A (4:05)

Thanks so much for having me man.

B (4:07)

Let's talk about mental health, physical health, and spiritual health, but not all at once. You talk a lot about and you post a lot about mental health, but I've noticed that a lot of that takes on a sort of a protocol approach where you use physical steps to approach mental health and vice versa. So what's your framework on this thing that we call mental health? I'm not asking you to solve the mental health crisis in one swoop, but when you think about your own mental health, the people close to you, people you've worked with, and the teams, how do you approach mental health as a concept and as an actionable thing?

A (4:49)

I've lived so many different stages in my life, high points and low points and everything in between, and at my lowest point I had no physical connection. I was either down hard with an injury coming back from surgery and then my mental health Rapid decline right after that. And for someone who never suffered from mental health issues, it's shocking and you feel like you're the only person going through it, especially when you come from a subculture of special operations, nobody ever talks about it. So when you find yourself in that dark room alone, really contemplating some terrible things, it's hard to wrap your head around because you're the only person that's ever gone through it and, you know, had some really good strength coaches and coming back from injuries and the better I got physically, my mental health naturally just started to pull out of it. But everything we did was for the group. So all my physical attributes, everything I'm training is for the betterment of the group. Now it's betterment of my family, of my tribe, of whatever I have. But you know, I talk about this thing stacking up micro winds. My morning routine is structured in a way to where I can do that same routine everywhere I go, everywhere. At any point of the day I can lock that thing in. But it all starts with an evening routine. So when my phone goes off at 5am and I spring feet out of bed, I know exactly what I'm going to do for the next 12 minutes to put myself in position to not be stressed. So I've got to power down my home life and I've just got to think about what's coming next. So laying out the clothes the night before, my bottle of water's filled, my pills are out, my toothbrush is out, everything is set. So as soon as I get up, by the time I get to making my morning cup of coffee, I've done 25 things inside of my control.

B (6:24)

Do you know off the top of your head what those things are right now that maybe you could just list them off? You said your alarm clock goes off 5am and that's regardless of when you went to sleep.

A (6:33)

Regardless when I went to sleep, typically, I mean, if I'm out here, I'm on a different time zone and I can change it, but.

B (6:39)

But if you get to bed at midnight or you get to bed at 9pm or you get to bed at 2am, alarm goes off at 5am, you're up.

A (6:45)

And my wife gave me this the other day. I came home on a red eye. I didn't walk through the door until 2:30 in the morning and alarm clock goes off at 5 and she rolls over and she's like, what are you doing? I'm going to work. And she's like, you can take a day off. Like, no, I'M not taking a day off. This last five days is the first time in as long as I can, 20 years that I've actually taken five days of not working out when I had the physical ability to do it. I've never taken five days off because I'm so afraid my mental health will drop. Something will happen if I leave that routine. So I wake up, unplug my phone, shut off the alarm. I walk in, toothpaste on toothbrush, I go to the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth, spit it out, all the pills I gotta take in the morning, you know, vitamin D, all the stuff I take. And then I get dressed. Left sock, right sock, right shoe. Everything I do, I do it in a very specific order. Even the way I put on my bracelets. If I put them on in the wrong order, I'll stop and I'll de jock them all and I'll redone them just because that's one simple thing. I'm not rushed, I'm not under duress. I'm in control this entire timeline. And that way, when I get to the kitchen, I don't feel like I'm frantic. Where are my keys? Where's my wallet? Where's my bag? Everything's in a system right now to where I can step in that car. I'm not stuck behind a school bus. My car has gas in it. My phone's at 100% because we've all been there. Everybody's a normal person. I wake up, my wife wants to have a 15 minute conversation that puts me behind that school bus. And I'm typically not behind. Now I'm late for my first meeting, I've got to rush through my workout, I don't have time to take a shower. All that is going to cascade. It's going to put me to be the person I don't want to be. When I have to walk into that first meeting, it's like I'm trying to optimize everything that's within my control. So when I step through the threshold, this is a DJ that I'm purposely presenting to you right now under my control. And that really sets the entire framework for the whole day of being in a good headspace. I'm controlling the things that are controllable and the things that I can't control. I don't think about them anymore. I block them out.

B (8:35)

I love the regimen and your adherence to it. I'm curious about your mindset. When the alarm goes off, meaning where is your head? I guess I know you're human. And I understand enough about the brain to make an assumption, which is that you don't wake up every morning with the alarm going off at five thinking, great, I'm going to get up and just roll right into the day. That there may be times when you consider going into fetal position, you know it's warm under those covers. But also that your mind, like anyone else's, probably starts spinning. It leaps to the past, leaps to even a little more stress than you'd like, a little, a little more lethargy, this kind of thing. Do you purposely stack up to do's so that you stay out of all of that? And if some of that persists as you're brushing your teeth, what's the way of dealing with that?

A (9:32)

I just keep pushing. I just keep myself in motion the entire time. And I talk about dials, not switches, a lot with people. And it sounds selfish, but I have to be selfish right now in order to be selfless later. So I tell guys, you know, as soon as that alarm clock goes off, I'm not thinking about my wife, I'm not thinking about my kids, I'm thinking about being as efficient as humanly possible. And I'm trying to hit that gym. So I unrack at 07, the best version of me. And I can't do it if I'm thinking about a fight or an argument we had with the wife the night before, the kids and this and that. I have to be selfish right now because it's the only block I'm going to have for me to optimize myself. Because at 10am I'm going to get pulled from 50 different directions. It's the exact same thing when I go home. So now between hours of 10am and 6pm I'm only thinking about work. I don't think my wife, don't think about my kids. I only think about the team and everything we're trying to do. At six you can watch. And I tell everybody, if you would put a hidden camera in my car, it'd break the Internet. I do it every day. I slam that car in the park, I put my phone on do not disturb, I check social, I check all my texts. I'm good, there's no phone calls and I've got a 12 minute drive from door to door. Those 12 minutes I put on Chris Stapleton, something that makes me feel good, that calms me down and I pre rehearse everything that's going to happen the moment I hit that garage door opener. Really, I Do it every single day.

B (10:47)

I realize it's personal, but to the extent that you're willing maybe share a couple of the what you're rehearsing.

A (10:53)

I pull onto the driveway, I slam it back in park, I check my phone one more time and I tell myself, you're only going to have three hours from six to nine to be the person they need you to be. You got to be a full time dad right now. You could be a full time husband. And I don't get it right every time. Some days I drag that stuff home with me two hand texting frantically, but I really try not to. And before I hit that garage door, I tell myself like, they don't know what's going on. They don't know the stress you're at at work. She's had her own day, they've had their own day. You know, I've got a, I've got a daughter in seventh grade, I've got another one second grade. Like, you know, we got to work through this whole thing together. And what version of me do I want to present to them right now? I'm going to walk in bags over my right shoulder, I'm going to clear the threshold, make an immediate 90 degree turn and there's going to be that 7 year old and she's a huge ball of energy. She gets all shaking, she runs at me at full blast and I pick her up, shake her, kiss her like 100% love. Take an immediate right in the kitchen. There's my oldest, usually eating something before homework's about to start. Give her a kiss, give her a hug, ask her how her day was. Straight to the room to see my wife because she's get a, she gets like a 30 minute buffer before she has to go upstairs and lock in with seventh grade homework. Check her. What do you need? If you can fold the towels, if you can start dinner, done. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So my last interaction in the morning was positive. I left on a positive note. The first interaction you're getting at the end of the day is in a positive note. And regardless of how I'm feeling, if I have to fake it, I'll fake it. I got three hours and if you space out over the course of the five days, I don't have a lot of time to make positive memories just because of work and stress and everything else. I'm trying to maximize those three hours and then when I do, it feels like you can do no wrong. But every night after we finish dinner, me and my wife do a 20 minute walk. 10 minutes for her. So as soon as we start it. Tell me about your day. Everything she wants to vent through. Everything we had to get caught up on. We had the halfway mark right around this park and then it's my turn for 10 minutes. Average human can walk a mile in 20 minutes. Helps circadian rhythm, helps digestion. I mean mental clarity. I'm not on my phone, there's no stimulus. I mean, I'm watching the sunset. But now it's 20 minutes just for us to reconnect. And we do it every single day. Unless it's a torrential downpour, we're doing it every single night. And our marriage has never been better. My physical health has never been better. And then my time with my kids, I can be accountable for every single minute in my day that I maximize that opportunity. No. Why? Because I drugged that dude home with me from, you know, 2:30 in the afternoon. I drug him all the way home till six. That's not who they need. They don't need a commando, they don't need a business owner, they don't need an entrepreneur. They need a dude that's going to have a tea party right now or a guy that's going to talk about how difficult navigating seventh grade is. Like she really needs a husband that's going to be fully present because I haven't been for the majority of our marriage. I've been gone 300 days out of the year. She really just needs a buddy who's going to help parent. And if I'm not mentally there, I'm never going to get there. So I set conditions to where I can be the person I need to be no matter what threshold I'm walking through. And it's been hugely beneficial for me.

B (13:47)

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A (17:16)

I'm fortunate now that my wife actually works inside the business, so she gets it. And she knows that once I lock in, when that camera turns on, that microphone goes on. You got to leave me alone. And I tell people like, I'm not trained to do this. I'm a normal dude. So I'm really susceptible to negative energy and they know better. Don't slam me with something negative before I have to turn that microphone on because I'm not going to be able to compartmentalize it all the way. I need to be the best version of me right now. So wait till I'm done and then deliver the bad news. And she's the same way. She's, she's an absolute gangster. And she knows, she's like, hey, when you get done today, we got to talk. I'm like, what is. And she's like, nothing bad. It'll definitely be something bad. But she doesn't even give me an inkling because she knows it'll rob me of bandwidth. She's like, go, do what you do. As soon as you get done, we'll talk. And on that 20 minute walk, she'll drop it. But now we're here. I'm in a clear headspace. I've had a productive day. We've had a great 10 minutes into this. Now. He met the bad news. Last 10 minutes, we'll solve it together. But not getting on that social media first thing in the morning. I used to be the guy. I'd roll over. I immediately open up Instagram and I'm checking it. What are the comments? How's the posting doing? How's this? How's that? You'll stay there for 40 minutes and then if you see something negative, I'll ride that. I'll wear that jacket all day long. I can't get it away from me. So I don't take a zoom call, I don't take a phone call. There's nothing that happens inside of my orbit before 10am from 7 to 10, that's my morning block. I've got the whole team in there. We do fitness from seven to nine. I make them all do a 20 minute walk. I make the whole team protein shakes, I take a shower and at 10am I walk out. Hit me with it. Whatever we got to do. We're going to range in my training and we're shooting content. What are we doing right now? You have full bandwidth until I leave here and if I run till midnight, we run till midnight. But you have both barrels of me at 100% because I've controlled that entire morning routine and it's been the best thing that's ever happened to us. But you gotta be consistent. It's like everything else. What's the best diet, the one you'll stick to? And that morning routine has been the biggest game changer I've had.

B (19:06)

That's awesome. I feel like the teams, and I've been fortunate to know and work with some folks from the teams seem to have what I call kind of an unconscious genius as a whole, whole as a system. We could talk about buds, we could talk about selection for tier one stuff, we could talk about any of that. And we, and we will. But seems to me that a lot of the practices that are built up in the teams and in team guys who are successful when they transition out are built around this notion I just call unconscious genius. Where they weren't thinking about like what's the underlying neural circuitry or this and that. And everything you describe by the way, is extremely actionable for anybody. I love that you told us, and I'm going to underscore this, highlight it and bold it right now is that it doesn't matter if you went to bed at 2:30am or you went to bed at midnight, you're getting up at the same time. It's actually critical for keeping sleep rhythms healthy. And one thing from the literature I'll just share is that it's clear that if people have the same wake up time each day, that whatever sleep they get prior to that wake up time, you get the maximum amount of growth hormone release that's possible, which is of course crucial for recovery, not just growing muscles, but recovery, et cetera. So, so there's that you guys came to that, there's that kind of, you didn't need to know the science, you just arrived at it. But also the brain is so context dependent and, and throughout your description I'm keep hearing that, you know, if there's, you'll wear that jacket all Day long, like it can pull you in. I mean, you're a strong minded individual, you know how to control your own behavior clearly. But you, you are susceptible like anybody else. And I always think of mental states as that. You know, we can either be like a ball bearing on a flat surface where that ball bearing can go anywhere with even just the slightest tilt, or even a breeze versus, you know, little dimples in that surface where it can kind of reside, but it could get blown out or pushed out easily. And ultimately what we're all seeking is to drop like a ball bearing into a trench and rage, bait and numbing out, which are the two kind of core features of social media. Except there's this other opportunity to learn. I feel like those drop us immediately into that trench. And so I feel like our brain wants to be the ball bearing at the bottom of that trench, but it's tempting to not do the work to get there. And so there are things in the world, highly processed, highly palatable foods, certain aspects of social media, because I don't think all of it is unhealthy that provide that opportunity to drop into that trench. And so clearly the unconscious genius here is that you arrived at, it seems an understanding that you're very context dependent. You know, it's not that you're so robust internally that you can throw anything your way. It's exactly because you're, if I may, you're not that robust internally that you understand the brain, that you can't let anything come your way. But if you set the context internally, then the rest of your day is maybe not a breeze, but it's workable and you'll stay that ball bearing in the trench that you're determining. Do I have that right?

A (22:09)

Exactly.

B (22:10)

Okay, so I think this is important because I think a lot of people hear about special operators and high performers and their structure and their routine and they assume they wake up and they're like into the day. Nothing's going to bother me. It's because things have the potential to bother you that you have to structure it that way. Okay, for me, that's very helpful to hear. And I think you're also defining the difference between an artist. I know a lot of artists who need it, they kind of float about their day, they're two hours late to things and then the stuff emerges. Right? I mean, I can tell you stories about people in Los Angeles and how meeting times and I'm a little guilty of this, but it's incredible the way that things just kind of orbit around certain People. And then they're. But then they bring the magic. And so the world continues to orbit around them versus an operator. And I feel like everything you described is like the essence of being an operator. You're approaching your civilian life the same way, presumably, you did your operating life. So let's say you have a morning where something goes wrong. There's no toothpaste in the toothbrush or something more serious like. Like your wife really needs to talk about something. Maybe she's so, you know. You know, together that. That never happens. Will you forego those minutes, or do you make. Or how do you. How do you deal with that?

A (23:27)

The situation really dictates. When I was in. I wouldn't. I'd wake up before everybody else is in there. And it's a lot of stuff I tell the new guys in Special Operations. Like, if you sacrifice your sleep when it doesn't affect anyone else, you can really lay the foundation for greatness. Right. Your first four years. Don't rush to make her your girlfriend. Don't make her your wife. Don't have a kid. Don't get a dog. Just focus on being a Green Beret. Focus on being a Navy seal, and just do that. Then when that girlfriend turns in her fiance, you can have the bandwidth to do them both. It's very hard to do that job. You know, build that. Build that boat at the high seas. And now you're dragging your wife into it. It's hard to do. But, you know, situation dictates. If it's something I really have to solve, we really have to solve it. But she knows, no matter What, I'm unracking at 07, I'm not missing this for you. I'm not missing for anybody else. Because she knows what's going to happen. So she'll either grab me at lunch, hey, do you have a block here? We can talk. For sure. We'll maybe start the initial conversation. If it starts going south or anything, it's going to take long. I'll look down my watch. Honey, I got to go. I got 12 minutes to be there. She's like, okay, we'll catch up at lunch. Cool. And we'll go. I can't miss Morning Movement. I can't do it. That will ruin my day. And if I'm rushed through Morning Movement, if somebody comes in, somebody beats on the door, and they're like, hey, we were in the neighborhood, just wanted to come see you. Can we talk for 20 minutes? No, you can't. No, I'm sorry. And I know it sounds bad. You can't. Because I know what happens if I miss this day. And I'm not willing to take the chance on you right now. You can wait an hour, wait till I'm done, but it's hard, you know? And now we've kind of restructured the whole day to where I can get my time in in the morning, and I can leave with just enough time to see my kids wake up. Now they're pouring cereal, so now I get that little dopamine hit of seeing them, and I kick off their morning in a positive way. Right? I'm doing red light therapy in the morning. I'm still gonna unrack at 07. I'm still getting up at 5. But now I'm just in the house getting everything processed. I'm gonna leave on my terms, and that way, they get to see me first thing in the morning. I only get three hours at night. Well, if I get 30 minutes in the morning stacked over the course of a year, that's a huge difference. We've restructured the entire day, but the whole team is also on that exact same schedule. It's not just me. It's not just my world and business partners, Cole and everybody else. Everybody who does that morning block of fitness. That's why I've been pushing this whole time. And if you look at anybody in the military, anybody in fire department, anybody in special operations and military in general, everybody's day always starts with fitness. When you're in boot camp, you wake up, you do a workout, and then you eat. When you go into buds, you wake up, you work out essentially all day long, go to sleep, it's the same thing. When you get to the SEAL team, you do the same thing. Everybody wakes up, everybody does fitness, the very first thing. And then we start our day that's been really successful. Why would I ever break that? You see guys when they transition out, they get away from it, they gain a bunch of weight, they start drinking. You working out five days a week? No. Why? You've been doing it since you were 17 years old. Why would you break it now? Why?

B (26:22)

Yeah, why do you think that that happens?

A (26:25)

I think guys use excuses. Injuries, limitations, lack of motivation. Like, oh, there's no reason for me to be in shape. Longevity of life. Everybody says, oh, I take a bullet for my kids, you won't lose £40 for them. You won't prolong life. If you think you're a real asset to your family, why wouldn't you try to maximize that time? So I Look at them all. It doesn't take a whole lot. Like, you don't have to be David Goggins. You don't have to run 100 miles a day. You can wake up and do a 20 minute walk every single day and you'll be better off for it. You could grab a set of kettlebells, 30 minutes in your garage. That is something. Every single day that makes you exponentially better. Just through the repetition of being there, being present, being a little selfish right now so you can be selfish later. So for me, if I don't get that workout in and everybody's got stuff going on, I do too. If I don't get that block of fitness in, I will think about that all day long. I'll think about it for weeks. We go back, the next time we hit that muscle group, I don't get the same numbers. I thought I would. Well, that's because I took Monday off. I'm never going to put myself in that position. I don't want to have to have an excuse. So I just set the foundation, I lay it down, I stamped it on a piece of paper. That's what I'm doing. I'm not compromising on it. And it's been great for us.

B (27:36)

That's awesome. I mean, as somebody who got into resistance training in his teens and, and running, I, I confess, over the years I felt some guilt around working out because in my community of scientists, I mean, now I have a much broader community. You know, you go to meetings, everyone's sitting all day and eating bad food. And then, you know, then it was happy hour. I was never much of a drinker, but I would participate a bit until eventually I just stopped drinking entirely. And occasionally I would sneak off during some of the, I'll just be honest, the weak talks. I was like, I've seen this person speak before. I'm going to get a workout in. And only once did I ever run into a colleague in the gym at one of these places. And we both were like, it was like getting caught doing something bad. But then the years went by and I saw my colleagues start to die. I saw my colleagues start to get sick. I saw my colleagues start to resemble melted candles. And these were people that had a lot of robustness and they also had a lot to offer and families and friends. And so I think nowadays people think about physical fitness a little bit differently. They understand it's an investment and therefore it's beneficial to the people around you. But I still see a lot of people kind of Couch it, especially with respect to anything that relates to muscle, as kind of selfish and narcissistic and this kind of thing. And I think it's so important that people understand the mental health benefits, but also the benefits that it can bring the people in your life. And not just longevity, but just the person that it brings. You really understand yourself. You know, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about, you know, the oracle, know thyself. It's, like, so important. If you don't get that workout, you. You're gonna have to force out being best husband, best dad, best teammate. And if you do get that workout, they still get that best dad, everything. But it's. It's that much more genuine.

A (29:22)

And.

B (29:22)

And it. And it comes. It probably is in abundance.

A (29:25)

One of the things that nobody ever talks about is your body awareness when you do fitness for a long time. 50 years old, you've been doing fitness for a very long time. You are so in tune with that vessel that when something does pop up, you identify way. When you don't, you're like, my back kind of hurts where you don't know. I'm in tune with that thing so well that when I walk into a doctor, I'm like, take a needle three inches down, rotate it over 45 degrees, and that's where it is. I'm like, okay, this is it. I'm so in tune with it. So when anything pops up, I can diagnose it. I can walk in and give them actual feedback what's happening. I'm not just sitting on the couch all day long, just like, my neck kind of hurts. No, I know exactly what it is. I'm doing a full diagnostic approach the entire day, and that's why I've got Vernon. And, I mean, he's the best strength coach in the world, and if I wouldn't have that guy, I would be. I mean, he's brought me back from the dead more times than I can count, but it's five days a week. I mean, he's in there every day. So if I walk in and I've got a slight limp on my left side, he's like, hey, my man, come over here. What is that? And I was like, ah, nothing. He's like, bruised heel? Yeah. How'd you know it was a bruised heel? It's like, I watch that broad jump on Friday. Like, you landed a little funky. I want to see if he's gonna mess with you. He IDs it. I ID'd it. I just wasn't gonna Say anything. Okay, what are you gonna do about it? Right? Be proactive instead of reactive. But that's because you're chipping away. And, you know, you're understanding yourself so well because you are constantly in tune with your body and people just forget about it. Like, why aren't you sleeping? Why? I had caffeine at 4:00'. Clock. Oh. I'm accountable for everything I put in my body and then everything that comes out of me. The gym's just one of the methods that really ties them all together for me.

