Michael Noicos - Unleashing the Power of Consistent Effort

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today we are joined by Michael Neukas. Thank you so much for coming the show, Michael.

No worries. Thanks for having me, Casey.

So you came here, you're from Australia. We're currently in Los Angeles. How long have you been in the States so far?

So I've been in the States for about two weeks now and I've still got another two or three weeks to go just exploring something new. Haven't been here for about since I was 10 years old, so yeah.

Very cool. Yeah. So born and raised in Australia.

Correct.

You've been in the online, social media, digital marketing world for quite some time now. For people that may not know and may not be familiar with you and your story, talk us through at a high level, like where you spend your time business wise before we really dive in.

Yes. So business wise and I will definitely talk about this later as well. A lot of my time is really just spent, I'd say, managing a team. Because when you start a business just as a sole person. Well, my primary company right now that I run, it's myself and a business partner. When you start out, we, we bootstrapped it. So it's everything. You need to learn all the skills. You need to learn how to do marketing, you need to learn how to do sales, you need to learn how to do operations, you need to learn how to do finances, you need to learn how to do human resources, work with contractors, manage your bank account. I mean, holistic goes on and on and on. Right. Yeah. So when you start out, it's really just about learning all these skills just so you can understand how to actually have a business that really is positive in cash flow. Especially if you're bootstrapping. It doesn't really work if you start up a business burning money every single week. Right. So yeah, it's really about just starting, you know, when you get started, just to make sure you have that jack of all trades kind of skill set. But then I guess the wonderful thing about once you do actually start a business and get it to the stage where it's more passive, if you want to use that terminology, you can actually start to hire people to delegate off different tasks. So you can actually, as a business owner, a founder, CEO, whatever you'd like to call yourself, you can then actually work more on the business rather than. Yeah. In the business. And a lot of that is really just about human communication at the end of the day. Yeah. To people that have an appropriate skill set for what you need them to do within your Company.

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's so great. I mean people, especially when I started my entrepreneurial career, right. It's, you know, it's quite, I like to say it's kind of the opposite of what is glorified in social media. Especially like the passive income. Like everything is, there's going to be an active portion of it. Of course, there's so many different areas of where you can spend time and, and generate income. But you know, it's like being an entrepreneur, you to not only be a jack of all trades, but in the earliest phases of what you're doing, you got to do everything. You got to do marketing, you to do sales, you got to hire, you got to, if you're raising capital, you got to be CEO. That's fundraising. Yeah, it's understanding all these different elements of the business. And of course there's so much great books out there, mentors out there they can learn from. But going through that process yourself, as you're saying, it's, you got to go through it. So where did this entrepreneurial journey begin for you? You're born and raised in Australia. You come from like an entrepreneurial family or.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. So actually initially I went to school and just, you know, normal high school and I was really good at just math and physics and all of those really nerdy school topics, if you want to call it that. So I was a real big math geek. Like I was a kid that would finish work early in class. Like you'd have an hour long class, 10 minutes, I've done everything. And I go to the teacher and I'll say, I'm done. What now? And he says, oh, I don't know, that's it for today. So I'd end up like going around literally. It's quite funny helping the other kids with their work because to me just numbers and math and all of that nerdy stuff, it was, it just came real natural to me. So naturally I thought, okay, well I know when I'm a bit older I'll need to make money. How do I do that?

Where did that thought come from? Right, like you're in high school, you're like, oh, I got, obviously I gotta, gotta make money. Business or going to find a job. Like were you in the environment of, in a family environment that was like, hey, careers, prioritize and held at a high degree or what did that look like?

Yeah, certainly. So it's actually interesting. So my father owned a real estate company in Australia, so that was Commission only. So performance driven. And it's interesting because I, I guess I probably would have started a business from when I was 17 or 18 or maybe taken over my dad's. But it's interesting because I was very shy when I was in high school, which isn't surprising when you're a bit of a math nurse. So yeah, I was quite shy when I was in high school. So I never ever thought I would be the type of person to be a business owner. I just thought, I'll get a job, I'll work my way up the ranks, I'll just 9 to 5 job, you know, and find some form of engineering firm because that's a degree I had.

And.

Yeah, but things definitely took a change. So when I was 18, it was my first year of university and one of my friends was just showing me around something to do with like drop shipping back this is 10 years ago now. This is when drop shipping was the big hot thing. And he was, I, I, in fact I remember it, he drove up to my house and he pulled up and he said, oh, come outside. And I come outside and there's this big flash need, like BMW out there. And I'm going, his car is this. And then my friend stepped out and I was like, what's, what's this? Like you were driving a 200 like bucket of, bucket of bolts before, like, what's going on here? Right. And he said, I need to show you this thing. So it was, it was drop shipping. He showed me how he was selling. I can't remember what it was. But then, yeah, long story short, after that I went, hang on, you're making like more money in one week than I would make in one month once I finished this degree in about five years. Am I doing the right thing here, like continuing my engineering degree or should I maybe look at this online money thing? Because to me at least then it was quite new.

Years ago he said, right, yeah, 10 years ago, in a sense. Sorry, 2013.

Yeah, around 2013. Yeah. So I was just thinking, I've never even heard, I didn't know you can make money online because 10 years ago. Yeah, I mean smartphones are pretty much brand new almost. I mean if you think about it that way.

Yeah.

So yeah, that started my first entrepreneurial endeavor where I was selling. It was just a little shopify store. I did, you know, drop shipping Alibaba. I custom ordered. My friend was a good photographer, so I like designed these little fashion bracelet thingies, got them off Alibaba for 50 cents a unit. Sold them for $40 a unit. And yeah, yeah. And after. And it was actually highly profitable. And yeah, that was my very first online business. And yeah, I was making about, I'd say $2,000 a week from that in profit at. Yeah, at university. That's true. And yeah, that was crazy. But then because it was primarily off Amazon and it was the first ever business I'd run, it was just a quick success and I'd never encountered one roadblock. Yeah. And yeah, it was rare and it was lucky, but what happened is I essentially had Amazon, like shut down my store. Right. And then because someone had put up a bad review and we dug and it turned out it was some competitor and I got all frustrated and I gave up and that was the end of it. I thought, oh, well, I made a bit of money back to engineering, and that's pretty much what I did for the next. I don't know the timeline exactly, but maybe four years or something until I actually gave online business another crack. And this was, wow.

