178 - The 7 Steps to a PORN-FREE Life with Frank Rich - The Captain's Lifestyle Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I knew that I had a problem, right, Like as a grown man,
I'm watching porn in shopping malls,in the private restaurant all by myself.
Yeah, monetarily, I mean obviouslyyou're giving your time, energy,
focus all these things. Soul youknow again, it's als Island, right,
Like to go into a strip club, you have to show a face,
like you've got to go out intothe public. You're sitting in a

(00:20):
dark room all by yourself, pullup the laptop, and you feel like
you're having a real relationship with awoman through a stream. She knows what
she's doing, right, She's gotten thousand of them, and she's doing
the exact same thing. Jump anice back for three minutes, hard work,
massive tuns of do. On thisepisode of The Captain's Life Self Podcasts,

(00:58):
I'm here with Frank Rich and myBalls. We're going to talk about
porn today. So, Frank,you are a former bodybuilder. Clearly you're
fucking jack and you're the CEO ofRebuilt Recovery, a company that provides fitness
training along with one on one coachingfor men aiming to break free from porn

(01:21):
addiction. I myself have been there, so talk to us about your journey
from porn addiction, where it startedto how you realized it was a problem,
and then how you started to overcomethat absolutely killer. And I think
you, as with millions of men, have struggled with this thing. So

(01:44):
I'm grateful and surely honored to behere today and appreciate you opening up your
platform for this conversation. The introductionto point me is, you know,
so a little bit of context.I'm thirty nine years old, and you
know I was introduced or I firststumbled upon the age of six. And
I always reference and bring the agebecause at six years old, as a

(02:07):
thirty nine year old man, itwasn't the Internet that we have readily available
today. I think we'll get intothat's a different whole other piece animal and
a different drug. But for meseeing it at six, finding it in
my dad's drawer taught me two things. There's two key lessons. I guess
I don't think they were really lessons, but what it did to a six
year old at that time. Numberone is I found something that my dad

(02:30):
was high. It was hid underneathsome socks inside of a drawer. I
shouldn't have been there, right,But as a young boys process in this
line, Okay, well, nowdad has things that's keeping away from us.
So that kind of behavior was implantedin me at a very very young
age, and it carried with mereally throughout my entire life till I was
almost thirty five years old. Ialways had a way to kind of keep
secrets about myself, things that Iwas participating in, things that I was

(02:53):
doing other people to know. Sowe'll get to how that kind of really
began to manifest and really took meinto some dark place. The second thing
that came out of it was obviouslythe curiosity about the female body. Right
I was a young boy, You'venever seen a female body in that nature,
Like, oh wow, this issomething that's truly amazing. I like
the way that it makes me feelright inside. So through my you know,

(03:15):
through my childhood and teenage years,Like it was the magazine, right,
you know, this was you'd belucky if you could, you know,
find one in the woods or stealone from your death, your your
friend's dad or whatever. Maybe everyonce in a while you could sneak one
out of a seven elevel. Haveyou ever found a newdie magazine in the
woods. Oh absolutely, absolutely.Okay, we're gonna start with this story.

(03:37):
Yeah, so we had right outsideof my neighborhood. I grew up
here in Tampa, Florida, uhin, you know, in a typical,
you know, middle class kind ofsuburbian neighborhood. So it was kind
of the gated community. Right onthe other side was an entry pointed into
the woods, and the older boys, you know, a few years ower
than me, had built a fortout there. So I remember the first

(03:57):
time I was with a buddy inmy dating smith, we stumbled up into
the woods. He's like, hey, I want to shove this fork while
these guys are out There's beer bottles, there's there were probably crack needles at
the time. I can't remember that, but underneath this kind of mattress he
could pull it up and do therewas I mean, there was a collection
of them, you know, passeddown from the boys that were you know,

(04:18):
now moving on into middle school andhigh school. It was like,
here's you know here it is forthe elementary jets for kids. And it's
funny because I had it's funny we'rehaving this, you know, part of
the conversation I had Elliott Holes onthe podcast a couple of years ago,
and he shared that same exact storyhow when he was growing up, and
a lot of the YouTube comments areso funny because all the young men today

(04:39):
that have only lived with the internetdon't understand what it was back then,
and they're like, why are allthese old guys always talking about finding magazines
in the woods. It was justsomething that was a part of our culture
back then. I don't know howold you are, but you know how
yeah, so probably a little bitdifferent of the time you you growing up,
but yeah, there were definitely alot of them out there, and

(05:00):
you know, you wanted to participatein that, so you would figure out
a way to maybe steal one fromthe circle k or from the convenience store.
And now you had the prize,so you kind of get to become
like the leader within the group,like, hey, you see what Frank
kind of left out there. Youknow, we can make jose about this
stuff now. But yeah, youknow it so six carried with me,
you know, through my thirties.It really became a problem though in my

(05:28):
early twenties, and this is goingto be due to the rise in the
internet. And this is why Ithink we'll probably get into the internet conversation
how it's a completely different drug,how the brain respond is completely different to
it. It was working in thewireless industry in my early twenties. We
were a distributor for t mobiles,so I was like a very early adopter
of the BlackBerry phone. And Ican almost remember it like the first time
I realized, like I can getporn on my phone anywhere I want now,

(05:51):
Like this is amazing, as thinkingas a young man, like I
don't can go to the magazines anymore. I have to worry about it laptop,
Like I can just literally keep ithere in my smartphone. So,
keeping with what I shared at thebeginning, right holding these secrets, that
behavior that I learned at six yearsold, carried with me through my twenties

(06:13):
and into my thirties, so asI got into relationships, it was something
that was always kind of kept tothe secret, you know, even some
of the things that I was doingwith drugs and alcohol. I don't know
if we'll get into this part there, but I've had some struggles there as
well. Never in terms of likeI would identify as a drug addict or
as an alcoholic, I think bodybuildinghelped me really keep a strong grasp around

(06:36):
that. Like I could go sixmonths out a year on the contest prep
and not touch anything. But thenwhen it was like off season kind of
party time, it was like,let's just open up the phone, right,
you know, we're just going togo balls to the wall. So
I always had the ability to kindof turn things off, turn things on
because porn doesn't have any calories.This is how I was, you know,
processing it back then, and it'slike, yeah, I can participate

(06:57):
in its behavioring. It's a normalthing, right, every as consuming pornography,
I would say in my early thirtiesis when I began to feel the
effects of it. My bodybuilder workingin health and fitness space personal training background,
health fitness like the pinnacle physically ofa healthy nail, I started to

(07:18):
has some performance issues in the bedand I couldn't figure it out. It's
like, well, my test isgreat, I'm healthy, blood work is
all there. Why can't I getor keep an erection while having sex.
I wasn't connecting the dots back then. I wasn't willing to accept it though

(07:40):
I knew what was causing me,and I knew that the porn problem was,
and my brain was like, well, I don't want to stop doing
that because it's really not a majorproblem. Yeah, it creates this problem
for me, but I can justtake some drugs to overcome that. So
as a thirty year old man,I'm using Viagra and Sialli's just to be
able to perform sexually, not realizingthat it's just causing the problem to get

(08:03):
deeper and deeper and deeper and muchworse. Twenty and eighteen is when it
really shouldn't. I was running abusiness. So I've been in the entrepreneurship
space for a little over a decadenow. Had a very successful company from
twenty thirteen to twenty eighteen INNY ticketingand entertainment space. So we were a

(08:24):
ticket broker very similar to like astub Hub vivid seats kind of thing,
where we bought and sold great margins, great profits, all things, you
know, did a few million dollarsin sales. I was so unfulfilled,
and as something that worked from home, I caught myself spending more time every
single day consuming horned than I wasputting into the business. So after having

(08:46):
first great success the first three years, the numbers started to drastically go down,
and as some of it, wasn'tequipped to handle the problems emotionally,
like because I'm not connecting all thedots here, I'm like, well,
things are just getting worse, LikeI'm just beginning to now seek out more
and more porn. I was ina relationship we were growing more distant.
A part it had really become aproblem between us sexually, because what porn

(09:11):
does, right, it hijacks yourdesires, what you ultimately want. And
anybody that's been in it long enoughknows that the material you start consuming,
it's more dark, more hardcore,and it's going to continue to get worse,
and then you're going to try tobring those things into your life as

(09:31):
well. So that was a bigpart. And then I heard a podcast
which I've been a big fan ofthis platform for a really really long time
suwhere of twenty eighteen, I hearda podcast with an author of a book
called Surfing for God. The author'sname is Michael John Cusack. This was
the first time, Taylor, I'dever heard two men talk about their struggles

(09:54):
with porn. I knew that Ihad a problem, right, like as
a grown man too porn in shoppingmalls, in the private restroom all by
myself. I would avoid social situations, so I knew that there was irregular
behavior that I was participating in.I didn't understand the umbrella of pornography addiction
because it wasn't a topic that wasdiscussed a lot twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.

