Man unlocks full potential

Sebastian Riccobono gazes on a balcony near a dock in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Sebastian Riccobono transformed his life and is helping others unlock their full potential.

The content creator employs social media to reach people.

“My main one's YouTube,” he said. “Instagram is also a platform I'm utilizing as well. I talk a lot about self-improvement, specifically in the masculinity space. Teaching guys a lot of things that I feel like we've strayed away from over time, where it's discipline, mindset, working hard, going after the things you really want to get in life and having courage and bravery to do those things.”

Sebastian, 22, of Florida took a comprehensive approach to implement change in his life.

“A lot of the things I incorporated in was holistic self-improvement,” he said. “Doing things like reading, meditating, journaling to establish that baseline and building myself up in many different aspects as well as the gym is something I was doing in the past, but just optimized, boosting testosterone.”

Sebastian then applied that to everything he did.

“Really getting myself to the best position possible and then bringing that version of myself to the world, going out, doing things, traveling, experiencing life, meeting girls, making friends and trying to have a positive impact,” he said. “For me, it all starts with building myself up, becoming the highest frequency version of myself and then presenting that version of myself to the world.”

Sebastian’s turnaround began due to a breakup.

“I let the easy pleasures that came along with a relationship, allow me to let myself go and have absolutely no discipline during it,” he said. “It was most likely the cause of it ending as well. After seeing what a lack of discipline does and how it can really ruin your life, I knew that I had to instill discipline in every area of my life to really start an upward spiral and get my shit together.”

Sebastian realized a change was needed.

“It all starts with becoming the best version of yourself,” he said. “That's where I had to start three years ago when I was at an all-time low. I was watching some of the other guys in the space. I learned about the holistic self-improvement route where it was waking up, reading, meditating, doing some gratitude, journaling, going to the gym, getting in a great state and then approaching the day that way and then going and pushing your comfort zone.”

Sebastian now teaches others to do the same.

“If someone was getting started, that's what I would really want them to do is take on the holistic approach to self-improvement and then start doing these different challenges, going out and experiencing the world,” he said. “And sort of gamifying it, trying to make it fun going out and talking to someone who cares what the outcome is. Going and speaking to that girl, doing the things that they might be scared to do and just allowing the process to unfold and seeing what they can learn from all of it.”

Sebastian stays fit as part of self-improvement.

“My current fitness regimen is working out anywhere from three to five times a week doing weight training, progressively overloading in the hypertrophic rep range,” he said. “On top of that, I do a lot of recovery things. I love doing ice baths. I do a five-minute ice bath pretty much every day at 38 degrees Fahrenheit and about 30 to 40 minutes in the sauna.”

After the breakup a few years ago, Sebastian learned to act in life.

“I tried a couple things before,” he said. “I'd read a couple books. I was in the gym doing some of these things. But it wasn't until I had that big catalyst, that big motivator that I really started taking control of my life. And it hasn't ever gone back to swaying with the wind or being very passive and allowing life to happen. I got these habits and I ingrained them into my life and they've just stuck with me. It's been a completely different approach to life since I've done those things, boosted my testosterone and really pushed my comfort zone in every way possible.”

Sebastian said it took the breakup to lead him to change.

“There had to be some sort of valuable pain that allowed me to realize that I needed to make a change,” he said.

One of Sebastian’s aims is to help folks before they experience something like a breakup.

“Trying to get them on the right path,” he said. “Or if that's already happened to them, finding them so that they don't go down the wrong path and do some of the more destructive habits with drinking or any sort of destructive pattern that sometimes can arise when something like that happens. So making sure they take the right path if they're in that state or if they're already going down the wrong path, course-correcting them to do the right thing.”

“No one’s going to be perfect. It’s really trying your best to reduce those instant gratification activities and bad habits as much as possible whilst incorporating the good ones.”

Sebastian said a key to self-improvement is striving to not engage in bad habits.

“I would say resisting bad habits through dopamine detoxing,” he said. “Trying to avoid all the instant gratification. No one's going to be perfect. It's really trying your best to reduce those instant gratification activities and bad habits as much as possible whilst incorporating the good ones. That's the overarching idea that I try and preach.”

Sebastian’s long-term plan is to broaden his reach.

“My long-range goal is to really build a huge personal brand,” he said. “Really trying to make a massive impact on guys and really help them out as much as possible.”

