$200 Million to Mental Breakdown and Back

And I just tapped out, you know, and I'm a person again. I was like, as Division 1 wrestler, like, like you don't go and you don't roll on your back when you're a wrestler, you know, like you, you fight to. Not like every single match is fight. It's a great analogy for life. You're fighting for every single, like, breath. And so I'm a person that when I tap out, the average person would have tapped out way before that. And so I was. So whenever I tap out, I'm like, oh man, things must be really bad.

I'd had cancer, you know, now about 12 years ago. And it just about killed me. So that was one of the big highlights of like, you gotta slow down or you're going to die. I think the trap I was in is I believe that I didn't know how to do anything other than what I had been doing for so long because I had spent so long getting good at it.

A lot of people recommend traveling, you know, like, you know, to get away from your problems. And the problem with that is you can't get away from yourself.

Yep.

And so in a, in a sense, I have traveled to get away from my problems by having this exit and that. And I had, I had bought into yet another lie that when X happens, I will be, I will be great.

Yeah, yeah.

Exterior thing happens, I will be great. And I. What the problem was, I could not escape myself.

All right, so I'm really, really happy to have my friend Darius, the real Darius Murchazade. And he is here. Bottom line is he is the author of the Core Value Equation, a best selling book. But also he's the guy who's gone through the post exit conversation. He had a recent exit and he's got really interesting thoughts about what goes on. And I love these conversations. So first of all, it's awesome to be here with you, my friend.

Yeah. How you doing? Oh, you walk. It's Friday. I'm doing amazing. Living the dream, my friend.

Good, good. Me too. It's a perfect day here in beautiful San Diego, California. I'm looking forward to getting out and biking all weekend and taking some friends out for some dinner and drinks. So this is a great way to put an accent and a nice period on a beautiful week. So let's, let's begin with.

The post exit conversation. I want to go deep and then we'll go backwards into your hero's journey here. But tell us about the exit. What happened? What was the business and why did.

You sell yeah, so I, I grew up in mortgage lending. Serial entrepreneur. And I had. It was my first probably real exit in 2020. I, I knew, I always knew I wanted to sell the business. My b. My, my exit was actually less sexy than you would want it to be. We were in the middle of a investment making process with Houlihan Loki. We had a publicly traded company that wanted to buy our company. It was a big company. It was a 9 figure in revenue company. Thousand employees that we had built from the ground up.

And what was it for people who want to look backwards.

So the name of the company is the Money Source. Still in existence. It's one of the largest mortgage servicers in the world for mortgage. For mortgage lending. And, and yeah, we kind of just built that brick by brick with me and three other partners now. I was a minority partner. I was a CEO, but I was a minority partner. My business partner actually founded the company in 1996. It was a very small company. Small company. And I had a couple lives before that business. About 10 years ago, though, I got, I had an idea that I had kind of had some success with. I approached him and said, hey, we want to build a business within your business. And that business went from about. There's probably 30 people the day I got there. And 36 months later, there was a thousand of us. And we bootstrapped the thing the whole way up to over 200 million in revenue. And I was the CEO of that business. And so now I had a lot of practice. My company prior to that was number 40 in the Inc 5000.

This was not my first rodeo. It was my first time running a business that big, but it was not my first rodeo in entrepreneurship. So we were a few years in it and we had a thing where we said, look, we want to sell this thing in three years, you know, and it became almost a running joke in the business. We're like, oh, we're going to sell it. And I'm like, well, when are we going to sell it? Oh, three years from now. You know, two years would go by. When are we going to sell? Three years from now. And we reached a point where a really large business wanted to buy our company. And so we got into an investment banking process. And right around that time, I was 40 years old and I was just burnt fried, man. I didn't want to do it anymore. I wasn't having fun. Wasn't having fun. I told my business partners, you'll never have to ask me to leave. I'll leave the minute it's not fun. And so I got it into the investment banking process. And I told my partners, I said, I'm done. You guys can get. I knew I got it here. You guys can see it through. I don't want to be. I don't want to do this anymore. I'll just sit on the board. And that was in November of 2019. And we got our, you know. Yeah, you see where this is going?

Yeah.

And so we added a bunch of people, bid on the company. You know, this is big bids. This is a big company. So we were big bids. We were all gonna not have to do shit if we didn't want to for the rest of our lives. And.

We had one final buyer who was a big reit, because this is a lending business. It was a publicly traded real estate investment trust. Their stock was trading about 17 bucks a share, a few billion dollar market cap.

And right when we went into final diligence, it was beginning of March 2020, and their stock got hammered. It went from 16 bucks a share down to like 2 bucks a share. And they completely backed out of the deal. So I was in this weird, like, never Never Land because I had. I was like, I'm done. And my partners are all still there kind of doing the business. And our investment making process had blown up. The positive thing that happened was if you're in mortgage lending, you'll know what I'm about to say is that 2020 and 2021 became like, like insane. It was like 10 years rolled into one because interest rates went to like, 1%, right?

Yeah.

And. And so what it did do is it gave my partners the capital to do essentially a management buyout of my shares. So it was like, I took a pretty big haircut, but. And I. And I. I was in a position at that point where I already had some capital because I've been doing well for a while. So it put me in a spot where I'm like, you know, if I live carefully, I kind of. I can kind of do whatever the hell I want. You know, I don't have to do. I don't have to. I don't have to work unless I really want to. I can't go crazy. But I also don't, you know, I have some capital that can make money for me. And I. And I, again, at that point, I had assets and stuff that were already making money for me. And I was at a point where I was, like, comfortable enough. So I bought myself some time. And I knew two things, Mike. I knew number One is I didn't want to do anything in my industry anymore and I knew I needed some time off to figure some shit out. And so I took most of 2020 off. I did my book launch, I started my podcast.

This is the new thing people do when they leave their businesses, as you know.

