Trauma Made Me Productive with Blaz Marolt

This week on Braving the Brightside, I sit down with Blaz Marolt for an honest conversation about trauma, burnout, discipline, and the hidden emotional cost of high achievement. From childhood abuse to military structure, hustle culture, and redefining success, this episode dives deep into what happens when survival mode finally catches up with you — and how healing begins when you stop running from yourself.

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Love,

Dan

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Some of the strongest people you'll ever meet are carrying invisible weight. The kind that keeps you moving, keeps you working, keeps you chasing, because slowing down feels uh unfamiliar, maybe even dangerous. We live in a world that celebrates exhaustion, but like it's proof that your life matters. Push harder, work longer, stay busy. And somewhere along the way, burnout started looking a lot like ambition. But eventually, life has a way of catching up to us, of forcing us to sit still long enough to ask ourselves if we're truly living or just surviving efficiently. Maybe real strength isn't found in how much pain we can carry. Maybe it's found in finally facing it. My name is Dan Bradley, and this is Braving the Bright Side. Hello brightsiders, and welcome to the bright side. I hope all's well out there, no matter what season you're in. Here in Philly, the temperatures keep slowly crawling up and then plummeting back down and then crawling back up and then plummeting back down. It's literally like one day it's 80 degrees and beautiful, the next day it feels like winter's back. Everybody's sick, everybody's coughing. Everybody's pretending they're not sick while standing about six inches away from you in the grocery store. But regardless, we inch closer to summertime. So boy howdy. Really can't wait. Uh just because I know you're gonna ask. The animals, John Ralphio, my Sphinx, and Vigo, my puppy dog, are doing well. Uh the Phillies are finally playing competent baseball again. So thank you for asking about that. What else? Ah, yes. Now comes the shameless plugging. Fun news here. You can now find us on the TikTok at Braving the Bright Side, where we'll be posting more clips from interviews, behind the scenes content, and whatever other weird little adventures this podcast evolves into. Uh be patient with me though, because there are still these are still new waters for me, and I'm kind of trying to figure out that balance between podcast host and um, you know, a guy aggressively pointing at captions on the internet. So um, you know, I'm not trying to be an influencer here, just trying to trying to hang out and spread the good word of the podcast. Uh also some big news. This is actually some really big news. So maybe you should sit down. Um, or if you're not already sitting down, maybe you should stand up. I don't know what I'm saying. All right, presale for my upcoming book, Combing Through the Wreckage, officially goes live next week. Boy Howdy, you can follow us on Instagram at Braving underscore the bright side and over at TikTok for details uh for where to grab it. I'm round in the corner on finishing this thing, and honestly, I'm pretty excited for you to read it. It's part memoir, part cautionary tale, part first hand account of what can happen when you finally decide to take off the mask and live a more honest life. So uh stay tuned for that. Exciting things all around. All right, let's jump into the feel good news segment. All right. Uh before we jump into this segment, I don't know if you can hear or tell, but I'm actually joined by a co-anchor suddenly, a co-host for the this next segment. Uh John Ralphio, my hairless sphinx, is joining us for this. I don't know if you can hear him purring, but he's here on my shoulder digging in quite literally. Um, so he's gonna join us for this segment. So you're welcome, really. Um all right, so so despite what the algorithm wants you to believe, the world is not entirely on fire. There are still people helping other people, animals getting second chances, scientists doing wildly cool things, and communities stepping up. Every once in a while, humanity actually remembers well, how to humanity. So grab your coffee, your protein shake, your Celsius, or your emotional support snack, whatever it takes. Let's just clean this powder, shall we? This is your feel good news segment. It's a little animal um heavy this week, just a heads up, but you know what I mean, these stories. Whatever. I like these stories, so just deal with it. Number one, cat rescued after being trapped in tree for eight days. In New Britain, a cat named Cleo spent more than a week stranded high up on a tree before a local tree service company stepped in to help free of charge. Obviously, free of charge. What monster would charge for that? The rescue crew used a massive lift, cat food, and a whole lot of patience to safely reunite Chloe with her family. Number two, Husky reunited with owner after twelve years. Boy howdy, a husky named Sierra, disappeared back in 2014 and somehow ended up over 1,400 miles away before finally being identified through a microchip. Her owner had spent over a decade wondering what happened to her. Now at 13 years old, she's finally home. That's insane. If this doesn't emotionally body slam you a little bit, then I don't know, check your pulse, because that's wild. Um not quite as dramatic, but still pretty cool. Dog reunites with owner after losing the entire home in wildfires. After devastating wildfires destroy their home in Los Angeles area, a dog named Blade had been cared for by Humane Society Shelter for over a year while his owner rebuilt his life. Fifteen months later, they were finally reunited, and shelter workers said there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Which, yeah, that makes sense. Next up, scientists hit major solar energy breakthrough. Researchers in Japan developed a new solar technology that captures energy previously lost as heat, something many scientists thought wasn't possible. Meaning cleaner energy keeps getting more efficient and more affordable. Slow progress is still progress. And honestly, humanity needs a few wins in the innovation department right now. Next up, a major Balkan river has finally freed. I don't even know what that means. Balkan, Balkan. After decades of concrete wartime obstruction, 44 miles of a major river in the Balkans, I feel like I'm saying that wrong, has finally been restored and allowed to flow naturally again. Ecosystems are already recovering, wildlife is returning, and entire communities are seeing cleaner water and healthier environments. Next up, butterfly species returning after 100 years. Butterfly species, not butterfly kisses. Don't get this confused. Butterfly Kisses is a terrible song that came out in the 90s. This is about butterfly species. A butterfly species, believed extinct in the United Kingdom for nearly a century, is now being reintroduced through conservation efforts and rewilding projects. Tiny reminder that extinction doesn't always have to be the final chapter if people actually care enough to fix things. Last but not least, Jamaica sees massive drop in violent crime. Jamaica recently reported a roughly 40% drop in murders. Look at that. Largely attributed to increased community cooperation and public tip offs. Not every headline has to be about collapse. Sometimes communities slowly begin pulling themselves back together. So look at that, everybody. Look, the world's heavy sometimes. We all know that. But don't let the darkness convince you it's the only thing out there. So that is your feel good news segment. All right, Brightsiders. Today's guest is someone whose story and perspective really hit home for me. Blash Marlowe has spent years helping people navigate growth, resilience, and the often messy process of becoming who they're meant to be. What I appreciate most is that this conversation doesn't really come from a place of perfection or trying to be perfect. It comes from honesty, experience, and real life. And what a crazy real life it is. So wherever you are right now, driving, working out, walking the dog, hiding in your car outside of work for 10 extra minutes before going back inside. I think there's something in this one for you. So without further ado, let's jump over and meet Blash. But beyond the framework and operations, Blosh brings a powerful perspective on discipline, pressure, leadership, and what it takes to pursue excellence without you losing yourself in the process. Welcome to Braving the Bright Side, my friend. How are you? Thank you. I'm doing really well. How about you? I'm doing all right. Um, it's gorgeous out. It's a nice 80 degrees out over here in Philly. It's uh uh around where are you at right now?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Uh I'm in so Slovenia, where I was born. Uh and it's around so in Fahrenheit, it would be around 55 at the moment. So it's a little bit chillier than where you are. Yeah, I I wish I was uh where you are right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Do you guys are you in summer right now? Is that what's happening, or where are you at now?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Uh so we're in spring pretty much. Right. Okay. But it since it's April, so I don't know like how it is where you are from, but April is usually rains, it rains all the time. So right now it's cloudy, it's miserable, and I don't like it. I'm waiting on May and June, so it's getting it gets warmer.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, I believe a poet once wrote, and this is a very strong line here April showers bring me flowers. So you know, poetic. All right. Well, listen, let's just jump into it. All right, let's have you introduce yourself to the world here. For people meeting you for the first time. Um, who is Blash beyond the res resume and business titles?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yes. So, uh, as you mentioned before, uh, I usually don't introduce myself that I was a graduate from the US military academy, but that's uh always a really interesting uh part in the snippet of my life, specifically since I was born in Slovenia and I'm a foreign national. I don't have a US citizenship or a passport. And beyond uh all of the things that I'd done so in my career, because in my career you could say like that, I've been on an upper trajectory all of the time. It was I am a person who lived a lot of trauma in the past. So as a childhood, I was abused and all of um all of that stuff. And I always seemed to manage kind of like having it together, or at least that would what would it seem. Even though on the inside, you know, I was still I was hollow and I was um it was burning me on the inside. I used a lot of energy just to make sure that I was able to function well, right? And uh that led, of course, to around two to two and a half burnouts, big burnouts that I had, and uh kind of like the rediscovery of what you just amazingly introduced me, what I do uh at the moment, which is I coach and I help uh leaders and business owners to build systems, even lead their teams, and pretty much make sure that they follow their own path, what their goals are, what their what their vision is, so that they don't they don't get burnt out, they don't get just fed up with what they're doing, and that they follow their own path and where it leads them. Because all of us have our own path, all of all of us have our own goals, and I truly do believe that one thing that I don't want to conform by your goals or your vision for what I do. I want to conform but what I think I need or what I want, and that's me.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Uh amazing. Your yeah, your story is pretty cool. Now, you know, growing up in Slovenia, you know, what did life look like? And how did you end up, I guess, on this path that you end up in the military academy at one point, too.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

