79. Michael Dash: Chasing The High, A Story of Addiction and Triumph

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Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Nuri. Each week I sit down with abundant thinkers who are kicking ass in life, and we deconstruct the formulas they have used to have success in business and in life, to help you unpack your life, your business, so you can do the same. So put a smile on, grab a pen and a paper, get ready to take a ton of notes, because you, my friend, are to go on a wild ride. Here we go. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. I am excited this week to sit down with Michael G. Dash. Who is Michael G. Dash, you ask? Well, you are about to learn. Michael and I met in the fast foundations that we participated in last year. Michael is the founder of MD Mentoring and Coaching. He's also the author of an outstanding book called Chasing the High. I'm gonna put the link in the show notes, so make sure you grab a copy of that today. And he's currently living out his days down in Tulum, Mexico. In fact, when we recorded this episode, it was one day prior to a Category 4 hurricane making landfall, and Michael had only been living there for about a week or two. So welcome to Mexico. Well, this episode is really fun because Michael's life has been about addiction. That's why he wrote the book Chasing the High. Early on, Michael came from an entrepreneurial family out east on the East Coast, New York, New Jersey. And he grew up with family members who constantly were striving for more, for earning more, getting more, getting that addiction for more. And that led Michael on an interesting journey through life, let alone not only with gambling addiction.

Maybe you could even call it, say, alcohol and drug addiction. And he was constantly chasing the next high. He was constantly focusing on accumulating. And this led him down a path of unhappiness, lack of fulfillment. And though his financial score said he was winning, definitely inside, Michael knew something was wrong until he hit rock bottom and found himself spending a little time behind bars. And this led him on a different path. It led him on a path of instead of trying to accumulate wealth, accumulating the competitive advantage on everybody else, Michael made the rest of his life about accumulating happiness. And that's what he's focused on today. That's what MD Mentoring and coaching is about. And so I really wanted to have Michael on the podcast just to talk about his entrepreneurial journey and the mindset that he has applied through addictions, lawsuits, and honestly, his journey to the edge and back. Because Michael is living a much different life these days. And I'm excited to call him a colleague, a friend, and I'm super excited for where the rest of his life is about to take him. So dive into this episode. Grab a piece of paper, grab a pen, take some notes. Michael's going to share one hell of a story with you. And I think it's going to help you realize that, you know what, we all have addictions in some way, shape or form, but it's how we overcome them and it's how we put a different spin on the perspective in our life that makes all the difference. So here we go.

Shift your mindset.

All right, Michael G. Dash, welcome aboard. How you doing, my man?

I am awesome. How are you?

This is going to be a fun episode if you are listening in. Why? Because literally the day we're recording this, Michael has got a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on his ass. And this is a new experience for Michael. So hopefully we can get this done in time, but we're going to have fun with this. So, Michael, we're going to get into a lot of details of your story of your journey all the way up to what you are doing right now. As most or many know, you're the founder of MD mentoring and coaching and we'll get into that. But for those that have no clue clue who Michael Dash is, why don't we level set and start there. Tell us a little bit about your story.

Sure. Thanks for having me. Of course. Bullpen sessions. I always want to be an athlete. This is the closest I'm getting. Okay. So.

I grew up the son of an entrepreneur on the east Coast. So kind of from an early age, I always thought in my mind, because I wanted to be like my dad, that I would be an entrepreneur. I just didn't know what it was or where it would be. And you know, during those years of growing up, I was attracted to gambling. My uncle introduced me to gambling when I was 11 years old. Thank you, Uncle Joel. And that introduction started a 20 year gambling addiction. I was always chasing something even from a young age. And it had to do with like that high or that feeling you got of adrenaline pumping through your blood. And also it had to do with money. So I was always focused on like accumulating money, whether it's through working or whether it's through like non legal matters or what, whether it was through entrepreneurship. Like I believed from media, from how I grew up with my parents, from friends, that happiness meant being rich. Happiness meant having a company and being the boss. Happiness would come if I had the Car had the house, had the promotions, and then the women would come, and then the adulation would come and then everybody would respect me and knew who I was. And it was all being driven by my ego. And so throughout all growing up and into college and all of that, with my addictions and everything else, it was all being driven by my ego of wanting to be the man. What I came up with this definition of what the man was. And it was all about accumulating things that actually in the big scheme of things, mean absolutely nothing in life. But at that time, I convinced myself that in order to be established and to be looked up to and respected and to be successful, like, I needed all those things which I thought were happiness. But eventually when I had them all, I was miserable. I was not happy whatsoever.

