I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new
sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast and
that is Rescue One CBD. For any of you who have
listened to this podcast for the last eight years
you would have heard my own personal journey
from using prescription pills after a knee surgery
to finding CBD and having incredible success
with that. Now I'm sure everyone listening is
fully aware that we have an epidemic when it
comes to the use of nicotine pouches, dip and
other products. Now to combat this, John from
Rescue 1 has developed a nicotine -free pouch
called the Rip Pouch. It's the first and only
pouch that contains CBG. nootropics and b vitamins
for both energy and mental clarity and as with
all of their products is tested to ensure it
is 0 .000 percent thc free so completely trusted
for anyone in uniform and they always send a
drug test with their products just to give you
guys peace of mind Now the pre -sale for this
incredible product has just begun and goes on
till October 1st. So if you go to rescue1cbd
.com you can register for the pre -sale and make
sure it ships the moment it is available. Now,
on top of all that, Rescue One is offering you,
the listener of the Behind the Shield podcast,
15 % off your order if you use the code BTS,
as in Behind the Shield. And you can find all
of their products. You can find all of the testing
and understand why this truly is a product that
you can trust by going to rescueonecbd .com.
And you can listen to my conversation with John
on episode 1011 of the Behind the Shield podcast.
This episode is sponsored by Bubz Naturals, yet
another company that I tracked down to bring
on as a sponsor because I myself love their products.
They are offering you the audience of the Behind
the Shield podcast a 20 % discount. But before
we get to that, I do want to highlight a few
of the products that I use myself. Firstly, collagen.
I am about to turn 50, and so my hair, my skin,
my nails, not really a big concern when I was
younger, definitely a lot more of a concern now.
However, where I've really seen the impact is
joint health and gut health, and I've been blown
away that when I'm consistent using collagen,
Bubz Collagen in this case, I see a massive improvement
in both. Another area, I drink coffee, love coffee,
and in the morning I use the Halo Creamer. used
the MCT oil powder but now they have the halo
creamer which has also got grass -fed butter
in it a lot more creamy if you're not trying
to go for the vegan option that they have as
well now it's important to mention as well the
altruistic element of Bubz Naturals The origin
story involves Glenn Bub Doherty, one of the
two Navy SEALs killed in Benghazi, and a good
friend of the founders, Sean and TJ. So 10 %
of every single sale goes towards the Glenn Doherty
Foundation. Now, as I mentioned before, they
are offering you, the audience, 20 % off your
purchase if you use the code SHIELD. That's S
-H -I -E -L -D at bubsnaturals .com. And finally,
if you want to hear more about their products
and Glenn's powerful story, listen to episode
558 with co -founder Sean Lake. Welcome to the
Pioneer Shield podcast. As always, my name is
James Gearing. And this week, it is my absolute
honor to welcome on the show, sports scientist
and clinical sports psychologist, Dr. John Sullivan.
So in this conversation, we discuss a host of
topics from his work with some of the most elite
sports and tactical athletes on the planet, forging
performance, the importance of sleep, loss of
identity, the perils of social media, and so
much more. Now, before we get to this incredible
conversation, as I say every week, please just
take a moment, go to whichever app you listen
to this on, subscribe to the show. Leave feedback
and leave a rating. Every single five -star rating
truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making
it easier for others to find. And this is a free
library of well over 1 ,100 episodes now. So
all I ask in return is that you help share these
incredible men and women's stories so I can get
them to every single person on planet Earth who
needs to hear them. So with that being said...
I welcome to the show Dr. John Sullivan. Enjoy.
Well, John, I want to start by saying two things.
Firstly, thank you to our mutual friend, Jeff
Nichols, for making this connection, another
phenomenal human being. And secondly, I want
to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast
today. It's a great pleasure to be here, and
I appreciate the invite, and I appreciate we
know that great human in kind. Fantastic. Absolutely.
Well, first question, where on planet Earth are
we finding you today? you're finding me uh uh
in auckland new zealand and actually be more
specific torbay right near the water uh so the
other side of the world as we would say down
under absolutely now where correct me if i'm
wrong where is torbay because that sounds familiar
i went i did a whole like north island all the
way through the south island trip um like 2020
so it's not 2020 2000 so uh where's torbay So
it's about a 40 -minute drive heading north,
and then you would end up on the coast. So 40
-minute drive from city center Auckland. And
so Auckland has a number of suburbs that surround
it. And so really where I'm at is quite a large
sailing community because there's quite a number
of yacht clubs. And Auckland is known as the
city of sails. So once you're around Auckland
or near the bays where I'm at. Yeah, that's alive
and well. You're going to see boats galore. Absolutely.
I've said that I love the culture there in New
Zealand. When I went there in the year 2000,
it was so clean. Everyone was so friendly. And
I traveled around the world. I'd been to Fiji
by that point and learned about some of the colonization
from the UK and how the dynamic was different,
like in Fiji. Laws are put in that they can't
sell Fijian land to protect the farmers from,
you know, more astute business people coming
in. But in New Zealand, I remember it being a
lot more kind of equal. And I can just see these
British, you know, sailors arriving on the shores
and the Maori showing up and them being like,
hello, would you like to be friends? Because
they look at them going, they're not going to
be them. There's no way in hell. I would agree
with you. I think one of the things I've been
impressed being here for three years is that
equality or working towards equal, right? We
know a colonization, it wasn't perfect, and we
don't have to stay anchored there. We can keep
moving it forward. And I've been impressed by,
you know, a nation that can admit to its first
sins can get clear on a lot of those sins going
forward. So it's an impressive place that way.
I would agree with you. um there is no doubt
there's a merging of the cultures almost like
i've seen in another space i call home ireland
where you'll see you know the the peace and the
wanting to keep that northern ireland but also
the sharing of language and bringing language
back so you'll see gaelic and english well here
you'll you'll see a lot more english and maori
and so it's a wonderful blend absolutely I was
just having a conversation with someone the other
day about that very thing, like being British.
Firstly, understanding that only a small group
of people benefited from all these things, slavery,
colonization, et cetera. If you look at British
history, we were poor most of the time, the average
person. Secondly, when you had the humility to
look back and go, yeah, some of the things that
we did were horrible. And let's not hang on to
it and be victims about it either. But you have
to acknowledge it. You have to understand that
it had an impact, even in the Middle East. I
mean, all these different conflicts that we're
seeing, that, like you said, is when then you
can finally move forward. But if you're beating
your chest and saying you're the greatest nation
and ignoring the bad things in your culture,
you're never, ever going to progress. There's
a gap there. You're absolutely right. It isn't
healthy also to be victimized by your history.
I mean, we live life going forward, but we learn
life by looking back. But to go forward would
mean you have to acknowledge things, you have
to find connection points, you have to find understanding.
And we can't be necessarily making the past correct.
But we can make things better in the forward
position. And I agree with you 100%. I think
that's one of the things I really enjoy about
being in New Zealand when I look at it, is that
there are opportunities. And although we're at
the end of the world, there's a lot of learnings
if we just look over our fence line, no matter
where we live. So I'm a US citizen, a Canadian
citizen, an Irish citizen. And I've always encouraged
people to kind of look over your fence line.
No one can be doing everything right. No one
can have all the best ideas. But if we look over
the fence and learn from others, there's greater
opportunities than just doing kind of this. And
we keep our focal point just on me and a little
bit of the we. We can learn a lot from others.
Absolutely. I think we said this when we spoke
last time, but as I've progressed through this,
I've learned and spoken to people that have spearheaded.
prison the amazing prison systems they have in
in norway and the decriminalization of drugs
in portugal and the finnish education system
and when you have the humility to say hey you're
doing this really well can you show us what to
do it's that you know the rising tide lifts all
ships and we all benefit from it That quote serves
all of us when we first understand it. I think
the piece you're talking about here, too, is
anchored in something that often people think
is the past, which is philosophy. And what you're
talking about is intellectual humility, that
we all need to feel comfortable we know what
we know, but also feel comfortable with what
we don't know. and pursue those gaps or seek
out the meaning of those gaps, whether we want
to become an expert or just seek an expert opinion
to form our understanding. Because if we're just
kind of going with our own thoughts, we're really
susceptible as human beings to confirmation bias,
believing what we want to believe. And then we're
really good at doubling down on that when we're
confronted with different information. And that's
called belief perseverance. And so we've got
to have intellectual humility. It's such a grounding
point. Philosophy has much to teach science and
humanity. It is not a thing of the past, having
trained in epistemology. It really does inform
how we see the world in an indisciplined way.
It's funny. I've never heard that term, belief
perseverance, but that's exactly what I've endured
whilst trying to be one voice of changing the
work week in the fire service. And we're going
to take a deep dive into all things performance
and sleep in a little bit. Getting them to realize
that the 56 hour work week that they've been
working is one of the biggest reasons why we've
seen our profession collapse. Losing people,
losing marriages, losing children, not to mention
the inability to save when we're supposed to
be performing. But we're so indoctrinated in
this kind of, you know, almost like this hero
mentality that we can do more with less over
and over and over again, that even when we finally.
had enough information to say, Hey, this is the
problem. And here's one of the most powerful
solutions. I've had so much resistance and it's
changed now, Florida, we're having this revolution.
I'm so happy to say that, but I literally would
have people that would fight and you say, no,
I want to hang on to my 56 hour work week. I
don't want to do that 42 hour work week, men
and women that are not going home to their children
because of this broken system. So that term specifically
really resonates deeply with me. It does with
me now as well for a whole host of reasons. That
whole idea from a psychological standpoint has
been around for a while, but I think its meaning
is even bigger now because of the decay of our
information ecosystems. I'm old enough to remember.
I won't put you in that same space, but where
news was really not an hour. There was very little
commentary. It was just the facts. And the facts
were agreed upon, which created a stability in
society. Now, the best case scenario due to our
information ecosystem is misinformation. That's
the best case scenario. But the majority of information
that we digest is disinformation purposely put
out there to confuse the public or to provide
some sort of traction for some sort of other
agenda. And that's a very... uh revolutionary
space that we're in and and and i mean that in
a negative halo that other people are benefiting
from that confusion in the space and so belief
perseverance is as much as uh as common as to
what channels do you listen to and what is the
bias and bent so it's concerning absolutely so
it's tough to get truth out there even though
truth is a stubborn thing facts are stubborn
things when you have this this uh bulwark against
hearing truth it's difficult especially when
meaningful things like firefighters health oh
that should that should be easy to discuss yeah
or children in gaza but we'll leave that there
yeah yeah all right well then moving on because
we could take a massive deep dive into the orwellian
issues that are going on at the moment but i
don't want to deviate from all the other stuff
maybe we can do a part two and we'll dive into
the idiocracy another time So let's start at
the very beginning. You mentioned all the three
nationalities. So tell me where you were born
and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings. Yeah,
sure. Happy to. So I was born in Rochester, New
York. So right across Lake Ontario from Toronto.
And so my father. uh life of service uh but also
in some unique wrinkles in there so he served
in the navy and served on port of frigate he
was a damage control third class so in some ways
using he'd already gone into the navy and having
firefighter skills he was also a firefighter
when he came out But then also, he was a volunteer
firefighter, so he worked full -time for Eastman
Kodak. But I always saw that thread of service
and spoke about it. Served in the FATILA for
the USS Nautilus, first nuclear sub, and spoke
about his time in the Navy very, very highly.
And I think there's a part of him that would
have liked to stay in longer. But yet I also
saw being a firefighter as a bridge to continuing
that journey for him. My mom was a nurse, so
also spent her whole life in service. She worked
in the VA system, so it was very close to those
who served and spoke very highly about that,
too, in many different ways. They were not afraid
of sharing the stories and the values of service
to others and service to others who served. And
so that was a really wonderful period of time
to learn through seeing and hearing and hearing
the stories as we all do. We learn through stories.
I have two older siblings. My oldest brother
is actually developmentally delayed. So that
too was an amazing journey for me to see. life
situation context through a different lens and
see how the environment and people in the community
responded to that and how my parents manage that.
My middle brother, amazing. I don't know where
I'd be in my life without him. Because at a very
young age, he had to step up to be, you know,
the brother, the sibling who would take much
of the support. Much of the organization, much
of the position of helping my parents out run
a household, because with three sons, there's
a special place in the afterlife for parents
who have three sons. I'm convinced of that. I
have a staff member right now that has three
young sons, and I just watch it from a distance.
Oh, yeah, I remember that. During that time,
my dad worked for Eastman Kodak, which was a
multinational company. There was a period of
time where they needed some skill. in Toronto,
where the headquarters of East McCordick is for
Canada, or was for Canada. And so we spent some
time there. What was interesting was my mom's
family came from Italy and settled in Canada.
So almost all my entire family on my maternal
side is all Canadian, which I truly love. I have
such special moments of spending time all over
Canada. And the warmth, I know that's unfortunately
changed. uh do the political environment but
um amazing people amazing country um and then
uh i've had time in my life to be able to spend
time in ireland as well in the dublin area uh
and so where my grandparents my father's side
all from ireland uh directly um and in fact my
family kind of dates back to And the founding
of the U .S., General John Sullivan, a brigadier
general, was the right hand of George Washington.
