1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,820
This episode is brought to you by Thorne and I have some incredible news for any of you

2
00:00:03,820 --> 00:00:07,960
that are in the military, first responder or medical professions.

3
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:15,860
In an effort to give back, Thorne is now offering you an ongoing 35% off each and every one

4
00:00:15,860 --> 00:00:19,780
of your purchases of their incredible nutritional solutions.

5
00:00:19,780 --> 00:00:27,280
Now Thorn is the official supplement of CrossFit, the UFC, the Mayo Clinic, the Human Performance

6
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:31,480
Project and multiple special operations organizations.

7
00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:36,440
I myself have used them for several years and that is why I brought them on as a sponsor.

8
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:42,080
Some of my favorite products they have are their Multivitamin Elite, their Whey Protein,

9
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,840
the Super EPA and then most recently, Cynaquil.

10
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:50,120
As a firefighter, a stuntman and a martial artist, I've had my share of brain trauma

11
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:55,520
and sleep deprivation and Cynaquil is their latest brain health supplement.

12
00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:02,640
Now to qualify for the 35% off, go to thorn.com, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com.

13
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:05,460
Click on sign in and then create a new account.

14
00:01:05,460 --> 00:01:09,800
You will see the opportunity to register as a first responder or member of military.

15
00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:14,680
When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.

16
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:19,000
You'll simply choose a profession, provide one piece of documentation and then you are

17
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:20,920
verified for life.

18
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:26,640
From that point onwards, you will continue to receive 35% off through Thorn.

19
00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:33,120
Now for those of you who don't qualify, there is still the 10% off using the code BTS10,

20
00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,120
Behind the Shield 10 for a one-time purchase.

21
00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:41,780
Now to learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with

22
00:01:41,780 --> 00:01:45,560
Joel Titoro and Wes Barnett.

23
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:50,240
This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now

24
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:52,400
and that is 511.

25
00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:56,560
Now my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years

26
00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:58,720
ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

27
00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:02,640
And since then I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage which have literally

28
00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:04,580
been around the world with me.

29
00:02:04,580 --> 00:02:09,080
The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack and then most

30
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:12,880
of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

31
00:02:12,880 --> 00:02:17,500
Now more recently they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

32
00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:22,080
So for example Gainesville where I do jiu-jitsu has a beautiful 511 store.

33
00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:27,800
So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory

34
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,280
of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

35
00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:35,240
Now I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important minimizing weight in

36
00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:39,040
our footwear is when it comes to our back health, knee health, etc.

37
00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:44,000
I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first

38
00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:45,160
responders.

39
00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:49,000
And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

40
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:53,400
For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application I believe for the wildland

41
00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:54,400
community.

42
00:02:54,400 --> 00:03:00,680
They've created an ultralight pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running

43
00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:02,880
or other long distance events.

44
00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:08,520
Now as always 511 is offering you, the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast, 15% off

45
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:10,700
every purchase that you make.

46
00:03:10,700 --> 00:03:22,600
So if you use the code SHIELD15 at 511tactical.com you will get that 15% off every single time.

47
00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:28,920
So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind

48
00:03:28,920 --> 00:03:34,640
the Shield podcast with their CEO Francisco Morales.

49
00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:37,900
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Kearing and this week

50
00:03:37,900 --> 00:03:43,660
it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show Marine and Wilderness expert Anthony

51
00:03:43,660 --> 00:03:49,960
Droz and veteran multi branch military chaplain Brandon Harding.

52
00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:54,700
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics, from each of their journeys into

53
00:03:54,700 --> 00:04:00,780
the military, the family tragedy that challenged Brandon's faith, the motorcycle accident

54
00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:07,820
that almost took Anthony's life, their transition stories, the healing power of the wilderness,

55
00:04:07,820 --> 00:04:12,960
the importance of chaplaincy, the incredible program they now have within the military

56
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:15,200
and so much more.

57
00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:20,140
Before we get to this incredible conversation as I say every week, please just take a moment,

58
00:04:20,140 --> 00:04:25,160
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

59
00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:27,180
leave a rating.

60
00:04:27,180 --> 00:04:32,280
Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier

61
00:04:32,280 --> 00:04:34,000
for others to find.

62
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:42,040
This is a free library of almost 950 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help

63
00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:47,940
share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on

64
00:04:47,940 --> 00:04:50,940
planet earth who needs to hear them.

65
00:04:50,940 --> 00:04:57,300
So with that being said, I introduce to you Anthony Droz and Brandon Harding.

66
00:04:57,300 --> 00:05:17,260
Enjoy.

67
00:05:17,260 --> 00:05:21,340
Well Anthony and Brandon, I want to start by saying thank you both so much for taking

68
00:05:21,340 --> 00:05:25,320
the time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

69
00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:26,320
Thank you for having us.

70
00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:29,380
It's a true honor and pleasure to be here with you today.

71
00:05:29,380 --> 00:05:33,540
All right, well you're obviously two sitting in two very different places.

72
00:05:33,540 --> 00:05:38,580
So let's start with Anthony, where on planet earth are we finding you today?

73
00:05:38,580 --> 00:05:44,660
I'm currently at a wilderness base camp in North Carolina renewing a certification to

74
00:05:44,660 --> 00:05:49,620
be able to lead these kind of trips that we're leading with the Navy.

75
00:05:49,620 --> 00:05:54,700
So yeah, I'm in a wilderness base camp and hopefully it stays quiet for long enough.

76
00:05:54,700 --> 00:05:55,700
Beautiful.

77
00:05:55,700 --> 00:05:58,060
And then Brandon, what about you?

78
00:05:58,060 --> 00:05:59,940
So I'm in that greater Seattle area.

79
00:05:59,940 --> 00:06:05,540
I'm in a little village called Polsbo, which is across the Puget Sound from Seattle, just

80
00:06:05,540 --> 00:06:10,040
sort of on the base of the Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest, or just

81
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:11,040
right in my backyard.

82
00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:12,040
Brilliant.

83
00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:15,540
Well, I'm going to stay with you, Brandon, and we'll kind of pick one of you and then

84
00:06:15,540 --> 00:06:18,540
the other and go through some of the background before we get to what we're going to talk

85
00:06:18,540 --> 00:06:20,040
about today.

86
00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:23,460
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

87
00:06:23,460 --> 00:06:25,540
your parents did, how many siblings?

88
00:06:25,540 --> 00:06:26,540
Yeah.

89
00:06:26,540 --> 00:06:31,140
So I was born in a small town in Southern Utah called Cedar City.

90
00:06:31,140 --> 00:06:34,860
I was the oldest of five children.

91
00:06:34,860 --> 00:06:40,980
And I guess probably the biggest event that happened in my younger years as my father

92
00:06:40,980 --> 00:06:41,980
was a pilot.

93
00:06:41,980 --> 00:06:45,820
So he flew small commercial airplanes.

94
00:06:45,820 --> 00:06:52,100
He ran an aviation company and did all kinds of stuff related to a small aviation company.

95
00:06:52,100 --> 00:06:57,300
And one of the things that he did was he did gliding, so where you pull up an airplane

96
00:06:57,300 --> 00:07:01,020
and you have a glider behind it and then it detaches and then it goes and flies around

97
00:07:01,020 --> 00:07:02,380
without an engine.

98
00:07:02,380 --> 00:07:06,040
And then he had become a glider instructor.

99
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:09,560
So he was teaching other people how to fly these gliders.

100
00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:18,340
And one day in early March of 2000, or excuse me, 1986, he was tragically killed in an accident

101
00:07:18,340 --> 00:07:20,540
and I was just 15.

102
00:07:20,540 --> 00:07:22,580
So I was the oldest of five kids.

103
00:07:22,580 --> 00:07:24,700
My youngest brother was four.

104
00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:29,100
And that event really shook me for a while.

105
00:07:29,100 --> 00:07:33,620
It was tough to work through that for a number of years.

106
00:07:33,620 --> 00:07:39,740
And I would say I a little bit lost my way for a period of time.

107
00:07:39,740 --> 00:07:43,900
We're going to get on to talk about the chaplaincy side that you brought to the military.

108
00:07:43,900 --> 00:07:47,300
What was your faith environment when you were very young?

109
00:07:47,300 --> 00:07:51,700
And then did that change at all after losing your father?

110
00:07:51,700 --> 00:07:56,100
I grew up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

111
00:07:56,100 --> 00:07:59,220
They're more commonly known in the world as Mormons.

112
00:07:59,220 --> 00:08:01,300
And that was the faith of my childhood.

113
00:08:01,300 --> 00:08:10,540
And I think after my father passed away, for a time I was really like, okay, is this whole

114
00:08:10,540 --> 00:08:14,160
faith thing a real thing?

115
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:21,380
Or is it just a nice story that's been handed down from eons past to kind of soothe people's

116
00:08:21,380 --> 00:08:24,900
souls, that there is something better out there?

117
00:08:24,900 --> 00:08:33,020
In complete transparency, I deeply doubted the whole faith narrative for probably five

118
00:08:33,020 --> 00:08:35,140
or six years after my father's death.

119
00:08:35,140 --> 00:08:40,900
I really struggled to think that there was a bigger purpose or a bigger plan.

120
00:08:40,900 --> 00:08:45,500
Was there a moment, a pivotal moment where you found yourself leaning back into your

121
00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:49,260
faith or was it kind of a slow drip?

122
00:08:49,260 --> 00:08:52,300
It was sort of a slow drip, but I think so.

123
00:08:52,300 --> 00:08:58,140
I joined the military right after high school, first in the Army National Guard.

124
00:08:58,140 --> 00:09:03,340
And I went to Army boot camp and Army, the training school for the Army.

125
00:09:03,340 --> 00:09:08,220
And then right after that, I realized I'm probably not going to function very well in

126
00:09:08,220 --> 00:09:10,780
life in college or a regular job.

127
00:09:10,780 --> 00:09:13,260
I think I'm just going to go on active duty.

128
00:09:13,260 --> 00:09:18,260
And so I switched branches and joined the Air Force and went into the Air Force for

129
00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:19,260
a few years.

130
00:09:19,260 --> 00:09:24,540
And while I was in the Air Force, some friends of mine started having these discussions around

131
00:09:24,540 --> 00:09:25,540
faith.

132
00:09:25,540 --> 00:09:26,540
It wasn't anything planned.

133
00:09:26,540 --> 00:09:31,340
We'd just be like hanging out in the barracks room and start talking about questions about,

134
00:09:31,340 --> 00:09:35,320
you know, is there something bigger out there?

135
00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:36,320
Is there a plan?

136
00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:43,900
And so the four of us started going to church services every Sunday, just visiting random

137
00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:44,900
faith traditions.

138
00:09:44,900 --> 00:09:49,040
You know, we'd go to a Methodist church or we'd go to a Baptist church.

139
00:09:49,040 --> 00:09:53,900
We went to like a revival, just trying to get a sense of, okay, is there something here?

140
00:09:53,900 --> 00:10:00,900
And at one point I thought, you know, maybe I owe it to my faith tradition, to the faith

141
00:10:00,900 --> 00:10:04,380
of my youth to kind of like, you know, take another look.

142
00:10:04,380 --> 00:10:16,420
And so I did and started re-exploring that and essentially sort of re-engaged with the

143
00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:19,180
faith of my childhood.

144
00:10:19,180 --> 00:10:23,580
And that changed the direction of my life.

145
00:10:23,580 --> 00:10:29,440
Like it really did change where I was headed.

146
00:10:29,440 --> 00:10:32,940
When you were doing this kind of research, and it's interesting because when I did religious

147
00:10:32,940 --> 00:10:36,660
education in school, we had it, I was at a Church of England school.

148
00:10:36,660 --> 00:10:43,260
So, you know, the whole five years we had that class, you know, we were literally exposed

149
00:10:43,260 --> 00:10:44,260
to all the different faiths.

150
00:10:44,260 --> 00:10:48,660
And if you look at the UK and America as well, the real America, the one that, you know,

151
00:10:48,660 --> 00:10:53,740
we don't like to talk about, the very diverse culturally, you know, beautiful integrated

152
00:10:53,740 --> 00:10:58,380
country that we actually come from, you know, all the faiths are here.

153
00:10:58,380 --> 00:11:02,420
And what I've seen is obviously, you know, there are great philosophies, but it depends

154
00:11:02,420 --> 00:11:06,220
on the person that runs that church or that synagogue or that mosque.

155
00:11:06,220 --> 00:11:11,420
What were some of the common denominators you found with the places that you immersed

156
00:11:11,420 --> 00:11:18,120
yourself in that you felt drawn into versus maybe some that you felt you pushed away?

157
00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:25,780
I think being drawn, you know, building on those common belief systems is there is a,

158
00:11:25,780 --> 00:11:28,860
most people believe in a supreme being.

159
00:11:28,860 --> 00:11:33,460
Like, you know, obviously there's those that are agnostic or atheist who've kind of, you

160
00:11:33,460 --> 00:11:38,260
know, developed a different outlook, but even the non-religious, you know, people who don't

161
00:11:38,260 --> 00:11:42,780
participate in a worship service or, you know, go to a church on or a mosque or anything

162
00:11:42,780 --> 00:11:49,500
on a, you know, on a regular basis, that some level have a belief in something that there's,

163
00:11:49,500 --> 00:11:53,140
you know, there's a higher power, there's the universe or something.

164
00:11:53,140 --> 00:11:57,460
And so I was drawn to, you know, to that, that there was this common element among all

165
00:11:57,460 --> 00:12:03,060
these faiths that, you know, there is something transcendent in the universe.

166
00:12:03,060 --> 00:12:05,300
And you know, that definitely spoke to me.

167
00:12:05,300 --> 00:12:10,260
And for most of them, there is this idea that we want to develop people.

168
00:12:10,260 --> 00:12:17,140
We want to help people live a more abundant, more fulfilling, just a better life.

169
00:12:17,140 --> 00:12:21,420
And I think, you know, faith traditions, when they're operating at their best, that's what

170
00:12:21,420 --> 00:12:22,420
they do.

171
00:12:22,420 --> 00:12:25,800
They help people live a more fulfilling life.

172
00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:30,300
And so I think amongst all of them, that those are the elements that I was definitely drawn

173
00:12:30,300 --> 00:12:35,820
to that, that reawakened something in me that had kind of gone dormant for a few years based

174
00:12:35,820 --> 00:12:39,780
on, you know, some, some tough things that I had experienced as a younger person.

175
00:12:39,780 --> 00:12:42,420
Yeah, no, I have the same exact thing.

176
00:12:42,420 --> 00:12:44,500
I have kind of a universal faith.

177
00:12:44,500 --> 00:12:48,620
And you know, I think I describe people, if you could, you could saw my holy book, it

178
00:12:48,620 --> 00:12:50,140
would just say, don't be a dick.

179
00:12:50,140 --> 00:12:51,860
That's basically, you know what I mean?

180
00:12:51,860 --> 00:12:58,740
So there is that universal, you know, community, kindness, compassion, empathy, gratitude,

181
00:12:58,740 --> 00:13:00,380
I think are in a lot of them.

182
00:13:00,380 --> 00:13:05,460
So I think if you bury down into the nucleus of these religions, they all do say the same

183
00:13:05,460 --> 00:13:10,460
thing, but sometimes people interpret it and go, ah, God loves everyone except the gays.

184
00:13:10,460 --> 00:13:12,620
It's like, okay, hold on, I'm out.

185
00:13:12,620 --> 00:13:13,620
I disagree.

186
00:13:13,620 --> 00:13:16,340
It's going to deviate from that kindness and compassion again.

187
00:13:16,340 --> 00:13:17,940
Yeah, for sure.

188
00:13:17,940 --> 00:13:19,100
All right.

189
00:13:19,100 --> 00:13:25,260
Well then Anthony, let's go to you first, get the the kind of genesis of your through

190
00:13:25,260 --> 00:13:27,020
line.

191
00:13:27,020 --> 00:13:30,240
Tell me where you were born and tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your

192
00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:33,540
parents did, how many siblings.

193
00:13:33,540 --> 00:13:35,940
I was actually born very far from any type of mountains.

194
00:13:35,940 --> 00:13:38,620
I was born in central New Jersey.

195
00:13:38,620 --> 00:13:42,780
And I never thought that I would be an individual that walked many days in the wilderness and

196
00:13:42,780 --> 00:13:45,080
spent a lot of his life in the wilderness.

197
00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:49,140
I didn't know much about it when I was a kid.

198
00:13:49,140 --> 00:13:54,740
I've got a handful of sisters, the second to youngest, the only boy.

199
00:13:54,740 --> 00:13:59,820
And growing up, my parents were divorced from from the time I can remember.

200
00:13:59,820 --> 00:14:02,240
They split up very young.

201
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:09,540
My father was an army infantryman and he struggled very heavily with the loss of my brother who

202
00:14:09,540 --> 00:14:12,580
was his first firstborn son.

203
00:14:12,580 --> 00:14:16,500
While he was stationed in Germany, my brother drowned basically straight out of my dad's

204
00:14:16,500 --> 00:14:17,500
arms.

205
00:14:17,500 --> 00:14:20,940
And and that sent him into a whirlwind of depression.

206
00:14:20,940 --> 00:14:23,420
And back then we knew nothing about PTSD.

207
00:14:23,420 --> 00:14:26,140
And it wasn't a thing that the military even focused on.

208
00:14:26,140 --> 00:14:31,940
And it was kind of the you know, take a teaspoon and suck it up kind of deal back then.

209
00:14:31,940 --> 00:14:33,680
So he struggled really heavily.

210
00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:37,260
And I you know, we often have this thing when we talk about suicide where you say, you know,

211
00:14:37,260 --> 00:14:41,880
people quit or or their demons one or my dad went to war every day for you know, for years

212
00:14:41,880 --> 00:14:43,460
and years and years with his demons.

213
00:14:43,460 --> 00:14:46,200
And one night he just didn't win.

214
00:14:46,200 --> 00:14:49,580
You know, I mean, he he put it around through his head.

215
00:14:49,580 --> 00:14:51,180
And that was the end of that story.

216
00:14:51,180 --> 00:14:53,820
And I was, you know, about to turn 12 years old.

217
00:14:53,820 --> 00:14:57,500
It was about 30 days before my 12th birthday.

218
00:14:57,500 --> 00:14:59,660
So obviously, Christmas that year was ruined.

219
00:14:59,660 --> 00:15:02,340
Christmas every year thereafter was ruined.

220
00:15:02,340 --> 00:15:08,460
I fell into a long, a long decade, two decade depression.

221
00:15:08,460 --> 00:15:10,740
You know, my dad was my wrestling coach growing up.

222
00:15:10,740 --> 00:15:11,740
He was my best friend.

223
00:15:11,740 --> 00:15:12,820
He was my superhero.

224
00:15:12,820 --> 00:15:16,020
I watched him on TV as a kid who is an executive protection.

225
00:15:16,020 --> 00:15:18,980
So I watched him on TV at MTV Music Awards.

226
00:15:18,980 --> 00:15:24,420
And and in practice, I watched him groom young men into warriors as a wrestling coach.

227
00:15:24,420 --> 00:15:31,460
So him leaving abruptly in such a traumatic way left a very deep and visceral scar on

228
00:15:31,460 --> 00:15:33,680
my heart and my soul.

229
00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:35,480
And so my childhood was marred.

230
00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:37,120
You know, my childhood was stunted.

231
00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:38,300
My development was stunted.

232
00:15:38,300 --> 00:15:40,900
I was very angry.

233
00:15:40,900 --> 00:15:44,220
And I did what I own, what I what I thought he would have wanted me to do.

234
00:15:44,220 --> 00:15:45,540
And I did what I thought I had to do.

235
00:15:45,540 --> 00:15:47,500
And I followed in those footsteps.

236
00:15:47,500 --> 00:15:52,740
I like to say that I I just chose a better uniform and going to the Marine Corps as opposed

237
00:15:52,740 --> 00:15:53,740
to the Army.

238
00:15:53,740 --> 00:15:59,260
But I also I also went to the infantry in the Marine Corps.

239
00:15:59,260 --> 00:16:05,060
And so that was my leaving from the New Jersey, Pennsylvania area at 17 years old.

240
00:16:05,060 --> 00:16:06,060
Yeah.

241
00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:11,780
So that's that's a little bit of a backstory there of where I'm from.

242
00:16:11,780 --> 00:16:15,780
And obviously that leads into why I'm here.

243
00:16:15,780 --> 00:16:22,860
I think two areas that are very under discussed in obviously what we're going to talk about

244
00:16:22,860 --> 00:16:29,500
today is the impact of multigenerational trauma on our modern day war, fire or first responder

245
00:16:29,500 --> 00:16:32,520
and then their own childhood trauma as well.

246
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:37,980
And obviously with both of your stories, I mean, 12 and 15, you have significant traumas

247
00:16:37,980 --> 00:16:42,540
and that's aside from divorces and other things that happen to people, too.

248
00:16:42,540 --> 00:16:44,220
So I think it's such an important conversation.

249
00:16:44,220 --> 00:16:45,220
I've heard this over and over again.

250
00:16:45,220 --> 00:16:49,540
I've had people on here that have had horrendous combat experiences.

251
00:16:49,540 --> 00:16:54,100
But when they reverse engineered it through psychedelics or leaning into their faith or

252
00:16:54,100 --> 00:17:00,540
whatever their personal toolbox was, the early years were often more traumatic than some

253
00:17:00,540 --> 00:17:02,740
of the things they saw in war itself.

254
00:17:02,740 --> 00:17:03,740
Yeah.

255
00:17:03,740 --> 00:17:04,740
Yeah, I agree.

256
00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:06,780
It's very under discussed.

257
00:17:06,780 --> 00:17:10,820
There is a percentage of individuals, a very large percentage of individuals that go into

258
00:17:10,820 --> 00:17:17,300
the military with some type of trauma and then military trauma, whether it's combat,

259
00:17:17,300 --> 00:17:22,420
military sexual trauma, cultural shock trauma that happens when you get into the military,

260
00:17:22,420 --> 00:17:25,980
all these different traumas that can happen in the military.

261
00:17:25,980 --> 00:17:29,580
Then it becomes a compounding effect when you get out and you're dealing with transitional

262
00:17:29,580 --> 00:17:30,580
trauma.

263
00:17:30,580 --> 00:17:35,180
So now you're talking about one, two, three, four, five, six traumas stacked on top of

264
00:17:35,180 --> 00:17:36,180
each other.

265
00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:42,020
Now you're a fully conscious and aware 25 year old human being in the world's ending,

266
00:17:42,020 --> 00:17:43,020
as you know it.

267
00:17:43,020 --> 00:17:47,580
And again, I fell into that very pool of individuals.

268
00:17:47,580 --> 00:17:50,900
I made some very bad choices when I got out of the Marine Corps.

269
00:17:50,900 --> 00:17:51,900
I was very headstrong.

