Real Men, Real Style, Real Marine: Life Lessons from Antonio Centeno

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What's going on Warrior Soul nation? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast and this latest episode with Antonio Centeno from Real Men Real Style. Now, guys, I have to say that style's actually probably one of my weak points. If you find me on any day of the week, I'm usually in jeans and a t shirt, and that's largely because I work from home. But I also know the value of looking good, and I think that it's one of the most important points for personal success.

If you're going out there into the public, you want people to look at you, you wanna stand out from the crowd, and you don't wanna get noticed for any kind of fashion faux pas. And as we'll get into in today's episode, you're being examined by the people you come in contact with. They're examining you for weaknesses. They're examining you for strengths. They're trying to determine whether or not you're someone they wanna work with, whether or not you're someone whose daughter they want to date, whether or not you're somebody who is worth talking to.

And Antonio Centeno has made a name for himself by teaching men about the value of style. His channel Real Men Real Style has over 1,600,000 subscribers. The coolest part is is that Antonio is a United States Marine Corps veteran. He served as an officer, and he did multiple combat deployments. I really love this interview with Antonio.

There's so many lessons in here on leadership, on personal management, on how to get yourself through tough times, on how to dress, of course, and on things you can do on a daily basis to accomplish more. He's got some really great advice here on how to focus on what's important, and how to get rid of what's not important, and and just get it out of your life. So really, really awesome interview. I just wanna give you guys a note from our sponsors before we get into it. F Bomb Nutrition, amazing company by amazing people.

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Chris Albert 00:04:02 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

Chris Albert 00:04:41 (link to this point)

What's going on Warrior Soul Nation? This is Chris Albert, welcome to another episode of the Warrior Soul Podcast. Today, I am very privileged to bring to you Antonio Centeno. And this is a fantastic episode for us to be doing. Antonio has done so much work as far as getting people to learn more about something that's extremely important, that's style, personal style, understanding how to wear clothes, understanding that clothes make the man, and he's got 1,600,000 followers on YouTube.

So he's helping people around the world to increase their style. He's also teaching people about things like life skills and business and you name it, can you can find it on Antonio's channel. One of the best things about Antonio is that he is a United States Marine Corps veteran. And got into his channel a few weeks ago because of another guest we had, AJ Harbinger from the Art of Charm, and I was absolutely fascinated with what I saw. So Antonio, I just wanna welcome you to the podcast and thank you for coming on today.

Antonio Centeno 00:05:49 (link to this point)

Yeah, you're welcome, Chris. Proud to be here. So anything I can answer and help vets with, I'm ready to do.

Chris Albert 00:05:54 (link to this point)

Definitely. I want to get into a little bit of your story because know you served as United States Marine Corps officer.

Antonio Centeno 00:06:02 (link to this point)

Yep.

Chris Albert 00:06:02 (link to this point)

We were talking about prior to to to me hitting the record button. You know, you started serving in 1997, went up into the two thousands. And, you know, you had this really interesting path where you went from being a Marine Corps officer to today broadcasting on YouTube and talking about men's style. Can you give us a little bit a little bit more about your story, little bit more about how you got into this line of work?

Antonio Centeno 00:06:30 (link to this point)

Well, think that right there is just, it should give a lot of the guys out there hope because I'm sure you know all those sergeants, sergeant, you know, first, you know, staff sergeants, they're like, gosh, if this Marine Corps officer can do something, maybe I've got some, it's gonna be easy for me. Because hey, you know, the guys that I saw that did have the most impact, still to this day, my staff sergeant, he was, you know, I was an 0180, and he was amazing because I came in as a second lieutenant with no idea and this guy had four kids and he was just making things happen and I was greatly inspired by, you know, my staff sergeant, I remember my sergeant major who taught me how to go out there on the parade field and to make things happen for my corporals that, you know, very gently just showed me, you know, through what is possible, and so, you know, for those guys, I think if if if I can go in and make a success of myself here, I think it, you know, should give hope to everybody that it's possible, because you know, one of the big things when you start off and you get into whatever you're gonna you know do after the military is that you don't have to do what you did in the Marine Corps or the Air Force or whatever you know unit you're part of or what your MOS is.

That does not define you and that took me a while to figure out because so many of us think that okay, I'm a log o or you know, maybe I'm an admin guy, I'm a grunt, so I've got, you know, okay, I'm really good with my weapons and stuff so I need to go to FBI or I need to go into law enforcement. And I really think that that's the wrong mindset because what the Marine Corps gave me, what the Army gives I think, you know, soldiers and, you know, the Navy, you know, for sailors and the Air Force and the Coast Guard, is it really gives us amazing leadership skills. And that, you've heard this probably before, but it is, it can't be understated because managing, leading, getting a team to do whatever you needed to do is something that you're gonna use throughout your life, and to be able to inspire, to be able to get up in front of a group of people and convince them that they need to invest in you, whether it be time, whether it be money, this is this is a skill set that that is just so key.

