SPEAKER_01: 0:04

Are you ready to break free from hesitation, self-doubt, and isolation? Do you want to lead with confidence, build powerful connections, and live boldly? I'm Corey Baum, and I'm here to share the most impactful strategies and mindsets that I've learned through coaching, leadership, and real-world experience. Together we'll forge unshakable confidence, master social dynamics, and create a life rooted in purpose, brotherhood, and bold action. Inside, you'll get the tools and insights to become the strongest, most connected version of yourself. Let's dive in. Alright, welcome back to the Evolve Men podcast, where we break down what it truly means to lead yourself, face your demons, and evolve into the man that you're meant to be. Today's episode is for every man who's ever lost his mission, his identity, or his fire, and wondered how to find his way back. My guest, Coach Rob Wheeler, knows that road better than most. He's a Navy veteran, a former federal police officer who hit rock bottom after losing his sense of purpose and direction. But instead, instead of staying staying stuck, he fought his way back, rebuilding himself through fitness, discipline, and mindset. He's now the founder of Battle Fitted, a movement dedicated to helping men turn pain into progress, and the host of the Battle Harder podcast, where he challenges men to rise, rebuild, and lead themselves with strength. So in this conversation, we're going to talk about what it really means to rebuild your life from the ashes, how to use adversity as fuel, and why discipline always beats motivation. And also how brotherhood becomes the foundation for lasting change. So if you've ever felt lost, directionless, or like the man in the mirror isn't the man that you're meant meant to be, then this episode's for you. Let's dive in. Hey, Robert, how's it going, man?

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

Awesome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate uh giving me the time to speak.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

Absolutely. Well, hey, man, let's just dive right into it. Can you uh can you take us back to the the moment that everything really started to unravel for you? Or what did that what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00: 2:21

I mean, do we have time? Because that's a period, that's a period of of years. And no, after I got out of the military, I lost my sense of purpose. And due to things that happened to me in the military, some physical abuse, injuries, the mental turmoil that comes with being in the military, I was just constantly in a very, very dark place, very negative, very angry, didn't love myself, didn't really know what was going to happen next in my life, kind of lost that fire, that purpose, so to speak. And, you know, as a man, when we lose purpose, that's a very scary thing because we need a mission, we need to be driven, we need a goal or something to obtain. And a lot of times, you know, you lose a job, you lose a marriage, somebody in your life dies or passes away, and you just don't feel like you can keep going on. And a lot of times we just kind of operate in that, you know, robotic kind of, I'm just here. I'm just living, but I'm not really living, right? I like to say uh thrive, don't just survive, right? And a lot of times as men, we get to that place where it's just automatic robotic, just survive, survive, survive, survive, survive. And then something happens where you just have some sort of break.

SPEAKER_01: 3:47

Yeah. Was there a particular turning point for you when you just when you just said like, hey man, like that you weren't gonna go down this way?

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Yeah, I mean, you know, the first thing I'll tell the audience, if you guys don't know, I have PTSD, I have major depressive disorder, and I have anxiety. Uh, this is from the military, this is from being a police officer, and this is from childhood trauma and other issues that have arose in my life. And after the loss of a marriage, after 18 years, and meeting somebody else and getting in a relationship with them and ended up marrying them and realizing that not only do I not want to get divorced a second time and try to have a third, fourth, fifth life like most police officers and military members have, I really cared for this woman and adored her and cherished her, and I wanted to be the man she deserved. She came from relationships that were broken, like how I kind of treated my wife and my behavior towards her uh with anger issues, and and thank God, no physical abuse or no anything crazy, but I mean there was emotional abuse, there was me breaking things, throwing things, throwing what I call adult temper tantrums. And so I meet another woman that's come from trauma and being triggered and things that happened to her in her life from the way men treated her. And I love her so much, and I was like, man, she needs that knight in shining armor, she needs that prince charming, she needs that man to stand up for her and give her everything that she deserves. So that was the essential turning point where I was like, man, I gotta do something else because what I'm currently doing is not working.

SPEAKER_01: 5:30

It kind of sounds like you and I felt the same way myself at times, but it kind of sounds like you found a new sense of purpose.

SPEAKER_00: 5:39

Yeah, so you know, definitely it's hard when you know, I'm 47 and you get out of the military, you have a long-standing career as a police officer, you leave that, and after all this time spent, you know, serving your country, serving your community, trying to do, I guess, in your mind what you think is being a good person, being a good man, and nothing came out of it. Like, I don't have a retirement, I don't, you know, all I have is mental health issues, all I have is, and I'm not saying that like my career choice didn't make everything bad and it wasn't the most horrible experience ever, but it did cause a lot of problems and issues in my life where something had to change. And as I started to bring myself out of the darkness, primarily through using fitness as a form of therapy, uh, going to therapy, getting on uh meds for the PTSD, and practicing gratitude, journaling, trying to increase my knowledge and my faith, a combination of everything to be a total man or a complete man, you have to do a little bit of everything. There's not just one thing that works. And what works for me may not work from somebody for somebody listening to this.

