Breaking Barriers Through Adversity - Steve Eckert

could be ripped and have six-pack abs make all the money in the world but if your kids hate you your wife's neighbor it doesn't matter how much money you have and what shape you're in [Music] hey welcome to the empire show my name is bedros coulion and this is an inside look and it's a very special inside look because we're going to take an inside look into the minds of men the hearts of men and of course into the project and so if you're a guy and you're listening pay close attention and if you're a woman and you're listening do not change the channel or go to a different podcast because this is very relevant not only to you but also for the men in your life and the men that you might be raising so here with us today is mr steve eckart one of the head instructors for the project steve welcome to the show thanks for having me looking forward to it yeah big topic here it is a good topic man and uh so we are now seven classes deep into the project for those of you that are like what is the project you've never heard of the project it is a 75 hour straight men's development course experience that takes men and helps them level up in their five f-bombs faith family fitness finance so they can have a life of fulfillment that fifth f-bomb and so it's usually men who are entrepreneurs who are seeking to reach their fullest potential find their purpose right and as we like to lovingly say it they have something in their life them up and they're there at the project too on themselves why does it take hard 75 hours of hard intention for a man to have that breakthrough i think it's because in general manliness and masculinity they have all these terms now i didn't know the terms but it's it's frowned upon to be manly which makes men soft and i speak to men every day from all over the country from all walks of life from all over the world even and they've gone soft they've gone soft because of they were never taught the way to think they were never taught how to be a man it's through the generations through their heredity their social social heredity that they've had in their life well there's a lot of social pressure in killing masculinity right and so when you say men have gone soft like give us examples of men what softness means for in in terms of for men and masculinity and then tell us what does hardness mean because i have a feeling people think hard means like you got to go out there and kill and conquer like that's not what hardness means why don't you give an example for both so i think a real a true badass is a man who sure he can go out there and do those things you said but he knows when is the time to also flip the switch and save the puppy in the in the that's in the middle of the road help someone out be vulnerable ask for help that's what makes a real confident man that's what makes a badass so men are either on one far end of the spectrum the two extremes either they just think that would be rah-rah-rah kill pillage and all this other stuff or they think that's since that's so horrible then they're just soft and weak and not speaking up passive-aggressive not really showing who they are afraid to really show that they are afraid to be themselves because who themselves is trouble right in the middle who's what a [ __ ] man is but you're not allowed to be a man anymore it's right you're almost racist if you're a man these days it's it's crazy it's funny that you say that so we had this discussion i said hey you know let's make this a discussion about what it really takes to to be a man or what the project is all about and what we're doing with the project help transform people but as i see what most people will do in any areas of life like look one or two beers at a party is cool have one or two cases at a party and now you've become that knucklehead that's not going to get invited to the party because you just broke the party up because of some stupid act right when the pendulum swings too far in any direction in any capacity of life have yourself a few pretzels have yourself boxes of pretzels every day you become a fat i love pretzels go to the gym every day and get jacked and rip get if your pendum swings too far that way where you're jacked and ripped but you are not in touch with your mental and emotional side then now you become this knuckle dragging animal right and and so i see that what ends up happening is the pendulum we're living in times of extremes right now where don't be a man it's hard and it's scary and and you will be considered toxic so then men begin to feminize themselves in areas of strength in decision-making in leadership and communication and soon when you have this burning desire because when they soften themselves and they take away all those things the ability to communicate directly and firmly like we get feedback at the project and we ask them to give each other feedback and when they don't know how to lead each other when they don't know how to lead their families their businesses etc we still have that burning desire of being a man inside and so soon it comes out it comes out as this passive aggressive energy which is what we see there at the project and so what would you say if like a dude's like all right man i think you're describing me i've totally stifled my alpha male and or maybe i haven't had a i haven't had an example of an alpha male in my life my dad was absent or he was a big pushover and i realized i feel this burning desire within me to be that servant savage that we talk about but i don't know how what is the process for someone to do this for themselves to begin to harden up it's simple we we have a saying in the project we say project that they have to do hard they have to put themselves in those situations that are going to challenge them show them who they are what they're capable of what their true freaking potential is what are they actually made of what are they capable of because they're not they're they're just living a nice life they think average is easy mediocre is easy they think that but when it comes down to it averaging mediocre is a whole lot harder than being excellent and extraordinary living you know hiding in in pictures because you're too fat because that was easy that was easy life that's a lot harder in life than to get in the gym every day to me it is at least the way it's gonna your head yeah and and to that point when you say do hard like let's give a great example because sometimes uh people take this the wrong way about do hard like one way i did hard recently about a month ago was i decided all right today i'm not going to sleep instead of waiting for night time to come and i'm going to go sleep as the sun falls down today i'm going to go and start walking i'm going to hike my entire city and i hiked and i invited people here at hq and five people volunteered to come with me and uh the whole night until sun up we hiked so we were awake for 24 hours and we hiked sundown to sun up covering 34 miles and it was intentionally done untrained because we could have trained for it and build up miles for it so that you know when the hip flexors and the knees begin to buckle and hurt you're like well hey you know that that doesn't happen but if you don't train for it and just try and use mental toughness to go through something you begin to touch this area of life in your mental capacity that you realize holy crap i have so much more to give and i've been operating in a state like you said of mediocrity of average and that's difficult and so another thing that you and your family did just this past weekend is you guys went on a a hike that was seven miles up tell us about that yes a 15 mile hike it's supposed to be the hardest hike in southern california it took us close to 15 hours because experienced hikers avoid this hike because it's just brutal it's just relentless going up we do hikes here and there two three miles you know around here little local hikes little hills this is a mountain and what we did is took our kids with us and and actually a couple project graduates we had two of the recent graduates come they brought their kids who never had any hiking experience and it's just a matter of get getting through that controlling your emotions because it's exactly what you said not training for it that's what to me emotional resiliency is once you get into those extremes is having to be able to come back to the center that's what resiliency is to have that emotional discipline is to stay in the middle resiliency keeps you back gets you back to the middle when that's a good way to just going crazy and that's what mental toughness is and yeah it's not hard doing harsh doesn't mean do things that you're good at means make yourself uncomfortable you you