The Pursuit of Happiness: Derik Fay's Remarkable Journey

Michael: Hey, what's up, Unbroken Nation? Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with you with another episode with a great friend of mine, someone I connected with who immediately felt like brothers with a story where I sit and I go dude, I have not met many people have a story similar to mine who've been able to come out of this. Derik Faye, welcome to the show, my friend.

Derik: Thank you brother. Good to finally connect. It's been a little bit, we've tried to do this.

Michael: Yeah, that's how this goes, man. You're busy, you're in the world. I look at life as divine timing when it is meant to be, it will indeed agreed. When we initially connected, gosh, it might have almost been close to a year ago at this point, maybe? Or was it this, it might have been this spring actually, I think it was this spring. And so I remember you and I were standing out outside of the Win Hotel and we had like a four-minute conversation before we hopped in a truck with our great friend, flex Lewis. We all went out for the evening and the short conversation we had was enough for me to be like, this is a man who has been literally through hell and back and yet has somehow figured out how to step into this life and like likewise. And so, Derik, I'm so curious, tell me what is something that I would need to know about you to understand who you are?

Derik: Well I guess we start at the beginning, right? I think, I guess we start where I grew up, so I was born in the smallest town in the smallest state in the country. So, I was born in Wesley, Rhode Island, quickly moved to North Kingstown, Rhode Island. And my mom and dad got divorced when I was pretty young about a year old. Good mom, good, good father, unfortunately my mom got remarried a couple years later to a man that was a monster in every sense of the word and so, they have sister. And so from the age of probably, I would say four until 11 or 12, we endured the most horrific abuse, torture, physical, mental anguish you could imagine. When my mom finally got the courage to get us out of it for the 12 months preceding that he actually chased us around the state Rhode Island. Set her car on fire, shot windows out. So, it was a journey that completely debilitated the rest of my family. Both my siblings went to prison for substantial amounts of time because they hid behind, I don't wanna say hid behind, but they covered their pain in drugs, alcohol, lashing out, things like that. I guess a variety of reasons, luck, certainly one of them in some ways, I just went a different way.

Michael: One of the things that I think about in those scenarios is this the massive negative impact that that has on a child and you see obviously your siblings went down a path very opposite of yours. I was heading down that path to where I looked at my life at one point and it was just, I was so numb from the drugs and the alcohol and the sex and the fast cars and the spending money. Where at 25, man, I was, you know when people tell you, they're like, I feel like I'm about to die. And they're like six months away and they're like, I know it's coming, that was me at 25. I was either gonna kill someone and be in jail for the rest of my life or yourself, or I was gonna kill myself. And in that window, I put a gun in my mouth. And so you look at these experiences that, I think one of the things, especially as men, and I'm, we're gonna dive into this a little bit today that I think really gets dismissed, is this idea that we should just get over it. Let it go man up. Don't cry, don't be a bitch, don't be a pussy. All the things that people of our generation have grown up with and we hear every single day. And when you look at your life, dude, you have every reason on planet earth to not have any success as a man, as a father, as a business owner, as a entrepreneur, but most importantly, just as a human being. What were the tolls that those experiences you had in childhood played in your life?

Derik: I would say, I mean so many. But when I look for, cause the way that my brain thinks, I always bookend things, meaning I always look at where things started and then I try to find out either where the end of it is or it will be and for me, the end of it was 2019. And so what I mean by the end of that is that's for the first time in my life, felt like I was actually addressing all of my demons. And so, we're talking 30 years and so although I was by every appearance very successful and very happy, I was completely empty and never present in any moment. And I buried my pain and I buried everything about what had happened in this pursuit of more security because I never had security. And so, because during that time, I, unlike my family members, was able to turn off what was going on when you turn off emotions and feelings for so long, you don't get to just turn them back on. And so I would've told you even four or five years ago that I was fine, it didn't affect my life, but I was crazy wrong. It affected everything about me.

Michael: What does that mean?

Derik: I don't think I knew how to love completely. I certainly didn't know how to accept love completely. I was not to play on words, but I was on the inside at least completely empty and broken. I had learned how to present a different image of myself so the world, because I had to do that as a little kid because we had a deep, dark secret. And so I became beautiful at disguising pain and what was really going on. And so again, when you're acting at that level from four to 12, which are formative years, it's not surprising that as an adult you can pretend to be super happy when in fact not. And so that cost me relationships, cost me marriage, cost me a lot of things. And then I mentioned 2019, I found myself getting a divorce on the heels of Covid, massive home, more money I could ever imagine and here I am alone. And luckily for the first time I faced, I really faced was broken in me and I spent a year doing work on myself and accepting, like you said, all of the things that I had just pushed away. And it's still a process, but now, four years later, I'm the best version of me that I've ever been which allows me to be that from my friends, my family. And then not surprisingly, since now I'm becoming the best version of myself. No surprise, I found myself now surrounded by amazing people as well.

Michael: That's right. It's energy. You see it all the time. Go look at your romantic partner, go look at your friends, go look at your business associates wherever you are will be a reflection of that. I guarantee it. You pointed to something that I think we don't talk about enough, and that's that children who come from households, like what you and I have come from, we learn to be masterful liars. Derik, I'm arguably the greatest liar of all time because that's what I was trained to do. It's like imagine you see kids who grew up in these environments of running around toting AK 40 sevens, they're incredible at murder because that's all they've been exposed to. And in my home, man, if you told the truth, fuck, the pain, the beatings, the lashings, the cuts and burns on my body from speaking the truth, it's like these scars we carry forever. This is what's so f*cked up about it because you learn it even though it's not, it's not the thing you should be learning. You should be learning, love and compassion, empathy, hope, joy, familiarity, companionship. And yet you learn, arguably a thing that cripples you, which you experienced. If I lie, I am safe. I write down my goals all the time, constantly. One of my goals every day I write down is be honest. One of my number one value in life is honesty and it's the hardest thing I've had to train myself to do.

