The Power of Connection and Mindfulness for Fulfillment

Vic Manzo

[00:00:00] Vic Manzo: Like fitness health. I was like, Man, I, I ate worse back then. Some say it's age and stuff like that. I was like, I was in my early twenties, no even at my teenage years. And I was like, Yeah, but I ate garbage and I still, I was, I was in great shape. And somebody said, Well, you can't do that now. I'm like, No, no, no. You don't understand, my diet's 55, 55, it's a whole different 180. And I'm like, and now all of a sudden I'm sort of sitting there and I'm like, there's got to be an energy component to this, there just has to be. Why is it that, it's the families coming together, enjoying their time together and breaking bread.

[00:00:29] And if you look in today's society, we don't do a lot of that. Just a lot of, not even connecting with one another, we don't do that either. Like I have a rule that I live by in my house. It's like my wife and I, and I just have a four month old daughter. I said, When she gets older, it's dinner time no matter what.

[00:00:44] Nothing gets in the way of our dinner. You know, maybe breakfast, maybe lunch, but dinner, no, we're always going to sit down and have dinner together. And when I want to meet with friends, I want to break bread with them. It's a tradition I grew up in so it's very easy for me to do that. But at the same token, it's just that, just connecting.

[00:01:01] It's just, hey, I made something. I didn't go buy it, nothing against buying, I just like to cook. I'm Italian, so I love to cook. But I love to make food because I grew up seeing my mother do that. People come over, my mom would make a feast. And there's something about the energy being into that food, and we're all connecting because of the food and the love my mom put in there.

[00:01:20] And for me, from an energetic standpoint that, I may be getting off tangent here a little bit, but it's just coming back around about connecting and those elements of how we connect. Because you got people now saying, Well, I connect, I'm on social media and I connect with these groups and those groups. And I'm like, Yeah, no, there's something about the power of being in the physical realm with somebody. Not in a, not in an internet way, but in a, in a physical aspect, one to one. There's just something about that that's a game changer.

[00:01:54] Ed Watters: To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America, we can all learn something. To learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best conversations happen with ourself. Reach out and challenge yourself; let's dive in and learn something right now.

[00:02:45] Today we are speaking with Dr. Vic Manzo, he is a podcaster with an excellent podcast. The podcast is The Mindful Experiment Podcast. He's an author, he wrote the book Decoding the Matrix. And he has so much more. Dr. Vic, could you please introduce yourself? Let people know just a little more about you, please.

[00:03:08] Vic Manzo: Yeah. Thanks for having me on here, I'm excited to be here. A little bit more about myself, I'm a certified pediatric chiropractor. I've been a chiropractor for the last eleven-twelve years. This last year in 2022, I actually have not been practicing. My wife and I moved from Illinois to Tennessee. And on our move, I decided to let go of the chiropractic side for now. And, uh, I've been doing coaching for a few years, so decided to continue that, uh, business and mindset coaching. Um, and so that's the other part of who I am and what I do, um, when it comes to, uh, what I'm up to at this point in time, but yeah, that's a little bit more about me.

[00:03:47] Ed Watters: Well, you're focused driven, that's for sure. You've got a top one percent podcast, which is extremely hard. And that, that tells people right there, you're dedicated. How does that help your coaching and performing in your coaching skills?

[00:04:07] Vic Manzo: You know, with a podcast like I have, I've been doing it over four years. Um, you know, I got over four, what'd I just do? 423 episodes just released as of yesterday. And, um, uh, it, what it really does is it builds just more of credibility for me on that instance. Because people, you know, they may not, I'm not Mr. Popular, so they don't hear, they may be like, Who's this guy? I've never heard of him before. He's telling you all these things,

[00:04:29] Yeah.

[00:04:29] he has his success stories. I don't, I don't know, I've never heard of him. Go check out my podcast. And then they're like,

[00:04:35] Ed Watters: Yep.

[00:04:35] Vic Manzo: Oh, he has a lot of podcast episodes. And it's like, check me out, there's over 200, and I think it's like almost 270 now of me speaking on there. And then I have, the rest are interviews. And I'm like, Just, just listen to what I have to say and if it resonates with you, let's connect. Let's talk. Um, But it, it really does build more of the credibility than anything else for me. Uh, and you know, I've been in the game. You know, you, you see in the podcast world, there's so many podcasts coming up. Average podcast lasts ten episodes and that's it. And after that, they're out of the business.

[00:05:03] Um, and so, and I know, I think I have one that's less than ten. I have another one that's like that. Um, but long story short, it's one of those things where, um, it is, it's, it's a fun, it's a labor of love, as you know, and it's one of those things that I enjoy doing. So one of the things I tell my clients a lot like when it comes to like marketing and business and things that you, you want to do to get yourself out there, Do what you love, don't do what you hate. Because it's going to mess with your energy and your consciousness and all this stuff that I teach. And I'm like, I love podcasting. There are things that I won't do. People like blogging, you should blog. You wrote books, you're a good writer. I like writing books, I don't like writing blogs. Well, you do videos really well.

[00:05:41] Yeah, I don't mind doing videos as long as it's once a month. And they're like, Yeah, but you post every single day. I'm like, Yeah, but that's almost every single day. And I'm like, Well, yeah, but that's because the videos are all done. I'm like, I did it in one day because I do not like doing videos to a certain degree. Um, podcasting, different ball game. I can go all day on that and I love it. So yeah, it's kind of developed that realm. And I mean, even the one percent thing, I was shocked to find that out. It was about a year ago I was on a podcast. And the lady on there, she's like, I'm at 2. 5 percent podcast listens, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff.

