Want to 10x your business and life? Join host Bronson Hill and guest host Nate Hambrick for a transformative conversation with Joe Mittiga, a serial entrepreneur and personal growth expert with Spirit Walkers. From living on a mattress in a basement to building Avon Energy, a thriving natural gas and electricity brokerage with 10,000 meters nationwide, Joe’s rags-to-riches journey is only half the story. Recorded in April 2025, this episode dives into his 30-year mission to heal addiction by addressing shame and inner child wounds, inspired by a spiritual awakening that changed his life. As Joe prepares for a TEDx talk in South Africa, he shares a four-step process to conquer limiting beliefs, practical tools to give voice to your deepest self, and how inner work fuels outer success.
Whether you’re an investor or entrepreneur, Joe’s insights on aligning business with purpose will inspire you to break free from what’s holding you back.
Get my new book: https://bronsonequity.com/fireyourself
Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: Welcome to the Mailbox Money show. I’m so excited to be here.
Thank you for being here and want to welcome my guest host Nate Hambrick.
Nate, how’s it going brother?
Nate Hambrick: It’s going well
Bronson Hill: You know, I’m really excited for this show. I just I just circle back, you know. We talk a lot about real estate and investing. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to like building a better life and I’ve just noticed that my own life.
My own walk it’s like, as I have a personal development breakthrough as I work on my goals. Or I do therapy or I do some of the deep work that some people think is a little woo-woo. It almost always leads to some breakthrough in my business, in my career, in my personal life, my relationships. And it’s a really quite kind of amazing.
Have you noticed something similar?
Nate Hambrick: Absolutely. I’ve got a strong theory that the best breakthroughs in my life in business happen on airplane rides. Happen in walks in the woods, happen whenever you have that environment. Where you can think deep thoughts and and focus on what you’re doing and how you can improve. And actually this last weekend I spent the second half working in the middle of 500 acres in the wilderness with trees and deer and not a single human soul. It’s amazing how many breakthroughs you can have in a solid day of you know. I kind of say jokingly but in my own zen garden, so absolutely i’m with you on that.
Bronson Hill: I feel like God speaks to me through nature, man. It’s just like so great being out in the wild. I’m really excited for our guest today. He actually works with a group called Spirit Walkers been doing this for years is very established in the energy space. And so again, it’s just amazing.
It’s awesome to see people that are going to live in the whole life and do it in a way that really brings them life. So we have Joe Mittiga here today, did I say right? Mittiga?
Joe Mittiga: Uhm Mittiga.
Bronson Hill: Okay. He’s here today He’s getting ready to fly out to go to his tedex talk in south africa, which is a beautiful place So excited to have you with us Joe. How are you doing?
Joe Mittiga: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.
Bronson Hill: Awesome, man. Well, you’ve done so many amazing things with your life. You know 25 years both doing kind of having two things, right?
Having this work of helping people healing addiction. Working on what’s holding you back that whole side also on the business side. You worked in the energy space. You’ve got a company there as well. I would love to kind of have you just kind of give us a little bit of your path and kind of how you got to where you are. Because obviously these are both very important to you and they’re both necessary. But it’s unusual to have somebody who’s really got two major things they’re doing like this and really experienced a lot of success in both
Joe Mittiga: Cool. Yeah. Well again. Thanks for having me.
I call myself the kind of Stereotypical rags to riches to glory story. I mean literally 30 years ago, I’m living on a mattress in an unfinished basement thinking nothing of it. A buddy of mine comes in and screaming and holler and i’m like, Lincoln, what is wrong with you?
He says you’re never going to play with these blankety blanks who we were. We were a pretty big personality, did a lot of constant what they want me to do? I was like, what? He says they want me to stop drinking for 90 days. Like who would do that?
I mean my early 30s never had the thought. Not one time. Long story short week later had a really powerful spiritual experience. Hence set me on a path of more of a personal growth. I wasn’t really ever trying to get to know God or any of that. I was just trying to not hurt all the time and like a lot of entrepreneurs. You know, I really just always thought if I had the right girl, the right business, the right location, the right something outside of me. Then i’d be okay.
Well, lo and behold, I wasn’t okay. And you know the path, the journey led me to where I am today. My business which is Avian Energy.
We broker natural gas electricity for clients across the country. We’ve got about 10, 000 meters. We handle that’s kind of my riches story. I do well, no question, but my glory story is is what i’m doing more now. Helping people become aware of what’s between their ears is truly what’s holding them back. Not something outside of themselves.
Bronson Hill: So, Bernie Brown, she talks a lot. I’ve studied a lot of her stuff. I went through a divorce unfortunately about seven-eight years ago. But it really became like a spiritual awakening for me as well. She talks about this idea of we can be. We start to numb out, we numb out the pain, we numb out things through some things that are like watching. You know, binge watching tv or eating too much food or these kind of things. But there’s things that are more harmful for us, right as people get into illegal drugs.
They get into other things, for me I’m going to share this publicly. But in my story, when I was in, I grew up my parents were divorced. And how I dealt with it, I found pornography at a young age and I was very addicted to it, right? And so as a teenager, that was something that really was, it kind of controlled me.
