Welcome to the Present Fathers podcast.
This is the show that focuses on climbing the mountain of fatherhood
together.
We believe that dads matter.
That's why this show is for you.
So gear up, dads. Get ready.
It's time to start climbing.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
Our guest is Frankie Russo.
Frankie, welcome to the show. Man, How are you?
Oh, thank you, George. Happy to be here.
Looking forward to it, man.
So let me quickly introduce you to our audience who may not know you,
but Frankie Russo is a, I'd say a serial investor entrepreneur, really successful.
You wrote a big book called Breaking Why?
I believe it was Amazon's, the list of top sellers.
And, you know, you're a father blended family.
So we're going to talk about that.
And you are also a personal friend of the Clintons.
You've known, I think, Justin, the longest.
Right? So, yeah.
Welcome to the show, man.
We're really looking forward to hearing from your story, learning from you,
and just talking about fatherhood.
So awesome.
Brandon I think actually had the leading questions for you.
He's been working on this one for a while, so I'll kick it over to Brandon.
I can't wait to hear what I have to say after all that.
Well, thank you, man.
Thank you for coming on. Really appreciate it.
I wanted to dive right in to the beginning
of your story as far as, like, your blended family.
Let's go into that real quick.
So to start start off with that, if you don't mind.
Yeah.
So it starts at how far back like the birds and the bees are.
What do you mean?
No, no, no.
Okay, gotcha. I don't know. I don't know.
That's a whole separate episode.
We'll have to do that one later
about how to have that conversation with the kid to become a father.
Literally. Yeah, I'm really good at it.
I apparently can only have girls
biologically have two amazing sons, stepsons.
They're eight years old. They're twins.
But I've I've had two different marriages, tried to have kids
with two different women, and they always girls.
So it's clearly me who's the problem.
But girls are awesome.
Being a dad to girls is awesome.
But the beautiful thing about my life now is that I get to have have it both ways.
I've got two twin boys and then I have four girls
ranging from the age five up to 13.
So we're still really in the heat of the battle.
Amazing case study on what to do, what not to do.
And yeah, so really loving life at this point.
The journey to get to a blended family is quite a journey
because obviously you got to go through a divorce to do that.
But I will tell you that my journey is not necessarily
everyone's journey, but for me, I got married really young,
so I got married at 18, came from a religious background,
don't have sex until you're married.
You know, if you're going to date, that means you're also courting for marriage.
So don't don't f it up. You know what I'm saying?
And so that was kind of the deal, right? That's that's what you did.
So I got married young.
And in hindsight, you know, the one thing I would tell my kids
because I thought a lot about this, I got divorced six years ago.
So what it was is that I kind of came to
this crossroads after having three kids, which is pretty crazy,
and I just couldn't
continue on and also live wholeheartedly.
And so a lot of my journey was a lot less
about my relationship, a lot more with authenticity.
And ironically, the first book I wrote, The Art of Why
I wrote It right before I got divorced, as I was interesting
because that book was called Master Your Purpose,
so I still kind of laugh at it because it was like
everyone said, By the way, don't write a book to your 40.
How old are you?
Brandon I'm 38.
38. Good. You're close enough.
So I was like, Oh, I'm not going to listen to those people.
They don't know what they're talking about.
So I wrote a book at 35, and had it not been for the fact
that it allows for me to have two books,
I would have scorched the earth with the first book because I
it was the climax of me thinking I knew what the hell was going on in life
and how to navigate this life and master your purpose.
And I, I couldn't have been further from it in the moment I released it.
But hey, that's part of the journey.
I mean, quite frankly, that writing that book was very difficult.
That first one, I had a lot of ghostwriters and,
you know, it was it was difficult because I was literally
just trying to kind of write a book and check the box and all that fun stuff.
And I was checking all kinds of boxes,
you know, bought a big house that's now lived next to Justin.
And literally two months later, it was like I looked in the mirror.
It was like, What? What the hell is going on here?
Because I had kind of checked all the boxes and
and it was it was scary.
And so that's really where that journey began
of like going from the picture perfect
scenario, right?
Doing all the right things for all the people.
And pretty good at it, to be honest.
I was I was really good at being everything I needed to be
for everybody else.
And that's not a sustainable life.
And it comes at a it comes at a cost.
Even though I thought that that was how you make everyone happy
and then everybody's happy.
We were joking before we hit record like Happy Wife, Happy Life
are all about that now, you know?
That's it.
Yeah. Happy spouse, happy house.
I don't know.
Money maybe can buy you happiness.
Not kidding.
But you know, it was it was interesting and it was a difficult journey.
I wouldn't wish that transition
to where I went from having three kids to having six kids.
I wouldn't wish that transition on my worst enemy,
but mostly because of
the journey I had to go on to to become my authentic self.
And quite frankly, a lot of people to this day don't really like me,
especially from that community
of people that expected me to be a certain way.
And I don't blame them.
I created this world that
in some ways I let them down because they were expecting me to be X
and I ended up being why and not everybody is
comfortable with that.
And I had to make some really hard decisions to be authentic to myself,
be honest.
And it's actually surprisingly made me a better father
because the truth is you can stay together and a lot of people suggest this, and
I know this is this is a very long answer to your question, but I hope that's okay.
Totally fine.
But it will set the stage for some of the stuff,
because here's the deal.
A lot of people told me
some very surprising things when I went through my divorce.
They're like, Why don't you just make an arrangement
or Why don't you just wait till the kids
get out of high school or things like that? Right?
And it was it was one of those things where it
I would have loved to do that, but I couldn't get back into the box
once I was awakened
to what the my reality was, I couldn't go back.
And and it happens to people
when they get together too young and maybe for the wrong reasons.
And you you try your best.
But it some things
aren't right
to try to force and that's where I found myself.
And it was difficult.
But the person I was able to be on
the other side is
is worth it.
And that person is somebody who is the same no matter what room I'm in.
And I was never able to be that.
And and quite frankly, it was a person who was driven by what everybody else
wanted and thought.
And today,
when people don't like me or think certain things about me,
that I've finally become immune to it
and I can still love them and I don't have to take offense to it.
And that's a that's a good, healthy, clean way to live.
Now, I will tell you the trade off, in my experience with the authenticity
deal, where you get to a point
where you no longer care what people think about you,
it's possible to achieve that.
I live that and it's one day at a time, but I am living that right now.
However, I had to trade also the things that people say good about me.
So the things people say good about me.
That used to play on my ego,
that it was a rush or an adrenaline or it felt good.
I will say I don't feel that anymore either.
So you have to trade both out.
You can't have it both ways, like I have to be.
I had to lay down the obsessive addiction to people approving me
or the addiction to having people
love me or think that I'm doing a good job.
You lay that down and you can lay the other one down with it.
So anyway, that's a super long answer.
The baby is, is that yours?
Is the hour.
So you've got the years, mine and ours.
The baby that's five is ours.
Now that's a great
modern Brady Bunch.
Yeah. So.
So one thing that you've mentioned, you said you were doing everything
for everyone but yourself, and that's kind of a clarifying statement.
What were some of the tribulations or events that kind of made you aware
that you were doing that?
Yeah.
So I mean, the first time that happened, I've gone in stages with this, right?
So the first time I realized I was like
too focused on
everyone else was the levels
I went to to hide my drug addiction and alcoholism.
So in my twenties.
But I didn't mention was it 26,
almost 27, I got sober and that really is
something that is
the first time I realized
how much I was, what links I was willing to go to, to, to make
to appease people like so my first wife, like, didn't believe in drugs at all.
She thought the crack or heroin was the same level as smoking weed,
you know, So, you know, anything was bad, right?
So I hid years of addiction, like,
right and right in plain daylight
where she couldn't see it.
But it was like a huge thing.
And I was willing to to
what's the word,
I guess we could say compromise myself from an honesty and authenticity space.
And so I thought once I got sober, that that would kind of fix that.
And it did for a little while.
You know, getting sober was was was a huge part of my story.
What I've realized since then is that the part that was big
about getting
sober was less about me getting sober and staying sober for the last 15 years
and more about the hundreds of guys I've been able to help get sober.
That's been a huge part of my journey
that eventually led to the the next bottom,
which was when I got my divorce
and it was a little bit of a controversy.
I fell in love with the person who's now my wife, Justin's neighbor.
And so that that was didn't make it any easier.
