25: Nick Santonastasso

Chris Suarez: [00:00:00] [00:00:00]  Welcome back to the experience growth podcast. I'm your host, Chris Suarez. Thank you for being my guest every week at experienced growth, we look to have conversations with CEOs, entrepreneurs, high-performers thought leaders but also moms, dads, brothers, and sisters, people just like you. Today, man, do we have a gap asked today we're gonna talk to an author, an athlete, a model, a public speaker, a business owner.

And amongst doing all of that, Nick Sentinel, Tasso is living with what we may consider a disability, Nick was born with Hanhardt syndrome, one of only four living people with this rare genetic disorder that left him with no legs with one arm. And yet he says, Our biggest disability is not our body, but potentially our mindset today's conversation is a real one guys.

Today's conversation is a shift in perspective for all of us. In fact what I love about Nick is he says his mission is to be a perspective shifter. Oftentimes we need to read and listen and research to have our perspective shifted. In, in Nick's world, most people just need to look at him and have their perspective shifted.

But most of you won't look at him, you'll be listening to this. And with that, what I encourage you to do is to listen to his words and feel, and experience what his perspective has done for him. And in putting them on a path of an incredibly experiential life. We'll leave all his contact and ways to connect and watch him in the show notes today.

But I promise this will not be the last you hear of him or see him through our organization. We've already promised to bring him back. He wrote an incredible book victim to Victor. How we can overcome the mindset of being a victim of what happens to us and really be victorious in our life and everything he says.

And does really is an attribute and contributes to this conversation of living an experiential life. So with that, let's dive into our conversation with Nick Sentinel DASA.

  So Nick, let's just jump in. I'm excited for our our community. Get to know you. I was mentioning to you earlier that I first saw you probably back in 2016 five, six years ago. And for those of our audience that has not had the privilege of five and speak on stage probably one of the most engaged, powerful speakers that I've had the privilege to sit in a room with.

And in fact, Since that moment. I have shared so many of your videos and interviews with my kids and largely because of this. And I'd love to start here. You say that one of your big missions in life is change perspective. Like you did that for me, but what does that mean? What does that mean for you to you and, and why does that matter?

Nick Santonastasso: [00:03:25] Oh man. Yeah, that's a great question. So the reason I called myself with shifter perspectives is because we all see life through a specific lens. And the reason why that's so important is because literally our brain is designed to focus on the insecurities, focus on the failures, focused on all the losses in your life.

And that's why people tend up. Tend to be in a negative downward spirals because their brain is focused on all the bats. And so I'll give you, I'll give you a quick story. This literally just happened. I live in a tower in Vegas and like I do my own, like I'm independent. And so like I'll skateboard into the elevator and I'll go down and I'll go into the gym and do something.

And this guy came into the elevator and I started with him. You never see like a uniform like me, right? He's the guy with no legs. And.  I'm like, how are you doing? I just break this pattern. Like, how are you doing it? Talking to him. And then he it's going up any end. He gets to his floor and he gets out and he turns around and he just starts crying.

And I'm like, are you okay? What's going on? And he's like, dude, he's like up until this point, like I thought my life was over. And I thought, like there was nothing else for me. And I thought everything that was going, happening to me was so bad. And I was just going down this downward spiral.

And then I see you walk out of the gym with no legs and one arm and you get into your elevator and you're just happy and you changed my life. And I'm like, well, I didn't change your life. You just saw something that you didn't think was possible, which gave you a different perspective of life. And so to answer your question, I think that.

There, we have to remember that the reason people are where they are is because they've only been exposed to so much they're doing, and people are doing the best they can [00:05:00] with what they know in their conditions. That's it. And so I can respect people's model of the world of where they're coming from, whether they're super access successful and happy, where they're not happy and fulfilled.

But what I'm saying is when people see me, they're exposed to something that has the ability to go, wow. Maybe my challenges aren't. As big as I thought they were, maybe the things that I'm going through, aren't as hard. I thought they were. And even me and man with no legs and one arm know that there are millions of kids and adults that are confined in wheelchair beds that are confined in hospital beds that look outside every single day and say, man, I wish I could breathe the fresh air.

I wish I could walk down the street. Even. I know that I don't have a bed and so I can and bring forth that mentality, even if it's just a smile and a compliment. You never know how far that goes. 

Chris Suarez: [00:05:40] Yeah, I love that. And I have to imagine that wasn't always your perspective, right? As that as a young kid, the majority of our audience will be listening to this interview.

And I started that question before maybe telling your story purposely, because I want to hear your perspective before we. Paint the auditory persons picture. So maybe paint us a picture, bring us back. You're you're you're you're Ford with Hanhardt syndrome. What is that?

What should we know about you? If we've never seen you in? 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:06:15] Yeah, absolutely. And so when I was born well, before I was born, my. My parents went in for late ultrasound and everything was good. There was early ultrasounds, everything was good. And then it went in for late ultrasound and they sat them down and they pulled the baby up on the screen.

