Philosophy for Life
Welcome to the Philosophy for Life podcast, hosted by Darron Brown, where we explore the profound questions and timeless wisdom that shape our existence. Join us on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration as we delve into the depths of philosophy, spirituality, ethics, and the human experience. Through thought-provoking discussions, engaging interviews, and insightful analysis, we seek to unravel the mysteries of life and uncover the underlying truths that guide us. Discover practical insights and philosophical perspectives that can enrich your daily life, challenge your perspectives, and inspire personal growth. Whether you're a curious seeker, a deep thinker, or simply someone passionate about understanding the complexities of our world, Philosophy for Life is your gateway to wisdom and enlightenment. Subscribe now and embark on a transformative quest to gain clarity, find purpose, and embrace the profound beauty of existence.
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Philosophy for Life
From Wall Street to Warrior Spirit with Rafa Kandi
What drives a successful Wall Street broker to trade in his tailored suit for a badge and a calling on the mean streets of Riviera Beach, Florida? Join us on "Philosophy for Life" as our guest, Rafa Kandi, recounts his incredible journey from a high-stakes financial career to law enforcement, where he worked tirelessly in narcotics and task forces. Despite his financial triumphs, Rafa found fulfillment in a different kind of challenge—one that led him to create a program for men, focusing on reigniting the warrior spirit and fostering brotherhood. His story is a testament to the unexpected paths that passion and purpose can chart.
Our conversation with Rafa is an exploration of the nuances of personal transformation and professional development. We navigate the highs and lows of transitioning from intense careers, highlighting the shared experiences of moving from Wall Street to the world of law enforcement. Rafa shares his insights on the relentless drive for success and the hunger for new challenges that have fueled his journey. We also touch on the motivations behind his book, "Redefining the 21st Century Man," which delves into themes of perseverance and a modern take on what it means to be successful.
In an age where masculinity and leadership are continually redefined, Rafa offers a fresh perspective by integrating traditional warrior cultures with contemporary life. Through our discussion, we emphasize the importance of self-awareness, discipline, and the courage to express emotions without succumbing to them. Rafa shares practical advice on how men can lead with integrity and strength, encouraging listeners to embrace personal growth and resilience. This episode offers a compelling narrative of how embracing one's true self can lead to a life filled with purpose and meaningful connections.
Hey, what's up guys? This is your host, deron Brown, and this is the podcast Philosophy for Life. I have Rafa Kandi with me. He is the host of the podcast man of War and he's also the author of Redefining the 21st Century man. Rafa, could you give yourself a short introduction?
Speaker 2:First of all, thank you for having me here. It's an honor. I love to speak to like-minded individuals and I think that's a big deal nowadays, especially when everybody is scattered all over the place. There's not that many like-minded people out there, so I appreciate you having me on. Well, basically, my story is a long one, so I'm going to condense it here.
Speaker 2:I started off my world of training in the martial arts over 40 years ago. I decided at a very young age to become a Wall Street broker. I took it as a challenge. Become a Wall Street broker. I took it as a challenge. I took it as something that I felt that I could be very, very good at, and I became a Wall Street broker in my early 20s. From there I took off. I mean, I worked so hard. This was the time in the early 90s. I mean, I worked so hard. This was the time in the early 90s early to late 90s where you would throw a dart to the Wall Street Journal and if it's a tech stock, it's going to go up. So I made a lot of money, built a great reputation, became a multimillion dollar producer, all things great, you know beautiful home, cars, the lifestyle it was during the time of Jordan Belfort, when, you know, the stock market was buzzing. I mean, that's where you want it to be.
Speaker 2:Then one day I sat down and really had a deep conversation with myself and I felt that, um, wall Street wasn't my purpose. I had always had this urge inside of me becoming a police officer, a narcotics cop. That was my, my, my goal to be when maybe working for the DEA or a SWAT team, and really that sense never went away. So I was recently married, about a year had my first child, literally just born. I sat down across from my wife and I said, hey, listen, I think I'm done with wall street and honestly, I, I, uh, I want to do something that has purpose, um, that I feel like I'm serving. The sense of servitude was boiling inside of me. So, uh, she looked at me and, uh, she said, what? And I go, I want to be a cop. And keep in mind, I was averaging about 650 to $700,000 a year in revenue, uh, excuse me in uh, commissions, which meant, you know, that's what that was my take home, um, and now it's probably close to about a million and a half.
Speaker 2:And if you compare the years in the 90s to now, and I decided to go to work for a police department, paying me $38,000 a year, one of the most violent cities in the United States the best thing I've ever done. Very difficult. What city was that? Riviera Beach, okay, in Florida. Very difficult. What city was that? Riviera Beach, okay, in Florida. And I'll tell you that at that time it was extremely violent. It still is.
Speaker 2:I mean, and I learned so much, though, so much. I was able to push myself to different levels. I worked vice narcotics, undercover, and then finally, I was selected to be part of the MADTAF multi-agency diversion task force which President Obama put together. And then I kept on moving into the DEA tactical diversion squad blue lightning task force, became SWAT member, hostage negotiator and then a police academy instructor for over 12 years. Member, hostage negotiator and then a police academy instructor for over 12 years, did so many, so many.
