E125 | John Bartolo: Own Who You Are

Until you stop caring what people think, you’ll never be free. Luckily, John Bartolo reached that point a long time ago. So buckle your seatbelt and let’s dive headfirst into some controversial topics. Even if you disagree with John, I challenge you to stick around because he’s an expert conversationalist and as authentic as they get. Who knows, he might just change your mind…

What kind of controversial topics? Glad you asked. We discuss:

• Cancel culture vs. “Karen” culture

• Situational narcissism as a prerequisite for leadership

• The argument for verifying every social media account

• Guns, germs and steel

John is a defense industry executive and former CEO. He has spent a career training and working with the best in the fields of fitness, shooting and defensive tactics. He is also the host of “The John Bartolo Show” podcast which has featured countless well-known guests from the fields of fitness, politics, MMA and action sports. Today, John focuses on consulting with many different brands on a wide range of topics.

Connect with John:

Via his podcast: johnbartoloshow.com

Via Instagram: @john_bartolo

Via YouTube: John Bartolo 

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John Bartolo  0:00  

We’ve lost a whole generation in my humble opinion to people being scared of being judged because somewhere out there is another Bill Gates is another Brett Bartholomew is another John Bartolo is someone who’s a forward thinker, maybe progressive in their thought process, in the things that they want to do and how they want to push the envelope in whatever sector area that they end up working in. But they’re afraid because of what social media and not so much mainstream media has done. Because there’s a lot of little kids out there, you know, and I say little kids, but maybe they’re in that 10 to 15 age range, where they’re starting to develop their own thoughts and their own understanding, but they’re afraid to even talk about them because of the nature of cancel culture.

 

Brett Bartholomew  0:47  

Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom, and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker, and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior, and communication. I want to thank you for joining me. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

 

We have an episode for you guys today. I’ve been excited to do this for a while we’re doing an episode. And I think many of you can agree with this. We live in unparalleled times not only in everything we’re faced with pandemic and what have you. But when we talk about mental health and cancel culture and the fact that hate is so pervasive across the world, within so many societal issues, and you know, all these things that tie together that sometimes make us afraid to be who we really are, and stand up and lead because we’re scared of being judged. We’re scared of being called out, we’re scared of all these things. All of that is covered today. 

 

Now, if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you know that the whole point of why I built this was to give real people a platform to discuss things that are often swept under the rug. And we do that today with John Bartolo. Now John Bartolo is the host of the John Bartolo podcast. He is a self described Indus defense industry CEO, and he is a second amendment advocate. Now I can already hear the voices internally and externally gearing up for this one, if you are somebody that just has strong views, no matter where you are with, with anything related to gun control, and social media and everything going on, I think you’re really going to enjoy this episode. We cover everything from trolls to tidbits about you know, how can we even lead today, when it feels like nobody can ever get it? Right? You know, like, it’s a big reason why in this podcast, in general, we do everything in an improvised fashion, nothing scripted. It’s all conversational, we want you to hear the bad, the good, the ugly. And not only that, guys, it was recorded on a day that Zoom went down all across the United States. And you know, we had to find creative ways to record and like, I just think that we have to learn to love the mess. Again, people get so comfortable when they’re in control of everything. And it’s just not the world that we live in. We have to be, our company’s called Art of coaching. But we easily could call it advocates of chaos, because that’s where self awareness and ingenuity and resourcefulness is bred and born. So a couple things before we get started one and yes, hat in hand, if you’re liking this podcast, or you’re new, please leave a review. You may not know this, but the podcast review system is an algorithm. And so it’s easy to get buried under these huge celebrity driven podcasts. And what have you and we don’t move the needle more people don’t find out about the episodes are the people that give up the countless hours of their time, and money and everything to be a part of this. Nobody finds out about it without your reviews. And I’ll never sit here and say, Hey, give us five stars. Give us whatever you think it deserves. But just know that we’re grassroots. We’re trying to bring you difficult conversations, honest conversations, we could easily just go the celebrity guests route, and try to grow and be massive off the names of you know, other people out there that you hear on every other podcast, but we’re trying to bring you honest, raw stuff. So leave a review, you just go on Apple podcast, it’s very simple. You leave a couple stars, or ideally more than a couple, it’s good. I’ll tell you give us five stars and some honest feedback, give us three stars and some honest feedback. We don’t care. But please just get off the bench and do something. 

 

If you also want to be a podcast sponsor, we’re opening that back up for a while we wanted to shut down the whole sponsor thing. You know, we have a lot of things that we’re excited about. But we’re opening back up and we’re excited to talk about some different opportunities. You can go to our podcast page at artofcoaching.com/podcast and you’ll see where you can apply to become A sponsor, we don’t take everybody. And that’s not to be exclusionary. That just means we have to find the right fit. Our listeners include people from the tactical world business or corporate community, the sports performance industry, the medical community education. So we’re looking for diverse sponsors, people that want to support strong, honest raw messages that help other people get out of their own way and really become the leaders are made to be alright, enough of all that I can’t wait to get to today’s show. Thanks for always rolling with us even on episodes that we have technical difficulties, not everything’s under our control. But the conversation is, and I promise you, you’re going to love this one, or you’re going to hate it or you’re going to feel strongly about it. Either way, dive in, dig in, get off the bench, and let’s get rolling. 

 

Welcome back to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. I am here today with John Bartolo. Hello, John. What’s up, buddy?

 

John Bartolo  5:55  

What’s happening, brother, it’s an honor to be here. And I appreciate you taking the time to have me

 

Brett Bartholomew  5:59  

likewise. Hey, guys, for those of you, you know, I was on John’s show. And we had an awesome discussion that we’re really going to continue here because him and I have a mutual affinity for notebooks, Bs leadership, you know, we live in this time, where Sean Freud and canceled culture and so many things are rampant, that it almost feels like nobody can be themselves. And we’re all told to be this, you know, ideal kind of squeaky clean leader that you know, has no mistakes and states everything perfectly. And you know,  it relates to nobody. And John, I want to jump right into cancel culture just for any of our audience. And so they can orient it, you know, let’s define cancel culture. And let’s talk about kind of really how you got into this with your background and leadership and your passions and your interest today.

 

John Bartolo  6:44  

Sure, no, I appreciate it. And I think it’s a couple things. I think, you know, if you start with a little bit about my journey, and my story, I came up in the firearms business, I graduated college and went to the police academy. After graduating the Police Academy, I had the opportunity to work in the firearms business at the early infancy of social media. And as branding and social media became a thing because the firearms business does not have conventional ways to advertise, we have to use social media, we have to use other areas. Now YouTube is censoring everything. So it’s very hard to get the word out or to advertise. So I was lucky enough to be in the very early stages, and make a lot of really cool friends that I say went on to be somebody’s you know, they were Nobodies, they became some buddies, and we have some of those mutual friends we know they are and they did a fantastic job on the ground branding and developing their own personal brand. Now, jump forward a few years some things happened. And I’ve had the opportunity not just to be a CEO of a firearms brand, but had the opportunity to be a four time marketing director, I believe in a one time communications director. So you know, I was lucky enough honestly about to just experience the business from all sides at the street level. And cancel culture is something that has come on strong the last, I’d say three to five years, as we know it today. And as we see it in social media. And I want to start first with what I call Karen culture. 

