Shawn Ryan Show - #98 Jonathan Wilson - Navy SEAL Operator

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Jonathan Wilson is a former Navy SEAL and Founder of INVI Mindhealth. This episode documents his life and work, on and off the battlefield. Wilson's interest was set on the military at an early age, as his Father was an MP and traveling around became the norm. He would eventually set his sights on the Naval Academy and Naval Special Warfare. Wilson's early days were marked with mischief that nearly ended his career. Yet, through fate and luck, he made it to "Hell Week." He excelled in the SEAL Teams with a demanding op tempo and fighting in some of the worst combat zones like Sadr City. After multiple deployments, he left the SEAL Team's to explore a civilian career on Wall Street. The toll a high stress career at Goldman Sachs took on his family life and the lack of purpose ultimately lead him back to the Teams. After winding down his incredible career, he went on to start the Seal Future Foundation and INVI Mindhealth. INVI is a mobile app that "leverages the connectivity of the autonomic nervous system & the mind to provide actionable analysis" of human biometrics. INVI's goal is to end the veteran suicide epidemic with monitoring and preventative measures. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://shopify.com/shawn https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://hillsdale.edu/srs https://preparewithshawn.com https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner Jonathan Wilson Links: IG - https://www.instagram.com/jdbemore INVI IG - https://www.instagram.com/invimindhealth Invisible Wounds Foundation IG - https://www.instagram.com/invisible_wounds_foundation Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathandeanwilson?trk=public_post-text INVI Mindhealth - https://www.invimh.com The Hope Project - https://thehope-project.org SEAL Future Foundation - https://sealff.org Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This NBA season make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Camlin Tom call 1866-531-2600 or visit ConnectsOntario.ca You know there are a lot of people out there struggling these days with mental health the suicide Epidemic just continues to rise especially in the veteran community and

And they're at the top of that list and that's my community Man it seems like no matter how much I try to shine a light on that or publicly explore different treatment options or things that might help, it just doesn't seem to be enough. And that's sad, but it doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying. And that's what this next episode, at least the back half is all about. It is about a former Navy SEAL. His mental health struggles when he left active duty. Actually, even while he's in active duty and what he's doing now to make a difference. And I think this is another one of those things that if it takes off could very well be the answer to all this shit. So please pay attention. And I wanna say one other thing, you know, this guy, this isn't a nonprofit,

this is a for-profit, but the message is just incredible. And to get this thing going, he needs some big investors. And so if you're somebody listening to this show and you have deep pockets, then I suggest you head down to the description, look at NVHealth. If you need a connection, hit me up. I'd be happy to make it. Ladies and gentlemen, it was a real honor to be able to interview and get to know this man. Please welcome former Navy SEAL, Mr. Johnny Wilson to the Sean Ryan show. Hey, one last thing.

This Envy Health, it's not just for veterans. This is for everybody. It's a real problem. And this is a real solution. Check it out. Johnny Wilson, welcome to the show, man. Thanks, brother. Good to see you. Good to see you.

Hey, it's my pleasure. So we got connected through Eddie Gallagher. That's right. And Eddie called me up and told me, hey, you gotta, you've gotta meet this guy, Johnny Wilson. He's got this new tech coming out and it is saving tons and tons of veterans' lives. You know, there's the big suicide epidemic happening

within the veteran community. Yeah. And so it took a long time for us to finally get to this point, but I love what you're doing, man. I really respect it. It's needed and it's an honor to have you here. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you.

So we're going to dive into all of that. It'll be a typical life story starting a childhood, going through your entire career and what led you into NV Mind Health, which is the tech platform that monitors. Don't just brief, like a three sentence snapshot before we get started. Yeah, yeah. So we take biometric information from watches,

voice, and it's basically predictive analytics. We tell you where you're trending in regards to your mind. Are you up? Are you down? No judgment? We give you a team, swim buddy component to support you on this journey because we isolate when we don't do good

and like you and I are best friends you reach out. You're gonna say you're fine. And I know you're lying, but I don't know how to help you. So the whole premise is for us to try to take advantage of technology to help with mental health. And that is really unique. That's, I can't wait to get into that, but let me give you an introduction here real quick.

So Johnny Wilson, you're a former Navy SEAL. You're a family man. You've been married to the same woman for 20 years. Congratulations. Thank you, man. That never happens, especially with SEAL teams. It's not easy. Yeah. You are a father of five.

You spent time at SEAL Team 4 and SEAL Team 10 multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. You then became a successful equity trader. For who? Who was it? That's a small company. You probably not heard of Goldman Sachs. Yeah. And co-founder of the Seal Future Foundation, which led you into your new venture,

the founder of Envy Mind Health, which we just spoke about recently, and your real passion now and mission, is to put as big of a dent as you can which we just spoke about recently, and your real passion now and mission is to put as big of a dent as you can into the veteran suicide epidemic. Yeah, 100%. Thank you for that.

You're welcome. We got a lot to cover. Let's do it. But before we move on, yeah. Got, everybody gets a gift. Sweet. Thank you. I can't calm returning.

Oh, right on, man. So that logo right there came to me in a psychedelic journey. No kidding. Native American chief stuck it in my forehead and if you look into what the feathers mean in the Native American tribes, it's for warriors and the different paintings, the different colors signify if you've been wounded, if you've taken lives.

So the red feather, red dyed feather means you've been wounded in combat. I don't think we're all, not just veterans, we've all been wounded, so. Yes, we have. That's very cool, man. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. You gotta open that. Okay. You have to. Yeah. Sweet. So those are Laird Superfoods, performance mushrooms. Gummies. And those are Vigilance League gummies. Legal in all 50 states. Okay. thank you, Mary, I appreciate it. Got some stickers in here too. Yeah, there's some stickers, but. Sweet. But yeah, I thought you might like that Laird Superfoods.

All of it, dude, thank you. Performance mushrooms since we're both, we both, how do you say it, dabbled in psychedelic treatment. Yeah. And both of us have received a lot of benefits, which we found out at breakfast this morning. That's right. Very cool.

But so I'm gonna start this interview off with a Patreon question. Patreon is there are top supporters, everything, that's the reason I'm sitting here and the reason you're sitting here. So I always give them a opportunity to ask the guest a question. So this is from John Phillips,

and it's very relevant to what we're gonna be talking about. In reference to transforming mental health care for veterans, what is not being done that should be done? There's so much there. Yeah. I think the easiest thing that we can all do, and it's not that easy, is change the conversation, right? So there's so much stigma around mental health right now,

specifically men's, but veterans' mental health. We don't talk about what's going on. We're ashamed. The system pushes us down. When we start talking about, hey, I'm not doing well or we raise our hands. So we're taught from day one not to raise our hand. We gotta break down that stigma.

We gotta change the conversation. We gotta own it when we're not doing well, create a tribe around us that supports us and then we can push forward. It's okay to suffer. Like we all, every single one of us, every single person on this planet has or will suffer mentally at some point.

Lose a family family member a best friend Alcohol abuse relationships job loss. It doesn't matter. Let's talk about it Period that's great, man. You know, it's The old excuse of the VA system not working. I mean that's That's been out there forever. Everybody knows it. Yeah, everybody knows the VA sucks. They don't really do anything They first they over prescribe but you know because that came to light all these different there's so many other avenues out there, you know and into

veterans or anybody that's listening, but especially veterans, there are so many nonprofits and so many different avenues that you can go down to improve your state of mind that there really, the help's there. You don't have to go to the VA. You can go do psychedelic treatment. You can go to NV Mind Health.

You can go, there's, it would take all day to list all of the different non-profits and organizations that have been set up to help with veteran mental health. And so all it takes is a little bit of research and somebody is willing to help you. That's right. And so all it takes is a little bit of research and somebody is willing to help you. That's right. And to your point this morning at breakfast,

you're willing to help yourself, right? So I was in that mindset of blaming everybody at one point. It's this person's fault, it's this system's fault. And it just dawned on me, he's like, dude, it's not them, person's fault. It's this system's fault. And it just dawned on me. He's like, dude, it's not them, it's you. Like if you want change, then go do something about it. Go take care of your own stuff. If you want to do it on a bigger scale, then great, create something.

The VA has some really good people working there. Like, we're not going to, I'm not going to sit here and say, hey, the VA, I think it's challenged. I think it's overtaxed. I think it's constrained 100%, but there's overtaxed, I think it's constrained 100%, but there's good people that wanna do something about it. We're gonna try to figure out how to work with them, because they are supporting tons and tons of veteran,

largest mental health, or largest medical system in the world. So we can't just, in my opinion, push them aside and say, you guys, you guys, fuck it up. I think what we need to do is like, okay, who are the advocates in there? They're going to fight tooth and nail for what they believe in. Is it aligned with what we believe in?

Let's go do it. You know what? You're right. I should, I should probably change my tune or attitude towards the VA. I stepped in there right when I left around the 2015 timeframe and had was, you know, the typical story. And I just, I never stepped foot in one again. So that's it.

You're done. Me too, by the way, for like, for probably five years. So probably exact same story. I couldn't find fricking parking, right? I showed up an hour early, man. You know how we are. We're gonna show up early. Couldn't find parking.

I had to park a mile away, walked into this V, showed up and I get basically talked down to by the receptionist for being late. I was, I'm out. My doctor came out in a dirty sweat pant suit and asked me why I didn't go to medical in the middle of an operation on an injury that I was talking about.

And I said, you know what? Barely spoke English. And I said, you know what? I don't need to be here anymore. I'll pay for my own medical. Thank you. Fuck off. Goodbye.

Yeah. But maybe they've improved. There's some good folks there. I still think it's challenge, brother, to your point. And I mean, that's the whole idea for Envy. Let's create a system from trusted people, like folks from like us that have been through it, that have lived through it.

And then let's go take it to them so they can figure out how to support dudes that isolate. I always want them. I isolated in the mountains of Colorado, right? Like, I don't want to be around a VA, but maybe I still need services. Well, how do we support that dude? And majority of guys like us, you got a farm, you got land, we want our privacy man. So how does a VA system support that? Why aren't

we using technology? Hop on a telehealth call. Look at the dude's biometrics. Is the dude drinking his face off? We can tell. Like let's go figure out how to support each other. Not stay back in 1960 where we have to go to these institutions, sit down, can't find parking. And I mean, yeah, I get what you were saying and I'm the same mindset, but we're starting to reopen those conversations. I think we have to, so.

Good, good. We'll get more in the weeds on that. But so, wanna do a life story, you know, we always start a childhood. It's amazing to me how many people have dealt with childhood trauma. And the amount of people that we, that this show has helped by opening up to that trauma

is like incredible. So that's where we always start. So anyways, I know you grew up in Fort Hood, Texas. Yep. Let's start there. Yeah. So I don't remember much from that chapter. We were there for a few years, but my dad was Army.

He was an MP in the Army. Met my mom before I came around. I think he was on a deployment to Panama, the country, not Panama City guys and gals, but they met and then they came back and it had me. And we were there for about two years before we picked up and went back to Panama. He took a deployment there and that's when I could start

remembering a couple of things here and there, right? Not much, but that was a cool experience in my life to live in a tropic area, to meet my mom's family. I don't remember much, it's hazy, but I remember enough to know, okay, I'm a little different than everybody else in the sense that we're on the outskirts of the jungle, essentially, where my mom lives, there's no power. Her family was out there, she was one of seven. So your mom's Panamanian?

She's Panamanian. What time frame did they meet? They met in the 70s. Yeah, in the 70s, yeah. Right on. Yeah, and then I came shortly after. So you lived in Panama too? I did, yeah. And I didn't go back for a long time. I know we're jumping around here, but I went back so you lived in Panama too. I did, yeah.

And I didn't go back for a long time. I know we're jumping around here, but I went back when I was in high school. That was, there was a couple, I mean, it was a cool experience, but I wanted to get back to my girlfriend, so I left early, but nevertheless it was cool to see my uncles and my aunts.

And I mean, just think no power, there's no hot water in my mom's family. Like we're out there in the sticks. I'm playing with this pig with my little sister. We don't speak Spanish. So I'm drinking beers with my uncles at like 13 because no big deal. We're playing with this pig.

Next thing I know, my uncle comes out with a pistol and shoots it right in the head. They start chopping this thing up and they throw it in a cauldron. I was like, oh, my God. I thought this was a pet pig. Oh my gosh. That's dinner. That was the first time I was right in front of you.

My sister was five years younger than me. She was like six. She started crying. I was like, oh shit. Holy shit. Yeah. But that's the early days. That was, you know, my folks took me there for a few years

and there's some interesting, there is like one early memory that just still I sit with from Panama. And after that, we went to Maine, but it was a weird, my first vivid memory was we were, I don't know how this fits in, maybe the spiritual stuff that we got into in plant medicine later.

But I believe I should have died when I was a kid. We were all in some cliffs. My dad was, we were scurrying some cliffs. There was an outcrop over the ocean in Panama. And dude, I slipped. And I like, no shit was falling was falling. I'm not like this is the clearest memory. I can still see it today And I don't know how dude, but like I got picked up and put back on that rock What? I was young. I remember it clears dead. I was still going on that whole experience

I was young, I remember it clear as day. But I was still going that whole experience. Well, so you were at the beach and there's where we were at. There's some jagged rocks and cliffs and so we just went out there. And what I remember and it's still like, I mean, it's pretty clear for the most part. But I remember my dad and we're just like kind of walking through the cliffs and nothing too sketchy. We're just kind of going around and pretty high up. And I just slipped and I start going backwards. And I talk about you get a flash, you know, like right before death. Like there's a flash. People that have near death experiences,

they witness this flash and there's like this ecstasy. And some say it's close to one of the plant medicines, 5M-YO, gives you this similar experience. There's been some research out of Michigan on it, but I saw that flash, and I didn't know what it was. But the next thing I know is back on that rock. And my dad was just kind of scooting along, didn't even notice it, and I just didn't think anything of it.

I was just a kid. I was like, well, let's just keep on with my dad and kind of mentioning it to him. But I mean, in his head, that's not logical, right? Like he probably just thought, oh, you almost slipped. Got it. Like you fell a little bit, picked yourself up. But I was off that cliff, man.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. So I don't know, divine intervention, God, higher power, that was my first experience with it. What do you believe in? Are you Christian? I believe in God.

So, I grew up Catholic and I lost my faith in the teams, if I'm being honest. And my mom's from Panama, so when I mean like, the Mount Christian Catholic, like we were at church and I got dressed up. I had the suit and tie at like two and, but when I came to the teams, I was immature and we'll get into all this. I imagine I just didn't know what was right, what was wrong and quickly got lost in the, in the mix, right? And I lost my faith. So what do you... I believe in God. Where you're at today,

what do you think that was on the cliff? I believe God picked me up and put me back on there because there's still more to be done. Wasn't your time? What was my time? Man, you know, stuff like that is just, it can't be explained. No. And it just fascinates me.

Yeah. You know, that's, I love hearing stuff like that. We've had several people come on and talk about out of body experiences and combat. And I just actually, I just interviewed a man who studies out of body experiences. Fascinating interview. Oh, wow.

Yeah. I really want to get into the continuation of consciousness life after death. Like, yeah, it's, uh, it's just something that's always, how could it not interest you? You know, but, but, um, so it didn't even register it didn't register with anybody just you No, I don't think anybody saw it. Wow just me Wow I try being like a little kid three four years old telling that to your dad, right? Like your son right now I mean, I know he's too but hey dad. I just Was completely off this cliff and you're just like, yeah, okay.

Yeah, no, no, come on, we gotta get going, we gotta go to Chick-fil-A. Man, man. Yeah. Wow. So then you moved to Maine. Yeah. How old were you when you got to Maine?

So I was five at the time and that's when my sister came along. Okay. So she's five years younger than me Jennifer and she's tremendous. She's again, there's a lot of trauma in my life self-induced and She's a great. She's a great sister. I wasn't there for her like and we'll touch on that But lover to death she came along back then I did not love her

And I was a kid, so I was... We had these marble fights. It was a one-way fight. I would just chuck marbles at my sister. I was a dick. She has a scar to this day. Beautiful woman, but there's a scar. And she's quick to tell you how she got that scar. That was the old Johnny Wilson's curveball.

But we lived in Bangor, Maine, and my dad took a recruiting gig there. And I remember a couple of things about that area. It's cool. Stephen King lives there. That's our claim to fame in Bangor, Maine. That's about it. It snows a lot. So that was my first experience with snow coming from Texas and Panama. So no snow days in Maine, man. There'd be like five foot banks, 10 foot banks. You're still going to school. Man.

Yeah, but it was great. There was a cool playground at the base of Stephen King's house. So he had this huge gargoyle, like, wrought iron fence, mansion with steeple. It's exactly what you would think when you think of Haunted House. That's his house.

And you come down the hill and at the base is this huge playground that, you know, Bangor had the municipality or the city had put money together and put this cool like playground. So that's what we did as kids. We just rolled out playgrounds, a wooden playground and hang out there and look up at Stephen King's place

thinking, geez, that's something going on in there. It was like a murder. We all had these little stories as kids that we talk about because we knew he was the horror author and I think it had come out in some other cool movies. Oh man, man. Yeah, so I was there until I was about 10. And then where'd you go?

Then he took orders to Holland. So we, there's a base, like a multinational base there called Absent. And a bunch of folks from that area are from Europe that get stationed there. So all walks of life, all different units, and he got stationed there. So we lived in the Netherlands for about four or five years. And that was a really cool experience for me, man. That's where a lot of people think I, they say I like nice things, I'm fancy. Like I like going over to Europe.

And it's like, that's where I got it from. Like my time in Europe was awesome. And I only wish I was older because, you know, I was just hitting my stride when we left 14, started talking to some of the girls around there. I was like, oh, we've got some local girls. I got German girls, Nettolin girls, Belgium girls. I was like, oh, we've got some local girls. I got German girls, Nettling girls, Belgium girls. I was like, this is heaven.

And then let's go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was like, no. But it was fun. It was a cool experience living there. The school was neat, all different, again, ethnicities, all different parts of the world. So, you know, there wasn't too many Americans there. And I thought that was pretty cool. Got folks from France and other parts of the world so you know there wasn't too many Americans there and I thought that was pretty cool. I got folks from France and other parts of the

world so it was a really interesting chapter. It sounds like there was a fight there. Oh yeah yeah there was that was so in yeah what year was that? I was probably like 12 at the time. No, I was younger than that actually. So where my dad was stationed, and I know you know this, but there's like military housing, right? So we had military housing there, and there were townhomes. And outside of our townhome just happened

to be the playground, the park area. So we played soccer because you're in Europe, you don't play football, you play soccer. And we're out there playing soccer, and there's some older like local kids that used to come in and they were assholes. And I had finally just, you know, I think I was getting a little courageous.

Maybe the, you know, the balls were dropping and I said something. I was on my back like that. This like, I was 12, maybe 10, 11, something like that. This kid was like 14, had me on my back and was just wailing on me. It was my first fight. Damn.

My first fight and I just remember it was kind of surreal. I was just sitting there, I didn't know what to do. Like this guy had me pinned down, I couldn't move. I was trying to squirm and older kid was just wailing and it didn't hurt. I think he was holding back or I don't know what. It was weird, um, but I got my ass kicked. It's my first fight, so oh and one out of the gate's not, not how anybody wants to

start, but it's where I started like realizing like dude, that sucked. You didn't like that. Change it. What can you do to change that? How come? What can you do? And that's where we got into, like, karate and jujitsu. But it was... One of the first lessons learned in my life was just like,

dude, that was miserable. I was embarrassed. And there was a whole crowd of me. It was like the freaking movies. Like, there was a crowd around us chanting, and I was just getting wailed on. I couldn't do anything about it. So change it.

It was the biggest takeaway for me and my childhood. That right there. Yeah. You know, we had talked downstairs about childhood trauma, you know, and how a lot of the guys, a lot of the people, not even just men, who come on the show experiencing some type of childhood trauma.

And man, I just had no idea like how many kids have to go through that. And you had brought something up that you've sounds like you've carried throughout your entire life of having to impress your old man or thinking that you need to impress your old man. And that is, I think I cut you off down there because I wanted to talk about that here because I think a lot of people have that too. I'm one of them. I never would have become a seal had it not been, oh, I have to do this because I have

to impress my dad. And so it drove me in a lot of ways. But it also, it was a, it's a special kind of relationship. And so I was hoping you could open up on that a little bit. How many of you have logged into your Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, whatever your streaming platform is only to find the same mind numbing content over and over and over again. And then you wind up settling and you just watch that mind-numbing content.

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that he had when he was growing up. So he's a good dude. Like I love my dad. Loving the death and I'm grateful for everything he's taught me, the goods and the bads, right? Because all of it had to happen to get here, right? We're at today. But our relationship was challenged, right?

He didn't have, his dad wasn't present. So I see that and I'm no psychologist, but where's his example? He had a step dad come into the picture, but where's his example? And I, he had a stepdad come into the picture, but where's his example? And I don't know the relationship between my grandmother and my grandfather, my step-grandfather, but they were grandma and grandpa.

But there's probably something there because it bled down into the generational thing into my father. And I blocked out a lot of that stuff. In fact, I don't remember, I didn't remember most of it. My sister was the one that pulled me aside, went to, how do you not remember any of this shit? That like, you're, you know, you and dad and mom and dad

and I don't know. Looking back, I realized we compartmentalized shit really good and we tucked shit away that we don't want to deal with and that's probably what happened. But back then I couldn't see it until plant medicine. What kind of stuff? There was like yelling, screaming, I mean.

