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Behind the Shield podcast, and you will hear
my interview with Wes Barnett and Joel Totoro
from Thorne. 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 Thomas Newman. Now, Thomas is a renowned
coach. sports scientist, and the chief innovation
officer at Hawken Dynamics. So we discuss a host
of topics from his journey into sport, the power
of data analysis within sports science, selecting
elite tactical and sporting athletes, fostering
longevity, his own extremely powerful mental
and physical health journey battling a brain
tumor, 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. Each five
-star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library for you, Planet Earth,
of over 700 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 who needs to hear them. So with that being
said, I introduce to you Thomas Newman. Enjoy.
Well, Thomas, I want to start by saying firstly,
thank you for being patient while my dinosaur
computer rebooted. And secondly, welcome to the
Behind the Shield podcast today. Thank you so
much for having me on. So where on planet Earth
are we finding you this afternoon? We are located
in Boston, Massachusetts, so where I was born
and raised. Well, perfect segue because that's
the next question. So tell me exactly where you
were born and tell me a little bit about your
family dynamic, what your parents did and how
many siblings. Sure. Yeah, I grew up in Boston,
whole life. My mother was a nurse. So again,
kind of caring for others has been central part
of kind of my ethos growing up. So just me and
her. And she went on, got her PhD. So I got to
see someone highly educated, highly trained,
but also committed to her craft. And so that
was huge. And kind of being the only child, I
got all of it. So that intensity that she brought
really kind of instilled into me, I think, both
in how I carried myself in school and then also,
too, in the profession now. So, yeah. It's definitely
been part of my makeup, if you will, of what's
led me to my journey today. Well, what was your
perception? I mean, you're an only child, but
then you've got a mother who doesn't have a job.
She has a career, a profession. What did you
see as far as how she was able to balance the
two? I mean, she was so tough. I mean, my goodness,
like people think that I'm, you know, grizzled
and, you know, driven and whatever, but I'm a
cream puff compared to her because she was able
to balance a PhD full -time job and with me and,
and, you know, we were Irish Catholics, so I
didn't grow up, you know, I didn't grow up getting
things handed to me, but, you know, I think learning
about, you know, my first business was in fourth
grade. I had a funny story I tell people. I hated
taking out the trash, but that was your duty.
And I said, man, this this really sucks. And
I live in a condo complex that has 60 different
units. And I was like, I bet there's other people
that hate taking their trash out. So, you know,
I got a loan from my mom for a wagon. And so
I got the wagon, put all my trash in. I said,
well, now that I'm out and I went door to door
and I started my own trash business and I charged
a quarter for a bag of trash. And then it was
a dime for recycling. But what happened is, is
in the neighborhood. Um, people started, uh,
just, you know, giving me a dollar here, a dollar
there, but we did it once a week. Cause that's
what I had to do. But then I was like, man, I
bet you I could do this, uh, you know, twice
a week. And then it turned into three times a
week and enough that I had my neighbor ended
up pulling the wagon and I could just go door
to door. Uh, we got shut down by the condo association
after a few months. Um, but again, that's kind
of been my entrepreneurial spirit. I try to,
you know, find problems, find solutions, but
I get from my mom that kind of, if you're going
to do it, do it well. So anybody that knows me,
I'm pretty intense. pretty driven for the things
that I want to do and really taking your time
before you get into something to be committed
to doing it all the way. So even in high school
athletics or college athletics, it wasn't, I'm
just going to play sports. I want to be the best
there ever is and the best there ever was. And
then professionally, I don't want to win the
conference. I want to try to win a national championship.
And so I think a lot of that comes from her because
again, she did so much for her field and career.
I mean, spanning over. I mean, her first job
was at Mass General back in 1960, 62, or maybe
it was at the Baptist. But she taught all the
way up until 2011, 2012. So that was quite a
journey that I got to watch. Now, with her being
a single parent, but in a profession that at
least today pays somewhat well, were you driven
to earn because of any element of... needing
more or was it more, you know, wanting to contribute
to the family? When you look back now, what was
behind a fourth grader being so innovative? I
mean, again, I'm pretty lazy. I didn't want to
do it, but if I'm going to do it, I might as
do it well. And I mean, we didn't, you know,
we weren't struggling. It was just your basic
Metro West Boston, you know, family, one car
and we went to public school. So I wouldn't say
I was deprived of anything, but my mom would
be like, if you want to go get this. go go get
it and so um and she would support like i said
you know you give you a loan for the wagon well
guess you paid that loan back no interest she
thought it was a great deal um and so um but
that's kind of what she taught me is that if
you want to go if you want it go get it like
and think it through um but she was always you
know you know she was one of those ones if you
join the team and you hate it you don't quit
you know you don't complain about playing time
you should be so good there's no question And
again, I think a lot of that was imprinted early
on because I never, I mean, in my entire time,
I can't think of a time where she would whine
or complain. I mean, she just was made a steal
and she's like, just go do it. Like there was
no other option. And I think that that is something
I'm truly grateful for instilling both on a personal
level and professional level. So with athletics
and sport, what were you playing and doing in
school age? Believe it or not, I actually was
pretty good at volleyball back in the day. And
I know now I'm gravitationally gifted. I tend
to stay low to the ground. But back in the day,
we basically had the equivalent of if Bill Belichick
decided to coach in a local high school. Peter
Sujo was our coach, along with Andy Mather. But
Peter had just come from Europe. His son was
16. actually got a full ride to USC. So any of
our California listeners may remember the name
Donald Sujo. He played on three Olympic teams.
His father was my middle school volleyball coach.
And so we were running offensive play schemes,
playbooks, and all this kind of stuff at 10,
11 years old, doing statistics and running the
offense. We did really well. And obviously, you
know, at the high school level, it's cool to
see we had a bunch of guys band together to do
something great. And we did. And so then that
run throughout high school was pretty awesome.
Played club. Some of my best friends I've been,
you know, and I think people forget this in sports.
It's the relationships you build. My outside
hitter, I was his best man at his wedding. And
we can tell stories about, you know, training
or lifting or anything like that. But it was
a great opportunity where athletics gives you
kind of a little microcosm to build relationships.
So we did that. um and you know the record and
i tell the story um now we went 24 -0 we won
everything state championship i'll never forget
one of the parents said congratulations this
is the best athletic accomplishment you're ever
going to have really enjoy it and i remember
looking at him and being like i'm just getting
started and he's like you're a cocky little and
sure enough um yeah and it wasn't that it was
how you had to be player of the year so we did
that and you know all american did that and so
throughout those times and those things are Club
team, I think, went 96 -4, which is still the
record for the club. But nevertheless, it's high
school, but that same mentality. It wasn't just
go play volleyball. It was be, you know, school
much bigger than you, be better than them. And
we were pretty psychotic with training all year
round, in the morning, at night, in the snow,
set up lights, get creative. And I do think that
that... helped me a lot when it got into coaching,
because I think you can only train to the level
that you've been a part of. And that doesn't
mean you have to play. So there's some great
coaches in the NFL that never played in the NFL,
but they have mentored under those that have
gone to those high heights. So having Peter early
on in my career talk about numbers and statistics,
I think probably helped a lot of my influence
to where I am today with Hawken Dynamics. Because
again, I see the game of sport and movement a
little bit differently. Because breaking everything
down into numbers is kind of my thing. Well,
speaking of mentorship, you mentioned that you
grew up with your mother. Did you have any relationship
with your father at all? I did not, no. So that
was just, again, that's all I ever knew. But
I think a lot of the male influences I have came
in the form of coaches. And then obviously just
people within our tribe and community. I think
about my... friend from third grade, her father
was an incredible person, influence. And again,
plumber, you know, I come in and complain about
something like, oh, yeah, you want to crawl through
a, you know, a pipe with me and you can go see
what that smells like. Maybe, maybe, maybe you
just go right back to doing your lifeguard job.
And I was like, Roger that, like, got it. So
that's where I think a lot of my influence comes
in on that side. When you look back at the way
you were coached, middle school, and if you carried
on the high school that level as well. with a
2023 lens what were the things that they were
doing right and what were the things that maybe
they thought they were doing right at the time
but now you know x amount of years later we realize
that wasn't the best way it's hard to say because
again when you're dealing with generations i
think generational coaching is different i mean
sure even you know probably yourself there's
things that are just different and and giving
the information they had at the time um it was
the best but maybe they would do things differently
but i mean Again, they were output driven of
trying to, you're going to go win a state championship.
You need to be the best player in the country.
You need to do this. And it was very black and
white. And I think at that time period, it worked.
And we also had individuals from 11 years old
to 18 years old, seven years in that system.
By the time that senior year rolled around. There
was no other option. There was no other question.
And people would always ask. And, you know, I
know they have that Kanye meme, which didn't
age very well about the, you know, what would
happen if I didn't succeed? I guess we'll never
know. We weren't going to leave it any at any
doubt that we weren't going to win. And I remember
guys across the board handling it differently.
And so I think that intensity, you know, we were
forged in that environment to do something great.
I don't know now, especially at the high school
level, if you can have such a black and white
contrast without having some problems. Because
again, we do realize where it fits within the
community and the environment. But again, if
you want to do something elite, you got to go
outside of your comfort zone. And I think more
than ever. for a lot of good reasons, administrations
have been very mindful. Like you're not doing
these workouts now for mental toughness and getting
away with it. You have to be really careful.
And so I think that's good. But I also do think
that, I don't know if I would be where I'm at
today if, you know, you didn't realize there
are consequences to your actions or inactions
and it impacts the people to the left and right
of you. And that's so analogous to both, you
know, sports, but also professions. And so you
start becoming. more of a selective person, I
would say, where you want to try to find people
like you. So that way it's not an issue. Like
if you call me and say, I need you at three in
the morning, there's no question I'm going to
be there versus, well, that's outside of my work
zone or that's not really, I'm kind of tired.
Nobody wanted to hear that. And again, that was
really good. But I think today, I don't know
how much that black and white intensity would
be received, particularly at the high school
level. So an observation that I've made, and
I've talked about this a lot, and it's people
like yourself that are the right people to ask
these questions, either you or someone who is
an athlete and or a coach. When I first moved
to the States, and I've told this many, many
times, but very, very long story, very short.
I was struck by how many people I met, Uncle
Rico's quote unquote, who told me the could have,
would have, should have been story about whatever
sport they were in. And it always ended the same
way. Well, I blew out my insert joint here at
18, 19, 20. And I'm like, what the fuck is going
on in this country? In the U .A., yes, there
are some elite athletes in all sports, but it's
you. you don't have that elite performance in
the school and college level normally. And there
certainly isn't the money and the TV exposure
and all that stuff behind it. So what you see
in the UK, or at least when I was young, was
you would finish school, you graduate school,
but people would still play their sports. There
was longevity in movement, in sport, in games.
Whereas here, I saw a much higher level of athleticism
in the high school than... collegiate athlete
but then almost like a complete drop to inactivity
after they they went out with some of these conversations
now it's like well where is as you touched on
before where is that fine line between performance
i want to win for my school but also wellness
and longevity for these children basically that
we're responsible for yeah and i think the the
most concise answer that i can give is that if
someone gives you their body and so you're you're
a coach strength coach whatever to the greatest
degree you need to make sure that those transitions
are set up well and we've seen this across the
board you know you're the high school athlete
well then that's your identity it's not a sport
you're not an athlete it's part of who you are
i'm a volleyball player i'm a football player
when that final whistle blows And I remember
when we lost to Hawaii by two points in the third
set of the final four out, and I believe it was
Arizona that year. In that final whistle blew,
I was like, wow, it's over. And I don't know
if people handle the it's over very well. So
I've looked at a lot of the LTAD stuff across
different countries where they do a much better
job of transitioning. You were a player. Well,
guess what? Now you're an alumni. So it's not
over. It's just now changed. And then when you're
done with being an alumni, you move into being
a junior coach and then you become a senior coach.
And so trying to make sure that people don't
feel like that, you know, that final day comes
and then they have to reboot, I think is critical.
I know for football, you know, the lineman's
a great example. They finish in November. We
play Harvard. Well, guess what? All spring, we're
putting them on weight loss plans because they
no longer need to be 300 pounds. It's not good
for their longevity, but also to their whole
life. has been structured down to the minute,
probably since Papa Warner or junior high school.
And so now being 21 years old with all this free
time, it's not necessarily a good thing. I'm
not saying you have to force it because again,
out of 10 guys, maybe you have two or three that,
you know, feel fine or they're self -motivated
or they're just, they're, they're glad to be
away. And that's totally cool. But the individual
that just misses coming to lift at three o 'clock
with the music blast, and why are you just booting
them out? And I remember seeing that. So I think
as a practitioner paying close attention and
the military talks about this too, with the seals
and the guys coming out of, you know, the elite
army units, you got to have a community and a
tribe because when you take someone out like
that, bad things happen. Cause so much of your
decision -making on a day -to -day basis is on
the guys and the ladies to left and right of
you. And when that is gone, I think people have
a hard time with it. So that's where I think
that could be handled better. Absolutely. It
aligns with something we were talking about recently.
