From Wall Street to Warrior ft. Rafa J. Conde (Man of War) | Coffeez with Joe Shalaby

0:00Today, I'm sitting down with the founder and CEO, Man of War, a national male empowerment platform with many different divisions under it that's really elevating male leadership across the nation. Please welcome Rafa Khandi. Rafa, thanks for jumping on the show today. Hey, thank you for having me on. It's an honor. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks. I'd like to start the show with the same questions. Rafa, what's your morning routine? Oh boy, I call it the warrior's hour. 4.30 out of bed, put my feet on the ground. Hey, Grace, thank you for everything that I have. Run into a cold shower for two minutes and then i'd like to do my sitting meditation usually about 10 minutes and then i jog over to the gym uh do my weight lifting sometimes cardio and then come back home and then start the day no coffee involved in that process no coffee just straight you know mindset stuff love that love that um how many miles is the gym away it's about a mile and a quarter Nice.

1:01So you get a two and a half mile run in every morning. Every morning. Okay. So let's dive into the questions here. So you were making nearly a million a year on Wall Street and then you decided to walk away from all that. When you decided to walk away, what was the catalyst for that? Hey man, every time I hear that, I cringe. Even now still, I cringe. So yeah. Yeah, that was, I guess it was a season in my life really where I just felt like I needed to serve. 9-11 just happened. All the officers and the firefighters, you know, run up the buildings and at risk. Many of them died and, you know, surrounded these individuals in such a way they honored them.

1:52And I'm like, man, I want to be one of those. I want to do that. I want to serve for a greater purpose. So I had been on Wall Street as a stockbroker for almost a decade at that time. And I said, you know what, like, I need to do something better. I need to do something that will really change lives, that'll change my life. I need to serve for a higher purpose, as they call it. So I sat down across from my wife and I said, you know what, I want to change the trajectory of my life and really your life. We've been married just over a year. You're pregnant. We have one, you know, you have one and we have a son coming.

2:35This is going to be difficult, but I need to do this. A year after I sat down with her, you know, she agreed. She's like, look, I'm your ride or die. And from there, I was hired by one of the most violent cities in the United States. Revere Beach Police Department. And well, from there, I did 18 and a half years as a police officer. And most of my career was in the Arcade Undercover. I was assigned to several task forces, including the Multi-Agency Diversion Task Force, the DEA Tactical Diversion Squad. I was part of the Ice Blue Lightning Task Force. I was part of different task forces, which were local in the community.

3:19But across the board, man, I did a lot of time doing this undercover gig. Wow. Now, how did your identity start to unravel once you left the money, the status, and all the comfort behind? Well, I was writing it high on Wall Street. I started at a time where you would throw a dart, hit the Wall Street Journal and stocks would go up, especially tech stocks right um and uh it was you know the time of chop houses on wall street times of jordan you know belford and the uh stratton oakmont and and firms like that so you know the brokers were highly regarded individuals they were young guys that were making more than doctors and lawyers you know, back then.

4:09So, uh, but I built from, from the ground up really, I, um, started, uh, learning the business model, understanding how to close, understanding the, really the rhythm of the business and studied stocks companies in and out. I studied the, you know, charting very, very very i mean i was so much i was highly focused on charting and uh those technical analysis just brought that fire in me and well i built from then from then on i mean i went independent i had a brokerage firm with 17 brokers um started managing almost um approximately 480 million dollars which probably today would be very close to a billion dollars.

5:00And this was active trading money, right? Active. This wasn't the financial consultants save it for 25 years. This was very, very highly active money. So made a lot of money along the way. Was a multi-million dollar producer for many years. Had some great relationships. And then all of a sudden, you have a beautiful house, beautiful cars. You pretty much have it all. and you just say, well, screw it all, and I'm going to go out there now and I'm going to be a cop for$38 ,000 a year. That's crazy. I mean, what is that feeling like to lose your house, your cars? A lot of what you thought was the dream at the time, and you had just started a family fresh out of a prior relationship.

5:50Yeah, I mean, that's tough, man. That's tough. When you say you lose your house and you lose your cars, let me be very clear on that. It's not like we decided to move away from that. It was more about I actually lost them in foreclosure. I lost my cars in repossessions. I mean, I was going downhill at 100 miles an hour. the wake up call was when I'm out in the patrol, in my patrol car and I get a call from my wife and says I just left Starbucks, I walked out and I don't see my car here somebody stole it and at that moment I realized that it's not that they stole it, they repossessed that car because I wasn't able to make the payments she's there with the little baby in her arms and And, you know, I'm sitting there in the patrol car.