(10:18):
I mean, really, these lastcouple of years, beginning to see
it's become more and more regularly discussedin the main strength. But back then
of nobody was talking about it.When I heard Michael and the host of
the podcast talk about their struggles andhow they were breaking free, I'm like,
wow, maybe maybe that's me.Maybe I'm Michael. Maybe this porn

(10:39):
behavior is really an addition, andmaybe this is the root of some of
your depressions, some of your socialanxiety, that you're dealing with all of
these other feelings. So I starteddiving into the research, you know,
as as somebody that has the backgroundhealth fitness, like I always want to
look for, Okay, what isthe research that supports this? Like,
yeah, you can hear great storiesthat can be great in a buildal kind

(11:01):
of explanations for things, but isthere some research that documented what's going on
here with the brain and how doyou get out of this now led me
definding Gary Wilson's work, Gary worksof brand on porn, which has really
been groundbreaking in the entire space.Meand a Grant talk on YouTube called the
Great Porn Experiment where he gets intothe Internet how it's shaping really society today,

(11:24):
how it's really hijacking young boys' minds. So seeing all of this,
seeing some of the science that wasout there, I'm like, wow,
Frank, you really do have aproblem. A couple incidences that really played
a role in my life was comingto my faith. So late twenty eighteen,
I did come to my faith aswe didn't have a real religious background

(11:46):
growing up. Through a series ofnetworking and really being around some very successful
men, I came to my faithand that kind of set me down this
path of like, Okay, nowI'm really going to start trying to clean
some of the skeletons out of mycar and I talked about it. I
had some issues with drinking. Soas the clock turned over to twenty nineteen,
so this was like twenty eighteen whenI came to my faith. New

(12:09):
Year's twenty nineteen. I'm like,I'm going to go this whole year without
drinking. I'm not competing anymore.I'm not a bodybuild at this point,
so I would have social drinking hereand there. I'm like, I'm just
going to go the entire year withoutdrinking. I also had kind of put
a little bit of weight on.I've gotten probably the worst shape that I'd
been in since high school. Youknow, it was thirty forty pounds overweight.

(12:33):
A lot of it was just stresseating. Things weren't going really well
in the business, so like,I need to do something rapidly to kind
of turn my physique around as well. And I've been doing some research on
autoimmune diets because my girlfriend was strugglingwith ra at the time. And I
found Mikayla and Jordan Peterson in theCarnivore diet. Like this was like something

(12:54):
pretty simple, you know, likeI just eating eat for thirty days.
I'm like, shure, I canI can do that. So I did
the Carnival Diety in that first monthof January twenty nineteen. I lost twenty
one pounds in thirty days. Likethe mental clarity it changed my life,
just to focus so coming out ofthat, this takes us to February of

(13:16):
twenty nineteen. I'm sitting down aftera workout one day with a good buddy
of mine, Zach. Sach's aformer marine, so I mean, I
hold a lot of respect for it, like just a masculine, masculine dude.
We're having this conversation and he's like, I can tell you about these
breathing exercises that I'm doing. Thiswas like all out of nowhere, like
we were talking about the workout thatday, and then he immediately gets into

(13:37):
I tell you about this breathing exercisewhat I'm doing. Obviously he was studying
whim off. He's like, It'sgiven me great energy, great clarity,
I feel more at peace. He'slike, but more than anything, Frank,
it's helping me control my issues withporn. And I kind of paused
for a minute because we had neverdiscussed the point, like it had never
come up in a conversation. Ikind of leaned in. I'm like,

(13:58):
what do you did you just say? Zach. He's like, yeah,
man, I've had a porn addictionfor almost a decade. He starts going
into it. When he was inIraq, how the Marines had this tent
set up and it was literally likeyour stress go to the porn tent.
Literally, that's yeah experienced. Yeah, Yeah, we've had some I've had
I've had some some former soldiers onthe podcast as well talking talking about their

(14:22):
problem. And I was like hearingthat from him, and he's like,
dude, I was never able tobreak it. Once I got back.
He's like, yeah, because there'sa stress reliever while you were overseas.
He's like that stayed with him whenhe returned to the States. So for
the last six seven years, he'slike, I've been struggling with this.
The only thing that's helping me issome of these breathing exercises. Said Wow,
that's fascinating, Zach. I'm like, I don't know why you felt

(14:43):
compelled to tell that to me rightnow. I'm like that, I've been
looking into the porn addiction myself,and I think I have a major problem.
It's almost as if him talking aboutit was like the door that I
needed open to start talking about itmyself. Yeah, because I hadn't been
looking at the research, right I'vebeen watching all the YouTube videos, but
I still didn't have a conversation anybit back because who do you go to?

(15:03):
You know, It's like, therewasn't there wasn't a coach frank back
then on the internet talking about it. There wasn't a tailor hosting a podcast.
So I was like, what isthat. I'm like, this was
a sign man. I'm like,I've been thinking a lot about my own
issues with this. I realized I'vehad a major problem with this. I
was like, whatever you, whateverfelt, whatever you why whyever you felt
the need to talk about this.I want to thank you because I'm going

(15:26):
to make a commitment here to youtoday. Zach. I'm sick and tired
of having this as a part ofmy life. It's infiltrated every single part
of my life. It's had impacton my relationship with Stephanie at the time,
my ex. It's impacted my abilityto show up at work to produce
income. It's impacted how I feelsocially. I'm sick and tired of it.
Bro Like, I was at apoint where I was just fed up,

(15:48):
like Zach, So I'm making acommitment to you here today. Need
a couple of things though, thisare lessons here, right, So any
guy that's out there like this isthe first key lesson. It's like,
it's not a battle you try todo or come on your own. It's
exactly. I don't know how I'mgonna do this, but I'm asking you.
Will you be you seem to havegotten some handle on this. Will
you support me? Be accountable?If I call you, He's like,

(16:11):
brother, whatever, whatever you need. Like I said, a real real
dude, you know what I mean, Like a real brother. So he's
like absolutely. So I said,that's amazing, bro, Like, let's
start this journey together. Like thenext thing is I need to go home
and tell Steph. I don't knowwhy I felt the need, but you
know, our relationship wasn't great atthe time, but we had been together

(16:33):
for four years. You know,we had really meshed our lives together,
and we had had conversations around futurefamily, all these things. If anything's
gonna change with our relationships, it'sgonna start by me sharing the truth with
her. So I wrestled with thatconversation Taylor the entire drive home, and
I didn't tell her that day,but I woke up the next morning really

(16:55):
feeling convicted too. So I'm anearly riser. So I've been up for
a couple hours already probably working thatday, so actually getting ready in the
bathroom that morning, I can remembergoing into the closet in my office where
I had a secret laptop. Sothere's there's a great sign, right,
It's like I literally had a laptopthat was dedicated only to consuming pornography.

(17:15):
Because I'd been caught in the past, the previous I'm like, nobody's ever
going to find it again, becauseI would just put on this laptop that
you don't know exist, and withSteph Leeves, I'd go into the closet,
I'd pull it out. This ishow bad it was. Taylor.
We lived in a two storytown home. Anytime she left the house, I
would watch her car from the upstairsroom. I could see as it turned

(17:38):
and then actually made the turn outof our neighborhood. I knew she was
gone, laptop. I'd go downstairs, lock the door, pull the laptop
up, and I mean it waswithin minutes after being gone that I'm getting
set up the key with locking thedoor. Right, So now I could
hear it. Because there'd be ahandful of times like she would return home.
She would return home and then belike, well, why is it,

(18:00):
Frank I left just five minutes ago. Well, I went outside and
check the mailbox and I must havelocked it by you know what I mean,
just once again lying keeping secrets.It's like just this pattern of behavior
that was injected into me at theage of six. So that next morning,
I tell her to grab the laptop. I walked in through the wrestlm.
She give me this weird look likewe be doing in the rushroom.
We I'm, you know, tryingto be grateful for the day, and

(18:21):
what is the laptop that's underneath yourarm? So I share all this with
her. You know, I don'tthink I've been the secret that I've probably
watched porn because I'm sure somewhere inour relationship, but I've probably asked her.
She wanted to just to see howfar I could kind of push things.
But I again to just really shareeverything. Steph. This has been
with me since I've been six.You know, all these secrets. I

(18:41):
feel it's impacted some of our intimacy, some of the things that you know,
I've tried to do here. Iknow that that's a byproduct of it.
We get both get incredibly emotional.You know, I apologize for all
this. I tell her, I'mcommitted to doing everything I can to keep
it out of my life. Andthe powerful part there, and I think
that this was very defining in myjourney was I literally took the laptop and

