Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 88 - Vin Infante (Bullying, Mindset & Performance Coaching, and Psychology)

Vin Infante is a mental performance coach, psychotherapist and transformational speaker with over 14 years of experience helping entrepreneurs and organizations optimize their performance through his practice of helping you unleash the leader within. Among many accomplishments, he has been recognized by Psychology Today as one of the leaders in the field of performance coaching.

To connect with Vin please click the below links: www.vincentinfante.life

www.Linkedin.com/in/vininfante

www.instagram.com/vin.infante

Duration:: 46m
Broadcast on:: 28 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

When in fante, brother, social worker, fire fighter, you are so, so many things and on top of everything, you are a performance coach, you are a mental positivity coach, you have just an incredible career full of accomplishments, anything that I'm missing and anything that I didn't mention yet. I'm a father, that's one hell of a role, I think that's probably the biggest one. I love that and that one is probably the most important one. Let me ask you this because this is probably the most important question of the day. How do you find the time in your day to go between all of these things that you're doing? I've come to find that the easiest way to do it is to not balance it, but to integrate it all. So, work-life integration is the best answer I can give you. I love that. Now, let's talk about where you learned some of these basics. Talk to me about how you decided to become a social worker in the path that it took you on. Well, that's the longest journey, so I'll save that for the keynote, but I'll give you the cliff notes. So, it's interesting, my dad was a therapist and I always just thought my dad was the coolest guy ever because my dad is really smart. He would always win it at Jeopardy, he would always win it at all the games that required you to spell words. Like, who's that scrabble? You can't beat him in any of these things, and he used to annoy me, but it was also interesting because I thought my dad was super cool and I thought it was because he was a therapist. So, I was like, "Okay, cool, I want to be a therapist." Then I have my second childhood dream of like, I really want to be a firefighter because every kid wants to be every boy, I should say, wants to be a hero. Like, every boy is like, kind of do firefighting, police, sanitation, I think. I don't know how many kids grew up saying they want to be garbage men, but I mean, it's a great job, it's not a bad thing. But if you get military, who else? Navy, SEAL, astronaut, right, but I was like, "No, I want to be a therapist and I want to be a firefighter too, I want to do both." So, it was interesting because my life story was, I was also the outcast. I was bullied pretty heavily. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, panic disorder. I had suicidal ideation, I had self-harm, and the panic attacks were so bad that I physically wouldn't even be able to breathe sometimes. Like, I would hyperventilate and couldn't stop. And it's really interesting because as I grew up with these things, like 13, 14 years old was when I really started developing a lot of the heavier symptoms. It was interesting because one mental health wasn't like huge at the time. And number two is a 13, 14 year old, you can't really verbalize what the heck is actually going on with you. So, I know my mom with the best of intentions would question me quite often about those things. She'd be like, "You know, you're always sick at school, you're always vomiting, you're always diarrheaing, or you can't breathe in the mornings. Like, are you acting? Like, are you doing it? Because as soon as you get home, you're fine." And I'm like, "I don't know, man. Like, I really don't know how to explain it. I feel better." So, it was all very interesting to navigate when you don't really know what the hell you're navigating. So, therapy and social workers and nobody ever really was able to help me. And I don't know if it's because they weren't equipped or what it was, but it just didn't work for me. And so, as I went through this journey and I tried to reinvent myself from high school to college, because high school was the worst of the bullying. I mean, I got literally thrown in two trash cans, shoved in the big round ones. So, I had to like, roll out of those. I got pushed into lockers. I mean, I was thrown down steps. Bullying was happening to me in a way that would happen in the movies where you're like, "That's ridiculous. It doesn't happen like that, but it does to some of us." And so, I lived in victimhood for so long that I was like, "I need to change this." And as I went to college, I reinvented myself externally. So, I wrote on all my college transcripts. My name is Vincenzo, now Vincent. And you know what's crazy, man? Nobody checked. Like, all of my college degrees save Vincenzo. Oh, do you halfway and legally change your name? I mean, who's checking the admissions program? But with that being said, it sort of worked. I did external things. I started working out. I spiked my hair. I grew a beard. Like, I did these things that started making me look cooler. I started wearing nicer t-shirts. Like, I got a flickshine and all that cool stuff at the time. Do you remember that? I do. I do. That was the start of MMA and the like, cool kid's friends. Yeah. That's it. That's it. I wasn't really a cool kid, but I was. So, I was because the way I looked, people started getting interested in becoming my friend. So, I went from having zero friends, zero love interest to people who want to become my friends. Girls are interested in me, and I don't know what to do with any of that. So, fast forward, things continue to get worse and worse for me mentally. I'm having like police mental breakdowns and life is harder and harder and harder. But externally, I'm doing