 

So there we have this. Yeah, so it’s layers, right? it’s layers. So Karen culture is I have to be right, at all costs. It doesn’t matter about your feelings. It doesn’t matter about the facts you present me, I have to be right. So we have that component in society today. cancel culture is somewhere between Karen culture and I gotcha culture. So everybody wants to be right, right? We have these debates, we have these educated debates, these arguments, these whatever, at the dinner table, have a few beers with friends, and they all end happy. And most of the time, good. We usually adhere to the general rules of the table, which are don’t bring up politics, right? And, you know, stay away from that and stay away from religion. And typically society’s gone on fine adhering to those rules. Unfortunately, now today, what we have is we have a situation where people have to be right at all costs. Yeah. And then cancel culture, people are willing to take and throw anything on the table to be right. And that doesn’t. But you know, the problem with that is, as it pertains to society, is it creates a situation where I am willing to put anything on the table to make you look bad. That’s typically how it ends. And for me, you know, looking at, sociology, society, how the world shapes, that’s not the way to go. It’s not healthy either. And to put things in perspective, cancel culture is something that’s born out of, you know, this movement that we see today, in businesses in life in sports, that we’re not going to present facts. We’re just going to tell you how I feel, and I’m going to steal the best line ever created from Ben Shapiro facts don’t care about your feelings?

 

Brett Bartholomew  10:02  

Yeah, I mean, and to jump in here real quick, I think it’s fascinating that you bring this up, because when we talk about cancel culture and all of its components, right, this is also like this call out culture and you know, online shaming. And even though I’m not solely in the strengthing conditioning space anymore, this was something that was a rapid in there before it even started amping it up. More, you know, like you said five years ago, and strength conditioning, there was stuff where if you stayed at anything like I could stayed, you know, getting stronger, helps performance or what have you, you were expected to have about 20 citations that back that up now, even if you had really good ones, and they were 2010 to 2015, there were elitist that were like, well, you need more updated ones. 2018 2020. I’m like, yo, like, we have to have evidence basis behind our statements, right. But like, at what point are we getting so granular that people are not being socially agile anymore? Like, you could tweet something as a strength coach, like, hey, communication is important to coaching. And they’d be like, well, you know, only if you work with people. And I’d be like, well, who the hell doesn’t work with people, and it got so because really what people were fighting over and I want to ask you this, in your industry experience, a lot of it in strength and conditioning was just competition over scarce resources, everybody wants to be smarter than everybody else. Because there’s so few jobs or quote unquote, elite jobs that pay well. So people like really tried to make themselves look better through witch hunting. But now we’re seeing it, like you said, pervasive in today’s society, what areas? Are you seeing it where you think that it’s most aggressive now?

 

John Bartolo  11:36  

Well, I think what it comes down to great points, I think what it comes down to, is how much credibility we’re going to put into the Tower of Babel, that is social media, right? So let’s kind of start there first. So as a person, as a human being, as someone striving to be great, we both know this, you have to kind of put the blinders on what is social media and how much kudos or credit, you’re going to give social media because, in my humble opinion, you have to start there for us, because any content that you put out there any curated thoughts that you’re going to put out into space, it’s almost like trial and error is thrown out the window or not allowed, right. So if I’m in the firearms or defense space, or I’m putting a thought out there that I think, you know, this is cool, or whatever. And for a long time, one of the drums that I’ve bagged in the defense space is Instagram’s, the worst thing that ever happened to us. And the reason I say that thought, and I think it’s one of the worst things ever happened to a lot of sports, I’m gonna tell you why. Because in the beginning, when it started out, and you remember this, we put a picture out. And pictures have no context, but they have no context. And unless we describe everything in gross detail down below, it was the picture and then the interpretation. So of course, in my business of firearms, everybody’s gonna think we’re either a psycho or a gun bunny, or this or that because the context is lost. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  12:58  

Sure. 

 

John Bartolo  12:58  

And I think one of the greatest things ever created in the history of man is the art of the conversation. I don’t want to say the deal, because it might incite some people that I’m referencing someone, but it’s the art of the conversation. And having a great conversation. And having a great debate doesn’t always have to end in somebody winning. The goal has to be to create a thought pattern that’s provoking, right? I might leave this conversation, say, you know, there was something to what he said, let me go do my research. And let me do some digging. It’s like when you get into these arguments about sports, when you were a kid, right? I have a ground rule. When I argue with people about sports, I just got into a fierce debate with someone about where Kobe fit in the all time, you know, spectrum of things. And he’s not on my all time team one, Team Two, Team Three, and he’s not on a lot of people’s for a number of reasons. And I said, Look, we can have a debate, we can debate it all day. But we’re only going to use facts. Yeah, and you hear people be like, well, you know, it’s like, that’s like the hardest thing in the world to do. So, you know, to me, I tell folks all the time, you have to first understand what credibility you’re going to give certain spheres of influence. Now, if it’s a Harvard case study, I think that’s going to have some credibility, right? But if it’s just somebody puts it on Twitter, or just says this, well, what are you basing that on? You know, what’s the knowledge behind that? Are you willing to have a conversation? That’s why I love the platform of podcasting for personal brands and for people in so many ways. And I know you do too, because you’re able to come on here and have an informed conversation and have some dialogue. So as it pertains to cancel culture and as it pertains to people putting their thoughts out there and getting chastised for every little thing. You know, I think that the space to put fresh thoughts out there or provoking thoughts out there is probably going to be somewhere between YouTube and podcasting because I think you know, whether it’s Instagram or Twitter, those are just the wrong mediums really, because they’re gonna get torn apart unless you’re looking for the interaction

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:50  

No, I couldn’t agree more and going off your art of conversation, you know, our company’s called Art of coaching, right? AOC and we always thought about like, we look at coaching as leadership that term is ubiquitous, we don’t look at it as one thing. And I always said, you know, there might have to come a time where we change our name to art of communication, or art of conversation. But you’re right, like talking about what’s bugged me about to build off what you’re saying cancel culture is people now are politicizing that acting like it’s a political thing, when in reality, and you mentioned social media, and it’s got many advantages, disadvantages in many different ways. But it’s caused many issues in mental health for a long time, because people are trolled and people and we can sit here and say, Oh, that’s mental weakness, and then shut up. Like there’s teenagers that aren’t none of us are equipped early on to know how to deal with this. When I wrote my first book, or when I did this stuff, you know, you get into attack mode so easily, because like you said, people don’t know context. One time, I was working with an operator, and this guy had was coming back after being basically blown up on a deployment. And we were doing a certain exercise, right. And we had, talked about it in this one medium on social media, and people said, Oh, you shouldn’t be using a dumbbell snatch doing that you should be using this. It’s a more effective way of training, I go, Hey, idiot, this dude has lost part of his body that renders that unable to happen. And so we’ve gotten on the podcast and and I want to talk to you about this, because it has been politicized. And in all this, I’m reading a book right now called the Power Broker by Robert Taro. And he makes a good point that I think you’d probably agree with, but I want you to expand upon it. He said, one of the things about being a journalist and he’s won a Pulitzer is, you’re right, there is no truth. Because people can skew whatever they want to make it the truth. But there are facts, right, we can find facts. And a lot of times cancel culture skews the facts, because they want to cast somebody, you me or anybody listening in a certain light. I mean, look at what deep fakes can do. So where do you stand on the difference between finding facts? And is there actually a truth or is truth proceed, and are today’s manipulators just to get power, skewing these things?