It was a comfort thing. And I think a lot of us have comfort things that we run to. And it really causes us, we don’t realize how it’s hurting us until it like, you see over time how it’s impacting your relationships. It impacts other things. And so, how does like, I guess, when you talk about healing addiction?
How does like, I mean for some people it becomes like an addiction. Becomes kind of out of control and all of a sudden somebody’s got a drug thing or they’ve got a sexual addiction. Or they’ve got some sort of thing and then like they just can’t function in their life. Can you talk a little bit about addiction and just why you think it’s an issue for a lot of people. And are there certain people that are just more have addictive personalities? Or we’re all kind of addicts in a way or like what’s your opinion on addiction?
Joe Mittiga: Oh sure. My book is called Healing Addiction. But what it’s really means is that every addiction, every behavior that we do has an inner hurt. That’s the source of, like you said loneliness, sadness, whatever it is. And you know shame has all sorts of different levels to it. The hardcore drunk, who’s the slobbery guy your stereotypical can’t stand up the toxic shame of somebody like that. The toxic shame of somebody who does a behavior on a daily basis and they don’t literally can’t stop. Much easier to see then just kind of general shame which are the beliefs that say i’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’m not fat enough. I’m not this, I’m the wrong card all of those beliefs that we tend to live out into our world.
I literally was just talking to a woman yesterday, good friend of mine for 30 years. She has this spiritual experience. She’s writing a book and she’s got all these great ideas and then she literally says to me. But no one will want to read it. Yeah, but no one will this and no one will that. And i’m like, you know, we have to write those voices down. Because that’s more of a limiting belief than hardcore toxic shame.
Nate Hambrick: So to all the people that do deal with shame on a daily basis because I think everybody deals with shame a hundred percent across the board. I mean, let me know if you know someone who doesn’t struggle with it.
I think we’re all dealing with it. How do you address it in a way that doesn’t just add more shame to the shame problem you already have?
Joe Mittiga: If I do a four-step process. The first step is write it down, it’s called a first step. So you start hearing the voices when I was guided in this the first time. You know what? My first voice was I don’t have any voices. That’s literally what I said and then I work on legal size paper like this. Legal size pads 12 pages, I don’t have any voices. I’m not good enough and I have people write it down bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. Which is not the emotion underneath it.
It’s just bullet point belief because most people don’t know how much is in there. And then the second one is so that’s the first thing we do. The second one is, I don’t know if you guys are football players. My son’s an elite baseball player So we watch a lot of baseball. Well, if Johnny Smith misses a ball. The voices that go into my head criticizing Johnny for striking out or missing a ball the critical voices we have people write it down. Basically, the whole belief is if it’s in your head, it doubles. If it’s out of you, it cuts in half. And i’ll end with this. Then tell somebody the voices. Not your spouse, not your partner, not somebody close. It’s not your partner’s job to be a spiritual support system for you, but there’s plenty of people out there. When you get it out then it’s kind of cuts the power of it now.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I’m really enjoying this conversation I love talking about this stuff. Because I become so much more free of a person by doing the work. I had social anxiety as a kid. I was like shy and I wanted to be but I was very insecure and then this happened. It was about seven-eight years ago after my divorce, I started doing a lot of the personal work stuff that I hadn’t done.
I’ve done some therapy over the years that started working on this stuff. And there’s a book called Healing the Shame that Binds You by Brad Shaw. And there’s an exercise in here and it gets into what I want to ask you next. But basically you write down. Well, it was basically what happens is a lot of times these shaming or these voices, these things that we’ve heard. Somebody said something to us when we were younger or somebody or like, you know somebody treated us a certain way and it made us feel like we weren’t valuable.
And so I really think like shame as a whole is like, even if something’s spiritual or not I just think like the devil works in shame like making us feel bad about. Because the guilt is like I did something bad but shame is I am bad. And so in the process of like this, I’ll just share this briefly but righty, they had to write a letter about you know, when I was a kid.
I wrote it to one of my caregivers, and I just basically said like hey, this is kind of this happened and I felt this way, right? This certain thing happened and I felt this way. It wasn’t anything horrible. Just kind of hey, I would have liked this whatever but what I was doing was basically saying, I value that inner child or that person. That’s still with me, you know, that littl Bronson Or I used to call myself Brawn, little Brawn that’s with me.
That’s eight years old. Now he’s still with me and I was able to value him and then it described that somebody had written this letter. And they had basically, you don’t have to say you don’t send it. But they put it in the mail and they say right when they put it in the mailbox. They started, they had this huge cell burst of self-confidence and the reason why is because they were standing up. They thought the the voice and the value for that little person or that inner child was more than what the person, the caregiver or that authority figure was. Or is now and I did the same thing and again. There was a response in my family and whatever it was not positive but still like for me it really boosted my self-confidence. I’d love you to talk a little bit about the inner child and kind of how that plays in. I need you a lot of work in this. So share some more on that
Joe Mittiga: Sure, you know when people understand our ego thinks we are an individualized being. But in reality, we’re multi-dimensional. We’re a multi-dimensional being we’re a male side and a female side from the spiritual sense. And we’re multi-dimensional when it comes to the emotional side of self. Well as the natural capacity of a four or five six-year-old you look at a child, they’re looking at their environment for validation.
