house always smells a little weird. I didn't know what it was back now, back then, and it was like, okay, sure, whatever. I don't know what this is. And I'd like tried a couple of my grandma's cigarettes over the years ‘cuz well they were there. And we're riding the bikes, we go into this little ditch a couple blocks away from the house and he texts us joint. We put it in a plastic pen cap, this is how dumb we are as children. We're about to smoke weed and plastic and we get so f*cking high that for the first time I felt peace. And the noise knew that the voices stopped. Dude. The sun had never been shinier, the clouds had never been bluer, I never felt more safe until I didn't because it works

Mike: Till it doesn't, that's the problem.

Michael: Exactly.

Mike: And it worked for me, it removes the pain, it removes the stress, it removes the anxiety. And then that's why it's so insidious ‘cuz then it, something happens, it crosses over, it doesn't work anymore. And you keep chasing the dragon, and where is it? I knew it worked once and that's the power of addiction. But then when you start to see, I always tell people, don't quit something, substitute or substitute. I didn't quit drinking. I substitute drinking with something more empowering. And then people go, oh, that makes it easier, right? Because look, at the end of the day, I was talking to someone the other day about cocaine. When I did cocaine, it was pure cocaine, it wasn't laced with fentanyl, it was f*cking like straight from the cartel in New York, we paid off cops, it was f*cking like the best sh*t ever. You did a match of it and you felt incredible, the problem is you couldn't stop.

Michael: See, I've never, I have such an addictive personality. I've always known if I did cocaine one time, it would be overflow. I've never done it.

Mike: The guy at the gym, years ago, the first time I did cocaine, I was at a gym, it was a famous bodybuilder back in the day that I only did in Australia. And I came in, I didn't know what pre-workouts were back then. And he said, how you feeling? I said, I feel a sluggish. He goes, I got something for you and I was fearless. And he laid down a line in Coke. I'm like, what is it? He goes, it's cocaine. And I'm like, oh, never done that. And I ripped a line, I was like, how much is a bag of this? And he is like, well, it was like 300 bucks back then. I was like, I had money and always had money. And he was like, all right, look at me in a bag, dude. I was like that. And I'd started off like, I would just do a line through the gym. I mean, what kind of insanity is that? Who gives you cocaine for the gym? Like that's the kind of people I was around. But then like, I tell people like, there's no need to smoke cocaine if you're gonna try it. Don't try it. Drink like seven double espressos like, there's no need. You know why it's the same thing as probably, it's probably going to be cut with some kind of baby laxative in your sheet yourself afterwards. So, it you'll get diarrhea after the seven.

Michael: It's literally the same thing.

Mike: Yes. It's literally the same thing. You'll be wired up, you'll be like confused. You'll write down a bunch of sh*t you're never going to do the great. If you wanna know what it's like doing cocaine, I think it's Ted one, the movie with the bear. And Mark Wahlberg and Ted are high on Coke with the f*cking wrestler, flash Gordon and they start talking about creating a bar, a restaurant, Italian restaurant, it's the greatest scene of people that have done cocaine. They talk about the restaurant, they talk about the idea, they argue over the specials, they fire each other, the restaurant shuts down, and no one leaves the table, that's cocaine. It's like you go nowhere, your hamster on the wheel, right? You don't need to do meth. There's no reason to do methamphetamine, right? There's no reason to take Fentanyl. If you go, you need to be prescribed a painkiller, a kind went through stomach surgery, go to a f*cking doctor, right? Get someone to give you the prescription. Right? You don't need these drugs. And I always say to people, if you are having mental health issues and you think you are bipolar, or if you think you are, you know, ADHD, go to a guy like Dr. Raymond. He's got the best clinic in LA, right? He's got the best clinic there. He will give you a proper brain scan. Go to a legit guy that studies your brain that has actual imaging of your brain that can look at your prefrontal cortex, your hippocampus, your amygdala, and all these parts of your brain, right? And say, oh, you do have issues here, right? This is what you need for the wiring. But a good doctor, a good psych, is gonna give you the right amount of meds and the right amount of supplements and make you exercise and make you do mindfulness and make you eat correctly. You know what I'm saying? So, I can tell you from my experience, you don't need all these drugs and alcohol. People say, should you quit drinking. If you can have one glass, it's up to you. I can't. I want one glass, I want a bottle, right? Is how's weed to me medicinal weed if you're in pain and you use the right amount of THC. Yeah. Isn't nothing wrong with weed, but you are smoking wax, that's a completely different thing, that's like free basing marijuana.