You know, that's where a lot of the kind of Christian pitchforks came out.
I tried to to fix it.
I tried to go back the end.
It was actually, you know, speaking very vulnerably like that was something
that was really hard on Tracy, my wife now,
because I really was trying to be authentic.
I was desperately trying to be authentic.
And so what that looked like was like
trying to get back in the box, trying to fix it.
And again, people were like, you know, why don't you just,
you know, make an arrangement or whatever, whatever.
And I was like, No, you don't get it.
Like, I'm I'm not just out of my mind right now.
I'm not I'm stone cold sober
and I'm realizing I don't want to live like this anymore, you know?
And so I always say that, you know, what I went through in 2017 was
not that different from anyone else.
The difference was that I was willing to do it out in the open,
and that is painful at first,
but sets you free at a level that you're you're you're immune, like
to all the people in the world that that I was worried about letting down.
I let them down and they're probably still let down
and what a great way to live.
Yeah I mean, I guess since I've been I've been through divorce.
I don't know if you do that. I don't think I ever told you that.
But no, it Georgia does.
And we're there for me. They knew my ex-wife
were there every step.
And I can say that I can relate to
some of the things you just said because authenticity is like
you have to be true to yourself before you can be true to others.
And I think the thing that kind of touched them
and I actually have a question based off of that is do you think
that you gave so much of yourself to others that you never gave to yourself?
Does that make sense that you felt empty because you were
you just filled other people's cups and that's your own?
That makes sense.
Yeah. Oh, no, it makes total sense.
And I've thought a lot about that.
I think a lot of it
boils down to motives, like why I was giving.
So when I've given of myself, like,
let's say, like for sobriety, right where
I am volunteering essentially
for an anonymous on unspoken
role of helping somebody,
there's not a lot of motives other than like
what I get back in return, right?
So that and that's a that's a clean, unconditional setting
for being able to practice unconditional love, Right.
To actually help somebody that's in need or that's poor.
So when you think about that, that type of stuff always has paid for me.
It's more where I try to help others
that with conditions.
So when I any time I've helped others with conditions,
that's usually the setup, that's when I don't feel fulfilled.
So now it's like if I can't help someone unconditionally,
I'm okay with not helping them, you know?
And and that sometimes is becomes the boundary.
I'm blessed enough to have,
you know, a family, a wife and six kids
that I love somewhat unconditionally.
It's still somewhat conditional, right?
No matter how you split it.
And then I exercise outside of the family an opportunity to help men
get sober and essentially find God.
To be honest.
And so that I have both of those
that are very fulfilling for me.
I talk about that a lot in my books and essentially that's the
the lifeblood of what I believe,
our highest human purposes.
I'm actually going to touch on something you just said there.
So I struggle with the commitment I made before God with my previous marriage.
It's actually something I talked very in-depth with George about.
Was that something that really, really weighed on your heart a lot
when you when you're going through the divorce?
Because I know for me personally, it was not easy to carry that weight.
Oh, 100%. 100%.
I mean, that weighed unnaturally high on it,
that like I was somehow severing my connection with God
and it it took me
a solid six months to get there on the journey
and go through all the different things that, you know, hired therapists to like,
you know, do intensives with me at two therapists at the same time,
like went to do experiential therapy in Tennessee.
I mean, I was throwing everything at it.
And in the end it was actually my dad
because my dad.
So I got a little glimpse of what it feels like to come out of the closet.
When I went through this
and coming out of the closet, I have a new appreciation for people that do that.
And and they absolutely have it worse than me.
So I'm not comparing what I went through to that in any way for anyone
who's listening, because it's not it's not at the same level.
I got a glimpse of it, but my dad did come out of the closet
after being married for 33 years and in ministry, by the way.
So he's
you know, the pitchforks are so much bigger
and so much hotter for him than me as far as I know.
I'm not talking about the devil's pitchforks, I mean, like the locals,
but so it was actually him
because I asked him, I was like, man, how do you how do you deal with that?
Like,
just I kept thinking and telling him, like, I know in my heart
that like, the God that I believe in
will forgive me.
And so why am I wrestling with?
And he said, and I don't know why this just this just stuck with me.
He said, At some point you've got to forgive yourself.
And in that moment, like something just broke.
And like, ever since then, like my journey as a person
who doesn't have to hide who I am anymore or
any of that was set free.
And essentially that's what it comes down to.
The shame is
predominantly self-inflicted.
I mean, because now that I look back,
like lately, like ironically, like just recently,
I've been every night
reading from this little illustrated Bible
to the kids and like, this is very new for me and like,
not this I'm not I'm not like that guy, right?
Like, I go to church twice a year.
And again, nothing against church.
And I actually believe in a lot of that stuff.
But I'm, you know, I just am cut a little different
and it's the product of being a minister's child.
Right. I was grew up in homeless shelters doing ministry.
So most preachers kids are a little off.
A lot of them are worse than me.
I'm not going to name their names on the air, but you know who you are.
If you're listening.
But anyway,
I've been reading these children's stories and what's
what's awesome about it is that they don't have a lot of color in them
and they skip a lot of stories, like when you're doing David King.
David, it's like he does a slingshot.
Then he writes some songs and they leave out
anything about Bathsheba and all that fun stuff, you know?
So I don't I don't color in the best Sheeba stuff, but I do take liberty
and like helping them understand some of the stuff that's not in there.
That's really good stuff and I've been really enjoying that.
So I don't know why I just brought that up, but it's been one of those things
that has surprised me and like, my wife just loves it.
The kids love it.
It's such a simple little thing.
And what's funny is my kids are in have been
in every private school in Lafayette.
And so I told my wife, if we switched schools one more time,
she's going to have to start Tracey's list,
which is essentially like a way for me to make money on all the different
information we have on every school.
I'm talking to Episcopal Baptist,
Classical, Renaissance, non-denominational.
We've been to so many schools, but what was good is, like every story
in this book, my two twin boys, they know it, right?
So like, I didn't realize that about them.
I knew, you know,
my first wife, she's, you know, she's doesn't miss the church service.
Right? So I know my other three girls.
They know all the stories, right?
But they know them. You know exactly how they're told.
But I was surprised.
And it was actually the Catholics, God bless their heart.
I said, look, I told my wife that last night.
I said, you got some good Catholic boys.
Now, she took them out of Catholic school because she wasn't into the whole worship
married thing. But
she now they're
Episcopal, by the way, which is like so much better.
But anyway, so it's been cool
because they do already know the stories and they're in second grade.
You know,
they already know a lot of that stuff, but it's actually the stuff in between
the stories that I think is what's so gold in that.
And I haven't I haven't really been in a space where
I was really talking about that stuff in such a
I see that.
Dustin I love it, man.
Yeah, as we should.
As we should.
So it's, it's funny you mentioned your dad in that whole situation.
So my father and I took a walk when I was contemplating
what I was going to do because
it was such a pivotal part of my life and it completely changed my world.
And I'll never forget this.
My father said, Look, Justin, are you happy?
I said, No, Dad, I'm not happy.
And I have a wonderful father.
He's always been involved in our lives. Brian can attest to this.
He's he's just been he had a crap upbringing, just horrible story.
Just anything that could go wrong in his life went wrong.
And so he never he never let anything translate to our generation.
And I'm so appreciative because he's the one person I trusted
as my best friend to just go and be raw with.
Cause I had like, friends that were like, Justin, don't recognize who you are.
This is not the person I grew up with.
I get hurt like my best friend Harold told me. He's.
I've known him since kindergarten.
He's like, Dude, I don't even recognize who you are.
And I'm like, Oh.
So I asked my dad. I said, Do you recognize who I am?
He said, Yeah, you're just lost.
And I was like, Okay.
And I said, Well, how do I get found again?
And he started laughing and we were just on this.
I'll never forget I was right around this time of year just getting cooler.
He said, The way you get found is, is it's like, just pray about it.
So I started praying and I was like, What's the answer?
You know, like, and surely I started seeing signs and things
and he said, Look, do what's on your heart and stuff.
Listen to your brain so much.
And so I did. I did what was on my heart.
And unfortunately, I did get the divorce, but
it led me to where I'm at and I'll never forget, he said.
I said, Look, Justin, you're a bright guy.
You're in the medical field.
He's like, You may end up marrying a doctor.
Jokes
aside, I ended up marrying a pediatric dentist, obviously, you know that.
