War & Peace: How to Maintain Your Core Values in Times of Conflict | S02E08

You built a life around being strong, around being the guy who handles it, the guy who wins, and then you open your phone and the whole world is screaming at you to pick a side, to hate a face, to celebrate someone else's suffering. War, conflict, and outrage are being piped directly into your chest every single day, and somewhere along the way you started carrying it like it was yours to carry.

In this solo episode, Dennis Procopio (The Bro Coach®) does the thing he admits he spent weeks trying not to do, sitting down alone, without his co-host, to talk honestly about war and peace and how a man holds onto his core values in the middle of conflict. 

He gets personal in a way he rarely does, opening up about being ethnically Jewish on his mother's side and Southern Italian on his father's, about being shunned by part of his own family, and about a lifetime spent seeking across Judaism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and more, looking for something true.

He tells the story of his beloved Muslim coach, Faisal Amin, and how that relationship helped him lay down the Islamophobia he was programmed with, and from there he plants his flag on the one thing he believes more than anything: the real war is always inside yourself, and the moment you let hate into your heart, you have already lost it.

This episode gets into why every media source is fighting a custody battle for your attention, why political narratives want your buy-in so badly that they will sell you fear and self-righteousness to get it, and what it actually takes to stay a loving, grounded man while Iran, Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, and the headlines about Netanyahu dominate every feed. 

Dennis makes it clear he is no pacifist, that he understands violence and survival intimately, and that choosing love over hatred has nothing to do with weakness.

Also covered: forgiving the people who hurt him (including his own parents), why a healthy society does not attack itself like a cancer, what Finland might be quietly teaching the rest of us, and a direct, personal message to anyone living inside this conflict, whether you are Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, or simply a man tired of being told who to hate.

TIMESTAMPS
 0:00 - The Topic Dennis Almost Refused to Touch
 2:28 - Jewish, Italian, and Shunned: Who Dennis Really Is
 6:42 - Coaching Men Across Every Faith and Ideology
 7:24 - Faisal Amin and Letting Go of Islamophobia
 20:49 - Dennis's Real Position on World Affairs
 23:13 - The Real War Is Always Inside Yourself
 24:00 - Media as a Custody Battle for Your Mind
 27:37 - If You Feel Hate in Your Heart, You've Lost
 28:39 - Forgiveness, Abuse, and Looking in the Mirror
 33:10 - A Direct Message to Israelis and Palestinians
 36:16 - The World Is Sick, and What Finland Knows

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Why staying a grounded man during war and conflict is its own kind of strength
• How political and media narratives quietly recruit you into hatred
• Why choosing peace has nothing to do with being weak or passive
• How forgiveness, even of the people who hurt you most, frees you rather than them
• Why a man who hates his brother has already lost the only war that matters
• How to love yourself, your family, and your neighbor while the headlines push the opposite

THIS HITS IF YOU'RE

• A man carrying the weight of world conflict you cannot control
• Feeling pulled to pick a side and hate the other one
• Exhausted by the constant outrage in your feed
• Wrestling with anger, faith, or forgiveness in your own life
• Trying to stay loving and strong at the same time, without apology

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ABOUT THE SHOW The Bro Coach® Podcast with Dennis Procopio. Not red-pill garbage. Not therapy. Real coaching for guys who achieved success but missed the point. Dennis has 25,000+ hours working with high-earning men ($150K to $3M+) who look successful but feel stuck.

Transcript

The Topic Dennis Almost Refused to Touch

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Most men want more, more clarity, more respect, more control over their lives, but few know how to get it. Welcome to the Bro Coach Podcast with Dennis Procopio, the founder of Man Up Life Coaching and the man behind thousands of transformed lives. Not red pill, not therapy, just the evolved man's blueprint for strength, presence, and purpose.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Good morning and welcome to the BroCoach Podcast. I am Dennis Procopio. I am the affectionately labeled Bro Coach. This is a term that I have earned over 13 plus years of coaching under the brand man-up life coaching. And this session is going to be a man-up moment for me because I'm addressing a topic that I've been trying not to touch. Today we're going to talk about war and peace and how to maintain your core values during conflict. And keywords for this particular episode are going to be war, Iran, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Donald Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, the USA. And I have to admit to you right now, even as I'm doing this solo cast, there's a voice in my head saying, Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, don't do it, don't do it. Talk about relationships, talk about doing push-ups, talk about losing weight, talk about testosterone. Don't talk about the thing. Don't talk about the thing. It's a divisive topic. You're stupid. Don't touch it. Don't do it. Well, I am gonna do it. Uh, I don't have as much time as I normally would, so this isn't gonna be the typical hour uh podcast. Um, also, my co-host Charles Ledbetter is not here. Um, and uh I'm just going to talk about this thing. I'm taking a risk. Now, I'm gonna start by saying that I am uh