So you dabbled down something. Drop shipping at the time you went in and you made some money, something happened, store gets shut down and you're still in school, so you sort of just put it to the side and said, all right, I'm gonna go spend my time and effort. And back in school. That was fun. Made some money. But obviously, I mean, it's. I love that too, because, I mean, you hear so many stories. It's like good or bad, and I have people finding something, either dropping out or pursuing it. Sometimes it works. And it's the Mark Zuckerberg, you know, the Mark Zuckerberg story. But most time, like 99% of startups fail, and that's challenging and that's real simple to know, like, to have that self awareness of, like what makes sense for me right now to go back. I love that because I think it's so common. You know, you hear especially on podcasts, people come in and say, oh, yeah, I found this thing, dropped out and now I'm here. It's like, no, there's normal people out there that want to try different things, that want to get a skill set or test, I like to say. And it seems like you went in there, you tested it out, you got this newfound skill and knowledge, and you went back to what you know best and what you wanted to spend time on. Is that right?

Yeah, correct. So, yeah, that was for whatever reason. Now looking back, I mean, I was a lot younger then. I might have been 19 or 20 years old. So I at least compared to now 27, that was just, I was stupid. Like I should have now going back, I would have been like, hang on, this works. It's just a small, tiny problem. I mean that tiny problem, yeah, compared to issues I faced day in, day out today running my current company. Yeah, it was just so microscopic. But you know, you live and you learn. So yeah, that was what I did for about three years. After that I just kind of kept going on, doing whatever, dabbling a little bit here and there because I knew, oh, I did make that money a while ago, didn't I should try something else. And I probably gave about, I'd say 10 different online business models of solid crack. I gave MLM a crack, although that's not online, that did not work. I wasted a lot of money. I mean, I know it works as a model, but just as I mentioned, I was quite still shy at that time. So mlm, multi level network marketing, whatever you want to call it, you need to be quite confident, you know, approaching everyone. So that wasn't really the best fit for me, I guess you could say at the time. I tried affiliate marketing, rank and renting websites, blogs, YouTube channels, things like that. And some of them, you know, they made a little bit of money. But once again, just because I was still. I wasn't truly in it to win it. I hadn't like burnt the boats, if you want to say it. So when I came across any issues, I just too hard gave up. And now obviously because I've, I'm a full time entrepreneur now, I'll never. Business owner, I would never be employed again in my life. I know that for a fact. But I guess it does take some time to get to that point because all of these other businesses I was running, small ones, you know, say maybe that make over three months of running it, maybe 10,000, 15,000 if, if you're needing to pay a mortgage and rent and car payments, groceries, all of that. Yeah, adult stuff, that's not enough in my opinion. But when you're at uni and it's just spending money or college as you call it here in America, I was like, yeah, this, this works. Yeah, I can, I can party off this. You know, this is enough for Saturday night type thing. Yeah, yeah. So that was essentially that. And then, yeah, eventually I did graduate with, you know, all the top marks from college. I had seven years worth from engineering. You're in college or seven and yeah, engineering and economics. Because I suppose I did. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was Like I do like business, but. And it just kind of all felt what you felt.

You were saying engineering. What's what in that? Not software engineering or mechanical. Mechanical, yeah, got it. I figured. What was it about engineering that, I mean, I know you said no math, Science. Yeah, as you said, the nerdy topic, but I don't think so at all. What about mechanical engineering? And I'm curious, in terms of like where you're spending time today, do you utilize anything that you've, that you learned in school or how has that degree served you in terms of where you spend your time today?

So in terms of what I did at university, at the end of the day, engineering and even like finance, economics, it's just applied problem solving. So the one thing I learned at college, which I think is you hear a lot of people say, oh, college is a waste of time, it's pointless. Like a lot of entrepreneurs go out there and say this and that and I mean they're correct to a point. From my perspective, however, I believe that once you, it depends what you, I guess, do at college. Right. Say if you're just learning, oh, about the history of English, yeah, maybe that's not going to help you in the real world. Right. But when you've got a degree, say in the professions, industry, I think you learn a lot of problem solving, how to solve problems and a lot of human interaction. Because at the end of the day, if you get paid money to do anything, it's usually unless you're scamming, which I hope no one does, it's because you're providing value to someone. Right. And you need to communicate with humans to understand what sort of value or communicate with the market in general to understand what type of value that they actually want to be given. And you can see if you can fill that void in the market, be it with a one on one service or more of a systematically constructed service, which is closer to what I do now in my current company. But yeah, I think the problem solving element is huge because you just learn. I mean, yeah, I did get pretty good at Excel spreadsheets, but no, mostly problem solving. Yeah, definitely.

It's spot on. I mean I, I didn't go to college for context. I started my first business when I was 16. Oh wow. A marketing agency doing Facebook advertising for businesses in Virginia, where I'm from, on the east coast. And I ended up not going to college. And you know, throughout the years, I'm 23 now and I look back and am I satisfied with my decision? Absolutely. In terms of not going to college.

Yeah.

But I also think there's such an element of, like, if I, if I went to college, coming out of high school with the mindset I had in terms of wanting to pursue business and all the things I wanted. I knew if I, I know looking back, if I did that, I would have had the biggest regret of not doing what has led me to where I am today. But now when I kind of flip the script and I say, okay, if I was to go to college today, like, I am someone that embodies just being a lifelong learner. And I think it is with everything, right? Like, what are your intentions really? I know so many, like, you know, friends of mine that went, they partied their ass off, they leave and they're like, okay, what's next? Like, I didn't really plan myself. I didn't really sit down and say, like, this is why I want to be here. And I kind of just use it as this vacation and I'm dead and I don't even know what I want yet. And not to say you need to know exactly then, but just the ability to sit down and pursue things. Right. Like, I was listening to this podcast this morning and throughout the weekend with Tony Robbins and just momentum in area of your life, whether that's working out in a business, in a relationship or a new hobby, like that momentum. And you kind of talked about it, right? Like you were following momentum, drop shipping and then you stop the momentum and you get to look back and say, like, oh, like, what if I follow that momentum? And I think all of us have that in some sense of like different avenues of life, positive or negative momentum. But for you, take me back to like when you're, when you're starting your current company now and you, you graduating university, where did you begin to build momentum in your life? Yeah, across the board from how you view the world, from physical component of how you, you know, work out. We were talking about before to also business.

