Do Better With Nico Morales Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Nico Morales joins us on the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast to teach us how we can do better. Nico is an athlete turned addict turned author.  He is the author of ‘Five Things To Know Before You Get Sober. ‘He is the founder of No Halo a personal and professional development services company. Nico is also a keynote speaker.

To learn more about Nico click here. 

Check out his instagram here. 

On This Episode Of The Podcast

Nico Morales, founder of No Halo, shares his personal journey of recovery and transformation. From childhood adversities to substance abuse, Nico found solace in drugs and wrestling. However, he eventually realized that he needed to make a choice to change his life. Nico emphasizes that change begins with a choice and requires discomfort, self-discovery, vulnerability, and gratitude. He also discusses his upcoming book and his goal to impact 100 individuals to achieve their definition of success.

Takeaways On How To Do Better

• Change begins with a choice and requires discomfort.
• Self-discovery is a crucial part of the recovery process.
• Vulnerability is necessary for growth and transition.
• Gratitude for the present moment and the ability to make positive changes is essential.
• Nico’s goal is to impact 100 individuals to achieve their definition of success.

Sue
Hi there. Today on the show, we have got Nico Morales here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Nico
Awesome, Sue. Thank you so much for having me and opening up your platform.

Sue
I love it. I love your story. I want to get into the remarkable work you do, your backstory. You are the founder of Know Halo. It is a personal and professional development services company. And the name reflects your belief that nobody is born an angel, but everyone has the capacity to improve themselves each day. I just love that. Those are your words, not mine. You are a keynote speaker. You are an author. Five things to know.

before you get sober and you have this remarkable story of recovery and transformation. So walk us through this, give us the backstory and then we’ll get into the work you do and your guidance for people.

Nico
Yeah, for sure. Synopsis of the backstory. Face childhood adversities from six to 14 that I didn’t know how to deal with. We all have childhood adversities. We all have something that imprints on our minds that tells us that we’re not good enough, tells us that someone’s always trying to take advantage, tells us that we’re missing out on something, tells us that we can’t handle change, or tells us that we’re wrong. However, that thought process comes about, it’s usually what it boils down to.

Mine come from rejection, mine come from sexual abuse, mine come from things of that nature. And when I was 14, I found a solution and it was smoking weed. And I was like, huh, this is what most people must feel like. The first time I got high, I was like, this is how most people must feel. This is how most people must conduct themselves because my brain no longer worked at an extremely fast pace. I’m a fast paced individual in general, while my brain wasn’t.

working as fast, I was like, ah, I had this out of body experience that some people talk about and I was watching myself and I was like, yeah, this is what most people probably feel like. And I call it a solution because that was my coping mechanism. That plus wrestling, I love to wrestle. There was some thing about wrestling where I could go and hurt somebody and not get in trouble for it. I could make somebody feel the way that I felt inside, like my spirit inside my mind and I can make them feel that physically and it made me feel.

amazing. And I’m a guy that likes to dominate other people. So putting someone on their back and choking them out was always fun to do. But those are my two coping mechanisms. And one was positive and healthy. You know, exercise is positive and healthy. Maybe not the reasons why I like to wrestle, but the actual activity. The other one wasn’t as positive. It was helpful for a little bit of time being, but it wasn’t very helpful.

When I started smoking cannabis, I saw an opportunity because my people around me were wanting to continue smoking. So I just figured out ways to provide them the substance that they wanted to smoke. And that filled my need for being included. That’s one of my biggest driving forces is I really disliked rejection. And I say it in the past tense because it’s something that I still work on. I’m very conscious and aware of it because that’s one of my root issues is rejection.

And being able to manage that in healthier ways has been helpful, but I didn’t manage it very healthy when I was growing up. So from 14 to about 17, 18 years old, I lived a double life, which was substance dealer as well as substance user, as well as this star athlete that got a full ride wrestling scholarship at 17. And then I had the fork in the road. 17, 18, we think that we know everything.