Yeah. Once you bought yourself some time, I mean, that's really, I think the key word. I can remember when I had my last business, that was the resounding. Other than I wanted to get out from underneath. I was burned out and fried. And I was like, I just need to buy myself a little time because I'm going nuts. And, and that is a very common conversation I have with a lot of founders. So keep going, but I'm with you.

So, so I'll put it back up though, because in November, the reason I decided to step away from the business was I was so I was fried and I was having some, like, I was kind of having some mental health issues. I was like, not doing well. And, and so that was one of the reasons I just, I couldn't do it anymore. And I, and I got a real high threshold for pain and I tapped out. I said, I don't want to run the business. I'm having some mental health issues. I just need, I need a break.

Yeah. What was, what was going on? I'm curious, like, how bad did it get? And like, what was your psychology? How was it affecting your relationships.

Your, your body? Like, how bad did it get?

It was as bad as you could imagine. So for me, what it was was I had been suffering from anxiety for a really long time. Since. No, I was 41 years old. You know, as with 19, so I would have been, yeah, 41. I, I can remember being an anxious person since I was like 8. And, and there's a lot of family heritage there that kind of goes into that. So this is, you know, 33 years of managing anxiety and, and doing it as a super high level achiever. Right. So I would, I was a Division 1 athlete. I was a class president. I was the, you know, first person I knew to, you know, make seven figures. You know, like, like this is like, you know, like I had 150 employees by the time I was 27 years old. And this is way before, this is back in the early 2000s before, like everyone was an entrepreneur, you know. Yeah. So I was always a super high level achiever and that came with a high level amount of anxiety. And so I, I was, and was funny, was I came to the conclusion Post exit that I had just kind of abused myself. I was like this. I was like, I had the chalice and I was like, whipping myself constantly. And I turned 40 in 2018, and there was something around the. Right before I turned 40, like, right before it, I was at this program. I don't know if you're familiar with Birthing of Giants or Gathering of Titans at mit. So I was the chairman of got, and I was a graduate of Birthing of Giants, Vern Harnage's program. And so I was that Gathering of Titans, which is the alumni program in 2018. And I was sitting there at this table, and these are like. I mean, a bunch of badasses and speakers and stuff. And I remember we were having a lunchtime, like, breakout, and we were talking about something I said, you know, I feel like there's just something missing in my life. And what I. What I. I found language for it later. I was living in the lack, you know, I had built. I had built a company at that point that had done over a billion dollars of revenue. I kind of had everything I wanted. I had this amazing C suite. I had this great life. I was building, like, this custom house that I always dreamed of building. I had great kids, great wife. But something was listening. It was missing in my life. And that little whisper turned into a scream.

18 months later. And 18 months later was when I finally broke. And what it was was that whatever I'd been, I built all these systems around managing my anxiety for three decades. It just fell apart. And I just. So if you imagine building this, like, dam around your anxiety for a really long period of time, and some people will be able to relate to this and others won't. But if you've ever suffered from anxiety, you know what I'm talking about right now. I lost control of it, and I was flooded with anxiety at levels I'd never experienced before. And it was just unbearable. And so that was it. It was like, I got crushed. And so I just had to. There was stuff happening in the business that was making it, and it was just, you know, it was a combination of multiple things. And I just tapped out, you know, and I'm a person again. I was like, as division wrestler, like, like, you don't go and you don't roll onto your back when you're a wrestler. You know, like you, you, you. You fight to. Not. Not like every single match is fight. It's. It's a great analogy for life. You're fighting for every single, like, breath. And so I'M a person that. That when I tap out. The average person would have tapped out way before that. And so I was. So whenever I tap out, I'm like, oh, man, things must be really bad.

So I went to see a Somatic Experience Therapist right after I tapped out. And for those of you that don't know what Somatic Experience Therapy is, it's that your body never forgets anything, and it kind of stores all your trauma and memories in your organs and in your skin. And this guy literally did like an exorcist of me. I'm laying on the table and it's not like normal therapy where you're like, chit chatting about your life. It's like we're not talking about anything. And he's just kind. This guy's one of the foremost, like, somatic experienced practitioners in the world. Like, people fly in from like, Iceland to Austin to see him and Japan and stuff. And so my doctor is sitting there, like, kind of like. It's kind of weird, but he's like, kind of like move, like touching different, like, parts of my. My kidneys and my liver and just kind of like my. The back of my brain. And we're. I mean, we're talking about like how I have like a striped. Striped socks on. Like, it's like we're not talking about anything about trauma or anything like that. And man, brother, out of nowhere, I felt this like, weird thing, like, in my stomach. And all of a sudden, like, I was like 10 years of like, pain came out of me.

Yeah, yeah.

It was not pretty. Shows me his hands. His hands turned black. He's like, you got a lot going on there, Darius.

Like, like, no, no shit. I mean, I'm not exaggerating or anything. And so it was. He's like, you know, you're suffering from ptsd. And he put me on some antidepressants, some anti anxiety meds, and started getting to work. I started getting to work, man.

Yeah, well, that's. I don't know if you and I discussed this or not, because I had a fairly similar.

Experience myself where.

You know, the framing I used. It took me a long time to be able to communicate this, but I had outgrown who I was, what I did, why I did it, who I did it for. Like, I had a massive shift in the same kind of thing, like, accumulation of. Yeah, for sure. Thirty years. And prior to that, prior to this last unraveling, I'd say it's my most recent reinvention, which is about six years ago.

I'd had cancer, you know, now about 12 years ago, and it just about killed me. So that was one of the big highlights of like, you gotta slow down or you're going to die. But I didn't heed the warning, you know, I did slow down, I did change. A lot of stuff shifted. But I think the trap I was in is I believe that I didn't know how to do anything other than what I had been doing for so long because I had spent so long getting good at it.

And.