I had a female high school student on the show
about two years ago now, Emma Benoit, and she
didn't have acute childhood trauma. She didn't
have a lot of these commonalities that a lot
of these people do have when they end up getting
to a point where they want to take their own
lives. And Emma actually pulled the trigger.
She survived her attempt, is in a wheelchair
now, but now she's an incredible force in the
mental health side of advocating for, you know.
positive mental health but one of her big things
that struck me is that her stress was she was
going to leave school and there was some there's
a little bit of bullying and all that kind of
stuff as well but ultimately we forget that these
children have been in these schools since they
were three four five whenever they kind of began
pre -k and now they're 18 and they may feel very
successful as a football player as you know my
son's in jrotc so there's these tribes and then
one day they're going to be given their piece
of paper and then they walk out the door And
some of them are going to find another amazing
tribe and they're going to thrive. But some of
these kids are going to be on their own. And
like you said, that door is closed. That whistle
was blown. And I think we've really got to look
at the mental health impact of that as well.
If we're not transitioning our kids from high
school into hopefully more sports and movement,
but also into, you know, creating a bridge into
especially a trade. If you're not going to go
and become a doctor or a lawyer. then all these
amazing things fire service for example that
you can go into so they don't hit a brick wall
the moment they leave school yeah i think you
have to also and probably one of the things that
i've grown a lot as a coach i've always been
by the numbers, black and white, analytical.
But really, as I've gotten older, and I credit
a lot of this to the researchers I worked with
at Yale, looking at the emotional intelligence
and really looking at the emotional profile of
someone and how physiologically they may be downgrading
or deconditioning, but their mind still might
be sharp. And again, it's very hard, even from
a neurochemical level, of what gets them fired
up. And I would tell the story to the players.
I said, how many of you guys love seeing your
game stats, getting likes on Instagram? And so
they all raised their hand. I'm like, cool. How
many of you guys, when you were little, like
to get presents from Santa? And they raised their
hand. I said, what if Santa gave you presents
now? And they all kind of gave me this weird
look. Like, what are you getting at? I'm like,
but how do you feel when you give a gift to someone
else? And they kind of pause. And you do get
this moment where your satisfaction or self -worth
validation comes from the act of within your
tribe. providing, protecting, or producing things.
And I think that again, to your point where if
that gets ripped away, just on a chemical level,
you don't feel that same happiness. You know,
you expect to be great, but you want to help
other people. And I know people struggle with
that. You know, you made me think of, so Scott
Atron is a researcher out of Michigan. And he
did a really famous study where they actually
did fMRI scans of detainees in Guantanamo and
what they found. And again, you think about ISIS
fighters, extremists, things like that. How do
you get to that point? You're a firefighter.
How do you get someone who wants to run into
a flaming building or, you know, in the military
run towards the bullets? Those are non conducive
beliefs for longevity of life. But for some reason,
they must do it. And in your top performers,
regardless of running, running, pushups, sit
ups, all that kind of stuff. There's a biological
and structural difference in the brain for those
people that have a propensity for team. And so
that selection process, I think, is so important
to be mindful that if you have someone that's
very, very receptive to team, don't just bring
them into something and then rip it out. And
then you can see and you'll see those guys coming
a mile away. And we used to talk about the rule
of three in football. If you go out on the town.
Three of you got to be together. And everyone
will be like, why? Because the rates of incidence
of issues with individuals when they're in the
group of three, out of three of them, one of
them is going to say, this is a dumb idea. Two
of them, they might egg each other on. But for
whatever reason, that group of three, and that's
how powerful relationships can be that I don't
want to let you down. I want to actually make
you look good. And that's why if you ask any
of the elite operators, oh, you guys are so brave.
So what's the first thing they all say? No, I'm
just doing my job. Didn't want to let my team
down. And it is horrific for them to think that
they would let their buddies down rather than
letting themselves down. So I think that you
as a coach or you as an instructor need to be
very mindful of where that person is and realizing
that even some of the toughest dudes, if you've
listened to some of Sean Ryan's podcast, he's
on tough, tough dudes coming on and crying. So
you can't just say, oh, we'll just deal with
it. You know, it's only words. And I think being
more mindful of that is. probably going to have
the greatest impact in coaching in the next five
to ten years is how do we understand that and
nurture that and not just blow it up because
it didn't work absolutely well and it's so pertinent
to the first responder professions as well so
speaking of you know the the work that you do
now kind of walk me through the beginning of
that so when you were in the school level what
were you dreaming of becoming and then how did
that take you into the sports science world yeah
so my my iron bug moment That's what I call it
is when I had stress fractures, I was a senior.
Our team was going to be ranked. Our club team
was nationally ranked. Everything's going great.
And then in the fall, my, my shins just started
hurting like bad. And I mean, I would push through
it and play, but I mean, it got to the point
where it was super bad. Like it felt like I was
getting hit with a baseball bat every time I
landed. So we went over to the hospital and they,
you know, do the imaging and you've got stress
fractures, you've got bilateral stress fractures.
And of course the question was, when was the
last time you had a day off? And I was like,
eighth grade. So, you know, cause we would play
all year round. And so then I had to stop and
that sucked. That was hard. Cause I watched,
this is supposed to be the flagship year. You
know, I was all excited and looking forward to
it. And that was taken away from me. So now I
had to do PT going through that process. And
I'll never forget, I was in Walpole, Massachusetts
at Core Fitness, and I had gotten some magazine
that talked about speed ladders and drills. So
I was like, well, it's in the magazine. I should
try that. So I did some sort of botched rendition
of the icky shuffle and or just other footwork.
And the guy came around the corner and goes,
hey, you want a plan? You want a workout plan?
And I was like, who are you? He's like, Brian
McDonough. I'm the director of strength and conditioning
here. I was like, what's that? So he kind of
explains it to me, whatever. does an eval, does
some stuff, wrote me a plan. And I'll never forget
that I do the plan. And like each day I got stronger.
And then the jumping, I jumped higher. And I
was like, how does this, how does, how does this
thing and that thing together? And then there
was a, we go through it. There was a picture
of me at Penn state. And again, I'm all of, you
know, five, 10, probably trending five, nine
now where my whole face and head was up at, you
know, eight feet and I'm penetrating and I'm
doing the block over the net. I'd never been
able to do that. And I remember telling him,
I was like, This stuff's magic. And he goes,
it's not magic. It's exercise science. Go learn
it. And so that set me up in the spring to go
to University of Rhode Island. And so I finished
with a degree in communication and a minor in
kinesiology, but spent a lot more time hands
on training and just really became fascinated
with physical culture. I didn't know it was called
that at the time, but just historical stuff of
training and then, you know, learning the science
and the physics was super great. And so I took
that and ran with it. and did my internship and
that's how i ended up in my first college job
at salve regina university and that was super
impactful and so i had a really great mentor
in tom blaney and he was another one of those
ones figured out fio and then you come in and
you learn and then we had a weird exchange of
where the textbooks didn't line up with what
was really happening That wasn't how it worked.
And he's like, correct. And so then you start
figuring out, and you just start racking up floor
time. And so I've had a lot of great mentors
since then, but I do credit Brian McDonough taking
the time. I didn't have money to pay him. He
now has his own facility and works with the New
England Patriots. So he's continued to work with
countless Super Bowl champs and everything. But
I thought that was such an important moment because
he didn't have to reach out. He didn't have to
do that. So as he paid it forward, um, that made
a big difference on me. And so I'll always, I
did something this summer with the local high
school, um, some training stuff. And so you always,
I think you need to have at least, at least 5
% of your kind of year, have something to give
back and give it to the kid where it can make
a difference, the middle school, the high school,
um, and just, you know, instill to them, instill
in them that they can be great. I think a lot
of people forget that some young individuals
just need to be told, Hey, go be a badass. Hey,
go be great. go shine. And, and how powerful
that can be for, especially like you said, someone
who maybe at home doesn't have that. That's where
as a coach or an instructor, you can make a profound
impact way outside of the athletics. Absolutely.
Well, I mean, my son has that at home. I mean,
you know, like to think i still walk the walk
but i still step back and his mentors and jrotc
and track and cross country do that as well because
i think that's the other thing is even if you
are creating a good environment for your child
you've also got to have the humility to know
that you're not the expert in that area and you
know some i think some parents think that all
of a sudden they know the entire world of soccer
or whatever it is that their kid just started
doing but if you've got a good leader step back
and let them lead Yeah. And I think where those
dads mean well, and the helicopter parents in
general, moms too, it's okay to care about your
kid. But when you start doing the, my kid's not
getting enough playing time, you need to go out
and practice. I think that is, we've shown with
research, that is the worst thing you can do
to instill lifelong love for activity because
then it becomes a job. And at some point, the
kid may be really interested in middle school,
but then high school, it's not there. And I fall
back on that whole thing that my coach said to
me is whatever you want to do in life, do it
passionately. But if it's not, then step out.
And I think people need to have those moments
to step out. And no matter how I think about
with my son, you know, when I brought him in
and. He's going to do a workout with me. And
I don't remember if he's in middle school or
whatever, but he goes, when am I going to get
to work with a real coach? I was like, excuse
me. He's like, I want to work with coach. Whoever
one of the interns that I had at the time was
like, yeah, right on. And you're always going
to be dad. Yeah. You're always going to be mom
or husband. Yep. And just stay out of your, stay
out of the way and try to be supportive. And
when they're ready, um, try to provide a buffet
of options. Don't try to shove the food down
their throat and make them, you know, do it this
one way. Cause what worked for you may not. work
for them and all you're doing is creating friction
where it doesn't need to be absolutely well i
coach a crossfit gym and a few years ago one
of my fellow coaches who um in the crossfit world
where he got to the top level that they had at
the time i think it was level three or four or
whatever it was very very intelligent guy um
and my wife was training at the time as well
and i would you know say hey babe you know you
need to you need to do this this and this and
she would just ignore me and i'd be all right
steve can you tell becky to do this this and
this and he'd tell her and she'd be like oh that's
such a good idea steve thank you so much and
i'd just be like oh for fuck's sake but though
you said sometimes you do exactly someone just
have to say all right you you listen to them
they know as much if not more than me they're
now your go -to person and more importantly you'll
actually listen to them because they're gonna
you're gonna say do an extra rep and they're
gonna be like yeah you still didn't do the dishes
last night and like what what are we doing what
are we bringing this in for but just again know
your know your lane and stay in it now just touching
on the sports science for a second i did my ex
-phys in university of north london a two -year
and then finished up at uf and an observation
being a coach the whole time as well and when
i say a coach a very part -time coach um was
i didn't see a huge application from the academic
world to set you up well to be a strength and
conditioning coach in the real world what has
been your observation of the academic side and
that transition yep um great question research
and academia is super important it's super important
for advancing knowledge and physiology and leveraging
all the the valuable things that science can
do but the practical applied field has a lot
of different constraints that researchers don't
always you know, jive with it. You know, I love
when it's like, well, you know, do this workout,
this workout, you know, whatever. And I'm like,
well, what if there's a giant exam on Thursday?
What if coach gets pissed and like runs the hell
out of them on Tuesday? How do you take that?
Well, don't, because remember, science wants
to control as many variables as possible, but
that's not real. And so actually speaking with
Dr. Kramer and, you know, we're actually working
on a book that'll be coming out probably this
summer with Human Kinetics, where we try to break
that down. And what we boiled it down to is there
are three C's that you need in order to be successful.
So you need to have the credentials. So we're
going to go and say, you need to know like where
your elbow is and where your kneecap is. So that's
foundational credentials. So you need to know
what a par Q is. If you're going to be training,
you're going to need to know how to do coaching
cues. You're going to need to know the difference
between a counter movement, jump with your hands
and a counter movement with your hands on your
hips. So you need to know of those things. The
next thing is you need competence. And so competence
is the ability to apply that knowledge. And that's
really a competence is where you have two branches
of passionate people. You're either going to
go into research where competence means you're
standardized and you're thorough. Competence
means you're now taking that knowledge and putting
it in a packageable product that works. And so
you have to have higher levels of emotional intelligence.