I have a very much a entrepreneurial spirit. I started working when I was very young and I used those same skill sets to provide additional income for myself because that was very important to me. It wasn’t something that was needed. Both my parents were involved in my life. We lived in what New Mexico calls middle class, the rest of the world calls it lower class, but we didn’t miss any meals. We didn’t have any type of…

heartaches when it came to housing or anything like that.

Providing for myself was very important to me though, because I didn’t like being told what to do. So when I came to this fork in the road at 17 years old, do I continue to wrestle and go off to college and make everybody proud or do I do what I wanna do and say, F it. I decided to say F it. I’m gonna go be my own version of my own self. And unfortunately that wasn’t actually a version of me. That was a version that I had accumulated from various experiences.

I have family members who went in and out of jail and they always got attention and I wanted attention. So I started gravitating towards the lifestyle that would give me that attention as I formulated it in my head. Never went to jail because one, I was taught how to avoid it. Two, I was taught you always save money to pay for a lawyer. And three, I just knew I didn’t like being told what to do and that would have been very difficult. So that puts us about 17, 18 years old, but…

Nico
Around that time, I still hadn’t solved my internal issues, Sue. So I started using substances at a heavy rate. And it’s about the same time that OxyContin entered the market. The whole opiates pandemic, epidemic started right about there. And we, well, I used to get high. I used to get very high about four Oxy -80s every day is what I was taking. And then they switched up how they manufactured the pills. And so we couldn’t use them in the way that we used to use them.

And that’s when heroin took over the market. And heroin is a hell of a drug. Again, I don’t promote substance use, but it was a solution for me. I’m describing that my brain worked so fast and I wanted to escape and I wanted to feel included. Well, if I could provide drugs to individuals and I could escape from my own life and I could feel included by even being associated with other drug addicts, that met all my needs as they were.

By the time I was 22, I found myself sleeping in my truck on a constant basis because my family didn’t want me around mainly because I was robbing from them, stealing, causing trouble. And I was 120 pound doping running around in the streets of Albuquerque. So at 22, I figured, well, you’ve seen enough people die. You’ve seen enough people overdose. You’ve done enough of the crimes that you can do.

What else is there on this side of the train tracks? What else haven’t you done? I’ve been involved in burglaries, I’ve been involved in armed robberies, been involved in drug dealing. What else can I do? And there was it, so I said, let’s try this other side. And I grew up in a very religious household. And I talked to God and I was like, hey, what’s this plan that everybody says you have for my life?

because I’m still around and other people aren’t. So what do you got going on? It’s like, if you’ll let me, very audibly, if you’ll let me show you, I’ll teach you what it is. And so I started listening. I started listening to that voice, that inner guiding voice that I personally believe is the authentic voice of God. Some people call it their conscious. Some people call it their intuition, but that’s for me how I call it. And I did pretty well for about five years. And then I started wanting to do my own thing again.

Nico
At 27, I found myself drinking on a constant basis because I hadn’t healed my original issues. And by 27, I was sleeping in an abandoned building with a hot plate, a TV, and a mattress. And I was like, well, you’re back here again. And this time I didn’t get as much grace and mercy. This time I had to pace for some of my consequences. And for me, it wasn’t jail, it wasn’t rehab, but it cost me both my hips. I was diagnosed with the…

disease called avascular necrosis when I was 27, 28 years old. And both my hips had basically collapsed inside of my body. So I couldn’t walk. And for anybody that’s seen a penguin walk, that’s how I used to waddle. And I was 260 pounds at this time waddling around town hurting and drinking because that was the only way that I knew how to solve my pain. Well, I thought it was a punishment that I deserved. So I never got it checked out.

But I stopped drinking and I stopped using substances at that time. They’re not helping me. They’re not doing anything for me. So I stopped completely. Stopped taking Tylenol, stopped using cannabis, because cannabis was for me a medication, and I stopped drinking. And by the time I turned 31, my sister tells me that she’s a, my sister had gotten married and she got pregnant. And she tells me she can have a kid. And I was like, well, that means I’m gonna be an uncle. And I gotta be a cool uncle.

