Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As
always, my name is James Geering and this week
it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show
Marine Raider veteran, the man behind Joe Malone
training and a member of all American leadership,
Joe Malone. So in this conversation, we discuss
a host of topics from his journey into the military,
entering MARSOC, his deployments in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Syria, the transition out of the military,
weapons training, leadership, his own powerful
mental health story, and so much more. Now, before
we get to this incredible conversation, as I
say every week, please just take a moment. Go
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to the show, leave feedback, and leave a rating.
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
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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 introduce
to you... Joe Malone enjoy Well, Joe, I want
to start by saying two things. Firstly, thank
you to our mutual friend, Rick Rochelle, for
making this connection. And secondly, I want
to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast
today. Thank you very much, man. It's an honor
to be here. So where on planet Earth are we finding
you this afternoon? I'm outside of Chicago, about
40 minutes into the suburbs, Illinois. So that's
where I'm at. Well, let's start at the very beginning
of your journey then. So tell me where you were
born and tell me a little bit about your family
dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.
I was born in the city, raised right on the outside
of it. Super interesting little town. The mafia
history there is so rich. If you ever have the
opportunity to read a book called Double Deal.
It was written by our former police chief, and
he spills it all, man, all the info about the
Chicago Mafia during that period in time. So
really interesting town when it comes to that.
Siblings, brother's three years younger than
me. My sister's three years younger than him,
so six years total. Myself is the oldest, and
then my mom and dad, very different. How those
two ended up meeting. I don't know, but very
opposite ends of the spectrum. My mother was
a very and is a very adventurous heart. She was
raised on a cattle farm out in Michigan, left
home at an early age. And then my dad was raised
further in the city in the old Irish firefighter
neighborhoods, which are kind of different these
days. But that's where he was raised at, was
on the south side of the city. Beautiful. And
what did he do for a living? When they met, he
was working at the airlines. He was like the
guy on the runway with the sticks. When I found
that out, I used to think that was like so cool.
I was like a little kid and I think my mom told
me that one. But he ended up working for the
FDIC, so the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
So he's a very – uh conservative personality
and i don't mean that in terms of like politics
i just mean you know he's very risk adverse very
by the book and you know there's you know he's
got his reasons for for being that way conversely
what was your mom doing and what was her personality
She was working at the airlines as well as a
ticket counter agent. And it's kind of funny.
I tell people these stories. I don't know why
I was at the airport so much as a little kid.
And I was having a conversation with a gentleman
last week when I was actually leaving Florida
at the airport about that. And he was saying,
he's like, yeah, there used to be a lot more
bring your kid to work. programs and days and
so i guess it makes sense as to why i was always
there but i just remember always seeing her getting
yelled at at the ticket counter by people and
then that's always stuck with me to how to treat
people at the ticket counter of airports and
airlines with an immense amount of patience and
kindness and respect because i just never understood
why somebody would be so mad at my mom when she's
not the one canceling the the flights but she
got laid off after 9 -11 and just has done a
It was kind of funny because when she would bring
the candy bars that were – they weren't expired
but they lost their shelf life. This was when
I was in my drug phase and I would actually take
the candy bars and I would offer people bags
of weed and then add a free candy bar. And so
I'd be like, hey, man, you buy some drugs and
I'll give you some free candy. And that was a
pretty lucrative business for quite some time.
But anyway, she was very adventurous, always
trying new things. preaching curiosity. And yeah,
she's a wild, wild heart, I think. What if you've
had any of these conversations at all? Are there
perspectives on airlines these days versus pre
9 -11? Because even as a passenger, I first flew
to America in 94. And watching the change, especially
around COVID, oh my god. Going from being the
customer's always right to being judged for eight
hours by a surly mask wearing steward or stewardess.
It's been interesting to see what was a really
beautiful experience kind of be picked apart
probably from the corporate side to where we
are today. That's a great question. I used to
love travel. I used to love taking the airplane,
going new places, seeing different airports,
smells, sounds, sights. I can't stand it anymore.
And I think of what you just mentioned right
there, the transformation of the entire process.
You know, I wrote the chief of security for American
Airlines a couple of years ago. I got a hold
of his email and I said, you know what? I had
two incidents on planes, medical incidents, and
none of the staff were adequately trained. None
of the staff were adequately trained for violence
incidents as we were seeing the rise in it all.
And I laid out a diagram for them to show the
flying experience for the user and how you start
out. already super stressed because you got to
get to the airport and do the logistics with
the cab where you're driving then you got to
pay a bunch of money for stupid parking and then
you make it in and you're hoping you get there
on time and the line's not super long and then
you're going to miss your flight like there's
already such a high level of stress that just
gets exacerbated as you go through tsa for stealing
all your toiletries and never stopping single
they've never stopped a single terrorist attack
isn't that insane like why do we have these people
who have a 90, it's like a 98 % failure rate,
according to the inspector general. Anyways,
that's the security side of me coming out. But
I explained that to him, and I was like, flying
sucks, and you're going to see a continuance
of violent incidents. And he wrote me back, which
I was surprised. And then just, you know, we
never really went anywhere with it, although
I tried to pitch him on the idea of me training.
My dad wouldn't talk about it. He doesn't probably
care much. But my mom has said many times before
that people were pretty bad back then. And it's
definitely just, I mean, it's evidently a lot
worse. And, yeah, you know, I feel for people
who are in those service positions just getting
bashed on all day. I actually worked a cardiac
arrest. It's probably almost been two years now.
We were literally on the airport tarmac in Heathrow
Airport. I was on my way home back here. And
the last passenger keeled over on the way to
his seat. And conversely, like a few years, I
think it was years before I'd had a medical incident.
It was one of those ones where they ask, you
know, is there a doctor on the plane, the nurses
and just the people that responded in that particular
one. I don't know what they were doctors in,
but it wasn't emergency medicine. And I'm not
saying that to be snide. It just clearly they
didn't know how to actually work with a patient
like that. And that one I had. All the gear given
to us straight away. I mean, full ALS, you know,
cardiac drugs and, you know, defibrillators,
the whole thing. This most recent one, though,
these poor people at Virgin, they had to ask.
permission for every single piece of equipment
so initially all we had was nothing and then
an aed and then an oxygen tank that only went
up to five liters per minute and you know it
was just clearly but they hadn't really interacted
with the ems side to make it as you said a stressed
group of passengers that now have to be you know
good samaritans set them up for success so i
got to see both sides one i thought was really
well equipped and then boom i had an entire ALS
equipment around me. The other one, we're working
this dude for, you know, 20, 30 minutes and then
bit by bit, these pieces are becoming available.
And then even, you know, the, the, the impact
on those staff, you know, what was the protocol
when they work a cardiac arrest on the plane?
Can they go home? Do they have, you know what
I mean? So it was really interesting as a paramedic
getting that perspective and seeing in one side,
I would argue done pretty well. And another company
that I respect, which is Virgin, it's a great
company. but that area and the same as you, I
reached out to them and said, Hey, you know,
this is, this is how amazing your people were.
I want to let you know that if you need any advice
on how to set people on the plane up for success,
I'm more than happy to kind of share my information
and I never, never heard back. So, you know,
it is what it is. It's so crazy that you say
that. So I've never able to have these conversations
with people, right? Cause how many people come
across these incidents, let alone like two of
them, unless, you know, you're somebody with,
it's like, the same thing obviously i'm you know
emt trained but i've done a lot of advanced training
courses in special forces but like that when
they came out with the call are there any nurses
or doctors or paramedics on the aircraft i actually
put my head back down and was going back to sleep
because i i thought to myself surely somebody
here is more trained than me like there has there's
got to be like a nurse or something no not on
the first plane nobody was there um dude basically
just just got a super low blood sugar went unconscious
you know but he was a very big dude same process
that we needed to get assistance for uh everything
when i cracked open the oxygen tank they were
like oh my god no we're supposed to call and
get permission to do that and i was like that's
an oxygen tank i'm sure you guys would be fine
and um They, of course, as you're passing over
the airports, now they have to keep handing you
off to different physicians in different airports
and different stations, which really just convoluted
the entire process. I mean, what a pain in the
ass it was to have to re -explain everything
constantly. Like, I won't dive any further into
it than that. But the second one, when you talk
about what kind of doctors they were, man, I'm
so glad this nurse, she was a brand new nurse
working in the ER trauma somewhere. It was a
flight from like Seattle to Canada or something.
Or no, Texas to Seattle. And guy, Ukrainian refugee,
leaving Ukraine. This was about two years ago.
He's like a fresh refugee. Him and his wife are
in their 70s. Not a lick of English. Goes into
cardiac arrest. They call for somebody to come
help. I go back there. I could just see he's
diaphoretic. I mean, he's just took his pulse.
It was down in like the low 40s. I was like,
oh, my God. So we get him in the back. I asked
for some equipment. They're getting permission,
again, having to take their time. I get the AED.
We hook them up. That nurse was awesome. This
lady comes up claiming to be a doctor. I don't
know if she was like a psychologist or something,
but she clearly has never dealt. She's like screaming
in my ear, I'm a doctor. I was like. we had to
use google translate on somebody's phone and
the crappy wi -fi on the airplane to uh to communicate
with his wife because she had all these medications
pouring out of her purse that were in like ukrainian
and turkish and uh it was it was pretty chaotic
man but those flight attendants they did awesome
i want i told them i was like look you guys have
to divert this plane or this guy's probably gonna
die there's nothing i could do for him and the
doctor on the phone on in the airport they're
not you could cut this part out if you want or
not if it gets you cut off whatever delta airlines
so i don't care like screw that because they
tried telling me well you're we're not going
to divert the aircraft just keep just keep keep
working on them until you get there and i was
like we got like three hours to go this dude's
pulse rate is going down and down and i i i had
to talk to the captain he came to the back and
i was like look dude i'm letting you know this
guy will die I can't do anything for this guy.
This AED will give him some shocks, but how long
are we going to be able to last doing CPR? I
can tell you not know three hours. And, um, yeah,
they ended up diverting the plane finally. And,
uh, and ended up, I got a phone call back from
his daughter, both of their daughters, actually
from both incidents ended up reaching out to
me a couple months later and, um, told me that
their dads were, were all doing fine. So that
was, that was good. amazing i've said this i've
told this story a few times about the cardiac
arrest on the plane that the one that i had the
other one was kind of like a vagal incident so
after we did the full workout checked his blood
sugar and everything it was really just you know
low bp and i sat within the rest of the flight
but the other one was on the tarmac so we didn't
have that medical director issue because it stayed
in london but um Over and over and over again.
I'm just the grim reaper. And when there's a
cardiac arrest, sadly, they never make it. But
you hear about this person had chest pain and
there was a group of cardiologists and they're
all on the plane on the way home. It was like
no one else had EMS experience. And we worked
this guy and arguably did everything right with
what we could at that point. And we still lost
him. This is a thing. Is there a doctor? Is there
a nurse? People need to understand that it could
be a doctor or chiropractor or podiatrist or
whatever it is that doesn't work with this area.
And it might be an EMT or a paramedic that actually
is the most highly trained for that person at
that time. Yeah. And that goes, that's a shout
out to first responders, you know, because I
know you have a lot of them that watch this stuff.
And you guys, I work doing the leadership training
with so many fire departments. Stop selling your
damn shelves short. You guys make a massive impact.
Even if you get the frequent flyers and the stupid
calls and everything that pisses you off throughout
the day. The fact that you guys are just, man,
dedicating your life to helping somebody in the
worst moment of theirs. I mean, that's just huge.
So, you know, a huge kudos to all the first responders
who do that stuff. Absolutely. Well, going back
to your kind of childhood then, as you were in
the school ages, what were you playing and doing
as far as exercise and sports? Exercise and sports.
My dad wanted me to get into baseball. I was
the kid who sat in right field and pulled grass.
And then I got good at catching the ball because
I wasn't afraid to get hit with it. So I was
a catcher for the last couple of years. And then
I wasn't afraid to get hit with it because I
got hit with it so many times, so violently in
my first couple of years, line drives to the
face. And then as I entered junior high, I got
more into football. uh but then that's also when
i was getting into drugs and stuff and so we
spent a lot of times walking around the woods
as kids right on the cusp of the city where we're
at is where all the forest preserves start that's
why i had such a heavy mafia history and influence
that's where they would get away with crimes
and uh so we did walked around the woods and
ultimately dropped out of the sports and started
doing heavy drugs so when you reflect back now
with this kind of mature lens that you have what
if any elements of your upbringing contributed
to you leaning into drugs in the first place?