Between your dad and your grandparents? No, my dad and my mom. Okay. Yeah. And then it came to me like you're trying to figure out When we get to high school, I'm trying to figure out who I am as a man and testosterone is starting to flow through the body and you think you're bigger than you are and your dad is your dad and there's a couple times that we got into it and

You know laid hands on me and there's one incident. Hopefully you can laugh at this today I sure as hell can but I've done psychedelics. He hasn't we're still working on dad laid hands on me and there's one incident, hopefully he can laugh at this today. I sure as hell can, but I've done psychedelics he has and we're still working on Dad. But I had some Jordan's or something at the time, right? And he had come home from a deployment because my parents' relationship was falling apart and he was taking these deployments. And he threw all my kicks to go cut the grass. So there's a couple things fucked up here.

I should have probably been cutting the grass, right, all on that. But you took my Jordans to cut the grass, Dad. Come on, man. So I said something and he kind of fucking grabbed me and threw me up against the wall and yelled at me and I called the cops on my dad. And I watched him get arrested and taken away. And I didn't, you know, that was a Tuesday for me. Like I was just like, no big deal.

Like that's just, that's normal. It's not normal, but it's okay. Right, I don't know the relationship you had with your dad, but I can look back now and be like, okay, that's not normal. But it is okay to have it, and let's work on unpacking what's going on there. So there wasn't too many incidents like that, but I blocked out a lot of the shit between my mom and my dad, and I didn't realize it until

my sister pulled me aside and was like, no, they used to get into it. Dad used to yell at her. I no, they used to get into him. Dad used to yell at her. I mean, I used to fight a lot. I was like, I don't remember any of that. Wow. Yeah. Totally just blocked it out.

Wow. So what is it about you and your dad's relationship that made you feel like you had to, I mean, it turned you into an overachiever. Yeah. And I think that happened, that's what happened to me. So I'm curious, you know, what, I mean, you became a seal successful guy on Wall Street,

started a nonprofit, now you're on this new medical envy venture, you know, with, with, with, with mind health and I mean, your track record is just you conquer everything that you put your mind to. And it sounds like you're attributing some of that towards your dad. Your dad. Our relationship for sure. It's a great question, dude. I'm curious, like, on your end, you're just like, I'll share what I think, but I'm curious,

you know, what you attributed to with your relationship. I, uh, I don't know, despite everything I just described, like, despite me, you know, him not being home on these deployments, me being the man in the house, you know, or thinking I was the man in the house, because despite the tension between us, he's still your dad. Like he's the male figure in your relationship or in all your relationships, he is the alpha.

And I don't know, man, it's a great question. I, maybe I was just seeking his approval, right? Like I just wanted him, I didn't want all the other stuff that was happening. I just wanted to have a relationship where, you know, he was proud of me. And I know he was, I can see that now. I couldn't see it back then, right?

All I could fixate on was like, I couldn't see that now. I couldn't see it back then, right? All I could fix it on was like the drama and some of the trauma that was happening. But I think it was that. I couldn't see it. I had blinders on and I wanted it as approval. And it was there probably. I just couldn't.

I didn't know how to receive it. Yeah. I'm curious, what about you? I mean, kind of the same. I mean, I know what it was, but it was, you know, I'm one of three, the oldest. And I just never really felt good enough. You know, I know I was a challenge for my parents.

And, you know, I didn't make good grades. I wasn't an athlete. My brother was an athlete, a really good one. He made phenomenal grades. My sister was good at everything that she did. And I kind of half asked everything, you know, from in my childhood and the stuff, even the stuff that I really wanted to be good at, like wrestling, I wasn't, I was average, I wasn't great, but you know, and so I saw a lot of attention being spent on my siblings and not a lot on me and that's not their fault.

If I wasn't good at something, I would lose interest and my priorities were as women and partying by the time I got into high school. And so me and my dad were always getting into it. I mean, my dad is my hero and still to this day. But by the time I, we, there was an argument. And there was an argument about me going to college and he wasn't gonna pay for it because my grades are shit.

And I said, I don't really give a shit because I'm not gonna go, I'm gonna go and be a Navy SEAL. Yeah. And that it was the only thing that I ever put my mind to that I knew I was like, this is what's gonna make my dad proud of me You know, I watched him. I was in baseball. He always coached my brother. I was involved in this He was always more it seemed appeared to me that he was always more interested in my brother's activities because he was good and I wasn't and

And so that's kind of how it started. That's the only reason I made it through Buds is I wanted to quit. I just, I was too weak to quit and not call my dad. It sounds weird. I'm saying it like that, right? Because honestly, once we got into Hell Week, I really didn't give a shit about being a seal anymore. It was only the fear of me calling my dad and saying, hey, I fucked this one up too.

I quit. Yeah. Beards your loser son, not good at anything. And so that kept me in. It was, I can't make that call. Yeah. And then it just went on to everything that I've ever done. There's always a portion of it that's like, watch this.

Yeah. Dude, it's interesting, right? Like it's a negative reinforcement tool. Like, and I'm all about the positive. Like I'm the positive guy, like you're with my kids, you're struck out cool, like let's work on the... But you see it a lot with our community. We're not unique in this sense. Like a lot of dudes that come into the SEAL teams, at least that I know of, had some challenging upbringings. And those are the ones for the most part that succeed.

It's like not wanting to make that call. It was the same thing. And you said something too, like you were challenging. Oh, buddy, I was too, man. So like, I love my dad. I realize how hard I've made it on my parents. Holy shit, I like the party. I got arrested a couple of times. Like, dude, the list goes on and on. I was a troublemaker. So I appreciate

my dad was trying the hardest he could with what he had, right? Like what he was taught and the things that he was been given and like, I'm so grateful for his love and the support and, you know, at the time, it didn't feel like it was support, I know it was. Yeah. And then you mentioned earlier that, you know, everything that I've done, it's been successful, and there's a lot of failures peppered in there, and I'm pretty sure that's the same with you, like so. Absolutely. But again, it goes back to something unique to us, is like failure is just like, let's pick ourselves up, and I see this with guys from our communities, like let's pick ourselves up and I see this with guys

from our communities, like let's pick ourselves up, quickly learn what happened and let's get right back at it. But man, that thing's been peppered shotgun with failures. So I appreciate you saying that. And I know it's true for you too. So, you know, it's awesome to see what you're doing. Thank you, thank you. But so we're, so sorry, Maine, we're in Maine.

And getting into high school. Yeah, I was still young at the point and then we kind of wrapped up Maine and went to Holland and Holland was cool. I think we kind of walked through some of the experiences there. It was really interesting being in that, you know, multinational school. I just learned so much from so many different people and saw unique cultures and I really appreciate, like my crew moving forward from

that point on, we ended up moving to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and I lived in Clarksville, Tennessee, I went to high school at Northeast High School there. But my crew, because my lens was different from my time overseas, like dude, we had a black dude, a Panamanian dude, a Puerto Rican dude, a white dude. Like we didn't see any of that stuff back then. I don't know how it was for you, but it was just like, you're a good dude

and you like to do stupid shit, like let's be buddies and let's go do this stupid shit together and that's exactly what we did. And that crew is awesome. They all ended up, there were Army Brats as well, and they all ended up serving. And one of the guys, Terry, he lives right down the street actually.

He's getting his PhD at Vandy because he wants to continue to serve. He's gonna do some mental health therapy and is working at again, his PhD at Vandy right now. And the other guys are great. One guy's still in, he's in the Navy. He's an EOD guy, so he's deployed with a special forces group right now.

So I'm always getting the photos of those guys. Yeah, but that crew in high school was, man, we did, I don't know if you had a pod, but we did, us four, five, did everything together. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of stuff were you into?

I played football and where I went was, I'd say it was probably predominantly black. I only bring that up because it made dudes like me look good on receiver. So we had Travis Stevens who ended up playing at UT and I think went into the NFL. Like he's the running bag. Nobody gives a shit about Johnny Wilson on the front. You know what I mean? So I'm catching balls and he's just like, dude, that guy's a good receiver on the stats. But people quickly realized when we went to college, like that dude's not good. But I played football. There's a park right by our house that we all used to just, you know, have parties at, like bring booze down there and have bonfires.

A lot of guys had farms, so a couple of our buddies had farms. So it was just like, it was literally parties every weekend. This sounds like a very similar upbringing to mine. Very similar. Yeah. But you got arrested a couple times. Yeah. So, man, that's some of that shock and pepper failures I was talking about.

But so, well, I'll take a step back and I'll hit that question. So my dad was stationed, I mentioned he was kind of step back and I'll hit that question. So my dad was stationed, I mentioned he was kind of bouncing out and doing the deployment things. He was stationed overseas, and this was pre-war. This was in the 90s, and he was in Saudi, and he said, hey, you're going to come visit. And I was like, dad, like, dude, I'm in high school. I got a girlfriend, man.

It's the summer. I want to hang out with my friends. I don't want to come see you. He was like, cool, you're still coming to visit. So I was pissed, but I flew to Saudi. First couple days, I just acted like a punk, like trying to show him that I was upset, ignoring him. And he's just being a good dad, like taking me, introducing me to folks.

And like on the third or fourth day, we're driving on base and I'm in the passenger seat, just looking out the window. And I see this gate closing, like blacked out gate with barbed wire fence. And I'm in the passenger seat just looking out the window. And I see this gate closing, like blacked out gate with barbed wire fence and I'm looking in there and there's a bunch of dudes with no shirt, jacked, tattoos, beards. I'm like, Dad, who are those dudes?

And I thought they were seals. My dad corrected me after I shared the story before as I do, that was fifth group. And I was like, okay, I thought it was seals, but it makes better, better story for if it was seals. But nevertheless, it was the fifth group, dude. And my dad took me over to introduce me to those guys and they took me under their wing, man. No kidding. Yeah, they let me hang out. I got to ask questions. I'm like a 14 year old kid. So I wanted to be special forces and inevitably that evolved to being a seal. But I mean, I was working out those guys from what I remember.

They had guns out cleaning and they were talking to me about their missions. It was so cool. Damn. You got to do that 14. 14. So when I came back home, I mean, life was like kind of like you's like, boom, this is what I'm going to do. I sucked at swimming.

I mean, I was good at it, but I wasn't great. Okay, I got to be in the pool all the time. What are you going to do? Go be a lifeguard. So became a lifeguard. I lived 14 miles from the base. Cardio was horrible. Still is horrible.

So I would ride my bike to lifeguard, and then I would ride back. Football practice, I would run two miles of football practice and run back just to try to get ready for buds because I didn't know what to expect. All I had was that, I think there was a seal workout program. You probably had it too. Yeah. Yeah. Push ups, 20 by 20 push ups. Yeah. Yeah. So my whole life became what it is. So sophomore in high school, because what, that's about 14, correct? Is that right? Yeah.

It was my sophomore year. Okay. Sophomore year in high school, you already, you've got it mapped out. Yeah. You're going to be some kind of special forces guy. Yeah. At a ball that came across a book before there was all the books and movies on Team Guys, there was one from Vietnam and I was like, oh, I think it was The Men with Green

Faces. I read that book and I was like, okay, this is what I want to do. And that's what I did. I worked my ass off, like, not too hard, but hard enough to get good grades. And wanted to, at the time, I wanted to go play football. Remember, I was looking good, so some of the academies were like, hey man, this guy might be good.

That didn't work out the way they thought it would, but I ended up getting an offer to go to the academy. The academy? Yep. Like the naval academy. The naval academy. And I couldn't, so what they do at the academies is they have prep school.

I don't know if you're familiar with this, but. I am not. So it's essentially how they red shirt athletes. They send you to prep school, get your grades, get your prep for the rigors of the academics, but you get to play ball against the other prep schools. So you get to play ball against maps, which is a military academy prep school

and the Naval Academy prep schools naps. get to play ball against MAPS, which is the Military Academy Prep School and the Naval Academy Prep Schools, NAPS. So I ended up getting accepted, but I had to go to NAPS first, which was awesome. I was in Newport, Rhode Island, but that was kind of the path that was laid out for me. So got accepted, going to NAPS, you got a couple weeks off before you leave. I lived in Clarksville, Tennessee. Let's go celebrate. Come down to Nashville because where else

are you gonna party in Tennessee? Second Ave. I can't remember the bar, but there's a bar with four stories of different things like country, rock and roll, like techno. I just remember that was our spot. It's probably still there. I guarantee it is, dude.

And I didn't get two steps in that door before they saw that janky ass fake ID card I had and got hemmed up. That was the first time. What was the second? Was it back to back? It was back to back, dude. Nice.

I'm such an idiot. So I got arrested, big dude. He was like six, three, six, four black guy, former Marine. He's like, you're a fucking idiot. Like, and I was like, I just got in the Naval Academy. I was talking my way out of it. And he was like, you know what? I'm gonna give you a chance.

Like, don't do this again. Like, you got your whole life ahead of you. You're gonna burn that bridge. You're such an idiot. I was like, thank you, sir. And went back to Clarksville and pouted. And it was just like, hey, I'm not doing anything for about three hours. And then my buddies are like, thank you, sir. And went back to Clarksville and pouted and was just like, hey, I'm not doing anything for about three hours. And then my buddies were like, finally broke me down.

I was like, let's go party. A week to the day, dude, I'm in Nashville again with my buddies. I stumble out of a bar. This time I get into the bar, I stumble out of the bar and I bump into that cot. Out the back door. And I took off, man. I saw him, he saw me, he went to grab me. of the bar and I bump into that cot out the back door.

And I took off, man. I saw him, he saw me, he went to grab me. I was like, and I took off and I start running. And I'm like, in my head, I was like, we're already team guys or at least we're starting to think like team guys. I gotta hit the river. I gotta get to water. I'm such an idiot, dude.

I'm a kid, had no idea what I was doing. I come around the corner. I remember Hooters being right there. He idea what I was doing. I come around the corner, I remember Hooters being right there because I remember looking in, come around the corner and I hear, and there's a chain link fence in front of me and I'm like, okay, I gotta jump it, but there's barb wire there,

they were doing some work up there and I'm like, holy crap, I'm cornered. I still hear this and then it stops and I turn around and there's like horse patrol. Got me cornered, that cop runs up, I was like, damn it, put my hands up, grabbed me, snatched me, he was like, this time you're going to jail, son.

Made the call, my dad was like, nope, I'll see you Monday, I'm not picking you up. So I stayed there over the weekend, and I don't know if they've improved the fucking prison here or the jail here, but I hope to God they have, that thing was disgusting, vile. But I spent the weekend in jail. Nice.

Yep. Nice. I'm curious why you, so why did you pick the Naval Academy? I mean, if you're that into boozing it up, you're picking pretty much the strictest university possible. That's a great question. pretty much the strictest university possible. That's a great question. In my head, I just, I thought, I started talking to people,

like usually when I get my head in, I get something in my head. I'm gonna go out to the people that are actually doing it. So I reached out to a couple of folks and just asked them, like, hey, if I wanted to be a SEAL officer, like how would I do this? And like, hey, if I wanted to be a SEAL officer, like, how would I do this?

And like, well, Academy gets more billets. So that's probably the thinking. I started thinking, I thought it was most prestigious. It was also free, and I wasn't getting scholarships. Everywhere else, I guess I got a ROTC scholarship. But once they said yes, I was like, I'm all in. Here's the thing, man, those guys and gals at the academies drink just as much as, if not more.

No kidding. Oh yeah, they're partying. And it'll come out, I went to the academy, but not for long. But they're partying just as much, man. Yeah. Interesting. So what is it? I've not talked about the Naval Academy at all.

How is it showing up there? Dude, I hated it. I hated it, man. I have a problem as we talked about with my dad, just in general with leadership and hierarchy and structure like I know I mean I realized we went into the military and there's that's all there but in the teams it's a little bit different I would say it's not really there yeah so I showed up to the academy and how it's structured is you show up for plebe summer and you got basically six eight weeks of

boot camp and I've done boot camp three times now. I did it at the Naval Academy Prep School. I did it at the Naval Academy in Pleab Summer and then I did boot camp proper. So like, but this one was the worst. So you show up and you have other classmates called upperclassmen. So you're the lower class upperclassmen, so you're the lower upperclassmen, as you're plebe summer instructors. So the thing about this, what type of people, and I'm not, there's some great folks that go to the academy, a lot of people that play sports,

but then there's a small group that are smart, maybe never had power before, and now have power. And man, if you wanna see abusive power on a scale level, go to the freaking academy and watch these kids that have never had power before light into this class of people, like the new class that's coming through. And I just, I struggled with it, man. I hated every bit of it.

The whole year it's like that. You got upperclassmen just lying into you and I had massive egos like these. The list goes on and on. But push all that aside, I think it's an amazing institution that's doing great things, putting out good leaders for the most part,

not always, but for the most part. And it's set up to really help, you know, the next generation of good dudes come in and some of the best officers I had in the teams. I don't know how you feel about this, came from the Academy. Yeah, I think the best officers I had were Mustangs. Yeah, that's a good one.

I'm sure there's a couple of good ones in there. But another question I'm kind of curious about is if you were that, I mean, most, how did you find the discipline? Why did you want to become an officer? Because most people that went in, like myself, college wasn't even an option for me anyways, but it was just giving me the fastest track into what I want to do Yeah Well

Dude, I think I think I lost the fire Okay, a little bit into it like I got kicked out of the Academy for drinking right like I Was partying my ass off. Like, my grades, I barely got into the academy from the Naval Academy Prep School because I was at Thames Street, which is downtown Newport, like, partying with my friends. Like, you needed 2.0, dude.

A 2.0 to get into the academy. It came down to my last exam because I was fucking off so much. Wow. Like, I buckled down for that exam because I knew what I needed to get. I was like, I'm smart enough to do it when I have to but my priority shifted, man, if I'm being honest.

And I think me getting kicked out of the Naval Academy was the best thing for me. If I would have made it through the Naval Academy, I would not have been a seal. None of the other stuff would have happened. I guarantee it, man. And by me getting kicked out, I struggled immensely for a few months.

Like, was down on myself, didn't think I could amount to anything. I started believing what other people had told me throughout the years. You want to be a seal? Like, you know how hard that is? Like, are you sure you can do that? I started believing all that. And then one day I just woke up and I was like, enough. Like, I need to get back on the fucking horse.

Like, I got bucked off, my own doing. Like, I got bucked off my own doing, but nevertheless I got bucked off and I'm sitting on the ground for the last three months. Let's go. And I started, I enrolled in the community college, started getting good grades. I started working out, I stopped the booze and I stopped hanging out with my good

but degenerate friends. They're still good friends, but they're degenerates. And I just got super laser focused on making this happen. And brother, I got told so many times, no, like there's no way you got kicked out of the Naval Academy. You can't even enlist in the Navy. And I was like, no, there's gotta be a way. And I fought tooth and nail just to be given a shot

to enlist in the Navy. But yeah, that's, I think I thought, in my head, I thought you go to the academy, you get a good billy, you get an education. Like the reality is, is like, I got in and I just was like, let's go versus enlisting. And yeah, looking back, it's probably the best thing to happen to me because I thought I was ready enlisting

and I wasn't. You met your wife in Annapolis. Was she in the Naval Academy too? No. How'd you guys meet? So I had gotten kicked out and I'm trying to get back into the Naval Academy so after I feel sorry for myself for those few months like a work I gotta pay the bills. So I work at a I

Work at a bar griffins. So there's a bar down there. It's no longer there, but I bounced there for that bar backed and I was I was working one night and they came in so her and her friend came in and I was flirting with both of them if I'm being honest my wife always lets me know like her friend came in and I was flirting with both of them. If I'm being honest, my wife always lets me know. Her friend had some gum and I took it from her. But inevitably the energy and the attention focused and kind of hit it off. She wasn't at the academy. She lived there. Her family was from there. And we started dating. And I mean, we dated for a while. We moved in together in her mom,

mother-in-law's apartment while I was training and getting ready for now buds because the academy said, no, you're not coming back. So I was like, all right, we're enlisted now. And we had about six months and I'm living in her basement just training. And yeah, it was, And we had about six months and I'm living in her basement just training and Yeah, it was

She's a great woman man, and I couldn't see it back then I Could see it she was she was beautiful. She was smart. I just You didn't appreciate it. I didn't thank you. I didn't appreciate it, man, for a fucking long time. For a long time, dude. We've been married for 20 years. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you, dude.

You're welcome. What do you think the, it sounds like you guys have been through a lot of ups and downs and we'll get through that, but... What do you think the secret to a successful marriage is? Oh, man. There's not a lot of people that have been married for 20 years straight. Yeah. There's a couple of things, dude, and we touched on them.

So I'm gonna pull, it was from a different conversation you and I had, but options. Like, if you put options on the table, like, there's always an out, right? Like, but if there's only one option and it's us staying married, like, that's a big thing. And like, my whole life is, I've done that. If there's an out, dude, it's human nature. You're gonna do the big thing. My whole life is, I've done that. If there's an out, dude, it's human nature.