Speaker 2:I can't you know like I'm looking at it from every time I think about so many things which was incredible the knowledge and the. And there was one day in the police academy talking to um, you know a couple of guys and we were all sitting around. I'm saying what happened to the men in our society? What happened to them? What happened to the men in our society? What happened to them? What happened to the warrior spirit in a man? The next thing, you know, I put out a podcast, went to the new and noteworthy at that time, took off, decided to start a program for men, a rite of passage and a brotherhood, and well, never looked back. We took off, I retired three years ago, turned this company into Inc 5000 company, one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. Now we're in our seventh year and growing extremely fast and expanding all over the world. And I say all the glory to God and I'm humble to the point where I'm always absorbing. So that's pretty much my story.
Speaker 1:That's a hell of a story, man. You know, I actually worked in law enforcement for six years at the University of Utah. We have a security branch, we have a police branch, we basically have the same lieutenant sergeant et cetera. But when I did leave the police department, it was very difficult because the camaraderie that I had there and also the freedom I got a vehicle, I was able to do what I wanted to do. I didn't have to be bothered, but it was. I was stepping from. I've been an athlete my entire life, so I've been around.
Speaker 1:Most of the people who work in law enforcement are usually athletes or they're ex-military, you know. So the mindset is usually the same. But then once I stepped into, like you know, the regular world, it was a whole new experience for me and I missed that. I missed that camaraderie, because a lot of people are kind of like cliquish. Once you get into the workplace, what did you get when you, when you actually started working in law enforcement, like, what did you get? That you were missing within as a realist, as a wall street broker.
Speaker 2:Well, what I really wanted to do was put bad guys in jail, the guys that were selling drugs and doing carrying guns and killing people, and I felt like I needed that. That protector side of me really was coming out. I really needed to to help our communities and I guess it was the sense of servitude you know that I'm giving back to the community, that I'm actually at night when I put my head on the pillow I can say, man, I gave it my all and I made an impact in the community. It was a very low socioeconomic class in many areas of that city and I made some great relationships with mothers and young kids and, you know, just to see them come to me and say thank you for what you're doing, because you're, you know, the streets were full of gang members, were full of, you know, shoot ups and there were murders every day and, just to go back in time, it's just something that I felt in my heart that I needed to do.
Speaker 1:And then, while you were there because you were, how many years did you work in law enforcement? 18 and a half, so you're there for a while. So while you were there, like what kind of purpose? Like there's one, I'm pretty sure going into it, you had a certain belief of what it would be like, what you expected to do. And once you got into it, especially for a specific number of years, what did you like? What kept you in it for so long?
Speaker 2:Well, 18 and a half years is a long time, but I got to tell you there's guys out there that are doing, I don't know, 25, 30 years, so I'm a little peon in comparison to them. However, what kept me going was the ability to move forward and explore different avenues. The first two years, all I did as a rookie was go out there and hunt guys down with guns, and I won the Officer of the Year Award. And then, from there, I got promoted to Vice, which was narcotics undercover, and I worked there for about three and a half years.
Speaker 2:The next step was okay, well, there's a federal task force that the president at that time had initiated and it was a brand new task force. So they gave us an opportunity. If you were selected out of your department that you know, you would be part of it, and I was part of it. And the next thing you know, you know I was selected. And well, it was just an incredible experience for me because I kept on moving up the ladder. From there I went to DEA and I closed out my career, you know, working as a field trainer, field training officer and also in the hostage negotiation team. So it almost felt like I was moving to different parts and learning and experiencing. I'm a guy that loves to learn new things. I love it, I absorb myself into it. So I think it was the challenge of really going back and being part of these great units.
Speaker 1:I was telling a friend of mine yesterday that, although I work in a good field I'm a software engineer although I love my job, I love what I do, I feel like I'm dying inside. I feel like I'm sick, like something's missing. You know like I need. I need to expand. What were you going through when you were working as a Wall Street broker? Like what was going on with you internally that made you make that move.
Speaker 2:Well, man, when I walked in, one of my buddies said, hey, you need to come here. I walked in, I looked out the window as I'm walking into this office, walked in, I looked out the window as I'm walking into this office, there's Ferraris, mercedes, porsches, lamborghinis, and they're all parked outside. And I'm like damn. And I look around and these guys are all in their early twenties. There was an energy inside of this building and this was a huge office. And I walk over to the principal's office, the, there were the principal managing partners and there are two Italian guys sitting on a leather chairs. They come, come over here, sit down. I sat across from them and I never forget. I'm like what's going on here? And they're like listen, are you ready to make a million dollars? And I'm like, uh, yeah, but what? Am I going to have to sell my uh, sell myself, my soul to the devil? Am I going to have to do something? That is unethical, that's wrong, that's. They're like look behind you, look at those cars. Do you have what it takes? Do you have what it takes? I'm like, yeah, yeah, man, let's go. I got so fired up. I'm like watch me.
