Nico Lagan on Accountability: Building a Stronger, More Responsible Self

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation. Today I am joined by Niko logging, an influential entrepreneur, men's coach, and the voice behind a thought provoking the Nico Logan Show. Nico is a beacon of inspiration for many. His journey, marked by challenges and redemption, led him to champion the cause of embracing true masculine, something which is missing in a lot of men and helping men find their life's purpose. Nico If I'm wrong there, please correct me. From his transformative solo motorcycle adventures to his fearless advocacy for men's rights in today's society. Nico story is a testament to the power of change, courage and conviction. So let's welcome the man on a mission to redefine masculinity for the modern age. Nico, Log in. How's it going, man? 

Nico Lagan 0:51
Great, man. I've been enjoying your conversation prior to recording. Been talking for 20 minutes. I'm great, man. 

Rich Bennett 0:57
You know, I'm doing good, you know? And that's the thing. Just because listening to your show, I was like, Damn, I can sit here and talk with him for hours and hours and hours just because of you. And I have a lot of the same thoughts. 

Nico Lagan 1:13
First of all, I think so. 

Rich Bennett 1:15
And. But just the traveling. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, here you are. You've been trashed. You left Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong, though. You decided to just travel the United States. 

Nico Lagan 1:26
For three months. For 13 months now. 

Rich Bennett 1:31
You're living the life that a lot of retired people want to live. Man. 

Nico Lagan 1:35
You know, the most interesting part about this is really the on a nice day, I'm normally sitting outside for five, six, 7 hours. I have my production laptop that we're talking on right now. But I also have a tiny old laptop that if I'm not doing video editing, I'm not doing something that's really asking a lot from my platform. I'm sitting outside with my dog with a cigar. 

Rich Bennett 2:00
Like, what kind of dog? 

Nico Lagan 2:01
I have a German Shepherd. 

Rich Bennett 2:03
Oh, man. Really? 

Nico Lagan 2:05
Yeah. I think my girlfriend's outside right now with. 

Rich Bennett 2:07
Oh, okay. 

Nico Lagan 2:08
She's on pen. Like she doesn't go anywhere, so she just stays next to me, and we just. But she's a big girl. She's like 90 £500 as a female. She's a big girl. 

Rich Bennett 2:16
I love them dogs. 

Nico Lagan 2:17
Yeah, well, if you're they're they're difficult. They're different from I'm used to American bulldogs, which are more. They're friendlier, they're bigger, They're they're bigger. They're more muscular. I'm a big fan of muscular dog. Um, but this one's a rescue like I was offered. 

Rich Bennett 2:35
Okay? 

Nico Lagan 2:35
Somebody asked me to take care of her because I like dogs more than I do people. So nobody's one of my dream in this. Is one. 

Rich Bennett 2:42
A little talk back man. 

Nico Lagan 2:43
Oh, not only that, but, you know, they're to me, it's like, well, we're talking about motorcycle before. We're talking about writing before we started recording. And there's a lot of things that I've discovered in my life that are like meditation. Like I'm a big meditator. I meditate basically every day. And one of the things that I like, for example, about writing is, as you were saying, writing is dangerous. People are not paying attention to you. So that means you always need to be aware. And what is meditation if it's not being in the moment, being just being aware of what's going on around you. So to me, I do a lot of activities that force me to be aware of motorcycle like riding, being one of them, spending time with my dog, just walking, or like I always think about. There's a great meme on Facebook where you have a guy that's with his with his dog. They're sitting on the side of a cliff and there's a bubble showing what the guy's stalking likes thinking about, and he's thinking about money job. He's thinking about there's a million things in that bubble, but then the dog is only thinking it's an image of what we're seeing. So he's just living in the moment. So that's why I like dogs. That's why I love to deep sea dive. I'm an I'm an advanced diver and it used to scare the shit out of me when I first started. I fucking hated it. But then after a while. Oh, yeah. Oh, man, this is very claustrophobic because, you know. Yeah, I have some certifications to go below 100 feet. Right. 

Rich Bennett 4:09
So real. 

Nico Lagan 4:10
Oh, yeah. And if you think about 100 feet, that is ten story building between you and an air, real air. And if you know anything about this deep sea diving, it's not like in the movies where they dump their gear and they go all the way. Your lungs, your lungs would bust. You cannot do that. You need to go up slowly and slowly. You need to take you need to take out around 3 to 5 meters. You need to take a 3 to 5 minute break, depending on the people that you're in. But you need to. Ah, yeah. Or else you're going to have a lot of problems but all to save up. It's it went from being something that I hated to something I absolutely love because you are in a meditative state. You are in an environment where you're not supposed to be and there's no sound. All you hear is your your respiration is your breathing. That's all you're hearing. And you hear the bubble around you. And you're in an environment that you don't belong. You know that the smallest mistake that you make down there could mean $30. So you're always paying attention. Oh, it's life is very interesting. If you decided to be aware and pay attention. 

Rich Bennett 5:20
Something tells me you probably like mountain climbing and skydive and do. 

Nico Lagan 5:26
Mountain climbing is harder because I'm a bigger guy. I'm about £210. So it's it's not the easiest thing. And unfortunately, I really enjoy it. But my I've had quite a few surgeries and one of them is right knee, right elbow. And I have a busted ACL right now on my left knee. So no matter what I do, I can't really like I can't like I don't know if you can see, but. 

Rich Bennett 5:50
This is lifted. No, no. 

Nico Lagan 5:51
But this is a straight as my arm goes. 

Rich Bennett 5:53
Oh, shit. 

Nico Lagan 5:54
Because I have metal pins in there. So I'm not my, my elbow is always hurting. I have advanced arthritis in there for at least the past five years. So there's certain things I can and cannot do. And it's just it doesn't make enjoyable. It's it's not enjoyable because it's always hurting. Right. So is it worth it? I'd rather it hurt than martial art going to the gym than the hurting to go. But 

jumping out of a plane is one of the next things I want to do. I've never done it. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 6:26
Yeah, yeah. 

I've never jumped out with a parachute, you know? But in the core, they would do, you know, hover and then we jump back. Yeah. Yeah. To the ground. But or to spy rigging, which was fun hanging from the rope from the Hulk. 

Nico Lagan 6:40
But I think I'd like to do the How do you call it. 

Shit they call it, you know you have it's like squirrel flying squirrels. You just have a suit. 

Rich Bennett 6:50
Oh, the paragliding. Yeah, I do paragliding. 

Nico Lagan 6:53
Or no paragliding. 

Rich Bennett 6:54
It's like a flying squirrel. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. The. The pair. 

Nico Lagan 6:58
That looks and. 

Rich Bennett 6:59
Looks. Yeah, that. 

Nico Lagan 7:00
Looks absolutely insane. 

Rich Bennett 7:02
Yeah, that looks like it'd be if I didn't have a fear for heights. I would try. 

Nico Lagan 7:05
Oh, I'm terrified of Iceman. 

Rich Bennett 7:07
Oh, I never used to be. And I just. I don't even know what the hell happened. I just freaked out one day on the ladder, and that was all she wrote. Yeah. And my, my. My older brother sitting there laughing his ass off at me. I'm saying, give me Daddy's laugh. And I was stuck. I couldn't it. It was like ice on it. I was I was done. I was like, oh, you know. 

Nico Lagan 7:31
What's interesting is I look back at my life at least the past 20 years, the day I became really aware and I started taking accountability for my actions, I started putting myself in fear situation on purpose. Now, if you ask me something like, you could come up to me and say, Hey, do you want to do this? It my first if my first reaction is like, Oh, fuck that scary, I'm going to tell you yes, I'm going to say yes automatically just because I cannot. I will never let my fear dictate my actions anymore. I used to be a coward. I used to be one of those guys that was scared of a lot of things. And now I'm just I can do it. I can do it if it scares me. My mental conversation is going to be this. Oh. Oh, shit. I don't want to do it. A motherfucker. Why did you have to offer it? Because now I have to do it. Just because you offered it. I wouldn't have done it by myself. Probably. But because you offer it, I'm like, Yeah, let's do it. 

Rich Bennett 8:28
Yeah, yeah. I haven't flown in years. And just because 96, I had a bad experience. Yeah. And everybody keeps telling me he's, like, raging, I'm flying. So February, February, I'm finally going to just face up doing it. Do it, man. You got to once I turn 60, it's like, You know what? Screw this face your fears and just, you know, I what's going to just do it, man? They're just do it. You know. 