They can’t do it on their own. They’re too little. They’re too young. Well, if you’re six, seven, eight, nine years old and you’ve got an environment that doesn’t purposely hurt you but in their unconscious state. They just don’t know any different let alone people that were truly abused. But for the majority of people years ago, consciousness wasn’t even a thing.
That’s why I talk about our generation as the generation of change. We have a consciousness to develop things today and to look at things differently than our parents did. Doesn’t make them right or wrong look at the generation before them and how just closed down things with. So what you’re talking about with Bradshaw in the honoring of self as a multi-dimensional self. That’s why the book is called your inner child has rights to it. I did a lot of multi-hand writing. Dominant hand write the question, Non-dominant hand just listening to those deeper parts.
And I talk about it a lot in my work how the first place to start healing shame is you give a voice to the darkest part. You give a voice to the deepest part of yourself. And when that part has a voice. Now I’m 60, I started this when I was 30. I started actually when I was 26 when I give a voice to my seven-eight year old 30 years ago and i’ve been doing it ever since. Because my parents, I lived in standard middle America, right? But there wasn’t nobody knew about emotional support. And they just didn’t know so I could give my kid the support today that he never got before and as those deeper parts are honored.
What’s the experience of freedom and an esteem move?
Nate Hambrick: One of the things that i’ve noticed especially when dealing with other people. Because like you said, they’re the people who are out to get you who are truly evil. Who try to put you down, but more often than not it’s just people that love us that are also broken people. That do things without being aware of how that’s going to impact you. And one of the things that I’ve done for several years that I’ve found very helpful is just saying it out loud. If somebody says something that I feel this emotion. It’s very easy to just move on and let ourselves feel the emotion without addressing why we felt that. And the easiest fix for me is just saying. When so-and-so said this thing I felt this because and then just saying out loud takes a lot of the power out of it. Do you do something similar or how do you untangle those strings yourself?
Joe Mittiga: Literally what you just said and always in a safe environment because the angst that’s inside of me. It’s no one else’s job to heal me and quite honestly there’s a whole world of people out there. Now that I could say something to then I get the validation back. But if I said it to my parents or whatever, they just don’t know so it’s not as effective. But yes anything you can get out of yourself tt just cuts the power of it in half. And then a lot of times there’s going to be for me, music helped me great. I am a big boys don’t cry guy and I was for years. But there, so I got rage out first sacred space and I just let that anger out on a bad beating. A beating, a stick not on somebody else, right? Healthy sacred so you get that energy out the emotion mad, glad, sad and scared.
Those are all part of the emotional parts of self. And so the more I would get it out verbalize it in a safe environment, the better I felt.
Bronson Hill: It’s amazing really once you start doing the work, I mean for someone listening that you know, if we haven’t lost you already, you know the idea of like this this seems a little woo-woo. Like, hey, what have we learned about real estate or investing? But if you want to 10x your business, your life your relationships, this is where it’s done. I mean it’s done through the work and everybody, I mean I’ve had 2500 interviews of high net worth people and this is a theme that comes up often. Net worth over 2 million, it’s just that there are things in life that matter more than money.
There’s things and I think where we get wrong is we kind of exclude those conversations and I guess, maybe it comes down. I’d love to know your thought on this but there’s the idea of the Greek way of learning was more of like oh, you know something because you intellectually know it. And the Hebrew way or there are other versions. But it was you knew something because you could do it, right? You actually were participating in the thing, right?
You knew it because you were like that was something you had done versus just I know how to do that, right? So it’s theory versus actual practice, how do you think we like got to this place?
I think even just me having to give that preface that oh, it’s not like most business podcasts or business or investing podcasts. But like why do you think we’re so separate that like this is what I do at work. And this is my professional life. Then this is what is actually going on right and I realized when I was in sales I wouldn’t necessarily put a mask on. I wouldn’t try to try not, but I would have to show up in a different way. Because I have to win people over, I just knew what to kind of need to be done. I have to become that and there’s a problem because there’s a disconnect between who you really are and who you’re showing up as. And it wasn’t trying to be an authentic but it just led to inauthenticity. It led to this lack of fulfillment. It led to emptiness. So talk about that a bit.
Joe Mittiga: Sure, we were raised in a culture 20, 30 years ago. I don’t know how old you man, I’m 60. We were raised in a culture where your okayness was directly proportional to what somebody said about you. If people liked you then you were supposed to be okay. Well that led to a very vacant internal experience because you’re always trying to please everybody out here. Now if you really look at how mankind’s consciousness has changed over the past 150 years, I’ll give you the most dramatic. 150 years ago our consciousness, it was okay to own people.
That was just 150 years ago. 70, 80 years ago a woman voting wasn’t in human consciousness. And how it’s shifting now is 10, 20, 20, 30 fold x now, it’s just shifting our people are awakening. Is everybody awakening? No.