B (31:01)

The body awareness piece, I think is something that we should also underscore a bit. I think one thing that that happens if people don't develop body awareness is that they don't learn the difference between something that hurts and an injury. A few years ago, right before going on Cam Haynes's podcast where, you know, you carry that rock, I was about to say, he makes you carry the rock, but you don't have to, you know, carry the rock things. Heavy, 72 pounds, slippery, it's muddy, it's thousand feet of elevation. And people do it right. You can do it. But I popped a hamstring on the hamstring curl machine like a couple days before, but I didn't pop, pop it. Like, it didn't ravel, you know, unravel up the, up the tendon. So I was like, I'm just not going to talk about it. I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going. Because that's going to create its own thing. I was like, I'm hurt. It hurt, but I'm not injured. And knowing that line is really important because if you are injured, it'd be the stupidest thing in the world to carry that rock up that hill. Right? You end up out for six months, potentially, or four months. I had years ago, I a back pain kind of sciatica thing, and I couldn't stand up. And I actually was online, it was Instagram. And I have no business affiliation to this kid, but there was a. I think he's a chiropractor. He has this channel called Rehab Fix. And he convinced me that what I need to do is some like up dog things. Looks like you're kind of like humping the floor. You know, your pelvis is down and you're pushing up and you repeat those. It's kind of like, like lizard push ups, you know, and then against the wall. If you can't actually do that from the floor, within three days, it resolved itself. And I was thinking about pain meds which I don't like to take. In fact, I avoid them entirely. I was saying, am I going to have to have surgery? I mean, I could not stand up, I couldn't move, I couldn't do it. And I realized then I was like, okay. The line between hurt and truly injured is often kind of blurry, and you need to be able to work through that space. And you think about this and through one lens, and it sounds like a selfish thing. Oh, it's all about being able to work out more. You think about it through another lens. It's people who think they're injured or. Or who are in pain and don't resolve that are very difficult to be around. Very difficult. I've been that person. It's just everything grates on you. And male, female, young or old people now, you know, talk about their neck or they sleep. Right. And I think being able to suck stuff up is really great. It's also important to know when you have a real issue. And so the body awareness thing, I think, is a gift to oneself. You can avoid a lot of costs, a lot of unnecessary medical interventions. You can know when it's time to take action with with proper medical intervention. But also it really allows you to be in life with people without being the person that's always complaining about stuff or is just difficult. I think a lot of people who are difficult are in pain and they don't know how to resolve that pain and they think they have a problem with pain, so then they take pain medication and that's a whole cycle. So I just, you know, wanted to underscore that kind of where we're headed here. It seems again and again is with, you know, what seems selfish is actually one of the most selfless things you can do. Let's talk about what you call unracking at 07, tier one operator. Former tier one operators of the lingo. So that I'm guessing, is that unracking the weight, that's when the workout starts. Phone is off.

A (34:08)

Phone's on because we run an app on it.

B (34:09)

Okay.

A (34:10)

We have Vernon Griffin.

B (34:11)

But you're not looking at text messages.

A (34:12)

No.

B (34:12)

And you're not shooting selfies of your calves and biceps. Right. I point that out in semi jest because I always joke that the first rep of every set now seems to be guys in the gym taking pictures of themselves. The last rep of every set seems to be guys taking pictures of themselves. So, 07, so what's that workout look like? You're doing it five days a week. I Know it's going to be different for different people. But you have this program that I really want to explore with you today about how to measure progress and set standards and meet new standards, higher standards. What does that workout look like for you?

A (34:42)

So I linked it with Vernon. Right when I was getting medically retired around 2019, I came back from a gnarly shoulder injury. I blew it. I had a dislocation. It came through my armpit, shredded out everything. And I went from about 215 to about 180 pounds. Got stuck in a rehab clinic in Bethesda, Maryland for 31 days inpatient, and I came out like death warmed over. Worst I've ever been in my life, worst my mental health has ever been. I did not want to play the game anymore. And Navy SEAL foundation hooked you up with this physical rehabilitation program in Virginia beach ran by a former seal. And Vernon was the lead strength conditioning coach. And he was my coach. And we walked in, we did full body assessments. And what's interesting about him is he took all your limitations and developed concepts and movements to establish confidence in that area. So when I came back, you know, day one, he's like, okay, let's try to hang from the bar. I looked right at him. No. He's like, what? No, I'm not hanging from that bar. I'm done. Like, I've done. I've done more pull ups than most people on the planet. My pull up days are done, man. Like, I'm not doing it again. He goes, you gotta trust me. It's not gonna happen on day one. Slowly but surely. I mean, I mean, he's at the point where he's holding my knees. I can't even extend my arm overhead. Like, I'm so that's humbling for a guy. That.

B (36:02)

For a guy was a tier one operator. That's humbling.

A (36:05)

I was so bound up by fear that he was gonna come because that was my first shoulder surgery. And if you've never had one. Shoulder surgery is the worst rehab I've ever had. And I've had a lot of them. The shoulder rehab was brutal, and I didn't want it to pop and I'd extend and I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. He's like, you just gotta trust me, man. Like, doctor cleared you, the anchors have set, everything is there. But you cannot go through the rest of your life like this. He's like, you're not even 40. He's like, do you want to go another 40 years without doing a Pull up. You're gonna have to trust me. He'd pick me up by the legs, I'd put my arm on her, and he'd slowly but surely start to extend me down until we got full range of motion. And we did that for days and weeks. Then we went to a band, Then we took the band off. I just want you to hang. Now we're gonna focus on going back up. And we built back to. I mean, I can do sets of 25 pull ups.

B (36:51)

Now you're pulling your weight, which is what?

A (36:53)

Right now you're only 215.

B (36:55)

You're 6, 1, 2, 15. And you pull. You're doing sets of 20.

A (36:59)

Yeah, 20, 25.

B (37:00)

Non kip pull up.

A (37:01)

Yep. And it's all bouncing back from him. But the whole program, we did, you know, because I'm. I'm not a unicorn by any means, but I've had all the injuries that everybody else has had. I've had double hip surgery, I've had double shoulder surgery. I've had my abdomen blown through a couple times. I mean, I've had them all. I've had thumbs. I've had to rebuild. I mean, just everything. When I got electrocuted, it blew out everything. And we had to rebuild that entire thing. So all the guys that are in this process, if you're a SWAT team, a fireman on a SEAL team, anybody in between, we've all got injuries that become limitations and we just avoid them. You can't avoid them forever. And this program is designed to get you back in shape and it grows with you as you go. So every single week, you're chasing numbers from the week before and pushing on the days you don't have it, on the days you wake up and you're bound up, just lacking motivation. We're going with 100% of what we have to offer. That might be 75%. I'm giving 100% of the 75 I have today. But Monday's a pull day from the floor. Usually trap bar deadlifts. And we do those because of all the injuries. I've got a really long torso. It puts my back at a weird, precarious situation. So we do trap bar deadlifts. We do those. A lot of pull up work, a lot of grip work, a lot of core stability stuff. Tuesday's a press day, Heavy upper body bench incline, that kind of stuff. Wednesdays and upper body lower body disassociation. So we get the upper body moving in one direction, the lower body moving the other. A lot of example of that, we'll do a lot of banded work. We'll drop down to a knee, like almost in a shooting position. And we'll do cross body pools with bands, resistance training, but just, you know.

B (38:39)

Rotational stuff and sort of anti rotation stuff.

A (38:41)

Yeah, on that day we'll do plyo stuff, box jumps, height, distance and broad jump. That kind of stuff. Farmers carry walks, all the stuff. Just trying to connect all the dots. Thursday is the most brutal leg day you've ever had, and it's amazing. We got a belt squat machine. So anybody who walks in, regardless of the injuries, limitations you have, we have equipment to accommodate that.

B (39:02)

And when you say brutal leg day, it's just. I have a belt squat. I love that thing. I love throwing a lot of weight on that thing. It's nice. It doesn't load the spine up, but yeah, it's a. I like to think it's brutal. Can you describe. Are you talking about like an hour and a half, two hours of.

A (39:19)

Usually from seven to nine. Low weight, high weight, pretty high repetitions.

B (39:25)

You know, so high weight, high repetitions.

A (39:27)

Trying to. Yeah, always trying to push, but a lot of single leg movements. Bulgarian split squats. I mean, a lot of lunges. A lot of lunges with heavy weight. I mean, 70 pounds in each hand. For me, that's a lot of weight.

B (39:37)

So not calf raises, leg curls?

A (39:39)

No, but on days. Some days we'll do a feel good day. Like some days we'll come in, he'll take a pulse of the whole room and he'll go. We're all gonna hit the same muscle groups. We're just going to do it in a more traditional. So we're doing hamstring curls, leg extensions. We're going to do belt squats. We're going to do pulsing lunges, really just pump the blood flow and just chase a really good pump. Everybody loves doing that. And Friday is a really. It's a feel good day. It's an arm day. We'll do some shoulders, some accessory work, you know, and then we add in sprints in between. Probably two to three days a week, you know, 200 meter repeats, 300 meter repeats.

B (40:10)

Done. Where? In the workout in between sets.

A (40:12)

At the end.

B (40:13)

At the end?

A (40:14)

Yeah, we always save it at the end. And we always did that with the military, too. It always ends with a run. And I've tried every combination doing sprints, you know, pre and post, and it really just zaps a workout for me.

B (40:24)

Yeah, Pavel Satsulin, you know the Pavel Satsulin sat in that chair right where you're at now and said, you know, if, if your goal is hypertrophy and you're going to come into a pumping workout, it doesn't really matter if you do cardio first or last. But if you're gonna, if you're serious about strength and performance and form, do your cardio after, if at all, you know, because a lot of times those kettlebell workouts or some of these leg workouts, they're not quote, unquote cardio, but they definitely get heart rate up in a serious way.

A (40:48)

So on Wednesday, if we're doing a sprint workout, it might be 10 by 40, 50 meter sprints, right? Nothing crazy. We'll do that at the very beginning, get the fast switch muscle fibers going. And then we'll do whatever the normal Wednesday workout is. And then we go to the flat range every Wednesday. So we train, we bring him out too. So all the stance, the grip, the presentation, everything we talk about in the tactical setting, he's there with us. So when I talk about flexing your right glute to add stability to a stable shooting platform, he's there driving home. This is why it's important. Think big. Toe down, drive your heel down. So, I mean, he's as much of a coach as I am on the flat range and. But he can connect the dots so well, and that's why I love him. He's not going to let you take that limitation and then live it forever. You don't want to be like that. And it doesn't help these bigger, stronger, faster than everybody else. So you've always got a good lifting buddy to kind of chase. He always pushes you. But he's so good at navigating the human terrain. Because some days I'll walk in and whatever's happened over the week, he'll see me in the morning, he'll look at me like, how we holding up? I'm like, 100%, yeah, yeah, come over here. What's going on? I'll talk to him. He's like, we'll shake it all out. We've got two hours here, just us. Nothing else matters. Let's just focus on this. And I find myself pacing a lot. So in between sets, I'll block out everything else. I'm not thinking about social, not thinking about my wife, not thinking about the business. I'm thinking about putting myself in the best mental spot to pull that off the floor at 100% with no distractions. And I think that's why I like it so much, because it Allows me to isolate my thoughts. Nothing else matter. You don't matter. This doesn't matter. Just that movement. Let me get through that the best of my ability. Set it down, recog, walk around, get ready for the next one. Here we go. Eight reps. I'm going to put so much intent behind this pull that if I get 8 or 12, it doesn't matter. Every single one is all out. And, you know, Dorian Yates talks about it. Intensity is what really drives him. I really try to drive intent behind everything I do now. And yeah, he's a huge man. I can't, I can't tell you how many times he's brought me back. I mean, the worst injuries you can imagine and he's there every single time. And I think that's why so many people get on with it, because they see the injuries you've gone through. It's like, well, you can still perform at a high level. Only because I'm, I don't want to say I'm even ego driven. I've been so ingrained into sitting with the routine. It doesn't matter what injuries I've had. I mean, I come out and we've got pictures of me in there. Double slings, like when I got electrocuted. Double slings. I can't even, I can't even tie my shoes. He's tying my shoes. Like he's putting the belt squat on me. I'm squatting down, he's clipping it in, he's unracking it, the entire thing like he's my guy.

B (43:25)

Tell us his first and last name.

A (43:27)

Vernon Griffith.

B (43:28)

And you met him when you were injured, right? And, and he's a former operator as well.

A (43:33)

He's not. So his business partner was a former operator. He was actually in the Air Force and transitioned out. Got a strength, conditioning, all his squalls. And he's got such an interesting look to mobility, impact and the, the high level athletes that come through him. And that's really what it is. He gets big guys tricked into doing mobility and liking it because nobody wants to do mobility. It's not a sexy thing to do. I mean, we get first round draft picks that are pouring through that gym all week long and you see them because it's the truth. Like, we're trying to keep you at a super high level as long as humanly possible. The average guy plays in the NFL three years, but I'm trying to keep you in there for 12. How are we going to do it? You have to maintain that vessel at a super high level because all these young kids are trying to knock you off the team and then the reality of the sport is trying to knock you off the team as well. So we got to keep you really, really mobile and healthy. And I've never seen anybody that can connect dots better than that guy. He's an absolute lifesaver.

B (44:29)

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A (48:43)

Yeah, man. I was born in San Diego, California. My dad Was a seal. My mom was in the Navy, so when my dad graduated, my mom was nine months pregnant with me. So his whole first four years at, you know, the West Coast SEAL teams, I was one of the only kids there. So kind of grew up in the culture, you know, really ingrained into it. My first Coronado. Yep, it's my first bottle. I'm wearing a SEAL Team 1 onesie. I mean, you literally were raised on Coronado. Yeah, yeah, so I did that. We moved to the East Coast. He got transitioned over to the East Coast. I grew up the rest of my time there. Fell in love with skateboarding. That's all I wanted to do. I wanted to go pro. Got into a fight with the old man around 15 years old, something like that. And he signed me up for summer school to graduate early. So I graduated at 17. Hit delayed entry program, joined a Navy a month later.

B (49:29)

Was that a contentious interaction? I mean.

A (49:31)

Oh, yeah.

B (49:32)

I mean, skateboarding was clearly not the right career for you. I mean, I'm sure you would have done exceedingly well there. But having grown up a bit in that culture and also knowing a bit about the culture you. You eventually decided on. You know, it's hard to say which one is, you know, the better career choice. One is definitely more life threatening, which is the. In many ways. But you just said, okay, like, you're a Navy seal, you want me to be a Navy seal, so I'm gonna. I'm gonna hang it up.

A (50:02)

It was always in the back of your mind, like, that was always what you thought you were gonna do. But at 15 years old, in your mind, you can do them both. You're like, oh, I can be a professional skateboarder and then I can be an AVCO later. You don't realize what it actually takes to do it, even though you grew up in the culture. So when that happened, you know, the towers had just fell. I was 17 years old. Delayed entry program, straight out the Coronado, got through SEAL training, came back to the east coast, where I've been essentially my whole life. And yeah, joined the Navy in 2002. And I got medically retired in 2019. Right around 17 years, I think it was 16 years and like 10 months, something like that.

B (50:37)

Can I ask you about buds? A lot of people have heard of buds, and they understand that it has a hell week with minimal, if any, sleep. You know, maybe an hour or two tops. But probably not even that. How hard was buds relative to other things that you did in the teams? You know, I've heard People say it was the hardest thing they ever did. I've heard some people say it was extremely hard, but not nearly as difficult as like some aspect of like guys who hate the jungle and humidity are like, that was worse. And you never know if people are joking around. I mean, did you learn a lot in buds about yourself?

A (51:10)

If you can make it through buds, you can do anything. It is such a brutal program. And I just secured and I saw a bunch of the guys, took them out to dinner the other night and I was explaining to a group of civilians that were out there with them like their parents. Like you guys all see it. Every single person does that pipeline. It's not just buds, it's, you know, the Q course for Green Berets, it's RIP for the Rangers. MARSOC selection. Every single kid that's doing that selection program is the biggest deal in his hometown. The biggest thing in his high school. Everybody knows he's going in. The amount of external pressure it's riding on that kid, unless you've done it, you have no idea. You just don't. It's like playing D1 college ball. Everyone in your family is expecting you to be a pro. They're expecting you to be in the NFL. And if you don't get drafted, it's like, oh my God, it's so much pressure on you. It's the same way.

B (51:59)

And it's self selection because people quit. They're not in general, they're not asked to leave, although that can happen. So if you, if somebody doesn't make it through buds, it means they quit.

A (52:10)

Yep, pretty much. And it's a lot of pressure, right? The gwat just kicking off. All the instructors were coming back from Afghanistan and they were larger than life. I mean you really looked up to them. And I was just very fortunate that I grew up in the culture and I knew a lot of the guys going in, so I knew what the end state was. Most of these kids are from Biloxi, Mississippi. You've never even seen a Navy SEAL in real life until you showed up here. I grew up with one. All my family friends were SEALs. We didn't have a single civilian friend growing up. The only thing I've been around were commandos. So I felt really natural around that environment. But I knew it was going to suck. I just knew it was.

B (52:46)

Did your dad have you running with him and doing push ups and things like that at home? Or was it mow the lawn and then go skateboarding?

A (52:51)

You know, mow the lawn, go skateboarding, then as we transitioned, we got closer. It was turn it on, Download the Stu Smith guide to Navy SEAL Prep and did that like everybody else did. And it's a phenomenal program for anybody who's trying to go. But I was, I was so young, I was so immature, didn't have a cell phone, didn't have a car. I lived on the barracks. And the only thing you had to do was get through the program. But what I will say is the 17 year old me that showed up in 2002, if I would try to be a Navy Seal in 2025, they wouldn't even take me. My performance scores, like you have to pass a screen test, push ups, pull ups, run, swim, the whole thing. Your scores now have to be so competitive they wouldn't even take it. Me.

B (53:31)

Oh, so the, the standards have changed.

A (53:33)

The standards are the same, but the people going through the program are so better prepared they wouldn't even take you. So if you're not, if you're not 120, push ups, 120, they don't even look at you. Like for me, I basically barely scratched through. I was a strong swimmer, but technique wasn't my thing. And until you take the test, you don't realize how hard it is. And I got through it and I went out to BUDS and I was successful, but I was by no means a star athlete. And you've guys, you know, Coleman Ruiz Naval Academy they are freaks, they're phenoms, they are professional athletes. And there you are, are six 1, 145 pounds, pot smoking skateboarder. We are not on the same level, but mentally you couldn't mess with me. I didn't care. Like we're getting surf tortured and you'd watch these guys who would just see studs get up and quit, it's not gonna stop. And I feel like I always had the inside scoop. Like if you think this is gonna end, it's not. Like my dad did a lot of diving. I was like, I've seen the conditions he dive in, breaking through the ice like it is only gonna get worse. Dude, if this phases you, you, this is not the program for you. And I was right. If, if that phases you, the SEAL team's going to chew you alive. So not everybody should make it through that program. I was just fortunate enough that just good enough to get by. And you know, maturity came later. But BUDS was definitely not the hardest thing I've ever had to do. At the time it was. And when you get through it and you See, all the. I mean, you start with 200 and something people, you graduate less than 20. It's. Those are 200 of the most physically capable people of that year in the United States Navy, and they couldn't make it.

B (55:09)

Did any of the people that not made it through as well as made it through surprise you for not making it through or making it through?

A (55:18)

Not making it through for sure. I mean, all the guys that they. You've been around, Captain Americas, Navy SEALs have a certain look, they have a certain mystique, a certain aura, and they do in training, too. It's not like you just developed that you've had it your whole life. And there were definitely guys you look at that, that look like Dolph Lundgren from Rocky. You look at him, you're like, oh, that dude is definitely gonna make it. He's gone in 20 minutes. You're like, how? He passed everything. He didn't like that cold water. Okay. And then you see another guy who, he was worse shape than me, barely squeaked by everything. And he is the hardest dude you ever met in your life. Nothing fazes him. Every run, every swim, just miserable. He doesn't care.

B (56:00)

He's kind of. It sounds like you have to not mind being miserable.

A (56:03)

You have to get used to it. You have to embrace it. It's gonna suck. It's supposed to. And you just gotta tell yourself it's worth the price of admission. It's gonna be miserable. You bought the ticket, you're gonna get the whole show, and it's totally worth it, but you gotta be there at the end.

B (56:15)

You mentioned Coleman Ruiz, who's been a guest on this podcast, is a good friend of mine and yours as well, and you worked with him. And I'm probably gonna get this a little bit wrong, but I think once he said, because I think he was an instructor at BUDS also for a.

A (56:29)

Short while, I think he was.

B (56:31)

And he said, you know, when you look at the guys that make it through buds, nine times out of ten, they've had one. At least one of the following three things. Either spent some serious time in detention in high school, played a varsity sport in high school, divorced parents. And, you know, that raises a whole bunch of other questions about, you know, friction and kind of, for lack of a better way to put it, like some internal sense of, like, f you, I'm going to push through this anyway, or just f f you to something. So when. When you're going. So let's assume that Coleman, having, given the fact that he's Not a scientist. He's, he's a, he was a former operator, so he knows. Do you think that there were, there were moments or many moments where it was you against them, like you and your teammates because you're, you're, you know, you're on boat crew or whatever with, with your teammates, you're working as a team and learning how to do that. It's not just about you, it's about the group and it's about you and it's about the expectation. But how many different bins of motivation do you, do you have to access to get through buds? Is it and is FU to the instructors or whoever to the cold water? Is that part, is that a critical bin?

A (57:47)

It is and it isn't. Because sometimes you get caught up in the moment and you don't even think about it. You just want to finish that evolution. So when you're doing a four mile timed run, that was one of the big things. You have to do a four mile timed run. It's got to be, I think a seven minute mile or less. And nowhere does it say the condition of the beach matters. So if it's high tide, low tide, you have to run it on the berm and soft sand. The time standard is a time standard. And talk to anybody at any point in that training, you are going to hit a wall where you think your heart's going to stop. Job. Like if I take one more step, I'll die right here.

B (58:20)

Because your heart rate's so high and.

A (58:21)

You'Re like, I can't do it. And at some point you just don't care. You're like, I'd rather fall stone cold dead in front of all them and die right here than I would failing or quitting. Yeah.

B (58:31)

At least you don't have to go home. Head hanging in shame.

A (58:33)

Exactly. You just push anyway. Sometimes you'll get it. You'll be getting surf tortured by the instructors and just laying down that 60 degree water, just miserable. And I tell the story quite a bit. But we had dudes getting up and leaving Mass Exit. It's just in the biggest, strongest dudes. It's broad daylight, 70 degrees on Coronado Island. The most beautiful day you've ever seen. We're laying there just jackhammering and you look over and all the West Coast SEAL teams are out to your right and you can see SEAL Team One out there doing log PT for like their morning pt. And you could look at down the left and you see the Hotel Dell and this little, what I call a 7 year old with a big pink flamingo jumping in the water, having the best time of her life. And I'm like, it's all about your perspective. Be a palace or a prison, however you want to see it right now that they're still doing it, that kid time of their life and we're in the exact same water, just change your mindset. This is all part of the process. And if you want to wear that shiny gold thing on your chest, you must do this. Just do it. And I remember that was one of the things like, you're not going to break me. No matter what you say, I'll die right here in this water. I don't care. And that kind of, that mindset has really been beneficial throughout the entire process because there's parts of, of, there's parts of buds and parts of being in special operations where you think it's going to kill you and then at a certain point, you just don't care. If it kills me, it kills me. I don't care. Can you get through it? Like, you know, I'm so terrified of heights. Like, I can't jump out of the back of this airplane. You watch 15 guys going in front of you and you get right to the ramp and you go, I don't care. And you just, for whatever reason, they just jump. Like, what made you jump? Like everybody else did it. I didn't want to be the guy who said no. Sometimes that, that performance anxiety, that pressure to perform on demand, it gets you through the hump and it shows you there is nothing if it can be done by a human being. I can do it. And it just, it rings true. It's like, how far can you run? As far as I have to. Well, how fast can you run? As fast as I can. Like, if you can run that, I can run it. If you can get up and over that mountain, I can do it too. How are you going to do it? One step at a time, brother. Here we go. And it, it makes you so mentally resilient. And I think that's the, that's really the defining factors. You can make them believe in their mind they can get through anything. Now collectively, as a group now, you stack 25 of those true believers together, you can do anything. And I've seen some dudes do some herculean feats and they do it just because they're too afraid to say no. Can you do that? Yep. You sure? If it can be done, I'll do it. I've seen it time and time again. Yeah, I mean, everybody hits those moments and buds where it's just. I cannot believe I'm doing this right now. But it's magic.