need to put yourself in situations where you're not the master where you're the stupidest in the room you're the slowest the fattest the softest the the dumbest and that's that's what real [ __ ] is no it's not courageous to do something that looks courageous to other people but it's easy to you you know if you like to fight going to get in a fight is not courageous right but sticking up for someone and doing the right thing maybe that's the courageous thing to do you know it's that's really well said so so to that point um you took your son and your daughter and your wife with you uh explain to the audience how old your kids are so they can understand that one of the i think the hardest hike in all of southern california seven and a half miles up and then seven and a half miles down and by the way that's so steep on the way down that you're sliding it's twice as hard as the way up you're busting your ass falling all over the place with by the way narrow passageways in some areas where there's like just sheer cliffs next to you right and so how old are you kids and why do you take your daughter and your son to something like that well so my son's nine and my daughter's six and this is a big razor with my daughter too the first hour you just start hitting that hill and her little legs were fried they were done once she started talking having fun she made it look easy she embarrassed the rest of us she was skipping dancing cartwheeling on the final stretch while we're all dragging ass because she hasn't been conditioned like the men were talking about they've been conditioned to think easy think stuff she hasn't got there she started to get there and and broke through it she bounced back in that's the resilience that we're talking about and the reason why we do that and we go on crazy bike rides and we wake up at 1 30 in the morning to go do a workout or something like that we do all kinds of crazy is because i made the decision what i think a lot of men didn't do in their life made the decision to break the cycle to break the cycle of in your family that have made [ __ ] up man after [ __ ] up man for for generations who knows how far back so i made the decision i took the the stubbornness dna that i got from my father and i said all right i'm gonna use that same stubbornness dna to break the cycle to do everything the exact opposite as he did as a weapon instead of a christ exactly i'm gonna weaponize that i'm gonna weaponize the the addictiveness and the personality that he gave me in my blood i can't do anything about it but i can make the decision how i'm gonna use it how am i gonna use a nuclear weapon for good or for evil so i made a decision i'm gonna break the cycle but in order to do that i'm gonna have to give my my kids a life that i never solved or give them experiences i never had before take them on trips let them ride first class in a plane but that in turn would then make them soft then they wouldn't be able to have that mental toughness and mental emotional resiliency that we're talking about if they didn't have some of that life if you if you yeah that is true suffering and adversity introduces a man to his highest self that's that's a given fact and every every stoic philosopher has talked about that because it is within suffering that you begin to build compassion it is within suffering that you begin to find that your inner demons it is within suffering that you begin to process through your challenges your that is holding you back like you've had a pretty tough childhood with your dad pretty much ignoring you you share this openly at the project i don't think it's a secret um and now we're gonna share it with the world here and i've had a tough childhood growing up you know between the ages of four and six i was molested by two older boys and these things these traumatic events that happened to us end up programming us to either in my case i felt unlovable broken uh rage shame confusion and so we began to look at the world through a set of filters of the world's not safe it's not a good place i'm not meant to be loved and and experience happiness and greatness whatever traumatic experience happened whether it was you know dad ignoring you and i think one of the funniest stories you tell is how was it the wall that was your best friend best friend tell me about that how did the wall become your best friend well i know what to play with i would the side of the house i would just take a a tennis ball and then play a nine name baseball game against the wall and i won almost every time i lost a few but i'd sit there for hours and hours though the wall argued with me i was like this is this is great this is heaven so so let me let me do a little digging because you know i like to openly share like what happened to me and then that by the way the stuff that i just shared what happened to me being molested as a kid that's just pre coming to the united states then as my family now we moved to the united states i was six years old my dad and mom didn't realize that they saved me from constant molestation and then we get here and we're living in section eight government assisted housing and now you're having gangbangers who live in these housing complexes these apartment complexes listen to the wrong way i heard gangbang i was like you're coming in you're complaining about that no no goats no goats around um you're having gangbangers beating you up because you're the foreigner and so there was more adversity as i look back that adversity taught me to self-soothe that adversity taught me that i can bring the violence if i have to and i wasn't a good fighter but you quickly become a good fighter when you start getting into a lot of fights soon you realize i have to something has to change they're not going to stop beating me up something has to change and for me it was i'm going to carry a knife and i might not be able to fight the four of you at once but i could stab one of you and the rest are going to run like i knew if i could poke one of them the rest of them were all that said but that also led me into a life of you know police helicopter chase and i talked about home invasion robberies and carjackings until i straightened my life out but where your dad was concerned because i think when you look at the 50 divorce rate in this country and then you look at the parents who are together i believe at least half of those 50 percent who are together picking up their kids and what ways were you i don't use the word traumatized were you properly [ __ ] up that gave you the superpowers to be who you are today well by playing with a wall for hours and sitting at home by yourself doing nothing no one talking to you become a ghost you feel like a ghost okay but now as an adult i could sit there and you could say i'm on a business trip i could sit in a hotel you can go get yourself into trouble we're in vegas you can go get yourself into trouble or which we've seen happen a lot exactly when we when you were in my mastermind they'd go out get trashed they'd make bad decisions exactly so that i've taken that as a superpower say okay i can use this i could sit here alone by myself for eight hours i could write emails for the next three months and bang it out i could build a million dollar business and in a day thanks dad like you taught me how to do that and i want to make sure i don't take that away from my kids if i start giving them just this easy life of luxury because the earlier thing you asked was is what i call manufacturing adversity that's something i'm applying adversity in their life so that when it goes sideways they're gonna the world's up they have to be able to deal with that otherwise they'll crumble under that pressure and we actually just had a guy in the project recently if you sometimes like you have those serial killers out there and their neighbors always say he was such a nice sweet young man and he never caused any trouble he was sometimes they had too good of a life you know and they just all that built up i don't even want to see anything okay i didn't call him a serial killer he wasn't eating their bodies in the basement like jeffrey dahmer or any something but yeah i want to manufacture adversity then apply adversity in their life so when like i curse in front of my kids all the time they shot guns they see guns so when they see a gun they won't think oh what's this and start shooting it and they know how to respect it and that's at manufacturing university i told we talk we joke around we [ __ ] with each other we were sarcastic so one day someone's going to tell my kid in in in junior high school oh you're [ __ ] stupid you're a loser he's going to be like oh wow you're really tough scaling yeah big deal and then you're going to punch them in the