Finding A Reason To Live with Coach Christian Vitale

Josh Wilson
 Good day, fellows. Welcome. Uncensored advice for men. Men. Hey. On this show, we've interviewed a guy named Ian Hill and he had a recommendation. He said you need to talk with this guy Christian, who is a master of battling adversity and he's going to share his story. So, Christian, welcome to show, man. 

 Christian Vitale
 Thank you very much. I appreciate it. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Super shout out to our mutual friend Ian for putting this together. Christian ma'am, why don't you tell us about why we're here today. What's going on? 

 Christian Vitale
 Well, my whole goal in life and process of life, as my mom would always tell me, is make an impact on people's lives. Anybody I come across, put footprints in their heart and impact their mind, get them to think about life. Right now, my whole life is about adversity going through adversity and beating the h*** out of it and moving on to the next Adversity that's coming at you. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, got it. Why? All right, so let's dig into like, why is this important to you? Maybe we need to go back to move forward. Kind of give us your story and why this is important to you. 

 Christian Vitale
 Well, to go back is going back to buffalo, New York, where I'm born and raised, last of seven children, incredible mother. That is my why in life right now. And it will always be my wife. She's my hero. Incredible dad. Had the battle adversity growing up with a marine and an alcoholic. I'm a victim of child abuse physically. And the worst part mentally. Growing up in buffalo, I went to a catholic school. I was labeled retarded. I was with seven learning challenges, as I call them. I call them my x men powers just have a different gene in my head. With those seven learning challenges came bowling, made fun of basically, I was labeled retarded by the catholic school. I just didn't know how to read. Couldn't sound loud letters. My brain doesn't understand the sounds of letters. Comprehension is huge. You got to be laser specific with me. 

 Christian Vitale
 You can't tell me do this. It has to be laser specific in detail. Long term, short term memory will switch up at any given time with this sounds of letters. My reading and spelling have always been a huge factor in my life. Can't say names because I can't sound them out. An a is an a to me. Throughout my life, learning challenges have been hard. I was told not to go to college after high school, so I didn't until I lost out on a huge job coaching division one football. I had a job one day at a great university and then lost it because I didn't have my degree. At 41 years old, I had to go back to college was the most scariest thing in my life. It took me six and a half years working three jobs coaching college football at a junior college level to earn a four year degree from the University of Phoenix and four years out of those six and a half at 4.0, and I ended up graduating with a 3.73. 

 Christian Vitale
 Made an impact on the University of Phoenix president at the time, to where they put me in a commercial with Larry Fitzgerald about going after your dreams and going through the University of Phoenix to do it. Done many talks for the University of Phoenix, basically saying, whatever you want to do in life, go after it and dominate and devastate the competition, whether that be a physical person or just a degree standing in front of you trying to get it. And then I suffer from mass depression. Mass depression. Everyone says, oh, you could never tell. I'm just constantly going and I have that attitude, smash everything in my path and destroy it. Not in a meaningful way, but I'm talking as adversity and goals. My mother raised us to be kind, gentle, nice people, treat people how you want to be treated. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in the world, and it sucks sometimes, but you have to keep going and still treat people the way you want to be treated. 

 Christian Vitale
 With that depression came thoughts of suicide as a young man and tried three times until God intervened in my life and stopped me with my dad's 44 Magnum puts in my head, one bullet in the chamber about to squeeze this trigger. 10 seconds happened and my mom walked in and my mom had rheumatory arthritis who could not get out of a simple chair like I'm sitting in without assistance. Somehow that day, she got out of her chair and walked into my room right when I was squeezing the trigger. To this day, sometimes I think about it. I don't want to be around, don't want that pressure and striving that I have always done since I was young. The pressure builds up and I fight those words in my head every day. This voices trying to pull me down. So it's a battle every day. And I just keep sorry. 

 Christian Vitale
 When I started thinking about it, I just keep fighting every day. I like to say my brain is the Titanic and I can't let the water get inside and start sinking me. That negative energy starts sinking me down. I've just been battling every day to fulfill a dream. I had a dream of coaching college football and NFL football, and I had to go through the high school junior college level where I was ranked number one and number two in the nation in my coaching position as a special teams coordinator. Made a name for myself, I like to say, and rejected 285 times. And I kept going. So everything I do was 285. That's why I keep pushing everything. Finally got a shot at NFL Europe over there coaching this past year with the Berlin Thunder. And then when I came back. I was home for two weeks and went to Franklin Parish University for another season. 