(19:06):
I ripped it apart, like thelaptop that kind of folds like in two
pieces, like big check, dude, Like sounds cool, like I broke
a laptop on my bare hands,but they're made to be you know,
they're made in two different pieces,So sounds funny. Yeah, I mean,
but it was like it was thecivilization, right. It was like
me showing to myself, me showingto her, me showing to pornography.
Like right, like this has beenyour gateway for the past, however many

(19:27):
years, it's no longer available therefor you. It's like, you know,
resisting cutting off all access to thattemptation. So I go downstairs.
I text sach I, you know, I hold up to my end of
the word. I say, hey, I had the conversation with Steph.
I want to thank you for yesterday. I really appreciate everything you've done for
me. I'm excited for whatever's goingto come. I was sure I had

(19:48):
no clupement because once again there weren'tI wasn't in the forums, you know,
I wasn't in like the no Fatspace. I wasn't keen on like
how it's changing your life and youknow what's going to be the Pye product.
I just knew I I've done withthis behavior and I was ready to
create a life without it. SoI text that and say, hey,
there's moments you know, we've doneeverything. I shared it with Sephanie and

(20:08):
then I sent a message to anothervery close for the mine and this was
a video message, and I sharewith him. You know, Josh had
been with me for the last year. He knew a lot of the struggles
that I was going through. Hewas kind of my spiritual mentor at the
time, kind of a big brotheruncle type of role he played in my
life. So I wanted to sharewith him. And I'm like, Josh,

(20:32):
he knew me for a year.Even though I've struggled with a handful
of things. I've never shared thiswith you, but I've had a point
addiction for so many years. I'vecommitted to this life without it. Now
though, here's the laptop I showhim as I'm throwing it away, and
what was powerful there is As I'mending that video message to him, I
look in the camera and I'm like, Josh, I don't know what the
future is going to hold, butI feel like today's the beginning of something

(20:55):
truly great and something truly special.And I would have been February fifteen,
you know, these next couple ofmonths, man, I kept my word.
I leaned into Zach, you know, he was there for support when
I was struggling. I leaned intoJosh. You know, we have regular
conversations, just checking in, howare you doing? You know, are
you resisting certain things? But becauseI felt so good talking to Zach,

(21:18):
talking to Josh, even talking toSeth about it, like it was so
freeing, like talking about these thingsthat she had held a secret for so
many years, Like who else canI tell about this? I started going
through my friend list and I waslike, Hey, Mike, Hey,
Chris, Hey justin like, let'smeet up for coffee. That's something I
want to talk to you about.And I wouldn't tell them why we were
meeting. We sit down, westarted had a little casual conversation. I'm

(21:41):
like, hey, I called youhere for a reason. Here today.
You know, I don't know ifyou've ever had this issue in your life,
but I've had. I've had anaddition to poem for a really,
really long time, and I'd sharewith them, you know, some of
the some of what happened. Ishare with them what I was doing and
what was powerful there is. Iwas worried, right, how are they
going to view me? Are theygoing to look at me as less of
a man? Because they're going tobe any shame associated with this. It

(22:03):
didn't matter who I shared it with. He could be the CEO of a
ten plus million dollar company, orhe could be you know, my uncle,
that's a fire. And it didn'tmatter what role or what position I
got held in life. Every timeI shared it with him, and I
would start with being emotional, theywould say, friend, calm down,
but that like, this is somethingwe've all had to deal with. I've

(22:26):
had my struggles with it. You'regoing to be okay. And I think
hearing that time and time again fromguys that I really respected showed me and
that it's like, Okay, I'vehad a struggle in my life, but
it's not going to become my identity. It's not going to hold me back
from really doing the things that Iwanted to do. So that was that's
really what carried me for those firstthree four five months. But I will

(22:48):
tell you, Taylor, it didchange my life. I think the way
that I started to see people reallystarted to change some of how I want
to feel connected. As somebody thatstruggled with a lot of social anxiety and
isolation for almost twenty years, I'mbeginning to seek out community. I just
wanted to be around people because Ifelt connected to people for the first time.

(23:12):
And I think it's because I wassharing the whole version of Frank.
It didn't matter if I was consciouslyaware about it at the time, but
for twenty years, if I'm holdingonto a part of my life and I'm
not willing to share with Taylor,I'm not willing to share with anybody,
I'm never going to feel connected becausea I don't feel connected to myself and
I'm not giving them my full self. So it was always I always felt

(23:36):
disconnected in any relationship, but thosefirst three four months, I just felt
so close to everybody, And thenI started to think, how did this
happen? Frank, Yeah, yousaw it when you were six, but
you never got deep into drums.You never really allowed alcohol to control you.
You've been deep into self developments.You've been attending sevenons, you've been

(23:57):
paying for coaches, You've read hundredsof books at this time, Like why
why did this still rise up inyour life? And then what about the
guys that maybe don't have access tosome of the materials that you do.
What about the guys that aren't reallyinvesting in themselves, aren't focused on the

(24:18):
personal development that you are. Dothey even feel like there's a way out
of it? So that was kindof the call for me, Taylor,
to launch my podcast. I'm like, I don't know, Like I've loved
this platform for many, many years. I've always wanted to have a show.
I never had a story or reasonor mission behind it. But now
I had something that I could talkabout that I felt was my journey was
valuable to others. So that ledme to launch the podcast This Sea Year

(24:41):
of Life July of that year,so, you know, four or five,
six months after really getting free fromit. And the original mission was
just to put my story out therewith hope that it could inspire others and
bring other people to overcome adversity.It wasn't always porn addiction. There was
a lot of early episodes we didaround the conversation because that's really what I
was feeling, you know, pulledand called to you. But we have

(25:03):
guys on that were struggling with hairinaddiction, or alcohol addition, or even
sometimes just imposter syndrome, and justputting that good message out into the world
and showing people that didn't matter whereyou are or where you came from,
there's always hoped to get to whereyou want to go if you're willing to
recognize the problem, admit it,and then be willing to do the hard
work. What was cool is likethe messages I was receiving socially because I'd

(25:26):
been running a small fitness company atthe time, doing a lot of like
workout stuff, So I had asmall following four or five thousand on Instagram
at the time, small little aYouTube channel, so we had regular messages
on the day to day, sayswhat was cool. After launching the podcast,
we got picked up by iTunes.They put us on a new noteworthy
page in those early couple of months, so that gave us some early exposure.

(25:48):
Then I started receiving messages just fromguys thinking and thank you for addressing
this topic, some from women.But what was what was powerful was is
the then we're just you could tellthat they were wrestling with something inside and
kind of having an outlet, justlike I had with Michael when I heard
the conversation back in twenty eighteen.So they started saying Frank and thank you,
you know, thank you for theconversation, thinking what you're doing,

(26:10):
this is really shining a light onsomething that not a lot of people are
talking about. About five six monthsinto the podcast, though, those messages
began to ask for help, soit was not just thank you for what
you're doing, but can you helpus? You know, we loved the
conversations. We love what you're doingand how it turned your life around.
Can you help us? And thiswas January twenty twenty, so kind of

(26:33):
pre COVID, I was fulling inthe marketing agency. I was kind of
the number two there, really reallyrunning as I was focused on the career
building that up running the small littlefitness business on the side as well.
So I didn't really know if Icould help, right, It's like I
had new background in porn addiction recovery. Yeah, I had. I've had

(26:55):
some leadership training. I've obviously,you know, been a coach in the
health of fitness space. I don'tknow about addiction recovery. And then the
men around me like my kind ofDannish circles like no, Frank, you've
overcome this and it's actually going toopen up a bigger calling on your life.
So there's a lot of people pushingme to start at least trying to
help men. So January twenty eighthof twenty twenty, I remember it was

(27:18):
a Monday. I had just lefta marketing event that weekend where they taught
this like simple kind of it's calledan SMS post where it's kind of like
I'm looking for three or five peoplethat are struggling with this problem and I'll
provide this solution. So they taughtthis. They taught this training at the
marketing event, and I was sittingon it that Sunday night and I'm like,

(27:40):
with this work for porn addiction recoverywith my little small following that I
had. So that Monday morning putthe post together. I threw it out
there on Instagram to my little threefour thousand followers at the time. Just
hey, I'm looking for you know, three guys that are struggling with you
know, compulsive behavior with porn andthey're second tied of living with a secret
A coach the next four months tohelp you gain control over this and rebuild

(28:03):
your life. No clue what isgoing to lead to. Nicole doesn't get
get a single inquiry about it allor maybe maybe it would blow up.
Was able to get two guys signedup that game, and that became the
genesis of what has now become Rebuiltrecovery. So now I had to build
and fulfill, but I had soldbecause I'd sold them a four month coaching
program. So those first two clients, you know, gracefully helped helped me

(28:26):
build the curriculum that we've now youknow, worked with hundreds of guys through
and there's been iterations of it.But that was really the genesis of the
coaching So early twenty twenty, afterbeing free myself for a year, at
that point, I started going onthe path of coaching other men. So
long winding rant in story there,but yeah, that's kind of the journey

(28:49):
from six to thirty six and everythingkind of kind of in between, who
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(29:11):
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Underscore twenty to get yours today.Back to the show down, the hedge,
the whole shot there. Yeah,it's in about twenty minutes. Get

(29:34):
a little bit of a mental clarity, focus the wow, so many places
I want to go. Let's startwith the difference between starting with magazines,
which is what you first discovered,versus what we have now akay everything.

