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Louis Pizzano, I'm so happy to have you on Conscious Conversations.
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Um this is long overdue, but I'm I'm excited.
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I can't wait to do this.
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Long overdue, yeah.
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So this is gonna be fun for anyone viewing because we went to high school together.
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So maybe this time middle school too and elementary school, no?
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Nah, I was wait, were you Oakers or Debbie?
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No, one of my messages.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So, well, for anyone listening who maybe is coming from Lewis's world, Conscious Conversations is a podcast where we invite people into conversations around health, wellness, spirituality, personal development, healing, and ultimately discovering their own path and their own truth because we are all so different.
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So I love to just bring perspectives.
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And I also love a good comeback story.
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I love a good hero's journey.
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And you definitely have one of those.
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So I was like, we gotta dive into that.
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And again, for anyone listening, we went to high school together.
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We weren't super close in high school, right?
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But we definitely ran the same circles, like we knew a lot of the same people and grew up in the same town.
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And then life went on, right?
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And just like a lot of people from high school, we kind of just watched each other's lives from afar.
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And then I remember seeing you start to post like inspirational content and like personal development content.
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And I could tell you're, you know, on the deeper journey.
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And just like knowing a little bit of your background and your upbringing, I remember thinking, like, okay, like Luis Pizzano is like on this, you know, this path.
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And when I started Conscious Concierge, I noticed it even more.
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So then we somehow reconnected.
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I think I reached out, and that's kind of the backstory of what we're doing here.
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Um, but it was on that call that I realized actually how much of your story that I I didn't actually know.
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Like I knew little pieces and through the grapeviner, you know, from the lens that we all have as kids, but I didn't know the full story.
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And so when we started talking, I was like, I really want to dive into this.
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I mean, to your point, it's funny.
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I actually think it was closer with your brother than it was you.
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Yeah, totally.
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Yeah.
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Actually, party was a lot more too.
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Um, the stories of East Carolina University.
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Um, yeah, exactly.
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But yeah, you know, I think I think growing up, especially when you're younger, you don't really know much of what's going on in anyone's life.
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Yeah, exactly.
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One thing I tried to do often was just kind of mask what my life was like outside of the public view.
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Okay, so for everyone listening, Louis Pizzano is a personal growth and development coach certified by Jay Shetty, a realtor, and the author of The 30-minute morning, which is a routine book, which we're gonna dive into.
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And he's also writing another book called The Path to Peace, which we're also gonna dive into.
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Yeah.
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But underneath it all is a real story: addiction, financial struggle, heartbreak, leadership, discipline, choosing again and again to become something different.
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So I'm so excited to have you here today, Lewis.
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Thank you for the lovely and glorious introduction, Miss Delana Rose.
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I I appreciate it.
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That was that was very kind of you.
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It I mean, like I said, I this is this is gonna be good.
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There's so much to dive in on.
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Honestly, where I want to start is something you said on a podcast that I felt was truly the arc of the conversation I want to have, which is you said, I knew from an early age whatever I wanted out of life was going to be 100% on me.
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That stuck out.
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Yeah, so I want to start there before like getting into the full story.
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Like when you said that, what did you mean?
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Yeah, so I kind of realized around probably 14 or 15 years old.
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And I'll tell you the moment, man.
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A few moments, but going into high school, um some rough years, I'll never forget playing football freshman year as a freshman during the summer.
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Playing this, you warm up with the with the varsity team in the summer.
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That's how they like acclimate you and beat the crap out of you and stuff like that, right?
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It's like a brotherhood, right?
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You you have your brotherhood, and we all had our our friends since we were eight years old playing Pop Warner, and we had our close group.
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And I'll never forget we were warming up, it was the very first day, and everyone has their last name on their helmet.
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Obviously, Pisano was mine.
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Um, and we're just going through warm-up lines, and uh very old, angry uh POS coach who almost nobody liked, even the seniors, uh, was going down the lines and saw my name.
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And his response was he did a double look, looked me in the face and said, Great, we have another scumbag Bizzano for the next four years.
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And that uh broke me uh in a way where it was like I wanted to hit him.
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But as a 14-year-old kid, you're not gonna hit a 70-year-old coach, right?
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Especially first day of practice.
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Um that kind of lit something in me where that came from a sentiment of older brother, a couple other cousins that a little bit of a different lifestyle.
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Um, love them to death, but they were all high school dropouts.
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And I wasn't, I was a straight A student, I was a party guy, but I was still a straight A student.
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Like I love being in school, and one of the reasons why I love being in school and also loved being at practice and doing anything football or sports-related is because I hated being home and what that reminded me of, right?
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So that stems from like a lot of abandonment issues of living with my grandmother, neither of my parents, but we'll touch on that a little bit later.
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But you know, as a freshman in high school, kind of going through that and hearing that, and hearing that faculty didn't even want me to go to the high school if I was gonna be another dropout.
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And that's when I knew was like, yeah, this is really gonna be on me.
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Like I looked at it more so at a young age, like, I have so much to prove, I'm gonna prove them wrong.
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And then probably over the next like year or two, it more so became about, you know what, it's I want to just prove myself right.
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I wanted to prove myself that I was different, that I wasn't going to follow a path that I shouldn't have.
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And and then, you know, that turned into I was always a person that had I loved being friends with everybody, very social person, and even through a lot of the parties in high school, and and by junior senior year, um, class president and homecoming king and prom king and straight A student and all these things, and and leaving high school, I was like, yeah, I I I proved myself right.
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But it was freshman year that moment when that coach said that to me, and I was like, Yeah, this is gonna be this is gonna be rough, but we're gonna do it.
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Wow, yeah, that that stood out to me so much.
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I was just like, I need to start there.
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But I okay, you mentioned that you know the rest of your family had a reputation, right?
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And you, I mean, so much so that the coach saw your last name and was like, oh god, here we go.
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Take us back to family life, home life.
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Like, what was it like for you growing up in your home with your family, and and just tell us a little bit about that?
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Up until seven years old, the all-American family.
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Literally what you would picture.
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Big Italian family.
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Every weekend, 40, 50 people at the house on Sundays.
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Like life was life was amazing.
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And then it wasn't.
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And it felt to happen pretty quickly.
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Um, I had two uncles pass away within a year of each other when I was six, seven years old, both of my dad's brothers.
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Um, after that, you know, it was me, my dad, my mom when they were still together, and my older and younger brother.
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Uh, we're all living together at my grandmother's house in Oakers on Dow Av.
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And after those two uncles pass away, my grandmother and my dad didn't really get along, and it's his own mom, right?
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So we had moved out.
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We bounced around a couple of apartments, we were living in a couple apartments here and there, trying to find a place to settle, and then and I was in second grade, and this is this is something that'll sick me for the rest of my life.
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We ended up at a motel on Route 66, right near Home Depot.
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It's actually closer to like the Social Security Administration building in Neptune.
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Um, and it was like something out of a movie, almost like a Bates Motel kind of scene, right?
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Like every other unit, the windows are bashed in, the water in the pool is green, and the pool's half empty, there's trash in the pool.
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And we lived there for six months.
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It was five of us in a in a small hotel room with two beds.
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Wow.
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And that was an adjustment from like life is amazing to what is happening to my life.
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And at you know, that young of an age in second grade, you don't really know what to expect or like what's going on.
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And then things just started to get even more and more rocky.
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Um, still going to Dowav, we had to take the short bus, as people call it.
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And um, I didn't want anybody to know.
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And one day, my Mr.
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Cordry, second grade teacher, never forget this.
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We're me and my brothers are walking out to the bus to get on that bus, and he pulls us off the bus, stating that we're getting on the wrong bus.
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I had to call my parents, they had to explain to the school like what's going on, we're not living in Oakers anymore.
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So then the entire class found out.
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And when kids find out that you're on this short bus, you know what kind of conversations start to happen.
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At a young age, all these rumors run, and and you know, it's it's it's one of those moments as a young kid where like you sense the bullying, but like you're also a very prideful person, and that's where a lot of my anger stems from.
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Um, we were living there for six months, then we moved into a house, we were there for a couple of years.
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Life was decent, it was good, but during that time is when there was a lot of drugs and alcohol getting involved with my parents, um, a lot of fighting, um, a lot of yelling, a lot of breaking, a lot of destroying, and that was over a good two year span.
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And honestly, I think it's safe to say at this point, like, yeah, my last name was well known, not for the best reasons for the most part.
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Yeah.
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And again, like everyone will have their opinions, and it is what it is.
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And I love my family to death.
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Love them to death.
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I'm very prideful of my last name.
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I love my last name and I love what it stands for.
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Uh, and I'm very proud to be at Pizzano.
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But it also came with a lot of baggage.
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By the time we were in that house, I was, you know, eight, nine, ten years old.
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And then came the downfall of my parents' marriage.
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And the way I found out was something that no 10, 11-year-old kid should come across.
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So January 2002, my grandfather passed away.
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He was like my my dad's dad.
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He was my first hero, the person that I wanted to be when I grew up, right?
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Strong Italian guy.
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Six months later, five months later, June 2002, an older cousin of mine on my mother's side was graduating high school and going to the Marines.
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So I went down to Little Lake Harbor to spend two weeks with them.
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And this is in the middle of so much fighting going on at home, right?
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So I was like, let me just get out of the house.
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I want to go see my cousin.
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What I didn't know was that my mom was really just sending me away for two weeks.
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You know, I you don't know that as an 11-year-old kid.
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And when I got home, it was to an empty house with just my mom on a couch.
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And my brothers and my dad gone.
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And that's how I found out my parents split.
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And again, mom like probably every couple years of my life through when I was like 30 years old, something would happen.
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Everybody has stuff, you know, everyone's got skeletons, something things happen to everyone, and I'm no different, right?
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Um, but when you're 11 years old and you go home and you just your mom crying on the couch and your brothers and your dad are gone, like how do you react to that?
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How do you respond to that, right?
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And it's one of those things where uh again, addiction, drug addiction, and alcoholism between my parents was was a big thing for a little while.
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Um, and then after that, and my we had gotten kicked out.
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I spent a couple nights living in the car with my mom.
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Um, and then eventually I, you know, I had to move back in with my dad at my grand back at my grandmother's house where my brothers were.
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And then my mom ended up homeless for a little bit.
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And um that's when kind of things were setting in where like there was a lot of clarity around like, yeah, life sucks.
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And all those things I wanted to hide.
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Like, I didn't want any of them to know about any of that stuff.
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Um but when the cops are getting called to your house twice a week and your name's your family's name is in the newspaper every week or on the news, it's hard to hide that stuff.
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Yeah.
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That's where a lot of the assumptions of other people will kind of come in, and so much so where I had friends that like weren't even allowed in my house because of who I was.
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Yeah.
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That's kind of what middle school was like for me for the most part because of that.
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Wow, yeah.
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It's so crazy to hear this story again as someone who was like in the peripheral and remembers like bits and pieces of the newspaper, or you know, I remember riding my bike around and I remember like hearing, like I think it was dumb and and what like the cousins, there was like yelling coming from the house, and I remember like I remember knowing things were going on like deeply.
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And I can only imagine how that feels because we do all have our stuff, but at the same time to deal with that so publicly and be so young and so out of control to be able to help the situation and know that there's drugs at 11 years old and know, you know, that this is a scary environment.
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You're living in hotels in the car.
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I mean, like it's it's insane.
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And also just to paint the picture, we grew up in a town that I would consider the majority affluent, like stable.
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Um and we had pockets.
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We had I was just explaining this to someone.
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I was like, you know, we it it is an affluent town, but there was this pockets where that was not the case.
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And there was a stark contrast.
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So what did it feel like to be in that school environment where you're kind of coming to the realization as a young kid, like, okay, I'm surrounded by people who seem like they've got a lot of money, financial stability, and just like something's different going on with me and my family.
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Yeah, it's uh, you know, major again, and a lot of the people that I grew up with as my close friends love them the death of this day.
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A lot of them I don't have contact with anymore.
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Not for any ill will or you know, just how you grow up differently, right?
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And everyone leaves leaves hometown in college and everyone's lives are just kind of changed.
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But 98% of the people that I were close friends with were well off.
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Well off, both parents under under one roof, like like life was good.
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Again, I don't we don't know what was happening with other people.
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It just happened to be that my family stuff was very public.
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And I was gonna say we all had our stuff and things like that, but it's the it's the fact that you had to deal with it publicly.
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Right.
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And and when you're a young kid at that point turning into a teenager, like that's where a lot of my anger came from.
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And I was just angry at the world.
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Like I I blame the world for everything, I blame my family for everything, and you don't know better, right?
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Because it wasn't normal to me.
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And I this kind of this is kind of off topic, but it is something I want to touch on because of like what I just said when I blame my family.
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I do think there are three people you need to forgive in your entire life, no matter what.
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And first and foremost is your parents.
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And I love my parents to death, and I know that they always did the best that they could to put a roof over our head, food on our on our on the table, and clothes on our back, right?
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So long ago, probably about 10 years ago, I I finally like forgave them.
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Like it I looked at it toward like, you know what, they did the best they could.
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You know, my dad had to raise three boys after his two brothers just passed away when he was 33 years old.
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Like, so I look at I look back at those things and I'm like, if my two brothers passed away right now, I don't know how I would react, right?
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I would burn down the world.
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I couldn't imagine.
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And so like forgiving my parents was one thing.
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I finally learned to forgive myself years ago as well.
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The third person we'll talk about later.
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Um, but kind of going from that like perspective where you were talking about earlier from an affluent town being surrounded by a lot of like well-off people, happy people for the most part, while everybody knowing your business is Yeah, I was gonna say we're all going through, but it it's the closed doors that's yeah makes it seem like hard.
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And I I tried so hard to pay myself in a different light.
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And I feel like I did a pretty decent job.
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Um, you know, I had a lot of friends growing up.
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I I had a lot of there was if there was any judgment, it wasn't really to my face.
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So like it is what it is, I don't care.
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Um but yeah, it was just it was hard to navigate.
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And then high school things started to get better because like that's kind of all old news at that point.
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:14.079
Middle school is really the toughest, and and one of the things that I always tried to do was just play sports year-round so that I wouldn't ever have to really be home much to be reminded about like what I'm missing compared to what all my friends have, and that's to have a family together under one roof.
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:25.200
And you know, it's interesting, like when you're younger, yeah, you you kind of it's like you are defined by your family, but when you get older, it has nothing to really do with you, right?
00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:35.279
But I really think the most important thing on that front is like everyone goes through stuff behind closed doors, and we never, ever know, you know.
00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:38.000
I think, yeah, a hundred percent.
00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:50.160
Like, I mean, we had some stuff that was public in our family to a degree, and I was just always like, everyone's got their stuff, you know, like but everyone.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:57.680
Nobody, nobody can ever, I don't care who you are till the end of time, there will always be something that we have.
00:17:58.000 --> 00:17:59.839
Yeah, I posted something last week.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:14.559
It was actually Jay Shetty posted a a reel, and it was of like a hundred different people riding a bike and driving a car, and there was text over like each one of them, like what they're dealing with, and it's the it's the cold manage of you never have any idea what people are going through.
00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:24.960
Never and I shared that, and my text was the only reason you have or need to be kind to other people is because you have no idea what people are going through.
00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:25.839
Zero.
00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:29.039
But honestly, like what you went through.
00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:39.200
I mean, the fact that you dealt with all that as a child and were able to become class president, like that's crazy.
00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:40.000
You know what I mean?
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:53.839
It's like it just speaks volumes to like that fire within you and and you know, your soul and like the person that you are to transcend beyond like what people thought about your family, even the fact that that coach said that.
00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:57.119
I mean, I just think that that's that's incredible.
00:18:57.200 --> 00:18:59.759
And I'm sure you had a lot to heal from and we'll get there.
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:08.000
But I just think overall, to go from family in the newspaper, people judging you for that, and then class president is pretty cool.
00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:08.960
Yeah, thank you.
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.359
It uh it was definitely a cool feeling.
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:18.000
It was, you know, in high school, it's like, oh, it's a I don't want to use the phrase popularity contest because I don't know, but it is.
00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:26.079
But at the same time, it's like that was to me, that was the reward for me being a good person to everyone.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:27.839
And that's how I looked at it, right?
00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:33.920
And and and that was in the middle of behind the scenes becoming an alcoholic myself at 17, right?
00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:36.960
So again, other other there's always stuff, right?
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:42.400
But you know, I started drinking at 13 to deal with my issues, and that became my escape.
00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:46.400
But you know, I still on the surface, at least in public, I had that smile.
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:49.039
But behind the scenes, it was not a smile at all.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:50.559
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:59.759
No, it's it's a lot to endure, and I love what you said about forgiving your parents because the truth is people only become addicts when they're in so much pain.
00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:03.039
Um, I do not believe it's an inherited disease.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:05.839
I believe what's inherited is a coping mechanism.
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.440
Um, but you know, I dated somebody who struggled with addiction.
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:17.920
I have addiction in my family in certain parts of my family, and it all ties back to the way we cope with pain, right?
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:24.160
And you were just a young boy trying to cope with the reality of, well, I'm in this town, I'm in this environment.
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:29.759
It seems like everyone else kind of has it, you know, to some degree different than I do, is what it seems.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:35.039
But that creates like a something like a pain inside.
00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:37.680
So then we, you know, numb the pain.
00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:39.279
But um, yeah.
00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:41.440
So I lose the pain a lot.
00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:42.720
Yeah.
00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:43.680
Yeah.
00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.200
But I I think that that helps find the forgiveness for your parents, right?
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:55.200
Because then you can see, like you said, they are people that have gone through something and they were trying to cope, you know, with drugs and alcohol.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:01.359
Did they ever own take ownership or apologize for you know what you went through as a child?