Yeah, awesome question. So I guess first, before that you mentioned about Tony Robbins and yeah, I actually did go to one of his live events in Sydney, Australia.

I want to go so bad. I want to go throughout the years.

The firewalk. He does. I don't mean to plug him here.

But please, we're trying to get Tony on the show. So gonna.

Yeah, well, no, thank you, Tony, for the firewalk. That, that truly that was probably one of the most life changing experiences because as I mentioned earlier, I used to be super shy and not really in my show, you know, and what about that?

Walk us through that experience from your perspective, Firewalk, then the event. Because again, I was just listening to this podcast and something that I want to hear from your perspective now is this idea of immersion. Even talking to the host, Theo Vaughn, actually is to plug the show. He was talking to Theo and saying, you know, it's people that come to these events. It's one thing to see, like, clips on social media or watch my talks, but for real change to happen, like, you need to fully immerse yourself. Four days of. I think it's 12 hours a day or something longer, very extensive. That immersion is what creates change, as you said, change. So for you, like, walk us through that, you said it was the most transformative time in your life.

Yeah, definitely. It was literally just a turning point at that stage. I was still at university when I went to Tony Robbins. I just felt like this was shortly after the drop shipping thing. And I was like, what am I doing with my life? I'm just at uni. I wasn't really in the best physical shape. I was just didn't have many great relationships in my life at that time. And I was just thinking, like, what, What. What am I doing with myself? Right? And it just really took, I guess, just some big change and, you know, like maybe a cathartic moment, if you want to call it that, to really make yourself realize, oh, I'm not where I want to be, and I've got certain goals and aspirations and desires, so what do I need to do to take me from this current point of pain, if you want to call it, push myself to pleasure. And yet you're right. It really is just about immersing yourself into something. And I think with the firewalk that he does, it's just about. I remember it was. I walked up to it, to the fire that is the stones. It was maybe 20 foot, 30 foot long, about 15 meters. So that's what, 45, 50ft? Yeah, roughly.

How long?

The answer, about 15 meters. Which is? I'd say, yeah, 54. And I remember walking up to it. Just as I walked up to it, they stopped me and they said, hang on, the coals are getting cold. Let me just put the whole one on. And I just stood there. I was like, oh, my God.

And I remember at this moment, are you fearful through your mind?

My God, I'm thinking, I'm gonna burn my feet. I'm not gonna be able to walk again. How am I gonna do this? And I remember I just froze. And then the person behind Me just said, go, go, go, go, go. And I just thought it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go, right? So I just walked through it and it was the best feeling of my life. When I finished, I remember like the heart rate, it was like 200 bpm. I was like, oh, this is awesome. And I remember going, I want to do this again. And I ran straight back.

Oh, man.

Did it once. Two more times. Yeah.

Wow.

It was. Yeah. And, and yeah, it just really changes. And I was on like no sleep at this stage as well because I'd come from couple flights and I hadn't slept the night before. And it was just like I felt so alive after doing that. Yeah.

Wow. So I've always been so curious about the firewalk. Specifically, like, do you. Are you dipping your feet in something before? Is it burning when you're walking across? Like, what is that sensation?

Yes, burning when you're walking.

Feel you're walking on fire, obviously.

Yeah.

But it's tolerable.

It's hard. Imagine if you stood there without walking. You'd definitely burn yourself. But the trick was, I still remember this. It was just don't stop, keep motion, Keep walking. Constant motion. And you'll be fine. Well, it hurts, but you'll be fine. Wow.

Very cool.

Yeah.

So just to go back to the last question, momentum. So this seems like an event in your life where, yeah, you're seeking change, you're seeking momentum. What changed after that event for you?

Oh, well, everything. I mean, after that. That's when one thing I decided to do was definitely take fitness a whole lot more seriously and take also. I was at union board, essentially, and also take, you know, these online businesses more seriously. And that's when I did find a few models that worked for a little bit, as I mentioned a bit earlier. And yeah, but no, my. I think the biggest thing it did for me certainly was change my perspective on life. It made me a positive thinker and think a lot deeper about being very intentional about certain actions you take and realizing, okay, this action I take today sure might give me short term pleasure, but what's the potential drawbacks? Right. Because everyone in this world, well, I'm sure most people, they want to be successful and they want internal fulfillment. And it's different for different people. Right? Some people it's money, some people it's friends. Some people, it's romantic relationships. Some people might be being famous, whatever it might be to each person, at the end of the day, they want fulfillment, like internal fulfillment. And yeah, it's just really about thinking, okay, what can I do day to day to get me to that point? Right. And yeah, but just taking in those small things, it really does help you actually lead a life where you're more intentional about what you do so that you do get that desired outcome rather than just drifting through, which is what I just felt like I was drifting through life before, I guess you could say that turning point. And I guess moving on to now, how I did start my current business and how that all started.

So, yeah, tell us more about the business where you spend time today.

Yeah, so there were a few different businesses in between somewhere. I was making maybe 5k a month. A couple where I was making 20, which was pretty good. But what really changed was I was at engineering. So as I mentioned earlier, I was doing engineering for about seven years at uni. Got a job. It was a reasonable job. Right. I would have been 25 at the time. I think 24 or 25 years old when I had my first nine to five, okay, kill me now job. And it was just a basic job. I was just working a lot with spreadsheets at an engineering company that contracted to the Australian government, just doing jobs for them here and there to do the mechanical engineering. And it was. It was boring, right? It was really boring. I was just. I remember it was a lot of spreadsheets and supervising like people that were doing labor. So, yeah, early mornings you'd have to sometimes wake up at 5am to get to a particular job site. And you know, your day didn't start even though you had to drive two and a half hours. That wasn't. You weren't paid for that transit.

Right.