SPEAKER_01: 7:04

Yeah. So you mentioned a couple of things there, gratitude, fitness. What were there some other steps in addition to those that were kind of what were some of the first sort of things that got you started in rebuilding yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 7:20

So the first thing that I would say is probably the most most important thing, and this is something that my wife actually taught me. She used to say to me all the time, I love you, but I love myself more. And that used to make me like it used to make me angry. Like, I'm like, how could you say this? I'm your husband, like I love you. And I didn't realize that during that time, I didn't love myself. I didn't like who I was, I didn't like how I felt, I didn't like how I was behaving, I didn't like that I was getting angry every second of every minute of every day. So that essentially learning to love yourself. So any man that's struggling, you have to figure out how to love yourself first. If you can't do that, it doesn't matter what you're going to do. It's not going to work. You have to find that thing inside whatever it is that, like, if you you're strong and you're like, man, I'm strong and I like that, or I'm a good person. Like, you have to find those traits, those habits, those things that internally you're like, I like what I'm doing. And if you don't like what you're doing, obviously you have to change that. So you can learn to love yourself before you can fix the issues that you're dealing with.

SPEAKER_01: 8:33

Yeah, I think it's so true. You know, it kind of makes me think of the whole idea on airplanes, right? Putting your mask on first before you Yeah, help yourself before you help others. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, that there's a saying, I think it's like you don't have to save somebody by lighting yourself on fire, sort of thing, in order to keep them warm. That's what it is. But there's really kind of, you know, it's more than just like, oh yeah, that that makes perfect sense. But if you're not whole in yourself, I I feel at least in my experience as well, that you're not able to that that support and that love and all that is not coming, it's coming from a place of like need, right? Or people pleasing or something like that, not from a genuine place of of security.

SPEAKER_00: 9:20

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

Yeah. So what do you think is a man, you know, we've talked a little bit about like purpose, and that's something as well that I think that men need a purpose in their life, right? Whether it's family, you know, career, some of these other sort of things, but I think it can definitely leave a man searching, right? If maybe they've never never had that previously, you know, leading up to it, or they've kind of lost it. So what do you think? Um, I mean, obviously we know your example, but are there other the others that you've seen in your coaching as as far as what what happens to men when they no longer have that that clear mission or structure in their life?

SPEAKER_00: 10:07

Yeah, I mean, you know, life happens, and a lot of times, let's say a man he takes a job for whatever reason, it could be good pay, or he thinks he's gonna like it, and then you know, he realizes five years in or eight years in or ten years in, I hate this. I hate my job, but he knows he needs a paycheck. And a lot of times what a man will do because he knows he needs a paycheck and he needs to provide for his family, he'll just suck it up and be miserable. But that misery will just compound and compound and compound, and then you go home and you're miserable and you don't know how to you know regulate your emotions, and instead of calming down or breathing or thinking of something else before you go in the house, you go in the house and the wife's like, hey, babe, and you're like, leave me alone. And then it's like, Well, I'm making dinner, and you're like, Why didn't you do the dishes? Or and it's not that that man is evil or or has hate in his heart towards his wife, he's just miserable. He's miserable because that's not what he wants to do with his life, you know. Maybe he wanted to be an actor and he just he never did anything to go on that route, or maybe his dreams of being a professional athlete got squashed, or maybe he had parents or family that said, You can't do this, you can't do that. So he took you know that easy route. And I think a lot of times that, or you know, you get married, you have kids, and you start putting things aside for yourself because you have to take care of your family. And then before you know it, like once again, time passes and you never did that thing for yourself that you said you were gonna do. So, once again, that's why self-love can give you that purpose, that mission. If if you want to do something, go do it. Like, you can have a job, like if you want to be an actor, per se, you can have a normal nine to five job and you can go take acting classes and you can apply for acting gigs and you can do improv. Like, there's a way you can get to your dream without having to just say, okay, well, I'm gonna quit my job and tomorrow I'm gonna go try to be an actor. Like, you can do both. You just have to have that discipline, that time management to get to where it is you need to be. So you can say, okay, I'm quitting this job, I'm done, and now I'm happy because I'm at this place in my life doing this thing that I wanted to, this thing that I love.

SPEAKER_01: 12:23

Yeah. That's that's so important. You know, one of the things I heard you saying in that is that I I think it's easy for us to I I think of a situation like showing up to a job that you hate every day, right? Where showing up, I I can see where somebody, and and this has actually has been the case myself at times in my life, where it's it's almost one of those like every day is just a confirmation of your own self-worth or lack thereof, right? Every time you show back up the next day or whatever it is, you're just revalidating for yourself that like, no, what I how I feel doesn't matter, what I think doesn't matter, that I keep doing what it is that I don't want to do because I don't matter.

SPEAKER_00: 13:08

And, you know, look what happens. You you go into a job miserable. So now you're getting passed up for promotions because you don't have, you know, the grit or the grind to try to put out exceptional work and and you know, compete with those top employees. You don't want to talk to anybody, you don't make friends at work. Everybody, you know, everybody's miserable. Uh it's just a very bad thing, and it ends to this downward spiral where you either continue to do that till you die or you have a health, you know, issue, or something happens where you blow up and you're like, I'm done, like, and you make things worse. It's just we have one life and time is very short. I wish time went on forever, but it doesn't. So why are you gonna continue to do things that don't make you happy?

SPEAKER_01: 13:54

Yeah. You know, so you you mentioned kind of an example, right, where if somebody wanted to be an actor, right? They would, they would maybe take improv classes or do something like that. But I'm I I I kind of feel like for some guys that that might not always, at least in the very beginning, that that's not always very apparent, right? They feel kind of whether it's golden handcuffs or locked into the situation, right? That like, hey, this is I don't have the legal, you know, maybe it's debt, the relationship life, kids, whatever it is, like, hey man, I gotta do this. I don't really have another option. I don't get an opportunity to like stop and go back to school and do whatever it is. Where so how would you suggest for a man that is starting to recognize that he's unhappy in his life, he's got a lack of purpose or a mission or things like that. What are some sort of things that he could do, you know, that maybe aren't like a total reboot and an overhaul, but can start to create that sense of like discipline and self-worth?