270
00:17:51,900 --> 00:17:57,900
I was very testosterone filled and I had been taught and trained how to fight and how to

271
00:17:57,900 --> 00:18:04,500
drink and how to party and not how to calm the hell down.

272
00:18:04,500 --> 00:18:07,220
So yeah, I think that there's a lot of merit to that.

273
00:18:07,220 --> 00:18:12,900
And as a chaplain of decades, I'm sure Brandon will attest.

274
00:18:12,900 --> 00:18:13,900
Yeah.

275
00:18:13,900 --> 00:18:14,900
Yeah.

276
00:18:14,900 --> 00:18:20,700
I saw that exact thing over and over where a young Marine would, I would connect with

277
00:18:20,700 --> 00:18:22,740
him or her.

278
00:18:22,740 --> 00:18:28,580
Usually it was males because I served with the infantry as well and then as we would

279
00:18:28,580 --> 00:18:32,260
be having these discussions and would explore some of the effects that they were having

280
00:18:32,260 --> 00:18:39,060
in combat, just like you said, as you pull that string, it's like, oh, actually its roots

281
00:18:39,060 --> 00:18:44,600
are somewhere else that happened when I was nine or when I was 11 or when I was 13.

282
00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:49,540
And so it was going back and helping that healing begin at that earlier age because

283
00:18:49,540 --> 00:18:54,780
yeah, the military trauma was just, it was just stacked on top of other trauma.

284
00:18:54,780 --> 00:19:00,980
And some folks is that the stack got too much.

285
00:19:00,980 --> 00:19:05,460
They made choices that sometimes ended with their own life.

286
00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:09,180
And those were always tragic.

287
00:19:09,180 --> 00:19:13,740
Didn't happen in every case, but a lot of times as you pull the string on an individual's

288
00:19:13,740 --> 00:19:21,020
life, the trauma that they experienced in the military was just the surface compared

289
00:19:21,020 --> 00:19:25,540
to what some folks had faced as young people growing up.

290
00:19:25,540 --> 00:19:27,980
We'll stay in with you, Brandon.

291
00:19:27,980 --> 00:19:30,860
Your career spanned either side of 9-11.

292
00:19:30,860 --> 00:19:38,220
So once you entered the chaplaincy, what have been your observations of the evolution or

293
00:19:38,220 --> 00:19:45,780
devolution of the discussion and the treatment options for some of the traumas that the war

294
00:19:45,780 --> 00:19:48,620
fighters that you worked with have seen?

295
00:19:48,620 --> 00:19:49,620
Yeah.

296
00:19:49,620 --> 00:19:57,020
So I came back on active duty as a Navy chaplain serving with CBs, which are engineers.

297
00:19:57,020 --> 00:20:01,620
They're like heavy construction workers for the Navy, but they really don't do much for

298
00:20:01,620 --> 00:20:02,620
the Navy.

299
00:20:02,620 --> 00:20:07,900
They mostly work with the Marine Corps and they deploy into expeditionary combat environments

300
00:20:07,900 --> 00:20:10,580
to do construction for the Marine Corps.

301
00:20:10,580 --> 00:20:18,700
And so I joined in the spring of 2001 and just expected kind of a regular life in the

302
00:20:18,700 --> 00:20:19,700
military.

303
00:20:19,700 --> 00:20:21,540
It was going to have deployments and going to have things.

304
00:20:21,540 --> 00:20:25,060
And then 9-11 happened six months later.

305
00:20:25,060 --> 00:20:30,380
And that sort of changed everything, the whole trajectory of the next 20 plus years of my

306
00:20:30,380 --> 00:20:32,140
life as a chaplain.

307
00:20:32,140 --> 00:20:40,380
And so initially I think you saw when people would go down range to Iraq or Afghanistan,

308
00:20:40,380 --> 00:20:45,880
when they would come back, it was sort of viewed, oh, well, if you have a combat stress

309
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:52,860
injury or PTSD, it's obviously because you just weren't tough enough.

310
00:20:52,860 --> 00:20:59,820
Like you have some kind of like character flaw or you're just weak.

311
00:20:59,820 --> 00:21:05,140
You're just a weak human being that just wasn't tough enough to hang in there and deal with

312
00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:06,620
it.

313
00:21:06,620 --> 00:21:13,820
Thankfully over the course of years, that evolved, that changed, especially as like

314
00:21:13,820 --> 00:21:20,620
some senior Marine leaders came out and talked about the difficulties that they struggled

315
00:21:20,620 --> 00:21:27,980
with and having that returning, coming back and going to the 4th of July fireworks and

316
00:21:27,980 --> 00:21:32,740
finding themselves underneath the picnic table wondering what the heck was going on because

317
00:21:32,740 --> 00:21:37,940
someone had been lighting off firecrackers or something like that, just these responses

318
00:21:37,940 --> 00:21:39,420
that were uncontrolled.

319
00:21:39,420 --> 00:21:42,900
And then they were like, oh, wow, maybe there is something here.

320
00:21:42,900 --> 00:21:46,700
And so that was heartening to watch that evolution happen.

321
00:21:46,700 --> 00:21:50,380
It doesn't mean it's perfect by no means.

322
00:21:50,380 --> 00:21:53,180
I'm not here to say, oh yeah, the military is solved.

323
00:21:53,180 --> 00:21:57,660
If you have a combat stress injury, people are just going to go, yay, and cheer, and

324
00:21:57,660 --> 00:21:58,700
take care of you.

325
00:21:58,700 --> 00:22:06,980
There is still an element of that, that maybe you're just not strong enough or you're weak

326
00:22:06,980 --> 00:22:09,980
in some way, but it's changed over the course of time.

327
00:22:09,980 --> 00:22:13,540
It has gotten much, much better.

328
00:22:13,540 --> 00:22:21,380
And so like on one deployment in Iraq, I won't name names, of course for confidentiality

329
00:22:21,380 --> 00:22:31,020
reasons, but there were senior Marines officers who were taking medications to help with their

330
00:22:31,020 --> 00:22:32,700
PTSD symptoms.

331
00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:38,620
They were seeking out help from psychologists, from chaplains, from other mental health workers

332
00:22:38,620 --> 00:22:41,340
to deal with the things that they'd experienced.

333
00:22:41,340 --> 00:22:45,740
Because when you take some of it, especially in the infantry world, if you look at a gunnery

334
00:22:45,740 --> 00:22:52,440
sergeant in the infantry or at that time a major or a lieutenant colonel, they had oftentimes

335
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:58,760
they were on their five, six, seventh deployment in heavy combat every time.

336
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,200
And that just stacks and stacks on top of them.

337
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:07,880
So maybe their last deployment wasn't that traumatic, but maybe three deployments ago,

338
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:08,880
it was brutal.

339
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:12,120
I mean, I remember a staff sergeant that I got to know really well.

340
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:19,940
He had done four in a row combat deployments to include the big battle of Fallujah in 2004.

341
00:23:19,940 --> 00:23:25,420
He was a part of that conflict and he'd gone to Afghanistan the year before that and had

342
00:23:25,420 --> 00:23:28,360
been in significant combat.

343
00:23:28,360 --> 00:23:33,860
So there were just some folks that were just in the mix on a regular basis.

344
00:23:33,860 --> 00:23:35,740
And I think that was part of it.

345
00:23:35,740 --> 00:23:44,080
I had a gunner in the Marine Corps, so it's this special title that goes with a chief

346
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,120
warrant officer in the Marine Corps.

347
00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:50,060
But it's someone who came up through the infantry that they were a gunnery sergeant in the Marine

348
00:23:50,060 --> 00:23:53,260
Corps and then they switched to the chief warrant officer program and they're known

349
00:23:53,260 --> 00:23:56,620
as a gunner and they have a unique symbol on their collar.

350
00:23:56,620 --> 00:24:01,140
And he told me one time we were talking, he said, you know what, I used to think that

351
00:24:01,140 --> 00:24:09,860
this whole PTSD thing was a bunch of BS until I saw my best sergeant completely come apart

352
00:24:09,860 --> 00:24:13,740
after his deployment to Ramadi.

353
00:24:13,740 --> 00:24:20,380
He went back to Camp Pendleton and just completely decompressed, or not decompressed, but just

354
00:24:20,380 --> 00:24:22,020
kind of imploded.

355
00:24:22,020 --> 00:24:26,900
And he said, once I saw that happen with him, he's like, if this guy, if it could impact

356
00:24:26,900 --> 00:24:32,660
him, then OK, I guess I'm a believer that combat does impact people.

357
00:24:32,660 --> 00:24:38,700
And then it's not just being weak or not tough enough, but it impacts everyone.

358
00:24:38,700 --> 00:24:45,060
Well, Anthony, from the other side of that, you already carry some trauma into the uniform

359
00:24:45,060 --> 00:24:47,260
with you, then you're deployed to Iraq.

360
00:24:47,260 --> 00:24:55,180
So walk me through the kind of the Marine's eyes of this hopeful evolution of the conversation

361
00:24:55,180 --> 00:24:57,300
and tools for this problem.

362
00:24:57,300 --> 00:25:00,140
That's a great question.

363
00:25:00,140 --> 00:25:05,620
It's always very interesting because in the infantry, particularly, it's very taboo to

364
00:25:05,620 --> 00:25:08,300
go and speak with a chaplain.

365
00:25:08,300 --> 00:25:11,780
You would think that it was incentivized and you would think that this resource that we

366
00:25:11,780 --> 00:25:17,020
have would be kind of push, it would push you towards it.

367
00:25:17,020 --> 00:25:22,460
It would be who of the squad leaders and the platoon sergeants and the company commander

368
00:25:22,460 --> 00:25:23,780
to do that.

369
00:25:23,780 --> 00:25:28,620
But oftentimes on the lower level of the units, it's looked at as as Brandon alluded to, it's

370
00:25:28,620 --> 00:25:29,620
looked at as weak.

371
00:25:29,620 --> 00:25:33,060
It's looked at that you're weak if you have to go talk to the chaplain or that you're

372
00:25:33,060 --> 00:25:35,180
tattling on something that happened.

373
00:25:35,180 --> 00:25:39,360
And now I will say that there are some Marines that do use it that way.

374
00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:40,420
And what's the saying?

375
00:25:40,420 --> 00:25:42,380
One person can ruin it for everyone.

376
00:25:42,380 --> 00:25:46,540
And so at some point along the way, the chaplains were used as that.

377
00:25:46,540 --> 00:25:51,460
The chaplains were used by Marines who were trying to get out of some work or that weren't

378
00:25:51,460 --> 00:25:53,300
cutting it mentally or physically.

379
00:25:53,300 --> 00:25:57,940
And so they ran and they tattled or they cried to the chaplain and it ruined it for the rest

380
00:25:57,940 --> 00:25:59,500
of the Marines.

381
00:25:59,500 --> 00:26:03,180
So that was the that was the view when I was coming up.

382
00:26:03,180 --> 00:26:06,700
And I can only speak to my era, which I was in from 06 to 10.

383
00:26:06,700 --> 00:26:08,820
And that was very much of the view.

384
00:26:08,820 --> 00:26:15,460
But I found it very ironic, very ironic that years later I would become such a good friend.

385
00:26:15,460 --> 00:26:20,660
I mean, Brandon was the officiating at my wedding last year.

386
00:26:20,660 --> 00:26:24,900
Me and me and Brandon, he's somewhere between a brother and a father.

387
00:26:24,900 --> 00:26:27,460
I don't know exactly where he falls.

388
00:26:27,460 --> 00:26:30,060
He's somewhere between a brother and a father to me.

389
00:26:30,060 --> 00:26:36,900
And so I find it ironic that life, fate, chance, a divine appointment would have us link up

390
00:26:36,900 --> 00:26:38,860
in that in that aspect.

391
00:26:38,860 --> 00:26:41,780
But yes, I will back what Brandon said in that notion.

392
00:26:41,780 --> 00:26:42,780
It definitely is.

393
00:26:42,780 --> 00:26:44,540
It was a taboo thing.

394
00:26:44,540 --> 00:26:46,620
I hope that it's not anymore.

395
00:26:46,620 --> 00:26:51,740
And I certainly didn't have any long in-depth discussions with chaplains when I was in.

396
00:26:51,740 --> 00:26:58,500
I think some of it had to do not all, but some had to do with a little bit of the personality

397
00:26:58,500 --> 00:27:00,780
of the chaplain a little bit.

398
00:27:00,780 --> 00:27:03,780
And I'm not trying to like toot my own horn, so to speak.

399
00:27:03,780 --> 00:27:09,940
But I think one of the ways that I bridged that gap to get in with the Marines to where

400
00:27:09,940 --> 00:27:18,300
there was like a trust that was there and I did have almost all of the Marines would

401
00:27:18,300 --> 00:27:22,320
have deep heartfelt conversations with me about life.

402
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,340
And it was being willing to put myself wherever they were.

403
00:27:26,340 --> 00:27:31,460
So I didn't go on what you would call an active combat patrol where they were like going to

404
00:27:31,460 --> 00:27:33,480
go take down a house or something.

405
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:39,860
But I went outside the wire with them almost every day on meet and greet patrols on, you

406
00:27:39,860 --> 00:27:46,660
know, just constantly spent as much time as I could with the Lance corporals and the corporals

407
00:27:46,660 --> 00:27:49,500
because they were the ones that were outside the wire every day.

408
00:27:49,500 --> 00:27:58,500
And I remember coming back on a foot patrol one time and as we came through the wire later,

409
00:27:58,500 --> 00:28:02,260
like an hour or so later, I was talking to one of the guys that was up on one of the

410
00:28:02,260 --> 00:28:06,300
posts because we'd go around and visit the guys on the post because that was like a captive

411
00:28:06,300 --> 00:28:07,300
audience.

412
00:28:07,300 --> 00:28:08,300
They couldn't go anywhere.

413
00:28:08,300 --> 00:28:09,300
You know, they're stuck on post.

414
00:28:09,300 --> 00:28:11,140
They go up and shoot the breeze with them.

415
00:28:11,140 --> 00:28:16,020
And the guy's like, hey, I think I saw you come through the wire a little wire a little

416
00:28:16,020 --> 00:28:17,980
while ago.

417
00:28:17,980 --> 00:28:19,780
And I was he's like, was that you?

418
00:28:19,780 --> 00:28:22,820
And I was like, yeah, he's like, but you didn't have a weapon.

419
00:28:22,820 --> 00:28:25,940
And I was like, no, I'm a non combatant.

420
00:28:25,940 --> 00:28:27,780
I can't carry a weapon.

421
00:28:27,780 --> 00:28:28,900
And he was like, really?

422
00:28:28,900 --> 00:28:32,060
So you go outside the wire every day without a weapon?

423
00:28:32,060 --> 00:28:33,840
And I'm like, yeah.

424
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,820
And it just led to this whole, you know, deep conversation about the meaning of life and

425
00:28:38,820 --> 00:28:40,740
what happened if you know you died.

426
00:28:40,740 --> 00:28:46,420
And so I think part of part of, you know, being a good chaplain is figuring out how

427
00:28:46,420 --> 00:28:47,860
do you bridge that gap?

428
00:28:47,860 --> 00:28:51,720
Because just like Anthony said, there's this mistrust, like I don't want to be seen as

429
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:54,280
weak sauce by talking to the chaplain.

430
00:28:54,280 --> 00:29:00,100
So what I did is I just made myself so common that they would forget I was even there.

431
00:29:00,100 --> 00:29:04,220
Like I can't tell you how many times I would be in a conversation and guys would just be

432
00:29:04,220 --> 00:29:11,100
talking like Lance Corporal's talk, which is pretty graphic and kind of rough language.

433
00:29:11,100 --> 00:29:13,540
And they wouldn't even flinch that I was there.

434
00:29:13,540 --> 00:29:18,500
They just sort of saw me as like, oh, the chaps is here.

435
00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:24,100
And that was, you know, I took that as like a real badge of honor to kind of be included

436
00:29:24,100 --> 00:29:25,100
in with the group.

437
00:29:25,100 --> 00:29:31,960
And then what it led to is some really brilliant conversations with folks because I'd spend

438
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:36,300
time in all the little patrol bases where, you know, there would be 12 Marines and I'd

439
00:29:36,300 --> 00:29:38,020
go stay with them for like two days.

440
00:29:38,020 --> 00:29:41,780
So, you know, they would know me really well and I would know them.

441
00:29:41,780 --> 00:29:48,700
And it led to some some really profound conversations with some of these young men that impacted

442
00:29:48,700 --> 00:29:51,780
me and, you know, and I hope in turn impacted them.

443
00:29:51,780 --> 00:29:56,340
Well, that mirrors what I've heard a lot, you know, for many years now, as far as the

444
00:29:56,340 --> 00:30:02,980
the absolute need for culturally competent clinicians and or obviously, you know, clergy

445
00:30:02,980 --> 00:30:03,980
because I've heard the horror stories.

446
00:30:03,980 --> 00:30:07,380
So we have a thing called EAP in the first responder profession, which is like a, you

447
00:30:07,380 --> 00:30:12,860
know, a government mental health, not a government, but a mental health group that the pack together

448
00:30:12,860 --> 00:30:16,900
and then they're given to us as, you know, this is for your emotional support.

449
00:30:16,900 --> 00:30:18,920
But it's like a Russian roulette.

450
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,220
Some of the people's numbers don't work anymore.

451
00:30:21,220 --> 00:30:24,540
Some of them, they're, you know, waiting lists are six months long.

452
00:30:24,540 --> 00:30:29,140
But I've heard so many horror stories as well from first responders sitting down in front

453
00:30:29,140 --> 00:30:34,260
of them and starting to tell them their darkest thoughts and the clinician bursting into

454
00:30:34,260 --> 00:30:37,180
tears or asking them to leave saying they can't help them.

455
00:30:37,180 --> 00:30:44,060
So that's a really important side of the conversation is making sure that the right people are put

456
00:30:44,060 --> 00:30:46,980
amongst our first responders or military.

457
00:30:46,980 --> 00:30:48,100
Yeah.

458
00:30:48,100 --> 00:30:52,580
And like Anthony said, like the chaplains are the first responders.

459
00:30:52,580 --> 00:30:56,380
So one of the clinical psychologists that I got to know really well that informed a

460
00:30:56,380 --> 00:31:02,100
lot of what I do, his name's Robert Grant and he figured out early on.

461
00:31:02,100 --> 00:31:07,020
So when he started doing some work with the first Marine division back in early 2000s,

462
00:31:07,020 --> 00:31:11,060
as you know, as the Marines were heading off to Afghanistan and then Iraq, he was spending

463
00:31:11,060 --> 00:31:15,340
time with, with like the social workers and the psychologists.

464
00:31:15,340 --> 00:31:20,460
But what he figured out real quick was they were sort of, they didn't really know what

465
00:31:20,460 --> 00:31:25,820
was going on because they weren't the ones that were in the mix with the troops.

466
00:31:25,820 --> 00:31:28,780
And he figured out it's actually, oh, it's the chaplains.

467
00:31:28,780 --> 00:31:33,860
The chaplains are the ones who are there, you know, sort of living the life with the

468
00:31:33,860 --> 00:31:38,940
Marines and they're the ones that have the credibility, hopefully if they're doing it,

469
00:31:38,940 --> 00:31:42,420
you know, in a healthy way, that they're the ones that have the credibility.

470
00:31:42,420 --> 00:31:49,140
And so that's where he shifted a lot of his work was equipping chaplains to go and help

471
00:31:49,140 --> 00:31:54,460
to be able to be that frontline mental health worker, even though as a chaplain, you're

472
00:31:54,460 --> 00:31:58,740
considered non-clinical, you know, you're not taking notes.

473
00:31:58,740 --> 00:32:01,820
What you share, what anyone shares is confidential.

474
00:32:01,820 --> 00:32:07,540
And this is one of the really unique things that at least in the Navy, the chaplain brings

475
00:32:07,540 --> 00:32:09,900
is absolute confidentiality.

476
00:32:09,900 --> 00:32:16,200
Like there's nothing someone says that I have to disclose, which is unique among all mental

477
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,300
health providers.

478
00:32:18,300 --> 00:32:23,420
So if someone comes to me and says, I mean, they could say literally anything and I can't

479
00:32:23,420 --> 00:32:24,880
disclose that.

480
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:26,980
And so people always say, well, what if, what about this?

481
00:32:26,980 --> 00:32:27,980
And I'm like, nope.

482
00:32:27,980 --> 00:32:29,340
Well, what about this?

483
00:32:29,340 --> 00:32:30,340
Nope.

484
00:32:30,340 --> 00:32:34,340
And so over the course of years, I've heard pretty much everything.

485
00:32:34,340 --> 00:32:38,620
Like there's nothing someone can tell me, say to me now that's like shocking or like,

486
00:32:38,620 --> 00:32:40,340
oh, wow, I've never heard that before.

487
00:32:40,340 --> 00:32:43,860
I've heard it all and you have to keep it confidential.

488
00:32:43,860 --> 00:32:48,500
And so I'll have a CEO that will say, oh, can't you tell me this?

489
00:32:48,500 --> 00:32:50,940
And I'm like, no, I can't.

490
00:32:50,940 --> 00:32:56,460
And the good ones come to understand why that's so important because the Marines need an outlet

491
00:32:56,460 --> 00:33:00,780
because sometimes, you know, a Marine could be really, really struggling with something

492
00:33:00,780 --> 00:33:05,060
and they think, oh, well, if I go talk to the psychologist, they're going to have to

493
00:33:05,060 --> 00:33:09,580
report that up the chain of command and I'm going to get in big trouble or, you know,

494
00:33:09,580 --> 00:33:12,660
something terrible is going to happen with my career.

495
00:33:12,660 --> 00:33:18,300
But knowing that they have the chaplain, they can go talk to about anything, like literally

496
00:33:18,300 --> 00:33:21,820
anything and it stays confidential.

497
00:33:21,820 --> 00:33:24,560
That builds, you know, a real sense of trust.

498
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:29,780
And on the flip side, if a chaplain violates that confidence, it just burns everything.

499
00:33:29,780 --> 00:33:32,700
Like that's the worst thing a chaplain can do.

500
00:33:32,700 --> 00:33:34,740
And so hopefully they don't.

501
00:33:34,740 --> 00:33:37,420
And that's unique maybe to the Navy and the Marine Corps.

502
00:33:37,420 --> 00:33:42,580
I don't know if other organizations have that same type of confidentiality, but to me, that

503
00:33:42,580 --> 00:33:50,180
was my most trusted or that was my superpower was having 100 percent confidentiality.

504
00:33:50,180 --> 00:33:51,180
Beautiful.

505
00:33:51,180 --> 00:33:56,320
Well, Anthony, I want to shift back to you and then we'll talk about the kind of outdoor

506
00:33:56,320 --> 00:34:01,620
world that you inhabited for a while and then we'll bring these two kind of paths together.

507
00:34:01,620 --> 00:34:06,260
Talk to me about your journey into the world of Spartan and the international nature that

508
00:34:06,260 --> 00:34:10,260
you were working with.