And the doctor was like, we have some really bad news. And they're like, from the looks of it, it doesn't look like your baby's limbs are being developed. It looks like he's missing his legs. Look like he's missing his arm. His face might be messed up. They said, have a cleft pallet, which I don't, but they just painted a very dark picture for my parents.

And what they did in that moment was they classified me with Hanhardt syndrome and Hanhardt syndrome is a super rare genetic disorder that either leaves the babies with undeveloped limbs. Or undeveloped Oregon's. And at the time of my birth, I was the 12th baby and medical history that they've ever seen this happen too.

And out of the 12, eight of those babies have passed away due to undeveloped organs. And so that means the babies are born and they can't eat on their own. They can't breathe on their own. And they later on passed away. And so the doctors told my parents all these statistics, and they said, your baby boy has about a 30% chance to live.

And as a parent for the parents listening, like, what do you do? What are you doing in that moment? Like, how do you remain calm? How do you remain positive. And in that moment, my parents made a decision and the decision they made with each other was that they were going to constantly focus on that 30% chance of their son moving rather than a 70% chance of him passing away.

And I didn't like as a baby, I don't know what they're doing, but what I've realized now, as an adult is focusing on the negative doesn't serve you. But also what you focus on expands or what you focus on, you will get more ups. And so I'm firmly believed that the brain is super powerful. We know the brain super powerful.

It has affects within your physiology and your state and your immune cell. All of it takes control of everything. And if we backtrack and say, my parents focused on all my son's going to die. It's going to be terrible. My mom's stress levels would have been raised. Her anxiety levels would have raised her cortisol levels would have raised, and that doesn't create a good environment for a baby in the stomach.

So then I think I probably would have passed away. Does that make sense? 

Chris Suarez: [00:08:21] It makes wild sense. And also puts agency or fall back into each of our worlds, right? 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:08:28] Yeah. Because you and I can agree, especially like everyone listening over these past nine, 10, 12 months, we've had so much uncertainty.

We've had so much, stress going on. But the reason being is because people are focusing on all the things that they can't control. We can't control the shutdowns. We can't tell the mass, we can't control the pandemic. Maybe your business specific away from you, or maybe the way that you were doing business was stripped away from you.

But that's focusing on the problem. Yeah, you're going to get anywhere, focusing on the problem. And so if we tend to focus on the solution, people like you and I, we focus on the solution. Okay. How do we pivot? How do we get on zoom meetings and still motivate our downline or leaders? How do we get in these peoples?

How do we get them to be more productive even at home? And what we found out is people are like, wow, I can be just as productive or even more. And I can work from my laptop anywhere in the world. It gives people the new sense of freedom. If you're willing to focus on the gifts. Yeah. 

Chris Suarez: [00:09:25] Now I've heard you share, and I think this is probably a powerful person first step.

Your parents clearly incredible human beings for them to make the choice that they made for them to take the perspective that they took. And you often say that your parents allowed you to figure stuff out. What does that mean? And how do you think that has shaped you today?

Because you immediately go to. Okay. I can't control that, but let's be solutions-based it's gotta be from that early beginning. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:09:53] Yes. Great question. And for everyone, listening to what you see in this interview is I built this person, right? So I built [00:10:00] the confidence. I'd built the self integrity and built the mindset.

So wherever you're at in your journey, just know that it's training never stops and we'll get you there. And you'll get yourself there. And so my learnings or my teaching, or my cultivating happened at an early age. And I always say my, the biggest advantage I had as a kid with no legs and an arm is my parents treated me normal.

And it's funny because, and this is not like a pitch. My mom wrote a book and it was called how we raised an adaptive child in a handicap world, meaning that you can have all your limbs and still get handicapped by the way that you were raised. If you were coddled, if they did everything for you, if you never did any work on your own, if you never fell on your face, if they push you away from failure, that's basically handicapping your trials.

And so my parents treated me normal in the sense of, they put my clothes in front of me and they said, all right, Nick, figure it out. And I would get so pissed off and I'm trying to put my shirt on. I would fall over and I didn't understand what they were doing in the moment. And clearly I figured out how to put a shirt on it.

Cause I got a cert onto this video. But what they were doing, where they would give me verbal suggestions, but they wouldn't do the work for me. And that allowed me to go through the motions of failure, get up over and over again and find a different approach and finally figure out what worked for me.

And then they did it again. They sat me in my high chair, they put a spoon there and some Cheerios and said, Figure it out. And then we get so pissed off. I'm like, you guys know, you can just feed me. This will be so much easier. And I finally figured out how to feed myself. Now, what they were doing was a couple of things.

I'll go through a couple of things. The first thing that they were doing was they at an early age, they allowed me to develop an empowering relationship with failure. Now that's extremely powerful because one of the greatest fears that holds any human entrepreneur back is the fear of failure. It's because the relationship we were brought up with failure was it's bad.

We don't want to fail. We want to have a winning streak. We don't have to be perfect. I don't want to ever lose. And then the thoughts go in your head. What will my family think of me if I fail? What will my significant other think of me? If I fail? What will I think of me? If I fail? Because you have a bad relationship with failure.

