From Drug Dealer to a 'Good' Man (with Nico Lagan)
Release Date: 01/14/2024
Why Your Nervous System Won't Let You Rest
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired September 6, 2026 Dr. Charleanea Arellano has spent over 30 years as a clinical psychologist and leadership coach, but the framework she's best known for now, the Embodied Narrative Framework, didn't come from a textbook. It came from putting away laundry five years ago and noticing her own body bracing for impact, for no reason at all, at age 55, after decades of actually being safe. Dr. Arellano built her career studying how high-achieving women lead while carrying nervous systems shaped by trauma, and by the added weight of managing how their race, sexuality, or gender is...
info_outline
Why Business Leaders Need Negotiation Skills
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 23, 2026 Annette Mullin spent 24 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, nine of them as a crisis negotiator, eventually leading one of the busiest negotiation teams in the country — averaging over 100 call-outs a year. She worked patrol, sexual assault, internal affairs, and homicide, becoming LVMPD's first female homicide sergeant, before spending her final years as the department's director of employee wellness in the aftermath of the October 1 Mandalay Bay shooting, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Now a negotiation instructor and coach...
info_outline
Why Comedy Might Be the Best Medicine For Mental Health
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 16, 2026 For over a decade, Dave Mowry couldn't get out of bed, couldn't shower, and couldn't walk to his own mailbox without waiting until dark so a neighbor wouldn't catch the look in his eyes. In 1994, a psychotic break sent the successful businessman and family man into a depression so deep it cost him his house, his career, and 14 years he calls his "lost years." He slept in his clothes for months at a time. At parties, he'd stand against the wall and pray no one came over to talk to him. Then, at his wife's urging, he walked into a stand-up comedy class for people...
info_outline
Why Imposter Syndrome Keeps Leaders Stuck
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
In this episode, Dana is joined by Kurt Bush, a trauma-informed coach who helps leaders move from imposter syndrome to authentic confidence. Kurt shares his own journey with imposter syndrome, from feeling like a fraud in corporate leadership meetings to realizing his true calling. He explains that to make a change, the pain of staying the same must become greater than the pain of changing, a threshold many of us fear crossing. Kurt introduces the ERT (Encounter + Reflection = Transformation) framework, a practical approach to help you get unstuck. He reveals why the first step to moving...
info_outline
Your Midlife 'Crisis' Might Be Burnout (with Jody Brooks)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
A midlife crisis isn't actually a crisis. That's the challenge Jody Brooks puts to anyone who's ever felt lost, restless, or quietly convinced something's wrong with them somewhere around 40 or 50: what looks like burnout, and what people love to write off as a freakout, is more often a calling. His own arrived at lunchtime at the office, buzzing canteen and all, when he found himself sitting in a restroom cubicle, crying so hard he could barely breathe. No brutal meeting that morning. No disaster. Just the quiet moment his body picked to file its formal complaint: burnout wasn't a "rough...
info_outline
How You Can Find Hope After Rock Bottom (Aaron Ryan)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Two in the morning. Sitting on the toilet, clothed, bawling into a pillow, because a broken PC was the last thing standing between him and the self-employed life he wanted so badly he could feel it in his teeth. That's where my guest this week hit rock bottom: not one dramatic collapse, but months of computer problems piling on top of a dream that felt like it was never going to happen. A client shared one quote with him that day, and Aaron Ryan has carried it in his back pocket for almost twenty years since: "The temptation to quit is always greatest just before your greatest success." Aaron...
info_outline
How Your Body's Intuition Can Heal You (Rebecca Russell)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Four years of chronic pain. A fibromyalgia diagnosis. Muscle relaxers, pain pills, migraines, MRI after MRI. And through all of it, my guest this week kept hearing the same quiet voice: something doesn't fit. Rebecca Russell listened to it anyway, tracked down a neurosurgeon, and asked for one test nobody else had run: a discogram. It found the bulging disc that had been the actual problem the whole time, and eighty-five percent of her symptoms disappeared after surgery. Rebecca is a metabolism and lifestyle coach, certified essential oil specialist, and author who's spent more than three...
info_outline
Why Successful Entrepreneurs Set Boundaries (Chris Shurian)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
My guest this week has a word for himself I'd never heard before: "entrepreholic." Over 39 years, Chris Shurian has built, operated, bought, broken, and resurrected companies in remodeling, construction, manufacturing, real estate development, foreign investment, hospitality, restaurants, and retail. He's also survived cancer and finished two Ironmans. And in 2008, when the economy crashed, he was so extended, so "all in, all in, all in," as he puts it, that he spent the next two years meeting with his banker once a week just to survive it. We talk about what it actually felt like to launch...
info_outline
Why Loneliness Hits the Young Hardest (Dr. Anthony Silard)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a hand-written sign taped to a bus stop in Japan: "I'm 87, I don't have a family. Would some family take me?" No one answered. He died a couple of months later. That story, from my guest this week, is the starkest snapshot I've ever heard of what loneliness researcher Dr. Anthony Silard calls a global epidemic, and the twist is who it's hitting hardest: not the oldest of us, but the youngest. Anthony is a professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and an internationally recognized authority on relationships, emotional intelligence, and personal transformation, and he's the...