face they're going to be quick cleaning up piles of blood and teeth or whatever but that's besides the point i'm ready for that conversation with the principal but yeah it's manufacturing adversity so they're ready to deal with because otherwise they'll just become soft like the men we're talking about and and it's weird man because adversity and suffering could be factory installed like for us adversity was factory installed whether through bad parenting or just some step you know older boys in the neighborhood who decided to me right and so when that becomes factory installed we begin to so there's this thing that my therapist told me he's like hey because when he would bring up subjects that i didn't want to talk about especially about being molested as a kid i would just look out his window we're on the second floor of his office kevin's office i would look out the window and just stare at my car and it's like wait are you there vader is there and i would just be looking out the window but not yes but i wouldn't look at him and he goes hey can you look at me and i looked at him he goes can i tell you what you're doing right now and i thought i was just kind of paying attention but i wasn't it's called disassociation i was disassociating from the conversation that wasn't making me feel good right that i didn't want to necessarily engage in with him and so he goes let me tell you about this association you might have used this in all your companies that you built which is how to silo your brain we call it uh you know i know how to put everything in a box right and we can compartmentalize and put our emotions in a box and then take care of business we can compartmentalize put our put our family in a box and take care of business and he goes this this association may have served you well but i'm going to bet that it's also not served you well because i wonder if when you get into an argument with your wife if you then mentally check out as well and i was like shoot man you got me because i had mentally checked out from our conversation and so while it works great and i can avoid all distractions and put everything around me in the box and focus on building my franchise the supplement company the project whatever i can also do that with my family when let's say me and i are having a conversation that leads to some hard discussions and once i'm done i can i can disassociate well the problem with that is is disassociation is the first step into creating multiple personalities and so that's not a rabbit hole you want to go down and so again it was a matter of him giving me tools to deal with that and for me to take those tools and install them the times i was able to think about it was when i put myself through these six week challenges whether it was train for six weeks and run a marathon the six weeks of jiu jitsu training where three times a week i'm training in jiu jitsu for two hours at a time just having my ass handed to me but it's in those moments of pain and adversity and suffering that i was being able to process the things that my therapist was giving me and telling me and then you look at people who haven't had adversity in their life you look at people who they've had comfort and and a balanced childhood factory installed our kids have them had you and i not manufactured adversity in their life so you and i had factory installed adversity our kids have factory installed happiness and balance and peace and serenity until we bring the chaos to their life so that they're able to experience the other side like you said i want my kids to experience different countries and and rub elbows with different people and sit in first class and stay at hotels that that are five star and beyond but i also want them to understand how to deal with hardship how to control their emotions how to have resiliency and how to fight through hardship and that's the piece that we've forgotten and so whether it was the bike ride you did with your kid the family hike you guys did over the weekend whether it's the hiking through the night i do i did with a group of people here or uh you know the weekly ice baths i do with my family my son and i actually i took a piece out of your book you know the pit in the back of the project compound well we decided that we're going to crawl the pit just like we have the guys crawl it but in the process look for shards of glass and pick them up so you might be disappointed that next class there's no glass just put those out there what what a waste of my time because i was out there i was like dude there's like broken glass out there andrew he's like yeah dad i'm like dude we should go clean it up i was like you know what steve did say that he and his son were going to crawl this thing but then i think your son said something effective what am i going to tell the teachers that i'm always sliced up they're going to think he's abused or something yeah so my son being 15 years old abuse is less likely number one uh number two i don't know if your son's going to actual physical school my kids aren't they're doing the whole laptop thing so i'm like hey buddy we're going to finish our workout and we're going to crawl this thing and in the process we're going to clean up all the shards of glass so the next class doesn't have to go through it and it's that adversity that i see when he he knows how to turn it on at 15 years old 14 years old 13 years old he knew how to flip the switch where i had to learn that in my late 20s and 30s like what a disadvantage i had over the advantage that we're giving our kids our kids are going to be they're going to out shine us in every area of life when they when they grow up yep yep so as we get guys into the project it's funny because some guys come [ __ ] up with traumatic events and hardship and they've been molested and beaten and and you know one guy i think there's a couple guys now that have gone through the project killed someone not intentionally but you know in an accident killed someone and they carry that guilt and the weight of that and we help them break through the cycle of the guilt and then the vice that they use whether it's drugs or alcohol to deal with that guilt and then to be able to find their superpower but as people come to us whether they're too soft or or tucked up we see one common thread a sense of depression in men a higher level of depression and a higher level of anxiety in men where is that coming from these days i think it's again it goes back to not knowing how to deal deal with those things they were never taught they were never never taught how to learn they've never taught how to think like that's what i want to do with my kids not just give them the experience that i never had not just manufacture the adversity because that could just be that could also swing too far to one end of the pendulum right either at the same pendulum too much adversity or too much comfort i'm also trying to teach them how to think by my actions the way that i'm acting i try to teach them how to think teach them how to learn teach them how to process stuff teaching how to make decisions for themselves not me making decisions i i just we just came up with a thing recently that my kids don't have to ask if they can play video games they don't have to ask if they can watch tv they decide on their own just don't [ __ ] it up don't you better have done everything you were supposed to do clean your done your done the laundry because they do their own laundry both kids six years old and nine years old nice they've been doing it for years so let them think for themselves let them make their own decisions learn how to make decisions and if they [ __ ] up a decision they're going to pay the consequences for it and learn that i think a lot of men never were taught that they were just it was too far end of the all right there's a different scene of adversity that's going to make you stronger there is a far end of that adversary like some people are just we're so that they need a little more than just doing hard like that's just the way it is yeah and i saw that one of your your posts one time that was really not do we're talking about where you you said something about doing hard is to take care of anxiety and depression and i saw all kinds of people jumping on you like obviously there's another level of extreme where someone just needs serious professional help and right it's not going to help them but as long as you give them just enough adversity but also teach them how to think teach them how to make decisions teach them how to do the right thing then that's the difference that's what i think most of those men didn't have so it's funny that you say that right and you're right majority of the men suffering and i'm when we say majority