Now I realize that failures are friends. Failure is I watched, I cuddle with failure. I watch Netflix with failure because I know on the other side of failure, massive personal growth is going to be taken place. And in our careers, you and I we've learned that if you fail faster, you succeed faster. So failure in my life is simply feedback.

And I've also spent, I don't know if anyone knows Sarah Blakely. She's one of the first women billionaire from Spanx. And I thought it was pretty interesting. Her parents brought her up as every time at the dinner table. She would ask little, they would ask the little, Sarah, what did you fail at today, honey?

Because they would motivate her to try new things and fail. And now the other thing that they helped me develop was an empowering relationship with rejection. Because everything was hard. I got rejected when I tried to get on the chair, I got rejected. When I tried to put my shirt on, I got rejected in school.

When people thought I was different, but at an early age, I was like, wow rejection's only going to make me grow. This is also feedback. But how does that benefit me? My business, and for those that are listening well, you all know that you work with people on a day-to-day basis and not, everyone's going to say yes to the listing or the house or recruiting.

And if you have a bad relationship with rejection and the first time you get rejected, you're going to crumble. And then you're going to be like, Why am I not a good agent? What am I doing wrong? And you're going to ask all the wrong questions, which are going to lead to all the wrong answers. But instead if the next time that you will get rejected, you can say, okay, what can I do better?

How can I learn from this? What's a different approach. Can I communicate differently? Can I be more compassionate? What went on in the situation that it fell through and let me identify it so I could work on, and then you don't crumble. You just learn. And then the next time you show up, you implement those very learnings and maybe you get your next.

Yes. Does that make 

Chris Suarez: [00:13:41] sense? It makes perfect sense. There's so much conversation right now about failure or rejection. A lot of people say that failure is the path to success and, fail faster, fail faster. But I think what you've changed in that comment is it isn't just the failure and rejection.

That we're looking for and we get high fives for some of that, I at times believe that we're just making ourselves feel better. But what you said is it's your relationship with it's our relationship with failure. It's our relationship with rejection, which is different than just going after it.

How has that relationship with both of those things added to confidence? Like you, you're incredibly confident guy didn't that was that's gotta have been built. Like how does that relate? 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:14:26] Yes. So we get, okay. I'm a big confidence guy clearly. So this is hyping me up.  Let's bring it to confidence and I'll come back to the relationship.

Now I was moving forward in middle school and high school. I was an unconfident. I was depressed. I hated my body. And I came to realization with myself. I'm like, Nick, you can't change your body. So you better find a ways to fall in love with this because you're stuck with it for as long as you live.

And so I got to figure out a way to fall in love with myself a little bit more. And that was also the thing that I was looking for. I was a kid that thought you were either born with confidence that you didn't have it. [00:15:00] I was like I guess I don't have the legs. I don't have the confidence.

Where does this come from? And I didn't, I like these teachings. I've learned this as an adult. I'm not saying that I knew this as a 14, 15 year old kid, as I analyze my life, I've learned these things. And so I realized that competence is actually a skill and it's a muscle. And it's something that we cultivate and how we cultivate confidence, self integrity, or self worth is following through on the very things that you say you're going to do.

So I'll give you an analogy. Say I say, Chris, after this interview, meet me here. We're gonna have, we're gonna have a bro date. And we're going to have some Mexican food and meet me here at 6:00 PM. You're like, Oh my God, this is going to be amazing. I can't wait. And Chris shows up at the restaurant at 6:00 PM and Nick never shows up.

How many times of Nick not showing up? Is Chris going to realize I'm unreliable? Once twice, maybe three times, if you're a real pushover, right? You'll give me the benefit of the doubt. Probably once though, with our standards right now, let's flip the script on ourselves. How many times do we go throughout life and say, I'm going to go to the gym or I'm going to, I'm going to reach out to this many prospects.

I'm going to close this amount of deals. And we don't follow through the very promises that we make within ourselves. Are we going to realize that we're in her life now? Why is that important? Every time that we make a promise within ourselves, And we break it first off on an unconscious level. We diminish the relationship we have within ourselves.

We view ourselves less than it lowers our self integrity, lowers our confidence and it lowers the relationship we have within ourselves. Also, what that does is when you break one promise, is it easy to break too? Easy to break three, four. It's like, Oh, I didn't go to the gym today. Screw it. I'm not going to go tomorrow.

I've already broke the promise I've already lost. Does that make sense? And because what I've realized is that the most, the P the people with the highest that we look up to the highest achievers, they often have a lot of confidence and they have a lot of certainty in themselves. But they also base their confidence about how productive they are and how many promises they keep within themselves.

And so what we call these things are non-negotiables, I call them non-negotiables in my life. For those that may follow me in bodybuilding, I've done a program where there was a lot of non-negotiables it's called seventy-five heart. It's a physical program, but most importantly, what is it? It's a mental program of building self integrity.