great. I have a job as a personal trainer. I started doing psychotherapy alongside train psychotherapist. At 18 years old, I was co-facilitating and leading groups under supervision of the worst because I worked in this hospital as a mental health worker. And so, I like what's crushing. I had these two jobs. I was graduating with honors in psych, high national honors society. And then I went on to get accepted to every master's program I applied for. And all of that, but you wouldn't really know that like, I was struggling so hard. I couldn't keep relationships. I couldn't keep friendships. I was having all these panic attacks and mental breakdown. And again, I'd see my therapist and nothing. Like, I would go into therapy and I would tell him for 25 minutes how crappy my life was or how I perceived it to be so crappy. And he just kind of squinted me and he crinkled his nose and go, "Mmm." So, what else is going on? I'd be like, "Man, what do you mean?" Wow. Hey, in those times when you were actually going through therapy and living this, I mean, teenage nightmare, did you feel like, "Hey, my life is going to get better?" "Hey, I'm going to add the ability to actually change the things that I'm doing to drive myself into that success column even though I'm not there now." Absolutely not. There were the reasons that I had so much suicidal ideation was because I didn't believe that it could get better. I couldn't see it. You know, sometimes you spend so long in a dark place that you don't think there's any light. But I guess the reality is at the end of every long tunnel, despite how long it might be, there's always an entrance or an exit of that tunnel, right? And so sometimes when you're in the middle, you forget that. And I think for me, the middle was, or a big moment was one day in high school. What you asked was this, I was sitting there with the Monsignor because I went to a Catholic old boy high school. And I sat with the Monsignor and him and I were talking. And he was actually very close to me. He knew my brother from a previous school that he was a dean there. And my brother was a troublemaker, so he kind of knew my family already. And I had spent a lot of time talking to him. And he would always give me interesting advice and he had really interesting stories. But I remember one day I just walked in, and I remember I just sat down and I was like, "Ah, man." I was like, "I don't want to be here anymore." And he's like, "What?" In school? Nobody wants to be in school. He knew, but he was messing with me. And I was like, "I don't want to live." I was like, "I'm tired of this place. I just don't want to be here." So I wrote down on a little crude piece of paper, an assessment that he slid over to me and he said, "Where are you on that list?" And the list was very simple. It was just a thought of planning and attempt. So at that time, I mean, that was the first time I ever saw a very crude but effective suicide test. And so I remember I just looked at it and I was like, planning. And then from there, you just kind of break down a little bit and you cry, or at least I did. Because it's that realization that like, yeah, you really think your life is that useless or bad that you are planning to end it because there's no, what's waiting for you. Like, what do you care to know about what could be possible in the future because your present is so crappy and painful? Yeah. That is so, so powerful. First and foremost, I just want to say that I'm so, so happy that you're here with us today. Brother, you are making the world a way better place and knowing that, you know, there was a period in time when you were in this dark, dark pit and didn't see a way out. It's just a really powerful thing for other people to hear because looking at you today, right, you would never be able to tell that there was this version of Vincent that was not a happy guy. Second and super powerful as well. Let me ask you this important question. Do you think part of that story that is actually a good part is at the time that you were growing up bullying was physical and also happened in person. So whenever you did get to go home, you got to be with your parents. You got to be with a loving support network. So you kind of got to disconnect where a lot of bullying today happens, not only in school, not only in public, but also these kids go home and people are just more ruthless online, driving worse outcomes than the one that you were able to get to. So it's interesting because, and I'm still not going to go super in depth with this, but my home life was not perfect. And I'm not saying that anybody thinks it was, but I'm talking about, you know, I said my brother was a troublemaker, and I will leave it at that. But that caused a lot of problems in my home. And so I actually found my escape in video games, because I would come home, and there would be a lot of tension and a lot of stress, even in that environment. And even though it wasn't directly correlated to me, I was receiving the effects of it. And so, to your point, I think bullying today is interesting. However, I don't know if necessarily like, I had a break from it. And the reason I address this is because I don't know if having a break is really what makes people get through bullying anyway. And could it be worse that people could text you and do this and do that? I think so. I mean, I don't, I don't want to downplay that. I think the fact that people have access to you virtually 24/7, you know, I gotta be honest, here's a funny thing I haven't really talked about. I got a prank even, you know, when AOL and some Messenger came out, I was using that, and I got pranked. Like, even through that, like, I had this girl who I really liked, she had a boyfriend. Yep. And the boyfriend thought I was a loser. And he thought it'd be really funny to prank me. So he made a fake screen name. He got her to help. And he pretended that he was her cousin. And then he was talking, like, flirting with me