So yeah, so uh growing up, like I mean, for me at that time it felt normal because it pretty much you don't know anything like what the world is around, like you can only uh see what your environment and your experiences are. So for me, it was just go school. I played soccer and I was on the uh Slovenian national team when I was between 14 and 18. Uh, but around the year 15, 16, I wanted to go into the military. And it just really interested me. And the military still in um interests me and everything that that that that is going on. But what I found out later on was pretty much the military had organization, it had stability and structure. And that is those are all the things that I never had as a child. So, you know, waking up at a specific time, doing what they tell you to do, at least at the beginning, then I actually have to tell other people what they needed to do and lead them, right? But it was just like kind of like almost a relief. It was like, oh wow, like I don't need to think about anything. People are just gonna tell me what to do, and I and I'm gonna do it. Um and yeah, and then uh I got the opportunity to apply, so that was in 2007 to apply to go to the US Military Academy. And uh after a long, I think it was like an eight-month process where we had to do all of the physical exams, mental exams, and uh so we also had to do the SATs and then an English version of the test. Since the English SATs for foreigners are a little bit too difficult to actually um uh grade you upon. Uh, I sent up my application packet to West Point, and then they selected me from a bunch of Slovenians and also a bunch of other foreigners that also applied for it. So I got into West Point in 2008 and graduated in 2012.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Wow. Yeah, that's pretty awesome, man. Yeah, thank you for that. It's incredible stuff. So I like that you were seeking structure, as so many young people do usually, especially when they come from chaotic backgrounds, or you know, what I take it there wasn't a whole lot of structure for you in terms of how you were living your life or how you were growing up, or no.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