Michael: I never thought about it like that, that's such a good point ‘cuz I don't do it so.

Mike: Right. But there's a big difference to 0.3 or 0.5 THC to 80% pure THC, the f*ck are you talking about?

Michael: We are on another planet right now. I heard something interesting where at one point marijuana was used in indigenous ceremonies in the same way that people use it every day now.

Mike: Yeah. So, when you're talking about mushrooms, for example, right? There's the hero dose, which would be with a shaman like ayahuasca spiritual work and it is a gateway to split the mind open and open up the subconscious and then you go into deep talk therapy and you do it in therapy.

Michael: And you heal that wound.

 Mike: What doing a hero dose without a charmin, like, we used to do that as kids, but when you talk about actually micro dosing, it's 0.1 and you go to a guy, you look up the Paul Stamus, or you look up these guys, they also do lion's mane and all these other, you know, mushrooms with it but they're talking about doing in a therapeutic setting with a therapist like I have a friend of mine that's at UCLA, they have a massive grant with UCLA to do micro dosing, ketamine, micro dosing all these drugs and checking out the brain. Does it work? Yeah, it works for Midfields Mental health. You're better off going like that route than taking Prozac which does nothing to build the neural pathways. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying like doing it correctly, plant medicine and doing it by myself saying, well, I've got this figured out. No, you don't. That's like people say about performance enhancing drugs. Right. Do their work. Yeah. Of course, they work, that's why they're a handshake performance. Have I ever done a performance enhancing drug? Yeah. I used to snort cocaine. I've done steroids, I've done it all. I'm f*cking, when I was a kid. Does it work? Yeah. Does it help? Well, are you a professional athlete? It still doesn't stop the work like Lance Armstrong. People talk sh*t about Lance dude, he's got one testicle and he won seven Tour De Frances. It doesn't matter, all the steroids you do, you ain't gonna do it with one testicle, is still gonna do the work. There's no substitute for hard work, it's work.

Michael: Yeah, that's very, very true. I would like for you in your own interpretation of this, ‘cause I have mine and as you're talking, I'm thinking about this a lot. We live in probably the most addicted time in history which is weird because on the flip side of that coin, we also simultaneously live in the safest time in history. And it's almost like the space for people to step into discomfort since it doesn't exist in our normal day-to-day lives has made comfort the priority. And so now you have people addicted to TikTok and social media, porn, online dating, alcohol, drugs, all of these things. When you think about, and knowing that you've helped intervene in the lives of more people than I can even begin to count, what is it that people need to understand about society and the world that we're living in right now when it comes to addiction?

Mike: All right, so every product that's created, that they study the neuroscience of it. So, the reason the book's called A Dose of Positivity is DOSE stands for Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins, the four brain chemicals that we're all searching for, we're all searching for a dose. Right. So, dopamine, the reward system, any video game company from the beginning? I mean, Steve Jobs said he never gave his kids an iPad or an iPhone, they know what they're doing, they want you to seek reward, but there's no end to the reward ‘cuz it's seeking. You're always searching for gold, but you're never gonna get the gold. Right. So, the only way to get over any kind of addiction, okay, ‘cuz what is addiction? It is trying to feed something lacking ‘cuz what's the human experience? Avoid pain game pleasure. So, we're always looking for a dose, right? We're either chasing the carrot or avoiding the stick. So, I tell people the most important thing is not your want, it's your needs. So, someone will say, I work with someone, right? And they're massively in debt. And I'm like, well, why do you have a BMW? They're like, why I need a BMW. I'm like, no, no, no, you need transport, you don't need a BMW. Right?