like if all the men who are suffering through anxiety and depression there's more of them these days than ever before especially here we are in 2021 statistics are coming out more men are suffering from depression anxiety than ever before 90 of those they can fix that through consistent and installed or manufactured adversity in their life because as you're running eight miles a day and by the way if you're like well beta i can't run eight miles a day neither can i i literally was walking like when i started training for the marathon the six weeks of training i was i walked one mile and i was like man this is really hard on my knees like i'd rather go dead lift and squat all day long and going back to what you said earlier i'm good at dead lifting and squatting and benching so that might that's not hard it's not hard it used to be hard right it might be hard for someone who comes into the gym they've never been in the gym they're looking around they feel intimidated they see mirrors they don't want to see themselves in the mirror they're holding the bar and they're helicoptering with the bar because they don't even have that proprioception and balance in place that's hard for that guy if i've been dead lifting for 20 years and squatting for 20 years it's not hard for me so i to put a picture of me deadlifting and say you heart is an absolute lie i'm an imposter it's staying awake which i don't like to stay awake late because i need my sleep and it's walking unprepared for 34 miles through the middle of the night that's hard and that is when you begin to process through all the different things which reminds me of a show that so every night my family and i we watched one episode of a show together right now we started watching um so we used to watch a survivor and actually one of the tv shows survivor main stars joe anglum he was on three seasons of survivor went through the project i think he was in project class three or four but um on the tail end of that you know how amazon will say hey if you liked watching the survivor show you might want to watch a show called alone and they take like 10 people and they go you can pick 10 things with you survival gear and we're going to drop you off in uh on vancouver island and they're like 10 miles apart and this is the area you can be so here's some a body of water you can fish in you can go trap animals you got to build your own shelter last person who hits the and they give them a little gps transponder the last person who hits the come save me button wins 500 000 but if steve and i are the last two there we don't know that eight other people have hit the button it's not until you hit the button or i hit the button that then a boat shows up the next day they give that final person one more 24 hours a boat shows up and now the person by the way there's no camera people like the survivor you also they give your own camera gear so you're miking yourself up and so these guys the guys and gals they set up the camera and they're just talking to it and in the beginning they're like woohoo i got this thing i could do it i'm a bushman i'm a craftsman i can do all this by day 10 there's like three three people left and typically they go 40 50 60 days and every single one of them as they begin to get hungry as they begin to get chased by bears lose sleep do hard physical [ __ ] every day they start looking into the camera they're like you know what i need to be better to my wife i realize that i constantly think that i know the answer to everything and i need to be a better father and i need to have more patience with my kids like no therapist anywhere on the island bro they come in thinking they're god's gift to humanity because they're bush craftsmen not realizing how arrogant and cocky and they are they have breakdowns on camera that they set up and come up with these great epiphanies like holy [ __ ] i realize how i messed up my kids and i'm going to go back and apologize to them and it's so neat to see that and if there was ever a great example where adversity and suffering will introduce you to your highest self because every problem that we create in here the same brain will create the solutions if the brain is silenced and given enough time and adversity to work through a problem which we don't do in these days because we have our iphones and food gets delivered to us and everything's comfortable and easy oh yeah and so but you're right there's that other 10 of humanity of men who do need to go get professional help like they're too far gone in a way where just doing hard isn't going to do it for them and so during the project if there was a person who was committed to bringing the heart to the candidates who go through it it's you it's you um i give you all that i bring them all the fun we do the fun stuff well it's funny because in the at the end so those of you that don't know we have this graduation dinner at the end so if the product this last project class started with i think 19 guys had registered for it 16 actually showed up a few back outs the last couple hours and i always look at it this way imagine there's a stadium right there's a stadium and they're like dude you need to go and play this game it's a soccer game whatever football game could be whatever you need to go play this game well 18 dudes suited up but then only 16 showed up to the stadium and then of the 16 that showed up to the stadium really in this case how many graduated was it eight eight fifty percent yeah fifty percent the rest ring the bell and gave up and one of our other head instructors is uh ray care former navy seal and with you as a marine uh you and ray bring the thunder but you have a very special way of bringing the thunder to get these guys to start negotiating with their inner and quit and my job as the papa bear is to make sure that they don't quit to understand the difference being injured and hurt if you're hurt keep going if you're injured we've got a medic that's going to help you there's all those other factors but they you can tell how much they hate you when you're putting them through all the suffering and adversity and we have them give each other feedback about every three or four hours we have them rank each other because in life you're being judged and i don't care what everyone says you're watching this or listening to this not alone for a lot of men is adversity that's putting them in a position to transmit mvc feedback to stand in front of another man look him in the eyes and tell him what he needs to do what he needs yourself but then also to subdue your ego and have another man tell you that that right there is is a huge form of adversity for a lot of those guys they've never had a whole life they never have and we go the extra mile and we go hey go go stand in front of him and be specific with not just like hey steve you need to pick it up you just step it up yeah yeah how often do we hear that you need to step it up it's like hey tell him in what way in what evolution and what could he have done different because now if it's like hey steve during the hiking evolution you could have done this different you became selfish and you for while you had the wristband to be the leader you were selfish and you weren't taking care of the tribe now steve can go do something about it but during that graduation dinner we do something different now we allow them the graduates that are the men who've made into the brotherhood to rank us five instructors and inevitably while they all hated you like i could see the hate in their eyes and when i pull them into the oh they want death upon me yeah burn in hell and when i pull them into the lobby on their way out and give them we give them their stuff their suitcase and stuff and the junior instructors take them to back to the hotel they don't have the nicest things to say about you yet those eight to graduate or however many that graduate depending on the class when they rank they always rank you as number one and i find that interesting but i also find that so telling of the human spirit that as much as we hate the idea of voluntary putting ourselves into suffering once we've done it we've made it to the other side we're so grateful for that adversity and suffering and they rank you as number one almost in every class i think every class now they've ranked you as number one when you add collectively to it and i think they think it's still part of the test they're just afraid that they're gonna get tortured again i think we're gonna go right now and all that but yeah you're right that might be it but but the reality is it's not and that what these guys are really saying is they respect the fact that you brought the suffering over those 75 hours but i was telling someone the other day they go