(29:55):
So what was your experience going frommagazines to then having your own personal laptop
dedicated to pornography? Great question.I mean if you think about okay,
like if I'm if I'm an alcoholic, right, you know, I have
my drink of choices, is whiskeyor whether it comes in you know,

(30:17):
pints later, you know, andI think maybe get account size if you're
that hardcore. But once it's done. It's done, and if you want
more, you got to find away to a through finding resources. You
know. Yeah, most people haveenough money to go buy it's an alcohol,
but you have to make a tripto the liquor store. You have
to pick it up. Like sothere's there's barriers to get your drum.

(30:41):
Same thing with you know, mostsubstances, right, there's always going to
be a bear little bit of thatyou have to go through. Great organization
out there called Fight to New Drug. They talk about the big three age
that make Internet pornography just incredibly dangerous. Number one is the accessibility of its
You know, thirty percent of today'sInternet is pornographic material. So it's literally

(31:07):
it's just readily available therefore of allthe time, like a crackhead doesn't have
his dealer in his pocket with himin twenty four hours a day. Yeah,
you know, and our brain's likethey know that it's there. Right,
It's like this unconscious kind of thinglike Okay, whenever I'm feeling stressed,
anxious, tired, distracted, whatever, what you need is literally sitting
in your pocket. So it almostbecomes this like unconscious pattern where we're just

(31:30):
constantly returning back to it. Sothe first a is the accessibility. The
second one is the affordability of it. We talked about the ability to need
to acquire resources to get liquor orany type of substance, like you have
to have money, and if you'restruggling on hard times, like it's it's
food or drugs. Yeah, alot of people choose the drugs, but

(31:51):
they're still that barrier to go throughporn Hub any of these major streaming sites.
It's one percent free monitory. Yeah, monetarily, I mean obviously you're
giving your time, energy, focus, all these things. Sole ye,
you're becoming the product. But interms of like what are you having to
pay? Zero? So a twelveyear old fourteen year old boy that like

(32:14):
doesn't have a dollar to his name, he's like, well, all this
stuff is for free, not realizinglike, yeah, these companies are just
monetizing all of your energy, allyour focusing, like you said, your
soul as well. Successibility, theaffordability many anonymity component. So it's completely
secret, right, you know,nobody is in your bedroom, nobody's in
the bathroom with you while you're consumingconsuming it. You're an alcoholic, you're

(32:38):
people around enough people long enough they'resmow it in your breath, you're gonna
begin to slur, like how youact, how you show up. Same
things with drugs, it's gonna beginto change your physical expressions. Porn in
the in the room by yourself.You don't have to leave of the contact,
you have to do anything with anybody. So I think those big three

(32:59):
is what really makes it so muchdifferent from a magazine, And it's that
new stimus. You know, amagazine back in the day, you know,
I got so much, there'd bemaybe five centerfolds total of maybe three
four images, so maybe you havetwenty different images variety to you. You

(33:19):
know, porn hub as at onepoint two years ago had over twelve million
videos just on that one site.The amount of time it would take for
you to sit down and consume allthe pornographic material that's readily available for free
today is like one hundred and sixtyfive years. Like you don't have enough
time on this planet to consume atall. So as the male brain is
wired for that's new stimulus, right, that that that's variety component just hijacks

(33:47):
that completely. So I think thoseare a lot of the things that really
make it, Like I said,a whole difference. All of you were
a whole different drug. I wastalking with my buddy Mason Cord today he's
men's helping while this coach similar tous, and he got a message today
actually that said, Hey, I'mstruggling with a porn addiction, and his

(34:09):
addiction is with cam girls. Sothen it's like live interaction with the women.
How is that different from just youknow, free internet product, because
when you got to pay for it. Yeah, and then too with like
a live interactions like a step above, I imagine that is extra dopamine.
Yeah, yeah, I see themodern day cambirls are your only fans as

(34:34):
like the modern day version of stripclub. Yeah, there's still strip clubs
prealy available. And that was astruggle that I had in my early twenties
as a guy that didn't have greatsuccess, you know, through teenage years
with women. Now you're you know, you're walking to a strip cut twenty
one, twenty two. You havethis beautiful naked woman that not only is
going to take a clothes off foryou, but she's gonna talk to you
like she's interested. Yes, she'sgoing to give you that feeling of like

(34:57):
now there's a relational ship kind ofcomponent to it. So with the cam
girls and with the Only Fans,it's hijacking that next layer of the real
intimacy. Right. It's like youdon't feel intimate when you're consuming pornography.
But if you send a message toa girl on Only Fans and she maybe
smiles back at you, or ifshe sends you a little heart or maybe
thinks sweetie, Now that's just backand forth exchange and once again from kind

(35:22):
of a you know, from aprimal instinct, like your brain doesn't know
how to decipher like that relationship versusone that I'm experiencing in real life.
So it's adding another layer where it'slike these men as they're struggling and as
they feel isolated, well, thesegirls understand me and they like me,
they accept me for who I am. So yeah, monern Day Camberl's Only

(35:44):
Fans is like strip clubs on steroids, because once again it's now it's isolated,
right, Like to go into astrip club you have to show face,
like you got to go out intopublic. You're sitting in a dark
room all by yourself, pull upthe laptop and feel like you're having a
real relationship with a them in througha screen, and she knows what she's
doing, right, She's got tenthousand of them that she's doing the exact

(36:05):
same thing with. All she's lookingat is the bottom line of whatever revenue
she's bringing. Yes, And oftentimesit's guys who are running their accounts for
them. Yeah, So oftentimes you'rejust talking to a dude is just fucking
with you exactly your money. Yeah, man, all right, let's we
covered some of them, but let'sspecifically get into some of the side effects

(36:28):
of porn addiction. Yeah. Absolutely, you know I touched on you know,
some of what I experienced, youknow, from the physical symptoms,
right, you know, the porninduced erectile dysfunctioning. I think that's the
biggest one that is really impacting youngmen here here today. You can talk
about the testosterone and how that's playingthe role. And I know that's a
big part of what your work doeswith health optimization and everything. But young

(36:51):
men today in their twenties, youknow, have the testosterone levels of the
guys in their sixties. You know, just thirty years ago, guys playing
a small role in it. Ihad a video with viral on the Instagram.
It's somewhere near two million views rightnow. And it was a reaction
video that I did to a younggirl talking about a man that she was
having relations with, and he admittedto her that I can't get off through

(37:15):
sex. I have to have sexand then I have to masturbate to finish.
Wow, she's sharing this story andshe's like on a podcast episode and
she's like, yeah, it's completelynormal, and it's very common for guys
today. So my reaction was,I'm not sure what's more concerning here,
the fact that the young man hasa problem or the fact that the young
woman thinks that it's completely normal thatyoung men today are having a problem that

(37:39):
got are allowed to push back becauseyou know, once you kind of reached
those numbers on the Internet, it'slike you kind of have into like just
a whole different ballgame out there.I'm sure you've experienced that. Yeah,
but that's the big one, man, is you know, it's wiring or
rewiring how your brain deals with seeksout and needed handles like the physical sexual

(38:02):
release. You know, what firestogether wires together. So most young men
today, once again speaking on theinternet, by the time a young man
has his first sexual experience, whetherit's seventeen, eighteen, twenty, twenty
two years old, whatever age he'sreaching at, there's a very good likelihood
that that young man has had hundreds, if not thousands of sexual releases before

(38:24):
he's had his first sexual experience.So his brain has been wired in condition
that, Okay, this natural physicalact that your body is meant to do
naturally, the pathway to there isby watching videos on a screen and then
masturbating yourself, and that becomes thepathway. I mean it literally is a

(38:45):
neurological neural firing of your brain.So I think the pied is a big
one. I talked about shame aswell. I believe when you have a
part of your life that is heldsecret, the ability to truly connect with
other human beings is impossible because you'renot showing up. You know. There's

