He Scheduled His Suicide for Midnight | Matthew Griffin | Ep. 453

Summary

Cleared Hot – Ep. 453: "He Scheduled His Suicide for Midnight" with Matthew Griffin

Podcast: Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC
Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Matthew Griffin
Date: June 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this raw, emotional, and deeply personal episode, Andy Stumpf sits down with former law enforcement officer and veteran Matthew Griffin to discuss his journey through trauma, identity crisis, and ultimately survival after confronting the depths of suicidal ideation. Griffin opens up about the cumulative toll of witnessing and experiencing tragedy, especially as a first responder, the unique burdens of identity in military and police work, and the pivotal moments that pulled him back from the brink, including psychedelic-assisted therapy. The conversation is rich with practical wisdom, dark humor, and honest reflections on survival, vulnerability, and finding purpose beyond the uniform.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Statistical & Emotional Toll of Trauma in First Responders

• The episode opens with Griffin and Andy discussing the often-cited suicide statistics among veterans and first responders ("22 a day"), as well as why policing and military service predispose individuals to higher rates of trauma-based mental injury and suicide.
  • Quote: "Everybody's goal is to try and get it below 100." – Matt Griffin (00:40)
  • Trauma isn’t just from “bad backgrounds” but is cumulative from repeated exposure on the job.
• Griffin shares stories from his personal experience as a police officer, highlighting how repeated, unprocessed exposure to death and suffering leads to long-term psychological harm.
  • Quote: "You start to see the bad side, how quick life is, and it really takes a toll on you." – Matt Griffin (01:28)

2. Cultural and Systemic Barriers to Mental Health in Law Enforcement

• Discusses why police and first responders are reluctant to seek help—fear of being labeled “unfit for duty," stigma among peers, risk to career advancement.
  • Memorable Insight: The label "unfit for duty" haunts officers and discourages honest mental health discussions.
  • Quote: "There's nothing good that comes from an unfit for duty, other than you getting the help you need." – Matt Griffin (17:56)

3. The Weight of Catastrophic, Vicarious, and Repetitive Loss

• Griffin recounts pivotal moments of trauma, notably being present as a young boy accidentally hangs himself ("Benny Jr.") and arriving at domestic crisis scenes that end in suicide.
  • His experience of sitting with the family after "code gray" calls, feeling directly responsible for outcomes, and living with survivor’s guilt.
  • Quote: "That was the first time I felt catastrophic failure in my life." – Matt Griffin on arriving too late to save a child (68:57)
• The compounding effect of trauma leads to self-medication with alcohol, marital breakdown, and personal crisis.

4. Identity, Purpose, and Post-Service Transition

• The powerful, often destructive, grip of professional identity: Cop, veteran, undercover—roles that become the self’s only definition.
• Andy and Griffin dissect how the loss of the “badge identity” leaves many adrift, clinging to old wiring and behaviors.
  • Quote: "The biggest lie…is that this is all you're ever going to be good at." – Matt Griffin (24:04)
• The struggle: Reframing "who I was" into "what I did," and searching for purpose outside the mission structure of uniformed service.

5. The Breaking Point & Survival – A Scheduled Suicide

• Griffin describes in detail the darkest night: planning and scheduling his own suicide for midnight, writing a note to his children and ex-wife, and cleaning his apartment as an act of preparation (~[86:43-88:13]).
• A last-minute phone call from his best friend, Ben, who simply says, "I love you, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel," interrupts the plan and gives Griffin the anchor to live “one more day.”
  • Quote: "If today's a good day to die, so is tomorrow." – Matt Griffin (88:13)
  • Survival becomes a daily, then hourly, incremental decision.

6. Hope, Recovery, and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

• Griffin discusses years of therapy, including EMDR ("the two black balls…that start to vibrate" [75:29]), and the challenges of seeking help discreetly due to professional stigma.
• Recent transformative experience with Ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT at Ambio, guided by a group of fellow first responders.
  • Insight: The medicine produces deep introspection and physiological reactions ("purging"—intense vomiting, [121:58-127:03]), facilitating the letting go of destructive patterns: alcohol, lust, and the need to perform for worth.
  • A hallucinatory, healing dialogue with "Ivan" (Jesus) about surrendering control and identity, accepting blessings, and "choosing wisely" about who to become (128:23).
• Griffin notices tangible life changes post-therapy, including peace, lowered anger, and improved relationships with his children.

7. Growth, Purpose, and Service after Survival

• Journaling and small, daily positive acts are critical tools for rewiring the brain and reinforcing a purpose-driven mindset after crisis ([101:25]).
  • Quote: "I started looking at Benny Jr. as him breathing hope in that last breath into my body." – Matt Griffin (92:16)
• Continues service by supporting other first responders through speaking, writing (“The Journey to Midnight”), and being available as a resource to anyone struggling.
• Is working on a documentary and subsequent book about his Ibogaine journey, aiming to demystify the process for skeptical first responders.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Cumulative Trauma:

  • "You don't get that 10 days to process… it starts to stack up." – Matt Griffin (01:28)

• On Systemic Pressures:

  • "If you raise your hand and said, hey, that call kind of messed me up… You're not fit for duty to go back on the road." – Matt Griffin (14:57)

• On Receiving Help:

  • "Sometimes we don't see each other for six months…and now it's commonplace for us to say, love you, bro." – Matt Griffin (110:51)

• On Surviving Suicide:

  • "At 11:13, my phone rang…My buddy Ben…said, before I let you go, bro, I love you." – Matt Griffin ([88:13-88:38])
  • "It’s okay to not be okay, it’s just not okay to stay that way." – Matt Griffin (160:02)

• On Finding Purpose after Trauma:

  • "I miss who I was on the job, not the job itself." – Matt Griffin (135:44)
  • "Nobody remembers how much dope I seized…they remember how I treated them." – Matt Griffin (140:16)

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Important Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Event | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:01 – 01:28 | Opening: Suicide stats among vets/first responders; causes | | 08:02 – 10:34 | Domestic call: On-scene suicide and immediate aftermath | | 66:42 – 68:57 | The Benny Jr. story – tragedy, guilt, and the start of downward spiral | | 74:26 – 77:51 | Seeking therapy, EMDR, and first night of real sleep in years | | 79:19 – 81:50 | The suicide of Griffin's police chief/mentor, and impact | | 86:44 – 88:13 | Suicide preparation, writing "the note," and the phone call that saved | | 99:01 – 101:24| On sharing "the note," and journaling for healing | | 121:08–128:23 | Ibogaine/5-MeO experiences: physical & spiritual reckoning | | 135:14–137:44 | Identity vs. purpose; reframing life after service | | 160:02–161:03 | Closing: "It's okay to not be okay…There's light at the end of the tunnel."|

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Tone & Language

The podcast is deeply conversational, peppered with dark humor, vulnerability, and real talk. Both Matt and Andy are frank, unfiltered, and use plain language appropriate for peer audiences in military and first responder communities. Storytelling vacillates between painful honesty, gallows humor, and hope.

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Closing Takeaways

• Check in on your people—especially on tough anniversaries. A simple text or call can change a life.
• Survival is often one decision at a time. Sometimes you only need to make it to tomorrow.
• Identity after service is tricky: move “what I did” into “who I am now,” and choose with intention.
• Cumulative, untreated trauma is deadly. Early intervention and peer support are essential.
• There is hope—sometimes in unexpected places, be it psychedelic medicine, journaling, or daily acts of service.
• "It's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way." – Matt Griffin (160:02)

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Resources

• Matt Griffin: matthewagriffin.com
• The Journey to Midnight (Book, Documentary forthcoming)
• Griffin’s socials: AuthorMatthewGriffin (Instagram/Facebook)

If you’re struggling: Reach out. Resources exist, and sometimes hope arrives in the smallest moments.

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[Summary covers content (excluding ads/intro/outro) through approx. [161:15] of the episode.]

Transcript

[Matt Griffin]

Okay, I got the red smoke.

[Michael]

Sun runs north and south west of the smoke.

[Matt Griffin]

West of the smoke.

[Michael]

Okay, copy.

[Matt Griffin]

West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now.

[Michael]

Oh, with it, baby.

[Matt Griffin]

Give it to me. I mean, it

[Michael]

cleared hot about a fist away. Stay about a fist away from that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I think. I think we're a little bit lower than that. I think we're about 18. I think 20, 17, 18 were our two. At least first responder wise, were our two biggest years. We had like 250 in law enforcement as first responders, and I think that's where. That's where the 22 a day came out. But I think it started to kind of decline down to about 18, 18 and 19.

[Michael]

So I thought the 22 a day was associated with veterans. Not even. Just.

[Matt Griffin]

Just veterans. Yeah.

[Michael]

Yeah. Not even counting the first responder word.

[Matt Griffin]

Correct. Yeah. First responders is about one every 15 hours is what I. Is the research hours. Hours. Yeah. Yep. I mean, because you typically have about 200 plus a year. The highest year was 2017, which I think was like 250. Yeah, I know the goal, everybody's goal is to try and get it below 100.

[Michael]

So we could both speak to our military experience. I have no experience in law enforcement. I'll throw this disclaimer out there, at least that I'm aware of. Neither you and I are a doctor or an expert in psychology. Why do you think that number is so high in the first responder, law enforcement world, based off your experience in that occupation?

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, dude. I mean, how much time do you have like this? This would be a long podcast. We're jumping in that. I think that we get a clean bill of health when we come into it. And for the most part, we go through the psychological. Everything else. You got to be, you know, fit for duty in order to come on the job, whether it's as a veteran or as a first responder. So you come from a pretty good place. Typically, you're not coming from a background where you had or sustained a significant amount of trauma, because for the most part, if that happened, there's a lot of law enforcement involved in your life and things like that. So for the majority of the guys that come into the first responder, the veteran world, a lot of times they come from a good place. They. And then they sustain a high level of traumatic incidents over a long period of time. And everybody's different with their traumatic experience. I think, like, for me, you know, the two of us go to a two and a half year old that's dead in the car. It's going to affect us differently based on our past, based on whether or not you have kids. I have kids. Whether or not things like that have happened and what happens is the typical human being in a. In a lifetime, we're going to see like five of those. They're gonna see five times. They're gonna call 911, they're gonna see somebody get punched in the face, and those, those five are gonna hit them hard. The problem is, is that the average amount of time it takes to process that, they say is like around 10 days or so. You don't get that. 10 days of process. Let's say it's a, you know, a fatal car accident or any type of unattended death type of call, and it starts to stack up. And so we don't process it. When you just leave it in what they call the amygdala and you're just. And it's just, you got all these, all this death, all these traumatic things. You start to see the bad side, how quick life is, and it really takes a toll on you. And I think that's, that's the chaos that we sign up for. But it starts to change you a little bit. You start to look at things a little bit differently. You start to come home and see, you know, different aspects of life. And whether or not you have a faith element to you or whether or not, you know, life is random, either one of those is going to, is going to. Going to cause you a lot of stress. Because, you know, for example, I remember, I remember I was working patrol and. And a lady was driving home, she was texting her husband, hey, turn the, turn the oven on to 3:15. I'll be home in 15 minutes. And 18 Wheeler came across the road. Wham. Head on. Killed her. So I got there, husband showed up because people were calling like, hey, your. Your wife's car is out on 101. And he showed up and he's just screaming, she, look, she just showed. She just texted me, she. That's not her. And it's like, yeah, that's her. And so I'm sitting right there talking to him, trying to explain, hey, this is your wife. Matter of fact, that's your wife's nose right there. And I don't want you to look at the car. I don't want you to look.

[Michael]

I was gonna say, what's the move there? Do you try to separate them from the scene, get them out of a visual, right, because they're gonna Be in a head.

[Matt Griffin]

And they're not gonna let you.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, they're gonna try and fight by you and everything else, but you want to do everything you can not to not. I mean, because you don't want the last thing that they ever see of somebody to be a nose on the ground and a leg over there. And to look inside the car would be completely traumatic. So whether or not he was able to see some of the other things, just as much as I could, I tried to keep him away from that car, and when it finally hit, he just collapsed on the ground. So I just sat there and held him. And, you know, and so things like that, like you pour yourself into somebody, and yet I saw what was in the car. I saw the nose there. I saw the wedding band on the ring there. I saw the text message on her phone saying, you know, and so you get home at night and you're like, wow, like that. Like that whole family for the rest of their life that day is going to hit hard forever. And for you, you got to move on. You got to go to the next day or even at the end of that. Here's another great example, man.

[Michael]

Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. And I don't know what to say about this brand other than to start with. I just love the people that are behind it. I'm on their website right now, and it's rotating through its banner and it's showing. They just had a film with Brandon and Cam Haynes. You can go and watch that directly. They had some of their skinning blades. I believe it just flipped over. They have some tees, but I think it's going to the next one. There it is. This blade is called the Montana, and it was their first iteration of the pocket knife. I believe they would say it's the pocket knife perfected. Spoiler alert. There are none for sale, because I believe they. They sold out in, I'm going to say, record time. I actually have no idea how much time it was, but pretty record time. And I believe they produced 5,000. Now, I know obviously, Josh and Brandon, so I know that they're working on things behind the scenes. I'm not going to spoiler alert or give away when they're going to be coming out, because I think I accidentally did that on the initial launch. So we'll keep our mouth shut on that one. But in the meantime, let's scroll down here a little bit. You have the blades that are in stock.

[Matt Griffin]

You got.

[Michael]

I'm looking at The Mini Goat or the mini Speedgoat, I should say 2.0 in a variety of colors across the boat, the Mini War Goat, which has got that little pinky loop ring, whatever it may be called. There's the flat tail. The Mini Stone Goat Ultra, the. The Jack Stones tradition. The Stockyard, the Stub horn, the Battle Goat. I'm not even going to bother clicking on view all because we could just go on and on and on. The teas on the right hand side. I love their merch as well too. And to be honest, I started working with their merch fulfillment agency as well because they're so quick and the quality is amazing. Let's see what we got here next. Blade drop is coming in four days. They have a little countdown here and there are Thursdays and Saturdays are when the blades release. The notify me button I would say is important. You can sign up for text or email. The traditions knives, these things are pretty awesome. Limited edition, focusing specifically right there on the handle itself. Built in Montana. Made for America. These are just south of us. Or me, I should say in Missoula. If you're going to visit Montana, you should check out Missoula. If you're going to go to Missoula, you should 100% check out the Montana Knife Company store. Guess what else Josh has there? An awesome black rifle coffee shop. The second one to be built in Montana. I know of no plans other for a third. So I would say the one that Josh owns and the one that I own would be the only two that could potentially be on your bucket list in the state of Montana at least. Montana Knife Company built in Montana. Bringing jobs back to Montana. Vertically integrating, just crushing American production the way that I would love to see a lot of other brands do as well. Montanaknifecompany.com go get you some.

[Matt Griffin]

I was the SRO coming up from Virginia Beach. I went from Virginia beach police to Key, N.H. stands for School Resource Officer.

[Michael]

For people listening.

[Matt Griffin]

So School Resource Officer is the police officer that's in the school 24, not 24. 7. Monday through Friday.

[Michael]

That'd be weird.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Yeah. So Monday through Friday I'd be dope on weekends. Pull that thing a little bit closer to you too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes.

[Michael]

Yeah, no worries.

[Matt Griffin]

I keep sitting back and so if

[Michael]

you sit back, just pull it with you.

[Matt Griffin]

Okay. Yeah. So Monday through Friday you're assigned to the school. So all school year long there's a. There's a police officer in the school and that they call it the School Resource Officer. So I was doing that in the winter time. It was Christmas vacation. There's no school, so I'm back on patrol. And I'm on midnights because I wanted to have some weekends off to maintain my schedule. And I was sitting at a. Sitting at a Dunkin Donuts in Keene, and a call came out right around the corner for screaming domestic. And when I tell you, like I'm closer to where the coffee shop is, I was right there. So I go up the back of the stairs, and I came up, made a. Made a left turn. I was in the kitchen, and I could hear the screaming in the bedroom. And so I peeked to the right. Right in front of me is a young man sitting on the couch. I couldn't see the girl that was screaming because my vision was just going right through here from the kitchen. And he's got the gun right here. And so he looked at me, I looked at him. I said, man, stop. Don't do this. Like, let's take a breath. Let's figure this out.

[Michael]

So not to interrupt you. So you get this call. You didn't even need to get into your car, Right. Essentially. And I'm just curious, so if the door is open, as a responding officer, you, based on the call, do you have authority to enter right there?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So. So we hear. So. So she calls 91 1. Right. So we have. We have what we call exigent circumstances. And she's screaming on the back. We can't get anything ping to back doors open. So I go up the stairs. Yeah. So there's like what they call exit and servants.

[Michael]

Yeah. I'm just curious, if the door was closed, would you have had the ability to kick it if you needed to?

[Matt Griffin]

I mean, if I heard the screams, I heard someone in danger, yes.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

But I didn't hear anything. So I didn't know the apartment set up. So I was just going in, like, what was like stairs. And so the stairs led up, and I was still thinking there was still going to be a door to go into different apartments, but it was kind of like the backside. And it walked right into the. Into the kitchen, landed me in the kitchen. I look right, dude's right there. He looks. Looks at me and I'm like, man, please stop. Let's take a breath. Let's not do this. And I started to inch a little bit closer. I could hear her screaming. Started to inch a little bit closer. And I could finally see it in his. In his eyes that he was going to do this. And so he looked at Her. And I kind of moved forward and he pulled the trigger and essentially blew his brains all over my shirt. I know it sounds crazy, but it was like slow motion. Like everything kind of happens in slow motion. When things settle down like that, I feel like I saw the bullet imprint coming out the other side, but it never came out the other side. And, and so like, there's just. There's just blood everywhere. He's agonal, breathing, everything else. So I grab her, I get her out.

[Michael]

And was he the male involved with the DNA?

[Matt Griffin]

He's the male involved. So she's screaming out. So the backstory behind this is they go out and she sees a. No, he didn't go out. She went out with her friends. She saw an old boyfriend and was hanging out with him, talking to him. And friends in town had texted him and said he, hey, just letting you know that your fiance, wife or whatever, I can't remember what their relationship was, is out here hanging out with another dude. And it happens to be her ex boyfriend. So they get in that verbal domestic over the phone. She comes home. So I get her. So I scoop her up. Soon as he's shot, as soon as he shoots himself, I scoop her up and I get her out. And then I go back in there and I start doing like CPR and everything else. And, and so ambulance comes, takes him out. And now here's. Here's to segue back into our conversation. So he gets out of there and, and, and now I'm. That's my scene. So there's only what, three, four police officers in Keynes. So I've got to maintain that scene until, until, you know, homicide detective gets there from the state, which is going to be a couple hours and because again, you know, I mean, it's an attended death. I watched it, so it's not going to be anything suspicious. But I also got to have, you know, somebody get called out. So I sat in this house for the better part of about two hours, looking around, seeing the pictures on the wall, these two, looking through, you know, photos. I'm sitting there in a house where this man just, you know, he wound up passing away and in, in the, at the, the hospital. And then on top of that, so I, again, I still got brain matter. You know, there's just stuff everywhere, really not brain matter, but like there's just blood everywhere and whatnot. And. And so after that, I had to go find his father and I had to tell his father. So I just, I just witnessed this, which is, which is traumatic. I felt like, you know, at some point, maybe I shouldn't have creep forward to him. Maybe I shouldn't have done what I did. Maybe I should have just sat there. Maybe I should have backed out. So you play all these scenarios in your head. Well, should I even gone in? Should I just stayed outside, work it out. Did he. Did he pull the trigger because of me? So you run these scenarios in your head over and over again, and then you're compounded with the trauma of looking at a happy life as you're sitting there for two hours and then going to tell his father that, hey, you need to get to the hospital immediately. Like, your, Your son's probably not going to make it.

[Michael]

How far away from him were you?

[Matt Griffin]

I mean, from me to you? Maybe three feet.

[Michael]

And then what do you do in that moment? I mean, to go a different direction, because some people will. I don't know the correct verbiage, and I'm not trying to diminish or demean anyone, but they don't have, they have the desire to do so, but not the willingness. So they'll go suicide by cop.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

And at that distance, I mean, your reaction time, if he had pointed that

[Matt Griffin]

at you, I, I wasn't even. I didn't have my gun out of the holster because for a typical domestic, it's not going to be, you know, you're. You're mediating a situation. You're going to try and separate parties, get them to, you know, cooler hedge prevail. So that's what I was thinking. You know, screaming typically means that they're fighting, not with a gun. There was nothing that indicated that this was a, that there was a firearm or anything else. And so I didn't even, I didn't even clear leather. We got out there and I'm. I'm presented with this and I'm like, dude, stop. Let's just, let's. And I wanted to, you know, hands. Let's just relax and take a deep breath. Let's move on. And. And he's screaming at her, looking at me. And again, like I said, I started an inch closer, and that's when he pulled the trigger. And, you know, you eat that for a little bit. Did I do. Did I do the right thing? Should I have done that? You know, is he still here if I didn't show up? And so you eat that a little bit, and then you combine that with, you know, I'll be honest. I mean, he. There's a photo album sitting on the, on the coffee table right there. And I started looking through it, and you. And you imprint those pictures of them combined with the. The last picture I have of him doing, you know, agonal breathing, whatever that's called.