And so in your life, you can have non-negotiables for me. I have non-negotiables my gallon of water and forty-five minutes of movement. Now, why is that important? Well, humans love the feeling of progress. So if you have non-negotiables in your life, despite what goes on in business that day, And despite what goes on in personal life that day, as long as you do these very things and keep your promises.

When you put your sweet little head down on the pillow, you know, you move the needle folk, does that make sense? It makes perfect sense.

Chris Suarez: [00:17:41] What jumps out at me as well is that once we begin to keep those promises it, it works the other way too. We're more out to make promises with ourselves, which makes us goal driven. Future pacing human beings in our organization at often say that my partners and I were promised keepers and that's as much a reminder to myself that, Hey, I'm a promise keeper.

So if I say I'm going to do something, if I say we're going to accomplish something, I say this partnership is going to achieve that. I keep my promises, which means I'm willing to do whatever it takes to be a promise keeper that comes from. Those small things. I mean, somebody five hard, you bring up like our organization.

A bunch of us just did that. And it's interesting you look at their business success and their health success and their personal success. They're all tied in because they're willing to do small things that led to that person, that confidence and self-esteem. Yeah. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:18:32] Yeah. And I'll have a one-liner that will sum it up for everyone that's listening.

You will never make more than you think you're worth. That's it. If you think, listen, this is your identity. We're talking about. If you think you are a 50 K a year, guess what? You're a 50 K a year. If you think you are a 500 K a year, guess what? You have a better chance of hitting 500 K, but also you will never have the physique.

If you don't think you're worth it, you will never have deep, meaningful relationships with your spouse, your kids, your teammates. If you don't think you're worth it, you'll never have the mindset. If you don't think you're worth it, people struggle with self-worth. That's why they're like, I'm always preaching about confidence.

It's like, how does this make sense? I'm like if you're not confident, people are going to feel you're unconfident. People are also going to feel your uncertainty and then you can't influence. Then you can't sell. Then you can't communicate at a higher level because people feel your uncertainty. Yes or no.

Chris Suarez: [00:19:27] Yeah. It may seem off topic, Nick, but I'll jump here because I shared it. I shared it with my, my daughter just turned 13, so teenager. And I had listened to an interview. You did. And I quite honestly, I don't know when it was done. It could have been a long time ago. It could have been more recently, but you had said relationships are not meant to fill a void in our life.

Like talk, talk through that because sometimes right. We as humans we look for that. And especially as parents out there, so many of our listeners have kids and we're teaching our kids the wrong [00:20:00] message. And when you said that, I was like, man, like we're in my life.

Have I done that? How do I present that in, in, in those that I can impact? What does that mean? 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:20:09] Yeah, that's a great question. We've been, I think as humans, we've been conditioned to seek validation from external. And especially with social media and everything that we see in the kids going through social media, all this, like literally the reason, one of the very reasons why there's so much stress, anxiety, suicide rates at our all time high is because we're constantly on our phones comparing people's highlight reels to the lowest of our lives.

Let me say that again, we feel not so good about ourselves. And so what do we do when we go on social media? And then we see someone on a yacht, or we see someone with a pretty girl and we see someone with a stacks of money, throwing them on a private jet. And we say, wow I should be a lot further in my life, or I should have that.

Or why am I not happy or fulfilled? And and by the way I'm constantly growing and I'm constantly transitioning. I'm a young cat in the game and I'm constantly growing. And so early in my entrepreneurship career, I'm like, I don't want to have sex in a Lamborghini and I want to watch it. So this is great, Richard Millie's APS.

And I'm like all about that stuff. And that's my main focus and don't get me wrong. I still got materialistic goals cause I like them and I don't want them. But what I've realized is that external stuff, whether it's watches, suits, Money in the bank account, whatever that is, it doesn't fulfill you.

It won't fill a void. And, but oftentimes what you were talking about Chris is us going through life. We all create love we're humans, right? But oftentimes when we want a relationship, we think that person's that's going to fill the void. And once I get this person, then I'll be happy.

It's that mindset of, once I get the house, then I'll be happy. Once I get the watch, then I'll be happy. No way. It's that's what we've been conditioned to, but it's empty. And I spent a lot of time working alongside Tony and he has this full, he says success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.

So imagine you. And I know we have millionaire friends, billionaire, friends that have all the money, cars, houses, and they're still empty it's because they haven't sought out or got the validation from what themselves. And that comes from self care that comes from working on you. That comes from realizing that, wow, my happiness and fulfillment is an income come from the houses in the watches.

It's going to come from me following through, on my very promises and be good to myself. And so I think we just been conditioned to. Think, wow. When I get that, then I'll be happy. But in reality, I think you and I both can agree. We've had the money and we have no money, but as long as we have amazing relationship, when we have great relationships within ourselves and those around us, that's what's most important.

Yeah. 

Chris Suarez: [00:22:41] I think it's a, I think it's a key differentiator in your message. My friend, I really do have in the sense that and it's fair, right? You say I like those things. I have materialistic goals. But Before that comes you today already realize that if I achieve that first.

