Reclaiming Masculinity: A Journey of Self-Mastery | Nick Koumalatsos

0:00Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? Driving high will get you a DUI. And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell you're driving high, well, everyone else can. Friends. I can tell you drove high. Parents. I can tell when you drive high. Relatives. I can tell. You drove here high, didn't you? So what makes you think law enforcement can't? I can tell. If you feel different, you drive different. Drive high, get a DUI. Paid for by NHTSA. Your wife, your family, your friends are not going to respect you until you can master yourself, until you've instilled self-discipline.

0:35Self-mastery is number one. You can't lead your family until you can lead yourself. They're just not going to take you seriously. But through example of yourself, then you can turn around and lead your family. So then phase two is leading your family, rebuilding the relationship with your wife, whether there's resentment, whatever it may be, and then kind of going from that to your finances. I'm like, well, Nick, I could work on my finances now. Well, no, because you don't have the discipline to put the cookie down. you're not going to be able to have the discipline to save and invest and make smart choices with your money.

1:17Good. Incredibly excited to have you on the show. I think your story is incredible. And really what you're doing to help people, especially I think, you know, men in particular, although I think your story resonates regardless. You know, I'd love for you to dig, and we don't have to do the full download because I really want to get into some kind of, I want to talk about some topics that I think are really relevant, but just like the backstory a little bit and kind of how you got to the book. That's because the topics in your book are where I want to spend time because I personally and very selfishly have some questions for my own life as well as I know a lot of people who listen to the show are dealing with some of the things that you address and I want to give them some tactile takeaways.

2:04So give us that a little bit of the tour on how you got to the topics that ultimately became your book. Yeah, and before that, I want to kind of hit on what you said before we started recording was like these men are white knuckling through their life and man, that's what, and it's funny, I've used that term myself on podcast and with talking to guys and it breaks my heart to watch guys and they are like good dudes are just holding on for dear life trying to keep things together with their families their life themselves and they're just white knuckling through life and it doesn't have to be that way but um yeah the book obviously it's it originated uh through my own story of leaving special operations um i left i left into i left marine marine special operations command in 2012 after 12 years and i thought i had it all figured out thought i had me figured out and it was like this was the culmination of like the next thing that was just going to be freaking amazing right and uh it was anything i mean i guess it was to some extent but it was really anything uh it was it was a colossal just really meltdown of life um and it seemed like every time i turned around it just got worse once i left um so that's where it started it started the story of me transitioning from the military um and then where it went was i several years a couple years later i started working with um a non-profit called gallant few helping while i was helping veterans i was helping guys in my unit, um, doing some networking, going on some trips, trying, cause they were transitioning out to, cause you know, the, the, in 2012 things drastically shifted in a global war on terror.

3:53So a lot of guys that were really active in that fight started to kind of cycle out things. Deployment started to slow down politically. Things started to shift and change. Um, and so guys kind of started cycling out of, out of the military and especially special operations. and uh so they started to come to me and i was already contracting i had done really well networking so all the business professional side appeared to look like it was going really well meanwhile my life was falling apart on the inside but so i started working with these guys trying to network them and get them jobs and this and that based off what i've done and i met a guy named carl munger who was the executive director of gallant few and he goes hey man and i was doing this on my own dime.

4:38We were pulling money together. I was just figuring it out. And he goes, hey, what you're doing is, is, is nonprofit work, you know, veteran service, veteran service work, you need to get organized so that you can scale this and help more veterans. So that's what we did. We created a, an organ, you know, a project called the Raider Project and me and a teammate, um, kind of worked with, uh, help guys transition. So it turned into the excommunicated warriors, or actually the seven stages of transition portion of it really became a keynote, was actually a keynote that I was giving. And it was a thing that I had seen in guys that it was the cycle of these stages that these guys go through and the ones that are successful make it all the way through the seventh stage, right?

5:24And then there's a lot of guys, unfortunately, that don't make it through. They get kind of stuck in stage five, that sink or swim area, and they kind of sink. or they just build a house. And as my good friend Kirk Weiser says, they just build a house in that misery and they just, you know, they pitch a tent there and they start reinforcing the walls and they just stay in that area. And so it became a keynote, but as I was giving or traveling around talking with veterans and giving these, giving this story, I started to realize that it wasn't really a veteran issue. It was a human being issue.

5:58It was an issue of identity. It was an issue of being afraid to turn the page. And so guys would get, you know, guys and women, you know, it was crazy. Sports athletes, and I wrote that in the book. You know, you take the kid who's played like little league football since he was four years old, Pee Wee football, and he played middle school, you know, elementary, middle school, high school, college, gets drafted for the NFL or pros or semi-pros or whatever. And he's 23 years old and blows his knee out. This guy doesn't know anything other than being a footballer. And now he can't do that thing anymore.