how can people go through 75 hours how can men go through 75 hours of physical torture i'm like are you nuts like some 75 hours of physical torture they go but we see the videos we put up there they're in ice baths and then they're you're putting them through these pits and then they're running and then they're hiking and then they're in the ocean dealing with the waves like look that's a one minute sizzle reel and it's sexy and we put badass music to it and ed here edits it and it becomes this killer like sizzle reel for that class really when you strip away what the project is it's two two hour sessions i think the first one is right around 25 26 hours in the hunt and destroy which is a sit down journaling exercise and then part two of the hunt and destroy is like 38 39 hours in and that's where we begin to hunt and destroy we hunt for their toxic cognitions their negative belief systems the things that are limiting their growth and their ability to experience good relationship or they sabotage their health their fitness their their relationship uh their business once we hunt those things how it happened and then we go in part two here's the superpower but this person asked me well why do you have to put them through all that physical torture in order to get them to be honest i had my answer but if someone asks you that why do you guys physically torture them just to have them like why not just have a four hour thing two that two hours and two hours and everyone go every guy go through the hunting destroy process and be done can we save more men that way well first the people who think that how can you put them through this physical human body is capable of so much more than people think that's why you do things like that the hike that you did through the night like people call like i love tim grover in his book he talks about michael jordan how michael jordan was such a hero because he he had a stomach flu and he was playing basketball he was throwing a [ __ ] ball through a hoop with a little tummy ache like come on running around that's not a hero hero were people like jason redmon who got shot in the face that's a tough day so if it was 75 hours of just physical torture they could even endure that the human body could take a lot you know it meant it's all it's all in your head the physical part's the easy part it's the mental and the emotional side but in order to get to there you have to break down physically that's when you let your guard down that's when you start thinking like those guys you were talking about in that show they start thinking about it and that's what's going on right now in the world that's the the men who are stepping up that's why the project is selling more than ever at the highest price ever they're sitting at home during this pandemic they're either going to go one of two ways they're going to sit there and they're realizing how [ __ ] up their life is and they're just gonna make excuses and blame the government blame and riots and go they're gonna go steal apple store or they're gonna say you know what i need myself and that's when they're getting on the phone with us and they're showing up because they realize that they've been then they've been just average mediocre like we were saying you need that physical breakdown to be built back up mentally and emotionally it's it's almost impossible for it to happen without that and that's an important piece and let's share that for a moment i don't know much about the human mind by way of women think this way and men think that way other than no i know how i think and i can perceive how my wife might think uh but i do know this that when my wife goes out with her friends they might go and uh have a little something to eat they sit around a dining table somewhere and they have some wine and they openly look at each other and they share their life experiences and what hardships they're going through and they have a good time and they're able to process through it men on the other hand we're conditioned number one and number two i do believe it's a biological thing we are we're gifted with the ability to compartmentalize because the caveman was gonna be like oh man i stubbed my toe therefore i can't go fight the saber-tooth tiger he has to put the stub toe aside or put the fact that the cave just caught fire and go and fight the saber-tooth tiger so we're good at also compartmentalizing so when you're like hey b how's it going am i good even though like my life might be a disaster good now if all of a sudden you and i went and started doing some hard together where i'm exhausted you're exhausted then i'm stuck i can't go anymore and you're like dude we got to go up three more flights on this hill and you're grabbing my arm and pulling me up and then i get a burst of energy i'm like steve now i'm gonna help you up once we get to the top we've got a very different bond we just went through some hardships some torture some suffering and now if you're like hey man how's life i'm like bro let me tell you how life is right now and that's when men start breaking down and crying yes it's their guard is up they're just i'm a bad ass have to be a badass until you they say uh fatigue makes a coward of us all in a way that's a coward in a good way breaking them down because men think it's cowardly to talk about their emotions and talk about what they're [ __ ] up with you have to break them down you have to break through the shell of the turtle to get to the mushy stuff on the inside you'll never get through it until you break them down the second you break down is when you can get to where the problems are how they need to unpack themselves yeah and the thing is they the guys ask me on the phone all the time what are you gonna do for me how are you gonna fix me i'm like we're not gonna fix you we're gonna you know methodically and strategically break you down with specific attention to diesel the way we do it is all very strategic everything has a purpose we're just going to break you down and you're going to have these breakthroughs these discoveries these aha moments i can't tell you what that's going to be i can't give you the answer but i guarantee you if you're one of those people that doesn't want to go ring the bell that really makes the decision that you want to break the cycle in your life i 100 guarantee and 100 confidence that you will find those discoveries and you'll leave after only 75 hours a whole different trajectory in your life because of that physical breakdown it's gonna it's gonna open up your mind open up your your emotions your thoughts mentally physically emotionally spiritually socially and you'll start doing saying and and thing thinking things that you never knew existed like that's what i'm gonna bring out of you i'm gonna beat it out of you the things that you thought were impossible the things you never knew existed it's like napoleon hill talks about the mastermind principle how when two people get together and put their mind together focused on something they come up with this outcome that neither one of them had the skill or knowledge of they never would have gotten on their own that's kind of where i like to think of it when all of us project and start to get together it's like a mix of the ninja turtles the avengers and the free stooges when we get together it is but with our recipe of disaster that we put on them it comes out this thing that none of us you me ray aaron none of us could have come up with on our own but it's the culmination of it all together that they come up with this like epiphany this breakthrough and it's it's something that they couldn't come up their own we could have come up with it just gets smashed together and it comes out with this outcome and they now have this new trajectory of like holy how did i never know how to never see that and none of us could have figured out they couldn't have figured out until we put this whole mishmash of just up in this together and and we do that we do that really well it's a tutor on horn we do do that really well and i think part of it is we are subject matter experts in different areas right i mean you've got the swat guy you've got the mma guy you've got obviously uh just just you while by the way i'm gonna tell you guys right now while you guys are hearing the intensity and the passion in steve's voice and you might go like oh my god he's an animal because i just described him as the guy that they all hate and would rather ring the bell than spend one more minute in the pit or wherever that you're delivering the torture you're also the guy that has so much compassion care love and empathy for them on the other side of that ever call me those things ever again kill my whole reputation yeah okay we're gonna have to edit