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of the Behind the Shield podcast. 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 Navy SEAL
veteran, founder of Envy Mind Health, and the
co -founder of the SEAL Future Foundation, Jonathan
Wilson. Now, in this conversation, we discuss
a host of topics, from his journey into the military,
joining the SEAL teams, some notable deployments,
military transition, using the world of finance
to help our veterans, TBI, building a platform
to help mental health in first responders, brain
ops, and so much more. Now, before we get to
this incredible conversation, as I say every
week, please just take a moment, go to whichever
app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of almost 1 ,200 episodes
now. So all I ask in return is that you help
share these incredible men and women's stories
so I can get them to every single person on planet
Earth who needs to hear them. So with that being
said, I introduce to you, Jonathan. Wilson. Enjoy.
Well, Johnny, I want to start by saying thank
you so much for taking the time and coming on
the Behind the Shield podcast today. Well, thank
you for having me and appreciate what you do
and the platform that you give so many people.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you this
afternoon? You know, if you would have asked
me yesterday, I would have said Charleston. My
daughter just started her freshman year at Charleston,
South Carolina, so College of Charleston. But
we're back home. I live in Parker, Colorado,
just south of Denver. Beautiful. Well, congratulations
to your daughter for us. That's amazing. I've
got a freshman in my head. He's at community
college at the moment, but he's hoping to go
to Utah in a couple of years. Oh, amazing. Exciting
times. That's a great school. Now, have you got
kids at home still? I do. So I have five. Oldest,
she just started Brooklyn Law School. And she's
knocking it out of the park there. She's our
oldest daughter. My oldest son, he goes to community
college looking to go to Colorado State. So he's
up in Fort Collins right now. And then we have
our next oldest daughter is at College of Charleston
and then two in the house. I got a 16 -year -old
going on 23. She's a junior. And then we have
a freshman, a 14 -year -old little guy. Always
be the little guy. Yeah, absolutely. When my
son was, he was supposed to go to, well not supposed
to, he got accepted to Utah State in his freshman
year, but financially it just made a lot more
sense for him to do the first two here. But I
totally underestimated how much, I don't know,
like how anxious I would be about this whole
empty nest thing. And now I got a reprieve. I
got an extra two years with him before he walks
out the door. But it blew me away. We talk about
midlife crises and even mental health in our
professions. And that's one of the things that
we forget. We have purpose when we're parents.
And it's not that you stop being a parent, but
you're not a full -time hands -on parent anymore
when they walk out the door. I was so blown away
how powerful the emotions were when it was this
impending date. Well, we're going to have to
stay close because four years is not that far
and those feelings are already starting to creep
in and I never thought they would to your point.
Somebody mentioned you only have two in the house.
Like your youngest is a freshman in high school
and then it just dawned on me. It's like, holy
crap, in four years, what are we going to do?
We have this massive farm here in Parker, Colorado.
We got horses, pigs, chickens. We built this
whole life for our children. And then it's me
and my wife in this ranch house, like this monster
house. We need to start thinking about, is this
where we want to be in four years? I get why
people move and they follow their children. I
get why people downsize. It's like all these
emotions are starting to hit me as well. So we
can be swim buddies in that regards when it comes
to our children. Absolutely. Perfect. Well, speaking
of children, let's get to the beginning of your
kind of timeline. So tell me where you were born
and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,
what your parents did, how many siblings? Yeah,
so I was born in Fort Hood or Killeen, Texas.
My dad was in the army. So he was a military
police officer. He did a few things, but that
was his role. And my mom is from the country
Panama. We immediately after I was born in Texas,
we moved to Panama for a few years. And then
we kind of hopped around. Typical military family.
I spent time in the Netherlands, which was amazing.
I was somewhat young. I was probably, let's see,
in the Netherlands or right before high school.
And we spent a few years there. I have a younger
sister. She's five years younger than me. So
I have one sibling, and she's done a tremendous
job, very successful. She does PR, and she lives
in Bordeaux now. She's married a great guy, a
Frenchman, and they have beautiful three boys.
So we occasionally get to spend time with her
and her companies. They've got locations in Paris
and New York. So she's the breadwinner. in our
relationship, if you will. But her husband's
the CEO of multiple AI companies. So he's done
pretty well for himself as well. We've lived
in Bangor, Maine, which is like the claim to
fame there is Stephen King. The author has a
place there and it's exactly what you would think.
All the kids were. We were probably like seven
or eight years old. We would run up to his house
and it had wrought iron fences with gargoyle
statues and like steeples on the building. And
it was just every house on the street was lit
up and beautiful. And this one had like a lightning
storm right around it, which you would think,
or at least that's what I remember as a kid.
And we would always talk about that. And then
I went to high school in Tennessee. I played
football there. And then my trajectory after
that was initially the Naval Academy Prep School
and the Naval Academy. And then I got in a little
bit of trouble there, but I'll stop there. Going
back to the childhood of moving around, it's
so interesting, I think, when people get out
of their echo chamber and start looking at the
other world. Firstly, kind of disproving a lot
of the ridiculous myths, like, for example, you
know, the French are always rude. There's one
thing we were told in England, and then you go
to France, and like, wait a second, everyone's
nice here apart from the dickheads, just the
same as back home. But there are so many, you
know, beautiful elements of certain cultures.
When you reflect back now, whether it was the
Netherlands or just other places, what was some
of the kind of highlights that were beautiful
about it? And then if any, what was some of the
opposite, some of the bad things? Yeah. We were
young and as mentioned earlier, but I really
have fond memories of our time, you know, the
five years we spent overseas and just the ease
of being able to move from country to country,
experiencing those cultures and subcultures to
your point within those cultures. I mean, just
some of the coolest things our parents took us
to. We went to the Alps. We went to the Eagle's
Nest. We're obviously. Hitler had his last stand,
if you will, or so the conspiracy theorists think
otherwise. But who knows? Nevertheless, we did
Disney. We went to England, spent time over there,
the castles, the churches. I mean, we just it
was so amazing. And I didn't realize what we
had. Right. I come here and I look back and I
was like, my gosh, my parents really invested
a lot of time and energy, exposed me to the world.
I was so young. Now I can appreciate it. Back
then, I just wanted to – I mean if I had an iPad,
I'd probably be stuck on my iPad. But I just
wanted to be back at the hotel or watching a
cartoon or something. But I do have some fond
memories of that. My parents ended up getting
divorced and I think that's become pretty common
in our culture. Deployments weigh on families,
on relationships, and my dad was gone quite a
bit. So for me, it just became standard. It was
what we knew. He was always on deployment. travel
overseas. Uh, when we were in the U S in Tennessee,
he would take on year long deployments and inevitably
that just, uh, the tensions, uh, just, um, it
broke the family, uh, or at least the relationship.
And, um, you know, I have a relationship with
both my parents. They're great. Um, I, I'm going
to see my mom next week for two weeks for Thanksgiving.
Uh, I'm excited about seeing that. Um, but I
think, you know, I don't really have really dark
or you know upsetting memories i think uh it's
probably similar to most you know i i don't want
to say that but uh for us it was uh my parents
really cared about us and exposed us to the world
and i'm really grateful for that i mean even
like i we didn't have football overseas but we
had swimming swimming's a massive sport and we
that they invest a lot of time and energy into
and man i I mean, we were swimming in Munich
in the same pool that they swam the Olympics
in. And that was the coolest thing. We had our
version of the mini Olympics for youth and the
camps they sent us to. And it was just endless.
I had great parents. When you reflect back, seeing
as we're on this topic, understanding that so
many of us in uniform had trauma, struggles,
however you want to label it. in earlier life
and a lot of times that sent us into wanting
to be the protector or wanting to be the fixer.
Were there any elements of your early life you
think that contributed to your struggles later
on? I mean, as I got... As I got older, my dad
and I had a tense relationship. I think the testosterone
started flowing and he was gone quite a bit.
And when he came back, he tried to assert himself
and I appreciate what he was doing now. But back
then there was tension there. So I don't know
if it was – we had a strained relationship through
my high school years. And it's again like we
have a good relationship now. But I think there
wasn't really traumas. I mean, we did have some
challenges over silly things. Like, I mean, you
think about my ego and probably his as well,
if we're being honest. But my mom had bought
me some sneakers, like, you know, back then,
maybe some Air Jordans or something like that.
And my dad just threw them on when I was in high
school to go cut the grass. And I was like, what
the hell are you doing, Dad? He's my dad, so
I'm getting upset. He's getting upset. It escalates.
The next thing you know, we're calling the cops.
I'm not trying to downplay some of this stuff.
I think there were some tense moments in our
relationship through my high school years. A
lot of that lies with him, but a lot of that
lies with me as well. I don't think there was
anything massively traumatic that took place.
I do recognize that I wanted to please him despite
all of that. And a lot of, as we start getting
into my background, the things that I've done,
the Ivy League schools, the Navy SEALs, the employment,
I think I recognize now that's part of me trying
to win him over and show him that I am a worthy.
man and it's interesting as we've gotten older
to reflect on that it's like wow okay but I do
I do start I am starting to recognize that pattern
throughout my life of always trying to do the
next best thing to overachieve and then to click
it a layer deeper why am I doing that well probably
has something to do with the strained relationship
that I had in those years with my father It's
funny how many people have come on the show that,
you know, high performers in whatever world,
and there's an element of that, whatever their
backstory is. And you ask them, was it ever enough?
And they all say no, because there is no thing
that's going to fill it. Now, if you're doing
it purely for the right reasons, and it's an
intrinsic, you know, factor, then absolutely.
But the moment you're looking for validation
from parents or, you know, society or whatever
it is, you just, you know, it's never enough
money, never enough accolades. And you're on
a treadmill that you're never going to beat.
Yeah. And that's been a challenge for a lot of
my peers. And I imagine, to your point, the folks
that you've had on. And it's like, I don't know.
I've gotten better through some of the tools
that we talked about, plant medicine and what
we're creating here at Envy, just awareness,
being around some of the best doctors out there.
It's still hard to shut it off. I'll sit here
and say, hey, yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to
go do my breathwork session and I'm going to
slow down this week. And the reality is like
I've been doing this for so damn long. It's really
freaking hard to shut it down. And we talked
about our children too and them being empty nesters
and this vision of like retirement down the road
at some point. It's like can I really do that?
Is my body capable of doing that? And then you
hear the horror stories of people that get to
that spot and they're like, we finally did it.
It's so sad, but they keel over and they fucking
die, right? Like their body just doesn't know
what's going on. It's a shock to the system.
What are you doing sitting on the couch? What
are you doing not like running an ultra marathon?
What are you doing not going to business school?
What are you doing not – so yeah, these are all
new thoughts and feelings. that we've loosely
touched on, but that are starting to come into
my life. So I'm like, oh boy, we got this whole
new set of problems that we're going to have
to deal with here shortly. I think we've got
a skewed perspective on retirement too, though.
I mean, you're just talking about Stephen King.
He's still writing books. You know what I mean?
He's in his, what, late 70s, early 80s now, I
think. Sorry, Stephen, if I got that wrong, you
happen to be listening to this random podcast.
