Whatever you're being made fun of for is typically your superpower. I was made fun of because I couldn't read, so I was called stupid. Now I know that my dyslexia is my superpower.
I often tell parents, I said one of the greatest things that you can do is spend quality time not having your child be in your environment, but you go into your environments of your kids.
This identity conversation is the younger generation definitely has a bigger issue with this. Social media, I'm not blaming them. Social media, there's been a lot of pressures. I think they lacked a lot of the pain that has anchors people into their true identity.
In my life, I have found that most people judge you based upon where you are today. They have no idea that there's an evolution that people go through to become who they are at this moment in history.
You want your life to change? Hold on. More importantly, you want your kids' life to change, then you're gonna have to stay tuned to this episode. Everything my guest said, I'm telling you, I was transformed. I came out of this a different person. Your kids will come out of this a different person. You will too. You're gonna hear stuff that is the keys to the kingdom, the keys to success right here in this episode. Stay tuned.
¶ A Bold Promise And Welcome
Welcome, Dr. Fab Mancini. Thank you so much, man. I've been looking forward to this. Yeah, I want people to know who you are, like I know who you are, right? It's like because your family's extraordinary.
Thank you.
You have done so much. I mean, everybody in our space knows who you are. Uh, I've never heard a bad word spoken about you ever. It's always the same. My assistant said, he is just such a sweet man. I'm like, yep, yeah, that's it. Everybody knows him. But you've made a difference. You've made a difference with the money, the businesses you've created. You've made it a business, you know, you were what, age 33, president of Parker Chiropractic School at that age. You made a difference.
I met your brother, and you know, hearing about your family, this was not an accident that you're a world changer because you came from nothing. I want to start there. I want people to know where you've come from because to know you today, it really comes out of that.
Well, you know, it's interesting because in my life, I have found that most people judge you based upon where you are today. They have no idea that they has there's an evolution that people go through to become who they are at this moment in history. Yeah.
¶ Colombia To Miami Culture Shock
And for me, I was raised with very loving parents in Colombia, South America. That's where the sexy accent comes from. Barranquilla, Colombia. Uh, same place where Shakira and Sofia Vergara are from. And I remember growing up with a lot of love, but also a lot of suffering too. Uh, my father was struggling with alcoholism, with drugs. And I I remember just the stress in my life.
Your father was Italian. He was in my hand. Your mother was Colombian.
Yeah, my dad is Italian descent, and uh and uh and one of the things that I learned is that you know, I have a I have a mother that has tremendous faith and very strong because of her faith. And she made the decision that to help my dad, she needed to route my brothers and I, we're five boys, to the United States in order for my dad to get the type of help that he could break through this uh alcoholism. And that's what he did.
Uh, we got to the United States, he enrolled in a treatment center for six months, and then he came out and never drank after that. So we got our dad back. The challenge is that now we're in a new country, a new culture, and a new language. And I, the only time we've been in the United States is to go to Disney World and all that. And I thought when my parents said, Oh, we're going to Miami, I thought, oh, we're going to enjoy and life is all going to be pretty.
But I get to my elementary school, and instead of going to seventh grade, my teacher says to me, uh, Fab, we're going to have to put you in fifth grade because there's no English as a second language. And uh, and I was devastated. Here I am. I lost my friends. I was 13 years old. That's everything in your life at 13. Uh, I'm in a new country. We couldn't watch TV because it was, we couldn't even translate and understand it. Um, no French, to say the least.
Went to a school that hardly anybody spoke Spanish. In my class, there was only one student that spoke Spanish. You became your best friend. And no, she became my tutor. Okay. And she actually would sit with me about an hour, an hour and a half after every day after class. And she would got me through school, and that's what taught me the discipline of studying.
And um, but you know, the beautiful thing about that is that I learned from a very age, a very young age, that when you're dealing with circumstances that are difficult, that are traumatic, that you think it's the end of the world. Yeah. At the same time, it's your opportunity to find more about yourself, your potential, your ability to become the person you were destined to be rather than the person
¶ Discipline Beats Raw Talent
you are.
True identity. You know, to get there, you have to understand your true or your true destiny. To get there, you have to understand your true identity.
And what I learned at that because of that lesson is that being smart is not about, I mean, being a good student is not about being smart. It's about being disciplined. And because I took that hour and a half, I became one of the best students in my class. And then when I went to high school, I have such good habits that even though I was an athlete, I became top of my class, a leader in my school.
And I actually graduated with two years of college, making up the first two years that I lost many years before.
You know, you just said something, you know, I was dyslexic. And I I learned, had to learn to be disciplined because I struggled academically when you can't read. It's I'm a slow reader, et cetera, et cetera, can't spell. So I learned a discipline. And I ended up graduating second in my class in chiropractic school, right? It's like, why? Discipline.
You know, it's like I learned a discipline, which absolutely was better than just being gifted with all the smarts, because that discipline then translated into everything that I did, every job I had.
And the discipline allows you to have what I call appreciation. That's right. Because when you work hard towards something, there is an appreciation. Yeah. If you're given something with no effort at all, very hard to approach.
That's why people who are given money, right? Is you know, too early in life or just in life in general, there's no appreciation, there's no enjoyment. Yeah. That's why a lot of movie stars, kids end up on drugs. You know, and and I don't criticize the parents because they had, they gave, but it's a principle in life that if you're given too much, there's no appreciation.
¶ A Mother Changes The Environment
I want to go back and focus on one thing because none of that would have happened unless it was for your mother. Yeah. Your mother, what was in her that she it wasn't easy just to go to the United States and get into a clinic, right? We kind of just brushed over that. But that was the transformation moment that there must have been something in your mother that you saw that made you you. You can focus on that. But also, I mean, that was that was an extraordinary decision moment.
And she made that happen. I bet if we went into that, there's a whole movie there, you know, of how she made that happen.
You know, we talk about that all the time because in my house, uh, there are a lot of uh situations that you can definitely make a great movie, maybe even a series of movies. But if I was to describe the character, is uh my mom has a belief system that is so much greater than the average person. She saw for her children and her family a future that was beyond anything that she had been raised with. She saw the potential that we had.
And even though we were very comfortable in South America, she realized that for us to be in the United States, we were gonna have more opportunities to become anything we wanted to, you know, uh because this is the land of opportunity. Yeah. Uh and and and with enough discipline and desire, you can be anything you want to be in this country.
Absolutely.
And we've seen example after example. So I think that she saw that she also was struggling because she wanted her man back, she wanted her husband back. Yeah. And my dad was really struggling because the environment that he grew up with was very toxic. And all the friends that were calling him to go out and partying and all the things that she knew she had to go back. She knew that the changing of an environment, like in science, we call that epigenetics.
When you change an environment, it actually changes the cell, the cell, right? So she knew that by changing my dad's environment, by giving him an opportunity to realize, honey, you have a chance here to do things right, to regain your relationship with your children, to regain your relationship with me, to become the man that I married. All the promises that you made me, right? It's never too late. So she saw that and she believed in that, and she believed that we will become great.
And that is what we use as a measuring stick. She never forced it on us. She always, and my dad too, my dad always said, Look, become anything you want to, make sure you choose something that you're passionate about because your passion will drive your discipline. That's what he always said. And then number two, become the best that there is in that space because you deserve that for yourself.
Not to brag about it to other people, not to walk like you're better than anybody else, but for yourself to realize that I accomplished something extraordinary. Because we all are extraordinary, you know, individuals if we choose to be.
You know, you you I keep plucking out things that I don't want to brush over. You know, your passion will become your discipline. Your discipline will happen and your passion fuel the discipline, right? It's like I I've told every one of my children that, right? When you find what you love, all of a sudden the discipline shows up, right? The desire, the desire to be better, the desire to figure out everything, the desire. You know, my youngest son, Simon, right?
He he found a uh a passion for health, not because of all me, all the teaching. It was out of his own stuff, right? It was out of his own. He lost 80 pounds. He had to, yeah, and he found himself digging and digging and researching and researching. Ah, passion was born, right? And he can't drop it. You know, now he's just passionate about figuring out health things. I'm like, you know, he was called Simon Dr. Pompa uh when he was younger.
Look at the example that now he's gonna be to so many his age. Yeah, right. Because look at the obesity rate in this country.
Yeah.
And he chose, right, to make the difference. I mean, absolutely. You can't force it on him, you can't you can't make it happen for him. He has to be the one making that
¶ Pain As A Teacher
decision.
Absolutely. But you know, discipline. I I think there's a lot of people out there watching this, and like, well, you guys mentioned discipline, but if I could just be disciplined, it just means they haven't found their passion yet, right? And again, that means you haven't found your purpose yet. Where do you look for your purpose in your pain? Oftentimes, it's opposite of what people think. You said something in your book really discovered, you know, really brings this out in and around health.
It's a choice, often, that we're able to make. You know, and we're gonna talk more about that because you talk about health is a choice, you know, your destiny is a choice. But oftentimes that first choice uh is literally a you know, I it it is a choice to be grateful for what you're going through in the moment because there's people that are hurting out there.