Nico Lagan 8:57
There's two things that I've come to realize, and I live my life by that on a daily basis is the number one fear of the dying is to live a life that others expected and not the life they wanted to live. So right then and there, that means that every single time I feel like doing something, I will do it. If I feel a calling to do something, I don't question it. I just find a way to do it right. And then I want to live my life not only by that principle, but by the second principle. That is the day I, I stand in front of God. I want him to be able to see that I've done more good than bad in my life, that my heart is light as a feather because I have been good. But that's it. Like everything that fits. If it's good and it faces my fear, I will do it every single time. Just because if I'm scared, so many people are scared of everything. I'm like, I just as you were saying, we've been on the road now for 13 months. We never really know where we're going and we just go. We just go where we feel like going. We spend the time that we want there. But I look at the people in my old life that's still work, the same corporate job. They're still doing the same job that I know ten years from now. Okay, They might not be a manager anymore. They're our director or VP, but they're still going to be doing the corporate job. And I know deep down they they only do that because they're cowards, because they don't have the best. They're going to use all the excuses in the world. ALL Yeah, but I have a family. Okay, sure. So why not use your family to make sure you never fail? Do you want your do you want your son to think you're a bitch? So you never went after anything because you made excuses your whole life and you used him as an excuse. So you're basically teaching your son to be a coward and to use others to fuel your cowardice. So it just amazes me that people still are okay with living their life like that. And when people like me are the weird ones, when I should be the norm, I should be. I'm not doing anything else out of the blue except following my I have faith that I'm doing the right thing right. And I have the balls and I'm courageous. I have the balls to go after what I want. 

Rich Bennett 11:26
Actually, if you don't mind. 

Nico Lagan 11:28
I do mind. Okay. 

I don't mind. 

Rich Bennett 11:33
For for our listeners that actually don't, you know, know who you are. Yeah. It's explained to them, especially growing up, because I think once people hear your back story, you're growing up and then once they go to your website, get your book and everything is start listening to your show, they're going to understand why you're going to understand you a lot better. And people, let me tell you, this is a show you want to watch. You know. 

Nico Lagan 12:03
I don't I don't think that my life is special at all. I don't think I've done I think I'm just see, I was dealt a certain deck card and I decided to play it. I decided I've done a lot of mistakes. I still do. I still make them like, I guess if one thing I can guarantee you is I will continue making mistakes. 

Rich Bennett 12:21
This is nobody's perfect, man. 

Nico Lagan 12:23
No. Plus, if you don't make mistakes, are you supposed to learn? Thank you. And not only that, you know, I would go even further than that. If you never hurt, you'll never learn either. 

Rich Bennett 12:34
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 12:35
We are creatures of comfort. We do not change unless we are in the situation where change is one of the only avenues, if not the only avenue. Because, again, one of the things that I'm always thinking about is how Einstein defined insanity. To do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. 

Rich Bennett 12:57
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 12:57
So it's okay to make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes and I'll continue to make them. But I won't make the same mistakes. 

Rich Bennett 13:04
Learning from them. Yeah, but I. 

Nico Lagan 13:05
Won't make it twice. 

Rich Bennett 13:07
Right? 

Nico Lagan 13:08
If I'm making a mistake once and I'm learning from it. That was. It was meant to happen. I had to learn. But if I keep on doing the same mistake, I'm a fucking idiot. 

Rich Bennett 13:19
Yeah, right. Oh, no, I agree with you. 110% there, but 210. You know, to. 

Nico Lagan 13:24
Answer your question, my 

I grew up outside of of the city. I grew up in a small town. I'm used to being in nature. I'm used to being like I was a kid from the eighties. Like my parents would would leave me, go out and do whatever it is that we wanted to do. And my dad was never really present. Like, I don't remember a lot of things about him. And when I was 14, he left. We saw him a handful of time until he died. Like he left. I was 14. He died. I was 29, give or take. 

Rich Bennett 13:58
Right. 

Nico Lagan 13:58
And I think last time I saw him, I was 19. So I had been ten years since I've seen him. And, you know, when when you're a boy or even a man, actually, you always are looking for good men. At least what you believe a good man is. You're looking to mold yourself after people that you look up to. And normally, but not normally. This is the job of a father, is to guide his son into what is a good man, to put rites of passages together, to form some type of plan around your your son, a tribe, if you will, so that he's surrounded by good men, so that he lives masculinity. And I did not have that. And my mother, as much as she tried to do a good job, she tried to play both roles and, you know, there's a reason why if you look at statistics and you analyze the data that shows that Nucleus family will always make better offsprings, 

you will. If you look at the way the kids are men and like girls and boys, they will always do a lot better if they had both parents there. And the reason is easy because there are gender roles. Don't believe what people are telling you today. There are things that men do better and there are things that women do better. Yes, but that take nothing away from the other. On the contrary, we're support. We complement each other. We're supposed men and women are supposed to be together. We don't complete each other, but we complement each other. And in a situation where you have a single parent that's trying to raise a boy, well, not only can my mother as a woman cannot teach me what it is to be a man in the same way that a father cannot teach a daughter what it is to become a woman. 

Rich Bennett 15:47
Exactly. 

Nico Lagan 15:48
By trying to play both roles like my mother did, she was flip flopping between masculine energy and feminine energy. She was never completely feminine. She was never completely masculine, but she was trying to fill both roles. And what does that do? That means that both roles are not done properly. 

Rich Bennett 16:07
Mm. 

Nico Lagan 16:08
Instead of her understanding, being aware and I don't blame her for this, I don't think it's I don't know if it was a conscious decision that she made, but she never put men in my life like mine. My mother eventually remarried. She eventually found one of the greatest men I've ever I've ever met. But I was too late. Like by the time I was 15, I was. I was an addict. I was drinking every day. I was out. I was. I was. I had dropped out of school. So it starts when when my dad left and really left a mark. And it's, you know, the there's a quote by shit. What's his name men. The guy that that hosts Family Feud. 

Rich Bennett 16:55
Oh, shit. God, Steven. 

Nico Lagan 16:59
Oh, man, I cannot. 

Rich Bennett 17:01
I know. Well. Oh, well, right now I've. I watch it all the time, you. 

Nico Lagan 17:07
Know, I'm in front of a laptop. I'm going to check Steve Harvey. 

Rich Bennett 17:10
Lord, Steve Harvey. Thank you. 

Nico Lagan 17:12
Steve Harvey has a quote that goes along the lines that when a son when a father leaves his son, it will leave a hole in his spirit in the shape of his father. So and and I can attest to that. He's 100% right. And you will always look to fill it. And for those six or seven years that I really were looking for Father in all the wrong places where I was an addict, I was a drug dealer, I was a thief, I was a thug. I was I was not a good man. Like no questions about it. I was not a good man. But during those times, I was still looking for what it was to be a good man. But what did I know? I had no idea what a good man was, so I was looking up to the people I idolized. People that came from nothing. They had women that had money, that they were selling drugs that were gangsters, that I used to listen to rap back in the nineties. Not the pussy rap that you hear today. Like the guys were there. They were gangsters. Those guys came from nothing and now they were worth millions of dollars. That's why I emulated until I realized that this was not the path, that those are not great men. Those are not good men. 

Rich Bennett 18:21
Those are what made you realize that. 

Nico Lagan 18:23
You know, I was in a situation where I was in my apartment and I moved out of my mom's place. I was 17 years old. So by that time I had been living for almost four years by myself. And. 

Rich Bennett 18:35
Right. 

Nico Lagan 18:36
I was getting evicted from my apartment. I was not a good tenant. All I did is sell drugs and party. So you can imagine I was not the nicest of tenants and I was. I was. It doesn't even sound real when I describe it now, but I was sitting on my in my apartment, I was sitting on the ground and all my box, all my stuff is in boxes and I'm basically facing two situations. I had been offered an opportunity where instead of selling drugs, I could start manufacturing it. I was I was going to be shown how to start growing the product and sell it instead of just selling it right. And I'm there sitting. But but it wasn't an opportunity that I was having that day. Like I needed a bit of time to develop that opportunity. But I was sitting in a situation where I'm getting evicted and I don't have a place to stay. I'm basically homeless. So I have a great opportunity, at least in my mind, at that age, I have a great opportunity to not sell but to start producing. And it was a great opportunity. Money wise. It would have made a shit ton of money and I got a phone call from my mother just asking me a simple question and my mother were was aware of what I was doing, not to every not to every detail, but she knew that I had been in that world for more than six years by that day. And she knew I didn't change. She knew she was I was still down that path. So she simply called and she asked me a question, Am I happy? Are you happy? 

Rich Bennett 20:10
Oh. 

Nico Lagan 20:10
And just that question is, you know, imagine that you're getting evicted. You don't have any place to go like that night. Like that day I was becoming a homeless. I did not know how to deal. I was too proud to ask for help and. 

Rich Bennett 20:24
Right. 

Nico Lagan 20:25
But yet I have an opportunity. So I know that if I stick it out a bit further, I'll be paid for my my sacrifices that I've done over that period of time. But when somebody asks you, are you happy? You have two ways of of of taking it, you can either answer, yes, I am an ally. Like most people do, or if you're hurting enough, if you're in a situation where you don't know what else to do. Because as per my age, that was a rock bottom. I was becoming homeless, so I did not know where my next step. I had two steps forward, but my next step I didn't know. I did not know what it was. Yeah, so just that question 

forced me to. I was ready to listen and it forced me to come up with an answer. 

And all my mother said is, Are you happy? If you want, you can come back home. I don't have money to support you, but I can give you a roof over your head. 

Rich Bennett 21:30
Mm hmm. 