So if I’m gonna be a cool uncle, I can’t be waddling around like a penguin. And that was the reason that I started to fix my body. And in fixing my body, I was able to repeat some of these methods that I’ll probably teach you in a moment that saved me from all of that turmoil that I just described.

Sue
Wow, that’s remarkable. And you know, I love this story, Nico, because so often people get caught up and I just love stories about the human will, right? Because I believe like everyone is capable of change and amazing, remarkable things. And no matter how deep or dark you go, you have the ability to pull yourself out of it.

And there’s always people, like you say, even after doing that, your family kind of didn’t want to have a lot to do with you. And so often you hear people say, oh, I have no one. But there’s always someone willing. Like if you’re willing to help yourself, there’s always someone there. And even if it’s not a family member, a resource, a center, somebody, right?

Nico
Absolutely. There’s many paths, but we get stuck in this idea that if we don’t get it our own way, then we’re not going to get it. So that change that you’re describing, we’re selfish and we think that we can change in our own circumstances with our expectations. We believe that we can force the way that change is going to happen, but we can’t. Change is going to happen in a natural method and you can either fight against it or you can go with it. For me, I didn’t find the help from the…

Traditional resources for me. I found help from personal development. And so that’s why I teach personal development I found help from individuals who said yes exactly what you just described sue doesn’t matter how deep dark and messed up you are right now You can change and that begins with you It begins with what goes on between your ears and it goes on with it What goes on in your hands your thoughts and your actions are the two things that you have control over? And those are the first two things that you need to change and as long as you’re willing to

to change those things, there is going to be somebody to help you out. There’s AA groups, there’s religious groups, there’s non -religious groups, there’s all kinds of replacement theories, there’s all kinds of things that people can use to change. And what I usually challenge individuals is, if you are so willing to go into those deep, dark depths to find an escape, why wouldn’t you use that same energy, that same willpower to go find a solution that actually works and that actually lasts?

It’s a simple shift of where do you want your mind to work? Do you want to work towards a long -term solution or do you want to continue satisfying that short -term need?

Sue
And so with your personal development, I mean, how did you discover that? Did someone present it to you? What, how did you find personal development and what did that look like for you? Was it books? Was it podcasts? Was it, what was it?

Nico
It was podcasts and we have this wonderful thing called the internet and I was, I call them our face gates, what you put in your ears, what you put in your eyes, what you put through your nose and what you consume through your mouth and also what comes out of your mouth. And so I was changing what was, what I was consuming in my ears. So I cut off all rap music and I was listening to various teachings, Les Brown, listening to Chuck Smith. And all of a sudden this guy comes on the, on YouTube.

What up, what up, what up? It’s your boy ET. And I was like, damn rappers. I go to my phone to change it and he’s like, thank God it’s Monday. I was like, who is this guy? Like, it’s not a rapper. And it turns out to be this gentleman by the name of Eric Thomas, ET, the hip hop preacher. And I click on the link and he starts talking about why he’s thankful for Mondays. And for me, I grew up in a blue collar household. Everybody hated Mondays. You know, like Mondays was the worst day of the week. So.

Who was this guy and why was he saying that? And so I’ve started to pick up his thought process. Well, Mondays are the days that I get to go to work. Mondays are the days that I get to start my week. And I was like, ho ho ho ho, hold on. He’s saying something that actually works because you can do it. I don’t like individuals who talk about things where you can’t do it immediately. In those points in my life, I needed immediate change. I needed immediate fixes, that’s why I got high. So I needed immediate change.

And we live in a time and day where immediate gratification is a thing. So found an immediate solution. And I started studying all of his work. I read his books, like you said, that was one thing that was helpful for me. I listened to his podcast. I listened to the different sermons cause he’s an actual preacher. And I was like, Oh, holy cow. This man has an understanding of the world that I want to grasp. And from there I got introduced to other individuals. Right now, my favorite one is Wes Watson.