Before we get there, let's, let's go into that because as far as accumulating some money, accumulating the stuff, you know, everything that in your eyes showed you were successful, you were pretty good at it. And talk about early on, because you've had, you had, you had, you were a business owner that accumulated of a growing company that was making money. But I feel like early on, and correct me if I'm wrong, you realize that it does not bring happiness.

Yeah, I wouldn't say early on. I would say it took me a little while. You know, I'm one of those people who has to really learn the lesson a second time before it clicks in a first time. And, you know, throughout life, I, you know, I'll just, I'll pivot. To answer your question to the entrepreneur world, I was. After I graduated, my actual. My first foray into entrepreneurship was in college. And it was, it just wasn't what I thought it would be. I was going door to door selling home improvements. I was always a hustler. I was selling, you know, window siding, roofing decks. And I went to the University of Maryland. So I was doing this in D.C. and Baltimore, which at the time, and still some of the areas now are some of the worst areas in the country from like, Baltimore was a murder capital of the world at the time. So I was in some really downtrodden areas, you know, walking around with a freaking vinyl window, knocking on doors, like, how out of place could you be? But I was doing that. But my real first foray into entrepreneurship was as a bookie and a drug dealer in college. And, you know, I was making bets and gambling for years. But then I realized, like, hey, why make bets when I can take bets? The bookies are always winning. So why don't I just become a bookie? So that's what I did. And then when I went to college, I started experimenting a lot with drugs. And my roommate got shot with a.357 Magnum by his ex girlfriend and it blew out his tricep. Sorry for the gory details, but when I came back from spring break, like the room was full of pills and drugs that he was taking because he got shot and everything. And he got me starting to try all these different things. And that's when I really started experimenting with drugs. And again, being that having that entrepreneurship bug, I saw opportunity to sell drugs. So I started selling the drugs and doing the booking. And that was kind of my first foray into entrepreneurship. But I graduated. After I graduated college, I was in New York City selling sports advertising to companies that were advertising in game day football and basketball publications for 500 universities around the country. So I was doing that and that was high paced. All the guys gambled, all the people I worked with gambled there. So it was exacerbating my addiction. And they all did drugs and partied. So I was in like that kind of, even out of college, I was in that mindset and, you know, kind of lived that lifestyle in New York City for the next decade.

I moved industries, I went into staffing and.

Recruiting and so I was in that mode, But I was servicing the financial services industry. All these guys party like on the weekends. They just wanted to do coke and go to clubs every weekend. And I kind of fell into that trap. And they gambled all the time too. So I was in that world all throughout my 20s. That takes us to our early 30s in New York City doing all of reckless behavior.

You know, I hope I answered or asked this question the right way. Because when you, when you hear the word addiction, right, you immediately think of a negative connotation. Because people talk about being addicted to alcohol, addicted to drugs, addicted to sex, whatever that is, was there actually when it came to business, albeit you weren't always in the most legal businesses. But if I were to make a guess, you have an addictive behavior, Was having the addictive behavior actually, did it actually have a positive impact in being a successful entrepreneur despite the industries you were associated with?

I mean, I don't think so, not in the way that I deem it. Because.

If I didn't have any of the other addictions that came along with it, then maybe I would look at it differently. But you know, I feel like obsessive behavior to the degree of addiction is unhealthy in any manner. And it doesn't. And it's not sustainable, right? If you take the word addiction out and you just say, wow, he's got an unhealthy passion for building business. Like, it's.

Really detrimental to your life, to your growth, to your sanity, to your health, to your wealth. I'm not talking about money. To your, like, physical wealth. To spend a lopsided amount of time focused on one specific thing, right.