The only structure that I can tell you that I had was when I woke up in the morning, I had my whole day filled with stuff. So that was school. After school, it was always practice, either soccer or track practice. Then I had English lessons, even I I think I went into computer lessons. Pretty much from morning till late at night, I was always working and always doing something. So at that point, I thought it was amazing, it was productive, like you know, but now I know that I was you know just running away from the traumas that were producing me, and I had to do something so that I wasn't living with myself and like I didn't need to cope with the stuff that was actually happening to me. Right, right. I figured it out later on.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

So yeah, yeah. Um, that's usually what happens. Um, how long, you know, throughout your journey, you know, in the military and everything like that, as you kind of you chased structure and you started finding that and you started finding your footing. Was there a moment where you feel like, okay, now I have to take on this trauma head on? Do I have to address like everyone has to feel like that's a moment too when you have that trauma and then you're like, oh shit, okay. Well, I guess I gotta I gotta face this thing now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, that was kind of like military or uh no, actually, it was after the military. The the only thing that I knew, even when I was going into so when I was in the military, it was that I was going to have to face it at some point. Yeah, I always kept postponing it. It doesn't matter, it it's gonna happen sometime, right? Yeah, same thing. And then uh yeah, and then in like three and a half years ago, it was that moment, like what that day uh that it was that I pretty much had rock bottom. And it was just like, hey, if I want to not only get get my life together, but just you know, um get my personal life specifically together. Because at that point I was the regional operations director for eight countries for a food delivery company. Wow. So in career-wise, like I was on top, but then personal wise, in in a in a personal sense, like I felt completely empty, you know, like pretty much emotionless, and I was just chugging in day in, day out, 12 plus hours, working 12 plus plus hours a day, just thinking, hey, I'm building something, but pretty much for everybody else, except for you know, not myself, and I was running from it. And yeah, that day it was like, yeah, uh I need to go to therapy and I need to start changing, uh changing things, right? And then, you know, after a few therapies, a few therapies later, what happened was I finally, you know, understood that what I had in my childhood was actually not a happy childhood, but it was actually full of trauma and uh press and everything else. And then, you know, just the I was gonna say the flood zone just started to to flood like with all of the emotions, all of the trauma and the triggers that I had to deal with and that I'm still dealing with uh even right now.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, today for sure. Yeah, that's the fun thing about trauma, you know. You never completely, you know, it's a party and it's both the good thing, bad thing, but yeah, you just have to constantly have the strength to to walk with it. I always say that that I always say, I don't know why I don't always go around saying this to just random people, but um you know trauma's a funny thing too, because you can kind of outrun it for a long time, especially when you're younger and you're quick, you're in shape, and you can just go go go and not think about it. And it's like a like a hand that just slowly finally grips you up by your ankle and you're like and it gets you and it pulls you down so you hit that rock bottom, and so you have to turn around and start kicking it and facing it, and then eventually pick it up and put it in your pocket and be like, all right, let's go on together. It's we gotta walk with this together.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

So yeah, we do. And uh one actually, one thing that you mentioned was it was pretty it's really interesting, like because apart from West Point, so whoever uh knows the military, I also finished uh Ranger School in the US, so I a year later, and I never understood one thing was I was mentally way better prepared than the majority of people that were there. And I, you know, I was just pain was normal for me. Like even when I was practicing soccer and stuff, like I never had almost a day where I didn't feel pain in my muscles and all of that stuff, and even mentally. And when we were talking with our my therapist, it was like, yes, because that's what made you feel alive. We had to have pain because you had so much pain with your trauma and the abuse that you had. There was this pain that you were pushing through. And when I was in Ranger School, you know, notorious for like only sleeping an hour and a half to two hours a day on average, and then walking, um, so it would be like a 800 to a thousand miles in like 60 days. Um, when there was like a lot of mental pain and stuff, like that felt like home to me. And it was strange, right? And after that, I realized, yeah, that's why, even though I wasn't, I by far wasn't the best soldier at there, right? But mentally and physically, I was fitter because I could just push myself so much harder than others due to the trauma that I had. And at that point, I only need to focus on completing the mission of the task in Ranger School. And I didn't think about the trauma other traumas that I had. So yeah, that was also one of the things that um interesting trauma produced.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah, yeah, kind of created this like Iron Man suit for you to kind of keep going. And yeah, the army's like, Oh, we like that. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Oh, the the army loves people. Yeah, I can almost guarantee you that the majority of people in in the military have some trauma, have some triggers that they just want structure because They didn't have that in um the past.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Let's I guess let's get into it in terms of uh, you know, I guess that what my question is when you were in the military and like you kind of just said, it was actually you were built for it in a way mentally because of everything you've come from. You know, was there ever an environment that made you feel vulnerable? You know what I mean? Because you talk about having that fortitude to just kind of keep going in the army's like, we like that about you. Keep going. You can shut all that other stuff out. You know, did you have moments of vulnerability or breakdowns, emotional openness throughout that, or did that really come much later after you got out?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

