Deep sea with the boys. Days like this are the whole point.

There’s something different about watching your son step into an arena where you can’t do it for him.

You can’t take the nerves away.
You can’t fight the battle.
You can’t save him when things get hard.

All you can do is prepare him, believe in him, and watch.

Last weekend, I watched Dimitri compete IBJJF for the first time.

I didn’t see a little boy looking for an easy way out. I saw a young man who listened, stayed composed, trusted his training, and kept moving forward.

That’s what made me proud.

The medals are great. The wins are exciting. But what meant the most was seeing his confidence grow with every match.

Respect.
Discipline.
Courage.
Humility.

Those aren’t things you can lecture into a child. They have to be lived, practiced, and earned.

Watching Dimitri excel wasn’t about proving he’s special.

It was a reminder that when you consistently invest in your kids your time, your attention, your standards they’ll eventually show you what they’re capable of.

I’m proud of who he’s becoming, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes him.

Do you get to beat up your boss at your job? If not you should switch jobs. Were always hiring at @johnnyslicks

Wash your ass! #afteraction

You think low testosterone is about how you look. It is not. You think it is about how you feel. It is bigger than that too.

Low T is about every person attached to you.

Most men measure it in the mirror. Am I softer. Am I more tired. Am I not the man I used to be. All of that is real, but it is the smallest part of the story. The real cost shows up in the people who never asked for the watered down version of you.

The wife who got a roommate instead of a husband. The kids who got a dad with no patience left by 6pm. The business that stalled out because the man running it lost the drive to run it.

I know because I lived it. I got tested at 240 when I was 32. My marriage had gone quiet, my body had quit on me, and the fog was so thick I could not make a decision to save my life. I blamed stress. I blamed age. I blamed everything but the one number I had never checked.

Your hormones do not just live in your body. They live in your marriage, your work, and your kids.

None of the five signs in this post prove you are low. Every one of them is worth a blood panel you have been putting off. This is not vanity. It is the people counting on you.

Comment CORE and I will send you the link to get your bloodwork started.

Nobody did this to me.

I wanted to believe someone did. The economy. Who was president. Bad luck. The people who let me down. Anything but the man in the mirror.

The truth was quieter and worse… I made every decision that put me there. I ignored the warning signs for months. I spent what I did not have. I trusted what I should not have.

Bankruptcy. The divorce. Watching my kids load into someone else’s car. I spent a long time blaming the world for a life I built with my own hands.

The day I stopped looking for someone to blame was the day I got my power back. When you blame, you hand the keys to your life to someone else. When you own it, you take them back.

If you built the mess, you can build the way out. That is not a punishment. That is freedom.

So I am putting it on the table. I am running a free coaching series called Reclaim the Man. The exact steps I used to take my life back, marriage, money, body, and the respect of my own kids.

Comment or DM RECLAIM and I will send you the first session.

2014 Gun in my pocket. South end of an island. I had convinced myself my daughters would be better off without the version of me they had inherited.

The waves got loud enough to cut through what was in my head, and I remembered both of them running on a beach a couple years before. Chasing the surf. Turning around to let the waves chase them back. Laughing.

That memory put the gun back in my pocket. I walked back to my truck. I drove home.

I almost stopped being their father that night. I am sitting here a decade later, with both of them still in my life, with a wife I built a real marriage with, with businesses I built from zero, because of a single image my brain handed me on a beach when it had every reason to fail me.

Father’s Day is in 17 days. The book about the climb back is live for pre-sale today. Reclaim the Man Within. A Marine Raider’s framework for men done drifting. $9.99.

If you are closer to that beach than you would say out loud, this is for you.

Comment PRESALE and I’ll dm you the link.

Last month or so has been a wild busy ride.

I gave people too much grace, and it almost cost me everything I have built.

When I got out of the military I was intense. I held a standard and I was, for all intents and purposes, hard to be around. Over the years I sanded that down. I told myself I was becoming more understanding, more patient, more human. Somewhere in there I overcorrected and gave the hard edge away completely.

Here is what nobody tells you about too much grace. You start carrying burdens that were never yours. You let complacency live inside your business and your home. You cover for incompetence and call it being human. And one day the weight of all of it crashes down on the world you spent years building.

I saw it clearly last week, and not in my own room. I went to @matthewpvincent s @notdeadyet_life retreat as a student, not a leader. Hat off. Nobody’s problems on my shoulders. For once I was just present. And in that stillness, during breathwork, the truth surfaced. I have been running on half of myself.