I know that that anxiety, that terror, and that feeling that, you know, life is going to blow up. And I can remember something that my wife said to me. And I'm telling you all this, I'm framing this because I want to hear what your version of that is. Is I was outside and I was just afraid the whole world was going to blow up. And at the time, to unwind the business I had would have cost me a million and a half or $2 million in cash, right? It was just like I stuff I had that was underway, shutting things down, paying off leases, all the ugly crap, right? And the idea of it just terrified me. It was just like total crap. And she looked at me and said, you know, you're a multimillionaire. You got nothing to be afraid of. We're going to be fine no matter what, even if you had to write out the check. And one thing I know about you is I've never seen you not be able to reinvent yourself or figure it out. You always figure it out. And I realized at that moment I had never.

Really said that to myself and believed it before. So I think part of it was whatever my internal dialogue was, whatever my old operating system was, whatever the identity was, was like screaming to break and crack. And I've learned since, you know, when people say, well, what do you do now? And I'll be like, well, I reinvent businesses and I help founders, blah, blah, blah. And if I'm really honest with them, I say, really? What I do is I create a new identity for you. I upgrade your operating system. And when you do somatic therapy, which is like cracking into, like you said, your nervous system, that's that multi layered stack that most of us can go through our lives and never notice it. And I think when you ignore it, that's what kills you. So I told you all that to kind of frame this up for you because I'm curious, what was your experience life with your wife? What did she see going on? How did your kids deal with it. I have a series of other framing questions, but I'm just curious, like, what happened and when did you finally have.

A breath of fresh air where you could actually tell yourself and you knew it to be true, that things were going to be cool again?

So that year leading up to that breakdown was one of the harder years of my life. I had harder years. If you were to like, write them down on paper. I had a subprime, my ink fabric, my number 40 Inc. 5000 company became. Blew up in three years later and went to zero. And I shut it down and I got, you know, I was a subprime mortgage lender, which meant you were the bastard of the world. Everyone hated you, you know, and I dealt with the side effects of that. And so my wife had. I married my wife in 07. And she had been through all. And I met her in O2. So I've been with my wife 21 years last month.

Okay.

When I was young, I was 20. Yeah, thank you. I was 24 when I met her. And so my wife, she's a trooper. And I knew when I was marrying, I knew that she, she had, she was a tough, she's a badass. And I knew it. I knew she could handle a lot of. She's a carrot. She's a person that, like, she's a great number two. She's a person that has your back. And so she, so she'd been through a lot at that point. She'd been through three business. This is my third business. You know, I didn't talk about my previous two and, and the other two. So she'd seen a lot of gnarly ups and downs. And this was a big up. Right. This is a, this is the first time I built a nine figure company. This is the first time I had a thousand employees. This is the first time like, like I had something of note that notably anyone looking at would be like, that's a real business. I mean, that's not just a small, small business. So. And it was pretty consistent for a long time. There was seven years of ups. But she knew that, like, that there was just something missing for me. And I kept talking, I didn't know what it was. So my family was all right with it. I mean, like, you know, like, until I blew up. And I'm, you know, I'm kind of the maven of the family, you know, like, like my, I, I carry great gravity because of my personality and you know, just the way the family is. And you know, honestly, they rallied around Me, man. My kids showed me a lot of love. My wife showed me a lot of, like, empathy and love. And they were just supportive of me. They wanted me. You know, I was, I was injured. You know, I was, I, I had a broken leg, but it wasn't my leg, you know, and I was like walking around without a cast or, or, you know, crutches. And so they saw me in pain and they were just supporting me. And so that, that was, if I was to reflect on that, that they were. A big part of my kind of recovery was me getting a lot of support from my family.

The, the coming up for error moments were interesting because the next. Because I kind of hit rock bottom. My first rock bottom. You notice I just said first. I hit my first rock bottom in, in 19 and quit, you know, left my business in, in November 13th of 2019. And I would have thought that that was my rock bottom. And I was like, all right, it's going to get better from here. And it had its moments, but I kind of scraped along the bottom pretty hard for.

You know, a few months. And then, then I had my exit in July of 2020. I got bought out. And that was. I remember I was laying in my pool and I had this like, moment where I was just like, I felt like, oh, okay, now I'm okay.

Mm.

And, and, and, and it was, but it was a temporary respite. And what I learned was something that I can't remember. I was reading a book recently and someone said, you know, like, a lot of people recommend traveling, you know, like, you know, to get away from your problems. And the problem with that is you can't get away from yourself.

Yep.

And so in a, in a sense, I have traveled to get away from my problems by having this exit and that. And I had, I had bought into yet another lie that when X happens, I will be, I will be great.

Yeah.

Yeah. Exterior thing happens, I will be great. And I. What the problem was, I could not escape myself. I had, even though I was a little healthier, I was not far, I was still not healthy. And so the next I went on really this journey that lasted from. Started my first rock bottom was November 19th. I hit another rock bottom again in July of 21.

And then I fully bottomed out in July 22nd.

Okay.

So it was, it was, it was a while. It was almost a two and a half year process and it wasn't. And I was at like, you know, healthier levels. But then I would crash back down. And the issue was I was Working through this entire process of who am I? And mind you, when your identity is tied to your business and you have a great business and you are, you're a big shot, and then you lose that. And that had happened to me before, so it hurt less, but it was still hurt.

Yeah.

And I. And I didn't want to be in my industry, so I had to pivot to a new industry. I went into this exploration mode. So I was exploring a lot of stuff. I was exploring new businesses, I was exploring myself, I was exploring my relationships. I was trying to figure out this really interesting question is, who do I want to be in the world? And I kept kind of hitting these soft cul de sacs where I thought I wanted something and then I would go do it and I would be it. And it wasn't right. And I did that for about two and a half years.