But it's true. I mean, you look at more native
tribes, their elders aren't just, you know, watching
TV all day. they're still out there you know
being amongst the you know the younger tribesmen
are mentoring and if you look at a lot of them
you know they're still out there farming or hunting
or so i think we've also got this distorted kind
of perspective that you hit 55 60 and then you
just go play golf and wait to die i think if
you lose your purpose which we know we're going
to get to then what is there to live for then
that's so true yeah i agree with that um I mean
in the society and marketing and all these companies,
they paint this vision of what retirement should
look like. But I mean I think seldom have I adhered
to what the world tells me I should do or what
I need to do, right? It's always like I question
things constantly. It's like that's just not
a fit for me. Like this is my purpose and then
everything aligns behind it. So I agree with
that. Well, you mentioned about playing football
and some of the other sports that you participated
in. When you were in the high school level, were
you already dreaming of the SEALs or was there
something else in your mind? Actually, it was
the Army and it was my father. And I think it
was my freshman or sophomore year. My father
was stationed. So this is middle of the 90s,
stationed in Kuwait. And there's none of this
going on. So he calls and talks to my mom and
says, hey, I'm going to buy a plane ticket and
I want him to come out and visit me, him being
me. And I was against it. I had my first girlfriend.
I just didn't want any part of flying to the
Middle East and hanging out with my dad for a
month. I wanted to do – we're in Tennessee. I
wanted to keep doing the barn parties. and hanging
with my girlfriend and friends. But nevertheless,
I hopped on that plane with a paper ticket, hopped
on that plane and flew over there. And I acted
like a punk. I don't know another way to describe
it. He sent me out there and I just pouted. I
didn't talk to him for the first couple of days.
And he just went through the motions, like introducing
me to peers, like sharing who I was. And I remember
on the second or third day, And we drive on to
the base and off to the right there was a – and
I had never seen the gate open before. But at
this very moment, the gate was open and it was
closing. It was a blacked out compound. The fence
was blacked out. And I look inside and I just
see all these men with guns and weights and in
great shape and beards and long hair. And I'm
like, dad, who are those guys? He said, those
are the Navy SEALs. I was like, dad, what's a
Navy SEAL? Because back then, I mean, there was
no books or TV shows, Netflix documentary. I
mean, there was nothing, right? So he ended up
taking me over there and introduced me to those
guys. And they basically took me under their
wing. I got to talk to them. I got to hang out
with them. I asked a bunch of questions. And
from that moment on, everything centered around
how do I get there. I hated running. I started
running to football practice. Four miles there,
four miles back. I didn't know how to swim. I
became a lifeguard just so I could get the laps
in at the pool. I used to ride my bike just to
get my cardio up 15 miles to lifeguard, swim
laps after work, and then ride my bike home.
How do I get to the academy? Like, what are the
things I need to do? Everything. I got super
disciplined and everything became like, how do
I make this dream of mine? How do I become a
part of something like that is better said. Not
a dream. It was just like, I witnessed something
special there that summer. And I didn't know
anything else that existed that came close to
that. That camaraderie, that brotherhood. I mean,
just the fun, the poking fun. It was just like,
it was so cool to witness. And I was like, this
is what I want to do. So talk to me about the
journey then. You mentioned college, playing
football. So how did that kind of end up being
at Bud's? Yep. So I ended up getting picked up
not directly to the Naval Academy, but to the
Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, Rhode Island.
So I spent a year there. And that was... That
was a fun experience. I mean, it was the first
time I'm away from home at an extended period
of time. And there's a bunch of folks like me
around the country showing up wanting to go to
the academy, either the Coast Guard Academy,
Naval Academy or the Merchant Marine Academy.
And it's just good people. And I mean, that first
six weeks of it was kind of like plebe summer
to their version of boot camp was miserable.
Like I. um people just breaking you down and
and me wanting to quit i didn't want any part
of it i just kept enduring and then um and then
we spent a year there doing the academics making
sure that we had the ability to uh you know do
the academics well enough to get into the academy
and if we scored above a 2 .0 which i ended up
doing like a 2 .1 by the way um Then you can
go to the academy and it came down to my last
exam and that's no bullshit. It came down to
my last exam because I partied my tail off while
I was there. Newport, Rhode Island back in the
90s, they didn't card people. Like you show up
and same street was notorious. It's a bunch of
Irish bars and we would just go there week after
week and occasionally go to Providence and we
just had a blast. Too much fun. But then I got
to the academy and that kind of mindset continued.
I was more of like focused on – I got distracted
if you will. I forgot what my – why I was there
and my priority became let's go out and have
a good time. Let's go out and party. Let's skate
through essentially. And that's what I was doing.
There's no way in hell if I would have stayed
at the academy that I would have been selected
to have one of the few coveted billets from the
academy to go to Bud's. But God has a plan and
his plan wasn't the Naval Academy for me. It
was getting kicked out of the Naval Academy actually.
And then that's kind of the pinch I needed to
get my life back on track. I, in transparency,
kind of fell into a depression. I lost this dream
of being at the Naval Academy and becoming a
SEAL, but it reminded me of why I was there.
And I started working extremely hard, super disciplined,
quit drinking. I started working out like crazy
and I had to overcome the fact that A lot of
people saw me as somebody that had gotten kicked
out of the academy and was probably like a problem
child, if you will, and didn't want to give me
the opportunity to even come into the Navy, which
was interesting. But I eventually got a recommendation
and was given an opportunity to come in under
a SEAL billet and got through boot camp. I went
on the enlisted side, went through boot camp,
and then got the opportunity to go to Bud's and
showed up to Bud's class 252. and was one of
the lucky few to get through the first time.
When you reflect back now, when you've talked
about, you know, living in different locations,
your sporting achievements, so many of the SEALs
I've had on the show have kind of debunked the
myth that the average Navy SEAL is, you know,
six foot eight and 300 pounds and 2 % body weight.
You know, these are normal, you know, men in
this case, but there's that, you know, more often
than not, there's that mental element more so
than the physical element even. What were the
contributing factors that allowed you not to
ring the bell when so many others did? Yeah.
So just to level set for everybody, 6 '7", I'm
280 pounds and 3 % body fat. I'm just kidding.
Me too. I've mentored a few folks over the years
and they all ask that. And actually, I'll take
one step back. There is a Gallup study because
the Navy wants to identify who these candidates
are that are going to get through, right? It's
extremely expensive for somebody to show up to
BUDS, go through training only to deal our drop
-on request. And the last study I saw, and this
is probably 10 years ago, and I'm pretty sure
they've done a significant amount of work since
then, but it was a Gallup study and it was 30
-some -odd pages. It analyzed everything from
where they came from, their upbringing, were
their parents still married, the sports that
they played, the academics. I mean, it looked
at everything and then ran an analysis on it.
And the closing sentence I thought was pretty
funny. So you're thinking, OK, maybe they're
going to tell us what type of candidate this
person, if they're 5 '10", 6 '1", they weigh
this much, they're from this type of family,
they're this religion. The last Senate said,
we identified that the people that make it through
this SEAL training are the individuals that have
the mental fortitude and grit that the other
candidates don't have. And I'm like, how much
money did they pay the Gallup study? Like, I'm
in the wrong line of work. I could have told
you that. What does that even mean? But there
is some truth to that. And I think you alluded
to it. For me and my peers, there were 16 of
us. Out of 200 plus that showed up, 16 of the
original folks that showed up that ended up making
it through the first time. Some of those people
got hurt and got a second opportunity and made
it through, but 16 of us. When I talk to those
folks, we always ask ourselves, what was it for
you? Try to talk about upbringing. A lot of these
folks do have some challenging upbringings, to
your point. But the thing was, is they gave themselves
one option. And that was true for me as well.
It really was like, if you give yourself another
freaking option, this is human nature. We're
going to go down the easier route at some point.
When it becomes overwhelming, when it becomes
so freaking hard, humans are going to take that
softer, easier, warmer route almost every single
time. And our crew didn't do that. It was like,
we either graduate or we die. Right. Period.
End of statement. And that was the mentality.
It really was. I didn't even for once think that
I could ring the bell. Like it just never it
never crossed my mindset. And there was a lot
of times when it sucked. It sucked miserably.
But again, like I reflect back and there wasn't
a time where I was like, yeah, I'm going to go,
you know. I'm going to go ring that bell for
that cup of coffee or that hot cocoa or to be
put that jacket on. It was just never an option
for us. So I'm curious what some of the other
folks might have shared with you if you recall
what they shared with you around this question.
Definitely what you just said is a big part of
it. The other one, which I think the Navy does
well, I'm not obviously well -versed in American
military, but one thing I know now is that in
the Navy, certainly at that time, if you didn't...
succeed in buds then you were you know free game
fair game to go anywhere in the navy so i know
the the fear of turning wrenches on a submarine
somewhere if you if you rang the bell seems to
be a big motivator as well but i mean i see the
same even in in the fire service when i went
to fire academy which is not at the same level
of of weeding out the the buds is but it when
when it's your singular focus and you know that
you're supposed to do it then It's not, oh, I'm
going to quit. I'm going to ring the bell. It's
like if you have a day where you didn't perform
well, you go back to the table and you go, what
did I do wrong? How can I fix this? And I think
that's it, that the humility to have the constant
self -assessment and growth versus, you know,
this is where my ceiling is. I think that that
is what I see in a lot of the uniform professions
in general. Yeah, no, that's super fair. I think.
I do remember sitting on the beach a few times
and seeing that massive Navy ship. And James,
I get motion sickness. I get seasick. So I'm
just like envisioning as I thought about like,
well, maybe I just do go hop on a boat, right?
Like, no, that would have been the most miserable
thing ever. I don't know if you've ever had seasick,
gotten seasick, but it is. It is one of the most
horrendous feelings that you can have. It's just
like you can't control it. You're on a boat.
You're in the middle of nowhere. You're throwing
up. You're dizzy. It's like there's nothing you
can do. There's absolutely nothing you can do.
You just got to wait it out. So that right there
is motivation enough and maybe the biggest motivator
for me, seeing that big ship out on the horizon.
No, thank you. Absolutely. I think the other
thing, I got into it when I was 27, I think.
26, 27, I was going through school. And so I'd
done some interesting jobs. I'd been a stuntman
and some other things. But before that, I was
doing all the shit jobs. I'd worked in a pizza
factory. I'd worked on the Zodiacs, tying the
valve to the valve stem. like hours on end. So
when you've done a lot of shit jobs and you're
in this, this, you know, grooming process to
do something really exciting and meaningful,
that's another motivator too. If you're straight
out of school, maybe you don't have that barometer,
but if you're slightly older and you've done
some things that you absolutely hated, then I
think that adds to the motivation too. Yeah,
I agree with that for sure. Yep. So you graduate.
Where did you find you? Actually, firstly, what
year did you graduate? So we can kind of get
an idea of the timeline. Yeah. So let's see.
That was 2000. Showed up 2003. So that was probably
2004 to maybe early 2005 is when we graduated
Buds and SQT. And then we immediately showed
up to Team 4. Team four, historically, the SEAL
teams were broken up into, this is pre -war,
obviously, pre what was taking place in the Middle
East. Every team had a specialty. So team four
was like South America, Spanish speakers. And
there's still like kind of that culture there
because we had just started the war overseas
and abroad. But then that quickly shifted. All
the teams were getting deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
And within nine months of showing up to SEAL
Team 4, I was on my first deployment to Baghdad.
So I always ask people a kind of two -sided question
on deployments for two reasons. Firstly, you
know, it's the classified element. And secondly,
not wanting people to revisit horror after horror
either. The kind of whole point of this story
is just when you look at our media here, the
kind of story that we get, it's either when it
comes to war, kill them all, let God sort them
out, stack bodies, or they're all baby killers.