Before, truly feeling any void that I might have, and we all have voids, right? Like we, like you were born with voids, and you said how do I feel void? So I don't rely on or ask other people to feel that way, because honestly, a lot of those broken relationships were started or were on an unfair foundation.

Like it was unfair of us expect that person to fill a personal void. And  it's the reason why they crumble or they break down. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:23:21] Yeah. And yeah. You can ha and like I said, I'll get, let me get into this too. Like I'm down for materialistic goals. I'll be fully transparent. Like I got a Lambo, it's the background of my background on my phone screen.

Like I want it, that's what I want. I want, I know the difference between that is I know, like you said that it's not going to make me super happy and fulfilled. How many times have we got a car? And then a couple of months later, he was like, I was to say, I was being a little bit nicer.

Like weeks were just like, okay, like where's the emotions coming from? And so that's the thing it's happiness is like true happiness and fulfillment is like, how do you feel when you're alone? How do you feel when no one's around to give you praise to hype you up to say, you're amazing. How do you feel when you're alone?

And if you don't feel great when you're alone, just find out ways that you can better the relationship spend more time with yourself. But also I want to touch on this. If you don't mind is we've also been pushed in a sense to feel guilty. If money's a motivator, which I want to let you know, I want money to be a motivator for you.

The reason being is because when you have money, How is it going to feel when you can cut a check? When someone in your family has cancer and you can take care of it, how does it feel when your parents get to a specific age? And you said, I got you a, I got you a property. I got you a place you're retired, or how does it feel when you go to your parents and say, Hey, I just bought tickets to Italy.

It's all on me. Meet me there. It's going to be amazing by the way, these are mine. These are the things that I want to do to my parents. I want to retire them to real estate. I want to take them to Italy. I want to be able to provide for my family in case something comes up. So money should be a motivator, but for the right reasons, 

Chris Suarez: [00:24:51] I agree with that in our organization.

When we look at our our mission, our vision and our values, we say, Oh, we want all of our people to win. [00:25:00] Make, give live and do good. You have to win and make money in order to give and do good and quite honestly, to live experientially, truly with those right live where you want, when you want with who you want right there.

There's nothing wrong with that statement. In fact, it's almost a precursor or to to that. Yeah. I want to go back to, I believe you were in. Junior high, maybe high school. And you had involved you, you wanted to become a wrestler. And in order to achieve that goal you had to do some unthinkable things.

Take us to that moment in your life and why you did what you did. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:25:38] Yeah. So I'm from New Jersey and new in New Jersey. Wrestling's like a big deal. It's just you know how like football is a religion elsewhere, like wrestling.

My older brother he passed away about a year ago and it's always trying to honor my brother, my older brother was a stud wrestler. And like from an early age, like practicing wrestling moves on me. And like I said, I got through to totally normal. I got beaten by my siblings. My brother slamming me on the sofa doing these booms.

And I always wanted to be like my brother. And when I got into high school, The best friends that I had there, they all were wrestlers, I guess, because I gravitated towards the wrestlers. I don't know what it was, but also maybe it was, I wanted to surround myself with big dudes, so I didn't get bullied. I don't know what it was, but maybe that's the thought process.

Good. And so I had a bit of a challenge. And it was this arm for those that are watching this arm, we call it the potato because it looks like a potato, but it used to be like a ticket wings. And the reason why it looked like a chicken wing is because this arm was five inches longer than it is now.

And my bone was going faster than my skin. So it was super sensitive. And the bottom line is if I would have hit my arm hard enough, my bone when came through my skin. The thing is my parents never wanted to push a solution on me. Does that make sense? They never wanted to say, Hey, we should amputate my arm because when I was born, the doctors wanted to do some unthinkable things to me.

They wanted to chop my finger off. They wanted to put screws in my, what I have left in my leg and sit me in bed for six months and lengthened my bone. So one day I could walk like they want, and my parents like, no that's next choice. That's next choice. That's next choice. And I had this challenge, but I knew as a kid, and this was my thought process as a 16, 17 year old kid.

I'm like, first, if I become arrested, maybe the girls were like, that you know exactly. I'm trying to fill a boy and sound like maybe girls were like, I know girls were like also I was like, I'll spend more time with my friends. So that means I'm not, as, I'm not alone with myself, which then leads to dark thoughts.

So I'll be with my friends more, this will build confidence and I'll be labeled as an athlete. And people told me it couldn't be an athlete. This is going to instill confidence. And so solution-oriented remember Nick was brought up being solution-oriented. I'm like, Oh, how about other ways that I could become arrested?

And so I came home one day and I sat both of my parents down and I said, mom and dad, I want to become a wrestler. And my mom said, Oh no, she said, Nick, you know, your arm, what are you going to do? You're going to hit your arm, your bone gums to your skin. And what are you going to do? Then I say, can we cut my arm off?