My book Unequally Yoked talks about how marriage is. Literally, there are two people that come together 10 years ago. At kind of the same spiritual spot one person grows like this, one person grows like this. Neither one right or wrong but they grow apart because consciousness is shifting so much more.
Nate Hambrick: So how does all this oh, yeah, sorry go ahead finish that
Joe Mittiga: Today’s consciousness is more about creating autonomy. A sense of self and then giving back from that overflow. That’s the glory position, giving back from overflow. But I make zero dollars doing this, you know, literally. I can, you know, what you said about my website download and all that absolutely I’m gonna create another site for that. But I did that initially because there’s a whole world of people out there that don’t have an email address and don’t have money. And so when I really started my book, I really was thinking about the person that really needs it. And that’s why I did it like that.
So the world is changing.
There’s a whole group of people changing. Everyone watching this podcast is a group of people searching for something. And the people that aren’t, they’re just not. That’s the difference.
Nate Hambrick: So how does this play out or express itself in business? Because I would be, personally, I would believe this. I’m sure Bronson, he probably believes something similar that some of the most successful entrepreneurs.
We know are also the most emotionally healthy. And usually it’s because at one point in their life. They were the most emotionally unhealthy. And then they had that breaking point.
Bronson Hill: There are a lot of unhealthy people too. There are a lot of like you look at like even Elon, I admire Elon in some ways. But he like works 18 hours a day or like and the stuff is kind of out of whack. So I bet again, you know, it may work for him. So it’s hard, but I guess it’s harder to see that something like it’s kind of an opaque thing to see how someone’s really doing. Unless they have an addiction or something public happens, right too. So you all have any thoughts Joe?
Joe Mittiga: I think part of the way you identify it. And how it’s noticed one of the biggest books out there Rich Dad Poor Dad. You know the book? Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. Came out 20 years ago, whatever it was. What was it rich dad had a belief system that he taught his kid, poor dad had a belief system that caught his kid period. Well, I don’t care how much money you’re making right, you can make all the money in the world. But if you still have the belief systems associated with poor dad you can make a million dollars and still feel not good. And when you feel not good, then there’s typically behaviors that cover up that not good feeling. The easiest way to know if you’re addicted to something, try stopping. Try stopping try.
Well, I don’t care what it is. Now you want to know my addiction? Frosted flakes. So I’m not kidding Tony the Tiger, you know. So I just don’t have Tony in my house because I know better. Tony’s in my house and I start the first bowl, I’m eating till the end. As crazy as it sounds. So, I know because I so I don’t have Tony the Tiger in and I’d say that jokingly, right? So, how does somebody identify if they’re addicted to drugs or alcohol or sex or whatever? Stop doing it for 90 days. See how you feel. See if you can and when you can great, no issue. Then why start back on the 91st day? That’s a different conversation, right?
But most people in business the other thing you can really identify if somebody’s doing a business from a place of glory. Or a place of fear because that’s the difference, overflow with fear. Are they doing something they love? Would they really does it bring them?
Do they do something they love? And that’s a real big identifier difference for people.
Bronson Hill: So Joe, as you’re talking, I just was looking up something here about there’s something called an ACA which is an adverse childhood experience. It wasn’t from that acronym, but it says that at least 64 percent of U.S adults have had some sort of adverse childhood experience. And 17% of form or it could include emotional abuse, parental separation or like substance abuse. And then over 60% of children have been exposed to crime violence abuse either directly or indirectly. And the long-term consequences of this is that it’s associated with a 700% increase in alcoholism, a 300% increase in smoking and a 3 000 percent increase in attempted suicide. So a lot of times like the numbing and for me listening to something I’ve discovered in my life. When I start to numb and it could be like I watch three hours of tv and I don’t need to watch three hours of tv. Or I eat too much, right?
You say like it could be something or it could be something that’s less healthy than that. But like when I start to go into that, is there’s always like there’s an emotional work that needs to be done there? Of something that i’m feeling this not only it could be in the moment that was triggered. But it’s something that happened a long time ago. And that’s where this like inner child work that like this little child is like still with us now, right?
So, I mean, like when people have those like things that pop up or all of a sudden, okay, I couldn’t stop scrolling.
I had more time. I was going through something difficult I couldn’t stop scrolling on my phone for like an hour. And I just literally just I mean we do this is doom scroll. We just keep scrolling. I couldn’t stop and before I realized I was like, oh my gosh it’s been around and I literally did nothing. And I’ll catch myself now after a couple few minutes it’s easy to do and of course, we’re putting things out of media. But like well, I guess what do you do when someone like listening. Like, hey, I realize I’m doing something that is, i’m numbing or i’m trying to avoid the pain of whatever this thing is. How do you get to the source of it and how do you start working on it?