And then in between, obviously, the men and women
that we send overseas wearing our flag on their
shoulder to protect people miles and miles and
miles away. When you first, and this can apply
to Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever you want. Was
there a moment when you deployed, regardless
of the politics that sent you there, where you
realized there were some horrific people that
needed to be taken care of? Oh, yeah. There was,
I mean, we were, our team was part of a task
force that was targeting a specific element.
And I'll leave like kind of the details out of
that element. But I mean, horrendous, evil people
that Again, to your point, regardless of any
of the politics that were taking place then or
later in my career, it didn't matter because
these people wanted nothing more than to cause
just some of the most horrendous acts of horror
to anybody outside of kind of their sect, if
you will. And we saw it firsthand. I mean there
was people that had killed dozens if not hundreds
of our peers that were out there. And taking
even a step further and had mutilated and done
some really horrific things to their bodies.
And it's just, I mean, I think back to that time
and it was absolutely that those people needed
to go meet our maker and let him sort it out.
And that's exactly what happened. With all these
different... horrendous humans that you've had
to encounter that you've obviously had to learn
the background on and you know the the stories
on are there any common denominators on how arguably
what was a once you know a a giggling toddler
who was probably more concerned about chasing
butterflies than anything else becomes not only
an extremist but such a violent extremist i think
humans are I'll just maybe segue and maybe this
makes sense. We're easily influenced, right?
Like media has torn this country, the United
States apart and maybe has in other countries
as well. I think we're so easily influenced and
we get so visceral around what we're being fed
that now it's so hard to come to the table and
have a disagreement without insults and worse.
I mean we just saw it with – not too long ago
with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, right?
And there's others too. I think that's what it
was. I think there is people that are evil in
this world that have the ability to kind of use
their silver tongue, the snake tongue, if you
will, and just it becomes almost poetic to others
and they start falling victim to this. This idea,
this rhetoric, and it grows from there. And we've
seen that. There's just been some of these leaders
in Al -Qaeda and ISIS that they were really good
at not only just bringing the initial group of
individuals into their sects, into their organizations,
but then just training the other generation behind
them to do the same. And the next thing you know,
we... We're fighting these folks that just absolutely
believe what they were fed from, in my opinion,
from a few individuals. They created a movement
out of it. And it's happening everywhere. It's
not just there. I think that was an extremist
view, obviously. But we see it in flavors. you
know, here in the United States. We see it within
our politics. We see it within our local school
systems. We see it, I mean, the list goes on
and on. It happens not to that level, obviously.
So I'm not trying to compare the two. I'm just
trying to highlight how easy it is for us to
get behind a rhetoric and then be taught to not
be able to communicate with somebody on the other
side of that fence, if you will. I think these
are really important conversations because I
was having a chat with someone the other day,
and you hear a lot of people postulate saying,
oh, if I could go back in time, I'd kill Hitler.
And the thing is, in 2025, you have that opportunity
now not to kill someone, but to be ahead of yet
another duping that's going to lead people towards
another divisive crisis, whatever that looks
like. And what kills me is that history is absolutely
rich in life lessons. And yet. I don't understand
why we don't reflect back even as close as 80
years ago when the entire planet was at war and
see what led up to that. In this case, obviously,
it was Nazi Germany to the point where people,
because I'm sure most Germans weren't thinking
about the atrocities that happened. They were
just thinking about feeding their kids and making
sure they got to school and having a beer with
their friends on the weekend. And it turned into
what we saw. do we need to do differently to
get people to actually lean into history and
actually come together every time we see one
of these tyrants trying to divide the nation
that we see so often from both sides at the moment?
Yeah, that's a really great question. You know,
I ponder this quite a bit because I really enjoyed
my time at uni. And man, did we have different
views, right? Like everybody comes from different
parts of the world and they have a different
view from their experiences and what they were
taught. But we can come together over a pint
and have a great debate and walk away arm in
arm singing songs back to the dorm. I don't know
how we do that. I really don't. It has gotten
so divisive that families don't even talk anymore,
right? Like their politics are so – and when
you approach the conversation, it's just like,
hey, you lead with love and maybe I would have
never done that five years ago prior to plant
medicine. But I do now. I lead with love and
I say, hey, it's OK to have different opinions.
Like let's just remember what's most important
and we're family, et cetera. It almost exasperates
the situation. Like you're being condescending.
You're talking – it's – It's bizarre to see how
difficult it has to have a simple conversation
about something that is, in the grand scheme
of things, could be perceived as being like really
a mute point, meaningless or not important to
our particular little, you know, community, if
you will. So it's a really, I don't know, I think
about this a lot. I think about our country quite
a bit and like the sacrifices my friends made,
the friends that are no longer here. And happy
to have done what we did. And I know they would
give their life again for the greater good. But
it almost feels like we've crossed this – maybe
I'll use the analogy of the peak. We're on the
back end of this mountain now it feels like as
a country. And it's hard to wrap my head around
that. But this empire, if we could even call
it that, it's not what it was. And to your point,
if you compare it to other – great empires. I
mean, you can kind of just map it out the trajectory
and you're going to land where you landed. It's
not at the peak. It's not even going up anymore.
It really feels like it's coming down. When I
kind of take a step back and this is what I talk
about a lot. It's funny. My Instagram just got
shut down for the second time in a year. And
all I talk about is community and kindness and
compassion and empathy. So let that be a glaring
Orwellian sign in itself. Um, is if you take
a step back and James, you went, you went mute
for a second. Can, I don't know what happened,
but that's, that's so timely that you're talking
about your Instagram. I can't hear you right
now. I'm going to leave it right there. Can you
hear me now? Okay. I can hear you now. Okay,
go ahead. So I'm going to, I'm going to leave
this in. Cause maybe that was big brother, the
thought police, whoever they call them. Um, So,
yes. But when you take a step back and you remove
politics from it and you say, OK, how is the
health of the nation? And we have 70 percent
of Americans overweight, over 40 percent are
obese. We have murders in our schools. We have
a crippling opioid epidemic, a suicide crisis.
It's not doom and gloom, but these straddle both
sides of the aisle for decades. So it shows that
there's one common denominator, that there are,
you know, it's not a conspiracy theory. There
are people pulling puppet strings of people that
are paid to go and become a president because
it's the only way you can get in. You've got
to be a millionaire and you've got to take money
from lobbyists. And we have got fatter and sicker
and our schools more dangerous, you know, our
environment more polluted and destroyed. And
so. For me, it's just a case of until we realize
that at the ground level, the 340 plus people
in this country, 340 million, and we come together,
it's just going to keep, as you said, going down,
but it doesn't have to. And we don't need to
be, it's not a competition, the greatest country
in the world, but we need to take the reins back
at least so that we can create a happy, healthy
nation like we had. pay our true respects to
the men and women that died in world war ii truly
fighting for our freedom because right now what
are they thinking what were the world war ii
veterans thinking right now it's such a disgrace
yeah i agree with that you know the thing is
is we're fighting we're fighting machines like
that are just backed by just endless amount of
resources when it comes to any of the things
that you talked about There are people and organizations
that need us to be fat because that's how they
get paid. There are people and organizations
that need us to hate each other because that's
how they create the rift and they maintain their
roles and their jobs. Lobbyists out there, there's
so many people that want people to be down and
hurt and obese and confused and have mental illness
because that's their business. I think about
psychedelics, right? And the first time that
was introduced to me by a peer of mine, I thought
he had lost his freaking mind when he told me.
But he planted a seed in it and I did some research
and met a gentleman, Dr. Robin Carhart -Harris,
who was initially overseas and now he's at UCSF.
But the research doesn't lie. You start looking
at this as like, how is this not – how do we
not have access to this, right? And now we're
getting a swell of momentum and movement. around
this topic but it just makes me sick to my stomach
that big pharma you know has really slowed the
progress down in my opinion so that they can
understand like how do we create money off of
this and like the prime example is ketamine right
ketamine is uh uh you know a drug that that can
be used for folks with anxiety depression and
um johnson and johnson has s ketamine Because
they had to understand like how do we create
a product that we can – with the resources that
we have that can go to market, go through FDA
approval process and then be the number one ketamine
distributor out there. They're going to do the
same thing with Ibogaine. They're going to do
the same thing with psilocybin. It's just like
– I don't know. I think a bit of a tangent there
but come back to your point. I think – I don't
know how to do it, James. I don't know how to
– I look at what Charlie Kirk was trying to do
and trying to create a platform and maybe that
wasn't the exact right way to do it but create
a conversation with the youth, right? Educate
the youth. Have an open debate with the youth.
Maybe there's something along those lines. But
he was obviously murdered by potentially – who
knows? You can go down any conspiracy theory
you want. Yeah, I don't know. And it hurts because
I have five kids, right? grandkids to come and
it doesn't mean i i'm not going to do anything
about it because it's the nature of the type
of people we are we will keep trying to figure
out how we can have friendly debates how we can
make a better place for our children and their
children but right now at this moment i have
no idea i think well these conversations help
i think because the more people here it's the
same with with drug prohibition i i and a lot
of people listening the first responder professions
have seen the failure of that up close and personal,
you know, whether we're talking the gangs, the
homelessness, the prostitution, you know, the
overdoses. I mean, this is a side effect of drug
prohibition, which started on job justification
and racism in the 30s with Harry Anslinger. So
again, an 80 -year plus, you know, longitudinal
study of failure, and yet still we keep doing
it. And yet MDMA tries to get approval with the
FDA and gets turned down for MDMA -assisted psychotherapy.
But the FDA approved OxyContin. So, I mean, I
don't know how much more evidence we need, but
I think it is the conversations. And I'm turning
my latest book into a TV show. And my goal is
to have this show and there's going to be another
side element to it, which is going to put information
in people's hands and start these conversations.
And I hope it's really successful because that's
what we need. We need to get to the masses and
bypass these kind of hot button clickbait. you
know hurdles have been put in front in front
of us like oh no you're a blue or you're a red
so you can't talk about this and you can't talk
about that yeah and we're human first and that's
what we got to remember yeah be careful when
you say you're human first because you might
get shut down for saying something like that
yeah exactly but it's um i'll share a quick story
and i know we'll probably get to it here uh but
we started envy mind health and we use wearables
as you're well aware to help people understand
the biometrics from those wearables, to help
people understand their mental well -being score.
Well, we also have a dashboard for providers.
So now a doctor can see all of their patients
in one spot and understand their biometric data.
And then we help them understand where they're
at from a depression level, anxiety level, et
cetera. We had a conversation with an addiction
center, because if you think about this, like,
why not? Somebody does inpatient. You have a
doctor that prescribes medicine or different
modalities. You can see the impact from a biometric
standpoint or physiological standpoint on the
individual. And then you can kind of, you know,
we have an algorithm, but then the doctor can
make decisions if, you know, if the medicine's
helping them or if they need to maybe try a different
approach here. So inpatient makes sense. Outpatient,
though, in my opinion, is where we really add
value because now we can see when people are
starting to trend towards a down area. maybe
intervene before there's a relapse. So, you know,
an addiction center can kind of see their patients.
