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Sean Ambriz is an Army soldier who served in Afghanistan and is the author of the book Ghosts of the Valley. The book tells about incidents he experienced in Afghanistan, as well as the recovery process after returning home. I really enjoyed the conversation with Sean. Give it a listen, and go out and get a copy of his book. Links to the paperback, and Kindle/Nook digital formats are below. Links & Resources Sean Ambriz Instagram SeanTobiasAmbriz.com Ghosts of the Valley Book: Follow on Facebook Follow on Instagram Get the Paperback version Get the Kindle version Get the Nook version Restrepo Movie The Outpost Movie About Korangal Valley Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out; if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show.  Hi everybody, today my guest is Sean Ambriz. Sean is the author of the book, Ghost of the Valley in which he talks about his experiences during his time in Afghanistan. And one of the goals of the book is to help Veterans with PTSD who have experienced various traumas. And that’s pretty much the goal of this podcast too. So, I think Sean’s message and his book will be great for this audience. Sean, welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Sean Ambriz:    00:01:13    Yeah, thank you. I’ve been in the military for 12 years now.  I’m originally from Los Angeles, California.  I’ve been stationed at Fort Carson, JBLM Hawaii, and now I’m currently serving at Fort Leonard wood where I teach MPE senior leaders’ course.  I’ve been married to my wife, Amy for it’s about to be 10 years here soon.  No kids, two dogs, live a pretty simple life, so nothing too crazy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:01:42    Okay.  Let’s jump right into your time in Afghanistan and what the book is about and what you’ve written about some of those experience. Sean Ambriz:    00:01:56    Yeah. So, the book is essentially not a biography. It’s not supposed to be about me. It’s more of a memoir. It’s about certain events that happened in Afghanistan. And it’s essentially told from my eyes; the book is about leadership and mental resilience.  It is very cutthroat raw of the combat scenarios in which we were in. Specifically evolves around two separate missions.  So just to give you a layout, the book has 10 chapters, with pictures, it’s like 160 pages; it’s fairly short.  It’s not like a leadership book. I’m not trying to teach you a new leadership philosophy you’ve never heard of before and reinvent the wheel. It’s literally just a story to bridge three different gaps, essentially. Sean Ambriz:    00:02:56    I’ll talk about those in a second, but essentially it is nine readable chapters. The 10th chapter is resources for Veterans that provides phone numbers, websites, anything. So, if they pick up the book, they have those resources.  Like I said, it surrounds itself around two major battles. The first big battle was Restrepo, have you heard of Restrepo at all, the documentaries?  That’s all the area I was in.  The movie, The Outpost that just came out recently on Netflix. So, that was the unit that I was in. And our battle was essentially a prelude less than 30 days to that battle just miles away. And essentially it was about a rescue mission that went South.  Eight of us volunteered to go up to rescue a pin down to two squads that were pinned down by multiple snipers were cut off and surrounded, and then it was a successful rescue mission, but you know, Murphy’s Law kept it in play the whole night. Sean Ambriz:    00:03:58    And that was when my Lieutenant Parton was killed in which the book is kind of dedicated to, because some of my personal proceeds I get from the book go to his foundation.  It talks about being a private when this all happened and then leading into the second deployment, which is, I guess, the big battle.  That was a major operation, which we were trying to take back the Pech River Valley. Long story short is essentially 16 of us Americans that went to save a humanitarian aid convoy that was cut off by the enemy. And we ended up being surrounded by an enemy force of 150 fighters to 16 of us. And they got within eight feet of the vehicles and it was just rolling grenades to keep them back on the other side of the trucks and stuff like that. So, at one point first for three of us, it almost got hand in hand had they gotten any closer. Scott DeLuzio:    00:04:52    Wow. Yeah. So, I’m sure there are some interesting stories, just in terms of the combat experiences. I’m sure they are very interesting to read about and then learning about the lessons from the leadership and things like that. I think that’s pretty important information and especially the parallels between the earlier deployment as a private and then later on the parallels between that with a little bit more leadership experience under your belt and how that affected maybe your decision-making process and things like that.  I’m sure that that’s probably quite different from a young soldier’s perspective versus a more seasoned experienced soldier. So, what can people expect from this book? Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:49    So, if they’re picking up this book and so they want to read it, obviously there’s going to be some talk about your experiences in the combat situation, but who is the book for, in terms of if I’m looking to better myself or improve myself in one way or another. Who’s going to be the type of person who’s going to pick this up and really take something away from it; who will benefit from what’s in the book. Sean Ambriz:    00:06:20    Yeah, so, like I said, there’s three bridges that I was attempting to gap or change that gap was it’s supposed to be between us combat Veterans and other previous combat Veteran; guys that maybe who are out of the military now and are truly affected by war and have been for many years now. And they feel like, especially with that transition of them leaving the service, they feel sometimes like they’re alone or they’re the only ones and stuff like that. So that was the first bridge that I wanted to build was that gap between us so that we can understand that, you’re not alone; we can do this together kind of thing. And then the second thing is going to be, or the second bridge is going to be between us and the civilian community. Sean Ambriz:    00:07:05    So you know, teaching them where our endeavors were for the past 20 years of war, and then also between us and the future generation of soldiers who, if they stay in the Army or military long enough, inevitably, they’re going to face off with death at some point, and they can learn from our mistakes, our successes and failures, and so on and so forth. So those are the audience I was trying to reach. I try to keep things very minimal as far as I try to keep it very understanding of all three groups in my writing style, so that everyone can take away something from it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:42    Yeah, that’s great. And I think those three groups are a perfect audience because there’s definitely some takeaways from all of this and especially on the civilian side, like you’re talking about where they haven’t experienced combat and they hopefully never will experience combat. It’s not something that’s going to be in their backyard or anything like that. So, it’s something that I think civilians just get what they get from the nightly news or from reading articles online or whatever.  Until they hear it straight from the source, I think it’s one of those things that they don’t really truly get an understanding for.  So, on this podcast I’ve talked to a lot of people who are involved in different, let’s call it alternate alternative forms of therapy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:37    So maybe it’s art therapy or music or yoga, horses or other animals for therapeutic purposes. And what I found is that there is no one form of therapy that works for everybody.  Art might work for somebody, painting or photography or something like that. Getting outdoors and mountain climbing or something might work for somebody else. But telling a story in a written format, like what you’ve done can be very therapeutic for some people.  Was there any kind of element of therapy in that for you in terms of writing it, or is this just something that you were planning on doing just to help out the community with your experiences? Sean Ambriz:    00:09:22    Well, so I can’t say that originally that was my intention.  I was very selfish in that it was supposed to have been therapeutic for me. So, I’m not a writer, I hate writing. I hate reading. I’m like C average student at best. I’m not even that good at it, but you know, for years, a lot of people who knew about these battles and the awards that came with them and stuff like that they always told me like, dude, you should write a book. Like it’s an interesting story. It’s very abnormal, especially for an MP. It’s very abnormal. I go, what happened? Like people can learn from it, and I always just took it as a compliment. I didn’t feel like being vulnerable and putting my information out there like that. Sean Ambriz:    00:10:05    So I just kind of started it off for many years. And then when I got here to Fort Leonard Wood, it’s my first time I didn’t have soldiers, I’m an instructor. So, it’s like, I literally just come home at three o’clock. I do PT on my own. It’s just weekends, no field cycles. Like, it’s amazing. So, as great as all that is, it left a lot of open doors as far as, when I was in the line unit, we were going to the field nonstop, we were doing things were NTC, just the things that keep you busy. And the soldier problems are all every week and someone’s got a DUI or something. So, I always kept busy in these leadership roles. Whereas this is the first time I don’t have that. And then the next thing you know, I had all this time on my hands time leading to me thinking about things I hadn’t thought about a long time. Sean Ambriz:    00:10:48    So, I was realizing that my PTSD was evolving to my situation for the first time. And so I thought, well, I’ve done the therapy group sessions, individual sessions. I’ve done every type of therapy you can think of. Only thing I hadn’t done was writing. And I thought about what people had said. So, I figured I would try it over Microsoft word. And I literally just started, I didn’t set out to write chapters. It literally just started from the beginning and I just started pounding my fingers away. And then I had somebody read it and then they were like, bro, you should make this into a book. Like, this is really good. And I was like, nah, so then I just threw chapters over the writing and I was like, okay, that’s it. Sean Ambriz:    00:11:26    I was done with the book in two months, like two months of me writing, I was done with everything and I didn’t brainstorm, I didn’t format things like an author is supposed to; it was completely just not normal.  But it was therapeutic. It was nice to getting things off of my chest and then thinking about things that had happened and then putting it into my perspective.  As you’re reading the book, for example, if you have the hard copy and let’s say you’re in the middle of one of the battles it’s talking about what’s going on and what I’m seeing going on around me. And then it stops. And it has these italicized verbiages. And it’s actually my internal thoughts in that moment of what I was thinking. Sometimes they’re serious thoughts sometimes are completely smart-ass thoughts, but I thought I went back and thought, what was I thinking about in that moment or things that I did remember. And I put that in there.  That’s a little different; it’s the way it’s narrated.  Doing all this, exposed me to just good therapy. It turned into a hobby and it helps me get things off my chest. Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:30    Yeah, that’s good. And I think there’s probably a lot of people out there who might have a story in their head or they’ve personally experienced some situations that would make a good story in terms of writing it up into a book. But the process of writing the book might seem a little intimidating to them. It maybe they’re, they’re like, you didn’t feel like they were that great of a writer, so who would want to read what I have to write or that kind of thing. So, you know, I’m sure there’s others out there who could find it to be therapeutic, just like you did, but they might be intimidated by the process.  Do you have any tips or advice for people who might be in that situation? Sean Ambriz:    00:13:15    Well, like I said, I didn’t do things the normal way. I didn’t set out to write a book initially, that just fell into place. And then I used the book as a platform to now help Veterans and stuff like that. So, it’s formed into what it is now, but initially I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t settle into write a book. If you set yourself up to write a book or do anything like that, it’s very intimidating, especially that when you start researching yourself, developmental research on how do I write a book and then what does that even mean? What does that entail? What do I need to do? And you started looking at all these different brainstorming ideas and charting and all these other things, like just format your book a certain way, and then put it in Chicago style format, get it edited and all these different things in the publishing process is a whole other beast. Sean Ambriz:    00:14:02     It’s fucking intimidating shit. But like I said, it was easy for me because I didn’t set out to do that and everything literally just fell into play and I did things abnormally and it just worked out for me.  I’m hoping that this inspires, especially the enlisted group because who writes books, officer’s every time; it’s never enlisted, right? We’re the knuckle draggers and the ground pounders. We’re not the smart ones. We just walked into recruiting office. Like we’re not known for that, but I’m trying to defeat that stigma, somebody who’s a C average student who got held back in fourth grade because I couldn’t make it past that. Like I’m telling you I was not the smartest in the world, but I know what I’m good at. And I know that if I say I’m going to do it, I’m going to do everything I can to get there. Sean Ambriz:    00:14:49    Right. And so, if I can show these younger enlisted, that no matter if you’re a 20-year lifer or you’re a five-year contract person, when you walk away from the military, don’t just put on your resume you were a specialist or a Sergeant in the Army, that’s all you walked away with like cool story, bro. We all walk away with other certifications and other titles, right? So, if I decide to go to the Army, I’m not just an SAR first class, I’m an author. I have another title that I worked for and I used what the Army had given me to get that. So I hope that it encourages other soldiers. It doesn’t have to be an author. I can be literally anything; you want to be certified as a welder. Cool. You did that. Taking those certifications that the Army can give you through the educational program and doing that and walking away with another title besides just a soldier. And it helps obviously develop their brain to be very intelligently smart, whatever it its technical capability or whatever.  I hope that inspires these younger soldiers who were like you and I; we didn’t go to college and do that cool guy route and stuff like that. You know? Scott DeLuzio:    00:15:53    Yeah, it’s one of those things where I think people get hung up on the minutia of how to do things like you were saying. Do I have it in the right format? And sometimes all you need is a keyboard and just start typing, just start writing your story. If you’re not great at typing, if you’re one of those people who hunt and peck at the keyboard and you’re looking for the letters and it’s going to take you forever, grab a pad and a pen and just write it, you know? Sean Ambriz:    00:16:27    Dope. And then I committed to, well maybe I’ll attempt to write a book at this point. I had like dozens of people look over the work and they took the time to read it and they read it. And I needed a tourniquet for my goddamn book because it was bleeding, just reading everywhere from people just correct it and not changing the story, just like making me sound intelligent, because I produced it when I wrote it whole and then we shot them in the face. You know what I’m saying? Like it would’ve just been sounded dumb. People helped me get to where I’m at. When none of us get to where we’re at by ourselves. And this book definitely did not get towards that by solely me by any means. Scott DeLuzio:    00:17:13    And that’s true with anything in the military. I mean, you have your squad, your platoon, whatever, you are doing things together. You’re not just doing things solo most of the time, you’re out there with a group of people you’re working as a team to accomplish a mission. And so, it does make sense. Why wouldn’t you ask for people to help out in areas that maybe you struggle with or you might need some help with and that’s life in general. I might not be the mechanic, so I go get my car serviced at a mechanic who knows what he’s doing. I’m going to screw up my car, because I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m going to go take it to somebody who does know what they’re doing. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:00    And you know, same thing with writing a book or anything really creative for that matter, have someone else look at it who might be stronger in a certain area than you are and they can help you out.  I’m actually in the process of writing a book, which is kind of why I’m interested in a lot of the processes that you’ve gone through.  I’ve gotten to a point where I have a good chunk of it done and I gave it over to my wife to do a read over and see what she thinks. And same thing it’s so much red ink on that after she went through, things got moved around and changed and everything, but really at the end of the day, it’s going to help the book and it’s going to make it sound better. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:44    It’s going to flow better and it’s just an overall better end result when you have somebody else to take a look at it.  As far as the therapeutic process goes, if there’s people out there who have a story in mind, they don’t necessarily have to write a book that ends up ultimately getting published and it’s selling on Amazon or whatever. Sometimes just writing is the therapy in and of itself. It’s not the end result of being a New York times bestseller or anything like that; you don’t need to set your goals to that if that’s not really what you want, if you don’t want anyone else to read it just write and sometimes, like you said, just getting stuff off your chest is what feels good and what helps people out?  Anything else about the process, about your book or anything that you’d like people to know about to help them along their way in their journey? Sean Ambriz:    00:19:43    Well, I mean, no, I think we’ve pretty much hit it all.  I hope the book helps someone.  I’ve been very transparent about like, if someone needs someone to talk to you, like I’m not certified to be a counselor or anything. I’m just a fucking dude, but I’ve always given out my personal cell phone, email and stuff like that.  Social media, I try to use to my advantage, to reach out to people who just need someone to talk to. And if they want an unbiased third-party person, my phone is always available. So, I hope that people connect with the book and then if they’d like to reach out, I always answer all my messages. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:22    Yeah. That’s awesome.  That’s almost the definition of a true leader, someone who’s there for people and that they’re going to take care of people the way they say that they will, answering your messages, call, reach out to people and everything like that, making yourself available. That’s awesome that you’re open to doing that type of thing.  What about some of the resources you said towards the end of the book, there’s some resources in the book, what are some of the resources that you talk about in there? Sean Ambriz:    00:20:56     it was just a bunch of random ones.  I went onto the VA’s website. I went on a couple of different places. I just kind of figured if I was a Veteran, I needed help in buying a home, where do I go? Or if I’m transitioning, where do I go? So, it’s a bunch of random resources and it’s not all of them. It’s not a 300 page document of all these different resources. It just paints a picture of different things that are out there so that if someone picks up the book and they didn’t know that this existed well, then they can look at what I have in my book and then go do some more research, help open eyes to other things out there.  It’s just, just a stepping stone and then obviously there’s basic phone numbers, websites for the suicide hotline, things like that. If they need help, mentally and stuff like that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:38    Yeah, that’s always good to have those types of things right at the tip of your fingers, especially if you’re reading stuff that maybe brings up memories or emotions and things like that, it’s good to have that type of stuff right at your fingertips. And that’s really what I like to do with this podcast too. I talked to people who work with different organizations or whatever that people might just not know even exist. And so, by talking to people who work for these organizations, they might bring up something that people didn’t know was out there and available to them. And now all of a sudden, they’re aware of it and they can take advantage of those resources.  It’s really good that you have that type of thing in there. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:22    I think that’s going to be helpful to a lot of people who might be reading this book.  At the end of the day, books like this, you didn’t want it necessarily to be a memoir, but at the same time, it does have some information about things that happened, things that happened to you, what some of your thoughts were. And I think it’s really good that people, especially the enlisted people, the guys and women who are on the ground, in some of these battles and taking contact from the enemy and things like that, and not sitting way back in the rear at some desk somewhere just hearing what’s going on over the radio, the people who are actually there. I think it’s important that they write their stories because years later these stories start to fade from our own memories.  That doesn’t really serve the next generation very well. Look at World War II and Vietnam and Korea and things like that. If none of those guys ever wrote down any of their stories, we might forget about some of this stuff. And so, from a historical standpoint, it’s pretty good to have this type of information out there, which I think is really great. Scott DeLuzio:    00:23:44    Well, Sean, it has been a pleasure speaking with you today.  I’d like to give you an opportunity to let people know where they can go to either get in touch with you or find out more about the book maybe your social media and things like that. And I’ll have links to all of this stuff in the show notes, but if you could just let us know where they can go to find the book and follow your journey along the way, too. Sean Ambriz:  Yeah. So, The Ghost of the Valley is the title of the book, and it has its own Facebook and Instagram titled Ghost of the Valley for Facebook, for my PR, my personal Sean Tobias Ambriz and for Instagram, it’s chief_pinkmist.  and then, like I said, if someone needs someone to talk to you, they just message me and I’ll get a hold of them. Sean Ambriz:    00:24:31     As far as the book, they can get it on Amazon, Nook and Kindle for the digital platforms. And then I’m hoping that this month, or next month, we should have our audio book released, which is going to be kind of unique because, earlier I talked about how the book has italicize and it’s my internal thoughts. Well, I went to a recording studio here and I recorded all those thoughts with my own voice. And the publisher hired a guy who has a professional voice who’s going to narrate the entire book. So he’ll read the book and the battles, but as things are popping off and internal thoughts come in, you’ll actually hear my own voice. So, it’s double narrated. It’s a little different we’re trying. So, we’ll see. Scott DeLuzio:  Oh, that’s cool. That is really cool.  And I’ve actually been curious about that process of recording the audio book. So, that’s pretty interesting how you have that double narrative and with maybe a more professional sounding voice for the bulk of the book, but then, your own thoughts are actually coming from you, which is great. And I think that that will have a nice touch to the book too when all is said and done. So that should be great. So again Sean, thank you for joining us today, telling us about your book and the message that you are trying to get across with the book.  I’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you, so thank you again. Sean Ambriz:  Yeah. Thank you for having me on today. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:56    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website DriveOnPodcasts.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @DriveOnPodcast.

VetPark is an organization whose mission is to help veterans and provide funding to non-profits with a veteran focus. Robert Dabney Jr. tells us about the company and it’s mission. Links & Resources VetPark website VetPark on Facebook VetPark on Instagram Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the Subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Hi, everyone today my guest is Robert Dabney, Jr. Robert runs an organization called Vet Park, and he’s here to talk about his military background, and what Vet Park is all about and what it does to help out Veterans. So welcome to the show. Robert, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your military background. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:01:05    Hey, Scott thank you for first of all, just inviting me and allowing me to be here and to share a little bit of my story and what I hope to do for our community and what I hope our efforts will do. Scott DeLuzio: Of course. Robert Dabney Jr.: I’m Robert. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.  I joined the Army at 18, two weeks after high school I was in basic training, one of those stories.  I came in the recruiter offered me a really good job. I wanted to join the military. They didn’t have a hard job with me. I wanted to join the military. I wanted to do something outside of the neighborhood I was in and he offered me or he told me I could become some kind of internet, computer specialist or something. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:01:51    This was in ‘98.  It wasn’t internet, but it was computer technician or something very nice. And I was like, yes, I want that one. And he knew that I wanted to leave though. I didn’t want to stay around the summer and ended up getting in trouble or something. So, he told me that it wouldn’t be available until maybe six months or nine months in the future, but if I want to leave early and he knew I did, he had some jobs for me. And so, he went through the jobs and I wasn’t as easy as he thought I would be. And finally, he got to becoming a medic and it piqued my interest a little bit. And so I asked him about it and I remember his promise to me. He said that you would be working in the hospital and air condition full of females. And I was like, this is what you can sign me up for. I want it. I want to do that. Yes. Thank you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:46    I’m not sure if there’s any 18-year-old guy that would turn that job down. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:02:51    No, not at all. I was like, of course, yes. Why would you even ask me? We should’ve started there. I never worked in a hospital.  I was always in the field with the grunts and with the tankers and with the infantry. And so, I got to live vicariously through a few battle buddies of mine as far as hospital life goes, but that’s how I ended up as a medic in the Army, but it was actually very good for me because during that time that I was in the service, I realized that I actually had a desire to care for people or desire to take care and protect or help. And so, becoming a medic came quite naturally to me. I wanted to be the one they called on when they needed help. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:03:36    That’s always been the type of person I saw myself as; someone who is dependable and able to come when you are in need, at least someone there to lean on. And so, as a medic that turned out being perfect for me. And I became one with my calling, if that makes sense as much as the 18-year old can be. I knew I was a medic. I knew I was Doc and I liked that and I loved it. And so, I took it seriously and in doing so, I became an E6 and after about eight years, I want to say, which is good for that time as a medic. I don’t know what it is now. It was good for medics during that time. I was on my second tour to Iraq. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:04:26    This time we were in Ramadi, Iraq and I started missing my family. I wanted to be home with my family. I knew that I would be on this merry-go-round now; that’s how I felt, continued in and out in and out of combat or back. This is my second time in Iraq. I wasn’t ready to accept that life for the rest of my life. I had a wife and three kids already at the time. So, we made the decision while I was preparing to go into Iraq. The second time we were in Kuwait that this will be my last hurrah. And we would just have to get out of the military and see what happens after that. So that was in 2005, 2006, we were in Ramadi. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:05:10    We were under a tank battalion, or brigade. They were over the base and everything. And that’s when I really got an up close look at what it meant to be a Marine. I said, tank, I mean, a Marine battalion, you got to live with them a little bit and realized that they really believe the hype about themselves. You know, they’re crazy. And you had a lot of work to do, trying to keep up with the Marines; as far as medics, we had a lot of work to do behind them. It was a time that I grew up and had a lot of real-life experiences that taught me a little bit about myself and what I wanted with my life and what I no longer wanted. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:05:59    And I knew one of the things I wanted was to have some sort of freedom over my life. And some sort of say over when I can go home and see my family. And so that did help me make the decision to part with the military after nine years. After getting out, I did deploy four times, once to Kosovo, once to Saudi Arabia. We got to Saudi Arabia two days before 9/11, and then twice to Iraq. Well, the first time it was during the initial invasion to Iraq in 2003 went over with third ID. Then the second time in 2005, 2006, with the 1st Army division out of Germany, again we were in Ramadi and so that was the culmination of my military deployment history, I guess coming back in 2006. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:55    That’s actually interesting with you as a medic, especially when you first got in, you probably weren’t expecting all these deployments the way that you ended up with, and then all of a sudden 9/11 creeps around and then you’re like, well, I’m in it right now. You’re pretty much expecting that you’re going to be seeing some stuff at that point. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:07:20    Exactly. That was going to be a part of history, man. Not that I was looking forward to it, but I realized this is separating me from, everything else that I always thought about myself; now I’m about to go into battle and hope I can come out. There was a bigger purpose behind it. Join. Yes, no, it wasn’t. It was a time of peace. 1998, it was a lot of happy times going on. We thought everything was going to be good, no way we were going to go to war. Right. So I know we would have two going on at the same time. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:54    And you said you were in Ramadi 2005, 2006. My brother actually was in Ramadi in around that same time period. He was with the Vermont Army National Guard and they were also attached to the Marines in some way, shape or form. I’m not entirely sure how; so yeah, I’m sure that’s probably how they got there and just started, this is our place where we’re in charge. So, that’s cool. That’s interesting how many people that I’ve run into over the years have crossed paths in one way or another with people that I knew who are in one place or another. So that’s neat. That’s a little bit about your military background. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:44    You basically joined out of high school looking for a career path, and then you ended up finding your calling helping out people and then 9/11 happens and you realize that this is serious now and not that it wasn’t before, but it got real, really quick. And those wounds that you’re treating are not on a dummy or in a classroom setting or whatever, it’s the real deal, real life now. So, then you decide to get out to be more with be around your family and things like that. What did the transition look like for you? What was that like when you eventually decided to get out? Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:09:34    Hmm. It was a simple transition in one way. In the other way it was very difficult because we were stationed in Germany at the time and Bondholder Germany. And so transitioning from Germany to America, there was a lot of things that needed to happen. That wasn’t the difficult part. The difficult part was talking to my battle buddies about what the future held for me. There wasn’t a lot of positive stories of Veterans coming out, going home and living the time of their lives. You know, it’s hard out there; it’s rough. You don’t know what it’s like especially coming in at 18 straight out of high school, my parents’ house, and being pushed into the world at 27 after being cuddled in the sense of Tri-Care. We had Tri-Care; we had the food was always there for me. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:10:29    I didn’t have to worry that much about rent because I had some place to stay. So, coming out with a family of five of us at the time. I realized how much I depended on the military for the provisions for my family. And I didn’t see that at first, I thought everything would snap into place the same way it does as soon as we moved to a new base. But it didn’t happen that way. So, I got out and ended up one of the elders at my church. I started going back to church.  Once I got out, he just asked if I would come into the prisons with them because he knew I had been to Iraq twice. And he knew that I might be able to encourage some of the inmates, really. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:11:11    He was trying to recruit me to become one of his team members to go into the prisons with them, and it worked. I ended up doing it for two years. I fell in love with that, and that really connected, that really showed me more of my identity. By that, I mean, it helped me see that I really do like helping people now. I’m not helping in this medical way, but I’m helping these inmates who are cut off from the world or feel disconnected or whatever. At least it feels like someone cares for them during the time here while they’re separated from everything, they knew as normal. And I identify with them a lot because of the military being deployed. We’re separated from everyone. We have a time to get up, a time to get down. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:11:50    We go through the line and get our food and we go back wherever we’re at now. And very much like being in prison, unfortunately unify with them. And I was able to connect with them in that way. Fortunately, I never had to spend any nights behind bars, so I couldn’t completely identify with them in that way. But from the standpoint of the way I saw some deployments, the way I felt during some deployments and so anyway, just being with them and talking with them and started building relationships with them, I had the opportunity to use my GI bill. I was working as an electrical apprentice once I got out of the military; I went back to Memphis started working for Shelby Electric Company, a bunch of great guys there. They were just a construction worker type electrician going out, putting up poles on the road. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:12:41    If tornadoes come through, they will be the ones coming out with the big trucks and put them back up. And so, there was a five-year program, five years on the job training as an apprentice. After you pass the test of the fifth year, you become a full-fledged electrician making what was good money at the time. So that was what I thought I would be doing. And on the side, I just started going to the prisons to just communicate with these inmates and everything. And it came to a point where I began to want Saturday night. That’s when I would go on Saturday nights. I wasn’t a big party animal. If you can tell, like we go Saturday nights to the prison to hang out with inmates and then wait an entire week until Saturday night. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:13:26    Again, I just wanted to get back there because I felt alive.  I had a purpose again. I think that really connected me. And the more I realized that the more I saw the opportunity to use the GI bill; before that I had never wanted to go to college. I had never thought about college. Now I saw an opportunity to, I can become a prison chaplain. Then I could do this full-time. And so that was the mentality I had when I first enrolled in college in 2010 at the age of 30 that I’m going to do this so I can become a prison chaplain. And that was four years. We stayed in Chattanooga. We left Memphis, moved to Chattanooga for four years. I got a story, man. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:14:09    We stayed in Chattanooga, excuse me, for three years. And graduating at the end I got a bachelor’s degree in theology. And at the end of that, the interviews that come up and there was an opportunity to interview for a hospital chaplaincy internship. And in my mind like hospital chaplaincy, prison chaplaincy, this may help me get into the prisons. So, I interviewed for the chaplaincy position and I was invited to be a part of the program. The program consisted of one year in Orlando, Florida at a very nice hospital as a hospital chaplain intern on the job training. I’m familiar with that world now. So, I do that for a year and it was good for me. It allowed me still to give, like my caring. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:14:57    I was able to still provide this help and this care. And at the end of that program, they offered to pay for my graduate degree to get a master’s of divinity, and then I would work for them for five years afterwards. So essentially, they say, well, you did really good here at this internship. We want to bring you on as an employee. Full-time and my wife, she was like, I was like, that’s great. There’s a job right here. They’re going to pay for higher education, so let’s do it. And so, they sent me to Michigan where I did my graduate degree at Andrews University from 2014 to 2017. I did the MDF and a few other things I studied for. And at the end of that three-year period, I was invited to interview for one of the hospitals in this program. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:15:51    There are 44 hospitals throughout the U S and four of them are in Chicago. And I loved Chicago since I was a kid, primarily because the Bears and the Bulls growing up those were the teams. And so I always just loved the city of Chicago. And so I interviewed for Chicago opportunity. I was invited to work here in Chicago land area. And I did that as a hospital chaplain for two and a half years working towards that five.  I never made it to the five because the past started to creep up on me. As I was working in the hospital, there was a lot of trauma, death, a lot of things that the chaplain is called to the bedside to be there for. And in my mind, I can do this. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:16:38    I’m used to being there for people; I’ve sat beside soldiers when the battle buddy was going, or I’ve been in that world before as a medic. And now I know I can do it in the hospital and it would never occur to me that it would be a problem emotionally. But after about a year of doing it full time, being in the hospital with so much trauma, so much anxiety, like, is this person going to live? It was always that high alert, even more so in the hospital all the times because of different patients and things. And so it just began to wear on my emotions. I began to lose patience at home. I was totally not who I knew myself to be or who my wife or kids knew me to be. And I started going to counseling through the VA, started reaching out, doing the services. And it was during this time that I did find a good counselor. I will say that I did go through a few of them. The counselor I’m with now is the one that I’ve been with for the longest time ever has been over a year and a half, at least. I don’t know if that’s long for many people, but it’s long for me, Scott DeLuzio:    00:17:50    It’s pretty good. But you find one that you can stick with for that long. Yeah. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:17:55    Yes. And we talk and that has been very helpful for me for dealing with the past, the things that kept creeping up on me while I was trying to work. And so, I resigned from the hospital January of 2020, January of this year right before COVID. So, I’m so happy I did because I don’t know how I would’ve survived in the mental state I was in, along with the whole world is dying and going crazy. Like there’s a pandemic. And so, once I got out of the hospital and then March came and I saw how big this thing became, if people couldn’t even leave the hospitals, because they didn’t want to bring the potential diseases home with a potential bacteria home or whatever. I was just grateful to be out of the hospital, but I didn’t have a job. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:18:46    And the wife, she didn’t like that.  It went well for my mental health for a little while, but eventually it started going downhill also. I did end up finding another job that was equally helpful for others, as well as it pays the bills. And so, I’m working now at an alternative school in rural Illinois called Core Academy. And we just worked with high school students who aren’t allowed to go to public schools anymore. So, they aren’t the model citizens, but they’re still good kids. And I get to work with them and I get to be a part of their lives. And we only have one or two kids in class now because of COVID. When it was a full school that was full classrooms of kids that appreciated a young black man spending time with them, talking to them, letting them know that I value them. And so that was something I found immediately leaving the hospital that I fell in love with again. So that’s where I’m now for employment. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:47    You are on this trend of just helping people like that. It just seems like it’s just like pouring out of you ever since you joined the Army you just want to go and help people. That’s sort of what it seems like what you’re doing with Vet Park; you’re looking for ways to help Veterans. And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about Ver Park, what it is, who it serves and what the purpose behind it is and how it came about. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:20:19    All right. All right. I’ll do my best man. It’s been in my mind for at least three years. I say it’s been in my mind for at least three years and it’s changed of course over the years. What I initially planned for it to be is something that we see with a wounded warrior program, or some of these other newer Veterans service organizations that are finding ways to build community for Veterans. That’s what Vet Park was initially going to be. However, after building plans and things I found Wounded Warrior program, and I started participating in their programs and I loved it and I didn’t want to recreate what they were doing. And so, I set Vet park back down. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who’s also a Veteran and talking to her about the way art has helped me and talking to her about the way music or drawing or writing all these things are things that helped me feel whole again; it helps me come alive and we were talking about how art does help people with PTSD or traumatic brain injuries, art therapy. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:21:29    And so I started looking into art therapy and realized that I had stumbled onto something that research has already proven is helpful. And so, as I was looking more and more into art therapy, I started trying to find programs. I wanted to participate because I was still at the time working in the hospital going through my depression, going through those hard times. And I was looking for things to give me joy again, or to help me come alive. And anytime I did anything creative, I felt that and so I was looking for programs that offered Veterans an opportunity to do that. And I ended up coming across Creative Vets, which is a program here in Chicago and they’re also in Nashville. They’re going around the US, they’re spreading, but they are a program for Veterans. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:22:22    They help Veterans get connected with the arts. And so I connected with them. I went to one or two of their programs. I loved what they were doing. And I started finding other programs similar to that around the US. And so, I started just looking at them and seeing what they were. And one thing I realized was they were all nonprofits and they were all consistently in need of funds. They were consistently in need of funds because they’re, non-profit, they rely on donations to help Veterans. And there are plenty of Americans that want to help Veterans and are willing to provide that support. I also realized that it’s like a buckshot right now, whereas there’s many in different cities, different areas, there’s many different Veteran service organizations. They’re all in need of money. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:23:08    They’re all fighting for that same donation from these corporations or from people or from the government or whatever it may be. So, in that way, they are helping, but they may not be doing their best because of funds.  And so I didn’t want to do something that would be another cog in that wheel, as far as being a donation based. I wanted it to be something that would be helpful for Veterans while also being a for-profit business. And I just started looking for some of the most lucrative areas in business. And one thing I came across was entertainment, and this was before COVID and I realized that people will always need an outlet for entertainment, whether it’s music and no matter what type of music, whether it’s art, whether it’s shows, whether it’s theater, whether it’s barbecue, cookouts; we naturally have this within us to be creative, to be outgoing, to do things. Scott DeLuzio:    00:24:11    As far as the events go. I definitely agree. I mean, it’s a great way for people to connect, listen to the artist, especially in a music like a concert or a festival type thing, or whatever, it’s a great way for people to come together and experience that thing together and have that shared experience. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:24:38    Exactly. Thank you. I realized as I was looking at this, I’ve always been a fan of the hippie movement. The free love, the one love, the Bob Marley. I’ve always been a fan of those flower children because they appear to only want everyone to just get along and be happy. And so, as a kid growing up, I just always thought they were cool. I was like, those are the people, that was the generation I should have been a part of. I should have had the effort when I got dreadlocks. That was by the way I should’ve had Afro with the Jackson 5, just being groovy because that’s for some reason I feel like that’s the generation I was supposed to be a part of. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:25:23    Things like Woodstock, I realized that it brought people together. And when people came together, they came not only to party, have fun, but they enjoyed themselves. They had a good time. And that’s what I wanted that part to be. And so, as I thought about it, I realized that I wanted Vet Park to be set up to become an entertainment company, one that is able to host events that will bring people out no matter what walk of life they come from if they want R and B, we may have R and B show in their city. If they want country may have a country show in the city depending on what it is, and we’re able to be flexible and move that part from place to place where Vet park is, wherever people come together to celebrate for a purpose of helping our heroes heal. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:26:09    That’s what Vet park is. I should have probably started there.  