6:39He can't be that thing anymore at the ripe old age of 23. I mean, how do you think that plays out? It plays out really negatively because that's all that that person knows. And then law enforcement, fire service, any first responders, medical community. And, you know, it's even crazier. stay-at-home moms, career stay-at-home moms. They dedicate 20-plus years to raising kids, and then what do we do when we grow up and we turn 18, 20 years old? We bail with little to no thank you. You know what I mean? It's just like - You get a hug at graduation and they're gone. It's the most unfulfilling job ever, right?

7:20So this woman dedicates her life to raising her kids, honorably so right i i my hats off to those women out there that do that um but then it's done and it becomes part of their identity as well and then they have the whole empty like what like i've just dedicated two decades to to this and now they don't need me anymore which they do in different capacities but nonetheless that's part of their identity and and so women would read this story or hear the keynote and just resonate heavily with it. Everyone across the board, and that's when I started to realize, I mean, oh, this is not a veteran issue.

7:59This is just a human being life thing. This is just something that happens. We have different stages and chapters of our life, and sometimes we get stuck in one thinking that that might be the best chapter of our life. So instead of turning the page and start writing the next chapter, we kind of just get stuck and we spin our wheels in this thing without actually having the courage to start writing the next one. And what's sad is the next one might be the very best chapter of your life and you're waiting to start it. Yeah. You know, and I think it goes, you don't have to hit. And as you, as you described again with, with stay at home moms and.

8:44you don't necessarily have to hit pros or be in the military, whatever. You know, I felt this even, you know, I played college baseball. That, you know, baseball, football was most of my identity. And then I got hurt playing football my senior year. And I was lucky to transition to baseball and able to make a college team. But sports were always my thing, right? Yeah. It was, I wasn't, unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to make it anywhere sports-wise or probably talented enough, but good enough to get to college, right? But it was always my identity. It was always what I cared about. It's who you were.

9:23I picked my major based on the, you know, its ability to facilitate me, you know, practicing and all this different stuff. And then all of a sudden you graduate from college and it's over. And you're just like, okay, who the hell am I now, right? And there's like micro moments of this. and then there's these big, huge moments that happen. And the reason that I brought up, you know, kind of before we went live, that the idea of white knuckling is, you know, I think even in my own life, the last few years, and I've shared a little bit on the show in the past, like I've had some events that have kind of shaken, you know, my, you know, I thought like, hey, like I read, hard worker, keep myself fit, healthy, like try to be a good person, like believe in God, have a very strong relationship.

10:10with Creator God. You know, I'm a Christian, raised Catholic. And, you know, I was like, man, for the most part, I'm doing good, you know what I mean? Like, as I explained, I came from a town of 900 and kind of, I remember at 12, looking around that town going, I gotta get the fuck out of here. Like, every male role model is either an alcoholic or a drug addict or a criminal. And like, it just was going nowhere. And I was like, man, I pulled myself out of that. like look first first member of my entire family to go to college all this stuff like oh I'm doing great and then you know here I am in my early 40s and I'm looking around and I'm like wow I've I'm kind of like fuck this up like I'm not I'm not like in a great spot here mentally and even though and this is where I want to this is this is where this question is going you said something that like that really hit me.

11:03I was able to maintain the appearance that everything was great, that I was doing great, that I was fine, that, you know, we're, I'm good. But behind the scenes, it literally felt like I was holding on for dear life. Like at any given moment I could take a step off the path and just fall into the abyss. And you know, a year out of that scenario, I feel very good today. I feel like I'm working my way back, but I'm certainly not all the way back. But I know so many people, particularly men, but so many people, women too, that just this is what they're doing. They have this. AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed.

11:45But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubric Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes. So you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com. That's R-U-B-R-I-K dot com. It's sad that they put out that like, hey, I'm good. You know, you don't have to ask how I'm doing. Like, I'm all right. Like, you know, I don't need your charity or whatever. But behind the scenes, they're masking it with drinking or, you know, they're cheating on their spouse or doing stuff that is really self-destructive.

12:27and like how do you work with that? Like how do we start to break that down? Like where do you go from there? Like taking that situation of you have this appearance but you're behind the scenes, you're holding on for dear life or at least it feels that way. Like when you're talking to a guy, whether it's a former team member or someone from the military, et cetera, how do you start to break that down and help that person start to crack this problem open? It just feels like so many people today are struggling with this. First, it really comes down to do they want to fix it? At the end of the day, Ryan, if someone doesn't want change, there's nothing you can do about it.