SPEAKER_00: 14:56

I mean, I would think support, first of all, is huge if they have a partner or a best friend or that person they can lean on, even if they can lean on their parents, have those honest conversations. Like, you know, we we talk about being a complete man and what it means to be manly. And, you know, men need to learn that we can be vulnerable, right? That we can have emotions, we can feel sad, we can feel angry, like it's okay. And so having those honest conversations, you know, like I told you backstage, when I needed to leave the police department after four months because of mental health, I had two choices. I could have sucked it up and just been miserable. And and who knows what would have happened at work if I wasn't paying attention while I was on patrol or I didn't search somebody properly, like it could have been a hazard to my health, to the people I work with because I was miserable. I hated it, I didn't want to be there. So having that honest conversation with my wife, like and not worrying about how she's gonna think about it and not worrying about, well, where's the income gonna come from, or where are we gonna get our health care? No, we have to deal with that situation at hand. And then after we talk about it, then we can sit down at the dinner table and say, okay, what's the next steps? What are we gonna do now? And work as a team. So I think support is step one, but sometimes you just have to like and not grind your face off, but sometimes you just you have to do what you have to do to be successful. And so in 2018, when I decided to leave law enforcement to build my gym, and it sucked, but I would literally work a night shift at the police department, 12 hour shift. I would go home, shower, open my gym at 6 a.m., run classes all the way till about 11 a.m. Go home, sleep till the evening time, go back to the gym, open up the gym for night classes, then drive back to work and do a night, another night shift. And I did that for two years straight. And it wasn't fun and it wasn't easy, and it was like very difficult. And it even showed in my work when my chief of police sat me down, and he's like, Look, you can either be a gym owner or a police officer, but you can't do both. So pick one. And at that point, I was like, okay, I had enough time, skin in the game to know, okay, I can run this business by myself. I don't need that income as a police officer. And I did that, and I opened the gym. So that sacrifice, sometimes you you have to make that sacrifice. Sometimes that is the only option. But the journey and that sacrifice, that's what's going to make you tougher. That's what's going to make you a better man, a better husband, a better father, because you're putting that time into yourself to do something for the greater good.

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

Yeah. It it sounds like taking that that discipline in order to keep showing up and keep doing it, to do the do the hard work and go through it. It's it's not, and I've found this for myself as well that it's it's really easy to to read about being a gym, a gym owner, right? To do all of these other sort of things, but nothing compares to actually showing up and opening the gym and working a double shift, you know, and doing those things that you have to end up doing. It's it's in the uncomfortable things that the growth really happens. And that's, I feel like, only actualized through through discipline.

SPEAKER_00: 18:14

Yeah, I mean, the whole mantra behind Battlefitted is turning pain into progress. That's our tagline. And when I say pain into progress, I don't mean pain all the time, like physical pain, but that uncomfortable pain, right? There's a a military saying, and I don't know if you've ever heard it, but it's called choose your heart, right? So choose your hard, you can have, I'll take for instance, let's say you're severely overweight, you're morbidly obese. You can choose the heart of continuing to stuff your face full of crap and not being able to move and getting sick and dying early, or you can choose the hard of being uncomfortable and going for a walk and starting to eat healthy and starting to do those things that are going to propel you into a different direction. So you have to look at the hard. Life is hard, but choose the hard that's going to help you get to where you want to go no matter how hard it is.

SPEAKER_01: 19:05

So with that in mind, you know, and I think it kind of touches on my my next question, but how do you what what do you feel the differences are between like discipline and motivation? I hear a lot of people are always, I feel like discipline is is is kind of the the thing where the attention is given now versus the the motivation to go and do it. What is that like what is it the differences between the the two mean for you?

