← Real English Conversations Podcast – Real English for Global Professionals | Speak Clearly & Confidently at Work
Real English Conversations Podcast – Real English for Global Professionals | Speak Clearly & Confidently at Work
🎙️Surviving 9/11, Overcoming Cancer & Building Unshakable Resilience with Craig Sotkovsky | Real English Conversations Podcast for Global Professionals
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- [00:00]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
This week with digital coupons at Safeway and Albertsons. Get beef rib roast for $7.97 per pound. Member price with minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction. Exclusions apply. See Store for details and Broccoli, cauliflower or russet potatoes are 97 cents per pound. Member price limit 6 pounds plus. Selected sizes and varieties of Lucerne butter Cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese are $1.97 each. Member price. Visit safewayouralbertsons.com for more deals and ways
- [00:29]
Craig Sakowski
to save this is the Real English
- [00:33]
Curtis Davies
Conversations podcast where we help you to communicate clearly and confidently in the conversations that matter most in the workplace and your professional life. Hey everyone, it's Curtis Davies here from the Real English Conversations podcast, the show that helps global professionals to speak clearly and confidently at work. This week's episode is one that will move you, inspire you and remind you of what real resistance looks like. My guest is Craig Satkovsky, a 911 World Trade center and lung cancer survivor, entrepreneur, international speaker, and a man whose story has been featured on Time Magazine, bold journey, Voyage, ATL and Fox 5 New York and more. Craig's journey is extraordinary. After being exposed to toxic dust near the World Trade center in 2000 2001, he was diagnosed with early stage lung cancer. Nearly 20 years later, that diagnosis became the catalyst for a new mission to help others find strength, courage and meaning through life's toughest challenges. Today, Craig speaks globally about cancer recovery, mindset and overcoming adversity. All while building businesses, supporting non profits and showing people what's possible when you refuse to quit. Craig, welcome to the show. It's awesome to have you here.
- [01:56]
Craig Sakowski
Hey Curtis, thanks. Just real quick. I'm in time. It wasn't about me, it was about a whole collective. Yeah, hi, thanks. Greatly appreciate being on here.
- [02:05]
Curtis Davies
Great. Thanks for that correction. Craig, your story is powerful. A 911 lung cancer survivor who turned adversity into mission and purpose. Can you take us back to the moment of your diagnosis and what shifted you internally?
- [02:19]
Craig Sakowski
Yeah, actually it was. It was kind of really surreal because they told me I had a malignant. I was at an ER in Georgia and they told me I had a malignant malignant tumor. I my first thought was to throat punch the doctor because he said it in front of my 11 year old and my ex wife and that brought me into an entirely different level of understanding the medical process. I believe that there's some people that shouldn't even be in the medical industry. We can get into that a little bit further. But now my My whole existence is like I, I believe that going through all the stuff that I've been going through, I believe I'm here to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. Because I, I have a message. And my message is, you don't have any time. You don't, you just don't. So whatever it is that you're, you're listening to or planning on or trying to do, execute on all your ideas, because you don't. Time is one of those things. It's a pure commodity that you're never going to get back. So don't waste it.
- [03:20]
Curtis Davies
Right? That moment of shock and clarity seems to have shaped the foundation of everything that you're doing now. You often talk about mindset as a, as a survival tool. What mental habits or beliefs became essential for you during, during that time through recovery and rebuilding.