So the only maybe real openness was uh possibly a few times. Uh and so and that was more at West Point than anywhere else, because I was with people that I trusted. Yeah. And just the breakdowns usually were you got drunk and you just poured your poured your heart, heart out. And one of the things that I loved about the group that I was with, it was like no judgment. Like if you have a bad day, because we all had bad days, like straight up, whoever tells you that when to West Point or in the military, that doesn't have a bad day or s or a mental breakdown of one sort or another, is probably not being completely honest. Yeah. Um, and at that point was like, hey, one day I had that, the other day my other friends had that, and it was just pretty much, hey, we're gonna let you do your stuff, and we're just gonna make sure your ass is out of trouble and you don't get reprimanded and stuff like that. And uh that was the legitimately the only time I can I can remember that I was able to be, you know, completely like let my guards down and all of that until uh then I started going to therapy, which was then uh you know eight years, 10 years later after the um after West Bite.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, I find that fascinating because that's the same thing for myself, you know, and dealing with a lot just refusing to think about it or think open up about anything like that for the longest time. There would be pockets of it as it slowly eroded, where I would open up or just give a little bit here and there, and then go, oh, and then kind of tighten back up and go back to my regular scheduled programming. You talked about burnout, and I feel like that's an important part, especially in today's society, as everyone has a side hustle for side hustles. Um, is or they're in their business or somebody else's business, just running themselves down. What did you balance you said, right? What did um two and a half? Two and a half, nice. Yes, yeah. I had two and a half d DUIs years ago. Let's jump into that if you don't mind. So what did that what did that what did those look like?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

What did that feel like for you? So for me, all three of them were completely different. So the first one I didn't even know I had. So I was uh out of the military when I became a plant production director for a manufacturing company, so leading 120 people, and I was again working day in, day out. I was there for everybody, uh, like we did in the military. Well, you know, well, one of the big things, big, bigger things that goes in the business world versus the military is that people will stab you in the back. Like in the military, I legitimately had like maybe once or twice, but that was not a big one. And I always had people cover for me. At that point, I didn't. So I got into uh tons of pressure from my GM and uh people around me who just wanted to save their asses, right? Yeah, like one of my big things that I I say, and and I always do, I'm always direct, and I tell people, hey, this is what they think, this is what we do. Well, it turns out in the civilian world, it's not really well, it's not really good that you call your GM out in front of the whole team. Um and at that point, like that was the two months of my um being in psychological hell, and he did everything that he could to you know make me quit. And then we kind of came into a mutual decision that I was gonna quit. And at that time, like come everything completely shut down. Like my whole like neck behind my neck, it was hurting like it was like almost like I could not move my neck. It was swirling completely, and that was like for about a month or so until I was able to kind of pick myself up. And then, you know, for a couple of years, also actually three and a half years, it was okay. And then when I was a regional ops director, a similar thing happened at that point. I was working legitimately like two and a half jobs. Um, so I was a head of operations for Slovenia and then also regional ops director because we couldn't find anybody. And then our GM quit in Slovenia, so I was doing part-time at that as well with my other colleague, the sales director. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

How many hours how many hours a day are is it at this point? Uh it was 12 to 14 probably. But you know, at that point, because I still didn't understand my trauma and stuff, like I thought, like, hey, I was doing a like, I know I was doing amazing work, but I was just you know, chugging it on along all the time, all the time. And then the my boss changed, so in uh our region, and um, so one of the things that he did for the whole team was he put us into the PIP, so performance improvement plans. So the whole team, because his philosophy was if everybody's gonna be pressured and stressed, uh, they're gonna be performing better. Um, needless to say, 80% of the team quit in six months. Um, I got to that point that I honestly did not remember the last day that I was um uh that I went into this job. I don't remember. Uh I think I actually crashed almost crashed with my car like twice, just because like legitimately, like I have a blank. And I was like, no, I have to go to sick leave. And I was on sick leave for six months at that point. Um and this is where I completely switched it around. So I was like, I don't want to work there anymore. I am not working 12 plus hours a day. And I said I need to I need to do something else. So I got my coaching certification, and then like a little bit after that, also my uh coaching with uh neuroscience, coaching with with brain coaching. So, because I wanted to understand what the hell was happening with me, like why this took me legitimately four to five months to actually get away from that burnout. Yeah, recover from that. Yeah, and because you know, in the positions that in the positions that I was in, like legitimately my brain is the one that is uh that is pretty much what I'm offering. My product is my brain, pretty much. And in me having brain fog and burnout, I couldn't think of stuff that for some times were normal to me. Like in my my last day on the job, actually, what happened was I was there for nine, nine hours and I did the same amount of work that I normally would have done in 30 minutes. It was that bad, like legitimately. Nothing fit, nothing was I was looking at analysis and stuff, and I was like, I had I have no idea what those numbers are. Whereas normally I would have been able to get cross-reference everything, like just in my mind, right? Uh so yeah, that was that. And then I decided like I don't want to work 12 hours a day anymore. Eight hours is the max. Yeah, and uh that's why how I came and became later on chief of staff for a career coaching company, completely remote. Uh, we were working with the US, um, with US clients, so military academy graduates. And that's where kind of like my switch in my recovery began. Um a year later, then I actually went on my own on my own, and this is what I'm doing now. And the 0.5 burnout came after I started doing my own um my own thing. And I was again under pressure, putting myself under pressure. And when I noticed those signs, I was like, nope, I have to do something different because it's not working. I'm following what others were telling me, you know. Oh, you need to get within three months, you need to get your first few clients, and then you need to get to 10k per month, and then you're gonna go to one million per year, and all of those I just say phony like goals, which don't have any meaning. And at that point, I was like, no, this is not what I'm doing, what I I should be doing. I will put in my own goals, the ones that I feel comfortable with. And that's what I've been doing since. And I haven't had a burnout yet.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

