In this episode, Nick speaks with Brian Goldsack,  a Financial Advisor and Podcast host who also runs a martial arts studio that was gifted to him by a friend who committed suicide during the pandemic… Yeah, imagine mourning the loss of a friend and taking over their business for them. Brian and Nick discuss how this affected his relationships and his mindset, so listen closely as he shares some beautiful insights and wisdom he’s learned along his path, most notably within the past 2 years.

About Brian Goldsack

Brian is the co-host of the Success Fundamentals Podcast. The show explores the deeper meanings and methods to living a truly successful life. It does this by interviewing and reflecting upon conversations with those that have achieved success in business, spirituality, and athletics. Brian works professionally in financial services, runs a martial arts school, and invests in real estate. He is a family man and enjoys studying economics, religion, and history.

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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”

00:00:08:14 – 00:00:33:00

Nick McGowan

Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us and the lives that we lead on our path to self-mastery. Today on the show, we have Brian Goldsack. Brian’s a financial advisor and podcast host who also runs a martial arts studio that was gifted to him by a friend who committed suicide during the pandemic.

00:00:33:13 – 00:00:54:28

Nick McGowan

Yeah, imagine mourning the loss of a friend and taking over their business for them. Brian and I discuss how this affected his relationships and of course, his mindset. So listen close as he shared some beautiful insights and wisdom he’s learned along this path, most notably within the past two years. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.

00:00:57:24 – 00:01:01:06

Nick McGowan

Hey, Brian, thank you for joining the show. I’m so glad you’re here. How you doing?

00:01:01:15 – 00:01:04:01

Brian Goldsack

I’m doing fine. Thanks for having me. Nick, how are you?

00:01:04:10 – 00:01:23:18

Nick McGowan

I’m great, man. I’m so excited that you’re here. We had a great conversation recently. Brian, I recently connected and then found out sort of like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon style that we’re actually part of the same group. We connected through LinkedIn. He had reached out and we started up conversation, I think it was through the podcast podcast.

00:01:23:24 – 00:01:31:06

Nick McGowan

You have a podcast, it’s chat. And then through conversation we realized that we both work with the same company that helps us with our podcast Go Sales. Yes.

00:01:31:17 – 00:01:33:00

Brian Goldsack

That’s right. Go sales cast.

00:01:34:05 – 00:01:47:13

Nick McGowan

That’s free promotion for you boys. We love you. So, Brian, I’m really glad that you’re here. Why don’t we just kick things off with tell us one thing you do for a living and something that most people don’t know about. You.

00:01:48:09 – 00:02:15:27

Brian Goldsack

Sure. One thing that I do for a living, let’s say. So I’m a financial advisor professionally and a podcast host as I also would say professionally. We’re running a proper podcast and we have been doing so since June of 2021. And something people don’t know about me is that I’ve run a martial arts school as well in in the town that I live in.

00:02:16:12 – 00:02:21:09

Brian Goldsack

So I’ve been doing judo for many, many years. So on the weekends I’m a sensei.

00:02:23:15 – 00:02:31:27

Nick McGowan

So I yeah, I wouldn’t just assume that somebody is sensei. It’s not like one of those things. You’re like, Hey, you know what? You kind of look like you’re close to a ninja.

00:02:32:17 – 00:02:34:15

Brian Goldsack

You’ve got a sense, a vibe about you. Yeah.

00:02:35:12 – 00:02:39:29

Nick McGowan

I kind of have a little sensei about your sensei.

00:02:39:29 – 00:03:00:14

Brian Goldsack

That’s good. That was good. I like that one. Yeah. I’ve been doing judo for probably 11 years and my instructor passed away in 2020. And believe it or not, in his will he willed me the name of the school and I. I picked it up and kept going with it.

00:03:01:01 – 00:03:18:27

Nick McGowan

So time out. Let’s. Let’s pick that apart a little bit. So you would. You’d been there long enough that, I guess you the guy, kind of considered you part his family or something. Did you guys have conversations before that like, hey, just in case you die? Like, if somebody gives you a throat chop, can I take over? Like, how did you guys get to that?

00:03:19:07 – 00:03:36:04

Brian Goldsack

Yeah. So, I mean, I was a very loyal student for years and years and years, and I took the martial art very seriously. And I would go kind of like above and beyond. I would train on the weekends with them and help them with seminars and whatnot. And he’d say, If anything ever happened to me, you know, would you want to keep this school going?

00:03:36:20 – 00:03:47:05

Brian Goldsack

And I always wanted to have a martial arts school, so I said absolutely. But I didn’t think he would go so fast. And one day he passed. And here I am, keeping the torch going.

00:03:47:29 – 00:04:05:11

Nick McGowan

Wow. That’s got to be tough. It almost seems like if somebody dies, that’s a partner in a business and they just, like, hand it over. But you weren’t even a partner in it. You’re just a student. And then next thing you know, you got the keys and you’re running it. How did you handle? I would assume that person was a friend of yours.

00:04:05:12 – 00:04:09:07

Nick McGowan

So how did you handle that loss and then stepping into a leadership role?

00:04:10:00 – 00:04:34:21

Brian Goldsack

There was a terrible time in my life. It was during COVID, which was a terrible time. And so many people’s lives just in general, living on Earth in the year 2020 was tough. He ended up, unfortunately, taking his own life that year. He suffered from some pretty serious depression, and being cooped up alone in quarantine for all those months really wore on him.

00:04:35:08 – 00:04:59:07

Brian Goldsack

And so I had to actively cope with a good friend of mine taking his own life while simultaneously doing all of the arduous paperwork to make like an LLC and find a location for the business, so on and so forth, and reopen the judo school about him realistically, about a year after that, we are still on lockdown.

00:05:00:12 – 00:05:08:03

Nick McGowan

TS So was there any signs to any of that or was it just kind of out of left field that he’s just no longer here?

00:05:08:29 – 00:05:32:06

Brian Goldsack

It’s like one of those things where you did realize the signs after it already happened, cause sometimes there’s people that are perhaps a bit negative just by their demeanor or a bit cynical or they’re always anxious and stressed about things. And he goes, you know, that’s just the way he is. You know, that’s just the way Fred is.

