I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast
that is Transcend.
Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did
for 14 years.
Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,
hair loss, etc.
Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have
seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely
incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left,
right and center.
So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology
and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down
my throat.
Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason
why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.
They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first
responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.
So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood
drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they
guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.
In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been
very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.
So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology
knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.
Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies
they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.
So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,
but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.
So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that
you can't come back from.
So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely
one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.
So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the
Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.
This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.
I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and have used their products ever since.
From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female
responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've
worked for.
Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they
are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance
project.
We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier.
I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been
my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.
One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick
and mortar element.
They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching
100 stores all over the US.
My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts
you see online are applied also in the stores.
So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do
want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around
holiday times.
But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every
time you make a purchase.
If you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen
to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayres.
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on
the show strength and conditioning coach and the man behind the Wolfpack collective John
Wolf.
So in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from John's early life, his journey
into the world of strength and conditioning, finding kettlebell training, mace work, training
the tactical athlete, the mindset side of coaching, his own mental health story, foundation
training and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment.
Go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and
leave a rating.
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for
others to find and this is a free library of over 900 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said I introduce to you coach John Wolf.
Enjoy.
Well John I want to start by saying this is a long time coming.
I had one on the show quite a few years ago now.
You were kind of the next person that I had in my crosshairs and then we bumped into each
other again at a foundation training seminar a while ago.
So I want to say firstly welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
Hey happy to be here James.
Yeah it has been a long time coming and what a wonderful treat it was to just organically
be at the same place at the same time.
Absolutely.
I think we both have a huge amount of respect for what Dr. Goodman and the foundation's
team provide the world in terms of a framework to work through.
Fundamentally I think we all need to work on as humans that postural alignment and breathing
is two primary platforms from which we perform and that self-regulation that comes with it.
Man I got work that weekend.
I got a lot of value out of it.
Yeah it's not easy people like look at the picture.
Oh you just stand with your legs apart and you hold your hands out like just you wait.
Just you wait and it's not supposed to be crushing but it's amazing how much pressure
or stress you can put on in a good way on the human body merely by just changing the
position.
Yeah definitely.
You know I think that it really goes to you know the difference of what's perceived externally
and what that internal experience intrinsic experience is you know and the amount of effort
you put into to what you're practicing and it really it's one of those things where even
if you get a workout and you understand like okay look this doesn't look too hard but the
way you perform it can really change both the experience and the adaptive response right.
So yeah you could just stand there in a posture but that's not doing the work necessarily.
You actually have to understand what you're trying to accomplish and put some effort towards
that.
Absolutely.
Well I want to dive into that when we get to that point in the timeline but let's start
the very beginning.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic what
your parents did how many siblings.
All right yeah definitely.
So I was born in Monterey California.
It's a pretty unique place in terms of being part of California but being a little bit
on an island it's a peninsula and it actually has some deep history in terms of the history
of California.
Monterey was the first capital.
It has a deep military history which is what brought both sides of my family into the area
and because of that military history is also the houses it's called the Defense Language
Institute where most of the military historically has gone to learn foreign language and so
growing up it was really interesting in high school that the little town I grew up in Marina
which is if you could call a suburb of Monterey it's just the outskirts of Monterey.
You know you just say Monterey because nobody knows where Marina is you could drive through
in blink of an eye in a fog bank really and it is documented as one of the most culturally
diverse areas per capita in all of the United States actually the year I graduated 96 I
believe there was an article that that stated as and some of those experiences that came
from that cultural diversity really have shaped my perspective.
I myself am Mexican Japanese and English so I'm a product of that diversity in some way
shape or form and I have siblings right that are all mixed in different ways or they all
share one father so they they're Mexican and Filipino right and so again I that means I
was in a variety of different households and and learning different cultural values most
of my friends were kind of in those same situations where you you might have a father that was
in the military a mother that was brought in from a different country and then their
parents the that the more ethnically diverse side of the family their their grandparents
would come in and they didn't speak in English so I got to learn a lot of how to say hello
goodbye thank you and eat a lot of really diverse ethnic foods which to be honest I
have no complaints about.
Was the Japanese side post World War II was that a military and civilian meeting?
Yeah actually post Vietnam War really I think most of the the people that settled in that
area really came as a product that timeline oh looks like we dropped oh we're back so
yeah my grandparents were both my grandfathers were both Vietnam War veterans and I think
a lot of that a lot of that time that's where a lot of people were stationed in that area
as part of what was called the Golden Triangle so when people were stationed there usually
you set your roots and you stayed there you know it's a really beautiful place I'd argue
Monterey California is one of the most beautiful places in the world but but of course that's
home so I might be a little biased.
What is your perspective of the way the the divisions have been driven into this country
by both sides of the aisle and trying to you know really kind of underline the labels oh
you're you know you're this you're that you're this color that color this gender whatever
it is when you came from such an eclectic background and that was the United States
to you?
You know I think that's a really great question you know growing up and growing up in California
there's certain things that you you may have a bias around you know growing up in California
even between then and now some of those terms have really changed what the meaning of the
terms were or are and so growing up in California you think you're relatively liberal person
but now as I've as I've removed myself from that environment I live in Texas now which
is a very conservative environment for the most part except for the time I lived in Austin
which is you know a little blue island in a big red state right and so this has been
really something that I've reflected on a lot you know what I realized in that environment
I grew up in you think it's liberal to accept people of diverse backgrounds different beliefs
right and and to learn to coexist in a meaningful way in this relatively little melting pot
and what I've reflected on since is that that might have been what I defined it as but in
the current context really isn't the definition right now it's a seemingly competition based
on who can who can prove they're more woke you know for the for the current terminology
but realistically what I realized was in that environment it was a very traditional environment
I wouldn't say it was necessarily conservative in the traditional definition but but the
values that were instilled on the family level you know basically everything stems from the
smallest concentric circle you and your mate you and your mate and your children the household
the the neighborhood the community that you subscribe to whether that's your spiritual
beliefs or or just your your community at large if it's ethnic that you relate to and
how those shared beliefs kind of echo throughout and so what I realized was man even though
I grew up in this place that would be predominantly defined as a liberal state I grew up around
people with really traditional values and that was really a gift because I in as I've
been removed from that I realized I yearn for that level of commitment to family values
to bettering the family through generations and and and also people that have walked that
that path they value hard work it's hard hard to get your family to the US and then the
value that you place in being there as as a unique opportunity relative to where you've
come from otherwise you wouldn't have come and and so these are the things that that
I find a pain in the lack of of that shared value system that that shared belief the lack
of of you know the attitude of gratitude for being where we are and this taking for granted
that everybody's do more rather than empowering the individual to be the master of their own
fate and working hard to to determine what what what they're do you know you have to
do you deserve it or have you earned it and those are two very different things in terms
of mindset I'd really I'd really like to believe I earned anything I've gotten in this life
including the bumps and bruises that have come along the way absolutely no I think it's
it's so sad because it is such a an eclectic beautiful country that was founded on immigration
and even the UK you know used to be obviously a lot more white European a few hundred years
ago but then after some of the the good and horrible things that the British people did
you know you know most of them were just trying to get on with their lives but some of the
people under our flag and going into different nations now it's this this incredibly diverse
you know beautiful tapestry of cultures from all over the world and that is England you
know or the UK and that is also you know the US and so you speak to people normal people
and everyone has the same kind of experience like I never really thought about you know
whatever it is transgender whatever you you pick a pick a hot topic at the moment like
you know is it hurting someone no well then it's none of my business you know and the
same with you know different races and cultures like yeah I've got some amazing friends that
are gay or you know Indian or whatever again the the thing is and you know COVID comes
out and all of a sudden supposedly everyone hates Asians and now at the moment apparently
anti-semitism is through the roof I haven't heard a single thing said towards the Jewish
people personally with my own ears so this is you know this is I think why as a community
we need to talk to each other and turn the damn TV off and we were just talking before
we hit record there's a big cell phone shut down at the moment yes where I live that's
exactly what we need turn off all the devices turn off the screens and walk out your front
door and look at your community are they at each other's throats are they stringing people
up from trees are they or are they getting on are they neighbors is there you know some
dickheads in your neighborhood of course but the most people kind and you know they come
from all backgrounds and walks of life but they all want to feed their kids and put a
roof over their head then you know we have so much more in common and most of the differences
should be celebrated and not be a threat yeah I think that's that's absolutely the truth
I grew up in a place again that was so diverse there's just so much to learn so much that
you don't know and you know I think one of the the states that we have in our youth that
is really a great gift and you're gifted this as a parent when when you get to observe it
in your own children is is the true curiosity like curiosity without judgment right and