But it was rough, man, because I would hit these moments where these old habits would creep back in. And for me, those habits are very interesting. Those habits are around achievement mostly. And so I figured out a few things about myself. I figured out that I am a glutton for distraction. I figured out that business is my drug. I figured out that achievement numbs me, numbs the pain. And so I would go and try to grab those things as quickly as possible. And I was looking, like frenetically to try to find it. I joined Tiger 21 and in Tiger 21, you know, I mean, that's like the average net worth is like 100 million bucks and I'm not there. And it made me feel like shit. And so I would do all these. I kept looking in the mirror constantly and. And I finally crashed and burned last summer. That was when I absolutely hit the hardest, rock bottom. And it happened in the most interesting way. And what had happened during that time was I had launched all these different things. Most notably I had the book, I had the podcast. They were both doing very well. But the biggest thing I done is I built an advisory business for myself where I was going and coaching high level CEOs to grow their companies. And I grew it into a seven figure consulting practice very, very quickly. And so I was doing it part time and I had 11 or 12 clients and I was making pretty good money and you know, not working that much, but, but, but, you know, like doing well. And, and I said, you know, I'm going to go to Mexico for the summer. I'm going to take my family to Oaxaca, Mexico for the summer. And so we, we bought it, we rented A house from this woman, Leela Downs. I don't know if you've heard of her. She's like this famous Mexican singer SC or award winning artists from Mexico. We rented our house in Oaxaca City. Beautiful house. They have like music studio in it. Way more house than we needed. And it's all in this really beautiful house. I mean, Oaxaca. I'm there for the whole month of July because Texas, where I live in Austin, is terrible in July. And, and I, and I intentionally turned off podcast. So I'm not doing a podcast because I can't, I don't have a place to do it down here. I'm pulling back on my coaching. I'm not. I turn my clients off. I said, hey, guys, I'm not working for the month. I'll make it up to you next month because they're all in like, retainers and, and all I have is family and going to Spanish class and exploring the city. And maybe I'll do a little bit of, you know, work here and there, but, you know, like, 90% of my time is to do whatever the hell I want.

Yep.

And I, and something happened to me there that blew my mind. You want, you want to know what that was, Mike? Yeah.

What was it?

The same anxiety that I had felt in November 19th I had again in Mexico. And I was dwelling on my exit. I was dwelling on things I should have done differently in my life. I was dwelling on what I, what the future held and what I was doing wrong. I was just sitting there beating the out of myself. And, and, and any human with half a brain of logic would have written down on paper what my life looked like, what my money situation looked like. I'm living in Mexico in this sweet house. I got beautiful kids, beautiful wife. I'm just like, dude, I'm living the dream on paper. And here I am obsessing about my exit, about what went wrong. I'm obsessing about my former business, how I, what I didn't do right. I'm obsessing about what I'm not doing in my life. I'm living in a lack, in the worst possible way, and I'm having absolutely the highest level of anxiety you could possibly have on what's supposed to be like this monumental trip. And it, it took me hitting that third rock bottom for me to realize I have two choices. Choice number one is I'm going to live the rest of my life like this, or choice number two is I'm going to change the way I, I, I approach my life.

And And I. And I went as hardcore down on choice number two as you possibly could go. And it was. It was like. It was like a. I flipped a switch, you know, and it, and it. And I couldn't believe it took me two and a half years to get there. But. But something shifted in me and it was. It was. There's two books I read. One was Ed Mylett's the Power of One More. And the second book was Dr. Joe Dispenza's Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Yeah, and those, Those were kind of my, like my Bibles. And I really kind of leaned in what they taught, which was like. I asked myself a real simple question. Who am I letting live in my emotional house? And I was honest with myself. That comes from Ed's book. I said, you know, who's living in my emotional house if I'm going to be really, really honest with myself? It's envy, it's greed, it's dissatisfaction, it's living in the lack. It's. It's anger, it's. It's sadness, it's fear. And it's mostly fear, and it's not even logical fear. And I said, and who do I really want to live in my emotional house? Happiness, joy, friendship, love. And I said, and what I did was, it was like Friday, July 15, 2022. And I said, you know, tomorrow morning I'm wake up and all I'm going to do is focus on what's great in my life. And I get that for some people, they're like, this is obvious. But for me, I don't do that. I would sit there and just call on all the shit I didn't have or what I had done wrong or what I could have done better, or I go into the future and what I wasn't, you know, what wasn't happening, that I wanted to happen faster, you know, And I just said, you know, I'm just gonna be present. I'm just gonna live today for today. And you know what happened to me, Mike? At the best freaking day I had? The best freaking day I'd had since my exit. The day I had my exit, the check hit, the wire hit. I had that same day.

Yeah.

Except I was just focused on being around my family and being present. And again, it sounds. Sounds like common sense, but for me, I actually was able to live it. And then I said, you know what? I'll do it again. I'm gonna try it one more day. And I just took it one day, one day at a time. And here I am, you know, 14 months later. Man, it's been the best year of my life.

No, it's great. It's.

Sound like an advertisement for a 12 step program. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna summarize some of here, what I hear and, and I only half joke because it is truly one day at a time. And I, I'm of the opinion, and this is my observation because.

So I'm one of these two and I think one of the things that I struggled with when I was going through, I'll say my, my last reinvention. So I would say everything you're describing, I remember all this stuff a little bit different, but it's pretty much the same script. About five years ago and I was having a full on breakdown and I got a variety of coaching and support and help from different sources.

And kind of had to find my legs. And in the meantime, and I didn't ask you this, but I'm, I'm curious. Just think about this because I'm gonna again, I want to frame this up, set it up for you, but hey, action taker Mike Koenig's here and I just wanted to interrupt for a second and let you know that if you're ready to reinvent yourself and your business, go to connecttomike.com to learn more and book a conversation with me right now. All right, back to the episode. For a while, what I struggled with is feeling incongruent because on the inside I was doing this massive rebuild.