Nico Lagan 21:31
And you know, that day I took that day, I moved back to my mother's place. I stopped seeing every single friend I had back then. I started attending any meetings, a meeting meetings. I got rid of my drug issue. I got rid. And I'm not saying overnight, but the decision was taken overnight, Right? Really? That night after that question, I pondered it and I left. I moved back with my mom, but I literally stopped smoking, stopped doing drugs, stopped drinking. I stopped seeing all the people that I was seeing back then. And within the gap of maybe two years, I had went back to school. I had had I got a high school equivalent. See, I went to college as a computer technician. Like I took a fast track, 18 months college course. Yeah. I had started working out. I was discovering martial arts like within a span of two years. I really went from being an asshole to being not a good person at all, to starting developing my body, developing my mind. Because you gain access to your mind through developing your body once you start. And you know, my the day I accepted the fact that I was not a good person, but 

I had responsibilities, my actions had consequences. Yeah, Yes, I had a path that I was not proud of. And instead of seeing it as being ashamed of it, I saw it as a way to get better, as a way to, you know, this is not what I really am. This is the situation. I, I, I was given a deck of card. I decided to play it the way I did, but there's nothing stopping me from changing directions. And that's the decision that I took. That's 20. Yeah. Give or take, 20 years ago. And what I, the decision that I took that day is the most important decision I've ever taken in my life. 

Rich Bennett 23:45
Yeah, because otherwise you may not be here today. Well, I. 

Nico Lagan 23:47
Know what would have happened that happened to my friends. I have a lot of I know a lot of guys that are still in that that really didn't change. And one of them went to prison. Another one, actually, a couple of them went to prison. One died in prison and quite a few of them have criminal records. Every single one of them outside of one doesn't like all have. I don't want to be disrespectful by saying this, but they never really accomplished anything. Yeah, they're not. 

You know, I reached out. I'm writing my second book on the Five Virtues of a Good Man right now, and I'm using a lot of my past experience. And what we're talking about now is part of it. And I'm really using like, let's say I'm talking about courage. I'm saying that one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life is to take a kind of accountability for my actions and to stop seeing all of my friends that I've known forever and to go on a lonely route of mastering myself. It's a it's a lonely road. But without courage, there's no way I would have ever done that if I didn't have the balls to do it. I would still be in the same place. And I. I reached out to a couple of those guys and they're like, I'm try. Amen. We should jump on the call just to see. I'm just curious to see because I'm reminiscing. I'm writing about them right. Man, I'd love I'd love to see what they're doing. That was two weeks ago. They never got back to me. So, you know. 

Rich Bennett 25:17
Like, yeah. 

Nico Lagan 25:19
No, it's not interesting. It's not a surprise to me at all. I know. No, because think about it. If there's two ways that they can see this, they can see, Oh, shit. After all this time, he's curious to see what what we're doing. Those guys are all on social media. They follow me. 

Rich Bennett 25:39
They know they. 

Nico Lagan 25:40
Know that I post in and they know my opinions. I get right now I'm probably between 5 to 10 million views a month on my content, so I get a lot of traction as to what I'm talking about. So I know they're aware and this is not cockiness, this is a fucking fact. I know that they know. So they either see it in two ways. They're like, That motherfucker left. So they're still in the past from 20 years ago. 

Rich Bennett 26:04
Right? 

Nico Lagan 26:04
Or they could have, they could have seen it and say, You know what, man? He's learned. He's changed a lot. Maybe. Maybe he wants to teach us. Maybe we are. We have something to learn from him. And this is what? Taking accountability for your actions. This is one of the consequences of taking accountability, is I have a few guys that I keep around me that are more successful than I am, right? I'm not jealous of them. I am basing what I'm doing on what they are ready to teach me. I look up to them as in, you know what I want what you have not in a childish way, but in in a spirit like inspirational way. 

Rich Bennett 26:44
Yeah, I'm. 

Nico Lagan 26:45
Looking at them. I'm like, Man, if I continue doing what I'm doing, I could reach this. I could become those guys. And this is always what it comes down to. If you have a mindset of if your mindset is negative compared to being positive. MM It's easy to be negative. It's a lot easier to be negative than it is to be positive because your default reaction to most situation if you're not in control of your emotions, is to be negative. Yeah, instead of seeing the good in things instead of, you know I was, I had a two and a half hours conversation with my best friend yesterday and he tends to call me when he has questions because he knows I'll listen to I'll let him talk, but I will rip into him if it needs to. I'm not talking right. I'm the asshole you need in your life. 

Rich Bennett 27:34
And and everybody does need that. 

Nico Lagan 27:36
100%. I have my asshole. He's my he's my mentor. He rips into me every any chance he gets. And I will thank him for him, too. And then he'll tell me, Hey, bro, I love you. All I can think of is go fuck yourself, asshole. But yes, I fucking love that guy too, because that's his job. That's like. That's his job. But, you know, we were having a two and a half, two and a half hour conversation. And it's interesting because he's asking me about things that look like it's not relevant as to what we were talking about, but he had the balls to ask me my opinion, knowing that I would rip into him, knowing that I would call his bullshit because he needed somebody to tell him the way it is and right. And by the end of the conversation, I proposed things that he has never considered. He was making excuses for, for certain things. And I'm like, Bro, fuck you, Those are excuses. I don't want to hear it, but this is what if you cannot accept, you know, that you always have two choices. You can either do nothing and live with that on your conscience or you can make men the fuck up and do what you're supposed to be doing. If you have virtues, if you live by certain virtues, morality. This, I think, is worth explaining. People tend to mistake to make the mistake of thinking that traits, skills and virtues are the same things. My skills and virtues are not the same thing. Discipline is a skill is a trait that you possess, but it's not a virtue. 

Rich Bennett 29:17
Right? 

Nico Lagan 29:18
Being courageous is a virtue. 

Those are things that will dictate your life. Yes. You becoming disciplined is something that everybody should be, but you don't live your life as a virtue of discipline. It's a symptom. It's a side effect of the virtues that you live by. If you do what's right, you start understanding that what's right is doing what you need to do, not what you feel like doing. So if you have morality, you will develop the skill of discipline. But what are those moralities that you need to have in order to build discipline? And those are the things that we don't do anymore. We don't we're very fast at saying that's why I should do. But we don't have morality based on virtues that will dictate what we can and cannot do or what we should and should not do. And that's what I just reminded my friend. I'm like, Bro, if you're always talking about being a good man, what a man does, if you don't do this, you're not a good man. Yeah. So your choice is very fucking simple. It's not easy. Being a good man is fucking hard. But your choice, having morality makes your choices easy or simple. Sorry. Not easy, but simple. Because you know what you're supposed to do. That makes it hard. Because often the right thing to do is the hardest thing you can do. But this is you know, it's interesting that the conversation with my friend reminded me of how important it is that I'm writing the book that I'm writing right now on the Five Virtues of a good Man and why I keep on. I need to continue doing this. This is why I started a new video series, like they're Faceless. It's not me, but they're all it's all my stuff. Like it's I just don't do the narration. I'm using AI a lot for for that stuff, but they're the subjects I want to speak about and okay. But they're all about ancient virtues, Christianity, stoicism, and what, how they translate in today's world. And you know, my book on the Five Virtues of a Good Man. That's what it is. I'm not inventing anything here. They don't belong, right? The virtues name. I chose the names, but the whole stoic principles. I'm not reinventing anything, I'm just reformulate eating them in a way that will attract men today, that it will make sense to them. 

Rich Bennett 31:50
Go with the five virtues. Yeah. 

Which of the virtues virtues do you believe is probably most underrepresented or misunderstood in today's society? 

Nico Lagan 32:04
Faith and. 

Rich Bennett 32:04
Why? 

Nico Lagan 32:05
Faith? Oh, I would say faith. 

Rich Bennett 32:08
Wow. Okay. 

Nico Lagan 32:09
You know, there's five virtues courage, protecting, providing temperance and faith. Courage is the foundation. Because if you don't have courage, you'll never be able to be a protector. You won't be a provider. You will never build temperance and your faith. You'll never you'll never have the balls to listen to. Your faith and courage is the foundation. But yet faith puts everything together. You know, if if I. If I look, it's not last. Because it's the least important. It's last because, you know, I. I've been having visions of that, and I'm going to have my graphic designer put it into context so that I can have it on the book. But Courage is your cellar is the foundation of everything. You have the three pillars of protecting, providing and temperance, and then you have faith that is the outside that wraps the house together. That is the outside shell of everything that is not only wrapping everything together, but that is protecting the foundation and the beams of your your morality as well. And I think this is the lease. Not only is it, the lease represents the light, it's misunderstood. Look at what's going on. Take an example of what's going on in Israel and in Palestine right now. So there's two camps right now. There's people that support Israel and there's people that support Palestine. 

Rich Bennett 33:38
Mhm. 