Once we shared that, and I was so excited, James,
to share that with the addiction centers, like,
oh my gosh, like we'll prevent, you know, potentially
we could prevent relapses. I mean, I wish you
could have seen the faces of everybody in there
from the CEO to the lead doctor to everybody
in there, mostly on the business side. But they
just went white and the conversation stalled
immediately at that point. And I couldn't figure
out what the hell I did wrong. It's like, did
I say something? And then it dawned on me. They
don't want these people to get better. They need
their business model is for that person to relapse
and come back to their addiction center or another
addiction center. I was just. I was just so defeated
in that very moment. Like I talked to my team
afterwards and we know now, like we've done the
research, we've analyzed it. We know the model,
like they need people to relapse. So we're providing
potentially something that could help that individual
before they get to that spot of relapsing in
the world, or at least the current business model
is terrified of it. They don't want anything
to do with it. Well, I think this is what's important
to understand as well. Like one of the big missions
I've got is in the fire service, they work 56
hours a week. Most people don't realize that.
And then they're spiraling downwards, kind of
like you were saying with the empire, because
we haven't fixed anything. So now there's a recruitment
crisis and young people aren't choosing to become
firefighters anymore. And so now we've got these
same people that are working being forced to
do extra shifts. So now you're talking, you know,
80 plus hours a week. And, you know, that is
at the detriment only of the men and women that
are actually working, not the people making decisions,
not the chiefs, if it's big enough, not the union
presidents, city, county, et cetera. And so until
we understand the environment is working against
us, and so you look at mental health and physical
health and you tie that in with sleep deprivation,
it is behind everything that we suffer from,
everything that kills us. It's an amplifier of
whatever is going on. So once you understand
that, then you can become a real advocate for
changing the work week, which I think we should
be working a 42 hour work week, 24, 72. Now you're
going to be a force multiplier and all things
health. And then you can start chipping away.
Same with obesity. Once we realize that, you
know, fast food and I mean, look what happened
during COVID. The advice that was given could
not be more wrong. Stay at home. Don't move.
Don't see your family and friends. Get fast food
and beer delivered to your home while you binge
watch Tiger King. We made fatter, sicker people,
more of whom that died. So I think when you understand
what's working against you, then I think en masse,
we can really start deconstructing that. But
if we blindly think that some of these organizations
have our best interests at hand, therein lies
the problem. Yeah. And is it fair to say that
The majority of people do put their faith in
other entities, those third parties are, you
know, our leadership organizations. I mean, that's
my belief. I'm curious if you would agree with
that. Yeah, I do. I mean, even from the health
point of view, I just had. Josh Clemente on,
he's got levels. So one of those kind of AI medical
programs where you can do continuous blood glucose
monitoring and you get blood work done and the
whole philosophy, and it's kind of lined up with
envy as well, is that you become your own advocate
again, rather than you go see someone with a
white coat and a stethoscope once a year and
they say, yeah, you're fatter and you're sicker
now. Well, what are we going to do the other
364 days that we can stop that happening? I think
that that is the case, but it's exciting what
we're going to talk about and some of these other
things that are out there to put the power of
the individual back in their own hands so they're
not relying on other people. Yeah, exactly. That's
exactly right. Yeah, I've heard of levels and
great things there. So I want to get to, obviously,
the creation of Envy. The other side of that
question I asked a while ago about the... horrible
people, as it were. Another area that we don't
hear in the media is the kindness and compassion
from our men and women in uniform, whether it's
our own, whether it's the indigenous people that
we're working for or alongside. When you reflect
back now on your career, what are some of the
moments that really pop to mind, pop out of your
mind? Yeah, it's along those lines. It's, you
know, when we weren't working, going out in the
community. So I'll use Africa as an example.
We worked in Uganda and the team would – they'd
go out and we'd go to the orphanage and just
like on our free time, like hang out with them,
provide – give them gifts, give them hats, like
spend time with these kids. And now I take us
on a bit of a segue. Just a quick call out. Some
of the happiest people that I've ever met in
my life, right? Like they have nothing. Literally,
we're in mud huts outside of our compound, like
sewage flowing sometimes in the streets to the
main street and then out to happiest people.
They have nothing. And we have everything, it
feels like, right? And yet we don't have enough.
It was a really interesting observation that
we all had. It's like, what are we doing wrong
here? But those are some of the highlights. It's
like taking time out of, you know, our deployments
and when possible, not in Iraq and Afghanistan,
actually in Iraq, like helping when we would
come on target and just like trying to calm the
family, the children, et cetera. It's like we
weren't, we had a job to do. And if there was
somebody that was bad, that person would be taken
care of. We tried to really separate, you know,
what we had to do in regards to somebody like
that. And then the rest of the folks that we
encountered on that mission was like, if you
didn't do anything wrong, like we're humans,
like you said, at the end of the day, and we're
going to treat you like that. And we're going
to lead with love and compassion until you show
otherwise. Those are some of the best moments
I had, memories that I had. It's just hanging
out with some of the happiest people in this
world that have nothing and our team just going
out of their way to. to like spend time with
them provide aid to them uh give them medical
support when they needed and and uh just hang
out with some really cool amazing children yeah
i mean the number of stories i've heard now from
you know exactly like you said to building schools
to you know military veterinarians helping the
local animals i mean we just don't hear that
and i think this is the problem you get this
very again polarizing view when it comes to this
So talk to me about what made you want to transition
the first time. And then let's discuss how that
went for you. So, I mean, I loved what I did.
I really did. But I had five kids and that started
weighing on me, right? I was missing a lot. And
I also wanted to be present for them. I wanted
to be a father for them and not to say other
teammates couldn't find the ability to balance
that. But for me, we made the decision to get
out. And I had just gotten back from Afghanistan
and, you know, I had four months to get out of
the military. So that's admin, medical discharge.
Like I was deployed overseas. I didn't know what
I wanted to do. I honestly didn't have any friends
outside of my troop in my platoon. I really didn't.
I didn't know the job opportunities out there.
I didn't know how skills translated. I didn't
know what I did and if there was an appetite
for that in the real world, if you will, in corporate
America. Nevertheless, we fumbled our way through
it. I had a few friends that were on Wall Street.
In my head, I made a correlation between like,
OK, high risk of being a SEAL and high risk of
being a trader. That kind of makes sense to me.
And again, you heard where I live, Texas, Tennessee,
Maine. I've maybe visited New York City once.
The next thing you know, I'm in that jungle.
And it is, wow, it is chaotic. It is fast. Wall
Street never sleeps is true. New York never sleeps,
right? And you think about my job. My father
-in -law lived in Princeton, New Jersey at the
time. He was like, hey, you guys should live
in Princeton because it's pretty close to the
city. It's only like an hour and a half commute.
It literally was a two -hour commute one way.
So now just think about that. Two hours in the
morning. So I have to get up at 3 .45 to catch
the train on time to get to a World Trade Center
and then walk across the street to be in the
office at 6 because I'm the new guy. And you
know how it goes. As the new guy, you're going
to be the first one and the last one to leave.
So 6 a .m., I'm there. And then on the back end,
the markets closed and we got dinners. Like we're
taking clients out. So now it's appetizers. It's
a dinner. Maybe it's a second dinner and then
maybe even a late night and like it just became
this lifestyle that was – it just wasn't – of
who I was and the values that I have, right?
Nothing against Wall Street. For me, I got out
to be with my family and I was gone more on Wall
Street than I was in the teams. So there became
a point when everybody was congratulating me.
It's like, you did it. You were a SEAL. Now you're
at Goldman Sachs and you're making money and
you came from nothing. Congratulations. And inside,
and this will make sense to you, I was dead.
And it comes down to what you've already alluded
to a few times is I have a North Star and I wasn't
anywhere near that. Like I didn't know what it
was at the time, but I had no purpose. Or the
purpose maybe better said was making as much
money as possible. And that's just not the type
of people we are, right? Like that can't be our
purpose. The money will come. Like your purpose
has to be bigger, has to be aligned with you,
has to be bigger than that. So I struggled. I
struggled so much that when a friend, a peer
of ours, got killed on a hostage rescue mission
overseas, I think it was December 12th, if I
recall correctly, I turned to my boss and I said,
hey, I'm going back in. And then I left Wall
Street and went back to the teams for four more
years. When I hear the transition stories, I
would say almost every single time when When
there's a healthy transition, someone has found
their way into another role where they felt like
they really had purpose. Like in whatever that
looked like, they were making the world a little
bit better still. And I've said that even with
what I do now. There's no, I tell people a lot,
there's no podcast or calendar where we're shirtless,
you know, like the fire service. There's no glamour
to this role whatsoever. You might be onto something
there, man. Behind the desk, a calendar. But
I know that it's still making a difference. And
that's, again, that North Star exactly. And when
people said that they struggled, usually, ironically,
it was the world of finance or something similar
where there was chasing monetary or material
gains rather than making the world better. When
you reflect back now, if you'd found an envy
or some sort of purpose back then, do you think
you would have stayed out? Oh, 100%. Yeah. And
you know what? I might even have found a role
in the organization that I could have. considered
a better mission for me. Trading is not it. My
personality type, I can't sit behind a desk.
I need to be out and about. Maybe a sales trader
role, maybe in a different part of the business,
I might have stayed out and not rejoined the
military. Even then, I would inevitably got to
this point that I'm at today. It's not quite
enough. truly my mission in this world. It's
not what God put me on this earth to do. And
I would have, in my opinion, reflecting back
now, gotten to this spot where I'm at today.
So you mentioned you went back for four more
years, circling around again. What made you pull
the trigger of leaving again? And then how was
that transition? Yeah. Politics then. So rules
of engagement changed. If I'm being honest, I
didn't have the great – the best leadership at
that time and I had this desire because the war
was changing. It was – this was probably what,
2000? 13, 14, 15. So this is like 2013 to 2017.
So new administration, we're kind of winding
down overseas. We're not operating the way we
were. So to have experienced what I did in my
early career and do sometimes two missions a
night, going after some really bad people. being
deployed to areas where I might not even do,
but like a couple missions, if we're lucky, this
is like, what am I doing here? I have other things
that I really want to, you know, I've identified
as gaps in this world that I think we could be
adding value. And, you know, I imagine we'll
get to that. Mental health has started becoming
an issue. We lost our first teammate in 2017
to suicide. I just thought, you know what, let's
Here we go again. Let's step away in this time.
Let's make sure we have a plan in place. One
of the least discussed elements of mental health,
and sadly I've seen this rife in police fire
and EMS, is organizational stress or organizational
betrayal. So, for example, you know, I'm sure
so many of our men and women in the military,
when we saw the way the withdrawal went down
from Afghanistan, you know, that must have added
a crippling weight to what was already being
shouldered. When the administration changed,
rules of engagement changed, poor leadership,
when you reflect back now, what did that do for
your own mental health? I mean, just it's I remember
sitting up just thinking like. Endless nights,
conversation with peers, but even just lying
in bed is like, what are we doing? Like, why
are we back to a place and fighting over ground
that I've lost teammates on? Like literally we
had taken a decade before giving back because
of politics and like wanting to turn it over
only to now because of ISIS, go back and fight
on the same ground again. It's like, what the
fuck are we doing? It jaded all of us. A lot
of people – a lot of good people stayed the course
and are still in or continue to fight. And I
have nothing but respect for them. For me, I
was just – I was at a spot where I just – I couldn't
see how I wanted to move forward. I didn't have
trust in my immediate leadership or the overall
country's leadership. And I am just the type
of person that needs to be heard and wants to
have input and help solve problems. And it just
felt like where I was at, it wasn't going to
happen anytime soon. So what was the plan for
this transition? Where did you take yourself
instead of finance? Yeah. So we had started a
foundation from my Goldman experience. So prior
to getting back in, we realized how hard it is
to transition. So we started the Seal Future
Foundation and it was initially set up to help
these men find their next purpose in life. Our
little, I guess, mantra is purpose, passion,
team, right? So we got the purpose, the mission
that we've been talking about. If you're passionate
about what you do and you have your brothers,
you have the team, we believe you could be successful
in your next chapter. And we partner with great
organizations with similar cultures to ours.