00:05:32:22 – 00:05:45:24

Brian Goldsack

But then one day it became very real and. Yeah, yes. So in retrospect, there were many signs, but kind of when you were just living with them, he didn’t really notice it was happening.

00:05:46:28 – 00:06:09:20

Nick McGowan

Like hindsight being 2020. But imagine that’s got to be super difficult to look back. Oh my gosh, here it is. Or people listen to this podcast that they’ve been close to suicide. I’ve been there. I know there are people that have lost people due to suicide. And I think it’s always interesting for us to be able to look at those situations.

00:06:09:29 – 00:06:29:12

Nick McGowan

And it’s a reminder to us to to be alive. You know, we are all I think when we were little kids, we thought we were invincible. We could do whatever, you know, and you’re totally good. You’re going to live and everything’s fine. But as you get older, you start to see different people kind of drop. And I’m sorry to hear about your friend.

00:06:29:25 – 00:06:46:16

Nick McGowan

Unfortunately, your friend wasn’t the only one that did that throughout COVID. So if you had to talk to somebody that was going through that situation now that lost somebody, what sort of tips or tricks would you give them to be able to manage their mindset in a tough situation like that.

00:06:47:10 – 00:07:12:28

Brian Goldsack

That lost somebody? Yeah, that’s that’s a great question for somebody that is contemplating suicide. I mean, it’s one of those things where you say seek out professional help, but most people kind of know that already. So I really don’t know what to say. Perhaps that maybe you can give some advice. But for the person and for the people that remain in light of a loved one committing suicide.

00:07:13:15 – 00:07:56:08

Brian Goldsack

For me, Nick, if I’m being completely honest, I’m even getting like closed off now. But it took me a while to allow it to sink in. And I think for me, kind of being numb to it was a defense mechanism. Some people don’t allow themselves to feel the pain immediately they got he he actually sent me. So after he passed away, the day after I received a letter in the mail full of letters, and it was all letters that he wanted me to read to other people in his life.

00:07:57:04 – 00:08:20:12

Brian Goldsack

So I had the judo school, I had the letters. So I had to read and call these people and break the news to them and read kind of like his last words. So the reason I say this is I, I had like a lot of responsibility in light of his passing that I think I didn’t allow myself to feel afterwards because I didn’t want to let him down.

00:08:20:12 – 00:08:50:28

Brian Goldsack

And I felt like I had work to do in order to to make sure that his wishes were met. However, simultaneously, while that terrible thing was happening, many good things were happening in my life. My business was taking off. I have healthy, happy children. I moved to a new house, but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t feeling any of the feelings that you would hope to feel when happy things were happening to you.

00:08:51:22 – 00:09:20:03

Brian Goldsack

And later, after much thinking and much prayer and reflection and studying, I found out that if you’re always putting up a wall to protect yourself from pain, that same wall protects you, protects you from joy and from experiencing joy as well. So it took me a while to kind of melt that wall and feel the pain in order for the joy to also start to see back into my life as well.

00:09:20:12 – 00:09:36:09

Brian Goldsack

So for your listeners that maybe did lose somebody that if they’re like me and put up a wall and it just, you know, being tough through it just know that the same wall that protects you from sorrow also blocks out joy.

00:09:37:09 – 00:09:53:09

Nick McGowan

And that’s a powerful statement because a wall is a wall, like matter what, it’s still a wall. I’m a very visual guy. So as I think about that, almost think of like a cartoon brick wall, one of those big old brick walls, which is difficult to get through. But you can get around it. You can get over it.

00:09:54:03 – 00:10:17:21

Nick McGowan

That’s still tough. I mean, 2020 wasn’t too too long ago, I would imagine. It wasn’t directly into 2020. We all went into COVID or the quarantine rather, but March, April for some people. So it had to have been some time since then. So really this is still kind of raw. You know, there are certain people I talk to that they’re like, look, I’m still working through traumas that happened when I was a child.

00:10:18:00 – 00:10:38:25

Nick McGowan

You’re working through something that happened maybe a year ago, year and a half ago, you know, and being able to go through that and want to kind of jump to a different side, same topic here, but ask a question that might be a little difficult. I like to think of things from different angles and think of different people that are listening to this that might have a thought that have been through a similar spot.

00:10:38:25 – 00:10:57:08

Nick McGowan

But how did you handle this person taking making a decision to take their own life and in some ways dumping these things onto you and saying, well, I can’t do this now. You have to. How did you handle that?

00:10:57:08 – 00:11:28:07

Brian Goldsack

Um, it was difficult work, but I also felt honored at the same time. His daughter actually asked me the same question months and months and months after it happened. And I said it was a lot like if your father gave me a farm and he said, Hey, Brian, I just gave you a farm in my will and it’s like 40 acres and there’s sheep on it and apple trees.

00:11:28:07 – 00:11:48:04

Brian Goldsack

And here you go, here’s a farm. And on the surface you’re like, Oh, cool, a farm. But then you get there and you have to like shovel sheep excrement and, you know, prune apple trees and, you know, there’s coyote trying to eat your flock and you’re like, oh, my God, this is crazy. I didn’t sign up for this.

00:11:48:04 – 00:12:30:21

Brian Goldsack

Like, this is a lot. But every so often when you’re sitting on that farm and the sun is setting on it and the sheep are happy and you’ve got fresh produce and you’re sitting there with your kids, it’s beautiful. And you see it as a blessing. So the inheritance of the Judas score was a lot of work. But then when I see little kids come in that are learning a sport or members of the community come in and stay healthy, and then you’re having little Christmas parties and we’re all hanging out and you know, we’re cracking jokes and we’re having barbecues together and we’re getting stronger together.

00:12:31:04 – 00:12:38:07

Brian Goldsack

I feel a lot of joy and I feel as if it were a blessing.

00:12:38:07 – 00:12:58:14

Nick McGowan

There’s only one way to be able to actually put that in the words what you just did, and that’s through processing. If you didn’t process it, you wouldn’t have arrived at that space. So in this short period of time, since it all happened, you then were gifted a school and you had to learn how to do all those things and kind of jump into that business.