- [03:37]
Craig Sakowski
So I, yeah, it's gonna sound really weird, right, but 911 wasn't my first rodeo, okay? So I mean 911 was part, 911 was part of my story, right? So I, I believe being an entrepreneur my whole life helped me battle cancer. Beating cancer, I believe made me a better entrepreneur. And you know, going through all the stuff that I was going through and it's been going on 13 years. I believe that when you have no choice, right, what are you going to do? I mean I went through all the self sabotaging behaviors, I went through all the woes me, I went through, you know, believing that I was a failure, believing I was less than. Because when you're a high achiever and all of a sudden you can't pay the light bill, you can't pay rent, you can't, you know, I'm in bed for a month, month and a half for a couple few years. Had a nine hour surgery that took me out for six years and you know, I'm still recovering financially, mentally, physically. However, that being said, I developed, I developed something that I want the world to understand. We all have something called the reticular activating system. And I call it to human wi fi. It's, it's, it's the quantum field, right? It's the quantum field that we have to tap into because the, the, the reticular activating system is like, I call it the cyborg because all it's doing is listening and watching, right? It's a subconscious behavior. It's based off of all our habits. It's based off of everything that we talk, talk to ourselves about internally. And a lot of people don't understand that there's something called false Positivity. And I had to develop this stuff myself. As you cannot say to yourself, you know, oh, I'm thinking, you know, unicorn and rainbows and everything's going to be good. And inside you're like, oh man, I can't pay my bills. Oh wow, I'm sick. Reticular activating system. All it wants to do is please you. So whether you think you can or can't, you're correct. And it's going to give you outside influences that are going to enhance your story. So I'll give you an example. So I was studying epigenetics after my surgery for like a couple years and I had gone to a, a 911 doctor and she was doing my yearly review and she had taken a, they had taken an X ray and like I said, I was probably doing it like a couple, couple and a half years. And she comes, she comes on, I go into her office and she comes out and she's like, hey, have you ever had a bad X ray? And I was like, you know, she's going to tell me I'm going to be dead by Tuesday or you know, like whatever nonsense that they come up with. And then I was like, you know what, Whatever she says is not going to wipe the smile off my face and it's not going to give me a bad mood. I'm going to walk out of here the same way I walked in and come to find out she didn't even have my file. So she saw this big cloud where my mid and lower lobe, my right lung were gone. She thought it was like something really invasive. It was like, no, it was already taken out after the nine hours surgery, you know, and, and from that point on, I realized that I was on a mission. I realized that I was going to captivate myself. I was going to understand who I was because my biochemistry didn't change. And that excited the hell out of me. That got me really, that got me really excited to actually be like, wow, this stuff really works. So when I was going through all the woes, me self sabotaging behaviors and why is this happening to me, I started to develop a different understanding of why not everybody else goes through things, why not me, right? So I started to understand it was happening for me. And that's when my life started to change.
- [07:30]
Curtis Davies
Many people listening struggle with fear. It takes over the uncertainty, the doubt. And it sounds like your journey offers a blueprint for facing those moments. You, you didn't let it overtake you. You, you stayed positive throughout and, and being an Entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur as well, building businesses even while navigating your, your health journey. How did entrepreneurship and the purpose of support help in that, in that part of your recovery?
- [08:00]
Craig Sakowski
So during my recovery, you know, of course we're all building businesses, right? We're building something. And I was in the process, I was in the process of finishing my book, Everybody Pays a Vig. And it was, it was quite cathartic because here I am, I'm getting tossed left, right and center by the medical industry, and then you're stressing about the financial stuff, and then I'm stressing about, you know, what am I leaving my daughter? And I'm stressing myself about, you know, I, I have a wife that obviously is going to, you know, be, it's going to be detrimental to our relationship, right? And, and this is all the stuff that people go through as you're battling illness. It doesn't really matter what illness it is. And what, what I started to understand about me was I felt lost, right? And then I started to realize I needed to go back to when I was molested as a kid, when I was a drug addict, when I went bankrupt, when I was first divorced, when I lost houses, when I lost cars. And I started to look at myself and I was like, man, you beat everything that you've been through. Why not, you know, why not this? You know, and knock on wood, knock on wood. I'm three years past my expiration date. And, you know, so one of the things that, one of the things that I hope people get out of listening to me is whatever you're going through, you got to keep going through it. And if you want to change the way you think, you're going to have to sit in all of