Can't Be Broken
Can't Be Broken
Alex Bruno’s Resilient Journey from Self-Doubt to Self-Validation
Ever feel like an outsider in your professional field? Perhaps you've experienced imposter syndrome, constantly questioning your own accomplishments and worth. If that rings a bell, this podcast is for you. Join me as I sit down with Alex Bruno, a successful LA lawyer and the founder of Bruno Group Inc., as we dissect these feelings and discuss strategies to overcome them. Alex shares his unique journey from his humble beginnings as a Mexican-American in Silver Lake and Glendale to being one of the most sought-after lawyers in LA, highlighting the importance of initiatives like the Lail National Association for Latino Elected Officials and the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project in shaping his path.
In our candid conversation, Alex also delves into the challenges he faced, including navigating the often isolating feelings of being an outsider and coping with imposter syndrome. With raw honesty, he discusses his journey to overcome fear, guilt and frustrating cultural expectations through mental health therapy, coaching, and adopting a witness perspective. He emphasizes the transformative power of self-work, the danger of seeking external approval, and the importance of self-validation. His insights on embracing the power of solitude during activities like running, and his unique perspective on success, provide practical tips for personal and professional growth.
This podcast episode is not only an exploration of Alex's journey but also a beacon of hope for anyone grappling with feelings of not belonging or self-doubt. It's a chorus of inspiration, empowerment, and wisdom, demonstrating that success is not just about money or status, but about living your purpose and making an impact. Join us as we learn from Alex's experiences, feel inspired by his resilience, and get motivated to chart our own course in life. So, whether you're an aspiring lawyer, an entrepreneur, or simply a person looking for inspiration, this episode will definitely strike a chord with you. Tune in and let this be the catalyst for your own journey of self-discovery and growth.
I am your host, sea Monster, and I am here with a special guest. I am here with a special co-host. Welcome back again, easens to the podcast. What's up? What's up with you?
Speaker 2:my brother, what's up?
Speaker 1:And you brought a special friend, that we're gonna interview, get to know, give a little bit of knowledge of his experience and what he does and share with the people listening. So why don't you go ahead and introduce our good friend here, my man?
Speaker 2:Mr Lawyer Quartinier, alex Bruno LA's finest. Welcome to the show, my brother.
Speaker 3:Alright, thanks.
Speaker 1:Thank you both for having me. Let me see if we have the right button here. Oh no, that's not here. There it is.
Speaker 3:There we go. We got the claps on. Thank you for being here, bro. Well, thank you for having me a part of your podcast. I'm excited about what we're gonna talk about today.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, I know you're a busy man, so your time is valuable, so thank you once again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, alex. Tell a little bit of our listeners and everybody of what you do where you're currently at, and then we'll get a little bit of back of where you grew up and your family history and whatnot.
Speaker 3:Oh sure, I'm a. Like Alex mentioned, I'm a lawyer. I help business owners entrepreneurs with their growth, taking care of their legal stuff, starting them up, when they need to make sure that they got their contracts correct, help them with that. And when it's time to, when they're so successful, it's time to sell their company or you know what they want to buy another company, we can help them with that. So the law firm's called Bruno Group Inc. We go under the brand for a lot of our tech companies and stuff like that. We go into the brand VizMode, which is it's a platform that helps and support entrepreneurs.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, how long you've been doing the podcast for.
Speaker 3:Well, the podcast we started in 2019. So, like the fall of 2019, we started it and then yeah, and so we're still up and going, we're trying to work on it's like the creative process and probably we won't get into that today. It's just, you know, it's kind of like new artists I've always kind of equated to like someone who's brand new their first album comes out really quickly and maybe the second one comes out quickly. Then every year it comes out slower and slower and slower.
Speaker 2:So that's how it feels, like for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, welcome to my world. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because you're trying to like figure out what your season's going to look like. Figure out what it's going to look like and at the same time, we've got the day job, so take care of the day job as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I've listened to some of your episodes and very informative, very cool, very flowy, like it's very easy to listen to, and very informative. I just listened to your last one about financing some money coming in and the startup business and asking for money and how you go about that and all the concerns and things that you need to take care of first and it was super cool. I think it was, I want to say, like a 16 minute episode, which is super cool. I do these things called Seamoth's Remindset, just like a quick 10 minute, like get up your ass and start working out or do something at an overcome adversity, and then we have these kind of episodes which are our guest command and just blow our minds away and it's amazing. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up, where you're from and how that went to and where you're at now.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I grew up around generally around this area we're recording in Glendale today. I grew up in Silver Lake, Went to high school here in Glendale, and so I've been on this kind of northeast side of Los Angeles for most of my life. Right after high school I went to Berkeley studied history, but with the idea of I was going to go into law and fortunately I was able to get into UCLA, went to UCLA and I've been practicing for over 20 years now.
Speaker 1:And you said you do like intratural or stuff and that's awesome. And then your background, your history, parents or from where? What's your nationality?
Speaker 3:My background is I'm Mexican American, okay, chicano. I'm really indifferent on the name. I know a lot of people get very specific on the names, but.
Speaker 1:I don't care.
Speaker 3:I say Mexican American because the ethnicity we're back, our background is Mexican, raised by my mom, so my mom was there, she raised me, me, my brother. My brother is seven years older than me and yeah, so that's the kind of like the family history. Um, um, yeah, I was born here, born in a Hollywood, presbyterian Hollywood, so I've been a star since, since birth.
Speaker 1:Yes, you have some feedback there, best star, and that's where you guys made. You guys were part of a group or that here, since you're Hermanos Unidos.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. Yes, sir, that's right A little different.
Speaker 1:A little different, so that's how you guys met.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay. So we had that cow and both joined Hermanos Unidos and that's where we built our, built our, our friendship, our hermandad Okay, based on the pillars of community, social and academics. That's right, all right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, a little bit about, like, where you were growing up. I know we went through it really quickly During that time, obviously, to get into Berkeley, going to high school and all that you must have. We all. This is life, right, there's adversities, there's overcoming, and this is probably one of the bigger events in your, in your particular time that you can go wow, and then this either transpired you into something different, transformed you, or you overcame it in certain ways. What would you say is something like that that happened, that you know, because going to Berkeley is no easy thing, correct, you have to study, you have to work hard, you have to apply yourself to you have to have discipline, you have to sacrifice all these different things. But I'm sure there was something, maybe other factors on your plate that sometimes make things difficult, or whatever that might look like to you and and how you overcame that.
Speaker 3:Well, I think I think the key thing that helped me was in early on in high school I I didn't really think of going to college. I thought like success would be and it can be, success can be this. But for me at that point I thought success was going to be like I'm going to be working at, working at a retail shop somewhere, end up being a manager of the retail shop and I'm good. Right before my junior year, a certain programs came out. There was a program, a youth program called through the organization the Lail National Association for Latino elected officials, where they did some leadership programs and they flew us out to New Mexico for a week and we met others Through that program. I interned for an assembly person he ended up becoming a congresswoman, lucille Roybal Allard, and I got connected to the Chicano Latino youth leadership project, which is something in Sacramento. They take you up to Cal State, sacramento for a week, or sex date for a week, same thing do leadership stuff.
Speaker 3:And I popped into a college workshop and one of the reasons why I didn't think about it was like there's no way I could afford college. There was no way I'm going to be able to afford college, and so that was thinking what success could be, just work hard and keep moving up. And then when I went to this college workshop, they're like, just apply. And, by the way, did you know you can get all these? You know you can get grants, you can get other types of, you can get aid for it. I didn't know. And so that was like okay, cool. So that kind of gave me the snap of like, yes, there's something different and yes, you can strive for something different. And so so I did. I applied and I kind of broke through that because someone exposed me to it and so I'm always giving credit to, to those kind of projects that I went to in in high school. That kind of helped me in my path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, isn't it funny how? Because I think we have the same story, and probably EA as well, in regards to how sometimes we'll put a limit on ourselves based on our finances and our socioeconomic status, based because that's what I grew up with, and I'm like I had a scholarship to play baseball at USC but I'm like, oh, they're giving me 30%. Well, how the hell am I going to come up with 70% of it? I mean, I didn't know that there was financial aid and money out there for the low income people and this is, you know back in the nineties and whatnot. And I didn't do my work and you're talking about. No, you know information at your fingertips, and so I ended up getting a full scholarship to CSUN. That's where I went Right and I think full scholarship sounded better than 30%, even though I didn't know that I could get money to go to USC and play second base for USC, which didn't matter to me.