It's a good question. I had a conversation about
this pretty recently as to why. And if I try
to distill it as much as I possibly can, which
I've probably done more in the last few months
than ever in my life, it may have just been girls.
Girls that were hanging out with what I now would
call pedophiles. 50 year old guys who are buying
little kids booze to get them drunk and stoned
and here's some coke and here's some crack and
methamphetamine like before you know it things
just spiral so crazy out of control because you
think that's cool because here's somebody in
the same age bracket as your parents who are
always telling you one thing and of course you
want to rebel against that and then here's another
parently figure who's confirming the biases that
you have towards your own parents and rebelling
against it because yeah this is the way to go
and of course you can't just take a step back
and see maybe this person living in this shit
shack of an apartment with needles all over the
place and a woman smoking crack breastfeeding
a baby isn't the best place and when you look
at your parents because my parents raised me
in a really well environment nice middle class
home and Maybe perhaps that's a key sign and
indicator that I should be listening to them
a little bit more. So ultimately, that's what
it was, I think. When you were going through
the school ages, what about career aspirations?
What were you dreaming of becoming back then?
I wanted to be a musician. I learned how to play
music at a very early age. And Elton John was
like my first jam. So the diversity of his music
and his flow and feng shui, that also had a lot
of cultural implications on me as well. As a
child learning about homosexuality, I never really
cared. I didn't understand it, but I was just
kind of like, all right, whatever. Not for me,
but for some reason, everybody who I talked to
about it, John made a big deal about it. But
I loved his music. I thought his charisma was
awesome. Still do to this day. Then it turned
more into heavy rock. I learned how to play trumpet
when I was very young. I used to compete in these
state competitions. Then I learned guitar with
my buddy Justin on the front stoop of his crappy
apartment complex. Super poor family, man. Just
crappy, crappy apartment complex full of a bunch
of alcoholics and drunks and drug addicts. His
mom's old boyfriend, Russ, who was a former real
hippie, like straight flower child from the 60s,
taught us how to play nylon string acoustic.
And from there, it just stuck with me for a very
long time and was very developmental in terms
of my personality and stuff. It's funny what
you said about Elton John, because when we're
young, when you meet whoever, you meet a baseball
coach, the first question isn't, well, who do
you sleep with? Is it a man or a woman? And now
you would think that was the most important.
Maybe not now, but up to about a year ago, you'd
think that was the most primary thing. Who do
you worship? Who do you sleep with? And people
just didn't care. It wasn't that we didn't include
them in our community at all, but it just wasn't
front and center. You are Steve. You are Jill.
You are whoever. And your sexuality and your
religion and your skin color is irrelevant. It's
like, who are you? Are you a good person or are
you a shitty person? 100%. And that's something,
man, being as vocal about. When I talk about
things, people see me now. And there's a lot
of presumptions made about me. But what they
don't know is who I was and why I ended up changing.
And if you were to take two pictures, I mean,
it's complete opposite personas. One's a drug
addict, hippie. anarchist screw the establishment
and everything and you know all this other stuff
is you know just what matters and then nowadays
complete opposite demographic and so when I talk
about things like homosexuality or transsexuals
or racial things it's just so insane the responses
that I get back from people because they think
that I'm coming from some one -sided perspective
when the reality of it is is that I've been through
all these things I used to go to a hippie house
where there was like 15 adult hippies living
in that place and there were nights where everybody
in there was on a multitude of drugs with a jello
wrestling pudding ring tub in the basement. And
like, like, I mean, just like, it's just crazy
shit. And, uh, you know, people will try to have
these conversations about sensitive topics with
me. And I just, I just say pretty much the same
thing. I go, I don't care. And anything I say
is never negatively driven towards anybody. I
just speak how I speak based off those life experiences.
And I'm still going to love and appreciate people
the way that I love and appreciate them, regardless
of whatever. You know, just keep kids out of
it. That's that's like the big thing for me.
But sorry for another time. Yeah, absolutely.
It's funny. I just saw I'm going to post it probably
today. Stephen Fry, I think it was at some sort
of debate, but he was talking about political
correctness and how he hates it. And it's simply
because it doesn't work. He said, I like everyone.
He's he's gay himself. You know, I want all this,
you know, nastiness to be gone in the world,
whether it's racism or homophobia or, you know,
all the all the things. But he said, but. political
correctness just doesn't work. That's why I don't
like it. And it's true. You know, if you stigmatize
everything and you can't talk about this and
you've got to use kid gloves with this, you're
not going to be able to smash yourself into the
root cause of the problem, which ironically,
I would argue that most hatred comes from mental
ill health, from broken people. And I mean, we're
broken compassionately and empathetically. When
you grow up in a household of hatred, you're
going to breed hate, you know, kids that have
the same hate in their heart. So we don't stigmatize
these words. You go and you figure out how to
heal communities. And I guarantee you, you'll
see hate all but diminish them. Yeah, I very
much agree. And the more that you put labels
on things, the more it ostracizes and polarizes
things as well. 100%. Well, walk me through then
kind of the downward spiral because obviously
you've talked about addiction several times now.
What was the initial interaction with drugs and
then where did that lead you? Where was your
lowest point? First time I ever got drunk, if
you want to include alcohol, I was super young.
I think I was like nine years old, drank a bunch
of gin and I've never drank gin since. Never.
Never since I was nine years old have I touched
that shit. A few years later, cousins up in the
country drinking beer and eating dip. I like
ate dip. I've never dipped ever since that time.
I was about like maybe 10 or 11. And then the
weed smoking started. I was 12 years old, which
when I look at a 12 -year -old these days, it
just crushes my heart to think of myself as an
ignorant 12 -year -old. A couple of buddies had
it. We went underneath the local bridge. We smoked,
and that became our hangout spot for the next
like. I don't know, like six years underneath
the bridge. We called it the J spot. And it was
like a viaduct with a train track. Did that for
a little bit. And that led into things like mushrooms
and acid, really more of a peace, love, hippie
perspective. And then started getting more into
drinking in high school. That led to some Coke.
And then from Coke, the first time that I ever
did heroin, it was kind of accidental. I didn't
have a license until I was 18. So I had to borrow
a car from one of my hippie buddies girlfriends
to drive to the city with this guy duane who
was like in his 40s and honestly as shitty of
an influence as duane was he had a great heart
and he looked out for me as much as he didn't
if that makes sense but go out to the city to
buy him some weed and we're in we're in the west
side we're in the south side where this guy's
from it's dangerous ass places where i've been
involved in multiple shootings in parking lots
where i was sitting there waiting for drugs to
get picked up shots start going off people are
driving stories for another time but it was it
was very dangerous in terms of where we're going
so we go down there he would get out of the car
i would drive around the block a couple times
then i'd see him on the road pick him up we'd
head out and he goes joe they didn't have any
weed and i was like all right and he goes that's
pretty lame and he goes Can I be honest with
you? And I was like, of course. He goes, I didn't
come down here to buy weed. I came down here
to get some dope. And to me, dope meant cocaine,
but he meant heroin. And I was like, cool, man.
I've done a bunch of coke. He goes, no, it's
heroin. I was like, oh, shit. All right. He goes,
do you want some? I was like, sure. Puts it on
a CD. I think it was actually even a Nirvana
CD cover. Drew me out a small line. And as I'm
driving, I snorted it. And he's like, don't worry.
We're almost home. It'll really start to hit
once we get home. And I remember hitting the
exit for where we were going and it really starting
to sink in. And I was like, whoa, I don't know
if I'm good to be driving. And then fortunately
the house was like two minutes off the exit.
We get there and I just remember feeling nauseous,
but high, but nauseous, but good. We went inside.
parties going on all around me. And I got violently
ill. I got sick. And that wasn't even from the
comedown. It was just from the drug itself. It's
poison. And that just led to many, many weeks
and months and a couple of years of increasing
in its usage. Some of the other guys who I went
to high school with on the other end of town,
if you will, hung out in different groups. They
were also simultaneously being exposed to the
same stuff in a different road, a different pathway.
And then at some point our roads kind of reconnected,
which just further made it, it fueled it all.
And to the point where now we're sticking needles
in the arm and breaking into people's sheds and
garages and shit, stealing power tools and really
going down a path of no return. And a lot of
them are dead and a lot of them are. All of them
are either dead, in prison, or still using, except
for maybe one or two others that eventually stopped.
When you look back, knowing that a lot of addiction,
again, is filling a void. Johan Hari says the
opposite of addiction isn't sobriety, it's connection.
And so having that kind of healed soul usually
is the enemy of addiction. A lot of the people
that you hung out with, When you think about
their upbringing, did you see a kind of similar
trauma to this group that you were surrounded
that had lent so heavily into heroin? I didn't
for a really long time because all my friends
in this group had very rough childhoods. I by
far had the top three. Most loving and comfortable
childhoods out of the 50 people that I would
hang out with. Let's just say 50 people. Everybody
had really fucking hard childhoods. Abusive.
Drunken fathers. No fathers. Mother left them
and abandoned them. No money. Mustard and Milwaukee's
best. Only things in the fridge. Nine times out
of ten. Just hard lives. And I was, quite frankly,
a pussy didn't belong there you know it was just
why would i end up down this road other than
for the purpose of seeking it for my own self
-destruction and looking back i would say it
has something to do with fatherly love and connection
or love and connection lost of a parent or desiring
that of a parent and i i think that that's a
pretty big one my it that and that stems from
my dad where he just never I didn't even think
my dad loved me until 2018, something like that,
at the absolute lowest point of me ever thinking
that he liked me, loved me. I literally was convinced
that he just fucking hated my guts and wouldn't
come to my funeral because he was just so...
It's not even like he avoided me. It's not that
he said bad things to me anymore. But it was
more or less just like I was a person, like a
distant relative in his home that was just bothering
him because I took up a resource for the day
or his time. It's just very strange. I realized
that he does love me in the way that he knows
how to love somebody, and that's in the way that
he was taught by his own father. And that was
a very different philosophy than what I use as
a father. But, you know, it's life. It's complicated
at times. And relationships and emotions are
a difficult thing. And so that's, I think, really
what the key common denominator was, is that
we all were trying to seek some love that we
didn't have approval of or possession of from
a parent specifically. It's been interesting.
I mean, I've done over 1100 episodes now and
a lot of people, you know, have similar kind
of childhoods, but the trauma is different. You
know, I've had, you know, a boy soldier from
Sierra Leone whose parents were killed and he
was forced into killing, you know, genuinely
forced to be executed or kill for us. And then
they use drugs to kind of, you know, zombify
those young men all the way through to, you know,
one of my my wife's friends, husband, who. kind
of like you, was a middle child, kind of felt
unseen, felt unloved. And that was enough to
send him down the similar kind of path, actually.
And so this is the danger is when you compare
trauma, everyone's experience is different. But
if you don't feel safe and you don't feel loved
and you don't feel seen as a young person, it
is going to have an impact. And this is why it's
so important not to even talk just about our
childhood, but even our parents' childhood and
our grandparents' childhood. You start to see
these dominoes. The book I wrote last year talks
about this. It's a fiction, but it's storytelling,
this very concept. And then you look at the impact
of especially OxyContin and the opioid crisis
that we have now, where the real epicenters were,
where American industry had disappeared, mining
towns, steel towns, car industry, all these areas.
And it wasn't so much the drug. It was the kind
of pain that had been put into the communities
by a lot of these impacts from, again, corporations
and other areas. So when we really start hearing
over and over again these kind of stories, Well,
that's great. Now you've identified some issues
that we can start talking about and addressing.
And our generation, yours and mine, and you're
younger than me, but now as parents, we can do
the work on ourselves and stop these dominoes
from then falling on our kids and on our grandkids.
But if we're not having these kind of courageously
vulnerable conversations, we're never going to
get to the root cause. And exactly like you've
underlined, a parent who themselves was not raised.
in a way that they can express their own emotions
properly and tell their daughter or their son
that they love them and show that they love them
and be there, then that creates an environment
for that next child. So whether you were forced
to kill in Africa or you simply felt unloved
by a parent that was physically present, the
damage can still be the same. Yeah. I think it's
called epigenetics, where you have... Your DNA
is formed by the past experiences of your lineage,
your ancestors. And even though you're not living
with the trauma of whatever happened to my great
-grandfather in consciousness, woven into the
fabric of your very existence is some remnants
of that. I don't want to believe that that has
an influence on me. because i don't want to believe
in external things having control or influence
over me but then i'm left with the question it's
not external that's internal because it's woven
into my my very existence my my dna but it's
it's definitely an interesting topic to to dive
into and i don't think we know enough about it
yet that's for sure well i think what's exciting
is you know with epigenetics we're realizing
that dna can be changed now Same with the brain,
the brain health. They used to think that when
it was dead, it was dead. And now we know there's
neuroplasticity. So I think that it's exciting,
even if you've got this lineage of trauma or
alcoholism, whatever the thing is, that you get
to be the person that starts morphing the DNA
so that it's different for your children. Which
is exactly how I end up going from being an 18
-year -old drug user, abuser, to joining the
Marines a year later, right? Created the thought,
the vision, articulated it with clarity within
my mind. And then I began to enact the behaviors
that were associated with the emotions and the
idea of who it was that I was trying to become.