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:02.880
And and no.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:05.519
And and again, it's never something that I ever expected.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:11.119
That's why I think when it comes to forgiving other people, it's it's partially for them, but it's mostly for you.
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:17.279
And when I say it's mostly for you, it's you deserve the peace and not it's kind of like how people look for closure.
00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:19.119
I think closure is a fallacy.
00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:25.119
You don't need closure from people that hurt you, you don't need closure from people that leave you, you don't need closure on a closed door.
00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:26.480
That is the closure, right?
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:28.160
So I never really sought it.
00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:35.680
Um, just like I I can't ever say that I've ever sought any kind of life advice from either one of my parents, ever, in my entire life.
00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:42.240
And again, that's I I love them to death, but there was just never that kind of relationship.
00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:50.079
And when things kind of splintered at a young age, it's you don't feel safe or trustworthy to go to that for them to advise or to them for advice.
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.039
And you know, I I I again love them to death.
00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:54.000
Love them to death.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:59.839
Like I'm I'm I'm working my ass off so much so that I can take care of them so that they don't have to work anymore, you know.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:06.400
And and uh that came with like the forgiving piece where it's like they did the best that they could with what they had.
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:08.880
And I truly believe that with everyone.
00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:10.880
Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:19.359
And um, what do you feel set you on like that different path that kind of lit that fire in you that was like I'm gonna choose something different than a lot of my family did?
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:21.039
So a couple things.
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:32.079
One didn't I saw well love here's here's the positive caveat of like all my friends for the most part, most of my friends, um being in a good situation, at least on the surface.
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.920
I wanted that life for myself and for my own kids one day.
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:40.880
And I knew if I if I went down a different path, I wouldn't have that.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:44.079
Yes, drinking was involved heavily in my life.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:52.319
You know, by the time I was 19, 20 years old, I'd be at home on a Wednesday night drinking a 375 of Captain Morgan just because I wanted to.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:54.880
And you know, I'd have a blackout session by myself.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.680
Like that was a routine thing for me for three or four years.
00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:01.119
But um, there was one moment when I was 13.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:08.319
Again, I I I have a a very good memory, uh blessing and a curse, especially when it comes to like dates and years.
00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:13.200
Um 13 years old, a bunch of us are playing Manhunt up in Wayside.
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:19.279
I was playing with my older brother, my older cousins, and a whole bunch of their crews and just having fun.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:24.480
And at the end of the night, uh they lit up a blunt and they started smoking weed.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:27.039
And I'm 13, so I know what it is at that point.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:31.440
This is after there's a lot of drug and alcohol stuff going on with my family.
00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:36.480
Um, and a little before I started drinking, I started drinking at the end of like 13, early 14.
00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:39.119
And the blunt got to me.
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:45.839
And to this day, this is what I would say is one of like the turning points of like my life.
00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:48.640
The blunt got to me, and I just threw it on the ground.
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:51.920
And to that to this day, I've never smoked weed in my entire life.
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:56.240
Now, some people would be like, bro, you're soup, but just tried, you have anxiety, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:57.039
That's fine.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:01.359
I'm at a point and now 35 years old where I don't need to smoke weed.
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:02.720
It doesn't phase me.
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:04.559
I don't care not to, it's not a thing.
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:08.559
But throughout high school, it was a problem with all my friends that I wouldn't smoke weed.
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:15.839
So that started splintering my friendships because I wouldn't smoke weed and later do coke or Molly with them.
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:25.279
But that was one of those points of life where it was like, I know this is where most of my family has started to end up on heroin, pills, whatever.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:26.799
I'm not gonna smoke weed.
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:39.200
And it's that was one of those moments where I kind of just that moment, the coach moment, and then the thing that kind of I would say saved me, but helped set me on a different path was ending up living with my grandmother.
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:47.759
And and again, bless her soul, like 90% of the reason why I am the man in person I am today is because of my grandmother.
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:49.759
And that's what set me on a different path.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.039
Yeah, what a blessing.
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:54.559
Yeah, the biggest blessing.
00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:56.400
I uh I think about this all the time.
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:01.359
If I could trade my life for hers, I would do an heartbeat.
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:03.519
In a heartbeat.
00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:09.440
The world our family would be so much better off with her here.
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.960
And that's what's tough, but that woman saved my life.
00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:18.319
Why do you think you had a bond with her that was different than your brothers, cousins?
00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:24.720
Um, well one, because I I didn't I didn't want to be I didn't want to be out of school.
00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:26.400
I didn't want to be away from my friends.
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.319
And knowing that, like I I knew I had to live with my grandmother.
00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:32.240
I didn't want to go live with my mom in Wall.
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:35.119
I didn't want to go live with my dad and his girlfriend in Long Branch.
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:36.799
So like I'm staying here.
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:45.519
So I stayed there, and you know, when it's basically just the two of you most of the time, like that's what to gravitate towards, and she gave me plenty of life advice.
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:52.720
Um, you know, she left me a note long, long time ago, like when she was still alive, probably when I was still living in Jersey.
00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:10.480
And when I went home after she passed away in 2019, I found it in my drawer that I still had in my dress at home that I didn't have there when I left, she put it in there, and now I have it with me here, and it's um work hard, um, be kind, work hard, and surround yourself with great people.
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:12.720
And that's what I just try to do every single day.
00:26:13.039 --> 00:26:16.880
But uh yeah, that relationship is really kind of what changed the trajectory of my life.
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:17.359
Yeah.
00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:19.680
I just can't believe you you went through that.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:22.160
Like again, we my brother, right?
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:31.119
Like it's yeah, a thing for me is like obviously we're all very different, and I'm on this path, they're on a different path, and you know, they're they're okay, they're all right.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:35.759
Um, they're doing what what they're doing, um, which is just trying to get by.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:36.400
Yeah.
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.400
Everyone, everyone handles things differently.
00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:42.480
There's the the villain and the hero have the same story and starting point.
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:45.599
Totally.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:46.160
Yeah.
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:48.799
When did personal development come into your life?
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:53.200
So you mentioned, you know, you were later Captain Morganing on the couch.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:56.559
When did the the personal development journey start?
00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:58.240
March 2nd, 2013.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:02.319
So uh here, let let's kind of we'll go back to high school a little bit, right?
00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:09.119
So, like high school, high school years were fun, it was mostly good, still a lot of BS, but a lot of the nonsense was like kind of out of the picture.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:11.200
And you were living with your grandma at that point.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:13.599
Yeah, I was always with my grandma's things were there.
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:16.880
Yeah, my my dad still lived there, but he was never there.
00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:22.400
He had a girlfriend and that he pretty much lived with her most of the time because him and my grandmother didn't really get along.
00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:28.720
Um, my brothers would be back and forth, but it was mostly just me and my grandmother for most of the time.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:33.599
Um But it was, you know, my half my dad's house, because my grandfather passed, he left half the house to my dad.
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:34.799
Regardless, whatever.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:39.839
Yeah, mostly me and my grandmother living together, and I started throwing parties at the house.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:49.680
And it turned into eight to ten people, to twenty to thirty people, to fifty to seventy-five people, to sometimes hundred person parties with people from Monmouth University at my house as a sophomore.
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:51.279
I don't remember being there.
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.680
I don't I don't honestly, those days were blurry.
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:55.920
Oh mybe my brother was though.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:57.440
He was 100% at my house.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:57.759
Yeah.
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:06.079
My sophomore year, I'll never forget there was like that second semester, probably threw a party every Saturday night at my house.
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:06.880
Oh my god.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:08.079
Our brothers definitely fought.
00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:10.319
Wait, is Mike your brother or cousin?
00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:12.079
Okay, your cousin and Josh.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:14.000
Mike and Joe were brothers.
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.319
Mike and Josh got in a fight out there.
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:17.039
No, Joe.
00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:18.000
Joe's the oldest.
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:20.559
No, my brother and Mike were the same thing.
00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:21.839
Yes.
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:24.640
And they had a fist fight at my house, and I was so scared.
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:26.079
I was like, the Pizanos?
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:29.119
I was calling my boyfriend, Chris Beirto at the time.
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:31.680
I was like, the whole Pizano squad is here.
00:28:31.759 --> 00:28:33.359
I'm so scared.
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:34.880
Please get here.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:37.039
That's one thing I will say.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:38.480
Like we always had each other.
00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:39.279
I was not there.
00:28:39.519 --> 00:28:40.240
That's what I'm saying.
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:41.519
You weren't even there.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:45.359
It was probably Mike and maybe Joe, but probably not.
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:46.319
Hey, Dom.
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:47.759
Dom was the scariest one.
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:49.200
Yeah, because he's a psycho.
00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:51.519
He was he's he was.
00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:53.599
I was the most intimidated by Dom.
00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:54.400
Everyone was.
00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:55.920
He was like six.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.839
I said to my I'm terrified of him, and he's I think seven.
00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:03.279
He was so cute.
00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:05.839
He was like an angry, cute man.
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:06.480
Like boy.
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:07.839
He was an angry little elf.
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:09.119
He was like Chucky's angry.
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:09.920
He was like Chucky.
00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:11.519
Yeah.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:16.480
Okay, so But yeah, the like the party days, and like I threw parties all the time.
00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:22.799
And my grandma, like the where like her room is all the way at the top of the house, and I would throw parties in the basement, right?
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:25.119
We have basements on the in Jersey out here, we don't.
00:29:25.359 --> 00:29:27.759
Um, but yeah, it started to get crazy.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:34.160
And then uh I'll never forget she had no idea what we were doing, but we were obviously drinking our asses off.
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:46.240
And then one day, that summer, I'm working at a water plant in Wayside, Kepwell, right on right off Hope Road and uh Deal Road, and uh I get a text from her, I'm coming to pick your ass up right now.
00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:48.160
And I was like, what just happened?
00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:54.559
So she I opened a voicemail, and it's one of those voicemails you get, and we're like, damn, I really let them down.
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.359
And it was, I've never been so disappointed in my life.
00:29:57.519 --> 00:29:59.920
You've been lying to me this entire year about your parties.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:02.559
I found all these liquor bottles out in the back of the fort.
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:11.599
Like I had six, seven, eight garbage bags full of empty beer cans and empty liquor bottles in our like tree fort that was surrounded on the bottom.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:15.599
She was outside cleaning one day and there was a broken panel and she saw everything through it.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:20.559
Um to that after that, I never threw a party ever again.
00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:28.559
And then back in like later, like senior year, high school, uh, in college, I'd be like, Hey, can I have some friends over pre-game before you go out at that point?
00:30:28.720 --> 00:30:30.079
She's like, Yeah, that's fine.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:34.400
But um, yeah, that uh That's how you got into personal development.
00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:35.279
What's that?
00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:37.359
And that's how you got into personal development?
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:42.319
So no, so personal development for the most part was like the over the last five years.
00:30:42.559 --> 00:30:47.279
But from like the time where I changed my life around where I knew I needed to be a different person.
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:50.079
What that the that transpired to the drinking.
00:30:50.319 --> 00:30:51.680
The drinking got really bad.
00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:54.799
Leaving high school, I was supposed to go to East Carolina to join your brother.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:55.599
Yeah.
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:06.400
Supposed to go to East Carolina, and six days before I was supposed to leave, the admissions office called me and said, Hey, um, your financial aid's getting dropped.
00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:15.200
Uh we would like a$10,000 cash check or money order or check or money order, or we're gonna have to remove you from registration and you're not gonna be coming here anymore.
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:21.279
Um, my dad never submitted his taxes for filing, so I lost financial aid.
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:24.880
Um six days before moving in.
00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:28.240
And then that's when I that's when the drinking really got out of it.
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:28.880
I was depressed.
00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:31.680
I ended up going to Brookdale Community College, which was great.
00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:34.079
Uh two years there, and then I ended up at Rowan.
00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:39.759
But those first two to four years out of high school, like the drinking was six, seven days a week, like as much as I could.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:41.039
Anytime something went bad.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.720
I didn't give him the hunt the ten that nobody could give them the ten thousand dollars.
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:46.240
We didn't have that money.
00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:53.359
So it was uh like I paid for my own own college applications, and I can only afford two, and it was East Carolina and Towson.
00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:07.680
Um, but yeah, the drinking got really bad after that, and um, you know, a few years later, um I went to Rowan, drinking got really, really bad there, and that was like anytime something bad would go wrong, I would drink.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:10.480
Before 30, I went to over 30 funerals.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:19.920
But while I was in college, anytime someone passed away, anytime I got an argument, anytime like a girl left me, like I would just drink, no matter what.
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:21.599
Drinking was always the answer.
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:27.359
Um, bottom of a bottle, bottom of a barrel, like no matter what, just black out and everything will be fine.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:30.720
And then you start to realize like this isn't really good.
00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:36.640
And then so I transferred to Rowan University for a year, so this is now my third year in college.
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:41.920
My fourth year, trying to go back two weeks before the semester starts.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:46.000
Hey, no taxes have been reported, we're dropping your financial aid.
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:47.680
Again.
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:48.640
Again.
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:51.920
And you thought he had reported them at that point.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:52.640
Yeah.
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:56.160
Um, the previous couple years he did, this year he didn't.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.559
Um, so I lost my financial aid.
00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:03.599
I got kicked out of school, and I ended up not going to school for a year.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:04.559
I just worked.
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:08.079
Um, but on top of that, working was just a lot of drinking.
00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:10.400
Again, I was like, uh again?
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:14.319
I'm trying to actually graduate college, and this is happening again.
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:22.720
And um at that point, like me from when I was 14, 15, saying like whatever I want, I'm gonna have to do it on my own.
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.200
This was just this was just all proof.
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:34.799
And um that year I took off, I didn't go to school, I drank a lot, I partied a lot, I worked a lot, I got extremely overweight, very unhealthy.
00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:38.400
And um that year for Christmas, I asked my mom for two things.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:45.440
It was Sean T's 90-day fitness and bat uh fitness video and a LeBron James basketball jersey.
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:51.440
So March 2nd, 2013, um I woke up, hung over.
00:33:51.519 --> 00:34:02.480
It was a Saturday morning, and I looked in the mirror, almost 180 pounds and 20, 30% body fat, like a big fish, and I looked in the mirror and I was just disgusted.
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:03.519
I hated myself.
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:06.400
Like I wish I didn't wake up that day.
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:15.280
And then um that day I took a shot right after that, and then I opened up Shaun T's video and I did a workout for six hours.
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:25.760
I did a six-hour workout in my bedroom, my entire floor was covered in sweat, and then over the next 75 days I lost 15 pounds, I stopped drinking, and that's where the mindset shift came at 22 years old.
00:34:25.840 --> 00:34:26.400
Yeah.
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:46.159
The fact that just to take it back to that moment where you thought you were gonna be going to ECU and like starting new and being like putting like all the things you've been through, like you know, just okay, new chapter, and then six things before, and then like that is just part.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:47.360
Don't hear the worst part?
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:51.360
I was fully packed, and Matt, Matt was supposed to be coming with me.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.960
Matt Dolan, my first boyfriend.
00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:55.280
Yeah, Matt Dolan, but rest God rest his soul.
00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:57.760
My P Rest in peace, bud.
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.119
Um You know he was my first boyfriend, right?
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:02.159
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.360
That's well, he was he was a ladies' man.
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:06.079
He was.
00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:08.400
He was one of Matt and girls loved him.
00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:09.360
Fifth grade.
00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:10.400
I wrote in my diary.
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:11.679
I love Matt Dolan.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:16.239
I wanted to be with him so bad, and then he asked me out for like three days, and life was good.
00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:22.719
Yeah, he was uh I was sad to hear what happened to him because I I remember him as that cute fifth grader, you know.
00:35:23.039 --> 00:35:24.800
Second worst loss of my life.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:26.639
Yeah, yeah, that was terrible.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:31.039
Um, me and him were supposed to go, and when he found that I wasn't going, he pulled out.
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:34.960
He uh he canceled, he went to Brookdale, and then he went to his own path.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:39.039
But um the day we were supposed to move in, your brother called me.
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:43.199
Your brother called me, said, Hey bro, bring whatever freshman you meet.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.920
Um, we're throwing to party tonight, welcome back to school.
00:35:46.159 --> 00:35:48.880
And I had to break the news to him, and he's like, Alright, cool, all good.
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:50.960
Like, we'll be here tomorrow if you're down here tomorrow.
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:54.079
I'm like, no, like you don't understand, I'm not coming at all anymore.
00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:55.440
He's like, What?
00:35:55.760 --> 00:36:02.400
And then I explained it to him, and I had my roommate, I had my class schedule, went through orientation, everything.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:12.320
I had my my season football passes, like man, I was I was getting called EC Lou by all the friends back in back in back in Ocean because everyone knew how pumped I was to go away.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:13.599
That's so crazy.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:20.000
You know, Josh almost didn't get to go, but it was for something else, something with his grades, like, and then my dad had to call and get involved.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:23.360
Yeah, it was something like he like didn't take some tests or something.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:32.800
I don't know, something that it was he was more like being a delinquent, and then my dad had to like get involved, but he had a scare too, but then he he didn't go.
00:36:33.119 --> 00:36:35.599
But that's just like I mean, that's so hard.
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:51.360
And again, it's probably like this sting of a reminder that like you're a kid trying to do all the right things, and then because your dad, again, bless his heart and we forgive him, but like he didn't do the right things, then once again you're the you're you're the recipient of those problems.
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:56.960
Yeah, I mean is uh you know, is it when you're that age, then you just get angrier.
00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:15.920
I hated I just I I hated everyone so much for it's like I would you'd see me in public and I'd smile, but I'd be thinking my head, I hate this bitch for no reason because of my own my own abandonment issues, my own insecurities, my own anger, so much within myself, and it was a victim's mindset where it's like, why can't I ever win?