And that's directly connected to my family. So
in my family, we've probably every generation
has served either in the United States or Canada
on both sides, the Irish and Italian family.
Amazing. When you reflect back now, you had a
father in the military and then the fire service
and mother in nursing. you know these are not
only noble professions but they also sometimes
come at a cost with this lens that you have now
when you reflect back were there any impacts
of those professions on your parents oh absolutely
and that's the thing they they didn't tell these
stories um um obviously they're age appropriate
but they were they were unvarnished they were
not going to spare truth um There are a number
of amazing gifts I got from my parents, but curiosity
was one of those, but also truth and wanting
to understand facts of things. And so absolutely,
one of the things you put out there earlier about
the amazing things that are happening in Florida
to take care of firefighters, the shift work.
um that my father did as a volunteer firefighter
being on call um that i certainly saw we certainly
saw that um and you see it as a to somewhat of
a child's eyes too he could speak to it but his
whole presence changed and now knowing the science
of that why does hope presence change how did
he move how does his face shaped uh verbalizations
tone pitch that sense of exhaustion Absolutely.
And then certainly my mom, as a nurse, worked
through many different rotations in the hospital.
She had many loves of where to work and how to
serve. And you could see that in her shift work
as well, but they would speak to it in that to
care for others, you had to care for yourself.
Otherwise, your ability to really be good at
what you do and care for others diminishes quickly.
We have a name for it now in some references.
That sense of showing compassion can become fatigued.
But we also know other things become fatigued.
How well do you move? How well do you decide?
How well do you execute? But they didn't spare
us on that. They would talk about it. And being
a volunteer firefighter, as you imagine, is slightly
different where you can have a little bit more
autonomy among the community to decide how you
want to function. Think about families first.
I remember my dad being a fire commissioner and
fighting for those things, but also listening
to his people. How do we make this better? No,
no, that was disgust. It was not this beautiful.
Fantasy. Which draws us to things, right? That
curiosity. It's okay. People grow up. They want
to be police officers, firefighters, these noble
professions. But there does be a time where you
got to drill down on the truth. Absolutely. What
about the VA through your mom's eyes? Because
as we hear now, especially with the mental health
side, you know, there's over and over and over
again, U .S. veterans have been on here. And
I went in there and they just. threw a bunch
of meds at me and that was it um what but obviously
there's other areas of the phenomenon my wife
just worked in the optometry side as she came
out of her doctor school um and was blown away
how amazing it was there so what was she what
was her kind of perception of of the decay or
anything as far as that system because at its
core you know it the purpose is a beautiful purpose
but you know the the way it's managed and the
way it's funded maybe needs some help Yeah. And
I like what you said there. There is generational
shifts on that because you have to learn from
and constantly, especially in a hospital, you
should be learning every day about how you're
serving those people who are coming in for services.
And I think over time, what ends up happening
is they're caught into this, and it's certainly
heard about it, this political crunch of something
we all know and something we... Honestly, I've
been a part of in sport to transform a little
bit. Healthcare costs, there is no doubt it is
expensive to take care of human beings. We shouldn't
deny that point. We should just find points of
how can we be more effective and then more efficient.
But that doesn't mean staffing ratios are lower.
And that's often the place where people go. But
when it's a human to human interaction of caring,
that is the worst place to go. And you're right.
Meds can't be a solution to a human. They're
a tool to a human to human connection point.
You need the expertise. And so what she saw in
her journey was certainly this generational shifts
and these political shifts. And so as policies
change, so did the hospital have to change in
what became best practice and keep that best
practice solid. Because when you're taking revenue
away or taking staffing ratios, then you have
to get on your front foot. How do we meet the
need? But then how do we create a narrative where
policyholders can understand and leaders can
understand that this strategy will not meet the
mission of taking care of people? And so there
was always this piece, and I think nurses are
very good at this. There's more nurses than doctors
in a hospital, of advocating. and really elevating
that truth. I would hear about that when we would
change government. They would start to mobilize
before that of how they'd have to narrative differently,
how they'd have to do things differently. There
was this adaptation that had to happen. We got
to adapt. This is going to happen. The people
aren't going to stop coming through the door.
Certainly, I would see some of that sadness about
that too. but also the fervor to advocate. Nurses
are great at that. And they also have more contact
with people, so they see it happening faster.
Why is there a resistance to proactive solutions?
For example, one of the reasons why we've managed
to get this foothold in Florida is people finally
went to the organizations and said, How much
is the way that we're doing it now costing us
in overtime, in training young firefighters who
then leave two, three years later? Women's comp
claims, lawsuits, medical disability retirements.
And it was millions and millions and millions
and millions of dollars. It blows me away that
the finance people aren't the ones banging on
the door saying, hey, you need to change. We
need to give you a better work week. It's a false
economy, but we're not hearing that. And the
same as the NHS. Amazing system, but it got picked
apart. The Brits got sicker and fatter, and now
it's destroying the system. So what is the resistance
when you understand basic economics as far as
a proactive investment to... simply investing
on the front end to save a lot of money on the
back end. Yeah. And again, these are great points
and you're giving great examples from systems
that are quite amazing. The NHS is an amazing
system. It is also something that many countries
look to, to follow and understand. And yet you're
right. It's been picked apart. I think when you
look at healthcare, it is complex and it is regional
or postal code or zip code. You have to understand
the context. Context is king. There are component
parts to it. We don't need to understand all
of it, but we need to understand the parts that
move it. I'll speak to one that we've kind of
both touched on a little bit in this conversation,
which is one of the harder pieces because we
do live by narrative and we do need to construct
well -packaged truth with fact -based understanding
to get people. to move we have to think about
it like a campaign sometimes science misses that
actually they think facts will move people enough
and facts do move people but it is not enough
it's not fully sufficient We have to think about
how do we campaign with a narrative that moves
people. But I think in some situations, certainly
not all, I don't want to brushstroke this, but
Upton Sinclair said it best. You can't convince
people of the truth if they're paid not to hear
it. And so we've created situations in which
people are paid not to move the system. And that's
a shameful reflection about we've missed the
mission, that if we are human beings, ultimately,
we have compassion. And most people, if you sit
with them and hear their story, you will come
to understand, you'll have compassion, empathy,
but you also have inspiration. But you literally
put people's survival. the money, because money
really is about comfort and survival. If you
pay them not to hear the compassion, the truth,
the stories, then you have a hell of a bulwark
to work around. And that creates very difficult
pieces. And it makes us have to question what
are we doing with our human based systems, if
we're setting up situations such as that. I think
the other pieces also have to do with I'll give
an example for where I am locally. Being at the
end of the world, we have some similar things,
concerns of the middle of the country in Canada
and the U .S. We're very much bi -coastal countries,
both Canada and the U .S. Most people live on
the coast, east and west coast. And so there's
not enough providers pick the expertise in the
middle of those countries. Where New Zealand
is similar, their mission is to care and they
want to do that. is only hampered by the number
of allied health professionals they have in country
and so we have to think people first and then
you know strategy and structure second and third
and often what we do is we pretend that we can
simplify complex problems down to it's just efficiencies
now efficiencies do matter we can find inefficiencies
in any system um we could take a system that's
very linear like our motor like we have people
that are wrenching on their cars right now somewhere
around the world getting more power more efficiency
out of that engine we can but it does not build
on resiliency so you can only get efficient to
a point if you don't have people and processes
that can meet the need eventually the system
collapses and so we forget people and people's
resiliency and expertise is a key factor in this
And then having people who are willing to solve
problems is a factor in this. Absolutely. Well,
thank you for that perspective. Let's go back
to your early life. You ended up working with
a lot of athletes from all different sports.
What were you playing and doing when you were
in the school ages? You're going to make me go
back that far. James, that's a dot on the horizon
for me these days. So I was lucky. I grew up
obviously having... two brothers ahead of me
who are actually very very sporty very very active
and we know from the research like if you have
older siblings that actually relatively speaking
it's not 100 rule let's be honest this is more
corollary than cause and effect but you tend
to be attracted a lot of different sports and
then you tend to be a little bit better of an
athlete so that's a gift they gave me and they
both were very good athletes um and i grew up
playing my first love was football with an irish
and italian grandparents there was a ball at
our feet when we were quite young uh and i just
fell in love with that sport um but i did do
traditional american sports as well um so played
played softball played baseball um uh any you
know played football not organized but if there
was a the you know touch football game or tackle
football game which i wouldn't encourage now
but i think we were playing it um and then uh
over time gravitated to uh athletics distance
running um and cycling And so those are the sports
that I competed in at an NCAA Division I level
and then later on competed at an international
level. But still, I would say football is my
first love. Love that sport. It was a great foundation
for the things I found myself in at my next chapters
in my life. Did you play as an adult? I did.
I did. I don't play as much anymore. I'd like
to get back into it. It was moving country, but
I used to play. I lived part time in Newport,
Rhode Island. So there was a Saturday game. And
then if I was in Washington, D .C., where I lived
part time, eventually there full time, I would
go play out at the Washington Monument. There's
at least 30 games going on, you know, on any
given Sunday. So that was great fun. Great fun.
This is always interesting. And you've again
worked with so many elite athletes and coaches
now. When I moved to the US, it wasn't long after
that that I started realizing that I kept hearing.
what I call uncle Rico stories. So deconditioned
30 year olds telling me how they could have,
would have, should have been the next, you know,
Gretzky or whoever it was. And this is not me
being condescending at all. I was, I was like,
what is going on here? Because in the time that
I grew up in England, there wasn't a high level
of athleticism at the, you know, school already
college level. There wasn't, but. What happened
was people kept playing. You had pub leagues,
you had local leagues, and adults continued to
play sports. What I saw more and more here is
you had a high level of athleticism in school
and college, and then a physical or mental burnout
that left a complete void when it came to activity.
with people that had transitioned out of education,
which was a cultural thing. So I realized that
there was maybe an abused line between performance,
winning your college or school, a championship,
and the well -being and longevity of the young
athlete. James, what a great observation. And
it's one of those things that when you come in
as an outsider, you zoom in and zoom out, you
can see things that parts of the culture may
not acknowledge, but are spot on. So just to
speak about the research that really your observation
and anecdote does fit with our research when
we look at North American sport. So, yes. On
an Olympic level, if we use that as some sort
of benchmark, we do win a lot of medals. But
we do that out of sheer population and diversity.
And yes, the maturity of our systems. But if
we really want to scratch the surface, your observation
and the research would say we break more athletes
than we actually develop. And it is in this system
of more is better. And the problem with that
is the other observation you made, which is very
keen. So when you break someone who really know
very few are going to make it to the pinnacle,
very few are going to get to that elite status.
It's just there isn't enough space, regardless
if you have tons of talent. And when you break
an athlete, where do they end up? They ended
up in our obesity research. So is there a health?
burden on that when we don't take care of athletes
and we don't treat them or teach them that this
is something for a lifetime of opportunity for
health and when we're not being honest about
how do you train someone with proper doses and
that not everyone is going to make it but you
are learning transitional and transferable skills
and so keen observation And what's sad on the
other side of that is we break so many that they
end up in a burden to themselves and not in a
great resilient place. Now, I'm sure this is
going to mirror many things that you've seen
at the high level, the professional level, but
another area that I think is very worrying. And
I just watched that film, Varsity Blues, the
other day. I thought it was a teen film. My wife
watched it and I was blubbering and was amazed
that a 1999 film was hitting all the things that
we're talking about today, like CTE and all the
other areas. But there was also that loss of
identity. Now, we understand it in the military.
We understand it. I think we're starting to now
in the first responder profession. But you've
got a kid that ever since they were peewee were
playing football. And all up until that point,
if they just aren't good enough anymore or they
have that career -ending injury, from the mental
health side, I can see how detrimental that would
be to a child. You're 100 % right. That research,
really, we're looking at kind of anyone who funnels
their identity into kind of one, let's say, pinpoint
thing or just anchors there so strongly. that
obviously the ebbs and flows of winning, losing,
knocking, playing time, not feeling like you're
developing fast enough, those create vulnerabilities
if that's all you see yourself as an athlete.
We call it identity foreclosure, right? Someone's
foreclosing, not looking at other opportunities,
not exploring other spaces. So we've known for
quite a while if you want to make a healthy athlete
is actually to look at their life holistically.
about sport it's sport and life it's other opportunities
but across many times where athletes who invested
in other areas whether it be going for a degree
working part -time as they train at the elite
level investing more time as a parent or investing
more time with friends and family that that buoys
them it creates more resiliency and you have
more stress buffering And we've known this so
much that when I was a very young, I was in my
first master's program, one of my professors
was doing really seminal work with USOC on this
very issue. Like, listen, if we don't get to
them early to expand their horizons and show
them also that they're not just playing a sport,
they're learning skills that they can transfer,
we're creating vulnerabilities. And this was
in the early 90s. And it's taken us to this time
for elite sport. And I would say probably middle,
early 2000s to go, we need to invest in this
space. And that's some of the work I did when
I started with the New England Patriots was,
listen, if we don't prepare them for life, because
the average is a two year, they're only in the
league two years. That's the average. So you
have a window of opportunity that closes quickly.
