248. How To Align Financial Success With Personal Fulfillment with Frank Rich

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. I am excited. Today I am joined by Frank Rich. If you are unfamiliar with Frank, Frank is an author, entrepreneur, former bodybuilder. I'm going to be excited talking about that and men's health and recovery coach. Since starting Frank Rich Fitness in 2016, he has successfully helped thousands of men around the world transform their lives to the art and science of muscle building. After a series of life's transforming events in spiritual awakenings, Frank knew that he had an even larger message to share with both his audience in the world. He's now the host of the Superhuman Life podcast. His goal with the show and his content is to help others overcome the challenges and battles that we're all facing and provide real, actionable steps and insights to inspite others to create the life they were designed to live. Why I want Frank to join me today is most of my audience. If you're listening in, you're probably an insurance professional, and it is easy to get focused on the revenue, focused on looking how, trying to focus on how good business is going when you are suffering in silence in so many other areas of your life. And that's what I wanted to bring Frank on today to talk about. So, Frank, welcome to the show, man.

Andy, it's honor to be here, brother.

Thanks for having me on. Well, as I said right there two minutes ago, my audience is mainly insurance professionals. So many most may not know who the heck Frank Rich is. So let's start there. Give us the backstory, how you got to where you are today.

Absolutely, man. Yeah, I'll do, I'll do my best here to kind of, you know, keep this short, short and spicy. You touched on a couple things there. Frank Rich Fitness the podcast. I'm also the CEO of Rebuilt Recovery, where our mission is to help men become better men by quitting porn and rebuilding their lives. You know, I think a lot of this for me started with the entry into fitness. You know, I grew up, you know, just like yourself and probably most of the listeners, you know, was an athlete, you know, playing sports, baseball, you know, was really kind of the dream pursuit, you know, and that's why it was great to get connected with you because, like, here's a guy that kind of took it to, you know, at least the highest level or, or as close to. I think he had a cup of coffee there in the pros with the Brewers. Right. But for me, it was, you know, young kid growing up, you know, just kind of kind of out there trying to do what I Could. But at the same time, while being an athlete, I also came from a family that had, let's say, some weight issues. Like we were, we were not like the obese family, but it was like we just ate what we, what we knew was readily available for us and nobody was like the pinnacle of health. And I can remember, Andy, a very defining moment in my life. It was the summer I was 13 years old. So growing up in Tampa, Florida, you spent a lot of your summers, you know, out at the beach and at the pools and happened to be in South Florida that summer with my nephew, I'm sorry, my cousin, who was a year older than me, So I was 13, he was 14. And when you're that age, you kind of start hanging around 14 and 15 year old girls. And I can remember being at the pool that summer so insecure about the way that my body looked that I didn't want to take my T shirt off. I can remember buying jeans. You know, around that time, some of the department stores had this separate section in the store called Husky. And it was like, basically like, you got to go into this, this area of the store to buy your clothes. Began to become like a way that identified why do I have to buy clothes from the special area, like Husky? Like, that doesn't sound very good. So a lot of this became like early deep seated trauma. And like, why am I insecure? Why don't I have the abs like Tony does over there? Why don't, you know, why am I in? Why don't I want to take my shirt off? So that planted the seed for me to really figure out, okay, how can I change the way, the way that I look? And by 15, man, I fell in love with really the art of bodybuilding, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the encyclopedia, you know, getting all the magazines back at the time. This is pretty pre bodybuilding dot com. This is pre Instagram. This