So, yeah, I joined back in 1997, just straight out of college, actually signed up in '97 but didn't officially go active duty till 1998. Went through TBS, I blew out my sinuses in the T-34. So I started off as a student naval aviator, went through Pensacola, went Corpus Christi, but ended up going and becoming an 0180, going right into basically it's an adjutant infantry battalion, I was what they call a combat adj, and I didn't think too much of it. In fact, I was very disappointed, have to admit, with that, and you go from flying, you know, T-34s to all of a sudden you're stuck at a desk and you're doing admin work and not only that, you're in an infantry battalion, so you gotta go hump multiple times and you have all these O-3s that they're giving you a lot of crap, especially your fellow officers because you know they're off doing their sniper stuff or they're out training with their unit and you're just back again doing paperwork processing awards, I was just like what, you know I definitely am gonna get out, like this is not for me and that was going to be my path until I had, you know, great mentors that just came in, you know, from my XO to, you know, just other officers that say, hey, this guy needs to get back on track to, you know, I had gunnery sergeants, you know, lot of, actually, first sergeants that came in from, because I was reporting to them and they're like, you know, gotta get this guy on his track because if he's not, then it's really going to affect us.

And it was them, it was those guys I think that really taught me what I needed to know, and so I deployed with the eleventh MEU back in 2002 and then as soon as we got back from that it was hey, like there's something going down in Iraq. Obviously we talked about the 2001, everything that happened then and how the mindset shifted of we're no longer peacekeeper, we're going after the guys that And hurt so in early two thousand three, we deployed with, at the time it was reinforced infantry, basically it was BLT, and so we went out and that was with the first Marine Regiment and I was with third Battalion first Marines, and it was WUS-one hundred one and some of those other guys, we jumped on a boat, took a slow boat over and got ready and we basically hit, I think it was in late February when we were in, what was it, Kuwait, and went up straight into Iraq on the initial day, think that was March, March something, mid

Chris Albert 00:11:10 (link to this point)

March. Yeah, I remember.

Antonio Centeno 00:11:12 (link to this point)

I don't remember the exact date, but I do know that it was just an amazing experience and this is what we trained up for, so we went through Nasiriyah, we went over to Al Kut, and then we went right into Baghdad. So to be a part of that, and I think what I took from this and the reason I kinda wanted to share with you guys is a little bit of my story, is that I know some of you guys listening maybe you never got the experience of combat, some of you guys probably got a little bit too much, much more than what you ever wanted. And I do think though, and we talked about the importance of timing and no matter how you served, you know, just remember that this contribution you made is something that I'm always grateful because I got out, you know, I think relatively easy, got a bit of disability with my head because of the sinus blowing out and I had have surgery and stuff like that, but I mean that's a small price to pay compared to a lot of guys that never came back and made the ultimate sacrifice.

And I think as vets that come back, it's our job, especially those of us that are out, to reach back and to really try to help those veterans and those that are still in to open their minds to what is possible beyond the military. Cause so many guys are getting out and if you look at you know, what is it, one out of 22 vets, know, or one out of, is it 20, there's some crazy number about the

Chris Albert 00:12:34 (link to this point)

Right now VA the VA has 20 veterans a day, that was the last numbers the VA released.

Antonio Centeno 00:12:41 (link to this point)

Yeah, I mean, then think about it, that's crazy, it's horrible, why are we killing ourselves? And I saw it when we got back from deployment, we had one of our staff sergeants hang himself, we had another guy you know shoot himself, mean it's just like what is going on here? And I think you know for us to be able to inspire and motivate and to help, because let's face it, the VA ain't gonna do it, you know the government is not going to help, alright, and to good measure because I get it, the job of the Marine Corps is to fight and win war, the job of the Army is to go in and just overwhelm and destroy the enemy, the job of the chair force, I mean the air force we love it, is to, I saw some guy with a quote the other day, he's like, you know the air force doesn't figure out how to get rid of the enemy on top of the mountain, they just destroy the Mountain. I'm like, glad you're on our side. But my job is to, I look at it now, is to inspire these vets and to show them what's possible and if an unmotivated, you know, first lieutenant, you know, who can go off and do amazing things on YouTube, then you can do whatever you wanna do. I've seen the Lance Corporal get out and start this amazing, I don't know if you follow what Max is doing over at Terminal Lance.

Chris Albert 00:13:55 (link to this point)

Yeah, Max, absolutely.

Antonio Centeno 00:13:57 (link to this point)

Yeah, amazing, and just you see this guy go out there and just create this whole thing. Mean I remember we had a stat, was in E6 that was in the air force at the time and I mean he had built up this game on Amazon and he had created like a $2,000,000 a year business that he was getting drop shipped and he was still active duty. Yeah, so one of my projects, don't know if you know about this, it's called High Speed Low Drag and this is where we've worked with veterans, we did a number of interviews, I worked with a guy named John Lee Dumas who was a tank commander in Iraq as well, we were at about the same time and this guy has built a multi million dollar business podcast.

Chris Albert 00:14:34 (link to this point)

Entrepreneur on Fire, yeah.

Antonio Centeno 00:14:35 (link to this point)

Yep and you've got Tom Morkes, Tom is, he just went into the publishing world and he was a, you know, don't hold this against him, but he went to, what was it, to West Point and you know, army army officer there, but this guy, you know, he's redefining himself, he's over at limping the dream in Colorado and he's helping, you know, people create content with the written word. And none of us, if you would have asked like John did you go to school to become a podcaster? No, you didn't go to school. I didn't go to school to become a YouTuber, I didn't even go to school to get into the fashion industry, but what I realized is I could take that hard work, that discipline, and that ability to say you know what, I've been in some really tough situations and this doesn't even compare. You know they can come take my house, they can threaten to take away my car, whatever, like I got my life and we don't have debtors prison in this country anymore, so hey, I can do, yeah, you can't hurt me.