Nico Lagan 33:39
I don't support the actions that Hamas have used, not because I'm pro Israel or I'm against Palestine. I just don't believe that those are the actions that you should take. You should never target regular people. You want to target military. No problem. I have no problem with that. But if your main target are women and children, you are not a man. Yeah, you're not a man. But it goes even further than that. How can you consider yourself a man of God if you're ready to destroy that morality? Because you know, I get ripped into all the time about my Christian values. I'm not your typical Christian, but I am a Christian. And people tell me all the time when I talk about Christianity that Christianity has done some horrific thing. I'm like, Yeah, sure, absolutely. But there are there are assholes everywhere, so. 

Rich Bennett 34:34
Right. 

Nico Lagan 34:35
Whatever you look, there's always bad people. But you're trying to tell me that Christianity has caused more damage, that it's caused more damage than good. No, absolutely not. And you can look at any religion that you want and you can see that as it really gone. Is it better than it was back? It just blows my mind that I look at what's going on right now and those are not the conversation that we're having. Instead of picking a side to say, you know what? What would a God fearing man do? MM What would be what would I do as a God fearing man if I was Israel, I'd propose to. And, and again, this blows my mind that I'm the one thinking about this how, how we're not real news outlet thinking about this. 

Rich Bennett 35:24
But right. 

Nico Lagan 35:25
If I base my faith on Christianity and I'm faced with a situation that Israel is faced with right now, what would Jesus Christ do? He turned the other cheek. What does that mean in today's world? Okay, I will ask Israel. What I will do is I will understand that what Hamas did is wrong. But does Hamas represent the whole of Palestine? No, it's it's a terrorist group in the same way as Hezbollah was a terrorist group in Lebanon. I know a lot of people from Lebanon. They did not represent the regular people. Right. So why not simply tell Palestine, you know what, we won't retaliate. We'll sit down and I will give you the opportunity to go after Hamas yourself. You know where they are. Don't act fucking stupid. You know where they are. You know, with technology today, if you asked that, if you ask the people, they will tell you exactly where they are. So, you know, I will give you the instead of me bombing you, instead of me putting my foot on the ground and doing it for you, I will show you. I will give you the opportunity as a country to say I will go after Hamas, not only am I giving an offer, am I not retaliating right now, I'm following Christian values that you're going to find in Judaism and arguably in Islam as well. To just say, I will turn the other cheek and I will give you an opportunity to prove yourself. Not only is it good for Israel as people of morality, but it would look great on the world stage to say, listen, I'm giving them an opportunity. I'm not going to retaliate right now, but I'll give them an opportunity. That being said, give them a specific amount of time. 

Rich Bennett 37:17
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 37:18
And make them understand that those people need to die. The people that committed those crimes, they deserve to die. 

Rich Bennett 37:24
Absolutely. I have no pity. 

Nico Lagan 37:26
I have no pity for that. This is where my my morality and my Christian morality, they often fight each other. But I have no pity for those Those people deserve to die. They don't that you don't get to live and do what they do. But I don't think that regular people should be killed for this either. 

Rich Bennett 37:46
Oh, yeah. And I just. I don't even watch the news anymore. 

Nico Lagan 37:51
Right, Right. Back to you. 

Rich Bennett 37:53
I turned it on briefly this morning. And, you know, watching is like a day when I hear I heard that you're killing people and be, you know, babies riddled with bullets. It's like, oh, come on now, This is just now you're you're right. They they have to without a doubt. 

Nico Lagan 38:15
They have to do something about it. But I you know, people I posted a video a couple of days ago. All I was saying is I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject yet. I am. I did that on purpose because I wanted people to underestimate what I was going to say. But I basically said I'm not the most knowledgeable on the subject. And technically it's true. Like there's historians that know a lot more than I do, but I said, I'm not the most knowledgeable on on the subject, but how can we encourage and even celebrate a group that has kidnapped and killed innocent people? 

Rich Bennett 38:52
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 38:53
I have probably 5 to 600 comments on that video right now, and I had to reading because I was 

I don't want to believe that people are actually like that. 

Rich Bennett 39:09
It was starting to boil. 

Nico Lagan 39:11
No, it's not that. It's because it seems that half of the people think I'm pro Israel by my comments. Yet I would have said the same thing if Israel would have done it right. But then the people towards Palestine are like calling me names. They're calling me this, they're calling me that. And my answer to a lot of them was simple is it okay to kill innocent people because it's your side doing it. Mhm. Or is it all the ways. Okay. Okay. Because that's a thing. Don't be a hypocrite if you believe that it's okay. But people are not having those conversations and this is what baffles me. Like I'm a big fan of the Daily Wire. Obviously it's more Jewish oriented because of who owns it. 

Rich Bennett 39:58
Right? 

Nico Lagan 39:59
And then you go on their their website right now to look at the news. It's all about that. 

But none of them are talking about turning the other cheek. None of them are talking about, you know what, what what do we need to do? Because this unlike what people believe, it hasn't been going on for seven years. It's been going on for 1 to 2000 years. The Middle East, like people argue, bro, Israel were there. The Israelis like the Jewish were there before the invention of Muslim like Islam did not exist. 

Rich Bennett 40:34
Right. 

Nico Lagan 40:34
When Jews were there. So don't give me the shit of 70 years. They were there before the fucking religion. Does that make it right what they're doing? No, that's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying don't fuck. Don't only go back 70 years because it fits your narrative. Be honest and go back thousands years. 

Islam did not even fucking exist yet, so don't give me the shit like Christianity did not exist when the Torah was written. Christianity is based on the Torah. No, you're fox assholes. But the point is that why instead of retaliating, we're not. Nobody's talking about what can we really do to make sure that those countries. Is there a solution? Is there really, really a solution to this? Is there and I don't know. I'm not I don't know that. 

Rich Bennett 41:25
No. And I don't for some reason, I think because you're right, you go through this 

throughout the years. It's always back and forth. But and I know people have sat down, you know, the politicians, whatever I've sat down and talked about, and there may be some peace for a while, but then it comes right back. Why is that's what they need to find out why why keep stirring this shit up? 

And I don't think anybody's really looked at that to find out what is stirring it up. Why are they you know, why is it yo yeah, you might not do something for years then all of a sudden, are you going to do this? You know, it just. 

Nico Lagan 42:14
It's been going on for so long that I don't even. Yeah, I. 

Rich Bennett 42:17
Remember. Probably not. Well, yeah, I'm sure they don't. 

Nico Lagan 42:21
It's just, you know, as much as what I'm saying probably doesn't make sense in the real world. Maybe I'm just an optimist when it comes to this. I don't. I don't know that it's applicable in real life because I don't know if you follow Charlie Kirk, what's his. 

Rich Bennett 42:37
Last chart? Yeah. Charlie Kirkland. 

Nico Lagan 42:38
Thank you. It's. It is. Kirk. Yeah. So one of the things that he said and I've heard that my buddies told me this multiple times is like if Hamas so if the Jews pull down put down their weapons Hamas is going to kill them, they're going to exterminate the Jews. But if Hamas puts their weapon, their weapons down, peace, there will no there will be no more conflict. Israel and Palestine. 

Rich Bennett 43:04
Hmm. 

Nico Lagan 43:05
And again, that's not I don't want to say I'm pro-Israel. I'm just saying that violence for violence, who's the most violent of them, too? Who's ready to go further? Yeah, but what can you do? Is there a way? Maybe I'm again, maybe I'm an optimist. Maybe there's nothing that can be done in order to bring peace to the Middle East. Maybe that because it's been going on for so long, it it will always be like that. Maybe that their religion are so one against the other. They're so they can get along. 

Rich Bennett 43:40
Yeah. 

Yeah. Sort of like the Hatfields and McCoys, you know, it's just. 

Nico Lagan 43:47
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 43:47
So it's a shame. 

Nico Lagan 43:50
But what I you know, what bothers me the most is the reaction of people is 

how can you be for that. 

Rich Bennett 44:00
That you're all like, remove, remove. 

Nico Lagan 44:03
Like technically, I'm a libertarian. I don't believe in helping other countries with their military problem. Personally, I believe in a very, very well-trained army that will protect the boundaries of my country. That's it. I would not get involved at all. What other countries? I will just do my shit. We do exchange of goods and services if it makes sense to both countries, but I'm not going to help you, which this is what I believe in. That being said, I look at what's going on in Israel and Palestine. I don't I don't want to say I don't care because it's not true. It's human life. Yeah, but at the end of the day, how can we start pointing our nasty fucking fingers at other people when we've done worse to the natives? 

Rich Bennett 44:50
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 44:50
And we still do it today. 

Rich Bennett 44:52
We're suddenly we don't even take care of our own people here. 

Nico Lagan 44:55
No, but we talk shit about Israel that gave Gaza to Palestine. We didn't even do that for our own. For their own Native Americans that were here when we showed up. We put them in reserves everywhere. They're there. The people that are doing the worse in North America. Yeah. And yet we we have the balls to point nasty fingers at other people and judge what they're doing when we're not even. But this is this is the problem with accountability. This is why I've been talking about accountability from the beginning. I can give my advice to other people all I want. But if I'm not ready to look in the mirror and say, Mother fucker, you're a problem, how much wait does my truth really have? 