And they said, what? And I said, yeah, can we cut my arm off? Can we do something about it? I remember my mom was like, Nick, the right word is amputate. You're so aggressive with your vocabulary. And I'm like, I'll use your words. And so my parents. I hope this makes sense. My parents were thrilled that I brought forth this addiction.

They were thrilled that I said, Hey, this is affecting me in a negative way, or this is holding me back. Can we do this rather than them pushing the Hey, we should do this. And so my parents were all for it. They're like, all right, we'll find the best doctor for you to amputate my arm. My sophomore year, I went into surgery and they amputated five inches of my arm off.

I remember I said, doc, if I can't beat someone over the head with this, when I get out of the surgery, we're going to have a problem. I gotta be able to be arrested there after this. And so I went throughout that surgery and I became a wrestler, which changed my life. But I want to reflect, I want to ask the audience a few questions and real quick, the reason why I ask so many questions in my teachings is because I am not here to give you answers.

I'm not here to say the Chris and Nick way. This is the way I'm not here to do that because the reason being as a great leader and as a great communicator, if I sat up here and I said, this is the answer, you'd be like, okay, that's your answer, but it's not mine. And you probably wouldn't take action. But if I asked you a specific question and you came up with your own answer, who's the answer.

You're going to take action, yours. And so the quality of your life comes down to the quality of the questions you ask yourself on a day to day basis. I learned this from David Osborne, one of the, one of the heavy hitters in Keller Williams. He told me, he said, Nick, the difference between a millionaire to billionaire is a millionaire asks, what do I need to do nest next?

And a billion or ask who do I need to hire? It's just a different quality of questions, but also the reason going into the brain, your brain is a problem solving mechanism. Have you ever had those days where you had no, like you sit on the couch, life's good. And then your brain comes up with a problem for you to solve, especially as a man, we want to always solve problems.

But the thing is, it's the same thing with questions. [00:30:00] Excuse my language. But if you ask a shitty question, what kind of answer are you going to get?

Yeah, exactly. But if you ask a great question, you'll get a great answer, but that's the thing like my whole brand victorious, the difference between a victim and a Victor is someone who's a victim asked, why me? Why am I not a good agent? Why didn't I close that deal? Why did they reject me? And guess what?

Your brain is going to come up with an answer. And that answer is not going to be good, but a Victor would ask, what can I learn from this? What are the learnings? What are the teachings? What can I do better? And guess what your brain is going to give you the very things that you need to do better next time.

That's a more empowering answer. And so going back now closing the loop on this amputation story yet. It's great that I amputated my arm, but the first question I ask is what are you willing to sacrifice to better the relationship within yourself? I don't know what that is for you. But what are you willing to sacrifice?

Now, the next question is hopefully it's not a limb like me, but what are the very beliefs in your life right now that no longer serve you, that you need to cut off the beliefs of. I'm too young to start that office or I'm too young to join that industry. I'm too young to sell houses. I'm too old to sell houses.

I don't have the resources. My family was never successful, so I won't be successful. Or my whole family is there'll be. So I'm just obese. And that's just a bronze in the jeans. You see where I'm going with this. These are all the beliefs that we believe that hold us back from the next level of life. And then the third question, and I know this is a lot.

This is the last one. The third question is. What are the very people in your inner circle that no longer that don't serve you at the highest level that you need to cut off? You know, Jim Rowan always said that we are the average. I hold up five fingers, but only got one. We are the average of the five people that we hang around with.

Listen, I'm gonna shoot it straight with you because I know you're all straight shooters and successful people like to be taught to direct. And so if you hang around with people who are overweight, Most likely overweight or you have bad habits. You hang around with people who are paying attention. Guess what?

You're most likely penny pinching. You hang around. People who have toxic relationships. Guess what you most likely have toxic relationships. If you hang around people who have low standards, it's only a matter of time where your own  standards circle lower. 

Chris Suarez: [00:32:09] Yeah.  One of my, biggest takeaways, I wrote this down.

I think people should go back to this is, you bring up that, that the questions that we're asking ourselves conversation the why question is always looking for a reason, right? That why, like why did this happen? Why me? And you said you will always you're asking yourself to come up with a reason, super powerful.

And then we just believe the reasons that we've given to ourselves. You brought up your brand, it's on your shirt. You wrote it in fall victim to Victor and I would say, as I think of you the physical challenges you've had to overcome seem well obvious, they're obvious. But what about the mental challenges? Like the perhaps less obvious what what has been your path to overcome the mental challenges? 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:32:57] Yeah, that's a great question and all your, by the way. And I say that after all your questions cause being great, I be going a lot of interviews and people ask the same question.

So I'm really glad that you have different questions now. The best way for best way to meet teaches storyteller. And I've been telling stories this whole time. So I'll share another story as and I mentioned it before that love and feminine energy or women was a void that I was trying to fill.

Whether I was seeking validation from women, boyfriends and girlfriends, everyone wants someone. And so I had this specific moment where I was on the bus and there was a girl to the left of me and she was making fun of everyone on the bus. And I was like, Oh man, she's going to have a field day with me.