Speaker 1:I had a great time at CSUN, played with great players. But it's funny how, when we're younger and finances play a big role, especially in young adults, that you start thinking that it's a factor. And it is a factor because you start limiting yourself, thinking, well, I don't have that to go there. But it wasn't until you were exposed to these people that gave you this knowledge that you had. You're like, I didn't know that. And then you applied and you got a unit of corner Berkeley into UCLA and graduating knowing your own law from the group and all that. So that's an amazing story in itself that you but you put yourself there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I'm grateful for the opportunities that I did and, yes, I'm grateful that I chose it. I decided to say, okay, I'm going to apply to these because you have to apply to these programs. I'm going to apply to these programs and see what happens. But I didn't expect it. I thought it was just like a leadership program. But yeah, I think what you're kind of expressing is very true is that we have limiting beliefs. Everybody has limiting beliefs, but when you see someone do it or someone tell you it can't be done, it helps you break through those beliefs. It's kind of like, if you remember we can use sports analogy just mentioned baseball. You know, when you see someone hit 50 home runs, now you know that you can hit 50 home or 70, right, we can get into other issues about that later. But when you see someone do it and like right now, there was like a last week there was a marathon or almost broke two hours, and so in our lifetime.
Speaker 3:They're going to break two hours and that seemed impossible, correct 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, roger Bannister is the one who broke it. I think people said that you can never do a mile under four minutes and Roger Bannister did it, I think in the 60s, and nobody ever believed that they could do it because they hadn't been done. When he did it in one month, I thought about a thousand people did it. Right, it's like what happened. Did we all of a sudden, these thousand people just wake up and say we're physically better? No, there was a belief system and that's a very powerful thing. And at a young age you never did you ever have a vision like that. But obviously you mentioned you didn't have this vision of doing what you're doing now. You just said I'll work at a retail shop and move on up. Yeah, when did the transition change that you knew that like, oh my God, this isn't the vision anymore of the retail shop. The vision is greater now. Right, how did that occur?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question, I just pause it.
Speaker 1:I trouble people all the time, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:I pause.
Speaker 3:It's again seeing people do things actually a funny thing. Tv was an influence. You had a bunch of law shows. I saw law shows and I'm like, oh, this seems like fun, Right. And my impression back then because we you know a lot of what we talked about already is I do corporate type of law. But my impression back then was, oh, everyone goes to court and afterwards they get to have dinner together and they just hang out, Right. But then I saw that's a really cool thing to do and so that kind of got me into that pathway and then had to deal with writing. I like to write, I like to read a lot, and so it had to deal with all those kind of aspects of it and I was like, okay, let me try to go for that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems like there was a passion and there was something there and you're like well, I have the same interests, I'm looking at this, that doesn't look bad. And then you just kind of took a shot and went with it.
Speaker 2:What at home, all this is going on in this early stage. What was the message being conveyed to you from your mom as far as education versus just going into work? What was the theme?
Speaker 3:One thing that I credit my mother for is she was very supportive of my education. So when I needed things for school, she'd found a way to get it for me, because one thing about me even though I was saying that about this I thought the limit was just you don't need a degree, just go do whatever. I still wanted to. I was very competitive in school. I wanted to get the best grades. I wanted to do this. So when I needed something for school, she found a way to get it done and she was very supportive of it. So it wasn't a situation where she was trying to force me into something. So that was great. Speaking of not knowing things we didn't know about all these fee waiver things you could actually waive your. She was finding ways to pay for my applications when I applied for undergrad, so she was writing the checks. So that was really helpful to me. So she's always been supportive and a champion of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:During that process, as you're starting off on this educational path, if you will. Naturally there's obstacles that are encountered along the way. That's just life, right. How did you find yourself navigating those obstacles in terms of like inner, personally, and what were the deficiencies that you can look back on now when looking at yourself and dealing with those challenges that you realize? You know I need to get better, I need to improve my emotional intelligence in this regard, or I need to be stronger in this regard. What were you processing at during those times? And even you know even now, just even to where you are now looking back on it and reflecting on that.
Speaker 3:I'm pausing because I'm trying to process it. I mean, there's a lot of obstacles, right? So one I'm the first in my generation, first of my family, to go to college. Right, I was the first of my family to go to college, first of my family to go to a professional right, a professional degree, and so there isn't a instant mentor in the family. So you have to go and look out for other people, find other people that you can be vulnerable with, especially when you're in high school and you're trying to figure things out. And I'm naturally reserved, so I'm not like outgoing, I don't super share all the time, and so just looking for it and just having a little bit of trust and taking a leap of faith and stuff. But again, I was a big reader too and like, like you mentioned, mr C Monster, c Monster.
Speaker 1:That's my old tree.
Speaker 3:He threw a Mr C Monster. Thank you, Thank you, and you can call me Bismot from now on. Bismot, no, but like Dig time. So we didn't have internet, right. So this is the early 90s, we didn't have internet. So you'd go to the library. But I'd go to the library read up on stuff that would help me process stuff.
Speaker 3:There was a lot of stuff where, yeah, looking back, there was challenges in processing things and dealing with emotional things. But high school in general, I think it's an emotional situation for most people. Yeah, Just because you're going through that growth, you don't know how to deal with a lot of different feelings you're having. And even where I was at, there was a culture of you know you've got to be strong, You've got to show strength. You can't show vulnerability, you can't cry. I remember one time I think it was seventh grade or sixth grade I cried in front of the class and I forgot why. I think it was late or something. It was something silly. Right, I was late, but I felt bad because I was really late and I didn't know how to process my own emotions. So I started crying. But then I realized the reactions.
Speaker 3:I've seen people do is like you shouldn't be. You shouldn't show your your crying. You shouldn't cry, and so, from then on, until probably for a long time, I had this in my head this limiting belief of you can't express emotion through tears, and so that was.
Speaker 2:But that was just from a little small incident, see that resonates a lot with me because I was a crier, still am a crier, right, and so there's a shame that I think that a lot of times we we carry especially as men, latinos, right, we carry into our adult lives where we kind of step forward into the world with this kind of shame based on that vulnerability, and it actually is a detriment to us from from being more authentic until we can really heal that part of ourselves and be okay with hey, this is who I am and that's a part of of me that is necessary to show up like authentically right. But but going back to you, I can, I can like in in preparing today and looking over your, your, all your podcast, like your, your titles. I can tell you don't work on yourself just based on the way you name your titles of your shows. I mean there's there's words in there like empowering, there's words of boundaries, there's words like connection and just in words that are used in in the realm of healing and it's evident in the pot in Bismotte podcast when you're doing it. That I picked up on right away and I'm like this guy's done a lot of work on himself and that's like I love that.
Speaker 2:I love when, when men or people in general can just look at themselves, the parts of themselves that that generally are difficult to process and to deal with, and to face that, and then not only that is to give it back to the world right Just to share that, bro, and I think I commend you for that, bro, because that's we need more of that, thank you. And you're using your profession like what you love to do, as a you're. There's, there's a parallel to that and it's your creativity and you're doing that in in the work and your being of service. So for me, that's everything, bro. So I want to give you a round of applause on that. Let's see if I get the red button here.
Speaker 1:There you go, we're getting it, we're getting it. C for C, monster FY and in that process, obviously that that EA is talking about. How did that look for you, like, how did that process look, did you? How did you go through that? Was it therapy, was it reading? Was it self discovery? Was it? How was that transformation and how did that occur?
Speaker 3:It's been a journey, so it's. It's still a journey, right, so there's it's never going to end. I don't think it's been a journey and it's a combination of things. So it started with. It started with me, with you know. I mean, obviously, I think when we're in an undergrad that was a form of of kind of breaking down old, old maps, as we would call it, old process maps, old, old maps of how we did things. But then when it got into my professional life, professional life was kind of interesting because I'm one of few okay attorneys in in the United States there's about 5% that are Latino or identified as Latino, hispanic, whatever you want to call it, and I think about 3% men are men and 2% are women. So that's the entire thing. And then, if you think about it, the percentages that go into the practice I go in, I went into and there's we mentioned estate planning too is very limited because everyone's going into criminal law, going into immigration, because they're familiar with it and we do need a lot of that. But a lot of corporate lawyers there isn't a lot of Latino corporate lawyers.