Without having the counterbalances of, you know, your physical and mental health. Those are the most important things. As a business owner especially, but as an employee too, you know, if you're not taking care of yourself physically and emotionally on a daily basis, then it's gonna catch up to you in some aspect of your life and you're gonna end up being unbalanced, an unbalanced person.

I always like to use the phrase, you have to be at your best to bring your best, right? And I think you can cover up and hide not being your best for only so long. To your point, and it may look like you're having success in business because of your numbers, your bottom line, the cars you drive, whatever. But to your point, if you're not taking care of yourself both physically and mentally, it will catch up some point.

Yeah, 100%. And too many people go into this like this, this laser focus, which is detrimental. Like most people talk about, you want to build a successful business, you got to be laser focused. But if you take the flip side of that, okay, what are you not focusing on because you're so laser focused, that is detrimental to your well being. Like, you have to incorporate that into your life because the business will break down when you break down. If you're building it without those things, without those key components of fulfillment and those can go into. For me, they fall into buckets. Like, I believe fulfillment is made up of all these buckets. And I try to fill half of film halfway on a weekly basis, then I have like, fulfillment, right? Because they're all filled to a certain extent. So I've gotten a little bit on my. On the mental health area. I've got. So by listening to podcasts or by reading, I've gotten a little bit on the physical health by working out, by eating right, right. I've gotten community by networking with entrepreneurs in my community or by going to events. You know, I've gotten nature by going on hikes and by not turning the radio off and just being in nature and climbing mountains or whatever it might be. But Having multiple of those things in your life on a weekly basis to balance out the super laser focus on building your business in the matter we're talking about. Like, those all have to be present in your life if you want it to be sustainable.

I love that image you just drew because I almost envisioned like these buckets, four or five, six different buckets sitting on this teeter totter, right. And if you're not making deposits equally across all five, six buckets, and you're constantly just depositing into the one bucket, let's call it work, eventually the teeter totter is going to tip and the other four or five are going to come crashing. And I think a great example, Michael, of that is Steve Jobs, right? Everybody considers him one of the greatest business leaders of all time. But if you actually read a story, was he truly fulfilled in every aspect of life? I would argue he was not.

I agree with you and super, super passionate about the. What he spent the majority of his life on, which you. You should be if you're gonna spend that much time on it. But, like, truly fulfilled. I feel like when you. When you look at his story, there's some. You feel some emptiness there.

Yep. I couldn't. Couldn't agree more. Quick question before we get back into your journey. I feel like when I listen to podcasts and I interview folks who are from the new. Whether it's new Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, do you think there's Jersey? Do you think there's something in the water or innate in somebody who grew up in the boroughs of New York City that has helped them achieve success in business or in life? I just feel like there's so many that we see out there today that started their life in and around New York City. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Well, my first thought would be, where do you think the best pizza and bagels are made?

It's in New Jersey and New York. And it's because of the water. It's all in the water.

Nice, Nice. Well, let's go.

But, but in reality, you know, you're born into a doggy dog eat dog world, right? Dog eat dog.

Dog eat dog. Yep. That's absolutely dog world.

And like, it's just. It's just that's how life is there. And, you know, my father worked in the basement, so he built his business in the basement of our house. So I saw him working, like, ridiculous amount of hours. And then when he. When it was. The business was big enough for him to get his own office, I never saw him. He Just worked crazy hours. So that's all I knew.

Yep.

Like his mentality was, you're the first in and you're the last out and you outwork your competition and that's how your successful. And back then it was, that's valid and it was true. But it's not these days. Like these days it's work smarter, not harder. But I was in, in that world. I didn't live that, so I never learned that. So I just worked harder.

Yeah, I think, I think there's definitely some grit you grow up with if you grew up in that area and you're just like you said, you're ready to go after it and get after it and just simply outwork the competition. Okay, so back to your journey.

You're kind of going deeper and deeper into this addictive lifestyle. At what point did you hit that holy shit, what the hell am I doing moment? Like, was there a rock bottom in your life where you realize, okay, this cannot keep going on?

