Former Mobster Reveals Dark Past & Spiritual Transformation | True Crime to True Healing | Ep 065

➡️ In this jaw-dropping episode, former hustler for organized crime, Michael Swerdloff, reveals his unprecedented transformation from violent mobster to spiritual healer. Part of a notorious crime family in New Jersey, he spent a decade running credit card scams, cocaine heists, and violent operations that landed most of his associates in federal prison. 

Once a man who plotted murder-suicide against his girlfriend and faced a mental institution, Michael's early life was defined by darkness. Growing up with a misogynistic father and a sociopathic brother who became a mob strong-arm and once held a .45 to his head, Michael's path seemed predetermined. 

But after surviving multiple attempts on his life and hitting rock bottom, one unexpected discovery changed everything. The simple daily practice he stumbled upon in a small bookstore would transform him from a violent criminal into a force for healing. 

Now a counselor and Reiki master, he's on a mission to prove that men don't have to be defined by toxic masculinity. This isn't just another mob story – it's a raw and honest testament to human potential and the possibility of radical change. 

Whether you're interested in true crime, the mafia, spiritual transformation, or breaking generational trauma, this episode will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about redemption. 

Featured in his new book 'Raised by Wolves, Possibly Monsters,' Michael's story shows that no matter how dark your past, change is always possible. 

📚 Featured Book: 'Raised by Wolves, Possibly Monsters ' - https://www.michaelswerdloff.com/raised-by-wolves-possibly-monsters-healthy-masculinity/

📲 Connect with Michael Swerdloff: https://www.michaelswerdloff.com/

⭐️ Subscribe for More Transformational Stories: www.youtube.com/@UCsRyuQWlLAYzM4IyJlF2IWQ 

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Transcript

00:01 - Stacey (Host)
So Michael Swerloff. 

00:03 - Mark (Host)
Former mobster. 

00:05 - Stacey (Host)
Former mobster. 

00:06 - Mark (Host)
Michael Swerloff. 

00:07 - Stacey (Host)
Current Reiki master. That's great. What a resume Right. 

00:13 - Mark (Host)
All those years in the mob, like a decade, and then for the last 30, he's a counselor, he's a community organizer, he's a Reiki master. Well, he's predominantly a counselor. 

00:23 - Stacey (Host)
It's hard for me to, like you, look at the guy now and to imagine the stuff that he did as a mobster, which? Was bad and him being evil and even some of the things he said. 

00:31 - Mark (Host)
Yeah that he did that. He wanted to kill people and himself and I mean, the intro alone tells you the kind of guy he was. 

00:41 - Stacey (Host)
Right, but then you have to hear his stories. 

00:42 - Mark (Host)
You got to hear his stories. You gotta hear his stories. Oh my God, his stories. You're not going to believe that a guy like that can change. But boy, oh boy. 

00:49 - Stacey (Host)
I was actually on the way over here telling Eric, like how can a person change that radically? I don't believe it and I believe it now. 

00:57 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I just don't even know what else to say. Right, because it's so surprising. Right, because it's so surprising. He seems like a guy you just want to go hang with, and he probably is, but that's not who he was. 

01:06 - Stacey (Host)
He seems very pleasant. Yeah, crazy Mobster. Mobster turned Reiki master. Hi, I'm Stacey. 

01:18 - Mark (Host)
And I am Mark, and this is the Gurus at Game Changers podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today's guest, michael Swerdloff, was an abusive, real-life mobster. He lived a life of crime. He lied, he cheated, he stole, he conned, he swindled. He did all of those things. He's been shot, he's been stabbed, he's been beaten with a baseball bat all the things that you would imagine. He even stared down the barrel of a police officer's shotgun shotgun this is a one-time criminal who even preyed on other criminals. 

01:49
Nobody was safe from our guest as he lived his life lying and cheating and stealing, but over time something was always eating at him. This is not who he wanted to be. He didn't want to be the predator. He wanted to be the kind and loving protector. But how? Because this was how he was raised. He has a misogynistic father. He has a sociopathic brother. This was the only life he knew. But he also knew and I'm going to read you his quote because I think it's really powerful he also knew that we do not have to be what they did to us. 

02:23 - Stacey (Host)
Oh, I love that. 