You're going to do the easier thing. Starting a business, you give yourself an out. You're going to go do the easy thing. You got to set a paycheck or start up. Well, at some point it's going to get easier to do the... I think there's only one option, man, right? That's how I think about things. And then, you know, respect and grace. I didn't respect her. I don't think she respected me. We didn't have grace for each other's

shortcomings and we all have them and it compounded, right? Like it just got big and hairy and, and I mean, it ended up, we ended up figuring it out, but man, there were some times, brother, where, I mean, my buddies know, like, there were some times. Well, I mean, how did you, how long, how long did it take? When did you figure it out?

Yeah. But you've been married for 20 years. What year did you guys start figuring it out? Yeah, it was probably 2020. So... 16 year mark. Yeah. Yeah. 2020.

Wow. What was it? So, for, I mean, she's been through everything. We had a kid and went to Bud's, right? We got married. I went to OSA school. I met her. We had been dating for a while. As mentioned, went to boot camp. And then I got to A school school. I met her, we had been dating for a while,

as mentioned, went to boot camp, and then I got to A school and she came down. We got married because we wanted her to come out. So she was there, we had a house out in town, so all the buddies from Buds would come over and we're having parties. She's been through that. Iraq multiple times, Afghanistan, Africa deployments,

South America deployments. The road show that we're always doing, like always on the road. And when I got out, we thought we made it. I mean, you know, I'm kind of hopping around here, but the Goldman stuff and like living in New York and finally having money, we never had money. Still wasn't in a relationship. I was gone, I was immersed in the job.

Came back in, right? Because I, Goldman wasn't a fit, I didn't think I fit out in society. Stayed with me. I'm drinking my face off now because our culture allows it and it's normalized. Like, hey, you're in the teams, we just drink. When you get out, it's just normal to drink six, seven, eight drinks a night sometimes.

Stayed with me. But it was plant medicine, dude. It was. Yeah, for me, I was at a low point. I moved out. And, you know, I'm pretty sure we'll get to it. But I did it and I came back and she saw me do all the things to you like TMS, trans, magnetic stimulation, talk therapy, that doesn't work for me. The VA didn't

work for me. Like, started doing everything like all these new wazoo things that were coming out and I inevitably did plant medicine and I'll share that story. But I came back and I was like, sweetie, this is real. Like something's changed. I can fucking feel it. I'm telling you, this is it. And then she had her wall up and rightfully so, man. I've been that woman down so many times like with words and actions and behaviors.

Yeah, I'm not cool. I'm not gonna let you in. Like that wall's been years, 16 years in the making. And then she ended up doing plant medicine in 2020, dude. And, Same here. No, two years later. Took two years because one it's like, this is witchcraft.

Like what are you, I can't believe you did this like what the hell and And then you start seeing the some of the changes in my behavior. I'm not drinking I didn't drink for like three four years after that And never really she wasn't in a good place either and she was like I I want to go so we set it up She went to Costa Rica and did it with some beautiful women down there. They had it set up and It was so awesome. Those ladies are best friends to Costa Rica and did it with some beautiful women down there. They had it set up and it was so awesome. Those ladies are best friends to this day. And she got tremendous healing from her childhood and, you know, some of the relationships she's been in.

And now we got a kind of clear slate and we came back. And that's the first time, Sean, that I've ever been in a relationship in my life. I had five kids at the time. Wow. That's 16 years. You guys stuck with each other. Unhappy.

Yeah. Who knows what all happened. We'll get into it, but... And then plan medicine. Plan medicine, man. Just split you guys wide open. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah.

That stuff works wonders, doesn't it? It's amazing, man. We've got a lot of mutual friends and, dude, we've, Alison and I, she's got a nonprofit, the whole project that helps women, the women, the stories, like, there's some dark things in this world, dude. And there's some really hatred and nastiness that's happened to some of these beautiful women

that are just struggling and don't know how to get out of these dark places. And it's beautiful to witness her take what she's gained from that and like push it forward. And she's helped hundreds of women now go through plant medicine, coaching, treatment, integration. And it's just like, God, it's a blessing, dude. How did your kids act when you guys connected?

Yeah, dude, it's so funny. It's funny now looking back because they joke about it. It's like, oh, we've never seen you guys But that's some real shit like if you unpacked that was like wow you've never You've never seen mom and dad like we don't really remember those times And there's one store where I knew this stuff was real. And I had my oldest daughter and my oldest son and we're seeing a friend in Brooklyn, all right, Brooklyn Park. And we're sitting there in the park

and it's a beautiful day, man. There's trees that are out there. This guy sits, we all lay down and we're all just talking. And this guy was one of the first guys to invest. He donated some significant money alongside Tim Ferriss for the John Hopkins study. So he was one of the pioneers frontier leaders in this space.

And he looks around and he looks at my son, JD. And he's like, JD, how was it growing up in the house with your old man? And without missing a beat, my son, he's witty, but it was true. He was like, he was an asshole. I was like, fuck, I just started weeping, man, because I was an asshole. Like I did have those wolves up.

I did have an example and was mimicking that despite not liking it. Right. Ah, and, uh, he was like, how about now? I'm about to cry right now. He's full of love and he's happy. Man. That's awesome. That shit is real. Plant medicine, I mean the research look at it is changing generations. Like I was on a path with my family

and they were gonna do the exact same thing that I taught them. And now we lead with love in our house, man. And it's not fucking perfect, dude. Let's not pretend it is, right? It's not. We still get into it. We still argue, but I mean, it's almost instant where you're just like, oh yeah, that was

me, I'm sorry. Or what I usually do just fucking around is like, hey, that was you. You're such an idiot. But the kids see that now and they're on a path and we're using words we never used before. Like, hey, that was you. You're such an idiot. But the kids see that now and they're on a path and we're using words we never used before. Like my son, JD, he's 18. He's just blasts text off on the family thread. I love you guys.

What 18 year old do you know, boy, do you know that's doing that? I don't know too many, man. Me neither. I wasn't that kid. Me neither. I wasn't that kid. Me neither. That's pretty profound. Good for you.

Thank you, man. Let's get back into, let's get back in gear here. So you're going to Buds. Yep. How did that, you go to A school first? Yeah. Do you want to talk about A school or should we go straight to Bucks? Well, it's just one thing in A school.

I met one of my best friends, Zadok Morgan from Montana, Hales from Montana, Forsythe Montana. Little did I know we were going to be lifelong friends. I'm actually hunting with him and his boys in two days. But they had a, I forgot the name of it, but you remember when we showed up to Boo Camp, they had a workout session for guys that wanted to be Special Forces, U of D.

I can't remember what it was called, but we had that at A school as well. And I showed up the first day and there's just a bunch of folks that wanted to try out for these different units and I can just tell like, you know, these guys in my head, I was like, they ain't gonna make it.

And there was one dude, and I started gravitating towards him because he could actually do the workouts. He was doing more than most and we became best friends. And I have a pattern here at this point, and it's about having a good time. So shifting sands on the base is a little local bar.

And I had my Jeep and me and my buddy would go down there on Friday's quarter beer night in A school and just get hammered. Where is this? It's on the base. It's on Damneck It's on damn neck. What was your A school? OS?

Operation specialist? Oh shit, that's what I was. Oh no shit. Yeah, yeah, damn. I was over at Peabody's. Oh yeah, Peabody's. Oh my god. Peabody's.

I'm surprised you didn't get shot. Me too. Oh man. Yeah, we stayed on base, man. We thought we were being smart, but I mean, after that, we probably spent like 20 bucks at quarter beer nights a lot. I knew this guy was gonna be one of my best friends.

He was a class ahead of me, so he took off, kind of got the lay of the lands in buds, and then I showed up a week later and we became roommates, and just waited until the class filled up. And idle hands, brother. Idle hands. We got really close to not ever being a given a shot

to trial for buds. Damn. Self-induced. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. So for those that are listening, A-School is is a it's basically your

Your job training for for the Navy. So back in those days you go to a school They force you to go to a school to go to buds because then when you quit it buds because what it's like 80% nutrition rate Then you fill the needs of the Navy. Yeah with your A school. So that's what that is for those that are listed that don't know. So you get through A-School, you show up to Buds. Yeah. Show up to Buds. We're waiting for the class to fill up. We're doing our in-doc workouts and it's our birthday weekend, the weekend before we actually class up. So the weekend before we start, we class up.

It's my birthday and his birthday. His is on the 18th, mine's May 16th. So we got to celebrate, right? So let's go to a Piedras game and have one beer. So we go to a podder's game and those beers are massive. I don't know if you've been to a ball game but like these are like they're huge and one became two, two became three and we were rolling with the buddy of ours, John Parker. John ended up getting medically discharged, broke both his legs in hell week and still finished man. Stunt of a dude. But John, Zay and myself hopped in his truck and it's us you know the bench seat up front so us three up there. John had a beer and then stopped drinking and

then Zay and I were antagonizing. Let's go out let's go to the Irish bar. I forgot what it was called in San Diego. Go to the Irish bar and we close that fucker down. This is Sunday night, dude. We start the next day. I know. I, so stupid. Peppered with failures, man. This is one of the bad decisions. We start driving back and Zay and I are fucking around in the passenger seat.

John Parker's driving and we're hitting each other and screwing around and he's hitting us like, knock it off, you guys are fucking fucking idiots and we're coming on the bridge bay bridge And he slams on the brakes and we hit the glass and like what the hell man And there's a guy there with his hands up right in front of the car coming on the bay bridge in Coronado It was a cop There was flares There is a suicide attempt happening and they had the bridge closed off and John, because of us, almost ran over a cop.

This is the night before we start. I can laugh about it now, dude. I wasn't laughing about it then. John gets snatched out of the car. Parker gets snatched out of the car. We get pulled out of the car with the cops. They're like, you guys been drinking? John refuses to blow.

He gets arrested. He hadn't drank, but one drink. Like, guys on his truth release. That's what I remember. Earlier in the night, but he wasn't chanceing it. He gets arrested. Zay and I get thrown in the back of a cuffed and thrown in the back of a cop car

and we're waiting and they're just dealing with John and they come to us and we start lippin' off right away. Like, you can't do that. He's like a pre-law major thinks he's smart on law and he starts like yelling at this guy He's like Are you fucking kidding me like knock it off or else I'll take you to jail. He's like, you know what? I'm gonna do you one better So this guy drives off the Bay Bridge Takes it down into Barrio and drops us off We're like three hours out from classin' up.

We gotta be at muster three hours. We run up to like a taco shop. There's a drive-thru and we start yellin', can we get some water? Ladies like, no, I'm gonna call the cops. She's like, oh, we started lippin' off. Again, we're drunk. Like acting like idiots, dude.

She called the cops, I hear the cops comin' again. So we take off and Zay's from Montana. I went to high school in Tennessee. So Texas, Tennessee, there's not much ocean where I'm from, where he's from. But in our head, kind of like the story I told you earlier when I was running from the cops, well if we can't go across the Bay Bridge and there's no Uber back then, like no taxis coming to Barrio, Let's swim across the bay. So we hop over some barbed wire fence. We strip down butt naked. Put our stuff here, our phone, our flip phones back then, wallet. Okay we're gonna come back for this stuff. And I start climbing down the rocks to

get in the water, dude. And I slip. And I just all the way down I am cut up dude I'm bleeding everywhere he comes down naked Zay picks me up is like you okay dude naked I'm pretty sure there's like security cameras and dudes like in security was like hey Mike come over here and check this out yeah two dudes he's like you're alright I was like oh man I'm all banged up man I'm bleeding everywhere we can't get into the water he's like, you all right? I was like, oh man, I'm all banged up, man. I'm bleeding everywhere. We can't get into the water. He's like, yeah, yeah, no kidding, man.

The sharks would tear us up. We didn't know any better. So we go try to find our clothes, man. So our plan was to swim across, get on a base, get our uniform and then come back the next day. It took us forever to find our clothes and we had just left. We would have never found it, man.

I had no idea where we were at. We finally find it, we come out and we're waiting, like we're just waiting for a car. The new plan is, is we're gonna basically hijack a car. Genius. Genius plan. It all made sense at the time. This little Hugo, you remember the Hugo's?

I gotta be honest, I can't believe Mexico wasn't in this story right now. It might just pop up. I got kids that had to modify it a bit. Now it's not in the story, but there were Mexicans in the story. So this little Hugo comes putting up right at us and we stand in front of him, we stop. And it is full of some Mexican workers, hard hats and everything. They just got off shift and we're like, hey, we need to get to the bridge. They're like, no, okay, there's no room.

There's like, no, like you're going to take us to the bridge. They're like, no, Mr. Pleasants, like we're not asking. So these guys are just like, fuck. So we hop in and like we're all jammed in this little Hugo. Hugo's are like the size of like the seat. Like we had seven, eight people in this thing. I mean him and Zade's not a small dude. And they drive us to the bottom of the Bay Bridge.

And the new plan is, is we're gonna get on the opposite side of where the jumper is and the cop cars are as we get close to where the incident's happening. We're gonna low crawl past them and then continue on with walking across the Bay Bridge and then get into base. So that's what we do. We get on the bridge, we start walking up, all of a sudden dude, Duke's a hazard style. Like over the top of the Bay Bridge, this cop car catches air, I swear to God, catches air, lands, turns like sideways.

This guy comes out with the flashlight on his shotgun, right in our eyes. I go to jump off the bridge. I'm like, I'm getting in the water. I go to jump and as I'm going, like hands off, Zade grabs me. First time he saved my life because we weren't over water, we were still over freaking land. Whoa. Grads me, I grab on, pulls me back in. He was coherent enough to do that.

That's the first time, it's happened a couple of times. Cop comes closer to us, he's like, get your hands up, higher, higher. And then you see the flashlight start lowering it and it goes down and the guy, we can't see him. I really can't see him, he's like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. How did you two get back here so fucking fast? It was the same cop that had us earlier.

He's like, what the fuck are you two doing? I'm like, we gotta, we, you know, we gotta get to buzz. He's like, you know what, man, hop in the car. I'm gonna take you guys there. This dude with like 40 minutes to spare dude put us in the car, drove us to the gate. We were too embarrassed or afraid or scared to go through the gate so we hopped the fence. We go to the barracks. Somebody saw that call the cops but nevertheless we go in the barracks we change, we show up, we

think we're good. There's cops looking for whoever hopped the fence, but I'm like we made it dude We're at formation And we're doing roll call Headcount and we're down a man And their instructors like we're down John Parker who the fuck was with John Parker last night? I looked his aid and he looks to me We're like dude whole ground whole ground I looked to Zade and he looks to me and we're like, dude, hold ground, hold ground. And I have a, I have an issue with Lyon.

Like I'm like, dude, I can see this unfold in really bad if we don't come forward quick. So I'm like, fuck. And then Zade sees me, so he does it. They pull us in there to the instructor room in there and they start yelling us where the fuck is, what'd you guys do? And one of the starters stops everything. It's like, oh my god, smells like a whiskey factory in

here. You boys been drinking all night? I'm like, oh god, we're done. So we tell them what happened. They're like, you guys are done. Like, you guys are out of here. Like, go back to the class, we'll let you know, but you guys are done. So all that work, man. Damn. And I thought, you idiot, you did it again. Like, you did it again, man. You worked your tail off to get into the academy. You worked your tail off to get into the buds.

And here we go again. And we just put our head down and we got beat before class. We had to show up an hour early and got our asses beat. Just Zade and I, with all the instructors. We got beat an hour after class for all of first phase to Hell Week. And the worst thing that they made us do, man,

to this day, the worst thing I've ever done is hand write and hand number of 5,000 word essay. Like, I don't know if you've numbered that, but it takes hours. We had to sit there in one, two, three. It takes forever, man. Every word. Every word.

Interesting. I'm gonna have to try that something. Yeah, it's a form of punishment that I don't wish on my worst enemy, man. But they gave us a shot. They let us try Hell Week, and we got through, and they pulled us aside afterwards, and it was like, we liked you guys, and we're going to see

if you guys could figure it out. And if you could, we'd keep you. And if not, you're going to quit anyway, so it didn't matter to us. And it all worked out in the end, man. Good for you. What happened to Parker? So Parker was given a shot to,

he, they ended up taking blood and he had not drank in and long enough where there was no alcohol. So they let him come back into the class. He got to hell week, went all the way through hell week, but broke both his legs and got medically discharged. So he's off doing good things now. I think he's working with his dad's business in Texas. I remember correctly, don't quote me on that,

but he's pretty successful dude too. Right on, right on. Well, on that note, let's take a quick break and then we'll pick it up back at Butts. When I first started this whole podcasting thing, an online store was about as far from my mind as you can get. And now most of you already know this,

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that just stuck out? Yeah. Oh man. I think for me, I don't think I've been more nervous in my life than the night before Hell Week. Like sitting in that tent, sleeping. I don't know how dudes passed out. There was guys snoring in there. I'm like, dude, I'm sitting there on edge, and he just like, oh dude, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, here it is.

And I just remember looking down, up and down the tent, there's dudes passed out snoring. I'll never forget that. And then boom, it happened, right? Like the breakout for me was, that was one of the most memorable because, I mean, one, I knew it was coming. You heard about it.

You've seen it on Discovery Channel, but until it happens, like you just don't know, right? And then a machine gun going off with the blanks. Everybody yelling at you, flipping cots, and there you go, here we go. And I remember looking up and down, and there's a photo of me in the front-liner rest with just water hitting the,

the spraying with the hose. And I had the biggest grin ever, like, it's finally here, like the crucible's finally here. I finally get to do it it and I love that photo. I don't have it framed, but I look at it quite, you know, as I go through some of my favorite photos, it pops up every year or two. I'll probably get a frame that one because that,

that for me, that emotion, that feeling of, working your tail off, almost flubbing it up with the whole, you know, Hugo Bay Bridge jumping incident. But then finally being able to be in it, like, you earned it. Now let's see what you can do with it. And that was probably the most memorable for me. Did you have any portions where you thought you were going to quit? Not a hell week, but in third phase. Third phase? Yeah.

No way. Yeah, San Clemente. You went all the way to third phase and then thought about quitting? There was a fleeting moment, man, where... So it was the time of year and we had Thanksgiving off and the instructors are super nice to us.

They're like, oh, you guys are just going to go to San Clemente, take your time, and enjoy the holidays. When we come back January, it's going to be, we're just going to do the gentlemen's course out there. Psychologically, they had planted that seed, and I had no idea what they were doing. Thanksgiving come back. We do a little bit of workouts

between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. And then we go off for Christmas, I'm crushing pumpkin pies, like eating turkey and ham, ice cream on top of my apple pie. We come back and they're still playing the game. They're like, this is, you know, they're just gonna go out there, we're gonna do some demo, it's gonna be awesome.

We land on that plane and they beat the living piss out of us from the second we got there until like the second we left. And it was raining, it was January, you know how, how soak-al is. So it's just, it's cold, not too cold, but cold enough where you're miserable. And you're completely soaked from this drizzle

that's happened in this marine layer. And you're running up and down with the pallets on your back. And I was like, this is by far the worst part of buds for me. Like, and it didn't help like the instructors had carte blanche out there. So like there's no, the command's not there. They're not overlooking the instructors.

So we had one dude who is a good friend now and he's a coach in the plant medicine space. But back then he was the biggest drunk. And he would first, like every morning we wake up and we'd have to figure out a way to get to the chow hall without running into instructor burns. Oh yeah. And we'd like kind of maneuver out like where is he?

See, and we take off and all of a sudden you hear him, he'd be in the trees behind the trash cans. He'd be under, like, I was just like, dude, this dude is everywhere. And he would beat the living piss out of you all breakfast. You wouldn't get breakfast. And I hated it, man. I was like, dude.

So every bit of that was just horrible for me. I hated it. And there was times where I was like, I don't want to do this, man. Yeah. Were they targeting you? It was everybody. It was the whole class.

It felt like me, but it was everybody. Yeah. Right on, man. Well, see, you get through Buds, you go through SKT, what team are you going to? I go to Four. Four? Yep.

How was it arriving at Four? Yeah, they took our tridents, put them in the bird cage, said we didn't earn shit, and then we hopped on the road, man. Yeah, they took our tridents, put them in the bird cage, said we didn't earn shit, and then we hopped on the road, man. It was a condensed, I don't know if you were part of that, I think you were, where they were condensing the workup cycles, but we were going to Baghdad and we were leaving

in nine months. But it was fun, man. I had a couple of brothers there with me from Buds, and the old guys were pretty good. They were really focused on, hey, we're going to war, so they weren't assholes. No hazing down to that? There were some. A little bit. Yeah, but I don't think, hearing some of the other stories and the other teams, I think

we got off easy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how it was for you. How was it for you? It was, I deserved everything that came my way. So. The, I didn't have any.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next congressman from the third district of Tennessee here, political. No, I mean, you know, when I showed up, it was the older guys in my platoon, when I showed up, had really bad hazing experiences, and I decided that they weren't going to do that to the new generation. And then I got cocky and I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter a couple of different

times and eventually whized up. So I mean it was there, it was happening, more guys were slipping up and they did do the fun like it wasn't fun, it was still hazing but I think it was a little lighter, they liked us, still beat us but again, I've heard some horror stories. Now, there was one incident where we were in Land Warfare and me and that same dude, Zade, fucked up. You guys were on the same platoon? Yep.