and this and that. And, you know, and then eventually he was like, Oh, dude, you're a loser. Like, I was pretending. I'm not, I'm not interested in you. I'm not even a girl. I'm like, Oh, man. Yeah. And so, dude, I am so sorry. Yeah, I'm so sorry because I feel like that type of bullying is so common. And it just does not get enough voice. And it does not get enough people talking about it saying, Hey, kids are ruthless. Part of it is like their brains are not fully formed. And they do messed up things without thinking about long term consequences. What's amazing about your story is that, Hey, these things happened to you. Hey, you got out. Tell me about the positive aspect of you changing your mind and changing who you are as a person to become this amazing guy, amazing Vin, who you are today. Yeah, thanks, man. You know, I believe that I didn't really do anything remarkable. I think the reality is I just, you just get tired of being sick and tired. I've heard that saying before. And it always stuck with me. And it really was that. I remember it was about 23 years old. I just graduated with my master's degree. I was ready to start doing psychotherapy. And I was like, man, my life is so great, but it really seems like it sucks. And you know, here's the other thing people talk about, but maybe they don't nearly enough is that if your life looks like it's good, you're not allowed to have problems. So I knew the problems that I struggle with, but I also didn't want to tell people, because at 23 years old, I had a master's degree. My body was in better shape. You know, I'm a sick guy. I have a high girlfriend. I'm driving a Camaro SS life's good for me, but it wasn't. And then that was frustrating because it's like, well, who do I talk to? You know, everybody says that life is supposed to be good and that I'm ungrateful or whatever the hell they want to label me as because I have so much. And yet, you know, it's actually something I've been dealing with since I was about like six, seven that I've been feeling like I was made to not matter feeling like I was inferior feeling like I wasn't good enough. And here's a fun fact to all the high performers listening to some degree out there. Most of you probably have been so successful because you feel the same way that I did that you're not worthy to some capacity or that you're not enough and you're trying to achieve it through your business or your life or whatever you're doing. And that's what I was doing. And I came to that realization and I was like, you know, I still need to change something about myself. And so the biggest part of it was just ownership. It was acceptance and it was responsibility. But it happens in a specific way. First is actually the acceptance. I had to life is, I had to own the fact that all of the decisions I had made, good and bad, had led me to the exact present day life that I'm living. And that's okay. Because what I'm going to do with that is now my responsibility. And I have the opportunity to create the life that I want for myself. And so it came into that conversation of who do you want to be. Do you want to keep being this person that you believe is a loser that was depressed and anxious and bullied and he wasn't powerful and people are pitting him or do you want to do something else with your life. Do you want to be a leader? Do you want to be inspiring and happy and positive and excited and do you want to see things differently, etc. And in the answer that was, yes, of course I did. And with that, with that really came the changes I need to make is now it was a simple process like how do I become all those things I want to become because the point of life isn't about achieving the goal. The point of life is to honestly give life meaning because life is meaningless, but we shouldn't confuse that with life being pointless. If it was pointless, there'd be no reason for us to be here and you should probably just end it all. But if life was meaningless, that's a beautiful term because that means you could assign meaning to whatever you want it to be. You could create anything you need to create. You could design anything that you want to have and ultimately you could create fulfillment if you need it. And so I took that as my go ahead to figure out what was meaningful to me. And then I did that every single day and I divorced my therapist. I ditched my diagnosis. I don't believe anyone should have a diagnosis and I'll argue with every therapist because I am a therapist and I'll argue with all of you until the day I die. The labels are also something that if accepted to become a part of your identity. And if they become a part of your identity, what ends up happening is you start living that out every single day of your life. And one of the things that I've learned to really destroy and shift mental patterns or any patterns, behavioral patterns, whatever, it's to understand that you're not them. You've adapted them. You might have made them a part of you, but you do not have to always accept them as yours and they are definitely not who you are. So that was a big part of what really helped me start creating this shift and creating my life or, as I like to say, stop passively experiencing life and consciously creating it. I love the specific way that you talk about this and let me challenge you just a little bit here. Please. When I think about the meaning of life, here is what I think about. I think about us as human beings being here on the face of the earth, understanding that we are part of some type of an evolutionary process long term. And when I think about what is this life that we live. I think there are 8 billion different ideas of what reality is and what the world is. And when I think about meaning in general, this is where I slightly diverge from you. And I think the meaning of each person's life is to find their meaning. Like when I talk about myself, I talk about specifically almost an identical situation as you. I was in this high