(39:06):
a lot of great words down aroundin the personal movement SPA is right,
authenticity, vulnerability, be your truewhole self. All of that is great,
right, But what they're ultimately sayingis I have to feel comfortable giving
one hundred percent of myself to you, like there's no I'm holding nothing backward
to they ask me whatever, whateveryou want. I'm not ashamed to talk
about anything I've ever done, andI feel because of that, I have

(39:27):
the ability to truly connect with you. But if every social interaction you go
into you're worried about, well,if they asked me this question, or
if it gets into this topic,how am I going to feel uncomfortable?
Like you cannot fully express yourself.So it creates the inability, in my
opinion, to truly connect with peopleon a deep heart, soul, or
spiritual level. Talk about the obdentificationof women as well. You know,

(39:52):
as you're training and conditioning yourself tolook at women as sexual objects, every
woman that you're going to begin tointeract with outside in the world is immediately
going to become a central object foryou. I can't tell time many young
men I talk to you that havehad the inability to look a beautiful woman
in the eyes. Yes, yes, right, So those are a couple

(40:16):
of them, man, you know, And then I would say probably once
a guy has recognized the problem andis now working to get it out of
his life, but is failing timeand time and time again. Now his
belief and his confidence is going tobe shadow because he's got this area of
his life that I'm not happy.I know there's something wrong in me that

(40:37):
I can't feel the need to overcomeit, so there must be something wrong
with me or it begins to livein the state of being of shame.
So he's like in confidence, he'sI can believe, and then he's not
pursuing other goals in his life.Poorn outously Hijackson reward Center, So your
motivations and your rewards are are completelyhijacked. So instead of like going out

(41:00):
there and pursuing goals or building yourbody, or building a business, or
having creative outlets or creative hobbies,it's like none of that feels as good
as exactly just yeah, all thedopamine in the world without having to put
any any of the work in AndI think Huberman does a great job of
explaining it, like there's nothing wrongwith dopamine. Dopeman of itself is an

(41:21):
incredibly powerful chemical that is here fora reason. The problem comes is when
you get these massive amounts of dopaminewithout putting any efforts. Dopamine is meant
to follow efforts, go to thegym, work on your body, get
dopamine, sit down for deep workof a deep work session building a building
company. Dopamine is gonna be ona product other jumping, nice bath for

(41:44):
three minutes hard work, massive spikesof dope. Yeah, I mean you're
a big fan of the idea bigyear. Yeah. I interviewed the Yeah,
CEO of the DNA company. Hetalks about getting dopamine in you know,
two different ways, pleasure versus reward. So most people are getting dope

(42:04):
me and being pleasure. This iswhat we just talked about, you know,
just fucking releasing you know, eatingfood, watching Netflix, scrolling TikTok
whatever. If you're addicted to pleasureseeking modalities of dopemins, switching that to
reward, So putting yourself in uncomfortable, challenging situations, hitting goals, like
just moving one step closer to whereyou want to be. Right. I

(42:28):
want to go back to what yousaid about hiding things, right, Like,
if you feel like you're you haveto hide these these parts that you
you can't really connect. Another partof it is it's exhausting to feel like
you have to lie all the timeor like hold something back, like I
don't want them to see this partof me. That's fucking exhausting. Like,

(42:51):
once you are able to show upas you're true self no matter what,
like you said, you're not holdinganything back, we can go anywhere.
That's so green and most guys todaydon't understand what that's like. Myself
included up until I started to overcomemy own import addiction. It's like that
was my last addiction that I hadto overcome, and it's like wow,
it's like you can finally breathe onceyou know that you're not hiding anything back.

(43:15):
And especially for men, because integrityis such a big role in masculinity.
If you're if you're pretending to besomeone and you're not actually that person,
you're out of alignment with yourself.You're out of integrity. Right.
Let's let's now go to why peoplerelapse. So quitting an addiction, no

(43:40):
matter the addiction, is difficult.So what reasons have you found? Well,
one, did you ever relapse afterwhen you broke the laptop? I
never relapsed after that point. NowI will say I I had told myself
I was gonna quit any times overprobably the three four five years leading up

(44:04):
to that. You know, atdifferent points in relationships, you get called
you're like, yeah, I'm donewith this this and that da da day
when I truly decided and committed tothe life without it. No, there
wasn't a point where I slid thator you know, I realized, And
I think a lot of that wasthe choice, like the true decision and

(44:25):
commitment. I think the biggest thingthat holds a lot of guys back is
like it's the uncertainty of like Ireally want to give it them right,
Like it's not that bad, Likemaybe I can control it. Maybe,
you know, maybe once a monthis going to be okay. You know,
maybe maybe if I just go thirtydays without it, I can have
it as a part of my life. I remember something I heard Tony Robbins

(44:50):
say. I've been a big thingwith Tony for for a really, really
long time. He talks about thisis like one of his early seminars of
books. He shares a story wheredealing with people that are struggling with smoking
Tomacca cigarettes right, and he's gottwo people, I think they're standing on
a stage at an event, andhe offers them both a cigarette. The
first person says, no, thankyou, Toning, I'm trying to quit,

(45:10):
and then the second person says,no toning on a one, I'm
no longer a smoker. And Ithink that's the key there, right is,
as long as you're trying to quitsomething, you're always holding on to
the identity of the person that isstruggling with it. I'm trying to quit
pornography, which means that pornography isa problem in my life that I'm trying

(45:30):
to overcome. When you make thatinternal shift, when you begin to live
through the identity of the man thatno longer looks at pornography, pornography is
not the problem in your life anymore. You don't have to overcome him.
You have to figure out what theroot cause of the behavior was in the
first place and heal that and maybecreate better productive habits and a better life

(45:50):
for yourself. But once you makethat shift in terminally, I believe to
become the man that no longer looksat it, the struggle take care of
themselves, and there's going to bework still. But that was the biggest
shift for me telling Zach rip thecomputer part was me saying, I am
no longer the man that does this, and I think bodybuilding taught me a

(46:12):
lot of lessons there, because asa competitor, you could go four or
five six months holding the identity somethingthat doesn't cheat on his diet, holding
the identity of somebody that goes tothe gym two hours a day or twice
a day, whatever the case maybe. So I had the ability to
honor and keep commitments. I hadnever in my life just really made that

(46:35):
real commitments to myself. So Ithink that was the biggest change for me.
And that's really what we try tobring across in all the work that
we do, is that this growth, this freedom that you're seeking, is
going to be found in an identitychange. I believe all transformation, all
successful transformation, is rooted in anidentity change. First. So soft talk,

(46:59):
soft talk, our ambiguous words thatget us off the hook for taking
any action, for taking ownership inour life is hope on here. That's
right. That definitely fits in thecategory hopefully. Yeah. Yeah. I
had a mentor twenty two man comingup in the sales leadership space. I

(47:22):
remember man like so vividly. Heused to have the same like, Oh,
we hope we hit our right,you know, we hope we hit
our numbers this month. You know, we hope and crush it. It's
that cat's hope. He is nota course of action. Yeah, God,
it's so powerful man. So Ilove this, dude. Soft talk
creates soft results and in this casesoft h Yeah, poor user, I

(47:44):
tell this function. So yeah,how long have you know people been trying
to lose weight A people have beentrying to quit porn endition, Yeah,
quit smoking? Right, you haveto adopt the identity and the lifestyle of
somebody who no longer does those things. Yes, completely change your lifestyle.