When you've got that I think type of mentality, I think a lot of vets have, is you can go off and do pretty amazing things.

Chris Albert 00:15:34 (link to this point)

Yeah, that's, you know, there's so many lessons in what you just said. Number one, I can't believe that it's almost fifteen years since since 2003, which is absolutely crazy. I feel like I'm getting older and older. Number two, you know, I think that the lessons that you learned as far as trying to get mentors, the lessons in humility, trying to find people who can support you and who can teach you and who can educate you on the path that you need to take and who could go to bat for you. I think that's that's so important to learn and to understand and, and that definitely takes a good degree of humility.

And then, you know, finally, understanding those possibilities that are out there that you don't necessarily, you're qualified for a whole lot if you served in the infantry and the Marine Corps, especially if you held a leadership position. And that's something, you know, I learned when I was going through some hard times. I was living out of my car a few years ago and somebody told me to start a YouTube channel and my YouTube channel is nowhere near the size of yours, but it still gave me a launch to my career as an online trainer. And so I've been able to deliver fitness advice to people around the world. And I think it's absolutely amazing what you've done and what you just said to everybody.

One of the big questions I have is, at what point did you realize that YouTube was the route you needed to take? That that you needed to leverage this awesome free technology that was being put out there to get your message out there? And and what kind of mistakes did you make along the way?

Antonio Centeno 00:17:09 (link to this point)

You know, I think I made a lot of mistakes and that's the truth of the matter is that you gotta view it if anyone's a baseball fan out there, they know if you're batting 400 over your career, you're probably gonna get into the hall of fame. That's an amazing batting average. But what that also indicates is that you're striking out six out of 10 times. And I think in life, what's great is you don't even have to, like you could be batting a 100 and you're gonna be doing great. The thing is you gotta keep going up to bat.

You gotta keep swinging, you gotta try to learn from every time you're up there and you're not always gonna learn, sometimes you're just gonna swing and miss it, but you gotta be able to move on, gotta be able to keep going and I think anyone that has dealt with adversity, anyone that has gone through tough and trying times, anyone that has been pushed to the limit, you know, that's what business is in many ways and you just gotta be consistent. You've gotta consistently work to get better and realize and be willing to go through the suck. I think the people that impressed me most when I would go through training, anyone that's been through like SERE school, anyone that's gone through, you know, just long, know, infantry training for whether it be marines or the army, different types of flight school training, know for the air force or you know for the, it's one of those things, SEAL training. They, it's the people that can just take the suck. They are, in fact, it's the guys that are singing when things are bad at 03:00 in the morning and you're getting, know, you're cold, you're freezing, you're getting sand thrown in your face and you just, you better start belting out fun songs because you realize hey, like I don't have I'm not looking forward to next year I'm looking for if I can make it to the next minute I'm fine and if I can make it to the next I can only just make the next fifteen minutes the next hour and you know it's that type of mentality sometimes in business that's gonna get you through those tough times.

For me with YouTube, know, being able I did not, I had no idea that I would go towards YouTube. When I started this journey in 2007, what I did have to deal with is giving somebody $10,000 to build a website for me and then basically failing me and keeping that money. I had to deal with writing for years articles that I can't write to save my life, I'm a horrible typer, but just going through this and creating hundreds of articles that, you know, why did I do that? Because I that was the only path I knew, was like, well, if I created some content online, maybe someone would find it. And it did bring me quite a bit of traffic, but it wasn't what I really loved and I can't even imagine having to still create all that content, but what I did find eventually was that you know I don't mind creating a video, like this is really easy for me, I can talk, can get in front of that camera, I feel like can try to motivate, I'm really good at moving my hands around, know, at least that's what people told me on, know, it's kind of a joke on my channel that my hands go everywhere, but at the end of the day, I had a message to share and because I had written those hundreds of articles, actually I knew quite a bit about men's fashion and I was able to to share that information and it just so turned out you know I was swinging and swinging and swinging, I caught that ball you know just out of pure luck and all of a sudden we started on, I started realizing wow I'm pretty good at this type of swing, what if I did another did another one?

And then you you get a little bit hard headed too and you're like well I'm gonna try this a 100 times and I'm gonna try this 200 times and so we did like 200 videos in two hundred days, which may sound like a lot, but I batched those videos, I didn't edit them, I just simply threw them up. So it's like you know you don't have to have perfect form when you show up at the gym, and you don't have to show up every single day or even be there an hour every time you show up. But if you show up to the gym at least four to five times a week, I mean just almost by osmosis you be in there, you're going to start to pick up the right habits. You're gonna start lifting those weights, you're going to start looking around saying oh that guy you know he's built pretty well and he's doing it that way I'm gonna follow him and do what he's doing or maybe ask him for advice and that's exactly what happened on YouTube. I saw other people that were kicking butt, kinda imitated what they were doing.