6:50I really can't do anything about it at that moment. So I had to call my dad, please go grab her. And it was embarrassing, shameful in many ways for me. I decided to walk down this road and leave everything as far as I knew it behind. But hindsight, looking back at it now, it was very powerful. It was a very powerful. transition in my life. I don't think I would be the man that I am today if I didn't go through that. I just don't understand the logic to leave something. I know that you knew that there was greater pastors on the other side of what you're doing and you weren't finding fulfillment in the space that you were in.

7:38But the catalyst to go into something so different and not stay in the financial sector to pursue something? Was it a dream? Was it a calling? Yeah, I think more and more than anything, it was a calling. My cousin had been part of the DEA task force. He was a cop for Miami PD for a very long time for the city of Miami, actually. And I admired him since I was very young. And inside of me, I've always had this urge to serve. I went into Wall Street not knowing what it was about into into the market being a stock broker really but I learned it I loved it and at that time let's put it this way the love towards the end of my career the love of trading and and you know making money and and just it became it was so up and down with the market at that time I remember the market crashed and then it went back up and then it was just it was a it was all over the place and it started to wear on me and then you get to the point where you question right your ethics because you're like hey man I need to bring home a paycheck for my family right okay I can't go you know months and months without commissions when this market.

9:01So, you know, you get into this, this mindset where you're thinking, man, I got to move money. I got to, I got to create, I got to figure, I have to. So it just didn't sit right with me. And I felt like moving in this direction, I knew it was going to be tough, man. I knew it. But moving in this direction, it was going to change me as a man and was going to help me become really the man that I felt that I could be because I felt like I was lacking some of that edge. I've never really been tested too much. I was always part of the martial arts world. I studied it for a very long time, training, training and training, but I really, really was never tested in the realities of life.

9:46And being a cop boy, it woke me up. You know, if you could go back, like what's one moment, because law enforcement's crazy, I'm sure in Miami. What's one, that's where I got Miami PD, right? But what's one moment from your early law enforcement career that tested your resolve or broke you wide open? Oh my goodness. I mean, sure. There's a lot, but my friend, I could sit here and tell you so many pivotal points in my career that changed my life. Everything from, uh, um, you know, having a young man's head, you know, on my, on my hands like this, right. And he's breathing. His brain is partly blown out as has, you know, and this kid's just looking at me and gargling and looking at my, my face.

10:36And I'm the last person that he ever sees before he dies. And, you know, this is a response to a drive-by shooting in a house. Right. And you're there and you're thinking, my God, like this is, this is, this is real. This is raw. This is happening. and things like that you know they they freak you out you know been in gunfights been in situations where you know you're chasing people in the middle of the night two three o 'clock in the morning and you're there fighting you know the guy has a handgun you're trying to fight uh in the middle of an alleyway and you're back up it's you know two three minutes away which is an eternity right um you know i did a lot of stupid things as a rookie and that's you know i had a lot of energy I mean, I would be out there two, three o 'clock in the morning, jumping fences, chasing guys, going into the worst parts of a neighborhood.

11:25And we worked at a very low socioeconomic class neighborhood. It was predominantly a black area and it was just funky stuff. And I look back and I'm like, wow, I did all that. It's crazy. I would never do that again. You made it through. You made it through. That sounds unreal, what you experienced, but I'm sure that that wisdom in that journey has been a big catalyst to starting Man of War. It's like, tell me a little bit about like, what is Man of War and let the audience know what it is, how you serve men and how they should get involved. Well, I was a police academy instructor for over 10 years, and I loved teaching the police academy.

12:16I taught high liability. I taught firearms. And it was a very, for me, it was a very, it was a great experience for me to give back. But what I started to see was that the young men that were coming through the police academy were weaker and weaker. and women right off the bat, they were stronger than men. I mean, they were doing things that most men were not able to do that were coming to the police academy. So I stopped for a moment and I started thinking, man, what about the warrior spirit in a man, right? The fight, the desire, the ambition, the protective nature in a man. So I started a podcast, Man of War podcast, And this is back in 2017.