Therefore, creating that neuroplasticity within
the brain and then taking drastic action to move
towards it. That's 100 % true. You're right.
It's very exciting to know that. And then if
you can actually stay consistent with it, anything
is truly possible. So what was it that made you
turn that corner? My best friend John graduated
Marine Corps boot camp, without a doubt. We had
the four J's, John, James, Joe, and Justin. I
was by far the most erratic out of all of them,
the most drug -induced. They were not as bad
as me, for sure. But when John joined the Marine
Corps, I got to go see his graduation in California.
And right afterwards, I turned to his little
brother. I couldn't believe it was my best friend,
my literal brother, somebody who I had been through
more with more, a part of more things in my entire
life than anybody else. And here he was, this
just different new person, opened up my mind
to what might be out there. Turned to his little
brother after we left the graduation that day,
and I handed him two fresh packs of smokes. He
goes, what are these for? I said, I'm going to
join the Marines. And he was just kind of like,
that's like the weirdest thing in the world for
this guy to say to me. But sure, takes him, puts
him in his pocket. And then one year to the day,
I was walking across that same parade dog. Beautiful.
So how did you do as far as boot camp, you know,
with the background, like you said, of, you know,
initially sports, but then, you know, the addiction
side too. Did you build yourself up physically
as well? Oh, hell no, man. You can't recover
that fast. I was 120 pounds when I went into
boot camp. And they actually put me on something
called double rations because you have to eat
in literally 15 seconds in Marine Corps boot
camp. That's not an exaggeration. Literally 15
seconds almost every single day of boot camp.
In order to keep me from losing so much more
weight and being considered below the medical
threshold of healthy, they put me on double rations.
I was just frail. I barely passed the running.
I worked myself just to get past that bare minimum,
and it took about a year to do so, to get clean
from all the drugs, to stop smoking, to re -shift
my mindset. It just took an entire year of me
doing that. And kind of college, but mostly that
to really get myself there to pass the minimums.
So where did you find yourself deployed initially?
I got stationed over in Okinawa, Japan, which
was cool. It's like Japan's Hawaii. And then
I went and did three marine expeditionary units.
So that's where you go on a ship. And during
this time, of course, the Iraq war is at its
height. And I started to really panic. because
i'm here in the marine corps everybody's going
to war i'm not going to war i got to do some
really amazing things and i was very appreciative
and present in those things countries have been
to militaries that i worked with exploring the
the great pacific spending time on a navy ship
which after about two days that was more than
enough but um you know able to get nine months
of that that glorious duty um So then I made
it back to the States, California, volunteered
to go to Afghanistan, and the Marine Corps told
me no. I did a thing called request mass, where
you file an official complaint, which technically
gets – it's Marine Corps policy and procedure
that if somebody submits that, it goes to whomever
it's written to, no matter what. So I wrote mine
to the commandant of the Marine Corps, literally
the person in charge of the whole Marine Corps.
And it didn't make it that far. I'll tell you
that much right now. It only made it about one,
two levels above my leadership. And I got yelled
at a lot. And then a few weeks after that, though,
they shipped my ass off to Afghanistan. And that
was a good experience up in the north. 2010,
very interesting time. And then came back. This
part's a little significant. Before I left Afghanistan,
I ran into a MARSOC team, Marine Special Operations
Command, Marine Raiders. They had never been
around before. This was like a new thing in the
Marine Corps that got reignited in 2006 when
Rumsfeld said, you guys will now stand up a SOCOM,
Special Operations Command entity. Force reconnaissance
has always been around, but they were never a
part of SOCOM. SOCOM capable, but they were always
tasked directly by the Marine Corps. It's the
Marine Corps' way of just you know, being the
Marine Corps. So they stood that up. I run into
this team and I met this guy named Chris Antonick.
Him and his buddy are just having a night themselves.
They're doing their thing, but I'm kind of just
sitting there having a conversation with them
and they're opening up to me what it is they're
doing. And I was just floored. I thought it was
super cool and kind of why I joined the Marine
Corps to begin with. And then the next day I
went home to the States. And then two days later,
I think it was two or three days later, he died.
He stepped on an IED, was amputated, basically
up to the hip was my understanding. So there
was no extremity to really stop the bleed. I
don't know if that's accurate or not. It's just
kind of what I remember people telling me. And
for some reason, that really bothered me. I don't
know why. I didn't even know this guy other than
that one conversation. So I got out of the Marine
Corps for about a year and a half. Three weeks
after getting back from Afghanistan, I got back
on July 4th, 2010, which was interesting. I got
out three weeks later on the 23rd and spent the
next year and a half going, surfing, going to
like paramedic school, living out of my car for
about six months, driving across the country,
just trying to regain and refocus myself. But
man, I tell you what, I just really, something
wasn't sitting right with me. So one random day
I looked up the, what's called MARA admin, Marine
Corps administrative letters. And at that day,
they opened up MARSOC tryouts to the inactive
reserve members. So people who get out of the
Marine Corps have four years of inactive reserve
time that you don't do anything, but you're just
technically in that category. That day, they
opened it up. Tryouts, selection. So I figured
out how to get myself in there. about a year
-long process to forget myself there they kept
telling me no the entire time finally one day
they called they said can you leave in like two
weeks i said yes and then i went to selection
and i got selected uh went to the nine month
pipeline to become a marsoc operator and then
ended up deploying subsequently back to afghanistan
iraq syria and then iraq another time What was
it that allowed you to be successful in MARSOC
selection when so many others rang the bell?
Dude, it's funny. I always wondered why. I thought
I bombed it. And for those of you who don't know,
and this is open source stuff, but selection
for MARSOC is a very emotionless thing. So they
talk to you like candidate X, Y, Z. If you ask
a question, they go, what were your instructions?
You go, can you repeat the instructions? They
go candidate X, Y, Z. It's no feedback whatsoever.
And I had a couple of bad days where I bombed
like day one where my grip strength gave out
on me within the first 10 minutes. And it was
like a five, six hour thing where I was just
the failure of the day. And then a few, few other
times, one land nav day where I ended up like,
I don't know, middle of nowhere lost. When I
went back, though, as a contractor some years
later, I got to see my file, which is a pretty
rare thing. A buddy of mine was a member of the
cadre and they keep it all pretty in house. But
he goes, if you want to see your file, obviously,
I know you so I could show it to you. And man,
I got to say, I was pretty pumped at how I did
perform in hindsight because I didn't think that
the things they were grading, they were grading.
And it's such a reflection of your. moral character
and your integrity and they do a really good
job at identifying that through the exercises
and the challenges they put you through and so
i was i was pretty happy to see that the reasons
why they did select me were because it was someone
who who had the right attributes for what they
were looking for so i interviewed world war ii
veteran frank wright who's one of the very original
marine raiders and he's on iwo jima yeah And
he just got promoted. At 100 years old, they
promoted him. I forget which rank it is. I don't
want to say the wrong one because I'm obviously
not military and I'm clueless. But it was amazing.
So a 100 -year -old Marine got this kind of honorary
promotion. And he is such an incredible person
because he wrote a book on PTSD. And that's unheard
of from that generation. Firstly, for them to
still be alive. But secondly, to have that, again,
courageous vulnerability to say, I'm going to
talk about mental health at 90 something years
old by that point. So, yeah. Well, man, I got
to take a note on that because that's got to
be an interesting book. Well, then a question
that I love to ask anyone who's been deployed
in combat. The reason I ask this is when you
are back at home, we get a very polarized view
of war. Either kill them all, let God sort them
out, stack in bodies, or they're all baby killers.
And in the middle are the men and women that
we send overseas with our flag on their shoulder
to protect the people of that country and obviously
this nation as well. First part of the question,
regardless of the politics that sent you over
there, was there a moment where you realized
that there were some horrific people that needed
to be taken care of? Absolutely. Absolutely,
100%. I mean, there's so much to say about that.
The first realization, up close and personal,
was actually the people we were working with
in afghanistan raping little boys called chai
boys it was explained to me that if you're a
chai boy in afghan life in afghanistan sucks
so bad that if you're a chai boy you're doing
pretty good if you're a child who gets picked
up by a local warlord or village elder and you
get raped and put into house slavery for your
entire childhood you're doing pretty good man
like i'd be like damn james like abdul picked
you up bro congrats man congrats that's cool
because when you develop manly features then
it becomes gay and then they give you a daughter
to marry and some cows and some land or something
like that so it's very strange conflict because
when we speak about cultural differences this
kid wants to be there in a sense or is at least
told that he wants to be there i still can't
let it sit right with me and yet these are the
people we're working with and so what do we do
who really is the bad guys of the taliban or
is it these guys i i don't know that was the
first really big major confliction that i had
when i was going overseas the other was isis
without a doubt 100 those people carried with
them this Just insanely. I don't know if you
believe in God or not. I do. And I don't know
if I've ever felt demonic possession in my life.
It was like I was a child fearing the monster
in my closet. It was just something that was
so cryptic and evil that I believe all of those.
As much as I am sad for the fact that they're
possessed by this evil entity, this evil spirit,
power, whatever, they need to go. All of them
need to go. There's no room for that in this
world, in my opinion, because it's just so fucking
horrible. When you reflect back now, all the
places that you served, were there any common
denominators, again, generational trauma that
was creating such violent hatred in these men?
That's a great question. I haven't really thought
about it. I'm sure that there is. I mean, life
in the middle of desert sucks. That's for sure.
People in the States take these things for granted
where you have safety and security. In most of
the world, people can literally just come up
to your house and hack your family to death in
front of you and whatever. Deal with it, kid.
That's not a reality here in the United States.
Sure, things happen and people are murdered innocently,
but it's not as easily done as it is in the vast
majority of these places. It's how ISIS got so
big to begin with. They just went across the
countryside slaughtering these little villages.
It was insane. So I'm sure there is. I wouldn't
doubt it. I'm sure that the last 20 years of
the global war on terrorism didn't help that
either. I'm sure that there's all sorts of contributing
factors as to why somebody would become radicalized
in the way that they are. You go back to Wahhabi
Islam extremism, which was created in Saudi Arabia.
you know nation i don't know like 1400s or something
like that uh i could be wrong on those dates
but it goes back quite quite a ways and life
is hard and it's painful and if people have something
they can direct that anger towards then it's
an opportunity to become radicalized i think
this is i think one of the the things that's
really starting to be glaring these days you
know the i think the south hard guys had it right
that whole team america world police thing you
know it just creates more more issues when we
start you know going to other countries and you
know especially if we're not if we're going in
the wrong way with the the lack of education
which i've heard a lot of your peers say like
when we went to afghanistan it was completely
tribal there was no country of afghanistan so
everyone was set up for failure and then obviously
when you're there for a certain amount of time
what was originally seen as an ally becomes an
enemy and now you're breeding terrorists that
way but it seems like the converse actually would
be far more effective we fix our own country
And make it a place where people look overseas
and go, man, they've got their shit together.
And then we permeate the culture out rather than
force it on people. I talk about this from time
to time where I'm not a world police advocate.
I think Truman post -World War II created the
military industrial complex through the decision,
whether intentional or unintentional, through
the decision of policing the world and building
up these economies. If you look at Afghanistan,
we crushed the Taliban in like a couple of weeks.