So if we don't prepare them equally to play.
and to have a quality of life then what we're
doing in some ways is not taking care of them
quite simply and especially if we know the data
the tragedy would be ignore the data and the
data would say two years so we put a program
together that allowed them to learn how to be
a professional football player but also prepared
them and we had very high percentage rates of
graduation or starting master's degrees and internships
in the off season to again expand horizons we
had family days so the family knew what they
were going through because it is somewhat for
16 weeks now 18 like being in the military and
so we'd include family and we didn't support
family that seems like this thing that is becoming
a wedge between the family members and so i think
there is a seed change but to your point of the
movie you're watching do we see that seed change
in the lower high school which is very professionalized
in north america it depends upon zip code which
is very unfortunate just like healthcare depends
upon the zip code and so there are programs that
attend to that and there are some really evidence
-based programs to give you know those interventions
to high school athletes But we need to do a better
job for breaking more athletes than developing
right there. The tragedy is not listening to
that data. It's funny because it mirrors the
conversation again with military, especially
first responders and military. I think for all
of us, it's understanding that the branch that
you are in, the special operations group, the
fire department is actually not who you are.
You are a good human being that wanted to make
the world a little bit better. The mission hasn't
changed when you took the uniform off, but it's
very hard because we cling onto it. But when
you now shift to this healthier work week and
one of the pushbacks is like, well, the overtime
is going to go away or even worse, I'll nauseatingly
get chiefs and other people say, well, if we
give them more time off, they're just going to
work more, which you don't govern someone's days
off. That's a nauseating thing to say, but also.
Well, that's the point. If you fully staff a
fire department, the overtime goes away. So that
ability disappears anyway. But now you've freed
up more time because there's nothing wrong with
someone being a personal trainer or a carpenter
or, you know, a landscaper on their days off
because they're still going to have dinner with
their family. They're still going to go to bed.
So that I think the other side of this is, well,
now you are an entrepreneur on your days off.
You're not a firefighter. So God forbid you get
hurt, you get fired, you know, you just simply
retire. you've already got that other tribe,
that other identity versus everything being all
in on that one profession. 100%. When you're
trying to balance everything on a pinpoint, we
can kind of understand what's going to happen.
And when you give people time, there needs to
be some guidance, like you're saying, maybe giving
some education about that, but not guidance in
the way that you can't. um because human variation
should teach us that you know that's the rule
not the exception so there are many paths to
balance and health and coming back to the fire
department using that example because you were
doing these other things because you're investing
elsewhere you're more present more available
and more capable and we have to yeah give some
education and what you're talking about too is
every Every individual in their career goes through
transitions. In psychology, we refer to your
first 10 years, you're an early career professional.
You have a doctorate, you're coming, you're licensed,
you're registered, and then a mid -career professional.
We talk about those transitions in there and
possibilities or potentials to how to reinvest
in yourself. Some of that's not anchoring in
psychology. It's a very thing you're saying,
investing outside of that. And then late career
professionals, keeping in mind that you're staying
sharp with your information, your technical knowledge,
but also that you may need more rest to do what
you did prior. And if we think about our professions
as transitions, just like with athletes, like
that same, you know, Tom Brady, when he was later
in his career, it's not the same Tom Brady that
walked into the league. He can't be. And you
have to change your process to attend to those
needs. And I think if we think about things as
much more as nonlinear than linear, that things
go up and down and there's a value base to that.
We can understand how to intervene with more
precision. While we're on the subject of youth
athletes, because I mean, this is, again, a very
adult problem as well, but I think it starts
in our schools. Talk to me about CTE. You made
the comment about, you know, not wanting, you
know, the, your kids to play football now, but
you know, obviously there is some middle ground.
I'm a martial artist. So I got knocked around
for most of my teen and then young adult years.
What is the evolution of the understanding between
the old, just shake it off again, varsity blues
did a great job highlighting that to where we
are today, where even, you know, mixed martial
artists are sparring a lot less than they used
to. Yeah, I love that. And thank you for bringing
that sport into it, because certainly it's near
and dear to me. It was one of the sports that
certainly I was involved in with the kaleidoscope
of things that I enjoyed doing in sport, but
also that. You talk about brain health, and we're
all at a disadvantage, quite frankly. If I didn't
study psychology and neuropsychology and neuroscience,
I don't think I'd know very much. Just going
back to where you were anchoring, what do we
learn in our schools and our formal learning
about brain health? Typically, we learn much
more about other factors of health, but there
is none more important than brain health. The
brain is the driver of health. If we understand
that, we can facilitate much more. brain health
issues, concussion is one of those pieces. And
by no means, and I think you're giving me a job
to speak to it. I'm not saying we shouldn't do
sport. There are calculated risks. I'm not a
big believer in like, we should just stop doing
these sort of things. I think as we learn to
your question, more knowledge, we understand
how to do it with more precision and more refinement
to protect the person. For instance, if we look
at some collision sports, there are drills in
football, AFL football, rugby, ice hockey, those
collision sports that we don't do anymore because
we know they don't prepare the athlete, but also
it puts them in a vulnerability to actually have
brain health. So we're learning. One of the things
I would say is, and I don't typically say this,
but I will with you to be quite honest. We don't
know what CT is. Let's be honest. If you say
that in certain environments, they'll think you're
a heretic. What I mean by that is we know something's
going on. There's a syndrome there, but it's
likely 10 to 12 different types of things that
are causing brain health issues. And so we're
at the verge of unpackaging that. Something's
going on. It's real. I'm going to be clear. People
should hear me say that. It's real. At the same
time, what we need to get is more precise about
what it is on each individual level so we can
target treatment more precisely to get them back
to health. The state of play is this. We can't
pretend anymore. When in doubt, people need to
sit out. And that's the piece. Majority of people
recover from concussion with treatment. And there
is some that don't get treatment who do recover.
But if we do the right things to draw down on
the demand of energy from the brain and allow
people to have rest cycles for healing, that's
how tissue grows. so a training day is stimulation
for growth at every cellular level brain to the
other 11 systems out and if you give someone
rest they will readapt and grow those tissues
back and have some resiliency so that's why treatment
is so important but treatment's important for
another reason having worked for concussion for
a great majority of my career i have had many
athletes and also we have to understand the work
you've done and household injuries and you know
and motor accidents or car accidents are the
most common it's really not in sport although
we focus because it's a microcosm of culture
and everyone loves sport it happens outside of
sport much more and having sitting with patients
they learn how their brain works and they learn
how to recover on a more sufficient level when
they leave that when they go through therapy
you know in treatment or rehabilitation and so
what it is as a learning journey how does my
brain work how do i make it more resilient from
these days going forward but really the state
of play is we're getting much sharper at being
able to protect it assess it and rehabilitate
it um when i first started in collision sports
uh it was really the dark ages i mean let's take
motorsports for instance i mean when you think
about the really G -forces and the number of
microtraumas an F1 driver, Indy driver, NASCAR
driver is experiencing or rally car. It's quite
significant. But in the past, and I'm not holding
people to it as we know more now, but just to
give that example from your question, is they
would assess the driver and just put him back
in the car. Like what? I mean, we encourage people
who have concussions to have someone drive them
to the clinic now. So I think when you look at
the span, there's more we can do, but we've gotten
a lot more precise of starting to understand.
It's actually understanding the individual because
everything is in an individual care situation.
Understanding that gives us more understanding
of how we can rehabilitate them faster. I was
with Shootbox years ago in LA. They opened a
gym for a short time. you know they say you should
never talk about but that's basically what it
was and i learned one thing that i'm not a giant
pussy that was it because it was nothing but
just getting the shit beaten out of me by people
that were much better fighters but um you know
the the licks that i took for a short time you
know and now you you like a full you know uh
shoot box fighter that's you know got years and
years in a career you see just how detrimental
that could be and there was that one video of
nam fan that went around you know showing pre
and post and just it was you know devastating
to see it so sticking with with that sport you
know with the combat striking sports what advice
would you give to people listening as far as
you know where those gyms should be now obviously
when you're actually in the ring if you're a
competitive fighter you need to you're going
to have to do some sparring where you're ramping
up a little bit but What is that secret sauce
as far as taking away hard sparring or other
areas so we can kind of reduce the amount of
head trauma they get prior to a competition?
It's a fantastic question. And you kind of hinted
to it. And I can speak to some of this about
how this does help with preparation. So you spoke
about a lot of MMA athletes now not doing as
much hard sparring. They're doing much more what
we would call. you know, cognitive training and
looking for patterns and doing much more tag.
There's a colleague of mine who started the Australian
Institute of Sport, Alan Hong, who actually developed
gloves that much more have to do with tag. So
you're looking for openings. It's much more cognitive,
emotional training. You're predicting movement
and the brain doesn't react. It predicts. And
so that has more benefit because that's what
you're really doing. The hits are going to come,
but more of trying to find the openings and understand
the pattern faster. So what that allows for is
what we're talking about here is, yes, you're
doing training, but you're amply doing much more
rest cycles. So you consolidate your learning
on a physical, cognitive, and emotional level.
And so what I would say is, yes, you have to
do hard sparring, but you should be anchoring
a little bit more on understanding how to read
and react and time your movements. The hits will
be there, but if you can be there faster and
you can find the openings quicker, you are going
to be the one that... Over time, especially in
the rounds because right your cardiovascular
fitness helps your brain being able to read and
react as well They're all connected in a complex
system. You're gonna end up being in an advantage
point. And so I like what I'm seeing now. They're
seeing much more opportunity and much more health.
Sport and the fight game and combat sports is
filled with a lot of tradition. But I've come
from environments where once tradition no longer
meets science, it's no longer tradition. Because
now what we're being is foolish. And so I love
what you're anchoring on. And I like what a lot
of those athletes are doing. They're using science
to inform their practice and iterating it to
their individual needs. That's a smart move.
It's funny what you just said about tradition,
because this is the one thing, the American fire
helmet. People hate it when I talk about this,
but it's just the truth. I don't know if you
can see it on my shoulder. There's literally
a fire helmet from 1937. And they talk about,
well, it's tradition. And I'm like, no, it's
a hat. Tradition is teamwork, courage, selflessness,
service, working under pressure. That's the tradition
of the fire service. The other stuff is just
clothes and protective equipment. And if you're
refusing to advance because you care about how
you look, then you're doing it for the wrong
reasons. The Navy SEALs don't wear tin helmets
for a reason. And I would say it's a wonderful
point. I would say in another example is, okay,
do we see American football players wearing the
leather helmets of days gone by when they wore
them? There were eight deaths in the NCAA system,
and that's when Teddy Roosevelt called a meeting
at the White House because they looked to cancel
American football because of those numerous deaths
of young men at many of the major universities
that played at that time. Now, they thought they
solved it, but regardless, they were like, listen,
we've got to look at this. And what you see now
is an iteration of that helmet with science of
really trying to mitigate using laws of physics,
forces moving away from the head. opposed to
pinpoint focused now granted it's a tough thing
when the brain is a millimeter of space from
the inside of your skull is to you know it is
going to hit but with what forces and so you're
right we have to iterate um and it's interesting
you you mentioned the navy seals i mean that
quote i gave is pretty much uh what is utilized
at the command Like we have to evolve. Our opponents
are evolving. The world is evolving. If you think
you can stand still, like you are already falling
behind. And so I appreciate that. Your equipment's
got to meet the need. Got to meet the need. Absolutely.
Well, one more area about head trauma before
we progress into the psychological side of things.
A few people I know who have suffered from ALS,
there seems to be a common denominator with playing
football when they were younger. So what about
some of these neurodegenerative diseases, ALS,
Parkinson's? What are we seeing as far as the
correlation between head trauma and these as
they progress through adulthood? I mean, the
simple answer is this. And again, it plays on.
uh bayesian logic meaning we you know for this
not to be true we have to forget everything we
know and so if i say to someone go hit your head
against a wall for a certain amount of time every
day can we expect there can be some negative
impact using corollary right this is likely to
happen to some percentage um yeah We've known
this. I mean, this is not new. If we think about
the degenerative disorders first being recorded
in extreme jobs or hard work or also in sport,
we're looking at 1800s, I believe. And so this
has been recorded in the annals of science, like
something's happening here and it isn't good.
It is, again, I go back to... Do we want to hear
this story? Do we want to have compassion about
this? Or do we want to believe in myths and false
narratives of individual ruggedness? Oh, if they
were just stronger. And are we talking about
these things to make change to people who are
paid not to hear it? I mean, we have an example
live in North American pro sports. So the NFL,
it took them long enough, but they eventually
admitted that there are hazards to the job. And
really that's all they've said. And that's not
a big movement. Now, granted, yes, they've invested
some money, although there's some conflicts with
that. They've always left teams to do the league
minimum and do whatever you want beyond that.
When I was with New England, there was a league
minimum, but we always went beyond that. I happened
to work for a coach, Bill Belichick, who believed
very strongly that this is real. This is something
we should be concerned about. And this is something
I need to think about that player at 40 and 50.
And he did. So he allowed his medical staff to
go much farther to protect the athletes. Eventually,
the league also moved to having people on injured
reserve who you could bring back, which was another
wonderful thing and another wonderful adaptation.