(48:04):
Well on this, I want tosay, this is why things like you
know, accountability software, in myopinion, aren't a long term effective solution
because you know, you put acovenant, you know, covenant eyes.
We should we have a partnership witha great company out there. I think
they can be utilized as a tool. But I'll get dozens of messages every
single week. Frank, I'm struggling. I'm like, what are you doing?
Like why I put the blocker onthere? What is a blocker essentially

(48:24):
doing. It's saying that there's somethingout there that you want that you're telling
yourself you can't have. And ifyou know anything about human behavior, if
you know anything about human conditioning,the minute you're told you can't have something,
anything that children understands this. Anytimeyou're told something you cannot have,
immediately your subconscious goes into how thehell do I get that thing that I'm

(48:46):
not supposed to have? So puttingthe blocker up there, in my opinion,
is actually working against yourself because whenyou're not consciously thinking about it,
your brain is figuring out, Okay, how do you get this thing without
breaking the commitments and promises that youmade yourself. This is awesome. Yeah,
that's That's exactly why I created mybrand, The Captain's Lifestyle, because

(49:07):
so many people they think that,oh, if I do this, you
know, thirty day challenge, ifI go on this diet, I'm gonna
be a I'm gonna change, I'mgonna get lasting results. That's not how
it works. Why so many peoplerelapse into you know, if you go
on a diet, you're gonna loseweight, but then you haven't changed who
you are. It's all gonna comeback. Yeah. So same thing with
with porn a mission. You haveto you have to become the type of

(49:30):
person who no longer can consumes porn. And you said when you made the
decision, like when you broke laptop, that was your decided moment. The
etymology of the word decide is tooff, to cut off, to cut
ties with. So I am decidingcutting off this old version of me.
I am no longer this version.I am now going this way. I

(49:52):
like that burnerships of this. Yeah, and I taken the lay of deeper
man in my company. I loveI love your mission. I love everything
you're doing. You know, wetalk about becoming a porn for man.
Our our logo, right, isa phoenix, which is and then it
then becomes a lion. Phoenix isa symbol of death. He must die
to your old self. And thenthrough our coaching and through our program,

(50:15):
you know, we come at itfrom a life you know, a full
life coaching perspective. We're gonna rebuildyour body and rewire your brain and reshape
your heart. So once you gothrough our curriculum, we're gonna we're gonna
we're gonna kill off that old man. Right, There's gonna be some pain,
there's gonna be some suffering. Therewould be some difficult work they have
to do. But our whole missionis then to a niche back out into
the world as the lion, theman that you were born and called and

(50:35):
created to be. And that looksdifferent for every single one of us,
but it does go through that massiveidentity change. Huge man, what's your
response to it's just what guys do? Because I have women, Uh,
I have women asking me in inmy Instagram dms like hey, my my

(50:57):
boyfriend has been taken to pornography,and it's I'm losing the connection with them,
like our intimacy is dwindling. Likewhat can I do? I've tried
to have these conversations with them,and he replies, it's just what guys
do. It's a weak man's response. I mean, yeah, you know,
I fell into that trap, right, you know, thinking that this

(51:19):
is just something that we all did. It was kind of a right to
passage type of thing. Maybe therewas a point in time where that was
the case, you know, maybea playboy was a right of passage,
you know, for young men backin the days. I think with everything
that we understand about the brain andeverything we understand about the Internet and really

(51:40):
what is happening, I think thatis a guy that is unwilling to really
look at himself in the mirror andbe honest and true about who he is
once again at viral post. Whatit exposed more than anything is the amount
of men that will argue on theInternet as a way to deflect really their
own security. That's all I seewhen I see a man that is attacking

(52:01):
a post that I made about youngmen struggling with porn and in reduced reptile's
function is you have a problem.You're literally screaming at me through the keyboard
like so I see as a weakman's response. I don't think any woman
out there needs to accept that froma man. I have a shirt that
a company made from me. SoI did a post probably eighteen months ago.

(52:22):
It was like a little meme.You know. I hijacked this Stephen
Crowder kind of coffee mug thing thathe does from one of his talks change
my mind and put on the whiteboard. Real men don't watch porn change
my mind, but in mind runsin a pail company. He saw that
posts, he put that on theshirt. So now we got shirts and
the cell we get some money tohuman trafficking nonprofits that are fighting fighting that

(52:45):
fight as well for every shirt that'ssold. But I love wearing that shirt
now where you know, through airportsor through a casino in Vegas. That's
a good style everybody too. Yeah, And it's in order to say that,
I think you have to have adefinition of organ is number one.
So I think most males today don'tknow what it means to be a man.

(53:07):
And I'm not the expert here.We've had a lot of conversations with
great men, great masculinity coaches.I default to Ryan Mikler hose of order
a man? I'm sure, Isaid, Ryan, what's what's a man?
And he's got kind of a threepillar right to protect, provide,
im precise. So you're here toprotect yourself, here to protect, you
know, protect those that you're responsiblefor. You're to provide, you know,

(53:29):
provide food, resources, shelter,and procide. You're here to precide
kind of over a mission or acalling or something that's bigger than yourself.
When you're operating from a framework likethat, like you do have a clear
mission of what your life is andit's in service of others. Men are
here to serve other people. We'rehere to be a resource for other people,

(53:51):
a physical resource, a financial resource, a security resource, whatever it
is. But your role as aman is to serve other people. Pornography
doesn't. None of that pornography isself serving. It's using other people to
pleasure yourself. Even the whole conversationof what's going on behind the screens.
But I don't know if we'll getthere today as well. But in order

(54:15):
to have a statement that real mendon't watch porn and be able to see
it on it, I think itstarts with knowing what a man truly is.
So when when when I hear thatevery guy does it or whatever,
I simply see that as weak datamail deflection from really being willing to look
at the problem. Yeah. Imade a post that generated a lot of
controversy that said guys, and Iuse the word guys consciously because again they're

(54:38):
not men. Yes, guys,stop paying for porn. Go look in
the mirror. You'll see a pussyfor free. Oh wow, that,
as you can imagine, you gotsome fun comments. Yeah. The advice
that I told that women who messagedme, I was like, if you've
had multiple conversations with him and he'sstill not willing to accept what the problem

(55:01):
is and and uh, you know, stop projecting the problem elsewhere, like
oh, it's just oh guys,do it and take ownership. I'm yeah,
ditch. Yeah, that'll that willbe a wake up call. Well
also, man, you know whatI mean, Uh, here's wanting to
go. I know my message isnot for everybody. I know my coaching

(55:22):
is not forever, and I don't, I don't. I don't want it
to be. So anything that isgoing to be classified or deemed as normal,
it's not. It's not for me. I'm not. I'm not gonna
live a normal life, dude.So yeah, porn may be normal for
a lot of men out there,Well what's what's normal today? We've got
fucking obesity. Being overweight or obeseis like sixty percent of America. Yes,

(55:42):
most people are stressed out, anxious, depressed, on some form of
medication for the chronic illness. Likethat's average. Yeah, that's average.
So if you want to be averageby all means, keep watching porn.
Yeah you and I have no interestbeing average, no at all. And
that's what it's been really cool forme, man, is like a lot
of my friends that are like inthe high performance kind of you know,

(56:05):
peak performance entrepreneurship space. Maybe theyhave what would be classified as an addiction
to it. But when I startedtalking about some of these things you're really
exposing, you know, the educationand some of the dangers of the side
effects. I've had so many menreach out and say, Frank, I
just want to thank you because youhaving these conversations, you bring in this
information to the table and to thesurface. Here has made me look at

(56:27):
my life and yeah, maybe Ididn't have an addiction with it, but
I'm seeking becoming the absolute best possibleman that I can be, and I've
made the decision to no longer haveas a part of my life. So
we are trying to reach the guysthat are seeking more and don't want to
be just normal. They want tobe the peak performers, they want to
be the high achievers. Those arethe guys that I'm speaking to as well.

(56:47):
So, yeah, maybe there's asubsegment, sub segments of guys out
there that it is quote unquote normalwhatever they do. As women that are
hearing this, those aren't the guysthat you deserve. You deserve the guys
that are out there that are chasingbecoming real man for a couple more things
that I just want to mention frommy own personal experience with pornography, going

(57:08):
back to the the negative side effectsof foreign and specifically frequent ejaculation, a
decrease in energy and drive, rightbecause dope me molecule of motivation, and
so if you're just depleting your dopemainall the time, sometimes multiple times a
day, you're not going to feeldriven to go to the gym to start

(57:30):
your business, right, So that'sone of the things that I've noticed.
Also, definitely port induced rerectilitys functioninability to really connect with a partner,
and also the lowering of testosterone.Yes, frequent ejaculation can can play a
role in that and strength to Likewhen you were bodybuilding, did you experience

(57:57):
like after you would ejaculate that youfelt you felt a little bit weaker?
Like for me, there's it's nota huge difference, but I just feel
a lack of like a lack ofvitality, right because when you ejaculate,
the prolactin is released and we feelmore calm and relaxed. And that's why

(58:19):
you know a lot of guys jerkoff and then go to bed, right
a lot of guys don't really jerkoff and go crash your park workout.
Is that something you would experience withyou know what, Taylor Man, that's
I wish I could say yes,But honestly, through my career, I
would probably say eight percent of thedays I went to the gym, it
was a part of my like pregym Richmond like, I would masturbate,

(58:43):
then I pre work out, thenI drive to the gym. Then that
pre workout is just masking it.I'm sure there definitely was a masking component
there. I probably needed. Iwas probably on more caffeine than I needed.
I was probably maybe I would havebeen stronger than I was at the
time. I didn't train. Asa take out the probably and the maybe,
yeah, I probably I probably wouldhave been, but also wasn't trained