And then what do we do? kind of left them to
go to pakistan we went to iraq all for the purpose
of just breaking it down and trying to build
it back up again but when you look at the lines
that were drawn in post -world war ii middle
east it's all made up by a bunch of foreigners
french and english and british and american people
who have no idea of what's going on there and
then we try to enforce it we're surprised when
they fight each other the resources are adequate
enough but yet scarce enough to where it's created
its own internal conflicts and it's just like
what are we doing if I'm actually so ecstatic
that they just changed it back to the Department
of War because that's what it is. Stop with the
lies and the disillusion of, oh, we're doing
this in the name of defense. No, we're doing
these things in the name of war. These are acts
of war that are now being. fueled by the desire
for certain companies to be making a bunch of
money off of it. Converting nations to NATO means
they have to convert their armament. I mean,
there's so many trillions of dollars being made
in this. And that ultimately was a huge reason
why I ended up getting out. So I was just sick
and tired of it. Sick and tired of going to funerals
and seeing widows and fatherless children over
this dumb shit. If we have an enemy and you send
in the United States Marine Corps, special operations
are nuts. Send in the infantry and they will
destroy it. Then you bring them home. Focus all
those hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars
on the first responding resources here within
the United States. I think that that is where
this is needed more than anything. Let's raise
the standard of our police. Let's raise the standard
of our firefighters. Let's raise the standard
of the people who are literally saving the lives
of the people we love. start to disperse it out
further wherever it could be used imagine if
we didn't spend trillions of dollars in iraq
the last 20 years like what could that have done
it's it's we'll never know but i'm a big believer
in that for sure this is a conversation i have
with many many people in the military and it's
a good comparison a parallel is you know the
nation's health so we have 70 plus percent of
america is obese or overweight crazy That spans
obviously decades. So we're talking left and
right, left and right, over and over and over
again. It's getting worse and worse and worse
and worse. And when you have a profit -based
disease care system, where are the checks and
balances to make people healthy? There's no money
in dead, and there's very little money in prevention
at the moment, but there's a lot of money in
sick. A lot of money in sick. So if we keep our
customers sick, and it's ironic, it's really
no different to the pushes that you were dealing
with when you were young and getting your drugs
from then. First taste is free, you know what
I mean? And then we got a patient for life or
an addict for life, depending on how you look
at it. And I see the same with war. The World
War II generation, I mean, incredible. That's
the one that we really do hold up as like, okay,
this is when you need to go to war. But in the
last few decades, you look at the money that
was made by weapons companies, uniforms companies,
MRE companies, all these companies that are rebuilding,
air quotes, after a war, trillions and trillions
of dollars. Where are the checks and balances
to stop sending our young men and women overseas
in a war while these companies are making billions
and billions and billions of dollars? Yeah, I
don't know if it ever stops, man. I think that
you need major drastic change. I think that's
a part of the reason why, without going too far
into my own personal beliefs, I mean, I think
that's the reason why people tried to kill Trump.
I think that that's a big reason why people,
anybody who talks bad about the military industrial
complex, I mean, Boeing had like three whistleblowers
killed. What? What? You know, the whole Epstein
thing, I think it's all interconnected at some
point. That's just my own belief system. But
based off what I've seen and what I know about,
Ukraine was never going to happen. The Minsk
Accords were ready to be signed, and it was our
administration that sent somebody over there
to say, you're not going to sign this. You will
convert to NATO because it's going to make us
a lot of money. And if you guys go to war, guess
what? It's going to make us a lot of money. Those
are the only two choices you have. You look at
Iraq, you look at Afghanistan, and it's just
such a joke what that's all done and turned into.
But I think once the writing is on the wall and
somebody who has a bit of integrity has the opportunity
to close out that. open check, close out that
door of income. Well, what do they do is they
just completely re -divert and create a new conflict.
And man, that's just one of the biggest downfalls
since 2000 is like, what's going to happen here
now? I hope that we see an end in it. And I only
think that we can if we have successful business
leaders and combat veterans in our government
in the United States. And I think right now we
see the largest demographic of businessmen. and
combat experienced veterans in our government,
which is what I think we need to keep in order
to maintain this shift in foreign policy. And
hopefully this whole Ukraine thing does stop
soon. Hopefully the Israeli thing does stop soon.
But if you've ever heard of the Ben -Gurion Canal,
I don't think it will until that's completed.
That's just, again, my own personal belief systems.
But it's a bitch, that's for sure. Yeah. I mean,
I've had people on the show that are supposed
to be massive diplomats, you know, that, you
know, I was hoping we're going to get in and
they get in and then they're just turning their
head at what's going on in Gaza, you know, and
tens of thousands of children. And, you know,
it doesn't matter. You're not taking sides when
you say, OK, this has gone too far. Like all
these children are being killed. And this is
what we I think we need. We need moral courage.
You know, that's the real prerequisite. People
that are, you know, are going to stand up and
say, this is wrong. It's that simple. There's
so many holy books out there that share the same
common denominator. It's pretty fucking obvious
what is a good deed and what is a bad deed. And
I think that's what we really need is a system
that chooses real leaders again. You know, we've
got this system where you can be president. If
you just take enough handouts from companies,
they'll get you there. You know, here's the puppet
strings, right? Let's go. As a nation, we've
lost the fact that we are the taxpayer, that
they are our employees, not our dictators. And
if we can go back to a system where you truly
allow real leaders to rise through a system,
they don't have to have billions of dollars and
they can have ethics, then I think we're going
to see that. But what's beautiful is I'm seeing
the chinks in the armor now, these cracks. The
average person is seeing the bullshit from both
sides. And I think just as you alluded to, The
real, you know, morally courageous veterans'
voices, that's what we do need to hear. The men
and women that went to war, they're the ones
we need to listen to, not the flag -waving politician
that sends those children and none of his own
family ever serve. Yeah. And I do also want to
say first responders too, man. I think we need
first responders more than combat veterans. I
think, at least in my mind, I line this up to
where local politics, local governance, which
I think is the most important, needs to be just
saturated and flooded with all of our first responders.
Because you guys are the ones who are just dealing
with the worst of the worst day in, day out.
You see the policies, the procedures that need
to be changed, the fiscal budgets, all that stuff,
this actual streets of the cities that we're
in. living in and then and the problems that
are persistent in it you guys all you do is live
in the problems and then when you look at like
a foreign or like a federal government perspective
that's where i really start to see like a lot
of the veteran influence not to say they can't
be intermingled or interchanged i think they
should be but the fact that we have the experience
overseas and and the life experiences between
both of those demographics when you see a dead
child it's like what the freaking hell are we
doing it's it's and and also are strong enough
physically and mentally and emotionally you know
capable through their morality like you said
to to just say no this is insane and and it needs
to to definitely stop um i think that's how we
make some seriously drastic change for sure I've
said this, and I'm actually in the process of
making my latest book into a TV show. And the
reason being, you don't have your Jocko Willink
or, you know, insert whoever, a well -known military
member from police or fire or EMS. You just don't.
And yet you think about what is the rawest view
of society. It's those professions. We're the
ones that see. Is this system working? Is this
system broken? And so I think they are absolutely
voices that we need to hear. And I'm hoping that
this show is going to really get people kind
of questioning some of the things that firefighters
just sit around the station petting a Dalmatian
and waiting to get a cat out of a tree. No, they're
working 24 hours a day, getting forced in shift
over shift over shift. And those frequent flyers
that you alluded to are the desperation that
we have in this country, one of the most affluent
countries in the world. the homelessness, the
addiction, the sex work, the gang membership.
There are root causes for all of these, and they
are reversible, but not if you just, again, wave
a flag and take your left or your right stance
and fix absolutely nothing. I'll just kind of
also add this in really quickly, because I think
this is super important, is the personification
of what a politician is supposed to be. Imagine
this. You can convince an entire nation, a population
of the most powerful nation in the world, that
in order to be one of its leaders, in order to
be one of your leaders, the person who's going
to lead you has to exemplify these characteristics,
this persona, this demographic. And if they don't,
guess what? They're not a good quality candidate
for that. When I look at the personification
of what a political person is, they're the easiest
person to blackmail in the world. They're the
easiest person to find dirt on. Why? Because
they're supposed to be this clean cut, no past
history, drugs, alcohol, anger issue, just everything's
so perfect. Yale, Harvard University grad. Why
would we want that to be the personification
of the person who represents the vast majority
of the demographic of our nation when that's
not us? And on top of that, they're easy to blackmail
because when I do a search history on them through
Pegasus or some sort of remote technologically
advanced thing, when I put some detection on
them for a little while, I quickly observe all
the things that they keep secret from society.
And now I could easily manipulate and blackmail
them. mail them into doing exactly what I want
them to do you know who I do want to represent
me I want it to be somebody who's been through
some shit who's honest about it Who's not proud
of it, but uses it as a means and a tool for
positive change in their life and in the lives
of the people around them. And they're not perfect
and they're not going to be perfect. And they're
always going to struggle with being a human being.
But you know what? They are who they say they
are and they do what they say they do. And they
can't be blackmailed. And what's interesting
is that's actually one of the attributes looked
for in the special operations teams and the intelligence
community like the CIA and stuff is, can you
be blackmailed? Are you who you say you are?
Do you live with raw authenticity? I've known
guys who are buying hookers and doing blow and
saying all this stuff on their forms. They got
selected because they don't do it anymore. They
made a life change and they're open about it.
Versus the guy who slept with one prostitute
10 years ago and like, oh, he's all secretive
about it. Even though he's a stud, they drop
him because he's easy to be influenced and manipulated.
And I think that that's just really important
to say. I want my first responders and military
people to be representing the majority of the
country for sure. It's so funny you say that
because I couldn't agree more. And I've always
said this, that we have an illusion in the fire
service that they want choir boys to put on the
uniform. Hell no, I don't want choir boys running
into a burning building to save my child when
I'm out of town off work. You know, like, no,
not at all. Sorry. No, no, you're good. But it's
funny. My very first application I put in was
Miami Beach. And it was kind of like you do this
test and it goes out to all these different departments.
And I was honest about some stuff I'd done in
Japan. Some was legal when I was over there.
Some was illegal. Just, you know, drugs that
ironically now we know are very, very effective
for PTSD, by the way. Had a time in my life,
you know, to watch Planet of the Apes and everyone
was a monkey when the lights came up and danced
a lot, hugged a lot of Japanese people and was
honest. And they literally, he screwed it up
and threw it in my face. And I was like, oh,
so you've got to lie to be a firefighter. And
I lied my way through three polygraphs. And again,
I'm not saying this. This is not something to
brag about. It's embarrassing that that's what
has to be done. But this is the facade. And then
you add on that mental health conversation. If
we're not talking about the shit that we've been
through before we put on the Marine uniform,
the firefighter uniform, then we're missing a
huge piece of the first responder or military
member mental health puzzle. The fact that you
say I will serve when 90 whatever percent of
the country doesn't, there's a reason for that.
And you take that trauma and if you work through
it and you bring it out to the front and you
acknowledge it at the front door, the Marines
or the fire service, and you say, hey, we're
going to help you work through that at the same
time as you're doing PT and weapons training
and taking doors. Because we understand that
that's going to become an asset. It is going
to be a strength, but you can't bury it down.
Otherwise, it will fracture your foundation.
so whether it's the president of the united states
or a firefighter or a marine it's the same exact
conversation and i mean when we start talking
about this stuff too it never ceases to amaze
me i just did the seven day track with the all
-american leadership group and knolls up in wyoming
seven days strangers no cell phones very diverse
group of perspectives but When you start talking
with people and you're not distracted by your
technology and mobile devices, you have a lot
more in common than you ever could have imagined.
And I don't know if there's a human being on
this earth that I've ever come into contact with
that I've gotten to know a little bit where I
wasn't able to find something that we had in
common. And it only makes me wonder how much
more we would all have in common if for whatever
reason we weren't ashamed of the things that
we've done and talked about them more openly.
A hundred percent. That's actually a good segue.
I mentioned earlier, it was a two -part question
as far as when you've been in combat. The other
side that we don't hear on the news is the kindness
and compassion by our men and women in uniform.
So when you reflect back on your career, whether
it was your own men, in this case, men and women,
whether it was some of the indigenous people
you were working to protect or working alongside,
what are moments of kindness and compassion that
really resonate with you? I'm sure there's a
lot of examples that I'm just not thinking of.
But the first thing that comes to my mind is
the food, the meals. They're always bringing
us food and tea and meals and tea and lots of
tea. But I liked it. I didn't mind it. They don't
have a lot, man. You know, I eat spam every day
for 30 some days straight. I'll never eat it
again. It's absolutely disgusting. All my Hawaiian
brothers and sisters, power to you. I could not
do it. But that, I remember I was so pissed off,
like day like four of eating spam all day. Spam
on like a tortilla roll type of bread they had
out there. And I was like, this is bullshit.
This is like three meals a day, one little spam
roll. I was starting to get really upset. But
then I was watching all the guerrilla fighters
and I realized that they actually weren't getting
as big of roles as we were. They were having
to split theirs in half and share them with somebody.