00:12:58:14 – 00:13:14:24

Nick McGowan

Now, here you are. You’re able to have some memories and be able to look back. That’s a beautiful space to be in where it seems like it’s really had a space of gratitude to be able to say, Well, here’s what I have and to see the positive side of things. Let’s take a jump back even further to little Brian.

00:13:15:13 – 00:13:29:24

Nick McGowan

Where where did that come from? Were you kind of raised in a super positive atmosphere? Were you raised in a situation that was super tough and you just kind of jumped to the opposite side of that? What did your what did your upbringing look like?

00:13:29:29 – 00:13:54:28

Brian Goldsack

I mean, I was raised in a kind of like in a working class family. My mother was always an entrepreneur. She was a hairdresser, and now she’s a baker. Says, My mother always had something going on where she was, like, creative and making money, usually with her hands. My father, when when I was born, I was a suburban tractor, but prior to that was a psychologist.

00:13:55:14 – 00:14:25:04

Brian Goldsack

So there was always this element of kind of like deeper reflection that I was raised in and like analysis of kind of like the emotions that I’m feeling and why am I thinking the way I’m thinking. That was always part of growing up like my dad was trained. He was like a psychoanalyst. So when you’re like eight years old and you think, Daddy, I had a dream about, you know, a volcano and a gorilla, he would sit you down and like peel it apart.

00:14:25:22 – 00:14:31:22

Nick McGowan

Really like the gorilla, though. It was just. Can we talk about the gorilla? It’s like, no, let’s get into this.

00:14:32:04 – 00:15:01:15

Brian Goldsack

What color was the gorilla? And you’re like, oh, god, what significance are you pulling from this drawing brush? Yeah. And he would have significance and what story I always like to tell about my dad was he was the type of guy that could just really make anybody feel very comfortable, very quickly. And I remember one time I was sitting in the car with him, like napping, and we pulled up to a toll in New York City.

00:15:01:15 – 00:15:19:17

Brian Goldsack

And I woke up for a split second and heard him paying the toll and begin to speak with the person working the toll. And I remember waking up about 15 minutes later and he was still talking to that lady. And the lady the lady was like, yeah. And that’s why, you know, I never really get along with my mom anymore.

00:15:19:17 – 00:15:54:01

Brian Goldsack

And I’m like, Damn, how did he get this deep with this lady this fast and how mad or the people behind this right. So I was raised in a household where we think a lot about our thoughts and I was also raised in a creative household and I don’t know, sometimes I think about gratitude and honestly, I think you live one time, you want to have as much joy as humanly possible.

00:15:54:24 – 00:16:22:04

Brian Goldsack

So I try to align myself with a philosophy that’s going to make me feel good. And I find that being gracious and being respectful and being kind and being joyful makes me feel better to be that way. So why would I choose to feel a way that doesn’t make me feel that good? So that’s I mean, I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s just kind of the way I am.

00:16:22:22 – 00:16:27:14

Brian Goldsack

I’ll tell you why. Be sad if you can be joyful if you have the choice, why would you pick the bad one?

00:16:28:03 – 00:16:53:03

Nick McGowan

Oh, yeah, absolutely right there. You’ve always got a black or white choice no matter what. You can be shitty about something or you can be excited about something. You can be positive or negative. So the fact that you came from a an environment that really taught you about using your mind, going through your thoughts, and that you had a dad that as a toddler, basically that was like, let’s let’s think about all this and peel it apart.

00:16:53:11 – 00:17:09:16

Nick McGowan

I’d imagine there were times you’re like, I don’t want to. I don’t want to do that. We’re talking about what’s going on. But I’m sure you also learned a lot years later when you can look back at it and I joke with people that I think we learn a lot from our parents, but we also learn a lot of what not to do from our parents.

00:17:09:25 – 00:17:21:15

Nick McGowan

Love you, mom and dad. You know, there are certain things that happen that you go, Huh? Note to self, don’t do that. Then there are other things. You go where you go, damn, that’s exactly how it’s done.

00:17:21:26 – 00:17:42:14

Brian Goldsack

Yeah. I actually have a speaking to a professor of mine. He was a literature professor and I was voicing some frustrations I had about my dad. This was like ten years ago. And he goes, Yeah. Brian, you’re going to go through that. He goes, When you’re little, you think your dad’s amazing. When you get to your teenage years and to your mid-twenties, you think your dad’s an idiot.

00:17:43:03 – 00:18:06:28

Brian Goldsack

He goes, But then there’s going to come a day where your parents are gone and it’s just you, and you’re a man alone in this world. And you think about what did your dad do to be able to put up with this suffering? And I wish that he was still here. Share with me how he made it through this part of his life.

00:18:07:14 – 00:18:28:16

Brian Goldsack

But there is always a part of kind of my thinking that was like your parents can be irritating for sure, but there’s going to be a day where they’re not here to always try to love them and respect them and try to not sweat the small stuff with the shortcomings. Because there’s going to be a day where you’re like, Damn, I wish I just gave my mom a couple more hugs when she was here.

00:18:29:11 – 00:18:55:29

Nick McGowan

Yeah, it’s hard to realize that as a shitty kid, you know? Sure. Somebody in high school that’s like, screw you, mom and Dad, I’m going to go do whatever I want. Remember, there was a time I think I was about in my teens, like early teens or so. And my dad told me basically what you started off with, like you’re going to go through these stages, you’re going to be a teenager, you’re going to think I’m an idiot by the time you’re 18, you’re going to know I’m an idiot.

00:18:56:11 – 00:19:09:06

Nick McGowan

And then by the time you’re 21, you’re going to be like, you know, Pop was right in certain ways, but fuck that guy. And I still know all things in the world. They taught you at 25, you’re going to be like, Wait, maybe you knew a couple things. And then by the time you reach 30, you’re going to be like, Yo, dude, my bad.