B (61:08)

Once you get through it, it's awesome. I mean, I. I think setting a threshold for if it kills me, it kills me is in many contexts is unhealthy, but in that context is, yeah, I guess healthy, adaptive. Let's call it adaptive. I'm not going to decide what's healthy or unhealthy. I'm sure some people are listening to this and they're thinking, oh, God, like, this is how. This is how guys get themselves killed. And IND outside of the context of buds, that's. Yeah, sometimes guys do dumb stuff. I always say there's something about having a Y chromosome that through. You know, I wasn't around tens of thousands of years ago, but I'm guessing the first homo sapien male who picked up a rock, the first thing he did hit himself in the head with it was like, ouch. Then he hit the guy next to him with it and he go, ouch. And then they decide to take it and throw it against a wall and see what happens. And on and on. And here we are, you know, and obviously, you know, those with two X chromosomes took a different path, and we need the collaboration in order to survive as a species, obviously. But there's something about that. Let's just see what happens. If. And if it kills me, it kills me. That actually is a core feature of human evolution that's brought us to some incredible positive places. So clearly, BUDS is one such micro environment. So you make it through. And then I realized there are a lot of other iterations. There's jump school and there's a bunch of other things. And you often, you. You start opping right away.

A (62:31)

Yeah. I get stationed at SEAL Team 10 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and we deploy in 2005. The Iraq War just kicked off, so we. I check in and it was early 04 and we deployed. Yeah, we deployed probably seven months later and sent that. Iraq was phenomenal. Everything you ever wanted to be. Scary. Like, you don't know anything. The ID is really bad. And just being a really young kid, I mean, I was stormtrooping out on Iraq and 19 years old. I mean, you forget how young you are at 19.

B (63:04)

So you're 19. You're kicking doors down. I'm driving in Humvees, blowing stuff up.

A (63:09)

Yeah.

B (63:10)

And seeing friends get blown up.

A (63:12)

If you talk to anybody who's in Iraq, the chances of you not hitting an ID were so Rare. And we never hit one one. They'd hit the convoy in front of us, the one behind us. We'd get delayed at the gate for two minutes. We'd turn and boom, they'd go off in front of you. They're just not hitting. They're hitting everybody else but you. And you know, you would tell yourself things like, oh, the reason they're not doing is because we look so aggressive, because we have flames and death skulls on the Humvees. It's not that, man. It's just, it's not your time. You'd be the best trained dude in the world that ID hits you. The lights were over and on that deployment. We lost all the guys in Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. That was the other half of our SEAL team.

B (63:52)

That wasn't an idea, that was the.

A (63:53)

That was a helicopter.

B (63:56)

The now I don't know whether I have to call it famous or infamous. Forgive me, I'm gonna step in it one way or the other. Lone survivor. Amazing book. I should say. I really enjoyed the book. The movie does, I think, a pretty good job of extracting some of the key moments from the book. But. But more than a movie or a book, it's a true story. And that's the. The four guys that got. Three of them got killed on the ground and then one helicopter blown up attempting to come save them.

A (64:24)

Yep.

B (64:25)

To save the.

A (64:25)

The one guy. Save the one guy.

B (64:27)

Yeah, Marcus.

A (64:27)

And that was so hard to wrap your head around as a 19 year old. You gotta think, you know, in my mind, I'd essentially been in the community for 19 years up at that point. And during my dad's time, it was peacetime the whole time time. So you weren't going to funerals all day long. Like Navy seals getting killed was. It was like folklore. It's like, oh, it's a bad training, a bad parachute accident. You know, we had Neil Roberts got killed in the early g wat in Afghanistan. Roberts Ridge, you ever heard of that story? That's a gnarly one. Russell Bensky got the Medal of Honor. John Chapman, the Air Force guy, got the Medal of Honor, gnarly firefight. But outside of that, it wasn't happening very often. And then when. And all those guys got killed in one shot, it was like a slap of reality. They were the best dudes you've ever seen. Like, they were the highest. Like unbelievably trained, unbelievably experienced. And they're gone in an instant. No goodbye, no fanfare, no, you know, holding him like Tell my mother it's nothing like Hollywood. They're gone.

B (65:23)

And that was kept under wraps for a long time before the book and the movie. People really didn't know. There wasn't a lot of discussion about seals.

A (65:29)

And no, like, it wasn't in popular culture. And when the book came out, it started to gain steam and people started to read more about it. But for being inside the SEAL teams, that was your own private 9 11. Every single SEAL cried in an instant, throwing up. I mean, just. You cannot believe that just happened. And then for everybody else who's still fighting the war, you have to try to explain to your wife and your family why that's not going to happen to you. And it's a lie. It's not like they did anything wrong. That's just the way it is. Sometimes it just happens.

B (66:00)

You were married at this point?

A (66:01)

I wasn't single, thank God.

B (66:03)

Intentionally.

A (66:04)

Intentionally, yeah. Yeah. I tried to wait as long as humanly possible and try to do that. Good advice. But it's hard. It's hard to try to. It's hard to do that job at full time. And trying to be a full time boyfriend that turns into a fiance, that turns into a husband, turns into a father, it's very hard unless you're able to compartmentalize really, really well. And fortunately for us, that's the thing you're the best at, is I can wall it off so fast and never think about you again. Now, when you transition out of the military, that's not really a superpower anymore. In a moment, it served you.

B (66:39)

So as more and more guys are getting killed, did you find that getting into action each day the same way that you describe civilian life now and getting into action each day being really adaptive, did you find that that was key to being able to not go down mental traps? And at the same time, I acknowledge that you must have also just been really busy. There's stuff coming at you all the time just because. I mean, it sounds cold, but just because guys get killed doesn't mean that the opping stops. In fact, it probably picks up even more.

A (67:11)

You got the next night, you have to. You got to keep going. You got to get back on the horse, keep them going. The last thing that we wanted is those guys get killed. Well, let's pull them all back. Let's take a take, you know, six months to, you know, regroup. No, no, no, no, no. We got to go out right now. Same thing with a parachute accident I told you about. The. The electric. I got to do it right away if I don't get back on the horse, I'll just build up this, this dread and I'll lose my confidence in the whole process. Like we have to go and NSW did, everybody did full gas, full steam ahead. Let's go. And just kept going. We did another one in 2007. If you've seen the stuff with Jason Redmond I talked about, my buddy Matt again shot up that 2007 deployment was dicey. But it's the same thing like two.

B (67:56)

Of your close friends.

A (67:57)

Yeah. And you know, pretty mangled. Crazy mangled. And you know, you start to find out really, really fast. It doesn't matter how much you train, if your number's called, you're getting pulled and it's hard to justify because now you have a girlfriend, you have all this stuff and people are dying and you have to reassure them why it's not going to happen to you. And you get really good at compartmentalization. I can't control that. The only thing I can control is this. I'm shooting as much as I can. I'm doing as much CQB as I can. I'm jumping as much as I can. I'm around the boys, building team camaraderie as much as humanly possible because I can't control anything else. Control the things you can't control. Building confidence. But reality, when it slaps, it slaps hard. And definitely slapped us as the public.

B (68:45)

Understanding of like what the seals even were and are started to grow and change in the movies, the lone Survivor movie. And I actually think again I think they did a good job with the movie. I know the book and the movie were approved by the military so there was a lot of, kind of vetting of the, of the material. But I think it, I think it hit powerfully. At the time I was living in San Diego so you know, the movie theaters were packed but that was true everywhere. I mean it made a big impact. But then with like the, the bin Laden thing, you know, being, you know, the televising, the White House watching and you know, I feel like the whole world came to understand that there were these guys called Navy seals and they're doing this really dangerous stuff and taking out bad guys. Was there anything that changed about the job? Just knowing that it wasn't as, as vaulted as it once was. I mean what you're doing is vaulted on a day to day basis. But you know, just this idea like this is in movies and there it is on the COVID cnn, there's Obama and You know, Secretary of Defense, watching the op, you know, and. And people. Then there's a movie made about it very quickly. And it was. I mean, it was all happening and it was weird in real time and on the movies and it just. For a civilian, it was a little bit of a mind bend. I can't even imagine what it was like, if that's your job. And so much of being able to perform the job well relies on people not knowing what you're doing and how you do it. What was that like?

A (70:16)

Terrible. Terrible. I mean, the very next day, you couldn't drive on the compound. Every news channel across America was sitting outside of that thing. And not only are they taking photos, everybody comes in, they know what you look like. They're looking for guys with long hair, beards, covered in tattoos, driving jack, you know, jacked up pickup trucks. That's what they're looking for. And now you can't go anywhere. Now they're going out in town to all the bars and restaurants you go to, and they're pulling you aside, asking you. It's like, it's very uncomfortable. They'll see wives in there with a little trident stick on the back of their car. They'll nail her in the Whole Foods parking lot. Your husband and avc. Nobody's ever done this before. It's like mum's the word. Everybody kind of just collapsed on ourselves and really, really tried to hush this thing down. But it made the job very, very difficult. It felt like you were just under a microscope the entire time. And then when extortion happened, then everybody started that it was an inside job. You know, they. Come on, man.

B (71:11)

I know it's probably not something you want to get into, but maybe just explain for people what extortion 17 was and why that was so additionally impactful after what happened with Operation Red Wings.

A (71:24)

Yeah, I mean, you know, we had Operation Red wings that happened June 28, 2005. You had a bunch of really historic things that led up after that. You had the rescue of Captain Phillips in 2009. That was a huge milestone win. Like, everybody's goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (71:38)

And they made a movie.

A (71:39)

They made a movie and it's great and like. But nobody in the teams is on social media. They're not on. I didn't watch a YouTube video my entire time in the SEAL team. Like, what do I watch YouTube video for? Like, nobody knew how bad it was spinning outside of your control. And nobody. Bin Laden happens. And then August 6, 2011, we lose an entire troop of guys In Afghanistan, Hilo gets shot down, kills them all in an instant. Killed 31 total people. And it was like we were reliving June 28th again. But now it's double as bad. And now you truly have the best that have ever suited up. If you look at the experience level they have, most of those guys were pre 9, 11 guys, 10, 12 combat rotations gone. You'll never replace it. Never. You've never filled that void since that moment. And then you have all these people, just hateful rhetoric, like always an inside job. And, you know, they knew too much. They knew they were on the bin Laden raid. So we killed them. And do you know how hard that is to live in Virginia beach doing that job, seeing those wives at Whole Foods wearing a memorial T shirt, knowing you're saying that? Do you know what that does to a family? You know what that does to little kids who wake up and they read the comment section? Mom, was dad killed? Yeah. Was he killed by the government? That's what they read. Because that's what you're saying, and it's not the truth. It's just not. That was an op that went wrong. It's a dangerous job. And when you fly in those big gigantic black helicopters and they're slow to land, you can shoot them victim. And that's what happened. And just. It's as simple as that. It's a dangerous job. Like, what are you going to do? But it is very hard to live in Virginia beach that is so small. Everywhere you go, it's around you. I mean, you're sifting through black T shirts all day long. Which memorial shirt are you going to wear? It just is. And now you get there, now people are starting to erode that from you, and it really starts to lose your confidence. So for me, now I'm married, I'm in the organization, and we had to fill a lot of those guys from other squadrons. And one of my best friends had to go over and unfortunately, he got killed in December 8, 2012 on a hostage rescue. Ed Byers got the Medal of Honor for that operation. My buddy got the Navy Cross and we went to buds together. His name was Nick. Check. One of the greatest, most pure operators you have ever met came from Pennsylvania. Big wrestler, always in a gym, always training. He. He represented what the essence of being a Navy SEAL was. And everyone knew it. When he died, a piece of me died that I've never gotten back. I'm trying not to cry. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was look at My wife, and tell her that it wasn't going to happen to me after he died because he was the true north. So when she looks at me and she goes, well, the reason you're away from us, the reason you spend 300 days on the road, is because you're perfecting his craft. Because you say it buys down the risk. What about that? And you can't justify it. You just look at it and you're like, I just hope it's not my time. I'm just going to try to exhaust all my resources right now to put myself in the best position, surrounded by the best people, to buy down as much risk as humanly possible. If my number's called, it's called, what do you want me to do? And that's where the compartmentalization really took hold. You have to be able to leave Virginia beach, your wife, your two kids, and completely block them out. Like, I can't run through that door with bullets coming out of it thinking about my wife and kids and how I'm going to orphan them. You can't. I don't have pictures in my room. I'm not trying to FaceTime all the time. I'm trying to separate myself out so I can just do this job. And it makes you. It makes you really distant. It makes you not be the person you want to be or the person you used to be, because you can't.

B (75:19)

You've been the person you need to be in order to eventually be able to go back and become the person you want to be, is what it sounds like to me.

A (75:25)

And, you know, I say to the guys now, and it'll sound messed up, so forgive me, but I never chased a guy who had a perfect family. There was never a Navy SEAL I ever wanted to emulate, who had the picture perfect family ever. They were all either on their second marriage, bad relationship with their kids because they were so devout at work. And you looked at them, you're like, that's a master class. Like, it's like. It's like watching Tiger woods drag around his golf bag. That's the best it's ever been, ever. And he has no 50, 50. There is no dial for that man. He is living this at 100% in the moment he retires. I really hope he takes all that energy, all that focus, and becomes a better husband and father. But you can't do it both ways. My mind has come to change now, but I've never seen it. And I most certainly had no balance. I wasn't even trying to find balance. I was trying to wall them off as much as humanly possible to focus on the task at hand because any distraction was dangerous and it's hard to do, but it was necessary at the time.

B (76:28)

Yeah, I don't know any high performers, especially ultra high performers and especially, especially ultra high performers in high risk, high consequence careers that don't have some unresolved dark aspect of themselves or their life or something that you mentioned Tiger, you know, it's public knowledge he had issues outside of his golf game and it sounds like he's resolved those. I think he got married again recently and you know, I think everyone should wish him the best and them the best. You know, it's like, you know, especially in the United States, we hold people up and we expect perfection from our so called heroes historically as well as ones that are alive. And perfection doesn't exist. Right. Because so much of what's required from high performance is total focus, total compartmentalization and that being a human being is a lot more complicated than that. It's something I think to keep in mind. I also just want to just briefly double click on this thing about comments. I'm not going to tell people, stop saying mean stuff about me. If they want to or mean stuff about somebody, they're going to do it anyway. It's not the issue. But when it comes to kids reading about their dead parents, their dead dads in this case and last week we had a, you know, public assassination, there's a dead dad and people making up theories and coming up with ideas that they somehow know things that other people don't know. And sometimes these people have a professional background in politics or in the military or and law enforcement and it adds additional weight to these theories. But the repercussions on the kids and family and the legacy is it's really bad. It's really bad. It's a shame there isn't a thicker filter. I'm all for free speech, 100% for free speech, but there's a lot of damage done with those thumb clicks that I don't think people can really comprehend. So I'm glad you pointed that out.

A (78:33)

I mean, yeah, I mean, just imagine it like you're a 14 year old kid and you've grown up worshiping your father and he gets killed in Afghanistan and you see a post about him, you start to read down like he was killed by his government, by this and this mom, mom. It raises doubt and then that little seed of doubt is going to be with him forever. It's like, it takes the entire collection to like, listen to me. They They've never even met a Navy SEAL dude. That's some kid in the middle of nowhere who's typing his mother's basement, who's just writing some hateful stuff. It's not real. It's hard to block it out when.

B (79:08)

There'S 500 of them or guys that were in the military that didn't make it through selection, they're pissed or have some resentment for some guy that was jacked in high school who said something and they didn't get the date. Or, you know, I mean, it's like resent is like the ego and resent are bitter combination. Last, you know, can last a lifetime.

A (79:28)

Time.

B (79:29)

Negative comments, many times are irrelevant, but in this context have a potential lasting, very, very corrosive aspect I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Function Last year, I became a Function member after searching for the most comprehensive approach to lab testing. Function provides over 100 advanced lab tests that give you a key snapshot of your entire bodily health.

A (79:55)

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A (81:50)

It felt normal.

B (81:52)

Did you feel like you had to outdo him? And I would ask that of anyone, military or not, there's this notion. Well, let me just briefly back up a friend recently. We were talking about kids and family and building family, and he said, you don't want a son. You got daughters. He has all daughters. And I go, no, you know, I think I'd like, you know, mar, but who cares? I'd have daughters. I have sons, you know, I don't care. And he said, no, because if you have a son, he's gonna. He's gonna try and be better than you, and then you're gonna be in conflict. And I was thinking. I almost said no. And then I was like, my dad's a scientist. And so I was like, there's a point in your life where you go, can I fill those shoes? Can I exceed those shoes? It's natural human son to father behavior, I think. And so was there ever a moment where you're like, like, I gotta exceed or. Or just. Or was it irrelevant?

A (82:39)

I think it was irrelevant, but just because the timing you came in, you know, spent his entire time at peacetime. I did nothing but combat the entire time. A lot of deployments back to back back. Never took a shore duty station. Just by that amount of experience, you already surpassed it. But it doesn't need to be said.

B (82:59)

Why not leave, guys? You're one of your closest mentors and friends gets killed. I mean, the retirement plan, I'm guessing, is pretty good, but it's not that awesome. That's a plug for the military to increase the retirement salaries and you get some medical care. Right? You know, some things come to your family for staying in 20 years, I think it is. But did the thought ever cross your mind, like, hey, guys are dropping off and you're right in the center of it, maybe leave. Not for a moment. I should have known that wasn't going to be the answer.

A (83:36)

At that time. It's so different because a lot of people think about special operations in the global war on terror is the Marines pushing through Fallujah, broad daylight, just getting smashed. Those are the bravest dudes that served during the G1.

B (83:53)

Like Marines.

A (83:54)

There is nothing more impressive than a 19 year old Marine in the things they'll do. Like they just are, like they're heroes of mine. My experience in a gwat was very different. It's always at night. It's always, you know, select targets. It's not like they're like, hey, you and your team are going to go raid this village. No, we're going for a very, very specific person. And then when you look at it, him and we said it best. Once you've hunted armed men long enough and liked it, you'll never care for anything else thereafter. There is nothing like hunting a human being who's hunting you. Nothing. And you are so afraid you're going to miss it. So that's why you hide injuries. You don't get surgery. You do everything you can to put yourself in position to be on the op, to not miss the deployment. And I think that's what it is in the essence is you know, you have all the intel folks and all the technology that are giving you this one thing and you just stare at them. I know everything about you. Where you live, your secondary house, everybody you talk to you right handed, left handed. How many windows, how many doors. The inward opening, outward openings are storm doors. What's the windows made? I know everything about you. And then we know exactly when we're going to go get you. We know you're bad. We know everything you've done. I know everything you've said on that phone for the last six months. I know everything there is to know about you. And we are coming to get you. You. And when you're successful, it becomes addictive. And you just keep chasing that feeling like I am pulling these people off the earth and it makes a difference. I'm not just not carpet bombing anything like that one singular dude has done all of this. We have to remove him. Let's go. And it makes you feel like you're important. It makes you feel like people actually need you. And you chase it for as long as possible. My buddy Jimmy Hatch wrote a book called Chasing a Dragon. And that's what it's like. You chase them long enough, you'll find them. And you don't want to jump off that train. You're so afraid in the teams and special operators. The military does a really good job of painting a narrative that if you leave this your Life is over. There's nothing that's going to surpass us. The SEAL teams are the only thing you know how to do, and it's the only thing you'll ever feel at home. And it's the truth. You get guys that get out and they go work at Goldman Sachs and they do this and they do that. If you really get a couple beers in them and you sit down, down, they're miserable. They miss it. Even all the stuff you didn't like, the things you hated about the military and the people you hated working for at the end of the, you don't remember any of that. You only remember the good times. And because you had, you know, the entire time at war, the whole aspect, the whole career was just amazing. You know, standing on the shoulders of giants, I've got to work with people that are the greatest thing you'll never get to see. Like, there's 12 people on the planet that were there that saw that thing and we won't even address it because it's not cool if you address it. I cannot believe you just pulled that off. That's the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my life. And you don't even talk about it. Like, the regular people never get to see the level of detail that goes into doing that job. They see it on a flat range shoot or whatever and they're like, oh, I can do that. But you can't jump out of 35,000ft at night into a place you've never seen and then do it. But you can't do that. Like, do you know how hard it is to put yourself in a position to do that operation?

B (87:09)

They have no idea and they're shooting back at you. Yeah, there's that, there's that piece.

A (87:13)

Yeah.

B (87:15)

The target's on a flat range. Don't shoot back.

A (87:16)

Yeah, right. This is a two way range. This isn't Airsoft, it's not Call of Duty. Like, those are real people. That dude has five kids and he's going through that threshold regardless what's coming out of him without a second thought. It's amazing to see. And I said it to a group of guys the other day, you know, when the tower fell. I've never felt more patriotic in my life. In those moments, you never think about the flag, you never think about the American people, you never think about that. You think you do it for the country, you really do it and you stay doing it for the culture. The culture of the SEAL teams was worth every ounce you had to pay for it. And it's. Every other group will tell you the exact same thing. Like, the culture's what keeps you there. You're so afraid to leave it because you know you're never going to find it anywhere else. And that was the same way. I mean, when me and my old lady were going through our worst moments, I told her, it's like, if you don't like the train, jump, I'm not stopping for you. I'm not. And that's why I was really concerned. We first got together because she was married to Danny Deeds, was on Operation Red Wings on the ground. Her dad was a seal. I mean, we were. We're embedded in this thing.

B (88:20)

You guys have both came up in.