So put mission first, teammates above self. And
we found those companies out there that actually
do that. Startups, big companies, a company that
I work for, Capital Group, which was started
by a veteran also in finance. It's a big asset
management firm, but they incentivize how their
team performs because of this veteran. They don't
say, sir, yes, ma 'am, back in the 30s when this
particular. A gentleman started the company and
people couldn't help themselves. So he made everybody
go by initials. So my initials were JTDW. So
think about that. Like he was like, please stop
calling me, sir, the humility that this man had
back in the Great Depression as he started Capital
Group. And people are just – it's 1930. You can't
help yourself. You're going to keep saying sir
or ma 'am. So he's like, enough. We're all going
with initials. But we found companies like that
and we empowered people through education. We
partnered with great institutions, colleges,
universities around the country, and then Globe.
And we started helping these men find their next
role in life. And then as mentioned, we had under
our watch in 2017, we had a SEAL commit suicide.
And he was our first. We were supposed to meet
with him Monday. Pretty senior SEAL Team 6 member.
And he was FaceTiming his wife over the weekend
and shot himself on FaceTime talking to his wife.
And that was the first. And that was devastating
for the community, for all of us, because that
was the first suicide. And we thought, you know,
a lot of us think we're invincible when we're
younger and we're part of a community like that.
And we're not. And I've lost a lot of friends
to suicide today. dark thoughts of my own in
my low points like suicide ideation is real you
think about it's fleeting thoughts for me and
for others they take it a step further and um
but you know for us that seal future foundation
was what allowed us to create this plan for the
next chapter and that next chapter was in the
mind health so When Bill Mulder committed suicide,
what we did is we threw wearables on seals, 1
,500 seals, and we tracked biometrics. And there's
research that shows there's correlation between
heart rate variability. You mentioned sleep.
Sleep, by far, to me, and I think there's few
people that would disagree with this, is the
cornerstone of mental health and overall health.
But you can see all those biometrics. And we
used a whoop strap as an example. the ability
to force the conversation. So historically you
and I are best friend, James, and I asked you
how you're doing and I know you're not doing
well, but you respond with, I'm okay. And with
the stigma around it, like maybe I'll push a
little bit further, but you'll get annoyed. And
he was like, dude, I'm good. And I leave it alone.
But now we had the data that allowed us to take
it a step further. So I'd be like, dude, listen,
let's just figure out what's going on. I could
tell you haven't slept in four days. I could
tell you've been boozing. Like you told me to
be your accountability partner. Let's just figure
out what's up. Come on. Let's have a conversation.
And that allowed us to get resources to those
guys as well. And that was the plan. The plan
was like how do I take something that worked
in our little community of SEALs, know when the
world needs this, scale it to other veterans,
and oh, by the way, first responders too. I have
no fucking idea. Maybe there's a program out
there that will allow us to build something.
And Oxford has a really cool MBA incubator program.
So I spent two years at Oxford building this
idea out. And that was the start of this business.
Two years at Oxford physically or virtually?
It was a hybrid, mostly virtually. I'd say 60
% virtually, 40 % physically. Okay. Very cool.
That's a very prestigious university back home.
Yeah, it was one of the most amazing experiences
of my life. And when I mentioned uni, I was being
a little tongue -in -cheek there, but the reality
is I did go to uni. And those are some of the
best friends I have, very successful men and
women throughout their own industries. And I
just really appreciated the fact that we have
such polarizing different views. But we would
literally have a pint and then sing on the way
home back to our dorm rooms, to our different
colleges. So that is how we get there. And I
know we're kind of taking this in a different
direction, but how we get there on a bigger scale
is how we probably solve or improve the situation
that we all find ourselves in right now. Absolutely.
Well, we are sitting here obviously now in 2025
where technology on the phones, wearables have
progressed even more. So that was the genesis
of Envy. Talk to me about where you are now and
what the application looks like. Yeah, so we
initially thought about making our own wearable,
right? And our focus is mental well -being, mental
resiliency, mental health. A big part of what
we were hoping to do is to... to identify people's
trend lines and potentially, and you can never
say you've prevented suicide because you need
an endpoint, but potentially stop somebody from
getting into a situation where they're considering
doing that. And I think we absolutely do that.
We opted not to do the hardware. We opted to
build APIs. So we wrote codes to all the different
wearables. We pull biometrics onto our app. So
we have an app. That's how the user interfaces
with it. And we give you what we call a mind
score. So if you were to engage with the app,
you would log in. It's going to ask you some
information. It's important. We don't sell data.
We're not selling your data. That's not what
this company is about. This company truly is
about helping folks that have served identify
how they're doing, identify how their peers are
doing, and then improve the situation. But we
asked you a few questions that our doctors from
Walter Reed helped us with. So roughly like a
PHQ -9, GAD -7, we asked four questions. And
that information plus the biometrics gives you
a MIND score. is important but not as important
as trend lines off of that mind score so we've
built our whole system off of that mind score
so if your score decreases by say two percent
you get an alert hey, just letting you know your
score is down a couple points, not a big deal.
Cool. If it decreases by 5%, hey, we're recognizing
a pattern over the last three days. Just letting
you know you're moving in this direction. We've
also identified that your sleep's been disrupted,
specifically deep sleep. It has decreased by
50 % the last three. Here's a couple deep sleep
solutions from our human performance experts
if you have time to view those. If it gets worse
than that, I think the most innovative thing
or differentiated thing that we've done is we've
just taken this idea from the SEAL teams and
we've created what we call swim buddies. So sometimes
we don't know when we're in that dark place,
right? And the world's telling us, they're screaming
it to us, but we don't know. So what we've done
is if you and I are best friends and we want
to be on this platform together or your spouse
or your actual swim buddy or your battle buddy
or your fight, whatever it is, now that person
will get an alert. Hey, you should probably check
in on Johnny today. This is what we're seeing.
Just give him a call or a text. Then in the app,
you can immediately pull up WhatsApp or a text
or you can even call. You just click on the call
button and it will pull it up. We do have personalized
solutions. So this is all data -driven, to your
point. When we started this, this was pre the
level of AI that we've seen. So we weren't really
using AI to the level that we are now. But now
we just look at all the data. AI can see what
in this chain of data sequences is off. And then
we can provide you with a personalized solution.
Again, I use an example of sleep. If your deep
sleep is off, That's what's impacting your overall
score. Then we'll just send you an alert. Here's
some deep sleep solutions. I think what we've
done is we're trying to be preventative, which
is unique. Majority of the mental well -being
space until recently was reactive or being proactive.
We've created a community so you get to select
who it is. We have contracts with agencies around
the country, first responder agencies, and they
have a dashboard. I mentioned that. I can go
into that here in a second. But how we do it
now is you just pick your swim buddies and you
can see how they're doing. And then the third
big thing that we do is we prescribe. Prescribe
is not the right word. We give you access to
proactive or, I'm sorry, aligned solutions to
the challenge. So being prescriptive, I guess,
maybe is a way to describe it. I really love
the idea of the swim buddy model. The reason
being. early early on when i started this you
know 2016 2017 ish you would have that person
who was the beacon of light for everyone else
and everyone behind the scenes would flock to
that person and their phone would be ringing
off the hook and then you'd watch that person
start spiraling because they're taking on all
this you know this trauma from the outside and
when you look at the model all all we really
need is for one person to care about us and another
person you know for us to care about one person
if everyone does that we split it 50 50 then
that's it we've we've shouldered the load for
all of us you know and obviously you want to
expand maybe a little bit more than that but
so so often like in my profession in yours you
know we're all in the meat grinder together so
if you're in deployment with a high op tempo
or i'm in a fire station just getting murdered
you know 24 48 hours at a time I seem fine to
my friend because he's in the other seat. But
how am I looking to my wife or my friend that
isn't a firefighter? And I think this is what
is really good about this model is you can enter
a few people, some that were right next to you,
some that are completely outside. And so between
those three, four, five people, hopefully then
they're going to start seeing a difference, whether
it's on the metrics and or in person. Because
even if we're side by side, if I look at the
phone, that can tell me. Even though I think,
you know, James is doing okay. Actually, James
is not doing okay. So I really like this model
because you're spreading everything out. You're
personalizing it to people that you trust. You're
giving, as you said, proactive signs rather than,
okay, well, he's got a bottle of whiskey and
a gun in his hand. It's kind of a, not too late,
but we're a really critical time. But again,
you know, allowing, allowing. just a few people
to shoulder each of these loads so that we can
spread it all out and don't burn out the peer
support people or that one guy you know that
almost killed himself and now he speaks around
the country or whoever it is yeah yeah no i think
we we've learned a lot of lessons throughout
the years And, you know, it seems to be well
-received. I think the agencies really appreciate
this, too. Like, we think about an agency where
maybe there was a recent suicide or an officer
that was killed on duty. Well, man, like, I appreciate
we still have a job to do, but, like, we're part
of a community, you mentioned this before, where
it's become challenging to express, like, hey,
I'm not doing well. Like, what happens if I raise
my hand? And the teams, I would never do that,
even when I wasn't doing well, because I'd get
taken off. Like, I'm fair of retribution, be
pulled off the... Out of the lineup and maybe
even be sent home. So I would never raise my
hand. And oh, by the way, you know this better
than most. Like all those little traumas, all
those little things that we compartmentalize,
at some point that bucket becomes full and it
comes out. It always comes out. So how do we
address that up front now? Well, now, I mean,
with this – the dashboard part of this is where
an agency can now – and again, some – cultures
are different than others so there are some like
SWAT teams where they just put all their information
on there they rank and stack them they see it
and they just support each other like hey I trust
everybody on this team I want I want us to be
optimal I want us to be the best version of ourselves
cool there's other agencies that are like I don't
want anything to do with showing my data to anybody
so we de -identify data as well right and then
at the end of the day if you don't want your
agency to have this and totally understand that
like go get it yourself. Like we have a free
version in the app store because our mission
is to save and improve lives through by making
the invisible visible. And then if, you know,
if you get to a spot where you want some access
to, to more premier, like We have access to the
videos from human performance and doctors and
stuff like that. You can get access to that through
a paid version as well. But we're trying to help
as many people as possible. And one of the things
that we identify to be counterintuitive, even
though we are trying to figure out how to become
a viable business, to charge everybody out of
the gate. So that's why we opted to go with a
free version as well. Again, early on. you started
seeing a lot of resistance when it came to this
conversation and, and, you know, push back from
the self -described alphas, for example, and
I fucking hate that term, but anyway, you know,
the kind of person I'm talking about. And so
what I realized more recently is that you can
reframe it and have the exact same results. So
if we're talking about mental health, for example,
in the fire service and you've got the, you know,
the alpha firefighter who's all about, you know,
getting the baby from the home, you tell them,
well, there's no way in hell that you'll be able
to get into a flow state with a busy mind. You
need, you know, high stress environment. You
need thousands and thousands of reps and you
need a calm mind. So if you want to be the firefighter
that you think you are in your head and you want
to operate the highest level. then you need to
work on your own mental health. You need to meditate.