00:19:09:19 – 00:19:31:07

Nick McGowan

I’m sorry. And each milestone, I had conversations with him and he was like, Told you, told you, I told you. But how do you it’s true. How do you do that? When you were a little kid? You’re in the moment. We can’t. But now you’re a dad. So what does that look like for you to be able to empower your children, knowing what you know and what you’ve gone through?

00:19:31:07 – 00:20:01:03

Brian Goldsack

Mm hmm. Well, it’s when you become a dad, it really makes you think about the way you are. Because, to your point, be the way you parent your children has such a profound effect on the type of people that they become, that it then makes you begin to question your philosophies. You want to make sure that you’re setting your kids up to be successful.

00:20:01:03 – 00:20:30:11

Brian Goldsack

You want to make sure that you’re setting your kids up to be joyful. You want to make sure that you’re setting your kids up to have peace in their life and to be okay. So for me, when I, I mean, my children are only four, but the last four years of my life have been a perpetual state of self-analysis, questioning all of the things that I accepted as true, to make sure that there’s not some bullshit stuck in my brain that is going to hurt them in some way.

00:20:30:11 – 00:20:44:05

Brian Goldsack

So hopefully I can find that out to allow them to cope in this world. There’s so much craziness in this world. Do you want them to have a good, solid foundation while they’re still with you to be able to survive?

00:20:45:09 – 00:21:05:05

Nick McGowan

It’s a solid point that, you know, I’ve heard different people say, I think everybody needs to take a test. Like you need to be able to take a test, pass that test to have kids. And that might be part of that test to be able to actually go through and think about all the stuff. I would imagine it’s probably easier when you go to plan children like, All right, so let’s start this thing.

00:21:05:05 – 00:21:23:16

Nick McGowan

Let’s pop out a couple kids instead of being like, Oh, we had a party and either way we’re going to have a kid. And about eight months, you know, but being able to actually plan that stuff out, think it through. I think, look, and I don’t have kids. I don’t I want kids at some point, don’t have any right now.

00:21:23:16 – 00:21:44:21

Nick McGowan

But I couldn’t imagine what life would have been like if I had a kid when my parents had me and they were in their young twenties. So I remember growing up thinking like, you guys don’t know what you’re doing and whatever. And really they did the best that they could because in some ways I was right. They had no fucking idea what they were doing, but they were doing everything they could to be able to do the best thing for the kid.

00:21:45:01 – 00:22:02:02

Nick McGowan

Couldn’t imagine having a kid at a younger age, but not knowing all the things that I know now. So for you to be able to kind of hyper focus and go, I’ve got to dig in all of this and then your buddy takes his life, that’s an immense amount. So kind of sidebar here, man. How are you doing?

00:22:02:22 – 00:22:04:16

Nick McGowan

You’re right. You’re doing okay.

00:22:05:17 – 00:22:40:07

Brian Goldsack

To be honest. I mean, there’s definitely suffering in my heart, but I guess to me, I never thought that there wasn’t supposed to be suffering, if that makes sense. So I think I was always under the impression that there’s just going to be a certain element of life where terrible, terrible, terrible things could happen at any time. I didn’t expect I mean, that wasn’t the only thing that happened in 2020 to me.

00:22:40:24 – 00:23:05:10

Brian Goldsack

And my sister passed away from lung cancer. One of my buddies who was going to help me open the judo school died of COVID. His anniversary’s coming up in about three days of his death. There’s a lot of wacky of my grandmother died. So all of these crazy things happen to me and that the whole time I felt the pain, I allowed myself to feel the pain.

00:23:05:10 – 00:23:36:05

Brian Goldsack

But I don’t think I ever expected for life to not have pain. So I think for me, the reason I’m able to kind of cope and not go kooky is I kind of like I don’t know, I thought this could happen at any time. So when you’re kind of like thinking to yourself, Hey, there is going to be a better few scoops is suffering in this life you feel okay about not okay about it, but you can cope better with it when it happens.

00:23:36:13 – 00:24:00:14

Nick McGowan

Yeah. It makes me think of the people that just say this isn’t fair, life isn’t fair. I wasn’t supposed to be dealt this hand or what have you, and that almost looks like you’re just looking backward instead of going, well, all right. And here’s what we got in front of us. How do we move along? And I think that’s that’s a major point of the mindset, you know, to be able to figure out, like, here’s where I’m at, what’s going on.

00:24:01:04 – 00:24:22:24

Nick McGowan

Do you remember the movie Memento now? I think it was the mid 2000. This guy basically had like a goldfish mind where he would just remember for a couple of seconds at a time. He had to be hyper aware because that’s all he was. He was living in the moment, he was present and I remember there was one time where he was running and he came to and he was like, Oh shit.

00:24:22:24 – 00:24:40:07

Nick McGowan

So I think I’m running after that guy. And he was a gunner, so he’s running after me. Then he turns around because he realized, but in that moment it took him a couple seconds to be like, Where am I? What’s going on? And I’m moving along. But it’s that awareness to be able to be in that moment that I think some people just get stuck in.

00:24:40:07 – 00:24:57:16

Nick McGowan

Well, I don’t like how this thing worked out and I really want to be upset about it. Like, look, you you can be upset about it. You can talk to people, you can think through this stuff, but you’ve got to be able to get through it and you’ve got to actually call out what’s going on and be mindful of it.

00:24:58:15 – 00:25:20:03

Nick McGowan

Man, I didn’t know that you’ve gone through as much stuff that you’ve gone through. That’s an immense amount. And for you to be as positive as you are, I think, is a testament to what you’ve put in place with the process that you kind of have that you’ve gone through. We scratch the surface a little bit of the process thing that you’ve done because you’ve kind of given me the ends, like the book ends in a sense.

00:25:20:10 – 00:25:27:15

Nick McGowan

This is what happened, these things happened. But in those moments where you were just not in a good headspace, how did you get yourself back?

00:25:28:19 – 00:26:09:21

Brian Goldsack

Wow, great question. How did I get my self back? Well, I. I got very into my faith. I started reading a lot about God, that spirituality, which always has helped me even prior to this, prior to all the 2020 stuff that was happening. And what I tried to do was just really think, you know, I have a lot of blessings too.

