Nick Santonastasso - From Victim To Victor - How I Defied The Odds To Build An Unstoppable Mindset

Full transcript: Nick Santonastasso on London Real

3:30 Brian Rose: This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is

3:43 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Nick Santonastasso, the world-renowned speaker, entrepreneur, and mindset coach. You were born with a very rare genetic condition called Hanhart syndrome, which caused underdeveloped limbs and organs, and you were given a less than 30% chance to live. Instead, you have defied all medical expectations and transformed this adversity into your life’s purpose.

4:08 You are the best-selling author of Victim to Victor: How to Overcome the Victim Mentality to Live the Life You Love, and spent four years touring with Tony Robbins as a featured speaker, empowering massive audiences with your story of resilience, determination, and self-mastery. Your online content has reached over a billion viewers, and your training programs have helped over a million people overcome their limitations, develop an unshakable mindset, and take control of their lives. You said that the biggest disability is a bad mindset, and your mission is to help people break through fear and self-doubt to unlock their full potential.

4:43 Ultimately, you believe that adversity is a gift, and true strength comes from owning your story, taking responsibility, and pushing past excuses. Nick, welcome to London Real in Dubai.

4:55 Nick Santonastasso: I’m so glad to be here, brother. Thanks for having me.

4:57 Brian Rose: It’s really my pleasure, man, and I can’t wait to dive into this and really go deep on your story, who you are, and, again, your future, part of which is in this beautiful city of Dubai. You once said, “A man with no legs and one arm statistically shouldn’t be happier than people with a full body, yet here we are.” And you said that they deserve more love, fulfillment, purpose, and guidance if they are open to it. Mm.

5:22 And I’m reminded of an event I went to a couple weeks ago that was invite-only, very private. Some very high-level people there, members of the royal family, where you spoke and it was really interesting. You know, I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been super fortunate to share the room with some really powerful speakers, but I found it really interesting for a few reasons. First of all, the way you communicated and the way that people walked away with, like, actionable information and then also how you’re really a metaphor to remind people to maybe think about their life differently, and I think a lot of people walked out of there thinking to themselves, “Man, maybe I should think differently about my life,” and it was really powerful, man.

6:09 So, you developed this kind of amazing skill.

6:12 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah. The truth is, I’ll come out right out of the gates of most of my success came from not wanting to feel inadequate. You know, my whole life I was always doubted, and my whole life, you know, maybe I was picked last or they didn’t expect me to do these things.

6:33 I mean, from the moment I was born, they already put limitations on me that I couldn’t feed myself, dress myself. And it’s interesting when I got into business, not directly but indirectly, I would hear things like, “He only gets stages because he’s disabled,” or, “He dropped out of college, he doesn’t have any business experience. Why would we listen to a 20-year-old kid in his 20s? He’s not tactical enough. It’s just motivation.”

6:56 And so that stung, but I transmuted it, right? As an alchemist, I transmuted that energy and I was like, “Okay, if I’m not tactical enough, I’m going to do everything in my power to learn all these tools and all these healing modalities and psychology and neuroscience.” So, I’m so tactical where I cannot be denied. And so, what you’ve seen at that event that I put on was eight years of digging the well of knowledge and then equipping other people with those pieces of knowledge.

7:26 The way that I teach, the way that it’s active, the way that they’re getting engaged. I don’t care what your net worth is, who you are. Like, we’re going to play. This is my playground. We’re going to play.

7:36 And I just believe that all of us are one piece of information or one sentence or one new belief away from a whole different life because that’s what changed my life. I got into the room and I heard someone say something and once I heard it, I can never unhear it. And so, I just want to be that for other people. And I’ve also realized that I’ve been uniquely designed in a unique vessel to pierce through the common word.

8:01 Brian Rose: You were talking in the beginning of that kind of speech you gave, and you said something like, if people hear something, they remember 10%, if they write it down they remember 30%, and if they say something, they remember like 70%. Something like that. I don’t know.

8:14 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. Yeah. Great memory. And so we talk about this with communicators and the best communicators in the world. There’s a learning style of passive learning and then there’s a learning style of active learning.

8:26 And school, no offense to school, but most schools are very passive learning, meaning the teacher speaking at you, right? And it’s boring. You don’t really retain much. But neuroscience shows that if you physically write things down, you can retain more information. But if you want to retain the most information, you’ve got to keep your body in what we call a learning state.

8:43 And a learning state is where I have you wave at me, say yes, you know, talk to your neighbor, shout out, and not to be motivational. It’s just, let’s make this fun and enjoyable as we learn, and let’s make it interactive. And so what you’ll notice is

8:57 95% of communicators in the world don’t teach like that.

8:59 Brian Rose: I know.

8:59 Nick Santonastasso: And so you’ve probably never even seen anything like it. And so when I teach that way, not only does it make people retain it, but it’s a total different experience. And when you truly understand communication, people won’t always remember what you said, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel. And if I can make you feel something, if I can make you think, and feel something, you’ll always remember me.

9:21 Brian Rose: And that’s what happened. And you brought that guy up to talk as well, which was helpful. And I was scanning the room when you were talking. And almost everybody was glued to you, you know. And again, you were asking hard questions.

9:32 You were asking people to admit things that maybe were hard to admit about the way they look at themselves and the way they feel. And people were raising hands. And again, this is a high-level group of people,

9:41 Very high level, and they know other people are watching them. So, it’s hard to get someone, you know, a billionaire to raise his hand and say, “I feel inadequate.” You know, but that’s kind of what you were doing.

9:49 Nick Santonastasso: Of course. Right. And my team was scared about that. Yeah. They literally were like, “Hey, Nick, don’t scare these people.”

9:56 And I was thinking about it very, very, for a very long time, of like, what am I going to say and how am I going to display myself? Because this was like a showcase of who Nick was. And at the end of the day, I was like, I can’t go surface level. I can only go deep. And so what I did, if you noticed, and for those that are listening, for those that want to influence, improve your communication, influence, persuasion, whatever you want to call it, is I led from the front.

10:19 And what I mean by that is I started off the seminar with a really vulnerable story of myself so they know that Nick is just like me, and he creates a safe container where I can maybe be a little bit vulnerable. But these are skills called preframes. Have you heard of a pre-frame?

10:37 Brian Rose: I have.

10:37 Nick Santonastasso: Right. So a preframe is me setting the frame before we go into the experience so you have the best experience. And so I said things like, you know, if I’m going to give you all of me, you’ve got to give me all of you. Is that okay? Say yes.

10:49 Boom. Psychological buy-in, right? Um, this is a room full of highly intelligent individuals and we’re always looking for the small shifts. How many of you in here are open to a small shift that can change your life? Yes.

11:00 Okay. Psychological buy-in. So, I’m getting your buy-in before I take you through the experience, because once I give you the experience, you’re like, I already told them I was going to go all in.

11:09 Yeah.

11:09 I can’t lie to myself.

11:10 Yeah.

11:10 So, it’s all methodically designed to make sure that they get the best experience. And the biggest belief that I want people to adopt and understand is that what you said in the intro, it’s not the mechanics or it’s not the body. It’s always the psychology that is holding you back. And even if you have mechanics, when you upgrade your psychology, you look at the mechanics differently as well. So, if I can get the crowd and even ballers to be bought in and understand that it’s the psychology, they’ll then be ready to receive the blessings that I have for them.

11:41 Brian Rose: I’m glad you went all in and didn’t hold back. And that took you eight years to really master this entire speaking style and kind of how you walk people through this.

11:51 Nick Santonastasso: Yes. Um, let me say a few things for the audience. The first thing is one of the greatest things that I’ve learned working with the highest, most highest level individuals in the world is that when you see people making more money than you, bigger podcast than you, whatever it is, initially we want to be like, that person’s better than me, and that’s really disempowering to think that you’re not superior and they are superior. But the mindset shift that I’d like the audience to adopt is it’s not that they’re better than you, but ask the question of what do they know that I don’t and how can I get the information?

12:28 The truth is, we talked about this off-stage. You’ve been podcasting since I was in high school, right? And I and I love that, and I think that’s incredible. So, of course, you have more mastery than most. You’ve been doing it for a very long time.

12:40 And so, you have information that I don’t have. I have information that you don’t have. We can exchange information to collapse time, and that’s what the greatest teachers do. So for me, yeah, I’ve spent eight years of my life digging the well of knowledge. But also success leaves clues.

12:56 And so what do I mean by that? Well, whatever you want to be the greatest at, find the greatest and observe them and study them and analyze them. What are they doing right? What are their patterns? How do they communicate?

13:08 What’s their tonality? All these different things. You can gain so much from just observing. I mean, you’re observing me, I’m observing you. When we’re in different scenarios, we can see how we act.

13:18 And so, success leaves clues, and most is caught, not taught. It’s observed. And then you implement. And so, yeah, this is eight years. And I’m still learning.

13:29 And ideally, tomorrow when you see me, I’m even better than I was today. And I think our whole intention as high-value men, whatever you want to call it, is to build ourselves into the greatest version of man and give it to the world. That’s why we do what we do. My human experience is for me, but ultimately I also believe the majority of my human experience is for you.

13:51 For you to see something in me and and and have a gift, have a blessing. But if Nick’s not on, I rob you of a gift.

13:59 Yeah.

13:59 So it’s much bigger than us.

14:01 Brian Rose: Yeah. I had a guest one time that she said, you know, before you ever leave the house you need to make sure you love yourself, because if you don’t, it’s like leaving the house without taking a shower. It’s like leaving the house without brushing your teeth. People are going to feel something that’s off about you. And so your first responsibility is to kind of present the best version of yourself to the world.

14:20 And if you think of yourself as a gift to humanity, it leads to a life well-lived. If you think of yourself as a gift to yourself, and I tried that for 40 years, it leads to a very, very pointless existence. I think, you know,

14:32 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah, it’s very interesting.

14:33 Yeah.

14:34 Going dirt nerdy and deep, but the external world is a reflection of the internal. Everything’s a mirror. Life will give you exactly what you ask of it. And the truth is most of us don’t ask for enough because we don’t think we’re enough, right? It’s like our success is directly correlated to our self-worth.

14:53 If you think you’re worth $10,000, so be it. If you think you’re worth 50, so be it. Some people think they’re worth a billion. Some people put different values on their time, but life will give you exactly what you ask of it. And your self-worth will dictate what you ask of life.

15:09 It’s very interesting. It is.

15:10 And even for people that are listening, you know, we were just talking about with my group, networking, and I mean, how many times, especially on the come-up, and for those that are listening, have you been in a room where you were like, I don’t know if I should be in this room. I feel like everybody’s richer than me. I feel like everybody’s smarter than me. Well, great. One, that’s an incredible room to be in.

15:30 But two, instead of focusing on you and how small you are, shift the question and walk into the room and say, “How can I be a blessing to someone here today?” And watch how the energy changes. Watch how your whole dynamic and the way that people treat you and the way that you want to serve totally changes. And I think if we can just keep that primary question of how can I be a blessing to someone today, it’ll change the quality of your life. Because if the internal or the external is a mirror of the internal world, and whatever you believe in, you know, God, universe, higher power, energy, frequency, whatever you believe in.

16:03 If the universe of the world is a mirror for you, most people’s hopes and wishes and prayers are like a vending machine. Meaning, can you give me this? I want more money. I want the girl. I want this.

16:14 I want that. But what if you shifted the question and every single day you woke up and said, “Whoever you are, how can I serve you?” The universe, God, whatever you believe in, mirrors you and goes, “No, how can I serve you?” Life changes.

16:33 Brian Rose: Powerful, man.

16:34 Powerful. One of the big exercises you did at the event was to get people to catch themselves when they were thinking about something. And I think you might have alluded to it a bit with the bigger podcast or money, more money, and as opposed to talking down to yourself that I don’t have this or I’m not good enough, to try to find another way to reframe that, and I feel like that’s a big, powerful part of your teaching.

16:55 Do most people walk around, and maybe with the advent of social media there’s now so many things to compare ourselves to now. Do they just make themselves smaller

17:04 Kind of all the time, and they could really flip that around?

17:07 Nick Santonastasso: 100%. I think we all do, and even me, I’m not, you know, preaching from a place of perfect. You’re talking to a guy whose emotional home is probably inadequacy, right? And I like to work on that. And let me just say a few things.

17:20 The first thing is understand that your personal development tools only get to be used when things don’t go your way. And so what if the times where you’re triggered or the times where things don’t go your way are actually your greatest blessings? Because it gives you an opportunity to work in the arena. It gives you an opportunity to work on yourself. But training over a million people live from stage, it doesn’t matter what your background is, what your net worth is, what your status is, what your beliefs are.

17:46 Patterns are just patterns. Humans are just humans, in the sense that we’re very similar in our patterns. And so after you’ve trained over a million people live, you kind of pick up on some data. And so the data shows that the majority of people find themselves in the pattern of focusing on what they don’t have versus what they do have. And it’s very interesting because all of us listening know people with the cars and with the houses and with the women, whatever you want to call it, and it’s still not enough.

18:17 Hopefully we learn this lesson in our lifetime, or maybe we have to come back again and learn it, but one of the greatest lessons that I see is nothing materialistic will fill a spiritual hole. I mean, you and I both know there is a point in our life where we were like, “What do you mean more money, more problems?”