You need to go to see counseling. You need plant
medicine, whatever it is. So then, yes, you truly
can enter a burning building and completely blacked
out, find your way around that room, find that
child and get them out. So flipping it around
for a moment, you're part of an organization
where elite high performance is imperative. I
would argue that I am, even though sometimes
we're not seen that way. I mean, it's the same
thing. Lives are in our hands. How can we use
envy to actually help forge performance rather
than just focusing on the kind of the sadder,
let's avoid suicide conversation? Yeah, I was
giggling because we experienced this maybe three
years ago. There's an agency that brought us
in and we were. They had just lost somebody to
suicide, so we were sharing with them what we
could potentially do with that. And we had the
whole agency there, leadership side. So probably
30 folks in there as we presented. We had our
chief medical officer talking about fight or
flight. and um being hyper vigilant and always
on and like the the impact that has on your body
we did the physiological presentation then we
talked about indy and how it can prevent suicide
and i i'm pretty in tune with rooms like i do
a lot of public speaking and i can gauge what's
going on and i'll tell you that room was crickets
uncomfortable like nobody despite them asking
us to come in to have a conversation around like
potentially using envy um as a tool that can
identify uh people that aren't doing well like
it was this agency and to be fair majority of
agencies if not all agencies aren't ready to
have a conversation around suicide prevention
they're just maybe there's individual champions
in there the peer -to -peer support groups are
but and then you have maybe you know one person
that's been impacted by it but overall the whole
entity is still like we're we're not there as
a country And in my opinion, we're leading the
way. Like you look at England, for example, because
we are talking to folks over there. Like in my
opinion, you all are – like England, the UK is
a decade plus behind us. And if we're not there,
my god, that scares the shit out of me. To your
point, we just reframed everything, dude. We
said, hey, let's talk about mental resilience.
Let's talk about mental optimization, flow state.
Let's do all – same freaking thing, dude. It
really is. But we reframed, used words. Words
have meaning. I understand that now. And the
next thing you know, we're starting to get contracts
with agencies. Hey, you're sitting here saying
you want to be the best ladder team out there.
Well, how can you guarantee if you're not in
the best mental state? If you guys aren't optimizing,
if one of your peers isn't optimizing, you don't
even know that. If you collectively want to be
the best of the best. then, you know, we have
a platform for you that can help. And oh, by
the way, and that's true, like, because we can
see that stuff through the biometrics and we
can help people improve. And oh, by the way,
you know, we can also catch when people are struggling
immensely and potentially get to them before
they get to that spot. So we reframed it and
just moved, like, initially it was like suicide
prevention and then let's talk about optimization.
We did this. And everybody's like, holy shit,
yeah, where do we sign? It was pretty interesting
to see. Does that answer the question? I mean,
it's just maybe me just acknowledging what you
already know. No, no, it does. It absolutely
does. It's funny with those rooms. I've had people
after suicides locally in a fire department.
Hey, what do you suggest? And I'm like, well.
Let's start with the work week. And they're like,
oh, no, we didn't want to hear that. Like, is
there an app? Yeah, we've had that conversation
too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've had that conversation
too. Like, nope, that ain't going to happen.
I'm like, all right. Yeah, exactly. So you didn't
actually want to fix the problem is what you're
telling me. Got it. All right. Well, let's go
to another amazing, amazing solution. Again,
arguably, depending on when people go through
this. It's being used more reactively at the
moment, but so effective. You mentioned about
one of your teammates introducing you to the
world of plant medicine, like so many people
that were raised in that this is your brain on
drugs, you know, propaganda. You know, there's
that knee jerk initially. So walk me through
learning more about it and then your own experience.
Yeah, I will start. I'm very analytical, probably
from my time at Goldman. Like I need to see the
data. So there is a component of that that really
where I became a believer and I'm giving the
end of the story up front is when I did my own
journey and I was tracking my biometrics and
I watched my HRV triple instantaneously. I watched
my deep and REM sleep go for minutes a night
on average, like literally 15 minutes a night
to on average today closer to two hours a night,
right? From one psychedelic experience. So we
have – and one other thing on envy is like we've
– because of the relationships that we have in
the psychedelic space, part of me wants to help
them show the world that this is a viable option.
This is an ethical option. And a lot of people
want to see the data. So we have a lot of contracts
and relationships. We're doing research using
our envy platform with – combat veterans going
through psychedelic assisted therapy. We have
folks using Ibogaine and other psychedelic interventions,
and we help them by giving them wearables plus
envy to show pre, during, and post. And then
we give them research papers, and then they can
take that to the VA and to the legislators to
help them push forward the initiative. So my
own personal journey was probably similar to
a lot of guys in our shoes. Maybe this resonates
with you. It wasn't me. It was you. I was never
fucked up. It was the world. I would argue, no,
you don't get it. You don't get me. I don't want
any part of you. I would isolate. I just didn't
like people. As mentioned earlier, the world
has congratulated me and I'm at one of the lowest
points in my life. I'm finally making real money.
My family's happy. I'm no longer deployed, but
there was this dark, just empty void inside of
me. I was not happy. I didn't have purpose. And
I didn't know what to do. You know, there's suicide
ideation was real. Like I remember driving home
from Wall Street a couple of times over bridges
and be like, how easy would this be? Right. Like
how easy if I just hard right this wheel. And
then it would just be fleeting. I'd be like,
all right, well, let me change the radio station
and keep heading home. But my point there is
I was not in a good place. And I had – the VA
system is overwhelmed. It's gotten better from
my understanding. But for me, it failed me personally
where I finally got to a spot where everybody,
my wife, peers, friends, others, you got to go
talk to somebody. And I finally like admitted,
OK, maybe I should go talk to somebody. And I
remember driving there, getting there early,
like significantly early, and not being able
to find a parking spot within a fucking mile
of the VA. When I finally did park and finally
hauled ass, ran to the VA, I get in there and
I get an earful from the receptionist about being
timely. And that was it for me. I was like, are
you fucking kidding me? I've been here for 45
minutes trying to – had a blow up because maybe
she had a bad day. I don't know. But it's not
– I was already in a vulnerable spot and I was
already not willing to receive anything from
anybody at that very moment. So I did talk to
somebody. I felt like they weren't trained in
my opinion to have a conversation with me. Like
they just didn't understand. What I had personally
gone through is just more of a generic therapist.
It's probably just as hard for them to hear some
of the stuff that I was sharing and probably
didn't know or wasn't trained how to respond
to some of the things that I shared. So that
didn't work. The pills didn't work. The system
was failing me, man. And I mentioned I ran into
a friend and I... The story about I thinking
he was crazy is I was at a barbecue and this
guy runs up to me. And when I saw him last, he
was significantly overweight from drinking. You
know, when you can see when people drink, they
have the red lines in their face. He just drank
so much. And he had just gotten kicked out of
not just SEAL Team 6, but he got put into the
SEAL Teams. He got kicked out of the SEAL Teams.
but not just out of the SEAL teams. He got kicked
out of the Navy for drinking. And man, do we
have an aggressive culture with drinking. So
that tells you everything you need to know about
this individual. I mean, this guy was at the
peak of the peak, was on the bin Laden raid,
and now he's sitting, you know, he shares his
story. He was in his mom's trailer, staring at
the wall with a gun, like thinking, like, how
did I get here? And when I saw him last in Virginia
Beach, that's what he looked like. I turned to
my buddy, I was like, I don't know if we'll ever
see him again. Like, he's just... I don't know
what to do. Like you fast forward, I'm at this
barbecue. This guy runs up to me with long blonde
hair. And like, I swear to God, he had like,
like these rays of light coming off of him. He
was just glowing, proceeds to give me this big
hug, picks me up and puts me down. And he realizes
I have no idea who he is. And he's like, dude,
it's cheese. I was like, oh my God, he lost 60
pounds. Will Chesney? Yeah. Yeah. He lost like
60 some odd pounds and was just glowing and beautiful
and proceeds to tell me, I was like, dude, what
the hell would you do? And he proceeds to tell
me he did psychedelics. And I was like, this
dude lost his freaking mind. But he planted that
seed and I started looking online. This is 2017.
And I was just like, what is this psychedelics?
I started. To your point, war on drugs. This
is your brain on drugs with the old fried egg
commercial. DARE. But nevertheless, as I looked
into this, I quickly realized, OK, there's some
efficacy. This research is really telling a very
clear story here around depression, anxiety,
early stages of PTSD. But there were some articles
back then. Nothing quite yet on TBI, but it was
like a ray of hope at that point. Started talking
to other team guys that had gone through, called
Will back. He introduced me to other guys. And
almost verbatim, all of them was like, I don't
drink anymore. I'm happy as hell. I have a relationship
with my kids. I'm like, sign me up. And proceeded
to do my own Ibogaine experience down in Mexico
with Martin Polanco. uh and that was with mission
within and i did it with a bunch of other seals
and it was one of the hardest scariest experiences
of my life and everybody has a different experience
i won't go into the kind of like the what i saw
um but it's not what i expected right i thought
to your point i think to one of your points earlier
um i thought i was going to go in there and just
sit there and spend time on what I did overseas,
what I saw overseas. And a lot of it was like
little traumas from my childhood that had compounded.
I spent most of that experience, and it was a
long experience, like I think it was over 12
hours, just like rehashing things that I had
completely pushed away, didn't even realize happened
or forgot it happened or purposely hid it. And
it came out. And then just like the microtraumas
that I didn't even know existed. That had completely
shaped my life. I got different perspective for
the first time. I equate it to like just we see
the world through this very slim angle. I was
able to just take one degree off of that angle
and just like, whoa, this is a completely different
universe. And oh, by the way, I realize now why
you have the beliefs you do. And I can appreciate
that I've never walked a day in your shoes and
I understand. Maybe my opinions, although they're
different, maybe there's a blend here that we
can have together. It just completely transformed
who I was. But the thing that I'll share with
you is when I went back home, I had created this
environment with my wife that we never really
had a relationship, deployments all the time,
arguments all the time. It was tense. She was
resentful because I was running around trying
to heal myself and like, oh, by the way, what
about me, right? And for two years, I came back
and she was just on guard and rightfully so.
I've seen this song and dance before. You get
a little healing, but it's temporary. We're going
to go back to the way we were. And we did start
to trend back into that direction. She ended
up doing her own journey. And when she came back,
I tell people that's the first time in our 18
years of marriage that I was... I was ever in
a relationship, ever. Not just with her, but
ever. And I'm proud to say, like, we don't drink.
She started a foundation called The Hope, The
Hope Project that helps spouses and women that
have their own traumas, secondary PTSD from their
spouses if they deployed, but maybe their own
PTSD, childhood trauma. She's taken hundreds
of spouses to Mexico now to do psilocybin. and
other retreats. And, um, I mean, I'm just so
proud of her and us, if I'm being honest, because
we've kind of cracked some of the generational
stuff that we were inevitably given to our children
and they saw some shit. They saw us arguing,
they heard us arguing. Um, and we're not perfect,
but man, we are light years ahead of where we
were. And we're, we're, you know, so proud of
the example that we're setting for them now.
It's funny, the book I was referring to, one
of the main themes is generational trauma. And
this is what I really wanted to tell the story
of. It's not just our childhood, it's our parents'
childhood, it's the grandparents' childhoods.
And when you can look back and see these dominoes
and obviously the contributing factors of all
the, as you said, micro traumas, macro traumas
that we have, now you can stop that domino from
falling on your child. They're still, of course,
they're going to have their own trauma, but you're
not front -loading it with all these generations
and these kind of... you know, emotional patterns
and things that are already projected on them
when they are young and vulnerable and unable
to get away. And it's so exciting hearing about
all of these different options now, you know,
whether it's equine therapy and canines, whether
it's, you know, Ibogaine and psilocybin or MDMA
or, you know, the transcranial magnetic stimulation.