00:37:16.960 --> 00:37:52.000
And it was like it was always a why me mindset, and at a young age, like you don't expect that a lot, and and look with the personal development and growth stuff over the last several years, especially after my breakup and being in therapy and like healing all those wounds from the past and and knowing that everything has kind of led up to this point, and it's because I had to become the person I needed growing up, and now I just I live by a mantra where it it if I can positively impact one person per day, I'm doing my job as a human being.
00:37:52.239 --> 00:38:07.039
And with all that growth and from the development and the coaching component now, it's I want to be that person that others need that they don't have because I know what it's like, and uh, it doesn't matter who you are, what your background is, like where you're from, what you've been through.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:09.519
It's like you are not alone no matter what you're going through.
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:13.760
And there's so many people in the world that feel alone with everything when they're not.
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:33.679
So many people, and it's like again, it's we all have our stuff, and uh I always am an advocate of talking about it because you know, I think a lot of people think, oh, we you I had like this charmed and perfect life and two big houses and all that, but we had so much shit, you know, and if you really knew us, you knew it.
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:40.639
But it's just like we become divinely able to help the people we were when we needed help.
00:38:41.280 --> 00:39:00.480
And that is really what I love about the path of healing, because you then start to understand, oh my God, every single thing that happened to me that I thought was happening to me, why me, was actually such a gift because it unlocked me to be able to, you know, heal that wound.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:03.760
And then that wisdom gets carried and offered to the world.
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:11.360
So now anytime, anytime there's something that feels really hard and challenging, I'm immediately like, here we go.
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:12.480
Let's go.
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.599
Like, I'm like, what wisdom nugget is this?
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:18.159
I mean, it's not always that fun, but um, yeah.
00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:34.559
Yeah, I think um I think it's difficult for people to see like the clear picture, but at the same time, I I I also believe that you are the most equipped to handle and help the people that are going through things you've already been through.
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:43.280
So, like when I took on this coaching journey uh uh, you know, this past summer about a year ago that I would started the J Cer J Shetty certification process.
00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:52.400
Like my whole goal is that I know there's so many people going through what I've been through and that I know I'm capable of helping, but not just things that I've been through, you know, even all the good stuff.
00:39:52.559 --> 00:39:59.679
Yeah, I think uh I said it earlier, I think everybody has a voice and I think everybody has a purpose, and what you choose to do with the both of those is your gift to the world.
00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:00.559
1000%.
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:06.639
I I'm a big advocate of I I think that's what we're doing here, like on Earth.
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:12.800
I think we are here to like the soul's journey is to learn what it's here to learn.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:22.079
I believe even though we're all here collectively and we're helping each other, I also believe we're here like uniquely on our own mission with our own blueprint of what we're here to learn and do.
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:32.559
But I do feel the point of what all of this is is to then offer it to the world, you know, offer our wisdom and offer our learnings and help people through what they're going through.
00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:37.679
I I that is what I believe is the point of like this entire thing on Earth.
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:42.159
Um, I Earth is a school and we're here to learn and then share that with each other.
00:40:42.320 --> 00:40:50.719
So I'm, you know, I've left corporate and dedicated my life to the studies of that process and how to better do it.
00:40:51.199 --> 00:40:52.880
And you're doing an amazing job.
00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:58.639
And like watching watching you grow and your growth and the things that you talk about and the conversations you have.
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:01.119
Again, the world needs more people like you.
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:03.280
And keep doing what you're doing.
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:04.480
And it's it's amazing.
00:41:04.719 --> 00:41:06.559
You're impacting a lot more people than you think.
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:07.360
Thank you.
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:21.920
It's it's I love that you said one person a day, because you do can you can get caught up in the metrics, and obviously, as like a hyper per a high performer and somebody who's like very driven, there are times where I'm like in the metrics, and I think that can get tough, right?
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:29.840
Because if if I am really believing what I say, believe, which is that we're here to help each other, like in the end, that isn't the most important thing.
00:41:30.079 --> 00:41:39.760
And yeah, thinking about again, like younger you who was going through that situation, younger me who was going through my own really hard situations in my terms of what was hard.
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:42.719
Um, it's it's really for them, you know.
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:51.280
And seeing these kids, we know so many kids that have passed by one of my best friends growing up, um, Peter and Matt for you, among many other people, right?
00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:53.840
It's like losing them to something like drug addiction.
00:41:54.239 --> 00:42:00.159
There's so much we could have shared now that we understand, or just understanding that they're just people in pain.
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.320
It's like again, yeah.
00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:04.079
Um, you mentioned the breakup.
00:42:04.239 --> 00:42:05.519
So I want to talk about that.
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:20.320
I remember seeing you, you know, get start to be on your personal development journey again, like kind of watching from afar and seeing you also, you know, with a partner and then engaged at one point and looking so happy and in love.
00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:29.920
And then I remember seeing that chapter like almost suddenly end and feel sad because I was rooting for you and you know, it seemed like all is well again from the outside.
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:32.320
Um so I I thought the same thing.
00:42:32.639 --> 00:42:35.920
I was gonna say, what tell us what happened in that chapter of your life?
00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:38.880
And what did that relationship teach you?
00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:44.480
Yeah, and uh and again, I I do wanna I do want to start with forgiving is important.
00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:49.840
Um the day after she left me, I forgave her.
00:42:50.159 --> 00:42:52.079
And that was that was a mindset thing.
00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:53.840
Um was I angry, was I mad?
00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:54.639
Was I confused?
00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:57.360
Was I broken?
00:42:57.440 --> 00:42:58.000
Yeah.
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:04.719
But for me, I knew that in order to at least start the healing process, I had to forgive her.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:15.119
Um, but we uh I I lived in Ether Jersey, uh I lived in Vegas for a few years, that's where we met, and then uh we moved to San Diego together a few months later, where she's from and where I now live.
00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:17.920
Um You were in nightlife at that point, right?
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:18.880
I was in nightlife, yeah.
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:21.599
So I was in nightlife when I was in college at Rowan.
00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:23.920
Uh I got into nightlife in Atlantic City.
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:28.800
Um be an alcoholic and go work in the nightclubs, like that's smart.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:29.679
Perfect.
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:37.920
But it was funny, like it's like I got into nightlife around the same time I started the um Shanti's Fitness video, and things shifted, right?
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:43.360
So like the first six months of a year in nightlife in Jersey, I drank to keep up with the persona and stuff like that.
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:46.559
But after that, I I really wasn't too crazy, only on certain nights.
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:49.039
Um, I was very conscious about my health.
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:50.800
And then I moved to Vegas for a few years.
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:53.840
I moved to Vegas with a pit stop to get to California.
00:43:54.079 --> 00:43:55.599
The goal was always LA.
00:43:55.760 --> 00:44:03.840
And then I met my ex, who is from San Diego, and she introduced me to San Diego on uh My birthday one year, and I was like, We're moving to San Diego, whatever it takes.
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:06.880
Six months later, I got a call from the Hard Rock downtown San Diego.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:08.480
They're like, Hey, we got a call about you.
00:44:08.719 --> 00:44:11.199
How would you like to come be our GM for the department?
00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:12.880
I'm like, Are you in?
00:44:13.039 --> 00:44:13.920
She's like, Yep.
00:44:14.159 --> 00:44:16.079
And a month later we were out here.
00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:18.159
Um, life was life was good.
00:44:18.320 --> 00:44:21.119
Um, those are some of the best years of my life.
00:44:21.360 --> 00:44:30.880
And um, and it was lar in large part because of her and and having someone coming from a background where like she had a traumatizing upbringing as well.
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:33.519
And there was some sort of a trauma bond.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:45.519
Um, but it was also both of us having someone who believed in each other and was always there for each other, had each other's back, and and for the first time in my life, I was like, wow, I'm not gonna be abandoned.
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:48.400
I'm like this is gonna be great, like I'm so happy.
00:44:48.480 --> 00:44:59.360
And and we were a pretty well-known couple out here, especially in the industry, and and for a couple of years, a few years actually was I I always say like 90-95% of our relationship was really, really good.
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:00.480
Really good.
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:04.079
Like almost some of it, a lot of it great, but most of it really good.
00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:10.559
Um, we got engaged, we were pumped, we had a fully planned wedding, and fully planned.
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:11.679
Deposit and everything.
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:14.239
All we had to do is send save the dates and invitations.
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:22.480
And um yeah, kind of leading like a year out from the wedding, like a few months after we fully planned it, things started to get a little rocky.
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:27.119
Um lifestyles just kind of didn't didn't mesh as well as they did.
00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:38.639
Uh we did couples counseling, and I thought things were on the up and up and things were on the mend and things were getting better, and um there were just a lot of lifestyle changes and a lot of drifting.
00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:49.119
And the more the more single I've been now going on almost four years, as this is July 2022, the more I've been able to analyze like the signs that I've sh should have seen her pulling away.
00:45:50.079 --> 00:45:51.440
What were the lifestyle changes?
00:45:51.519 --> 00:45:54.719
Like you were drinking less, and well, we didn't I didn't drink at all.
00:45:55.599 --> 00:46:02.800
Well, yeah, when when we were together, like I probably she's probably in our four and a half year relationship, she's seen me drunk maybe five times.
00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:04.800
She liked to drink.
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:06.559
She did, I will say that.
00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:08.880
Um, she liked to have her fun, but I was always there.
00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:12.719
I was always taking care of her, like she never she was never in a bad position.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:17.199
Um partying wasn't really a thing that got in the way of us or anything like that.
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:22.159
It's a lot of disagreements, a lot of misalignment on direction of life and what we both wanted.
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:30.480
Um I thought things were kind of mending in a better direction, and then um things slowly started to get a little cold.
00:46:30.639 --> 00:46:30.960
Yeah.
00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:32.159
I didn't really realize.
00:46:32.239 --> 00:46:38.000
I thought it was just kind of like us giving each other space to kind of like grow together while we're still have a fully planned wedding.
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:41.119
She's still wearing an engagement ring, like all the things.
00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:50.159
And um we uh we had an argument, kind of, you know, we we we worked on the relationship for about four to five months.
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:54.159
What were like the misalignments in terms of what you both wanted in the future?
00:46:54.480 --> 00:47:01.760
Um, money started to get in the way because I was just starting my real estate career and she wanted me to go back to hospitality for part-time work.
00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:05.360
Uh, I was still making I was still covering 70% of our monthly bills.
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:09.360
So like we were okay bills-wise, but she wanted to spend money as it came in.
00:47:10.239 --> 00:47:11.840
Uh money played a part.
00:47:11.920 --> 00:47:14.239
Um, our lifestyles, like, she always wanted to be doing stuff.
00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:14.719
I didn't.
00:47:14.880 --> 00:47:22.800
I wanted to work on my career and I wanted to, you know, work on all the things in the future, and we didn't find the right blend at that point of our lives.
00:47:22.960 --> 00:47:25.840
As for the other four years of our relationship, we found the blend.
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:28.719
But this is where the blend started to splinter off.
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:33.920
And um, doing things without each other started to happen, and I was very naive.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:37.840
I was like, we're engaged, we're gonna get we have a planned wedding, like we're gonna make it, we're fine.
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:45.280
And I was just very naive to that, and I I didn't I I didn't have the right follow-through that she deserved at that point.
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:56.880
Um and I definitely didn't lead the way a man should lead in a relationship at that point, and those are a couple things that kind of I think made her kind of pull back.
00:47:57.119 --> 00:48:01.519
And then um we got into couples counseling February of 2022.
00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:05.679
By April, we were at stage shows together, had a fun weekend, it was great.
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:07.599
We were back to like our old relationship.
00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:12.000
By May, things were rocky, June was kind of just like a hum-ho month.
00:48:12.079 --> 00:48:13.360
I told you memory, right?
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:16.000
Blessing blessing and a curse.
00:48:16.079 --> 00:48:19.760
And then by 4th of July that year, we had a blow-up fight.
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:25.119
Um, and then we spent the next day at the beach with 15 of our friends, and we didn't talk all day.
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:35.440
And then a couple days later, I'm out showing clients and we're talking about the weekend, and she made plans without me, and I got upset over text, and she sent me a book breaking up with me and canceling our wedding.
00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:38.079
Um, while I'm out with clients.
00:48:38.880 --> 00:48:42.000
And my client looks at me and goes, Dude, you look like you just saw a ghost.
00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:44.159
I was like, I just got a weird text.
00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:45.119
I'm good.
00:48:45.360 --> 00:48:50.239
And then I get home that night and we spent three hours talking and crying, and everything was kind of a blur.
00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:53.920
Um, we'd lived together for another two, two and a half weeks before I moved out.
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:57.119
Um, but those two and a two two to two and a half weeks were very cold.
00:48:57.280 --> 00:48:58.159
We barely talked.
00:48:58.320 --> 00:48:59.599
We stayed in separate rooms.
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:01.360
Um she was out partying.
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:06.400
I was just sitting home crying every night, not knowing what was gonna happen with my life.
00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:13.840
And the way I explained it is I broke in a way that I didn't know men could break and human beings could break.
00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:20.480
And it was an experience that like I really hope people don't have to go through, but people are gonna go through it.
00:49:20.639 --> 00:49:27.599
Um it shook me to my core, I became a shell myself in the next year, year and a half, I was just uh I was just on autopilot.
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:31.679
All I did did the breakup bring up old wounds?
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:32.400
It did.
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:39.920
And um in that process the thing that hurt the most was like the one person who I counted on to not abandon me.
00:49:40.239 --> 00:49:42.400
Did what everyone's always done to me.
00:49:43.119 --> 00:49:46.239
And that just kind of reopened a lot of those old wounds.
00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:50.639
The only difference this time, which is the biggest difference, is I didn't resort to partying.
00:49:50.719 --> 00:49:53.840
And you know, I was past that alcoholic phase long gone.
00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:02.559
And um it it changed me in ways I didn't know, it it broke me in ways I didn't know, and it made me analyze all these things and just try to live life differently.
00:50:02.639 --> 00:50:06.159
And I was going to therapy three, four times a month for a year after that.
00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:14.239
And um, yeah, it was one of those things you look back at and you can never really you never really know why things are happening in the moment.
00:50:14.719 --> 00:50:19.039
And you always have to live life forwards, and then you can always look backwards and connect the dots.
00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:25.440
And for a good two good two years now, I've been at a point where it's like, ah, that's why it didn't work out.
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:27.840
Yeah.
00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:36.400
Did it change the kind of you know, man you wanted to become, or I should say, did it change the kind of woman or relationship that you look for now?
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:37.360
Both.
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:38.079
Both.
00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:41.840
So um I knew as a man there were things that I wasn't great at.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:49.119
And I knew as a man, and this is 30, 31 years old, I knew as a man there were a lot of things I had to fix and work on.
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.280
And I went to work.
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:54.239
I went to work for two years after that.
00:50:54.400 --> 00:51:06.400
I spent three years overall in therapy, but the next year and a half to two years, it was just all intentional work about like what I could improve on as a person and as a man, and how I can bring a better man of myself to the next relationship.
00:51:06.559 --> 00:51:11.760
And here I am almost four years later, still single, but that's because of my standards and my boundaries now.
00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:14.239
I've tried dating.
00:51:14.320 --> 00:51:19.840
Um, I think we've all tried dating, and we all know what dating in 2026 is like, especially in your mid-30s.
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.320
Um but yet it allows me to see red so red flags very quickly.
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:38.800
It allows me to now be a better judgment of character, and it allows me to identify like I don't want to use the word caliber of woman, because that's not really fair to women to kind of use that word, but yeah, the kind of energy and personality and lifestyle of a woman that I do or don't want to.
00:51:39.119 --> 00:51:39.760
Yeah.
00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:40.880
Wow.
00:51:41.039 --> 00:51:53.840
Again, like another amazing journey of just you know, thinking it's the end of the world and thinking that yeah, break I like the way you said like breaking in a way, a huge inner break.
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:58.559
I had a similar experience at 30 where I just that was a breaking point.
00:51:58.719 --> 00:52:02.159
It was a turning point, but now I'm like, what an angel, what a gift.
00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:11.760
Like he was an angel in my life, the catalyst of the inner path and the real work and you know, deeper connection to God.
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:17.840
And so it's, you know, it's it ends up being for you, but it's just hard to see it in that moment.
00:52:17.920 --> 00:52:37.599
And I think these stories personally, I used to really hold on to these podcasts and hearing people's stories about breakups or addiction or weight, whatever it is that you're navigating, and hear those heroes' journey stories to know that yeah, in the end, you it all works, it all makes sense.
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:43.599
And if it doesn't make sense yet, it ain't the end of that learning lesson in the curriculum of Earth School.
00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:45.360
It always ends up working out.
00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:52.000
And listen, I we've in the f almost four years, she's now married with a kid.
00:52:52.320 --> 00:52:52.960
No way.
00:52:53.599 --> 00:52:55.039
I remember exactly what she looked like.
00:52:55.599 --> 00:53:01.039
Listen, I think uh you know, kind of going back to what you said, is there's definitely a blessing in everything.
00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:13.840
And like with my then the actual book I'm working on where it's it's very it's very in-depth on like the breaking called the path to peace, it's it's being able to identify all the good that came from the bad.
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:17.760
And yeah, so much greatness came from that relationship.
00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:19.679
I'm in San Diego because of her.
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:22.880
I'm in I'm he I'm in SoCal, I'm in San Diego because of her.
00:53:23.039 --> 00:53:26.320
The real estate team that I've been on since I got into real estate is because of her.
00:53:26.559 --> 00:53:27.119
Wow, yeah.