00:26:10:14 – 00:26:42:27

Brian Goldsack

There is a lot of things that I had to be joyful for in my life, and I didn’t want the sorrow and the circumstances that affected me in 2020 to have a negative impact on the happy parts of my life. I wanted to be able to to accept the bad parts, feel the pain from the bad parts. But I also wanted to be in a good enough space to feel good about the good parts.

00:26:43:24 – 00:27:00:09

Brian Goldsack

So what I did was I started to get into my faith and not just my faith. I started just reading about religion in general. I was reading this one book called The Tanya. I was listening to a lecture on it, which is in Orthodox Judaism. I’m Christian, but I’ll study anything, anything. And that helped me out a lot.

00:27:00:09 – 00:27:30:11

Brian Goldsack

I was listening to lectures on that and then I started to get very creative. I started to get very creative. I started to try to express myself more and get into some of the goals that I had in life, which is what ultimately ended up leading to me starting a podcast with my co-host, Chris Sykes. So the summer of 2021 was kind of like when things simmer down and I was like, Look, you only live once.

00:27:31:18 – 00:27:57:16

Brian Goldsack

Why don’t I try this podcast thing that I’ve been talking about for years, but I never did it, and I linked up with my co-host Chris Sykes that summer and if any risks, he’s like a pit bull you like if you say, Hey, Chris, I was thinking about sailing as a hobby. Two weeks later, Chris Sykes will have a sailboat purchased and a captain, and he’ll be like, Look, it’s out on the docks right now.

00:27:57:16 – 00:28:15:28

Brian Goldsack

Let’s go. And you’re like, Damn, all right, here we go. So he’s like, So Chris Sykes came into my life, and, you know, we we started trying some stuff. We started taking some risks, trying to, you know, leave the realm of the past and try to make the future super exciting.

00:28:16:15 – 00:28:37:09

Nick McGowan

So now that you’re in the podcast world, it sounds like there’s a lot of people that started the podcast, and I’m one of those where you talked about it for a while. You’re like, I should do it, I should do it, I should do it. And then by the time you get into it, you realize, Wow, there’s a lot more fun, there’s a lot of work, but this is a lot to kind of digest and we get to have these awesome conversations like you’re having now.

00:28:37:09 – 00:28:54:10

Nick McGowan

So you went through all of that and then you’re like, you know, it’s about summer time. What do you say we just start up a podcast? I don’t have enough stuff going on, so let’s dove into that yet. You and I had a conversation recently where you told me that you were right around 50 episodes, which is a giant milestone.

00:28:54:14 – 00:29:11:04

Nick McGowan

A lot of podcasts never get close to that because people get through a couple and go, Fuck this, I’m out. Like, This is too much work. I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t know how to talk or whatever. But I think as you go on, I’m right around ten episodes at this point. By the time years comes out, it’ll be, you know, a handful past that.

00:29:11:15 – 00:29:23:25

Nick McGowan

And there’s a lot of stuff that I’ve learned already through this. But for you to have to process through everything you had to process through and then to jump into a podcast, do you feel like some of that was you seeking a bit of therapy?

00:29:24:15 – 00:29:56:16

Brian Goldsack

It’s a great, great observation. There could be an element to that for sure. I mean, really the nature of the show is pondering the question what does it actually mean to be successful? And both my co-host and I work in financial services, so we go into it with kind of a fine, or we went into it with a very like finance driven kind of frame of mind.

00:29:56:16 – 00:30:31:26

Brian Goldsack

So the beginning of our show was almost exclusively interviewing very successful entrepreneurs and business owners and executives and attorneys. But the more we started going into the show, we started to realize that even like these top executives have their own version of what they view success to be. So then it started to shift. Now we have spiritual leaders on the show and people that are in nonprofit organizations and historians and psychologists and physiologists try to get this whole mind, body spirit approach to it.

00:30:31:26 – 00:31:05:03

Brian Goldsack

So I think the the the bad experiences I had got that question going in my mind as to like when you’re on your deathbed, when you’re sitting there and you are moments away from taking your last breath and you’re reflecting upon your life, what’s it really going to take for you to feel like you did a good job?

00:31:05:28 – 00:31:30:13

Brian Goldsack

That you can say, Hey, mission accomplished. Is it financial? Will you sit down and say, My God, I wish my 41k was just a little bit bigger now. I don’t feel like I had a fulfilling life, right? Is it spiritual? Is it family? Is it physical? Right. So we don’t really have the answers, but the entire podcast is just trying to figure the answers out to have a more well-rounded philosophy on it.

00:31:31:16 – 00:31:49:08

Nick McGowan

And I love that you have a platform for people to actually be able to get on and talk about that stuff. So I’m going to jump out on a limb here, pretty thick limb, but I can almost guess that most people haven’t thought about that. They don’t think about that. We’ve heard so many times, well, I don’t want to regret something on your deathbed.

00:31:49:08 – 00:32:02:17

Nick McGowan

And people are like, Oh, yeah, I won’t, you know, I like what I do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think at the back of their mind they’re like, Fuck that, I’ll think about that in the future. I’ll let future me deal with that when they’re lying on their deathbed, because it’s just too difficult to get to that.

00:32:02:25 – 00:32:17:10

Nick McGowan

Now, obviously, with your show, you have people that have thought through that, hence the guest that you’re able to talk through. But can you share some of the stuff that you guys have gone through and some of like the tips and tricks and maybe some of the patterns that you’ve kind of caught throughout these conversations?

00:32:17:22 – 00:32:59:11

Brian Goldsack

Sure. I would say that a lot of the people that feel that they are living successful are feeling lives are on the edge of where their creative minds are capable of going. Okay. If that while I’ll explain what I mean, because it’s kind of a cryptic, vague statement. So there are plenty of people that always wonder, hey, if I really was doing what I wanted to do, I would start that business or I would, you know, move out into the woods of Alaska and just trying to live off the land.

00:32:59:11 – 00:33:18:01

Brian Goldsack

Or I would make that hot tub manufacturing plant, whatever, right? Like we all have these things that we’re into. We all have our own interests. We all have our own desires. Our imagination goes to these places where, you know, if only if, if, only if. I think I would feel happy if I were here. I think I would feel happy if I did this.

