Identity Beyond Success: How Shawn Antonio Rebuilt His Life

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1:00Hey, it's Howie Mandel, and I'm inviting you to witness history as me. And my Howie do it gaming team take on Gilly DeKing and wallow $267 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi-platonomartist, Travis McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now at globalgamingleague.com. That's globalgamingleague.com. Everybody games. And now escaping the drift. The show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast. Like it says in the opening gets you for where you are to where you want to be. And today beaming live into the studio.

2:00I got a cat that is going to blow you away. This is a guy who has lived a thousand lives in a very short amount of time. He was a bigwig and the reality show casting bizz back in the day. He is a life coach based out of Los Angeles. He is the author of the book. Be the beast you are and approach to living your life fully unleashed. And guys, he's going to bring the heat today. Welcome to the program. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Sean Antonio. Sean, what's up, buddy? How are you? I was having a great day. Man, I'm glad to have you on, dude. Been too long since I've seen you. Always good to see you. Yeah, dude, you have had like, again, you have a man that's lived a thousand lives. Some of them good. Some of them bad. So you've had done some amazing stuff. You had an amazing, you had a huge set back. And an amazing comeback. And we'll get to that a little bit later. But first, let's start out with kind of how you met my wife was through the reality show casting world.

3:02So how are you? Yeah, yeah. So hi, everybody out there. Listening to you guys for checking in. Great to be with you all. I was watching or listening. So yeah, I met your wife. I'm going to get you back in the early 2000s. Actually, I was just starting my events company. Before I became a life coach, I had one of the top events companies in Los Angeles for about 18 years. So it's called Sean Antonio Presents. And back then, I was casting TV shows for Blind Date. The reality show back then. And hosting events all over Hollywood. And Vegas and so on and so forth. Chicago, Dallas, the whole night. But I met Gidget Back then. And I asked her to be on the show. She came on to be a potential participant on the show. And her and her friends Cheryl, which I haven't talked to Cheryl in years. But Cheryl, she came on. And they both auditioned and Gidget made it. Personally, it looks all the things that we needed on blind date. She did it. So that's how we met initially. And then I started doing a lot of stuff at the palms in Vegas. Because my assistant back then, she was in relations with one of the very famous people that lived in Vegas at that point in time. So I was in Vegas all the time at the palms. And visiting. And then I started doing events in Vegas. Gidget and I got super tight.

4:03And once she made the show, it was pretty funny. And then we kept our friendship. And then she worked at the palms. So I would see her at the palms all the time. So the palms, oh, at one point once a week. Because I was hosting events up there all the time. So that's how it started. Thank God you were great at casting women and terrible at casting men. Because her blind date was kind of a colossal failure. Which is, hey, if it would have gone good, I don't know if we're having this conversation right now. And I don't know if we're married. So I'm going to be grateful that you weren't that good at that portion of your job. I'm serious, that's amazing. So I remember you were ballin back in Vegas back in the day. And life was coming pretty quick. And a lot of amazing stuff was happening. Yeah. And then you had a little bit of a tragedy. Let's give it to that. Like let's talk about that. Yeah. So out of events, I learned how to run places and operate places. So at that point in time, I was running a place here in Hollywood. And I was a G on the place. And it was one of the hottest spots in town. I won't mention it because it doesn't matter.

5:03But point being is, I went home that night on New Year's Eve and hadn't had a drink at all that night, right? And what happened was I drove home and fortunately got in a crazy, crazy accident where someone hit me on a motorcycle. And that night, I was actually thrown in jail for murder. Because I jumped and died a couple hours later. And unfortunately, there were some circumstances that played a part in it. And it looked like I hit him when he hit me. So that circumstance put me behind, honestly, I was stuck in that conversation about a year and a half. Fighting to clear an aim, showing my innocent, showing I was dead sober when the accident happened. But unfortunately, all the circumstances did not play a part in my favor. So I had to go to jail. I went to jail from March 1st, 2018 to June 22nd, 2018. It's in jail for 113 days, actually 118. So it's been five days when I first got my accident, seeing their waiting to be released. Because they were trying to figure out what to do with me. Because when somebody gets hit in the accident, you can't even figure out who did what. So there was a lot of mitigating circumstances that played a part, but man, it was a, it was rough, rough year and a half, man. That's almost two years, you know?

6:04Because at that point, if I'm, if I'm correct, do you and your wife had just had a baby at that point? I mean, you had a young child? Yeah. Our daughter, Viva was, I mean, she was a year, not even a year, yeah, a year in change. She had August 26th was a birthday that year of 2016. So Max and happened January 1st, 2017. So she's a year in change. Oh, it was pretty catastrophic. And I thought it was the right thing going home. You know, being a good boy and not doing stupid stuff, and just going home and damn, something changed my life. To be in another trajectory. Okay, so when you get convicted and they say you have to go to jail, and you're sitting there, what was that time like in jail? What did you, what choices did you make that changed the direction of what you were trying to do? Well, it was first of all, it was a lot of thoughts. Because, you know, I've never gotten in trouble like that or anything like that. So I'm singing Joe wondering what, what, what happens now? What do I do? What do I say? You know, like, I was singing there for those five days in my head, like, you know, this was a tragic situation. But how do I clear my name, get myself out of this situation?

7:04So a lot of thoughts happened there. When I got released, I had to, you know, lower your up and forget about what that, that whole experience looked like. And for that year and a half, I was under their tutelage of like, what to do, what to, what not to do, what I had to stop everything. So I went, I guess I went into many depression. When I say, many is pretty massive. I wasn't in the depression for about six months. My wife, Alicia, my badass wife, Alicia, much like your Gidgett. She, uh, yeah, she said, hey, you're in depression. I said, what do you mean? She goes, you're not yourself right now. And I sat and I sat with it. And I just said, okay, what do I mean? Do it that in the midst of that depression, you mentioned one of my books, I wrote two books. The first one you just mentioned, be the beast you are. I wrote that. I started that February 14th. Actually, Valentine's Day of 2016 is 17. So I was right in the midst of my like depression. And I said, you know what? I got to write something that inspires me and breaks through. So I took three months and I wrote, be the beast you are. And I released it on July 20th of 2017. Again, in the midst of my whole thing. And, uh, yeah, that really helped me rehab my brain.