Derik: So, I'll put a spin on that. Which I agree, which is, for me, it was, be honest with myself.

Michael: That's where I was going. And so what I want to know from you, and I want to go deep into this ‘cuz this is a place of massive stuckness for people.  How the hell do you be honest with yourself?

Derik: It's probably the hardest thing and it's still something that I work through. And it's something that I constantly have to remind myself because I wasn't a bad person, but I was a bad person to myself.

Michael: What does that mean?

Derik: I treated myself really badly. Now, I didn't have addiction, but I certainly buried myself in negative things, especially earlier in my life. And some of it was alcohol and some of it was drugs and never got to the point where it was addiction or hurt my life, but that doesn't mean it was healthy. And so, what I mean by that was whether you have one drink or a hundred, if you're doing it to cover up real feelings, you're hurting yourself in a way that I couldn't appreciate until today. And so, and honestly, sometimes I did it to avoid happy stuff. I had the hardest time enjoying happiness because it made me uncomfortable. Spending Christmas with the other side of my family, who is like the white picket fence, beautiful American family who love each other and kiss made me uncomfortable for the majority of my life.  How could it not?

Michael: And so as you're in that, I mean, when you get into this place of honesty, what I think there's a, I'm gonna put this in odd way, but it's the only way I know how to convey it. There was a price I had to pay for being honest and not necessarily in like a horrible way or in a bad way, but like there was a toll. And a lot of that was having to uncover the demons that I had and to be, I wasn't public about any of this stuff when, when I was on this journey. But it was like I had to go and sit in these spaces with other humans and be like, this is who I actually am and I've been hiding, I've been wearing this mask. What was it like for you to start taking that mask off?

Derik: Frightening. And again, for me it was more internal because I don't think that many people that knew me then and know me now even can tell so much of a difference. But I feel the difference, I had fooled myself my entire life, you know? What is that expression? The greatest lie you tell is the one you tell to yourself? I was operating from a place of pain and in a lot of times selfishness and I say selfishness because and I consider myself to be a great father like it's my greatest accomplishment in life. But until probably three or four years ago, I wasn't even doing my daughters a service as a father. And I don't know that they felt it, but I felt it because I was manufacturing feelings and moments when I should have been like, omnipresent and I was just kind of there faking my way through the feelings.

Michael: When I think about like the emotional capacity that we have, I truly believe this. If you can't feel all emotions, you can feel no emotion. And it gets trained out of you, it gets beat out of you, it gets stolen from you. When you were a child, I want to go back to this cuz I really wanna map this to your success ‘cause I think a lot of people jump over all of the impact of the past and go to Derik, super successful guy now and they forget, that it's not always like that. One of the things I struggled with tremendously was like the relationship with my mother. I felt, and even to this day, that she played a huge role in lack of responsibility in the men that she brought into our lives. What was your relationship like with your mother then, and what were your thoughts like in real time about the men who were in your life, especially your stepfather?

Derik: I had this weird relationship with my mom and that's changed now but I thought it was my job to die for my mom. I thought it was my job as a little boy, to be the man of the house ‘cause I was leaned on in that capacity. I was taught to have to save the family, it was a responsibility that would wear down a grown man, nevermind a child. But what happened was to avoid it destroying me, I started to wear it as my badge of honor. And so, it gave me an identity that was super, super unhealthy and created attachments that were really unhealthy to my mom and distanced me from everyone else in my life. And so, while I had a very healthy environment that on the other side, although I wasn't there very much till I got a little older that I could have retreated to, instead of doing that because I had these crazy, unhealthy attachments to the negativity and the pain and the suffering and helping her, in my opinion, it prolonged the suffering for myself far longer than it should have.

Michael: I read this book. Do you know Neil Straus is? So Neil wrote, if you don't know Unbroken Nation, he's an author and he used to write for the Rolling Stone, and he's written tons of autobiographies with people. He wrote a book called The Truth. And in the Truth, he had very similar relationship with his mother as you do and as I did where it was like we were forced to be the man of the house and we were often forced to provide in a lot of different ways. Even emotionally for our own mother and I read this term in this book, Derik, and it f*cked me up but it changed my life forever and it's called emotional incest. And I remember sitting in reading that line, in that book and being like, oh my God, this explains so much, it wasn't physical incest of course, but it was like you're the boy turning into the man protect, provide things of that nature. When you look at your relationship with yourself, understanding that, cause you just had a massive reaction to that. What have you had to learn about who you are to navigate that? What if you had to let go? Like what has the journey been in that?

Derik: Well, I think, it hurt a lot of my early relationships because I had this unhealthy relationship with my mother female figure, I carried that into my other relationships and I'm still trying to figure out exactly the impact that it had, but it's clear to me that the reason I've had failed relationship after failed relationship is rooted in that unhealthiness. So, that's one of those things I honestly, and I'm really straightforward with, with everybody. There are some things that I've landed on and feel really secure in saying, Hey, here's why, that's one of those things that I'm still kind of unpacking. My mother and I have cut ties about two and a half years ago, so I've just now been able to start to create some space where I think I'm gonna be able to find those answers but I'm curious what your take is.

Michael: So my thought on it, Derik, is when I look back at my relationship with my mother and all, I'm gonna share a story here obviously Unbroken Nation, you guys know this story, but it'll give you context. When I was 18, I told my mother, I will never talk to you again. So one night she had attacked me, and my mother had hit me a million time and youknow how this goes. But this one particular night, and dude, look, I'm 6’4, 220, I never touched my mom one time and this night she attacked me, I mean, she was just out of control. And I pushed her to the ground and I stood over her and I said, if you ever touch me again, I'll kill you, at 18. And I meant it, dude, I was just so done. And I said, you're not my mother. I'll never talk to you again. And until she died when I was like 24. I think I'd saw her twice and Derik was the hardest thing I've ever, ever, ever had to do because that love, that thing that we feel that we're built and bonded and born into, it's genetic, it's literally in us. And I look at that moment, and today, there's no way I'd be here with you without making that decision, those boundaries are incredibly difficult though. And so as I started doing this work and getting deep into this and coming across data and learning words like emotional incest, I was just like, how do I heal this? How do I have a healthy relationship? And it's something to this day, I'm like, you, I'm always working through and so it's just a journey, man.