[Michael]

No, it's. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And, you know, you eat that for a little bit and, you know, those are the things that happen. You got to be ready. So my shift wasn't over, so I go and I tell dad, get to the hospital, and I still got to answer calls until 7am because there's nobody that can come in to help. And I'm not going to leave the other two guys on their own. You know, one's an older guy, one was a young rookie. So I'm not going to leave them. If there's another hot call, I've got to be there to back them up. And I knew who else was on shift, they're not going to. I'm just. I'm not going to go home like, hey, sorry, guys, I gotta.

[Michael]

Why is the expectation, knowing that statistically you will encounter so many more significant events like that than the average person? Why is the expectation that you're just going to be okay with it? I don't understand. To me, that seems like a very large leap in logic. That doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. And I don't get it either, but I can. I can explain how we got there. So just like I was saying, you come onto the job and you get a clean bill of health. And you have to, because you're going to carry a weapon. You're going to make decisive decisions. You're going to make, you know, be a critical decision maker and things like that. So you got to be of a right mind and a sound mind when you come on the job. And if you have the ability to take somebody's life and you're seen to be unfit for duty, then you can't carry a gun. You can't go answer calls for service. And so the problem is, is that over however number of years, if you raise your hand and said, hey, that call right there really kind of messed me up. I'm starting to have a little bit of nightmares. I'm not feeling so good about it. And you go and sit down with somebody and say, listen, I didn't sleep at all last night. Like, I keep replaying the bullet, what I feel like coming out his temple. And I keep seeing the picture of them sitting at the Boston Red Sox game on the third photo of the photo album. That counselor's gonna look at you and say, you're not fit for Duty to go back on the road, to go to another critical event, because again, trauma stacks on top of each other. And so you get this unfit for duty eval. You're not. You're not out of work, you're not in trouble, but you're not able to go back to work, so they put you on what's called a light duty status. So, you know, in Keene, so Virginia beach was 1500 cops. Keene, New Hampshire was 4550. So 4550 cops. Everybody knows that you're unfit for duty. You got the guys that you go to choir practice with that are all like, hey, man, we need you back now. I'm covering your shift. I have my son's sporting event. You need to suck it up and get back to work, man, because you're causing overtime for everybody else.

[Michael]

Yeah, but let's pull on that string a little bit more and follow this. So say somebody recognizes that pressure, whether it's. It's passive or just straight on the nose overt. And they know they're not doing well, so they keep going to work and they end up burning somebody down when they shouldn't.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

And they can directly tie that back to those situations that we're stacking on top. Now your entire profession and the department is going to get immediately thrown in front of the bus.

[Matt Griffin]

Happens every day.

[Michael]

So.

[Matt Griffin]

And that's, that's the slice of pie that they're eating every day. And they're saying, we're going to, we're going to fall on this side of the fence every single time. Because guys aren't willing to raise their hand and say, listen, I'm struggling. And they're not willing to let down their, Their, their co workers. They're not willing to raise their hand and go get put on light duty. They're not willing. When you're unfit for duty, you're not eligible for promotion. Most of the time you're looked at as you're being weak, you're not being strong, you're not of the mindset that need supervise other people. And so there's a lot of different aspects from a law enforcement standpoint that are gonna. That are gonna hamstring you, essentially. And so even if you come back, everybody knows, well, hey, he just had an unfit for duty. He just went and saw the counselor, so maybe he shouldn't be going to these calls, or everybody's gonna look at you a little bit, a little bit differently. And so your, your promotional processes is up and like, there's just Nothing good that comes from an unfit for duty, other than you getting the help that you need.

[Michael]

And notice start is the change the name of that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

To begin with.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I don't have an answer in real time thinking about this, but that's definitely. Yeah. The unfit for duty is a nomicker that nobody wants to carry with them for sure.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. You know, and I think too, like, I mean, there's again, I've been on. I've been on this, this law enforcement thing. My, my best friend and I mean, he. He took his life in 2017, which I'm sure we'll get to. It's a big part of the book. And I've been on this path since then. And I really think that things happen. Right. And we're in a job where things are going to happen, whether you're a veteran, you're a first responder, you're going to do things and you raise your hand, you subscribe to the fact that you're going to be in harm's way. But what we don't do a good job of is you're going to. Actions are going to happen and then you're going to have thoughts about that, and those thoughts are going to become behaviors. And I think if we can, if we can get it where it becomes thoughts, if we can capitalize on that, when it comes becomes thoughts, those thoughts don't become behaviors. Those behaviors are coping mechanisms like alcohol, extramarital affairs. All these things are going to cause you problems.

[Michael]

You're talking about breaking the chain earlier on.

[Matt Griffin]

Right? Right. If you can hit it inside of that, like, I don't know, let's call it 48 hours, 72 hours. Say you have a fatal car accident, like the 101, you know, Route 101 thing I was just telling you about. Let's say an older guy comes to me the very next day and says, hey, Griffin. Hey, man, I know you're out at that call last night. Just want to let you know there are some avenues for you to get some help or to talk to somebody about what you saw. I'm not saying that you need to, but just want to let you know that they're out there and this is, this is. And we're going to clear the path for you to be able to go get that help. It's not going to count against you. You're not going to have an unfit for duty. But if you just want to, if you just want to air out some stuff, here's X, Y and Z for you and you know, and I think that's a way to go about doing it because before you know it for me, you wind up internalizing it. And internalizing means that I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about it a little bit more than I should have been thinking about it. And you know, next time I go out to one on one, guess what I'm seeing. I'm seeing the nose on there. Next time I go in that area, guess what I see. I see that. That kid pulling the trigger right there.

[Michael]

Let me ask you this. And again not to interrupt you.

[Matt Griffin]

No, no.

[Michael]

You say your words were. You were thinking about it more than you should. Says who?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, good point.

[Michael]

You know, it's one of the things I'm good friends with a lot of law.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Nelson. Allegedly.

[Matt Griffin]

Dude. Yeah.

[Michael]

The guy who sometimes is working as a sheriff named Nelson.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. Yeah, the.

[Michael]

And since I've known him, he did some drug task force stuff.

[Matt Griffin]

God bless you.

[Michael]

Patrol. I wonder what sheriffs call. I don't think they call patrol.

[Matt Griffin]

I think that's a police sheriff deputies, right?

[Michael]

Yeah. But I don't know if they call it up being out of. He's driving around Montana in a truck. Not a bad gig. He's a detective now but. And through him I met so many other officers both on the PD side. So up here we have the kpd, which is actually. If we were to open these windows, you'd be able to see it.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael]

And then the. So which is down there. I'm trying to remember the. They talk to each other is fantastic. They're like we take over where the sidewalks end and you know.

[Matt Griffin]

Stupid. The bluebird lands in the bird bath.

[Michael]

Totally. But like of course mutually supporting at all times. And I don't think people understand

[Matt Griffin]

what

[Michael]

it's like to come upon a scene where there is a loss of life of a child.

[Matt Griffin]

Sure.

[Michael]

Violent ejection out of a vehicle. Not let alone the damage of seeing somebody in the vehicle, but the ejection from it. And I don't where who is to say how much of that is the right or wrong amount to think about that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Because I'm grateful that most people don't have that many significant events in their life or catastrophic events.

[Matt Griffin]

Sure.

[Michael]

I wish it was zero instead of four or five, but you put, you know, triple digits of those. I think you'd have to be a sociopath to not spend some time thinking about it. Which is also not who I want having a badge and gun.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right. That's right. That's absolutely right.

[Michael]

So I just don't understand how that occupation is expected to just be okay with that because they'll say the same thing. That was the first call of the shift.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

And then they might go to something super passive and then on the computer it pops up a DV and they're hauling ass off to that DV a lot of the times because we're rural up here, these guys are onesie twosie for a lot longer than they're going to be at like, I mean, yeah, you, you know the deal. VB 1500 people. I was just there. Big city ish. You know, I just, also just came from Chicago. Bigger city ish.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes.

[Michael]

So they're going to have backup real quick. I mean, one of the guys I do jiu jitsu with, he started jiu jitsu because he was literally in a 30 minute fight with a dude on the side of the road until he heard the sirens coming his direction. That wasn't the last call of his night. No, I don't. How, how is it even possible that the expectation be levied that you deal with your shift, whatever happens, go get a good night's sleep afterwards and then just come in the next day, do it all over again as if those things are not going to impact? I don't understand that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, I don't either. I really don't. And I've said this many times, I don't believe that, that we should have men and women doing 25 years in law enforcement. I don't believe it. I don't believe it's sustainable.

[Michael]

I've had that conversation with guys I used to work with as well. And I'll phrase it through the lens of combat exposure. Do you think there is a point where it goes too far? And they all almost say the same thing. And my answer to them is the same too. While you were doing the job, you would recognize you had reached a point where it was diminishing, but you would fight tooth and nail to stay on the job. Looking at it from a distance, you can say, hey, maybe this would be better for you. And the person you're talking about is just giving you the biggest middle finger they can because they want to stay in it.

[Matt Griffin]

Well, and the biggest. And the biggest lie that you know, the biggest lie that we tell other cops and other veterans, this is all you're ever going to be good at. And I was told that, you know, when it was time for me to leave after, you know, after Brian died and, you know, my time was up in the undercover world and I was on midnight patrol and I was unhappy. I was divorced, I was, you know, basically homeless. And you know, when my time came, they're like, well, what are you gonna do? And I said I didn't know. But the, the blessing for me was that I was at rock bottom. And rock bottom is a pretty stable place to rebuild from. When you're, when you're mid career and you're a detective and you're, you're making okay money, it's really tough for you to just stop what you're doing. You know, you're middle aged now, you're in your mid-30s, the low-30s. This is your career, this is your path and you've got this pension that's waving over your head and everybody gives you, everybody gives you the stats and you years, you're going to be 50 years old and you're going to ride off in the sunset and drink my ties on the beach for the rest of your life.

[Michael]

Except the stats show that most cops died about 57 of heart disease.

[Matt Griffin]

Dude, 100%.

[Michael]

So your sunsets, your sunset's a seven mile stroll.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Nobody. When I signed up to be, to be a cop, they didn't say, hey, just letting you know that you're only going to get about 18 months after a 25 year career because that's the life inspection is like 57 and a half and 55, 56 your age. They also didn't say there's a 67% divorce rate.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

So you're not even going to get your pension because nine times out of 10 you're going to be splitting it with somebody and that's not going to afford your life. And so, and I don't want to

[Michael]

diminish any of those things, you know, the people wanting to do a full length career, fully support it. The pension, fully support it. Signing up for, doing the job for the right reason, fully support it. But people who, all they have is that argument, that sunken cost fallacy. Well, you've been doing this for so long, why would you throw it away? I don't say this negatively and I wouldn't have recognized this when I was younger, but that is a pure sign of insecurity.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right.

[Michael]

You are actually taking the easy road because yeah, you may economically earn way less if you left the occupation and figured something else out, but you might add 30 years to your life by not destroying your endocrine system or doing shift work. My God. So again, some of the guys I train With, I think they've gone away finally from the gnarly. They were on the rotating shift like every 45 days. That's zombies. When they would go from nights to swings. Right? What?

[Matt Griffin]

Right. The whole body's thrown off. It's like, yeah, it is.

[Michael]

I'd see him in class and they're just, Drew. I'm like, hey, man.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Are you okay? Okay. Maybe you should go take a nap instead.

[Matt Griffin]

You don't have to be here. Go, go get some.

[Michael]

Well, they'll be like, like this. I just got off shift. This is the only time I have to train. Like the maths are still going to be here, bud.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

Go get some sleep.

[Matt Griffin]

Right, right.

[Michael]

Yeah. There's so much more out there.

[Matt Griffin]

It's, you know, and here's like the other thing too that I've really started to realize over the last, the last little bit. And you know, I was saying to Nelson, Nelson, I was saying to Nelson, you know, I realized that like I created an identity and a lot of us have created an identity that, that supported us and helped us survive for the longest time. Right? So like I was a war fighter, I was a crime fighter, I was an undercover cop. Like that. The identity that I created for myself served me really well. But what it didn't serve me and was when I became a civilian, you know, so I have a full time job now and, and you know, those people haven't seen the same things that I've seen. They haven't done the same things that I've done and I can't hold that against them. But yet I'm still sitting with my back and watching the door. I'm still, I'm still scanning rooftops every time I walk outside. So the identity that I had no longer serves me and I really had to take a deep dive. And thankfully I began really help with that and I was a huge skeptic of it before I went down. And you know, and while I was down there, that's really where I started to realize, like, listen, like, I've got to do a deep dive on who Matt Griffin is and I'm not a cop anymore. I'm not a veteran anymore. Or I'm a veteran, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a SARS swimmer. That's not who I am anymore. What I, that's who I was. But my value has to be, has to be different. And I would find a way inside of any conversation, inside of five minutes to let you know what I used to do and why Do I not have value just sitting here at this table? Like, if I told you that I was a, you know, I probably wouldn't be on this podcast if I was bagging groceries at Walmart. But my value sits.

[Michael]

It depends. Tell me more about your background.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right. And so, like, you know, I had to make a decision that. That my value was not being an undercover cop.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

That my value was. Was being exactly who I am right here today. And that. That, in turn, was a tough decision for me to make. Ibogaine, thankfully, helped me out because it was kind of a pattern interrupter. But that gave me two things that I feel like a lot of first responders need to hear, and that is we confuse helping with being needed. And we've done that for a long time. You go to a call, I help you with your call. You got a stolen bike, I'll help you with your stolen bike. I go to domestic. I'm going to separate you two cooler heads are going to prevail. You're both going to say thank you the next day or a week later when I see you again. And so my value is tied into helping somebody else. When you get out of law enforcement, that value is still. You're still trying to. You're still tied to that. So your access to other people is all kind of. Anybody that needs help, you're trying to find it and you're trying to give too much. And, you know, and. And for me, like, I had to really look at that because that wasn't. That wasn't sustainable and it wasn't a valuable way to go about life. And it wound up, you know, I wound up jumping through jobs because, again, I couldn't afford life. I got four boys. I'm divorced twice. And, you know, pensions don't go that far.

[Michael]

Yeah. No, real life has. Costs me. Throw something else at you. Food for thought. Just listening to you talk when you were describing the job. So you started off with SARS swimmer and then police officers, then undercover. You use the term that's who I was. I would challenge you to think about it through the lens of that's what I did.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

So that has helped me very deeply. And I always tried to remind myself of that. The vernacular that you choose to use or the way you talk to yourself or externalize, it is powerful.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

I never wanted to be who I was because it wasn't right. It was just what I did.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And that really helped me. Let me be clear. Didn't make it much easier, but it helped Me not attach my entire identity to it. I know we all know anybody who comes from a background, and I'm not going to say I'm innocent of this as well, that comes from a background that could be considered to have some level of notoriety. You figure out ways to weave it into conversations when you're a less mature, probably younger man. I can't speak for women.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

I'll assume it's the same thing. And when you distance yourself from that, it's a beautiful thing, but it forces you to figure out who you are.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

Not what you did. Yeah, but that's a tough one. And that, that the language is very powerful in that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And again, like I said, it just, it just gave me the ability not to have to match people's energy. And I, you know, when you show up with value, you get to decide who gets access to you and where you put your energy and what the return on that investment is going to be.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, whereas before it was like I was giving my energy to anybody that asked. And that's not a good way to go about life because you're going to burn yourself. And unfortunately, people are going to take advantage of that energy and that access too.

[Michael]

Do you find that, that attitude, which is a spectacular attitude, by the way, it's way better than being a vampire in every respect of people's energy, time, money, all assets, all those things.

[Matt Griffin]

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[Michael]

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[Matt Griffin]

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[Michael]

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[Matt Griffin]

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[Michael]

In that desire to constantly look externally to provide as much help as possible, does it create a place where you can excuse not investing back in yourself because you're so tired or exhausted being external that you can overdo the external? And then you know what? I probably should be going and doing this, but I'm so tired from giving back.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

That I'm, you know.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, that's a powerful question.

[Michael]

And I don't know because I don't come from that world, so.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a powerful question. I would say there's definitely the aspect of that because. Because you're.

[Michael]

It's a really enticing excuse. And who's going to argue with that? Be like mad, really. Let me just tell you what I did today. And you Go. What are they going to do? What are they gonna say, you didn't do enough?

[Matt Griffin]

Right? Fuck off. Yeah, yeah, Seriously. Exactly. Yeah.

[Michael]

They're gonna say, you know what? Yeah, have the Mai tai, Don't go to the gym, go take a nap. You don't need to go train, but you gotta.

[Matt Griffin]

I mean, it's. Where. Where's your heart at? You know, what are you. What are you trying to accomplish? And when it's. When you're helping, because you decide on that, then that's a different. That's a different avenue when you're helping somebody else, because that was the choice that you made rather than what was required from you. Internally and externally, I think it's a different aspect. And it's been like, I've been with my current job now for over a year, which is for the first time since I retired in 2017. And that's a big deal, being able to look and say, it's okay that they weren't cops, they weren't veterans. It's okay. They may not understand what I. What I went through. They may not understand, you know, what my life looked like, but that doesn't make them any less valuable than. Than I am.

[Michael]

Isn't it a beautiful thing that they don't. Man, it's a beautiful thing that people don't have those experiences.

[Matt Griffin]

And I don't really know what the right way to say this is. I'm just going to try and say it the best I can because I'm still kind of processing a lot of. A lot of things that are happening. But I work so hard in my life to. To measure up to other people, you know, and just the way I grew up, you know, my dad really always wanted me to be the best at whatever it was, whether it was lacrosse, whether it was football, whether the private school that I got a scholarship to go to, you know, the. The Navy thing. And then undercover, it was always a competition with everybody else. And when I finally let go of that, even with speaking, being, being. I mean, I would watch video after video on how to be a good public speaker, how to be a great. Like the ums and the rights and getting rid of that and emotional pauses, and I wanted all this stuff because I was comparing myself to other people. And then when I let go of trying to compare myself to other people, and I just became more authentic about my own story and who I was. It seems like. And I don't even know what the right way to say this, but it seems like the things that I wanted that I no longer care about are now coming. Like, this show is a perfect example. Right. Like, I would have killed to be on this show with you, you know, two, three years ago when the book first came out.

[Michael]

Did you reach out then?

[Matt Griffin]

I think so. Yeah.

[Michael]

I'll go back into our Instagram messages. I'll call you out right now. You miss every shot you don't take.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right. That's right. You know, and. And, you know, sending. Sending another message and just saying, hey, is there any chance that.

[Michael]

I'm just glad I saw it. For people who reach out to me over Instagram, I do my best. Same thing with emails. Like, I'm sorry.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

I would say I'm a two person team, but only one of us seems to put in the work.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

Did you say half?

[Matt Griffin]

Yes.

[Michael]

Can we agree on a quarter? That's fair. Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

Can we settle on a quarter? Yeah.

[Michael]

We're working on him. Work in progress. He's like a large piece of marble that I'm chiseling away. Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

All right.

[Michael]

I like that it's still in the square form. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

At least I'm marble this time. It used to be Play Doh or clay.

[Michael]

So it's not marble. It's Play doh that's been left in the sun that has. It could be confused for marble, but it just doesn't have the strength.

[Matt Griffin]

Stale Play doh.

[Michael]

Yeah, exactly. White sun bleached.

[Matt Griffin]

I love it.

[Michael]

The speaking one's interesting. I do a good amount of public speaking and it's one of my favorite things to do because I. I just. Just. It's a chance. I view it as teaching.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I really started enjoying it when I went back and was a BUDS instructor. Because you were forced to get up in front of the students. And it was a really cool environment. One they're kind of contractually obligated to pay attention to you.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. They have no choice.

[Michael]

Some fantastic tools. If you catch somebody nodding off that I still haven't been able to replicate in the civilian speaking world.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Like, if you want to go to sleep when I'm talking in the civilian world, I'm not going to dump a buck of water on you.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. You want. You want to pull out your phone while I'm speaking.