Rich Bennett 45:37
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 45:37
And this is this is what blows my mind by this whole conflict that we're seeing in Israel and Palestine. It reminded me how bad we've been here. 

Rich Bennett 45:47
Oh, have we? Were awful. Yeah, we were awful. And it's. And like I said, even to to this day, there's stuff we're doing that we should not be doing here. Here in our own backyard. Yep. And, you know. 

Nico Lagan 46:07
It's, you know, it's, it's very interesting. A time we live in right now is very interesting. 

Rich Bennett 46:15
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 46:15
We have all the technology in the world to be aware of what's going on, to see live feeds from cell phone, from people raping, killing babies. On the other side, we have the IDF. They're showing their feed, finding those people. We're capable of having that right here. I'm capable of just pulling out my phone and have all that information right there. But yet I won't. People are not ready to look at themselves in the mirror. 

Rich Bennett 46:47
Exactly. 

Nico Lagan 46:48
To say exactly why am I encouraging those people? Why am I celebrating this? What am I really celebrating? Am I celebrating the freedom of Palestine or am I celebrating the killing of babies? 

It's fucked up. It's really. 

Rich Bennett 47:04
Funny. It is. It's really the society in general. And I just even wish that. I mean, you saw it years ago. It used to be here. At least it wasn't like this in the States. It used to be you were innocent until proven guilty. Now, for some reason, it's like you're guilty. And until you're proven innocent. 

Nico Lagan 47:25
It's funny. I just got an alarm from Russell Brand. What a perfect example of what you're talking about. I know. 

Rich Bennett 47:32
But. But it's true. I mean, you know, if you if somebody says something about you right away, people think you're guilty. Oh, wow. Why would he come out and say that they did this? You know, And it's. 

Nico Lagan 47:50
But you know, it it all comes down to the same thing. And this. Yeah. You know, for years I thought that the biggest problem with today's society was the lack of masculine men. I thought that the lack of masculinity was the biggest problem in today's world. And recently, over the past year, I've been pondering and pondering. And the more I talk about it, the more I realize that this is not the biggest problem. The biggest. You can boil down every single problem out there to a lack of responsibility. There's somebody somewhere that does not want to do their job. That's it. It's that simple. Whatever the problem comes down to somebody that doesn't want to be held accountable. 

Rich Bennett 48:26
Yep. 

Nico Lagan 48:27
That means. 

Rich Bennett 48:27
That. 

Nico Lagan 48:28
It means the individual's the problem. 

Rich Bennett 48:30
Yeah. And with that said, I think a lot of it too is lack of respect. 

Nico Lagan 48:35
But how can you have respect if you don't even respect yourself? You got to. I mean, that's why it's an accountability problem. Well, yeah, right, right then and there. It always stems down to a lack of accountability. And you see it just by that comment. I post videos like this fully that I'm going to create a reaction. I want a reaction. I want people to leave comments. I believe in free speech 100,000,000% because I want people the freedom to hang themselves with their fucking opinions. I want people to tell me what they think so that I know the type of person that you are. And I have no problems with people being pro-Palestine going in the streets saying that Hamas did the right thing. You know why? Because I remember this shit. I remember. I know who you are now. I know who your true colors are. So when I post videos like this asking questions to people, I want engagement. I want I want them to engage to tell me what they think and I will engage with them. I want to talk to them. 

Rich Bennett 49:31
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 49:32
And every single time, no matter what the subject is, it always comes down to accountability. Every time, every single fucking time. It comes back to a lack of accountability. But yet people never understand what I'm doing. I can use any subject out there to speak about accountability, but it never seems to come across to most people. And this is what I find the most disappointing. Yeah, whatever I try to talk about to try to activate a peace in your mind to say, you know what, maybe I'm maybe I'm a problem in this situation. 

It never seems to. It does. But one out of ten times, maybe less. Mm. 

It just bottle, it just, you know, one of my buddies said that not all truth is meant for everyone. Because in order for everyone to understand the real truth, you would have to dumb it down to a point where it would lose all of value. 

Because if the average person is not ready to learn by themself, to work on themselves, to become a better person, to be corp, to become a wise, maybe the truth is not meant for you. Ignorance is bliss. And this is what I'm seeing today and I'm debating mentally. Is it ignorance or stupidity this? The argument can be made for both side, but right. I just by what I'm seeing on how people are dealing with the conflict between Palestine and Israel, people are just ignorant or they're fucking stupid. It's either or. And for both side of the fore, both side of the aisle. I'm not just saying Palestine, I'm saying Palestine and Israel to a lot of people seem to be really so fucking lost that they don't even understand what it actually means. 

Rich Bennett 51:31
Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 51:34
Mind blowing. 

Rich Bennett 51:36
It is. So with five verses, when are you hoping to release that? 

Nico Lagan 51:41
Before the end of the year. 

Rich Bennett 51:42
Nice. 

Nico Lagan 51:43
I love my goal is by the end of I would like it to be all done, edited, done, ready to go by like December 1st. Okay. That's what I want. 

Rich Bennett 51:53
And you have what one or two other books. 

Nico Lagan 51:56
Want. 

Rich Bennett 51:57
One? What's that one? 

Nico Lagan 51:59
Purpose. It's about purpose. It's about finding for men how to find purpose when they're older, like 35 to 45. And thank you for for talking about it because I, I self-published it like it's all done through my stuff. We did everything ourselves, and I broke my exclusivity contract for the audio book with Amazon, and I'm giving it for free. Like if you go on my website on the. 

Rich Bennett 52:23
Side though, for today. 

Nico Lagan 52:24
Yep, you can get it for. And the narration was not made by me was meant like it was made by a real narrator. Frank Gerard is a fucking madman. He's a crazy person. I mean, I love what that guy did, but yeah, the the the audio book is available for free. Just download it. It's yours. I'm curious to see what people think. What if it's a lot of the things that I've discovered when I spent two and a half years in the woods. But yes. 

Rich Bennett 52:56
It would wake me back up a minute. Two a half years in the woods. Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 53:01
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:01
When I explained that. 

Nico Lagan 53:05
I spent two and a half years in the woods, it's. 

Rich Bennett 53:08
In the cabin or. Yeah, yeah. Okay. 

Nico Lagan 53:11
Like I think about the. I still own the house. It's a few acre property in the middle of nowhere in Canada. It's log house. Log house, top of a mountain overlooking valley lakes type of deal. 

Rich Bennett 53:26
All right, then. In that case, I can't blame you. 

Nico Lagan 53:29
Well, you know, it's. I was in a situation like in my prior life, I was a sales engineer for a telecommunication company. So I wear a suit every day. I was in front of customers and. 

Rich Bennett 53:41
Mm hmm. 

Nico Lagan 53:42
I don't know if the U.S. realizes that, but during COVID, Canada had some bad restrictions. But where I'm from, the French portion of Canada had the worst restrictions in the world. And really? Oh, yeah, And I refused to get vaccinated. And 90 it's above 90% of Canadians are vaccinated. And yeah, it was absolutely crazy. Absolutely crazy. And the government basically forced people to do it in a way where you will lose all your rights. Like when I you know, back in March 2020, when a dictatorship. Yeah, 100% If you you know, I, I tend to say this to my American friends all the time that if you think you guys if you think Biden and what he's doing is crazy, we're 5 to 10 years ahead of you. Where where do you think your policies come from? They they come from our stupid fucking government that that shit is being leaked through social media. People are like, Oh, that's such a great idea. So you're basically we're five. I like to say that we're 5 to 10 years ahead of you and, well, in Canada I'm not there anymore. But they are 5 to 10 years ahead and 

we weren't as a non-vaccinated person, I was not well at the beginning. It started that there was restrictions. Everything was closed restaurants, gyms, martial art, gym, couldn't go to work anymore. So I had an opportunity to work from wherever I wanted and I had an investment, a house in the middle of nowhere. But I was always renting on Airbnb, got rid of my place in in Montreal, in the city, and I moved to the middle of nowhere and 

within a couple of months I took a sabbatical from work. Because spending a lot of time by yourself, you tend to realize the type of person that you actually are. You you start hearing voices in your head, like as as fucked up as it sounds. When you're not filled with distractions, you start facing yourself every day and I took some time off from work so I could really work on myself. And my work started threatening me that this is one of the reasons I took a sabbatical. My work was threatening to fire me if I did not get vaccinated and work. 

Rich Bennett 56:01
Goodbye. 

