Raw Talk, Real Recovery – Nathan Buttigieg on Addiction, Discipline, and Mental Toughness

Brad Minus: [00:00:00] And welcome back to another episode of life changing challengers. I am really excited. Everybody. I have Nathan buddy gig, and he is all the way from Australia and he is a personal development coach. And we're going to share his incredible Instagram profile with you right when we get towards the end there because it's something special like you got to be thinking David Goggins meets one of the best trainers in the world.

And that's where you're going to find this guy because he's absolutely the real deal and he talks it like it is. And it's so rare to find that. So I'm really excited. As you can tell, Nathan, I'm like, I'm excited. So, Hey, how are you doing today? 

Nathan Buttigieg: Good, man. So good. The only way to give advice is to live it.

So I just live it and it's way easier to give it when you do. 

Brad Minus: Absolutely. The same, you know, I do the same thing with my clients, but first, let me ask you a question, Nathan. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? What was the area you grew up in?

And what was it like to be Nathan as a [00:01:00] kid? 

Nathan Buttigieg: I was mainly like a pretty shy kid, pretty awkward, socially awkward. I didn't talk much. I gamed a lot. I grew up where I am right now. You'll find out why later on. But, I'm in a tiny house, tiny house on my parents' property in South Gippsland Victoria, Australia.

And, yeah, I grew up here, man. It's, it's quiet out here. It's green. It's farming country. Like I grew up with, I always had a really good childhood. My parents were good. They stayed together. Like mom and dad never fought in front of us. There was no like drug abuse. There was no like everyone drinks in Australia, super young.

Like that's kind of just the culture. So there was nothing like crazy bad. It was just, yeah, growing up, I mainly just gamed. I was a quiet kid. I just like my own space and doing my own thing. And, I guess later on is what we got into all the party stuff, but, yeah. 

Brad Minus: What about brothers and sisters?

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, I got, two sisters, one I haven't seen in probably 17 years or something like that. [00:02:00] And then one brother as well. One of my brothers, one of my sisters have different dads. One of my sisters is the same dad as me. 

Brad Minus: And so are you, is the youngest, which one of your, and you're the youngest and it says you haven't seen in 17 years.

Is that the full sister or is that the half sister? She's, half different dad. Okay. All right. And the rest, are you still close? 

Nathan Buttigieg: I'm pretty close with my full sister and my brother as well. We're pretty close. Our family isn't like. Super, super under each other's feet all the time.

We catch up and we say what's up and kind of stuff like that. It's nothing crazy. My chick, her sisters, they're all tight as you know, like that they talk to each other every day. They given each other updates on everything. We're not like that.

We just catch up whenever. And, and, we talked for a while. 

Brad Minus: So. It's my family's kind of like the same way. A lot of my family lives in North Carolina, but we all grew up in Chicago. And that's so we all just kind of like separated and moved away from places.

But I will say that even though I haven't [00:03:00] spoken with them, like, I have a cousin I haven't spoke with and I don't know, 15 years. I gotta tell you, if I contacted him and said I needed help, he'd be there. Is that the kind of the same thing? 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, it's the same thing. My whole family is like that.

Brad Minus: That's lucky in the 

Nathan Buttigieg: sense that mom and dad are set up like that. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, exactly. I think my parents and my parents siblings, they all provided that same thing and then their families provided it. So it's like, all right, you know what? We could be mad at each other as a family.

But if you need something, I'm there, you know, yeah, 

Nathan Buttigieg: yeah, yeah, you gotta put like little stuff to the side of the family. We've had to do the same a lot of times, but not with the, not with the system. That's all. 

Brad Minus: I get it. So you said you started gaming, you were gaming all the time.

Where did, how'd that start? 

Nathan Buttigieg: Oh yeah, I was gaming at like, 7 years old, I got a Gameboy, and then probably 10, 12 years old, I got a PlayStation with Black Ops 1. And then after Black Ops 1, that was just my life. I played other games like Ratchet and Clank, and played like Tony Hawk, and, Need for Speed, stuff like that.

[00:04:00] But once I got COD, that was it. That was my life. I obsessed over that. There was that one point, I was 27th in the world, Australia and New Zealand servers at Black Ops 1. So, wow. Yeah. I was like, I made, my main account was I scope JFK 7, 6, 5 and then, I made heaps of other ones because you tried to get like a good KD and hit ranks and stuff like that. And then PLA Ops two as well, we played out. I was pretty good at that, it was just like public matches. I wanted to, as a kid, upload videos and stuff, but mom and dad like kind of never let me. 

Brad Minus: Oh, you wanted to kinda like be on the, on Twitch and get that going and stuff?

Yeah. TCH wasn't 

Nathan Buttigieg: It was just, you get a game card and then you plug that in and you can record your gameplay. I wanted to do that. But I was super young man. So mom and dad like really didn't know what the thing was. They didn't even really know what code was. 

Brad Minus: I get it. I get it.

Wow. Yeah. I've heard like crazy stuff about people playing, like being on marathon games where they're like, you know, they living on on Mountain Dew and they finish up the Mountain [00:05:00] Dew and they don't even go to the bathroom. You know, I think there was a, there was an article about a guy that had kidney problems.

Because that's what he was doing, you know, holding it for like 12 hours while he was playing and stuff until he finally, yeah, I was like, that's just crazy 

Nathan Buttigieg: me. But then I got a, I got a bladder of a puppy, man. So I go to all the time, but, I had like, yeah, I just drank cans of Coke and stuff as a kid.

I was lucky when I was 14 years old, we have a unit right down the back. We're on 14 acres. So, we are, we have a unit down the back and when I was 14 years old, I moved into that. So I had my own space, my own internet, and then mom and dad, like just did shopping for me like every once in a while. So I was living it as a kid.

Brad Minus: Oh my God. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yep. 

Brad Minus: 14. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. I was just eating two minute noodles, drinking cans of Coke. That was it. 

Brad Minus: So at 14, you're, that's like high school, is it high school in Australia 

Nathan Buttigieg: yeah, 13 years old, we go into year 7, and then year 8, 11, 12.

So how are your grades? Oh, they were dogs [00:06:00] Yeah, no, no, no. Because you were gaming all the time. I just didn't care about anything other than, playing games and being good at COD. I didn't, I don't even know how I got through to, I dropped out year 12. I don't know how I passed year 11 or 10 or 9 or anything like that.

I just, school was not my thing. It still isn't, man. I can't really read stuff and like, that I'm not interested in, you know, I have to be drawn to it. 

Brad Minus: So you're, for all intents and purposes, a high school dropout? 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, 100%. 

Brad Minus: Okay. 

Nathan Buttigieg: I love that. Last year of high school for anyone in other countries, the last year of high school, I dropped out.

We have a program here called VCAL you do one day of work and then one day of like TAFE, which is like a, like a, they teach you trades and stuff like that, like trade school. So we, I did that for year 10, 11 and then 12 came around and I just left cause I wasn't going anywhere. 