Joe Mittiga: First off you have to identify the behavior just like you did. You have to understand once you’re in the center of the behavior, stopping it is almost impossible. It’s like jumping out in the middle of pool and bitching because you’re wet. Excuse my French because you’re wet, right? But so in the moment when you see yourself powerless to the behavior, there’s not a whole lot you can do. You try to manage it the best you can but then you use the behavior as the red flag Okay, and in that red flag you say something is causing you. Now what so many people out there in the world try to do is they try to take more action step over here. And act like this doesn’t exist and that’s why before they know they’re back right in the middle of the pool.
So when you see a behavior you’re doing if you can’t stop in the moment, that’s called being human, right? But then you identify the behavior as a red flag you consciously know there’s something under it. And then depending on the depth, the angst and the pain that’s under it is depending on the the amount of support you need. You know, I can tell you the first step to any of it is the awareness that the uncontrollable behavior isn’t the wound.
That’s the symptom. That’s why I say healing addiction. How do you heal addiction? You got to get to the herd underneath it.
The first step is aware. A behavior I can’t stop means there’s a wound. And how do you heal the wound? There’s a lot of people that support that directly but prayer that’s where in my next book. That’s coming out in the fall is called We. And the we is me, my inner child higher sub. So when I’m asked do I follow Jesus? Yes. Do I follow Muslim? Yes. Do I follow anybody that knows there’s a God? Yes.
Why? Because that God connect, however, somebody brings it into their world. That’s not up to me to decide. But that God connect, you’re gonna need strains to go to the depths of stuff that your humanity doesn’t have and that’s where the we comes into play for me.
Bronson Hill: I want to say one thing. I want to say one thing. I have you jump in and you got something to share with me. The idea like for me, a lot of times the older I get I realize I long for stuff or an experience or for people. But it’s really a hunger for God. Like God said those things for me and if every like you they talk about in AA. They have the higher power. I said, what is your heart?
But a lot of times the things that we think we want. They’re not actually the things that are going to fulfill us and it’s very interesting working in finance, raising these millions of dollars. They’ve raised almost 50 million dollars. But to me like I’m not, you know, money is not my motivation. I have big goals to do with money and give money away and do things. But like people are kind of surprised when I share that but it’s like no. I want to end modern human slavery I want to get down to what the purpose is. I think that’s something that’s been really life-giving for me.
Nate Hambrick: Actually, I was going to ask you, Bronson. Because you know, I know you’ve done a lot of similar inner work, inner healing. How has that changed the way that you work? How has that changed your schedule and work when you take off time your priorities? What is your calendar look like because of all the work you’ve been doing?
Bronson Hill: Well, I think that’s a really good question. Because I do see, I think like Joe and like UNI. I see work is very spiritual. But I realize it’s easy to be like just head down in the business and not to step back. And be like what am I really doing here? And that’s one thing when I work corporate. The average American takes 13 days off a year on average including sick days. It’s like one of the lowest in the world. And then Italy, on the other hand takes 42 work days. Which is like eight and a half weeks on average.
So some are far more. So I realized like for me, what I try to do now when I left my corporate job was about having the time to reflect. And so every Monday, excuse me, every Wednesday and Friday, I typically have a quite a bit of time to do reflection. To do deeper work, to go hiking, to go to the mountains. And then once a quarter I get away for two nights and I just try to like at both of these times whether it’s each week. Or it’s it’s you know I try to take time and step back and say well, am I getting the results I want out of my life and out of my business? Because a lot of times like we’re doing things like we’re all just trying to like get a certain outcome, right?
We want to get a certain outcome. We want to make more money. We want to have more be happier have time with our kids. We want to whatever the thing is and really it’s I think it’s kind of just taking time and really working back and saying is this working? So I think that’s something that’s been really helpful is the reflection time. But yeah, I’d love to maybe turn that over to Joe as well.
Like what do you do? You’re obviously very busy in your business. You’re traveling, you’re doing you have a lot that you’re doing as well. How do you with the work that you’ve done? I guess how do you approach business differently than you did 30 years ago?
Joe Mittiga: The way I approach it differently is I talk about inner child a lot, right? Because what is it? What’s the belief that people have about wealth creation? Money creation?
They think that the more money they have the better they’re going to feel. That’s why you do it. You know one thinks if I have more money i’m going to feel horrible. Nobody thinks that way. So but what we realized is that that what we’re truly craving that we think money’s going to give us is that interconnect. So literally for me I’ve gotten practiced over the years where the inner child in me is I always say I put him first. I keep him first and that’s on a moment to moment basis. I mean literally a moment to moment basis.
So all day long, especially in the beginning. And what I did to learn this in the beginning, I had three by five note cards. I put it everywhere, just to remind me it. Because when I first started inner child work, I was still drinking. I put an inner child tab right on top of my Jack Daniel’s in the beginning. So I would just always bring my awareness inside. See how my little kid was doing. And then from that place of keeping him first, there was just a natural sense of fullness. Then to go out into the world and to give back into the world. And it’s amazing, you know. If you believe spiritual law that the external world is a mirror of your internal world. If that’s spiritual law, then the more connected you are inside, the more effortless the outside kind of comes to us.