Nico Lagan 56:02
Well, you know what I told Boss? He could go fuck himself. Yeah, And I'm like, You know what? Do what you have to do. But I'm not going to do it for you. But do it whatever you want to do. I don't care. The most of my basically, all my friends are vaccinated, my family members are all vaccinated. Same thing. My girlfriend and I are not vaccinated, but we're the only ones in our circle of family friends we know connection, Canadian family, obviously. And you know, it's up to you. I chose not to. That was response. That is what I chose to do. But they forced my hand. They basically backed me in the corner and I said, you know what? I'm not going to do it. So what are my options? This is what's extraordinary when you start being accountable for your actions. So I'm living in the middle of nowhere because I have no reasons to be in the city anymore. I can't go anywhere. And then the restrictions started being lifted for the people that were vaccinated. I couldn't. The only two places I could go for almost two years was pharmacy and grocery stores. So for about a year, not two years. My apologies. It's about a year. Yeah, I could not go anywhere outside of a pharmacy and grocery store says so. You know what? I built myself a gym and I just worked on my stuff. But I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for that. I would not be traveling the U.S., I would not be running my own company. I wouldn't be on this podcast today if I would have never started a podcast three years ago, almost four years ago. Now, if it wasn't that I was backed into a corner that forced me to see what I can and cannot do. What could I do for you? 

Rich Bennett 57:37
I actually started your podcast on COVID. 

Nico Lagan 57:39
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:40
Oh, wow. Okay. 

Nico Lagan 57:41
And I was going to see people face to face. I was convincing people when we weren't supposed to. I was still, you know, what I did? So I've been a conspiracy theorist before. They had a name for it. Just because I do my own, just because I don't believe what everybody tells me. And I do research. People think I'm a conspiracy theorist, which is fine. And during COVID, I was recording, not only was I recording podcast face to face with people I did not know, I was also going to every single protest that was happening in Canada with a sign that said Free hugs. I was giving hugs to people in the middle of a pandemic in the face of police officers. My but not only that, but my buddy was recording everything. He was wearing a mask you did not want. He's like, I'll record you, but I don't want my face to be on video. So he was covering his face, but I've been to mall. I've been to three different protests, 22, 120,000 people where I was actually for them. Sorry, like the trucker ones you've heard about that? Yes, I was. It's all bullshit. What's you've heard down here is not even true. It was a party. It was a massive party. It was a massive protest against the government. And I was there giving free hugs to people. But all to say that 

there's choices that you can make, right? And it doesn't matter that it's during restrictions, It doesn't matter. It's about what you think of as of Israel and Palestine. It doesn't matter that it's on your day to day life. On what are the type of man that you want to become. It always comes down to you. No matter what it comes down to you. It comes down to you being aware. It comes down to you being accountable. It comes down to you being ready to do what needs to get done. This is why courage is so important. If you don't have courage to do what needs to get done, when it needs to get done, you'll never be one dependable. How can I trust you if I don't? If if you're a radical, If I know you might choke. If I know that you might get so scared that you're going to be a coward. How do I. How can I trust you? So you know, as much as I know we don't have time to go through all the virtues in the way that I'd like to go through it. 

Rich Bennett 59:52
But You know what that means? 

Nico Lagan 59:54
We have to do it again. Algebra said No. 

Rich Bennett 59:56
You're going to have to come up to Maryland so we can do it in person. 

Nico Lagan 59:59
Some songs, we'll make it up. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:02
Okay. 

Nico Lagan 1:00:02
But it's all you know, if people whatever we've spoken about, we've been all over the place. But it all comes down to being accountable to your actions. Yeah, nothing's possible if you're not accountable. Nothing. There's a good reason why every single addiction recovery program all starts with admitting that there's a problem. The first day you realize that there's a problem. The day you realize that there's a problem. The next question that comes in is Whose fault is it? Mine Does. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:31
Nothing. 

Nico Lagan 1:00:33
That's the first step if you don't. But we're not teaching people that this is not just for recovery, it's for every single aspect of your life. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:43
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:00:43
You know how many times I've been told, Oh, you're living the life. You're living a dream life? No, I'm not. I'm. My life is not easy, bro. Doing what I do when nobody wants to do it is not easy. I don't have anybody to depend on except myself to do what we're doing. My girlfriend and I are depending on each other. That's a right. People don't believe in what we're doing. My family don't believe in what I'm doing. So you might see me on Instagram and seeing me living a life which I don't talk about. The glamour of what I'm doing because there's not a lot of glamour in what I'm doing, but give me all the money in the world. I would still do what I'm doing right now. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:17
You're getting the word out there. 

Nico Lagan 1:01:19
But give me all the money in the world. I'd have a bigger team, I'd have a nicer RV, I'd have a nicer truck, a nicer bike. But I would be doing exactly the same thing every day. I would not change my purpose because this is what I'm supposed to be doing likewise. But how many people can actually say that? 

Rich Bennett 1:01:37
Not a lot, because less. 

Nico Lagan 1:01:39
Than a percent, You're right, less than you said. But again, how many people take accountability? Less than a percent. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:47
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:01:48
They go hand to hand. They literally go hand to hand. One does not go without the other. You cannot find true life purpose if you don't first accept accountability. If you don't first become accountable. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:01
MM 

Yeah, we definitely got to do this in person. But there is something I want you to tell everybody about because I believe they would help a lot of other people as well. The Alpha Creator Blueprint. Yeah. 

Explain everybody what that is. 

Nico Lagan 1:02:23
Over the past 3 to 4 years, I've been I'm a very analytic guy, like I'm a math guy. I look at numbers and I look up what worked, what doesn't, and I don't have I have no shame in saying what I need to be said. Mm hmm. I I'm not looking to be an asshole to people, but if what I think and what I say hurts your feeling, you can go fuck yourself. I don't care. This is your problem. It's not mine. But unfortunately, social media does not like people like me. They don't push our content. They make it even harder. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:53
Harder. 

Nico Lagan 1:02:54
They will censor us, they will block us, they will shadow bone us. They will put strikes against us. They will delete your content. They will literally prevent us from posting and they will remove our accounts. And over the past three years, I spend 

probably a couple of hundred thousand dollars on 

posting and learning how algorithm works, how what can be said, what cannot be said. I'm always pushing the boundaries. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:25
Every. 

Nico Lagan 1:03:25
Every couple of days I will try a video that I know might get me into trouble just to see if it will get me into trouble. Because at the end of the day, none of my social media will monetize me. You know, you hear about people, they're like, Oh, I lost my I'm monetize on you. Look at a Russell Brand that's not monetized anymore. You look at a matt Welsh that I lost I've never had it. They won't give it to me. So there's nothing for me to wow to lose. So I build my content around that. I'm like, You know what? You're not going to monetize me either way, so fuck you. I'm going to talk about what I want and I'll find the I'll find where I can push it and what I what I thought is every man out there, unless you have a pair of tits or a nice ass that you're ready to show, Social media will not push your content unless you're vanilla as fuck. But if you have a real message, if you're a manly man that's trying to put a manly message out there, they're not going to push you. Like guys like Andrew Tate are very, very small exceptions. Most guys never get this, and Andrew Tate is not the one that's getting all the views. It's other people posting his shit because he's banned everywhere. It's other people that are posting a shit that are helping him grow up. But wow, when you look about, oh, he's only available on Twitter, there's only Twitter that allows him to post content. All the recipes about, Oh, if you put a video, I put a video about Andrew Tate where I went through his life. It was a 3045 minute podcast just on his life. I'm not agreeing with him. I'm not disagreeing with him. I'm talking about the facts. I couldn't even upload it. They they they struck it right away just because it speaks about Andrew Tate. No, no, he's about now. And I'm not saying I'm a fan of him. I'm not against him. I'm not a fan of him. There's a lot of things that he says. I fucking agree with him. I'm just not a fan of the way he delivers it. But that's his style. That's what he is. But I think he's doing a lot more good than bad. Let's agree on that. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:19
Right. 

Nico Lagan 1:05:20
But the point is that most people like him will never get to the notoriety that he has. They will never the social media will never push their message. So I've developed methodologies on how to be able to push those methods, not only on what can be said, how it can be said, what's the maximum you can go depending on a social media not to get demonetized or not to get banned. But I also have I've also built a methodology on what type of videos can you post in order to track? You know, I call it a social media funnel. What are the videos that will get the most views and how can you drive those videos to push those views to go see your evergreen column, your evergreen content, what you talk about on a daily basis. How can you use what's going on in the world to get more traction? Once you get that traction, you can you can send those people to whatever videos you want because there's there's people post to post, but there's an intelligence that there's an intelligence that needs to be used when you're posting, especially when you're a guy with good with good content, as in you have something to say. You're trying to help other men. So I've developed that intelligence on how to do so. What are the boundaries that you can push and how can you use certain social media to gross other social media and which one works, how it works all the the fine understanding that you only get from doing it right. This is what I help clients with, but I also help them get better in front of the camera. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:04
As you say, because you do coaching as well, Right? 

Nico Lagan 1:07:06
It's part of it. You know, It's part of it. Okay. It goes hand to hand. It's there's a reason why I speak the way I speak. There's a reason why I use the words that I use. If you notice, I don't use filler words. I don't, uh, I don't do it because this is a skill that I've practiced for a very long time. If I'm talking about something super serious, you'll see that I'll slow down my speech. Because psychologically, if I go to 70% of my speech, people will tend to pay more attention to what I'm saying. It's more captivating than if I'm just speaking like this and I'm trying to make you understand something. This sounds aggressive. This sounds like I'm trying to force you into something. But if I slow down my speech and I'm like, Listen, this is the reality. This is why this is the reality. And those are the skills that I've developed over 12 years of AI and cells and the past three years of spending a shit ton of money developing this methodology. So yeah, so this is kind of what I do. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:10
So something very important. How can people get in touch with you? 