And remember, in the hard sciences, biology and
physics and things like that, the brain that
goes into that. is very analytical so to find
someone who's got the range to you know be able
to read the room read the facial expressions
also be able to calculate a power equation that's
um that's a thing that you know you kind of genetically
have to be wired for and then and mentored and
then you have to run the system so i think about
computers like you mentioned you have your computer
boot up Some are going to boot up quick. Some
are going to boot up slow. We know for a fact
from when I ran the internship at Yale, it's
roughly 500 to 800 hours of floor time coaching,
active coaching floor time to make you like usable,
like less likely to kill somebody where you have
enough wherewithal to be like, wow, the crash
guards are down or you know what this person
looks like they're having a bad day. Maybe it's
not a good time to go heavy. So that's just to
be, you know, somewhat somewhat hireable, and
then you need to get your certifications and
stuff, which goes into your credentials. So now
you've kind of got that. And then the next thing
is the commitment. And where this is where I've
seen is that you can have some really good people
that like after 10 hours of work in the week,
they're, they're shot. And I think, especially
now, as we look at the new paradigm of sports,
you have a sports scientist, and then you have
a data analyst, and then you have a nutritionist.
You have all these ists, probably about nine
to 10 ists that now are involved in the development
of an athlete. And each one of them has various
levels of commitment. I think that's probably
where I've seen some of the greatest friction
is that you have someone who's super, super good
at what they do, and they love coming in from
eight to two. But the athletes all need to be
seen at five. And they've got a family. And again,
it's no fault on the individual. That's what
you offer. But as an administrator, you need
to look and say, well, what? For the next six
months, what is the commitment level? And as
people get older and they have more experience,
they also have a lot more responsibilities. And
that's not to a fault, but that needs to be managed
appropriately, even down to little things like
scheduling, having consistent scheduling. So
that way you can have alignment. So you really
need the credentials. So you do need to know
kind of things. You need the competence. So that's
your internships, mentorships, seminars. And
you need as much as you need. And everybody's
different. And then you have to have that commitment.
I mean, pretty typical we see in strength and
conditioning. People get excited. They come in
in their early 20s. They get their degree. They
either get a GA, a master's, or an unpaid internship.
Then they get picked up at an assistant level.
They ride that out. Some go to directors, or
then they branch out or burn out. And so we see
that in between the 30 to 35 -year -old range.
And so, and I can even speak for myself, you
know, had a great time at Yale. It was an awesome
experience. We accomplished a lot of firsts evers.
But also now at Hawken. The idea is that I can
have a conversation with anyone in the globe.
I'm working on rehab in Cairo. I'm talking to
people in Bangladesh and people in Chile for
how they're approaching their talent ID. So it
has a step. And so for me, I followed almost
that course to a T at 35 saying, OK, how do I
make an even greater range? It was probably one
of the best recruiting pitches our CEO ever made.
He said, good job doing all that stuff in New
Haven. Why don't you want to take it to the next
level and make a global impact? I was like, oh.
That's very interesting. Let me think about that.
And that's how I got into touch with all the
operators and people like that. I just wouldn't
have time in the college setting. So I think
that's really the role academics plays. And I
do think it's important. And even people say,
well, grades don't matter. Grades kind of do,
because let's be honest, we all know that like
physiology and anatomy sucks, but do you have
enough wherewithal to get a 4 .0 or get a 3 .5?
Because the grades, all that showed me was your
commitment to trying to get it done. If you roll
in with a 2 .7, 2 .5, I'm going to say, well,
I didn't like school. Well, guess what? In the
profession, you're going to do a lot of things
you don't like. And if your degree of liking
it degrades how committed you are to excellence,
that's a problem. Like I can teach you science,
I can teach you reps, I can teach you teaching,
but if excellence, you know, committing to excellence
isn't in your vocabulary, I don't know if that
can be created. I think you either have it or
you don't. Excellent. Well, thank you for that.
One more kind of tangent before we walk through
Yale and the data analysis and all the incredible
things that you were doing there. You mentioned
about shin spins. I touched on, you know, overuse
injuries resulting in these, you know, basically
handicapped 18 -year -olds. One thing that seems
to be a common denominator that's come from a
lot of the coaches on the show is the athlete
that just has driven down one sport their whole
childhood seems to have a much higher likelihood
of injury, but the multi -sport athlete seems
to be a lot more resilient. What is your perception
of that idea? Yeah, and I get it because what
they're trying to allude to is repetitive motion.
And obviously, I think someone who plays soccer.
Probably because, again, it's on grass or turf
versus a basketball player or maybe tennis where
the surface is hard. And also soccer, you're
predominantly running. Those are things that
we do. But take someone playing ice hockey. That's
not normal mammalian. Nobody wakes up with skates
out of the womb. That's a trained skill. So I
think your hyper skilled sports are probably
a little bit more track to get over training.
But on the flip side, on those three sport athletes.
Well, the reason why they play three sports is
because they're really good. So, you know, sometimes
you see those single sport athletes. You know,
I think we had a kid in our in our area in high
school. He played on the football team and he
was the quarterback and won state titles. Then,
you know, he was at six to he could dunk and
hit his head on the rim. So he played basketball
and then he played baseball in the spring. And
so his three sports wasn't out of him trying
to preserve his longevity. I do think that. If
LeBron tried out for the ping pong team, nobody's
going to stop him. You just have this kind of
athleticism. So whenever we look at those problems,
I don't know if I'm down the track of specialization
because there are places that do it right. Like
you mentioned in England, the Aspire program
and some of the other talent pipelines, those
are going on and they're managed fine. But in
the United States, we have a problem. High school
coach isn't talking to the basketball coach,
isn't talking to the club coach. So I think it's
a load management problem, knowing that every
individual, their resiliency to their load is
largely genetic. And then with their training,
if you are weaker and more elastic, load hits
you differently than if you're slower and stronger
or even fast, but strong to absorb those eccentric
shocks. Shin splints, tendon issues are because
something took the load that isn't really supposed
to. Well, that's a perfect segue to where you
found yourself. So a lot of people, when they
think of strength and conditioning, we're looking
at the regular blueprints and, okay, if I do
A, B, and C, then athlete X is going to perform
this way. You found yourself in a much more analytical
arena. So walk me through how you found yourself
in the kind of data space and then how that applied,
especially as you got into Yale. Yeah. I mean,
as we mentioned, the data stuff was really hammered
into me in seventh grade where we were sitting
there in ninth grade going to Boston College.
One of our coaches worked with the club team
there and just statting and charting. And so
the law of large numbers became pretty evident
that, you know, I can make you better. You know,
someone who has a 300 hitting on the outside
and volleyball, they're never necessarily going
to be hitting 600. The person who just is always
late, not squared away, that kind of end product
that the numbers don't lie. And where people
get in trouble is they'll say, you know, vertical
jump, or we've talked before, bench press. They
pick one thing. And I think that's probably the
biggest mistake that I see now, both as a coach
and someone who works at Hawk and where people
get married to this one thing, instead of realizing
we got to look at a collection of things, created
a weighted composite. And then that composite
is a great driver of failure, not success. I've
said time and time again, there is no such thing
as. talent identification, you know, there's
only turd identification. You can say someone
who's four foot. I mean that. And then by the
way, anybody listening, I say that with the most
loving, you know, appreciation for people that
try myself included. I was really good in high
school, but guess what? At five foot 10 playing,
you know, setter and volleyball. The next level
up would have required me to be taller. And I
can't, there's nothing I can genetically do to
get taller. And so you kind of reach these limits.
And so that's just the nature of the composite.
And I also think that there's nothing wrong if
you don't have an elite composite, just if you
enjoy pickleball, if you enjoy golf, do it. Like
I, that's my, it's currently where I'm at in
my stage of my life is whatever you can do to
get people moving and disconnected and unplugged
all for it. Like I'd rather people try and try
and you're not doing it at that elite level.
When we talk about sports, I mean, if you want
to win, we know the recipe for this. We know
how to go through. And especially the more money
there is in a sport, the more refined that composite
is. So if you told me you want to win in football,
we can give you a blueprint to do that. You want
to do it in basketball now. When we get into
Cirque du Soleil or ballet, that's tricky because
there isn't the same kind of money as there is,
say, in the NFL. And so that's where we're starting
to see more research going towards building these
composites. And if you use kind of an insurance
risk management, risk mitigation model, that's
very effective. And, you know, I think about
some of our customers that had their first year
working with us and, you know, magically it was
the best year ever. Now they all got new jobs.
So super cool. I'm glad that it worked, but they
had to initially take that leap of faith when
we're talking about some of these things about
giving meaningful numbers in a composite format
that they can ultimately do something about with
realistic confidence and reducing those liabilities.
So whether it's on a roster, 20 % of the team
is going to make up 80 % of the production. That's
the Pareto economic effect and it's everywhere.
So instead of trying to make that 20 % better,
let's go for the low hanging fruit and make that
80%, 70 % or 60%. And the reduction of a liability
is an asset to a program. Now to an individual,
and we talked to on the individual operator or
in firefighting. Do I necessarily care about
the guy on the job who's been there 15 years
about making their 40 yard dash better or their
bench press better? No, that individual has an
incredible amount of experience and we need to
make sure that they can still touch their toes,
that they have healthy range of motion, that
their sleep, because now when they started, they
were single individual and now they have a family.
And so this person isn't sleeping and they've
been put on a 24 hour shift. my focus on the
composite now goes to that you know reducing
those areas of friction and that's ultimately
what makes a bigger impact and so really using
financial modeling but i still you know long
-winded answer to say it goes back to what i
saw in high school and then now applying that
into the domain of training stimulus well i have
a lot of questions when it comes to the tactical
athlete but before we do talk to me about where
yale was at And then what you brought, you know,
you and your team brought to that particular
college and then what the results were. Yeah,
so it was a crazy story in that I was a CEO of
a tech startup for five years and we had software
that we had built to do the modeling we just
talked about. And that came to an end and I kind
of just took some time to recharge. But having
so many different customers at the college level,
Yale was a customer. And they reached out and
they said, hey, all that stuff you did before
at the other company, would you like to do it
here? I don't know, go back and forth. But then
I remember getting the call from the head football
coach and he straight up said, he's like, we
haven't beat Harvard in 10 years. And I'm like,
all right, right. Harvard, yeah, got it. And
then the lacrosse coach said, we want to win
a national championship. And I commonly remember
talking to both of them and we worked out a deal
and I started there in January of 16. And in
hindsight, I probably came off pretty arrogant
that I said, yeah, no, we can do that. But I'm
so confident now of what I know in the data and
how to manipulate it with training to get a result.
We did it. And then that first year in 2016,
I think we were three and seven, but we beat
Harvard, which again, at Yale or Harvard, either
of those institutions, you can lose every game,
but if you beat them, it's a success. So people
were really excited. And then in 2017, not only
did football beat Harvard again, they won their
first outright title since I believe the early
80s. So now this is like you're just getting
lucky in football. It's on an upswing, whatever.
But lacrosse wasn't doing too shabby either.
And so in 2018, we played Duke at Gillette Stadium
here and beat them in the national title, which
was shocking. And then we had the player of the
year, the Heisman. For anyone on the West Coast
who doesn't know, the Heisman for lacrosse is
the tourton. And that's a really big honor that
nobody had ever even been nominated for. and
our captain ben reeves who now is in med school
going to cure cancer uh he uh he got the number
one player award so we literally won everything
possible for the two teams that i had had you
know just within about two years of implementing
this kind of approach and it's not you know people
ask what's the what's your favorite workout best
exercise let's let's not talk like that it's
very much individualized medicine approach that
we developed. And then eventually when I was
promoted to oversee the entire department as
the director of sports performance and innovation,
I was able to leverage all of the tools at the
university, build custom hardware, work on analytics.
And then I was lucky enough, and I say this in
every podcast I'm in, I had the most incredible
staff ever assembled. I believe at the college
level that you look at what we did. We looked
at some of the graphs that we were doing and
I'm talking about, we got to the point of figuring
out if I take you and I measure your elbow and
I measure your knee with the DEXA scans we had
with the med school, we could forecast how much
lean muscle you had. And we knew that if you
were an offensive lineman and you didn't have
at least a certain size elbow and a size knee,
you weren't going to get to 200 pounds of muscle,
which means you weren't going to be a first team
all Ivy. And so we embedded that into recruiting.
Same thing in lacrosse. We started finding these
unique things. that really gave us really good
predictions. And so think about fantasy football
or fantasy sports. We were so far ahead of our
time in 2017 and 2018 that it really set Yale
up for success. And when I left there, I believe
there were 16 teams in the top 25. We had all
Americans. We had football players getting drafted.