So I did. I don't have your typical rock bottom like a lot of people in addiction do. Although I hit it several times, it never registered with me. Right. So, you know, I got arrested twice. It's not something I. I mean, now I talk about it, but I didn't even include it in my book because I wasn't comfortable yet actually speaking about it. But I got arrested for a dui and I got arrested for possession of a substance called ghb, which were completely humiliating and embarrassing for me, but only to me because nobody found out about it. I bailed myself out. It never got published anywhere. I hired a high priced attorney, they pled it down. I did my 100 hours of community service while at the same time posting pictures of myself doing community service and people telling me how such a great human being I was when I was a complete scumbag for doing things like that. But I still was not in tune. That that was my rock bottom. I still was not in tune. And my ego, feeding my ego is more important to me than actually being honest and truthful.

I was just going to say that because what we're talking about today is a lot of intuition. Right. And trusting your gut. It's led you to a lot of success in more recent years. The right kind of success. If you could look back or to go back and talk to that Michael right there. Because I feel like so many people put this facade on that everything is great. Right. You're posting all this community service you're doing, but nobody knows why you actually have to do that. You're not doing it by choice. You're doing it by. By law. What would you tell that Michael in that moment today?

I would. I would tell that Michael to stop making decisions based on your emotional state. That's what I would tell him. I would tell them like, the decisions that you make in a high or low emotional state are the worst decisions you could ever make because they are. They are fueled. It's almost like getting advice from your family, right? Getting business advice from your family. The worst people who could give you business advice or your family, they're emotionally invested in you, so they're going to automatically. And for me, it was like I had this huge lawsuit for six years. And I would ask advice for my father and he would make it worse and. But I didn't know it at the time. He would just fuel my emotional state. It was already fueled. I was already up here, and he would take me up here and it would make my decisions even worse because they were fueled with emotion.

So that is the advice I would.

Give that I was going to say, coming from somebody. You're talking to myself that has been guilty in the past of seeking too many opinions and using opinions more for validation than actually helping me grow. What would you tell somebody today that out. That's out there that maybe should be just trusting their gut and instead they're going to family and friends and whoever else for opinions. What belief do you have in trusting your own gut when it comes to very important decisions in life?

I mean, there's nothing that will serve your. Serve you more in your life than following and trusting your intuition, you know, and you may refer to it as gut, and some people refer to it as their heart. And it's relatively the. You know, you can interchange these things, but intuition is a powerful force. It's an energetic field that will pull you into the direction that.

You are meant to go. It might not actually make logical sense at the time. The reason might not appear right then to you, but when you are able to tap into it and trust it and follow it, everything unveils itself at the right time and for the right reasons. And then it all makes sense.

Let's go there right now. So you hit the moment you got. You were arrested twice. No one knew about it, but you knew about it. And for you, it was the most embarrassing moment in your life, but humiliating, really. Now the journey begins. I call it the ascension. Right? The phoenix is rising.

Right?

Tell us about that part of your journey, Michael. The more recent years here where you did trust your gut, it might not seem logical at the moment, in the moment, but you trusted it and you went with it. And more times than not, it put you in a position you were happy to be in. Tell us a little bit about the Michael Dash we know maybe in the last, I don't know, three, four years.

Yeah. So it started by doing exactly that and following my intuition that took me on a trip to Bali. I had never been to Bali before and Bali was.