But all the league has said is there's hazards
to the job. That's good, though, in some ways.
It gives autonomy, choice and informed consent
to people. This is what I'm walking into. But
the live example of the ignorance of being paid
not to be clear about this stuff is the NHL.
They still don't admit they're playing hockey
with skate speeds at 34 to 45 miles per hour,
puck speed up to over 100 miles per hour, and
then crossing routes and walls that you're crashing
into at those speeds. ah it doesn't doesn't affect
brain health so the common knowledge is we would
have to forget all science of what we know for
there not to be a corollary in degenerative diseases
yeah that's that's interesting the way you said
that you know paid paid to to not acknowledge
i mean that's that's pretty much prevalent right
now for example but um All right, we're shifting
to the psychology side. Let's go all the way
back. As you were progressing through the school
ages, was that something you were already interested
in? Or was that something that came later? It's
a great question. Love that question. Origin
questions are always wonderful. I think there
was always a piece, and especially having an
older brother who is developmentally delayed.
i there was a part of me and this wasn't i think
there were multiple things that drove me into
psychology and really my interest level and my
curiosity but that was one trying to understand
why uh was my brother as he was and then even
more importantly seeing how people reacted to
him so one of one of my earliest memories so
my brother tom he was a very skilled athlete
He actually was quite coordinated, loved to ride
his bike. I swear to God, I don't know. We didn't
have those on his bike. We didn't have any tools
to measure how much he rode. I would say by a
day, he was probably out there at least three
to four hours every day. And so fitness level
was just through the roof. And so when he did
other things. But one of the observations I would
make is around the neighborhood. There were certain
people who would not let their kids play with
my older brother. They would not let them even
near him. So that level of knowledge about this
isn't contagious, he's not harmful. And in fact,
his temperament is amazing. His temperament is
absolutely so friendly and gregarious. But there
was one family, and the family was African American.
And the majority of the neighborhood where I
grew up was Caucasian, was white, European based.
It changed over time. But I remember particularly
this one family, because at the time they probably
were one of the very few minorities. And Tom
loved playing basketball. And he was quite good
at that as well. And he would ride over, ride,
ride, ride. And then he'd stop in front of the
house and watch him play basketball. And I watched.
their father invite him to play with his kids
and there was something there about the social
dynamics of why people make choices and the compassion
and the concern and the empathy and and that
has always stayed with me um why we do the things
we do why we keep people out uh why do we create
closed environments I also think I was driven
to it by the curiosity that my parents instilled
in me and wanting to understand why and drilling
down on that. And then the other thing that drew
me to it was, so I was an athlete and I just
figured sweat wasn't enough. And it isn't. More
isn't better. So how do you put a program together
that touches on all the things, physical, emotional,
cognitive, the needs of any sport? And sports
psychology was quite young at that point, but
I was reading stuff at my level. And that was
really mentorship at the university level. with
a great mentor and great professor who really
kind of allowed me to see yes, there's this sub
discipline of sports psychology and psychology.
But there's also all of this. And to be good
at that sub discipline, you have to be good at
all these other things. And so those were the
things I think the major drivers, you know, that
my brother, my parents instill in curiosity,
my curiosity about this kind of be more of this
and just going out for a run, or just on the
practice. pitch and so that that kind of drove
and then having someone that was really hand
-holding me through seeing bigger picture those
were the drivers what have you seen as far as
the metamorphosis of how your brother and a lot
of other people and you know and the different
special needs groups are being received through
my eyes i reflect back to you know when i was
young and certainly was not around a group of
people that were ever negatively thinking about
that, but it just wasn't really something you
interacted with that much. Today, I'm sure the
adaptive community coming back from war is part
of this, but I feel like it's done a full 180.
I had Nick Nickich on the show, who's the young
man with Down syndrome that did the Hawaiian
triathlon, Ironman. You're just seeing a completely
different representation today than when we were
young. but you've obviously got this in your
family. What have you seen as far as the way
that your brother has been received over the
last few decades? It's funny you mentioned that
individual because when I saw that feat, I could
have seen my brother do that. Certainly we weren't
there and triathlon wasn't, you know, it didn't
come out until much later. But I definitely could
have seen him do that. He actually was a very
talented swimmer and runner as well. It was an
amazing opportunity. But I have seen a complete
change. What you're describing in a lot of ways
is the seed change of stigma. related to mental
health. And we've seen it in so many spaces that
it has become a critical mass in a lot of ways.
I'm in a country that actually where stigma is
very high here in New Zealand. The mental health
status of the country is, for a World Health
Organization standards, one of the worst among
modern countries. However, yes, highest suicide
rate, 13 to 35, both male and female. What's
the root of that? It's a number of different
things. And really, if you track on what I'm
really describing is what's changed in North
America, that will be the seed change here. I
have great hope in that. This is a country that's
very capable. It's very possible that they could
do it in even a very quick time. But what you
see is one of the things I mentioned earlier,
a very educated country. So they've done a very
good job from a government level teaching about
mental health. But when you educate people about
mental health, then you also are driving awareness,
which will then show up as wanting services and
needs, because they recognize within themselves
or the people they care about, there's a need.
But we do not have enough psychologists in country.
And so what you end up having is then people
seeking services, not enough people. And if we
play that out, we know that people who are on
a waiting list, waiting for treatment, any type
of treatment, just call it what it is, some people
drop out. But almost all get worse. And so when
you have this stagnation of not being able to
get services, unfortunately, you do not see the
trends moving in the right direction. I think
on a simple level, that can get solved in many
different ways. And part of my role is to help
with that from a grassroots to a parliamentary
level. But I think it's very, very doable. I
think there is stigma here also from the... adopted
in many ways from the two blending of the cultures
right stiff upper lip um stay calm and carry
on yeah and some of that is wonderful don't get
me wrong i do like that some of that is wonderful
but when you take that messaging to the nth degree
of ignore you take it too far and then we know
about first nation cultures many of them don't
engage with services for good reasons they don't
have access It's not acculturated to them. We
are not messaging in the right ways. We don't
meet them where they're at. And there's a level
of concern and paranoia because of how they've
been treated transgenerationally. So we have
to bridge those gaps. And that is our responsibility.
And we have to take that seriously and not go,
well, that's a you problem. No, no, no, no. That's
a we problem. And I think what I saw through
the years of growing up, but also growing up
in the profession, The US and Canada has done
a very good job of reducing a lot of that stigma.
And I'll give one of the areas where, well, two
of the areas that I've worked in quite a bit,
working in the military. They had a very much
an issue with this because mental health, raising
your hand and saying you have a concern would
hurt your mission specific readiness. You may
not be chosen, but also career advancement. And
that had to change. You're at war 20 years. You
have to understand there's a hazard to being
at war. So if we don't take care of people and
acknowledge the level of prevention that needs
to be given to people who are doing very, very
difficult things and that there are going to
be artifacts of mental health with that, we can't
hold them to a negative halo. We need to help
them and then allow them to move on in their
career. So there was a shift with that. I think
they did it in a very... It's not perfect, but
they did it very fast, I would say. I was kind
of surprised by their speed in being able to
do that. But I think the command level understood
we would not have any troop readiness if we ignore
this. And that is likely true. I think the other
place is in sport, just by my position. So when
I started my career, I was the first clinical
sports psychologist, one of seven, but the first
at that university, one of seven. in the NCAA,
1 ,100 schools, and at that time, 550 ,000 athletes.
Now, you look at the number of clinical sports
psychologists, registered psychologists working
in the sports specialty discipline, and certainly
we don't have every school, but we have the majority
of schools that either have someone full -time,
part -time, or consulting in. When I was in the
NFL, I was only one of four when I first started
my career in 2000. And so we've seen that seed
change. And so it is possible, but we have to
talk about it. Like you've given me this platform.
Think about what we're talking about. If we go
back 20 years, I'll give you an amazing example.
So at one point in time, now this is psychiatry,
the American Psychiatric Association, someone
who was a psychiatrist. who was gay, he spoke
at it in a disguise because he was so fearful
of the reprisal from his counterparts and peers
and other professionals that he had to go into
disguise to talk about homosexuality as not being
deviant. That was the 1970s. Yeah, it's crazy.
And so when we think about that arc of kind of
thinking about holistic health, thinking about
people that sleep problems and anxiety or depression
are common things, and there are compensatory
responses to real life experiences, they have
nothing to do with weaknesses. They're just signals.
And if we listen to the signals, we can learn
how to lean towards resiliency and lessen the
burden of that, but increase the resiliency that
that may not happen again. So now we're talking
about neurological resilience. It's amazing where
we've come more to do though. Absolutely. Well,
you just said the S word. So everyone that listens
to this frequently knows exactly what I'm going
to ask about next. So let's, I want to get to
performance. I think this is where this conversation
needs to go. You work with so many high performers
in uniform and, you know, sports teams. But before
we do, you know, the. The profession that I work
in, and I've contrasted this and compared this
with a lot of the SF special operations warfighters
I had on the show, unlike people like Jeff, who
had psychologists, had strength and conditioning
coaches, had the latest and greatest technology,
and they got to really kind of figure it out
and then disseminate it to the rest of the SEAL
teams. In the fire service, if you had a psychologist
coming, they're coming to say, hey, let's try
and... help some of them because they're broken.
If you have a strength and conditioning coach,
it's like, we'll give a talk on how to maybe
avoid a heart attack. You know, we're not even
close to performance. And this is, you know,
a population that's working awake, you know,
two or three days a week, 24 hours at a time,
you know, so 24 on 48 off is the, you know, minimum,
but then you have the staffing crisis. So now
you have, you know, maybe 48 on 24 off. So talk
to me first about, you know, through your lens
without loading the question, the importance
of sleep from, you know, whether it's the mental
health side, the physical health side, and then
obviously cognition as well. No, I'm really glad
that, you know, historically you've anchored
here because there's one thing that all of us
have management over every day and we spend one
third of our life in sleep. that we have management
over to improve our health and our performance,
and they're always interconnected, it is sleep.
That is our number one hands -down performance
enhancer. And it's often overlooked. That advantage
is given away if we think about it from a competitive
advantage. But it's also a career maturity advantage
for every individual, no matter what profession
they're in. And so if we want to have health
and that balance, we shouldn't be giving that
away. We should be protecting it. and and certainly
we can talk about naps too because they're interconnected
uh through our chronobiology both are very interconnected
um and that one's probably a tighter neurological
pathway that we actually make sure no one gets
to do except when we're in early grades right
um from a sleep standpoint And I'm going to speak
about some technology that can help some people.
And to be very clear, I work as a scientific
advisor for some of these companies, but I do
not get paid. I've never gotten paid as a scientific
advisor. I really see that as a direct conflict.
I know I'm leaving money on the table, but I'd
rather because my integrity is not for sale.
And I like to be able to speak clearly to technology
companies who are really trying to help health
and performance when they're not doing science
or question the science. Always kind of be probative
about that. But if we look at sleep, And we look
at your profession and having worked in it. If
you're creating disruptions, then you have to
start leaning on the prevention side. So prevention
saves money, saves talent, saves career maturity,
saves opportunities. Doesn't matter if we're
talking about pro sport, firefighting, or special
operations. And when you start to look at it
from a prevention standpoint, you're looking
at it from a holistic standpoint. Because if
you don't, you will lose talent. And if we think
of it from a firefighter standpoint, it's very
important you have early career professionals,
mid -career professionals, late career professionals.
That whole mentoring, right? To be an expert
in anything, it just means that you've made every
mistake there is to make in a limited bandwidth
of the field. If you do not have late career
professionals who can mentor because they're
broken, how do you then have this pathway? of
mentorship towards expertise or something that's
been around to the medieval times apprenticeships
that's how higher ed works that's how i got my
doctorate and so you have to start thinking from
a preventative standpoint so if you're not allowing
people to sleep seven to ten hours and that's
a healthy range then we need to be educating
about or using technology to augment those circadian
rhythms to have stabilization so one of the ways
you can stabilize that is through blue light
therapy a company i've worked with and used quite
frequently and have used it in elite sport as
well as i use it now in new zealand being the
head of psychology for high performance sport
new zealand our closest competitors are three
hour flight a two time zone shift so why would
i give away health advantage and competitive
advantage by not adjusting that so we use a company
ayo they make blue light glasses you to help
with circadian shifts they have an app that helps
you time it where am i going to when am i landing
so you know when to use the glasses and admit
kind of it just emits a light blue light in your
eyes you don't stare at it it comes at an angle
almost like the sun and that's what we're mimicking
we're mimicking frequencies of sunlight to re
-pattern feeling fresh and being on the time
zone when you land also dealing with jet lag
on the way back The other thing blue light can
do is reduce a little bit of your caffeine intake.
You can do a session for like 10 minutes and
peak your attention span and your alertness,
but you're not then waiting for a chemical to
get out of your system, which then could disrupt
sleep. So we can work shift work if we give people
education about sleep and then give them tools
to assist with that. Another one is a company.
Ella Mind. So they track your sleep and then
they've learned through their studies in Alzheimer's,
which we talked about earlier. So how do we create
a non -invasive passive way to stimulate areas
of the brain that have to do with Alzheimer's?