And he teaches some amazing concepts all along the same lines, just in a different vocabulary.

Sue
Wow, I love that. That’s so powerful and so beautiful. And you know what, at what point, Nico, did you start realizing, I mean, was it fairly instantaneous when you start kind of ingesting this positive stuff? And now all of the sudden, was it like an all of the sudden epiphany, like you’re having hope and you see the light and you’re like, I’m done and I’m going to go do something really cool with my life.

Nico
Yes, it was all of a sudden I’m done. I’m going to go do something with my life. But those demons that I struggled with, the addictions that I had, they wanted to keep on pulling me back. So I don’t want to put out there that it was immediate. Oh, voila, I was done and changed. There was days where I’d be going on a steep high positive mindset, right on track, hitting all my daily habits that make me feel great. And then there was a moment or two I’d get a text message from.

an ex -girlfriend, I get a communication about one of the homies dying. I’d get a message from somebody telling me something and I’d go into this spiral and that spiral was my thoughts. And all of a sudden I find myself at the liquor store pouring up some liquor because that was my natural reaction. So yes, it was a aha, I’m gonna head down this path but there was many times I fell into the gutter on that path.

Sue
So what is your advice to somebody who is stuck and struggling and is feeling hopeless and is using and just doesn’t see a way out? What advice would you give to that person?

Nico
You got to change your perspective first that if you’re listening to this then you have a way out there is a way for you to get out because you’re not six feet under Even if you’re stuck in jail, even if you’re stuck in a rehab right now and you’re listening to this You’re not dead. And so because you’re not dead, that means you have an opportunity The day that you received is not a day that you created yourself. It’s a day that you were given as a gift so what you do with that gift is up to you and usually

We take good care of gifts that are given to us from people that we care about. So where did your gift come from? Where did that day, this breath that you get to take, take a deep breath in and exhale it. Where did that come from? Because it wasn’t you that created it. And when you can grasp that concept that you weren’t the one that created the breath that’s in your lungs, that you weren’t the one that gave you this day, allowed you to wake up, that should be hope enough that you can make a change.

It’s not going to be easy by no means, but it is fairly simple. And the reason why I say it’s fairly simple is because hope is created inside the mind. One of the best things that I heard was that everything that you went through didn’t happen to you. It happened for you. And it happened for you to teach someone else. That’s why I do what I do now, because what helped me out wasn’t just for me. It’s for everybody that I get to come in contact with now.

So when I meet the individuals who want to tell me, oh, Nico, I’m just a fentanyl addict. Oh, Nico, I’m just an alcoholic. Okay. That’s what you think about yourself now, but what got you to that point and what little dream did you have that you gave up on in your life? That dream is still inside of you. You have a breath in your lungs, so you’re still supposed to get it done. Plus there’s five things that I believe people should know before they get sober. Like if you’re not even thinking about it, that’s fine.

That’s the pre -contemplation stage. But if you’re thinking about it, one, you need to know it’s a choice. And that choice is whether you want to approach it as a disease, as a moral disfiguration, whatever it is, you have a choice to address it. And with somebody who’s sick, not go see the doctor, no, they would. So that’s the first thing that I would say to give somebody hope is that you have a choice on what you’re doing.

Sue
Oh, I love that. That’s such powerful guidance. And know, Nico, it’s so, I think, different coming from you for someone who’s in that space because you’ve been there. You’ve done it. You’re an example, you know, and you embody change. And now you’re the successful guy who’s helping other people. And so you are leading by example. You know, it’s not just, oh, a family member or someone who’s like, I love you. Come with me. Let me help you. You’re like, hey, this can be done. Look at me. I did it.

Here I am, I made it, and there’s so much more. So I love that, and I commend you for how far you’ve come. I think it’s so cool. I really, I just think it’s so remarkable.

Nico
Thank you, Sue, I appreciate that.