18:35 Yeah.

18:35 I don’t know about you, but I’m like, “What do you mean more money, more problems? Give me the problems and give me the money.”

18:41 Brian Rose: No money, more problems is what we thought.

18:42 Nick Santonastasso: Exact. And we thought money would fix everything.

18:46 Brian Rose: I think one of the saddest times is when you got the money and you’re like, “Is this it?” Nothing changed. I remember when my rich friends would tell me, “Well, not all money is good money.” I’m like, “I’ll take the bad money.” You know, like, “What do you mean not all the money?”

19:04 Brian Rose: You know what I’m saying?

19:05 Nick Santonastasso: Um, but then you realize that nothing materialistic will fill that internal hole, that spiritual hole. So, going back to the focus pattern, one of the biggest focus patterns that screws most humans up is they’re always focused on what they don’t have versus what they do have. Now, the reason why that’s so detrimental to your life is because when you focus on what you don’t have, you feel less than. And when you feel less than, you take less action.

19:28 And when you take less action, you get less results. And the cycle repeats and you don’t even know that you’re in the cycle. And so for me, I think my whole life and my physical body is this massive analogy of like, I must shift focus or I’m destroyed. I must shift focus because if the man with no legs and an arm wakes up every single day and doesn’t do the work and he’s not conscious and he doesn’t shift focus, he has a terrible life. And because Nick has a terrible life, he’s not going to take care of himself.

19:56 He can’t take care of his family and he’s screwed. He missed the blessing. He missed the offering. But that wasn’t the case. That wasn’t always the case.

20:06 Like I’m a 28-year-old man, and for 19, 20 years of my life, I hated myself. I thought I was the most disgusting thing on planet Earth. I thought I was the most inadequate, biggest curse God, whatever you believe in could give me. I’ll never have a wife. I’ll never have a girlfriend.

20:20 And my story was always focusing on what I didn’t have. And so, just think how much work it’s going to require someone to rewire their brain when their whole life they’re always focused on what’s wrong.

20:31 Brian Rose: Yeah. It’s, we were talking a little bit earlier, you know, and for some reason I feel like you were born and then you just went on the stage and then you hung out with Tony Robbins, and this is just like, of course it happened this way, and of course this is what happens when you don’t have any legs and one arm, but it was far from that truth, and like, for most of your high school days up until you were 20, you were unhappy with yourself, and I’m just, how did that change?

20:58 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. How did it change? I’m getting there’s emotion coming up for me right now because I feel like people at my level, people at our level, they don’t and I wish they would. They don’t share that they still get broken. They don’t share that they still have nights where they want to quit.

21:20 They don’t share the pressure of payroll or the pressure of being the guy and putting on the suit and putting on the smile. So I first want to lead off with, like, just a couple days ago I wanted to quit everything. Like, let’s be real. Like, just a couple days ago Nick the mindset guy had the thoughts of like, maybe this isn’t for me. Maybe this isn’t working.

21:44 Maybe I’m not making an impact. Maybe I should have more money by now. And so I just want to lead with that to let you know that the guys that you watch, they struggle too,

21:55 But they don’t talk about it. Maybe it’s part of their image and maybe they think it’s weak, and that’s okay. That’s part of their brand. But for me, I want to show you all parts of me, and I’ll love all parts of you as well. But this didn’t happen overnight.

22:11 This happened because, like I said in the beginning, I hated, I hated myself. I hated the fact that I was born with no legs, one arm. I hated the fact that my friends had girlfriends and I didn’t. I hated the fact that they had an aide with me in school. I hated the fact that I was different.

22:29 And the first shift was when I became a wrestler, when I became an athlete. Like, before becoming an athlete at 15, 14 years old, I was a chubby, fat Italian kid who soothed all of his emotions with food and video games and marijuana, and kind of stayed to myself and thought this was my life. And I got to the point where I had this honest conversation with myself, and I was like, well, you’ve thought about taking your life, but you know, you would never.

22:58 That’s going to destroy your whole family. So Nick would never do that. And so you have a choice. You can either live pissed off and angry and depressed, or you can figure out how to take control of this character of you, and

23:11 Brian Rose: And everybody gives you a pass because of your condition, right? So they’re like, “Let him play his video games. Let him have his food, because he must have such a hard life.” So in a weird way, it’s even harder for you, because no one’s holding you accountable.” Is that right?

23:25 Nick Santonastasso: It’s perfect. That’s spot on, right? I mean, of course. Let him do his thing. Life’s hard, right?

23:35 And I think and by the way, there’s people with their whole body, all their arms and all their legs, and they’re in an environment where people say, “Well, of course, Bobby, of course, Cindy, her life’s hard.” And that’s dangerous. Yeah,

23:54 Brian Rose: That’s a dangerous place to be in.

23:56 Nick Santonastasso: Right. That’s why I say you can have all your arms and all your legs, yet still be handicapped and crippled by your environment, right? And so, yeah, it was definitely easy for me to take that route, but my parents played a crucial role in that, in the sense that yeah, they let things slide, but also, let me give you some background on why I’m wired the way that I’m wired. My mom’s philosophy for me was, “Nick, as long as you’re happy, I’ll support it.”

24:28 She didn’t care if I was a doctor. She didn’t care if I was a streamer. She didn’t care. She’s like, “As long as you’re happy.” When I came home to mom, it wasn’t, how much money do you make?

24:38 It was like, “Do you like what you’re doing?” And if it was yes, then she was in. Now, pops. Dad, on the other hand, which I’m grateful for, both of these modalities, the both of these energies. Dad was like, “Yeah, you’re happy, but you need to be able to feed yourself.

24:57 Never take a hand out, son. Like, even with no legs, warm, never take a hand out. You ain’t collecting disability. That’s not for you. That’s for other people.

25:07 You’re going to figure out how to be independent.” Very early on, my dad was like, “I already have two careers picked out for you if you’re open to it. These are two things that don’t matter about your body, Nick. You know what they are? You could be a sports announcer, a news announcer, use your voice, or you could be a speaker.

25:23 That’s what my dad said. You know what I told him? I don’t want to do any of those things, Dad. You know, at that time, I wanted to be an astronaut, or, you know, I literally wanted to play football or something. He’s like, son, let’s be real, right?

25:33 And so, my dad was the big push on becoming a savage, in the sense of like, own your stuff, be a man, be the provider. I don’t care what your physical body is, you’re going to find a way. And I was kind of scared of that. Mm.

25:47 Um, and I know I went off on a total side route here, but yeah. So, these are all the combinations of Nick becoming Nick, but let’s just, I’ll give an overarching theme. I became an athlete right at the time, because I think this is a good story for everybody to know. I was 15, 16 years old. My brother, who was still alive at the time, he was a wrestler.

26:06 And I always wanted to be like my brother. He went on to be a Marine. He was just a savage. And so I was like, I want to be a savage, too. And in New Jersey, wrestling, we talked about this offscreen, wrestling was a big deal.

26:17 And I also knew that if I could become a wrestler, it would increase my conversion rate of women.

26:23 Like, I would be more attractive. Maybe Nick could get a girlfriend, even the guy with no legs and one arm, right? It’s like if I could become an athlete, you know, that would help my identity. And so at the time, my right arm was about 5 inches longer than it is now, and my bone was growing faster than my skin. So it was super sensitive.

26:40 And the bottom line is, if I would have hit my arm hard enough, my bone would have come through my skin. That’s how sensitive it was. And I remember coming home one day and I sat both my parents down. I said, “Listen, I want to become a wrestler.” And the first thing that my mom said was, “Absolutely not.

26:56 You’re going to hit your arm. Your bone comes through. The bone’s going to come through your skin. What are you going to do then?” And I looked at my parents in their eyes, and I looked at them and I said, “We need to cut my arm off.”

27:08 And they’re like, “What do you mean, cut your arm off?” I was like, there’s got to be a way. But that’s how much pain I was in. Let me just anchor this for the audience. That’s how much pain I was in, that I was willing to do whatever it takes to get out of the fire and into a cooler place.

27:26 And I know people listening right now, some of you are so deep into the fire that you’re going to find a way to cool off. You either burn or you figure it out. And I can assure you, when humans are about to burn, they figure it out. And so my parents accepted my offering of cutting my arm off, but not myself. You know, we went to the doctors.

27:46 We found some of the greatest doctors, and they amputated my arm. So they cut 5 inches of my shorter limb off

27:52 So I could become a wrestler. And just imagine a man with no legs but one arm going back to school. I didn’t tell anyone.

27:57 I didn’t tell my family or friends. I didn’t tell my parents, I mean, I didn’t tell teachers. And then I came back to school. They’re like, “What did you do?” I’m like, “I cut my arm off.”

28:05 And they said, “Why?” And I said, “I’m going to become a wrestler.” And that was the level, or that is the level of delusion, optimistic delusion, that you need in order to get through life, become successful, become someone. And so I cut my arm off. I became a wrestler.

28:24 Happiest kid that just cut his arm off, said no one ever. And I became a wrestler. And, you know, I don’t know how deep you want to dive into identity and all that stuff, but wrestling shifted my identity. I immediately went from maybe a disabled kid to the athlete to the wrestler, to having scary friends, to having community, to having brotherhood, which, don’t miss all this game. These are all things that make up a successful man or a successful woman.

28:47 And I got more action with women. Um, I was more active. I was getting beat up. But there’s some sort of savage part of you that awakens when you’re in a physical combat sport. And that led me to, I mean, we can go down the whole list.

29:05 That led me to becoming a bodybuilder, a prankster, a speaker, but it all started with a kid who hated himself and wasn’t going to take his life and would do anything it took to be loved.

29:19 Brian Rose: Wow. My martial arts instructor once told me, he said, “Brian, you learn a lot about yourself when you get into a fight.” That’s what he said. And I would say that’s very true. And that’s what you were doing with wrestling.

29:29 Is there some analogy or metaphor here for the guy that, you know, doesn’t have certain limbs and decides to take more away to get to the next level? It seems like this is something people can learn from, where, you know, you’re in this place that’s really low. You might actually have to subtract something to get even further.

29:49 Nick Santonastasso: You know, it’s a beautiful, beautiful reference. You and I talked about, because I asked you how you stay in shape, and what you’ve realized as you get older or get more wisdom is success isn’t always addition. Success is actually subtraction, and for me, identifying the weakness, I needed to cut off one of the weaknesses, which happened to be an arm, but here’s the question for those that are listening: maybe it’s not an arm, like me, but what are the very things right now that you need to cut off that no longer serve you?

30:22 And you know what it is. You know what it is. We all do. And by the way, do you and I still have things? 100%.

30:28 You and I still have things that we need to subtract. And so, just start there. And I would also say for those that are listening, that maybe didn’t grow up in the perfect childhood with the perfect parents and the perfect upbringing, you actually have the advantage, because you’re more resourceful than the guy who was fed everything. Mhm.

30:50 You are more resourceful. You have more adversity. You have more resilience. You have more edge than the guy who was born into wealth. You actually have an advantage, which is your struggle.

31:01 You know what it’s like to be a dog. You know what it’s like to eat scraps. You know what it’s like to, you know, be poor. And so, you actually have an advantage, which is your environment that sculpted you into someone who’s resourceful. There’s more edge there.

31:15 So, congratulations to the dogs out there. And good luck to the ones that have been fed everything, because the ones that have been fed everything, they’ve got to keep themselves dangerous, because everything tends to be easy if they were born into wealth. But shout out to the ones that are coming up from the gutter, because you have more of a dog in you than you think.

31:34 Brian Rose: Yeah. What do you have to cut out of your life right now? One of my mentors once said, “There’s never an easy time to make a tough decision.” And yet most of us prolong it way too long, until sometimes that decision is just made for us. But we all know, like you said, the things that don’t belong in our lives if we want to get to the next level, but we’re not brave enough or bold enough to rip the damn band-aid off.

31:55 You amputating your arm, that’s a savage move, man. That’s a savage move.

31:59 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. And like you said with decisions, life changes in a moment of decision. And so I want everybody to really think about this. It’s like, wow, my life, you know, over five years my life changed. It’s like, no, maybe it took you five years to make one decision.

32:14 Or how many of you listening right now took you way too long to leave that relationship? It took you way too long to put down the drugs and become sober. It took you way too long to get into the gym. But it changed in a moment of decision. And I think that’s so important for people to realize, especially as men, and high-value men, is you need to exercise the muscle of being decisive, and understanding that every single decision you’re going to make, you’re going to gain something or you’re going to lose something.

32:39 The only bad decision is not making a decision. And so keeping in that decisiveness mentality, you’re going to gain something, you’re going to lose something, but like right now, what is a decision that you need to make that you’ve been putting off too long? And just by me prompting that question, there’s something that popped into your brain for those that are listening. That’s the very thing.

33:02 Brian Rose: Let’s talk about this elephant in the room, which is how the hell are you going to wrestle? Of course it’s like, of course Nick can wrestle, but again, you’re a bit of a Superman, so of course, and of course he tours with Tony Robbins. We’ll get to that, too. But I mean, you know, in Jersey, they don’t play games in wrestling, and in wrestling mats in general, they don’t play games. And here you do showing up.