509
00:34:10,260 --> 00:34:15,980
So in 2012, I was in a near fatal motorcycle accident.

510
00:34:15,980 --> 00:34:21,060
I broke my tibia and my fibia, snapped it in half and they had to put a rod down my

511
00:34:21,060 --> 00:34:25,820
tibia to, you know, in times past, they probably would just cut it off.

512
00:34:25,820 --> 00:34:30,020
But now with modern medicine, you know, they were able to fix me up and I was walking relatively

513
00:34:30,020 --> 00:34:32,060
soon but I was in a wheelchair for about six months.

514
00:34:32,060 --> 00:34:37,100
I broke all the ribs on my right side, collapsed my lung, broke my collarbone, my scapula.

515
00:34:37,100 --> 00:34:38,100
It was pretty rough.

516
00:34:38,100 --> 00:34:42,580
And so when I recovered from that or what I thought at the time was recovering from

517
00:34:42,580 --> 00:34:46,340
that, you know, when I could drink and walk and be a knucklehead, one of the first things

518
00:34:46,340 --> 00:34:49,980
that I did was I trained up and I ran a Spartan race.

519
00:34:49,980 --> 00:34:53,020
And thankfully, I've always had a pretty good network.

520
00:34:53,020 --> 00:34:57,500
And back then, a lot of friends and family and stuff like that were in the Spartan network.

521
00:34:57,500 --> 00:35:01,280
And they very quickly kind of put me in a position to be able to get a job with Spartan

522
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,580
race, which I drastically needed at the time.

523
00:35:03,580 --> 00:35:07,420
I was working at a casino and very miserable.

524
00:35:07,420 --> 00:35:12,100
And so I ended up going on and becoming an instructor for the endurance component of

525
00:35:12,100 --> 00:35:18,740
Spartan race, leading anything between four hour and 60 hour endurance and some semblance

526
00:35:18,740 --> 00:35:20,740
of a survival event.

527
00:35:20,740 --> 00:35:26,760
So I've worked with them in Mongolia and Iceland, in many places around the United States, leading

528
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:34,800
those endurance style events, which is it's really like a 100 mile an hour fastball of

529
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:38,900
endurance is really what it is where you it's very fast paced.

530
00:35:38,900 --> 00:35:42,420
You get a gear list, but there's no deviation from the gear list.

531
00:35:42,420 --> 00:35:46,440
If you don't bring it, there's going to be some semblance of a penalty.

532
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:53,460
But it does foster very, very quick team building and personal growth in individuals because

533
00:35:53,460 --> 00:35:59,080
of how fast paced it is and because there's really no room for error in a lot of the things

534
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:00,300
that you're doing.

535
00:36:00,300 --> 00:36:03,660
And then when you get into the longer ones, the 60 hour ones that are like in places like

536
00:36:03,660 --> 00:36:06,940
Mongolia, they're just simply amazing.

537
00:36:06,940 --> 00:36:09,700
Spartan has a great way of David.

538
00:36:09,700 --> 00:36:16,620
David Watson is a brilliant mind and he has a great way of integrating the local culture

539
00:36:16,620 --> 00:36:23,660
and the local history and all of those things into this endurance component.

540
00:36:23,660 --> 00:36:28,620
In Mongolia, specifically, we had Mongolian archers, we had Mongolian wrestlers, we had

541
00:36:28,620 --> 00:36:33,540
shamans come out and do shamans ceremonies and folks walked away from their altar.

542
00:36:33,540 --> 00:36:36,300
You know, forever altered in a great way.

543
00:36:36,300 --> 00:36:40,400
Not only did they experience a rise in self confidence and self reliance, which are the

544
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:44,620
building blocks of like kind of like who we are and who we see ourselves as, but it was

545
00:36:44,620 --> 00:36:47,700
a spiritual journey as well, which is very important.

546
00:36:47,700 --> 00:36:52,300
I think that those kind of events, the kind of events that Brandon and I have put together,

547
00:36:52,300 --> 00:36:55,860
they focus on what I call like the four disciplines of fitness.

548
00:36:55,860 --> 00:36:59,300
You've got physical fitness, you got emotional fitness, you got mental fitness and you have

549
00:36:59,300 --> 00:37:00,860
spiritual fitness.

550
00:37:00,860 --> 00:37:04,420
They focus on all four of the disciplines of fitness.

551
00:37:04,420 --> 00:37:09,140
And that's what I've always sought to bring to an event that I put together.

552
00:37:09,140 --> 00:37:11,020
I love crafting events.

553
00:37:11,020 --> 00:37:15,580
I much more prefer crafting them than anything else, I think.

554
00:37:15,580 --> 00:37:17,380
And I've always sought to bring that to it.

555
00:37:17,380 --> 00:37:21,180
And Spartan does add an ample amount for sure.

556
00:37:21,180 --> 00:37:22,900
I've had Joe De Sena on here a couple of times.

557
00:37:22,900 --> 00:37:27,060
The last time was just about four or five months ago and we did it in their new headquarters

558
00:37:27,060 --> 00:37:28,060
in Orlando now.

559
00:37:28,060 --> 00:37:30,980
Joe was actually the one that gave me my job.

560
00:37:30,980 --> 00:37:31,980
How was he?

561
00:37:31,980 --> 00:37:32,980
Yeah, yeah.

562
00:37:32,980 --> 00:37:33,980
I pulled him around.

563
00:37:33,980 --> 00:37:34,980
So interesting story.

564
00:37:34,980 --> 00:37:39,100
So Joe was challenged by a paraplegic to do an event in the way that he did an event,

565
00:37:39,100 --> 00:37:41,020
which was strapped into a wheelchair.

566
00:37:41,020 --> 00:37:42,180
Joe accepted.

567
00:37:42,180 --> 00:37:43,180
He needed two horses.

568
00:37:43,180 --> 00:37:46,740
They were like, hey, Anthony, why don't you be one of his horses, so to speak.

569
00:37:46,740 --> 00:37:55,180
And so I pulled him around Opsicore's race in Ohio in a hailing storm.

570
00:37:55,180 --> 00:37:58,980
And halfway or so through the event, he just stopped and he was like, hey, hold on, hold

571
00:37:58,980 --> 00:37:59,980
on, hold on.

572
00:37:59,980 --> 00:38:00,980
Very Joe fashion.

573
00:38:00,980 --> 00:38:01,980
Hey, hold on, hold on, hold on.

574
00:38:01,980 --> 00:38:02,980
And I was like, what's up, sir?

575
00:38:02,980 --> 00:38:03,980
How we doing?

576
00:38:03,980 --> 00:38:04,980
Are we good?

577
00:38:04,980 --> 00:38:05,980
Are you feeling cold?

578
00:38:05,980 --> 00:38:08,260
We had heat blankets wrapped around him to try to keep his body temperature regulated.

579
00:38:08,260 --> 00:38:09,900
And he was like, no, no.

580
00:38:09,900 --> 00:38:10,900
What do you do outside of this?

581
00:38:10,900 --> 00:38:13,620
And I was very, again, I wasn't doing much of anything.

582
00:38:13,620 --> 00:38:17,100
And I told him and he was like, no, I think you should come work for us.

583
00:38:17,100 --> 00:38:19,620
After this, come see me and I'm going to give you a job.

584
00:38:19,620 --> 00:38:20,980
And I was like, what job is that?

585
00:38:20,980 --> 00:38:21,980
And he's like, I don't know.

586
00:38:21,980 --> 00:38:23,100
I'll figure it out.

587
00:38:23,100 --> 00:38:27,760
And so that's how I actually came to work for Spartan Race was literally at the hand

588
00:38:27,760 --> 00:38:31,820
of Joe, who I've come to know a little bit over the years.

589
00:38:31,820 --> 00:38:37,180
We randomly share emails and yeah, he's a good fellow.

590
00:38:37,180 --> 00:38:41,660
But I was saying to him, because I think we talked before the pandemic the first time

591
00:38:41,660 --> 00:38:42,780
and after the second time.

592
00:38:42,780 --> 00:38:48,380
And I ran the first Spartan after that opened up here in Florida with Earl Granville and

593
00:38:48,380 --> 00:38:51,220
some other guys that were there that day.

594
00:38:51,220 --> 00:38:59,820
But what I saw was, again, a kind of commonality between the obstacle racing world and the

595
00:38:59,820 --> 00:39:05,900
shared suffering in selection for, I would imagine the military, but I know fire.

596
00:39:05,900 --> 00:39:11,060
And you obviously have the first couple of waves where it's competitive and those people

597
00:39:11,060 --> 00:39:14,020
are off on their own and they're trying to win the race.

598
00:39:14,020 --> 00:39:19,500
And then you have the other 90, 95% of people that are just getting from A to B and they're

599
00:39:19,500 --> 00:39:22,420
doing it for different reasons and some of them might want to do it fast.

600
00:39:22,420 --> 00:39:27,420
But what I saw, I was always with a bunch of fit lads and we'd rush to the next obstacle.

601
00:39:27,420 --> 00:39:32,260
But then we'd spend a couple of minutes helping people over that were less able and then you

602
00:39:32,260 --> 00:39:33,260
run again.

603
00:39:33,260 --> 00:39:34,380
So it wasn't about the winning.

604
00:39:34,380 --> 00:39:39,160
And by the time you get to the finish area, there's this real community, this sense of

605
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,900
shared suffering and unification.

606
00:39:41,900 --> 00:39:47,020
And so the whole observation was how powerful that was firstly for recruiting for firefighters

607
00:39:47,020 --> 00:39:48,500
and police officers and stuff.

608
00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:53,060
Secondly, it was what the world needed more so during that time than ever.

609
00:39:53,060 --> 00:39:54,780
Yeah, that's interesting.

610
00:39:54,780 --> 00:39:56,100
I've always found the same thing.

611
00:39:56,100 --> 00:40:01,500
I mean, the most inspirational people at Spartans to me aren't the people winning.

612
00:40:01,500 --> 00:40:03,580
It's the people that are coming.

613
00:40:03,580 --> 00:40:06,940
They're coming in first in their own mind and in their own heart because they're completing

614
00:40:06,940 --> 00:40:09,080
something that they thought they couldn't even do.

615
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,500
And again, self-confidence and self-reliance.

616
00:40:11,500 --> 00:40:13,980
Those are the building blocks of what we see ourselves as.

617
00:40:13,980 --> 00:40:18,100
If you don't have self-confidence and you don't have self-reliance, which I would argue is

618
00:40:18,100 --> 00:40:22,460
missing in an overwhelming sense of human beings today, if you don't have those two

619
00:40:22,460 --> 00:40:24,700
things, you're going to have low self-esteem.

620
00:40:24,700 --> 00:40:27,140
When you look at yourself in the mirror, you're going to be depressed.

621
00:40:27,140 --> 00:40:28,420
You have to have self-confidence.

622
00:40:28,420 --> 00:40:30,220
You have to have self-reliance.

623
00:40:30,220 --> 00:40:37,980
And if you don't, Brandon and I both, we had what a lot of people call, it was adversity

624
00:40:37,980 --> 00:40:39,540
that was not your choice.

625
00:40:39,540 --> 00:40:41,640
It was forced upon you when you were young.

626
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:46,460
If you don't have that unstructured adversity when you're young, you need structured adversity

627
00:40:46,460 --> 00:40:52,380
through collegiate level programs or some type of highly academic pursuit, something

628
00:40:52,380 --> 00:40:55,660
that's going to challenge you on the level that it's going to give you self-confidence

629
00:40:55,660 --> 00:40:56,660
and self-reliance.

630
00:40:56,660 --> 00:40:59,780
Now, if you go through your whole life and you don't get at that anywhere else, you can

631
00:40:59,780 --> 00:41:00,900
find it at Spartan Race.

632
00:41:00,900 --> 00:41:02,520
You can find it at a wilderness expedition.

633
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,100
You can find it at so many different things.

634
00:41:05,100 --> 00:41:10,220
If you don't get it in the military or sports or academic pursuits or firefighting, you

635
00:41:10,220 --> 00:41:12,180
got to get it somewhere.

636
00:41:12,180 --> 00:41:13,180
You're choosing it then.

637
00:41:13,180 --> 00:41:14,180
It's chosen adversity.

638
00:41:14,180 --> 00:41:19,140
I choose adversity all the time, almost every day, probably to the point where a lot of

639
00:41:19,140 --> 00:41:21,140
my friends and family think I'm crazy.

640
00:41:21,140 --> 00:41:22,900
They're like, why are you doing that?

641
00:41:22,900 --> 00:41:23,900
Why are you?

642
00:41:23,900 --> 00:41:27,540
I just crossed Costa Rica by mountain bike recently with no mountain bike experience.

643
00:41:27,540 --> 00:41:29,940
Well, you're going to say no mountain bike.

644
00:41:29,940 --> 00:41:31,940
That's going to be impressed for a second there.

645
00:41:31,940 --> 00:41:32,940
That'd be legit.

646
00:41:32,940 --> 00:41:34,180
I did not do that.

647
00:41:34,180 --> 00:41:37,420
But I bought a bike two months before the race.

648
00:41:37,420 --> 00:41:38,860
Spartan actually bought this company.

649
00:41:38,860 --> 00:41:40,660
It's called La Ruta.

650
00:41:40,660 --> 00:41:43,540
And I went and did it with zero experience.

651
00:41:43,540 --> 00:41:45,940
It didn't turn out the greatest, but I finished.

652
00:41:45,940 --> 00:41:50,380
Again, in my mind, I might have been like, OK, I could probably place in this thing because

653
00:41:50,380 --> 00:41:53,780
I'm a little bit conceited in that notion physically.

654
00:41:53,780 --> 00:41:57,140
But I got owned by like 60 year old dudes who have a gut.

655
00:41:57,140 --> 00:41:58,860
And I was so confused.

656
00:41:58,860 --> 00:42:03,020
But I proved so much to myself and my self-confidence, my self-reliance was boosted.

657
00:42:03,020 --> 00:42:04,660
But I had to seek that adversity out.

658
00:42:04,660 --> 00:42:06,660
I had to choose that adversity.

659
00:42:06,660 --> 00:42:12,340
Well, Brandon, I want to go to you and pose a question for a second.

660
00:42:12,340 --> 00:42:18,220
One of the areas that I feel is really needed as the next step in the mental health conversation

661
00:42:18,220 --> 00:42:20,340
is the area of post-traumatic growth.

662
00:42:20,340 --> 00:42:21,340
And obviously, we've been fumbling.

663
00:42:21,340 --> 00:42:24,820
I mean, you've probably been in it more than me, but a lot longer than me.

664
00:42:24,820 --> 00:42:30,160
But I've kind of really kind of found myself in this area about nine years ago now.

665
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,660
And so it was, you know, everyone's got PTSD and then, oh, wait a second, it's actually

666
00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:36,060
moral injury and PTSD.

667
00:42:36,060 --> 00:42:38,020
And then but it kind of still stops at that.

668
00:42:38,020 --> 00:42:40,100
We've got to stop the stigma.

669
00:42:40,100 --> 00:42:44,780
And what I realized through hearing not only other people's conversations, but my own.

670
00:42:44,780 --> 00:42:49,980
I have I know so many people that were there with that pistol in their hand, you know,

671
00:42:49,980 --> 00:42:54,260
in a bottle of whiskey and the other, just contemplating the last few moments before

672
00:42:54,260 --> 00:42:57,140
some, you know, divine intervention happened.

673
00:42:57,140 --> 00:43:02,580
And it just pulled them back, you know, to the normal way of thinking again.

674
00:43:02,580 --> 00:43:08,460
But what I realize is we don't have any hope in the conversation if we're just talking

675
00:43:08,460 --> 00:43:09,500
about stigma.

676
00:43:09,500 --> 00:43:15,460
But the post-traumatic growth philosophy that I make sense to me is that if you have struggles

677
00:43:15,460 --> 00:43:20,620
when you're young and by some fortune, which is what happened to me, I was almost killed

678
00:43:20,620 --> 00:43:22,540
in the house fire when I was four.

679
00:43:22,540 --> 00:43:25,780
Parents got divorced, another near death experience.

680
00:43:25,780 --> 00:43:29,500
But I grew up on a farm and my dad was a veterinary surgeon, so we were healing animals.

681
00:43:29,500 --> 00:43:33,180
I was around nature, people that came through the doors anywhere from homeless through to

682
00:43:33,180 --> 00:43:35,540
members of the extended royal family.

683
00:43:35,540 --> 00:43:42,220
Just all these things that you would identify as very positive healing mechanisms were by

684
00:43:42,220 --> 00:43:45,140
pure fortune infused into my early life.

685
00:43:45,140 --> 00:43:49,500
And so I never found myself, even though I had a very high, big highs and big lows in

686
00:43:49,500 --> 00:43:54,040
my life, like all human beings do, I never found myself there.

687
00:43:54,040 --> 00:44:00,500
And so when I hear the whole conversation about the processing of trauma and that post-traumatic

688
00:44:00,500 --> 00:44:06,140
growth, to me, it seems like there's nothing special about the person who doesn't struggle

689
00:44:06,140 --> 00:44:07,140
as much.

690
00:44:07,140 --> 00:44:09,740
They just had that healing earlier in their life.

691
00:44:09,740 --> 00:44:14,820
And as Anthony alluded to, you can also kind of create suffering later in a positive way

692
00:44:14,820 --> 00:44:16,060
too.

693
00:44:16,060 --> 00:44:23,180
But my whole idea is that if you can address that trauma, you can go through that thing.

694
00:44:23,180 --> 00:44:25,300
There's a better version of yourself.

695
00:44:25,300 --> 00:44:27,340
I'm going to live with my PTSD.

696
00:44:27,340 --> 00:44:31,620
There's a better version of you, a superpower almost from that trauma.

697
00:44:31,620 --> 00:44:36,060
So the conversation seems to be more, is it unaddressed trauma?

698
00:44:36,060 --> 00:44:38,620
Because trauma is okay as long as you've addressed it.

699
00:44:38,620 --> 00:44:39,900
Is it unaddressed trauma?

700
00:44:39,900 --> 00:44:45,420
And if it is, then how can we identify it and inspire that person that it's worth the

701
00:44:45,420 --> 00:44:47,540
work on the other side?

702
00:44:47,540 --> 00:44:48,540
Yeah.

703
00:44:48,540 --> 00:44:49,540
Yeah.

704
00:44:49,540 --> 00:44:50,540
Great thoughts.

705
00:44:50,540 --> 00:44:55,740
So this is something that I'm actually really, really passionate about because I'll give

706
00:44:55,740 --> 00:44:57,540
you a couple of physical analogies.

707
00:44:57,540 --> 00:45:03,680
So let's say James that you broke your arm and then you went to the doctor and the doctor

708
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,440
looked at your arm and he said, Hey, James, guess what?

709
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,960
You have broken arm disorder.

710
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:10,540
What would that mean to you?

711
00:45:10,540 --> 00:45:14,420
I wouldn't be surprised in modern medicine to be honest.

712
00:45:14,420 --> 00:45:15,420
Yeah.

713
00:45:15,420 --> 00:45:18,520
What would it tell you if you had broken arm disorder?

714
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:20,020
What would the message be?

715
00:45:20,020 --> 00:45:22,180
That there's something wrong with me.

716
00:45:22,180 --> 00:45:26,740
There's something wrong and that it's probably always going to be messed up, right?

717
00:45:26,740 --> 00:45:31,700
But if the doctor looks at your arm and he says, Oh, well, you have a broken arm, you

718
00:45:31,700 --> 00:45:35,020
got an injury here.

719
00:45:35,020 --> 00:45:38,120
Then the message is, well, that injury is probably going to heal.

720
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:39,260
We might have to set it.

721
00:45:39,260 --> 00:45:43,700
We might have to put some pins in the bones like happened to Anthony's leg, but it's going

722
00:45:43,700 --> 00:45:46,100
to heal.

723
00:45:46,100 --> 00:45:51,580
So what we tell first responders, whether you're a police officer, firefighter, or military,

724
00:45:51,580 --> 00:45:59,180
the message is, well, you have post-traumatic stress disorder and that sends an unconscious

725
00:45:59,180 --> 00:46:06,660
message that you are broken and there's something about you that's permanent in a way that is

726
00:46:06,660 --> 00:46:08,080
not healthy.

727
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:17,700
So I really prefer the term of a combat stress injury rather than a disorder so that it says,

728
00:46:17,700 --> 00:46:23,900
you know, you've been injured, you know, you've been psychologically, you know, maybe even

729
00:46:23,900 --> 00:46:30,020
broken or shattered, but because it's an injury, you can heal and you can get better and that

730
00:46:30,020 --> 00:46:33,020
healing can take place in a variety of ways.

731
00:46:33,020 --> 00:46:38,340
The most powerful ways that I've seen it have been in these nature-based experiences that

732
00:46:38,340 --> 00:46:40,060
Anthony and I have done.

733
00:46:40,060 --> 00:46:45,260
And it doesn't mean that someone goes on one of these trips and they never have any issues,

734
00:46:45,260 --> 00:46:53,780
you know, ever again in their life, but there's an element of healing that needs to be communal.

735
00:46:53,780 --> 00:46:59,860
And I witnessed this many times within the Navy and Marine Corps where the person who

736
00:46:59,860 --> 00:47:06,560
was isolated outside of the team that wasn't really included, they always struggled harder.

737
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,060
They always had a more difficult time.

738
00:47:09,060 --> 00:47:13,660
But if they felt like they were part of that group and they were able to process what had

739
00:47:13,660 --> 00:47:20,860
happened as a group, that sharing of that trauma across the group normalized it in some

740
00:47:20,860 --> 00:47:24,460
ways and made it feel like, oh, this is going to be okay.

741
00:47:24,460 --> 00:47:25,740
You know, I'm going to be okay.

742
00:47:25,740 --> 00:47:31,340
I've had the real fortune of taking some veterans groups on these wilderness trips now.

743
00:47:31,340 --> 00:47:38,780
And Anthony's done similar trips as well with the same organization and getting these veterans,

744
00:47:38,780 --> 00:47:43,860
many of whom have had some pretty severe trauma in their lives, and they're strangers.

745
00:47:43,860 --> 00:47:45,500
They don't know each other.

746
00:47:45,500 --> 00:47:50,140
And in those first few nights out in the wild as they sit around a campfire, and we have

747
00:47:50,140 --> 00:47:56,860
a very structured process of how we process these things, them coming away, having hope

748
00:47:56,860 --> 00:48:01,820
sometimes for the first time in their life that they're not just this jacked up individual.

749
00:48:01,820 --> 00:48:05,740
Like we had a guy, I won't say his name, he came last spring to a trip that we did in

750
00:48:05,740 --> 00:48:14,100
the mountains and he had every chronic problem that you could name from being unhoused or

751
00:48:14,100 --> 00:48:17,740
homeless to hardcore drug use.

752
00:48:17,740 --> 00:48:20,180
He was a Vietnam era Marine.