02:25 - Mark (Host)
So do I. This is a good conversation about redemption, a good conversation about hope, so we're happy to bring it to you. Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for joining us and sharing this with us. 

02:35 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Oh, thanks for the invitation. I'm so glad to be here and that was a spectacular introduction. No, thank you. 

02:41 - Stacey (Host)
You did it again, mark. You did it again. 

02:43 - Mark (Host)
Thank you, well look you're a spectacular guest with a great story. We can't wait to talk about it. 

02:47 - Stacey (Host)
So your book is titled Raised by Wolves, possibly Monsters, and the title's quite striking, I think. Can you share kind of what the wolves and monsters were when you were growing up? 

03:00 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Both my dad, my father, my uncle I perceived them as wolves, and not the kind of wolves that protect the other kind of wolves. And what I think about is any time there was an opportunity to exploit something, they did it, and for all three of them it was girls and women. That was the thing that was consistent. There was other things and other situations of crime and violence and hate and all the things, but women and their bodies were their primary thing. That, if you will, we use the wolf model here that they thirsted after. 

03:39
My brother was violent, always, like, always, like. I'm thinking of times of gosh. I'm going to say I was seven or eight and he got angry with me because I had beaten him in chess I think it was chess or checkers and he literally stuffed me out the second floor window of my bedroom and I'm hanging on the awning there. Do you know what I mean? And that's what life with David was like. When he got older he got really violent. We had a jack in the box a few blocks away from our home. There started being a lot of fights there on weekend nights when my brother was in high school. So they hired, you know, one of those rent-a-cop security guards. And that guy told my brother to shut up and my brother threw him through the jack in the box like glass window. He literally like that 30 by 30 window that's this thick. He threw him. He threw the guy through the window. 

04:39
Following year, him and his friends had a rival town. They were both. They played football. They had set up this big brawl that was going to happen at three. My brother and his two best friends and these other guys in another town. And my brother was going out to dinner with his girlfriend. He had a car and he was going to meet the two of them at the brawl. Well, the two of them got a flat tire and and this being the 70s, it's not like there was any way to get in touch with people. 

05:08
So my brother shows up with these six guys on the football team, he beats up and puts all of them in the hospital. He goes to court because they sued him and this is literally what the judge said Like this still scares me to this day because think of being his little brother. The judge said do you still scares me to this day? Because think of being his little brother? The judge said do you really expect me to believe this guy, who's smaller than these six guys, put all six of them in the hospital. No, all of you get out of my courtroom and that's. I remember sitting in the court and thinking if he can do that to these six guys that are all over 175 pounds they're all football players what can he do to me? And then he got worse. He became a strong arm in the mob. 

05:54 - Mark (Host)
How much older was your brother than you? 

05:56 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
He was four and a half years older. 

05:58 - Mark (Host)
Four and a half years old, and then he became a strong arm in the mob, so that afforded him more things to do, more violent opportunities, right for sure yeah, he got paid to do it like it wasn't just temper tantrums you know, yeah, how did that rub off on you though. How did that? What did that do to you, your mindset, your psyche and how you behaved? 

06:19 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
I was a kid in the neighborhood that let the little kids play football with us and basketball and kickball and made sure the girls who didn't know how to play taught them how to play and made sure the teams were fair. And I'm getting this set of how to live life from my father and my brother and then I have who I am and they didn't match and I knew something was out of whack. My teens were a lot of shoplifting, selling drugs and blowing up things, but I wasn't really hurting people yet. 

06:58 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, oh, I got it, and so that's clearly your father and your brother's influence clearly, right it? 

07:04 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
was their impact. Yeah, so you said you were also feeling your mother's influence clearly. Right, it was their impact, yeah. 

07:06 - Mark (Host)
So you said you were also feeling your mother's influence. Was that pulling you in a different direction? I assume. 

07:12 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
It was till they got divorced. My mom got wrecked when she found out that my father was cheating on her their whole marriage. And then she found out that everybody knew and there was dozens of women and wow, like any human being being in that position, my mom was pissed and for the next five, seven years she was a different person and we we weren't very close. Eventually we became really close and my mom's also passed a long time ago, but through the bulk of my adulthood my mom was always my person. 

07:52 - Stacey (Host)
So you said, you became one of them. What did that entail? 

