The Fearless Man – Elite Success Coaches

Even after two strokes as a toddler left Mike with a limp and a weak left side, he was a very confident, social, and charming young boy. His mom even tells the story of Mike, at 5 years old, flirting with a random 20-something he was sitting next to in an airport and going for it by caressing her leg!

But as Mike went through school, that confidence faltered. He became more insecure about his disability, and with a father who loved him dearly but struggled with mental illness, his childhood lacked a strong masculine role model. Mike took everything extremely personally, lacked healthy boundaries, and became toxically desperate for people to like him. Mike also became a victim to his disability, losing faith that he could rise above his challenges, especially disempowering himself by exploiting disability accommodations at school far beyond what he really needed to succeed.

None of these behaviors lent themselves to a social life he felt great about, much less attention from women. Constantly being overlooked by women ate at him throughout high school and college. In and out of talk therapy for years and on and off antidepressants, psychologists and psychiatrists were a shoulder to lean on, but their continual assurances that “It’ll get better,” when it was only getting more painful did little to help Mike change his life.

With almost no dating life through college, for years Mike felt like he was “just missing that part of the brain,” when it came to women, and that a lot of people were just mean to him for no reason when he was “such a nice guy.” But really, much of Mike’s “niceness” came from a place of subconsciously giving to get and manipulation. He was too scared of rejection and rocking the boat, and, deep down, felt too unworthy. So he failed to be real with women or maintain boundaries with people and develop a strong sense of self. Classic “Nice Guy Syndrome.”

“You’re such a nice guy! You’ll find someone,” and “I like you, but as a friend” was the story of his life. Mike found himself in some dark places, not sure if he’d ever see a light at the end of the tunnel.

After little success practicing “pickup artist” techniques he stumbled upon, Mike found a more authentic men’s personal development company and took a weeklong bootcamp. These coaches helped him start to buy into more empowering beliefs about himself and his disability and helped him start having more fun socially.

Mike began to have some semblance of a dating life and felt happier than he’d been in a long time. But he still felt like he was grasping at straws and “getting lucky” when things worked out with women. And though his new beliefs were a great start, when they were tested at all, they were shaky and skin-deep.

Mike had met future FEARLESS executive director Dave Stultz through the personal development community, and long before they’d even met in person, Dave spent a lot of time with him on the phone talking women, career, and life, and challenging Mike to strengthen his belief in himself. On the East Coast at the time, when Dave met his future business partner, Brian, he knew Mike needed Brian’s guidance and connected the two of them.

The rest is history. Brian – and Dave, once the two started working together to build FEARLESS – dove deep with Mike and helped him take the positive beliefs about his disability, himself in general, and women that he WANTED to believe from nice ideas in his head to deeper beliefs in his bones.

FEARLESS helped Mike start worlds more bold, direct, and authentic with women and everyone around him. The natural, devilish charm and charisma his Mom had seen glimpses of when he was little started to shine through again…and then some. All of a sudden, sparking chemistry and flirting with women often became as instantaneous and simple as how he looked into their eyes.

Mike became much more empowered around his disability, owning it, playing bigger throughout life and his interactions with people, and relinquishing much of his victim identity and lack of self-worth that had kept his life and charisma stuck. He enjoys a dating and sex life that’s adventurous beyond what prior versions of Mike could even imagine. Connecting with women is just much simpler for Mike now and the more boldly and authentically he shows up with women, the more they fall for him. After decades of avoiding anything scary uncomfortable, Mike has now been skydiving six times. His goal is to develop his left side enough to skydive solo and maybe even fly wingsuits someday. Mike now makes it a habit to step out of his comfort zone throughout life.

Mike had never stepped into a gym to workout before FEARLESS. Now, he’s become a regular gym rat, building more muscle and strength on both sides of his body than he’d thought possible. Strangers sometimes approach him on the street because they’ve seen him at the gym and been inspired by his work ethic, consistency, and how he overcomes adversity.

As the first team member Brian and Dave brought on when they started FEARLESS, Mike wears a lot of hats for the company. In addition to coaching, he serves as the content editor-in-chief and a writer, among other roles.

Mike loves to be in warm places with good food and vibrant social scenes, and you can count on him to know where the best pool parties are. He also lives to laugh at standup comedy clubs and enjoys doing sports play-by-play broadcasting on the side.