Brad Minus: See, it's so cool because just by going over your Instagram, I [00:07:00] know that I can just say that, right?

Like, anybody else, I'd be like, so you dropped out at year 12. You were a senior and you left. I can't say, I couldn't say, oh, you're, so basically you're a high school dropout like I just did. But you are so real. That I felt like after going through your videos on Instagram, I'm like, I can just say that to this guy.

He's real. I have no problem. 

Nathan Buttigieg: I think anyone being offended, it's a problem with them, not with the problem with the other person. 

Brad Minus: Yes. Oh, if you go through some, I've got so many episodes where I sit there and I talk to people and I'm like, offense is in the eye of the offended.

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, that's right. If it hurts you, that's like, that's a pain point of yours. Yeah, exactly. You got to fix that. Absolutely. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, 95 percent of the language that comes out of people's mouth is not meant to offend. 

Nathan Buttigieg: So, 

Brad Minus: if you're taking offense to it, that's your problem, not theirs. 

Nathan Buttigieg: If you're offended by the truth as well.

If you're overweight, and I call you fat, and that hurts, that's a huge problem for you. [00:08:00] You should be trying to fix that. If the truth hurts, like, you gotta fix that, man. You can't live a life Lying to yourself constantly and staying away from the truth because you'll never have a worldview that will serve you you'll never be able to open up to full truth you're constantly lying to yourself constantly trying to avoid it You can't really know what's going on.

Brad Minus: Oh, you should come to America and be a politician. You'd be great. Yeah, for the right side, for the Republicans. But that'd be great. But okay. So you're gaming all the time. You decided to drop out of high school and you were still gaming. I'm, I'm assuming. Where did the dark side pop up for you?

Cause gaming's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it's just, it just, it's 

Nathan Buttigieg: It can be a bad thing. If your whole life is going to something that isn't progressing it, then it's definitely a bad thing. So whether it's, whether it's food, whether it's gaming, whether it's drinking, whether it's drugs, these are all massive vices because they don't better your life in any way.

You want to, your main point of life, your main focus of [00:09:00] life wants to be progressing it, you know, making money, getting in shape, you know, getting smarter, something, something that's moving you forward. 

Brad Minus: No, I agree with that. I agree that. Okay. So I, we had changed vocabulary. So I didn't mean that it, that it wasn't bad.

It's bad as a, as a, as a bad personally, but it's not evil. Right? It's not yeah, that's I guess it doesn't make you it's not 

Nathan Buttigieg: it doesn't make you want to hurt yourself and stuff, 

Brad Minus: right, right. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, that's that's the thing is that it's not potentially evil. It's just and it's the only person that's hurting is yourself.

And that's it. And that's the thing. So, yes, it's bad. It's a vice. And especially in the way that you were doing it. Yes, it's bad for you. So, so, okay. So, but if you're just, if you're like drinking Mountain Dew and Coke and stuff and hanging around and, and, and that's, that's not a problem, where did, where did alcohol come into it?

Yeah. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yo, yo listeners point. I know, but I was an ex cocaine addict. So, ex cocaine and an alcoholic for a fair long time. And that happened, like, [00:10:00] when we were, I wasn't doing coke at 16 years old, but we started drinking super young. Here in Australia, it's kind of the culture, you're not allowed to legally, but you just, you know, you start drinking and sitting around fires, especially out here, it's country out here.

So you start doing it pretty young. So that was just like how we grew up, you know, we'll sit around fires on weekends or whenever we had spare time, I guess, and we'd drink and talk. 

Brad Minus: For 

Nathan Buttigieg: so long, that was, that was just the way. And I didn't realize that that was the way that I was learning to cope with things as well.

When I had problems in my life, I would just, you know, drink and have more fun and all that kind of stuff and just suppress whatever I was going through. And then at about 18 years old, I moved out of home, moved to Bendigo in Victoria for a pretty, wasn't a good job opportunity, but at the time I felt like it was a good opportunity.

It was at McDonald's, but, the moving higher up department manager and stuff like that, did that for a while and then got poached by a gym to run their stuff. So I worked in a gym for a little bit. 

Brad Minus: Wait, hold on a [00:11:00] second. 

Nathan Buttigieg: I mean, I like, I like things, like super simple and like, so yeah, stop me whenever you want. Otherwise I'll just run through like a whole timeline in like five minutes. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. And I'm okay with that. So, and I should have probably prepped you for that. I'll progress you forward.

I mean, that's super interesting. Okay. So I worked at McDonald's, right? I was there and I, I did the same thing when I was, you know, going in between college semesters and stuff. I would always go back to the same McDonald's. So I understand that, but how you got poached from McDonald's.

To run a gym. That's a story. 

Nathan Buttigieg: So you do like, for everyone that's worked in McDonald's, you go bottom up all the time. You start on fries, then you learn to serve, then you might learn at the back, and then you might, you learn every area out there, like how to toast buns, to how to, like, Flip burgers there.

It's all machines. You don't have to flip anything, but you learn all areas bottom up. So then I became a shift manager and then from shift manager, I went to running department. So I was doing a lot of the ordering the [00:12:00] inventory and then I went on to like people performance training, crew trainers to then train new people and.

McDonald's is set up so perfectly that they cover every single area. And then I was doing hiring and firing for a little bit, in that department. And then I was moving on to my last department to then become a store manager to run everything, from my own. And as I was, I was working, overnights at the time and the gym that was opening up was only down the road.

And they were coming in because I was setting up late at night, getting everything ready for opening and stuff like that. And they're like, Oh, we need someone that's going to end up managing in like a couple of months. Would you be interested? And, I was like, Oh yeah, that sounds good that we're just talking on shift or whatever.

It wasn't anything crazy. The girl I was with applied for that gym. She applied for a position there and then they messaged her and said, can you get your boyfriend Nathan to apply? We're reviewing yours anyway. They fully because I got the position. She didn't get the position. And then, so she stayed, she was working at McDonald's as [00:13:00] well.

She stayed there and then we ended up, breaking out. We were together seven years and you know, things just happened. It was the first relationship. It's you just learn as you go. But yeah, so I got the position of the gym. She didn't. She stayed in McDonald's. We kind of after that it was the nail in the coffin.

And then we kind of started splitting from there and called it a bit later. But yeah, the gym was finance. That was the best job I ever had. It was just reception. I was going on to manage it. But the gym never got off its feet before covid hit. 

Brad Minus: So during all this time now you're moving up the ladder here.

So what would you say the span was from the time that you started on fries to the point where you were hiring 

Nathan Buttigieg: I did 67 years at McDonald's, but I did two years. From when I was in Bendigo to nearly store manager, which you can do it way quicker. If you're smart, you'll move up really quick.