I think currently there's five or six in the
roster, which has been a long time if ever Yale
had that. But the leading tackler for the second
year in a row is a Yale guy, Foye Aluokin. And
that's an individual that He's a great example
of he did everything that we asked in our program
to buy into the process and he saw the results,
but he didn't do it because he said, I will do
this only until I get to the NFL and be one of
the best linebackers ever. He just did it because
he believed in me as a coach and that allowed
him to go shine and his successes will continue
him. Rodney Thomas, Dieter Iceland, you know,
Jaden Graham, all of these guys will continue
to go on. So I'm really excited about that. And
that's on the men's side, but then also. We got
golfer of the year. You know, we had some gymnastics
ladies become All -Americans. The lacrosse team,
women's lacrosse team hadn't had a winning season
in a long time. And then they were nationally
ranked in the top 25. Women's ice hockey when
Coach Bolden come in, I don't think they had
a winning season ever. And then they made it
to like the final four. So very exciting to work
with such incredible athletes. And that's the
thing probably I miss the most is that. Yale
kids were very smart and they probably taught
me more than I ever taught them because they're
going to be rocket scientists, brain surgeons,
who knows what. And they were just really exceptional
people. And so I do miss that. And then my staff.
And since then, the staff has gone on. My first
intern I ever had. Coach TJ, he's now the director.
So that's great. He's carrying the torch. But
then each of the assistants, you know, they're
now VPs at this place or head place or head trainers,
and they're scattered all across the globe. So
we had 160 interns come through that program.
And it's been a really great community that we
stay in touch with. So that I think was, you
know, I consider that time kind of my master's.
in sports performance, and then excited now that
as I transitioned to Hawk and take those lessons
I've learned, but to really crank it up another
level, kind of in the research and analytics
side of things. So that's obviously the collegiate
sports man and woman. You know, the community
that I'm most passionate about, obviously, is
tactical athletes. George Ryan is our mutual
friend that connected us, an amazing athlete
himself, an amazing high performer in the law
enforcement space. You have this lens on this
young athlete, the student athlete for a long
time. Walk me through your transition into working
with some of these tactical athletes. And then
what were some of the principles that you were
applying to sports that you started also applying
to the selection of these men and women? Yeah,
I know you mentioned George and he's a great
friend. And again, someone that, you know, I
turn to just kind of, I think about him as one
of the people in your network that you ever need
to bounce an idea off of him. He'll listen and
he gives you great feedback. And it's been very
helpful to me. And it gives me insights not only
from his perspective as an instructor, but someone
who's actually done it for years. And I think
that's what makes him unique. And when I listen
to him, I was introduced to him via Jason Shea
here in Boston and seeing that. And he was the
one who really opened the door for me to work
with law enforcement where I started looking
around. I'm like, this is a really challenging
problem. I mean, there is literally billions
of dollars globally poured into sports. I don't
know. Maybe you do about how much money is going
into law enforcement research. I don't think
it's billions. Yeah. Let's just go with a lot
less. So it's certainly a lot less. But if you
took it for what it is and firefighting and law
enforcement and I call military as well, there's
a set of really unique tasks that have to be
performed a lot. And normally in sports, you
get more stats, you win. The celebration is there.
But what's weird is in the tactical community,
that's just a given. Oh, and by the way, if you
mess up in the hundreds and hundreds of good
things you do once, it's now a national incident
or it's an international incident. So I thought
that a completely inverse reward system was very
unique. And then the other thing is in sports.
I have a lineman. He's going to go up against
another lineman, a tennis player. There's a set
fixed rules. There's a court size. So, you know,
some of the SWAT guys, you walk in, like, you
don't know who's in the building. You don't know
if this person's on drugs. You don't know if
it's an ambush. You don't know. And so now the
constraints of the game change. So now we have
two really, really unique problem sets that you
have to think about it and probably more than
athletics. I put a lot more focus in on the individual
operator and we talk about their job. I think
you'd mentioned some of the shifts, maybe they're
12 hours, 24, 48 hours, but there's 168 hours
in a week. And what I found was there was a lot
of opportunity within that 168 to recover a little
bit better, to reinforce a joint or mechanic
when someone steps out of a vehicle or they hop
a fence. How are they landing? Are they landing
hard? Are they landing soft? Are they landing
hard because they're weak or because their kit
is different? I know one of the guys was explaining
to me that some of the older veterans have a
much better kit layout. Well, on the force plates,
I can see that some of the younger guys might
load up 20 pounds on their right side for the
way that they load their mags or the way that
they carry a breaching tool. Well, maybe that
needs to be switched or maybe that needs to be
centralized. And so there's things. more so than
ever in tactical it's about what what's the low
-hanging fruit within the 168 not just the game
i don't know if that makes sense um because we're
always talking about conditioning and this and
that for the game but you have no known game
and in firefighting my my uh i mentioned to you
my uncle is in cambridge square they might go
out on six you know calls and not get out once
and it's just a fire alarm Or it could be literally
the most important thing in their career. And
so that kind of impending doom, I don't know
if it's doom or excitement, but that just kind
of anticipation, I think that weighs differently
than the individual's like, oh, I have five games
this week. And I know here's the scouting report.
There's none of that. And in operations and firefighting,
you have specific tasks that you're going to
have to do so we can practice that. If you're
not strong enough to pick up the hose, we can
make you stronger. And I say, or, because I don't
need you to be a power lifter, but I need you
to be strong enough that that isn't a major struggle.
And so we can look at different contexts of movements
of skill and of tactics and then reinforcing
it. And I don't have an answer yet. Cause again,
it's something that's ever evolving, but I do
think that in the community, you have the early
fit individual. And then there's a weird time
of seasoned experience, but. Maybe they have
a wife. Maybe they don't. Maybe they got divorced.
Maybe they have kids. You have kind of these
other factors that weren't present at the beginning
of the career. And then on the backside, that
older individual that's now broken down. And
so they can't be, their mind might be sharp.
They might be the best at leadership and decision
-making, but physiologically, they can't do the
bare minimum things that need to be done. So
then they get pulled off the truck. And that
I think also is really devastating for someone
who identifies with their group to be physically
told they can't be on the truck is really hard.
And so that kind of goes into our conversation
earlier. If I'm a leadership position, how am
I managing that? Well, it's interesting when
you said about the contrast between sports and
the tactical community with after the radio goes
off, whether it's a firefighter or law enforcement.
I always remember this, you know, talking about
dispatchers. So you have them in a call center.
They're taking these calls. Someone's actually
dying on the end of the phone, but they don't
get to do any physical release. So you think
about a stress response back in, you know. So
the dispatchers have that all the time. The fire
and police, we have it some of the time. So the
tones go off. We don't know if we're going to
be climbing to the top of Grenfell Tower in London.
Or if it's a fire alarm, you get canceled halfway
there, you turn your lights off, turn around.
So you've had this adrenal response, especially
if it comes in something very acute, but another
unit takes it in the end. So you're ready for
a cardiac arrest. You're ready to cut a family
out of a car. And then you don't. So, you know,
the unknowns in this profession, I think the
only sport that I think physically that even
come close to mimicking what we do is probably
MMA. because of the different you know stresses
and angles and the way you're falling and all
these things everything else has some sort of
predictability to it even though there are variables
in a tennis game or football you still you're
going to be running one direction you know someone's
coming at you you know going to hit you a certain
way hopefully not in the head and they're not
going to kick your feet away or but in in a fire
I mean, who knows what's going to happen in there?
Is the fall going to give way? Is the ceiling
going to land on your head? You know, are the
stairs going to fall through? So there are all
these different variables, which makes, you know,
as you said, making the base of a firefighter
or a police officer as strong as possible imperative
because we don't know really what exactly we're
going to be exposed to. So the more of a foundation
you can build in these responders, the higher
chance there is of surviving whatever they go
into. Yeah, and I would even say with an MMA,
if we wanted to make it closer, you're going
to fight someone within the next year. We're
going to give you, I don't know, what was your
average call time on the truck? It would depend,
but usually I think we were there within about
three or so minutes. So you're going to have
a fight this year at some point. you're going
to get a phone call. And in three minutes, you're
going to have to go into the ring. We're not
going to tell you who you're going to fight.
So you have no scout and they might have a weapon,
but we're not going to tell you till you get
there. And they could also be on a lot of drugs
and they could also have their friends jump in
at any time. Good luck with that. And that's
what the thing is that it's just, and by the
way, if you win, there's going to be no fans.
Nobody's going to reward you. You're not going
to have a parade, but if you don't, again, it's
a, it's a national. crisis. It's an international
crisis. And that's just the weight and gravity.
And I know George, I listened to him on this
podcast talks about it, the amount of training,
the amount of review and nobody's perfect. Like,
and I think that's really hard to expect any
group or population to be perfect. I think you
can have the resources and, and systems in place
to handle things when they need to be handled
and try to prevent them in the future. But if
anybody ever wants to, I mean, go. go look and
see what some of our first responders are doing
you know anywhere in the globe and it's just
sometimes it's a war zone you know and it's just
tough and they have families and again there's
good apples and there's bad apples but for the
majority of the time you know you pick up the
phone and you call 9 -1 -1 you you want someone
who's there who's there to call to serve and
and i think that's what we need to focus on and
the more you support and nurture that the better
it is and so it's certainly certainly a tough
thing for anybody and just the parallelism but
that's also why experience is so valuable. To
get someone 10 years in football, that's a coveted
asset. Someone who's got 10, 15 years on the
force, every year that you can make them stay
a little bit longer, mentor a little bit more,
use their institutional knowledge in the craft,
in the field and profession, that's like gold
for any department. And that's where I know we've
talked about prevention, getting ahead of things,
don't be reactive. That can be really hard for
the people that are counting money to say, well,
why do we need to do this extra training? What's
our ROI on this? And it's tough because that
ROI may not manifest until 10 years from now
when, oh, remember that class we took on wellness?
Remember that class we took on stress response?
So I think it's a very unique challenge and something
that I'm excited to continue to work on as we
go forward. Well, speaking of ROI, that's a good
tangent for what I wanted to put to you. Again,
you have this amazing contrast of collegiate
sports and the tactical athlete. In many professions,
I would argue probably fire service is the worst.
The Northeast tends to do it a little bit better,
but the rest of the country, the average work
week is going to be a 24 -48, which is a 56 -hour
work week. So every third day, these men and
women are awake all night, every three days for
their entire career. One of the things that I've
been trying to get people to understand is the
negative acute and chronic impact of sleep deprivation
on not only mental health, but physical health,
cancer, obesity, and even musculoskeletal injury.
But the understanding that if we gave these responders
more time to recover from being awake when we
all sleep in our beds. the ROI would actually
be huge on the back end because we wouldn't be
breaking them. We wouldn't be paying out overtime
and workman's comp claims and, you know, all
these wrongful death or malpractice suits, all
these things that these companies or these, excuse
me, cities and counties pay. That investment
at the front would save money, you know, down
the back end. What has been your... That's the
best way of putting this. What is the value of
sleep in the collegiate athlete? And how can
we apply that knowledge of performance into the
tactical space so that there's an understanding
of the value of sleep rather than it being viewed
as a weakness? Sure. So I'll put a disclaimer
that when I answer these, I really come from
the Matthew Walker, Peter Attia, kind of that
kind of tribe. where we know it's really important.
We all agree. And I would even say probably sleep,
you know, depending on how you want to argue
one, two on nutrition and then physical activity
training being, you know, most impactful to longevity
and performance of life. Sleep's probably a solid
three between those two. Because again, very
few things, you know, you don't eat for days
or you have enough water, you can fast. But for
sleep, if you don't like, there's a reason why
we have to do it. And we're learning just so
much about sleep isn't eight hours. It isn't
10 hours. There are actual biological things
that are occurring that on a cellular level matter
on a hormonal level matter in athletics. We know
it matters, but yet coaches still 6 a .m. Build
character and fine. You can say that. And sometimes
from scheduling constraints, I know at Yale.
None of our professors were giving kids days
off. So some started at eight, some started at
three. So guess what? At 6 a .m., nobody has
classes. And we know that there's a greater propensity
for risk there. So you have to manage things
a little bit differently. And maybe you can't
go as intense. If you do choose to go intense,
then you need to expect that there's going to
be a down regulation in performance or even greater
risk for acute failures. But in the tactical
space, I don't know if we're ever going to get
rid of shifts. So I think that's administrative
independent of the act of firefighting. That's
a political union kind of large scale change
that is years, if not decades, if never going
to change. But what we can say is in the time
that you have come up with a strategy to have
good sleep hygiene, we used to do things about
shutting off the blue screen and especially now.
And again, I don't. I don't have any affiliation
with them, but Aura, I've used them extensively.
