Living a Disciplined Life

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Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Welcome back to another episode of The Man Up Show. I have a question for you.

How do you transition from being a successful family man to a successful businessman, and now a successful author? Well, with me today, a good friend, longtime friend, Richard Bischoff. Welcome to The Man Up Show. Thank you, Nikita.

It's an honor to be here. Well, it's great to have you with us, Richard, and, you know, as part of that introduction, you know, I think back to, I was trying to remember how long we've really known each other. I don't know, 10, 15 plus years? Any idea?

Rough estimate? Yeah, I mean, I would say, I believe I met you in 2010 or 11 at a convention, so probably right around that 12-year mark. Okay, and of course that was through, we were collectively working together with a nutrition company back in those days, and with a thriving entrepreneurial spirit, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Now, you come to us, you're down in the, you're in the Carolinas, of course, and and down in the Myrtle Beach area, is that where you're still residing? Yep, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that's correct. Myrtle Beach, quite an attraction down there. I've been many, many times, of course, I know a lot of people flood Myrtle Beach up and down the East Coast as a kind of a vacation hotspot, right? Yeah, it's one of the more affordable tourist vacations along the East Coast, so we typically have, you know, millions of people pour in here at any given week in the summertime, stays busy. And you're a native of Myrtle Beach, or have you always been there, or transitioned to it there?

Almost, almost. My family moved down here, my mom and dad moved down here when I was three. I turned 40 last year, so for 37 years I've lived here, so this is definitely home to me. All right, so you can qualify as a native Carolinian then, so.

I'll take it. Now, you know, I mentioned, you know, successful family man, businessman, let's talk a minute first about your family and just kind of lay that foundation. So you mentioned your family moving there, but you have some children of your own, correct? I have three kids right now, my oldest is 12, second oldest is 10, both boys, William and Henry, and then my youngest is my daughter Kennedy, who is nine years old. So which has been easier to raise, Richard, girls or boys? I'll be honest, I feel truly blessed because they have all been easy, but I will say that the boys, if there's a scale I have to say, they would be slightly easier, the boys. Chris, you may or may not know, I raised four girls.

I do, I remember. Yeah, and I was talking to someone, I was talking to a pastor friend earlier, he's up in Maine, he's got one daughter, him and his wife have one daughter, she's getting ready to turn 15, he was like, man, we're not sure what daughter we're getting when she walks down the stairs every morning, and some days my wife, you know, wants to choke her out, you know, hit her with the Russian sickle or something, you know, and so it's funny because I, you know, and I think back on, you know, raising four girls myself, I'm like, I joke and say, yeah, you know, I swam in the estrogen ocean forever, right, for years and years and years, but lived to talk about it, here I am, all these years later I survived, and then, God's sense of humor, Richard, the very first grandchild was a girl, and I was like, Lord, like for real, like seriously, are we ever gonna be getting boys in the mix here, and now it's about almost 50-50, we got 11 grandchildren and counting, believe it or not. Wow. Yeah, so you're a ways away from that, with your oldest only being 12, so the boys are slightly easier to raise than your daughter, but I know you love them all equally, right? Oh yeah, I mean, that's what's so amazing about it, is that you have three different kids raised by the same parents, and they all have their own different personalities, and it's just amazing how, you know, they talk about nature versus nurture, and once you're a parent and you realize that you're giving them the same nurturing aspect of all of them, but their natures can be a little bit different in personality wise, but yeah, they definitely love them all equally, they all have their special quirks, but also their special abilities that are pretty awesome. You know, that's, I need to make a note of that one, I like that, Richard, nature versus nurture, nature versus nurture, and it is interesting, isn't it, how numerous, potentially numerous kids can grow up in the same household, and because, you know, again, just to God's credit, how he's made each and every one of us unique, right, and we all have our own giftings and skills and talents and abilities, and certainly being a parent, you see that firsthand in raising them as their, as I say, as their little personalities develop, right?