[Michael]

Totally.

[Matt Griffin]

Go ahead.

[Michael]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Matt Griffin]

I'm not going to smack it out of your hand. I'm not going to smack you with it once it holds on.

[Michael]

Yeah. Even though that would be pretty dope if I could find an organization that

[Matt Griffin]

would let me do that.

[Michael]

Just Once a bucket of water is all I would do. But I found that I really, really enjoyed it. And the more I did it, and I'm sure this is true for you too, it's like anything, and I've seen or read stats, people fear public speaking more than they fear death. Which is a little bit bizarre because I can think of many other things absolutely. Involving alligators and great white sharks and being chased by tigers, all sorts of shit that I can think of that would be way worse than public speaking. But they just don't have any reps. So I think what they're saying is it's fear of the unknown and probably fear of the judgment of a large crowd. And they forget that almost everybody else in that room would never switch speakers places with them. And they would have the same experience if they were up there. To get to the point of it's about reps. And the more reps you get, the more comfortable. And I was, I got hundreds of reps when I went as an instructor on an audience. And again, I wasn't thinking this in my head. I look back at it now. That was the place where I got to the. The mindset of if you know your material, just go be yourself. Because I've never been successful trying to be somebody else. And that I'm not saying there is no value to those videos that you are watching, but it edges people away from being who they actually are. Can you apply the advice that they're giving you to being yourself? Yes. But I would highly advise people to never try to be something that they aren't.

[Matt Griffin]

And so I can tell right off the get go just from us talking, you don't say, you don't say. Right. When you have something to say, you just say it and then.

[Michael]

But I am constantly working on that.

[Matt Griffin]

It's a tough one.

[Michael]

The word I am trying to remove from my vocabulary right now is like. Like I caught how many. Like, you know what I'm talking about, Matt. Like, like Michael, you know, like your generation. I don't know why I'm changing my voice, by the way, but I just feel like your generation sounds be more

[Matt Griffin]

feminine for my generation.

[Michael]

Yeah, yeah. Like you know what I mean.

[Matt Griffin]

I do know what you mean.

[Michael]

Use the word like when you respond so people can understand how annoying it is.

[Matt Griffin]

No, I already do that. Like what? Yeah, exactly, right. I did.

[Michael]

It's a tough one.

[Matt Griffin]

I did ums and when I caught myself on the ums, I record all my presentations that I do and I caught the ums and I changed the UMS to write. Okay, so. Right. Makes sense. Right. And then I caught the rights, and from there, that's where I really started. And honestly, breath work was a big piece of the puzzle, too. A lot of people think it's an emotional pause, but really, it's just me breathing. And I forget to breathe a lot of times when I'm. When I'm speaking, when I'm doing something, I know my material. And everybody asked me, like, do you memorize? No. It's my life. It's my story, so I don't need to memorize it, but I do work on the transitions. And just like you said, I thought when I, you know, as an undercover cop, you put me in any scenario, you put me the janitor, I'm going to be comfortable. Put me the CEO, you know, CEO of a company. I'm going to be comfortable. So I thought I could just go stand up in front of people and speak, and that's just not the case. It's a craft, and anybody that's passionate about doing anything. Well, in this world, when you stand up in front of an audience for the first time and you look out

[Michael]

there, assuming you can see them, you might be blinded.

[Matt Griffin]

Right, Right. And then you look at the recording, you're like, oh, my gosh. And I looked at it as a crap, and I still look at it as a crap.

[Michael]

It is.

[Matt Griffin]

The only difference for me now is that my level of authenticity is so much higher. Where, for example, I was in Atlantic City yesterday, I spoke yesterday afternoon, and I would have stressed out because I messed up days for, you know, for this and that. So they took it from an hour and a half, and they said, all right, I gave you an hour block. I'm like, that's great. You're still paying the same amount of money. No problem. Problem. But what that did for me in my head was what am I cutting out? Because I have it down to almost a minute of where I'm saying what I mean, inside of about five minutes. I can start at 11, and I can be done at 12:29. And I know without watching the clock, I'm going to be right around that.

[Michael]

Yeah. You have a pace and a rhythm to it. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And I know where the emotional pauses are going to be. I know when I'm going to speed up, I'm going to slow down. And when we went to an hour, I would have stressed out hard on what to take out and what not to and what I don't. What I don't stress out anymore. It's what I realized is that some people are going to gravitate to my story right now. Some people may never gravitate to my story because they got other things going on in life and it may hit for other people in six months from now. And that's okay. I used to. Used to get evals at the end of it. I don't know if this is the same thing, but I would get. Let's say I have 500 people. 499 or fives out of five. That one would come back as a one. And I'm like that motherfucker.

[Michael]

We call that a negativity bias. Let me guess. You would spend and invest more energy in the 1 than the 499.

[Matt Griffin]

I would take 499, put in my backpack and I would stare at this and see if I could see if I could figure out who the. The running was from. Like, you know what I mean? And it's like, I'm gonna find this dude. And you know what? Nine times out of ten, it was probably. He just thought a one was the highest instead of a five, you know?

[Michael]

No, there's always somebody like that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

I mean, you've already nailed it. You can't be everything for everybody. Michael, what was it two weeks ago? We read the most fantastic Goodreads reviews. Did you get it? We're not going to read it again because you're going to frame it, right?

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, that's right.

[Michael]

I am telling you, I will pay you. It was a one star.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Really. And I want to frame it and put it up in the studio. Maybe not on camera. Let's not get too crazy. Actually, Michael. We will have the edge of it on camera. Perfect.

[Matt Griffin]

Perfect.

[Michael]

Would that be the digital representation of edging for the audience? Because they would see.

[Matt Griffin]

I don't think you want to see what the digital representation.

[Michael]

I don't actually. Good. So you can keep that in your Google search history. But there's a couple ways you can look at it. I used to do exactly the same thing. You would just disregard a absolute tsunami of positive feedback for somebody in the audience who is probably having a bad day and their feedback. Not that I haven't given bad speeches for clarity. There is. Bad feedback can be completely legitimate. And I'm fully open for any type of constructive feedback at all times. Sometimes it's difficult to process in the moment, but I work hard on it and I will get there. Not all feedback that is negative is constructive in nature.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right.

[Michael]

And sometimes you can tell that people are just miserable in their station in life. And I actually hate that for people. I don't want anybody to be like that. But if you can start to at least ask yourself.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

How do you think this person's day was going when they wrote this? What headspace would I have to find myself in? We're talking this Goodreads review. Yeah. Five paragraphs.

[Matt Griffin]

Michael, you think five paragraphs. Come on.

[Michael]

Oh, dude.

[Matt Griffin]

Seven, eight. I mean, glorious. Frame it for a sec. Like, reframe it. Like, think about it for a second.

[Michael]

Oh, it's simple.

[Matt Griffin]

You're taking so much time out of your day.

[Michael]

That's what I'm saying. What headspace would you have to be in? Yeah. And how unhappy would you have to be to dedicate that amount? Like you were saying, reframe the message. I can do that as Andy, Go fuck yourself.

[Matt Griffin]

No, no, I'm saying, like, think about them for a second. Like, they just took hours probably out of their day to write seven paragraphs. Like, that's. I say the same thing for cops. At the end of the day, we just spent four hours, like, let's say I had a four hour block and finished out that you got a two hour ride home and you just spent 20 minutes writing down what you didn't like about my presentation. What does that say about you as opposed to what it says about me?

[Michael]

It's tough. But again, with. With getting a little bit more experience and understanding, it helps round the edges on that negativity bias. And the reason I want to frame that, and we're absolutely going to, is it's a constant reminder of be careful taking the feedback and criticism from somebody whose life or situation you wouldn't switch with.

[Matt Griffin]

Without a doubt.

[Michael]

And it doesn't diminish. Again, constructive feedback. Hey. And actually removing some of the words that you had mentioned from my speech came from people listening to the show saying, you have come comfort words. And so I try to cut it out and I caught myself the likes. And so, man, that first week, I've only been working on it for a couple of weeks, but I feel like I am doing. God damn it. Hold on. How do I say that? I feel as if I'm doing better.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, no, you are.

[Michael]

But it's not that, like, you know, in the context of a sentence, obviously that's what I meant to say. It's the comfort, like, at the end. It's the lazy, like, in between the transition words. I'll 100% take that feedback on board because that is Constructive. And I agree. That would be better. And a more efficient way to communicate and get your message across. The. Hey, Andy, fuck you and everything about your book. Okay, first, I'm gonna read this for purely entertainment because now I'm finally at a place where I'm. I'm gonna let go of my side of the tug of war rope on that one. And I'm not gonna try to figure out who it is and argue with you. I'm just gonna let go of the rope and I'm gonna read this for my own entertainment. And we're gonna frame it as a reminder. There's somebody out there who hates your guts, and it actually doesn't have anything

[Matt Griffin]

to do with you, dude. And all it is is a reflection of them.

[Michael]

I know.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, and once you once. Once you look at it that way, man, it's okay. Like, I, you know, I've been working really hard on my social media, you know, and I'm up to 2, 000 followers on Instagram, which is a lot for me, man. Like, I don't. Dude, that's awesome. You know, like, and. And I finally got my first hater, and I, you know, and I was happy.

[Michael]

Do you know what destroys haters, though?

[Matt Griffin]

Hate?

[Michael]

Yeah. Kindness.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. You know, he said, congratulations. It was a picture of me from. It had nothing even to do with the post. Right. It was a picture of me with, you know, I think, like, 10 pounds of weed that I seized way back in the day. You know, the beer wasn't. Wasn't gray. And he's like, congratulations, Hiro, you stole somebody's marijuana and money. Like, okay, great. Like, all right, thanks. You know, that is the response, just

[Michael]

right back, thank you.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. And. Okay.

[Michael]

And they'll twist into orbit, man.

[Matt Griffin]

But I was, honestly, I was more excited that I finally have risen to a level where somebody needs to hate on me. And I was like, damn. And I texted my girlfriend. I was like. I was like, baby, I gotta hate her. And I was like. I was happy, though, because all it is, it's just a reflection of them.

[Michael]

Yep.

[Matt Griffin]

You know what I mean? And we do that a lot in the police world, in the veteran community, too. You know, sometimes, like, I try to say this to a lot of my younger badges that. That call me and I work with, and. And I always say, listen, somebody else's success is not a reflection on you or your lack of success. It's just their success. When you speak on it, it becomes a refle on you. So stop speaking on somebody's life.

[Michael]

Well. And they want to say if your experience is anything like my own, they want to say you're only successful because of fill in the blank badge. Sara Swimmer, team guy, maybe. I can't sit here and say that that didn't help. I can't sit here. And I'm not going to take back those experiences, by the way. And I believe I earned them. Correct. And I tell people this too because I'm not a fan of how everybody uses their experiences. As soon as it crosses the line of truthful or not truthful, I have an issue with it. I'm not necessarily going to address it. But that's where my line is. Up until that point, your experiences are used, yours to use as you want to when you start lying. I have a problem with it. As should everybody have a problem with it?

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely.

[Michael]

As should the communities have a problem with it because it degrades and it muddies the water for everybody out there, especially when they're allowed to get away with it in a public facing environment.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

But beyond that, do what you want to with the experiences you've earned, right?

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely. Because you earned them. They're yours. They're yours to do. You know, And I also think when I left law enforcement in 2017, I really have a pot to piss in and I didn't really know what I was gonna do. And like I said, I felt like, I look back now and that was a blessing. But the amount of guys that said, hey, what are you gonna do? And then, you know, very slowly I got a job and I started to make a decent amount of money and things started happening and there was ups and downs over the last 10 years. But guys want to knock that down because I think it's a reflection on them. They thought about leaving, they thought about doing X, Y and Z. And they've got to find a reason why they're not doing it. And if you don't do it the right way in their minds, then they don't have to go do it. And same thing with writing a book. Everybody wants to say, writing a book, it's not that hard. You can use AI now. It's like I didn't use any AI in mine. And. And I wrote every single chapter probably. I wrote every single chapter probably 20 times. I would write a chapter and send it to my ghostwriter, she would send it back with corrections and then I would get up onto a flight or wherever I was going and I would read the chapter and the chapter didn't say what I wanted it. To say I would delete it without having it anywhere, and I would start over.

[Michael]

There's easier ways.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I know.

[Michael]

It's crazy.

[Matt Griffin]

I just knew I had one shot to tell my story and to tell Brian's story, to tell Benny Jr. S story, to tell, you know, so many cops that. That there's light at the end of the tunnel, man. It's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way. I knew that I had a responsibility to tell the story, and I just wanted to make sure that it came across the way that I wanted to come across. And it took me 18 months to write it.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, I felt like. I felt there was a lot of weight to. To push a message of hope inside of a profession that. That typically doesn't, like, want to hear that hope.

[Michael]

Yeah. But what's life like as a star swimmer? Before you became a cop? How'd you get into that line of work? Yes.

[Matt Griffin]

So that. Yeah, yeah, Great, Great question. So I got out of high school. I went to. I went to a private high school in Northern Jersey on a lacrosse and football scholarship. So I went to school with people like Christina Ricci and. And Jamie Simonoff and a lot of.

[Michael]

And I have absolutely no idea who those people are.

[Matt Griffin]

Christina Ricci was Wednesday from the Adams family.

[Michael]

I know who that is.

[Matt Griffin]

Okay. And then Jamie Simonoff, owner, creator of Ring Doorbell, been on the Shark Tank multiple times.

[Michael]

Don't watch it.

[Matt Griffin]

So I'm one of six kids. I was, you know, grew up in a certain way and so had no business spending $60,000 a year to go to high school. And it wasn't a boarding school, so I got the scholarship to go there. And so I looked at it. I was like, the first scholarship class. And so I didn't. I had to learn how to. How to walk like rich kids. I had to learn how to kind of talk.

[Michael]

I was gonna say, how did they respond?

[Matt Griffin]

They didn't like me, and I wasn't one of them. They had grown up together. And so. But, you know, I'm a very faithful guy. And I. And I look back when I wrote my book. I looked back at chapter one, and I looked at chapter, you know, 12. I'm like, well, wow. Like, chapter 12. I'm not alive. Chapter one doesn't happen. Like, I. If I didn't know what designer drugs looked like, if I didn't. If I didn't walk and talk and do the same things that I did during those four years. Anyway, all that to Say is that when I got done with that, I didn't want to go to college. I didn't want to run that back. I felt like that was my first undercover operation, so.

[Michael]

So did they accept you anytime during that four year time period?

[Matt Griffin]

My senior year, yeah, my senior year, I became the senior class president. I was a captain of the football and lacrosse team. And that was when I finally. I felt like I had a role. I felt like they gave me a role, like I was bridging the gap between smart kids and athletes. And so even though I was a scholarship kid, they knew me for three years, so I was able to bridge that gap between. Because we had athletes and then we had really smart kids. Most of the time it was hockey, lacrosse. That's what they're specialized in. And swimming. And then we had all the really, like, high level smart kids. So I felt like they trusted me because they knew me for three years. But I also was able to bridge that gap between the two. So I get in the Navy, and I remember the commercial said, let the journey begin. I'm like, awesome. I'm so tired of being in Morristown, New Jersey. I want to get out. I want to see the world. I want to see everything that there is to all for me. And. And I remember going in and I said, all right, I need a good job. I don't need a great job.

[Michael]

Right, Your recruiter's wet dream.

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, man. I said, listen, I don't want to be a deck seaman, but I don't want to be a nuclear technician. I said, where's. Where's something on the upper level of that? And he said, what about a sonar technician? I said, well, tell me all about that. He said, man, you're literally on a surface ship. Dude, your job is so easy. Like, you got to get through a long, hard school, but once, once you're on a surface ship, like, dude, you're not going to beat a submarine. So nobody really cares. Like, if they see you jumping off, they're gonna jump off too, because that means the torpedoes coming to hit you.

[Michael]

I'm like, I don't think that's how that works.

[Matt Griffin]

How it works either. But I subscribed to the book. I was like, cool. Like, that's great. He's like your powder combat system. So you're gonna be, you know, you're not gonna be in engineering. You're not gonna be in a room with no windows. Right, right. And so I go out to San Diego. I become a sonar tech. I get to the USS DeWirt FFG 45 down in Mayport, Florida. My best friend Adam, there was. There were six of us in a two bedroom apartment. You know how it works, right? Like everybody, anybody, you know, put some money. Yeah. So Adam and I were surfers. We love, we love the beach and the ops. Lieutenant, I can, I can never remember his name, but just a good dude. Like, he was, he was an enlisted officer.

[Michael]

Mustang. Yep.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, he did like Seaman Admiral 21 or something like that. And he, he comes to us, he's like, he's like, hey, you guys want to, you guys want to be SARS swimmers? Sure. Like, I thought it was a collateral duty, like, no big deal. He said, all right, muster up tomorrow. Let's go. You know, do your PT test and everything else. And so we do all that and we get to, we get to SARS school. He's like, like, you guys are gonna be there for the next eight weeks. I'm like, whoa, whoa, time out. I don't. You didn't tell me we're TAD now for. He's like, well, you can come home if you want, like on the weekends. What? But you're gonna stay there Monday through, you know, Friday or Saturday.

[Michael]

And is it a new designation if you make it through that?

[Matt Griffin]

No. So but like, they'll, they'll tad you out to different places. They do like work up. So you're still, you'll still sonar tech. Yeah, but they'll like. So let's say like the GW Battle Group, they don't have enough SARS members to go through their workups. Like, I wouldn't go on a deployment with anybody else, but I would, I was the primary sars. Adam and I were primary source warmers for the, the dwarf. And then any, like the destroyers, say guys were on Lee or guys got injured, you would, you would go with them.

[Michael]

Interesting.

[Matt Griffin]

And so, yeah, so we got done with that. And I loved it, man. I loved being in port. I loved the training that we did. I love the swimming, I love the running. But again, I didn't, you know, I didn't. I never subscribed to like wanting to be a star swim. I never, I never had and that type of mentality behind me to do that. And you know, I would say like on day two, so Monday was obviously an eye opening day. They had a bunch of guys and I remember them just screaming, don't be last. Don't be last. We did our first three miles and they're like, did we say three? We went six. So we went Again. And day two, I got my first dq, and they pull. A diver came up from underneath me, grabbed my carabiner, and dunked me underwater. So what did I do? And so I got my first dq, and I was gonna quit. I was gonna. I was gonna say, listen, I'm done. Like, you only get two DQs for the eight weeks. And Adam said to me. He said. He said, dude, just. Just go tomorrow. Let's. Let's put a picture of Budweiser on the baseball, because Wednesday is hump day. The baseball would stay open to, like, 2:00am or midnight or whatever it was. So.

[Michael]

All right.

[Matt Griffin]

And so I didn't quit on Wednesday and went and had a picture of Budweiser with Adam. And then. And then after that, on Thursday, he's like, dude, just make it a Friday night night. Let's put another picture of Bo. So I never made it. I always say, like, I never made it eight weeks. I just made it to Wednesday, and then I made it to Friday.

[Michael]

It's funny how that happens if you don't keep track of the calendar, dude.

[Matt Griffin]

And I never even looked at it. It was just. All right, this is what I need to do. I need to get it to get to Wednesday, split a pitcher of Budwatcher, and then I need to get to Friday. And that mentality right there saved my life in 2017 when I wrote my suicide note. But, yeah, back to answer your question, I mean, it was. I thought it was good. I thought it was fun.

[Michael]

So what do they use the star swimmers for? Do they get you guys up in the helicopters and you out there? Anytime they're doing. Is it when they have people in smaller boats or how do they know when to launch you guys up there in the birds?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So typically, what our responsibilities are are any men overboard, any. Any flight ops. We got to be in, like, a shorty wetsuit in the helo hangar in case, you know, a plane goes down. You know how many planes went down in. In my career?

[Michael]

I think zero.

[Matt Griffin]

Zero. Yeah. We'd sit there, we would play like, you know, NHL hockey or whatever it was. I'm like. And just in a shorty, what? Suit just pulled down. So that was our. That was how we stood watch so I wouldn't have to do sonar tech watch. And I would sit in the flight deck. We'd just go 12 on, 12 off. And if there are flight ops, sometimes it's 6 on, 6 off, whatever the flight ops were. And then the most fun that I ever had was we would do what's called an exercise torpedo. So we would plan like we were fighting a submarine. Like what are war games. We would shoot what's called an exercise torpedo, which has no. You know. Yeah.