Sebastian stressed masculinity isn’t a dirty word.

“People are putting this negative spin on masculinity,” he said. “But I think it's just understanding the true nature of things and social dynamics and living true to nature as possible. That's just how things work best. If men took that more disciplined route, they tried to actually build their value and accomplish things with their life, they'd have much more fulfillment and lead a better life.”

Sebastian said hetersexual men should be masculine to benefit all aspects of their lives, including relationships.

“From my personal experience, the more masculine you are, the better it's going to be with the relationships you have with girls,” he said. “The things that I've done to develop myself have allowed me to date someone who was 27 years old, a gorgeous girl in Sweden. One of the things we discussed was that she definitely needed a very masculine figure in her life. If a man was more on the feminine side, she would have very quickly been repelled.”

Sebastian said people need to base decisions about their lives on experience, not being told how to act.

“It's important to not believe all the propaganda that gets pushed out there on social media and what you see and actually getting your own real-life experience and seeing things for yourself.”

Sebastian said colleges can be detrimental in this regard.

“I've been to a couple different colleges myself, just visiting and hanging out with people,” he said. “There was one that was very liberal. It can be very brainwashing where everyone's pushing this agenda. Some people who might be more in that normal standpoint can easily get persuaded by that. Peer pressure can be very negative in some aspects when it's pushed in the wrong way.”

Sebastian said the same view is applicable to fitness, which is derided in some circles while obesity is glorified.

“I don't understand why there's this narrative being pushed that the things that are good for you are going to allow you to have the best possible life are bad or that the opposite of it is a good thing,” he said. “I had a good friend growing up. He was over 300 pounds and made a weight loss journey to 160. He attributes that to some of the things that I taught him. We were in the gym together and it was a good feeling being a positive inspiration in his life and helping him do that weight loss transformation.”

Sebastian said it’s vital for people to surround themselves with positive influences.

“I'm very selective on who I let in my circle,” he said. “I only want to surround myself with certain people. To let someone in who's just going to be bringing you down is something I would never even consider doing as a friend. I wouldn't want to be associated with you because that's going to rub off on me. I don't want any of that in my life in any way, shape or form.”

Sebastian wants to create a community.

“That's one of the reasons I created this entire platform,” he said. “One of them was to try and attract a like-minded community of people. To build a private network for guys where it's doing all these things that everyone wants to do like have a private meetup in Thailand and learn martial arts or do some combat training somewhere in the world. Doing and learning all these things with guys who are all on the same wavelength is one of my long-term goals.”

Sebastian said being around those set on accomplishments can only be beneficial.

“When you're around someone with a stronger mindset, it instantly brings you up and it makes you want to level up,” he said. “Surrounding yourself with people who are doing better, who have a stronger mindset, who are physically stronger in the gym, these are all things that are going to push you to improve yourself.”

Sebastian cited an example of a good environment.

“I have this membership where it's an ice bath and sauna place,” he said. “It's right next to a group fitness training gym. It's a very tight-knit community. Most of the people in there are in extremely good shape. One of the things you'll notice is the attitudes and the mindsets that these people have. Talking to them in the sauna or while you're around the ice baths is they all have such positive outlooks on the world. They're all very purpose-driven.”

Sebastian said those people are the types he wants to be around.

“If they're guys, they’re masculine,” he said. “If they're girls, they're usually more feminine. It's a completely different environment than you might see on social media. This is such a positive environment to be in where it brings up your energy. These guys make me want to push myself and I push them. It's a very good place to be at. Surround-ing yourself with the right people is very important.”

Sebastian climbs a mountain in Sweden.

Sebastian said social media plays a key role in showing people positive role models.

“I still watch all the other people in the space because it feels like such a breath of fresh air to be seeing someone else who has similar viewpoints as myself where another guy who's at the same stage as I am,” he said. “It's nice to see someone else who's on the right path, who has similar viewpoints and have that community. It's putting yourself out there for people who do have these things but are afraid to say them. They can all come to one place to gather and have those opinions and beliefs validated by other people who don't accept this other path.”

Sebastian said being fit when younger only helps people as they age.

“There's a 70-year-old guy who's still doing free climbing,” he said. “He's rock climbing. Once you build up that base, it's so much easier to maintain. If you get all these things ingrained at an early age with the physical muscle itself, the habits, eating healthy and then also having all the mindset tenets to go along with it, it's going to set myself and whoever does these types of things up for a long, successful life. Whereas if you didn't do them earlier on, it's just going to be much harder to get that muscle when you're 30, 40, 50. Your testosterone is lower and it's more likely you'll get injuries.”