And whatever it is, it sounds so easy when you're on this side, but like, you know, I've been sick, and I can tell you most of the time during that I wasn't grateful. But man, if it wasn't for that in my life, then I would never be who I am. I wouldn't have the purpose, I wouldn't have anything. I said to my assistants sitting over there, you know, if I have one regret in my life, it's that I didn't enjoy every moment of my life.
Not that you enjoy being sick, but I could have looked at it differently and I would have gotten even more out of it. So what do you say about that? Because you you know that defines you you know how we view pain.
I think that um if we choose to see the pain as a friend, not an enemy, if we choose to see the pain as a blessing, not a punishment, all of a sudden our perspective changes.
¶ Reputation, People-Pleasing, Self-Worth
You know, I'll never forget one time I was going through a very difficult time. And um, I mean, very difficult time. And I was in bed, depressed, I couldn't get out of bed for two weeks, lost many pounds. And um and I'll never forget I can't even imagine that.
How old how old were you?
I was uh in my 30s.
Okay.
Yeah, and it was primarily because a personal attack in my reputation. Oh, I had that. That somebody spent $75,000 to destroy my reputation, left me a message to tell me that he was gonna do it, all because he said that I fired a friend of his. And I did let him go, but it wasn't my decision alone. Um, and the employee was fine with it, but he wasn't. So he wanted to hurt me. I've never been hurt like that, especially as from a friend.
So I remember struggling, uh, waking up with cold sweats and and and tossing and turning throughout the night and feeling like, oh my God, all this hard work, all this, you know, uh working so hard to keep my integrity and all the things that I've done. And now people are gonna believe all these lies, right? And what I've learned is a couple of lessons. Number one is I called my mom, and my mom said to me, honey, I'm I'm you're struggling. What can I do to help?
And I said, I don't know, mom, I don't know what to do. And he said, Okay, why don't you do this? Why don't you think of yourself like you're going through a storm, and in your you're in the eye of that storm, you know, but but the storm is God, and and God is there bringing you this storm to teach you something, to help you with something that you haven't learned. Every storm. How would you respond to that? Yeah, and uh it's interesting that day, I'll never forget. I kept pondering about that.
What is the lesson? And this is what I learned that in life, uh, the more successful you become, the more that people will try to tear you down because of their own insecurities. That's right. You will never hear a successful person defame somebody else that is successful. So true. Because our self-worth is high enough that we will never lower ourselves to talk negative about somebody else.
But the naysayers, the people that they think they're victims, the people that think you got it, you're lucky, uh, you're you're, you know, you're you're privileged or whatever, um, they're the ones that do it. So I came to the conclusion like, why am I worried about what other people think when I know that the people that know me, the people that I care about in my life, they know who I am. And those out there that may choose to believe the lies, that is their choice.
But why am I gonna struggle about it? And I got up the next day, I shaved, I showered, I went to work, and I was proud of myself. And because I responded that way, all of that situation went away because people figured out that it was not true.
You know, this might come from our Italian heritage. My father raised me in Italians, reputation is everything. How much money you make in Italy doesn't determine your status, right? It's it's more of your reputation, right? And in the United States, if you make money, you gotta, you know, that's so you put yourself up here. Over there, it's much different than that. So raised under that, at one point, headlines read chiropractor steals from orphans. That was me.
Okay. And those are my twins now that are 30 years old, right? It's like, and that was age seven, we adopted them, long story, but chiropractor steals from orphans, you know, stealing from orphans, there's a saying. I mean, you know, he's so bad he stole from, he would steal from orphans, right? I mean, it would, if it said murder, it might have been less. But fact is, is that was the headline.
And uh, my reputation, I had to go through that because I put so much identity and value on my reputation, et cetera, et cetera, to a fault. God stripped it from me to make me who he needed me to be today. A much humbler version of myself, to be honest with you.
But the lesson to me, just like you said, it wasn't that it's not what other people think about me that truly matters in life. It's what I think about myself.
That's the identity thing. I had to learn that lesson to really understand, you know, who how God made me, yeah, how he vi visualized me, and then it transformed me. And that didn't matter anymore. Well, this is because that made me worry about too much what people think of me. So my life was being determined by what people think of me. And you're always gonna try to please everybody and you're gonna lose yourself in the proof. You're not an effective leader if you're a pleaser.
And I was a pleaser, and I needed to be ripped out of it. And when I was sick, yeah, I lost my other false identity. My strength because of my dyslexia was my thing, right? I was stronger, a little faster than everyone. You know, it's like, and I relied on that. God stripped that from the city. But you know, whatever. Because he wanted me to be functioning my true identity.
Yeah, and what I learned with most people is that they don't know who they really are. That's right. So their identity is based upon the opinions of others. Yeah. So if all of a sudden you're married to somebody that they're having a bad day and they criticize you and they say, honey, you look like you gained some weight, or honey, you look like you're you got wrinkles, and now you're devastated. And and and in your day, just you depress and all of that.
But in reality, it has nothing to do with her. It's how he was feeling that morning. And those words were actually his own interpretation of his own feelings that were displaced on her. But the problem is we take it to heart because that's my husband, that's a person I love, that's a person that I married. If he thinks like that, it must be true. And we do it to ourselves all the time. And it's not maybe at home only, it could be your boss.
Maybe you're doing all this great work and your boss is trying to make you feel like you're not good enough because they don't want to pay you more, they don't want to raise your salary, they don't, they don't want you to go out there and look for another job. So they don't praise you, right? There's philosophies like that in leadership. You don't praise an employee because they they'll leave you. I never understood that.
Yeah, I never understood that.
But there's a lot of bosses like that. Absolutely. And now all of a sudden, that individual employee is constantly trying to get the approval of that employer rather than say to themselves, you know what? If that person can't appreciate how good I am, I'm sure there's somebody out there that will do that. And that happened to my oldest son. He was struggling, he was working for a man that gave him an incredible opportunity, but would not pay him very much money. So his self-worth was struggling.
So he went through it for about a year and a half, and I could see the struggle, right? He could not be able to afford the things he was used to. And one day he happened to open up to me and I said to him, I said, you know, honey, if you ever allow your self-worth to be determined by somebody else, all I can promise you is you're going to be disappointed because nobody will ever value you the way you're worth, your true worth. Absolutely.
So then I said, if you really feel that you are worth more, what is he telling you? He said, Well, he said that he worked for his first job, he worked for a man that made him go through hell for the first five years and then gave him the first race after five years. And I'm going only on a year and a half, so he's thinking that I'm gonna have to work for five years before I get a raise. And I said, Well, if you choose to believe that and you adapt that belief system, that's fine.
You can choose to do that. But if you don't think that that's true, why don't you go out there and see what's available? Right. So he updated his resume, he put it out there in two weeks. He got a job that was paying double the amount of money and giving him the flexibility of working from home instead of going to the office, which was important to him at the time. All he had to do was recognize that he had was worth more, put it out there and say, hey, I'm available.
And all of a sudden, somebody else picked him up, and now he's been in that role and thriving because he did not allow somebody else to determine his self worth. Yeah.
You know, and it's like that self worth, the way we value ourselves, that really determines our level of success and influence and leadership that we have. You know, I I you touched on this a little bit. And by the way, parents, this is why you need to put this up. Episode in your children's hands. Send them this link because, you know, if I'd have known this when I was a kid, right? It's like, how much higher would I be as a leader changing the world now? You know, dang it.
You know, it's like no one taught me this stuff, right? Today, you know, kids as just devastating as social media can be, it can also be a tool if they watch podcasts like this, right? But, you know, most of our false identities that can determine our destiny for the negative or keep us from reaching our true identity and therefore true destiny come from people that we love. You know, it comes from people with good intentions oftentimes.
Yeah. Parents, siblings, friends, coaches, you know, and and that's why I I think we all need to look back and say, what things were told to me that truly aren't true? And sometimes you can't even think of them because you think that, well, of course that's me. Of course, but I am not that smart. I am blah-blah-blah, right? It's like, but it's not true. And then that determines your life. Because if you think it, so grows the tree.
You know, I mean, if you think it, it will determine your reality.
Well, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that because I often say that, you know, maybe we're not blessed to be raised with parents that nurture us, and maybe they were struggling, so they said, um, you'll never make more than $30,000 a year. Nobody in our family has ever made more than that. You'll never go to college. Nobody in our family has ever gone to college.
Or everyone in our family died of heart attacks in their 30s and 40s. That's whatever the case may be.
Yeah. Yeah. And what I learned early on is that whenever a parent shares something like that, it's not necessarily that they're trying to harm their child. It's that they don't know any better. That's right. That's the point. The first thing I would tell the child is understand your parents are doing the best they can. That's right. Period.
Yeah.
No matter how bad they may be, they're doing the best they can. Because as a parent, I can tell you, we have our best interests for our children. And from parents, it's mostly protective things. It's protective, or they want to not have them be disappointed because that's the protection, right? So they're trying to live through their kids' life. Absolutely.
Well, so the advice that I would give a parent is to always say, when a child brings to you a question, don't answer to them based on your experience. Ask them another question and say, what do you think is possible here? Because many times the child will have inherently the innate intelligence in their body, giving them an answer. Well, I think I'm capable of doing this. And I said, I would agree with you. What's stopping you from doing it?