profile job that seemed super successful. At the same time, my home life was not that great. We've had issues that are so, so complex and that stemmed from decades of feeling some sort of way that have just always made me feel less than feel like I wasn't living up to who it was that I was meant to be. And when I changed the idea of, hey, what is the meaning of life for me? And I just want, I think the meaning is just to help other people. I feel like that moment when you get in tune with who you are as a person, when you find your meaning is what the meaning of human existence is. How do you feel about that? I like it, but unless you have a different terminology, I would challenge the point that you do also create your own meaning, because you said, I think it's this, which is interesting. Yeah, right, because I believe that that is the play. Humans are, we are very interesting creatures, even in the way our brain processes like the reason that we could create scenarios that never happened, but a real to us is because our brain always wants to create meaning. It feels in the gaps. I'm 100%. There's no 99.9. I am 100% certain, for instance. If we were living all of this time and nobody ever created a religion or a God, somebody would create it still because of the fact that we need meaning, we need purpose, and some people lean into God. Some people lean into the fact that their meaning is maybe to be a father, or maybe their meaning is to paint, or maybe their meaning is to do something that's just average and ordinary. They want to make pens at a factory, and that's the thing. Meaning doesn't inherently have to be a super depth, powerful, considerably bigger than us type of thing. I think meaning is an every piece of our life. We have people that could be happy who have barely any money, because they've defined that the meaning of their life is just being a good Catholic, or it's just being a loving parent. And then you have people that are so wealthy, and they find that their meaning is in something more like building a ginormous corporation, or whatever the case. And because I've seen such variants of people, and such variants of personalities, and things that make people happy, or things that make them upset, or this or that, it's just so interesting because I think we're always creating meaning. And now there's different types of meaning, right? Is it the meaning of your life? Is it the meaning of what everything means around you? Is it the meaning of what you observe? And I think that that's the thing. We're always kind of determining that, and here's another part. The reason I think meaning is interesting and created is because I believe values, our value systems, our belief systems, are also tied to meaning. And because of the fact that I know values and belief shifts, I know that our meaning could shift. Like I've always said, my mission is to positively impact a billion lives. After I had my daughter, I said, I still want to impact a billion lives, but if I only impact one, that's fine for me. That is powerful. That is so, so powerful for so many reasons. First and foremost, I think this is a really, really important piece of the nature versus nurture argument, which is, hey, the cool thing about meaning and the cool thing about values is exactly that. It changes with you through your length of time that you're on this earth. When something changes in your family, all of a sudden, this goal of impacting so many strangers becomes diluted based on, hey, the person who I love the most who's in this room with me is the one who needs me the most. And I think the smartest and the best of human beings understand that innately. For whatever reason, to some people, they choose to challenge that and they like almost go through their life being like, well, I can still do both. Like, I can hold on to this and kind of live a miserable existence hanging on, trying to fulfill absolutely every single bucket of everything they've always wanted to be while kind of sacrificing in every piece of their family. How do you now today balance the life of being a dad and knowing that the most important thing is at home while also having a successful career. You just right back to the start here, the work life integration, work life integration. Talk to me about, because you know, it's a buzz term that every single person uses, work life balance, every single corporation on your first day of an interview will tell you, we're all about work life balance. Also, we need you to work every single minute of every single day. What does work life balance mean to you specific. See, that's the funny thing. I think work life balance is bullshit. That's why I don't advocate for it. I talk about work life integration. Love it. Work life integration is very different. And I think it's more accessible. Here's the thing, though. I will say, work life integration is more of a privilege for entrepreneurs and people who are bigger decision makers. The reason being is that for me, I don't get burnt out my business is successful because I don't live on a nine to five schedule. I don't believe in the fact that I should have specific blackout times. I used to me trying to create work life balance actually made me miserable. And I'll tell you that, because as an entrepreneur, I used to say, okay, I will stop working at this time. I will start working at this time. And I will have the weekends for my family. And this is just how it'll be. And like, it'll be perfect and I'll balance it. And then it'd be like, oh, this is really important for me to do. But like, I'm supposed to be my family or, oh man, it's a weekend, but I got to go to my laundromat. And, you know, because I own that too. And so it was creating a lot of tension. And I think work life balance is something that we try to do when we work in a nine to five. Now, the way you could switch that because work life balance where people get stressed again is meanings. Like, well, I should only do