Sue
Yeah, so awesome. Now, let’s talk about so the book, how did this at what point were you like, you know what, I got a book in me, I got some information here that I need to give people that could be helpful and useful. How did that idea of writing a book come about? And then I want to talk about these five things.

Nico
Got you. I was at a seminar and one of the guys was talking about everybody’s an expert in something. So what are you an expert in? And I was like, well, shoot, I’m an expert in getting clean. I’ve done so many different ways of getting clean and failed so many different ways of getting clean and sober that I’m an expert in getting clean. And that’s where it came about was this idea that that’s my expertise. I’ve, one of the,

that I tried to stop using heroin, I decided to smoke crack for a whole week. Because in my head, if I could smoke crack for a whole week, get hooked on crack, I didn’t like stimulants as much as I liked depressants, so it would be easier to kick the crack than it would have been to kick the heroin. That’s the extent that I would go to, but I started to figure out during each time that I tried to get clean, what were the things that I had to do. And when I boiled it down to…

you know, replacement, because that’s what that’s called, is replacement therapy. You replace one drug for another. I’ve done complete cold turkey, almost killed myself doing that. Each one of them started with a choice. So that was the first thing that I jotted down. If there’s five things to know, then the first thing is that it’s a choice. The second thing is that you’re going to be super uncomfortable. Like it’s not comfort to go through withdrawals.

It’s not comfortable to deal with the past traumas. It’s not comfortable to deal with the ways that you think. It’s not comfortable to take responsibility for the way that you’re currently acting. So that was the second thing. Like it wasn’t comfortable every time that I did it from physically to spiritually to mentally, it was uncomfortable. And the third thing was,

You’re going to get to know yourself. Like the version of you that is currently using is not the version of you that was using yesterday. The version of me and you, Sue, that’s sitting here today was not the version that was interacting with the world yesterday. We’ve all had new experiences. We’ve all had new exposures. So you’re going to get to know what the true you is. And that boils down to your character, your morals and your values. What are those?

Nico
And if you can highlight those and live by those as your guiding light, then you’re going to actually identify who you really are, the real you. So you’re going to get to know yourself. And that’s a fun experience there. I used to do graffiti. I used to paint. And I realized that it was just a facade that I was doing because of the substances. But I really enjoy art. I really enjoy looking at art. I love watching people create. And so being able to write and create for me is my new expression of creation.

Then the fourth thing is you’re vulnerable in the transition. It’s a transitional state. And the way that I like to describe it, and I describe it in my book, is that when you move a plant from one pot to the next, because it’s outgrown the current pot that it’s in, like all the roots are along the sides, it’s overgrown. When you take it out of that one and you move it into the next one, it’s a very vulnerable place for that plant because all of its roots are exposed.

If there’s a bacteria if there is some sort of enzyme if there’s something that contaminates those roots those roots are gonna die so when you’re moving from that old version of you to that new version of you and When you’re developing these new morals and these new characters and these new values You’re gonna be vulnerable during that transition. So be aware of that and I’m speaking from the male perspective It’s not fun being vulnerable, but it’s where the biggest growth comes from

That’s where you get to explore new grounds. And then the fifth thing. Well, the fifth thing, you know what, Sue, is what we’re going to do. We’re going to keep that one hidden. They got to go get the book from my website if they want to pick up on the fifth thing.

Sue
Okay, I love that. Well, thank you for sharing the first four and those were awesome. And, you know, I want to touch on something you said that I think is so cool. This idea of getting to know yourself and that you loved, you were creating when you were using, you were creating as a means of escape, but you realized once you stopped using that you actually love art. And so now,

You’re kind of, you don’t need to escape. You’re doing art as a means of being there and being more present with the art.

Nico
Absolutely, absolutely. We find those little things about us because underneath all of these layers, masks, whatever you wanna title them, there’s a foundational root. And for me, art is beautiful. Someone’s expressing themself in various ways, whether it comes from the Van Gogh paintings that everybody just goes in awe about to the Banksy artwork.