They need people all the time. But I did like four or five years back here at McDonald's. Just like three hours, 10 hours a week. Just didn't give a. 

Brad Minus: Right. So, when you moved to [00:14:00] Bendigo, were you still having issues with coke and, and, alcohol and stuff? No, 

Nathan Buttigieg: At this point, I'd never had coke in my life.

Alcohol, kind of, when we would drink, we would binge drink and just get wild as, and just do like party stuff, just have fun kind of thing. What everyone calls having fun. But, yeah, Coke didn't come till the end of, Bendigo when like COVID started, COVID hit. 

Brad Minus: Where, how did you get introduced to Coke?

Nathan Buttigieg: We were at a party, we were drinking and one of the boys was like, Oh, we should get Coke. And I was like, Oh, I never tried it before. I'll try it. It seemed like my, in my mind, it was the most expensive one. So I had to be like the cleanest, had to be the best one. So if it was like, it wasn't going to like, it's not putting heroin in my arm or meth or anything like that.

It was more expensive. So surely it's better for you and not as bad. That's not, not the case, but, none of them are good. That's, that's the truth. No, yeah. One of the boys I was drinking with got some and we tried it for the first time and I never really, maybe one other time I screwed with it, but then [00:15:00] when I moved back here, because when COVID hit, I lost my job, I couldn't pay for the house I was in that, you know, the girl that I was just talking about, we split up.

You know, phone bill, rent, all these kind of things just coming out with zero money coming in. So I went into, as well as I had a credit card and all that kind of stuff you do when you're young I was in a pretty financial spot. So the only, I mean, I spent, I spent a couple of days just doing nothing, just sleeping, kind of depressed on the situation that just went from like training all the time, having the best job, all these people around me, COVID hits, boom, everything stops.

And. The only option was to come back to mom and dad's, which I didn't want to do because that's what my siblings have done their whole life. They just, you know, rinse and repeat coming back. But, it was the only option. It was either that or be homeless. So I came back here one night at, 3 a. m.

Bendigo to here is about three hours. So I rocked up here at 3 a. m. And mom was happy to see me back and I lived in the house for a bit. And that's when [00:16:00] I got a new job down here and then kind of met someone that deals in a lot of drugs and got into cocaine way more and all that kind of stuff, drinking way more.

Brad Minus: Okay, so you were okay. So you're you're at home, you you drop out of school, and all you're doing is gaming. And then you got this job at McDonald's, you're doing three to 10. Like, where did training comes in? Is that when you started with the at the at the 

Nathan Buttigieg: I was super small as a kid.

I was probably, 17 years old. I think I was 50 kilos, something like that. 55 kilo. And then, so I started, I went to gym first when I was 17 years old and I was going, you know, like casually, I guess you don't really go six days a week when you start. So I guess I was in and out. The whole time.

And then, when I went to Bendigo, I was pretty into it, you know, going like four or five days a week. And then when I worked out of the gym, I was training all the time. I was, studying myself, not through any university or anything like that. Just self teaching through videos, [00:17:00] through reading, through everything.

I was working. I got hired at the gym on overnight. And overnights, once your cleaning is done, you're getting no people through the door. It's just super boring, but I just use that time to, study macros, study how to set up training programs, muscle groups, everything, hypertrophy, strength training, everything.

I just self taught. I had so much time, dude. There were eight hour shifts, maybe six hours. I'd see no one. So I just read and watched. 

Brad Minus: Yep. I started coaching 'cause of an injury. An injury that had an orthopedic surgeon and a neurosurgeon. Both agreed that I would never run more than two miles for the rest of my life.

And that was 37 marathons ago, five Ironmans, and a ton of other stuff as well. So I was exactly like you. I was on my back, recovering, and that's all I was doing was reading and reading and finding stuff and getting as much material as I possibly could. So I'm better, 

Nathan Buttigieg: I'm, that's the only way I can learn is self taught.

I [00:18:00] like having mentors and stuff is good, but I'm like, if I can find the information myself and, you know, like connect dots myself, it, it sticks way better. 

Brad Minus: I hear you. I definitely hear that. So you were already had started like learning macros and learning what was good for you and everything before you were on Coca Cocaine.

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. I was into it. I was six, seven days a week. I was training other people at the gym that wasn't getting paid for it. Cause I was like, I'm not qualified, but I can run you through programs. And I just love doing it. I love being at the everything. That's why when it all went bad so quick, I was like, so depressed and in a hole because my whole life have gone from like, Oh my God, I got the best job.

I'm helping people. I'm doing all this stuff. My gym's great. And then like, boom, one week hits and everything's gone. Everything stops. You can't go to gym anymore. And there's no point eating right because you're not training and like, just all the stuff that runs through your head. Yeah, everything stopped and I just thought I was the biggest failure because I had all this money issues and I wasn't [00:19:00] able to do anything anymore.

I got home before I even got a job done here. I got home and that's all I did was just drink. I tried to keep up the fitness stuff, like the training and stuff, like with body weight, pull ups, push ups, sit ups, but it just didn't feel the same. And I was get back to it after it's all back.

And I just got stuck in a hole, you know, 

Brad Minus: I thought so right at the beginning of COVID right before COVID. So I work on contract, you know, and how to make money. I work on contract and, I had just started this contract and then COVID hit. And the company that I was working for decided, you know, because they had this policy that if you were not an employee, if you're a contractor, you had to work at the office.

So when COVID hit and everything shut down, they're like, well, we're just going to cut all the contracts and whenever we're back, we'll pull, we'll open up the contracts again and just rehire. So I was, and I thought, man, this is going to be great because it's all we got to do is go outside. [00:20:00] And because we can go outside and we could train.

I thought I was going to be on, I thought I was going to kill it. Cause I was like, Oh, now I've got all day to get clients and get, get my clients up to speed and all that. But I didn't realize that, you know, most people lost their jobs too, or they got their funding cut or they got hours cut or they got all this stuff.

And my clients were like, Hey, I gotta put it on my, I gotta put my membership on suspension and blah, blah, blah. And here I am thinking that I've got more all this time that now I could go and spend time and be on phone calls and stuff and. Yeah, I had, I ended up with the same issue, you know, and of course I wasn't training people.

So I wasn't training. And yeah, yeah. So I was right there with you. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Everything just like stopped. Everyone stopped. Every like, you know, business, some businesses killed it. The ones that could stay open killed it. I was, I was working during, during like peak covert, the place that I worked at was classed as essential, even though it was only ties and trailer [00:21:00] parts, but somehow they were able to stay open.

And yeah, man, everything stopped. No one, everyone just, you know, just trying to get food and you're trying to like, Get money and the government didn't really give a shit. They just shut everything down 

Brad Minus: yeah, my biggest bill, I think, I think I, I got Uber eats to, to get up there a couple of points in the stock market because the amount I was paying for it, because it was the only thing you could do, you know, you could cook at home, but it was hard to get to the grocery store.