753
00:48:20,180 --> 00:48:26,820
He was broken in all of the classical ways that you think of stereotypically of veterans.

754
00:48:26,820 --> 00:48:31,980
Well after this trip, his whole life just reoriented.

755
00:48:31,980 --> 00:48:34,380
I mean, he's just a different human being now.

756
00:48:34,380 --> 00:48:37,220
You see him and his whole countenance has changed.

757
00:48:37,220 --> 00:48:39,220
He's just a different guy.

758
00:48:39,220 --> 00:48:41,060
And it wasn't just the wilderness trip.

759
00:48:41,060 --> 00:48:45,060
There were a lot of things that came together, but the wilderness trip was the catalyst for

760
00:48:45,060 --> 00:48:47,500
him making this change.

761
00:48:47,500 --> 00:48:51,420
And what it did is it gave him hope, hope that he wasn't broken.

762
00:48:51,420 --> 00:48:55,340
Anthony, anything to add?

763
00:48:55,340 --> 00:49:00,220
Yeah, a lot to add.

764
00:49:00,220 --> 00:49:06,660
But I think the most important thing that I'll kind of caveat to what Brandon was just

765
00:49:06,660 --> 00:49:13,140
talking about is that it's not that the wilderness trips, and I mean, that's what helped me personally,

766
00:49:13,140 --> 00:49:15,380
so I'm biased in this.

767
00:49:15,380 --> 00:49:20,340
A trip with an organization in a veteran's capacity is what really helped me.

768
00:49:20,340 --> 00:49:23,940
So I'm very biased to it, but I don't think that it's just the trip as Brandon alluded

769
00:49:23,940 --> 00:49:24,940
to.

770
00:49:24,940 --> 00:49:27,900
I think it's a bunch of different things that happen while you're on the trip.

771
00:49:27,900 --> 00:49:31,300
So you're getting a detox from social media and from phones.

772
00:49:31,300 --> 00:49:32,580
You're breathing fresh air.

773
00:49:32,580 --> 00:49:34,180
You're getting plenty of sunlight.

774
00:49:34,180 --> 00:49:38,980
Those things are kind of resetting some neurological deficiencies, most likely from being inside

775
00:49:38,980 --> 00:49:43,100
all the time, not breathing through your nose a lot, breathing through your mouth, which

776
00:49:43,100 --> 00:49:46,180
we know mouth breathing is a very bad thing.

777
00:49:46,180 --> 00:49:50,500
There's all of those natural nature-based holistic things that are happening while you're

778
00:49:50,500 --> 00:49:51,600
on course.

779
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:56,460
And then also you're being put in an uncomfortable position to talk about your feelings.

780
00:49:56,460 --> 00:49:59,060
You're dealing with shared adversity with other individuals.

781
00:49:59,060 --> 00:50:04,060
There's so many things that are compounding on a trip like that, that once you get out,

782
00:50:04,060 --> 00:50:08,420
it's almost like you get out of the woods and you go back to the real world and you

783
00:50:08,420 --> 00:50:11,760
question what is the real world?

784
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,680
Was I just in the real world or is this the real world?

785
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:21,400
Not to go play on the simulation theory quacks, but I mean, is it a simulation?

786
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:22,700
Is this thing that I'm living in?

787
00:50:22,700 --> 00:50:23,700
Is it real?

788
00:50:23,700 --> 00:50:25,500
Should I take it that seriously?

789
00:50:25,500 --> 00:50:29,180
Is my mental health more important to me or is this thing that's going on over here more

790
00:50:29,180 --> 00:50:30,420
important to me?

791
00:50:30,420 --> 00:50:36,300
So I think that there's so many things that you need to unpack on a trip like that, especially

792
00:50:36,300 --> 00:50:41,060
when you have, now there's a lot of organizations that will send people out into the woods and

793
00:50:41,060 --> 00:50:43,980
they'll say that it's a facilitation based event.

794
00:50:43,980 --> 00:50:48,700
Okay, but those individuals that are leading that trip, they basically just play on the

795
00:50:48,700 --> 00:50:51,380
natural occurrences of nature.

796
00:50:51,380 --> 00:50:55,840
When you're going out on a trip with an individual like Brandon, not to toot his horn, but when

797
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:59,260
you're going out, you're going to get, okay, here's an example.

798
00:50:59,260 --> 00:51:02,500
All right, Brandon, I'm going to ask you a few questions and just give me basic numbers,

799
00:51:02,500 --> 00:51:03,500
all right?

800
00:51:03,500 --> 00:51:05,500
Just basic numbers, whatever first comes to the top of your head.

801
00:51:05,500 --> 00:51:08,100
How many years were you in the military?

802
00:51:08,100 --> 00:51:09,540
35.

803
00:51:09,540 --> 00:51:11,580
How many deployments?

804
00:51:11,580 --> 00:51:12,980
Six.

805
00:51:12,980 --> 00:51:14,100
Okay.

806
00:51:14,100 --> 00:51:16,580
And what's your degree in?

807
00:51:16,580 --> 00:51:17,580
Clinical psychology.

808
00:51:17,580 --> 00:51:18,580
Okay.

809
00:51:18,580 --> 00:51:23,220
And how many marriage enrichment events probably have you led?

810
00:51:23,220 --> 00:51:24,220
Multiple hundreds.

811
00:51:24,220 --> 00:51:25,220
Okay.

812
00:51:25,220 --> 00:51:28,740
How many group facilitation events have you led, like in the wilderness?

813
00:51:28,740 --> 00:51:29,740
Hundreds.

814
00:51:29,740 --> 00:51:30,740
Okay.

815
00:51:30,740 --> 00:51:35,060
So I could go on like this probably for the next maybe five minutes, realistically with

816
00:51:35,060 --> 00:51:36,940
different things asking him.

817
00:51:36,940 --> 00:51:40,860
Now all of those things, if you take all of those things and then you look at that shelf

818
00:51:40,860 --> 00:51:46,180
behind Brandon, all of those things in conjunction with all of those books that he's read, he's

819
00:51:46,180 --> 00:51:51,220
read every one of those books, those are Brandon's toolkit, okay?

820
00:51:51,220 --> 00:51:56,660
So his experience over the years and facilitation and helping individuals plus all of those books

821
00:51:56,660 --> 00:51:58,980
that he's read, that's his toolkit.

822
00:51:58,980 --> 00:52:04,220
Now when you go out with an individual like that, what you get is you get actual facilitation.

823
00:52:04,220 --> 00:52:11,980
You get structured, you get thought evoking questions, you get systematic questions that

824
00:52:11,980 --> 00:52:18,420
progress throughout the days that have actual definitive goals, and then you also get follow-up

825
00:52:18,420 --> 00:52:22,060
because he also does like follow-up coaching and things of that nature.

826
00:52:22,060 --> 00:52:23,740
So that is the difference, right?

827
00:52:23,740 --> 00:52:28,340
So when you go with an individual like that, plus you experience all the things that nature

828
00:52:28,340 --> 00:52:33,220
organically provides, you're going to have so much follow-up that you have to unpack

829
00:52:33,220 --> 00:52:34,900
as you go home.

830
00:52:34,900 --> 00:52:40,760
I could go on about that for probably more time than we have.

831
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:44,660
So I'll digress and chill out because I get hyped on that.

832
00:52:44,660 --> 00:52:46,860
No, but they're great perspectives though.

833
00:52:46,860 --> 00:52:47,860
This is what I'm talking about.

834
00:52:47,860 --> 00:52:52,100
I mean, I think one of the problems is that people will try a thing and then go, it didn't

835
00:52:52,100 --> 00:52:53,100
work.

836
00:52:53,100 --> 00:52:56,900
And for some of them, that might be one of the last things they think, which is tragic.

837
00:52:56,900 --> 00:53:00,860
But what I realized is that everyone has their unique toolbox that they need.

838
00:53:00,860 --> 00:53:05,600
And understanding that it could be anything from Wilderness Retreats to psilocybin, now

839
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:08,340
you're like, okay, now I have some things to really do.

840
00:53:08,340 --> 00:53:09,340
Okay, I did this one.

841
00:53:09,340 --> 00:53:13,180
I did MDMA therapy and it opened the door.

842
00:53:13,180 --> 00:53:17,140
And then I went and did a Wilderness Retreat with this open door and my God, this stuff

843
00:53:17,140 --> 00:53:18,140
come out.

844
00:53:18,140 --> 00:53:19,140
Okay, now you've got a few things.

845
00:53:19,140 --> 00:53:20,740
So I think this is what's beautiful about this.

846
00:53:20,740 --> 00:53:22,700
This is what gives people hope.

847
00:53:22,700 --> 00:53:29,020
Stories of people who healed and then learning about the multiple ways that that can happen.

848
00:53:29,020 --> 00:53:32,140
And I think it's different for every person.

849
00:53:32,140 --> 00:53:34,380
It's not a one size fits all.

850
00:53:34,380 --> 00:53:39,220
There's no one size fits all when it comes to transition in life, whether it be transition

851
00:53:39,220 --> 00:53:42,620
from a career that you had for your whole life and you got fired or a marriage that

852
00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:48,140
didn't work or getting out of the military or leaving any type of service or trauma.

853
00:53:48,140 --> 00:53:50,820
There's no one size fits all.

854
00:53:50,820 --> 00:53:55,900
And although I am very biased towards the way that's personally helped me, I do see

855
00:53:55,900 --> 00:53:58,580
other people find healing in other ways.

856
00:53:58,580 --> 00:54:04,300
And the one thing that I've become very good at as a growing man has been being a sponge

857
00:54:04,300 --> 00:54:07,580
and looking at other men as not competition.

858
00:54:07,580 --> 00:54:11,220
Looking at other men as like, give me what you got.

859
00:54:11,220 --> 00:54:13,700
What works for you, give it to me.

860
00:54:13,700 --> 00:54:16,540
Like I'm going to be a pirate about it.

861
00:54:16,540 --> 00:54:18,860
I'm going to steal it from you if I can.

862
00:54:18,860 --> 00:54:21,180
I'm going to adapt it to myself if I can.

863
00:54:21,180 --> 00:54:25,460
And I think that is what has helped me in my transitions through life.

864
00:54:25,460 --> 00:54:29,140
I mean, I've dealt with physical, I've dealt with mental, emotional.

865
00:54:29,140 --> 00:54:33,060
I've dealt with all of the major traumas that went through a very big spiritual journey.

866
00:54:33,060 --> 00:54:38,580
I've dealt with a lot of the transition traumas in the hardcore ways of experiencing humanity

867
00:54:38,580 --> 00:54:40,580
and what it means to be human.

868
00:54:40,580 --> 00:54:44,500
And I think the thing that's helped me is surrounding myself like individuals like Brandon

869
00:54:44,500 --> 00:54:49,100
and like my father-in-law and like and so many great men that I've had the opportunity

870
00:54:49,100 --> 00:54:50,660
to have around me.

871
00:54:50,660 --> 00:54:54,660
And at a certain point in my developmental stage, I was like, these are competition.

872
00:54:54,660 --> 00:54:56,160
These are guides.

873
00:54:56,160 --> 00:55:01,620
These people are put in my path and in my sphere to help me.

874
00:55:01,620 --> 00:55:05,620
And I think that there's a lot of young men that have their chest out like this and they're

875
00:55:05,620 --> 00:55:12,180
just walking through life shoulder checking people and they don't have the awareness to

876
00:55:12,180 --> 00:55:16,180
stop and think, you know, that fellow has got something for me.

877
00:55:16,180 --> 00:55:21,380
That guy's got some knowledge, some guidance, some wisdom, some life to share with me.

878
00:55:21,380 --> 00:55:26,040
And I guess that would be my overarching message to any young man that's listening.

879
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:27,540
Find yourself some mentors, son.

880
00:55:27,540 --> 00:55:29,780
Like you need it.

881
00:55:29,780 --> 00:55:33,220
I've been pulling on Brandon's coattails for a few years now.

882
00:55:33,220 --> 00:55:34,500
Like, hey, give me more, man.

883
00:55:34,500 --> 00:55:35,500
What you got?

884
00:55:35,500 --> 00:55:39,020
That's probably going to be a sound bite just so you know, that was a great speech to the

885
00:55:39,020 --> 00:55:40,900
younger men out there.

886
00:55:40,900 --> 00:55:45,700
Well, Brandon, let's go to you and we'll kind of talk about how you guys met and then let's

887
00:55:45,700 --> 00:55:48,460
walk through the creation of the program.

888
00:55:48,460 --> 00:55:49,740
Yeah.

889
00:55:49,740 --> 00:55:57,020
So a Chaplain friend of mine was hosting a deployment or not a deployment, a holiday stand

890
00:55:57,020 --> 00:55:58,020
down.

891
00:55:58,020 --> 00:56:00,580
And I think that's what's going on in the Corps and in most branches of the military.

892
00:56:00,580 --> 00:56:05,300
Before you take a big holiday break, they always gather people together and, you know,

893
00:56:05,300 --> 00:56:08,540
give some briefings and some training about some things.

894
00:56:08,540 --> 00:56:13,300
And a buddy of mine named Mike, he's like, you've got to meet this guy named Rose.

895
00:56:13,300 --> 00:56:17,220
Like he's coming to speak at our stand down and you got to hear his story.

896
00:56:17,220 --> 00:56:19,300
Like this dude is just awesome.

897
00:56:19,300 --> 00:56:21,340
Like his story is just incredible.

898
00:56:21,340 --> 00:56:25,860
Kind of, you know, as he's shared about this journey of his father completing a suicide

899
00:56:25,860 --> 00:56:31,020
and a motorcycle crash and just his journey, you know, of finding wellness through the

900
00:56:31,020 --> 00:56:32,300
wild.

901
00:56:32,300 --> 00:56:37,380
And he knew, Mike knew that I was like big into outdoor stuff, big into backpacking and

902
00:56:37,380 --> 00:56:41,100
I'd had my own outward bound experience.

903
00:56:41,100 --> 00:56:48,260
I went on an outward bound trip that was just for veterans in 2000 and 2010.

904
00:56:48,260 --> 00:56:55,380
A bunch of veterans, we all OIF, OEF, that's went up into Maine and New Hampshire for a

905
00:56:55,380 --> 00:56:57,260
week and it was incredible.

906
00:56:57,260 --> 00:57:01,460
And so he knew that I loved to backpack and I'd done lots of trips on the Appalachian

907
00:57:01,460 --> 00:57:04,420
Trail, not the entire trail, but just hiking in that area.

908
00:57:04,420 --> 00:57:06,220
And he's like, you got to meet Anthony.

909
00:57:06,220 --> 00:57:11,660
He's like, there's something about the two of you that you just need to meet each other.

910
00:57:11,660 --> 00:57:16,660
And so I went and listened to Anthony's speech that day because the Marine Corps had brought

911
00:57:16,660 --> 00:57:19,220
him in to share his story.

912
00:57:19,220 --> 00:57:23,940
And again, I was just struck by like, yeah, this guy is somebody, you know, we need to

913
00:57:23,940 --> 00:57:24,940
have a conversation.

914
00:57:24,940 --> 00:57:29,900
There's like so much, you know, potential synergy here, so much like stuff that like,

915
00:57:29,900 --> 00:57:31,980
wow, yeah, we got to talk.

916
00:57:31,980 --> 00:57:38,220
So we met just briefly after and I introduced myself to him and we set up a meeting.

917
00:57:38,220 --> 00:57:40,340
I don't remember how many weeks it was away.

918
00:57:40,340 --> 00:57:42,900
It was one of the next times it was Lejeune.

919
00:57:42,900 --> 00:57:48,820
So we met at a little coffee shop outside the gate and had breakfast and just started

920
00:57:48,820 --> 00:57:58,660
just brainstorming about what we hope to do about kind of our both our unique paths and

921
00:57:58,660 --> 00:58:02,580
the commonality of the things that we saw in life that we wanted to bring.

922
00:58:02,580 --> 00:58:08,380
I'd just been put in charge of this place in the Navy called Credo.

923
00:58:08,380 --> 00:58:09,380
It's an acronym.

924
00:58:09,380 --> 00:58:12,660
It doesn't really have a big meaning, but what it means is I was getting, I was running

925
00:58:12,660 --> 00:58:21,140
an organization that my job was to design and facilitate all kinds of retreats for leaders,

926
00:58:21,140 --> 00:58:23,980
for couples, for individual Marines.

927
00:58:23,980 --> 00:58:26,660
And I wanted to do a wilderness based event.

928
00:58:26,660 --> 00:58:30,300
Like I'd already been talking to Outward Bound about putting something together and using

929
00:58:30,300 --> 00:58:32,620
them as the go to.

930
00:58:32,620 --> 00:58:37,460
And once I started talking to Anthony, I'm like, forget Outward Bound, like let's us

931
00:58:37,460 --> 00:58:42,020
do this because Anthony had had three years of guiding trips at Outward Bound.

932
00:58:42,020 --> 00:58:46,820
And so we brought this incredible wilderness background and experience with him.

933
00:58:46,820 --> 00:58:51,940
And so we had this first meeting at this coffee shop and just sort of like laid out the outline

934
00:58:51,940 --> 00:58:56,860
of what we thought this would be because both of us were huge fans of Outward Bound.

935
00:58:56,860 --> 00:59:01,020
Like I did my Outward Bound trip and I was like amazed by it.

936
00:59:01,020 --> 00:59:07,580
And at the same time, having already done a tour where I had designed and facilitated

937
00:59:07,580 --> 00:59:15,060
retreats and led groups into the wild, I was like, man, that Outward Bound trip was awesome.

938
00:59:15,060 --> 00:59:21,540
And if we tweaked it just a little bit and added some of these elements that I knew and

939
00:59:21,540 --> 00:59:26,540
had been trained in, we could make it like even better.

940
00:59:26,540 --> 00:59:29,620
And so that's where the partnership sort of began.

941
00:59:29,620 --> 00:59:33,420
Now I'll leave, I'll stop there and let Anthony jump in.

942
00:59:33,420 --> 00:59:43,020
Yeah, so throughout this event, massive event in my life, right, I was introduced to a saying,

943
00:59:43,020 --> 00:59:47,060
a new saying by Brandon and it was divine appointment.

944
00:59:47,060 --> 00:59:53,180
And I'm not a very religious person and I kind of shied away from the saying at first

945
00:59:53,180 --> 00:59:59,820
until Brandon really artfully explained to me what it meant and what it meant to him.

946
00:59:59,820 --> 01:00:05,060
And through that explanation and you could see, you could hear someone explain something

947
01:00:05,060 --> 01:00:09,140
kind of like faith, but until you see them live it, it doesn't mean much.

948
01:00:09,140 --> 01:00:10,300
You have to see them live it.

949
01:00:10,300 --> 01:00:12,500
You have to see them be about it.

950
01:00:12,500 --> 01:00:17,220
And through seeing Brandon be about it, I came to love this saying.

951
01:00:17,220 --> 01:00:19,620
And so that's what that was to me.

952
01:00:19,620 --> 01:00:23,400
When I was speaking that day, I was just doing what I was doing for the last four or five

953
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:28,080
years in an attempt to get the Navy and the Marine Corps to just listen to me and listen

954
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,260
to these things that I was saying about how we can help folks with mental health in the

955
01:00:31,260 --> 01:00:32,260
wilderness.

956
01:00:32,260 --> 01:00:36,060
And it was just all too synergistic, as he said.

957
01:00:36,060 --> 01:00:42,020
So taking it from there, I leaned on a good friend of mine from a wilderness school to

958
01:00:42,020 --> 01:00:44,220
help with the operation side of things.

959
01:00:44,220 --> 01:00:47,740
And he brought in a wealth of knowledge from rock climbing and all these other things to

960
01:00:47,740 --> 01:00:50,860
really kind of help cultivate and create this program.

961
01:00:50,860 --> 01:00:55,700
And then Brandon and I worked on the overarching like programming side of things on the development

962
01:00:55,700 --> 01:01:00,060
of the intricacies of the program and how it was going to run, how are we going to pitch

963
01:01:00,060 --> 01:01:03,980
it to the unit commanders, how are we going to get them bought into it.

964
01:01:03,980 --> 01:01:06,500
I developed an affliction for photography.

965
01:01:06,500 --> 01:01:10,520
And so I did a lot of photography so that we could have some case in point pictures

966
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:13,300
to show folks like, hey, you're going to be on these awesome summits.

967
01:01:13,300 --> 01:01:15,780
You're going to be on these awesome rock climbing things.

968
01:01:15,780 --> 01:01:19,020
And we were able to captivate attention with photography.

969
01:01:19,020 --> 01:01:20,940
I did a lot of writing for things.

970
01:01:20,940 --> 01:01:26,180
I tried to help their program on a social media side of things.

971
01:01:26,180 --> 01:01:30,340
And we really were able to create something that Brandon could correct me if I'm wrong,

972
01:01:30,340 --> 01:01:34,880
but I don't think one trip went without a waiting list that was pretty extensive.

973
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:39,260
And so all throughout this evolution, we've created this amazing thing.

974
01:01:39,260 --> 01:01:40,700
We've put our custom touch on it.

975
01:01:40,700 --> 01:01:43,900
We've taken from our past to create this new thing.

976
01:01:43,900 --> 01:01:47,700
And now there is this program in the Navy and the Marine Corps that is the first of

977
01:01:47,700 --> 01:01:48,700
its kind.

978
01:01:48,700 --> 01:01:50,460
It's running on both coasts.

979
01:01:50,460 --> 01:01:52,060
Brandon's brought it to Washington.

980
01:01:52,060 --> 01:01:55,060
He's done trips out in California now out there.

981
01:01:55,060 --> 01:01:56,680
And now he's retired.

982
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:58,580
And now the sky is the limit.

983
01:01:58,580 --> 01:02:00,060
Now the sky is the limit.

984
01:02:00,060 --> 01:02:03,700
Now we can go to all of the different bases.

985
01:02:03,700 --> 01:02:06,700
We can go to all of the different unit commanders.

986
01:02:06,700 --> 01:02:10,540
And now Brandon can really speak to, hey, this works.

987
01:02:10,540 --> 01:02:12,040
Here's my resume.

988
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:15,380
Get me in the door and let me talk to your folks about it.

989
01:02:15,380 --> 01:02:23,260
And that really is what I'm hoping turns this toolkit that he has into a package that he

990
01:02:23,260 --> 01:02:28,620
can deliver so that he can help so many more service members, as he said earlier.

991
01:02:28,620 --> 01:02:33,220
We didn't walk out of the woods without anyone kind of, we had a, we had a, Brandon, do you

992
01:02:33,220 --> 01:02:36,260
remember, do you remember the girl that cut her hair?

993
01:02:36,260 --> 01:02:39,500
First of all, first of all, black girls don't cut their hair for a damn thing.

994
01:02:39,500 --> 01:02:40,500
Right.

995
01:02:40,500 --> 01:02:41,500
Like that just doesn't happen.