And now we have our beautiful son, and in seven weeks we'll have our daughter.
So it's like all these things that he said, Don't be afraid of taking that.
And I didn't realize you guys were expecting.
Yeah, yeah.
And Ainsley's is he's doing seven, eight weeks now.
Find yourself. You've got to get some on the registry now.
Yeah, that.
But I also tell Ainsley that I didn't even notice. So.
Hey, you just won brownie points, my friend.
I didn't even mean I didn't even mean to do that, But I make sure she knows
she's going to love you for that.
But yeah, yeah, We got a little girl on the way.
Sophia just got that, so we're excited.
But like, just my life took a complete 180 just because I had a great father
who gave me great advice and believed in me and said, Hey, look,
take the step that you feel is right for you.
And so that's what I did.
It's like you said, it's authenticity to yourself.
And that was the hardest, hardest step to take is being authentic to yourself.
I can't I can't describe how much stress and how much angst and everything you feel
being torn between people's viewpoints, caring about what other people
think, what you think about yourself, or what you think about God.
Just all those factors play in and it weighs so, so heavy.
And then you stop and think and I think one of the things
that I thought to myself and my brother Jordan can help me with was,
you know, what are the things Christ would do in your situations?
Like, you know, they think about
like how heavy things were for him versus how heavy it is for you.
And I was like, Ooh, nothing I have is heavy at all if I think about that.
Like.
So yeah, I feel like, you know, if he can carry all that,
you know, I can carry this.
So yeah, it ended up working out.
So I appreciate what you said about your father and everything
and going to him for advice, because I'm telling you what
that's what we base this show off is, is fathers and the advice they give.
I mean, sometimes it's not the greatest advice,
but it's advice and it's somebody you trust and,
you know, is always got your back
as long as there's a good father and being present.
And that's that's what we preach.
If you're present father just being present, whether the advice is
good or not is something that helps your child, you know?
Absolutely. So absolutely.
And not not feeling alone in that moment when you're going through that
is critical.
HUNTER Specially if it's from a father.
Yeah.
And if you're not being authentic, you can have 100 friends
and you'll still feel alone because they're not really being with you.
They're being with the person you're pretending to be.
So I struggled with that for years.
I think I had prom queen syndrome.
I wanted everyone to like me.
And so I said whatever it took to like me.
And that led to, if not, you know, some form of dishonesty
than just outright lies, because I knew this is what I have to say
for people to like me.
So I think I had some of your experience when I was younger.
What I wonder, though, is can you be someone who genuinely doesn't care
about what other people think when you're a young man can be a 12 or
15, a 20 year old man, and just do that, or do you have to earn it?
Do you have to get to a point where you're successful, where it doesn't matter?
Because at some point,
I think for younger men or for less successful men,
if you don't care about what other people think, you may be in a position
to get fired or you know, you might not get through school.
And so I wonder, you know, is it a season of life?
Do you have to earn the right to not care what other people think?
Yeah, so I'll answer that a couple of ways.
So first of all, I want you I want to kind of clarify not caring
what people think does not mean that like I don't
honor people that I care about, right.
Or even people I don't care about what I it's
not that I don't look at it because one thing that I, I don't want
to give the impression on is that I'm in that like mindset of like,
you know, f them, you know what I'm saying?
Like, I don't give a shit
what anybody thinks kind of thing, you know, like that type of mentality.
That's not what I'm, that's not authenticity.
So I hear them and I see them
and I don't allow it to affect the way that I look at myself
unless it's feedback that is useful.
Right?
So usually I just my easy litmus test is that I only take feedback from people that
I actually want to be like or that I trust.
You know, if I don't know you and you're just give me feedback on social media,
you know, I had this crazy situation where like somebody yelled out
in the middle of a talk recently that I was doing in New Orleans.
Well, circle back to I don't to derail this answer.
But it was interesting anyway, that when those things happen,
do you have to earn it?
Yes, to a degree.
You do have to earn it, but not with success. Okay.
Because a lot of the people that I work with,
I've seen them become free from from that
those chains of what people think about me
mattering so much without getting successful
from like a money standpoint or having things in any of that stuff.
They still have nothing, but they have God, they have sobriety
and they have community
and they are already starting to get some of the same things I have.
So I don't think it's necessarily tied to
having stuff. It's
but it's absolutely tied to experiences that you kind of have to go through.
And I think it's it's almost like the order of things, right?
Like most of us on this call or
I think north of 35 is everyday north of 35, essentially.
Yeah.
George, are you North 35?
Yes. Okay.
So yeah, we're north 35.
Right.
Sorry. Ten days and I'm 35.
Yeah. So whatever. You're right there. Right, Right.
A book called Mastering Your Purpose and you'll be there.
So that's I was at 35.
It's easy. Nothing to it.
You got Jackie B I didn't have GPT, all right?
I had to pay full freight for my ghostwriter.
I love it.
Yeah. Now it's easy.
I'll write three bucks a year. But anyway,
Brett is going to have 12.
Yeah, that's it.
Dustin I don't know if that answers your question, but I think you earn it
through experiences.
I don't think you're necessarily like getting to a point where you can be like,
you know, I don't care what you think about me because I'm like the man.
It can't be an ego thing because it will fail every time.
That is a really important nuance to consider.
Definitely.
You never want to think, you know, you still need to take criticism.
And if you're making a mistake, you need to take that in.
So yeah, no, I think that's an O God. Yeah.
No, I, I take a lot of feedback, by the way.
Like it's, it's, it's really the, the negative.
Like if somebody doesn't like me, right, or they don't like my book
or they don't like my talk or they think that like,
you know, this guy that was yelling at me, I'll just tell you guys because he's
probably not watching this podcast.
But if he is, listen, I love you, man.
But here's the thing.
This is this guy's from Canada.
He's it was a talk to 600 people that are in a union, okay?
They're electrical workers.
And you guys are some are you guys are from Louisiana.
Okay.
So I, I most people in Louisiana don't really know
what a union is barely.
And and I got referred to this thing and I was just to do a motivational talk.
I was supposed to be a quick 20 minute mike drop.
I even had a T-shirt gun and we were shooting t
shirts out the gun at the end, which was awesome.
But like somewhere in the middle of it
I was talking about imagination and how to unlock that.
And I have this exercise called What If?
And it's like, you know, what if money didn't matter?
Or what if, like time and space wasn't a thing?
What, what, what could we do?
What would you do?
And this guy starts yelling, I would in capitalism and capitalism is the problem.
And how much
how many union employees do you employ and how much union busting have you done?
And I was first of all, I didn't even know half the stuff he was saying.
So I just had to kind of pause.
But then he walked out, thank God.
But that type of moments like what just happened in front of 600 people,
like what?
And they apologized and all that fun stuff.
It turns out there's some guy named Frank Russo from
up north that
made millions in the nineties as a union busting.
You know what that was?
And so there's this whole read it now of Frank, Frankie Russo,
this crazy venture capitalist
that was hired by the unions to do a motivational speaker.
His comes from a legacy of union busters by the way.
So there's a I have a read it now I wasn't even on read it before that.
So like there's all these like people that hate me because apparently I'm
a capitalist and my uncle, who's dead now, was not really my uncle.
By the way, if you're listening,
I'm not married to Frank Russo, who's a union buster.
So. But, you know, there you go.
So it's like I could have let that just demolish me like, man, I don't.
You talks anymore. Like, am I a capitalist?
You know, am I doing the wrong thing?
You know?
And you have a minute words like, what the fuck just happens?
You have to believe that out, George. But.
But then it's like you
recover from it because it's like,
Well, we missed an opportunity.
We should have introduced you, Frank. You're
huge Investor Yeah, exactly.
I know Google, apparently I'm the problem.
I googled Frank Russo and you did not come up.
He, he came up and there's yeah, I can see what you're talking about.
There was a lot of visceral articles, I'll put it.
Like apparently he's passed away now.
Yeah, there's a lot of articles about like,
you know, Oh, this criminal dude has passed away now.
Anyway, that was like, I don't think that's who we're interviewing.
Let me double check the spelling here.
You got to add the IP, and it's the whole.
Yeah, out of the IEEE.
Oh. Oh, there he is. Okay. All right, that looks very good.
So, yeah, So luckily, that's an unfortunate coincidence for you.
Kind of. Yeah, it happens. Go ahead, Dustin.