So as far as an absolute sacred silence time for Joe. That’s part of my puzzle. 18,000 pieces. Took me four years to do. I had that couple hours that was just Joe time. Single dad, you know, over the years. And with business, it was one of those things to where the deeper and the safer I create my world so the deeper parts of me feel safe. The safer they felt, the more those parts trusted me. And my ability then to trust a higher power became greater. And today, that’s what I call my we. There’s never a large decision that I don’t ask for guidance. And I try to keep the words as more vanilla as possible. I say ask versus pray. I say divine versus necessarily God. I say spirit. But if you ask me if it’s me in a private environment, I’m a God guy all day long. One of the things I learned in my seven years. There’s a God and it’s not me. In the beginning.
I always used that God for help because I was hurting. Now I use that God that God essence for guidance. I ask for guidance all the time. That’s how I pursue my business with
Bronson Hill: I wanted to ask a question here, too. So I started doing this Tony Robbins’ priming exercise. I don’t know if you’re familiar. You guys are familiar with Tony Robbins, and he’s got this priming exercise. Basically, I found myself going through some challenges recently. And just like what it does is it kind of gets you in a place. You know, he says if you want to change your mindset, you change your physiology. You move a little more. You little difference. You have this exercise you do. You go to this place where you really visualize these things that you’re grateful for. You take them in. You step into those moments as if they’re here. And I’m right. The first time I did this, it was just a few days ago. I just imagined being when my daughter was born. Just being there. Just experience that again. It was very emotional for me. But just feeling from that. And then from there, it was going into the future and creating these things I was creating in the future as if they were done now. And it’s just, it was, it was just amazing. When we visualize and we bring that in. I was gonna ask you, Nate.
What are some things that you kind of do in this space around visualization of gratitude, I think gratitude is a real key for life, but can you talk a little bit about your, some of your mindset practices?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, so I’ve found the key to that is frequently changing what you’re visualizing. Because one of the traps that I’ve fallen into, I talk about a lot in Crush Your Kryptonite, is you know, you visualize something. So let’s take a gratitude list, right. You write down the four people you’re thankful for. Well, two weeks later, it’s old news. And it’s no longer motivating.
It no longer gives you the energy, or the belief, or the peace that it did two weeks prior. And so one of the hacks that I’ve found is I constantly change them. If you were to go to my Google Calendar, on Tuesdays, and honestly most days of the week, I’ll have something that I’m either grateful for, an accomplishment that I’ve accomplished, or something that I’m proud of that I’ve done. As soon as they become stale, I rotate.
Okay, so if I’m very focused on how grateful I am for my son and my wife, I’m grateful for you, Bronson. I’m grateful for X, Y, and Z. In a couple weeks, I need to change that. So I’m constantly changing the things that I’m visualizing. So I constantly get the value from that.
It reminds me of something funny that the late Zig Ziglar said. It was kind of a Q and A. He was on stage in front of a few thousand people. Somebody grabbed the mic and he said, Zig, well, what happens whenever the positive affirmations wear off. And Zig very wisely said, it’s kind of like a shower. That’s why I recommend it daily.
The more often that you can change what you’re visualizing. For me, I really struggle with the lack of self-belief. So I’ll change the list of accomplishments I’ve had in the past regularly. So I believe I can do the next thing.
My past performance gives me belief in the future. The things that I’m thankful for today, I’ll still be thankful for in two weeks. But I need to come up with new things to keep that energy flowing.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, love it. Love it. What about you, Joe. What are some other, we talked a lot about inner work and healing addiction. What are some things like, I mean, what it seems like you’ve done a lot of work. And so you’re living a great life. And you’ve shifted from survival and focusing inward to like now focusing out. What are some things you do to kind of like daily get your mindset in the right place.
Joe Mittiga: You know a lot of what I do is if I get in that place where there’s all sorts of craziness in my head. I go back to the first step.
I write down the beliefs that are causing the controversy of the gratitude. So I do a lot of that. Way back when, it was more. My pursuit was more about just feeling better. I mean like literally feeling better. And you know, when I built businesses, like my business, by the time I built my business, I built it in such a way.
Do I make sure? That our system was the star. Not Joe, because I didn’t need that accolades by that. Why am I, why do I have all the time and the energy to be able to do these things now? Because the business we built over the past 15 years, called Avian. The mannerism in which we process our business and everything. If Joe’s there, Joe’s not there, it works by itself. And in the beginning, from a business position.
I created it in such a way to where our system was the star. When we were promoting to a brand new client, we didn’t tell, you know, I’ve got a partner named Jim. We never talked about how great Jim and Joe were. We talked about how great our system was. So now, literally, we’ve got employees that have been with us for a decade or longer. Half of our clients would no sooner know my name was a man of the book. And we did that with a purpose because I wanted the freedom. You know, like you say, the mailbox money. But I could have never done it way back when. If prior to that, I still believed that my okayness was, oh, my clients think Joe’s great. Or I need that from the outside. And a lot of where the whole surrender were when we bring it into a we. Me, inner child, higher power, or God. And I always say this all the time. For some people, it’s me, inner child, and Jesus.