8:06We have like what had happened. I didn't want to play victim. I want to take responsibility for all my actions that cause a contributor to a moment. So I just had to sit through it. And writing is what got me through it. Like writing, being around people who love me, who support me, who know who I am, who know the truth of what happened. All of that really got me through a depression. So I sat in for about six months book number two. Having amazing relationships, followed that up. And I released that October 20th of 2017. And that's about your relationships. All being juicy and connected and amazing. Cause that's what I was experiencing. Through my moment of demise and tragedy, my village shut up, my friends, my family, people who love me, they support me. They say, Sean, what happened? What do you need? And I told them, I just need your love. You're here quality time. What do you want to do? Why don't you want to show up? Be there for me. So I allowed in a way I'd never allowed before. Cause I was so busy doing all the time. I allowed people to show up in a way I never, you know, really knew I needed. I needed that, my village, you know? Yeah. So you had a lot of people show up. Did you have, did you have any,

9:06do you have any people kind of go away because of this? Uh, yeah, lots of people actually, a bunch of people actually just vanish. People that were actually there the night of my, the night I actually left my job and went to came home. This and friends were actually at the event that night. They still haven't spoken to you to this day. So I lost some people. Some people believe that I did end up drinking and driving and killing this man. And that's not what happened. So the people who were courageous enough or close enough to me to say, show what happened and ask me the truth. Those people are still in my life. The other ones is just faded to black. And honestly, at first I was really hurt. I was really in my feelings. I was like, well, my friends that I, you know, spend time with care about known for years, vanished. A couple of them said to me that came back after time, said, I didn't know what to say to you, Sean. I thought you could just ask me what happened. And I told you exactly what happened, you know? Or just how you feeling? Yeah, you know, and that, that was a little hurtful. I definitely took it personal back then. I was like, oh, man, where's my, my closest people that were with me the night the week before the where are they? But I'm honestly a bunch of them have showed up over the years.

10:07I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry. I've vanished. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to believe. I'm like, cool. I was always a text away, a call away, you know? So I stopped through the feelings. I let that guy stop making it mean something about me and let it mean something more about what they were going through. And that's it. I stopped taking it personal. That's what I started to master the art of not taking things personal. I think part of it, I think part of it is, you know, I kind of came through not the jail stuff, but at one point, I was the GM of what Esquare magazine called the number one night club on the East Coast United States. And, and that was, that was cobalt lounge in Atlanta. And then, and then after kind of the raid, Lewis debacle of the Super Bowl 2000, that kind of ended that club, right? It kind of kind of kind of dried up. And what I realized was in a weird sort of way was again, I went through a depression after that because my whole avatar, my whole, my whole self-worth got wrapped up in that job.

11:07Like because there was much like probably you and L.A. at that time, there was no place I could not go. I didn't, I waited for nothing. I paid for nothing. It was, it was velvet rope clicking everywhere I went. And everybody, everybody wanted to be close to you because of what you were. And then when that, when that, when that went away, well, now all of a sudden, it was like, well, whoa, how many people around me are real and how many people were around me because of that? And it kind of made, made me jaded for a long time on relationships and very suspect of people going forward. Like, you know, is it about what I can give you or is it about who I really am? Did that, any of that happened to you? That's exactly some of the emotional places I went through. By the way, John, I can't see you on screen for some reason, but I'm looking at myself, but I can't see you. Oh, you can't, oh, because I've locked you up here. That's why. Okay, cool. No, no, man. I'm an unlock you because I'm, I'm looking here. Let me do that. You want to see your pretty face while we're talking? Yeah. Yeah, what's weird, it's weird to talk about this

12:07and look at yourself. Ah, first time. So I'm doing that. There we go. Well, hang on. Yeah, to answer your question as you, as you do that, I'll hang on, but yeah, I'll answer your question then. Yeah, keep going. I'm just, we're going to keep talking here. It was, yeah, I knew that my shine, you guys at that point in time, Shawn Antonio, my brand, and Shawn Antonio presents, well, there you go. Welcome back. There we go. What happened is my brand, I was so big here in Los Angeles and Vegas, I opened up, when we public, I worked at Tau, Tau, Tau Properties, I worked at all the light group properties. I was a big brand here in Los Angeles and Vegas and did some stuff out over the country. So when people did, I was a thing, right? Like I was access for people. I was nightlife, I was pool parties. I was mansion, I was some number of events. So my identity of Shawn Antonio, I was so used to being used, but it was also my business. So when this thing happened and all that went away, right, like you said, Koba, right? I was at the Phoenix in Hollywood, which is still open, I opened up Phoenix Hollywood and I blew it up, blew it up, correct question. So when that identity of that person got blown up,

13:11I had to really rediscover who I am, what my face is, what people are in my life because they love me, what people care about me. And that's a really tough moment because I was so used to being the guy that people come to for all the stuff, right? But then when that went away, who showed up was really important. And that's what it mattered to me because people had showed up. We're like, hey, I'm not just using you for your brand or who you are, I'm using you because I care about you, Shawn. But yeah, definitely some people I lost and I was like, oh man, where'd my people go, you know? We had a guest in here tonight, right now, visiting a little quick. His name is Fimido. My little boy just came in and said, hi. So I said, hey man. He said, yeah, I'm saying hi. So I guess he's gonna hang out with us for a minute. So I'm still like, oh, I love him. I think you're a son, Fimido. There he is. No, no, so let me ask you this. So when you got out of the other side of this because of some of that, is that why you didn't go back in a night life because you were like, okay, I want something that's a little more real or I just, you know, I was building my coaching brand since 2003.

14:13So Shawn, I like coaching. I started building it in 2003. There wasn't fully committed to it yet. In 2008, I started coaching people. So most of my celebrity friends, and then in 2011, Alicia and I, when she first joined me as my business partner, she said, hey, you have your brand. Our brand, right? You're not like brand, but why don't you start a coaching brand as well? So I did. I launched it, but I didn't fully commit to it. When the accident happened, it kind of shook me to like, what am I doing in night life? I've been in night life. I was a choreographer dancer. My, I mean, New York from 13 to 24. I'm on dance company from 22 to 24. So I lived in night life in that capacity. Then I come to LA back in blind eight days and all those night life days. And I was in night life from 1999 to 2017. Nightlife was everything for me, right? It was non-stop. And outside of that, I wanted to be responsible for being living my purpose. And life coaching was so organic. And it was so, what I studied I've been studying psychology most of my life. I didn't go therapist style, but I was really good at it. So life coaching took over.