is basically me doing it because I was looking for a way to make myself feel better. And that first summer out of high school, so I dabbled in some, some weights, you know, just for sports while I was in high school. But that first summer, I mean, it radically transformed my life because a dedicated three month transformation taught me that if I put in the work, I can have the things that I won. So that was a very early lesson that I, that I learned on, on the fitness side of things. And I've carried that into business, into entreprene, into podcasting. And everything I've been able to do is like, put in the work long enough, you will get the outcome that you're ultimately chasing. Now, some of the other things you talked about there, like, you know, the spiritual awakening, overcoming a lot of challenges. I struggled with depression anxiety for, for a very long time. And I, and I always looked at it as like, well, people in my family aren't happy. You know, I come from a lineage of suicide. We did a recent episode on the dangers of male suicide on the podcast. But for me, once again, these labels and identity really begin to shape how I solve myself. So I come from an unhappy family. I'm probably going to be unhappy for the remainder of my life. I just need to do what I can to fight through these things. So, yeah, I can go build an amazing physique, I can go chase bodybuilding, I can go chase entrepreneurship, I can start businesses. All while still managing a lot of the depression, social anxiety and some of the other things I was dealing with. On the mental health side of it. None of that really became clear to me as to the, the origin of a lot of those issues or the root causes of a lot of those issues until late 2018. So this is, you know, I'm 34, 35 at the time. Like most men, you know, watched a fair bit of pornography through my teenage 20s and into my 30, into my 30s, not realizing that it was really an addiction that was holding me captive and was really the roots and seed of a lot of my mental health problems. So through series of conversations, finding my faith and that spiritual awakening that you mentioned there, I got on the other side of my own pornography addiction and started to have conversations about it with men first locally here in my church and in some of my men's groups. And that led me to wanting to start the podcast. So July 8th of 2019, we aired episode one of the podcast and it caught some early traction. Know Apple picked us up, put us on the front page, new and noteworthy. What was interesting is you said something. There is like, a lot of times we don't talk about the things that are, you know, going on in our life. Maybe we're, we're keeping some secrets and we're putting on this front. What was amazing at that point, I'd already been running an online business, had somewhat of a small media presence. What was really fascinating is about six weeks into the podcast, the messages that I was receiving really started to shift. It was no longer frank. Thank you for your fitness stuff, thank you for the bicep hacks or you're helping me get six pack abs. It really Began to be. Frank, thank you for your conversations. You know, it's interesting, Frank, you're the only guy that's talking about these real vulnerable situations. That was about six, eight weeks of after launching the podcast. Another two or three months go by and the messages were really ramping up. And now it's like, Frank, we love what you're talking about. I'm struggling. Can you help me? You know, I, at this point, I provided a safe place where guys felt comfortable reaching out to me. This gets us to around January of 2020. Actually, January 28, 2020 was the day that I launched Rebuilt Recovery. So not knowing what I was getting into, I felt a call at the time, I was having a lot of support in my life that, Frank, you need to take some of these conversations and some of this messaging and actually help men the way that you helped yourself. So we launched Rebuilt Recovery. For the last three and a half years now, my primary focus has been on, on building and scaling and that up. We've had over 350 successful recovery stories while also, you know, scaling the podcast up, where episode 210 dropped this morning. You know, global audience, really some amazing things. So, yeah, in short, man, that's my story. I don't know if you know that that kind of gave you a good.