Speaker 2:As I wrote in my book, I said you know I'll be there, I'm going to make it. So what I didn't know was I had to work for a couple hundred bucks a week for a broker as a cold caller, working 10, 12 hour days and for three, three to four months until they released you to go take your test. Those were some nasty months because I was working my ass off and it was weighing on me until I finally pushed through. I learned how to close. It was a different way of doing things, man. These guys were high-pressured salesmen. If you were caught sitting down, the managers would come kick the chairs out from under you. They would say stand up, we pitch standing up.
Speaker 2:I loved it because I've learned so much from it, so much. I took so much from that, from that type of training, um, and but a lot of people may see it as abusive, as too hard Uh, I'm like nah that. That. That training changed my life. So, um, I felt like I had it in me to take it to the next level and to actually go out there and make a million dollars. That was just the thing. I was young, I didn't know much about it and I achieved that goal relatively quick, within a year and change after being a broker, I was able to hit those numbers, so it was more of a challenge and objectives and goals that kept me very hungry.
Speaker 1:Your book, book um redefining the 21st century man. Let's, let's get into that like what is it? What is it about and why did you write this book?
Speaker 2:boy, uh, took me two years and three months to write. When I first sat down to write that book, I was well, um, I said it was just. I wanted to write about the way that I thought of the world as a man, as a warrior, and I wanted to not just talk about it. I wanted to give men an opportunity to study different strategies, different vehicles and disciplines as I aligned them in that book. Vehicles and disciplines as I aligned them in that book Disciplines of war, disciplines to live by to be a better man, a stronger husband, visionary, a guy that would step up come hell or high water, right. So the bottom line, when everything is said and done, that book is all about how a man should carry himself in the 21st century.
Speaker 2:I don't differentiate a man from a warrior in that book. In my book, a masculine, in my book, a masculine man is a warrior man, a man of war, um, and I wanted men to read that book. My goal was to help them see that maybe they've lost some of that fighting spirit and that book would reignite it, but not just from a sense of the physical aspect, but also from the mental aspect. We talk about pragmatic leadership. We talk about. You know the mind and the body connection to be just a good man with sincerity of heart, a man who is forging through obstacles, a man who is also, who can love but at the same time can become a savage right. That balance bridging the gap between the old warrior cultures and today's world. That's really where the entirety of the book is about. It's bringing these warrior cultures to life in our DNAs.
Speaker 1:So men are missing the warrior spirit, and you'd think that it's so funny. I was thinking to myself about relationships the past few days and a lot of the issues that men have within relationships, especially if you have a woman that's in love with you, that's chosen you. When you do have issues in a relationship, a lot of times it's just a matter of you, being a man, putting your foot down, learning how to set boundaries, sticking to those boundaries, knowing how to be alone. You know, just having some level, some degree of self-respect. I feel like myself included, men carry a degree of fear when they enter relationships. I think a lot of the complaining you get on the Internet is associated with fear when it comes to women you know, oh, you can say that again Uh, you know, fear is a life destroyer for men.
Speaker 2:It is a um, uh, it really sets men back, you know, in in a way that, um, they don't even realize it, because they start living with this fear and it becomes their crutch. So they accept it, and that's something that, you know, we try to work on. We try to make sure that, look, if a man is scared of something and he is fearful going into it, he needs to face that right. So relationships are critical. There's, I say, nowadays, with statistics the closest statistics that I have is 2021.
Speaker 2:Divorces were up about 22% from 10 years prior. Right now, literally almost 64% of marriages get divorced and out of those 64% of marriages and they split up, over 59% of them, it's because the woman leaves. Okay, the woman leaves the man, and typically the woman's going to leave the man because the man has abdicated his role as the king of the household. He's abdicated his role as a leader, and when that happens, you have disaster. I mean, there's no way you can tell me, as a man, that if you're not leading your wife, your kids, your home, that you're going to have a good relationship. It's just not going to happen. So I believe that one of the main reasons why men have fallen so greatly in the eyes of women nowadays is because they've abdicated their rightly position as the king of their household.
Speaker 1:I think you're 100% correct. There's all these books, there's all these methods online that give you good advice on how to handle specific situations within a relationship. But it doesn't help if it's not embodied. It's not a part of who you are, it's not part of your essence and until you really go through, once you really go through some shit, you really have a hard time. That's when you really learn. You learn through the pain and that pain. If you really use it the right way, that's what helps you return and become more acquainted with the manly side of yourself. So once you have these experiences, you know how to protect your relationship.
Speaker 1:Protecting your relationship isn't always providing money being able to defend your woman against another man. Sometimes you have to defend your woman against herself. Women will destroy their relationship if you let them destroy it. Very true, very true. You have to stick to it. You have to be willing to walk away and set those boundaries. She has to know you're serious. A lot of men, a lot of men, have so much of a fear of loss that they allow their boundaries to be crossed and ultimately, that's what leads to the end of that relationship.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I look at more than anything and I've done a lot of research on this is the fact that women now do not admire their husbands anymore. They don't respect them to that level. I believe that for a relationship to really really cherish right, to grow and to really get to that next level, a woman needs to admire a man, her husband. And we don't see that. We don't see, as a matter of fact, we see a very clear disengagement between what a woman thinks of her husband to uh, you know how they're feeling. It's just not not a good connect right there. Um, I think that men have lost the edge, um, and have given nothing to for women to admire at all. They lie, they cheat, they don't follow through on their word, they're soft, they don't do anything. That's going to make a woman say, okay, hey, this man right here, yeah, I admire him.