Something that in the back of my mind I always wanted to go there. I had funny thing like in Utah. I lived in Utah for 12 years. It's where I built my business. One of the things I always dreamed about is having a koi pond in my backyard. And so when the business was successful, I, you know, bought my house and then I built the koi pond in the backyard. And the koi like represented like this Balinese like thing for me. And I always wanted to go to Bali. So it was like I was part of this awesome entrepreneur group. And somebody just posted like, hey, there's a retreat being hosted in Bali. If anybody's interested, follow this link. And I was just like, holy shit, this is my calling, you know, like I'm supposed to be on this trip. And I said, I don't even care what this retreats about, I'm going to Bali. And I called and I applied and they accepted me and I went to Bali. And this was three and a half years ago at the time, just to set the set where I was, I was, I just bought, I bought my business partner out of the business that we built together. It was doing about 5mil in revenue a year. We got into a lawsuit right after I bought it because she violated the agreement. So, and this is five years later. So I'm in a five year lawsuit at the time, running a business at this point that is running me. And I hated the business. I came to hate the very business I built. I resented it, I resented my employees, I resented everything. And my ego was out of control. And I owned the bar also. I own piece of a bar. I was partying, I went on this retreat and there were two people that were talking about flow. Living in a state of flow by following your intuition, making decisions, by listening to your intuition, not by listening to your conscious mindset. Because your conscious mind, or at least my conscious mindset, continues to get me in trouble time after time after time when I would actually think about the solution versus just following what my gut or intuition told me I would make the wrong decision. It would not land me in the place I wanted to be. So they started explaining how their lives were good before, but they're at an elevated state now. They quit their corporate jobs. They were talking about being able to manifest your future, about all these synchronicities that were all around them. And, like, as you stated before, and as you can tell through this conversation, I mean, I'm an East coast dude, right? Regardless of where I am in the world, there will always be a part of me that the east coast that I'll always hold on to and will never give up. And I love it so much. And, like, my thoughts are like, this is bullshit, right? Synchronicity manifestation. I'm like, listen, if you work hard, good shit happens to you. I'm like, some of these things you're describing, it's called coincidence. Shit happens in life, okay? It's not some, like, synchronicity bullshit. And so I resisted it. Hard. But I agreed to meet with them after the session because I raised my hand in the session. I called bullshit, and everybody thought I was a jerk. And that's fine. You know, I've gone through life like that a lot. Eventually they come over and they realize I'm amazing. But it's a process. It's fine. So, you know, after sat with them for an hour and I was explaining all the pain I was in, this and that, they told me about their online course. It was twelve hundred dollars, and I didn't believe in these courses, but I thought one sentence when I flew back from Bali to Salt Lake City. And I kept saying it to myself over and over again, and it was simply, would it be so bad to live a different way? Would it be so bad to live a different way? And that thought was so uplifting, I actually started to physically feel lighter. And I knew my answer right there. So I took their course, spent the 1200 bucks, and the course changed the trajectory of my life. We went through this whole process of clearing out your limiting beliefs through journaling, tapping an emdr. And these are things that I didn't believe in. I thought they were weird as shit. And I still think they're weird as shit. But I just promised I wouldn't judge them and I would just do them. So I don't know if you're familiar with tapping and with emdr. So then, you know, you're tapping different body parts, and it's rapid eye movement where you're moving your eyes back and forth while you're tapping, releasing limiting beliefs. So one Would be that change is difficult. Most people believe change is difficult in life, so it is a limiting belief of theirs. But it's really very easy. You just make a commitment to yourself starting tomorrow that you're going to change one thing, Wake up the same day, make the same commitment the next day, and just continue to do that. And you can see a change in your life. And you start small, and then you incorporate something else, and then you're able to make multiple changes. You don't try to change everything. Day one, it's not sustainable. It won't last. You have to build momentum, and you do that by making small and slight adjustments. And then once you're in it for two or three weeks, make another one, and then you can start building momentum and then make bigger changes in your life. So that's really what I did. And by releasing my ego, by releasing judgment, by learning from other experts, and by incorporating what worked for me, I was able to shift my mentality and fully make decisions effortlessly by living in a state of flow, which has actually landed me now in a new country, Living in tulum, mexico, where I never thought about it one day. I never thought I would do it for one day. I never looked into doing it. I followed my intuitive guide. It landed me here. And all the things I moved from utah to California for community, spirituality, all these things that I moved to cali to find, I moved to venice to find. I actually found in tulum and never found in venice.

That's awesome. So here we are. It's 2020. Obviously it's been a strange year, but your journey for the last couple years has been pretty magical. Of consistently living in that state of flow, trusting your intu. If somebody remembers Michael Dash 20 years ago but hasn't seen you in 20 years, how would you describe Michael Dash 2020?

That I am a person who's gone through many trials and many tribulations, and because of that, I have earned stripes. And it is what you do with those stripes to help others not go through the same pain that you've been through so they can hack the pain in half. He's still gonna have to go through some of it. You know, we're still our worst enemies ourselves.

