Mike Liguori | How to Heal a Relationship with a Parent

Srini Rao: mike, welcome to The Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us, man.

Mike Ligouri: I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Srini Rao: Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. I was introduced to you by way of our mutual friend Oxhey, who has been a guest here more than once. And when Oxhey sent me your story, I was like, I don't even need to read this.

Soaky recommended you. I knew that you would be awesome, so no pressure at all. But , you have a book out which we will get into, which is this really beautiful story about reconciling with your father. But before we get into that, I actually wanted to start by asking you, what is one of the most important things that you learned from your mother that has influenced and shaped who you've become and what you've ended up doing with your life and your

Mike Ligouri: career?

Man, that, that's such a great question. First off shout out to our friend Auction on Nav Vati an amazing guy and then I'm really appreciate it him giving us the connection. And in, in terms of my mom, the one thing that she taught me about the most was perseverance. My mom in the book I described to her as a prize fighter, right?

Just going round after round. No matter how many times that she's gotten knocked down and dealt with the adversity and the challenges of life, she's always been able to get back up and fight another round. And I've learned in my entrepreneurial endeavors, I've learned in my tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq, you just gotta keep going.

No matter what the setbacks are, the challenges that you have perseverance is key. And showing up every single day and just fighting another round. And I think that was the biggest lesson I learned from my mom. Yeah.

Srini Rao: You actually describe your mom in the book and you say for a woman who didn't have a college education and who sole priority in life was to raise two boys, mom always made sure we had what we needed.

Yeah. I think there was one other story about her that really struck me, and that was the fact that she had leukemia when you graduated from high school. And, I think most of us are obviously aware intellectually that, our time here is finite. The time that we have left with the people who matter most to us.

, is not guaranteed. And yet you've had the visceral experience of that. So I wonder, when you have the visceral experience of walking somebody close to you, suffering like that knowing that there's a possibility that maybe they won't make it. What does that do for the relationship that you have with them?

Mike Ligouri: It definitely, how does it change it? Yeah. It definitely changes the dynamic. I think you start recognizing and realizing that our time is limited, and I'm watching my mom get diagnosed with leukemia and just for context, at that time, I think she's about I wanna say close to 30 years, or excuse me 25 years, I believe.

Yeah, roughly like 25 years of being cancer free. And at that time when she was diagnosed with leukemia, I believe there was a less than 40% chance of survival. Now I think that rate is in the 60, 70, 60 to 70% from what I've read briefly. To see that as a young man experiencing that with my mom and watching her go through that pain and suffering, it definitely made me realize that at any point in time The people that we love aren't here anymore.

I have this philosophy that life is actually long, but it's incredibly fragile. And so that perspective in itself has allowed me to really cherish the memories and the moments that I have with my parents, with my friends, with my family. It's more about saying yes to adventures and opportunities and experiences because of the fact that life is long, but things are incredibly fragile.

People that you love and are in perfectly good health can be gone the next day. People who are down on their luck have not had a lot of success or looking for inspiration anywhere they possibly can sooner or later become overnight successes. It works both way in the positive and the negative. And I think for me being able to experience that type of closeness to death from my mom, experiencing that from war.

Has really changed my perspective and being able to really treasure those relationships that I love so much. Yeah.

Srini Rao: So this is something that I always ask people who have had to confront a mortality headfirst, whether it's their own or whether it's somebody that they love. Yeah. What decisions did you make about how you would live your life going forward when you were confronted with your mother's mortality?

Mike Ligouri: The first thing I decided was, is that I have to make my life full of experiences and memories that I'm gonna look back on at the end of my days, because I believe that's the only thing that we're really going to be able to truly experience is the memories that we made along the way. Not the money, not the accomplishments, the experiences, the memories.

And I wanna be able to have a memory bank of those in my old age and look back on that and say, man I did life the right way. And what I mean by the right way, the right way for me. Not for anybody else, it's just how I deemed for my life to be lived was a memory bank of experiences and adventures, things I said yes to not living in regret.

And that's the thing that I really try to focus on specifically with that is, is that, is this gonna give me an opportunity to say yes to an adventure? Is this gonna give me an opportunity to say yes to a memory that I'm gonna look back on and be happy in my old age that I did? And it's one of the things that actually led to me journaling.

So I've been on and off journaling probably for, oh geez, man, I would probably say like 2007, 2008. I started like hardcore getting into journaling. And then I'm sure a lot of people can, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this. Ended up not journaling for periods of time and then starting back on it again.

So I have this like on and off again, relationship with journaling, but I committed over the last couple years. I wanted to document as many days as I possibly could, whether there was nothing ex anything exciting happening or nothing exciting happening. Because I did wanna look back and see the transformation that took place for me.

I wanted to be able to see what I valued at this point in my life. Being in my late thirties and what I didn't value, and then looking back in my twenties and seeing if there was any sort of alignment there. So to me the most important thing is that memories, experiences and adventures and then that's really what I'm focused on right now.

Yeah.