Oh, man. I know. Wow. And same troop, he was in a different platoon, but we were big hunters and on the army base there in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, there's like this huge impact zone where they drop bombs and it's off limits. There's a lot of like ranges that are off limits. Well, Zade and I would take one of the side-by-sides and

just go out there and hunt. And it started off like hey let's get one for the platoon or for the troop and we'll butcher it up, we'll bring it back and we'll grill and we'll have the other platoon grill while one's out doing runs and vice-versa and we're reading Fresh Vanisen was awesome. Second weekend, I mean we went through that like that a couple runs all the meat was awesome. Second weekend, I mean we went through that like that, a couple runs, all the meat was gone. So let's get a couple more. So the second weekend, we go out there

and we shoot a couple more on the first day. And then we're not wanting to butcher up all these animals, so then let's just take the hindquarters and the backstraps, the good meat. And then it became, let's just take the backstraps and then bloodlust set in, dude. And we just started killing everything. It got bad. So bad that Monday morning we're back on the ranges and he elbows me and I look at him.

He tells me to kind of look up and I look up and I see turkey vulture circloid and I look at him and he tells me to kind of look up and I look up and I see turkey vulture circloid and I start counting like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, fifteen different sites where we had put down deer and taken the meat off of it. Somebody saw us running around doing this, reported it to the Game Warden. We're sitting there counting this, and the instructors come out and it's like,

hey, who was out shooting freakin' deer this past weekend? And Zay and I put our hand up. He's like, you dumbasses. Like, the Game Warden is on his way. Like, he'll be here this afternoon. You guys have a couple hours to go get all the carcasses and we're gonna blow them It's a hundred degrees out there and it's only the weekend but by the time we get to the first carcass it is covered in maggots And it was one of the most violent things I've ever done in my life

This thing you're just picking these up and you're like throwing them in the back of that trailer and you're going from Site to site you're just kind of honing in on like, okay, those vultures are right there. There they are. And then we pick it up. Dude, it was disgust and recovered and it was nasty, man. We get it to the site, we blow that thing up, all the evidence is gone, but dude, we got beat for that one. They beat the living piss out of us. What did the game warden say? He was friends with everybody. Let me just say, I would never do that now. They beat the living piss out of us. What did the game warden say? He was friends with everybody. And like, let me just say, like, I would never do that now. I have such respect for like hunting and harvesting

and a different point in my life. So I respect like when we go hunt, we harvest everything and it fills our freeze, our freezer with elk or deer. And back then we were just, I was an idiot. I'll speak for myself. Game Warden was friends with the instructors and by the time they get there, it was all cleaned up. He basically pulled us aside.

So don't ever do that shit again. Like people are watching you guys. So. Damn, dude. Yeah, I know. So stupid. Yeah. Largest deer I ever shot there was from there.

And I got it somewhere. I'm not gonna say where. Yeah. Largest year I ever shot there was from there and I got it, I got it somewhere. I'm not gonna say where. Yeah. Yeah. So you, so condensed, condensed workup cycle, workup cycle for those that are listening that don't know, that's basically the training that you do before you go out. It's, it's the training you do with the people you're going to go to war with before you actually go to war. So they condense it down to nine months. It's usually a year and a half. Yeah, that's right.

It's usually 18 months. Yeah. 18 month cycle with a six month deployment. So, I mean, did you feel, did you know where you were going? Yeah, we were going to Baghdad. How'd that feel? I mean, I mean, it felt awesome, right?

Like, it's everything that we've done has been to go to war. Um... And, you know, again, I look back. I mean, I'm answering that question from, like, the 22, 23-year-old kid that has worked his tail off to do that. Looking back, my views maybe have changed a bit, but that's who I was back then, and I was so pumped. We were all pumped. I think we were really teammate at the time in Baghdad. Pretty sure we did. I can't remember, but we got in and there was two different

task force that we were associated with, so we split the troop up and we just started getting after it. And it was, it was, I mean, it's kind of like the movies, man. We were going to, we were talking about it earlier, going to a slaughter city. Like that thing was, that thing was a Hornets nest. And on one of my first mission, I'm the lead, lead Vic driver, right? So I'm mobility, I'm driving, I'm in the lead vehicle. And I got this really good dude next to me. He was our troop chief, Hertzog, he came from Damneck.

He was our troop chief at the time. And on the way out there, they're burning tires, early warning signals and everybody knows the Americans are coming. We do what we gotta do, hit the target, come out, we're driving. And I'm looking to my left and I'm like, oh man, that's strange, what are those things? And I'm like seeing like little flashes.

It felt like an eternity. To me, it looked like fireflies. It wasn't, obviously. It was gunfire. And Ed basically like hits me upside the head and says, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Drive. And then it all like, it's like,

the tunnel vision came out and I'm like, oh my God, we're getting shot at. And you hear like ting, ting, ting. I'm like, oh shit. And just take off. Damn. I saw one of my first missions. I was like, had no idea what was going on.

All the training in the world, I'm like, hey, there's flyer fires in Sotter City. How cool is that? Yeah. Well, let's rewind. So you landed Baghdad. What year is this? This is 0506. I'm pretty sure. Maybe it was 607. Okay. Yeah. So you landed Baghdad. What's the mission? What are they briefing you guys up on? Yeah. So we're going after, we're doing raids.

We're working with two different Iraqi units. So we partnered with some partner forces, the ICTF and the ERU, and we're just going after guys that are cell leaders, like IED cell leaders, basically anybody in the target set in that vicinity that we were working in. So dudes that were killing other guys. And that's, yeah, we split off into those two groups

and we started doing, like, it felt like missions every, maybe every other night, sometimes two missions a night. Right off the bat. Right off the bat. Well, let's go through your first mission. Yeah. Just as a brand new guy, you've only been on a SEAL team for nine months.

Now you're on the thick of it. That was a very hot time period. That first one, man, it was a he-low-up. We came in and I was with one of the assault teams and so just did the brief. We hopped on the birds, did the rehearsals like we always do and then hopped on the bird and went to target. And we do the, you know, one minute out, everybody's getting gear ready, I got the night vision on and we're, I'm looking around the helicopter and seeing the TL's, what they're doing, my

TL and I'm basically just going to be on his hip and hauling ass to the door, to the breach point. And then I'm peeking my head over the, so we were in black hawks and the doors are off and I'm peeking my head over the side and I see like gunfire coming up. That I knew was not fireflies. That was gunfire. And dudes are like shooting. We land and we immediately go to cover, right? Like so I, I mean we're taking fire and I go high behind the smallest little berm. It felt like a small, so it really was. I was like hiding there like trying to like get behind this thing. And I mean, we're all engaging and we're starting to calm, start coming up and we're starting to move, maneuver to target and I get a tap on the shoulder and I'll never forget, this guy ended up going to damn neck. I want, he's still in. I'm not gonna say who it is.

Great dude. He was awesome. He was the TL. He tasked me on the shoulders, like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm taking cover. And he's like, John Wayne, gun hanging. And he's like, dude, let's go. Just calm as could be. And I'm like, literally cowering, like my whole 180 body behind this thing. And he just walks off and I'm like, oh, okay.

And I start like, the blinders came off. And I was like, okay, fire over there, taking like, the blinders came off and I was like, okay, fire over there, taking fire over there. We're not, there's nobody shooting at us right now. It was like all around me, but not towards us. So we start walking. I run and he's walking and he looks at me and I see him shake, I can see the nods.

He's just like such disgusting disappointment. Is it? That was, I mean, that was it. We blew the front door back then. We were blowing everything through a slap charge on the gate. Like gate was open, let's close the gate. Let's blow the fucking gate. Yeah.

Door's open, let's close the door, blow that, and then we took down the building. And I mean, it was, everything clicked after that moment when he was like, let's go. It was just like right back into the training. Oh, okay, got it. Like we're in patrol now, I'm covering down, like we're flowing.

It started to get into that flow state where nobody was saying shit and it was just, I mean, it felt like an orchestra, dude. It was just like, it was happening, the music was happening, people were lining up, nobody was saying anything, you know, execute, execute, execute, boom, and we're in the building and now we're flowing off each other's hips

and taking down rooms and hopping back in the train. And the next thing you know, target secure. And I was just like, damn, that's fucking awesome. Yeah, yeah. Did you engage anybody on that first time? Not on the first one. When did you, how many ops went through before you? It was probably a third or fourth op when we started engaging.

Sotter City after that was every night. Like when we were in Sotter, dude, we were shooting in the turret. Buddy was lead turret gunner. I remember when I first engaged, he was lead turret gunner and same dude, Zadok. We had just got the miniguns in the lead turret. Do you remember this? We never had miniguns. Okay.

You ready for a funny, hilarious story? This made the national news. We have a tendency to make get ourselves in a trouble and do stupid things. So I'm going to try to not knock this, but he's the turret gunner, doesn't lock in the seat. There's a guy coming around the corner and ISR lets him know he's coming around the corner. Zade puts the gun on him, doesn't lock in the seat. Guy comes around the corner and he hits the button. And this fucking turn went, Vrrrrrr. Oh man.

It took down telephone, light posts, buildings. Like everything started collapsing in front of us. Oh my gosh. Everything started collapsing, dude. That was the first, I'll never forget. That was hilarious, dude. But that's Zade. Zade's a good man and he does funny shit all the time.

You just gotta spend five minutes with him and you're gonna laugh. Nice. Yeah. So what was the up? Most of what we did was we were going after high, like HVTs, so high value targets. And for that first deployment, it ranged from, again, I mentioned like IED cell leaders.

So like we were going after the big wigs that were like the bosses for these different cells. Was it capture kill? It was. What were you guys doing? Capturing or killing? It was both. It was both. What was the determination?

I mean, back then it was prior to Obama coming to an office. So we had, if there's a threat, if you feel there was a threat, then you can take it. And it involved, I don't know if you were deployed during that time, if there's a threat, if you feel there was a threat and you can take it and it involved I don't know if you were Deployed during that time, but then it was like, you know, you got it. They got a point of weapon at you You got to be fired at first. It got really squirrely people were getting hurt because their second guess in Their training but back then it was like if you felt

Like you need to take a shot. shot so you could do it. Yeah. For example, the first dude, I was on the recce team and we would use telephone like tent poles and put them on these contraptions that opened up and they had teeth. So the buildings overseas were flat as you know. But we would basically raise this device, it would capture, we'd have a soft caving ladder,

and we would climb to the roof and secure it that way, like secure the target building or climb the target building. And we started taking down the targets from the roof, but we would climb the target building and the dude we were going after, just to have to come out the top, it was like there's a cupola and door right usually on these buildings and he came out

and we ID him and put him down right away. That was the first dude I killed. Let's get a little more descriptive. Yeah. So we go in, he comes out, he's running, and he's hopping over a building, and it's for me to the door, so like, I don't know, 10 feet away. And just put the laser on him, and I forgot about this. The boys, I yell freeze.

Oh my gosh. I forgot about this, dude. Oh my gosh. I forgot about this dude. Oh my god, the guys gave me so much shit. They said we heard you for a fucking miles away. Like the blocking forces heard you. I said freeze. And that dude kept running and put him down. And I hopped over.

Where'd you hit him? I hit him in the back. and put him down and I hopped over. Merge you had him. I hit him in the back and he was kind of running sideways so like grip cage and he went down a couple shots in him. And I hop over, the buildings were set up where the roofs were kind of, there was like a wall around maybe a four foot wall around the roof. So these buildings, so you would have to hop over.

They were all connected on these blocks but I hopped over and he was still like alive, he was still and he was on his back and I walked up to him and looked him in the eyes and got on top of him like to make sure you know he was dead. He wasn't at that point and just sat there and watched him physically. This is the second moment in my life where I had a spiritual event happen. I watched his spirit leave his body.

Like I watched his eyes go gray. I watched that last breath. Like I physically watched whatever was inside of him, spirit, whatever you believe in, I believe there's a spirit in us and I watched that leave his soul, like his soul leave his body. What did it look like? It was more the eyes, so his eyes just instantaneously lost life. And I've seen it with some animals before

when I, because I hunt quite a bit, but I've never seen it like this and it was just him breathing out, I'm on top of him. And I could tell it was about to happen, you know, the breathing started getting complicated. And I just sat there and I watched him in his eyes for like 20 seconds and it just went gray, like that gray and heard that last gasp and to me like there was there was nothing that left like I didn't see anything that

left but I felt it. Yeah it was an intuition and I could feel the energy shift. I mean, he was done. Why did you stop and look him in the eyes? Do you know? I don't. Was it curiosity or what it would look like to see another man die? It could be that.

Yeah, I don't know, man. Like I was standing over top of him and then I've seen him, like I see him. I seen that guy. And I mean, he was a horrible dude. He killed 30 plus Marines. He was, he had a bomb shot. They were killing dudes left and right.

So he needed to go, right? Like he needed to leave this earth. But I still see him. I see him when I do plant medicine. And sometimes I see him when I dream. Like when I'm in dreams, I see that. And I've actually had a conversation with that dude. Like never said a word in my dream, but we had a conversation. So it doesn't haunt me. Like telepathic type conversation. Yeah. I'll be dreaming and he'll come to me and we'll talk about, without saying a word, we'll talk about what happened. We'll talk about how he had gone to the darkness

and was doing dark things. We'll talk about that his spirit left his body and he's now in a holding pattern, if you will, until he's repopulated into this earth. Again, I've never, I lost my faith until that very moment. And then I was like, holy shit, when I saw his spirit leave, when I felt, not see, when I felt his spirit leave for me, I was just like, okay,

I believe like there's something here. I believe like I lost it for her. So you hold on. So this is a profound moment. Oh yeah. So the same, at the exact same moment you killed a man, your first man is the same moment that you've reconnected with your relationship with God. I've never heard that one before. Yeah. How often do you see him?

Maybe half a dozen times a year. Do any of the others come to you? There's one, so we had a slap charge through on the front door, blew it, and she doesn't come to me. There was a woman behind the door, and it blew her face. I mean, it was fucked up, dude. That's more of a nightmare for me. Like, I see that quite, I see that face,

and I just feel so horrible. Like, that was, I mean, that's, unfortunately, and I don't mean to sound callous here. Like, that's the, that's war, that's, you know, that's collateral. But that bothers me, man, as I've matured and grown older and wiser, I think, I start seeing some of these moments like that one specifically,

where I'm just like, man, we've ruined that woman's life. We've ruined a lot of people's lives. We're doing a good thing getting people off this earth, but there is collateral damage in that. Who's to say what's appropriate and what's not, right? Yeah, we shrugged it off back then and compartmentalized everything, but brother, for all the veterans out here that have done something similar, it'll come back out. It comes back out, so make sure you're prepared to deal with it. Like, have a network of guys that you can talk to,

gals that you can talk to, a therapist or... Because all the stuff that you tucked away and you didn't wanna deal with, it's gonna overflow at some point and it's gonna cause catastrophe if you don't get ahead of it. What is it like when you see her? I know exactly. I mean, it's like reliving that moment. It's not like a conversation. No, this is more, she ended up to my knowledge

living, whereas this one is like the first dude was a guy that I witnessed the spirit leave. This one was just, it was probably the first time in the teams where I was like, man, that's pretty gnarly. Like that's, like grimaced. It was like, that's, we fucked her face up. Like her face was gone. You weren't proud of it. No.

I see it. I mean, we're in between two buildings. There's Helos flying. I remember looking up. There's Helos flying above. We blew the frickin' building and she comes out of the smoke. And I just remember, like, through the cloud of smoke, she comes out and you can just see, like, her face has gone, her eyes gone, her face is fucked. Damn.

And the human to human connection, like we're all humans here. Like I got hit with that in my heart. I was like, fuck. Like this push all the stuff that's going on right now aside, like we're in war, we're going after bad dudes. Like this wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah. So I see that one quite a bit, actually, man.

Damn. I'm sorry. What the man you killed? It sounds like he's talking about reincarnation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How long do these conversations last? I don't know how to judge time when I'm on medicine.

I don't know if you feel the same. It feels like an eternity sometimes. Then I'll look at the watch and it's been 30 seconds. I'm like, shit, I just took this thing. And then it's kind of the same in the dream world, right? Like I'm dreaming. It feels like an eternity of us sitting there having conversations.

And it's a specific guy. It's not others. It's just, I don't know why this one maybe was the first. Maybe that's where faith came back into me. I don't know why, dude. But we don't say anything. It's almost like we sit here, we stand and say everything without saying anything. You know, it's interesting you say that. I just interviewed, by the time this comes out, this interview will be months in the past, but I just interviewed this guy, Joe McMonagall.

Have you heard of him? No. Have you heard of remote viewing? No. Okay. So remote viewing, so you've seen like some true crime, whatever, law and order, I don't know. Yeah.

Every once in a while they'll bring in the psychic, right? Yeah. I don't know. Every once in a while they'll bring in the psychic, right? And it's, oh, it happened over there in the corner and the woman used a knife and the bodies, you know. Well, that shit's real. And so Joe McMonagle was the first remote viewer ever that the US used. He was the first guy through the Stargate program. Oh, wow. And anyways, when he talks, I talk to him about. This kind of stuff. And in, in, in, if we all have these abilities and he believes that we all have the ability,

but that it has been diminished over time as technology has come about and phones and TV and radio and even just society, you know, with human connection. And he, but he basically says, you know, in the beginning days, you know, before there was language, that's how we communicated. We would just fucking grunt at each other and point at shit. But you knew it's almost as if language has slowed down the communication process. Interesting, man.

And because we were so, we were, it was just instinct and it was just, you know, I mean, shit, we only use 10% of our brain, right? Yeah. And, but, but that's it. That's how he kind of describes. It's just interesting. And then you're here a couple of weeks later telling me, hey. Dude, have you ever had, I went went to I went to university overseas and like I

Ran into a dude That's in the program with me so we're in the NBA program Didn't say a fucking word but knew this dude like I know you dude and I didn't know him He's he's English from the UK. He's got a marketing company but like everything in me went off as like dude you know this guy. And vice versa. He said the same thing. Like he ended up working on the business with me at school so in V-Mind Health we worked on it together and like it's like we knew each other and I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Like I've never met the fucking dude.

And I wonder, like I've read, there's a book called Many Lives, Many Masters. I don't know if you've read that, but it's a doctor that interviewed people that basically talk about reincarnation. So he'll sit down and interview them and they'll tell them very descriptive things that have happened in the past. But they're like a poor woman from a third world country that's never been to this other country, but she's describing like history, or they start speaking a language. Again, poor like third world person that doesn't speak multiple languages, but just starts

speaking fluent languages, and starts describing something that happened in ancient Egypt that only like sophisticated scholars have access to. And so they talk about these, you know, past lives which you were talking about earlier. And I start to wonder, man, as like I've had dreams about like us, I think we are a different class. I think we are words of us fighting in generations past as knights. Like, is that a dream?

I don't know, man. Like, it's because it feels so real in the moment. If I'm on medicine, on plant medicine, it's wild. It's like you're tapping into. It's like you're tapping into a different consciousness. I mean, is that how I'm curious? Like what's been your experience with medicine and have you had that kind of different conscious wavelength

that people talk about where you're tapping? Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. And sometimes I still question it. Is that real? Is that... But I don't... And it's hard to describe, but, you know, because I've talked about a couple of my journeys

before, but when I do medicine, I don't get a lot of visuals. I don't necessarily relive events from the past, but there's a lot of communication happening. Yeah. And the communication that's happening is, how do I describe it? It's almost like a download. Yeah. It's like, okay, so if I'm going to load a new program into your computer It would take me forever to talk about you know to teach the computer how to Utilize the program and all that right

whereas Whereas when you just stick in a thumb drive just gets it. Yeah, and that's how I feel Plant medicine works on me is There's not a whole lot of communication. Things just all of a sudden become clear. Yeah. Does that make sense? 100%

Yeah. And it would be like, I've never played lacrosse before. Don't know the rules, don't know the equipment, don't know anything about lacrosse. And then five seconds goes by, and I know everything there is to know about lacrosse. And everything makes sense. And I know a position I'm gonna be in, and I know the outcome of what's about to happen.

And that's kinda how my experience has been with Pl plant medicine thus far. Yeah. Yeah. I agree, man. I think about my life post-plant medicine and the path I'm on. I'm not a tech guy. I don't know AI and machine learning, but the idea came to me for envy.

There's a better way to help people. Like why aren't we doing this? And it was similar. It was like, boom, here's the idea. It's an elevated intelligence. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was one journey and not to go down this path.

But I'll just share this one story. I kind of just was on doing some healing for myself and the medicine took me into this spot. I just remember, I remember it being a little hazy and there was people outside of the haze. And I could see the people, but they couldn't see me, but they felt me there. And I was like, dude, this is what it must feel like when people talk about like ghosts or something, or like they felt something, or there's a specter in the room, or, you know, I felt like I was that.

I could see everybody in this other dimension or world. I don't know where I was at, and they could feel me and they could tell something was off. There's like an energy shift here in the room. It was like, again, when we talk about it, it's just, it's an intelligence that it's hard to describe. People are probably listening and it's like, what the fuck are those two dudes talking about? They're absolutely thinking that. It's like instincts that were never there

or all of a sudden are there and the instincts that you have already are super charged. Yeah. And that's how it is with me. Yeah. But back to, let's go back to Iori. So you've just shot your first man. And what happens next on that album?

Did you know immediately that was the cell leader? No. When did you find that out? When I got over Tom. Yeah. And we, you know, we did SSC, so just took all the, I mean, there's a treasure trove of stuff in there. So we got that and I think it was a vehicle off. So we just pulled the Vixx right up and Target was secure, we loaded everything into the vixx and we took off.