Speaker 2:And then there's also a huge part of it that men fail to lead across all fronts, not just in their household, the difference between a woman going to you, going with you to a party or a networking event or anywhere really, and then all of a sudden men, as her husband, other men come up to you and you know, shake your hand and say, hey, man, you know, and there's a connect there and they start seeing you and talking to you in a way that's so respectful. A woman admires that. She wants her man to be capable of leading other men and there's a gravitational pull there, because when your woman sees that you are a leader and that other men admire you and respect you, huh, I mean that that is, that is the highest level. But we're missing that. People don't want to talk about that. People rather talk about you know, doing the dishes 50, 50, picking up the kids 50-50, all the bullshit that in reality in relationships is meaningless. It is not what's going to drive a marriage to the next level and keep that fire ignited.
Speaker 1:I hear you, I hear you Do you regarding relationships, do you feel like traditional relationships can still flourish in the untraditional society?
Speaker 2:I think that they can flourish even more. And let me elaborate on that when you have two people that connect and are like-minded and they can see that the outside world is pulling in a different direction, it makes what they have even that much more valuable. So it's almost like yeah, I have traditional values. Back in the day, traditional values was what everybody did. Now it's like extinct, right, who has traditional values? So I believe that it just increases the value of what you and your wife or your girlfriend or fiance may have.
Speaker 1:It gives the relationship purpose. You have all these forces fighting against you. Let's pivot back to manhood. I want to know what struggles do you think that most men are dealing with today? What's the biggest struggle that you see?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we talked about one before. I think they're fearful. I think there's their fear of the unknown, their fear of taking the next step. So men tend to be procrastinators, they tend to leave things for tomorrow and they don't really accomplish anything tomorrow. Coached in excess of 10,000 men and this was back in 2023, I can tell you without a doubt that the most difficult thing for a man is to see other men succeed, gain, status, grow, while they're still, or they are still standing in place a year, two years, three years, four years, five years, and they haven't grown. They're still doing the same thing, they're still in the same job. They haven't made any progression, they haven't made any self-personal development. It's just like Johnny is the same Johnny from five years ago. When somebody sees me and they say, hey, man, you're like the same guy from like, no, no, I'm not the same guy. I'm not the same guy that I was six months ago, right? So we need to shift that mindset because men to answer your question men are fearful of the unknown and what they have to put in to do something. They're also fearful of committing to something. They're also fearful of doing something and then be held accountable for those actions, accountable for those actions. So, in essence, fear is a true destroyer for men in every aspect of the war, of the word, literally across the board.
Speaker 2:Now I also think men struggle with being true to themselves, really getting to know who they are and where they are in their life. So we live in this world where men or I would say not just men, but people in general lie to themselves every day to make themselves feel good. And I get it that we, as most psychologists will tell you, we have a stop and really evaluate who you are and what you're about. Until a man could really see himself in the mirror and size himself up, that man is not going to grow true identity who they are. They paint a picture and they think that they're this great thing but in reality they're not. They're weak, soft, even sometimes pathetic, cowardly. They stab people in the back and they're constantly making all these excuses of why they did it to kind of make themselves feel better. If men could get out of that rut and deal with their fears and start seeing who they are, we would have a completely different world that we live in.
Speaker 1:I have a lot more righteous men. That's a really difficult journey to go on, you know, because I'm on my own journey and I was thinking to myself like man. I feel like a part of me. It was just missing and I've been gradually crawling back to my old self, my younger self, when I was young. I have way more now. I have way more than most of the people, most of my family members. You know I have a home. You know I have a great job, I'm living well and most people that I grew up around are similar to the people that you were kind of describing, that in Miami, where you worked around you know gangs and all that stuff and on the outside surface things look good.
Speaker 1:But I know for a fact like I don't feel as great or as just like sure of myself as I did when I was about 14 years old. I know for a fact. I'm just wondering, like even for myself, there's people that I knew. Growing up, you know, in those environments you meet some guys that are pretty tough on the exterior big, muscular, tatted up, you know, hotheaded, you know. And then growing up, seeing that, you know, you see that that's what a man is, you know, but then a lot of those guys me being the man now and growing up a lot of those guys they had a fear of being different, a fear of expanding, a fear of going for their real goals, because they are afraid of judgment. You know, and I see that now as an adult when I'm wondering is like what are some steps, what are some things that men can do to actually start to get to know themselves a little bit better?