Nico Lagan 1:08:15
I'm on all social media you can find me on. Doesn't matter. I'm there if I'm on TikTok. Instagram Facebook at Real Nickelodeon, on Nickelodeon, on YouTube and Rumble. If you I do a lot of stuff on my on my website. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:34
I yes. 

Nico Lagan 1:08:35
I don't just do like all the appearances like this podcast is going to end up there. The not only do I give some stuff like my my content, let's say my, my audio book, I do have videos on YouTube too, but I'm starting to build a lot of exclusive videos, are going to be just on my website like I'm building. I have a great website that I have a full time webmaster. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:01
Good looking website, but. 

Nico Lagan 1:09:02
We're all in it every day. Like I have a full time webmaster that all he does is develop my website. This is one of the most important thing that you can have, but I'm putting everything together where I'm going to put exclusive content that social media does not like, that they won't allow me to get views on, but I will put them on my website because it belongs to me. It's my own infrastructure. In the back end, the videos are posted with my stuff. They're not going to be anywhere else than on my platform with my servers. But the whole idea is to start creating content that will put more emphasis on 

masculinity as a whole and what it means and why it's so important for a man, let's say, to be a leader. Yeah. What does it mean in everyday life and how is that tangible? How can you approach? How can you how do you apply this in your everyday life? And also want to build that 

not equal system, but that my goal is to start building groups where men can, you know, fight. You know, you've seen the movie Fight Club. So one of the things that they do is that they build fight clubs in every city. And this is one of the things that I want to do accept group of men. I want men to be able to find each other and I want them to be able to. I'm putting the methodology on how to create those groups. I'm going to start by doing it virtually, but then I'm going to start identifying leaders in all communities around the world, hopefully, where men can if we're if you're looking to be surrounded by other men, you're in this city, you can contact me. I'll tell you exactly who's responsible in that area. Here's the leader of of the methodology in that area. And it doesn't belong to me. I don't want it to belong to me. I just want to put the methodology behind it and just give it away. Just let it grow to whatever it's going to grow. But just to help people need somebody to start this to be the ambassador for it's first and then people are inspired and they take over and then I can just step back and it doesn't belong to me, right? It just is. And I'll put it into place and then give it away to whoever wants it. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:24
That's a great idea. Definitely something that's needed, I believe. 

Nico Lagan 1:11:28
I think so too. I really. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:29
Without a doubt, you. 

Nico Lagan 1:11:30
Know, we were doing this, my buddy and I, when I was still in Montreal. Every couple of weeks we'd have a group of men that would fit. We were big cigar fans, so we'd sit in a cigar lounge somewhere. We'd be sometimes three, sometimes 15 guys just having conversations about what's going on in your life and some of us are some of us are married, some of us have kids, some of us are both. Some of us are nuns, some of us are 20 years, some of 60. But we would have like conversation around 

just between guys. No, no, no women allowed. It was just men talking about masculinity and trying to learn from each other as to how did it make sense, How what could we do? Is there somebody else that's been through what I've been through? If yes, what does he suggest? And it's just an open forum, like a round table, if you will. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:27
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:12:27
So this is what I'd like to duplicate, but do it worldwide instead of just in one city or doing just online. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:35
It'll happen. 

Nico Lagan 1:12:36
Oh yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:37
It will definitely happen. 

Nico Lagan 1:12:38
I'm hoping that my book is going to help me with that because one of the reasons I do a lot of podcasts like I'm doing right now is to put the word the word out there. And I think I've recorded just in the past two weeks, I think I recorded 15. Wow. I think I recorded eight last week and I had five this week. So that's 12. Sorry. So I probably have. And over the past month I think up to 30 and I have another 20 booked by the end of the year and I'm still booking them. I'm trying to to be a guest on podcasts every day. So this is where we met three. 

Rich Bennett 1:13:13
So I keep saying that's one of the things I need to do is get out there and start being a guest. And every time I say that I end up booking more guest or my, well. 

Nico Lagan 1:13:22
What I. 

Rich Bennett 1:13:22
Record and I love talking to people. 

Nico Lagan 1:13:25
But that's a thing if I've done so many podcasts as a host. Yeah, that I was able to kind of get the, the experience that I needed in front of a camera. Then by sitting down and writing, I put my work, my, my life into and now it's easy for me to explain what I've been through, what my views are, and how they're applicable in today's life. Because I've spent so much time speaking about it, writing about it. And like within a month I went from being a few thousand, a few thousand. Part of the few minute, you know, on podcast I went from. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:05
The Oh yeah, yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:14:06
20 203,000 ranked as a guest I'm number three right now That's what in a month 

Really. Yeah because I've learned because I've spent so much time learning over the past three or four years that, yeah, I've 

methodologies on. It's not an accident that people want me on their podcast. It's not an accident. I've been working on this for almost three, almost years now, but it's super easy for me to book those meetings now because they see I have more than 100,000 followers. I do millions of views every month. I speak about very specific things. So if that doesn't resonate with you, that that's fine by me, no problem. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:47
Right. 

Nico Lagan 1:14:48
But if it does resonate with you guys are very interested in what I have to say now. Women are starting to book me to speak about masculinity. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:56
MM. 

Nico Lagan 1:14:57
And this is what I. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:58
Can see that. Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:14:59
But this is what I want because what I speak and we'll speak about it next time, but I buy by showing men out to become manly doesn't take anything away from a woman On the contrary, if your man is living is manliness, that means that you're capable as a woman to live your femininity. You're you're capable of being the woman you want to be. You let your man be the man he's supposed to be. He's going to let you be the woman you're supposed to be. Your roles are going to be very defined under your genders because, yes, there are gender roles, but everything is well defined under. What are your strengths, natural strengths and that's how couples used to be. That's how marriages used to be. You respect the other based on their sex and their capabilities are natural to them. They're God gifted and you don't try to limit them because it makes you feel bad about yourself. 

Rich Bennett 1:16:01
To me, it's what makes them as strong team. 

Nico Lagan 1:16:04
You know, a man is supposed to be a protector. 

Rich Bennett 1:16:08
Mm. 

Nico Lagan 1:16:09
Does that mean that my girlfriend cannot be a protector? Of course not. That's not what it means at all. But I'm £210. My girlfriend is £105. I'm six foot one. She's five foot four who has as a man, you look at all the statistics out there, you look at all the studies that have been made between men and women. Men are bigger, stronger, they're taller, they're more muscular, They have a higher bone density, they have a higher threshold for pain. They're more aggressive because of our testosterone. We tend to take no risk does that. Those are those not the perfect characteristics of somebody to be a protector. But then you turn around and you look at a woman, they're more kind, they're more compassionate. They care for others. They often put others before themselves. Are those not the perfect characteristics for bearing children? 

Rich Bennett 1:17:11
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:17:12
Think about it. I say this as a joke all the time, but can you imagine carrying as a man? Can you imagine carrying a baby for nine months and not wanting to kill it when it came out like you mother fucker you, but yet you look at a woman, she'll be suffering the whole way through, but she'll still describe this as one of the best experience she's ever had in her life. When because she was meant for it. She was meant she was built to bear children outside of God. There's only women that can give life 

hate it or love it. I don't give a fuck. It's still a fucking fact. 

Rich Bennett 1:17:46
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:17:47
So instead of complaining about this it 

and this is what I'm happy to see, I'm starting to have women approach me for this and hopefully I get to speak more and more to female audiences about this because it's how can you expect to have a great relationship with someone if you don't first accept and embrace what they are. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:12
Yeah, 

exactly. 

Nico Lagan 1:18:15
Man. We went all over the place with yours. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:18
That's all right. All right, man. Actually, one thing you didn't say there is the website. 

Nico Lagan 1:18:24
Niko logging dot com. It's all, it's all there but it's like anything from I'm a I create so much content it's it's insane it's I'm all right yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:36
You do. 

Nico Lagan 1:18:37
I'm always creating and it's it doesn't matter that it's a blog I a blog and I probably post three or four times a week I write a book I post this week. I took a week off and I was almost I only was about twice a day because normally it's for. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:54
Only twice a day. 

Nico Lagan 1:18:55
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:56
Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:18:57
It's the minimum I'll ever post. On average. I probably post between 4 to 10 times a day between my posts, my emails, my stories. Right. So yeah, if you look at my, my website, I'm always on there and my social media, I'm always posting. So and I'm and I want to hear from the people out there if you like what I'm saying, reach out. I like to hear it. If you don't like it, reach out. I like to hear it. I like to enable those conversations. And yes. 

Rich Bennett 1:19:25
Oh, you said it right there. You said it right there. And I think that's something that a lot of people are afraid to do. It enables the conversation. It's not a debate. It's a conversation. Let's talk about it. A lot of times there two sides, sometimes even three sides that everything. Let's talk about it. I agree. God, I'm glad you said that. 