13:10It breaks my heart. And then I'll take it to the next level. First, they need to want the change. Two, they have to be willing to do the work to get the result. There's a lot of people my wife and I talk to about this a lot of times. There's a lot of people out there that want the result, but don't want to commit to the work that has to get it done. So you have to have both. You have to have the courage to be able to want to change, and you have to have the commitment to do the work in order to change. For instance, you kind of brought some things up. things like anxiety, depression, anything that you're feeling like that, those are subconscious cues that something in your life is amiss, that you're not living congruently with the things that matter most to you in your life.

14:02So if you are white knuckling through life and you feel like this way, then these are the things that are like, hey, knock, knock, there's something wrong that you need to address. So instead of addressing it, what do we do? We turn to coping mechanisms, and you already did it. Other women, drugs, alcohol, the nightly half bottle of wine, or six pack of beer, or pornography, or whatever it is that's going to give you the dopamine hit that you need to make yourself feel good for a momentary time. Here's the problem with that. It is a black hole that you will never fill. No amount of pornography, no amount of chasing women, no amount of affairs, no amount of gambling, no amount of drugs, alcohol, it doesn't matter what it is.

14:54You will never satiate that portion of your appetite. Like that's never, oh, I just need this thing to take the edge off. And then tomorrow it's again. And then the next day. And it's never going to get better. You're never going to fill that void. It's an abyss. yeah you dude not to interrupt you but i'll tell you one of the things that caught me really off guard right when i was going through my my kind of darkest moments a few years ago was like i think the first thing i started doing was you know i've always had a few drinks or whatever alcoholism runs in my family so i've always had to be very careful with that but seemingly you know been able to break that it's never caused a problem in my life um and i've always kind of been like a few drinks on a weekend or you know you go to a barbecue whatever all good the first thing that happened was I started having a beer or two or a drink or two a day right to the first COVID and then I then you know kind of kicked in hey man that's not good I know that's not good for me you know I've spent a lot of time in fitness one though Ryan yeah yeah hey it's just one no big deal okay so I cut that back right and then I was like well you know smoking pot's not as bad for you, I'll just take a couple of rips off a joint or have an edible.

16:06Right. Right. And then, so I did that for a while and I was like, well, I feel like shit every morning. My brain doesn't work as well when I wake up. So not that I'm against it, you know, no pride, teach their own. It's all good. But I found for me that, okay. So then I cut that out and it was like, I literally, because I wasn't solving, as you said, solving the, the actual problem, then all of a sudden, you know, now I'm betting on football games and I was like, no, that doesn't work. Then I'm buying random shit that I don't need that it's like you're just cycle through all these things and i was shocked at how like i always found like the next little like you said dopamine hit and and because i wasn't solving the problem like okay i'm not drinking every night anymore but instagram you know i'm buying you validate your your brain validates the excuse right yeah buying random t-shirts on fucking Instagram at 1145 at night while I'm binging Netflix.

17:03You know what I mean? Like, what are you doing? And what that is, is that's a, that's an amygdala hijack, right? Um, and I take that back over to the simplest thing. Like think about it at school. You have a paper due on, you have a paper due on Friday. When do you write the paper? You know, most people are like the last minute Friday morning, Thursday night, you know what I mean? Yeah. The last minute. Uh, And what the reason for that is, is your brain is like, that's hard. So when your brain saying, hey, this is the actual, like you start identifying the issue or maybe subconsciously, you don't even know.

17:35But your brain's like, don't do that because that's going to cause pain and hurt. That's going to be hard. So instead, go watch Netflix, go back, go clean out your car, go vacuum. And you can take this down to the most simplest task. And it's every single time your brain, you know, just kicks in ADHD mode. and it's like, oh, I got to go do this thing over here or I got to do this or why don't you just go do this and avoid that discomfort. But the problem is this. This is where the trick fuck is. If you're listening or you yourself, if you think about the thing that you're most proud of in your life, the biggest accomplishment you have in your life, and it could be several.

18:23It could be, you know, doing a fitness show, running a marathon, doing the Spartan race, building a business, you know, making a success here, raising your kids. I don't know. Whatever it is for you. Never, never is this something that was given to you or came easily. So if the things in our life are the absolute, like the things that we're most proud of in our life are the absolute most difficult to achieve, that require the most hard work, the most sacrifice, why don't we choose that every day? Why don't we choose the sacrifice? Why don't we choose hard? Why don't we choose the things that are difficult that we potentially could fail?