So, if you can simplify your life to the purpose, not passion, purpose, figure out what you're good at, right? Your skills work very, very, very, very hard to, like we talked about before, be so good you can't be ignored with that skillset. Use those skills in a purpose-driven way to bring value to someone else, right? ‘Cuz if I can bring you value, you will pay me ‘cuz people always say they don't have enough time, money, and resources. Well, I can have money if I bring you value, cuz you'll pay me for the servers. Right. Lose the comparison syndrome. Right. Stay in your own lane ‘cuz if you're driving down the highway in everyone else's lane, you have a f*cking accident in life. So, stay on your path in your lane, have a clear focus of what you want because you've gotta know what you go, what you're striving for. Know where you came from. Know where you are. Know where you want to go. Right. And like I say, successful people have the ability to do the work no matter how they feel. An unsuccessful person is always looking to feel good, feel right in the right time, it don't exist. In reality, it's me and you sitting on a podcast. So, you have to understand that everything's a test and the higher you get up the mountain, less air there is the more of a test. So, it's like crabs in a basket, you've heard that same, right? So there’s you gotta get out of that basket or that thing, get away from the crabs, get away from I call them anchors; an anchor will pull you down an engine will drive you. Where engines we wanna drive people, we look for their potential. We put air in their tires, we light up their fires, we light up their ideas, an anchor will drown you. So there has to be, ‘cuz I don't believe, I think we're in the most addictive time. But then again, is it, because back then people were still distracted. Right? When you look at old clips of people reading newspapers, no one was talking to each other. It's phones, it's newspapers, right? So, I think about this, was it 2,500 years ago whatever they built the coliseums around their Roman times, right? Around whatever the time was. So, if you look at the times back then, nothing has changed, right? In the sense of a Colosseum could be like a football stadium, a Colosseum, Roman times, you've still got war, you've still got politics. We are talking about what Jesus, what Buddha, what Lao Tzu said, what the stoic said, it's the same sh*t, we're just packaging it different but have we evolved?

Michael: Yeah. I don't know.

Mike: It's still at war, right? Why is there still racism in the world?

Michael: Yeah. We're still distracted.

Mike: How could we still, right? Why are we still chasing things? Look, at the end of the day, this is where they don't get it to addiction technology doesn't mean sh*t. At the end of the day, Mike, if they put us on our, in front of our graves, right? To face our creator, and they get the 2,650 billionaires in the world, right? Whatever there's 2,600 billionaires. There's no moving van behind us to take our sh*t. It's us and our creator. We can't negotiate a toothbrush or whatever, right? It doesn't matter what was it all for in the end? It's not what I give you, it's what I leave in you. It's how can I make you a better person?

Michael: One of the things that came to mind as you were saying that is there's almost something in that. I'll give you context. When I started this journey to be a coach, to mentor, write these books, make this podcast, speak on these stages, it all started because somebody was like, I think you can help me. But Mike, I battle, I was like, I don't want to. And I said, I don't want to, because dude, the f*cking journey was so hard. I've always stopped myself an anomaly to some extent, right? There's always been this punching forward drive that I have, the stubbornness that I pointed to, and I was like, I know I can do this for me, right? I believe that. I believe I can do f*cking anything, but when it came to helping this other person, I was like, dude, no way, absolutely not because I knew what it took and it took f*cking everything. There is a moniker that I live by anyone who's listened to this show for any period of time knows, and I've said it ad nauseum for a reason. Everything in my life summarizes into one thing, no excuses, just results. Period.

Mike: Beautiful.

Michael: And so, what I had to realize as I went down this path, decided, I made a decision. I will help this person. I didn't even know if I could. I was just like, I don't know, man, let's try it. It's a hundred bucks an hour. Right? Whatever it was back then, eight years ago. And I was like, but you have to do what I f*cking tell you because this is the only thing that I know that works. I didn't know anything else. I couldn't sit here and come up with ideas in real time. I could only track what I had done that was measurable and say, give it a try. And then now it's like I'm so happy that I made that decision, right? There's so much positivity in the world now because of a choice that I made and when I was thinking about this book that you've put out, here you are. You don't have to do this, man. You've been on television for f*cking ever, you've helped more people than we can count. You have a family yet here you are being of service, trying to bring positivity into the world. And what had held me back initially was the fear of the failure that I wouldn't be able to do it. Obviously, I recognize that there are people that's going to fail no matter what I do. But talk through this, let's go into this a little bit deeper, ‘cuz I think it's going to be a really important thing for people to leverage right now when we are so distracted, we are so avoidant and maybe we haven't evolved, but the one thing we've always, anybody you can go back to, to Seneca the stoics, and even before then Christ and look at positivity, look at gratitude, look at joy. Why do those things matter so much?