And don't be so quick to just give them the answers because kids need to figure that out by deductive reasoning. They need to come up with their own thought process to come up with the idea of saying, you know what? I can do this. I can go to college. I can make $100,000 this year if I put myself to it.
Yeah.
You know, maybe it's not going to be through my regular day-to-day job, but maybe I can pick up a second job in the evenings that will give me the opportunity to make an additional money, maybe even double my income.
Yeah. My father said to me, I was decided because God literally showed me that I'm going to go to chiropractic school, right? And my father, out of love, said, How are you going to do that? You have, and he listed my expenses, right? That that. How are you going to do that? Now, I could have said, You're right, because that's what he was saying, right? You know, I'm not going to be able to do that. It's like, but you know, he was looking out because he loved me.
Yeah.
But I literally said, you know what? Because God showed me this, I had a vision of me there. Yeah. And so I don't know. I said to my dad, I don't know, but I'll figure it out. And, you know, I did. And there was a time I was literally out of money. I'll tell this story very quickly. Um, and I was telling my roommate shortly, I was probably there maybe uh, you know, two, three months. And I'm like, well, I hadn't found a job that worked with my school schedule.
So I was telling him I'm out of money shortly here. Uh it looks like I'm gonna have to come home, but I'll be back. I mean, you know, so I was, and I had just got done praying, literally. I was a young Christian at the time. And I'm telling him the mess at the table. I'm there right now in my brain, and all of a sudden there's a knock on the door, a guy selling newspapers, and I go to the door, answer. I'm like, oh yeah, wrong thing, man. I was just telling my roommate I had to go home.
I have no money. Sorry, bro. Click, close the door, sit back down. And I immediately, like, gosh, you know, it's like if I could just find a job, boom, I stand up, the chair goes flying back, I run after the guy, long story short. Hey, man, how'd you get this job done? Well, that job changed my life because it not only paid my bills, worked with the schedule, and I had to convince him that I'd be his number one sales guy in two weeks.
And I was number one the very first week because I had such determination. But the point is, though, is you know, God will work in it, man. But again, false identities we can't listen to.
Can I tell you, you I had a very similar story to you. When I chose to become a doctor of chiropractic, uh, I chose not to go to a medical school. And my parents had made a bad investment, they didn't have any money. And my mom says, why don't you come and come home with us to Miami? And you can maybe go to college or school here while we get our finances in order. And I said, No, mom, it's okay, I'll figure it out. Because, like you, you know, we know God will provide.
We know that once you feel that, like to me, this was a revelation. I needed to become a doctor of chiropractic. And look at us today, right? We knew that that there's no mistakes here when you listen. And what I did instead is uh I had heard my roommate talk about financial aid. And we were raised in Colombia, we have no financial aid. So I go to the financial aid department the next day, and they said, you don't qualify for two trimesters. So I said, okay, what am I gonna do?
So I looked at all my possessions, and the only thing I had that was worth anything was my graduation gift from high school that was a brand new car, a Z28. I call it a chick magnet. It was beautiful. I put 18 speakers in that car, and uh I went to every dealer, I put it on the paper, and the last dealer, two weeks later, uh came in and gave me $8,700 for a car that was worth 16,000 blue blue value. And I took that check, took it to school, and that's how I paid for my first two trimesters.
Wow. And then my roommate's dad, he was the manager of Sears in Texas, he was so impressed by what I did. He said, Tell Fab will cover the rent for the first two trimesters that he doesn't have to worry about it. And that's how I financed my first two trimesters. And the lesson there is that I say, when you know your passion, you have to understand that you're the greatest investment that you can make. Imagine what that car, that $16,000 car that actually became a $8,700 check.
Imagine how much that has turned into millions and millions of dollars over the years because I chose to say yes to what innately I was given that I was gonna be a doctor of God.
You had to give something up that was a value to get to what God reads.
You think I went to school and messed around, like many of my friends that were doubting why they were there, or they were there to try to please their mom and dad that wanted them to be a doctor, or whatever the case may be. No, I was disciplined. I didn't miss any workshop, I didn't miss any guest lecture. I was there early in the morning, late at night. I was studying like a maniac. And that's because I've already invested into this journey more than my classmates.
And when that happens, success follows.
I mean, you can't help it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're exactly right. You know, that that created the discipline. You know, you know, knowing that like sacrifice something.
Most people out there are trying to invest in everything out there instead of looking at what can I invest in me. Yeah.
Well, again, that's that that's back to that true identity, right? If you don't have that type of value in yourself, yeah, you know, understanding, you know, who God created you to be, because that's where your true value comes from, is God created you.
¶ Comparison Culture And Cosmetic Fixes
Yeah, that's kind of why I don't want to get too far off here, but that's why I don't understand this gen like this time that we're in right now of all these people changing their faces.
Yeah.
To to I I feel the the worse, right? It's like, you know, I I mean, I get there's a time for certain surgeries, you know, that deformities, I I get that, but that's not what we're seeing now. We're telling I look at beautiful people and I say, oh my gosh, like like they got surgery. It's like, meaning they're they're not seeing the beauty in themselves and that they want to be someone else or create someone else. Um, do you feel that way about what's happening right now? Or is that just me?
I I have a sticking point here. I I just I'm so you know, well bothered by it.
It's not in your head because you look at the statistics and you look at the amount of surgeries, and it's not the older, you know, it's actually the younger, people in their 20s and 30s that are absolutely beautiful as they are. But this is what I find. I often say that comparing ourselves to anyone else is the biggest disservice that we can do to our self-esteem. And this is what I believe the root cause of the problem is.
Society has taught us that the famous people should be what we should all aspire to be. So kids are constantly scrolling social media saying, I want to look like her. And they will do whatever. You know, I never forget I was in a, you know, you and I both love Miami, and I was in Miami, and I see this waiter, a man waiter, that had had his rear end done. What's that mean? His butt.
My sister's laughing.
And he was like triple the size of a normal butt on a guy. Okay.
Like they put a Brazilian thing.
Because right now that is a very popular surgery because everybody wants their voluptues behind. So, like they get a breast implant, they get a butt implant. But it's women primarily doing it, but this was a man, so I asked him. And and he and I because you know, I'm curious, man. Like you, like I mean, with you at restaurants when you ask anybody.
How'd you know he just didn't have a big butt?
It's not natural. Okay, yeah. This thing was like not natural. And he said to me that he was surrounding himself with a group of friends that they all decided to do that because they realized that that was popular and that they would be like more if they had a big butt. And that was his reasoning to doing it. A surgery, a major surgery. He was in his mid-20s, 24, I think he said. So, but the point here is that we should never be comparing ourselves.
If we cannot learn to like ourselves as we are, we're gonna have a problem because we are human beings, we're not meant to be perfect.
That's the you know, we're gonna age. That's right. Right?
I embrace my aging process. I just found out, by the way, that my biological age is 12 years younger. You know, I'm on a mission. I want to go 20 years as soon as possible.
Uh, natural, right? No, of course. I just did a segment on that. I just did a a solo podcast on what you know, real anti-aging.
And you know, but people look at us and they think that we we got it easy. No, I mean, I've seen you work out, and you know, we got all these technologies that we use, and we're very big in anti-aging and uh regenerative medicine. But the main point is that we choose to put our health as a priority, not only on the outside in, but the inside out.
Yeah.
And that is really the foundation, in my opinion, for aging gracefully.
Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you know, this identity conversation is the younger generation definitely has a bigger issue with this. Social media, I'm not blaming them. Social media, there's been a lot of pressures, you know, and I think they lacked a lot of the pain that has it anchors people into their true identity. I got to see my father who was in World War II. Uh, that was arguably the greatest generation, you know, in our country.
Imagine going through that.
Yeah, you know, exactly. And I watched him work hard. I I what he was growing up in the depression. I watched him get up 4 30 in the morning, shuffling the driveway, getting us out, you know, going to work, coming home, going to bed. I mean, day after day. Uh, you know, it's like I heard the war stories. That impacted me. Yeah. It never is the same when I tell my kids those same stories, right?
You know, my kids have been, you know, they grew up in a generation that has a lot, access to everything so quick. It hasn't worked out for them in that sense. This is the first generation not to outlive their parents, number one. There's chemical reasons around that too. But it also is the most depressed, most suicide, most, and all these things work together. But the thing is, is this uh lostness of missing the true identity is I think devastating.
So because I already called the parents to get their kids, you know, to listen to this, what what would your word be to the kids, the teenagers watching this? Meaning, okay, fine, how do I find it?
Well, this is what I I've raised my kids thinking since they were young. And the one thing that I always instill upon them is that it can't be about comparing themselves to anyone else. That's where it begins. Because the reason that children of successful parents struggle most of the time is because they never think that they can ever outdo the success of their parents. So they just give up.
I'm never gonna be as good of an actor, I'm never gonna be as good of a business person, I'm never gonna so they just completely give up and they decide, you know what, I'm just gonna write this and I'm just gonna enjoy the fruit of their label instead of trying to find But there's no fulfillment. There's no fulfillment. I mean, that's that's the problem with many of this.
