The Fearless Road

07. Flavors of Confidence: Unearthing Self-Love and Resilience with Massimo Ragotti

• Michael D Devous Jr • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Our Fearless Road podcast this week takes you through an emotional rollercoaster with our special guest, Massimo Ragotti. As a serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and recovery advocate, Massimo's journey is a stirring testament to the power of confidence, self-love, and resilience. We delve into his battle with addiction and bipolar disorder and how he leveraged these challenges into a powerful narrative to inspire others. 

Intriguingly, we debunk the common misconception of the "fake it till you make it" mindset and explore the negative implications it brings to our personal growth. Massimo's unique perspective, shaped by his own trials, sheds light on this harmful mindset. Instead, we bring to the forefront the concept of authentic confidence and its significant role in overcoming addiction and mental health stigma. We also touch upon the concerning issue of device dependency, particularly among the younger generation, and the harmful role of social media in shaping our self-worth.

In line with our discussion, we introduce Massimo's empowering book, "Flavors of Confidence: A Sober Method," a compelling resource designed to help you tackle imposter syndrome, the fear of judgment, and inspire you to unearth your unique "flavor of confidence." Join us for this enlightening episode as we unravel the power of unfeigned confidence with Massimo Ragotti. You'll uncover how confidence and fearlessness can transform your journey, helping you rise above any challenge life throws your way.

Michael Devous:

Hey everybody, coming to you from the Fearless Red podcast studio, it's Michael DeVue and this week we have Massimo Ragotti. Now this episode has been re-recorded several times in order to get it right. I've had so many struggles sinking up audio, with technical issues, you name it but I was bound and determined and so was Massimo. He's an incredible individual with an incredible story, coming from being a serial entrepreneur, a distinguished public speaker, motivational speaker, as well as a recovery addict addiction recovery addict. Massimo has this book called the Flavors of Confidence, which came out previously, and now a new version called the Flavors of Confidence A Sober Method. And both of these books really help us step beyond the addiction recovery programming and into a life of additional opportunities for recovery and thriving and living. And his energy is infectious, his joy is brilliant, his mind is creative and he is an inspiration. So this week on the Fearless Road, you know we're going to dive a little bit into some of these addiction stories, a little bit into this particular journey for Massimo, and hopefully you guys are going to get some amazing tips and tricks about how to navigate your own personal addictions, step beyond the recovery methods of the 12 step programs and into some new ways of recovery and some new ideas about how you can live and thrive and become even more successful. Massimo Ragotti, one of my favorites, love this guy. I hope you enjoy it, okay, oh, ladies and gentlemen, here we are back in studio again at the Fearless Road podcast with none other than the amazing and the wonderful Massimo Ragotti. We are re-recording because both of us had some issues with our recording, which you've known about for a while. I've talked about it on the show and hopefully today you're going to get an excellent version of both of us. So, if not, hopefully Massimo looks and sounds great, because he's the focus of today's talk and today's interview. So don't worry about me, just listen to Massimo and you will fall in love with this amazing person who, by the way, I'm just going to introduce you to your speaker, author, entrepreneur with an incredible story and incredible, incredible experience, who helps addicts find their unique flavor of confidence to achieve and maintain sobriety.

Michael Devous:

Massimo currently endures bipolar disorder, struggles with the mental health with which we appreciate and we value, has struggled with multiple addictions for 23 years and his attempts to self-medicate, as we all do. A former addict myself. He never deeded, though, because he made his own path by founding companies as an entrepreneur in telecom, baking, association management, software development, entertainment, talent management, logistics and health care, because, if that wasn't enough not an overachiever at all Addiction eventually overtook his ability to function and was living on the streets of Kansas City in 2015. But he remade himself. He came back from the streets, stood up sober, rose to success and is here to share his journey and his sobriety, and the methods he used to get there and maintain it with his new book that is out now Flavors of Confidence. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my esteemed pleasure to welcome Massimo Regotti. Massimo, how are you?

Massimo Rigotti:

doing buddy. Wow, what an introduction. I don't know what to say.

Michael Devous:

Well, I had time to like, you know, I had to redo it, I had to like one up myself from before after foobarring the last recording.

Massimo Rigotti:

I would rerecord with you any day. I always enjoy our conversations.

Michael Devous:

Well, I thank you for being in studio with me and coming back to do this. I think you know. First of all, your message is extremely important for us to get out there and because your book is, I think, is it rereleasing or is it a new version or reedited?

Massimo Rigotti:

It's a new book, so my first book, Flavors of Confidence a reflection for those in need was more the self-memoir of where I had been my whole life and a very light at the end just detailing the methodology that I got sober. What this book is Flavors of Confidence sober method, which is a detailed, deep dive into the method and nearly as long a book at 170 pages, so it is what I would consider akin to the big book. Rather, if you're an AA person, this is the guide which you will use if you utilize the Flavors of Confidence sober methodology to get sober and stay that way, which is what all of us want.

Michael Devous:

Well, I think you know, yes, although those of us who are probably in the midst of it don't think they want it right now, you will one day, by the way, God, love you and pray that you get there with the rest of us, because when you're on the other side of sobriety, when you're on this side, where things are so much brighter and the world is so much more intense and amazing, I know it can sometimes feel intense and it can sometimes feel overwhelming, but I will tell you that the things that you can achieve on the other side of sobriety are astounding and so many of my colleagues, friends and people that I love in the industry that I talk to are doing so many incredible things with their lives once we get clean and once we get sober.

Michael Devous:

And I think you know what's interesting about that. I think so many of us were artists and overachievers and, you know, like AAA personalities to begin with. I think the drugs or the alcohol or the medicating typically for us, I think, is part of a way to balance that energy level that we're constantly filled with. That overwhelms us right, and I think we get to this sort of place where suddenly we find ourselves medicating because we don't know how to control and deal with that part of our personal energy. But then eventually, when we get well, life slows you down Just because you get older, but once it does, man, when you can start harnessing it and rain it in and control it. Man, some of the things we do is pretty amazing, especially like you.

Massimo Rigotti:

Well, thank you and I agree with absolutely everything you said. The very interesting thing that I found, especially living on the streets, because you come up against a lot of people who are addicts yes, several people who struggle especially with schizophrenia would be the most common mental health ailment that I saw when I was on the streets, which is very scary to interact with. But I'm very comfortable interacting with schizophrenics now in a way that you know it used to scare me a little bit because you weren't sure exactly who you were talking to at that moment.

Michael Devous:

Well and I think personalities are one of the things I talk about is I have a very different personality that I present to so many different people, depending on the room, the audience, the job, the role, my friends, and I never thought of it as a disorder. I used it as a coping mechanism. But I also learned very early when I was younger. This is something I talked about a little bit in my bullying episode, which was episode four. I don't know if you listened or heard about that, but I did. I watched it. It was very good, thank you.