[Michael]

So actually blue too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So it blew out. Yeah. So. And they. And so we would get on the rib and we would have to hook on to the exercise torpedo and ride it back to the ship. And so you're just bobbing along the water, man. It's fun as. All right. And that was.

[Michael]

Ever ridden a torpedo?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, and that. And then like visa board, search and seizure. So we did. We did kind of drug ops. So we were just always right there. We were. Part of. One of us was either SARS one or the other one would be on vbss. So we'd be part of the team that would take down the little go fast that were coming. So that was really it. So it was pretty. I mean, the hardest part was really going through the training and then maintaining it. So like every. Every six months, I think it was maybe every quarter you had to go through and make do your tests and whatnot and just re qualify and basically it just holds. And you know, because somebody's drowning, like they're overboard, they're going to grab a hold of you and you just got to swim up underneath them, do certain holds and things like that.

[Michael]

So people don't realize how dangerous a drowning, drowning person is.

[Matt Griffin]

I had no idea. They.

[Michael]

The. There's actually some pretty scary stats about the number of people who have been killed in the attempt to assist. They both end up dying, but. And I don't think they're trying to kill you. I think they're just in full reptilian brain.

[Matt Griffin]

Your life. I'm dying. I'm.

[Michael]

They're climbing you?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

They just climb you.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

There's an evolution in buds. It's called life saving.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I. I mean this is worth 30 years ago at this point.

[Matt Griffin]

You go underneath and like have to put them in a hole and say like, calm down, survivors.

[Michael]

So it is to the best of my memory, it's a one to one ratio. One instructor, one student. You go out there, there's an instructor in the water, you swim up to him, you turn around and then they start the test. And I think you go four times and there's one of them. Actually on one of them, you don't turn around because they go passive.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And that's actually very difficult as well to get somebody up who is not wearing positive buoyancy. And you're dragging them to the side.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

I feel like you only get one of those, though. The other three, a little bit more akin to a rodeo ride.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes. Yeah.

[Michael]

And, yeah, we're talking over the top grab alligator roll the whole night. And I am pretty sure it doesn't teach you how to save anybody's life there. It's actually more, I think, an evolution for the instructors.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Which I'm fully supportive of.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

But, yeah, some large eyes in the pool.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So we would have to, like. So again, you got the snorkel, the fins, and everything else. So, like, when you get about, you know, three, four feet away, you go underneath the water and then you come up on the back side of them and you just put them in a hole. And I can't remember, I used to do it on my kids, like.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, and I grab them like, calm down, survivor. Calm down. Like that. What's wrong?

[Michael]

Calm down, survivor.

[Matt Griffin]

But then, you know, if they got you, you would just take them under underwater, Which I always. I always had a problem with that. I'm like, all right, so they're drowning, and then they grab a hold of you and then. So, like, you would, you know, you would pop up over the water and then go down.

[Michael]

You go. So they let go. Yeah, they. They climb you like a raft.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. Right.

[Michael]

When you're up on the surface until

[Matt Griffin]

you go underwater, and they're like, yeah, we're all done.

[Michael]

Well, it's a change in behavior, I think, is what you're trying to elicit. Okay. How long did you stay in the Navy?

[Matt Griffin]

Six.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I did six. And then I put in for Seman Admiral at the end of it, got wait listed and went up to Virginia Beach. My brother was in Chesapeake, so I actually recruited out of Chesapeake because I stayed. After I graduated high school, I went down, worked out with him for a little bit, and I remember him saying to me, he was like, well, what are you going to do, dude, if you don't. If you don't get this? I said, man, I really thought about that. At that point in my life, anything I put my mind to, I kind of, you know, I achieved. And so I was just thinking I was going to get the call any day that I was going to go to Seaman Admiral 21. I was going to go off to college for three years, come back as an O2E. And that was the first time I thought about it. He said, well, it's Friday night. They're doing a PT test for Virginia Beach. I was like, oh, that's not A bad idea. Like, I'm a pretty active guy. I don't want to sit in the desk. I don't want to, you know, do sales. And now I'm in sales, which is fun, but. And so I drive down to Bird Neck, down to Lita, and I get down there, and there's like 1500 people. Like 2000 people for 35 spots.

[Michael]

Like 1,500 people.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes. For 35 spots. So at Lita, there was a line, almost like it was a concert. It was almost like you're at the deli counter, they're handing you a time to come back to do the PT test.

[Michael]

Wow.

[Matt Griffin]

Which is unbelievable. I remember calling my wife at the time and I said, babe, we're not. I'm not gonna get this. There's a lot of people out here for 35 spots. And I was actually just joking about this. In Atlantic City, there's a Virginia beach cop, and we all know the same guys. And I said, do you remember? He's like, yeah, yeah. Like, at that time, everybody wanted to be beach cops. The Norfolk guys weren't getting paid that much, and, you know, so everybody wanted to be beach cops. And. And, yeah. And so I. I just kept making it through to the next stage, and on a Friday afternoon, I got a call. They said, we're offering a spot in the 36th Virginia Beach Police Academy. They're like, congratulations. Like, dude, I'm like, thank you so much. I said, I'm really waiting for the Seaman Admiral thing to come through. How much time?

[Michael]

Not the time to say that.

[Matt Griffin]

I said, how much time do I have until I get to give you an answer? He's like, well, it's. It's 4:05. I'll give you about 55 minutes. You can call me back by 5. And that's how I became a cop down in Virginia Beach.

[Michael]

Where do they send you for the academy?

[Matt Griffin]

Right there. Alita.

[Michael]

Oh, sweet.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes, right there. So they run their own academy, and they do it every. Every six months. And so. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Then from there, I went into the third Precinct, and. Yep.

[Michael]

How was that being a cop there? I feel like you're dealing with a lot of drunk team guys, dude.

[Matt Griffin]

So, like, that's. So that's the second precinct. Yeah. You do? Yep. Yeah, there's. There's. There's a lot of that. That.

[Michael]

I'm not saying I have any experience with that.

[Matt Griffin]

CP Shuckers and the Glock and everything else down there. Yeah, Yep. Good, good times, man. Good, good times. So. But thankfully, I was off in the third Precinct, and we had a lot of Section eight housing, a lot of drug work and things like that. That's where I wanted to go. I chose that. And, And. And I loved it, man. I loved. I loved every minute of it. You know, about two years in is when. Is when the trauma finally hit. And I know that's, you know, what we're. We were talking about a little bit, but I was. I was part of a cop squad, like an undercover squad that was. That was taken down or looking at, like, trap houses.

[Michael]

What's a cop squad?

[Matt Griffin]

Community oriented policing.

[Michael]

Gotcha.

[Matt Griffin]

So basically what you're doing is you're looking one. You jump hot calls in any of the section 8 complexes. So you're assigned basically to those areas. So what is a hot call? So what they call a code to call. So any. Any robbery, anything violent, anything. You know, you're trying to make arrests, you're trying to. To diminish the crime in certain areas.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

And so you're not assigned, like, traffic calls. You're not signed, like accidents or stolen bikes or things like that.

[Michael]

Gotcha.

[Matt Griffin]

And so it was Christmas Eve of 2003, going into 2004. And. And so I was driving into Lake Edwards. I was on Hampshire Lane, and I was in, like, an undercover car. What I was doing was going to this address, and I. This sounds crazy to a lot of the cops out here, but used to be able to do a trash pull. And today that's a. That's a no. But what a trash pull was is you could. You could take somebody's trash, they put it on the. On the road, on the curb.

[Michael]

So it wasn't a Fifth amendment violation?

[Matt Griffin]

No. So it wasn't a fourth Amendment. Yeah, a fourth.

[Michael]

That's right. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

So you could take their trash as long as you could say that that's exactly the trash. So we would.

[Michael]

As long as it was on the curb, for whatever reason, the fourth drive ends at your curb.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right. That's right. And so we had done a trash pole, we got some stems, we got some stuff like that. So we had corroborate that with people coming and going. So I don't know why I draw the short straw. So I'm out there, and so I'm driving over to that address, and on the right side of. Of Hampshire Lane, I see my buddy Ben, who's in the Navy with me down in Florida, and so he's out front playing with his little boy. And I never, you know, so I pull Over. I'm like, oh, man, what's up? So, so we start talking, hanging out. He's like, meet my son. This is Benny Jr. I'm like, wow. He's like, you're a cop? I said, yeah. He's like, that's crazy. I said, I know. And I said, you're up in Norfolk? He said, yeah. And he said, come on inside. Meet, meet Brittany, meet, you know, meet my other son. And, and so he's like, what are you doing for, for Christmas? I said, man, I gotta work. I'm the young badge. I gotta. I'm right around the corner, I'm writing down, you know, plates of the stash house.

[Michael]

Kind of going through people's garbage. Not a big deal.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, no big deal. Yeah, just, just, just rummaging through trash and just doing what we do as cops. And he said, well, man, come on over, we gotta spread. I gotta, I got family coming up, you know, we got tons of food. I said, all right, cool. And again, this is like four blocks from where the house was. So went over, had had food with him and little Benny Jr. Was in the, in the kitchen. He's cutting up Christmas cookies. I remember going in there, right? He's like that two and a half. He's on the step stool. So he turns and my gun's right there. He's like, you know, like the eyes just go out. And he's like, dude. And he just had that two and a half year old voice. He's like, are you a cop? I said, yes, sir. He's like, that's so cool. And so fast forward now to Christmas or to New Year's Eve and I'm at the same house. And I remember like waking up on New Year's Eve and, and being excited, right? Because we never got New Year's Eve. Like I was, you know, a young guy, like in a Navy base. Like, we never really got that. And so I was going out with all the fellows that night. We were gonna go to a club. We're gonna drink, we'll have fun. And so, but I had to work until about 6 o'. Clock. I think it was like 8 to 6. I had to do on New Year's Eve. It was either that or work on New Year's Day. So I was like, no, I'll do New Year's Eve and then have New Year's day off.

[Michael]

That's 100% the move.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. So I go out there and I'm sitting there and I remember just like, just being excited, like thinking about What I was gonna wear that night, like all these different things going, you know, they're just stupid. Like the last thing I was doing was focusing on this drug house that I'm sitting in front of. Right. Like the last thing. And right about 4:30, man, the call came out and it was just what they do in Virginia beach is they tone you out. So like if you get, you get tones, it's a hot call. So there's, there's code one calls, which is like the hottest of the hot.

[Michael]

And so the tone comes and then the call comes after.

[Matt Griffin]

Correct.

[Michael]

So you, it kind of perks the ear up a little bit.

[Matt Griffin]

Correct. So if you're just driving patrol, you have, you have, have zones, right? 325, 320. So and, and there you, you understand like where your zone ends and where the next zone is. So you get assigned your calls through your, through your computer. You just hit, you know, if it's not a code call, but when a code call comes out. Units 325, units 326 respond to a robbery at such and such. So anybody hears the code, the tones are like, oh, they turn the.

[Michael]

Makes sense.

[Matt Griffin]

And so, so, so I'm sitting there, it's about 4:30, and all of a sudden the tones come out and I'm not, I'm not his own unit. So the tones came out. Units 325, units 326 respond to 767 Hampshire Lane. Two and a half year old, code gray. And I remember sitting there thinking, I'm like, man, that's a really shitty call for New Year's Eve. Code gray means unconscious, not breathing. Two and a half year old. I was like, man, that's a really shitty call. And I sat there for about 10, 10 seconds, about 20 seconds and all sudden, right about that 30 second window, all of a sudden it hit like, damn. 767 Hampshire Lane. Two and a half year old, that's got to be fucking Benny Junior. So drop the car in a drive, full freak out mode. Pull right up onto the front lawn, go running inside. Ben Senior, my buddy, was out on, out on the ship. Brittany's standing there screaming. She's got the baby in her arms, she's got the phone in one hand and she's pointing into the bedroom. She had gone and taken the six month old and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She put Willy Wonka the Chocolate Factory on in the bedroom for Benny junior. And Benny Junior being the monkey that he is, climbed up on the windowsill, and he grabbed the blind cord.

[Michael]

Oh, no.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And he went to swing off and get to the dresser, and it caught him. Yep. And I didn't know this, but, like, apparently, like, 20 to 30 kids a year. I mean, I don't know if it's anymore, but I want to research.

[Michael]

I mean, I don't think they've changed. I have. Just thinking right now of the blind cords in our house.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And it's a contiguous piece. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And so it caught him, and so went right to work. Cut him down. I started doing cpr, and, man, I. So I grew up Irish Catholic in Jersey. Right. So I'm a Notre Dame Irish fan. And. And. But I had to go to church every Sunday in order to go to my football game, go to my cross games, everything else. And I remember praying. I was like, I'm doing CPR. I'm doing my 15:2s. And I said, God, don't take this little boy, man. Like, don't do this. And, you know, I did my first rescue breath, and then on the second one, I got a breath and right into my mouth. And I remember saying, oh, man, thank. Thank you. And I kept going with CPR and everything else. And then it dawned on me later on that was the last breath that he ever took. And as the ambulance guys got there, and I kind of rolled off, and there are scotch marks on the wall where he was trying to get down. And that, man, I ate on me, man. It ate on me so bad. And a lot of people don't realize, like. Like, all right, yes. But I sat in my car for 30 seconds. And that decision to sit in my car and not respond, even though it wasn't my call, but not to go there when the call came out, like, nobody. Nobody on this side of heaven can tell me that if I didn't respond when that call came out, that I couldn't have saved his life. 36 is a long time when it comes to CPR and things like that. And. And, man, that ate me. And. And so Ben's coming back in. So they called him. They. They got him back in, so he's on his way. So Brittany, she says to me, she's like, can you help me out until, you know, until Ben comes back? I said, yep. So I wound up going to the morgue and helping her, and I wound up dressing little Benny Jr. In a spider man costume, you know? And meanwhile, in my head, I'm saying to myself, I did this. Like, I'm. I'm at fault like, that was the first time I felt catastrophic failure in my life.

[Michael]

Life.

[Matt Griffin]

And, man, I ate that for a long time. And I didn't sleep, and I couldn't tell anybody. Like, I'm not going to tell, you know, my buddy when it comes back. Like, hey, I. I was around the corner. I was four. Four blocks away, and I sat there and I didn't go, you know, so I ate that. And I would wake up almost nightly with. With a nightmare of getting there. And, you know, I was doing CPR, and then. And then Benny Jr. Would wake up and. And. And so the only way I could fall asleep was if I drank. And so I was really, you know, I mean, I drank in the Navy, but I wasn't. You know, I was more about life, surfing and, you know, being out with the boys and whatnot. And. But I really started drinking. And my. My wife at the time, my boy's mother, she. And it didn't help that my. My oldest one was right about that age. Same blonde hair, you know, Benny Jr. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Mine was blonde hair, brown eyes, but same age. So every time I looked at him, I'm seeing Benny junior, right? And I'm freaking out every time I can't hear him. I would walk into the house, and I would. I would put my. My, you know, to make sure he's good. And so my wife said to me, she said, let's. Let's get a change. So, yeah, that's a good idea. And that's how I made it up to Keene, New Hampshire. And. And so. And that's how I became the sro. Like, so everything kind of circles back because I didn't want to do anything crazy. Like, I'm like, you know what I've had? I've lived the crazy life. I've done a lot of, you know, a lot of cool things. Let me just be the sro. And that's how I started coaching lacrosse at the high school and building in these kids and. And. And then the opioid epidemic hits in, like, 2014, 2015. And I wasn't like, kingdom, Hampshire is a small town. Everybody knows each other. Everyone went to high school together. Like, they all know each other's families. And so the opioid epidemic hits, and all these people are getting hooked on pills, getting hooked on fentanyl and overdosing. Ohio and New Hampshire are, like, the two leading states for opioid overdoses. And chief comes to me, he's like, hey, dude. Like, you're not from here. Nobody really Knows you, you're a good cop. I want you to go undercover. And I was like, man, I don't know, you know, I'm pretty happy with the money through Friday, you know, 6:00am to 2:00pm and, and, but so I wound up going undercover and I started seeing all these kids, you know, overdose and whatnot. And, and really the ends kind of justify the means. What I mean by that is we had all these rules that we had to follow. Like, number one, we were working day shift, which never, never made sense to me. Like, okay, so drug dealers only. Only sell drugs during the day. Like that doesn't make sense to me.

[Michael]

That's correct. Crisis on banking hours. Right after 5pm they clock out.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, it's like. So it just all these things, like we couldn't change locations. So let's say like, you're my target, right? And, and you're gonna serve me up with whatever if you call me. Or like, hey, we're not gonna meet at the gas station, we're gonna meet at Walmart. Okay, that's one change of location. If you change location again, deals off. And like that never made. That never jive. Like, okay, well they're doing that because they know that we have surveillance set up and things like that. So all these different things, like, just never made sense for me. And you know, I got to a point where like, I was just, I was just ate up with it and I really forgot how to be Matt Griffin. And I had cornrows in my hair. You know, I got tattoos all over my body. And I had a lip ring. And this is from a high and tight navy guy. That.

[Michael]

A lip ring?

[Matt Griffin]

I had a lip ring. Yeah.

[Michael]

How'd that feel when they put that

[Matt Griffin]

sucker in, you know? So my ex wife and I are very good friends now, I want to say. Very good friends. We're very amicable and she's been a great mother to my kids. And, and I'm going to say this and, and she'll probably laugh, but she may not. But we got into an argument and I was in Newport, Rhode island, and we got an argument and I said, you know what? This is really going to piss her off. And so I went and got a lip ring. I got it.

[Michael]

You couldn't think of anything else that

[Matt Griffin]

might have pissed her off? That's what I decided that I was going to do. And I remember coming home and I walked in the door and I was gone for like two weeks. And she's like, please tell me that's not real. And she like, grabbed at it, and she started crying, and I was like, that didn't turn out the way I wanted it, but that's why I got a lip ring.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep, yep. Yeah. The bad decisions that we make. But. But. Yeah. And so I really forgot how to be Matt Griffin. And I think a lot of people can resonate that with the job. We start to put so much time and effort into who we are in the job that we forget who's at home. Home. You know, I would say one of the biggest regrets that I had was. Was being C.J. davis and not. And not remembering how to be Matt Griffin.

[Michael]

I'm assuming that was your undercover name. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. And, you know, I remember coming home one. One night, and we had. I. I hit, like, two kilos and got, like, a gun, like, 72 grand in cash. It was just a great day. And I remember saying to her, I'm like, hey, let's take the kids along. Let's celebrate. She's like, baby, we can't afford that. That. I'm like, well, I got thousands of dollars of buy money, right? I got an Escalade out here. I can't go to the Longhorn with my kids. And, you know, you're like. She's like, no. Like, that's 200 bucks that we don't have. Like, I can barely. I can barely pay the cell phone bill and get food on the table. I'm like, dang. You know, and then you. Then you just start wanting to be that person more than you want to be who you are, you know? And I can remember so many times that we'd have date night set up, and somebody would call and say, hey, man, we need you for Hitman for Hire. Can you do that? I'm like, hell, yeah. It sounds that fun. Hey, baby, send the babysitter home. I got to go to work, you know, or I got to work or I got to date night. I lay out four phones, not paying attention, and I don't think anybody. You know, we don't do it purposely, but before you know it, don't do it accidentally either. Don't do it accidentally, either. Yeah.

[Michael]

And not to take you back to it, but how did you get past. What work did you do to get past Benny Jr. Man, you know, I

[Matt Griffin]

tried everything under the sun. The first time that I got eight hours of sleep was a counselor that I was working with again. I had to do a counselor and pay on my own because I knew that I was struggling. And my wife at the time.

[Michael]

Yeah, you wanted to keep it away from the apartment size.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So I had the envelope from the wake, and it sat right on my desktop or Right. My side table for years. And. And it's just so. But now I can't find that, which is weird. After the divorce, I couldn't find anyway, but my wife at the time was like, you need some help. Like, you're up all night long, and you're going into work, and you're running and gunning. You got no sleep, and you're drinking too much. And. And so I found. I found. Found a counselor that would take me. And I remember she said, I'm gonna try something new. I said, okay. And she puts these two black balls in my hand. I'm like, stop it. Like, I'm like, hold on. I can't do this.

[Michael]

Let's just talk about. I just got excited the most. I was gonna say I had to look over at Michael as far as ways that you could start stories that are gonna get Michael and I's attention. Sir, you have reached the apex.

[Matt Griffin]

That's it, right? And so I was like, all right, I'm down. I'm down to try something new. And she takes these two black balls out, and she puts them in my hand.

[Michael]

Are there words that you could use other than that? That could.

[Matt Griffin]

That's the only way to describe these things. Dark orbs. They are black balls. And she put in each. And then they start to vibrate. They start to vibrate.