I simply tried to get better but I kept showing up. I kept consistently putting that stuff out there and then we started taking it off. Know and that's really you know it was my philosophy, knew I wanted to get to a million views, so I was like well if I did a million videos and I got one view each, that's gonna get me there, but I didn't think that would happen, I felt that, you know, but I was willing to put in a thousand videos, because I'm like if I can get a thousand videos and each one gets a thousand views, there's my million, right? So that was kind of my logic to it, just being willing to put in that type of effort and not being, most people you're gonna hear, they complain they're like, man I did everything I could, I tried everything, did you really? How many things did you try? Tried twice, tried it maybe, you maybe tried it once, you didn't try it a million times, come on. And I think a lot of guys, know, a lot of vets, you know, they're willing to try a 100 times. If you're willing to try something a 100 times, you're way ahead of the vast majority.

Chris Albert 00:22:22 (link to this point)

Absolutely. You know, it's funny because we live in these times where it seems like people come out of thin air and they become success. As you know, we see a lot of YouTube channels just that seem to just pop up we see a lot of

Antonio Centeno 00:22:34 (link to this point)

okay, but I'm like, who really comes out of thin air?

Chris Albert 00:22:37 (link to this point)

Right? And I can't think of anyone like yeah, what I'm saying is you don't you don't know the complete story. You don't know how many videos that that person did that got no views or that got a 100 views. You don't know

Antonio Centeno 00:22:49 (link to this point)

Yeah, Casey Neistat. Everyone's like, oh, where did he come from? He's like, man, this guy busted his butt for twenty five years in video. And he gets a break and people assume, oh, he came out and it's like this guy has been working his butt off for twenty five years and we just see this blip when he has his like his moment. That's what we see.

You know even like someone more controversial like that you know this guy Logan Paul, I don't know if you follow, like they got huge followings, I mean I think their content's kind of junk, but you know one thing I do respect, they were wrestlers and in high school him and his brother, any wrestler I respect because that's like one of those sports that mean they start when they're like 10 years old and they're going without water, working out you know starting at 5AM, I mean they understand what work is and everyone I see that apparently is an overnight success there's like ten years, there's twenty years of work prior to this and that's what people just like to ignore that, but no, there's always something there.

Chris Albert 00:23:52 (link to this point)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I see that all the time. I'm good friends with CT Fletcher, and I used to be his nutrition coach. He's a big fitness YouTuber. And the people don't realize that, know, four or five years ago, the guy had nothing.

He didn't have 2 dimes to scratch together and and took a long time for him to get his name out there. It took a long time for him to to be able to but, you know, it it he he took a chance and got the video up and and that first video that that he had done for him did amazing. But why style? Like, so when you were in the Marine Corps, were thinking a lot about style at the time? Were you thinking a lot about fashion?

Did you always have a passion for clothes?

Antonio Centeno 00:24:33 (link to this point)

No, not at all. I came into the whole thing kind of as, Andrew Warner talks about this, so you're either getting into a business because you're a mercenary or you're a missionary. Missionaries are going after it because they've got a big, they don't care about the money, they just got a big mission and the mercenaries are in it for the money, like they see opportunity, let's go do it. I was a mercenary. What I saw is that graduated from business school, went to UT, actually got paid for free as a Hazlewood Act allows any Texas vet to go to a public school combat vet for free.

So something if you've never heard of this check it out. But what I learned is that it's a lot of, you know, it's not as easy as I thought because I had this tailor that I spoke with and he was making like 300,000 a year and he had worked for twenty five years to build up this booklet. He was a traveling custom clothier. I was like man like I've got this fancy degree like I like clothing it's interesting to me, and I like custom suits so why don't I just jump into this and build up in just a couple years what took him twenty five years. That was my thought process and it didn't exactly work out that way in fact my first business, A Tailored Suit, speaking of failures, failed.

I mean I just couldn't get enough revenue and I couldn't get enough profitability and I wasn't gonna go back and work and own the factory which is I think what you need in that industry succeed. But what it did do, owning A Tailored Suit opened my eyes to the possibility of what I could do with content marketing and everything there. So again it was fail fail fail fail, oh, that thing worked, and I zeroed in there. But getting back to the question about fashion, I don't care about fashion, but what I care about is looking good. And I don't know a marine that didn't care about looking good.

In fact, if you put on your ribbons incorrectly, what would happen?

Chris Albert 00:26:22 (link to this point)

Somebody's gonna chew your ass out.

Antonio Centeno 00:26:24 (link to this point)

Somebody somebody's gonna chew, yeah, they're gonna correct you. If you put your jump wings on sideways, do you think anyone's yeah, every I mean you're gonna get smacked, you're gonna be like, you know, it's little things like that, if you went through Ranger School and you're a Marine, where do you have that tab? You've got it underneath your arm. Like guys got those things in there right? It's like little codes that we've got and if you see someone, if you're an Army Ranger or you're a Navy SEAL and you see someone wearing the Trident and it's the like liberal out there, what are gonna do, you're gonna go be gonna smack that guy upside, what are you doing, you're gonna tear that thing off?

I saw it there was somebody, was some clothing company.

Chris Albert 00:26:59 (link to this point)

Stolen valor.

Antonio Centeno 00:26:59 (link to this point)

Yeah, well this was, they had a ranger tab, I mean they didn't know. Somebody But designer thought it would be cool put ranger tab there. You don't put a ranger tab on so it's like and that was a big protest and that's a big deal. So you can't tell me that veterans do not care about image and uniforms and presentation and my message is to get guys to understand that and that everything you wear is actually sending a message and an image. So, you know, and just make sure that you don't betray expectations because when you would do an inspection and you see you know a guy and one of them he's just good to go, mean everything about his uniform is spot on and back you know when we used to shine our boots, mean it was something, you look from the boots to if you use like Parade you know use that what is that that stuff on edge liner.