Right, absolutely. And so, well that's, that's, that's, that's pretty amazing, pretty amazing perspective, and I think that's going to help, I think that'll help some of our listeners out there, Richard, nature versus nurture, and nurture them all equally, if I, I want to repeat what you said for our listeners, nurture them all equally, but at the same time acknowledge that each of them has their own unique nature, and, and then you, you speak into that, right? Do you, do you sow into that and speak into that? Well, I think that's the thing that most parents don't do out of lack of knowledge or, you know, we don't get taught how to be a parent, you know, there's tons of books out there, but when you have to go to DMV to pass a test to get a driver's license, but there's no test before you become a parent, so most people are just winging it, and the parents that I see succeed the most, they look at the nature of their kids, and then they nurture them accordingly, and, you know, if you have, one of my prayers is that, God, help me bring out, you know, the best in each of my kids' natural talents and abilities, I have one son that's more geared towards engineering, he can give them anything legos or anything that you can put together, a puzzle, man, he is just amazing at it, and my other son, he gets frustrated at that stuff, he's more of a book nerd, so to speak, so you really have to see what are their love language, what are their natural gifts and talents, and really, you know, feed into that and love them the way they need to be loved, because a lot of times if you don't, you might be loving them one way, but they're not feeling that love be expressed in that way. Well, and that brings up a good illustrative point, I think back to the days of when I did some homeschooling of my girls over the years, kind of on and off a little bit, and I went to some homeschooling seminars, and I remember them emphasizing, you know, as your children develop, look at what their strengths and their weaknesses are, and encourage them, when you determine what their strengths are, encourage them in those strengths, and don't overemphasize their weaknesses, right, and, you know, you said your one son, you know, likes book reading, well, you know, you might have a child that's not the best reader on the planet or is a, you know, a slow learner when it comes to reading, but don't freak out and don't panic, you know, if he or she hasn't, you know, developed that knack for reading, you know, at a certain age level that everyone expects them to, well, they should be reading at this level by now or whatever, right?

Yep. And so, you know, I really took that to heart, so when I looked at all the different giftings that my children had, I tried to, you know, really nurture, I like that word, nurture those those strengths. I'm reminded of a story, perhaps you've heard it before, it goes way back to, actually I think it has to do with my former motherland, the Soviet Union, maybe not, no, actually I think it was a different foreign country, but they were, it was, and I want to say it was ping-pong, and the illustration was that their players were like the best in the world, right, the best on the planet, why were they so good, and in interviewing the coach he said, well, you coaches in America, you look at a person's weakness and you try to help them improve in that area, we look at our athletes strengths and we press them and accelerate their strengths so that they get so good at what their strengths are that they then overcome their weaknesses and even the weaknesses of their opponents, and I was like, I like it, wow, that's pretty good insight right there. So anyway, when it comes to parenting, well, you know, I know, you know, I'm following on social media, I know you're, you know, you're an amazing dad, love on your children, I mentioned at the onset too, you know, the business world as a businessman, you've been in a variety of different businesses over the years, of course, we met through that nutritional company, but what are some, what are some of the other business accolades that you've been involved in and share, you know, maybe a nugget or two of what's led to your success out there in the business world? Yeah, I mean, my first entry into quote-unquote business world, you know, you don't even realize it's a business, it's just being self-employed, you know, just that whole, you know, not having a job or a boss and that happened early on when I was still in college and I got certified as a personal trainer at 19 and I wasn't just working at a gym who was paying me to train their clients, I went to a gym, rented the gym space from them per se, just saying, hey, I'll pay you $500 a month to let me train my clients through here and I'll give you, and I'll make sure my clients get a gym membership so you'll make money off of me and money off of my clients and I did that for like 10 years and so not that it was necessarily a business where I had employees and a ton of overhead, but it was, if you look at Robert Kiyosaki's, you know, four quadrants, employee, self-employed, you know, which is on the left-hand side and then business owner and investor on the right-hand side, I moved from employee to self-employed and so that was my first parlay into that and then getting involved in that network marketing company, which kind of happened by accident because, you know, wasn't, I had a fear of sales, even though our whole lives, we're always selling ourselves, right? We're selling ourselves for anything we want from our parents, from trying to get someone to go on a date with us or whatever we're doing, we're typically selling it, but the concept of sales scared me because of the fear of rejection. I didn't like that. So the idea of selling and someone telling me no, I had no interest in it, but I got into the network marketing company because I fell in love with the product and that began a whole different level of personal development, you know, learning about sales, but also learning about leadership, learning about influence and learning about recruiting and training and so I got into that, doing that for about seven, eight years and that really taught me a lot and then when that ended, I got into the mortgage business and I started at the bottom.