that dark crap that you, that you live through and all of it, you know, it's the shadow side. It's that, it's that, it's that I believe we're light, seeking the human experience. So experience the hell out of life. No, there's a, there's a lot of things. Like I, I talk on podcasts all over the world in different cultures and stuff. And one of the things that I realized is people have to stop, like family, family members have to stop. Mom, dad, stop passing your failures on to your children in the hopes of their, that they're going to become their successes, you know, and this is something, and this is something that I was struggling with because I was getting beat down so much. And I'm watching this 11 year old girl go through it. With me, you know, and, and, you know, I, it was all about, well, now I don't have any money right now. Now I'm, what, am I going to leave my daughter? You know, and what I realized, yeah, oh, it was brutal because there wasn't enough steaks in the freezer. You know, we went bankrupt over this. We, we lost five different times. We had to sell everything just to keep my ass alive. And one of the things, one of the things that I realized later on
- [10:35]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
this week with digital coupons at Safeway and Albertsons, get beef rib roast for 7.97 per pound member price with minimum purchase of 50 or more in a single transaction. Exclusions apply. See store for details. And broccoli, cauliflower, or russet potatoes are 97 cents per pound. Member price limit 6 pounds plus selected sizes and varieties of lucerne butter cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese are 197 each member price. Visit safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
- [11:06]
Craig Sakowski
Was that it wasn't so much what I was going to leave her, right? It was what I was going to leave in her. And she used to, you know, I used to beat myself up over this. And I, I was going to be like, oh, man, I'm going to be one of those guys bust his ass all the time and his kids hate him, right? Because I'm not there. And one of the things that I did realize, she was like, no, dad, every time I came home, you were there. We used to sit, we used to talk, right? And now I have an amazing relationship with my daughter. I've raised her in Mexico. And, you know, I, I believe that you have to find yourself. Sickness made me find myself. People like, oh, you know, you went too old. I was like, yeah, you know what? I kept going through it. I'm still battling stuff, right? I still got Barrett's esophagus. I still have GERDs. I still, I had one knee ablation that gave me three blood clots. I almost lost my leg. I almost died. I should have been dead a long time ago. So I'm really here. Like I said before to my statement, I'm here to disturb the comfortable and comfortable disturbed. Because I think people need a wake up call. I think people should have to actually battle for their life at least once just to understand how, how beautiful life is. Do I still get down on myself? Absolutely not Ever, Ever. Just never happened. Because I'm no longer fighting that adrenaline and cortisol addiction which most people have. No. I'm in the Feel goods of oxytocin, serotonin, and understanding that epigenetics is the heart and brain coherence. And most people believe that this is the brain, but not even close. This is an antenna. This is the brain, Right. This is. This is what pumps your blood without you even thinking about. This is when you tap into that heart and brain coherence, your light gets turned on. And what happens eventually is your light starts, then you're on to the next.
- [13:03]
Curtis Davies
You can't ignore those battles. You have to face them, you have to fight them. You can't push them aside. You have to deal with them.
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Craig Sakowski
But there's so many people. Yeah, absolutely. But there's pride and ego that gets involved. And when pride and ego gets involved, I mean, it's like I tell people all the time, you want to know what kind of person somebody is, look at their kids and look at their animal. If your dog hates you, you need to correct your behavior. If your kids hate, you gotta spend time with them. Because that's all kids want. Right. They don't care what you are, who you are. They just want to be. They want to be with you.
- [13:36]
Curtis Davies
Absolutely. That connection between purpose and healing is something many people overlook. You become an advocate for early detection. Why is this message so important? And what do you wish more people understood about paying attention to their health?
- [13:52]
Craig Sakowski
Pay attention to it. See, most guys. Most guys are embarrassed. Seriously?
- [13:57]
Curtis Davies
Yeah. Yeah. They don't want to go to the doctor, Right. Most guys are like that, right?
- [14:02]
Craig Sakowski
Yeah. I'm too big. I'm. I'm too tough. It's like, no, you're an emotional, emotional weakling, right? Because it's like when you. When. And this is. This is really true. Because guys have to be. We're chest pounders, right? We're cavemen. We have to be like, oh, we could take care of everything, but we can't take care of ourselves. Like little children. That expression of man flu, right? It's like people, you know, a wife gives birth or girlfriend gives birth, goes through all of that pain. Yet if it was up to men, there'd be no kids in this world. We couldn't take that pain. I think women are more resilient than men. So men need to start tapping into their emotional behaviors and habits because that's what. That's what your foundation is going to be built off of.