Srini Rao: You mentioned making the right choices for you. Yeah, and I think so often we got get caught up in making choices based on other people's expectations, whether that be our parents, whether that be our peers, whether that be society. And I wonder for you, like, how do you, for anybody listening to this, how do they let go of that idea of making decisions based on other people's expectations?

Because I think to some degree, we're all influenced by other people's expectations. We all want our parents to be proud of us. And yet sometimes, the things that would make them proud are not necessar necessarily those things that are aligned with what we want to do or our own values.

Mike Ligouri: Yeah.

I, and I definitely agree with you especially about the parents thing, and I'm sure you j , I'm sure you've read that too about this expectation that I had of my dad becoming somebody that I wanted him to be. And so for me, for most people, I would assume that the expectations that they live with are the expectations.

Like you as you had mentioned, that your parents want you to act a certain way, is to be a certain type of way, is to go to school, to be a doctor, a lawyer, a police officer, fireman, whatever the case may be. But for me, in a lot of ways, my dad wanted me to act a certain type of way. But where the real challenge and the real friction was for me was I expected my dad to be a certain type of way.

So we were actually , we were, yeah. And we were exactly, we were doing that to each other. And one of the things that I wanna share with everybody that's listening today is that the one thing that you can do right now is to drop your expectations. Dropping expectations is incredibly important.

Now, do not confuse us with goals. Do not confuse us with your ambitions, but expectations. Sometimes what happens with expectations that we project them onto other people. We often projected sometimes in our business and in our work, or our creative endeavors, I expect to do a hundred thousand dollars course launch, or I expect to land 40 clients.

And what happens is that by setting up those expectations, we end up tying our own self worth to the expectations of a success in the business, or a failure in the business, or, Did I meet dad's expectations or I didn't meet dad's expectations? And what happens is that self-worth gets tied up with the expectations piece.

And then we judge ourselves and our whole entire life about did we meet those expectations or did we not meet those expectations? And so for me, the biggest thing that I had to learn was, is that my results in my business or my results in any sort of performance metric, had nothing to do with who I was as a human being.

, how my dad perceived me, had nothing to do with me being a human being and failing as a son. And recognizing that lesson in terms of letting go of expectations and dropping the expectations. The first thing I actually had to do was I had to drop my own expectations of him I couldn't expect.

And I couldn't expect him to be. The dad that I wanted him to be if I was dropping these expectations and not attaching myself or to performance metrics or anything. And it was such a beautiful lesson for me to learn at that part, was to be able to say, you know what, dad? I'm gonna drop the expectations that I have of you, and I'm just going to accept you as you are.

And that does not mean when you accept somebody as they are, especially your parents, that does not mean you have to like them. That does not mean you have to love them, but it simply means that acceptance leads to forgiveness, which leads to letting go. Yeah. Yeah.

Srini Rao: It's funny to hear you talk about this because I think that, as I was going through your book, I was thinking about that and, I remember having this sort of moment in therapy when I realized I was like, my mom is never going to be the mother that I want her to be or expecter to be.

And I have finally made my peace with that. And does that mean our relationship is perfect? Hell no. Yeah, we still get into battles over pointless bullshit. But I think that what ends up happening is you end up being, a lot less harsh towards them and you don't hold grudges towards them.

Cause I remember my sister and I having this conversation and I was thinking, oh, I'm the one who gets the brunt of all of this. And, and I realized, I was like, wait a minute. This is just what we've got and we've gotta work with it. And at this point in my life, I'm like, okay, I'm 45 years old, am I really thinking she's suddenly just gonna turn over a new leaf and become the person I want her to be?

No. And if I keep expecting her to do that, I realize I will never be able to have even some semblance of a relationship with her that

Mike Ligouri: is meaningful. Yeah. And I totally agree with you on that, and that was the same thing I had with my dad. So I'm in the same boat with you, is that, at what point when you get up in, you get up into your mid thirties and your forties and even your fifties, the question you have to start asking yourself is that, how long are you gonna hold onto this idea that somebody's going to be different, especially your parents?

And do you really wanna drag that type of weight? Through the rest of your life when you're trying to create and you're trying to manifest and you're trying to actualize all the things that you want do you really think it's possible that anybody out there and could, for those of you listening, that anybody out there or even you, do you think you can really create the life that you want?

Still holding on to the fact that mom grounded you from junior prom or she didn't let you play basketball, , or, those types of things actually are so small in comparison to what they do to us as we get older, that we can't create the life that we want for ourselves if we're still holding grudges, not just against people that may have done us wrong, or things that just went sideways, but also grudges that we have against our parents.

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What made you decide to become a Marine? How old were you when it happened? And I think so often for most of us, we experience war through the media. And I'm curious from your perspective, like what do we not see as civilians that you, as somebody on the field sees day-to-day?

Mike Ligouri: Yeah. I ended up joining the Marine Corps.