judgment is conditioned right so we condition our children if if we have beliefs that that
impose the our own fears our own beliefs upon a certain person or subset of the population
that that's something that's learned more than anything else usually children they just
they want to know you know how come I look different than that person and it's a genuine
curiosity is usually there's no attachment to it and and you know as humans as we get
older we lose the awe that comes from observing things that we've never observed because we've
seen it more than once you know the the the awe of everyday life is diminished as we experience
it more and we have more years on this on this planet and and we lose that curiosity
and and I think that's one of the gifts being around children or having your own child where
you get to look at the world through the lens of through their lens through that curiosity
with all that curiosity and all that awe and you know you said it yourself if you go outside
your front door you might have a pretty diverse neighborhood and in that neighborhood you
feel safe so you don't you don't necessarily judge people the same way that the media is
conditioning people too or you know if you live in a really homogeneous environment then
then you might have a lot of those concerns but really fear-based and it tends to be the
national narrative the media's narrative that people find themselves influenced by you know
and it's at some point in time you got to control your inputs right I hate to believe
that any any buddy wearing a uniform and a shield that's there to to protect and serve
in any way shape or form wouldn't do their best to serve the person that in need in front
of them no matter what what they look like and I don't think that's in the heart of
of most people that that are served in that way you know and you know there's always that
vocal minority or the like you said in every subset of our society there's going to be
some people that that don't align to what we hope the values are and unfortunately they
get highlighted a lot more much you know the spotlight shine on them a lot more brightly
in in the media than than all of the heroes whether they whether they wear a uniform or
not you know whether they're a teacher whether they're a service member whether they're they're
fighting fires both literally and and socially you know that are out there doing the hard
work every day absolutely well obviously you ended up finding yourself in the strength
and conditioning world what were you playing and doing as a young child back then man you
know when I was young I always kind of envisioned being a doctor which was funny you know I
I'm relatively studious and really curious analytical so I've always continued to dive
into being very interested in how the human body works I did a lot of different things
though I've had very eclectic work history from from hospitality working in Monterey
there's a lot of hospitality hotels tourism real estate also high-end real estate which
is something that's common out there finance work in mortgage and work with autistic children
because I have experience with one of my younger siblings having a developmental disability
have having comfort in that arena and being able to translate that into into a learning
environment where other children needed needed the type of support and acceptance that comes
from from that familiarity and and that was really enriching ultimately I didn't stay
in a lot of those things when when the big you know economic implosion happened in 2008
and everybody was at my desk crying because they're gonna lose their house and I didn't
have a financial vehicle to solve the problem I didn't have any vehicle to solve the problem
I just made the determination that you know I spent the last five years investing in myself
my physical practice you stuff kettlebells at my desk every office like try to convince
everybody to take a break and do something physical in the middle of the office whether
they're wearing just take your suit jacket off it's okay you know let's go ahead and
get a little bit of movement in and inviting people over to my garage and having swing
bells and do all kinds of different stuff that hey if I can't help people in in the
profession I'm in right now immediately you know I like to think I'm a highly empathic
person so like I would go home and be really distraught at seeing these families at my
desk you know father mother crying kids wondering what's going on and and I just determined
I was like man if if the economy is not going to support me being able to do what I'm here
to do help people realize in America dream protect those assets and in the immediate
timeline I'm not I realized there was a lack of alignment with what I felt purposeful doing
and if I was going to do something to serve people in that immediate you know immediately
hey if if I can offer something at scale that builds community gets people moving I can't
necessarily change their financial reality or future but I can change the way that they
perceive themselves right now and feel about their existence through good coaching and
and doing what's right for their the only vehicle they're going to have for their whole
life you know within their body and within that influence their mental emotional spiritual
well-being because that's I think that's where good coaching intersects with with good movement
or good physical practices it shouldn't be just just what you do in the gym ideally you're
instilling beliefs and providing support for people to transcend whatever limiting factor
there is across those planes you had a unique perspective on the crash when I when I moved
to California from Florida so many of my friends were trying to convince me to buy property
you got to get now there's this amazing mortgage you can get you just pay the interest and
luckily coming from California from Florida the California prices were insane and I had
that baseline to compare it so I'm not spending half a million dollars on an 800 square foot
1950s house it's not happening so you know through your lens you know so that we can take away
lessons and hopefully it doesn't happen again as a consumer or obviously the the banks themselves
what were the the things that led to that and what was the ripple effect of that that
you saw in the position that you were in yeah the financial vehicles themselves were a big
thing and conditioned consumers so the environment the environment that we're in influences our
beliefs and the way we show up and I think that people discount that we have in our society
we have this belief that as an individual society that we're making all the choices
irregardless of what's happening around us and I think this has already come up in our
conversation people are very susceptible to condition to programming well if we if we
don't control our inputs we're all susceptible to it because it frames our perspective of
the common existence right and so and we have very short memories as human beings but the
financial vehicle that you probably were talking about was really prevalent at that time were
loans that you weren't just even paying the interest you're paying less than the interest
because it was banking on this this belief that California real estate was going to continue
growing at like 12 percent 15 percent year over year which is unsustainable and then
people were getting upside down only more and more interest and then there were they
were seeing those huge jumps 20 25 30 percent increase in value and then cashing out that
value on the on the belief that it was going to perpetually be the existence they lived
in and and people in the financial industry kind of fed into it you know they condition
people to believe that that was that was a good strategy that they can they can live
well they have the cake and eat it too you know they can they can buy a nice car and
still keep their house and then you know eventually maybe some of those people had to live in
the cars they're nice cars that maybe they wouldn't even have their nice cars after that
you know it's a really tough thing but but this is true whether we're talking about our
assets in tangible form or the our personal assets we can't borrow against your assets
perpetually and not have it come due at some point in time you know if you if you're borrowing
against your health if you're if you're not investing back into your personal well-being
like I said physically mentally emotionally spiritually eventually you're going to be
you're gonna be tapped out you're gonna be below below zero in terms of what you have
access to in one or more of those those accounts and and you just you just got to put in every
day you know you can't you can't take out more than you're putting in it's just never
going to work long term well you mentioned about having kettlebells in the office when
were you first exposed to strength and conditioning and how did you find yourself in the world
of kettlebells specifically man you know really strength and conditioning was part of my youth
my parents put me in martial arts when I was four funny story the reason they put me in
martial arts because back to like my humanistic nature right like I was like oh I just want
to hug everybody I don't I grew up in a rough area traditionally very like underprivileged
area in Monterey and my father grew up in a rough time the this town seaside that I
grew up in had had really big trouble during the like 60s a lot of places were really racially
driven at that time and that's when my father grew up and he didn't fit in anywhere he's
basically said every every neighborhood he walked through was in a white neighborhood
he had to fight his way out of the white neighborhood there's a black neighborhood had to fight
his way out of black neighborhood was a Mexican neighborhood he's a white and Japanese dude
you didn't fit in anywhere and and that was something that I found strength in but in
his era of coming out through adolescence it was it was a big challenge and so when
I grew up in this in this neighborhood there's still really rough and so I might have a toy
somebody else didn't have and I didn't come home with my toy my dad said well how come
you don't have your toy I was like oh you know this guy I was four I didn't really have
a lot of like this ownership understanding that like preserving my my integrity or boundaries
I was like oh the kid you know it was like a conflict and the kid ended up with my toy
he's like well if you ever come home without your toy or without an ass whooping in the
future you're gonna get the latter you know and so they wanted to put me in martial arts
so I could learn to have the type of tools that they felt I needed to have to survive
in this world as a man you know instilled in me in my youth but the martial arts studio
was a very place a high value on conditioning and discipline and it had a really great code
of conduct bylaws that we all had to subscribe to as part of the core of our culture those
things have driven who my identity as a human being and then the conditioning we had was
brutal it was it was phenomenal though as a foundation for for me moving forward I
always felt capable physically capable even if I was untrained or deconditioned for a
long period of time just the my nervous system adapted to that reality in my youth and it's
carried me on at times even when I wasn't so disciplined fast forward to high school
curls for the girls and remember anybody remember those like cement filled plastic weights that
everybody had in the garage and man just busting it out and trying to emulate what my uncles
were doing because I thought they were so cool in my early teens and some of those things
were leaking some of that concrete obviously by those years and then you know I really
got distracted by the dream of the world you know partying and doing all these things working
and I didn't find myself back to a level of commitment that I could be proud of until
I actually found a darker time in life I was ended up being 130 pound meth addict at one
point in time and I realized I needed to tap back into those things that supported me being
my better better or best versions of myself and reflected back on my youth and martial
arts reflected on being physically capable and invested doubled down in that arena and
those arenas and so really everything that's happened in my life as a result of and how
I overcame that dark time was kind of the intermingling of those two things with a new
lens looking for methodologies and frameworks that supported me adopting those early beliefs
and applying them in the context of me as a sovereign adult and also looking at things
that extended both longevity and performance like the you know in the current paradigm
you hear like Dr. Peter Tia talk about the difference between longevity and and so lifespan
and health span you know if you live a long time of the last 20 years of your life you
you cannot contribute that's not a good life but if you live a good life for even five
or ten years less even but you're capable for everything up to the last year that's
pretty awesome you know and and optimizing for those two things for some reason that
that experience that the dark time really shaped the perspective that I value that because
I was far from capable of doing much other than just trying to get get out of my own
way for a long time there.
So when you look back I think one of the misnomers about addiction is or someone tries a drug
and there's this chemical hook and then they just can't shake it off and the reality is
it's a way of filling a void because something that's happened to us prior to that addiction
so you mentioned about having veterans in your family when you look back were there
you know what were those elements now with this mature lens that you you know look introspectively
that contributed to the suffering that you feel with meth in your case.
Again this is a good question this is a good question because it's absolutely the truth
and there's the intersection of those two things you need something that makes you susceptible
right.
Susceptible to finding some type of external escape or you know some way of for me you
know I think that there's a lot of as a coach as I've evolved you know a lot of people use
anger as a fuel like everybody watch water boys like tackling fuel you know like well
mama doesn't know doesn't hurt her you know or whatever you know hey they know water sucks
it really really sucks right.