00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:32.960
There are a lot of things about my life that are because of her, and that that relationship provided, right?
00:53:33.039 --> 00:53:45.119
So like so much good came from it, and we've spoken once in the four years we've been split, and that was that was on our supposed to be wedding day where she written me a new one after I just showed her some love.
00:53:45.360 --> 00:53:48.159
Um I was like, I'll never reach out to you ever again.
00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:52.639
Um, but yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I I went, I cut her off cold turkey.
00:53:52.880 --> 00:53:56.159
I we never had any communication after I left, after I moved out.
00:53:56.320 --> 00:54:03.920
And um, it was one of those things where it's like your best friend became a stranger overnight, and you don't know how to handle like the breakup of a friendship, too.
00:54:04.159 --> 00:54:19.840
And you don't have that person that used to always be there for you for four and a half years, and it's like for me, I had I surround myself with amazing people that have helped that growth, but for a good two years when I was mentally and emotionally still struggling, I it was hard to cope and kind of grow through that.
00:54:20.159 --> 00:54:24.320
But what helped me is understanding all the good that came from that.
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:27.519
And recently somebody asked me, like, hey, what's your word of the day today?
00:54:27.599 --> 00:54:30.400
They were interviewing me at like this event, and I was like, gratitude.
00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:42.159
And and the reason why I think gratitude's always my favorite word is because I look at all the bad things that have happened to me in life, and I'm more grateful for those than the good stuff because of all the growth that came from it.
00:54:43.039 --> 00:54:50.000
I mean, and now you're a personal growth and development coach, and like you said, it's a got certified G Chase program.
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:55.599
So I mean, it sounds like you really turned your own journey into a way to help support other people.
00:54:55.920 --> 00:54:58.480
What made you want to start coaching other people?
00:54:58.639 --> 00:55:01.840
And what kind of women or men do you support men only?
00:55:02.159 --> 00:55:04.960
Both and what kind of men and women do you support?
00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:06.000
Uh great question.
00:55:06.079 --> 00:55:11.679
Well, uh, you know, a couple years ago, um it was actually my therapist's idea.
00:55:11.920 --> 00:55:25.119
She um, so a lot of stuff that I was going through with therapy, just trying to learn and grow, and all these things that were kind of changing in my life and all this different knowledge and wisdom I was gaining and how I was feeling, I would start to share some of those things on social media.
00:55:26.079 --> 00:55:30.079
Some of it was simple as like things you should or should not do after a breakup.
00:55:30.239 --> 00:55:38.400
Like it was just kind of just giving out like advice for relationships, breakup, um, mindset, mentality, um, addiction, stuff like that, right?
00:55:38.559 --> 00:55:39.519
Health and fitness.
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:43.920
And I had a couple of posts on TikTok and Instagram kind of like pop off.
00:55:44.239 --> 00:55:52.320
And I would talk about like those things with my therapist, and she's like, hey, like the way you do speak about these things, like there could be something there for you.
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:53.840
Like, have you ever considered coaching?
00:55:54.079 --> 00:56:01.519
I was like, Well, I've been in leadership roles for 90% of my career, like my adulthood, right?
00:56:01.599 --> 00:56:14.159
So dating back from Vegas, running the hard rock here and in real estate, I've been in leadership roles and and class of OT, something like that.
00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:17.599
But I've always felt gravitated towards like I want to make a difference.
00:56:17.840 --> 00:56:20.480
And everyone says, I want to change the world, I want to make a difference.
00:56:20.639 --> 00:56:28.159
But then I laid my hat on if I can just make one person per day feel positively impacted, I was like, that'd be really cool.
00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:37.360
And then I started to look into programs of like how can I get coaching certified and how can I do things the right way and and not just post I'm a life coach on online and stuff like that.
00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:45.039
So um last summer I made an investment after talking to a couple of my mentors that are pretty high wealth individuals.
00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:47.760
They're like, hey, it's something you should pursue.
00:56:47.840 --> 00:56:54.800
And and I had my one main mentor told me, he's like, Hey, I think you should pursue it because you're one of the only people that would actually follow through with it.
00:56:55.039 --> 00:56:57.119
And that's when I was like, Yeah, I gotta do this.
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:16.559
So July of 2025, so last year, I started my six-month program journey of you know, roughly 150 plus hours and and all this online stuff where you're you learn how to actually structurally like help a client navigate towards certain things and a lot of tools and tips where you can actually learn how to help people improve, right?
00:57:16.880 --> 00:57:33.440
Um it was a different kind of approach because Jay's is more so on like the spiritual route, like um in terms of like uh you don't really guide clients, it's more so about like helping them understand their goals, and it's coming from the mindset that everybody has the wisdom within themselves to get to where they want to be.
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:34.639
There's just roadblocks.
00:57:34.800 --> 00:57:38.000
And as a coach, your job is to remove those roadblocks to help them improve.
00:57:38.239 --> 00:57:45.840
Um for myself, when it comes to like mentorship and guidance and what I've been through, I have a lot of life experience that could lend a hand to that component.
00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:47.280
So it's kind of blending the two.
00:57:47.440 --> 00:57:56.960
And I went on this journey where it's like, man, like the amount of messages I get on Instagram and TikTok daily to the day of hey, like I had this message from a girl a couple weeks ago.
00:57:57.039 --> 00:57:59.679
She said, Hey, um, you probably won't read this.
00:58:00.159 --> 00:58:01.199
In my request, right?
00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:03.119
She's you probably I read through them all the time.
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:11.440
You probably won't get this, but I want you to know that your post for the last several months has helped me understand how I want to raise my three boys to be a man like you.
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:13.840
And I get messages like that all the time.
00:58:14.079 --> 00:58:14.400
Yeah.
00:58:14.719 --> 00:58:22.320
And that's where like the stuff that I'm putting out and what I'm trying to do for the world is working, and even if it's just the one person like that.
00:58:22.480 --> 00:58:26.079
Um, so I went through the certification process, I got certified at the end of the year.
00:58:26.159 --> 00:58:28.400
I I have a I have three or four clients right now.
00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:31.840
I do ultimately want to make it a large-scale business.
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:36.079
And when I say business, I I want to help as many people as I can.
00:58:36.239 --> 00:58:44.400
Um, from a capacity of being in a full-time real estate career and and stuff like that, it's a little bit difficult, and I want to have the right appropriated time to people.
00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:50.159
Helping one woman going through divorce right now and figuring out life after divorce and her own identity and purpose.
00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:52.960
She found me from my breakup content years ago.
00:58:53.119 --> 00:59:15.119
Uh, there's one guy who's a 23-year-old family man, he's married, about to have a baby, and juggling the weight of the entire family of 40 people and and helping him navigate like the the male component to that, and working with a couple people through like their own addiction processes in terms of like how to not think about certain things and how to put their goals first and find purpose in life.
00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:25.199
So those things at the end of the day, it's for me, it's the most fulfilling thing for me in my life to this day, at this point now, is the impact that I have on the people around me and the impact that I can make on other people.
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:26.320
Yeah, I love that.
00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:29.679
Coaching is amazing, and um I'm so glad you stepped into it.
00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:39.599
Because again, I I think when we are embodied in the teachings and the learnings because we've actually lived it, just makes it so much better.
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:42.639
Okay, and your book.
00:59:43.119 --> 00:59:50.000
So tell us about the book that you wrote, The 30-minute morning, which is a routine book, right?
00:59:50.079 --> 00:59:54.320
So, how did that book come into play and what is it about?
00:59:54.559 --> 01:00:02.400
Yeah, so the 30-minute morning, it's uh it's a cool little kind of creative tool that and this kind of goes back towards it goes back to my breakup.
01:00:02.559 --> 01:00:16.800
When I moved out of the apartment that we had together and moved in with a buddy of mine, I knew that the only way for me to not focus on that stuff was to be a little bit more disciplined and with a routine of like what I need to be doing every day to just move forward.
01:00:17.039 --> 01:00:23.679
And it started with there were two things I had to do every single morning that I've done every single morning for almost four years now.
01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:26.800
Very first thing I do is make my bed your first win of the day.
01:00:27.039 --> 01:00:27.679
Always.
01:00:27.920 --> 01:00:36.000
For literally, for four almost four years now, my bed has been made within minutes of waking up since August 4th of 2022.
01:00:36.239 --> 01:00:37.519
Um crazy.
01:00:37.679 --> 01:00:38.400
Sorry, July.
01:00:40.079 --> 01:00:42.400
Um, make my bed and pray.
01:00:42.800 --> 01:00:50.639
And the pray was because I really wanted to get back some level of faith to not rely just on myself and have some higher power to kind of help.
01:00:50.719 --> 01:01:01.760
And and I found my way back to God and and um and I think there's a a higher purpose that kind of helps with healing and stuff like that, and it just helped make me feel very whole.
01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:07.599
Um the prayer part is not a part of the 30-minute morning because I know it's not for everybody, but it's for me.
01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:16.719
Um, but what I also started to implement with every single morning routine for me was okay, now I want to add five to ten minutes of reading, a different book every morning, or a book every morning.
01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:20.000
And then I was like, okay, now I want to add in a journal entry every single morning.
01:01:20.239 --> 01:01:25.119
Okay, now I want to add in a little bit of breath work and meditation every single morning, and so on and so forth.
01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:29.280
And then I've been doing the same routine every single day for almost four years.
01:01:29.519 --> 01:01:38.400
And this after going through the Jay Shetty like platform and program and certification, I was like, damn, I'm I'm actually very I'm a very disciplined person.
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:41.119
And a lot of people lack discipline.
01:01:41.519 --> 01:01:45.199
A lot of people are always seeking out tools to be more disciplined in what they do.
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:51.679
And um, you know, the the easiest way to set up your day is to have a very routine and disciplined morning.
01:01:51.840 --> 01:01:56.400
The first 30 to 60 minutes of your day are the most important because it sets up the rest of the day.
01:01:56.480 --> 01:01:58.559
Um, so I created a 30-minute morning.
01:01:58.639 --> 01:02:04.079
Um, it took me about three-ish months to kind of really craft it in a way that made sense.
01:02:04.239 --> 01:02:06.480
It first started out as a six-month program.
01:02:06.639 --> 01:02:08.480
Uh, like it was a 250-page book.
01:02:08.559 --> 01:02:09.679
I was like, this is too much.
01:02:09.760 --> 01:02:24.880
Um, and then I narrowed it down to just a simple 30-minute morning uh for a 90-day challenge to kind of help you build the habits that'll help you grow in your life, and just focus on four pillars every morning that'll really kind of help you separate your life from who you are now to where you want to go and what you want your goals to be.
01:02:25.039 --> 01:02:28.480
And it's your momentum every single morning, which starts with the window making your bed.
01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:34.960
It's your mission where you're you're going like with the 30-minute morning journal, it talks about your goals for the day.
01:02:35.119 --> 01:02:40.639
There's your mindset of you need to start every single day with the right frame of mindset, or you already lost.
01:02:41.039 --> 01:02:46.239
Um and then the fourth one is so so we got mission, movement, mindset, and momentum.
01:02:46.400 --> 01:02:48.480
So there's a little bit of stression that comes into play.
01:02:48.559 --> 01:02:56.239
Like I get out on my balcony where I do a little bit of body movement just to wake up my body, and I get all that done in 30 minutes, and then I hit the gym.
01:02:56.480 --> 01:02:58.400
And um it's been a great journey.
01:02:58.480 --> 01:03:01.360
I launched it on New Year's Eve um of all days.
01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:04.639
I just I I was like screw it full send into the new year.
01:03:04.800 --> 01:03:06.000
Um, and it's been great.
01:03:06.079 --> 01:03:06.800
It's been fun.
01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:09.599
I've had people from Australia reach out about it.
01:03:09.760 --> 01:03:19.039
I have this lady who coaches in Europe who's giving it to her clients, and it's been something where it's it's great for myself or other people, and it's something that hopefully will be long-lasting.
01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:20.800
Amazing.
01:03:21.440 --> 01:03:23.920
And then a little quick note on the book you're writing now.
01:03:24.239 --> 01:03:25.760
Yeah, the Path of Peace.
01:03:25.920 --> 01:03:39.039
So um, yeah, so I started working on that post-breakup, like like six or some some months later because what I would start to do is I would journal my thoughts on my phone and my feelings.
01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:43.280
And what I saw as I would read through these is the pattern of my growth.
01:03:43.519 --> 01:03:48.719
Um, and I started to analyze like the steps of my growth process of healing and evolving.
01:03:48.880 --> 01:03:58.559
Um, and I wanted to kind of create something where I know people, and this can this isn't just with a breakout, it's with traumatizing events throughout your life because there is a path to get back to healing.
01:03:58.960 --> 01:04:10.639
And I think as long as there's a guide and a roadmap to help people identify what their path is to get to a healed version of themselves, that's what I'm working on for for that next book, and we'll see where that one goes.
01:04:11.199 --> 01:04:11.760
I love that.
01:04:11.840 --> 01:04:12.559
I'm so excited.
01:04:12.639 --> 01:04:22.000
This is just such a beautiful story, and I think, yeah, just a reminder for so many people that like your upbringing doesn't shape you, the things that have happened doesn't shape you.
01:04:22.239 --> 01:04:25.920
Um it's I mean, it shapes you, but it doesn't have to define you.
01:04:26.159 --> 01:04:43.679
I just wanted to say last question is for someone listening who feels like the odds are just completely against them, like they can't win, they can't catch a break, that feeling you know, well, you know, maybe looking at other people, other families, other paths, and just thinking like they have it easier than me.
01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:45.599
What would you say to them?
01:04:46.320 --> 01:04:47.599
So there's a couple things.
01:04:47.760 --> 01:04:56.159
Um, but at the end of the day, it's it it really doesn't matter what's happened to you or what you've gone through or what you're going through, it matters how you respond.
01:04:56.400 --> 01:04:58.000
And everybody has a choice to make.
01:04:58.159 --> 01:05:02.320
And I said earlier, the the villain and the hero both have the same starting point.
01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:03.840
The difference is the path that they chose.
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:13.760
But but still at that at the on the other point too is um when it comes to like your circumstances are not predicated based off like who you're going to become.
01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:17.199
It may have been based off where you come from, but it's not gonna define you, right?
01:05:17.280 --> 01:05:21.840
So and the way I look at my past is your your past is used as a tool to guide you to the future.
01:05:22.079 --> 01:05:24.400
It's not something that's gonna define you for who you are.
01:05:24.559 --> 01:05:27.199
And if it does define who you are, you're letting it do that.
01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:31.840
And at the end of the day, it's you have the power to change the the story and direction you want to go.
01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:36.079
And it comes down to the decisions that you make and the actions that you take, not the circumstances that you're in.
01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:36.800
I love this.
01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:42.960
I hope this is an inspiration to anyone who's feeling that way, that feeling of like, man, they just have it easier.
01:05:43.119 --> 01:05:46.000
I just, you know, I can't catch a break, I can't win.
01:05:46.159 --> 01:05:49.920
And maybe you too can be plot class president, guys.
01:05:50.639 --> 01:05:54.559
If you are young listening, you too can be class president.
01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:56.000
Thank you so much for coming on.
01:05:56.079 --> 01:05:57.599
Where can the people find you?
01:05:58.079 --> 01:06:08.159
Uh people can find me on Instagram at Lewis underscore Pizzano, uh, TikTok Lewis underscore Pizzano underscore, and YouTube, official Lewis Pizzano.
01:06:09.199 --> 01:06:09.679
Amazing.
01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:25.679
And as always, if you are dealing with mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and not sure what is next, what is best for you, please set up a consultation and I'm happy to connect you to practitioners, coaches, guides, healers, shamans, retreats, doctors, you name it.
01:06:25.840 --> 01:06:28.480
I got you always at your conscious kind of scary.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:13.519
Louis Pizzano, I'm so happy to have you on Conscious Conversations.
00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:16.879
Um this is long overdue, but I'm I'm excited.
00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:17.920
I can't wait to do this.
00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:20.239
Long overdue, yeah.
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:25.600
So this is gonna be fun for anyone viewing because we went to high school together.
00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:30.640
So maybe this time middle school too and elementary school, no?
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:33.520
Nah, I was wait, were you Oakers or Debbie?
00:00:33.679 --> 00:00:35.759
No, one of my messages.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So, well, for anyone listening who maybe is coming from Lewis's world, Conscious Conversations is a podcast where we invite people into conversations around health, wellness, spirituality, personal development, healing, and ultimately discovering their own path and their own truth because we are all so different.
00:00:57.039 --> 00:00:59.280
So I love to just bring perspectives.
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And I also love a good comeback story.
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I love a good hero's journey.
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And you definitely have one of those.
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So I was like, we gotta dive into that.
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And again, for anyone listening, we went to high school together.
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We weren't super close in high school, right?
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But we definitely ran the same circles, like we knew a lot of the same people and grew up in the same town.
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And then life went on, right?
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And just like a lot of people from high school, we kind of just watched each other's lives from afar.
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And then I remember seeing you start to post like inspirational content and like personal development content.
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And I could tell you're, you know, on the deeper journey.
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And just like knowing a little bit of your background and your upbringing, I remember thinking, like, okay, like Luis Pizzano is like on this, you know, this path.
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And when I started Conscious Concierge, I noticed it even more.
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So then we somehow reconnected.
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I think I reached out, and that's kind of the backstory of what we're doing here.
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Um, but it was on that call that I realized actually how much of your story that I I didn't actually know.
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Like I knew little pieces and through the grapeviner, you know, from the lens that we all have as kids, but I didn't know the full story.
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And so when we started talking, I was like, I really want to dive into this.
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I mean, to your point, it's funny.
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I actually think it was closer with your brother than it was you.