33:22 Now, it’s one thing to come to a practice, haha. But to get in there and mix it up, that’s pretty crazy.

33:27 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. So, great question. The first thing that I did was I asked my whole entire team to not take it easy on me. Like, please don’t take it easy on me. I want to be treated normal.

33:42 So beat me up. And I also told them, if you play 50%, I’m going to get destroyed in a live match. So you’re actually doing me a disservice if you hold back on me. And ask and you shall receive. Those boys gave it to me.

33:56 And that is an analogy for itself for those that are listening. If you’re surrounded by yes-men and yes-women who never disagree with you, never call you out on your stuff, that isn’t love. Love is not lies. Love is truth. Love is direct.

34:21 And you really know who your tribe is when you can be direct and they’ll still love you anyway. But how many times have you ever tried to communicate directly to someone, and that triggered them and threw you off, and then the relationship was ruined? That person wasn’t truly meant to be in your life. But the ones that are truly there, you have to agree to disagree, and you have to be able to receive that tough love. And so for me, I asked for the tough love.

34:44 And also, my whole life, my brother would always test wrestling moves on me and, you know, teach me different things. But yeah, it was just like anything coming in and figuring out my own style, observing, analyzing, figuring out what was my way to take, you know, take someone down, what is my way to stay off my back? And also focusing on my strengths. And so when I look at wrestling as this sport, you know, most people would be like, oh, your main focus was the win.

35:10 My main focus wasn’t a win. My main focus was to not get pinned, to not give up the full six points. I had teammates with all their arms and all their legs, and they would get put on their back and give up the full six points. I knew that if I could just stay off my back, I was valuable. And so instead of, you know, maybe I wasn’t the one that they sent out, because they knew they were going to get full points.

35:30 But if they needed someone to not give up the full six, they were going to put the guy that cut his arm off, who would do whatever it took to stay off his damn back. And that was my strength. So for those that are listening, like I said, cut off the weaknesses, but identify your your strengths, you know, and that’s an analogy for business as well. I think some of the greatest CEOs and entrepreneurs and people that run organizations, their biggest motive is to get out of their own damn way.

35:57 Meaning, I want to find people that are smarter than me and put them in place, and I’m just going to get out of the way. Maybe I could be the face and I could be the communicator and the the the clapping guy on stage, but I need people who are smarter than me if I really want to go far. And so that’s what I did is just focus on my strengths, identify where I can provide the most value, and stay stayed in my lane.

36:18 It’s interesting, because you know, people would look at you and say, how can you be an offensive wrestler? But at the same time, it’s like I can’t double-leg take down you. I can’t do a lot of things, and I’m also disoriented. Like, normally this would move, and my subconscious has got this pattern memorized, and on you it doesn’t work. So you’ve got a lot of assets, and so you look at it differently and say this isn’t a liability, this is an asset, and people can do that with their lives in a huge way.

36:42 Of course, right? Like we mentioned, talking about focus: you don’t get the life you have, you get the life you focus on. Don’t miss that. It’s like you can have a bunch of blessings right in front of you, but focus on the one thing that’s wrong and you’re going to miss out on everything. And so yeah, for me, it’s like, what are my advantages?

37:02 How can I disrupt this guy, you know, how can I find a way to really throw him off his track? But yeah, maybe this is a gift. And I think that in itself is such a powerful lesson. The golden question that will change everybody’s life, that they can program into their brain, is what’s the gift? What’s the gift?

37:24 There is a gift in everything in your life that happened in the past, in the present, and in the future. And if you could find the gift in everything, nothing can shake you. Nothing can throw you down. Nothing in the external world will dictate how you feel internally. But the core principle, or the core message, is that if things in the external world dictate how you feel internally, you’re a slave to the game.

37:56 And especially as men, we need to have all the tools and all the tricks to make sure that our internal state is grounded and centered, because everybody’s looking to us for certainty. Everybody’s looking to us for leadership. Everybody’s looking to us for direction. And can people feel when you’re uncertain? Absolutely.

38:16 And so what’s the gift? What’s the learning? But also, anytime that something in the external world shifts the way that you feel internally, thank it and analyze it and find why it triggers you and heal it. Right?

38:28 And when you heal the boy, the man will appear.

38:33 And right now you see a lot of men who are just actually children because they haven’t done the damn work.

38:38 Brian Rose: Amen to that. It’s a great line from the Godfather, where I think the senior Don Corleone says, he says, women and children can afford to be foolish, men cannot.

38:50 It’s a powerful line.

38:51 Savage.

38:52 So let’s talk about you becoming a man. It starts with the wrestling, and then you said there’s brotherhood, there’s physicality, there’s testing.

39:00 I mean, that sounds like a huge part of your evolution.

39:02 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s start with brotherhood. The moment that I was a part of a team, with people with the same mission, the same goals, and the same values, the frequency elevates. But what’s also really valuable, and I hope that everybody finds this, is it’s better to suffer with your bros than suffer alone.

39:32 And so the wrestling room was mutually beneficial, because I get to see my friends and suffer with my friends. But imagine laying in a pool of sweat and you don’t think you can go on, and you look over and you see your friend with no legs, one arm, and he’s getting beat up, and you’re like, I think I’ve got more in the tank. And so first, brotherhood. I was going to say, first find a brotherhood, but let me shift that and say become the man that attracts a brotherhood, because the truth is, if you aren’t a valuable man, it’s going to be very difficult to find a deep, meaningful brotherhood, because real brotherhood pushes everybody to be valuable.

40:13 No one slacks. That’s the whole point of it, or find someone and grow with them and become more valuable. But you know, people often think success is something that you pursue, but success is something that you attract by being attractive. And so become an attractive man in the sense of skills, values, hygiene, all the basics, which we found out common sense isn’t so common. But, you know, value, insight, knowledge, the way that you dress, the way that you show up, show up in rooms and with other people, build deep, meaningful relationships, but find a brotherhood that you can suffer together with.

40:47 And I think that’s one of the most valuable things, because my brotherhood, they’ve seen me broke and they’ve seen me rich, and I’ve seen them broke and I’ve seen them rich. And so even if we go down to broke again, at least I have my brotherhood. I’m not doing it alone. And I feel for entrepreneurs that don’t have anybody. I feel for entrepreneurs that are trying to build alone and they don’t have a brotherhood or a soundboard.

41:11 And that’s why a lot of you need to move, you know, to places like Dubai, or, you know, places where there’s high-level people that are in one area. But I got a brotherhood with wrestling, and they protected me. They beat me up. They loved me. And they were my arms and legs in a lot of different ways.

41:31 And for those that are listening, you may have all your arms and all your legs, but you still need other people to be your arms and legs. And you don’t need to carry the burden alone. You don’t need to carry the cross alone, whatever that is for you. And so that’s the first thing: brotherhood changed the whole quality of my life. The other thing was the physicality, the physicality, the physiology change.

41:53 I think one of the fastest forms of manifestation, or whatever you believe in, is sculpting your body. You literally are what you eat. And so one of the fastest ways that you can improve your self-confidence is start using your damn body that your creator gave you. And I have a little bit more compassion now, but what tends to piss me off is people with all their arms and all their legs that don’t value their body. I’m like, I’ll take your legs.

42:21 You know, I’ll go work legs. If you don’t want to work legs, I’ll go work legs. You don’t want to, you know, if I wish I could run. So for those that are listening right now, when you don’t want to run, be like, damn, Nick wishes he could run. I’m going to run for Nick.

42:32 At least run for Nick, because if I had legs, I’d be running around town. I’d be going shirt off, running. I don’t care. I just want to run. And so when you start to shift the way that you treat your body, and, by the way, you know, once you start to see the difference, you’re hooked.

42:50 You’re hooked. And your whole entire life changes when you’re in better shape. And I can assure you, and by the way, you may say, “Oh, well, success is not about six-pack, you know.” Well, I get it. But I can assure you that the billionaire who’s fat wishes he had a six-pack.

43:07 And guess what? He can’t buy it. He could buy everything else. He could buy company. He could buy food.

43:16 He could buy vacations. Can’t buy the body. And so imagine that. Imagine you’re in a high-level room and what subliminal message it shows people when you’re jacked, when you’re in shape. There’s an edge there.

43:32 Would you agree?

43:33 Brian Rose: Yeah, there’s an edge.

43:34 Yeah, because it says a lot of things about you. It says you can overcome temptation. It says you can do things even when you don’t want to do them. Your discipline is real. And to be able to be in good shape means you’ve done that consistently over time, you know, and that says a lot about someone.

43:50 And subconsciously, I think we’re attracted to people like that, or believe in them or trust them when they say something, because they clearly, one of the guys on my show, his name is Wes Watson. He always says, how can I tell how can I know you’re going to tell me the truth when you lie to yourself? Look at you. You’re lying to yourself every day. I know you don’t like looking in the mirror.

44:10 So then how are you going to be honest with me? It’s a good point, you know.

44:14 Nick Santonastasso: 100%. And like you said, it says a lot about people. For those that are listening, one of the greatest tools that we can all pick up on, which I’ve learned from certifications, but you can just learn it from osmosis now, is what we call pattern recognition. And what pattern recognition is, is when you can study people and identify patterns. How they do one thing is typically how they do everything.

44:38 And by the way, once you know, you know. Sorry, because you’re going to see patterns of like, oh, I don’t like that pattern, or I do like that pattern. So, for example, like you mentioned, if someone’s in shape, that means that they probably don’t cut corners. That means they probably have a high level of integrity. They probably have a high level of self-worth.

44:58 That translates into business, relationships, communication, everything. But if you see someone who cuts corners, would you want to go into business with someone who cuts corners? Would you want to go into business with someone who says one thing but does another thing? You probably wouldn’t. And so start observing people’s patterns and their tendencies, because those bleed into all other areas of their life.

45:19 For example, when you sit down with someone and they’re not present, I can assure you that they’re probably not present with their kids. You can learn a lot by someone’s patterns. And everybody has, it’s called sensory acuity. Sensory acuity, meaning it’s like you watch what’s going on with the body, you watch what’s going on with the physiology, you watch their language patterns. We have language patterns, we have focus patterns, we have habit patterns.

45:41 There’s patterns everywhere.

45:44 Brian Rose: Some trippy nerdy stuff.

45:44 Yeah. You’re an expert in patterns.

45:45 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s, because if you can help someone identify a pattern that they don’t see, you can give them a gift that they can’t buy.

45:54 You know, what do you gift a billionaire? What do you gift a millionaire who can buy anything? You know what the greatest gift that I can give high-level individuals is? A breakthrough. If I sit with a billionaire, and I sit with a millionaire, someone who’s high- level value, or high-value individual, and I catch a language pattern that’s disempowering, and I say, “What was that?

46:17 What was what? No one talks to them like that. Well, hey, can you just talk about that? I heard that language, like, what what comes up for you?” And I do a little bit of digging, and I show them something that they haven’t seen.

46:26 They’ll always remember it. So I think everybody should at least equip themselves with the tools of presence, pattern recognition, reading body language, and the power of asking questions that lead people to great answers. What if I were to tell people right now that a healer isn’t someone you go to for healing, but a healer is someone who triggers you to heal yourself? I don’t have all the answers, but if I can ask you a great question that leads you to a breakthrough, you’ll remember me forever.

46:58 Brian Rose: Yeah. And when you ask that question, it hits different as well, based on your experiences and your gifts.

47:05 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. With the power of asking questions. Like you’re a master at questions with the show. You’ve asked questions to extract data. Questions dictate your focus.

47:15 If I ask a bad question, you’re going to go to a bad place. If I ask a great question, you’re going to go to a great place. If I ask a sentimental question, you’re going to go to a sentimental place. All of our thinking is just questions. Just think about it.

47:26 Think about it. But our brain, its whole entire operating system is just thinking. Should I hit snooze? Should I eat the cake? Should I text the girl?

47:36 Should I do that business? All it is is questions. If you think about it, if you start analyzing and observing your human experience, it’s all questions.

47:43 Brian Rose: Do you ever think that the mind is something that doesn’t always serve us? Do you ever think that sometimes the mind is,

47:49 You know, in complete opposition to fulfilling who we really want to be? I know it’s a bit of a random question.

47:55 Nick Santonastasso: That’s a great question. The brain is thousands of years old, and the brain’s sole design is to keep us alive and protect us. So, let’s break this down. Thousands of years ago, when we were cavemen and cavewomen, whatever you want to believe in, the brain’s sole focus was to make sure that we had food, to make sure that we had shelter, and that no saber-tooth tiger comes to kill me and my family. Now, the same brain is in this world where, my hallucination is, if you’re listening to this podcast, no saber-tooth tigers are coming to kill you and your family.

48:31 You probably have shelter. You probably have food. So now there’s different external threats. It’s not the same external threats. And remember, the brain wants to protect us.

48:40 So check this out. The brain wants to protect you from external threats. And there’s new external threats. The new external threats are rejection, fear of success, fear of being loved or not being loved, fear of the unknown, fear of uncertainty. And so your brain is always on protection mode.