Dude, it was nothing like to me, it just felt like I did my job. It was like, okay, let's go back, let's go get some chow, debrief, get some chow and let's do it again tomorrow. Did you feel a overwhelming sense of accomplishment? Oh yeah. Yeah. Were you trying to dub it down and act like it was no big deal?

Absolutely, but the boys were just like, congratulations, man, and it was just celebrated. And I mean, I was glowing, I was beaming inside, right? Mm-hmm. We signed up for this. We finally did what we signed up for. Yeah. I didn't show it.

I was just like, oh, thanks, man. No big deal. We're just doing our job type mentality. We're super humble. But inside, I was just like, yes. Hell yeah. Finally did it. Definitely came to do.

Yep. Yeah. And... How long did it take before he showed up to you? He came to you. I was a mess, man, and didn't know why. And I think we can parmetalize everything. Like we tuck everything away.

And like I said earlier, like it's gonna come out at some point, right? I didn't see him until I did my first journey. No kidding. Yeah, so that was 2018. I mean, it was 10 plus years later, 12 years later. Yeah. And he just came to me and it was peaceful and I apologized for ending him, but he apologized for the hatred he created.

And again, we're not talking. We're just sitting there and I was overwhelmed with like shame and I don't know why, but I needed to kind of release. And that's how I felt doing it. And it was like a weight off my shoulders, man. It was just like you took another human's life, right? And it still doesn't bother me, but there was just a release that kind of set me free

in other regards in my life by having that communication with that spirit. And that's what it is. It is spirit to spirit, man. Our bodies are laying down. I know you've done it, but it was our spirits talking, communicating. That's fascinating stuff, man.

Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I appreciate that. So Ops every other night? Yeah. All in Sotter City. It was all over. The boys did a pretty gnarly op.

I wasn't on it, but they went down in a jaff. Oh. Yeah. And that was a hornet's nest. These guys stumbled on a pretty big al-Qaeda training camp. Two days later, Spectre went Winchester, right out of ammo multiple times, and Apache was shot down. The deployment was real. Yeah.

Yeah. Those guys got into it. I think there's like when it was all set down It was like 600 plus casualties KIA on that It was real. Wow. Yeah, and the missions were I mean 600 plus KIA. Yeah, you can look it up. It's a nizh off you won't hear anything about team guys, but Because we don't talk about it. They. The guys that did it doesn't show up. The green braze took credit for it Which is cool. I always always mess with it with the guys though

He has always taken credit for of course we got to write books. He has always taken credit for But always taking credit for what we're doing. But yeah. And you know what? All the things, there's so much funny shit that happens on these ops too. So I always talk about taking the bad dudes off and it was awesome. We took some really gnarly dudes off target, killed some really bad people that shouldn't be on the surf anymore. But what I always loved was like the shit that happened on these ops like because I really see some movies and things were like

We're awesome. Keanu Reeves clearing the houses, right? Like look at these guys. These guys are sick. It's like dudes were tripping We were fighting like rolling around Disappearing in shit creeks like because we couldn't see him on the nods, people would take a step and completely disappear in shit because they used to have these troughs for all like, it was just, we'd make those dudes right on the outside of the vehicles because they stunk so bad. But that's the stuff that I always think about. It's not all the work that we did. I'm proud of what we did, but it's just like,

I love seeing dudes and just like, you remember that time dude All right, so let's wrap up let's wrap up your first deployment you're coming home You got a wife. How many kids at this point? To with a third on the way Yeah, how's the home life? I? with a third on the way. Yeah. How was the home life? I thought it was fine,

but now I'm smart enough to realize it wasn't fine, right? Like, I didn't know how to juggle all of it, and I didn't know what good looked like, to be honest with you, like we talked of it. And I didn't know what good looked like, to be honest with you. Like, we talked about it. I, uh, I mean, I loved being a team guy. It's everything I wanted to be. And like, the tribe was close. The women were close. Like, but like, we have some toxic behaviors and patterns in the community that can go off the skids fast, like our drinking. I think we were all alcoholics. I really do.

The fighting. We go into towns and just on workup trips and fight, but that was normalized. Like, hey, that's what you just do. The aggressiveness, I was normalized. Like, hey, that's what you just do. The aggressiveness, I was aggressive. I wasn't, I was short. I didn't, like I was in, I started getting in this mindset of just like, you're one of the troops, like, fucking do this. Like, why aren't you listening to me? Like, I didn't know how to be in a relationship, man. Yeah. And I was, it was easy be in a relationship, man. Yeah. And it was easy to hide behind job.

He's, oh, we got to, you needed somebody to go to school? Yeah, I'll go to that school. Because I don't know how to be at home with my wife. And I don't know how to be a father either, dude. I did not know how to be a father. How was your wife handling that? Man, we would fight, argue. There wasn't a relationship there, man.

It was just like, we're kind of stuck. We got kids. We're passionate, so there'd be flare ups. It'd be good, you know? But then it'd be right back to our baseline, which was pretty shitty. And that was normal. Did you have any relationship with your kids at this point?

It was superficial, man. Just going through the motions. Yeah. And I don't know what that was. I don't know if that was, it's probably a culmination of things, right? Like, we start getting cold and callous because of the things that we do,

the things that we've seen, the things that we've caused, like relationships with our fathers, like definitely a factor in that and how we think about things. The aggressive behavior of being a team guy and like wanting to fight and fuck everything. It was just all those factors weighing in and I felt like just an empty shell, just going to church and going to the games and lying next to my wife in bed and I wasn't there,

dude. I was never there. Yeah. So let's get back. What kind of schools were you going to? Sniper school was probably the biggest. I did comms, but sniper was, yeah, so wrapped up first deployment and I was one of the guys that got to go to Sniper, and that was a fucking blast. Yeah. Yeah. Another story.

So we show up and I couldn't shoot to save my life, too. The Navy marksmanship, like I just couldn't do that. I'm pretty confident my buddy's helping me get into Sniper school. I just couldn't do that. And I'm pretty confident my buddies helped me get into sniper school. I'll leave it at that. Wait, you couldn't pass the regular Navy marksmanship? Dude, I was struggling. Holy shit. So it came down.

And they sent you to sniper school? So I passed it when we were back at, but for whatever reason, the pressures being at Atta Berry, like you gotta do it again. And I couldn't frickin' do it. I failed the first one, second one, I think it came down to the third one, and miraculously passed. But we start off and, you know,

Zade was my sniper buddy. Again, he shows up everywhere. Wow So we're we're sniper pair and we just start crushing it We ended up getting an honor man and honor pair so I Tribute a look like me getting honor man to him because it's easy to pull the trigger It's really fucking hard to call wind. And this man grew up calling wind in Montana, right? Like born in Wyoming, he knows how to call wind.

So like I'm just sitting back and he's just dropping these, all I'm doing is this. So I ended up getting an honor man, but it was because of that dude. While we were there though, man, we had a good time. You know Wally? I do. Okay, there's two of them. Well, they're both little guys, but good dudes. One lives here. The other one's still in. He lives here? Yeah.

And tennis? No, shit, I didn't know that. Pretty sure. I was friends with his younger brother, Brad Wallow-Wander, and he was a riot. Stud, fastest runner, he's like strongest dude. He's just a good good dude, but we went to Buzz together and we became so close that he knew kind of my things. So he knew how to make me like I was super ticklish. We're in a gov'y van and I'm laid out in like the second row passed out and this dude hops on top of me and just sticks his daggers his fingers into my ribs and I just like reaction boom kick out the Gov'e window right on top of a cop car was just next to us just pure chance man he hits the lights and I'm like

holy shit I start everything starts coming to and I see and I'm like, holy shit, everything starts coming too. And I see an exit, I was like, take the exit, take the exit. Takes the exit, that cop slams on the brakes. And I was like, go, go, go. We find a parking lot, we park the car and we were all hiding in there. I see this cop like rip past us and we're like,

okay, I think we're clear. He's like, what's going on here? There's all these kids, like college kids, going into this building and I was like, well, let's check it out. I mean, we gotta's check it out. I mean we got to kill some time anyway. We can't drive.

Like they're going to, they've got an APB probably on this fucking big, guvvy van. So we go in there and it's an art show, like a collared art show and there's a keg in there. So we start drinking and looking at all the art and we're all, there's probably like 10 of us in there just fucking around drinking too much. Finally they're like, get out of here. of us in there just fucking around drinking too much. Finally they're like, get out of here, you guys are assholes, like drinking all our beer, you're not even supposed to be here.

So we get kicked out of there. We get into the Gevy van and we drive to the university town. I think it was University of Indiana. There's like a college bar scene there and we hop into the first bar and I go up to the bar and this guy just elbows me like hard as hell and I'm like what the hell man? He's like what the hell really? And he walks away and I was like what the fuck was that? I started like talking to a buddy and I had a tap on the shoulder and it's that same dude and he just punches me right in the chin. The bar separates.

There's like 10 fraternity dudes in this guy and then there's like six, seven of us in this bar. There's a couple of team guys went to another and they separate the bar and it stops. And I'm yelling at him, he's yelling at me. He's like, he hit me like blindsided me. And all of a sudden I see a little head in the audience or in the crowd start spinning

around and while it pops out of the crowd, looks up at this dude, just cocks back, boom, knocks him and the bar rubs dude. Like we're all fighting, we go back to back, we're fighting our way out, one dude gets hit over the head with the bottle gets knocked out, one of our guys, so Zade picks him up. He's got this big collar shirt, I forgot what they were called, seven diamonds. Did you ever have one of those? No.

15 years ago, these things were like John Travolta shirts. We're making the rounds with big Eagles on them and stuff. We all had them. And he had one of his white and threw our buddy over his shoulder. And we all kind of made an X fill. We went our separate ways. Some guys hopped in the river or towards the river.

Some guys went in other bars. Well, we got away. Zade had to fight his way out. He was the last dude because he realized our buddy was knocked out and he picked him up and the bouncers were right there. And it's like, if you guys come at me, I'm gonna knock you guys out and like takes

a couple fake swings and takes off and they chase him and he hides behind our Gevi van sticks our buddy underneath the car that was knocked out and he's calling us trying to find us and I keep getting these calls but I'm in another bar already and I'm like dude hello I can't hear you man we're at this bar and I keep hanging up on him like five six seven eight calls. He's furious It was one of those cowboy doors to get into the bar that fucking door swung open slammed I look back and it's him and he's covered in blood And he comes over like Johnny you motherfucker. I'm gonna kill you and all the guys like no calm down

We're freaking He came over to try to, he was pissed. That was one of the times that I thought he was gonna, he was gonna take a swing at me. They parted us, we call new guys and come pick us up we're like, dude, let's just get out of here. This is a shit show. Everybody's pissed off at everybody.

Let's just get back before we get more trouble. Monday rolls around, instructor, sergeant, master chief, sergegent was the head dude at the sniper school and he pulls everybody up. The vans are behind him, the ranges are behind him. He's talking to us, the whole class is in front of him. Jake's shooting eyes completely swollen shut and he looks at us and we got bloody, like black and blue and he's like, you fucking idiots, I swear to God, if you guys would have messed up one of my Gavi vans, I'd kick you all out of here.

The van that I kicked out was literally right behind his head. The window was missing right behind his head. Oh, shit. Oh, man. So he disappeared, didn't notice it. Everybody was like, go hop in the van, go take it in and get it fixed. So we got it fixed and he was never the wiser, but.

Damn. Yeah. Damn. Just another one of those stories. Yeah. So you get back to the team. Yep. Right? Honor Man Sniper School.

Where are you guys going in the next deployment? Going back to Bagh team. Yep. Right? Honorman sniper school. Where are you guys going in the next deployment? Going back to Baghdad. Same spot. Yep. Let's go right there. Yeah, that one was TF-17. It's one of the task force and we were going after Iranian influence targets. What is TF-17?

So task force were part of JSOC. So we were working for JSOC at the time. And it was unilateral, so we were going out as a crew, not with a partner force, and getting after it. Nice. Yeah. And it was another good deployment, man. Same type of op tempo, sometimes one a night, sometimes two a night, sometimes one every

two days. But I mean, the target set was rich. There was a lot of folks and we were taking helos and VIX and going back into Sotter City and other parts of Baghdad. And we started covering our bigger group too. We were hitting some of the surrounding cities because some of the cells had pushed out of Baghdad and started building out over there. So we were taking down targets there as well.

Any specific operations you want to get into that were impactful or eventful? or are you know there was there was I mean they were all not all they were pretty good ops I mean nothing specific that stands out I mean we were our tactics had evolved like back when you and I first started we were like hostage of rescue screaming in and dudes were getting hurt and I think from what I understand like there was a CAG unit that got completely annihilated on a of rescue, screaming in, and dudes were getting hurt. And I think from what I understand, like there was a CAG unit that got completely annihilated on a barricaded shooter, and they were doing the hostage rescue tactics.

And I think that's where we revamped everything and started pying and clearing rooms and buildings that way. So I just thought like, I didn't know any better. I just did what we did. This was the teams and you're a new guy and you shut up and you shake your head and you get it done. But second deployment is when we're like, oh, dude, this makes a lot more sense. Like, if we're getting shot at, why are we running in there?

If there's a hostage, cool, we'll go do that. But we weren't doing too many hostage rescue missions. So like, let's just sit on the outskirts and call them in if they don't come in. Let's just have them drop bombs on them. I just like this makes more sense to me. Yeah. So it was cool to see the evolution of war

from when we showed up with Humvees with no doors to us taking IEDs, to us putting steel on the bottom to protect us, to them using the barricades to shoot in IEDs, to us putting armor on the side, to them putting bombs on parachutes over bridges and dropping on to us completely evolving. It was a dance, man. You got to think quick and we were just constantly evolving with the enemy. It was, to me, it was just fascinating to watch how fast that happened. I mean, the technology we had when we first showed up was not that great and to think of where it's at today in that short time period, that wasn't, I mean, it's been 20-some odd years.

I mean, it's gotten crazy. Yeah, that's what I hear. It's gotten crazy. Really evolved. Yeah. But previous deployment, you weren't a sniper. This deployment, you are a sniper. Yeah.

I mean, how did that change your role on the team? Yeah, I ended up becoming a TL. So I was a recce team lead. That was awesome, man, because I'm a spider monkey. I like to climb, and our whole team would do that. So the enemy would evolve, barricade the front door, back door, the entry points, cool. We got a recce team up top, and we'll clear from the top down, and that was some of the coolest missions, like where we got to be kind of the the breacher if you will and like the door on top is always open Right, so we'd come through and we'd have lasers silenced pistols and clear the

The top of the roof then you know summer months dudes would be in there sleeping so we'd be able to kind of take those dudes off if we needed to or You know neutralized dudes if we needed to or, you know, neutralize dudes if we had to. But for the most part, the coolest thing we got to do is just clearing buildings from the top down, like open that cupola door, come down to the top floor and just clear everybody's still sleeping, man. It was so easy.

And then we come down and sometimes I remember one mission we came down and cleared the third floor, second floor, and the first floor and the whole crew was just sitting there. The guys we were going after were sitting there watching TV. Had no idea we were right behind them. Just sitting there. And then we take care of business, open the door, and I was a smart ass. I've always been a smart ass. I'm like, hey, everything's done, guys.

You can go home. Thanks for showing up. Like the assault T, TLs and this old team was like, fuck you, Johnny. Yeah. But that was, I mean, there was no one mission that stood out. It was just for me, I love to see, I like to see my brain is analytical. I like to see systems. I like to see, my brain is analytical. I like to see systems. I like to see how to improve systems and to see that happening live right in front of your eyes and us be sophisticated enough as a team

be like, hey, that didn't fucking work. Like, why didn't that work? Hey, why don't we try this? That's a great idea. Let's try that. That evolution happened so fast in real time. It was so cool to watch. And I think that for me is help with this business.

Like we built something and it was shit, right? Like it wasn't good. We got feedback. Take your emotions out of this. Let's evolve the tech. What do you need? Oh, this isn't important to you. Cool.

This is? Cool, no emotions. Tell me it's a piece of shit. Let's evolve it and we keep going. And I mean, I think I shared with you last year was a tough year for a lot of startups, us being one of them. We're resilient, we won't stop.

And we'll inevitably figure out how to help with the suicide epidemic, like no doubt. And it's not gonna look like what it looks like today. I promise you that. So not to go on a segue there, but I think that's where I learned how to do that so well. It's just like, you gotta be quick on your feet. You gotta pivot fast.

And I think the team's taught us that for sure. Yeah, definitely. Well, Johnny, let's wrap up your second deployment. Unless there's anything up your second deployment. Yeah. Unless there's anything else you want to cover. No, I think, no, no, we're all good there. Let's take a break. Cool.

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I'd like to talk about the operation that you're on with Mike Day. Yeah, so I wasn't on that specific mission. Our team, yeah. So just to be clear about that, we were, our troop was stationed in Baghdad and that troop was, I think that platoon was, or were they, man, I can't remember where they were at,

but we had just wrapped up our last op and that one was going live. And I mean, we're all at the same team, same deployment. Like I knew Mike, I knew that crew. I didn't know them well at that point. I got to know them a hell of a lot better later. But to witness or listen to that shit go down, dude. And I had no idea. It sounds like the guys there,

there was a lot of my buddies were there as well. Like how they described it. They didn't even know he had fallen through the crease of the door. So I guess what happened was from what I understand, hearing from the guys that were there, barricaded shooters, they went in and he ended up getting shot and fell through the crease and the guys had backed off.

So he was in there, the enemy thought he was dead. And he was shot 27 times, I believe. Yeah. So this dude, Mike, the chief of the platoon, shot 27 times. They do a head count, realize he is missing. They realize he's still in there. Again, the enemy in there is barricaded. They're shooting out at the platoon.

Mike comes too. Took a lot of rounds in the plates, but also other parts of his body. Comes to and kills everybody in the room. What? Yeah. So he kills everybody in the room and basically walks out.

The guys receive him, put him on a medivac, they take him out and... How many guys were in the room? I think there was three from, yeah. And don't quote me on that. Again, I wasn't there, but this is hearing from the buddies. Like we had a bunch of new guys that showed up to the team four at the same time

and they were in that platoon and a couple old guys that I became really close with kind of shared the story with me, but the dude walked out after being shot 27 times. Was that crazy? Holy shit. Yeah. Mike Day committed suicide I believe it was last year it was

If I remember correctly I didn't know Mike I knew his brother yeah But he had just released a book. Yeah knew his brother. Yeah. But he had just released a book. Yeah. Am I right? Yeah. From what I understand, he just released the book and he had some, I think we all carry

demons. I got to know Mike really well because of the nonprofit that I started and a lot of folks knew Mike and wanted to help Mike. And you and I talked about this for breakfast. You get through all the resources in the world at a dude, but if they're not ready to receive, if they're not a good place to commit to fucking doing healing and not to say he wasn't, he just had a lot going on. It was challenging to support him. And part of it was, at times it felt like, from my perspective, he didn't think he needed the help. There was a handout, I don't want the help.

And there's other times that he took it, right? So he was a complex human, and I imagine what he went through kind of layered into that complexity. But when I heard he took his life last year, man, I remember we were actually on a call with my team. So the envy team, that happened. I got the text and I was just like, I got to go. Like I just had to fucking walk away.

Like I needed to go outside. The thing is, and you know this, man, it's like those calls happen three, four, five times a year now. Yeah, so not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but like, yeah, he survives that. You know, stays in the teams. Like heals up, tough son of a gun, heals up and continues to do the job and then he retires and started sharing his story.

It was inspiration to me and others. Like, I'm getting shot 27 times, surviving, killing everybody, all the bad guys in the room walking out. Like, you're a fucking tough dude, right? Like, and he would share that story and what it taught him and I learned a lot from him. And again, I started becoming close with him through the nonprofit.

What drew you close to him? What was it about Mike? There's a couple of things, man. One is I saw myself in him in the sense that I had the same mentality at one point that I don't need the help, right? So I gravitated to the guys that I thought I needed help probably because I saw myself in a fucking mirror. So he was pretty messed up.

I think alcohol was a pretty big issue at points, and I know he kind of cleaned it up, but other points he struggled with it. But everybody knew he needed help, and we all tried. And again, at times he took it. So I think for me it was just, I always go to where the biggest issue is. And at some points over the last decade, Mike was at the top of that pyramid. Damn. Yeah, that was a...

I think that was a surprise to a lot of people. Yeah. You know, there's some folks like, there's some folks that said they weren't surprised, right? Like, it was to me. Sounds like it was to you. It was to a lot of people, but there's others that like knew them and just,

was like, it's only a matter of time. And I didn't know him well enough to have that perspective, but yeah, it caught me off guard, man. Yeah, well, I'm sorry. Yeah, same, man. It's same to you. I mean, it's our community and it's hard to witness our brothers taking their lives, dude.

Yeah. Yes, it is. We'll dig more into this. Yeah. I have a lot to say, but we'll wait. Cool. So you get back from that deployment and then you do an augment.