996
01:02:41,500 --> 01:02:44,460
Like my Dominican family, they ain't cutting their hair for shit.

997
01:02:44,460 --> 01:02:50,300
And this girl was just so moved by this whole event that she says, she goes, you know what?

998
01:02:50,300 --> 01:02:54,020
I need, I need a physical representation to match what's on the inside.

999
01:02:54,020 --> 01:02:55,020
That's changed.

1000
01:02:55,020 --> 01:02:56,620
Would you, would y'all cut my hair?

1001
01:02:56,620 --> 01:03:00,300
And we took trauma shears to this girl's hair and cut her hair and she burned it in the

1002
01:03:00,300 --> 01:03:05,420
fire and she left that, she left that woods with so much self-confidence, so much self-reliance.

1003
01:03:05,420 --> 01:03:09,740
She was a new person, visually, physically, emotionally, spiritually.

1004
01:03:09,740 --> 01:03:13,700
And that is, was a regular, the cutting of the hair wasn't a regular occurrence, but

1005
01:03:13,700 --> 01:03:16,140
that was a regular occurrence.

1006
01:03:16,140 --> 01:03:24,340
And so I think like what we've created through the synergy of our lives is, is truly unique.

1007
01:03:24,340 --> 01:03:27,780
And again, like it's, it's continued on, it's continuing on in North Carolina.

1008
01:03:27,780 --> 01:03:29,620
It's continuing on, on the West coast.

1009
01:03:29,620 --> 01:03:34,620
We're about, we're about to lead another trip June, June 5th in the Olympics.

1010
01:03:34,620 --> 01:03:37,180
And it'll be the first time that we've gotten to work together in a few years.

1011
01:03:37,180 --> 01:03:39,220
So I'm very stoked about that.

1012
01:03:39,220 --> 01:03:41,700
Yeah, I told you, I get hyped on this.

1013
01:03:41,700 --> 01:03:42,700
I'll talk all day.

1014
01:03:42,700 --> 01:03:48,220
Yeah, that was an amazing experience when she trimmed her hair.

1015
01:03:48,220 --> 01:03:53,140
I've been, I've like, okay, I got to get some kind of recording or evidence that you really

1016
01:03:53,140 --> 01:04:00,020
want us to cut your hair because she had this really like gorgeous, I mean, it was amazing,

1017
01:04:00,020 --> 01:04:01,100
these braids.

1018
01:04:01,100 --> 01:04:04,620
And I was like, you're going to leave the woods and go back to your unit.

1019
01:04:04,620 --> 01:04:06,660
She was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps.

1020
01:04:06,660 --> 01:04:11,700
I'm like, you're going to go back and you're like Master Sergeant is going to be like, what

1021
01:04:11,700 --> 01:04:14,980
did they do to you out in those woods?

1022
01:04:14,980 --> 01:04:18,420
And so I didn't want to like have anybody like come like, but yeah, you know, be all

1023
01:04:18,420 --> 01:04:19,420
upset at me.

1024
01:04:19,420 --> 01:04:21,980
So I'm like, okay, we got to get this documented.

1025
01:04:21,980 --> 01:04:28,260
But yeah, she went back and one of my favorite photos is of her and this giant smile on her

1026
01:04:28,260 --> 01:04:33,940
face after she had her hair trimmed, you know, all the way down.

1027
01:04:33,940 --> 01:04:35,460
And it was, it was gorgeous.

1028
01:04:35,460 --> 01:04:38,100
I mean, it was, that was an amazing experience.

1029
01:04:38,100 --> 01:04:39,100
Yeah.

1030
01:04:39,100 --> 01:04:44,780
Well, I want to go to, you know, a kind of overview of what these, you know, service

1031
01:04:44,780 --> 01:04:47,140
members at the moment are going through.

1032
01:04:47,140 --> 01:04:52,820
When I look at all the common denominators with a Venn diagram overlaps over and over

1033
01:04:52,820 --> 01:04:56,460
and over again, whether it's things that have worked for people's mental health journey,

1034
01:04:56,460 --> 01:04:58,980
or my closing question a lot of times is how do you decompress?

1035
01:04:58,980 --> 01:05:01,140
It's usually the same thing.

1036
01:05:01,140 --> 01:05:04,740
And ironically, when you charter this list, it's the opposite of what everyone was told

1037
01:05:04,740 --> 01:05:06,500
during the pandemic.

1038
01:05:06,500 --> 01:05:11,740
Your entire conversation, but it's no surprise that mental health got worse during that time.

1039
01:05:11,740 --> 01:05:18,300
But when I think of anything that involves community conversation, nature, daylight,

1040
01:05:18,300 --> 01:05:22,620
sunshine, you know, the grounding, feeling the earth with your hands on your feet, I

1041
01:05:22,620 --> 01:05:27,460
mean, that's just going back to our roots and it makes undeniable sense to me.

1042
01:05:27,460 --> 01:05:32,400
So talk to me about, you know, what your, an overview of what the experience would be

1043
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:36,940
of someone going through the program.

1044
01:05:36,940 --> 01:05:42,120
Yeah I'll jump in and then if Anthony, you want to jump in and share too.

1045
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:50,980
So I think what you just highlighted James around the pandemic and one of the real challenges

1046
01:05:50,980 --> 01:05:55,620
that it created was humans are built to be in relationships.

1047
01:05:55,620 --> 01:06:03,120
Like we are made to be in community and when we're not in physical community, it really

1048
01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:05,060
impacts the mental health.

1049
01:06:05,060 --> 01:06:11,620
So one of the overarching goals that we have when we take a group out into the wilderness

1050
01:06:11,620 --> 01:06:15,020
and most often they've, they don't know each other.

1051
01:06:15,020 --> 01:06:20,060
Like when they show up on day one and you know, we gather, you know, day one, they've

1052
01:06:20,060 --> 01:06:22,820
never interacted with each other before.

1053
01:06:22,820 --> 01:06:27,460
So what we want to do is to essentially create a tribe at the end of that week.

1054
01:06:27,460 --> 01:06:33,380
Like when they leave the mountains, they have brothers and sisters now.

1055
01:06:33,380 --> 01:06:38,880
One of the Marines who was a Sergeant Major in the Marine Corps, so you know, at the top

1056
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:46,920
of the food chain on the enlisted side, he said to me, he said, Brandon, I haven't felt

1057
01:06:46,920 --> 01:06:54,700
this connected to another group of people since my tour in Afghanistan, which was amazing.

1058
01:06:54,700 --> 01:06:59,660
So that's kind of the, you know, one of the big overarching goals is to create that sense

1059
01:06:59,660 --> 01:07:03,080
of deep belonging and community.

1060
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:08,060
And so one of the things that we do is this thing that we call a fireside chat.

1061
01:07:08,060 --> 01:07:13,620
And it was developed by this psychologist named Robert Grant and it is really, I mean,

1062
01:07:13,620 --> 01:07:17,540
it's a structured process, it's not just sitting around a fire and just, you know, shooting

1063
01:07:17,540 --> 01:07:24,780
the breeze, but it's a structured process where individuals really do connect at a very,

1064
01:07:24,780 --> 01:07:26,380
very deep level.

1065
01:07:26,380 --> 01:07:31,540
So there's that community piece that's happening throughout the week that really does leave

1066
01:07:31,540 --> 01:07:35,380
those individuals like deeply connected to the group.

1067
01:07:35,380 --> 01:07:40,660
And then another big component that Anthony talked about, like, you know, around the physical

1068
01:07:40,660 --> 01:07:45,220
thing, and I think you mentioned too, James, around the shared suffering is we make it

1069
01:07:45,220 --> 01:07:51,660
challenging, but it's not like, you know, it's not like going to like, you know, hardcore,

1070
01:07:51,660 --> 01:07:56,740
like it's not anywhere near like, you know, going to ranger school or anything like that.

1071
01:07:56,740 --> 01:08:01,440
You know, it's not that kind of a course, but it is hard enough.

1072
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:07,860
And I think many Marines were surprised at how challenging it was.

1073
01:08:07,860 --> 01:08:10,120
Like they thought, oh, this is the chaplains leading this.

1074
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,580
This is, you know, we're going to walk two feet in the woods and we're all going to sit

1075
01:08:12,580 --> 01:08:14,520
down and eat marshmallows or something.

1076
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:21,380
And then, you know, halfway up the first mountain, they're like, mother, you know, they're just

1077
01:08:21,380 --> 01:08:23,740
like, what the heck is up with this?

1078
01:08:23,740 --> 01:08:25,500
This is not supposed to be like this.

1079
01:08:25,500 --> 01:08:28,460
And so there is that element of like shared suffering.

1080
01:08:28,460 --> 01:08:33,160
So this whole group, they're doing something hard, physically challenging.

1081
01:08:33,160 --> 01:08:37,540
We you know, we have this connecting piece that we built in there.

1082
01:08:37,540 --> 01:08:40,780
And so that begins to really build that.

1083
01:08:40,780 --> 01:08:46,140
And Anthony highlighted this already, but we do not let anyone take a cell phone.

1084
01:08:46,140 --> 01:08:48,280
Like they're forbidden to go.

1085
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:49,540
So they're off the grid.

1086
01:08:49,540 --> 01:08:54,760
And I had a few senior Marines, you know, try to pull rank on me and like, oh, I get

1087
01:08:54,760 --> 01:08:55,760
to bring my phone.

1088
01:08:55,760 --> 01:08:57,540
And I was like, no, you don't.

1089
01:08:57,540 --> 01:08:59,100
And they're like, no, I get to bring my phone.

1090
01:08:59,100 --> 01:09:00,500
And I'm like, no, you don't.

1091
01:09:00,500 --> 01:09:03,060
And he's like, well, I'm going to write a complaint to the general.

1092
01:09:03,060 --> 01:09:08,340
And I'm like, go ahead, because I trust me more senior people to you have come out here

1093
01:09:08,340 --> 01:09:10,980
without phones and you're not bringing your phone.

1094
01:09:10,980 --> 01:09:13,700
And he, so he was, you know, all, all upset about it.

1095
01:09:13,700 --> 01:09:17,500
But I'm like, at the end of the day, you're not bringing your phone because that violates

1096
01:09:17,500 --> 01:09:23,980
one of the premises of the trip, which is to get off the grid, to not be digitally distracted.

1097
01:09:23,980 --> 01:09:27,580
Because even if you get out there and you don't have cell coverage, you could still

1098
01:09:27,580 --> 01:09:31,220
download games or movies or just stuff to like mess around with.

1099
01:09:31,220 --> 01:09:33,140
And we don't want that to happen.

1100
01:09:33,140 --> 01:09:37,720
The classic example I'll give to people is like, go to the grocery store, get stuck in

1101
01:09:37,720 --> 01:09:39,140
line for two minutes.

1102
01:09:39,140 --> 01:09:41,700
And what does everybody in the grocery store line do?

1103
01:09:41,700 --> 01:09:44,940
They pull out their phone and scroll social media or mess around.

1104
01:09:44,940 --> 01:09:46,540
We don't want any of that in the woods.

1105
01:09:46,540 --> 01:09:50,820
We want you when you're bored, boredom is good.

1106
01:09:50,820 --> 01:09:52,980
Your brain needs to be bored.

1107
01:09:52,980 --> 01:09:57,460
And it's good because now that you're bored, you might actually talk to the people on this

1108
01:09:57,460 --> 01:10:00,580
trip and develop a connection with them.

1109
01:10:00,580 --> 01:10:03,300
So that sort of serves part of the purpose.

1110
01:10:03,300 --> 01:10:06,660
I'll share one last thing and then I'll let Anthony jump in.

1111
01:10:06,660 --> 01:10:12,360
There's also a developmental leadership program that we incorporate into this that was designed

1112
01:10:12,360 --> 01:10:17,380
by two Harvard psychologists, Bob Keegan and Lisa Leahy.

1113
01:10:17,380 --> 01:10:25,340
They're both on faculty at Harvard and they designed a system that is to help leaders

1114
01:10:25,340 --> 01:10:34,620
really uncover what might be keeping them stuck and to really like grow as human beings.

1115
01:10:34,620 --> 01:10:40,740
And so that program is built into what we do out in the woods.

1116
01:10:40,740 --> 01:10:45,620
And that also produces some amazing growth because it helps people like really kind of

1117
01:10:45,620 --> 01:10:54,580
go internal and reflect and think about what their life is about and make some changes

1118
01:10:54,580 --> 01:10:55,580
based on that.

1119
01:10:55,580 --> 01:10:59,660
And then they have some accountability with the other group when they leave the woods

1120
01:10:59,660 --> 01:11:02,060
to help ensure they're making those changes.

1121
01:11:02,060 --> 01:11:04,220
So that's just some of what goes on.

1122
01:11:04,220 --> 01:11:08,020
And like I said, Anthony can share more and there's a lot to it.

1123
01:11:08,020 --> 01:11:12,820
I mean, there's so many layers to this, but I'll be quiet now.

1124
01:11:12,820 --> 01:11:15,700
So I wish you wouldn't.

1125
01:11:15,700 --> 01:11:18,660
So there's the facilitation piece, right?

1126
01:11:18,660 --> 01:11:23,980
Brandon has alluded to much of the facilitation that he had and I've been witness to so many

1127
01:11:23,980 --> 01:11:28,100
hours of it that I could probably lead it maybe to a tenth of the degree that he does,

1128
01:11:28,100 --> 01:11:32,100
but I think I can make it work and I would succeed at it.

1129
01:11:32,100 --> 01:11:36,620
But the other component, the other entirety of this is outdoor education, as we call it.

1130
01:11:36,620 --> 01:11:41,780
So infantry in the Marine Corps spends arguably probably the most time in the field out of

1131
01:11:41,780 --> 01:11:43,620
anybody in the Marine Corps.

1132
01:11:43,620 --> 01:11:48,340
Maybe with recon and some other cats might spend as much time in the field as we do,

1133
01:11:48,340 --> 01:11:50,780
if not more, but there's not too many.

1134
01:11:50,780 --> 01:11:55,740
And so you would think that an infantry Marine would know their way around the backpack and

1135
01:11:55,740 --> 01:12:00,900
would know their way around hot spots when you're hiking and how to pack a pack and how

1136
01:12:00,900 --> 01:12:03,500
to set up kind of rooms in the house when you're camping.

1137
01:12:03,500 --> 01:12:04,780
But no, no, no, we don't.

1138
01:12:04,780 --> 01:12:06,180
OK, we're not taught any of that.

1139
01:12:06,180 --> 01:12:11,460
What we're taught to do is suffer, endure, deal with deal with more crap with less good

1140
01:12:11,460 --> 01:12:12,620
stuff.

1141
01:12:12,620 --> 01:12:13,780
That's what we're taught how to do.

1142
01:12:13,780 --> 01:12:17,500
We're taught to go out in the middle of the woods and just endure.

1143
01:12:17,500 --> 01:12:18,500
That's it.

1144
01:12:18,500 --> 01:12:23,180
So when military members come into the field, right, first of all, the first thing is we're

1145
01:12:23,180 --> 01:12:25,340
trying to break down that stigma of the field.

1146
01:12:25,340 --> 01:12:28,320
We're trying to create a new experience in its entirety.

1147
01:12:28,320 --> 01:12:31,660
So out of the gate, one of the things that Brandon does that I love is that there's no

1148
01:12:31,660 --> 01:12:32,660
rank.

1149
01:12:32,660 --> 01:12:34,820
You drop rank at the door to the chaplain's office.

1150
01:12:34,820 --> 01:12:37,700
When you come in, he says, Hi, I'm Brandon.

1151
01:12:37,700 --> 01:12:38,700
And they go, Well, sir.

1152
01:12:38,700 --> 01:12:42,020
And he says, Excuse me, I said I'm Brandon.

1153
01:12:42,020 --> 01:12:43,900
And that's how the rest of the trip goes.

1154
01:12:43,900 --> 01:12:46,200
OK, we drop rank and that's at the door.

1155
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:49,100
One is Bob Dylan, Sarah, Jeff.

1156
01:12:49,100 --> 01:12:50,100
We're all just people.

1157
01:12:50,100 --> 01:12:55,780
OK, and we're going to teach you by the numbers, although you may think you know what you're

1158
01:12:55,780 --> 01:12:59,700
doing, we're going to teach you by the numbers how to pack a pack, how to adjust the pack,

1159
01:12:59,700 --> 01:13:04,420
how to fit a pack, not so that you can endure, but so that you can thrive.

1160
01:13:04,420 --> 01:13:07,060
We want to teach you how to thrive in the wilderness.

1161
01:13:07,060 --> 01:13:11,040
When we are talking about cooking in the backcountry, you're not eating an MRE.

1162
01:13:11,040 --> 01:13:16,420
You're eating some dope meals in the backcountry that are prepared well in advance.

1163
01:13:16,420 --> 01:13:17,760
We have all of the materials.

1164
01:13:17,760 --> 01:13:18,760
We know how to cook it.

1165
01:13:18,760 --> 01:13:20,060
It's going to be delicious.

1166
01:13:20,060 --> 01:13:23,060
We're going to have a variety of different delicious foods in the outdoors that you've

1167
01:13:23,060 --> 01:13:24,540
never had before.

1168
01:13:24,540 --> 01:13:26,420
So we're going to eat as a community.

1169
01:13:26,420 --> 01:13:28,680
No one's going off sitting in the corner and eating.

1170
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:33,140
We're all going to eat as a community like we've been doing for thousands of years, for

1171
01:13:33,140 --> 01:13:35,100
hundreds of thousands of years.

1172
01:13:35,100 --> 01:13:37,740
And that community is going to bring all of us together even more.

1173
01:13:37,740 --> 01:13:38,740
It's going to bind us.

1174
01:13:38,740 --> 01:13:39,740
It's going to bond us.

1175
01:13:39,740 --> 01:13:41,860
It's going to do all these things that we wanted to do.

1176
01:13:41,860 --> 01:13:43,620
Again, outdoor education.

1177
01:13:43,620 --> 01:13:45,260
We're going to teach you how to thrive in the wilderness.

1178
01:13:45,260 --> 01:13:47,820
We're going to teach you all the little tricks that we know.

1179
01:13:47,820 --> 01:13:52,120
I've been guiding on and off for the last 10 years, hundreds of trips that I've been

1180
01:13:52,120 --> 01:13:53,380
on all around the world.

1181
01:13:53,380 --> 01:13:57,300
I'm pretty sure I've picked up a little bit more than the average person that's went on

1182
01:13:57,300 --> 01:13:58,980
a few field expeditions.

1183
01:13:58,980 --> 01:14:02,060
So out the gate, a lot of people kind of put their chest out and they're like, dude, I

1184
01:14:02,060 --> 01:14:03,300
know how to pack a pack.

1185
01:14:03,300 --> 01:14:04,300
I was on the AT once.

1186
01:14:04,300 --> 01:14:07,640
And it's like, all right, well, struggle through it if you want to.

1187
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:12,900
Or you can listen to something that I'm trying to pass to you that's trying to help you.

1188
01:14:12,900 --> 01:14:19,000
So we combine this wealth of knowledge that Brandon has and that the chaplains have with

1189
01:14:19,000 --> 01:14:24,100
a wealth of knowledge from in, honestly, I learned everything about the outdoors from

1190
01:14:24,100 --> 01:14:28,060
my civilian counterparts, from entities like Outdoor Bound.

1191
01:14:28,060 --> 01:14:33,160
I learned everything that I know about the outdoors from that because they have the ones

1192
01:14:33,160 --> 01:14:34,780
that have been out here doing this.

1193
01:14:34,780 --> 01:14:41,020
I'm currently at a wilderness base camp right now by a company called Solo getting my recertification

1194
01:14:41,020 --> 01:14:44,300
for my wilderness first responder certification.

1195
01:14:44,300 --> 01:14:48,180
And we learned so many things that are so applicable for the military that they just

1196
01:14:48,180 --> 01:14:52,000
don't take the time and patience to teach service members.

1197
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:55,880
And so we're bringing them a lot of that knowledge so that when they go back, there's two things

1198
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:57,240
that we're hoping, right?

1199
01:14:57,240 --> 01:15:00,340
We're hoping that when they go back, they thrive when they're out in the field.

1200
01:15:00,340 --> 01:15:02,840
They've learned so much new stuff that they can bring to the field with them and they're

1201
01:15:02,840 --> 01:15:04,940
going to thrive and they're going to be able to teach other people.

1202
01:15:04,940 --> 01:15:08,580
And two is that, Brandon, how many kids do you have?

1203
01:15:08,580 --> 01:15:09,580
Sorry, seven.

1204
01:15:09,580 --> 01:15:10,580
Seven.

1205
01:15:10,580 --> 01:15:11,580
Seven.

1206
01:15:11,580 --> 01:15:14,220
Brandon has seven children and he takes all of them camping, right?

1207
01:15:14,220 --> 01:15:19,020
So he goes with a kindergarten class basically and he goes out and he goes camping with all

1208
01:15:19,020 --> 01:15:20,640
of his kids and his wife.

1209
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:22,140
We're hoping they do that.

1210
01:15:22,140 --> 01:15:25,900
We're hoping that they learn something new that is so cool and exciting for them and

1211
01:15:25,900 --> 01:15:29,860
they feel comfortable doing it that they go home and they bring their families into that

1212
01:15:29,860 --> 01:15:34,340
so that when they're sitting around the fire with their families at night, they go, hey,

1213
01:15:34,340 --> 01:15:37,340
sweetheart, what's your high and your low of the day?

1214
01:15:37,340 --> 01:15:38,620
And when she goes, what does that mean?

1215
01:15:38,620 --> 01:15:40,140
He's like, you know, what's your high and your low?

1216
01:15:40,140 --> 01:15:42,680
What's your highest moment of the day and what's your lowest moment of the day?

1217
01:15:42,680 --> 01:15:44,780
So that they're doing what Brandon said earlier.

1218
01:15:44,780 --> 01:15:48,420
They're communicating at a level that they weren't before because that's what we need

1219
01:15:48,420 --> 01:15:50,380
as human beings, right?

1220
01:15:50,380 --> 01:15:55,620
So all of these things, you could take, we could take up the next 40 minutes, hour, two

1221
01:15:55,620 --> 01:15:59,020
hours, two days, and it will not do it justice, right?

1222
01:15:59,020 --> 01:16:02,880
You have to come into the woods with us for seven days or five days for you to get the

1223
01:16:02,880 --> 01:16:04,700
totality of the experience.

1224
01:16:04,700 --> 01:16:08,780
But if you take the last 15 minutes of the conversation, you smash it into a sandwich,

1225
01:16:08,780 --> 01:16:10,980
that's what I'm going to feed you.

1226
01:16:10,980 --> 01:16:11,980
Brilliant.

1227
01:16:11,980 --> 01:16:18,340
Well, Brandon, going back to you, another area where I've heard a lot of programs fail

1228
01:16:18,340 --> 01:16:19,860
is for two reasons.