A (88:21)

A. Oh, yeah, man. Like, we're embedded in this. And, you know, I met her three years after Danny passed. I didn't know Danny. I didn't know her. Mutual friends, we connected there around 2008, 9. And I told her we first. I fell in love with her instantly. And it scared me because I was getting ready to screen and try to go with a tier one command, and the pace was so fast, and I was so worried that she'd look at me one day and go, I can't do this again. And I wasn't gonna leave it for her. And I told her that, don't ever ask me to leave. Cause I won't. Like, if you don't wanna do this, I get it. Like, we can be best friends, we can do whatever, but I'm not leaving this for you. And that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And for whatever reason, she's a unicorn. She has been the quintessential team wife above and beyond every deployment. Full steam ahead. Hot water heater blows up, tree falls to the minivan. She doesn't even tell me. She just solves it. She's amazing. And I still blocked her out like I did everything else, because I still thought that my love for her was a distraction. And like, those are the times I look back on and I regret. But in the moment, I don't think I'd change it. I don't think I could. I don't think I could do that job at the level that was required to do it and have that love, you know, hanging around my neck. I couldn't do all. Ended up working out in the wash, but it was. It's hard, man. Man, it's hard to sit there and just wait for your number to get called and just hope it doesn't I mean, the best dudes in the world are getting killed, and you can't just. It's not lack of training, it's not lack of funding, it's not lack of experience, it's not lack of commitment. What is it? It's a dangerous job, man. That's what it is. It's a super dangerous job, and people are trying to kill you all day long. You just hope that you're better than they are. But some days it happens regardless. And it's hard. Hard. It's hard putting guys on the ground, especially when you've grown up with them your whole life.

B (90:13)

You definitely picked the right woman.

A (90:15)

I. I lassoed a unicorn. I did. She. Unbelievable.

B (90:20)

I have a good friend. He. Because I know you've got daughters and. And he said, you want to marry a woman that were you to have daughters with her, that you'd be very happy if they turned out like her.

A (90:34)

Yeah.

B (90:34)

Which is one of the best pieces of advice that I didn't hear until fairly recently. And the moment I heard it, I was like, wow, that's really good. You know, they don't tell us that in high school.

A (90:46)

No, they don't. No, they don't.

B (90:48)

But clearly you bullseyed on. On that one. So you're opping, you're alive, guys are dying, you got a family, and sounds like you love it too. You're loving the work, which is so key. Right. I don't. Because in moments of stress and, you know, I mean, all the other stuff that's clearly important, love a country, flags and all that stuff, it sounds like it's necessary, but it's not sufficient. In those moments, the culture is really the glue. Then you start incurring some damage. I mean, so what do you see in your mind as kind of the first high impact event that's not someone else dying like that. Your. That your body is starting to take a toll.

A (91:38)

I had a lot of emotional stuff happen to me in that second deployment. You know, my. My idol, Matty Roberts, I've talked about him a couple times. I really, really hung onto that dude like he was my true north. He was the guy. And when he got shot up, when you see it happen, you know, his arm shot off, it flipped around his shoulder. It looked like his arm was completely gone. My fingers were inside his arm. We're trying to solve this thing. They're shooting at us from really, really close proximity. And I think it still has a record left as Jay Redmond, but I think that was the. The closest call for fire Mission the entire Iraq war, like, inside a 15 meters. I mean, Cory, Mike. Mike from AC130 gunship. I mean, it was on top of you, a belfed machine gun just chewing us up. Everybody shot up except for me and one other guy. And we're all crowded behind this tractor tire. Just. You felt like a victim. And it. At one point, right when the initial contact happened, I sprinted to a tree and got a piece of COVID So there's me, three guys that are all shot up and one other guy who's behind this tractor tire. And I'm screaming at him like, hey, I've got an out. Come over here. And he screams out. And blackhawk down. Like, nope, come to me. And you're looking back at it. You can see all the muzzle flash. And just the way it happened, you had blue forces or friendlies that were in behind him, so you couldn't shoot into this veg line because you knew there were friendlies that were back there. So you're in this weird dance where I can't do anything. Like, I felt helpless. You know, I'm getting rounds poured all over me, and at a certain point, you just go, I'd rather run back into the front of this thing and get killed with all of them than be the lone survivor. I don't want to walk through this. I don't want to live with the survivor's guilt. I'd rather just run back up and let's just catch it and be done with it. And I ran right back into the center of it and dropped down behind that tire and started working all the guys back and, you know, putting on tourniquets and quick clot and, you know, all the stuff. When I came back from that, I was mentally scarred for the rest of my life. And I just, just never, ever processed it. I just blocked it off because it.

B (93:42)

Was so close.

A (93:45)

I think, because it was the first time I felt helpless, like, I was just waiting to die, right? Like, the guy that I looked up that I wanted to be like. Like, he was the physical representation of what I thought the essence of being a Navy SEAL was. And he's dying in my arms, and I can't shoot back. I mean, we're hunkered down in rounds are just skipping all over you, and you're just. If that JTAC wouldn't have called in a fire mission, we'd all be dead. I mean, it's only a matter of time before he stands up and just realizes he can just walk us down. I mean, there's no alum. Night vision's all messed up at this point. I mean, everything that could have went wrong, went wrong. And now we're inside of 10 meters getting pounded by a belt fed machine gun. You can't move. And it was the first time in my life I truly felt helpless. And everything worked out. Everybody ended up surviving it. We got him in the helicopter and did all that. I just think I never got an opportunity to ever talk about it. And when I went back home, you know, you're taking a shower, the showers in Iraq aren't the best as you can imagine. And I'm standing here in ankle deep sludge, water that's just filled with blood. I mean, it's all in my mouth, it's all over my hair. And I remember taking the shower and just seeing it all and not knowing if he lived or not and thinking, do I want to be washing this off? Because if they call me in 20 minutes and tell me he's dead, this is the last piece of him I have. So I saved the cammies, I saved the boot, I saved the shirts, I saved everything I wore. I shoved it all in the bag and I kept it in case he died. But it was hard, man. Like, the back of that helicopter looked like Black Hawk Down. Just blowout kits and tourniquets and magazines and rounds all over and just the most blood I've ever seen. And you're just slipping and sliding in it, just like out of the movies. And it's not, it's, it's dudes you've wrapped your arms around and told you I've loved you a hundred times. Like, this is not what I thought it was going to be like. I didn't think this was going to be like this. I didn't because I'd never seen it. My dad has never been through that. None of his friends ever went through that. Now I am this 20 year old kid and this is what I'm living with. And it was hard because you got to walk back in the culture of the SEAL team. So we're not talking about that. Nobody's ever addressing that. When you see him, you know, you always make a joke, like, hey, can you scream any louder? Like, I'm surprised. We ought to get killed by how loud you were yelling. You always make a joke about it. It wasn't a joke, man. I was traumatized. Like, I worshiped that guy. And to see the reality, like, he's not Superman and neither am I. Fortunately for me, he did the most heroic thing I'VE ever seen. And that moment is stuck with me forever. When that initial contact happened, everybody got shot, including him. And he stood back up and ran forward and grabbed our corpsman, who was all shot up and started dragging him back. And I watched it happen. Get shot again, and it spins him, drops him on the floor, and he gets right back up. Up, picks him up again, gets shot, arm spins over his shoulder, keeps dragging him back, Gets shot again, hits the ground, gets back up, keeps dragging him. It's like at no point was he ever going to leave that dude. Could he have. Yeah, he could have ran dough behind that tractor tire and sent me out there to go fetch him. He was so committed to the process of I am never going to leave you. If he would have took one right in the head and he would have died right then, he would have never bat an eye about it. It. If he would have known the outcome, he would have went anyway. And that part has stuck me the entire time. Like, a true believer will go further than anyone else in the moment of total duress because they're conditioned to it. He's already made up in his mind, how far are you willing to go? The entire way. Right now, I'm just looking for an opportunity to prove it. And that was his moment to prove it. He proved it to everybody. And still to this day, I mean, probably still, my biggest inspiration in the entire team is Matt Roberts. Unbelievable human. I try to get emotional, but, yeah, just an amazing human.

B (97:23)

I mean, intense in. In every way to hear about. So I can only imagine what it's like to be there.

A (97:32)

And.

B (97:35)

Your reverence for people around you that do amazing things is super impressive. I notice you. You're constantly noticing the people that you've been blessed to be around that show you things, and the extent to which you internalize it is awesome. I realize it also carries some weight when they're not doing well. It's so interesting. I hope people hear what I'm hearing. I'm sure they are, which is that it's never about you. It's always about seeing this other person that you was almost like. Like superhero status. Like, they're human, and it sort of brings reality back. But all the while, you're. You're a central figure in this interaction. This wasn't like watching it on an iPad from a distance and wishing you could do something like, you're in there, too. And that's not lost on us as you tell this. So you're carrying this in your head and you're still going Back out. So you didn't process it then let's talk about you getting electrocuted because you keep opping fortunately you're not killed and then you're pretty close to the time when you can leave feeling like you've done sufficient time in the teams you've done your work. Was there a desire to stay in past 20 years?

A (99:08)

I never planned on getting out. Never. I. Nope.

B (99:11)

You wanted to be one of these so called bullfrogs, one of these. Yeah, I know one. I won't mention his name because he, he won't appreciate it but he did something like 32 years or something and he's a friend and actually asked him once what his training regimen he's getting up there now. He's gonna give me a for saying that. But. But he's in great shape obviously. And, and he, and he says he finds some way to make sure that he's breathing super hard and his heart rate is max for an hour a day. Just work out like that's. Doesn't get any simpler than that. I didn't ask him the variety of things he's done to accomplish that, but I think it's running, I think it's lifting heavy objects, I think it's swimming, I think it's. But yeah, it doesn't get any simpler than that. And in addition to his physical durability, his mental durability, he says directly linked to that, an hour a day breathing as hard as he can at max heart rate. That's that sort of bullfrog mentality. So you want to be one of those guys but you decided at some point like it might be wise to lean into the, the family life?

A (100:16)

No. No. God no. Nope.

B (100:20)

Okay.

A (100:20)

So.

B (100:21)

Okay. Bad guess, Andrew.

A (100:22)

Yeah. Yeah. My first major injury, I made it all the way through, you know, came in in 2002. In 2010 I was going through selection for the Tier 1 organization and about 3/4 away through we do a big skydive blog out in Arizona. And I love jumping, it's my jam. And I had a bad landing downwind landing, hit this ravine and I snapped my femoral neck, broke that thing. And I was so afraid they were going to wash me out of the program. I just didn't say anything. So I can barely walk, I can't drive a car. I mean it's full atrophy. It's bad. And I'm jacked up on so many toradols, tramadols and 800 milligram Motrin that I'm able to get through and jump. They know something's wrong with me, but they know I'm not going to quit. They know I'm not going to ask for any help. So as long as I can pass the evolutions, we're good. And all I have to do is jump. We graduate that we get drafted in all the different organizations you're going to go to. And I walked into rehab, and I went, okay, now that that's over, my back's broken. And they were like, oh, why do you say that? And they told him we had gotten a. We got an MRI on my hip when we were in Arizona, and nothing showed up. They were like, I think you tore your hip flexor. And I was like, oh, if I tore my hip flexor, I don't care. We're good. I thought it was my back. We get home, they run new, new images, and my femoral neck is snapped off. And you know the deal. You lose a femoral neck, blood supply, total hip replacement. You're out of the military. And I walked in, saw the doctor, and he, you know, he's sitting there in front of my command master chief and all the rehab guys, and he goes, hey, we got emergency surgery for you tomorrow morning. 07. No. And he's like, what? I'm not getting surgery? I've never had surgery. I'm not getting surgery? Nope. I got deployment coming up. I'm not doing that. And my command master chief, look at me. And he goes, let me rephrase this. You're Getting surgery tomorrow at 07. If you don't, I'm going to shit handy out of the program. It's like, oh, okay, what is. And he's like 15 inches of titanium, three lag bolts. We're going to pump them in there. Here's a rehab protocol you're still going to deploy. And, you know, I think it was a month and a half, and we did, but I got through from the time I broke it. I did another 85 skydives on it, went through Utah. I mean, up and up and down that crazy elevation, just really. Just sucking it up. But it was a test for mental resiliency. How far are you willing to push to be a part of the organization? The entire way.

B (102:45)

Did your teammates know you had a broken femur?

A (102:48)

Okay, we got through. We did emergency surgery. Had a nasty complication, got infected, you know, wound backs, the whole thing. And they were so cool. They. They flew a rehab guy over to Afghanistan with me, and that's how we tested out. And, you know, the final test, like, we're doing VO2 maxes and broad jumps and all the things. Make sure your hip can take it. And the very last thing was this huge box, probably a 48 inch box, got full kit on. And he looks at me, his name's Mike, and he goes, okay, we're going to have you drop off this and land on the bad leg. And he goes, DJ do not step off that box if you don't think it'll hold. I knew it wouldn't hold. There's no way it's going to hold. Like, it feels so bad inside me. Stepped off it hit. I felt like a bolt of lightning went through me. And I looked at him and he went, how do you feel? 100. Got my stuff down the helicopter. Made it through all that. The screws ended up backing out. Going through my T band a couple months later. Had to have another surgery. And just. It was just a long history of things that happened to me. But it really got you used to. We talked about it before. Are you hurt or are you injured? I got to the point very, very fast in a SEAL team, so I could not tell the difference. Difference? I don't know the difference. Everything hurts. Everything's got a limitation, and I'm just pushing through it regardless. And again, it's not like I'm a unicorn. If the amount of people over there that need major reconstructive surgeries, 8 out of 10, everybody needs it, and they just don't do it because you have a deployment coming up or you have a trip you can't miss. There's something going on the way you can't miss it, so you sacrifice yourself. Just don't do it. The same thing was happening, so had a gnarly shoulder dislocation, blew it out. Had to have major reconstructive surgery. I had an admin wound, four rounds of plastic surgery, couldn't get it to close. I mean, all the complications are happening. After the shoulder surgery, it was so bad, medical retirement was imminent. So, hey, we're going to medically retire you. Same benefits if you do 20 years, but you can't do this job anymore. They wanted to fuse my lower back, my neck, shoulder surgery, shoulder surgery, double hip surgery. So I had three years of surgeries lined up. It's like, I'm not going to sit here in rehab for three years doing surgeries, taking up a swat. I'm not doing it. I was like, I'll just get out. I'll retire and I'll deal with it on my Own. That's. That's kind of the whole process. So I. I got put on a laundry list of medications. 60 something pills a day, probably 25. 30 different prescriptions. We were on. Goodness, I mean, Cymbalta, Adderall, Gabapen. Heavy. Heavy doses.

B (105:22)

Cymbalta. They got you on antidepressants?

A (105:25)

Oh, yeah. And, yeah, Cymbalta. When you come off Cymbalta, it gives you the jolts. Oh, yeah. Cymbalta's a treat, Lyrica. I've been on everything. Amitriptyline to sleep, taking a heavy dose of those. Ambien, obviously. Everything. Everything in between. You take it all, and you don't realize that you're smashed all day, because you're not. You're not hitting alcohol. You don't realize that you're processing pharmaceuticals 24 hours a day, every single day, 52 weeks out of the year. You don't realize it. You're not sober. And that was my hardest thing to kind of walk away with is I came out of this rehab program. They put me on these medications, and I felt like a million bucks. I got really hurt in 2013. Amnesia, forgetting where I was at, and I went down. They gave me these pills, and I felt like Jesus came down and touched me. You gave me Adderall and Cymbalta. Okay, what else you have? Oh, we got this. We got this. Give them to me. Stellate ganglion blocks in my throat. Give it to me. Reiki. Give it to me. Anything you have, I'll do it. There's not a protocol on the planet I have not done. And I've done them at 100% full value, and they buy you a little bit of relief. We got to the point where I was taking so many different medications. A bunch of them you were not allowed to take together. And I had a new doctor came in. He's trying to refill all my prescriptions. And he's like, you can't take these four medications in combination. He's like, it'll give you a stroke, D.J. it'll kill you. And I went, well, it's 2019. I've been taking them since 2010. Like, I have to keep taking. He's like, you're gonna have to do a med washout. They send me down to Walter Reed, the 70s. It's a neurobehavioral ward. I don't know that. I think it's like a team guy clinic where we're gonna go work on shoulder mobility and whatever else.

B (107:12)

Because I just came after lab couldn't help It.

A (107:14)

Well, I mean, you know, I was. You don't know, right? I don't know. I go down there, they start taking my shoelaces. They take everything I have. And, Mike, what is this? I mean, there's fighter pilots that are in there, There's Green Berets that are in there.

B (107:27)

Like, I went through serious school. I don't need this. Seriously. That's torture training.

A (107:31)

Yeah. And I'm like, I don't know why I'm doing this. They don't tell me it's a neurobehavioral war. They tell me it's for a med washout. He's like, hey, you're going to go there. He's like, you're going to focus on shoulder rehab because that was a gnarly shoulder surgery. He's like, they're going to focus on that. We'll get you washed out, all these meds. We'll come back, you'll be in a good spot. Medical retirement, transition. Next phase. Awesome. I went into that hospital broken. My eyes were jet black. I was 180 pounds. Just. Just death warmed over. I didn't want to do anything. And I laid in that hospital bed, and I had these. I had the most amazing nursing staff. And I laid down that bed, and I started getting sick. And I was like, food, poison. Throwing up, pissing myself. I mean, the whole thing. And I remember throwing up in this bucket. And beautiful black nurse has this wet washcloth, and she's washing my face off. And I was like, I don't know what I ate. I was like, I'm so sorry. Like, I feel so embarrassed. And she's like, it's okay. It's okay. And I was like, I haven't eaten anything. I was like, I never get food poisoned. She's like, oh, honey, it's. It's okay. And I can remember the look she gave me, like, you have no idea why you're here.

B (108:35)

Wow.

A (108:35)

I was like that for probably 10 days. Around the 10th or 11th day, I finally came out of my room, I got sunglasses on. My photophobia was so bad, if you shine light my eyes, I'd throw up. My TBI was. Was. It was controlling everything I had. Wasn't sleeping, had insomnia, had everything you could have. And that was the first time in a decade I had been truly sober. No booze, no nicotine, no pharmaceuticals of any kind. And that was my baseline. And if you would have given me the ability, I would have closed out that chapter right then. I was done. I could not Believe what I had done to myself, what I had turned myself into. And there's no way to get better. Like, I'm stuck like this, and now you're gonna kick me out of the only thing that I've ever loved. What am I supposed to do now? Rock bottom. And we started spinning up art therapy. So I had. I'd been there before. We'd done art therapy before, and I found it really beneficial. And actually, the. The Red Cross used to bring me in dogs. They'd bring me in a St Bernard drop in my bedroom, and I just. I do dog therapy for a little bit. And she's like, do you want to do art therapy? And I, like, I'd love to. And she's like, well, what do you want? I was like, I'd really love a skateboard. And they snuck me out of that hospital. Not supposed to. And they drove me down this little skate shop right outside of Walter Reed, and there's a skate shop there. And I walk in, you know, I've got my gown and stuff on. Like, I'm all. I'm all jacked up. Hair super long, beards long. I look like a hobo. And I told the guy my story. I was like, hey, I grew up skateboarding. Like, it was my passion. And I really would love to have a skateboard just to paint. Do art therapy.

B (110:08)

Yeah, because I got a couple bolts in my femur that ripped through a couple tendons, and I just got detoxed and didn't realize it. And I'm here. Can I ride a skateboard? Love it.

A (110:21)

So he gives me a bunch of blank skateboards, and I go back, and I'm papier mache. I'm doing hands coming out of him. Just a bunch of really dark demonic stuff. But I felt so good when I came out. My best friend, Cole Fackler, same guy I started tribe skates with and GVRs with. We went to Buds together. He grew up in Virginia beach with me, and so we've been thick as thieves for 25 years now. And he's like, well, open up an LLC. He opens up the backside, and he's like, let's just make skateboarding your art therapy. So we had an artist come on board. We'd start drawing, you know, motivational things, you know, old school UDT stuff for firemen, stuff for police officers, memorial skateboards. And then I found fracture burning. So you essentially take a microwave transformer, pull it out, and you hook it up to jumper cables, and then run a lead out to an octopus outlet, like 110. So when I clip it on top of the wood and I pour an electrolyte solution on it. Coca Cola baking soda with warm water is my favorite. And I hit it, it'll burn the wood grain and they'll connect. Scrub all that out, fill with resin, just make these beautiful pieces. And that was Meyer therapy. I could sit there and burn skateboards all day, every day. It was, it was amazing. Like it, it truly changed my life. And I don't know why I didn't grow up around electricity. Obviously I'm not very good at it. And it was something about having to sit there and sand the lacquer off that skateboard. I mean, I'd buy brand new skateboards, I'd sand the entire graphic off of it. And then we'd burn them. You have to sand them off. You'd have to rinse them, wait 24 hours, pour the resin, wait 24 hours, sand, then off, pour it again, 24 hours. I mean, it's a seven day process to make one board. And we'd bring in guys that were transitioning, they'd do it too. It was their form of art therapy. And I felt like I was making a difference. And I'm scheduled to retire at the end of August 2019. This is Father's Day. So was that end of June?

B (112:14)

It's like mid June. Is that right? Something like that.

A (112:16)

Right before I'm scheduled to retire. Father's day morning around 9am I've been up since 5, burning skateboards. I've got a big bay window, looks out my backyard yard. And I've got these seesaws set up with these boards. And I've got an EOD guy, explosive ordinance guy from the Navy, he's making paddles for retirement. So he comes over, they're covered in lacquer, and I'm like, yo, my man. I can't burn them while they have the lacquer. So he's got a sander out I've been burning. So I unplug my machine. He plugs into my octopus outlet and it's sanding down the lacquer. When he's done, I'll clip in, I'll burn him real quick, he'll finish them off. And my wife, I'll never forget, I look up and she bangs on the window and she's like, it's Father's Day, we're supposed to go eat brunch. I was like, last burn, last burn, he had unplugged the sander and plugged in my machine into the oxygen outlet. And now there's a charge going to it. It's sitting on the ground. I don't know it. And the way I run, the protocol is there's no electricity running to it. So, I mean, you can put these things in your mouth, there's no electricity. So I pick him up to adjust him because then I'm going to walk back, plug it in, everybody's clear, flick the outlet. And when I readjusted him, the whole thing lit me up. I had him in both hands.

B (113:28)

You closed the circuit?