Derik: Yeah. You know, I was curious as you were saying that I think I found something which was, I always felt like, because I felt it was my responsibility to save and prevent what was going on and obviously, I failed at it because I couldn't stop it as a child. And so that created a sense in me where I went out and looked for women that I could save and that never works out.

Michael: What did you look for?

Derik: Now I know that I looked for it. But then I thought it was what I was drawn to and I was drawn to women that I could, I'm the guy that's successful, I've got money I wanna take care of you. Don't worry about all your problems. Then as you get to know 'em, the more problems they began to unpack, the more I was like, I've got this. Now almost like this is my chance to do as an adult, what I couldn't do then and of course that never runs well.

Michael: Yeah, you become a superhero.

Derik: But you fail and you fail gloriously.

Michael: You know what's really funny about that too is, and I don't know if this is true for you, I would step into those relationships. I mean, I never had a physically volatile relationship, thank God. But dude, the emotional abuse of these relations both ways. I claim my part in this every single time I say, this was f*cking insane. And it was just like, the more we could hurt each other, that must mean we love each other. And it was just like, the more that I can push back and the more that you can pull away, the more that this must mean we love each other and it's like the most backwards thing on planet Earth, but it's so trained into us because I don't know about you, but I felt like my lung of language was violence.

Derik: For me, I took it. I never gave it back. So, it's curious to me, cuz I'm sitting here, you know, I don't open up about this stuff all the time, so I'm opening up, I call it the box. I have a box that I close and that allows me to, right so, I'm opening it up so stuff's coming out. But in relationships that I've had that were volatile and unhealthy emotional and I don't raise my voice, I don't yell, I don't get toxic, I'm really good about that. But I was horrible at protecting myself because I think it's because it felt sick, it almost felt good, it felt like I was back home. Right. So equally unhealthy, for sure but I just took it and I mean, took it for periods of time that just, if you knew me, as the CEO, as the, you know, all the way that people quote unquote know me, like, that guy doesn't take sh*t from anybody, so untrue. So there was, and I'm getting certainly better at it now from this new relationship, which probably the better, the best I've ever had in my life, or the best. It's because I started out after I'd worked on myself, and I made it really clear the things that were important to me and I asked the things that were important to this person. And then if we had not agreed, if they didn't align, I would've not stayed in the relationship in the past, that wasn't even a consideration, it was just the more toxic the better. I got this. I'll fix it. Sh*t on me. I'll take it. Because I'm strong. I can do I, just keep dumping on me.

Michael: Yeah. And then what happens is, again, failed relationship. The common denominator, it's like, duh, it's me. F*cking pay attention, dude. And you know, when I was, I think I was 30, I was like, I'm not dating, I'm out of relationships, I was living in Indiana till I was 29, I packed up everything I owned. I moved to Oregon and I was just like, I'm gonna go away and I'm gonna find out who I am without the chaos and the trauma and all the things that reminded me of childhood. And I just spent years, dude, I was doing therapy literally three times a week for probably almost three years. I was in groups therapy, men's group therapy, EMDR, CBT, like you name it, was doing everything not in the pursuit of like the world I live in now, all this was unexpected for you because I was like, dude, what happened there? I was like, how many times are you gonna keep doing this? How many times are you gonna keep being a terrible boyfriend, a shitty brother, poor with your money? How are you gonna make a million dollars and lose it? You're gonna do that again. How many more times you're gonna play this game? And I think one of the more difficult parts of this journey is like, as you're in this and you're reflecting and you're trying to step into the person you believe that you're capable of becoming is that you have to actually face the reality that like a lot of this is actually on you. And we live in a society that lacks accountability right now in this dangerous way where we, you and I have every right in the world to point at our upbringing and being like, yeah, why would I not have a different life? And that's the problem. And so I'm curious like, how the hell did you pull yourself out of all of this? Let me give you a little context because I think I can go a bit deeper with you. When I was like eight years old, I used to have to still water literally, ‘cuz we were that poor and I would be like, f*ck this, I'm getting rich. And then I got rich and I lost it all but there was always something in me that wanted something different, was that in you? What does that mean?

Derik: So there's a story that I dunno if I've ever even shared it. It's dark, but I'll share it because when someone says to me, when did you change your mind? Like, for some reason you'd have those moments, right? And so, I was probably six, seven, so I'd make my sister four years younger, two, three and it's not that the things like this were uncommon, but this one stick out to me. So, my stepfather put myself and my sister in a closet for three days. And it was one of those closets with the slots, so you can't necessarily see in, but you can certainly see out. And so, for two and a half, three days, he just brutally raped and tortured and beat the sh*t my mom in front of us, no food, no water, pissing shit in the closet type dea. And not a lot of options but to kind of watch and I can remember just so clearly as you would imagine, the TV and I remember watching things like, you know, lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and The Brady Bunch and for some reason, I'm sure there's certainly more to this, but I locked in on the fact that this is what's happening to me. I don't know why. I know that like inherently I know this is wrong cause it doesn't feel right. And I locked in on the TV and it was kind of my metaphor for, there is another world out there that can be happy. There is another world out there where things can be better and as silly as those sounds, it stuck with me and so, yes, on top of that, me wanting to provide for myself, it was an unhealthy desire to be powerful, which is why I found the gym and to be rich so that I never had to worry about anything of, or again, both of those things started out as very unhealthy pursuits certainly gave me the fire to achieve in a really high level. And luckily over time I've been able to clear the deck on that a little bit and start pursuing those things for a more healthy reason. But to your point, exact same thing, it was completely out of spite and fear and I just I didn't want that ever again for my life.