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Yeah, totally.
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Yeah.
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Actually, party was a lot more too.
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Um, the stories of East Carolina University.
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:34.240
Um, yeah, exactly.
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But yeah, you know, I think I think growing up, especially when you're younger, you don't really know much of what's going on in anyone's life.
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Yeah, exactly.
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One thing I tried to do often was just kind of mask what my life was like outside of the public view.
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Okay, so for everyone listening, Louis Pizzano is a personal growth and development coach certified by Jay Shetty, a realtor, and the author of The 30-minute morning, which is a routine book, which we're gonna dive into.
00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:07.919
And he's also writing another book called The Path to Peace, which we're also gonna dive into.
00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:08.319
Yeah.
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But underneath it all is a real story: addiction, financial struggle, heartbreak, leadership, discipline, choosing again and again to become something different.
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So I'm so excited to have you here today, Lewis.
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Thank you for the lovely and glorious introduction, Miss Delana Rose.
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I I appreciate it.
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That was that was very kind of you.
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It I mean, like I said, I this is this is gonna be good.
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There's so much to dive in on.
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Honestly, where I want to start is something you said on a podcast that I felt was truly the arc of the conversation I want to have, which is you said, I knew from an early age whatever I wanted out of life was going to be 100% on me.
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That stuck out.
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Yeah, so I want to start there before like getting into the full story.
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Like when you said that, what did you mean?
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Yeah, so I kind of realized around probably 14 or 15 years old.
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And I'll tell you the moment, man.
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A few moments, but going into high school, um some rough years, I'll never forget playing football freshman year as a freshman during the summer.
00:04:19.600 --> 00:04:22.800
Playing this, you warm up with the with the varsity team in the summer.
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That's how they like acclimate you and beat the crap out of you and stuff like that, right?
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It's like a brotherhood, right?
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You you have your brotherhood, and we all had our our friends since we were eight years old playing Pop Warner, and we had our close group.
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And I'll never forget we were warming up, it was the very first day, and everyone has their last name on their helmet.
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Obviously, Pisano was mine.
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Um, and we're just going through warm-up lines, and uh very old, angry uh POS coach who almost nobody liked, even the seniors, uh, was going down the lines and saw my name.
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And his response was he did a double look, looked me in the face and said, Great, we have another scumbag Bizzano for the next four years.
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And that uh broke me uh in a way where it was like I wanted to hit him.
00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:15.759
But as a 14-year-old kid, you're not gonna hit a 70-year-old coach, right?
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Especially first day of practice.
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Um that kind of lit something in me where that came from a sentiment of older brother, a couple other cousins that a little bit of a different lifestyle.
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Um, love them to death, but they were all high school dropouts.
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And I wasn't, I was a straight A student, I was a party guy, but I was still a straight A student.
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Like I love being in school, and one of the reasons why I love being in school and also loved being at practice and doing anything football or sports-related is because I hated being home and what that reminded me of, right?
00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:56.879
So that stems from like a lot of abandonment issues of living with my grandmother, neither of my parents, but we'll touch on that a little bit later.
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But you know, as a freshman in high school, kind of going through that and hearing that, and hearing that faculty didn't even want me to go to the high school if I was gonna be another dropout.
00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:10.160
And that's when I knew was like, yeah, this is really gonna be on me.
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Like I looked at it more so at a young age, like, I have so much to prove, I'm gonna prove them wrong.
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And then probably over the next like year or two, it more so became about, you know what, it's I want to just prove myself right.
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I wanted to prove myself that I was different, that I wasn't going to follow a path that I shouldn't have.
00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:50.720
And and then, you know, that turned into I was always a person that had I loved being friends with everybody, very social person, and even through a lot of the parties in high school, and and by junior senior year, um, class president and homecoming king and prom king and straight A student and all these things, and and leaving high school, I was like, yeah, I I I proved myself right.
00:06:50.879 --> 00:06:56.879
But it was freshman year that moment when that coach said that to me, and I was like, Yeah, this is gonna be this is gonna be rough, but we're gonna do it.
00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:59.839
Wow, yeah, that that stood out to me so much.
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I was just like, I need to start there.
00:07:02.319 --> 00:07:08.319
But I okay, you mentioned that you know the rest of your family had a reputation, right?
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And you, I mean, so much so that the coach saw your last name and was like, oh god, here we go.
00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:16.720
Take us back to family life, home life.
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Like, what was it like for you growing up in your home with your family, and and just tell us a little bit about that?
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Up until seven years old, the all-American family.
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Literally what you would picture.
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Big Italian family.
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Every weekend, 40, 50 people at the house on Sundays.
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Like life was life was amazing.
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And then it wasn't.
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And it felt to happen pretty quickly.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:47.839
Um, I had two uncles pass away within a year of each other when I was six, seven years old, both of my dad's brothers.
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Um, after that, you know, it was me, my dad, my mom when they were still together, and my older and younger brother.
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Uh, we're all living together at my grandmother's house in Oakers on Dow Av.
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And after those two uncles pass away, my grandmother and my dad didn't really get along, and it's his own mom, right?
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So we had moved out.
00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:18.399
We bounced around a couple of apartments, we were living in a couple apartments here and there, trying to find a place to settle, and then and I was in second grade, and this is this is something that'll sick me for the rest of my life.
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We ended up at a motel on Route 66, right near Home Depot.
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It's actually closer to like the Social Security Administration building in Neptune.
00:08:28.720 --> 00:08:33.279
Um, and it was like something out of a movie, almost like a Bates Motel kind of scene, right?
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Like every other unit, the windows are bashed in, the water in the pool is green, and the pool's half empty, there's trash in the pool.
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And we lived there for six months.
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It was five of us in a in a small hotel room with two beds.
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Wow.
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And that was an adjustment from like life is amazing to what is happening to my life.
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And at you know, that young of an age in second grade, you don't really know what to expect or like what's going on.
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And then things just started to get even more and more rocky.
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Um, still going to Dowav, we had to take the short bus, as people call it.
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And um, I didn't want anybody to know.
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And one day, my Mr.
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Cordry, second grade teacher, never forget this.
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We're me and my brothers are walking out to the bus to get on that bus, and he pulls us off the bus, stating that we're getting on the wrong bus.
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I had to call my parents, they had to explain to the school like what's going on, we're not living in Oakers anymore.
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So then the entire class found out.
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And when kids find out that you're on this short bus, you know what kind of conversations start to happen.
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At a young age, all these rumors run, and and you know, it's it's it's one of those moments as a young kid where like you sense the bullying, but like you're also a very prideful person, and that's where a lot of my anger stems from.
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Um, we were living there for six months, then we moved into a house, we were there for a couple of years.
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Life was decent, it was good, but during that time is when there was a lot of drugs and alcohol getting involved with my parents, um, a lot of fighting, um, a lot of yelling, a lot of breaking, a lot of destroying, and that was over a good two year span.
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And honestly, I think it's safe to say at this point, like, yeah, my last name was well known, not for the best reasons for the most part.
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Yeah.
00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:20.000
And again, like everyone will have their opinions, and it is what it is.
00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:21.360
And I love my family to death.
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Love them to death.
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I'm very prideful of my last name.
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I love my last name and I love what it stands for.
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Uh, and I'm very proud to be at Pizzano.
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But it also came with a lot of baggage.
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By the time we were in that house, I was, you know, eight, nine, ten years old.
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And then came the downfall of my parents' marriage.
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And the way I found out was something that no 10, 11-year-old kid should come across.
00:10:45.519 --> 00:10:48.559
So January 2002, my grandfather passed away.
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He was like my my dad's dad.
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He was my first hero, the person that I wanted to be when I grew up, right?
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Strong Italian guy.
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Six months later, five months later, June 2002, an older cousin of mine on my mother's side was graduating high school and going to the Marines.
00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:06.080
So I went down to Little Lake Harbor to spend two weeks with them.
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And this is in the middle of so much fighting going on at home, right?
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:10.799
So I was like, let me just get out of the house.
00:11:10.879 --> 00:11:12.399
I want to go see my cousin.
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What I didn't know was that my mom was really just sending me away for two weeks.
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You know, I you don't know that as an 11-year-old kid.
00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:23.519
And when I got home, it was to an empty house with just my mom on a couch.
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And my brothers and my dad gone.
00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:28.960
And that's how I found out my parents split.
00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:35.039
And again, mom like probably every couple years of my life through when I was like 30 years old, something would happen.
00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:40.879
Everybody has stuff, you know, everyone's got skeletons, something things happen to everyone, and I'm no different, right?
00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:48.399
Um, but when you're 11 years old and you go home and you just your mom crying on the couch and your brothers and your dad are gone, like how do you react to that?
00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:49.919
How do you respond to that, right?
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And it's one of those things where uh again, addiction, drug addiction, and alcoholism between my parents was was a big thing for a little while.
00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.919
Um, and then after that, and my we had gotten kicked out.
00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:04.639
I spent a couple nights living in the car with my mom.
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:11.360
Um, and then eventually I, you know, I had to move back in with my dad at my grand back at my grandmother's house where my brothers were.
00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:13.759
And then my mom ended up homeless for a little bit.
00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:21.279
And um that's when kind of things were setting in where like there was a lot of clarity around like, yeah, life sucks.
00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:23.440
And all those things I wanted to hide.
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Like, I didn't want any of them to know about any of that stuff.
00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:34.639
Um but when the cops are getting called to your house twice a week and your name's your family's name is in the newspaper every week or on the news, it's hard to hide that stuff.
00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:35.200
Yeah.
00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:43.759
That's where a lot of the assumptions of other people will kind of come in, and so much so where I had friends that like weren't even allowed in my house because of who I was.
00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:44.399
Yeah.
00:12:44.639 --> 00:12:48.000
That's kind of what middle school was like for me for the most part because of that.
00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:48.639
Wow, yeah.
00:12:48.720 --> 00:13:12.080
It's so crazy to hear this story again as someone who was like in the peripheral and remembers like bits and pieces of the newspaper, or you know, I remember riding my bike around and I remember like hearing, like I think it was dumb and and what like the cousins, there was like yelling coming from the house, and I remember like I remember knowing things were going on like deeply.
00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:28.799
And I can only imagine how that feels because we do all have our stuff, but at the same time to deal with that so publicly and be so young and so out of control to be able to help the situation and know that there's drugs at 11 years old and know, you know, that this is a scary environment.
00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:30.559
You're living in hotels in the car.
00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:32.799
I mean, like it's it's insane.
00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:41.840
And also just to paint the picture, we grew up in a town that I would consider the majority affluent, like stable.
00:13:42.480 --> 00:13:44.799
Um and we had pockets.
00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.039
We had I was just explaining this to someone.
00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:53.440
I was like, you know, we it it is an affluent town, but there was this pockets where that was not the case.
00:13:53.840 --> 00:13:55.840
And there was a stark contrast.
00:13:56.320 --> 00:14:18.639
So what did it feel like to be in that school environment where you're kind of coming to the realization as a young kid, like, okay, I'm surrounded by people who seem like they've got a lot of money, financial stability, and just like something's different going on with me and my family.
00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:26.720
Yeah, it's uh, you know, major again, and a lot of the people that I grew up with as my close friends love them the death of this day.
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:28.879
A lot of them I don't have contact with anymore.
00:14:29.039 --> 00:14:32.639
Not for any ill will or you know, just how you grow up differently, right?
00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:37.519
And everyone leaves leaves hometown in college and everyone's lives are just kind of changed.
00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:42.080
But 98% of the people that I were close friends with were well off.
00:14:42.639 --> 00:14:46.879
Well off, both parents under under one roof, like like life was good.
00:14:47.039 --> 00:14:49.840
Again, I don't we don't know what was happening with other people.
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.720
It just happened to be that my family stuff was very public.
00:14:53.039 --> 00:15:00.480
And I was gonna say we all had our stuff and things like that, but it's the it's the fact that you had to deal with it publicly.
00:15:00.879 --> 00:15:01.120
Right.
00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:07.600
And and when you're a young kid at that point turning into a teenager, like that's where a lot of my anger came from.
00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:10.159
And I was just angry at the world.
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:16.399
Like I I blame the world for everything, I blame my family for everything, and you don't know better, right?
00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:17.919
Because it wasn't normal to me.
00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:25.039
And I this kind of this is kind of off topic, but it is something I want to touch on because of like what I just said when I blame my family.
00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:30.960
I do think there are three people you need to forgive in your entire life, no matter what.
00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:34.480
And first and foremost is your parents.
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:44.559
And I love my parents to death, and I know that they always did the best that they could to put a roof over our head, food on our on our on the table, and clothes on our back, right?
00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:50.080
So long ago, probably about 10 years ago, I I finally like forgave them.
00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.279
Like it I looked at it toward like, you know what, they did the best they could.
00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:58.559
You know, my dad had to raise three boys after his two brothers just passed away when he was 33 years old.
00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:05.759
Like, so I look at I look back at those things and I'm like, if my two brothers passed away right now, I don't know how I would react, right?
00:16:05.840 --> 00:16:07.039
I would burn down the world.
00:16:08.159 --> 00:16:08.799
I couldn't imagine.
00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:11.840
And so like forgiving my parents was one thing.
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:14.879
I finally learned to forgive myself years ago as well.
00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:17.440
The third person we'll talk about later.
00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:35.039
Um, but kind of going from that like perspective where you were talking about earlier from an affluent town being surrounded by a lot of like well-off people, happy people for the most part, while everybody knowing your business is Yeah, I was gonna say we're all going through, but it it's the closed doors that's yeah makes it seem like hard.
00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:40.000
And I I tried so hard to pay myself in a different light.
00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:43.279
And I feel like I did a pretty decent job.
00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:45.440
Um, you know, I had a lot of friends growing up.
00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:49.600
I I had a lot of there was if there was any judgment, it wasn't really to my face.
00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:51.759
So like it is what it is, I don't care.
00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.120
Um but yeah, it was just it was hard to navigate.
00:16:55.360 --> 00:17:00.080
And then high school things started to get better because like that's kind of all old news at that point.
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:14.079
Middle school is really the toughest, and and one of the things that I always tried to do was just play sports year-round so that I wouldn't ever have to really be home much to be reminded about like what I'm missing compared to what all my friends have, and that's to have a family together under one roof.
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:25.200
And you know, it's interesting, like when you're younger, yeah, you you kind of it's like you are defined by your family, but when you get older, it has nothing to really do with you, right?
00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:35.279
But I really think the most important thing on that front is like everyone goes through stuff behind closed doors, and we never, ever know, you know.
00:17:35.440 --> 00:17:38.000
I think, yeah, a hundred percent.
00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:50.160
Like, I mean, we had some stuff that was public in our family to a degree, and I was just always like, everyone's got their stuff, you know, like but everyone.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:57.680
Nobody, nobody can ever, I don't care who you are till the end of time, there will always be something that we have.
00:17:58.000 --> 00:17:59.839
Yeah, I posted something last week.
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:14.559
It was actually Jay Shetty posted a a reel, and it was of like a hundred different people riding a bike and driving a car, and there was text over like each one of them, like what they're dealing with, and it's the it's the cold manage of you never have any idea what people are going through.
00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:24.960
Never and I shared that, and my text was the only reason you have or need to be kind to other people is because you have no idea what people are going through.
00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:25.839
Zero.
00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:29.039
But honestly, like what you went through.
00:18:29.200 --> 00:18:39.200
I mean, the fact that you dealt with all that as a child and were able to become class president, like that's crazy.
00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:40.000
You know what I mean?
00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:53.839
It's like it just speaks volumes to like that fire within you and and you know, your soul and like the person that you are to transcend beyond like what people thought about your family, even the fact that that coach said that.
00:18:54.079 --> 00:18:57.119
I mean, I just think that that's that's incredible.
00:18:57.200 --> 00:18:59.759
And I'm sure you had a lot to heal from and we'll get there.
00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:08.000
But I just think overall, to go from family in the newspaper, people judging you for that, and then class president is pretty cool.
00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:08.960
Yeah, thank you.
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.359
It uh it was definitely a cool feeling.
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:18.000
It was, you know, in high school, it's like, oh, it's a I don't want to use the phrase popularity contest because I don't know, but it is.
00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:26.079
But at the same time, it's like that was to me, that was the reward for me being a good person to everyone.
00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:27.839
And that's how I looked at it, right?
00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:33.920
And and and that was in the middle of behind the scenes becoming an alcoholic myself at 17, right?
00:19:34.079 --> 00:19:36.960
So again, other other there's always stuff, right?
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:42.400
But you know, I started drinking at 13 to deal with my issues, and that became my escape.
00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:46.400
But you know, I still on the surface, at least in public, I had that smile.
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:49.039
But behind the scenes, it was not a smile at all.
00:19:49.359 --> 00:19:50.559
Yeah, yeah.
00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:59.759
No, it's it's a lot to endure, and I love what you said about forgiving your parents because the truth is people only become addicts when they're in so much pain.
00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:03.039
Um, I do not believe it's an inherited disease.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:05.839
I believe what's inherited is a coping mechanism.
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.440
Um, but you know, I dated somebody who struggled with addiction.
00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:17.920
I have addiction in my family in certain parts of my family, and it all ties back to the way we cope with pain, right?
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:24.160
And you were just a young boy trying to cope with the reality of, well, I'm in this town, I'm in this environment.
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:29.759
It seems like everyone else kind of has it, you know, to some degree different than I do, is what it seems.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:35.039
But that creates like a something like a pain inside.
00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:37.680
So then we, you know, numb the pain.
00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:39.279
But um, yeah.
00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:41.440
So I lose the pain a lot.
00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:42.720
Yeah.
00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:43.680
Yeah.