A (113:30)

Yep. So they were live on the leads, just sitting on the ground. I didn't know it, so I went to readjust him. I made contact with him, and it spun me around. And I faced him about this far away. And I can remember the back of my head was trying to touch my tailbone, and I was trying to fight it. It. I could feel my teeth heating up. And I was squeezing this thing as hard as I could, and I heard a pop, pop. And I stepped back. That was my collarbone shattering from flex, my scapula. They both shattered. But in the process, you take a hose and you wash off all the ash. So right behind me is ankle deep standing water. And now I'm holding on to this thing. I step back and my wife, both my kids are turned around, watching me from eight feet away. I pop up, I levitate, and it launches me about 20ft across my backyard, still holding onto the leads. He, thank God, has the wherewithal to unplug it. So when I wake up, my hair standing straight up, my hands are smoking, and I accidentally. And all this smoke came out of my mouth. And I remember laying on the ground, and he's right in my face, and he goes, do you know where you're at? I said, on the ground, ground. And he went, can you move? And I went, my shoulder's dislocated for sure. Anyway, can you set up? And I went, help me. And he pulled me up. And as soon as he put pressure on there, I could feel my scapula just gravel. I could feel this all hinging in there. My hands are smoking, like so. It blew out of my finger, blew out of this thumb. It fused my tendon to the nerve bundle, so it was stuck like this. I couldn't move anything up here. He stands me up and I tell him, I'm going to drive myself to the hospital. My wife is freaking out. They're trying to unplug the machine. You know, my kids are running out there, and I Don't want them to see me like this. I don't have a shirt on. I don't even have shoes. I've just got a pair of shorts. And my shorts were on fire, so I had little ingrown hairs in my thighs. Electricity was shooting out of those and caught my shorts on fire anywhere I had them. So out of the top of my head, 1, 1 next to my nether region. I mean, just exit shots coming out of my body. I don't know anything about electricity, but it's not good. And I take a turn and I've probably got to walk maybe 35, 40ft to my car. So he's in there with my wife trying to get the keys, trying to get me in there. And I turn and I step to the door. Have you seen Kill Bill? Remember the five finger death touch? Five steps. I took one step and everything went. I took another one and it started closing and everything started going black. I was like, oh, God. Third step and I was like, oh, no. Fourth, fifth. And I'm looking through a toilet paper straw and I'm like, oh, my God. I took one more step and everything went black and I was in total blindness. Staying out there. I'm opening my eyes as wide as I can and I'm panicking. I can hear my wife running through the house screaming. I can hear him running around screaming, trying to get everything together. And I'm stuck on the side of my house, like this is shaking. I can't see anything. And I start power breathing. It's deep and as hard as I can. And I saw a little speck of light and I just kept doing it, just forcing it. Inhaled nose and mouth, just power as much as I can. It started to open up, open up, open up. And probably 20 breaths into was like I had superhuman vision. It was like I was interconnected with everything on the planet. It was like I had a DMT trail trip. Everything was super vibrant. I was totally aware. My whole body. I knew everything that just happened to me. I could recall things from in the past and I knew everything was going to be fine. I'm good. I walk right over the truck, I open up the car, I get inside it, we hit every single speed bump and pothole from there until the er just jostling around. And you can hear.

B (117:05)

Just to remind you, your shoulder was a little messed up. Yeah, shoulders, shoulders, plural.

A (117:11)

So I walked through the ER and Princess Anne Sentara in Virginia beach has an amazing staff. What they also have is a staff of really, really beautiful nurses. But now it's Covid. So now everybody has a mask on, and all you can see are their eyes. And they had the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. And I'm laying on my back, you know, I walk in and they can see it. Like, if one of the nurses made a comment, like, who brought in barbecue? And it's my hands, like they're melted, like they're smoking. It's so bad. Like, it's making me nauseous to think about it. They get me in that table, and I'll never forget, this nurse came over and spun her face. And she goes, I'm so surprised you still have a penis. I said, what? And she went, honey, when you get electrocuted, usually fingers come off, your nose comes off, everything comes off you. And she's like, as far as we can tell, you're intact. You haven't lost anything. Right now she's like, move your fingers and move and everything. Open my mouth. Can you hear? I can hear. And she's like, okay, well, here we go. They transfer me. I think I took an ambulance ride. I kind of blacked out for a little bit. And then I woke up in the burn unit in Norfolk, and I had. The specialist came in. My wife is now with me. We're laying there double slings, you know, trying to identify how bad everything is. They know we've got to do an emergency surgery on all this. And he goes, dj. So this is after my, like, two months with Vernon. So this is the best physical condition I've ever been in. So I came from 180. Now I'm 226% body fat. I'm in phenomenal shape. Like, I. I don't need to retire. I could probably still suit it up again. And now I'm laying in this hospital bed. I have to show you the photos. And he. He walks in, he's like, you know what rhabdo is? And I said, yeah. And he goes, when you get electrocuted, your body releases an enzyme everybody has, but it multiplies rapidly and your muscles liquefy and they go toxic. Then it goes septic and you die. Your issue is you're a big dude. If these enzyme markers hit this level, I gotta start cutting stuff out of you, man.

B (119:10)

Taking muscle off.

A (119:11)

Yeah. He's like, pecs, lats, shoulders delts, hamstrings, quads. Like, so every hour I'm coming back here and we got to start doing these enzyme markers. So I'm laying in that bed, can't Move. I can't run. Done. Can't do anything. And I'm looking at my wife, and I'm just imagining Dr. Gavorkian coming in here and chopping me up in little pieces. I've never been in a low spot like that, outside of being stuck behind that tire with Maddie. This was the first time since then where I was a true victim of circumstance. There's nothing I can do to prevent this. There's no magic pill I can take. There's nowhere to run. There's nothing I can do. I'm either gonna land this hospital bed, or I'm gonna let that dude come in here and chop me up into pieces. And I'm just consumed with anger, guilt, envy. I just don't want to be here right now. And he came back in the hour, and he's like, levels are good, levels are good. Came back next hour, levels are good. Third hour, fourth hour, fifth hour. And he's like, dj, every person on the planet has this enzyme in your body. Everyone. And not only is yours not climbing, not increasing, there's not a trace of it in your body. Now he's like, I've never seen anything like it. He's like, tomorrow morning, you're free to go. Okay. They planned the surgery. They put in two plates, 20 something screws, did the whole thing, but didn't have to chop me up. And you know, from talking to all the other people, typically people get electrocuted by one touch. So this arm comes off, you know, rib cages blow open. They were like, we don't know if it's because you had leads in both hands and you just completed a circuit and we're able to ride it. It. We don't know what would happen if you would have held it for another second and a half. Where's your heart? Starting and stopping. Just the perfect timing all the stars had to rely on for you to be here right now. And it's a medical mystery. So I took it with that medical mystery, and now we're here, but I had to walk back in. So I get dropped off my house, and this is where Vernon really comes into play, is I'm sitting in my house in double slings. I've got two kids, I've got a wife. I've got no income, I've got no job. I've got no one that can hire me. And I can't do anything physically. Nothing. I'm just laying in there in mental health, straight down the tube, and I'm laying there at my kitchen table just Feeling absolute the worst I've ever felt. And I get a gimp up to the door, open up the door, and there's my trainer, Vernon. He's like, how are you doing, big guy? Not good. He like gives me this, this half assed hug. We walk in the kitchen, we're sitting down, and he's like, talk me through it. I was like, I can't do anything. He's like, okay, well now that we've established that, what can you do? It's like nothing. Can you make a fist? You know, my hands are all banged up. I was like, yeah. And he goes, can you move your wrist? Yeah. Anyway, can you walk? I can walk. He's like, perfect. Pulls out his back pocket, this little blue 2 pound dumbbell. And he sticks it in my fingertips. He's like, curl it. And I curled up and I did a wrist curl and he went, roll your hand over. Okay, so we can do grip and we can walk. Here we go. And we did that every single day until I could pressurize my upper body enough to where a sneeze wouldn't cripple me. And then we were straight back in the gym. So I'd walk in, double swings. He's like, the only thing we can do is belt squats, lunges and mobility. That's all we're going to do.

B (122:31)

You're belt squatting in double slings.

A (122:33)

Uhhuh. That's awesome.

B (122:35)

So you're not holding on to the hole. It's none of that.

A (122:37)

I can't do anything. So I'd literally walk in. I'd step through like a hula hoop. He would bring it up around me, I'd step on the platform, I'd squat down, he'd clip me in, I'd stand up, he'd unracket. I'd do my set, re rack it. He'd take the belt off me over and over. And he rebuilt me back every single day, five days a week. And we have never missed a session together since 2019. Never saved my life, man, that is awesome. He is the best human. He's been more of a life coach than a strength coach. Yeah, it's unbelievable. And without him, if he wouldn't have walked into that two pound dumbbell, there's no telling where I'd be at right now. I told that story, the tactical strength condition conference. Like, no one does that. No one is going to come over during that moment and push you. Everybody's going to walk over and put. I'm so sorry for you. Oh, I can't believe this happened. Not him. It's like control. Things you can't control. Can you make a fist? Can you turn your wrist? Wrist curls in 20 minute walks. Here we go. And that's what we did every single day. Bounce it all the way back. I mean, he's been there. Had to get a surgery on my hand, had to rebuild this whole hand, all the strength and everything we've had to do, the stomach, the kidney, everything in between. He's been there for.

B (123:48)

How many years ago was that? That roughly.

A (123:51)

That was in 2019. So what is that?

B (123:53)

It wasn't that long ago.

A (123:54)

Six years.

B (123:55)

And now you're feeling great, super robust. We'll talk about your training now and what people can do with that training. I've gleaned a lot of really useful information about your from your current training program about setting standards. And that is a wild ride, I.

A (124:12)

Always say, like, at least give me a cool story with it. Like, you know, I get this kidney thing going on. Not a cool story. Electrocution. It's a cool story. You know, it's a feel good story. At the end, it wasn't going through it, but I mean, you know, surround yourself with people better than you and they'll definitely pull you out of the depths of despair.

B (124:28)

I mean, it's an amazing story. At one point I thought when you made the return to the skateboarding thing, I thought, oh, you start skateboarding again, you feel it almost. It almost killed you. And it didn't even have trucks and wheels on the thing yet.

A (124:38)

Exactly.

B (124:39)

Oh, man. I'm gonna take a second to absorb all that. I was gonna ask you this later when we talk about ibogaine and DMT and some of the emerging therapeutics for ptsd, substance abuse, and other things that veterans are really fully embracing now and that are making a clear march toward broader treatment of mental health issues. But. But I'll ask you now, and I'll probably ask you again later. At any point in this, or headed into this whole set of things, setbacks and comebacks, did you have feelings of higher power? I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot, but were you raised religious? Do you believe in God, any of that? I mean, you know, were it not for the fact that a very, very seriously scientifically educated friend of mine, Stanford Medical School, Harvard Medical, who was a lifetime atheist, turned to me recently and he said, you know, he said, in his words, I believe in miracles. I said, miracle miracles or medical miracles? And he said, miracle miracles. I said, really? You of all people? And he said, yeah, I believe in. And I said, how? And he said, because I don't want to reveal who this person is out of, you know, it's his right to talk about these things. But he said, because of his math training, he said, you know, that some of the things he's seen and experienced have, have exceeded probability statistics, that it's impossible for the literally impossible for these things to happen. This isn't, you know, one in a trillion or. Or 1 in 10 trillion, that some of these miracles go beyond what chance could provide intersecting chances. And so to hear a story like yours, people will come up with their own interpretations. And I'm a scientist, I believe in science. I do happen to believe in God, but it's an individual choice for everybody. But did you ever step back and wonder whether or not, in addition to Vernon, in addition to Maddie, in addition to your teammate, in addition to your wife, whose father happened to be a team guy, I mean, there's some things around Virginia beach, they could have predicted that perhaps. But did you ever pause and just go, yeah, maybe? There are forces beyond everything I can see that are watching out for me? Because you've had a number of second, third, fourth chances that starting to sound miraculous.

A (127:17)

They are. It's it. We didn't grow up religious at all. I was always spiritual, always like. And I mean, you experience things in life that can't be. Can't be explained. And then when you see religious people, like, well, that's a miracle. Is it a miracle or am I just lucky? You start to look at it and then you do 5 Meo DMT and you realize, like, yeah, yep, it's got to be. It's got to be real. Like, there has to be a higher power. There has to be something that's pulling the strings. It's making this happen. And like divine intervention. There's no reason I should be here after that. After this, this. You add up all these things like, there's not a chance. Like, why? Like, what am I supposed to be doing here? How am I supposed to pay that forward? Like, if somebody's pulling the strings to make sure I'm sitting in the seat, what am I doing to make sure I'm not wasting this opportunity? But, I mean, it definitely makes you question. I mean, I, I definitely see why guys get, I don't want to say hung up on religion, but when they, they. They really buy in, they really turn the page and you're like, how much of that is just for tv? None of it with that guy. Right. Like he felt it, he saw the change. And I mean, I've seen too many miracles happen to believe that somebody's not behind it. Some things not behind it.

B (128:34)

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I realize that. Especially on a science health podcast and we talk about other things, but it, it's talked about it more and more recently. Just, I mean, I can't help but be a curious human being and wonder about these things. Whatever the case may be. You, you made it through, you retired. I couldn't imagine if your wife had, had heard that you were not going to retire. I mean, I like to think that nothing can break your guys marriage, but man, that's a lot to bear.

A (129:09)

She was over it.

B (129:10)

Yeah. With the kids seeing this.

A (129:13)

Yeah. You know, and I had turned myself into something I was, I wasn't proud of. You know, I talk about dials, not switches. Like being able to power down, power it up, power it off. I never did that. So she got to see the transition from being at Siltington and then going over the tier one organization and what that does with you. The pressure to perform the performance on demand is it, it changes you. It has to. You can't be the same person you were at 17, 19, 20 and then do that job. You can't. You have to be able to change. And I think a lot of that, it was just, it was wearing her down. I mean, I was gone so much and a lot of that I try to explain to the guys now, like, don't do what I did. I would go on every single trip I could because I was living these multiple different lots. Like I would go out to Arizona and I would skydive for months on end. I mean, I think I did almost 4,000 jumps in seven years. Like we went, we turned the page and that's deploying. That's every other training trip that's just sacrificing every weekend and making big pushes out there. But when you go, no one knows who you are. They don't know what you do for a job. They just think you're a normal skydiver. Like we're doing these big wave formations and you know, trying out for world records and doing all this stuff. And it's amazing, amazing. But it just takes you so far away from that person. I have to be in Virginia Beach. You become addicted to it. And then when I go here, I can be someone else completely. No one knows who I am. I go on this trip, no one knows who I am. You don't talk about the job you do, you make up a line, I'll throw them out there and it'll make them all mad. We tell everybody you're part of the Red Bull Air Force.

B (130:47)

Red Bull Air Force, yeah.

A (130:49)

Like, we scout out with all the boys. We know them all. And because you skydive enough, you can speak to lingo. Like, they see you out all the drop zones. They see you see. You can fake that really, really well. Some guys will be a hot air balloon pilot, you'll be an MMA fighter, you'll be a hockey team. Or we had real long hair. You can adopt these different Personas and I think a lot of that is just trying to compartmentalize what you have back home. So where I don't have to think about it, because you'll literally, I mean, your buddies will tell you. You'll be sitting on the couch at 2:00 clock in the afternoon, and when that pager goes off, you're gone. Right now, like, you got 30 minutes. There's no goodbye, there's no, oh, let me swing by work real quick and give you one kiss. You don't go on fishing, jump in a car and you're gone. And you gotta be able to shut it off. It's very, very hard to do when you're just so obsessed with being the best husband and the best father. You can't shut that off. The whole flight in, you're just thinking about them, like, if this happens, this happens. How my daughter's gonna react, like, oh, my God, they're gonna come here. What point of the day she's gonna get the news, how I, what if they get. I'm not going to be there for the marriage, I'm not going to be there for this. This. You start to think about everything you're going to miss, cloud your judgment and it makes you hesitate at that moment. You can't. You can't hesitate, especially when no one else does. And you paint that in your mind. Nobody else in here is thinking about being a full time dad or a full time husband right now. Nobody cares If I'm a 63% husband. Nobody cares. They need me to do this job at 100% because that's what this craft deserves. But it turns you into something you don't want to be. Long term, it's hard, man. But she was done. She was begging for me to hang it up because all of our friends are dying. And then all the guys that transition now, they started doing contracting jobs. They're getting killed. They're getting shot. We're picking up from the hospital. What else you want me to do? There's no retirement club. You want to work at Home Depot? What do you want me to do? I only know how to do this one thing and that was the plan. I was going to retire and start contracting with one of the government agencies and essentially do the same job I do now. Just make a little bit better money, a little bit better schedule. And one thing led to another and ended up not doing it.

B (132:55)

I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Roka. Roka makes eyeglasses and sunglasses that are of the absolute highest quality. I'm excited to share that Roka and I recently teamed up to create a new pair of red lens glasses. These red lens glasses are meant to be worn in the evening after the sun goes down. They filter out short wavelength light that comes from screens and from LED lights, which are the most common indoor lighting nowadays. I want to emphasize Roka red lens glasses are not traditional blue blockers. They do filter out blue light, but they filter out a lot more than just blue light. In fact, they filter out the full range of short wavelength light that suppresses the hormone melatonin. By the way, you want melatonin high in the evening and at night. Night makes it easy to fall and stay asleep and those short wavelengths trigger increases in cortisol. Increases in cortisol are great in the early part of the day, but you do not want increases in cortisol in the evening and at night. These Roka red lens glasses ensure normal, healthy increases in melatonin and that your cortisol levels stay low, which is again what you want in the evening and at night. In doing so, these Roka red lens glasses really help you calm down and improve your transition to sleep. Roko red lens glasses also look great. They have a ton of different frames to select from and you can wear them out to dinner or concerts and you can still see things. I don't recommend you wear them while driving just for safety purposes. But if you're out to dinner, you're at a concert, you're at a friend's house, or you're just at home, pop those Roka red lens glasses on and you'll really notice the difference in terms of your levels of calm and all the sleep stuff I mentioned earlier. So it really is possible to support your biology, be scientific about it, and remain social at the same time. If you like. If you'd like to try Roka, go to roka.com, that's r o k a dot com and enter the code huberman to save 20% off your first order. Again, that's roka.com and enter the code Huberman at checkout. I want to talk about ibogaine, dmt, mental health. But first I want to talk a little bit about posture. Recently I heard you talking about physical posture in the gym. Literally form and how upright one is with their stance or squat and how that translates to mental posture. And it was the first time I've ever heard anyone talk about translating the physical into the mental in this way. So if you don't mind, how do you think about mental posture and physical posture and how the two intersect?

A (135:19)

I think in that analogy, the metaphor I used physical posture. If you think if I stand feet shoulder width apart and I put a barbell on me, you slide on 45s, I'm strong. Two more 45s, I'm strong. You could load up 8, 900 pounds and I could sit there and hold it. Or if you put £315 on it, I can drop but the floor and I can squat it. If I hold it at 90 degrees and you add on a 45, it feels like a ton. You start adding on tens, everything starts to quiver. I use the same thing as my mental health health. If I wake up in the morning, I've set my morning routine and I'm firing on all eight cylinders. You can stack on everything on top. And because I'm in an optimal state, I can take it just like I'm in a full posture. Just keep giving it to me, keep giving it to me. If I wake up, my morning routine's not there. I start reading some hateful stuff in the morning. Don't have a good input with my wife. First thing, I'm stuck behind the school bus, late for my first meeting. Now you hand me a parking ticket. It feels like the world is collapsing on top of me and I can't. I can't do anything for it. So throughout the entire day, that's the whole purpose of the micro win kind of formula. Stack up as many wins to put yourself in optimal headspace because reality isn't going to know it's going to smack you either way. And if I keep myself blocking everything that's externally toxic to me, when something does get put on me that I have to wear, I'm in a good posture to put it on. That jacket might weigh 55 pounds. I put it on and I'm still strong because I been dropping off everything that I don't need to wear all day long. Yeah. I mean, but you'll see it. I mean, I know you see it. You analyze people all day long. When people are in a negative head space, their posture changes, their head drops, their shoulders roll forward, they're always looking at the ground. They're never up processing information. It's because they're dragging whatever just happened all day long. Now you add in one more thing. Your mom's got cancer. Oh. Your wife's gonna leave you. Oh. Your kids are. So everything just starts to weigh down and it feels. Feels like something you'll never get past. Insurmountable. It's at some point, and that's all because you start to let it slowly but surely chip away at you. It's like control the things you can control, and the things you can control, you either avoid them completely or you take them as. That's a reality you have to live through. Right now, I don't know why you have cancer, but you do, and you gotta get through it. Okay, well, what positive things do I have? Great relationship with my wife, Great relationship with my kids. Great relationship with my friends. My social circle has shrunk. Everyone around me is better than me, and they want me to be better. Okay. I can take on a whole lot if I don't have a tight circle. No relationship with my wife. Ostracize my kids, everything. Now you start to add on that external stress. It. It cripples me really, really fast. And I know I'm not the only one. So when I say it to everybody, whatever you have going on right now, whatever is absorbing all your bandwidth, it's us too. But you're choosing to wear that jacket all day. You're putting on another one and then another one. Then you add the external pressure of having to provide for a family and be, you know, that emotionally stable figure for the household. It's hard to do all day long, and a lot of people lose sight of it. And I think that's why so many people close their chapter early. They offer suicide because they think there's no way I can write the ship like it's go. It's gone too far right now, and I don't want to have to sit here and rebuild it. And they close the chapter out. It's like, if we could have eliminated all those things and given yourself a breath of fresh air, would you have done the same thing if I would have grabbed you right before the moment? Like, this isn't permanent. You can fix this right now. You Just have to change these aspects. They would in the moment, though. And I've been there. You don't have the clarity. You don't have the vision. And a guy told me a long time ago, he goes, I think a lot of people want to hit the reset button on the Nintendo. Cha ching. Restart. Restart the game. You're not restarting the game. It's over forever. And I hate seeing people do it. I think now, you know, after I've come out of the medicine, I've done a bunch of therapy and cut out a lot of toxicity out of my life. I've gotten that breath of fresh air, and I'm just. I told Marcus and Amber Capone when I came out of the treatment, I'm going to jump on the nearest building. I'm going to shout it from the rooftops. Like, this will help. There is a way out of this funk. It's just one step further than you've currently gone. There's light at the end of that tunnel. Just one step further. One step further and just continuously go, and it'll get better. But, yeah, for me, posture is a huge thing in combatives, it's a huge thing. In processing information, it's a huge thing. In dealing with stress, it's a huge thing. I can't let myself collapse because once you start adding another pound of me, it hits me to the floor really fast. So control the things you can control. And a lot of it is just your posture and your perspective.

B (140:01)

Great message. Would you agree that lying down in bed, on one's phone, on social media, is a very dangerous posture? Because I would argue that.

A (140:11)

And I also tell guys, if you are going to lay in a fetal position and tweet out how bad your mental health is, stop, go to a Starbucks, go to Whole Foods, walk around and see normal human interaction and tell a stranger you're suffering for mental health. They don't do it. You're just going to sit there in a fetal position feeling sorry for yourself and you think it'll get better tomorrow. It won't. I've already lived that life. I've already painted the picture for you. I've played you the movie. You've watched it. It's not going to work. You're going to have to get out of that bed and you're going to have to do something every single day that brings you out of that dark depression. And for me, it's physical movement. If you have the ability to move, move. Don't lay in that bed. Don't just sit There and scroll. You know, Vernon says it your diet's important. Not what you eat, but what you consume visually. Audio. The music you listen to. We all know there's some music you listen to that just changed you ever so slightly. Is that the person I need to be walking to the store? Do I need a Blare Megadeth right now? No, I need to play Ludovico. That's what I need. I need to walk into this room at a hundred percent full capacity and just receive whatever energy's in the room right now. It's hard to do if I'm in the depths of despair right now. So, yeah, I try to put myself in position where I have optimal posture all day.