Chris Albert 00:27:51 (link to this point)

Yeah edge liner yep I remember that.

Antonio Centeno 00:27:53 (link to this point)

I mean it was all those details when you see someone does that I mean you can see yourself in their boots and you see nothing. Mean uniform is immaculate. You don't even have to bother checking the inside of their M16 for rust, you don't have to. Like this guy, if he's done this, like it's good to go. However, when you get that turd that is like every, it's like man come on, sled, did you sleep in this uniform?

It doesn't even fit you properly. Can bet that they're gonna go in and inspect everything because if he messed this up he most likely did not clean out his wall locker, did not check out and it's little things why it's why we did inspections to be able to make sure like to be able to catch this. So understand that when people look at you they're inspecting you. They don't know that they're doing this but if they see something off subliminally in their mind they're thinking can I trust this person with my business? Can I trust this young man to take care you know to go out with my daughter?

Can I you know it's like all of these things they're making that assessment and so what I can help guys understand you don't need to wear a suit to look good, but you do need to ensure that you're sending the message you want to send and do not betray expectations because when you do that I don't trust you, I'm not gonna give you my business, I'm not gonna give you my daughter's hand in marriage, I mean it's like all these things are immediately red flags, those sirens, and when a guy understands that, I've accomplished my job?

Chris Albert 00:29:15 (link to this point)

That's that that's also been in I noticed from your YouTube channel you you do give significant amounts of life advice in addition to just the the the direct style stuff. You know I was I was kinda laughing about your video about Bitcoin versus getting a new suit. I thought that was kinda like a joke video that you did, but but some of the other ones you did where, you know, you talked about getting your MBA from Harvard and how you didn't directly go to Harvard, but you got a chapter in a book for for the Harvard University Press and you know, gave a lot of great lessons on persistence on understanding multiple different paths in your life, and I feel like every time I do watch one of your commentary videos, I'm getting a really valuable life lesson in addition to learning that skill of style that you talk about.

Antonio Centeno 00:30:06 (link to this point)

Yeah, I've, you know, and we expanded. I mean, initially when I started my channel, it was focused on one thing, custom clothing advice. So if you were looking to have anything done with a custom suit or custom shirts or trousers, that was my focus, and then I branched out into shoes, natural progression, but then I branched out into more casual style, and then I branched out into you know other accessories and then I realized hey like style is just one aspect, what about grooming, I mean it's very natural except if you want to talk about style you can talk about grooming and then all of a sudden I realized hey you know what about the soft skills Because you'd be a well dressed man but if you don't know how to eat and how to deal with everything, it's properly set at the table, if you don't know how to speak to a person, if you don't know how to, you know, greet a person, how to, you know, these things I realized they're all they're all close to each other. So that's kind of how we've built out the brand and we've encompassed quite a bit more.

Now I do think that there's a lot of strength for staying very niche very early in your business because it's easier to dominate that way. It's very difficult to become the number one, I mean what, you know, it's difficult to become the number one stylist in the world that you know from my example, but it was very easy to become the number one guy on YouTube talking about men's custom clothing because there wasn't any. So just by default by showing up I was the number one guy and then I expanded out we got bigger and we have become in many ways a lifestyle brand, focusing on men. Now I've got a conference, the Menfluential Conference. I have a media company called Menfluential Media and those companies now are bigger.

Well, media company is bigger than Men Real Style in terms of the revenue, but I wouldn't have been able to create that if I hadn't started off very narrowly focused and staying here on my niche. That's something that I learned in the online space that works really well and you know, so anyone going out there and starting a business, know, that may be a great way to start.

Chris Albert 00:32:08 (link to this point)

Yeah, it's like building a moat to protect yourself from the beginning because if you go out and you know, you're selling t shirts, for example, you know, you can buy a t shirt from anywhere, Walmart, you can buy a t shirt from any store, there's thousands of stores that sell them. But if your t shirt fills a specific niche, maybe people like cats, then you start to protect yourself from the Walmart's and the thousands of other stores out there who are trying to market their t shirts as well. So that's definitely a value valuable lesson there. One of the things, you know, as far as veterans go, a lot of us aren't used to, you know, dressing up in a suit, civilian suit all the time. And, know, I remember, you know, I've kind of had these style hiatuses, you know, there was a time where, you know, I got out and I went to the store and I decided I was gonna buy myself a bunch of clothes.

Got myself a bunch of clothes, But then, you know, I went through some hard times and wasn't really making a lot of money. Didn't buy clothes for a while. And then a few years later, I go into the store to buy some clothes for the first time. And it looks like stuff from outer space, like these skinny jeans that I see now these days, a lot of the joggers that I see guys running around in, like I can't, just can't bring myself to do that. Number one, where should somebody like me, and I'll be fully upfront with this, I have, you know, I probably own two pairs of jeans, one suit, a few t shirts, where should somebody like me start?