Matt and I have been friends over ten years for one reason. We are both addicted to the same thing, becoming better men and serving the people around us. It took sitting in his circle and rolling on his mats to find the piece of me I had left behind.

The work now is integration. Capable, dangerous, and still full of empathy, but holding a standard high enough that the people around me actually get to grow.

Brotherhood is not a product I sell. It is a thing I need.

NOT DEAD YET.

“We do it right, or we don’t do it at all.”

That was the line @jonnybernthal kept coming back to on The Punisher: One Last Kill.

He didn’t want a body count. He wanted the wreckage. The transition home that nobody warns you about. The part where the mission ends and you’re still standing there with the weight. He wanted to share that pain. The reality of it. Not some flashy Hollywood thing.

So he brought in real operators. Men who’ve actually carried the gear, run the missions, and lived with what comes after. He told me parts of it came from my book.

I came on three ways. Consulting Producer. Technical Consultant. And on screen, playing a version of the life I actually lived.

Fatherless. Running with a gang. Felonies at 13. Juvenile detention. Fighting to earn a Marine Corps contract. MARSOC. Bankruptcy. Faith crisis. Divorce. Losing my kids. Getting them back. I wrote Excommunicated Warrior because I had to.

Now pieces of that story sit inside a Marvel special on Disney+.

Comment BOOK and I’ll send you the link.

Four brown belts. Four different age groups. Four different weight classes. They threw us all in an absolute bracket and made us figure it out.

I want to thank these three men.

Because they showed up.

There’s no competition without competitors. No iron sharpening iron without another piece of iron willing to take the hit. Every time I stepped on that mat this weekend, it was because another man decided he was going to stop wondering if he could do it and find out.

That’s rare now. Most men talk. Most men post. Most men have an opinion about every fight they’ve never been in. The number of men willing to put their name on a bracket, get on a scale, and walk out under the lights keeps shrinking.

To the three brown belts who shared that podium with me, thank you. To every competitor at every level who showed up this weekend, thank you. You are the reason this sport still has a soul.

The sideline dads and the armchair quarterbacks don’t build anything. You do.

Keep showing up.

What an amazing last 3 Years!

Tonight May 12, 9pm EST @thepunisher One Last Kill is on @disneyplus

@jonnybernthal gave everything he had to make this for you guys. Burned political capital and fought for it to be the way it is all the way to we yelled cut at the final moment.

He knew what we wanted and he knew what the people wanted out of The Punisher.

From the emotion, to the violence, to the tactics he wanted it to feel real. And have piece of the veteran community to be apart of it.

Get ready for a fucking roller coaster of an emotional ride.

And to the stunt team….. damn you guys are cool as shit. Thank you!

#propweapon⚠️⚠️

@laurenmark_photography

Holy shit, where do I even start.
 
Thank you for giving me a second chance at being a father. Not once, but twice.
 
Thank you for being the glue that holds this family together when everything else is pulling in a hundred directions.
 
Thank you for raising our kids with values and morals, for teaching them how to be warriors with grace and compassion for others.
 
Thank you for every adventure we’ve had, and every one still ahead of us.
 
Happy Mother’s Day to one of the best to ever do it. I’m so damn thankful for you.
 
Happy Mother’s Day to the baddest of the baddest.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I have a stressful life.
 
Three businesses. Four kids, two of them grown. A wife who deserves an actual partner, not a roommate. A PhD program. And every personal, financial, and operational fire that comes with all of it.
 
It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to say I’m too busy. Too stressed. Too tired. Too much on my plate.
 
I still train jiujitsu four days a week. I still lift three. I eat right. I show up.
 
Yesterday my son Dimitri and I both took gold.
 
The throwback photos in this carousel, he was a baby and I was a white belt. Now he’s competing next to me and I’m a brown belt. That didn’t happen because I sat on the sidelines and yelled at him to try harder.
 
It happened because he watched me do the hard thing for over a decade.
 
Sideline dads breed sideline sons. You cannot tell your kid to push through discomfort while you sit on the couch with a gut hanging over your belt. They don’t hear what you say. They watch what you do.
 
So here’s the challenge.
 
Stop being a sideline dad. Get on the mat. Get in the gym. Get in the fight. Whatever the arena is for your family, get in it.
 
Do as I do. Not as I say.

They sold you a lie.

Be a lone wolf. Build it yourself. Don’t need anyone. Army of one.