That's interesting. Um, I love that you entered the military for structure because of the lack of structure that you grew up with and your trauma and stuff, and then you went to a coach on your own, and someone's like, This is what you gotta do. You gotta hit this much by these three months, this month, you know, and gave you a beefed up, unrealistic structure. And you know, you were like, No, I can see where this is going. You switched this up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And uh it took like almost a year for me to completely figure it out. I was like, Yeah, no, like I'm okay if I make you know three, two, four hundred for thousand for four K per month. It's completely fine. The only thing that I need to do is I need to cover my costs, like that's the bare minimum. Everything else is just a plus because I get to do whatever I want, or in nor, you know, no normally, whatever I want. And I don't need to work right 10 hours a day. I work six to eight hours a day. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

That's a beautiful thing. Yeah. I um coming from where I come from in kitchens and and you know, most of my work ethic, and it was different back in the day, too. I think that was always so celebrated back in the day, like work 20 hours a day, you know, like you are amazing, yeah. It was almost like a badge of honor after cooking, be like, I worked for 13 hours today. I'll go, Oh, well, I worked, yeah, I was just working seven, but I worked 14. And um, yeah, I mean, there's only so long a human body can keep going on that, physically and mentally. And it's scary when you point out you don't remember going to your last day at that job because you were so fried. Yeah. And I feel like we're moving towards for better or worse in certain situations. We are moving towards a more, you know, we're becoming more aware of mental health, obviously. Yeah. And I think society is pushing for shorter work days here, not working 12 hour days.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Like, because it's just not realistic. And we can't, like, if you look at our brain, our brains like the max amount of time in a day our brain can be productive is six hours. Wow. And that's with a lot of caveats, like, not six hours in a single moment. Usually it's like in 90 minute bursts up to times a day. And you have to make sure that you don't have that you don't, if you work eight hours completely and somebody expects you to work eight hours from uh nine to five, like I can guarantee you that person can only do maybe four to five hours of actual quality work. Everything else, they need either to rest or they will, you know, be working. Oh yes, boss, of course I'm working, but they will not be working because it's not possible. Yeah, legitimately, your brain is is refusing to work more. And for people that are working then 10, 12 hours, yes, you may get you know some pro you may be productive, but you'll never be in that peak performance where your brain is gonna be like legitimately like in your zone of genius that you could do way more than you normally can. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, I mean, I feel that's very true. So, you know, you're now you've uh you've uh turned a corner, you've kicked off your own coaching. Uh what changed your philosophy uh on leadership and life as you entered that?