Yeah. What is an augment? So at the time, Damneck was allowing some of the guys from the teams to come over and augment their deployment. So, if you were thinking about screening over there, they'd let you come over. If you just wanted to augment and go on another deployment,

they'd let you come over for the most part. So, I got to augment one of the squadrons there and it was an awesome deployment. We got one of the Omega stations and we were in Kabul. It's a four-month stint. I mean it was great. Different mission set, like there's a secret squirrel type mission set where we're growing out beards and wearing garb and snatching dudes off of streets. So for me, as somebody that wasn't over at Damneck, forgot that exposure, it was awesome to kind of see the things that they were doing and how they were doing them and the resources

they had to do them with. So we spent, yeah, I guess all in all, it was probably 20 plus missions while we were there over the span of four months. So it wasn't as freaking as it was when you and I were in in the early 2000s and Baghdad, but nevertheless, like there were cool missions well thought out. And like, I mean, one of the dudes we snatched off target was just like sitting in one of these little

Jundy Vicks, you remember those vans? Yeah. And we're all in there going through check points all garbed up with like Terp as drivers and we're just sitting on the side of the road and he's supposed to be there like two hours ago. His pattern of life was come out of his house and I was asleep dude. I had passed out and all of a sudden one of the dudes just opens the door and he had an mp7 Like, I'm like, what's going on? I see him step out of the car, grab the dude and throw him in there, close the door and I was like, all right, we're on our way. It's like, that dude ended up being an okay to dude with dual citizenship with another country, Germany.

And it was a pretty big target we pull off. And this guy was a treasure trove. Treasure trove of Intel. nice. I was passed out I didn't do much What I mean, what were what were some of the differences? They so for those listed and damn neck is seal team six What were some of the differences that you noticed from coming over from team four over to team six?

I think the overall baseline was just higher, right? For me, that was my view because I think the maturity level was, you got young guys like me coming out of buds and we're just idiots and getting ourselves into trouble. But when you go there, you got to do a couple of platoons before you even try out for it. So I think a lot of guys got their shit out of their system and came there and were more mature in my opinion. So it was just super professional. It was my first time working with the agency folks too.

So that was interesting to see the dynamics there and how we all played together. So for me, yeah, I think it was just, you know, discipline, maturity, and just the shit that we were doing, like I was doing, getting into trouble. Wasn't prevalent there. Guys were laser focused on the job. Nice. Yeah. Nice.

You know, usually one guys do a deployment with them that fires them up, but you get home from Mount and you separate it. Yeah. Correct? Yeah. What was the determining factor? Yeah, so there was a...

I actually had screened, so I tried out and I did the PST or the PRT, my scores were fine, but at that time I had a financial, I almost had to foreclose on my home. So the command was like, you got too much financial shake going on, get this in order and rescreen. And for me, I was just like, I'm gonna get out. So, I mean, I wanted to go there. And unfortunately, like I got myself into a pickle with a house that we bought in Virginia Beach

and almost foreclosed on it. So that was probably the determinant factor. Yeah. Yeah. Shit. So when that happens, I fail and I fail fast. I fail a lot and I fail fast. So I don't know if that would be a failure or just a different path I had to take.

Nevertheless, so I was like, what's next? I still had a couple of years that I had to fulfill. And for me, it was like, okay, let's set our eyes on corporate America. I don't even know what to do out there. I don't even have what to do out there. I don't even have friends outside of the teams. I'm from Clarksville, Tennessee. I did have my degree, so I started looking at, well, if I'm going to be a high performer here, what are some of the other

industries? This isn't the right way to think about this. After starting a nonprofit that helps seals transition and find the next purpose, I highly recommend any veterans. Don't like map out what you think is like the high performing groups like Wall Street and consultancy companies, man. Like there's something inside of you that you're passionate about. Like figure it the fuck out.

Like if you like making coffee, like go buy a coffee roaster and like read everything about it, watch YouTube videos and open up a shop. Like because what I did is I was like, Goldman Sachs equity trading and Team Guy, in my head it was like both high risk. That's what I wanna do.

And- Did you know anything about finance? Is your right. Obviously you're in foreclosure. Yeah, I've been at a foreclosure on that. Oh! Obviously not, Sean. Obviously not, Sean. Obviously not, man.

Yeah. But again, like, I'm like you, like you shared with me how this whole thing, and like, I, it was the library area, right? So I'd go to the library and start reading up on things. Start watching videos. And I thought that's what I wanted to do. The whole premise for the Seal Future Foundation, the organization we created 12 years ago, was to help guys get mentors so you can ask the stupid questions.

Get relationships with jobs and businesses so you can go sit in the seat. So you're not like Johnny Wilson, like signing on the dotted line and then showing up day one as an equity trader, like I don't know what to do. Like I don't even know what this job is, right? We always talk about finding your purpose and passion and your team and I still believe that to that day, like to this day, go pursue whatever you're passionate

about man, whatever that is, to this day, go pursue whatever you're passionate about, man. Whatever that is, that's probably your purpose. And then find your tribe. Find good dudes and gals that you can trust. So that's what I did, man. I laser focused on Goldman and Wall Street, and I just went after it. I mean, it had to be more than that. Where do you start at the library, but did you need a degree?

Yeah, I was sure you needed some sort of a degree. Business school came in the MBA. I ended up just at the same time, like a lot of these big companies started hiring veterans. So Goldman actually started the first veteran program and I was year one. So it's an internship. They brought on 16 veterans. And I'll tell you a stat here in a second and this will be telling. But 16 veterans and we showed up and we basically went around all of Goldman to the different departments like sales

trading Asset management like when we just sat, you know a couple hours with each and It clicked at some point for me was equity equity guys were like, I mean they were athletes They're not like the Brainiacs. They're not doing derivatives and shit like that. So I was like, okay This could be my tribe like they're close enough, right? So they offered me a job and I started and then you got to get licenses, like you said, series exams, et cetera.

It was all fine during the internship because I would show up at like nine, have breakfast with a couple mentors or a duty interviews. The internship was set up nice to give you exposure, but it wasn't set up in a way to help you understand what your job's gonna be. So I'm like meeting with the CEO of Goldman and the executive team and showing up to the desk

whenever I want high-fiving dudes and they're asking me stories and I'm telling them stories and then I go to lunch with somebody else and then, so when I got the job off, I thought that was the job, man. Like, I thought I was just hanging out. Ha ha ha ha. Little did I know that when I moved up there

after the teams, I moved to Princeton, New Jersey because my father-in-law lives there. And I promise you, he told me it took 45 minutes, one way to get to the city. It takes an hour and a half, one way to get to the city, it takes an hour and a half, one way to get to the city on the trains. So my life became get up at 335, like haul ass into the car, drive to the Princeton Junction,

hop on a train, train to the path in Newark. I had to wait 15 minutes for the first train from Newark to World Trade Center. I'd come out, I'd pat the horse soldiers like statue, they got this huge brass stash just so I just tapped the horse in the ass. That was just kind of like my little thing. And I walked to Tuner West Street and I'd get to my office like right before six. And you'd sit there trying to just learn things,

work with analysts, and then you start trading. And the day would end at four for the markets, but the day would just begin for traders because you're going out with clients now, right? So you're spending time with one client, two client, three clients, like going out to multiple dinners, and that shit was not fun for me, man. Part of why I got out, you asked a few minutes ago, what was the tipping point, what was

the trigger? One was I wanted to go to Damneck and that door closed. The other was I wanted to be with my family. At that point, I still had not figured out how to be a husband or a father, and I started mature enough to realize I did want to do those things. I was gone more on Wall Street than I ever was in the teams. No kidding. Yeah.

Holy shit. I started, I stopped coming home because I couldn't do the hour and a half home at like nine, 10 o'clock at night only to wake up at three, so I'd sleep in my buddy's place. Brian Martelli, he was a Deutsche Bank sales trader. He was like, just come crash at my apartment. His apartment was nice because he did well

for himself. But apartment in New York City is tiny. He had a loft that literally had like maybe three and a half, four feet. I would just climb up there in a ladder, kind of roll into bed and then wake up at five just to get to work on time. And I did that for a month until Nick Chek died. So I was sitting on the trading floor, and at that point I was just miserable. In my eyes, everybody congratulated me. It was like, Johnny, you made it. You're part of the 1%, you're working at Goldman, you were a seal and all the things that I had

compartmentalized and put away started flooding out. Oh man. My job sucked, I hated my job. I really, I just hated it. I didn't want to do it. I felt lost and I felt trapped because now I got money coming in and we got bills and we got a house that we shouldn't have bought and all these things. And I was sitting at in, and we got bills, and we got a house that we shouldn't have bought, and all these things.

And I was sitting at the desk, and I get the text, and then I look up, and they're talking about a Navy SEAL died, and then the texts are coming through, and I was like, I didn't know Nick that well. We were at four together before we went to Damneck. But that was my tipping point to leave Wall Street and come back in.

No kidding. So you, how long were you at Goldman? They were for about a year and a half. So you went to school, got your MBA, then passed whatever you needed to pass to become a what? Trader. Trader. Worked there for a year and a half.

Then bounced out. And said, I'm going back. Yeah. What brought you back? Did you miss the job? Was it? Dude, I didn't think I'd fit out here, man. Yeah.

I missed you guys. I missed my brothers. I kind of missed the purpose, right? Like we're doing some strategic missions. It felt like you had an impact on the world. Like maybe that was naive of me to think that, but I really think we were doing good. It was good versus evil.

We were having some say in that. My new purpose was make as much money as possible. My new team was not all of them, but potentially would stab me in the back if it meant they had a better outcome on returns or their P&L looked better than mine because how Goldman works, dude, if you're bottom 20%, they fire you.

Like it's unspoken and I mean, I don't know if that's still the case. And let me pause right there and just say Goldman was great for my family. Goldman did great things for me. It helped me kind of break through some barriers that I had. It wasn't a good fit for me. The role wasn't a good fit. The industry, like there is some aspects of it that I really enjoyed and I could have

done something better in that industry. I just didn't have a mentor to say, Johnny, you're not a trader, man. You're a sales guy. Or Johnny, you shouldn't be trading equity, man. You should be doing facts or think asset management is a little more lower key. It's just, I didn't know what I was doing, man. So I do want to point that out. Goldman was in the crew there.

I still talk to a couple of the guys. Double A is a good friend. He does a bunch of triathlons. So we hit each other up. We used to be out. Goldman was in the crew there. I still talk to a couple of the guys. Double A is a good friend. He does a bunch of triathlons. So we hit each other up. We used to be neighbors when I was in Connecticut. So there's some good people there, good organization. I just didn't fit with that specific group at that specific point in my life.

I needed some work to do, like personally. Yeah. Yeah. So did you go right back in? Yeah, so team 10. Why did your wife feel about this? Yeah, that's a great point. So I made the decision to quit. Told my boss and then I told my wife.

Yeah. You gotta be shitting me. No. Does she have any idea? She saw me struggling. She saw the pain, but she also realized we had buried a lot of friends over the last 10 years, whatever it was in the teams. And we got out alive, right?

So although our marriage was just that, just kind of a namesake. It wasn't really a true definition of a marriage. We were still together and I was still there and I was still technically a father and I was still technically a husband, right? And then I dropped that honor. For the first time we were making money, for the first time we were able to do things in our lives,

like we got away and you're still alive. And now you're telling me you're going back in. Yeah. How many kids did you have at that time? At that time, we had them, we had them all. All five. Yeah. So you got a wife, five kids. Yeah. And you're ready to go back into the steel team and go to war.

Yeah. Shit. What was the conversation like at all? It wasn't pretty, man. It was, I mean, looking back, I'm trying to put myself in, it was selfish what I did, man, if I'm being honest. Like I could have figured out something else. Back then I felt like that's, you know,

we talk about purpose a lot and I think I abused that notion of purpose and like sold the idea that was the only thing I can do so that I could justify my behaviors and actions. And the reality is that's a load of shit. If I'm being honest with you. I, as a man, I should have figured out how to fucking provide for them in a setting

that allowed me to succeed and I couldn't figure it out. In fact, I ran to the easy button if I'm being honest with you, man. So that conversation wasn't pretty, man. She, I mean, divorce was thrown out. Like, but she stuck with me, dude. And here we go again, take two. How'd your kids handle it?

No, that's a question I'm gonna ask them when I get home. I've never asked that, man. I'm curious to hear, especially the older ones, a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person. of them. All of them. Good for you. Yeah. Good for you. The teams were good in their regards.

Yeah, they let me and it just lined up. So I was able to be there and yeah. You got a lot going for you, man. Got to see all your kids born, married 20 years as a seal, never happens. Yeah. But so you're back in. Back in.

What's it like going back in? Why do all the guys, right? So I go to a team where my buddy was there and he pulls me in and they're about to deploy. So like dude, it happened like that. I show up, they're prepping for deployment team 10 and there's a couple of troops going over Afghanistan, Iraq, or not Iraq at the time,

Afghanistan, I think Africa, and then there's a South America deployment. I was like, John, you're just coming back in, you missed workup, like let's get you on the South America deployment. I was like, yeah, it's perfect. So I got there and probably three weeks later, I'm heading down to Columbia.

And there was just an admin. I had to go through maps again to make sure all my stuff was good. But three weeks, and then I'm in Cartagena, man. And I was one of the older guys, so inevitably that role shifted into like, I became an LPO at Team 10 when I got back. But those deployments, we got to train with the local Columbia Special Forces group, and

those guys are out there doing the drug warfare, and that shit is real, man. I mean, that is terrorizing this country. Back then it wasn't fentanyl, but I mean, those guys were consistently just like chopping away at these camps, these labs, and demolishing them like huge amounts of drugs and it didn't even put a dent in the system. Yeah.

Didn't even put a dent, man. So we did that and then we did Chile. Chile, if you've never been, man, I highly recommend you take your family down there. It is beautiful. Really? It's gorgeous. So, it's on the coast, on the western side of South America. It's a longer country that goes down to Patagonia.

And it's like California coastline, man. California weather, except you don't have California people. You probably do now. That's a plus in my mind. You probably do now, though. Yeah, they probably flood there, too. Yeah, exactly. But it was great, man. You got the Andes right there.

So if you wanted to ski, cool. Back then, I was, so like wine was, you know, you had the red wine from Chile. You got Argentina steaks, and we stayed at a hotel right there on the beach and worked out of the embassy and trained the local Chilean compwest, so local Chilean seals. And those guys are still my best friend.

Every Christmas, the commander sends me a bottle of Pisco Sour, which is this really sweet lemony drink that'll fuck you up. Nice. So I just have, I don't drink anymore, so I just got a stash of these cheap bottles of lemon liquor. But that was great. We trained those guys and did some cool land warfare type training, but that's where I learned how to surf.

It was like, everyone had to wake up, go surfin' and then go train the guys. It was awesome. Nice. Where do we go next? Yeah. So after that, next deployment was Africa, so I went to Uganda.

And that was interesting. So I was stationed, well, the team was out of Africa. And we were working out of Kampala, which is the capital, and then Tebe, which was a little beach town. So that was the Boko Haran thing that was just kicking off. And we were training the local forces there. And through that deployment, there's some guys out there I was just kicking off and we were training the local forces there and I Through that deployment we're there's some guys out there right a corpsman and we're doing a lot with the orphanages and

In my head. I don't know what it was on That deployment there is a point where I was just like I'm getting out again What was it I don't know man. But it was that deployment. I think it was being away from my family in Uganda, not doing the job. So that was two deployments in a row where I was not doing the Iraq intense raids, hostage rescue that we were doing. We only did a couple of those, but then we did. And now I'm surfing.

It felt like I was doing something wrong, right? Like my family's back home and I'm surfing in Chile, eating, I got $140 per diem a day. And now I go to Uganda and yes, we're training, but on the weekends we're going out to the clubs and just, for me, I was just like, I got a, you committed to this family thing and you're, you copped out again.

That was the end of the show. Yeah, it's time to do it. What kind of clubs are you going to? They were sketch. Okay. They were sketch. There was, you know, Pete Van Hoeser was the CEO of, I said CEO, CEO of Team 10 when the helicopters went down and then he went over to the command and I was the CEO of DMACC.

Well his son came through and he was my new guy. So he was the JG. He was the OIC for our trip to Uganda. So it was fun to watch him have a great time in Uganda. I would live vicariously through his stories. But Uganda for me, I was like, this has been a great experience. I'm grateful for the time and the team, but it's time to mature. And let's do the next chapter. Yeah. I mean, did you have, so you got home from that deployment and then what,

how did your wife handle, I mean, did she even want you home? Yeah, I wish she was here, man, because I don't know. There's days that she probably did because I don't know. There's days that she probably did and there's days that she didn't, man. And it all came to a head when I came home the second time, right? And I got a job at a company called Capital Group. It's a great organization, man.

They're in finance as well. And I can get behind their mission. Like, it's genuine. It's a private company. It's a $3 trillion company. They're in finance as well. I can get behind their mission. It's genuine. It's a private company. It's a $3 trillion company. Yeah. Whoa.

It's in the asset management world, but it's about people saving for retirement. It's about people changing their outcomes for the future. As somebody that never saved for retirement, I, dude, I can get behind that mission. I was that person that I'm trying to educate. I was that person that didn't save a dime and was blown in and said I couldn't afford it, but I'm out buying Starbucks. So I got behind the mission

and I have been blessed to be a part of that great organization for a while, but I did the same thing I did. I hid behind the job, right? And I was on the road road flying and talking to companies. I was going all the time and that's when everything fucking went downhill. How did it go downhill?

There's a lot there, man. It's, um... When you're with somebody for as long as you are, and you don't even fucking know them, and vice versa, she didn't know me. And honestly, like, there was so much resentment, and I would use the word hatred. and I would use the word hatred. Like in our relationship, it was all a facade, man. It wasn't real. We put on a good show. We played the game when we had to,

but there was nothing there. There was zero, zero dude, zero love in that relationship. And then you compound that with me now the second time dealing with all my shit. Like I didn't believe in PTSD, that shit ain't real. Man, that's not real. TBI, yeah, like we got blown up a few times in Iraq, but dude, that's, it's not me, it's you, Sean.

Like what the fuck are you talking about? Like get out of my face. All of that came out. And that is real, man. Um, I went into a dark depression. I hated my wife. When you say you hated your wife, I mean...

What kind of actions does that translate to? What is the home life like? Get a little more descriptive. I'm not present, man. I left. Where did you go? I got an apartment right now. I was making enough money where I can go floating

an apartment right down the street. So what prompted that? Man, it was, dude, there was a lot, man. There was behaviors. So you leave the teams to go back and be with the family. I mean, what did you, did you attempt to be a good husband or a good father at all before you moved out? Or is this, you just fell right into this.

I think I attempted it, man. I tried, but then I just kind of threw my hands up. Like, again, I thought... Did you throw your hands up because she wasn't responding to your attempts or did you throw your hands up because she wasn't responding to your attempts, or did you throw your hands up because you didn't like being a family man? No, I love being a family guy today. Now that I know how to do it, like maybe back then it was partially that dude. Like I didn't know how to do it and I, it was, I didn't know what to do man.

Like I wanted, like I told you with that story earlier, like if you don't like the outcome change it, right? Like I didn't know what are the other outcomes in that situation. There's two. It's binary. But it's two, it's binary. But it's not, it's not that easy, man. These are super complex, these relationships, right? And if there's a spark of love in that thing, and there has to be, man,

because you wouldn't have gotten together if there wasn't, then you got enough to work on. I just didn't know how to do it back then. So I left, went to an apartment. And then I ran into a team guy, buddy of ours, that, do you know Will Chesney? I've never met him, but I know who he is. I've never met him, but I know who he is.

But when I saw him, I thought he was gonna get kicked out. Of the, he was already get kicked out of the... He was already kicked out, let me apologize. Kicked out for drinking of the teams. He didn't look healthy, man. He was obese. He had been drinking a lot. I see him and he... I just remember thinking, like I said earlier, like, I don't know if I'm going to see that dude again.

Like the suicide thing, like I crossed my mind when I saw him. I don't know why, I do know why, but I don't know if it was real or not. It wasn't. But then I see him in this low point of my life, like, thank God I was mature enough not to drink. Like, because if I were to drink, I would have, I don't think I'd be here today, dude. You weren't drinking then? No, I stopped.

Like, I had enough sense to stop all my drinking. No shit. Yep. What about drugs? No drugs. No pills. No prescriptions. Nope.

No sleeping masks. Man, that suffering was real and I felt every bit of it, dude. Like, and I wanted to bit of it, dude. I wanted to hop in the bottle. That was my norm, right? But for whatever reason, I think God or the divine, the spirit, the power to be, you're not going to do that.

I didn't. Hold on. When did you quit drinking? In the teams? No, that was right when I got to Capitol Group, so that's when we were out on the second time. And I drank, but once all this started happening, and in my head I was like, if I drink, I'm gonna make some horrible decisions, man.

Because I have a tendency, you've heard some of the stories, to make some stupid decisions. And that's all fun and games, because we can talk about it, laugh about it now, but any one of those could have changed the rest of my life. The Buds thing, you don't go to Seals. Trying to jump on, the list goes on and on and on. It's funny now, but the reality is it's not.

If I would have done that in this scenario, dude, I don't know if I'd be here right now. That's what's going on through my head. If you have these dark thoughts now, man, and you mix that with booze and pills, like you're already thinking about Sue's that adiation, dude, you feel so bad for yourself and like that you fucked everything up. And you know, even like, I don't even know how,

dude, I don't even know how I got there. I mean, it just shows like how disconnected you and your wife were. Yeah. You know what I mean? Was she sober? I don't think she was. Man, I mean, you guys were... That's pretty fucking distant.