Speaker 2:Well, I like first and foremost to. One of the things that I do is, you know, I, for me, personally, I think just taking time to yourself. As a matter of fact, I was in a meeting today and I talked about this and you know it was about they were asking me about resetting. How does a man reset himself and start figuring out who he is? Well, I'll tell you what you know. I have a library in my home. I have a couple of big, nice, big leather chairs. When it's time for me to reset and really kind of go back and dial it in to get a good, true evaluation, what I do is I put big headphones on, I tell my wife and my kids listen, I'm going into my library no distractions please for two hours. I lock myself in there and I sit down and just let it go and I start thinking about how far I've come, all of the challenges that I have overcome. More importantly, I really start focusing and dialing in on all the things that I have learned, everything that I do in my life. Okay, is this right here?
Speaker 2:I journal. I carry a journal with me all the time. I write thoughts down, I write things down that I have learned things that maybe I have repeated over and over again, not really realizing that I'm doing the same mistake or the same good things, whatever it may be. So I sit down there with my journal, I write, I take the time to decompress and let my mind just settle in. To decompress and let my mind just settle in.
Speaker 2:Typically after two hours of that I start kind of going back exactly to who I am, what my purpose is. Because, listen, we all talk about purpose. We all talk about this innate drive in us to do something great. But the reality is and we all know this that purpose is not easily found. So when you start getting to know yourself a little bit more and you start really kind of commanding your mind in a way that is connected to what you're doing, how you're feeling, and you start really getting to know yourself, you start easily start finding out things that maybe you never even thought of before.
Speaker 2:Things start coming to you in a way that are powerful, that are dynamic, and you could change those things. And you know, I can tell you from my experience, I never thought in a million years that I would be running a company like this. You know, 10 years ago, I never thought that. I never thought that this would be my purpose, my fire to lead men and to build an organization like this and to build a culture and travel all over the world. No, so for me, getting to know myself is critical in every aspect, and I do it often. Maybe once every month, every 45 days, I have a true reset and a true sit down with myself.
Speaker 1:Once you become acquainted with yourself, you know who you are. One of the results of that is loving yourself better. So once you go through that, like how does it, how does knowing and loving yourself impact your life and relationships?
Speaker 2:All right. So I think that loving yourself it's kind of taken out of context. Many times A man is not so much about loving himself. I really believe that a man is about satisfaction, that he is satisfied and is in a deep way of his purpose, that he has meaning, that he has intent, that he has drive, something that keeps that fire burning inside of him when it comes to connecting with that sense of purpose and that sense of being and to keep that going. You may call it love, you may call it whatever, but to keep that going it takes a hell of a lot of time and effort and focus.
Speaker 2:And being aware of that, like right now on this podcast here, you know we're two gentlemen having great conversation or men miss this moment completely is that they're in somewhere else, they're thinking about other things. You know, being a podcast host, and I'll tell you right now. You're looking at the clock, you're seeing where you are, you're looking at the audio levels, you're looking at the this, you're looking at the that. Remember, I've done 260 episodes, okay. So I know how everything works.
Speaker 2:Like I'm I, you know you're like here and you're like there, so, but you're not present enough sometimes, right as men, to really get to know yourself, you must be able to what we call state of mind mushing.
Speaker 2:You must be able to accomplish this little thing called being present and being there at the moment, like really being there, understanding what the other person is saying, understanding the dialogue. If you're speaking, what are you saying? Are you speaking from the heart? Are you saying what is true to you, or are you just saying it out of anger? Are you saying it out of a disruption within your soul? So, getting to know who you are and, as you stated, loving yourself or finding that purpose within, is being able to command your thoughts, being able to command just the certain sense of how you feel and, more importantly, being able to be present at the current moment, like being present. There is nothing more powerful than for a man to have an experience and know, from point A to point Z, exactly what he experienced, not like, oh man, I was on my phone, I was here, I was there. Then you have a clean and clear disconnect. So loving yourself, finding yourself and continuing to have that sense takes a tremendous amount of work.
Speaker 1:I love that man. I'm loving this conversation because I'm like, as I'm not saying I'm putting on my business out there, but I'm definitely going through a transitional phase where I definitely had to reset. You know what are, I guess, when it comes to when you go on this journey of knowing yourself, ultimately and you stay in alignment with that, you're going to eventually become a better version of yourself. What are some principles that you could apply to somebody becoming the best version of themselves? Like, what are some things that men must do in order to become the best version of themselves?
Speaker 2:Well, we talk about the best version of yourself, right? That's just thrown around out there by every personal development guru, you know. Be the best version of yourself, be the best of the version. What does that really mean? Right, the reality is that I like to focus more on Kaizen, which Kaizen is a term that means constant improvement, little steps, right, you're moving forward one step at a time and you're making these micro adjustments and these micro improvements. But, more importantly, you are growing today and you're better today than you were yesterday and tomorrow. That you're going to be, that you are today, right, I mean, that's the difference. You're moving, really. You're growing.