And then, but the true lesson that I can tell you that I instilled in my kids is that our value doesn't come from past accomplishments, our value only comes from our current contributions to other people's lives. The value that I bring today to other people is what would determine my value today. But the problem is sometimes successful people they rely on. Look how many one one-hit wonders we've had, right?
People that wrote a hit one time, and they're all of a sudden they never wrote another hit. And then you have others that it's through 30, 40 years and they're still writing hits because they don't rely on their past successes for their own individual value today.
A good friend of mine who's a producer, um, he sat and interviewed this famous person in his house, and he took him on a tour of this is my this is my award for that. This is my I got this, you know, academy, I got this globe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he sat there during the interview. Someone else was actually doing the interview. He was sitting back and he thought, my gosh, all he saw was a museum of the past. And he said, he actually wrote the most amazing little poem.
He said, you know, don't ever let me make a museum of my past accomplishments. Yeah. Because it affects, you know, who you are in the moment and in the future. And he's right on. If you live on that past, then you stop, you know, you stop in the future.
So with our children, I think it's important to keep reminding them and showing them by example. Like I can show you cards that my kids have given me during Christmas or my birthday. And and the thing that touches my heart is that they always mention the example that I'm giving them still today of the values that I want them to hopefully consider adapting into their lives. I can't force my values on my children, right?
But I can definitely show them that these values have created an incredible life for this man. And if they want to have that incredible life, maybe they can consider those same values.
¶ How Parents Build Real Connection
Talk to the parents now. I'm a parent watching this. Yeah. I have struggling teenagers, I have a lot of advice for them. You know, you want more for them, they're struggling in every way. You see that they're not happy, they're not in their purpose. What do you what do you say to these parents?
Well, the the main thing is to pay attention because most of our children are not communicating their struggles. They're swallowing it or sharing it with their friends.
And that is a Yeah, but when they if they you ask them, everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine.
So don't just ask them, watch them, be with them. You know, I often tell parents, I said, one of the greatest things that you can do is spend quality time, not having your child be in your environment, but you go into your environments of your kids. Like I'll never forget, my mom will volunteer in my high school all this time. And I always wonder why. Why is she here helping, you know, the church? And why is she here helping the school?
And why is she here volunteering for anything the school needed? Fundraising, whatever it was. And one day I asked her and she said, Honey, I wanted to be in your school so I can see you in your element, in your environment.
The lesson there is she forced the situation, what you have to do. Meaning, you know, I knew a family that their kids were struggling, this and that. Of course, if you say, Let's spend some time together, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, mom or dad, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what they did is pulled their kids out of school, got a motor home, and traveled the country. Wow. Now you might think, oh, I could never pull my kids out of school, blah, blah, blah. It's like, screw it.
You know, it's what is it worth? You know, your kids' future, really? It's like, what's gonna determine it? Staying in school where they're failing and feel like a failure and have all kinds of problems, or getting on the road missing a year, who cares, right? So that's what they did. Oh, go homeschool, which is even better. They planned like all kinds of activities. And of course, the kids were kicking and screaming, bored out of their minds, looking at their phones, the whole thing.
You know, but then they were doing this hike. Oh my gosh, by the by the end of it, I mean, they were functioning as a family, loving it, having fun together. They've she they took a plan, man, and then they got, they made their kids before. That's what that woman did. She got into the school, right? I mean, yeah, I I think that that was well said. I, you know, that that's advice for a parent is you're gonna have to get involved, but you're gonna probably have to get clever.
Well, and also if you have multiple children, don't compare. Oh, gosh. Because that happened to us, five boys, and my parents will compare us all the time, and not only with each other, but with our cousins and all that.
Dude, I learned you can't even discipline each kid the same. Yeah. I mean, I had to discipline that. Thank God I read a book because I I thought I had a formula after the first one. Oh, that failed completely.
And then the other thing that I would say is when you spend quality time with your child, make sure that it is quality time. It's not about quantity time, is what I learned many years ago. It's about being there when they need you.
Yeah.
And ask the questions as far as what is it that you would like to see? What is it, you know. So don't tell them, ask. Ask. Because what happens is many times our children think we're too busy for them. Because as parents, we live in an economic time that most both parents are working. Yeah. And and by the time they get home, the last thing they want to do is work even more.
And by the way, what we just we just kind of went a full circle, that sets up a false identity is that I'm not worth it. Or I'm not something. Isn't that the priority? So again, from the people that you love, unintentionally, just set a false identity of worth or lack of worth, which brings your conversation up when you truly value yourself, you start investing in yourself.
People who don't invest in themselves have a false identity of not worth it because two parents who care trying to work their butts off didn't give them time.
Right.
So quality time. So, how do you do that?
What does that look like? This is an exercise that I've used for years. So when somebody says to me that I say, Well, okay, give me your top three values. And they write them down. And then I said, Okay, I want you to get me your statements from your credit cards and your bank for the last three months. And I want you also to give me your calendar for the last three months. That'll determine the value. Where we spend our time and where we spend our money is what we determine our true values are.
So when patients or when people say to me, you know what, my family is my value, and I said, Okay, I notice that you haven't spent any time with your family over the last few months. I mean, you're giving them maybe 30 minutes a day, you know, and you're giving your work 16 hours. You know, where's the value here? Your work is your value. Well, see, a man would say, it's because I'm providing, but But what is the one thing that most children will tell you?
It's not about having more things, it's about having you. Like I often tell, you know, I I counsel a lot of couples when they're struggling in a relationship. And I and I and I would tell the man, you know, in the locker room, most guys will say, you know, oh, I'm buying this for my wife, or I'm buying this, uh, and I just got her a new house or a new car and all that.
And I said, you know, because I hear that the ladies, and I said, Do you know that all your wife wants is for you to look at her the way you looked at her when you were courting her? That's all she wants. Because more things is not fulfilling the basic needs that she needs to know that she's your priority. That you have gone above and beyond. You shower to go out to her with a date. You know, you work hard to save enough money to take her on a nice dinner or maybe even a movie.
You know, you took effort because she was your priority. But now, all of a sudden, you think that money is the priority and not the way she feels, the way you look at her, the time you spend, quality time you spend with her. So as you learn the love languages of your partner, you can actually be very good at that. But it's the same with our children. I think every one of our children behaves very differently, their unique personalities.
You need to find out, like I know, my oldest child, one of his favorite things to do with me, whenever a brand new action movie comes out, Fast and Furious, or any of the taken movies or whatever, him and I will go to the movies, and that was our time together. My youngest could care less for that, but he loves to travel. Anytime that I say, Hey, you want to come with me to this trip? He's the first one that says, Yeah, I'm there.
So I spend quality time on the things that matter to them and not on the things that I think they want. You know, and that's what makes a difference.
I took up golf uh because of my my Isaac, right? My dad always, but it's like I took it up two years ago. It's like you're gonna see it maybe. I learned to love it. I actually love it. But I see I because he was golfing every day. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna enter his world, I'm gonna like start golfing. So that's what I did. You know, I started golfing. And I think Simon, he loved those little remote control cars. So guess what I did?
I spent all this time building cars, and you know, it's like playing the car. I learned to love it. I those things were fun all of a sudden, right?
So and the thing that it shows them is that my dad, my dad took the effort to get into my priorities, my values, and that's the sign of love, right? Yeah, and it's not that you're sacrificing because at the end of the day, what you want is to connect with him, right? To spend more bonding time, to develop a better, deeper relationship. So that fulfills you no matter what the activity is.
But unfortunately, you may only be inviting them to the activities that you want to do, not necessarily what they are interested in.
Yeah, that never works. Yeah. You have to step into their world, whatever it is, right? Yeah, you know, and I and it's true. You know, it's not, it's not like you have to invest a lot of time. It is the quality of time. And the the fastest way to get there is step into something they already love and let them be the teacher. Let them pull you into the world.
And the other lesson I learned many years ago, because as you know, I've always traveled a lot in my in my work. And I learned that I always pick up the phone no matter what I'm doing at that moment. If my children call at any time, I always pick up the phone and I train them. And I always say the same thing. I say, Hey honey, how are you? And he said, Dad, is this a good time? They always ask me that question. I always say, honey, it's always a good time for you.
They never waste my time because they know I'm busy. You know, but I always want to let them know that and I've done this with some of the most influential people in the world, and I'm having a meeting, and some of the big deals that I've done in my life, and you'd be surprised how many people have said to me, you know what? You just taught me a great lesson. I never pick up when my kids go doing work. And what message are you sending your child?
Because maybe that one call that they have could make all the difference in their lives, and all you had to do was just spend a minute or two giving them the answer or the approval or whatever they were going through, and that's all they needed. That's what builds that loyalty, you know? So it's quality, it's not necessarily quantity.
¶ Health Choices And Chronic Disease
Choice. I hear a lot of you know, the pain in our life. You said, hey, that that's a choice to view it differently, and that determines the outcome and who we are, right, today. You know, relationships, you know, it's it's choices, a simple choice of putting them first. I, you know, I mean, I'm telling you, it's these little choices that literally shape our relationships and even our health.
Part of the message in your book is small choices that we make have a great determination of how we live our life from a health perspective. Uh, your father is a story that you talk about that didn't make great choices, and it had a devastating effect that not only affected his life, shortening it, but his loved ones around it. You all loved him very much. Talk a little bit about that.