07:56 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Well, it was a few things. One I became violent, primarily to girls and women, and I'll share more about that if you're curious, but we can also just leave it there if that's what's best. And that's when I started getting involved with mob people and all that goes along with that, and I became different really quick. 

08:22 - Mark (Host)
So you knew what you were doing was unethical for sure, and what you're doing was illegal for sure. Um, which one broke you first, was it? I can't look at myself in the mirror, or I don't want to go to jail, did you? Did you serve time? 

08:40 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Um, just jail, not never prison. Nothing longterm Got it and I know just jail isn't something that most people say but just jail a few days here, a week here, five days there, all little stuff so you weren't necessarily afraid of being incarcerated. 

08:55 - Mark (Host)
You've been there. You had done it here and there um, no, I was afraid of it. 

09:01 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
No, I was afraid of. I mean, you know, my uncle spent of the 60 something years of his life. He spent at least 30 of them in prisons three years here, eight years there, 12 years there. My brother spent three and a half years, then another year and a half. So I was surrounded by people that spent a lot of time. And you know, in high school I visit my brother every weekend in prison, you know, and it's not fun being in there. Yeah, I'm just gonna say that it's just it's not fun, like one, the things you have to go through to get in the building. And two, everybody in there. He was in maximum security rawway state prison. They made movies about scared straight. They made movies about scared straight. He was there then when they made the movie, you know, and it's not a fun room to be in. No Right, was he there for murder? 

09:50 - Stacey (Host)
What did he do to get him in Madison? 

09:54 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
He was there for six counts of armed robbery, him and this guy. They used to hang out outside jewelry stores after dark and at gunpoint would rob old women, jesus yeah. 

10:11 - Mark (Host)
That's crazy so. 

10:12 - Stacey (Host)
Mark said, your past involved serious criminal activity. Like you were stabbed, attacked and something happened with a baseball bat, and then there was a gun in your face. Like which one of those moments do you do? You want to talk about one of them or I'm? 

10:29 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
going to talk about the two gun things. 

10:31 - Stacey (Host)
Okay, let's talk about the two gun things. 

10:33 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
One of them was my brother. Oh, no, yeah, I had done something that, yeah, this guy, you have no idea I had done something that the family not my family, but the family had said that I couldn't do. They said not to do it but I wanted to do it because, well, because I wanted to do it and, um, david had been given a command of you need to get your brother straightened out or else. And he put his 45 to my head oh my gosh and he said you got six hours to straighten this out. 

11:14
He said it's dinner time. You got till midnight. I did what appeared to be straight. Now you know I'm laughing at saying this because it's weird I was born smart and I was smarter than all of them and I understood how to manipulate even the mob guys and the criminals and the cartels. I was smart, so I did what didn't get me killed and also didn't get me problems from what I had done. And then the other one was I had robbed a friend of mine of what then was probably about $25,000 in cocaine, which would be a few hundred thousand dollars today. And he I didn't know, he had a gun on him and he came after us. You know, just like in the freaking movies, we're driving down the road and he's coming after us shooting us and we're ducking around traffic and holes in my trunk and windows knocked in and both gun incidents. Nothing really happened, except the impact of knowing that somebody tried to kill me and somebody was willing to kill me. 

12:37 - Stacey (Host)
Wow, I just am curious, and this might not be even an easy thing to answer, but when you do these things, like robbing someone's cocaine or whatever the crime is, what is the motivation? Is it money? Is it acceptance? Is it you have to like for someone who's looking at this thing, who's never done any of these things, to try and be in your shoes because you seem like a totally different person? Now, what's the motivation? 

13:08 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Um, good question. I, yeah, that's an awesome question, thank you. Um question? Yeah, that's an awesome question. Thank you, because in my professional work as a counselor I've dealt with other men like me. So I'm going to both speak what was true for me, what I perceived about the men around me at the time, and what I know to be true to profession. I'm going to throw them all into one glop here, to the best of my ability. 

13:35
At the root of it all is fear or power, because they're the same thing spelled differently. If my fear is that I'm not powerful enough, my fear is I'm not in control. If my fear is I only made $300,000 this year, but I spent $400,000 on cocaine and I don't know I'm going to lose my girlfriend. If my fear is my boss is going to come after me. If my fear is somebody is going to humiliate me in public, I have to do something to quell my fear. 