 

John Bartolo  14:50  

Well, I look at finding facts a lot. Like let’s take your resume, for example, everybody’s gonna make their resume the most shining example of them 

 

Brett Bartholomew  15:53  

for sure. 

 

John Bartolo  15:53  

And I am 100% in favor of that. What I say to everybody is just make sure whatever that you put out there, there’s a shred of truth in your resume. Give me a shred, give me an ounce, right. And I’ll accept that. It’s kind of like you can’t say hydroxychloroquine does not work across the board. And it’s the wrong preventative medicine, when multiple doctors are going to come out and say, we do see some merits in its use. So there’s got to be a shred inside of anything for me to accept it now. Am I going to accept it as gospel? Maybe not? So in finding facts, I think you have to, you know, in the old days, what was it you had to have three points to backup whatever it is, in the old days of right, I’m sure my age now, I’m writing a paper, you would have three facts, three references to call a fact. So I look at it as this. I think anytime you’re making a point, you should be able to come back to Well, I think this and whether it’s because of a snatch or because of a muscle group used or because of a chosen apparatus to do set exercise, or it’s making a point about business or life, you should be able to come back and say, Well, I think this works. A lot of the formulas that you and I use aren’t secret. They’re not, you know, hidden recipes. If you go and you look at guys like Gary Vee, you look at different folks that are out there like Ed my lad, different folks that have put content out there and put content strategies out there. Even Grant Cardone, you know, for all his wackiness, the 10x theories, a lot of these theories are out there and we can reference back to them. Are they fact? No, but they’re steeped in study, understanding knowledge, gathering facts, you know, honestly, knowledge gathering, which would lead to fact, but in this moving world of social media. It doesn’t pay to be right. It pays to be first printed. And that’s what media has created. Media has created beep first put it out there. I’m gonna say this. And it’s going to be gospel,

 

Brett Bartholomew  19:07  

especially if it’s loud, right. And we’ve lost that personal accountability of that caveat emptor that buyer beware. Where you go ahead?

 

John Bartolo  19:17  

Yeah, you touched on some important you and I glazed over a consequences, consequences or lost at bay, we don’t even like to correct our dog anymore. Because we think somebody’s gonna be watching with a phone. And this is 100% The truth is anyone that disputes that I dare you to come on my show. But we don’t even want to correct our dog because the pacification of society and I don’t want to go there. But we’ve reached a point in life where, you know, we say something to our kids or we say something to our dog or we correct somebody or we try to, you know, do something in the office space with That’s why today to run a large corporation. It’s almost impossible. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  19:57  

Sure. 

 

John Bartolo  19:57  

I mean, literally, somebody could send you up a flagpole. For a number of things, and this speaks to cancel culture, and this speaks to, I got you culture, and I’m going to do anything to be right. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  20:06  

what you And I don’t mean to jump in. But this is inclusive with what you’re saying, I want you to build off of it. I was reading an article last night by a professor at Harvard, and he was talking about or what you see is people have taken leaders and people that have oftentimes imperfect backgrounds, and they’ve completely they’ve whitewash it to make perfect right, you look at we had an episode on impression management, how we all were different faces and roles and what have you. But they talked about Steve Jobs and the jack Welch’s and we read books about the CEOs that would make you think that these people all saved the world. And,  it’s fine, they’ve all done great things, amazing things, but they also did really ugly things. You know, like Steve Jobs was notorious for yelling and being this and, leading through intimidation and, Jack Welch and and all the General Electric and all these places did bad things. But like, we’ve created like, people think that it’s possible, because they’ve read these BS leadership books. And because they’ve looked at all these things that like, we should be perfect. You know, if you ran for president today, or you ran for office, there is literally people out there that would spend their entire day, they’d love nothing more than to dig up dirt on you. How crazy is that? That that brings people joy.

 

John Bartolo  21:20  

Brett, I’ll go one better. And you know, I know something about this. There’s literally institutes dedicated towards doing that. Think Tanks dedicated towards doing things like that. And some news outlets are designed to do that. And I’m not talking about major ones. There’s some small, underground ones that literally will dig into your communion records. And I know that as fact. So you know, here’s the thing, you know, if you want to be and we’re getting into a deeper conversation, but if you want to, I guess win the art of the conversation. You want to eradicate cancel culture in your life, you got to be very choosy about your circle. And as far as leaders go, that have pushed the envelope, you needn’t look any further than go back and watch the last dance with Michael Jordan. This was pre prior, as you know, to the social media era. And if it was during the social media era, could you imagine I mean, you had Rodman going and doing wrestling, and he’s running around with chicks. And he’s off the court and missing practice. You had Jordan literally knocking people out in practice. But the guy wanted a wins so bad. And he was part of a bridge to an era of the bad boys of Detroit, the Celtics and the Lakers. And he knew what it took to get over that hump, because he had endured his beatings through all that. And he was going into an era that was somewhat people like offended like her. And you could hear some of the guys talk about it. But they also knew that this was the guy that was going to take us over the top. And to reference players that played with Jordan, this isn’t me. You know, they’re referred to him as Jesus on the court, and I can’t knock Jesus. So he had created, you know, a formula to get to multiple championships. And it’s the same thing you see what Brady? Why do you think Brady has this Aw, shucks, gee, willikers attitude towards everything you think he’s really like that in real life? No, he’s a stone cold killer. You know, he just has that media persona that he’s created, because he doesn’t want to give the media anything. And I’m a New Englander. So I’m biased, I look at guys like Brady and Bella check, and I look at the formula that they create in modern media, which is just, you’re better off saying nothing. Because if you say anything, you’re gonna get torn apart. Now, if you’re out there in the audio space, like we are, you’re constantly putting stuff out there, you’re constantly putting data out there, what they put out there is what they do on the field, which gives them a certain amount of credibility based on their actions and their winning behind the scenes, you know, I’m sure they’re very different. I know that they’re very different people than what we see. Now with us, it’s a little bit harder, because we’re putting on thoughts, we’re putting our, IP out there constantly. And that’s always going to be dug into or dragged into. And I say to anybody that’s willing to do that one You’re brave. To you have to be prepared for the naysayers, right? Which is a very old, you know, philosophy, this isn’t new, you have to be ready for people to smash your face. And if they’re gonna do it, that’s just the reality. But you have to be prepared to say, this is what I think is best. This is my philosophy. And the minute you start not giving a fuck is the biggest freedom in the world. We all remember, Brett when our light bulb went off, when we didn’t care anymore. We all remember that And until you do. And until you do it, you’re never going to be truly free.