49:03 Like, even now there’s probably a part of my brain that says, “Nick, don’t say this, because you’re PR-trained,” and I don’t even know that it’s going on, or don’t mention this, because you’re going to feel inadequate, or you’re going to let them know that you’re insecure, or something.” The brain is always trying to protect you. When you want to go out and ask a girl out on a date, but you don’t do it, that was your brain. And so I can give a great lesson, I think, for everybody that will really help them break through to the next level when it comes to fear.

49:32 The biggest external threat is typically fear. Fear, like I listed all those fears. But there’s a time where fear is a friend, and there’s a time where fear is a foe. When fear is the villain. So I’ll give you an example.

49:44 If you and I are walking, or I’m rolling and you’re walking, and we’re in a, we’re in the ghetto, and we’re in our suits, and we have this like little fear of, like, maybe I should keep my head on a swivel so no one tries to run up at me and Nick. Is fear a friend then?

49:59 Brian Rose: I guess so. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, I guess so. Unless it stops me from seeing the amazing things and experiences I could have.

50:07 Nick Santonastasso: Of course. Of course. But it’s beneficial. Yeah. In the sense, right, for the ladies,

50:12 When you’re, by the way, not in Dubai, because it’s the safest place in the world, UAE, but anywhere else in the world. If you’re a woman and you’re walking to your car in a parking garage at 10 p.m. at night, and you feel a little bit of fear, and you have your pepper spray, and you’re making sure no one runs up at you, is fear a friend? Yes. So, there’s a time where fear is a friend, and there’s a time where fear is a foe. Fear is not your friend when it stops you from asking that girl out on a date.

50:35 Fear is not a friend when it stops you from going into that networking room because you don’t feel like you’re enough. Fear is not a friend when it stops you from sharing that video on social media or going on stage and speaking your story. It’s not a friend then. And so, it’s called fabricated fear. It’s the same feeling, but it’s fake.

50:51 Because let me give you a definition for fear. Fear is caution over a real and present danger. Now, what does that mean? Well, that means that the next time that I feel fear, I’m going to remember Nick and ask myself the question, if I do this, will I die? And if the answer is no, it’s fabricated fear stopping you from getting to the next level.

51:11 So, the brain is not always on our side. A lot of the times the brain is not on your side. And that’s why the mental work is the most important work, because when it comes to any aspect of your life, and especially business, the biggest bottleneck in any corporation is the psychology of the CEO. It’s not the sales process. It’s the way that the leader is thinking.

51:36 Brian Rose: Wow, that’s heavy, man. That’s heavy.

51:40 Nick Santonastasso: So, so, so, those that are listening can ask themselves, like, where would I be if fear didn’t get in the way? What would I be pursuing? What would I be creating? Who would I be dating if fear didn’t get in the way? And what’s incredible is, now that you’re aware and you know fear is trying to hold you back, what if you made it a game?

51:59 What if you made a game that said, every time that I’m fearful, now I have to? And that’s scary too, because, by the way, I’ve got, like, that’s my game. And listen, guy with no legs, one arm, I know how to swim. I used to be deathly afraid of swimming, and I was in Colombia. I was in Colombia for my birthday, and you know, when you see on social media these famous places and you’re like, bookmark them, you want to go there.

52:23 Well, I saw this place in San Andres, where it was a diving board, but off a cliff. And I was like, “Oh, that’s scary.” And then my brain’s like, “Well, you have to do it now.” You know, like, if you ever see that place, you’ve got to do it. Well, guess what?

52:37 I’m in San Andres. It’s for my birthday. We’re driving on a golf cart, and I look over, and there is the diving board.

52:42 Gosh.

52:42 And I’m like, if I don’t do this, I’m going to be talking to myself the whole entire, you know, the whole day. Uh, you’re not the guy you say you are. You didn’t have integrity. You’re the mindset guy. And so, we pull over, and my buddy jumps first, and then I put on the life jacket and I’m like, I’m just going to, I’m just going to check it out.

53:03 I’m just going to walk to the edge of the diving board, kind of feel it out. So, I walk to the edge of the diving board and I’m like, “Ma’am, no.” And I turn around, and there’s 20 Colombians going, “Vamos, vamos, go.” And I’m like, “I’m a performer. I’m the stage guy.

53:20 I have to. It’s a must. The show must go on.” And so I’m like, “Three, two,” and I jump off this like massively high diving board. And a few things, stay with me here, a few things that I want to give the audience.

53:36 The first thing was, I introduced myself to a version of myself I haven’t met yet, because I overrode the fear. Every single time you override the fear, your identity elevates, you become a greater version of self. You get on this momentum and this high of destroying fears. But the second thing is, imagine being a random person in Colombia, and you were maybe struggling and needed to pick me up, and you didn’t know that you were going to see a man with no legs and one arm come against himself and be deathly afraid and do it anyway.

54:16 Maybe what blessing did they receive? Now, the reason why it’s so important is because, remember, I said, “What if your life changed if you ask this question of how can I be a blessing to someone? How can I serve you today?” After I jumped off that diving board, and a few hours later I was laying in my hotel and I was like, “How can I serve today? How can I serve today?”

54:35 The answer was, “You already did.” I didn’t know that just me simply jumping off a diving board was going to be the blessing that I gave the world that day. So, for those that are listening right now, when you ask, “How can I be a blessing?” and, how can I serve you today? It’ll take you to places that you never expect, for you to be the blessing and be the servant, to be of service. Watch out.

54:59 Watch the magic. It’ll take you somewhere you never imagined.

55:02 Brian Rose: Powerful, man. So, just by confronting those fears every day, that can just be compounded. It can affect the whole world just by you trying to be a better version of yourself going into those fears. And everything you want is on the other side of that. Everything, everything.

55:18 Nick Santonastasso: I don’t think people realize the trickle effect that they have on people as well. It’s not just me and you sitting up here, in this fancy studio, that make the impact. It’s for those that are around you that are watching. And two things will happen. I’ll say this.

55:37 Two things will happen when you start pursuing your dreams and overcoming fears. You’re going to lose people, and you’re going to elevate people. And you overcoming your fears, and pursuing your purpose and your mission, will be an authentic filter to see who’s your ride or die and who’s not. And that’s just a pill you have to swallow, but it’s a worthy one. It’s worth it.

56:00 Brian Rose: It’s well said, man. I can only imagine what that freefall was like coming off that board. Jesus, must be intense, man.

56:08 Nick Santonastasso: It’s insane. It’s insane. But for everybody, right? Like that, you overcoming fear, that dopamine and that rush. You start getting addicted to it, and you want to find more, more things that you’re afraid of so you can tackle them.

56:25 But I mean, how many times have you been afraid of doing something and then you did it and you’re like, “That wasn’t so bad anyway.”

56:30 Brian Rose: All the time.

56:31 Nick Santonastasso: We hyped it up too much in the head.

56:32 Brian Rose: It’s like 5% as scary as I thought it was going to be. Not 95%. 5%.

56:38 You know, one of my mentors says, “Fear is F. False expectations appearing real. There are these phantoms that define our lives and make us play small when we could be playing so much bigger. And I’ve had big fears, and when I walked through them, I’m just like, that’s crazy, man. I spent years of my life avoiding this thing that was not 12th of what I thought it would be.

57:00 Now, I’m supposed to be smart. I’m supposed to be knowledgeable on these things. I talked to people that teach me this, and it’s still happening to me. And it’s, but it’s scary to go into your fears, by definition, right? Just like even people that are good at this are in their comfort zones, because we all default back to a comfort zone in some way, shape, or form.

57:19 Yeah.

57:19 So it takes daily work.

57:21 Nick Santonastasso: Bro. It never stops, right? And that’s what I wanted to let everybody know, is like, yeah, everybody sees the shiny look at us, they look good, and they’ve got the followers and this and that. It’s like, yo, we still struggle, bro. I still struggle.

57:37 And I think that’s why we come to Earth. That’s why we’re here in this human experience. You know, just think about it. Imagine we were somewhere where before this it was all sunshine and rainbows, and they were like, “You’re going to go to Earth.” And it’s like, “Well, what are we going to do on Earth?”

57:52 And it’s like, “You’re going to get cheated on. You’re going to get rejected. You’re going to get destroyed. You’re going to have breakups, and your business is going to fail.” And you’re like, “I can’t wait.”

58:02 Because when things are all sunshine and rainbows, you get bored. And so remember that the ups and downs here in this human experience are the juice, are the contrast, are what makes this so valuable. And it’s beautiful that once you’re aware, you get to work on yourself every single day. Like you and I both know every single day that we wake up and we get the blessing to wake up. It’s a challenge.

58:25 It’s a dance. It’s a battle. It’s a Rubik’s cube. And you know, I even studied monks, and they were saying that monks that dedicate their whole entire life to meditation still get pissed off and angry after 50 years of meditation. It’s like you think you’ve mastered something, like you’re not even close.

58:43 And as humans, and I would say men especially, progress equals happiness. It doesn’t matter what that progress looks like, but we feel the most depressed and the most terrible about ourselves when we feel stuck or we feel like we’re moving backwards. And so if we can just adopt the mentality and design our life to the place where, whatever it is, health, wealth, relationships, business, that we’re just inching closer and getting better, that’s enough for the men.

59:09 Brian Rose: You know, you’ve mentioned brotherhood, you’ve mentioned men quite a few times right now. Um, what is the message to men out there? And do you find that a lot of the people that listen to you are men? And do you find that that message has been lost over the last decade or so?

59:31 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah, that’s a great question.

59:33 I follow a lot of men. We follow a lot of the similar men, and I’ve changed over the years, and so I think Nick’s answer to you right now would be a little bit more aggressive a few years ago, but I think I’ve evolved a little bit and have a little bit more compassion. So, let me just elaborate on this answer. I think men definitely have lost their ways, but I think that it’s necessary, because on the other side of loss is found. And I think everything is cyclical, right?

1:00:08 Everything is cycles. And so we’ve heard, I’m sure you’ve heard, the cycle before, of like, great people create great times, great times create weak people, weak people create hard times, hard times create tough people or great people, great, and the cycle repeats. And I think it’s cyclical, and I think the pendulum always swings. And I think now the pendulum is swinging the other way, where we realize that we need heart-centered masculine. And I’m going to get a bunch of… for this, but it’s fine, right?

1:00:40 Is I believe heart-centered masculine is way more valuable than what they call toxic masculinity. And let me elaborate on this. There’s a difference between immature masculine and mature masculine. Immature masculine is you using your narcissistic, manipulating ways to get what you want, because you’re a man. And then there’s mature masculine, which are the warriors in a garden, right?

1:01:12 These are men who can be savage, but they’re also grounded. They’re also heart-centered. They also know how to regulate their nervous system. They know how to heal things. They know how to articulate and communicate in a way that influences not just one group, but a whole group.

1:01:27 They’re next level, right? And I think I think we need more heart-centered men. And I think I’d get a lot of flak for that, because it’s like, no, we need to be tough and we need to be this. Of course, we need to be that, but I want to be whole. Some of you are just so hard because you’ve never dealt with the trauma.

1:01:47 I can, I can smell the trauma in your interview that you’ve never dealt with. And although it is, it has made you extremely successful, you can only heal your people as much as you’re willing to heal yourself. You can only meet your people where you’ve been before. And so for me, I want to be a heart-centered masculine man, where I can be a savage, but there’s also this compassionate, empathetic, deep, meaningful emotional side of me as well. I want to be a savage in all areas.

1:02:16 Okay, you’re a savage in business and working out. Are you a savage in healing? Well, healing is not for men. You learned that from a broken man. You learned that from a man who didn’t heal his things.

1:02:28 And so, let me tie this in, in a bow here. I believe that men need to lead from the front. They need to be in great shape. They need to have a purpose. They need to be a provider.

1:02:46 They need to be a protector. And they also need to know how to create a safe space for other people to heal and deal with their stuff as well. Because as men, I think we are, and women too, but I think a lot of men are the lineage leaders in their bloodline. Meaning that pain is passed down the bloodline until someone’s ready to feel it. And the moment you’re the one that feels it, that heals it, what a legacy.

1:03:19 You may not be around, but your offspring isn’t going to have the same challenges and the same trauma that you’ve had to deal with. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I think that’s subjective. But I take on the obligation of being the one in my family that changes the bloodline forever. And I take that near and dear to my heart. And I think women, don’t get me wrong, women can be lineage leaders as well.

1:03:42 I just think, me from a man to a man, I can relate to men more than I can relate to women. So, I’m calling forth the men to be the one.

1:03:48 Women can do it as well. But if you’re a man listening right now as well, be the one in the family that changes everything. And when you’re tired, when you’re insecure, when you feel like you want to give up, remind yourself that your whole entire bloodline is like watching your movie right now, and is this a movie that they would watch, or is this a movie that they would walk out of? Um, and so I just take it to heart to be the one, and I think you’re the one in your family.

1:04:12 And I think our peers that we hang out with, they’re the ones in our family. There’s kind of a common pattern that we’re the one in our family. But guess what? Anyone can decide to be the one. The women can decide, the men can decide.

1:04:25 It all takes a decision. And it’s also easier to be like, I’m not the one, so I don’t have much pressure now. I’d rather be the man in the arena. And so, shout out to the men who are being the one and leading from the front. So, that’s what I’d like to see, is more men leading from the front,

1:04:44 But also not shit-talking other men.