So and people aren't people I would say as a coach a lot of times I want to transfer
the energy that people find in anger improving the world wrong into something that's more
loving right because it's something that's sustainable because even if you achieve great
things off that off high octane fuel of anger right you're not doing it in a way you're
going to love and accept the outcomes and celebrate yourself as a result but I think
there's something even more dangerous and this is this is to answer your question and
that's apathy you know living in an apathetic state as a human being there you don't you
don't even have enough care to be angry you know you might be angry but you also just
lost a sense of humanity a sense of connection a sense of purpose that's even hard to tap
into anger as a fuel and for me it was back to you'd said you know my my the veterans
of my family well one of one side of my family I was really a lot more close with than the
other my my grandmother was kind of like my second mom I had experienced death in the
family before that but nothing so proximal nothing that really changed my perspective
and when she passed away it wasn't just that she passed but but I felt she was such a wonderful
maternal energy not only to me and my family but to an extended community it was ridiculous
when she passed the the mortuary the funeral home just had people spilling out into the
street to to say to to to pay respects and to tell stories about the impact she had on
their lives and and it was just the way she left I felt was so unfair and it shook shook
the foundation of what I thought were universal truths in my youth you know this is a really
dangerous thing people grow up on Disney and all of these things that what what should
be you know we believe things are right and wrong we believe things should be a certain
way and when they don't line up it really can shake your foundation of what life should
be like or is like and and this this death really did that now fast forward a year to
the date I was already kind of in a downward spiral but say uh the day before the anniversary
of her death my grandfather went back into the hospital he had lung cancer diagnosed
20 years after he stopped smoking cigarettes in the military and and it really he he degenerated
really quickly and so right after midnight my mom and I are in the room with them and
that was that was that literally one year to the day after my grandmother passed during
that time and during that window I wasn't the only person in my family that was self
distracting my uncle he ended up with some legal problems I ended up seeing him and we
had problems he and I and and we ended up having a night where we talked all night and
he let me know he he had tried to kill himself a couple times and yeah I pleaded with him
let him know hey you know I love you it doesn't matter whether our you know rougher times
have been but I need you your kids need you we love you and I also acknowledged at that
time I couldn't remove you know the freedom he had to make choices you know and so and
nothing I could say would would change it and he let me know it was gonna happen so
one day I answered the phone at work I hear my mom crying man I knew exactly what happened
so I was really in this state right I just didn't care about much you know and even though
I was trying to do good things and do right in many areas of life it just wasn't enough
to fill that to fill the cup in terms of meaning of life and and you know I was apathetic I
didn't care and so yeah you know I fell into the trap I cared about performance I think
this is something that a lot of people on the listeners podcast can relate to you're
hurt and you just double down on saying like I show up I get my work done I show up I'm
in pain it doesn't matter because I measure my value based on this objective thing you
know my performance metrics my I was I still had two jobs I was making good money but I
was doing things to blow off steam and like burning it at both ends back to that withdrawing
more than depositing in really core fundamental aspects of life even though I'm I didn't
value it because I value making money working hard achieving in some type of meaningful
but less meaningful way for what I needed at that time in life to feel purposeful and
it was just like a way to externalize and validate myself because I didn't feel valid
and then and then I fell into the trap of using as an experiment and then I instead
of like taking time off to recover I needed to perform so I used again that fed that cycle
and before I knew it I was I was deep down a hole I didn't know how to get out of for
quite a while sorry that was a long explanation no no but this is the right explanation this
is what people need to hear this is you know this is behind the curtain and the irony is
a lot of people in in the professions are listening you know we see this we see you
know the addiction and all and the violence and the suicides and all these things and
so what's beautiful is when people have this courageous vulnerability like you have to
tell their stories it debunks the myth that everyone else is fine and they're the only
one struggling and also debunks the myth of you know well crack is a you know a poor black
problem or you know whatever it is I mean I've had numerous people that were addicted
to meth on the show that were high performers just like you said you know they were in Wall
Street or they were firefighters but behind the scenes they were they were drowning and
that was the thing that was keeping them going yeah I mean it's it's it's painful when you
realize how how common the human experience is sometimes because we could project value
on somebody because of what they've achieved and because even even though they're in pain
they've been able to contribute meaningful things to our life through entertainment through
laughter you know you talk about Robin Williams or you know associated with the brand on it
twitch Steven Boss who is a dancer and he he committed suicide not too long ago I met
him in person got to work with him and I I just love being around the guy I was like
man this guy's so humble he's so cool he's so he he he's an edifier you know he celebrated
my skills in the time even though he's a he was a just a phenomenal mover and I was like
man you know what I look forward to the next time I get to interact with this human being
and then it never it never happened you know but I always enjoyed watching him perform
I had the opportunity to connect with him in person and I never would have known you
know just I think a lot of people didn't really know about what my reality was at the time
until until it was obvious yeah I remember twitch twitch did a duet I think it was on
so you think you can dancing that was the show and it was with an Asian dancer if my
memory serves me right and it was such a powerful dance you know and I love watching that I'm
in the contemporary dance some of those are just incredible but yeah I mean he always
just seemed to exude happiness and he was I think a host on some of the television shows
and I mean he was just like Robin Williams he was that is the last person I would expect
that would do that but that is the problem we all wear a mask some of us are entertainers
some of us are soldiers or firefighters some of us are coaches but when you realize that
everyone is hurting and you create an environment for someone to drop that mask and say I'm
a human being I do this thing but that's not who I am that's I think I think it's happening
I think it's beginning but debunking that myth again because if you look around in my
profession I always say this you know if I pull up on a car crash I can't queen out and
start screaming like oh my god there's so much blood you know you have to be in a certain
kind of alpha mode if you want to use that expression but after the event you've lost
you know two children or whatever happened in that you have to then kick back in the
other side you know the the yin and the problem is is a lot of us we just think that you know
the the Schwarzenegger Rambo you know masculinity a lot of us were raised on is reality and
it's not you talked about Disney same thing the reality is that every single human being
feels the spectrum of emotions you cannot get around it or you don't and it's toxic
right like you're like I know that at times surviving not not to say that my experiences
were like a lot of first responders but you can decondition your ability to feel and then
it's a really slippery slope where it's you don't feel human anymore you you know like
but it doesn't it doesn't absolve you of the pain because then you lack you lack so many
of the things that do contribute to you living a meaningful existence as a human being right
and and relearning how to feel relearning how to communicate and express those things
is is even scarier it's harder and you know I've gone through my version of that and I
I've worked with a lot of people to try to bridge the gap you know try to try to and
make it as safe as possible you know the gym is a relatively sterile environment but like
you can you can start to get people to find their edges as you know physiological stress
emotional stress they're just all perceived as stress so like if we can find different
thresholds and then condition different internal responses then the carryover can be really
great because sometimes those softer skills and psychological tools and frameworks and
you know you're building scaffolding for people to process sometimes in a very unrelated
environment something that they can experience and trigger and then be able to process in
a way that's a lot healthier than the default mode which is what we find ourselves in a
lot absolutely well I want to get to the coaching side and the emotional connection with a lot
of these these athletes just before we do though what was the darkest place that you
found yourself and what were the tools that you were able to use to navigate yourself
out of that darkness yeah man there was a wake-up call so you know when everything is
dark you know you you can see if you see a sliver of light it's a it's a it could be
really it could really really powerful but it also could be really triggering too right
because it amplifies the current reality you're in and so at the time I didn't care much
about a lot but I did find somebody I chose to see value in you know like a person that
person ended up being my wife at one point in time and that didn't work out the way I
perceived it largely probably because I created this really unsustainable paradigm in the
relationship because where I was and what I projected in that the early phase of the
relationship and and that but it served a great purpose right it served a great purpose
because it it opened my eyes just a sliver and and from that sliver shortly thereafter
sometimes the universe really interesting how it starts to stack on messages if you
just listen you stay aware a really close friend of mine that grew up with he he saw
me in that state we were kind of both involved in that that aspect of life to some degree
meal I was just fell a lot deeper and he just he grabbed me and shook me because it was
just a very transactional type of relationship at the time he's like hey where's my friend
you know I mean you're the one that always was more emotionally tuned in and you know
he was really angry he had a lot a lot of childhood trauma and he's like I'm I'm the
one who's supposed to be able to rely on you and he was crying and I was so empty I was
such a shell I was so tired I had no emotional or physical energetic reserves and I just
acknowledge it's like man I should feel something right now just as fundamentally as a human
being I should feel something right now but I was devoid of emotion I knew what I should
feel and I had no capacity to feel it and I was like man I got my car drove home and
just reflected on that mentally because I had no emotional response and I was like man
this is this is the antithesis of any existence I've had up to this point or anything I valued
up to this point in my life and it really shook me it really shook me when I had the
opportunity to like process it shortly thereafter I went to my mom's house I called her I was
like hey you know is it okay if I come by now let her know I sat her down at the table
I was like man you know mom I know you know I've been messed up I've tried to avoid being
around you for for this last year and she had six brothers who all gone through different
journeys with different either substances or violence or other problems so she obviously
knew you know and I just let her know I was like you know one I know you know and you've
known two I really appreciate you not calling me out in a way that made me feel judged and
the fact that you're still here emotionally present with me and not not doing that now
and then three as well as you know I see what I've done and I'm and I don't want you to
worry because obviously that's the third thing she's been worried sick through the whole
process and you just say you don't have to worry because I'm gonna fix it and so ultimately
that that leads so that the answer that you asked after like what is the path out and
you know it's hard because I feel I had an unfair advantage I always felt loved things
were far from perfect and things were things were hard in a lot of different ways and my
parents weren't together told you all my siblings were from a different father that relationship
wasn't always easy on me between he and I he and my mom everything the life's imperfect
but in my heart or heart I'll heart of hearts I always knew I was loved I was celebrated
in some way shape or form and I got to lean on that as a fundamental aspect of my identity
and I you know it's hard as humans sometimes to remember you're loved because I think most
of us we want to be loved by the world like back to Robin Williams or twitch and they
were sometimes it's just the one person who shows up and lets you see you for who you
are and sometimes we don't even have that one person show up when we feel we need it
and it has to be us and we have to find ways to validate our own existence but if we let
if we let someone in oftentimes that one person shows up where when you need them and if you
let that one person's perspective of you matter enough to like to validate you and give you
a good reason to be here and do the work it can get you through I've seen it lots of times
not only with myself other people but at the same time even though even though I knew I
was loved man I couldn't feel it I couldn't see it and I just had to be willing to accept
that at a time where I didn't feel it so that was that was the path out man you know a lot
of hard work a lot of slipping down it was a Sisyphean effort you know the rock kept
rolling right back down the hill you know and eventually there's a breakthrough and
I'm really happy to be to survive that era of my life and then use it as fuel to serve
other people yeah.