When I say the bottom, the bottom. I started out at ten dollars an hour as an assistant and within a month, passed my mortgage exam, got a raise to sixteen dollars an hour, which is about thirty six thousand a year. I had three kids at a time. We all know that's not really enough to provide a lifestyle, so I did that for one year though to learn and study and after one year, I went and became a loan officer, which is a hundred percent commission, so I had to quickly make money and fortunately because of the relationships I had, I was able to make six figures my first year. I did that for one more year because you have to have your mortgage license for three years in South Carolina before you can become a branch manager and actually build a business or a team. So after that third year of having my license, I partnered up with a local guy here who owned a real estate company and a new mortgage company out of Ohio and we brought a mortgage company to Myrtle Beach and timing wise with the real estate market, we were the fastest growing company to ever hit a hundred million in sales closed loans in this area. So I recruited and trained and built out a team of 20 people. I think at our height, maybe we were 22 people and producing a hundred and thirteen million a year in closed loans.

So that's where I'm currently at now, still in the mortgage business, still have a mortgage team and doing that and you know doing some other stuff on the side, but that's kind of my background in sales slash business. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Nikita Kolof here and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

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Go to www.kolof.net and donate today. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Okay, so let me back up for just a moment for those out there in listening land and, you know, maybe there, you mentioned a book that I am familiar with, Robert Kiyosaki, The Cash Flow Quadrant, which breaks down the, as you mentioned, four different quadrants, because some might not have caught that, the employed, the self-employed, the business quadrant or business, what I just call the business mindset, and then an investor, investment investor slash mindset, and how some, and we need people in all four categories, right? So we need employees, we need people who are gifted or skilled to be employees, who don't mind working for someone else, following orders, you know, and that sort of thing. And then there are some who are willing to make the jump from one quadrant to the other and say, you know what, you know, the example I might use is, is an electrician and, you know, he's an apprentice working for someone else. And once he gains enough experience, he may say at some point, you know what, I think I'm ready to go start my own business, my own electrician, you know, my own electric company, right?

Electrician business, right? And so he makes that jump. And then ultimately, if he's successful in making that move, he may even, you know, at some point down the road, franchise outright and, or hire someone really to run the business. Maybe he starts a second or third, opens a second or third office and on it goes. I'm going to just kind of pause right there. And so you have illustrated how, and I can relate to it as well, you know, back, I like to say I was an entrepreneur from a young age, you know, like sixth grade when I got a paper route and then hired, so eventually hired someone to deliver my papers while I went and played football, right.

And hired them, true story and hired them to collect, collect the paper money and then paid them a percentage when they collected it and for delivering the papers. And then I, I, you know, kept the, kept the balance of it, all that to say, so going back to your younger, what inspired you to, you know, you mentioned that, you know, in, in college, becoming a personal trainer, but what inspired you really to, to work for yourself? Would you say, you know, to, to, to go that path as opposed to just going to a gym and saying, Hey, hire me to be your personal trainer.

Yeah. I mean, quite honestly, I, I, I, I gotta be careful when I say this because I, I was going to say my laziness caused me to do that, but if, and if I say that around anybody, they say you're anything but lazy, but I guess I would say that, yeah, keep going, but what I mean when I say that is I don't want to do more work than I need to, if I can do less work and produce the same or more results, that's what I want to do. When I read the four hour workweek by Tim Ferriss, it really just opened my eyes to like how we do things where we're programmed a certain way to do things to go to work for eight hours a day for a set amount of pay. And then I realized I can do it differently. So if, when I looked at personal training, how I even got into it was my dad hired a personal trainer for himself and he wanted me to come with him to the gym. So I came and I saw him write a check to that personal trainer and it was for $700 for 10 sessions. And I did the math at $70 a session, which lasted an hour. And I was like, wait a second, I'm going to college to get a job that might pay me $20 to $30 an hour. And this guy is making $70 an hour.