[00:06:09] And I'm like, Wait, there's rankings for this? I was like, I only, I thought the only rankings was like Apple and all these other things that I see once in a while. I'm up in the top, you know, fifteen, twenty, whatever it may be. And I was like, No, let me go look. And all of a sudden I looked, I go one percent. I'm like, Wow. I'm like, That explains a few things. Okay, now that I understand that. So yeah, came across that on a surprise, which was a nice surprise.

[00:06:32] Ed Watters: Well, that's, that's very helpful in many ways. And it does show dedication, devotion to what you do. And that's experience when it transfers over to other things. That, that can tell people, Hey, this dedication, if he's doing it, he must be dedicated to it. So it does transfer over. One of the things that really fascinates me when this came across my desk about you, effortless success. I need to know more. Tell me more about what you mean by effortless success.

[00:07:13] Vic Manzo: You know, I love this term and it's something that, uh, it's funny because the business world, man, I'll tell you, they think I'm selling snake oil when I say effortless success and all that. But you have to understand how, you know, everything in life, everything all starts by how you see it or how you think, right? So it's a thinking mind. And if you think in the terms of the world, of what it is, how we are from a physical standpoint, which is classical physics or Newtonian physics is another term of that, then effortless success is totally a snake oil.

[00:07:43] Okay, it totally is. But if you understand, quantum physics has come around, it's been around for a little bit now. And it's starting to show that there's this other element of the world that we're, we've always known. It's just quantum physics had to come with the science. See, because five, three, five, 7, 000 years ago, they were talking about this stuff. I always joke around and say, We're catching up to where humanity was. Not, we're not the most,

[00:08:06] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:08:06] Vic Manzo: Everyone, and some people like to create an argument. I'm like, I don't, you can argue all you like. I go, I can prove that we are because I've studied a lot of indigenous tribes and civilizations and what they did. And I'm just like, How the heck did they do that without the technology? Like what we have today, like just mind blows, mind blowing.

[00:08:23] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:08:23] Vic Manzo: But one of the things is, they talked about these things. And when you look at the world of the essence of energy, which we already know that everything is all energy, quantum physics states it. If you want the science term, they call it quanta. And what that is, is that, if everything is made out of energy, and there's these things called universal laws, which has been around for, I think it was hermetic principles that came out with this, the seven principles, you know? Again, this is like, I can't remember,

[00:08:46] is it five, 7, 000 years ago with that? I mean, it's, it's a while back and they're still true. That's why they call them universal laws now. Is that, you know, law of attraction, everybody knows that. But there's another law before that called the law of vibration. And that's another term for energy or frequency or consciousness level.

[00:09:02] You can interchange those many ways. And it's one of those things that when you tap into this energy realm and you understand that if your thoughts are electrical, but in the essence that you are, you, you're creating a vision or something, you're seeing in your mind who you want to become, you create that. Then you tie in the emotional side of this. You got to bring the emotions because this is a generator. We always attract in our life where our emotions are. That's why we attract more negative things in our life than we do positive because of the power and the attachment that comes from the negative. When you tie that into the whole perspective of everything,

[00:09:36] now, all of a sudden you're creating a field of energy, right? And so if you can maintain that field of energy, then all of a sudden, I'm not saying that work doesn't come in because this is where the action happens, there's going to be something called the law of inspired action is going to follow. And what the law of inspired action states is that you're going to take action

[00:09:54] when you're inspired to. You're going to be pulled to, you can't ignore it. It's going to happen and you will take action [00:10:00] and that action is going to be aligned to your thoughts. It's going to be aligned to your, your vision, what you want to create, it's going to, or your desires. It's going to be aligned to also the emotions where you are.

[00:10:08] When you have all of that, you're playing in the quantum world. Now, all of a sudden, you're playing with the law of attraction. We're always playing with it, but in the way we want, what we choose to experience. And then all of a sudden from there, we're in pure alignment. The effortless part is you don't have to think.

[00:10:23] We get so much in our thinking mind, but really the world of going deeper and having a more enriched life is in the feeling. And when we can tap into those feelings more and really use our emotions as a gauge to know, are we in alignment or not? That's going to let us know, should we take this action?

[00:10:39] And what's the next step I have to take? We don't have to figure things out. It will be all pulled to you at a certain time, it's law, law of vibration. Like I said, if you want to be a millionaire, if you're in the alignment, if you're in the vibration or conscious level to be a millionaire, your bank account may not be full to that level, but you're going to have ideas that are going to come to you or people, circumstances, situations are going to help propel you in that direction to become that person. And then when you start to become that person, obviously you'll do the things a millionaire does. And all of a sudden you'll have it eventually down the road.

[00:11:07] And it's one of those things that, this is where the effortless part comes. So there's two fold, one is, you don't have to, well, one is, you just got to focus on the energy because that's, that's, there's some work there, but, but the second part is you don't have to figure things out. We, we're trying to figure things out too much in this world.

[00:11:21] And we don't have to. There's, you know, we're, we're very mind heavy, very information heavy, very, tell me what the thing, tell me this, tell me that instead of teaching how to think, how to be, right? Because that's the power. So it's a difference between give me a fish for a day versus teach me how to fish.