Michael Devous:

And one of the things I learned how to do was to be a chameleon for others, and I was very lucky that I was, that I landed in theater very early, because theater afforded me the opportunity to really explore those alternate egos, those those different personalities, and allow myself to sort of get those things out. And then I realized it was a skill set and a tool you could. You could use it in the real world to manage situations and manage different outcomes with different sets of people by sort of adjusting yourself to meet their needs, you know.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yes, and I think a lot of us do that to varying degrees. Yes, yes, I think you're right, absolutely, and we at least those who are bright enough to know that you have to match the energy of a room in order to succeed in life. But that is definitely a skill set that requires some, some time and an age. I think experience it helps you along the way in that, or else you don't succeed you and you really need to pay attention to that. Read the room. They always say. You know, read the room, read the room. Yeah, I was the same way. I had the theater background and did much the same thing. I knew how I had to act in certain situations in order to be successful, and that's exactly what I did, and that also can become very tiresome.

Michael Devous:

Yes.

Massimo Rigotti:

Eventually, you keep on that mask, keeping up the mask. Oh man, yeah, it becomes so thick you may as well start at four in the morning and slap it on the makeup. Seriously, there is no way that you match inside. Yes, and as it gets thicker and thicker, it is so hard to hold and uphold that image to the world, and that's ultimately what brought me crashing down.

Michael Devous:

I think that's interesting that you point that out when I normally I would dive in right now to ask you about your background. We will get to that in just a second, but I did an interview previously with Kat LaCohi I think that was the one that just came out and she specializes in helping people recognize that the persona that they've literally been hiding is the authentic version of themselves and that that's the one that needs to be brought to the stage. That's the one that needs to be brought forward, is the one that we've all tampered down, and I, like you, use this skill to build so many chameleon versions of myself. That's, by the time I hit my thirties, I didn't know who was the real me anymore and I started doing drugs, meth and everything else, and it just took me down a dark path. But I think that's part of it. I got lost in the versions of me that I gave to everybody, that I no longer knew who was here at home and I was lost in my own skin, you know.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I liken it to kind of a house of cards. Yeah, that that's really what you are. You're fragile, and, and the more that you build that up, nobody has seen you.

Michael Devous:

Yes, and and, and so you start really wondering who you are and who loves you, right, if you haven't been giving them the real you, then do they really love you? Like there becomes a cycle that you go into your head about wait, if I haven't been me, then they love somebody that isn't me. Oh my God, who are these people? Are they really my friends? Am I really their friend? And you know, of course, when you're down in the darkest depths of drug addiction or addiction of any kind, you can spin out in that kind of thinking. Speaking of spinning out, we have already spun and I was supposed to ask everybody was was asked Moscow, like I do at the beginning, to give us some background so that the audience can learn a little bit about you and where you, how you got here. So please, I digress, I apologize, but oh tell, I love this. I just you know how I get with you. I can't stop myself.

Massimo Rigotti:

This is great, see. Anyone who's watching this will instantly recognize that the two of us have become good friends. Yes, and that that's. That's a fantastic thing. So this makes it relatable, and I and we haven't known each other that long.

Michael Devous:

No, but I'm so connected to your story and to your adventure and to your journey. I feel like we have a very similar path and so many similar experiences. But I get you and I get each other very quickly. We just sort of snapped and just clicked.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, we did so. Anyway, I had what anyone would classify as a typical American boy type of upbringing. I was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and I grew up in the Midwest, from from Lincoln to Ohio to graduate high school in Kansas City. After graduation, I try I went here and there and everywhere. I was in Los Angeles for a number of years in the entertainment business, as you already mentioned, back in Kansas City after I got married, divorced and now years later, here I am in Lincoln, nebraska, for about a year now. So I've gone full circle around the country and I'm back home done it been there yeah yeah, yeah, exactly.

Massimo Rigotti:

So that's kind of like the travel story, but sure the kind of unique. Why on earth did this guy head down this wild path that has him talking about? Sobriety begins before I was born. My mom and my father split before I was born and ultimately my mom remarried when I was three and I was adopted by my dad, who raised me and I had a fantastic upbringing. Yet there was this feeling of abandonment that struck deep within me. When I was eight years old was when my dad adopted me and my father didn't show up to court and there was a lot of interaction between people and I heard a lot of things that I probably shouldn't heard and or should have been counseled and talked to you about what I heard, because it really gave me the sense that I wasn't working. You know why? Why wasn't he here? You know, was I too ugly? Was I dumb?

Michael Devous:

Yes, because what happens in me? We fill in the, we fill in the questions, our mind, as I mentioned this to you before. When we tell ourselves stories, this is what we're built to do. If there's not, if it's not finished, if there's not a great beginning, middle and end, our minds will fill in the blanks and it typically fills it in with our insecurities and our lack of self worth. And I don't understand why that is, but that's how we develop our fears Like. And then, as a boy, just same thing with me when I was, when I was growing up, getting bullied not only by the students but also by my teachers. It shared, it told everybody what my worth was and I began to look at it, thinking I must be different than everybody else and not as good as everybody else, and I didn't know how else to measure that. And since there's no counseling and no outlet and nobody to talk to at the time, just like you, we begin to fill in those holes for ourselves.

Michael Devous:

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's exactly what happens, and when you're a percocious young person, you tend to do that at an extreme level because you're able to think of how much, how much daydreaming did you do and get in trouble for, like I got so much daydreaming, mike, that's where my brain went nine times out of 10. So I was always building stories and worlds in my head, so it's no wonder that I began to apply them to my, to the world around me, you know.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, well, you know, mom said my overachieve. Overachievement was very apparent at a young age because I had two imaginary friends and the three of us did things together. Yeah, so I mean that's.

Michael Devous:

I feel you, I had an audience, you know, so I was always performing for somebody, like it didn't. I didn't need you in the room, I had an entire audience. Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, like it was. I could make the whole thing up, but I didn't necessarily need everybody to be there.

Massimo Rigotti:

Right, right, and so you find yourself capable of doing remarkable things. So, as, as my childhood continues, I was a good student, I graduated with honors, I started college, but what started to occur about this time is that my bipolar disorder really manifested. Yeah, it started to really manifest. Yeah, and in extreme mania, I was diagnosed my freshman year of college, but I disregarded this. I just said, ah, there's nothing wrong with me, yeah, it's so standard.

Michael Devous:

But that's because your, your brain, is telling you the wrong stuff at the same time, like it's. That's what's so hard about bipolar is you're inside it and you, you can't see out from here, right, you're? It's like that, that saying where they're. Like you can't read the instructions from inside the job. Yes, exactly.