Feeling very insecure, completely uncertain of myself, building a new business, and I knew I could do a good job. But it was like, how dare I coach and advise other people in some cases who I perceive to be more successful than me?

And.

I just managed my incongruence. You know, it was like I just kind of put it in a little box. But I'm curious what your experience was. And then the second part of this was.

I think maybe I'll stop there because again, I don't want to lead, lead this in too many directions at once. How did you manage the incongruence? Or didn't you feel that way if you're, you know, coaching and advising and giving people a bunch of advice and on the inside you're a wreck.

So I, I. Vulnerability is one of my superpowers. I always tell people, so I always tell them I'm a solid C minus student on, on, on anything I'm telling you from a personal standpoint. So just know that everything I tell you, I understand it logically and I'm pretty inconsistent about doing it, but I know I should be doing it. Um, and that's on anything. Mindfulness. And I've gotten better. I actually was thinking about this last night. I'm like, you know, I'm actually more of, like, a B student now. Not perfect, but. But I'm pretty good, so owning that part of it. And I wasn't doing life coaching. I was doing, like, hey, you have 250 employees, and we want to grow this thing to 500.

I get it.

So. So that part, I didn't feel like a cognitive dissonance around. I'm like, I know how to do that. And, like, I have, like. I've. I didn't feel any, like, inconsistency there. What I did with them, though, is I said, hey, look, that part. We can figure that part out. The part about, you know, you being a better leader and you. I mean, these are people with zero mindfulness practices. They're not in, you know, strategic coach. They're not in forums. They're not doing, you know, Tony Robbins platinum. They're not doing any of that stuff. So I'm like. I'm like, dude, they're on such a far end of the spectrum away from a lot of this, like, mindful work. We're talking about that. I'm like, hey, let's just get you to, like, meditate once a day. I tell them meditate for five minutes to go to the gym three days a week. So I do a portion of the. It's like, hey, let's work on you. But I don't spend too much time there. I just say, hey, look, don't pretend like that doesn't matter, because it does. And I'm not here to beat you up about it. I'm here to help you strategically build a better company. But just know that we could build you the best. I built an amazing company, and on the inside, I was a freaking train wreck, right? So I said, like, what? You don't want to end. Some of these people are people that are like, guys that worked for me that have their own companies now. So that. So I'm like, look, you saw me then how do I look? Like, you look great. I'm like, I was a train wreck inside. I said, so just know you can get there, too, if you do the wrong things. And I don't want you to get there. But I. But I kind of steered away from it. I was like, look, you're not hiring me for that. If you guys want to coach for that there's other people that can help you and they're way better than I am. I'm, I'm, I'm a C minus student. So now I didn't have that, I didn't have that issue for that reason.

Okay, well, here's the next one then. So.

Part of what I wanted to say along those lines, and again, this is what I've noticed in others. I've seen it myself. And it sounds like you've been very much the same way. Like, in order to get to where you were to be able to do what you did. What I notice about founders and entrepreneurs is a, we have this fantastic combination of quick start.

Adhd, ocd, and it serves us to get out of a certain position we're in. In other words, we can manufacture a useful identity that takes us from, you know, poverty to wealth or success, and to also.

Improvise and innovate. You know, it's like it is the greatest things. And I'm not claiming to be one of these. It's just my observation, like, I, I happen to have a lot of admiration and love for Elon Musk, even though he says a lot of stupid crap these days. And I've been coaching his launch director. So I'm, I'm in the, the world of that. And I, I get access to a lot of really great mindsets because of that and of course, whatever you consume and read. But I have an enormous amount of admiration for him. And, and Dean came and I was telling you that earlier who's one of the greatest inventors. I think he's a genuine Leonardo da Vinci of our time. But what I've noticed amongst highly successful founders who at some point we all go through this transformative yuck when like it's, it's God. Your creator says you must change in order to get to the next level. And nothing you are being and who you become calm will serve you in this next phase. And I remember telling, talking to a guy with, you know, he's got like a $75 million company and he heard me talk about this very thing. And one of the things I'm just going to tell you right in just a moment and he pulled me as size and he started crying and he said, I can't talk to anyone about this. I, I want to. I, I get up every day trying to convince, convince myself not to kill myself and I'm rich.

I'm doing an amazing work, I'm giving back. I've got this great family, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah. But none of it matters. And I'm like, you know, this is. This is God screaming at you. You know, you've got to reinvent yourself. And it's like the soul. Your soul's about to burst. This. This. This framework doesn't work anymore. And again, what I believe happens is the process of creating this level of success in the shell that we were creates an enormous amount of physical, mental, and.

Emotional and psychic trauma. And, and when you talked about, like, reading the two books. Ed Mylett, Power of One More. Joe Dispenza, if you. Have you been to Joe's, any of his seminars yet?

I. I tried. I. I tried to go. But no, I. I read. I read that book and I read Supernatural, and then I. And then I just got busy. Busy. But. But no, I.

It is. I cannot recommend it enough. He is tapping into some ancient, ancient wisdom. Really, really good. And then the big question you had. Who do I want to live in my emotional house? I think that's a really good foundational question. You know, the obvious stuff. Meditate, go to the gym. One thing that A tool that I. I love. Have you seen brain tap by Dr. Patrick Porter?

It's a little note.

It's a light sound machine you wear, and it's got a visor with blinky lights in it, and it also blinks in your ears. And then it. It's binaural beats and audio, and is in a very, very, very effective therapy tool that has enormous amount of science behind it. But it's got an app. It's like 800 bucks or so. But highly recommend that. And. But I'm gonna just stop for your feedback. And then I want to ask you the. The big question, which is. So we've got the books. The who. The big question. Who do I want to live? Let's pretend we were talking to someone right now who's dealing with this, and we gave him the prescription. I know what my prescription is. I'm curious what your prescription is, but first of all, I just want to check. Is there anything that you wanted to comment on after I gave you that little brain dump?