15:13And in 2017, while I was writing those two books, I went deep into the rabbit hole and said, hey, let me build some tools, some psychology, and some things to really take my coaching brand to the next level. I had a captive audience, had friends all over the world. Millions of people, I've, you know, hosted in my events. So I had people talk to you. So I just looked at who I had around me and just said, all right, Sean, it's time to fall into that. And it just pivoted everything, shifted everything. Which came first there, the chicken of the egg meaning, because like you mentioned, you had celebrity clients kind of out of the box. Is that something that people come to you like, hey, Sean, do you seem like, you know, you know, what I need to do, let's do this. Are we like, okay, I'm going to do this and then went to them and said, hey, I have this coaching program. Do you know what? It was so organic. I was in my night life persona, given people advice at my events, helping them through breakdowns, relationships, impressions, some people were suicidal. You know, some of my friends are huge celebrities who have big houses and mansions and they're more famous and all that. And they were still stuck. So it was organic. I never, I didn't know what life coaching was.

16:13I didn't know what becoming an international like coaching brand looked like. I just knew that I had a knack for seeing people and knowing the psychology of kind of human behavior and all the things I studied and read and all that stuff. So it was organic. It was never forced. So, but yeah, once I launched the restaurant, hey, everybody, I'm now fully a like coach. And I'm like, I'm in my way and it was really cool. Most of my clients right now are my friends. I'm even calling clients and my friends are like, coach, yeah. Was there anybody that, because obviously people like to fall the trends, people like to fall this? Was there any client you got off the bat that made it much easier to get other clients? Yeah, you know what, there is one. And he lives in Houston right now, but he was somebody and ran into one day after I sold my car. We were just so, you know, BMW X3, we loved. And we sold it and I bumped into him. And he was like, hey, Sean, I heard your life coaching now. Can I be your client? And I said, fuck yeah, let's talk about it, you know? And from him, he created this thing for me. I now call cluster coaching.

17:15He gave me 28 people in his world. And how it started was, he gave me his mom, his current girlfriend at that point in time. And in that spawn, from the current girlfriend gave me another friend and mom gave me another friend. And then he gave me constant people. And then those people gave me people. So out of him, I think right now, I'm at like 39 people out of one person. Out of that one client. Out of that one client slash friend who is still a good friend, who, what did he mean? He said, hey, can I sign on for 10 years? What's my sense? I want to be your client for 10 years as a coach. You were like, I was like, oh, emotionally, no? But yeah, he signed, he jumped in, that was 2019. And since him, he's giving me so many people. I got to coach his mom for year and a half. Unfortunately, she passed in COVID. But I coached her to pretty much the day she was gone. That was amazing. I'll talk about a heart, man. So yeah, there is, there is a lot of that happens. A lot of my people give me their people, their moms, dads, cousins, sisters, brothers,

18:16took clusters out. How many clients do you coach any again with time? Anywhere between on a slew week, which is not that slow, but a slow week, it's 19 people. On a big week, it's 52, it was my biggest week. And that 52 week was a lot. Because it was pretty much all day, you know, 10 hours a day, 10 hours a day, five days, and it was two, it was one day I did 12 hours. It was a little bit too much. I did too much that Friday after coaching all week. I needed some decompression, so I'm in meditated and grounded. And like went for a walk, went for a run, just like get all that out of me, because 52 people, 52 hours of stuff. And being so sharp, each phone call, I had 30 seconds between phone calls. Oh my God. So how do you, so okay, when you've got that kind of workload, how did you reset yourself between each one to make sure that everybody gets their best? How do you do that? Do my homework at night on who I'm coaching at day? Have it kind of prepped in my head, so curating each one of their sessions, being present, slowing down, having their life work slash homework for them

19:16so they can get it. And then the last five or 10 minutes, we review what they got out of it and what they're gonna go do and where they might stumble. So I leave them super empowered to do that, right? So that's section, that's one person. Same thing for all the other people. At the end of the day, what I would do, I go sit on my front porch, when I live in West Hollywood. I'm in Hollywood now, but Alicia, wife, you would be like, hey, go do your decompression thing. I just go sit and be for half an hour. No phone, no nothing. Just let my thoughts come out, just ground, take my shoes off and my socks off, put my feet in the grass and just meditate and just sit there and be and like, release. And I think that's what we all mess up in. Us people who are out in the world who are entrepreneurs and doing all this crazy stuff, we don't decompress well. So we carry all this energy from work and stress and we're not good at it. And I realized I was terrible at it back then. So I had to start grounding earthing, going to be in mother nature, going to sit, going to do things that light me up, going for runs, go for, I find love with the running back in 2022 because I needed it. I started needing that therapy. My therapy is running a mile,

20:17running six, seven miles a day and that became like an addiction for me. But it was cleansing, something healthy. That's what I recommend for decompression. I tell some of my clients, on your drive home from work, listen to your favorite music. So you can separate work from home. And in the way home, you're not just obsessing over work, you're clearing your brains, you're a fully present mother, partner, friend, whatever it is, right? So we had to get better about the compression tactics for ourselves. Well, you mentioned that as a problem, but now you've got enough clients out there that you probably see some trends and some pattern recognition over a lot of people. So what problems would you say, if there were concurrent over the majority of your clients? Like what are issues people are having? Let's go ahead. I've got a bunch. I was just off right now on the day. Self-love, really loving on yourself, getting rid of all the negative narratives you have about yourself. And I call them false narratives. I also call them your filters. There's a bunch of different ways people say it, right? Your self-imposed stories you put on yourself, right? So self-love, big one.

