Meet Ivan Fredette

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ivan Fredette. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ivan below.

Ivan , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience isn’t something we’re born with, it’s something we build. Just like going to the gym, mental fortitude is a muscle, and I train it by consistently seeking out hard things. I choose discomfort, challenge, and adversity before life throws it at me. That way, when real hardship comes, I’m ready.

I also choose to see adversity as a gift. Life doesn’t happen to me, it happens for me. Even after losing the two most important people in my life to suicide, I refused to become a victim. I leaned into the pain, found purpose in the struggle, and asked, What is this trying to teach me? That’s where real growth lives. Resilience, for me, comes from that relentless pursuit of strength, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Three words define everything I do today: discipline, purpose, and legacy.

I’m a Men’s Transformation & Leadership Coach, Resilience Speaker, and co-founder of Ironclad Brotherhood, a movement for men who are ready to reclaim their strength, rebuild their lives, and rise as leaders. This was built though trauma and a relentless pursuit of self mastery .

I spent 17 years battling alcohol addiction, numbing the grief of losing my cousin to suicide. On December 26, 2020, I made the decision to get sober. That choice was the beginning of everything. Sobriety gave me clarity and with that clarity, I was able to turn my Tree Service Safe Tree, into a 7-figure tree care company, from a small mismanaged operation out of my back yard. I proved to myself that when a man takes radical responsibility, there are no limits.

But life tested me again. In 2023, my sister also died by suicide. And that’s when I realized the system I had built, rooted in self-leadership, discipline, and emotional strength, wasn’t just about recovery. It was about resilience. And it became the foundation for Ironclad Brotherhood.

At Ironclad, we work with men who are ready to do the real work. Through our signature A.R.M.O.R. Framework, our daily accountability tools like The Warrior’s Journal, and a community of high-integrity brothers, we guide men to build strength across all pillars: physical, mental, emotional, and financial. It’s not just self-help, it’s self-mastery.

What’s coming next?
• On May 27th, 2025, I’ll be speaking at Speaker Slam, North America’s largest inspirational speaking competition, to share a message I believe could save lives.
• And in June, we’re launching our podcast, “The Final Relapse,” where we’ll have raw, unfiltered conversations about masculinity, addiction, and what it really means to lead a life of excellence.

I live in Niagara with my wife and three kids. Everything I build is for them, and for the men out there who know they were made for more but just need the tools to make it happen.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

For me, the three most impactful traits were Clarity, Courage, and Consistency, the foundation of any transformation.

1. Clarity
You need to get crystal clear on who you want to become and what you want to accomplish. Vague goals create vague results. Define the vision, set deadlines, and create metrics to track your progress. Clarity gives you direction, and in a distracted world, that’s a superpower.

2. Courage
Success requires taking risks. Most people are paralyzed by fear of failure but failure isn’t the enemy. It’s feedback. It’s education. The fastest growth happens through adversity, so lean into the discomfort. Take action even when you’re unsure. That’s where confidence is built.

3. Consistency
Discipline beats motivation every time. Like building muscle in the gym, building anything meaningful, business, sobriety, resilience, requires consistent effort over time. Get comfortable with delayed gratification. The world will throw distractions and “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunities at you, but most of them are noise. Stay focused on your mission. The more dialed in you are, the more aligned opportunities will find you.

My advice: Don’t chase balance, chase alignment. Get brutally honest about what matters, eliminate distractions, and show up every day, no matter how you “feel”. That’s how you win.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

One of the most influential books in my life is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill.

What drew me in wasn’t just the content, but the backstory. Hill wrote it in the 1930s, but it was deemed too controversial to publish. He and his wife agreed it wouldn’t be released until after their deaths and their children’s. It finally came out in 2011, and the craziest part? It’s more relevant today than it was when he wrote it.

In the book, Hill interviews the “Devil”, a metaphor for fear, doubt, and societal control and exposes how most people live in a state he calls drifting. That’s the first lesson that hit me:

1. Drifting is the death of purpose.
Drifters are people who move through life without clarity, direction, or discipline. They follow the crowd, avoid discomfort, and stay busy without building anything meaningful. I realized that before sobriety, I was a drifter. I had no clear mission, no self-leadership, and I was being controlled by fear. That realization changed everything.

2. Fear is the primary tool of control.
Hill breaks down how fear of criticism, poverty, failure, and even death, is used to keep people in line and playing small. Once I understood that fear is a weapon used against us, I started facing it head-on. That mindset is now baked into Ironclad. We guide men to lean into fear, because that’s where their power is.

3. Definiteness of Purpose is your greatest weapon.
The antidote to drifting is definiteness of purpose. Know what you want. Know who you’re becoming. That clarity makes you dangerous, in a good way. It creates discipline, focus, and the ability to say “no” to anything that doesn’t align with your mission. This concept became a pillar of my life and the men I now coach.

Contact Info:

• Website: ivanfredette.com, ironcladbrotherhood.com
• Instagram: @ivanfredette
• Facebook: Ivan Fredette
• Linkedin: Ivan Fredette
• Twitter: @ivanfredette
• Youtube: ivan.fredette