That’s an expression of that human being that gets to stay around for forever. And that’s what I love about it is that I’m seeing what somebody created and I get to experience that in my own way. Maybe not even the way that they want me to experience it, but I get to experience it in my own way. That’s amazing.

Sue
And then when you’re not using, you’re really, you’re able to express, right? Because when you’re in this other state, everything’s kind of locked up and you’re going inward and you’re not really being your authentic you. You’re just kind of in a bubble. You’re closed off. You’re guarded. You’re just protecting yourself from everyone. But when you kind of let all that go, you can show up and

expressed in ways. And I think that’s so beautiful, Nico, that you’re sharing this because I don’t think people always get that or share that in that way.

Nico
Yeah, it’s a, you become, instead of being, you describe it as being a closed off bubble, instead of being a closed off bubble, a pool of water that has no flow in or flow out, you get to be a canal to that body of water, right? And if you’ve ever seen a body of water that just stays closed off, it turns into mold, it turns into gunk, it turns into algae. But when you become that,

body of water and you allow stuff to flow in, the art, right? I get to allow someone else’s expression flow in through my face gate, my eyes, my ears, if I’m listening to someone’s music, that type of art, and then I get to let myself feel it and then express outwards what it made me feel, what it made me think. That’s how we’re supposed to live because then that can stimulate conversation with somebody that I’m around, even a stranger. I go to the museum and I’ll…

stare at something, I’ll see someone else staring at it and it’ll create a conversation. So it creates that cycle that we’re supposed to live in, because you’re not supposed to live in a bubble, you’re supposed to live in a continuous flow.

Sue
Oh, that’s so beautiful. That is so powerful. And so give us like, what is your advice to someone? I love this idea of like self discovery and self development. What is your advice to people to kind of start? Because I know people like you say, everyone has traumas, people are so closed off. A lot of times using is that escape to not acknowledge the hurts and the wounds. What is your guidance that you could give someone there?

Nico
very tangible and very immediate and doesn’t come from theory. There’s a exercise that I came up with and I sit at a table and at this table, it was my kitchen table is where I sat at. I wrote down an experience from age. I’d write down something that I remembered from a young age, right? So I use this as the example when I was two years old, my sister was born.

Sue
Thank you.

Nico
and she was very sick within the first year of her life. Not because she was born sick, but because the doctors messed up at the hospital. So that caused me to go with my grandparents from ages three until I was six years old. And so I wrote down that experience and then I went across the table and I sat down and I said, well, how would my mom probably think about this situation? She just gave birth to a child who’s now sick and her other child is taken away from her, not by.

bad means, but because that’s what they were trying to do to help them out. How would she have thought about this? And then I went and I sat at the other side of the table. How would my father think about this situation? He does, has no control over his sick daughter and can’t see his son because he’s working all the time trying to make sure they could pay the bills. And I sat down at another seat and literally I go around the table and I sit down from other perspectives to just view that one circumstance.

And that allowed me to open up my mind into a different way. So whatever experience that you’re holding onto in your life that you believe happened to you, sit down, write it out, and then think about other people’s perspectives, because you’re not the only one that experienced that. And that right there will show you how it happened for you. Because for me, that allowed me to understand that I am root issue of rejection. That’s what I came up with.

but it’s why I love to communicate and be with people because of that situation, I need to have human connection and I’m very good at building human connection and relationships from that experience. So that’s the positive that I got out of there. Write the negative, you write the positive, and then you choose which one’s gonna be beneficial for you.

Sue
Mm hmm. That’s such a great insight. I love that advice there, Nico. I’ve never heard anyone, you know, presented in that way, this idea of where you can just do this self exercise and gain other perspectives. So that’s great. Now, you know, another thing I think is so cool is this idea of you, you’ve brought up this, you know, connection thing, and we all do long for connection, but that’s it.

feeds us, it nurtures us, and it’s almost like because you were using and not having connection for so long, but at your core, that’s who you are. Now it’s almost like you have this deeper gratitude, right, for that. Now you can really appreciate it in a way that maybe you wouldn’t have had you not had that time away in that way.