 Christian Vitale
 I was coaching two teams in one season, so it never stopped. I was home for around three, four weeks, and then I was gone the rest of the year and decided to step away this year and relax after 21 years. The whole way along, I just kept trying to influence young men to go after their dreams. I've had a couple of kids named after me, been invited to weddings as the best man and just trying to help young men fulfill their dreams, and that's where it leads me today. Got a beautiful wife, two great kids. My wife just got me an incredible dog this past week to have a buddy to hang with now and just trying to impact. Been homeless when I was 19 for 31 days. I could have easily called my six sisters and got money, but I don't do that too much. 

 Christian Vitale
 I try to push through Adversity and just worked my way up through management. Worked for Wendy's for 15 years in Detroit with my sister's company and dominated in the management field and decided, why can't I take football system and bring it into the work area? I integrated coaching into the work area, and then when I was coaching, I took Wendy systems of training people and brought it to the field, which everyone was like, Makes no sense. In the beginning, I was a screamer and a yellow, and then I realized, who wants to be yelled at? I changed my style to Bill Belichick style of calm, cool, relaxed, coach the kids up, coach the men up, and they'll dominate for you. I use my life as a view of what you can do if you don't stop, even though it's hard as h***. I always feel like I don't go into heavy religion because of what the Catholic Church did to me. 

 Christian Vitale
 Put me in the basement for three years to do my work with one single light above me. They would say, do the work. I couldn't do the work because I didn't know what to do. I just sat there drawn most of the time. I got to go to a public school number 81, which that number is huge in my life, and met Mr. Levy, a teacher in fourth grade, and said, this guy just learns differently. That's where my X Men gene comes into place. I went from Z's and W's as grades to C's and B's and high school. Straight as was a special ed student, but I took myself out of those classes, demanded to be taken out and put in the hardest classes. Many teachers impacted my life at that moment. And Ian was a huge factor. He used to ride my b*** constantly just in track practice, and it just taught me not to be a rockhead and keep pushing. 

 Christian Vitale
 He coached me for one year in my freshman year. When he left, it was devastating. I couldn't even run. I would be running a place and barely make it through. It was weird to the effect that he had on me. That's where kind of brings me today. There's a lot of small stories in between of Adversity, but that's where it brings me right today. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. You say an X Men jean, what do you mean by that? Right, so you had seven disabilities, learning disabilities, and you were labeled retarded, right? Like, was that an official thing from doctor, or was that from fellow students or teachers? Who gave you that label? 

 Christian Vitale
 The teachers, the nuns, they said I wouldn't amount to anything. They told my mother that I would have to go to special schools because they didn't understand how I couldn't write my own name, and it's Christian. I could spell everything out backwards because I have dyslexia. It's just all those things adding up. They just said I was retarded. Then, of course, back then, they would say it in front of everybody else. So the kids started picking on me. I was bullied heavily because I was real small, but at the age of 13, I got to sprout a little from four something to five something, and I never tell anyone when you're getting bullied to stand up and fight back, but only so far you can get pushed. There was that day I stood up to that bully, and no one ever messed with me after that day. 

 Christian Vitale
 Unfortunately, I started boxing at the age of 13, so then no one really messed with me after that. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. This X Men gene, describe what that is. Right, so you have all these disabilities labeled by nuns and teachers as being retarded. Right. First of all, that's super unkind. What is this? X Benjamin? You got to explain. 

 Christian Vitale
 Well, I thought about Spiderman. His senses are keened up, his hearing, his feeling of danger around him. The X Men all have a certain thing about them, a certain power they have. Well, because of my dyslexia, long term, short term memory switch up at any given time, my sounds of letters and A as an A to me, the laser specific stuff I started noticing at a young age. Well, some of my good teachers started telling me at Sabino High School here in Tucson, wow, you're really excelling in this area, in that area. I started noticing, well, my long team chat, term memory switches up, but, man, I'm an organizational freak. So my other senses started coming out. My organization, my attention to detail and my attention to detail, everything has to be in specific order. Now, that happens to because the Marine dad and growing up, nothing was right. 