[00:11:42] Ed Watters: Yeah, that's great. I love that. And that explains that very well. And it's about alignment in many ways, what you align yourself with, what you think, what you put yourself into, you become. So it is very effortless if you know the recipe to transition into that. But getting that, getting that, especially with me, I had a hard head.

[00:12:13] Uh, no, you can't tell me anything. I know it all. And once, once you forget what you know and you start developing the skill to listen, you can align a lot better with the conscious world and that gives life meaning. And a lot of these frustrations, these bad vibrations that we create through our mind, they seem to just go away. It's quite interesting. Another topic that you cover, why the darkness is our greatest ally. I love this because darkness in many ways teaches us. Tell us your thoughts on what that is about to you.

[00:13:03] Vic Manzo: Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things where, like you said, it's, it's, it's our best teacher. It's, but what I love about the darkness is, there's a couple things here, twofold. One is, we came from the dark to, to, to bring to the light when we were born. And when we pass this world, we're going to go into the dark to go back to the light. That's number one. Number two is, you can't really, you can't really truly experience the power of your light and really who you are.

[00:13:30] Um, I'm going to use an example like a candlelight, you know, a little flame on a candle, a well lit room, not gonna notice much. You go in a pitch black room, you're gonna see that power of that little, little tiny flame, how powerful it really is. The darkness is designed to help us remove the illusion or the blocks of who we really are.

[00:13:51] When I say who we really are, I mean that as a soul perspective. So that we're a spiritual being having a human being experience and we can come and, you know, discover, rediscover more of what we really are within. But what I love about the darkness is it always, always, always brings what you need at the moment because it aligns with the law of vibration, attraction, and so forth.

[00:14:11] And so when you go through, and the darkness can be a challenge, an obstacle, a loss, whatever the dark moments of life are. But the beauty side of that is if you sit with it, which most people don't, and the reason why is because darkness is uncertainty, uh, we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know what's on the other side of that,

[00:14:28] but really, it's your freedom. But it's, when we, when we can sit with that in some way, shape, or form, man, the lessons. I mean, here's, I'll share an example of my own self. Uh, I was a guy who was very determined. You could, I'm a type A driver personality type guy. So I was like, How do I become successful?

[00:14:46] What do I have to do in business to do that? I was just determined. Who is it? What's the best business books to read? Who are the people telling you? I was like, whatever it is, I'll get my hands on it and I'm going to do that. And I did, I was studying 80 to 120 books a year. I read up to, well, listened and read up to 132 at my max.

[00:15:01] I did that for over five years. Um, I was not listening to any music, which I love listening to music, but it was podcasting and videos and who's the next person, what's the, workshops do they offer, what can I get for free? And then when I'm ready, I'll, I'll indulge in their stuff. I was just doing this for nonstop and I was burning myself out like crazy.

[00:15:18] And then eventually I got to a point in my career, I mean, I hit my financial peak, which was great, but I had all this other stuff that was unsatisfied and whatnot. But I took a moment and I said, You know what? I'm trying to control how life should be, I don't think that's how this is really supposed to be.

[00:15:33] I think it's more of a co- creation. I need to take a step back, let me let life bring to me. Because it's all about vibration. If it is and if this is all true, then it's going to bring what I need and I don't have to try to figure this out. This is a little part of my effortless success, one of the, one of my journeys on this. And so all of a sudden I started to do that and in one year I learned more about myself.

[00:15:53] I mean, and we're talking depth, not just, oh, that's a cool concept of doing that. It's a great, it's in my head. No, no, no, it wasn't just in my head. It was, because there's a difference between knowing things and this is why I like, I share this very strongly because I did this too. I had a spiritual teacher who told me, she goes, You're very wise for your age. I was twenty-four years old. She's like, You know a lot about the universe, you know a lot about the spiritual world, you know a lot about healing, she goes, you know about the body because you're going through chiropractic school, she goes, unfortunately, though, I'm going to be very straight with you, you don't have wisdom, and that takes time.

[00:16:27] And I just looked at her like, what do you mean I don't have wisdom? I could tell you, come on, let's have a conversation. I wish I was more open at that time because what she said was true. Because she said, You have to take your knowledge and have experience, in between those two is where wisdom comes. And, um, that's what happened to me when I let the universe guide me and just bring to me and me sit with it, right?

[00:16:49] Because sitting with it's uncomfortable. It's stuff that's deep within you, you've been repressing or you don't want to address. I mean, it gets you uncomfortable, sleepless nights sometimes. Uh, or for me, I don't get sleepless nights, I just get racing thoughts. My mind just races and thinks about it all the time.

[00:17:03] And you know, there's things you can do like meditation or breath work or other things like that just to calm the nervous system so you can stay centered in it more. But what happened was is through that journey of, of accepting and sitting with it, man, the knowledge and wisdom I got, well, the wisdom more importantly than anything in that year was more than what I did in the last five, six years.

[00:17:22] I mean, it was just that profound because it was so deep and it was uncovering things that I was like, Oh, that's why that's happening. Oh, that's, okay, boom. And it's just like you connect the dots going back and you're like, holy cow. I didn't know that about myself. Wow, I didn't notice I was doing that. Or wow, this is a deep rooted thing

[00:17:38] that's not just me, it's past generations also. And you know, ancestral curses as some people call it. Or it's something that, you know, I could see a blockage here in my business and all of a sudden I'm like, where's this else showing up? And then I see it in my relationship, I see it here, I see it there. And I'm just like, holy cow, you can't read a book on that. You just can't,

[00:17:56] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:17:56] Vic Manzo: You're not gonna be able to get it at that level, maybe intellectually, but not definitely from a, from a feeling experience perspective.