Speaker 3:So part of that journey is I'm trying to figure out like, how do I manage, how do I deal with the quote unquote imposter syndrome? How do I deal with the guilt that I'm feeling? Because I am evolve, evolving, so to speak. But I'm also having different experiences than other people in my family, other people in my friendship circle. And how do I deal with that? Because now I'm starting to feel guilty because I'm hitting the level of success Some other people aren't, and so I'm feeling guilty because why is? Why am I chosen to do this? And then so I started with. I started with, like working with peers, but also work with business coaches, and sometimes business coaches we just you start doing some work there To mastermind, mastermind and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Traditional mental health therapy. That's important as well. And of course you know kind of reading, improving, picking up skills. That's going to help you. And, like I think EA mentioned, your emotional intelligence help. How can you build? Because that's one thing we can grow, we can grow our EI, we can grow our emotional intelligence. Certain things about us it's kind of you know, it's kind of like you know it's it's it's part. That's not going to change. Some things are not going to change, but emotional intelligence can the way you interact with others can change the way you perceive situations and that's what's helped me a lot is is, you know, stop for me to stop processing situations as if it's about me and seeing it externally. Yeah, so anytime something happens, it's not because of something I did or it's not intentional towards me, and for a long time in my life I was always thinking about, like why are they doing this? Why is it for me, Like why am I? Why you know, and so that's changed for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've taken on that witness perspective right, which is, which is an important part to look at, is to step outside of the the situation and honestly look at it from an informational standpoint. And, furthermore, you're not being a victim, You're. You're saying I have a voice in the ability to impact the situation, and that's what you know from being your friend for some time now, like I've always seen that from you, like you've always been a go-getter, and I think that's the difference from someone that is successful, using success in a general sense, versus someone that is stagnant in their life and not not living an aligned life per se or maximizing their abilities is, you guys know, right Is like you got to be purposeful, intentional and put into action, right, and so I think that's what that's what you're talking about and that's what you're showing and discussing here. So I love that. I absolutely love that, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you. I mean, in the past, though, I was operating from fear, so even though I was go-getting, it was cause I was afraid of what could happen, but you didn't let that stop you I didn't let it stop me, not at all, but it was still like operating from fear. Now I'm operating from, like you said, try to operate from intention, try to operate on purpose, like the purpose pull you rather than I'm running away from fear.
Speaker 1:So we had this discussion a couple of weeks ago I think it was on the podcast or one of the podcasts or whatnot and we were talking about how to operate and where you're coming from, and I he had changed my mind because I got asked if why fear?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got asked like why did I, like I ran a hundred miles and how did? Why did you do that and how did that happen? And what, how did you overcome it? And I was like, well, fuck, because I put myself in that situation and I don't want to fail, so I don't want to like I'm fearful of failing and doing and so many different things that go by, but I don't want to fail. I exactly keep moving on, like wait, what's the other option? This and that's not good. I got to keep moving.
Speaker 1:And then he brought a good point on us that well, you're never going to succeed, you're never going to go here, if you're operating from that state of mind. You got to operate from love because you love to run, so you're going this. And he changed it. And it was a really good conversation that we had the last time. And hearing you say that that you were at one point operating from fear kind of brings me back of like you were going and then you realize that's not the way to operate, not operate from intention and from purpose and from love and from here and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:You're creating a lot of extra energy that you have to fight through. As a runner, you know that, like extra energy, you have to fight through and you're not and we'll get into flow state. So you're trying to get into that flow and getting that flow, knowing that you're there's something more than than you know. I'm afraid of what's going to happen, and then you're living kind of in the moment one you're living in the moment and you're operating out of love and you're getting pulled by it rather than being pushed away.
Speaker 2:How are you breaking fear down, though? Like, what's the self talk? Right, Because you have, okay. So we have that feeling of fear. And what do you? What are you telling yourself? Well, one.
Speaker 3:the first thing? Well, first of all, fear false events existing as a reality, right? So that's one of the acronyms for it. Everyone has different acronyms for it, but false events exist, false events existing as reality. One is telling yourself it's not, it's not real, right? So half the time when you're living in fear and it's kind of the whole living in anxiety state, which is like you're thinking of all the things and this is hard for a lawyer, by the way. That's why I always said like I've had these issues was because you're trained to look at every single angle, and so you then you carry it into your personal life and you carry it into your business life, and so it's a matter of kind of separating it. So one is kind of separating out.
Speaker 3:For me to self talk, to me is like is it really going to happen? So I have my internal voices saying is that really going to happen? Are you going to die? You know, are you really going to die? Is your whole family going to go broke? Everyone's going to go on the street. It's over. Like.
Speaker 3:Go to the worst case scenario. Then ask yourself if that's going to happen. Then go to the second worst case scenario. Ask yourself if that's going to happen and then then ask yourself what's really going to happen and then, if you really want to go extra, ask yourself what's the cool things that can happen? That's right. So I have. I have some family members that they're going to. A lot of people have, like, concerns about flying, right, so everyone's like about flying and so I have some family members are going to fly and it's been a while since they're flying and I'm already trying to plant that seed of like think about where you're headed, about the cool things that you're headed to, not that I'm going to get on a plane and all the bad things that can happen, right. Think about how this plane is going to help you get to where you want to go, right, and if you're thinking about that cool destination you're going to head to, then your fears.
Speaker 1:kind of you, you've fought the fear a little bit, yeah, you know, but I think one of the things that we talked about is in. I get it, but fear is a good thing to have sometimes and I think that's what we discussed in regards if you know how to control it and overcome it, because fear of something taps into something internally, all your five senses of being alert and overcoming for so many different things. I was in law enforcement. I was involved in a often bald shooting and it wasn't until I talked to a therapist afterwards the psychologist, before you go back that she tapped in and everything came out of like oh, I saw this kid here. I don't remember that kid, but now I do remember. He was there and what he was saying and the mom picking him up. While I'm concentrating on the threat and I heard the radio and everything slowed down and fear activates these things of survivalness, right survival.
Speaker 3:No, that's important, yeah, but I think at that moment correct.
Speaker 1:But if you're operating from, and that's what I wanted to be separated.
Speaker 1:That's right is that if you're operating always out of fear, it's, it's not right. But if you're in fear based on survival mode or different Things like I'm running a hundred miles and I'm like I got ten more miles to go, like that's the finish line right there, like I Can't go 80 miles back or 90 miles back, this is it right here and let's freakin go. Let's, let's get it going, because I'm afraid of of what can happen right now before I get to there, then you can use it as fuel.
Speaker 3:I guess you can use that as fuel for the moment right, and you're gonna need yeah, I mean, yeah, you're gonna need fear it in terms of, like you said, those situations where you should be alert. There's those situations where it's fired or fight or flight, yeah right. Well, you know how to do that, but the thing for us, because we're not From like a thousand years ago, so where we, where we needed the, the fire flight response, all the time we're transport, we're transforming it or transporting it to other situations. So client calls me, they're upset, I'm getting a flyer fight mode, as opposed to like, yeah, you know what. I'm sorry you're upset, but is it? Is it really my problem? Which is another tool? Right, it's like, don't take it personally.
Speaker 3:It's their issue. Don't inherit it, yeah, and but like, yeah, you know, fear is definitely important. It's a different sense you do, but I'm always concerned with overdoing it, right, so always being on like my adrenaline super high all the time because I'm just like Gotta do it, because then you're gonna create anxiety. You know, anxiety could lead to depression, like there's all this other stuff, and I'm trying to, I'm just trying to Try to stay even, yeah, and that we talked about.
Speaker 2:That See's like for me, my, my thing is is this expanding me as a person versus do I feel contracted, restricted, I you know, do I feel like I need to hide what I'm doing or who I am and and that's a negative or low vibrational state, right. But if it's if, if, with that energy you talked about, if it's expanding me, then I know I'm on the right track, right, I'm inclined to push forward. You know what I mean and I think your love and I Like as your, as your bro I keep saying this like dude I think that's like your love. I think you've conditioned yourself so well to to push past those boundaries, that right, like you get a kick out of it, you love it. You know what I mean and I think like that's a great quality to have and I yeah, I think that's no.
Speaker 1:we had great dialogue yeah you know like, oh shit, it makes sense now. Yeah, it was in that blind spot that I wasn't listening to. Well, I didn't know any better, right? So then here we have a good dialogue, and then I'm like I'm thinking I'm operating from a, from a place of fear, while I'm doing these Ultra triathlons and doing all these different things. And he's all like you're not, you're operating from love, you're operating from this, you're operating from purpose, you love to run, you're doing it because of this. And I'm like, oh shit, you're right. Yeah, in my mind I was processing like no man, I have to do this because of this. And he brought me back to like understanding that I was operating from that state of mind and stuff. But there are certain things that I'm like well, but I'm fear this shit is going, this move forward.
Speaker 3:But that's a different right, that's a different thing right, yeah, you're, you're, you're alone at an ATM and it's let me know at night, and yeah, you're gonna be. If you're not alert is the problem.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I just want to make sure I have money in the count. That's what I'm afraid of.