And we had like a full roll of shitty spam. And
so that, that just. man that's a that's a big
deal to me you know food water you don't have
any and yet you still bother to give something
to somebody that's a real testament to somebody's
faith in in god and life and the abundance of
the universe pretty cool absolutely it's amazing
all the different stories i've heard and a lot
of it is that you know the hospitality and obviously
the i guess an extreme example is that lone survivor
story you know when you hear about what the afghan
you know men and women of that village did and
then the the risk they took you know harboring
him i mean that i don't think had enough air
time when it came to the actual film but when
you read the book i mean he talks about it in
detail but this is that shared humanity you remove
the flag you remove the uniform you know most
of the people like you said there was some that
have so far gone as far as a hatred but that
shared humanity, wherever people have been, you
know, serving around the world and whatever time
period you hear that over and over and over again,
because most of the people that are in combat
are not the ones that started the war in the
first place. I mean, I don't even think I know
of a single instance where a soldier started
a war. Exactly. Well, speaking of that, then
you met, you kind of hit on it before. what made
you pull the trigger on your transition and then
how was that initially because that can obviously
be very jarring you know you've got this identity
you've got this purpose you've got this tribe
and then one day you know you walk out the door
for the last time yeah and it really is you walk
out the door for the last time because you get
out you get uh i figure they call it on red or
red out of all the secret security programs and
stuff and you can't step foot in there anymore
your badge gets revoked um It was kind of twofold.
So one was I'd gotten in trouble at sniper school.
The most benign action turned into this just
insanely extreme disciplinary action that was
just unheard of, unheard of in the history of
probably the Marine Corps. I got promoted to
a certain rank. I didn't want the other students
to sit through a promotion ceremony. So just
like I had many times before, put the rank on
after i had been officially ordained and then
one of the instructors was like who promoted
you you need a ceremony and i was like i lied
which was so weird it was just such a weird thing
for me to lie about i was like oh this guy down
the street did and they investigated it which
is even weirder It's just like this series of
just really uncanny actions and events. They
found out. They threw me out of the school. I
lost my element. I was one of the more senior
guys in the entire battalion at this point. I
mean, I just had a really illustrious career
when you look at it on paper. I mean, it was
just what is going on. Get back to my command.
They had all changed out because we rotate so
often. There's only so many of us. And they just
hammered me. They took my rank away. They even
took a second rank away, but they put me on probation
for that, which I got to keep. Kind of cool side
note, I was the most senior sergeant in the entire
Marine Corps by like a lot of years. I'll just
say that. I was like number one sergeant for
like two years. It was just really strange, but
that ruined my career. It was just so weird.
And then ended up being a very, even more strange
thing is that the element that I was in charge
of, they ended up getting on an aircraft that
crashed and everybody died. And so the guy who
replaced me was on the, you know, it was just
a really strange time shortly thereafter. So
now I'm dealing with like that. And I'm getting
kicked out. But then the final, no matter what
happened internally, morally, I was done when
we got told, after we kicked ISIS out of Mosul,
Tal Afar, Hawija, the last three cities, pushed
them all the way back into Syria, the Iraqi government.
turned their weapons on the Kurdish people because
the Kurds had fought for the land the Iraqis
abandoned. And now the Kurds basically owned
this oil -rich lot of land called Kirkuk. And
the Iraqis said, hey, you're going to give that
back to us. And the Kurds were like, no, we're
not because we fought and bled for this. So we're
just going to keep it. But the United States
government supported one Iraqi government, not
a Kurdish government. We got told to abandon
our friendly positions with the Kurds. We get
back to the command center. I'm looking at the
screen for the UAV feed. And there's an M1 Abrams
tank, a U .S. M1 Abrams tank, supposedly from
the Iraqi military, with a picture of the Iranian
Oyatollah on the front of it. Because we knew
the Iranian Quds Force were deeply integrated
into the Shia portion of the Iraqi military,
but yet we did nothing about it. Just one of
the strange red tape restrictions. And then it
lit up that Kurdish position with a tank round.
I think it killed one, wounded another. And then
one of the Kurdish guys had a German anti -tank
rocket, fired it at the tank, hit it, set it
up in flames, which was kind of cool to watch.
It's not often you get to see effective weaponry
against a US M1 Abrams tank, although I'm sure
it was like the shitty Charlie model, whatever.
But still, it's pretty cool to see it be effective.
I was just like, what are we doing? What is this
for? This is just stupid. And I was done. The
number of people I had on the show that have
obviously seen a lot of horrible stuff, whether
it's in the military, first responders, and yet,
aside from, as we've already touched on, childhood
trauma and that element, one of the most crushing
areas is actually organizational betrayal. Like
having this tribe, you know, believing in this
whole mission, you know, wearing a certain flag
on your shoulder. And then one day they turn
their back on you. And if you think about, you
know, ancient tribes, if you were ostracized
by that tribe, that meant death. You know, you're
not hunting together. You're not gathering together.
And you don't have that community anymore. And
I hear this over and over and over again, whether
it's a police officer that did everything right
and his department threw him under the bus, or
whether it's like you're saying, a nation's military
that are fighting for a certain cause, and then
they turn around and all of a sudden the rules
have changed again. Yeah. It's important to realize,
and this took me a while, and it's kind of hard.
It's strange. When you do something like that
type of a job, when you do something like a first
responder, whether it's police, medic, nurse,
doctor, whatever, but especially I can speak
from my own experiences as being in the military,
and we had lost so many guys. Death became a
real thing for U .S. forces to me in my time
in MARSOC. It never really was previous because
I had never experienced that up close, but to
see guys dying, to go into their funerals, it
just became like a... It's almost like you lose
a piece of your soul because you're writing the
check and you're throwing it into the wind. And
the question is, is somebody at an unknown time
going to pick that thing up and at an unknown
time and place go into the bank and at an unknown
time and place to you cash that and then all
of a sudden you get withdrawn. And to put that
out there, it literally takes a piece of your
soul with it. It has to. Because that's the only
way that it puts you into the mindset and the
frame of being the person capable of detaching
and doing what is required to make it through
whatever situations it is that you're being confronted
with. And when you do that, it becomes your identity.
I am a Marine. I am a MARSOC Marine. I am a Marine
Raider. It is who I am. It's not what I do. I
live it and I breathe it. you know, some degree
there'll always be some truth to that, but I
struggle with that a lot because I had no purpose
anymore in life. And that's ultimately why I
became very close. I'd say half a pound of trigger
pressure away from blowing my brains out all
over the place on many occasions. Um, I would
fall asleep with the gun in my mouth. I don't
know why it never went off. It didn't. But, uh,
to realize that You can evolve into something
more and still have a piece of that fabric inside
of you. I think it's really important because
it doesn't have to define you and who you are.
You ultimately define who you are from the inside
out. And if you define yourself as police, firefighter,
medic, military, and then you lose that and you
choose to not grow beyond it, then you're going
to have a very difficult time and you'll probably
end up killing yourself. That's why I think a
lot of guys do it. What I realized, and it was
funny because I just did this 9 -11 tribute competition,
like a fitness competition fundraiser on Saturday,
and I had to wear my helmet for one of the events.
And I was telling my wife, it's so weird because
I advocate for this profession, but it's been
seven years since I wore the uniform now. And
I almost forget that I did it once. And I think,
again, that's because there's been a healthy
transition, not immediately, but after a few
years. But one of the big things for me was realizing,
well, it was the mission that never changed.
I wanted to make sure that I was there on people's
worst day. I wanted to make the world a little
bit better. And what I wore and what I carried
was just, you know, an outfit and equipment.
But that wasn't who I was. I was proud to wear
a firefighter's uniform. But I think, you know,
what you're doing now, what I'm doing now, very
different. But you're still continuing the mission.
You're still trying to be the force multiplier
now. to maintain this lifelong goal of being
the protector and trying to improve the things
that are broken in the world. And I think when
you can separate that from the actual uniform
itself and be proud of your service, but realize
that it hasn't ended when you hang it up, I found
that very healing. That's really cool. I never
really thought of it in those terms before, but
it's very true because even when I was bouncing
around for the first couple of years after I
got out, overseas contracting, which was not,
I wasn't like running a shooter job. It was more
intel based, but even still like not my identity,
right? A little bit, but not so much. Doing corporate
work and trying to consult corporations for violence
prevention programs, security programs. I would
talk about my background, but I didn't feel like
I was who I thought that I was anymore. And then
when I really started focusing in on training
people how to use firearms for the greater good
and how to develop a positive mindset in a world
that's full of negativity and scarcity, to be
there for people and help them, empower them
through those types of challenges in life and
potentially the worst day of their life. Yeah,
it's all about the mission. And I think that's
pretty cool. realization and something that I
could probably also take with me to preach more
regularly to when I talk to guys and girls is
like, look, you're going to get out and do real
estate. If you really want to do that, cool.
But are you nervous about that? Are you, are
you going to fear the loss of the camaraderie
X, Y, and Z? Cause it's probably the mission
and maybe that'll kind of spread itself out.
So thanks for that insight. Well, that's what
I found, you know, a lot of people that had that
healthy transition, you know, if they went to,
let's say, a financial company that was just
focused on money, a lot of times it wouldn't
be fulfilling. But if they were able to find
in the corporate space or wherever they went
to next an area where they still. were improving
the world, even if they say they became a personal,
you know, personal trainer, all right, well,
I'm making people healthier, I'm stopping them
from ending up in an ambulance or an ER. You
know, I think that's where you see that really
kind of not flawless, but that that through line
continue. But if you find yourself in a very
self serving money focused, you know, business,
maybe just maybe that's not the right fit for
a first responder or a military member. Yeah,
or, you know, the combination of both, right?
Like, And this is actually bringing up a pretty
interesting point, too, is that a lot of veterans
that I talk to when they get out, I have this
epitome. Where when I was starting to shift my
mindset, my belief systems from this depressed
guy who's going to off himself to neuroplasticity,
using the brain, quantum physics, affirmations,
daily lifestyle, habit development, all that
stuff. All the stuff I've been trained on in
my life and have done multiple times before just
never really had a name to it. I started to consciously
and intentionally put it to work and use in my
life. And that's when things really dramatically
started to flip in terms of the life script.
And I'm driving around looking at all these multimillion
dollar homes one day. And I was like, there's
millionaires in every single one of these houses,
thousands of them. How many Marine Raiders are
there? Have there ever been? Why am I not a multimillionaire?
I was like, what is going on? How am I failing
at that game and struggling while everybody else
in all these homes are clearly not? What do they
possess that I don't? And it was just a different
set of knowledge. It's just a different way,
a belief system really more than anything is
they believe they could. And I'd always been
raised to believe that that's not a thing. You
know, I've heard my dad laugh two times in my
life. Once he was watching a TV show. The second
time was just a couple of years ago when I was
talking about my business to somebody off on
the side, he overheard what I was saying in terms
of like finances. And he laughed out loud across
the dinner table, which I thought was pretty
interesting. The majority of millionaires in
this country, and maybe I'm wrong on the stat
nowadays, somebody can always correct it, but
there's a very heavy percentage of multimillionaires
that are veterans and former first responder
peoples. And I think that if you find your mission
and you find your purpose and you find your niche
and how to implement it, and then you just focus
on serving that constituency as much and as hard
as you possibly can, then there's really limitless
possibilities. It's not a job that you're going
in just for the empty purpose of, well, I want
to make money. But you could definitely do both
where you're driven, you're making the impact,
you're formulating your plans, you're bringing
people in for a mastermind alliance, you continue
to grow, you continue to scale, and then anything
is really possible. And that comes from the organizational
development, the discipline, the habits, the
lifestyle of people who are in those highly demanding
jobs and positions. And it's like, fuck, man,
if you would have just not killed yourself and
given yourself a couple of more years, if you
would have just had more faith in yourself and
your own abilities, how different life could
be for those who are listening right now or could
have been for the people who would have killed
themselves. I look back on my life and I'd be
so pissed off if I would have killed myself over
those reasons. What a stupid waste of life and
the abundance of beauty that I have now within
it all. It's just so inconceivable. that that
was even me at some point in time and i just
encourage people to keep moving because anything
in this life is possible just lose the negative
self default beliefs and you could really change
your and shift your paradigm for sure after all
these conversations i've had and so many have
been there you know right at the point of suicide
and some of them went through with it and they
survived and that's why they're on the show There's
a few elements that we hear a lot about. I wanted
the pain to end. I was depressed, blah, blah,
blah. But I think the old school way of talking
about suicide is still viewed as selfish and
cowardly and how could they and think of your
family. But then you hear hundreds of people
tell their stories. And there's another piece
that you hardly ever hear. Now, it's mentioned
in the psychologist, psychiatrist, they understand
this piece, but on the regular conversations,
it's not. When you have this perfect storm of
all these contributing factors that get you to
that point, unaddressed childhood trauma, sleep
deprivation, you know, CTE, side effects of alcohol,
psych meds, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And that person is now at that point, the brain
is literally miswired. So we talk about neuroplasticity.