I mean, there's just the toolbox is so vast.
And this is one of the things that I want to,
you know, put on the screen, this kind of reverse
1984. you know, revolution of kindness, compassion
and empathy and healing. But when people hear
this and they go, wow, that was from a single
journey. And again, no one said, and then that
was it. And I never had to do any work and everything
was great. You know, there's, there's the ongoing,
you know, unpacking and breath work and, you
know, abstinence from alcohol and whatever else
happens. But to the same as with the brain, when
we were told that when the brain cell died, that
was it. And now we realize that there's neuroplasticity
and epigenetics. And no, you can absolutely change
your biology and help change your children's
biology. So I think it's so exciting what you've
just told us. Yeah, well, I appreciate that.
I think your point of, you know, I'll use the
word panacea. These aren't panaceas, right? They
give you an opportunity. to break habits. In
the science, and I think you've probably shared
this in the past, is like those neurons are communicated
in a certain way. And those become addictions,
those become patterns. And when you do a psychedelic
intervention, it scrubs the neurons and allows
for you to create new patterns. Those new patterns
are whatever you want to create. So you got to
do the work prior and you especially got to do
the work after. Prior is like, what are your
intentions? What are you trying to get out of
this? What are you trying to change? And afterwards
is making sure you have, you know, part of what
we've created at Envy is like the team, the accountability
partner to make sure that you're not faltering,
that makes sure you're still on track if you
wanted to change something and create the new
environment. And there's a window, in my opinion,
and I've seen this, if you don't... set the the
environment you don't prep the spouse and you
know the other half of the equation it could
easily go back to the way it was and i'm the
prime example of that like my first intervention
i mean we were close to going back to the old
ways because she was counter to a resentful and
it took her going off and doing her own intervention
that allowed us the opportunity to heal appropriately
as a unit If you were king for a day, what would
you do differently as far as length of deployments?
I mean, any tools whatsoever. So when a family
does make the sacrifice of their loved one, you
know, being deployed, going to war, that we do
everything in our power as a nation to take care
of that family and minimize the time that they
are away. I do think deployment, you know, I
felt so... So sad for the troops that had to
deploy 12 -plus months. And there was a couple
teammates that had to do that as well. I think
that's too long. I think, I mean, it's just so
straining on the family. I do think that the
sweet spot is probably four to six months. Six
months even gets, you know, pretty lengthy as
well. You know, if I were king for a day, I would
give these guys and gals access to some of the
things that you mentioned, right? Like, let's
bring the human performance that we have back
at the commands out overseas. And oh, by the
way, probably to the level that we're talking
about right now, some of these etiogenics, these
plant medicines can help. it's going to make
you a better operator, in my opinion. It's going
to make you more thoughtful, more empathetic.
It's going to allow you to make better decisions.
So is there an opportunity to integrate that?
I don't know what it looks like, but that could
be a really interesting conversation. I know
they're already having it because... When they
introduced this to the VA, they were talking
about introducing psychedelics in the active
duty space. So a couple of congressmen and senators
have pushed for bills last year, one of which
was a teammate of ours who committed suicide,
Chief Mike Day. I was on that deployment when
he – He was part of team four. I was in a different
troop, but I was on that deployment when he,
I don't know if you know Mike Day's story, but
it was the turnover ops. So it was our last mission.
And Clark Swedler was the first person in the
door and there was a barricaded shooter and Clark
got killed immediately. And Mike Day ended up
getting shot and fell in the doorway. He got
shot. 20 -some -odd times in plates, pelvic area,
and fell to the ground. And since there were
barricaded shooters like everybody else, the
train, all the operators pulled back, and they
were going to drop bombs, but Mike Day had fallen
in there, so they had to try to get him out.
And they were concocting their plan, and Mike
Day, who, again, was shot 20 -some -odd times,
they took his rifle away, but he came too. He
woke up in the middle of this gunfight. The team
guys are shooting in. The bad guys are shooting
out. Mike Day pulls his pistol, laying on his
back, and clears the room, kills everybody in
there. Comes up on the radio, says, come and
get me. The guys come in. It's a legendary story.
They come in. They met a vacuum. He survives.
Unfortunately, a few years ago, Mike Day took
his life. Part of this bill that was just approved
for the VA around psychedelic -assisted therapy,
so the Veteran Affairs, it's called the Mike
Day bill. But, man, I think about having access
to some of the things. You mentioned TMS, Transcendental
Stimulation. Some of those other tools while
we're overseas could have been really beneficial.
And then I don't know the family. You know, it
would be interesting if my wife was in this room
to get her perspective. I think our tribe. comes
together really well and supports each other.
I think the command could do a better job. I
don't know how quite yet, but I think they could
probably do a better job of supporting that command
or even the nation. I think that was your point.
They could probably do a better job of supporting
those families when their spouses and their team
guys are deployed overseas or veterans or active
duty members are. Well, using it proactively
as well is a really good idea because when I
started, you know, I mean, I'm just a perpetual
student in this podcast now, nine years later.
But when Jake Clark from Save a Warrior really
was the first one that opened my eyes to the
incidence of unaddressed childhood trauma in
military first responders, and funnily enough,
incarcerated men and women too, we're all about
the same number on the ACEs. It made me realize,
well, yeah, that's a beautiful... cocktail of
life experiences that forges a good seal forges
a good firefighter but if it's addressed if it's
processed if it's worked through so rather than
like my profession doing an mmpi which was a
standalone you know test psychological test that
was never meant to be used singularly it's supposed
to be part of a you know a gamut of tests that
you do in forensic psychology And that was basically
a box checking tool. Well, you know, if James
goes crazy, then we tested him. So, you know,
our hands are clean. Rather than looking and
going, okay, you know, Johnny, James, you know,
you put your hand up when 99 % of the population
didn't. There's obviously some stuff that you've
brought with you. So let's process that at the
front door and turn that into resilience, turn
it into strength, turn it into more compassion
and empathy when you're, you know, downrange
or, you know, responding to a call. It's beautiful.
That's brilliant. Because again... We just tuck
this stuff away and it's going to come out. I
always equate it to like a trauma, either a childhood
trauma or something we've done overseas or for
you, you know, as a firefighter, you're pouring
that like cup of trauma into that bucket. And
maybe it doesn't feel like much initially, but
at some point you get sloppy. That thing is sloshing
around and it shows up. It shows up through addictions.
It shows up through reactions. Like I was pretty
snippy with my family and I didn't realize how
aggressive I was, not just to them, but to everybody.
It shows up. So being proactive and addressing
some of those things, especially with the modalities
and tools that we have now with the therapists
and psychiatrists and psychologists that are
trained specifically for folks in your world
and folks in my world. Man, again, it goes back
to like, hey, you want to optimize this team.
You really want to be the best of the best alpha
guy. Well, then. take it upon yourself to be
the leader and let's start addressing some of
the shit that they all have. And oh, by the way,
we know you have to. Absolutely. 100%. Well,
one more area before we go to some closing questions.
Actually, before I do that, Will Chesney, amazing,
amazing guy. I had him on the show a few years
ago and then we... We did the fireside chat.
That's what it's called. Ryan Parrott after 7X.
And I got to interview live two World War II
veterans, but Will was there then. So we got
to hang out and talk some more about, this is
a couple of years ago now, but yeah, I mean,
the complete opposite of what you said originally,
you know, now he's just lean and it looks like,
you know, a Navy SEAL dog handler. So it's amazing
to see that, you know, that medicine continues
to work with him. It's so beautiful. I love him
to death. He's just a great human being doing
amazing things. I'm glad you guys have crossed
paths. I'll tell him you said hi, and I'm pretty
sure maybe I'll put us all on a text thread after
this and just say hi to one another. Perfect.
Thank you. All right. Well, one more area. Let
me make sure I've got the name right. Where is
it? Yeah, BrainOps. So talk to me about that,
the kind of brain supplement you got coming out
as well. Yeah. I got it right here actually.
So Brain Ops by Envy because we're not clever
with our names. But essentially the idea here
was when we go to Nyko, which is a facility if
you've had traumatic brain injury, they send
you to Nyko. And it's similar to like Walter
Reed and Walter Reed has affiliation with it.
But it's all centered around any brain injury.
So they do a lot of – testing, and then they
give you tools that you can use. They help you
understand kind of the injuries and some of the
things that you can do to improve it or live
with it, right? In some regards, some people
have to live with it. And I mentioned, you know,
a friend of ours that committed suicide. He had
a lot of brain lesions, brain scarring from all
that. He was a breacher. And you see a lot of
that, a lot of us, you know, in our world. And
I, you know, I can't even imagine being in your
shoes too, or police as well. But I'll tell you,
you know, I think about some of the, we talked
to the FDNY and some of the things that those
guys and gals are seeing, like, and then they're
pulling charred bodies out, out of a house. And
then, then they got to go back to the fire station.
And then, oh, by the way, here's another call
and you got to go right back to work. It's just
like, you don't ever deal with it, man. But for
that, they gave us – when we were leaving Nyko
and there's another place called Marcus Institute,
the Brain Institute, and we're doing research
with them at Envy Mind Health right now. They
give you supplements and it's nothing crazy.
I mean it's all the supplements that have shown
efficacy around improving. your overall uh your
your brain health so you got magnesium in there
you got creatine in there which there's tons
of new that's resurfacing all over social media
i'm pretty sure you've seen that but we've always
known that it's helped tremendously um with um
with um recovery of brain impacts Then theanine.
We had omegas in there. We ran into a bit of
an issue with omegas, so we're going to probably
remove that for the next batch. Spirulina. We
just took all of the stuff that Nyko was giving
us, all of the 25 supplements, and we just put
it all into one stick. Now every morning, you
just throw this in your drink and you take this.
This is what I take. It has 10 milligrams of
creatine. I know the initial going rate for the
last few years. Let's call it 20 years. It's
been 5 milligrams. There's a lot of research
that shows 10. So I think we're one of the few
people that are put in 10 milligrams – or I'm
sorry, 10 grams of creatine in our packet amongst
all the other things that I shared with you.
And you take that once a day and I measure everything.
As mentioned, so you go in the NV app, I take
it, and you can put, you know, you've talked
about breath work. You can input breath work.
You talked about talking to a therapist. We can
click that. We just want to show you what works
for you and what doesn't. For me, this has improved
my overall sleep. No surprise there. It has magnesium
in it, and magnesium helps with some of the deeper
sleep. efficacy and then it also helps with uh
overall my heart rate uh has decreased when i
started using this so i do like little beta tests
i'll use it for two months and then see change
nothing but one thing. And so for the last two
months, my heart rate has decreased. My heart
rate variability has increased by I think like
three or 4%. And then my sleep has improved pretty
drastically. So we think it's a, it's a great
product. It's, it's really piggybacking off of
what was shared with us from our time in the
military and Walter Reed and what they were prescribing
us. Amazing. Yeah, I kept seeing the creatine
conversation spurring up again because before,
you know, it was from the bodybuilding days and
you had, I'm sure, some really shitty, cheap
creatine that was out there back then and you
get the bloating and all that stuff. But, you
know, my community, it's not so much the concussive
trauma, of course, even though I was a martial
artist, so I had batted a lot doing that too.