 Christian Vitale
 No matter what I did, it was never perfect. We used to go hunting. He was a gunsmith. I was trained as a young age to be a Marine. If I didn't hit the small cans when I was little, I got kicked in a butter slap in the head, and it hurt. I would try, and he would tell me to stop trying. Hit the cans, right? So pain hit the cans. I better hit the cans, right? I really focused in attention to detail on hitting the stupid little cans. My organization and attention to detail started to rise. I wanted to know everything when I played football in high school. I wanted to know everything about how my route should be, my foot, how much weight was on my front foot as a 1314 year old, 16 year old kid at that time who's asking those kinds of questions. 

 Christian Vitale
 I wanted to know everything there was to know about that. My organizational skills, attention to detail, and then because I was treated so bad, I didn't want to treat other people that way, so my kindness came out to help others. I call my other gene because my other senses start coming out and propel me to who I am today. My worst thing is my impatience for myself, my perfection. People hear me talk to myself all the time, what the h*** are you doing? Why are you doing that? They're like, who are you talking to? Myself. I'm patient with other people, but when it comes to me and I make a mistake, I can't make a mistake. My wife keeps busting my b*** to work on that, and she helps me work on that, and I don't think it will ever change. It's just in me to not make a mistake, and I take it very seriously. 

 Christian Vitale
 It could be the stupidest little mistake, but I take it very seriously on myself. It has to be perfect in my mind, and even if it's at 99%, it's not good enough. I know that no one else is perfect except the big head coach above. He's the only one that's 100%, and I'm just there trying to at least get to 90% or 98%. That's what I call my X Men jeans, because my other senses around me rise up because of that. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. You talk about the big coach upstairs, right? Are we talking about God here? 

 Christian Vitale
 Yes, sir. 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay. So God made you right. If you believe in God. I do. God made you. If you look at your disability, seven learning disabilities, dyslexia, short term, long term sounds and sites reading, all these things are messed up. Did you ever get angry at him for making you that way? 

 Christian Vitale
 Touchy subject. I'll admit every day I ask to let me go to sleep, and I wake up because the pressure, the embarrassment, even as an adult, hurts. It hurts inside. It's frustrating. People are always like, Are you thinking about killing yourself. I'll never kill myself. That would go against everything I tell everyone to do. There's times I just want to just go to sleep and not wake up and take that pressure away. I wake up every morning, I go, well, okay. Made the wake up list today. Here we go. All right. 

 Josh Wilson
 I hate it, right? 

 Christian Vitale
 You don't want me to leave. I'm here for a reason. And that's what I keep reminding myself. That 38 guys that I helped get to Division One, division Two level in football that never should have even went to college. Well, they're the reason that keep me going. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. 

 Christian Vitale
 Those football players over 10,000 that I coached in 21 years, what the h*** are they going to think if I were to do something stupid? My mom sorry, I take a second. Because when I talk about her sorry, I can hear her voice all the time. 

 Josh Wilson
 What's mom say to you? My superpower is making men cry. 

 Christian Vitale
 Even when I do my talks in front of I don't care how many people, when I get to my mom, it's tough. My mom never went to college. 18 year olds, met my dad, raised seven kids, pretty much on her own because he was out drinking. Never smoked, never did drink alcohol, never did anything. Just bust your b*** with full body rheumatory arthritis, like bad. Ended up getting suffered from depression, diabetes. Ended up meeting dementia and then died. Six year battle with Alzheimer's. The lady fell down in Buffalo, New York, and snow busted up her already busted up me and Cassett. Said I have to go to work meeting and everything. Got on the bus and went down to King's Department Store in Buffalo and went to work. That was my first look at adversity to keep pushing. That voice in my head, she'd all say, kiddo, just keep going. 

 Christian Vitale
 Don't stop. Don't stop. She just keep telling me that voice keeps me going. I say good morning to her and my dad every day. I even forgave my dad, forgive him to his face at this 50th wedding anniversary. It's hard to forgive someone that beat the h*** out of you every day and told you're worthless. You're a piece of crap. You should be dead. You'll never mount anything. I had all that adversity outside, and the person that brought me into the world tell me the same thing to the point where big arguments would happen. Even put a loaded gun to my head. That 44 Magnum he put to my head first. And I had that sense of open. God, here goes my life. I just stood there with my arms out like, Jesus. I said, do it if you're man enough. And that was a huge adversity. 