So sometimes they'll be waking up at 5am, going, getting there at say 8am, working, driving back, it would be 7pm and then finding the time to still, you know, I was trying to hit the gym very hard at this stage. You know, gym and still have a social life and actually something outside of work. But it was just not the place for me. I was literally getting. I was there for about 18 months. And I remember every month I was getting more and more and more depressed. Right. So I just thought, I need to focus. Nothing in my life matters right now. I know I don't want to do this anymore because essentially all of my online businesses I had at that stage Covid, long story short, took them all from doing maybe 5k or 10k, 15k a month to zero, just because most of them were to do with like e commerce of some kind. So I was like Gosh, I don't have any way now that I know of to make money online. Like, I guess I need to do this engineering job. And it just got more and more and more depressing. Each and every single day, same thing. I remember I'd wake up and I just think, oh, not another day. Yeah, right, not another day. And I just knew that's not. No one should live their life thinking that, you know, all I did, the only day I looked forward to was Saturday night where I could go to the bar and get drunk, right? And maybe when I had enough energy, go to the gym. Because by this stage when the university had ended, I was in incredible shape. I was at like 8% body fat.

Wow.

I literally had like an eight pack and I was doing like 30 chin ups in a row. Oh man, 500 pound deadlifts, all of that stuff shout out to Kino body. Thanks for helping me there. But yeah, so it was, yeah, it was. That just went downhill because I had no energy, no motivation. And I remember just looking back thinking, what have I done? Like I used to be so fulfilled and happy and had a drive, but now it's just gone. And I, I guess because I knew I wanted, I had that personality type now I was a bit more extroverted. I thought, I want something more than this. Like, this will kill me. Just.

Yeah, you're unfulfilled.

Extremely, extremely, extraordinarily unfulfilled. Yeah, yeah. So that really, what really happened is after that I was still. All my spare time. I had maybe three hours spare time per day. I was a remote salesperson. So I worked for another company. After my engineering job, I'd get home, dinner, gym. Then from about 9pm or 8pm till about midnight every single day, except for maybe Saturday, I'd be on the phone taking sales calls to sell various products for different people. So I learned how to do phone type sales, high ticket, if you want to call it that, for products for maybe 2,000, 5,000, $10,000, right? And whenever I make sell, I get a commission. So in working with this company, that's when I actually learned, okay, this is how a. Because I was just a salesperson. But I saw, okay, they've got a finance department, they've got a marketing department, they've got a sales department which I was a part of. They've got an operational department, they've got all these different departments. Because before that every business I've run, it was just a one man show, just me, maybe a virtual assistant, right? But then I saw into what it looks like when you're working at a company. They were maybe doing 100,000amonth, maybe 150,000amonth, something like that. Which you know, it was enough where they actually had a team.

Yeah.

So that's when I got really involved. I remember during my lunch break at work I'd be like calling up the people that work there as well. Just trying to absorb as much information and learn as much as possible. Right. And I was I guess through doing that. One of the owners of that company at the time, he's now my current business partner. Management. Yeah. Which is my current company where we do millions. Right. And yeah, essentially. So I met him and formed a bit of a business professional friendship relationship with him and then yeah, if we essentially he parted ways from that company and yeah, we started Banks Management now about two years ago. Yeah.

And who, what is Banks Management for people that may not know.

Yeah. So it's a management agency where we essentially help primarily females just monetize themselves online, be it through Instagram or other, you know, subscription based services or TikTok. Pretty much any form of monetization online from the we do focus primarily. I'd say 98% of our clients are female. That's just the nature of social media really. Yeah. So that pretty much what we do. We help a lot of these models earn extra income, be it $1,000 extra a month or $10,000 extra a month. And we usually take 50% so of their earnings online for helping manage them and market than whatever, whatever it might be that they do. So yeah, that's really how me and my business partner Fletcher, how we started this whole business. So we essentially we just started with one client.

Yeah, I'm going to say just the context. So you know, social media management, all these different platforms monetizing on social, it's, you know, it's different than you know, phone like phone sales or drop shipping. All their. Did you and your partner have a background or not? I shouldn't say background, but what was the learning curve there of you know, all things social and understanding monetization, the different platforms, what did the background look like in that and what led you guys to wanting to start a business in that vertical?

Yeah, so I guess we saw a gap in the market, that's for sure. But yeah, we were both very experienced at this stage in dropshipping, SMMA type thing like very confident running Facebook ads, YouTube ads. I've done a lot of copywriting. So although I was a salesperson over the phone, sales is just really, you know, trying to sell something as it is. You're trying to sell usually one on one copywriting, it's usually trying to sell one person to writing the copy. And you can easily distribute that to many people. Right. So I had all of these fundamental skills after working in drop shipping, blog writing, direct sales, over the phone, cold calling. That was fun.

I learned a lot through that.

Yeah. Yeah. Affiliate marketing, ranking and renting websites, SEO, smma. Like, I've done a lot of different models online. Some worked well, some didn't work well for me. Not that the verticals don't work. Just for whatever reason I didn't get it to work at that time. But yeah, we essentially found a gap in the market where we realized, hang on. So it's because, like I was watching a lot of podcasts about men's self help and, you know, dating for men, all of this. At the time when I started the business, I was single and I was just always really interested in, you know, I went to Tony Robbins. Self development.

Yeah.

You know, you just look at a lot of different things when you're really looking how to maximize your, your life to get maximum fulfillment. So I thought, you know, like, if you look at the dating market, for example, there's. It doesn't take a genius, let's say, to work out that usually men are the ones that are more struggling in the modern dating marketplace. Maybe if you ask your parents or your grandparents. For people at our age, it might have been the other way around. From what I've heard, where women were usually pursuing men and. But now, as I'm sure we all know watching this, it's, yeah, it's the other way around. Like women get attention on Instagram, if you log into any girl's account that's remotely attractive, she'll probably have 3, 4, 5, 10, 5100 new DMs a day. I remember looking at one of my cousin's Tinder accounts. She had about 500 matches per day. And then at the time you compared it to mine, I had two. And I was like, hmm. So you really start to. I guess we saw that there was this gap in the market. Right. And platforms like OnlyFans at this stage were starting to take off. Right. So we thought, you know what, we know that there's this demand for this service where men, they usually just want to speak to women or feel some kind of connection typically with just someone because unfortunately they just can't get it in real life. Like if you look at the statistics I think based off collating like billions of data points from Tinder and Hinge and Bumble, all of those dating apps, when the big data people at those companies look at it, they've noticed and it's quite a crazy stat. I believe it's 10% of the men match with 90% of the women. So then the other 90% of men, if you want to use a 1 to 10 scale, if you say you're an 8.5 out of 10 male, sorry, your only option is a 1 out of 10 girl. And that's really, unfortunately how the online dating space works in person. Maybe it's a bit less extreme of askew, but yeah, it's very interesting when you see stats like that and then you go, wow. Like this is if I want to, I guess, you know, most men, if you're straight, you do want a nice girl. You don't want some demanding, nagging person that doesn't take care of themselves, doesn't care about you, doesn't care about them.