Yeah. Yeah, we were... There is nothing there, man. What about your kids? What were they seeing? They saw exactly what we just described, man. Miss all zero empathy, zero love, zero grace. Fighting me, peace and out, coming in,

pretending to be a dad at a couple events and then going back to my apartment. But the will, chasm, the reason why I bring that up is because I described it when I saw him last and then I see him in the midst of all this. And I don't know who that guy is. He's beautiful. Like, the man is glowing. Long hair, lost 60 pounds.

I had no idea who it was and he proceeded to tell me about plant medicine in 2017. That's how I got introduced. In my head, the judgment came. I was like, this dude's fucking crazy. Did psychedelics? Like, I don't care what you look like. I don't care how good you look, man. I mean, there was something there.

It was enough to plant a seed for me to walk away and then come back and... What time span are we talking here from? 2017. Overweight. Oh, this is probably like a year. In one year. Yeah. He was glowing, man. Like, I've never seen a human glow before.

I don't know if you've experienced that when you've done the medicine, but I didn't know what I was seeing, man. He looked, he was radiant. But he proceeds to tell me this plant's a seed. I think he's crazy. But I go on the computer, I start looking at the research, PTSD, TBI. I start going to the VA like tried once, that failed, I couldn't find parking. I got yelled at.

I'm like, I don't have to deal with this. I'm out. I go to a talk therapist trying to save the marriage. Like I am just, I am so angry, dude. I am just like, I don't want any part of this. I quit the, I quit that. Was she in talk therapy with you? Mm-hmm.

Yep. And then I thought- What was it that, what was the point? I'll tell you man, it sounds like a lot of shit lined up for you, but at what point did you, did you and your wife simultaneously decide, let's try to make this better? The point was when I got to a spot where I was like,

if I don't do the plant medicine, I started reading it, learning about it, and believed in it enough to be like, I have nothing left to lose. Like, I really think if I don't do this, I won't be here much longer. And I hopped on a plane and did Ibegan and did 5MEO and came back and was like, it was me. It wasn't you. I'm sorry. I'm the fucking asshole. I've always been the asshole.

How did she respond to that? She was like, fuck you. You know our women, dude. She was like, I don't believe it. You're full of shit. But it was real, man, and it was real. And it gave me, what I recognize now is it gave me the opportunity to stop the bad behaviors.

It gave me the opportunity to get the addictions, I think we're all addicts in some way, like to behaviors, to porn, to actions, to alcohol, to drugs, to crush those addictions. It gave me perspective that I never had before, man. Like again, like, oh my god, just change the angle that you're looking at this problem set enough and you're going to see it in a completely different way. I was like, whoa, holy shit, I can see your point.

I could never see other people's points before. Yeah, and then, but she had her wall up and rightfully so, right, man? Like I helped create that wall. So after, you know, just a certain amount of time, it was like I first say no and you're a liar and you're just going to relapse back to your old behaviors. That's what happens. So, there's a lot we've learned since 2018 when I did the medicine about integration,

like creating the environment for you to be received, prepping your partner so when you come in, like they know how to like respond to you, you're gonna be different, man. The resentment was high with her, like why do you always get the treatments? Why do you always get the healing? Like I was there with you, right?

So, I mean, I kind of went back, not completely. I stopped drinking completely. I credit that a lot to the medicine. I think, you know, God intervened when I needed him to, and then I think the medicine broke the pattern or the addiction that I had going on. So things had changed, but they were kind of going back to where they were, and then that's when I opted to go do it again. Like, probably about six months, seven months, I was like,

listen, I'm losing some of these things. I didn't integrate. I didn't... I know I see the power of this tool. I'm going to go do it again. And when I did it the second time, she came back. We were in a way better place, like getting closer to kind of working through some things. And then she received me the second time.

And then, you know, it's not a panacea. Let me state this. So for folks that are listening, I know you've had a lot of folks talk about psychedelics on your podcast. You've talked about your own journeys. This isn't an end all be all man. I think this is just a tool that you can use to really give you an opportunity to reset, reframe the way ahead. I truly believe that. Yeah. But if you don't take advantage of that, then you could end up going back down the same path you were.

And so I feel that we learned a lot from that first one, the second one she was prepared for, softer landing. And then she got to a point where she wanted to go. And I shared with you our breakfast and I'll share it there with you now. And she came back from that treatment in Costa Rica. Dude, that was the first time in my life. And in hers, if she was here, she'd tell you that,

that we were in a relationship. We had five kids at the time, dude. And it's not perfect today, but by God, like, there's love in the relationship. Yeah, there's just like, there's understanding, there's grace, like, we support each other, we actually fucking like each other, dude. It's awesome. Yeah. It's fucking awesome.

Like, I like her. She's a cool person. She's doing great things. She came back. She started her own nonprofit to help women in this space. Like, the Hope Project, and she's helped hundreds of women now like that have trauma in their lives.

Severe trauma, versions of trauma. Like, you're in the military, you're a spouse of the military, you're a family member of first responder law enforcement. Like she's helped all these beautiful women like, dude, that's awesome. What's the name of her nonprofit? The Hope Project. The Hope Project. Yep. It's a good name. Yeah. It's a good name. Yeah. So that's... How did you reconnect with your kids?

Well, they know we're in this space now, right? Like we talk about it, we advocate for it. I apologized. I thought that was the right thing to do. Like they probably had no fucking idea what I was talking about, right? Like, what are you talking about, Dad? Like, oh, you're fine. These are kids, but the reality is I saw it and I knew it, and I apologized to them for not being there, for not being the best version of myself for them,

for not being present. Did you apologize to them all individually? Yeah, individually together, I do it all the time now. Yeah. I'm just, by people that know me now know that I'm, for the most part, I am a ball of love, dude. I'll tell them I love them all the time. I'll be driving, dropping them off by school,

and I was like, nope, forgot to hit the power window, and they're walking away. I was like, Charlie, I love you. Just like, fuck, dad. Come on. I don't get a shit, dude. I throw it out, I don't care who sees it, I hug. I try to get kisses, they're getting older now,

but dude, you're getting showered by dad's love, man. Like, I missed out on too long for me to not take advantage of it now. And I do, dude. And I love them that they're such amazing souls. And I credit, again, I credit Will with introducing me this and Plant Medicine for giving me an opportunity to rewrite this chapter that was written for me, man.

I was heading in a direction. We've seen it, no judgment, man. But we've seen that path, and a lot of our friends have gone down that path. And I think the Lord that I was just given an opportunity to do something different. You've created a hell of a wave. Then you started Seal Future Foundation. Yep.

Let's talk about that. How did that start? Yeah, so when I was at, so if we rewind a bit, I was at Goldman and I realized how hard it is to transition, right? So the big foundation at the time was the Seal Foundation. And they weren't focused on transition at that point. And I was beating a drum like, hey, this is hard, not just for me. Other dudes too, I've talked to other guys. And it's a real struggle to go from purpose and teams to this. Whatever this is, this feels like a zoodos.

Let's do something about it. And at the time they weren't positioned or wanted to, so that's why we started the Seal Future Foundation. And it was me and the guy's apartment that I lived in, Brian Martelli. We lived, I lived in his apartment and we were eating pizza one day and he was like, Johnny, like you guys are so talented.

Like you guys can get plugged in anywhere. Like your resource, because right now these companies, they go to business schools, they go to these Ivy leagues. They all pull from the same different pots. They need to be pulling from you guys. You guys are adverse. You guys think on your feet quick. You guys are resilient.

Like how do we do this? And I was like, and in my head, I'm like, I don't fit a gold man. Like, I'm talking about all our struggles. This sucks. And so the combination of the two was like, okay, a lost dude transition, no mentor, doesn't understand where he fits. And on his, through his lens is like, dude, you guys would be crushing if we can get you in the right spot.

That's how the whole idea came to be. So we did a 501C3 in New York in 2012 or maybe early 13. And our first event, brother, we raised $4,000. And $4,000 is a good amount of money, but we've done events where we've raised over a million dollars now, like one single event. So I appreciate the hard work that everybody that was a part of it early on, like poured into that thing and the failures that we had, the shortcomings,

there was times when we thought about folding the thing and it was just always like, no, the community needs it. Let's just keep growing. And it went from scholarships for guys wanting to go back to school to my buddy saying, I don't want to go to school. I want to be a lead climber, Johnny. I was like, all right, cool. We'll give you a scholarship too. Let's change the bylaws to job placement. Let's find the companies out there that are like-minded where our guys can fit. And then we can create mentors so that they can succeed in their transition. So companies, and then in 2017,

Bill Molder was supposed to talk with us, and over the weekend, I believe he committed suicide. So I think it was, I think we were supposed to meet with him Monday, and I think that weekend, he committed suicide. And that was the first dude. At least that I was affiliated with, for me. And I consider that somewhat on our watch,

like we were gonna help him with his transition. So as mentioned before, we lost a lot of buddies to suicide. And I'm sorry, we lost a lot of buddies to battle. And Bill was the first in 2017. And today, I don't know where you stand with this, but for me, I've lost more team guy buddies to suicide than I have to combat.

Yeah, yes. That's when we created the wellness pillar. So Bill was, we're like, we're missing the mark. We can't put guys in jobs if they're not mentally, physically, if they're just not sound. So we started off throwing wearables on dudes. The wearable that we used gave us the dashboard. So I could see hundreds of team guys and guys gave me access through like Johnny, like you can check out our data and I was like, I'm going to use it as an early warning indicator if you're not doing well I'll reach out.

Cool. That's what we did man. I had all the team guys stoplight method if you're in the red we can just tell those dudes are not doing well and reach out man. Sean how are you doing? Yeah I'm good brother. Sean how are you doing? Yeah man I'm fucking brother. Sean, how are you doing? Yeah, man. I'm fucking good Johnny. What's up?

like Sean like what's up? Ah What you're fucking biometrics are telling me something's off What's going on? It's like oh dude. I'm Lost my job. Dude. Why don't you tell me man? Like we're so proud. I Don't know if it's a community, males, what it is, all of it probably, society. We're so freaking proud that we're killing ourselves.

Like the stigma around mental health, like we don't talk about it because there's shame, you're gonna get punished for it in the teams, we're out in corporate, you're gonna not get promoted. Like, it's killing people. And our little nonprofit, that's the whole idea for NVMindHealth would use a wearable and just track dudes and check in on them.

That's what we did. So that started in the Seal Future Foundation? Yeah, I just piece-milled it. Like you got a garment watch, I threw basically through a garment watch on every dude and we would just look at it. And I said, I sat there and I was like, wait, if we can do this with our community.

What were the indicators? Heart rate variability, heart rate sleep, like the phases of sleep, deep, REM, light. And we would just look like, where are you at? Like where have you been and then where are you at today? And you can see if dudes are like trending downwards, you knew something was wrong. Who's monitoring this?

I was. You're personally monitoring. Yeah. We had a team page. How many people? When it was all said in the other words, over 1,500 people on the platform. So you hold on. So you have a baseline.

Yep. You have a baseline knowledge of what each team guy's heart rate is. What else? Heart rate variability is to the variations in your heart. The higher your heart rate variability number, the healthier you are technically. But regardless, your background, your history, your gene pool is different than mine. So your baseline is going to be different than mine. All we care about is your baselines. And then the algorithm will just pick up from the device that we use would pick up where you're trending. And dude, here's

the other thing. We can tell, if you had a garment or an apple, it tells when you go to bed, right? It can tell if you're drinking. Alcohol is a poison and it can pick that up. It takes four days, four days to get back to your baseline after one drink of alcohol. No kidding. Four days, man. So if you think about it, you're staring at data. Guys are getting one, two hours of sleep a night and historically they get eight for three, four, five days in a row. They're only getting a couple of...

Something's up It's not it's not rocket science here. Like you can easily tell when something's a rye. I Was manually doing this like I Didn't know what I was doing dude. I was just looking at dad and I said, okay Why aren't we doing this on a bigger scale with other populations? Like besides team guys with all the veterans first responders long humanity like why aren't we using technology when it comes to mental health? If I'm like kind of figuring this out piecemeal with like a wearable and this is just your I mean where does this come to you from I? Dude, I stumbled into it man. I was looking at my own data

When I did my Ibogaine journey and the numbers skyrocketed for the better. My heart rate variability tripled. My sleep became consistent and my deep and REM went from minutes to hours. And I thought, okay, if I can measure the impact of a psychedelic intervention, why aren't we measuring the impact of an SSRI? Why aren't we measuring the impact of anything you do, the food you take? Can we do that?

And the answer is yes. Do I know how to do it? Absolutely not. And that's when I went back to Oxford. I went to grad school. I went to Oxford because they have an incubator MBA program to help companies like mine get off the ground. So we worked on the program for two years trying to figure out how do we take this idea or this like rudimentary thing that we built at a nonprofit and let's create a for-profit business that can

help humanity with their mental health. So that's the whole genesis for NVMein health. Damn, damn. So you started it, so hold on, let's backtrack. We're getting way too, way too ahead here. So you started using Garmin watches and Apple watches at Seal Future Foundation. We use the Whoop device. You familiar with Whoop? I've heard of it.

Yeah, that's what we used. It's like a Fitbit kind of right? Yep and And so all this data is coming into whatever something that you guys can monitor. Yeah Are you still with seal future foundation? Yeah, you are yep. Okay. Yep Today no, so probably two years ago now, well about four years ago, we started the process of turning it over.

I wanted to focus on NV and try to build this tech and honestly me trying to do too many things wasn't doing Seal Future Foundation justice. So we got a good guy, Paul Tomah. He's the new CEO. So he was working at the organization at the time and he elevated to CEO. And then I stayed on as the chair for a bit

and then completely walked away. That's pretty big. You built a hell of a nonprofit and then you just walked away. No pride, done. There was ego, man, if I'm being honest, but I also had help from Plant Medicine, dude. If I hadn't done Plant Medicine,

I probably would have held onto that thing. But in my head, I truly believe what we did there, we can replicate on a bigger scale. Like, I think we've done tremendous, and that team has done, the group that's at Seal Future Foundation now is crushing it. They're doing great things. They're growing.

They got a medical board. They're doing awesome for the SEAL community. What I wanted to do was help everybody else. And I knew we could do it. I didn't know how. And we're going to figure it out. But I couldn't blow up Seal Future Foundation and start letting, you know, first responders in there

and adolescents. It's like, that thing needs to live in support or community. I was a bit, if I'm being completely honest, I was a bit bothered by all the resources that we get, you and I, for being a seal. I'm with you. And I do think that those resources that guys like us, when they get out, have access to actually hinder us in some regards because we have endless resources to bear, like we have endless handouts. So although I'm extremely proud and still do believe

that these foundations have a strong place for our community, I do also think like some of us were really good at what we did because when we're in a corner, like we figure stuff out. And when you're not in a corner and you get a handout, a $10 thousand dollar check here You know this resource here that we lose the edge that we had and I struggle with this. I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing

For our community to have all these resources Regardless at some point I saw these marine grunts that lost half their platoon Influenza at some point I saw these Marine grunts that lost half their platoon in Fallujah. They didn't have 70 nonprofits to support them. Man, you know what? Thank you for saying that because I've been saying this shit for a long time that the... And look, I don't want to downplay the special operations community, but there are a lot of other units and a lot of other men and women who weren't a part of that,

who've experienced just as much trauma, if not more. I mean, talk to a fucking Marine grunt who was on the effluxia invasion and talk to them about trauma. Yeah. You know, and when I say that, I'm not saying, oh, we need to compare trauma, because I think that's horseshit to everybody processes stuff in a different way. But there are so many, so many organizations that are only set up to help the soft community, the special operations

community. And these other guys are being forgotten about, you know, and it's fucking sad. It's really fucking sad because we have enough We have enough, you know, and it's I see it everywhere. I see I mean part of it maybe I think that I Mean guys in the special operations the people that served within that under that umbrella Have a unmatched... There's just a lot of drive there.

Otherwise, you would have never made it in. But then you look at civilians that are starting things and it's everybody wants to help the special ops guys. And now it's starting to be everybody wants to help the, the team six and Delta guys and fuck everybody else. And it's, it's because I don't know why it keeps happening, you know, but you never see anything that's, hey, this is for the Marine grunts. This is for the army infantry.

This is for the conventional guys. This is for the Marine grunts. This is for the Army infantry. This is for the conventional guys. This is for the pilots. This is for the, you know, you don't hear that shit, man. And it was all of us out there. Yeah. From right through with you, dude. It's fucking sad. It is.

And like we, last night checked, there was 70 nonprofits for Team Guys. 7-0. Dude, we have analyst resources and like the guy, like you said, the grunt that was patrolling in daylight that lost half his platoon and then now lost the other half to suicide. They don't have anything. They don't have a nonprofit for that man because they're not what, they didn't do the sexy missions or there isn't movies made about them. So again, I go back to, I'm so proud of what we've created. As I look at it now, the whole nonprofit community for team guys, I wonder if we're, I don't know how to say this, like what made us so good, What made you so good at what you did, you took into this job and created this, right?

You had to be in a corner, you had to have no money, you had to figure it out on your own and you did. What I did was hustled and created things and figured out and created relationships and built things, but I, and that was just what got us through the teams, I think. Now we don't have that anymore, man. Now it's like, I'm struggling right now. I'm just going to call this nonprofit. Dude, I think you got to figure it out. Like fight for it.

Figure it out because once you do it once, then you'll do it again and it just keeps getting better and you're gonna find the success that you've earned. I don't know, man. So... I see what you're saying, and I will say it. I think that there are people who will make a career out of post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and you could make a career from bouncing around to non-profit to non-profit,

especially that they're 70. You can get vacations, you can get all your med shit done, you can get your fucking house paid off, you can get all of it. I you can get your fucking house paid off you can get all of it You know, I want to go on a hunting trip cool. I want to go get checked, you know and and and You see it yeah, you see it's You see him bouncing around you know and and and and Not making any real improvement.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, part of Envy's thought process is like they deserve help too, right? And put whoever you want under they, I don't give a shit to be honest with you, because your trauma and you got it is different than my trauma, which I have. But we still could use benefits

from some of the resources, right? So like, envy is a for-profit, but we've also created a new nonprofit action arm to help first responders, law enforcement. There's more suicides, I don't know if you know this, by firefighters than there are veterans. Does not surprise me. Doesn't that boil your mind? Like, I just, the type of person I am is when I see shit like struggling, people struggling or shit going sideways, like, let's go figure out how to solve that problem and that's what we're doing. Good for you, man. You know,

in my mind, I mean, I want to get more in the weeds with this technology, but you know, in my mind, all 70 of these nonprofits should be buying those devices and passing them out to their people. Is that a thought? Oh yeah. Yeah. So, Mama Lee, Mark Lee's mom, we talked with her about bringing this on, so we're going to do a pilot with them.

We're still early stage and how tech works is like you got an MVP and you got to like test that and make sure everything works and I'll walk through all that here in a second, but that's always been my idea, man. Our beachhead is like, let's go to the veteran nonprofits. Let's start there. Let's go to the municipalities and sheriff's departments, police, firemen, like let's teach them about mental resiliency from team guys.

Because if we say mental health, there's a stigma. But if I say mental resiliency, like dudes are like, oh, that's cool. Like it's the same fucking thing. But I'll play with words if I need to to help help solve this problem. So we go in and we talk about mental resiliency and like I wanna just keep going from there and there.

We'll keep learning, we'll keep the algorithm, we'll keep iterating and I really do think we can predict when guys isolate and gals isolate because it happens with women as well before they commit suicide, get to them, get their team out there to support them. If it's you and I, you reach out, and maybe that's enough to change the outcome. So.

Man, do you think, are there any other nonprofits looking at this? Well, we're working with the University of Texas is doing psychedelic research. So we're going to collect the biometrics for them. So there's going to be a cohort going through that has treatment-resistant depression. They're going to use, I believe, a psilocybin to combat that, and then they're going to do their research. Envy's going to come in and collect the baseline biometrics, your heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, et cetera. It's going to collect it when you do the intervention.

So when you do the psilocybin, what changed, and then how long does it change for? So we're doing that with UT on two studies. The other one's Iowasca. We're doing it with a company called the Wholeness Center in Fort Collins. So we're going to collect biometrics for the research they're doing around psychedelics.

We're talking to hospital systems because if you think about ER doctors burnout, like that's real, suicide's a real thing for ER rooms. Like mistakes happen. If we can predict when people are exhausted and burning out, we can pull them off the front line and they can rest. So we're preventing injuries.

Like the possibility is dude, if we can figure this out, when we figure this out, I think we can take this in so many different directions. How far has this developed from the initial idea? We're probably three years into development. Actually, four years now. So two years at business school, we hired a tech team. We built all last year, I'm sorry tech team, we built all last year, I'm sorry, two years ago and all last year, we got a prototype out last year. I think I shared with you last year for startups. It was a really rough year with the markets, the financial markets

behaving the way they were. So we paused our raise. So we basically batten down the hatches of the business and said, hey, we don't have money to keep iterating on the tech. We're just going to save resources and then we'll pop out when it's a sunny day. And two weeks ago was a sunny day for us. We relaunched our raise and raised a good chunk of our $3 million. We raised $1.8 million of it. So you're about two-thirds of the way there. What do you need $3 million to do?