Michael: Yeah, thanks for sharing that, I mean, that's powerful. And unfortunately, you and I have that in common too. You know, my stepdad would lock us in closets, constantly bash my head against the wall, throw me and like, it was almost like a game to him. And he would do this thing where he'd flick me in the head. You know, and it was like all these little torturous games. And one day day control, it's weak men being weak men. Right. Because dare that man, to step to a man like you or I, it'd be a very, very different experience. And you look at that and there's a part of me that, that drive, look, I don't think people talk about this enough. I've got massive dark energy, like massive. And it is what has been able to pull me through on the days where I'm like, I want to give up on myself. I don't give a fuck about life. I'm gonna go and destroy the world. Because honestly, Derik, even being the trauma coach guy and writing the books and the podcast and all these things, yeah dude, there's days where I don't want to burn this shit down. And the thing that I remind myself of as I go back to those moments where I'd made those commitments as a kid and I'm like, I'm not doing it. And this is what I want to get into is I think that a lot of people will make commitments to themselves and have made commitment even at that young age and they can't pull through t   o make it happen. This is where I'm leading, like where does it, like how are you able to do this? Cuz people ask me all the time and my answer's very simple. I'm like, I just refuse to not do it. I don't know what else to do other than to just keep going forward, like where does that aspect of like, I'm actually gonna do it ‘cause a lot of people have the conversation in their head, 2% of people take the action.

Derik: Yeah. I guess like you, I don't know how not to, because as a kid you, I didn't have the option. I didn't have the option to say, I don't want to experience this, I don't want this to happen. There was no option. And so, like you said, on days when you don't want to do shit or days when you don't want to, a – the place we came from really turns down the volume and what other people find really stressful. And so for me, for whatever, I really operate at my best in turmoil. When people are freaking out, when shit's going wrong, I'm locked in, I'm at my best, that may not be the healthiest thing it has served me very well, but because I would've quoted to equate it to almost like PTSD, which I'm sure I had.

I remember like symptoms and telling like doctors and they didn't know what the hell it was, they thought something was wrong with me. You know, sounds that were soft, being really loud and I'm in class and you become overwhelmed. And no one knew what it was cuz no one knew what was going on. But I think that's what it comes from, I never had an option as a child so as an adult you just do it. And there are days today, even, not today, but there are days in my life still where, like you said, sometimes you get overwhelmed, sometimes you get stressed out. But I've still got that in me that okay, I don't have that option, you just kind of keep pushing through and that's not the greatest explanation ‘cause people be like, okay, well how do I apply that to my life? I don't necessarily have that answer but like you, that's really the best answer I can give.

Michael: Yeah. I don't know how to apply it to my life other than applying it to my life. You know, and it's like, I'll sit and I think one of the things that's been really beneficial for me is like the journal. I mean, it's my best friend and I just, I sit and I write all the time. I'm a writer first. Before the podcast, before the coaching, I was writing books or I was writing blogs and I was writing, you know, to myself. And even as a kid, it was like my mechanism. And it's like, I just kind of like, look at a potential of a future, right? I'm big on visualization. And I just look at it, I go, okay, I'll give you a great example of this. So, I've shared this story before, but people who haven't heard this will understand. Three years ago, Grant Cardone invested into Think Unbroken. Grant Cardone does not give people money. And what happened, Derik, is I had to go in front of 10,000 people and pitch in a Shark Tank style environment competing against 10 other companies. I f*cking crushed every single one of 'em, of course, because I had seen it in my head, a hundred thousand time that moment. But people see that moment and it's almost like they're terrified of it, they're terrified of the potential. Here's how I think about life.

Life is all about like closing the gap in your identity. Here's who you are today. Here's the person that you want to be. And everything in between is the mindset shifts, the actions, the showing up, the doing it when you're scared, the being, having a good community, working hard, showing up the whole nine. And it's like, how do you make people do this side? Right? Like, this is what I'm always thinking about. And for people like you and I think it almost becomes pre intellectually natural because I don't have another fucking option.

Derik: That's what it is. Yeah. And I struggle with the same thing cuz I think like you, I know that if I can have what I have and I can do what I've done I'm not just saying this, I believe that anybody can, but it is frustrating because you can't, you wouldn't want to give them what happened to us. And it's very difficult to verbalize how to do the things that we do because, well, we just do them. But that's been a part of this new journey for me doing speaking engagement stuff is trying to verbalize the things that I've just been doing my entire life that have gotten me here. It is very frustating, especially with friends and family when you're trying to get them past that their hurdle, their hump, their, whatever it is they think is in their way, it's frustrating because as you said, it is and people, I almost feel silly when I do it cause people I know, people are like, okay, sure, it really is as easy as. I'm a huge visualization. Same thing. Anytime I'm gonna get on stage, anything, I've got something up. I've already done, like you said, a hundred times, I've already seen the people clapping like my subconscious already has done it, knows the outcome, and then I'm almost on autopilot because it's almost like watching a movie. And so, but you try to explain that to other people.

Michael: Real time I'm having a thought that I think you're connecting dots that I've never connected about why visualization works for me. When I was a child, I watched Rocky probably a hundred times, it's my favorite movies all the time. It's tied with the Matrix, right? But I would watch Rocky all the time, all cause it always came on like regular TV. And like you'd have to sit through the commercials and all that, but I always just envisioned myself like being rocky. Do you think that like, that childlike imagination of seeing shows like the lifestyle of the rich and famous, et cetera, like made you more imaginative?