SPEAKER_00: 19:32

Well, if I lived my life on motivation, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I wouldn't be here, especially as a man with mental health issues. And you know, I'll tell your your audience that while I'm in a much better place, my mental health issues didn't go away, and they're not going to go away. And the things I do, they're not a cure all, but they help me stack those wins, and I just try to be 1% better every day, and those wins compound over time, giving me more bad days than good. And the thing with motivation, it's it's a false sense of hope, right? Like sometimes I don't get good sleep, sometimes I may have a fight with the wife, sometimes I may have some bad news or something bad that's gonna automatically demotivate me. And I'll give you a I guess an example. So I signed up for jujitsu. I've been saying for years that I want to do jujitsu, but I'm also very shy when it comes to like meeting new people and going out and getting out. I hate getting out of my comfort zone. I'm a homebody. I'd rather just be in home, either playing video games, spending time with the wife, you know, watching a movie. I don't like to get out much. And so I signed up for jujitsu, and I didn't go for like the first month. And I have a uh I'm signed up through like a military veteran program, and I have a mentor. My mentor calls me and he's like, dude, where have you been? And before I could even make like any excuse, he's like, Get your ass to the to the gym. I want to see you. Like, we need to meet. And today, I told him, I was like, he's like, Will you be there? I was like, Yes, I will be there. And I'm I am a man of my word. So he texted me yesterday night and he's like, Are you coming? I'm like, Yep. Sure enough, I made sure I got up at 6 a.m. I put on my my uh jujitsu uniform. I went there, I did my first day of jujitsu, and guess what? It was fine. The the people in the gym were nice, they were happy I was there. Nobody beat the crap out of me on my first day. Like, it was a beautiful thing. So that discipline is what's going to beat motivation every time. Consistency, making those healthy habits, doing that thing that you're gonna do over and over and over again, it becomes automatic. Like, I went from being almost 300 pounds when I got out of the Navy to being in pretty good shape and stronger than most 20-year-olds now in society. I love the gym. If I miss a workout, I'm angry, I'm frustrated because of discipline. Discipline made me enjoy this thing, discipline makes me enjoy doing my podcast, discipline makes me enjoy, it's just so much easier and so much better to try to err on discipline, and it's just doing that thing over and over and over and over and over again until it becomes normal. And one thing that as men we need to have, it's non-negotiables. If you can have non-negotiables in your life, like for me with jujitsu, I do jujitsu three times a week now, and then I strength strength train three times a week, and that's a non-negotiable for me. I make sure that first thing in the morning I'm getting up, I'm either going to the gym or I'm going to jujitsu. And when it's done, it's done, and then I can move on to other things. But those are non-negotiable that my wife knows that it doesn't matter unless we're going on vacation. If Saturday morning Rob has to go to the gym, Saturday morning Rob has to go to the gym. And then we can go to the beach, or then we can go see a movie, or then, but that's got to take place first because that's what's going to help me stay calm. That's what's going to help me feel good. That's what's going to help me like de-stress before I have to go out into the world and do whatever it is I have to do.

SPEAKER_01: 23:24

Yeah, I think that there's such a sense of, for me at least, grati like gratification having completed something that I knew that I wanted to do. Right. So you talk about like these things that are challenging or whatever it might be. One of the things I get up and do every day, I laugh about is I get up and I get in the coal plunge. And it's the one thing that I found that no matter what, I've yet to be excited about getting in the cold plunge. It sucks, yes. And so, but that's the one thing that no matter what happens, that I can get up and I can get in the cold plunge, that I have an opportunity to face something that I don't want to do. But on the other side of that, like I'm stoked about it, right? Because yes, once again, I've shown myself that like I can do hard things and that I'm worth doing it.

SPEAKER_00: 24:12

So what go ahead, you know, the funny thing is, like even still, I shy away from doing some hard things, but you realize once you do the hard thing, you're like, man, this wasn't that bad. And it's the same thing with dealing with trauma or adversity or whatever you're going through, that darkness. If you can go into that dark, like if I knew what I know now as far as what was going to help me get out of this darkness, I would have faced that fear a long time ago. And that's the thing. We get so scared and so locked up on the thing that's hurting us that we don't realize if we would just attack that stuff head on and slay that dragon, so to speak, that we're gonna be better for it and we're gonna come out on the other end because we're very I think we don't give ourselves, especially as men, I don't think we give ourselves enough credit where credit's due sometimes.

SPEAKER_01: 25:04

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00: 25:06

Just about you know, being resilient and being tough and being strong, like all the traits that I guess a man should have. Most of us, we have all those traits and we can be all those things. We just get locked up in the fear of whether whether it's society or someone that tells you you can't behave this way or act this way, or what we see on TV or news, we let everybody else dictate how we're gonna act. And you shouldn't let anybody else dictate how you're gonna act. You should act how you want to act.

SPEAKER_01: 25:41

Yeah. Definitely. Well, and that's a tough one, I feel like, when especially when everybody's got such a sense of what masculinity or manhood is supposed to look like. And I think it can be really tough when you know the story that you're telling yourself is that you're not one of those, right? Whatever society it is that's kind of telling you, then you're not manly enough or you're not showing up, that you're not that sort of person. So yeah. How does that how does that work out for you in your relationship? Having those sort of non-negotiables. I know that's something that I've heard from the men that I've talked to in the past that that's challenging, right? Because it's I could see how it's it would be easy to be seen as an inconvenience. You know, you mentioned like going on vacation, whatever, like, hey, he's gotta get up and he's gonna he's gotta do his workout. Like, how does that go?