I was a senior in high school when nine 11 happened. It was to me the day that defined my life. Up until that point, I was searching for a lot of meaning and purpose. And one of the things that I found was military service really gave me an opportunity to create a life for myself. I've, I felt at that time being in my teenage years, that my dad and I were somewhat disconnected and I really didn't feel like I had a truly present father figure, and the Marines could be that for me.

There was, it was very much marketed towards young men and women looking for purpose and looking to do something great and also be a part of something much bigger than themselves. And I remember when September 12th happened, I went down to the recruiting station because I was incredibly emotional after watching the two towers burn.

I went down to the recruiting station and saw a line out the door of men and women in every single military branch recruiting office in the San Francisco Bay Area. And that was something I'll never forget for the rest of my life. And not only did I feel like the Marines was gonna gimme a sense of purpose and be this father figure, to me, I thought the Marines was gonna teach me things that I needed in order for me to be successful on life.

Accountability, responsibility, traveling at a very young age and being in the Marine Corps, you learn very quickly how to live anywhere in the world with minimal, close, minimal resources. You can adapt to a lot, if not every environment that you encounter. And your mindset is so strong because the belief that you have in yourself is so powerful and it's incredible what they drill into you.

And in terms of what people don't see with that, I'll never forget that. In bootcamp, one of the things that they do is that they break you down from your old programming and rebuild you back up. One of the things that they start you with is that they remove your identity of your first name. So you are no longer, I would no longer be Mike or even my full name.

I would no longer be Mike Leg Gori. It got moved into Recruit La Gori, so it could feel maybe to a lot of people that was somewhat demeaning and I felt like it was a little bit demeaning at first. I was like, wow, I don't, I can't even say my first name. I had to state my title, which was a recruit. I had nod in the title of the Marine.

I had to state my title and my last name and I had to talk in third person. So I couldn't say I have a question. I had to say this Recruit requests knowledge. And a lot of people I think, don't get to see that because bootcamp is a sacred journey for a lot of men and women. Now when it comes to the field of war, one of the things that I think that gets lost into, the Hollywood glorification of war as you had mentioned a little bit, is, and then the media especially, is that the brotherhood, the shared misery does not get depicted as well as it could be.

And there's actually beauty in the shared misery when you're 10,000 miles away from the continental us. If you were born and raised here and you go into a war zone in a foreign country where you're not sure who likes you and who hates you, you're not sure what native people of the of Iraq are on your side or are not on your side.

And there's danger all around you, but there's a power and there's a bond that gets cultivated in a war zone when you got a fellow Marine. Looking at you just as miserable, hating life. Doesn't understand why he signed up. Just like you don't understand why you signed up not knowing what you got yourself into at 18, 19 years old, he's also, and she, or she's also knowing that she didn't, what they didn't get themselves into or what they got themselves into at 18, 19 years old.

And you laugh about it. But you also become closer cuz you realize, hey, you know what, if we're gonna be miserable, let's be miserable together and let's have each other's backs. And that to me is an incredible, beautiful experience of this shared misery that doesn't really get shared through the media.

We just talk about, are we winning a war? Are we losing a war? But we never really talk about the friendships, the brotherhood, the relationships, the camaraderie, the transition home is another journey that doesn't really get talked about. But I think those are the things that get missed out on.

And I think if we were able to have those be talked about more, And also be able to be shared in terms of conversation. I think we would see that war is such a horrible, tragic thing, but it's also such a beautiful thing for many men and women as horrific as it is because they truly understand what it means to be connected to another individual and a human being in the worst of times.

Yeah. So

Srini Rao: one thing that I wonder about after nine 11 in this country and unfortunately, to this day as a result of that, we have a lot of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment. And so as somebody who is fighting a war in a country that is basically seen as the enemy how do you find a sense of compassion for the people of that culture who you know are not responsible for the damage that, the people who caused the damage caused, does that make

Mike Ligouri: sense?

Yeah, it totally makes sense. One of the things that I told myself when I came home, and this was just through books that I've read and my own self-awareness and a lot with my spirituality and faith, is that every person deserves a chance. And to let a group of people who's belief system guided their extremist behavior or acts of hatred or judgment, I was not gonna allow that to lay judgment on the masses or the rest of the Muslim faith.

Or I wasn't even gonna let that on people of different skin color or of backgrounds, and I think for me it was coming from a place like I wouldn't want a couple people who were, white Americans to set out this idea that I'm a bad person just because of the color of my skin, or just because where I grew up and, the privileged life that I've had for myself and.

And all of these things that I've been blessed with. But also all of these things that I know are topic of conversation. And one of the things that, I really try to stress every single day is that, it doesn't matter to me in the let me, lemme see how I can phrase this. In the Marine Corps everybody wore the same uniform.

So you got the same haircut, we all wore the same uniform and really it wasn't truly discussed skin color or, racial backgrounds. And it wasn't because it wasn't important, it was because we were all in it together. And it didn't matter what you look like, you were a Marine. And Marines get treated other Marines with respect.