Derik: A hundred percent. TV raised me. I mean, TV raised me for sure, Rocky, you know, Rocky's an analogy for life, right? Of course anyone that comes from nothing, we all are like, I'm that guy. I'm getting the shit beat outta me, but I'm gonna keep getting up and then eventually he beats Apollo. I mean, it's what our life is, it was right. But yes, I believe a hundred percent that the TV was a massive influence and created, like you said, a massive imagination in me in so even as my grandmother on the other side until she passed a couple years ago, she always tell the story that when I came over, I would pronounce to everyone on that side of the family. And this is like seven, eight years old. I'm gonna be a multimillionaire, I'm gonna be a multimillionaire. I'm gonna move to Florida, which I did do and do all these things. And of course, people and my grandmother always found it fascinating. And then, of course it ended up happening the day so I turned 22, I got and left, went to Florida, which was 20 years ago, 21 years ago. People are like, you, you going to retire? Like, no one moves to Florida at 22 years old. What the hell are you doing? But it was all because I swear to God, I had that image in my head. And if I think back to like, lifestyles, origin, famous, it wasn't Florida, it was probably la but I saw palm trees and I'm like, that's Florida, that's where rich people go, that's what I'm doing. And honestly, it's funny, you're so funny you say that ‘cause tomorrow the big part of the opening part of my speech is encouraging people to think like a kid again. Like we as kids, anything was possible. We always asked why. We always asked what if. We always, we wanted to do all these massive things and then this horrible thing happens. Everyone tells you you're being silly, everyone tells you it's not gonna happen. Conform, stay under the radar. Shrink your goals, all of this shit that never happened to me. I'm still as inquisitive and creative and actually delusional as I was when I was eight years old and that's a goddamn good trait because otherwise, you're part of the herd, man.

Michael: I agree. Well, but it's safe, man. You look at the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. Look at Tony Robbins six needs for human life like they're basically the same thing, right?  But you look at it and like comfort equals safety.

Derik: Ultimately, and with most people it ends up in unhappiness.

Michael: Of course. I'll take it a step further; it ends up them on their deathbed dying with regret. And that being the thing where I'm like, dude, well what the f*ck are you here for? Like, here's what I think about, and this might be my own insanity, like there's a level to me, Derik, where I'm f*cking crazy like I know I am. Right. But it's the thing that has kinda like pushed me through because when I was 25, I'm working for a Fortune 10 company. I'm making 150, 200 grand a year. No high school diploma, no college education. Nobody does that. But I believed I could. And one day I'm sitting, I'm talking to my best friend and I tell him I'm quitting and I'm gonna go start this business. Do you know what he tells me? You're f*cking crazy. Right. You'll never make this much money again.

Derik: Isn't that statement a blessing with people less? I love it when people tell me that.

Michael: Well, here's the thing, I wish more people would tell me I can't do shit cuz it really fires me. It's a blessing. You can't do it. But it made me realize two things. One, if I listen to him, I'm not with you right now. Now this wasn't the business I started 13 years ago. But it was the first business I needed to fail and learn from to be able to meet to step into creating Think Unbroken. And then when I look at what I envision as this ideal lifestyle, like I get to speak on the biggest stages in the world, I have written a couple of great books. One of them being a bestseller. I'm working on the third one right now. I have amazing relationships with my friends and family, as crazy as it sounds, was on a Times Square Billboard twice last year. And I live in a little condo and I drive a little Ford and I don't want all the things that most other people want, but I'm fucking happy. And I make more money now than I ever made then. And the thing that I think that people get trapped in is their community. You said something before we started recording and I want to tie into it because it was powerful because it's just such an important reminder to question one thing who the fuck are the people around you? You said that you're in this weird thing that's happening in your life right now where you're surrounded by great people. What is that like for you now and what was it like before?

Derik: I was getting what I kind of deserved. Because I hadn't unpacked all of my shit, I attracted what I was secretly attracted to. I was attracted to toxic. I was attracted to unhealthy because it allowed me to be that little boy that couldn't protect his mom, and now I can. And so, when I unpacked all of that during that covid time and really got into my shit and let go of all the bullshit, I became the best version of me. And I think, we don't know if we've already said this, maybe it was out in the kitchen, but I then started to attract people that wanted to, also wanted to add value to my life because it was clear that I was trying to add value to my own life. When you say it, it sounds so obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time, it wasn't. Now that being said, I was doing tons of good for other people at a time where I was doing no good for me. But it didn't seem to change the outcome, which is crazy if you think about that. I had a national charity, I was buying homes for people, I'm probably one of the more generous people you will ever meet. My greatest joy in life is doing for other people, and it always has been. But I suppose statement, I suppose, because I didn't even really like myself, I was doing the things that I thought that would make me feel better, but you can't feel better if you don't address the shit that you've got. Once that shift, I was still attracting negative people. I was still getting negative attention. I was still having the family and friends and people that I was helping still ostracized me. You're not giving enough and you're not doing this. As soon as I changed an internal narrative and did the same goddamn things I'd done for a decade, everything changed. And I think that's important for people to hear and it's still hard for me to even believe, like outside of a bubble other than to say it's so true. Not much like an outward of things that I was doing changed, and yet when I changed myself internally, the result that I got was so massively different.

Michael: What was the narrative change?

Derik: Instead of, I want to make everybody else happy and feel as good as they can, it was I need to make myself happy, and I need to make sure that no matter how much good I'm doing or bad or doing nothing, that I am the one that feels good and happy first. And that changed everything and it wasn't like a one-day shift. Because a lot of things in my life, probably like you, I make a decision I call it the light switch. I've got a light switch if I'm sad and something horrific just happened and then I need to change, I just go like that and I'm locked in. And so, I had to stop tricking myself and really accept the fact that despite the fact that I had achieved everything that I wanted as a little boy, how could I have ever known what I really needed as a little boy? And so I sat in myself for the better part of a year as a man and reflected on what I thought I needed, what I knew my shortcomings were, I'm really good at recognizing the things that I should be doing, recognizing the things that I'm not doing and then at the same time not doing them. And so I think I have the intellect and the introspective, I'm introspective enough or always have been to know what I needed to do, but I just needed to do it.