Well, you know, it's interesting because both of my grandfathers died at a young age, and many times when you look at it, it was their lifestyle choices. Either they were workaholics or they didn't take care of their health, they didn't exercise, they didn't eat properly, maybe they drank more than they needed to. And as I saw my dad uh growing up, after he finished and stopped drinking, then he became a food lover because many times we displace one addiction from one thing to another.
Yeah, that yeah. And so food was also so he gained a lot of weight. And he became pre-diabetic and then diabetic, and you know, um, and unfortunately, um he was having some symptoms and they did exploratory surgery. They unfortunately did their own surgery, and my dad didn't make it. I was 64 years old. You know, I just turned 60 and Yeah, we're both 60. We'll be gone in three, four years old. Imagine.
And my kids not being able to enjoy their grandfather, which I know my dad would have loved this last 23 years of their lives, you know, uh, and would have been an amazing grandfather. So when I wrote this book, I want people to understand that the choices we're making every day when it comes to our health is what's leading us to this epidemic of chronic disease, right? Over 76% of Americans now have a chronic disease. Over 44% of our children have a chronic disease. What is causing that?
It's the choices we're making. As a parent, I wrote a whole chapter on how to invite your children to reverse chronic disease by the behaviors you set in the household. Because as a parent, you get to decide what you buy, what you put in your pantry, what you cook, you know, what you allow for TV. My whole Instagram is based on these choices.
Yeah. Make these simple choices and change the outcome of your family and your health and your mentality.
But look at the millions of people that you're impacting because they're watching you, they're learning that, but then are they implementing that into their lives? That's the question. So for me, what I wanted to do, I wanted to give them the options of understanding that when they get a chronic disease diagnosis, it's never meant to be a life sentence. This is not meant to be. You're gonna have to learn to live with this for the rest of your life. Thank God the body heals itself.
It's only an opportunity for you to say, you know what, let me learn from that. Let me get a second opinion. Maybe they'll go to one of us that will get to the root cause of the problem. And they find out, you know what? Yes, maybe some exercise will improve your life. Maybe a little bit more sleep will improve your life. Maybe um re releasing some of the processed foods in our diets will improve our life. Whatever, all the things you talk about, right?
And that's what I wanted them to understand that if they simply can make one decision a day that is better than the day before, they're moving away from chronic disease. Absolutely.
You know, and I I think maybe people don't value themselves enough to make these right choices, but at least value your children the next generation because they don't learn from your words, they learn from your choices. I've never met anyone who grew up in a family with a mother. You know, typically mothers make health decisions in uh, you know, the house that was choosing healthier products. Guess what they do? They just automatically start choosing healthier products.
You you you basically come back to the way you were raised, for better and for worse. You know, it's like, and you know, that's it. So do it for your children because they watch. And my kids, I'll tell you, they all went out because I wasn't, they just watched us live our life, honestly. Um, I definitely wasn't one to preach at them. My wife maybe a little bit more, but that's that's her, that's she's effective too.
But um, you know, all of our kids they went out when they had the free opportunity and we gave it to them. Go out, do what your friends do, go ahead. And you know, they every one of them, five out of five, came back, you know, because they're gonna do what they were raised to do.
Well, and I think that this will sound to something that yes, um, we need to pay attention. At the end of the day, I find that many times when we don't make a good choice when it comes to not only our health, but our relationships, our finances, is because we don't love ourselves enough.
You said that earlier, yeah.
Because at the end of the day, when we love ourselves enough, when we truly value, right, the uniqueness of us.
Um, I learned to embrace all of my imperfections because I realized that you know what, who am I trying to be to try to is that why Botox fillers, all the stuff, the boobs, the whole thing, is that butt lifts or now or butt implants, whatever they are. Is that why? Is it the lack of loving for who you are created to be?
Because somebody's opinion of you is more important than your opinion of yourself. I have seen women that have completely made transformations to their bodies because whoever they were dating at the time made a comment. One comment led into a major life decision that would alter their lives. I seen people get tattoos only because somebody made a comment, right? That could be for life, right? Because removing those things are not easy. I know.
I always told my kids, I said, think of yourself not as what your sexy body right now at 20 years old. Think of what that tattoo is going to look when you're 70. Absolutely. And that doesn't scare you. Yeah, exactly.
And then I show them a picture of a 70-year-old with a grandmother with a stupid little thing that meant something when they were 15 or 18. Their skin is all saggy. And it's like, oh, now that thing is so silly, I regret every bit of it.
Like But I think so, so going back to what can we do about it, I think is to really reinforce the love as a parent to our children. We need to love our children more than they love themselves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, I think every parent would say I do. But oftentimes, though, it depends on how you love. Love can you share how you share that. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, my father loved me to the point of, you know, almost discouraging me, right? And not knowing, right? Something was in me. God gave me that vision, so I didn't listen. But I could have been like, He's right.
Yeah.
And I could have stayed down here, what God didn't have for me.
Right. Or maybe have the quality of life that he had that had not allowed you to experience all of this abundance in the way you enjoy life today. Yeah. Because life is meant to be enjoyed. I mean, you're still making choices that are things that you're passionate about. Like, you know, for me, as we get into stages in life, it's all about impact right now. Yeah, it is. You know, yeah, I mean it's all about what can I leave behind.
Yeah. You know, I'm writing an article right now for a magazine, a health magazine, that as I turned 60, I started hitting the gym to try to get my six pack because both of my boys have one. And I said, I'm gonna write an article that is gonna show people that the greatest legacy that we can leave our children is not how much money in the bank, how what trusts we set for them, what houses or properties, but it's how healthy are they are? How healthy did we leave them when we're no longer here?
Because at the end of the day, if you leave your children with good health, they can become anything they want to. True. But how many times have we seen very wealthy parents that have children that are not very healthy, both mindset and physical, and all of a sudden all that money now all of us became even worse? Yeah. My dad always used to say something to us that I never forget. He said, No, money will never change a person. Money only makes them more than what they already are.
And that's scary.
That is because if you have a bully, they already are. If you have a bully, yeah.
If you have somebody that bullying people lies to people, become a bigger liar, they become a bigger liar, unethical or illegal, become a bigger player in that in that realm. So to me, we need to be able to value people not for what they have, which is unfortunately in our society how we're valuing a lot of the people. If all of a sudden you're have this, you have the nice shoes in school, right? Now all of a sudden you're the hot girl or the hot guy in school.
Or if you have a certain jewelry, you got a Tiffany necklace, oh you have a Tiffany necklace. We need to learn to love people for who they are and not what they have. Yeah. And that's why I love schools that have uniforms. I went to schools with uniforms for my life. Because it's less comparison. Because all of a sudden now everybody, you don't know which parent is a billionaire parent or which parent is barely making the bills every month. Oh, yeah. I love the uniform.
Because they're kids that are doing the best they can. Yeah. And so that's one example. But that's how we need to start looking at life. We need to teach our children not to surround themselves with friends that have things necessarily or who their parents are. But more importantly, what are their values? Are they good kids? Are they a good friend to me? Right? Are they gonna be there when I need them?
Or are they gonna bail whenever the problem comes in my way or whenever I'm struggling as an individual? That's how we select our people.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, and again, you know, my heart really bleeds for this generation because social media makes that even harder. You know, it really does. You know, when I think back to the kids that I was surrounded by, uh every kid was, you know, had pretty much the same upbringing, you know, pretty much the same financial status, you know, and you know, there was not really that many bad kids in the room today. Gosh, you know, it's really hard.
I don't know if you've been to a middle school or a high school, a public high school recently. I used to do a lot of mentoring for at-risk kids. For 10 years, I did that, especially kids that were lured to gangs. And um I can tell you that it's really sad. Yeah, it's really scary because these kids are really struggling. The suicide rate, as you know, especially in our teen girls, um is so high that it's inconceivable.
And when you mentioned earlier that this is the first generation that would not outlive their parents or would not have the lifespan of their parents, that's a big concern to me because I'm seeing parents bury their kids every single day.
Chronic disease numbers in kids. Look at this.
I mean, everything is everything you can imagine from cancer, heart disease. Like we never used to see that in kids. And now all of a sudden it's rampant.
Yeah.
And, you know, and we ask ourselves the question: how do we get here in the first place? And what I want people to understand is they need to pay attention. They need to learn from our past. We need to learn, and we need to break that cycle because now that the kids have so much chronic disease, right? Over 50% almost, I mean over 44%, depending on where you hear, but it's a big number. These kids are not going to have a chance to have a healthy 20, 30, 40-year-old.
I, you know, I I I want to make a positive note on that. And this is something I tell my kids and parents, you should be saying this to yours. I think it leaves a great opportunity for kids who choose differently, back to choice, health choices, thinking choices, how we're thinking about our situation, choices to be leaders.
Yeah. Meaning that you have kids, if you're listening, you have a greater opportunity, almost an easier opportunity to be a leader, because this generation needs leaders badly. They need leaders. Who are going to be the leaders? Yeah. The ones who think that what we just said, you know, if just listening to what Fab just said, you know, in the last, you know, 30 minutes, that's the kids that are going to be leaders. If you can just get that mindset, you're going to be the leader.