19:06If those are the things that we're most proud of in our life, why are we choosing easy over hard? If the hard things is what gives us the most satisfaction in our life. You know, I had this moment. It was, it was about, you know, I've probably a little more than a year ago sitting there wallowing by myself. I'm sorry for yourself. Yeah. Just, you know, cause we all, we all do it. Right. Yeah. And, and, you know, so like, and it's particularly, what's interesting is that like, it was this weird diet, you know, as I, I'm working through all this stuff and, and, um, you know, I didn't have my kids that night because I'm like I said I'm divorced and you know I'm sitting there and I was like instead of optimizing for like let me numb something right now I know what makes me feel the best which is working out eating the right foods I love being creative writing etc all these different things I run a business like why don't I just optimize for those fucking things like right those make me feel good too right I mean like big sale you know putting a new product out for the company you know, whatever the thing is, like those make me hitting publish on a post that I'm very proud of.

20:16Like those things make me feel really, why don't I just optimize for those? And, you know, kind of started slowly working out, uh, working myself out of it. But that is not like, we don't, for whatever reason, like that, that is like a tough thought for a lot of people, right? They're like, like it feels, is it because it takes longer? Like the, is that literally what it is? It's just the time frame to feeling good. Delaying gratification. Delaying gratification. Every single thing, all of these things that you're proud of all require delayed gratification. So like then we can talk about like if you really want to get into it, it's like, okay, then what do I do?

20:56Yes. Like this is where I'm sitting. I'm white knuckling. You have to take ownership of where you're at, like extreme ownership. One, your happiness is yours. Your spouse doesn't make you happy. Your kids don't make you happy. your job doesn't make you happy and happiness comes from internal like that's your decision to be happy or not what's around you and your circumstances like you can disagree all you want but the reality is like it it's a choice yeah it's a choice to be grateful that you have there's a lot to be grateful for and even the somebody that has it really really bad has a lot to be grateful for the fact that you were just one in one in what one trillion or whatever five trillion to be on this planet to exist like that's that's a gift right we live in we live in an earth that has infinite possibilities and and opportunities if if you so choose if you believe that they're there which they are there but you have to believe that they're there so one is like you have to take extreme ownership of your life and where you're at like that's just that's just it and then this other thing that that things are supposed to be a certain way like we have this society that that almost dictates like, well, things, you know, and we create these stories in our head that like, no, I'm supposed to be this way and my life's supposed to work out.

22:17And we have this grand plan, um, which is all bullshit. You know, and if you like go to school, go through grade one through 12, go to college, get a degree, you know, get a job and then get married, have 2.1.5 to 2.5 kids, the house and the white picket fence, pay the mortgage, the car, blah, blah, blah, and live happily ever after. That's somebody else's fabricated life. It is. And we fall into this trap thinking that I have to do it. And then when somebody wants to change, they're like, well, I can't because I have this mortgage and I have these cars and I have these bills. I'm like, who says you have to have all of that?

22:56It's a facade. You're making a choice to live the way that you want to do and if you're not happy well you have the power to make that change in your life like i can't i can't change my job i've dedicated 50 years 15 years to this profession so you're miserable change it who cares well then the money downgrade your life yeah i'm all for making money like i make a lot of money and i think people should make a lot of money i come from nothing but i've also done a done it in a very hard like i've had i've done it in a very hard way a lot of the times where i didn't need to i was i was my own worst enemy yeah what could you break that down a little bit i'm interested in what you mean by that so like uh basically i came from the world that and this is one of my limiting beliefs that i had um that i could achieve success.

23:50I come from nothing grew up in, you know, like trailer trailers and section eight housing and just poor men. We were poor, no dad in the house, you know, abusive stepfather for six years until that blew up, you know, um, one night. So like literally come from nothing, you know, and then I, I built everything myself. I mean, I can't say I built myself. I've had amazing teammates, like nothing, no one's ever self-made. I've had amazing mentors. I've Because I have plowed forward and I've done the work both externally and internally, the path has been laid with amazing people in my life that will accelerate what I'm doing.

24:32And that continues to happen. But I believed that I had it in me to be successful. But here's the toxic trait or the limiting belief. I believe that I had to work 10 times harder than you, Ryan, to get the same success as you. I know I could be successful, but I just, the universe dealt me a different hand and I had to work. For me to achieve the same level of success, I had to work 10 times harder than you. Success comes easy to you, but for me, the universe was going to make me work for it. So what happened? I manifested my own reality. I manifested my hardship. It was 10 times harder. Everything was.