Michael: Yeah. And you have to do it for yourself first. That's why I wrote the second book, Eight Steps to Healing Your Inner Child. It's right here. And I wrote one of the parts in the book talks about very, very specifically, do what you need to do for you first. And that's because one of the hardest things that we do, most people don't recognize that a big sign of childhood trauma and abuse is codependency. Where you're like, please, for the love of God, fucking like me, I will do whatever it takes and it never works. And then you have to be able to get to the place where you like you. One of the things though, I think, and I wanna go into this a bit, we chase is this, this idea of happiness. People say this all the time, they're like, I wanna be happy. And I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean? So what does that mean for you as someone pursuing it?

Derik: What a great question. I don't know that you can pursue happiness. I think we're all born, no one's born with pain and anger and turmoil and issues. So, I think it's always there, it just becomes, in our case, as suppressed, beaten down, hidden, we almost go back to my box, I'm a visual thinker, right? So, I use these types of thoughts, I put my happiness in a goddamn box. I covered it in cement and just put it away so that it couldn't get destroyed  forever. And so, I think you have to allow it, which sounds really, at least from my mind, I want to keep going with this. I had to allow myself to be happy because I was so afraid that if I did, it would be taken away again. That's one of the things I think I did during that time period. I just allowed myself to just whatever came to let it keep coming. For the longest time, and even still now today, I'll be honest with you, if I say something meaningful, even if it's not like a, Hey, you know what? I'm really proud of what you've done. I would get teared up because I didn't cause, cuz my emotions were all mixed up and always so controlled and so I just allowed myself to feel what came versus stop, that's happiness stop, that's this. Stop. I just, and it was hard. I mean, hard. I just allowed it to come and see what happened if I didn't do what I'd always done.

Michael: Yeah. That's what I always think about every day. You want, different life, do something differently. But allowing those emotions to exist when they've been tr literally trained and beaten out of you, dude, it's beyond. I don't even thinks there's a word for it. There was a period in my life I didn't cry for 15 years and my three best friends got murdered. My grandma died. My little brother literally tells me, never talk to me again. Right. We've since held that relationship we talk all the time, which is great, but it was like, I was just so shut down man. And I'm trying to find like, the only time I ever cried was when I was so overwhelmingly angry like in the first time it happened, I was so mad. Like it was, I went through this breakup, I'm like 29 years old and I'm getting ready to move to Oregon, out of Indiana, blah, blah, blah. And I was just so fucking mad at this other woman. I was shaking Derik. It was like this and just tears. And I was even trying to fight them back but like my body was like, not.

Derik: Probably like me, it wasn't crying. Like when people cry, their body's involved. For me it's just a tears club.

Michael: Yeah, that's exactly what it was for me. And then now man, it's like, dude, I'll watch it Disney movie and I'm like, God.

Derik: Well, you've evolved more than me, it's still a process for me. But to tie into that, cuz I don't have many regrets in life. But one of them is my grandfather, man, probably the most important figure of my life, best friend in my whole world he passed. He lived in Rhode Island. He got Alzheimer's. I moved him to Florida. For his last year or so, put him on a house in the water ‘cause he lives a fisherman. And it was a great kind of time and then he passed and I was there when he passed and didn't cry. And then I had a moment, and like you said, it was, there were tears for maybe five seconds and then that was it. And then, now when I think about it, I'm devastated by the fact that I wasn't able to be present in that moment but those are some of the things that come along with it. Right. But those are now some of the things too that I lean into for reminders to stay in how I actually feel because when you do that, you're able to serve your best needs.

Michael: That's right. Man, this is a hard conversation for people if they don't understand the depth of what's taken from you as a child. I know that people listening have had similar experiences obviously you and I have as well, and I look at this, I was actually, dude, it's so funny we're talking about this cuz just last night I was talking about how there is a space in which we need to allow men to be human beings right now because boys like you and I grew up to become men who chased money and girls and clothes and cars and success and we worked out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can't cry. We don't have any emotions. How many times in your life have, have you heard, you won't connect to me. Right.

Derik: Be more Be present.

Michael: Yeah. And it's like, where are you at? And now we're having these beautifully powerful conversations, but it's almost swayed too far, it has where we have a hyper emotional man. Right. And it's like, how do you find the balance? And it's like last night, so I'm talking about this on, I was doing an Instagram live and it was my, yesterday was very interesting. I wake up yesterday morning, I'm like, I'm gonna go run this hill that's up the road, it's very difficult, very demanding, it's 112 degrees outside at 9:00 AM in Vegas. I'm gonna do it anyway and then I'm gonna go record two podcasts, and then I'm gonna have some team meetings with my companies. And then I'm gonna go do Muay Thai. And then I'm gonna journal and I'm gonna meditate and I'm gonna do yoga and that was my day. I journaled it make me feel bad about myself. Well, you know, I kind of make that my day on so like on those days it's like, man, I can go kick people in the face in a, in a safe space not on the streets and then I can sit in my journal and meditation and become present with myself. And I'm looking at this just as a man perspective and maybe even a father perspective since you have children and I do not, how do we give our boys permission to be fully evolved men and what do they need to do?

Derik: Well, I have two daughters.

Michael: I know you do which I know that. But you want those daughters, I would assume, to be with fully evolved men. So how do we give boys the space to become men who are fully capable of being emotional, but also being leaders, but also being physical and also being in tune and present and as men can be?

Derik: I don't certainly don't know that I have the answer to it. I will say that because my grandfather, that's important because he's obviously a different generation, raised me with a lot of old school kind of morality. I do have certain old school beliefs in some ways. So in a bubble, absent any bad things that happens to a young man in childhood and absent any outside noise, like things that are going on right now where there's these narratives that maybe push and sway as just a human being, I think organically you can become what you should be. Now no one lives in a bubble. So I don't know the answer other than to say, I think it comes down to absolute parenting. For me with two daughters, I can't control the men that they end up with, and nor would I ever want to control my daughters, but what I can do is try to demonstrate to my daughters what I believe a good man should be, so that when they are faced with the decision, good man, bad man, healthy, all that type of stuff, that they can make that decision for themselves I like, I love to say I'm raising two lioness. And so, I'm a little different as a parent, I don't care what my daughters do. If they become multimillionaires or become a goddamn barista at Starbucks, I don't care. I just want them to be truly happy. And so, I don't necessarily push them into anything, I am a big, I push them into pursuing the things that really make them happy. My biggest goal for my daughters is for them to be with a man because they want to be, not because they need to be. And so I don't have the perspective on the boy, more so the female. So, I dunno if that answered the question, but at least from my perspective.