[Michael]

I said, I'm sure they did.

[Matt Griffin]

You got to be me right now. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, stay with me. It's called emdr, okay? I was like, I don't know what this is called, but whatever it is, this is not. I said, is the door gonna open up? And guys are gonna be laughing, like, did they find me? They find out that I'm going here? And sure enough, man, she called the emdr. And so basically what they do is they take you through, like, your critical incident, and. And it retrains your brain that at nighttime. This is what she said to me at nighttime. When your brain goes there, it goes back to your happy place. So while the. While the ball's vibrating in your hands, I'm sure there's better ways to go about doing it.

[Michael]

Here's the thing. I don't think people should lie, but you could describe this story differently. You could say two paddles that don't look anything like black balls are in your.

[Matt Griffin]

So we have two rather large ping pong balls, but so we get done with this, I, you not. That night was the first time in years that I got eight straight hours. I called her the next day and I said, I don't know what kind of voodoo you did, but I slept eight straight hours without waking up. She's like, yeah. She's like, I retrained your brain. So I got a lot of help there. And, yeah. And then, you know, unfortunately, the undercover life took my marriage, and I take a lot of responsibility for that. And January 5th of 2017, my divorce was finalized. The one guy that checked on me was my. Was my chief and my partner, Brian. And so Brian always, always send me a text message, man, hey, you good? Straight? And if I said I was fine, feeling the needed expression, he would call. And so March 9th of 2017 was my 15 year wedding anniversary. And I got in, I got into work and started the prostitution sting. And. And somebody knocks on the door, like, hey, man, chief wants to see you. I'm like, what does she want? So I get down there again. I just. My divorce was just finalized. I got. There's a lot of things going on. I mean, I don't have any money. Like, you know, when you go through a divorce, there's a lot of things. There's just so much chaos at home, man.

[Michael]

Like, 10 out of 10 don't recommend.

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely. And. And so just, you know, at one point, I had $1.13 in my checking account. You know, my son's asking me for food and I have no ability to get. It was just. It was just a traumatic, terrible time in my life. I don't recommend it to anybody. So I get down to his office and I knock on the door and I'm trying to read him, like, are we Brian and Matt right now or are we chief and detective? And he's like, have a seat.

[Michael]

Also, never a good opener. Or I should say, it's. There is official business about to be conducted. Could be a good opener. But usually if it starts with that, that's not.

[Matt Griffin]

That's not going to work for you, you know? And so I'm thinking like, okay, cool. Do I need my union rep?

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And he said, he said, man, you know what today is, right? Referring to what would have been my 15 year wedding anniversary. I was like, yeah, man, I'm. He's like, are you okay? Are you good? He said, you got a lot of people that are. That are relying on you to run this operation. Are you okay? And I said, yeah, man, I'm straight. He said, griff, I'm ask you one more time. He said, if you're not mentally prepared, you're not physically ready. So tell me now, and if you're not, it's okay. I'm gonna comp you out for the day. I said, brian, I'm good. He has ability to raise one eyebrow. And he raised the eyebrow, sat there, kind of looked awkwardly checking. I was like, well, good. Is that it? I thought he was going someplace else.

[Michael]

You are aware that everybody has the ability to raise one eyebrow?

[Matt Griffin]

I feel like it was just my ex wives that I had. Okay, just saying. And that was plural.

[Michael]

I don't think this is a metahuman skill. You can just kind of.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, you can do it too. Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't do it.

[Michael]

You need to practice. Yeah. All right.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And so. So the one thing I didn't say was, hey, dude, how about we get done with this operation? We chop it up today, we go have a cold one, and two hours later, Brian went home and shot and killed himself.

[Michael]

The chief did.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah. And this is March 9th. This is what would have been my 15 year wedding anniversary.

[Michael]

He took the time to check in on you?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And I didn't check back.

[Michael]

Well, I'm not so sure. We're deep into the world of conjecture at this point.

[Matt Griffin]

Go right this.

[Michael]

Like this, like this.

[Matt Griffin]

There you go. You're good.

[Michael]

Perfect.

[Matt Griffin]

Nope, still there.

[Michael]

Sometimes it's there. Michael, you didn't even tell me. Be honest.

[Matt Griffin]

I didn't know this.

[Michael]

Yeah, I mean, we're deep into the world of conjecture, but my guess is he would have told you, I'm fine. Or let's focus on you.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I look back on that. Let's take a whole nother direction. Let's not even look at the suicide. How many leaders are watching this podcast right now and how many guys have come to them and given them a day, hey, this is a year from now. Or, you know, a year ago today, I was in a car accident. A year ago today, this or six months ago. How many leaders take the time? He took the time. He. I mean, how would he, you know, other than me of saying it at some point to him, yeah, March 9th is gonna be a shitty day. You know, he took the time to make a note, check on Griff on March 9th. Like, that is so powerful to me. And I don't. Maybe it's not powerful to other people, but it's so powerful to me that he took the time out of his day to write that down. To remember it and then to come check on me on that day and paying it forward. Every time I have a conversation with somebody and they, you know, somebody that I know or whatever, and they say, yeah, you know, August 16th, my son, such and such. Write it down. My phone check on Andy on August 16th. You know how much that meant to me that he checked on me on that day? And imagine how much it would mean to somebody that you work with. Hey, man, I know today's a crappy day for you. I just want to let you know that I'm here, man. I can hold space for you if you need it.

[Michael]

And I'm gonna add to that because I gotta ask you a question first. How long after that meeting did he kill himself?

[Matt Griffin]

Two hours.

[Michael]

Do you think he knew he was going to do that while he was sitting with you? Yeah, I think so too. Spending all of your energy on other people is not an excuse to not spend the energy on yourself as well.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right.

[Michael]

And like you said, the checking in on people, it could, it could have life altering impact that nobody could understand unless they're in that place where they have a date like that and somebody does care. But it is an excuse and a horrible one to pour everything that you have into other people and not take care of yourself. Yeah, I bet you he did know that he was going to kill himself two hours later.

[Matt Griffin]

He left his gun, badge and radio in his office.

[Michael]

He 100 knew them.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

What were you guys able to determine that had led up to that afterwards?

[Matt Griffin]

It's a great question, man. We have gone back and forth. There was no note. We. There's a lot of different theories.

[Michael]

Was he in a stable relationship?

[Matt Griffin]

He was on second. His second marriage.

[Michael]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Nobody really knows. You know, there's a lot of conjecture and I wouldn't, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to speculate.

[Michael]

It's not worth speculating.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, there's a lot of, A lot of. I mean, everybody's got an opinion on. On it. You know, for me, here's what it did for me. So that was March 9th of 2017. He was about, he went to Norwich University. He was part of the schools and I can't remember if I'm saying that right, but it was a very prestigious part of, of Norwich University.

[Michael]

I feel like there's a movie about this.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yep. So he's a very. So it's like five, eight. He's like probably 240. Nothing but muscle. Cauliflower Ears, like, he's. He's a quiet one, right? He's the one that you don't mess with. Wrestler. I mean, just a bad dude. Just a bad dude. Like I was. I've always been a mouthpiece. Especially like, in the undercover world. Like, I'll, you know, you're gonna check me inside of a set and I'm getting served up. Like, I'll deal with that. But I always knew that he was. He was there, the back there. If we went to a call together, I'm like, I'm good no matter what, because he's gonna. He can clear a room. And what it did for me was it changed my view on suicide. Up until that point, suicide was always a weak thing. It was always like, no, that's not how we do things. Like, that's. That's the weak way out. And that moment when Brian took his life, it wasn't suicide anymore. I looked at it as a sacrifice. Like, he was not weak. There was nothing weak about him. So. So what was it? So why did he do it?

[Michael]

And.

[Matt Griffin]

And in my head. And again, this is the trauma talking. I change it from suicide to a sacrifice. And if you think, if you look back in my life, my whole life has been a sacrifice from, you know, from going to this private high school that I didn't want to go to, to, you know, to the Navy, to Undercover World, to Virginia beach, to Benny Jr. To everything. To everything. So this was the logical next step. If that was what Brian did, this was my logical next step to too.

[Michael]

You connected that in your head.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. And I said, you know what? Because think about it. I'm failing my children. The divorce back up a little bit. I always have a screenshot. I had a $13 in my checking account. I have an autistic son. And he came to me one night and we eat a lot of ramen noodles. So my ex wife was a stay at home mom. So when you get divorced and she's a stay at home mom for 12 years and I made X number of dollars and I also had a lacrosse business on the side that was failing. But. But the courts don't care about that. So, like, my child support was more than I was. Essentially, I was making. And even my attorney was like, I don't know how I can do this. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. And so my autistic son came to me. He was like, diet, Any chance we have anything other than ramen noodles tonight? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And I walked down to the ATM and I put my card in and I was like, let me just post out 20 bucks. I'll go get a slice of pizza. I'll get a couple slices of pizza and like a 2 liter soda. And it spit my card out. And I was like, man. And it said I had $1.13 in my checking account. And I remember the feeling of saying to my son, hey, man, we gotta eat ramen noodles again tonight. Maybe next weekend when daddy has you. You know, I'll be able to get it. And the catastrophic. Like, I felt like I was always failing them. You know, it was no longer like, dad's succeeding at everything. Dad's a cool undercover cop. Dad's this, dad's that. Like, dad's taking down cartel members and Hell's Angels and everything else. Now it was, dad sucks. And that's the way I felt. I felt like I was failing them. And I felt like I was making bad decisions in life. I felt like. Whereas, like, when I was. When I was switched on, like, I couldn't make a bad decision. And I felt like every decision I was making was a bad decision. And when Brian left, it was like all sudden, I got it. And on March 17, I woke up and I said, I'm done. I said, today's my sacrifice. Today's the day that I'm to going, going. And I spent the next. I started the morning by cleaning up and my. My little one bedroom apartment was a mess and just everywhere. And so I started cleaning because I didn't want cops to come in and, you know, see that I was a slob and whatnot. So I started cleaning. I spent a couple hours writing my suicide note.

[Michael]

What'd you write in it?

[Matt Griffin]

Where?

[Michael]

What?

[Matt Griffin]

So first paragraph was to my sons. To my sons. You won't understand. I know this, but please understand that I love you more than anything. You're my light in bad times and my sunshine every morning. The second paragraph was to their mother and I. I won't repeat that because it was just angry. Third paragraph was.

[Michael]

Can I make up stuff for the second one, you cunt?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, exactly. Like, it was not. It was angry. It was angry. And. And then the third paragraph was. Was, you know, just. Just life is like. I just. I felt like, you know, my time was over. It was, you know, the. The show must go on, so I didn't want to fail anybody anymore. And the show must go on. Show must live on. And. And then I went for a walk. And I decided that midnight I was going to take my life. I was gonna pull the trigger. And I just. Something felt right about the zeros on the clock. And so about 11, 11, 10:30, 11 o', clock, I got my Yukon at. At. At the apartment that I had and I started listening to music. My life, like 311, Blink 182 and like Chili Peppers, all the songs that like, that I grew up with. And I had my phone on Do Not Disturb and my gun, my Note. And at 11:13, my phone rang. And I didn't know in 2017 if you called twice inside of a minute it would break through. Yeah, right. And it scared the shit out of me. So it was my buddy Ben. Not the same Ben from the Navy.

[Michael]

Yeah, right.

[Matt Griffin]

Ben, who's my best friend now. My kids, my Uncle Ben, and just my dude. He's a lieutenant, deputy chief, captain. I don't know what he is now, but he's. He's high up at our.

[Michael]

He's got all the stars.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, man, he's my dude. He is my dude. He is my guy. And so he said. And I interviewed him in my book and he said, yeah, I called the first time, I went right to voicemail. And I was like, well. And he didn't leave a voicemail. He's like, let me call this guy back.

[Michael]

No, first off, nobody leaves a voicemail for their friend, right? You immediately redial, right. Or you text.

[Matt Griffin]

Right, right, exactly. So he calls back and it was some rap music that I had. And so, so I grab it and he's like, he's like, hey, dude. He's like, St. Patty's Day, why don't you come over, have a cold one with me? He's like, I'm going try to get a hold of you all day. You good? I said, yeah, I'm good. So why don't you come over, have a cold one? I said, I guess I'm going to take care of tonight, bro. How about. How about we catch up tomorrow? And now Ben is not and I love you person, right. He's not an emotional person. Like, you hug him, he freezes up. Bad dude, man. Just an awesome dude all the way around. Like another. Another beast of a man when it comes to fighting and who he is. And he said, griff, before I let you go, bro, let me tell you two things. I said, yeah, yeah, go ahead. He said, number one, I want to tell you that I love you. And I remember how that hit, man. I remember, like, that just broke the barrier that I had up and he said, number two, I want to tell you that I know you're struggling right now, and I want to tell you that there's lightning in the tunnel. And as you're going through this, I'm here for you. And about 11:15, I made the best decision of my life. And that decision was, if today's a good day to die, so is tomorrow tomorrow. And that mentality came from SARS school. Just make it Wednesday. And I just made it one more day. So I went over, had a beer with him, which I said, at night got better, but it didn't. And somebody had put out a BOLO saying that I was. I was driving drunk and cops. It was just a mess there. Just never. It never ends, you know? I mean, when it rains, it pours. But on March 18, I made the same decision, Said today's a good day to die. So is tomorrow. And March 19th, I woke up and I said, I. All right, March 20th, March 21st. And very slowly, I didn't need to say that anymore, but I was. But I liked that I was living 24 hours to 24 hours. I liked that feeling. I liked how that fit. And so I changed that mantra after about. I'd say probably about a week or two. And I said, all right, well, today I'm gonna do something good for myself. Some days go to the gym. Some days it was read something. Some days it was just get out of bed. Sometimes I would get back to bed and I would try to think about what I did good for myself for that day. And I couldn't think of anything. So I'd roll my fat ass out of bed. I'd rep out like. Like 50 push ups or do some pull ups. I remember one time I did the pull ups on the little bar that you had in the thing, and it broke.

[Michael]

I like videos like that.

[Matt Griffin]

I was like, here I'm trying to do something good for myself, and I'll lay on the goddamn floor.

[Michael]

It's better when they flat back it and make feet come out in front.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And then about. About three months of doing that, I change it to the mantra that I live with every day. And every day I try to find an opportunity to do something good for somebody else. And I love that. And then, you know, and God works in mysterious ways, man. He really does. So, like, look, and on the flight here, I was tired. I didn't sleep last night. I was nervous about this podcast because I was saying this to Nelson. He's like, you nervous? I said, yeah, a little bit. You know, keynotes. I know exactly what I'm saying. I know my transition, and I practice it. I don't know what we're going to talk about. I don't know where we're going.

[Michael]

That makes two of us.

[Matt Griffin]

You know what I mean? And I always feel like I have a responsibility to the. That somebody out there needs to hear, to put the gun down. Put the note away. Like, let's make it one more day. So I always feel that weight when. When I. When I go on a podcast, whatever, because there's. There's a lot of people that. That are going to listen to this, and I want them to know that there's hope. But. But, you know, I changed that to. Oh. So I was saying on the way here.

[Michael]

Yeah, the flight here.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. So again, like, I didn't sleep well last night. I was nervous, and I got on the flight and. And for some reason when I was packing up and we packed one pair of underwear, so I was like. I was asking my girlfriend, like, can you. Is there a place, like, near where. I'm saying, like, the hotel, because there's no Marriotts here. So I stay at this place downtown. And she's like, yeah, you gotta. You gotta go to the JCPenney. So I had to, like, jog the

[Michael]

JCPenney, Walgreens, you know, or Walmart.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. But I don't have a car, so I had to Uber in to my hotel. And I was like, all right, baby. Find some place close. So I jog over the JCPenney. So I got some skivvies on now. Thankfully. Thankfully for everybody.

[Michael]

Thank you for the update.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep, no problem. Yep. And so on the first leg of the flight, I was texting. I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm like, you know, like, I'm flying across the country. You know, this. That. I got no underwear on. Like, you know, I'm tired.

[Michael]

And it just means you travel a lot.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah. So I get on the second flight. I shit you not. Right? And I'm gonna give him a shout out. So if Austin is listening, man, I just want to give you a shout out. So he sits down next to me. He's a dude from Louisville, Kentucky. And moment, just jovial guy, big dude. And he started talking. He's going on vacation here in Kalispell. And so we started talking, and I don't know how it came up, but I was, you know, he's like, what are you doing? I said, I'm heading out here to be on the podcast. What's your podcast about? I said, well, you know, I was a cop and, you know, sustained a little bit of trauma, lost a partner. He's like, I lost one of my best friends a couple years ago, and he said, he was the best man in my wedding. He died unexpectedly, and come to find out that his best man took his life. And so we start talking about that. We started talking a little bit. Like, you know, sometimes, you know, we just start talking about that. And so we spent the entire. So Brian's bad number was 111. So every time I see 111 or 1111, I know that he's watching, watching me. And so about three quarters of the way through this flight, Austin says to me, he goes, you know, my daughter's right there going on vacation. He's like, it's just a. It's just a crazy story, but she was born on 11 11. And it's one of my favorite numbers. And he said, you know, you probably noticed my wife two seats up. She turned around and said, hey, it's 11:11. I love you. I said. I said, man, I just need a minute, man. I said, I just need a minute to just compose myself, because here I am thinking about how tired I am thinking about. Thinking about being tired in the thing that I. That I asked God to bless me with. Like, how disrespectful am I to. To feel exhausted from something that I've asked God to bless me with? And it was like, it just. It was one of those moments where I just said, appreciate you being there, man. And I know that Brian is watching this conversation. I know that he's sitting right here because he showed me that 1111. That was him. And, man, it was just, you know, that's the way things have been working. And I mean, just to me, it just put all that breath of hope. And so to circle it all back to how I got through Benny Jr. I had to look at. I had two choices to look at it. I could look at Benny Jr. At the judge, jury, and executioner of my life, and why me and why does my life suck? Why did I have to be there? Why didn't I go in that 30 seconds? Or I can look at Benny Jr. As a lesson in my life, and I look at Benny Jr. As him breathing hope in that last breath into my body. And so every time I had the. The blessing and the opportunity to be on a podcast like this, right? The blessing. The opportunity to talk to somebody that. That is struggling, because, again, vulnerability always leads to vulnerability. I Always think about Benny's there, Brian's there saying, hey, hey, we got another one. You know, we. We just saved another one. And that's. And it's changed the whole frame of it. Like I used to, I used to, you know, for. For the longest time, I'm like, man, why did that have to happen to me? Like, that was just such a shitty thing to have to see. But, you know, and I'm not here to say, you know, it's his time or this, that, the other. But all I know is that once I turn Benny Jr. Into a teacher and once I partner with him for the rest of my life, and I looked at him as, as being there with me, I look at Brian as being there with me wherever I go and whatever I'm doing. And they. They have their hand on the things that I'm me, a little bit of peace and gives me a little bit of hope for tomorrow and whatever that looks like and however that goes, you know. And it's just amazing how, how those situations have come along.

[Michael]

So how long after you wrote that suicide note was it before you shared it with somebody? Not like physically handed it to him? Damn it, I said the word like again.

[Matt Griffin]

The book.

[Michael]

It was the book. So how far. How far was that, though, beyond? Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. What a great sponsor that naturally just aligned. I didn't actually choose this order, but it fits in perfectly with the conversation that Matt and I have been having. We're getting ready to go into the summer. May was last month. I did a specific read about it being Men's Mental Health Awareness Month. Let's be honest, every month should be Mental Health Awareness Month. I can appreciate that we highlight certain groups inside of that, but. But I think we could all use reminder at all times. Somewhere up where I live in Montana, the days are longer. I feel more productive. It's a lot easier to get out and do things cause you're more highly motivated. But it also really helps to check under the hood at those times. And I was gonna say everybody can benefit, but I'm just gonna bring that back a notch and talk about myself. I have had in my own life times where I don't have the answers to what's going on inside of my own head. Head. And I've needed to reach out to talk to a higher level of care. And I have done so through counselors and therapists. Some of the most impressive people that I know walking on the earth have done exactly the same thing. And it's so easy to say that asking for help is a sign of weakness. But the reality is this. It could be one of the strongest things that you could ever do for yourself and for those around you, especially if those people rely upon you. So in the summer, I can do a whole lot. But in the winter up here, shorter days, less vitamin D. Sun's down early in the afternoon, comes up late in the morning. It's just tough. So I try not to wait until things get bad before I take a peek under the hood. Right. The analogy I've used many times. You don't have to wait for the check engine light to come on to pop the hood and go see a mechanic. It's not magic. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. And most of that occurs after the sessions that you're having with whoever it is that you are talking to. But it can have lifelong impact and it can change the trajectory of your life. And again, I'll speak only for myself. It's done exactly that. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences. And their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means that they typically get it right the first time. If you're not happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time. From their tailored recommendations. They have over 30,000 therapists. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars based on over 1.7 million client reviews. You do not have to be on this journey alone. You can find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] ClearedHot that is betterhotelecho Lima, Papa help.com Cleared Hot. Back to the show.