And I think that philosophy allowed me to just step outside and says, you know what? I'm not gonna let a couple bad apples destroy this opportunity for me to connect with this person. And I hope that they look at me the exact same way that a couple bad apples that. Look like me as a, he's a tall white guy.

We're not going to ruin any sort of opportunity for me to show my personality and show my character. And that to me is something that I really focus on and pride myself on, is being able to give people a chance. And again, like I think one of the things that I think is really powerful in this, for me at least, is that, by giving people chances, by being optimistic about, the human race, by giving people an opportunity from all walks of life, there are people out there that will burn you and there are gonna do things that are very hurtful to you.

And for me, I've always said that, you know what, there is a chance that I'm gonna get burned by an individual. But I'm not gonna let that destroy the idea that I feel like we are all inherently good and we all want connection. We all want love, and we all want relationship. And I just have to remind myself that there's a small group of people that don't want that.

That are going to do things that are very harmful and hurtful. I'm only going to do the best I can to give people a chance, and as long as I stick to that, I think that's the most truest form of authenticity to me is just giving people chances and able to for connection. So I hope that makes sense.

I'm just trying to figure out, I'm just trying to figure out how No, that

Srini Rao: makes, yeah, no, that makes complete sense. Talk to me about the training because, I've read David Goggin's book and I remember somebody asking me about David Goggin's, way of living on a podcast.

And I said, look, in context matters. Heres, of course, David Goggins is toughest fucking nails. , he's trained as a Marine. I was like, I think there's valuable lessons in that book, we have to also consider the context in which that worldview was formed, which I think is so often overlooked when we think about the lessons we learn.

But talk to me about, what the training is like and What that creates for you in other areas of your life as a

Mike Ligouri: result of that training? Yeah. Physically it was one of the toughest fucking things I've ever done in my life. , it was just God, it was just crazy. And it was more about endurance than it was actually about like feats of strength.

Nobody cared how many pushups you can, excuse me, nobody cared about how much you could bench or squat or much weight you can lift. It was like, can you run three miles? Can you do 20 pullups consecutively without unbroken? Can you do a hundred sit up in two minutes? Can you run those three miles in 18 minutes for you to be in the top 100%?

Can you do your job being mentally fatigued and exhausted or you can't even think straight? Can you do and get the job done? Can you do whatever it takes? The training was physical, but I think it was more mental than anything else. Going from having your name. To being a third person recruit, not knowing what it's like to wear civilian clothes for 13 weeks.

And then you're wearing military uniforms and then you get your name back, but you still have a title. Now you've gone from recruit to private or private first class and you have to work your way up the food chain, so to speak. And obviously the longer you're in and the higher you perform, the faster you move up the rank and just like you would with any job or business.

And for me, the mental aspect of the Marine Corps really has set me up to be able to take on the daily challenges of life, especially the ones that get thrown to us constantly as entrepreneurs or if you're in the creative aspect. Those are the things that the mindset training of the Marine Corps has taught me more than anything to say, you know what, this.

The worst thing you've ever been through. It's actually quite easy. Yeah. War's. War's. The most difficult thing you've been through, you've been shot at, you've encountered tons of landmines and IEDs and dealing with a client that may not be happy with your work or, being late on a , or ha not having an invoice get paid or somebody messing up a short or a YouTube video that, my team edits.

I look at that and I go, it's really not a big deal, honestly, like it's a mistake. Sure. But is this really the worst thing that's ever happened to me? And I think that time of perseverance, as I had mentioned before, my, with my mom and got accelerated in the marine. That's really helped me in a lot of areas in my life where it's not about, going balls to the wall 24 7, 365.

It's about consistently showing up and executing over and over again to the highest level possible, and also to an energy management point to where, at the end of the day you go, I put a good day of work in and I'm actually excited to go back to work. And I didn't learn the energy management piece actually until I got out of the Marines because in the Marines there's only one speed and that's all out.

But when I started getting older and started working for myself too, I took that same concept for the military about perseverance and consistency and adapting and overcoming to the fact that I wanted to be able to create a life for myself to where I got excited every single day to wake up and. And I got every single, I got excited every single day to shut off from work and say, I put a good day in and I'm gonna do this in tomorrow.

And again, because I knew I was going to move the needle in some form or fashion by showing up with that attitude. So

Srini Rao: You mentioned endurance and we had Chris Fussell who wrote that, one of those books was Stan McChrystal, I think they wrote two together. . And I remember asking him about seal training and how, whether you could tell, who was gonna quit and who was gonna make it through.

And he told me, he said, if I knew the answer to that, I'd be a billionaire. He said, it's al almost, surprising that, you have these huge people who look like ripped. You think they're the ones that are gonna make it, and they often end up being the ones that quit. Talk to me about that.

Is that the same

Mike Ligouri: case in the Marines too? Oh, yeah. There, there's definitely a lot of accuracy there. I'll tell you a story. We have a we have a test in

,

the Marine Corps called the physical fitness Test, otherwise known as the pft. And it's just something that every Marine does to measure their fitness.