SPEAKER_00: 26:36

I I mean, if it's fine. My wife knows that fitness is my passion. You know, being on like even now, I could be downstairs watching TV with her right now, but we're talking, we're doing this podcast because she knows that this is the sacrifice of time that I have to make with her in order to speak my message, in order to be successful, in order to I'm on this goal. I want men to be strong, I want men to be tough, I want men to have those non-negotiables. And I think it's all how you communicate. You know, obviously, communication is is huge. You have to explain. I have to sit there and you know, I have to tell my wife before she got used to it, this is why I go to the gym. It's good for my mental. If I look good, I feel good. You know, we know that the older you get, the more muscle mass you have, the survivability rate goes up. So I need to do this for my future. Like you can't just say to your partner, I'm gonna go do this and that's it. No, you have to be able to communicate that and explain that to them. And as a man, if you have a partner or a family or or whatever, you have to lead and you have to lead by example. And there was a long time, for instance, where my wife didn't want to work out. And I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna chastise her, I'm not going to berate her, I'm not gonna force her to do anything she doesn't want to do. But by leading by example and her seeing me have muscles and her seeing me be strong and her seeing me do all the things, she went started doing kickboxing a long time ago, and then she stuck with it, and then she started losing weight, and then she's like, man, I like this. And so we have to have those non-negotiables, not only for ourselves, because we deserve that time to ourselves, whatever that may look like, whether it's, hey, I need uh an hour video game break, or I need to go to the gym for you know 30 minutes, or I'm gonna go for a walk, or I'm gonna go hang with the fellas, you know, providing you're not doing anything crazy that's going to ruin a relationship. I think that's very fair, even like if my wife like I want to go have dinner with my friend or go see a movie with her, go for it, have that time, like because that's important to have that complete relationship and to be happy and be healthy. And we have that because, yeah, it takes two of us, but I lead and I lead by example. And I tell my sons like, have integrity and you know, live an honorable life and help people when they need help, and and trying to build this society again of I don't think it's like an old school way of thinking. I think a man can be a very powerful thing in today's society, and I think the barrier to be a complete man is very low at this point that it doesn't it doesn't take much. But at the same time, with all this stuff I talk about about being tough and strong and a protector and a provider and a presider, I still have emotions. I still have bad days. I have times where, you know, if something reminds me of my mom who passed in 2018, I may cry. You know, if if something happens or my mental health issues, if I'm having a bad day, I'm not afraid to be vulnerable to my wife because she's not gonna say, I'm a was. Or why are you acting like a girl? And I think that's another part of the equation, is that partner has to realize that for all the tough stuff that men do go through, we carry a lot of weight and burden and things on our shoulders. And if we have that breakdown, we need that support system to say, my wife was crazy. And some days, like when I have those bad mental health days, she'll say, How can I help you? How can I help you? Like that's the most beautiful thing in a world where my ex-wife would say, I don't know how to help you, or I can't help you. And there's nothing she can do for me because I have to go through this stuff. I have to process this stuff. But just hearing that, I know that she has my back and she's not chastising me and she's not berating me for showing some emotion.

SPEAKER_01: 30:51

Yeah, you know, I I feel like masculinity is gone from such it's like a pendulum swing, right? It's gone from what maybe some people call like a toxic masculinity to the other side of things, right? Where I I feel like to a to a certain extent there's no masculinity. Right. And so trying to find as that pendulum swings back in the other direction, finding sort of a homeostasis, right, or a middle ground in between there, that there is strength and leadership, right? And a lot of the things that you talked about, but we're also able to share authentically, right? I mean, because it's not that these emotions go go away, like they're they're still there and they're being pent up in anger and frustration and alcohol and porn and all of these different things that that we we need to be able to share them as well. And and I think I would say that some of the greatest leaders of all time that you you have to be able to embody all of these traits and sort of qualities to really lead your family or your team or whatever it is to the the best of their capability.

SPEAKER_00: 32:01

Yeah, definitely. I mean, becoming a complete man or a complete human, once again, you you can't just do one thing. Like once I I put a lot of things into the fitness arena, but if you're overweight, just lifting weights, you're not gonna lose the weight. You still have to eat healthy. Like you have to figure out the amount of steps you have to take to get to where you want to go, and you have to take that totality of everything and do a little bit of everything to get where you want to be. So a man, like that middle ground, like you said, I think a man or feel a man can be tough, can be strong when he needs to, can be protective when he needs to, but can also shed a tear when he needs to, can also be happy and shed those tears when he sees his daughter graduate or get married or whatever. And that, in my definition, makes you more of a man to be able to know it's about emotional regulation. And a lot of times, men and especially young men in today's society, they don't know how to emotionally regulate because nobody teaches this. You know, I yeah, when I grew up, my father grew up in an era where what he says went, he didn't show emotion, he didn't say I love you. If he was mad, he'd yell, scream, throw his hand through walls, do everything out of the realm of who I am and what I've become because nobody taught him. His parents didn't teach him. And so at some point, you have to decide that I'm gonna break this generational curse and I'm not gonna go down that same rabbit hole because it's not gonna benefit me. It's not gonna, I don't want to take these same traits into my children, and they take those same traits into their children. I just had a conversation with my son today, a matter of fact. I get him every other weekend, holidays, most summers, have him as much as I can. I'm having him this weekend, and I'm talking to him about his grades and stuff, and he has issues with his mom all the time. When he's with me, I have no problems. My wife has no problems with him. But when he's with his mom, it's just back talk. He doesn't do what she says. And I told him today, I'm like, look, son, like when your mom asks you to do something, it's yes ma'am or yes mom, and you just do it because if you keep yelling at your mom and arguing with her, if someday you decide to get married, you're gonna do the same things to your wife, and that is not proper, and that's not the way things are gonna work, and you're not gonna be happy. So this behavior that you're doing needs to stop, and that's the thing. Like we grow up with this trauma or this turmoil, or you know, mommy and daddy didn't love us, and we don't change, we just take that into the next part of our life, and that's what's happening in society with a lot of men and a lot of of young men.