Yeah, so I. I didn't go to. I didn't use the G word, but God.

I had God moment, you know, and what I. How I used to describe this is I said God picked me up and threw me off the cliff because I would never have gone by myself. Totally. Yep. So in no world, ignore it at your peril. Yeah. In no world would any human have chosen to do what I did and voluntarily done it and said, hey, I'm running a $200 million company. I'm. I mean, at that point I had a massive executive team. I, I was bored out of my. I had nothing to do. So it was on autopilot.

Thank God for that.

Yeah, I built.

I wish I could become you when I grow up, but yeah, okay, good job on that one.

Yeah, no, I built, I built it, all right. I, I had develop the skill sets to do that stuff. And, and I. So in no world was I going to just walk away from that voluntarily. It had to come through such enormous pain that the only option was to walk away from it because I couldn't bear with the pain. I came very, I was very clear on that with myself. I said, this had to go down this way because I never would have voluntarily done it. And so I used to say, God threw me off the cliff. And what I realized though was at that point, this is 2019. I'd been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years at that point, even though I started being an entrepreneur when I was 19. Right. I know. Just like you, Micah. I started very young and over the next couple years, I'm 20 plus years into being an entrepreneur and I was really, I had a lot of free time because I was post exit and I wasn't working full time and I was keeping myself distracted and busy, but I still had a lot of fair amount of time to think because I was trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with myself. And, you know, I realized something which was, you know, I've been trying to control every freaking outcome since I can remember and all it's done is make me anxious.

And when I hit that final rock bottom in Oaxaca, I started. Like I said, I read those books and I did the Joe Dispenza four week meditation. And in the meditation, there's a moment where you surrender to a higher intelligence. And I did it and I had a moment where, you know, I kind of had an out of body experience, which I know is not normal, but I had a little bit of an out of body experience, little bits of understanding. I had a major out of body experience and it happened every single day. When I hit the part of the meditation where you surrender to a higher intelligence. And I finally, and I asked myself a question that I never asked myself before. Before I said, what if you're not. I said, darius, what if you're not in control? What if like God has a purpose for you and. And it has nothing to do with you? You can't force the outcome because you've been working your ass off to force the outcome for your whole life. And it got you to a point where you were unhappy, you were pissed off, you were miserable, you're anxious and you didn't. And even when you got stuff, you didn't appreciate it. But what if you just kind of let go and, and showed up every day with gratitude and appreciation and let God do work through, do the work that you're meant here to do? And I'm not a religious person. I'm not even, I've never zero religion, right? And so this happened every day for three weeks. I have this like out of body experience. When I got to this, this part of the meditation, I wasn't controlling. My heart would fill up. I was like, what the fuck's happening to me? And I, I, I just said, you know what? I've tried everything. I'm just going to try this. I'm going to quit trying to, mm. I'm just gonna surrender to the higher intelligence. I'm here to live my talents to create amazingness in the world however it shows up. And I'm gonna quit trying to create these big outcomes. I'll let them happen for, for me instead of to me. And you know what's happened since then, man? I'm about ready to close on a quarter billion dollars of money I'm raising. I got partnered up with someone that came into my life through like the most random way for this new private equity business. All these random, amazing things have happened to me since I just let go and quit trying. And I was like, I'm like. And you hear people say that, I would hear people say that. I'm out bullshit. And I'm living proof that just happened to me. So I just let go, man. I quit. I quit trying. All I'm trying to do at this point is three things. And so to answer your second question is, what would I have told myself then? Honestly, man.

I think I had to go through that pain in order to shed that skin. And I wish, I wish I didn't have to. For most people, they're not going to have to go through the type of pain that I had to go through. And I hope for them at least, I think for me, I had to. I wish I could have figured it out sooner that I, that I shouldn't try to control everything. I wish I should have figured out sooner that I should have gratitude in my life and truly be grateful and quit pretending to be grateful.

I wish I could have told myself hey, you need to pay attention to yourself and love your moments and be present with your family and actually do it because I wanted to do it, not because I felt like it was the right thing to do. Yeah, but, but, but really getting clear on, on, on, you know, so all that pain and all that frustration kind of got me to rock bottom. And when I got to rock bottom, I kind of came off by surrendering to the higher intelligence. And then I came to a bigger conclusion which was I'm not going to set goals anymore. Which is a, kind of a funny thing to say, but I figured out I've been sitting here setting goals my whole life. I want to, I want to make 10,000 bucks in a month. I want to make a hundred grand in a year. I want to make seven figures in a year. I want to build a million dollar business. I want to build a 10 million dollar business. I want to build a hundred million dollar business. I want to get in the best shape of my life. I want to have this kid. I want to do that. I want to be the entrepreneur of the year. I want people, I want to have the best place to work. I want to be top five 40 in the Inc. 5000. I want to be top nine, top 10 CEOs in America on glassdoor.com I just named a bunch of that I did in my life. And every time it would happen, I didn't care. It was like nothing had happened. I just moved on to the next one. I want to build a hundred million dollar company. You know, you name it, I, I had those, I checked the box and it felt like nothing. And I figured out something. I said, you know what? When I hit the $200 million, man, I was like, you know what it was, it was cool and it was painful because I was like, you know what? There's no number. There's no number. 500 is going to feel the same as this. I know it. A billion will feel the same as this. There is no number that will actually change who make me happy. So that was a little disappointing. And I, so I came to this conclusion a few months after the thing that happened last summer where I was like, you know what?