[Matt Griffin]

Almost five years.

[Michael]

Did you tell anybody in the meantime?

[Matt Griffin]

So my second ex wife found it and she found it in my notes section because I had it on my notes section and because I'd written it down, I handwritten it. But I didn't want to keep that. I didn't want people to find that. So I. So I can't remember if I crumpled that up or what I did with it. But like, I appreciate it.

[Michael]

Did you think the second paragraph was for her?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, we can go. We can spend a whole nother podcast on that. Yeah. Because you know, when you have a good woman. Woman. Right. And you have a good woman for 15 years that takes care of your children. What do you. What do you do? You find the opposite. You know, and I. That's what I did. And.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And so let me ask you this.

[Michael]

In all those years, first off, I'm very glad you didn't make that decision. Me too. Now that you have those years behind you, how do you think your friends and family would have responded to that note?

[Matt Griffin]

Just would have transferred pain. That's all it would have been. It would have taken the pain that I had and given it to them, and that's all it would have been. You know, like I say all the

[Michael]

time, I think that's what it always does. Yep. You tell yourself in that moment, I am taking the burden off other people, but instead, you're actually transferring it to them.

[Matt Griffin]

100%. Yep. And the thing is, the problem with that mentality is, like, I can say that, and we can say that. That because we have a rational brain. When there's not a rational. When there's not a rational brain, you think the only possible outcome for you is to alleviate what they're going through. You know, and. And I always say my message to anybody, just make it another day and celebrate that. Make it an hour if you need to make it an hour. Make it a minute if you need to. Make it a minute and celebrate that. And. And, you know, when I started. And I know it sounds. I know it sounds dumb, but, like, when I started doing, like, finding an opportunity to do something good for somebody, like, I started looking for that a lot of times, like, misery loves company, but so does positivity. And so, you know, the thing with that was when I started to focus on that, like, the goodness came back to me. And it was just so at nighttime, I would. I would journal, and I started journaling because I read this study that said, like, if you. If you write things down, it takes it from the amygdala, puts it in the prefrontal cortex, and helps. Helps you process stuff. So I was like, cool. Like, I'm do that at night. So I started writing down the good deed that I did for the day. Something I want to work on, something I'm grateful for. Three things every night, try to write them down.

[Michael]

And.

[Matt Griffin]

And, dude, what I. What I could say, I don't know if anybody else wants to try it or not, but I'm gonna tell you. I mean, I had $13 in my checking account, and it's only nine years ago from that moment, from. From changing how I looked at life and waking up, looking for an opportunity to do something good. Good. Right. To sign a book over to Austin today, you know, And.

[Michael]

And.

[Matt Griffin]

And him to. And I mean, we bro hug. We just met on a flight. We bro hug. Like. Like, we were best friends. He's got my cell phone number, and we're gonna. We're gonna keep up. That means the world to me.

[Michael]

Did you kiss him on the cheek?

[Matt Griffin]

I might have.

[Michael]

I might have, but I'm gonna freak somebody out. Just give him a little. Like, I'm Italian.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael]

Maybe make eye contact, though.

[Matt Griffin]

Here's. Here's the funny part, right?

[Michael]

So.

[Matt Griffin]

So. So, I mean, like, we bonded on this flight, right? Like, both of us were like, this was meant to be for sure, right? And then we get off the plane and, like, his family doesn't know that. He doesn't know what just happened. Like, two seats behind, about, like, the 11:11, like his best friend, you know, little Z. And. And so, like, all right, bro, you got myself. And his wife's just looking at me like, what the. And he's like, oh, that's. This is my. This is my father in law. I'm like, nice to meet you. Like, all right, awesome. I'm gonna catch up with you a little bit. And they're like, what just happened?

[Michael]

You know, sometimes that's how it goes, man.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, man. So. But I'll tell you, man, like, that's been the game changer in my life. And. And I was on. I was with Marcus, Marcus Luttrell, and he said to me, he goes, dude, that's. It's scientific. It's the first time I ever heard him say that. Like, it was. He's like, it's called neuroplasticity. And I never heard that term before.

[Michael]

First off, Marcus is not a goddamn scientist.

[Matt Griffin]

No shit. Right? And maybe it wasn't Mark. Maybe it was with Melanie. Matter of fact, I'm not so sure

[Michael]

she's a scientist either. I think they're using the right terms, though.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. One of them said, it's neuroplasticity. And. And they basically said. Said, you know, neurons that fire together, they wire together, and when you do something good for somebody else, right, you wind up focusing on it. And. And that's what you. That's what you look for, and that's what you find. It's like. It's like a dope cop. When I would go out to try and arrest somebody for dope, guess what I find? I'd find dope. When I go to buy A car and it's a lime green hatchback. That's what I see all day long I see lime green hatchbacks.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And, and that's what's happened in my life, man. And like that's, that's really been the go to for me. So when, when I have, have a day or, or when I, when life kind of hits harder, I'm in a bad season, I just, I just look for an opportunity to do something good, man, or to, to make somebody else's day a little bit better. When you focus on that, like it's just, it just changed a lot. That's coming back to me a lot.

[Michael]

How do you do view that $14 now, are you grateful for that day?

[Matt Griffin]

So, man, I couldn't. So it's a dollar thirteen.

[Michael]

Sorry.

[Matt Griffin]

No, no.

[Michael]

Rounding it up.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say it because, because I found, I don't know why, but the other day I googled 113 to see what would come up and first, Peter 1:1 13 is prepare your mind for action. And I was like, man, that's so amazing. That's so amazing. I look at that as the biggest blessing that I had in my life. You know, not in the day though. Not in the day. And that's it. And that's, that's the story of life, right? You're, this too shall pass. Things are going to happen whether it's good or bad. And you're going to go and you're going to be in a season. If you're in a season right now, I promise you, if you make it another day, there's a blessing around the corner. There's lessons and there's blessings. And if you give the opportunity to learn from whatever it is, whether it's a critical incident, whether it's a shooting, whether it's a traffic accident, whether it's a fatal. If you look at that situation from a post traumatic growth mindset or just from a mindset of that, you want to learn what your body did inside of that, you're going to have a blessing down the road from that. Again, I always say like 300, 400, 500 critical incidents are shitty things to weigh. From a wisdom standpoint. You know, there's a lot of blessings inside of that. How you, how you look at life, how you treat your family, how you treat your friends, how you go about your life, how you, how your body reacted, whether it slowed down, whether it sped up, whether you pied the right way, whether you didn't do this, whether you didn't do that, like, there's so much wisdom that you can take from that. Why not take every aspect of that from it to move forward to the next one?

[Michael]

It gets tough because sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And that's a tough one. Riding the bad day after the bad day, feeling like you're just sliding down the ski slope. I'm always. I've only ever spoken super vaguely about my divorce, mostly because my ex doesn't have a platform and I'm trying to be respectful.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. Same. Yeah.

[Michael]

I didn't leave with a whole lot more than four. You know, the $13.

[Matt Griffin]

Thirteen.

[Michael]

Thank you. I was gonna say $1.14. I don't know why I keep rounding it up. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

I like that.

[Michael]

So wealthy with the $14.

[Matt Griffin]

That's the, that's the neuroplasticity mindset. You're actually.

[Michael]

It wasn't a whole lot more than that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

I couldn't. Now, many years later, I am grateful for how humbling that felt.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And how helpless it felt. Hopeless.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Because you can get lost in that or you can use that as a springboard. It just, it doesn't feel like it has any bounce in the moment.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

And I don't know how to describe that to people because it probably is going to get worse too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

That's a long road to hope.

[Matt Griffin]

And, and inside of the worst there, I mean, it can keep getting worse, but inside of that, there's lessons in, inside of every one of those days, man. And like, and I, you know, you know, not to go, not to go completely faith on you, but like, I just feel like God is going to. Sometimes he's going to, to push you in a direction that you wouldn't have otherwise gone because he knows where he needs you to be. And the longer you go down, the longer you're on this train, the more expensive it's going to be to get back. And until you start to look at it. For me, at least until I started to look at it and said, alright, God, what do you want me to learn here? What I realized is that the storm didn't break me. It built me.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, it didn't, it didn't destroy my purpose.

[Michael]

It doesn't have to wash you up on the rocks.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. It didn't destroy my purpose. It revealed it. Like, without Benny junior, I'm not here. I don't, I don't have the circle of family and friends and people around me that I, that I, I love so much. I don't have you Know, the, the, the blessings of my life, the, the peace that I have and I don't have, the opportunities that I have, I don't have, have, you know, anything. And, and yeah, I mean, I just, I, there's just so many blessings that have come from the lessons that I've had, you know.

[Michael]

Yeah. You have to stay the course, which is an almost impossible task when you're at the bottom.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And you get to a place where you don't believe that a blessing or whatever reward or, you know, whatever long term goal, whole. You arrive at a place where you convince yourself it's not possible and then you start looking at decisions that are totally rational. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I'm not an expert in suicide, but you know, as we mentioned earlier, breaking the chain earlier on, I don't know if anybody wakes up and arrives at that irrational state. I, I'm, I say, yeah, I'm not sure because I know that TBIs, brain injury type stuff can flip things very quickly.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

But what you're talking about in the, at least the law enforcement profession seems to be a longer link of chains. It's build up as opposed to you wake up one day and you are in that irrational place. It almost is as if you assist yourself to getting there. So breaking that chain as early as possible.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. I mean, think about like thoughts become

[Michael]

actions, especially repeated thoughts over a long period of time.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. And again, you don't have to, we're not saying, I'm not saying you got to go and seek out a counselor, but at least have a conversation about it. Have a check in with it and, or a status check or whatever you want. You know, do what Brian did, send a text message. Hey, you good? All right. You need something? You want to have a cold one tonight? That's it. And you know, check it on your younger guys. And if you're in a season of hurt, just know that, you know, there's, there's a lesson that can turn into a blessing at some point. Point. Because it will pass, man. There's good days and there's bad days and you can make it to tomorrow, you know.

[Michael]

How did Brian respond when he found out about the impact that that double call had?

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, Ben.

[Michael]

Oh, Ben.

[Matt Griffin]

Sorry. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so I interviewed him. So years later, obviously years later, he was like, man, I remember that night. I remember making that call and I had no idea the gravity of it. And what's interesting, he's an atheist and I call myself, his daughter's got God, godfather And you know, and he means like, I'm just so glad that I kept, I kept checking so about him. I don't even know. I don't even time wise now, like, I get timelines messed up. But like when I had another place that I was staying at that I didn't have to pay rent at, it fell apart. And I remember like hesitating to give him a call because I didn't have any place to go. Right. And to stay and. And I wound up giving him a call. And I know he had two little girls. They always got a wife at home. Like they got families, they got lifetime. And I didn't want to say, hey, can I stay with you for a little bit? Come take a shower. And I remember calling him and saying that and dude said, bro, why are you even calling? Just drive here. And I remember how that, that set on me, you know, and that's the type of man he is. And that's why I feel like more cops should be like him, you know? And it just. Sometimes we don't see each other for six months and we're both New York Giants fans, you know, we're just, we have a lot in common, but we see each other and it's just right back there, man. And now it's, it's commonplace for the two of us before we let go, man. Love you. Love you too, bro. And just, He'll. He'll. He'll be my dude through and through

[Michael]

for life, you know, I can tell you, as somebody who has tested the theory, unfortunately, of not telling people you care about deeply that you love him every time you see him or talk to him especially. Dudes are just different.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

I can go six months without seeing a good friend and about 42 seconds

[Matt Griffin]

we're coming right back and it's. Yeah.

[Michael]

Literally 42 seconds. Women, different species. The, the. The data is back on the number of words used per day. What?

[Matt Griffin]

Like, I get it.

[Michael]

I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

But I tell you what you'll live with if you don't say the things. And it's regret.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And it sucks.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And you'll regret it probably every day for the rest of your life.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

More than you would regret telling your buddy that you love him. And he looks at you, goes, yeah, shut up, fag.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

You know, I mean, that's the worst you're going to get. Or, don't be gay, dude.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

It's like, hey, man, it's 2026. Be gay if you Want to. Who cares?

[Matt Griffin]

Exactly. Exactly. It's a new day and age.

[Michael]

Yeah. You don't get to tell me how gay I'm going to be, sir.

[Matt Griffin]

Right, right.

[Michael]

Like.

[Matt Griffin]

And again, I mean, you just. Those opportunities, man, like, don't, don't waste them, you know, and I just leading to.

[Michael]

And they're so fast.

[Matt Griffin]

Everybody listening, they know when I talked about, you know, divorce and when we talk about, like all the things happening, everybody has a name in their head that pops up, up, you know, just reach out, say two things, lay at the end of the tunnel. And I love you. And if people do that, you have no idea how many lives you're going to save. So.

[Michael]

Yeah, for sure. How was the experience of writing the book for you?

[Matt Griffin]

I mean, it was awesome. I. Book number two is going to be called the Journey to Ibogaine.

[Michael]

Trevor, how you going on all these journeys, man?

[Matt Griffin]

I know, it's.

[Michael]

You know what?

[Matt Griffin]

Honestly, it's fun, you know, I mean,

[Michael]

Are you wearing a bow tie?

[Matt Griffin]

Come on, you wanna hear the story behind it?

[Michael]

First off, hold on. Yeah. We have a gray blazer. I think this is a pink vest.

[Matt Griffin]

It is. Underneath it's actually mauve.

[Michael]

I don't know if we're gonna talk to each. I'm call it salmon. I don't know.

[Matt Griffin]

I thought we could be gay.

[Michael]

Listen, there's gay and then there's what you're wearing in this author picture.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes.

[Michael]

So we'll call it salmon vest.

[Matt Griffin]

We'll say salmon. I like salmon.

[Michael]

Salmon long sleeve, blue checkered shirt.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

And a bow tie.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

Who picked this outfit?

[Matt Griffin]

I sure did. That was all me.

[Michael]

Did you not have anything else in your closet?

[Matt Griffin]

The best. The best part of that is that I cut my hair for that. I had a man bun too.

[Michael]

You mean on the back of your head you had a man bun?

[Matt Griffin]

Not on that picture. But right before that, I had that same outfit. Listen, with a man bun, I.

[Michael]

So you're telling me you stood in front of a mirror with this on and said to yourself, this is what I'm going for. Nailed it.

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely. Man, that bow tie was hot. So here's the deal with that, right? So when I got done. Check it out, check it out. I gotta. I gotta tell the story behind it because. Okay. And that's why it's on there. So when I got done with law enforcement, I became. I started training law enforcement, undercover survival, undercover opportunities, things like that.

[Michael]

So that's what you wore when you were undercover? Cover.

[Matt Griffin]

That's. That's not what I Want. So. So my buddy Byron Boston, who owns professional law enforcement training, great friend of mine, he called me, and I. And I create a class called Fighting Fentanyl. And he said, all right, your first class is going to be in.

[Michael]

In.

[Matt Griffin]

In Texas, in El Paso, Texas. He said, you want a 511 shirt? And I said, no. I said, I'm gonna do something different.

[Michael]

Pair with cargo pants, too. Probably assault boots of some kind.

[Matt Griffin]

Exactly. Some kind of maybe or maybe not.

[Michael]

Blouse the pants.

[Matt Griffin]

Right? Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Like the standard issue for. For instructors.

[Michael]

And I'm not gonna do that. Totally.

[Matt Griffin]

So. So that's how I showed up. I showed up with a man bun. I showed up with a bow tie. Showed up with my salmon. That's the. That's the exact outfit that I wore to my very first presentation.

[Michael]

And we clip on or real bow tie clip on.

[Matt Griffin]

I wasn't. That. Wasn't that cool. Yeah. I had no idea how to wear. Like, I tried to. I bought one. I bought one, and I googled how to do it, and I was like,

[Michael]

good luck with that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I'm just.

[Michael]

Good luck with that. Yeah. I think it's actually the only move. Unless you. You grew up wearing ascots for Sunday dinner, I don't think.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So, dude, I walk in. I walk in. I've got 50 cops from. From El Paso, right? All. All undercovers, all doing things. So. So Tony is the. The. The coordinator. She texts Byron in the first 15 minutes. Like, who the did you send down here? Like, he's in a bow tie and a man bun.

[Michael]

What were you wearing for pants and shoes? We had to tie the ensemble together.

[Matt Griffin]

I'm pretty sure I was in, like, khaki pants. Yeah, I think I was.

[Michael]

What color shoes?

[Matt Griffin]

I had the loafers with the little tassels. Tell you it was a hot outfit.

[Michael]

It's powerful.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So I walk in, and these dudes are like, who in the fuck is this dude? And so I start talking, I go into some of my videos, and all of a sudden you see me. I had cornrows in my hair. I had a lip ring. I've got tattoos. I got full leg sleeve, full arm sleeve. And so you see me in an undercover capacity. And then I completely flipped the script on him. Like, when I walked in here. What was your opinion? Opinion to me, your same opinion right there.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

I said, now, you just watched that video, and do you think those two people match? Nope. So what I did, I just undercovered you. I just gave you what I wanted you to see, and I Just watched every one of your eyebrows when I walked in here. Eyebrows went up. You judged me. You looked at me. You said I was preppy. You said I was weak. You said I was this, this, and this. And then you just watch that video on that screen. And you saw me fight. You saw me, you know, pull my gun. I see. Like, someone tried to check me. Like, mister, like, who the fuck are you? Checking, checking? Why are you checking me? Because I'm white? And, like, just flip the script on somebody else. And those two people don't match, do they? And that's called undercover work. Being able to flip that script and be able to give you what I wanted you to see when I wanted you to see it. And that's what I did to every single one of these classrooms you can see there. Everybody would sit back like, okay, now I'm gonna listen for the rest of the day, because he just got me.

[Michael]

Listen. You can describe it however you want to.

[Matt Griffin]

You can go back to it.

[Michael]

You can describe whatever you want.

[Matt Griffin]

What?

[Michael]

You have weird taste in clothes.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I'm here for it.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

I'm not. I mean, I'm not going to verbally judge you. I have thoughts. I'll keep them to myself.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

Yep. I don't know if I have the confidence to wear a salmon vest.

[Matt Griffin]

Hey. And so here's even better story, right? So, like, I didn't have any shirts that I wanted to wear, so I went across the road and I said, I just need something that doesn't look cowboy, that just looks. And I. And I. I asked the girl that said, can you guys help me? I just need. I just. I'm wearing jeans and a shirt, and I didn't want to wear a T shirt. And now that you're in a T shirt, I'm like, damn, I. I should have just worn a T shirt. And this is what I picked out across the street at. So. Yeah.

[Michael]

Oh, it's the Western store. You went to the Western store?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Right across the street.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Well, I had to get underwear, too. I went to JCPenney, came back, got my. Got my undies, got my skivvies, and I got a. I got a button down. So.

[Michael]

Isn't it amazing, though, how using the exercise that you did, whether intentional or. I'm still. 38% of me is thinking you're making this story up. You just have a collection of bow ties at your house, which I'm totally fine with.

[Matt Griffin]

I think I still have that one.

[Michael]

Why wouldn't you? It's amazing. It is amazing how people, you can go both ways with it. They'll completely dismiss you and think you are capable of anything. Or you wear that to let me see how my imagination weave together a yacht party, I don't know what. And they'll think you're a multimillion dollar CEO.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

So you can go so far over the edge and they will think you're capable of so much more, less or completely ignore you in that moment based off of what you. And we're also susceptible of that too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep, yep. So and now, I mean, it's just a plug for people to buy the book because you can't see the picture unless you buy the book.

[Michael]

I mean, I'll put this thing right up on the Internet right now. So.

[Matt Griffin]

But yeah, book was good. Book was good. I really enjoyed the process of it. I wish I knew and I know you just wrote yours, you know, and

[Michael]

listen to your process too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I'm excited to read yours, man. And you know, don't get your hopes up.

[Michael]

Get you back at about a four.