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack, you know, and I want, I want to be clear for the audience, this isn't going to be an episode about how to overcome porn addiction. That happens to be a niche you, you help men overcome. But I wanted you on because there's a lot of people in the insurance industry that, like I said, look like they're having all the success in the world. When you look at the book of the business they have, the car they drive, the office they have. But, you know, a lot of these people are suffering in silence. They, they're not enjoying life, they're not happy because of certain things that are going on in life. Maybe it's a porn addiction, I don't know, but it's. There are things that are holding them back from true happiness and fulfillment. And man, I gotta share this. You don't even know this about me, but I was a chunky kid. And in my keynote talks, I talk about Levi's making huskies. And it was like back before mental health was a thing, like a gene company basically said, you're fat. Here's, here's a gene size for you. I have a question for you about bodybuilding because I'm into fitness. I work out every Day. And I know for me, if I'm being really honest, a lot of people.

I work out because I like seeing the gains or I like what I can become. Right. If I'm being honest, I work out because I don't ever want to be the fat kid again. What are your thoughts about that? Is that a good perspective or is that something even I need to shift my mindset on? Because I will be honest, I work out every day more as a knowing what I was at one time versus oh, if I keep doing this, this is what I'll get.

Yeah, man, that's a great question. You know, I think fundamentally humans are driven by two forces. Either the pursuit of pleasure. Right. So there's a motivation component. We're going to work in order to achieve something and that can get people pretty far, you know, but oftentimes the stronger driver of our motives is the avoidance of pain or it's kind of a fear based motivation. This was a story for me, you know, yours, your, your runs parallel to mine. I was an insecure, overweight kid and that, that was the early seed. Now, not a psychologist, but I would say if there's parts of that trauma that are really holding you back, like if you can't go to a, to a restaurant and eat some dessert, you probably need to process that a little bit and kind of get over some of that trauma. But I think what I can see in you is like, you live a very well balanced, you know, air quotes here. I doubt many, I doubt anything in life is actually balanced. But I don't see you holding on to a past identity of like, I can't even eat like a gram of sugar, which I know a lot of people in the bodybuilding industry are like that. I was for a very, very long time. So I've had to go through a journey of myself overcoming some of the initial trauma that, that, that got me into it. But I still use that motivation of like, I don't want to be fat again. I don't ever want to look like the way that I did. I don't want to look like the people in my family. So I don't see anything unhealthy about that. As long as it's not like holding you captive. Like if you go out and enjoy yourself, if you can miss a day of workout and your entire world hasn't been flipped upside down, if you can go out and enjoy something, that's maybe off the meal plan a little bit. So that would be my answer there to that question.

Yeah, that's a great point, you know. Were you a competitive bodybuilder at one time?

Oh yeah, no, I was, yeah.

So here's a great, a great example and I'd love to get your thoughts on the outside as competitive bodybuilder. It looks great, right? Your physique is amazing, you're chiseled. But I have seen behind the scenes of people that are in those competitions and the struggle you're going through mentally and how you feel physically is a whole nother story. So for people who aren't familiar with the world of competitive bodybuilding, talk about what that's like, the days, weeks leading up to a competition because you look great. But man, I know people struggle mentally and physically.

Oh absolutely, man. You know, I would say, you know, in, in conjunction with maybe like these massive, you know, endurance races, Iron Mans, which I know something that you've taken, taken part in bodybuilding is voluntary suffering. Like you, you put your body in a state of literally physical, mental, emotional and oftentimes spiritual suffering. The body is not meant to operate for a man, you know, sub 5% body fat, like we could be healthy, walk around 6, 7, 8 and still have everything kind of fully optimized and thriving. But once you get kind of sub 5, like yes, some things kind of start to shut down here a little bit and it's not, it's not a very great place to operate from females. That number's a little bit higher. You know, once you get a woman kind of, you know, in single digit body fats, she's really got to start paying attention to hormones and things like that. For me, I was able to have this reflection where I looked back, okay, like I'm going to do this, but I'm not doing this because I think I'm going to be the greatest bodybuilder in the world. How can I leverage some of what I'm putting myself through to develop me character wise discipline? So then go out and apply it in other single areas. And this is something I see a lot of people miss is they hold on to this dream of like being this amazing bodybuilder. We're very, very small percentage of those that compete actually have the ability to make a living. I wasn't that case. Like I knew from the early stages on, like I wasn't going to compete at the highest level professionally. So how do I leverage some of what I'm putting myself through to give me things that I need in business and relationships and just handling difficult situations which I don't see oftentimes everybody has that transfer over. But yeah, it's, it's a few weeks for most people now. I've seen people suffer for months on end and I think that's probably due to maybe they weren't ready to jump in at the time. Because that's another thing too is like with Instagram and social media today is, it's made competing almost like cool type of thing where reality, you should have a few years, if not half of a decade at least of training underneath you and you should have a team around you that actually understands what they're doing. I've seen women completely destroy their physiques for years because they hired this, you know, coach who has no credentials, no qualifications and basically just restricts all of their colors. So there's, there's a lot that we could, you know, really unpack here. But, but it's definitely not the healthiest thing to do. And I think that's good for the general population to know is like, hey, these people, oftentimes that we see on these magazines, they're being presented to us as the pinnacle of health. Oftentimes they're not. I know many of these people on, on the magazines and they're struggling with all the same mental health stuff that, that we all are as well.

And that's I think, I think a great segue because in the world of bodybuilding it's the looks, right? But mentally they're struggling. In our industry, it's often again going back to the numbers, the revenue, the size of the book. But what people don't realize is a lot of these people are still struggling mentally. And I'd love for you to give some analogies because you also are very familiar with the business world. So you take fitness and apply it to the business world. You know, when I look at why I work out today, I talked about the fear of not being the chunky kid again. But there's two very positive things I see that it's taught me, number one, the concept of we just do hard things. Like for me, working out to non negotiable. And if I do that every single day, my head, my mindset is what else can I do because we do hard things. Two, I feel like when I have the opportunity to work out, I show up my best everywhere else because I'm confident, I feel good, right? It's not a selfish act, it's almost selfless because if I work out, I, I'm going to be my best for others. So the biggest challenge, Frank, is for most people in our industry too. Like, like others, there's, they're sacrificing that fitness for the business success. When you look at both, because you've been on both sides of the world.

