EP217: Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs: Dennis Procopio's Approach to Coaching Men

Thank you, man.

All right. High level,54 year old guy from the East coast had a really rough childhood. Education saved my life, ended up going through a time in my middle years there, trying to understand who I was and get over some of the crap that had build up in me because of that rough childhood, worked it out, ended up becoming a teacher and becoming a teacher helped me to understand that I have a skillset. I took that skillset. I got together with my current wife, not current wife, but with my, uh, with my wife and who's still with me currently. So that's a good thing. Uh, and our son Bennett, who's 14 years old, he's a special needs child and we love him. We moved out from New Orleans, where we were living and where we met, to San Diego, California, where she has family. When I got to San Diego, I recognized, coming from a blue-collar Philadelphia, Pennsylvania background, I recognized that San Diego was missing a little bit of grit, and that inspired me to create Man the Hell Up Life Coaching. And I had no idea when it started that it would turn into what it is. Uh, because that was in 2013 when there's no such thing. And, uh, now in 2025, I have a business that's been rocking and rolling for the past, uh, past, uh, decade or so.

Well, I know that I'm not alone in having childhood problems. There's a lot of us go through stuff. And so. I'm not trying to be competitive here when I say I had a rough one, but I had a pretty rough one. And I didn't have a stable home at all, but school was a place where I recognized people were kind of doing things right. And I had the idea that if I could just go to school, follow the rules, use the teachers as role models, use the counselors. as role models, learn appropriateness there because I wasn't learning it at home and go to college. To me, going to college was kind of like the golden ticket where I would get out of poverty and out of sadness and all the crap that I was going through. And in a way I was right. It did work. So I guess that's what I mean by education saved me. It also opens doors when you have an education. Yeah.

It's actually so much moreover, I actually use GPT to solve the... the calculus on that. And it turns out that it's something north of 20,000. It's somewhere between 20 and 25,000.

I'm definitely not shocked by anything. I mean, I came to this being not shocked by anything because of my background, which I think helped a lot of guys gain confidence because when they would finally let the cat out of the bag. And when I say let the cat out of the bag, I mean, you know, a guy who in our 20th session tells me that he's got some sort of an addiction that he's been hiding. or a guy that tells me he has been running, you know, game on the side with some woman or something or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, I hear all sorts of stories and in every case, I'm just kind of like, yep, well, that'll happen. Let's, let's fix it. Let's get you out of it. But that having been said, even 11 years later under the brand man up life coaching. I still get that one guy who comes along and I'm like, just when I thought I'd seen everything. So it's still interesting. But yes, you're right. I'm hard to surprise at this point.

Now, I want to be careful not to talk out the side of my neck here, right? Because I can hypothesize too. And it does, there's an argument there. I'll tell you something I have observed. I will get clients who are. you know, contractors living in Florida, making multi-billion dollar houses for people with, you know, that kind of FU money. I will get, you know, a guy who has an enterprise flooring company. I'll get a guy who is an arc welding inspector getting city contracts. And these are guys who are, I got another guy who's a master plumber. And these are guys who come to me with money. Like, well, look at them, man. They're making money and running businesses. They didn't take the academic route. And when I start working with them, I find out two things. One, I find out they usually had either a rough childhood because it was, you know, some cracker trailer bullshit that they had to deal with, or they had a rough life because they were different in some way and they had to hide it in that environment. Like instead of being. intelligent, nerdy, and bookish and having that be celebrated, it would be more like, Oh, you think you're better than me? You know?

I literally, when I started interacting with you, I was like, I'm catching a hillbilly elegy vibe off my dude, Brad here, because he's all dressed up like a hillbilly, but this is a smart dude and his humility thing. I lived in the South long enough to know polite humility, but I'm dealing with somebody very bright. I've read you dude.