Jewish, Italian, and Shunned: Who Dennis Really Is

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Jewish on my mother's side and Southern Italian on my father's side. Um my mother's name is Frank, like Anne Frank, and there are also Levies, uh Levi's and Levies in her immediate family. My last name is Procopio, which is my father's side, and there are a whole bunch of Procopios and Patatuccies uh on my dad's side. When my parents um had me or conceived me, I guess. My mom was nineteen, my dad was twenty one, um, they were living in South Philly, where I'm from. I'm from Philadelphia. And my mother was raised Catholic because her mother, Harriet Frank, uh, my nana, was the black sheep of her Jewish uh observant Ashkenazic family, and her big fuck you to her family was to um become very uh what we would call anti-Semitic, but she was basically just sort of anti uh her Jewish family and decided to embrace Catholicism and became a Jesus, Mary, and all the saints freak. Um and then my mother followed suit. My mother was in a Catholic all-girls school, and when she married my father, I was baptized uh Catholic and received uh went to a Catholic school, received uh first Holy Communion, confirmation, and all of that stuff. Later on in life, my mom would become a um a seeker of sorts, very brilliant woman, very strong woman, also very uh psychologically afflicted with a laundry list of clinical conditions which include um uh bipolarism, uh paranoid schizophrenia. My mom was really not uh okay mentally. Uh so growing up, I was ethically ethnically Jewish. I still, you know, got people chucking pennies at me and making Jew jokes, but my experiences as a Jewish person were very limited because I was essentially we were sort of shunned from the Jewish side of our family. And most of my Jewish learning and Jewish upbringing was sort of gleaned and stolen rather than taking the traditional path that involves being bar mitzvah and all of that sort of thing. So um anybody who in this day and age hears Jew and says, bad man, um, you know, there's your that's your right, but I feel like I'd like to spend just a little bit of time explaining who I am and how I've come to some of the decisions that I've come to. In my coaching culture, um

Coaching Men Across Every Faith and Ideology

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I have guys who are Jewish and orthodox. Um, I have guys who are Hasidish, I have guys who are Litvish, I have guys who, you know, are Haredi, but not necessarily either of those two things. Um I have guys who are Muslim. In fact, one of my coaches, my beloved coach, Faisal Amin Sheikh, is the most stellar sheikh, uh uh the most stellar sheikh, the master,