[00:18:03] Ed Watters: Yeah, some of our own thoughts are some of the most detrimental things in our life. But the thought process and taking control of that is an art in itself, slowing down the mind. Do you have tips for people to slow down?

[00:18:24] Vic Manzo: Absolutely. I mean, everything, you know, being a chiropractor, you know, we're brain doctors at the end of the day. So everything's a nervous system. And if you can center the nervous system or, you know, center it or calm it, then you can

[00:18:33] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:18:33] Vic Manzo: access higher parts of the brain. Which are more higher consciousness levels that allow you to do certain things. Um, so my, my, you know, I, I'm a big component of meditation for a lot of different reasons. The problem with meditation in today's world, I always tell my clients, if they're going to work, when we're working together and I recommend these things, I'm like, I want you to meditate for ninety days. But you're going to hate me for the first thirty and probably not going to like me much in the next thirty days.

[00:18:56] But then maybe by the third thirty days, you're going to be like, I think I'm starting to understand this a little bit. And the reason why I say it like that is because our attention span is so low now, it's less than a goldfish, which is around eight seconds. I think it's even less than that now. Um, it makes it harder for us to maintain, and not only just maintain focus, but to also, uh, create new habits.

[00:19:17] And they're, they're, they're taking longer too because of that. And so meditation is great, but for those, like I recommended to my, when I, I recommend a lot of things to my patients and one of them was always breath work. Breath works a lot easier, you have to breathe anyhow. So why don't you just slow your breathing down?

[00:19:32] Um, for the neuroscience perspective, there's actually a part of your brain that actually detects your respiratory rate, how deep you're breathing. It's called the breath pacemaker. So, and what that does is it's always monitoring it. And this is how we can use, and man, this is not new. This is what I love about the stuff I've studied in the years, it's like when I hear about, in the Hinduism and stuff, and they talk about breath is prana and life and how we breathe is how we live.

[00:19:55] I mean, that's a principle they teach. Well, guess what? That's true, neuroscience has proven it. We [00:20:00] found the, we found these cluster of neurons that are called breath pacemakers, and they actually detect how we breathe. And the importance of that is, is when we slow down our breathing, it actually slows down the nervous system.

[00:20:10] This is how we can influence our nervous system to, the nervous system we can't control, to slow it down. So any type of breathing, you know, you can do a Wim Hof, you can do soma breath. You can, I always tell people, Don't get caught up in what people do because Wim Hof is very popular now. Uh, soma breath is a, is another one.

[00:20:26] There's holotrophic breathing, um, there's pranayamas, which is, basically just means breathwork and, and Sanskrit, which is yoga type stuff. There's a ton of different, of those out there. I tell people, Just take sixty breaths. That's all you need to do. Research shows sixty breaths slows down the nervous system.

[00:20:40] Um, but you know, what I also say is, If you don't feel that calmness, keep taking deep breaths until you do. Because it's just, maybe you need more. Maybe you didn't go deep on a couple of those. Uh, but it's really belly deep breathing. That's what we want to do is just take a nice deep breath and slow down, and that will reset our nervous system.

[00:20:58] And when you're able to do that, all of a sudden things calm. And when you can calm the nervous system, your brain now is not stuck in the survival mode. You can actually get to a little bit of a higher level. And when you can get to those higher consciousness levels, all of a sudden you can see things in different perspectives.

[00:21:14] That's why I always say, like, Nothing, nothing's bad in life. It's just is, and you have a choice to make it good or bad because life has no meaning except the meaning you put on it. So why not choose what that's going to be for you? Why not choose what that's going to mean for you? And some people say, I don't know how you can do that.

[00:21:29] Uh, let's say it's a death of a loved one, or I was on a podcast one time and they're talking about betrayals. And I said, There can be a really good lesson in that, either if you're the person doing it or the other person. Because I'm like, It all depends how you look at it. And there's always things that are there for us to take to be for the good. But you can also train your mind to look for the bad too, because what you seek is what you'll find.

[00:21:49] And so there's just a couple there, a couple other ones you can do. Um, cold water is really great, it puts your brain in a survival state. So I have a, I do cold plunging every day. I have like about fifty something degree water, in the summers it's at forty. And it's one of those things where I plunge for about, you know, three to five minutes and it's just, I do it for mental stuff. But, um, but what happens when you take a cold shower or cold water, your brain instantaneously goes into survival mode. So whatever you're worrying about or what was on, preoccupying your mind or whatever, you're not gonna be able to focus on that anymore because, you could probably force it, but the brain is going to go into, Hey, survival mode, red alarm, you know, the fire alarm, the, the, the, the survival alarms going off.