SPEAKER_01: 34:45

Yeah, definitely. Well, bringing this back to the the physical side of things, how do you feel like you know, that sense of that training and the the the strength training, how do you feel like that that shapes a man's mindset and identity? I I think that there's something to the the act the of physical training to to really I don't know to to embody you know for for men to be able to embody that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 35:21

So, you know, there's a lot of studies or a lot of guys that I follow that I look up to, and they talk about the so the power of of fitness or being in some sort of shape, you don't have to be big and bulky and and super muscular, but just not being obese, not looking sloppy, looking like you take care of yourself, that helps is gonna help you in an interview. If two guys go in, if I go in and I have a nice pressed suit and my gut's not hanging over my pants, and I look very professional and I'm standing upright and I'm carrying myself with a nice strong demeanor versus some guy that is, you know, maybe severely overweight, didn't take time to iron his pants. I'm gonna get that job if our qualifications are the same, because they're gonna say, oh man, he puts time into himself, so he's gonna put time here in this job. He actually cares. So being a man, like one for that, two, you know, from a protective standpoint, now there's always a chance that something crazy can happen in society, uh and you you don't know, but I can tell you that I've never been in a fight because of how I carry myself, and not because I'm out in town looking crazy, but I have some muscle. I freaking carry myself in a certain way. I'm very alert and observant of my surroundings, and so fitness, besides helping with mental health. Now, obviously, it's not a cure-all, but there's just something beautiful for me when I go in the gym. It's like everything kind of just goes closed into just me. And I'm not worried about the person next to me, I'm not worried about the rest of the people in the gym. I'm just focused on my lifting, focused on my breathing, focused on controlling the weight, doing the reps. And it's kind of almost euphoric because you just I let my mind wander when I'm in the gym. I don't think about work, like that's my time, right? So even if you don't want to like work out, or I would say at least like find some time, either when you get up or before you go to bed, sit in silence. Let your mind wander. Like it's a very calming thing when you don't have to think about, you know, what am I having for dinner? Do I have to turn this report in while I'm at work? Do the kids have you know activities that I have to take them to? That time spent in the gym, you can just be free, so to speak. So I think fitness, besides obviously longevity, being healthy, preventing mental health issues, preventing all kinds of disease, being able to run around with your kids when you're older, play with your grandkids when you're older, like the health is wealth. Like it doesn't matter. And when I say fitness, I don't mean just lifting heavy weights. I mean whether you go for a walk, you like swimming, you like being outdoors, biking, running, crossfit, boxing, and whatever you love. If you can find an activity you love, and that's like the key to start in your fitness journey, find something that you can stick with, and then just do that over and over and over again. As long as it works, keep doing that. And man, the improvements of your life, it it's it's insane. I think the problem is, you know, most people today we're in this area, era of I want everything now. You know, you I can get delivered, I can get dang near anything that I want delivered, you know, within an hour, whether it's from Best Buy or Walmart or the grocery store or the drugstore. We just want everything immediately. And that's the problem, you know, fitness, being healthy, being a complete man. I'm still learning, you know, myself to this day, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And we have to get out of that thought pattern of I need this now, I need this house now, this job now, this thing now, because that's where we start to mess up as we're trying to do that goal setting and get to where we want to ultimately be.

SPEAKER_01: 39:33

Yeah, you know, I think it I think that have taking out so many of those sort of things of having to work hard for things, having to wait for them, having to earn them, that it's definitely taking away from that sense of like ownership and pride, right? You talked about like ironing your clothes before going to the interview and and things like that, that they seem like ridiculous things, but it's uh you know, having a pride in yourself, having pride in your relationship and who you are and how you're how you carry yourself through the world. If somebody can just give you that feeling, you know, or automatically without having to work for it, then you lose it, I feel like, in so many other sort of areas. You know, and it's almost like a a cascading sort of effect. And I've I've found the same thing. It's it's something for myself that I've really been trying to dig into more lately to to wait longer, right? To I mean everything, right? And as I say this, like I I have my groceries delivered, right? I order on Amazon, all of these sort of things, but really starting to reconsider how often I respond to text messages, whether or not I listen to a podcaster music during my workout in the morning, right? But really trying to be thoughtful about my presence and and because it's so easy, yeah, is kind of what I'm trying to bring this back around to is it's so easy to buy that next thing or because it can show up immediately, right? And and I can instead of having to not do something, you know, instead of having to plan your meals or whatever it might be, like that's the hard shit. But it's those sort of things in the end that make it worthwhile, that create that sense of worth in yourself, right? I feel like it's like this never-ending loop of you know, false gratification if you're not actually stopping to do those things. And and at this point, I feel like it's it's getting almost to the point that it's it's a like a tragedy out there that people don't know how to work hard for things. Yeah, and as we talked about a little bit earlier about the cold plunge, like just doing hard things in general, doing things that are uncomfortable, and that might mean anything. It could be fitness, it could be having the conversation, it could be going out for a run, right? But there is there's certain chemicals that are released when you have to work for it.

SPEAKER_00: 42:24

And that's you know, that's another key part of being a complete man. You it doesn't matter what age you are, you should always be able to challenge yourself. You should find something, some sort of goal, and you should try accomplish that. So, for instance, at 47, I still lift pretty heavy, and I'm currently trying to get back up to over a 400-pound deadlift. And it hasn't been easy, but I I'm working at it and I'm trying to get there. I used to do a lot of Spartan races and mud runs. I'm trying to get picked for a veteran event to actually go trek to base camp at Mount Everest right now, like doing hard things to challenge myself because one, it helps you have that mental edge, but whether you win, lose, or draw, like you said, that there's that value in that journey of trying to complete something that you normally wouldn't just you know do every day.

SPEAKER_01: 43:28

Yeah. How so what are some sort of things that you would suggest? You know, we've talked about a few different things, but for somebody that's getting started on this sort of journey to break through, you know, for the guy that's maybe, again, just kind of recognizing where he's at in his life.