 Christian Vitale
 But I never drank all my life. Never touched it, never drank, smoked a cigarette, never did any drugs because Coach Hill said coach Hill told me, you ain't the fastest, you ain't the strongest, you're definitely not the tallest. Anything you put in your body is going to just bring you backwards instead of forwards. And so I never did that stuff. Stayed away from all the parties and everything because of his words? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. So you mentioned his words. Right. So you're talking about Ian coachill? 

 Christian Vitale
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Okay. Coach Hill. All right. And then your mother's words. Right. Hanging their kiddo. Keep going, keep pushing. Right. So there's things that keep you going. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk about this. Right? You thought about suicide. You say you think about it consistently, right? Almost every day. You tried three times, one time putting the gun to your head, and somehow a miracle mom gets off the couch and saves you. Right. 

 Christian Vitale
 That was the big guy upstairs. Got her up there's no way she got out of that chair. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. And I'm so glad you're here, man. I'm thankful that you're talking about this because I just lost a buddy to suicide, and I'm going to his memorial this Saturday. 

 Christian Vitale
 No. Sorry. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Thanks, man. For dudes who are on this side of the earth, this side of the green, and they're thinking about killing themselves, and maybe they're thinking about it every freaking day of their life, and maybe the demons are screaming in their head and the voices are kicking them. Let's get them a new voice to listen to. What do you say to those guys? 

 Christian Vitale
 You hear it every day. No matter how hard it is, it's always going to be brighter on the other side. It is. You're going to push through that day, and the next day is going to come. Honestly, the stupid things that keep me going is I'm a big WWE guy. I fast forward through all the matches. I watch all the little stupid commercial things. They do their little skits, but I say smash all the time. Smash this, I'm going to smash that. They're one of the wrestlers. Roman Reigns, he says that all the time. Nothing's going to get in my way. I'm going to smash it. I started saying that a lot, and it just caught on to me. When I work out every day, I'm not the biggest guy. I'm 51. I ain't going to get any bigger. I work out six days a week, and I go in the gym and I walk in and I smash the h*** out of this gym. 

 Christian Vitale
 I'm going to smash my competition at work. I'm going to smash anything that gets in my way. Any obstacle gets in my way, I literally almost smash this. That's what I say And I take myself and push myself higher, and I don't let those demons and the voices in my head get to me. And I hear them. You're stupid. You suck. I hear my dad's voices I hear the nuns and I just say, screw you. I'm going to smash this. I'm not going to allow you to get into me. If you see on my head, it says 212. It's the boiling point of water. 212 deg, 211 degrees. Water is hot. My buddy showed me this a while ago, and I've always thought about it, and I went, how many people live their lives at 210 to eleven? They just wake up and they're just warm, maybe just Lukewarm. 

 Christian Vitale
 I said to myself, I got to wake up every day and be at 212. I got to be boiling hot and it sucks. I'm tired. I wake up and I just got to start clapping my hands. Let's go. 212. I got to rise above that average, 211 degrees, warm. Most people are just at 211, and I got them to be at 212. Walk into the gym. 212. When I'm lifting and I weights hard, 212. Get better than that person next to you. Get better than yourself the next day. I feel those demons and I feel that frustration and I just want to say, god, just let me go to sleep and not wake up. I wake up, I say, all right, I'm here for a reason. Everyone is put on this earth for darn reason and three suicide attempts, and I'm still here. Everything I've gone through, the abuse, the violence, the negative talk, being homeless, all these disabilities, I'm here to make an impact somehow with somebody to change lives. 