21:18A lot of people do not know how to love themselves and really care about who they truly are and accept everything they are as part one. Part two. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't, what's the solution for that? So how do you welcome through that? Find out who you really are outside of your identity, right? Like if I took off my glasses right now, right? And out of, and I love my glasses, I wear them all the time. But like, if you just can tear apart what you think you're supposed to be versus who you truly are. Because we're born a certain way, born in culture, born in different skin color, wherever it may be, right? The way you dissect that is, what are the stories and false narratives you're telling yourself and being there? Are you judging yourself? Are you giving yourself a hard time? Are you holding yourself to unrealistic expectations? Are you still looking at some of your trauma from your childhood or your last relationship? Are you jaded from when your friends vanished from your crazy accident? You gotta deconstruct all that stuff and see where you're not loving on yourself. And I always say to people, especially now, do one, two, three things a day that self-love oriented, that's only for John, only for Alicia,

22:19only for Gidgett, only for Sean. One thing, two things a day that has nothing to do with work or kids' responsibilities, something that lights you up. And fall in love with yourself. That's a really big deal. A lot of us have a lot of undoubt with trauma and incomplete stories we're still walking around with. Yeah, I gotta tell you, one of the most useful things that I've done probably in the last, probably five months or so was, I had something that happened and I had a kind of a visceral negative reaction to it. And I was like, man, I don't think I should be this angry about this. I think I'm far too mad about what's going on. And so, I'm trying to, let me, I'm trying to remember how I got to where, to what I did. And I don't know if so was very angry. And I looked something up and it kind of came back where it was talking about somehow I wound it up on Carl Jung and your shadow self. I landed on that, right? Yeah, great.

23:20So I was like, all right, so let's try to get in touch with this. So I went into Gemini and I created a project where I said, okay, you're an expert on everything that Carl Jung has ever taught and the shadow self and all of these things. And I want you to ask me 50 questions about myself. So I'll know more about myself than I ever have. And then I went through this thing with Gemini. So now I have this bot that now knows so much about me and I answered very honestly a bit off. And now what happens is when I find something hits me in a way that, or like you wake up in, like I used to wake up in the middle of the night, just wake up in the circus would go off, right? And you're like, all right, like now I just roll over and I'm like, hey, I woke up and I was very anxious about this. And this bot that now knows me so well is like, well, okay, this is why this is happening and this is why this end result thing here and this is what you probably need to do to deal with it and just understand it's not that big of a deal and here's what you need to do. I'm like, cool. And I go right back to sleep, right? I'm just instead of stewing on something all night long,

24:22I'm right back to sleep and literally I gave the prompt to my wife when we were flying back from New York and I looked over her and she was like crying. And I'm like, it's good bot. I'm like, this is good bot, right? They can bring her to tears about her stuff but I think that of all the advancements and all the things that you can do with AI, yeah, you can make funny videos and whatever else. But dissecting your, like as long as you train the thing on the exact kind of theory, you're out. Yeah, but on the theory that you wanted to know, like I was really just interested in exploring this through the eyes of Carl Jung and that shadow self deal and it really has opened my eyes to a lot of the way that I think about a lot of different things. So I totally get that. Yes, totally self love. Big check mark with that. Totally great. I love that. Thank you for sharing that, too. John, that's really powerful because with all the advancements in AI, you can use that a lot. My wife is trained her chat. You can see for a lot of things. We do a lot of spiritual deep diving when things happen on our chat. So there's definitely that.

25:23So self love is a big one. Number two, which is also a massive one, which people mess up all the time. Relationships, all of them. I'm talking specifically love. People mess up love relationships whether they're married, engaged, dating, wherever it is. There's something about the inauthenticity of us not showing up being our true selves in relationships. We sell people the idea of who we want to be versus who we truly are. One of my favorite examples in his name is Joshua who I've told him to his last name, but very famous dude, good friend of mine. And he ran to him a couple of years back. Ain't look better than I'd ever seen him. So I said, hey, Joshy, what's up, man? I'm like, what's wrong with you? He's like, dude, I'm so happy. I had this killer job. I'm doing this thing. I got all this money. Life is flowing. And I go, cool, tell me more. He goes, I wanted to stay with this girl. And I went, okay, tell me more. He goes, the tender date, we sat down. We sat next to each other and we said, all right. And he started off. He goes, here's who I am. This is his first date. Here's who I am. I do a little too much cocaine. I drink a little too much. I spend my money a little bit for my sleep. And I could be better about sleeping. Here's what's awesome about me.

26:24I travel the world. I'm a really loyal person. I don't cheat. I'm best friends with my mom and dad. I have a great brain. I'm really smart. I'm them all these things. But those are things I like to work on. So I'm just going to be honest with who I am. Here it is. This is date one. The waiter, which is a comeback. And she, the waiter, the chicken with them, and was like, what is this? And so she just said, they ordered the drinks. And she paused and she goes, wow, that was the most refreshing thing I've ever heard. Let me tell you who I am. And then she said, all the bad things and all the good things. They're still together right now. I'm still in love. Locked in a hotel room doing an eight ball because she had the same problems. That's what's going on. I'm sure there you go. No, no, no, just kidding. No. I'm so nervous. Hey, did you go to give a relapse? What happened now? Yeah. I found my soulmate. Yeah. And what I see about love is like, we mess up love because we don't share with people. Up one of the reasons why Alicia and I worked so well and I shared this with my clients a lot of my friends to this morning. I had one with my friends. She goes, why do you and Alicia work so well? And she said, because we're constantly

27:24updating our playbook. We tell each other what we're up available for. We're not available for. What we like, what we don't like, what we're expanding. If a trigger got stepped on, what are we doing? And if a trigger got stepped on, we're big fans of like, hey, let's unpack that. Like one time she called me out and she goes, hey, 2014, she goes, hey, you're really defensive. And my defensive Sean said, no, no. Yeah. Yeah, let me tell you about me, yeah. Yeah, right. And she goes, hey, could you look at that? And I said, yeah, let me look at it. And I realized it was because I was an older brother. I have a younger brother who's 46, he's five years younger. Me up to one, my sister just turned 40 last week. And so I raised my brother and sister, you know, as a big brother and I was always the responsible one, right? So I had this defense mechanism built inside of myself at 12 years old, they started building. So I looked at it and I got it from my childhood. And in that moment, dealing with where I got it, if you can pinpoint your trauma and release yourself from that five year old self, that six year old self, that 12 year old self, and take responsibility