The brain is really shifted to a form of psychosis,
if you look at it, where the reality is distorted
now. And over and over and over again, I keep
hearing people say, I felt like I was a burden
to the people that I loved. And if I just remove
myself, they would be happier. And it makes no
sense to the healthy brain. In that reality,
it makes perfect sense to them at that moment,
which when we talk about the people we lost to
suicide, that would make that act at that moment
courageous and selfless because there was a belief
that they were the issue. When you think back
now, when you were there with that pistol, was
that little voice whispering in your ear the
same way? It's interesting that you bring that
up. I just wrote something about this less than
a week ago. And it was a veteran who made a post
about a commander of his who had killed himself.
And how he just wishes that he would have reached
out. And my response back, coming from a place
of love, I wasn't trying to be like, because
of this. But to be like, look, nobody who is
on the verge of suicide is ever going to reach
out. Because they already feel like they are
a burden. That's why they never do. That's why
you don't get somebody calling and saying, you
know, man, I'm really just thinking about killing
myself. No, it's so far beyond that in terms
of emotional turmoil. And what I honestly think
is demonic possession at this point. I look back
and I could remember some things. I was just
like, I feel like I was possessed. Why would
I even bother? Everybody hates me. All I do is
complicate people's lives. I'm not a good person.
I don't do good things. And people don't understand
that. Just like when you physically perform something
10 ,000 times, let's say, it becomes a habit.
It becomes ingrained in the subconscious portion
of your brain because conscious thought requires
a lot of calories. Your brain burns more calories
than any other part of your entire body or organ
per pound of body weight. It's a caloric burning
house. And in order to conserve those calories,
it solidifies that neural network, sheathes it
in some good thick myelin, and then substitutes
it down into the subconscious part of the brain.
It says, you go there, no longer think about
this, just do it. Your thoughts are the exact
same thing. And it's twice as difficult to change
your thought habits because we always have a
negative default disposition based off survival
mechanisms built in our brain. Our brain's number
one priority. Don't die. Don't die. That's it.
Whether that's regression from pain, conservation
of calories, which is, again, another reason
why it programs into the subconscious so effectively,
don't die. And so are good memories associated
with death? No. Bad experiences associated with
death, bad memories associated with death. So
we always go there first, twice as fast to the
amygdala than the conscious part of the brain,
the neocortex, the way information travels in
through the senses. It goes to the amygdala two
times faster than the logical part of your existence.
So that's why we're emotional creatures. We always
respond to things emotionally. Why am I going
to make this whole thing worse for everybody
else? My amygdala is already firing off. I'm
already doing bad things. I'm already reinforcing
this default negative disposition belief system
in myself. I've solidified the habits by becoming
highly emotional because when you're highly emotional,
it solidifies that neural network at a much greater
rate of speed. But this is all bad. This is all
bad reinforcement. which causes you to build
momentum and a spiral completely so far out of
control that you don't even recognize who you
are anymore. And that's when you lose your identity.
That's when you lose your purpose in its entirety.
And I honestly think that that is the moment
when people do it, when people kill themselves,
is through a loss of purpose and a loss of identity.
We can talk about that with active shooters in
schools some other time if you want, because
that in itself is like a three hour conversation
and what we're doing to little kids these days
and making them lose their identity. But I'll
digress to you're not going to burden the people
whom you love and you already feel so guilty
over hurting. And you probably have done some
bad things. You probably have probably done some
fucked up stuff. I was telling this woman and
I'm not. It's almost like this dichotomy of people
nowadays who do bad things just so they can then
talk about it later to be like, oh, look, I'm
reformed. This isn't the life that I've lived.
It's not anything remotely proud of. It's like
I cheated on a woman who I was dating who was
a widow while she was laying wreaths on her dead
husband's grave. for a ceremony i was out sleeping
with some other chick like that's a really up
thing to do to somebody that's a bad thing and
so those are the types of experiences and everybody
has their own version of that i i wish that was
the only thing that i've done to people that
i love but we let that then build up and compound
and then going back to the drug addiction and
the shame how i felt so shameful that people
could see right through me That people could
see right through my soul. And they knew I was
lying about everything. And they knew I was not
the person who I claimed to be. That there was
just such a massive dissonance between who I
am made to be in this world and who I actually
am. That it was just like the most, like, what
am I doing? Like, why am I wasting this space
on this planet? There's a million people who
could take my spot and be better than me. So
why would I ever bother? laying that out on anybody
else even further because they already know and
they probably don't give a fuck which obviously
isn't true to some degree for a lot of people
but that's yeah that's what i gotta say about
that but it's so important this is what we need
to hear front and center is this this feeling
of burden conversation because you again let's
go back to you know you and me when we were young
and then you got to go through our childhood
and things happen and now we're drawn into uniform
there is this trauma there are these mistakes
there are these things that we're guilty about
there are these things that we're ashamed of
doing and then you know you start struggling
and now we pour this guilt and shame on through
our messaging like it's cowardly it's selfish
etc etc and now you know that's compounding even
more now think of your family i am thinking of
my fucking family that's why i'm going to take
myself out so they'll be happy again because
you know in that mind that makes sense at that
moment but i think you know taking them pulling
them back by getting them to understand that
That burdensome conversation. And ironically,
I just had a friend call me yesterday and I had
that conversation with him and it actually reframed,
you know, he'd seen the fucking voices in his
own head and it, you know, pulled him back. Thank
God. But then you've got to get people to understand
that, you know, there are reasons for their behavior
too. Now there are victims and, you know, so
there, there is a, there's a, you know, you have
to own your mistakes, of course, but. you are
also a product of your environment and people
are going to look back and they're going to have
done some things that they're not proud of. But
those have happened and it is what it is. But
understanding that, you know, you were brought
up in a certain environment that created your
behavior, whether you're in Afghanistan or whether
you're in the UK or the US. And when we get people
to understand that they can heal. You can turn
this around and you identify the things that
set you up for failure and then own your own
mistakes. You can then move forward, like we
said, and stop those damn dominoes from falling.
But if our messaging is about adding guilt and
shame to people that are fucking drowning in
guilt and shame, and then we're surprised when
we lose so many people, it's because we're sending
the wrong message in the first place. Yeah. I
had this realization after the, without a doubt,
the closest night to blow my brains out. I had
this realization that this was not going to work,
this way of living. And how did I get here? How
in the world did I get here? And just by chance,
I was going through the traumatic brain injury
clinic program as I was getting forced out of
the Marine Corps, and I just decided to listen.
And I'll never forget, Doc Johnson, the neuroscientist,
comes in, explains the symptoms I'm having. And
I was like, you read my medical record. Big fucking
deal, man. What's your point? And I was just
so jaded. I literally said that to a full bird
captain in the Navy. And he looks at me and he
goes, I didn't even open your medical record
yet. It's right here. Throws it on the table.
He goes, I haven't even looked at anything except
your MRIs. My brain scans. He had my attention.
And then he started explaining to me how he could
identify those symptoms based off of the calcium
deposits and the thickening of the axonial nerves
and all this nerd stuff that I could talk about
for days because it just has changed my life.
And I said, I'm going to see if there's some
truth behind this before I just kill myself.
And then I did. and things started to change.
And we go up and down, left and right, of course,
but the universe is always going to challenge
you as you're getting ready for a new set of
problems. If you learn the lessons from the previous
set, there will always be another set. Life isn't
about bliss, in my opinion. It's about being
able to develop the skills, tools, resources
to overcome the next set of challenges. And for
all the bad that we just talked about, I want
to just reiterate that. your brain could be used
for the exact same thing in the positive. And
you could just be the most amazing person being
that you could possibly imagine. And I honestly
think that's who we're designed to be. The greatest
version of what we could potentially be within
our own minds. Because everything was started
in the mind first. And if you picture yourself
as the most loving, kind, compassionate, strong,
fast, superhero human being possible, you could
do it. You could absolutely 100 % do it by changing
your thought patterns, your thought processes,
these habits, the neuroplasticity, putting emotion
behind it, doing it daily, remaining consistent,
and being persistent and overcoming the challenges
and accepting self -reflection. But I will say
this, the number one thing for my epiphany, I
said, when do I behave this way? I'm talking,
I was smashing. I had three pieces of furniture
in my apartment. I put holes in the walls, ripped
doors off the frames, threw my guns up against
them, smashing them against the brick wall, just
trying to break my gut. I was just fucking erratic.
When do I get this way? Oh, it's when I drink.
Well, when do I drink and why do I drink? Well,
it's at nighttime. I mean, there's nothing to
do. And the demons really start to come out.
How do I avoid that? Well, I've got some sleeping
pills here, so maybe I'll develop a nighttime
routine. And I'd come home, lights would be dimmed.
They wouldn't go beyond a certain brightness.
I would drink nothing but chamomile tea, pop
a sleeping pill, do a little bit of schoolwork
for a positive reinforcement, a little bit of
momentum, a little bit of a gain, a little bit
of a win. And then I'd wake up at 3 a .m., and
the demons weren't there, and the world was still
quiet. But I felt productive versus destructive.
And by changing that part of my physical environment,
it's so, so important to anybody who may be struggling.
and want to make these crazy life changes is
you have to identify and just mercilessly eradicate
every negative thing that influences you throughout
your day. The sweets, the cakes, the drugs, the
alcohol, the prescription meds, you got to fucking
flush it all. Otherwise, good luck, man. Good
luck because that's the type of drastic action
it takes to really change your life and to flip
it around like that. Unfortunately. You know,
emotion comes from Greek. It's emotis, energy
in motion. Everything is energy in the universe.
We get put into motion when we become emotional
about something. Which that wasn't the case,
but it just is. You know, you got to hit rock
bottom, I guess. Well, it's interesting with
the head trauma conversation, the fire service,
specifically in EMS, we don't have that much
exposure to it. The regular law enforcement don't.
It's usually more the SWAT guys that are breaching
and that kind of profession. But what we do have
is sleep deprivation. And at the moment, there's
a massive recruitment crisis. So our first responders
are being worked into the ground. I mean, the
average firefighter work week is 56 hours a week.
Mandatory overtime is another 24. So with one
overtime force, that's 80 hours. It's double
what a civilian works. Awake four nights of that
week. And when we wonder why we're having the
same issue, then you go home, you drink to unwind.
As you said, that disturbs your sleep. Now you've
got another one. So identifying these, and I've
been fighting tooth and nail to change the firefighter
work week nationally to get it to where we can
perform at a high level and not die. But touching
on what you said as well. I think where the mental
health conversation needs to be, I mean, the
red flag with the burden, absolutely. But then
the focus needs to be on post -traumatic growth.
Like there is an incredible version of you waiting
on the other side of whatever that unique toolbox
is that you've got to assemble and that work
that you've got to do. You're not going to be
the 18 -year -old, you know, Joe or James. You're
going to be this new version, but you are going
to have more resilience. You genuinely are. More
compassion, more empathy, because you've been.
through that fucking, you know, meat grinder
and come out the other end. So putting hope into
the other side, you're not going to be walking
around looking all mopey with your therapy dog,
that means you haven't done enough work. You
know, and again, not shaming anyone that's there.
And, you know, there are those anomalies that
just cannot get past that point. But I think
even like the psychedelics and some of these
other areas might be the missing piece of that
as well. But you hear yourself and so many people
to be on the show, they're a better version of
themselves now. And they've identified some of
the things that were breaking them down, and
they fixed it. The same way as when I hurt my
back as a firefighter and I used movement to
heal it, near career -ending injury ended up
becoming a strength. And like I said, I just
did that fitness competition yesterday at 51
and competed against all the young guys because
I refused to do the Masters Division. So this
is the point when you can see what the issues
are. then you can fix it, which is exciting.
So rather than the doom and gloom messaging,
we've got to talk about you 2 .0 and how exciting
that is and that will drive you to actually get
there then. Yeah. I love talking about post -traumatic
growth. I hate when people ask me if I have PTSD.
I'm like, I don't identify. I don't even like
when people say, somebody said, oh man, you're
in recovery? No, I'm not in recovery. That part
of me doesn't even exist anymore. In fact, I
have to look up pictures and evidence of my past
actually even existing because it feels like
I'm lying when I talk about it because it's just
so insanely opposite of who I currently am. But
to what you said about identifying the problems.