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:34  

Yeah, and you touch on some good points. I’m glad you started off with how we can fight back against it because I think everybody’s tasted a little bit of canceled culture. I mean, it’s very tight and even we had an episode on imposter phenomenon where a lot of people say hey, I want to help in whatever space that they are in. But they’re like I’m you know, frankly, I’m scared to be judged. I don’t feel like you know, I feel like I’ve got to have everything together and this and that and it keeps people from being their best self because the replications of like, everything else that’s going to happen just because somebody is unhealthy happy with their life. And you mentioned sources of it, you know, people also need to understand the media is in and I’m not talking social media. I mean, the media in general is a microcosm of stupidity. You know, one of my good friends, Matt Jay, out in Australia will always text me and say, Hey, are you okay? It sounds like your country is burning down. And I joke with him and I say, buddy, you must be watching the news. Of course, there’s social unrest, of course, there’s things. There’s things going on all around the world, and many of them are awful. But there’s also really good things that you’re not hearing. And don’t forget that the media loves to just put things out there that gets people going. And so it goes back to that Denzel Washington, right? If you watch the news, or you’re uninformed, if you don’t watch it, you’re misinformed. But that goes back to again, accountability, when we have people that sit there and we’re hearing about people drinking bleach, during the pandemic, and it’s like, I don’t care who tells me to drink bleach, I’m not drinking bleach, like you’ve got to understand that like, and people are saying, well, we need to we have bad leaders and this and that. What there’s never going to be a leader out there that can protect some people that like if somebody literally thinks it’s a good idea to drink, bleach or do any other number of things that people do. That doesn’t come down to leadership as much as that comes down. Like what happened to just common sense, common courtesy and like you said, having a discussion and seeking out more information and personal accountability.

 

John Bartolo  26:28  

Well, you bring up so many great points. I took a half a page of notes just what on you said, you know, in starting with scared of being judged. We’ve lost a whole generation in my humble opinion, to people being scared of being judged because somewhere out there is another Bill Gates is another Brett Bartholomew was another John Bartolo is someone who’s a forward thinker may be progressive in their thought process, in the things that they want to do and how they want to push the envelope in whatever sector or area that they end up working in. But they’re afraid because of what social media and not so much mainstream media has done. Because there’s a lot of little kids out there, you know, and I say little kids, but maybe they’re in that 10 to 15 age range, where they’re starting to develop their own thoughts and their own understanding, but they’re afraid to even talk about them because of the nature of cancel culture. And that’s what scares the crap out of me to be honest with you, Brett, about society today. That’s what really scares me, because they’re more worried about Tommy’s new bike, or the kid down the street that makes them feel crummy or crappy. And we’re constantly you know, what I call chasing what’s real. And kids today don’t know what’s real, because of the amount of social media bombardment that they take in their brains aren’t really fully developed to process it. We’re lucky enough to remember a time but I remember before cell phones, I didn’t get my first cell phones, I was in college, you know, I’m older. So I know that. But we’re gonna lose a whole generation and to speak to the point of sarcasm, which is what I think you’re getting that I think people don’t realize, everybody’s human, right? We all put sarcastic funny things out there. If you pay attention to my stories on Instagram, I mean, then the most sarcastic things you could ever, you know, pay attention to. It’s all steeped in sarcasm and memes. And I don’t you know, I’m a huge believer and a huge advocate. I know this is unpopular with a lot of people in my circles of every account should be verified on social media.

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:17  

I actually had that. I saw that. I agree with that. Because I think this fake avatar crap that people can sit there and clandestinely, like, comment and spew their garbage and vitriol is awful. I’m a big believer in that.

 

John Bartolo  28:31  

Yeah, and I guess I’ve been more sarcastic in a lot of my posts and a lot of the stuff I put out there, because I have the medium of audio, and I have the ability to clean that up really quickly. If somebody comes to me and says, What do you mean by this? You know, I get a Karen that says, What do you mean by this, I can say, you know, this is what I meant by it, you know, and I can clean it up really quickly. If you don’t have that ability to reach folks via audio or via video, then you don’t have the ability to clean that up, and you can get held accountable to it. I think we’re moving into a very unique time. And this, speaks to maybe the business component of your audience, where I think resumes and I think things like that are going to soon be a thing of the past because everybody’s going to have some form of a living resume out there. And that’s one of the benefits of social media. I mean, I’ve learned through social media that I can’t really work, I have a hard time working for anybody because to me, I’ve always run my own businesses and have bounced into running businesses and reach sea level doing that because I don’t see the value really in having a conventional I went to college on this day, I graduated this state and I worked for this company, because in my world of marketing communications, there’s a lot of people out there that have never built anything that graduate cause they go into the soft seats at these companies because they’re a good guy, but they’ve never actually built anything or tested any of the theories or put any of their knowledge out there. It’s kind of like becoming a trainer or a coach at a high level. But you’ve never tested any of your theories. So I think, you know, to everybody out there you have to not be afraid to test a lot of your theories you have to not be afraid To be sarcastic be real be you be who you are first, you know, be authentic and be willing to say, hey, you know, I really liked doing this or I see this this way, or I interpret this this way. It’s like a living thesis. And you know something about that you have to not be afraid to test those waters and to pursue those things. And that’s how innovation happens. And that’s how we move the ball forward in whatever it is that we’re doing. Imagine a world where guys like, especially in fitness, guys like Louis Simmons, people, like, you know, didn’t move the ball forward, and how we viewed in strength training, or mark Bell, or any of these guys out there that didn’t try to push the envelope. I mean, I look at guys like that. And even Bert Soren and what he’s doing are sore necks, by encouraging incorporating all these different elements into not just fitness but outdoors lifestyle, and we’re seeing this really cool melting pot happen. So there is good that comes out of it. But you got to be authentic, and you got to be real.

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:55  

Yeah, no, and with that, you know, touch on that I love the points on sarcasm, and all that and skin in the game is essentially what you’re talking about. And, you know, I quote, tal lab here, I love this point where he says, you know, listen, like most people you run into in real life, John, plumbers, taxi drivers, accountants, tax advisers, even garbage collectors, they pay a price for their mistakes. So going back to your point about verification of social media accounts, we now have, I mean, even academics and people that consider themselves kind of pseudo Stoics, or Ephilosophers, they don’t pay a price for their mistake, because it’s easy to criticize something you or I say on audio, or something written. And then I always ask them, like, hey, that’s totally fine. I’m open to criticism. But show me your work. And I saw this a lot with my book is like people would sit there be somebody, they’d be like, well, I thought this was too technical, or this was too simple. And I would honestly ask them, I’d say great, like, do you have examples of your work that I could read, so I can get a better idea of what you relate to? And I wanted that on his feedback, right? Because you always want to know, that’s one of the points about having great conversations, you got to know your audience. Now. I also and I don’t think you do either, but feel free to correct me, I have no desire to be for everybody. No desire to try to win everybody over. And you’d like you said it, your life advances when you quit giving an F about everybody liking you. That’s just not, that’s not the point. And nobody’s gonna be happy that way. But there has to be consequences for us to get rid of cancel culture and get back to conversation, people have to quit being scared of failure. They have to quit thinking that studying on it, and I got attacked not too long ago for saying, Hey, your resume doesn’t matter. And so we will, how would you say that you’re, telling people not to? Listen, it’s fine. I’m just saying, if you think you’re gonna get a job based on your resume alone, you got it twisted, like people skills will, on the other hand, will always matter your ability to converse and communicate at a high and adaptable level, that will always matter, or do you disagree on that point? And feel free to?