Massimo Rigotti:

Exactly, you were inside the job and of course, I didn't want to think that there was anything wrong with me. We never do yeah. I think a lot of people do yeah In. In. Looking back at it, part of me believes that the reason that I felt that way is that I already felt discarded. I already felt inadequate. I already felt like I wasn't worth anyone's love or attention. So I had all these things working against me. And now you want to make me bipolar too. Well, yeah, I should just off myself.

Michael Devous:

And now I got to take medication and I got to go see a shrink. And, by the way, when you and I were being diagnosed, this was like the eighties, you know, and it was if you were popular, you had a therapist. Do you know what I'm saying? Exactly Because your mom, because your mom and dad were getting divorced. But if you were not popular, you you had a shrink and you were, you were crazy, like yeah, you were. There was still a stigma around mental health, absolutely, and it was just coming into its own. It was just finally starting to be recognized as a valuable component of life and of relationships and of communication. And we were at the very early stages where it was still a stigma to be diagnosed with anything and have to go talk to a shrink, unless you were popular and your mom was on Xanax.

Massimo Rigotti:

Well, yeah, and then you were one of the cool kids. You had the designer drugs, yeah.

Michael Devous:

So, true.

Massimo Rigotti:

It's wild to think about and I was recounting this with somebody earlier today just to recognize the fact that even 10 years ago it was still a challenge to say that you were fighting an addiction that in today it's pretty accepted to go to a bar with friends that are drinking and say I don't drink. And people not to badger you into drinking, yes, Now they're supportive, oh, no problem.

Michael Devous:

They don't ask you any questions, they don't question the phase like but that is also coupled with the fact that when we were in our place of employment, you could not mention or admit this because you could get fired, whereas today that's not the case. Back then it was you could get fired if you had an addiction and admitted you needed help. The company wasn't responsible for helping you, they didn't care about your well-being. And today I think it's well. Not all companies do this, but it's vastly different. Number one. Number two if you are diagnosed, it's now part of HIPAA violation, so you can't be discriminated against for it as a result of employment.

Massimo Rigotti:

And what that is done, which is a good thing, is that there's a lot broader support in family networks. Yes, and I don't even feel and I think you're the same way is that you didn't necessarily feel like you had all the support that you would have wanted from your extended family in framing up that stability around you. I mean, I felt personally like I couldn't even reach out to those closest to me, as what would they think of this situation on me?

Michael Devous:

Well, you mean when you were 19 and you were diagnosed, or the addiction? Yes, I can imagine that it was one of those things. You feel responsible for it. In a way, that means I need to carry this, it's my burden, I don't need to put it on anybody else and so, as a result, I don't need to tell anybody and let burden them with my situation.

Michael Devous:

Well, what's weird about that is you don't know jack shit about it, like I didn't know anything. You know what I'm saying. Like there's, we're not giving a handbook on crazy and going like, here you go. By the way, welcome to the club, we're all here to support you. It's sort of like uh, you're on your own and you're trying to figure it out and, yes, there's a self help section at you know Barnes and Noble. But you could get lost down that rabbit hole too, without knowing exactly what it is you should be doing for yourself. Then, on top of it, all those voices in your head are telling you you don't have a problem, those people are crazy. Why are they telling you this dude, just keep going. Just keep doing what you're doing, you're going to be fine, you can handle this.

Massimo Rigotti:

Just pack it on, you know exactly, and as, as you do that and you start to succeed, you know, coming out of this without leaning on anyone, excuse me I was able to continue onward.

Michael Devous:

Well, those were probably. Those were probably affirmations that you were okay Because you had some successes under your belt and you were like I'm good, right, I'm doing it, but look at me, I'm killing it, right, exactly, as opposed to you're actually clicking up the the roller coaster ride for the edges.

Massimo Rigotti:

Right, right, no, it wasn't that at all. Instead, you know, it was success after success in life is really where I landed. You know, I went out, I dropped out of college and I ended up starting several companies in succession across different industries and where the addiction kind of went off its rails not to speed this along, but there's no sense in talking about all of the years there but where it really went off the rails is when I was working in the entertainment business, because it went from taking clients out to for drinks at and then that was just part of the day to drinking at breakfast, drinking at lunch, drinking at night. Man, I can't keep going. Oh, here you go, moss, here's some cocaine. Oh, cool, thanks, I appreciate that I can keep working a little bit the hamster wheel.

Michael Devous:

And the first time you're like, oh, my God, I can think I can. I can do 10 times more stuff than you're exactly, and you can. It's a real, it is a real achievement, if you will, for a very short window, yes. When you're like, wow, look at me, I'm pushing through, I'm getting so much stuff done, and so you keep thinking you want to do more. But then you also have to temper it because you're like I can't get to sleep. So now I got to take all that stuff to lying down. Yeah Right, next thing you know you're having, you know, dorothy syndrome.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yes, yes, exactly, and then eventually real. I think really in the beginning what it is as someone who's bipolar and really I admit even today I really enjoy mania periods Because the amount of things that I can get done when I'm in a mania are unbelievable.

Michael Devous:

Because you're tapping into that part of your brain. That is the overachieving, that is the adrenaline rush, that is all of those firing modes, brain ideations that are coming forth. It's not like you're tapping into the bad parts, you are tapping into the good parts. It's just you're tapping into it with an excessive amount of adrenaline and hormones and other things. That cannot be sustained and then when the crash happens, you don't know what to do. On the other side, there is no like. You don't know what's happening to your life and to your thinking on the other side of that.

Michael Devous:

Talk us through a little bit about the other side of mania for you. I know you landed in the streets finally in Kansas, which was post-using, and of course that's what happens to most of us is that we use to enhance that part of ourselves that we think is the best the mania, if you will and we reach certain levels of success and then we have to do more and more and more and more of the drugs and the alcohol and the things to medicate the rest right, and then the crash happens. So I imagine the crash for you is pretty rough.

Massimo Rigotti:

The crash was pretty rough, so we're going to tiptoe back just into the very beginnings of the crash Now. Nobody would have realized that I was in the midst of the crash at the time, but in early 2014, in March of that year, I got together a few of my friends and we took a vacation to Destin, florida, and that's where I met, on the beach, samantha Thomas, and we became like instantaneously connected is the best way that I can describe it. It was one of those just first site this is my person type of situations and we became very close and kept in contact. But I was going off the rails and she was challenged herself a little bit in the confidence department and she had done a self portrait and the title of the self portrait was flavors of confidence. Now you can see where everything kind of ties together. Okay, and the self portrait she described to me was that she was just pieces of a fake hole, and it's really interesting Say that again pieces of a fake hole, of a fake hole, a fake hole. So she's like you know, she just and so when you look at the self portrait, if you stand back literally just three feet from it, it looks like a very polished painting, but if you go up close you realize that it's literally probably close to 20,000 dots that she individually dotted and faded, and I mean it's really remarkable. So, basically, the point of this was that she didn't have the confidence to to, or feel like she had the confidence necessary to get on with her life and and really fleshed that out at me. She asked me so many questions about my own confidence and then we took this exploration.