SPEAKER_00: 43:46

So typically what I see with men that I try to help get unstuck, that's why I teach on fitness mindset or discipline. They're usually 99% missing either one or all three of those key metrics, right? So I always look at the person's fitness first. I think fitness is the cornerstone for for everything. And most guys, not all, but most guys that are in pretty good shape or some kind of shape or have some sort of fitness nutrition routine dialed in, they're not stuck. So usually it's the dad that, you know, he didn't want to make dinner, so he drove through McDonald's or he ordered the pizza, or you know, put the kid on the tablet instead of spending time with them, like just that kind of drone, like I said, mentality, just that kind of I'm just going through life. Just I'm just living, like not really doing anything to get out of that. So I would say, you know, obviously look at your health and nutrition and your overall fitness first. Then we have to check our mindset. Words are powerful, right? I remember when I was in the darkness, so to speak, I would always say, F my life, I'd always say, I hate my life, it's a bad day, everything sucks, everything's horrible. Well, guess what? Every day, everything sucked, everything was horrible. But when I started waking up and I said, as silly as it was, today's gonna be a good day. Even if I had a bad day, it still wasn't as bad as those days that I said, My life sucks. So the mindset part to start getting out of that change and have that mindset shift, we have to do what we call reframe. And reframe is just taking statements like I can't to I can, I won't to I will. Like I used to say, and even though I love the gym, I used to say, Oh, I have to go to the gym. Now I say, man, I get to go to the gym. I have that opportunity. Some people can't go to a gym, some people can't walk, some people can't move. So you have to look at those small things, and that's where that gratitude comes in and goes, like, man, I I get to, I can lift weights, I'm strong, I have a decent car to drive wherever I want to go, I have money in my bank account, I have food in my refrigerator, those simple things. I think we get too stuck, and I'm very guilty of this, of just wanting all this stuff, right? We want the nice house, we want the nice cars, we want the awesome vacations, we want that, you know, supermodel or that actress, or we have this like very jacked up reality of what we think we want and what we need. And if we can go back down to a base level of, well, as long as I have food in my stomach, I have a person who loves me, I have a roof over my head, electricity, water, man, I'm doing good. And that's that reframing and just changing that mindset. So looking at your fitness first, the mindset, and then the discipline to just set up those healthy habits and be able to do that over and over and over and over again. And once again, it's not easy. I still have bad days. I still have depression, I still have anxiety, I still have PTSD, but I have more good days than bad. And once again, that's what it's all about is having those small wins. If people can try to be just one, it's crazy. 1%. 1% is nothing. 1% better every day. Do something to be 1% better every day. That compounds like interest, right? Like in your bank account. And over time, you're gonna stack those small wins to big wins, and you're gonna look back and be like, man, what an amazing life I have.

SPEAKER_01: 47:26

You know, one thing that I really appreciate about you and our our conversation today is is how supportive you are of where you're at on any given day, right? You said a couple of times throughout this that, you know, I still have bad days, I still have trauma that I'm dealing with and healing that I'm doing. It's not this like kill mentality, right? Where you're you're like, oh, it's gotta die like super hard, you know, that like, hey man, this is a real thing that both of these parts of me exist, right? The part that, you know, is having really awesome days, and there's still a part of me that's that's still growing and learning. And and it's not that that other from what it sounds like, it's not that you expect that that other part of you to die.

SPEAKER_00: 48:10

You have to take extreme ownership of your life, right? Two very, very name, two very famous Navy SEALs wrote a book called Extreme Ownership, and it it typically applies to you know boardrooms and executives, but you you have to take accountability for your actions. You you can't run away from your problems because they're just not gonna go away. So, yeah, I mean, I would love to say I'm not gonna have mental health issues, but you have to do you have to always continue evolving, right? So for me, I take medication for PTSD, and I know that if I'm off that medication and that medication gets out of my system, that's gonna bring back some of those darker days. So I have to make sure I stay on that medication. I have to make sure I'm refilling my prescription. I was having a hard time. I decided to go back to counseling again. And that's fine. I can leave counseling for a year or two years if I'm okay. But if I need it, I have to go back and do it. And I think that's a problem with men. If we think we have something wrong with us, we feel broken, we feel disgraceful, we feel dishonored, we feel we're not loved, we feel like we're just these we carry all this pride and all this duty and all this stuff inside of us. And if something's jacked up, that's where we push it down and we don't get help. But no, you have to do those, you have to find what works, and then you have to do it. And then if you're good and something comes back, then you go do it again. It just I think I got to a point in my life where I realized that life isn't as hard as we think. We make it a lot harder harder than it is.

SPEAKER_01: 49:55

Yeah. Yeah, I think that can that can happen. And and and I I think especially as men, that it's again kind of that narrative that we tell ourselves, right? That this is gonna be harder or that it has to be harder, that it can't be just as easy as going to therapy or you know, being vulnerable or sharing those things, that it's gotta be hard, it's gotta be painful, it's gotta be, I'm gonna lose a limb in doing this.

SPEAKER_00: 50:22

Yeah, we're our own worst enemy, right?

SPEAKER_01: 50:25

Yeah, what is your yeah, you know, I'm curious as we've talked about all of this, what has your relationship looked like along the way with other men and support and community and and this growth journey for you?