Well it's a powerful story before we hit record we were talking about the do not disturb function
on our phones and that really is a great analogy for what you're talking about the inability
to feel you are not feeling it but those calls and voicemails and texts they're still racking
up you've just turned off the the stimulus so at some point you have to turn it back
on and face all those I think it's kind of a good analogy like you said just because
we're not feeling doesn't mean that the body isn't experiencing all of the the impacts
it's just been you know deafened at that point yeah and you know it's tough because some
of those loving messages you don't feel you don't feel you're not willing to accept that
is true you know but eventually you just have to realize like hey we all have value and
we all have some way to contribute you know back to what we talked about earlier in the
podcast valuing your contribution to society rather than expecting society to serve you
and you know thankfully the people on this podcast they've opted to be the people most
people listening here they've opted to contribute in a meaningful way willing to sacrifice themselves
man you know and even in that system even in that subset of society I think there's
still less susceptibility to these these kind of pitfalls though you know but but that alone
that choice alone to me to be someone and for me to be any way shape or form to be able
to serve people who serve in that capacity is an honor and so it no matter no matter
what else has happened and no matter what other choices have been made fundamentally
you making that choice as a career path is something that's constant in your life to
me that that speaks volumes of the value of you as a human being and and and if there's
a way I can be of service then I would be happy to you know and well I think another
thing that a lot of people listening have in common is simply that they don't accept
that the way they feel that whether it's their physical side their emotional side that that's
just the way it's going to be I think a lot of people are on here listening wanting to
hear from all of these great minds because there's hope then I mean your story is a story
of hope and post-traumatic growth it's not you know you're not sitting here now still
curled up in a ball relying on meth to fill the void you know you've come out of that
so whether it's overcoming back injury with Eric Goodman or you know what we'll talk about
today being the the the best version of yourself as a first responder or simply overcoming
trauma I think a lot of people listening obviously are from you know the uniform professions
and the medical professions but I think the people listen because they there is hope and
they know that there are solutions to their problems on here too which is what you're
bringing here today yeah and sometimes the solutions are more simple than they seem right
like as humans what I've really observed is in myself and everybody else oftentimes the
simplest solution to make some level of measurable and meaningful meaningful products measurable
not an objective necessarily like we live in a subjective reality right like as human
beings you know you said what I think I feel with my experience that's not always measurable
I can I can I can chart it on a graph one to ten how do I feel or whatever the case
is but but that's even kind of objectifying something in a way that it doesn't take into
full account the reality internally and and some one of my students and I've been working
on some some projects together some retreats in the jungle to to disconnect from society
to reconnect with ourselves and nature and and the framework you know that we were talking
about is something we'll call elevate so it's it's an acronym ELVT and and essentially we're
trying to elevate reality right our reality you know by elevating you or elevating me
you know and all we want to do is elevate how we breathe move and feel which basically
you know if we do the first two the third is almost a foregone conclusion right so it's
not complicated but there are a lot of different ways to tap in and there are a lot of ways
to enhance like our our reality in the present moment but as humans we often because it can
be simple as going outside and for a walk barefoot in some dirt you know or grass and
that's grounding but for some reason we'll we'll make a million reasons why we don't
have the ability or time to do that you know a five-minute walk you know with some intentional
breathing can be super impactful and yet we'll have all this resistance right so it's not
it and and we always want to resist the thing that we know is going to give us the most
direct path to feeling better and it's just why we need support we need we need community
we try
there is a great book by Stephen Pressfield called the war of art and I read it it kind
of helped me kind of write write this second book that I'm writing but that's what the
whole book is about it's about resistance and he's specifically talking about writing
but my god there are so many parallels and I've reached out to him hoping that I'll be
able to get him on the podcast one day because then that resistance is everywhere and and
the simple concept the greater the resistance you feel the more important that thing that
you're trying to do is and it's so true and a lot of people feel resistance to oh god
I gotta cook I'm just gonna go you know to McDonald's so oh you know I don't I've got
to walk the dog but you know what it'll be fine let's open the back door I think the
reason why there's so much resistance is because they are really important things you know
and he talks about you know the closer you get to finishing the book and I can attest
to this the harder it gets you know when you reframe it like if I'm feeling a lot of resistance
that's my that's my sign that this is actually important that kind of reverse psychology
is incredibly powerful if you know if this next to no resistance it probably isn't even
a big deal but you know the reason why you feel so much resistance to that gym session
getting your bag packed and walking through the door of across the gym or whatever it
is is because there's a lot of value to that and it will help but there's this weird universal
element that the greater the benefit sometimes the greater the resistance until obviously
you create that discipline yeah man shoot that it's it's a it's a bit of a mindfuck
you know there's a paradigm shift that we need to take on you know pressure is a privilege
and guess what most of the people as you said people that are listening to this podcast
they would see that as true in their professional lives they just don't necessarily apply it
to their own benefit you know on a daily subjective basis how do I improve my perception of reality
that I'm experiencing right now and there's just a lot of tools but they take they take
practice and man feels there's I can only speak from experience there's a lot of resistance
to doing what's right for me as a platform for being of greater service it's this we
all seem to buy into the need to do for do for others do for achievement in measurable
ways that are outlined external of us and and have a hard time creating that internal
framework without support absolutely so I had um Zahoran who became a good friend um
all about kettlebells I had Greg Walsh on not too long ago from wolf brigade deep into
the the mace side I know you know back from when I knew about you and I was watching all
your videos when you're back with on it um those are the two tools that we seem to see
you using a lot so how did you come across kettlebells and maces and who were some of
the mentors early in your career yeah man kettlebells were probably one of the earliest
things that I actually I found Paul Sotswine's writings in muscle media 2000 was an EAS uh
publication magazine a fitness publication and and I just loved his writing he was talking
about like really simplified frameworks for achieving you know outrageous strength levels
and I started applying those in the context of this time instead of 2001 where I was trying
to to rebuild myself and I saw a huge ROIs got all of his books I was reading them all
back then there's a VHS tapes you didn't even have DVDs you don't even have DVDs anymore
really everything's streaming I mean you could still buy a DVD I guess but who does that
anymore and then um and then at that same time I you know the internet was is mostly
like chat rooms it was like archaic time for the internet so you can just like google something
because google didn't really exist um and so Paul wrote a testimonial about this other
mover another coach Scott Sonnen and so around that time that Paul was bringing kettlebells
Scott was swinging clubs and doing all these uh mobility coordination drills some of ground
based standing a lot of them were like inspired through folklore folklore dance or cultural
movement systems um and uh yeah man I went down that and I was like these are rabbit
holes I can go down for a while I saw because kettlebell certified in 2003 it was like the
golden era of kettlebells in terms of like a lot of the people that were contributing
to the RKC in helping teach it they had moved on to have their own kettlebell systems you're
talking about like Mike Muller Steve Cotter uh Jeff Martone uh uh Steve Maxwell right
they were all assisting at the certification it was it was brutal it was awesome like everybody
took turns with what they were working on and put the whole crew through stuff outdoors
in Minneapolis and it was it was great it was eye-opening and then I also went in that
year to another certification uh that was a club swinging certification and mobility
certification uh called circular straight training and so it was kettlebells and clubs
and all the mobility stuff were the foundation from which a lot of the other practices I
adopted really sprung from.