 Christian Vitale
 I know those 38 guys that I got to the next level that should have never been playing football, that were never recruited, made an impact in their lives. And they're all like sons to me. I love them all. To this day, I still talk to all of them, texting and video messages and helped a bunch of good jobs to get their career going. So everyone's here, everyone has a purpose. If you can change one life, man, ian changed my life. That's why I tell somebody, and I've been in that spot where someone's telling me, you're going to get through it. And I'm like, it's just dark. It's just dark. You got to just relax and think about everything you have in your life and your blessings and think about the next day. You make it through the next day, then you're going to be okay. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, man. This is timely, right? Trying on my dress clothes. I haven't put on dress clothes since Dad's funeral, and now I'm heading to another funeral. It seems like I only dress up when I go to funerals, right? Yes. Man. What about the guys who lost their reason to live, right? They put a gun to their head and they're trying to think, like, man, I can't think of any reason not to pull the trigger, right? How do you go about finding a reason? Because you go, okay. I'm here for my mom. She's my hero. I'm here for those 10,000 kids that I coached. I'm here for the X amount of dudes that I've helped get jobs and do this and that. Like, what about the guy who has a gun to his head? He's like, I cannot think of anything. Give me one reason to live. 

 Josh Wilson
 Give me that. How do you go about finding that reason? 

 Christian Vitale
 I'm no expert. I'm just like my shirt says, just a kid from Buffalo. Everyone has a friend. Everybody in this world has a friend somewhere. If you're in that situation, if I'm in that situation, I'm picking up a phone, call, somebody help. That's, I think the big part of someone, a big woman or big man, to just pick up that phone and say, I need some help and admit it, I have some help. The big thing is, my wife keeps telling me, what's the key that's causing all this? We go right back to my dad. Everything went back to my dad, and he didn't know how to be a father. He ran away from home at 15 and joined the Marines. And he was totally deaf. They took him, and he did the best he could. This dad, my Grandpa Jack, was an alcoholic and abusive guy, and it just kept going all the way up to me. 

 Christian Vitale
 I never hit my kids, but I was angry guy because I worked my b*** off working all day long coaching football and come home and just tired little things would set me off. And I apologize to my kids constantly. They keep telling me, dad, we understand. I'm like, that's fine, but it's not right. I'm like, why can't I got to be lazy, get up, do the stuff where I'm going all the time, doing stuff self made. No one taught me to get up at four in the morning and go running and push yourself. My dad didn't. My mom was at the big influence, but no one pushed me as a young man to go after my dreams. I just wanted more. When you have a Coach Hill in your head telling you, don't listen to people. You're awesome. Go after everything you want and stop being rockhead. 

 Christian Vitale
 That's what he used to always say to me, don't be a rockhead. He got me to believe in someone. I mean, I was not fast. Somehow he made me fast through my raw emotions. I remember one of my classmates who I'm still friends with, Neymar Hasse, he's a principal of a school here and administration in Tucson. He told me, he says, Dude, Ian thinks you're incredible. He says, that guy is going to be something someday. Everything I've done in my life, I hear those words and don't think I'm somebody right now. It's a guy living his life. Everyone looks at my accomplishments and goes, that's. Incredible. I'm like, you should be proud of yourself. I'm sitting there going, I just had to get through the task. It was a mission that I had to get through. The mission is done. I move on, and I never take that chance to step back. 

 Christian Vitale
 I mean, I'm looking right now at my diplomas, my scholarship stuff, my Delta Mu Delta membership, and I'm sitting there looking at them on my wall, and it was just a mission I had to get through to accomplish the next goal. I never take that time, and I don't even know how to sit back and say, you did it and be proud of it. This is something I had to do and get through. If that can impact somebody I mean, every day I probably quit college every day, but I know I had to get through it if I wanted to get to the next level and coach college football. Make an impact. Just telling someone, just get through it. Get through that day to get to the next day. If you don't know who's around, you call. So there's that suicide hotline. People care. You just got to find that care and how they can call me. 

 Christian Vitale
 I don't care. I'm no counselor, but I just sit there and talk to someone. Just listen, because I know what they're going through, because I would always see that dark cloud, and I didn't see no light, and I didn't see any end to it, and I didn't see any next day at one point. But you got to close your eyes. Take I used to take naps when I was depressed, go to sleep, and now wake up. But the big impact rocky movie rocky. When I was younger, the message that's what got me through, that I'm supposed to be here. He used to say that in the first Rock. I'm not supposed to be here. He was there for a reason. I know it's a movie, but the impact of the movie one scene in there when he's in the ring, and he tells the promoter, I'm wearing white trunks, and he says, does it really matter? 