13:08And it took off. It was, you know, society and noteworthy. It was up there for eight weeks. It was, it did great. A lot of people started emailing me, DMing me. I started speaking about, you know, my philosophy of how a man should be in this planet, how he should live. And there's a lot of programs out there that focus on building more masculine men. And we focus on forging men into warriors. years so so these men that I built from the ground up a lot of these men were missing

14:02a lot of these men were missing the the edge they were missing the um um how do i say the the certain drive in their in their minds and their bodies and their so they were missing really discipline and uh the situation really that happened to me when i was in this particular police academy, I started talking to men and they didn't even know what the warrior spirit was about. They didn't even understand what really being a warrior was all about, what battle, what really survival on the street was all about. But the bottom line is that, thank you. And I need this here next to me at all times, please.

14:55the certain battle these individuals didn't get that and these were cops that were moving forward in the streets but they didn't have that edge so what I started doing was focusing on forging these men into warriors giving them the discipline, giving them a code giving them a way of life having them understand that they can overcome the most difficult challenges in life push themselves beyond their self-imposed limits to get around great men, to surround themselves with greatness. And, you know, we started building these warriors for business also from a perspective of, look, you know, you're entrepreneurs, you go out there, you build empires, you forge forward, you learn how to negotiate, you learn how to have command presence, you learn how to enter a room and own it.

15:44I mean, I can go on and on. So the bottom line is, it was more than anything else. It was more about the warrior spirit rather than masculinity. It was about redefining and re-energizing that. So from there, I built a very strong following of men who were really focused on resurgence of that warrior spirit. I wrote a book, a bestselling book, and from there, it's taken off. So that is our philosophy here, really to forge warriors. I love that. The reality is every successful entrepreneur is a warrior. There's no way you're not someone who has warrior spirit engraved in you and you're a successful entrepreneur.

16:34Every person I've had on my podcast is a warrior because they've fought the good fight to get to where they're at the caveat the hardest part about that and you this is probably the solve that you had with the the group that you have for sons is we get to a level of success because we had to fight we come from poverty we come we're immigrants and yada yada and then our sons are born in abundance and they don't have the same fight so how do we teach that warrior spirit to the next generation who don't have to fight like we did. Yeah. I believe you have to build a strategic structure in your home.

17:15You've got to have a framework. You have to be able to say, hey, listen, look, times now, we came up at a different time. We had to put in the time, the work, the effort. We didn't have someone holding our hands. So sure, you want to help your kids out as a father, but the best way you can guide your kids is to give them little pieces, okay, and let them figure out the other side. So one of the things that I, you know, I've always told my sons is, listen, I'm going to give you, you know, maybe 30%, you're going to have to figure the other 70 % out yourself, okay? But, you know, you give them a push, right?

17:54You give them because out of love, you want them to succeed. But at the same time, out of love, sometimes you have to want them to fail too, because that's the only way that they're going to learn. You know, we talk about, you know, successes all the time. Everybody wants to, you know, ring the bell, success, success, success. But wait a minute, you know, really what defines a man in the end is his struggles. And I will argue this all day long because, you know, I have metrics and analytics. I've coached over 10 ,000 men, probably 11 ,000 men at this point. And I can tell you that every man that has made anything of himself has gone through extremely difficult situations in his life.

18:38It doesn't matter where relationships, business, parenting, maybe vices from drinking and drugs, they've overcome a tremendous amount. Now, the thing that we have going on in our world right now, unfortunately, is that everybody wants a piece of cheese, you know, and for free, hey, let's catch on the way up. No, sometimes you have to build it on the way down. And unfortunately, you know, it hurts because that's when you start losing. That's when you start feeling uncomfortable. You start realizing that, man, maybe you're not putting in the time and the effort. But I believe that when you rip a man's soul from him and you give him the opportunity to rise up, he'll be the strongest version of himself times a hundred.

19:31Now, let me ask you this. You rose to the SWAT, the narcotics, federal ops. What did those experience teach you about leadership under those extreme pressure situations? You name it. I mean, we're talking about deleting from the front, making sure that your head is on a swivel, dotting your I's, crossing your T's, obviously organization, crucial, making sure that you can, this is probably one of the biggest, delegation, right? Sometimes as a leader, you don't want to delegate anything because you think you can do it better than anyone. But in reality, you can't do everything. So you're going to have to figure your way out.

20:13So delegation, making sure that everyone knows their expectations. You know, these are all critical components of really building, you know, yourself up as a leader and really being able to lead a squad. Right. And I would say number one thing.