I'm done with goals. I'll have goals like, like, like in a different way though, I'm going to have goals around who do I want to be in the world. And I came and I, and it was very easy. I got real clear on it really. Like, I know who I want to be in the world. I want to be a person that creates impact. That my goal is to be a person that lives every day to create impact, number one. Number two is I want to be a person that has deep, loving relationships. And number three, I want to be the healthiest version of myself. And I broke that down into three parts. I said, how do I want to do that? I want to have great friends and family that I pour into my. My immediate family. My. My. My family outside of my immediate family and my friends around me. I want to. An impact. I want to do that through advising companies, through my private equity business, and through podcasting. And health is going to come through mindfulness, diet and exercise. And every day I set goals for as. As much as I can handle in each of those areas. And it's a day. I have a goal for today. And that's it. And whatever. And I. And. And listen, I hope big things happen in those areas, but it's about to. Handling the goal for today, and that's all I care about. And I set three goals per day for each one of those areas. And that. And that was it, man. The minute I've done that, my life's been a hell of a lot better. I'm the happiest I've ever been in 45 years on this planet. Yeah.

Good for you. Congrats.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, so my summary of that is quit making I want goals and change them to who do I want to be Goals.

Who do I want to be?

Yeah, there's two.

Similar observations. So I had a huge breakthrough.

Many years ago.

Where I read a book by Wayne Dyer.

And.

I gotta think of the name of it right now. But the takeaway. I can't believe I've thought about this book many, many times.

I'm going to check it out. But.

The. The bottom line is in the book.

The.

The. It was manifest your destiny. I just found it. And the big takeaway that I got from that book is who do I want to become right now to be. To become attractive to that which I desire.

Hmm.

And then the second one, and I wound up going to Egypt with Deepak Chopra and Wayne dyer in like 19.

Might have been 98. Ish. 97. 98. And then. Which was unbelievably mind blowing. And then.

Another similar experience or a breakthrough came from. Oh, I know what it is. It's Gay Hendricks, who I do a podcast with.

And the. The name of his book is the Big Leap. But one of his more recent books is called Conscious Luck, and it's. It's very, very in line with what you're talking about here. But the bottom line summary is he's got these eight rules of creating conscious luck. And his, one of his primary mindsets is I'm lucky. And he says, you wouldn't believe what happens when you take on that mindset of I'm lucky. And he's very much the same way. And I'm actually not a goal setter either. I just manifest what I want, when I want it.

And I realize as I listen to you, I find the whole idea of I want.

Distasteful. Yeah, I don't like the way it sounds or it feels versus a who do I want to become? But also I love Wayne's perspective. Who do I want to become right now to become attractive to that which I want, which I. I want or which I desire? Which is an even better word. So I like just how that feels when I play that back as I listen to you. So if we were going to.

You know, think through this, because the. I think.

Again, what I, what I heard while I listened to you is if you were talking to yourself 20 years ago and you provided this simple formula, you'd be like, not enough steps, not enough detail, not enough how versus learning how to feel into being real.

And, and one of the things that Tony Robbins always talks about is, you know, the reason why people commit suicide is they lack a compelling future. And.

You know, you switched your goal setting to having a reason why behind it. And in a way, when you turn it into a who do I want to be? That's is naturally building in a compelling future into that because you can see that future self experiencing.

You know, an outcome that has meaning attached to it.

An impact. Again, I'm rearranging what you just said, but that's my take on what I, what I've heard so far. So if, well, can I, can I.

Just add one quick thing there? Because yeah, of course. For me, for me, I'm, I tend to overcomplicate stuff. And so what I figured out was when I was setting these larger goals, which I was always this guy that's like, I'm going to build a billion dollar company. I'm going to do this. I'm going to, you know, and I've hit a lot of these different companies, these different milestones, and just the fact that it didn't make me feel any better was, was really disappointing.

And then I really got clear. I said, well, every big goal requires presence in the today. And it requires like, what steps am I taking today? Like, I got to take steps today, every day. And I. And if I'm not selling, like, and there, you know, you've heard the saying, like, you know, enjoy the process, right? And I used to hate that. I'd say, like, what do you mean, enjoy the process? Like, I hate. Like, what does that even mean? Like, I was a person that, like, hated when people would say it. I enjoy the journey. And I'm like, what does that mean? I'm like, what, that?

Yeah, I like that one as much as everything happens for a reason. And I'll tell you what happens for a reason. That's what F you. I think that's just such a pile of horse crap.

So I, So, so I didn't like it because. Because again, to your point, there was no tangible steps for me to get there, and I didn't feel that way. And then, and then when I. But when I. When I turned it inside out and said, well, who do I want to be? Then it gets really easy. I'm. I'm going to read to you. Like, so I. I've written in my daily journal. I'm committed to having a daily three things I'm going to do for my professional dreams, for my health, and for my relationships and with my friends and family. And then it says, okay, what are the three things I'm going to do today? And I'm like, I'm going to watch a movie with my family. This is my goals for today. Watch a movie with my family tonight. Have a one on one with my wife and my eldest son because we didn't do it yesterday. And I'm going to go for a walk with my weighted vest for 20 minutes. Most of this is family oriented because the whole week has been more business oriented. And that's like. And for me, that's a target. And I'm like, all right, I got to go do that now. Is that. Are those earth shattering? No, but I'm paying dividends into building a better relationship with my family and health, and I'm focused on my health. Monday, it'll be more business oriented, but I found that, like. But for me, I feel I get that dopamine shot every single day now.

And.

And what I'm seeing is my life is transforming in the way that I want it to. And that's. And I was like, so I wish I could have discovered this sooner, but I didn't, you know, and here I am.

It's. Well, I think what I'm gonna enjoy is a conversation with you in.

Two years.

Because what I. What I love about this, and I didn't realize the first time we met and spoke is just like.

You feel raw to me still, which is great. I. And that's a compliment, by the way. I still feel this rawness and this hunger.

And it's. It's refreshing. And also the authentic willingness to be raw. And.