Speaker 1:Hey, cash is king baby, but now nobody's taking cash. You can't even. You can't even launder your money at Dodger Stadium anymore.
Speaker 3:I had.
Speaker 1:Well, they actually got their asses whooped. But you talked about a little bit about, in your profession, 5% Latinos and law and law, and then even 3% are males and even in corporate law is even smaller and whatnot. Why do you think that is? I just wanted, I thought that I needed to ask that, even though it's totally separate. But what do you think? It's such a small percentage, whether it be a cultural thing, or do you think there's just People not getting into that, or you think it's just a systemic problem or like.
Speaker 3:I think it's a combination of things right.
Speaker 1:I think it's, I think it is financial yeah financial.
Speaker 3:It's, you know, laws not as. How do I say? Law is not as lucrative as it used to be. I mean, there's certain, there's certain things that are lucrative, but it could be financial. It's systemic, it takes time, so it's discipline and like when we're talking about altars today, it ultra marathons, by the way, for the, for the uninitiated, but we're talking about marathon stuff and and going to the law, practice is Is getting, there is a marathon, so it's not, you know it's not a 5k.
Speaker 3:It's not three miles, it's 26.2 miles, and then some, yeah, and so I think it's the same similar thing with with with being a doctor, being a medical doctor, because that's even longer and I don't know what the statistics are for medical doctor, but I'm sure it's even longer. And now, even crazier is there's this whole System of people who are saying you don't need to go to school at all, you don't need to learn a trade.
Speaker 1:It's fine, that was my next question.
Speaker 3:But the people who are saying it, either coming from great families where their parents were and their great-grandparents were were Super entrepreneurs, and they get their learning directly from them, or the irony is they're working on getting their kids into the best schools and they're telling all the other people don't go to school, you don't need to go to school. And me is. School is was the way for upward mobility. Well, it was the way for me To become the person I am, because I wouldn't have been able to do it without my education. Right?
Speaker 3:I really firmly believe that, and so I'm a strong believer in education, and not just the experience of learning, but the experience of interacting with other folks. There's experience of developing as a person and getting put into situations that that are gonna be different than you have if you're still in your home unit, because you get exposed to other stuff, exposed to other cultures, exposed to I mean, there's so much stuff I did at Berkeley that was like I got exposed to that I've never experienced before plus, yeah, I mean, you're One of the main things also is exposed to adversity in so many different ways, from From school to like meeting people and getting out of your comfort zone and whatnot, until you're growing in so many ways.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, my daughter just to plug out to my daughter, she's out at ASU right now. Okay, sun Devil doing her thing, okay. So congrats, bro, thank you. Right shit that, yeah, hundred and some thousand dollars later. Don't worry about it. No, she's doing her thing, but that's what we're here for. That's why you know it's parents to to help out. Haven't lived their dream and she's doing amazing. She's an amazing kid and so she's. She's going to sports journalism.
Speaker 1:Oh very she's having a good time. We just came back last week from visiting her and we had an amazing time and glad that she's an amazing woman, young woman, going into herself. So, yeah, well done bro.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get into this concept of like.
Speaker 2:One of the things I see a lot is you know, as individuals, we can Hang on our hats on on our accomplishments, our successes, our degrees, our jobs, things that we accomplish that are quote-unquote outside of ourselves, mm-hmm, right, and?
Speaker 2:And what I see happening and what I've experienced, even with myself, is that when we don't do enough internal work within ourselves is we could begin to validate ourselves with our accomplishments. And that's really why I want to take this conversation at this juncture, because I've seen a lot of individuals Hit a rock bottom in their lives Because they haven't done enough in her inner work on ourselves and it could just destroy their whole world, their families there. So then they can lose everything because they've, they've, yes, they're successful, they've, they put their validation and their worth into these accomplishments, these degrees, but they haven't done enough emotional work on themselves, enough shadow work on themselves, enough inner child work on themselves, right, and I think that is a huge problem in in general, especially in our community, mm-hmm, and that's why I'm always kind of pushing this, this message. She's her nose, he probably gets tired of me.
Speaker 1:He's talking about his identity.
Speaker 3:He's always talking about the shadow work.
Speaker 2:He's always talking about it. It's because I, you know it's the aha moment, right, I know no over for sure. And this message needs to be conveyed. Yeah, and we need to look at this. We need to raise our kids, our cousins, our friends, our families. We need to spread this word because Anything that's built on lies could come down quick, bro, mm-hmm. And. And so I want to get your take on that. Like you know why that's important to work on yourself, why it's important to put your, to put you first. Right, you're. You're. Another person doesn't complete you. Your spouse doesn't complete you. You're a hundred percent, with or without your, your spouse. Things of you know, or your friendships or your job, like those are things we do, right. So what is? And again, tying into, like what you do on biz mode, I see you doing that, man, in your unique way, and I know that's important to you because you're pushing that on through these young entrepreneurs, which I think is incredible. I can't say enough about it, but I'd like to get your take on that.
Speaker 3:Well, I've one reason why just to do the personal work is. I mean it. Obviously there's a lot of benefits to it, but I think what resonates with me is and I always tell this to a lot of people is that you are the only you, the person are the Only coach that you're really gonna listen to. Everybody can tell you what to do, but the only one that you're really gonna listen to is you, and so if you don't do the work, that inner voice you asked me about the inner voice earlier is gonna do. The is is gonna do.
Speaker 3:However, it's trained and I'm I'm really hopeful for the. I'm hopeful for the newer generations, because they are a little bit more open about these things. There's not a lot of, there's not as much stigma as there used to be. There still is, but it's. It's more open. So, there, they're more open and and they're able to express their feelings, they're able to say they're dissatisfied with something, and and so I'm kind of open to it.
Speaker 3:But it it from speaking personally, by doing the inner work, by doing like and also continuing to do it, by the way, doing the inner work, is just gonna make your life a lot, a lot more enjoyable. How so? Because you don't. You, at least for my personal, from my perspective you don't have those, those voices, those limiting beliefs. You have those voices saying you can't, you're or you're not worthy, right?
Speaker 3:I mentioned earlier the guilt feeling, having the guilt and all these other things. Now, some of all these feelings that we're talking about are important as as as as sees brought up In certain contexts. Yeah, so feeling guilty is good in certain contexts. If you messed up on something and you feel guilty about that, that's fine. But if you did something where you got an award and your friend didn't Like, why are you feeling guilty? Right, appreciate your own accomplishments, right, so like and do that. But that's the inner work, that's the. That's the old cultural way of like in the you know the culture I grew up with a little bit where it's like you did something good. They kind of people try to immediately bring you down just to keep you quote-unquote humble, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So instead of saying hey, that's really great what you did, because then you're like, okay, I just got positive feedback from it. Then I'm gonna and that could be a reason why, actually, you asked me earlier about my accomplishments and that was like, yeah, I don't want to talk about it because it's kind of like Part of me growing up. One of the thing that I did have like a limiting belief that I have that I'm still working on, is I don't want to look like a showoff. Yeah, because you don't want to be a showoff and it's and I'm amazed at other people who do that the right away like I did this, this, this and that. But in my head there's that that map still there, that limiting belief of if you Tell people you won this award, if you tell people you were given this accommodation, whatever it is, they're gonna call you a showoff, they're gonna call you a stuck up, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:You know what, dude, I want to celebrate that, though you know, like I want to highlight my boys accomplishments, I want to celebrate your accomplishments. He's like I want it like if you win, I win, right, and that's. That's the world we want to create, right, you know? And and also one of the things that I learned in my, in my journey as well, is like being able to accept things as well. Right, our accomplishments, like you're talking about, is like we, we, like we had asked ourselves why we don't want to accept that. Right, you know what and and how.
Speaker 2:How dare that I deny another person that, that, that blessing, to give it to another person? Like I want to give you this blessing. So, accepted, don't deny me that, bro. Right, you know, if I want to celebrate you and your accomplishments, please accept that. You know, same thing, when you, if you run that hundreds, these are like I want to celebrate you, bro, let's go. Yeah, you know, and that's hard conditioning, man, as men, we want to bear that, we want to bury and carry that burden with us. Right, and so.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I totally hear where you're coming from, because as a young kid I was Very gifted or very blessed, to play baseball. To brag over it? Yeah, don't worry about it, I'll take on your. You guys don't want to celebrate me right now, I want to celebrate you.
Speaker 3:Right now.
Speaker 1:I did a hundred miles and I was really good. I'm blessed and I'm the shit guys. If I have you guys didn't know, let me write it down for you. So, toxic room yeah, and I thought I had that. I had that feeling for a long time like I had some friends that were around me and I ended up going to Notre Dame. I tell them the story. I was blessed to go to private high school. I didn't have money, right, grew up in a one bedroom apartment with an older brother, younger sister. My parents slipped in the living room and whatnot. My mom still lives there and he gave me the. It was a vehicle to get me to Notre Dame, which is a private high school. That at that time I think was 15 G's to go there.