14:10
When people talk about male fragility, most men don't understand, because they're like I'm not fragile, come on, let's fight. That is fragile because you can say anything in the world to me. It would never occur to me to hit you. Do you know what I mean? Like I'm not fragile. My masculinity isn't threatened if you call me stupid or a blank or a blank, but my masculinity is not on, it's not on trial. I know I'm a man, I know who I am. So all of male violence almost at the core is fear and needing to feel powerful. It's not really being powerful, it's needing to feel powerful At the core. What was different for me and all the guys around me at the time again, my perception was they had moved past feeling shame. They were either hateful, rageful or numb. I still had shame and you can't be a mobster of shame. 

15:12 - Mark (Host)
It just doesn't work hey guys, thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review, give us a follow, subscribe, subscribe all those things, all those things. We love it because we read each and every comment and it helps shape the show, so we would appreciate it please, and back to the show at the core of it happened. 

15:32 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
What changed for me was shame. Shame was the thing. 

15:36 - Stacey (Host)
Wow. 

15:38 - Mark (Host)
Was there a specific? I want to talk to you about getting out of that lifestyle in a second, but was there one or two, maybe just one one of the crimes that you committed? That that's the one that haunts you. 

15:52 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Still to us today one of my best friends when I was in college. She was spectacular and we were friends and I wanted us to be something beside friends and we became really close friends and there was this really awful night. We both ended up not having a place to sleep while drunk in my living room, because somebody was in my bedroom, somebody was on the other couch and this and that, and we ended up on the same couch and I was drunk, my body got turned on and I assaulted her while she was sleeping and she woke up and, fortunately for her, she woke up and literally literally threw me off her and I landed on the side of the coffee table. And there's more to the story, but that was when I was 21. So make that 1981. 

16:53
I got sober in 1989. So that was at the core of my struggle for the next eight years and even early recovery. Wow, it was her, because most of the other people that I hurt this just sounds so awful to say out loud, but most of the other people I hurt I didn't really care about them. Like I knew I was doing something wrong. I felt shame for being what we would call evil, but I didn't have to look in their eyes, and I did with her. 

17:29 - Stacey (Host)
Was that the last time you guys saw each other? She didn't press charges or anything. 

17:35 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
She didn't press charges. It wasn't the last time we saw each other. We were friends for a little while. I had told a bunch of lies about her and I had moved out of the area and that's when I moved into the mob lifestyle and everything along with it. And she called me one day with what had been our core group of friends. I wasn't friends with them anymore. I had robbed all of them, you know, and I remember her saying on speakerphone Mike, I need you to admit to what you lied about me. I'm going to let everybody know what you did. And it was probably the first time I had cried in a decade because I was like, oh gosh, in that moment I remember feeling the shame of all of the things that I had done to her and then the stories I told other people about her and she was so angry I get it, did you admit it? 

18:41
I did. 

18:42 - Stacey (Host)
Well, that's good yeah. 

18:44 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Sure, but yeah, I hear you. Yeah, it was a good step. It was a step. How long were? 

18:47 - Mark (Host)
you, it was a step. Yeah, it was a good step, it was a step. 

18:50 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
How long were you? It was a step. Yeah, it was a step. 

18:53 - Mark (Host)
So you went into, I guess, the life around 19. How long were you in before you got out? 

19:03 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
A little less than 10 years, in the late 80s. You know how there's those little holograms on credit cards. Well, there wasn't always a time and we were the reason they created them. We had somebody who worked in a hotel that would find credit card balances of more than $10,000 from their clients and $10,000 in the 80s was the equivalent of somebody with $150,000 balance today. And then we would counterfeit and make a plastic, a fake version of that credit card, and both we would sell the fake credit cards to store owners that we knew for like $5,000. And they get like 30,000 in sales in the next month without selling anything. But we would also buy stuff and sell it too. That was my job. Sounds funny? I was the marketing and promotion of the credit cards Got held by the Secret Service. 62 people went away to federal penitentiaries all over the country. The entire mob went away. I didn't. At the time I assumed it was because I was smarter than all of them. What I figured out years later was I wasn't worth the government's money. 

20:20 - Stacey (Host)
How much of it had to do with the alcoholism and drugs when you quit that. Did that help you not want to have a life of? 