this or I should only do that. And like, this is equal, but balance doesn't always mean equal. Balance could mean maybe work for 10 hours and you only play for one based on. What you're trying to do and understand that that's balanced. Because when we get balanced, it's the meaning that creates the stress. We think balance and you probably see a scale in your head. And the scales are perfect. It's like, okay, I work two hours. I played two hours. But that's not true. Value creates balance, in my opinion. If you really enjoy video games, let's just say, and you really want a game, but you're busy and you got to work. And it looks like nine hours of work in one hour of gaming. That could be balanced because the gaming is such a massive priority that stick on the balance bar is a lot bigger, which compromises to weigh the same as that nine hours of work. Now, why I specifically don't love work life balance, though, is because I think it really does challenge people to live in a very specific class. When I talk about work life integration, which is what I changed to, is that I don't have anything set, but I do. And what I mean by that is like Mondays, for instance, here's my best example. Every Monday, I'm unreachable until at least two p.m. Reason being is because the whole morning is for me. I do not like giving people my time before 11 a.m. That's my time. I go to the gym. I get some work done. I might even do whatever else I feel like, but it's my time from five to 11 a.m. I'll even spend time with my daughter, hang out. Then from 11 to two, we take her to soccer. We take her to the indoor playground. We get a slice of pizza. And then that's it. And then after 2 p.m., the rest of the day is fine. Now, I can switch that. On Monday, I will also be open to working until eight and nine p.m. Because I don't start my day until two. Yeah, I'm also open to sacrificing a Saturday because I spend the whole day with my daughter on Monday. And then I sprinkle in time as well. I make sure I have my mornings with her. I try to put her to bed at night. I take breaks. Like, I'll go have lunch or dinner with my family and tell my girl when I have free time and then we'll eat together. So I really make a life of design. And I think so many entrepreneurs don't do that. So many entrepreneurs are getting divorced. They're losing their families. Their kids hate them. And all the while, they're like, "I'm doing this for you. You're all ungrateful." And it's like, "No, dude. You're probably doing it for yourself because of what we're talking about the start of the podcast with a deeper and fewer already complex. Not enough. Not believing in you, whatever. Now you overcompensate. You don't understand how to create integration. And that's where entrepreneurs fall short now. I never wanted to be that. I almost was. My girl had threatened to leave me. That's what really got me intentional. She said, "I don't know why we're here if you're not going to spend time with us." And then I was like, "Well, damn. I don't want to lose my kids. She's probably the most important thing to me." So I just figured it out and lo and behold, you can figure it out if you try. And I love that story so much because first and foremost, the career that you built is incredible. And second, this just shows you that, hey, sometimes being in a rat race doesn't have any winners. Like, you do the thing that you're supposed to be doing, but it doesn't feel like it's working out, which leads us to the next question. Hey, Vin, what is it that you do today because you seem pretty damn good at it? Thanks, man. Well, today, I like to call myself a mental performance coach. I have created a hybrid that blends together therapy, mentoring, and coaching in one service. And it chose me more so than I chose it. I started growing very disenfranchised with therapy. I felt like one therapy never really helped me. And two, as I started working with high performing individuals like entrepreneurs or C-suite executives or whoever, it was in very interesting realization that they pretty much all need therapy. However, they also have felt that therapy does not really help them. And I've seen this so much. And so it was really interesting because I got into coaching. I studied coaching under Tony Robbins training program because I really believed in what he was doing. I was like, wow, this guy's helping people more than any therapist I've ever seen myself included. How do I help people get results like that? Like, this guy's amazing. So it prompted me to believe in something bigger. That led me into my life coaching path, which I was building at the time while I was a firefighter. And then I started seeing everybody as clients. I was taking kids, I was taking adults, I was taking older people, whoever. And I got my first entrepreneurial client. I was like, wow, this is interest. And I noticed that because of the fact that I have a very heavy-handed approach as well. I'm like, hey, like, you need to take ownership accountability. Like, you got to stop the crap. Like, this is on you. It was working really well, but I was also able to penetrate into deeper spaces of like, okay, like, this is the trauma you have. That's fine. It's there. That's okay. What do we do with that is what really matters. And that approach worked phenomenal for high performers because high performers want answers is what I found the most. And your average everyday person who I absolutely love, I just don't want to work with them, typically does not. And again, people can challenge me, but I've been in the industry for 15 years. I know a little bit of what I'm talking about. I've worked with thousands of people. And it was very frustrating to see people like you can see it right in front of them. And they could see it too, but they're just like, no, I don't want to acknowledge that. Why? Why don't you want to change your life for the better? Oh, it's actually frustrating for me. But then as I started working with these