Faisal Amin and Letting Go of Islamophobia

SPEAKER_00 7:24

master sheikh over here, the most stellar uh coach that I know. I'm actually nervous talking about this. That's why I'm stuttering. I hate this shit, but I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I'm just putting it out there. Damn it. Okay. Faisal's the man. I love this dude. Um, I started with him when he was having girl problems, and those turned out to be uh major uh identity problems. And this dude was cool enough while living in Bahrain and working um, you know, uh as an architect and uh real estate guy, and also having a band and playing around a town, which for himself is kind of, I think, a little borderline risky, just because there's this argument about what kind of music is haram, which is to say, you know, forbidden by Islam in Bahrain. So I already sort of indicated him as an interesting dude. As a way of getting him to acknowledge some of my deeper spiritual uh experiences, having been, you know, raised with a Jewish Roman Catholic identity and then going through a bunch of different religions. A bunch of different religions and belief systems. I need you to trust me. I don't have the time to get into it, but trust me. I've been through all of it. I've been through Buddhism, I've been through Taoism, I've been in and out of all the holy books from the Quran to the Torah to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Egyptian book of the dead, uh the Iching. Um I have been a solid student of math, art, science, religion, theology. I've been there, man. I'm telling you, I have not wasted my 55 years on this planet. And there was this goofy book back when I was an art student in Manhattan in the late 80s, um, that a former nun in her 80s turned Buddhist uh was working with me out of, and it was this goofy book called A Course in Miracles, which was an attempt to write a holy spirit-inspired oracle borrowing the lexicon of uh Christianity while leaning a little bit more deeply into Buddhist and possibly Gnostic principles. So already anybody who's a legalist, you know, Jews are gonna say, oh, it's talking about Jesus a mount. Um, you know, legalistic Christians are going to say, well, if it's not the Bible, it's not for me. Uh Oprah liked it. So I'm like, okay, you know, let's let's let's see. It seems to be a kind of a new age ebook that's trying to split the diff between Christianity and uh and sort of Neo-Buddhism here. So I'm showing up on a park bench, you know, once a week, talking, uh having life coaching lessons in the late 80s with a woman named Shanti Joseph's, uh, like I say, a former nun of like 50 some odd years. And um a combination of the experiences that I had with her using that book, which it could have been any book, I just want to be clear, but using that book as my sort of the vehicle for my for my understanding, and the intense amount of meditation and art and prayer that I was doing. And we'll define prayer, I guess, as um being incredibly quiet and still and feeling your connection to source, higher mind, whatever you want to call it, God, Allah. I don't care what name you give it, you know, hallowed be thy name, right? So I don't care what name you give it, I was just practicing being in the depths of whatever people call God. And I dare say that that was a path for me that got me through some of the hardest, most hellish experiences that I have um had in my life or heard others, you know, heard about others having. I I I I got through hell. I went down to the crossroads, as they say in the old blue songs. Um so when I started working with Faisal, uh I introduced this book, and he had actually heard of it and was open to working out of it. He said, you know, as a Muslim, you know, we regard um Jesus or Isa as a beloved prophet, peace be upon him, all that sort of thing. And uh yeah, this doesn't this doesn't r create any sort of conflict for me to be open-minded, because my faith is such that I believe that God or Allah or Hashem or however you whatever word you want to use, the Buddha, um can use anything as a tool for learning and for sort of calling your spirit home. Uh, and similarly, any tool is a weapon if you hold it right. That's uh uh there was an album in the 90s by an artist named Ani DeFranco, and uh she had an album. Uh uh I don't know if it was a song or an album called IQ, but I remember that line. Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right. So here's Faisal and I, a Jewish Roman Catholic um from South Philly slash New York slash, you know, New Jersey, tri-state area. And Faisal I mean Sheikh in Bahrain, and we're working out of a Course in Miracles, and he's teaching me a ton about Islam that is helping me to let go of a lot of the Islamophobia that I have been programmed with um in our country just because. I mean, I I don't want to point any fingers here, but I just want to say that my um United States experience is that um Islam has always been portrayed as evil. Um Muslims have always been portrayed as radicalized terrorists, um, and by contrast, um anything Jewish has been portrayed as very, very good. Be a good Jewish boy, and you know, we live in a Judeo-Christian country, whatever that means, um, as an ideology. And uh so working with Faisal helped me, in addition to lots of conversations that I was having, because I'm open-minded, um, with black Muslims in you know, in the 70s, eighties, and nineties in Philly, New York. Um uh five percenters, if that means anything to you, people who were, you know, using the nation of Islam, uh, and people like Lewis Farrakhan and uh Malcolm X and uh the honorable prophet Elijah Muhammad, quote unquote, as their guiding stars. The um conversations I was in with all of these people helped me to see a different side of Judaism, a different side of Christianity, a different side of Islam. And I'm also somebody who really likes Indian food, so I end up spending a lot of time while living in New York in Indian restaurants, talking to different Indian people, learning about um the north and the south, uh, and you know, the Islamic influence in the north and you know the varying traditions in the south, Hyderabad, uh, Kerala, Chennai, uh, etc. So I guess where this is going is that at a certain point in my connection with Faisal, I was seeing an opportunity to lay down some of the poisonous narratives that I had been programmed with. He was seeing an opportunity to continue to expand his curiosity, his interest, his knowledge about us in the West, um, Christianity, Judaism. And over the course of the thirteen plus years that I've been operating under this brand, I have worked with so many guys whose religions range or whose ideologies range from, dude, Church of the Latter-day, saints, you know, formerly Mormon, Baptist, which I have a whole history in black Baptist churches and the C-O-G-I-C. I can't get into that here because I don't have enough time, but I'm telling you, like, I have been a seeker, first as my mother's minion, on her quest for some sort of uh religious ecstasy to qualify her nutty existence. God bless her, and then on my own because I'd seen things I couldn't unsee. Now this video is not intended to discuss Israel, to discuss Iran, to discuss the United States as an entity, to discuss Epstein Island, to discuss Donald Trump, to discuss the two-party system, and whether or not it has become corrupted.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Hey man, stop spinning your wheels. If you're serious about leveling up your career, your relationships, and your mindset, it's time to man up. At Man Up Life Coaching, we cut the excuses and build discipline, confidence, and purpose. Book your free strategy session now at manuplifecoaching.comslash application. Don't fill it out if you're not ready to grind, but if you are, this call could change your life. Man up life coaching. Elite life coaching for men by men.