Well, you do that through small millivolts. through
the skull or sound through the earway, ear channel,
because the vagus nerve, which connects the brain,
the heart and the gut, if you stimulate it at
the right times, you can extend deep sleep or
facilitate, you know, falling asleep faster,
staying asleep and really staying away from any
disruptions. And so that technology I'll use
if people are still having jet lag effects and
middle insomnia. So that's that middle portion
of sleep. You fall asleep quick. You can stay
asleep right in the middle of the night. You
wake up and you're alert and you can't get back
to sleep. This device will sense as you're coming
out, stimulate your brain to stay back in. And
then another tool I use is Muse S. They're a
company that makes a band that can help with
reading brainwaves. You can use it for meditation,
but it also is pretty much a take -home sleep
study in a box. so you look at that sort of stuff
it can give you feedback but give a practitioner
like me feedback and then we can look at ways
to advance your environment advance how you sleep
when you sleep so we have these tools now to
really protect sleep as its primary health and
performance optimizer but also so does everyone
that's listening these are very inexpensive clinical
grade consumer technology that they have done
the hard yards of science. They're not trying
to sell you something that kind of works or looks
sciency. It's legit science that can guide our
practice. Because in a modern pretense, we have
everything around us that's here to disrupt our
sleep. We have full spectrum LED light bulbs
that disrupt our sense of what time it is in
the day. All of us in our environments. Yes,
we're saving money, but if you don't understand
how they disrupt coronal biology, that's not
good. Our phones are set to disrupt our sleep
through brainwave and radio frequency. And so
if we give a little bit of education about these
things, we can really preserve people's talent.
And so it always saddens me that most people
what they do know about sleep, some people have
some good knowledge, but most of us have a lot
more myths than we actually have knowledge. And
then we don't know what products are actually
helpful. One thing I was alluding to was the
false economy of the way that we're working our
firefighters. And one of the things that I said
was lawsuits. Obviously, if a fire engine crashes
into something, now you've lost a million dollar
piece of equipment as well. And I've used some
examples of large disasters in the past to show...
this one incident costs all this money or all
these lives in your book, the brain always wins
too. You've got quite a few of these listed.
Um, so talk to me about, you know, the, some
of the biggest tragedies that have been linked
to sleep deprivation. Well, I love where you're
going there too, because it's interesting when
we talk about paid not to see this stuff, and
then you're unwilling to look and you're becoming
a bean counter. You're looking at the dollars
and cents or the pounds and pence, and you're
not willing to see that ROI or loss of ROI. It
is a very confusing world. And so I can only
imagine the frustration you've experienced, but
I'm glad you've pointed these things out because
it changes the discussion points, which is critical.
There is a cost. As you were talking, one of
the examples I'll quickly go into and then the
tragedy. So we know for police officers, we look
at people of service. If you are constantly keeping
them on this shift work, the brain is wired to
predict. If an individual is under seven hours
of sleep, they are more likely to see pre -fight
indicators in an interaction with a citizen.
That's a problem. It's a problem we can solve.
Why does the brain do that? First of all, the
brain is wired to survive. You're in a situation
where at any time something can happen. When
we don't sleep seven hours, we all get a bit
more anxious. It's because the brain knows what
it has in its energy bank, and it's predicting
outwards. So it's also keeping us on our toes
to be more hypervigilant. Well, that's not a
great scenario for someone who's got to serve
and protect. And so when we don't think about
how this affects the brain and think about it
from a brain first standpoint, it's easy to ignore
everything else. And that happens. But when we
look at world tragedies, there are so many seminal
moments. I'll talk about one that was recent,
not far from where I am in Australia. So one
that was really most recent and we've seen and
we know that takes a lot. It's a very stressful
job to be an air traffic controller. is one of
the highest stress jobs. You think about it one
moment at a time and a mishap and you have carnage
on your hands, in the air and on the ground.
And so there was an incident in Australia where
actually an air traffic controller who had to
work three shifts, who actually fell asleep on
the job. So at that moment, the sky was not being
observed. It was not being communicated to. And
that also on the ground. lining up to land in
an airport was completely unobserved. And that
was easily something that could have been mitigated.
You cannot put people in those positions that
are under rested and unavailable from a physical,
cognitive and emotional standpoint. Because I'll
bring it back to our listeners, all of us I've
probably experienced it. If you haven't, I'm
very thankful. I've gotten tired driving. And
you can get to a state we call micro sleep, where
you're actually able to take in some perception
of what you're doing, but your reaction time
is so poor to your environment and how much information
you're taking in and processing that you're pretty
much sleeping with your eyes open. That's probably
the layman's way I would explain it. And that's
basically... an incredibly dangerous environment.
So we can't be putting people who have to do
these high complex jobs in that situation. And
working three shifts in a row, that will do it.
That will absolutely do it. Two other seminal
ones that I'll speak to is the Exxon Valdez.
Most people remember that. Huge damage to the
environment in Alaska. And when they drew down
on what it was, it was human error related to
a lack of rest and a lack of sleep. um i'll go
with one that dates me a little bit but that's
okay i'm an old man um but when we look at the
space shuttle challenger um that was related
to yes decision making that was not clear that's
part of it but it also was fatigue of a number
of individuals who were supposed to do quality
control related to and so when you have this
combination of things they come down to human
factors, but often they're related to this fatigue.
One that just recently happened, I just thought
of, that's not in the book. It happened to the
New Zealand Defense Force Navy. So they had not
adapted their protocols to the Australian and
the US and the UK and the Canadian Navy, where
you do shifts. So you are having people who are
on shift conning the ship who are rested, who
had had seven to 10 hours of sleep. They were
working, like if you think about in the past,
because we don't tend to do this anymore in North
America, although it depends upon the hospital,
of putting doctors on shifts of 32 hours straight.
And so they were putting their sailors on shifts
of 32 hours straight, and they lost a ship. They
ran aground, and it sank. When we think about
that, that's millions of dollars like you're
saying. I think it was 63 million. It might have
been more than that, but that's what I recall.
We can prevent these things. These are completely
preventable. I'll give you an example for something
that people have seen. If you've seen the movie
Lone Survivor. You saw an example of preserving
human expertise in the ability to actually act
with precision. So when they were in Overwatch
and they were just observing the village in the
movie, three people slept, three people are up,
and they shift. You teach people at that level
that your weapon is your brain. Everything else
is complementary. Because if you have the ability
to think through and process and decide, then
you have better opportunities. Not everyone was
up. And that actually was a bit controversial
because it was giving away methods and ways of
practice. But that was live in the movie. Well,
speaking of that, you're talking now forging
performance, even though under incredible duress
in that particular example. Talk to me about,
we've got this lack of cognition. I think one
of the things that one of my previous guests
said that when they did the analysis of accidents
involving police, fire, EMS vehicles, they said
nearly always there was an absence of tire tracks,
of skid marks because of those microsleeps. So
they just drove right into the minivan full of
kids because they were saving some money and
forced someone to work an extra shift. Now, so
that's obviously the detrimental side. Talk to
me about performance. So just one poor sleep,
how has that affected some of these elite teams?
Well, again, one of the things is, is you think
thoughtfully about your plan and I can compare
it to firefighters. So if we know that there
are certain demands you have to meet, we can
prepare the central nervous system, the neurological
system to be more resilient in the face of it.
We can mitigate some of these things. Now, down
to the individual, we may not mitigate all of
them. Some people we may be able to. There are
individual variances and individual differences.
But if we know that we're going to be going into
a period of high stress where there may be some
loss of sleep, why don't we prevent that? Well,
of course we do. In pro sport, I used to present
the modeling, mathematical modeling for players
of what's the return on investment that they're
ready. Not that they're improving throughout
the season, that they're able to maintain their
performance throughout the season. They're not
peaking. What's the ROI just on that? The availability
for them to produce their talent and what they're
good at. And you can produce right down to the
dollar what that is. And so when you think about
performance, we have to think about keeping people.
yes advancing at best but maintaining their talent
to be able to execute and plan ahead one of the
worst things that often happens and we should
learn this from military because most sport comes
from some history of military so pre -mortem
planning comes from philosophy but with cognitive
science we kind of understand percentage points
of how much we can do by thinking about everything
that can go wrong and then having a solution
So if we're looking at shift work, how do we
do it in the most humane way to keep those physical,
cognitive, and emotional attributes in check
and sharp or maintained? We can do that. And
so what I look at is, what's our planning? And
there's a Navy SEAL motto, three is two, two
is one, one is none. So plan A is good as plan
A, B, C, D, and so on and so forth. And so what
we do sometimes is we create this ambulance at
the bottom of the cliff where we're reactive
instead of proactive. High performance is about
planning and thinking ahead. It's about preserving
talent so people can be ready and continue to
grow. So when I think about those sleep cycles,
I'll give you an example. We almost had to play
a game when I was with the New England Patriots
in China. Now, we had two years to prepare. Never
happened. But in the background, we were planning
all the sleeping. We were thinking of all the
things that can happen. What's our behavior three
nights before we get on the plane? What do we
do to bank sleep and prepare and enhance neurological
resiliency? What do we do on the plane? What
do we do when we first get off? I'll give you
an example like a lot of teams will do. Oh, it's
a perfect time to immediately go to practice.
Are you kidding me? That's the worst thing. The
plane is not pressurized to sea level. You've
just done high altitude training. The best thing
to do is fuel, nap, and then maybe if there's
time, go do a workout. Otherwise, you're changing
injury or learning things that you're never going
to use because the brain doesn't unlearn. And
so if we think through things, we can prevent
talent loss and preserve opportunities. And I
think that's what we miss out. We're like, oh,
it'll take care of itself. No, that's not how
it works. It's not how it works. The other way
is with sleep, you also can work through the
gut, the anterior nervous system, which is the
second largest nervous system in our body next
to our brain. And so we can work in all these
multitude of ways to preserve sleep and then
what we feel on the other side of that. So just
think it through. Plan, plan, plan. You mentioned
learning. I want to get to the gut biome as well.
But before we do. When I did sports science,
we're talking a long time ago in London. I remember
them saying, teaching us that, you know, you
would do the skill, you would do the repetitions,
but it was actually when you slept that you process
the skill. Now you come from obviously, you know.
a group of athletes that are forging a literal
1 % gain in their skill to try and just squeeze
out their opposition. But I'm from a profession
that's literally the first responder Swiss army
knife. We do fire and we do EMS here. So everything
from the medical to the rope rescue, to the extrication,
to the fires, we're at massive skillset, but
also woefully sleep deprived. So talk to me about.
the importance of sleep when it comes to learning
and actually being a better professional in your
sport or your career. Yeah, I think you're spot
on. And what you learned there, we've just gotten
more subtle and nuanced in the knowledge about
what happens there. But absolutely, the practice
is basically a stimulation for the learning.
The learning doesn't encode until you sleep,
and especially deep sleep. And so what we're
having there is a memory encoding, basically
tau proteins and protein synthesis. And so when
we move through that full channel of recovery,
brain first, cleans itself. pairs itself, myelinates
and connects memory, then moves on to all the
other 11 systems. So what we do now in a lot
of ways is you want to benchmark training with
a significant recovery cycle. So what we're trying
to produce there is a peak in gamma waves in
the brain. So gamma waves have to do a lot with
that deep, thoughtful learning. and so we want
to benchmark immediately with recovery yes it
may be primary nutrition like hydration and nutrition
but that just is neurotransmission so we're just
strengthening the learning process so post something
you want to fuel but then you want to get good
rest an example of this in a lot of academic
institutions now from among their masters and
doctoral programs you have nap rooms thoughtful
work thoughtful learning take a nap i teach my
student athletes that who are in the system in
the olympic system here and then when i was working
the ncaa because they are student athletes you
can use your fitness level to enhance your learning
do a set of push -ups and sit -ups because it
doesn't take a lot to push blood flow when you're
fit right then study Then take a 20 -minute to
45 -minute nap and code. So close proximity of
coding. You also can use sensory deprivation
floating to enhance learning. So training, learning,
floating. benchmark those two things together.
And what you have are magnifications of increased
learning processes. And so you're touching on
something that you learned back then, still solid
now, our interventions have grown, our knowledge
has grown on it, but we often muck that up. We
often don't pair them together in close proximity.
And I can give you an example from elite military.
They've known this for a long time because you
talk about multiple skill sets that you guys
have in your current environment of firefighting,
which is significant. And I appreciate you teaching
me that. That is significant. That's not the
same everywhere. But if we look at some of the
special operations team, they may have to know
multiple languages. all right so how do you encode
language learning quickly learning and then sleep
or floating it enhances that process and this
this is stuff is not locked away in journal articles
that can't be seen by the public um you know
some of the military research i did will never
see the light of day or if it does it'll be seen
down the road um but some of this research is
out there now again uh this is why also we wrote
the book the brain always wins too and the brain
always wins was some of this gets locked away
and doesn't get talked about science is a gift
for all of us so the techniques and tactics i'm
talking about we should all know these these
should be gifts science is a gift so i appreciate
what you're saying but we don't often benchmark
them together unfortunately yeah well i think
that's how you break through some of the naysayers
so like i said the chess beating dude that grew
the mustache and bought the leather helmet and
you know i'll just work the shifts that i work
and you know mental health is for the weak and
all this absolute bullshit that you hear some
of these idiots talking about the way that you
get through to them i think is performance and
i'll be interested to get your take on this i
had a guy on the show logan galbrick who was
a professional baseball player and he talked
about one of his flow state moments And he said,
you need three things. He said, you need, you
know, the repetitions of the skill, which, you
know, as we progress through our career, we start
to have as firefighters. You need high stress.