How can a professional leverage fitness to improve in business? If that makes sense.

Yeah, man. You know, I come from the school of thought, I'm sure you may have heard this before, that our self confidence is directly tied to our ability to keep the product promises that we make to oursel. And I think what's interesting about your health and your fitness is it's a business card to the world of, of who you are. Like, I could tell a lot about somebody that walks into a room and is physically fit. They have discipline, they have work ethic, they know how to set goals, they know how to keep their promises without them ever saying a word. Somebody walks in, tight T shirt on, very well put together, you know, you, you instantly know these things about that individual. But your fitness and your health is also a business card and daily reminder to yourself, you know, if you've been telling yourself every single day for the last three months, the last six months, the last year, however long, that you know you're out of shape, that you know you're capable of more, and that you know that you should be doing something about it, if these are either thoughts or words that come out of your mouth and then you look at yourself in the mirror and you aren't taking action on those things, that that's going to equate into you having a poor reputation with yourself because there's something in your life that you know you should be doing and you're not taking action on it. Now how does that manifest itself in the real world? Well, about 95% of our life happens at the subconscious level. You know, we are not consciously aware of everything that we're doing. Like this is the way that our bodies are designed is to, to allow us to live in this world is like things just need to happen on autopilot through rituals, through habits, and just through subconscious programming. So if every time that I see myself in the mirror, it's a reminder to myself that I am not the person that does the things that he says he's going to do. Then when I'm presented with a difficult situation in life, maybe it's making the hard phone call to the client, maybe it's sitting down and doing 100 sales calls, maybe it's reaching out and going to the networking thing. Well, hey, Andy and Frank, you know, you guys don't do the things you say you're going to do anyway. So why are you going to go do this one? So it begins to kind of operate underneath the hood and begins to really drive your day to day actions. So I would say that's probably one of the biggest things is like your health is a daily reminder to you. If you are not proud of the person when you're naked looking back at you in the mirror, then brother, sister, who's ever listened to this? Like that's where I would start.

Yeah, it's it. You just. I've never said this, but you gave me an idea. You know, in our industry a lot of people pride themselves on negotiating, which is negotiating better insurance rates for their clients. But that negotiation skill is a curse because the problem is you're negotiating right now with your own priorities. You're negotiating, you're allowing yourself to negotiate yourself away from doing what you should be doing to feel better, to look better.

Yes.

You know, for me, one of the other reasons I'm, I was into fitness the way I was or am into it, Frank, I was a health insurance advisor for 20 years.

My belief was how in the world am I going to have any credibility to go out to companies and say, by the way, your rates are going up 20% this year because your people are unhealthy. If I look like I'm unhealthy, I mean, it's no different than going to workout with a trainer who looks out of shape.

Exactly.

And so I pry. I said I've got to make sure fitness is at the top of my priority list to be taken seriously by my clients. So here's where I want to go with this because Andy, I want to.

Add something, man, if, if you don't mind, just like as we're talking to these salespeople and these, you know, these business people, you know, leads, like you want high quality leads like of the right type of people for whatever thing, whatever it is that you're trying to sell. Like the people that may potentially buy that stuff are the ones that take care of themselves, are the people that live in a growth centric mindset, are the ones that want more out of life. Usually the people that are at the gym either in the morning, in the afternoon, like if you're paying for a gym membership and actually using it a that means you have the disposable income to afford a gym membership. That's something not everybody can do right now. But once again, then you're actually the type of person that does the things that he says he's going to do. So just from a relationship standpoint, if you weren't even going to the gym for health and fitness, you're just going to meet the right people. I could tell you my life has been transformed by, by dozens of people that I met in the gyms. I think it's one of the greatest places to meet the right type of people in whatever industry you are in. So there's just kind of an added well.