00:33:18:01 – 00:33:45:23

Brian Goldsack

I feel like that’s just part of the human condition, right? The people that have achieved success and feel fulfilled are the ones that tried it are the ones that actually said, I want to open up a hot tub manufacturing plant. So I’m going to open up a hot tub manufacturing plant. And it doesn’t mean that it will always work, but sometimes they will end up hitting gold or through failure.

00:33:45:23 – 00:34:11:29

Brian Goldsack

Find out what in fact they did want to do. But I think a lot of people and I live like in this shell thinking about what if, what if, what if, what if, never try any of the things and then later regret not even giving it a shot with one because they’re afraid that they’re going to fail. They know super successful respect, failure, try to prevent failure at all costs, but a failure happens.

00:34:12:10 – 00:34:21:01

Brian Goldsack

They view it as kind of like, you know, a learning experience. You hear that a lot. But really, that is what I’m noticing with them.

00:34:21:29 – 00:34:39:18

Nick McGowan

You’ve got to take those hits and then be able to just keep moving along again. I think it goes back to the awareness of that. You know, the people that they just something happens and they go, well, that’s it. I knew it was going to happen. I knew it was going to end up like this. This was just be shitty and that’s the way that that goes.

00:34:39:25 – 00:34:55:05

Nick McGowan

I almost think that’s kind of teeters on the line to the fixed and growth mindset because the people that have the growth mindset are looking in that direction to go well, I expect that I’m going to get punched in the mouth every once in a while. I just hope that I don’t lose any teeth, you know, and kind of keep going.

00:34:55:05 – 00:35:21:28

Nick McGowan

Right now, other people just go, Wow, I got knocked out and I got knocked out and they stay there. I often will pray that prayer to God where I’m like, stretch me. And that’s one of those things where I’m like, This is just painful. And I’m like, I know that you’re going to open up opportunities and I’m willing, so stretch me, go for it, and slam my face into the wall, but just don’t break my nose, just make me get the point and be able to understand where things are going.

00:35:22:29 – 00:35:29:26

Nick McGowan

So I think if we have the right mindset, success can really be whatever we want it to be. Do you agree with that?

00:35:30:02 – 00:35:38:26

Brian Goldsack

Absolutely. Absolutely. Observe something that you said reminded me of a conversation I was having with my cousin in law. Shout out to Joe Carl Loney.

00:35:41:16 – 00:35:49:10

Brian Goldsack

So he the Ph.D. material science engineer from Cornell. So he’s like crazy. Really?

00:35:49:12 – 00:35:50:20

Nick McGowan

Pardon me then, Joe.

00:35:51:17 – 00:36:16:00

Brian Goldsack

Dr. Joe. Dr. Karlan. And yet he’s I was like, you know, anytime I’m around somebody super smart, I just have to pick their brain on the thing they’re super smart in because, like, dude knows a lot about metal. Why am I going to talk to him about, like, you know, Japanese politics? Like, it’s stupid, right? So I’m talking to him about metal and I was like, why did the Japanese fold their metal so much when they were making a sword?

00:36:16:13 – 00:36:45:18

Brian Goldsack

And he explained to me that kind of like atoms when they’re resting are very happy, just resting. They’re very happy, like iron atoms. They just want to be iron atoms. They don’t want anything to happen, they just want to be what they are. But as things get heated up and you bend the metal and you slam it together with a mallet, it starts to excite the iron atoms and it starts to kind of create a little bit of chaos inside that little lump of metal that you have.

00:36:46:04 – 00:37:10:17

Brian Goldsack

And if you bend it again, all that again creates more chaos. It excites you. I iron atoms even more. And the more you bend and fold, bend and fold, the more chaotic the atomic structure of that lump becomes. And it can get to the point become so chaotic that anything it touches, it cuts through because it’s just all these crazy, chaotic atoms in a little bar.

00:37:10:25 – 00:37:36:29

Brian Goldsack

And that’s how you make a strong, versatile sword. Okay, so when I was listening to him, I always try to gear things back into like their applicability and sometimes, like, you know, tied into success. Right. And I thought, hmm, how true is that? That sometimes through very chaotic, hot, crazy situations, almost some type of a refining process happens.

00:37:37:09 – 00:37:54:19

Brian Goldsack

And the more you can kind of just fold that into the way you’re living, the more versatile and strong you become. So you need to be able to kind of throw yourself in the furnace and allow that refining to occur in order for you to be able to do some cool shit.

00:37:55:00 – 00:38:25:05

Nick McGowan

Yeah, well, the refining process, the visual to that, I think of just being afraid to step into the fire, being like, I know it’s right there, but once we step in, it’s really our power to be able to actually grow from everybody’s been through some shit. Everybody, I don’t know anybody that hasn’t been through something. I know people that hide it, you know, people that just think that they haven’t been through shit because that wall is still there and they haven’t gotten through it or process through it.

00:38:25:24 – 00:38:50:12

Nick McGowan

But then that refining, I think back through even the listeners right now take a moment and think back through some of those tough situations that you’ve been through. If you hadn’t gone through that situation, however terrible it was, you wouldn’t be who you are now. You know, I think of people that have terrible, terrible things rapes, murders and all those things that affect them in certain ways.

00:38:50:25 – 00:39:14:11

Nick McGowan

And they can start pointing fingers or they can actually do something with it, and it can be so it can be weird to some people. I had a cousin that was murdered when I was in high school and oh my God, was it sucked. It was special. It was twins. So the one held the other as he died and I remember saying to my mom like, Well, this is something for us to learn from.

00:39:14:26 – 00:39:33:00

Nick McGowan

And it probably wasn’t the right time to be able to say that because we’re all just kind of hurting, you know, and we’re at the wake and all of that. But it hit me at an early age, and I’m not exactly sure where that came from, but I think that might be one of those just innate traits of looking at the positive side of things.

00:39:33:06 – 00:39:48:23

Nick McGowan

And for those that don’t have that innate trait, I really wish there was a pill we could give you and go, Hey, just look at the positive side of it. But I think you said it earlier. It’s a choice, right? You can either be shitting or you can be happy. And that choice is really up to us.