Antonio Centeno 00:33:43 (link to this point)

I would go to Barnes and Noble and just go into the magazine section, maybe get you know a few magazines that you like, they don't have to be style magazines and just go through, start and identify people that you like that look and mirror and start to identify like you know I like the way Justin Timberlake looks in this one, oh man I love the way that Daniel Craig is wearing this, or maybe Idris Elba or some of these other actors out there, Chadwick Boseman in the new Black Panther man, I'm excited about that. I'm just a huge Marvel fan, but it's like, so look at some of these guys and say that's, I like that. Maybe go in, you know, look at, you know, it's, and once you have a direction, then it's a matter of like working backwards and identifying, why does he look good there? You know, it's like okay, let's look at this, where can I get this piece, where can I get that piece, you can do a lot of shopping online? I would say that a lot of shopping out in the stores is you're at the mercy of what's in the store and oftentimes, so you may go into a store and there's like you know a section of menswear about how much is actually going to fit you.

So that's the first thing is probably 90, 95% of the clothing you see here won't even fit you. Another thing, so what you want to have is your own skin measurements, and you can quickly, you know, just type in online how to take your skin measurements, pretty easy, Cause once you have that what you can do is take a tape measure in or ask for one when you walk into a shop, but many of them won't have it. You can lay out the clothing and you can say, okay, my shoulders are 19 inches across, well I want to make sure I get a shirt that's approximately 19 or 19.5 inches across. That way you don't rely just on the sizing as well. And style and looking good in general is really, really very simple.

Don't try to overthink this. Daily, day in and out, I'm wearing usually a navy button down shirt similar to what I have. I've got probably like 20 different navy button down shirts. I find this is my uniform, and I would think that first what you want to do is just develop a uniform that you wear most of the time. I know again for me, navy button down shirt, long sleeve which I can roll up when it's warmer, I wear a wide range of undershirts, and then I wear dark colored jeans that are of a regular fit.

And then I've got a wide range of boots and shoes that I interact with, that I change out with. But that's pretty much it. And I could always throw a sport, I love this look because I can wear throw a sports jacket over it and it's gonna work with everything I've got. But right there you get your one go to outfit. Then maybe you branch away, you maybe find a few other shirts that you could bring in, and again, I got 20 different navy shirts, but they're all different.

Some of them have pockets, some of them have different weaves, some of them have like a little bit small patterns, some of them are lighter blue, some of them are dark blue, some of them are like I said navy. Mean, notice I haven't gone too far from that one made outfit, and what's cool is everything is interchangeable and there's nothing wrong with actually developing a uniform. I loved, you know, when I was active duty, mean one thing I loved is gosh, just being able to throw on my camis and go to work. I didn't have to think too much about it, it was everything worked too. I could, whatever set of camis I went with, it pretty much matched the boots and pretty much matched the cover that I was gonna wear.

They all worked together. You know, when I was in the you know, with the wing it was easy, flight suit. I mean you you could show up and be a hard a hard night of drinking and you simply throw on your flight suit, got an undershirt on underneath and you know it's like boom you're just going in. I remember just wearing that stuff on my motorcycle and it was you So you want your wardrobe to be initially that simple and you may be a jeans and t shirt kind of guy. I'm not saying that that's wrong, I am saying not thinking about it and actually identifying what really looks good on you is is in my opinion a mistake because for me, I'm a thin guy and you know I find that this shirt and this overall type of look actually just makes me look better And I like a collared shirt, it's little bit dressier than not wearing that collared shirt.

Now, you may find that a Henley just works out really well for your style or you may find that, hey, I am a casual suit guy, I live in Los Angeles, I'm wanting to aspire to be an actor. Why not actually have a little bit of fun and I think costume design and looking at, again, finding a great actor, maybe you see Ryan Gosling in some of these movies, you're like man, I love his look. So go with that and be inspired.

Chris Albert 00:38:10 (link to this point)

Awesome. Yeah, that's definitely some great advice and it's low cost advice too because you just go out there, you grab a magazine, you identify the people that you know, you wanna look like and then you start to try to put together those pieces. I want to switch over to some of your personal influences and and this is important to me because I always like to hear what types of things people are educating themselves with. So what what's a particular book that you've read that's had the most influence on you?

Antonio Centeno 00:38:43 (link to this point)

Gosh, you know, lot of these are going to be business books. So right now, I'm listening to a book called or I'm just went through scaling up and I really so for business if anyone's into that it's by a guy named, Verne Harnish, but just a great one. I like the book Essentialism by I think it was Greg McNound or something like that. Very a very simple book about just basically eliminating most things in life are noise. Know social media has done wonders but it also has done a lot of damage because people cannot seem to get out of their phones And for you to identify what's important to you and what do you really need to accomplish to get to your goals, it's really pretty simple at times, but we don't want to face it.

And the final book I would recommend is Cal Newport's Deep Work. That one, again, revolutionary, amazing, but it's all about, you know, the world does not reward us for checking our email or for being really good at answering comments on Facebook or to fighting with someone in the comments of YouTube. The world will not write me no. You will not have success if that's what you're doing. You need to actually make a contribution, and to do deep work you've got to tune most things out and you've got to go deep, and this is very rare in today's information society when people are just distracted.

I mean if you could work through a solid six hours, eight hours a day without distraction and without being interrupted with phone calls, that's a superpower right there. Yep. Too few people actually have that.

Chris Albert 00:40:15 (link to this point)

Yeah. That that that's an amazing superpower. Definitely, you know, one of things I've learned is to keep my phone on airplane mode during the day, trying to eliminate those distractions as much as possible. And and you mentioned social media, but also the news. I think so many people are so addicted to getting on CNN to try to find the next thing that's gonna piss them off and and and get them into that that negative state.