And just the insight of how much does a glass
of alcohol when you're stressed out, not only
does it maybe not affect the situation, but then
damages your sleep and certain foods and even
just some of the meditative things. I'm not a
big meditation guy. However, you put that ring
on and you can actually see your heart rate come
down. You can see your HRV change. So you can
actually make a difference. And I think everyone
is aware. in the classical Hans Selye's gas principle
about the stimulus, the alarm, and then the super
compensation. So you have the kind of the training,
the blip, and then the recovery. More so than
ever, we know that sleep isn't a passive thing.
It's actually active part of recovery. And so
thinking about that as a slingshot or a trampoline
to come out of your stressful environments. And
so I would challenge anybody listening here,
write down what your sleep program is, or we
call it sleep hygiene in college, and then see
what you can tweak. Do you know how good your
sleep is? Maybe you only get seven hours of sleep,
but can we make it 10 times better? The answer
is yeah. You can look at Thorne. They've got
some great supplements. Momentous has great supplements
for sleep, but really treating sleep almost as
a training. almost as like you're going out and
you're doing a training on the truck or you're
going to respond to an incident. Treat your sleep
like that and get it as optimized. And if anybody
lives near a city, most people are shocked to
know most universities, LA, Yale, coast to coast,
people are always looking for sleep study patients
for their research. Probably one of the best
things you could do is invest in one of those.
be a participant, get your readouts and really
get a true breakdown. And most of the time, they
don't even charge you. In some instances, they
might pay you to be part of the study. But I
think sleep is probably the new frontier for
being optimized to make an immediate impact,
just like we've seen with training and nutrition
throughout the last couple of decades. See, and
I agree with you completely on the ownership
with the sleep hygiene. The issue I have is That's
always the thing. It's always on the responders.
My mission is to just hold the mirror up to people
that are working 40 hours a week, go home to
their bed every night, that are making decisions
for responders to work 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a
week. And, you know, those are the ones that
are waking up at three in the morning, running
into a burning building or trying to figure out
medical calculations on a three -year -old cardiac
arrest. So it's the fact that we've devolved
to where we are now. It shouldn't. be years it
shouldn't be in you know a mountain to climb
as i point out you know we we had chimneys excuse
me we had children going up chimneys and working
in factories in the victorian times so someone
said what the fuck are we doing this is ridiculous
we're killing these children this is where we
are in the first responder community like the
department that protects around me the the county
they work 56 hour weeks but then they're short
staffed so they tell these men and women you
can't go home today you've got to work another
24 that's 80 hours a week So not sleeping, I
think that works out as four of those seven days.
And now with the suicides you had through the
roof, you know, cancers, all these different
things. So, you know, I'm hoping that the people
that make the decisions can understand that without
sleep, it affects negatively everything from
mental health, physical health, injuries, the
whole gamut. And if you can look yourself in
the mirror and go home after 40 hours. telling
these people that they can't go home for 80 hours,
then, you know, if that doesn't make people angry,
I don't know what does. Yeah, my hope is that
we're collecting so much data now on the commercial
side and in research. Sleep research 10 years
ago was not what it is today. So my hope and
what I would encourage first responders is get
involved. Get involved with these studies because
data is power. It influences politics. It influences
policies. But if we don't participate, that's
tough. And I know, you know, you're out in California
and we've talked, but we just have a customer
came online. Santa Ana College has a tremendous
firefighting program and they're going to have
force plates and start measuring kinematics and
how they look in gear, how they don't. And that's
a tremendous thing. And they're looking for participants.
If you're listening, just reach out and start
to collect it. And then on the flip side. What's
very hard is that especially here today, we're
a very insta world. Sleep is important, but you
know what? I can tell you right now, if I told
you to stay up through the night, you can do
it. But unfortunately, you do that again, you
do that again. That's a cultural thing or that's
an accepted practice. The impact, when the down
regulation and when the trouble starts, it's
too late. And so we have to let people know that
just because smoking cigarettes is another example.
If you smoke a cigarette, more likely than not,
you will not die on that first time. And I think,
unfortunately, we can't see sleep. I can see
you have a broken arm. I could see someone fell
off a ladder. So when we can kinesthetically
feel it, touch it, or we can see it. It's there.
And that's why mental illness is really struggled.
Is my mind playing tricks on me? Am I really
tired? No. Mental toughness, you push through.
And I think everybody has a different amount
they need to be optimal. But when you have policies
that are setting you up to fail, that's a problem.
But in the meantime, until they get changed,
the best advice I can give is that there are
sleep hygiene things you can do to make the best
of it. But if you're an administrator out there
listening and you said 40 hours, yeah. Just run
the shifts with us. The people that make the
policies need to understand because like you
said, it's not that you're packing groceries.
It's you're going to have to go calculate how
much medicine someone needs or perform a very
life -saving, critical intervention. I don't
really want that person being sleepy or cloudy
from their mind, but yet it happens time and
time again. So that's kind of my take on that
stuff, but it's certainly an area that needs
to get better. And I hope it does. sooner rather
than later. Well, again, thank you for your perspective.
The more of these voices that we have, hopefully
the more we'll get to that critical point where
there will be a change. I want to get to your
own. personal kind of health journey in a second
but just before we do you transition from yale
to hawking dynamics talk to me about the company
what your offer and you've talked about santa
ana i'm in the west coast now but when i was
at anaheim fire that was uh you know one of the
colleges that we'd go to so you know what what
work you're doing um in the tactical world with
your company now yeah so hawking dynamics is
a company based out of Portland, Maine. But we're
in 36, I think even more now countries and we
make force plates. And so force plates for anyone
who doesn't know, they're basically this device
that you stand on. They've been around forever,
but predominantly similar to how computers used
to be the size of a room. And it was a whole
floor of a building. Force plates were these
big research labs with a lot of wires. Our founder
created a way to be able to make that technology
that has decades of research into a portable,
meaningful 60 pound travel case. And so research
grade data, but now you can go anywhere in the
world. You can hook up to your hotspot on your
phone. You can do it in a lab. You can take it
on the road with a game. And so that's the hardware.
Haken Dynamics though, as a company is really
a brand. And so we take that responsibility very
seriously as kind of leading the generation of
sports performance. A lot of tech companies,
oh, it's this new fangled thing. Try this, try
that. Is it validated? I mean, just even a simple
question, is your technology validated against
known gold standards? And companies will try
to push more and more and more. Ben, our CEO,
has done an incredible job of staying laser focused
on being the absolute authority when it comes
to force measurement using the plates. And so
we then take that and our staff, myself, I was
at Yale. I used the plates. I used it very well
for what I did. Well, we also have Peter Mundy,
who's a world -renowned researcher and biomechanist
out of England. We also have James Heinisch,
who's down in Australia. And so he's able to
go in and be able to really make sure that when
people are talking to someone in our company,
we were practitioners. So we like to think that
we're the practitioner's plate. And it can be
really intimidating to people. very quickly.
But when you set up with your account, and so
like I mentioned to you earlier, I deal with
PT clinics, I deal with fire departments. So
I'll speak to Santa Ana, you know, from 10 to
11 on Zoom, like we're doing now. And then I'll
go work with someone here in New York and then
give a presentation to someone down in North
Carolina. And so as we've continued to grow across
the globe, we're really trying to help practitioners
use the historical importance of force plates
in their day -to -day practice. but doing it
in a meaningful way. Sometimes force plates,
people will say, and again, there's a lot of
people in our space and they'll say, well, you
can test this and measure this and measure that.
If I went to the firehouse and I said, hey, we're
going to have training today for an hour. And
I just did testing for an hour. That's not going
to go over very well. What we talk about is give
us eight minutes. So if you have a one hour training,
give us eight minutes. And what can we see both
in your output? So how high you jump, how much
force you can produce, and then your strategy,
which is Yeah, you jumped really high, but you
landed like a sack of potatoes. If you continue
to do that, that's probably not conducive to
longevity. And so we break things into either
output or strategy and then develop a plan. So
after those eight minutes, and when I was at
Yale, we would do that 45 individuals, we would
then select the workout for the day. And where
that becomes incredibly powerful is you essentially
get a two week radar system of understanding
poor strategies. which is really what takes you
out of the game or takes you out of the fight.
But we can also use it to help guide our developmental
program. So say I think about San Jose volleyball
is a great example. The strength coach and the
sport coach and the athletic trainer, all three
of them had different dashboards. So they didn't
look at everything. They looked at their dashboard
to make better choices and better decisions for
the ladies. And they went on to have 20 wins
this past season. It's phenomenal. And that's
how it's supposed to work. So that's really Hawken
Dynamics. And we've done a lot of research. We're
continuing to push forward. But then also little
things of what's the customer experience like?
My title of chief innovation officer, it's a
long -winded way of saying, make sure that when
we build things, they don't suck. So that's the
report. That's the usability. And we are very
good at what we do. But if you listen to some
of our staff meetings and some of our developmental
meetings, we're probably our harshest critics.
Because it can't be good and it can't be perfect
once in a while. Trying to make something perfect
all the time is really, really challenging, but
a responsibility that we take really seriously.
And it's very exciting to see that come to fruition
when someone who's never made it through a season
has their first successful season. When you have
an operator who has to go back in after an ACL
and they're not sure if they're good to go to
say, you need to have confidence. You've done
your rehab. You've done your training. You're
actually better than what you were before. you
know, go forth with confidence. And I think that's
really where data makes a big impact of giving
you an empirical answer to now psychologically
be ready. Cause we know that if you're weak,
if I say you're weak, you don't know what you're
doing. If I just create a negative culture and
mindset, you can downgrade response time. You
can downgrade force production, but if you have
confidence. Just again, that's a little bit of
the placebo effect as well as that belief. But
then having not just placebo, but bought in,
I am faster, stronger, or I'm moving better.
That really does impact outputs that we see both
in the tactical space and in the sporting space.
Well, we talked the other day, and one thing
I haven't kind of got to yet. You mentioned about
being able to screen and not in an exclusionary
way, but to be able to, as you said before, not
find the winners, but find the people that maybe
are more likely to get hurt, maybe need to develop
a little bit more strength and mobility. What
are some of the tools that you bring assessing
people that are trying to get into a first responder
or military team? And then what are some of the
tools you bring to people already in there to
try and foster longevity in that operator or
that responder? Regardless of whatever group,
usually there's a population that is doing well.
George will mention, so say LA SWAT, good population
to look at. And I'm sure if you talk to them,
they're humble that they'll say, you know, we
got to do better. This is our ethos. But those
from an individual standpoint of looking at that
collection or that cohort as a, what we would
call a prototyping group, we want to look at
what are the characteristics? How do they jump?
How do they land? How do they push? How do they
pull? And then how often can they do it? How
frequently can they do it? And then say, okay,
being strong is good. Okay, let's bench press
400 pounds. Nope, that's a flawed logic. So there's
some level of strength that's required to do
their tasks. And then marrying that up with the
prototype group to now give you a standardized
data set. And if you're in that group, we want
to make sure that you don't fall below that threshold.
So looking at the average and thinking about
an average of standard deviation, two standard
deviations. with different triggering responses
or interventions we want to keep an eye on that
and that's truly i mean athlete monitoring tactical
monitoring um you're you're waiting to observe
something but you have an intervention on deck
i think that's what drives me crazy right now
when people say athlete monitoring um what does
that even mean if i look at yep you're slow yep
you're still slow yep you're not getting you're
still slow that doesn't help the situation versus
saying Right now, this individual is deficient
in top -end velocity. This is what we need to
do. This is when we expect it to come to fruition.
This is the development time. In three months,
we'll be there. Or vice versa, they won't be
there. And we don't need to recruit this person.
Or in the law enforcement or tactical community,
especially, it's been a lot of like, not fitness
tests, but fatness tests. It's a push -up. It's
a sit -up. It's some sort of almost gym class,
like run a mile. Don't be so deconditioned that
you're a liability to go to the academy. I don't
know if those tests are necessarily a good reflection
of who's going to be good. And I also don't know
if that's a good representation of who's going
to last because, right, because we have output
and then we have that strategy. So it's got to
be this happy medium of, you know, again, I don't
jump very high. So, you know, that's good. I'm
probably not going to necessarily have as many
lower body issues as someone who's 300 pounds
and jumps 30 inches. So we can look at that within
context. So marrying to the master population
what our incoming people need and then developing
it. If you're telling me right now you need to
be taller, that's probably nothing we can impact.
But forced production is something we can make
a tremendous change in. Metabolic conditioning,
bioenergetics, nutrition, lifestyle. We can make
some huge interventions. But if you don't know
what you're looking for, that becomes tough.
We had Adam Pettway on our podcast. And he eloquently
put it as you have to start with a question.