1229
01:16:19,860 --> 01:16:25,620
Firstly, they have this amazing experience and then there's no kind of carry on afterwards.

1230
01:16:25,620 --> 01:16:30,300
And then secondly, the fact that a lot of times the families haven't had any of this

1231
01:16:30,300 --> 01:16:35,260
care so then they go back and they might feel miraculously healed and walk through with

1232
01:16:35,260 --> 01:16:41,780
jazz hands, but your family didn't have that kind of decompression phase or the healing

1233
01:16:41,780 --> 01:16:42,780
for themselves.

1234
01:16:42,780 --> 01:16:47,100
So talk to me about the importance of including the family in some of these areas.

1235
01:16:47,100 --> 01:16:53,300
Yeah, that's a great segue into kind of my favorite thing and what Anthony and I are

1236
01:16:53,300 --> 01:16:54,340
doing in three weeks.

1237
01:16:54,340 --> 01:17:02,780
So when we started doing this in North Carolina, these are infantry, Marines and mostly male

1238
01:17:02,780 --> 01:17:06,500
that are kind of coming out there, but I live on base.

1239
01:17:06,500 --> 01:17:14,020
And so my neighbors, it's all chatting up people talking to them and my wife's telling

1240
01:17:14,020 --> 01:17:16,160
them, oh yeah, Brandon's out in the woods again.

1241
01:17:16,160 --> 01:17:19,900
He's out in the woods again, which happened probably too many times.

1242
01:17:19,900 --> 01:17:24,100
But some of the spouses, some of the wives would be like, that is so cool.

1243
01:17:24,100 --> 01:17:25,780
I would love to go do that.

1244
01:17:25,780 --> 01:17:26,780
You should do this for couples.

1245
01:17:26,780 --> 01:17:27,780
And I was like, ooh, I don't know.

1246
01:17:27,780 --> 01:17:31,700
I don't know if I want to do this for couples.

1247
01:17:31,700 --> 01:17:35,620
I've done lots of marriage retreats, hundreds and hundreds of them, but it's always at a

1248
01:17:35,620 --> 01:17:41,180
really nice hotel and it's kind of like a spa type environment.

1249
01:17:41,180 --> 01:17:44,780
Like taking couples into the back country, like that's a little scary.

1250
01:17:44,780 --> 01:17:50,320
So decided to do it, rolled the dice and like, okay, we're going to see how this goes.

1251
01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:57,620
And we did the first trip with couples, so took married couples out into the wilderness.

1252
01:17:57,620 --> 01:18:03,740
And it was absolutely the most incredible thing that I've done professionally.

1253
01:18:03,740 --> 01:18:06,460
Like it was just amazing to watch what happened.

1254
01:18:06,460 --> 01:18:13,240
Cause some of the couples came and they weren't necessarily on the super hard struggle bus,

1255
01:18:13,240 --> 01:18:15,140
but there were some difficulties.

1256
01:18:15,140 --> 01:18:19,140
There were challenges in their family dynamic, in their relationship.

1257
01:18:19,140 --> 01:18:28,460
And when they took the time to come off the grid for five days and follow a similar program,

1258
01:18:28,460 --> 01:18:35,500
the connection that it built with those couples was, it was so impactful.

1259
01:18:35,500 --> 01:18:37,820
And then I was like, well, okay, we did it once.

1260
01:18:37,820 --> 01:18:38,820
That was pretty cool.

1261
01:18:38,820 --> 01:18:41,540
I wonder if it'll happen if we do it again.

1262
01:18:41,540 --> 01:18:46,180
So we did it again and the same experience happened.

1263
01:18:46,180 --> 01:18:50,980
The couples were just, they were blown away by what it did for them.

1264
01:18:50,980 --> 01:18:55,540
And then in turn, it blew me away to watch the dynamic as it happened.

1265
01:18:55,540 --> 01:18:56,540
So you're right.

1266
01:18:56,540 --> 01:19:03,020
There is a lot of emphasis placed on the individual Marine, the male or female who's gone and

1267
01:19:03,020 --> 01:19:06,220
served and so a lot of resources go to them.

1268
01:19:06,220 --> 01:19:12,460
But on the flip side, if the spouse isn't getting some kind of healing support in their

1269
01:19:12,460 --> 01:19:15,120
own world, it's really hard.

1270
01:19:15,120 --> 01:19:22,160
Like it's like they're not equally yoked anymore to use maybe that language.

1271
01:19:22,160 --> 01:19:28,320
And so by doing this for couples, it helps them be equal in the sense that they're both

1272
01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:32,380
experiencing this really powerful thing together.

1273
01:19:32,380 --> 01:19:34,180
And it's probably my favorite thing.

1274
01:19:34,180 --> 01:19:38,900
And so I'm super excited that the event that Anthony and I get to go do together is one

1275
01:19:38,900 --> 01:19:40,980
of these events for couples.

1276
01:19:40,980 --> 01:19:46,500
And when Anthony and I did it before, he had a serious girlfriend, but now he's coming

1277
01:19:46,500 --> 01:19:47,660
out as a married man.

1278
01:19:47,660 --> 01:19:50,020
So that's even more fun.

1279
01:19:50,020 --> 01:19:53,260
This is a success story right there.

1280
01:19:53,260 --> 01:19:58,780
Yeah, I'm going to kind of take this opportunity to kind of close my section out here, if that's

1281
01:19:58,780 --> 01:19:59,780
all right with you guys.

1282
01:19:59,780 --> 01:20:03,020
You guys can continue if you have time, but I've got to get back to class here.

1283
01:20:03,020 --> 01:20:06,580
They've been gracious enough to let me step out for this long.

1284
01:20:06,580 --> 01:20:11,660
As Brandon said, I was not a married man before.

1285
01:20:11,660 --> 01:20:12,660
Now I am.

1286
01:20:12,660 --> 01:20:18,540
Brandon came out to Park City, Utah this past year and married me and my wife, which was

1287
01:20:18,540 --> 01:20:23,940
an amazing thing, kind of a full circle, I guess, moment for us to kind of really solidify

1288
01:20:23,940 --> 01:20:26,140
our bond together kind of forever.

1289
01:20:26,140 --> 01:20:30,340
Not just me and my wife, but Brandon is in my wedding photos, which hang on my wall in

1290
01:20:30,340 --> 01:20:31,340
my home.

1291
01:20:31,340 --> 01:20:38,220
And so we are now bonded forever through that awesome thing that happened before the universe

1292
01:20:38,220 --> 01:20:41,140
and God and all of my friends and all of my family.

1293
01:20:41,140 --> 01:20:42,580
And my wife is also in the Navy.

1294
01:20:42,580 --> 01:20:47,140
She's a naval officer and she's currently studying to be a orthopedic surgeon.

1295
01:20:47,140 --> 01:20:49,220
She's in a residency at Duke.

1296
01:20:49,220 --> 01:20:53,900
So obviously it means so much to us for us to be married by Brandon.

1297
01:20:53,900 --> 01:21:00,580
Now I'll kind of use that as a segue to the married couples that we come that we're fortunate

1298
01:21:00,580 --> 01:21:04,820
enough to take out in the wilderness.

1299
01:21:04,820 --> 01:21:08,540
I can really remember one time we would set up repels.

1300
01:21:08,540 --> 01:21:10,940
And so you're going to be repelling next to your wife.

1301
01:21:10,940 --> 01:21:16,800
And I can really remember one time where this old salt dog is looking at his wife and she's

1302
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:18,220
not repelling.

1303
01:21:18,220 --> 01:21:22,100
And he's like he's wanting to yell at her like one of his Marines.

1304
01:21:22,100 --> 01:21:27,300
And so I go up and I'm like, hey, why don't you just kind of like kind of coach her down

1305
01:21:27,300 --> 01:21:28,300
through it?

1306
01:21:28,300 --> 01:21:32,420
Not like you would one of your Marines, but like with like some compassion and kind of

1307
01:21:32,420 --> 01:21:37,180
just like take a step by step with her off the ledge and then step by step go down with

1308
01:21:37,180 --> 01:21:38,180
her.

1309
01:21:38,180 --> 01:21:39,180
Right.

1310
01:21:39,180 --> 01:21:40,180
So he listened.

1311
01:21:40,180 --> 01:21:41,180
They did.

1312
01:21:41,180 --> 01:21:45,020
And that was one of those moments where they came back later and they were like, you know,

1313
01:21:45,020 --> 01:21:49,420
this was the first time that we've actually had to work through something that was physically

1314
01:21:49,420 --> 01:21:51,060
an adversity for us.

1315
01:21:51,060 --> 01:21:56,260
We've had so much adversity with him deploying and with me having to continue my career with

1316
01:21:56,260 --> 01:21:57,740
four kids in the house.

1317
01:21:57,740 --> 01:22:00,980
But we've never had like a physical adversity where we had to work together and show each

1318
01:22:00,980 --> 01:22:02,820
other compassion for something.

1319
01:22:02,820 --> 01:22:07,120
And so I think like these kind of elements are the things that are that are very profound

1320
01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:08,500
for couples when they come out.

1321
01:22:08,500 --> 01:22:13,020
You know, it's not every day that you get to have a have a compassionate moment for

1322
01:22:13,020 --> 01:22:14,020
your spouse.

1323
01:22:14,020 --> 01:22:15,020
Right.

1324
01:22:15,020 --> 01:22:18,780
Especially if you've been married for 30 years and you've been through three war deployments

1325
01:22:18,780 --> 01:22:21,060
and you know, you don't have that opportunity.

1326
01:22:21,060 --> 01:22:24,860
And so what Brandon's doing is he's creating those physical moments as well.

1327
01:22:24,860 --> 01:22:28,780
But then he's creating those reflective moments around the fire later, which allow them to

1328
01:22:28,780 --> 01:22:30,580
see it for what it is.

1329
01:22:30,580 --> 01:22:33,120
And so those are very, very special to me as well.

1330
01:22:33,120 --> 01:22:37,500
And I'm very excited to kind of, you know, be a part of one of them as the guide, but

1331
01:22:37,500 --> 01:22:40,000
also as a married individual now.

1332
01:22:40,000 --> 01:22:44,940
You know, and unfortunately, my wife will probably be on her 15th day of night's night

1333
01:22:44,940 --> 01:22:47,300
surgeries so she won't be there.

1334
01:22:47,300 --> 01:22:49,940
But I am I am excited for that.

1335
01:22:49,940 --> 01:22:53,940
And I am excited for the for the future of the programs that were that we're creating

1336
01:22:53,940 --> 01:22:56,980
and we're continuing to create for the military.

1337
01:22:56,980 --> 01:23:00,500
And I hope that, you know, Brandon, Brandon has great aspirations to do these kind of

1338
01:23:00,500 --> 01:23:05,940
trips for civilians as well, you know, and to offer to offer his expertise, to offer

1339
01:23:05,940 --> 01:23:10,700
his toolbox to civilian entities that want to have these experiences, whether they be

1340
01:23:10,700 --> 01:23:11,900
married or not.

1341
01:23:11,900 --> 01:23:15,660
And so, you know, I have great hopes for that coming here in the future, you know, utilizing

1342
01:23:15,660 --> 01:23:20,240
some of the relationships that we have with different entities to create these types of

1343
01:23:20,240 --> 01:23:25,340
profound experiences in the wilderness where, you know, we all end up coming out of there

1344
01:23:25,340 --> 01:23:31,380
and thinking, well, you know, maybe this is the original church, you know, maybe the wilderness

1345
01:23:31,380 --> 01:23:32,660
is the original church.

1346
01:23:32,660 --> 01:23:39,140
You know, I feel more connected to whatever it is that created me when I'm here and when

1347
01:23:39,140 --> 01:23:43,900
I'm as Brandon said, when I'm experiencing relationships with other human beings.

1348
01:23:43,900 --> 01:23:47,420
And so I feel like the more people that get to go out and they get to do that, they come

1349
01:23:47,420 --> 01:23:53,020
back and they feel so relieved spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically, because

1350
01:23:53,020 --> 01:23:57,100
they went through this thing that is just so connected to us as human beings that we've

1351
01:23:57,100 --> 01:23:59,100
been doing forever.

1352
01:23:59,100 --> 01:24:03,220
So I hope that it continues forever.

1353
01:24:03,220 --> 01:24:07,540
And I think that's my last piece, unless there's any other finalizing questions.

1354
01:24:07,540 --> 01:24:10,420
No, as far as questions, I don't really have any others.

1355
01:24:10,420 --> 01:24:14,860
I know we got to be mindful of your time, but I just want to thank you, Anthony, for

1356
01:24:14,860 --> 01:24:15,860
now.

1357
01:24:15,860 --> 01:24:18,660
I've been talking to Brandon for a little bit, but thank you so much, mate, for coming

1358
01:24:18,660 --> 01:24:20,420
on the Behind the Shield podcast.

1359
01:24:20,420 --> 01:24:22,680
Yeah, I had a fantastic time.

1360
01:24:22,680 --> 01:24:27,500
It's been so great to chat with you and great to see my good friend and mentors face and

1361
01:24:27,500 --> 01:24:29,300
chat with him as always.

1362
01:24:29,300 --> 01:24:33,660
And just to continue this synergy that him and I have cultivated and created.

1363
01:24:33,660 --> 01:24:35,540
And I'll let you two gents get to it again.

1364
01:24:35,540 --> 01:24:37,820
I got to get back to this this wilderness first.

1365
01:24:37,820 --> 01:24:41,220
We're going to go do practical application of compound fractures in the rain.

1366
01:24:41,220 --> 01:24:42,220
So it's going to be great.

1367
01:24:42,220 --> 01:24:46,940
We're going to be we're going to be splinting with sticks and tree branches and all kinds

1368
01:24:46,940 --> 01:24:47,940
of hippie shit.

1369
01:24:47,940 --> 01:24:50,500
So it's going to be awesome.

1370
01:24:50,500 --> 01:24:51,500
Thank you guys so much.

1371
01:24:51,500 --> 01:24:52,500
I appreciate you both.

1372
01:24:52,500 --> 01:24:54,820
And I'll talk to you guys again soon.

1373
01:24:54,820 --> 01:24:55,820
Thanks, Anthony.

1374
01:24:55,820 --> 01:24:56,820
All right.

1375
01:24:56,820 --> 01:25:02,820
Well, Brandon, I got one more area that I wanted to kind of unwrap with you and then

1376
01:25:02,820 --> 01:25:06,500
we go some closing questions and I'll be mindful of your time and that you go as well.

1377
01:25:06,500 --> 01:25:14,480
But before we do, we've talked about, you know, the the the genesis of the actual healing

1378
01:25:14,480 --> 01:25:18,020
conversation when it comes to mental health.

1379
01:25:18,020 --> 01:25:21,180
And obviously we talk about a lot of the tools that are available to people now, especially

1380
01:25:21,180 --> 01:25:23,100
the one that you're offering.

1381
01:25:23,100 --> 01:25:28,460
One area that I've also really kind of been educated and learned from through this work

1382
01:25:28,460 --> 01:25:34,900
is a lot of the conversation 10 years ago about suicide was it's selfish, it's cowardly.

1383
01:25:34,900 --> 01:25:36,700
How could they?

1384
01:25:36,700 --> 01:25:39,860
And then I start listening to hundreds of people that were right there, you know, in

1385
01:25:39,860 --> 01:25:40,860
these conversations.

1386
01:25:40,860 --> 01:25:46,100
And I realize over and over again, you obviously have that they want the suffering to end.

1387
01:25:46,100 --> 01:25:49,060
I mean, that's a pretty obvious part of this.

1388
01:25:49,060 --> 01:25:54,980
But what I realized as well is there was a miswiring of the brain and a shift of an individual's

1389
01:25:54,980 --> 01:25:56,660
reality.

1390
01:25:56,660 --> 01:26:02,700
And over and over again, I heard basically, it's a paraphrase that that person genuinely

1391
01:26:02,700 --> 01:26:07,660
believed at that moment that they were a burden to their loved ones, to their family.

1392
01:26:07,660 --> 01:26:10,360
And so if you reframe it that way, that's your reality.

1393
01:26:10,360 --> 01:26:15,060
And you've signed up for a profession where you would die for complete strangers and you

1394
01:26:15,060 --> 01:26:22,020
truly feel that you're a burden that really reframes, in my opinion, suicide is very courageous

1395
01:26:22,020 --> 01:26:23,580
and very selfless.

1396
01:26:23,580 --> 01:26:25,980
It's wrong through the through healthy eyes.

1397
01:26:25,980 --> 01:26:28,540
But through that moment, it's the opposite.

1398
01:26:28,540 --> 01:26:32,980
So trying to remove some of that shame about that conversation in the first place.

1399
01:26:32,980 --> 01:26:37,540
But what have you seen as far as that element factoring into some of the people that you've

1400
01:26:37,540 --> 01:26:39,740
had conversations with?

1401
01:26:39,740 --> 01:26:44,340
And also, what about the the kind of broken element?

1402
01:26:44,340 --> 01:26:48,320
Because I mean, you add in all the things we talked about and then factor in sleep deprivation

1403
01:26:48,320 --> 01:26:52,140
and alcohol and drug use and psychiatric side effects.

1404
01:26:52,140 --> 01:26:57,740
You know, you have this perfect storm to shift the reality in an individual the same as it

1405
01:26:57,740 --> 01:27:00,020
would in a schizophrenics mind.

1406
01:27:00,020 --> 01:27:01,340
Yeah.

1407
01:27:01,340 --> 01:27:09,940
And I agree with you about this this evolution in suicide, that it's not this purely selfish

1408
01:27:09,940 --> 01:27:10,940
thing.

1409
01:27:10,940 --> 01:27:14,740
It's from my experience, what an individual when they get to that point where they're

1410
01:27:14,740 --> 01:27:23,880
thinking like, I really want to die, it's usually around ending their own personal suffering.

1411
01:27:23,880 --> 01:27:25,100
But it's beyond that.

1412
01:27:25,100 --> 01:27:31,820
They feel like you like you so eloquently said that they are a burden to the people

1413
01:27:31,820 --> 01:27:36,580
around them and that the people around them would be so much better off if they were no

1414
01:27:36,580 --> 01:27:38,180
longer in the world.

1415
01:27:38,180 --> 01:27:41,660
Now if you ask those people, they're going to be like, oh, well, you know, no, that's

1416
01:27:41,660 --> 01:27:42,860
so wrong.

1417
01:27:42,860 --> 01:27:51,780
But in that moment, because of the changes in their psychology, they believe that 100%

1418
01:27:51,780 --> 01:27:58,420
that life would be better if I wasn't in it, that I am creating more problems than I am

1419
01:27:58,420 --> 01:27:59,660
helping with.

1420
01:27:59,660 --> 01:28:06,120
And so I'm going to do everyone a favor by taking my life and helping them break free

1421
01:28:06,120 --> 01:28:11,900
of that is one of the challenges of helping people with, you know, deal with that suicide

1422
01:28:11,900 --> 01:28:16,780
and getting to a place where they don't see themselves as that burden that just needs

1423
01:28:16,780 --> 01:28:21,980
to end it because, you know, they're just creating more harm in the world than they're

1424
01:28:21,980 --> 01:28:22,980
creating good.

1425
01:28:22,980 --> 01:28:25,960
And that is one of the challenges.

1426
01:28:25,960 --> 01:28:32,340
But you're right, it's moved beyond like suicide is something you do when you're weak.

1427
01:28:32,340 --> 01:28:35,380
That's not been my experience with the folks that I've worked with.

1428
01:28:35,380 --> 01:28:36,380
Yeah, yeah.

1429
01:28:36,380 --> 01:28:40,340
Well, I feel like this is what needs to be on some of the posters, you know, like if,

1430
01:28:40,340 --> 01:28:44,020
you know, if you're struggling, reach out, give me a call.

1431
01:28:44,020 --> 01:28:45,020
What does that even mean?

1432
01:28:45,020 --> 01:28:47,620
It's like saying, oh, I want to be fit or I want to look good.

1433
01:28:47,620 --> 01:28:51,300
Very, very kind of, you know, generic words.

1434
01:28:51,300 --> 01:28:56,100
But I feel like, you know, the conversation needs to be if your brain is starting to tell

1435
01:28:56,100 --> 01:28:59,060
you that you're a burden, that's a big red flag.

1436
01:28:59,060 --> 01:29:03,880
If you're hearing your friends say those words, that's a big red flag.

1437
01:29:03,880 --> 01:29:07,960
Because I mean, you know, as far as like someone struggling, I'm sure you probably heard this

1438
01:29:07,960 --> 01:29:08,960
a lot.

1439
01:29:08,960 --> 01:29:13,220
The number of times I've heard people once they'd made the decision to take their own

1440
01:29:13,220 --> 01:29:18,340
life and it might be a week, two weeks away, they all of a sudden felt a sense of peace,

1441
01:29:18,340 --> 01:29:22,980
again, because of that kind of dystopian view that their brain is telling them.

1442
01:29:22,980 --> 01:29:26,580
And that's where you get that, you know, I just spoke to him yesterday.

1443
01:29:26,580 --> 01:29:27,580
Everything seemed fine.

1444
01:29:27,580 --> 01:29:28,580
How did I miss it?

1445
01:29:28,580 --> 01:29:31,460
Now you've got the survivor going through stuff too.

1446
01:29:31,460 --> 01:29:32,980
Yeah.

1447
01:29:32,980 --> 01:29:36,860
And so that's one of those things to really like pay close attention to.

1448
01:29:36,860 --> 01:29:43,540
And one of the suicide prevention intervention programs, what they kind of frame this way

1449
01:29:43,540 --> 01:29:48,060
of like interacting with people is to view those things that we might call a warning

1450
01:29:48,060 --> 01:29:50,980
sign instead as an invitation.

1451
01:29:50,980 --> 01:29:54,860
So when you see somebody do something that you like, hmm, that's kind of interesting.

1452
01:29:54,860 --> 01:29:57,020
I wonder why they're doing that.

1453
01:29:57,020 --> 01:30:01,780
You take that as an invitation to begin asking them about things that are going on in their

1454
01:30:01,780 --> 01:30:09,180
life and to very clearly and directly ask them if they are having thoughts of suicide.

1455
01:30:09,180 --> 01:30:13,220
Because one of the myths that exists out there is like, oh, I don't want to put it in their

1456
01:30:13,220 --> 01:30:14,220
head.

1457
01:30:14,220 --> 01:30:17,700
Like I don't want to like talk to them about suicide and put it in their head.

1458
01:30:17,700 --> 01:30:19,940
Trust me, you're not putting anything in their head.

1459
01:30:19,940 --> 01:30:24,400
They're already thinking about it and have been thinking about it for months and months

1460
01:30:24,400 --> 01:30:26,100
and maybe even years.

1461
01:30:26,100 --> 01:30:32,140
And by you naming it, by just naming it and saying, hey, I've seen you do this and this

1462
01:30:32,140 --> 01:30:33,140
and this.