Mike: Man, such a good question. Look, I'll be straight. I never wanted to be an interventionist. No way. I just knew I could do it.

Michael: Because you had done it.

Mike: I just knew I'm called to do it. See, the calling isn't a conference call, that's why we get distracted. The calling is not what we wane do, it's what the universe tell. We're not in control. We have no control. We think we do. You know, we know we have no control. All we can control is our state, how we choose to think and how we choose to feel. We can't even control our thoughts. We can regulate our emotions because you see our monkey minds go everywhere. Right. We don't control the sh*t. That's why when people say, I'm gonna make a billion dollars, great. Can't take it with you. Go and build a castle of f*cking lies.

You know what? Look at it like this and I'll get to what you're saying. You go to the ocean and you watch a wave, and you watch the wave. And a wave for a moment, a time becomes singular. Right? It's a wave, it's our wave. Right. And when it hits the shore, however long that wave's life is what happens. It goes back into the ocean, right? We are spiritual things of one conscious believing where singular waves. And we have a short period of time and that's sure to us is death, the death of the body. And what happens? We just join consciousness again. I don't want to do the work I do. I can be honest. I want to take the easy route. I have to do it. There's a different calling. It's the need, not the want. If I do what I want to do in this human experience, I get girls with big breasts, I get cocaine, I get liquor, I get trouble, I get violence, I get debauchery. That's the truth if I've had that life, if I could get away with it, I would do it. But deep down at my core, I know the right thing to do. So, I just have to follow the daily rituals, which is get up early, journal my thoughts, meditate, stretch my body, read something positive, write these books. Do I wanna write a book? No. You know how hard it is to sit down and get your thoughts on paper and not write for yourself, write for you. I can admit it. We're all selfish to be selfless is f*cking hard, I don't want to do it, but I'm good at it and I do, do it. Now do I love the work? It's work. It's hard. Look, I am blessed to be on the show intervention, it's a f*cking hardcore show where we take people who are on are gonna die if we don't intervene and help them do. Do I really want to do that show? Can I do it? Absolutely. Am I good at, I'm one of the best, right? Not because I'm better than anyone, I'm just really good at what I do. There's a lot of great interventionists out there, as good as me. Do I want to do it? If you could offer me a show where I could be a lazy f*cking make a bunch of money, of course I want to take the lazy show and be a make a what I'm not lying, it's just the difference. I've got good character now. I've got good values. I know at the end of the day I've snorted the Coke and I've taken the wrong path and I know it's a dead end, that's all. I've been down the dead-end street, I just turned around. Do you know what I'm saying?

Michael: Yeah. It's like that scene in the Matrix where Neo gets picked up by Trinity, they're in the black Lincoln with the awesome suicide doors, and they're driving and Neo's like, f*ck, I don't want this, whatever this is, whatever you guys are talking, I'm out. And she goes, look down that road, you've been down that street before. You know what's at the end of that descent? And what's interesting about that is we all go down that dark road, man, I've been down that road so many times, and it's like, I tell people, but jokingly, I say this, but it's very true like there's no better joy in the world to me than sitting down, getting stoned, playing video games, eating pizza, eating gummy bears, hooking up with some stranger who I can just say, leave ‘cuz I'm tired of your presence. And then rinse in repeating that and then I'm like, what's the f*cking point?

Mike: If you don't have the dark, you can't appreciate the light.

Michael: Well, but people are trapped in the dark.

Mike: Yeah. But then they've got to start seeing the light, this is the hardest thing to do. And there's no, you have to trust the rituals, you have to trust the meditations, you have to trust the journaling, you have to trust people that actually walk the talk. You have to emulate the right people, and you have to live in the process. And you've got to not look at the cake you've got to look at the crumbs. So, everyone wants the cake, everyone wants the million dollars, but no one wants to make the dollars along the way. Everyone wants to run, run the marathon, but you can't sprint a marathon as 26.2 miles and a certain amount of 70,000 steps or whatever it is. So, my point is, everyone wants to climb the top of Mount Everest and people have that stupid saying. The guy that climbed at the top of the mountain wasn't dropped there, you know, well, maybe he was dropped there, maybe a helicopter came along and dropped him at the top of the mountain, he took the f*cking photo. But at the end of the day, when he looks at himself, he's a f*cking liar.