Michael: Well, I think it's a difficult question, right? Because I don't have children at all, right? And as I'm heading into almost 40 now, and I'm looking at it, and I think about my journey from and boyhood to teenager to early twenties success in girls in clothes and cars, it's like, man, I wouldn't want to date me if I had daughters and my daughter dated a dude like me, I'm gonna show up to his house with a f*cking shotgun. I'm like, don't you ever come to my house again? Right.

Derik: Which would ensure her being with him forever.

Michael: A hundred percent. They're gonna be married the next day. So I'm just always think, you know what I'm attempting to do, Derik, is to mitigate the risk of other children having childhoods like ours. And a big part, the mission of this whole thing is to end generational trauma. And I think the more that you help people get out, the more that it stops happening. So I think there's an exponential and compounding effect to that that's both energetic and genetic over the quantum because of what you do in your life today, the conversation we're having on this platform, knowing that thousands and thousands and thousands of people are going to listen to this and perhaps you planted a seed in something that you said today creates this ripple effect that you and I cannot even begin to fathom. Which means that on a long enough timeline, way longer than you and I are gonna be here, people will pick up my book. Right. And they're like, why would I read this? End generational trauma, what is that? You're doing that.

Derik: So that actually triggers something in me. And here's something, and maybe you can add some light to this. So, you and I both know that when you come from places like we have, it's far more typical. You and I would've end up as abusers. And so the fact that we didn't a – means you would be an exceptional father because you go one way deep or you go the other way deep. And so I've been asked in the past, how did you know how to be a father? And I said, well, I just did the opposite of what it has done to me. Which sounds kind of crazy, but what it what it meant was, and I still do, I tell my daughters I love them in annoying amount like it's ridiculous because I never had that. Even as children now they're getting taller. When there was a situation where you don't touch this, I would always get down on a knee and talk to them like this, which seems like a small thing, but I never wanted my daughters, my children to feel scared of me where I was talking down to them. And these are things I wanna, I think this is important. I never did therapy; I've never read a self-help book. I didn't do any of the work that I should have. So, I don't know how I worked through it other than just trial and error and working it out. But there was a part of me that just inherently knew, well, I knew how I didn't want to feel right. And so I just leaned into making sure my children felt the way that I wanted to which maybe is the greatest guiding principle you can have as a parent, right?

Michael: Yeah, I think so. People tell me constantly I'd be an incredible dad, there's no doubt I hear it all the time constantly. I just haven't found my woman. It'll happen when it happens. And the thing that I come to, you know, as we continue down this path a little bit deeper, is, you know, you look at who you've become as a man and who I've become as a man. And many of the people have healed in this journey who have become incredible humans. And I'm not saying you don't have to be rich and famous to be a fucking great human, that's not what I'm saying.

Derik: So, but by the way, my success has nothing to do in my opinion about me being a good person.

Michael: Could not agree more. Right. Because I know a lot of millionaires and billionaires who are f*cking assholes. And so, and I know people who make 30 grand a year, who are they're the best people on earth. And so I don't think money is just a tool. I never want to factor that into these conversations. But what I think about though is like there's this transitional period in becoming where you're able to actually sit and look at yourself and then look at your past version of you and you're like, that doesn't even feel remotely like who I am today. And in that, I think that's where freedom exists because in that, that's where you now have started to change this generational curve, but you said something that's so important where your siblings are is a very different place than where you are. I was heading down the path very similar to your siblings. Running from the cops, getting shot at being in handcuffs all the time, putting myself in massively precarious and dangerous situations and yet just making small, some of its luck, Derik, some of it is luck. I'll never ever forget this man. The day my best friend got arrested, I was supposed to be in the car with him and it just happened to work out that I wasn't and had I been in that car that day, totally different life. Probably. We ain't here buddy. That's right. Because I'm in prison for life with a kilo of cocaine in the back of a truck. Right. And so like I know luck plays a factor. But so does like this resilience of wanting more. This is always a hard question cuz we don't live other people's lives. Why do you think that your siblings did not have this similar outcome?

Derik: Yeah. I don't know why I was, and I don't know if I was born with it or what, but I certainly developed a resilience that saved my life and I don't know how maybe. I was just wired differently. There's no rational explanation for why three people or two people that come from the same environment, experience the same things, have totally different lives right there, there's just really no explanation. And I certainly don't want to say that I am in any way better, of course, than my sibling. And so, I don't know, is it genetic makeup? Is it that, my father versus their father, I don't know any of those answers. I just know that it destroyed them. My sister's gotten better way better. Got she came outta prison and changed her entire life. Found God and is an amazing mom and love that, but it was a journey for her. For me, I don't have that answer and I don't know that I want to call it luck cuz it was certainly more than that, it was certainly a battle every day of my life to get through it but I don't know.

Michael: Something in you. I think it's the same way I chased money and my brothers were dirt poor. You know? And not because of any of their own wrongdoing, just something in me, I figured out how to navigate business at a very young age. You know, and then it turned into like, I figured out how to write books and podcasts and then blah, blah, blah. And I look at my brothers now, dude. I'm so f*cking proud of them like it is unbelievable what they have been able to do. One of my brothers is getting ready to graduate The police academy, the other one's about to be a firefighter. Dude, it's unbelievable. My sister doesn't beat her kids, we made these decisions. We were like, f*ck this. Because dude, I think part of it too is, and, and maybe this is what it is, it was just so bad for us like, it was just so incredibly bad. There was just no way we could possibly go down the other path.