So kind of interesting change that happened recently on Twitter
X is that you can make money for impressions.
So essentially the more people look at your stuff, the more money you make.
And so when people comment, that is what pushes your information
to the top.
So someone likes your post if they reposting that kind of stuff
doesn't matter.
But if someone comments on your post, you to the moon right with it.
So your haters are literally making you money when someone if you post
you know I like capitalism love someone says you get on
X yeah literally they're helping you make money.
It's amazing.
So literally your haters are your best friends because of people like you.
They're just going to click like and just leave it alone, right?
Oh, nice. Whatever doesn't help you.
But if someone legitimately is so angry that they feel the need to post something
hateful in response, they're literally printing money for you.
So your haters are actually your best friend on social media.
That doesn't really kind of cool way to think about it.
You should told me that.
Yeah, Justin is about to go find
that Reddit thing and like, really light it up.
But you know, if when you hang back,
if you look at it, there's there was a whole lot of people
that came and apologized.
There's people in the Reddit like saying, you know, when you're
when you're motives are pure.
I mean, I was only in that room.
I didn't make a lot of money from that, you know, not in the grand scheme of like
the kind of money I've made in my life.
And like, I'm I'm doing it because it's a calling
and I want to help the people in that room.
And I kept going because there were 598 other people in the room that
maybe not all of them were were wanting something, but some of them were there.
And I got hired to do a job and it's like, I'm not going to stop
because one person or his table is going to run off.
Because at the end of the day, like the work that we do, I mean,
for God's sakes, I'm calling out authenticity, imagination
and generosity at a union festival.
So it's like most of the time,
you know, there's there's situations where
maybe that stuff's not welcomed in that setting, you know,
but it doesn't change the fact that if you want to unlock growth
and you'd like to be
maybe a little happier than feeling like
you've got to yell at people in the middle of talks
because clearly, like he's angry at somebody, which
probably is that that's yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or campy, it doesn't even know me good enough.
I mean, maybe it's Frank Russo, like some the schmuck that actually stole money
from unions, which I clearly don't agree with.
But yeah, who knows?
You know, you never know what they're going through.
And I think that's important that that you always look at that
you never know what these people are going through, whoever it is that hates it.
So you have to get the look at that. Anyway,
I wanted to just dig a little bit deeper into the whole,
you know, not caring what other people say and you clarified it
and it's not the attitude
from from your upbringing into,
you know, kind of early success and things like that. Is it?
I think I can relate a lot because I think
we had similar upbringings in that regard, you know, very religious homes and
and you know, what's expected and all those kinds of things.
It was more from you weren't
how do I phrase this?
It's almost like you weren't given the right to
love yourself as you are type of thing.
And so you had to do all these things
and not be successful or you had to check all the boxes.
So it's almost like a false
persona.
Is that what it is?
And like you were, you were,
in a way, lacking a form of true
confidence in yourself because it was all these external things.
Yeah. Or was it different?
No. I mean, at the end of the day, look, we grew up with a lot of pretense
like that.
One thing I've learned about, like the whole religious, like space is that
the bar is so high
that it leaves people no choice.
But to lie, to say that they're at that bar. Mm.
So one of the things I loved about getting into like sobriety and recovery
is that you know, in church, if you, you know, have an affair
or if you get caught stealing or whatever, you know,
cardinal sin you, you do nobody wants to sit by you on the pew.
Right. So it's like,
you know, I mean,
it's it's literally like, don't don't come by me.
I don't want you to f my life.
But then when you get in a recovery, if you start saying things like,
oh, I'm okay, I'm okay, yeah, I don't have a problem,
we're like, Oh, I don't want you f ing up my life.
It's literally the exact opposite.
It's like you walk in, you know what you are.
That's why we're here. Nobody's arguing that.
Nobody's accidentally showing up here.
And we start from there, you know?
And that's where that's that's a big difference is where you start with
I know that I am an alcoholic, for example.
Okay. Right. And I don't try to hide that.
And when I start from there, it actually is what enables all of the growth.
And so I think, you know, pretense
plays a big role and it's a setup,
you know, And so we try to do things a little bit differently.
In my household now with the kids, you know, and
it's not always easy because the truth is what you're
what we really want to give them in the moment is sometimes difficult to do.
So we have to keep circling back in. A lot of my work
in my new book, which is called Love Your Weird
that I'm working on, that Jackie Beatty is not writing it.
A lot of it is about
if you want to unlock authenticity, you want to unlock your imagination,
you want to unlock
generosity, purpose, selflessness to be like you were when you were five.
Start being like you were when you were five when I was five.
You know, one of the things that happened and I think George did
I see in the chat you went to on site.
Yeah, I did.
When you said you went to experiential treatment in Tennessee.
I don't want to.
Yeah, but yeah, I've been on site.
Hell, yeah. When was that?
So I've actually been twice.
I've been three times we went.
So my wife and I went together.
We kind of did it backwards.
We went together for a couples
week that was in
2017, maybe 16, 17.
And then I went back again.
They did like a a veteran one type
where so everyone was like better law enforcement stuff.
And that was, I think maybe like a year later or so.
And then my wife went also for an individual.
So the way you should do it is you go individual to work on your stuff,
then you go as a couple to work on like the marriage stuff.
And so I don't know how much that plays into you,
you know, with your first marriage and then with your current one.
But that's something that, you know, I've learned the hard way is
the dysfunctions that you have from your childhood,
if not addressed prior to marriage, will come out
and they're going to be very difficult to sort out because now you're
just creating new sets of wounds that your spouse is totally blindsided,
blindsided by because like, well, where did this come from?
And you'll react completely irrationally to things that you're your spouses
being healthy with, you know, just basic, you know, adulting
and your inner child comes out and lashes out
and that and I'm not saying be a victim and like, blame your parents.
No, go sort it out.
Be be a man about it.
Go dig into it, get help for it.
Anyway, so that's really getting off into the weeds here.
But no. Yeah, not really.
You're not really getting off in the weeds.
You're actually getting right into the into the middle of this. Right.
So I don't I don't know how much I'm just a question of just going.
But yeah. No, no, no, but no.
This is you know I'm a big fan of on site.
In fact, I hope to create experiences similar on site
down here in Louisiana at some point.
So I'm very passionate about that.
And I'm not a therapist or anything like that.
I just I love doing the work.
It's changed my life and one of the biggest things
besides taking my phone for a week, when I met my wife
and I went separate, then we went together and then I went to Colorado
and did the equine at a dude ranch, which was friggin awesome.
It was right right before
what's it called?
Yellowstone came out. Okay.
Oh, so like between Yellowstone and then doing this experiential therapy on a horse
I bought, like, so many cowboy boots, cowboy hat, Like, I was like my man.
I was going hard on the Yellowstone thing for a while.
And then about a year ago, I realized, damn it, everybody's doing this.
And so now it's kind of a thing that like, unless I buy a ranch,
which I ended up buying the second house on the river instead.
But unless I get a REI, it's like, this is not
how am I going to pull this off?
So I still wear the cowboy boots because my inner child was a cowboy,
but it was also a TV preacher, an astronaut and an inventor,
which by the way, I figured out through the onsite stuff.
So I think that's big.
I don't think you can be authentic without him.
Re embracing who you changed because essentially five or six is the work.
They do it on site.
For those of you who haven't been,
you know, there's different ways that they have you look at it.
But essentially that was that was the last moment before we went
from that divergent type thinking into being convergent or in layman's terms,
start to be what people are telling me I'm supposed to be.
So that's from the system itself, that's from the parents,
it's from the bullies at school.
And so that's where the love your weird come from.
I actually got that idea the first time I went on site while I was there.
It's great
because one of the things
besides the phone that I was going to say is that you're not allowed
to say what you do for a living.
So it was the first time that I was stripped from that
that narrative.
And so that was big.
That changed my life by itself because I had to spend a week
with other successful people
and none of us could talk about it.
And the connections with yourself and with the other people
that happened as a result of that are profound.
Yeah, and I've tried to bring that as much as possible
into the work I do with with addicts and alcoholics.
And now, you know, as a thought leader doing keynotes around the country,
that's great. And
just to reiterate it, so I really love to
I said that it's, it's stripping away pretense.
So I think I think so many men today are living lives
where they're surrounded by pretense and
if you're living, that makes a lot more sense to me.