Michael: He knows the truth.

Mike: Can't lie to yourself in the mirror. The man in the mirror, I'm good now. I've got money. I don't cheat on my wife. I f*ck my son's great. I didn't f*ck him up. I have a great marriage. I meet guys like you that I'm collaborating with all that with, that's a f*cking great dude, like I've been working with Nelson now for three years. I've got two other books written like I have a great publisher. Like, I've got a great team that I work with on intervention. Like, I'm good, I get up every day and I'm cool. I know, I can figure it out.  And to anyone listening, you can figure it out.

Michael: You know what's interesting is like, you can figure out. I heard Grant Cardone say this one time, and Grant, I've been fortunate enough, and I mentioned him 10 million times on this show, but he invested in Think Unbroken. I spoke in front of 10,000 people and he cut me a f*cking check. He was like, that's one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Right? He's behind the mission. And he said something that just, dude, it just sticks in my head all the time. He goes, have you ever known an addict who would not do whatever it took to get the thing that they were addicted to? And it's like, if you can get addicted to the other side…

Mike: That's all it is. It's substitution, it's getting the empowering dose. And I talk about it in the book, that's all it is. Take the energy and switch it.

Michael: But Mike, I'm scared, man.

Mike: You're supposed to be scared. You're supposed to be scared because it's unknown. You gotta lean into it, you're not supposed to know. Fear is a good thing. Fear is healthy. Fear is a motivator. Right. You should be afraid of death. Why you're afraid of death? ‘Cause it gets you up in the morning and stop procrastinating. But this is the thing you have to have faith in. You have to have faith that, look, here's the thing, you'll never be able to figure out, and it's a lonely journey, but it's a good one. We don't know where we came from, right? No one can figure out; we can't remember it. We really don’t know where we're going. But when we get there, we have to have faith that the work we did was the right work and it'll make sense. Who's to say we haven't sat in this same chair a hundred times over and this is Groundhog Day? Do you see what I'm saying? So you've gotta have faith in the process. You've gotta have faith in the feeling. I'm gonna lean into this. I'm not gonna overthink it. I'm gonna lean into it and just keep leaning into the feeling and enjoy the feel. You're supposed to be afraid of. I'm afraid of it. Good. Leaning to the fear.

Michael: Yeah. I tell people all the time, and I think they think I'm joking, dude. I'm scared all the time because I don't have a game book for being what I am. Right. I didn't get the rules…

Mike: When I was born exposed to.

Michael: No, and I agree. And I think if you did, life would be very fruitless and boring and be like, what's the f*cking point, man? When I see the people who are like, never left the neighborhood, I'm like, you have wasted your whole life, man. But here's what happens, Mike, you get the people, they left the neighborhood, they did the thing, they're on the journey, they're listening to this. They're like, yeah, I'm trying, but I keep f*cking up. I keep f*cking up. My thought is like, yeah, you're going to. But how do you mitigate the risk of like the apocalyptic event? Right. You're on this journey. You're going through these tools, these techniques, these strategies, you're living life on your terms I love, I think is one of the most important things people can do, but it's like there's still that call to be that old version of you. Like, how do you combat that?

Mike: I didn't think this is the thing about trauma and that kind of thing. I think we get better at it. I'll tell you why I do this with people. What's the worst movie you've ever seen?

Michael: X-Files part two.