Well, yeah, that's inbuilt. No question about
that. And he said, and you need a calm mind.
And I was like, well, ding, ding, ding, ding.
That's what we don't have. So then you, if you
want to reframe in my, you know, what I've been
saying is if you want to reframe many of the
things that work on the mental health side, let's
talk about performance. You wake up at three
in the morning, you get on the rig, you drive
to the fire, you make entry through a ladder,
through a window on the second floor, and now
you're searching for a child. But you haven't
done the work and you're sleep deprived and your
mind is busy. I would imagine it's impossible
to get in the flow state where we can really
read the room with the Braille, as it were. So
if I am correct, talk to me about... What is
needed to get into a flow state? And are we blocking
that by the way that we're working and not accepting
some of these mental health tools that we know
work on the other side? It's a great question.
I'm also going to do a little bit of kind of
piecing together of what we do know about flow.
So flow, what we understand is more of distally.
So Csikszentmihalyi's research is actually, he
was very fearful of really committing hard science
to his theory. And like a lot of theories, because
it seems true and seems accessible, it blew up.
But the science on it is not very good. Because
the very fact, if I have to go through nine things
to get into a flow state, it doesn't describe
a lot of great, amazing things that people do,
including in firefighting. I always find it interesting
when you talk to someone who's done something
really dramatic, you'll find their eyes will
go up and to the left because they're creating
a story. They have no idea how it happened. It's
an efficient state on the brain of an altered
state of consciousness. And that's the best we
know. Even though we have flow states that date
back to 1700s coming from warfare. It is just
an efficient state on the brain. So flow is much
more of a, not a pinpoint, but a range. Because
we're so resilient as human beings, if it took
us a pinpoint to perform at the highest level.
we wouldn't have survived as a species. So it's
a distal explanation. But to go to your question,
which is really foundational, can you perform
within that range with some of the factors you
gave me? Underslept, underpracticed, or under
-rehearsed, just maybe through that particular
skill or that particular scenario, not saying
unskilled, but in that particular scenario. And
then certainly overwhelmed with high pressure.
So I go back to, are we practicing alike elements
that will transfer? Because if we're not practicing
alike elements that will transfer, we're not
going to have management of pressure, which is
an emotional. Emotions come first in sport and
life. So it's an emotional response, which cues
pattern recognition, which then allows someone
to access. physical and cognitive attributes
of reading the room and then being able to do
because it really what it comes down to high
performance is this on the brain level, see,
feel do. That that's it. You did it today. I
did it today. And everyone that's listening has
probably done it today. You've driven somewhere
and you have no idea how you got there. The only
time you have any reference of it is that maybe
you got detoured and you had to think through
new steps or new ways to go if your GPS isn't
on, or you've gotten into a state of frustration
and road rage. Otherwise, we don't remember it.
That is a range of efficiency. And a way of understanding
that is if you've ever had to teach someone to
drive, you then forget about steps. processes,
things to do, because it's high performance is
stored in the area of the brain that you cannot
consciously accent. That's why if you teach firefighting,
you have to almost regain your declarative knowledge
and study that a bit to make sure you don't leave
anything out. And so what I would say is the
factors you gave me are defeating that. It's
not that you can't do the job. There are failure
points, though, but you can't do the job. It's
we should be setting people up for more success
and we should simulate in ways that are safe.
So once they're in that environment, they can
even be faster at learning their environment
and accidents. Brilliant. Well, circling around,
we talked about, you know, the gut brain connection.
Some firehouse cooking is amazing. So some of
the meals I've had have been fantastic, nutritious
and healthy and all the things. But some of the
firehouse food is also terrible. And then the
high concentration of calls that we get, sometimes
it's an uncrustable in an EMS room in a hospital
somewhere. So talk to me first again about this
gut -brain connection and how that affects both
longevity and performance. It's a great question,
and I too have had great meals at a firehouse
before as well, and I remember them fondly. There
is many a time sitting, and I thought more about
this coming into this podcast. So I'll thank
you immediately, and I will answer your question
with that gift you've given to me. It's brought
back amazing, amazing memories of being at the
firehouse. First of all, we're still drilling
down on this. I think the military is a bit ahead
from other places. But the enteric nervous system
has been kind of ignored in a lot of ways in
the sense that. what goes in gets processed for
neurotransmission yes we get this gift now of
eating for ambiance and preference and taste
but the only reason why we have taste buds is
was to identify poisonous foods but also the
only reason why we ate is to produce neurotransmission
that's still the primary goal right and so if
we can't create neurotransmission from things
traveling from the brain to the gut then we're
not going to have firings in the way that's going
to uh preserve our talent but also preserve our
ability to learn and so really when we look at
this it's critically important that we understand
nutrition and nutrition is very individualized
this is another thing we've gotten wrong everything
in performance and health is individualized for
instance we can use the simplest example i think
we might have used it in the book but i could
eat a carrot and have an allergic reaction you
could eat a carrot and be able to digest All
the vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates, all
the breakdown of the chemistry in a much more
efficient way. So we have to understand it's
not one size fits all. That's immediately where
we get it wrong. And there are opportunities
we all have now with simple, accessible science
for their general practitioner doctors of sampling.
And again, it's just hopefully it's not TMI when
they have commercials in the United States of
like here, you know. you know, do your business
in a box and ship it in, right? So that test
is actually one of the things we can understand.
How do we process our foods? How is our nutrition
individualized? And I would give an example to
everyone. You can go to your GP and there's another
company. I get nothing for this, but I know the
accuracy of their test. Thorne Research does
some testing with fecal matter and can look at
your profile and look at that and look at it
over time because you need some good sampling.
But then we can draw on it. they're one of the
sponsors of the show and i did a poo sample just
one though i haven't done sampling over time
but yeah apparently my poo was great i disagree
what i saw in the toilet but they seem to be
impressed by it And again, if you can get people
past this piece of like, listen, what comes in
and goes out tells us a lot. And I've done a
lot of that in collision sports and the military.
We can then understand how to prescribe nutrition
at just in time. We learned how to adjust nutrition
going on mission or going into games. I'm doing
that here in New Zealand. We can get a better
understanding of how we address higher stress
because I'll give you an example. And you said
it really wonderfully. that when you have higher
stress, what does it do to the gut? Well, you
can imagine it flushes things out that we essentially
need. Cortisol is a very important neurotransmitter.
It's not a negative thing, just like inflammation.
It's just a signal. And when that signal predominates
too high, then it can flush other really essential
neurotransmitters out, like serotonin, which
has to do with mood, memory, and movement. Pretty
important stuff. And if any of us become low
normal serotonin, all of those are going to be
off a bit. Well, if we have the science to really
kind of dial that in and give people the empowerment
of knowing, okay, what are serotonergic or serotonin
-rich foods, like kiwi fruit? What are ways I
can protect my gut so it doesn't get leaky? like
with high amounts of fiber, right? Or moderate
amounts of fiber, depending on the person, right?
We can really give people opportunities to be
on the front foot, that if I know if I'm going
through, I'm going to be under high stress, how
do I dose? Basically, food is medicine. How do
I dose my medicine to produce a different response
under high stress? We also forget this piece
about nutrition. So let's say you've come off
a call. You can decide the grade of stress. But
there's stress. There's stimulation. And actually,
I don't even like that term because it's a very
subjective term. It's actually trauma. Is it
a small T or a big T? We want it to be a small
T because we can work it through. Big Ts take
more interventions. But what's immediately on
the other end of that is digestion differences.
So if we think about our autonomic nervous system,
we refer to it as sympathetic, which means go,
go, go. And parasympathetic, which is rest and
digest. So if we're still go, go, go, we should
probably be doing an intervention to get us calm
before we go eat. So everyone's had this experience
of their stomach shrinking or that feeling of
our stomach. That's blood flow. If you were sympathetically
driven, you've just had a threatening situation
or you're just go, go, go. Everything went fine,
but it was go, go, go. Likely to do. diaphragmatic
breathing do a relaxation session you know listen
to some calming music and just close your eyes
then go eat your fueling system will open up
more and thus you get now digesting the energy
you need in the neurotransmission and so we forget
about these pairings did you ever look i think
we talked about it when we spoke last uh that
company newcom that i told you about See, they
have these 20 -minute sessions, and that's something
that I've said not so much before a meal. I mean,
what you've just said is new to me, and that
makes perfect sense because, yeah, if you're
stressed out, you're not wanting to eat at that
moment. And then with the acute stress, the burnout,
that was one of my symptoms was that kind of
loose stool, as it were. But at the end of a
shift before you go home. I think if I was still
on the fire service now, I would do this every
single time. Go back into the bunk room or sit
in your car in the parking lot, somewhere where
you feel safe. Put the headphones on and the
eye mask and just do a 20 -minute session because
it down -regulates you. You don't even have a
choice. Whether you stay awake, whether you're
skipping through theta, whatever state you're
in, it's down -regulating you. So the same thing.
And if you had a big incident, especially if
you're allowed to go out of service for a little
bit. do one of those sessions first and then
and then go and eat so yeah i like that a lot
and that's the benchmarking like we talk about
if you're going to do stimulation there's got
to be rest you know laws of physics apply in
all of our humanity and neuroscience and psychology
so if we think about a cosine it goes up and
it goes down everyone's doing it right now i'm
doing it you're doing it inhale is actually a
stress response, blood pressure goes up, vitamin
and minerals to the brain, neurotransmission.
As we exhale, that's a state of relaxation. We
are at our best when we mimic that cosine. And
we have high variability, a lot of this really
connected. And you coming off a shift or coming
off a call, that gets shorter in amplitude and
closer together. And some states in chronic stress,
it gets wider apart, our variability. Anything
that has a heartbeat, you want high variability.
And you talked about a transition. I would encourage
anyone coming off a shift, and it also helps
to shift if you're going home to be a spouse,
be a father, be a mother, is to create a transition
where you are in a recovery state before you
even leave. Yes, it's an excellent way of doing
it. When we're looking at high -performing athletes
or elite operators, you're teaching them to be
a scientist of themselves. And then with every
stimulation that you have that creates this small
T that hopefully turns into learning, you have
to benchmark it. with points of recovery, which
include hydration, nutrition, and bringing the
central nervous system down. So I might encourage
them to do HRV biofeedback or resonant breathing.
And there's great technology out there for that
with thought technology, heart math, and heart
state health. And those can guide you through
that. You can do it through meditation with Muse,
but build a practice of if you're going to get
intense, you also have to get come down. otherwise
you train your central nervous system to only
do one thing well and we need variability and
and i love that you shared that practice that's
smart brilliant absolutely what should be done
yeah i mean it is truly brilliant and this i
think it's the only only technology in the world
that has a patent for down regulating the nervous
system like from from the you know parasympathetic
excuse me too parasympathetic with the brain
itself One more area, then I want to go to some
closing questions so I can be mindful of your
time. You talk about, you know, the social side
as well in the book. I think the most kind of,
you know, the low hanging, most important conversation
with this is social media and its impact on relationships.
Again, especially some of these younger athletes
that may have been raised looking at a screen
rather than looking in someone's eyes. So just
to kind of overall conversation, talk to me about.
you know what you're seeing as far as some of
these technologies and then um you know versus
what is needed to forge whether it's these elite
war fighters or these elite athletes it's a lot
of things to unpack it's a really good question
i think one of the pieces i would speak to immediately
because you started there was if anyone really
wants to understand the closest proximity to
the latest data of understanding how mental health
is actually fracturing our health the u .s surgeon
general in 2023 released a report there's an
executive summary and then if you really want
to go for a deep dive please plan something fun
after it because it is not a fun raid uh because
and and make sure that thing maybe even has to
do with social connection uh because the data
that we have because most of the social media
companies in the United States no longer allow
us to have access or social science researchers
have access to that data to see how it's impacting
youth as well as adults. And so this was before
they closed the door. To be honest, we don't
need all the data to make a conclusion. This
is an epidemic and it is harmful to our health.
If we don't digest it in the right amounts and
create caveats, it's basically like handing someone
a hammer with no rules how to use it. And so
one of the primary social psychologists has even
said, who's cited in the US Surgeon General's
report, I would rather have my son and daughter
have a smoking and drinking habit. And so to
frame it that way, it is divisive to our health.