Sebastian appreciates how his fitness helps him in daily life.

“One of the things my friend and I did was we went cave diving, where you go down into caves,” he said. “We were going into some really tight situations where we had to physically climb and pull ourselves up and down through tight spaces. It was really intense where if we didn't have the physicality that we did, we just wouldn't have been able to do that. There would have been times when we could have potentially been stuck. There were serious climbs we had to do using a tiny rope. If you weren't physically fit, you could have gotten yourself into a seriously bad situation.”

Sebastian has seen the opposite case in which unfit people cannot even manage walking around an amusement park without stopping repeatedly.

“It definitely takes away from all the life experiences you're going to have if you are obese and you're not healthy,” he said.

Sebastian didn’t immediately focus on social media upon embarking on self-improvement.

“I did start with TikTok and I started with YouTube but I went into a little bit of a monk mode,” he said. “I was just focusing on self-improvement, getting myself back together and then once I started to reintegrate myself into society, I lacked the confidence to stand behind the things I said and be proud of them. I ended up shutting it down, going a little bit private.”

Eventually, Sebastian was ready to go public.

“Over time, I had all these life experiences and wanted to come back to it,” he said. “I had the confidence to speak these things and speak my truth, which was when I first got back to Sweden. Now, I didn't care about that sort of thing anymore. If people don't like me, they don't like me and if they do, they do.”

Sebastian was ready to make a difference.

“I felt there were so many better ways where I can put my message out there, cultivate a community of like-minded people,” he said. “And then also help people with this journey because I saw over these last three years of being in the real world, experiencing things, how many people truly do need help in so many aspects. I decided I was going to start once I was in Sweden, sharing all my stories, my life experiences and building a brand.”

“For anyone who wants to be motivated, rely on discipline, but also understand the reason why you’re doing everything you’re doing.”

Sebastian learned to become more comfortable in front of the camera.

“That was definitely one of the things I struggled with this second time around,” he said. “On YouTube, your content is just going to be pushed out to people in that niche. It's not like all the people you know are going to start seeing your YouTube videos. When you first start out, almost no one sees your videos. Whereas on Instagram, that's going to be the page that you've had your entire life. Your high school friends, the people you now know are going to see everything you post. So there was a brief moment for a day or two where I was a little bit uncomfortable with it.”

Sebastian decided to take the plunge with the latter social media platform after hearing a friend’s comment about him going after what he wanted regardless of others’ opinions.

“After that that comment he gave me, I was like, I need to live true to my word and go for it,” he said. “So I went on to Instagram as well. That did take a little bit of time to fully be my authentic self, but it did come over time. It's just getting comfortable on camera, being able to speak and articulate your thoughts in a clear and concise way that people can understand and actually putting yourself out there.”

Sebastain said it’s important for people to know what motivates them.

“For anyone who wants to be motivated, rely on discipline, but also understand the reason why you're doing everything you're doing,” he said. “I've taken a lot of time to cultivate different notion pages that dive into all my different goals, my motivations for doing them, what I'll accomplish if I get everything I want, what will happen if I don't proceed with that path and I quit. It's very clear as to the pros and the cons of doing everything, all the actions you take, whether it's in alignment with your goal or not. Having a lot of clarity is important.”

Sebastian dispensed advice to those seeking self-improvement.

“A lot of people want to improve,” he said. “They want to get into the gym, but they don't actually show up to the gym and start doing something. You're not going to be perfect the first day you go to the gym and you're not going to have perfect form. It's a constant process of iteration. Same thing with meditation. You're not going to reach enlightenment. I've never really reached enlightenment, but it's going in and doing that thing day after day, picking up the book and actually reading, writing three to five things you're grateful for when you don't actually feel the benefits of doing so right off the bat.”

Sebastian stressed action and consistency enables people to succeed.

“It's taking action on all the things you know you need to do,” he said. “It's like watching one of my videos will give you more than enough information on what you should be doing. It's just actually taking action. That's the biggest thing I can say for anyone: the biggest cause of failure is not taking action and not staying consistent with it.”

Sebastian’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sebastian_riccobono/

Sebastian’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0sBRoZwZ5K-hTyKoNBhf0g