B (141:25)

You mentioned Marcus and Amber Capone. Now's probably a good time for us to just reference who they are and the work that you guys have been doing. And. And anytime I sort of plug something or mention something, I want to be very clear. I don't have any formal affiliation to this upcoming Netflix show. Movie, is it what?

A (141:44)

Film?

B (141:45)

Film. Excuse me. To this upcoming Netflix film. But it's gonna be an incredible film. I know this cause I've seen bits of it. Maybe just mention who Marcus and Amber Capone are and what they've been doing and the film. I do think this is something everyone should see. I'm definitely going to see it. And I'll just say that I think their organization, Veteran Solutions, is one I've been paying attention to and trying to support in ways I can over the last. Gosh, it's been three, four years. And so maybe tell us about Marcus and Amber and the film.

A (142:18)

So Marcus joined the SEAL teams, right, pre 9 11, married Amber, had a baby right now in the SEAL teams, got stationed on the East coast immediately at SEAL Team 10. And you could watch him change throughout the years like everybody else. But because he's such a big, polarizing figure, he's hard to miss. I mean, he's probably 6, 5. He's a big guy, and he was extremely intimidating, but he always had a light in his eyes. He always seemed like a dude you wanted to be around. And after the conflicts and the multiple deployments, I mean, you'd see him out in town and his eyes got jet black. And he would be a guy that if you were walking on the street and you saw him come out and just the way he looked at you, you would cross the street and he became one of those guys. I gave you the analogy. Walk into the SPCA and you see that pit bull ears Been shaved off, there's scars all over his face. You're not going to put your hand in that cage. Marcus Capone was like that. He leads the SEAL teams, has a very rocky transition, gets a job in finance, moves around and you hear it through the rumor mill about how bad he's doing drinking, just not the person you wanted him to be and definitely not the transition you wanted for him. And then it got so bad, you know, suicide was definitely on the table, circling the drain, drinking way too much, just toxic in every way you can imagine. And Amber, being the angel that she is, started to research different solutions. He did mert meditation, yoga, talk therapy, drugs, did everything you could. And she found Ibogaine and 5 Meo DM10 and convinced him to go down there. And it was one of those things much like mine. You're going to go do this treatment and this is our last attempt and if this doesn't work, I'm leaving you. And for a team wife to throw in the towel after the career is over, that lets you know how bad it is because they have combated that entire thing. I mean, they were in the heart of nsw, in the heart of the gwad and buried more friends than you ever care to count. And after all of that, she's finally going to throw in the towel. That's how bad he's gotten. And, you know, you hear that he came back and you wouldn't even recognize him. Like, you won't believe what Marcus Capone looks like. And I hadn't seen him. But you got to understand, coming from the east coast, and I'm an idealist, I'm a true believer. And when you hear that Marcus left the east coast and went to the west coast and now he's doing yoga, meditation, in smoking, toad venom, you're like, west coast typical. I knew you'd turn him and then you see him, you're like, that's the best version of Marcus I've ever seen. And he's not a pacifist, he can still roll that dial all the way over, but he has full control over it. 20 years old, flicked a Navy Seal switch and just lived that life to the fullest. Never had a balance point, never needed one, never tried to adopt one. So during my whole transition, I'll say, when he got out, they sat dormant on that medication for a while because it was so out there. And you didn't want to shock the culture, you didn't want to shock the community. And it's taboo. I mean, doing psychedelics is Not a thing that Navy Seals do.

B (145:23)

Yeah. And ibogaine is a 22 hour psychedelic. It's very esoteric. Most people have heard of psilocybin or even LSD or MDMA and dmt. I mean, it's a. That this is as far out there as you possibly can go. I'm sure someone sitting there is like, no, there's some chemical made in, you know, but this, it's extreme.

A (145:42)

It is extreme. And just like the SEAL teams, you do everything to the extreme and that's where you be.

B (145:46)

That's the theme there. Yeah.

A (145:47)

And you know, I was going through a similar thing, but when they came out, one of his very good friends, Chad Wilkinson, committed suicide. And I think enough was enough. And that was one of his best friends and it crippled him. And when you see him get the news, you can watch that visual, my drama's cry. You can watch that loss affect him in a way that nobody else will understand. And he knew he was holding on to this secret like this saved my life. And if I would have given that to him, he'd still be here. And I know it. What am I going to do? I got to start a 501C3 and I got to start saving as many people as humanly possible. And selfishly, I'm going to save as many SEALs as humanly possible. And once he saved one, save two, three, four, five Army Rangers, green Berets, fighter pilots, they all just start pouring in here. It's the same trauma. It doesn't matter how you got it, you're at the brink of it, you're going to close this chapter out and this medicine is going to give you that breath. It's going to give you that relief to not do it. And they made this little infomercial that was on social media talking about psychedelics. And I had heard about it and I kind of whitewashed it. And my wife was at the same point, she was getting ready to leave me and take the two kids and I can't do this anymore. And we laid in bed one night and she watched it and she was crying and she leaned over and she made me watch it. And I started bawling because I could see the difference the last time I saw Marcus. And this Marcus is very, very different. And she looked over and she goes, if you love me, you'll go. I went, I'll go do psychedelics with my friends in Mexico. Sure. I never thought it would do anything because I had messed up so much until that point. All the pharmaceuticals, all the Mistakes I'd made, the infidelity, everything had led me up to that point. And I had that secret inside me. And I did not have the strength to tell her. I didn't want to break her heart about all the things I had messed up. And for me, if you think me going down to Mexico is going to save our marriage, I will 100% do it. But I never thought for a chance it would never. And I went down there with. With a bunch of guys that were legends inside of the community. And you know, Ambio, Trevor, Jose, Jonathan, Brianna, everybody, Ambio. Life scientists, they run the best facility I've ever been a part of in any facility. That medicine is so strong. And I think that's why guys get such relief. It's the only thing stronger than your ego, because you've turned yourself into this vessel you think represents the essence of what being a Navy SEAL is. You're hard, you're determined, you'll never lose. Like, you'll sacrifice everything right now if the group asks you to do it, but you won't do it for yourself. You'll never put your individual needs above the needs of the group. And this is one point where you have to. You have to go for the good of the group. I have to suck up my ego, got to suck up my pride, and I have to try to kill it right now. And we went down there and took that medicine. And I have a combative instructor. His name's Tom Kyer from SEOC Tactical Group. If you've watched the movie the Hunted with Denisio Del Toro, the knife fighting, that's what they do, and they are the best in the world. And Tom Kyre is a knowledge transfer specialist. He's changed my life in mindset more than anybody else on the planet. And he told me a quote the other day and references this kind of. And we were talking about experience. And he goes, if you understand, no explanation is needed. If you don't understand, no explanation is possible. And that came from Dave Joyce, another SEOc disciple. And it's the truest thing I've ever heard. Unless you've done ibogaine, unless you've done psychedelics in a therapeutic setting, you'll have no idea how powerful it is. And when I woke up that next day, everything I had ever done, negative, positive, erased. Everything negative. Every conversation, every bad deed, every time I've hurt anybody, every time I've made my wife cry, every time I've not been present was in the forefront of my mind. And I felt absolutely terrible. I Felt like a monster for everything I had done. Every time I had not been present, every time I had sacrificed them for this thing. I didn't want to go home. At the same token, it was the only time in my life I'd ever been homesick. I wanted to teleport and go home and wrap my arms around those three. But I was so embarrassed at everything that I had done. There's no way I can do it. I can't go home and break their heart. And you have the gray day after you do ibogaine. I mean, it feels like you got hit by a freight train just in your fields due to throwing up all day. Depending on how your experience is, the next day you do 5 Meo DMT. And that's the ego death, you know, comes the Sonoran Desert toad. They milk out the poison glands. They. And that's essentially what you're smoking. It's pretty intimidating. Looks like you're smoking Crock Rock. And that experience when you smoke that, it must be like either what, finding religion or what dying's like.

B (150:39)

Well, you almost died with the electrocution. And we had a very accomplished neuroscientist on the podcast, Christoph Koch, who talked about. He's been studying consciousness for a long time, and he talked about his experiences on 5 immo DMT. Total dissolution of self, total dissolution of space and time. But he described that his mind was still there, but nothing else was there. And again, if someone hasn't done it, I've never done it. But if someone hasn't done it, I'm guessing that no description will suffice. I've heard it from another team guy being described as being strapped to the shock wave of an atom bomb. I'm like, I've heard a bunch of different description sounds when you come out of that experience. However, how did that reframe the electrocution? The loss of. I mean, we could spend three days talking about every single guy that you know that's been killed and still probably only touch on a small number of them, sadly, you know. So how does all that get reframed coming out of an experience like that?

A (151:46)

That the biggest concern doing ibogaine was that you were going to be stuck inside of your own thoughts. Everybody you had lost, you were just going to relive it. You were going to be in the back of that helicopter. You were just going to have to relive that for 24 straight hours. And I will tell you that not a single person that I have ever done ibogaine with has ever had any military experience. It's always been your childhood and then a reflection of what you've done to your wife and kids. It gaps it. So I've done ibogaine four times. I have never had a singular military experience. Ever. Nothing. Childhood, childhood, big time childhood. And then in the actual medicine, it would allow me to relive past events with my father, with my mother. Hard conversations, blow ups, arguments, screams, things you had forgotten, things I had forgotten. Things that were never on my conscious mind and now I'm reliving them. And then it would shift and it would be me doing that exact same thing to my wife, to my kids. And then it'll put you in their position. So when I'm screaming, I'm projecting just this hate and this venom is shooting out of me. I can be that seven year old little girl and I can feel how frightened she is by what she's watching her father turn into.

B (152:58)

So real. Empathy.

A (153:00)

That is what it is. You become so empathetic to everyone and everything and it's the forefront of your mind. Like, I don't want to go home because now I know what I've done. I can't mask it anymore. There's no more compartmentalization. I've done all those things, I've said that terrible stuff and I'm never going to be able to re earn my seat at the table. And it's one of those weird predicaments where I want to go home but I don't because I don't want to face that I actually did and said that. It's like out of every good thing I've ever done, it all got erased on that moment. Moment. The only thing we're going to focus on is all the bad stuff you've ever done and said. So when we came into five meo, I did six rounds of five meo my first time down there. Every single one is the most painful thing you've ever been a part of. It feels. And Trevor says it beautifully. Down at Ambo, he said, whatever's going to happen, let it happen. If you think you're going to explode, explode. You think you're going to die, die. You think you're going to drown or blast off and the stratosphere do it. Don't try to control it. That medicine will take you exactly where you need to go. You just have to let it. And every time I would, I would start, I would scream and then I would cry and convulse, throw up and I'd wake up And I'd look around and he'd look at me again, hit him again. And I'd do it again, and I'd do it again. And it was the very last time I did five meo. You got to understand, I was super depressed and I was most certainly suicidal. I did not want to come home and face reality. And I took that last one. And right before I did, I can't remember if it was the nurse or. Because we used to have teen guys who would sit there and hold space for you not taking the medicine. Just, they were there to basically safeguard the house so you could just focus on you. Because it's hard to be put under, essentially, anesthesia in a foreign country. And you don't know what's going to happen to you. So just comfort in knowing there's team guys around you. And he was either the nurse or one of the team guys goes, you want to kill yourself, right? I said, yeah. And he goes, then do it. Do it with this right here. And I changed my intention for the medicine and I told myself it was this pink toxin, this purple toxin. I'm going to inhale it, I'm going to coat my entire body with this, and I'm going to kill myself right here so I don't have to go home. And that changed the entire experience for me. Everything shrunk down, jet black, and a single white pixel showed up, up, and it exploded. And it looked like it was Star Trek taking off all the tracers and everything. It felt like your sternum broke open and your soul left your body. And it was the true ego death. And it went from screaming thrashing to complete bliss and love and affection and empathy and compassion and everything. And I woke up and I looked him and I could not believe the way I instantly. I mean, the most sober you've ever been, you're not on any medication. Not cannabis, not an Adderall, nothing. You can't be on any medication when you go down there. So this is true sobriety at its finest. And when you wake up, it's exactly like the electrocution. Everything is more vibrant. The table edges are slick and clean. Like, I can feel the taste and the texture and I can feel the energy coming out of everybody. And it's like, I can tell her I can go home and I can confess everything right now because I understand that I have done more good than bad. And she's going to see it. She just has to see the new me. And we went home and, you know, everything kind of unfolded and all My past indiscretions came to life. And it was, it was the darkest moment for me because I didn't think she was going to take me back. And she ends up pulling my sunglasses off. She pulls them off and looks at me and essentially collapsed in my arms like I was back. I'd been gone for 15 years and now I'm home. Home. And the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And if I wouldn't have gone down to Mexico, there was no talk therapy, there was no meditation, there was no cold plunge. It was going to get me there. It was something stronger than me. And when you look back, I'd been building that physical vessel, this mental resilient vessel this entire time so nothing could break me. And I needed something stronger than that to break me. And the moment it did, my whole life changed. Everything changed. And I really became an advocate for the medicine because I'd been there. I've been sitting in my guest room with that pistol in my lap, staring around the ceiling, wondering where my brain matter is going to go and what my wife's going to see and how she's going to have to clean it up and resell the house and just all the things. I mean, that's where you're at and that's where a lot of guys are and they don't believe they can get a breath of fresh air. And that medicine will give it to you. It is not a cure all. You mean you have to go back and restructure your entire life and cut out the toxicity. And. And that was one of the most powerful things we did, is I came back from that medicine. I sit down the edge of that bed with my wife after we had gone through everything I had done and I went through my phone and we blocked and deleted about 150 people out of my life. Best thing I ever did. You're never coming back in here. I've been trying to foster and save that relationship the better part of a decade. I'm not doing it anymore. You're robbing bandwidth and you're robbing the little time I have left on this planet that I'm going to try to devote to my family. Family. Because I have to re earn this seat at the table every single day. And it gave me the ability to do that. And I came home, started preaching about the medicine. And then as I started to tell guys, you'd see guys who were interested and they were like, well, if it worked for him. Because I'm a true believer. I'm devout and they're like, if it worked for him, it'll work for me. But they're scared to go. So I was probably home maybe a month or two. I went right back down, and I essentially hosted one. I'm cooking breakfast for the boys. I'm cleaning snot off of them. I'm doing the whole thing, just trying to push them. And slowly but surely, you start saving guys, 10 guys at a time, over and over. And, you know, that's really all because of Marcus and Amber. If they would not have made that little infomercial airing out all their dirty laundry. And how open and transparent he was. Like, that is not the Navy SEAL way. That is not how you're supposed to do it. And when he did it, it was so empowering to me. I mean, I looked up to him. I mean, he was on his second deployment when I came in. And, you know, Marcus is larger than life to me. So when you see that openness, that transparent, I can do that. I can do that, too. And if I do that, some kid going through the exact same thing as me that's stuck on that island alone will see me and go, if he can do it, I can do it. You got to want to change, and you have to put steps in place to where you can live at full value. The morning routine, I don't break it because I know what happens if I don't have it. The worst I've ever been. I wasn't living that morning routine. I was still working out, but it was chaotic at best, right? Like, my range wasn't there, my combatives wasn't there. I slowly let it drift away to where I was a shell of myself. And once I got that breath of fresh air, I am never going back. I mean, I just came back on Saturday. I went back down again and took down a bunch of veterans, a bunch of civilians that were down there. And it's so interesting to see because you have fighter pilots that are down there. You have normal housewives that have drinking problems, toxic marriage, sexual abuse, all this different stuff, and everybody's ended up the exact same spot. We've tried everything. We tried the drugs, we tried the talk therapy, the cold plunges, the saunas, all that. And it's helping, but it's not getting us over the goal line. And when those people wake up the very next day, they are at total rock bottom. And when they come out of that 5 Meo DMT, their feet don't hit the ground for months. You are on cloud nine, and you cannot believe how good you feel. I just want the world to be able to experience that. It doesn't matter what trauma you have going on. It's not a Navy Seal medicine or a medicine for special operations. This is a medicine to save humanity. And if you were at the bottom of the barrel right now, they'll save you. I mean, I went on 60 pills a day. I'm not on anything, not a single pain Mad. I mean I've got more screws me than Home Depot and I feel like a million bucks. But you know, for me, my family deserved it. And if I have to go down there and go through all that trauma over a five day period to give them a better version of myself, I'll do it every single time. That juice is so worth the squeeze. But it's scary man. It is. Because you're afraid. And when I talk to guys, they're so afraid they're going to come out of it and be a pacifist. They're afraid they're going to lose the edge. And like, well, what if you did that medicine while you were in the teams, could you still do that job? 100%. I just wouldn't have drug him home with me. I could have done that job and empowered it off and I could have done my same routine now and I could have went home and been a full time husband or full time father. I could still compartmentalize it when I went to work and I could just focus on, on work because I'm running on dials and not switches. You can't just turn it on, shut it off. You can't. You gotta be able to back it off slowly. That's why I use that drive into work every day. I'm not thinking about my family. In three, two, one. All I'm thinking about is a lift because that's the only priority I have once a lift is done. What's the piece of content we're shooting? What's the training course we're doing? Who do I need to be when I walk through that threshold? And that medicine really gave me the ability to navigate gate between those spaces better than anything else I've ever found. And I'm so thankful for it. I know it sounds hokey and I am not that guy. You know yoga and you know crystal. I'm not that dude. And it's very fufu. A lot of it is. And a lot of people practicing that stuff, they push it so far out and left that you think that you ended up like one of the lost boys. Run around the rainforest with feathers hanging out of your hair. It's not like that. It's not like that at all. It's an amazing facility, it's an amazing program and I'm just so thankful that they had the ability to share that message. If they wouldn't have, we'd be in the exact same position. I think they've put in, I think three or 4,000 people through that medicine in the last, I think three years. They're absolutely saving people's lives.

B (162:45)

It's been remarkable to see the growth of veteran solutions. Again, I have no formal affiliation. It's just something that I observed and I really, really respect. And my colleague who's been a guest on this podcast, Dr. Nolan Williams, he's a triple board certified physician, he's my colleague at Stanford. And you know, a couple of reflections that I think perhaps are also important for people listening to hear because you said go down there, it's done in Mexico because it's still not legalized in the United States. It requires supervision. This is very different even than psilocybin, mdma, lsd. There's really no recreational use of these things that is reasonable or safe. So just, I'm not saying that just to protect myself. I'm saying that to protect people listening. That said, Nolan and I have talked a lot about this. He's the one scanning guys that go down there and come back. And I think it's fair to say that pretty much every positive shift, whether it's an improvement or a cure from a mental health issue, is brain plasticity. Something gets rewired and these are tools to enable brain plasticity. I think it's helpful perhaps for people to hear it that way because psychedelic sounds like tie dye sounds like kaleidoscope sounds like magic carpet sounds like the 60s sounds like people staring at the sun, burning their eyes out and then talking about how, how they've seen God. And everyone else needs to have the same experience. Summer love, dirty feet and all that. Okay. It is amazing to me that the veterans community and a bipartisan effort, I will say this is one of the few truly bipartisan efforts out there. Everything's so polarized. But former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who is self described knuckle dragging Republican, he said that. I'm not saying that about him. He says it every time. Has fully embraced ibogaine and what heart medicine it's sometimes called MDMA therapies as well. And it's been really working with people on the Democratic side of the aisle to try and get FDA approval for this stuff in the United States first for the treatment of veterans and other people with substance use and severe trauma issues first. And then it will be explored how this could wick out into the broader population. But I just think of them as incredibly powerful tools for brain plasticity. And then maybe that just kind of softens for people in their minds a little bit of what just how wild and crazy it is. I mean, the experiences are extreme. As you said, it's challenging to be in the ibogaine. I've heard that from everyone who's done it. I haven't yet done ibogaine. At some point I will, but I've certainly done therapeutic sessions with MDMA therapeutic and high dose psilocybin. And it can be terrifying and you need to be. Be someone there to help guide you through it at times. But I'm so happy that Marcus and Amber undertook this project that you joined up with that project and the Netflix movie. We'll provide a link to it if it's out. Otherwise, we'll just cue people to the fact that they should definitely watch this. It's extremely compelling and important story for people to hear. I can't help but mention just because I've had the great experience of, of. Of being able to interact with some people around this and the effort is so wholehearted and is so deeply rooted in trying to help people. And I think that's really important for people to hear too because anytime there's a business association with things, people start to color that. It's just. There's just so much pure intent in all of this. I also have gotten to know Sarah Wilkinson a little bit.

A (166:21)

She's amazing.

B (166:22)

She's amazing. Chad's. Chad's wife first through Veteran Solutions. And you know, she, she's an amazing woman. And you know, and, and I think it's been challenging to see all these guys that he was friends with get better. Right. And it's, it's so tragic that someone has to take their own life for, for things like this to eventually get stimulated. But the amount of good that Veteran Solutions is catalyzing is really spectacular. And so I'm glad we're taking some time to talk about it. And I think it's been discussed on other podcasts. I think this movement's just going to grow. I think it's broken through now and hopefully this will continue to help it break through.

A (166:58)

When the whole thing first started, John Shank and Bonnie Cohen reached out about doing the film in Ways and War and they actually kind of tricked me to be a part of it. They told me that Marcus and Amber were spearheading this project. So I was like, if Marcus and Amber and I'm in, I owe them anyway. They save me. I'm into it. That wasn't really the case. They spearheaded me. I'm on board. And then they convinced Marcus and Amber to join on board. Now it's essentially his whole story. Unfiltered, unbiased, my whole story. And then us going back for my buddy Matty, and how all our lives are entangled in teams and just all the trauma we all share and how we're all getting through it. But, you know, it kills addiction in one shot, which is crazy. People are addicted to heroin. Like, I dip Copenhagen for 17 years, never wanted to quit. And I woke up the very next morning from ibogaine, and I've never had a dip.

B (167:46)

So it's so wild.