 

John Bartolo  33:02  

No, no, I agree with you. 100%. But I think it comes back to, it’s okay to say this is how I interpret it. Yeah, like I have a very brash, abrasive personality. But I know that and anybody who hires me, or works with me knows that, in fact, there’s probably going to be a couple dozen people chuckling listen to this, that I do work for and work with around the defense industry. Now what that being said, I qualify a lot of my remarks with saying, This is how I interpret this. And that doesn’t mean it’s steeped. In fact, it’s everybody trying to understand in this podcast, where facts veer to the right, and you’re allowed to have your own personal thoughts. That’s the disclaimer that needs to be placed on it. And that’s what I think you do, Brett and I think that we all do, it’s okay to say I interpret this whatever this is, in this light, and this is how I see it and this is what best suits you know, my goals in my everything because it’s okay to interpret something a certain way. I mean, we, for whatever reason, are self destructive people. Okay, by and large, we’re very self destructive, we have success. We get divorced nine times or we spend money like drunken sailors or we fall into drugs or booze or whatever it is. And as successful people you try to be like a monk you try to do everything right. You try to say everything right? So there is always that move towards the middle. So to answer your question about being for everybody, I don’t think anybody starts out being for everybody, because if you’re gonna be successful, you’re gonna have to forge a path that doesn’t really exist, right? You’re gonna have to stem into an area that maybe the pattern hasn’t been laid out completely. But if you look at uber successful people they do make moves towards the middle, but they never fully abandon who they are. The Rock no question has moved towards a main stream superstar type guy, but is he abandoned a lot of his ideals are what got him there in the first place. No, we still know him as a wrestler, actor, hardest worker in the room, all these things, right the things that he’s branded himself as the things that he’s forced down our throat to visualize him as, but he still had his divorces, setbacks, other things that have happened to him in life, and that’s a part of life. And that’s okay. And I’m just glad cncel culture hasn’t completely stemmed into that world of like, look at your personal life, you only you know, it’s gotten to a point where it’s, honestly quite scary in so many ways. Because just saying, Hey, this is how I see the world isn’t good enough anymore. And that’s why it’s become a little bit dangerous for the younger folks coming up. And I look at that age bracket. Brett, you’re a further educated person than myself. And I know something about networking and basic human interaction, because I’ve networked and spend time with a lot of people, which, you know, What scares me is that age bracket between 15 and 25. I feel like these folks don’t have the ability to have a good conversation to sit down and have an informed debate. If it doesn’t go their way, if they can’t beat you, they try to smear you, if they can’t smear you, they’re gonna try to burn the city down. If they can’t burn the city down. They’re going to march on somebody’s house. Where does it stop?

 

Brett Bartholomew  36:19  

I don’t think people know because people don’t know themselves Well enough, we have it because like we’ve talked about canceled culture keeps people from going out and trying things and being able to put themselves out into the world. But it’s only through putting yourself out in the world and getting beat down by it that you understand who you are, you know, I’ve said on this podcast before, we’re raised John to like, Hey, don’t talk to strangers. Well, no wonder we don’t know ourselves very well, you’re right, that demographic that you’re talking about. It is no self awareness. Many times, I’m not obviously speaking broadly to all of them. I’m just saying, because there’s just as many people that are in their 30s to 50 age range that, you know, they’ve gotten really comfortable in their little silos as well. And, you know, you brought up the term brand a couple of times, which I appreciate, but you know, branding, the way we define it, and the way like the literature would define it as it’s really, it’s the story of who you are made real by what you do. And I had a chance to meet the rock when I lived in LA. And it was interesting, he comes in. Now granted, we maybe it was a 10 minute conversation, right? Like I’m not saying I know him, and I call him. But he takes off his hoodie, because he came in off the street and obviously wanted some aspect of just privacy takes off his hoodie, looks me direct in the eye, calls me by my name after my introduce myself and gives me a firm handshake. He could have just as easily and there were many people that had when I lived in LA, brushed me off the minute they found out I was a strength coach. And at that time, not a best selling author or CEO or this or that or whatever you want to be right. He looked at me and said, it’s nice to meet you Brett and had a conversation with Sylvester Stallone, those people are good examples because they live it out daily. And even though we all have some aspects of theater to what we do, he could have easily chosen a million different ways to do it. And you brought up his divorce and what have you. People also don’t know Martin Luther King, somebody that we widely heralded as a tremendous leader like he had several indiscretions in his marriage. And so I hope I agree, I hope that it doesn’t go that route. Because when people choose to start making, you know, personal attacks, and they do whatever they can, I mean, who goes after these people? That’s what I want to know is, at the end of the day, when is our society going to swing back the other way? When we quit making heroes out of haters? Because that’s what’s going on right now. We have heroes made out of haters.

 

John Bartolo  38:40  

Well, Brett, it’s something we have to challenge all of our audiences with. And this is something I just had a really great conversation with Ryan McMillan. He’s a former Navy SEAL. But I don’t mean to say former, he’s a Navy SEAL. And you know, the McMillan name in the firearms business is a legacy name very well known, McMillan firearms down all the way down. He’s now the owner of gray bow, which manufactures stocks. And he and I were chatting, we were even chatting offline. And I always say this in every one of my podcasts, what’s the solution? You know, and you’ve heard me say this, how do we fix this? What’s the solution? And I say this challenge everybody and everybody listening. You need to start to have conversations with people and they need to be with people maybe you don’t agree with and maybe you disagree with. And you need to replace losing with what did I learn? And when you have these conversations, stop focusing on winning them or these debates, and just learn from them. Just sit back and take them in. You don’t always have to be right. It’s not about right. It’s about taking something away, that you can allow to swirl around in your belly in your soul. And you can nurture that and maybe that affects kind of how you view the world or maybe how it affects how you view a topic or an issue, but start to replace losing with learning I like and the world will be a much better place.

 

Brett Bartholomew  39:58  

Yeah, and time that in with what you said about conversations, right? There’s something called the Overton window. And the Overton Window, as you know, is, Hey, what is this spectrum of things that are okay to talk about. And I would say the smaller the Overton window, and most research would say, as well, when we tighten things that are only okay to talk about as a society, we create a less educated, less open, less self aware society. You know, for example, you know, in schools, we already know that there’s, you know, things like recess taken out, but like, for example, and I know, we’re switching gears here for a second. But like, I grew up with really good sex education. I did, like we had good we had sex education in schools, I took some really good college courses in that I almost minored in women’s studies. And then we had a whole class on, you know, sexual relationships and all that, but like, think about the things that aren’t okay to discuss anymore today. You know, you can see people’s heads get blown up on TV, but if we see the naked female form, or what have you, we lose our minds, despite the fact that for millennia, right Romans and Greeks would have you had statues of these things 

 

to you. What do you think are some topics, we have to be able to bring back into the fold in society to expand the Overton window and get back to just basic principles of what it means to be able to be open and honest about these things?