No, I see you. I see you. So yeah, I get a lot of guys like you who I, I'm like, if this person had taken the academic route, they'd have a PhD, no question, but they took the safe route and the familiar route. You know, I grew up, you know, I remember growing up and the people around me worked in the, in the factory, you know? Yeah. And it was just kind of an understanding that you were in Pennsylvania, that you're going to work in a factory or you're going to drive a truck or you're going to, I mean, we didn't have coal mines per se, but it was, you know, if you're, you know, Allentown steel mill or whatever, you were going to run a warehouse, learn how to drive a forklift. And so all the people that you grow up with, you know, you're stupid if you're 10 years old and don't know what a 10 millimeter, you know, socket is or whatever. There's just a different kind of growing up. And as far as the abuse or poverty or rough, you know, rough life piece goes, what I've learned in this industry that's going to really kind of be interesting, I think, for you, I've learned that, yes, there is a lot of crap that blue collar people go through that hardens us, you know. Oh, you have a cold? Well, here, here's some Hall's mentholiptus and some tissues. Go to school, you know. Oh, it's cold outside. All right. We'll put on some layers, you know? Oh, the water's getting into your cheap shoes because you can't afford boots. We'll put some bread bags around your socks and man up and get out there and do your job. What I learned recently, well, recently within the past 10 years, what I learned is that I get people who came from affluent environments, the ones I was always, looking at like them, anybody with a name like Channing or, you know, these, these, I don't want to call it out, but just these people who really come from money. I've been surprised to discover how they have their own version of what. certain low-born people went through that's just as hard for them. So I'm this guy who now coaches rich kids. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I never thought this would happen. But that's real. They have their challenges too.

I've literally said to people who feel guilty because they find out my story and then they feel embarrassed complaining. I've literally said, hey, just because, you know, your buddy's a Iraq veteran double, you know, amputee doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell when you stub your toe. Right. You know, so if you're going to go comparing this guy's got his, got his legs blow off. I don't have a right to acknowledge the pain when I break a toe. Well, no, you do. And here's why it matters. It matters because if, well, I've always recognized in my business that when the way guys value ourselves in society, kind of like girls saying I'm pretty or whatever, you know, what, what is it that, that men, use as a standard for measuring their value. It's performance,100%, which is why guys hate the idea of a participation trophy, because they want the trophy to mean I worked really hard for this and it's proof of my competency. It doesn't just say I'm good. It says I'm great. I didn't just get bronze. I got gold. blood, sweat, and tears to get it. And what this means for me is I get a reward that says you're socially recognized as exceptional, right? So stay with me on this now because it's a little bit of a longer thought. So what happens is guys end up constantly measuring themselves against others and looking for validation for their efforts. And when they fail, because you have to fail lots of times before you start winning, when they fail and they are getting opposite of, hey, you're great, it makes them insecure. It makes them angry. And they'll either take that anger and send it and become like an explosive raging person, which has its consequences, or they'll bottle it up. And when they bottle it up, guys with nice guy syndrome, I'd put you in the second category.

Yeah, I know. I could, I could tell. And when you, I've been doing this for a while. And when you bottle it up, it's kind of like a ground fault because you've, you know, you've swallowed this enormous amount of energy. So you, you short out and that leads to lethargy and depression and lack of motivation. And so then if you've got this voice in your head saying, man up and do your job, man up and do your job, you have to dig deep to create the energy to do things that should be seemingly pretty simple. And then realizing that you're working harder than everybody else is just to make, you know, just to, just to do normal stuff gives you a lack of confidence. You start saying what's wrong with me. And then that lack of confidence. leads to a fear of taking risks because you, you know, if you've got a big pimple on your nose, you're not going up to the girl and being like, Hey, what's up? So, so lack of confidence leads to risk take of risk avoidance. And then that's how guys end up getting stuck. You see, so I'm gonna flip the script for a second here and say, so what they end up doing is they end up finding themselves using anything that gives them a dopamine hit. to try to survive and to stay alive. And that can be alcohol. That can be, you know, weed and weed products that can be, uh, gaming sports bets, or just, you know, anything that can become an addiction, uh, food, uh, anything. And so in coaching, what we do is we recognize. that men need to get down off the cross and stop judging themselves so harshly and understand that, you know, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. Like you are, you are perfect as you are. And so you need to give yourself praise and validation rather than seeking it from other people. And so validation and constantly reminding yourself. you're awesome, you're awesome, you're good, or whatever, giving praise daily to the part of you that is, not to sound wacky here, but that is divine because we're all, you know, God's children.