Like high value men that.

Well, yes, I don't want to use that word.

But, but, you know, I mean, it's. Right. It's like you attract who you are. Right. If you're something that doesn't work out, someone that doesn't take educating themselves seriously, that isn't pursuing your career. Not to say that a, A partner needs to be all those things. Exactly. But someone that is in alignment with becoming their best self. Right. And however people want to take that spot on. Right. It's, it's, I mean, you're speaking to the data in this context, but it's, it's real. I mean, I think, Julie, my perspective, like I. Jacqueline, who you just met.

Yeah.

We're newly engaged six months ago now and we started dating four years ago.

Yes.

And I have really like no dating app experience.

Oh, yeah, you would have been, well over there. You would have been what, 19? Yeah. And I'm. Yeah, I guess touching on that. It's interesting. I've seen what dating apps are like when say I don't like using this word, but it's just the easiest way to explain it. A low value man versus a high value man.

Yeah.

Say you're putting up pictures where you're, you don't present yourself that well. You're a bit fat, your pictures don't look that great. It doesn't look like you've got anything exciting going on versus your picture. You're standing there, you've got a big, I don't know, maybe a cigar in your mouth, enjoying life, a lot of friends, family around you, the supercar behind you, maybe a picture at the beach, shredded six pack. It's you're sharing it on. Yeah.

All the joke points.

Yeah, pretty much the, the experience on the dating app it goes from one match a day, if you're lucky to 100 matches a day. You are like, oh wow, is this what it feels like to be a girl? You know, but yeah, no, that's unfortunately it's just really the plight of the majority. I mean 90% of men basically, if you want to be empirical about it.

I mean it's like with anything on and social too, right? Like great hooks in a video get attention. Great hooks in a dating app get attention. Yeah, it's, it's true across the board. Like what story are you telling about yourself? Like how are you gravitating, you know, magnifying what matters in your life and also just, you know, looking at the playing field of like, hey, what works, what doesn't.

Yeah, certainly. And yeah, I guess you know that one thing about that I noticed personally what the difference was in that. And I was thinking, unfortunately most men, they don't do all of this work on themselves. They don't think about self development, they don't think about the gym, they don't think about their finances, they don't think about their relationship. They don't think about how can I actually take decisive action or direct, intentional action each and every single day to get me one step closer or 1% closer to my goal, however you'd like to think about that. So yeah, I mean just going around, I noticed most men don't do that and most men, they're probably struggling. I'd heard about say onlyfans making this much money and this much money. And I was thinking, and my business partner, we were talking about it and this is how it kind of started. We were thinking, okay, I mean there are a lot of men out there that clearly struggle. We know why only Fans as an example works like why so many men spent so much money on that platform, which I've seen through my own eyes. It's crazy. And yeah, so we thought, well, we've done dropshipping of at the time we were doing part time work consulting for like companies doing 30 million or above in turnover, E commerce, helping them expand their marketing department. So me and my business partner, we were very experienced in marketing and sales. So we thought, well, we can just provide this marketing and sales service to models that are looking to make money online because everyone's trying to make money online nowadays. It's becoming more and more and more popular. Compared to five, 10 years ago, it's quite rare to say, oh, I make money from XYZ online Avenue. Whereas now today it's more.

Yeah, I want to.

Very common.

Yeah, totally. And so you, so your business partner, now you were working at a sales position inside of his company. How did that relationship change over the years of being someone that's working inside of a sales organization to you know, making the phone calls at your lunch break to learn more about the business to then building a relationship with your now business partner? Talk us through how that evolution happened.

Yeah, so it was really just as I mentioned, I was really more interested, it was quite interesting than his like employees in the back end that were not commission based. Yeah. I was more interested in learning how the business ran because I guess now looking back in the back of my mind I was thinking, I don't want to do this engineering thing anymore. Yeah, like 12 hours a day, including transit, dinner, gym. And I'm only making at the time I was making like 90,000 Australian per year, which is about I think 60,000 USD. A bit over a thousand a week.

Yeah.

Before taxes.

Yeah.

So after that like I would have been taking home way less than a thousand US a week for 12 hours work a day. After going to uni for seven years, I'm thinking, yeah, what have I gotten, what have I gotten myself into here? Like, this is, this is torture. This is hell. Right. So I was just thinking, I need to get out of this. So anything I could do, it was my only focus. It was literally after about three months of working engineering, I went, this ain't for me. Yeah. So that next year I was just learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. Making an extra few thousand dollars from being a commission based salesperson on the side as well. Learning, learning, learning. And I guess through all of that a lot of my communication was with my current business partner and he just, yeah, we just got along really well. And yeah, we both eventually actually it was quite funny. We both moved to the same city, we lived on different sides of Australia. I wanted to change, he wanted to change. We both moved to the same city. So that. And then yeah, we just started talk seeing each other most days. Working closer. Yeah. And yeah, before you knew it, we just started this business and yeah, went from generating when we were just helping manage our own models, you know, the first month we were doing this nearly two years ago now. So I can't remember exactly in our first month, we were maybe pulling in about 15 grand a month. In our second, we pulled in about 45. In our third, we were doing well in excess over 100 grand a month in profit USD.

Yeah.

And then. Yeah, that's pretty much how I know it was, it was exponential momentum. Yeah. Because we, very quickly, it was the only thing I focused on. I remember I'd wake up, I'd sit at my laptop, my ass would be there except to eat food and go to the gym. Yeah. And that's what it was like starting up a company for the first nine months. Yeah.

I wanted to say you, throughout the conversation, we've talked about whether that's being a high value man, going to the gym. You said before the show that you were in the world of bodybuilding.

Yeah.

What is your experience like, especially as someone that's been, you know, was in school for seven years, been in and out of doing jobs to then starting a company. You know, how has health played on heart in your life and how has working out and that structure changed over time?

Yeah.

And even today, like, what is it I want to hear? Like how you spend your time in that department.