 

John Bartolo  41:16  

Yeah, it’s twofold in that and I’m familiar with window, it’s twofold in that you have a culture. Okay, so in the this is a deep one. So I’m going to start, I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole rant I’m gonna start with the spectrum of education, right. So you have the educational system dominated by a liberal class, that there used to be the ability to have kids learn, and have educated conversations. But now, it used to be the only absolute was math right, everything else, you could have a good conversation about it. You could talk about the Holocaust, you could talk about the Nazis, you could talk about Vietnam, you could have informed discussion about communism, you could have an informed discussion about all these things in class. But now very slowly, there have become more absolutes and teachers have created more absolutes in education than we’ve ever seen before. And if you don’t prescribe to them as gospel, by the time you leave, let’s say high school and college, right, you know, you’re on the outside, or you’re crazy, or you’re radical, or you’re this or you’re that, and I think to expand into these areas, you’re talking about which it’s not just sex education, it’s everything, it’s being able to have an informed discussion about society, being able to disagree, right, being able to have an informed disagreement. Could you imagine what a kid would go through to them? And we know because we see it out there, what a kid would go through today from maybe disagreeing with protests with burning buildings , you know, in an educational, classroom, it’s because everybody’s already formed, their narrative forms their basis for teaching and educating. And we say this all the time in the defense industry. Instructors on the gun range that teach in absolutes, will probably absolutely get you killed. because there are no absolutes other fundamentals. And you’ve never been in a fight that’s gone by a script I’ve had, would you say about 100 UFC fighters on my podcast? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:23  

Yeah, easy. 

 

John Bartolo  43:24  

And none of them will tell you exactly as planned. I’ve had world champions on it never goes as planned, whether they won or lost. So there’s always going to be a breakdown, okay, in everything. But we have to be able to, like I said, and you know, we have to be able to learn and not necessarily feel like we’re losing. And I think what happens now in the educational system, which is where this starts, this proliferates is whether it’s teachers or whoever they form these absolute concrete narratives. And it used to always be the winning concrete is math. But now we see a breakdown, and everything else. And it’s not to say I dispute every fact that’s out there in a history book. But how about just let’s have a debate, because we don’t know how the history is going to be written with this COVID virus with these protests. But we’ve lived through it. And I’m sure I would disagree with how some of the history books will write it. And I’m sure you would, too. Yeah, well, I think that, you know, for the most part, and having these informed debates, and that’s why I think society is going to shift and I do think we’re going to come out of it. 

 

And I do think because of the ability of media that we have in the outlets that we have in the platforms that we have, you’re going to see more informed debates, more structured debates, where people are going to have to put their thoughts out there and they’re going to have to qualify them in some way. And that’s what’s going to cause a lot of the shift that’s going to go on, and I think we’re seeing and I think we started play out even in the last election as far as the politics side goes. But as far as the news media and what we consume, I mean, go back and watch 90s TV shows and even 80s TV shows or commercials I spend a ton of time look at the money too, because you imagine some of that stuff playing today would never fly. Go back and watch a movie. I want to give a movie to everybody out there. That’s maybe a little too young to remember this. Go watch a movie like Smokey and the Bandit. that stuff would never fly. Now, does that make it right or wrong? No, but I you know, you see this in comedians and Joe Rogan’s talked about comedians are fighting for their life right now. Because so many things are off limits. You can’t talk about this. Oh, we can’t That’s what’s scary. Yeah. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  45:31  

And like this is what I’ve loved about training athletes for as long as I have is I’ve trained athletes of every background, nationality, every demographic, what have you. And we have these discussions, right? Like even this past NFL offseason, working with one of our athletes, African American, right, talking about everything that’s going on with the riots. We’re in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia. And by the way, if you guys are listening, and you haven’t heard our episode that we did last November with Greg Baker, who was one of the first black police chiefs in the outskirts of the city of Chicago, you got to listen to that. We were talking about these things in these discussions beforehand, because he was an example where he saw some racial injustice. But instead of getting like, doing something destructive, he got involved, right, he became a police officer and what have you, but one of our athletes, and he’s from outside the US. And he’s, African American and I said, How do you feel about like, everything that’s going on right now burned down, that he goes, here’s the thing, man, and this is where it goes back to the UFC our experiences here too. In a UFC fight, they know when to stop, right? They know when to call the fight, there’s a point where they call it and what this athlete said is like, at what point does it stop? He goes, now what like, are we going to tear down the pyramids of Egypt? Because those were built those had, you know, that has blood on its hands? Are we going to tear down like and we have a statue of Spartacus, who led you know, a bunch of slaves against the revolt. But in Rome, they have a statue to commemorate a worthy adversary. And I get it. I mean, listen, like we have diverse guests on this show. We are all about this stuff. But like we have a society that doesn’t know when to stop. We have a society that is being built, it’s so angry, and half the time it doesn’t even know what it’s angry about. And there are certain circumstances if no doubt, the ahmaud arbery and the George Floyd like that stuff. People deserve to be pissed about and there’s so many. So we’re not talking about racial injustice is here. We’re talking about just in general, when I hear these athletes talk about it, no matter where they’re from, even they feel it in their world, because they have this pressure of like, how do I use my platform? They’re given a voice and LeBron James or anybody can say one thing, and it’s plastered, and you see it on Twitter, too, right? What if Elon Musk tweet something and all of a sudden, like people misinterpreted that stock tumbles and people lose 10s of millions of dollars. There’s just it’s wild man, you know, 

 

talk to us about some other things that your fighters I mean, I know you’re a huge Second Amendment advocate and we have guns in our household. Right? And, and this is because John, and here I go, right. I’m qualifying myself for the haters, especially our international audience. When I was younger, my parents got divorced, right. And my brother and I would spend Monday, Wednesday Friday with my mother, and one night, you know, the alarm went off. And we ran in because we had like, you know, if the house gets broken into what do we do, we go to mom’s room, we lock the door. So my brother and I are a little kids. And and these doors dude, you could afflict them down John, like their balsa wood, basically. And we’re sitting there with like a baseball bat and a friggin clothes hanger like you like we’re gonna be able to defend whatever comes through. So I know growing up, you know, we have a gun. Now, do I go around like rootin tootin shooting this in here? No, I have it because my wife and I know that if an alarm goes off in the middle of the night, and somebody charges up and they want to like break into our like, we’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. But like talk to me about where some of the athletes and individuals you work with where they view these things and and the discourse they have about it.

 

John Bartolo  48:53  

So I think first and foremost, the Second Amendment’s gone through, obviously a tremendous resurgence with COVID. And with the fear that’s out there. So first and foremost, there’s more new gun owners this past year than we’ve ever seen. So it’s created a political climate where I think the second amendment Oh, yeah, it’s the numbers this year are out of control. To put in perspective, as of June, we had already surpassed 2019 numbers. So there’s more new gun owners now than we’ve ever seen a gun store right now cannot keep a gun on the shelf. They cannot get a gun fast enough to sell it to anybody who’s walking in the door. They literally cannot service the needs. The factories are working day and night.