 Christian Vitale
 Just give us a show. Right there, I say to myself, you're not supposed to be here. Go give them the show and just destroy anything in your path. Smash everything. Get that ups team chat. Movie is people don't look into that movie too much. They just watch it. They watch Rocky. I don't call myself a motivational speaker. Motivation is when you're watching Rocky and you hear the music and you're eating your popcorn and the music starts the training, and you get all pumped. You want to go run and jump rope, and then the music stops. You're still in your popcorn. I like to inspire people, so what I try to do is tell people, find something in your life that inspires you. Me, my mom, Coach Hill, those people that impact me, and that's your inspiration. I say, I'm not here to motivate you. I'm here to inspire you to find your inspiration. 

 Christian Vitale
 I tell people when I'm doing my talks to close your eyes and think of number one. Think of the red number one in front of you. When I make them, everyone close their eyes and vision, that number one. I tell them to now think of a person that has inspired you and see their face. I have them sit there for at least 30 seconds and open their eyes and tell them every time. I do this with my fingers, I put them together. That's my mom. I always do that when I'm stressed and not feeling good, start thinking my mom. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right, so your ring finger and your thumb. Why do that? So you're sitting here tapping that? 

 Christian Vitale
 No, my wedding ring is always there, and that's supposed to be the straight line to your heart, so I'm always tapping that. Also, my wife met me when I was 20, and she keeps me straight. She's a huge impact. She tells me the truth, and I don't want to hear the truth. I hate hearing the truth, and she corrects me on things, and I hate it. She's got my six all the time. She's right there, has my back and that ring finger and that line to my heart from my mom. It's just something I learned from Anthony Robbins. Believe it or not, I've been doing Anthony Robbins since I was 18. So I just learned that when I. 

 Josh Wilson
 Was 19, when I was a medic and I'd be on the box or whatever, and someone was having anxiety attack or their brain was firing, I would get them to and this was an exercise that we did. I think I learned it from an old medic, an old school medic. The guy has been on the box for 40 years or whatever, and you take your fingers and you tap your thumb to each finger, and you just keep rotating it. I don't know what it does, but it resets her mind. I've taught that to my wife. I've had to do that when I was facing panic or anxiety in the past. So it's cool that you did that. I don't know what it is about it, but it kind of resets your brain for a second. Man so, Coach Christian, how do you pronounce your last name? 

 Josh Wilson
 Vitali. 

 Christian Vitale
 Yeah. If you met my dad, he would say it's Vitali, but it's Vitali. He's an old Sicilian. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. So what are you working towards now? Because you said you're coming back and you're taking of a break from training and coaching. What's the next mission? Right. You're a mission guy? I like to go smash missions. What's the next one? 

 Christian Vitale
 Right now, it's just a work guy. Right now, I'm just working. When I was in Berlin. God gives you blessings in little ways. I signed my contract on a Friday, and the house that I'm in right now, went to look at because were looking for a house. We put a bid on it. We didn't get it. I was like, stinks. I thought the contract signing with a sign. It was. We sold the house, we loved it, got out, bid went to Berlin. Two weeks later, my wife's telling me, that house is back on the market. A real estate agent wants to know if we want it. I said, yes, we want it. We got the house for even less than we put the money down for. And God blessed us with that. The house, the contract, the opportunity to coach at a high level with incredible coaches and with professional guys. 

 Christian Vitale
 Next mission is whatever he puts me on, really. I mean, if the NFL calls, another college calls, let's see it's. Wherever he's putting me to do my next mission, he just sends me where I need to go. Puts people in my lives, like yourself, and crosses path so I can share my situations and give hints of how to get through stuff. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. So we talked about hearing voices, right? We're not talking like crazy voices, right? We're saying, like, we hear these voices and we remember things and it hits a memory, right? So your mom Coach Hill, right? Those were positive things. Then we also hear other voices, right? Like the nuns saying nasty stuff to you, or other students bullying you or even yourself, saying, I'm worthless. How do you tune out one voice and focus on the other? Because he even said, I got to hear from God and I got whatever mission he puts me on. How do you focus in your hearing to hear the right voices? 