[Matt Griffin]

I wish I had the information now that I had when I was writing that like I didn't know what an ISBN number was. I didn't know that I had 10 pack of them. I didn't know like, you know, I self publish, thank the Lord because you know, nobody knows who the fuck Matt Griffin is. And so like, you know, I remember reaching out the publisher, like, yeah, we don't know who you are. Like we don't really care. Okay. And now I'm so glad I did because I'm able to bring my book anywhere, bring them to conferences and you know, I can kind of control it a little bit. Yeah, but, but, but yeah, it was a good process. And now going into my second book, I got all the chapters lined up. The journey to Ibogaine and what I did with that. And the documentary is going to come out soon. So Trevor gave me the ability to film Slider who was down at Ambio. He took a lot of great videos for me.

[Michael]

So I just had Jonathan on two weeks ago.

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, you did?

[Michael]

Yeah, he was okay.

[Matt Griffin]

So I never met him. So Marcus connected me with Trevor and I remember I never heard of Ibogaine before until a year ago when I was on his show. And actually I'm like, spell it for me. Like I've never heard of this. And I had some turmoil at home with my autistic son and I said, well, if he's going to the glp, one pill you've been waiting for is now on roe. Yep, it's finally here with the same

[Michael]

clinically proven ingredient now in a pillow pill.

[Matt Griffin]

And now on Roe. It's the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss at the lowest price available. That's one daily GLP1 pill. For big results now on RO, go to ROE CO. Listen to see if you qualify.

[Michael]

RX only go to RO CO Safety

[Matt Griffin]

for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP1s. If he's going to work on himself, I've got to work on myself too because, you know, healing is not linear. Like, just because I speak about trauma doesn't mean that it's not going to hit me. And I got to continue to work on myself. And so that's. It was just a dark night in December where I reached out to, you know, to Melanie and Marcus and they connected me with Trevor and I was ready to go. And so in March I went down and the blessing Trevor gave me the ability to film and to March of this year. March of this year.

[Michael]

Okay, so this is fresh.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, very fresh. And you know, and I was, I tried to be really respectful of the process too because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I, you know, I did the pre integration, everything else, but man, that was a battle. That was an absolute battle. I've. I mean, that's what I've heard from

[Michael]

a lot of people.

[Matt Griffin]

So here's here. And this is the only way I can describe it. So like when you do, I've done all the different, like I've done emdr, I've done art, which is like a accelerated resolution where you can change. So art is pretty cool. Like your brain doesn't know the difference between a real memory and a fault and a fake memory. So you can really. Yeah, it's called art. It's pretty bad. It's not going to change who died, who lived and things like that. But you can change your response. You can create like a director's cut and. Which is pretty badass. And I like that. And so I've done all these different things, but the biggest issue I had with all of these different modalities is that somebody was guiding them. And so when you read people really well and like your survival is based on reading people, you kind of know what they want you to say. And so I always felt like I had a balance. Like, all right, cool. Like it's, you know, it's Friday and here's my. I can either be here for an hour, I can be here for two hours. But say what I really want to say, what I should say. I'm gonna be here for two hours, so.

[Michael]

Or in a rubber room, right?

[Matt Griffin]

Exactly. Or I'd be in an unfit extended stay.

[Michael]

Yes, non consensual.

[Matt Griffin]

And the thing about ibogaine is that it's you against you. You take your four pills, your four doses and you're in the recovery or the therapy room for the next 12 hours, man. It's you against you. Your brain goes. And everybody's like, all these visions and everything else and like, I'm only gonna speak for me. I don't. You know, everybody's journey is different. But for me, I think the visions I had all these expectations of where, you know, I wanted to. I wanted to talk to Brian, I wanted to talk to Benny Jr. You know, I wanted all these different things to have my father pass away in 24. And I wanted to talk to him. And I didn't get any of that. What I got was everything that I needed. And from the moment, from 10pm until noon the next day, I felt like I was. I was an egg that got smashed on the ground. And all the pieces just over the next month, two months just started being put back together. And I've had no desire for alcohol. I've had no desire for lust. That's the first time that I said that, man. My burn sheet, like I've struggled with that in my life and that's been a hard thing for me to. I don't even know why I just said that. I haven't said so. Lust was a big thing.

[Michael]

We're all people, man. Well, I mean, what's the actual definition of lust?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I mean, I know what it is for me and I know what I struggle with and those, you know, and everybody's dealing with shit.

[Michael]

I think the fact that you can say that is a very positive sign.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And I wanted to let go of the identity that I created that didn't serve me me. And then the last, the, the fourth thing on my burn sheet was to let go of anything per. Separating me from my relationship with God. And I remember going through it and I. And I remember kind of being disappointed with some of the visions. I'm like, well, like I felt like I was just battling, right. Because it's dual action. So you take off the mask and you're like, I'm. I'm Matt Griffin. I'm hearing, I'm hearing ambio, I'm hearing like, so you know where you're at and, and Then you put the mask on. And then like, for me it was like taking the elevator down, down. So I'm taking the other one. Like, all right, let's go. Let's go someplace. Let's go. Let's go do this. Let's go. And it was like, all right, like, where are we? What? And the biggest thing for me was at the end of it, like, they call it purging. Like, I just call it vomiting, man. Like, it's. It's probably the most most intense vomiting you'll ever hear in your life. Like, I feel like.

[Michael]

Was everybody vomit on?

[Matt Griffin]

I. I mean, I feel like I heard everybody vomit.

[Michael]

Jonathan didn't bring up that part.

[Matt Griffin]

Heart, dude, I'll tell you. It's not vomiting.

[Michael]

Like, you mean the end of the ride, everybody?

[Matt Griffin]

No, the beginning of the ride.

[Michael]

Really?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So they call it purging, right?

[Michael]

Post pills, though.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, post pills.

[Michael]

Post pills.

[Matt Griffin]

So burn ceremony was eight. You take your first at the burn ceremony, right? So that's your flood dose. 8:45. You take your next one, 9:15 and 9:45. So you take four doses and then you go at 10pm you go down to the therapy room and you're there for the night. They got crazy ass music going, the weedy music and everything else, just chaos. You got, you gotta, you gotta rattle. I broke my rattle. Rattling. And like, so again, I feel like I'm in decent shape. Some of the other guys weren't in good shape, so I felt like my body was metabolizing it. So like, when we walked from the, the living room down to the therapy room, like, I kind of felt like I was drunk. I'm like, oh, like this is hitting now. So I'm shaking the rattle, bro, and the, the rice is coming out. And I'm thinking, I'm envisioning the rattle, the rice coming out. And so I'm shaking it, right? This flying air. Well, they come over like, here's a new rattle. But so I, I mean, I was right off the rip. I was out. And. And the. My buddy next to me, he vomited first. And when I tell you, like, he let. He missed the bucket. Give a bucket next to you. He missed it. It was all over the place.

[Michael]

He was just talking to dinosaurs. Just br.

[Matt Griffin]

Dude. And I'm telling, like, when I. When I finally purged, I felt like I was ripping my assault. It gets out of my belly. Like, it's not like, this is why

[Michael]

they leave it out of the description.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, that's probably why they leave it out.

[Michael]

Yeah. I wouldn't put that in the marketing material.

[Matt Griffin]

No. But it was probably the hardest I've ever vomited in my life. When I finally let go, if I had to do it again. And I don't know if some. Some I may do it again at some point because I. I feel like I could. I feel like it gave me so much. I feel like I could go down and. And now that I. All this, if I was to do it again, I would have purged sooner. So. So I was big into the breath work.

[Michael]

Is that part of the entry into the ride? For lack of a better term? No, it's just a physiological reaction.

[Matt Griffin]

Physiological reaction. At least it was for me. And so, like, I was a big. I've always been big into breath work. So, like, you know, on the SWAT team, like, we go to the house, like, just box breathing. Every time I go to speak, box breathe before I get in. And so I don't know if I. If I go back, I'm gonna purge. Earlier on the moment, I would have any type. Like, I felt like I was gonna go. I would take my mask off and be like, all right, I'm gonna box this out. And I would box breathing, and I would get through.

[Michael]

Did it just feel like general nause you?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Like you want it? Like, if. If so you have. You're a toxic, too. So, like, as you move your head so you can't walk to the bathroom, somebody's got to carry, like, essentially, like, you just got to look down and close your eyes, and they got to walk you to the bathroom because you're attacking, which basically means, like, you're not drunk, but, like, your eyes are here, and you move here. Your eyes stay there for a second, then you move back here. Your eyes stay over.

[Michael]

You're on the ride.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. So. And you're just. There's no equilibrium, and so you don't want to move. And if, you know. You know, if you do move, it's going to come. So, like, you're just kind of. At least for me, I was just box. Read this out. And so every time I got that, I would take my mask off. I'm like, all right, four seconds in. Pause. Four seconds. Yeah. So I'm doing this back and forth, and I'm like, well, like, how long am I doing? I had no concept of time. So when I finally purged, I didn't. I don't know when it finally. I was like, I'm done. I can't. I can't hold this anymore. I'm Just gonna let it go. That's the moment that, like, everything started to really start to happen for me.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

So when I put the math, I purged, and I didn't have anything to bail out out of. So, like, you bail out, take your mask off. I'm like, okay, I know where I'm at. For me, I put the mask on. The elevator would take me down, and then I started to feel sick. Like, you know, so when I finally. When I finally did that, the elevator would go down, and I had a conversation with Jesus, and I called him Ivan because I thought it was just like, the ibogaine. And I didn't want to say ibogaine because it's tough for. To say. So I called him Ivan. At the time, it was just wearing. He was wearing. I don't know, like, you couldn't. I couldn't see him as a person. It was like, more just kind of like almost like a feeling of thought. Like. And the only thing for me that was live action was for better, for worse. Like, in the therapy room, like, you had the nurses station all the way over here, and I'm all the way tucked into the back corner by the fireplace. They had two candles in the fireplace. I felt like it was a fucking bonfire.

[Michael]

Really?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. And, I mean, every time I take off my mask, like, I can't look over there. Like, I feel like it's going to burn me. And. But there are squares. Kind of like, there's squares in the wall. Those squares turned into a combination of word search and wheel of force, fortune. And so my conversation with Jesus went like this. And I'll paraphrase it, because I know we're. We're probably at four hours for this podcast, but I'll paraphrase it. Most of my life, I've always said, like, I grew up Irish Catholic, and. And after Benny Jr. I really kind of investigated my faith. Detective. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna investigate my faith. And so I'd always. I'd always say to people, yeah, man, I got a relationship with Jesus. Wherever I go, he rides shotgun in my car. They're just kind of one of the things that I'd always. And as we're getting to the end of my. The end of the journey with ibogaine, the. The voice, the feeling was, hey, man, it's not your car, and you're not the one driving. If you want to go where I'm going, you need to get in my car if you want to keep driving and go, you know. But I'm. I'm not the one that's riding a shotgun in your car. You're the one driving. You're the one choosing where you want to go. You're the one competing with everybody. That. That's. That's where you are. And from that, I took my mask off, right? I was like, that's. That hit me hard because I was always dry. I was the one driving, choosing the location. I was always comparing myself. And that's basically what he. And so as I took my mask off on the wall, there's all these different letters, and the word aware came up, and I was able to pick it out. And so. So the A and the E fell off, and what was left was war. And without the mask on, I felt like Jesus was saying to me, you've been at war with yourself and your decisions that you've made with Benny Jr, with Brian, with everybody else. You've been at war with yourself for the longest time. A war ends today. Brought the A and the E down, and it was a war ends. And he's like, the war ends today. Let it go. Whether whether you made a good decision or a bad decision in the past, regret and shame is from the devil. You make your decisions based on being aware today. Be aware of the blessings that I've given you. Be aware of every. Every. Every ounce of food I put on your table, every clothing your back, every ounce of electricity that powers your house. Be aware of those blessings. Stop saying you're present. Like, stop being unauthentic with that stupid present bullshit. Like, oh, I'm present. I'm trying to be more present. Like, stop being that. Be aware. Just be aware of everybody in your life. Life. Your four beautiful boys, your autistic son, your current girlfriend. Like, all be so aware of how many blessings that I've given you. And he said, you, war is over. And number one and two on the burn sheet, he said, lust and alcohol, he said, you purge those out. Unless you go back to them, you won't have a problem. He said, your identity. He said, number three, which is my identity. He said, your identity has been wiped. Choose wisely. And that gets me emotional to say, because I didn't really know what he meant in that. In that moment. And I'm starting to feel that now. And I'm starting to work through that a lot on the back end here. And I still. I'm still writing a lot and journaling a lot about choosing wisely on my identity, who I want to be for this next 47 years if I, if I'm blessed enough to have another 47. And then number four, he said, which was, you know, take away anything that keeps me from you. And he said, one and two are really going to help with that, so let's start there. And then he said, I'll see you again. And that. But the choose wisely part, I still don't, I still don't have a good grasp on that. What I, what I, what I do believe, at least a portion of that was I had performed for my whole life to get my worth for my value. And we talked a little bit about that from the identity. But I was always performing and I wasn't being authentic to who I was. And my value was on how good of a speaker I was, how good of an undercover cop I was, and just trying to show up with value and not matching other people's energy. Just be exactly who you are, what I bless you with and be aware of all that blessing and go about your day like that and watch what happens to you. And so far, man, it's only been two and a half, almost eight weeks, and man, it's, it's made all the difference in the world so far. I'm still choosing wisely and I'm still very cautious on what and how I do it. Like, I, I've met with multiple different counselors. I've also just done a lot of, of internal searching on what and who I want to be for my children. My, my 12 year old said to me the other day, we were at lunch with a friend and, and my friend was like, you know, what do you think? And I said, you know, I feel like, I feel like it's been a really good process for me and Micah, my, my baby. He said, my dad has not raised his voice once since he's been home and I didn't even notice that. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm Irish Catholic. Like if I'm going tell you one time to take out the trash, like second time, it's going to be loud, it's going to be there, A door may come off the hinges. That's just who I used to be. And I don't have that anymore. Like, it's not, it's not in me. Like that anger is not there anymore. And, but I don't know, you know, and I'm going to keep going with that and I just feel like it needs to be said more that ibogaine can help, man, because I went down there full cynic that this was going to Help. And there were six other first responders that I went with, and every one of them is feeling the same way. We keep, we keep up a lot.

[Michael]

I'll be curious to see where you land with the identity piece as you put work into it. I. I wonder what's more valuable, Understanding your identity or understanding your purpose?

[Matt Griffin]

You know, and that's a great point because I was.

[Michael]

Well, identity is tough, right. Because I think that is almost always tied to a title. And I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my. I truly don't. Well, I take that back. I know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don't know how. I don't know if that is a name tag or a hat or a uniform form. I just, I want to be a value add to the world around me. How I do that, I don't know, is as important.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And if I am prescriptive in the how, I think that leads me to a boxed in identity. And I don't, I don't want to be that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Or have that powerful. Because I don't think, I don't think it matters. I think the purpose matters more than the identity.

[Matt Griffin]

And think about this. Right. So. And that's just such a powerful statement because think about what you just said. Like, I want purpose.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And we had purpose. Whether it was, you know, for you, the teams. For me being an undercover cop and team around, like, I had purpose, I had clarity, I had mission, and I had a team. You leave that and guess what? Guess what goes away.

[Michael]

Well, until you figure out how to it provide it for yourself. Because in the environments you described, it was largely boundaried by a machine that was run and managed by other people. And that's totally okay. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But if you spend your formative years in that machine and you get used to solving problems, you leave that machine and you realize you have to find your own problems to solve. And that is a jarring.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes.

[Michael]

Jarring jump between the two. And it took me years to figure that out. Out.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Yeah. It's powerful though, right?

[Matt Griffin]

Like, to, to like, you know, we leave this job or we leave this profession, and we love that purpose, we love that mission, we love that clarity, we love that team. We love. You know, like I say, like, I don't miss the job, I miss who I was on the job.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, and like, if you ask me who I was for the longest time, it was a Patch. It was a SARS swimmer. It was an undercover cop. And the process, I think for me, the process is trying to figure out not who I'm trying to be.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Like, I still don't. Yeah.

[Michael]

It's a tough one, right?

[Matt Griffin]

It is, man.

[Michael]

Because I don't who I want to be. I care more about how I am and how I. And who do I want to be? That leads me to this place of a baker. I bake cookies.

[Matt Griffin]

Or it leads you back to a role.

[Michael]

No, it's a title.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I don't like that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

My life looks so different than when I was in the military.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And all the things I do now, I would have never guessed that I was going to do when I was in. And I enjoy being in that place now because I still don't know where it's going. And that's okay because I know how I want to conduct myself as a person along the way.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And that's what I focus on. Not. You know what I mean?

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And I'm spitballing this in real time. I've never had this conversation. So I don't know the right answer. Answer. But I'm very hesitant when people ask me, you know, hey, what do you do? I just. I'm like, I own a coffee shop. It's the easiest, but it's a great. Yeah. They say, how's that going? And I say, it's great to sell an addictive product. And I say, oh, that does sound about right. You know, but that isn't who I am.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

How I conduct myself, though, and, you know, and the hows of who I am and how I show up. That's what's important to me. And I don't give a shit about the.

[Matt Griffin]

How you show up.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

I love that.

[Michael]

But that's not. I mean, that's not identity to me. Because if you sell. I don't know why I keep using the term baker. By the way. I have watched a lot of the Great British Bake Off. It's not a big deal. Peru just left the show. Pru has Drift just left the show. I'm emotionally still getting myself there. But then there's some weird expectation. Fill in the blank with any job title. There's some weird expectation of what people think you're going to be like.

[Matt Griffin]

Like.

[Michael]

Or what you may like or who you're going to be or behaviors. I'm not interested in any of that.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

So, yeah, I don't. I don't put any effort into the. The Destination.

[Matt Griffin]

One of the things where, like, when I've been, I, I've been journaling obviously a lot. And one of the things like, is I started re, re examining, you know, each day. So like I, I, I, I go 24 hours by 24 hours and I started looking at is 24 hours less. Like, this is, this is. So like, the evolution of time for me has been a big, big deal, right? I had no concept of time while I was on, on my journey. I had no watch. I didn't know if we were allowed to ask what time it was. Like, other guys asked like, hey, what time is it? Like, I didn't know we were allowed to do that. So I, I didn't know if it was 12 midnight or if it was 11am Right? There's no, there's no light in there. You have no idea. So I didn't know if I was on this journey for. I didn't know if like, I was the last one to leave the third therapy room. When I finally like, kind of came to, I looked around. Everybody else is upstairs having, having watermelon, like smoothies and, and like enjoying life. And I'm like, why didn't you have to wake me up, man? Like, I'm, I'm hungry too. But I think that for me, like, it was, it's just been one less day. And, and that's, that's kind of changed a little bit of how I, how I go about things, right? And, and you know, let's say it's 57 for me, right? If I, if, you know, for example, my mom, my mom's 86 years old. And if I see my mom, let's say I see her twice a year. And let's say she, let's, let's say she lives another 10 years, so she lives till 96. That means that I only have 20 more times to see my mom. That's a hard thing to say. But that also gives you the ability to kind of look at like, how you're living your life and what you want to do with it. And that's a, that's a, I think that for me is an important aspect. It, you know, I wasn't a good father when my boys, when I was younger. I mean, when I was the UC guy that was running around like I wasn't a good father. I missed a lot of lacrosse games. I missed a lot of football games. I missed a lot of, a lot of strings concerts. You know, I wasn't the dad that I needed to be. And now I'm trying really hard to do that. And you know what? It's, it's a lot of sometimes I've got to, I've got to eat my own, my own shit sandwich because I, I, I'm sleeping in the bed that I made. And you know, as much as I want to be that father that, that, hey, listen, you need to listen to me. Well, you know what? I wasn't here to discipline you early on, so now I'm sleeping with what, with what I made.

[Michael]

You had to cash the checks you wrote, man.

[Matt Griffin]

Right. And so I've got to, I've got to eat that humble pie and say, man, I'm going to work every day to be the best version of myself, to be the best father, the best person, the best, you know, the, the, you know, and I look back and like, nobody remembers how much dope I seized. Nobody, nobody remembers how much, how many arrests I made. What they remember is how I treated them. And like, thinking about that is, is a big deal to me because if, if I can be the best father and I can leave a legacy through my children, that's, that's really important to me. And I don't want my legacy to be. He was, he was, he was a great undercover cop, but he was a shitty dad. Like, that's a shitty legacy to leave. I would much rather him say he was a shitty cop. He was a great fucking dad. Dad. And once you make that decision, man, that's, I mean, I'll sleep with that all day, you know, he was a great dad. Like, I'll sleep with that. That's no problem. Because, you know, nobody remembers how many arrests you made. But I, I promise you my, my legacy with my children are going to live on and the difference between what

[Michael]

you did and who you are.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael]

So I'm, I'm choosing wisely do the 5 Meo DMT.