this out we're gonna have to edit this out but but to the to that point one thing we share and i think it's important for all men to know this and for all of humanity to know this i think we somehow got sold on the idea that blood is thicker than water and when i first heard that i was like that just doesn't sound right blood is thicker than water and i started thinking about that specifically when again kevin my therapist started talking to me about one thing specifically i was like look did you pick your mom and dad i'm like no i didn't i was born to them did you pick your brother and sister no they were born into the family that i was did you pick your kids like no i didn't they were just born to me and my wife so there's only one person that you picked your wife like holy sh yeah and so the term blood is thick in the water really is and when you pick your wife like you're married you've got a wife you only you and her know the adversity that you guys have gone through to build up your gyms out there in new york right and the adversity you guys have gone through excuse me as a family to continue to grow and challenges and suffering same with my wife and i and so i realized wait maybe it's not blood it's thick in the water because we're not even blood you and your wife aren't blood me my wife aren't blood and so as i started to do the research on blood is thicker than water realize that line is taken out of context the real line is the covenant of the blood sorry the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb meaning when two people have spilled blood together they have suffered together they have gone through hardships together the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb when two people have suffered together and shed blood together that is thicker and holds more value than two siblings born from the same the water of the womb from the same parent and that is so powerful when you see men go to war and they come back with a deep love and regard for each other and you're like man you two aren't even like related you guys didn't even know each other in fact you're like you're southern and you're an east coast dude and like in the real world you guys shouldn't even connect yet they're tighter together than the dude that has a brother oh yeah yeah and it's for that reason that we put these men through that suffering the adversity and breaking them down because i realized with my son one day dude i was driving with him to the to the beach we're going to surf well before we left to the beaches we're loading up the surfboards i'm like hey sound um you know what's going on and uh you have a girlfriend you're at that age where you're probably gonna start taking interest in girls like ah dad i don't wanna talk about it i'm like shoot all right fine we're not gonna talk about it so now we're in the car and we're both looking straight i'm like hey son so uh come on man like you got a girlfriend is there someone you're interested in come on you can lay it on me i won't tell mom right oh dad come on i don't want to talk about it but there might be someone that was it he reluctantly threw a little thing out there now after an hour of fighting the waves and and high-fiving each other when we caught waves and then trying to help each other not drown when obviously the waves would take us down when we got out of the water he was like hey dad let me tell you about this girl and i was like holy [ __ ] that's what it took we we had to suffer together an hour neither one of us are the greatest surfers so when the waves are big and dana point like we're really fighting to not drown right and so in that moment of us looking after each other it created that bond and it could be temporary it could just stack on top of each other if you keep putting yourself through hardship with your son like you are like i am etc with our kids and i was like holy crap man he just opened up afterwards because he's like you know what dad's got my back not just his dad but he's my buddy uh he's someone who really is looking out for me and i think you risked your life together you went too hard together yeah so so that said in in your experience in your opinion do you believe there's a balance of money and meaning in marriage or is it all one like you see dudes who are just all about i'm gonna go make all this money but their marriages are [ __ ] up they don't have any purpose and meaning in life their health is that is that how it's supposed to be well it's the same thing as as we started with about the extremes the pendulums you could be ripped and have six-pack abs make all the money in the world but if your kids hate you and your wife's the neighbor it doesn't matter how much money you have and what shape you're in and that's why that fifth f we i call the secret hidden f-bomb the the fulfillment because until you are firing all cylinders on all four equally like a ten or at least close to one all of them then you're never gonna have to fulfill it if you're missing any one of those family fitness finances and faith faith meaning more belief in yourself belief in your your ability to reach your goals and the other three f-bombs pretty much until you have that and all four of those then you can't have fulfillment you're missing just one of those or if one of those is too low of a score your life is just is just as as anyone else so i don't like to say balance i don't believe in work life balance and all that stuff but intention to it and having work life intention like so when i'm with my family i'm with my family my kids can't curse they're not allowed to curse but if i'm on family time and we have literally i mean time block i have if you saw my calendar you'd see it's color-coded every specific thing throughout the day i know what i'm doing with my family when we're on family time so run family time or kid time we also have what we call stupid time where it's just nothing planned we just don't do any work if we're on a time like that that's not work time and i even touch my phone and start doing it my kids can say daddy put that down that's the only time they're allowed to curse is when they do that because there is a separation but it's i don't know it's called a balance because that's that's that's not the way i want to look at intention work life intention i'm intentionally going to be focused here but what that's going to do is that's going to allow me to then work better when i work if i'm working and i don't have anything scheduled or planned with my family i don't i don't know what time i'm going to work out and i'm just working 50 of my intention and my energy and my focus is going to be there my kids are going to hate me when am i going to find time to do this i got to get to the gym i'm going to get fat all this other stuff but if i know that stuff is accounted for on my schedule and that's locked down i either did it already that day or it's coming up that day or later in the week whatever is planned now i can focus and not have to feel guilty going all in on the work i'm doing and then on the flip side when i'm with my family i don't have to feel like i need to go open my phone bingo because i did the same thing when i was at work i was 100 present on that so it's all about time blocking my time block like i'm down to the minute on every single thing throughout the day bingo and then you're 100 present and focused in it and you go off and then in that three hour time block of work i'm going to get 16 hours take the super powers we talked about before plug them into that i'm going to get weeks worth worth of stuff in in three hours because i'm not distracted about checking my phone worrying about where i'm gonna go with the kids when i'm gonna work out my work meals are ready everything's already taken care of it's already all scheduled so it's all and you you actually the first time we met you we don't remember it we're at fitness business summit and the first one before i ever started coaching with you i just was an attendee there or whatever and i asked you i said i have these this gym but i have these inventions these fitness equipment that i want to start and start producing i said what do you think i should do you said are your gyms where they want to be i said no not even close you said well there's your answer laser beam focus and that's all it is laser beam focus one thing focus on one thing and nothing else so that you can focus on one thing and nothing else at another time at another point and if there's not anything that you got out of this show which i would be shocked if you didn't get anything out of the show it's this one thing that steve just talked about which is also a track that i teach and i don't want to give too much of the project away because part of