Massimo Rigotti:

While I'm, I'll had a home and I still you know, I was still functioning. We really explored this in depth over the summer of 2014 and into the fall, and that's where I really learned a lot about you know how to frame up, possibly confidence. We started talking about stoicism. We were relating on ways that we could do it. Of course, all log. She said to me you really should stop putting that poison in you, referring to the alcohols. Bless you, thank you, and and. But it wasn't until years later that I brought this all back in and and saw that it actually had a foundational function in me Not drinking any. So we, we get to the end of the year, in December of that year, I've out on the street and and during this period.

Massimo Rigotti:

I didn't always have a phone. I got a PO box and Samantha wrote me letters and she'd asked me all sorts of questions that would keep get me thinking and keep me going through this whole, this whole period and Really got me reflecting on myself One of the things that really stands out on me, and it was a moving letter and that I I ended up sending her an eight page reply. It was Every time you take a drink. I want you to write down what you were thinking before you wanted to take the drink and then write down why you actually went through with taking the drink. And I mean that gets you thinking a lot about why am I doing this?

Massimo Rigotti:

And as I went through that exercise, yeah, and reflected on it, I realized that once again, all of this was going back to fear of abandonment, and so really I had had the opportunity to figure out what was really ailing me. Why was what was I running from? And and it's kind of interesting I was running from everyone For the fear that they would run for me, if that makes any sense.

Michael Devous:

So I mean, well, yeah, well, it goes back to I, I need to do it to you first before you do it to me. Or, as I was doing it when I was a kid, I'll do it to myself first. So you, when you do it, it doesn't hurt as bad. Yeah, yeah, that was my thinking, because I would. That's how. That's where myself deprecating humor came from. I'll make fun of myself first and poke fun at all the things that are wrong with me Publicly and make you laugh about it, so that you won't then turn around and use it against me. It's already out there, so it disarms them. But what you're doing is you're chipping away at your self-worth. You're chipping away at your own value. When? When did you wake up and realize you were still carrying that abandonment, that boy from the courtroom From so many years ago?

Massimo Rigotti:

It took me all the way until October of 2015. Oh, to you to recognize that.

Michael Devous:

So that's a long time I was ten months. Well, you were pin-palling with her the entire time, right, yeah, it was a sort of a. She was your pin-pall in the darkness. Yeah, you, you rode the darkness from October of 2014 through October of 2015.

Massimo Rigotti:

December or 24 December until October of 2015 is when I was like really in the depths of of of everything, and then I recognized where I was at, what I needed to do. But that wasn't enough, it's still. I was challenged, because then I was in the actual Throws of. I got to get rid of the alcohol, which is a physiological challenge. At that point, Well, it's both.

Michael Devous:

I would imagine that once you get to that place, it's physiological, psychological and emotional, like you're. It's a trip threat such as scenario.

Massimo Rigotti:

It is, it is, but I recognized why I was drinking. So now it was okay, I should've been writing it down. You've been, yeah, okay, okay, yeah. So I had, I mean, and I have all my notes and everything from this period. It's really interesting to go back and read it. Wow.

Massimo Rigotti:

So I, because I was journaling at this time so I have a very active Recollection and when I went back and wrote this book that just came out sober method, I've reviewed those notes from the time period when we were corresponding in 2015 and it was really interesting to take a look back and see how I came to formulate what I did, and I thought it was really important to be to go back and look at those journals while I was writing this book so that I got the most unique view and I share some of that in the in the beginning of the book, before I really dive into the method, because I think it's important that people understand that how I came to this, this methodology, was very honestly, through my own experience and In collaborating with somebody else. Were you?

Michael Devous:

okay, so Going back and looking at those and reading them. Were they triggers? Was it a trip? Were you afraid that it would be triggers for you?

Massimo Rigotti:

The the reason. No, I wasn't worried that it would be a trigger in terms of a Rinking. However, I knew that it would be difficult and we haven't got to this, but we'll go ahead and throw it in at this point because it completes the story in. In August of August 1st of 2020, samantha was murdered by a drunk driver and, and, and. So it Talk about little circle, yeah, and some sort of weird fold full circle type of. That's the only way I can kind of complete the completed in my mind yeah, but it's.

Michael Devous:

I don't want to say it's ironic, no, but it's also a bit poetic in a very dark way. Do you know what I'm saying like? The irony is that she saved you and the person that saved you was killed by somebody who also had an addiction.

Massimo Rigotti:

Exactly exactly, and that's a hard thing for me. So I mean there are more tears that were that brought upon by reading the these things than than anything else. It because it it hurts, it still hurts, it's an open wound in a lot of ways. I mean it's. It's behind me Three years now, but it still feels very fresh.

Michael Devous:

Well, it should. I mean you loved her and she, you know was, was a pivotal, influential individual in your life that helped shape and change who you were. Actually I was a change you, but she brought out the real you. She allowed the you to be seen and I think she saw the real you before you did she did.

Massimo Rigotti:

That's funny. You say that because it was. It's actually the very day that we met, the night that we met she. She told me that I didn't have to be drunk to be amazing and Nobody had ever said that.

Michael Devous:

isn't it incredible when you hear that for the first time and you're like, yeah, you don't realize that that's what you're doing, like when it stops you in your tracks Because you you didn't think that's what you were doing, you thought you were just enjoying yourself For the longest time and then, all of a sudden, it took over and it's like there's this part, there's this moment when the window, like you know, you like you pull the curtain back a little bit and you're like, oh my god, I'm stuck in here. Look at what I've done to myself, right?

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, no, absolutely so. It. It was definitely as you say. She changed my life, and definitely for the better. But really all that she did, and all she would ever claim that she did, is that she just Finally had me look in the mirror and see myself, and then it's all she would. She would, she never would take any credit as I tried to give her for really helping me. It was she, I know. She was happy to to help, but at the same time she put that back on me and said you had to want it. And I and I take that as being very important to share with everybody. Anybody, anybody who wants to not be an addict anymore. They have to want it. And until they want it yes, until you want it, if you're listening and you're, you're struggling with addiction you have to want it. You have to decide for yourself that this is for you. You can't think about anybody else. You have to think about how it better is you? Because when I thought about other people, I couldn't get rid of the last piece.

Michael Devous:

I already knew what was wrong with me, but until I said I want to do this for me and I and I decided that then I never wanted to have another drink or do any more Drunk and don't you think that making that statement, the problem or the challenge I should say that we face In making this statement you have to want to do it for yourself Is that you don't see you're worthy of it and because of that you can't make this statement. And with that's where we we get stuck. At that last Step, that last hurdle of Getting clean, getting sober, getting back on on track with our lives, is because deep down inside, what we really fight Is our own self-value and our own self-worth. There's a hole there that we've been feeling for so many years that by the time we get to a place where we have to stand up for Ourselves and say I believe in myself and I think I'm worthy of sobriety, that's a very hard Thing to say when you don't believe you're worthy of love or anything else.