I think that we actually tested for it every three months, and my memory's a little foggy, and I think it was every three months or six months, you did a PFT score and it would factor into whether you got promoted, whether you were within the standards of the Marine Corps of performing your duty. It would factor into a couple other things because it was just about physical it was about physical wellness and also mental wellness, right?

So I remember that at this time I was in Okinawa, Japan, and we were running a three mile, and I was like, I'm gonna break 21 minutes, three mile. And that was my goal. And mind you, I am not a runner, but I was so hell Ben on just getting a score where it was under 21 minutes to prove to myself that I could do it.

And I remember I came out of the gate just hauling ass. Like I was just sprinting and I was like, oh man, I'm gonna break 18 minutes. Like I'm gonna, I'm gonna crush this race. and I'm a pretty muscular guy at that time. I'm also a former college offensive lineman and defensive lineman as well.

So I have a big frame. So guys like me, we don't, we're not marathon runners, . And I remember running this pf t race and this guy just blows by me and it's this skinny little kid and he was in my unit and I'm just watching him just haul ass and I'm trying so hard to catch up with him. And I keep going and I keep going.

I just cannot catch him. And I finally cross and I'm at like 2051, barely make it under the 21 minute mark. And I'm excited with myself, but I was also at the same time wondering who the hell was this guy that passed through me. I thought I knew who he was and I knew he was in my unit, but I had never seen this guy before.

And I look over and this guy is probably about five, nine, a hundred sixty, a hundred fifty pounds, probably the same size as our friend Oxy. Okay. And I turn around and on his lower lip, he's got a fat bulge coming out of his lower lip. And I'm like, dude, did he just run that three mile under 18 minutes with a chew of tobacco in his mouth,

And I'm sitting there going did he just do that? And he spits it out and he is not bad. I got 1745. And I'm like, wait a minute. Here I am. Like making sure I'm just doing everything possible, not smoking cigarettes. Was an occasional smoker in the military, but was making sure that I was like going to set myself up for success, like pre-training.

And I'm like, I'm gonna do this. And here's a guy who right before we were running through a chew of tobacco in his lower lips, spit it out, ran the entire three miles with chew in his mouth, came back and did a sub 18 minute mile. And this guy was half my size. Now you could say that maybe the 150 pounds like worked in his favor.

It was a little bit of lighter weight so he could cruise faster. But still, if you think about that 1745 for three miles is moving and not to mention what tobacco in your mouth. So I tell that story because it really didn't matter In the Marine Corps what you look like people would surprise you.

And that guy surprised me with that three mile run. I had guys who were, who were hefty and a little bit overweight according to Marine Corps standards. Some of those guys were the toughest guys that I've ever met in my life. But as the saying goes, it's always the short ones you gotta look out for.

And I had a lot of short guys in my platoon, . Those guys were tough, man. Those guys were tough. I remember we used to do grappling matches and we used to get into it with each other. And it was always those little ones, man, that would just, they would never quit. They were just always feisty.

They would just constantly come at you, man. And I really hated wrestling those guys. . I really did. I really did.

Srini Rao: I, you mentioned Aha, who's out of his fucking mind? Let's be honest, like every time you hear about one of Actually's adventures, you're like, dude, I really hope you come back alive.

Yeah, I know. That's literally the first thing I think. I remember he showed me a movie once. I was like, ahe. I was like, everybody in this movie died. I'm never gonna

Mike Ligouri: climb a mountain with you. Yeah. And he's I know. It's so awesome. That's it's Yeah. . Yeah. And that's the thing is this guy's the size of our friend Ahe and those guys it has nothing to do.

And like that representation of like size does not matter in the Marine Corps. It's like heart of the Champion, it's like the mindset of the champion mindset of a Marine. And it's being able to know that like most people will quit on themselves before others quit on them. and , when you get into the Marine Corps, you start recognizing that anything's possible for you as long as you commit and keep your, put your mind to what your goal is.

Yeah. Speaking

Srini Rao: of near death experiences and, people quitting on themselves before other people do, one thing that I had heard when I asked a Navy Seal about this, I said, weren't you ever in fear of your life? And he said the thing that keeps you from being in fear of losing your life is the fact that everybody has your back.

That is just a given when you go into any combat situation. But talk to me, did you have any experiences where you thought you were gonna die? And if so what is that because I, like you said, I think it's one thing to see it on TV when you watch something like saving Private Ryan, but it's another thing to

Mike Ligouri: actually experience it.

Yeah. There was a couple times that I remember distinctly in a war zone that I felt like I was gonna die. And. Those without going too much into the details of those events, one of the things that I will share with you is that your life does flash before your eyes and you wonder immediately in those moments of near death what people will say about you when you're no longer here.

And I, it's all I could keep thinking about, especially the first time I got shot at. I remember distinctly thinking about if this is it, I'm 20 years old and we're getting shot at on this, driving through this village in the middle of the night. And I'm thinking to myself at this moment in time as I'm also in this like panic state of trying to figure out, like seeing these red and green tracer lounges, like going overhead trying to figure out like where these IEDs or grenades are blowing up.