So as you are coaching kind of circling around to what we talked about for a little bit before
that um I think one of the real eye-opener is probably Julian Peneau from StrongFit I
had him on several times and he really started tapping into the emotional release of some
exercises and I even saw this with my my stepson my bonus boy he went through that kind of
turbulent teenage time and would kind of give up halfway on a sled push and I'd kind of
get on him a little bit and then he'd get all angry you know push the sled and then
burst into tears but again there's when you look at coaching let's say CrossFit you know
you walk through a door here's your warm-up you know here's your strength portion here's
your wad you know here's your cool down or accessory and then you leave again when I created
um my own class at the gym which is a tactical athlete training class it was a lot more of
an intimate environment I got to literally you know write it however I want it literally
would go on you know what's the weather that day how many people have I got so I would
put it together literally on the fly but I started weaving in a sandbag carrier we got
a parking garage like I think five stories high so they'd have to carry the sandbag there
all the way up the stairs and then we'd drop them on the roof and then I would just talk
to them and this would be like once every three months and just check in on them and
why are you even here what is your what is your why and it was amazing feeling stronger
because I was subjected to domestic abuse or I've been going through a divorce or you
know whatever and all of a sudden you realize as a coach or I realized that the doing part
was just a small portion you know and as a great example of a weight loss program Johann
Hari talks about and very long story very short they're trying to get this woman this
kind of ivy thing she's the rock star of the class loses all this weight and then falls
off the wagon and then some astute person down the road starts doing psychological evaluations
of these patients and she they figure out she started eating after her grandfather abused
her sexually and so she didn't want to be slim she didn't want to attract the advances
of people so that was her kind of safe space was the obesity so I had a real kind of aha
moment on understanding the person the why their emotional kind of you know spectrum
as an absolute superpower on top of the fact that you're simply coaching you know barbells
and all the things so you came out of you know your struggles you you enter the coaching
world talk to me about you know your relationship as a coach with the emotional side of your
athletes that you coach this is exactly what you just said is is there's a lot to unpack
if you're really going to help and I kind of alluded to this before you work with a
lot of high achievers a lot of athletes particularly in combat sports or you know contact sports
you know there's always there's a lot of dialogue internally where they went through a lot of
struggles and they're trying to redefine who they are and prove prove to other people who
they are a lot of times or you have people who are moving away from from an optimal state
of health because they there's psychological trauma and they're trying to preserve themselves
in a way that isn't healthy and sustainable so you know it's always this this thing where
what got you potentially to somewhere you value isn't going to get you to where you
want to be from there you see this in in a lot of you know tactical athletes as you just
spoke to the the barrier to entry is being a fire breather and being able to push yourself
beyond the capacity of the average bearer you know the average person but once you get
to a certain level your knowledge experience and and your your strategic mind your ability
to see things other people don't see put things into play that other people wouldn't have
the wherewithal to do and still be able to perform maybe not you're not 25 anymore but
your value and the paradigms of your value is are different but also the strategies for
you to extend the duration of your career your duration of service that's a big thing
for longevity to me is is is longevity this is before Peter Atiyah talked about life span
versus health span longevity can be defined as as a duration of life and it can be I found
it an alternate that the duration of service so like how long are you serviceable like
as a tool to be durable and have longevity like how long is this going to be effective
as a tool and to me I don't I don't I want my duration of service to extend as a function
of the container of my duration of life and to for that to be the case we have to we have
to start to unpack some of these other things and reframe our perception our soft skills
our tools and so when we we look at you said this this emotional response to the physical
you get to a point where somebody's more receptive right because you break down some of the armor
the barriers through through stressors and through shared suffering a lot of times we
create team we create community you understand that people are there when you're having a
hard time and they're offering a helping hand it kind of transcends some of these maybe
limiting beliefs in a lot of ways but also even it even earlier some of the things that
I like to look at is is more than just work capacity multi-planar movement skills because
there's a large argument that the human brain evolved not only to enhance our ability to
communicate but because we're highly articulate as we move in new ways we unlock new neural
pathways we create a state of neuroplasticity heightened state of receptivity and creativity
this isn't something that we talked about it on it a lot with nootropics enhancing that
would cognitive support supplementation but that's why a lot of the movement skills I
taught there were also they were taught to induce various levels of flow state and when
somebody doesn't move a lot you don't need to move and do a lot of outrageous stuff to
induce this state because it's relative to your current your current reality right physically
and so that as you start to enhance and expand someone's movement practices and movement
capacity we can also interweave social emotional tools you know frameworks mental models that
start to change the way that they perceive themselves they're also implanting matras
and in like removing judgment and providing new perspective like even when you're talking
about injury you know my the negative talk right like this my effing shoulder it always
it always keeps me from doing what I want to do well hey hold on you know what told
your shoulder to do the thing that got it in here it wasn't your shoulder you're the
tyrant that keeps on putting this shoulder in if every part of our body is part of a
body you know we have other humans we're going up this five story climb with when somebody
falls back we we work with them to get them to where they need to go you know like yeah
they have to do the work but but you start to create support and you start to create
new ways to address the limiting factor of that person's performance we don't do that
for ourselves a lot of time so just all these paradigm shifts that give people tools on
how to reframe their experience to understand like hey we're a system we're a team we're
a part all these parts are part of a whole and we only get there all as one or not at
all you know and and and how to how to create an environment within ourselves to to like
recognize like hey this part of me needs more attention oh if i think about that physically
then we start to start to process that same reality on other planes of existence that
you know as a human the human existence like mentally i need some support that i'm not
getting emotionally i need some support i'm not getting and instead of being mad about
my inability to show up in those ways but maybe i need some support and some tools maybe
i need some information some and and ideally the coaching experience just as you said supports
that in in tribe and community and i think that's where real good coaching transcends
counting reps and assigning load you know because it's not just physical load it's the
right the right mental stimulus right emotional service and challenging somebody when they
need to be challenged supporting them when they need to be supported and i like to think
a good coach can be dr jekyll and mr hyde you know and in a group environment you might
be both within the span of a couple seconds you know you have to recognize that this person
needs to be yelled at because that's how they respond because that's where they're at like
and they're like yeah all right fine and then this other person needs to be nurtured a little
bit and given the appropriate assignment for where they are and this is largely it can
be different in tactical environments obviously you don't you don't do as much nurturing when
life and death is in play in the group setting because everything has to function at a certain
baseline but but in general pop man you'd be surprised how how little stimulus it takes
for somebody to to reach the threshold and and how you might need to create new strategies
to to get them through that so they don't leave and never come back so that so they
don't let resistance keep them from achieving the next level of their personal evolution
while we're on this topic and you talk about tactical population as well fight the fire
service especially listening I mean other professions too but we are so sleep deprived
I mean basically 24 hours with no sleep every third day for 10 20 30 years I for the longest
time you know there will be days where I come off shift and I go to my CrossFit gym and
I do some you know redline fire breathing workout and then one day I had Jeff Nichols
on the show who's you know strength conditioning guru and also ex SEAL Team Six guy and so
you know walks the walk on on both sides of that and he opened my eyes and was like look
if you come off shift and you've got a high level of stress because you haven't slept
what makes you think that adding more stress would be beneficial and I was like oh my god
that's so simple and yet I missed it for and I was you know coaching and an athlete all
that for a long time when he when he said this and I remember you know a little little
ways on was there was a CrossFit workout and there were snatches and I'd come off shift
and I was tired and the complex movement of a smash a snatch of which are not super competent
anyway was absolutely infuriating and I kind of remembered it dropped the barbell and just
did a one mile slow run while they finished off the the wad and I was like ah yeah that
was kind of more of a visceral understanding of it then so talk to me about that you have
a lot of you know alphas again and I use that term you know endearingly not not patronizingly
that buy into the fact that you know you can sweat out stress you can burn off stress what
have you seen as far as the the kind of the the variation of intensity based on what that
person has experienced you know a day two days prior yeah I think you know it's different
from a you know general pop you do have a lot of variability you have your parent your
business owner there's a lot of uncontrolled variables but the key is is there's this notion
that is is preposterous to me that you can have a perfectly balanced day and achieve
anything there's there's there's always sacrifice of short-term balance necessary and you're
just saying to yourself in the fire service 24-hour straight sleep deprivation high stress
high alert you can you can adapt to that and you have to and you might need tools to upregulate
yourself at a moment's notice or within two minutes time frame or whatever the say says
like like sustain operational already right and there's a lot of ways to do that in that
you know like hey I'm I'm on still let me get some like sort of like fire breathing
workout like breath of fire up regulations you know strategies some some movement training
that's highly diverse but not intense so that you're not taxing the system you're just upregulating
the nervous system so so that if you if you do get a call you're ready then you could
do that at some type of cadence to keep yourself you know tuned in and tuned up but because
you have no control over being in a state of high stress for a long period of time we
talk about in our education system that I could design for on it balance and harmony
there was no balance for that day by design and external of your choice you had no choice
in that matter so if we look instead of in one day it doesn't just start over the next
day you have to look at in any training you know higher stress lower stress you have to
have the opportunity to recover from these in these longer states of of they're not you
stress they're distress right and so so you need to have the the wave you talk about the
yin energy the recovery energy in place and we have now so many new lifestyle norms that
help with that you know sauna cold plunge breath work is a bigger more accepted practice
in in especially high performance environments because you have you could have each of those
protocols in ways that up regulate or down regulate you and just understanding how to
do those things but it's necessary and and you don't adapt better to more compounded
stress right like eventually something something reaches the threshold of your adaptive response
this is and your adaptive responses is not measurable but it's it's always it's always
about what we talked about earlier how many deposits versus how many withdrawals and each
person has a certain threshold different account balances different external factors that are
also contributing so you just have to have better understanding of where you're at and
and you that run was probably the best thing you could have done that day because you still