the project is knowing that you're going to be there 75 hours but not knowing what's coming next so a lot of you men that are watching and listening to this i know you're going to apply uh to do a project just come up with weirder crazy we're going to do it because they're starting to catch on to too much [ __ ] but one of the because there are teaching tracks as well so there's plenty of time well not planning there's some time for you to sleep during the project there's definitely the journaling and the deep work we do about the traumas and how to overcome those etc and then there's you know me teaching about business and scaling your business and making money and creating financial wealth um etc but when we talk about the four f-bombs one thing i do during that track is i asked the guys because i set out four rocks i go guys these are your four rocks faith family fitness finance and if we have them all squared away like you said then fulfillment is a byproduct of that the fifth f-bomb i said of these four f-bombs of these four rocks which is the most important and it's kind of a loaded question when i ask him this because then the guy's go oh man the faith the faith rock i'm like why well because if you don't have faith like in a higher power if you don't have faith in yourself and confidence in yourself then you're not going to be able to do the rest i'm like not quite fitness fitness because if you don't have your health if you don't have mental fitness emotional fitness physical fitness dude then you can't make money you can't serve your family no no no okay that must be family there must be no no not quite i said it's whatever rock you're on and goes back to batch processing or time blocking which is it's whatever rock you're on and if between like for me in the mornings i have a time block that's for work i call it gsd time get done time and in those three hours unless the house is catching on fire my son or daughter break an arm or a leg or something it's just work and i have zero guilt about man i should be serving my kids or my wife or whatever because it's time blocked in there for later that afternoon where me and andrew going to work out together and complain and then play ping-pong me and chloe are going to do her little crafts and then we're going to do i'm getting into minecraft because my daughter and when i'm doing minecraft with my daughter or when i'm working out with my son i'm not thinking about did that sale go through did we get that franchise are we selling more supplements i'm just strictly all in on that rock and the goal here is not like you said a work-life balance but a work-life mix and whatever part of the recipe you're on you got to commit a hundred percent mentally and emotionally on that otherwise you're just half-assed everything you're gonna your business is gonna suck your relationship your kids are gonna suck it's all gonna suck if you if you try to keep doing one thing while you're doing the other and how often do we hear people say and then when i'm at work i feel guilty about i should be with my kids and then when i'm with my kids i feel guilty that i'm not out there making money and that's because you're not present either place and they all suck then they all suck but what if you can actually be at work and be productive and not just do busy work and so with that said i get that question a lot like how do i balance money and meaning and marriage and family all that it's a hundred percent on whatever rock you're on and so as we kind of wrap this episode up steve i want to talk about being a role model father and i'm going to describe kind of what it means to me and i would love for you to share with our audience what it means to you for me being a role model father specifically is this that if i've done good in my life and people like man betos have created this franchise now you're donating to shriner children's hospital toys for tots compassion international i do a lot for humanity but i'm raising these two amazing kids with my wife who if i do my job right as a role model father andrew and chloe are going to do more for humanity because there's two of them they're going to do it sooner than i did because by the time i had my awakening i was in my early 30s that i meant to do more i'm going to serve more i'm meant to earn more and so for me being a role model father is modeling the habits the behavior the you know i just started opening the door for dye many many years ago and as andrew was born and he started to kind of watch and you know grew a little older he would toddle over to the car door and he'd grab the handle open it when dye was going towards the car there was zero hey son you got to open the door for a lady it just became factory installed by way of catching what i'm pitching right through my actions to me that's what a role model is because my daughter she is at some point going to look for a man who's going to be an archetype of me and if i'm living a life of hypocrisy if i'm living a life of mediocracy of average she's going to go find this average guy and then later end up regretting and resenting me my son is gonna end up growing up to be like me and so the words that we use have no weight compared to the way we live our life and i think being a father for me has been the greatest self-development personal development program ever because it's forced me to go all right am i being a hundred percent awesome all the time or am i telling my son that you've got to control your anger and emotion son but then raging out at my wife and therefore my daughter goes oh it's okay to marry a guy who's going to do this and my son goes it's okay that when i get married i can freak out again as a fraud yeah yeah what does being a role model father mean to you so it's very similar to what you said but it's i'm not a tree-hugging hippie [Music] that but i believe that the universe will send them a signal so not only showing them what to do but even when they're not present because i know that if i do something even if they're not around the universe will send that to them somehow i can't explain i don't think anyone can but it will send them like for instance in our house you can't we don't wear our shoes in the house and all the time i'll forget something in the house right you get in the car you realize you forgot something upstairs my office so this is the like last year i'm running in the house we're running late to get wherever we need to go the whole family's in the car i'm like gotta get something out of my office go running up the stairs my door was like daddy's shoes i'm like no i got to grab it it's right there on my desk it's like i could see it it's right there she's like no shoes and i had these like high-top sneakers like basketball sneakers that had to like lace up couldn't sit down untie them both shoes and go up there and like this little demon child just like me is going to make us late but now and i still forget stuff all the time right you just leave something in the house even when they're not home i'll go in there and i tell you 100 of the time if i forgot something in the house with the shoes i take off my shoes even they could be over in russia visiting those their people and they'll never know if it happened but i'll i'll know first of all and i know the universe will somehow send that message to them so it's about having you know what i believe in all the time and doing it doing the right thing all the time whether or not their eyes are even on me so it just all then becomes automatic if i have to think all right do this because the kids are watching they're going to even sense that oh you're only doing this because we're watching if it's automatic and subconscious like now i go in the house [ __ ] take the shoes off don't even think about it don't consider i don't even care who's home it doesn't matter who's home i'm going to take them off and if i can do that in all areas of life the universe is going to send that signal to them and i have a an acronym for his decaf discipline energy confidence attack and freak and it ends up being freak about having them just be their freak selves like not being afraid the world thinks to them to live life on their own terms march to the beat of their own drum not not conform to society or internet not have a basketball player or some dumb ass for raising them because if you don't do it yourself yep that's how it's going to be erasing or social media kids so this is my barometer for it is and i ask tyson all the time and my son and i'll say what do you want to be when you grow up and all i'll ever say is i want to be just like you as long as that's the answer then i have the universe is sending him the right signals and i'm on the right path and i'd keep doing more with