The first thing I think about to myself is like, is this is the end. I never got a chance to fully live my life, but at least I know that I died doing the thing that I committed to doing, which was serving my country. And again, this, this has nothing to do with like personal outlooks on do we agree with the Iraq war or not agree with the Iraq war?

But when you're simply a human being and realizing how fragile life is and that we get out of scenarios a lot in our lifetime very easily, that could really turn for the worst. And that near-death experiences in, or those near-death experiences in combat really shaped my life forever. It really taught me to just appreciate just know that like the only thing that truly matters is right now is the this present moment.

It, your past is, has already happened, and to me, I have found that there's no value in living in the past. I've also found that there's no value living in my future, especially because I've never been to my future. It sounds nice when I dream of it, but I've never been there. So what really matters in this moment of time is now.

And staying here and staying present to that from those near-death experiences has really been able to foster a lot of what I consider personal success for me being able to think about my life on a day-to-day basis, and also knowing that we're all gonna die at some point in time, we're all gonna go.

We just don't know where that is. And I think that's the beauty of life as well is that every single moment is a gift. Every single second is a gift, and every single conversation or interaction is a gift as well. And it gives you an opportunity to see that life is actually in your hands in a lot of ways to create the memories that you want, the experiences that you want.

And, I think I've only could have gotten those realizations that I just shared with you. From death or being in those near death experiences of, potentially losing my life at such a young age without even being legal to have a beer at that time. Now you

Srini Rao: come back obviously, and, one of the things that you say in the opening of the book about your father is that we have a historically rocky relationship that only found some common ground within the last few years.

Safe topics were sports and making money. Everything else we disagreed on politics, faith, and nearly every single choice I made in my life. And so I wonder you, what was it that both prompted this book and, made you finally say yes to your dad when he asked you to go on this road trip? Just for new people who are listening who don't have the context.

Yeah. Just the backdrop here.

Mike Ligouri: Yeah, absolutely. So I was living in Colorado at the time and. As you get older, one of the things that this is, as I was getting older, I should say, and one of the things I was finding in getting older was that life life changes for you really fast and it goes incredibly fast.

And one of the things that I was thinking about this point in time was, am I going to sit here and continue to have a relationship with the dad who I feel as though was never truly involved or present in my life. And I was in a relationship at that time, I was running my business and I really felt like I was making ground, but I was making ground at an incredibly slow pace.

And this was probably around late 20 19, 20 20, the beginning of 2020, where this idea came into my head that, how long am I gonna allow my dad to dictate the rest of my life? And. I decided that I had enough of it. I had enough of me putting myself through the ringer. I had enough of putting myself down, making me f, making myself feel like I wasn't worth it, or I wasn't ever gonna measure up to his expectations.

And I said, why am I even talking to a man who I feel like doesn't know how to have a connection or a relationship with me? And so at that moment in time, I was actually like, I'm gonna call my dad up and I'm gonna tell him, Hey, look, I just think it's best that we don't talk, that we don't have any sort of communication.

Maybe I'll call him once in a while just to say hi. But the reality to me was, is like, why even cultivate anything meaningful with this guy when all he's done is cause me pain? So Covid hit the year that we all love and know and love, and. As we were all shelled and, sheltered up in our apartments, in our homes, I decided that it was time for me to work on my self-development.

That what a great opportunity for me at this moment in time while the country shut down, that people aren't working. We're all trying to figure out how to survive that I was going to work on my own self growth, my own development. And I started reading books like Psycho Cybernetics. I read a book called The Toltec Art of Wisdom, Toltec Art of Wisdom and Love, I Believe, by Don Miguel Ruiz, which was a great one.

There's a couple other books I read as well, the Power of Your Subconscious. Mine was another book I read. I was like really big into like subconscious programming. And honestly I have no idea why I gravitated towards those books, but I was just completely fat infatuated with this subconscious reprogramming aspect of psychology that I had discovered at that time.

And as I'm reading these books, I'm starting to do the exercises in the book about, practicing and believing and knowing that your future's gonna happen for you and that, you could have whatever you want in your life as long as you start acting like that person that you wanna be in your future.

Which is funny because I literally just said five, 10 minutes before I've never been to my future. The only moment that matters is now, which is totally true. But what I want to stress here is that there is power in visualizing your future, but there's a difference between visualizing your future and living in your future.

And for me, I wanted to live in my future and not get lost in it. I wanted to be able to sit there and say, you know what? I want to create a better life for myself. I want to create something that's completely different, but I wanted, I didn't want to get so caught up in it that I missed out on living in the present moment.

One of the one of the excuses that I've heard from a lot of people is like, Oh when I make enough money, especially clients I work with, when I make enough money, then I can take a vacation. And that to me is is living in the future or becoming obsessed with your future that you're missing out on the present moment.