Yeah. And so, but. They were, but Uber Eats would drop it on your freaking doorstep, 

Nathan Buttigieg: We don't even get Uber Eats out here. We have it in Australia, but where I am, because it's so rural, we don't get anything. It's seven, ten minutes to drive to the closest supermarket and it's small.

The big supermarket's like 25 minutes away, 20 minutes. 

Brad Minus: Oh my. So you are, you eat what you cook, right? ? Yeah. That's it. So that keeps you to eating well and eating good. All right. So tell me about the first [00:22:00] time, what it felt like the first time that you tried cocaine.

Nathan Buttigieg: Cocaine is like a, you instantly feel good. You instantly have like a lot of energy or instantly like super, I wouldn't say motivated because you don't want to do anything. You can't concentrate for long enough. It's like, you're super just like, it's like if you have a lot of caffeine times, like probably like a hundred, you know, you instantly feel better.

You're super happy all of a sudden and everything feels good, but that only lasts like the first time you have it. It's only going to last about 30 minutes. And then you start looking for more because you start declining super quick, super, super, super quick. I always just got hard as come downs.

Like for a week, if I had like a gram and a half of Coke for a week, I would feel nothing. I would think just negative stuff. No one, like everyone's like, Oh, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I didn't give a shit about them. I didn't give a shit about nothing. I just like, if I died, I got hit by a car or something like that.

I wouldn't [00:23:00] care. I wouldn't just wouldn't care at all. Like dopamine spikes so much that it has to come down and it comes down so far below baseline. That like you feel like you're in hell. You feel nothing like you could have the person that you love the most, you know, say or do the best things.

And still you would just be like, oh, wow, 

Brad Minus: you had a different experience than I did, but I only had one. I've only had one experience and it scared me so, so much that I just, I dropped it down the toilet, but I, I was out with the boys and we were having a poker night and I was mentioning, I was complaining that I had.

I was doing residential appraisal and basically it's a two part thing. You go to the house, you take pictures, you look around, you measure, blah, blah, blah. And then you got to sit down and do these reports. And these reports would take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to do. And I was complaining about it and one guy said, Hey, you know what?

I just happen to have some coke here that might help you. And I'm like, I'm not doing that, blah, blah, blah. [00:24:00] He goes, you know, you might want to try it, might help you out. You know, and I had a stack of like 20 or 30 reports I had to get done. So they gave me some and they told me they're like, Hey, take two lines.

And then every so often when you start to feel something come down, then bump with a key. Just key you up. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: All reports done that night, like all night. I worked all night. I was so zoned in. I everything that night and I kept bumping and then I went to the gym and then I went to go turn in my reports and when I got home because it was, I was pretty far away from the office.

Because basically it was, you know, you made your own appointments. You did your own, you made your own schedule. So all you had to do is do the reports and then the only time that you had to actually go into the office was to turn them in, turn the reports came back. Yeah. And as soon as I walked in the door, my, my boss calls me and he says, I don't know what you did, but these are the best reports you ever did in your life.

I says, nothing's missing. All your I's are dotted. Your T's are crossed that you he's like, keep up the good work. And I'm like, thanks. And the first thing I did was I went over, I took the rest of it and I poured [00:25:00] it down the toilet. And it was all because of I'm a little bit older than you. So in the 1970s, early eighties, there was this.

Commercial and all it was was a black space and a spotlight in the middle and this guy had a brown suit on and a monkey, a real monkey, a chimpanzee was on his shoulders. And he was just walking in a circle and he would say, I do Coke so I could work longer so I can make more money.

So I can do more Coke so I can make more money so I could, so I could work longer so I could buy more Coke so I could work longer so I can make more money so I could buy more Coke. He just did this circle. That's the first thing I did. I was like, But I will tell you, I slept for 36 hours after that.

Nathan Buttigieg: The last time I had coke was, I was up for 40 hours straight. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, with coke. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, I tried going to sleep for like 20 hours. I just laid in bed. I couldn't, I got the worst sleeps on that [00:26:00] stuff. It tortured me, though. 

Brad Minus: Well, I mean, I'm talking about after it came down.

Like, it was when it cleared my system, because I'd been up, right? Yeah. That it just, like you said, you crashed hard. You went, you went into depression. Yeah. This was the first time of me, like, constantly. And then when it finally left, I just, I slept. I was gone 36 hours. But, that stuff scared me, but I can't imagine going into a depression like that.

Nathan Buttigieg: Well, I was having it, like everyone thinks like cocaine addict. Oh, you go partying and stuff all the time, but this wasn't partying. This was like, I'd be mowing the lawns and having coke, or I'd be at work and I'd be having coke. It becomes a normal thing, of your life.

You're just like you have stuff on you most of the time. You're bumping up nearly every day. You're getting stuff, every like four days or whatever. It's an expensive habit for one, but really two, you'd never feel more depressed than after Coke for me.

Brad Minus: Yeah. My depression showed up in, in sleep. And it was like I said, I only had the one experience that you were, you kept going and I could see where, you know, [00:27:00] keep having that stuff in your system. So what was the turning point where you'd finally decided that no, this is done. I'm done with this. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Well, I gave up alcohol first.

I stopped drinking in, Was it

2021? I think I stopped drinking, the day after Christmas and then I didn't stop coke till about a year and a half after that. And the only thing that really stopped me because I was like, Oh, I'm not drinking anymore. I'll just do coke every time we go out instead. So I was what they call dry sniffing, 

I just go into the bathroom at work and like line them up, bit up, bit up on my phone. And then, sniff it off there. But, the last time I had it was, I had a pretty decent break for a little bit, maybe like a couple of weeks, two weeks without it.

And then I was like, Oh, me and the boys are going to go out on the weekend, like go and do something on the weekend. I'll get some. So it was like a Wednesday or Thursday night that I organized it to get it for the weekend, which is pretty stupid to do. Pretty stupid to get it in the first place, but. I got it cause I'm [00:28:00] like, Oh, I'm not going to touch it.

I got like an eight ball. If you know what that is, it's like a three and a bit grams here, but, I got that and then, I got home that night and I was like, Oh, I'll just have a little bit and I ended up nearly having the whole lot in one night and, was out for ages you know, I was having the time of my life whilst I was on it.

But then like when it got like, you know, maybe five, 10 hours in, I was, just watching YouTube videos of how addicts had overcome their cocaine addiction and just as everything that I explained and like I was going through and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, damn, man, I got a huge problem. And I just started having way more to try to like feel better from it.

And, yeah, like I said, I mean, before I even tried to sleep, I was like, I rang up a friend and told him like, I'm in trouble. Like, I just was massively panicky. I was hugely anxious and just like almost in a state of like schizophrenia, just a weird state of just like not what was not me at all.