I think right now everyone's collecting data
and data and data. Well, so what? Like at the
end of the day, you want to fight fires and get
home to your family. If that's one data point,
fantastic. If that's 10, but don't hit me with
200 metrics that is just soup, you know, and
I can't, you know, go through it. And it probably
makes people more anxious. So I'm a big fan of
boiling things down into two or three things
for the next 12 weeks. This is what your focus
is. And then we're going to reassess. And so
that's the way we approach the tactical community.
Because what's interesting is you can run, you
can do this, even you can shoot. Well, can you
shoot fast? Can you shoot responsibly? Can you
make decisions? What happens when you shoot now
and then you run a mile and then shoot again?
Or if you do a 300 yard shuttle, is it different?
So those are the kinds of things that we need
to parse out because there's huge implications,
especially on the cognitive function of decision
-making that really is. probably more important
in the first responder community than even an
athlete. At the end of the day, if an athlete
messes up in practice, they'll just try again.
First responder gives the wrong dose and overdoses
someone, that's bad. Shoot the wrong person,
that's bad. So again, I think that imprinting
on the negative inverse is that you're expected
to do the job at a high level. That's where those
minimum thresholds to your prototype group becomes
so important. You got to know. And if you're
a leader, as you mentioned, if your top guys
or top ladies start going down because they shifted
to this new nighttime shift, what are you going
to do about it? Now you have the data, you're
obligated as a leader to try to make a change.
And that's what I hope is that wherever we go
or anybody that we work with, we can provide
them with a useful resource to help them to make
a positive change to themselves or to the groups
that they oversee. brilliant well again i appreciate
that i mean it's another completely different
lens and that the firefighter you know strength
and conditioning or fitness side is so important
and one of the problems that we have is a lot
of times a department will send some some well
-meaning fired up you know men and women but
it will be a two -day course a five -day course
and then they'll come back as the strength and
conditioning guru um you know i've been in this
my since you know my what late teens um on and
off and still consider myself a white belt with
maybe one stripe when it comes to the coaching
world so you know hearing people who have truly
been in this this world their whole career and
this is their expertise all these different perspectives
are invaluable for us well i want to ask you
a question you mean i looked at your lineup that
you've had throughout the years what are some
of the biggest ahas that you've had as it related
to the training because again I'd argue that
especially now with everything going on, first
responders in the tactical community has had
the biggest surge of human performance. You look
at some of the, I think it was 1 ,800 jobs went
out through KBR and through the H2F program for
the Army. I mean, 1 ,800 strength coaches. I
think there's only 3 ,600 in college athletics.
That's half a population. So now the military
is getting involved and I see it in the first
responders. Well, has that gone well? Or what
are the things that you're seeing from the people
that you talk to? So when you have a well -organized
organization, for example, the Thor 3 program,
which is the Army Special Forces. Those programs
are phenomenal. It seems that they get great
people. They've got great prehab, great rehab.
I mean, all these areas that prepare mainly Green
Berets, I believe, for the jobs that they have
to do. What I see in the first responder profession,
I'm sure George has told you the same thing,
is we're completely siloed. So you've got city
and county. And, you know, sometimes they'll
have a great relationship. More often than not,
they will not play well together. And so you
have this reinventing of the wheel in each of
these tubes. And it's a complete waste of money.
And you have some great people that truly are
strength and conditioning gurus that are also
firefighters or police officers. But they're
not utilized because they just work for this
department. And they actually probably are going
to get utilized by a different department. But
their own department doesn't want to hear anything
of it. The profit is never received in their
own land. So I'm... I'm still seeing a resistance.
We have unions that oppose fitness standards,
which is absolute fucking insanity to me. But
that's again, you talked about politics. This
is the issue. Some unions are great and they
support it. A lot of them, sadly, is a lot of
self -serving and they realize that they themselves
will maybe fall short. So if they just prevent
that ever happening, then, you know, they'll
be OK rather than advocating for their profession
and raising the wellness and performance level
of everyone up. So the need is absolutely there.
The funding and the humility to bring in real
experts, I think that's where we fall short.
Yeah, you would think that that's probably, and
again, the fitness fatness that got you testing.
I can see why you might not want that, but not
providing a solution or an avenue for individuals
to get better and putting it on each individual,
that's kind of tough. That's tough financially.
That's tough. And that's got to be pretty frustrating.
Yeah. Well, I mean, with the gotcha element,
what I love about Florida is our fire academy
is called minimum standards. Like they couldn't
have labeled it more perfectly. This is the shittest
you should ever be. And yet we go in and people
will talk like the good old days. Oh, that was,
you know, in the academy, I used to be really
fit. Well, that was the. worst you should have
been you should be fitter and stronger now don't
get me wrong i'm 48 as we age of course there's
some deficits that you know come along with that
but you should be progressing so i don't think
that someone should come through test everyone
and then start firing people on the spot but
there does need to be a line drawn in the sand
okay we're going to start implementing this In
two years, we're actually going to make this
punitive. But in the meantime, we're going to
start working with everyone. We'll do a baseline
test and then we will work with you to get you
back to where you need to be because no one loses
with that. If you are at a point where you just
don't care anymore or you've got physical limitations
where you just cannot do the job. That's an entire
conversation for that individual. Maybe fire
prevention is where you need to go or logistics
or whatever. No one should be losing their job,
but should you be responding to a 28 -story of
a building where a kid's stuck in an apartment?
No. But the other side of it is everyone else
who was kind of that middle group that found
themselves deconditioned because the sleep deprivation
and all these other things are real and they
will create an uphill struggle for these men
and women to maintain their fitness and wellness.
Getting them back on to where they need to be
is not only better for who we serve, but now
you're increasing the chance that they will actually
get to enjoy their retirement with their loved
ones. What happens at the moment is it seems
to be a pretty universally accepted number. Roughly,
we die about five years after retirement. And
when you think about the day one of those men
and women, I would argue they're probably some
of the more physically and mentally resilient
people in their community. Yet they're dying
12 plus years younger than the average person.
So it's it's you know, there is no downside.
We perform better. We live longer. But it's the
like I said, it's the job justification and the
fear amongst people that know that mirror will
be held in front of their face as well. That
prevents them advocating for their own men and
women. And I find that disgusting. Do you think
that the community would respond better to punitive
response for not meeting the standard or a positive
increase of options? So I think about, you know,
if you don't hit this time, you got to run and
do conditioning. Or if you hit this time, you
get to take an extra shift or you get to do something.
I remember we experimented with this at Yale
for camp. That if you took your conditioning
test and you pass that again, there were just
certain perks and benefits that you could do.
And it was set up. You didn't have to be there
in the summer, but again, if we asked you to
do something and you were able to be squared
away enough to do it, that, that worked for,
for a good majority of the time. And we tried
with different teams. And I think that punitive
versus positive comes down to the culture. What
do you foresee? If you had a crystal ball, how
do you think which system would get the biggest
response? I can. I compare it to the Special
Operations, Special Forces groups because all
the men and women that come on the show that
are from those organizations have said we hold
police and fire to the same standard as ourselves.
Another community that people don't really think
of is lifeguarding, and I was a lifeguard for
quite a long time. If you fail your lifeguarding
research, you don't have a license. You can't
stand by the water and watch people because lives
are at stake. The SEAL community and a lot of
these other ones, they self -evaluate. If you
can't make the cut anymore... You have to leave
the SEAL teams or the Green Berets, you know,
whatever it is, if you can't stay operationally
at that point that you're supposed to. So I think,
you know, we could be kind of softly, gently
about it. But when it comes to a profession where
lives are at stake and you when you walk through
the door, you were told this is the minimum standards.
I've seen people do, oh, you get an extra 50
cents if you pass this test. And it ends up just
people trying to cut corners. Oh, come on, that
was a push -up, wasn't it? No, you should be
holding yourself to the point where you blow
the fucking test out of the water every single
time. Because the only person that's going to
save that child or that person is you at your
peak. And if you allow yourself to be deconditioned,
then go deliver supplies to the fire stations
or go check sprinklers in buildings. But you
should not... be allowed a half -assed profession
where someone might die because you didn't take
your job seriously and that that also includes
to be very fair an environment that allows those
men and women to get to that place so it's a
double -edged sword you have to have ownership
from the individual but you also have to create
an environment that gives them the tools including
time off to rest and recover so they can be at
their peak when needed Assuming that you had
the right personnel and you mentioned those special
forces, there's a lot of selection that goes
into that and taking firefighting and we'll call
it law enforcement as well. In that selection
process, you go in and call it your just regular
army, regular Navy and that leveling up. What
would you do? Or do you see there being an issue
where you get into certain communities where
they just don't have the talent? because I think,
I guess that might be one of the fears is, yeah,
you didn't pass the test, but now we also don't
have enough people, nor will the department or
the county fill that spot versus everybody's
trying out for Rangers. And, you know, same thing
on the seals. They reject still what is the dropout
rate from initial time to hell week is something
like 80%. Yeah, I think the attrition, they have
like, I think 20 % left. So yeah, 80 % lost.
Yeah, it's not short of people trying out, but
I just wonder. would you foresee that in certain
communities you just wouldn't have enough talented
people and like what would you do with that it's
interesting because i've got to observe this
anaheim when it was near santa ana they held
their bar extremely high they what you would
get hired and they would lose they would get
rid of about 25 of every higher class so you
had a uniform you're at a station if you didn't
cut it in that first year you were gone and in
my class my my higher class we lost again 25
then And then we had people lining up out the
door to be an Anaheim firefighter. Conversely,
when I went to Orange County in Florida, it was
18 and a heartbeat. And then the one after was
even fucking worse. But there were no standards.
And there's almost no one lining up to work for
them. Their benefits were good. Their pay was
good. But their reputation was dog shit. I mean,
if I'm going completely blunt. So I think...
I don't think that the seals ever have any problems
with candidates lining up and they have the ability
to cut 80%. I think that's the real conversation.
If you set your bar high and there's a challenge
to the high performers of the world, you're going
to have people lining up. But if you just, you
know, as this county here, well, you're going
to be working 56 and then probably more like
80 hours a week to pay shit. There's no extra
time off and we're bleeding people. is that really
going to attract people? So do you want to be
Anaheim or do you want to be my last place, for
example? So I think that's the other thing. All
these colleges, you mentioned Yale. Do you think
that the academics will ever have any problem
getting students for Yale on the academic side?
No, because it's known to be an elite place.
If you see your own department... in that way
and you give people the support and you have
the actual work week that is attractive because
they know they'll actually be able to succeed
and excel in that organization, I don't think
you'll have any problems. But I can tell you
a hand on my heart watching this from Orange
County, from Marion County, if you just open
the door and anyone that can physically fill
a seat is going to walk in, that's when you're
going to get the recruitment problems. It's the
actual polar opposite of what most people would
think. So it's almost like you're rotting from
the inside out. Would you say that from the unit
level makes the biggest impact or is that a leadership?
Because sometimes the leadership gets removed
from the day -to -day stuff. And I know the military
has talked about when you put someone in charge
of a platoon or you get new leadership and you
can have a unit that's not great, a task unit
that's terrible. And then one person comes in
and can change. And the people didn't change.
The standards were raised and the leadership
was there. But you mentioned that in the firefighting,
it's so siloed. Where does that transition start?
If someone's listening and they want to make
a difference or they say, yeah, no, I get it.
Is that a unit level thing or is that a leadership
up top? I think, I mean, the ideal combination
is both. I know of people that are incredibly
high performing. despite their departments my
last one there's some great people one of the
one of my fellow firefighters actually is joining
me on my i train a tactical athlete class once
a week in the crossfit gym here for free for
all first responders and military that you know
want to show up and he comes great shape he's
a you know pediatric nurse as well just a phenomenal
firefighter he is excellent despite his department
if you had him and a bunch of people like him
and a great leader that would be a phenomenon
it should be one of the best departments in the
planet it's just it's so mismanaged um so i think
it's a combination of two you'll hear even jocko
willing talking about one of their first leaders
and they all basically ganged together and got
rid of him that's the lesser known you know part
of his story unless you go to the the conference
but um you know so i think it's both you have
you can you can create a cohesive firehouse in
a bad department um and you know with the fitness
standards people say well we shouldn't have to
have you know tests and i agree we should be
self -starters where we keep ourselves in great
shape but you know where is you know if you don't
have that entire group of people that are so
self -disciplined that they will work out regardless
and i've been in those crews and they're phenomenal
to be in Then the next step is to at least have
a standard, as you said, those parameters. If
you fall below here, whether it's a collegiate
athlete, an NFL athlete, or a tactical athlete,
we need to get you back up or we need to have
a conversation about if you're going to be wearing
the uniform anymore. It's that simple. And I
would imagine in the first responder community,
similar to the athletes, they want to know why.