1463
01:30:33,140 --> 01:30:37,220
And sometimes when people are doing this and this and this, that means they're having thoughts

1464
01:30:37,220 --> 01:30:38,220
of suicide.

1465
01:30:38,220 --> 01:30:40,980
Are you thinking about suicide?

1466
01:30:40,980 --> 01:30:44,180
And there can be a great sense of relief on their part.

1467
01:30:44,180 --> 01:30:45,940
Like, oh, okay.

1468
01:30:45,940 --> 01:30:46,940
Wow.

1469
01:30:46,940 --> 01:30:47,940
I can actually talk about it.

1470
01:30:47,940 --> 01:30:52,700
I can tell you that I'm having those thoughts because one of the places where people get

1471
01:30:52,700 --> 01:30:58,980
into trouble with suicide is they isolate themselves.

1472
01:30:58,980 --> 01:31:02,220
Because they feel like they're a burden, because they won't talk to anybody about what they're

1473
01:31:02,220 --> 01:31:10,300
struggling with, that isolation leads to some really, really poor outcomes as they view

1474
01:31:10,300 --> 01:31:13,860
their life as just, I'm just a burden on people.

1475
01:31:13,860 --> 01:31:15,260
And so they won't tell anyone.

1476
01:31:15,260 --> 01:31:20,100
But if someone names it and begins addressing it to them, well, now they'll open up maybe

1477
01:31:20,100 --> 01:31:22,280
hopefully and they'll begin to share that.

1478
01:31:22,280 --> 01:31:29,620
And once you share a burden, the odds of someone choosing life rather than death increases

1479
01:31:29,620 --> 01:31:34,060
just to be able to share some of that internal burden that they've been struggling with for

1480
01:31:34,060 --> 01:31:35,500
so long.

1481
01:31:35,500 --> 01:31:41,500
Once they name it, it decreases the likelihood of suicide.

1482
01:31:41,500 --> 01:31:46,780
What about vulnerability in the person who is trying to help someone who seems to be

1483
01:31:46,780 --> 01:31:47,780
struggling?

1484
01:31:47,780 --> 01:31:52,740
And I've seen again through my own experiences and obviously listening to some very experienced

1485
01:31:52,740 --> 01:32:00,060
people, is that opening the conversation with, let me tell you about some of the dark places

1486
01:32:00,060 --> 01:32:03,100
I was in and a couple of things that helped.

1487
01:32:03,100 --> 01:32:05,100
That seems to really then create that.

1488
01:32:05,100 --> 01:32:08,580
And sadly, this phrase has got a kind of weird connotation to it these days, but that safe

1489
01:32:08,580 --> 01:32:10,180
space, like it's okay.

1490
01:32:10,180 --> 01:32:12,060
I'm on the same wavelength as you.

1491
01:32:12,060 --> 01:32:16,780
The same way as I've noticed even in conversations, if I talk to someone who swears like a sailor,

1492
01:32:16,780 --> 01:32:19,100
I tend to curse more and my accent changes a bit.

1493
01:32:19,100 --> 01:32:26,260
And if it's someone very posh, then I don't swear and my accent, you find that frequency.

1494
01:32:26,260 --> 01:32:30,780
So talk to me about that as far as initiating that conversation maybe with a story of your

1495
01:32:30,780 --> 01:32:33,940
own.

1496
01:32:33,940 --> 01:32:39,560
And I think that is a really profound way to come at this because one of the things

1497
01:32:39,560 --> 01:32:47,220
that people who are in this place of thinking about suicide is they look at other people's

1498
01:32:47,220 --> 01:32:51,340
lives, they see them as like, if I'm having thoughts of suicide and I see you, James,

1499
01:32:51,340 --> 01:32:53,940
I'm like, oh, James would never understand.

1500
01:32:53,940 --> 01:32:56,060
He's got his whole life is put together.

1501
01:32:56,060 --> 01:32:58,380
He's this brilliant person.

1502
01:32:58,380 --> 01:33:00,060
I'm just this piece of crap.

1503
01:33:00,060 --> 01:33:05,500
And so if you approach me and you say, hey, Brandon, I've noticed you're doing these few

1504
01:33:05,500 --> 01:33:08,340
things and I'm kind of worried about you.

1505
01:33:08,340 --> 01:33:15,300
And two years ago, I had this experience and I was really in this dark place.

1506
01:33:15,300 --> 01:33:17,820
Well, now it normalizes what I'm going through.

1507
01:33:17,820 --> 01:33:21,660
I'm not just this freak person that's weak and can't handle things.

1508
01:33:21,660 --> 01:33:26,900
I look at you and I'm like, oh, well, you've had struggles too.

1509
01:33:26,900 --> 01:33:28,160
And it normalizes it.

1510
01:33:28,160 --> 01:33:32,740
And once you normalize the struggle, then it leads people to being more open.

1511
01:33:32,740 --> 01:33:38,260
So being vulnerable and sharing some of your story, the caveat that I would put to it is

1512
01:33:38,260 --> 01:33:44,020
you don't want to say, oh, I know exactly what you're going through because even if

1513
01:33:44,020 --> 01:33:49,300
you've struggled with suicide or those thoughts, you don't know exactly any person's experience.

1514
01:33:49,300 --> 01:33:51,340
So I would not say it like that.

1515
01:33:51,340 --> 01:33:54,600
I would just say, hey, I've been in my own dark place as well.

1516
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:59,940
And this is a little bit of my story to normalize those feelings that they might be having.

1517
01:33:59,940 --> 01:34:02,540
And then hopefully that leads them to open up.

1518
01:34:02,540 --> 01:34:03,780
Yeah, absolutely.

1519
01:34:03,780 --> 01:34:09,020
Well, one thing I meant to ask earlier, and it kind of got lost in the conversation.

1520
01:34:09,020 --> 01:34:13,100
I've only had this conversation a few times, but I was listening to a Joe Rogan podcast

1521
01:34:13,100 --> 01:34:17,120
like about a year ago now, and there was a guru on there.

1522
01:34:17,120 --> 01:34:22,420
And the conversation was going back and forth and he was talking about all people are good

1523
01:34:22,420 --> 01:34:23,420
people.

1524
01:34:23,420 --> 01:34:26,200
And then I think Joe said something like, yeah, unless you own a pharmaceutical company

1525
01:34:26,200 --> 01:34:29,020
or something, which is exactly what I would have said too.

1526
01:34:29,020 --> 01:34:31,020
And then he said, no, them too.

1527
01:34:31,020 --> 01:34:33,500
And he said, they have the same struggles.

1528
01:34:33,500 --> 01:34:35,540
So I never thought about this before.

1529
01:34:35,540 --> 01:34:41,020
But some of the, let's say that the really tyrannical people, the heads of cigarette

1530
01:34:41,020 --> 01:34:47,100
companies and drug companies and the politicians that make terrible decisions that send a lot

1531
01:34:47,100 --> 01:34:50,880
of our men and women in uniform back home in coffins.

1532
01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:55,060
And yet apparently they seem to be able to sleep soundly.

1533
01:34:55,060 --> 01:34:56,220
And that's the extreme version.

1534
01:34:56,220 --> 01:35:00,540
But then you've also got the kind of really poor leaders, the micromanager, the fragile

1535
01:35:00,540 --> 01:35:02,820
ego types too.

1536
01:35:02,820 --> 01:35:06,660
You have a pretty interesting lens on over multiple decades.

1537
01:35:06,660 --> 01:35:18,100
What is your perception, if any, of mental health slash unaddressed trauma in the leadership

1538
01:35:18,100 --> 01:35:24,340
space, either create in a good leader or a poor leader based on that individual's ability

1539
01:35:24,340 --> 01:35:30,140
to address their own demons, for lack of a better word.

1540
01:35:30,140 --> 01:35:37,420
I think as I look at the leaders that I've had within the Marine Corps and in the Navy,

1541
01:35:37,420 --> 01:35:44,300
working for Navy and Marine Corps leaders, the best leaders tend to be those that are

1542
01:35:44,300 --> 01:35:48,320
able to have some vulnerability and insight.

1543
01:35:48,320 --> 01:35:51,620
So I'll share a quick anecdote, an interesting piece.

1544
01:35:51,620 --> 01:35:55,820
So one of the things that we developed in North Carolina with the Marine Corps was this

1545
01:35:55,820 --> 01:36:00,700
leadership development course where we would take Marines out into the woods, not for like

1546
01:36:00,700 --> 01:36:04,520
the really extended period of time, but for a shorter period of time and would do some

1547
01:36:04,520 --> 01:36:09,180
rock climbing and would do this leadership development exercise with them.

1548
01:36:09,180 --> 01:36:15,500
And the question that was posed to them is what's the one thing you need to develop in

1549
01:36:15,500 --> 01:36:17,820
order to become a better leader?

1550
01:36:17,820 --> 01:36:21,220
And so they would put down some attribute and they would begin to work on it.

1551
01:36:21,220 --> 01:36:27,040
And this process revealed an assumption that they would have that was keeping them from

1552
01:36:27,040 --> 01:36:29,500
developing this attribute.

1553
01:36:29,500 --> 01:36:35,300
And probably 80% of the Marine leaders shared the same assumption.

1554
01:36:35,300 --> 01:36:42,560
And the assumption was this, if I'm vulnerable, I'll be a poor leader.

1555
01:36:42,560 --> 01:36:47,740
And so that lack of them being willing to be vulnerable was leading to them not being

1556
01:36:47,740 --> 01:36:49,260
an effective leader.

1557
01:36:49,260 --> 01:36:54,500
And as they began to see, like actually vulnerability is not a weakness.

1558
01:36:54,500 --> 01:36:56,020
Vulnerability is a strength.

1559
01:36:56,020 --> 01:37:00,660
And when I had them reflect on the leaders that they actually trusted and respected the

1560
01:37:00,660 --> 01:37:06,580
most, it was always the leaders that were willing to be vulnerable and willing to, not

1561
01:37:06,580 --> 01:37:13,180
like inappropriately like sharing some really stuff that wouldn't, but this image of perfection

1562
01:37:13,180 --> 01:37:15,620
that I am perfect as a leader.

1563
01:37:15,620 --> 01:37:19,500
That is one of the worst ways that a leader can come across.

1564
01:37:19,500 --> 01:37:26,620
And so the ones that are able to have what I would call appropriate vulnerability, there's

1565
01:37:26,620 --> 01:37:28,740
a great book called Getting Naked.

1566
01:37:28,740 --> 01:37:34,500
It's not about taking your clothes off, but it's actually about in your role as a leader,

1567
01:37:34,500 --> 01:37:39,640
learning how to be appropriately vulnerable with the people that you lead because it inspires

1568
01:37:39,640 --> 01:37:40,900
confidence in them.

1569
01:37:40,900 --> 01:37:43,740
It inspires them to want to follow you.

1570
01:37:43,740 --> 01:37:45,940
I don't know if that answered your question or not.

1571
01:37:45,940 --> 01:37:46,940
No it did.

1572
01:37:46,940 --> 01:37:47,940
Yeah.

1573
01:37:47,940 --> 01:37:48,940
I think this is it.

1574
01:37:48,940 --> 01:37:51,700
I mean, I just never thought of that getting in the way, but you think about it on the

1575
01:37:51,700 --> 01:37:57,320
extreme level again, someone whose products are killing many, many Americans, there has

1576
01:37:57,320 --> 01:38:03,580
to be mental ill health to be okay with that, to be okay cashing your checks from that.

1577
01:38:03,580 --> 01:38:04,900
So that's the extreme one.

1578
01:38:04,900 --> 01:38:10,500
But then if I look at the fragile egos and the poor leaders that I've worked under, it

1579
01:38:10,500 --> 01:38:14,260
is that lack of vulnerability, the lack of humility, the lack of looking in the mirror

1580
01:38:14,260 --> 01:38:20,780
and going, as Anthony was saying, being a pirate, always learning rather than standing

1581
01:38:20,780 --> 01:38:24,620
there beating your chest, exuding perfection as you said.

1582
01:38:24,620 --> 01:38:30,340
So it may not be trauma specifically, but I mean, I think that even the leadership and

1583
01:38:30,340 --> 01:38:33,820
the mental health conversation have interesting parallels.

1584
01:38:33,820 --> 01:38:35,460
Yeah.

1585
01:38:35,460 --> 01:38:41,380
One other insight I would share about leadership too is that leaders that view the people that

1586
01:38:41,380 --> 01:38:48,740
work for them as objects tend to have the most toxic workplaces, whether that's in a

1587
01:38:48,740 --> 01:38:53,940
military institution or in a corporate or nonprofit environment.

1588
01:38:53,940 --> 01:38:58,860
If they see the people that work for them as objects in order to meet their specific

1589
01:38:58,860 --> 01:39:05,060
need or their goal, whether that's their unit goal or their personal goal, those are toxic

1590
01:39:05,060 --> 01:39:06,860
places to be.

1591
01:39:06,860 --> 01:39:13,220
Leaders that view the people that work for them and the people who they work for as humans

1592
01:39:13,220 --> 01:39:19,780
that matter like they matter, that have goals, that have challenges, that have needs, they

1593
01:39:19,780 --> 01:39:25,220
see them as like a person and they don't objectify them.

1594
01:39:25,220 --> 01:39:34,520
Those are your best leaders because they approach individuals as like a fully human and it's

1595
01:39:34,520 --> 01:39:35,700
just a different dynamic.

1596
01:39:35,700 --> 01:39:40,860
You think about a company that treats its people as objects, those people who work for

1597
01:39:40,860 --> 01:39:43,820
that company will only put in the bare minimum.

1598
01:39:43,820 --> 01:39:49,180
They'll only work in order to not get fired and to maybe get a paycheck.

1599
01:39:49,180 --> 01:39:56,260
But if their leader really sees them like they matter and that they are a person, then

1600
01:39:56,260 --> 01:40:02,300
those individuals in that organization, they'll work incredibly hard.

1601
01:40:02,300 --> 01:40:08,540
They will go above and beyond because they believe in that leader, but they believe in

1602
01:40:08,540 --> 01:40:12,220
the vision that that leader is putting out there.

1603
01:40:12,220 --> 01:40:18,020
It's so interesting we're having this conversation now because in the fire service in America,

1604
01:40:18,020 --> 01:40:24,460
more often than not, a lot of our firefighters are working 56 hours a week and this is basically

1605
01:40:24,460 --> 01:40:29,540
every third day you're awake for 24 hours or half awake waiting for a call.

1606
01:40:29,540 --> 01:40:35,420
What we found now in 2024 is not only just an absolute epidemic of ill health and mental

1607
01:40:35,420 --> 01:40:39,340
ill health and suicides and overdoses and cancers and all the things that you would

1608
01:40:39,340 --> 01:40:45,140
expect from that because as they become short staff, now they force overtime.

1609
01:40:45,140 --> 01:40:49,700
So now these firefighters in one week are working 80 hours sometimes, every two or three

1610
01:40:49,700 --> 01:40:50,700
weeks.

1611
01:40:50,700 --> 01:40:51,700
Yeah.

1612
01:40:51,700 --> 01:40:56,260
The public image of what we do is we sit around and we play jokes and play cards and go on

1613
01:40:56,260 --> 01:40:58,020
the occasional fire.

1614
01:40:58,020 --> 01:41:02,080
But the other side of this conversation is now it's created the recruitment nightmare

1615
01:41:02,080 --> 01:41:07,060
that we've got in police and fire and it's down to what you're saying.

1616
01:41:07,060 --> 01:41:12,820
They've asked the first responders to do more and more and more with less and less and less.

1617
01:41:12,820 --> 01:41:18,700
I would argue that a lot of agencies do view their first responders as just an object.

1618
01:41:18,700 --> 01:41:24,140
When I've tried for a long time now to get this conversation started, there's pushback

1619
01:41:24,140 --> 01:41:28,580
and I've highlighted recently the people that are voting against any improvements for this

1620
01:41:28,580 --> 01:41:32,300
work 40 hours a week and they go to bed every night.

1621
01:41:32,300 --> 01:41:35,220
It's a complete disassociation.

1622
01:41:35,220 --> 01:41:41,220
So this is exactly what people need to hear is if we want to solve the recruitment crisis

1623
01:41:41,220 --> 01:41:47,260
in the military or in the fire or police, you have to create an environment that A,

1624
01:41:47,260 --> 01:41:51,780
is built to nurture and train those people to a high level, but also will have their

1625
01:41:51,780 --> 01:41:52,780
back.

1626
01:41:52,780 --> 01:41:56,860
They can't suddenly leave a country they fought in for 20 years without any questions and

1627
01:41:56,860 --> 01:41:59,540
all their equipment and all their friends back there.

1628
01:41:59,540 --> 01:42:04,740
Or the police officer that's shot that gets fired a year later because of medical, I mean,

1629
01:42:04,740 --> 01:42:06,540
the organizational betrayal too.

1630
01:42:06,540 --> 01:42:12,000
So these all factor in to create an environment of inspired young men and women that really

1631
01:42:12,000 --> 01:42:16,820
want to serve and therefore the delivery of service, the level to protect this country

1632
01:42:16,820 --> 01:42:20,180
will return to where it's supposed to again.

1633
01:42:20,180 --> 01:42:22,020
Yeah, exactly.

1634
01:42:22,020 --> 01:42:26,820
And so maybe the last comment that I have on this is so dealing with going back to the

1635
01:42:26,820 --> 01:42:28,980
suicide conversation.

1636
01:42:28,980 --> 01:42:37,340
So having in the probably in the thousands of interventions with young men and women

1637
01:42:37,340 --> 01:42:44,980
and not all of them young, some of them were in their forties, Marines and sailors that

1638
01:42:44,980 --> 01:42:50,380
were having thoughts of suicide and not just like little thoughts, but like they had concrete

1639
01:42:50,380 --> 01:42:54,260
plans with action steps to go do.

1640
01:42:54,260 --> 01:43:00,060
As I spent a lot of time in that space trying to help these individuals work through what

1641
01:43:00,060 --> 01:43:05,420
they needed to do so that we could help them be healthy and whole and not struggle with

1642
01:43:05,420 --> 01:43:06,900
suicide.

1643
01:43:06,900 --> 01:43:12,620
One of the things that I learned was all of the individual work that I was doing with

1644
01:43:12,620 --> 01:43:19,620
these men and women was sometimes for not if they were in a toxic culture.

1645
01:43:19,620 --> 01:43:24,140
Like I could take them out, it's sort of like there's a poison well, you take the child

1646
01:43:24,140 --> 01:43:29,500
away from the poison well, you feed them healthy things, give them healthy water and then they're

1647
01:43:29,500 --> 01:43:30,900
back and they're healthy.

1648
01:43:30,900 --> 01:43:34,620
And then you put them back, you send them back to the poison well, well pretty soon

1649
01:43:34,620 --> 01:43:37,660
they're going to get poisoned again and then they die.

1650
01:43:37,660 --> 01:43:43,260
And a lot of times in the military there would be not I'm not saying the entire military,

1651
01:43:43,260 --> 01:43:49,740
but there would be pockets where it was so toxic it didn't really do any good to take

1652
01:43:49,740 --> 01:43:54,260
the Marine or sailor out of there and treat them and get them healthy because if you sent

1653
01:43:54,260 --> 01:43:57,180
them back they were going to be back in that cycle.

1654
01:43:57,180 --> 01:44:03,260
And so I sort of shifted a lot of what I was doing professionally to work with leaders

1655
01:44:03,260 --> 01:44:11,820
in those organizations to create healthy cultures to get rid of this toxicity that existed.

1656
01:44:11,820 --> 01:44:16,280
And a lot of it had to do with objectification of the people that were there.

1657
01:44:16,280 --> 01:44:20,820
When you could move them away from seeing their people as objects, it just changed the

1658
01:44:20,820 --> 01:44:23,940
culture like it just changed the culture of the unit.

1659
01:44:23,940 --> 01:44:28,460
And the irony is there was this worry that oh it's too soft, we're not going to be able

1660
01:44:28,460 --> 01:44:32,820
to hold people accountable and that's not what it meant at all.

1661
01:44:32,820 --> 01:44:36,460
Or that they weren't going to perform at the level that we need them to perform.

1662
01:44:36,460 --> 01:44:39,100
And in fact it was exactly the opposite.

1663
01:44:39,100 --> 01:44:41,220
They performed better.

1664
01:44:41,220 --> 01:44:46,140
They performed at much higher levels when they were in this place where they weren't

1665
01:44:46,140 --> 01:44:50,380
being treated as objects by their military unit.

1666
01:44:50,380 --> 01:44:55,380
And so now I'm doing that within the business world too but it's just really fascinating

1667
01:44:55,380 --> 01:44:57,580
work to be in.

1668
01:44:57,580 --> 01:44:58,580
Absolutely.

1669
01:44:58,580 --> 01:45:01,900
That was a beautiful kind of rounding of that conversation.

1670
01:45:01,900 --> 01:45:05,300
The first of my closing questions is normally a book but you gave us a book already.

1671
01:45:05,300 --> 01:45:08,020
So what about films and documentaries?

1672
01:45:08,020 --> 01:45:13,860
Any of those that you'd love to recommend?

1673
01:45:13,860 --> 01:45:14,860
Films.

1674
01:45:14,860 --> 01:45:18,060
I'm more of a book guy to be honest.

1675
01:45:18,060 --> 01:45:25,280
Like Anthony will joke with you that I usually go through six or seven books a month.

1676
01:45:25,280 --> 01:45:30,180
And there's a few, maybe if you're okay I'd recommend maybe one more book.

1677
01:45:30,180 --> 01:45:33,180
Yeah, several if you'd like.

1678
01:45:33,180 --> 01:45:38,940
A couple of my go-tos around this area around helping leaders like develop healthy cultures

1679
01:45:38,940 --> 01:45:43,500
is called The Anatomy of Peace.

1680
01:45:43,500 --> 01:45:48,260
It's not by an individual but it's by an organization called the Arbinger Institute.

1681
01:45:48,260 --> 01:45:50,340
And it's fantastic.

1682
01:45:50,340 --> 01:45:56,220
It's probably my top five go-to books that I recommend for people to read as a way to

1683
01:45:56,220 --> 01:45:58,480
develop as a leader.

1684
01:45:58,480 --> 01:46:01,540
I love The Comfort Crisis.

1685
01:46:01,540 --> 01:46:08,020
Michael Easter's book is, I was rucking before I read that book and then after rucking I

1686
01:46:08,020 --> 01:46:11,140
was like, after reading that I'm like rucking even more.

1687
01:46:11,140 --> 01:46:16,220
And he highlights just so many of the things about what Anthony and I have been doing in

1688
01:46:16,220 --> 01:46:23,340
the wild and backs it up with the research about why being in the wild and doing hard

1689
01:46:23,340 --> 01:46:30,180
things and doing these really challenging things are good for you and the power of community.

1690
01:46:30,180 --> 01:46:33,580
I love Sebastian Junger's writing.

1691
01:46:33,580 --> 01:46:36,100
Tribe is definitely one of my favorite books.