20:29 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
crime. Yeah well, I actually this date means something else to the rest of the United States. But I got clean and sober on September 11th 1989. I remember being about a year, year and a half, sober. I was just finishing an outpatient program. I was literally going to 10 meetings a week and therapy twice a week and I had realized I could absolutely have an absolutely normal life and function in the world. But for reasons I don't know anything about, it was so clear to me that I needed to learn how to meditate. So I was living in New Jersey. That's where I grew up. 

21:11
I looked all over Greenwich Village in Manhattan. I couldn't find a bookstore that had meditation. Think of how much our culture has changed. I couldn't find a book. I found one at this weird little shop in New Hope, pennsylvania. I found two books on meditation. I bought them, I brought them home. I did everything they said. I had no idea if I was doing it right, because there was no way for me to find out if I was doing it right. About a year later I started doing daily meditation. So I have literally gone 37 years, 30 something years of meditating every day, and I didn't plan on doing any of that. I just knew it wasn't going to work. What was going to work for everybody else in AA wasn't gonna work for me. Sure, I would not do drugs and alcohol, but I knew I was not gonna become a better person. I knew that I don't know anything about it, but I knew that. 

22:03 - Stacey (Host)
And before that, though, didn't you have a minor stint in a mental institution, and that cause I just watched a video where you're like that's when I knew I never wanted to go back there, and that started my recovery. I don't want to bring you back to like the depth of everything, but I think that's an important story. 

22:19 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
no, but so got sober. September 11th, october 26th, still quote-unquote, clean and sober. A day and a half later, my sort of girlfriend of three and a half years. We weren't really together at that point. I decided to kill her and myself, and somehow she saw that in my face and I'm not going to go through all the details because it'll just take 10 minutes to get there. The next day, I was in a locked mental hospital and, yes, take 10 minutes to get there. The next day I was in a locked mental hospital and yes, exactly like you said, when I got out I was like I've been to jail. I've now been in mental hospital. I never want anybody to ever be able to tell me what I can and can't do. 

23:03 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so you were sent there against your will. 

23:05 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Yeah. 

23:06 - Mark (Host)
Right 90%. 

23:07 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
I was given a choice of mental hospital or mental hospital with the police taking me away, got it. I could go in volunteer voluntarily or I could go in not voluntarily. So, yes, I had a choice, but it was really going in with my hands like this. 

23:26 - Mark (Host)
The destination was secure, and that was probably because of your threat of self-harm, first and foremost. 

23:31 - Stacey (Host)
Right. Well, it's threat of her and harming her as well. 

23:35 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. 

23:36 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, but then you decided you needed to meditate, right, is that? 

23:39 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Needed to meditate. 

23:40
That was the solution, you know. And then, a few years after that, I got involved with some my therapist at the time, Lorraine Hollier oh my gosh, Lorraine, she put up a lot with me. I'll just say that she had said to me one day Michael, you're never going to get balance unless you start including some people outside AA in your life. So I started making some other friends and as I was getting involved with these friends who lived on a farm and I just thought that was the less hilarious to hang out with people that lived at a farm'm a guy from Newark, New Jersey, you know, Enter Betsy Browder. Stage left and that's when my life changed. She's a Reiki master, amongst many things. But she just looked me in the eye, literally and figuratively, not at first meeting, but just like okay, we have to do something about you. Like, inside of you is a spectacular human being that could be a healer and you have been eaten alive and we have to do something about this. And she just decided I needed to be spectacular my words, not hers. 

25:07 - Mark (Host)
Just real quick about about Reiki, because I am a Reiki novice yeah. I had to look it up Novice. 

25:12 - Stacey (Host)
I've heard the term you don't believe it. 

25:15 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
But you pronounced it correctly, just like you did my name. 

25:18 - Mark (Host)
That's because I looked it up, perfect. So here for anybody who doesn't know what it is, here's the definition that I settled on. Reiki seeks to promote wellness by creating balance in a person's life force or energy field. People who receive Reiki report that it helps them feel calm, relaxed and connected. I am not a believer. 

25:44 - Stacey (Host)
I'm just going to come here and tell you You've never had it, thank you. 

25:50 - Mark (Host)
I've never had it. 