Alignment hates running the 40 -yard dash. Why
do we do this? People don't even know where the
40 came from. You know, and it came from the
Dallas Cowboys trying to select the gunners to
get under a punt because the punt hang time is
4 .8 seconds. Hence the 4 -4 -40 means you would
meet the ball carrier to not advance it. So like,
okay, I can kind of see how that makes sense.
Doesn't happen a lot in football that you run
perfectly straight, but you could see how like
that logic train goes. And then alignment's like,
I'm not, if I'm running 40, we got bigger problems.
I'd imagine in first responder community, telling
them to bench, telling them to do whatever. probably
has a lot to do with, well, how does that really
help me with my job? And I think, at least from
my experience as a coach, I'm never going to
ask you to do something that I don't have a legitimate,
valid rationale behind it. And I'm going to ask
you, does that make sense? And be humble enough
that if you tell me, listen, I've seen tons of
guys that are good or tons of ladies that have
been fine, you kind of eat that. Because again,
I'm not the one going in fighting the fire. But
if I say, hey, if your relative landing force
is getting above 500 % or five times your body
weight, you probably want to get that looked
at because you like doing your job, but at 600,
700, or 900, that is not conducive to a long
-term career. If your shift in asymmetry is 5%,
10%, cool. It's 30%, 40%, so 40 % favoring a
leg, that's not good for a 20 -year career. And
so people don't look at it as a test. It's a,
wow. This will keep me doing my job. This will
keep me healthy. And I think that if they don't
have that association, like you said, you get
that kind of resistive, you know, we used to
get that, you know, I'm not really a practice
player. I mean, I'm more of a gamer. And I was
like, what do you mean gamer? Well, you know,
I'm going to basically throttle down until it's
game time. But we broke that by saying like,
you need to do it for the people around you.
And I do think that is a commonality within any
tribe at the unit level. Do the people around
each other. They don't have to love each other.
They don't have to be all kumbaya. But, you know,
we got to get on the truck or we got to go on
this thing that I trust the left and right. You're
going to do your job. And that's to your point.
These aren't physical standards for fun. This
is because these are the things that we know
that correlate with being able to come home to
our family. Exactly. Absolutely. Well, I've been
doing too much talking for an interview, so I'm
going to put the microphone back in your face
again. So you haven't just started an amazing
nonprofit called 40 Staples Strong. There is
a pretty powerful, you know, health story of
your own. That's the genesis of that. So walk
me through, you know, when you first realized
something was going on within yourself and then
the mental and the physical journey that you
went through with that diagnosis. Yeah, I never
forget it. I actually was at the NSCA's TSAC
in Virginia. I was at that conference and it
was awesome. I got to see everybody and it was
really, it was great. But I had a little headache
and you know how things are, you know, who doesn't
have a little headache here and there, but it
kind of was sticking around. And then I came
home and it still was kind of bothered me, but
it was like. way more than normal. Um, but then
it really started to kind of bother me a lot.
And I remember I went to see my, you know, local,
uh, general practitioner down, down in the street
and God love her. She's been around there forever.
She's known me back into the high school days.
So here I am now as a, uh, a guy coming in saying
about the pain. Um, and she said, you know what?
You never, ever have complained about this stuff.
Um, we're going to go get this checked out. And
I was like, it seems like overkill. She's like,
no, no, no. What you're saying just doesn't seem
like you. And I actually look back to how fortunate
she took that single inflection and her thought
process made such an impact for me because when
we went and did that, we did an MRI, we actually
found a giant tumor. And what was crazy about
it was that I have never had anything in my life.
anything remotely like that so to suddenly go
from being a healthy male you know excited working
for a great company doing all this stuff to being
like wow not only do you have a giant tumor this
is stat you need to get it out and oh by the
way you're telling me this on the um the five
year sorry the four year anniversary of my mother's
passing who subsequently also developed a random
brain tumor. So until you get your biopsy, you're
like, well, I've seen this story before and that
was horrific. So to almost have a near day -to
-day anniversary was super tough. And so anybody
who has ever been through it, the mental side
of things, they do a great job prepping you,
but you need to go in because if they don't remove
it, the tumor in and of itself can't be a problem.
It could be that it ruptures the midline and
it causes a seizure, it causes a stroke. And
I've dealt with injuries as an athlete and I've
also done tons of rehabs, but the brain is different
because it's inside you. And so it's not like
you hurt your elbow. It's the brain is a physical
thing, but it also is the center of your consciousness
and your psychology. And, and suddenly, and I've
had conversations with other brain patients,
that one conversation, you know, completely changes
your calendar of life. You think most people
are like, oh, what's my five -year plan, 10 -year
plan? You don't know if you're going to make
it out of surgery. You don't know if you're going
to make it a year. And so that was an interesting
process. Went through the actual surgery at Mass
General. Dr. Curry is an angel sent from heaven.
I've told him that to his face. He's an absolutely
incredible individual. And just finding out from
him just how many people suffer from these, roughly
18 ,000 people a year get diagnosed. They range
from meningiomas to glioblastomas and everywhere
in between. And so that was interesting. And
the rehab, I'm not going to sugarcoat, it sucked.
You are excited to be able to get your catheter
out. You are excited to walk across the room
and pee. You're excited to go up and down the
hallway and being there and seeing other people
at various stages. Some went well, some didn't
go well. Some people, they told me they're like,
you may not remember things. You may not remember
people. I was like, am I going to know what a
barbell is? I'm going to be able to, am I going
to be able to squat? And they're like, we don't
know. And they're not kidding when they say they
don't know. So that is super challenging when
you wake up, but nonetheless, you go through
it. And then you go through that physical journey.
You start doing the rehabs, which isn't much.
And again, I, myself as a patient looking at
one way versus me, the coach. I was like, this
is a problem because the worst thing you can
tell a brain patient is do nothing for two weeks.
So of course I didn't, I actually got my aura
ring and I started sleeping as hard as I could.
And I tried doing the meditative breathing and
box breathing is a great practice for anyone
to try to slow down and get control and clear
your mind. The medications that they give you,
I couldn't. And so that was incredibly enlightening.
But I, I went hard. I went so hard. I got, you
know, rib cramps and my nurse, what are you doing?
I was like, I just had my third workout today.
And they're like, please stop. But I tried. But
yeah, I was going to work on breathing hard.
I was gonna work on sleeping hard and trying
to streamline that. And then when I came home,
my very first workout was piston and post. And
I had my cane. I did that. No problem. And then
it was stairs. And I did five steps on one side,
five steps on the other. And I just remember
that that absolutely crushed me with a raging
headache for hours. But you just kind of eat
it. And I had such a good community of first
responders and SWAT and other coaches that I've
worked with. They didn't give me any like sympathy.
They were like, be grateful, get on, you know,
what are you grateful for? What's your goal for
tomorrow? George would reach out to me. And just
like, there is no, there's no pity party here.
And that was so important to me. And what I realized
was in follow -ups, not, everybody and i say
regular people again lovingly but people that
haven't grown up in a team environment or in
kind of these competitive elite environments
for performance i think they can fall victim
to just falling apart and as soon as your mind
goes your body follows and so i wasn't going
to let that happen and so i talked to you know
my family and friends and i was like I'm going
to start a foundation. And they're like, of course
you are. And I was like, yup, 40 staples strong.
Cause that's how many staples it took to sew
up this 10 inch scar. And so I was able to do
that. And so our mission's pretty great. The
goal this first year was to raise enough money
to make backpacks. So when I went to the hospital,
I treated it like game day. Literally, I had
a playlist. I had my tape. I was ready to go.
I was focused, but I had an ice pack and then
I had a battery charger and I had some things
that made a really shitty situation. slightly
less shitty. And so I said, wow, that'd be really
cool. And so when people make donations, if they
want to know where their money goes, I take it
and then I go and I try to get as many things
donated as I can, but the goal was to make 10
backpacks. And so we did secure funds to do that.
We started that in October and we pushed forward.
And so next year we want to try to do at least
50. We're also going to build out the website
into a digital domain for training and then reinforcement
for some of the mental stuff, even little things
like, You know, how do you how do you bring your
scar down? Can you use PRP? You know, what can
you do from, you know, neuroplasticity stuff
for different apps and games to help and then
have a tribe and a community for not only the
patients. And this was something I didn't expect
was the impact it has on the families. Like,
I remember people saying to me, oh, I'm so sorry.
I was like, I'm not dead yet. It's only a flesh
wound. I'll bow back from this. No, stop. So
that's where when I interact with people with
brain tumors, I give them a fist pump and just
let them know, hoorah, let's go. And if you're
having the worst day to day, that's awesome because
chances are it's going to be bad tomorrow, isn't
it? We're going to make it 1 % better and keeping
that mindset. And it's just been crazy the number
of people that said, I know somebody who had
a brain tumor. I had somebody with a brain tumor.
And people will say, well, but you're good now,
right? And that's probably the worst thing you
can say, because anybody in the brain community
will tell you, you know, you're one scan away
for the rest of your life. You're going to get
scanned. If there's one speck, if there's one
itty bitty piece of tissue, it can grow back.
It can mutate. And so you live with it. You don't
necessarily beat it. And so that's where, to
me, I was pretty young to be diagnosed with a
tumor. So I'm going to be around for a while.
And my goal is to kind of build that community
in each bag that will go out 001, 002. I want
to see that thing up in the thousands. And so
as we reach out to corporate partners and individuals,
there's full transparency to see where it goes.
And again, this is my side thing, but I hope
that I can grow it to, you know, that 18 ,000
mark number is kind of, it would be a nice goal
to get to of how big of a dent we can make into
that. So that when somebody gets discharged,
they walk out of the hospital, they feel like
they have a whole team, you know. support them
and being behind them and it comes in different
phases and sometimes they need more sometimes
they need less but at least a place for someone
to turn to so we'll be making more backpacks
and then building out the digital platform but
anybody listening that wants to help in any capacity
again super super thankful for that and again
look forward to kind of keeping everybody updated
online Well, you've mentioned as well, I mean,
firstly, we've obviously cycled around several
times now on the identity. So you've got, you
know, this person is working around all these
athletes. You're in great shape yourself. And
now, you know, you're lying in a hospital bed.
You're grieving. You just lost your mother for
the same reason four years ago. But you also
told me that in the ward, there were also children
with, you know, with the same issue. So what
was the emotional mental health impact? You're
trying to remain positive and kind of. project
health back into your body but you're surrounded
by some of these you know tragic endings of some
of these patients you're alongside um it's changing
i'll say that it definitely changes the way you
view things um it's hard to feel bad about yourself
when you've i mean all things considered i've
had a pretty good life like i don't want it to
end tomorrow but i've done quite a bit um but
to see someone there in a wheelchair and again
you don't know tumors range from you know, benign
to cancerous to spreading into different areas.
And so when you see that kid who's six or seven,
they're, they're 10 times stronger than I am.
You know, their mom's crying, their dad's crying,
and they're in a lot of pain. And some of the
toughest people, they wouldn't say anything,
but you just kind of look around, give a head
nod, something like that. But that was really
tough. So it's hard to feel bad for yourself.
But that being said, why I think, too, you mentioned
earlier on about mental health and wellness and
support. You need to be nice to people. I know
that sounds like an old grandpa thing to say,
but God, like you don't know what people are
going through. And just, hey, I'm so glad you're
in my life. You know, thank you so much. Take
that time, that pause and that reflection and
put some good juju out into the universe. very
quickly. And we've seen it. I mean, we've seen
it in sports and in the news, you don't know
if you have tomorrow. So taking the time today
to be super grateful and super, you know, gracious
to everybody that's helped you. That's what I
saw with those kids and spending time with them
and, you know, making sure that some of the backpacks
have some stuff that's geared towards them because
it's tough. That's a long road and you can be
alive and still not living. And I think people
need to understand whether that's physical or
that's mental. You can see people that are just,
you know, the eyes are open, but the lights aren't
on. And so when you come in and you're not emotionally
intelligent enough to see that, you know, sometimes
your words or your behaviors can have really
profound impacts, even little things like just
checking in on somebody goes a long way, especially
with what's going on in the world today. It never
hurts to put a bit of kindness out into the world.
I couldn't agree more. You're preaching to the
choir. And I think that's it. And sadly, that's
what we don't see. quote -unquote leadership
at the very top the last few years that encapsulates
both sides you know there's a lot of division
and not a lot of community and building and kindness
and compassion so i think we need to see a lot
more many many of the layers and it doesn't take
much i mean good you know just thank you thank
you for everything you've done the number of
people i've said thank you to that were long
overdue and they're like what do you mean No,
actually, when you said that a few years ago,
I was actually thinking about that. When I was
sitting laying in bed and the headaches for anybody
who doesn't know, the headaches get so bad that
you can actually justify why you don't want to
do it anymore because you don't know if it's
going to go away. You don't know if it's going
to get worse. All you know is you have about
two more hours until you can get that med to
take the edge off and it's having less and less
effect on you. And mind you, while you're taking
the meds, The very thing that takes that pain
away makes you nauseous and sick and then all
the other problems. So trying to be very resilient
in that headspace, a text message from everyone
saying, get after it, not sorry for you. Is there
anything to get after it? And then will yourself
and get up, take three steps today, take four
steps today and just do it. And I think that's
probably the greatest impact that we can have,
you know, translating that community and positivity.