So for some people, whatever the adjective is you call, that’s something that you rely on, grander than you. I don’t have to have faith in me, because I can trust that that power that I’m connected to wants the best for me. And that’s what I used to have to surrender. It all the time. Years, years ago.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, it’s so, I think it’s good. You know, just having, you know, a lot of people talk about the Miracle Morning or the 5 a.m. Club or having some sort of routine. I think, like, maybe sometimes that, you know, I’ve changed it up a little bit. But I have a routine now that I do each morning. And it’s shifted, but it’s gone from, I do these whisperings, which are different than affirmations. But they’re similar in a way that you kind of, it’s not just what you say in the mirror. It’s what you whisper to yourself when you stub your toe, or you back into the garage, or you know, do something. So what do you say to yourself, right?
And it’s changing those stories, changing that. And then get into, what are my goals. I read my goals for the year, my values, my mission statement. And then I get into some different things that God, I feel, has done in my life. I read those. I go through, there’s something called a mind movie. Which, if somebody wants to Google that, mind movies are fascinating. I created this two-minute movie that plays with different statements about who I am. I step into that. I feel that. And then I go through and I read some of these whisperings that I have each morning.
And then I’ve started doing the Tony Robbins’ prime. So it’s like, and then I go for a walk, and I pray, talk to God. So it’s great having that space. And I think sometimes, and I’d love to know both your guys’ opinion on this. There’s a friend of mine, Ken Makaroi, who did the foreword to my book. He’s a real estate guy, is about three billion in real estate.
He had just come from an event. I was in Belize at a different event. And he came in at dinner, and there were 150 people at this event. It was like a week-long thing. He had just come from his event that had about a thousand or 1500 people there. And he was over that. He was so energetic and, hey, how’s it going?
Just chat with everybody. I was thinking, like Ken, how are you not like fried right now? Like, how are you not just destroyed?
You know, I’d like, you see it, be totally out of energy. And he said, well, he’s like, I take time and space. I meditate, and I give myself that space. And so I think, even just going forward, like creating that space for yourself. Because otherwise, people fill it in. You know, calls, things, like it’s just, time just fills up, right?
So I’m curious for you guys. What do you guys do to kind of create that space for yourself? And then you have two young kids. Like, how do you create, with a busy life, how do you create space for yourself, so you have a reservoir to draw from?
So either of you guys, you guys can jump in on that.
Nate Hambrick: I can hop in. Law 15 of the 18 Laws of Leverage is don’t do things you hate. And it’s been one of the biggest game changers in my life. Obviously, when you first start in your career, you’re going to have to eat crap. Like you’re going to have to go through some things, do some things you don’t necessarily love.
But as soon as you have the opportunity to, I’m a firm believer in not doing things that you hate, that drive you into the ground. And if you can offload those to people, you can hire those things out. Honestly, if you can just get rid of them.
One of the things I’m doing this week is I’m going through my checklist. And anything I’m not going to complete today and tomorrow, I’m just going to decide not to do. And the reason I’m choosing to do that is because every time I force myself to do things I hate repeatedly, it wears on you. It brings you down. It lowers your energy. And the byproduct of that is you’re not having fun, and you’re not going to be successful at helping other people and loving other people.
So making the conscious choice to not do things I hate has been a massive game changer.
And then, just like you talked about with Ken, taking those little moments, right, on airplanes, in the morning, on the weekends, to just pause and sit with yourself and allow your brain to process everything has been really, really helpful. But Joe, I’d be curious what you do for that.
Joe Mittiga: I think the first thing in front of myself has happened years ago. But I think the first thing, especially people that are seeking information. Your entire audience. I don’t know if you have one listener or a million. I don’t care. If they’re watching this show or shows like this, they’re seeking something.
They’re seeking information. They’re the group that, and that group is getting bigger every day. They’re the group seeking more. And for that group, it’s time to understand that it’s time to live your life different. I heard a woman three years ago, which started my craving for all this back. Sold a million-dollar business for 20 million. Launched two beautiful kids. Sold the house. She said her only failure was her marriage. My void, my higher power screamed, you didn’t fail your marriage. I’m yelling at the screen.
You chose your divinity over your humanity. Every one of these self-help activities you’re talking about here, they are activities. Self with self. Some of them self with higher self. Some of them self with lower self. But they’re not self with another person. And the people watching this. It’s time for people to really wake up and figure out what is that one new thing.
Now, Tony Robbins has been around for 40 years. A true mentor of the 30 years. And there were different things that I would see. Oh, I need to do that today. The things you guys just mentioned right here. So I’m always looking for where I missed something, that I can add something else into that world. And I’ve got a list of different things. And it all gets back to, because if I want to have a successful job and successful house and launch my kids, you know, with love, I have to take care of me first.
And then give the overflow to them. And the more I take care of myself, the more I can do that. And I just woke up. I don’t know. It’s been a while for me. Realizing that my path isn’t normal, if you will, to society out there. But the difference is, now there’s just as many people waking up to there’s something bigger, something grander. And I suggest to people, find one new thing.
You just heard 10 right now. Find those one new things. And then just do it for a week or two. And that’s what I did years ago. And today, life is, you know, in a very good spot.