Show me where that’s ever worked. Show me a country taken by one man. A business built by one man. A marriage that thrived in isolation. Show me anything self-made that actually lasted.

You can’t. Because it doesn’t exist.

The lone wolf myth is rhetoric built to keep you isolated, weak, and easy to control. The truth is the opposite. You are happier in a tribe. You are stronger in a unit. You laugh harder, breathe deeper, and carry less weight when you are around your men.

Pay attention to that feeling. That is the signal.

Brotherhood is the route. A tribe is the answer. If you have five fit friends and you are the fat dad, you either leave the group or you become a fit dad. If four of your friends are millionaires, you become the fifth.

We become the men we surround ourselves with. Period.

This is why I built the Reclaim the Man free coaching series. 6 days, zero cost, real direction for the men who are sick of doing it alone and ready to start fixing it.

Comment RECLAIM and I’ll send it to you.

Last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.
@alisoncapra and I got in a quick trip to Chicago - more to come later on that!

My sis @mrs.smith928 came in town and we got to be a part of a rad movie premiere on base- (more to come later)

Dimitri is training more than most grown men… Watch out.

More to come…

Most men who need testosterone replacement therapy will never get it.

Not because it does not work. Not because they cannot afford it. Because they are scared of what their buddies will say. Scared of being called a cheater. Scared of being lumped in with the guy at the gym they do not want to be.

I was one of those guys. My total T was 91 ng/dL when I almost took my own life. Everyone around me was talking PTSD and TBI. A friend told me to get my hormones checked and I thought he was calling me weak. Within a week of treatment the fog lifted. It saved my life.

If you are a veteran, a first responder, or any man over 30 who is fatigued, foggy, irritable, and watching the man you used to be disappear in the mirror, the answer is not another antidepressant. It is a blood panel.

You are not committing to TRT by getting tested. You are committing to the truth.

DM or comment “LABS” and I will send you exactly what to test and where to start.

I was 40 pounds overweight, sleeping on my mattress on the floor, watching my kids’ lives happen through a phone screen.
I had the resume. Marine Raider. The Paycheck. The kind of guy the algorithm would tell you was high-value.

Nobody was fooled. Least of all me.

The internet keeps selling men a costume. Watches, cars, women, the rooftop in Dubai. A version of masculinity that’s all surface and zero spine. And every man I know who chased it ended up exactly where I was. Hollow. Isolated. Performing for an audience that wouldn’t show up for him at 3 AM.

What pulled me out wasn’t another course. It wasn’t a coach selling me a morning routine. It was a room of men who knew my wife’s name, knew my kids’ names, and refused to let me lie about what I was actually doing.

That’s the difference. High value isn’t what you own. It’s who’s willing to call you on your shit and stay in the room when you don’t want to hear it.

I built a 6 day coaching series called Reclaim the Man Within. It’s the same playbook I used to close the gap between the man I was and the man I knew I was supposed to be. Identity. Discipline. Brotherhood. Purpose. No fluff. No upsell on day one. Just the work.

It’s free.

Comment RECLAIM and I’ll send it to your DMs.

For those of you new here…. Welcome

Most men I know are quietly falling apart.

I was one of them. Marine Raider on paper, drunk in a Batman mask in my kitchen in real life. Bankrupt. 40 pounds overweight. Testosterone of a 90 year old. My kids moved away and I wasn’t in their daily life. Faith gone. Marriage gone.

The uniform came off and the man underneath it didn’t know how to stand up.

I had to rebuild the whole thing. Health. Faith. Family. Business. Identity.

If you just started following me, this is the short version of who I am. If you’ve been here a while and never knew the story, this is it.

I run @johnnyslicks . I’m part of the mission at @coremedhrt . I lead @theagoge , a 12 month brotherhood for men ready to rebuild. I train with my wife @alisoncapra and son. I fight for a life worth defending and living for every day.

No bs highlight reel here. Just real life. Scars, systems, and the real work.

Comfort is a drug and most fathers are addicts.

You think couch time is harmless. It’s poison in your children’s veins.

I’ve built three companies and raised four kids and here’s what I know for certain: comfortable fathers create weak children. Period.

The father who chooses comfort over challenge is stealing his children’s future strength.

Every time you take the easy path, you’re carving that same path for them.

Every time you avoid discomfort, you’re teaching them that difficulty is the enemy.

Every time you choose convenient over correct, you’re programming them for failure.

Your children don’t inherit your genetics when it comes to character. They inherit your habits.