A (167:47)

And I want to dip. Like I miss it. And as soon as I smell it, I can't do it. It's like I didn't drink coffee for six months. It's like I want to drink coffee and then I have no desire. My energy levels are through the roof. Like, everything is better. Like, I kind of just want to be normal again. It's like slow but surely introduce coffee and whatever else. But you have no addictions in. I was at the bottom of the barrel. I mean, I was taking extreme doses of gabapentin, tramadol, Toradol, everything else. And you know, tramadol is not habit forming. Yeah. Take it for 12 years and tell me it's not like it most certainly is. And to be able to whitewash all of that gone in one shot. I mean, the doctors. I was never getting off those meds. Never. Like, if you want to function in society, you have to take these medications for the rest of your life. And I was fine with it. I'm totally good. And then on the backside, you see that it doesn't matter if I was drinking a 12 pack a day or if I was just popping these 60 pills. I was under the influence of something all day, every day for 15 years. That's not how I want to be. It's not how I want to live my next 40 years. It's like, it's really put me in a position where I'm so hyper aware. Everything that I input and then everything that I output, it gives you complete control. I think some guys just need to. They need that breath of fresh air. They need that instant relief to go, okay, Okay, I can live with this now. And if you just keep living that positive lifestyle, it'll become your new norm. Right? But you have to really want to change. For me, I've never found anything that powerful in my life. And because a lot of guys are scared. They're scared about going down to Mexico and whatever it is. There's a 25 person staff in that house with you. Three paramedics, three RNs. They got cardiac C. They have everybody in there. The chefs in there are amazing. Michelin star quality, the food you eat. And there's indoor swimming pools. There's a Raiki lady in there that will crack your soul open in 15 seconds flat. I never thought Reiki was a thing until she puts her hands on you. Massage therapy, the breath work, I mean, it's a whole holistic approach. But because you've never just. You've never allowed yourself to be vulnerable in that position. And once you are, they just start to unravel you so fast. And that medicine's really the catalyst for the whole thing. And once you see what you can be like, I can be the same guy that I was now. I can just control him. I think that's what a lot of guys lose when they leave the teams. Like, well, I've built myself into this because of that. Well, I can't take that with me. So what do I do with this? My wife doesn't want this. I don't want this. My kids can't build a relationship with this. What am I supposed to do now? And that's when people make those rash decisions. They don't know where to go. And I think that's what's so powerful to medicine, is that's the only thing stronger than the ego you've built up, Purpose built. Is that medicine? Yeah. I've changed my life for sure. It's been great.

B (170:42)

Where my mind goes is, you know, people who aren't in the military these days are also really struggling. Also, I point out, and you know, the United States in particular, like, we're. We're at a pretty dark moment. It took me a while to actually, like, really internalize that. I was like, man, like, like it. Like last week, the Charlie Kirk thing, that same week, or just a few days before that woman getting killed on the light rail, you got conflicts all over the world. You've got a ton of domestic unrest. And people have come on this podcast and argued that in the last century there were a lot more deaths due to war and this kind of thing. Statistics are one thing. And they're important. But seeing people murdered in cold blood in either very deliberate or in what seemed like almost kind of random, like, okay, there was a person there, so he killed her. Or if it was someone else they might have killed, maybe not. Who knows what the motivation was, you know, and, and to think about how traumas like that, just the pain of the world can be lifted, it's hard to imagine it happening in mass. Right? It's hard. And yet I think we all deep down know that that has to happen. And I think an attention to what young people are exposed to and trying to save them is, is the best thing about our species, right? Protect our young, make them, put them into a world that's better than the way we found it. And at the same time, what you're describing is it sounds like the medicine, for lack of a better way to put it, that the society and this kind of global consciousness really needs. I've said before, and I'll say it again, I think if you look at humans across history, we've always had conflict. We've always created trauma for each other. We've not ever really been perfect, ever. We're not perfect. We're flawed. We're all flawed. I think that's, that's important to remember and that things will improve over time. Perhaps it's gonna be like a sawtooth up until the right kind of graph. But you wonder if there was going to be a massive shift in collective consciousness and people were going to really heal their trust traumas and really start to see other people differently. Now that's going to require some very powerful tools. And I just can't help but think there is no magic solution. People have to want to change and on and on. But the ibogaine sounds like a special tool, different than the other psychedelics because of the amount of attention and detail that's required to keep people safe while they do it. You need to, you know, heart monitoring. And it's a medical treatment in many ways. I think we should probably talk about it and frame it that way going forward. It's a medical treatment. The word psychedelic is a very loaded phrase. And it's one of the things that I worry about in terms of trying to get ibogaine and other treatments implemented more broadly in the same way that when, about 10 years ago, we would think about breath work. And I want to study respiration physiology in my lab calling it respiration physiology. You know, we have a clinical trial that we published on that. If we called it breath work, it's kind of wacky. You call it respiration physiology, which is also true. People are more willing to embrace it. So these to me, are neuroplasticity tools to help rewire one's brain for the better. And I am very hopeful that what you've done. I mean, again, thank you. It's like we always thank people for their service, but here, now you've got people that served who are now going into the this highly novel, at least for Americans, a treatment to help cure trauma and addiction. And you guys are first in. And Marcus and Amber are early and first in. And people will argue. These things have been around for a long time in native cultures and in jungles. And I will say, just like meditation, just like yoga, nidra, just like hydrotherapy, light therapy. It's exactly because it's been shrouded in complicated language that it isn't more broadly implemented. And I'm willing to say that a thousand times over. If we truly care about people, we don't care what it's called. Sure, we want to pay respect to people that developed these things long ago, but enough is enough. It's not about getting credit. It's about getting it out there.

A (175:05)

You're exactly right. When you say psychedelics, everybody automatically labels it a certain way. And one of the best quotes I've ever heard is, we gave. We gave ibogaine to my buddy Matty, and he woke up the next day and he goes, there is nothing recreational about that. Nope. There isn't.

B (175:23)

Terrifying.

A (175:23)

It can be. Some people wake up and it's bliss the entire time. And I'm so glad you have that. But if you were laying in Stanford right now and you gave me ibogaine, hooked up the heart rate monitors, you were running the study, they wouldn't bat an eye. Like, oh, yeah, it's the same thing. You have the same people around you. They're taking detailed notes. Everything you say. I mean, this. You might as well be at a clinic. You are. It's in a beautiful house, beautiful staff, and the entire thing. But that's what it is. This is a treatment. This is not a bunch of guys eating, smoking, doing whatever peyote in the middle of the desert. It's not what that is. This is a very structured thing because you have some serious trauma. I think a lot of people label it like, oh, this is for guys with ptsd. I didn't go down there for ptsd. I went down there for whatever had I've turned into. I was trying to get rid of that, and I'LL tell you before, nothing in my military career has ever come up. None of it. That's not what haunts me. It's not what plagues me at night. It's not what keeps me up till 2, 3 in the morning. That's not that. And I've resolved all the things that was troubling me. And it's because that medicine's so powerful. I just hope more people will get a hold of it. I think if we had the right people putting out the right message on the right platforms, people, they get a hold of it. So many people want to hear hate speech. Like, negativity goes a lot more than positivity a lot of times, because people hang on to that. It's like I read something. They were talking about the best public speakers in human history, and Hitler was in the top five. And they're like, well, just imagine if he was preaching Positivity City. He could have turned that entire country and really given them something to hang on to. He just didn't. And you wish that he would have been preaching the gospel. You wish you would have been preaching love and kindness for all of humanity. And then what would have happened in World War II wouldn't happen.

B (177:13)

Yeah, humans have an appetite for. For. For that anger. There's a famous experiment by a guy named Robert Heath. He was a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon and very controversial guy for all sorts of reasons. But he ran an experiment on humans where he was in the brain stimulating different brain areas, and he would implant little electrodes in humans, and people had the opportunity then later to stimulate different brain areas. And different brain areas, when stimulated, evoke different subjective experiences. So they'd hit a lever, they'd feel kind of drunk. Hit another lever, they'd feel sexual arousal. Hit another lever, they'd feel laughter. Others, they'd feel less. Well, do you know the number one brain area? There weren't many subjects in this. It's a difficult experiment to do. But the number one brain area that these subjects all wanted to hit again and again and again was an area of the. What's called the midline thalamus that evokes feelings of mild anger and frustration. It's linked to the dopamine system, and it's associated with drive. And it's what we learn if we're adaptive, to funnel into creating things, building things, doing things. But it's very clear that we are hardwired to be pulled into environments and discourses that evoke anger. I feel like anger and numbing out are the two most dangerous things. And look, I love social media, teach on social media, but being online makes it very easy to feel anger and to numb out. And it's the ultimate drug really to offer that, in my opinion. And then there's this other lane of life, right, which is harder to access, where the real richness is, where the real stuff is, where real meaning comes from, where time doesn't just disappear and where you build things that are lasting and that, that if I die in 10 seconds, I'll know that I'd spent some time in that lane enough to know that that's where the really good stuff is. And it's a bit more difficult or a lot more difficult to access, but that's real life. And the rest is a game that's being played on us that takes advantage of some hard wiring that I wish didn't exist, but it exists in all of us. I think if we knew that that existed in all of us, just like with have an appetite for sugar, you know, it's hardwired that we would make better choices. So I'm so glad that you've done ibogaine and DMT in that setting and that you guys are getting the message out there. And I don't know what the broader implementation looks like, but I like to think that with collaboration with Nolan, what's happening, Veteran Solutions, Ambio and other clinics like it. And really good for once, really good politicians on both sides of the aisle arguing for this. I'm hopeful I fully support my tax dollars going to the expansion of this. I really do.

A (180:12)

They've been spending a lot of time in the beltway getting funding, clinical trials, research, doing the entire thing. And they've got a whole coalition now. Navy SEAL foundation stepped up, Green Bray Foundation, I think might be the Recon foundation and Wounded Warrior Project lk, same coalition. They're all going to get behind this and all kind of push the exact same message. Let's get the funding, let's get the research, let's prove that it works and hopefully bring it to the U.S. like, we have to start with the veterans because smaller population, less than 1% of the population, let's target them, let's get first responders and let's open this thing up. And you know, Marcus is doing a lot to really beat that war drum and I'm just so thankful. One of the things he said, we went down there because you don't realize how, how palpable toxicity is like you want to be hateful sometimes. And they're like hurt people, hurt people. You've been hurt and now you want someone else to feel that exact same thing. So when you see something hateful on social media, what's the first thing you do? You go to the comment section you read. Yep, I feel that, too. I like that comment. I'm a comment underneath it. Yep, yep. You just start to project that hate over and over and over again. If I say, look at it, I'm not going to get involved in that, actually. I'm just going to unfollow this person. Because every time I see you're saying something hateful, slow but sure, it's getting out. That toxicity allows the best form of you to continue to go forward. But, yeah, I mean, you have to. You got to protect your peace. You got to surround yourself with positive people that are better than you that want to try to drag you up that hill. And thank God for people like that, because, man, I mean, if you haven't been there, if you have not been that only guy on the island alone, just. I often say it, I was the first guy in the SEAL teams to suffer depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation because I'd never heard of it before, Right. So I'm in my living room, just, my wife's not there, and we talk about dogs. One of the number one reasons I never did it was when I would get to the point where I had made up my mind, that dog would walk in that room and drop his head on my lap and look at me. It's like, oh, not today. I get up and I go on a walk with the dog.

B (182:15)

Is your Japanese mastiff?

A (182:16)

Yeah.

B (182:17)

Amazing breed, folks. I just learned about it today. I absolutely want one of these. What is the proper name?

A (182:21)

Tosa Inu.

B (182:23)

They are beautiful beasts.

A (182:24)

They're amazing. Yeah. So my wife's first husband, Danny, they had a Japanese mastiff and an old English bulldog. So when he passed, I met Patsy three years later. Those are the dogs I inherited. And you couldn't pick a better dog. And it was the most beautiful dog I've ever seen in my. Like a Bengal tiger, 200 pounds, but a gentle giant. But one of those things, when you walk in the house and that thing sees you, your heart just goes to 180. You're like, I'm so happy to be home and see this dog right now. It pulls you out of a depression. I mean, therapy dogs are a real thing. And, you know, shout out to the Red Cross. I. I didn't know what the Red Cross did in, you know, 2020, like what do you do? They bring in dogs in hospital beds. What they do for sure, sure. They did it for me. And there's nothing like laying in a hospital bed. You've been throwing up for a week and you're just, you don't have your cell phone, you can't call your wife and they bring in some giant Saint Bernard that jumps into bed with you and it is heaven on earth. It is. It's like that little bit gets you through the hump. What do you bring me? Tomorrow we get some cocker spaniels. Like bring him in here. I don't care what it is now it's like I just need, I need a dog. I need something that makes me feel better.

B (183:30)

And yeah, dogs are amazing. They are an old English bulldog, just like Costello. I mean that's, that's, those are my people, my, my creatures. I just might get a Japanese mastiff. I'd like to talk about your standards. I've heard you say worst situation is being a big fish in a small pond. Not many people say that. Let's talk about standards first, starting with physical standards. And let's actually get back to the program. Just briefly. You mentioned the five day a week program a while ago I saw you put out. It's a fit test basically that's designed to be done anytime, no preparation. After you've done it's GBRS is your program. I'm going to sign up for this. This is not a promotional. I'm just going to do it. I'm going to pay full price. I'm going to insist on paying full price like everyone else and doing this because I turned 50 in about a week and I want, want to stay fit going forward. And let me see if I got this right. It involves a broad jump, some pull ups, some push ups. Would you walk us through what the test is and what the program actually provides? Because I know a lot of people listening are already exercising and are attached to their program.

A (184:43)

Right.

B (184:43)

Guys are like, they want more lower bicep, rear delt stuff. But this is different. This is about all around functional fitness at any age, men or women. So what's the program?

A (184:56)

So we started that program. It's like a recovery from injury, right? I'm just trying to maintain a high standard. I've had a high standard physically since I was 17. Right. I've gotten better. I've had really, really high points, low points coming back from injury. But I wanted something to be able to maintain a high standard. And when we got out. You start working with SWAT teams, SEAL teams, every team, every in between, firemen and everybody else. And it's such a physical component that cannot be ignored. But so many people in the 80s, 90s, even the early 2000s, like good is good enough. Like, have you ever seen a show, Rescue Me? Dennis Leary and a bunch of guys, a bunch of firemen in New York and they had the fat firemen, big handlebar mustaches, you had the young guys and you see all this stuff. And now if you look at the majority of firemen and they look like professional, they look like crossfitters, like they're in shape because they understand we've got so much data on human potential and how to get there. Nutrition, sleep recovery training protocols. And they realize that you are your first lifeline. Your physical vessel is the thing you can get in the airport through tsa. I can get in the White House. I don't need to bring any tools with me. This is a really, really good tool and it's always with me if I keep it at a high level level. So we're going through here and you know, the majority of the military screen test and SWAT teams, it's all body weight push ups, pull ups, running concealed teams and special operations swim test and that's about it. You'll do O courses and some other stuff, but the majority of it, that's just what it is. Well, it's not reality. You don't walk around, there's no way in. You don't walk in in a pair of board shorts and weigh in. You're wearing body armor, helmets, you know, pano night vision. It's a lot of heavy stuff you have to carry. So you're always under an extreme load. But the physical standard was so high as a tier one level, I mean the, the entire forces, but you have to maintain such a high level because everybody else is around you. So when I'm looking at all these guys, SWAT team guys. If you had a physical standard, every SWAT team in a country held if the lowest dude on the team could pass this test. The top guys are at the super elite level. You're so well rounded, you can solve anything physically. And that's one of the big things in the military. You never want to have to say no. Can you 25 guys get up over this mountain and assault that target by 04 in the morning? If, if it can be done physically, we can do it no matter what. We'll find a way. Move heaven and earth, we'll get it done. It's really, really hard to make a good decision on the backside when you are so physically taxed. Next. Because no decision you're ever going to make is without being under extreme duress. If we elevate the physical standard, we can make better mental. I mean we can, we can make better decisions through mental clarity when we're not just sucking wind.

B (187:41)

Also true. Very much so. In civilian life, right.

A (187:44)

Everywhere. Like EMTs, mean business, entrepreneurship school, teachers, everybody. Right. If you're not physically labored, you can make better decisions. So that's the whole goal. I don't care if you're a 45 year old fireman that has an extra 35 pounds of weight on you or if you're a 19 year old kid who's in their prime. If you have to run up 10 flights of stairs carrying that hose, when you get to the top, execute a good decision. The guy whose heart rate isn't at 180 is going to make a better decision. They just are and we all know it. So let's set a standard that, you know, I don't care if it's Wednesday, if it's 2 o' clock in the morning on a Saturday, if you spring out of bed and take this test, you should be able to pass it it no matter what. Now what level are we trying to adhere? As high as humanly possible. If I hit the elite standard right now, in three weeks, I should hit the elite again if I start to taper off. Why? Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, you know, just really crazy op tempo. I'm in the red the whole time. Okay. Maybe I need to take a couple days off, get back on my training plan to maintain that high level. But we do a broad jump, so power output on the floor in a dynamic fashion. Landing proprioception.

B (188:48)

So just have people stand on a line, jump as far forward as they possibly can. And this, the, the lowest standard is your height, your height. Right.

A (188:57)

So if I'm six foot tall, I should be able to broad jump past six foot.

B (189:01)

What's the next level up from that?

A (189:02)

One foot.

B (189:04)

One foot past your height.

A (189:05)

Yep. So seven feet would be, you know, middle of the road. Okay. I can jump eight feet. That's really the standard. Like for me I'm trying to get to a 10 foot foot broad jump. Like I want to hit 10ft and I want to hold that as long as humanly possible.

B (189:17)

And you can swing your arms, no running start, but you just swing your.

A (189:20)

Arms forward, jump, swing your arms, jump feet low to the ground. Dynamic fashion. And I always tell the guys, in reality, you are not going to have time to negotiate the obstacle. You are not going to be able to run up to that ditch and stop and look at and go, okay, I need to get, I need to back it up a little bit. You're going to have to go. It's a cost chasing this kid down the city park. You're gonna have to scale that eight foot fence right now. Not look for a step stool, not, oh, what can I climb on to get over this? You're gonna have to hit that thing at full value and go up and over it. You should have the physical ability to do that. So we have a broad jump and a lot of people. Vernon has a really good thing about monkey bars. Like everybody was swinging on monkey bars. When you're a kid in a certain point in adulthood, you stop doing it. But you'll look at your kid, nine years old, swinging a monkey bar. She's like, oh, you're doing it wrong. Do it this way. I'll jump up there and show him. If you haven't been on monkey bars in 40 years, expect to be humbled really, really fast. It's like use it or lose it. It's going to happen. So we're always trying to test ourselves, like what is going to make me a dynamic participant throughout the whole process. Broad jump's a really good expression. We have that in the seal teams. We had a legacy test. It was a body weight bench press NFL. It's 225 bench press. It's not fair for me to give 225 to a kid that weighs 160 pounds.

B (190:38)

So 140 pound woman or 50 pound one. Yeah.

A (190:40)

Your body weight though. And we go minimum standard 10 repetitions.

B (190:43)

10 repetitions single set with your body weight.

A (190:46)

That's minimum standard 15. Next level up, 20 plus is elite. If you can bench press your body weight 20 times, you are in top tier.

B (190:54)

This is full range of movement. Bar touches your chest, you pressure that all the way to straight arm all the way.

A (190:59)

20 reps on that pull ups with no weight. And we do that because so many guys have so many injuries, so many shoulder injuries. And if your technique isn't there and you're dropping out of the hole, I don't want you to dislocate and jam up a shoulder. So pull ups are in there. We have a farmer's carry.

B (191:15)

How many pull ups are the 10?

A (191:16)

15 and 20 plus.

B (191:18)

So 10 with your body weight, 15 is the next level up. And then 20, 20 plus is elite.

A (191:22)

Okay. And in a perfect word, we do it with weight. In the seal teams, we add weight to it. But for everybody, if you can do 20 straight dead hang pull ups, you're at the top. Physical game, just lesson no Kip.

B (191:33)

Chin clears the bar.

A (191:34)

Chin clears the bar. Okay. We do a farmer's carry. So with your body weight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, you have 100 pound dumbbell in each hand. You get up and you walk it as far as you can. I'd have to look at the exact feet measurement, but I think the elite is almost 300ft. 275 and 250 somewhere around there. And it's not an easy thing to do. But we work so much grip for the pull ups and everything else. Like grip matters. We say that a lot. It's very hard to climb up a caving ladder on the side of a cruise ship when it's underway. Your grip's the only thing that's going to get you there. So we really put a lot of focus on gripping. Firemen need it, cops need it. If I'm trying to, if I'm trying to manipulate a full grown man through time and space against their will, your grip is a key factor, man. You ask anybody who grapples. When somebody who grapples and you know how to use it grabs a hold of you, you instantly know you're in a world of hurt. You grab some NCAA wrestling, he grabs a hold of you, the first thing you feel is his hands. Oh no, I'm scratching hold of a grizzly bear right now. This is not going to be good. We need everybody to have that same strength.

B (192:35)

Also, someone's got to open the pickle jar.

A (192:37)

Exactly. Got to be able to open the pickle jar. But when you pick up that weight, everything's in, your core's in there. Your posture really matters. Upright. I've got to be able to control my breathing, ocular focus, where am I looking? And then how long can I hold on to this? I've got to keep a rigid frame. I can't lean over and let it take control of me. I can't lean back. I've got to be present throughout the entire movement and then just push. So we've got that, we've got a trap bar deadlift. We use the trap bar because the majority of guys in that career, they've already got some injuries stacked up and we actually put 45 pound buckets, bumper plates to pull from a little bit of an elevation because I've got a really long torso. And the big thing we push in that program is we want you to be able to train 52 weeks out of the year. There is no off season for a fireman. There's no off season for a SWAT team guy. There's no off season for an army Ranger. And if you get jammed up in the gym and I've done it really bad, the mission doesn't care. You have to go anyway. And now you're not at 100% and the entire patrol in, you're thinking about your lower back. And if you're going to be able to be be able to perform on target, we can't have that. We're trying to increase your confidence, never decrease it. So that's why we pull from that. That is one and a half times your body weight is a minimum standard.

B (193:45)

For how many repetitions?

A (193:46)

Five.

B (193:47)

One and a half times your body weight. Okay.