entrepreneurs or executives, I was like, wow, these people really are freaking willing to be hard on themselves for the sake of growth, which was fascinating because I was like, this is the person I want to work with. And so then I started thinking, okay, well, what's the creative thing that I could do here? Like, what do these people really, really need? They want coaches, but they need therapists. Can I charge and horse this crap? And I did it to some degree. So I came in and I said, hey, I am a mental performance coach. And it's true. Because if you work with me, I optimize you, optimize your relationships with your wife or your kids or your friends or your business or anyone really. And we help you optimize your life. And so what I saw was, okay, I could create this unique hybrid that blends therapy, mentoring and coaching. I could save people time, money and energy. But the biggest benefit is this. Therapists, the reason people get stuck in therapy is because therapists tend to help you understand, analyze, look at and make sense of your past. But anything aside from that isn't really therapeutic work. And it's not to say like you're not supposed to grow from therapy or anything like that. But knowledge is only half the battle. Knowledge in and of itself is actually useless. You know how they used to tell us as kids, like knowledge is power. Yep. That's the biggest law you've ever heard. With a little bit of application. Come on now. You've got to have all the pieces. Knowledge is not power. It is potential power to your point. That's for a petition, right? Knowledge is potential power because if you can't apply it and you can't do anything with it, it is actually useless. If I were to tell you Igor, I want you to read 10,000 books about working out, but you can never use it for yourself and you can never personal train anyone. Don't you have a lot of useless knowledge? You do. That's why everything I've seen, if you can get people knowledge, but you can't help them apply it, it becomes useless. And you've found that so many people go to therapy and they just get frustrated because they're like, I know why I do all these things. And it's like, great, well, what do you do to change it? It's like, well, I don't know what to do to change it. That's where the problem is. So therapy is great for that, but a full short, my opinion, are really challenging and pushing people to move forward. And your best therapist out there probably are coaching you, even if they don't realize they're coaching you because a coach is going to come in and challenge you to raise the standards of your life. And the coach is going to come in and say, okay, well, this is what you're dealing with. But what can we do with that? How can we shift it? How can we change the meaning? How can we create something new? What's an action, a behavior, a circumstance we could create? Like, how do we move from here? What's the actionable steps? And a coach is meant to do that, but a lot of coaches fall short because they're trying to do that without understanding why you're truly stuck. And then they come in with the motivational raw, raw crap where they're like, hey, if you don't achieve it, because you don't want it bad enough. It's like, that ain't true either, man. Come on now. Yeah. Now, it totally makes sense why you're so good at this because it almost feels like a hack given that, you know, you have a background in the therapy aspect of it and you just go, Hey, I just get it. Like a lot of people just don't have this piece of information that I have, and I know how to apply it. You keep talking about this optimization and the different tools that you help people do. What's the specific process that makes you the top 1% performance coach today, where other people just aren't able to provide the level of service that you do every day? I do want to attest it mostly to my background of psychology. I believe that, in mind you, I also want to make note to most people. My background is not special. I went and I got a degree in social work with a clinical focused mind you because I wanted to do psychotherapy. But the funny thing is that a lot of my self research on psychology has actually driven me to gain better experience. Like, I have understanding of how the mind works. I know a little bit about neurology. And it could be a lot depending on who I talk to, but it's, in my opinion, to the real experts, it's a little bit. And I consume that stuff, man. I love neurology because neurology is exactly why you're doing what you're doing on the deepest levels. And so I come in with a very psychodynamic approach of giving you the kind of therapeutic work that you truly need and stopping you from stepping into the things that you don't need because one of the things I found is that a lot of people come from one thing, but they actually need something else. And I think a lot of coaches specifically, because let's be real, the coaching industry is wildly unregulated. Anyone can be a coach. My daughter, she's now able to form synthesis. She could be considered a coach like, you don't need a damn thing to be a coach nowadays. And for better or worse, that's what the industry is. So I think a lot of the times because a lot of these people are probably under trained and unqualified. What they're doing is they're focusing on your symptoms, but they're not focusing on the deeper issues like the disease. Like if you went to a doctor and you were like, Hey, I've got headaches and he just treats you for headaches. That's fine. But what if you actually have cancer? Does it really matter that he's helping your headaches? No, because the headaches are going to keep come back and probably eventually you're going to die. So I think most of the time, the thing that makes me great at what I do is that I'm really capable of finding your cancer. And I want to find your cancer because I'd rather you not have to come back to me like the therapy model, the coaching model. I think a lot