And I think the other, the other lesson is if you make working out, for example, a non negotiable, it's just something I do. Guess what? Picking up the phone a hundred times a week.

Yep.

Getting out and meeting prospects, making those tough calls, going after the prospect you've been afraid to go after becomes a non negotiable too. It just becomes something you do. There is a direct correlation there in discipline on what's going on in your personal life and how it's applying to your business world 100%. Now, here's where I'd love to take this, Frank, because we started the podcast by sharing that you have a very specific niche of expertise in helping men overcome porn addictions. And we're not going to talk about that. What we're going to talk about, though, is the suffering and secrecy. Again, it can be this female listening who's got a $3 million agency, but she's not happy. Could be a male producer out there. It looks like he's on the top of the world, but maybe his marriage is suffering. Personal life is suffering.

For that person. Where do they start? What is the first place? Just like you got, you help people, men with their porn addictions. Like, where does somebody start before they let this spiral out of control?

Yeah, man, that's a great question, Andy. And I think it's coming to the realization that if there's something in your life that is either going on or something that you're doing or participating in, I. E. Watching pornography when your wife's asleep or whatever it is. Right. You know, if there's something that you're doing that is out of alignment with who you know you want to be and you're not having a conversation about that, that thing is holding power over you. And in my opinion, you will never break through to the level of success in any area of your life that you truly deserve. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. So first we have to accept and understand that this thing has power over us. Whatever it is, whatever it is that we're keeping a Secret about it could even be the fact that I'm not cleaning the back of my car. And every time I, you know, get a water bottle and want to drink, I just toss it, you know, toss it behind me. If you're not, if you're not saying to yourself you're. The mess in your car is keeping you back from, or holding you back from greatness, that thing is holding power over you. So you have to recognize the weakness in your life first and, and admit it to yourself. I would say the next step and, and this is literally the steps in our, in our recovery.

I'm guessing there's a direct correlation. That's why I wanted you to go through this.

Exactly. Is to, is once you've admitted it to yourself, you have to find the right person in your life that you can admit it to. So find some type of support or accountability. Now that's going to be dependent upon the situation that you're dealing with. But you know who that person needs to be. Oftentimes it's got to be the person that understands the issue. So for men, pornography addiction. Find an olderly man that has probably had these struggles in his life before. Could be your uncle, it could be a pastor, it could be a mentor, coach, therapist. But it's got to be done in the right type of setting because you have to find a place that you can have the real open, honest conversation. Because I truly, truly believe, Andy, and this is based on three and a half years of in the trenches work and many, many conversations in the science world around telling the truth. Our transformation is going to be deeply founded in truthful and honest speech. We have to be open, honest and truthful in everything it is that we're doing. So admit it to yourself, have that conversation that this thing is holding you back, and then find that right person in your life. They can begin to open up to and process these things and find a pathway out of it. Now the pathway out of it, depending upon the situation, may look like joining a program, finding a men's group, you know, finding a book, joining a course, getting mentor, whatever it is. But find the right person to process that together. Because what is it Albert Einstein said you can't change a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. Right? So if there's a problem in your life that you've been trying to process and figure out yourself, you need an external set of, of eyeballs. Like, because you're only looking at it through your perspective, you need somebody else's lens on this. So get that outside perspective, process this issue together, get the issue moving forward, and then listen to the first half of this conversation that we had on keeping the promises that you make to yourself. Begin to feel the things that, you know, you need to do every single day.

Yeah, I think the key, what I heard is, and it's probably what so many are afraid to do is whatever is holding you back, that, that personal trauma, if we want to call it, you got to talk to somebody first.

Yeah.

You have to almost verbalize it publicly to somebody.

Yeah.

To, to start. And so many people just don't do that. They keep this secret or this, this frustration or the struggle hidden until it boils over. You know, it's funny. I'll share this on, on, in public, Frank. You know, my whole business is built on communication, the power of it. And one of the things I struggle with is I've been a horrible communicator at times with Amy, my girlfriend. And that has led to some of our biggest challenges personally, because it's, I find it ironic my whole business is built on being clear communicator. And then sometimes I struggle with it personally and it's something I didn't, I wasn't willing to acknowledge for the longest time. And what you just said there, I mean, is so true. You've gotta, you've gotta acknowledge you got the problem and then seek somebody who can provide that accountability and assistance.