Yeah. The discipline, um, it's huge. Right. It really teaches you hard work, you know, and how to stick at something. Because it's not fun going to the gym. Sometimes, like, I feel so guilty if I'd say, okay, I'm going to the gym. Different people have different opinions on how often you need to gym. I'm not a fitness expert, so I won't get into that. But I usually like going five times a week. Right. Even, even if I don't need to for like the physical health, it just, it's. I find it's good for my mind, you know, Like, I like spending 90 minutes a day in the gym, two days off, so I don't kill myself or like burn myself into the ground. But yeah, it's essentially just, it teaches you so much about, you know, personal discipline, hard work and just sticking to a goal and no matter what, not giving up. Like, there would be times where, say I was working really hard, I'll look at the clock, and before you knew it, I went, oh, wow, it's 2:00am Oh, I haven't gone to the gym yet. Well, I'll hate myself if I don't go. So I just shut the laptop. Whatever I'm doing, I can do it later, I can do it tomorrow. It's not that important. Put on my gym clothes, drive to the gym. I'm the only person in the Gym. Because it's, you know, 2:00am and just get my workout done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just, you know, doing that, it started there, and then transitioning that or translating it over into more of a financial perspective of a, you know, this. Be disciplined. Just. Just do it. Totally. Yeah. Love that. Very, very beneficial. And yeah, it gives you more energy. I notice if I don't gym, like right now, traveling, I maybe can gym three times a week. It's just been a little bit difficult. I'd like to still do five. I'm trying.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I even notice if I say take three days off in a row from the gy, my energy levels go down.

Yeah.

Which is absolutely interesting because you expend energy, but it kind of gives you this kind of artificial energy even though you're expending calories. Absolutely.

Perspective. And I mean, I think to just my background, for context, growing up, I played a lot of sports. Hockey, lacrosse, football. And like being an athlete all my life, I've always had, I don't want to say like, the most discipline in that category, but you understand the importance of it for your mind or obviously your body, but also like the connections and relationships you can build through that process to others. Right. And I wanted to reference something too, because I. When I was a sophomore in high school, I got injured playing football. I was in a neck brace for six months.

Yeah.

Paralyzed. And I saw it.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's actually here. Yeah, no, that.

Is that from.

Yeah. So it's. Unfortunately. Yeah. This is one big thing about hard work. I suppose. So. And, and, and just how it's so important, your mindset, like, it's. It's crucial to be successful whether you want to make millions of dollars a year or whether you want to. Whatever you want to do. You know, not everyone wants money. I like money, but not. Not everyone, you know, has that deep desire to be wealthy. But yeah, I essentially, I would have been 20 years old at the time. I'd been taking the gym seriously for maybe about a year at this stage. So before I started, I remember I was at university and it was the first time someone made a suggestion to me. They said, okay, Michael, you need to hit the gym. Because I was. I'm trying to calculate from kilograms to pounds. I would have been 51, 52 kilograms, which is about, I think, 110, 115 pounds. And I had a gut at 5 foot 10. So, you know, I was average height, if. Yeah, 5, 10. That's about average height. And I had a Gut. But I was 110 pounds, so my arms, it was the same size from my wrist up at my biceps, right. Like I was. But then I had this big gut, like I didn't look good. Right. And I think that was just due to diet or something. For whatever reason, genetics, whatever it might be, I just didn't look tremendously good. And I thought, well, you know, I went to a single sex school when I was in high school, so females were never on my mind. Then I went to college and I was like, oh, there's a whole nother world, right?

Yeah. And I was like, I don't think they're serious.

Yeah, I need to take. Yeah, I need it. Well, it was for me, I need to look good, you know, for multiple reasons. So, yeah, I started that and yeah, I was so weak I couldn't even bench press the bar, which are the £45 I could, I remember like.

Yeah.

Oh, too hard. Like I could maybe get five reps out of just the bar. It was, it was pretty embarrassing, right?

Hey, we all start somewhere.

Yeah, we do.

That's the beauty of it.

And yeah. And it got to. To that point and after about a year, I'd built myself up to doing. I explicitly remember this. It was a 90 kilogram bench press. For one rep I hit it and I was ecstatic. 90 kilograms, it's about 200 pounds.

Okay.

In fact, I think it's right around 200 pounds. So, yeah, I remember hitting that for one rep. And you know, that had been about a year, a year and a half after not even being able to do the barbell.

Wow.

So I was so happy with myself. Right. And my body looked a lot better, of course. And yeah, the night after that I went to a bit of a, like a high school reunion type thing. Two years reunion, blah, blah, blah. Long story short, there was a bit of an accident. I got pushed off a roof and landed on my arm.

No way.

Yeah. Unfortunately is this roof would have been about 8 foot, so not super high. It was a low roof, but still. Yeah. So if I see what happened, I.

Mean, for people that are saying you can see.

Yeah, yeah, it goes up to here.

Shorter to your bottom of your bicep.

Yeah, it goes up to about here. And yeah, so I landed like this. So when I stood up, the bone was.

You're. You're joking. No. Why?

Yeah, so, yeah, yeah, it hurt a little bit, that's safe to say.

But yeah, what you're telling me you're. You saw your phone sticking out of your Arm.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

What. I mean, what happened from that moment?

Oh, you. Yeah, so I was. I was wearing. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and I remember seeing the bone sticking through the shirt.

That makes me.

Yeah, I told this story a few times now, but, yeah, so that. That happened in your. Long story short, I was in hospital for about two months from what I recall. And, yeah, when I came out, I was in even worse condition than when I initially started the gym. And I remember I just thought, oh, I hate how I look again. I got all depressed again because, you know, I'd lost all my progress and all of this. And I went totally against the surgeon's warning. He said, don't you dare lift any weights for a year. Don't do it.

Yeah. What was. You and I related in different context, but like, I was in a neck brace almost six months, not fine. That led to. I was diagnosed with interspinace ligament damage. And I. More than the energy, but like the mental aspect, for me, I was so depressed. This is when I was 16. Like, depressed, hated life, Angry, pissed off. Yeah, all that stuff. Could never play football again. And it was like this injury that changed the course of my life. So for you, how old were you again when this happened?

20 or 21.

You're in the hospital for two months. And what was that process like of recovery? And I mean, this is obviously, you know, when you say bone stick out of your arm, this is a serious.

Oh, yeah.

Injury. How did that affect the mental aspect of who you are and how you live?