[00:22:29] So it's all about survival. When you get out of that cold water, then you're going to have endorphins kicking in because it's like, like a state of you've been in fear or really stressed out and you find out what you're worried about wasn't true, or didn't happen, or wasn't as bad. And you're like, oh, man. You do that big sigh of relief. That is where, um, that's endorphins, that's where you start to center more and you can get to those more elevated states and then you can start to look at things a little differently. But the thing at the end of the day, no matter what shows up is that you have that choice to see it however you want to. And so why not choose for the better? It's not wishful thinking,

[00:23:03] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:23:04] Vic Manzo: it's not ignoring the negative, it's not ignoring that there was, this is, this is, there's a, there's a, you know, whatever it is, it's going to be something that, it may be hard to get through, but you're still going to gain from it as long as you see it that way. And this is how people have an event that happened in their life in some way, shape, or form that paralyzes them for the rest of their life. And I've seen it and it, it, it, it breaks my heart. I seen it as a kid and it broke my heart.

[00:23:26] I see it still today with people where they had something common, it just takes over their life. And in the essence, you have a choice to allow that to happen or not, because there's always a, there's, there's a law of duality. What you're seeing in one way, there's a polar opposite. You can see it in that way too. And really the beautiful thing about us is we have free will to choose, which one do we want to see it as an experience?

[00:23:47] Ed Watters: That's right. So where does connection fit into this? Uh, we are beings that need connection, but we often try to avoid connection in many ways, thanks to the advent of the computer and this hidden world that we kind of live in. So what is connection and how does connection and communication help with all of this?

[00:24:14] Vic Manzo: Oh, connections, absolutely. Uh, It's a, it's a need for humanity. I mean, here's an example. Let's just put it this way. If you're depressed, or you've been depressed, or you're in a rut, the easiest way to get out of that is go help somebody with nothing, we don't expect nothing in return. It takes you out of that immediately, neurologically speaking. That if you just knew, you know somebody who's in need and you go to reach out and you just do an act of kindness, whatever that is, you will feel, but you may not feel, maybe you're still stuck in that feeling realm, but neurologically you're firing up centers of the brain that actually gets you through that. We need connection.

[00:24:49] It's, it's, it's, there's studies, I mean, here's an example. A baby, here's a study of an infant where if a baby is born, if they don't have access to nutrition, they're going to die, right? But if you let them have skin to skin contact, even without the nutrition, they will survive way longer than those with nutrition and no love or not nutrition,

[00:25:11] sorry. They'll survive longer, those who have the skin to skin contact than those who won't. So connection is our, in the fibers of us as being humans. You know, technology has altered our world in a way, in many different ways. But I think it has more, I always, I have a saying I always, I always say is like,

[00:25:28] We are the most connected society that we have ever been probably in humanity, which I probably would argue that, but, because we connected in different ways, uh, from a spiritual standpoint. But the most connected from an internet standpoint, you know, you can instantly talking, talk to, I'm talking to you right now,

[00:25:44] I can talk to somebody in Japan right now at this moment. But at the same token, we are the most disconnected, probably we've ever been. And I think that's more true than anything. And so it, what can, we are, we are, people are, humans are, our natural essence is to gather and connect with others. That's what uplifts us. You know, there's a book called The, uh, The Blue Zones, it's a health book and it's all about studying like the highest concentrations of centenarians

[00:26:11] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:26:11] Vic Manzo: and so forth. And, um, they don't just look at one thing, they look at a multitude of their lifestyle. And I love it because I'm, my, I'm a, um, I'm Italian a hundred percent. And it's one of those things where I love how the, the, how the sardinians, I was like, Okay, cool, they're up there. I knew Italians had a long life, lifestyle. Because it's, you look at the lifestyle of the standard Italians. Um, but when you look at their life, it's not like they were doing a specific diet, um, like a keto or something like that.

[00:26:38] There, there's, there were some similarities of, like they had something that helped when, with like antioxidants and so forth. Like the sardinians had the wine that was from garnacha grapes that's now found in Spain and it's the highest antioxidant rich wine. Um, but when you, one of the things that mattered the most was, they interviewed these people up in their hundreds said, what, what motivates you, what inspires you to keep going?

[00:27:01] And he says, my family. It was having someone, you know, purpose. When I became a grandfather, that I had a purpose in my family. And I was with, what was it? It was with family. Like I used to say, I'm big in nutrition. I've been studying nutrition for twenty-two years. So I've studied everything, I've seen every diet, almost every single diet,

[00:27:18] there's new ones always coming up. But it's one of those things where, I've always, my background in energy medicine or energy healing, I always knew that you can, you can improve the energy of food just by, you know, blessing it. That's why we do prayers before that. But I had a feeling, because I always said this, growing up Italian,

[00:27:35] you know, What's the, what's an Italian diet? It's basically carbs, cigarettes, which I never smoked, but we had people who smoked in there, in my family, and then coffee. I mean, that's what they do all day long. I mean, my father, who was born in Italy, he still to this day, he'll have a cup of coffee in the morning and at night likes to have a cup of coffee.

[00:27:52] I'm like, How do you sleep? Like you're taking caffeine. I'm like, I need to do a study on you because I want to see if you actually sleep. He goes, I sleep very well. I'm like, No, you don't. I'm like, There's no way. But the point I'm trying to get to all this is that, why is it that, that, because you look at carbs in today's society and you go, Oh, yeah, carbs are not great. They're inflammation, all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. We all know cigarettes aren't great. And if you're having regular coffee, there's a whole slew of stuff you can find, the negatives of coffee. But my theory is that Italians love to come together and have dinner.