00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.200
But I I think that that helps find the forgiveness for your parents, right?
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:55.200
Because then you can see, like you said, they are people that have gone through something and they were trying to cope, you know, with drugs and alcohol.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:01.359
Did they ever own take ownership or apologize for you know what you went through as a child?
00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:02.880
And and no.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:05.519
And and again, it's never something that I ever expected.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:11.119
That's why I think when it comes to forgiving other people, it's it's partially for them, but it's mostly for you.
00:21:11.359 --> 00:21:17.279
And when I say it's mostly for you, it's you deserve the peace and not it's kind of like how people look for closure.
00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:19.119
I think closure is a fallacy.
00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:25.119
You don't need closure from people that hurt you, you don't need closure from people that leave you, you don't need closure on a closed door.
00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:26.480
That is the closure, right?
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:28.160
So I never really sought it.
00:21:28.240 --> 00:21:35.680
Um, just like I I can't ever say that I've ever sought any kind of life advice from either one of my parents, ever, in my entire life.
00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:42.240
And again, that's I I love them to death, but there was just never that kind of relationship.
00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:50.079
And when things kind of splintered at a young age, it's you don't feel safe or trustworthy to go to that for them to advise or to them for advice.
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:53.039
And you know, I I I again love them to death.
00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:54.000
Love them to death.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:59.839
Like I'm I'm I'm working my ass off so much so that I can take care of them so that they don't have to work anymore, you know.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:06.400
And and uh that came with like the forgiving piece where it's like they did the best that they could with what they had.
00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:08.880
And I truly believe that with everyone.
00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:10.880
Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:19.359
And um, what do you feel set you on like that different path that kind of lit that fire in you that was like I'm gonna choose something different than a lot of my family did?
00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:21.039
So a couple things.
00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:32.079
One didn't I saw well love here's here's the positive caveat of like all my friends for the most part, most of my friends, um being in a good situation, at least on the surface.
00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.920
I wanted that life for myself and for my own kids one day.
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:40.880
And I knew if I if I went down a different path, I wouldn't have that.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:44.079
Yes, drinking was involved heavily in my life.
00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:52.319
You know, by the time I was 19, 20 years old, I'd be at home on a Wednesday night drinking a 375 of Captain Morgan just because I wanted to.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:54.880
And you know, I'd have a blackout session by myself.
00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.680
Like that was a routine thing for me for three or four years.
00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:01.119
But um, there was one moment when I was 13.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:08.319
Again, I I I have a a very good memory, uh blessing and a curse, especially when it comes to like dates and years.
00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:13.200
Um 13 years old, a bunch of us are playing Manhunt up in Wayside.
00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:19.279
I was playing with my older brother, my older cousins, and a whole bunch of their crews and just having fun.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:24.480
And at the end of the night, uh they lit up a blunt and they started smoking weed.
00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:27.039
And I'm 13, so I know what it is at that point.
00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:31.440
This is after there's a lot of drug and alcohol stuff going on with my family.
00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:36.480
Um, and a little before I started drinking, I started drinking at the end of like 13, early 14.
00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:39.119
And the blunt got to me.
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:45.839
And to this day, this is what I would say is one of like the turning points of like my life.
00:23:46.079 --> 00:23:48.640
The blunt got to me, and I just threw it on the ground.
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:51.920
And to that to this day, I've never smoked weed in my entire life.
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:56.240
Now, some people would be like, bro, you're soup, but just tried, you have anxiety, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:57.039
That's fine.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:01.359
I'm at a point and now 35 years old where I don't need to smoke weed.
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:02.720
It doesn't phase me.
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:04.559
I don't care not to, it's not a thing.
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:08.559
But throughout high school, it was a problem with all my friends that I wouldn't smoke weed.
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:15.839
So that started splintering my friendships because I wouldn't smoke weed and later do coke or Molly with them.
00:24:16.079 --> 00:24:25.279
But that was one of those points of life where it was like, I know this is where most of my family has started to end up on heroin, pills, whatever.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:26.799
I'm not gonna smoke weed.
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:39.200
And it's that was one of those moments where I kind of just that moment, the coach moment, and then the thing that kind of I would say saved me, but helped set me on a different path was ending up living with my grandmother.
00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:47.759
And and again, bless her soul, like 90% of the reason why I am the man in person I am today is because of my grandmother.
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:49.759
And that's what set me on a different path.
00:24:51.279 --> 00:24:53.039
Yeah, what a blessing.
00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:54.559
Yeah, the biggest blessing.
00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:56.400
I uh I think about this all the time.
00:24:56.640 --> 00:25:01.359
If I could trade my life for hers, I would do an heartbeat.
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:03.519
In a heartbeat.
00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:09.440
The world our family would be so much better off with her here.
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.960
And that's what's tough, but that woman saved my life.
00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:18.319
Why do you think you had a bond with her that was different than your brothers, cousins?
00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:24.720
Um, well one, because I I didn't I didn't want to be I didn't want to be out of school.
00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:26.400
I didn't want to be away from my friends.
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:30.319
And knowing that, like I I knew I had to live with my grandmother.
00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:32.240
I didn't want to go live with my mom in Wall.
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:35.119
I didn't want to go live with my dad and his girlfriend in Long Branch.
00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:36.799
So like I'm staying here.
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:45.519
So I stayed there, and you know, when it's basically just the two of you most of the time, like that's what to gravitate towards, and she gave me plenty of life advice.
00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:52.720
Um, you know, she left me a note long, long time ago, like when she was still alive, probably when I was still living in Jersey.
00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:10.480
And when I went home after she passed away in 2019, I found it in my drawer that I still had in my dress at home that I didn't have there when I left, she put it in there, and now I have it with me here, and it's um work hard, um, be kind, work hard, and surround yourself with great people.
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:12.720
And that's what I just try to do every single day.
00:26:13.039 --> 00:26:16.880
But uh yeah, that relationship is really kind of what changed the trajectory of my life.
00:26:17.039 --> 00:26:17.359
Yeah.
00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:19.680
I just can't believe you you went through that.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:22.160
Like again, we my brother, right?
00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:31.119
Like it's yeah, a thing for me is like obviously we're all very different, and I'm on this path, they're on a different path, and you know, they're they're okay, they're all right.
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:35.759
Um, they're doing what what they're doing, um, which is just trying to get by.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:36.400
Yeah.
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:38.400
Everyone, everyone handles things differently.
00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:42.480
There's the the villain and the hero have the same story and starting point.
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:45.599
Totally.
00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:46.160
Yeah.
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:48.799
When did personal development come into your life?
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:53.200
So you mentioned, you know, you were later Captain Morganing on the couch.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:56.559
When did the the personal development journey start?
00:26:57.039 --> 00:26:58.240
March 2nd, 2013.
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:02.319
So uh here, let let's kind of we'll go back to high school a little bit, right?
00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:09.119
So, like high school, high school years were fun, it was mostly good, still a lot of BS, but a lot of the nonsense was like kind of out of the picture.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:11.200
And you were living with your grandma at that point.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:13.599
Yeah, I was always with my grandma's things were there.
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:16.880
Yeah, my my dad still lived there, but he was never there.
00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:22.400
He had a girlfriend and that he pretty much lived with her most of the time because him and my grandmother didn't really get along.
00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:28.720
Um, my brothers would be back and forth, but it was mostly just me and my grandmother for most of the time.
00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:33.599
Um But it was, you know, my half my dad's house, because my grandfather passed, he left half the house to my dad.
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:34.799
Regardless, whatever.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:39.839
Yeah, mostly me and my grandmother living together, and I started throwing parties at the house.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:49.680
And it turned into eight to ten people, to twenty to thirty people, to fifty to seventy-five people, to sometimes hundred person parties with people from Monmouth University at my house as a sophomore.
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:51.279
I don't remember being there.
00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:53.680
I don't I don't honestly, those days were blurry.
00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:55.920
Oh mybe my brother was though.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:57.440
He was 100% at my house.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:57.759
Yeah.
00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:06.079
My sophomore year, I'll never forget there was like that second semester, probably threw a party every Saturday night at my house.
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:06.880
Oh my god.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:08.079
Our brothers definitely fought.
00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:10.319
Wait, is Mike your brother or cousin?
00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:12.079
Okay, your cousin and Josh.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:14.000
Mike and Joe were brothers.
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.319
Mike and Josh got in a fight out there.
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:17.039
No, Joe.
00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:18.000
Joe's the oldest.
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:20.559
No, my brother and Mike were the same thing.
00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:21.839
Yes.
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:24.640
And they had a fist fight at my house, and I was so scared.
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:26.079
I was like, the Pizanos?
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:29.119
I was calling my boyfriend, Chris Beirto at the time.
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:31.680
I was like, the whole Pizano squad is here.
00:28:31.759 --> 00:28:33.359
I'm so scared.
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:34.880
Please get here.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:37.039
That's one thing I will say.
00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:38.480
Like we always had each other.
00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:39.279
I was not there.
00:28:39.519 --> 00:28:40.240
That's what I'm saying.
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:41.519
You weren't even there.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:45.359
It was probably Mike and maybe Joe, but probably not.
00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:46.319
Hey, Dom.
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:47.759
Dom was the scariest one.
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:49.200
Yeah, because he's a psycho.
00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:51.519
He was he's he was.
00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:53.599
I was the most intimidated by Dom.
00:28:53.759 --> 00:28:54.400
Everyone was.
00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:55.920
He was like six.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.839
I said to my I'm terrified of him, and he's I think seven.
00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:03.279
He was so cute.
00:29:04.240 --> 00:29:05.839
He was like an angry, cute man.
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:06.480
Like boy.
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:07.839
He was an angry little elf.
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:09.119
He was like Chucky's angry.
00:29:09.279 --> 00:29:09.920
He was like Chucky.
00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:11.519
Yeah.
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:16.480
Okay, so But yeah, the like the party days, and like I threw parties all the time.
00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:22.799
And my grandma, like the where like her room is all the way at the top of the house, and I would throw parties in the basement, right?
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:25.119
We have basements on the in Jersey out here, we don't.
00:29:25.359 --> 00:29:27.759
Um, but yeah, it started to get crazy.
00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:34.160
And then uh I'll never forget she had no idea what we were doing, but we were obviously drinking our asses off.
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:46.240
And then one day, that summer, I'm working at a water plant in Wayside, Kepwell, right on right off Hope Road and uh Deal Road, and uh I get a text from her, I'm coming to pick your ass up right now.
00:29:46.480 --> 00:29:48.160
And I was like, what just happened?
00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:54.559
So she I opened a voicemail, and it's one of those voicemails you get, and we're like, damn, I really let them down.
00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.359
And it was, I've never been so disappointed in my life.
00:29:57.519 --> 00:29:59.920
You've been lying to me this entire year about your parties.
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:02.559
I found all these liquor bottles out in the back of the fort.
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:11.599
Like I had six, seven, eight garbage bags full of empty beer cans and empty liquor bottles in our like tree fort that was surrounded on the bottom.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:15.599
She was outside cleaning one day and there was a broken panel and she saw everything through it.
00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:20.559
Um to that after that, I never threw a party ever again.
00:30:20.799 --> 00:30:28.559
And then back in like later, like senior year, high school, uh, in college, I'd be like, Hey, can I have some friends over pre-game before you go out at that point?
00:30:28.720 --> 00:30:30.079
She's like, Yeah, that's fine.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:34.400
But um, yeah, that uh That's how you got into personal development.
00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:35.279
What's that?
00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:37.359
And that's how you got into personal development?
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:42.319
So no, so personal development for the most part was like the over the last five years.
00:30:42.559 --> 00:30:47.279
But from like the time where I changed my life around where I knew I needed to be a different person.
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:50.079
What that the that transpired to the drinking.
00:30:50.319 --> 00:30:51.680
The drinking got really bad.
00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:54.799
Leaving high school, I was supposed to go to East Carolina to join your brother.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:55.599
Yeah.
00:30:56.079 --> 00:31:06.400
Supposed to go to East Carolina, and six days before I was supposed to leave, the admissions office called me and said, Hey, um, your financial aid's getting dropped.
00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:15.200
Uh we would like a$10,000 cash check or money order or check or money order, or we're gonna have to remove you from registration and you're not gonna be coming here anymore.
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:21.279
Um, my dad never submitted his taxes for filing, so I lost financial aid.
00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:24.880
Um six days before moving in.
00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:28.240
And then that's when I that's when the drinking really got out of it.
00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:28.880
I was depressed.
00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:31.680
I ended up going to Brookdale Community College, which was great.
00:31:31.839 --> 00:31:34.079
Uh two years there, and then I ended up at Rowan.
00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:39.759
But those first two to four years out of high school, like the drinking was six, seven days a week, like as much as I could.
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:41.039
Anytime something went bad.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.720
I didn't give him the hunt the ten that nobody could give them the ten thousand dollars.
00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:46.240
We didn't have that money.
00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:53.359
So it was uh like I paid for my own own college applications, and I can only afford two, and it was East Carolina and Towson.
00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:07.680
Um, but yeah, the drinking got really bad after that, and um, you know, a few years later, um I went to Rowan, drinking got really, really bad there, and that was like anytime something bad would go wrong, I would drink.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:10.480
Before 30, I went to over 30 funerals.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:19.920
But while I was in college, anytime someone passed away, anytime I got an argument, anytime like a girl left me, like I would just drink, no matter what.
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:21.599
Drinking was always the answer.
00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:27.359
Um, bottom of a bottle, bottom of a barrel, like no matter what, just black out and everything will be fine.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:30.720
And then you start to realize like this isn't really good.
00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:36.640
And then so I transferred to Rowan University for a year, so this is now my third year in college.
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:41.920
My fourth year, trying to go back two weeks before the semester starts.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:46.000
Hey, no taxes have been reported, we're dropping your financial aid.
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:47.680
Again.
00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:48.640
Again.
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:51.920
And you thought he had reported them at that point.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:52.640
Yeah.
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:56.160
Um, the previous couple years he did, this year he didn't.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:58.559
Um, so I lost my financial aid.
00:32:58.720 --> 00:33:03.599
I got kicked out of school, and I ended up not going to school for a year.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:04.559
I just worked.
00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:08.079
Um, but on top of that, working was just a lot of drinking.
00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:10.400
Again, I was like, uh again?
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:14.319
I'm trying to actually graduate college, and this is happening again.
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:22.720
And um at that point, like me from when I was 14, 15, saying like whatever I want, I'm gonna have to do it on my own.
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:25.200
This was just this was just all proof.
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:34.799
And um that year I took off, I didn't go to school, I drank a lot, I partied a lot, I worked a lot, I got extremely overweight, very unhealthy.
00:33:35.039 --> 00:33:38.400
And um that year for Christmas, I asked my mom for two things.
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:45.440
It was Sean T's 90-day fitness and bat uh fitness video and a LeBron James basketball jersey.
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:51.440
So March 2nd, 2013, um I woke up, hung over.
00:33:51.519 --> 00:34:02.480
It was a Saturday morning, and I looked in the mirror, almost 180 pounds and 20, 30% body fat, like a big fish, and I looked in the mirror and I was just disgusted.
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:03.519
I hated myself.
00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:06.400
Like I wish I didn't wake up that day.
00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:15.280
And then um that day I took a shot right after that, and then I opened up Shaun T's video and I did a workout for six hours.
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:25.760
I did a six-hour workout in my bedroom, my entire floor was covered in sweat, and then over the next 75 days I lost 15 pounds, I stopped drinking, and that's where the mindset shift came at 22 years old.
00:34:25.840 --> 00:34:26.400
Yeah.
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:46.159
The fact that just to take it back to that moment where you thought you were gonna be going to ECU and like starting new and being like putting like all the things you've been through, like you know, just okay, new chapter, and then six things before, and then like that is just part.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:47.360
Don't hear the worst part?
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:51.360
I was fully packed, and Matt, Matt was supposed to be coming with me.
00:34:51.599 --> 00:34:52.960
Matt Dolan, my first boyfriend.
00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:55.280
Yeah, Matt Dolan, but rest God rest his soul.
00:34:55.360 --> 00:34:57.760
My P Rest in peace, bud.
00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:01.119
Um You know he was my first boyfriend, right?
00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:02.159
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:02.320 --> 00:35:05.360
That's well, he was he was a ladies' man.
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:06.079
He was.
00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:08.400
He was one of Matt and girls loved him.
00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:09.360
Fifth grade.
00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:10.400
I wrote in my diary.
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:11.679
I love Matt Dolan.
00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:16.239
I wanted to be with him so bad, and then he asked me out for like three days, and life was good.
00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:22.719
Yeah, he was uh I was sad to hear what happened to him because I I remember him as that cute fifth grader, you know.
00:35:23.039 --> 00:35:24.800
Second worst loss of my life.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:26.639
Yeah, yeah, that was terrible.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:31.039
Um, me and him were supposed to go, and when he found that I wasn't going, he pulled out.
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:34.960
He uh he canceled, he went to Brookdale, and then he went to his own path.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:39.039
But um the day we were supposed to move in, your brother called me.
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:43.199
Your brother called me, said, Hey bro, bring whatever freshman you meet.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.920
Um, we're throwing to party tonight, welcome back to school.
00:35:46.159 --> 00:35:48.880
And I had to break the news to him, and he's like, Alright, cool, all good.
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:50.960
Like, we'll be here tomorrow if you're down here tomorrow.
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:54.079
I'm like, no, like you don't understand, I'm not coming at all anymore.
00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:55.440
He's like, What?
00:35:55.760 --> 00:36:02.400
And then I explained it to him, and I had my roommate, I had my class schedule, went through orientation, everything.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:12.320
I had my my season football passes, like man, I was I was getting called EC Lou by all the friends back in back in back in Ocean because everyone knew how pumped I was to go away.