Antonio Centeno 00:40:36 (link to this point)

So the best thing that when I deployed in 2002, I gave away everything. I didn't wanna get a storage unit, so I gave away even my my bed, my television, everything, but I've never bought television after that and I'm so thankful that I mean that is probably the best thing at my home, there's no television. I called the vampire because it sits in your home and it sucks away your life because you're walking by it it's just it's like we turn it on it's like a fire to keep us warm. Don't know and I go visit you know my brother I love him but I was visiting him in California I remember we were and we had you know drive driven across the country to see our family to hang out and we all sit around the TV and it's like I mean that this and I've learned this from living abroad, my wife's family they don't you know it's always about when you sit and you spend time with people, you sit and you spend time with people. And so that was just something I she just finds it very odd and I do too of a place where if you're gathering place in your home, why do you have a television right there?

You know try to make it a little bit more difficult and I mean we're not weirdos because we do enjoy a good movie, we love going to the movies and in fact I have a projector at my house so I will set it up sometimes and project the movie for my kids and we'll set up the sound, but it takes like twenty minutes to set that up and that little barrier is a huge deal because yeah don't waste your life watching that television, watching the news, I don't get any news. If it's big news my mom will call me, my neighbors will let me know, but I found that not checking the news, not getting news forced on me, huge. I feel so much better.

Chris Albert 00:42:18 (link to this point)

Yeah, it'll find you if it's that important. What are some of your personal habits and what's your daily routine look like? Like, what types of things have you incorporated in your life to stay sharp?

Antonio Centeno 00:42:32 (link to this point)

Sure, I wouldn't say I've got a daily routine, I have more like a weekly routine if that in general, but I would say I have a habit of telling people I love them. And for my kids, to my wife, my 13 year old son, he knows that his dad loves him. Now he doesn't tell me this very often, loves me unfortunately, I'm always living for it, but I mean I grab him and wrestle him and I kiss him on the head tell him I love him multiple times. My wife, I always tell her that I love her, that I'm thankful for her, that she's doing a great job because and many times I do take things for granted and many times I do, you know, I'm like any other guy out there, but my family will always know my brothers, my sisters, my mom, a lot of my friends I've told them I love them. Know why because we're all dead at the end of the day.

It's coming for us and the regret that people have and that you hear is that they didn't let people that they know who who mean a lot to them, let them know that they love them. And I I've lost that whole pride, it's not you know, it's just something that I I guess you know seeing enough, you know, death. It's just one of those things that no one that I care about will not know that I care about them. And so I try to be a very positive person with my team, a habit I have with my team. Because I usually schedule meetings with them and I schedule other things to happen and that's how I kind of fall, and I do it, I just show up, but I'm always trying to be the positive force with my team because they're gonna have enough things, and I do let them know when things aren't to the level they need to be at, very high expectations, but my habits again are consistently I try to be a positive person.

Whenever I'm driving somewhere I always set it up so I've got a few people I've got on speed dial who I haven't talked to for a while and I'm just checking in how is their life. So those are to me the most important habits are the ones that I'm outwardly projecting positive thoughts, positive energy and putting this stuff out there and what's cool is it comes right back and that's what keeps me really motivated. Now when it comes to like this other schedule like you know other things in life, I would like to say I wake up at five a. M. And go straight to the gym and you know have a monster workout and have a monster, that doesn't always happen.

I have to admit that I've really like I'm sleeping in a bit more and I actually kind of enjoy it, my kids are homeschooled and we just, but we do try to have at least two meals a day at the house with my family. And, so tonight we'll have a nice dinner, we had a good breakfast. I would say, I've got an office that's 800 meters from my house. I don't have to do this but I do it because all my work stays here. So I have another habit that work doesn't follow me home.

In fact I can't log in. I couldn't do this interview for my house. Don't have a computer at my house that would allow me to do this. I don't have anything on my phone like social media that's going to interrupt my day with my kids. Like I do have like a work phone and the stuff is here, but those are probably my habits are the systems I've created that allow me to again try to be really effective.

Every computer I try to keep at least two screens. Another thing is I don't spend time in email. I've got two assistants and again I run a company and it's internet focused so we get a lot of messages about 300 unique messages a day from on YouTube, from emails, at least 150 emails, you know Facebook comments, LinkedIn messages, I get guys that I served with and you know I got, AA was a track guy the other day, he was like Antonio, I haven't heard from you forever man, what's going on? And so what I've got my systems go through and they weed through 95% of those messages. And every day I come in to my inbox and what does it have? I've got one big message of Antonio these were the messages I couldn't answer for you. So my assistants, and again, I've got two of them that do this, they just monitor and cleaned out my email full time, and the vast majority of messages I've given them a set of rules, they can handle that type of work. But the nine to 10 messages I see a day are the ones that you know maybe it's a vet, lot times vets always come to me and anyone that's served always gets priority. And it's like hey this guy has this question or he's curious about this or this or you've got this message from someone you haven't heard from for a long time.

And then I'll just simply record an audio recording usually using Jing, it's a screencast and it limits itself to five minutes and I just quickly answer all those questions in five minutes and then boom, I'm done with email.

Chris Albert 00:47:08 (link to this point)

Wow.