- [14:43]
Curtis Davies
Yeah. Another thing not to ignore. It's highly important. Just listen to your body. The body talks. Right?
- [14:50]
Craig Sakowski
But yet, but yet we're, you know, like I said, with chest Pounders. So it's like, yeah, I have that, I have that ache. No, I have that, that, that chest pain. Well, you know what? Go to the doctor, right? Find out what that chest pain is. Because it's like, you know, I'm in a really weird situation because I have peripheral neuropathy, okay. And when, when I had my, when I had my surgery, they cut through my ribs and it cut all the nerves. So it's like my right side of my body, right? For six years it was consistent, 24 hour day, seven days a week pain. And I'm talking about excruciating pain where it was like morphine, Dilaudid. Didn't do anything. Didn't do anything. And it was like I needed to develop a different mindset for myself because when I was on drugs, I was a bad person. I was nasty, which most people are. When, when, you know, I have, I have a picture where I stood in front of a pyramid for my next book in front of a pyramid of pill bottles. And it was like, it's just, just say no to drugs. And it was like, those were just the ones that I remembered to save, you know, just to save the bottles. And I look at my body now and I talk to it every day. Every day. Every time I go in for a surgery, I'm talking two weeks before to heal it before it even starts. And people like, oh, you know, you're crazy. You know, you're talking to something you can't even see. And I'm like, okay, are you religious? Like, yeah, I believe in God. There you go. You're God within light, seeking the human experience. So tap into yourself.
- [16:21]
Curtis Davies
And speaking of awareness, Your experience during 911 changed your entire life path. Being near the World Trade center during 911 exposed you to that toxic dust that would affect your health decades later. How did you process that realization emotionally and mentally?
- [16:40]
Craig Sakowski
As far as being there, I could actually say I stood on top of the World Trade center when it. After it fell, right? So that means that whole thing all on its own took me a long time to process. Now, that being said, I got hit with two hurricanes in three weeks in 2004. While I wasn't even really processing 9 11, we were processing that as well. And then it was like it was just one, one mental disaster after the next. And I laugh at everything. I'm not callous about this at all. I think, I think when you push through and you tap into who you are right now, what society says that you're supposed to be, I'm Talking about you. I'm talking about the man or the woman that actually is here observing life, having kids, going through, you know, bringing the kids up, raising them, going through school and you know, just being an everyday person. Life is hard. No, it's okay not to be okay. You just can't stay there because you'll, you'll spiral out of control. I know I spiraled out of control. Maybe there's some people that are stronger. However, that being said, I don't nobody that's stronger than who I am right now. I'm a giant, I'm here, I'm as a monster.
- [17:50]
Curtis Davies
Those things can pile up. Yeah. One after another, those, those experiences, traumas, those, those really life challenging experiences can pile up. So you've got a lot of strength within you. You're such a positive guy. I love your personality and your, your attitude towards yourself and life itself as well. To keep, keep going, to keep pushing through, to keep fighting. And it's working extremely well for you to be past your expiry date, you know, and, and, and telling me, man, I, I should have been six feet under, you know, six years ago or six months ago and you're still here dozen of times.
- [18:37]
Craig Sakowski
So I mean you know, if I, you know, I, there's many times where like you know my ex wife used to walk by me just to see if I was breathing. My daughter would come in and check on me just to see if I was breathing, you know. And it's like I want nothing but love for people like that. You know what I mean? It's like you know, you go through, you go through this world and it's like you turn around. I can't even begin to tell you the stuff me and my ex wife went through. It's like a, it's not even a movie in a week. It's like an Oscar winning performance, you know, for a movie. Because it is. Because literally I'm being serious. This was like 1, 1/10 of what we've been through in our lives. And, and it's like, you know the, the magnetic story is the 911 one. So I get to talk about my life, my whole life. I get to tell about you know, what made me, brought me down to my knees. I get to talk about, you know, one of my favorite mentors actually like saved me mentally. His name is Les Brown. And it's like, you know, I had the ability to be a Les Brown power voice speaker and you know, I want to encourage people. Whatever it is you're going through, you've already survived it. You got to keep going. And I understand, I'm not going to be callous. It's. We have to separate our emotions to the story that's holding us back. And we all have this one story, whatever the one story is that's holding us back because we have this emotional attachment. And it could be something, you know, from 30, 40, 50 years ago. It could be what your mom and dad said it could be. If you didn't have a mom and dad, it could be your auntie, a grandmother, or somebody in a, somebody in a foster care place. You know, there's a story that's holding us back, but it's the emotional attachment that we have to that story that'll bring us down to our knees if we allow it. Because going down to your knees, man, that's a powerful thing. When you start standing back up, it works.