So that's why a light bulb went off. You did the quick math right there, right? Yeah, I did the real quick math. And so for me, it was more or less, I've always liked time freedom. I've always valued time freedom over financial freedom. Now the goal is that both, but if I had to choose one, I'm choosing time freedom. You can't, you can't, you only have so much time. And so for me, it's how can I make the most amount of money given a certain amount of time.

And for me, personal training up until the point where I, you know, was looking to get married and have kids and all that stuff as a single guy, being able to make, you know, 40, 50, $60 an hour, and maybe only work five hours a day, you know, in the morning, mostly, and have the rest of my day free, just seemed like an amazing idea, which it was. Okay. Well, and, and, and so, you know, and again, not everyone's cut out to, to be an entrepreneur or work for themselves. Right. And, and we get that, understand that, appreciate that.

And, and we need that. Um, and then there's others like yourself, like myself, who, who, who see a broader picture and, and say, Hey, I think I'm going to go down this path. You know, you mentioned network marketing and of course, a lot of, you know, a lot of people have different perspectives on, on that whole industry, you know, I'm a big proponent of it, uh, introduced to it after I left pro wrestling in 1993 from, by a friend of mine and, and became a student of it, you know, studied it. And, and, and I like to say this more than any product that a company offers, you mentioned some key words in, in, in your involvement in it, and that is personal development, personal development. And, and that's the biggest takeaway for me that I would say to somebody out there in listening land, if they've never been involved in that industry.

It is certainly, you can get excited about the product. You said you fell in love with the product, uh, but more than anything, it's, it's the relationships you build. I mean, here we are, you and I all these years later, you know, friends because of that industry. Um, and I can rattle off a whole number of friends, mutual friends that you and I have David Graham and Jeff James. And, and, you know, many others, Billy McSwain, the list goes on, right?

JD Phillips. So, but all that said, you know, it's the personal growth and the personal development that you can gain from being a part of that industry in, you know, the books you're introduced to the people that you meet, right. And, and, and all of that has led to you, you know, in the mortgage industry and your success there.

I'm sure you attribute a lot of the success there to what you learn through, through that industry. Um, and that leads me though, in, into what I mentioned at the top of the top of the hour, the top of the show, um, becoming a book author. And so you, you've recently, in fact, I was honored that you would ask me to kind of review the book and offer any, any insights or suggestions, uh, you know, as you were crafting the book, the self-disciplined man, uh, let's, let's take, uh, our last few minutes here and, and talk about one, what inspired you to become a book author to, why did you pick that topic in that title? Yeah, well, honestly, the, the changing course that I've seen in men recently has really caused me to write the book. So, uh, there's been a big sway over the last 50 years towards feminism, uh, in women's rights and for you to have half the population women, you know, not all of them, but then, and maybe the last thing we don't need men because up until a hundred years ago, men were the protectors and providers. Now over the last 50 plus odd years, women can work, so they don't necessarily need a man to provide for them. And we're not running from lines in the wilderness, so they don't necessarily need a man to protect them from the wild or from, you know, the stuff of old. So, and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think it's amazing thing that women don't necessarily have to be protected or provided for in the same way in the past, but I don't think society has stopped to think about what that does to men when for thousands of years, your, your identity is to protect and provide for a family. And now you have a large portion of the population saying they don't need you. And so what I've seen though, because of that, a massive shift over the last five years in men, and I don't know how familiar you are with the red till community or Andrew Tate, or a lot of these guys online that are just giving some awful, awful advice to kind of counterbalance that. Now, a lot of the stuff and the problems they talk about are true, but a lot of the advice and the, the, I guess the ways to fix it aren't necessarily the best advice. So I wanted to put down my thoughts on what it means to be a man in my perspective and what men kind of need to do to gain back their identity and become the best version for themselves. Well, and, and you take a biblical approach to it, which at the very core, the very foundation, you know, the God of the universe who, who created, you know, male and female in his image and set those roles in place.