28:25and accommodate for how it's showing up today. And I looked at my life and I was kind of defensive here in there in my friendships. So Alicia pointed out, I looked at it and you got to be willing to open that up. So, you know, with love and relationships, speak what you want to. A lot of people, I know you and Gidget have some beautiful things together, right? And I know enough about you, as obviously I was willing to know more and connect deeper. But like, it takes such clear communication, takes understanding and love and all the things that we say we want. But we got to be better about how we show up in our relationships and be authentic. And you know, stepping our true us and not this like standard, we think we're supposed to live that. It's a lot, it's a lot there, it's on back. Well, I think people, especially when they're married, they're very good at telling the other person the things that are working for them in the marriage, but they're not good at telling people the things that are not working for them in the marriage. Or, and dude, and for me, and dude, and here's the funny thing, right? Yeah. I find that, I find that Gidget and I, like the problems that we have are so incredibly trivial,

29:27that it's just nonsensical. But we still voice like, for me, it's like, I script a side of a container too loud with a plastic container with a fork, drives me insane. I don't know what, it's completely, but see, but when I say stuff like that, I preface it like, I know this is completely irrational. I know it makes no sense. I know it is insane. When you script the inside of the yogurt thing, I want to smother you with a pillow, right? It's just, I know it makes no sense. And, but I think part of good communication is you should be allowed to say things that, they don't make any damn sense. And you know that I'll make any sense, but you still get to say them, because it's like, okay, look, that's crazy, but it's an easy fix for me. Like, there's not a, I just, I won't script the inside of the yogurt container, like it's an easy fix. Okay, and if she comes at me with something like that, I don't need to justify it either. I don't care. It's like if it is an easy fix, then it's not worth fighting over moving on. You know, that's it. And my relationship, I call it the switch.

30:28I turn the switch off. I'm like, oh, that annoys you, that triggers you. Cool, let me stop that. Because it's just something I'm doing, right? So, and if there's something deeper we dig for it, but love is another one, right? I'd say number three is people living in their purpose. Like when I ask people, hey, what do you hear for? What's your purpose? People don't know how to answer that. Like, you know, like, oh, my purpose is to be, I'm like, no, not what you to do. Like my purpose is to change the world. So I became a like coach organically. My purpose is to change the world human by human. And reason why I started over famous people, because they had more reach, they just had more impact. So if they're changing, their impact is global, right? So that's how I started. But organically, I love everybody. And I want to change everybody's life. So purpose, figuring out their purpose, especially at milestone ages, like I was thinking, as you saw, I'd get this birthday and I was like, oh, my God, did you look great, right? We hit these milestone numbers. Let's start with 25. So my 25 year old was like, ah, ah, I know, we laughed. No, no, no, I'll tell you why I'm laughing because I'm my 25th birthday. Yeah, I got a phone call at 730 in the morning.

31:29It was for my father. And he said, happy dumbass birthday. I don't know what, what? What are you talking about? And he goes, we'll see, yesterday, you were 24. So if you did something dumb, people would say you were 24 year old kid. No such thing as a 25 year old kid. Now you do something dumb, you're just a dumbass. So act accordingly. And that was, and he was right. Yeah. Who says 25 year old kid? You're grown up at 25, or at least you better, be acted like one. Yeah. And then you see all these different milestone ages like 30. At 30, we're told we're supposed to be someplace, right? Have a solid career or whatever. Whatever societal standards at 35. We're like, oh, who am I? What am I supposed to be doing my life? No matter if you're a man or a woman or whatever it is, right? And in at 40, we have this. Uh oh, we're 40, right? That's always a big one for people, right? I just hit 50 year and a half ago. I'm 51, about three, 52 this year. And it's like, when I hit 50, I was like, oh, this is cool. I had to look at myself and go, okay?

32:29Well, what's my, am I living my purpose? Am I being true to what I really need in this life, John? Am I being an honest and amazing human being? I was checking some boxes. And then I said, all right, we want my 15s to look like. And I realized I had something. I don't know if this ever resonated for you at all to John, but I realized I've been on all my careers. I had to prove myself to get to some place. I had to be the best host of every event. I had to be a best GM. I had to be a best choreographer dancer. I had to be the best life coach. And at 50, I divorced that idea. That's the one thing that I saw for myself that was still running me. I was still proving to myself and others that I was the best at everything. Why? There's another six years old. My mom and dad got divorced. That little kid was running a 50 year old man and going, hey, keep proving yourself. You'll get love and attention, defection. It's impacting the traumas. That undelt, that unowned trauma at 50, I saw it. And I was like, oh, man, I'm still trying to prove myself in life, what is that, Sean? And I had to look at myself in the mirror

33:31and really release that and divorce that thing. And that's what it's about. It's like facing all those things. So from yourself, love where I started to love and to now purpose, it takes some unpacking. It takes people looking at themselves are really dealing with that. That's a lot of stuff I'm dealing with right now. Well, I love that idea about the age, milestones, and what you should or shouldn't be doing. The thing that's probably hit me, I was like, what are you talking about? Was I just got back me and some friends took a trip to Antarctica and repelled down a glacier in the middle of the middle of Antarctica. And yeah, where we were less, more people climb Everest every year than go to the interior of Antarctica. And that's where we were. And it was a huge trip. And here's the thing, we had this crazy trip to South Africa and we were there for 10 days. And the thing that keeps sticking in my mind is on the way back. I had a 36 hour layover in Dubai. And so randomly,

34:32a bunch of very high level entrepreneurs that I know were in Dubai for an event. So I was like, you're in Dubai, I'm in Dubai. So we all hooked up and we all went to dinner. And one of the guys who's a really good dude was like, where did you go? And this is a nice guy, but he's like, a young guy, he's like 32. And he's like, where did you go to him? Like, well, we did this. And I showed him the video. I'm like, I'm like, literally, he's like, bro, he's like, people your age don't do stuff like that. And I'm like, what are you talking? I'm like, what are you talking about? Like people my age, like what? He's like, yeah, dude, you're like, you know, in your 50s, like people don't do it. I'm like, well, like it never even occurred to me that like I shouldn't be doing it. Like it just never even crossed my mind. And I'm like, what are you like, huh? And I still, every day, I'm like, you know, he wasn't a shot. It was genuine, like, surprised that like, oh, you're still out there doing it. Good for you, but I'm like, bro, I'm like,