Massimo Rigotti:

That's very true and that's why flavors of confidence is so work so well, because the cornerstone of all of the sobriety work is Confidence. And that is what I realized and recognized and that was the brilliance of this, of this whole entire endeavor and in the conversations we had back in 2015 and 2014 was that confidence was the root of being able to take that next step, because if I was confident with who I was and what I was capable of, I didn't need a drink In order to do what I wanted to do. People often say, with the most common thing, you always hear I need some liquid courage. You know, everybody's heard that term. Yes, yes, nobody needs any liquid courage. Liquid courage is just going to make you make a fool of yourself. Yeah, it would be a much smarter if you just had the inner confidence to go do whatever it is. Don't take a shot and go talk to the girl. Just go over and say hello to her.

Michael Devous:

So tell me, how would you then describe confidence from your side of the fence, with what you've experienced, and especially because you've written this book, how would you begin to describe confidence? A lot of people say it's so hard to be confident. How do I find my self confidence? And and you're painting a picture here where, where just having confidence is an. Is that enough, or is it a development you're talking about here, like what's our journey with this?

Massimo Rigotti:

Oh well, it is enough once you have it. And it's funny because I I kick off the second chapter of this book by Literally pulling out a dictionary and defining confidence is it's defined in the dictionary, yeah, and then pointing out the fact that you can tell that the the editors of the dictionary you know, I don't know what those people are called, but anyway we'll call them editors but that they don't even know what confidence is because they define it in this Nebulous sense that they don't know what it is. But you know what confidence is when you see it and and that. And I think that that's very true.

Massimo Rigotti:

But In order to feel confident is really just feeling secure that, no matter what gets thrown at you in a situation, you are not going to waver from who you are. And when you feel that way, you're confident. If you ever do not feel that way, you're not confident. And there are still moments that I'm not confident, but I tell you what they're very few and far between. There are very few situations I find myself in now where I'm not confident to take an action and know that I'm taking the correct action. That is true to myself.

Michael Devous:

Yes, I have this absurd amount of confidence like I step into it's. It is it's almost mania for me because People always say you know that when they've observed me and stuff, they're like you just go after and do stuff. And I honestly really think that this goes back. I think I mentioned it to you in the previous time when we were recording to, when I I met Mary Kay For the first time and was working on. I was a dancer in her show and I got to escort her on stage and introduce her to the 10,000 women screaming and she was always wearing this beautiful pendant that's like a bumblebee and I was always looking at it, wondering. And she Caught me staring at the bumblebee and she mentioned she's like you're staring at my pendant and I was like, yes, I mean, you're the queen bee of a multi-billion dollar company, why do you wear this bumblebee? I'm not sure I understand the purpose of it. She says well, it's very interesting that you would ask.

Michael Devous:

The bumblebee is physiologically not supposed to be able to fly because its wings are are too small To actually hold up the size of its body, so technically speaking it shouldn't be able to fly. But she said you know what I, she leaned in and she's like you know what I love about the bee? And I was like, no, she goes, the bee doesn't know it. And I was like, and then, and then the curtains open and I had to walk out and I was like it just occurred to me. I was like, oh, that's me, I don't know it. I don't know, I can't fly, I don't know that my wings aren't supposed to be able to do what they do. I just go and attack the thing I wanna do. I just go, take it on and I step into it with all the failures that are gonna come, with all the stumbling blocks that are gonna happen. I step fully, 100% into that. And I guess I don't realize that there's a negative thing there. I don't think I realize you could get people are gonna judge you for it Like this podcast and stuff, where I was like I'm gonna do this podcast and I'm gonna be out there, I'm gonna be talking.

Michael Devous:

I have absolutely zero fear doing this Now. Do I have the fear of running the business side of it and making sure that I get enough likes and followers and all that stuff? Yes, I don't really understand how to manage all the social media marketing and play in that sandbox, but here, having conversations with one on one, with people talking about authenticity, talking about courage and fear at the intersection of our lives and being business people and like-minded people who reach out and affect and impact the world 100% my place, no problem, and I've always had that. I think you've always had that. I think you sparkle with confidence.

Michael Devous:

One of the things a lot of people say on the Speaker Lab as well have mentioned about you repeatedly is you carry this beautiful confidence and authority over yourself and with who you are, and I wonder if that's. I know that's something that you and I have in common, but I also wonder if it's something that you and I not only carry with us at the core of who we are, but sort of today, because of what it's been through, it's now become this wholly different thing. It wasn't just because I'm blissfully naive and stupid, trying everything under the sun and I'm young and I don't care. It comes with miles and miles and miles of road behind me, stepping forward and saying I've got this and if I don't, I'm gonna be okay.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, yeah, I tell you if you just hit on something with that last statement. If it doesn't, I'm gonna be okay. My mom often says that I'm a cat.

Michael Devous:

Landing on your feet right.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, and the first time I heard her say that I'm like, I don't really like cats.

Michael Devous:

So when she said, that and she knows this, so when she said that to me once.

Massimo Rigotti:

I was like what? Then I understood what she meant. She told me that she doesn't worry about me, cause she knows I'll always land on my feet, and she said that when I was a drunk and a drug addict. So that ability was there. What wasn't there, or what it was at that point was fake confidence and I talk a little bit about this in my book as well is that if you put up that fake confidence, people see through it. It's not authentic.

Michael Devous:

So, in this world of fake it till you make it, people who have imposter syndrome that are suffering under the weight of that fake it, who practiced the art of the fake it till you make it situation, mainly because they were suffering from FOMO here's a bunch of acronyms that we're gonna throw out at you, yeah, yeah yeah, you know there were fear of missing out on something right, so they began to fake it until they made it.

Michael Devous:

I've done that in certain scenarios, but do you think that there's a danger inherent in not owning the authenticity of your experience by faking it?

Massimo Rigotti:

Absolutely. That's so funny. You bring that up Cause I literally say I literally wrote that that is the least, my least favorite term fake it until you make it, because you're not. You might think that you're faking it, but you're not. Everybody knows, everybody sees through it and it's a lot. It's a lot more rewarding and of course, I didn't see this until the other side, but I can tell you right now it's a lot more rewarding to walk into a situation and walk right up to whoever's in charge to say you know, I've never done this before. I have no idea what's going on. Could you, you know, give me some direction? Wow, you would be amazed at the response you get. You just made a friend for the rest of the evening in a way that you probably never thought was possible.