Speaker 2:Now, to answer your question directly how do you really reinvent yourself, right? How do we continue growing? How do we? You know, what are the keys to this growth? Well, first and foremost, I'm going to say this self-discipline is critical, okay, self-discipline, the ability to you know, impose will on yourself and act on it.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's a simple, simple mathematic formula, meaning that you could think it all you want, but if you're not doing it, you're not integrating and embedding anything in your life, right? Because you can read a hundred books and you're not integrating If you're not, if you're not using anything in your life and it's not going to help you. Right, you could manifest it, embody it, whatever it may be, but the bottom line is that if you are not Taking these words and using them Right, doesn't matter. So, self-discipline, you're telling yourself. Boom, all right, wake up earlier in the morning. That's the first thing I tell everybody. Ok, figure out what time do you wake up. If you, if the sun is beating you in the morning, you're waking up way too late. Okay, you should beat the sun every morning.
Speaker 2:I like to do something called the warrior's hour, that first hour when you wake up. That belongs to you and God. That's it. Okay, nobody else is in that one hour. My wife knows, my kids know, do not wake me up. I wake up at 4.30. Okay, and from 4.30 to 5, around 5.45 ish, that is my time. Do my meditation. I go, you know, usually take a cold shower. I'm not a big plunge guy because I believe a cold shower is that much more impactful. And I do meditation. That I've been doing, for it's not a fad, I've been doing that for over 30 years. I studied Zen, buddhism for a long time and a part of my martial arts training, and so and I go hit the gym and then I come back home and kind of reset myself a little bit for the day and forge forward. Okay. So self-discipline Another thing that we are missing, okay, all the time.
Speaker 2:This is self-organization, meaning that most men come home, they do what they need to do with the kids, whatever, and then they kind of take a shower, go to bed and then wake up and repeat tomorrow, what about the structure layout for the next day? Lay out your gym clothes. Lay out your clothes that you're going to wear for your you know, for your job, whatever it may be. Have it ready. You do not need to waste any time on bullshit activities that have to do with you going through your closet figuring out what you're going to wear. Literally, you have everything ready. It's a one, two, three process that includes your toothbrush, that includes things ready for you that you're going to need. So you are super efficient in the morning.
Speaker 2:When a man has efficiency in his life, he's able to execute at a much higher level. The next part of it is you know we can talk about who you surround yourself with, right, I mean, in reality, you know if you want to grow and you want to continue growing, you have to surround yourself with great men who are going to bring forth the best in you not the worst, but the best in you who are going to hold you accountable. You don't want to be surrounded with yes men, and in the end I tell this to everybody if you are the smartest, fastest guy in that room, you are in the wrong effing room. You need to be in a room with people who are ahead of you so you can learn from them, so you can see how far you can go, and that right there alone, those three things that I just gave you will absolutely 100% change your life in a trajectory that I can't even express to you right now. It will change you dynamically up and down.
Speaker 1:I'm almost thinking about that statement. If you're the smartest guy in the room, then you're basically in the wrong room. You have the wrong, you're with the wrong type of people and I do know from personal experience, when people see you as not just the most intelligent, but like the best and whatever in a specific space, that opens up the. That opens up the door to jealousy, envy, backstabbing et cetera. But as you climb, you get into these different groups. As you climb, like ultimately, each group you join, there's going to be somebody that's better, that's at the top. So I'm wondering, as you climb, as you continue to climb, do you still have to deal with the human nature aspects of mankind? You know, the jealousy, the envy, the backstabbing or does the quality of the people get better as you continue to?
Speaker 2:progress. That's a good question. The quality improves. So when you're at the bottom level, you're going to have a lot of that, right. But did a speaking engagement there and I am sitting with four of the most powerful men in the entire country and these guys are all game changers and disruptors right, the conversation is extremely different. It's not your typical conversation. There's really no jealousy, there's just a very, very deep conversation and everybody roots for each other, admires each other, and it's just a very, very deep conversation and everybody roots for each other, admires each other, and it's just a different sense. If you are in a lower tier group, you're going to have that, but as you move up in the ladders and the tables that you sit at increase the level of men, that jealousy and envy goes down quite a bit that jealousy and envy goes down quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good, that's good to know. In society, they tell men, they tell men to embrace the feminine side. You know, we've been told that. I want to say since before I was born embrace the feminine side, embrace your emotions, you know. Basically be more like a woman to a degree, I believe. As a man, I do not believe you can be emotionless. I do think you need to understand your emotions, you need to mature. But yeah, so in order for you to get to that stage, you have to fully experience your emotions and know how to handle them and know what they are Like. How do you think a man should, what advice would you give to a young man when it comes to dealing with his emotions?
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is a subject that many people have different views on, and so the way I look at it is this A man should be in touch with his emotions, however, not to the point where his emotions dictate how he acts in life. When you let emotions take advantage of your level of execution, of your level of response, of your level of just being a good person, and then you're going to blame everything on your emotions no, we don't want men who react. Right, because let me explain this to you. Right, because let me explain this to you when you give the open door to men to experience their emotions, this is when you get active shooters. This is when you get these men who are, who go out there and will kill kids, and they will open the doors, and this is studies that I have done for the last 25 years. When you give them that freedom to express how they feel and they have no control over their emotions, that's exactly what you get. You get an emotional monster.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, I believe that men should be in touch with their emotions, but there must be a control factor there. You know, like give you an example, you know, I I haven't cried in a while. But my, my son just just went to. You know, he was accepted at the University of Alabama and 18 years old, just a few months ago, actually, a month and a half ago. You know, we let him go, we were there and it was the. I mean, I teared up like like you know, he's my, he's, you know my, my youngest son, and um, so, um, yeah, I mean you gotta get in touch with your emotions and it's nothing wrong with that. However, you know there is a control factor, you know. Okay, now let's move on from that.