If you can just make health choices that are better because your generation is so sick, you're going to be a leader. Who doesn't want to be a leader? Right. It's like, who doesn't want to be leading people? And I'm telling you, it will provide happiness, it will provide absolute deep joy, it will pop, it will provide contentment, peace, and it will come, it will also give wealth. It will.
And you'll be able to experience the world if you think differently, if you realize that your sick generation has provided you a better chance to be a leader. And that's all that you're saying.
I mean, you know, I never forget my my children, both of my children coming to me trying to gain more weight. No, yeah. What do you think about it?
Every boy goes through that. Yeah. No, but it's his muscle.
It's not the muscle, it's the fact that when we were their age, maybe there was one or two chubby kids in our class. Now it's 80% of them. Absolutely. So they're the skinny kids, they're the ones getting bullied. Not their chubby kids, they're the ones getting bullied. So when kids were making comments about how thin they were, I said, Your body is perfect. You're healthy, you're making good choices, you're eating healthy. You know they're not.
And this is where kids need to be strong because when you're making decisions to be healthy, you're not gonna be the majority at this time.
Yeah.
You're actually the minority.
The way you eat is gonna be the minority. Your school lunch that you choose is gonna be, you're gonna be made fun of.
But your performance long term, your quality of life long term, your lifespan long term is gonna be so much more than the ones that right now may be judging you. And that's tough for a kid because kids just want to be accepted. Absolutely. That's why clicks are so popular in schools, you know. You want to be with the kids that are the good-looking kids, or the athletes' kids, or the nerds that are the science kids, whatever.
In reality, as I was growing up, I wanted to be a part of everyone circle. I never wanted to be in any clicks because I always said I can learn from everybody. I can learn from everybody. I learned from the nerdy kids how to be a good student. I learned from the athletes how to be a better athlete. I learned from the people that were taking care of their health how to be healthier.
You know, I learned from the ones that were actually culture and they were traveling and they were going to museums how to do more of that. So I messed around with the different people. And I've been like that all my life because I go wherever I can learn and I realized that any time in my life that I'm trying to make a decision that of something I don't really know about, I try to identify at least two or three people that have made that decision successfully in their lives and learn from them.
Absolutely.
And just ask them.
You know, I I lectured in Africa and I first time I had an interpreter, and there's a very powerful man there that put on this leadership conference. And uh, after I was done with my lecture, he had a quick brisk right down to the stage for me. I thought, surely I said something wrong. And he met me off the stage and he said, Dr. Pompa, your authority doesn't come from your school, your education, or your you know, past, blah, blah, blah. It comes from the victory God gave you.
And then he walked away. And I'm like, what did he even mean by that? And why did he say it? What did I say? That did I say something? Bragg yeah, you know, it was years later that I realized he's right. You know, God gives us certain victories in our life. My illness, my victory that God gave me, you know, really gave me the authority to speak into it. Look for the victories in your life that God gives you, and you have authority there.
You know, but you know, I I do I feel badly for these kids that are trying to fit in because that's a that is a human trait, right? That we want to fit in and be accepted. What for the kid that's not fitting in right now, because I told parents to share this with your kids, what would be your you know, your advice to I give you an so I said it a little bit earlier, but it's embrace your differences, your imperfections, your unique value.
So for me, um being in the media.
But remember that most of that that's what kids are getting made fun of at that age, right? Yeah, but I'll give you an example. So for me, being in the media even the girl with the long legs, you know, the you talk about supermodels being like, I was made fun of for my long legs. It's like I mean one now, they're getting Paid millions of dollars to show them.
Yeah. But if you talk to them, they're miserable because they're so tall that they don't fit in into and no guys will date them. Yeah. I mean, how many models, supermodels have said they missed out on great guys because they don't want to date somebody so tall? Right. Yeah. So they always want to be somebody different. But what I what I said to myself primarily is the fact that I needed to, like in the media, um, my accent was an issue for me at one point.
I felt like I needed to take lessons and make sure that my English was perfect. And then I realized that in my almost 40 years in this media business, I realized that that's what people know me for. They look for my accent. One time I was at the airport, and I let somebody out of nowhere say, Are you Dr. Fab? And I said, Yes, why? He said, Ah, I heard you speak and I I recognized your accent immediately. And yeah, you know, and that was for me a big issue.
I'm gonna echo that because you hit it. Okay. And that was where my brain was going on this, right? Whatever you're being made fun of for is typically your superpower. It is. I was made fun of because I couldn't read, right? So I was thinking it's called stupid, I'm sure, right? Now I know that my dyslexia is my superpower, right? So typically it's that thing that you're making fun of, your accent, whatever it is. It it if it's not your superpower, it sure as well be.
It's just like how we should look at our pains in our life, right? So those differences, it's so hard to tell because if if I just had a different nose, right? I have a I can tell you actor after actor, I realize it's like, you know, it was my nose that I got this job. It was my nose that, you know, whatever it is. It's like I'm telling you, if you change the way you think about it, it will become your superpower.
So if you can train yourself, kids, to say, thank you, you know, it's like, thank you for that. Because I know that I'm being made fun of this. So somehow God's gonna use this for my superpower. I'm telling you, it's like it's the world's joke, but it's true.
You know, it's so funny because one time I was uh when Dr. Field got his show, we were in Paramount Studio, and uh he was so excited, and he happened to say to me, I was congratulating him, and he said to me, you know, what's funny is that uh you're the one with the face for television. I have a face for radio.
Yeah.
But it is his uniqueness, right? Absolutely that has allowed him. Like who wears mustaches throughout the 2000, 2010 where mustaches went away. Yeah, and then his mustache remained, and now the mustaches are back, right? Like everything in life, and you go through his career path, and he remained true to the person that he was.
He didn't try to get fake hair or do the hairy in you know, he was just gonna be you know when you walk in that true identity, who God created you to be, it you go to a a higher level of success. You do because you are authenticity. That's it. It's authenticity to the to the core. Yeah when when you start plugging it all in, this and that, you become someone that you're not, and the authenticity goes away and it affects your personality. I'm convinced of it.
I don't talk enough about that, but I should. Elle McPherson, who I introduced you to, you know, she was the ugly child? No, no, yeah. I mean, she, you know, again, identity issues and things of that sort. I mean, look at her, right? I mean, number one model, supermodel on the cover of Sports Illustrated, you know. But yeah, she tells that story. And so I say that just to say, like, we've all been through it. Yeah. So it's a matter of what are we going to do with it, kids, right?
What are we gonna do with it? Right. It's like, if you can teach yourself to think differently about your criticisms that come your way, your pain in your life, if you can choose to think differently and know somehow it's leading to your purpose, somehow it's leading to a betterment of you, a better you, that choice will change your world. I'm telling you, this generation, the leaders, your opportunity is great. The leaders are coming out of the kids who can do that.
And they're being true to themselves.
Yes. That was the most important thing. And the other thing that I would tell the child is that whenever somebody judges you, or whenever somebody may make a comment not to want to be your friend, ask yourself the question: do I want to be friends with somebody that doesn't accept me for who I am?
Absolutely not.
Because who wants to have friends like that?
Yeah, yeah.
Where you have to pretend, right? We talk about masks, that we all wear a mask every day, that we like music that we don't like, that we do things. I have so many of my friends that they know that I don't drink, and and and they go and they say, you know, as I've gotten older, I say I need to reduce my alcohol level. And I've seen how you've done that in your life. And I said, Listen, it's not that I don't want to drink, it's just my body does not respond like it used to when I have alcohol.
And I don't like that feeling.
Yeah.
So why am I gonna put myself through that? But if I want to have a great glass of wine, I'm gonna have a great glass of wine and I'm gonna enjoy it. But for the most part, I don't do things that my body does not respond good. So I'm being true to myself. I'm listening.
It's because you have a value of yourself, so you don't want to be able to do that.
But it's the same with young people. Yeah, whenever they have friends that they want to befriend them for something they have, or they want to motivate them or or force them to be something they're not, those are not your real friends. Yeah. Because your real friends are gonna be the ones that are gonna accept you no matter what. Absolutely.
Whether you're in good times, whether you're in bad times, whether you're having a good day, whether you're having a bad day, whether today you have or tomorrow you don't have, because you know in life, life is a cycle.
And I would say this be that person, then you attract that person because in your class, those maybe one or two are there. And that's all you need. And so how do I find them? Be that person. Yeah.
And you attract because the law of attraction said, like it's so interesting. The secret that I have when people ask me, how do I attract the right partner in my life? I tell them, okay, I need you to do me a favor, write a list of every characteristic, every attribute, everything you want in a person as your partner. And they write them down. And then I say, compare that to how many of those do you possess yourself?
And then I tell them, I said, if you want to attract that person, be that, be that person. So if you want somebody that is slim and has a great body, be that be that person. If you want somebody that's kind and generous, be that person. If you want somebody that's hardworking, be that person. And I said, what you'll find is that when you're leaving, the person you want to attract is when you actually attract it.