Dennis's Real Position on World Affairs

SPEAKER_00 20:49

The reason that I'm making this video is because I want to make a statement about my position on world affairs. As a guy with a um business called man up life coaching, I need to first let you know, please do not take my kindness for weakness. This isn't a flex, I'm just saying it so that you don't think I'm some kumbaya hippie and fail to appreciate my pedigree. Listen, I've been a very bad man. I'm a big guy. I, at 55 years old, have incredibly athletic. I have high testosterone, naturally, I don't take supplements. I have scars all over my body from my experiences out there in the streets, um Rikers Island in the 90s, um Orleans Parish Prison. I have never been convicted of a felony, but I have been in jail. For everything from assault and battery to attempted murder. And I have survived in some very, very dangerous situations that most people would genuinely be terrified to have to be in, let alone survive in for the period of time that I that I have. So again, it's not a flex. Also, I've got all kinds of, you know, combat training. So I'm saying, just I just want you to understand, I'm not some pussy, you know, homo uh beta simp pacifist or whatever label you would put on me. That's not to be in any way, I'm not I'm not shitting on gay people. I'm just saying um I want to be clear that if my message seems to be one of peace, that doesn't mean I don't understand war. Let me be clear. Trust me, motherfucker, I understand war. I just want to get that across. Okay. So

The Real War Is Always Inside Yourself

SPEAKER_00 23:13

the real war is always inside yourself. And this is going to sound hippy-dippy, and it's going to sound like some, you know, soCal woo-woo horseshit. And I get that. But again, I'm telling you what I know. Whatever you want to call God, whatever word you want to put, even if you're an agnostic and the way you frame that for yourself is some sort of quantum intelligence. You know, I am okay with whatever path you're comfortable taking to the higher

Media as a Custody Battle for Your Mind

SPEAKER_00 24:00

mind that is the source of our current experience that we're having in this life, in this moment, in this movie, on this quote, planet, um, in quote, time and space. Okay, what is the most important thing more than anything else is understanding that right now every media source is you're in a custody battle, and every single political narrative is like a parent or guardian that is trying to claim possession of you. They want your attention, they want your support, they want solidarity, they want your buy-in. And the buy-in is for you to believe in things that would make you hate, things that would make you fear, things that would make you choose um hurting over helping, uh, make you feel self-righteous in killing, give you Schadenfreude for watching someone else suffer or fail miserably, and I want to plant my flag right here and right now and say, hear it, man up life coaching. We do not hurt with the intention to make someone else's soul suffer. I'm not saying that we can't hand out a good old-fashioned ass weapon. I mean, sometimes somebody does need to be humbled. Consider two guys in a combat uh environment in, let's say, the octagon or on the mats. If a dude's cocky, if a dude's a show-off, or female athlete for that matter, doesn't have to be a dude. I'm just saying dude because that's my listening audience. But if somebody comes in like an asshole and you have to humble them by, you know, making them go to sleep or punching them in the stomach hard enough that they can't breathe, and then putting one on their chin just to make sure they got the message, I'm okay with that. I'm not saying that I'm such a pacifist that I can't punch a guy dead in his face or break his arm or whatever. But what I am saying is that's all technical. There is no part of me through any of that that is feeling hatred toward a brother. Even when I'm meeting out a uh, you know, a punishment, or for that matter, when I'm taking one, because trust me, I've had my ass kicked, dude. I told you I've got the scars. Whether I am on the delivering end or the receiving end of an ass weapon that is designed to help you to understand humility from a place of tough love and to break your eyes and to break your bitch assness. Um,

If You Feel Hate in Your Heart, You've Lost

SPEAKER_00 27:37

or if, you know, whatever side of that I'm on, taking it or giving it, my point is, I am not saying that we should spare the rod. What I am saying is if you feel hate in your heart, you've lost the war, you have been defeated, I really need you to hear that. I'm gonna say it again. If you feel hate in your heart for a brother or sister, as the case may be, but I'm just using brother as, you know, your neighbor, right? If you are feeling hate in your heart for another person, then you've been defeated. I have been the victim of childhood abuse. One of the things I've had to do is I've had to forgive those who were my victimizers, including my own parents.