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Uh when you know I started, the one thing that they will always tell you in the military, and I still support it, is like you serve others first, right? You are a servant leader. I still support that, but with a big caveat, you have to serve yourself first because if you don't care, it's you don't take care of yourself, and you're not in this regard selfish towards your own well-being, your own mental health, you're not gonna be able to serve others. Like it's not possible because you're just gonna burn out and you're gonna be left in by the sidewalk somewhere, and everybody else is just gonna move uh towards their goal or whatever they're doing. So that that would lead yourself first and then lead others, because yeah, in the long run, uh you are not gonna be able just to serve everybody else because you're gonna burn out and uh you you will not be able to achieve and or have such an impact as um you would if you uh take care of yourself potentially.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Yeah. That's usually the first person that gets forgotten about when you try to push and and uh make some real changes and and work yourself to a different level. You kind of just forget about yourself. Yeah, that is for sure. Um so how did the in terms of like everything you've come from, yeah, how did your definition of success evolve as you get older?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah, so for me at the beginning, so if we look at um my childhood, success was finished college because I I was the first one in my whole family tree that finished college. So, and especially West Point, so that was a a big one, yeah. And then get a job that's gonna pay like uh at that point, it was like get a job that's gonna pay more than the minimum wage, because in again, in most of my family, pretty much they were either a little bit above minimum wage, and that was it, right? So for me, just leaving the military, because in Slovenia at that point, even officers, we were really close to minimum wage. And me getting like a nice paid pay bump, like as a planned production director, like or a huge pay bump, pay a pay bump, it was like, yes, I succeeded. I am great in the um private world and business world, perfect. And then it changed towards successes when I make you know other successful, aka other leaders, that I build them up and then that I help everybody else around me, which led me to working 12 plus hours a day. And again, burning out. And now that I've done the mental health work and figuring it out my trauma and stuff, success for me is what do I want, right? Not what others are telling me, which I already, you know, which we already discussed, right? Hey Blash, you need to go to 10k per month because that is the definition of you being successful because you are a six-figure business now. Right. It's like I I'm okay to be like to do 50, 60k per year. It doesn't really matter. Because for me, success is that I can take vacations whenever I want. If, let's say, right now that when we finish, if I want to go out and take a walk, I can do that. Right. And for me, success is yes, I I work to live, not live to work, pretty much. That's the best definition uh that I can give you at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah, that's phenomenal, honestly. That's so true. As you get older, you realize time is where it's at, not money. Yeah. And you know, if you can make that work, so you can make money, sure, but also your time is your time. I mean, that's the goal for sure. Yeah. I agree with that. Um, like I said, you work with a lot of high performers, entrepreneurs, and different leaders in different uh areas. Why do you why do so many leaders and entrepreneurs live in constant overwhelm? You know, is it there's always this idea that they have to constantly be building?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Because so in my opinion, it's because they're listening to everybody else but themselves. I mean, just look at today's social media, right? So I the the majority of time I'm on either YouTube or LinkedIn where I also post, right? And at the moment you're gonna be seeing at least one third of the post on how are you falling behind if you haven't figured out how to build like AI systems or AI something, right? And or even the other one is like I think every three or four months, I get on LinkedIn like those that crowd that is pretty much shaming you if you haven't woken up at four at 4 a.m., 5 a.m. and haven't worked out like and did all of the work until 8 a.m. and they start the work, right? Uh a workday, which is complete stupidity and the biggest idiot idiocy that I I can think of, right? And then when we see, oh, this guy is successful, he has 50 million, he has 100 million, or we don't even know. They just tell in on their like profiles, hey, I've got like several companies, two, eight figures, or something like that, right? Uh, which in the majority of cases it's probably not completely true, right? Yeah. Um, we're like, shit, I need to be exactly like they are. And then this is the definition of success, but it's the definition of their success, right? And when I start, or if I when I want to work with somebody, so a uh an entrepreneur or a founder, one of the first things I ask them, what's your vision and what do you want from this company, or what do you want to build? And I always tell them, don't think about what others or what your family wants you to build, or what Daniel wants you wants you to build, or what Blash wants you to build. What do you want? And from that from that, we can build a sustainable business. So I have a um, I'm working with a financial coach uh right now, right? That I love. He when we first met, he was like, Look, Blash, um, I'm well off. I want to help other people, the financial coach, and I really want them to succeed, right? But I only want to work from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. hours a day. Can we make my business revolve around that? I was like, yep, that's no problem. That is what you want, and this is what's gonna happen. So if you have that clarity, because he does, and I believe that he um he could definitely build a million-dollar business just from financial coaching and all of that because it's really needed. But he doesn't want to. He was like, I don't need to. I want to enjoy my life, I want to drop off my kids at school in the morning, I want to pick them up every day uh in in the afternoon, and I want to spend my afternoon's quality time with my family. And that for him is the definition of success. Yeah. So what do you want is legitimately the question, not what your family wants, not what your society wants or what they're pressing you. What do you want? And when you have that answer, that is when you're gonna feel fulfilled and also happiness, and that you're successful.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

That's so true. And it's really interesting too because just kind of like how we talked about that work culture shift that you see everywhere you work 12 hours a day, yada yada yada until you burn out. There's also a flip side of that with this entrepreneur or this like push yourself, you know, to build your own business thing on the hustle culture. Yeah, yeah, hustle culture, where it's like the other flip side is like, yeah, yeah, okay, don't be a slave to the system. Get up at four in the morning, run five miles, go to the gym for an hour, make breakfast, jump on your lap. Like, there's this whole other side. So no matter where you go, there is a very um, so you know, on social media, there's a very fake version of it, right? And like you just said, that's really important for people to hear is that's this person's success. That's what their success looks like and sounds like to them. That doesn't you just need to sit down and find out what it looks like and sounds like to you.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah. And so one of the things that so I also listen to uh, especially on YouTube right now, uh like uh Alex Ramosi, right? So I love his advice, and but I don't agree with his methods, right? So he's like, I have monsters, I chug them, and uh and all of that, right? And to his credit, he legitimately said, Look, I love working 12 hours plus a day. You don't need to because I love doing that. That is my definition of what I want to do. If you don't want to do that, then choose your own path. Because this is only legitimately the only way that you are gonna be happy and that you're not gonna be regretting things when you're 80 or 90 years old. About like, oh, you know, I could have spent more time with my kids, I could have spent more time with like family traveling and stuff. Because, dude, when we're 80 or 90, our bones are gonna hurt. We're gonna be suffering, probably, right? We're not gonna be as functional as we are right now. So enjoy these these years that you have, build something for yourself, but build it because you want to, not what others sell you. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