It was terrible. It was terrible. So I was in hospital for two months and I wasn't allowed to drive for another six months after that because if I crashed, apparently it was because I'm unable to operate a vehicle. That's. That's what apparently happened. So I couldn't drive, couldn't go anywhere, couldn't see anyone. It was, it was. It was very bad for the mental state. And, yeah, I was just like, I'm so depressed, I need to hit the gym. I need to hit the gym. So I thought, I don't care what this surgeon says. What does he know? Right? So I ended up hitting the weights again. It was going all right. But, yeah, one day I remember just going. I was building it up and I got back to maybe 70 kilos, which is about 160 pounds on the bench press after once again having to start with the bar. And, yeah, just something happened. My arm went. And, yeah, ever since then, even though right now I'm A lot heavier. I weigh about. Oh, and pounds. I'm trying to think. I think 180. 180 pounds. I still can't even bench what I was benching when I was 21 before this happened.

Because shoulder. As you should it. As you should.

Yeah. It's unfortunate because it's really. And you know, it's like, it's just one thing where I go, you know, there's two. I could have taken two different parts. I could have gone, what was me? This thing happened to me. Oh, well, I'm just gonna not hit the gym, not try and just be fat and lazy. I'm gonna be a victim. Who the wants to be a victim? Right? Like, seriously, I could have done that and just been depressed and miserable, gotten fat, be like, I don't need money anymore. Who cares? Right? But the alternative is, okay, I've got a setback, but still, I've still got an arm. Even though it kills to do a bench press. Even today, every single time I load up the bar with more than say, yeah, 80 kilos, 170 pounds, something like that. Whatever. Whatever the conversion is. I just go it, you know, push through, push through. It's for a greater good. Right. And I had to, like, alter my workouts and things where it's like, I need to do a lot of one arm stuff because even two, I feel that. I feel like more movement from this side, you know? Yeah. See, I just got to alter my workout and you know, someone else out there, no injuries, better genetics. They might only need to train 30 minutes a day. And they're, you know, perfect. Incredible, easy progress every week with me because of this, I need to train usually twice as long. Anything upper body. Yeah. Like, I can do one arm chin ups with this arm. This one I'll. I know I will never be able to do it at.

So what was. I mean, I feel you. I mean, Diego and I were working out every day and then so many movements that I might do kind of like stem my shoulders and side a lot. And it restricts me. And it's a point of. I've sort of let myself feel restricted because it's. I know that if I push it, like I.

Something.

Something seriously wrong. And I don't want to mess around with the spine and.

Yeah, of course.

Just. I mean, even with your arm, you don't. You. If you can prevent an injury, like, prevention is the best.

Yes.

Like strategy.

Yeah.

But for you, how has it affected your life today? Like, can you. Do you have full mobility in your arms? Outside of like bench press and trying to do the weight.

Yeah.

Side of in the gym, how has it affected your day to day?

Yeah, so up until about two or three years ago I felt it day to day, but now it has been about seven or eight years since this happened. Okay, about seven years. So yeah, it took about four years for a full day to day recovery.

Wow. Four years.

I remember for the first two, two years I would have been like oh non sourish one year. Like it was, it was at that level for about two years.

So I, I, I didn't ask. So how did, how did you fall from this eight foot rooftop?

Oh, I got pushed by someone, unfortunately.

Wow.

Yeah.

You know this person?

Yeah, it was just someone I went to high school with. They were just unfortunately just not in it and they were, they were in a bad state of mind and they just took it out on other people and I was one of them, unfortunately. Wow.

Yeah, that is rough, man. I mean it's crazy. I mean speaking of like Tony Robbins, right. It's like so many great things in life stem from massive setbacks.

Oh yeah, it does it ever. And I mean most of the time you know that and, and you know the reason like setbacks are a good thing in my opinion. I'm happy for the fact that in certain areas I've had to struggle immensely. Right. Like because before this happened I was maybe going to the gym two, three times a week. After it happened, I was going. Once I was able to kind of get out of bed, I went to the gym every single day. I did not care what else was happening, I'd be at the gym, you know, no excuses type thing. And sometimes setbacks give you that extra desire and ambition and all that. And you know, after that. Absolutely, yeah. And I thought, you know, oh, there's no way I could ever get an eight pack and be like, like I was living the bodybuilder lifestyle kind of after that. And I never think I would have been in that shape if a setback never happened, you know, so it's like, it's interesting always whenever a setback happens, I never think, oh, why did this have to happen to me? I think, okay, what, what positive thing can I take from this? You know, like for example, so many bad things happened. Like with right before we started this current company that I run, Banks Management, it's like for whatever reason the sales thing stopped working and my engineering job, I was just like, no, I quit, can't do this anymore. And I could have been like, oh, I don't have a job. I don't have any side income. Like, this is terrible. But in reality, that setback was the fuel required to propel things. Like, up until this point, I hadn't had a business that was doing more than. I'd never been making more than 20 grand a month. Right. But then after this now, you know, there are some days I'm making 20 grand. Yeah. And it's like one more. And it's like. Yeah. It's just sometimes setbacks, you need a bit of a setback to really slingshot you to what you need to do. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just about. Yeah. Really, really pushing through that.

Absolutely.

Yeah. It's.

I love that. I mean, there's. There's beauty in the pain, right? Yeah, there's.

I like to hurry. I like pain, I like pressure. I like stress after that because I know that, you know, diamonds are formed from pressure. Right. So.

Absolutely. That's a gnarly story, man.

Yeah.

I'm so glad to hear that it's. You're recovered and you can.

Oh, thank you all.

I mean, injuries, it's just, you know, it's. It reminds you, right? Even for me, when I. I remember someone that is now I get to consider a friend. The guy, a friend of mine, his name is Nick Santos Dasso. He actually has opened up for Tony Robbins. He's a. One of the best speakers I've ever seen. But he was born. No legs in one arm. And I remember as we were getting to know each other, well, it was first I saw him speaking an event and then I got to meet him afterwards and I remember like that. And so to this day, like that occurrence. And if I'm ever thinking, you know, if something. I'm not living in gratitude for whatever reason, like Nick has left such an imprint on me that it's just a snap. And I'm like, I'm so. I have so much to agree.