Michael Devous:

One of the things that occurs to me, and I just listening to you talk about that while we're discussing this, my brain was just sort of ruminating on it. I don't think I like the word. I don't think I like the phrase fake it till you make it, because what it suggests is that there's no start. What it suggests is that there's no beginning for anyone until you've arrived. Right, unless you've arrived, then you can claim in stake you're not an imposter. Well, what the fuck does the beginning look like? Like what is the journey to get there look like?

Michael Devous:

If you don't fall and stub your knee and stub your toe and break whatever and learn from those lessons, that's not faking it. You're making like. That's making it. You're literally taking the steps all the hard ones, by the way to get to that place, and every one of us that is successful, every single entrepreneur out there that brags in front of his million dollar plane at his $300,000 sports car, has done that journey. And that's not fake, that's real. So why do we put that moniker on it? I don't think I like it either.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, that's why I don't like it. It's the authentic and you completely you took it apart and you figured out exactly what I've been espousing for years now is like I just don't like it. It brings off the wrong energy. It's very similar to something that I talk about as well. That is very important, and that is this has got me into some trouble in the past with some 12 step programs. I will not ever say hi, I'm Massimo, I'm an alcoholic. No, I'm not. I'm not an alcoholic. I've overcome that. I am better than that.

Michael Devous:

I'm 100% there. I'm 100% with you there. I don't walk around saying I'm a drug addict, I don't do drugs anymore, I stopped doing drugs, I'm beyond doing drugs. In fact, I'm on the other so far on the other side of it that it doesn't even occur to me to even be bothered with that anymore, because I've changed at the core of who I am. I don't need to keep walking that path and bringing it up every single time. I tell a story, because that's no longer my story. It is part of a journey that I've been on, certainly, and that's a roadside you can go back and look at, but it isn't where I'm headed and it isn't who I am today. You know what I'm saying, so I'll kind of with you on that one.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, yeah. Well, what it is is it's an affirming statement. You know we spend this time. You're going into a program and you're supposed to believe that you're powerless over a substance. Well, that's not helpful, right? Because at the same time, you're powerless over something. You're supposed to have the strength to overcome it. The two are coming at each other from different directions. It is never gonna work in your mind.

Michael Devous:

But I think that's why they ask us to relinquish that authority to God of our understanding, or a higher power, as they say, because for some reason, I suppose that that by relinquishing the authority and the power of the drug addiction, because you were powerless to control it, by giving that over to an entity that is bigger than you, you are now relieved of the responsibility of what? Of changing, of taking steps, because you're not responsible. Clearly you've proven that and you can't manage your life. You know, because that's what we're saying.

Massimo Rigotti:

Exactly, and so I understand the premise, yes, but in practice I don't believe that it does. I'm a man of faith, so I'm speaking that that's important. However, I think, as a matter of practice in one's own being, you have to have the inner strength within you to recognize that, hey look, you're the one causing these issues. You are the one that has the struggle. You can overcome it.

Michael Devous:

Well, you had the power to get here. You had the power to create the situation. That means you own. If you own it 100% instead of relinquishing it, I mean literally own it, taking full, 100% responsibility for every step and every problem and every death and every incident hurt that you've done, then then, and only then, can you then affect the power to change it. If you're giving it away to every single person, if you're giving it away to this program and you're giving away to that person who's helping you or that person who's doing it or whatever it is, and you're not owning it 100%, how do you then take ownership of your sobriety and your recovery? How do you take ownership of the next step on your journey when it's given to everybody else, right? That part I never understood.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, well, I mean, you sound like a disciple of my program.

Michael Devous:

I love it, I mean like you're totally nailing it out here and, speaking of the program, ladies and gentlemen here at the Felix Road podcast, talking to Massimo Ragotti, who's new book, the Flavors of Confidence, tell me the sub title Sober method. Sober method, which is the second version, by the way, that's out now available on Amazon and other fine retailers. Please pick it up and get it and then join the conversation, cause I think you're gonna discover a lot of interesting things about not only yourself, but the journey that you can take in terms of discovering what confidence really means.

Michael Devous:

And for those of us out here who suffer from fear of judgment, from competition, from comparison disease, or if you're always comparing yourself to other people, or if you have imposter syndrome and you doubt your own self worth and self value, flavors of Confidence shows you, in several steps, how you can begin to gain that back and take it back underneath your own wings and be the one that flies and be the one that carries yourself through and into any situation that comes forward. So, massimo, take us through some of the other challenges that in the book, specifically because we could get many tangents on your life, the streets and what you've done as an entrepreneur. The journey that you've had is incredible. How does Flavors of Confidence the method? How does it help other entrepreneurs currently where they're at? What can they do and get from the book that they didn't get from the first one?

Massimo Rigotti:

Oh, absolutely. So. The most important thing that you're gonna get out of this is finding yourself. This is a tool book, or this is a workbook that you can take and really apply to any life. You don't have to be an addict for this book to be an incredible impact on your life, because the basis of all of this starts with Stoic, which is the S. So Stoic stands for Stoic Observe, behavior, execute and Restore and it works like a process improvement plan, like the Deming Cycle for those of you out there in manufacturing. So you're completing a step, you're going around, you're working through it and you come back and then you take another step in your improvement process.

Massimo Rigotti:

One of the most important things for those that are addicts is that I'm not coming out here in the process and saying you need to go cold turkey. I don't think that that is something that is doable by a lot of people. Quitting smoking by cold turkey does not work very often, nor does drinking, nor does doing drugs. It's a lot easier to make measurable gains in your progress by making measurable gains in your psychology. How am I thinking about things? Am I improving my mood? Am I improving the way that I reflect on each day and you'll find, by going through the process where you're observing what you're doing, you're remapping your behavior, you're then executing.

Massimo Rigotti:

In that step, you're measuring what you have mapped out in your observation and your behavior change, and by doing that you're able to very quickly see oh, that's not working. I need to go back and change a little bit of something here that I'm doing in my behavior and maybe I should cut this person out of my life. And if I do that, then okay, look, that adjustment made this change. Now I only want two drinks a day, okay. So I mean, I'm boiling it down very into a very, very simple but just in order to get the point across that I think it's very important that your improvement doesn't have to come all at once.

Michael Devous:

But we're living in this for time, yes, and I think we're living in this world of iterative generation, change, right, Incremental iterative change for both our products and services. Why not for our leadership training in our companies? Why not for our development, internal development, culturally speaking, for the corporation and the company, as well as our personal right. So if we were taking a very pragmatic view of this and which is what you do you break it down for us in these steps and you, you create this sort of iterative cycle for us to take a look at and journal and and write down. Once we get from here to here and we look at the changes that need to be nith, we take a reflexive look back and we go. Is it working? Is that step?