And she got up to me and I remember I looked over to her and she looked at me and I still remember her name. And she said, Nick, I don't even have to start with you. You're already too messed up. Anyway, look, and I'm a 14, 15 year old kid. First question that pops in my head. What do you think it is? Why me?

Why does you have to say that to me? And then I started stacking because by the way, when one negative thing happens, if you don't catch your inner dialogue, your whole day with tends to be negative, that's how your brain works at stacks. It finds all the negative. And so the thoughts that go through Nick's head are.

What I have to be boring like this. I'll never have a girlfriend. I'll never go to a school dance. My prom for coming up. I'll never go to a school dance. Girls wouldn't want to date me. I can't even hold their finger. I can't even hold their books. I can't even open a locker. You see what your brain does?

Stacks and stacks and stacks. And so how I've gotten out of most of my negative situations is one tool. And it's the power of reframing. Now reframing means that. You take you take a situation. So me and Chris can have the same situation we can get through the same tragic event. I can see all the bad.

Chris can see all the good, but it's the meaning we attach behind that event. And it's what we tend to focus on. And so in that moment, Nick, didn't over reframe it. I'm not going to say Oh yeah, I'm just going to shift it in the moment. I was great. No, I went into deep, dark, negative places and I sat with those emotions.

And sometimes it didn't get out, but by the way, wrestling was my channel that, that I didn't my brain didn't go down those negative ways. It was one of my weights, which I can get into the science behind [00:35:00] moving your body and your physiology and what it does after this. But later on in my life, I asked myself, I said, Nick, what if your body's working for you?

And I was elaborate. I said , well, if a girl doesn't want to be my girlfriend, because my no legs have an arm. If someone doesn't want to be my friends, because my no legs have an arm. If someone doesn't want to do business with me because my no legs or an arm, wait, maybe this disability or whatever you want to call it, Nick is actually working for you.

And it's filtering out the type of humans and women that you don't want in your life anymore.

Shift my perspective. When you change your story, you change your life. Or when you change the meaning, you change your life. And so my whole entire life, I thought this was the biggest curse, the most disgusting thing that could happen to me. And then I realized, wait, my truth sets in it's like Nick, you can impact people at a higher level because you eliminate all excuses.

You can connect with people because you're a unicorn. What is your truth? What is your truth? And I find my truth because all that negative stuff is BS. It's. It was told to us one day and we believed it. But the truth is that. I'm a unicorn, I'm different. I bring a different level of energy. I can connect with people on a deeper level.

I can get people to not have barriers and actually listened to me with an open mind because they don't think I'm bullshit because I walk the walk or I hop the hop. There's so much truth that goes into my body. And so going back to reframing is if you can literally train your brain. To always find the learnings or the teachings in every event, you will never lose, but that's a muscle.

That's a massive muscle that we have to exercise. And there was a quote by Nelson Mandela that I live by and he says in life, I wish he said Nick. But in life I didn't talk to Nelson Mandela. When he says in life, I don't lose. I only win or learn, but whose job is it? The program, our brain only winter learn.

Hours. And so I think Chris life has been a massive reframe. It's a constant journey of like, all right, what's the gift? What is the learnings? This is this, isn't all negative. What can I take out of this? And I think that if people train their brain to reframe all the time, that they would have a lot more happiness and fulfillment and a lot more learnings in our lives.

Now, rope, if I want to go back real quick. Going back to the negative emotions, how to get out of them. The first thing that will help you at an all time level, when you're in a negative state is to move your body physiology. It's the way that you present yourself, it's everything.

And so what you focus on, how you move your body and the meaning you attach behind things. So like the three most important things, because I'll prove it to you. How many times have you met? You've been dreading a workout. The 75 hard, maybe you've been dreading that outside work. I'd be like, , it's nine at night.

I haven't got it done. I needed to get it done before 12. How do you feel after the workout?

Way better as you change your physiology and you put your body under stress. When you put your body under stress, your body then releases dopamine, AKA the awesome sauce, the stuff that makes us feel good.  You might get your best business ideas from going on a walk. You might get your, have you ever got a great idea when you're in the shower all the time?

It's because the water hits your body changes your state and releases those good chemicals or not chemicals. Those good, those feelings in your body that we all need. I know I just went on a long grant. So you pulled me back in. 

Chris Suarez: [00:38:14] It's interesting. I believe it's, I'm going to have to check and confirm, but I think it's Kelly McGonigal, who a lot about movement and the effects of movement on your body that that are not just physical, but they're your mental as well.

Which, which, when you say, gosh, the first thing you should do to reframe that mental. Hundred percent is movement, right? It's a, I think the book is the power of movement, actually a phenomenal book. And actually, speaking of books, it's premise of yours as well. Victim to Victor, it really starts with how do we free frame or shift our thinking around who we are in our present situation.

And how does that reframe our future into that future situation? So powerful. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:38:59] Yeah. Yeah. The power of the brain, man. I mean like my quote is most people think it's the physical body that holds you back. But the biggest disability you can have is a bad mindset. It's your conditioning.