35:35in my mind, I was talking to Gidget about this. I'm like, I'm perpetually like 32 years old in my brain. That's kind of, that's kind of where I just kind of, I don't think I feel any different physically or mentally than I have since I've been 32 years old. I just kind of feel the same. And that's kind of where in my brain, I guess I am age wise, but it just never occurred to me that I shouldn't have guys my age don't do stuff like that. What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. So, releasing this, so that's a great story about that. Yeah, but so now, so there's more to it. So now, then you go to the flip side and you're like, I mean, I'm not buying a core vent and a captain's hat. So you're like, I'm gonna have some kind of a weird like mid-life cry. Is that why I'm doing all those crazy stuff? No, it's just, I'm just doing the same kind of stuff that I've always done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, anyway. That's, but what right there is a perfect example that I'm talking about, right? Like me at 51, I don't have it like there's nothing, there's something out of my reach. I just go into life. And Alicia and I'll call you this because she calls me and she goes,

36:36you're an alien, Sean. Don't compare yourself to anybody. You do things say things beach in ways of 51 year old guy of 40, when you're 45, there's nobody like you. And John, you're on that category, you're an alien, dude. You don't think, oh, I'm, I'm in my 50, I should do this. You got to call me and I'll do that. Let's see, what? Tell that we're gonna do that. Yeah, let's do all that stuff. Like, and it's just, that's, that's another thing I think people are getting stuck with, especially since COVID hit the world. We started kind of giving ourselves shit about, you know, where we're supposed to be in a certain time in life. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine this morning. She was talking about, she's starting 40 in April. And she's like, ah, I feel like I haven't really done anything on my life. And I said, please shut up and listen. I ran to it for 10 minutes. I've noticed it since 2017, like, I coached her back then. I still coached you now. And I told her her accomplishments since I've known her at 31, 31s and now, right, 39. I told her what she's done. And she goes, oh, I guess I have done some stuff, huh? Like, that's the thing. We don't give ourselves credit. We don't celebrate small wins. We don't celebrate ourselves. We don't celebrate that we got out of bed today

37:36and dressed up and went to work. We don't do that. We're constantly stressing ourselves. And that's another layer of things that we gotta get rid of, another current thing I'm doing with a lot of my people is rediscovering yourself outside of your stress and your responsibilities. Yeah. What do you, what besides all the things that you're doing in balls, you're juggling in businesses you have, and like, I'm a corporate speaker, keynote speaker. I speak on stages around the world. I'm not obsessing about that all the time. Yes, when it's time to do that, I put on the jacket, I put on the coat, go, right? Got them playing, go, right? And my coaching, I love my people. I stay in touch with them. But I'm not like obsessing over that. There's balance. And people have to get better about balance. So I'm teaching a lot of my people balance in like me time, we're doing a lot of schedule of me time. We're a lot of my moms are struggling because they're like, oh, I don't know how to do that. Like, stop, me time, half our day, unplug from everybody and do that. And I just yelled at my friend yesterday, let it. Well, I think it's one of the most important things you can do as an entrepreneur is really understand. And with a lot of entrepreneurs that I, you know, I do a lot of consulting for equity as well.

38:37And the first thing when you meet a founder, you know, one of the first questions is always, if you were to leave for a month, what would happen? And it was like, oh, man, you know, everything would fall apart. Okay, then dude, you don't own a company. You got it, you own a job. Like, because everything depends on you. And I can say for probably the first time in 14 years, well, maybe 15 years, I left for 10 days. And I, you know, and look, I've got great people that handle all of my stuff for me and run all of our companies for me. But I still, I got back and I was still like, okay, I'm jet lag like crazy, but I'm still going in today because I know I'm going to get the list of the disasters that I got to deal with. And there was nothing, like everything was fine. Like, I mean, sure, things happen while I was gone, but everything I handled, all the problems were fine. Everybody was happy, no issues whatsoever. And I was like, you know what, cool. And that says, and that tells you, you know,

39:39you can do this again and it's going to be okay, because we have built those systems and processes in place and with great people surrounding you to enable you to do that. And I think if you're an entrepreneur that's struggling with a lot of what you're talking about, you've got to figure out how to kind of get yourself out of the way so you can have those, those little many adventures. Oh man, and to Zachary, John, you're nailing, so I'm going to point this finger back at you. What you did is what I teach people often, a lot of my CEOs of people like that, I teach them the art of delegation, the art of trust, showing them the playbook, walking them through putting systems and structures in place. So people have access to thrive at the job they've worked, they're working for you or with you. When I started my events company and I started hiring sub-remotors for my company, I taught them everything I knew. I didn't keep any secrets. I said, hey guys, this is how I do this, just that, that called the city, do that. I taught them everything. This is the owner's name. This is what he owns and all the properties. This is a place where I taught a group of doing this and then what I taught them everything, right? So if you empower people, find out who the fuck they are.

40:39Ask them about them, their dreams, their hopes, their wishes, their strengths, their weaknesses and get clear about who that person is and put them in a place where they can thrive and anything you need help with, be that leader, not manager, not boss, but be the leader that shows them how to do it or opens up that door. And then you've got to trust them and it sounds like what you did is you communicated, well, I'm going to play on some great things, communicated, well, trusted your team, put systems and structures in place, you unplugged, so you gave yourself that goal and then you actually believe that you could do it. So you were gone for those 10 days and came back in no fires. I feel like you engage it in the team. Well, I would also say that a lot of that is just, you've also got to get absolutely committed to hiring a players and if they're not an A player, they got to go because we get in business, especially if you have a big ship with a lot of moving parts, sometimes you fill a hole with somebody

41:39and you're like, okay, that spot's good, I can move on to the next thing. And even though it might not be the best thing, you leave it there because you get like this, it's easier to leave that person there than try to bring somebody else in. And I think that was a mistake that I made for years. And now I'm to the point where it's got to be a hell yes or it's hell no. And as soon as you get in a maybe, if you're maybe for me, then you're hell no and you got to go. You're nicer than me, mine is a fuck yes or a fuck no. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, but you just, you have to do that, right? And who you choose to surround yourself with is such a, it will make your life easy or hard. And that's from your spouse, to your assistant, to your COO, to your CFO. Hey, and then just kind of circle back to something. So, for some of those beautiful you just share, but I want to, you know, the point that you brought up about me going through my trauma in the whole situation. You are not defined by your trauma. I'm just going to tell people whoever who's watching and gets, you know, present to what we're saying here. It's like, we get to say who we are in the face of breakdowns.