Now your take on authenticity, because it's when you're surrounded
by pretense and you're playing the game of the pretense, whatever it is.
MM No.
One, you're not congruent with your self.
Like there's, there's internal stress that's created because deep down
you know that your it's codependency, you're codependent
to the whole world around you is what it is.
So yeah, that kills you. I mean,
anyway, so that's, that's a really good clarification.
I really like the way you say that because I think that's
the heart of what authenticity should mean is removing the pretenses.
And I think where,
you know, you kind of alluded to, you can talk about your job.
It's really easy for for men, especially when we're young, right,
Coming out of boyhood and young men, you're in your early twenties,
you're ready to take on the world and conquer whatever it is you've decided
you want to go.
Do you know whatever
your profession is and things like that, we latch onto that really easily.
And so then that just you almost create your own pretense
in a way if you're not careful, because you sacrifice who you really are
in the name of your job or your career or whatever, and
that can
really lead you down a path of getting stuck into a corner in a way.
So thanks for sharing, you know,
very openly about that journey for you and expanding upon it with,
you know, on site and that kind of stuff.
So I think Justin's got something right now.
Yeah, Yeah.
I mean, it's it's so authenticity is such a crazy thing.
So if you're being not only authentic to other people, but to yourself,
authenticity and failure run hand in hand.
And I think that the more you fail and the more you're authentic to yourself
about those failures, that's the more you grow.
So if you fail and you're authentic about the way you feel
and you're not afraid about, you know, the things that you're feeling
and the things that you're going through and you charge at it
kind of head on, it comes back to like Mason Sawyer.
He's one of our guests that came on.
I don't know if you got to see that upset, but he talks about the analogy
in the buffalo and the cattle.
The cattle run with the storm.
They stay in the storm longer, whereas the Buffalo charge storm
get through it and reap the rewards quicker.
If you're authentic with
yourself, you're like, Look, I already know what my problems are.
I know what my failures are. I know what these are.
I know I know what this, this and this and this are.
I know who I am. My true self is.
I figured that out and it took a long time and a lot of work.
I can now go through to the next point in my life.
Whereas if you're not authentic with yourself,
you're still carrying baggage,
which is slowing you down and keeping you in that storm longer.
And that's that's something that a lot of men don't realize
is that you carry baggage.
Your baggage has to be dealt with no matter if it's self harm.
No matter if it's caused by others or the visions or the views of others
or your self perception.
Because self perception is a big thing to,
you know, your self perception of your community.
That's a big thing. But
I know as a local
community person in your community, I don't think those things about you.
I think you're pretty, pretty cool.
But you know, that's just personal opinion.
But that being said, like, you know, there's a lot of things
to overcome and failure leads to successes.
And I think that's definitely something
that I wanted to say about the authenticity thing,
because you kind of spoke a little bit about it.
You know,
authenticity is something you kind of live by, and I really appreciate that.
That's not a word that's really used much anymore and people are not authentic.
Let's talk about that.
Like social media, people are so fake.
You only see the good in their lives.
You don't see the bad like I.
And I'll tell you what, the most incredible stories in the course,
people on any social media platform, I don't care what you say or the people
who have failed, who have a cool story, who have been through
the mud and the muck and aren't afraid to be authentic about that.
It's the people who are fake
that people start to realize they're like, Look at this person.
Like this is kind of over the top, you know?
Or this is getting a little,
you know, this is definitely fake or like, their life can't be that good.
You know what I mean?
Because, yeah, at the end of the day, if you're rich, doesn't make you happy,
doesn't make it easier.
Sure, I'd rather cry in a Ferrari and then, you know, and nothing.
But at the end of the day, like you're rich based off
of what you can value in you pretty much any time getting anywhere.
Anyone that says that money doesn't buy
you happiness, look at the fucking smile on my face.
Not just a Lamborghini, but I would rather cry in a Lamborghini than a camera.
I'm just putting it out there.
Just put it out there, okay?
We're never going to sponsorship just.
And what are we doing?
I mean, he drives.
He drives one of the best Toyotas out there.
So by default, yeah, you wouldn't think it.
I didn't pick it.
Okay, so my wife always wanted the Land Cruiser.
I don't know.
I don't. It by the way, sorry, Toyota,
but $85,000 for a Toyota is not worth it.
If you got $85,000 to spend, guys, go buy something else.
I'm just going to tell you straight up. That's cool.
Yeah.
If you. So I love it.
If you're a diehard
Toyota fan, then, like, by all means, it's like the climax, right?
But like, I don't give two shirts about Toyota.
And so, like, I like anyway, my wife just had to have it,
and then she got it and then realized, I need a Denali now.
So like, okay, so like, I have this one.
It's like,
so that's why you drive it and, and then ever since I sold my company,
I'm like, you know what?
Like I, I kind of think like a farmer now, right?
Like, I'm like, this car's fine.
Like, whatever, You know?
And once you get over point A to point B, never, never breaks down again.
It's not like it's a bad car.
Like to all the Toyota people out there, look at this schmuck.
You know, it's like, what a snob. You know what I'm saying?
That's some people's dream car, you know?
So I'm not trying to be mean or anything.
I just think that they could do better for 85.
And just saying GM has way better feature for 85,000. So
God bless America, what's left of it.
Yeah,
right.
That'll be another episode. We'll have to.
Yeah, right.
I'll have to contain that to another episode.
You're going to get me wound up on that one. So
I want to bring it back to, you know, blended family stuff. So,
you know, one second. I have a princess.
There's a question. Yeah.
Oh, it's not a princess. What is it?
Maybe What was your question?
Me like that?
It is.
Okay.
All right, well, I'm coming.
We're almost done with our podcast.
Okay, baby,
time's over.
And talk about time for everybody to take a bath.
Apparently, it's time for everyone. Take a bath, guys.
Yeah, just, you know. All right. Very nice.
Look, now.
She's too shy. She's too shy, but.
Wow. Okay, you want to get on?
I think we're at a 50% interruption rate right on our podcast.
About half of them have had a kid jump in at some point.
Yeah, that's what you're going to do with that little podcast.
It has to. Yeah, that's what it's about.
Par for the course It interrupting at 9:00 at night.
Yeah.
And if they're not wearing an Elsa dress and fake hair it's not right.
Yeah. This one is. Yeah.
That's a girl blond hair just in her panties. Yes.
I'm kind of glad it didn't get on video, you know? You never know.
Yeah. Yeah.
Love you. Yes.
And crazy people in this world.
That a minute, baby.
They love you. Love you, too.
All right, well, there you have it.
Okay, so, Brendon, I feel like you had some questions.
I feel like you're kind of falling asleep over there,
so you got to jump in on this thing.
What's going on, man?
Yeah, so I wanted to kind of get us back on track.
You were a serial entrepreneur before you started doing keynote speaking
and all that stuff.
So what made you decide to go from being a highly successful
entrepreneur to changing to
more of an altruistic lifestyle, that that's purpose driven?
What shifted you that way?
So it was actually kind of going back to my roots.
So you got to think about it like this.
When I was five years old, I got moved to Pittsburgh.
Beaver Falls, to be exact, home of Joe Namath.
We went there for three years and that was where my dad went to seminary, learned
how to run homeless shelters and inner city missions.
So I grew up until I was 18 in inner city missions,
you know, actually helping poor people that were in need.
So when you get out of that, two things happened.
First of all, my dad got kicked out of his ministry at 18.
So not only was I poor as a kid, then he got kicked out of the ministry.
I was like, Screw this, I'm never doing anything remotely like this.
So I went the other direction.
So I didn't.
Originally what I wanted was I was just I didn't want to feel
what it felt like
to be poor anymore, that the anxiety that came with it.
Like, you know, my mom kind of wore on her sleeve, but love your mom.
But, you know, that was a thing that affects kids.
And so I grew up I was like, I'm going to be like this.
And they had less than other people for a good reason.
But still, like, I kind of walked away from it.
Like, was it a good enough reason
like this is what you get at the end is a kick kick out the door.
So that kind of jaded me for a while.
That was what really ramped up my alcoholism drug addiction.
I just was like threw the towel in and a lot of that stuff.
So for about ten years I there was no altruism.
I it was still deeply rooted inside of me, though.
So once I started doing a business that I could really believe in
because for a while I basically was in the mortgage business.
Okay?