But that I am a person that believes in giving back to others and supporting others, Whether it's on a large scale or a small scale. Learn from my mistakes. Like, that's what I believe. You don't need to make the same mistakes I do.

Yep.

And don't be afraid to reach out for help for Support to ask. Because for so long, I was too embarrassed, humiliated. I didn't want people to. I didn't want to show weakness, especially as a man. Right. Because as men were brought up not to show weakness. It's all bullshit, though. We go through the same thing women's go through for the majority. Most of the time. We have the same emotions. We just don't talk about them like women do.

Absolutely right. We feel like we have to be unflappable. I think there's still far too many men out there that are afraid to show any kind of vulnerability.

Yeah. And it all comes down to our ego. So when I was able to check my ego, I was able to help more people, but more by helping other people, I'm helping myself. That's what I'm doing.

Mic drop. I hope everybody heard that by helping more people, you are helping yourself. That is such a. Such an awesome segue, because I want to dive into some things you're working on right now. Michael, both recent and current, you are an author of an amazing book, Chasing the High. If you do not have a copy of this book, go get it right now. It obviously talks about your journey that we've been chatting about. Quickly, tell me, I'm interested. Why the title Chasing the High? What does that mean to you?

Oh, I mean, it's been my whole life, I've just been chasing one high after another high. Like when I in business, for instance, when I would close. I don't know if there's any. I know you deal with salespeople, whether they're in financial or real estate or whatever. But, like, from a sales perspective, every time I close the sale, it would feel like snorting a line of cocaine.

That's what it would do for me.

And so, like, I was addicted. So when I say Chasing the High, it wasn't just a cocaine high or marijuana high or a gambling high or an oxycontin high or all the highs in my life, GHBI or whatever, it was a high. In business, that business high was just as strong as those other highs, if not more, because I could really feel it. Right. I wasn't on something. I wasn't. Like, my body wasn't in altered state. So I was always chasing the high. From when I was 8 years old, working for my dad in that retail store, selling some woman a piece of crystal. I had no idea what I was doing. But selling that piece of crystal, before I ever did a drug, it fueled me like a drug fueled me. So I was always chasing that I wanted to duplicate the sale high. I wanted to duplicate the drug high. I wanted to duplicate the accomplishment high, the endorsed. I wanted to duplicate the social media post high. That got 150 comments. Because, oh, my God, I was so. I was a popular kid in school again. Yay. You know, but it would fill that endorphin high. And, like, I have this. If anybody's watching the video, you know, and I have this picture back, back of me where I climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This is me on the top of Kilimanjaro. That was a high. I ran four marathons. Those were all highs. Crossing that finish line, I mean, I was, like, beating the hell out of myself. I was exhausted. I couldn't breathe. But I was a high. It was a runner's high. So I was always cheap. And then I raised a lot of money when I ran those marathons and climb this. This mountain here, Kilimanjaro. It was all through leukemia lymphoma society. So I was raising money while I was doing this. So even when I was raising money, right, every time I raised another hundred, another 500 came in, another thousand came in. I would get this high.

So I was chasing it in every freaking area of my life. And even with dating through, you know, the same thing.

What is chasing the high mean to you today?

Is it any different? Have a different meaning for you?

It has a different meaning because I don't do drugs. I mean, I still partake in marijuana, but besides that, I'm not a drug, you know, on any drugs. So on any substances.

I would say it means something to me because it's my book and it's my baby. And every time I get somebody to even download an audible so they can listen to my book. Excuse me. There's a little bit of a high there, but it's not like it was before. The.

Geez, oh, I'm really sorry. Excuse me again. I get very passionate. The acid reflux sometimes creeps back up. Damn acid reflux. But I will say that I really enjoy helping people. And so when I am able to speak something from my experience to another entrepreneur who's hearing it from the first time, and it really resonates with them, and they're like.

Wow.

Yep, wow. I just had a revelation, and I'm going to take that and I'm going to incorporate it into what I'm struggling with, you know, that is really what fulfills me now. That's kind of what that high is all about now.