Right. Um, and so, you know, we could be, we could do a whole nother show on, on, on that there is a real enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy, destroy the nuclear family, destroy what God created when he created marriage and, and created parents and, and, and all of that. And so if somebody wanted to get a copy of your book, you only got just a few minutes left here. If somebody wanted to get a copy of your book, what, what would you say? What's one of the biggest takeaways? Why would they want to buy it?

Read it? What would be one of their biggest takeaways, Richard? Well, I think one of the biggest takeaways would be focusing on what you can control, which is yourself. We, we get so much news and negative information or going on in the world and around the world and around us, when what we need to do sometimes is, you know, push out the noise, shut out the noise and focus what can I control? I can control my, my physical health. I can control my mental health. I can control my part of my relationships. I can control my personal wall and my faith and, and let me become the best version that I can be so that when I can give the best version of myself to the world, to my spouse, to my kids, to my church and my community.

Hmm. That's, that's, that's good. So, and, you know, just even sharing your story today and, and, you know, people hopefully picking up on the fact that, you know, you, you're, you're well-versed, you're well-spoken, um, you know, having, having, you know, having, you know, having read it, you know, you sent me the, the, you know, the, a copy of it to kind of review it, as I mentioned, and, and certainly I gained some insight, uh, not only in who you are and, and, and appreciating your perspective on, on manhood, of course, you know, uh, um, incredibly involved in, in, in ministering to men with through, through conferences and camps and, and, and just instilling in man, those attributes, those qualities, those characteristics, what it looks like to be a godly man, a godly husband, a godly father.

And now I had a godly grandfather, uh, since I am one. Um, and so I just want to encourage all of our listeners out there. Um, man, if you're looking for a good read, you're a man, uh, or you're, you're looking for a gift for your man. Um, the self-disciplined man by Richard Bischoff. Where, where, where can they, Richard, where, where Amazon, I mean, where, where are they going to be able to find the book right now? It's just going to be on the Amazon, so, so we, I just got my, uh, my, uh, publisher's additions in the mail today after my last round of edits. So you should be able to go onto amazon.com and just type in the self-disciplined man, uh, and, uh, you'll be able to see it's a golden black book and, uh, uh, I'd love it if you buy it and leave me a review. Leave a review on how it might, uh, or how it is impacting you and, uh, uh, I know, I know you're going to do well with it again, just, you know, already gaining some, some nuggets of truth, uh, for myself from, from proofreading it. Uh, I'm excited for you and just excited for, for your, your future. Do you have any plans or this is your first, you got, you got plans of writing more or, or is this a kind of one done?

Nope. Nope, I am going to, this is a broad book. I talk about fitness and mental health and relationships and faith and money. So now I'm going to write a book individually, almost those topics above the one I'm writing right now is called how the dad, and it's going to be on going the titles, how the dad, the subtitle is going beyond protecting and providing because a lot of men, they're like, I protect my kids and I provide for my kids and you know, there's a lot of men that need to do a little bit more than that for their families and for their kids. So it's going to just be a book for four dads from a dad. I'm a single dad with three kids.

I've had sole custody of them for the last seven years. So like I have a unique perspective on fatherhood. I had an amazing dad myself, so I got to see that from him as well. So just a little handbook, helpful book for men, new dads or young dads on how the dad. Awesome.

So Richard Bischoff, the self-disciplined man, successful father, successful, uh, businessman, now successful author. Be sure and go check it out and, uh, appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you, Richard. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you, it was an honor.

Yes, sir. And I want all of you out there. You go out and live a God filled, God blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to koloff.net and donate today. If you are enjoying the man up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe and leave a comment. I, Nikita Koloff, be sure to check out the man up show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast, go to morningstartv.com or the truth radio network, check out your local listings or better yet, download the truth network app today. Nikita Koloff here.

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