Tell you what, you're giving, um, you know, parents now are like making sure they're sending this uh podcast to all their kids because they're and they need to listen into it a few times, you know. These, yeah, you have to listen to it a few times. But these are the keys to success. You're giving the keys. You know, back to right now, so many people are trying to make health choices, right? That are right. And many of them are failing. How can
¶ Addictive Food And Long-Term Thinking
we help them? You know, my father, who we we both gained a lot from our father, right? My father, his saying was, and this is his words, son of a bitch, if I known I was gonna live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself. You know, because his excuse was is I'm gonna die of something someday anyway. So why should I not enjoy myself? Why should I not smoke my cigarettes? Well, he ended up with lung cancer. But here's the thing my father, unlike yours, didn't just die at age 64.
He suffered 15, 20 years of health issues.
That's a tough life.
You know, and that's why his saying was if I no, no, I was gonna live so long, I would have taken better care of myself because he couldn't golf, he couldn't do the things he wanted to do. He didn't take care of himself, right? You know, he lived to 84, but my father was set to live to 100. His sister, who took better care of herself, lived to 96.
Wow.
You know, so and uh, you know, his other sister in the 90s, you know, so he had the ability to live long, but he made some bad choices. How do how do we help them make people right now trying to make better choices, want to make better choices, but say, Fab, I just seem not to be able to make better choices.
Well, this is where I believe that the biggest fault of that, the biggest root cause of that is the fact that we justify our choices because of the short-term impact that it will have, not the long term.
Short-term pleasure, maybe.
Right. Well, what happens is like if I don't eat healthy foods one time, it's not gonna make a big difference. Like I can go right now and have a great cheeseburger, but 90% of my foods are great. So I can afford to do that, right? One time I hired a nutritionist and she followed me for six months, and after six months, she released me. And I said, no, I'm not there yet. I'm only 80% good. And she said, that's all you need to be.
Because I don't want you to get to the point that you don't want to give yourself a pleasure. I just don't want you to have that pleasure be the majority of your choices. So when I consult with somebody and I tell them, look, it doesn't matter what choice you're making today, don't look at the short-term impact. Yeah, maybe one time it's not gonna be a problem. But the problem is that one time leads to a second time and a third time because our bodies will crave whatever we give it at the time.
If you're used to cheeseburgers and pizzas every day, trust me, that's what you're gonna crave. But if all of a sudden you start switching to salads and and and uh organic foods and less processed foods, guess what? Your body's gonna crave that too. And that's the priority. You need to give yourself time to make the right choices.
And then your body will crave that.
Why is it that most people end up broke in life is because they can't think of why saving money today, what would it mean in the future? And then you look at all these financial experts that said, do you know that if you were to save 5% of your salary from the moment that you were 20 by the moment you were 50, you will have at least 1.5 million dollars or more in the bank account for your retirement.
Most people can't think like that living for the most because they think that 5% is gonna give them some kind of pleasure that is immediate, sacrificing the long-term pressure in the future. It's the same with your health.
Yeah, and I feel like there's personalities that have to work harder to that and personalities that don't, you know, but everyone can do it. You know, on the food thing, you know the difference today is processed food used to have three or four ingredients when we were growing up. Today, processed food, even if you compare McDonald's then to McDonald's now, now it's this long list of chemicals, many of which I see your videos addictive. You see my videos? Many of which are extremely addictive.
They're designed to be addictive, which is worse.
Yeah, they're designed to be addictive. That's the concern. I we just had this conversation. My assistant, she said, you know, her her last relationship, he would pull in and have, I just need a snack, he'd pull in McDonald's and eat the cheeseburger, whatever it is. I mean, it doesn't take but one cheeseburger to become addicted to the next one, and then the fries are even more because of the chemicals that are in there that your brain desires it. Right.
So, some foods, you the more chemicals on the longer list, you just have to give those up. If you're gonna have the pleasure, make it a natural pleasure without the chemicals because the craving will be far different. If you eat a natural, you know, real ice cream, it's gonna be far different than the one with a list of chemicals that has the addictive chemicals in it. I'm telling you, they're designed to be drugs that your brain desires and you can't wait for the next one.
And then you find other processed foods that make you feel the same way in that short moment. You don't remember the fact that you were crashed three hours later, but in the moment your brain remembers what that felt like and it will recreate it and recreate it. So the longer the list of ingredients, but you can't read it, don't eat it, and uh get those addictions out of your life.
And the other thing that I see, and I saw that with Starbucks, I remember, you know, I went to school in Italy, and I remember in Italy when Oh, those Starbucks drinks are a massive addiction. Yeah, because they started adding sugar.
Oh, and worse, I mean chemicals now.
When you look at when all these fancy names, but then when they're putting whip whip whipped cream on a regular coffee, when they're putting caramel, when they're putting vanilla, when they're putting all of this sugar, the people are addicted to the sugar. They're not even liking the coffee, they just go there for the sugar.
The sugar's addicting, but also the the chemicals in there are designed to be ex they're called excitotoxins. So if you look, we've done videos on this. If you look at the chemicals that are in those drinks, I'm telling you, it's it's it's an addiction, it's addiction in a cup, man. I'm telling you. It it is well, that's one of the reasons I'm not going there because I'll get addicted.
Yeah, but this is this is the first time that I see uh our administration and the Health and Human Services actually bringing awareness about a subject that has been ignored for far too long. I mean, this new pyramid that just came out, how many years have we talked about how this pyramid was causing many?
You know, I don't know if you saw the South Park episode, right? So they did a piece on it, and it was basically like, you know, we have a problem, we have to figure it out. And he's like, you know, sir, we fixed the problem. What did you do? We just flipped the pyramid, right? And they it's like, oh my God, it's like, you know, disease is going over the phone.
Don't you remember like in school, like many years ago when we went to school, we all knew, right, going into the healthcare holistic, natural healthcare practices, that that is that was a problem that needed to be fixed. And look how many years have passed, over 35 years since I went to school. And and and I look and see, why didn't somebody do this earlier? Did it have to get to this point of 90% of the cost or 80% of the cost of healthcare going into chronic disease?
Did it have to get to the point that our children are so sick that now is so sad? Because you go to a theme park, you know. I went to a theme park recently, um, Universal Studios in Orlando, and I couldn't believe my eyes. I'm like, this is what America looks like.
Oh, dude.
It's so sad.
Oh gosh. I was on a cruise once, and I call it my 11th floor experience.
Oh goodness.
I I had to walk, I'd go up to the 11th floor, and you had to walk by all the jacuzzies, the sonnet, like and on the pools, right? Like the and the gym was on the other side. So here I am walking to the gym, and I'd walk like this. And you're watching. And and I was just like, what is going on? It's like the twilight zone. It's like, what is going on? It was disgusting. The whole thing. It was like, I mean, I couldn't believe my eyes.
Go to a water park, like Six Flags and all that. And when people don't have their shirts on, that's the problem. You see the children.
When you're in Walmart, they have clothes on. It's like, but I'm telling you, I was like, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It somehow was like this mess. Here's what it did for me. I realized because I noticed they were joyful people. Yeah. And I started talking to them. And I these are like amazing people. So then I wanted to get to know them. I wanted to impact them. My wife will tell you it ruined my whole trip. Okay. Because I realized my social media was not impacting these people.
These people, if I talked about fasting, they'd be like, you can go more than three days without a stuff. You have no awareness. Yeah, no aware. CETOL, no awareness, no aware. So it changed how I communicated on Instagram to very one concept. One con it changed me because I prayed about it. Matter of fact, I even considered going, and my wife will tell you this.
I considered working at McDonald's for at least a month to get more impacted of the mentality of how people get there because I have such a desire to change it. I don't blame any of them. Yeah. It's like, but I saw what we have become as a nation with my open eyes for the first something happened on that 11th floor. That's why I call it my 11th floor experience because I changed. Yeah. I changed and I opened up to a greater heart to change the people that unknowing to them, man.
I mean, they had no concept of what we're talking about even now. None. And that was kind of like they were they were surviving on medications. Right. Because that was one of my questions. Like, like, how do these people even have energy to come out? Like, I mean, how like if I ate like this, I'm I'm done. But uh, we're not on medications. They were all on medications.
Yeah. Look at the sales on um uh medication for bloated, uh, gas, um all of these digestive issues. But people keep eating it. People keep doing it because they're addicted to it.
They are addicted.
And even though, you know, you're impacting millions of people, we have over seven billion people in the planet. Oh gosh. We have a major work to do here. My impact is you know practically nothing when I look at it. But you're one of the biggest impactors in health, but the it shows us what a big problem this is and why we must not rest and we must keep going and to reach as many people as we can.
You know, it's like, I mean, and yet people are just on medications for the rest of their life. And the doctors are duped too. And we need to flip this pyramid, you know, because the doctors just think you're unlucky. But you go to other countries. There was when I went to Africa, there was no diabetes in these tribal people that I was with. They don't have a word for it, it doesn't exist.
But you know what I'm noticing? There's so many alien parents, and parents uh you look at people our age, what are they doing? They're taking care of their parents with all these chronic diseases, they're bringing them home, they're putting them in in facilities, and many of them are not changing their behavior. And they're gonna end up worse probably than their parents. Right, it's and these little choices.