I rang my [00:29:00] friend up and they said to me, I don't know, like who you are. You're not talking like you, you're not like, You know you right now and they're like flush the stuff and I was like, no, I can't flush it because it's weird when like something really has a hold on you like I was like, no, I can't flush it.

I can't waste the money. Like, I'll just finish the bag or I'll just finish the lot or whatever. And they're like, no, you have to flush it. I didn't end up flushing. I end up just putting it aside and somehow using my willpower. But I was that scared at that time that it was just I didn't want to touch it.

I convinced myself that it was like from the devil, you know, and then that night when I was trying to sleep that night, I took the next day off work. I told them that I was sick and, I was having like these, awake dreams, like my eyes were closed, but I wasn't asleep of just like constant, just like my biggest fears.

I can't even really remember it. It was, it was that crazy, but just like a highlight reel of every fear that you've ever thought. And just nightmares, like, but you're awake, you know, one of my guys that, was an ex addict. He said that it, like, it [00:30:00] sounds, I explained it to him one day and he said it sounded like a state of like psychosis.

Like. I was awake, but I was like dreaming and it was just like nightmares over and over and over again. And after that, I wake up the next day, I said, I don't know, I don't know, like I'd already, I'm already like a pretty strong willed person. Like I drank for so long and then just one day like decided I'm never going to do this again.

It doesn't really serve me. So then the next day I said, like, I can't, I can't, I really had to convince myself that it was properly evil. And, it is probably April, but I really had to like, yeah, I have full set of background on my phone that it was just like, like, I wrote never again in text and just put it as a background on my phone.

So I knew what was up and, yeah, it got rid of it after that. Never tried it again. Never even been around it since then. 

Brad Minus: That's amazing that somebody that has done it for that long. You just go cold Turkey. But yeah, that lucid dreaming. Yeah, that's the worst I've been through that.

Nathan Buttigieg: Don't even, I don't even know what it was, man. It was, it was horrifying. [00:31:00] Yeah, I convinced me. That's what kind of helped me convince myself. I said those thoughts and like that state I was in, like, is like, like unworldly. Like it was, it was very easy to convince myself that I was like possessed by something.

So I was like, that has to be like, that has to tell you the actions that you're participating in that time. I just. Bring you to that point, bring you to that low, like, devil state. 

Brad Minus: That's association. That is the perfect Pavlovian, like, case study of association. You finally associated doing cocaine with evil and it kept you from going forth.

That's actually, pretty amazing because now, you know, obviously, you know, you've got people that have been doing cocaine for years and they end up in rehab for 30 days and then they come back and they're around it again and they can't stop and they got to keep going.

Maybe that's the, you might have just come upon A way to hear a 

Nathan Buttigieg: lot of 

Brad Minus: people thinking 

Nathan Buttigieg: That's [00:32:00] the key. Whatever it is you're trying to overcome, whether it's being fat or whether it's drinking or whether it's drugs or whatever, you have to believe that it's a bad thing.

You don't want to live like that. You hate it. You have to hate who you are at the time or the drug that you're trying to get off of. You have to come to the realization that this stuff is disgusting. I don't want to be a part of it. Once you start talking to it like that, you're not gonna keep smoking cigarettes if you know you're a disgusting being every time you do it. It'll hurt too much. So you just, yeah, 

Brad Minus: and that's another case for real talk that I'm hearing. So you know, there's a lot of people out there and a lot of our so called gurus that sit there and say, you know, you can't, nothing should be negative self talk. You should never do that.

And what you're talking about is negative self talk, but I think it's negative soft talk in a positive way. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that's 

Nathan Buttigieg: a positive place. 

Brad Minus: If you're 

Nathan Buttigieg: saying like, I'm sick of being a fat ass, I feel like a joke all the time, I look bad in every clothes that I'm [00:33:00] in, like I should be able to, you know, be motivating and inspiring and not lazy to other people, that's, that's, you're talking harsh to yourself, but it's in a positive manner, you're bringing yourself up.

That's why I always say I'm not calling people out, I'm calling people up. You already know that you don't like about yourself. 

Brad Minus: That's amazing. All right. I don't like calling people out.

I like calling people up. That is a quote. That one's going in the quote box right there. That's fantastic. No, I'm serious. If you really think about it, cause I'm, I'm all about it and, I'm, I'm going to assume that you've heard about David Goggins. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that guy's epitome of this, he doesn't talk as harsh as you do.

I think you're better at it. But he's kind of like the same way. He said, got to get up, got to get going. You know what I mean? I'm not temperature. He says injury. Yeah, you just keep going. 

Nathan Buttigieg: He's a super mentally hard person, mentally tough. I watch a Billy Goggins. 

Brad Minus: All right. So I will, I, [00:34:00] you know, you might maybe while you're working out, but I'm going to give you something. He's got two books. One book is can't, you can't hurt me. The other one is did not finish, and those two books now, not reading, the audio books, the audio books are out of this world.

Here's the reason. And he's one of the only people that I know that do this. He's got his ghost writer, Adam, and Adam reads it, but he gets to a certain point where there's like a big, some sort of big event that happened in the book. And he stops reading and he says. man, we need to break this down. You need to tell me more about it.

And then David comes on the audio book and they do like a podcast where they're talking to each other about what was going on inside his mind during that point? What was he feeling? And then he gives points on, the ways that he changed his mind and the way he started to really challenge himself because the idea is for him was, and I talk about this to my clients all the time.[00:35:00] 

Your mind will quit. 100 times before your body does. Your body can take so much more than we give it credit for, but our mind gets in the way. To go past the point where your mind is saying no and move your body along even farther 

Nathan Buttigieg: about, going to war with yourself a lot.

That's like you wanting to quit and you just challenging and over and over and over and again, and it'll take you to places that you didn't realize were possible and take you to mind states where you're so enlightened and so happy and so wise in moments, like after a massive run after you've overcome this huge fear, it'll take you to such an enlightened state I call it going to war with yourself, but we have, mentors throughout our life that their words and their voice really speaks and really gets in people like, Wes Watson is massive one for me. Annie Vracella is a massive one for me. 

Brad Minus: Annie Vracella.

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. I think the first ever podcast I listened to was Mindset Mentor. But he, he's like, he doesn't click anymore with [00:36:00] me. That's I needed it at the time. But, yeah, Andy Vracella and Wes Watson, like the two, the two dudes.

Brad Minus: Yeah. Andy Vracella is awesome. Can you, give me any, story that you've done yourself where you went to war with yourself and then what was the situation and then how you felt afterwards? Well, 

Nathan Buttigieg: that last time I did coke was that, was that like having, having to stop when everything, like when people say you'll get, you get spoken to like by the devil.

You do bro when I was like that it was like it was telling me like oh just finish it Like just have more like you can't stop kind of stuff like that. It was that was that was the biggest time ever but like i've done like not long runs. I don't run for long Runs that are super hard. 

Brad Minus: I'll tell you mine. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Like, nothing like marathons or Ironmans or anything like that. 