20:35Make sure that everybody knows your mission. Right. Because we have so many great leaders out there. and they're great, they'll lead people, but nobody really knows their mission. And that's a lack of communication. So a good leader communicates his mission. What is the objective? What are the goals? How are we getting there? That way, everybody's on the same page. And when you're able to do that, when you have that capability, man, you are, let's put it this way, you have grown to be a very, very strong leader. now let's uh let's dive into the biggest misconception people have about masculinity how does man of war challenge that well misconception there is that there is such thing as toxic masculinity and let's get real for a moment okay just go back in time you know men have built this planet from the ground up and i respect women to the point where you know i mean i have a daughter uh and you know my wife is an unbelievable woman she's supportive she's on my side she pushes me she holds me accountable but the reality is that you know you as a man build a framework in your home and you are the protector and you are the provider and your family is going to rely on you the moment that a man which in my opinion is the king of his castle, abdicates his role as a king, he passes down that role to his wife.

22:10And there is in no way, shape, or form that a woman can and should lead a household with the man inside that household. It's completely backwards, and we've seen relationships completely fall apart because of that. So what we do here and why people are sometimes critical of what we do is that we give men the crown back. We give them the opportunity to be kings, to rise up, to lead their families. Now, keep in mind that we don't give it to them just because we say they're men. We give it to them because they've earned it. And once they earn that crown, they can go home and start leading from the front with love, with tenderness, but at the same time, with conviction and drive and power.

23:08And if you can balance that type of masculinity, you're going to have a thriving, very, very thriving relationship and be able to be a great father. I mean, it's hard to balance that now because we're in this like really, you know, misconstrued society where there's a balancing act between toxic masculinity. You don't want to be too toxic. You don't want this hyper political environment, not so much in Florida, but like here in California where you're masculine, you got to just kind of tread lightly, you know, or you're going to upset a lot of people. And as leaders, like I'm a CEO, like, you know, there's a balancing act for me, you know because uh being a public figure even you just can't uh you can't do too much to express your masculinity how do you you know teach your leaders to kind of balance that to where it's not defensive well see this is where we and you're going to be a little bit we're going to have different angles of attack here.

24:18I don't think that you express your masculinity intentionally. Okay. I think that it becomes part of who you are, right? Right. The moment that you start trying to refrain or back down from your masculinity, I just think you do yourself a huge disservice. Now, obviously, a leader has to have that balance that you're talking about. I think that you can't be overly aggressive. I mean, just look at, you know, the way that Abraham Lincoln led. I mean, he was a very masculine alpha male, but, you know, you never saw him really scream or you never saw him get out of whack. But he was very poignant in the way that he spoke, very direct, very articulate.

25:06it. He would straighten you up really, really quickly, but he did it with finesse. I think what we are missing here in masculinity is more of that type of finesse, right? The way that we articulate ourselves, the way that we carry ourselves. I think that there's a misconception that masculine alpha males are tattooed guys with beards and muscles, and they're just like kind of apes running around and being roided out yeah yeah yeah but but that's not at all what you know i i rather this is a way that i rather think of of um i model like a man if you look at you know like sean connery 007 uh guys like you know john wayne guys like even in the modern world like guys like john wick right he's a savage but he's able to also be controlled in another side um You know, it just seems to me sometimes that people get, they just ride each other's bandwagon and, you know, that leaves a lot to be desired, especially in our world here.

26:15Now, I know California is actually another world. I know that, you know, there's a different type of thinking, but it's just not now. It's been around. It's been like that for 30 years, 40 years. and I have a lot of friends that live there and I think that for the most part we need stronger masculine role models in positions of authority so people can see that they are not like this toxic type of people that they think that they typically are like right now if you look at But the president, like him or not, like masculine, everything masculine and toxic or whatever. I don't know. Look, that's up to you.

27:05That's whatever you think. But bottom line is that we need to get into a position where a man carries his weight. A woman has no business being the protector and provider in her household. I saw the funniest meme of Donald Trump put it on the real Donald Trump of him making like Gavin Newsom like this pansy just like hitting the boxing bag like, you know, like a girl, you know, it was a pretty funny meme. But I'm like, that's California for you. You know, like that's with, you know, it was a, it was a, I don't want to say, you know, but you get the feeling, you know, a face of Gavin Newsom. It was a meme and it was like a girl swinging at a, you know, a girl body swinging at a punching bag.

27:57And it was pretty funny, but it was pretty indicative of the state of California that we're in. And like when I say the state, that mindset, I mean mindset that, you know, a lot of California residents have currently. We're in a hyper liberal society. A lot of people don't want to work. You got a lot of people that don't know what gender they are, what sex they are. It's a very confused place. Have you always been there in California? Yeah, I love California. I'm in Newport Beach. It's a secular. We're really separated. Yes. We're like Florida here. Yeah. Very different there, for sure. It's very different, ultra Republican.