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:13.599
That's so crazy.
00:36:13.679 --> 00:36:20.000
You know, Josh almost didn't get to go, but it was for something else, something with his grades, like, and then my dad had to call and get involved.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:23.360
Yeah, it was something like he like didn't take some tests or something.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:32.800
I don't know, something that it was he was more like being a delinquent, and then my dad had to like get involved, but he had a scare too, but then he he didn't go.
00:36:33.119 --> 00:36:35.599
But that's just like I mean, that's so hard.
00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:51.360
And again, it's probably like this sting of a reminder that like you're a kid trying to do all the right things, and then because your dad, again, bless his heart and we forgive him, but like he didn't do the right things, then once again you're the you're you're the recipient of those problems.
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:56.960
Yeah, I mean is uh you know, is it when you're that age, then you just get angrier.
00:36:57.199 --> 00:37:15.920
I hated I just I I hated everyone so much for it's like I would you'd see me in public and I'd smile, but I'd be thinking my head, I hate this bitch for no reason because of my own my own abandonment issues, my own insecurities, my own anger, so much within myself, and it was a victim's mindset where it's like, why can't I ever win?
00:37:16.960 --> 00:37:52.000
And it was like it was always a why me mindset, and at a young age, like you don't expect that a lot, and and look with the personal development and growth stuff over the last several years, especially after my breakup and being in therapy and like healing all those wounds from the past and and knowing that everything has kind of led up to this point, and it's because I had to become the person I needed growing up, and now I just I live by a mantra where it it if I can positively impact one person per day, I'm doing my job as a human being.
00:37:52.239 --> 00:38:07.039
And with all that growth and from the development and the coaching component now, it's I want to be that person that others need that they don't have because I know what it's like, and uh, it doesn't matter who you are, what your background is, like where you're from, what you've been through.
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:09.519
It's like you are not alone no matter what you're going through.
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:13.760
And there's so many people in the world that feel alone with everything when they're not.
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:33.679
So many people, and it's like again, it's we all have our stuff, and uh I always am an advocate of talking about it because you know, I think a lot of people think, oh, we you I had like this charmed and perfect life and two big houses and all that, but we had so much shit, you know, and if you really knew us, you knew it.
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:40.639
But it's just like we become divinely able to help the people we were when we needed help.
00:38:41.280 --> 00:39:00.480
And that is really what I love about the path of healing, because you then start to understand, oh my God, every single thing that happened to me that I thought was happening to me, why me, was actually such a gift because it unlocked me to be able to, you know, heal that wound.
00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:03.760
And then that wisdom gets carried and offered to the world.
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:11.360
So now anytime, anytime there's something that feels really hard and challenging, I'm immediately like, here we go.
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:12.480
Let's go.
00:39:12.800 --> 00:39:15.599
Like, I'm like, what wisdom nugget is this?
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:18.159
I mean, it's not always that fun, but um, yeah.
00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:34.559
Yeah, I think um I think it's difficult for people to see like the clear picture, but at the same time, I I I also believe that you are the most equipped to handle and help the people that are going through things you've already been through.
00:39:34.880 --> 00:39:43.280
So, like when I took on this coaching journey uh uh, you know, this past summer about a year ago that I would started the J Cer J Shetty certification process.
00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:52.400
Like my whole goal is that I know there's so many people going through what I've been through and that I know I'm capable of helping, but not just things that I've been through, you know, even all the good stuff.
00:39:52.559 --> 00:39:59.679
Yeah, I think uh I said it earlier, I think everybody has a voice and I think everybody has a purpose, and what you choose to do with the both of those is your gift to the world.
00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:00.559
1000%.
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:06.639
I I'm a big advocate of I I think that's what we're doing here, like on Earth.
00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:12.800
I think we are here to like the soul's journey is to learn what it's here to learn.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:22.079
I believe even though we're all here collectively and we're helping each other, I also believe we're here like uniquely on our own mission with our own blueprint of what we're here to learn and do.
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:32.559
But I do feel the point of what all of this is is to then offer it to the world, you know, offer our wisdom and offer our learnings and help people through what they're going through.
00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:37.679
I I that is what I believe is the point of like this entire thing on Earth.
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:42.159
Um, I Earth is a school and we're here to learn and then share that with each other.
00:40:42.320 --> 00:40:50.719
So I'm, you know, I've left corporate and dedicated my life to the studies of that process and how to better do it.
00:40:51.199 --> 00:40:52.880
And you're doing an amazing job.
00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:58.639
And like watching watching you grow and your growth and the things that you talk about and the conversations you have.
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:01.119
Again, the world needs more people like you.
00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:03.280
And keep doing what you're doing.
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:04.480
And it's it's amazing.
00:41:04.719 --> 00:41:06.559
You're impacting a lot more people than you think.
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:07.360
Thank you.
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:21.920
It's it's I love that you said one person a day, because you do can you can get caught up in the metrics, and obviously, as like a hyper per a high performer and somebody who's like very driven, there are times where I'm like in the metrics, and I think that can get tough, right?
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:29.840
Because if if I am really believing what I say, believe, which is that we're here to help each other, like in the end, that isn't the most important thing.
00:41:30.079 --> 00:41:39.760
And yeah, thinking about again, like younger you who was going through that situation, younger me who was going through my own really hard situations in my terms of what was hard.
00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:42.719
Um, it's it's really for them, you know.
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:51.280
And seeing these kids, we know so many kids that have passed by one of my best friends growing up, um, Peter and Matt for you, among many other people, right?
00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:53.840
It's like losing them to something like drug addiction.
00:41:54.239 --> 00:42:00.159
There's so much we could have shared now that we understand, or just understanding that they're just people in pain.
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.320
It's like again, yeah.
00:42:02.639 --> 00:42:04.079
Um, you mentioned the breakup.
00:42:04.239 --> 00:42:05.519
So I want to talk about that.
00:42:05.840 --> 00:42:20.320
I remember seeing you, you know, get start to be on your personal development journey again, like kind of watching from afar and seeing you also, you know, with a partner and then engaged at one point and looking so happy and in love.
00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:29.920
And then I remember seeing that chapter like almost suddenly end and feel sad because I was rooting for you and you know, it seemed like all is well again from the outside.
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:32.320
Um so I I thought the same thing.
00:42:32.639 --> 00:42:35.920
I was gonna say, what tell us what happened in that chapter of your life?
00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:38.880
And what did that relationship teach you?
00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:44.480
Yeah, and uh and again, I I do wanna I do want to start with forgiving is important.
00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:49.840
Um the day after she left me, I forgave her.
00:42:50.159 --> 00:42:52.079
And that was that was a mindset thing.
00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:53.840
Um was I angry, was I mad?
00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:54.639
Was I confused?
00:42:54.880 --> 00:42:57.360
Was I broken?
00:42:57.440 --> 00:42:58.000
Yeah.
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:04.719
But for me, I knew that in order to at least start the healing process, I had to forgive her.
00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:15.119
Um, but we uh I I lived in Ether Jersey, uh I lived in Vegas for a few years, that's where we met, and then uh we moved to San Diego together a few months later, where she's from and where I now live.
00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:17.920
Um You were in nightlife at that point, right?
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:18.880
I was in nightlife, yeah.
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:21.599
So I was in nightlife when I was in college at Rowan.
00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:23.920
Uh I got into nightlife in Atlantic City.
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:28.800
Um be an alcoholic and go work in the nightclubs, like that's smart.
00:43:29.119 --> 00:43:29.679
Perfect.
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:37.920
But it was funny, like it's like I got into nightlife around the same time I started the um Shanti's Fitness video, and things shifted, right?
00:43:38.000 --> 00:43:43.360
So like the first six months of a year in nightlife in Jersey, I drank to keep up with the persona and stuff like that.
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:46.559
But after that, I I really wasn't too crazy, only on certain nights.
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:49.039
Um, I was very conscious about my health.
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:50.800
And then I moved to Vegas for a few years.
00:43:50.960 --> 00:43:53.840
I moved to Vegas with a pit stop to get to California.
00:43:54.079 --> 00:43:55.599
The goal was always LA.
00:43:55.760 --> 00:44:03.840
And then I met my ex, who is from San Diego, and she introduced me to San Diego on uh My birthday one year, and I was like, We're moving to San Diego, whatever it takes.
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:06.880
Six months later, I got a call from the Hard Rock downtown San Diego.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:08.480
They're like, Hey, we got a call about you.
00:44:08.719 --> 00:44:11.199
How would you like to come be our GM for the department?
00:44:11.360 --> 00:44:12.880
I'm like, Are you in?
00:44:13.039 --> 00:44:13.920
She's like, Yep.
00:44:14.159 --> 00:44:16.079
And a month later we were out here.
00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:18.159
Um, life was life was good.
00:44:18.320 --> 00:44:21.119
Um, those are some of the best years of my life.
00:44:21.360 --> 00:44:30.880
And um, and it was lar in large part because of her and and having someone coming from a background where like she had a traumatizing upbringing as well.
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:33.519
And there was some sort of a trauma bond.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:45.519
Um, but it was also both of us having someone who believed in each other and was always there for each other, had each other's back, and and for the first time in my life, I was like, wow, I'm not gonna be abandoned.
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:48.400
I'm like this is gonna be great, like I'm so happy.
00:44:48.480 --> 00:44:59.360
And and we were a pretty well-known couple out here, especially in the industry, and and for a couple of years, a few years actually was I I always say like 90-95% of our relationship was really, really good.
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:00.480
Really good.
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:04.079
Like almost some of it, a lot of it great, but most of it really good.
00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:10.559
Um, we got engaged, we were pumped, we had a fully planned wedding, and fully planned.
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:11.679
Deposit and everything.
00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:14.239
All we had to do is send save the dates and invitations.
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:22.480
And um yeah, kind of leading like a year out from the wedding, like a few months after we fully planned it, things started to get a little rocky.
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:27.119
Um lifestyles just kind of didn't didn't mesh as well as they did.
00:45:27.280 --> 00:45:38.639
Uh we did couples counseling, and I thought things were on the up and up and things were on the mend and things were getting better, and um there were just a lot of lifestyle changes and a lot of drifting.
00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:49.119
And the more the more single I've been now going on almost four years, as this is July 2022, the more I've been able to analyze like the signs that I've sh should have seen her pulling away.
00:45:50.079 --> 00:45:51.440
What were the lifestyle changes?
00:45:51.519 --> 00:45:54.719
Like you were drinking less, and well, we didn't I didn't drink at all.
00:45:55.599 --> 00:46:02.800
Well, yeah, when when we were together, like I probably she's probably in our four and a half year relationship, she's seen me drunk maybe five times.
00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:04.800
She liked to drink.
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:06.559
She did, I will say that.
00:46:06.719 --> 00:46:08.880
Um, she liked to have her fun, but I was always there.
00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:12.719
I was always taking care of her, like she never she was never in a bad position.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:17.199
Um partying wasn't really a thing that got in the way of us or anything like that.
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:22.159
It's a lot of disagreements, a lot of misalignment on direction of life and what we both wanted.
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:30.480
Um I thought things were kind of mending in a better direction, and then um things slowly started to get a little cold.
00:46:30.639 --> 00:46:30.960
Yeah.
00:46:31.280 --> 00:46:32.159
I didn't really realize.
00:46:32.239 --> 00:46:38.000
I thought it was just kind of like us giving each other space to kind of like grow together while we're still have a fully planned wedding.
00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:41.119
She's still wearing an engagement ring, like all the things.
00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:50.159
And um we uh we had an argument, kind of, you know, we we we worked on the relationship for about four to five months.
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:54.159
What were like the misalignments in terms of what you both wanted in the future?
00:46:54.480 --> 00:47:01.760
Um, money started to get in the way because I was just starting my real estate career and she wanted me to go back to hospitality for part-time work.
00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:05.360
Uh, I was still making I was still covering 70% of our monthly bills.
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:09.360
So like we were okay bills-wise, but she wanted to spend money as it came in.
00:47:10.239 --> 00:47:11.840
Uh money played a part.
00:47:11.920 --> 00:47:14.239
Um, our lifestyles, like, she always wanted to be doing stuff.
00:47:14.320 --> 00:47:14.719
I didn't.
00:47:14.880 --> 00:47:22.800
I wanted to work on my career and I wanted to, you know, work on all the things in the future, and we didn't find the right blend at that point of our lives.
00:47:22.960 --> 00:47:25.840
As for the other four years of our relationship, we found the blend.
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:28.719
But this is where the blend started to splinter off.
00:47:29.039 --> 00:47:33.920
And um, doing things without each other started to happen, and I was very naive.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:37.840
I was like, we're engaged, we're gonna get we have a planned wedding, like we're gonna make it, we're fine.
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:45.280
And I was just very naive to that, and I I didn't I I didn't have the right follow-through that she deserved at that point.
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:56.880
Um and I definitely didn't lead the way a man should lead in a relationship at that point, and those are a couple things that kind of I think made her kind of pull back.
00:47:57.119 --> 00:48:01.519
And then um we got into couples counseling February of 2022.
00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:05.679
By April, we were at stage shows together, had a fun weekend, it was great.
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:07.599
We were back to like our old relationship.
00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:12.000
By May, things were rocky, June was kind of just like a hum-ho month.
00:48:12.079 --> 00:48:13.360
I told you memory, right?
00:48:13.519 --> 00:48:16.000
Blessing blessing and a curse.
00:48:16.079 --> 00:48:19.760
And then by 4th of July that year, we had a blow-up fight.
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:25.119
Um, and then we spent the next day at the beach with 15 of our friends, and we didn't talk all day.
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:35.440
And then a couple days later, I'm out showing clients and we're talking about the weekend, and she made plans without me, and I got upset over text, and she sent me a book breaking up with me and canceling our wedding.
00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:38.079
Um, while I'm out with clients.
00:48:38.880 --> 00:48:42.000
And my client looks at me and goes, Dude, you look like you just saw a ghost.
00:48:42.400 --> 00:48:44.159
I was like, I just got a weird text.
00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:45.119
I'm good.
00:48:45.360 --> 00:48:50.239
And then I get home that night and we spent three hours talking and crying, and everything was kind of a blur.
00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:53.920
Um, we'd lived together for another two, two and a half weeks before I moved out.
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:57.119
Um, but those two and a two two to two and a half weeks were very cold.
00:48:57.280 --> 00:48:58.159
We barely talked.
00:48:58.320 --> 00:48:59.599
We stayed in separate rooms.
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:01.360
Um she was out partying.
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:06.400
I was just sitting home crying every night, not knowing what was gonna happen with my life.
00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:13.840
And the way I explained it is I broke in a way that I didn't know men could break and human beings could break.
00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:20.480
And it was an experience that like I really hope people don't have to go through, but people are gonna go through it.
00:49:20.639 --> 00:49:27.599
Um it shook me to my core, I became a shell myself in the next year, year and a half, I was just uh I was just on autopilot.
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:31.679
All I did did the breakup bring up old wounds?
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:32.400
It did.
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:39.920
And um in that process the thing that hurt the most was like the one person who I counted on to not abandon me.
00:49:40.239 --> 00:49:42.400
Did what everyone's always done to me.
00:49:43.119 --> 00:49:46.239
And that just kind of reopened a lot of those old wounds.
00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:50.639
The only difference this time, which is the biggest difference, is I didn't resort to partying.
00:49:50.719 --> 00:49:53.840
And you know, I was past that alcoholic phase long gone.
00:49:54.079 --> 00:50:02.559
And um it it changed me in ways I didn't know, it it broke me in ways I didn't know, and it made me analyze all these things and just try to live life differently.
00:50:02.639 --> 00:50:06.159
And I was going to therapy three, four times a month for a year after that.
00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:14.239
And um, yeah, it was one of those things you look back at and you can never really you never really know why things are happening in the moment.
00:50:14.719 --> 00:50:19.039
And you always have to live life forwards, and then you can always look backwards and connect the dots.
00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:25.440
And for a good two good two years now, I've been at a point where it's like, ah, that's why it didn't work out.
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:27.840
Yeah.
00:50:28.159 --> 00:50:36.400
Did it change the kind of you know, man you wanted to become, or I should say, did it change the kind of woman or relationship that you look for now?
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:37.360
Both.
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:38.079
Both.
00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:41.840
So um I knew as a man there were things that I wasn't great at.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:49.119
And I knew as a man, and this is 30, 31 years old, I knew as a man there were a lot of things I had to fix and work on.
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.280
And I went to work.
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:54.239
I went to work for two years after that.
00:50:54.400 --> 00:51:06.400
I spent three years overall in therapy, but the next year and a half to two years, it was just all intentional work about like what I could improve on as a person and as a man, and how I can bring a better man of myself to the next relationship.
00:51:06.559 --> 00:51:11.760
And here I am almost four years later, still single, but that's because of my standards and my boundaries now.
00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:14.239
I've tried dating.
00:51:14.320 --> 00:51:19.840
Um, I think we've all tried dating, and we all know what dating in 2026 is like, especially in your mid-30s.
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.320
Um but yet it allows me to see red so red flags very quickly.
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:38.800
It allows me to now be a better judgment of character, and it allows me to identify like I don't want to use the word caliber of woman, because that's not really fair to women to kind of use that word, but yeah, the kind of energy and personality and lifestyle of a woman that I do or don't want to.
00:51:39.119 --> 00:51:39.760
Yeah.
00:51:40.480 --> 00:51:40.880
Wow.
00:51:41.039 --> 00:51:53.840
Again, like another amazing journey of just you know, thinking it's the end of the world and thinking that yeah, break I like the way you said like breaking in a way, a huge inner break.