Brad Minus: I'll give you mine. It happened actually twice. Third Ironman, and I'm having the worst, THE worst race. I got into the water. I got kicked in the face.

My [00:37:00] goggles flew off. I spent 10 minutes trying to find my goggles. Then I finally get through the swim and realized that I had a quick release on my watch and lost it. Now, on that watch was all my nutrition timing to tell me what time it was. It told me what my pace was, everything to make sure that I can maintain what I was doing and here it was.

And not only, so I'm coming out of the, I come out of the water and literally I hear Mike Daniels on the speaker. He says, and the last person that's going to qualify to continue on to the bike is coming out of the water right now. That was me.

I barely made cut off and I'm thinking, okay, I could take five, 10 minutes. I can sit in the transition while I'm getting dressed and I can call myself, I get back on the bike, I'll be fine. And I'm feeling nauseous at this point. I get in there and the guys are saying to me, they're like, Hey, we need you out of here in four minutes. Otherwise you DQ. And I went, Whoa. So I got back on the bike. I'm thinking, okay, now I'll just. I'll recover on the bike, but I'm nauseous because I've taken [00:38:00] in so much seawater. And I have a, I have a vasovagal reflex.

So I pass out when I, when I throw up, you know, so I pulled my bike over and I put it over to the fence and I threw up and I passed out, got back up, got back to my bike. And about 20 miles in, I'm like, you know what, at the next aid station, if I don't feel well, I'm just gonna turn around and call it a day and forget it.

And I got to the next aid station, and all I thought about was, well, hell. 25 miles in, if I turn back, I've got 50 and that's halfway to finishing up the thing anyway. So I'm like, I might as well just keep trying and keep going forward. Luckily I got, I felt better and I felt better and better.

And I got better. I ended up passing like 500 people on the bike as I started feeling better, but I was ready to quit. And I'm like, in your head, all my head was, I was like, minus, you never quit anything in your life. Why would you possibly quit this now? And yeah, so it wasn't the greatest race. It didn't have the greatest time at all, but I finished the damn thing.

I'm like, screw I'm living to fight today.

Nathan Buttigieg: [00:39:00] Yeah. I think, the best way to push through anything is force yourself into a position where you have to. Like the old saying of burn the boats is the only way. If you're scared to get on a podcast and you just start a podcast, there's no going back once you started it.

Or if like, you know, you can, you can quit out of a workout or whatever like that. But if you like take someone with you. And like you say, like, like we're going like full through this. So it's just, you always do that with like, I've paid like 15, 000 for coaching and like to force myself into a position where I had to do stuff, you know, getting on camera for the first time, like three to three years ago was the most.

Scary thing ever, but once you're on there and upload it and go through it a couple of times like force yourselves into positions Where you have to that's the only way you level up is is is by doing that 

Brad Minus: being comfortable being uncomfortable. 

Nathan Buttigieg: That's right. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, yeah. 

Nathan Buttigieg: You'd have to work harder to go back to the start 

Brad Minus: I would have been 50 miles. I would have already biked 50 miles and I'm like, [00:40:00] well, another 50 was another 62 miles and I'm done. Now, if I had to, I could walk the marathon in six hours and I would still qualify. 

So I was like, well, screw this. I'm just going to keep going. And then I did the same thing. I did Maryland and it was so cold. It was 33 degrees and I'm on the bike and the wind is at 40 miles an hour gusts and I get to the, and it was so hard.

to get through the bike. The wind and the cold and I had to keep stopping because phoresis, you know, it freezes and ended up making me have to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes. And if you got caught like pissing in the woods, you were dequeued.

So you had to freaking go until you found a freaking, a porta potty, you know, so I mean, that was ridiculous. And then, I got a penalty because I was tucked into my bars like this, and I didn't see the person in front of me. And you have a drafting. You only could be so, so close to the next to the next guy because you get the draft, right?

Yeah. [00:41:00] And I was so tucked in, I didn't realize there was someone in front of me and the marshal comes around and gives me, gives me a card. I have to pull over to the side to at this penalty tent. I gotta wait 5 minutes. So here I am. I'm an hour past the time that I thought I was going to be and I'm thinking to myself again.

This is number 5. No, it was the 1 time before the last 1. But so it was number 4 and I was like, I got nothing to prove. I'm like, I'm back here. I can be warm. I can be all that stuff. And I was like, again, my, my head was just like, you know what?

You never quit anything in your life. Yeah, I'm like, go, go do the first two miles, and if you still feel like crap, turn around and come back, not a big deal, it's only four miles at that point, and one mile, two miles, three miles, I'm always like, another mile, and I'm like, screw it, I'm just gonna finish this sucker.

And I ended up taking 90 minutes off my time, because I was like, it was like a ridiculous amount of time that I took off. And I was like, no, I'm gonna, I'm just going to keep going. But so I get that, I think 

Nathan Buttigieg: some of the hardest times I've had, like physically were like, putting myself on like super low calories for like [00:42:00] weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.

And when you get into like, just to cut, like, just cut that off and get super shredded and stuff like that's like part of bodybuilding, not for fighting or anything like that, just for, just for bodybuilding and, you know, like 10 weeks in, when you've been on, like, I maintain on like 3000 calories, I was on like 1400 or 1300 for like.

12 weeks, 10 weeks. And at the end of that, I was like nearly non verbal every day and all that kind of stuff. But, and I had a super physical job at the time, more tire fitting, and I was running a team for a warehouse where like picking wheels and tires and fitting them and stuff like that. Days there, man.

Like you can't go home early just because like, A little bit worn out and stuff like that. So they were pretty brutal times where I was just, you know, people were coming to me, asking me questions and I had to like give them answers without wanting to kill them. And, they were, they were hard times like deep deep cuts where you're cutting like, I think I've got like 12 kilos off in like nine, 10 weeks or something like that.

And for someone that's like, I was already in shape, like this was to get like five, 6%, 

Brad Minus: [00:43:00] so have you competed in bodybuilding? 

Nathan Buttigieg: No, I never competed. I was, I was going to when I was younger, but then I kind of thought it was just, me trying to seek validation, like me trying to like, think I was good enough.

And I just gave it to myself instead, told myself I was good enough to be on camera and help people. And I was never like, I was never drawn to like the bodybuilding community. I just needed confidence because I was so small when I was little. 

Come to the conclusion that like me competing was just only trying to get validation from other people and I was just going to give it to myself and get on camera and, you know, share my life and all that kind of stuff 

Brad Minus: that's right. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. Just to see if I was tough enough. 

Brad Minus: That's, that's amazing. I've gone through Andy Frisella's 75 hard. Yeah, I'm on that right now. Are you really? Yeah, I'm 56, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Is this your first time? Nah, I've done it four times. Oh, and so this is number five?

Yeah, I've completed Live Hard once. Okay, that one I'm not familiar with. What's a Live Hard? 