One of the reasons is you highlighted. And we
see this off the back of COVID as well, because
that put us onto screens. Now, some of that was
good. I'm very thankful you and I can do this
today. I'm thankful that I do some hybrid work
with athletes worldwide when they leave our shores
here in New Zealand, but we work with them here,
and then they may have to go on a trip. They
want to connect in. We have this space. However,
spending time on screens, we lose social emotional
learning. And so what do I mean by that? We are
social beings. We predict. So learning facial
cues, learning how empathy is displayed in pitch
and tone and facial reaction and posturing is
very, very important to selecting those groups
of people we want to put around us. So if we
get really poorer digestion or doses of social
emotional learning, this is how we regulate.
So we get less regulation as a human being, less
understanding of ourselves, less understanding
of the other, less understanding of our communities.
So it's a critical factor that we can't put the
toothpaste back in the tube, but we can teach
people how to use it in ways that can be beneficial.
And it's normally in shorter doses. And so I'll
go to a performance environment. We know that
athletes who access their social media. within
48 hours, 48 hours, not even right up to the
event. That gets it worse. But 48 hours before
tend to have more anxiety about the event than
someone who doesn't. So we educate our athletes.
And this is difficult because there's sometimes
brand managers. They do have to post. They have
to be present. Otherwise, they don't get their
funding. So we have to find workarounds that
someone else handles that. We offset that interaction.
But we know that you can imagine what the dosing
of anxiety is. The other thing is that social
media is working off of frequencies to push certain
brainwaves and personal emotional responses.
And those things don't help them. Just to give
an example, you know, Steve Jobs understood when
he was designing a smartphone what he was going
for. He loved the modeling of cigarettes and
caffeine. How do I get the person addicted? Well,
that's through radio frequency and light frequency.
Then when you add in the other pieces about likes
and everything, what we have is an experiment,
a mass experiment that's been done on the world
where no one's assigned an informed consent of
being involved with being manipulated and distorted
in their own experience. I didn't realize Steve
Jobs was that aware of all the downstream effects.
Yes. um i happen to know one of the members of
his four team because it was if it was a 40 people
that designed a smartphone we wouldn't see it
today and one of them was a neuroscientist and
they were asked to look at how to create light
dynamics and interaction to spend more eyes and
thumbs on now others in the social media space
have amplified that and turbocharged that however
we started from a position and there was a reason
why the iphone never came with a manual Because
you'd have to put disclaimers. Crazy. You'd have
to be transparent. And you watch that film, The
Social Dilemma, and those programmers that were
behind it that you could see were kind of wracked
with guilt now. And they said, look, I'll be
completely honest. I don't let my children use
this app. And I designed it. And then a lot of
the people I've talked to on the mental health
struggles of our children, every single time
I ask them, and it's an open... open question
it's always well the first thing is social media
so compared to you know childhood trauma the
other things that we know are going to be present
too that is the thing that they're talking about
primarily is amplifying all these struggles well
if you think about it we go back to and and we're
a similar generation you know we have the same
worries about tv and there is an impact and there
can be a positive impact But TV wasn't designed
particularly. The medium is the message. But
it wasn't designed to dramatically manipulate
brainwave through certain frequencies and dynamics
of light. This strategically was. And another
way to think about TV, and we can walk it over
to social media, it's called programming. So
what are we programming? I've never had these
thoughtful kind of distillations like that. So
what is social media's ultimate mission of what
they're programming? And if you look at that,
another way to kind of unpackage that, and I
remind people in New Zealand of this. So almost
all the social media companies are based in the
US. TikTok isn't, but soon we'll have some branch
there that is. The US doesn't get the worst version
of social media. Everybody else does. And so
when you think about what you're digesting there,
and it has these harmful effects, and then you
think about elsewhere in the world gets worse
programming, where do we end up? This is so much
of an issue, and this is something that I'll
say I'm happy that the International Law Committee,
the IOC, has done, but they tend to be slow to
regulate or slow to protect. protect people um
that they've seen the last two olympic cycle
the online abuse toward female athletes is significant
so much so they've put money towards researching
it and then interventions that'll tell you in
just two cycles they decided and if you look
at the last time they regulated something that
had to do towards the harm of their athletes
you're going to look at a very very a you know
long stretch of time so they move very quickly
they tend to spend more time trying to evaluate
it which isn't necessarily a bad thing but they
could see clearly how dangerous this was for
the next generation of female athletes i saw
a story a while ago i think i've got this right
that in australia they'd banned social media
till the age of 16 is this something that you're
mirroring in new zealand as well They're certainly
considering. And when you're close neighbors
and you both share a lot of values from a societal
level to community level to family level and
quite similar in a lot of ways, that we take
nods from each other. It goes back and forth.
So certainly I would say it's being considered
at the parliamentary level. We're educating it
amongst our elite athletes. Because if we don't,
We're going to continue to have one of these
great complexities that influence things in the
wrong direction. But also they become peer -to
-peer learning. If our elite athletes can teach
the next pathway down and the next pathway down,
we start to create this subtly different way
of interacting. Again, I don't think we'll put
the toothpaste back in the tube. That's going
to take huge parliamentary and governmental levels
of regulation. But we can teach people to use
it in ways that aren't harmful. Absolutely. All
right. Well, I want to go to some closing questions,
but before we do your book, the brain always
wins to what made you guys write it initially.
And then, you know, what can people expect now
with this revised edition? Sure. Thank you for
that question. It's a great question. It's partly
about some of the things we've talked about today.
Chris and I feel Chris Parker coauthor. And I
feel very, very passionately about this. And
I said it earlier today in this conversation,
because it's just, I think, a part of both of
our ethos. Science is a gift. And it's far too
often locked up in peer -reviewed journals and
written in technical jargon that doesn't allow
people to excessively have that gift and receive
that gift. And I think it's a mandate, I feel
it, for every scientist. Give back in that way.
Distill the research down at every level. Don't
get me wrong. I do think as scientists, we have
to speak at the 50 ,000 -foot level. And jargon
is a part of every profession. You could speak
some of your jargon from firefighting, and I
would sit here and go, that is like Swahili.
Please translate. And that's okay. It's about
quick communication, distilling down big concepts
into small, certain bite -sized things. But we
should be able to talk about it in an accessible
500 -foot level because that's who we serve.
We do this for humanity. And so we wrote the
book because as we sat down and talked about
it, he was asking me questions conversationally
just like you and I have exchanged. And I think
most good things come from conversation. It came
clear to him because he anchors on communication.
He worked as a professor at Nottingham Trent
University. He was brought into sports science
because they were finding their graduates couldn't
teach people what they did. And he's like, well,
that's about a campaign of narrative. You need
to be able to talk at every level about what
you did, not just at the highest level. And so
he instituted this. communications program so
everyone could talk about what they did at every
level. And so it's something near and dear to
him, but it's near and dear to me. So I had no
thoughts of ever writing a book. Written chapters,
technical chapters, and peer review articles.
I had no imagination of it. So it's clearly anchored
on. He's written numerous amounts of book. I
think we're well over 20 now in many different
genres, but really kind of a great partnership
of going, okay, how do we tell a story? that
can be engaging to teach people about science.
So that was really the thrust of it. And I'm
still very passionate about it. To this day,
I've only heard one scientist ever say that that
should be part of our mission. And it was someone
from NOAA in the US. of really understanding
kind of we need to talk about weather because
of how it impacts and connects into your world,
tragedies and crises and unfortunate situations
that weather can bring us more and more, fire,
earthquakes, these sort of things. And she said,
we can't just speak about it in technical terms.
We need to meet people where they're at and present
the gift so they can inform themselves and empower
themselves. So that was the first thing. The
other thing is I'm very passionate about the
brain. It's the most complex thing known in the
universe. But we don't get much time to understand
how it works and why it works as it does. And
we don't get much understanding of how we have
the power. We don't have control over anything.
That's an illusion. But what we do have is management
and influence over everything. And that's pretty
damn powerful when you consider we have control
over nothing. And yet a human species, we've
made it to this point. And so for me, teaching
people how they can empower themselves and understand
themselves greatly is something that I think
Chris and I are both passionate about. I think
for the new book, what we've added in is we've
added in much more of the conversation. to see
the information in even a more accessible way.
What we've done is also expanded all the chapters
to, okay, now how do I take this learning in
a human varied way? And what sort of choices
do I have to apply this stuff? So we've added
much more contextualized activities and opportunities
to engage. And then I would say the third thing
we've talked a little bit about, we wanted to
put technology in the first book, but we felt
like it'd be a bridge too far. Also, We've moved
that much farther with the neurotechnologies
being much more clinical grade and much more
accurate and much more transparent in what they
can do and what they can't do. And so adding
that piece was clearly important to us because
there are tools out there that can help all of
us. And many of them are quite inexpensive when
you think pennies on the dollar or a pound on
the pence of how it could help us. And so that's
an addition. I think the other piece I'm really
big on, don't live in the book. It's not about
living in the book. It's adding even more to
other things you can read at multiple levels,
other things you can listen to, other things
you can watch that we've vetted that we're like,
this is really good science and it's approachable.
And so we wanted it to be a journey. I think
if you're trying to be living in the book, I
think it comes to a place where it feels far
too guru -like. And I don't believe in gurus.
I think, I mean, just as a reader, it was a phenomenal
book. Again, when people bring it down to kind
of layman's terms, it allows the average person
to then absorb all these things and then critically
think. And this is what's happened with me with
the 1100 plus conversations and, you know, numerous
books that I've read from the guests is it all
goes into this little, you know, meat grinder
in my head. And then when needed, it will spit
out like, oh, actually, this is the thing. Remember
this conversation? Whereas if it all been, you
know, highbrow literature, I just would not be
able to read it. I wouldn't be absorbing it.
So I think there's, as you said, you know, you
read multiple things about this as a firefighter,
you start learning about, you know, neuroscience
and sleep deprivation and, you know, strength
and conditioning and injuries and physical therapy,
and you put it together and then you look at
your ecosystem and go, wait a second, this is
not lining up. There's some things that we should
be doing differently. So this is why I love books
like yours is the rest of us. that aren't very
steeped in academia are able to absorb the principles,
the takeaways, and then curate the way that we
think as well. And you don't have to be steeped
in academia. That's the thing. Science is a gift.
It should be accessible to every one of us. And
it really distresses me. when we don't make it
accessible. And then we stand back and we go,
well, they should just know. Well, you can't
tell people to do their best unless you show
them how, and you have to meet people where they're
at. And in some ways, it makes me a better educator
because I'm a scientist practitioner, which means
I meet with people. I sit with them. I work with
them. And working with them, you understand that
we are all amazingly... built with resiliencies
but it's how do we cross that bridge and connect
so if i'm sitting there going well why can't
you just read the academic literature that's
not appropriate if i sat with you what i'm always
amazed about is expertise is everywhere yes i've
been i'm not a firefighter my brother was a paramedic
and i trained as a paramedic but we never fought
fires i could spend time with you and you would
bring great joy because it would bring me back
to those times being in the firehouse and teach
me where it's evolved we have to be more curious
about there's expertise everywhere but we just
got to connect and it shouldn't be this elitist
thing it's just information it's just knowledge
it's it's what chris parker would say and was
in the book and we debated about putting in the
first book and i was like that's got to go in
it's wisdom of the village why do we carry these
traditions through Because they've met the test
of time, but also now the test of science. And
there's something brilliant about that in every
environment. So it's just about connection. It's
interesting, the discussion we've had today,
because I was just thinking through some other
things like sleep deprivation and what we don't
learn about that. But it's just, think about
families that have kids. If you're educated a
little bit better when you have a newborn, how
to protect that. Like what happens in the endocrine
level? What happens at the gut level? What happens
at the cognitive level? That your brain starts
to shrink after three weeks of sleep deprivation,
but you can get it back. So how do you get it
back? And so all this little stuff, we can make
big differences. It's interesting as well, because
I've seen... I need to see studies or show me
the data used as a deliberate roadblock as well.
And I think that when you're immersed in the
dissemination of information like within your
book, the average person then can go either A,
oh, you're absolutely right. We do need to study
this more before we move forward. Or B, in the
example I've given earlier, a 56 -hour workweek
is less healthy than a 42 -hour workweek. Do
we really need studies? Or are you just stalling
and stalling and stalling? So I think this is
what's nice is you can see, okay, well, or, you
know, in many cases, well, look, there's all
this sleep medicine information on the shipping
industry and the Navy and Navy SEALs and the
Army and aviation and trucking and et cetera,
et cetera. There is the information out there.
And then, you know, well, give me some examples
of when things come wrong. Okay, well, then in
this book. There's eight pages full of disasters
that cost millions and millions and millions
of dollars. So I think this is it. Then you can
really kind of stand your ground when you do
not need any more data. There's enough out there.
Or in some cases, okay, yeah, we need to study
more. But for example, do we need more studies
on the fact that social media is detrimental
to children? I think we're there. I think we've
got it now. Yeah, we're there. And I would say
one of the number of the wonderful questions
you've asked relates to this piece is it's always
a yes and. The data helps because you're standing.
You're not standing on sand. As you said, you're
standing on solid ground. But the other piece
that's a yes and, it has to do with building
connections. People don't care what you know
until they know you care or you understand what
they care about. And so if we don't make connections,
information does not necessarily connect as well.