So I just wanted to clear that up. But anyway, as I'm visualizing, as I'm creating, as I'm practicing being in this future, I start noticing that my dad keeps coming up and as he keeps coming up, I get really frustrated. Why does he keep coming up? I know that I need to let him go, but why does he keep coming up in my future?

And I had this dream and this dream that came to me probably about a week before he called me. And it was a dream about I have to have a conversation with my dad. And again, this is what I was alluding to before about like getting ready to let him go and he beat me to it. . And so what happened was is that he called me and he said, Hey son, are you free to talk?

And I said, yeah, I yeah what's going on, Dan? And again, same shit as usual, I was expecting football, politics, business maybe, letting him talk about politics. But we definitely

,

deflected on other things in life that I thought was really important to us and or was at least important to me.

And he said, you and I haven't spent a lot of time with each other. How would you like to go on a road trip with me from Las Vegas to Sea Bring Florida? We'll go to this auto race out there called the 12 hours of Seabring. And I think it'll be really fun for us. So I pause on the phone and I'm thinking to myself, this guy's gotta be out of his fucking mind.

We have had nothing but conflict for a majority of my life. And he has the audacity to ask me right now, in this moment of time, if I want to, in the middle of the pandemic, get in a Mercedes Sprinter van with him. Which by the way, if you guys don't know what a Mercedes sprinter van is it's those Amazon vehicles that come by your house every single day.

Imagine being cooped up with a man that raised you, that you've had conflict with your entire life, and he's gonna tell you, it would be a really good time for us to spend time together in this vehicle. No fucking way, , am I getting in this thing? I immediately think to myself, and at the same time, I felt these feelings of revenge come up.

What an opportune time for me to finally tell him to fuck off. Finally tell him like, Hey, you know what? I don't want anything to do with you. I really don't want anything to do with you. I don't really think we should have a conversation. And this was like my one final, no. And we could go our separate ways.

And I felt like my life was gonna unfold for me. And I started I started getting like this idea in my head, like, all I have to do is tell him no and everything's gonna be fine for us. And what I actually found out was the moment that I was hearing him, tell me about how great this trip was.

And mind you he's a former ad agency guys, so have any of you guys who have seen Mad Men before? My dad was Don Draper in a lot of ways, selling food brands, happiness, emotions, all the great themes from the show. And I hear this voice in my head, and I believe it was the voice of God at this time.

And it sounded like James Earl Jones from Lion King. The voice of Mufasa . And I remember as I'm hearing this voice, the voice says to me, Michael, you need to go on this trip with your dad. It may be the only one that you get with him. And the moment that I heard that voice, I'm hearing my dad talk to me about, we're gonna drive the Sunbelt route and we're gonna go through West Texas and we'll go through New Mexico and Louisiana and it's gonna be such a good time.

All I kept thinking about what's what this voice that sounded like Mufasa telling me this might be the only one that you get with your dad. And immediately I felt this ease of pain and regret overcome me. And I started recognizing that the real healing was not me telling my dad to go screw himself or to never call me again or to leave me alone.

It was actually in going on this trip with him. And I didn't know at the time like why I felt like that answer was coming to me. But it felt right. It felt like I needed to do this. And so I ended up saying yes. And it was also how I was gonna spend my birthday at that time. And I remember my ex-girlfriend looking at me like, what did you just say yes to?

And I said, I just said yes to going on a road trip with my dad. And we ended up going 11 days sitting in this vehicle, driving from Las Vegas to Seabring, Florida. And it was the most life changing trip I've ever had in my life. More life changing than war, more life changing than any camping or adventure I've ever been on to this day was the, that 11 day trip that I went on with my dad and got to know him as a man and got to know what he had been through, and got to discover the truth about him as a human being.

And it was a really. Amazing, really powerful journey. It changed my perspective on my life. It changed my perspective on him. And it's also motivated me that someday when I have kids, I am going to be and strive the best of my ability to be the best dad that I possibly can be.

I think the thing that

Srini Rao: struck me most about the chapters on the trip was that you were willing to ask him difficult questions, tough things that people would not want to admit to. And there are numerous lessons that he shared with you throughout the book. And just a few that really stood out to me.

I remember this line in particular when he says to you, son, when you reach my age, there becomes a point when you get tired of trying to fit everything into your life. It's just not possible. And sometimes you don't get to see what you want to see or experience, or what you want to happen.

When you understand this, you realize that you don't need everything. You don't need a whole lot. You have what you have. You're blessed for having something. Anything for that matter. Obviously there's numerous other parts of this book that struck me, but I think the thing that I wanted to ask you about was that you had your dad write the Forward and, that really made me laugh because here, you are telling, writing about all the things that you actually despise about him, and somehow also, writing about healing.

So what was the experience like when your dad read this for the first time? Book Good and

Mike Ligouri: bad? Yeah. When I asked him to write the Forward, he said, really, you want me to write this thing? And I said, yeah, dad, I think you'd be really cool. We went on a hell of a journey. We healed our relationship after 30 plus years of pain and regret on my end for us to come to terms with each other and realize that we were more than just father and son.