And I think I talk about this in the books and, and it's one of those things
where I went through this the season leading up to, by the way, 2008.
So I got sober the same year that the the entire world economics melted down.
I'm not saying that I had anything to do with the meltdown.
I'm just saying that the timing is, you know, uncanny.
So, you know, I had become kind of like the Lafayette Wolf of Wall Street
and like I wasn't actually Wolf of Wall Street level, if any federal people are
watching this.
But and may be on the fire.
I mean, I barely tapped your nose, you know, but whatever.
So I went through this time when I was just like, oh, I don't need it.
I don't need to answer to anybody.
You know, I went through that like I raged the twenties mentality.
I went full throttle, you know, I'm saying did it all, blah, blah, blah.
So it was it wasn't so much that it was like this
like wakeup call where
I was a certain way my whole life.
And then I had this, like, white light moment.
Now I need to, like, give my life to altruism.
It was a it was over time.
And what actually got me back connected with altruism was getting sober.
Okay. So basically
getting sober and
realizing that the only way to stay sober is to help other people get sober.
And the magic that happens from that, that's what real work.
Okay.
This is the grit, because I wasn't buying anything.
They were selling from a religious standpoint anymore
associated with all that.
But I was like this right here.
This is the guts of unconditional love.
And like what was being actually said before was added
all the crap got added on top of it. Okay?
And I'm not going to get into religion tonight, but like, you know, for me,
the big thing was that I knew that I had a higher calling.
I always knew that whether I really did or didn't, I don't know.
But I, I had it just baked into me.
So I started to work out with with us doing the volunteering
for helping other people get sober.
And then that actually changed my life a bit.
And what I realized was that, wow, there's a lot more to unlocking this.
In fact, I was trying to figure out how do you make money
be successful in America and feel like you're living a mission?
That's a very difficult thing and you're not going to pull that off at
just volunteering. A church is not going to happen.
It's not the same as when you go to Africa and build an orphanage,
you know, go to Mexico and build houses or all those things that some of us have
got to experience.
I went to 40 countries before I was 25, mostly on mission trips.
Right? So this was this was pumped in, right.
And that's where the book idea came.
I started writing the book probably in 2013.
It took me three years to write.
It came out 2016, the first one.
But I knew I wanted to try to figure out
a way to help others at a larger scale.
So I still think it's so important to have what I call a ground game.
And my ground game is that like, like just tonight, like
I mean, I've probably talked to four or five guys this evening.
I probably owe a couple more.
Like, I'm never going to let go of that ground game
of helping other alcoholics and drug guys get sober, never letting that go
because the second I do it think that the only game is the book.
So the only game is, you know,
maybe I'll just take care of my family or the only game is the keynotes.
It's like, no, if the secret to my success straight up
for the last 15 years is that I keep a strong ground game
that's playing offense, like, yeah, you're
essentially taking care of yourself,
getting in the routine to avoid the temptation or the distractions or whatever
so that, you know, you're waking up and getting after it on, on your mission.
It keeps you on track and 100%.
And there's not that many opportunities to do that in America.
And that's what's so profound about the system
that, you know, I can't mention which system it is.
You can imagine which one it is, but not a lot to mention in the press.
But what I will tell you is that even people like Mother Theresa
have mentioned that system as one of the greatest gifts that Western
civilization has given to spirituality, and that's for Mother Theresa herself.
So there's some there's some stuff there and I've got to live that.
And so what happens is that I want to live an extraordinary life.
I want to live an extraordinary existence.
Okay, One wife isn't enough.
I got to have two, three kids that enough.
I got have six one business.
And if I got to five, you said I'm saying I want to I want to live at that level.
Right.
And I'm going to tell you, you have to match that level of,
well, quite frankly,
calamity and chaos with something you've got to match.
And if you don't, you end up defaulting to like, oh, I'm going to just gamble
my feelings away. I'm going to eat my feelings away.
I'm or snort my feelings away or I'm going to screw my feelings away.
You know, that's what is happening is the default, right?
Because you want this extraordinary life.
You have this big life, but you don't have anything to like match it with.
And what I have found is that, like, you can match it,
but you've got to lean into it and you've got to match that with something else.
And that's what happened for me, is that I replaced one drug for another drug,
and that drug is the limitless drug.
And that drug essentially
is a deeper connection with a power that's greater than you.
Okay.
You it call it what you want, but that is the limitless drug is is
is an ongoing connection to a much more powerful thing than you.
And what I have found is that nothing unlocks that
as much as helping somebody that's poor
with your hands, not with your check.
And I think one of the things that you had mentioned was that your your purposely
and intentionally surrounding yourself with people that are equally hungry
and the same growth mindset that that that you're trying to achieve.
Right.
You have people around you that are also trying to be
the best versions of themselves and trying to get free of whatever
addiction that they're suffering from.
And so in your book and step four, you use MJ
as an example of someone who builds and rebuilds his team.
And so I feel like that's kind of your way
of how built and rebuilt your team because, you know, he
he had to surround himself with the best quality of team players, right? And
so my question to you is, who
did you surround yourself with to win and how did you find them?
Yeah. So,
you know, most of the time
they found me.
Now they didn't Google me or actually come find me, but
what it is that happened
was that my circumstances led me to them.
Now I had to be open minded
and for the most part I had to be desperate.
So my team ended up being a combination of like
my sponsor was, was, was and is one,
you know, my spouse is one.
From a business standpoint,
I was blessed to get a mentor in 2010.
I mentioned some of these folks in the book
and so my mentor,
it it really came to me on that one.
But I leaned into it and really held on and really nurtured that relationship.
But yeah, you need a mentor if not multiples.
You got to be taking direction from someone
because and they don't all have to have the answers.
Usually it's a combination.
It really what it boils down to is that the reason why I put that in there
about the team being so important and I use, you know, Michael
for an example, just to get people's attention.
Right.
But at the end of the day, it's true for all of us.
The team piece is is critical
because that's the that's the part where I have to be humble enough
to take direction,
willing to take direction, willing to have somebody give me an idea.
That's not my idea.
And that's really important.
And, you know, this idea of getting out of yourself
while being true to yourself is kind of this like, weird
paradoxical
thing that that we all live through every day.
And being able to strike a balance there is is key.
You've got to be stretched and challenged by someone
that can get anything out of you,
you know, And you have to you have to be able to battle, test
whatever great ideas I always tell the guys I work with.
It's like, look, if you've got a good idea, give me a call.
You know, talk to me about it before you do. Right.
If you've got a great idea, you come find my ass.
Because essentially, like,
that's where we f it up is with our great ideas.
And I always say, if the idea is that great,
I should be able to run it by somebody that's in my circle.
And it's still a great idea.
Justin I feel like you had some sort of, like dropping out of print.
Did I answer that?
Yes, you did. You did great.
And I just look at this chat.
I'm like, Oh my God, Gold Star Wilson.
And he did it the other way on the
you had a quote in your book and it's if Thomas Edison had quit
when things got tough, we might all still be in the dark.
And I thought that was such a great quote.
So what made you almost quit in your past?
That how did you overcome it? Hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, I've had a lot of moments of of almost quitting.
You know, when my first business failed, I thought that was the end.
I thought that was the one shot that I was going to have an opportunity
to make money and I was going to go back to being poor.
I walked to work a year,
sold my sports car, and I did that because I.
I believed in something that I needed to do
next, which was create the next company, which was Potenza.
It was a make believe company.
And we made clients believe in us.
And then we made the whole community
believe in the clients product, whatever it was.
Essentially, it was branding.
But you know, that that was
a really pivotal moment for me when when kind of the world apart.
And I had to, you know,
have lost their loss.
The business was
one of the things I loved a lot, which was drugs.
And then I also, you know, went through loss with divorce,
you know, and then I also had other companies fail.
You know, it wasn't until my fifth company
that I really found success and,
you know, had that level growth
that we saw from continuing to learn
from the previous iterations and learn from the failures.
I do take the Edison concept very seriously.
You know that he didn't fail
10,000 times or however many experiments did.
He just found 9999 ways that didn't work.
And so, you know, that concept is important to note, by the way,
like if you want to do something great, you need to have a very good relationship
with failure.
You need to see it as an opportunity every single time.
And as much as it hurts, you've got to
really look for opportunities to get uncomfortable.