That's why it's a narrative. That's why it's
a campaign. That's why it's a consistency of
messaging and connection. And to go to a bit
of a side here, we know this. Most of our marketing
is based upon companies that understand the neuroscience
of influence. They've been using it against us
forever. They know how many commercials to show
someone before they get off the couch and order
a pizza. They know how many exposures. And so
if we start to use that intention for good, we
can start to create some influence, not perfectly,
not a hit rate of 100%, but can our hit rate
go up? But you need the facts before you can
tell a good story and have a good campaign. And
so I think it's always a yes and, and your questions
reflected that today. We have to connect as human
beings, otherwise we're not going to make dramatic
change. Absolutely. I think this is the beautiful
thing about podcasts and all these conversations
is it's, you know, you hear this over and over
again from these people from all these different
backgrounds that are storytelling and, you know,
using that narrative along with the science,
eventually there is that critical mass and the
individual goes, you know what? This is actually
starting to make sense to me now. I think I'm
going to look deeper or I'm going to take this
to my department or whatever it is. So, yeah,
and I think my whole thing now is this. punk
rock revolution of kindness compassion and community
i think that's the most you know rebellious thing
you can do these days is to start pulling people
back together again and that messaging has taken
a long time too because we look at the the divisive
you know deliberate use of neuroscience to separate
this nation for the last you know arguably five
if not a lot longer years yes yes and again it
is using science to understand that and but they're
also science can uh we can Call that back. If
we understand how the mechanisms work, we certainly
can use our intentions for good. And that's the
thing. Science should be used with good intention.
And certainly there's a history of that falling
down. And we need to acknowledge that. It's almost
full circle to our conversation in the beginning.
If we don't acknowledge our mishaps and we don't
acknowledge that we've changed and we've needed
to because of X or Y, then why should people
trust? And that also has to do with scientific
literacy. I don't blame on people. I often will
blame my own science, that psychology has not
done a good job teaching people what we do and
how we do it, that it falls on us. Yes, you're
not going to get everyone to listen, but that
shouldn't be the expectation. The mission should
be about science issues for good intention, and
this is why we use it, and that we can use it
for good intention, and we can bond people together,
and we can shine our light in different ways.
I think we can make dramatic change with those
sort of things. My hope is that every day I get
up and that's my mission. It's people. And anytime
I move off of that, that people matter first
and they're more important than technology and
hardware, then I got to come back to center.
And I thank you for the opportunity because I
think that's, you're right. The podcasts offer
that other truth grounded fact base. It's like
you're saying is who do you listen to? And I
think that's a death of expertise as Tom Nichols
talks about who are you listening to? What's
their background? Are they admitting to what
bias is? Are they educating from a place of strength?
Or what are they trying to sell you? I'm not
trying to sell anything. It's just these are
the facts as we know them. And when I state an
opinion, I will state it as an opinion. Now,
it's usually formed by facts, but there's a difference.
There's a big difference. Well, I want to go
to some closing questions quickly before I let
you go. We've talked about your book and we'll
talk about where people can find that in just
a moment. Are there books that you love to recommend
written by other people? There are actually probably
a series that I really appreciate, which starts
us from the beginning, actually, because I talked
about how often people feel philosophy is something
of the past, where actually every science came
from philosophy. It's a search for the truth.
And it gave birth to many sciences, medicine,
psychology, neuroscience, military tactics, business
operations. And so we think it's lost. But actually,
epistemology or Stoic philosophy is pretty important
to us. So I tend to recommend some of the...
Ryan Holiday put out a book, three books, actually.
One, which I think is seminal for this time in
the world, and one is courage is calling. And
so that piece of really anchoring on integrity.
What does it mean? What is integrity? How do
you live it? How is your word your bond? Discipline
is destiny. Really looking at how we arrange
our environments. and what the Greeks would call
a loci of learning, that how we construct our
environments will cue us to the behaviors and
the emotions and the thoughts that live more
in line with virtue and value. And so his series
of books, which are really nice for people who
don't love reading, but love the idea of reading,
but also I think the chapters are very impactful
because they're a story. of these modern day
stories benched up to the philosophy and then
the principles. Each chapter is only about 10
pages or less. They're designed as a meditation,
really just kind of just to prompt thoughtful
consideration. very much based upon Marcus Aurelius'
book of meditations. And so I think he's done
a very, very wonderful job with a series of three.
Those are the two books I think about quickly
because they really anchor on how things we talk
about, social media is trying to disconnect us,
but also confuse us about our routines of life,
about what's virtuous. But also this idea we're
getting confused about what is integrity. It's
not popularity. And so I think those are two
powerful books right now. The other one I would
think about is a book called Fluke. And it, I'm
trying to think, Brian Klaas, K -L -A -A -S,
I believe. And he became viral. And he's a social
scientist when he was at Davos. And this is about...
three maybe five years ago and he made a statement
that was very provocative but it was very anchored
in truth that he had sat on several panels sat
in a number of of kind of workshops and that
conference and he made this statement and it's
fitting for the world you come from He said,
I feel like I'm at a conference of firefighters
and no one's talking about how to get water to
the fire. We're avoiding the very issues we need
to be talking about, which is taxing the wealthy
so we don't create an evaporation of the middle
class in Gilded Age. But his book Fluke is about
something that I've studied in a postgraduate
level, which is complex systems. So when you
were asking me questions earlier, and often people
anchor on simple answers to complex problems,
that's not the case. Everything is complex. As
a human being, we are a complex system in a complex
system. So how do we understand how complex systems
work to understand the most important? Like I
said earlier, you don't have to know them all.
You have to know the ones that move the system.
And often in complex systems like weather, small
things make great change. So it's understanding
those small things that make great change. And
so when I was answering some of your questions,
I was thinking about what moves the system for
greater change, as opposed to we have to know
everything. In fact, most situations we can't.
But we can know the factors that move things.
And then we can then anchor on how to make resiliency.
Efficiency is a bit of a lost leader. That's
always there. But if you don't make the system
more resilient and people more resilient, it'll
always break. And he talks about that with common
examples. And it's written in an accessible way.
And so I think it anchors people on the truth
that some of the questions about health. human
performance and vitality of cultures are complex,
but we can understand them and we can fall less
for simple answers. Fantastic. What about films
and documentaries? Oh God, now we've got to go
by genre, but that's all right. You've touched
on something I do like to watch because in one
of my degrees as an undergraduate was in journalism.
And also understanding how to use media as the
message. And so I really love docos and then
understanding some of the data is left on the
ground floor, you know, or the cutting room floor,
I should say. Oh, God. Probably one of the things
I, you know, that really appreciate drilling
down on is the lack of moral ambition of our
companies. worldwide. So some of the docos on
Enron, some of the docos on Theranos, those things
show that, okay, there's a disconnection to social
connection. There's a disconnection to what I
do as a social import. And then I'll go to sport
docos that go to that, looking at concussion
in sport, looking at the selection process, looking
at how we don't really speak. We speak to the
ideals of sport, but do we live them? So it's
any of those docos really kind of speak about,
to me, we're failing in this mission. And so
how do we get to the other side? And so unfortunately,
you're getting an old man trying to recall titles.
But I would say it generally falls in those,
because it reminds me of my mission. It reminds
me we're failing. I'll give you an example. I've
got a manuscript prepared. And in this manuscript,
I put together a timeline. of all the abuses
towards athletes from 1940 to the current time.
It's many pages where we failed. And if we don't
face that stuff like in DACOs and put it front
and center, we'll continue to fail it. It may
not be an inspiring read, but we have to also
look at who we are as human beings. And so we
have to look at that stuff. Otherwise, we're
not looking at truth because people love their
illusions. And so I love docos in that way. It
makes us have to look at ourselves in a sense
of humanity. Yeah, my apologies. I'm not pulling
out the titles, but again, old man, not enough
caffeine in my system. No problem. I think we
talked about this when we spoke before, but this
is something I've been thinking about recently.
You mentioned some of these large companies.
I mean, William Morris and Purdue Pharma and
DuPont that have literally, their products have
cost in cigarettes, for example, I think per
year, it's 8 million. smoking -related deaths
around the world. And the fact that these people
can sleep at night knowing that they are accumulating
wealth at the expense of American or international
lives is disgusting. But when you take a step
back, to me, it's the mental health crisis that
we're not talking about. The narcissistic president
or the CEO of a drug company that put out OxyContin.
That's a sociopath there. That's someone who
is not feeling empathy, compassion, and therefore
are they fit for duty, as we would say in my
profession, to be a fire chief, to be the president,
whatever it is, if they don't have the attributes
that you need for a leader. So I find that maybe
that will be the next step is actually looking
at the heads of all these governments and agencies
and companies. That are literally predatory on
the people they're supposed to be serving in
many cases, if they're in government and doing
a kind of, you know, fit for duty check on them.
They'll take a police officer off the street
immediately if he says he's struggling. Well,
what about someone who has no issue with thousands
and thousands of children being killed, for example?
So to me, that's a very. barely tapped conversation
that we need to look at that I think will answer
a lot of the, well, why the hell conversations
that we keep having. I love the things you just
touched on there and I can unpackage it a little
bit. And I do remember our initial conversation
about some of these things. So thank you for
triggering that. One of the things you just talked
about DuPont with the PFAS and how that affects
all firefighters. And I actually reflected on
this a little bit as we're coming on this podcast
again, spending time. at the firehouse i remember
playing in spray foam as a child so i've been
exposed to certainly not your level or my father's
level but multiple times and no one knowing any
different but yet the company knew the harm that
it could do the sackler family and pharmaceuticals
and the opioid epidemic absolutely and there
is science to bear on this that we know that
um that most CEOs score very high on psychopathy,
meaning that their concern for society is not
as great as the concern for themselves or their
board or the profit margin or add more to that.
And some of that goes back to the culture. So
if we look at those coming out of business schools
in the United States, I can speak to, I can't
speak to here. I don't feel comfortable speaking
to Canada, but I've done the research on it.
What's the ethics that they learn? Business ethics.
Whatever is good for profit margin and good for
the board is good for the business. Now that
lacks such moral ambition and understanding that
you are actually a part of society and you use
society's resources. You're sometimes going to
get taxed for it, and you sometimes don't get
recognized that you should be taxed for it. But
let's call the reality what it is. You are part
of the society. Even the Supreme Court in the
United States has decided they have a vote. Then
what are you giving back? And you have this greenwashing
of giving back, too, that if you scratch the
surface of many businesses and what they say
they give back and what actually happens are
two different things. So there is something to
bear here from a complex systems analysis. If
you're not teaching from a higher education standpoint,
much higher morals and values, you could argue
you've obfuscated your responsibility. And so
that leads into it. That's an influence point.
that is from a complex system a leverage point
and then it goes into all these other pieces
that you're wrenching what are the checkpoints
how do we check in what's the oversight and we
currently have an environment where oversight
is being reduced but we know what will follow
we know that and it's not that power corrupts
all i know that statement is said it's much more
nuanced than that it doesn't mean it's going
to corrupt everything but it's a greater chance
that it will Deregulation of the financial systems.
Gee, what happened? Are we so surprised? We need
oversight because also we know people will evolve
into lesser forms of values or not even know
what the big system is doing. That happened with
some of the failures with some of the banking
systems. You have underemployees asked to do
things. they're not given the why they don't
even know why then they learn later on what they
were doing was really against the law and they
didn't know and so there are but there are many
choice points we can make something different
about this what man and humankind starts we absolutely
can finish we absolutely can finish it and change
it 100 i'm glad i asked that so thank you No,
that's a great question. And you brought us back
to a wonderful conversation we had prior. Yeah,
I think we needed to be discussed. Like I said,
especially with someone in your field. All right.
The next question. Is there a person that you'd
recommend to come on this podcast as a guest
to speak to the first responders, military and
associated professions of the world? Absolutely.
There's a couple I would think about. One of
my close colleagues. Well, two of my close colleagues,
David Koppel, he was when I came in league in
the NFL, he was probably the longest serving
sports psychologist, but he's a clinical psychologist
and neuropsychologist. So he spent a lot of time
serving police, and actually firefighters in
and he's based in the Seattle area. And so when
you're, you're so cross trained as he is, that
you are going to be pulled into these other performance
environments to maintain occupational health
and performance readiness. And he was, and he
served that community. He's semi -retired now,
but semi -retired for his level means he's probably
working three -quarter time. Another person I
think of, he's a very close colleague as well.
He's an underachiever, like my good friend David
Koppel. Dr. David Koppel, I should say, is Dr.
Patrick Biley. So he is a forensic psychologist
and worked long term with the Calgary Police
Department. He is a clinical psychologist. He
is a sports psychologist. And he is a lawyer.
And his job was in the Supreme Court of Canada.
And so he has spent his whole life, probably
the majority of his career, dedicated to working
with police. He's worked a lot in sport. It's
a very high level as well. But he's an incredibly,
they're both incredibly thoughtful human beings,
dedicated their life to those who serve, but
also just brilliant, brilliant men. Fantastic.
Yeah, they both sound amazing. So if we're able
to help facilitate a connection, I'd love to
get them on. oh happy to happy to uh i look at
them as great mentors as great supports to me
throughout my career so brilliant well the last
question before we make sure everyone knows where
to find you