Speaker 1:But all my friends Made me feel guilty. Right, well, you're leaving us. You're not part of the homie. You're not a homie anymore. We're going to North Hollywood that we're gonna create this legacy of baseball team. You're too good for us, all these different things. And as a kid I was like, bro, you should be happy. Like I'm going over here. I'm happy for you. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Just not play ball anymore or not be good, or you know, that was a badass, by the way. No, I'm scared.
Speaker 3:You know, I now now process.
Speaker 1:Yes, see, monster now processing everything, as I'm old and didn't the work and continue to do the work. Yeah, man, you want to. You ask them to tell you the fuck I am, what I do, what I've done, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm playing and if not, maybe I'll tell you anyways, because maybe it'll lead to something. And I'm not embarrassed about that. Not embarrassed, I don't feel a certain way about it. You know, he knows that I come out straight up and I'll be like, yeah, I've done this shit, you know, and if and if and if you Well, okay, pop off something like I'm sorry, but fuck, go run a hundred, I'll be impressed. Right to me. I'm very self-secure now doing some of the work and still obviously humble enough not to say it and know my space, but secure enough to go like listen, bro, that's not my problem. You feel this fucking way, you know right, it's not my problem, that's your fucking deal. Hand your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're very blunt, bro and and I First became friends. I was like struggling with it, but I knew it was about me. I knew I was like Okay, he's marrying back to me something with him. He, that's not right. So I figured this out right and and like even on the way in the car over here you said something. I was like this motherfucker, I'm like wait a minute. I was like processing it, right, but you are very blunt, so I do admire that.
Speaker 1:I was like more that way yeah Um so yeah, but appreciate that you got too much. But and listen, my circle small people like great, they don't. I ain't trying to make fucking cool boy for entry now you know I'm saying trying to be, you know, on that yearbook of like this guy, whatever. So you know I'm gonna be most popular.
Speaker 3:No, no, right now, but To kind of go on to this, continue this thread. Yeah, I, one of the things that is that would encourage me to continue to tell people what I've done is the fact that I do want Others to see a positive role model. I do want others to see it, and so I I mean case in point. I can't take too much credit, but I have to. I have.
Speaker 3:I have two nephews are in law school right now, once in this third year at UC Irvine, another one's at San Francisco. They changed the name. You speak Hastings, you see haste up in San Francisco. I think it's called UC San Francisco law now and and I want to hope that you know seeing me as a lawyer they're like, oh, this is cool, yeah, I can do that, and that they're doing it. They're actually going another, and this is part of celebrating they're doing things that I wasn't able to do and in law school and in their professional career already, and so I'm like I'm that's just great. I'm not like upset about it, I'm like this is great, Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so that's the point of like okay, get over your, get over yourself. Yeah don't worry about it, it's not just about you. Again, what can you if you sharing the story and that's what we kind of do with disbo, by the way. We want to share the story. Yeah, so they know it can be done, and that's the whole idea. Yeah, it can be done.
Speaker 2:And isn't it my problem if I can't receive your, like your accomplishments comfortably, like that says more about me, right, right, you know what I mean, so yeah man shout out to your nephews. Let me get some love for his nephew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's your name?
Speaker 3:Do you want to throw out the names? All right, victor and and Juan Miguel.
Speaker 1:Those are victor and Juan Miguel.
Speaker 2:So we can't get like why can't?
Speaker 1:like latinos, mexican, whatever, like the same thing. I'm like, oh Like, why can't we just get like a some? Why can't we get to core or ascension back? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:You know it might come back.
Speaker 2:It's never on the top 10. Nameless teacher, right? I think my dog makes sense and be beautiful.
Speaker 1:Hey, be a good one.
Speaker 3:You got a question, I'm not talking about my dad's name was ascension, so I'm just saying hey, you know what I'm saying? I'm not saying my mother was ascension, my mother-in-law was ascension. Yeah, it's ascension. Hey, I got a cousin his resting piece.
Speaker 2:I got a cousin in his name is pantalion. Yes, pantalion.
Speaker 1:I like that shout out to you, pantalion.
Speaker 2:You know who you are.
Speaker 1:Shout out, shout out, shout out the Costco right now.
Speaker 3:Shout out, shout out. I'll 10 shout out to pepperoni pizza 7.99. What is that?
Speaker 1:Let's get it.
Speaker 2:I'm having lunch right now question Do you have a morning routine? Good one, yeah.
Speaker 3:I that pausing again, because I'm like, okay, what point of my year do I have a morning routine? I, I, the morning routine I have right now is I have a dog, uh, and it part of it is I do a morning, we do a morning walk, and at that walk I'm kind of clearing out, um For myself, mentally clearing it out, and then, if I have time, if I create the time, actually see, this is part of the process now changing your, your mindset. If I create the time, I, I would do like what we call morning pages. I'll do journaling in the morning to kind of get, like that, the junk thoughts out, so to speak, because I want to get into that level of creativity that I can, that I can do it, yeah.
Speaker 3:I want to stay out of the Um, out of like the, the uh survival mode and getting into the higher mode. So I'm always trying to push for that. Yeah, is that part of?
Speaker 1:like your way of relieving stress and getting into the creative mode. Do you do any other stuff, any other work? Uh, get working out running. Oh yeah cold plunging, anything else no cold plunging unless I run and.
Speaker 3:I'm sore and I need to do a nice bath. That's a whole different story, okay, but I haven't run for a while. I'm actually.
Speaker 1:I do, I do spin, I cycle so cycle, another peloton, but peloton, all right, all right, shout out to my favorite peloton instructors.
Speaker 3:We won't get into that today. You just ask me, just goes, find me on the internet and ask me let's go what my, what my instructors are Okay and uh, you know, kind of like weight training stuff, like that a little bit, yeah, okay, yeah, that helps relieve and reading I like to read yeah, and I still like to read everybody's book.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, what, uh? What Books would you recommend? Kind of sound like like someone that's just started starting off on their journey, or just in general.
Speaker 1:That you know what I'll make that a two-part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1:What, what books would you recommend in regards to exactly what EA's saying is transformation journey, leveling up all that, doing the work, and then two, um, what would you recommend for business or something like that law, or any kind of business.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go into my phone real quick to make sure. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Uh, we'll just sit here like this.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna commercial break.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at my remember every time you, every time you ask these book questions, and I think last time when we did uh, you interviewed me.
Speaker 3:You know, we say the same book.
Speaker 1:I always say the same book first of all, but no, but I have a hard time when put on the spot, like remembering that book. Yeah, and I don't know why, because that book is like Like I love that book, right, but I love it and I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm bad because it only has pictures. Bro, you got to get the ones out, the words.
Speaker 1:Love is. Is that the one I have to pick up the new? Make your bed. You remember those ones on the newspaper says love is.
Speaker 3:And then they have like some yes, yes, those are super, I like.
Speaker 1:I had people and friends that would like they had the, they would cut it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife, he love me one. She's like love is, and then it was like a.
Speaker 1:Before Cal Burke me shit, I have. I have my nose or needles.
Speaker 3:I have three Three, I'm just thinking about three that I want to.
Speaker 1:The first one and this is a very same bro.
Speaker 3:I know what you're gonna say. No, you know. You did not know that feeling.
Speaker 1:I have a feeling, uh, the first one is something called go.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna write it down here Okay, play to win. Okay, choosing growth over fear and work in life. So these these guys name this guy named Larry Wilson. Uh, I think he was big in, big in the 80s and 90s, about like kind of again that in that business coach mindset, but it's about a kind of like getting into breaking down the maps and seeing things differently. So when I say fear, I probably got the acronym from them. So that's kind of like a one stop. So go look, because I think there's several play to wins. So make sure you get the right one, larry. That's why I say Larry Wilson, uh, that's a really good one to start For creativity. I want to really love the artist way, something called the artist way. It's by what's her name? I'm forgetting her name.
Speaker 1:Is that way it lies in?
Speaker 3:Spanish way.
Speaker 2:I knew you were the artist of the way path.
Speaker 3:Okay, your path like this way. Not g u e, y or not way protein either.
Speaker 2:I thought it was w h bro.
Speaker 3:Wait, that's only two. I'm well, I'm gonna. I got to explain this one. The artist way a y, julia Cameron, really good about getting to the creativity side. I like actually her audible portion, so I actually liked it so much I bought, I have the book and I have the audible, because the audible is like a reinforcement and then I always like laudables, by the way. So all your future authors out there, when you narrate your own books, it's better. Mm-hmm, that's so too as opposed to like.