- [20:29]
Curtis Davies
You just have to put it into your life and do it and put the action in and don't let the other side take over. Don't let that negativity and the self sabotage that you brought up earlier take over and consume you, because then you're just going to go down that slippery slope and it's going to be a longer, longer battle for you. So.
- [20:54]
Craig Sakowski
And that changes your biochemistry.
- [20:56]
Curtis Davies
Yeah.
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Craig Sakowski
And people really don't understand that. You know, I'll give you an example. So like I was told four different times that I was possibly being treated for cancer, okay. And it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And the Last one was 20, 24, I think it was my. I, man, I can't even remember now. I think it was like 15th knee surgery or something crazy. And, and, and you know, it wasn't healing. I, I got it in September, it wasn't healing in November. It was still swollen, all that. And I went back to the surgeon and the surgeon was like, look, man, I think you, I think you have synovial sarcoma. And five minutes later he addressed me and he's like, you know, I've never told somebody that potential diagnosis. And they laughed in my face. Like, how did you have, how did you laugh when somebody's telling you absorbing sarcoma? And I was like, because I don't know, I've been through so many misdiagnoses. They told me twice that I had male breast cancer. I was being treated for male breast cancer. Right. I got scars for the male breast cancer on one side, the other side, you know, I got the scars on my knee for the, the surgeries. I have the scars in My ribs. And it's like, okay, this is just all life. This is my life. Just keep walking through it with a smile on my face.
- [22:13]
Curtis Davies
Yeah, this is what you have to do. If they're telling you you have to have surgery, you have to have surgery, you have to go through it. And what I'm hearing here is out of all that pain came something really powerful. Your. Your mission to help others and. And get this message out. You work with nonprofits, you support cancer patients and speak around the world. Like you said earlier, can you share a story of someone that you've helped that really stayed with you?
- [22:41]
Craig Sakowski
Yeah. So while I was battling this stuff in Atlanta, I was mentoring young kids, young adults. Right. In entrepreneurship. And what happened was starting to get a little bit popularity. And at all different times, maybe one person would come, maybe 20 would come, maybe 10, five, whatever. I would still show up. And as I started to notice there was more girls coming in, and it was about like, I didn't know they were trafficked. I didn't. Wasn't aware that Atlanta is one of the hugest place for traffic victims. And there was this one. There was this one girl, and she was just like, man, she defeated, you know, like the whole thing. And it was like I was teaching something. I can't remember what I was teaching that night. And. And I would bring my daughter every. It was due Tuesdays and Thursday. I'd bring my daughter just so she could listen to real raw stories. And what happened was I started tapping into this young lady, and she went from totally being defeated right into. Into, oh, my God, I feel so much lighter. And her face literally changed. Like she was smiling because the shit that she was been, the brutalness that she was been through, right? It was where I started to learn how to cut through emotional story. I started to learn how, like, I have the ability to do certain things right. I grew up in a Sicilian household. Even though I'm a sloh. My. My dad didn't have any siblings, but my mom's side was all Sicilians. And these guys, girls, aunts, uncle, they were brutal. They tell people, like, you would ask a question, and they would read their body language. And my uncle would be like, I know you're lying. You know, like. So he taught me how to do stuff like that. And I. I really call it. I call it a blessed curse, because I can tell what people are lying to me, even though I don't say certain things, right? So it's like I'm the mirror. So it's like I am helping somebody, and they hate me for it, but it's all with love. It's empathy, man. I want. I want people to get better for themselves, right? Especially when you go through all these crazy stories. And she had gone through the worst of the worst. And when she was walking out, she was like, you know, I've been carrying this thing for 20, 30 years. She's like, I feel so much lighter. And her face changed, and it was so much. It was so bright. And you could see her energy just change. And it was like, yeah. And my daughter got to see stuff like that all the time. She got to see. She got to see all the bad stories turn into the start of good ones because it requires work. Now people think that, you know, they're going to instantly change into this person. No, you're going to instantly change your perspective on your life, and then it's going to require you to do the work to continue.