1:04:46 Yeah.

1:04:47 Yeah.

1:04:47 Brian Rose: The brotherhood.

1:04:49 It’s like the example, like the golden age of bodybuilding. The golden age of bodybuilding. You would go in and you would lift with your bros, and you would spot each other, and everybody would lift you up and it would be great. Now you go into the gym and it’s like who’s bigger, who’s better? There’s not a sense of brotherhood.

1:05:08 We’ve lost it.

1:05:09 How do you get out of a rat race? How do you create wealth not only for like that wrestling room. They motivate you. They also tell you when you’re wrong. Mm.

1:06:18 It’s that’s the kind of masculinity we need. It’s interesting. I was just having flashbacks to being a parent and being a father, and my youngest, his name is Kaden. He’s 8 years old. And when I’m the masculine that works on me, which is I can talk a lot to myself, and it’s just not good enough, and there’s no excuses, but it doesn’t work on him.

1:06:40 And when I try to be that masculine to him, he’ll turn off and I catch myself, and I just have to just okay. And I’ll go down. I’ll get on his level, and I’ll be like, “What’s wrong, Kaden? Tell me what’s wrong.” And I have to talk through his emotions.

1:06:53 And if I do it that way, we can solve the problem. We can move forward.

1:06:57 But if I go back to my usual ways, everything stops. And so, like, I’ve learned to just be more of that heart-centered male. And I’m still learning. I’ll be learning for a long time, um, of that fine line. And it’s a very fine balance.

1:07:10 And you see it in certain men that have it right, and you see it in certain men that don’t have it right, or they’re still learning. It’s really important, because a great leader gets a great result from his clan. And the result sometimes doesn’t mean you have to be what you think is the stereotypical alpha male, whether that’s barking orders or this and this and that. That’s not what a leader does. A leader finds a solution.

1:07:31 And so I’m finding myself trying to listen to that side of me more, you know.

1:07:36 Nick Santonastasso: And what a gift that he didn’t receive that one version of you, because it pushes you out of the father to expand.

1:07:45 So that’s a… he’s your greatest teacher.

1:07:47 Yeah.

1:07:47 Your greatest blessing, right? And like you said, healer-like leaders, men will find a way. So one modality or one communication style isn’t always the right one. And it gives you an opportunity to be versatile and to expand. And so what a great gift Kaden gave you.

1:08:01 I heard some crazy story one time that maybe it’s like monks in Bhutan say that the children choose the parents that they need to heal the most. You know, it’s like this thought, yeah, that the kid shows up in your life, and they’ve chosen you

1:08:17 Because you need them to grow.

1:08:20 Brian Rose: It’s pretty heavy.

1:08:20 Nick Santonastasso: My parents would probably agree with that, right? But, you know, my mom, my mom, so I still say, like, my greatest achievement was God allowing me to have you.

1:08:34 Like she’s just like, “What an honor that he trusted us with you when everybody told us to abort you.”

1:08:40 Brian Rose: Yeah. How did they make that decision?

1:08:42 Because I’ve been there with the ultrasound, and everyone’s tense and what’s that? What’s that? What’s that? And imagine what your parents saw, and yet they still made that decision and created this incredible man. That’s savage.

1:08:56 I mean, how did that happen?

1:08:58 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. They after that ultrasound, they ran out, like, very scared, and it was really, like, a non-negotiable for them that we’re going to carry through this, and we’re going to we’re going to see what happens. And my mom said, you know, she had prayed to wear her faith on her sleeve, and she said, “When you were born, you were the faith on my sleeve.” You were the perfect analogy for faith.

1:09:31 And, um, but yeah, they told them to abort me. They told them even if he’s born, you should give him away. You should put him in an institution. They even had close family members say, “Yeah, definitely.” And I’m glad they were stubborn.

1:09:48 They’re like me. And they refused all of that. And they went forth with the pregnancy. And immediately after they did that, I was born. They did test my organs, and they were like, “He’s golden.

1:10:02 We don’t know how it happened.” Um, but he’s got no legs and one arm, but he’s all good. All his organs, everything, his package, everything. Like, this is incredible. And my dad, I remember he told me this as an adult.

1:10:18 He took me away into a room, and he whispered into my ear. He said, “I promise to be your arms and legs until the day that I die.” And they didn’t know what my life was going to look like. Their whole entire life changed in a moment. And I’m proud to say that with the work and the skills that I’ve acquired, and the coaching that I do, and whatever way that I serve, I’m now able to be their arms and legs until the day that they die.

1:10:48 And so it’s this whole full-circle thing, and my driving force is to be the lineage leader, to also give my parents a life like they gave for me. And that’s what keeps me going. And for those that are listening, it’s really important to have a deep, meaningful reason of why you do what you do. Because if your only source of motivation is money, I promise you, you won’t last this game. You won’t last the ups and downs.

1:11:15 You won’t last. You won’t have the emotional stamina to be an entrepreneur. You need something that’s deep, meaningful, and rooted in your heart and your soul. And that’s my deep-rooted mission.

1:11:27 Brian Rose: And again, you weren’t born like this. You were still born as a baby with these, you know, missing limbs. I mean, to continue to believe then, babies are hard enough to raise when they’re born with limbs. Yeah.

1:11:39 And to continue to go and, you know, raise you and believe.

1:11:44 Yeah. That’s pretty amazing.

1:11:46 Nick Santonastasso: And they again. Yeah. And they did all the… they basically did all the opposite, you know. Like, I think in 1996 it was still like, if you had a baby that was born differently, it was more like hush-hush, right?

1:11:57 It was more like shunned, or you kind of kept them inside. And like my dad was like, “Let’s get the mayor. Let’s…” like, literally, he contacted the mayor and was like, “Hey, baby Nick is born. He’s got no legs, one arm. Let’s do a piece and introduce him to the town.”

1:12:09 And then, you know, everybody knew who Baby Nick was. And my dad totally took the opposite route. And so I think I get that savage, like, go the opposite route from my dad. You know, for example, in high school when I finally figured out, like, oh, maybe I could be a public speaker, my guidance counselor told me two things. The first thing that they told me was, “You need a communication major, and you’ve got to stop getting tattoos.”

1:12:31 Well, what did I do? I dropped out of college, and I tattooed my whole body, and now I’m one of the greatest speakers on earth. So, um, I totally went against the grain.

1:12:38 Brian Rose: I love it, man. Uh, you mentioned you’re a performer when you were on that diving board. Um, can you talk about the time you spent with Tony Robbins on stage for four years? I mean, that’s crazy. Yeah.

1:12:49 The amount of exposure, the size of his audiences. How did that happen? And what was that experience like?

1:12:55 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. So, when I started speaking, when I got into the speaking world, I was roughly 21 years old. And the one thing I’m glad I understood, or I learned early on, was like, find the best and study them, right? If you want to condense time, find the best and model them, right? See what they’re doing right, see what they’re doing wrong, and just figure out the model from there.

1:13:19 And so I attended my first Tony Robbins event when I was 21 years old. And we talk about this law of exposure, which states once you’re exposed, you can never be unexposed. Once you see something, you can never unsee it, good and bad. And at that time I got into speaking for money, in the sense of like, oh, I’ve seen people that kind of look like me who make money, and this could be a good career, and this will be great. And then I experienced and was exposed to mastery at the highest level, which was Tony.

1:13:49 And, right, Tony’s been speaking for 40-plus years. He started when he was 19. I think he’s in his mid-60s. And so I watched someone go on stage for 13 hours straight. Make the audience cry, laugh, angry, breakthrough, have transformational experiences.

1:14:04 And that’s when I said, “Huh, there’s levels to this. There’s levels to the game.” And the second question was, what does he know that I don’t, and how can I get the information? And so after I saw Tony and I kept going to events and having my own breakthroughs, um, I started to learn NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. I started to learn hypnosis.

1:14:25 I started to learn timeline therapy, experimental therapy, human behavior, neuroscience. I started becoming a nerd on how to shift people and change their lives. And I had reached out. I’d met Tony, and then I’d reached out to his team. I was like, hey, if I can ever speak on stage, they’re like, nah, that’s not realistic.

1:14:43 Uh, but, you know, God bless you, kid, you know, and just so be it. And after two years of, Hey, Nick just climbed a mountain. Hey, Nick just wrote a book. Hey, Nick, speak over here. I was top of mind.

1:14:56 And they brought me in for a youth event, um, where Tony wasn’t there, but they brought me in for a youth event. I spoke for the youth event, and I knew that if I did well, someone would hear it. And so, I did great with the kids. I’m very great with kids, and they love the story, and I can relate to them. And then finally, three years in, after bugging them and being persistent, they were like, “Hey, there’s a spot on his main stage.

1:15:20 You’re the first in line. We want to try you out.” And so I spoke in front of 10,000 people in Dallas, Texas. And after I did that, they were like, “We want you everywhere.” Um, but that was a combination of persistence, and that was a combination of studying and figuring out how can I get the most out of the crowd and how can I impact these people in a short amount of time.

1:15:42 I only had like 20 minutes. And so the rest was history. I did Miami Heat Arena, 15,000 people. I did Singapore. I did Australia.

1:15:50 I did 50,000 people with him virtually in a studio. Um, and I got to hang with the greatest of all time for four years. And so you probably learn a thing or two about communication and changing people’s lives after four years of hanging with the GOAT. And that was the journey. And I’m super honored and grateful that I had that season with him.

1:16:10 Brian Rose: It’s crazy, man. I mean, 10,000 people for that first gig. I mean, that’s a lot of people, man. And the numbers you’re talking about, I’m guessing that you get more used to it over time, but, you know, and also 20 minutes, you’ve got to make something happen and make a connection, but also be yourself. Otherwise, no one makes a connection.

1:16:29 Yeah.

1:16:29 Nick Santonastasso: And communication got me to where I am. My communication skills. And I believe that every single man and every single woman, no matter what level they’re at, can always improve their communication skills. And what I’ve realized is there’s a lot of men with a lot of money who don’t know how to communicate. And, you know, I help those men privately with, you know, like specialized communication training.

1:17:55 But if we can create better communicators, we can change the world, because we lead from the front. And there’s a lot of people with brilliant ideas and brilliant analogies and stories, but they just don’t know how to package and position it. But also this, I’ve realized that when you’re a communicator, you become more valuable in the marketplace. And we know it to be true. When you see us on podcast, you immediately put us at a higher level because we’re on stage.

1:18:20 And so, uh, stages and communication and speaking in front of people, I think has made me extremely valuable. And everybody can become more valuable through communication, but also when you communicate, that’s just the front end. There’s so much business that goes on on the back end that you can do. You know, I mean, you and I are going to go on and build a relationship. Who knows what will happen?

1:18:42 You saw me speak on stage, or I see you and speak on stage, and then there’s a whole conversation that happens behind the stage, and so I believe uh, stages are the number one marketing tool in the world, whether it’s a virtual stage or an in-person stage, and magic happens when you’re a communicator on stage.

1:18:58 Brian Rose: Yeah. Everyone now has a personal brand, whether you like it or not. Either you’re building it or someone’s building it for you. And if you look at two of the greatest personal brands in the world, it’s probably Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And

1:19:07 You know, the businesses come after that. And so gone are the days where the corporate CEO would hide behind the logo. It’s like these days, you know, you have to build that. So why not start now? And, um, we all need to be thinking about that.

1:19:21 And you’re right, it starts with communication, and business flows on the back of that. Everyone needs to think about that

1:19:28 Nick Santonastasso: Of course, and it’s repetition, right? It’s like the bottom line is most people aren’t willing to suck long enough to be great at it. They don’t want to suck. But it’s like, I’m sure your first episode was not so good. It was way better than it is now.

1:19:45 Brian Rose: I love showing it to people because it’s so bad.

1:19:46 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. And so we were willing to suck long enough to be great at communicating. Repetition is the mother of skill, right? And so it’s like we just need repetition, um, some insight, some knowledge, some frameworks, and you’re on your way.

1:19:58 Brian Rose: I remember I did my TED talk in 2014, and, uh, that year I thought to myself, okay, I’m Brian Rose. I’m the host of London Real. I need to have a TED talk. Like, who am I, what am I trying to, you know, who do I think I am? And, uh, nothing that came natural to me.

1:20:13 So I went and found one, and then I practiced and just did the whole thing, but it was a start of my journey with public speaking, which I guess is one of the more terrifying things a human can do. And, um, now I kind of enjoy it, you know, but for a long time it was just stressful, but it was something I had to do, because as a leader it’s just like you’ve got to get up there and communicate. And so, um, I’ve practiced and practiced and practiced, and I like getting the audience’s attention.

1:20:39 Like, I can’t stand someone not paying attention or on their phone, because I failed.

1:20:43 So, like, I walk out in the audience, I’m doing all this crazy stuff, but I was watching you the other night, and I got to take my stuff to the next level, you know, really motivating, but it’s such a great superpower and it’s something that’s really important. You know, if you want to change the world, you’re going to have to communicate

1:21:00 Nick Santonastasso: For sure. And I just think it gets you in amazing rooms. And also, it’s fun when you’re a great communicator, but you stay quiet and they don’t think you can communicate. And then you communicate and they’re like, “Who is that?” You know, it’s a shock factor.