That's so true. So this is a I this is a question I had because I'm I think I'm similar in a way. I feel like I reached a certain point in my life where I then I got discipline, right? So, you know, you join the military to get discipline, and then you've carried that very in a in a version throughout your entire life. How about how can someone build discipline if they've never themselves have had it, right? If they're looking like, you know, that's a big part of if you want to start your own business, if you want to, you know, break free of the nine to five, so to speak. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Um, but how do they build that discipline? Uh first be compassionate to yourself. You know, people are saying, like, oh, you know, it takes 30 days to build a habit. True. But it also can take a day for you to destroy it completely. Yeah. Like, and the first thing is, as I said, be compassionate. It's okay that you're not disappointed. It's okay that one day you don't feel like working or something like that, right? So that's the first thing. And the second thing is what do you want to do? It do you want to coach? Do you want to build something? Do you want to do systems? I don't know, like whatever you're good at and whatever you're passionate at, because those kind of have to intertwine where you're good at and where you're passionate at. If you're passionate about something but not good, just learn it. Because in most cases, when you're passionate, if you're if you have a passion for something, you're probably good at it. You have a talent somewhere in there, you just haven't developed it yet. Yeah, life takes it, takes its soul, right? And then if you know that it can be profitable, so kind of like the three Ps, passion, profit, and um performance or uh profession, right? That you're proficient, uh, when those align, then you probably have a business. And the way I kind of went with my first with uh mine, right, was I had two really different um approaches. The first one, when I had a coach and you know, they were like just pushing me, hey, post on LinkedIn uh two to three three days, um, uh two to three times a week, and then just DM everybody and you're gonna get your clients. Yes, that is successful, right? And I did get a couple of clients, but that wasn't me because I was dying from the inside. I didn't want to go onto those 15 minute meetings every single day, like five. Times a day because I felt icky and yucky. Yeah. And now the way I switched the goal, right? We still network. It's how you know we met. And this is how I meet like two, three or four people per day. But I go there with, hey, how am I going to help them? Right. What can we get from each other? How can we help each other? And then along the way, I get a few references. Hey, maybe you could help this person or you could help this person. He or she could be your client. And what's happening now is I'm enjoying this. I'm actually, I was super excited, you know, to get on the call with you right now to record this. And after we're done, I have another networking call in uh an hour or so. And I'm super excited. Again, I get the energy from it. And I'm not wasting the energy that for me as a trauma survivor and still going through trauma, I have only a limited amount of energy that I have to allocate strategically throughout the day. And specifically today, let's say, is one of the days where I woke up with a lot less energy than I normally would have. It's just because the day and I'm processing some of the trauma. And I didn't know that yesterday. And then now I really need to make sure. And the last thing is, you know, what is success to me? Well, right now, success for me is I pay all the bills. And that's it. And the rest of the time, I may be I may work right now like four or five hours because um a day, or even not that, and then I have all of the weekends off because I'm focusing on my mental health right now, more than my business. And that for me is is success. Even if I make 20k per per year, it doesn't really matter for me. So, then yeah, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah, hell yeah. I think um, I mean you nailed it. It's the again, as you get older and you you start realizing the your time and your mental state is really that's success for sure. That's awesome. Seems like you're killing it over there, but I hope so.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Uh it's it it doesn't feel like that. That's you know, most of the time. But uh what what what what do we always say to people and also like who asked me for mental health and stuff, always look where you were three months ago, six months, and twelve months ago, and where you are right now, right? This is always what I do. And even I did it this morning, uh, since I felt really down, it wasn't a good morning when I woke up. Uh so I laid in bed a little bit more. So I I left my bed at like 10 a.m. instead of let's say normally at like 8:30, 8:30 or 9, which is completely fine, guys. Like, you don't need to wake up at 4 a.m. It's okay to be a slob or like sleep in at times. And I said, like, oh, where was I 12 months ago? Or even damn, like I was in a way worse place than I am right now, mentally, business-wise, and everything else. And then I felt better. I was like, Yeah, I am I am improving, I'm doing the work. Right. But if you're a mental uh if you're a trauma survivor and an abuse survivor, you know that it takes years to unravel all of that. You can't do it within a month or two. It's simply not possible because of the way our brain works. And uh that's completely fine.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah, I it's you know, you know, you you wanna don't focus on the past, right? Don't focus on the past, keep moving forward. But it's also important to take it back, take a gander behind you every once in a while, just take note of where you are comparatively. Yeah, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Because one thing I'll just add here is uh we when everybody says like, hey, just look at the future, our subconscious doesn't understand that. Because if we look at it at our brain, right, we have the uh so just a really basic one. We have our um primal brain, or we call it the reptilian brain, then we have our limbic brain, which is uh in the middle of our so our emotions, our memories are stored there, and then we have our prefrontal cortex, our thinking brain. The only brain that can understand passage of time, so today, tomorrow, the next day, is our thinking brain. Our safety mechanisms, our danger mechanisms are in our primal and our limbic brain. Those don't understand the passage of time. For those, my defensive mechanisms that are still up were the ones that developed when I was two or three years old. They don't understand that I am 37 right now, I am in a safe environment, I am in the apartment, in the office. If something is gonna trigger me, it's gonna revert back to when it understood that I was safe if I did that action. So when we're talking about the passage of time, we're only thinking with less than 5% of our brain or the one that we're thinking about less than 5% of our time. So we also need to understand that it will take time. And our subconscious is way more powerful than our conscious mind. Yeah. We need to legitimately bash it into submission to say, you're safe now. Uh, you don't need to be scared of you know opening the door on if somebody knocks, because that was also one of my things. Like I was like, oh, something's gonna happen, something's gonna be really bad. It took me a few years to just figure that one out. It's like, hey, I'm safe. Nobody wants to hurt me. But it takes years, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Yeah. Um, if someone out there is listening feels stuck, burned out, or behind in life, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 49:11