1692
01:46:36,100 --> 01:46:42,700
If you haven't read that, that definitely needs to be on the top five of any book list.

1693
01:46:42,700 --> 01:46:51,620
And for documentary, his film, Sebastian Junger's that he made a few years ago, Restrepo that

1694
01:46:51,620 --> 01:47:00,140
won an Academy Award is absolutely fantastic to highlight what the Marines and that that

1695
01:47:00,140 --> 01:47:05,260
case soldiers went through in Afghanistan.

1696
01:47:05,260 --> 01:47:09,540
And I think you kind of referred to it a little bit, but the pullout of Afghanistan a few

1697
01:47:09,540 --> 01:47:12,980
years ago, how traumatic that was for the military.

1698
01:47:12,980 --> 01:47:17,660
I was stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time with the Marine Corps and there were quite

1699
01:47:17,660 --> 01:47:24,740
a few Marines who were killed in that evacuation as it was happening as that bomb went off

1700
01:47:24,740 --> 01:47:26,120
there in Afghanistan.

1701
01:47:26,120 --> 01:47:31,820
And there was just this real deep sense of betrayal about what we had been doing within

1702
01:47:31,820 --> 01:47:35,380
the Marine Corps when we abruptly left Afghanistan.

1703
01:47:35,380 --> 01:47:42,740
That was one of those traumas, you know, maybe little tea, but there was a sense of betrayal.

1704
01:47:42,740 --> 01:47:48,820
I mean, that was hard for a lot of folks to wrestle with with that the way that ended.

1705
01:47:48,820 --> 01:47:53,340
That's obviously a conversation I have with quite a few of the war fighters on here.

1706
01:47:53,340 --> 01:47:59,380
And it's usually the same answer is there's definitely acknowledgement by most that they

1707
01:47:59,380 --> 01:48:00,380
did some good.

1708
01:48:00,380 --> 01:48:02,660
You know, they were obviously they were protecting people.

1709
01:48:02,660 --> 01:48:06,620
They were, you know, I heard stories from, you know, vet and resurgence helping indigenous

1710
01:48:06,620 --> 01:48:12,140
animals, you know, pets and donkeys and, you know, I mean, just amazing kindness and compassion,

1711
01:48:12,140 --> 01:48:14,900
schools being built and hospitals and all the rest.

1712
01:48:14,900 --> 01:48:15,900
So you have that.

1713
01:48:15,900 --> 01:48:19,380
So, you know, these these men and women can look themselves in the mirror and go, you

1714
01:48:19,380 --> 01:48:23,540
know, I did what I was asked to do and, you know, at that moment, we made it better.

1715
01:48:23,540 --> 01:48:29,460
But conversely, you know, the the why were we there or at least why we there for so long?

1716
01:48:29,460 --> 01:48:33,300
You know, a lot of the special forces groups said we should have been in and out within

1717
01:48:33,300 --> 01:48:37,300
a year and a half, taken out the key targets, taken out the training camps and then left

1718
01:48:37,300 --> 01:48:38,300
again.

1719
01:48:38,300 --> 01:48:42,500
So there's obviously that element of you create enemies if you stay there too long,

1720
01:48:42,500 --> 01:48:43,500
too.

1721
01:48:43,500 --> 01:48:48,100
So it is a nuanced conversation, but it's a conversation needs to be had.

1722
01:48:48,100 --> 01:48:53,060
You know, if you were in Ramadi and you lost all your friends and then Ramadi ends up falling

1723
01:48:53,060 --> 01:48:57,400
the enemy's hands again after we leave or you were in Afghanistan, you know, your interpreters

1724
01:48:57,400 --> 01:48:58,400
were all killed.

1725
01:48:58,400 --> 01:49:01,900
I mean, this is a this is an absolute part of this conversation.

1726
01:49:01,900 --> 01:49:02,900
And it's that betrayal.

1727
01:49:02,900 --> 01:49:04,180
That's a Sebastian's book.

1728
01:49:04,180 --> 01:49:06,140
And I've had him on multiple times here.

1729
01:49:06,140 --> 01:49:08,260
You know, you were a part of a tribe.

1730
01:49:08,260 --> 01:49:10,260
Your biggest tribe is the United States.

1731
01:49:10,260 --> 01:49:12,180
And then they pulled the rug from under you.

1732
01:49:12,180 --> 01:49:14,980
So it has to be in this conversation.

1733
01:49:14,980 --> 01:49:17,860
Yeah, I love I love his book.

1734
01:49:17,860 --> 01:49:21,380
And I absolutely love those thoughts.

1735
01:49:21,380 --> 01:49:26,460
So the one movie that I thought was pretty fascinating that came out this year.

1736
01:49:26,460 --> 01:49:28,060
Now I just had a blank on the name of it.

1737
01:49:28,060 --> 01:49:29,940
It was a Guy Ritchie's movie.

1738
01:49:29,940 --> 01:49:32,660
I thought that was fantastic.

1739
01:49:32,660 --> 01:49:38,740
It was about to pull out in Afghanistan and he went back to save, you know, save his interpreter.

1740
01:49:38,740 --> 01:49:39,740
The Covenant.

1741
01:49:39,740 --> 01:49:40,740
Yeah, yeah.

1742
01:49:40,740 --> 01:49:44,340
Yeah, that was a good film.

1743
01:49:44,340 --> 01:49:48,820
So next to the closing questions, is there a person that you would recommend to come

1744
01:49:48,820 --> 01:49:53,980
on this podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated

1745
01:49:53,980 --> 01:49:56,340
professions of the world?

1746
01:49:56,340 --> 01:50:04,180
Yes, the gentleman that I referred to earlier, Robert Grant, he's a clinical psychologist

1747
01:50:04,180 --> 01:50:12,280
and he is probably one of the foremost experts in trauma that I've met.

1748
01:50:12,280 --> 01:50:17,780
He responded for a lot of years to natural disasters and he would go all over the world

1749
01:50:17,780 --> 01:50:27,580
to work with responders to genocide, tsunamis, you know, you name the event and he was probably

1750
01:50:27,580 --> 01:50:29,560
in and around it.

1751
01:50:29,560 --> 01:50:34,940
And so I actually invited him to come to North Carolina a few years ago to train chaplains

1752
01:50:34,940 --> 01:50:39,180
in the process that he does to help people deal with trauma.

1753
01:50:39,180 --> 01:50:44,380
He was doing work with the Marine Corps in the early 2000s and also with the Navy.

1754
01:50:44,380 --> 01:50:53,980
And then before my battalion deployed to Iraq in 2007, we flew him out to 29 Palms, California,

1755
01:50:53,980 --> 01:51:00,060
and he came out and presented to our battalion leadership, to all the staff NCOs and officers

1756
01:51:00,060 --> 01:51:07,500
to help them know how to walk their Marines through those traumatic experiences that they

1757
01:51:07,500 --> 01:51:09,900
were going to face.

1758
01:51:09,900 --> 01:51:10,900
So he's fantastic.

1759
01:51:10,900 --> 01:51:15,060
I'll see if I can dig up his email and forward it to you.

1760
01:51:15,060 --> 01:51:20,060
But yeah, if you wanted to have someone on your podcast who's an expert in trauma and

1761
01:51:20,060 --> 01:51:27,140
who has the credibility from life experience to really bring those stories, he would be

1762
01:51:27,140 --> 01:51:28,140
the guy.

1763
01:51:28,140 --> 01:51:29,140
I would love that.

1764
01:51:29,140 --> 01:51:30,140
So let's make that happen.

1765
01:51:30,140 --> 01:51:31,140
Thank you so much.

1766
01:51:31,140 --> 01:51:32,140
Yeah.

1767
01:51:32,140 --> 01:51:33,140
All right.

1768
01:51:33,140 --> 01:51:36,020
Well, then the last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find the both

1769
01:51:36,020 --> 01:51:43,260
of you and obviously learn more about the program, what do you do to decompress?

1770
01:51:43,260 --> 01:51:48,700
I try to take my own advice and go to the woods.

1771
01:51:48,700 --> 01:51:52,580
Over the past few years, a lot of the times I'm in the woods, it's kind of their professional

1772
01:51:52,580 --> 01:51:53,580
link.

1773
01:51:53,580 --> 01:51:57,460
I'm there taking leading guiding groups, which is you're on the clock.

1774
01:51:57,460 --> 01:51:59,660
So while I love it, it's doing that.

1775
01:51:59,660 --> 01:52:02,420
It's also like, oh, I'm responsible for all these people.

1776
01:52:02,420 --> 01:52:06,700
So it's not quite the decompression time that maybe I would like to have.

1777
01:52:06,700 --> 01:52:11,940
But I have done that a few times over the past few years as well.

1778
01:52:11,940 --> 01:52:19,940
Last summer, I was in central California up in the Sierras and it was with a group and

1779
01:52:19,940 --> 01:52:24,700
we went there for four days and it was amazing.

1780
01:52:24,700 --> 01:52:28,180
And one of the things that I like to do that some of the other folks you probably read

1781
01:52:28,180 --> 01:52:34,980
or listen to is to do a solo while I'm out there and do a fasting solo where you're out

1782
01:52:34,980 --> 01:52:42,260
for a period of time, at least a day or two, just by yourself, not with anyone around.

1783
01:52:42,260 --> 01:52:48,100
And you do it in a fasted state, no food, plenty of water, but no food.

1784
01:52:48,100 --> 01:52:52,860
And just think deeply about life and watch the stars at night.

1785
01:52:52,860 --> 01:52:57,540
And that's probably one of my go-tos.

1786
01:52:57,540 --> 01:53:01,900
And then the other is my family, as was mentioned earlier.

1787
01:53:01,900 --> 01:53:04,740
My wife and I have been married almost 28 years.

1788
01:53:04,740 --> 01:53:11,220
We have seven kids and getting to spend time with them is definitely one of the highlights

1789
01:53:11,220 --> 01:53:12,880
of my day.

1790
01:53:12,880 --> 01:53:19,220
Probably my favorite restoration event at this point is reading my eight-year-old daughter

1791
01:53:19,220 --> 01:53:24,660
stories at night, like reading right now, we're reading one of the fudge books, if you

1792
01:53:24,660 --> 01:53:28,620
ever read those about the little boy named fudge and she loves that.

1793
01:53:28,620 --> 01:53:34,260
So that's definitely one of those pieces is spending time with my family.

1794
01:53:34,260 --> 01:53:35,260
Beautiful.

1795
01:53:35,260 --> 01:53:37,180
Well, you just made me think about something.

1796
01:53:37,180 --> 01:53:44,340
I think I've asked people before, but I've got a bonus boy who's about 23, stepson, and

1797
01:53:44,340 --> 01:53:48,700
my son is 16, almost 17, 17 in August.

1798
01:53:48,700 --> 01:53:52,820
And so for the very first time I'm having this realization, it may not be next year

1799
01:53:52,820 --> 01:53:57,700
because he's got community college, so unless he gets picked up on some scholarship out

1800
01:53:57,700 --> 01:54:01,660
of nowhere, it makes sense to do the prereqs locally.

1801
01:54:01,660 --> 01:54:07,180
However, I realized that as a parent, if you've been doing it correctly, you've literally

1802
01:54:07,180 --> 01:54:14,420
poured yourself into your child or children for, in my case, 18 years, and you should

1803
01:54:14,420 --> 01:54:15,420
be exhausted.

1804
01:54:15,420 --> 01:54:20,020
So there should be a kind of excitement for that child to go off into the world and then

1805
01:54:20,020 --> 01:54:26,620
some excitement for maybe some rediscovering with your partner and what that looks like.

1806
01:54:26,620 --> 01:54:30,820
But I also realized, again, as far as purpose, the same as transitioning from the military

1807
01:54:30,820 --> 01:54:35,300
or the first responders, as a parent, you had this purpose and one day your purpose

1808
01:54:35,300 --> 01:54:39,020
is going to walk out the door and go to college, go to the military, go to wherever.

1809
01:54:39,020 --> 01:54:42,740
And they might come back at some point periodically.

1810
01:54:42,740 --> 01:54:48,020
So you've got this lens of the military, you've got the lens of the family side too.

1811
01:54:48,020 --> 01:54:55,020
What is the impact of the empty nest on some of the midlife crisis or struggles of some

1812
01:54:55,020 --> 01:54:58,060
of our people around this age?

1813
01:54:58,060 --> 01:55:02,340
I think that is a great question.

1814
01:55:02,340 --> 01:55:13,780
And what I have witnessed is it can be a big impact and sometimes a not good way because,

1815
01:55:13,780 --> 01:55:20,140
for example, on the Marine Corps and Navy side, these leaders, especially as they reach

1816
01:55:20,140 --> 01:55:27,540
that retirement age and have done 25, 30 years in the Marine Corps or the Navy, a lot of

1817
01:55:27,540 --> 01:55:29,380
that time has been operational.

1818
01:55:29,380 --> 01:55:31,900
They've been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.

1819
01:55:31,900 --> 01:55:33,880
They've been on ships out to sea.

1820
01:55:33,880 --> 01:55:40,440
And so their spouse, the focus was on maintaining the home and getting the kids and all those

1821
01:55:40,440 --> 01:55:46,100
things and then now too you're having more dual career, which even adds more stress to

1822
01:55:46,100 --> 01:55:47,100
it.

1823
01:55:47,100 --> 01:55:53,000
But then at year 22, 23, the kids leave and you've spent so much time trying to survive

1824
01:55:53,000 --> 01:55:58,460
this military life, you look over at your spouse and you're like, wow, I don't even

1825
01:55:58,460 --> 01:56:01,420
know you anymore.

1826
01:56:01,420 --> 01:56:09,780
And the healthy couples recognize that and begin to work on reigniting that sense of

1827
01:56:09,780 --> 01:56:14,540
love and connection and passion that they once had once the kids are gone.

1828
01:56:14,540 --> 01:56:17,580
And that takes intentional effort.

1829
01:56:17,580 --> 01:56:22,740
And so one of the things that I still do for the military is lead marriage enrichment retreats.

1830
01:56:22,740 --> 01:56:24,500
And so we'll have the range of couples.

1831
01:56:24,500 --> 01:56:27,980
A lot of the couples will come and they've been married a couple of years.

1832
01:56:27,980 --> 01:56:34,980
And then there'll be this whole other group of couples that will have been married 23,

1833
01:56:34,980 --> 01:56:41,460
24 years and they're actually having a harder time because they're doing exactly what you've

1834
01:56:41,460 --> 01:56:42,460
referred to.

1835
01:56:42,460 --> 01:56:49,100
They're having to renegotiate the relationship after the kids leave and they're realizing,

1836
01:56:49,100 --> 01:56:56,500
wow, we're feeling a little lost here because the kids were so much of the focus of the

1837
01:56:56,500 --> 01:56:58,780
last 20 plus years.

1838
01:56:58,780 --> 01:57:03,060
And it can be exciting for them to rediscover that.

1839
01:57:03,060 --> 01:57:09,020
And it can also be really hard as some couples unfortunately decide, yeah, I'm kind of done.

1840
01:57:09,020 --> 01:57:12,740
I don't want to put in the work to get it back to where it could be.

1841
01:57:12,740 --> 01:57:14,740
Yeah, this is an interesting perspective.

1842
01:57:14,740 --> 01:57:18,780
I'd never really pondered until I got close to that age and had this realization like,

1843
01:57:18,780 --> 01:57:21,740
oh man, I'm going to be really lonely when he's gone.

1844
01:57:21,740 --> 01:57:25,140
And of course, my wife will be here and that will be beautiful and it will reframe it.

1845
01:57:25,140 --> 01:57:29,300
But you have to share your love in technically eight ways.

1846
01:57:29,300 --> 01:57:35,260
And then obviously it diminishes as they walk out the door, but now you're down to two.

1847
01:57:35,260 --> 01:57:39,780
It's an interesting conversation that I hadn't had reflected on too much, but I think it

1848
01:57:39,780 --> 01:57:40,780
needs to be brought in.

1849
01:57:40,780 --> 01:57:49,220
Yeah, my recommendation would be go do a marriage enrichment experience together.

1850
01:57:49,220 --> 01:57:55,060
Go do a weekend or something where it's intentional about your relationship.

1851
01:57:55,060 --> 01:57:57,660
You can go on a vacation together and that's awesome.

1852
01:57:57,660 --> 01:57:58,660
Those are great.

1853
01:57:58,660 --> 01:58:03,740
I just went on a couple's trip together earlier this year and that was amazing.

1854
01:58:03,740 --> 01:58:09,340
And the retreats can be really good because they bring in a structured process that sort

1855
01:58:09,340 --> 01:58:13,660
of like, you know, I don't want to use the word force, but it kind of does.

1856
01:58:13,660 --> 01:58:19,500
It sort of forces the individuals in the relationship to start having conversations that maybe they

1857
01:58:19,500 --> 01:58:20,960
haven't been having.

1858
01:58:20,960 --> 01:58:25,540
And so you've got this weekend, you know, typically that's carved out.

1859
01:58:25,540 --> 01:58:28,980
It's like this space for you and your spouse.

1860
01:58:28,980 --> 01:58:36,900
And then on the retreat itself, you know, it's structured so that you'll have conversations

1861
01:58:36,900 --> 01:58:41,300
and that you'll go deep with each other and rediscover some things that may be of line

1862
01:58:41,300 --> 01:58:45,940
dormant, you know, that have gone dormant over the past, you know, years as the focus

1863
01:58:45,940 --> 01:58:50,540
has been on raising a family, which is, you know, rightly so, you know, kids takes, it

1864
01:58:50,540 --> 01:58:56,340
takes a lot of energy to bring up young people these days and especially to help them navigate

1865
01:58:56,340 --> 01:59:02,340
all of the challenges in this modern world with all of the things, you know, digital,

1866
01:59:02,340 --> 01:59:05,220
the digital life and navigating all that.

1867
01:59:05,220 --> 01:59:08,580
You probably spend a whole other podcast talking about that, but yeah.

1868
01:59:08,580 --> 01:59:09,580
Brilliant.

1869
01:59:09,580 --> 01:59:11,020
Well, I appreciate your perspective.

1870
01:59:11,020 --> 01:59:12,020
All right.

1871
01:59:12,020 --> 01:59:17,580
Well, then last thing, the Wilderness Program, where can people learn about that?

1872
01:59:17,580 --> 01:59:21,820
And then let's talk about where people can find you on social media or anywhere else

1873
01:59:21,820 --> 01:59:22,820
as well.

1874
01:59:22,820 --> 01:59:23,820
Yeah.

1875
01:59:23,820 --> 01:59:30,460
So we have the general sketch or outline of it is on our website, resetcoaching.com.

1876
01:59:30,460 --> 01:59:37,140
R-E-S-E-T coaching all together, resetcoaching.com.

1877
01:59:37,140 --> 01:59:38,600
We highlighted on there.

1878
01:59:38,600 --> 01:59:46,060
We also are in the final stages of forming a nonprofit to bring this work to more veterans

1879
01:59:46,060 --> 01:59:49,060
and potentially first responders too.

1880
01:59:49,060 --> 01:59:54,540
The website is still a little bit under construction, but it's a nonprofit called Veterans in the

1881
01:59:54,540 --> 01:59:55,880
Wild.

1882
01:59:55,880 --> 02:00:00,140
And so one of the things that I've recognized is while the active duty component has a lot

1883
02:00:00,140 --> 02:00:06,460
of great resources, once someone has served and they've been out a year or two, they don't

1884
02:00:06,460 --> 02:00:10,940
have the same level of ability to reach out for those services.

1885
02:00:10,940 --> 02:00:16,860
And as you probably know, as you've talked to lots of people about combat stress injury

1886
02:00:16,860 --> 02:00:21,780
and these kinds of things, a lot of times they don't actually manifest themselves until

1887
02:00:21,780 --> 02:00:28,260
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine years later after their service.

1888
02:00:28,260 --> 02:00:31,580
They've been out for a while and they can't figure out why they're having some struggles

1889
02:00:31,580 --> 02:00:34,420
or they manifest themselves at different times in life.

1890
02:00:34,420 --> 02:00:40,140
And so we want to create the ability for veterans to be able to engage in this wilderness-based

1891
02:00:40,140 --> 02:00:47,220
type event after they've been out for a little while, because maybe that's when they need

1892
02:00:47,220 --> 02:00:50,620
it more than when they were on active duty.

1893
02:00:50,620 --> 02:00:55,500
And what about where to find you on social media, LinkedIn, those kinds of places?

1894
02:00:55,500 --> 02:00:58,700
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn.

1895
02:00:58,700 --> 02:01:03,140
Brandon Harding, I think Brandon Harding is on LinkedIn.

1896
02:01:03,140 --> 02:01:08,460
I think there's a famous bodybuilder from England named Brandon Harding too, but I'm

1897
02:01:08,460 --> 02:01:09,940
on LinkedIn.

1898
02:01:09,940 --> 02:01:18,860
On Instagram, it's Brandon.s.harding and it's a public profile on Instagram, Brandon.s.harding

1899
02:01:18,860 --> 02:01:20,540
on Instagram.

1900
02:01:20,540 --> 02:01:23,460
Those two places are probably the easiest ways to track me down.

1901
02:01:23,460 --> 02:01:24,460
Beautiful.

1902
02:01:24,460 --> 02:01:28,540
Yeah, and I know Anthony is on LinkedIn and I think his Instagram, because it was in front

1903
02:01:28,540 --> 02:01:33,020
of us before, was a.j.droz, D-R-O-Z.

1904
02:01:33,020 --> 02:01:35,740
So for anyone listening, that's how you can find him as well.

1905
02:01:35,740 --> 02:01:37,940
Well, Brandon, I want to say thank you so much.

1906
02:01:37,940 --> 02:01:41,660
I mean, this was, you know, obviously we've been planning this for quite a few months

1907
02:01:41,660 --> 02:01:44,260
now, but this was absolutely worth the coordination.

1908
02:01:44,260 --> 02:01:49,140
I mean, the two perspectives that you guys have coupled with, you know, some pretty traumatic

1909
02:01:49,140 --> 02:01:51,940
experiences early in life, I think has been invaluable.

1910
02:01:51,940 --> 02:01:56,260
And what you're doing now makes a thousand percent of sense to me.

1911
02:01:56,260 --> 02:02:00,140
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1912
02:02:00,140 --> 02:02:01,940
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1913
02:02:01,940 --> 02:02:03,500
Well, thank you, James.

1914
02:02:03,500 --> 02:02:04,980
I really appreciate this.

1915
02:02:04,980 --> 02:02:07,060
It's been a great conversation.

1916
02:02:07,060 --> 02:02:11,340
I love talking about the things that we covered today.

1917
02:02:11,340 --> 02:02:12,340
You know, I could keep going.

1918
02:02:12,340 --> 02:02:15,340
So but I'm honored to be able to come on your podcast today.

1919
02:02:15,340 --> 02:02:37,700
Thank you very much.