 

Brett Bartholomew  49:34  

Why? Yeah, I was gonna say why is that?

 

John Bartolo  49:37  

So so it’s a fear driven thing, right? So when COVID hit and the uncertainty of the economic environment and also the physical environment that we’re in via the protests, created what I call guns, germs and steel. So you have the situation where you have this virus, people don’t know what’s going to happen. They don’t know if they’re going to be Fighting for groceries, police response time is down. More people in New York have resigned or retired from the police department in numbers that they cannot replace over the next five years. It’s absolutely unprecedented. And a lot of that is just due to the environment that they’re in right now. It’s tough to be a cop, it’s tough to be in that line of work, you know, for a number of reasons. And that’s a whole separate podcast, right. But the second amendment exists not only to protect the First Amendment, but it exists to protect the rights of your home, your family, everything in between. And people don’t realize that that amendment was not created for hunting. Okay, it was not created. So I could go out and shoot a deer and harvest the deer for me. It exists to protect against tyranny, oppression, foreign and domestic. One of the reasons we are almost impossible to invade is because good luck. Where are you going to land? Especially in some of these states like Texas and everything else, where people don’t go and buy one? And they buy four? Right?

 

Brett Bartholomew  51:03  

 Yeah, there’s overkill? Yeah.

 

John Bartolo  51:05  

Yeah, they’re gonna harm their neighbors, they’re gonna arm their dog, they’re gonna harm everybody. So there’s a lot of reasons for that. And I think people don’t fully understand the nature of the Second Amendment and why the Second Amendment was created in the first place. And I think people develop this, it’s the gun, right? Just like me saying, you know, what, if I beat my wife to death, I don’t have a life. But if I beat  my lady to death would win a plate. From the gym, it’s the dumbbell. You know, they have this philosophy that just because you pull the trigger, we’re gonna ban that, or we’re going to do something about it. People will always find a way to kill people go to the UK, and ask them, go to Australia and ask them. So we live in this this culture right now, with the second amendment that I believe we’re witnessing one of the largest resurgence of gun ownership that we’ve ever seen in this country, I know that it is because of the nature of the numbers that are coming out. And I think it’s going to create a little bit of a taboo topic with people because you have a lot of fringe players that have now become gun owners. I’m not saying that they’re pro gun owners that they’re outspoken when I see in the defense industry, and when I say defense industry, to all your listeners, I’m talking about MMA fighting. I’m talking about jujitsu guys judo, guys, everybody that wants to be what I call more capable. So the nature of my podcast and the show that I run, is to have people on that are striving to be more capable people in their life. Now, of course, yes, I have a lot of shooters, industry, people from my industry. But by and large, I’m looking for folks that just want to be better people. And that includes harnessing their mind, nutrition, physical, everything in between. And I like to hear their story. And I like to hear what they’re about. And what I found in my research with 300 episodes, is, for the most part, most people who want to be more capable black belts, and I know you know this, but this is a great one to turn the table on you. These people are some of the most gentle souls, some of the best people, the kind of people you want to have a drink with. You want to spend time what you want to get to know. And the people that want to eradicate all these things. Because if they take our guns away, how long before they take knives away? How long before they take away the ability to go train or become more capable? And let me tell you something, the first time somebody shows up at your door with a gun, the first thing you’re going to do is call someone with a gun.

 

Yeah, I mean,  it’s a valid point. I mean, I listen, and people are gonna criticize for anything when I competed as a boxer. You know, I had a stepfather that was like, Well, I think that’s a by a violent that, you know, it just again, it goes to people don’t know where to stop. Now, do I think that people need to have 47 Automatic assault rifles with scopes or whatever, like you saw with like, you know, the last week, no, and that’s my opinion, and I’m cool to disagree with that. But like, you know, we have a simple gun for self defense, my wife learns how to shoot it, we know how to shoot it, all those kinds of things to each their own. You know, I am interested in this. You know, I didn’t. When you talk about how you define the defense industry, I think our listeners would find that interesting, because I typically think of the defense industry like the DoD right, like the Department of Defense, talk to me why you think of and I think I know, why do you think about fighters and members of the combat sport community and things like that as the defense industry?

 

Because they’re like minded? The answer simple, they’re like minded. I’ve not had a fighter in here. Whether it was Vinnie Miguel is it was Valentina Shevchenko, who’s a champion, whether it was Cody Stayman any of these people if you go back and you listen to any of my podcasts with these people, they all want to be more capable. They all want to understand how to not just defend themselves in the ring but defend themselves outside of the ring. It’s an instinctual thing, and I interpreted as very simple. They’re striving to be one of the best instruments of self defense in all phases. Nobody in you know this Brett from coaching and this might be, you know, a light bulb to your listeners, you want to be perfect in all phases before you step in the ring, step on the platform do anything right you want to have your nutrition dialed in, you want to have your plan all laid out, you want to have the weights you’re going to put up all laid out, you want to have your game plan in the ring. Now all that might go to shit, but you’re gonna do the prep work you’re gonna have it all laid out and it’s the same thing in the firearms and defense industry. You’re not going to be somebody who’s willing to step in the ring and battle it out for you know, three rounds or five rounds depending on the card and step out of the ring and just be like you know what, Hey, mister rapist, Mr. pedophile, come on in. There’s my kids upstairs and there’s my wife have your waiter. That’s not real. that’s not real. Yeah, that’s a defeating mindset that they never possess. And you wouldn’t want them to possess that as a coach. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:57  

1. And you were right back when you said these are some of the most gentle humble people. I mean, listen, like I I know it’s funny will sometimes do some boxing and handwork and what have you with fighters is not I’m sorry, with my football guys is nonspecific conditioning. And some of these guys that are amongst the world’s best athletes have no idea how to throw a punch right? Now I know how to throw a punch. I’ve been trained how to do that. But like, I don’t go out looking for fights. I don’t go out. I like it, you know, I’ll do anything I can to try to prevent an altercation. Right? I have no desire to, like, get in fit. Like, why do I need to fist fight, but like, I’m also one of those people that if you come up and you disrespect my wife, or you do something you know, like that could put my son in harm. I’m still I’m a Midwesterner, man. We’re the kind of people that will open our homes to you and invite you to our table. But we will still pop you in the nose. If you do something to you know, like, put us in harm’s way or disrespect us or what have you. And that’s just a sense of that. Right? That’s, classic. Just people like stand up for something you believe in, my grandfather would drink a Scotch he knew at a ballroom dance. And he could, you know, he could have a great educated conversation. But he’d still defend his family. Right. And like, I just feel like all of those Midwestern values, what I consider to just be people values are going out of the way. But you’re right man fighters. They’re humble, because they’ve been punched in the mouth. And that goes full circle into what you talked about with critics, people having verified accounts, do not tell other people how to live if you have not been punched in the mouth metaphorically and tasted your own blood, just because you want to play it safe and not get judged.