got you know you still got the energy out you needed to you probably you know you're
still high stress you needed to move you probably have a hard time down regulating without some
type of kind of some type of stimulus but what kind of stimulus and and and you got
the energy out you're able to reflect probably on the on the run of what what the state was
you found yourself in when you're so frustrated like you're probably about to Hulk smash everything
when you feel like how come I can't get this movement Hulk smash just turning green you
know and and and you made a conscious decision to do what was better for you and thankfully
you had a really great conversation that helped frame that you know you know we just been
so brainwashed to think we just could push through perpetually and that's back to what
we're saying like when you're young you have extremely higher levels of adaptive reserves
you haven't compounded the cost of these 24 hour shifts over one year much less five years
ten years and fifteen years and and just what what got you in the door isn't gonna isn't
gonna keep you there perpetually you know you hang your hat on that there's something
to be proud of getting in but then as you go through different phases of your career
you're gonna have to develop different strategies to to to endure and to optimize your performance
and your your serviceability to yourself into your community to your teams you know absolutely
well while we're on that profession and doesn't actually doesn't have to be that profession
specifically but while we're talking about a little bit more of the out the box from
what you would normally see in in a gym I have fallen in love with I mean kettlebells
have always loved but now you know the mace work as well what as you started progressing
in you know you were an early adapter adopter excuse me to some of this work but as you
were interacting with people whose work was really revolving around the barbell maybe
dumbbells what would the values that you were seeing that maces and kettlebells were bringing
that maybe were missing and creating imbalances in some of these gyms yeah you know a lot
of times back to what I said when I got back into fitness the first was bodybuilding centric
and there's nothing wrong with bodybuilding as part of a complete perspective of a performance
enhancement you know performance optimization I think it serves a great purpose in many
ways you can intentionally fill in the gaps because you're you're going away from compound
full body movements to something more targeted but a lot of times we I think it's ebb and
flow we attack things from multiple angles I think that's one of the things we we really
talked about with unconventional fitness it wasn't just using unconventional tools it
was having an unconventional mindset and and that stemmed from like unconventional warfare
right you know you could have militaristically a superior force but you can't account for
the creativity that you know like say how did the United States earn its its freedom
right guerrilla warfare you know basically like everybody lined up in lines had a lot
more firepower these little guys running around the trees picking people off they're not playing
by the rules you know it was back to what I told you or my my martial arts history when
I was young it was kind of a weird traditional mixed martial arts it was boxing judo jiu-jitsu
and karate so I I got exposed to all these things and in the dojo we we sparred with
an amalgamation of all those skills they're still traditional in their presentation but
we problem solve per opponent what worked best back to like you box a wrestler you wrestle
a boxer and and now that's evolved into modern MMA which is a completely different like animal
but but I was exposed to that when I was young so it's really about you do what works best
given the context of the situation give me your opponent and when we talk about unconventional
fitness I like to attack things from multiple different fronts this is how we overcome a
weakness that's that's patterned in our nervous system and our beliefs it's like we don't
have to attack it from the same thing a mobility limitation and I know this is something you
you recognize can be the greatest hindrance to your strength gains so hammering more reps
without having prerequisite movement skills it's not going to get you better outcomes
if we I like to say strength is positionally dependent so if you don't have the capacity
to get in the right position you're not going to be strong you're going to find ways around
that instead of learning to develop the the attributes required to really move through
that resistance to overcome that resistance and to make it now what was a weakness of
strength well unconventional tools provide feedback feedback that is more unique the
nice thing about the kettlebell is when I don't let you put a kettlebell down for a
whole workout you start to realize where your limitations are in terms of strength endurance
postural endurance which is also something we talk about with dr eric goodman in foundation
training postural endurance especially for a tactical athlete might be more important
than limit strength because it's when you get tired when what when the limiting factor
the the least common denominator gets tired that's when the kinetic chain starts to break
down it's not when you're in the positions of strength for two to three reps yeah that's
really great to kind of knock down this wall awesome what happens after that you know and
what happens when you don't get the rest and it's the end of your 24 hour shift you're
on your third call because it's just one of those crazy days you know and and that endured
for the last several weeks it's just been that kind of season whatever gets tired first
and checks out it's going to put a ridiculous amount of stress on the rest of the system
well these feedback tools give you give you that benefit the kettlebell as I said if I
if I put some parameters to really find where the limiting factor is and you know once you
get to that point of understanding then now we have something to to create a hypothesis
around and like create a strategy to overcome specifically what that looks so you know what
that limitation is if where that postural endurance is going to show up first second
maces I can feed asymmetry so we want more symmetrical bodies more efficient they transfer
load across midline really effectively but we were inherently asymmetrical so if I feed
your asymmetries you become intimately more aware I don't need to tell you a lot you feel
a lot and it doesn't have to be heavy it's just a unique environment that I get to put
you in assign the reps and you're like really okay coach when that mace head is on the left
side I'm having a really tough time stabilizing it in space and controlling it it's starting
to pull me around that's a great observation let's start to look at why why that is what
do you think what do you think is the limiting factor here you know we can problem solve
for that and it brings people into the experience of the coaching experience the problem solving
experience back to what I said like you want to give people the tools to be able to understand
their body better because we weren't given owners manuals like our car when we bought
it right we don't know when it changed oil and we were told we need to sleep x amount
you don't get we don't get that freedom we have to create solutions around it like you
know we still want to live you know and so and perform so these tools they do a lot of
they can do a lot but you need to be taught how to use the tool as a feedback you know
if you got a toolkit you know and you have all the tools you ever want but you don't
know how to use any of them you don't know what what each one is for then then you're
still at a loss and I think that's one of the things we did really well at the audit
within the audit education system we try to teach how to use the tools as feedback mechanisms
for us to learn where the inherent limitations of our movement skills were strength endurance
and gamify it make it fun you know we all want to enjoy our experience and so gamification
whether we like it or not we're all addicted to dopamine you know this whole cell phone
thing you're talking about do not disturb like I think there's probably part of my brain
wondering if I got some Instagram likes while we've been on this call but but that's the
common state of existence for a lot of us right so can we do all these things and have
fun and create a deeply enriching environment and experience throughout the whole process
you know it doesn't always need to be woo woo and feelings sometimes you just take the
opportunity for when those things surface to address them with each individual or the
group as a whole when you find that they're receptive but sometimes it's just work and
intelligently designed work elicits those opportunities what about the aging athlete
I love the you know you were talking about that positional strength and I think you know
that and muscular endurance obviously are big in this profession as I'm turning 50 next
month I've kind of had a realization I mean I got beat up pretty hard you know as a firefighter
I did stunts to stunt man a martial artist my whole life so you know there's a lot of
things that aren't in the same position that they should be as I turn 50 so I for me personally
I've kind of let go of the idea of trying to be the fire breather of the gym or you
know I've never going to be the strongest guy but I had a pretty good motor for a long
time and instead focus on addressing the imbalances obviously foundation training is one of several
tools that I really lean into but as we start getting older what is what is the emphasis
what is your perspective of the emphasis on addressing imbalances because to me my whole
philosophy is if everything works the way it's supposed to I will be stronger I will
be more efficient therefore I will be fitter as well I don't need to try and lift heavier
now to me I need to start unfucking some of the things I did for the last 30 years I love
what you just said rule number one if you take one of my seminars you'll hear it if
you ever show up for workshop or somewhere all right everybody rule number one and this
is the most important rule yeah I already shook hands because I like get nervous so
I always hug people and shake hands before I go up on in front everybody I'm like hey
who's who's the asshole is presenting today I hope he's I hope he's he's cool you know
and they laugh at me because they know they're gonna be putting up with me for the next day
or two and uh and then I get up on stage and say everybody I need you to abide by one rule
above all else and that rule is you can't leave this door any more fucked up than how
you came in right and and what does that mean means that you have to take some personal
responsibility for your journey here and that means that if you are put in a situation like
if you follow the directions as prescribed or your interpretation and you're not having
the experience that you should have like the discomfort is growing is bordering on potential
pain and and you know you have the responsibility to either check out of doing it at that moment
and ideally to provide me that that awareness so that I can be a meaningful like do my job
like I'm only like I can tell you what to do but until there's a problem to solve we're
not all learning you know and so all of a sudden then I become a lot more important
so I think having having somebody with some technical proficiency having a team of people
like uh you know you have a lot of wear and tear you know at the advanced ages especially
if you have had a hard charging career so you you you need to leverage the insights
of people you trust build a good team right and uh resources whether it's clinicians and
coaches or whatever the case is doesn't mean you need to use them all the time you're not
divulging your power to them there are resources for you to to tap into but the internal game
we're playing is as you said it needs to be a different game it needs to be a different
game how uh what what's the best james if i was to ask you what what's the best ability
what's the most important ability what would you say it is in all honesty my my most valuable
ability now is to not be in pain that would be my best ability at 49 you said it right
so if i can create a hierarchy of values in our current state they're going to be a different
hierarchy of values than they were when we were 20 right and so if if and this is corny
but no matter what age you are you see this in the nfl with with rookies they're just
starting the career the best ability is availability are you are you game ready right now or are
you a detriment to the team if you put you on the field and and and our age like you
said you have a bonus kid you have you have family you kind of show up for them that's
back to what you're saying are you present are you available and and that means different
things at different times in our lives but when we frame it because that's the ultimate
like ability is like can i tune in can i be present can i be my best when i need to be
my best and and what are what are the things i need to do to create that reality you know
in the in the areas of life i i exist in right now and um and yeah so then we gamify that
you know uh do you have little kids are are you expecting to have grandkids do they where
do where do they play on the ground hey how comfortable are you on the ground i'm scared
to be on the ground let's learn to play on the ground can you get up without using both
hands can you do these things that's a predictive indicator of longevity you know what i mean
like we start tying things to to paradigms that we wouldn't have considered before um