Well, because I want people to wake up, I want people to understand that whatever they're doing is not working. And all they need to do is pay attention and don't be victimized by their circumstances. Realize that I have the power of choice. I mean, God gave us that. Absolutely. We have the power of choice, that's the most powerful thing we have as human beings. Yes. Why are we not exercising it? Yeah, why are we letting everybody else, commercials and otherwise, dictate who I become?
Yeah. And those are the same message for the young kids. Just because something is popular on TV, just because there's a lot of commercials on television that tell you you gotta wear these shoes, you gotta wear these pieces of clothes, you gotta have that fancy purse, realize that that is all targeted to sell more things. It's not targeted to bring you more value. And you know, at the end of the day, I could lose everything.
Like, how many people have you met that say I have lost everything in my life, but now I know how to make it again? Because you realize I learned this from the uh Tony Robbins when I was 20 years old. He taught me that in life it's not about having more resources, it's about becoming more resourceful. You become resourceful with your own self, no matter if you have a little or if you have a lot, become resourceful.
Do something with those resources that are to your benefit and the benefit of others, and your life will be wonderful. But if you're always focusing on having more resources, you're gonna be disappointed. Because at the end of the day, resources have never made somebody happy, you know, and then you tend to attract the people that are looking at people that have resources, and then all of a sudden they're look at the people that win the lottery, right?
Yeah, they were nobody, and all of a sudden they have a little bit of money, or the people that become NFL players, they're in their early 20s, they're broke as anything, and now they have a contract of five, 10, 20, 30 million dollars, and all of a sudden they have an entourage of people coming out of the woodwork saying, Man, help me, help me, you know, without any any relevance as to, you know, what did it take for me to get here? And why am I gonna squander that?
¶ Three Percenters And Serving Others
You know, just to be liked by everybody. I hope people here, you know, whether we're talking about success, health, being a leader, it's a choice, right? It's like and it starts with the small choices, right? There's a there was a study done some years ago, and I I always use this. It was looking at people who survived cancer, looking at people who've changed the world, became the best leaders, success in all these different areas, they determined it was really one thing.
And they call them three percenters because if you look at like, you know, these people that did make that determination, so what was what did they have the one thing they all had in common in three percenters? Because that is that we all want to be a three percenter. It was a choice they made one day. I am not gonna let this cancer beat me. You know, I'm gonna be a leader. You know, I am absolutely not going to. It was a choice that they made, and it changed their whole existence.
You know, I want the kids watching this to hear, you know, you can choose to let other people's words affect you for the negative or the positive. That's a choice, right? You can choose to be like, you know what? I am done fitting in. I'm going to be a leader. I want them to choose to be a leader because they will be a leader if they choose. I'm going to be a leader. Just speak it aloud. I'm going to be a leader, right? I'm going to eat different. I'm going to change my life. Dang it.
I'm going to live to 100. I'm going to do it healthy. I'm going to do it. Three percenters choose it, man. 97%ers, guess what they are? You talk about victims. Yeah. They want to be a victim. It's a victim mentality. They blame others, right? Instead of taking it on themselves, right? So, oh, and They also look at their circumstances and they have fear, you know, they blame whatever, but they look at that and stay there.
Three percenters, on the other hand, no, yeah, they don't they don't look at any of that.
They just look at the circumstances and better yet, they say, This is not what I want. I choose something different. Absolutely. You know, you want to get out of that neighborhood, not being defined. Choose something different. You don't want to be able to look and be overweight, choose something different. You know, you don't want to end up with chronic disease by the time you're 20, choose something different.
97% live their life in effect.
Yeah.
They eat the food, I get in effect. This isn't it, yeah, effect, effect, effect, right? Cover a symptom, right? I'm gonna take a drug. I have a headache, I'm gonna take an aspirin. I have this, I take it. Three percenters instinctively look for cause. There must be a reason I have a headache. You know, I'm depressed. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe it's the food I'm eating. Choose to be a three percenter. It's a dang choice. Yeah, you know, anyone watching this right now can choose.
Say, you know what, Pompa's right, Fab's right. I'm gonna choose to live my life from cause. And it's free. And it's three percent.
Everybody can do it. It doesn't matter whether you're listening in Africa, whether you're listening in Russia, whether you're listening in Ukraine or South America, you have the choice to make a difference.
You know, because when you're living your life from effect, it's natural to blame others because you're living from effect, right? So, you know what? I'm not successful because you know, I'm in this house because I was never given the right opportunity. You know, I'm sick because da-da-da-da. My whatever. Yeah. My mother, my father, my sister, my brother, effect, effect, effect. Three percent of us goes, dang it, man, I should have made a better choice. You know, dang it.
It's like, okay, let's go. You learn from it. Exactly. You learn from it.
Like I tell my kids, there's no mistakes in life, only experiences that are going to be your greatest teachers. And look forward to those experiences because you want as many teachers as you can have in your life. Yeah. You know, that's what I found. Anytime I went through a difficult, one time I was asked to do a lecture called Defining Moments. And they wanted me to share what were the moments in my life that shaped me to be the person I was.
And I found out that over 90% of them were challenges, difficulties.
Me too.
Me too. And and I and I said in my in my lecture, I said, we need to look forward to those moments in life rather than be afraid of them. We need to look forward to them because that's where the magic is. That's where you're gonna find the power, the source to be able to trans transform into the person that you were destined to be. You know, we all are destined for much greater than what we're living. I believe that. I know in my life, I haven't even started living who I was destined to be.
Yeah. Right? So every day I wake up with that philosophy. It's like, what can I do? Who can I be today that would let me be a little bit closer to that person that I know is inside of me? And this is where mentors come into your life because you run my mind. People came into my life that saw in me things that I could never see in myself at a young age. Dr. Parker saw me as president of Parker when I was a student. And I would always tell him, no way I'm gonna be president of Parker.
I mean, who would think of that? And at 33 years old, here I become one of the youngest presidents of a college and university in the United States. And the only reason I finally say yes is because I knew he had seen that in me. And I say, Well, he was a smart guy. Maybe he knew something I didn't know. I'm gonna give it a shot. And I thought I was gonna do it for six months or so, and it ended up being 13 and a half years.
And how many people have you mentored into? You know, I again I speak this to the kids watching, uh, you know, the easiest thing you can do to be a three percenter is put yourself around them. You know, I mean, that's what that mentorship was, right? You know, we we we hang out together because I for someone to get close in my life, I've learned to they better be a three percenter.
I want people that I want to be more like, I want to hang around people that are changing the world, making a difference, because I don't have room for anything else. You know, I I desire to make a difference, maybe selfishly. I I get fueled from making a difference.
But that's your self-worth because you realize that your value comes from serving others. Yeah, no doubt. We all do, no doubt. You know, Jim Rohn used to teach us that we become the sum of the five people we surround ourselves with. And in my life, I've been very selective in that. Yeah, me too. You know, I don't have, even though I know a lot of people like you, very few people close to my life.
Yeah, you know, my family has always been the center of my life because those are the people that will always accept you and know you in the good, bad, and the ugly. You know, they've known you before you were this, they know you before you had that, they know you before you get this title or that position. They know that there is fab in there, the same fab that I was at five years old is the same fab you see today, and they can appreciate that.
And I want to be around people like that because they remind me that all of this is not about us. We're just instruments here, you know. And thank God I have parents have always taught us that that we're only here as an instrument to serve others. You know, we're only an expression of something greater. Yeah, and if we live like that, imagine the power that you can have every single day knowing that your purpose is much bigger than you.
You will spend the rest of your life living that purpose and you will never attain it, but you will strive towards it every single day. That's where the love and the and the happiness and the joy for living is.
Look, yeah, you uh if you feel depressed, serve something bigger than you, serve other people. Yeah, and you'll quickly get out of your life.
And you'll always gonna find somebody that has it worse than you. Oh gosh, always always, always, you know. You may think this is a big deal. Go talk to somebody that's really struggling out there and see what a big deal really is. You know, I mean, look at the the conversations that people are having in country clubs and all that.
Oh my gosh, you know, like little things that they're made of big mountains, and then you got people out there that are really struggling with something that, man, it's defining.
Yeah, you know, yeah, it it humbles you quick, right? It I mean, you you'll you'll want to be successful, hang around successful people. I remember my kids always say, but dad, I like influencing into them. Oh, no, no, no. It doesn't work that way, kids. You're defying gravity. You know, it's it's it's that's the way it is. The moment a real leader uh, you know, gets to the top of that class, he moves on to another class, right? Because it doesn't work because they'll bring him down, man. Right.
That's it, right?
You know, I'll never forget um Brian Tracy used to teach me that anytime that he learned a subject matter and he perfected it and he wrote about it and taught about it, uh, he needed to move to another subject for him to grow. Yeah. He never stayed in that. Yeah, yeah. So he mastered it. Now he moved to a different subject. Yep. And then he does the same for us.
And then sometimes years later, you come back to that subject when there's new knowledge and you know, find another level. All
¶ Final Challenge And Closing
right. Well, choose to share this show with your kids, the next generation, the leaders, everything that Fab said, I'm telling you, it is the keys to the kingdom. It is the keys to leadership, it is the keys to a peace, joy, contentment, and success. I believe. I believe that. But you got to share the show, make the choice. Thanks for being here, man. Thank you, bro. Yep, absolutely.