One of my friends, who's
also a thought leader, has a book called Hunting Discomfort,
and that Sterling Hawkins, obviously,
and he's he and I have gone through similar things.
And we we kind of see eye to eye on that.
That is a non-negotiable if you want to be successful,
you want to grow, you're going to have to be authentic.
You got to get honest about the problem.
You're going to have to be able to imagine a world that doesn't exist yet.
And then you're going to have to be very selfless in the journey along the way.
It's good.
I was going to ask if you think that that
the Addison principle
and kind of just not giving up like that, how that applies to fatherhood,
because I think it's really easy to connect that to like business ventures
and yeah, yeah, it's and stuff, but it's a little bit
more nebulous when it comes to fatherhood, right?
So, yeah, well, first of all, father's every night.
So it's like
how many nights I've had kids, that's how many nights have failed.
But yeah, Kids What?
Yeah, like I mean that every turn they're like reminding you of your,
your frailty, your, your weaknesses, you know.
And then the more you have of them,
the more like bright the frickin mirror is unlike who you are.
And it's just like, you can't hide because you're literally watching yourself
look around.
You know, it's like what?
My wife and I joke all the time when our daughter acts
a certain way, I'm like, Oh, she gets that from you.
That's like, it's friendly.
It's not accusing or whatever, but it's
yeah, you're we're both yeah, that's us
guilty.
But I think, you know, a pretense
tying it all together to with pretense I think that's a huge pretense,
especially for like newer parents
that you're going to like magically have it all, figure it out
and you're never going to mess it up and all that kind of stuff.
And I remember like some of the for me, the hardest moments
where I felt like I couldn't come back from
it is when I make something up as dad, you know,
raise your voice
too much or you did something you really regret.
The first time that happens,
there's that moment of like, Oh my gosh, there's no coming back from this.
You know, I'm the worst dad ever.
And I think every man has a moment like that, probably multiple moments like that.
And I just want to shatter that pretense that,
you know, if you're doing your best and you're genuinely trying to learn from it
and you make amends and you apologize for when you make those mistakes like
your kid needs, you still in the fight, you know, that will lead you to.
Yeah, disappear.
And yeah, I think
I think that's a misconception obviously, is that, you know, we're supposed to be
these perfect parents and it's like this like, first of all,
what is a perfect parent?
But clearly, none of us, our parents were, and we still love some of them.
And, you know, we just I think the hardest thing
as a parent is to be willing to really put myself back in where
where was I at five years old and what would I have wanted to be taught,
knowing everything I know now And like, you've got to put yourself back there.
And that's not always easy to honestly do that.
But really, at the end of the day, the best we're going to do with these kids
is and this is kind of I don't have a lot of rules in the House,
but I do want to try to teach three core values
and everything that we do have rules around is around these.
And it's pretty simple
kindness, right?
So that means like you're not going to hit anybody.
You're not going to yell at the other kids or, you know, whatever gratitude,
which means that like you're looking for opportunities to be grateful and respect.
I mean, if you get those three things as a parent, like congrats
on fucking inflations, I mean, that that's,
that's why we have these, we have these big ideas of what we want for kids.
Like, do you do that for a kid?
Like you have a kid that grows up and they're grateful and they're kind
and they're,
you know,
that gives them the foundation of different virtues come.
They don't. Yeah, Yeah.
When they're an adult, if that's their foundation,
they'll be able to figure out
the things that helps us not have too many other pretenses.
Because it's easy to get into a lot of roles in it.
And it's annoying.
Like some of that stuff that kids do is frickin annoying.
But then all this work
I've been doing of researching how like, Hey, you're an adult now.
You want to figure out how to unlock authenticity, selflessness and imagination
in and I'm taking you back to when you were five.
It's hard.
That's a that's a real accountability for me.
When I come home, my wife knows my body of work.
She knows my content.
So, like, she likes to remind me sometimes it's like,
you know, So that's probably been one of the biggest things.
It's a great
is the right kind of accountability because it's something I'm
passionate about, says It's been interesting as I've done
more of my own inner child work and then now, like
I'm kind of the spokesperson for inner child work a little bit, it's
it's definitely different when the litmus test is a live five.
Yeah, my wife has made a really good point a couple of times.
She said, Don't make the title of your podcast ironic.
If I'm hanging out with my kid and playing on my phone,
being present, say
that's so good a monster when she gets you.
She knows exactly now that that's that they love to
to drop that in and there's always in these moments where they're like
oh you're being real authentic right now like
I mean she dropped that a couple times and like, I lost my shit a little bit.
I was like, okay, I got to go outside and have a cigaret.
Where did he presence combusted?
Oh yeah, it's coming down the street and come talk to me, right?
Yeah, yeah.
No, like those, like the one thing like I'm kind of like Marty McFly,
you know when they would, it would get him cornered
and they'd call him Yella or chicken you know.
I remember that.
Yeah. Back to the future. Oh, yeah.
That. Oh, so.
So my like yellow chicken thing, that's like, call me a liar
one more time, you know, saying, ah, call me authentic one more time.
Like I'm, you know, I'm racking my, well, you know, play guitar anymore.
So it's, it's so funny.
So like we just covered a few topics that I kind of want to reiterate.
So we talked about a little bit about, you know, surrounding yourself
and who you surround yourself in the community have such a big impact on
on who you are, not only as a man or as as an entrepreneur or,
you know, this, that and the other as a father.
And we don't think about that concept.
We don't grasp that concept enough that
the men we keep around us mold us.
And, you know, we we didn't we talked about it before the show.
But masculinity, you know,
holding ourselves accountable, that's part of masculinity.
You know, if we have masculine men around us who also hold us
accountable, they're letting us know, Hey, you screwed up.
Guess what?
That's part of like,
having a support group, and I challenge anybody listening to this.
Please, please join our discord.
Please join any of our socials.
Follow us.
We want to hear from you guys because
someone like Frankie has been through it.
They understand what you are going through.
If this is similar to your story, I want fathers to understand.
Like every father fails, every father needs community,
every father needs masculine men around them because.
If you don't have those things as a man,
it's you don't have someone holding you accountable.
You don't break.
So I can help you. Yes.
You don't have someone to help you grow on a daily basis and give you the
the push when you're not ready to be pushed.
You like it's so much more than just, hey, you know, we need accountability.
We need good people around us.
It's a combination of everything.
And I don't think that's something that a lot of men recognize or grasp.
The fact of is, like you, a community, you need a tribe.
You need people who are lions, You need people who are softer.
Because when you're being an idiot or an A-hole,
they need you to calm the hell down and like, all right, look,
you know, you're messing up.
This is you're going at this a little aggressive or if you're not being
aggressive enough, you know, hey, you want your kid to be tougher, Do this.
Get on the mat with him. Like.
Like Cody Jefferson said, he doesn't just, you know, teach and preach wrestling.
He gets on the mat with his kids.
Like, yeah,
that's what a father should do is be hands on, be present, you know, be part of it.
And that's what we kind of try to preach.
But like, that's something that we don't really drive home a lot.
And that's something I just kind of wanted to say because
some of the things you have said has resonated
with all of those different things.
So yeah, this that's just something I wanted to touch on because
those things combined are so much more powerful than one the other.
No doubt, no doubt.
The Franky,
what is the for, in your eyes,
the most rewarding thing about being a father?
Hmm. I think about that.
I hate to say this, but I think like that
feeling of being wanted is just pretty selfishly
profound,
especially at the ages.
I have my kids in the house right now.
It's just like and it's it's actually a double edged sword
because a lot of times it's
it's a lot when they want
your attention, you know, and it can be overwhelming.
But I've learned to really
try to lean into it because I know that it's not going to last forever.
And I know that literally every parent wishes they had it back.
So You hear these things from people, and there's two things
I've heard over and over again from literally every parent I've ever met.
And so I have to I have to assume that this is the truth.
And so far it has proven that one is that it goes very fast.
And two, is that
like you miss it when it's gone.
So I try to think about that.
Any time.
Like I'm feeling overwhelmed, like maybe I'm stressed out or like I'm
trying to work on like some new talk
or some project or launch a company or blah blah,
all the stuff that like we we work on and they really want my attention.
I try to really remember it in those moments
that it's there's not that much time left.
I mean, essentially there's 13 more years for the youngest to be out.
There's only five for my oldest to be out the house.
And so I got to I got to stay present in this because I'm not getting it back.