the amen to that amen to that because i got to tell you man like the people that are holding on to the excuse that well i was born this way or you know my dad put me up so uh how can i not drink and do drugs and living congruent to the values that i'm preaching you broke the cycle i broke the cycle and this is a message to everyone out there that whatever cycle that you were born into one feel free to break it and two live as a role model because when you live as a role model then you become a congruent human and by the way it begins to actually become who you are right because you become who you are and and the other the third thing that i want to kind of end this off with is the fact that have a circle of influence around you that holds it to a higher standard like to have you as a friend and a business partner to have ray and steve or you can tell me the f word you just call me i have the other one yeah i have a friend a freak and you know matt schneider and aaron like that is a whole new level of being held accountable because if it's like hey man it's a you know we're going to work out legs like the other don't know two weeks ago aaron's like hey man let's go train legs together on a sunday now i know that i'm strong and i can fake through a good leg workout but i was like you know what aaron's 10 years younger than me and i'm his leader here at work we're also friends but i have to lead through example and so i punished myself through there and i was like i'm not going to stop this workout until one of us is like literally during the walking lunges like our knee hits the ground because we just couldn't walk anymore and and it happened thankfully it was him that's cause he's got a bad knee not for any other reason he's a savage but but all this to say that i could have eaten like we definitely had a great workout but we went above and beyond that to a place where if someone told us do 10 more sets or 20 or 30 more sets we were at that place where we could have done it just keep food you know a little bit calories coming keep some water coming we'll just keep going and that's such a great place to be and that's having a circle of influence that holds you to a higher standard um so so where that's concerned you know we've got this brotherhood meetup coming up the project graduates now we've got almost 60 graduates and we're meeting up in las vegas on march one and two we'll be in beautiful las vegas and we're gonna go out hiking at red rock we're gonna together do tough workouts together have steak dinners together probably hit the gambling blackjack tables together or whatever um you know we're definitely doing a mastermind together and i love being surrounded by these awesome dudes if someone's like man it sounds like this is the group i belong in this is the tribe i've been looking for how does someone find their way on a phone call with you or ray because you two are the gatekeepers to the project how do they get on the call to see if they're a good fit well first on the in your book man up you talk about the outside team and that's exactly what the project is because people have their inner circle their employees their family even the blood doesn't matter because their blood their brothers their parents those people are gonna tell them oh it's okay it's okay you failed it's okay you [ __ ] up it's okay you did this and they don't have that circle of influence that you're talking about that outside team that a group of hungry motivated successful [ __ ] men of fire they're going to hold you accountable and going to contribute but also maybe sometimes ask for help but and not expect anything in return like that's what's missing with men nowadays like that's why i left had to leave new york and just jumped in a car and came out here to california because i'm talking about wanting to change the world wanting to impact millions of lives make millions of dollars and people around me are upset about series on netflix they got canceled i'm like i gotta i gotta be around a different group of people so that's what a lot of people don't realize about the project is that they say oh i i'm not gonna pay twelve thousand dollars for a four-day thing this is far from a four-day thing the true value and the the power of the of the project is that ongoing life-long brotherhood of men and we've seen it we've experienced it i've already gotten together with two graduates that just graduated last week they came on the hike with us our kids got together already so it's a it's a huge it's powerful and it's priceless to have that circle of support and camaraderie and i'll tell you i even in the marine corps i have that type of camaraderie i was in the marine corps i had a business married with kids never got a tattoo the first tattoo ever got right there on the top hand of the project because as an adult you have a different life from your kid you're a teenager you go through the military of course you're gonna bond with those guys you're a bunch of knuckleheads but now you have careers you have kids you have real world problems that a sergeant is not going to go and tell you how to go deal with it like you have to navigate your own you need to create your own army your own military and that's pretty much what we're doing on the project so if you feel like you're you're lacking in those areas you don't have that that group of men around you that hungry motivated kick ass men of fire to support you in in all areas of life that's the true beauty of the project and and what it has to go on an ongoing basis and all we need to do is is jump on a phone call to see if you're a good fit for the program if you're qualified for the program and from there we we will get you onboarded help you out with every step of the way and then let's talk about that for a moment because if some dudes are out there like oh man but i'm not in shape and it sounds like you got to be in shape for the project like what y'all don't realize is you can't just sign up the week before on the project and then show up it's got to be eight weeks or earlier because you and ray like imagine a marine and a navy seal putting you minimum through eight weeks of physical training mental training conditioning like here's the workouts we're going to do together like via zoom you guys do all this and get these guys conditioned for the project and so i'm not saying like hey you can be show up that's not it obviously you've got to do the work as they're doing the doing the live training with you guys several times a week and then on the days that you're they're not doing this with you you've got to be doing it on your own but it's a really neat process to see how your body will transform and get conditioned to do the project and so people always ask me like why the project so project is just kind of a nickname for what it is it's really about becoming a modern day night and we call it the mdk project a modern day night project because i believe that there's no longer modern day nights in this world who will protect who will be of service who will be savages who will be protectors and providers and we need more of those than ever before and so if this is calling to you just go to mdkproject.com or reach out to steve eckhart on social media or raycare on on instagram and whatever platform you're using and connect with them and because this might be a good fit for you if you kind of feel like denying in your gut but you're like oh i'm also a little anxious about it that's how you're supposed to feel because if you think you're just going to come and because we've had some young athletic dudes come through the project you always find a way to physically tax them and we always find a way to mentally and emotionally tax them so it doesn't matter if you think you're like mentally fit emotionally fit or physically fit you're gonna have your breakdowns you're going to break down you're going to have your breakdowns and your breakthroughs is what is what you're going to have and that's where you are for and that's what we're looking for well steve thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the empire show and uh guys and gals do me a favor as you're watching this episode take a screenshot of this episode and share it in your story so we can get the word out about helping humanity more and be sure to tag steve and myself for this episode and as always don't forget to share this episode with your mama see you later you

Channel: Bedros Keuilian

Views: 1,610

Rating: 4.875 out of 5

Keywords: entrepreneur, business, ceo, success, decide, leadership, mindset, entrepreneurship, motivation, businessstips, personaldevelopment, productivity, hustle

Id: XmZUKBVsClg

Length: 61min 14sec (3674 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021