Bronson Hill: So I think that’s really great. That’s a great kind of thing for us to kind of, we’re obviously kind of limited on time. But, so I guess the one piece of advice that you’d have for someone who is like, yeah, okay, I know I need to work on my inner child. I need to go to therapy.
Anyway, what are the things? What’s the thing that you say? Here’s the thing that you should actually do or take action to change something in my life. I know I have an addiction. I’ve got other things you can write down.
But what’s like kind of the first thing? Is it writing stuff down? Is it seeing a therapist? Like what’s kind of the first thing you think?
Joe Mittiga: The very first thing is, I don’t care where you’re at in your life. I don’t care how much pain you’re in or how much money you have. I don’t care. Just know that you’re okay. In that you’re looking or searching or realizing that there’s something going on, that puts you in the top one, one percentile.
Ninety-nine percent of people out there are living crazy daily and are clueless. So if you’re that person listening right now and you know there’s something, you’re something, know for sure as you’re hearing my voice, you’re in the top one percent. Literally. Because most don’t.
Now, guidance from there. Two things. Give a voice to your deepest part, which takes people into an inner child inner working. If it gets too deep, get support quick. Millions of people, that’s what they’re born for.
And the other side, ask. Ask for support. Ask for support from people. When I pray, when I ask for support from a power greater than myself, I don’t ask for love and hope and all that. I ask for strength. Because a spiritual path is not for the weak-hearted. It’s not. It’s not easy.
And no, it’s not necessarily supposed to be easy. But when you ask for strength and give a voice to the darkest parts, then we as a being grow. And it’s amazing how our life inside changes and our life externally changes. I’m going to South Africa, literally, to do a speech. Love it.
It just like came and I can’t even explain it. But those are the things. Know you’re okay. Ask for help. Give a voice to the darkest spots.
Bronson Hill: I love it. Well, that’s great. Well, I really appreciate you, brother. It’s so great to see how you’re giving back, how you’re helping. And I can see the spirit walkers, that you’re just, you know, it’s the spirit inside of us that allows us to really make a difference in the world.
And so I just hope for anybody listening that, yeah, they’d reach out to you if they want to reach out. And actually, I know you have your book available.
So how can people get in touch with you or kind of hear what you’re doing?
Joe Mittiga: Yeah, spiritwalkers.com is a very simple website. My book, just look me up on Amazon, Healing Addiction, on any of the big websites out there. Eventually, I’m building a website for my name, Joe Mitiga, but search my name out there. You’ll find me.
And for the free download, really for that person that just wants it right now, put it right on your computer. And if you read what I do, if you see where I came from and where I am today, I’m here to tell you guys, if I can do it, anybody can do it, guys.
I was nothing special about me, and I came from a really toxic place. My book explains it. I’m as honest and open as I can be in the book, and it’s really just to give back.
Bronson Hill: Thanks, brother. Well, hey Joe, appreciate you. Thanks for being here with us and so grateful. Thank you for the time.
Joe Mittiga: I appreciate it. Thank you, gentlemen.
Bronson Hill: Wow. Well, Nate, that is a different interview than we’ve done on this show. But man, what a blast and what a great. I mean, really the things that matter.
How amazing is that? I know you had some takeaways from that. So, let you share with us what your takeaways were.
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, I loved his four-step process for eliminating shame in your life. Number one, write down your inner voices. And if you don’t think you have them, start writing down the inner voice that’s telling you you don’t have inner voices. Identify the critical voices that are tearing you down. Say it out loud. And then tell someone what that critical voice is telling you.
I do something similar, but I found this four-step framework really, really helpful because it’s so simple. Write them down. Identify the critical ones. Say it out loud so you can identify it yourself. And then confess it to a friend. And that takes a lot of the power that shame has on you away from you.
So what were some, what were some of your big takeaways?
Bronson Hill: You know, I think for me, it’s just kind of the incarnation, like who Joe is. Right? Like he has, he’s been really successful in business. But I almost get the sense, like his heart and what he’s passionate about, and just, you can just hear it.
And I think sometimes we say, I wish I hadn’t grown up in this home or hadn’t gone through these challenges. But it’s like, because he went through this, he’s just got such a passion to help people. And it’s so apparent. Tony Robbins said that he was in an abusive home and whatever, and somebody brought them a meal. And just the fact that there were people out there that would bring somebody a meal, that was like, it changed his life. Right? And so now he feeds a lot of people.
So it’s just amazing. Like sometimes these big challenges, like in my life or all of our lives, they give us the desire to want to help and give back. And I just felt like there was so much life in this interview, where it was like, oh my gosh, we’re sharing about stuff that really matters, you know, really personal things.
It was just a lot of fun. So I really loved that he brought that in. So I’m grateful for you, Nate. Great. Thanks for being here. And also for our audience, hopefully you got some stuff out of this.
I love the intersection of business and mindset and personal and just all the things that matter. So keep taking time educating yourself. Yeah, I really appreciate each one of you.
Look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Mailbox Money Show.
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