[00:28:22] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:28:22] Vic Manzo: If you've ever been around Italians, we love to eat and we love to break bread with one another and enjoy our time together and to really embrace. And there's that element of togetherness. Because I was looking back, when I was looking at my physical health at one point, like fitness health, I was like, Man, I ate worse back then. Now some say it's age and stuff like that. I was like, I was in my early twenties, no, even at my teenage years. And I was like, Yeah, but I ate garbage and I still, I was, I was in great shape.

[00:28:47] And somebody said, Well, you can't do that now. I'm like, No, no, no. You don't understand, my diet's 55, 55, it's a whole different 180. And I'm like, now all of a sudden I'm sort of sitting there and I'm like, there's got to be an energy component to this, there just has to be. Why is it that, it's the families coming together, enjoying their time together, and breaking bread.

[00:29:04] And if you look in today's society, we don't do a lot of that. Just a lot of, not even connecting with one another, we don't do that either. Like, I have a rule that I live by in my house. It's like my wife and I, and I just have a four month old daughter. I said, When she gets older, it's dinner time, no matter what. Nothing gets in the way of our dinner.

[00:29:21] You know, maybe breakfast, maybe lunch, but dinner, no, we're always going to sit down and have dinner together. And, and when I want to meet with friends, I want to break bread with them. It's a tradition I grew up in, so it's very easy for me to do that. But at the same token, it's just that, just connecting.

[00:29:36] And just, hey, I made something. I didn't go buy it, nothing against buying, I just like to cook. I'm Italian, so I love to cook. But I love to make food because I grew up seeing my mother do that. People come over, my mom will make a feast. And there's something about the energy being into that food, then we're all connecting because of the food and the love my mom put in there. And for me, from an energetic standpoint that, I may be getting off tangent here a little bit, but it's just coming back [00:30:00] around about connecting and, and those elements of how we connect. Because you got people now saying, Well, I connect, I'm on social media and I connect with these groups and those groups. And I'm like, Yeah, no, there's something about the power of being in the physical realm with somebody. Not in a, not in an internet way, but in a, in a physical aspect, one to one. There's just something about that that's a game changer compared to, that's why people spend so much money to go to a workshop rather than read someone's book.

[00:30:27] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:30:27] Vic Manzo: Who they, they literally tell you in the book what they're going to talk about that weekend, but they'll pay ten, twenty, thirty times that price. The power of being in the physical realm.

[00:30:37] Ed Watters: Yes, connection. It does do wonders. And, and I really have never really thought about how it ties to our health like that. But it's fascinating to think about such things because it does. Your mind controls your health in many ways. And what we put in is what we put out. And that goes with our health also. The doing trap, what do you mean by that?

[00:31:06] Vic Manzo: Yeah. In today's society, I mean, especially in Western civilization, we're all about do, do, do, do, do, do. In the business world, it's even worse. I mean, it's all about like, what do I do to make more money? What I do here? What's the five things to do? What does it do here? And so much more that we're so constantly doing that we don't realize it's a trap, that you're not going to yield. You may get the result you want, let's say you want to make more money. Like for me, I wanted to get, I wanted to have a successful office, have a huge impact in my community. That impact was going to resonate then in my bank account,

[00:31:34] right? So the bigger the impact I had in my community, I knew I was going to make more money and I felt like I was making, serving. What ends up happening though is when we're constantly doing we're gonna, we're gonna miss out on fulfillment because we're, for two reasons. One, we're doing something that is not in essence to where, of what we really want. Number two, the doing trap really happens because you're going against quantum world. You're going against the quantum, the laws in the universe. Because you have, everything happens from vibration. You see, if you can do all day long, let's say you want to make a million dollars. And you're going to, you hired, uh, a business coach, you hired a marketing coach, you've hired, um, um, a copywriter, you've hired someone to build your funnels.

[00:32:13] You got the whole system, everything's ready to go for you. You spent all this money on that. But you have a limiting belief that money is evil or the more money you make, more headaches you make or the more headaches you'll have. Or, you know, money only goes to money. All of, some of these limiting beliefs. If you have that in you, I don't care what you do, you're not going to get there. Now you may make more money, but your bank account's not going to grow. Your savings won't grow because you're still stuck in that way. Does that kind of make sense?

[00:32:42] Ed Watters: Yeah, that does. It really does. I'm just often wondering how many times we get in that doing trap at work, our job, because of the financial strain in our life? And I, I realized I didn't have time to slow down and take in the world and investigate what I was actually participating in. It took me a lot of time to figure out you don't need to do the rat race. You know, and all that rat race is, is to fulfill a certain, what do you say, a false, false sense of security?

[00:33:35] Because the security is really not in money at all. The security is in your mindset. And if you're in a trap that limits your beliefs or your ability in any way, that really is a bad, devastating place to be in life. And understanding slowing down and figuring out what life gives back to you if you put in, that is a treasure in itself.

[00:34:08] Vic Manzo: No, totally. And it's, it's one of those things that, you know, we, we, we end up, we create everything in our life. We are a creator and we're always constantly creating. And it's, it's those things that understanding, again, when you understand energy, here's the thing, this is not new. This is something that Nikola Tesla said.