 

John Bartolo  57:31  

Yeah, and the ones that aren’t everybody listening to that says, oh, yeah, I know, tons of fighters that aren’t humble. A lot of that is preparation leading up to the fight. Like we all remember, you know, Tyson’s bravado before a fight. We all know Gordon Ryan and the jujitsu community and how he is and how certain people are that’s bravado, that’s them. But inside, they work tirelessly in endless lengths to be the best that they can be. So of course leading up to whether it’s fighting or, anything, they’re gonna feel that they’re the most capable in the ring to do the job. And they have to create that,  persona, that feeling that air, everybody approaches it differently Joe Benavides approaches a fight different than Kobe, Covington. And then, and I couldn’t pick two more contrasting styles. So there’s two people that you know, are going to be very different in their approach. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t think they’re the best at what they do. And you can go back and listen to my two shows, with those guys about that. And, you know, Joe absolutely believes that he’s the best when he steps in the ring. And you hear Tyson talk about this, you know, a lot of it is creating confidence and how they create that confidence. And people don’t really fully understand that or interpret. And that comes back to what I call that sarcasm or that non literal approach. I mean, they’re creating a confidence in themselves to go into the ring and feel they can take over the world and feel they can win no matter what. And I think for the most part, you know, whether it’s a fighter or someone in the defense community, and the reason I categorize it that way, is because that’s what it is, you know, at the end of the day, these are people training for defense, you can have a civilian person who takes multiple ring trainings, I mean, would you not categorize Valentina Shevchenko as someone who prides herself in defense? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:19  

That’s a good point,

 

John Bartolo  59:24  

one of the most capable human beings out there,

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:27  

and what you’re talking about.

 

John Bartolo  59:30  

I was drafted to draft in my zombie apocalypse team bouncing, it’d be pretty high up there. Yeah,

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:36  

I mean, no doubt. And what you’re talking about is situational narcissism, which like really exists on a dimensional scale. Everybody’s got some aspect of what the research would call situational narcissism you and I’m talking about you mentioned in the fighters with bravado and this and that and, and Tyson admitted that he was terrified in real life, but they have to put on that, but if we didn’t have people that had elements of situational narcissism, which again, most reason Search would just say as, elevated forms of competence or, and confidence, sorry, confidence. We wouldn’t have people that want to be leaders, we need people that want to be the fastest human on Earth. And we need people that want to tackle tough jobs, we need the surgeon that sees somebody that came in with, you know, 50, knife wounds and has to triage or somebody that has to perform at my neighbor has one of the most rare and aggressive forms of cancer, and they had to do brain surgery on her. I need that surgeon to be somewhat situationally narcissistic. And so that’s where I think you know, you mentioned, there’s somebody that thinks so well, there’s plenty of great N equals one man, we can find contrasting examples of friggin everything. So here’s what I want to ask you. On top of that, you’ve been a CEO, you’re a tremendous leader, you have a mass audience, you have a successful podcast, you have all these things, there are people out there that are trying to figure out how to lead today. And I know we’ve talked about a lot of things, if there are two to three things that you just think or even one thing I’m gonna give a shit. If there’s something you just think that that person out there that’s got imposter phenomenon, anxiety, terrified of putting themselves out there, because of all the repercussions that could come out them. How are they supposed to lead today? Like, how can they go out there? And like, what should they take with them about you know, how to become a person, like, in the position you’ve been in, or other leaders have been in?

 

John Bartolo  1:01:25  

Well, I always start with two things, you know, you can only control two things in life, how loyal you are, and what time you get out of bed. The rest is going to change around you all the time. I’m not smart enough to sleep in. So I get out of bed pretty damn early. So you can only control those two things, loyalty and what time you get out of bed. My three pieces of advice will always be the same to anybody. And I think you’ve heard them echoed throughout the show is be authentic, you have to be authentic. I’m an East Coast brash guy, I own it, I 100% Own it. I own every bit of the philosophies that I put out there. And I am authentic about who I am. And where I see the world. And my second point is I touched on it is own your shit. Whether it’s good or bad. If you make a mistake, own it. If you nobody, you know, one thing about our society about our culture is if you own who you are what you’re about. People tend to respect that, but you got to own it. You got to own it. The lot of the people we brought up Elon Musk, the rock these people, you see them they’re like, Yeah, so what I smoked a joint on, like big deal. I mean, I am, and you have to develop a philosophy at some point. And I think you can appreciate this because you’ve written books, and you know, I’m in the process of writing a book right now. But you’ve written books, and you’ve done things, you know, once you start to develop your own philosophy, that’s when it almost like you reach that like that superstar level, that next level of hate. Because once you start to develop, what is your own thoughts on things, truly develop your own thoughts? That’s when you’re going to reach that next level. It’s like the glow in what is it the last dragon or whatever? You know, you develop that next level. And to everybody out there i always tell people this. If you were going to be on CNN, Fox News, a major news outlet? How would you want to be introduced? And if you’re not working towards that goal as a personal brand, or as a CEO, or as a potential CEO, or someone who’s trying to strive to be great, you don’t have a good clear answer to that. Need to work on that.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:03:48  

Yeah, I think that’s phenomenal advice, especially just saying own your shit, man. Own it and and understand how you want to be described, introduced and quit worrying about all these things. Because, you know, you’re not going to be perfect. Anyway. You know, 

 

John, I think this has been one of the most valuable episodes we’ve had to date. I think it’s necessary. I’m always always just smitten by other people that want to have great conversations and know how to have them. And man, you do play if people would go ahead

 

John Bartolo  1:04:18  

I can’t thank you enough for even taking the time. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:04:20  

No, dude, it’s my pleasure. It’s my end. Like, here I want to be I want people to have the opportunity to learn more about you support your work, listen to your podcast, I want people to have the opportunity to judge you right let him go ahead. So  if people want to support you judge you join you, whatever, where can they go? How can they find out more about you put it out there and we’ll throw it in the show notes of course.

 

John Bartolo  1:04:40  

Of course. Do the shows easy it’s just the John Bartolo show everywhere podcasts are heard we’re on all the major you no channels so iTunes, Spotify everywhere, you know, head over and check out the show I’m always curious people’s comments leave a review check it out. There’s the website www.johnbartoloshow.com real simple to find you can find everything there. I have Instagram @John_Bartolo and @john_bartolo_show with some underscores in there. And of course you know, I’m on Twitter and I’m on everything else. You know, go check it out. I wouldn’t recommend Facebook I kind of throw whatever’s laying around on Facebook. It’s kind of become a dumping ground for memes. But you know, I recommend you know to everybody listening you know, that takes a chance on my show or takes a chance to listen, you know, wants to hear more of my thoughts. feel free to be as painfully honest as you’d like, you know, we are our podcasts on YouTube. I’m always open to the heckling, and everything else. But yeah, I appreciate you taking the time. And I love these conversations. I mean, they’re just awesome dialogue. And I think people need to get back to the art of the conversation.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:46  

No doubt couldn’t agree more guys, please support this man’s work. Like he said, enjoy. Like, just get involved with the conversation why we have to quit worrying about feeling so much Get involved. Get off the bench have these difficult conversations we need them no matter where you’re at in the world. John Bartolo appreciate you everybody until next time, this is the Artic coaching podcast. We’ll talk to you soon.