00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:58.559
I had a similar experience at 30 where I just that was a breaking point.
00:51:58.719 --> 00:52:02.159
It was a turning point, but now I'm like, what an angel, what a gift.
00:52:02.320 --> 00:52:11.760
Like he was an angel in my life, the catalyst of the inner path and the real work and you know, deeper connection to God.
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:17.840
And so it's, you know, it's it ends up being for you, but it's just hard to see it in that moment.
00:52:17.920 --> 00:52:37.599
And I think these stories personally, I used to really hold on to these podcasts and hearing people's stories about breakups or addiction or weight, whatever it is that you're navigating, and hear those heroes' journey stories to know that yeah, in the end, you it all works, it all makes sense.
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:43.599
And if it doesn't make sense yet, it ain't the end of that learning lesson in the curriculum of Earth School.
00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:45.360
It always ends up working out.
00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:52.000
And listen, I we've in the f almost four years, she's now married with a kid.
00:52:52.320 --> 00:52:52.960
No way.
00:52:53.599 --> 00:52:55.039
I remember exactly what she looked like.
00:52:55.599 --> 00:53:01.039
Listen, I think uh you know, kind of going back to what you said, is there's definitely a blessing in everything.
00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:13.840
And like with my then the actual book I'm working on where it's it's very it's very in-depth on like the breaking called the path to peace, it's it's being able to identify all the good that came from the bad.
00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:17.760
And yeah, so much greatness came from that relationship.
00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:19.679
I'm in San Diego because of her.
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:22.880
I'm in I'm he I'm in SoCal, I'm in San Diego because of her.
00:53:23.039 --> 00:53:26.320
The real estate team that I've been on since I got into real estate is because of her.
00:53:26.559 --> 00:53:27.119
Wow, yeah.
00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:32.960
There are a lot of things about my life that are because of her, and that that relationship provided, right?
00:53:33.039 --> 00:53:45.119
So like so much good came from it, and we've spoken once in the four years we've been split, and that was that was on our supposed to be wedding day where she written me a new one after I just showed her some love.
00:53:45.360 --> 00:53:48.159
Um I was like, I'll never reach out to you ever again.
00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:52.639
Um, but yeah, you know, it's one of those things where I I went, I cut her off cold turkey.
00:53:52.880 --> 00:53:56.159
I we never had any communication after I left, after I moved out.
00:53:56.320 --> 00:54:03.920
And um, it was one of those things where it's like your best friend became a stranger overnight, and you don't know how to handle like the breakup of a friendship, too.
00:54:04.159 --> 00:54:19.840
And you don't have that person that used to always be there for you for four and a half years, and it's like for me, I had I surround myself with amazing people that have helped that growth, but for a good two years when I was mentally and emotionally still struggling, I it was hard to cope and kind of grow through that.
00:54:20.159 --> 00:54:24.320
But what helped me is understanding all the good that came from that.
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:27.519
And recently somebody asked me, like, hey, what's your word of the day today?
00:54:27.599 --> 00:54:30.400
They were interviewing me at like this event, and I was like, gratitude.
00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:42.159
And and the reason why I think gratitude's always my favorite word is because I look at all the bad things that have happened to me in life, and I'm more grateful for those than the good stuff because of all the growth that came from it.
00:54:43.039 --> 00:54:50.000
I mean, and now you're a personal growth and development coach, and like you said, it's a got certified G Chase program.
00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:55.599
So I mean, it sounds like you really turned your own journey into a way to help support other people.
00:54:55.920 --> 00:54:58.480
What made you want to start coaching other people?
00:54:58.639 --> 00:55:01.840
And what kind of women or men do you support men only?
00:55:02.159 --> 00:55:04.960
Both and what kind of men and women do you support?
00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:06.000
Uh great question.
00:55:06.079 --> 00:55:11.679
Well, uh, you know, a couple years ago, um it was actually my therapist's idea.
00:55:11.920 --> 00:55:25.119
She um, so a lot of stuff that I was going through with therapy, just trying to learn and grow, and all these things that were kind of changing in my life and all this different knowledge and wisdom I was gaining and how I was feeling, I would start to share some of those things on social media.
00:55:26.079 --> 00:55:30.079
Some of it was simple as like things you should or should not do after a breakup.
00:55:30.239 --> 00:55:38.400
Like it was just kind of just giving out like advice for relationships, breakup, um, mindset, mentality, um, addiction, stuff like that, right?
00:55:38.559 --> 00:55:39.519
Health and fitness.
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:43.920
And I had a couple of posts on TikTok and Instagram kind of like pop off.
00:55:44.239 --> 00:55:52.320
And I would talk about like those things with my therapist, and she's like, hey, like the way you do speak about these things, like there could be something there for you.
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:53.840
Like, have you ever considered coaching?
00:55:54.079 --> 00:56:01.519
I was like, Well, I've been in leadership roles for 90% of my career, like my adulthood, right?
00:56:01.599 --> 00:56:14.159
So dating back from Vegas, running the hard rock here and in real estate, I've been in leadership roles and and class of OT, something like that.
00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:17.599
But I've always felt gravitated towards like I want to make a difference.
00:56:17.840 --> 00:56:20.480
And everyone says, I want to change the world, I want to make a difference.
00:56:20.639 --> 00:56:28.159
But then I laid my hat on if I can just make one person per day feel positively impacted, I was like, that'd be really cool.
00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:37.360
And then I started to look into programs of like how can I get coaching certified and how can I do things the right way and and not just post I'm a life coach on online and stuff like that.
00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:45.039
So um last summer I made an investment after talking to a couple of my mentors that are pretty high wealth individuals.
00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:47.760
They're like, hey, it's something you should pursue.
00:56:47.840 --> 00:56:54.800
And and I had my one main mentor told me, he's like, Hey, I think you should pursue it because you're one of the only people that would actually follow through with it.
00:56:55.039 --> 00:56:57.119
And that's when I was like, Yeah, I gotta do this.
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:16.559
So July of 2025, so last year, I started my six-month program journey of you know, roughly 150 plus hours and and all this online stuff where you're you learn how to actually structurally like help a client navigate towards certain things and a lot of tools and tips where you can actually learn how to help people improve, right?
00:57:16.880 --> 00:57:33.440
Um it was a different kind of approach because Jay's is more so on like the spiritual route, like um in terms of like uh you don't really guide clients, it's more so about like helping them understand their goals, and it's coming from the mindset that everybody has the wisdom within themselves to get to where they want to be.
00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:34.639
There's just roadblocks.
00:57:34.800 --> 00:57:38.000
And as a coach, your job is to remove those roadblocks to help them improve.
00:57:38.239 --> 00:57:45.840
Um for myself, when it comes to like mentorship and guidance and what I've been through, I have a lot of life experience that could lend a hand to that component.
00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:47.280
So it's kind of blending the two.
00:57:47.440 --> 00:57:56.960
And I went on this journey where it's like, man, like the amount of messages I get on Instagram and TikTok daily to the day of hey, like I had this message from a girl a couple weeks ago.
00:57:57.039 --> 00:57:59.679
She said, Hey, um, you probably won't read this.
00:58:00.159 --> 00:58:01.199
In my request, right?
00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:03.119
She's you probably I read through them all the time.
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:11.440
You probably won't get this, but I want you to know that your post for the last several months has helped me understand how I want to raise my three boys to be a man like you.
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:13.840
And I get messages like that all the time.
00:58:14.079 --> 00:58:14.400
Yeah.
00:58:14.719 --> 00:58:22.320
And that's where like the stuff that I'm putting out and what I'm trying to do for the world is working, and even if it's just the one person like that.
00:58:22.480 --> 00:58:26.079
Um, so I went through the certification process, I got certified at the end of the year.
00:58:26.159 --> 00:58:28.400
I I have a I have three or four clients right now.
00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:31.840
I do ultimately want to make it a large-scale business.
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:36.079
And when I say business, I I want to help as many people as I can.
00:58:36.239 --> 00:58:44.400
Um, from a capacity of being in a full-time real estate career and and stuff like that, it's a little bit difficult, and I want to have the right appropriated time to people.
00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:50.159
Helping one woman going through divorce right now and figuring out life after divorce and her own identity and purpose.
00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:52.960
She found me from my breakup content years ago.
00:58:53.119 --> 00:59:15.119
Uh, there's one guy who's a 23-year-old family man, he's married, about to have a baby, and juggling the weight of the entire family of 40 people and and helping him navigate like the the male component to that, and working with a couple people through like their own addiction processes in terms of like how to not think about certain things and how to put their goals first and find purpose in life.
00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:25.199
So those things at the end of the day, it's for me, it's the most fulfilling thing for me in my life to this day, at this point now, is the impact that I have on the people around me and the impact that I can make on other people.
00:59:25.519 --> 00:59:26.320
Yeah, I love that.
00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:29.679
Coaching is amazing, and um I'm so glad you stepped into it.
00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:39.599
Because again, I I think when we are embodied in the teachings and the learnings because we've actually lived it, just makes it so much better.
00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:42.639
Okay, and your book.
00:59:43.119 --> 00:59:50.000
So tell us about the book that you wrote, The 30-minute morning, which is a routine book, right?
00:59:50.079 --> 00:59:54.320
So, how did that book come into play and what is it about?
00:59:54.559 --> 01:00:02.400
Yeah, so the 30-minute morning, it's uh it's a cool little kind of creative tool that and this kind of goes back towards it goes back to my breakup.
01:00:02.559 --> 01:00:16.800
When I moved out of the apartment that we had together and moved in with a buddy of mine, I knew that the only way for me to not focus on that stuff was to be a little bit more disciplined and with a routine of like what I need to be doing every day to just move forward.
01:00:17.039 --> 01:00:23.679
And it started with there were two things I had to do every single morning that I've done every single morning for almost four years now.
01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:26.800
Very first thing I do is make my bed your first win of the day.
01:00:27.039 --> 01:00:27.679
Always.
01:00:27.920 --> 01:00:36.000
For literally, for four almost four years now, my bed has been made within minutes of waking up since August 4th of 2022.
01:00:36.239 --> 01:00:37.519
Um crazy.
01:00:37.679 --> 01:00:38.400
Sorry, July.
01:00:40.079 --> 01:00:42.400
Um, make my bed and pray.
01:00:42.800 --> 01:00:50.639
And the pray was because I really wanted to get back some level of faith to not rely just on myself and have some higher power to kind of help.
01:00:50.719 --> 01:01:01.760
And and I found my way back to God and and um and I think there's a a higher purpose that kind of helps with healing and stuff like that, and it just helped make me feel very whole.
01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:07.599
Um the prayer part is not a part of the 30-minute morning because I know it's not for everybody, but it's for me.
01:01:08.000 --> 01:01:16.719
Um, but what I also started to implement with every single morning routine for me was okay, now I want to add five to ten minutes of reading, a different book every morning, or a book every morning.
01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:20.000
And then I was like, okay, now I want to add in a journal entry every single morning.
01:01:20.239 --> 01:01:25.119
Okay, now I want to add in a little bit of breath work and meditation every single morning, and so on and so forth.
01:01:25.280 --> 01:01:29.280
And then I've been doing the same routine every single day for almost four years.
01:01:29.519 --> 01:01:38.400
And this after going through the Jay Shetty like platform and program and certification, I was like, damn, I'm I'm actually very I'm a very disciplined person.
01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:41.119
And a lot of people lack discipline.
01:01:41.519 --> 01:01:45.199
A lot of people are always seeking out tools to be more disciplined in what they do.
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:51.679
And um, you know, the the easiest way to set up your day is to have a very routine and disciplined morning.
01:01:51.840 --> 01:01:56.400
The first 30 to 60 minutes of your day are the most important because it sets up the rest of the day.
01:01:56.480 --> 01:01:58.559
Um, so I created a 30-minute morning.
01:01:58.639 --> 01:02:04.079
Um, it took me about three-ish months to kind of really craft it in a way that made sense.
01:02:04.239 --> 01:02:06.480
It first started out as a six-month program.
01:02:06.639 --> 01:02:08.480
Uh, like it was a 250-page book.
01:02:08.559 --> 01:02:09.679
I was like, this is too much.
01:02:09.760 --> 01:02:24.880
Um, and then I narrowed it down to just a simple 30-minute morning uh for a 90-day challenge to kind of help you build the habits that'll help you grow in your life, and just focus on four pillars every morning that'll really kind of help you separate your life from who you are now to where you want to go and what you want your goals to be.
01:02:25.039 --> 01:02:28.480
And it's your momentum every single morning, which starts with the window making your bed.
01:02:28.800 --> 01:02:34.960
It's your mission where you're you're going like with the 30-minute morning journal, it talks about your goals for the day.
01:02:35.119 --> 01:02:40.639
There's your mindset of you need to start every single day with the right frame of mindset, or you already lost.
01:02:41.039 --> 01:02:46.239
Um and then the fourth one is so so we got mission, movement, mindset, and momentum.
01:02:46.400 --> 01:02:48.480
So there's a little bit of stression that comes into play.
01:02:48.559 --> 01:02:56.239
Like I get out on my balcony where I do a little bit of body movement just to wake up my body, and I get all that done in 30 minutes, and then I hit the gym.
01:02:56.480 --> 01:02:58.400
And um it's been a great journey.
01:02:58.480 --> 01:03:01.360
I launched it on New Year's Eve um of all days.
01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:04.639
I just I I was like screw it full send into the new year.
01:03:04.800 --> 01:03:06.000
Um, and it's been great.
01:03:06.079 --> 01:03:06.800
It's been fun.
01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:09.599
I've had people from Australia reach out about it.
01:03:09.760 --> 01:03:19.039
I have this lady who coaches in Europe who's giving it to her clients, and it's been something where it's it's great for myself or other people, and it's something that hopefully will be long-lasting.
01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:20.800
Amazing.
01:03:21.440 --> 01:03:23.920
And then a little quick note on the book you're writing now.
01:03:24.239 --> 01:03:25.760
Yeah, the Path of Peace.
01:03:25.920 --> 01:03:39.039
So um, yeah, so I started working on that post-breakup, like like six or some some months later because what I would start to do is I would journal my thoughts on my phone and my feelings.
01:03:39.280 --> 01:03:43.280
And what I saw as I would read through these is the pattern of my growth.
01:03:43.519 --> 01:03:48.719
Um, and I started to analyze like the steps of my growth process of healing and evolving.
01:03:48.880 --> 01:03:58.559
Um, and I wanted to kind of create something where I know people, and this can this isn't just with a breakout, it's with traumatizing events throughout your life because there is a path to get back to healing.
01:03:58.960 --> 01:04:10.639
And I think as long as there's a guide and a roadmap to help people identify what their path is to get to a healed version of themselves, that's what I'm working on for for that next book, and we'll see where that one goes.
01:04:11.199 --> 01:04:11.760
I love that.
01:04:11.840 --> 01:04:12.559
I'm so excited.
01:04:12.639 --> 01:04:22.000
This is just such a beautiful story, and I think, yeah, just a reminder for so many people that like your upbringing doesn't shape you, the things that have happened doesn't shape you.
01:04:22.239 --> 01:04:25.920
Um it's I mean, it shapes you, but it doesn't have to define you.
01:04:26.159 --> 01:04:43.679
I just wanted to say last question is for someone listening who feels like the odds are just completely against them, like they can't win, they can't catch a break, that feeling you know, well, you know, maybe looking at other people, other families, other paths, and just thinking like they have it easier than me.
01:04:44.000 --> 01:04:45.599
What would you say to them?
01:04:46.320 --> 01:04:47.599
So there's a couple things.
01:04:47.760 --> 01:04:56.159
Um, but at the end of the day, it's it it really doesn't matter what's happened to you or what you've gone through or what you're going through, it matters how you respond.
01:04:56.400 --> 01:04:58.000
And everybody has a choice to make.
01:04:58.159 --> 01:05:02.320
And I said earlier, the the villain and the hero both have the same starting point.
01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:03.840
The difference is the path that they chose.
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:13.760
But but still at that at the on the other point too is um when it comes to like your circumstances are not predicated based off like who you're going to become.
01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:17.199
It may have been based off where you come from, but it's not gonna define you, right?
01:05:17.280 --> 01:05:21.840
So and the way I look at my past is your your past is used as a tool to guide you to the future.
01:05:22.079 --> 01:05:24.400
It's not something that's gonna define you for who you are.
01:05:24.559 --> 01:05:27.199
And if it does define who you are, you're letting it do that.
01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:31.840
And at the end of the day, it's you have the power to change the the story and direction you want to go.
01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:36.079
And it comes down to the decisions that you make and the actions that you take, not the circumstances that you're in.
01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:36.800
I love this.
01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:42.960
I hope this is an inspiration to anyone who's feeling that way, that feeling of like, man, they just have it easier.
01:05:43.119 --> 01:05:46.000
I just, you know, I can't catch a break, I can't win.
01:05:46.159 --> 01:05:49.920
And maybe you too can be plot class president, guys.
01:05:50.639 --> 01:05:54.559
If you are young listening, you too can be class president.
01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:56.000
Thank you so much for coming on.
01:05:56.079 --> 01:05:57.599
Where can the people find you?
01:05:58.079 --> 01:06:08.159
Uh people can find me on Instagram at Lewis underscore Pizzano, uh, TikTok Lewis underscore Pizzano underscore, and YouTube, official Lewis Pizzano.
01:06:09.199 --> 01:06:09.679
Amazing.
01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:25.679
And as always, if you are dealing with mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and not sure what is next, what is best for you, please set up a consultation and I'm happy to connect you to practitioners, coaches, guides, healers, shamans, retreats, doctors, you name it.
01:06:25.840 --> 01:06:28.480
I got you always at your conscious kind of scary.