1:21:16 But communication will take you. It’ll get you business. It’ll get you deals. It’ll get you donors. You know, like, for example, something that, if I can mention, something that I’m really passionate about that I’m just starting is, I mentioned that my dad, you know, promised to be my arms and legs until the day that I die.

1:21:31 I’m creating a foundation where I could be the arms and legs for other kids. And so I want to create this initiative where, you know, this foundation raises money and does these big galas and dinners and stuff, but the mission is to go provide medical equipment for kids that can’t afford it. And we’re going to go on these missions, and we’re going to also get these high-net- worth individuals that maybe need some more fulfillment and contribution in their life.

1:21:54 It’s like, hey, come to Mexico City, let’s give out wheelchairs together, or let’s go change a family’s life. Let’s go do something deep and meaningful. And so, um, but the way that I’m going to get the foundation out there is communication on stages. Hey, this is what I do. Who wants to come?

1:22:07 Brian Rose: Let’s do it.

1:22:08 So important. Such a good lesson.

1:22:10 Nick Santonastasso: We’ll do something together. It’d be fun.

1:22:11 Brian Rose: That’d be cool, man. Very cool. Um, I actually met Tony when I was, I think, 11 years old. And my mom sent me to something called Super Camp in California. It was like 10 days long.

1:22:21 She had done his firewalk experience, because they’re from San Diego, and Tony used to be in San Diego, in Del Mar. Castle, Castle.

1:22:28 And so my mom was the crazy single mother that did the firewalk experience. For people that don’t know, shout out to mom.

1:22:33 Nick Santonastasso: Shout out to mom.

1:22:34 Brian Rose: This was early days, like early ’80s.

1:22:36 And it was probably Tony’s first thing that he did that was maybe people remember. He would speak on stage, but this, he would speak to, I think, for three hours, and then they would put the wood out there, burn it into coals, and people would walk across the coals. It was like 30 feet long. It was called the firewalk experience. It was a one-day or a half-day event

1:22:54 And it was to empower people. And my mom did it. And then she sent me to this thing called Super Camp. And I met Tony, and it was me and a bunch of kids. They taught us how to speed-read and all these things.

1:23:05 And Tony taught us how to break a board with our hands in about 30 minutes. And, uh, I was no Bruce Lee. I was no martial artist. I was just a skinny-ass 11-year-old kid. And I broke the board.

1:23:17 And so that was the wildest thing. And that was kind of my one and only experience with Tony early on.

1:23:23 Nick Santonastasso: That’s awesome.

1:23:24 Brian Rose: But it was amazing, you know, and just kind of a life-changing event with a very early kind of Tony.

1:23:28 Nick Santonastasso: Was there anything you wrote on the board?

1:23:31 Did you write your limiting beliefs on the board?

1:23:33 Brian Rose: No.

1:23:33 Nick Santonastasso: Or that was the upgraded version. There’s an evolution of it.

1:23:36 Brian Rose: Yeah. Are there ones you still do, or no?

1:23:37 Nick Santonastasso: In the leadership training. And so basically you write down all your limiting beliefs and limiting stories. Um, and then I think maybe on the other side is the empowering ones.

1:23:47 Then he shows you how to get in state. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then you break the board.

1:23:50 Brian Rose: Oh wow. Okay.

1:23:51 Nick Santonastasso: It’s an anchor.

1:23:51 Brian Rose: Okay.

1:23:52 Nick Santonastasso: It’s an anchor, right? It’s an emotionally charged event that proves that you can break through to something. You know, for example, it’s like if I can walk on fire, I can make a sales call.

1:24:02 That’s it. Right? Right. If I can walk on fire, I can ask the girl out. Right.

1:24:04 So it’s this anchor, emotionally charged event that gives you momentum to keep walking on fire in the other areas of your life.

1:24:11 Brian Rose: That’s nice. Yeah. It must have evolved over time. I must have got the early, early version. It was empowering nonetheless, you know, because none of us thought we could do it.

1:24:19 I mean, the board was no joke. It was like a half-inch-thick piece of wood

1:24:23 And then yeah, he just showed us that we could do it. So, yeah, powerful stuff.

1:24:26 And he’s still going. Imagine that. 40, 50 years,

1:24:29 Nick Santonastasso: Right? And so I’ll tell you this, like, great, I wish it was quicker, but great things, great businesses take a long time. And in a world of quick fixes, that’s why we get down on ourselves. You know, even me, I’m like seven years in, but if I scroll out, if I zoom out of the chart, you know, seven years isn’t, it’s a long time. I look at people like yourself, you know, been podcasting so, so long, or Tony, 40 years.

1:24:56 It’s like, shut up, young bull, you know, you’ve got some time.

1:24:59 Brian Rose: I had a guy on my show named Master Mantak Chia, and uh, he was the most surprising guy that ever got famous on London Real. He actually is an OG in his late 70s, and he’s been talking about sexual energy for a long time, and he comes from the East, and I remember the night before he was coming on the show, I was like, “What the hell are we doing having this guy on the show?” and he made me really uncomfortable during the show, but I started realizing this guy is an OG.

1:25:23 And, um, he used to go and teach this stuff in Berlin when the wall was still up in Berlin. He’s that OG.

1:25:29 And he once pulled me aside and he said, “Brian, a business is like a person.” He said, “A seven-year-old child.” He’s like, “You don’t expect it to be doing everything itself.” And yet your seven-year-old business, you judge in that same way.

1:25:44 And that was a really interesting point that you kind of made there as well. And think of your business as like a person, you know, and if it’s two years old, then treat it like a two-year-old. And if it’s seven years old, treat it like a seven-year-old. And if it’s 40 or 50, okay, then maybe you should expect big things from it.

1:25:58 It’s just a nice way of just slowing things down a little bit and realizing that great things sometimes take time.

1:26:03 Nick Santonastasso: I needed that. So, thank you.

1:26:04 Brian Rose: There you go. Received.

1:26:05 See, there you go. Blessing. Maybe gave a blessing. All right. So, here you are.

1:26:09 You’re Nick. You’re touring the world. You’re on stage with Tony Robbins. You’ve got it all. Of course, from the outside, everyone thinks people have it all, and you kind of walk away from America, you come to Dubai, you completely change your life, you come into the unknown.

1:26:28 Why do that?

1:26:29 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah, there’s a few reasons why I moved from America to Dubai. The first one was I had this calling in my soul that I’m worth more, and the environment wasn’t valuing me to what I knew I was worth. And so I just kind of felt like I didn’t fit in, or I wasn’t vibing with that industry and that crowd. I also got to the point where, like, we had the cars and we bought the cool house, and I was like, is this it? You know, I had that, like, spiritual moment where I was like, oh, like, this is kind of boring.

1:27:04 You know, I need more. And I just ended a five-year relationship. And so there was no strings attached. And my business partner got a download and was like, “Hey, we should at least check out Dubai.” Cuz I was going to move to Colombia um, and do my digital marketing business and kind of just be a chill nomad over there.

1:27:23 And but I realized there wasn’t any networking and not much money over there. And so in May, I went to Dubai for nine days, and I just wanted to experience it. I also reached out to a bunch of influencers here, and for those that messaged me, we’d link up, and I just wanted to feel the vibe and feel the energy, and a few things that were really noticeable about Dubai in the UAE, at least for me, in my perspective. The first one was you can’t really flex money here.

1:27:55 Now, I lived in Miami, you know, and it’s like flexing money, who’s got a Bugatti, like all this different type of stuff. Here, money’s everywhere. And so it’s not really a tool. That means relationships are more built off of, like, what’s your mission, what’s your integrity, and what are your values? And if it’s aligned, like, let’s do something together.

1:28:14 There’s also a very collaborative energy, at least I feel here, where people are willing to open up their rolodex if it’s in alignment, if it’s value, and even from the top down, the leadership is incredible, in the sense that they run this place like a business. They run it as entrepreneurs. They mastermind about the world and then they implement it. Like, where else are you getting that? And so if things are aligned here, they’ll just change policies, or they’ll just destroy laws, and they want to create a healthy environment for their children, which is us.

1:28:46 It’s crazy. Um, the other thing that really impacted me was what they did with people with physical challenges. You know, I have this story that’s going viral that I spoke at the World Government Summit, but basically I was on a beach and I needed to use the restroom, and I noticed that there were three restrooms. There was a male restroom, there’s a female restroom, and then there was a restroom labeled POD. And I didn’t know what that meant.

1:29:09 And I was like, “Sir, what does this mean?” And he’s like, “Well, that’s for you. It means people of determination.” He said, “Here in UAE, we don’t use handicapped or disabled or crippled, whatever you want to call it. We use the term people of determination.”

1:29:21 And that level of thinking from the leadership, I was like, ah, this is a place that I can call home, but also I was like, this is a place that I can provide immense value to. I can bring more eyeballs here. I can destroy the stigma about this place, and help you make it the most inclusive, accessible city in the world, so other people follow, right? We can really change the world here. And so I just felt called.

1:29:48 I sold everything. Um, I moved to Dubai. And by the way, another reason why I did this, and I think this is really valuable, is there are cycles of life that we’re in. And this will be really, really insightful for those that receive it. There are cycles to life.

1:30:03 The first cycle, I believe, is fire. And what fire is, is maybe you’re in the gutter. Things are so painful. And like I mentioned earlier, you’ll do whatever it takes to cool yourself down. And so from fire, you move to water.

1:30:18 And you’re like, okay, I’ve got some success, or I’m out of the pain. At least I can pay my bills or something. And but you’re not fully in control, because the water takes you wherever the water takes you. You know, you still have to play with the rules of the water. And then finally you kind of surrender, and you’re in water, and you finally swim and you make it to shore.

1:30:37 And if you have feet, you put your toes in the sand. You get a little bit more ground, and you have some stability, and you’re pretty sturdy. And after, you know, some time on the land, you eventually get some success, and you start to elevate, and you become wind. But if you stay in wind too long, and you stay on your high horse too long, you can’t relate to the people that are still in the fire. You lose a sense of reality.

1:31:05 You’re distorted. You don’t really relate to anyone, and you’re just on your high horse. I mean, how many of you know someone who’s just way too high and mighty, and they’re out of touch with reality and you can’t really relate to them? Now, me as a teacher, I want to be relatable. And so, I firmly believe, as men and women, that all of us that are in air need to put ourselves back into the fire.

1:31:25 And so as I move to Dubai, and I sell everything, and I leave a market that has generated me millions of dollars, all my family, all my rolodex, I put myself back into the trial, or the crucible, or the fire, or the flames, to forge a new version of self. And I can assure you that it was scary. It was uncertain. I second-guessed. I had nights of not having sleep, regretting, did I make the right decision?

1:31:52 And I had three months of not generating anything, just contributing, shaking hands, building relationships. And then that pendulum swings, and by month four, you know, I spoke. I was flying. All, I go to China in a couple days. I was in Ireland.

1:32:08 I spoke at the World Government Summit next to Elon and Tucker Carlson and Ray Dalio. And I’m like, how did I make it?

1:32:14 Um, but you get rewarded for the sacrifice. And Dubai has literally taken me and said, “We want this to be your global launch pad, and we want to blast you off to the world.” And just to be direct, I was in America for 28 years. I never even made it to the White House. I’m in Dubai four months and I’m with some of the highest people here because they see the value.

1:32:38 The, I’ll end with this little answer, is it’s like a water bottle. Um, you can go to the gas station and buy a water bottle for $5, but then you can go to Nobu, and that same water bottle is $20. Essentially, the water didn’t change, but the environment valued it differently. Most of you right now are probably valuable, but are in an environment that doesn’t value you. And then when you’re in an environment that doesn’t value you, you start to second-guess your own value.

1:33:08 And so my hope is everybody finds the place that values them the most, and don’t stop until you do.

1:33:14 Brian Rose: Is that a consequence of the fact that Nick grew up in that environment, and that they got to know the Nick from the basics up to a certain point, and you can’t grow any further? And is that a lesson to people, that sometimes you do have to go back into that fire to go to the next level, or do you think that’s just something that’s just an American way of thinking about you? What do you think that is?

1:33:40 Nick Santonastasso: Could be the law of familiarity. Yeah.

1:33:42 Meaning something’s around a lot.

1:33:45 It’s like you come to Dubai, and you’re like, the Burj Khalifa, this is amazing, and then a month in you don’t even look at the Burj, you know, it’s the… and that’s a slippery slope. But I think it’s a combination of starting from the bottom and then going to the top but being in the same arena. They’re just like, “Oh, that’s just, you know, that’s Nick.” Um, it’s like when you’re in a relationship and you have a really amazing woman, and then you get accustomed to the amazing woman, and then you leave the amazing woman and then you date other women, you’re like, “Oh, she was actually way better than she was.”

1:34:14 Way more valuable than I gave her credit for. Um, because you get familiar with it. And so I think it’s a combination of people getting familiar with it. Um, and taking it for granted, and then also how accessible you are. And if people find that you’re really accessible, it diminishes the value.