 Christian Vitale
 It's funny because, like I said, I listen to I watch wrestling and my ringtone is Randy Orton voices. I hear voices in my head. Song. This theme song comes out and it's always on my front. It's my ringtone. When I started saying to me, even myself, come on, you're not doing this right, you're embarrassing yourself. Or I hear those negative things. Honestly, it's so simple. I just start going, no calling going to let you. I honestly start thinking there's times I'll go like this turn sideways because I have a photo in my office on the wall of Jesus holding up a construction worker when he's depressed and down, picking him up, and he's got my back. Honestly, simple, this is going, not today. I'm doing it. Ain't doing it. Just going to go forward to twelve. I have to better than everybody else in front of me and around me. 

 Christian Vitale
 Because most people are just living their lives at 211. When I'm at the gym, everyone's on their phone. My phone is in my locker, I have my stop, watch, clocking myself in a minute and 30 seconds per rest period, and I'm moving. I've had so many people say, come up to me, I don't even know, man. You don't stop. I'm in here for an hour and 15 minutes, and I'm busting b*** and I'm in and out. I got time to sit on Instagram. So everything is about 212. To me, it's got to better than that next person, but that next person is me. I got to better than myself every day. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. One thing that I've learned through coaching and therapy, right, is when voices happen, I'll actually have a conversation with it. I used to try to ignore it, right, Josh, you suck. Or this. I just started going, I have something like, maybe fears about money or success or maybe insecurities about not being good enough. I'll just go, Where's that coming from? Why do you feel that? I can't come up with reasons or whatever, and then I go, what voices do I want? I'll talk myself through stuff, and it feels weird, especially if people are watching me. I'm like, oh, God, put a Bluetooth smartphone thing in, and people think you're just talking on the phone. But I'm just talking to myself. I find that we got to have healthy self talk, don't you? Like, if not, the world's going to kick the s*** out of us, right? 

 Josh Wilson
 If we don't have healthy self talk, what are some things that you do to improve healthy self talk? 

 Christian Vitale
 Honestly, I keep saying to myself, I got this. It's no huge secret thing. I got this. My wife reminds me all the time, look what you've gone through. Look with the people you've helped, and look where you're at today. Because people in the football world, I used to do a lot of talk circuit talks, and they would say, oh, the guru. I was a special teams coordinator. I was very successful at what I'd done. I've been helped by D*** Vermeal, Bill Parcels, so many Frank Beamer, so many huge names in the football world I've met and become friends with and asked for help. And people are your guru. You do this and that. I don't look at myself at that. Many people would say, Coach, your boys did so awesome. They did awesome. I just showed them the pathway. So, honestly, simple thing is, I got this. 

 Christian Vitale
 Don't stop. I literally talk to myself. Come on, Christian, let's go. Come on, Vy, let's go. People are like, who are you talking to? Myself. Let's go. I'm always tapping my finger and talking to my mom. I said it yesterday. Get me through it. Come on, mom. Help me through this. Get my mind focused. That's my go to, is my mom. And I just ask her. My mom's name is Gloria, and I'm not exaggerating. I'm not making this stuff up. There are times when I'm talking to my mom, that song, old song, Gloria comes on, and I'm just like, what the and I know, come on, ain't Buying Coincidence. That comes on. What song is that, Gloria? Oh, God, don't ask me to sing that. It's from the 80s. It's like a disco. Gloria, don't forget my number or something like that. I don't know. 

 Christian Vitale
 Every time it comes on, it's strange moments. And I know my mom's there. I don't believe in the psychic stuff, but when I was working at a hotel coaching junior college football because I don't pay a lot, they had a psychic fair. This lady walked by me, walked out the hotel and stopped and stared at me. I'm like, what the h*** is wrong with her? She comes back in and says, I'm a psychic reader, a medium. Can I read you? I'm like, I don't believe in that. I didn't say nothing to the lady. She described my mom to a T. Her physical injuries and she didn't know me were nothing. She basically told me my mom's over my back watching me, and she can walk, she can get up, she can remember when she said remember. She kept rubbing her hands, and I'm like, her hands were crippled, her knees, her neck, ankles, everything. 