Michael Devous:

And, by the way, one of the things I talked when I was first starting out making this podcast and developing the concept for this podcast, which is talking about the entrepreneurship journey, I feel like too many people claim that stake of entrepreneurship without giving credit to those of us who are on the journey, who deny you the right to the title because you haven't made a million dollars, right? So to me, this is part of recognizing every step you take in the direction of your heart and the direction of your mission and the direction of your authenticity is a reward. It is. It should be recognized and valued and as a success.

Michael Devous:

Those little steps are major successes. Nobody got to the top of the mountain jumping to it. You stepped all the way up that mountain and every step was no less valuable than the one that came before right, so you can't compare them and say, oh, that was a better step than that one. No, did you get to the top of the mountain? Then great, every step those feet took, every single stumble that you made, is a valuable part of the journey that got you there. And I think your pragmatic view could be very valuable to leadership, executive leadership, especially in these training programs, and culture, especially culture shifts at corporations, by looking at it from this angle.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean anything that you want to improve about yourself. This is the perfect way to bring out your unique flavor of confidence. That's the whole point of the book. Yes, Sure, I'm out here talking about sobriety, because it's near and dear to my heart and obviously it has impacted me in a large way. But what is so interesting?

Massimo Rigotti:

From my first book, I received a letter from a reader that told me that they had used my method which is only like 12 pages in the back of the last book as opposed to this very detailed book that I just wrote and they had used it to help with their device addiction, and that honestly blew my mind a little bit because I had not stopped to think about them. The power of the system that I had created could literally help anybody find an improvement in their life if they were focused on the reflective aspect and the incremental improvement that they can make. So and again this ties back into the fake it until you make it. Yeah, you don't need to fake it until you make it. You just need to make it a little bit and then look and say, hey, look, I'm doing better.

Michael Devous:

Well, it's interesting that you say that, because I was just thinking this actually taps into one of the diseases that all of us have, which is we all get to the same.

Michael Devous:

All of us have done this raise your hand if you haven't liar. We get to this place in your life where you look, you go, oh my god, how did I get here? And we have our head down and we're so busy doing the things and life and everything that we forget how we got there. And it's almost like you're taking advantage of that little disease of our minds that if you focus on the little bitty steps and you're down here just doing the little bitty steps and go, oh, look at that little bitty step, oh, look at that little bitty step, oh, look at that little bitty step, before you know it, when you look up, you're like holy shit, yeah, I'm down here, yeah, I got up down, and you take advantage of that little part of us. I think that it does this in our own lives and if we put it to use in a proper way, in a positive way, it can actually benefit us.

Massimo Rigotti:

Absolutely. It's those little rewards that you get along the way. And of course, device addiction may as well throw out one of the biggest, two biggest tips that I've given. I'm still working through this. I'm going to write a third book about device addiction because it seems to be something that is quite popular and I think that maybe with some study I could lend my hand here a little bit. But I think that the sober method would work for it, but maybe with some alterations a little bit that focused in on device. So the two things that I would recommend is one turn off all your notifications, just turn them off, just just turn them off. I know that that sounds like oh, I mean other than the phone ringing. Turn them off, and if you do that you're you're going to find that you're not going to grab your phone quite as often and if that doesn't work, to stop your engagement. Most smartphones have the ability to turn to grayscale. You know, turn your phone to grayscale, you'll find it pretty boring in a hurry.

Michael Devous:

If it's not so colorful, if it's not another piece of candy, another piece of candy another piece of candy.

Massimo Rigotti:

You got it. And because every one of these apps. One thing that's very telling is a statement that I heard Elon Musk make here recently when he was talking about X. He didn't say that he wanted people to use the platform less. Instead, he said they're developing it to be the time on it to be less regretful. Okay, all these. He didn't want you to regret your time like you do on certain other platforms. Like all of these platforms out here, all these apps are designed to take all of them up away your energy. And do you ever get done like scrolling through Instagram for two hours or tick tock for two hours and go man, I just wasted my life. I mean, I don't personally do that, but I hear it a lot from people and I'm 15 minutes a day on social media and I feel like that's a healthy relationship. Like I feel like I've formed a healthy relationship with my devices, where they're tools rather than me working for the device.

Michael Devous:

Well, the thing about this is, with the things that became that were an entertaining distraction have become a focus of our work, and our sales and our marketing and all the other aspects of our lives are now 100% tied to what was essentially supposed to have been a nice entertaining distraction, and instead we are.

Michael Devous:

We are tied into them to the point where it was giving us this sort of feedback loop that we're suffering from, but then now we have to use it in order to just do business. So now we're stuck, not being able to disassociate or take time off from that entertaining distraction. We now have to be on it all the time, and so I think what you're saying is like well, you and a lot of other people are pointing out that, establishing a time of day in your process and your regimen and what have you where you give or gift yourself a freedom from that distraction, from those notifications, from that buzz, right, right, and there's a generation of kids right now. You and I are not part of that. We grew up where we didn't have this right.

Massimo Rigotti:

We were like I ran to the phone in the kitchen because it was the only phone we had.

Michael Devous:

You know well we we, we dedicated Thursday nights for family TV. I mean, everybody gathered around the sofa to watch a program because it only came out on Thursday.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, you wouldn't forward to you didn't know if it would ever be a rerun. Yeah, I mean like what's a rerun, what's?

Michael Devous:

a rerun. Who's got that, you know? Where do we, you know? And, by the way, at the time, reruns were really bad television, exactly. So, yeah, I think you know we, we look forward to the distractions that were available to us, because we only got them once in a while. We didn't have it inundating our brains and our psyche and our energy all of the time. So I'm curious, what is happening, like with your book specifically is probably going to address some of this, but with this generation and the next generation and then the one the millennials and the Zs, who I think are suffering from this, this constant barrage of data and feedback loop from these devices, where they don't escape there is no time off for them from this world and of electronic feedback, you know, stimuli what else can they get from your? Is there a chapter in your book that talks about this specifically or addresses that?

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, it was a late ad at the end. I actually have a. I added a chapter at the end of the book right before I was headed to publish. I pulled it back and I decided I was gonna add a chapter on device addiction. It's actually the name of the chapter is device addiction is real. I want to make sure it's clear to everybody that this is a real thing and we really need to address it and find a way to have a very you're very correct in what you said.

Massimo Rigotti:

We have these devices all the time. They're used for business and in those generations they grew up going through middle school, high school, college, constantly attached to them as social devices, and so it's very tough possibly for them to break that. Oh well, my social is just one icon away from my email that I were replying my boss on, and to slip into that and the next thing you know, they've wasted 10 minutes at work. And that can be avoided again by just having notifications like the icon notifications turned off. If you don't see the little 10 or 99 sitting on your, your TikTok, you're like I'm probably not gonna open it because nothing's going on. There's something in your brain that connects and says if I don't see that, then I know that there's nothing going on. I mean, what's weird is that your brain does know there's something going on but you don't have that dopamine release of like I'm gonna get a little dopamine if I see that 99 go to zero, you know.