Derik: That not it though, because so many don't think so many other people go a different way. I don't wanna take away from that response but I think it's more than that and I don't know that it's something we can verbalize, in my opinion because like I said, we were it's not ambition, it's not a word I guess it's resilience, but that's not to say that the other people weren't resilient.

Michael: Yeah. Maybe have something we have to ponder on for a little bit because it's definitely something that I think about a lot because it's like there was just a, you talking about that switch? That's what happened to me at 26. It was just a switch. It was done. I was like, fuck this money. Fuck these cars. I'm tired of these women. I'm tired of being 350 pounds and fat and dumb and I was just like, that switch hit and it has carried me to this moment and it continues to propel me. And I think, to be honest, maybe this is the same thing that happened to you four years ago. I was just tired of myself.

Derik: That's it. I've had that a couple times in my life though, but yes.

Michael: So then maybe if that's the solution. Does it require rock bottom for you to be tired of your shit to create change in your life, or can we mitigate that?

Derik: Unfortunately, what's the expression? Your situation has to be so bad. It has to be worse than the comfort of your current condition. Right. And so, I didn't have to hit rock bottom by other people's standards, but I got so goddamn sick of what I had that I just said, and it almost feels like a decision, like literally like this, because the second I made that decision like a couple times in my life that it happened, that was it like you said, done like almost like cold Turkey if you're an alcoholic or you smoke, like that's it. It's done. I've decided. Again, you can probably track that back to our earlier lives and whether, again, how do we have that ability? And some people don't. Maybe everyone does. I don't have that answer.

Michael: Yeah. I don't either. I don't know where it comes from, but I do. There is that moment there is where I was just like, man, I'm done, just done. F*ck it. Because it can't get worse than this. I mean, it probably could if I killed someone or I died like that's the worst case, but I mean, there a lot of evidence to support I was tracking towards that. One of the things I think about a lot is this concept of like legacy, right? Which is a weird dichotomy in my life, cuz on one hand I'm a complete nihilist. I do not believe that most things matter and it gives me like permission to like go and do crazy shit ‘cause we're like, we're gonna die and nobody's gonna remember my name in 50 years. And on the other hand, I'm like, every single moment of every day f*cking matters so much. It's not even funny. Right. And so, this is the dichotomy I live in which kind of leads down to this path. Now looking at your life and being the man that you are, does legacy play a role in the impact that you wanna leave in the world?

Derik: I think legacy now has a different meaning. I always thought legacy was dollars and cents. Always thought legacy was how many companies can I build? How much big of an enterprise can I leave my daughters? How much money am I gonna stack up? All of that stuff. Now, that's still a big part of my life, but for a different reason. And now I know that that has nothing to do with my legacy. When I'm gone, my legacy is my children. I think it's everybody, it's the only way you live on it. Right. It's the only way. And no one's ever gonna come and talk to my daughters and your father was such a great man because he was rich, it's never gonna happen. But what I know is that, or what I hope, things that I've been doing through my entire life and now more than ever, is trying to make an impact. And part of that is opening up all of my failures in exposing, my pain in hopes, like we just talked about, that it can impact anybody really anybody. Right. And so, you probably get it way more than I do, because I've only talked about this even loosely in one other like post or something like that. I guess so many people reaching out, um, in such a meaningful way that it really encouraged me now to try to lean into it even more in lead with vulnerability because when people look at the same me, but when people look at anybody, that they consider to have any level of whatever money, notoriety, there's a gap between them. And I don't think that real value can be exchanged if you don't actually know what that who that person is. And so, right, wrong, or indifferent, I hope that that's what my legacy is, is that I became against all odds, transparent, I gave the world who I was and through my daughters I think that's my legacy.

Michael: Yeah. I love that. And vulnerability is a cornerstone.

Derik: Which is not easy.

Michael: I think it starts with you coming back to that point about honesty. And, you know, being a public figure, like people say, how can you share those stories publicly isn't at hard I'm like, I've healed all those things. There's almost zero impact of the things I share but at the same time, Derik, there's things I will never, ever, ever share on this microphone, they're just too dark. I think about vulnerability and being a great man, and there's been many, many great men who have sat in that chair, sat with me in these moments, and dude, you're one of the top and I appreciate you greatly appreciate that. Before I ask you my last question, where can everybody find you and learn more about you, brother?

Derik: My biggest kind of platform right now is Instagram, it's just my name at Derik Fay or any other platform at Derik Fay still seems weird to me if I'm been doing this for so long, where can define you like social media, can you believe that? Here's my phone number but listen, you know, again, I'm doing what I've always done I have nothing to sell, I really am trying to just we're just trying to just turn the camera and kind of see what comes from it and so far it's been a really exciting ride, getting lots of great feedback, you know, I never thought social media could be philanthropic. And maybe you've even heard me talk about this before, I'm finding such joy in spending really a disproportionate amount of time answering DM’s from people and sometimes it's about business and sometimes it's about life and people that they hate their lives or this. And it takes such a small amount of effort and time on a one-to-one basis in, I'm feeling really rewarded about the direction of my life right now.

Michael: Yeah, I love that man. And that's why I wanted to have you on the show to fully support that. You know, one of the things that I do, I've probably coached about 50 to 70 people a month. I'll do a 10-minute coaching call with anybody in the world at any time. And it's that same thing because it's like, man, whether they come into a coaching program or they buy I don't give a f*ck dude. The mission is the mission. Right. My last question for you, my friend, shoot, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Derik: And I knew this question was coming too, and somehow woefully unprepared. What does it mean to be unbroken? It means to me that for the very first time in my life, I get to be the boy that I didn't get the chance to be. And so, for me, I feel I'm now living the life I was meant to live and that has reached out to every inch of my goddamn life and because of that, the people in my life are also happier for it.

Michael: Yeah, man. Powerful. Thank you so much for being here.

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