Speaker 3:My name is paying somebody to do it. This is Brad Pitt, and I'm gonna do this one Morgan Freeman, bro.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, maybe it's Morgan Freeman.
Speaker 3:Or James Earl Jones.
Speaker 1:Morgan Freeman on that one I would have, david Goggins, you probably will stay on. Seamawster, right here Boats oh my god.
Speaker 3:Business side there's tons of business books, but I would start with something called the e-myth the entrepreneurs myth, and throwing out some good ones. So the e-myth is is is really interesting because it basically tells you the more you can systematize your business, the better it's going to be for you. You know you're making the best cupcakes in the world. Well, how can you do it so that you always make the best cupcakes and it can't just be in your brain, like, how do you become the rich Carlton of cupcakes, the four seasons of the McDonald's, the McDonald's, but keep that high level of service and then, but be able to duplicate, because that's the way you can grow as a company Otherwise, where you're trading time for money. So do you have your support staff situated in locations.
Speaker 2:That is the most efficient in this office.
Speaker 3:Why? Because are you looking at the desks? Yeah, I'm looking at.
Speaker 2:I'm just in the spirit of what you just said. I'm just thinking like is everything like laid out according to what you're talking about right here? Good question, uh, cat, was that cat was a cat or what is that? I'm not thinking there's an acronym for it.
Speaker 3:Oh, Partially, it's partially done. So the idea of this office we were trying to do Like an open office, so we didn't have the cubicles up, uh, and so that way there's more collaboration between people. But then covet hit and so now some people are remote, so that kind of messes up things a little bit. Uh got you so.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's a little bit of a little bit of design.
Speaker 3:I like it but not super heavy on the design.
Speaker 1:I like that. I walked in expecting the cubicle and some kind of thing. I was like, damn, I see everything from here. Yeah, I see everybody, see everybody. Hey, it's good, it's good and back Nice, okay, question, um. But you know what I like that the email. How about if it was called the ea myth? Oh, I thought you were gonna say tools of titans. That's the one I keep on saying Tools of titans.
Speaker 2:That's like that was on his list. See, that was on his list.
Speaker 1:I know it's a book like that big right there, like that, like bigger than the shoebox, that, whatever's going down.
Speaker 2:He's been reading it for 10 years now.
Speaker 1:Or how long has it been, bro? It's doesn't get read the right way, it's. You're not supposed to read it, you're supposed to jump to oh temp temp.
Speaker 3:ferris, I know I'm not having tools of titans.
Speaker 3:I mean some, so that my, my criticism of business books is like, at some point they all say the same thing yeah, yeah, so you know, you just got to do it. Yeah, it's just the way they package it. So it's a different way of packaging it. Because I got into a fix of like reading every single business book that came out there and I'm like, okay, it's the same thing, yeah, and so after a while you get it. There's some other good ones. There's one, a good one for employees, called radical candor. There's a good one to operate your company, called traction. There's several traction, so watch out, um, so there's a bunch of other books.
Speaker 2:We're about podcasts. Any podcasts is your go-to Bismot. I just can't my own voice.
Speaker 3:It can't be broken. I can't be broken in Bismot. No, uh, podcast, that's it. Hold on Podcast. Uh, for for business stuff, adam gratt has some good stuff, so he's a kind of work life, uh balance guru. Uh, adam grants good. There's one called business wars which is kind of interesting. Uh, so business wars has to deal with like conflict between, uh, like certain brands that had conflicts back in the early 1900s. Hershey's was battling, I don't know, reese's, I don't know something like that and like it goes through like their stuff. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And so like crispy cream versus well, gosh, what was the other one? Dunking donuts? Yeah, I was dunking donuts, crispy cream versus dunking donuts, and how did what did they do so stuff like that.
Speaker 2:He said donuts, these are got all excited. No, we don't have any donuts today, do?
Speaker 3:we have any donuts.
Speaker 2:No Crispy creams. Good cops and donuts, bro. What are we gonna do about coffee?
Speaker 3:Hey, do you meditate? Yeah, no. So I was gonna kind of say I was. But I I've tried meditation and it's not something that I'm against, it's just I haven't created discipline in myself to do it. Do you visualize?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think more people visualize than meditate, which obviously they're both separate and different, but I'm just saying when. If you would ask somebody, people would probably say that they visualize more. They see themselves doing something or visualizing Cerm pass, whether it be yeah, today or Years or or what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd rather than meditate.
Speaker 1:I think the crowd that I'm being in a station in a Present you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:I think the cool thing about meditation though oh, I got one more book for that, I liked for improvement but the cool thing about meditation is that you do get to that quiet. So I do like getting to the quiet. My challenge is getting to the quiet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think to your point as well, cesar. I think you're right, because I think people have a hard time sitting with themselves and listening to themselves because we're always Like, think about it world. When we're just at the house, we're bored, what do we do? Pick up our phones. We turn the tv on we're in our cars, we turn the radio on we're. I think a lot of times we're Uncomfortable with sitting with ourselves and listening to our internal dialogue, right, that internal voice, which is god, in my opinion, the universe. It's telling us Okay, we need to do x, y and z like we don't want to face that. You know, I think so. For me, I think that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's why I love running so much. I mean like going and lifting and working out and being in the gym, peloton spinning those are all part of still being interactive, of something. Right, you put music on. There's music playing, there's something going on, and running and trail running at least for me, when you get out of the street and you're out there by yourself 6 am In the morning, you got a headlamp on. You're just like Everything's off because you want to hear if there's fucking, yeah, some kind of mountain lion or some ship first of all. But at the end of the day, you're with yourself, you're just. This is present, like One step after the other. You're right here. You're thinking about what the hell is going on behind you. You're not on instagram. There's nothing going on, you don't have any music on. It really gives you. For me and I'm sure a lot of runners will say the same thing it's just kind of you're just present, I agree, and you can talk to yourself.
Speaker 2:You, you guys, both you guys are heavy runners. I was a run.
Speaker 3:I don't run as much, but when I used to run it, that's why it was it.
Speaker 1:Or or hiking right, like hiking, like what you do and yeah, the walking I do yeah, with, like so I, when I.
Speaker 2:Just get out.
Speaker 3:I'm intentional when I walk my dog, I don't take my phone with me unless I know, okay, my wife's come, my wife's somewhere, and I need to have the phone Just in case, right. But I don't take my phone. I have a watch on and I just we're just go walk because I don't want to get distracted one for him but also because I want to just be with my thoughts. I kind of want to kind of hear it and but when I used to run a lot more, I would work out problems and it Naturally like when I was running, oh, so me that was kind of like a meditative thing. And it's coming. It comes out when I do my walks with, because we're doing morning walk and we do an afternoon walk, an evening walk. So it comes out with the walks when I'm. I'm creating not creating problems, solving problems but I'm also like kind of coming up with ideas for things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, that's exactly. I do my best, thinking my best, problem solving um, my best self, talk my best. All these different things come out when I'm running or like Hiking or whatever, just by myself, especially on a trail in in. You know, when you do Road running, it's a lot different. You got to watch out with cars and right, there's a lot of still distractions out there, whether you think you're still, unless you're running in a park or somewhere where it's safe, well, you don't have to worry about that, you can still be some distractions. Um, but if you're on on trails or hiking trails or somewhere with nature, it really is a different ballgame, I think right, um, question really quick, because you said the watch. Do you have that? You have a the eye watch or the apple watch? What?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got it. I got it because of that the the bike For the heart rate.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, because they. My wife just said that if you fall or something, oh, it does alert. Where was I that I did one did you hear about?
Speaker 2:it. You know that. No, I just pictured that old lady in the commercial, kind of like that. That's what happened to me.
Speaker 3:I forgot where I was doing, but it did go off like I. I must have hit it hard and it went off like are you okay? And I had to tell it yeah, I'm fine. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it goes off and then if you don't answer, that's when they call, or something.
Speaker 3:So it has like an s O S it's. That's really good.
Speaker 1:She just set it up and then, um, a friend of mine who does bike riding was on a bike ride from self-training for triathlon and he was down on like an uh A bike path that was just nobody was out there and he fell, he hit something and knocked himself out crying his helmet. His face was whatever, but he was out in the watch, called somebody and actually, you know, when he woke up he was in an ambulance.
Speaker 1:No, nobody called for him. Nobody was there. Yeah, saved his life, wow, okay. So I heard about that and I was like I don't have an Apple watch because you got it, got that garment.
Speaker 3:Right now I gotta get plug out to corals. Yeah, also, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like gross it's get your money.