Michael Devous:

Well, one of the things I'm worried about or I should say that I'm concerned about a little bit here is that this generation, so much of their identity, is tied to the device, meaning that they grew up developing an identity, developing a persona, developing the things you and I developed through expectation of performance to other people, changing who we are in order to fit in, doing all those different things and then ultimately developing addictions as a result of filling that hole in that gap. We didn't have our identity tied to a social media persona, we didn't have our identity tied to a digital device, and I wonder what they're gonna end up within their 40s and 50s when so much of who they are is tied to this device and all the things that they've used it for. When you and I can put it down and walk away, we know what that means when we go. This isn't me. You know what I'm saying. It doesn't represent me. It's a piece of work and stuff that I use at the tool.

Michael Devous:

We could say that with confidence. Thank you, flavors of confidence about these devices. We could go turn it off. I don't want to hear from it, but they don't have that identity. They don't have that space of time when they were somebody else without it. Do you know what I mean?

Massimo Rigotti:

I do know what you mean and I think that's why it's very important that those that don't have addictions, that are in that in those generations, especially those that are pushing into their 30s, that they really look at it. If it's not sober method, that it needs to be something else, because, building themselves, most of them have very low confidence in their ability to stand without their device in their hand. Take it away from them Without their device in their hand. That's how dependent so many of them are and that's a that's a scary thing. So, basically, what happens is that that social media, like that's already a persona.

Massimo Rigotti:

It's no different than what I did by putting on that mask and not knowing who I was. Yes, I would argue that a lot of this occurs in them as well, except it's been delayed by many more years, because they can keep up that social persona probably until their early to mid 30s, and then they're going to be very challenged to keep up with the generation below them and then they're gonna find themselves undeveloped, as is like who am I? Yes, I think that that's already beginning to happen, because I hear it sometimes with some of my younger friends I don't really know who I am. How can you not know who you are?

Michael Devous:

You're 25 years old, but we vote and we didn't have that distraction, we didn't have this alter ego through a device, that that we could vicariously live through or exist through, that we thought was giving us some kind of value or worth, right, and then for that to go away, for that to be challenged at a certain point in your development and I'm not talking early, I'm talking by the time you get 30, something like you know, when you start to change and you're no longer youthful and you're no longer the top and you're no longer whatever the those things are that those algorithms treat you and reward you with right. Well, fuck that, fuck those algorithms. Because, by the way, we all get here, ladies and gentlemen, you all get older. Yeah, I'll get wrinkles, we all get on this side of it and the algorithms don't care about us. No, they don't want to hear from us. Well, guess what Life exists on the other side of the algorithm?

Massimo Rigotti:

Life is better on the other side of the algorithm.

Michael Devous:

Freedom. There's a little freedom there. You know what I mean. That's right. They're gonna. They're gonna need this book. They're gonna need some guidance and some steps to like navigate how to get beyond the phone. You know what I mean.

Massimo Rigotti:

Yeah, no, absolutely. And how to? That comes right back into it how to be confident with who they are, discovering who they really are and and who they are is framed up by whatever persona that has existed since they were a teenager on their Instagram or their TikTok, and and that is a very tough thing to uphold you change. You change a lot in your early 20s. I mean, I know both of us have changed a lot over over our lifetimes. I feel sometimes like I've lived at least two times and I'm on my third right now Five.

Massimo Rigotti:

Like for me it's like five or six, yeah, exactly yeah, you know, yeah, so that they're in this really extended period of trying to interact with the world in a way, and a lot of them are doing it without having any addiction, but their addiction is actually that device. They're addicted to the persona, yeah, which isn't even really them.

Michael Devous:

Yeah so it's.

Massimo Rigotti:

It's really something interesting. Like I said, I'm diving into it because Talk about a Poster syndrome. Yeah, yeah, I have a lot of. I have a lot of empathy for these individuals and I really want to figure it out because I think they're gonna need help as they cross that, cross that.

Michael Devous:

Well, I agree with you and I think you know what the Fearless Road podcast is here to help ladies and gentlemen, whether you're on the entrepreneurial journey or whether you're fake it till you make it journey, or whether you're trying to find your own confidence journey. By the way, it's a journey. All of us are on it. We all stumble on this road and we all try to find our own way and our own path to authenticity. And let me tell you, getting to your authentic self and living your authentic self is really a blessing. And Massimo Ragotti, with us today, flavors of confidence. It is a guide and and he is a beacon of light to help you get there. Please pick up this book, please find him. And where can they find you? On your social media. What channels can they get you?

Massimo Rigotti:

on. They can find me on social media and I'll go ahead and announce on your podcast because by the time this drops it will be out there. But I am starting my own channel on all the socials. It is sober method. You can find me there. You can find me there. I'm gonna be doing snippets, daily reminders. We're gonna have sober Monday's and execution Thursday's and we're gonna get through the program together with tips and tricks and and and help everyone out there who is that wants to make a change, that wants to improve who they are and who they see in the mirror and and have the confidence to walk into any room and know they are their own person. I think that that strength, if I can, if I can give that to just a few hundred people, that would be an amazing thing for me to leave behind in this world, but I really hope that it's far more than a few hundred. I hope.

Michael Devous:

I think it's going to make an impact, absolutely, and we're here for it 100%. The Fairless Road is gonna be right behind you. We're gonna be following and paying attention and walking along this path with you and, of course, I'm gonna be picking up the new book so that I can get caught up on this as well. And if you need any advice, you guys want to listen in, you want to call in, you want to like, you know text at mention. Whatever you need to do, we are here to help you find your Fearless Road, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a business person or whether you're just starting out in this world and you'd like to put down that device and and gain some confidence at finding yourself. This is the journey. This is the path. With us today at the Fearless Road podcast is Massimo Ragotti, his new book, the flavors of confident a sober method is out now and it's in.

Michael Devous:

It's going to be on a new channel which is going to be amazing. So thank you, massimo, so much for coming and joining me again and being a part of this journey with me on the Fearless Road. I hope to talk to you again and and get to some like other side of these things and discover and talk a little bit about your journey when you were on your road or, as we called, the street. There were some interesting stories that we didn't get to cover in today's episode, but perhaps Massimo will come back and share them with us again. Ladies and gentlemen, let's thank Massimo Ragotti for joining us today and please be confident in your life and yourself. You're worth every single moment of it. Believe that. And what do we say? Stay Fearless. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Fearless Road podcast. If you like what you hear and you love what you see, remember to like and subscribe. And if you're interested in Massimo's book, the flavors of confidence, the sober method, make sure you pick it up today at amazoncom. I will put the links below bye.