That's a. That's a high I love chasing, you know that the high of helping change somebody else's life, that's an endorphin. I love, I love, I love to get inside my body as well.

Yeah, totally. And even like when I'm giving out food to the needy, just like seeing the smile on somebody's face because I handed him some, you know, fresh food or something like that does it for me. That definitely does it for me. Now don't get me wrong, okay, I still, and I've discovered this over the past two since I sold my business over the past year and a half, two years, excuse me, two plus years that I do miss certain aspects of business and closing business and closing sales, I miss. So I'm doing other things to get that fill.

Understood. Understood. So let's wrap up with that. You've got MD mentoring and coaching. Let's talk a little bit about that quickly. And also you have an awesome retreat coming up in Costa Rica next year slated for April of 2021. Tell us a little bit about the coaching, the mentoring, what you're doing. And again, let's talk about that retreat too.

Absolutely. So I work with CEOs basically with leaders within their organization and then with other business leaders who might be, you know, just running a division for corporate america that's got 300 people or something. But high end up high. Like people who have a ton of responsibilities going on at the same time because that's who I relate to the most because that's what I lived and I was out of control just checking tasks off I was working on. Excuse me, I was working in the business, I wasn't working on the business. And that's what most entrepreneurs are doing these days. So I now have a different perspective where I can help entrepreneurs pull them out of that day to day and work on the business. Look at the org structure to make sure that it's scalable. Then look at the people that we have in place to make sure are they handling and are they the right skill set for what their responsibilities are. Assure that everybody is staying in their lanes and not veering off into different departments that are not their responsibilities responsibilities and are not going to move the needle and make sure that the communication processes are in place across division lines and that the right platforms are being used for the right reasons. So I kind of dissect all of that from a macro perspective and then I start to start pinpointing things in the company that need to be changed or I advise on what needs to be changed in Order to keep everybody in their lanes and to make sure we're scalable. The whole idea is you want to duplicate processes and you want to automate where you can automate, duplicate. And that's what we want to do so that we can scale up companies and really make sure you have the right people in the right lanes. And just because somebody's worked for you for five years doesn't mean they should still be working for you. You have to make tough decisions as a business owner. And until you're able to do that, you're not going to move the needle the way you want to.

Great, great, great way to finish up. Let's wrap up with this retreat. You know something I think Amy and I are very interested in, it's going to be coming up next year. Plan for April 2021, God willing, Covid willing. Tell us a little bit about that retreat. Who's it for? What are you guys going to be doing? It sounds like an awesome, awesome experience.

Yeah, thank you for that. So amongst the other things that I do, I have a nonprofit called Activated Life. So if you want to go online and check it out, it's Activated that Life. So I'm the co founder, the founders, Parveen Pan War, my good friend. We started the activated movement based on five principles called a paper principle. Paper principle, right, and it's spelled paper. P A, P, E R. One is being positive. Every day you wake up having a positive outlook on life. The A stands for being authentic to who you are, not changing for anybody. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks for you. The second P is about passion, being passionate about whatever you do every single day. The E stands for empathetic. Being empathetic to others, whether they're your employer, employees, or somebody panhandling on the street. Show empathy, you know, while you're coaching them. And R is about resilience. And we're going to get knocked down in life. It is a reality. It is not about the fact that you got knocked down. It is how many times you get back up and keep moving forward. So those five principles, we are really what activated is all about. But we really focused on mental health within the entrepreneur community and mental health within the. You don't have to be an entrepreneur per se, but within the leadership community. Because we got a lot of different things going on on our day to day and we have to make sure mentally that we are at peak performance if we're going to be the best that we can. So the retreat will consist of a variety of fun activities and some workshops. So things like breath work. Right. Parveen is a master at breath work and at cold plun. He has trained his body to heal. He has healed himself from various injuries through the cold. This guy goes to New York city when it's 35 degrees and wears a T shirt and he's walking around and everybody's offering him a coat and he's like, I don't need a coat. I'm not cold. And people don't believe it. So he'll teach some workshops with regards to that. We'll have yoga. It's all plant based. So the chef there is 40% blind and 50% deaf. And he healed himself. He had this tumor. He healed himself through Eastern medicine and food. And he's one of the top rank, top rated chefs in all of Costa Rica. So we'll have those. We'll have some workshops on alignment. So are we truly aligned with our mission and our goals and our daily activities, showing that we're actually aligned with what we're trying to accomplish? We'll take some hikes to private waterfalls where we'll have picnics. We'll learn from the indigenous Costa Ricans about how to make different woodworking ceremonies. We'll have some cacao ceremonies, some fire. Some fire experiences where we'll be around a fire and sharing stories and stuff. It's gonna be next level. The space is at Imoloa Institute. You can Google it if you're writing this down. And the space is amazing. They have these domes you can stay in that are. That are filled with glass and you can see monkeys jumping around the forest and stuff. It's. It's just gonna be next level. It's gonna be amazing. And there's gonna be 30amazing entrepreneurs and game changers. And, you know, we can include the. The link in, in the notes.