42:41And one of the things I have to keep telling myself or retrain myself when I was going through that depression was, Sean, this is just a moment, it's just a chapter, it's just an unfortunate situation. Who are you going to be every day to better yourself, to get yourself to a place of, you know, healthy mindsets? So, I kept feeling myself and that's what we do is unfortunately, we give ourselves such shit and we write ourselves so hard that we don't give ourselves the chance to actually forgive ourselves. Like a big thing, I mean, going through a lot of my friends is people coaching is self forgiveness and not being hard on yourself and easing up on yourself, especially as entrepreneurs who have multiple companies and things like that, it's like, we gotta ease up on yourself. Yes, still be diligent and consistent, but ease up on yourself. And the big thing about going through, anybody who's listening to this has gone through some major trauma, unpack the trauma. Ask yourself, what are you saying to yourself on the other basis after it happened? Nobody happened, right? You can't change that outcome, right? So, who can you be in the face of it now? Day one, minute one, and start to retrain your brain. Having different conversations, like the last time I'm going to a podcast, even talk about this, there's probably three, maybe four years ago. I don't talk about it anymore.

43:42I completed the energy. I have my piece with a gentleman who hit me. I got complete with all the stuff around it. Anybody who I, who asked me about it, I told him the whole thing. I'm complete about it. I am not that. It's a thing that happened, or as my friend Brad, one of my besties says, he says, it's a book on the shelf, you know? Well, you see, it's a quote of walking and somebody asks you what you do and you're like, I'm a little league baseball player. No, you did that when you were 10. It's not what you do now, you know? Exactly. I wish, I wish some realtors would learn that about their headshots. It's okay to move on from that headshot from 1985. But, yeah, don't get me started on the realtor head. I just did it in your face. Well, it used to, okay, it's gotten worse now because it used to be like the same picture from 1985. And now it's like, make me look like a 25 year old supermodel AI headshot. And I'm gonna go with that. And it was like, you know, like the first thing I want Pete, I don't want people to do when they meet me as go.

44:43Ah, yeah, yeah, okay. I can see it. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes, I digress. I digress. I totally get that. Yeah, so I kind of want to leave everybody with that. Like, okay, so who are you going to be for yourself this year? My thing this year, and I'm just going to give everybody listening out there what I'm doing. My clients and friends, they gave me this new exercise for a year and here's the exercise. Declarations, no resolutions. When it declared declarations that we want to be this year, we're actually in the set intentions. We're going to set goals and set new ways of being. And we're doing core of my core, from my core head to operating core of American corporate structures and brains seems to work to keep them inspired for those 90 days, 92 days, right? So we're doing my quarters, right? So January 1st, to March 31st, April 1st, to June 30th, like that, right, quarters. And I've noticed that I'm giving people, we're cream five, five in each category. So five, I'll share some months, five declarations for me, right? For me, one of them is booking at least one corporate grade per month that I speak on the stage.

45:44That's one declaration. What I'm doing behind that is talking to my, my big corporate companies to hire me for it, right? My PR firm to get me on stages and places I need to be. That's what I'm doing to make that happen, right? And intention this year, for me, it's been more quality time with my son, and our daughter, with Finn and Viva. You saw Finn, he just rolled in here. It's like being a more available to my family, right? That's an intention they have. So now I have to slow down, unplug it certain times and go, okay, I'm going to be in coach Sean or speaker Sean and go author Sean, go be with the family, right? A goal I have this year. Go back to Florida and spend quality time with my mom, my brother and my sister, and just be with them unplug for four days, five days, what do we look like? Right? And then having like ways of being that challenge you and you know me well enough, and so it's good. And one of my challenges this year, I'm struggling sucking at, is being quiet. I'm practicing being quiet. A good, yeah, yeah, it's so, yeah, I just, the world would be a better place if we could just go back

46:45to everybody not having to have an opinion on every single thing. One of the most, I mean, if you listen to this, let me tell you one of the, the one phrase that will set you free, which is this. I don't have an opinion on that. The, you want to, you want to, like, I don't have an opinion on that. Yeah, I don't have an opinion. I don't have an opinion. You know what, and no offense to anybody listening to this, at all, right? But yes, we do impose our opinions on people when people don't really ask us. Like there's times this past week or two, I've been sitting in my home and watching my, Alicia talk to our friends, whatever. And I just sit and listen, I don't try and fix or coach or contribute or anything. A friend of mine came up on Sunday for Super Bowl Sunday and she was, she's, she's starting, she's studying hypnotherapy and becoming hypnotherapist. She came into my house, the house of coaching and she's like, and she's one of my good friends and she just wanted this whole hour-long rant of tools that I should use for my sessions. You know what I did? I just listened.

47:45I listened. Yeah. And she's like, she's good, she's good. I'll send you all my stuff, you know what I'm like? Thank you, and I get that that was her way of saying, and is she a light? Is she a coach though? Is she a coach at all? She's working towards becoming a coach. You're giving me that gift for herself. Okay, all right. For mid-50, she's looked some life, right? So she's got some stuff behind her, but, and some of her stuff was gold, but because I'm practicing being quiet, I didn't cut her off or disagree or say, I, she told me things I already do at the new for 10 years. So it's funny you say that because, by the time this comes out, this will all be out. So I haven't, I haven't newsletters that goes on every Wednesday. I really? The Wednesday wake up, right? The Wednesday wake up. And so I ignore, it's just little things that will happen in my life and I'll just be like, oh, it's whatever, and I start kind of researching how I feel or what I think about it, always to get better. And you'll appreciate this so much as a life coach. Why people are programmed to seek advice from those close to them that are completely

48:46unqualified to give said advice is one of the great mysteries that I know. So a girl that I know shared this, I guess she's newly single, but she shared this long diatribe that this woman had written on Facebook about why men are failing in relationships. And it was this long diatribe about why we are screwing up and why we, where we need to come in more relationships. And of course, so out of curiosity, I click on her profile and I'm gonna give you one guess if she's married or not. Ah, come on. No, so they're thinking taking marital advice from a single person is like hiring a fat person to be your dietician, it makes no sense. Like, but we want to seek out information that makes us comfortable with ourselves, which is normally from the people closest to us rather than seeking out people to qualify. You know why don't you, John? Enroll? We're enrolling people and being on our team so we can be justified in our thoughts and our actions.