Nathan Buttigieg: [00:44:00] 75 Hard is the initial program to the Live Hard program. He adds on like more tasks for three different phases, phase one, two and three it's better if you go through a phase one, like you do all the 75 hard stuff and cold shower and, 10 minute visualization for like 30 days straight. Obviously, the same rules apply with 75 hard. If you miss a day or you miss something, you miss a liter of water, then, you gotta start from the start again.

And then you've got to take 30 days in between that and to phase two once you finish. 30 day gap and then start phase two. And that's the same rules as 75 hard. But, for 30 days and then phase three is, you got to do something good for one person every day. And I have a random conversation with 1 person every day.

And I can't remember the other ones for the phase 3 phase 3 was the 1 that scared. Up until like three years ago, like communicating with random people wasn't, wasn't a thing I did. I'm from the country, man. We talked to who we know [00:45:00] and that's about it and everyone else can get stuff. So, yeah, that was a big one, but like, I mean, I wouldn't be on podcasts without it.

I wouldn't be on social media without it. 

Brad Minus: That's outstanding. That is outstanding. Cause I got to look at that one because that one would be great. I love that idea of, or you got to do the whole lot to get the phase 

Nathan Buttigieg: three, 

Brad Minus: right, right, right. But that last one, I'm just the idea that you got to do something good for someone once a day.

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. Good date every day. I think it was 10 minutes of visualization as well. And maybe cold showers and then, a random conversation with one person every day and a conversation. This isn't hi, how are you? This is stopping them and yeah, introducing yourself and shit. 

Brad Minus: That's yeah, that's outstanding. 

I gotta definitely look at that one. And you know what, I'm going to link that in the show notes too, because I think that's definitely a tool that a lot of people could use. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Everyone should look at 75. 5. It'll change your life. Yeah. It did for me. It was one of the main reasons why I toughness to overcome drugs and alcohol and everything like that.[00:46:00] 

And it's completely free because it's all self accountability, which is also the biggest thing that people need is to be able to hold yourself to, a promise that she made. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. And a promise to yourself. That's right. That I think is the worst thing that I, that for me, If I promise myself something and I don't deliver, I, I'm like awake, like I can't sleep that night, 

Nathan Buttigieg: you 

Brad Minus: know, cause I'm like, damn, what did you do?

Why didn't you do this? Oh, you're such a loser. Blah, blah, blah. So 

Nathan Buttigieg: I just get up and do it. And because of all that, it's easier just to do it no matter what it is. Cause I'm not going to spend a long time torturing myself. I might as well just do the thing.

It might scare me. I might be uncomfortable. I might be physically hard or, you know, it's just easier to do it because it's torture. Otherwise. 

Brad Minus: Oh, man. So I am digging what you're saying. And I love your real talk. I love the fact that you are, completely honest with yourself. And I imagine that you're honest with your clients.

And I know you are because I could see it in the Instagram. Yeah. What are you, are [00:47:00] you coaching for, is that what you're doing as a full time right now? 

Nathan Buttigieg: I'm doing, I work two jobs as well. All my spare time goes to content and coaching. 

Brad Minus: I know that you have a pretty good following and you're just going to. Build it from there. 

Nathan Buttigieg: A million followers one day, but not for the followers just to help more great 

Brad Minus: No, just to help 

Nathan Buttigieg: I really like if you were able to feel what I feel when my clients do well or get to where they want to be or they're cutting and hitting like they're dropping weight every one two weeks.

That's the best ever. That's my favorite thing 

Brad Minus: I hear you when I first started coaching now, I've been coaching for about 12 years. When I first started coaching, I was like, Oh, my God, having my clients come up, seeing my clients come across the finish line is like, just a very close 2nd crossing the line myself.

And about five years in it flipped. Then it was like, no, no, no, no, no. Watching my clients coming across the finish line is so much better than coming across myself. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Seeing my guys like, [00:48:00] they don't drink for a while and how different they speak and how much more energy they have and, you know, how positive they're talking and seeing them like just dialed into a diet where they don't miss for, for weeks.

And then they've got like their first arm vein or their first bicep vein or they've got abs and they can't stop looking. Yeah, that's that's the best ever because I was that, you know, I remember the exact same thing. I know how good it feels and you're only like can relate when like they do it too.

Brad Minus: What is, if you, I'm trying to think how I can put this, let's talk just real quick, just a couple of really good bits of information. What would be, A diet tip that you could give people to help them lose weight or shed fat shed fast that is somewhat 

Nathan Buttigieg: The foods don't matter unless the macros are right. People need to learn macros. They need to know macros. They need the right daily macros and to be able to hit them consistently. That comes with mindset training as well. You need to be able to make a [00:49:00] promise to yourself and hold it. But if you don't know macros, like whatever foods like, Oh, I'm not going to have sugar.

I'm just going to have carnivore. I'm going to get on the man shake. I'm, you know, going to stop having soft drink. None of this will matter unless it's daily macros, the right amount of protein, the right amount of carbs, the right amount of fats every day. And you will get results so quick, so quick. I know people that have gone on, coaching programs and it's just, it's, it's taken them way too long.

And the coach, like everyone coaches differently. I get that. If it's macros every time you need to know macros, you should be able to look at what you're having on your plate and know it has this much protein, this much carbs, and this much fat. And if you know that after tracking for a long time, that'll change your entire life, how you look at food.

Brad Minus: Now, but the macros are personal. 

Nathan Buttigieg: The macros are personal. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone is different. Everyone has a different level of like, they're metabolically either slow or fast. They have a different level of fat and muscle. It's you get good as a coach being able to look at someone and work them out.

And there's some mass you can do. We use [00:50:00] different scale weights because I'm Australian and you're from America. 

Brad Minus: Right, 

Nathan Buttigieg: so it's two grams of protein per kilo of body weight. And to cut, I always put people on 22 times, their body weight in calories. So it'll give you like 1400, 1500.

And then you work out your macros inside of that. So then, yeah, two grams per kilo of protein, and then I usually only go like 40 or 60 grams fat max. You don't need a lot of fats and then just bump up the rest of the carbs. 

Brad Minus: See, and that's interesting, right? Because the trend is get rid of the carbs and have more fat.

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah, and you look at every athlete that's ever lived, they're doing the opposite. 

Brad Minus: You need 

Nathan Buttigieg: carbs for brain power and people, your brain, your brain runs off glucose and your body will just do so well. You'd be, you'd be shocked. Some of my guys are like 1200 grams of carbs and they're shredded.

Brad Minus: Same question on a, someone going to the gym for the first time. What's your, what's your best tip that you can give? 

Nathan Buttigieg: You can go online and get heaps of, [00:51:00] Like whatever programs push, pull legs or that doesn't really matter.