Mike: Perfect. Right now you and I are sitting here right now, it's not playing. Right? You could think about it in your mind, right? But think about it. You could think about it in your mind or what could you do? You could play it on the TV. Right? But isn't it interesting you said, I don't want to. So why do we replay a traumatic event over and over again, that's gone? Why do we lock onto an old part version of ourself over and over again and it's gone? Right. We get better at looking at ourselves and our past and the trauma and our different stories that we've had to tell ourselves, and we get better at creating more of a gap of it and be more curious, that's so interesting that old thing came up for me, huh? Like, I'm gonna blow it up, but where am I am now? Well, I'm way more educated. I'm way more centered. I don't take risks now. I don't people please, I don't have anything to prove. I set boundaries. I do my rituals; I do my routines. So, it's so interesting that that would pop up, but I know that now. I know that was my old self. I've turned the page. It's like you read a book once, you're like, all right, I've got everything in the book. You can go back to a couple of the chapters and go, yeah, I've read it. I don't need to read it again. Or some people read the book over and over and over again. You're like, what are you doing? You've read it. It's time for a new book, time for a new life change. Make a change. Yeah. But this book is so comfortable. Yeah. Because you don't wanna grow, you don't wanna learn. You know what I'm saying? So, it's supposed to be there as a reminder. It's supposed to remind you of what was.

Michael: Yeah. You know, I constantly tell people who come into coaching with me or when I'm doing a podcast, whatever, it's like, this is a rest of your life game. Like, I might be the trauma coach and I get that man, I know that people assign that to me, but I'm like, I got my own sh*t. I am constantly working through.

Mike: You just now it's work that has no end, you never arrive. If the floor gets dirty, you've gotta sweep it every day. You've got a dirty f*cking floor. You can't take a sh*t once and then go, I'm not flushing that toilet and keep sh*tting on the sh*t. I told people, when was the last time you ate? They're like, well, six hours ago. Okay, so don't eat for another 60 days. They're like, that's stupid. I go, what would happen? Like, I'm starved. I'm like, ah. See, you always have to be fueling yourself. Now, how are you going to fuel yourself with negative sh*t or positive sh*t? Look, people say, oh, well, you know, this is organic and this is processed, everything's f*cking processed, anything on this planet is processed. But there's good foods and there's bad foods, there's empowering foods, and there's disempowering foods, it's all chemicals, it's all cells, it's all from the universe, not from another universe. Right? It's from this planet. So, if you've got to talk about organic, it's still from the planet, but we just know that in some combinations, certain things aren't good for our body. It's all the same. But here's the best thing, you could be the most organic, vegan, spiritual, whatever you want, Yogi book writer, all this stuff. But if you can't control your sympathetic nervous system and manage your stress hormones, you're going to get sick.

Michael: Yeah. You know what's wild is, as you see so many athletes, so many professionals, you go, man, they are triathletes, they're in the best shape ever, they're dead at 32.

Mike: Yeah, because inside they're rot away. What people don't realize is I can look at you and you can look at me, but we can't look inside our bodies. We don't know what's going on, but if we're healthy, and what I mean by healthy, spiritual, mental, and physical health, right? Aligned, clear breathing, outta stress hormones, eating good foods, being a good person, not being a toxic son of a b*tch, not hanging around with toxic, sh*tty people, you're gonna be okay.

Michael: Yeah. And a lot of that is like personal boundaries and discipline. And you said something that I think is really interesting is like every day you go through your things; you do your meditations.

Mike: When I'm sleeping at the hotel room with my wife, I do 'em in the bathroom before I get to the gym ‘cuz I get up early than her. I'm in the bathroom, so I don't wake her, I stretch, I meditate in the bathroom, I journal on the floor of the bathroom, I do stuff. I hydrate myself then I go to the gym.

Michael: Yeah. And it's hard, like, I mean, you and I together, we were together the other day. 5:00 AM. Right. And it's like, I had a friend I was out having dinner with and I was like, I got to go home gotta go to bed. I have to get up at 4:30 because I need to be functional at 5:00 AM.

Mike: I was up at 4. I had the book signing the night before and the book signing took over in LA, it's a 40-minute drive to my house. I had to put my son and my wife to bed before me. I had to like digest, calm down, I was full of adrenaline. I had to slow the adrenaline down the sleep right so, I got a good six hours ‘cuz you do a book signing, all these people show up, you're excited, your head's racing, Ooh, I gotta sleep. I gotta be up at, I could do a podcast of five and beyond. Then I had to do a bunch of other things, you know, four podcasts in a row that day, like I had to be clear, like, from here I gotta go see my wife. I've gotta get prepped again. I gotta bring my energy down for her. Right. Get through with her, then tomorrow, get up. Then I got the book signing. Like, it's constant. You have to regulate yourself.