1:34:31 Um, and then also it’s funny, the whole thing that when someone leaves the village and becomes a bit bigger and then they return to the village, they’re like the hero. It’s like, y’all didn’t love me when I was here, but when I went out and changed the world, now it’s different, you know? And so I think it’s a combination of both, but um I don’t think it’s just an American thing. I think it’s a familiar thing. And so even here in the UAE, it’s like, do I live here?

1:34:56 Yeah, but I’m not always here. I live all over the world. And so you may catch me, you may not catch me. I may be available, I may not be available. Um, and I’m very conscious with my time and don’t take advantage of that.

1:35:09 And if you have me value, and if you, and when I’m not, um, when I’m not here, I’m not here. And so I think that’s a whole also another thing that people need to be very conscious of, like don’t make yourself too available. Um, because if you give an inch, people take a mile, but it gets familiar. You know, the jets get familiar, or the house gets familiar, and you can lose yourself.

1:35:33 Brian Rose: It’s good advice. Yeah. I used to work in the city of London, which is like the Wall Street of London, and I had a lot of younger guys that were my clients, and um, they’d get to a point where it was time to make a move. You know, they’d have to want to move from one bank to the other, and they’d be frustrated because they weren’t being valued by where they’re at, and they interview somewhere else, and they’re offering them double the money. And

1:35:52 I say, “Look, at some point, you know, you’re never going to make the jump at your familiar territory, because they remember you as the kid that used to get them coffee, you know, and they also value you because you’re there every day.” And, but some people never make the move because they’re not willing to take the risk and they’re not willing to go somewhere unfamiliar. And so they stay and they just grind it out. But sometimes you just have to go, and it doesn’t say anything bad about the people.

1:36:13 It’s just that environment. It’s weird. In the UK, you know, we made this movie a year ago, called We Will Not Be Silenced, that talked about us getting censored in 2020. I submitted it to film festivals all around the world. We won like 25 film festivals.

1:36:27 It was crazy. Never won one before in my life, zero in the UK, you know, and so, and it’s just interesting, you know, and when I walk around London, people stop me, but when I walk around Dubai, it’s like 10x. So there is something about the familiarity and the homegrown nature where people just don’t value as much because you’re always there, or you’re this, that thing. So it’s a good lesson. But if you’re not willing to go into the fire, you’re never going to get to the next level.

1:36:52 And so you come to Dubai, and that gets you on a stage back with Americans like Elon and Dalio and stuff like that.

1:37:00 Nick Santonastasso: The probably one of the biggest stages in the world.

1:37:02 Crazy.

1:37:02 Yeah. It’s, it’s wild. And like I said, it was 3 months of, like, I don’t know what’s going on. Like, are we going to make it? And then the tide shifts.

1:37:13 And so I just believe that if you keep being a blessing to others, you’ll be blessed. And the uncertainty is where the magic happens, right? If we knew exactly that our business plan was going to be flawless, it would be boring. You’d actually be bored. Like, imagine going, although it’d be great in the beginning, but imagine you went to gamble and you knew you were going to win every time.

1:37:36 You wouldn’t like it. And so I think there’s a lesson in the uncertainty, and if you can move into the uncertainty, you’ll welcome more magic into your life. I mean, how many of you remember a moment where a person, a place, and an opportunity fell into your lap and you were like, this is crazy. I don’t know about you, but I want more magic in my life. And when we try to put the known over the unknown, we block the magic from happening.

1:38:00 And so have an intention, have a plan, but surrender to the way that it manifests. That’s the magic.

1:38:07 Brian Rose: Another one of my mentors once said, he said, “Brian, success is on the razor’s edge of failure.” And I always try to remind my students that when you see successes out there, don’t for a minute think that this is easy. Whether you’re Apple Computer or you’re Nick or you’re even Tony, everybody is constantly taking risk and reinventing themselves just to stay relevant, just to stay growing. And don’t ever think that it’s anything but that, you know, and that’s, I, you know, I’ve been doing this for 14 years, but we’ve been reinventing who we are and what we are and what we teach and how we make money pretty much every year.

1:38:41 And I love it, you know, and it’s so important, or you’re never going to stay relevant, and you’re not going to enjoy it as well, you know.

1:38:50 Nick Santonastasso: That’s what I loved about you, and we shared it offscreen, is that you’re always innovating, you know, and that’s what the highest achievers do. We’re always looking for the two-millimeter shifts. We’re always looking for those small shifts, and, you know, doing something and then going back and saying, “Okay, what went right? What went wrong? How could we do better?”

1:39:07 And constantly innovating. And it’s a lot of energy, but it’s what we have to do. But I love that quote. It’s on the edge of the razor, the success is on the edge of the razor blade, because I’m like, is anyone else struggling like I do? Or is anyone lying in bed and thinking about things all night?

1:39:22 And it’s like, you’re not the only one. But like for the guys out there with this influence, talk about it more,

1:39:30 Brian Rose: Please.

1:39:30 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?

1:39:31 Brian Rose: Talk about it more.

1:39:32 Nick Santonastasso: It’s a funny thing, right? Like I want to, like, Tate, tell me when you’re struggling, you know, like there’s a part I know you’re in there, you know, like give me it, I want to hear it.

1:39:42 Brian Rose: It’s tricky, because they’ll talk about it two years later, which is better than nothing, you know? By the way, back then I was going through a really hard time, and I met… That’s better than nothing.

1:39:52 Nick Santonastasso: But yeah, it is tricky, because it’s weird, cuz you kind of wanted to talk about it.

1:39:56 Then the public probably doesn’t want to hear it, but then you’re going to need new people anyways.

1:40:01 Brian Rose: It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? It’s a fine line that people need to follow. But I love what you said about Dubai. Um, there’s so many amazing things going on here. That person of determination says a lot.

1:40:12 It says that the people at the very top are thinking about this detail. And this place is all about details. You know, the cleanest city in the world. I think it just made um one of the safest cities in the world. And I love the fact that everyone is here intentionally.

1:40:25 Everybody moves here to make their life better.

1:40:27 Whereas when I walk around London, I’d say 20% of the people are there to make their life better, and everybody else is just there. Yeah.

1:40:34 And you feel it, and everybody here wants to collaborate. It’s funny, like you said, there’s no flexing in Dubai. Um, I know a crypto influencer named Carl who’s got a Bugatti, and he posted a video the other day where he was scrolling down with his Bugatti in the parking lot, and there was like a better supercar next to him, and he said, in Dubai there’s always somebody with a bigger one. And

1:40:52 So you would think that could be disempowering. It’s actually super empowering, because it just kind of levels everything. It’s like, look, you’re not going to impress anybody with anything materially here, ever. So then what else you got?

1:41:04 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah.

1:41:04 And like you said, it’s character, it’s reputation, it’s the work.

1:41:08 Brian Rose: Which I love.

1:41:08 Yeah.

1:41:08 I love that.

1:41:09 Nick Santonastasso: Which is like, finally they see, you know, they see me for the value.

1:41:14 Yeah.

1:41:14 Um, and I also just believe proximity is power. So if you can be around money, you’re going to make more money. You’re going to be around powerful people. You’re going to be able to do powerful things. And I’ve never been in a more dense, high-networked place in my life.

1:41:29 Brian Rose: It’s insane.

1:41:30 Nick Santonastasso: It is insane.

1:41:30 It’s insane.

1:41:31 It’s insane.

1:41:31 Nick Santonastasso: Um, if people aren’t here, they’re visiting here, or they live here, and from all over the world.

1:41:38 We’re blessed.

1:41:38 Brian Rose: Yeah, it really is. And, um, it still has a weird stigma if you’re in America, although that’s changing a lot, too. Um, but yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, I could go out in London and maybe meet one person that might be helpful as a network and perspective, and then maybe something would happen in a month. I can go out one night here, I can literally meet 10 people, and the next day we’re messaging, saying, “Okay, what can we do?

1:42:01 What would you like to do?” It’s

1:42:02 It’s just crazy. And the vibe is just… Yeah. There’s a reason I’m here right now. I’m just attracted.

1:42:07 Nick Santonastasso: It’s a frequency, bro.

1:42:08 Brian Rose: Yeah. It is a frequency.

1:42:08 Nick Santonastasso: It’s a frequency. Yeah. You know, and there’s, everything’s energy and it’s frequency, and places that are toxic or not so good. It’s a low-level frequency. And so you move here, and even if you think about what’s interesting, is the prayer goes off.

1:42:29 They pray five…

1:42:31 Brian Rose: Five times a day.

1:42:31 Nick Santonastasso: Five times, five times a day. If you think about prayer,

1:42:35 They’re cleansing the energy five times a day. Even if you don’t believe in what they believe, the still environment, the collective consciousness is praying and sending love and intention five times a day. There’s a frequency

1:42:47 Brian Rose: Definitely, and it’s a form of meditation. It’s a form of gratitude. It’s a form of getting out of your own head.

1:42:53 Nick Santonastasso: I mean, there’s, there’s a lot to learn, observe and I think the locals, Emiratis, incredible moral compass. Incredible moral compass, present. They’re dialed in, incredible skills, incredible people skills, love, heart. And I love the culture in the sense too. Another thing about Dubai, and working with locals or just in this region, is people want to hang out first before they do business.

1:43:25 I’m not used to that. In America, it’s like you sit in a call or you get in a meeting, and it’s like bam, bam, bam, this is what it is. Here, they’re like, eat, you know, let’s eat, let’s hang out, let’s drink some tea. Um, and I and I learned from fellow brothers that are Muslim.

1:43:40 They want to know your heart before they do business with you. And I’m like, finally, a place I know, right?

1:43:46 Who sees my heart? You know, like, I’m a good person trying to do good things, and it’s, and they see it.

1:43:51 Brian Rose: Yeah. I was told that when I got here. I’m like, oh, this is a real relationship place to do business. And I got told of a story of some fund manager that flew in from New York for three days to raise money for his fund, and um, he flew out with nothing, and the guys were saying, “Yeah, that’s what he should have expected.” And then the more I thought about it, I was like, “Yeah, you should do business that way.

1:44:11 You should do business with people you like and whose character you really vibe with.” And so, yeah, I like that.

1:44:19 Nick Santonastasso: I love it.

1:44:20 Brian Rose: That’s the way I think it should be. And I agree, like the Emirati and the people here, I find that they’re really present, have a real thirst for knowledge. They really want to listen to you and hear what you can, what you have to say, and it’s the opposite of what you might think, you know, and I’m still trying to tell my parents in California to come visit me, and isn’t that next to Iran? I’m like, trust me, Dad, this is the future. And the other thing is I do this walking meditation every morning where I’m at, which is um, in JBR, and it overlooks the palm.

1:44:50 And so I’m always just trying to get myself to a higher level, and then I’m walking by these things and I’m like, look at how big these guys think. You know, they’ve created the most beast-run property man-made ever done. It’s the tallest building in the world. Next, they’re going to space. And I’m just thinking, you know, what are these guys telling me about how big I have to think

1:45:09 And it’s really motivating. And they keep their deadlines, and they run the government like a business. It’s just nice to be around high-performance people. High-performance people like being around other high-performance people. And this place is the ultimate high-performance place.

1:45:24 And it’s just… Yeah. Feels good.

1:45:26 Nick Santonastasso: I’ve never seen anything like it.

1:45:28 Brian Rose: It’s good. I’m glad you came. Um, 40 years from now, 50 years from now, we look back on Nick’s life. What has Nick done?

1:45:41 Nick Santonastasso: I think, and this is very recent, but I think we’ve helped millions of kids get medical equipment.

1:45:52 I think millions of kids and families are changed through the foundation. Um, walkers, wheelchairs, prosthetic legs, um, all that different type of stuff. So, I think we’ve, how I know we’ve impacted millions of families. Um, I think at that point, people know me for my music. No one knows that I even make music.

1:46:14 Brian Rose: I, I saw, I saw you singing in the shower.

1:46:16 Nick Santonastasso: And so, and so, some music.

1:46:19 Brian Rose: Why music?

1:46:20 Nick Santonastasso: Why music? I think music is universal. It’s the language of the universe. And so I don’t, um, billionaires listen to the same music as poor people, in the sense that it, like, music brings people together. And I think it heals, and it’s just a way to bring people together regardless of their backgrounds.

1:46:42 I think we’re so divided, and music can bring people together. And for me, music was my number one inner-child dream, and I’d be an idiot if I lived my whole life and at least didn’t sit and pursue it when I’m the one telling people to pursue their dreams. And so releasing music, and I’d love to just tour and do that. I think it’s fun. Who knows, what if speaking on stage actually prepared me for my greater intent?

1:47:08 Who knows? I could become a superstar in music. We never know,

1:47:10 Right? Um, but I think, yeah, doing a bunch of music, help, help a lot of people with the foundation, but honestly, I don’t know. Who knows if I get to 50, 50-plus years, you know? So, I’d be honored if I make it that long. Um, but all I know is that people remember me for being an offering, and that he definitely made the world a better place before he went, and maybe they can pull a piece of wisdom from the life and from the legacy.

1:47:38 But also, I don’t know if legacy is really important to me, because I believe you die, and the birds still bird, and the traffic still traffics, and the people still laugh, and you just go on. Um, I just want to make sure that as a man, while I was here, I did good things and I helped people. I made money. I gave money and I enjoyed it, and I didn’t waste this vessel. That’s what I’d be most proud of.