And I already know what it feels like to live with regrets and.
Like in those moments, I try to remember what that feels like and
not create a new regret.
It's good, man.
I like that. That's powerful.
Any final
fatherly advice for all the dads out there?
Yeah Don't fuck it up.
No, I'm kidding.
That's a that's a unique command.
Yeah.
I mean, at the end of the day, like,
the best fatherly advice is show the fuck up.
You know, that's for real.
Like, don't worry about fucking it up.
You'll do that. But just show up, man. You got.
You got to show up and it's I got to put the phone down
and I just have to be in the moment and say that it's worth as a
because I'm not looking on my phone when I've met with billionaires.
Okay? And I haven't got to meet with that many billionaires.
But when I have
after I was done, like, you know, peeing
my pants cause I was so nervous, I didn't have my phone out.
Okay.
Absolutely, positively did not have my phone out.
I have no idea what happened on my phone for that hour.
I assure you that at both.
Am I willing to give that same thing to my kids?
You know, I'm sure you guys talk about the phone thing
a lot on this podcast, but like, it's it's a thing.
And just showing up
for them and being present.
I mean, that's the stuff that everybody talks about.
No, nobody.
When I went to on site Georgie Brock experiences,
I didn't meet one person that was like, Oh,
you know, I'm so hurt cause my parents got divorced.
No, everybody that was like, had me in there sculpt as their fathers.
They're beating the heck out of a
with fake
bat, imagining that I'm their father, You know, every single one of them.
It was because they. They felt abandoned.
They're their father or their mother wasn't there for them, period.
They don't give a shit about the other stuff.
They don't give a shit about the details.
It's like either they
either we're there for them or, they were there for us or they weren't.
It's not something that you can like shortchange and then adding
like pony rides and buying them stuff
only creates more anxiety.
And then now also you have this adult kid and you're wondering,
why don't they want to talk to me? Why don't they like me?
It's like, because they grew up
and realized like what the world really is and realize like,
you're kind of not the person that they want to hang out with.
Now that they've grown up and had the choice.
And I think that's the that's the nightmare, right?
Is that like you create this space where your kid doesn't feel like they
want to come back to you.
And I can tell you for sure for my wife and me right behind her.
But I mean, my wife is has one objective in this life and that is like
create that that want to come home
when they get older, you know, creative space.
Yeah, right. A space where people want to come home.
That's a friggin lovers, isn't There's going to be seasons.
I mean I pretty much 18 to 25
I pretty much is a throwaway years like if your kids don't want to come back
that much during 18 or 25, that doesn't even count like they got a little freedom.
Yeah, yeah. They don't even count.
Well, they're starting to build their life.
I mean, they're figuring themselves out at that point, so it's a little different.
Yeah.
And I think the other thing too, is like,
don't find your identity and your kids, like, for God sakes, like, it's.
That was one thing my parents never did.
And it that was the greatest gift they gave us.
My brother's a doctor.
You know, I've done a couple of things.
My my other brother is an entrepreneur. My
sister is a psychologist.
Like so it's not like we have an Excel.
And it wasn't from any pressure from them whatsoever.
And we always knew we could be
whatever we wanted to be and
that was a gift that they gave us
and I'm better for it.
It's awesome, man.
All right.
So I got one final question for you, and it's something we try to ask every dad.
What is a story or a core memory that you have with your kids
that just really sticks out to you like a sore thumb
that you really just appreciate or you think about quite often
and it's a good gosh.
It's so many.
It's hard because you have to choose. Yeah, so many.
But just just one that comes up quick.
There you go.
I keep thinking about Christmas at
the other house that
we have on the lake that we did this last year,
and some of the adventures we've had out there.
Why that that that comes to mind.
Cause I feel like it's like it was
getting that space and that property was, was about
unlocking some more of the adventure that we have
that just age.
Dustin I'm going to bust Dustin out.
He said, Oh yeah, that's good.
That does that, guys.
Never You picked that you love the most out of the
yeah you notice out of whichever kid
you say the memory for you obviously love the other five less, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
No we put you on the spots and no one's situationally grabbed.
I wasn't even trying to grab for memories that were a single kid.
Don't know.
I probably
could do it easier if I did that, but that wasn't.
I wasn't even going there.
That or we're going to have to give six memories either way. Yeah.
There's only one cardinal rule in my house and that,
you know, and it's not my role.
It's, you know, I don't know whose role it is, but like,
you know, everybody's super careful about that.
And then if the other spouse has a sneaking suspicion of who the favorite
is, like, God forbid, because never have my wife and I had the same favorite.
Like, obviously nobody has a favorite,
But I mean, come on who are we kidding, guys?
Everybody knows what their favorite is.
We just don't talk about it.
All right. So and I'm sure unspoken talk about it.
Well, I 100% have a favorite because.
I only have one.
So, yeah, I got that for to talk about, but that's fine.
Yeah.
So I you know, I do love them in different ways.
That's it.
You know, the more I, I go as a father I, I can't say that I have a favorite.
There's different moments that are going to be amazing with your kid.
And I could go on and on, but.
But back in. Back to what you were talking about your. Yeah.
So when I saw him, I was like, okay.
So yeah, basically it was and it is because we got that space
to create a sense of community, to get offline, to go out on the boat
and to dig like because, you know, you live in our neighborhood
just in like, it's not exactly like a neighborhood
where people just get to dig dirt and crap like that.
And my boys like, love to pee and you don't get invited to the get and dig.
Yeah, I know.
It's like this f ing up the landscaping.
I don't even know why Tracy got the number for your landscaping guy.
Because, like,
the kids are just going to f it up, so it's like
I had to get this other property where they can, like,
dig holes to China and, you know, just be kids.
And that that's been some pretty special memories as a commune, you know,
because once you have eight people, you're, I think, technically a commune.
I don't even think I I'm actually breaking the neighborhood.
Whatever.
What do they call that? The homeowners association.
I'm fairly confident I'm breaking it.
They actually called me the guy across the street.
All right. He's not going to watch this because I know who he is.
I'm not going to name names, but. Yes.
Okay, dude.
Okay.
So apparently you're only supposed to have two trash cans.
All right. Well, I have a big house.
I have three trash cans and recycling bin.
All right.
The guy got my trash cans picked up
like like I had a I had an assistant that was working in the home at the time.
Yeah.
So she called the utilities and said, yeah,
the homeowners association called it in, like, but I bought that trash can.
Like, what are you talking about? Anyway, I got it added.
And then she, my assistant at the time, like, had some words with old boy.
And so, you know, they made an exception.
But now I want to go put out three and just throw them a cinder block
and just see what. Yeah,
dude, trust me.
Put out three plus a recycling bin.
You're in.
You're in deep water with the homeowner speaking of pretense.
Yeah, right. Love it.
Oh, man.
All right, well,
Frankie, we really appreciate you coming on and.
Just your candor and sharing your your story.
But before we go, I want to let you
plug where are the best places for people to follow you and get in touch with you?
So I know you have the website Frankie Russo dot com.
Yeah.
Anywhere else people should go to look for years is that it's the best path
anywhere but read it.
So you're on Twitter X and Instagram, all that kind of stuff.
My books and all the, all the places books are sold and yeah, so
Frankie Russo, I ended up having to pay a lot of money just to get my own name.
Bunch of pirates.
I used to have the hyphen and I was like, You know what?
Let's just keep it simple.
But as a capitalist got Yo yo, I got cash.
Let's kill in the country.
That's right. They have, as you know.
But yeah man Frankie Russo dot com it's all it's easy.
I monitor the social media and have some help with that So, you know,
if you reach out, I'm always, always happy to chat and talk
and be out in general.
Looks like they're turning down the lights in here.
Yeah.
This was they here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly like I actually IMO.
But they were they clearly sending me the message like, go ahead.
This was awesome guys.
You know, this was a lot of fun and I hope this was helpful for you guys.
I feel like we definitely leaned in.
I don't know if I've said all of this stuff in one
recording before, so minus the audible book, I guess.
But even that doesn't have some of this good stuff. So,
I mean, it was it was a real pleasure.
And again, we just thank you
for sharing your story with our audience and being transparent.
So we'll live authentically and
all right without further dads, let's start climbing the mountain together.
We'll see in the next one.
Thanks for tuning
into this episode of the Present Fathers podcast.
Make sure you subscribe to our
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We will see you in the next one.