Just have a program, have something written down. How many sets, how many reps you're going to do each time, you know, follow a structure instead of just going in there and winging it. And then the best thing after that is get a coach, get a coach to sort it out all for you, keep you accountable, build everything for you.

So you don't have to think and you can just do and they're looking at everything you do. So if you don't do, they're going to ask why, and they're going to get you on the phone. And that's what I do, bro. I'll call my clients up and like, Oh, what are we doing? Are we doing this or are we what? And, yeah, we're doing it.

I just, I don't, I just have this problem and then we can sort it. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. I talk to every one of my clients at least once a week, if not more, depending on what I see. If I find the lack of motivation, then I'm going to be on the phone with them.

Did you do your workout? How did it feel? What was going on? And within three days, they're back on track. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Something we do. We do team weekly calls. So everyone will jump on a call. That's where we go through mindset and training and nutrition and all that kind of stuff.

But I'm talking like if my person, like, cause I, we put everyone on an app. If [00:52:00] someone is not doing a macros and just doing the training. I'm going to give you a phone call on the next one. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. I have an app that we use for training and I can see pace. I can see where they ran, how they ran or what they biked, what they swam.

And then I've also, when I send them to the gym for mobility, I can't really see it, but, it works out in a way that I can know whether they've done it or not. I can see each set. I can see their heart rate, pump up for each set so that's, good stuff, but, that's amazing.

And last one, best mindset tip that you can give. People that are starting their fitness journey, like pick challenges, pick 

Nathan Buttigieg: challenges to do, but Whether it's like you're gonna stick to doing a five minute 5k run every day build a challenge for yourself or get one from the internet and then stick to it that'll teach you more about yourself than ever and diet whilst you're doing it Because dieting also teaches you more than more about yourself than ever.

Brad Minus: Nathan, you [00:53:00] are, you and me, like different sides of the world, but so simpatico. I always talk about that too. And that's one of the reasons why I started this podcast was because I was finding people that were overcoming adversity. Injury, like what you came up, you know, recovery the whole bit.

And they did it in an unorthodox way, just like you did, right? You, you went after challenges, you quit cold Turkey because of something that not everybody does. My biggest story is a friend of mine who was 250 pounds on a 5'1 frame. And instead of just deciding that, okay, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to diet and I'm going to, you know, blah, blah, blah.

She goes, no. She was flipping through the channels one day and she came across Ironman Kona, which is the world championships. And she goes, God, I would really love to do that. But here she is, you know. So instead of saying, okay, I'm going to diet and then I'm going to lose the weight and I'm going to go to the gym to get to this way [00:54:00] so that I can do this, she goes, no, I'm going to do it.

And she signed up. Instead of focusing on what you and I talk about focusing on, she goes, no, my goal is not to lose weight and to get fit. My goal is to get to the starting line.

healthy and get to the finish line, you know, injury free and get there, you know, finish that thing. So she trained for the Ironman for 18 months and she walked onto the beach. She was 120 pounds in an extra small brick and wetsuit and finished it in 11 hours and 30 minutes, which is unheard of.

For a first timer. 

Nathan Buttigieg: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: But that was how she did it. 

Nathan Buttigieg: If it's different than having goals and having dreams. Dreams of saying I want to, I want a six pack. I want to be in shape. I want this. I want that. It switches over to a goal when you have a plan of how to get it. Every day I'm going to do X, Y, and Z.

Now you've got goals. Now you've got actionable steps so you can take towards that dream. Everyone is saying, I want to lose weight. That's just a dream. That's just what they tell themselves about their whole [00:55:00] life. I want to start a business. I want to move to this place. How are you going to do it?

That's what you should be looking at. What are the actionable steps, your daily steps, your daily habits that you're going to take to get to that? Dream. It's different. The ambition, the dream isn't the goal. The steps to get there is the goal. 

Brad Minus: Exactly. Exactly. And I'm the same way. We have people that have certain time.

They want, they want a certain time goal. Well, throughout the plan, it's okay. By this point, we need to have you. Racing at this level in order to get you to that far, to get you to that last one, the next step, the next step, getting better every, every single day. And a lot of that includes going to the gym, doing a lot of mobility, working on, you know, where's your macros are?

Because you need to have fuel for the race and your training and everything else. So I'm sure you're the same way, but you've got to get to that point, right? If you want to lose weight, well, for how many pounds do you want to lose? And I never look at pounds. I'm more about body fat.

Nathan Buttigieg: I don't even let them like decide. They're like, I want to lose 30 kilos. It's like, we'll lose as much fat until we can see abs. That's [00:56:00] that's where we go. If that's 20, if that's 40, whatever, but we're getting abs. 

Brad Minus: And that's 6%. It could be like 11%, 11, 12%.

Nathan Buttigieg: Depends, depending, everyone's different. I can sit at like 8% and be good. 

Brad Minus: Okay, listen, by this point we want you at, you know, if you're 30%, you know, within this point you should be at 22. 

Nathan Buttigieg: You know, at this point you should 

Brad Minus: be on track at 18, and then we know that, you know, it's working.

So, yeah, I love that. Listen, everybody, you gotta, first of all, you gotta go and check out, Nathan's frickin Instagram because it's frickin out of this world. And he'll give you real talk and looks in the camera and he just, like, tells you how it is. It's, like, real and it's raw. And I personally, I dig that that works for me, may not work for you, but it's going to frickin, it's going to light a fire under your frickin ass.

Nathan Buttigieg: Not just motivation either. It's not just speaking. I'll show you my life. You know, I'm not a fake, you know, I'll show you my whole life. I'll show you everything about it. I'm on my story every day, like 10 times showing you, you [00:57:00] know, telling you some stuff or showing you that I'm with my chick or just something, man.

It's a reality show mixed in with some motivation. 

Brad Minus: So I picked, I picked and because I scrolled thr I'm big into that motivational stuff. And that's where I kind of picked it up. But yeah, man, I like the content that I like.

And you know, his girl's pretty hot too. So yeah, check that out. You won't miss out on that. But yeah, no, absolutely. So I'm going to make sure that his Instagram is there. Cause that's the big thing. Do you have anything else?

Do you have a website or anything like that? 

Nathan Buttigieg: Send me a message. I'm a person. So talk to him like a person. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, there you go. So he just gave you permissions to slide into his DMS. So definitely do that if you need if you want anything, if you just want to talk to him or just ask him about some of his stories and some of the things that he came up with, I'm sure he'll be happy to talk to you wherever you are in the world.

So I agree. So anyway, listen, Nathan. This has been amazing and you've given some freaking amazing advice and, have been really motivating and, [00:58:00] pointing people towards their desires, which is what we are all about on life changing challengers. So I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Nathan Buttigieg: Thank you. 

Brad Minus: If you're watching this on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that like subscribe and, hit that notification bell. If you're on Apple or Spotify, either leave a comment or, give us a review.

For Nathan and myself, we will see you in the next one.

Peace.