Michael: So, in the flow of the day, right? Because I think a lot of people are really good at like, the morning thing. And as personal development people, we have beat that horse to death. I know, that's the worst analogy ever but that's true, that horse is f*cking dead, that is what it is. In the course of the flow of the day, how do you regulate?

Mike: Well, this is the most important thing for me, is fuel. So, I eat, I fast for 16 hours and then my first meals around noon. So, I had a snack before I saw you and then I eat because that helps my blood sugar, like good and then I'll eat around four o'clock. So, between noon and four, I know my blood sugar's gonna be good. I don't overeat, I don't eat junk food. If I get up at four, I like to reset my body at four. Breathing work, stretching if I'm at home, cold shower, do exactly the same routine. Reset myself clear, myself out. Right. I do it before my four o'clock meal ‘cause I don't want to do it on a full stomach. Then I have a snack around six, right? And then I have my last meal at eight. So, I make sure that whenever I start the day, 12 hours later I do the same thing. So, if I get up at five, I do it at five. If I get up at three, I do it at three ‘cuz that 12-hour window, I do a lot in 12 hours, lots of always hydrate myself, electrolytes, I drink either the vitamin those emergency drinks, like two or three of them a day or branch chain amino acids with no sugar. I drink probably three gallons of water a day. I do drink like the double espressos, the coffees, I don't over drink them. I have my own product, diamond Life fuel, which has got a bunch of new tropics in it and I make sure that my morning I don't crash because my morning and my afternoon is the same and that paces me.

Michael: That's fascinating. I've never heard anybody say that before. And I'm thinking here like, man, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Mike: Recharges me.

Michael: Yeah. Because you know, you work through the day, you have a lot of the stresses and pressures of just humanity. Like, I mean, good lord, dude.

Mike: And I stretch it all out. I do the exact, so 12 hours later, okay, and I literally, it's the same. I journal, how was the day, what do I need to do? Reset myself, clear it out.

Michael: It's like you're having two days in one.

Mike: Yeah. So, I do two days in one and then at eight o'clock everything shuts down. Everything. Phone, like anything. No aggressive TV, maybe I'll read something, I'll chill out a little bit and I'm very calm. My last meal, I used to go to bed about nine ish. I can go from, ‘cause I don't eat carbs at night anyway, just a light protein, my last meal. And then I take the supplements I take; I take some GABA before bed. I stay away from anything to do with melatonin. I could take a little altheine, I take a little camile, which is really good, it's a valerian root or healthy stuff. It'll bring me down slowly and then I sleep like a baby as soon as my head hits the pillow, unconscious.

Michael: Yeah. I'm sure you sleep a lot better than one on cocaine.

Mike: Yeah. But I could sleep on cocaine, which is f*cked up, that's really f*cked up. And I never took Xanax. Yeah. I've never, I took a Xanax in my sobriety ‘cuz I was going through, when I was coming off the pain meds, it's so funny from my stomach surgery and I just couldn't get to sleep and I'd never done a Xanax and the doctor said, I'll take a Xanax, just so you can get a couple night’s sleep. And I said, okay so I didn't know. Right. I just, I was f*cking out dude like coma out. Like ‘cause I never took pain pills or I never took anything when I was never was a big pain pill or a sleeping pill person, it was so funny cause I took half a Xanax and, and I was like 12 hours. I'm like, how would these people take this in function?

Michael: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that was my mother's jam, Oxycontin, Xanax, anything she give, I mean, our house was covered in orange pill bottles man. And I would watch her and I'd be like, I don't understand this. Right. And you look at it and I started going down that path too, where I would take like over the counter, like cold medicine and my friends and we would take, we used to call 'em Skittles, they came in these little red pills and we would take 15 of these things, dude, and just be like, on another f*cking planet. And so, you know, I think about how important it is to put the right things in your body because that impacts how positive you look at the world, right?

Mike: Look, I don't give a f*ck what anyone says. If you wanna lose weight and you want to get healthy, fast for 16 hours, because my body. I'll tell you; I mean, I know we've got like probably a couple more minutes left, this is how crazy it is. I used to fast always 16 hours, I cut it down to 12, right? I went on a trip with my wife to Hawaii. Now last year I got Covid three times, that f*cking was awful and got stomach infections, got shingles off from the covid ‘cuz my immune system broke down. And I was like, I got back from Hawaii, I do not eat restaurant food. We went to Hawaii for a week, I gained 13 pounds and was dying like my body was so inflamed, right? So, I'm like, this is all from the restaurant food ‘cause people that think they're eating good food in a restaurant, it's not, it's all sh*t, you don't know what they're cooking it.