(59:06):
for strength back back then. Iprobably could have been. I would have
been a bit of a better bodybuilderas well. I'm gonna remove it.
Probably definitely would have been a betterbetter bodybuilder at the time, So no,
I didn't. I didn't think aboutit back then, But now as
you're bringing it up, one say, I probably would have been a whole
lot better in the gym without it. The next thing I want to get
into is the vulnerability aspect that youexperienced from your friend really just out of

(59:34):
the blue admitting that he had aporn addiction, and how that was able
to lead to this accountability and support. So how important is vulnerability when dealing
with these things? Oh, it'smassive, right, I mean we've touched
on it here a couple of timesalready, just like in the lack of
wholeness or you know, the trueauthenticity of who you are, Like,

(59:54):
vulnerability is sharing your full self withothers without fear of judgment, you know.
And if there's a secret in yourlife that you're holding onto, that
means you're holding on due to fearof judgment. So I think it is
one of the biggest things that biggestperson we must all overcome. How can

(01:00:15):
guys start to become more vulnerable,especially with something like this, Because for
myself, like I didn't tell anybody, Like I dealt with this porn addiction
myself for a long time because Ididn't want to let anybody know. It's
like, this is something that Idon't want people to know about me.
So I dealt with it by myselffor a while. Until I started to

(01:00:37):
understand the importance of vulnerability and supportand having a group of men that can
help hold you accountable. And whendid you really start to find some success.
Was it after you recruited other meninto the fight with you or were
you having some success on your own? I had success on my own.
This was a pattern in my lifebecause I I knew it was a problem

(01:01:00):
for a while, and I wasavoiding it because when it was I was
scared to give it up because Iknew how a challenging it would be,
and to I didn't want to giveit up because don't mean it was like,
hey, this is fun, right, So when I finally decided to
stop, it's like, okay,well that's that's it really And I when

(01:01:24):
I commit to something, I canjust get it done. So I built
up this low powered muscle. IfI would have had a support group and
like somebody to talk to about this, that would have been significantly easier,
Which is why I always recommend whengoing through any challenge or any lifestyle change,

(01:01:45):
you have a group of male friendswho can help hold you accountable,
support you call you out when yourbullshit. Yeah, I think the path
to learning to be vulnerable is becomingvulnerable. You know, it sounds like
as the more right, you becomevulnerable by being vulnerable. But you know,

(01:02:05):
the piece of advice I try toget as many men as possible is
like find the person in your lifethat you can trust in, right,
you know, find the bigger brother, find the uncle, find the mentor,
find the coach online, find thetherapist, find find the pastor make
sure that the first person you havein conversation with that you're going to share
it with provides that safe space.Because what can deter a man from seeking

(01:02:30):
vulnerability is when he shares it withthe wrong person judgment, and then there's
the judgment, right, So Ithink that first share is incredibly crucial.
So for me, it was greatto have Zach the right you know,
somebody that I had a close personalrelationship with, Somebody that held a lot
of respect for, somebody that Ireally look at as like it's a good
solid man, Like you know whatI mean, Like I want more of

(01:02:52):
the virtues that Zach has in hislife, and he already shared it with
me, So I knew that therewas going to be judgment through him.
A young man that's listening or evenan older man that's that's hearing this today,
Like, find the guy in yourlife that you can fully entrust.
And I think that's different for everybody. You know, I don't think it's
your wife. I don't think it'syour girlfriend. It's got to be a

(01:03:14):
man. Yeah. Oftentimes it's probablynot going to be your best friend first,
so you have a personal relationship with, but probably somebody that maybe has
parts of their life that you're seeking, a desire to have, like a
true mentor right, you know,somebody that's maybe a few stays ahead of
you and your fitness, or afew stays ahead of you in your business,

(01:03:34):
or a few stays ahead of youand your relationship. Chances are,
if they're where you want to be, they've been where you are are ready,
so they're gonna understand the problems.They're gonna understand that Athley to help
you get there. So yeah,I don't think that there's like a secret
you know, mantra or you know, a book. I thinks will become
vulnerable by being vulnerable. But thekey is finding that first person that you
can truly entrust in and you know, you can have the conversation with without

(01:03:58):
without judgment. All of our youknow, our consultation calls, like I
open up letting them know the powerof what they're going to do just with
me on that one call, Likeproviding a safe space for you. Everything
is shared here today, staysy.So I'm giving them the freedom mind like,
this is the safe place that youneed. And I tell them whether

(01:04:18):
or not you decide to join oneof our programs or you join our coaching
or whatever, just having a conversationwith me today, I think is the
beginning of your freedom into journeys.So yeah, just having a safe place.
It's one thing I don't really like, like about the traditional kind of
support groups that are like their theirvictim mindset. Like you just get these

(01:04:42):
group of guys and it's like,yeah, they're struggling, but they just
show up weeping and it's like,yeah, I struggled again. It's like
it's okay, like trumble about it. Yeah, and exactly is what it
is, right, It's like theyfind other men that are in the same
exact place in our in our inour victim mindset is well, and it
just now, let's create this wholeecosystem of like, well we're not really

(01:05:02):
making any progress. But we can. We'll pat each other on the back
and be like, try harder nextweek. No fucking decide first and then
put in the work. So yeah, I think I think finding the right
place, find somebody you can trustin that judgment. Yeah, that makes
sense. I've had multiple guys inmy men's community admit their their poor addiction

(01:05:25):
on on our calls, and ofcourse it it stays that like nobody's ever
going to know about it. Yeah, when you're going to circle of people
that are all working towards becoming betterfor themselves, like that's that's the place
you want to do that kind ofstuffing. Yeah, awesome. All right,
last question before we get into twoquestions that I asked the Good Podcast.

(01:05:46):
Last question before we get to thelast two questions, and it's gonna
be a big one. What arethe seven steps to living a life portant
for your job? I wrote bookcall it the Seven Steps to creating a
porn Free life. So yeah,well link that vision. Yeah, first
step is acknowledged and admit that there'sa problem. Right, and that's you

(01:06:09):
know, like that's not anything kindof you know, like ground breaking or
revolutionary. That's a first step ofpull steps as well as must actually emits
and recognize that there is a problem, not that you think that maybe you're
struggling with it, not that maybeit's having an impact. No, porn
is a major problem in my life. It's affecting me in these specific areas.

(01:06:30):
So recognize and admit and acknowledge yourproblem within their life. Step one
step on that, and this goesfor any emotion that we feel. Yeah,
a lot of guys think that ifthey feel overwhelmed or depressed or angry,
that they have to move away fromthose feelings as past as law school.
But what we resist persist. Thelonger that you resist and try to

(01:06:54):
avoid, like no, I don'tknow a porn, right, the more
that that's going to cannsume your life. So accountability to get vulnerable these admits
yourself and then find a mentor somebodywho you trust who you can admit.
Yeah. So first step is acknowledgingthem. Step two is decide and commit,
right, and that killing off ofthe odself. So I've acknowledge that

(01:07:16):
there's this problem in my life.And step two on deciding and committing to
overcoming this and becoming them in andno longer struggles with it. So those
are the first two, and Ithink if people could just walk away and
do that's to day. Yeah,they may struggle through the rest, and
we give you a better framework tokind of really execute the rest of it.
But those two steps in and ofthemselves will change your life in anything.

(01:07:36):
You know, you mentioned a coupleof emotional things. Struggling with losing
the weight, right, you know, maybe you're a Jillio diver, struggle
with saying consistent in the gym,struggle with waking up on time, whatever
it is. Admit that there's aproblem and commit, decide and commit to
changing it. Step three is tocreate the vision for your life without pornatity,
you know, tapping into that kindof motivating driver of the dopamine rewards

(01:07:59):
center. Like, we don't knowwhere it is, we're trying to go
through this journey. We're going tostruggle to stay consistent with it. So,
if porn has impacted your ability tocreate meaningful relationships, what does the
next five years of your life looklike in creating meaningful relationships? What work
must you do and what outcome isthat going to produce for you? So
we walk you through kind of aframework in all the areas of your life

(01:08:19):
to get clear on the picture thatyou get clear on the life the man
that you want to become. Sowe give you a bigger, kind of
higher level framework. Then step forwardtaking that vision and then breaking it down
into an actionable plan. Right,so we can know that we want to
have one hundred thousand dollars in thebank, we want to start a business,
we want to lose twenty five poundsin the next two years. But

(01:08:41):
how do we break that down intonow we have actionable steps that we need
to show up and execute today,tomorrow, next week, next month,
and so forth and so forth.So identifying, admit that there's a problem,
commit to change, create a visionfor your life without it, break
that life down into an actual plan. Step five is now the recruitment of
the support accountability that you need.So once again, you're not going to
do this journey in and of yourself. You're gonna need some help. You

(01:09:01):
know, is they're going to becoach, therapy, pastor You're gonna need
some support systems. So what brothers, you're gonna be working through this with
his work. And by the way, even if you can do it yourself
like I did. You will beable to get there faster and with less
effort exerted with accountability, example andsupport, no man is an island.