Nico Lagan 1:19:48
Well, but that's what I've come to do. If I did not believe that conversation is so crucial, I wouldn't do what I'm doing. It'd be easy for me to just create a echo room and just the same thing to the people that want to. They already agree with me. 

Rich Bennett 1:20:04
Yeah. Yeah. Something I like to ask. Well, first of all, is there anything you like to add before I ask you my last question? 

Nico Lagan 1:20:11
I always have something to say, so I would. 

Rich Bennett 1:20:15
Which I love them. All right, so you've been interviewed. God knows how many times out of all the hosts that have interviewed you, is there anything that a host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you? And if so, what would be their question? What would be your answer? 

Nico Lagan 1:20:36
You know, there's 

so to put it into context, what I talk about on a daily basis is not what I want to talk about. 

This to me is so the concept that I speak about is something I understood about 20 years ago. 

Rich Bennett 1:20:52
Mm hmm. 

Nico Lagan 1:20:54
It's not what I want to talk about. This, to me, is what I talk about right now on a daily basis to me is common sense is something that I don't want to talk about this. This is not what I. I don't enjoy talking about this. I just do it because it needs to be done, because there's not a lot of there's not enough people in our research, well spoken, and I have the balls to do. So that's why I do it. But this is not what I want to talk about. When I want to talk about is the power psychedelics. I want to talk about the power of meditation. I want to show people how guys like Nikola Tesla, how guys like Carl Jung have gained access to a 

repository of information that sits somewhere in the cosmos that, you know, they're the first to tell. Nikola Tesla said it multiple times and he never invented anything. He was just able to connect to information that just is out there and download it into his mind and and make it a reality. Those are the things I really want to talk about. I want to talk about philosophy. I want to talk about how you can take it to the next level. I have conversations with Gods with God every day. And you know what? Through self hypnosis, not only do I talk to God in a way that I'm extremely grateful. I'm grateful for God. Every day I pray before every meal. I show gratefulness every day is what I want to talk about. I want to talk about gratefulness. I want to talk how God allows me to do what I do on a daily basis. I want to talk about how you can talk to God? You don't need church to talk to God. I can show you how to talk to him directly. I love to go to church because there's other believers, but I don't go to church because the priest possesses the connection for the church. If I don't need a priest to speak to God, I do it every day. I do it fucking every day. I don't need anybody to tell me how God is. I know how God is. I speak to God. I have been in the presence of God, so don't tell me I love the church. I love to go to church, but I don't like the church right. So those are two things I want to talk about. But I can't talk about this because people are not ready to hear it. They're not there yet, but this is what I don't want to say, that it's unfortunate. It's just a reality. Whatever how I feel about it, it's not important. But I want to talk about 

everything that I've learned over the past five, not what I've learned 20 years ago. 

Rich Bennett 1:23:26
On what it definitely sounds like we need to do another episode because I could sit there and talk to you all day about that stuff. 

Nico Lagan 1:23:32
I love psychedelics. That's one thing I, I, I have such I started doing psychedelics. I was 14 years old. Wow. Yeah, I did a lot of drugs when I was younger and I didn't touch them for about 20 years. And then I started reintegrating them about five years ago with an optic of self-mastery. 

Yeah, it's not something you're going to hear about. Like I've been to Peru and the Amazonian forest. I found shamans to do ayahuasca with. And. And I've done it here. I've done it over there. I've lived a very interesting life. Like, if you if I. If I were to write a biography of what I've accomplished, it's. I take it for granted because I don't know any better. It's just the way I write. But I've done a lot of things in my life that I would love to be able to speak about. But the audience is not there yet. 

Rich Bennett 1:24:29
You know what you're ass is definitely got to get up here to Marilyn so we can sit down in person and just shoot the shit. Can I could I? And I've had people, you know, where we've talked about, you know, God and philosophy. And I just I love learning about it more and more, you know, meditation. I'm big on meditation. 

Nico Lagan 1:24:52
So you know how I use psychedelics to expand my meditation practice. 

Rich Bennett 1:24:58
Really? Yeah. 

Nico Lagan 1:24:59
I've experienced things, so you probably know this already, but when you you get to a certain point of meditation, when you're capable of literally losing yourself to meditation, to be so conscious about what you're doing that you're not conscious about what you're doing, if that makes any sense, you're just you just boom. I've achieved certain states of vibration that you'll see me sometimes I'm meditating by myself and I like to meditate at the gym. Every time I finish working out, I meditate because I cannot go back into the world with my adrenaline's still pumping through my vein. I understand that I need to lower myself down to center myself before I re-enter the world. So I meditate after every workout and I've when I when I was teaching martial arts, I would meditate before teaching, so I would be in a corner of the gym. There's probably 50 people, a hundred people waiting for the class. They're either finishing a class or they're waiting for a class. And I'd be sitting there lotus position, just meditating by myself, and I've achieved of consciousness that I cannot explain. I did not understand what they were. They were blissful. They were absolutely blissful, like some of the best states of mind I've ever been in. But I could not explain it. And I can never duplicate them when I want them. Like I remember having their certain state of mind that I'm able to achieve and it's not conscious. I just get there. But I can't say I want to get there and get there. It's all the ways it gets there. I'm in the perfect situation. I feel perfect, everything's perfect. I get there, but I cannot plan if I'm not capable of doing it. But they were some of the best, the most blissful 

experiences I've ever had. And one one time a few years ago, I was on I was on ayahuasca and I stayed in that state of mind for 4 hours. 

Rich Bennett 1:27:03
Oh, wow. 

Nico Lagan 1:27:05
What I could only what I to that point, what I had achieved maybe three times in seven or eight years of meditation, 

I the first time I did ayahuasca in Canada because I did it in Peru before I did it in Canada. But the first time I did ayahuasca in Canada, I stayed in that state of mind for 4 hours in a row when maybe combined I had been able to do a 20 minutes over seven years, over three or four meditation. But I was in that state of mind for so long that I understood what it was. 

And this is the power of psychedelics. This is why I use psychedelics. If I have this, this is going to sound fucked up and I don't like to talk about this because of the way it sounds, But if I have questions, I know how to get answers. I know how to ask questions to the universe, if you will, and I will get an answer. It might not be today might not be tomorrow, but I will get that answer I have through another experience. What are you, Oscar? The plan taught me how to communicate in such a way that answers were always come to me. It sounds insane what I'm saying, and I know how it sounds like, but it is true. It is a fact that I'm capable of getting answers to whatever questions that I have because I know how to end, how to ask that question properly, not to put myself in the proper state of mind. But if it wasn't for psychedelics, I would have never been able to achieve that. I would have never had those revelations. I would have never been capable of understanding how get there. I would have never had the understanding of what are the certain ways I feel under certain meditation. I wouldn't have never, you know, I'm not I don't think there's an afterlife. I know there's an afterlife, right? Because through psychedelics I have experienced it. I have never been able to speak to God in a two way conversation, but I have in the presence of God. So I don't know that God exists. It's a fact that He does, but it's not. It's not. It It just is. There's no doubt in my mind that God exists. But it's not only built on faith. My faith is so strong because I know it to be true, but I also know it to be a fact because faith is normally just based on the principle that you believe in something that you can't prove. 

That's what faith. But I have the proof that he exists because I've met him. I've been in his presence. Can I prove it to you? No, I can't. I can't give you the tools, though. I can show you how to get there. I can show you for how to get in those situations where I will meet God. But I can't do it for you. Yeah, but I can show you how to get there. This is what I want to talk about, but I can't talk about this because people are not. We're still fighting. What a fucking that we're. I'm still fighting. The fact that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That if born with a dick, you'll never be a woman. I have to fight this. I have to talk about this because that's where we're at. But that's not what I want to talk about. 

Rich Bennett 1:30:35
Right Fuck. 

Nico Lagan 1:30:37
No, but how can I ever. How can I ever teach people that there is an afterlife, that, as Alan Watts said, we the best thing that you can do is play the Joker, play the role of the Joker, to know that this life is a fuckin joke because you're going to die one day and you're just here to learn. You were. You are on earth. It's not your first time. It's not going to be the last, because the first rule of thermodynamics will say that energy is never lost. It is simply redistributed. That means that whatever was created by the Big Bang comes from all the same place, which means it's still in existence today. Nothing was lost since that day. It just has changed forms. So is that reincarnation? Maybe so. You know, this is what I want to talk about. Those are I want to talk about theology. I want to talk about philosophy. I want to talk about all those things. Oh, shit. My camera. Oh, well. 

Rich Bennett 1:31:38
Yeah, I saw that. So. Hey. 

Nico Lagan 1:31:40
That's a sign. 

Rich Bennett 1:31:42
Nico, I want to thank you so much. And, God, I do hope you make it up this way just so we could sit down and do this in person and just have a good time and. 

Nico Lagan 1:31:55
Uh. Yeah, maybe. Do you ask? I'm just kidding. But 

we will talk. But yeah, thanks. Thanks for. Thank you for having me on. And. 

Rich Bennett 1:32:07
Oh, my pleasure. Thanks a lot. Yeah.