That's what I'm saying. So for us to be frustrated by our shortcomings and to therefore criticize God's child. which is who you are, is inappropriate. And so we learn to love ourselves and father our inner child through praise, through validation, and to also stay disciplined and to work hard, but for a different reason. I'm working hard because this is interesting for me and I'm going to turn it into a meditation and I'm going to grind it out and embrace that grind as a way of confronting not only my humility, but my own ability that I was doubting. So I have faith in my ability. And then when guys start to do that, then they see growth outside of these self-limiting narratives that they may have, whether they come from rich or poor.

It's funny that you say this. I have a client who's a state trooper and he's riffing with his wife. She's a lot. she is, if there's high maintenance, she's like platinum maintenance, you know? And so I'm talking to him and he's saying, what do I do when she says this? And it's always the same with guys. He's trying to solve the problem and use his engineering brain. And she's looking for connection and intimacy and empathy. And he doesn't really know what that is, but he knows that if you keep saying the same thing over and over for an hour, there's something fundamentally broken here by mail standards. So I'm talking to this guy, this state trooper, and I said, you just have to let her talk and you can't let her push your buttons. It's just like when you go on a call, you know. You're a man in uniform. You're basically a robot. And your job is to listen without prejudice. And if they yammer on, you just let them. And he's like, why is it so obvious when it's like, what is this? Why can I do that with, like you said, like on a call? But it's so hard to do when I'm talking to her. The answer is, of course, he's an example of someone who is looking at. his partner for validation, right? And so it becomes critical for him. It becomes high stakes. Anything that you personally are trying to do or want to do that requires not only diligence, not only grinding, but it requires faith in your own abilities, that doubt is going to kick in big time because you don't believe in your abilities until after. you've gotten the reward, but you have a narrative that says that other people have natural abilities that you don't have. And that's a fiction. And that's what a lot of guys in this coaching environment come to find out. They find out that every client I have is dealing with the same closet and insecurities that they do. And unlike women, we don't talk about it. We bullshit and we brag. And we say piece of cake. Hey, just a

A hundred percent. I've noticed with people who are in long-term relationships, after a while, they get to a point where they have to accept that. their wife or spouse or partner or whatever is operating probably differently than they are. And they have to recognize that there's validity to the way that they operate. And there's validity to the way that you operate. And a lot of the criticism that you're going to hear from your partner is going to come from the ways in which you are different. in the way you process information. So an example is a classic example is a woman saying to a guy, you never, I always do this. You never do that.

Classic. I always put the dishes away. You never help with that. And then the guy's going to come in and say, what are you talking about? I literally put the dishes away three nights this week. Yeah. And now she's. going to react to that and she's going to ramp up. She's going to have some sort of a reaction because you've just committed a communication foul by her standards, because what she wants is she, she's not, she's saying how she feels. She's saying, I feel what she's basically saying is I feel like I do all the work.

I don't feel appreciated. Yeah. I feel like I do all the work. I feel like everybody takes me for granted. So on this one particular instance, when you didn't put the dishes away, she catastrophized and said, you know, because her feelings were overwhelming. And what you're supposed to do in that situation as a guy is you're supposed to say, I hear you. Like you're supposed to stop what you're doing. All right. Do you want to talk? No. Do you want to talk? No. Do you want to talk? Well, I mean, you know, and then, and then you're in for it. But she does need to talk and she just needs you to listen to her without judgment. And as a husband, you learn that this is what you're supposed to do. The problem is men don't want to just sit around and go, you know, and I'm cranky and my back hurts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Men just want to figure out a solution for being optimal performers. And lock in on that and do that. And then, Hey, everything's fine. I'm a machine, but you're not a machine. And if I get a guy in a session for long enough, I'm in a group now, for instance, a bunch of autism dads, cause my son's autistic, a bunch of autism dads on a private group on Facebook. They all, I mean, no disrespect to these gentlemen, but they all sound like a women's group in a way because they're all complaining to each other. about all the challenges that they have raising their kid. And I, I mean, God bless them. I mean, I, I'm not, you know, but it's proof that men kind of do need to talk as well, but we've been socially conditioned that that's not, that's not appropriate.