(01:09:25):
Yeah, Like, get the support, get a group of around with you
getting and I think you're a variableman, that you overcame this on your
own, because I think most pointadditions, most of them have an element
of like there's lack of connection withothers, you know, so we we
feel disconnected in our own linds,so we seek out the screen and we
seek out pornography to create to createmeaningful relationships or some type of connection.

(01:09:48):
So if if, if the rootof your addiction is that isolation, because
you've been by yourself all the time, you're more you're definitely gonna need some
some group dich or some help thatyou're gonna walk through it with as well.
So acknowledge that emit the problem decidingcommit create a vision for the life
without it, break that down ifan actionable plan, recruit the accountability that

(01:10:09):
you need. Step six is tolive in a state of gratitude because now
here's the work right And like,this is where it gets difficult. Your
brain is going in one area youhave all these old patterns of behavior that
you want to go through, You'regoing to be stressed, triggered, urges,
all these things. If you're notoperating out of state of gratitude through
this entire process, the likelihood ofyou falling back into the patterns of behavior

(01:10:32):
is just at a higher probability.So we believe in a daily gratitude practice
shifts your perspective. You now livein a state of abundance. And I
think abundance and gratitude when you're inthose states like you don't seek the meaningless
pleasure. So our sixth step isto live in a state of gratitude,
and then step seven is the buildingand self belief. So I touched on
it briefly earlier in the conversation thatmost men that have struggled with a porn

(01:10:57):
addiction have tried and failed at leastonce, if not multiple times. And
I think when you've tried and failedsomething, it just doesn't massive blown the
confidence that I can't tell you howmany men I talk to you that believe
that they will never overcome it.They believe that yeah, it may make
some success, but it's always goingto be a part of my life.
If you don't have that true beliefin and of yourself, if you don't

(01:11:17):
truly feel that it's confidence that youcan't overcome and transcend this and actually create
that life, then your destitute forfailures. So seventh step is just a
building of beliefs. So those arethe seven steps. You can find that
at the Seventh Step guide dot com. Thank you. I'd one more questions
before we get to the last twoquestions. Yeah, okay, do you

(01:11:42):
imagine that there is a healthy wayto consume porn? Like, is there
a way to incorporate foreign into ourlife somehow to where it's not addicting,
to where it's not depleting in anyway. I don't want to say it's
a tough question for me to answer, but I will say I don't believe

(01:12:04):
that everybody looks at pornography becomes addicted. So I believe that, yeah,
like, you could probably look atit and not have it become a problem.
The okay components, And I thinkwhere I wrestle a bit because I
see the darker side of the industryand I notice what goes on behind the

(01:12:27):
scenes, that there's a morality componentand there's a exploitation component that is taking
place in the world today. There'sa human trafficking side of things that I've
been exposed to enough of it thatI truly see pornography in the whole sex
exploitation industry the very strong force ofevil. And I think a lot of
this comes into my worldview, myfaith, and kind of how I say

(01:12:49):
the world here today that I don'tthink it's I don't think it's okay.
I truly think that it's driven byevil. The entire industry in and of
itself. Now what people do withtheir own choices and decisions. You're here
to live your own life. SoI wrestle with answering the question right because,

(01:13:11):
like I said, I don't thinkthat every person that looks at it
is going to get addicted to it. But I wrestle with saying, yeah,
it's okay to consume it because Iknow probably what's driving ninety percent of
it. Yeah, now there's theconsensual stuff as well. But now you're
getting into you know, do yousupport I guess the sex industry. You
support you know, people using theirbodies as a way to you know,

(01:13:34):
create income or financial or whatever.And I'm not a person that supports that,
because I think when a person thatI've had enough conversation with, that
point starts is when you're selling yourbody for money, essentially you're selling your
soul. So that's a tough one, right, But now I don't think
that every person that looks at itgets addicted. But too many parts of

(01:13:54):
my worldview see it through a differentlens that I think is truly driven by
evil. So I would love tosee the world that it just it's no
longer here, and I don't knowif we'll ever get there. I don't
imagine so with free will, youknow, I don't imagine a world where
there's trying to figure out how topraise this way the right way, where

(01:14:19):
there's I can't even think of it, where there's uh be done of nothing.
This is what's coming to mind.Like I don't think we're going to
completely eliminate anything, yeah, right, Like just with free will and the
amount of people on the planet,like it just doesn't it doesn't make sense.
Yeah, So it'll always it willalways be there, you know,

(01:14:41):
I'd love to see it, youknow, not as accessible as it is.
I think we're making a lot ofyou know, I say we you
know, there's there's there's great organizationsout there that are that are fighting this
cause in terms of you know,age verification, Like I don't think a
twelve year old boy should be ableto pull it up on a phone.
I think there needs to be betterbarriers to entrgue. Yeah, and I
hope that that's the world that eventuallywe'll get to, because it's just a

(01:15:05):
strong too many young young boys,Like I mean, if people could be
inside my inbox on a daily basisand just hear from the amount of lost
boys I mean fifteen sixteen years old, I just don't know how to get
out of it and don't want togo to their parents, and they're already
caught up in it. So theway that it is in the world today

(01:15:29):
needs to be changed. But I'mintegrance with you. I don't think that
there ever becomes a point where it'scompletely gone. Yeah, I want to
say that's definitely what we're what we'refighting for with a big part of our
mission. But like you said,I mean even me saying that it's driven
by evil, like ke, We'realways going to have evil in the world
as well, so it will alwaysthe world be here last your questions for
realism. Number one, what areyou most excited about? I'm a macro

(01:15:57):
or micro. I mean, I'mexcited. I'm excited for this, right,
you know, just getting this thisout there and into the ever read
ford to this conversation all day long. We have some exciting things going on
in terms of projects that we're workingon right now. So there's a book
in the works. I think that'sgoing to be really game changing. We're

(01:16:20):
working on a thirty day like DopamineReset program product as well, so that's
really exciting just in terms of likebringing more value to the men that we
serve into the audience. Podcast isbreaking making making great headways, dude,
I'm I'm I'm fired for life,man like truthfully, like I like up

(01:16:40):
every day, just excited to dothe things that are presented in front of
me. So I'm excited for thisweekend, you know, uhcuoud it's the
Eastern meekend. Can spend some greattime with my family. I'm fired up,
man, I love my life.Heck yeah. Last question, what
does thriving mean to you? Keepquestion? Yeah, you know, because

(01:17:14):
it's not you know, not justgetting by, So it's not just doing
the status quote. It's kind ofit kind of brings me to a question
in every episode of my podcast,which you know it's called The Supreme in
Life, So you know, thenit was what does it mean to live
the Superman life? And I kindof get my definition of that. That's
kind of where I'm being being pulledto right now. You know. I
think thriving is I believe we're allhere for for a purpose, you know,

(01:17:40):
like we're not we're not we're noton this playing it by. Actually
there's something that we're all supposed tobe doing. And I think what we're
here to do is is designed tobe in service of others. So for
you, clearly a part of whatyou're here for is these conversations the Captain's
lifestyle and how that brings value toother people's lives. So I think thriving
is living in your purpose, whichyour purpose is going to be centered and

(01:18:04):
focused on serving other people to bringout the good for them. So I
think when you understand that it's thatdynamic, then you're here to serve and
help others, and you're aggressively attackingwith every single day with intention, and
you're trying to become better. Ithink that's the line. You've fucking nailed

(01:18:25):
it. So my purpose is tomake thriving standard. How let's go go,
got a little stiffer for you now, let's go. So thank you
for coming on The Captain's Life Stoppodcast and helping me to fulfill my purpose
to make thriving standard. Where canwe find more about you, what you're
doing, the books of courses,everything. Yeah, so I mentioned you

(01:18:45):
know the podcast a couple of timeshere. It's called The Supreman Life.
You can find us on any platformout there. You know, one hundred
and eighty seven hundred and nine episodesat this point. It's a bide weekly
show just like this. You know, we love these kind of conversational style
flows. So find us there mecoach Frank Rich anywhere. So coach Frank
Rich on Instagram, Coach Frank Richon YouTube. We took a small little

(01:19:06):
break there, but we had forover two and a half years put a
video up every single day on ourYouTube channel. So there's a lot of
content out there, So check outcheck us out there on all the social
Coach Frank Ridge and if you're interestedin learn more about what we do.
Rebuilt Recovery. I can find outRebuilt Recovery dot com. Thank you,
great Hey, thanks for coming up. Appreciate your Bune got it listen Captain's

(01:19:29):
Lifestyle. Peace. Thank you,

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