[Matt Griffin]

So, so here's. I did. And you know what? This was the medicine for me. And this took me a long time to. Not a long time. This took me. Have you ever met Slider?

[Michael]

No.

[Matt Griffin]

Okay, so, so Mark Keller, he goes by the name Slider. He is, he's just an amazing man. Navy pilot, works for ambio. And so me and him just minded right off the gecko. And so I got down there. So five meo. I have this breakthrough with ibogaine, right? I have this conversation with Jesus. You. I woke up at like 1am and the ataxia was gone. And I'm eating, I'm eating a cinnamon bun. For the first time, like this. And I have it on video. I'm like, this cinnamon bun is amazing. Like, it is the best thing. Like, the smiles ear to ear. And, like, my. My beard's up here. My hair's all over the place. And so the next day is five me, yo. And I was terrified of this. People were like, it's a. This is a rocket ship from what I've heard. Dude. Somebody. Like, I had a vision in my head that I was going to be strapped to a rocket ship. I was going to hit the sun. I was going to be. I was going to be rainbows and unicorns, like, coming out of that. That's what I thought in my head. I was terrified. So I asked. I'm like, can I go first? And another guy was like, I'm going first. I'm like, all right, you go first. I'm going second.

[Michael]

Somebody else was terrified.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I'm. I'm terrified of this. So I hit it, and. And. And it zips me up, and. But it was a feeling. It wasn't visual. It was like a kaleidoscope of, like, black and white.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

And. And I'm laying there, and, like, I. I can still feel my body. And I start coming back. And I said this, because you can do two hits. The second hit's gonna zip you out, right? Like, it's gonna compound into orbit. Straight into orbit. So I'm laying there, and. And I'm praying. I'm like, all right. Like, am I gonna take the second hit? And I just felt like, like, all right. Like, I think I'm good. Like, I'm not gonna hit the second hit. So Slider comes, and he's like. He's like, hey, dude. Like, you're back in your body. I said, yeah. Like, you want the second hit? I said, no, I think I'm good. He's like, you sure? I said, yeah, I think I'm good. And I get down there, bring somebody else down. And I immediately regretted it. Immediately felt like I bailed out on myself. Like, I spent all this money to come down here. I spent all this money to do this shit, and I just fucking bailed out on myself. So everything that I just learned about myself and ibogaine, all erased. And I'm in a funk. Like, so this is our last night there. That whole night, like, I went off to my room, and, like, I'm just trying to, like, bring myself back into everything like, that happened. And I can focus back on that. Not on the. On. On the five. Meo yeah. And the next morning, I'm one of the last ones to pack up my slider comes into my room. He's like, dude, you good? He's like, you're right. I said, man, I'm. I'm not, man. I gotta be honest with you. I said, I feel like I bailed out. I feel like I bailed out on the, on the five meo. He's like, dude, listen to me. He said, that's what the medicine wanted you to do. And you've got to have you. So there's two things in your life you got to have. Your. Your mind's going to tell you to do something, and then your intuition is going to tell you to do something. You got to listen to it. And so what the medicine wants you to do, it wants you to feel what it feels like to have disappointment and to have regret. And so feel it and be part of that. And when. When he said that, man, it just took all of that worry away. I was like, okay, all right, cool. Like, I'm gonna go with that. And honestly, that was a big deal for me. Me, because I felt like I let myself down. And so the medicine was saying, like, you're not going to take that second hit because I want you to feel like you let yourself down and I want you to experience that from a fresh mindset and a fresh perspective. And that was really big for me and that's what led me into letting myself down. And that performing worthiness that I was able to kind of really carve out for myself from an identity standpoint. And I was so locked in that I bailed on myself and I didn't get the most out of it. And, and you know, and. And that was, that was a big deal for me because I felt really regretful when it happened. And, you know, I don't know if I'll ever go back to do it again and whatnot. But like, I needed to. I needed to feel what it felt like to let myself down. And I need to explore that emotion because, you know, when. When you're. When you're a high performing person and you don't hit it and you don't hit the mark, whether it's a quota in sales, whether it's. Whether it's life, whether it's whatever you do and you don't hit hit it, how you deal with yourself when you let yourself down is a big deal for us in our community and what we do. And I had, I had to earn that and I had to, I had to sit with that, and that was probably one of the biggest benefits of the week, is sitting with letting myself down and how I'm going to go forward with that because no longer having to perform for it and really looking into myself on who I am and what I'm about, like, that was huge for me, and it's really helped me to move forward in my life to what's important.

[Michael]

Nobody's going to want to hear that. They're going to want to hear you figure out who you are after your greatest success. No, it's more when you figure out when you fall short who you are looking in the mirror.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right.

[Michael]

And that hurts a lot more than success.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's. It's. Failure is an opportunity to learn what didn't work.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Everybody celebrates success, but, you know, which you should.

[Michael]

You should celebrate your successes as well. I just think there's more to be learned. Learned in the failures.

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely. I mean, got to.

[Michael]

Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, and again, it's how you look at that. Did you. Is it. Is it really a failure or is it an opportunity to learn what didn't work? Is it an obstacle or is it an opportunity? Is it pain or is it progress? Those are the choices that you make every day. It's how you go about the mindset that you have going into the perspective that you go into it and look at and say, okay, cool, I can. I can. I can do this a different way. That wasn't failure. It just showed me, all right, that shit didn't work.

[Michael]

Work.

[Matt Griffin]

You know, I've had. I've had umpteen businesses in my life that have failed. You know, not to say that my speaking business is succeeding, but, you know,

[Michael]

every time you seem to be doing a lot of speaking, so I think you're doing okay.

[Matt Griffin]

I'm sitting right here with the van. And you know, every one of those businesses, I learned how to file for an llc. I learned how to. How to create a website. I learned how to market. I learned how to, you know, do social media. And I'm never going to pay for followers. I'm never going to do the things that I learned. Learned early on, like the people that are. That follow me, we engage with each other. And it's. And it's a community of people that I love, they love me, and we talk and like, it is just. It's successful because it. Because it means a lot and it's not fake. It's authentic, and it's real. And I. And I Love that aspect. You know, those are all learning lessons that I got from failing before. Yeah.

[Michael]

One of the very common trappings that I see in the digital world that we live in is people pursuing the size of the community or audience. People can interchange whatever word that they want to. I think the connectedness is way more important than the size.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

If you had a million followers but no connection to any of them and they're just observers, maybe you live a wildly extravagant life, which if you do, awesome. And if you're put out of a line, great. And for you, social media is purely an expressive outlet. Fantastic. I'm not here to judge anybody's life, but if you gave me a choice between that or 10,000 people that you were actually connected with, without a doubt, I'm going with the 10,000 all day

[Matt Griffin]

long, every day, dude. Because you know what, like coming back from ibogaine in a first responder community that has never heard the word before, guys have come out of the woodwork that I, that I haven't seen in or heard from in six, seven years. Hey, dude, when you get back in a king, any chance we can sit down, have a cup of coffee? I want to hear about it. That shit would be buried inside of, inside of, you know, fake followers or bots or whatever. You know, it's, it's unbelievable how many people have come out like, hey, I need to, I need to learn a little bit more about that. You know, I also had to protect myself a little bit too, because I still wasn't sure how. I want, I want to be respectful to the medicine, respectful to Trevor and Ambio and everything else. I didn't want to tell people, hey, this is what it is. Because I still don't know. You know, just talk about your experience. Right. I say like, you know, one of the things I say now, like, how much do you want to know? Because people are genuinely curious and, and, but they don't need to hear that, you know, I bailed out on 5 Meo. They don't need to hear, you know, so. But man, it's just, and it's, it's just really showed me how many people are struggling in the first responder community and where, you know, I'm, I'm so grateful that Trust Trump or President Trump signed the executive order to, to, to expedite. I still, I still think we're five years off.

[Michael]

I was talking with Jonathan about that. He was less fired up than I thought.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

And for rightful reasons. Yeah, five might even be aggressive. Aggressive. I really hope that executive order wasn't peacocking.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Because it is. It's a great headline.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

But if anybody reads that and thinks this stuff is going to be available, it's not. There's a. There is a very long path that it has to take, and I hope that it helps, too. I'm not even going to sit here and pretend that I understand any aspect of that system or the power of an executive order.

[Matt Griffin]

Right, Right. Same. Same. No clue.

[Michael]

I hope it helps, and I hope it wasn't peacocking.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. But what I can say that it did was it opened up a lot of conversations. I think that's. That's the powerful aspect of it. And from that, I think a lot of. I think a lot of the. The places that are available, like transcend and ambio and mission within, and there's a lot of places that are down there that are. That have openings and have time, and there's a lot of. There's a lot more around it now. That's a lot more availability because of that. Because of those conversations now. And I think that's great. And I. I think if we can. If we can move that into the first responder community, and I think. I think it's gonna. It's gonna help out a lot. I really do, man. I. And, you know, one of the things that I'm working on is, you know, and you'll appreciate this, man. We got out of the military, we had tap classes and, you know, when you get out of law enforcement, you

[Michael]

might have had tap classes.

[Matt Griffin]

I didn't. You didn't get tap?

[Michael]

Yeah, I got all the signatures.

[Matt Griffin]

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just sit there for two weeks, man.

[Michael]

Yeah, me too.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yep. But in law enforcement, man, you get a. You get a sandwich platter and fold a flag, and then they restrict your assets, they walk you out.

[Michael]

I thought you get a watch, too.

[Matt Griffin]

No, I wish.

[Michael]

Trash.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah, it is trash.

[Michael]

Some shit time. Yes. It's like 50 bucks.

[Matt Griffin]

Oh, yeah. And they shut down your. Your. Your access card at lunch, so you can't come in the back door anymore, man. Like, I just spent 25 years here or whatever it is for these guys.

[Michael]

And.

[Matt Griffin]

And so what I was. What I was putting together is what's called tag. So the TAP tag, Transition Assistance Guidance and just talking a little bit about what. What life looks like on the other side. You know, so many guys have this vision of what they're. What's gonna happen when they turn 50. It's just not that, you know, you got to build a resume. You got to look at what jobs are out there, what you can do and what you can't do, and what's, you know, from, from an identity standpoint, too, but also from, you know, all the. There's so many questions I have had and nobody answered those questions because the moment you walk out that door, you're not relevant anymore. You're not part of. Your phone's not ringing off the hook because you're not the SWAT commander anymore. You're not the undercover guy. You're not the midnight, you know, lieutenant, and you're kind of left your own

[Michael]

devices also start looking for those answers before you get out.

[Matt Griffin]

Right.

[Michael]

Right. I'm not saying don't do your job.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Crush your job, whatever it is, but prepare it. Yeah. Just prepare.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Have your kids read the book?

[Matt Griffin]

What's that?

[Michael]

Have your kids read the book.

[Matt Griffin]

Book, yeah. Yeah. My older ones. My, my 21 and my 18. I don't know if my 18. We, we. We've talked a little bit about it. My 21 year old definitely has and we talked about it. He is, it's, it's helped our relationship a lot. So he took the brunt of a lot of it. So he's, he's a great kid, man. He's down at Florida Tech. He's going to be an aerospace engineer. And man, he, he was a finalist for an internship going into a senior year and he didn't get it. They actually told him he was too experienced. I'm like, ah, but great kid, man. One of the smartest, sharpest kids you'll ever meet. He got the brunt of it, man, because he was, you know, he was 10 to 12, 14 years old during this time. So he's in the process of becoming a man. And I failed him. And the. Before I left law enforcement, I remember asking him, I said, man, are you okay with Daddy's not a cop anymore? And I'll never forget this. He looked at me, me, and he said, I just want you to be happy again. And that broke me, you know, for a kid to see that. Right? Not that you always think that you hide all these things. You hide the arguments between mom. You hide all.

[Michael]

No, no. You think you do.

[Matt Griffin]

And he saw it all. And, man, he is one of my biggest advocates now. And I got an 18 year old and a 14 year old and a 12 year old, and 14 and 12 have not.

[Michael]

Probably for the better.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Probably give them a little bit of time. Yeah.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. But we, I mean, we have a lot of real talk and we talk about, we talk about life, we talk about obstacles, we talk about the things that are going to, you know, that are going to present themselves. I mean my autistic son, he struggles, he struggled with some bullying. My 18 year old struggle with that as well. And you got to have real conversations. And if I sit here and I say, well, don't be like Susie, don't be like Johnny or don't be like this person right then, then if they are, they're not going to come to me until talk. So let's have an honest conversation about what that looks like for you going forward. And just know that been there, I've done it, I've been down bad paths, I understand what that looks like. And all I'm asking you to do is just give me a shot to talk to you and help you out. And I know I wasn't there, but I'm here and, and I'm gonna continuously be here and my phone's always gonna be on and I'm gonna be a good dad. And even sometimes it's gonna hurt, you know, like I'm struggling a little bit with my autistic son now, but I can't stand by and, and you know, allow. I gotta be, I gotta, I gotta be true to him and true to myself and I gotta, I can't allow him to do certain things and create narratives and, and he can, he can hurt, you know, kids can hurt you, you know, but just what my past was is not, you know, it's not my present. And I gotta remember that.

[Michael]

Yeah. So, so second book, when's it coming out?

[Matt Griffin]

I don't know. I have all the chapters ready. So the documentary, the Journey to Ibogaine on YouTube and my socials, we're trying, I really wanted it for here. We got the trailer release, so you gotta take a look at that.

[Michael]

Okay.

[Matt Griffin]

And I thought, I thought that came out really good. So my girlfriend is the executive producer for Newsday in New York City. So she's won like Emmy. She's phenomenal. So she's helped out a lot with it. And we did all the interviews. One of the guys that I went down with, he had some major TBI as a firefighter. He actually went down and did down in Virginia Beach. There's, there's guys that I think, you know, they do mert. It's like a magnetic something. I'll tell you the name, he sent me the name. So we interviewed him as well because when he came back, his brain scans completely different. And so that was really powerful. And then, and then just the process. So all the interviews are done, all the films done. We just got to cut it, put it in certain places and then have a couple rounds.

[Michael]

Documentary before a book.

[Matt Griffin]

Yes, documentary for the book. And then I created from that as I work through. So again, like I'm a writer, I like to write. I feel like it's, it's powerful. So what I did was I created an eight week identity reconstruction manual. How I, how I followed it through like week number one. Like let's, let's name what type of person I am, what I did and who I was and you know, that kind of stuff. And, and each week had a different theme. And so I created that to combo with, with the documentary or also just to use and, and you know, as you transition out. So that's the first step. And I kind of, I got, I take on a lot of things. Like I'm one of those people like, oh yeah, that sounds good. Like on the way here I, I was thinking, I was like, man, I had this vision of like, of like creating a stage performance of me having the conversation, me as, as one person, me as, me as Matt and then me as, you know, the Ivan or Jesus, like creating just how my brain goes. I got to focus on one thing at a time and get it, get those things knocked out. But documentary first, workbook attached to that and then, and then, and then we'll go to the book because the book will be a. I really want to take my time with that again. Documentary is only going to be 45 minutes, 55 minutes. I want to give first responders the ability to say, okay, cool, what is ibogaine? Where do I get it? What does it look like to go down there? I wouldn't have gone without, without understanding all those things. And I really needed to understand what it was because again, I didn't know. And I'm not going to go to another country to do an illegal drug without having all the knowledge and everything else. So I want to give first responders the ability to have that knowledge before they sign the check. Seven, four, five, six grand, whatever it is, to go down there. So I want them to have that and then I want to take my time and I think that's going to be powerful over the next year to really look at. All right, did I continue to not drink? Did I continue to not have any desire for alcohol? Continue to not have any, any lustful actions in my head and, and body? And, and you know, how's my relationship been With Jesus. Did. I did. Has anger stayed away from me? Have all these different things and I think that'll be powerful to say. Okay, cool. In a year from now, that's what it looked like. And, and here's what happened, here's what didn't happen. So that'll be the next thing.

[Michael]

Obviously there'll be a third book where you're going to journey to. It's going to be the journey to somewhere.

[Matt Griffin]

It's got to be, right? Gotta be, you know, but I, you

[Michael]

know, maybe it's just gonna be the

[Matt Griffin]

journey midnight and then midnight to medicine. So like, like medicine to what? Like, it's got to be something about medicine to like skydiving. I've never skydive. I've actually never caught a fish either. So maybe, maybe.

[Michael]

Have you ever been fishing?

[Matt Griffin]

So I've been fishing twice and I got. Ben took me. My Ben from, from Kenny took me twice, man. And, and, and a, a fish hit my, hit my, my bait and he's screaming, set the hook. I'm like, the. Does that mean, like, I didn't know that. Like, nobody told me that. So I'm like, set the hook. And by the time he said real back too late, it was done, man.

[Michael]

It already snacked and took off. Yeah, it'll be the journey to somewhere.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah.

[Michael]

Cool.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep.

[Michael]

We'll be on it for almost three hours. How can people find you, author Matthew

[Matt Griffin]

Griffin across Instagram and, and Facebook and then matthewagriffin.com is my website. My cell phone number's on there. My email's on.

[Michael]

Ballsy.

[Matt Griffin]

Yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, I'll give a shout out to, to a guy named Bert. I've never met Bert. I've never met his. I don't know his last name, but he called me maybe a month or two ago and, and if it doesn't say spam, likely I'm going to pick it up. And I picked it up. He's like, he's like, you said you would answer and I do. And he said, man, I'm having a hard time. And, and we talked for 20 minutes. You know what was really a blessing behind that is I was, I was cooking dinner for my boys and they got to hear the conversation. That's cool. And that was, that was. And I didn't even see that. But my, my 18 year old was like, wow, dad, like, that was, that was pretty awesome, man. And a whole space for anybody, you know, I just don't want the same, the same situation happening with, with Brian to them so yeah. Matthewagrifffin.com and, and then the book is called the Journey to Midnight. And then the, the. And that's all my socials.

[Michael]

Cool. What do you want to leave people with, man?

[Matt Griffin]

It's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way. You know, if you're in a bad season, know that you can make it to Wednesday, split a pitch of bud washer, check on your friends, know that if somebody gives you a date, check on them. You never know what you can. You just tell them, hey, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And just most importantly, man, there's hope. You know, if you tried everything else out there, ibogaine is not for everybody, but it was for me. And if you tried everything else and you lost hope, give it a shot. Give me a call, you know, I'll tell you about my experience and I hope that, I hope that you give it a shot, man. There's hope out there for you.

[Michael]

Yeah. Don't let the economics be the barrier either. There are ways and programs that people can help.

[Matt Griffin]

Absolutely.

[Michael]

Don't sit there and say to yourself, I can't afford it, so I'm not even going to try. That's a total cop out.

[Matt Griffin]

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. That's it, man. There's, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And I hope people see from this conversation that there's hope. And I'm, I'm proof of that. Nine years ago I had a $13 in my checking account and I'm here in, in Montana and I'm just, I'm blessed and grateful.

[Michael]

Grateful with a shirt and underwear.

[Matt Griffin]

No bow tie, though.

[Michael]

I don't know if I would have had you on if you caught you in a butt and been like, nope,

[Matt Griffin]

this dude is not psychopath radar going on.

[Michael]

You don't often see people.

[Matt Griffin]

Puts the lotion on his skin.

[Michael]

I mean, how many bow ties do you see in day to day life? You just don't see it.

[Matt Griffin]

See it. Yep.

[Michael]

But the, but the person you're imagining in your mind's eye with the bow tie is the person you see wearing one.

[Matt Griffin]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

[Michael]

Michael, when's the last time you saw somebody in a bow tie,

[Matt Griffin]

man?

[Michael]

Pro.

[Matt Griffin]

I don't know.

[Michael]

Maybe.

[Matt Griffin]

Have you ever.

[Michael]

He's never left Montana, so.

[Matt Griffin]

Have you ever worn a bow tie? I have worn a bow tie. I see. That's what I'm talking about. I feel like prom or something. Yep. Damn right. You did.

[Michael]

If I got you one, could I force you to wear it for shows?

[Matt Griffin]

I guess. Clip on a real one?

[Michael]

Well, if we didn't get a real one, it would never look like a bow tie. I don't care how many YouTube videos you watch on how to tie a bow tie.

[Matt Griffin]

It's fucking tough, man. Yep. Yeah.

[Michael]

I don't know how we got off track. Thank you for making the trip out, though.

[Matt Griffin]

Thank you very much for having me. It's been really grateful.

[Michael]

My pleasure, man.

[Matt Griffin]

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