00:39:49:14 – 00:40:12:12

Brian Goldsack

And first of all, I’m sorry for like the chance to live through that. And I’m a father of twins myself. So the way you just described that was heart wrenching. But to your point, you have to think, you know, if they were still with us, how would they want you to cope with this? But they want you to be in a prolonged state of suffering, mourning their death?

00:40:12:27 – 00:40:29:13

Brian Goldsack

Or would they prefer if you took that situation and grew from it and became better? I mean, if I passed away, I would want all the people that loved and cared about me. Of course, you know, mourn my death. I wouldn’t want people doing a cartwheel when I die. Don’t get me wrong.

00:40:30:00 – 00:40:31:14

Nick McGowan

Go. Yeah, yeah.

00:40:31:14 – 00:40:57:03

Brian Goldsack

He’s dead. Great. I wouldn’t want that. But on that same note, I wouldn’t want them to crumble from it either. I wouldn’t want them to fall into a permanent state of depression that they were unable to get out of. It’s like a homage to my dad. I would not want them to be that way, nor do I think any of our ones that we lost.

00:40:57:21 – 00:41:08:05

Brian Goldsack

Nor would they want us to be that way. They want you to mourn them, you know, it’s understandable, but not a permanent state. It’s not good.

00:41:09:12 – 00:41:28:25

Nick McGowan

Yeah, it’s a good point, man. I’m sure if we think of the people that we’ve lost, if we think back to the conversations we’ve had with them, if you were to actually sit down your mind’s eye, have that conversation with that person, they would probably smack you upside your head. Whoever it is, they’re like, I’m gone. What’s wrong with you?

00:41:28:25 – 00:41:48:15

Nick McGowan

Get the fuck out there. Go do this. Go do that. Oh, I highly doubt there any people, even the people that have taken their lives that were sad, I would still assume that they would have a bit of a hey, but you can do better than I did instead of just, yeah, you should live here. It almost seems like it’s a demonic thing.

00:41:48:18 – 00:41:56:00

Nick McGowan

Maybe. Maybe that’s a different podcast episode that we can go through.

00:41:56:00 – 00:42:17:19

Brian Goldsack

Yeah, that’s good. I mean, yeah, you wouldn’t want I mean, you wouldn’t want to let that make you crumble. I mean, if you end up rambling from it, hell, you know, make an amazing business and name a building after them so they live on forever. So yeah.

00:42:17:23 – 00:42:18:02

Nick McGowan

Yeah.

00:42:18:21 – 00:42:29:22

Brian Goldsack

That’s, that’s a homage. That’s a real homage. You don’t make the martial arts all in their name and make it a kick ass martial arts school that, you know, is a pillar of the community. That is what they would want. They they wouldn’t want you to suffer.

00:42:30:22 – 00:42:48:14

Nick McGowan

That’s a good point. Like taking the baton and it’s now your job to kind of run with that, to responsibility. But it’s also an opportunity mean it seems like you’ve done a lot of work and that you continue to do a lot of work. So when you think about the deep work that you’re doing, what are you working through right now?

00:42:48:14 – 00:42:54:11

Nick McGowan

That just full honesty that you can say, Look, I’m struggling a bit with this, but here’s how I’m working on that.

00:42:54:11 – 00:43:32:01

Brian Goldsack

Yeah, great question. So much of my thought is going to I mean, if I’m being honest with you going to the podcast, I think that this forum and this media platform that you and I function in is is almost like the digital equivalent of Wild West, like a new frontier, or where people are taking their claim and being out there doing the Homesteading Act.

00:43:32:01 – 00:43:56:12

Brian Goldsack

You could put four stakes down wherever you want and make a farm there you can mine for gold. You can trap raccoons and make hats out on. There’s all it’s like this. So much opportunity here and there’s so much room for you to really get your voice out there and be honest and create in a way that I don’t think we really could have done.

00:43:56:15 – 00:44:21:03

Brian Goldsack

Like, let’s say if you and I had a TV show or something like that. Yeah. And I think that having that degree of freedom creates a certain degree of stress in my mind, because when there’s this blank palette where they say, Hey, Nick, I’m giving you an easel, paint on it, you kind of go like, Oh my God, what am I going to paint on this damn thing?

00:44:21:23 – 00:44:44:27

Brian Goldsack

And like, you’re like, should I draw a flower? And I don’t know. I don’t know if I like flowers that much. Should I draw like a vase or should I do a portrait of my mom? Right. So there’s a certain degree of stress that I feel right now because I want this show to be something that is unique.

00:44:45:12 – 00:45:12:11

Brian Goldsack

I want this show to be something that can truly help people have a well-rounded philosophy on life. And one thing that my co-host always says to me is, whatever ends up happening with this show, there is now a digital archive of some of your deepest thoughts available, at the very least to your children. If one day I end up passing away and my kids ever say, What the heck is my dad saying?

00:45:12:11 – 00:45:32:03

Brian Goldsack

What would my father have said or done in this type of situation? If I had to face adversity or if I wanted to start a business or if I wanted to be a spiritual leader, whatever is going to be like a little digital catalog there for all of my loved ones, so they can always truly know who I am and what I stood for at the very least.

00:45:32:05 – 00:45:40:21

Brian Goldsack

So no matter what, I view it as a win win. But I still feel a certain amount of stress because I’m like, Come on, we got to rock this thing. We got to make this something good. We’re going to make it awesome.

00:45:41:23 – 00:46:00:04

Nick McGowan

If you’re going to do it, you got to do it right. You can’t have acid. You got to go in and do it. And that can look different for everybody. I think I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast that there are certain people I talk to where they’re like, Look, I turn this thing on, I record, then I’m finished and I upload and I move along with life and that’s totally great.