25:51 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
So yeah, so go Make me a believer, Well, believer. Well, even before they do that, I want to tell you my definition, because it's different. So chi is mandarin for the thing that's also called ki, as in reiki. So tai chi, reiki. They both have that same ki chi in it, which is defined, whether you believe it or not, as universal life force, energy, meaning the force that all life has. The Rei, r-e-i in Japanese, is spiritually guided, so there's this energy and with Reiki, something is guiding it. In essence, that's sort of what Reiki is is somebody carries a presence and that presence affects other people, things, people and places. Let's take 15 seconds here and I'm going to connect with Reiki and since you're a non-believer, you're the perfect person for this. 

26:48 - Mark (Host)
Fair enough, let's do it. 

26:49 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
So I'm just going to invite you to just be you. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to do anything, you don't have to be anything. And I'm going to invite you too both of you and listen to your body. Feel if it slows, if it relaxes, if it feels clean, if it feels balanced. Just listen to your body, particularly your breath and your rhythm, and nod if you're experiencing a thing, even if it doesn't make sense. Yes. Nod your head. No. If you're not experiencing anything, it's okay not to, if you have words that you feel like accurately can represent it. What did you feel? Not what was happening. What did you feel? 

27:44
um calm do you hear how different her voice is now? Seriously, yeah when you listen to. When you listen to the tape later, listen to her voice calm, I felt calm. 

27:59 - Mark (Host)
That's what happened with reiki so let me ask you did she let it in and I did not? Is that what you're saying, or I'm not saying that you're not? 

28:06 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
I'm saying that if you were here in the room with me and we had 15 minutes, I have complete confidence you would experience that thing I like that challenge? 

28:14 - Stacey (Host)
I think so too I love it I definitely felt something different. I really did I. 

28:20 - Mark (Host)
I think I'm just focused on everything happening. 

28:21 - Stacey (Host)
The headset but you know how you talked about. You need peace in your life I totally need peace. 

28:25 - Mark (Host)
Well, that's, that's what that's what I'm saying I hey, maybe you need to be peace in my life. 

28:29 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
This is going to be so much fun for me to say I'm going to pretend I'm you. Okay, he knows a guy he knows a guy that can get you to get some peace. 

28:39 - Mark (Host)
He knows a guy. I got a contact now I love it. 

28:42 - Stacey (Host)
I got a guy I'm going to be texting you as soon as. I would love if you would really try that and just see, and then we could come back to our audience and that's why I said do you feel like it that you let it in? 

28:52 - Mark (Host)
and I didn't, because I am, so what's? Closed jaded yeah, skeptical thank you, that's the word. I'm so skeptical about that type of I mean, just being totally honest, I just don't buy it. 

29:04 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
That's right well, first of all, I didn't either. Yeah, I just want to tell you for the record. It occurred to me me to strangle Betsy. I just want to say that, like when she was doing this thing for a split second, I was like this woman's touching me, I don't know, I want to kill her. 

29:22 - Mark (Host)
Okay, I'm glad you fought back that interesting thought. Yeah, I did. That's the opposite of what I think she's going for. Yes, I understand. 

29:29 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
But the thing I want to say to you is jaded people make the best friends, the best family members and the best lovers, Because if they let you in, you get the whole thing. 

29:47 - Mark (Host)
There's probably some truth to that, for sure. 

29:49 - Stacey (Host)
So what about people who aren't jaded, like me? 

29:52 - Mark (Host)
You're terrible. 

29:52 - Stacey (Host)
We're terrible, we're terrible at all of it. 

29:54 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
No, that is not where I went. I'm just kidding, mike, but people like yourself that are warm and friendly and open. You can change your mind in the morning because you're warm and friendly. That's who you are. That's part of your character she's a hugger. 

30:10 - Mark (Host)
She hugs everybody. She's a bucket of positive energy. Whenever you see her for the first time, she is 100 my sister, that's my sister, right there. Oh, you have a sister, okay no oh, this is. 

30:21 - Stacey (Host)
Are we sister brother? Yes, oh, my god, I love it. I love it. Sister from another mister so we'll close up in a second here. 

30:29 - Mark (Host)
We gotta close I just want to ask um, since we're talking about siblings do you forgive your brother for all that transpired in your childhood and beyond? 