The dad who quits when things get hard raises quitters.

The dad who makes excuses raises excuse makers.

The dad who chooses comfort over capability raises children who will be destroyed by the first real challenge life throws at them.

Stop lying to yourself about this.

Your comfort isn’t harmless relaxation. It’s character assassination.

You’re not just failing yourself. You’re failing the next generation.

The world will test your children. They will either rise or crumble based on what you’re teaching them right now.

Choose your hard. Discipline today, or watching your kids struggle tomorrow because you were too comfortable to prepare them.

If this hit you in the chest, that’s the signal.

Comment AGOGE or DM me the word. I’ll send you a link to book a call with my team. No pitch. No pressure. A straight conversation about whether The Agoge is the fight you need to get in.

Twelve months. Brotherhood. Accountability. The work that rewires you and the men who hold the line with you.

Tag a father who needs to hear this.

#Fatherhood #Discipline #TheAgoge #Brotherhood #MenOfValue MensMentalHealth HardFathers RaiseStrongKids

TODAY @potus signed the executive order to fast-track psychedelics for veteran mental health. @joerogan was in the Oval Office. @robertfkennedyjr too. It’s a real win.

But the story is bigger than that.

80,000 Americans died of overdose in 2024. 22 veterans a day die by suicide. Studies suggest up to 70 percent of veteran suicides involve untreated hormone deficiency.

I know because I almost became one of them.

31 years old. Fresh out of MARSOC. Testosterone level of 91 ng/dL. I wrote about the night I took a .38 to the beach in Excommunicated Warrior. I didn’t want to die. I wanted rest. I was battling low testosterone, an undiagnosed TBI, and full denial about PTSD. What I needed wasn’t another pill. I needed actual medical care.

Two things changed everything for me. Proper hormone optimization and plant medicine.

TRT gave me my body and my drive back. Plant medicine gave me the ability to heal and let go of what I’d been carrying. Next to TRT it has been one of the most healing factors in my life. I attribute both to being where I am today.

That’s why yesterday hit so hard. The psychedelic door just got kicked open for veterans. Thousands more brothers and sisters are about to get access to something that saved me.

Now hormones need to be next.

Ambien. Xanax. SSRIs. Opioid pain pills. Prescribed to veterans without a second thought. SSRIs aren’t even controlled. Ambien and Xanax are Schedule IV, looser than testosterone. Testosterone is Schedule III. Somehow it’s the hardest of all to get prescribed. That’s the other half of the fight.

@coremedhrt has surveyed hundreds of veterans. Statistically significant reductions in depression, prescription load, and suicidal ideation. We’re taking that data to Capitol Hill. The mission is to get Core approved as a community care provider and establish a veteran TRT protocol at the VA.

Your testimony is the battering ram.

If TRT saved your life, or you tried but got shut down, I need to hear it. Comment VET below. I’ll send you the survey link and my email directly.

This is how we change what happens to brothers and sisters after they serve.

A shift is happening in American healthcare, and most of what you are seeing online about it is wrong.
⠀
The internet says RFK just unbanned 12 peptides. That is not what happened.
⠀
Here is what the Federal Register actually shows. Nominators withdrew 12 peptide nominations. FDA agreed to remove them from the restricted Category 2 list. Seven of those peptides are now scheduled for an independent advisory committee review on July 23 and 24, 2026. The committee makes a recommendation. FDA then has to act. None of that FDA action has happened yet.
⠀
Here is what most clinics will not tell you. None of it changes what Core Medical Group already does. Our physicians have been prescribing peptide therapy under individualized, physician-directed protocols long before this news cycle. BPC-157. KPV. TB-500. MOTs-C. DSIP. Semax. Epitalon. Not waiting on headlines. Not chasing a trend. Treating patients.
⠀
Core is also inside the federal conversations shaping where this goes next, with partners working the issue directly on behalf of veteran access. This is what physician-led looks like. Not observers. Participants.
⠀
If you are a veteran, first responder, or serious about your hormone health, and peptide therapy is something you want evaluated by a physician, comment below or DM us. Our team will schedule a physician consultation to determine if peptide therapy is appropriate for you.
⠀
We are already here.
⠀
Source: FDA Federal Register, Docket FDA-2025-N-6895, published April 16, 2026.
⠀
#VeteranHealth #HormoneHealth #TRT #CoreMedicalGroup #VeteranCare PhysicianLed PeptideTherapy BPC157 FirstResponderHealth MensHealth