- [25:38]
Curtis Davies
It's incredible how one person's story like that can ripple into so many lives and have an effect on. On your own life to. To make those decisions, to improve and change and go through whatever life throws at you, whatever curveballs come your way.
- [25:55]
Craig Sakowski
So that's the whole thing. That's the whole thing. It's like, all right, so all these external sources are here this week with
- [26:01]
Safeway/Albertsons Announcer
digital coupons at Safeway and Albertsons. Get beef rib roast for 7.97 per pound member price with minimum purchase of $50 or more in a single transaction. Exclusions apply. See store for details and broccoli, cauliflower or russet potatoes are 97 cents per pound. Member price limit 6 pounds plus. Selected sizes and varieties of lucerne butter cheese or Philadelphia cream cheese are $1.97 each member price. Visit safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
- [26:30]
Craig Sakowski
Right. Life's going to life. Whether you want to participate or not, life's coming for you, okay? You can't control any of that. The only thing you can do is tap into the quantum field, the human WI fi. And that's what I. That's what I show people how to do, right? As long as they're willing. As long as they're willing to look at themselves and be accountable for all of their crap. Doesn't matter what you've been through, you have to be accountable and responsible. Not for the person that did something to you, but for you to get the healing properties into your life.
- [27:03]
Curtis Davies
Highly important insights there. And from reading your bio, you help people with resilience, entrepreneurship, real Estate mindset, life transitions. What do you believe are three core skills someone must build to thrive during adversity?
- [27:20]
Craig Sakowski
First of all, you have to become yourself. That's number one. Forget about the external world of what, you know, what somebody's going to say or how they're going to treat you. If you say the wrong things, who gives you. Nobody cares. That's what I've learned. I'm 60 years old. I realize nobody's paying attention to you. Okay, number two. Number two, you have to become that person. So ahead of the event, right? And ahead of your healing, you got to go from this point here to this point here. You gotta be in the process. So if you want to be a multimillionaire, start thinking like a multimillionaire right now. You want to be a real estate guy, start thinking about being a real estate guy right now as we're speaking right now. You have to live from this point forward as that person. And what's going to happen is your reticular activating system is going to pick up all your cues, all the nuances that you're going through in the process. So you can never let yourself down. Just constantly uplift yourself and like, oh, you know, we talked about false positivity before. I'm not talking about unicorns and rainbows here. I'm not talking about thinking positive, because that's 5%. Your thought process is your conscious behavior 95% of every day. What we do every day is our habits, our subconscious behavior, right? So it's Joe Dispenser that said humans have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day, and 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts that we had day before. So we're literally living in the past. Now, here's the thing. Our subconscious does not know the difference between fantasy and reality. Doesn't know the difference between something that happened 30 years ago or it's happening right now. And people don't understand that because as you're doing a recall, right? I recall people not. Not out of, like, malice, okay? I give them an example. When I find out about people's lives, I'm giving an example. Be like, okay, want to know how your biochemistry set changes? Right? And I'll. And I'll glance the story that they told me, like, watch their face, because their biochemistry changed immediately. That's what kicks in. You have to be able to control your biochemistry set. It's work. People think, this is like, I've been doing this for years. For literal years, right? I sat in my living room for Six years to alchemize everything that was being thrown at me. And, yeah, I'm doing other things and stuff, but I'd be in meditations for six hours at a time, three hours at a time. I'd be listening to tones and frequencies. And as well as, you know, I did over 300 rounds of dimetric. So I did a bunch of psychedelics to get over my stinking thinking. I don't encourage that for everybody because I'm the shaman for myself. My next book is going to be called the Shaman from Jersey. How I Able to Alchemize Everything in My life that Was ever thrown at Me. And I want this for people. I want people to understand human behavior. You know, you have to get out, like, right now. What is it? The 26. So it's like 80 or 85% of