 Christian Vitale
 So I know she's got my back. Little things like that, I just tell myself, keep going, and talk to my mom. It's all about that person, what they're going to do to get through. They got to find their situation of what they can say to themselves or who they can talk to. 

 Josh Wilson
 I appreciate your story, and I appreciate you just being so open about the struggles you've gone through and about how you're breaking through. Let's do this, man. If there's a dude hurting on the other end and they want to connect with you or do stuff like, where can people find you, learn more about you and maybe reach out to you? 

 Christian Vitale
 Well, I got my website, Coachchristianvitale@gmail.com, and I wasn't even going to start that. A couple of years ago, Coach Hills got me in contact with his buddy that does his website. So we're going to revamp the website. I have a book that we wrote, me and some friends wrote. They helped me write this book. They convinced me to write a book about myself. We made it like a coaching playbook. Each chapter is a situation in my life, and not only am I telling you about my life, but I'm telling you at the end of each chapter, the play, how I got through it, the key components of that chapter. But Coachchristianvitale@gmail.com, my phone number is 248-76-2118. I'm just a kid from Buffalo, had a lot of crap happened to them, and people kept saying, you got to share your story. You can help people. I don't look at myself at all that. 

 Christian Vitale
 If I can help people and I'll help people, even if it's just sitting and listening or giving someone a hug, and if they want any of my story, then I'll tell them. But I'm no guru expert. I'm no counselor. I'm just a guy that's been through h*** and continue to go through h*** and get through the other end. With the head coach behind me, the big head coach just got to pull my sword out and start battling those demons and cutting them down in front of me. And even when I don't want to. And I think there's no end. Just keep the sword swinging and smash everything. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. So, Coach Christian, are there any questions I should have asked you during this interview that I screwed up and did not ask you? 

 Christian Vitale
 No. I'm just an open book. My wife says she can never do what I do because I just tell everything about myself. It's just a normal guy, San Jose, a guy trying to help other people and share my story and how I got through things. Most people just talk about their stuff. I actually tell. How did you get through your abusive from your dad? I turned everything to music and sports and ran my b*** off daily. I took all that negative energy and put it on the football field and track and boxing and turn to music to keep my mind straight. There's little things like that I tell people during my talks. My book of how to get through, how I got through my solutions, my chapters in my life, because it's broken down into four quarters. 

 Josh Wilson
 Cool. Super cool. Will people be able to take a look at that book? 

 Christian Vitale
 Well, the book is done. Being the way I am, I was started to reread and rewrite and I kept going, this isn't me. I don't talk like that. I'm a guy that says frigging all the time. Frigging awesome. Frigging this. I'm just a blue collar dude from Buffalo. I started saying we've got to be me. We kind of we're in chapter six, reread and rewrite to make it me. I want people to be like having a conversation with me and me talking to them. Hopefully in another year, but it's going to be pretty cool, I think. Hopefully people like it and get something out of it. I'm always questioning myself after every talk that I do. I walk off stage going, that wasn't good enough. That wasn't good enough. My guys that do my filming and sound are like, dude, that was freaking incredible. People come ups to me and I'm like, at the end of the talk, I'm putting myself down and it sucks because it's never good enough. 

 Christian Vitale
 People are trying to teach me to, dude, go and do your thing. Make an impact and just be happy. So I'm still learning. I never stopped learning. This journey will never stop learning about how to deal with myself because it's never good enough. 

 Josh Wilson
 Well, I appreciate you sharing your story and being part of this fellow dudes. As you're listening in, man, I want to encourage you to find a reason to live, find that reason, find that voice that's going to help you push through and get through. For you guys who are struggling with this, man, I get it and I love you. This shows for you. If you do need help, reach out to our guests. They give their contact information. They'll be in the show notes. Reach out to our guests and say, hey, I need some help. I need to talk to someone. You could always head Shaahin Shaahin Shaahin Cheyene uncensored Advice for Men. Quick form and we'll get you in touch with one of our past guests or some resource to help. If you have some advice that you'd like to share with other dudes or maybe even share your store here. 

 Josh Wilson
 Same. Shaahin Shaahin Shaahin Shaahin Shaahin Cheyene uncensored Advice for Men, the show next. Love you guys. Talk to you all on the next episode. See you then.