We were best friends. And we had conflict and we didn't become really good friends and close as we are now. And to give you context, I maybe talked to my dad maybe, probably once a week in high school when I was mad at him and there was a period where I didn't talk to him for a couple years and to now where it's like we talk every day and Yeah.

I, when he first read that book he said it was very hard for him to read because he didn't realize how much pain I had he had caused me. And he also said, son, I think if this book is going to go out and help one person heal their relationship with their parents and take a road trip with their parents, whether it's mom or dad, grandparents, whoever raised them, if this book, they read this book and they can go to their parents and say, you know what, mom, dad, grandparents.

Person who raised me, let's go out and hit the road together. Let's, let's resolve our differences. Let's share life together. Let's create a memory or an experience. Then I'm all for it. And I remember that he said he was sorry, and my dad does not say sorry a lot. And to hear him say that to me after this book, after reading what he read, and a story in this book is actually one of my fa, it's my, probably my favorite story, and it's his two.

And it's called When All Your Friends Are Gone. And when I wrote about his three buddies that he grew up in the Christian Church with, from his mid thirties all the way till, you know now that story is incredibly powerful for a multitude of reasons. But he told me, he said the way that you wrote about my friendships with those men made me realize that how good of a time I had in my life growing up.

In faith, growing up in brotherhood and camaraderie and recognizing that I get a chance to have that with you now. And it was really powerful to hear when he finally read this book. I think his forward, he was a little nervous writing the forward because he was like, wow, I, he is a, he is a, he's a, he's a journal guy, like he's never written a published article on a Forbes or, he's, he doesn't, didn't have a blog.

Even though I think he should have a blog. He's got a wealth of knowledge. But, it's one of those things where you're asking somebody who's just an everyday guy who's trying to live the best that he can to write something that's gonna be seen by thousands of people. I think he loved the honor of that.

And I think just allowing him to express himself in his full authenticity, candidly, I didn't, was not expecting him to write this grandiose forward to my book or this introduction. Honestly, I just wanted him to just share whatever he wrote and whatever his perspective was, because it was his trip too.

It was our trip together and we were able to actually form a bond that we'll have for the rest of our days. And there was a little bit of pain that I think I felt too, a little bit of seeing my dad like, wow, maybe was I too hard on him on this book? Did I like, did I beat him down a little bit?

And I felt bad, honestly, when I wrote it. And he read it at first because I was, he actually didn't read the book until it was published. And the reason why I did that was, is because I wanted to make sure that this book was written from my perspective. And I wanted to handle my dad with the best care that I could, even though I felt bad at the time watching him go through that pain.

I even asked my publisher about this Morgan James. I said, did I go too hard on my dad? And remember one of the people that said, for someone like yourself who was so mad at their dad, You handled your dad in such a beautiful, delicate way that I think what you did more than anything was, is that you depicted your dad to be a human being just like everybody else.

And like most moms and dads out there, were parents are just doing the best they can with what they have at the time that they have it. And you just have to remember that and remember that about yourself and remember that about your own parents is that everybody's just trying to do the best they can with what they have at the time that they had it.

And so was my dad, and so was I. And so living in the past and all of that doesn't really serve us because, life moves forward with or without you. And yeah, for my dad it was an interesting, it was an interesting read. But he did say how proud he was of me to write something about this trip in such a former fashion.

And I cried my eyes out when I wrote this whole entire thing and. Being able to have 'em connect with you on that emotional level, although it caused him some pain. Seeing my viewpoint of our relationship, I think really brought us closer together.

Srini Rao: Beautiful. I can see now. I actually recommended you.

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us. So I have one final question which is how we finish all of our interviews at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something

Mike Ligouri: unmistakable forgiveness? I think the power of forgiveness in being able to learn to forgive yourself for human errors, for how you were made imperfection and imperfection.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from a guy named Peter Kron who says, you, you are a masterpiece and a work of art at the same time. And I think that beautifully sums. The power of forgiveness is just being able to know that we're these works in progress and we're also perfect in the same way.

And being unmistakable means that you're able to forgive yourself for mistakes and choices that you make. You're also able to forgive your parents and forgive people that have wronged you, and learning to let that go so you can move forward and create a more expansive life for yourself. I think that's what makes you unmistakable amazing.

Srini Rao: Again, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. Oh. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book, and everything that you Yeah,

Mike Ligouri: absolutely. First off, thank you so much for this amazing conversation.

I really appreciate, and thank you so much. Your questions were absolutely powerful, so I appreciate you taking the time and energy to read this book. If people are interested in buying the book, and I hope you guys are Amazon in Barnes and Noble, you can buy it there. You can also go to my website, mike lari.com.

That's M I K E L I G U O r i.com. And you can also follow me on Instagram at mike dot lari. Amazing.

Srini Rao: And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show. With that