the people that started New Year's resolutions have failed. Why? Why? Because they haven't trained themselves last year to do things right. They're waiting for the first week. Yeah. They're waiting for this date. They're waiting for this celebratory thing. Now here's this. That's outside validation. Well, I have great things happen to me all the time. My biochemistry set doesn't change. I have bad things happen to me all the time. My biochemistry set does not change. I got a buddy of mine, Kirk Ashley, he's probably one of the best peak performance consultants on the planet. And human behavior, he used to tell me all the time, listen, man, all the work is in the follow through. You don't follow through, you're done. Right? That being said, if you have a problem, right, and you're getting depressed or anxious or whatever, Skip, you can't be depressed or anxious if you skip. And people like I used to take that literal. So I'd be getting a. You know, I'd be walking through the mall or something with my daughter and just be like, all right, let's skip. I don't care about what somebody's going to say about me. I don't care if people point. I don't care because I understand. They have no idea what I'm doing. I'm creating a disruption for myself. People need disruptors in their lives. You got to get radically uncomfortable being radically uncomfortable in order to change. Most people want to sit in their comfort zone. Your comfort zone is not going to help you. It's not going to save you.
- [31:46]
Curtis Davies
Not at all. For me, it's music. Music is healing frequencies.
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Craig Sakowski
Yeah.
- [31:53]
Curtis Davies
If I feel a little hint of a bad mood or Something that's like, not right. I'm gonna listen to a song that. That puts a smile on. On my face. Or, yeah, do meditation or. Yeah, I'd even skip too, because I. I get that. I understand that. But you know a lot of people. Oh, you're weird, you're strange.
- [32:16]
Craig Sakowski
But yes, absolutely, you gotta stop that. Crazy. I'm delusional. I'm delusional because I know how. I know what it takes. You have to be delusional to win in this world. We're brought into this world as soon as. As soon as a kid is born, right? What happens? The first thing, they got to smack it on the butt. So it breathes, and then once it starts to breathe, it starts crying. Why would we think life is going to be any different, Right?
- [32:44]
Curtis Davies
Exactly.
- [32:45]
Craig Sakowski
So you got to get in touch with your emotions. When you get in touch with your emotions, that's your superpower. That's when you become the monster. That's when you become the beast in a garden. No, it's a warrior in the garden instead of a gardener at war. Got to learn. You got to learn. You know all about your mental violence, man. It's you versus you. And one of you need to die. One of you need to die.
- [33:09]
Curtis Davies
Those skills really apply to professionals, leaders and global communicators do. I think it'll apply to everybody. Anybody and everybody. Find your inner child, too. That's another thing. I love being a kid now, 50 years old, you got 10 years on me. But hey, find your inner kid.
- [33:27]
Craig Sakowski
Well, you know, you. The biggest thing is CEOs, right? CEOs, because they. People are kissing their ass all day long, right? Kiss their ass all day long. I'll give you an example, right? So I had a client refer me to these two billionaires, okay? And it was like, I didn't even know why it was there, kind of, right? But they were paying me ridiculous amount of money to listen to them. So I'm like, okay, let's go. I don't care how much money you got. I don't care what you do in this world, right? I can see right through your bullshit. Doesn't matter. You chest bump all of this shit. And it's like, it's like, okay, I'm listening to these two guys. They're going to make a ridiculous amount of money, okay? Ridiculous amount. And they're both pumping their chests, trying to get over on each other. And it was like, I was recommended because I don't care who you are, what you are, why you are, I Gotta be truthful. And they're like, well, you know, and da da da, and da da da, and da da da. It was 20 minutes and they were like, well, what do you think? And I was like, you do like little children now. Think about this. We are adults, right? But we're children in adult bodies. Yeah. So you have these people getting their ass kissed all day long. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I don't care about you. I don't, I care about my results. So it's like I'm going to tell you exactly what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, because that's how you get results. You need that guy. You need that guy that's going to call you out on your nonsense. I love people calling me out of my nonsense. That's how I learn and grow.