[00:34:26] I think it was like 1900. He said, If you see the universe in this, in the terms of vibration, frequency and energy, what humanity will do in, let's say one year, they, it would take, it normally would take them ten or twenty years. It was astronomical growth. And that's the elements. This is 1900. So this is stuff, I always tell people, Things I share and teach or, is nothing new because I'm not into changing and switching names. And nothing against that,

[00:34:46] but the knowledge is already out there, you know? And it's like, um, I was reading, I love this book, it's one of my, it's a Bible to me. It's called, The Conversations with God by Dr., uh, Neale Donald Walsh. And he says in the book, you know, he's responding and God's like, I've given you so many masters, and so many different people,

[00:35:02] there's so much information I give and you guys are, humanity still seeks for this stuff, but you already have it all. Like, you know, like you have everything, there's nothing new. And I love that because in, in spiritual and ancient wisdom stuff, they say that like, there's nothing new. We've already have, we have everything we need.

[00:35:16] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:35:17] Vic Manzo: Not only just from an internal point, yes, even from a soul perspective, we already know things. Once we get out of this trap, not just a doing trap, but a trap of thinking that we have to learn something new or anything like that, because the soul, the essence of who we really are, we already know things.

[00:35:34] We come here to experience, we come here to feel. We forget who we are. That's why you don't know who you are, that's why you don't know where you came from. We forget, we don't, we don't know the other side of things because we leave, we, when we come here, that's all left behind for a purpose. And then the purpose is to come here and experience. And experience is coming from a feeling standpoint.

[00:35:56] So this is why again, feelings is energy. And so you can't, this whole doing thing is like just making robots, autopilot. Just go, go, go, go, it's a rat race in its own self. But when you come from a vibration standpoint, if your vibe is high, whatever you do, you're going to be successful. I used to say as a chiropractor, I used to have students come to my office and I would do what we call a philosophy night.

[00:36:16] And basically all it was is, for two hours, I tell them, You can ask me any question you want. I will answer. I want to hear it. That was me, my way of giving back into empowering the students, especially where I came from. Where I was in Chicago area, uh, there's a school there it just is not the greatest.

[00:36:30] And so I was like, I'll be a beacon of light as much as I can for you guys. And I used to tell them, You can adjust on the wrong side. Which technically from what we learned would actually do, not harm to the person, but it'd just make, you know, make a spot muscle, muscle spasm. The body's and brain's gonna be like, what the heck just happened?

[00:36:47] And it'll tighten up and lock up. And then once it relaxes, it'll calm. It's not gonna do anything harmful. And I said, But if your intention's right, tension is energy. And you do that. I know docs that have done that before when they first came out, they're adjusting the wrong side. I'm like, Oh man. And they make the adjustment and

[00:37:02] the patient gets up and she's like, they're like, I feel better. I feel great. Whatever you did. Holy cow. And I tell the student, How did that happen? How can someone do something which is not from what you're teaching is, from a structure, a physical standpoint, but yet they came from the right energetic standpoint and they were still able to help the person.

[00:37:22] And then they'll just look at me like, uh? And I was like, That's the power of energy and coming from that place first. That's the why, when it comes, like I was telling them, like when it comes to an adjustment, you want to make sure that your intention and your energy is solid when it comes to your business.

[00:37:37] You want to make sure you're intentional and you have an energy to be aligned, we talked about alignment with your mind and your energy and your actions. Everything in your life, your relationships, how you show up in these realms is going to dictate if you're truly achieving, experiencing what you truly desire.

[00:37:51] And when you do that, and when you follow that, that's fulfillment. That's true fulfillment. This is what the masters have taught, this is not nothing new. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha. You can look at other ones, Og Magdino. There was Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa. I can go down a whole rabbit hole with all these individuals.

[00:38:08] But when you look and study their life, which I have. There's just this beautiful essence about them. You know, Jesus was crucified for God's sakes, and yet he was like saying, He goes, Forgive them for they not know what they have done for their sins that are created. They don't

[00:38:21] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:38:21] Vic Manzo: know what they're doing, right? Buddha, he didn't, unfortunately,

[00:38:23] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:38:24] Vic Manzo: he didn't get castorized or anything like that, but he died, you know, in natural causes. But the point is that, but a lot of the wise people we've had in this world, they've got killed. But this is information that has been out there for eons. And it's, it's again, coming back to understanding the energy of where we're at first, our thoughts together. Because a lot of my teachings and what I do is not just for the individual, but I'm on a mission to help more individuals empower their lives and be more fulfilled. So that way it changes humanity's trajectory of where we're going. Because this stuff is not

[00:38:54] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:38:54] Vic Manzo: just a micro thing, it's a macro thing. And the more people start

[00:38:57] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:38:57] Vic Manzo: to shift their thoughts and shift this wave, all of a sudden, all the bad things that we see in the world, like our forests is going down, all these extinct species starting to happen, or endangered species are happening more, our oceans are, you know, getting destroyed, and you see all these horrible things happening with killings and robbery, all this stuff, hunger, that will slowly improve. Uh, maybe not slowly because if you shift this stuff energetically, it'll happen very quickly. But it's one of those things where we can shift and solutions will come. Then people will start to want to take more action and we'll start to shift that wave. So it's not just, uh, in my book, I talk a lot about this, my Decoding the Matrix, but it's one of those things at the end, it's like what we do for ourselves is actually also helping humanity do the same thing.

[00:39:37] Ed Watters: That's right. That's, that's one of my beliefs. If you do, people will see and then it will emulate. So that, that is one of those laws. And if, if you do the right thing in front of people long enough, they tend to start [00:40:00] going with that groove. So no matter how small you are, that light, that hope, that beacon will draw the interest of others because that light is the focal point. That's for sure. Tell people about your services and your business and how to get in touch with you.