Speaker 3:Just last longer regardless Corals were last longer.
Speaker 2:I got switch gears here, so let's go off.
Speaker 1:Oh he's gotta bring it back. I know I'm sorry bro.
Speaker 2:I gotta, I gotta ask you this Do you think people need to hit Rock bottom in their lives Yep to, to be like To, for that change to take place, for, like, self actualization to take place.
Speaker 3:Mmm, hmm, no, the first. The short answer is no, and Then I'm gonna expand on that, right. So the short answer is no. Obviously, rock bottom is a turning point where you can Definitely say I need help, I need to start doing something, and whether it's internal or with someone else, it can. But a lot of people hit that self-actualization because they get to levels where you, they get to the highest level and they're like what else is left and so that's it. That could be, I guess, interpreted as rock bottom. But I'm thinking of, like One of the one of the members of the Beatles, george Harrison. Like they got so successful. He's like what else? What else is there to know? And so he started going in to try to get enlightened and trying to do all this other stuff. They had some other things going on, but it's, they've reached such a higher level. It's like what else do I have to do? Like what else can I do? Well, let me go work on myself. Isn't that an example? We?
Speaker 2:talked about earlier, where we we put our, our validation, our worth into things outside of ourselves career passions, right.
Speaker 3:Right, but they also hit the level of, and so this is kind of getting into things. Maslow's higher, higher needs right.
Speaker 3:They are there, are there already, are self-sufficient. They're already. They don't have the worry about like where's my check coming from and my protected and my safe. They're beyond the safety love zones. They're able to create. A Lot of people are able to create. So you always see this. You can see this sometimes with enter people in entertainment, talent, stuff like that, because they do hit that, they hit that security. So I'm secure, I'm not worried about that. I don't have that fear, mm-hmm. So now I don't have that fear. What else can I work like? How else can I fulfill that self? Because we're trying to fulfill ourselves.
Speaker 2:So let's stay in this. Stay with musicians, right? Okay, generally speaking here a lot of musicians go to vices like drugs and alcohol, mm-hmm. Right. So there is a level of a escapism that there there's an avoidance of that inner work that they're trying to achieve I and so I'm just trying to dig a little deeper here, because I I've seen this a lot. You think they got it all, they they've satisfied those needs and they haven't dealt with certain demons in there, you know, and and they comes back to To bite them in the ass. You know.
Speaker 2:You know, my father always says you can't, you can't Skip steps in life. You know what I mean. Like you're always gonna come back to a step that you should have stepped on earlier in your life. If you missed that said, you're gonna come back to it in some way, shape or form, and In this regard it's that inner work. So I don't know if you follow where I'm going with. This is. It's like, as you're sharing that, I'm still thinking in the back of my mind, like I want to understand it. I want to be able to say no, you don't, or you have to hit rock bottom where you do. But the more I dissect it, the more I feel like there is like that for minutes. Some people call it a midlife crisis. Mm-hmm, you know, I call it a midlife awakening and yeah, but I'm trying to think, cuz I just you.
Speaker 3:You're asking my experience and I don't. Thankfully, I didn't have a rock bottom point, but I started having a realization of I'm not a happy person to be around because I'm angry, because I'm doing all the stuff that that that my internal mind is tell my internal voice is telling me to do. So how do I get off like being mad at the team, being mad at my wife, and this is irrational anger, because I'm not at Peace when there was a talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not at peace with myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't feel it was a rock bottom a moment, but I'm like got you, but I'm like I love these people and I would don't want them to leave me. Mmm, so how do I get better For that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what I think also like what is rock bottom right? Like when we explain that there's different levels of what rock bottom Might mean to you or to me, and to him right, like he was saying, was Alex was saying was that to him he wasn't happy with himself and that, in a sense, is rock bottom, because he's acting a certain way with his Co-workers and clients, whatever might be people around him, and he's treating them a certain way and to him, rock bottom is like how have I become this person, you know, and I am not happy and I need to change it. Somebody else's might rock bottom might be using drugs, musicians, whatever might be.
Speaker 1:To a football player, I think about what you guys were saying right now was Aaron Rodgers, and Rogers does a lot of I Mean, he does a lot of self work all the time he goes before playing football. He goes and he goes. It's silent, like for a week in this Monastery and whatnot Does he need to do that? Has he hit rock bottom? Well, I guess pretty well off right, doesn't have to worry about a lot of things, but to him, rock bottom might be he lost a Super Bowl, you know and it was right hands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and it's, it's with him and it stays with him for a little bit he starts to feel a certain way and creates an anxiety, and then he goes I got to go and work on myself and do this, yeah, and to me I'd be like well, are you upset? I don't mean you played in the Super Bowl. You're making all this money, but I think it's just a little bit. Everybody's a little different. I think that's what I hear you coming from and I think just.
Speaker 3:Explain what. There is an event. I think there are events and things that come up that you, if you listen, it's there. So I mean, I hope that people can get to self-acculatization. I hope that people get more enlightened and get more in tune with themselves, without the need of Hurting others, hurting others, hurting themselves, hurting people they love, because it's you know, we need more love in the world, right? Yeah, I mean you, you mentioned love. We need more love in the world. We don't need a lot of, and we're going through a time right now where there's a lot of Discord, there's a lot of hate, there's a lot of pain, yeah, yeah, and so I I hope that people can do it without you know, without, like, basically changing their entire life, yeah, and negatively, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you, bro. What is we're? Talking about it a little bit earlier but what does success actually mean to you like? What does that definition mean to you, because I know it's a little bit different to everybody, but what does that mean to you?
Speaker 3:Success to me is Is, it's not. I'll start with the negative kind of what it's not. It's not just, it's not about money. It sounds silly but it's not for me. It's not about money. It's not about like I got this amount of money and it's it's a good money, or I got this kind of award.
Speaker 3:I think success, success to me, is the impact. So success to me is and that's taking me a while to get there too is kind of like what kind of impact am I? Am I providing? Am I living out my purpose? We talked about purpose a little bit. That's kind of success to me when I get the feedback and Realize it. Because I mentioned, you know, we mentioned my two nephews, and I get the feedback. I'm like, wow, these people are doing things. And I went to, you know, I went to a client event. Or I went to an event no, actually, within the client event, I went to an event like about two weeks ago and I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh, that's a client as a client, as a client like, like, like it was just a different event and I was like, oh, these are all the clients. I'm like I was For a minute there. I did appreciate it for myself. I'm like that's impact, because all these people are doing things and I helped them get there.
Speaker 2:Oh sir.
Speaker 3:So that success to me is kind of how can I give them the impact?
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, hit that, put that button. I'm in the moment over here. It also means you get no mother sucker.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's a good thing we get no, like, let's go. Okay, yeah so that's kind of that's my my definition of success. Yeah, what is peace? We talked about peace and that you were you. You transformed and started Shifting and all these different things because you weren't at peace. What does that mean to you?
Speaker 3:pieces, comfort pieces, acceptance. To me, pieces like acceptance with yourself, pieces not being in the situation where you're your kind of Do get caught up in the comparison trap pieces is also being happy for others and what they're doing and saying, hey, this is great that they're doing that and but I think we, it goes back to that, that whole level of being comfortable with yourself and just kind of being happy, yeah, with yourself and like, hey, this is great, yeah, and just changing your view, because I think part of what we do culturally and I'm talking United States is we got to beat someone else. Yeah, that's where we start, and it's not about like Like no, you don't have to beat everyone out, we can work together. There's enough out there. This is scarcity versus abundance we're talking about there's enough out there.
Speaker 3:You don't have to be. You know, even in marathons, even in ultras, sometimes the competition is not the competition. The competition is the race. Yeah, it's getting the race done. And so you're working together, even though you're running side-by-side and you really want to place ahead of this person, you're working together to get to conquer that race. Yeah, so I think Switching that mindset, that's that helps get to the piece, that helps kind of get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And then I know we've all Overcome different adversities. How do you overcome adversities now? Let's just say now, how do you deal with adversities that come, you know, into your office, into your life, and then how did you handle them before? Hmm, oh.
Speaker 3:So we'll start with how we handle them before, because that's kind of like it can show a little bit of evolution, right. So howling before is back to what I just kind of said, right. So, one ticket, super personal, hmm. So why are they coming after me? Why are they creating an enemy and trying to beat and conquer that enemy and so kind of like? That's kind of like how you would overcome adversity. Right now I Would say it's, you know, understanding the situation happened, having that level of acceptance, saying, hey, this situation happened, how can we move on from that situation? Who can help me? So, instead of identity, you know, identifying people who can help you with that situation, accepting the situation, because it can't change. You know, if a fire ever your, your house gets flooded, your house gets flooded, you can't be mad that you didn't close a window. Okay, when it was open the house got flooded.