- [35:06]
Curtis Davies
Exactly. Stepping stones, I call them.
- [35:09]
Craig Sakowski
Yeah, we, yeah, we step on the bodies and walk over.
- [35:14]
Curtis Davies
For my audience, many of whom are facing professional pressure, they're professionals using English as a second language at an intermediate to advanced level with a lot of personal pressure, with confidence and things like that. Personal change or communication challenges. What is one piece of advice you wish someone had told you you years ago?
- [35:36]
Craig Sakowski
Okay, so I live in Mexico. It's not my, it's not my primary language. I can barely speak English. Right. I come From New Jersey, 1985, New Jersey, right. So my, my language is a little bit different. Here's the thing. You have to look at yourself, right, as an amazing individual because you're learning another language. You're, you're actually moving forward in another language. So you got to give yourself a break. I understand the perfectionism and all of that stuff. You, that just goes back to being immature, self loathing and all of that stuff because it's like you need outside validation. Everything starts here. And then your outside world is going to change. So when you believe in yourself, give yourself a break. Stop with the nonsense, man. I don't care about your peers. I care about you. Your peers don't even care about you. They're going to make fun of you, right? Oh, you know, he's got an accent and stuff like that. So one of the greatest things I ever did one, and I like, I pride myself on telling this story. There's an app called Clubhouse. I killed it in Clubhouse, right? I mean it was, it was amazing. We would just go in and you'd be talking to 500 people, you'd be talking to 600 people or five or one people. Didn't show up. Whatever. I had the opportunity of speaking to a whole bunch of Indians, okay? All different. All different goms. All different. Just they were business professionals. We had so much fun busting each other's chops in street English. It was the most hysterical thing. And they loved it. And they loved it. And I'm talking about these multi millionaires. These are guys that, you know, like regular mom and pop shops and stuff like that. But we all had the one thing in common. We all wanted to learn from each other. And if you want to learn from each other, you have to look at each other a little bit differently. Stop looking down on people, man. Uplift people, you know, and that's why I said I'm here. To disturb the comfortable and comfort to disturb.
- [37:31]
Curtis Davies
That's powerful advice, Craig. Craig, this has been an incredibly inspiring conversation. Your story, your resilience, and your mission to help others. This really shows what's possible when someone decides to fight, to grow and to lead with purpose. Where can people find the awesome work that you do? The books, the coaching, whatever you're doing? Where can people get in touch with you and find what you're doing?
- [37:56]
Craig Sakowski
So I give everybody 15 minutes. You go to my website, it's craigsakowski.com it's C R A I G S O T K-O-V-S-K-Y.com or you can go to Amazon, pick up my book, Everybody Pays a Veg. It's in English and Spanish.
- [38:11]
Curtis Davies
Perfect. I'll put those links in the description and the show notes of this episode. Thanks so much for sharing your journey and your stories with us. It was a great conversation. I loved your personality and dedication to what you do. Thank you so much for coming on the Real English Conversations podcast.
- [38:28]
Craig Sakowski
Thank you so much, Curtis.
- [38:30]
Curtis Davies
If you're ready to take your English to the next level and start speaking with confidence at work. Whether it's in meetings, job interviews, presentations, or important conversations with your boss, co workers or clients, I can help you. You don't have to feel nervous about finding the right words, worrying about your accent, or struggling to keep up in fast paced conversations. With the right practice and guidance, you'll be able to express your ideas and yourself clearly and naturally. Let's start with a trial lesson. We'll go over what you want to improve, do a quick evaluation and map out a plan to help you feel strong and in control when you speak English. I only have a few trial spots available each month, so if you see an opening in my calendar, grab it while you can. Click the link below to book your trial lesson with me now.
- [39:24]
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