And by the way, for those that are listening right now, I was just want to reiterate that this is a process. This is a training, just like your muscles. Like your brain is a muscle as well. We need to constantly straining. So wherever you're at in your, wherever you're at in your journey, your personal development and your brain.

Don't feel overwhelmed or feel like you should be further ahead. Just know that you're in the right place at the right time. And that you're a student of the game and you're constantly learning. Yeah, which by the way, you're on this podcast. So clearly you're a student of the game. 

Chris Suarez: [00:39:33] I appreciate that on your bike.

Let me, I love to end here because I think sometimes especially in your space, like you're in a space where you truly want to change perspective. Sometimes that gets just classified as personal development and personal growth and to us, growth is one of the pillars of an experiential life.

So we love that, but what I, what I. Also appreciate about you is you don't want to just talk and get someone to think differently. You [00:40:00] provide some real tactical approaches to do it greatest. And actually probably more, most appropriate right now is a tactical way. To in a world of uncertainty and uncertainty typically increases or raises stress what can someone like, like me, what can our audience do to take that anxiety or take that stress and lower it so we can focus on being, 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:40:25] yeah.

Great. Great. Like we said, we have a lot of anxiety. We have a lot of stress which leads to then procrastination or not taking action at all. And the bottom line is if you don't feel good, you won't take good action. It goes like this. You don't feel good. You take, okay, action. You get okay, results. You have an okay life.

And then people do it over and over again. And then you expect electric be different, right? And I'll bring in. And because I spent a lot of time with them, Tony has a quote and he says, when you're in your head, you're dead. When you're in your heart, you're smart. And what that means is you.

And I know that we never send a good text message when we're in our head and we're pissed off and angry. We never sent a good email. We're all guilty of it. We never send a good email or how many times have a deal fall through maybe because of a lack of compassion or appreciation on one side or another.

And so I've had this little technique that I use in my day-to-day life. It's six to seven minutes and I talk you through it. I don't walk you through it. I talk you through it. And it's literally a process that allows you to go to specific moments in your life. So you can experience those emotions of gratitude, appreciation, confidence, certainty, and flood your body with those.

So then you can upgrade from that physiology or that state, because. If you wake up and you're pissed off and angry and you go into the office and you're pissed off and angry, guess what you're going to get. The other people are going to be pissed off at Andrew. They're going to feel it. And then you take that to your clients.

And they're like, what's wrong with this guy? And he's like, Oh, this just happened in the morning. I'm pissed off and angry. People feel that. But also I know that you will be more in alignment when you come from your heart gratitude and appreciation and compassion and you will get more done and serve at a higher level of suspects.

They actually done a study where they. They hooked up the EKG your brainwaves and your heart rhythms. And when you're pissed off and angry your heart and your brain, aren't aligned, they're all in whack. But when you're appreciative, when you're grateful, when you're feeling those amazing emotions, then your heart and your brain are in alignment.

If you operate at a higher level. And so what we'll do we'll just wherever Chris wants to put it in the show notes or the description. It's just a free exercise that it's five to six minutes that you listen to, you close your eyes and we both through the practice and I promise you rate your anxiety and stress levels before you go through it.

And then when you come out of it after you may be crying, you get some tissues, then go ahead and rate your anxiety and stress levels and see where they're at. And then think about. How would my life change? If I implemented this in my daily routine, what does my relationships look like? W what is my, the time spent with my kids look like, is it better?

What is the time spent with my clients look like, because then we're operating from our heart and our head because we get in our head and we overthink. How many times have we thought ourselves out of an idea, or thought ourselves out of a deal or a business plan. I'm trying to get you from your head into your heartburn.

I of 

Chris Suarez: [00:43:04] that. And we will, we'll put that in our show notes. We'll make sure that everyone I'm going to hold some people accountable to actually go and do that. Exercise myself included. Again Nick, thank you. Thanks for taking some of your time. I often say that time or the small segments of our life.

And so when people give us their time, they're really, it's the greatest gift, right? Cause it's a segment or portion of your life. So first thank you for that. You are You're living in delivering on your life's mission. You are a perspective shifter. And I think, yeah and I think that is it's it's admirable.

So I appreciate you being a gift to our community. This won't be the last time they see you. Our goal, we were talking earlier, our goal is to make sure that they get to experience you in in, in life. And we'll figure out a way to make that happen here. As a thing that began to open up.

I appreciate your time. Anything we can do for you. We will do that. We're going to connect with you, where should they go to, to learn more about who you are and what you're doing and be part of your mission. 

Nick Santonastasso: [00:43:56] Yeah, absolutely. But I appreciate you and your time they can find me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, if you type in Nick St.

My last name's long it's Santana Sasso, but if you type in Nick Santo, there's not many, no legs. One arm guys run around with a bunch of tattoos. You'll find me. 

Chris Suarez: [00:44:11] We will find him a friend and I'll make it easy because I'll put all those links in that, in the show notes. Nick, thanks for your time. I appreciate all you were doing.