Yeah. Honestly, I. I think anyone born and. And I'm not going to apologize to anyone for saying this. I think born in a western country or a first world or even a second world country, if you can speak English and you have access to the Internet. I personally think there's no excuse for. You know, these days we hear about cost of living and this financial. And everyone's running out of money. I don't see why. Because if you just apply yourself and you're dedicated and you're disciplined, there's no reason why with the Internet, I mean, it's freaky. Like at my age 27 year olds aren't meant to be making millions of dollars a month. They're, they're really not, they're just not. But because of the Internet, I mean it's just change how everything works and anyone can do it. I know 18 year olds that are making this sort of money as well. Like it's. Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah. I mean it's, I mean, I agree. Right. It's like you're living in a country where there's opportunities and you can, there's so much to learn. It's, it's anywhere with your opinion, you is you in the day and. But it's also, it's, you know, it's the background and where you come from. And I remember being in a small town in Virginia, I grew up, didn't fly on an airplane until I bought the ticket myself.

Yeah.

It's like having that, you know, relatability with someone out there. That's why like content and social media can be so powerful.

Yeah.

As much as it can be. Yeah. I hate when people say social media is only so negative because it depends how you curate. I think Tony Robbins said on this podcast, it's so prevalent in my mind now. He's like, there's always going to be room in the world to focus on the negative things that are going wrong.

Right.

Like he said, you know, 40 years ago, 50 years ago. If you see a plane crash happen in this like random country, that's devastating. You don't hear about it because it's not, you won't. But if you're waking up and you're following these like plane crash killing, like murders, all the negative things happening that will continue to happen, that's just how the world will be review, focus on that and let that derail you and stop you from doing things or prevent you from like living and seeing the other perspective of all the good things happening in the world or how you can create the good things, like you're doing yourself a disservice. And a lot of people don't even recognize that because they're not an environment for to be able to see the positive thing. That it comes back to that self awareness of finding the right information. Because at the end of the day, you know, people, sometimes they're not searching for the great information, they're just allowing information to be bestowed upon them and they're not controlling what's being, you know, inputted into their mind, into the brain, to their activities.

Yeah. And it's, it's so true. Because naturally, I mean I'm, I believe in, I guess science obviously, given my background in engineering, you kind of have to. So it's interesting. And you know, all right, million years ago, there's a reason people focus on the negative, because you had to focus on negative to survive. I mean humans, we might not be a million years old, but back 10,000 years ago, let's say you need to be like, okay, there's a tiger chasing me. I need to survive. So your mind's always looking for negative and it wasn't focusing on positive. Yeah. And 10,000 years, it's not really that long for the, you know, the brain to develop. So people still today, they always focus on the negative. And it's, you need to train yourself like it's, it's active. But sometimes you just got to train yourself if you're feeling negative. Just gotta go, hang on, what am I doing like right now? I mean, I'm healthy, I've got money, I've got no, it's not like I'm diagnosed with cancer or anything. Like, no matter what's happening, it can't be that bad, right? I mean, maybe if you've got a terminal illness, like, yeah, that's pretty bad. But you know, you need to, you need to actively trick your brain into thinking in that positive way. But most people, they just don't. And that's why there's, there is a bell curve. You know, not everyone is created equal. If everyone was pulled back into an equal body, okay, everyone's magically 5 foot 10. Everyone's magically. I mean, sounds a bit strange, but okay, 50 of the population, men, 50 of women, you're all 5 foot 10. You all have this much money, you all live in an identical house. Give it 10 years, the only difference will be people's mindsets and the world will revert to how it is now where different people are higher and different people are lower.

Yeah.

And yet it all fun. Fundamentally it does come back to your mindset because I've seen myself, I guess, using finances as a measuring stick. How my mindset was in times where like having a lot of money didn't, doesn't make me positive, but being positive helps me make a lot of money if, if that makes sense. So it's like a, a one way correlation. Yeah, yeah, love that.

Last question before we wrap up here, Michael. We could go on and on.

Yeah.

So much. There's so much depth to dive into. But you've talked a lot about, you know, personal development and, and obviously throughout Your journey. You've had many defining moments of transformation, of injury. What's been some of the best advice that you've received over the years that you want to talk about with the audience today?

You're putting me on the spot here. I think it's just you always need to have a goal. Like a goal or a vision, just something to push towards. Like with me, for example. And I'm never going to change. I know. I remember when I was at college and I had no purpose, no drive. I was just going through. Yeah. Taking my lecture. Yeah. Passing my test, whatever. If someone was like, oh, I want to go to the beach for a couple days and just hang out. Yeah, that's awesome. But now I'd be like, hang on. If I just do this, like, how am I bettering myself? Be it physically or mentally or financially or spiritually or relationships. It's like, now, you know, my brain, it's just running 24 7, and it's always thinking about, what. What can I do? Like some people, if they say, oh, I want to spend a day at the beach and just sit there and do nothing, to some people, that's the best day ever. To me, that's torture. You know, and it's like, sometimes I think you need that type of mindset shift or. Or kind of paradigm worldview to be someone. I mean, I'm sure a lot of your viewers are entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurially inclined. I'm sure they. You know, I think if. If you want to be financially successful, by the way, I think that's a great thing. Yeah. I hate people that try and put a negative sticker on money. Money is just an amplifier.

Yeah.

If you're positive, you. You'll be more positive. Like, I've been able to donate to more charities and all that, you know, and help more people. I'm not stingy. You know, it's like, compared to if I had hundred dollars in my bank, I'd have to be 60, you know, so, yeah, I think money is an awesome thing as long as you use it properly. And. But, yeah, part of that and a part of being successful is. Yeah, just, you know, having that perspective when you wake up. Okay, what can I do today so that when I go to bed, I know I'm one step better than 16 hours ago, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

I love that. Michael, before we wrap up here, I want to give you the opportunity for. And for the audience to know where's the best place for everyone to follow you, to stay connected with you, just to learn more about everything that you have going on in your life.

Yeah, for sure. So you can follow me on YouTube. It's just search Michael Nuikos and Instagram is Michael Nykos. No spaces. Pretty easy one to remember. And for my company Banks Management, it's just Instagram Banks B A N X Management or MGMT for short. So at B A N X mgmt.

Yeah, I'll be sure to link it all down below.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you.

Easy. Well, Michael, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. Hope you have the the rest of your trip here in the US I hope it's a great time. And for everyone watching or listening, make sure you go follow Michael. Check out everything he has going on. I'll, I'll be sure to link it down below. Once again, thank you so much for tuning into the show.