00:46:00:15 – 00:46:34:24

Nick McGowan

And then there are other people that are like, This is a full production and people like you and I that actually join forces with certain companies to be able to help with some of that sort of stuff. And that’s going through and using the resources to be able to help you. The fact that there’s a platform for us to be able to talk about the things that matter to us is important more than I think a lot of people understand, because I think where social media want it to go and maybe it’s still got time to get there, was to be able to be that documentation for people instead of just a positive bullshit board

00:46:34:26 – 00:46:54:27

Nick McGowan

where people go, Here’s this thing that I want you to see, but I don’t want to show you all the mess behind it. I was actually thinking about that earlier. I was recording an episode, an upcoming episode, doing some clips, and I thought, you know, the background looks great, but if you look at my desk, I get so much shit on my desk and stuff all over the place and I’m like, That’s kind of an example.

00:46:54:27 – 00:47:14:09

Nick McGowan

Social media, like, look at the background. At some point I’ll show all the shit on my desk. It’s mainly just wires and guitar picks and pans and stuff like that. But I think in this sort of situation we can actually be more authentic, we can be real, and we can talk about the stuff that actually matters for us.

00:47:14:21 – 00:47:37:06

Nick McGowan

And I encourage anybody that’s got any sort of podcast or show or anything that they’re doing to just jam on the things that matter to you. But do not try to be a fucking bullshit artist and do the things that don’t really matter to you because we can see it. You know, I think it’s a matter of understanding what what your lane is and what you want that to look like.

00:47:37:06 – 00:47:56:13

Nick McGowan

Man, I’m so excited that you’ve actually found the lane that you’re rock and roll with outside of financial, and that this is a podcast that you think is actually benefiting people. The fact that you have some stress actually shows that you care about it, because if you didn’t and you were like, Man, I don’t really care. We have conversation and yeah, it is what it is.

00:47:56:29 – 00:48:07:02

Nick McGowan

I would question that because you should actually care about what you put out there. Just like any company should care about what they put out there, content, product, whatever that is, you know. But it’s got to be real.

00:48:07:22 – 00:48:29:22

Brian Goldsack

To be real. And in realness, there’s vulnerability, isn’t there? Mm hmm. You get to be you. And it could be really real. Could be really, really in a public forum. Take some balls from them and, you know, you wonder if you have anything worth being said sometimes. But how would you know unless you say it?

00:48:30:01 – 00:48:59:18

Nick McGowan

Exactly. And you wonder if people are going to care or if they’re not going to care. And there are times where I hear things and I’m early in this game and not in the game of coaching and talking with people, but in the game of podcast, I hear from different people that are like, Hey, I listen to this and this made me think of this thing and I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I went through this sort of situation, Wow, there’s stuff that’s happening that’s within my warm close group of friends that listen and then people that are even outside of that that are starting to be impacted, where some ways

00:48:59:18 – 00:49:15:06

Nick McGowan

I think, how dare I not do this when there’s so much opportunity out there to be able to help people. And it helps me at the same time, just like it sounds like it’s doing for you, you know, we think of the conversations. They’re they’re important to be had. You know.

00:49:16:00 – 00:49:40:11

Brian Goldsack

I agree. And it also kind of makes you like if you’re going to be talking about self-mastery, to your point, you want to make sure that you’re always on the cutting edge of what it actually means to master yourself. So as a responsible show host, you think to yourself, I’m going to be talking about this, I need to study this, I need to make this my craft in.

00:49:40:11 – 00:49:55:03

Brian Goldsack

It’s going to have a great effect on your life. I always think about that with success fundamentals. I was like, Well, now I have to be successful because I’m not going to be like living under a boardwalk somewhere, talking to people about how to be successful. I’m going to be like, Isn’t that the guy that lives on the boardwalk?

00:49:55:12 – 00:50:06:11

Brian Goldsack

It’s not going to be exactly, exactly. So. But yeah, it is. It has been a great experience. It has been great experience.

00:50:07:01 – 00:50:24:21

Nick McGowan

Yeah, I think you’re right with that. There there’s a bit of responsibility where we have to be on, we have to be mindful of our stuff. But I think that’s also maybe what led us. It sounds like there are at least people I’ve had conversation with that there are similarities to the paths of how we got to creating a show.

00:50:25:05 – 00:50:43:07

Nick McGowan

We’re like, Oh, I felt like I needed to do something like this. I started to work on these things and then I started to share them. And there’s kind of that journey that you go through in that sense, and I appreciate that. We both have these are these platforms to be able to talk about things. And you’ve been on mine.

00:50:43:07 – 00:51:00:07

Nick McGowan

I’m excited to be on yours. I think we’re booked in maybe a month, month and a half or something like that. Calendar’s just a little crazy right now. I mean, I really appreciate you being on the show today. If you had to give one piece of advice to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery, what would you give them?

00:51:01:17 – 00:51:27:27

Brian Goldsack

You know, I would go back to what we were saying earlier. You you have you have choices, right? You have choices about how you feel. You have choices about the things you do and you have choices. Why don’t you pick the thing that makes you happy? Why not choose to be joyful? So that would be my $0.02. You have choices to make the choice to have a joyful, happy life.

00:51:28:26 – 00:51:34:17

Nick McGowan

Beautiful. Choose Joy. Ryan, appreciate being on the show today. Thank you very much for your time.

00:51:35:15 – 00:51:46:17

Brian Goldsack

It was a pleasure, Nick. Thank you for having me.

00:51:46:17 – 00:52:10:15

Nick McGowan

Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. The visual about being gift to the farm really hit home for me. Think about it the dichotomy between pain and pleasure would be enormous to be sad, thankful, yet obligated and encouraged all at the same time. It’s such a gift that comes with the payment plan of hard work.

00:52:11:07 – 00:52:42:10

Nick McGowan

So how do you think you’d handle that situation? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the conversation today. So if you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to iTunes and subscribe right and leave a five star review. And if you really enjoyed the show today, please go ahead and share it with your friends. Check out the show notes for more info, contact info for Brian and check out other episodes on the mindset and Self-mastery show dot com as well as our YouTube channel and just search the mindset and Self-mastery Show will pop right up.

00:52:42:22 – 00:53:00:04

Nick McGowan

And thank you again Brian for being on the show, for being honest, raw and real with us. And thank you to you for joining us today. And remember, your mindset matters and so do you.