Speaker 3:So now, what are you gonna do? So acceptance, right, so I'm accepting it. And now I'm saying, like, well, who can help me? Well, I don't have a water pump. Who can I get to get a water pump to help me? Well, and then this doesn't happen, by the way, but it's a good example, but but, like that, so so, so that's that's. I think that's kind of how we you move on to it. Like, you want to overcome adversity, seek help, right, so seek help in different kinds of ways, and people are open to helping, right, so, so seek help for that. People are open to helping and go to people who are smarter right.
Speaker 3:So that's business, that's, that's that's personal advice and business advice go to people that are more intelligent than you, or you that you perceive them Be more intelligent than you, and not even just intelligence, who has the experience in that level right. So I'm a big believer in like you know. So go to the experts and go to the expert and say I'm having this issue, how do I deal with it? Right, because you're gonna get a lot farther, a lot lot. You're gonna get farther along If you go with the experts. Then it's gonna take you longer time to get there on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hmm, what is I hear you talking about flow state a lot. What is that what? How do you define flow state?
Speaker 3:Flow states everything's clicking. You can't be stopped. You feel invincible. Uh, you used to play NBA jams on back. Nba jam back in the day with uh, you're on fire, right.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah, you're on fire.
Speaker 3:when you're on fire, you can't miss a shot. You can't miss a shot.
Speaker 3:So, I think flow state can I came from it, it's, it's you can compare it from a sports analogy would be You're in the zone, so flow states kind of in the zone, and so that means you're above. You're above like worrying about, like the day to day. You're worrying about all that stuff because you feel safe and you feel super confident and you're able to do it. And so the idea is how much can you get into flow state? Because you get in a flow state, you get into your creative level right and you're able to provide more.
Speaker 2:Okay, what's on the horizon for?
Speaker 3:Bruno group. Bruno group it's gonna be, it's gonna be an interesting year next year. So there's a lot of stuff happening for anyone who has a corporation or LLC in the whole united states. So business modes coming out with a program. We're working on a program that's going to come out probably at the end of maybe december, january. That's going to help people basically Get compliant with the federal government, because federal government is going to ask everybody who owns their companies and and it's going to be a shock to a lot of people really and so we're going to help them. Help them make that easier for them.
Speaker 2:That's good. You also do a state planning as well, right? We want to stress that for anybody. You know that's listening, uh, how important that is, and and so you also, uh, dabbling the state planning world, correct, right?
Speaker 3:That's. I mean it's. It's something that evolved from my business practice because we'd help our business owners. We got to know our business owners so well that we ask what house can we help? Well, I have a house, I have children. I want to make sure that the court doesn't like you know, we don't have. They don't have to go to the court system to worry about it. And so that's what came up with the estate plan and getting the trust and making sure their wishes are being being heard and and uh, and it's very important, excellent, my brother.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, before we get into a little bit more of you, know how they can reach out to you and and get a hold of you and a little bit more info, uh, what would be the best advice that you would give your younger self? You know, um, right now, knowing you can, being older and whatnot what would you say that you would do differently?
Speaker 3:So an exercise that I want to do I believe or not, I haven't done it, uh, physically yet is to write a letter to my younger self. Pick an age, whatever it is, and then write a letter to yourself I would tell myself Don't take it so seriously.
Speaker 2:That would.
Speaker 3:That's like if I had if I only had four words to say to myself, like I went back in time, I'd be like, don't take it so seriously. And I think that would. That would make my experience younger growing up and going through school and all that stuff I'd have a lot more enjoyable not that it wasn't enjoyable, but it would make it a lot more enjoyable. And what we just talked about, flow state. It might have been able for me to get to that flow state quicker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mmm, that's a great exercise, bro, I'll tell you right now.
Speaker 2:He's done it, I've done that and I've done a inner child meditation and it's really it's it's painful, but you do feel like this release of energy and this like peace within yourself and definitely more like compassion for yourself, as you kind of move forward in your, in your day to day life in general. It's, it's a very powerful exercise.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, I think some of the stuff can. We can trace it back to us as younger people and we're still trying to overcome things that we did when we were younger or things that were done to us yeah, younger and so it's kind of like getting back into that safety zone. So for me, when I was younger, it's more of like how do I get to safety, like it, like how do I feel safe and feel not, not in danger?
Speaker 2:Yeah, See, bruno remembers me when I was in college, so it's a little bit more wild back in my college days, like many of us are.
Speaker 1:And the one who keeps looking at you. You know what, how to get to more safety Do. Yes, how about taking it so personally? He's sitting so far away from you right now.
Speaker 2:Bro, you know, the first time I ever heard a side note here. Oh, oh, two pox, all eyes on me. Yeah, remember when that came out. Yeah, you probably don't even remember this.
Speaker 1:I went to your, I went to Rockhill.
Speaker 2:I went to his, his, I guess we call it a dorm. It's a co-op, it was a co-op. I went to his room with Eli, a friend of mutual friend, and he had it was, you know they came out on Tuesdays the CDs. Yes, they did, and he was the first one to have the double CD. All eyes on you. But when you listen to it for you don't remember that I remember that show.
Speaker 1:I was like this is all I got me. I just started to share that with you. I've been holding that for 25 years.
Speaker 2:That story 20 years.
Speaker 1:RIP. All right, what is? What is some advice that you would give anybody trying to start their own business, becoming an entrepreneur or anything that they want to do? What do you think how, how that looks, and what kind of advice would you give?
Speaker 3:advice I would give an entrepreneur anyone who's trying to start a business, trying to own a business is. One thing about entrepreneurs is that they want to do everything, because you're a curious person. You want to know how things are done. You want to know how to make things. It's back to what I said earlier, which is start getting your experts. Start getting your cabinet together. The president has a cabinet, ceos have their whole C suite. Get your cabinet together. That doesn't mean you can pay everybody, but get your board of advisors together. And what you don't know, you don't know. Focus on getting someone to help you get to understand it, but don't try to do it all yourself. Work on work on developing your strengths and figuring out how you can fill in the gaps of your weaknesses.
Speaker 1:What's great advice right there, man? I enjoy this conversation. There are a lot of information. Yeah, tell us a little bit more about the totality of what your business does and how people can reach out to you and get a hold of you for business, for what's going on next year for businesses as well. Listen to your podcast and whatnot.
Speaker 3:so yeah, I think the best that I'll shout out our company again, bruno group Inc. That's Bruno group I and C. Just put that in there. You'll see our website. That comes up. Go biz mode is our other, is our other site. So Geo B, I, z, m, o D, e. And then, of course, you can find me on socials, mainly at Instagram and I'm not on Facebook, mainly on Instagram, and I'll still call it Twitter. And, of course, linkedin, if you want to see my LinkedIn, but it's, it's my name, alex, bruno ESQ, esquire, esq, and that's my handle, so you can. You can find stuff there and we're yeah, we're here to help you if you're looking to start up a company, you're. If you're looking to to buy into something, we're gonna help you with that. Of course, like what AE brought up or EA, it's in the game, it's in the game I owe you. So, no, but what you know, you gotta get your, get your family right, and so we're here to help you get your family right too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm proud of you bro, seriously man, seriously proud of you, man. So keep going, we need you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anything you want to, anything we didn't touch upon that. You want to leave us with any quotes or anything. Anything else you you'd like to leave us with?
Speaker 3:Another book everybody keep reading. Okay, that's right, but the power of now.
Speaker 2:I can't totally some of it's kind of.
Speaker 3:But there's some good. Yeah, there's some good gems in there, yeah. So anybody hasn't read it? Read it. It really gets you kind of. It helps you get into, like, like we said, breaking down these old thoughts in your head the old maps, as I like to call it and really enjoy now as opposed to enjoying, not enjoying now, and really enjoying now as opposed to being sad about the past or being worried about the future. It's really about like, where you because that's the only thing we can control is right now, this instant. We can't control what's gonna happen tomorrow because we're not there yet. So read the power of now. Understand some of it requires a little bit of imagination, some of the references, but the general gems there's some gems in there, so check it out yeah, yeah you got anything to add here?
Speaker 2:I'm just thank you, man, I'm just, I'm just grateful that he says some time out of his day to chop it up and to enlighten us. So thank you, my brother. Oh yeah, you're welcome, sir. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. Thank you for introducing me to Alex here. Great podcast. Can't wait to air it and I appreciate you coming on the show. Brother, all right, you think very much, everybody listening. Thank you very much. Remember you can't be broken.