and we play games mental games with how we frame what we value so that people can be
motivated to achieve things that they wouldn't have been motivated to do when they're younger
it has to be a game everything we learn as a kid is is framed and the best learning is
framed in in play and i think if we can make it a you know a rewarding experience to to
like play again you know uh what am i that told you about the elevate uh framework that
uh a student of mine were working they talked about you know play play-based learning and
they're like looked at the definition of play and it was basically like plays is is looked
at as this arbitrary thing it's just it's just rewarding like no the best learning is
is done through play because you don't you don't get burned out on it you don't you don't
trivialize the experience because the experience itself is inherently rewarding so if we can
if we can if we can do that and you're expanding on your physical capacities at a time where
most often you're you're kind of cognitively focused on your physical decline you know and
and maybe that requires some shifts of what we measure is work capacity going to continue
to go up at the age of 50 in those traditional linear lifts probably not and definitely not
if we just keep pushing up against the wall of resistance that's there yeah but if all
of a sudden we remove like we like we talk about the vehicle of our body in america we
like uh sayings like there's no replacement for displacement it basically says like if
i just put a bigger engine in the car then it's a better car but then i'm snapping the
axles i can't turn because the car's too heavy there are different ways in the modern era
of building a performance vehicle that we look at optimizing the performance of that
vehicle across many different metrics rather than just straight line performance and i
think that that's what we need to do for older athletes like how can we increase the efficiency
with which you move and if we retest some of those other things after we remove attachment
to them and they stayed the same but you have expanded the holistic range of adaptations
that improve your quality of life in the here and now and you go back and you're like i'm
just as strong as i was before well because we didn't put a bigger motor in but we took
the you're driving around with the parking brake on you had this so you have a you had
a block behind your accelerator you know i mean like we reduced we were we put lighter
wheels on your on your car and now it's a lot more efficient turning the wheels like
there's just so many ways that we can improve performance across the spectrum of what actually
is meaningful in life and there's different ways that we can frame and the value the way
we value it so so that's that's the game i think that's the game and i love playing
that game i don't know if you could tell but but it all it all you know it's all contextualized
it has to be something that that somebody buys into you know that's my purpose i just
kind of shared i was 36 when i had my first kid hopefully they you know like my mom was
20 when she had me so there's this different different reality of when i'm going to be
a grandparent relative to when she she became a grandparent even then i was the first one
so she was you know 56 you know people were in their 40s a lot of times when they became
grandparents i'm probably going to be in my no 50 60 late 50 60 you know maybe and uh
i still want to get on the ground play with my grandkids and if i could do that pain free
and enjoy that process rather than like and then oh can someone help me up my my hip my
back you know i'm going to be one happy grandpa and that's what i'm training for i have that
that foresight right now love it i love the the play element as well and even if you listen
i had the guy from finland talking about their education system and there's a lot of play
a lot of you know curiosity a lot of um looking at the holistic child rather than just standardized
testing and memorization but uh when i look at crossfit what really drew me in if it was
all barbells and warbles all day long i probably wouldn't have stuck with it very long but it
was the handstands and the rope climbs as a guy that got into it i did it about 16 years
ago when i started um i couldn't it could barely do a pull-up but i mean that's beside
the point i sure as hell couldn't do a muscle up or a you know legless rope climb all the
things that you get to to advance in but you know i couldn't do a handstand so you know
putting a pin one hole lower in a you know um in a globo gym machine isn't rewarding
and i mean arguably even you know a little bit more weight on a barbell i don't find
that rewarding but walking on your hands in your 40s or climbing a rope when you couldn't
even do a pull-up those are the things and that is play those are the parts of it that
i really like i think that was one of the reasons play and community is why crossfit
was so successful absolutely man they they've done they did that in a way that we hadn't
seen historically in a meaningful way you know there was group fitness and people gamified
that and made it playful with dance and things like that and like choreography and music
and production but but is different when you're expanding your skill set through your through
your formal play your movement skill set you you feel like you're a highly more capable
human not just a better dancer not to say that i don't value dancing i could definitely
improve my dancing skills and i'm pretty sure that would enhance my social skills or success
at this point but but just you know i can move so i can learn to dance i just and i
can shake i can shake it bro don't don't question it i just don't know how to do the structure
dance so i can learn choreography and because i move because i can move right if you can
move in more expensive ways you have more ways of play unlocked right i want to unlock
as many of those things or keep them open for as long as possible because it's no fun
when you get a little older and you're like i can't do x y or z anymore because i bought
into this paradigm that i don't think it has to be true and we're all going to get to a
point where it's not wise to do certain things anymore but it doesn't have to happen any
sooner than it than it has to happen absolutely well one more area i want to get to then we'll
touch on foundation training and then go to what you're doing now the class that i've
coached for a long time is targeted at um tactical athletes and i do a little foundation
training in there you know there's there's some kind of crossfit-esque style stuff and
there's a lot of strongman so again julian pino's work and the reason was having done
crossfit for so long and seeing some of the imbalances that kipping and some of these
things created um i realized that what we don't really do very well that is so important
in the fire service is to push to drag to carry and to climb we just don't do those
as much so for me personally the sleds you know handle the sandbags um you know kettlebells
again were were really important movements that were missing within the crossfit gym
itself what are some of the modalities or philosophies that you bring to the tactical
athletes that you train versus maybe some of the civilians you know it's really funny
i i don't see that there's a different different set of modalities necessarily it's the uh
dan john he has said something about fitness back in the day i really like i like i like
simplification of things right so he says fitness is you know it's not that complicated
it's kind of like mexican food you got the same ingredients it's just how you assemble
those ingredients to create a completely different outcome and so so its ratios its intensities
it's how spicy you want it how much chili do i put in there you know you're a fire
breather alright you know ghost pepper as it is you know it's a little pepper um and
so you know people inherently need the same fundamental sets of attributes developed appropriate
to where they are and they need they need uh you know a lot of what we do as coaches
manage safety and safety in terms of managing space you know different exercises require
different amounts of space to be safe like you don't want a dog or a child to be in a
certain place turn certain exercises um or load management and sophistication management
like how how complex is the movement skill outside of that like you know some people
just really like to be they have an affinity for something they they they attach value
to something they might identify with something there's always a path towards what they identify
with most while you fill in the gaps with a whole bunch of other things that they probably
don't know they need or want and and then as they adapt they they get to reframe their
value proposition right like a lot of times people just want to look better naked and
then they start to evolve through their movement practice all these different new new observations
about how their body's functioning how they feel and they're like i still want to look
better naked but i really i'm just a happier human so i'm going to keep doing this for
a whole bunch of different reasons now so uh nothing nothing that i i think is off the
table or on the table specifically there are things variations of drills or skills that
have inherently more risk but i love what you're talking about having a better perspective
from outside looking in uh strong man stuff uh round back lifting odd object lifting is
is something you guys see is necessary and gym mechanics versus real world mechanics
having the ability to oscillate between the two and create some resilience in in adaptability
is is i think really important so that we don't get into this uh dogmatic perspective
of this is the right way to do it because in life you're not just going to be able to
set everything up nothing's a perfect barbell height you know like you know you have to
rotate pick up your kid you chase them into a street it and try to keep them from getting
into danger the path of danger that things are highly dynamic so if we can bridge the
gap between what we consider sterile and safe in the gym and what we can understand it likely
going to be the the what's expected of real life when it matters most and bridge that
gap in anticipation for those moments so that people are problem solving and out of you
know out of their their their developed abilities when those moments come then i think we're
doing great what have you observed about fear and what i mean by that is the solution um
that i found in in my class was if i brought someone in and said hey you can come do crossfit
with me and they were let's say a firefighter that was in relatively good shape when they
first got hired and then they are one of the ones that just kind of you know found themselves
getting um deconditioned over the next 10 years and you show them you know they come
in and people are snatching and you know climbing ropes for example there's an element of fear
like i don't want to look stupid i don't want to do this what was so good about the strong
man stuff is like you just got to pick that up and you got to carry it over there or push
this from here to here so removing that fear for some of my um again less conditioned uh
fellow first responders was a real kind of superpower to getting them involved you're
not going to look stupid this is where this is where the growth begins but we're not here
to humiliate you or anything what have you observed because i think there's this perception
of police fire especially that we're all phenomenal athletes but behind the scenes there there's
there's a lot of fear of looking stupid whether it's our operational training or our fitness
training yeah everybody has that man you know how many people have been hey you're awesome
and or your gym's awesome and as soon as i get in better shape i'm going to come hang
out with you i worked you can negate the whole point of of a good guide or coach like i want
to get you there faster and easier more pain free and uh a big part of of in a in a group
dynamic where people are judging themselves relative to what other people have achieved
already because they've gone through the process a lot of it's like good planned programming
so like kettlebell swings for example right people are like okay it says swings on the
board i have five levels of progression for a kettlebell swing and if you're doing any
of them i call all the variations some form of swing and so but you're still doing a swing
and i'll have three different variations in that group going on at the same time you know
i have more than that but just as an example right like progressions to get to a certain
level of proficiency tech i get to manage that as the coach and then i get to reward
the person to go from level one to level two maybe even in that first session right so
they get an element of i think a lot of times they have an unreasonable expectation of themselves
and as a coach if we're not careful we can say oh you look you look like you're in shape
back to where you said we have perceptions of of somebody before we assess so if we just
start everybody at level one they can go to level one two three maybe in one class and
then they're they're like one step away from the mean the average in the class maybe you
know in terms of performance they're still just using a bunch of bandwidth to figure
out like where they're at mostly you know so as soon as they get comfortable they can
progress really quickly but i need to create a framework that supports that early evolution
because momentum once you build momentum in terms of development it's really hard to stop
someone but if if they feel failure if they taste failure first because you set an arbitrary