Nico
Oh, absolutely. And the gratitude is what we lack here in our Western culture or whatever part of the world you want to call it. Here in the United States, we lack gratitude. We’re not grateful that we are waking up and there’s not people staying at our houses because the government tells them that they can. We’re not waking up with food that has been decayed for four or five days. And it’s the only thing that we’re going to be able to eat in the next four or five days.

Sue
Oh.

Nico
So when we look at it from a perspective of the worldview, then absolutely you become more grateful for it. I used to not be able to walk like climbing stairs. Couldn’t do. I could barely walk. I could barely use the restroom. Getting in and out of the shower was dangerous. I didn’t know when I’d slip or fall. So now I walk and I’m very grateful for what I walk, when I walk. That idea of gratitude from missing out can be created inside of your head.

And even if you’ve never experienced some of those extremes that I just described, what about the person that you can create inside your head? Can you create a, what they call an avatar of somebody who wishes they were in that position that you’re currently in right now? There’s somebody who knows they could be successful from that spot that you’re in, even if you are drunk, even if you are addict, even whatever you want to title yourself, somebody’s been successful from there. So can you be grateful for your position and be successful from that position?

Sue
I love that. That is great guidance. So now Nico, tell us, so you know, with your company, you are out speaking, you are consulting, you do all sorts of things. What does the future hold? What’s on the table for you? What’s upcoming? What are you working on?

Nico
Well, right now, my goal is to impact at least 100 human beings to make them achieve their definition of success. That’s my goal for 2024. I’d love to get 100 men and women to their definition of success, whatever they call it. That’s my personal goal for my coaching, right? Speaking, we got events coming up in April. We got events. I got an event today actually at a school.

So it’s continuing to just spread this message of hope and self -awareness and decision -making. Drugs, everybody knows they’re bad. Drinking, everybody knows is bad. But what is the root issue? The root issue is poor decision -making, low self -value, and a lack of leadership. So for me, I need to be that example. So any chance that I get to speak on these topics, I do it. Right now I have contracts with the city that I live in, the county that I live in.

And then behavioral institutions around here because that’s where I can impact the most people. And then I just finished my second book actually. So that one is gonna be coming out. If any of your listeners will do this, if any of your listeners would like to take a peek at that, they can shoot me an email at nico, N -I -C -O at nohalo .nm and I’ll send you a copy as long as you send me back some feedback on what you liked and what you didn’t like.

I believe we titled it the 44 mindful metamorph, they came up with a cute title, but it’s basically 44 mindful ideas for individuals who are wanting to change.

Sue
Oh my God. I love that. That’s so beautiful, Nico. So awesome. I’m going to be sure to have links to your stuff or a link to your website where they can access stuff. Now a couple of things in closing. First and foremost, I just want to say again, I commend you for what you’re doing and how you’ve turned everything around and how you’re showing up. I think that’s so awesome and inspiring other people, sharing your story and getting other people to see that.

and the light you are. So that’s amazing. I thank you for your time today and you’ve been so awesome.

Nico
Sue, I appreciate your questions. They gave me a couple of chills, so I know that that’s going to be great. When we were answering them, we were conversating, so I appreciate you opening up your platform for me, and I look forward to another conversation.

Sue
See ya.

Sue
That’s so awesome. Nico, now in closing, if there were just, you’ve already said so many amazing things, but if there was just one message, your hope for everybody, what is that closing message you want to leave us with?

Nico
You weren’t created to be perfect, you weren’t created to do better today.

Sue
I love that. That is so powerful. Nico, you’ve been so wonderful. Thank you so much.
Thank you.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background

09:33 The Choice to Change

14:22 The Five Things to Know Before Getting Sober

26:42 Self-Discovery and Gratitude

32:13 Future Plans and Impact

34:29 Closing Remarks and Final Message