It's so hard to do because when we think about
experiences in life that generate an emotional
influx within us, our body brain doesn't know
the difference between like imagining or actually
living in it. And so it's going to produce the
same hormones, the same neurochemicals associated
with that experience. So if it was a bad experience
and you start to think about it, you're like,
man, how can I get over this? Well, that then
generates the emotions associated with that event.
and now you're living in the past that feed that
feedback loop cycle is not going to do anything
positive for you whatsoever you need to be capable
of disassociating your emotions from the experience
in order to truly objectively review it and this
actually happened to me by accident i had taken
a bunch of acid like lsd and a bunch of molly
and it was like really really pure stuff this
was in my time after i had gotten out of the
marine corps and And my best friend had just
died, and it was just an absolute shit show of
a time. And my buddy and I had taken all these
drugs. It was the 4th of July, and we're sitting
underneath the bridge. So it was James and Joe
out of the J crew. And the amount of pain that
I was living in, just true emotional turmoil,
survivor's guilt from the plane crash, survivor's
guilt from my best friend who saved me and I
couldn't save him, all sorts of other loss of
identity. I was getting scared that as I started
to think about those things underneath this childhood
hangout spot where we still got writings on the
I -beams that run underneath the bridge, you
know, like 20 -some years later, writings from
when we were kids. I started to feel myself drifting
into a potential bad trip experience. But the
combination of the drugs that I had taken were
influencing enough dopamine and serotonin flooding
to where I could actually not feel emotionally
influenced by thinking about these things. It
was almost as if I took them out of my brain,
put them down on a book and was reading a story
about somebody where I was like, yeah, that seems
pretty sad. That's a difficult thing to go through.
But I wasn't like... My heart's just being crushed
and my bones are being gnashed and I'm just sick
to the stomach with the amount of pain I was
living with. And I was so shocked at how controlled
I was that I started to actually dive further
into the things that I was going through and
experiencing in life at that point in time. And
when the night was over and I woke up the next
day, I was looking back and I was just really
stunned by that. And I realized this is why things
like I've never done ketamine therapy, but. supposedly
that helps out people a lot things like ayahuasca
which i have done um you know 5meo dmt which
i will be doing pretty soon here just to have
that experience as well your ability to objectively
review the sequence of events immediately creates
new neural connections in the brain that circumnavigate
the resonance of trauma with that memory therefore
allowing you to permanently view bad experience
objectively without inciting that emotional evocation
within you that causes you so much pain. And
that's important because that's literal neuroplasticity
in action. And then the influx of neurochemical
hormones that are being stimulated in your body
through the use of these hallucinogens or drugs
is enough to solidify that neural connection
circumnavigating the association and the tether
to the trauma. And that's such a medical phenomenon.
I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't know
what I know about neuroscience now, that I was
taught, living it, going through it. And that
experience that I had that night underneath the
bridge on the 4th of July with my buddy James,
just opening up and diving into all the things
that I would never be able to talk about like
that. And I think it's important to recognize
because I know people who've been women who've
been raped, sexually assaulted. And I work with
a lot of these people right now in firearms training,
helping them regain that sense of self. So that
way they feel confidence and they don't fall
back into the regression of the emotional pain
associated with the trauma. You know, we're not,
I'm not handing out drugs to people. We're doing
training and self -empowerment through, you know,
daily actions and stuff, but it's all the same
concept is how can you. objectively analyze what
happened what you're going through without eliciting
the emotional response and then empowering yourself
or using that information in which you extrapolate
to live a more positive and impactful life in
society i mentioned earlier about getting the
the application thrown in my face because of
the drugs it was the mushrooms were illegal in
japan so psilocybin and then ecstasy was the
one it wasn't legal we were doing it and having
a blast But since then, now, the full career
in the fire service and in this podcast, those
are having incredible effects. I just had Dr.
Ben Sessa from University of Bristol back on
the show, and he's one of the real gurus when
it comes to MDMA -led psychotherapy. And it makes
perfect sense. when you're on those drugs, it
used to be kind of marriage counseling drug,
and it was first developed, it removes that emotional
response. And so you're just able to be, you
know, vulnerable, truly vulnerable, and really
explore these areas without having, as you said,
this kind of fear response, shame response, whatever
it is, and the success they've had. And it's
not that you get prescribed it, you do it in
house, and you go home, I think it's like Two
weeks later, and then four weeks later again,
I think it's like a six week cycle. And then
it just keeps, you know, getting better and better
and better and better. So this is why I think
it's so important that people understand that
toolbox doesn't consist of talk therapy and psych
meds. And there are so many other areas and everyone's
going to be different. Someone might not want
to do Ibogaine. It might be too much. You don't
want to purge or whatever the, you know, the
issue is someone else that might be a last ditch
attempt. I've heard so many of those, you know,
addiction, especially. But understanding that
there are so many areas that you, you know, so
many tools that you can use to find your own
unique toolbox for you. And then that's going
to evolve to this work, you know, this this year
and now year two, I'm going to switch to some
of these other things that I think provides a
huge amount of hope then. I think as long as
you just don't give up and you keep exploring
new options, find things that work that don't
work. Who cares? Like, what are you going to
do? Just. die anyways yeah so you might as well
give it the best shot that you have in order
to help the people who rely on you you know i
speak as a father as a husband i'm not doing
anybody in this whole universe any good by feeling
guilty over the fact that i survived certain
things and other people died i'm not doing anybody
any good by drinking myself into a stupor taking
drugs to the point where i'm just erratic and
blowing my brains out none of that makes any
sense and If you really want to truly be selfless,
based off what our society has as a standard
of selfish, that's what you need to be because
you cannot give that which you do not possess.
And as long as you constantly strive to be 1
% better every single day, as long as you're
constantly pushing yourself to be the greatest
version of you, and you have to have clarity
on that. You can't just be X, Y, and Z and ambiguous.
You have to really think about it. Sit in the
silence, which is very difficult. But once you
do it, get up at 3 a .m. and you don't have an
urge to drink and there's nothing else to do,
so what do you do? You're just thinking right.
When you start to re -explore and open up those
areas of you in your life, your impact, it can
be truly endless, truly endless, and your family
needs you to do it. You need you to do it. Look
after yourself so you can possess the things
that will help them in their lives and be somebody
who they can talk about when you're in your grave
because it's going to happen. But be somebody
that they will look back on and say, man, he
was a fucking strong dude. She was a strong chick.
They did everything that they could amidst all
the challenges of life, which I'm now experiencing
as their child or whatever. That's something
to look up to. As long as you never stop, you
can't fail. 100%. Well, I want to get to, you
know, what you're doing now, but just before
we do, how did you come across All American Leadership
and talk to me about your role with that company?
Yeah, so it was just a freak series of situations.
Met a guy in Austin, Texas, who I met at a random
winery that nobody was at and a random trip my
wife and I took. We were just at a very low point
in our lives. Guy comes up to us, talks to us.
I thought he was a scam artist. He wasn't. We
end up developing a relationship. He introduces
me to some woman. Some woman introduces me to
some guy. Some guy introduces me to Rob, who's
the CEO and the founder of All -American Leadership.
And when you look at us on paper, Rob, Army officer,
West Point grad, just very successful guy on
paper. You look at me, enlisted, Marine, just
troubled childhood criminal. you know, tendencies,
just complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
And so to be honest, when I was taking the meeting
with him, I was kind of just like, I'll talk
to somebody, but I didn't really look much forward
to it. I didn't see anything coming out of it.
And man, Rob and I just did a 13 hour drive last
week with each other in the car and it, and we
didn't stop talking for a single second and it
wasn't forced and it wasn't exhaustive. It was
just learning so much about that guy and how
we actually have so much in common, which just
reinforces this idea that when people talk, we
realize things about each other at a, at such
a rapid rate of speed that I'm convinced if everybody
just talked to each other and didn't live in
isolated worlds, there would. probably be very
limited violence, if any, because it develops
that humanizing factor and rapport. But that's
how I got introduced to all American leadership.
Rob and I talked for about a year. Just on and
off, touching in business stuff here and there,
seeing if there's ways we can collaborate. Because
he has a very astute staff of West Point grads,
Annapolis grads, multi -star generals, major
commanders, astronaut people, and people who
train astronauts. And then I never really saw
myself as being a part of that staff because
I don't fit the demographic. In fact, Rob told
me, he goes, I'm the only enlisted. service member
to ever serve in AAL and I thought that was kind
of kind of cool but we eventually one day said
you know what what are we talking for like let's
just do something and see if we're going to jive
together and work well because I believed in
what he was doing and that's when we did and
I came on board and I run their leadership in
a word every month we have a one -hour zoom call
it gets pretty deep pretty fast because I'm very
intentional about that And, uh, I've done multiple
universities and academies for him now. And,
uh, just such an amazing group of people. I love
listening to everybody talk because I can, I
get to learn so much and it's a really cool experience.
So that's, that's how I got introduced to AL.
I do that, uh, multiple times throughout the
year, monthly basis for the, for the online portion.
And then, uh, Rick too. I mean, everybody I've
talked to at AL is just, man, really just we
develop a connection very fast because it's very
accomplished people through life. Whatever that
means to you, what it means to me is that they're
very accomplished, very intelligent, different
varying perspectives, and they keep me sharpened
on this. That's that part and then I run a company
called JM Training out here in Chicago where
we teach people how to use firearms for the greater
good. We want to train 4 % of the population
so we can have a positive impact or at least
see if we have a positive impact on violence
and violent crime. And we do that through firearms
training. We run a private outdoor facility right
outside of the city. where we do defensive shooting
and tactics you can't do it anywhere else in
the entire area like a two and a half to maybe
even six hour drive i don't know of another gun
range that lets people draw from the holster
do multiple shots on target shoot move communicate
on the range and uh we've got over 400 members
now in the last 14 months that are a part of
this thing so there's a huge need for it you
know we'll we'll train you we'll equip you we'll
educate you but most of all we'll plug you into
the community and the community has just been
Amazing. Again, super diverse group of people.
Every race, like 15 plus religions or something
like that. Aging from 20s to the 80s. Different
continents, people who immigrated here. I mean,
Republicans, Democrats, everybody's in the group.
Everybody's in the group. And we all get along
exceedingly well. And we talk about whatever.
There's no limitation or restrictions on what
you can or cannot talk about. In fact, I encourage
people to have conversations that create. Points
of contention, points of conflict. The only caveat,
the only standard is that it has to have a means
to an end. What's your point and purpose in having
this conversation? Is there a point you're trying
to make? And as long as there's a point you're
trying to make, even if you guys don't agree
with it at the end, cool. At least now we understand
where that perspective is coming from. Because
that person is no more than a collection of their
past experiences than you are. and so uh it's
it's really cool man it's been really awesome
and um yeah i don't know how we'll get the data
on crime stats maybe in the next four years you
know if we hit four percent we'll see a decrease
in trend but at a minimum uh we're just trying
to help people as best we can prevent them from
being murdered or raped or something like that
we just had that horrendous stabbing which i've
been i've seen people post that it was only reported
on one side or not the other but uh you know
that poor ukrainian um woman that was stabbed
on the train in charlotte north carolina i mean
i don't think there was any weapons training
that could have avoided that i mean the poor
woman was just sitting in a in a seat but it
illustrates the dangers there are out there you
know and again that circles around to the mental
health crisis that we've been talking about for
two hours yeah it's man and there's so much more
like if you talk about the civilian population
so much more to even say about all that you know
The thing about people on the streets that I
learned when I was running around on them, a
lot of them are mentally insane because they're
alone but surrounded by people all the time.
And they go crazy pretty quick. Then the drugs,
the alcohol also induce that as well. If anybody
was to ask me a question like what could have
been done in that situation, it seemed like it
was a pretty open train. I would just never sit
in front of anybody who is on, for me at least,
based off my experiences, if you're on a train
and you have like a hood up over your head, which
I think maybe this person did in this case. Like
they're sitting there laying like that's a person
who's overly comfortable on that public transportation
for me. And I'm probably not going to sit down
right in front of them. I mean, I'm armchair
quarterback. I'm not saying this woman did anything
wrong. She didn't. She's just an innocent soul.
Very sad. But if somebody was to ask. What could
have been done? I would just say, well, you know,
maybe don't sit in front of people who happen
to resonate with you in a certain way. And I'm
not going to break down all the ways I go through
this process. There's three things, anomalous
behavior, being one of them. And so, yeah, heartbreaking.