First, what do you want from life? What do you want from first your professional and personal life? Figure that thing out and then switch jobs. Like try and switch jobs as as fast as you can, because in most of the cases, the people you work with are the ones that are causing this for one reason or another, possibly also home, but you can't focus on on all of that, right? And if you have some savings, um, you can take a month or two off. You're gonna be fine as long as you have the savings and go and find something else. It doesn't matter what you do, just take care of yourself first. Because in in the end, if you lose the job and you're burning out in a job that you hate, uh, one thing is for sure that uh if you leave or quit or if you burn out, and especially in in the US where you have at all employment, that they can, if you go on sick leave, they can just tell you, hey, you don't need to come back tomorrow because we're just firing you. Trust me, they will not think about you the next day. They will just put you in this in the sidewalk and they will find somebody else that they can do the same thing to. So just remember that you have one life and uh you have one mind and uh like MM said, what one one opportunity at life, pretty much. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

That's great. Let's see here. What does braving the bright side mean to you personally?

SPEAKER_00 50:41

That one also definitely evolved, but braving it is for me is confronting the things that I'm scared of and the things that are that were really difficult for me at one point. And then when we are looking at the bright side, right, braving the bright side is going through them, across them, or achieving and braving the success to get to the bright side, to that shiny side where I can say I've made it, I'm successful, and uh I can live my life the way I wanted it on the bright side. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Uh amazing stuff, man. Let's talk about where you're at right now, where people can find you, what you're doing, um, services you are giving out there. And um, yeah, talk about what work what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Yeah, so the best way to find me is on LinkedIn. Uh, I'm always active there. So um just say go and say hi, connect with me. I don't bite, I do actually respond, and I love to network. So if you want to have a chat with me, I will network with anybody. I will never pitch on the networking call. So it's not a pitch. But if you want to work with me, so if you're a solopreneur, an entrepreneur that is slowly building their business, uh, would love to have a chat. And what I say, and I actually just changed a little bit of my motto, is uh if you're a coach or consultant or if you provide any service, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you be in your zone of genius, I'm gonna let you coach, and I'll do everything else. So if that feels appealing, um yeah, again, connect with me on LinkedIn and uh we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Cool. I'll have all that. I can have your links set up too in the um description of the episode as well. Awesome. Um Laj, this has been great. You know, what I really like about your story, you've got a good Braving the Bright side story. A couple big words in there that we love here is trauma and discipline and uh burnout, you know, all that stuff that is relatable, that is human, that is honestly sometimes doesn't get talked about a lot. And um, it's cool to see how you utilized discipline when you didn't have it younger when you're younger and how you morph that into what works for you. Really cool story, man. So um really want to thank you for being on the bright side with me today. Um, and yeah, wishing you all the best, brother.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Thank you. You too, and thank you for having me on the uh on the episode. It's been amazing. Awesome. You take care of yourself, man. You too.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

A big thank you again to Blash Marlock for joining me on the bright side. I really um really appreciate the honesty he brought to this conversation. You know, there's something powerful about hearing someone talk him openly about discipline, pressure, burnout, success, and the long road back to yourself. So much of this conversation circled around the idea that sometimes what looks like strength on the outside is really just I don't know, raw survival on the inside. I think that's something a lot of us can can relate to. We push, we work, we achieve, we tell ourselves we're fine because we're still functioning. We keep going. But functioning and healing are not the same thing. At some point, life asks us to stop proving how much we can carry and start asking why we're carrying so much in the first place. So I hope this conversation gave you something to sit with. Maybe, you know, a little permission to slow down, maybe a reminder that success means very little if it cost you your peace. If something in today's conversation stirred something in you, or if you just need someone to talk to, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out anytime at braving the bright side at gmail.com or find me on Instagram at braving at the underscore the bright side. And if you've got a story you feel called to share, well maybe your voice is one we need to hear on this show. Hey, listen, thanks for spending a little time on the bright side with me today. Until next time, keep braving it. One step, one sunrise, one honest conversation, and yes, one moment of self-compassion at a time. All right, John Rafia, say goodbye. We will see you guys next time. You guys take care of each other. I'll see you.