Forgiveness, Abuse, and Looking in the Mirror

SPEAKER_00 28:40

And when I say abuse, I don't just mean a a little a little whoopin. I mean what qualifies as, in legal terms, you know, extreme abuse, like courts getting involved, child protective services, torturous abuse. I have had to forgive my transgressors. I have had to beg for forgiveness for my transgressions. I am at peace with myself. When I look in the mirror, I don't see a bad guy. When I look in the mirror, I see someone who is using his free will to love himself, love his wife, love his kid, love his dog, love his neighbor, and that can be a little difficult because one of my neighbors is an Airbnb, so I mean, I'm telling you, I'm practicing what I preach here. As someone who is ethnically Jewish, I do not want to hate other Jewish people. As someone who was raised Christian, I do not want to hate other Christians. As someone with a ton of Indian clients who has learned so much about Indian culture, I do not want to be poisoned by social media comments that paint Indian people in this really horrible light. The the racism and the prejudice is so hateful. And I can do this all day. Uh I don't want to hate Chinese people because of this, you know, xenophobia that we demonstrate in our country, where Chinese people are gonna take over the US, or Japanese people because something, something Pearl Harbor, or they're not like us, right? Um, what I want is to practice as I have been love for all humanity. I will still defend myself. I mean, I'm a gun owner, and you know, give me a reason and I'll use it. Again, as I've said, I'm very physical. Give me a reason and I will defend myself. Um, but when I defend myself, it will still always be humanely. I do not believe that humanity serves itself well when it attacks itself like a cancer. If you look at the world from very far away, like from the vantage point of an I was gonna say an alien, but let's just say somebody who is not from Earth. If you look at the world from far away, what you should see is societal health, not societal sickness. If a society is attacking itself, that is not societal health. That's sickness. And I have a belief that sounds very naive, but I'm telling you it isn't. I'm telling you it's possible because I know what I know. Uh let's put it this way: the Dalai Lama famously said, uh, after enlightenment, you still have to do your laundry. Well, let's just say I've been doing a lot of laundry since I had my aha moment, okay? People are literally designed to love and support other people. So here is my message. If you are Israeli,

A Direct Message to Israelis and Palestinians

SPEAKER_00 33:10

as hard as this is for me to say right now, because of some of the stuff that I'm seeing in the world, you are my brother and I love you. I would like you to please let go of narratives that justify in your mind the right to harm, hurt, and force suffering upon innocence. I am not saying that you can't defend, but I'm saying leave innocence out of it. If you are Muslim, you may have a narrative that says, you know, in, you know, there's a Nakba and they stole our land, and they're trying to get rid of us, and this isn't uh offense, this is defense. All I am saying again is keep love in your heart and always be working toward the possibility of lovingly coexisting, because once you let go of the idea that that is possible, as you know, we lose. Also, and this is going to be a radical statement: if your religion tells you that you have to hurt other people to achieve peace, and by hurt, I mean kill, maim, torture. Religions are man-made constructs that are designed to help us to achieve enlightenment where we understand what we are, and what we are is non-physical, is energetic. And if your religion tells you that humanity is justified in attacking itself, then I am here to tell you you are using your energy wrong, and you may want to prey on that. Really? So my message is whether if you are Palestinian here at Man Up Life Coaching, we love and support you. If you are Israeli, here at Man Up Life Coaching, we love and support you. If you are Indian, we love and support you. If you are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, we love and support you. If you are Azerbaijani, we love and support you.

The World Is Sick, and What Finland Knows

SPEAKER_00 36:16

If you are Turkic, we love and support you. Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, whoever you are, we love and support you. Do me a favor, take a look at Finland, which has been the happiest place to live for the past nine years and is also cold as a witch's titty, and figure out just what is it that these people are doing, and can we emulate that? Because right now the world is sick. And as a life coach for men, I am interested in healing. Love yourself, believe in peace, offer the olive branch, or turn the other cheek, as the case may be, and do everything that you can do to show love to anyone in a position of conflict, which is going to require a lot of calculus to rationalize all of the hurt that you felt and all of the justified anger that you fear, feel. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to feel incredibly upset. I'm saying in this global Hatfield and McCoy situation that we're in right now, somebody has to come along and say, could you knock it the fuck off? And can we bro hug this thing out? And that's my message. I want real men to stand up. Stop getting poisoned by narratives that ask you to hate your brother. Be a man and love your brother. Love God by any name and love your brother. And on that note, hold on for one second, Alexa. Stop. I guess it's time for me to end this. So go in peace. Love your brother, love God, or whatever name you want to put to that. And be a good guy. Don't be a dick. That's the that's the message. All right. I'm Dennis Procopio. This is the Bro Coach Podcast, and I would ask you to follow me on BroCoach.com. I would ask you to consider checking out some of the uh very useful uh material for success-driven men at manuplifecoaching.com. Again, manuplifecoaching dot com. And until then, be peace, be love, be a badass, and I'll see you on the next one.