100%.

It's funny that you say that I have a bunch of guys in the military. One guy is no foreign in the Navy. Another guy is no longer active service, but he's, you know, once a Marine, always a Marine. And these guys got another guy in the Navy, you know, a lot of military guys. And one guy that I'm working with now, perfect example. He out here in San Diego, you know, we've got. some stuff out here. And, um, this one guy is trying to decide if he wants to, you know, make it a career or go out into civilian land. And he decides he wants to try and he wants to get out into civilian workforce. And so after working with him while he's in the Navy, um, he goes and gets himself a job as a QA for, or QC or whatever the heck it is for a software company specifically that is used for construction. It's sort of a virtual construction software where you can, you know, visualize moving trucks around or something. You can sort of set up the job. And it's run by a military guy. And he says, this is perfect. It's truck, it's computers, it's a military guy. What could go wrong? And this dude in his first two months of work in there is like, holy crap, man. He's like, there's so much backbiting and politicking and like, this is nothing like the military. I really don't know what to do. Like I'm, I'm super confused. I'm being a straight shooter and just coming in and doing my job and

Right. So it is what it is, you know? Yeah.

Like, yeah,

I was a hurricane Katrina victim. I was living in new Orleans during that time. Oh, wow. 2005. And, uh, after we all got through that, there was no, all the jobs were cleaning up the town. So, um, I got on with a crew demoing houses and there was this dude, Rob, who's chick, his. She wasn't his wife, but she was kind of like his, you know, wife, but his girlfriend, they both came to work here and it was like, obviously a very male environment, but he brought her along because she could hustle and she was solid and she was, she was there to get down and they were thinking it would just double their income if she was on board. But dude, the entire time she was there, she kept talking about how she was a chef. She would not shut up about, well, I'm a chef. And so. As a chef, she said chef probably 3,000 times a day. And we're like, all right, cool story. Can you just take this pry bar and get the nails out of that wall? Like all she did is talked about being a chef. And I think that people will hold on to something that they've done and that they succeeded at as an identity claim because they don't know what to do with. a brand new slate. It happened to me. I went to college for fine art. That's a story in and of itself. I drew my whole childhood. It was a self-regulation mechanism for me because I was under a lot of stress. My drawings got good. Everybody started going, damn, that dude can draw.

I have to commit. It's like, all right, I'm seven foot tall. I guess I'm going to play basketball, you know? So, so I drew and the next thing you know, everyone's like, Oh, he can draw, he can draw. And so I leveraged my drawing ability to get a, uh, four year, uh, art scholarship at a school called Cooper union in Manhattan. That is a kind of a big deal. And once I got into that, everybody was like, oh my gosh, this guy got into Cooper Union. It was like getting into Harvard or Yale. It was a thing. So it wasn't until I started Man Up Life Coaching that I finally let go of this sort of identity as I'm an artist, I'm an artist. Because I was using I'm an artist to justify all of the choices I made in my life. And when I finally put it away and I said, I was an artist and I'm still creative, but as of right now, I'm a coach for men. That was so liberating. And I've probably been more creative in building my business than I was when I was sitting there chained to an easel, trying to come up with stuff to, you know, impress people. So I guess the point of that is when you are attached to an identity that can be limiting and it's good to be able to trust yourself. to do new things without having to hold on to your past accolades, right?