Speaker 2:When men sit on that and they pout and they whine and it's just we don't, you know, then we're going a whole different road here, you know. So sobbing is not accepted. I'm not. I don't believe that a man should sob. I think a man, if there's emotion, of course he can cry a little bit. There's, you know, tears in his eyes. But a man should always be the strong bone, okay. In other words, he should be erect and he should be ready to to. We don't want broken down men in our society. We have a sense of victimhood that can take over men very quickly. So I say a man must remain strong, he should be in touch with his emotions, and he should have emotions in the way that he lives his life.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, you kind of answered my next question, because I was thinking, when it comes to heartbreak or divorce, that's really tough. That's really tough emotionally for men. That's one of the worst, that's one of the toughest emotional experiences you can ever have. And I was going to ask you, like, what about? Are there any exceptions for this case? But you kind of nailed it, I think take the time to grieve, but don't stay there. Take a few days, but don't take a few months to sit there pouting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I've told friends of mine, for example, or people that have gone through this breakup, to be upfront. You have a guy that says, hey, I caught my wife cheating on me, I'm broke, I'm broken my kids, whatever. And you know I may sound very uh, oh, my God, this guy's apathetic. No, but you know I gave this guy a hug. You know we're. You know whatever, you know I'm with you, I'm supporting you, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Um, but you got three days to get over this. Three days, three days. See what I'm saying. Like, like, like, let's go, let's go. Your life is not over. Okay, yes, things are going to be tough, but you got to get back on that horse. You want to do your thing now for three days and feel bad about yourself, cool, but in three days I'm going to be knocking on your door and we're going to be moving forward here. You know the mentality needs to be that you don't get. Men don't have the option. There's no option in my book. They don't have the option and, more importantly, they don't have that comfort. They should never have the comfort of saying I can just sit down and just be a victim and cry about this. No, a man's focus should be about. A man should be mission-driven, purpose-driven, and when a man doesn't have purpose and he doesn't have a mission, that's exactly when he falls into this trap of sobbing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. You're right. That's exactly what it is. You know, I was thinking back to myself my last heartbreak three days it took me. It still hurt, but I was like you know what, fuck this? I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let this defeat me. It still hurt, but I was like you know what Fuck this? I'm not going to let this defeat me. I refuse to lose Refuse. That's right. You really have to have that mentality. You were a Wall Street broker and then you told your wife that you were going to do law enforcement. So you went from making $700K to making roughly $40,000 a year. Men on the image say that women all they want is money muscle. I know that's not true, but that's what they say on the internet. Like how did your wife take that? And, um, how did you choose?
Speaker 2:Well, well, my wife took that. She looked at me and then she supported me. See, I chose right. That's the thing. Right I chose a strong woman, a woman that I know would be with me and love me as long as I led her. And you know, we had the same values and principles and we were aligned in that fashion. So I knew that, no matter where I would go, she would be right there with me Now. So I knew that, no matter where I would go, she would be right there with me Now.
Speaker 2:We went through a lot of turmoil, don't get me wrong. I had a lot of it. You know, we couldn't even pay the electricity. At times. They would shut off our freaking power for like a year, year and something there, until I snapped out of it and I said, yeah, this cannot be anymore. So my entrepreneurial spirit said you know what? We're not going to do this.
Speaker 2:So I was able to start a training company and start traveling all over the world teaching tactical teams and SWAT training. And then I started to build this company when revenue started coming in and we started to slowly get out of that, because in reality, on a cop salary you can't live. I mean, it's almost impossible, unless you are, you know, unless you're working overtime, after overtime, and details and things like that. So you know I went through a very difficult time for a few years there, that she was strong enough. But I'll tell you what. I would not change it because it made me who I am today. I would not change it because it made me who I am today and it helped me learn about myself more than anything I have ever done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, that's why I asked, because I know nothing changes you more than those romantic relationships and the ups and downs and those struggles. Because it's different being tough in the boxing ring being tough on the football field. It's different being tough in the boxing ring being tough on the football field. When you open yourself up to somebody like that, you're going through the things you're going through and then your emotions are you just don't know. You don't know what's going on and you're hurt. That's what really helps you change. Because there's no feeling like that. Yes, agreed. I want to say what feeling like that? Yes, agreed.
Speaker 1:I want to say what a lot of men. They put their focus on, like I said, making money. They put their focus on, uh, making money, uh, trying to be like this I don't know if you heard the statement, the high value man, the whole idea around that, how you have to be stoic, how you have to be kind of like a dick to women, et cetera. What are some of the traits that a man should look for when it comes to actually choosing women? Because they argue that all women are the same. We both know they're not. What. What traits do you look for all?