It’s wherever we all come together, our banner is going to go up at that moment. That’s Vet Park. And we came here to help our heroes heal. And so the idea is that we come there, we party with a purpose, and then we go home and people are going to go to concerts anywhere. They’re going to go to plays. Anyway, they’re going to go to art galleries anyway. But what if they were able to do it, knowing that the dollar they’re paying, some of that is going directly to help Veterans get connected with these alternative therapies. And so, as I saw the problem of nonprofits needing more funding to help as many vets as there are and then I also saw that there was plenty of money in entertainment. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:26:52     I just tried to find ways to balance those two. And that’s how the business model for Vet Park came up looking at companies like Tom Shoes, and there are others that I can think of. I know there was water companies where if you buy a bottle of water, they’ll send two bottles of water to some nation that doesn’t have a lot of water. So essentially what you’re doing is you’re not just buying water, but you are supporting a cause as well. And so, this new business model that I’m seeing trend throughout this tech era is those that are attached to causes. And so, I realized that the cause that was on my heart was helping Veterans get connected to these things. They brought me back to life. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:27:41    And so there’s more and more conversations with different people talking about it, helped to solidify the idea of what the business model for Vet park would look like. Our first event was scheduled for April 22nd, which was my 40th birthday. It was a party; it was a gift to myself. And I guess God didn’t like that. It was like, you don’t need that, go sit down. Covid came and shut that all down. And so, we have had an event. It wasn’t what was planned. It wasn’t as well attended as planned, but it was something. I really forced because I wanted to have an event because of the way we are. And so now, it’s myself and a friend of mine, Kanya. We met in basic training and remained friends throughout our military career. He just retired last year. We’re looking at some other options for pivoting it right now just to help get the ball rolling. Scott DeLuzio:    00:28:44    Can I ask what type of events, or how is COVID really impacting that? So how is it that you’re pivoting and what’s the goals for that? Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:28:55    Yeah, the pivot right now is a great idea. I’ll want to share it like it’s probably already happened, or somebody has probably said it, but I don’t want to ever feel like I shouldn’t have said anything until I knew exactly how I was going to do it. Scott DeLuzio:  No problem. Robert Debney Jr: But we are still planning events because digital events and those are things that are happening right now. I’m trying to learn. I’m not that fond of digital events myself, but I know that some people are but I have to feel it in myself to want to do it and put the energy or effort into something and make sense. I can’t start that way, at least not with the events part, but we have other ways we’re raising capital, raising revenue. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:29:42    Another way we’re doing it is with our healing heroes’ campaign and what our healing heroes’ campaign is, it’s six months where we promote one particular type of therapy that’s available to Veterans no matter where they are in the U S and our first one, because this is our first healing hero’s campaign. I call them HACs just to connect that with the military army headquarters company. HHC zero one is using art to heal hearts. And so, it was a focus on art therapy and during our healing hero campaigns, what we do is we choose one Veteran focused nonprofit that is providing this type of alternative therapy, in this case art therapy and they are geared directly for Veterans; they’re in place because they want to support Veterans. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:30:35    So we commissioned an image to be drawn by a US Army. Well, this one was a US Marine, he drew the image for him. We commissioned him, he got paid on that end. He’s a Veteran, and now we are putting that image on items to sell. And so now when we sell these items, it will go towards a program that the art is creative. It’s the same art therapy program I was introduced here. They’re the first nonprofit we’re supporting. Anytime we sell a product with the consumer heart on it, the profit goes towards the creative Vets art box program. What is the program they start to do now because of COVID, they can’t have the classes anymore. And so, they’re doing online classes and they’re sending art supplies to Vets throughout the US and it’s going well for them. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:31:27    And one of the ways that I saw the Hill park could help is by choosing this image, this item, and anything that we sell with the image on those profits go directly to the creative Vets and so to help their art box program. And so that’s how the HACs helped to fund things for Veterans until we can get these events off. Right now, the organization we’re sponsoring is Create Events with anytime we sell a consumer heart image, which is right now just a t-shirt and a sticker, those profits go to that. And then also we’re working with a few Veterans to start selling some of their things online as well. And so, it’s an Etsy specifically for Veterans or a Veteran Creatives. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:32:20    We’re inviting Veterans to participate, to create their own pages and then we go and find the audience for the Veterans. Now we bring the audience there and if they can make the sale, they make the sale. And that part takes a bit of commission for that just like they would do on Amazon or Etsy or anything like that. And so, finding ways to employ Veterans and help Veterans feed their families. A lot of the guys that I know that I’ve met on this walk through the VA, through the PTSD are having a hard time keeping a typical traditional nine to five job. Not because something is wrong with us but because we see the world totally different than most Americans see the world because of our experiences. And so, we don’t fit any longer within their boxes and they get uncomfortable and we get uncomfortable and then a mess happens. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:33:12    And so a lot of my battle buddy guys, I’ve been meeting around here in a rural aren’t able to keep jobs, but they have these crafts, they have these hobbies, they might be crafty. They may brew craft beer at home, and it is legal to sell them via Vet park is going to find a way to help you sell that craft beer to a larger audience. And so that’s what we are getting Vet park up to be a platform for a Veteran creatives to be able to make a livelihood on it. And so now the American public, whereas before they had thousands of organizations, they could choose to give money to now, we are creating an opportunity for them to exchange funds for something they want anyway, or something they want to give that will help a Veteran who made it to the Vet Park, which I still hadn’t gotten to the biggest part of the way we help Veterans either, Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:34:03    which is our alternative therapies fund. So that’s another thing that we’re doing here. Every aspect of Vet park is meant to provide Veterans with an opportunity to get a piece of the American pie in that sense of entrepreneurship. I said earlier, I need freedom and that’s something else I realized. I was working at the hospital and now in my nine to five, I am an artist. I’m a creative myself, and I enjoy the flexibility of being able to move around. And as long as I’m gainfully employed, I want to be able to do it. Entrepreneurship is something that I’m passionate about as a person. I am trying to encourage as many Veterans as possible, like you and your show, right? Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:34:54    This is something that I know, some podcasts are the therapy. This is the way. By talking with Veterans, connecting with other people, this is the way they heal themselves. And so, we want to have a place for Veteran podcasts. I’m sure there’s out there a place where anyone can go and just type in Veteran podcasts and find it. Vet Park will be their place that any American wants to find anything. They want to find Vet park as a place they can look first if they are looking for a Veteran perspective or wanting to support our heroes. And that’s our tagline, helping our heroes heal, because anything we do and someone else does it with us, they are also helping our heroes too. And so that’s the idea. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:35:36    And that came a lot of pain on my part, meaning I’m going through PTSD and trauma, depression, and finding things to help, but also understanding that as a chaplain, one of the things I had to learn was emotional intelligence. I had to learn empathy. I had to learn how to be emotionally available to recognize when someone else may be hurting and they don’t even realize it themselves. And so, in doing that, I realized that no matter where we’re from, and we learned this in the military, we are all the same. And we all want basically the same things in life and that’s to live a good life in peace. And it’s a part of the American dream, the pursuit of happiness, right? That’s at the end of the day, no matter where any of us is from, we all have that goal in the back of our mind somewhere, we’re trying to pursue peace and happiness, even Dynos he went about it a different way but that’s what he was pursuing. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:36:34    He was pursuing peace. That was his way of doing it. As individuals, there are things that connect us as humans. And one of those things are many of those things are addressed through alternative therapies, whether it’s talk therapy, whether it’s music, art, equine, nature, hiking, fishing, those things connect us back to the humanity in us, the person who we are. I don’t know how we saw who we are outside of our boxes that we’ve been placed in. And so that’s why I’m all for alternative therapies. I can’t just stick with art therapy. We got to go talk about music. We got to go talk about people who ride horses for therapy, because there is a connection they have with those horses. And it may be a hundred people in this room. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:37:23    And 90 of us may really feel good after joining the picture, but it may be 10 of us who need an animal that’ll help us heal or may need to go underwater. And so just providing these opportunities for Veterans to find out about these alternative therapies, first of all, is the first step that we’re doing. The next step then is providing funds. This is the big way we’re helping that we’re building up to and gearing up towards, and which has been part of alternative therapies. And Vet Park alternative therapies is a fund, the charitable arm of Vet Park. And what we do is we take a percentage of each dollar that’s made in Vet Park where no matter where it came from, and we’ve put it in our alternative therapy fund. And at the end of the year, we look at it and say, this is how much is there. And then for the next 12 months, we find ways to give that money to either Veterans or Veteran organizations that provide alternative therapies for Veterans. And so just because I know creative, keep plugging them away. Scott DeLuzio:    00:38:28    They would have a link to them in the show notes too. So, you know, keep plugging away. That’s cool. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:38:36    They provide songwriting classes. If you like music, if you want to get into country music song writing class, they helped Veterans go to Nashville, spent some time going through processing their emotions and everything. They put it in the song and then they help them record it there in Nashville. Or if it’s art, they’re doing their art box programs around the country. And so creative vessel would be one of the organizations. We will provide a grant for it. We wouldn’t provide scholarships. We provide a grant for them and what our grants will do. We’ll cover at least one class, one session for them. So at least one of those sessions that Creative Vets has that year we’ll cover. We will pay for a session that they can invite anyone. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:39:25    They don’t have to worry about funding it. They don’t have to worry about getting any cash. This would be essentially Vet Parks, creative vets’ class because we finally get that. That way we are helping them complete their mission of providing a service to the Veterans while also helping Veterans get there without being concerned about funding. Then the scholarships have been in my head a long time and we’re working with the right people are coming to help make this reality. The scholarships then are for Veterans that would like to go to classes to go to some type of therapy but it still requires funds. There is no Veteran organization in their area. They may want to go to a community college, they’re in a rural area and they want to go to the community because they do music therapy classes or they may offer something. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:40:19    And so that vet can reach out to Vet Park and say, Hey, this is going on. We would then contact that organization, pay for that event for that Veteran in their name and allow them to go there. And so that’s what the scholarships are. And so, once we’re up and running full-fledged, the big kicker, the big motivation each year is getting these funds together so that Veterans are able to receive these alternative therapies and wherever they’re at in the US regardless of what the cost may be, because there are organizations that goes deep sea diving and Veterans are able to go in, but the Veterans can go free, but those organizations still have to pay for the equipment and everything they’re doing. Scott DeLuzio:    00:41:02    Not free, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So, there’s still a cost involved. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:41:09    We are gearing up to be able to just make that a little bit easier for Veterans to get in contact with those organizations. And so we’re reaching out to different alternative therapies. Anytime I find a yoga instructor, I’m reaching out to them because they know about holistic lifestyle. They know about alternative therapies because there’s more than you. I’m always finding new things.  I’m a flower child and in my soul, I know that I’m connected with the earth and the earth was put here for us. Like we were put here for it and I love it. And so that’s a part of my identity I embrace. I’m a nature lover, man. I really am. And so, getting people back connected with their true human nature where there’s music or nature or outdoors. So, this is why it has to be the tagline, helping our hero CEO, helping them get back to who they were before the military. I mean, we can never go back there, but there was a part of us that’s still there. And that’s the part I think that it’s crying for a lot of us to come back and embrace. Scott DeLuzio:    00:42:23    Yeah. And there’s a lot of people talking about, you don’t always get back to where you were, but there’s some people who come back, they get out of the military or they come back from a deployment that was rough on them. And they’ve lost interest in the things that they used to do, whether it was a hobby or an activity, or whether it’s art or music or things like that, they’ve lost interest in those things. And sometimes through going through this type of therapy, they can work their way back to finding some joy in life and enjoying the activities that they’re doing. So, I think this is wonderful what you’re doing helping out these organizations, like you said, there’s, many organizations throughout the country, but working on a nonprofit status, you are basically relying on donations. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:09    And when those donations dry up for one reason or another, there’s only so much you can do at that point as good of a place as your heart might be, if you’re running one of these organizations, you want to help out everybody that you can, but without the money, you really can’t do that. So, I like looking at this from a for-profit standpoint where, if you want to be sustainable, you have to raise the funds. It’s almost like when you’re on an airplane and they say, when the oxygen mask drops down, put your mask on first and then help others who might be around you, right? If you’re not taking care of yourself first and making the money, then you can’t help other people. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:56    You know what I mean? So, you might want to help out all the vets who are out there, but if you don’t have a way of raising that kind of money, if you just have your regular job, but you’re making a salary, that’s good for you and your family, it’s putting food on the table, keeping the roof over your head and everything, but it’s not exactly leaving room for helping out all the Veterans who need the help. You know what I mean? So, it’s great that you’re doing stuff like this and supporting Veterans on all ends of the chain of this, from creating the products, creating the artwork and also with the donations and the scholarships and everything like that, it’s wonderful. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:44:43    There are 21 million Veterans in the US; we have the potential to have our own economy with the right organizational skills, and that’s one thing, Veterans have organizational skills, but I haven’t seen it at least the way I see it in my head. I haven’t seen it done as far as really coming together because once again, we typically go towards a nonprofit business model when we’re helping Veterans. And instead of being able to collaborate, we have to compete, whereas a for-profit business, if your money is okay, you can’t collaborate, and especially when you’re doing something you both have the same goal. Like I saw a Burger King over in England, or somewhere overseas recently encouraged their fans to go buy McDonald’s just to keep their lights on and keep their workers working. Scott DeLuzio:    00:45:44    And I saw that too and it struck me as odd until I dug in a little bit deeper to see what was going on over there. I was like, what is this craziness going on? You know, they’re usually pretty fierce competitors, but one thing, like you said, one thing that Veterans are good at is organization. And I think I’ve never met a group of people who are more willing to go out of their way to help a complete stranger, if they’re another Veteran.  And so, it just makes sense that we should be able to take care of our own; the VA’s great that the other organizations that are out there, they’re great and they’re doing all that they can, but they can only do so much. And I think when we all come together, we can really affect some change. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:46:31    Because there are many of us that have gotten back to a point in life where we feel as if we have control. I don’t know how I’m going to be tomorrow. I know that I realized that. I won’t say I’m good again but since leaving the hospital in January, I hadn’t been down, and I know it was because of the environment I was in, I needed somewhere that I could heal and continue to heal versus everyday being pulled back down to death and trauma and everything. And so yeah, I’m in a good place right now. And part of that was not just leaving the hospital of course, but these different therapies that I have found, especially like drawing my wife, I like to write, I like to take pictures. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:47:22    I like to draw and I want to start painting, but she won’t allow me to go buy any paint material because I have much photography materials, so much drawing material. And I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. I just keep jumping from thing to thing. There’s something wrong, but that wasn’t, it was the fact that all those things bring me joy and I found ways to get joy. I want to do them all. And that’s a part of the freedom that comes with art, especially to be able to paint outside the lines and say, it’s beautiful. Still, even though 99.9% of people don’t tell you it’s ugly, but it’s art. Scott DeLuzio:    00:48:05    Exactly, there you go, it’s all in the eye of the beholder, right. It’s like, if you’re looking at it and you think it looks good, then it looks good. And who cares what anyone else thinks about it, Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:48:15    That’s the mentality I’ve been trying to live now, man, like not of course, I’m one for peace and love and unity. But at the same time, I stopped allowing others’ expectations of what I should be, or shouldn’t be as a man or as a Veteran. Scott DeLuzio:    00:48:36    So with all of this stuff, you’re talking about how organizations can collaborate and things like that. And I know with my podcast I know there’s other podcasters out there who are doing similar things to what I’m doing. There are other organizations out there who are trying to help out Veterans. And one of the things I like to do just like with your organization, I want to help promote those companies and those nonprofits whatever they are, I want to help promote them, because sometimes there might be Veterans out there who just don’t know that these things exist. There might be people out there with a desire to help out Veteran organizations, but they don’t know which ones to donate to. Scott DeLuzio:    00:49:19    You don’t always know, is the money actually going to what they say it’s going to go to and everything like that. So, helping out companies like yours and other nonprofits and other organizations that are out there first off, I hope to help people raise some money for their causes. Secondary, or probably primary to that is to get the Veterans who maybe don’t even know that these things exist, these alternative forms of therapy. They might just think that therapy is, I got to go talk to a shrink and I got to go do this every week. And it’s just going to be such a hard thing for me to do, because I don’t want to open up and I don’t want to talk. Well, there’s other things out there that’s not necessarily the only way; it certainly is a Scott DeLuzio:    00:50:10    form of therapy, but there’s other things. So, there’s like you said, there’s art, there’s, music, there’s equine therapy. There are all sorts of different things that are out there. And it’s just a matter of getting exposure and letting people know that it’s out there. So that’s what I hope to do. Other organizations, other podcasts, I should say that are doing a similar thing to what I’m doing. I don’t look at them as competitors. I look at them as just another person who’s out there trying to help out Veterans. And if they’re successful, then more power to them because that means that that Veterans are being helped. And that’s ultimately what I’m looking forward to. So, I’m not about to rain on their parade or anything with whatever they’re doing, because I want them to succeed and I want you to succeed. I want all these other organizations to succeed because when we all succeed, Veterans are succeeding. And I think that’s really the important takeaway here. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:51:13    You’re right. And I’m glad you said earlier because a lot of our buddies do come down hard on the VA and I understand why a lot of people have problems with the VA. At the same time, they have a really big job. The VA, they have a really big job. And our country isn’t equipped maybe right now, to provide all of this help that we really need. And so, what I see happening, this will keep everybody calm, take some pills, go talk to someone. This is all we can do right now, because we’ve got thousands more coming. And so that’s kind of why I can still appreciate the VA because they do provide a service. I still go to the VA. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:52:05    These other therapies are available and Veterans need to know about it, and they can’t get it from the VA or if they have insurance, some of these things aren’t covered by insurance. And so they would have to pay for them once again. And so, it’s just one of my ways that I’m trying to help. Like we said earlier, there has become a theme of my life and I like it. I know it’s who I am. It really is who I am. Scott DeLuzio:    00:52:38    I think that’s a good place to be. I think that’s a good person to be. That’s a good type of person to be, reaching out, helping out people and always looking. It seems like you’re always looking for ways to help out people. And that’s the type of thing that we need more of in this world, especially with all the stuff that’s going on in this world where there’s so much back and forth bickering and fighting over petty stuff in some cases and in some cases they’re more serious, but still, I think if we came together and put our heads together and try to figure stuff out, we might come to a better conclusion than name calling and pointing fingers and all this other stuff. So, I think everyone can take a page out of Robert’s book here and be more like him and try to be more helpful towards your fellow man and help out. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:53:35    I would appreciate that. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:53:40    I know most people know this. I think military people know this; Mr. Rogers’ one of the lessons that his mom taught him was always look for the helpers and that’s what he ended up becoming in his life. And he has a story that’s similar to many of our stories as far as his Veteran background and everything. And so, there’s plenty of us out there that as hard as we are, we still have this inside of us; this desire to serve a purpose and serve humanity. And so that’s what we’re gearing Vet Park for them to be able to come and live in and heal and help others heal. Scott DeLuzio:    00:54:18    Absolutely. And that’s great. And I think you know, serving a greater purpose like you were saying is a great goal to strive for, especially for people who are struggling with finding their own sense of purpose. Maybe you’re just transitioning out of the military and you’re feeling a little bit lost, because like you said, the military took care of a lot of that stuff before, you’re housing and your food and your medical and all that kind of stuff was all pretty much taken care of for you. It was made really easy for you or easier, anyways, I can’t say that it was all easy. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:54:54    Different challenges. Scott DeLuzio:    00:54:57    Exactly. You know, it’s not like you’re just thrown out to go figure it out all on your own, you know? So, serving a greater purpose, if you can find that, whether it’s through helping out other Veterans or through serving your community or doing something along those lines that can help you find your sense of purpose, your reason for being, so I think that’s a great piece of advice there too. Well, Robert, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. You’re full of positivity. You’re full of sharing and helping out others. I think that’s a great thing to have. Where can people go to get in touch with you and find out more about Vet park and how to help out, Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:55:47    Oh, thank you for asking. The website is our main place right now. It’s www.VETPaRK.US. I would encourage anyone with an Instagram account to follow us on Instagram, because what we do there is it’s kind of like the icing on the cake. We share artwork, we share things that have been created by Veterans on no matter where they are in the US or around the world, we share it on our site. And in that way, we allow the community to see what great things Veterans are up to. We help Veterans get a little feedback from the public about their work, and they are just gaining more confidence in themselves as artists and as creatives. And so again, everything I do, there’s another reason behind it. Robert Dabney Jr.:    00:56:43    And this is one of the ways I see helping before we are able to give money to people. We’re able to support these Veteran creatives and their things. And so, I’m always just encouraging people to follow us on Instagram because I have a good time curating. That’s my museum, that’s my art gallery in a sense curating the images and everything, and getting to know the artists. And so, they’re a bunch of great guys and gals that we served with. It also has another talent and is using that talent to help themselves deal with life the same way someone else may use other things to deal with life that aren’t as helpful. So yeah, just to get a lot of people to support them on Instagram channel, especially. Scott DeLuzio: And that’s awesome. Yeah. So, I’ll have links to both your website and your Instagram and your other social media channels and stuff like that all in the show notes. So, anyone who’s looking to find out more about Vet Park and want to follow along with some of the stories and other artwork and stuff, they can pick up the industry page and we’ll have all that stuff in the show notes there so that you can find it all there. So again, thank you for joining us and sharing your story and everything about Vet Park. Really appreciate it. Robert Dabney Jr:  Thank you, Scott, for having me on, man. I appreciate it. And hopefully we get to do it again. Scott DeLuzio:  Yes, absolutely. Scott DeLuzio:    00:58:17    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ DriveOnPodcast.

Jodi Watkins is a veteran, author, and host of the Breaking Barriers Now podcast, which has a similar mission to this podcast in that they talk about real life issues and stories to lift others up and support each other on their journeys. In this episode we talk about how sharing your story can help others, Jodi’s podcast and book, as well as her own struggle with PTSD. Links & Resources Reclaim Your Life (Book) Jodi Watkins on Instagram 2BEpic Fitness And Nutrition on Instagram 2BEpic Fitness And Nutrition Website Prior episode referenced in this episode: From Homeless Veteran to Successful Business Owner Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out; if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email lists. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Everyone today, my guest is Jody Watkins. Jodie is a Veteran author and host of the Breaking Barriers Now podcast, which has a similar mission to this podcast. Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:54    They talk about real life issues and stories to lift up others and support each other on their journeys, through whatever they happen to be going through. I have Jodi on the show today, which actually is Election Day and Jody told me before we started recording that she has a funny story about Election Day. Hopefully by the time this episode comes out, we have a clear winner of this election, but today is actually the Election Day. So we’re sitting here in ignorance of what the outcome is on this particular election. Anyways, welcome to the show, Jody; why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Jodi Watkins:    00:01:33    Well, Scott, thank you. I just want to say, I appreciate you for even allowing me on here. That means a lot. I saw that alignment as well when I was looking into your podcast and what it was about. And especially with me being a Veteran that definitely hit home with me. So my name is Jody Watkins. I was born Jodie Cheryl, from Fernandina Beach, Florida, which is a very small town, North of Jacksonville, Florida. I was born and raised there. I grew up there until I moved when I was 18. I moved down to Gainesville, Florida. I got into a lot of debt, learned how college life was not the greatest thing for me; I ended up in the military. Prior to that, just a little bit of my background. Jodi Watkins:    00:02:19    I did grow up around domestic violence. There was a lot of just chaos. I watched my mom get beaten up pretty much every day. So that’s just what I grew up around, and it was kind of just normal to me. There was a lot of drugs, a lot of alcohol. There was some abuse in there and it was just life, and I never really thought anything of it. I just was very good at just keep going. I always just kept going. And so throughout my college years, and then the military, I never had actually healed from a lot of things and it finally showed up when I was 41, which was last year. I was that good at just continue; I tell people now I was just a professional at suppressing things and keep going and we learned that resilience in the military, but I already had it; so, then I just got even more. Jodi Watkins:    00:03:19    I was like, okay, so now I really just have to hide it and keep going and so that was the backstory. Through that, I published a book and when COVID started, I said, Hey, I guess I’ll try this podcast thing out. And so, we did that and it is called Breaking Barriers Now. The premise behind it, like I said, it was the COVID times. And a lot of parents were learning how to homeschool. I had a friend, she was a homeschool mom and she was actually homeless and she was out on the road and they were in a truck. And I said, well, who better to have on the first show than a homeschool mom of two, who is actually having to homeschool on the road and she’d been doing it already. Jodi Watkins:    00:04:04    So that was the first show. And it just progressed from there. I think I got into about seven episodes and I realized just how hard it was to keep a podcast going, and by that time there was a lot of other things going on in my life as well. So I digressed just a little bit and I just waited for a little bit better circumstances. So lo and behold, I have an amazing friend, her name is Jada. She is not a Veteran, but she is a mom of a six year old. And she was actually coming out of a relationship that involved domestic violence and she and I just really connected and I said, hey, anything that I do, I always love having others involved. That’s just something, I don’t know if I played team sports all my life, I was in the military and we had to work as a team. Jodi Watkins:    00:05:00    You all worked on airplanes and it was never just Jodi. And anytime it was, it was a failure. I’m not even going to lie. So I started realizing that and I said, I would love to have you as my cohost. So we began this season talking about her nonprofit. And she started out of her circumstance, which is called Transitioning Queens, Inc. to help women coming out of toxic relationships and their children. And also during that time, my good friend who happened to be on that first podcast ended up deciding to leave her husband, but that left her nowhere to stay. So guess where she is still she’s in our home. So this is our first case study for that. So the second season of the podcast is more geared towards real life, real stories. We have some amazing people coming on and sharing their backstory. It’s not just for Veterans, but it’s really just for anybody who needs hope at this point. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:08    Which I think is quite a few people. Jodi Watkins:    00:06:12    Even with me, I tell people, I really just had to choose what I was going to focus on. I can focus on all the mistakes that I made and all the fear, or I can say, you know what, if I got time for that, but let’s press forward because I can’t go backwards. And this is something that I coach people on too. I can’t go, we can’t go back in time. I can’t change any of those mistakes. What I can do is I can learn from them and I can go forward and that’s all we can all do. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:43    Right. And so you talked a little bit about your background and how in your childhood, your upbringing, there was some abusive situations. There was drug use, alcohol use, things like that. And a lot of times that stuff, when it goes left unchecked, it just compounds on top of itself. And then you add in joining the military and that’s stressful in and of itself. Right? Jodi Watkins:    00:07:15    Let me just throw this in right before I joined the military, I had an abortion. I blame myself for that for the next 20 years and I don’t blame myself anymore because I didn’t know any better. I just knew I was supposed to go to the military and this is happening. And I don’t know what to do. I have no support. I had no money. I had just lost my job. I had my car break down. Like literally everything was just, and then, what am I going to do? If I don’t do this, I did that. And I actually ended up on stage last year and I spoke about that in front of a pro-life arena. Jodi Watkins:    00:07:57    And what came out of that is I support people’s decision. However, what they don’t get is the information of this doesn’t just go away when you have it, right. It stays with you forever. I blame myself. I self-sabotage. I definitely was just not in a good place. And then I joined the military and I never told anybody when I joined the military, my recruiter didn’t know, nobody knew, and I kept it to myself and only very close friends. My husband now, because we have known each other for 20 years, but he knew, but it’s just one of those things. I don’t know how men are. I know a lot of women who are like this and that’s when I started sharing the journey and I think everybody just thought there was some magic. When I was in my best physical shape, I was not happy. And it doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. I was dying on the inside. Scott DeLuzio:    00:09:10    And so you’ve talked about your book and that you wrote about this and you’re telling your story about the struggles that you’ve had with all of this, and we don’t need to get into all the details on that background, but what I’m most interested in is hearing about how it’s affected you and how you found your way out on the other side and maybe seeing the light, if that’s the right phrase to use. Jodi Watkins:    00:09:45    Well, there was actually two books that came out within the timeframe of last year, I wrote one solely by myself. I ended up adding another story in there from a good friend of mine who was also a military Vet. And then there was another, I had a huge opportunity to share the real down and dirty, very small. It was something I had already wrote a long time ago, but I never shared it. And that was the part where I literally just shared everything. So that’s a book called “If She Can” that came out this year. I was one of 16 authors and I’ll tell you when I started reading their stories, mine looked like nothing. And that was even more encouraging though, because we all have stuff and I think sometimes we’re just so afraid to share it. Jodi Watkins:    00:10:37    But when we do, not only is it freeing as hell, when I got off that stage last year, and I talked about that situation, I was on stage for three minutes, three minutes, that’s all I had. I was not the keynote speaker. I was just the speaker who got invited to talk about it because I made a connection with an amazing woman. And she allowed me to do that. And I tell you, though, when I got off that stage, I felt like I lost 50 pounds of burden. I got off that stage. All the emotion came, I was crying. I was just like, God how amazing; it’s just that release. And if we go back to last year, so my husband and I were not so great at the end of 2018, but it was because of me. Jodi Watkins:    00:11:26    I had a lot of work to do. And both of us were stubborn, but a lot of me, I will go ahead and throw that out there. It was a lot of me. And when we left, we were in Okinawa, Japan, I had actually gone into the Reserves in 2013. I really want to help people. So I wanted to go into medical. I had tried a couple of other things that didn’t work out. And so I finally found a medical lab tech opening. So I went from working on airplanes to going into medical labs. And I went through the tech school for 13 years, came out and my husband gets orders to Japan. Jodi Watkins:    00:12:01    And I found out there, the Reserves was not pretty. They were not nice. So, I thought active duty was harsh. Reserves was a whole new ballgame. I ended up in Japan and we did okay. But I think that’s when, not only was I now learning how to be a civilian, which I hadn’t been in quite some time, but I really just felt no self-worth at that time either. And I think this is something a lot of Veterans feel, especially if they’re not planning on getting out, I didn’t plan on getting out at that time. I planned on retiring. And so it was like, well, what am I doing with my life at this point? And then here I am, I’m in a different country, which I loved. Jodi Watkins:    00:12:49    I loved Okinawa, but it was just, what am I doing? I had worked so hard towards so many things and then it all just came crashing down. So I think that began a journey that I didn’t even know was there. So being me that suppression is what did I do? I just started working out like crazy. I got into bodybuilding. I don’t know, my body’s falling apart. Let’s do bodybuilding. What? No, but I did. And I’m grateful and it was fun, but, like I said, it didn’t matter what I looked like. The pain was still there and I felt good. And I was helping people because I was doing personal training and nutrition coaching. I learned all that and I was helping other people, but I wasn’t digging deep enough in myself. Jodi Watkins:    00:13:35    So, when we came back to the States, my husband actually got stationed out in New Mexico and I had a lot of friends out there because we were both aircraft maintenance. So I knew a lot of people that he knew; it’s a very small world. And so some of them, a couple of the wives were like, don’t come out here, the school system sucks, the crime rates are horrible. And I’m just like, okay, now what? So he didn’t know if he was going to retire or not. So he was at 19 years at that point and I said, well, there’s no point in us going out there and then moving our daughter again. I knew that I needed to do some internal work. So I ended up coming back to Jacksonville, Florida. I hadn’t lived here in 20 years and I brought our daughter and I knew which side of town to stay away from. Jodi Watkins:    00:14:17    So, that was good. So I got her in school and then it just began this journey and I really just started falling apart at the seams. I had never had to market anything in my business. I never had to do any of that. I really just started the business because again, that’s what I did. One thing stopped, I just started something else, just what I do. And one day my daughter was at school and I just finally dropped to my knees. And I said, if you’re there, I got nothing. It was that bad. By that time, it was probably a couple of weeks, I don’t even know to be honest, it was just this downward spiral that was happening, where I would put on this mask to take my daughter to the bus stop and make sure that I didn’t want her to see anything; she’s not old enough. Jodi Watkins:    00:15:11    She was nine at the time. And when I would get back to the apartment, I was falling apart. I wasn’t able to help people. I didn’t have any clients. I tried personal training at a gym. I hated it. It was horrible. It was very impersonal. I never operated like that. So I just felt like I was contributing to the problems. So that lasted two weeks. And here I am, and then I’m paying money that I didn’t have the business coaches and bringing myself further down and financially didn’t know if I was going to be able to pay the rent. I’m having to ask my husband for help. And I never was like that. I never had to depend on anybody my whole life. And here I am; I was almost 41 years old and I’m just like, Oh my God, what is going on? Jodi Watkins:    00:16:00    I always was a believer, but I never knew how to build a relationship and then I had trust issues, like believing, trusting something that I can’t see; who does that? That was really where I was. I had nothing left. And I said, well, you know what, no matter what, if reading these scriptures is going to help me pull out whatever I’m in right now, let me do that. Because that’s one thing I haven’t tried yet. And I did, I got around the right people. I got around people who supported me and really just helped me grow in that area. And I will tell you, I attribute it all to that because it allowed me to move out of my way, allowed me to forgive myself, forgive others. There was a scripture do it. And I said, well, “I guess I’ll try that. Because I haven’t done that either.” Love others, be kind, and here I am a services business. So I need to know how to serve people. It wasn’t working out because I always was so guarded. I always thought that I was going to get hurt all the time because I was always like that my whole life. Even my husband, I honestly don’t even know why he stuck with me. Jodi Watkins:    00:17:25    Well, I know now because we have our daughter, but if we hadn’t had her, he probably would, he even said it. H would have been gone a long time ago. I know, I’m sorry. You know, like you said, we struggle with that, but we’re good now. We’re building that relationship now. He retired and I’m just grateful that I was able to go on that journey before he got back and we were able to live together because honestly our whole military career we didn’t have a relationship, we were gone. He would deploy, I would deploy. I would PCOC with PCA, we were always apart. Our daughter came out of a deployment that couple of weeks in between, and it was just that now we’re learning how to be married after almost 15 years. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:12    That’s a real struggle that a lot of people go through. Jodi Watkins:    00:18:15    Isn’t it though. I will say my daughter is my WHY; she is my everything. She’s on the cover of my book. She’s why I didn’t give up. She’s why I’m still here. She’s why I learned how to work from the inside out. And so when I started doing that, I started realizing a lot more people needed that. And so who cares if you can work out and eat. If your mind’s not in the right place, we’re in trouble. You’re never going to be able to get the results that you want. And I had to learn that, and mine wasn’t necessarily the health results because that stuff was easy to me by then. It was how do I sustain a business? How do I take care of my family? Those are the results that I desired at that point. But lo and behold, you use the same stuff. It’s the same. I really just had to turn the mirror around and use the same coaching I was giving everybody else on myself. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:17    Yeah. Sometimes it’s just that easy. It sounds easy when you say it that way, but when you’re doing it for yourself, it’s when you’re looking in the mirror. It’s a whole lot. Jodi Watkins:    00:19:28    Oh man. Oh yeah. And when you’re ready to go on this journey, you gotta be ready. Especially if anybody’s been in the military; you’re going to battle right now, you’re going to battle yourself. We are our own worst enemy. We put labels on these things, PTSD, depression, all that stuff. I truly believe now because I’ve been able to come out of that stuff. I was doing it to myself? Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:00    Yeah. That’s all Jodi Watkins:    00:20:01    The one who was blaming myself, comparing myself to my past self. How did I let myself get in this situation type of thing, you can’t do that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:11    Right? Yeah. A lot of it is partially the environment that you’re in, you said you started hanging out with different people and they were supportive and helpful. It’s also the way you think about yourself and about the world around you. One thing I had mentioned this probably a year ago or so on this podcast, but I had read a study about Veterans who came back from Vietnam, where there was drug use rampant over there amongst soldiers that were overseas and people who had never used drugs before, they’d go over there and they would use the drugs for one reason or another. And the medical professionals who were evaluating them, said, well, from what we know about these drugs, once in you’re hooked on them, it’s hard to get off. Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:08    There’s probably no chance of you actually getting off. But the thing was once when they came back home and they went back to their families or their hometowns they came from, and all that stuff where they were removed from that environment where they were constantly exposed to the drugs and the type of people who were providing it to them or encouraging them to take it wasn’t they got away from that environment. The desire to use those drugs just faded in a good number of those people. So it’s probably very similar to what happened with you, where you were in an environment that maybe wasn’t the healthiest environment, but then you manage to find a different environment, and that helped you along the way in your journey. Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:55    And I guess the reason why I bring that up is because people might be listening out there who are in this routine where they’re constantly around the same people and constantly doing the same things and all that kind of stuff. And it just winds up getting to the point where they don’t know how to stop doing that stuff. If they can break that cycle, if they can find a new environment, even if that means pack up and move to another state, another town, just move. One guy I had on the podcast last year, Seth Schultz, he was struggling in his hometown. His friends, his family, all toxic relationships, they were all encouraging him to do all these bad things. He packed up and he moved and now he’s a successful business owner. He’s got a team of people working for him and everything like that. And life is good. He has a family and wife and kids and everything. Jodi Watkins:    00:22:56    They’ve proven that so many times. I know when I first heard that, I guess I hadn’t really thought about, but even some of my clients were sucking the life out of me. I love them. But I had to really be careful because it was like, okay, if I haven’t worked on me, I can’t really show up for you. And now I can work with different people, right? I have worked with people that have PTSD and things like that. I’ve helped them get over some of those things, but they have to be open to it too. When they’re so guarded, you’re not going to get anywhere. And, and sometimes I just have to say, you know what, I’m here. If you need somebody to talk to, but let’s come back when you’re really ready. Jodi Watkins:    00:23:43    I can’t change you. Nobody else could have changed Jodi Walker. Because, like I said, I’m stubborn, and I had to do it. And it is hard. It’s very uncomfortable. I didn’t like it at all, but as I was going through that, and I actually took about a month off for my business, like everything, I had to be a mom, stuff like that, but I really just had to digress from all the chatter that was just too much chaos. I have all these business people telling me how I should run my business. And none of it was in alignment with what I love, I just loved to pour into people and really help people and had these people “Oh, you have to market this.” Jodi Watkins:    00:24:37    And put your price point here and stuff like this. I still tell people that I started comparing it to when someone’s on their health journey and you got 50 million gurus out there telling you what to do, eat this, have this diet, drink this shake, blah, blah, blah. And then you wonder why.  And then the new year comes, people are like on that kick, I’m going to get in shape. And then they lost two months then because they didn’t have the proper support system. If we don’t have that and we’re not open to it, that’s the key too. I had to become open to it. I could have had these people in my life the whole time, but I wasn’t open to it. Jodi Watkins:    00:25:24    I was more comfortable being around the toxic people. I was toxic, I was hurt. I was broken. I was whatever you want to call it. And so I was just reading a book about this too.  I started gravitating towards that but there was the other people that I could have gravitated towards, but I did it. So when I was going through this journey just last year, it was like I have to choose new people. I got to be around different people. And then I had to stop forcing the people; because not everybody you think is good is good. Jodi Watkins:    00:26:07    And you probably know this. So know you just have to learn how to be patient; that was another thing I had to work on. I wasn’t a very patient person and I just had to learn how to be for a little bit. And I think sometimes because our world gets so chaotic and we’re so stressed about, especially right now with COVID or anything, business owners are losing their businesses. And then we get so caught up in that, that we forget what we have to be grateful for. So I had to switch my thinking. I don’t know how the rent is going to get paid next month. Hopefully we don’t end up on the street, but I have a beautiful daughter who was really depending on me right now. And Oh, by the way, I do have a roof over my head, there’s homeless shelters downtown. Jodi Watkins:    00:26:53    My daughter had never seen one before. And when we were driving around one time down there, she was like, why are they just standing outside? And it dawned on me, we’re privileged. I grew up seeing that stuff, but she had never seen that at nine years old. She never saw that. And here she is finally just learning about that. So that was humbling, I think for both of us, and we just get so caught up in our day-to-day and I tell people all the time. I go to the gym early in the morning and the people that I’ve developed a pretty good relationship with most of the people that are in there are the same people and I tell them, “you know what? I wake up a little bit earlier.” I got to work on me before I can even show up here now. And I used to not do that. I used to go straight to the gym because suppressionist, Jodi just suppress it. No big deal. Just suppress it. Keep going. No, face it every day you gotta face it. And you gotta make that new journey every single day. Scott DeLuzio:    00:27:53    Because if you ignore it, it’ll actually feel good for a short amount of time because we’re lazy creatures as humans. We like to do the easy things and it’s easier to just ignore some of the things that we’re going through and just let them go. But once when you let too many things go and they just go and go and go, they build up to a point where you can’t manage them anymore. And you start to notice yourself unraveling and falling apart. And that’s like you said, if you can’t take care of yourself, on the mental side, you’re not going to be able to really enjoy the physical side even if you’re on the top of your game. Jodi Watkins:    00:28:43    Right. And when I was on top of my game, I felt like I still had these struggles. And I will say that was when I started to work on it, but I still wasn’t quite there. I needed to really be knocked down like that. Stubborn, Jody, I gotta be knocked to the ground before I’m finally going to say, okay, well what are we doing.  I will say, it’s been about four years, my daughter technically got diagnosed with ADHD. So, they wanted her on the meds and I don’t want anybody to misinterpret what I’m saying. Those labels do exist. I will never say that PTSD does not exist. Please don’t ever think that Jodi ever said that. Jodi Watkins:    00:29:28    It does. What I will say is it doesn’t always take medication to get you out of it. And so when my daughter got diagnosed with ADHD, of course, that’s the first thing they want to do. Doctors prescribed meds. They don’t get nutrition background lists. They go to do that. But for the most part, they don’t look at those things. So anyway, she’s on these meds and I really hated doing that. I was just like, this is horrible. I felt like the worst mom in the world. And she would come home and she would just be like, mom was my stomach hurts and we tried three different medications. And finally I just started digging in. I said, well, I’m a researcher. Let me research this. And lo and behold, I found some studies they had done on ADHD and autism where it was just a simple lack of protein in kids. Jodi Watkins:    00:30:16    And I started thinking about it. I was like, well, okay, I’m looking at these medications that they’re giving her and they give them energy to balance it out. And I started looking, there’s branch chain, amino acids. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of BCAs. Well, it’s not just for muscle building. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Protein are for hormones. They’re for brain function. They’re for all kinds of different things. And so as I was doing that research, I reached out to her pediatrician and the pediatrician was like, well, you would know more than that. More than I would on that. And I’m like, well, golly, all right, we’re taking her off of the meds and I’m going to try this stuff. So that’s what we did. Out of that journey with her, she was going to counseling for that and they would tell me things to help her with schedules, time management, staying consistent. Jodi Watkins:    00:31:05    And I started realizing that I had those same tendencies. So, back in the day they didn’t diagnose anything. I am 42 right now, they didn’t diagnose stuff back then, like whatever, you’re a kid, but I had those tendencies. So I was all over the place back then and I still can be, but I’ve learned how to become aware of it. And that goes back to the people you keep around you. I keep people around me that will tell me, right? Like you got to pull back a little bit, Jodi. And I need those people. My husband’s one of them. He’s like, you’re doing too much. Thanks. And we need those people around. But where I was getting with that is the time management and the scheduling is something that I’ve been able to now help other people with too. Jodi Watkins:    00:31:52    Because I think when we become busy, especially as entrepreneurs or people coming out of the military, it’s like that. Now what? Right now, what do I do? Or they go back to work and then their life is like falling apart because now I have nothing, some people just feel like they don’t have that same thing that they had. Or like when I came out, I had a higher rank. I was in a leadership position. Now what? Now I’m just one of the regular people, I got to start all over. And so, the time management, the scheduling, the learning how to say affirmations in the mirror, which I felt so stupid doing, but it was so helpful because eventually if you tell yourself something over and over and over and over, guess what you believe it. Jodi Watkins:    00:32:39    But here’s the thing about that. That can go either way. If you tell yourself you’re ugly, you tell yourself you’re fat. If you tell yourself that you suck at something, when my daughter says stuff like that, I say, Oh no, you will not tell yourself those things. And it’s just that, Oh my God, I can’t even explain the whole, there’s going to have to be another book eventually. So I have like five more book titles there in there because, the journey just keeps going and yes, PTSD does exist. Depression does exist. But the best way to get the suicide rate down is for people to just stop being so about themselves and start looking at the rest of the world; I had to do that. I had to make it stop being so much about Jody and what Jody was going through and how are you doing today? Jodi Watkins:    00:33:39    How’s your day going? And just being more intentional and I learned how to remember people’s names. I was horrible at that, but I learned how to do it. Stop your brain from working for just a split second so you can actually remember their name. It was just all these little things. And I think because we’re habitual creatures, right? We just go about our day to day, we do the same thing over and over and over and we just keep doing it. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a negative thing or a positive thing; if it’s positive, awesome. Keep going, make it better if it’s negative. That’s it definitely just a recipe for disaster. I’m telling you if it wasn’t for my daughter, I don’t know if I would be here because I was doing that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:34:28    Right. And you get into a cycle where you keep doing that and if you don’t have that positive influence in your life, in your case, your daughter, but I’m sure other people have other people, other things in their life that keeps them from going down that path. If you didn’t have that positive influence, you wouldn’t really have a reason to start thinking more positively, to do that for them, thinking about it that way. And sometimes that’s just a little kick start that you need to start doing it to just say, I’m going to do this for my daughter to make sure that she has a happy mom and a happy house to live in, so she doesn’t have to know about the homeless shelters or the other bad things that are out there. I don’t want to say homeless shelters are a bad thing. Jodi Watkins:    00:35:27    I know exactly what you’re saying. You don’t want them to experience that, right? Like you want them to be able to help those people. And that’s exactly what it was. It was just I never tried to shelter her. Eventually, I’m going to tell her the stuff that I had to deal with, and she does know some of it, but she’ll be 11 in December. So I have to keep it PG? Jodi Watkins:    00:35:55    So, she does know some; she knows that my mom passed away when I was pregnant with her. She knows that I did grow up with violence and she knows that I did grow up with a lot of drinking and drugs and things like that. And we’ve talked about drugs, so they talk about it at school. So, they’re growing up really fast these days too. I don’t know about all that, but we do have this whole journey and if people can get one thing out of this whole conversation, I hope that they can at least get this. You can show up for people so much better when you stop making it about you all the time. I can honestly say, I am such a better mom. Jodi Watkins:    00:36:42    I’m a much better wife these days. And it’s because I let go. I just got out of my way.  Someone asked me that not too long ago, what changed? I just said, I just got out of my way. I got out of the way; I removed myself, bye. I don’t know if you’ve ever done any reading on quantum physics, but I’m really enjoying that. I hated science when I was growing up, but I really like it now. It’s so interesting. And we have the shield, right. And if we’re operating in that place, or I’ll say that space, that state of mind where we’re just not accepting of anything good in our lives, then anytime something good tries to happen, we’re blocking it. Jodi Watkins:    00:37:36    It can’t even penetrate. There’s the shield. And then we wonder why we are just falling apart. We’re dying inside, but it’s when we finally and it does take a lot of work. You guys like it, but once you make that decision, like I had to make a hard decision and I refuse to keep going like this, right? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. You’ve heard this doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. It will not happen if you wake up depressed because you’re stressed out and you’re worried about, maybe you should not do that tomorrow. And one of the things that are explained I wrote about in the book is the first thing I had to start doing in the morning, as soon as I wake up, thank you all for waking me up. I’m grateful. I just wake up and you don’t have to believe in God, just wake up grateful. I have my arms and okay I still have my leg. And I still got my voice. I have a lot to be grateful for. And if it’s just those things, guess what? I still got a lot to be grateful for it because some people don’t have any of that and they’re still doing whatever they want to do because they’re not limiting themselves paraplegics that are changing the world. We’re so stuck in ourselves. Scott DeLuzio:    00:39:15    I’ve had people on this podcast who have lost both legs and have climbed some of the tallest mountain peaks in the world and they’re still managing to do this. So, if they can get out of bed and find a reason to keep going and train for these types of things and find some motivation in life, I think we can figure it out too. Now, Jodi, this has been a great conversation and I know on your podcast, you have similar conversations with other people. I just wanted to talk a little bit about your podcast and how the stories that you share on your podcasts are helping people find hope. How do you think that’s happening on your podcast? Jodi Watkins:    00:40:06    Well, we’re still in the beginning stages, like I said, this is really the second season. I’m still trying to fill it out and maybe I can learn some things for people like you that have been doing it for a little bit longer, but it’s really just that conversation that has to happen in the sharing of the stories. And I’m involved in another; there’s a retired Marine who started a platform called, Can be in Communities and he’s allowed me to come in. I’m the wellness community leader and that’s been amazing. But with that, sharing those experiences sometimes people just need to hear it. I had my friend Jayda on. And then I had my friend Kelly, who is staying here with us right now. Jodi Watkins:    00:40:47    And we came on and talked about being taken advantage of in the military. We never talked about that stuff. But how many women don’t say anything? I was one of them. And like I said, I just suppressed everything. So it didn’t matter. Just go on and keep going. It does matter.  