of them are built from longevity and they should be, right? Because how do you have a business without longevity? But the reality is that if you want to have a business, you need longevity. If you want to help people, you don't. I work myself out of a job a lot. I have clients and that will stay with me for three months or some of them stay for five years, honestly. But we do like once a month and then it's just a check in and blah, blah, blah. They really love me. But the average client, I would say, has a shorter lifespan because in three months, we could collapse years and years of work because of the fact that I'm like super like, let's just get in there. Let's figure it out. Let's pull it out. Let's free you and go on your way. I mean, Tony Robbins has a similar and again, he's my bigger inspiration. But Tony Robbins has a similar model where people struggle for 20 years in therapy, go to him and after 20 minutes, they're fine, which is crazy, right? So why don't we do more of that? And that's where I really push is like, I want to get you the results in a few months, not 20 years. So how do we get there for you? And I think that approach is what makes me really not only dedicated to my clients, but helps me become a better and better coach because I want to keep figuring out how I can do that. Faster, better than the next guy. I love that. I love that full answer because first and foremost, you're fixing problems. The second message that you're putting out there is sometimes working yourself out of a job just means that you're doing really, really good work. So if you're looking for ideal clients today, what type of clients are you looking to take on and what type of clients do currently? Yeah, I mean, the clients, the clients I currently work with is honestly, it's funny, very broad. Every time I've hired a business coach, they want to mean and niche down and say my superhero statement. I hate those things, don't you? You see them everywhere on LinkedIn, don't you? I know. I know they're just everywhere. Everybody's got to, I help you do X so that you could do X and if you have X, you'll feel X. It's like, no, I'm never going to work with you. But I've avoided that my whole career and I think I will continue to do so because I really do have a wide range of people that I work with and every business coach will hate what I'm about to say. And that's fine. Please do not offer me your services though. I'm okay. I am a expert and a generalist. I am an expert in the fact that I can help you with most anything. I can help you with anxiety. I can help you with depression, trauma. I can help you with your marriage. I can help you with going through a divorce. I can help you with being a parent. I can help you with being a better friend, a better person. I can help you with introverted, extroverted issues, confidence issues. There is no category that I have not been able to successfully help people in when it comes to mental health. And then I can also help you with the business side. I can help people with creating systems, processes, helping them with scaling, helping them build roadmaps, helping them optimize their people in their positions or helping them optimize their positions in general. So I'll do a lot of operational stuff and businesses and the clients that I work with are like solopreneurs, multi-billion dollar hedge funds, startups, companies which tend to 100 people, companies that 400 people. My expertise has allowed me to be a generalist in the best way. And so I'm still looking for more of those same people. If you are a high performer, if you're somebody who's been able to be somewhat moderately successful in your life, you're looking for more, whether that's better relationships, a better business or next ways to scale or improving your leadership or communication or delegation, whatever it is. If you're somebody who's successful and just knows that there's another level for you, I could potentially help you. And I always offer everybody a free session to make sure that we're a good fit. I love that answer because there are just so many people who need to be working with you, who you can help. First and foremost, get to the root cause of why they're not living their best life, why they are not in the best position possible. And, brother, you should be out there helping everybody. Now, before we let you go for the day, we cannot not talk about you fulfilling another dream of yours, which is being a firefighter. Tell me how you got on that track. Tell me about your short stint with the New York's finest. Sure. New York's bravest, sir. New York's bravest. If we're going to, if we're going to immortalize that part of my life, let's get it right now. Firefighting was interesting. Like you said, it was always my childhood dream. If you want to hear funny and you want to hear how life is always working out for you, this was it. At 23 years old, I took the test the first time and mind you, they only give it every four years. So I took it the first time. I did not get a high enough score. I think I got a 90 or 95 or whatever, somewhere in the high 90s. And I never got called. I was like 10,000 plus on the list. No, it's super competitive. There's over 80,000 plus applicants that take it every four years. For reference, only about 5,000 people will get called. So if you're not in the top 5,000, you're probably never getting called. And that's what happened to me. Now, I was pissed because at the time, I had a lot of resentment towards my brother and he got called to become a firefighter. And I was so like a petty little hour frame. But I was like, he stole my dream. He stole my freaking dream. That's something that will keep it blurred. So I actually hated going through social work school. I hated it. I really didn't enjoy it. I wanted to drop out. And I was hoping to God, I became a firefighter, so I could quit. So I could get out of this god awful freaking studies and I don't want to do this anymore and I