I think, you know, anytime I feel a protection, especially around founders who've reinvented, I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I believe this. Right. You know, I don't buy into it because, you know, it's. It's. Whoever's the most vulnerable and authentic first is always the winner and the leader in a group. In a group. That's one thing I've really learned over the past. I. I couldn't do it myself 10 years ago, but starting five or six, it's like going in and doing a sweat lodge, if you've ever done a Native American sweat lodge before. It is about being raw and authentic and vulnerable and sharing your greatest fears and terrors and.

Gaining support and, you know.

Being mindlessly plasticine is very boring.

And I know. I won't mention his name. Well, I'll mention his name because.

You know, Darren Hardy, who he is.

Yeah, yeah.

So he. And he. He's a friend of mine and. And he lives close to me. And.

Like, I can remember one time, you know, we had the. We got together for one of our walks, and I start. He asked me, so how are things going? And I started saying, he goes, I don't want to hear that happy. I want to know what's rotten in your life right now. What's the worst possible thing that's going on? That's boring. You know, he, like, he goes, I want the dirt, man. I want the raw sewage. That's what. Because to him, that's what, you know, that's the world. He. He's just not afraid to take on the Ross, the most damaging, hurtful stuff and understand that, because he is the most deliberate, perfect guy I've ever known. And yet he is really raw and vulnerable about what his weaknesses are. And. And he's very public about it in his own podcast, but he's the most perfect executor and precise person I've ever known when it comes to just absolute discipline. And yet that absolute and total discipline makes them just as miserable. Right. So I think as you were talking about this Journey business, I hate hearing about the journey also. I'm like. Because I. I'm an outcome focused guy. I like, I like getting There quickly. And I don't like difficult journeys. It's one thing, like, I never need to climb a mountain. First of all, I don't like altitude and I don't like falling on rocks. Okay. The other thing is I never need to be cold ever again. Ever. Right? So anyone who dies falling off of glacier or off of a mountain, I don't feel anything. It'll be like, that's stupid.

Shouldn't have done it.

Nope, it's dumb. It's really dumb. And anyone who's like, well, I feel this need to. I'm like, yep, you can get therapy for that. Just, just stupid. So anyway. But if someone loves it, go ahead.

Yeah, more power to you.

But anyway, otherwise Darwin can take over. But the point is, I think, you know, being in spending a lot of time with entertainers and people who are as real and vulnerable as I find them to be, they're the ones who are the most expressive, who are willing to get in and admit their faults, even if they're the only one in the room doing it. And they're the ones who are going to be the most admired and respected not because they want it, it's just because that's who they are. So I think it took me a long way to get to that conclusion, but that's what I was experiencing feeling as I was listening to your journey. So maybe the what I'd like to ask you is if you had an ask.

Or anywhere to go other than your website. Thereildarius.com D A R I U S Click and join and, and subscribe to your podcast. Any do you haven't asked. Do you have. For my audience?

Yeah. No, I mean, look like I, I, I love doing my podcast. I love people to support that the book. We didn't even talk about the book, but I wrote the book. The Core Value Equation. If you're trying to build a more intentional core value business, you can apply it to your life. It's a great book around how do you design your values to make them come to life in your life? For me, they've been a very valuable tool that I've used and they're, they're. I'm a core value evangelist. So yeah, support my book, support my podcast. And you know, I'm not, I'm working on my, my, my private equity thing right now, and so there's nothing for anyone to do there. But yeah, you know, I think I'm sure I'll have other stuff coming up. Like I said, I'm, I have an idea for my new book, which is kind of around what we just talked about. Still in the infancy stages, but now those are the two things that I would love support on for sure.

Okay, well, I think what I'll do is I'll make sure I've got links to everything in the show notes and yeah, I really appreciate you going, going deep and we took a lot of little roads to get to a place. But I think at the end of the day, what I appreciate personally and I know the more amazing, truly successful and when I say successful, these are people who are genuinely happy. Their children know who they are and, and.

They have long term marriages and.

Are cash confident but nothing's about the money anymore. And it's not like nothing. It's always a great scorekeeper, but they've got a bigger impact in mind and they're constantly willing to reinvent. Those are the folks that I like the most who are willing to shed an old identity, take on a new one, because that's what serves their higher purpose and also at peace with whoever or whatever their version of God or creator is where.

And I, I'll add this one tiny thing. I buried my dad this past weekend and.

I was raised a Catholic and I did not like it much, but I sat in a Catholic church and I was like, man, I haven't felt peace. I let go of a lot of anger and old baggage that I had for religion and church. You know, it was like a, a big sore spot in my life. And it's not about that, but it's that being at peace and flowing with your creator energy that I feel, and I recognize now in accomplished, successful human beings, that sense of peace that you feel that you can't put your finger on. And I felt a lot of that and I really enjoyed hearing your journey today. So it's, you know, the best podcast, the ones when it feels like two old friends have known each other, have a real conversation. That's the way I felt today.

So thank you.

How about you? Any, any last words?

No, no. It's like I kind of, I, I, I told you my, one of my superpowers is vulnerability. I didn't expect to kind of talk about some of the stuff I talked about, but and this is the first time I've actually done it on a podcast. So it was, it was interesting to get to do it. And you, you're a great host, man. It was fun to get to have this conversation. I appreciate you. Right.

Well, very much the same. Thank you. And I didn't want to talk about something that you talked about before. I think I told you at the very beginning, go out there and you can get your book and you can I'm sure you've talked about your book plenty of times. That's another podcast or someone else. But I'd rather go somewhere we we haven't been and you haven't done either. So that's the best compliment you can give me as we did something different. So.

All right.

Well, I'll end this with Head over to Darius his website again at the real darius.com this is capability Amplifier. Thank you for spending some time here. If you know someone who could benefit from this conversation or you know you or someone you care about is experiencing this need to reinvent and figure it out, maybe this is the one thing that you can do which is forward it or leave a positive comment on itunes or wherever you're listening to or watching this. So thank you for listening, thank you for watching and thank you for being here, Darius.

Thank you.