My wife is an optometrist and I actually went
and got my eyes checked the other day and someone
walked in and they had. just a strange gate a
strange way about them they were older they weren't
physically intimidating and they ended up when
i was having my eyes checked causing a scene
in that particular place and kind of you know
storming out And it's interesting, you know,
again, not that I've been at war, not that I'm
a law enforcement officer, neither. But, you
know, obviously, as a firefighter on the streets,
you know, dealing with a lot of people that are
desperate, you know, and there are some of those
telltale signs. And like you said, in that particular
case with the Ukrainian woman, you know, was
that avoidable? You know, I mean, aside from,
as you mentioned, just randomly not sitting there,
probably not. it's amazing with body language,
how you can see people that potentially are just,
just a little off. And then you, you trust that
your gut as well. But I mean, you know, if you
haven't been surrounded with those kinds of people
in the first place, you haven't really got that
baseline to go off. Yeah. Which is one of the
downfalls of American society is we're so spoiled.
We're so spoiled. We don't recognize it. And
it's a good thing, but a bad thing. Double -edged
sword, I guess. Absolutely. Now, I know you mentioned
it could be a three -hour conversation, but just
one more question at you with this kind of firearm
background, obviously your military service as
well. If you're a king for a day, what would
we do as far as our schools to try and reduce
the number of horrendous shooting incidents that
we're seeing at the moment? Yeah, that's a very
easy question that I've talked to hundreds of
schools across the entire nation about, and none
of them have taken my advice. It's not like I
don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that
can go on for a long time. First thing is identity
issues. So let kids be kids. They're not chopping
their nuts off. They're not taking hormone blockers
in the third grade. They're not a chick. They're
not a dude if they're not genetically born that
way. Stop confusing little kids. It's already
hard enough to be a child. I've known plenty
of transsexuals in my life. Almost all of them
have killed themselves. All of them have been
horribly depressed. Still are. And a few actually
completely regret it. uh what they did to themselves
after a handful of years so that's the first
thing is stop messing with this gender identity
stuff with little kids to get rid of safe spaces
teach kids how to deal with playground bullies
i'm not saying let kids go around beat the crap
out of little kids and stuff but you at least
need to take a step back and wait after the first
punch or two are thrown like Kids have to learn
how to deal with adversity, how to deal with
disappointment and shame and guilt and embarrassment
in themselves. And then they need to learn how
to fix that and then overcome it and seek mentors
and guidance from people like their parents,
for example, or other mentors that they look
up to. Because if you don't teach those kids
how to deal with adversity and you teach them
it's okay to express themselves however they
want, whenever they want, but when they become
an adult, then... they go to their job they get
yelled at then they go get a gun and then they
shoot everybody up whether that's at the workplace
or at the school because they're 16 and they
got a hold of a gun they spent their whole life
being told you have no identity you have no purpose
and it's okay to lash out however you want to
lash out and then lastly would be the emergency
procedures for schools i think they're insane
i think they are the absolute dumbest thing in
the world when there's a threat inside of the
building and nobody's been able to explain to
me this nobody I've spoken to thousands of people
about this in public settings etc when the threat
is inside the building why do we tell kids to
sit still over over 90 % of all kids killed in
school shootings are on the first floor over
90 % Over 80 % of people killed in all active
shooter situations are attempting to hide. Those
are insane, insane numbers and statistics. 90
plus percent. Now, I'll admit this is all self
-founded research. You know, when I studied all
the active shooter incidents, like 117 of them
from like the 90s up until like, you know, 2017
or 18 or 19 or something like that. A few anomalies
exist where you're either killed within 35 meters
or almost everybody's killed within 35 meters
of the shooter. So those are three things right
there that tell me, okay, well, if the threat's
inside the building. Why don't we hit an alarm,
have a window installed where the teacher and
the students can exit out the first floor, where
they go to one of four pre -designated rally
locations within 100 yards of the school, terrain
dependent, so that way the teachers, the staff,
they can see students who are getting lost or
confused or scared, and they can rally them towards
those pre -designated rally locations. And then
guess what? The school's vacated. The only person
in there is the threat. And then the cops show
up and then they shoot them or they shoot themselves
usually. If you're on the second floor, fire
escape ladders. Why is this so hard? You know,
we've had thousands of fires across the nation
in our schools, yet we've had zero fatalities
every year. Why? It's because we build fire resistant
materials. Why can't we use aesthetically pleasing
bullet resistant materials? We can. It's out
there. Instead of turning our schools into prisons,
they could be aesthetically pleasing construction
materials. And then two, the way that we run
fire drills, the way we run active shooter drills
is so, again, mind -blowing to me. Fake blanks
and throwing staplers or fake staplers at a shooter.
What idiot throws a stapler at a gunman? This
is what we're teaching kids and teachers. And
I can't tell you, hundreds of teachers have come
up to me after these events that I'm talking
at, and they'll be like, I keep a sledgehammer
in my bottom right dress door. One keeps an ax
to smash the windows that don't open because
the school windows don't open. And we spend hundreds
of billions of dollars on these school infrastructure
projects and programs. Why can't we just replace
one window per classroom? Well, if we sit down
and we lock down and we all sit on this side
of the classroom, Marjorie Stoneman stoked my
interest in this when 14 out of the 17 people
were killed in the classroom hiding in place,
like on the first floor, on the first floor.
So I would get rid of this gender ideology stuff
that confused a hell of a lot of kids. I would
allow a little bit of playground adversity and
get rid of safe spaces simultaneously just so
that way they could deal with some struggle and
learn how to overcome that adversity. I would
change the emergency operations procedures that
we have for our schools. And then I would change
the way that we train on them. And then lastly,
I'm a big fan of a concealed carry security program.
I really am. You're never going to convince me
that we protect our politicians with guns, that
we protect our money with guns, and we don't
protect our children. In fact, every day my kid
goes to school, I'm sitting here like, why am
I even? I got to change it. I have to homeschool
my kid. I'm not going to continue to send him
to this thing. And it makes me sick to my stomach
every day that I do because of these absolutely
ridiculous policies and procedures. And that's
what I do. So that was a very long winded answer,
but it's something that I have spoken a lot about
in the past. And I quite frankly have stopped
because it's just, it's crazy. Nobody wants to
listen to that. I actually got to experience
a code red with my son. I took him to a doctor's
appointment. brought him back to the school.
And literally, as I'm signing him in, the doors
closed behind me. Mr. Goering, you've got to
come. You've got to stay. We've got to code red.
Now, they'd done drills, but this was a bona
fide code red. So we'd take it into the kind
of like the behind the office area where they
had photocopiers and some other things. And I'm
standing there. And obviously, usually, I'll
be the guy on the outside responding in a rescue
or an engine. but I'm standing there with my
child. And firstly, you know, I remember him
saying, I'm so glad you're here with me, daddy,
which broke my heart because how many children
didn't have mom or dad next to them that were
cowering under a desk. But secondly, I just realized
how vulnerable they were. The teachers didn't
know what was going on. Just the principal, you
know, these kids are all hiding in the dark and
I'm looking right at the front door and there's
a paper guillotine. And now I'm like, well, fuck,
I'm just going to have to snap the blade off.
And, you know. Geronimo, here we go, probably
going to get shot in the process, but this is
all we've got. And so just realizing, like you
said, that complete disconnection between what
would be the appropriate response and what those
teachers had the ability to even do. And, you
know, hearing. So many people that have been
in some of these school shootings responded to
it. And you make a brilliant point that we protect
politicians, we protect money with guns. But
also Dave Grossman has been on a few times now.
And listen to him pick apart all the different
pieces. And this is what drives me crazy. And
you alluded to this yourself. There are many,
many areas that we've got to address simultaneously
if we're going to fix this. Mental health, sleep
deprivation from video games, operative conditioning
from video games. You know, the household that
these children are growing up in, you know, the
bullying, all these areas. But what drives me
crazy is this doesn't happen on most of the planet.
But in America, we act like this is normal. So
why are we not having the humility and going
to Norway and Portugal and Sweden and Japan and
be like, what are you doing that we're missing?
And it's going to be exactly like you said, the
mental health piece, you know, all these areas.
And then probably another one is investing. in
some of these schools that are struggling. We
penalize schools when they struggle. A lot of
other areas, in Scandinavia especially, they'll
bolster those schools. So if there is a kind
of missing piece at home, they'll fill that in
in the school. And the kids will be strong and
tough, but they'll also have someone that they
can confide in, that they can feel safe around,
that maybe has given them a meal that day. So
this is what I hate is every single time these
children are slaughtered, it becomes this political
conversation of take all the guns or keep all
the guns. And it does nothing for actually fixing
the issue, which is let's take these 10, 12,
15 pieces and address each and every one of them
so we can fix this issue. Yeah, if we would have
done that from the start, we'd probably have
a resolution by now. Yeah, absolutely. All right,
well, I want to go to some closing questions
quickly, be mindful of your time. The first one
I love to ask, is there a book or are there books
that you love to recommend? It can be related
to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
I'd say Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill or
The Science of Getting Rich, which I forget what
that guy's author was, but things about the subconscious
mind really resonate heavy with me because if
you think you can or you can't, you're correct.
What about films and documentaries? Man, I'm
just like a big Animal Planet outer space guy.
I don't really watch too many films or documentaries.
But, you know, Tony Robbins, I'm not your guru,
I thought was very opening eyes, heart, mind.
I thought Tony Robbins was a joke that I watched
that video. And I was like, what the shit am
I watching? And it was pretty powerful. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, speaking of people, is there
a person you'd recommend to come on this podcast
as a guest to speak to the first responders,
military and associated professions of the world?
Yeah, there are some people who have some pretty
good momentum right now that do a lot of first
responder work. Cody and I worked at the same
unit at the same time. We didn't really know
each other personally, though, but Cody Alford
is doing a lot of good stuff these days. I see
him on social media. Beyond the Barracks is a
nonprofit out in Cali. They're doing some pretty
good work as well, if you reach out to them.
Then there's, again, I don't know this guy very
well, Jimmy Watson. Oh, yeah, and then the Squadcast
podcast dudes. Brent Tucker, he's a former Delta
Force guy, and I feel like a dick because I can't
remember the other dude's name right now, but
he's a former Army infantry dude and I think
a cop as well. Squadcast is the name of their
show, and I think all those guys would be really
great for you to converse with. I actually think
the Squadcast guys, I think, are in Florida too.
Okay, I'll have to look that up. Thank you. All
right, well, the last question before we make
sure everyone knows where to find you and your
training, what do you do to decompress? I don't
know if I do right now. With trying to grow the
business and having two small boys and a wife
and a house and really just in this phase of
growth where we're at right now. You know, it's
funny as helping people just brings me relief.
I don't know if that, you know, constitutes decompression,
but I just love the progress of the business
and of the works. I've spent so many years just
being a net negative. Now that we're like in
a net positive growth state, it's just like a
high to keep that train moving forward. So I'd
like to do more skydiving, something that I told
my wife I want to get back into again. And the
hiking was amazing without the phone. But just
being with the family at the end of the day when
I'm here is knowing that I've grown the company
and helped it be more successful by helping other
people. That to me is just like the ultimate.
I don't need anything else. Brilliant. My wife
and I have both put a lot. of work in the last
few years. And I think that's the thing is sometimes
you have to postpone the decompression a little
bit while you're in that growth phase. And then,
you know, hopefully the other end of that will
be actually a lot more time to decompress and
spend time with family. For sure. All right.
Well, for people listening, firstly, talk to
me about the spectrum of training that you offer.
And then let's talk about where people can find
you online and social media. One -stop shop for
everything defensive and tactics -based, man.
We work with people who've never touched a gun,
to people who've been shooting for a while, to
law enforcement, SWAT, military. I mean, you
could literally get it all in over where we're
at. Defensive shooting and tactics, sell you
the guns, the firearms, help you make right purchases,
be a part of a group of great people. I mean,
it's a one -stop siloed shop, and we even provide
free self -defense insurance coverage through
the USCCA. So anybody who trains with me automatically
gets all. of their USCCA membership paid for
for free. And that comes from my own experiences
and believing that those guys by far have the
best product out there and the best service possible.
And it's like my lawyer could be your lawyer
and it's all covered, all costs are covered if
you're ever involved in an incident. So that's
like the program that we've developed. And then
you could find that at joemallonetraining .com
or... instagram facebook joe malone training
things like that where uh i'm pretty active and
you can just give us a call and find our number
and contact info and stuff brilliant well joe
i want to thank you so much i mean you know obviously
talking about some of the areas that we have
some of the tangents have been amazing but i
always i'm in awe of people that truly have the
courage to be vulnerable you know and this is
you know the storytelling i think that's honestly
going to save lives. And I know sometimes that
involves revisiting some of the more raw moments
in people. But I think the force multiplying
effect of really resonating with people is this
courageous vulnerability. So I want to thank
you not only for that, but also for being so
generous with your time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast today. Keep doing it, man.
I have no doubt that you've made a lot of positive
impacts in this world. And I just look forward
to seeing you grow.