A (193:49)

And then two times your body weight. I think it's two and a half times your body weight is the elite. For a set of five, you know, you can obviously do more. I think I did a set of 12 in that video. But it's just, can I pick up double body weight under control without slamming on the ground proper form in control the entire time. So we add in all those. So the broad jump, the farmers carry, the body weight bench, the pull ups, the trap bar deadlift, and we have an 800 meter run. We also have a plank for time. So a minute and a half, two minutes. No, it's two minutes, two and a half minutes and three minutes. Just in a flight planking, however you want to hold it. And we were going to do sit ups originally, but sit ups is such a hip flexor, dominant position because I have that long torso, if I don't anchor my feet. 50 sit ups is really, really hard for me. And how do you gauge it? Are your hands interlocked behind your back? There's a whole bunch of different ways to cheat it. It's very hard to cheat a plank, but your core is so important and that's something that Vernon got me doing. I had a lot of lower back injuries, as we all do. I started walking around with my core at like 40 to 50% flexed all day, every day, day. My lower back issues went away instantly. So I walk around with a little bit of tension all day long. Just imagine walking around the pool with your shirt off, a little bit of tension in your abs. And it protects my lower back. So we always say be an active participant throughout the entire movement. I'm never going to let my core go to jello because of my lower back will spasm. Everything is locked in, everything's in control. My intensity is there, my focus is there and I've blocked out all the stray voltage. So we get through that and then we do an 800 meter run. I wanted to do 400 meter repeats. Do a 400 stop as long as it took you to run. Execute another one in the same amount of time. Well, the SWAT team, they have an 800 meter run. We're like, well, since you already do it, I don't need a guy that can run a marathon. I need a guy that can throw a 200 pound guy over his shoulders, run him up 10 flights of stairs and make a good decision. So being a marathon runner, while it might be great for you, it doesn't really give me everything I need. I really need that hybrid athlete and that 800 meter. I didn't realize and I talked to everybody who's a distance runner. The 800 is brutal. It's too fast to fully sprint and you can't slow down because that time metric I think is 3:15, 3 minutes and 2:45 to be the elite. So I think I'm in like the 240 range right now. But I haven't ran it since I snapped my hip. Other than sprints, I don't distance run because it hurts my hips too bad. But I'm able to get through it. I've got a laundry list of injuries. And we did that entire test cold bore. We basically wrote it down and the whole thing. When I sit down with Vernon, I was like, I need something to drive to. I do better when there's a target goal on the wall. Like two years ago was a 400 pound bench press. I have never been able to bench press £400. I've missed it every time. My shoulders were all blown out and I was like, with all the injuries, I want to press £400 one time before I hang it up for a few. We trained the entire year, hit 407, re racked it. Now what I need to hold a high standard. What is it? Well, if I was on a SEAL team or a SWAT team and every dude could pass that test, we have a physical dynasty because not everyone can. But it gives you something. You look at me, it's like I've got a laundry list injuries, dude, I'm on the wrong side of 40 right now. I've never taken my foot off the gas and neither should you? You're 22 years old. You should be running circles around me. And if you're not, just because you don't care enough, like, no one has slapped you. And that's the whole concept of be a pro. Everything I'm doing is putting me in position to be the best version of myself because the team deserves it. Everything I do, everything I say, everything I represent should be putting the group in a better position. And for us, because it's such a dangerous job, your physical readiness, it can't be ignored. That is the one thing that everyone should be able to count on. On. And they should look at you. Well, I know John cares. Look at him. Like, he didn't wake up like that. That dude is in the gym five days a week because he wants to be the best fireman he can possibly be. And that's what we push out. And the standard has been great. A lot of guys get super humbled by him. And, you know, some guys lie because I see their numbers, like, there's no way you did that. But it keeps them honest.

B (197:52)

Yeah. And it's tough. I mean, I looked at those numbers. I mean, I think most people who've been training regularly will find that maybe two or three of the things come naturally to them. And others are difficult because everyone's got different. Like I have a really short torso, long arm. So certain things are easier, certain things are harder. Like, I think that's what I really like about it. It's spread out across the table so that no one person can dominate just by virtue of some, you know, previous sport history or natural proclivity based on body shape or something. How often do you. When are you having people self test on this?

A (198:25)

We tell the guys whenever they're ready. We did a 12 week block on it. I've been traveling a lot, so haven't really been able to retest. We're coming up on it maybe the next two weeks or so. Gonna retest just to see where it's at. But that was the interesting thing is I called back to the command dart strength conditioning coaches and I pulled out all my scores from a test that's very, very similar. Body weight, bench, max, pull ups, did the whole thing. My numbers, now, 15 years later, some are better than they were when I was in my 20s.

B (198:52)

Awesome.

A (198:53)

And it's like, I'm not training for that. This is just the program. It keeps me at a super high level. And we had, we had a doctor from Duke University come down and do some CQB testing on me. And we had to test VO2 max. I haven't trained for VO2 max in 20 years. And my VO2 max is still on top.0001% of the earth. All elite athletes. I don't train VO2 max and I. My breathing is so inefficient. And that's what he laughed about. You're ultrasounding my diaphragm. And he's like, your breathing's terrible. But it translates to where your VO2 Max is awesome. He's like, you can live forever. That's how we determine how long you're going to lift War's VO2 max. And your VO2 max is through the roof. I don't train it. If you just do the program, maintain it consistently, it'll give you such a well rounded approach to everything. And, you know, that's a big thing. It's. I don't want to have to say no. Hey, can you pick that up? Yeah. Can you jump over that? Yeah. Can you move that out of the way? Yep. Can you move him through time and space? Yep.

B (199:52)

Also because you have kids and they, you know.

A (199:54)

Yeah.

B (199:54)

Swimming, playing, running around, and also setting a high standard within family. You know, I think there are always two sides to the fitness, nutrition, conversation. One is. I'll just say it that, you know, I feel like the standards in the United States have drifted so far in terms of what we consider healthy, what we're willing to accept. My dad, who is not. He's a first generation immigrant here, I'll never forget in the. It was like in the mid-90s or something, he said to me, he said, you know, today I would. He was talking about himself. He said, I went to the movies and I. And I saw people in pajamas. I was like, what do you mean? He's like, people go to the movies now like as if they just woke up up in their slippers and pajamas. And I said, yeah. And he said, this is the beginning of the end. He said, because when that slips, then pretty soon it's like, are you willing to tolerate things on the street? You know, then people aren't weeding their lawns. And then pretty soon it just breeds this. This general disinterest in taking care of. Of things. And then, you know, I can't link it directly to people going to the movies in their pajamas, but. And everyone likes to be comfortable. So I don't think he was saying everyone should avoid wearing sweatpants. But I think what he was saying is, you know, etiquette and self care and self Respect is projected outward. So that's one side of it. Right. We have a 30, 35% of the United States is obese. Not just overweight, but obese. On the other side is the opportunity. Right. So it's always good to think about the opportunity. And the program that you're offering clearly is great for first responders and people with high intensity, high demand and work. But the reason I'm interested in it is because I want to be fit for the next 50 years. And so I'm going to try it because I want to train to be able to do these things when I'm 70 or 80 or 90, I figure if I get out that far, it's kind of like, how could I possibly do it then? Well, by doing it every day until then. Right? That's, you know, it's obvious. The solution's obvious. So is this a program that women mentioned could do and is the, and the training doesn't just center around these, these, these movements. It centers around the five day a week program. And my understanding is there's tutorial in there. Like, you get some, you get some support. Because I think this is really what's missing from most online programs because anyone can go to YouTube or look online, go. You know, what's the. We even have a foundational fitness protocol is what I've been, you know, doing for the last 30 something years. And I'm, you know, starting to modify that now based on GBRs and this fit test. But it's a whole other thing to have support and have people working with you because this is about not being the only fish in the pond.

A (202:33)

One of the things that program does better than anything else I've ever seen is there's probably 800 to a thousand movement tutorials that are either guided by me, with Vernon doing all the coaching cues. Big toe down, feel this, roll this hip over. You'll feel this. He navigates it so well verbally and physically. You can, you can watch him, he'll manipulate me, demonstrating exactly what you'll feel and touch. Then the message board on the backside. So when you finish the workout, everybody else who's done that workout, all, you know, thousands of people, they comment on how they're feeling and he'll read that and he's like, hey, guys, looks like everybody's getting a little fatigued after the last couple weeks. After this, you know, this power block we just did, hey, we're going to taper off for the next five days. We're going to regroup. And following Monday, we're going to push and this is what we're going to do. So he'll sprinkle in more running. You know, when summertime comes around, we'll start to add a little bit more. But we add in 20 minute walks every day, so everybody gets them. Right after you leave, I steal a bunch of stuff from you. I'm like, can of sunglasses, let's get some vitamin D, straighten our eyes first thing in the morning, set circadian rhythm. I do the same thing at night. It's like they've all been saying the same thing, man. Like if you just make it part of your routine and Schwarzenegger says it too, like, hey, did you work out yesterday? Huh? I'm gonna work out tomorrow. And the next day I brush my teeth twice a day too. I'm going to continue doing it. It's part of my routine and I'm not going to miss it. I've been doing this and I haven't missed a session for six years and I am not going to miss one tomorrow. Why would I? You're seeing what it's doing for me. I mean, I've got a laundry list of injuries and I'm silly to perform at a super high level because I'm not taking my foot off the gas. There's nothing magical about me. I'm the most normal dude you'll ever meet. But I mean, we have 65, 70 year olds on that program and if you can't do one, if you have a limitation, so do we. You can do a drop down menu and there'll be 40 different exercises to pick from. So if I go to a hotel gym, I don't have it. Very first thing I do, I walk down, I scan the whole thing. I sent it to Vernon, he's like, ooh, only dumbbells to 50, huh? I was like, yeah. And he'll send me a workout or I'll just drop down the menu like, okay, well, because today's my leg day, I'm actually gonna do Friday's workout and I'll shift Thursday because I'll be home. My home gym am. I'll do Thursday's workout on Friday.

B (204:41)

It's flexible.

A (204:41)

Oh, it's flexible, yeah.

B (204:42)

It's so important. I mean, I think really, I mean, standards are what we all need for ourselves and standards are what, honestly, I think this country needs. And it's tricky because within this new administration, the whole notion of Maha quickly got kind of stained by the politicizing of like, the motives and all that. Like it in the end. People need to eat better, train better, and there are real medical issues out there people are contending with. But just imagine if people actually started to take their physical body seriously. This is something I really want to. I'm going to say it again later, but I want to say it now very clearly. One thing that I think is so absolutely clear from everything you said about your backstory, where you're at now, the ibogaine work, your care for first responders, your care for your teammates, your family, is that you take yourself seriously. So for you, it's a. Yeah, I think most people take their feelings seriously. They take their responses to what's going on in their life seriously. You know, at the center of our consciousness, a previous guest said, you know, is our ego, the us, the me that we're all like that to some extent. But taking oneself seriously as a form of self respect and building up one's ability to support others and to do important things for other people in our life, our family, and for the world is so key. And I feel like taking oneself seriously is the cornerstone of everything I've heard you say today. And everything you're doing that, it's not taking a feeling in a moment seriously. In fact, sometimes it's about doing that and sometimes it's about going, no, I'm gonna push that aside now. I'm gonna brush my teeth, I'm gonna lean into that. I'm gonna not do what I prefer to do in the moment so that I can really show up, but that we need to take ourselves seriously.

A (206:43)

You do, you have to. And I have this big thing I do. I begin to ask, do a lot of motivational speaking lately and a lot of that. And I tell this story about a kid that grows up, want to be a fireman, and how he got inspired by a fireman. Because that guy was a physical representation of what that kid thought a fireman would be. Looked apart, act apart. He's heroic. You might as well put a red cape on this kid and send him through the door. I mean, that's what it is. But that's you representing everything you think a fireman should be. Not just what you say, what you wear, how you speak, do everything. So for me, anybody who I meet, I'm giving you both barrels right now because I am trying to, to live the actual life that I think I should be living. That translates all the positive stuff I'm trying to put out. If you saw me and I was 50 pounds overweight at a bar, drinking my 12th beer talking about mental health, you wouldn't take me serious.

B (207:38)

Talking about how you were a Navy.

A (207:39)

SEAL back when that does nothing for them. Yeah, it's like, that's not how I identify. Yeah, I did that job and yeah, you think that gives me credibility? I don't care about that a bit. That doesn't give me credibility. The way I live my life now, my daily routine gives me the credibility. Because no matter who you are, you can adopt that same lifestyle, that same routine. You can grab it as a housewife. You can wake up early and go out and do a 20 minute walk every single morning before your kids wake up. You're just refusing to do it. I don't know why, but I promise you, if every single person ever watches this, you wake up and do a 20 minute walk in the morning, in one after dinner, and you do it for seven days. On the eighth day, the world doesn't fall apart. It only gets better the more you do it, it just will. People just don't want to put in the work. They want this quick fix, they want oic, they want this.

B (208:21)

Or they're saying, and I hear this, and it's trickier for me because I'm late to the game on kids and family. But mark my words, but in your case, you've already had kids, you got a wife, you have a functioning family and a very busy, demanding career and a previous career that carries with it incredible experiences, but also challenges that you're resolving now and you've resolved and you have a mission in the world. And so a lot of times I'll hear people say, well, that's easy for you to say because you don't have kids. And I'm kind of muted at that moment. And I want to respond and say, listen, when I was a graduate student, I worked 100 hours a week, but I was in my 20s and I didn't have kids. So I have very little ammunition there. In your case, however, you have kids and you're getting up and you're doing two 20 minute walks and you're including your family in these practices too. You said your evening walks with your wife are a crucial part of your connection.

A (209:21)

If anyone is struggling with building that bridge, especially guys transition out of the military or career, you watch it with Tom Brady and everybody else, when they leave the thing they were put on this earth to do, there is a fall from grace that can't be ignored. And most of the time that that splits with the wife. Right? Like the person you are now, she's not Used to being home and now you don't have anything. If you were struggling to rebuild that connection with your wife, with your partner. That 20 minute walk has saved my marriage. I have given it to thousands of people. That right there, if I could give everybody a gift. The power of that 20 minute walk, it's changed my whole life, man. That is the one constant thing I don't compromise on. I mean, even to the point where, as dumb as it may be, when I'm walking through the Atlantic airport, I don't get on the little conveyor belt. I'm not doing that. I'll walk from terminal E all the way to terminal A. Because it's a 20 minute power push. I do it and I film it on social media. I'm getting my steps in no matter what. I'm not on my phone. I'm showing you you can find the time. Instead of sitting there at Starbucks for 45 minutes, wait on my flight, I'll just walk back and forth. I just got a 40 minute walk in straight. I'm good. So when I get back home, it's 2:30 in the morning. I don't feel guilty. I haven't done anything physical. School today. I wake up in the morning, 5am and I gear it up and I spin it again. You can find the time. Rarely you have to make the time. If you're waiting for it just to pop up and like, oh, Here's a free 20 minute block. You're not going to have it. And people just, that's the thing. I can't get past like, oh, you know, I can't wake up that early. You have a thousand dollar smartphone that does anything. There's not a question you can ask it, it doesn't have the answer to. And there's a, a clock on it. If you set it, it'll go off when it goes off, get out of bed. Like I've been doing it my whole life. I don't understand it. They just don't want to. They've never felt the power of being in control of the small things. Why stacking up the microwinds? Lay out your clothes the night before. I mean, how many people wake up, you know, 20 minutes before they're supposed to leave the door and just frantic like, where's my black shirt? Where's my black shirt? Who are my shoes? Where are my car keys? Like that's a terrible way to start today. But you're the one who's doing that. If you just spend 10 minutes the night before, take your Shower, lay out the clothes, put them in the logical order you're about to get them dressed in next morning and go. You'd be surprised how fast you're actually making a cup of coffee. Like, man, I did my entire morning routine in less than five minutes. What I do with my next 40, whatever you want. Do 10 minutes of meditation. Sit there in a dark room, and just tell yourself 10 things you're truly grateful for. Like, I am so glad I have my wife. I'm so glad I have two healthy kids. I'm so glad I have a company. I'm so glad I have two arms and two legs. I'm so glad I'm still alive. Cool. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna make the most out of it. Go to work and do that. People just don't want to make the time because they've never seen the example. So a lot of stuff we try to put out is I'm trying to be a physical representation of what I'm trying to mass produce. Physically strong, mentally resilient, capable, patriotic Americans. That's what I'm trying to do. I just want you to have accountability. I've accounted for all my failures, all my successes, and everything else in between. And I'll show them exactly what happens when you do it wrong. I think that's what a lot of people like the most about it is, I will tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets, because you're going to learn a lot more from those than you are about climbing Everest. Everybody wants to see the picture at the top of the mountain. They don't want to hear about, you know, how many Sherpas you lost on the way to the top. They don't want to hear about that. I do. I want to hear about the real struggle. Like, how hard is it to be? You talk me through it. I can learn so much from the hardships of people. Just, unfortunately, we're in a place now where not too many people are willing to share it. Yeah. Just trying to help out as many people as possible before I hang this whole thing up and retire, man.

B (212:59)

Well, you are absolutely helping a ton of people, and today's discussion is just going to amplify that. I have to say, I'm immensely grateful for you. I felt a kinship with you from the very first time I saw you on Sean's podcast because you mentioned the skateboarding thing, and I think I heard the words that you prefer dogs to people sometimes. I think you've embraced people as well, and your love of dogs. That was the hook. And then we have some common friends in the teams community that I respect very much, some of whom have been guests, others who are still behind the veil. But your message is so important. You have very high standards for yourself and you meet those standards and you're constantly trying to meet and exceed those standards. And it's also very clear that you've learned this is this unconscious genius part about maybe it's teams, maybe it's just some people in it, but it's clearly very alive in you. You learn to use physical decisions, real world, actionable, implementable decisions to create internal change so that you can engage with the world in more functional and more meaningful ways. It's like the waking up early thing. I confess I've been a little weak on the waking up early thing, prioritizing sleep and this kind of thing. And there's also a strong antidepressant effect of waking up early that I've noticed and that exists in the literature. So I'm going to get back to that. I'm definitely going to do the GBRS program. I'm hoping other people will as well. Again, it's not a promotional for that. I think. How amazing would it be if as a country people started to really take their physical body seriously, not expect some, you know, package to arrive on their doorstep. If they were to take that pill or, or that thing and suddenly they were going to be healthy and instead to really just lean into these 20 minute walks. Sunlight, right. The GBRS program sounds like an awesome way to get all around fitness and to maintain that for a lifetime. I just want to thank you for everything you're doing. You've definitely opened up on an emotional level to the world today and elsewhere. You've opened up your protocols, you've made it very clear that you're human, that you're not perfect, and that despite all that, you're still going to keep striving, striving, striving. It's a magnificent, beneficent example at every level. So really, really grateful.

A (215:22)

I got some I want to give you for me. Yeah, slide you those. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the backstory real quick. So we started doing in house embroidery and we wanted to do an American flag hat, but we sit down with Tyra Milliken, he runs all our stuff. And we got an apprentice, Sophia, that does all our embroidery in house six head embroidery machine. And we wanted to do an American flag flag hat. And I got. So I'm gonna try not to get upset. I get so sick of people ordering American flag patches off Amazon from China and border stitching them on hats and letting that be a patriotic symbol.

B (215:59)

Is that how it's typically done?

A (216:00)

Yeah. I mean, you can go to Amazon, I can buy 500 of those.

B (216:03)

And those are made in China.

A (216:04)

Yeah. And I can border stitch them on there. I can hot glue them on there. We've got this embroidery machine and Tyler's a wizard with just embroidery files and everything else. And we were like, let's make the American flag hat. It's not going to be a border stitch. It's not going to be a patch. We sew on this thing, like, what's it going to be? And he looked right at me, he goes, I can make you the hat, but we are never going to make money on it. And I was like, I ain't about making money. And he's like, well, I can't mass produce them either. I was like, the hat in the story I'm going to tell is not meant for mass production. So when you launch those hats, that hat is almost 24,000 individuals stitches. It takes 60 minutes just to make the flag. The quality control that goes inside that. If a single thread is pulled, rolled, anything, we cancel it, we toss it. But that hat and I actually stitched into the bag.

B (216:51)

No, it's not. I see what you're saying. It's not a patch stitch onto a hat. It's.

A (216:54)

It's.

B (216:54)

It is the hat.

A (216:55)

It is, yeah.

B (216:56)

Got it.

A (216:57)

You know, when we first dropped those things, I told everybody, I was like, this hat is for the people. They get emotional when they hear the national anthem. This hat is for the people whose children say the Pledge of Allegiance with hand over heart. They go to the baseball games. They have a visceral response when they hear the national anthem played. They're not nailing the football games. They're not playing all the left side and right side. They are patriotic Americans. And I told them, if you are going to wear this hat and let anything poisonous come out of your mouth while you're wearing the hat, I will fly there and I'll snatch it off your head. Everything you're going to do needs to represent what you think the essence of America is. Everything that flows out of your mouth while you're wearing that hat better be done with dignity and respect. Because a lot of brave men and women have sacrificed everything just for that little piece of cloth. So we don't mass produce them. We drop them a couple times a year. We'll do it like a Be a pro. Drop a couple different times and they fly like wildfire. And it's so cool to see because the people that know, they know like we have done so much for that flag and I hate seeing it being misrepresented in any way, shape or form. You do it such in a beautiful light. I would love for you to have those. So those came from the boys at gbrs and I know that when you wear them, you'll preach the gospel and you'll represent the American people in a beautiful way. But if you don't, I will fly out here and I'll snatch them off your head like I will anybody else. But I believe you. But those things, those represent. We've got a bunch of patriots and a bunch of veterans that work inside with us. So every time we do that drop, the entire, the entire company, we're 40 something people strong now. And when that hat comes out, everybody can feel it, like beating the war drum on just being a good patriot. I know I isolate it for just Americans, but the overall message is I want everyone to be a patriot. Everyone in the uk, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France. If you have ownership and you are patriotic, where you come from, you represent it so much better than anyone else. If I've never met a person from Australia and I go there and I meet one person, it's a positive experience for the rest of my days I'll talk about that experience. So when I wear that hat, I try to represent what I want the American people to be like. So when somebody meets me from Zimbabwe and I'm wearing that hat, that interaction is going to be the best I can possibly be because of the weight of that thing sitting on my head. Yeah, when I came out here, you know, I was telling the boys like, I gotta, I gotta bring Andrew to hat. And they spun them up real quick. We don't drop those things till November. But I wanted you to have the first one. So thank you for everything and thanks for having me on, man, oh man, thank you.

B (219:27)

I'm honored. I will wear it and I will, I will meet and I will strive to exceed the standard that you describe. And I fully believe that if I don't, you'll come out here and kick my ass. That's. That's part of the deal. We can also provide a link to where you guys make these. And yeah, again, I just really want to thank you. It's clear that quality and standards is in your DNA and it's in, more importantly, it's in everything you do. Right down to the hats. So thank you so much dj. Come back again.

A (220:00)

I will. Thank you so much.

B (220:01)

Thank you. Thank you for joining me for Today's discussion with D.J. shipley. To find links to his website as well as the links to the fitness program that we described, please see the show Note Captions if you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the Follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple you can leave us up to a five star review and you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols An Operating Manual for the Human Body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience and it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation, and of course I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre sale@protographsbook.com there you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called Protocols An Operating Manual for the Human Body Body and if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. So that's Instagram, X threads, Facebook and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms I discuss science and science related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms and if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network newsletter. The Neural Network Newsletter is a zero cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You Simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to New newsletter and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for Today's discussion with D.J. shipley. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.