hate it. Anyhow, because I didn't get called to the firefighter, I had to finish. Became a therapist that obviously that allowed me to work on all these different capacities. I took the test the second time, because I was like, this is my last opportunity to become a firefighter. Most people don't know if you're not already in the system by 29 years old, like you've taken the test, whatever. After 29, you can never take the test again. Oh, wow. So you will never be able to become a New York City firefighter if that's one of your goals. So I took the test again, and I just gave it my best shot. I took double the time on it. Like, I sat there. I was like, I'm going to do it. And I did. I got 102 on the test the second time. And I was number 12, 12 17 on the list, which meant I was going to be in the second class. That was cool. And I did. It was a very hard decision because I was finally in a private practice and I really enjoyed it. And after that, I got rid of my caseload. I had about 40 something people. That's actually where I started my life coaching business. And then I went for this, you know, this big dream to become a firefighter. Funny enough, it really was like divine timing for multiple reasons. One, if I had dropped out of college, I would never be here today. Because the degree in therapy and the 10 years of experience had created so much opportunity to me. For me, I mean, I worked in inpatient units. I worked in homeless shelters. Like, I've worked with some of the roughest people in society, all because I had that degree, which allowed me to also help some of the higher performing people. So that was a big, big part of it. Then, I was able to obviously go in at that second time, became a firefighter, were clear conscious, did it during COVID, which was even crazier. And then after a year, I just realized I was like, I'm not feeling fulfilled here. I really love what I'm building on the side and I want to go into that. And that's when I finally got up the courage to resign and step full time into coach. I love that story because, hey, you made a childhood dream a reality. How good does it feel today, knowing that you get to talk about fulfilling that dream on top of everything else that you've done? It's very funny and very interesting because I, 30 years old, I achieved all my life's goals. And I was like, damn, my goals were way too small. But you know, it's funny because then I'll talk to people like you've achieved more in 30 years than most people achieve in one lifetime. And I'm like, oh, I guess I was just unsatisfied with all of it. I love that. That just means that there is something more. And what's amazing about what you're building is that not only are you so, so good at it, but the results that you're producing are just incredible. Now, before we let you go for the day, one final question that we have for you. If there is some advice that you could impart on an up and coming coach who wants to be some of the best of the best. What is it that you could share with someone else trying to be a second Vin and Fante or Tony Robbins or be even in the same category of coaches? Don't go get accredited in ICF. No, I'm sorry. If the ICF wants to fight me, they can. But I would say, honestly, you need to learn psychology. Like you have to understand the depths of people. It's not enough to just sit there and ask people what their goals are and what they think they could do to get there because that's such an obvious damn thing that anyone could do. Again, I'll get my daughter and shell out coach you. So you need to understand people. You need to know why they're doing what they're doing. You need to see what's not being said and you need to be so good that you could articulate what they're actually doing without them understanding what they're doing because that's where I have the most breakthroughs for my clients where I'll be like, Hey, you know, this is actually tied to this. And they're like, wow, I never thought of that. I'm like, I know that's why you haven't changed in 20 something years. And so if you can't do that for people, I don't think you'll ever really be a good coach and the world doesn't need more coaches that can just sit there and be like, well, tell me your goals and what do you want to do to do this. Because there's a million of those people and they're all coming through certain certifications that I may or may not have taken a shot at on the podcast but that's the bigger reality. I think if you really want to be phenomenal, put in the effort to go be phenomenal learn things that are quote unquote on orthodox school learn things like NLP go study behaviorism. Go figure out Eric Sony in theory go learn about Maslow's hierarchy of human needs like go do the depth work of psychology learn about neurology because neurology is even more important than all of those those are all theory. And things that you could apply for neurology will actually tell you why people struggled to shift their patterns and it's actually more physical than anything else. And then if you can figure out the components that impact the physical which is in the deeper psychological processes, then you can really create change in people like really create change not like oh I feel good for a month like actually they don't need you anymore. And that's that's the beauty. Yeah, I love that so so much. I think it speaks to you as a person. It speaks to you as a coach and it speaks to everything that you've built. It's incredible to watch how far you've come. It's incredible to hear you sit here and be like hey I've already hit all my life goals because wherever you're going is going to be so so special and it's only going to get so much better from here. Thank you so much for sharing your time with our audience. We appreciate you and thank you more than anything for sharing your time with us because it is so so precious. Thanks for having me, appreciate you. And thank you guys for listening. We'll see you next time.