Yeah. And I think you're, you know, you're not unique in that. Right. You know, oftentimes the thing that we help people with, you know, if we're in kind of a coaching, service based business, is oftentimes the things that we struggle with the most. That's why we've become the expert, because we've had to figure these things out in our own life. So once again, it's like you need that external perspective. But I'm sure you've had this man, like, you know, when you begin to talk, like you process and you think differently through the spoken word. Otherwise just, you know, bottled up in your head. You're like, I have this amazing thing going on in my head. The minute you start to talk about it, it's like more difficult to get out. So oftentimes just that communication of talking through it helps you process and figure things out to a higher degree as well. So yeah, there's so much power in this.

Well, and what I love about that is I think about, you know, so few people. It's Amy and I talk about this a lot. Like, as you get Older the number of close friends, I think shrinks. And I think one of the reasons that happens is, is it's hard. It gets harder over time to find people you can have deep conversations with. And it makes me think about when you're addressing something that is impacting your life personally on the inside, it's hard for some people, it's hard to have that deep conversation. And I think about, like, events in our insurance industry, quite frankly, they're full of mostly shallow bullshit conversations. They really are. And very few people are willing to have that deep conversation of how they're feeling and what's going on, because that show, that vulnerability could be a dent to their credibility. But that's what I gotta believe in your, Your work, Frank, because you work with men mainly. That's got to be a big issue. Are men willing. Because I think women are better at this. Are men willing to get vulnerable to admit it's something's going on?

Yeah, well, I mean, oftentimes by the time that they're with me, that's it, right? Is they've avoided this vulnerability for so long that it's blown up in front of them. You know, either the wife is presenting them with divorce papers, it's kind of this do or die moment, or they got fired from work or whatever the case may be. So something has happened in their life that's triggered them to realize, like, hey, I got to start talking about these things. You know what's interesting though, Andy, is I think that the world believes that people don't want to have the open, vulnerable conversations. And that keeps most people from starting them. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but this has been really my experience for the last three and a half years, is if you're the one that opens it up, the acceptance and willingness for that person to have that conversation with you, like, shoots through the roof. It's all almost like if you're the one that would be willing to take the first step, like the love that you get in acceptance from that other person because they've been looking for that for so long. We may think that we won't want to talk about these things, but all of us deep down in our heart, know that we're looking for somebody that can hear us. Every person wants to be heard. Every person wants to be felt like they're understood now. They're. They. They don't do it for whatever fear, trauma, judgment issues, insecurities, or what this person going to think about me. But at their core, of their being is they want to be heard and they want to be understood. So I think what will happen is if anybody, you know, walks away from this and. And begins to explore this in their own life, is. It's going to be difficult to open it up first. But the minute you find that right person, that's like, God, Andy, I've been looking for you my entire life. Like, I've been meaning to have this conversation. The connection that you create with that person now is, like, at such a deep, deep level.

Level.

So I would encourage anybody that's hearing this, like, take the first step.

Yeah. No, I. As somebody who has had to get extremely vulnerable at parts of my life, I'm giving permission. Anybody listening in. You will be blown away the moment you just kind of let it out who comes into your life or how they show up in your life in the most positive ways possible. And. And honestly, you find out who really who. Who you can trust and who you can't and who's your friend and who is not. And. But there's nothing more powerful than just willing to kind of let the ego sit to the side for a second and admit you're not perfect.

Yeah. How long have you been. How long you've been doing this podcast, Andy?

We are. You are. We're gonna be. We're coming up on episode 250.

Okay. So you've been at it for. You've been at it for a while. And have you seen these conversations and the other conversations, like, on the guesting side of things, transform you?

Like, for me, absolutely.

One of the biggest takeaways from this. It's amazing. We get an audience and, you know, we get to make some money and all do all these things. But really, the podcast for the last four years has kind of served as my own, like, therapeutic journey. I shared this in our. It was our January 1 episode, so the first episode that released in January of 2022. And it was five five ways to make 2022the best year of your life. And I wanted to add things that were going to be new to people. And I'd already been running the podcast for two and a half years at this point and saw the power of having deep, meaningful conversations in my life. I gave a tip back in2022. I don't know how many people actually took me up on it that at least once a week.