What are you going to do with that money? Most of it's R&D, right? So we're going to, the next phase of this business is we're going to partner with the hospital systems, like I mentioned, we're going to partner with businesses. West Point is potentially one of the groups that we're going to have a partnership with. We're going to sit down with those groups

and give them the tech. We're gonna do tests. So like one group has the swim buddy concept, a team concept, one group doesn't. You have your own information and we're gonna start testing. And then they're gonna provide us feedback. The feedback we get from them,

we're gonna go to our tech team and say, hey, this is the feedback we're getting guys, this sucks. This is good, they want this. And we do sprints. So it's about a one month sprint for the tech team to build out the technology. So we take those iterations, then we go back to market. All right, how's it look now guys and gals?

Okay, here's what we learned. We gotta remove this, they don't like this anymore. The algorithm is pretty sophisticated, but it's still like a little off. We go back to the tech team and we keep iterating until we have a viable product that people would pay for. I'm also thinking hospital systems. Think if you're a doctor and I'm your patient.

Historically, we only meet once a month, right? Insurance billable, whatever. But if you had all my biometric information and all your patients' biometric information, you can prioritize a threat. Like who are the people that are struggling? Who do I need to have a conversation with? And oh, by the way, I'm prescribing medicine maybe,

or maybe you're anopolis, let's assume you are. You prescribe a pill. What's the impact that that pill's having on them? Now you have all this data in front of you. You can make better decisions. My mind's going like a fucking thousand miles an hour right now. Can you get insurance companies to pay for this? So there's something called remote patient monitoring disabled'm 100% disabled, and why I share that with you is because we're a small

business disabled-owned veteran business. So there is a couple of things that we're looking at. The VA has contracts for companies. They actually recognize there's an opportunity with tech here, so they're putting out bids for contracts like us. So we have a preference to potentially win those bids, man. But when it comes to insurance, two people on our team have had a past business around insurance. How this works is you have a telehealth call. Our algorithm can time stamp the second you have that telehealth call to the second it ends, it's basically just accounting and then we tell, we send that

in and you get reimbursed by the insurance companies for that specific line item. So maybe it's like a check-in call, 40 bucks. Cool. You get two calls a month to just 15 minute calls to make sure the tech that they're using, maybe they have medical devices used. So you get 20 bucks for those. We time stamp all those. We send you the doctor, the invoice.

You never had these codes before and you were never receiving this money. Now we sent you the invoice, you send it in to the insurance, 30 day reimbursement, we take a cut out of that. So that's one avenue that we've been exploring. Because I don't want people to, I don't want you to pay for this, man.

I really care about you trying to figure out your mental health. I care about people like, I don't want to like nickel and dime you, but how do we get the system to pay for it? So that's on us to figure out. And I don't know how to do it yet, but that's one avenue we're exploring.

Makes sense? Yeah exploring. Makes sense. Yeah, makes perfect sense. So are these actual, is that it? No, so what we did is we built, we're a software company, there's no hardware, so we don't have a device, but what we do have is API, which means we wrote a code that plugs into your Apple Watch, to your Garmin Watch, to your wearable tech. And then we worked with doctors like the lead psychiatrist from Walter Reed.

We worked with other doctors and they helped us wait all the biometric information that we were pulling. We rated it into an algorithm, waited it. And then it runs on big data sets and we look at like correlation between what we've created and our assumptions and depression and anxiety. And so this algorithm, we need more data, but this is basically telling you when you're well and when you're not. So how we interface with the user is an app.

So right now you plug in the app, you have a wearable, it pulls the biometric information, and you have a quick questionnaire if you want, three questions. If you want more, you can. Hey, how you doing today? Like, what's your libido feel like? And you just rate it. Our algorithm has taken your biometrics

and comparing it against your questionnaire, which is built off of something called a PHQ-9, which is a depression-type scale. So it's a medical scale that they use. We whittled it down and reworded it with our doctors, but now your algorithm is looking and saying, okay, this is how they responded. Here's what their biometrics, here's the synergies, here's the correlation. And then you keep using this device long enough, it's starting to learn when you're well and when you're not. When you're not doing well, it alerts you.

It alerts your swim buddy if it's worse. In a future state, if you have a doctor you like, we can put the doctor on the platform and it will alert him or her. This whole thing was, yeah, I mean, it's basically the SFF idea, but we've created a software algorithm which uses machine learning to learn from your behaviors, learn from the biometrics, and then build a community around you. Wow, wow.

Let's talk about the swim body method. What did you mean by that? Yeah. So as you know, in the teams, we're all out of swim bodies. You never further than six feet apart. Well, when we built this thing, we roll up all the information I mentioned, heart rate, heart rate variability,

and sleep into what we call a mind score. So you got a mind score. And that's your baseline. You know, over a certain amount of days, you get a baseline and how it deviates up and down tells you how you're doing. I thought that was a secret sauce. I thought people were gonna get excited about that,

but we question a bunch of veterans, and the thing that they responded to positively most was having a swim buddy. So I was like, well, explain that. You know, we're doing questions, interviews, and they're like, well, I don't need this, and I wouldn't pay for this. But if you tell me I can hop on and help my teammate,

I'll do this all day long. And I was like, holy shit. Of course, like you're not gonna do it for you, but you'll do it for your teammate. That's essentially what happened. Like 90% of the people that were on the platform like the swim buddy is the best thing you got going. And what that means for us is like,

you guys both have the apps. If you're not doing well, it alerts me if I'm your swim buddy. I get a text, hey, checking on Sean, Sean's, you know, mind score decreased by 10 points today. Well, that's odd. That's usually if it decreases, it's usually one or two points, not 10, something's up.

I pick up the phone and I call you or I text you what's going on, dude. And you probably lie to my face initially like we always do, maybe not, but nevertheless it's forcing the conversation in the moment. Damn. Yeah. How do you determine who the swim buddy is? Do you take it?

You can pick it. So it has to be in your iPhone or your Android, so it has to be in your contacts. And in there, you just pick wherever you want. And you can have a team if you want. So I mentioned the doctor, but think of like a sports team, man, like a captain. They have all their folks dad on there.

So we had a good friend of mine at Oxford. He was a French rugby captain and he lost his mentor to suicide and they said nobody saw it coming. So he worked on the project with us but he wants this for his guys because suicide's pretty big in the sports world and I didn't realize this.

Rugby either taking CTE, head injuries, they get out, they lose their purpose, everything's structured and then boom, you gotta figure it out. So you can have that dashboard and you can just monitor everybody up to however many people you want. And there's ways to kind of de-identify the data too.

So maybe you're a business owner and your employers are like, fuck no, I don't want Sean to have my data. But you're like, I still want to see how my overall company is doing. We can remove names and just give you trend lines. So your business, maybe this division is doing, they're crushing it. Their overall mental health is higher, it keeps increasing. This one's going down for some reason,

you might wanna check in with the division there and figure out what's going on. So is this on market? Yeah, we're in the app stores. What I would tell everybody is like, we are in an MVP, which is like minimally viable product. We just put it in the app store to prove out the concept. This next iteration, so the next year,

we're gonna go back to refining everything and then we'll start investing and making it look nice because for me, I don't wanna invest in the UI UX, so the interface until we understand that this is exactly what people want and then we can make it look pretty. So we're tight on, I mean, $3 million for a startup is not a lot of money. So we got to be very diligent with that.

And I think the strategy that we have of going to these companies, learning from them, reiterating on the tech and then giving it to the world is the idea. So is the app for, is the app? It's free on the app store. It's free. So how does the business make money? How are you going to keep this thing going? Insurance. Insurance. Contracts with companies. So if you think first responders again, if we talk about the Sheriff's Department, we're talking about the Sheriff's Department

in Colorado and one in Wyoming. Suicide rates in those states, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska are really high. So we're going to go in and provide the tech, the dashboard for them. They would pay us a user fee per user, and we sell tranches. So maybe it's 20 blocks of users. They pay us. And then we provide support for them in support in the mental health of their communities. Shit. Yeah.

This is awesome. Yeah. The dude, it's everything. So what happens if 250,000 people that watch this episode go to the app store and download the app? Does that do anything? Does that get the needle moving? That's a great question, Sean. I would say if they did that, absolutely. But you're on a journey with us right now, right? Like, so my ask would be, don't download the app and judge us out of the gate.

Like, help us build this app to be exactly what you want for your mental health. Like, we're on this journey together. And I've always built companies like that or businesses or nonprofits like that. So I'm, you sense the hesitation, but at the same time, if people are willing, I'll be like, yeah, I'll download the app and provide feedback and stick with you as you grow and trust that you're going to figure this out. Then join the app. If not, then, um, you know,

So you hear that. If you download the app, you're helping develop the product. It's not quite ready yet. So don't get pissed if it doesn't work perfectly right off the bat. But you know what does work perfectly, dude? It's not perfect. The swim buddy aspect of it. So that shit's real, man.

That works right now. So be prepared. Like if you're gonna sign up for this and you're gonna put your best friend on there or your spouse or your kid, like whatever it is, it's not sexy again. Like the user interface isn't beautiful. So don't think of us as an Apple.

We're a small startup and I'm a team guy. I'm not a tech dude, but we'll figure this out. I promise you that. But when your buddy's not doing well, like be prepared to actually step up. So don't download this app if you really are not prepared to help your friends, right? Because that's a big commitment.

We all say we wanna help, but the second you get the alert, like, okay, now what do I do, right? And that's the next phase of the business is we're introducing solutions. What is the name of the app? NVMeinHealth, I-N-V-I Mind Health. Yeah.

So if I go and I download this right now, and I have who I'll say my wife's my swim buddy, and I have her download this, and I get this into my Apple watch She can she's going we can set it up so that my wife is gonna get an alert when I'm When my biometrics have a sudden change. Yep

And vice versa, yeah, it's that simple it's that simple dude No algorithm isn't 100% yet. We're doing some other cool things with voice, like pitch, I'll come back to that. But we worked with these doctors, we're waiting the algorithm, we're testing the algorithm. You need to use,

we need people to use the app for the algorithm to learn, right? That's how these things work. So if 250,000 people downloaded this thing, like this algorithm be like, it's been like, we got like 600 users on the platform right now, right? Since we launched.

So it's like slowly learning, 250,000 people, it's gonna start learning the shit ton if you use it. If you use it for a day and then give it up, then it's not. But by you downloading and sticking with it and sticking with us, it's gonna help. We start iterating, we start learning. We start getting closer to more accurate to how you behave, because how you behave is different than me. This isn't a generic algorithm. This is an algorithm for

Sean. This is an algorithm for Johnny, because our mental health journey is different. And then it starts learning with you. And it starts recommending things for you too. So we're not at that phase yet, but we're going to introduce solutions next. Right? So think breath work. Like you got to step out of the room or something like that. Think medicine, plant medicine, we can introduce that as a, hey, you're about to do plant medicine journey. Let's measure the impact that that has on Sean. And now we can start learning the algorithm. Say, okay, historically, when Sean Ryan isn't doing well in this scenario, he's tried X, Y, Z. His biometrics increase when he did X, Y, and Z, they actually decreased.

And it starts learning what works for you, man. And the future state of this, where I want to take this, and my dream is something we, there's a tagline in medicine called personalized medicine. So now the AI interface, the algorithm is basically learning what works for you and then it recommends the thing that works for you best in that situation. So you basically have a functional doctor in your notified you all the time. That's the direction we're heading on.

Yeah. Telling you what's best for you. And, and dude, we can introduce humans because I do believe like the swim buddy is a really powerful tool, right? But maybe we're over our skis and me trying to help you. Like the shit that you're going through is too complex. Like I'm not a doctor, right?

It could scale up if we wanted to to a provider. So yes, we have the machine learning AI component of this. It's helping you. It's recommending things for you, but sometimes you just need to talk to your fucking doctor and we can get a doctor on that platform for you, like your doctor if you wanted. So again, we're super early stage as a startup.

We're two years into building, actually building the technology, but we just raise some money and we're going to keep going at it. You know how resilient we are and we're going to learn from the communities that we support. And I've already seen the end state of this, man. I've dreamed about this. I shared that with you over breakfast, just kind of like how you shared about this. We will figure out this problem, man. It is one worth figuring out. Like mental health is suicide, depression, anxiety, like there's billions of people suffering

from some mental health disorder, dude. We gotta do better, and we're not gonna stop till we improve it. Man, that is a, you are one innovative son of a bitch. That is a, wow. That is, wow. Thank you, man. That is, that's impressive, brother. We got a great team.

It's not me. I just, I stumbled into this at the nonprofit and we got an awesome former CEO of a healthcare company. She's tremendous. I got a guy that gave up everything from business school, James Smith. Gave up his life. This dude was making a ton of money. Believed in this so much. He's in. We got a former NASA engineer, our tech guy. The tech team is tremendous. They've worked on projects with Disney and Carnival Cruise Line and remotes. We have a new doctor that just an ER doctor that came on that's passionate about,

like, dude, we are going to figure this out. I promise you that, Sean. Man. What about, so, I mean, how does it work? Are you taking investors? Yeah. This is something I have no experience in. Yeah. So I'm curious. You need another 1.2 million. Yeah. This is something I have no experience in. Yeah. So I'm curious, you know, I mean, you need another 1.2 million, right? So how does it work?

Well, yeah, I appreciate you asking. I don't know how to, like for us, we are, yeah, we're in our seed raise right now, which means we're raising that other 1.2, right? We just open the window. I'm out there, like we're out there raising money. I'm out there talking to investors. We have a pretty good Rolodex. So yeah, if there's people like we're raising money

that are, you know, investors, people that have come by VCs or groups like that, we're actually kind of keeping it close to people. We're not going down the VC path, venture capitalist path quite yet. We're staying close to just like high net worth individuals that have a passion for this. So one guy that's invested in his wife works at the VA, she's a nurse and she does the telehealth call specifically for mental health. So she's helping us think through this problem set.

She's passionate about it. He's passionate about it. Another guy, his family struggle with mental health in their family. Another guy that's potentially invested in, he's gonna invest a big amount, lost his daughter to suicide last year. So we want people that believe in us,

that are successful that can help us take it to the next level. And then, you know, support, educate us, tell us what's working what's not. Like we're small, we're trying to figure out the social media game. I suck at social media, dude. Holy fuck, I suck. But we'll probably bring somebody on and manage that and kind of share all the successes and failures that we're having and provide that feedback.

If there's people that care about this space and want to help, like reach out, like we would be honored. I don't know how to, I don't know how else to ask, brother, but I appreciate you asking me. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's important. Yeah.

You gotta get the capital to get this thing going. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Man, is there anything else this thing does? This is incredible, man. Oh, dude, voice, ready for this? Yeah, yeah, let's hear this. So with, right now it's 13 seconds, but with you talking for 13 seconds,

we ran an algorithm against pitch on a big data set. So data sets are like universities, we university and there's like organizations like the English, the London, I don't think it's the London, I forgot the proper terminology, but they have big medical data sets. This one particular has information on

around depression and anxiety. So they had people, patients fill out forms, but they also recorded them. So you have tens of thousands of people that did that. Well, dude, this AI is, this shit is, it learns fast, right? The algorithm that we have learns fast. So with a 13 second clip, dude, we can tell if you're depressed or not.

Wow. 13 seconds, man. And we're at 80 some odd percent accurate right now, which isn't good enough, right? Like we gotta get more accurate than that. But like, what are the applications that we can use that for, right? We got to get more accurate than that. But what are the applications that we can use that for, right? The easy one is the doctor. You're having a conversation, tell a health, it runs the algorithm in the background, it tells you, hey, Sean, Ryan's,

your patients depressed today. Here's the back data because they're wearing the wearable. Here's the back data on what they've been, their baseline's down significant and they're depressed. Great, I know something's off. Let's have a conversation. What's going on, Sean, it's saying you're down, you're depressed today. What's up? Let's just cut to the chase and stop bullshitting, right?

That's one aspect and the one I think about is children, right? Like I have five kids, that's important. My son, he's thriving now, but there was a time during COVID when he was a freshman in high school where he suffered immensely. Like my wife and I were sleeping outside of his door thinking he was gonna harm himself, man.

It was not a pretty time in our relationship, in our family relationship. And I wonder about that application. Like now we know something's off, all the bullying taking place. Like all these parents are like losing kids because they didn't see it come in. Well, maybe now we can see it come in because we can tell if they're getting bullied in school, because we can tell if they're depressed. We can run algorithms on, dude, almost anything. Social media, like we can run algorithms in the background to almost anything. Social media, we can run algorithms in background

to see how you're behaving on it, how people are behaving towards you if you're being bullied. Same thing with the app, how frequently you use an app. That's important information. What app are you using? Normally you're doing your meditation app and all of a sudden you stop. You're looking at your screen.

It can tell how hard you're pressing on your screen. So maybe you're pissed off. Dude, it's endless possibilities. We're going to start small with kind of the biometrics, but buddy, there's so many different now. We got to be smart about where we go, but there's a lot of applications to really help with mental health and beyond. Not just mental health, but we're going to focus with mental health and beyond, dude, not just mental health, but we're gonna focus on mental health.

Man, that is... That's really something, man. Yeah. That is very innovative. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. And I mentioned, oh, go ahead. You go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, I mentioned we started,

when I left the Seal Future Foundation, we started another nonprofit. Like a few of us ran a race last year to raise money for that, for that nonprofit. It's called the Invisible Wounds Foundation. And that was stood up to help first responders, law enforcement, to all the other communities. Like, you know, like the Marine Grant, the Army Infantry,

like this is for everybody else, not just team guys, not just special forces, this is for everybody else. And so last year, a bunch of us ran and swam 211 miles. Eddie was one of them, but we raised a bunch of money and what the Foundation does is it helps with research. So we're going to do research with NV, but we're going to do research around mental health,

TBI, PTSD, and we're going to pay for these different groups to go through and receive treatment with universities. And then NV is going to measure that. So that nonprofit is up and it's supporting in that capacity, but it's also helping people with treatment too. So if people want some innovative treatment, there's an opportunity for us to support them. But we raised a good amount last year. I don't know, did you hear about the Monster Mesh?

Eddie had mentioned it to me. So we ended up doing, we're supposed to skydive in, but it's super windy in Montana, so we jumped in. And there was a couple of team guys, a green beret and a civilian ran part of it with us. So we took Helos and we jumped in to the river in Montana and we swam 10 miles. And it's cold, this is November.

I will say that 10 miles went by in an hour because we had the fastest current dude. Like we were just... Yeah, so people here 10 miles are like, holy shit, you gotta swim 10 miles. Like we didn't swim, like we were like pinballs in a river. We floated. Yeah.

And then we all got out and then we proceeded over the next couple of days to crush out the run, walk run, and it was awesome, dude. I needed that for my own mental health to get put in the ringer again and do it with good buddies, right? And he was there, another buddy, Aaron, James, there was a bunch of good dudes. One guy, I won't share his name, he doesn't like me sharing it, but he was a damn neck dude and a good friend of mine.

He jumped out of the Hilo and broke his foot and still ran the whole thing. Damn, that's badass. Yeah, but then we wrapped up on Veterans Day and did a big dinner and shared in Wyoming and raised a good amount of money for the nonprofit man. So, good. Yeah. Good for you. dinner and shared in Wyoming and raised to get a amount of money for the nonprofit man. Good.

Yeah. Good for you. So I know my audience and they're going to want to help, so what can they do? Yeah. Well, if you are one of the groups that we talked about, or if you're struggling with mental health, like reach out. The website is NVMH.com. That stands for NVMeinHealth.com. Like sign up. Like do this with us, man.

I just, I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I was suffering, man. You heard my story. There's a lot of us suffering out there, and we gotta change that stigma, dude. And so let's build this thing together for us and download the app, mess with the app, give us feedback on the app.

If you're an investor or cool, like reach out, we'd be honored to have a conversation with you. But this isn't a shake down. I'm not trying to take money from folks. We just want good people that care about this mission and want to get behind us. Is that fair? That's fair, man.

Yeah. That's solid work you're doing. You know, even just, you got a hell of a story, man. Thank you for sharing it. And I mean, even just you setting the, because Seal Future Foundation is a big organization. And for you to just set that down, I mean, that's big. That's setting a lot of pride down for something that's bigger.

And I just, I mean, that couldn't have been easy to do. I know that's gotta be your baby and get on you. I appreciate that. Some tough decisions. Yeah, that young crew that's in there is solid. The board, those are my friends. That board is solid. They're like senior executive CEOs.

That organization is doing tremendous things and doing way more than I ever could have, right? Like the one thing I loved about the teams, I didn't like a lot, but one of the things I loved about it was like change of command every few years, right? Like it gets fresh energy, vigor, new perspective. And at some point I'll turn over NV2 once we build it into a monster.

Mark my words on that man. Like, because I wanna do what you wanna do. I wanna sit in my place in the mountains, your place out here in the farm and enjoy my family and all the good work that we've done. It's nothing more important than that. Yeah. You know, it can have everything in the world,

but it doesn't mean shit if you don't have anybody to share it with that's right, and well Johnny man It's an honor to know you man, it's uh I Didn't know you at all. I didn't even know what you looked like. You know what I mean before this morning and and Man, I'm just I'm really happy that we met and I'm honored to get your story out there and this is phenomenal and V is phenomenal. Thank you. We're just getting started brother.

Same right back at you man thank you for everything you're doing and how you empower others like me it's an honor man. I appreciate that. Best of luck to you. doing and how you empower others like me. It's an honor, man. I appreciate that. Best of luck to you. God bless. God bless. Is 2024 bringing exciting or unexpected changes to your life?

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