info_outline
Avoiding Failure Guarantees It (with Mark DeCarlo)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a high school track meet: a sixteen-pound shot put thrown the wrong direction, a burst spleen, three weeks in a hospital bed. That's how my guest this week learned, at sixteen or seventeen, that avoiding failure is exactly what guarantees it. Mark DeCarlo woke up after three days unconscious to a doctor telling him ten more minutes and he'd have been dead, and he's spent every day since orienting his choices around one question: will this make me more happy or less happy? Mark is an Emmy award-winning comedian, bestselling author, and in-demand corporate speaker and leadership trainer...
info_outlineWhat does it actually take to become a "good man"? Nico Lagan didn't get there through comfort. He got there by hitting bottom. My guest today grew up without a present father figure, idolized the wrong men, and spent his late teens and early twenties as an addict and a drug dealer, sitting on his apartment floor mid-eviction when his mom called and asked him one question: "Are you happy?" That question is what turned his life around, and it's why he's now known as a men's coach who fearlessly champions what a good man looks like. Nico moved back into his mother's house that same day, into NA and AA meetings, and eventually into the career he has now.
Nico is an entrepreneur, author, and host of "The Nico Lagan Show," with more than 100,000 followers and 5 to 10 million monthly views across his content, plus over 300 appearances as a guest and host, including Sean Kelly's Digital Hour. We talk about what actually changes a person's life (his answer: pain, not comfort), why he cut ties with nearly everyone around him to get sober, and the five virtues he now teaches men: courage, being a protector, being a provider, temperance, and faith.
Nico's content gets called controversial, and in this conversation he explains why he doesn't see it that way, and makes his case for the differences he believes men and women bring to a relationship. Whether or not you agree with everything he says, his own story, from an eviction notice to accountability, is worth hearing.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDvmuipMDa4
In this episode
- How growing up without a present father led Nico to idolize the wrong men, and how that fueled six or seven years of addiction and dealing drugs
- The one question from his mom, "are you happy?", that started a complete 180-degree life change
- Why Nico says "pain and suffering are the best of teachers," and why comfort can be the most dangerous trap of all
- Nico's five virtues of a good man: courage, protector, provider, temperance, and faith, and why he says courage comes first
- Why he cut ties with nearly everyone in his life to get sober, including people close to him, and how he decides who stays now
- His take on free speech, controversy, and why he'd rather know what people actually think
Timestamps
- (00:05) Welcome and guest intro: meet Nico Lagan, men's coach and host of "The Nico Lagan Show"
- (02:45) Growing up without his father, and idolizing "the wrong men"
- (09:55) Getting evicted while still an addict and a drug dealer in his early 20s
- (10:29) The phone call from his mom: "Are you happy?"
- (12:33) The deathbed-regret study, and why pain is the best teacher
- (16:52) Why Nico says his content isn't controversial, common sense is just rare
- (20:48) Cutting ties with the people bringing him down, including family
- (28:13) Nico's five virtues of a good man: courage, protector, provider, temperance, faith
- (31:37) Nico's case for the differences he sees between men and women
- (38:45) Where to find Nico Lagan and his books
About Nico Lagan
Nico Lagan is an entrepreneur, author, men's coach, and host of "The Nico Lagan Show," featured in Times Square, with more than 100,000 followers and content drawing 5 to 10 million monthly views. He's appeared on TV, radio, and podcasts, including Sean Kelly's Digital Hour, with over 300 total appearances as a guest and host.
Learn more, find his books, and follow him on social media at nicolagan.com.
Favorite quotes
"Men are not born, they're made through trials and tribulations, through having to go through tough things in order to forge character." —Nico Lagan
"Pain and suffering are the best of teachers." —Nico Lagan
"I refuse categorically to live a life that others want me to live." —Nico Lagan
Resources mentioned
- NicoLagan.com: Nico's website, with his books and all his social media
- "The Nico Lagan Show": Nico's podcast, on all major platforms
Related episodes
- From Child Abuse, Drug Trafficking, and Decades in Prison to Being On Fire For Christ: Interview with Steven Snook (Part One): another guest's road from addiction and dealing to a completely rebuilt life
- Why Traditional Masculinity Is Failing Modern Relationships: a different take on the masculinity conversation Nico raises here
- From Suicide Plans to 20 Years as Tony Robbins' Firewalk Captain: Dave Albin's Amazing Journey: more on the accountability and mentorship that pulls someone out of crisis
Subscribe & connect
If this episode gave you something to sit with, follow Phoenix and Flame so you never miss an episode: all apps in one place, or jump straight to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or YouTube. And if it moved you, leave a review; it's the easiest way to help another listener find the show.
Learn more about Phoenix and Flame, connect with Dana, and listen to more episodes here.
Curious where your own boundaries stand? Take my free Work Boundaries Quiz: danaskaggs.com/quiz