But the sleep deprivation, Kirk Parsley years
ago, you know, talked about that and, you know,
it mirrors. the trauma itself, the demyelination
of the myelin sheath. So even though this population
may not have the kind of same concussive traumas
or TBIs that the SWAT teams and the special operators
have, we have this just unending sleep deprivation,
chronic, chronic sleep deprivation. So the solutions
for both are very, very similar. Yeah, no, that's
a great call out. I think sleep deprivation is,
and not to take it to that extreme, but there's
a lot of research that shows that's one of the
leading factors in suicide. Isolation is obviously
the biggest, but those kind of go hand in hand.
So I recognize now I've gotten to a spot through
plant medicine and my own healing meditation.
I meditate quite a bit. I do breath work as well
when I'm in stressful situations. But I finally
got into a spot where I dare to say I've matured.
I'm maturing. My wife would maybe disagree with
that at times. But I can see when I don't get
the right sleep. I know through the data, of
course, but now I can tell because of how I'm
behaving. I'm snippy. I'm isolating. I don't
want to do what I normally do. I start making
excuses for things that I usually find enjoyment
in. It's really interesting to see. So I think
creatine has really shown efficacy around helping
in that category as well. That's what's been
so maddening when I'm trying to get these fire
departments to give more rest and recovery. And
the irony is the money is downstream. The money
they waste with all these vacancies, so overtime
and lack of retention and workman's comp claims,
etc. The money is there. But when you illustrate
that, sleep deprivation is used really for three
things. Special operations, special forces selection,
which will be just a few days. Torture and interrogation.
And yet we are working our first responders that
way, especially our firefighters. So that's kind
of a mic drop moment. Like if that doesn't resonate,
then maybe you shouldn't be in charge of a band
of men and women. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you,
it's been one of the greatest honors to serve
like all first responders, specifically firefighters.
I mean, we do law enforcement as well, EMS. But
firefighters, I've really grown to love that
community. I think it resonates, you know, some
of the past stuff that we've done and the sleep
deprivation of working vampire hours and sometimes
not even getting sleep because you're out day
on end and then some of the stuff that you all
do. But I love the contracts that we have with
firefighters. And let me share this too. One
of our biggest lessons learned is you mentioned
some agencies do have the funding to procure
things like NV Mind Health or supplements or
other third parties to help them identify how
they can improve maybe sleep within the fire
stations. There are some that don't. So when
we started SEAL Future Foundation, that was for
SEALs. That's a 501c3 specifically for SEALs,
but I quickly was getting approached. by other
veterans and then first responders. And I realized
like, we need to turn this over. I'm going to
turn this over to the younger generation SEALs.
And we created another foundation specifically
for first responders and veterans, all veterans.
And it's called Invisible Wounds Family Foundation.
And what we do is when there's an agency, like
a fire station that doesn't have, like the municipality
doesn't have the funds. Our foundation comes
in and we raise money and we either help them
with procuring NV Mine Health, which we believe
to be a life -saving tool, or if they need other
resources, we partner with them in their community
to raise money to go out there and get the resources
that they're in need of. I think about all the
work that we're doing locally here in my town
of Parker and I want to replicate that across
the country. So that's why we stood up that foundation.
That's amazing. Thank you so much for doing that
because yeah, there are, I mean, especially if
you've got all the volunteer firefighters too,
you know, and then paid on call, which just get,
you know, a stipend when they actually respond
the rest of the time, their mechanics or, you
know, whatever their other profession is. So
definitely needed. Well, I want to throw a few
questions, closing questions at you before I
let you go. That's okay. Absolutely. All right.
The first one I love to ask, is there a book
or other books that you love to recommend? It
can be related to our conversation today or completely
unrelated. Ram Dass. Yeah. So Ram Dass was a
Harvard professor. And this really helps me.
With just reframing my view on this world. So
it talks about embracing aging. As I've gotten
older, I know we're still in our prime, but we
are getting older. I just ran an ultramarathon
last week and normally I'd be healed by now,
but everything still hurts. But just embracing
that change, being comfortable with the fact
that we all are going to pass at some point and
that's OK. How do we get right with that personally
but getting our family rights? But Ram Dass was
one of the Harvard professors that got in trouble
with the psychedelic movement in the probably
70s at the time. So I've taken keen interest
in that. And then Viktor Frankl is another tremendous
– that story is just – I mean … I don't know.
I talk about just being passionate for life.
And, you know, he was in Auschwitz and shares
a story he knew immediately when somebody was
going to pass at the concentration camps because
they would go from being somebody that would
be, you know, conversing, being a part of, unfortunately,
a part of the situation, but being a part of
that community, sharing stories, being hopeful.
to instantaneously just going quiet. And within
hours, people would perspire and they would pass
over. And I think in the space that we're spending
a lot of time in, the mental health space, suicide
ideation space, I share that book with a lot
of folks to read because it just helps them become
more aware. And then also realize like, man,
yes, you may feel like you're in a challenging
time right now. But let's put things into perspective,
right? Like, you know, we'll figure out the situation
you're in. You're not in a concentration camp
in Auschwitz right now. So not to dismiss what
you're going through, like we're empathetic,
but maybe if we can reframe some of the challenges
that we perceive we're going through, it'll help
us deal with them a little bit better. Absolutely.
Yeah, man -social meaning I've got on my shelf
here as well. And then Dr. Edith Eger I've had
on. She's written Gift and The Choice. But she
was an Auschwitz survivor. She was forced to
dance for Dr. Mengele. Just, I mean, amazing.
And she became a psychologist. And all her posts,
even to this day, are just about kindness, compassion,
community. Isn't that amazing? These are the
voices we should be listening, which circles
around to the beginning of our conversation.
You know, these are not only cautionary tales,
but we still get to hear some of these human
beings. And they're not out there preaching hate
and nastiness and division. It's the opposite.
Despite, right? Despite. Real trauma. Yeah. It's
just like, I thank you for sharing that too.
I've, I've, uh, I've read her book and I've,
uh, she has a lot on, on, on online. If you haven't
seen some of the, the, the, her presentations
online, I highly recommend that to your audience.
Yeah. I'm actually supposed to be getting a grandson
on, but we were communicating via Instagram that
isn't there anymore. So I've got to follow him
again and reach out yet again so I can make that
happen. All right. Well, what about films, television
or documentaries that you love? Well, I'd be
remiss if I didn't take a moment just to acknowledge
some peers of mine just had a documentary released
in Waves of War, and it follows as I begin. And
those are dear friends of mine, Marcus and Amber.
We've known them for 15 plus years. They've lived
in our house a long time ago, but I would highly
recommend. That's on the psychedelic front. The
other one was Michael Pollan is a great book
if you're new to and skeptical of. Of psychedelics,
I was there as well. And I applaud you. You should
have some skepticism and do your own research.
Michael Pollan was a foodie. He was an author,
wrote mostly on culinary experiences. But he
did his own psychedelic journey and then wrote
about it. He has two books and they're tremendous.
But they also did a Netflix documentary. So if
you prefer the Netflix version of it, by all
means, that's a good one as well. Um, yeah, I'm
a sucker for, um, a good movie and, um, Matt
Damon and Robin Williams. Uh, Good Will Hunting
is probably one of my favorite movies of all
time. And it's interesting. It was always my
favorite movie and it's kind of ironic, uh, unfortunate,
but ironic that Robin Williams took his life.
Right. So that one has, has evolved, uh, and
how important it is to me. Uh, it was always,
uh, a classic for me, but now it's become more
of a. Cautionary tale is kind of like how you
described it earlier. It's like it could hit
people that, and we've seen it, hit people that
we always say, I would have never thought. I
would have never thought. And a lot of people
in this community said that. Absolutely. Well,
speaking of amazing people, is there a person
that you recommend to come on this podcast as
a guest to speak to the first responders, military,
and associated professions of the world? What
could be interesting is – well, I'm just going
to say it. I think my wife could be really interesting.
It would be really fascinating to see this version
and her version, but then also to address what
we believe to be just – an oversight on our community
and our example that I shared with you of us
being me receiving all the support, all the resources
dedicated to the firefighter, to the police officer,
to the EMS operator, to the veteran. But. What
about the family member? What about the secondary
trauma? What about the impact it had on their
children? Why aren't there resources out there
for that? So I think it could be tremendous to
hear that side of the equation and to educate
your audience on how their family members can
receive resources from organizations like hers.
So yeah, I'll end it there. I think that's probably
the person I would recommend. Brilliant. Well,
let's make it happen. We'll do it. I'd love to
get her on. awesome all right well then the very
last question before we make sure everyone knows
where to find you and of course envy what do
you do to decompress i wish i could uh show you
i got a sauna right there i got an ice bath right
there i have a gym right here you can't see it
but that that's a big part of my life i also
have uh and i don't know if it's healthy or not
but i have this uh We do an annual ultramarathon
for Veterans Day with my peers. So three years
ago, we did the first one for the Invisible Wounds
Family Foundation. We raised a few hundred thousand
dollars. We jumped out of helicopters, swam 10
miles, and then ran 200 miles, ran and walked,
if we're being honest. Towards the end, we were
hobbling, to be even more honest, with our body
armor. Last year in Scottsdale, we did a 50 -mile
ruck with 50 pounds on our back, and that was...
by far the worst, uh, ultra that we've done this
year. We did 24 hours straight and we did it
in San Antonio, Texas around the Alamo. And,
um, I do running when I am actually training
for it. And I've crossed the first month and
a half of like, just hating running, like right
around week six, if I'm consistent, it becomes
a very, uh, powerful. uh tool that i use to decompress
it it really it i solve all my problems on my
training runs i sit there i'm in my head the
next thing you know i'm done with like a 10 mile
run 15 mile run and i've already sorted out a
lot of the the thoughts that race through my
head so running has become a great tool for me
as well and then uh hiking with my wife uh spending
time with my kids are some of the other things
i've become more thoughtful about and more intentional
with. And that's become very helpful as well.
Brilliant. Well, for people listening then, let's
start with Envy. Where are the best places to
find that online, learn more about it, reach
out to you if someone's interested? Yep. So what
I would say is our, I don't know when this is
going to go live, but in about on the 22nd, the
new version of the app comes out. So you can
go to the app store. It's Envy, I -N -V -I, which
stands for Invisible Visible. It's NVMindHealth.
Or if you want to go on the website, it's invimh
.com. So you can go there, check out the website
there, and you can learn more about what we're
doing, the research that we've done, who we've
impacted, et cetera. Brilliant. And then what
about you personally, if they want to reach out?
Yep. JDBMore. So that's on Instagram. And just
reach out to me. I'd be happy to kind of share,
support, educate. I would actually love for people
to reach out. If you're interested in your question,
it's like, hey, should I reach out? Please do.
Fantastic. Well, Johnny, I want to thank you
so much. It's been such an interesting conversation.
I really feel like envy itself is going to make
a huge difference. This AI, I mean, there's obviously
a lot of negatives to it. You know, chat GBT,
for example, seemingly encouraging young people
to take their own lives is definitely something
that we need to address. But on the flip side,
the autonomy this has given people for mental
health, for physical health is incredibly exciting.
And, you know, what you've done there is amazing.
But also then, you know, your courageous vulnerability
as far as your storytelling. The plant medicine
conversation has been incredible. So I want to
thank you so much for being so generous with
your time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Thank you so much. Appreciate
you having me. And thanks for what you do too,
James. I really appreciate all the service that
you've done and you continue to do with this
platform.