SPEAKER_00: 50:39

So that's something I'm currently working on because I realized as I'm getting older, we need friends though. We need men in our corner, we need men to hang with and talk to and be with. We're not meant to be solitary creatures. And having the right men on your side can help you scale your business, can help you get in better shape, can help you. So for me, like I said, that was joining jujitsu. It was another veteran who asked me to come to the gym, and he was telling me, hey, you know, a lot of people at the gym were they're all you know, former cops or they are cops or first response, like it's my community, and that they hang out a lot outside of the gym. So I was like, man, I I need friends. So, you know, and once again, when I was in the gym today, everybody was nice, everybody shook my hand, everybody, it was like the right place to be, you know. Not every gym is gonna be like that, but for me, I was like, man, this is cool. I I like this, I feel like they want me to be here. And then the other thing I did is there's a guy named Ryan Milkelson. He's another men's coach, he's been around for a long time. He has a podcast called Order of Man. Well, he has his own group called the Iron Council. So I joined the Iron Council a couple weeks ago, and it's on, you know, it's all online, but you get into a what they call a battle team with more like-minded men, they find, you know, the kind of people, your people, your tribe, and then they're there to support you and help you and help you grow. And we do Zoom meetings and we do check-ins, and I have a coach. Even as a coach, I need a coach, and I'm aware of that. And so I have two groups now currently in my corner that I'm trying to use to build back those relationships and have those relationships with men in our lives because going it alone is just not an option.

SPEAKER_01: 52:36

Yeah, I think it's all too important to have that community to lean on when times get tough. And and I feel like, you know, the thing is as men that I feel like we often feel that we're the only ones that are going through this, right? That we're the only ones struggling with it, that I'm the only one that has these thoughts. But in reality, right, there's probably a lot of the guys at your jujitsu gym, right, that are all showing up for that same sense of community and camaraderie, right? Maybe past military members or whatever it might be, that the the world is too big for us to be the only ones that are struggling with these sort of issues. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:15

Yeah, there's no point in suffering alone if you can suffer with a community and find like-minded people that understand what you're going through. And and that's the vulnerability part. You know, as men, a lot of times we don't want to share those things with other men because we are afraid we're gonna be seen as weak or we're gonna be judged, or how dare you be broken, or whatever. And a lot of us are. I mean, look at the way the world's going and society's going. Whether, you know, whatever side of the fence you lean on is scary times, and you need that support system. You need people that you can talk to, that you can trust, that you can be vulnerable with after you, you know, you get to know them, and they can give you those. It's always better to have an outside perspective, right? Like I know what's good for me, but if I have another man that's been through something similar, he's like, Well, I did this and this and this, and I try it, it might work. So, you know, having that different perspective is important.

SPEAKER_01: 54:12

Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, tell us a little bit about Battlefitted, your your brand, and what is it that inspired you to create it and and whatnot?

SPEAKER_00: 54:22

So Battlefitted, battlefitted.com is my website. You can find me anywhere on social media at Battlefitted. And originally I just kind of thought when I was creating this thing about like a knight and how a knight dons armor, and like how a soldier or a cop, all the warriors through history, they had a piece of gear, a piece of armor that they would wear to protect them. And me having this service mindset and being a former being in the military and being a police officer and wanting to protect people and and build men stronger, that's kind of what Battlefitted was born. It's me creating this armor, whether it's through my coaching, whether it's through the clothing, through the podcast, or if I'm doing keynote speaking to show men that we can be strong, we can be tough, and we can, you know, pretty much fight almost every battle that comes our way and have that warrior mentality, meaning that no matter how hard it gets, or how many times we get knocked back down, we're gonna, even if we have to crawl for a while, we're gonna find a way to get back up and get back in that fight.

SPEAKER_01: 55:35

Yeah, I love that, man. So looking back on your on your journey, right? From service to you know, maybe rock bottom to to leading men and what it is that you're doing, what what would you say that the biggest lesson that you've learned about yourself in that journey?

SPEAKER_00: 55:55

As stupid and silly as it sounds, just don't give up. Like, no matter like I I've had times where I've had a gun in my hand and I thought it was gonna be my last day. I've had times where I've contemplated drinking tons of pills and ending my life, and every time something, whether God, the universe, my own inner voice said don't do it. One more day. So all I can say is just one more day. No matter what you're going through, just give it one more day. And if that day doesn't go good, just give it one more day. And sometimes if you have to live day by day instead of you know trying to live weeks or months or years, live that day and leave live that day till you're full fullest until you can figure out that step or whatever it is you need to take to get out of that dark area. So, you know, we're very resilient, and I don't think we give ourselves enough. I don't give myself enough credit sometimes. So as silly and and cliche, you just you can't give up. You just have to keep going no matter what.

SPEAKER_01: 57:06

Yeah, absolutely. But hey man, I loved our our chat and the conversation. I think it's I think it's gonna serve a lot of men very well. What you know, you you mentioned a little bit about your website or whatnot. Do you want to what what what is the the website? Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00: 57:22

So battlefitted.com. That has my coaching, it has the clothing, it has the podcast. You can actually listen to my podcast from the website or literally anywhere in the social media universe at Battlefitted. Uh, I am more active on Instagram. So I am not when someone DMs me, as long as it's not anything crazy or psycho cuckoo bananas, I will answer you. So I answer all my DMs. I will talk to you. You don't have to hire me as your coach, but if you're going through something and you're just like, man, I need to talk to somebody, reach out and I will do my best to serve you or get you in the right direction because I literally want to see everybody and anybody win that wants to win.

SPEAKER_01: 58:10

I love that, man. I love that it's you that's responding, that it's you that no matter you know, whether it sounds like guys are coaching with you or whatever it is that you're willing to to step in and be, you know, maybe that's that next stepping stone for them on their journey. So all right, man. Well, hey, we'll wrap it up there and chat soon.

SPEAKER_00: 58:35

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 58:37

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