measure of what the baseline should be without any understanding of of like so some people
are really good at doing their job and really lousy movers in general they're amazing athletes
that come in with pro sport contracts and they can't do some basic movement skill stuff
so you just can't assume so if i as a coach i'm like all right cool this is how we're
doing it all right everybody working i'm over here telling you what i want you to do boom
boom boom dang that's good just do this one now do this one now all right cool now just
keep that going and everybody's working as you know the way the way they're supposed
to be it's like a kid that learns to walk the kid that learns to walk is going to start
running you know what i'm saying you ain't going to stop them because it's just going
to be the natural evolution of that momentum carrying to the next step and it but if if
they see everybody and they're more focused on everybody watching them fall every time
they stand up and use a prop they might stay on the ground they might not get up you know
and i just want i just want that early success to be tasted and it is just like man you know
it just i just can't you can't stop somebody once they build that momentum i i just call
it to zero to 60 60 isn't fast it's not top speed is cruising but if i can get you from
from stand still to highway speed cruising you're going to want to see what this you
want to see what this car can do you're going to find little opportunities windows to punch
it you know absolutely well you've got all this background what was it that drew you
into foundation training meeting dr eric goodman you know it's funny we've done all this this
discovery in this conversation no matter how involved any of us are they're big gaps in
our game based on a lack of perspective based on lack of experience and what i found is
i got really proficient you know through my career at moving external loads in very dynamic
ways but something i didn't realize i learned to do that in a very specific way my primary
solution to most physical problems was extension and extension at the cost of like posterior
rib mobility and in that full breath on the back side so i have this like barrel chest
and i use i use that extension mechanism to solve most problems historically since i was
in judo that's like okay you're going for a flight you know and and so it's just conditioned
as a as a sound solution more often than not i've been working on that and then what i
realized was like i learned to work on that but i wasn't working on it i was working on
it from an external viewpoint like okay how do i open this stuff up and i i met eric and
jesse as i came in awesome human beings and i started working with them like all right
this is this is the complementary skill set intrinsically working from the inside out
like uncoupling aspects of my spine that i'm just naturally biased towards compression
and needed not like some decompression from something pulling me outside of my body i
needed to create that internal dynamic of creating space in my spine and and and mobilizing
the ribs with every breath and i was like man this is just fundamentally the complement
to everything that we all if other people walk similar paths to me it's the opposite
like on a color wheel you have the complementary color is not the color next to it is the color
across it and so i just felt like for me it was the perfect complement to what what i've
learned to value and put most of my energy in and i think that that's back to what we're
saying you get to a certain level of the game that's where you find the most reward it's
like not to do the more things that look the same it's actually like find the thing that
is probably the most opposite and the most challenging to to look to work through because
it moves you completely out of your areas of strength absolutely i mean it totally saved
my career and i i prophesize about foundation training all the time and when people find
out it's literally going to be 10 or 15 minutes you know of work per day or whatever frequency
they're doing it's hard to explain it's like no you do it with something it's not it's
not doesn't even take enough time to really do a foundation training class like it's you
know a lot of people do it with pilates or yoga or you know whatever their thing is and
i do it as a kind of cool down at the end of my class um when i teach and then the one
i do most frequently is that 12 minute foundation training on youtube and it literally repaired
my back it put as you said that decompression internally and that strength around my spine
so even though their herniation and ligament tears it created that that strength and i
was dead lifting a few a few months later in a firefighter charity competition you know
225 for reps so i am here i am now about to turn 50 and my back is still solid as long
as i keep doing it if i stop then i feel it but if i keep doing it it's absolutely incredible
sounds like you make those daily deposits we were talking about before you try to make
withdrawals man so you look you're wise beyond your years james even though you're about
to turn it's a lot of years to be wise beyond
all right well then speaking of adversity you were you know with onyx for a long time
you know rose to a high level within that company um you talked before about some challenges
you had in your early life walk me through you know the the the change of environment
for you and some of the challenges you had recently and then where are we finding you
now with your new project yeah man definitely uh you know at the same
time i left on it in january of last year i also um found myself at the end of of a
engagement right so the dissolution of my my family life is i knew it so i had a bonus
child right uh at a stepson we weren't married but once you call someone your family your
family you know so he's still he's still in my heart he's still that's the same dynamic
has not changed um and then and then of now four-year-old soon to be five-year-old um
and and uh so huge change in in terms of living situation employment and identity i think
a lot of our identities tied up in these things so i took this last year to really reflect
on what it is i i want to do now that i'm growing up again you know and so uh a big
part of it is is i want to lead community i want to work with men so i started a local
uh group of men that i'm working with in the san antonio area and we do you know whether
it's one-on-one or small group coaching and then we go for hikes and we talk about being
a father being a leader uh whether entrepreneurial and uh or just within the family or just believing
yourself and i think self-leadership is a big recurring theme um planning on starting
a podcast so i'll follow in your footsteps probably pick your brain uh lessons from leading
the pack and not and not necessarily just about leading from the front in an organization
but again leading from the front within the various aspects of ourselves we need to create
greater alignment because there are different parts of us that are pulling in different
directions and it's true of all of us you know the sooner we get all the ducks in a
row a lot less resistance to make forward progress right we just have to define where
we're going um in that same vein uh i have a website coachjohnwolf.com where all these
things will start to live and are starting to live and i'm using uh kind of an advisory
role uh for a coaching platform called sambal uh to to deliver all this stuff so i've been
investing in helping them build out that infrastructure in a way that i think is going to serve my
community and hopefully other coaches benefit from that but at the same time i do deliver
my online and hybrid type of coaching for those people who live local on that platform
all of which can be uh accessed through just hit me up on coachjohnwolf.com uh you can
see some of the other things i'm involved in i told you about a student uh that has
created essentially the elevate framework which is basically this is the scientific
method applied to training so you hypothesize something e is explore uh you know and you're
basically trying to like come to a point where like i think this is the way i need to move
forward remember how we're talking about like at this age how do we how do we address like
not doing the thing that we thought we value well we have to get more involved in this
process and so e is explore l is load so you test the theory over and over and over and
you progressively load so this is just progressive overload in terms of training v is vanquish
or verify you could use one or the other vanquish is kind of fun because it's kind of like the
boss level of the video game back to gamification or verify you're verifying that that that process
of loading that theory is going to net an outcome and the outcome is a test a test of
your limit capacity and the way that you you decide the experiment and t is tune tune is
a tuning or like a tuning to a new reality where this you you know this new thing to
be true is part of this new version of you and then in that tune state you start to formulate
new hypotheses so you go back through the cycle this goes back to something called the
like the ooda loop in terms of tactical superiority observe orient decide and act some of y'all
might be familiar with that the faster you cycle through the more tactical superiority
you have the more likely you can get find yourself in a bad situation and create a more
optimal outcome through faster cycling of this of this process so so we do events we
have something called the adventure retreat we do out in the dominican republic to get
people unplugged from the pressures and common beliefs of modernity the distractions and
into the jungle plugged back into nature baby plug back into yourself and figure out what
that means you do a lot of self-discovery when you when you take the noise out and tune
back into an environment that's more natural and and we do things that we we want to have
people be just a little uncomfortable with some people are afraid of heights we go zip
lining some people have you know some people have a hard time you know traversing terrain
they haven't been in natural environments go for these nice hikes and even if you are
comfortable with a lot of those things sometimes you're uncomfortable in silence you're uncomfortable
being unplugged you're uncomfortable and we just we foster environment and conversations
that help people tune into those those realities and so it's a little bit of an adventure
it's not what you do it's how you do it you know it's how you perceive it so we go on
that adventure together that's the adventure tree all these things you can find through
me on IG that I would like to talk about these things coach John Wolf on Instagram and yeah
one way or the other if there's any way I can be of service you know sign up for my
email list on the website or or you know hit me up and see if there's something if there's
something I do that interests you I'd love to have a conversation about it you know.
Which jungle are you taking the people to?
This is in the Dominican Republic it's actually so Dominican Republic you think like Punta
Cana or you know like the big touristy areas but this is on the Samana Peninsula which
has largely been undeveloped so this area that we go to was just like a little village
they didn't have electricity until 2011 barely got any Wi-Fi until a year and a half ago
we're plugged in with the people that are developing the area and they're doing so very
consciously and matter of fact the working with some of these people are working with
the government to create a better master plan of the area so it doesn't fall into the same
traps things like Tulum or Punta Cana or even on the peninsula there's another beach town
called Las Sarenas it's beautiful but there was no master plan so it just creates a chaotic
reality and you know you can't stop progress from happening but if you get enough people
that kind of buy into a preservationist mindset of what makes this place special and it has
a long history of spirituality in this valley they're actually finding archaeological findings
of a culture that preceded the one that they thought started this area so that's the Taino
people was what they thought were the first people's civilization in this area but they're
finding like relics from an unnamed civilization and a lot of people there believe in the spiritual
like if you hear like vortexes like places where you kind of like easier to tune into
the spiritual realm around the world this has a really profound energy whether you want
to believe in vortexes or not it's just a place where it's really easy to tune in and
hopefully it stays that way I really hope so as I feel it's a place I grew up in Monterey
that's my heart's home I live in Texas this is my physical home but I found my soul's
home in this place of El Valle I think it's a very special place.
Well it sounds amazing well I want to thank you so much it's been such an amazing conversation
you mentioned Dan John it was a similar kind of thing obviously we were going to talk about
strength training and all the things the first half of the conversation was about post-traumatic
stress and you know he had a father in World War II a brother in Vietnam you know there
was all kinds of addiction and things and this is what's so beautiful you know you have
all these people and yes they do this thing they coach that you know this is their area
of specialty but it's these human conversations so I want to thank you so much for your courageous
vulnerability and being so generous and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thank you for having me James this is long overdue and I had an absolute blast you facilitated
me sharing a lot more than I thought I was going to there's no shield anymore here you're
behind the shield.