25:12Because I was thinking that way. Can you give me an example of that? I think that's a wonderful, wonderful from an insightful purpose. Not, not so much from that. You had to deal with that, but like, just, can you break that down a little bit? Because the concept of like, basically like if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. No one can do it better than I can. So if I, I've got to, I've got to be the one at five, eight, five, you know, four 30 in the morning to 12 PM. Like I, no one, I got to outwork everyone. It's a, it's just, I've got to outwork you. So everything has to be done by me.

25:48And then because you're thinking this way, you fall into this weird vein of just, and it reminds me of, what's the author of Abbott on my shelf? Great, great guy. 10X is better than 2X. Yeah. Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Yes. But Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dan Sullivan's concept. That's really, that's what, you know, so what changed was this. And starting in 2018, I started to get my own coaching and then really went in 2020 when everything happened. I really started to kind of 2018 things. That's when things really changed. And then, and then I just went all in on it. I just like started to double down on that.

26:38And that's really where I started to kind of level up. and it wasn't through necessarily hard work. It was hard work on myself, but it wasn't like, I was trying to figure out what is the easiest road? Like what is your zone of genius? What flows? Yeah, what is flowing in the business? What's working? And at one time, Ryan, I had seven different businesses because I was like, more is more. More businesses, more money, right? Work harder. I have the infrastructure. I got the team. Let's fucking go. but I was exhausted, out of shape, not living good. Everything was work. I wasn't prioritizing my own health.

27:21I wasn't taking a moment to check out and refill my cup. And I know that sounds counterproductive, but then you start realizing that you can create systems that literally make money for you. And I'm not talking about internet schemes and things like that. I'm talking about your business. You know what I mean? like you have to scale your business and you have to put the right people in the right seats and when you do that and you let go of the vine that's when you can you have the clarity to really you folk like you said you focus on your unique ability you focus on your zone of genius and the rest you let go and it's amazing what happens when you can do that but this is this is why it's so hard is because it has it challenges people's ego it challenges people's pride and then their self-worth because they're like, well, wait a minute.

28:10If I'm not doing it, if I'm not grinding hard, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle, grinding, whatever that means. Right. And I, I did all that. I said all that, but it got me nowhere. It got me a two X, but I want a 10 X who doesn't want a 10 X what it for a 10 X you've got to, you've got to self-analyze. You got to see where you're holding, where, where you're the bottleneck, where you're holding people back. You said something earlier around identity, right? And I think that this is one of the core pieces. You said, you know, misery becomes someone's identity. And I think a lot of people, like, I got a good buddy, incredible athlete when he was younger, smart guy, he's a good dad, but he's fat as fuck.

28:56And I just feel so bad because I'm like, dude, you don't see fat 80-year-olds. like you have this amazing family and you're such a you're he's a he's a great dad he's a good husband you know i mean like good great husband you know i mean like just solid human being but he is he's like great yeah yeah he's good he's identified as like dad bod he's like oh i got my dad bod you know whatever and i'm like dude i i just you know and he that has become now his identity and like he sees you know some of the stuff that i do and you know the different and And he's just like, ah, that's not me or I don't have time or blah, blah, blah, blah, all this different.

29:34He makes all the excuses. And I'm like, bro, you think I have time? Like I don't have time to do this stuff. I make the time, right? I make the time. So if you find yourself, if someone's listening to this and they've put some sort of negative trait or negative emotion, feeling, et cetera, and they've applied that to their identity and they're kind of living with that, how do we start to break that identity down? How do we start to get past that? So I've learned that whoever that guy is, I guarantee that you scratch the crust off of that surface and there's something pretty deep going on there.

30:11Nobody looks in the mirror and sees a dad bod and goes, fuck yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's just not the reality. When they're alone, like you can lie to other people, but when you're alone and you're honest with yourself, you don't want that. you know you're accepting that because you think that's the that the doubt the hand that you've been dealt um but it really is misery and i've i've worked with enough men over the years that when you scratch the surface of this thing people are in a lot of pain and and for instance and a lot of this where this comes from i just talked about this um at one of the retreats and we kind of break this is what i in the men's retreats that i do this is where i break this stuff down is one in three men are physically abused in their life.

30:59One in four men, and this statistic reigns true every single time. If I get enough men in a room and get them to drop their guard, and to be honest, this stays true. One in four men are sexually abused. Blew my mind. Blew my mind. I was like, there's no freaking way that can be true. and over the years it is it maintains truthfulness one in one in three men physically abused one in four men sexually abused and that's not something that is macho it's not something that people want to talk about men don't want to admit that because it makes them look weak you know it looks it's it's a you know it makes them feel a certain way right out of control they weren't able to protect themselves in reality a lot of it was when they were kids right and it's like that's a tragedy right?