49:46So we get people that aren't qualified, because the people like me that are, I change that for you, ship that for you, take you, point out the flaws in your statements, right? But the people that are telling are unqualified because they want them big, oh yeah, you know, John, I really don't know what's at John, but hey, John, you know, I really, I understand. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right. Cause it fuels them being stuck, staying familiar cycles. That's why my infinity logo is my logo and my brand, my company, cause we do this circle. We stay stuck, we keep doing the same things over and over again. That's again, definitioning, even soundly, right? So that's what we do. We enroll the wrong people because then we get to say justified, right? Our ego gets to stay in check like, oh, fuck that guy or fuck that girl, whatever it is, right? It's, that's where we, that's one of the fatal flaws of humans. They do it all the time. I see it all the time. The echo chamber that gets increasingly worse every single day. I mean, when, you know, in the halftime show at the Super Bowl becomes a major political event, what are we doing? Yeah, there's a lot better. What are, what are we doing?

50:47What are we doing? What are we doing? You know what's funny? I made a comment about that and I look at everything through a business lens. Everything is always a business lens. I made the comment and what, this is what I wrote on Facebook, which I wrote. That was quite a spectacle, which it was, it was an incredible spectacle. I said, albeit only 14% of the US population speak Spanish, so I'm wondering if they missed the tam. Meaning, total, total, accessible market. It was my question. I was it. And I'm looking at that from a business lens. It was no, you know, Trump bad. This person goes, okay, I hate it. And dude, some of the comments that came below that, we're like, yeah, that's a racist thing to say. I'm like, what, did you even read what I wrote? Or is he just looking through Facebook and people? And it was nuts. And the truth of it is, the truth of that story. I'd like three people write same comments that were like, no, no, no, get understand the NFL is trying to get it for a global market.

51:47They knew they were going to concede. They already have the old white guys in America. They're not going to turn it off. They're trying to grow the brand internationally into Latin America. Yeah. That made total sense. That's a quality, that's a quality answer that makes business sense to me. They had nothing to do with anything else. But of course, you still got to have a million people that have their own opinion and their tribes because it's, it's nuts. Honestly, that, that, that, that part, I'm, I'm part Panamanian in Dutch. My, my dad started to live in Panama or Colombia. Spain, Jamaica, we're from Brazil. And oh, oh, my, my mom said, if I'm a word Dutch from the Netherlands, from Holland, from a Rubibon Air Curacao, I'm like, that's the Dominican Republic. I saw so many of the flags I grew up with and I saw some my flags. And I was like, that just touched me to see all those flags in that moment. And as a choreographer dancer, I saw my people. That's, I danced. Yeah, I danced. That's what I grew up on. Chacha, chacha, rumor, all that stuff. That's what I, that's me. That's pieces I've done. So I saw that and I just like, it was emotional. Me, I was really touched. But yeah, it was a political statement. And yeah, there was some moments.

52:48I was here again, again, I don't think it was a political statement. I think it was the NFL, I think it was the NFL trying to grow into Latin America. I think, I think, I think social media made it a political of it. I mean, there was some, there were some stuff underneath it. But I know that bad money got chosen to get new audiences. Yes. That was a hand because he's a great performer. And he's one of the most celebrated performers in Latin America period right now. So like, he was a great business move. And listen, like I told my wife, if Norwegian death metal was the number one selling act in the world right now, it would have been like, that's what it would have been, right? Because they're just, they're just trying to grow their reach any way they can. I get it. So if you had, number one, if they want to find you, how do they find you, Sean? OK, so everybody, first of all, thank you for your time and all that stuff. I give up my phone number, my website, the whole thing. So my website is www.SeanAntonio.com, S-H-A-W-N-A-N-T-O-N-I-O.

53:50Look me up, you'll see all my referrals and people who send stuff and all my classes and all the social media and all that stuff. I actually also have my huge texturing phone color. I'm old school like that. I don't DM, so anybody wants a DM me, you can find me on at SeanAntonio like coaching, very concentrated culture of people who follow me. So S-H-A-W-N-A-N-T-O-N-I-O like coaching at an Instagram. And then you just text me. Shoot me a text, if something that resonated for you today that you heard, text me at 310-428-5017. Just text me, say, Sean, I heard you with John. I heard you some points of talk. Let's talk. Loved to work with you. Loved to do some stuff with you. I'm all about taking you from where you're at. No, fuck you want to go. That's it. Any aspect of your life. And that's what I do. So find me anywhere, text me. Find me on my website or just like reach out on, I will start dealing with my friends who can be shit about it. I will start dealing with you. But you can just see me and say, Sean, let's connect. And I'll meet you exactly where you're at and we'll create some magic in your life.

54:51It's not simple. I got 23 years of doing this and changing lives and seeing people's results. And it's beautiful to see what people get. So fun. Well, thanks for joining us, brother. I appreciate it as always. Thanks so much. Well, guys, if you listen to that today, man, number one, what a great guest, dude. I love having people on to bring the fire and Sean definitely did that. And remember, whether you're using a bot, whether you're using a life coach, whether you're just using your spouse, you know, the key to your personal happiness and probably advancing yourself as a human lies within you and you gotta do the work to go figure out what that looks like for you. We'll see you next time. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of escaping the drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor if you wouldn't mind. Throw up that five-star review. Give us a share.

55:51Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we'll see you at the next episode. We'll see you at the next episode.