28:34But you go down the street to LA, and I don't even let my kids step foot in LA. But let me ask you a question. Is it because, you know, this is what I want to say for a while? Yeah. Okay. Is it because the people that live there have this mind shift? I mean, because I think about it and it's like you have to vote that governor in over and over again. People have to vote him in. Yeah. Well, it's a liberal state. People are liberal here. They don't want to work. They don't want to – the employment laws are all for condoned laziness and ultra-high taxes. I mean, we pay a weather tax, but it's extensive and it's kind of a socialist society for a lot of it.

29:34I personally feel that the fires that happened in L.A. were a divine intervention to wake L.A. up. You just didn't burn an entire city. And I think that was God talking to L.A. Saying, wake up. you know wake up and stop living like sodom and gomorrah you know i will burn this place down and and he was about to yeah i don't know what i know he was about i mean he burned cities he burned the richest people in la the people actually that didn't deserve it those are the you know those are the people that were the most republican the most like a lot of them were very god-fearing i have a lot of them now are in newport now they all moved here so uh but the palisades was the most abundant city in los angeles and uh wow wow yeah um sad sad sad we're we have i have many friends i have a few friends i live in san diego in that area a couple of them live in freeport uh in newport um another another one that lives in in la right now he's about to move um you know i just interviewed frank stallone a couple of uh weeks ago you know uh that's investor stone's brother yeah yeah what is it he's oh he said again what's his opinion about where he lives or is oh he destroyed he destroyed it yes oh he did i couldn't control him for for half an hour he's attacking california and the governors and the democrats and the liberals and and you know, LA, how it's completely different than what it was, you know, years ago and he can't walk out of his house.

31:18I mean, I'm like, wow. Wow. And that is that Sylvester's opinion too? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that's, you know, they're, they're, they're connected, you know, they're very close. And that's, that's for sure. A lot of people that live there, you know, they, you know, they, because it is a beautiful, I mean, take all the crap away, and it is a beautiful state, man. Like, it's beautiful, right? Yeah. The political environment is lousy. Yeah. And I know Sylvester is conservative, as is Arnold Schwarzenegger, and these guys are, you know, I mean, Sylvester should run for governor. I mean, Grant Cardone was going to run for governor here.

32:00I thought he was going to. Interesting. I was so pumped, you know, because he's just like, he's great. he will clean it up he'll clean house he'll clean house and he was going to make a run he was doing a tour and you know he didn't formally announce it he was just getting a lot of people to kind of voice their you know their backing so who knows he still might make a run for it do you think he has some support over there oh yeah dude we need I just don't know you see I know all the you know from what I saw there's a lot of backing but then And there's just so many people that are kind of degenerates.

32:42There's more degenerates in California than any other state. There's tens of millions of them. I only know the abundant affluent ones apparently. Those are doing well in society. Those listening to this podcast. Have you seen a lot of people move out of LA and in that area? Yeah, yeah. I saw a lot of friends, a lot of other entrepreneurs. I mean, they'll move to like Arizona. They'll move, you know, Texas. Florida is a big state people are moving to because it kind of has the same weather. Yeah, we initially it was like, man, we saw California play team. We're like, get out. But then we start realizing that the people that are coming here are actually pretty conservative.

33:28I just don't want to be in that environment anymore. Yeah. But again, I'm sheltered. i'm in newport beach irvine orange county for the most part is very conservative yeah so yeah you know um but newport is hyper conservative very this is where trump visits you know so yeah i have i have i deal with the lumbar guinea dealership there a lot so they're um that you know they're they're people there everyone that i've ever met there yeah so hard working yeah we don't mess around everyone loves god everyone let me ask you what does faith play in your position you know like huge how important is faith you know everything i mean i gotta tell you you know my wife's a pastor her father is a is a pastor very well known under derek prince ministries um i mean you know For me, it's literally without getting cringier or whatever some guys do.

34:39I'll get down on my knees and I'll pray very much about connecting myself as close to God as possible. and I believe that everything that I do and I always say this all the glory goes to God no matter cars, houses, money trips, great times all the glory, I'm only blessed because of him I've been pretty vocal I'm Coptic Orthodox we're the first Christian people and I came to America because of religious asylum because we were being persecuted and killed off in Egypt. So I used to kind of shout it from the rooftops under the Biden administration that I'm Coptic, I'm Christian, because I would relate it like, well, the transgender people get to do it.