It doesn't. We don't know what the world's going
to bring. We don't know if our leadership's ever
going to get squared away, but like really kind
of look at what we are, which is United United
States or United as a community focus on that.
You can have differences in whatever, but I think
being a good person reaching out and I, you know,
I don't agree with what you said, but Hey, let's
come on over and have a beer. Let's come on over,
you know, and you know, have a party or something
like that. I think that that stuff goes a long
way. And in history's time, when things get tough.
you typically look to the tribe, like you look
at how people bond up. And so people that aren't
necessarily bonded up or people that aren't engaged,
reach out, bring them into your community. It
goes a long way, whether it's religion, whether
it's the gym, you mentioned CrossFit, you know,
we've got our encompass down the street here,
you know, even within Hawken, you know, I've
got guys all over the world that jump, you're
a phone call away, you're a zoom call away. And
so more than ever use our technology to do what
we can. And that service, I forget who I heard
it from. I was at one of our conferences. It's
very hard to be sad and depressed when you're
serving. And I was like, well, that's weird.
Again, go work at a soup kitchen, go reach out,
help somebody out, do those little things you
mentioned you do for the tactical community one
class a week. I think that was spot on with it.
If you're feeling down or you're having a hard
time serve, well, the people that you serve now
then help the next. That's how you can create
a ripple within your own community. And it literally
doesn't take much. And so I think that that's
where, you know, again, we can make such a huge
difference in the people that are immediately
around us. And even people listen to this podcast.
I listened to some of yours too, that, you know,
some of the things that you said with some of
the previous guests that it kind of hit hard.
And so you sit and think about it. So we have
these new mediums and we have this opportunity,
use it for good and start by doing that with
an individual choice. Absolutely. Well, one more
thing I want to hit before we go to some closing
questions, if you've got time, you mentioned
about When some people get these diagnoses, there
is a giving up. And I've got one of my friends
who is originally from the Holland, but she was
a law enforcement officer here, or is again now,
in America. And she had, I think it was exact
same tumor that you had, if I'm not mistaken,
but the same thing. She went from this incredible
tactical athlete to basically a skeleton for
a while and then was having to build herself
up. Talk to me about some of the mentoring. What
is the dark place that people can find after
a diagnosis and how do you help kind of invigorate
them and give them the belief that they can rebuild
themselves again? Yeah, I mean, we're going to
get heavy here quick, but one of the things I
advise people through 40 Staples, whatever tumor
you have, it's going to suck. Don't let anybody
fool you. benign this that all the the medical
thing it's gonna suck it's gonna be tough on
you professionally it's gonna be tough on you
personally it's gonna be tough on the people
around you more so than you can imagine so i
would ask what is your scout now what do you
mean your scout well when we go into aims we
always scout the other team we go through training
whatever set that up because most people won't
have surgery when they get a diagnosis like that
within 24 hours But you can say, who's going
to be in charge of my medical? Who's going to
be in charge of my finance? When I come home,
who can be there? Do I need a nurse to be able
to come take care of me? Have a good two -week
prep so that that way when two weeks comes, a
bunch of things start to happen, just like it
would for a game. And then when you get in it,
game day, which is surgery day, and then depending
on what you have, you have about two weeks where
you're going through pretty intense recovery
before you get into rehab. you've got your caretakers
in place. And just like in a game or in a team
or in a squad, the expectation that you're going
to be a rock and make it through it is pretty
silly. And that's kind of an unnecessary pressure
that a lot of patients I find put on themselves.
You're going to be at the very, very bottom and
you're not going to know how to get up. You're
not going to, you're going to feel terrible and
you're going to have all sorts of thoughts, all
justified by the way. And you got to be able
to justify and go through those things. But once
you think through that and you're sitting at
the bottom, I need you to pick your chin up.
You don't have to start moving yet, but you got
to pick your chin up. If you can't pick your
chin up, you've already had that meeting two
weeks prior to have somebody there. And for me,
it was the get up. What are you going to do?
Be grateful. I'm not going to sit passively for
two weeks. I'm going to start my sleep training.
And everyone laughs at me. I was like, I said
a PR. I lowered my HRV by like five points. That's
what I needed. And not that that works for everybody,
but I had at least a plan and a roadmap. And
then I had my group of people came to visit at
the hospital. And sometimes you want people to
visit other times you don't. And so, but having
those conversations and putting people on point
and not just one person, because one person can't
handle it, put together your squad. And again,
a lot of that comes from my kind of football
background of that. It takes an entire team of
support staff to get through an event. Rehab
is a team sport. And I was so embarrassed. I
didn't want to tell anybody. And I remember one
of my buddies be like, yo, recovery is a team
sport. And just even hearing that, I was like,
oh, okay. So you don't have to take that weight
on the world. And all I would say is when someone
does feel guilty, because this happened to me,
if you're so guilty about it, pay it back tenfold
when that person has problem to make yourself
feel good. And so to my buddy who said that to
me, I was like, I'm forever indebted to you.
even though it was a small thing, he was part
of my team, part of my unit to be able to pick
my chin up. It's like, okay, and now we go and
you're going to have good days and you're going
to have bad days. But having that team support,
I think makes a massive difference, but I was
shocked. It's tough. Sometimes people don't have
family, they don't have support. And so how can
we start to get ahead of that? So when you're
in those dark times, even the darkest of dark,
you just pause, accept it, and then just focus
on picking your chin up. And if you can't, And
that's totally fine. You have that network there.
And I think that that's where, from a communication
standpoint, the expectation you're going to make
it on your own, you make it harder than it has
to be. I mean, ultimately you're going to choose
the journey and path that you take, but having
that group there makes such a difference. And
then just pay it back. Oh my God, I can't thank
you enough. No, no, you actually can. Like when
I go through shit or I need a babysitter, I need
something, be there. And I've seen that happen
tenfold. And that seems to be a really good strategy.
Because again, your mind, especially in the brain
tumor, will start playing tricks on you. And
you need to know that. And they're valid. They're
valid tricks. They're valid feelings of sadness.
They're valid feelings of giving up. Good. Accept
it. Eat it. And then let's pick our chin up.
And if you can pick your chin up, you can make
it to that next day. And that's been super helpful
for myself and then other people as well. Because
that mental component takes time, both acutely,
but then chronic as you're rebuilding yourself.
Like you said, that lady. You feel like you have
this armor that you have to rebuild because who
am I? Am I sick? Am I the brain patient? Am I
the triathlete? Am I the coach? Who am I? And
that process takes time. And if you bake a cake
at 600 degrees, it doesn't cook it twice as fast.
It just burns it. So go through your own time
and your pace and have your team there to support.
And I also think, especially patients, if you're
listening, a lot of people are willing to help.
You'd be shocked how many people, if you ask
for help. They will. And if you can't ask for
help, talk to me and I'll ask for you because
I don't really care. And when you see that, people
are just so grateful. But again, I think the
only reason why I can have this perspective is
because I've been through how many competitions
in sport and seen different models and part of
an elite community where failure isn't an option.
We're going to do it. And we're going to every
day just try to get 1 % better. Don't be the
old you overnight and focus on that. And that
tends to help keep the dark times a little bit
brighter. well i want to thank you for that perspective
i mean firstly there will be people listening
to this that probably are diagnosed with some
sort of cancer or tumor that this is directly
pertinent to but then you don't have to be a
genius to realize this applies to a knee injury
a back injury or an addiction or a depression
this whole it takes a village um is so important
and i think this is the problem with the mental
health conversation is people feel because we
are a selfless you know type of profession ultimately
we will literally give up our lives for a complete
stranger if it comes to that we don't want to
ask for help we don't want to be a burden which
is also sadly that feeling of burdensome is is
a huge um red flag in the whole mental health
thing because a lot of times that is the precursor
to suicide but understanding that tribes have
always existed since the beginning of time and
that you're supposed to be part of a unit and
i can attest a hundred percent the number of
people i've heard people are just dying to help
good people which is most people are truly wanting
to help they just need to be asked and being
given some direction so everything that you said
i mean it's obviously so pertinent to people
if they've got a diagnosis like yours but also
the application can be in so many different areas
yeah i mean you're going to get the poor me's
that's going to happen so when it does happen
accepting that goes a long way and i wouldn't
consider myself super super religious but definitely
believe in you know a higher higher thing than
myself and i remember one of the uh the priests
i worked with said just remember god will only
give you give you what you can handle and i was
like well shit i didn't know they had so much
faith in me i mean couldn't we get the light
version what are we talking about like i'm glad
he's excited could i get a roadmap can i get
this and then and again it comes back to you
have to have faith and so even in your toughest
time he's only going to give you what you can
handle and I think when you come out the other
side, if I didn't go through all that, how do
I make a foundation? If I didn't go through that,
how do I look someone right now? And sometimes
when you get the staples, they get all leaky
and you got pus and it's not fun and it's whatever,
but that I can get in there and make a joke at
someone fired up. That's a pretty cool gift.
And then also in coaching, you know, when you
talk about stress, that, that changed a lot as,
Oh, I don't want to hope I don't miss a pass.
I hope I don't, you know, I hope I hit the free
throw. Like it consequentially in the whole scheme
of the universe. Like that's what stresses you.
So it gave me a whole different gradient of stress
and probably more so just appreciation. I mean,
I love going out with my dog and playing fetch.
I love going and just triggering with my friends.
I love just going outside and just taking those
moments. And I think part of that too, I even
put in some of that came out of the pandemic
when you had a little bit more time to do things
because I've been so full throttle, like tunnel
focused on what I wanted to accomplish, slowing
that down. changing jobs, then getting into this.
It definitely has changed that perspective. But
I think if anything, things are a lot slower
and you appreciate that each day because you
don't know. You're one scan away from being like,
guess what? You thought this nightmare was over.
It's back, but I'm not going to live every day.
And nor should anybody listening because you
have a diagnosis or because you're feeling a
certain way today. That's not who you are to
what you're going through for some period of
time. But if you can pick your chin up, then
there's a chance to be 1 % better. And like I
said, I keep coming back to it. You may not be
able to pick your chin up that day and that's
where you need to have help. People want to help,
but you have to ask. And even just that practice
of extending yourself, how can I help asking
that? If we can do that, I think it makes such
a positive impact so quickly as well. absolutely
well i'm sure people are you know enamored by
all the different kind of topics that we've covered
today firstly where can they find hawking dynamics
if they want to you know kind of learn more about
that side of what you do yeah hawking dynamics
you just go to the website so we have a form
there we have tons of information kind of broken
up we have the blog We have tons of videos. We
have the podcast. So I actually oversee that.
So it's called Talk & Force. So you can look
it up. It's on Apple, on Spotify. And so we try
to bring in guests from all over different industries
that are kind of elite at what they do. You can
shoot us an email, all the contact information's
there. And whether you're a practitioner, whether
you're an athlete, happy to help out on any of
that kind of front. And then what about social
media? Are there any places that you exist? Yeah,
I'm trying. This is going to sound bad, but I
literally got locked out of my Instagram account.
So I don't know how I did it. I switched phones.
So I'm actively working on that. I know I'm supposed
to be better, but I don't come from a generation
that wants to put everything online. But I do
feel, especially as it relates to 40 Staples.
So 40 Staples has its own Instagram account.
It's a little flexing bicep. It's the mass general
color blue. But my personal one is bulldog .strength.
So hopefully by the time this gets published,
That'll be back on the line, but definitely reach
out at 40 staples and 40 staples .com. You can
go to the website as well, but just happy to
help. Beautiful. Well, Thomas, I want to say
thank you so much. I mean, from your initial
life journey, all the applications that you've
taken from the collegiate coaching world and
you've applied them to the tactical athlete space
and then your own personal journey, there's been
so much for people can pull out of this. So I
just want to thank you so, so much for being
vulnerable today and being so generous with your
time. Oh, thank you so much. Again, I've listened
to them and to be a part of something like this.
What's nice about the long form spoken word is
that we don't know how many people this is going
to impact. And so then when I was connected with
you, the opportunity to do this is huge. And
I hope that it makes at least one person's day
a little bit better. And hopefully this lasts
for a long time and it can help generations of
people. So thank you so much for having me on.