Speaker 2:right. So there, there, there is some truth to that, okay, however, not so generalized, okay. Okay, um, in my opinion, um, um, a high value man, it's not just a guy that's rich, has good body and could get any chick that he wants. Right, because in reality, it's been proven over and over again that a woman doesn't necessarily gravitate to a man with just good body and money. A woman will gravitate to a man who can lead, a man who is sure of himself, a man who she can see herself with for many years to come. It goes much deeper than that.
Speaker 2:With that said, I believe that high value men, I believe truly that status and purpose are key for any man out there, for any, any men. I believe that, and when I say status, it's not about oh, who's, who's the, the, the, the best or the. I'm talking about status in from a woman's perspective. Right, like this man has high status. Why? Because he has chivalry, he's a gentleman, he speaks well, he is a driven man, he has ambition and, yes, sometimes I truly believe that every man out there is doing himself a disservice if he's not making as much money as he can possibly make. I personally love fast cars, I love exotic cars, I love making a shitload of money, but it doesn't identify me Right.
Speaker 2:My core values are separate from all that. My core values is being a good man, being someone who serves for a higher purpose, a man who believes in himself, but at the same time, I will go out there and extend my hand to help whoever I can. I walk a path that is, in my opinion, a path where very few men will walk, which is all about servitude giving of myself. Men will walk which is all about servitude, giving of myself. On the flip side to that, don't get me wrong, because I will tell you that men out there have this false sense of security, thinking that just because they're a good guy, that women are going to be okay with him.
Speaker 2:There's a difference between being a good guy and being a high value, a real high value man Two different things. Women don't like the nice guy. They want a guy that is good, right, nice, different and good. Someone that has a good heart, someone that can really connect with them, someone that can build an empire, someone that can make you know, can build an empire. Any woman out there in this world would rather go with a man that has all these great traits and can do this and can do that right.
Speaker 2:They're not going to go with a guy that's just a nice guy and oh, he's so cute and he has a great body, but he really no. Okay, so, high value men, there is something to that. Now, all women are not the same. I don't think all women could be treated the same. I think that's a bunch of crock. You don't treat women like shit. Women should be respected. Women are God's gift to the world.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, you treat women as a gentleman. Chivalry, in my opinion, is very important. I think you have etiquette with women. I think that, with that said, you also have a woman. Live within your framework, right? I don't think that you know, this wild spirit thing doesn't work well. As a man of action, as a warrior man, you need to create a framework for your wife, or the next one, in other words, or for your girlfriend, or for your fiance, or whatever it may be. Okay, you need to create a framework where your woman, your kids, your family all live within that framework, because you, as the leader, have created that and as long as you started that from the very beginning of the relationship, chances are that you are going to live a great life with a great woman.
Speaker 1:How would you define a gentleman?
Speaker 2:A gentleman, first and foremost. A gentleman is confident, articulate, a worldly man that knows about a little bit of everything has been exposed to, has life experience and, more importantly, a man who is compassionate and gives of himself.
Speaker 1:The reason I asked you that question is because I read that in the book it said that women want a gentleman and it was saying that a gentleman doesn't mean that you're gentle. It means that you're a man in all ways yes, and also the violent way, the aggressive way, yes, but you're gentle, you can carry yourself for grace, you can be kind to people, but you also have that edge to you when you need to have that edge kind of people, but you also have that edge to you when you need to have that edge. And I think that ultimately, what we're getting at is that you said women don't want the nice guy, they want a good man, and a lot of men are missing that warrior spirit.
Speaker 2:They're missing, that protector sense, without a doubt.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Okay, rafa, we're at the end of our show. This was a great show. This was a show that I had, a conversation I needed myself, because it's things that I think about. You know, in my own time. There's not many people I could speak to about these types of topics, so thank you for that. Do you have any closing statements?
Speaker 2:For men out there who are struggling, or who are maybe the fat lazy lion at the top of the mountain just resting and being complacent. Get out of that funk. Make sure that you never, ever, rest on your laurels. Every day you must show up and, yes, every day you must prove yourself to your personal self and to other people around you. Believe me when I tell you okay, there is nothing worse than a man who sits resting on his laurels and then, the next thing you know, life has swept him by and he is on his rocking chair wishing he had done other things in his life. All right, so I believe that live now and be the best of who you are.
Speaker 1:Lovely and I forgot. There's one more thing I did want to ask you. I want to know your your um rights of passage program. Can you talk about that just briefly before we go.
Speaker 2:Uh, the men of war crucible is one of the fastest growing programs for men. This program is extremely difficult. We have a 40% dropout rate as a rite of passage, which means that for you to get into our brotherhood you must go through these five days. You can visit it and visit our website at menofwar M-E-N ofwarcruciblecom and you'll get a good feeling of exactly what we do. It's an incredible program. We have changed so many lives. We have hundreds and hundreds of men in this brotherhood. I believe them to be elite men of the highest levels.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Rafa. It was a pleasure speaking with you and I look forward to next time, man.
Speaker 2:God bless you, man. Thank you very much for your time. It was an honor. Take care, take care.