Absolutely. So. And if they wanted to go there right now, it's activated.life.

Activated life is our website. Imoloa Institute is where the retreat readers on. Yeah, you could find it in either place.

Awesome. Let's finish here. Something I know I've struggled with, Michael, is intuition. I remember it hasn't been that long since I remember telling Amy, I don't even know what it means to trust my gut because I feel like when I do, I make the wrong decisions. You kind of described me. So that person out there right now who is trying to listen to their intuition or trust their gut, whatever you want to call it, and is like, what does that even mean? Do you have a Simple, clear explanation of trusting of what trusting your intuition means.

Yeah, don't think about it, just do it. So if you're in, like when you say, I have a gut feeling I should do this, then. Then you shouldn't even say that to yourself. You should just be doing.

You should already be doing it.

You should already be doing that.

Right.

So I think that's the simplest way to.

When people try so hard to work to like to say they're trusting their intuition, but they're deliberating over a decision. You already failed.

You already failed.

Yeah, I shouldn't say. I shouldn't say you failed. I don't think you failed. Right. I don't like to use that terminology, but like, you already know you're not trusting your intuition if you're questioning it. You know, you have to start with a. Releasing the limiting beliefs you have. You have to put your trust, your faith, your intuition in the energy of the world. Right. It's the old like what you put out is what you get back mentality. So you have to do it time over time over time. And then things will start coming back to you. You'll get the juju. If you give the good juju out, you get the good juju back.

That's a great way to finish.

Yeah. Don't think about it, just let it. Just do it.

Yep. Just take action. Quit contemplating, quit pondering, just take action. If whatever your guts telling you, go do it and. And it'll lead you in the right direction. So that's awesome. Michael, last but not least, somebody wants to reach out to you. What is the best way to get a hold of you?

Sure, I'm on all the social media channels you could find, you know, obviously On Facebook, on LinkedIn, I'm mdash1. Excuse me. On Instagram, I'm mdash1. And on LinkedIn it's michael dot dash1. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook or you know, any of those. My website is www.michaelg-calm and then you can find the book on Audible or Amazon.

And again that the book is titled Chasing the Highs. So go get yourself a copy today or download the Audible right now. Well, Michael, I want to thank you. I think this has been an awesome episode for anybody out there who is finding that they don't feel like they make good decisions in life and a lot of us have not made good decisions in life. But having that ability to trust your gut and knowing that it's always got your best interest in mind and just going and living in that state of flow as you described. And just when your gut speaks to you, listen and take immediate action. I love that man. And last but not least, I wish you safety, my friend. We've got Hurricane Delta bearing down on Tulum and the whole Yucatan Peninsula. So by the time this airs, it will already have passed through. But again, be safe, man.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

And again, for those listening out there, you know what happens when clarity and confidence collide. Action happens. Go make it happen today.

Hey, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. If you're finding bullpen sessions to be valuable to your business and your life, do me a favor, please go to Apple, please subscribe, give it a five star rating. And if you have anybody else in your life, whether it's in your personal tribe or in your business, that could also be impacted by listening to these episodes, do me a favor, share the bullpen sessions with them. I'd be extremely grateful. And until next time, go out, make it happen today. Put a smile on your face and have some.