I hear you. So as a person who used to teach, I'll give you a anecdote from my, you know, my history. When I got out of college, I started teaching art. I was lucky enough to teach art at private schools. The reason I say I was lucky enough to teach art at private schools is because private schools are less regulated in ways. And they're open to things that you might bring without having to feel like they have to sort of standardize everything. And so I was in a position pretty early on where I was teaching teenagers and then adults after that. And in that environment, I had always, you know, I went to a school where that was what they said. Oh, if you become an art teacher, basically you failed. Those who can't, you know, those who can't. teach. Those who can't do teach.

Right. Right. And when I started teaching, one of the things that became immediately obvious to me is that the people who I was trying to teach art to, I would teach them technique and some people would absorb it and apply it, but other people would not. And the people who did it. believed in process and demonstrated a certain amount of confidence, both in themselves as students and in education as a delivery system for new information. The ones who couldn't were victims of self-limiting narratives. They were literally getting in the way of their own growth. And so that's when I started recognizing that I'm really a coach because my job would be to sort of read them and figure them out. and discover where the block was. Like I had one guy, for instance, who his, you know, art teacher in fourth grade, you know, told him that his drawing sucked and not to quit his day job or something like just really. And he went, got the message and put it all away. And that was the last time he ever drew. I mention it because one of the things that I was recognized for as an art teacher was one, when somebody would say, how do you do this? I would demonstrate and they're like, dang, you draw really well. I'm like, well, thank you. You know, uh, I would hope that I do if I'm going to teach it. Right. But then two. I didn't grab their hand and say, here, you're doing it wrong. I motivated them through validation to make the kind of discoveries that a student needs to make so that they understand what they're doing rather than just parrot what I'm doing. And when people would use their creative abilities to rediscover what I'm doing, that would lead to revelations. And in coaching, I basically do the same thing. Guys want to be successful. And I say, well, if you're going to be successful, you need to create success for yourself. So are you creative? And when they're like, uh, then that's where we jump off. Yeah.

Right. Guilt, shame, regret. I'm going to tell you that in my earlier life, I made some really poor decisions, poor decisions that landed me in jail, poor decisions that permanently ruined relationships. And if I sit around and dwell on those things, then I just lie there in a puddle of swill and I don't progress. A good coach once said, if you make a mistake, you only have to do three things, right? is admit it. Two is learn from it. And three is don't repeat it. So I suggest to most guys, if you have feelings of shame, of guilt, of regret, well, that's exactly what that is. It's a feeling. And earlier in this conversation, we talked about how women always, you know, want to lead in problem solving with discussing their feelings. Well, the reason is because they want someone to help them to rationalize them so that they can move past it. Well, when you hear guys talking about their inner bitch, quote unquote, that's just a hostile way of saying there's some feminine part of me, I think, that is needing to address my feelings before I can move forward. And there's nothing wrong with that. We don't teach that as much as we should. If you have feelings, sit with them. Yes, this sucks. Don't try to quarantine it. Don't try to stuff it down. Face it. You feel stupid. Okay, that's a feeling. It doesn't mean you are stupid, but you feel stupid. You feel like you screwed up. Well, you kind of did, bro. You screwed the pooch. Own it. You did a dumb thing and now you have consequences. Feel the shame. Feel the guilt. Feel the embarrassment. Feel the hostility and having made a poor choice. Feel it. sit with it like a record that you play until it, until it doesn't make you sad anymore. You just run it. But at a certain point you have to say, all right, been there, done that. I sat with my feelings and now I need to brush my shoulders off. I need to put that in the past. And as of right now, I need to validate myself and say, not only you can, but you will, because I have an expression and the expression is that won't becomes can't and will. becomes can. So if you say that you won't do something, well, guess what? You're going to train yourself that you can't do it. It's a guaranteed way to limit yourself from doing anything new. Feel the feelings, acknowledge it, and then put it in your past. Start validating yourself and say, you will, not you can, you will create a plan for how to do it. And if you can't, BT or somebody can help you with that or get a coach, come up with a plan, put that plan on your calendar and tap into that grit that we all have. Put one foot in front of the other and do the thing. If somewhere along the way, those feelings start creeping back, you have two things. One, you can meditate and meditate just means sit still, sit still, be still. You don't have to wear yoga pants or do anything weird. Just sit still and shut up for about 30 minutes to an hour a day. Just do it. Go fishing or something. Two, validate, give praise. If you're Christian or Muslim or Jewish or whatever, all religions understand the value of prayer, giving praise. But if you're... not in that headspace, then let's simplify it. You're good, you're kind, you're gentle, you're patient, you're peaceful, you're humble, you're loving, you're blessed, you're healthy, you're wealthy, you're strong. Make that your mantra, which means say it over and over. And if you do that, the discipline together with the redirecting your narrative, it will absolutely take you out of that off the bottom of the squat, so to speak. and get you where you need to go. That's good