Antonio Centeno 00:47:09 (link to this point)

So what that does is it frees me up to focus in on what's important and what's important in my business is making video, is coming up with topics for video, having meetings with VIPs, usually it's gonna be my business partners and then directing my team and my company in the direction it needs to go and then if I do that the days will win and yeah, awesome.

Chris Albert 00:47:38 (link to this point)

The power of systemization, the power of just just building systems in your life just to to be able to focus on what's important and get rid of all that that extra stuff. That's that's definitely solid advice there. We got a just a couple of minutes left. I want to ask you quickly. What do you where is Real Men Real Style heading over the next year and over the next five years?

What do you got your videos, you have your courses, you have the Menfluential Conference, where are you guys going?

Antonio Centeno 00:48:09 (link to this point)

Yeah, I would say, you know, my goal maybe in the next five years, I'm looking also twenty five years ahead, is to really, is to be the number one resource in the world for men's information and style. You know, it's like, so I look at where Esquire was, I look at companies like GQ and I really feel they've missed the boat in many ways. They've lost touch, I mean you can't, they're cool magazines at times, but other times like they put in like $5,000 suits, which are cool, but most of us can't, I mean that's just outside of most people's budget, they even understand why would I spend $5,000 on this suit and does GQ, you know, or or Esquire have my interests in mind. So my goal is to dominate and become the number one channel across all platforms cumulatively, for the men's style space. So we do well on YouTube, we're about, you know, we're number two I would say over there.

You know, my friend Aaron Marino is number one so it's a healthy competition and we're partners on other things. So what you could say I like, but what I get excited about is you know, the infographics we put out, where we're growing on our website and how we continue to get larger there, all the articles we continue to put out, Instagram we're building up there, Pinterest, we have a podcast, I mean there are just so many different platforms that I'm growing on and I get excited just thinking that this business is going to continue to grow. Now it's not always going to be with me and in fact one big change people are going to see with the company is I'm going to kind of move my like any good systemization person I realize I am the bottleneck in many parts of my business so I do see over the next five years myself becoming less of the face of the company and me being able to bring in more people that can I think better represent my audience and better serve them?

Chris Albert 00:49:56 (link to this point)

Awesome. Yeah, definitely lessons on scaling there and I see why you're why you're reading the scaling book on building that growth and and, you know, definitely things that a lot of people out there who are running their own businesses can can learn from. Antonio, do you have any last words for the audience? I think this has been a fantastic conversation and again, I wanna thank you for coming on. Do you have any last last bits of advice or or things you wanna get out to the audience before we go?

Antonio Centeno 00:50:25 (link to this point)

You know, I just know we've got a veteran audience and so what I would stress to them is don't be afraid if you're holding back on, you know, it's one thing you get out and you figure out pretty quickly is that, you know, if you got out as a light bird or you got out as an E-3, who you were in the military doesn't define you as who you are when you get out. You do lose your rank, but at the same time you never lose your experience and everything you learn, And I do think that a lot of guys getting out, it is an amazing opportunity for them to recreate themselves and to rebuild who they are. So don't be afraid to, and I think one of the things that they don't see all the time is see another veteran who's ahead of you in an industry you want to be in and reach out to that guy or that gal and talk to them and you know because they're gonna make time for you. I can tell you that I know you know guys like John Dumas have made time for veterans, I make time for veterans and it's something that veterans want to see other vets succeed and so don't be afraid to reach out to them.

Chris Albert 00:51:28 (link to this point)

Awesome. Awesome. Well, Antonio, again, I want to thank you so much for coming on. I wanna wish you a happy holidays, Merry Christmas to you and your family.

And to everyone out there everyone out there, there's been so many lessons that Antonio's given us today and and, you know, really take these to heart. You know, we talked about some of the lessons he gave at the beginning as far as finding mentors, you know, running your own business, finding your purpose in this life, focusing on what's important. And and think about how many times a day you worry about things that aren't gonna contribute to your success or aren't going to contribute to your personal growth. And if you want to check out Antonio, we're going to have all of his links up on our show notes. If you want check out the YouTube channel, check out his website, check out some of his amazing courses and to each and everybody out there, make sure you get out there, apply this knowledge, and live your best life.

Hey, guys. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Antonio from Real Men Real Style. You know, it it brings a little joy to my heart every time I see somebody from the veteran community who's having so much success and who's having such a positive impact on the world. And if you're looking to connect with Antonio or if you're looking to connect with Real Men Real Style, we'll have all the links for his social media, his website, his YouTube channel up on the show notes for this episode. And, you know, seriously, you got so many awesome pieces of advice from Antonio in this episode.

I really want you guys to take some action and go out there and apply at least one thing to your life. Think about what you can do to move yourself forward at this moment. Every single moment counts. We have so many brothers and sisters in arms who aren't here today because they gave their lives for our country and for our nation. We owe it to them to live our best lives and to do everything we can to live the best life possible.

So with that, I wanna wish you all a really happy holiday, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year. They'll all probably talk to you before the New Year. And seriously, really take every moment as it comes. Love your family, spend time with them, enjoy these days. Because someday you're gonna look back at where you're at right now, and you're gonna say to yourself, man, I wish I was that young again.

Even if you feel like you're old, I promise you you will. So with that guys, thank you for listening, and I will talk to you all very soon.