1:48:13 Brian Rose: Yeah. Legacy is a tricky thing, because the ego can get involved there, and you’re like, “Oh, I want the world to remember all this.” The world’s not going to remember Jack. They’re going to get on with their lives. So, it’s a weird thing.

1:48:24 I mean, I get that you want to leave something behind, but it’s a fine line there, you know, but maybe just being super present and super valuable and giving those blessings every day is the greatest legacy you ever can give, you know.

1:48:38 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. Enjoy it. Yeah. Enjoy life while it’s here. Help others enjoy it, you know.

1:48:44 Be good. Have good things. Be a blessing. And, yeah, but legacy is interesting, cuz I’m like, just going to forget about you anyway.

1:48:54 Brian Rose: It’s a little bit fleeting, you know, thinking that you’re going to have some legacy. You’re going to leave behind some foundation, and it’s really not true, I think, you know. I think it can, and maybe it can take you away from the legacy that’s happening right now in every moment, you know.

1:49:11 Yeah. And I watched you sing, and I thought to myself, I was watching you, and I’m like, man, I’m like, why am I listening, and why am I connecting with this? And it was because the guy that was singing that was you, and it was a guy that I know what you’ve been through, and I know what you’re trying to do with your life, and somehow that changes the music itself.

1:49:34 And so I like that you’re going there.

1:49:36 Nick Santonastasso: Oh, thank you. And I think it’s powerful, and it is a crazy medium that can cut through all cultural barriers and everything else. But I think you bring something unique to the music when you sing, because only you can do that, you know, and you can hear it in people’s voices. What was that great song, uh, by the man in black? It was called “Hurt.”

1:49:57 I forgot his name. Um, it’ll come to me, but it was one of the last songs he recorded before he died. And he was like, “I hurt myself today.” And, um, yeah, it was the man in black, Johnny Cash. Yeah.

1:50:10 Brian Rose: And a great song.

1:50:11 Nick Santonastasso: And it was a great song. He was like 80 years old, and all of his pain and life experience was in that tone of his voice.

1:50:20 Brian Rose: And okay, I knew who he was, but you didn’t have to know who he was to get something from that song, and to know that he was a guy with massive pain, but also a guy that was still here singing that song. And so, uh, yeah, I think you can have that power with people as well. And also, I’m gonna drop a track at least at some point as well. Now, you push me to. It’s a hip-hop track.

1:50:44 I’ve been thinking about it for like 10 years, and I’m just like, what the hell are you waiting for?

1:50:48 Nick Santonastasso: So, yeah, you’re right. It’s like, let’s do it.

1:50:50 Brian Rose: Yes. Let’s do it. Like, life is too short, and it’s like, if I can actually do it.

1:50:54 So, uh, I want to do it with a video, too. So you’ve inspired me to do it.

1:50:58 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. And it’s creative. It gets our creative juices going, you know, it gets us in that artist form.

1:51:06 But yeah, we have, uh, even coming up, right? It’s like we have fear of judgment, fear of rejection.

1:51:13 Brian Rose: You’re putting your art out there to the world.

1:51:14 Nick Santonastasso: But what’s beautiful for those that are artists listening, whatever form of art it is, everything is subjective. Everything is

1:51:22 There’s people that like Drake and there’s people that don’t like Drake. So with that mentality, it’s like, let me just create what I want to create, and then my people will find it.

1:51:29 That’s the mentality. Mm.

1:51:30 That’s one of the greatest mentalities you can have as an artist, is just realize like, I’m going to create what I enjoy, and then the right people who enjoy what I enjoy will enjoy it, and the rest, not for me.

1:51:41 Brian Rose: Yeah, we’re all artists. Yeah.

1:51:42 We need to remember that. Rick Rubin has a great book that he wrote about the art of creation, and it’s just so beautiful to listen to. I’ll send you a link to it. Okay, great.

1:51:51 But it just encourages everybody to create, and you create for you. You create to express you, and how everybody feels about it afterwards is not really the point. You don’t create it for the money or for the fans. You create it as an expression of something that you are. It’s just a great way to think about that for sure.

1:52:07 Um, family in the future for you? I was leaving your event, and I had to basically take a machete to get through all the girls that were surrounding you. So, uh, is that something in the future as well?

1:52:19 And do you find yourself to be a chick magnet now, unlike before the wrestling days?

1:52:23 Nick Santonastasso: Oh man, great question. So, one of the greatest breakthroughs that I had with relationships and with women is that most of it is energy. I mean, how many times have we seen a not-so-good-looking guy with a good-looking girl, and you didn’t understand it? Or, you know, um, a short guy, you know, like I’m a short, three, four, five, so I’m a short guy, right? But I realized one of the greatest compliments that I’ve got, I’ll give you two, and I’ll teach within it.

1:53:00 The first one was, I’ve had multiple people say like, we’ll have a conversation like this, and then they’ll be like, “Oh, I forgot that you have no legs. Oh, I totally forgot, you need, like, let me get your chair.” Like, they’ll just walk out of the room. And I think it’s a great compliment, because they’re like, “The presence and the aura is so strong that the physical body fades, and we forget about it.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.

1:53:22 On to something.” And then I had this chick one time after a speaking engagement. She came up to me, and she was like, “Uh, I was like, we were in conversation. I was like, ‘Oh, how tall are you?'” You know, and she’s like, “I was like, ‘I’m asking you that cuz my height is jaded. Like, I don’t know how tall people are.'” And she’s like, “Oh, I’m this.”

1:53:40 And she’s like, “How tall are you?” And I’m like, “Oh, 3 foot 5, you know, on a good day.” And she’s like, “You may be, maybe 3 foot 5, but you’re the tallest man in the room right now.”

1:53:47 Damn.

1:53:47 And I was like, “Oh, my, talk to me like that.” But the compliment was, like, the presence in the aura and the energy goes a long way. Of course, like looks, right? Looks help, and that’s beneficial. But even if you’re not that good-looking, but you have certainty and confidence and aura, and your humor and your wit, it’s an energetic thing, right?

1:54:08 Sometimes girls, they’re like, “I don’t even know why I like this guy. Like, he’s not my type.” But it’s an energetic thing. And so for me, I think I’ve just in a polite way cracked the energy code, where the sense of, like, I love myself more, and people can feel that I love myself. But also, we can go into some relationship dynamics of, like, high-value men, is first thing is boys seek, men attract.

1:54:38 Don’t miss it. Boys seek. So they’re like, looking for chicks. Men just attract women. And the reason that high-value men attract women is because they’re on purpose.

1:54:51 Women like a man who has purpose. And so I have a purpose and know exactly where I’m going. And if you want to fit into that purpose, so be it. You can follow. If not, no problem.

1:55:01 Still love you, but this is the way that I’m going. So they want a leader. They want someone with purpose. They want someone with mission. Um, I think another thing, too, as the man with no legs, one arm, is I’m still in better shape than the majority of men.

1:55:14 So that just smacks people in the face of like, oh, well, he looks okay, but he still looks better than all men, right? He’s in great shape. So that’s great. But I’ve also realized, too, that for everybody listening, whether you have physical differences or not, the hard truth is there are women that would never want to touch me. And so accepting that, and what was really powerful too, is my buddy, my best friend and my business partner there, was, you know, I go through ups and downs, right, with women and everything, and I was like, you know, her friend said she would never date someone like me, and he was like, “Do you think people look at me and say, I would never date a guy that looked like that?”

1:55:54 I’m like, yeah. He’s like, “It’s the same thing. Your thing that you’re hyperfocused on is your body. Mine’s my height.” He’s like, “We all actually have insecurity and disability.”

1:56:04 Um, but it’s like, do we hyperfocus on it, or do we just be the greatest versions of men and find the women that like us anyway? And so, it’s interesting. It’s like, you think, I struggle with women because I have no legs, one arm there. That is a factor, but you struggle because you have insecurities as well. We’re both the same,

1:56:21 Same, but different, right? And so, to answer your question, is if I’m in a great state energetically, and I love myself, and I’m certain I’m on my mission, um, there’s definitely a lot of success, but now you also realize, at least for me, you realize that surface-level connection is just a waste. It’s leaky energy, and I need to be hyperfocused on my energy and where I’m placing my energy, and there has to be a certain level of qualification for the woman, for me to spend time with them.

1:56:54 That may sound harsh, but it just is what it is.

1:56:56 Brian Rose: Has to be something meaningful there.

1:56:58 Nick Santonastasso: Meaningful depth, alignment, goals, vision. How, like, I… surface level is great. I can do it.

1:57:06 Brian Rose: Getting older and wiser.

1:57:07 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. At least I think so. Yeah.

1:57:09 Brian Rose: How can people find out more about what you’re going to build with the foundation, get in touch with you, learn about your training? You’ve got all sorts of programs as well.

1:57:18 Nick Santonastasso: Thank you. Yeah. So, mostly Instagram, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I’m on all platforms. If they type in Nick Santo, I’m the handsome guy with no legs, one arm.

1:57:30 You can’t miss me. And then, yeah, my intention moving forward is I help high- net-worth individuals with communication. I do corporate trainings, speak at ticketed events, government, and the foundation. This is the first time I’ve ever talked about the foundation on a podcast, and so I’m glad this could be the first one. So, that is coming out, and, um, people can email me, reach out to me that way.

1:57:53 But anyway, I could be of service. I’m here to serve, and I just know that everybody has a next level for them. And if the man with no legs, one arm can kick you into the next gear, then so be it. But like I mentioned at the event that you came to, um, this whole interview, my mouth will be moving and words will be coming out of my mouth, but not everybody will receive their blessing here today. And that’s okay.

1:58:15 We love you, too. But maybe you need to rewatch this if you didn’t get anything from it.

1:58:20 Brian Rose: It’s good advice, man. And so the foundation is thinking there’s a future Nick out there, and that prosthetic, that wheelchair, that whatever might manifest that guy to do these great things. Whereas without those tools, they might miss that opportunity. They might not be able to access the things that you did. And that’s kind of what you’re thinking with this foundation.

1:58:41 Nick Santonastasso: Yeah. Because when I was born, there was a lot of medical equipment and wheelchairs, and my parents got through that season by fundraising and by being part of a foundation. And so when I was a baby, there was a foundation that raised money for me. And so, how dare I now be in this place and not turn around and be a blessing that was a blessing to me and help me? And who knows how many more little Nicks we can create by giving them opportunities and resources that maybe they would never have.

1:59:14 And so, for example, I won’t share his name, but I have a little boy. My first mission is a little boy in Brazil um, that he was born with no legs and one arm. And his father has been messaging me since birth. And I didn’t see the messages until, um, a few months ago. And, um, to be continued.

1:59:32 Brian Rose: That’s going to be awesome. Love it.

1:59:35 Um, Nick, thanks so much for the time. You know, when we first met, we talked for, I think, a little while, 20, 30 minutes, and I just noticed you’re super present. You’re super present, looking into my eyes. And I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. I forgot about your body, you know, which is what a great conversation is.

1:59:52 It’s a meeting of the minds, you know, and that was really impressive. And then when I saw your event, I could see what you’re doing. You’re an analogy, a reflection back to all of us that, you know, even just you being you teaches us something about what we’re telling ourselves and our limitations. And then when they listen to you even more, they can really take things to the next level. And, um, I just appreciate you doing that stuff.

2:00:15 And it makes me think a lot about things. It’s interesting, because it’s one thing if you know Jocko or, um, Goggins, or someone else tells me they jumped off the diving board, but when you jump off it, it’s somehow different. You know, it’s like, god damn, this is no joke.

2:00:30 And so, you know, in a weird way, you have a superpower to motivate people and to hit them in the face, where they can’t justify their inaction with their little monkey brain, where they have to really admit, well, god damn, if this guy’s doing it, then what the hell is my problem? It’s a really powerful tool you have. So, thank you for using it, you know, to affect so many people’s lives, and, um, thanks for being honest today, and, uh, look forward to, you know, getting to know you better and celebrating this great city as well.

2:00:59 So, thank you.

2:00:59 Nick Santonastasso: Thank you, brother. And it’s been an honor. Like I said, I saw some interviews, and I was like, I’d love to be on that show one day, and it’s come full circle. And shout out to Juel,

2:01:09 Right, for the introduction, and, um, we hit it off, and there was great energy, and here we are. So, it’s an honor to be here, full circle.

2:01:16 Brian Rose: Yeah. Talk about a brotherhood. You know, Juel, the sartorial shooter who was here a couple weeks ago, um, is big on brotherhood, and, you know, he had a whole group of men, uh, together, and that’s how we met, and it felt really good being in that room. I think so many men, we don’t have a brotherhood, and it just feels so good. It’s something carnal, like we need it, and he really puts that together, and he put this together, too.

2:01:41 So, yeah, shout out to him as well.

2:01:42 Nick Santonastasso: Let’s go.

2:01:43 Brian Rose: All right, man. Thank you so much, brother. Really appreciate this. Glad to be here.

2:01:46 Nick Santonastasso: Glad to be out here.

2:01:51 Brian Rose: And thank you so much, everybody. Thank you to Web3 TV, and we will see you next time on London