And then I came home and I was like, I need to fast full on. She's like, how long? I said, well I'm not going to eat for close to 48 hours and just drink water and get my body clean within 48 hours all the inflammation I had such chronic hip pain from the inflammation, all these things gone. Introduced the food slowly back and it was all I was doing for 48 hours of drinking water and glutamine, that's it. Water and glutamine and some branch chain, just electrolytes. That was it, no food and I felt great afterwards. Two days, got all the sh*t outta my body.

Michael: Yeah. It's wild how quickly your body can cleanse itself.

Mike: Well, when you're not eating, you're healing. Stop eating.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. I did a 21 day fast once, it was insane. I had gotten pretty sick and the doctor suggested it, we did it, it was medically supervised. And dude, at one point I was like, I feel the healthiest I've ever felt and then there was like so many other things that came from that. But also, I learned I could challenge myself. I tell, I try to always tell my clients, I'm like, you need to at some point in this coaching, like fast, even one day, give me one day because it will change your life because you will find out what you're capable of doing. Like, this is awesome conversation, I have two more questions before we wrap. One, what does positivity mean to you?

Mike: Such a great question. Positivity mean is different to being optimistically delusional. And what I mean by optimistically delusional is some people are so optimistic but they're actually, it's a little bit farfetched like, it's like someone going talking themselves into something like, I'm gonna be the next Michael Jordan, I'm gonna be the next Michael Jordan, and they have no skills to play basketball. I'm like, that's just being optimistically delusional without a plan. Positivity to me is, if you are grateful and appreciative for what you have in the moment, you'll be positive. Viktor Frankl is the ultimate person when it comes to being positive. He found gratitude in Auschwitz in three concentration camps. So being a positive person it's not like you don't have to be joyous, you don't have to be all these crazy things, it's just that you are a realist and you are grateful and you can take life for what it is and you can play the cards you're dealt. You show up, you shut up, you're humble, and you have a good f*cking attitude.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it’s incredible when you do that, when you can sit back and just go, I'm here dude, my life's f*cking great ‘cuz I promise you I am supposed to be dead or in jail. People ask me all the time, how's your life? And I'm like, dude, I f*cking love my life ‘cuz I'm not debt or in jail, it could be a million dollars in debt, I would not even care. I'd be like, all right, that means I have opportunity. I think people don't leverage it enough. Before I ask you my last question, and thank you this has been a really fun conversation man, where can everyone find you?

Mike: So, on social media, they can find me on themike_diamond that's Twitter that's Instagram and Facebook's just Mike Diamond. They can find the book on Amazon ‘cuz you know, Amazon's everything of now, of course. And in some bookstores, selected bookstores the Barnes and Nobles are carrying a few different stores. And if someone is really struggling, they can email me at themike_diamond@yahoo.com and I check my emails.

Michael: Brilliant. And I'll do something special for you here, the first five people to leave a review about this episode and specifically mention Mike Diamond and A DOSE of Positivity, I will buy you a copy of the book.

Mike: So, we'll sign copies. So, this love it is what jewel, sign them from the two mikes. And then we'll done.

Michael: So the first five people go to thinkunbrokenpodcast.com or Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast, leave that review, specifically mention Mike Diamond. So, I know that you listen to this episode and we will do that. Mike, my friend, my last question for you, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Mike: Such a good question. To me, to be unbroken is to have the ability, and I call it to be the palm tree in the hurricanes of life. It's the ability to be flexible when faced with adversity and the ability to bend, not break. And the reason I say a palm tree is if you go on YouTube and you watch a palm tree in any kind of footage, when it's a five-stage hurricane, they don't break, they bend. They're the strongest, most resilient plants there is. So being unbroken, is to face live, head on with a good attitude and have faith in the process, live with purpose and bend not break. 

Michael: Brilliantly said, my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation. Thank you so much for listening.

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Be Unbroken.

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