30:46 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
I forgive him. That doesn't mean I'm not still angry, sure, and the anger isn't big anger, it's little squeaks every now and then. And while I've been writing, editing, now doing the audio book of this book and he's a central part of the first quarter of the book I've been really reminded of his impact on me Because know he died back in 97 that's a really long time ago and I've grown a lot and changed. My life has changed, my core has changed. So one I'm really glad he's dead. 

31:28
I'm gonna say that because we're being honest here okay, and because we're being honest here, it's okay, and what I have from being a counselor and social worker for decades is I get it. Now I know, I understand what happened and what he was and that's helped a lot. And I have wondered over the years, if him and I were born 20 years later, with how different our culture is, how different David's life would have been. 

32:01 - Mark (Host)
Now my final question is about your dad, is there not? Do you forgive your dad, but do you love your dad even though he's gone? Do you still have those feelings, or did you? 

32:10 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Oh my gosh, I had this amazing experience. I backpacked across the country in 1995 by myself and, for whatever reason, before I went backpacking he just felt inspired to make amends for everything he had done. Wow, In a phone call and I had left two days later. He died two weeks into my trip, just died three weeks into my. I guess it was no, I guess it was three months. He had died and, um, it was almost like he needed to do this Then he could leave. 

32:45
I mean, literally when my mother wanted to have kids, my father said no. And then, after years of nagging him, he said I'll let you have children, but I'm letting you know I'm never going to be their father, I'm not interested. And my mother used to kid and say it's the only promise he ever kept. And he did. He was never my father really. I mean, he was in my life, but he was never my father. And I, for someone who had a father like that, that him just make an amends and then go away. Oh my gosh, it just saved me decades of pain. I'm just going to say that, oh, let me rephrase it it saved me what I perceive would have been decades of pain. 

33:27 - Mark (Host)
Thank you for being so candid with us today. We really do appreciate it. What? 

33:30 - Stacey (Host)
a powerful story, incredible conversation, yeah really a hundred percent. 

33:34 - Mark (Host)
I can't wait to read Incredible conversation. 

33:35 - Stacey (Host)
Yeah, really, a hundred percent. I can't wait to read the book. How can we? 

33:38 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
help you to get more of the good part. I want to go around the country and talk about my story and healthy masculinity and that men don't have to be what we've been taught to do. That's what I want to do. 

33:49 - Mark (Host)
Where can they buy the? 

33:49 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
book Pretty much any online seller. They can get it on my website, michaelswordloftcom. You know you can buy it directly from where it gets printed, but you could get it every one of the major booksellers everywhere and right now actually an Amazon, and I'm going to keep it this way through the new year. My ebook is only 99 cents. 

34:10 - Mark (Host)
Oh, wow, oof. 

34:12 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Yeah, I mean like the kindle version is 99, but yeah, and if you wait till next week, it'll be that on everywhere, that price everywhere that's great, and so you're still taking on clients, too, for reiki, like mark yeah, but most of my clients are counseling. 

34:27
Most of my clients are counseling, okay, yeah, yeah, no, I I I'm a counselor with a private practice and I'm a program manager and run a nonprofit conscious dance community here in New England. So and then it turns out I write books and talk about books. I'm a busy dude and I. Dj, ecstatic dance events and I have a lot of fun. 

34:49 - Stacey (Host)
This could be a three hour conversation I know, right To be honest. 

34:51 - Mark (Host)
That's awesome Look we can't thank you enough. This has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed getting to know you, getting to know your past. I can't wait to read about all the good stuff that happened as a result of everything that we set up here today. So thank you. 

35:05 - Stacey (Host)
Thank you, Michael. 

35:09 - Michael Swerdloff (Guest)
Thank you for letting me be the comfort that you gave me in letting me share really uncomfortable stuff that people typically don't ask about and don't want to hear about, and I really appreciate it. So grateful for both of you, individually and together. 

35:25 - Stacey (Host)
Thank you, Michael. 

35:26 - Mark (Host)
That was very nice and we appreciate you as well. 

35:33 - Stacey (Host)
You're still here. You're still listening. Thanks for listening to the Gurus and Game Changers podcast While you're here. If you enjoyed it, please take a minute to rate this episode and leave us a quick review. We want to know what you thought of the show and what you took from it and how it might have helped you. We read and appreciate every comment. Thanks, See you next week.