Yes, it means the same thing as if I quit. you know, drinking coffee and late night snacking and I get, you know, really far down the line and then whoops, I did it again. And now I go backwards. That just means you had a sort of a slip up. You had a relapse because technically a lot of people think of things as addictions that aren't true addictions. I'll give an example. I hear people talking about a food addiction, bro. You don't have a food addiction. You literally need food. Like what you have is a compulsion to eat certain kinds of comfort food that makes you feel good. I can prove it's not an addiction by being your coach and holding you accountable week over week and telling you you're doing this for a team now, not just for you. Don't do it or you're, you know, you're going to be in trouble. But, or I know, I believe in you, you can do it either way. So when a person has, an accountability coach or sponsor, which is why sponsors are big in AA. Like me, for instance, I've been sober for 18 years now. Congratulations. Thank you. I know who I was up for. I was, I could give classes on being a drunk. I was real good at it. Um, but it started with the first day of saying, I'm not going to drink. And then the second day and then the third day and somewhere along the way, I just kept it up. Now, because the stakes were high. Now, on the other hand, I've had challenges my whole life with compulsion, with things like I said, like food and coffee. I was talking about my own jams. And so when I fall off, I don't go see I'm bad or anything. I just go, and then I just brush my shoulders off, fall down seven times, get up eight. I just brush my shoulders off and I say, I'm going to do it again. And the thing that you need to do is don't make a, don't give it any meaning. Don't say this happened because.

Don't say any of that stuff. Say it happened, I own it, and then new volley, one, two, three.

And if that's frustrating or that's depressing, okay, well, welcome to life. Life's hard.

My business is called man up life coaching, man up life coaching. So they can visit me at either man up life coaching. com or they can take a shortcut and visit me at mail life coach. com. Cause I've been around that long. Uh, as far as why they would, why they would want to talk to me or one of my coaches, because they are somebody who, is feeling either stuck at a plateau somewhere in their life, anywhere ranging from relationship issues to sort of what I'm going to do next, career, pretty much parenting, anywhere you're stuck in your life. If you feel like a coach could possibly help you to get unstuck and break the pattern of try and fail, try and fail. That's why you would. come to me and it's not cheap, but then again, neurosurgery isn't cheap either. And you don't want a cheap neurosurgeon. Um, so they can visit me at manuplifecoaching. com. They can set up a client, a strategy session. And if we click, we can rock and roll.

This is going to sound really kind of weird. Okay. But because I'm, because I am the father of a child with autism or who is autistic, I really liked the book by Dr. Ross Green, The Explosive Child. The reason that I like this book is because it not only teaches you how to deal with children who have extreme. explosive behaviors. I think that in many ways, it's insightful for dealing with your own explosive inner child. Since the book reiterates, any child will do well if he can. And children want to do well. A child will do well if he can. And it's a reminder that if he's not doing well, he may just not have the tools. And you can... help him using certain methodologies. A second one before I go is if you're in a relationship, the old classic men are from Mars, women are from Venus is still a really good one for resolving some of the differences in your relationship. So those are two that have made their way to the top of my book list.

Totally. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. I've enjoyed meeting you and frankly, you seem like a guide. uh, love to work with. So if, uh, if you ever decide to do some life coaching, hit me up.