[00:40:21] Vic Manzo: Yeah. So right now I do one on one coaching. We're going to be opening up to some group coaching and then next year we're going to get into masterminds. Um, but what I do is I work with individual businesses, business owners who want to, um, lead a more fulfilled life, get out of this rat race, the doing, the grind, the hustle, all those fancy terms that are used. But really more importantly, lead a fulfilled life, whatever that looks like for you. And that's something that we work through, figure out what that is

[00:40:46] and then we create an action plan to help you with that. Do we have to focus on mindset more? Do we have to focus on vision? Do we have to focus on business principles? Um, being, that's why I call myself a business and mindset coach, because I work on both elements to see what are the things that we have to, that you're, we need to focus on for you. And then help you develop that and learn how to master this thing called life.

[00:41:05] Um, because my whole mission and goal is, uh, you know, a great leader creates more leaders, a master creates more masters. I don't call myself a master, I'm just a student to life. Um, but it's one of those things where I'm on a mission to, you know, create more of that for that purpose. So that's what we do there.

[00:41:22] I do have my, my podcast and so forth. I got my books and whatnot, um, also. But the big thing, what we do is, is coaching. We have online classes. We have a class called, The Money Mindset Essentials, and it's basically a six week course that dives into, uh, the element of why we have a ceiling on money. And it's not about anything you do.

[00:41:40] And this is why, you know, talking about the being versus the doing, um, we get into things like your, the baggage you carry around with you, belief systems, limiting beliefs, stuff like that. Because when you can remove those or become aware of them and then change them, then all of a sudden that ceiling's no longer there.

[00:41:57] And then you will really thrive in your life. And that's what I did to massively grow in my business. When I started to realize, I was like, I'm growing, but I'm not growing at like this exponential rate that everyone hears about. Like the three X and a five, sorry, ten X. I'm like, I'm doing everything in the world that I could possibly think of. I'm like, What else could there be? And all of a sudden, I was like, Limiting beliefs. I started tapping into that world and all of a sudden I was like, Whoa, I got, I saw how many I had.

[00:42:21] Ed Watters: Yeah.

[00:42:21] Vic Manzo: I found a list of like ten, and I had nine of them. And I was like, Okay,

[00:42:26] Ed Watters: Wow.

[00:42:26] Vic Manzo: I got a lot of work to do on this topic. And once I started to work through them, though, here's the beautiful part. Once I started to do that, in one year, my business doubled almost just shy. And the next year, my business, uh, grew up another fifty percent in those two years. I like tripled my business and I had 5. 5 X in profits. I'm not sharing this to brag, I'm not that type of person. I'm just sharing to show what this stuff does, actually works. Because I

[00:42:47] Ed Watters: That's right.

[00:42:47] Vic Manzo: didn't do anything, I didn't do nothing different. There was no new marketing. The only thing that was different in my business is I moved from a, a professional building on the basement floor and I moved out into the front, storefront. But that didn't even, I don't even think made a huge hit because we didn't really get a lot of walk ins anyhow.

[00:43:01] So it was, it was really just the energy component to that. But these are the things I teach and work with those. So if you're in, a business owner, um, you're tired of the grind and the hustle, you don't feel fulfilled, you're burned out, you really want to, you feel like there's more or you want to get quicker results than what you're doing,

[00:43:16] reach out. I love to, uh, connect and see if you qualify to work with me. Uh, because again, I'm not into the quantity side of things. I'm more about the quality. I'm really looking to help individuals become more masters of their life and really expand and evolve.

[00:43:31] Ed Watters: Excellent. And you can be reached at?

[00:43:35] Vic Manzo: Oh, sorry. Yes. Um, my hub is, uh, everywhere you can find me is, um, in my website, poweryourreality.com. That's where you can sign up for a free call with me, uh, my podcast. I have a free book on the power of visualization. And you can also connect with me on social media, on there on the bottom left, I have all my, my socials. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and tick tock. So any questions, reach out, love to hear from people.

[00:43:57] Ed Watters: Okay. And finally, do you have a word of wisdom or a call to action for our listeners today?

[00:44:05] Vic Manzo: Word of wisdom, you are the creator of your life. The faster you accept that, and I mean, that's, another word for that is a hundred percent self responsibility. The faster you can change and transform your life, it's a tough pill to swallow because everything that happens in your life is because of where you are and you can change that. You start with your thoughts, you get into the feelings, you start to really see the vision of what it is you want to create for yourself, take action from there.

[00:44:34] Um, and you're going to be more in alignment and, and trust you, and trust, trust life. I mean, universe, life is a feedback system. It's always telling you what you're focusing on most because it's going to show up in your life of where you are. And when you can trust that process and be more aware of your thoughts, it's a game changer.

[00:44:53] Ed Watters: You're a very powerful individual with a very powerful message. Dr. Vic Manzo, thank you so much for being part of the Dead America Podcast today.

[00:45:03] Vic Manzo: Oh brother, it was my pleasure. Thank you, I had a, I had a blast on here.

[00:45:10] Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today. If you found this podcast, enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way, please share, like, subscribe and join us right back here next week for another great episode of Dead America Podcast. I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you may be.

Links

PodMatch | Victor Manzo

http://www.empoweryourreality.com/

https://www.facebook.com/drvicmanzo

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmanzo

http://tinyurl.com/drvicYT

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