And it’s just allowing yourself, like with Jayda, like with her story, she’s revealing the system. And the fact that the courts are allowing this abuser to possibly get her daughter, who threw them both out by the way, come on, I think we’re outing some things and we’re letting people know that it’s okay. You are not, like I say, I’m perfectly imperfect. Like you’re not a bad person. Jodi Watkins:    00:41:45    If something happened to you. And I think we get so caught up in that, and then we start placement. It’s just those negative things that we tell ourselves. We say it, nobody else has to tell me I’m a bad person. If I’m saying it to myself, I’ve already got it covered. It don’t matter what you tell me. I’ve already got it covered. I’m already telling myself, nothing is going to come out now. It’s not going to matter. Okay, cool. I’m going to go try to lose weight at the gym. Well, two months later I quit because I suck. Oh, no stop. And I think when we finally just start sharing those things, so that’s what I’ve really just been valuing, even with the coaching that I do and being that accountability partner for people is just allowing them to have a safe place to share. Jodi Watkins:    00:42:31    I tell them it’s a hundred percent confidential. I’m not a licensed therapist yet. It’s going to come, but I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. But it’s just that safe space, I think. And then when people realize that they can relate to you, you’re speaking their language or I’m not the only person that grew up with a paranoid schizophrenia who beat on my mom like that. I’m not the only person when I was a kid. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. But, in me sharing that, then I’ve been able to meet other amazing people who are like, Oh my God, I went through that too. And then we just lock arms and we all thrive because we’re not broken. We tell ourselves we’re broken, but we’re not broken. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:20    And it’s great to know that you’re not alone in whatever it is that you’re going through, and this is a point that I like to make with the people that I talk to on this podcast is that, if you’re experiencing this stuff, like in your case, you had a lot of trauma from when you were growing up, and then that continued and just never was really resolved that going through your military career and then afterwards and all that stuff, and it just kept building and building and building. Well, guess what, you’re not the only one either. There’s other people who are out there who had a messed up childhood who had trouble in the military. They went through some various traumas Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:05    and none of that stuff got resolved. They never went and talked to anybody, saw a therapist or anything like that. And those things just build up and build up and build up. And that’s why you start seeing the issues that we have with PTSD and the suicide rates with Veterans and homelessness and all these other issues. Just think they come from all of this, drug and alcohol abuses and all that kind of stuff. And it’s good to know that you’re not alone with all this stuff. It’s not great to know that there’s other people suffering. You obviously don’t want that. Jodi Watkins:    00:44:41    So we all do at some extent, even though the wealthiest of people have suffering, right? I think social media plays a huge part in this. We just look at people and think they are perfect. They have their whole life together. And then we don’t know anything that’s going on behind the scenes. Nobody knew that I was falling apart. “Oh, you look like you’re doing great.” “Oh yeah, I’m doing great.” I was horrible. Things were not good, but of course I’m not going to go blast that on social media. So I think we are just so prone to looking at the outside of people and thinking that we already know what they got to give, but when you start talking to them, so that’s why I stopped wearing headphones in the gym. Jodi Watkins:    00:45:28    I talked to people more and I go to work out, but I do like to have conversations too. And it will be like working out and cocky at the same time. And you really can get to know people when you do that. And again, it’s just taking yourself out of the equation and actually being intentional, being genuine. And like I said at the beginning of this, I’m an open book. I just stopped caring what people think, because I used to think that, especially with what I do, “Oh, I gotta be a certain way. I gotta talk our way. I want everybody to like me. I used to always try to fit in my whole life. That’s all it’s ever been. I just always wanted to fit in because I never did. So how do I fit in? Well, here’s the thing. And this is another thing where I say about reading the scriptures has taught me is I’m not meant to fit in. I’m not meant to fit in, stop trying. That’s why it hasn’t worked this whole entire time. So just be yourself.  So that’s what I’m doing. Take this podcast. I don’t study anything and I’ll turn or I don’t need to study how to be me. I just be me. Scott DeLuzio:    00:46:33    Exactly. And that’s the best way to do it is just be you. To wrap this up for the listeners who are listening to this podcast, I will have links to all the stuff that we talked about in the show notes for this episode of links to Jodi’s podcasts, the Breaking Barriers Now podcast, and you can also search for it on your favorite podcast player. You could probably find it there. I’ll also link to the book and everything else that we talked about today in the show notes for this episode. Jodi Watkins:    00:47:12    Real quick before I do, because I mentioned it briefly. Matthew Kernan, he’s an amazing person, retired Marine. I would love to connect you with him. He’s a good person to have on the show. He’s got some stories too, but he and I connected and that’s why I don’t believe in coincidence anymore. He and I connected through someone else and he has this platform, it’s called Convenient Communities. I’ll send you the link for that too. He did allow me to be the wellness community leader after we developed a really good relationship. But the great thing about that is when we talk about that, the confidentiality and people not really wanting to open up, there’s a reason why I don’t really get a whole lot of engagement as much on social media because people just don’t want it. Jodi Watkins:    00:47:51    They don’t feel comfortable opening up, well, guess what? You can go on here and you can be anonymous. Nobody knows you, so I love how his team put all that together. He has an amazing team. They’re all Veterans, and it’s just this great support system, we just all encourage and empower each other. And if nothing else being around them, that’s enough for me. I’m just like, Oh, so I just wanted to make sure I do have that plug in there because that’s another place that I can be found. And then also there’s a ton of connections in there for anybody out there. There’s a ton of groups, a ton of community leaders, amazing people and there’s something for everyone. So I definitely want to make sure that I put that out there. Scott DeLuzio:    00:48:35    And before we close this out, at the beginning, I mentioned that you had an election based story, today is Election Day. And you said it was going to be a funny one. So I want to make sure. Jodi Watkins:    00:48:46    Okay. So I just want to say, since I have been in the military pretty much this whole time, and then I was overseas. I haven’t really voted in the States for 20 years. So I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. The problem was I got my mail-in ballot, but life has just been busy and I didn’t have it on my schedule to send it. I filled it out, but I didn’t send it. And so I said, okay, well now I just gotta go. And I love talking to people anyway. So I just decided I was going to go. So I had something I had to do beforehand. And then I went to this one place and they were like, Oh, you’re in the wrong place. Jodi Watkins:    00:49:18    You got to go to this other one. Okay. All right, cool. So I go to the other one, it’s like this really little small church right down the street from her house. And I have my mail-in ballot in my hand. Right. Because I already have that filled out and I don’t feel like having to remember what answers already because I researched them. I’m taking that in with me because I’ve copied everything over as I have. I walk in and it’s real small, hardly anybody in there. So I go to the first little desk and he takes my ID and he’s like, okay, cool. And he puts my information in. Well he gives me the slip. All right, cool. So go to the next table and they gave me the ballot or whatever. Jodi Watkins:    00:49:54    Okay, cool. So I go to this thing, I’m looking around. Okay. Oh, okay. I see this private thing then you’d go there. So I open up my mail-in ballot because I got a copy of the answers. And so I got to ballot sitting right there and I’m copying the answers over. I was like, well, it’s the same ballot, but they won’t take this one. I’ll just copy them over. No big deal.  So then when I got done, I rip it up. I put it back in the envelope. I’m just going to shred it when I get home. No big deal. So I come around the corner, I go around to the other lady, the very last lady come to find out like four people didn’t do their job. Jodi Watkins:    00:50:30    And she’s like, what’s that in your hand, as you look at the mail and as well, what’s on your hand, I’m like, that was my mail in ballot so I’d make sure I put the same stuff. And she was just like, Oh no, you weren’t supposed to have that. They were supposed to collect that over there. And I’m looking at her like, don’t know what really I’m laughing. I’m like, okay, cool. And I was like, we’re going to shred it. No big deal. She was just like, Oh, it is a big deal. And I’m like, Oh, okay, cool. And then she saw that I still had the ticket in my hand. And she like, right in your hand, they were supposed to take that before they gave you the other ballot. I didn’t know that. I’m like laughing hysterically. She walks me around to the other side and I have my mail in ballot in my hand. Jodi Watkins:    00:51:09    Still I’ve already turned it. Now. I will say, I have already scanned my other ones. I’m good. I’ve already voted by this time. And so she walks me around to the other end and she’s like, did you guys see that she had a mail in ballot? Does she have it in her pocket? She was like, did you have it in your pocket? I’m like, no, it doesn’t fit in my pocket. And then I look up at the guy and you know, we’re all in masks. Right. So it was really funny when you can still see everybody’s expressions. Jodi Watkins:    00:51:34    But I look over it and she’s like, did you guys not see this? Does she have it in her pocket? And the guy was just like shaking his head, like looking at me, shaking his head, like, please don’t tell her that. I was like, ma’am look, I’ve been in the military. I can’t even tell you the last, I don’t even know if I’ve ever really voted. I think in high school we did it for the fun of it. But I don’t think I ever really had absentee ballots. <inaudible> Jodi Watkins:    00:52:07    I’m just learning this stuff. I was like, man, I’m back in the States now. And I just made it fun. And so everybody’s sorry. Even the lady who was being all serious, she started laughing a little bit, a little bit. Not too much, but yeah, she was just like, well, she has to take that ballot because you can’t take it home. And I was just like, okay, cool. Here have it. I’ve already ripped it up for you. And then the other guy, she was just like, well, you gotta make sure you take their ticket before they give a ballot. And I was like, Oh, it was probably hiding it or something. And I was like, you know what? I’m standing there. And I’m like, yeah, well, am I good? Jodi Watkins:    00:52:42    They all just looked at me. And this one lady she’s like laughing hysterically by now. She was just like, yeah, you’re good. You’re good. Welcome home. And I was like, thank you. I was like, have a great day. It’s just so funny because you know, and I think about this a lot because we are, especially driving as a white guy, and you live in Arizona. I don’t know how people are out there. I know New Mexico, they were always angry. Jacksonville, Florida, there’s some angry people here, but it’s funny because it’s that reactivity. We are so reactive. I wrote a blog about this and I was too. And so I always tell him I’m not judging anybody. With me, everything that I write about was me, but I noticed that a lot more in other people now. Jodi Watkins:    00:53:28    So as soon as I notice it, now I try to flip the switch because either I can be reactive with them, because what it would have helped if I had just got a bad attitude and been like arguing with the lady, no, why even go there? That’s a waste of my energy.  It is going to waste more of her energy at the end of the day. I’m just trying to vote. So, I just made it fun and that’s what I try to do now. People will say, who haven’t seen me in a while. They’re like, you just light up the room when you walk in. And I’m like, well, that’s a good thing. You don’t know me now because I probably didn’t do that back then. But that’s just because I’m just this person now I don’t choose to live in a negative state anymore. I’ve been there. It didn’t work out for me. And so I had to choose to make different choices. And I’m going to say that word all the time, because it’s always a choice. We have one over here. Remember the devil and the angel. It’s so true. Who knows? I thought it was like a funny ha ha thing, but no, it’s true. Scott DeLuzio:    00:54:31    Yeah, you definitely do. And you have choices to make all the time with this type of stuff. Jodi Watkins:    00:54:36    And every split second I’ve learned to, instead of just being so reactive to just step back, take a deep breath and say, okay, how am I going to move forward now? And I never used to do that either. So it’s just really that self-awareness self-analyzing. And just saying, okay, what do I need to work on so I can change it. But you got to get rid of the pride. You gotta get rid of the ego, ask for help. Sometimes that’s something else I struggled with and just be vulnerable. Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:09    And you have to be willing to change too. Jodi Watkins:    00:55:11    You have to be Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:14    Well again, this has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. And I really did enjoy having you on. For everyone who’s listening, links to everything that we talked about today will be in the show notes. And Jodi it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Jodi Watkins:    00:55:34    Oh, well, thank you. I really want to acknowledge you because everybody that’s doing this type of thing is helping people. And what I told you earlier, if we all just collaborate and work together on this, guess how many more people we can help. So I love it. So keep doing what you’re doing, man, and I love, of course that you’re targeting, but it’s because I am one, we all go through these things and you know what, sharing these stories and just getting it out there and just letting people know Hey, you’re not the only one. And I think that’s just huge. So it doesn’t matter what platform we do that on. Scott DeLuzio:    00:56:11    Absolutely. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more or learn more about Scott DeLuzio:    00:56:24    the show, you can visit our website. DriveOnPodcasts.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at driveonpodcast.

Roman Roberts tells us his story of transitioning out of the military and how “real talk” helped him get back on track. Links & Resources Real Talk With Roman Podcast Real Talk With Roman on Facebook Real Talk With Roman on Instagram Free LinkedIn Premium for veterans The Tailored Man Suits for Soldiers Program Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out; if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Hi everyone today, my guest is Roman Roberts. Roman is a former Army interrogator who’s here to talk about his Rocky transition after leaving the military and all the things that went on with that. Roman also hosts The Real Talk with Roman podcast and is a business consultant who leverages his military background to drive success for his clients. So welcome to the show Roman. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Roman Roberts:    00:01:10    Yeah, man, I’m super happy to be here. Thank you for having me on. As far as my background, I put it in my LinkedIn and I say it to everyone. I talk to them when I’m on podcast, it really starts in foster care. I grew up in abusive foster homes. Well, I like to say less than ideal because not every foster home that I was in was bad, but they weren’t all great either. And so that set an environment for me where I was not really fitting in, constantly trying to be a chameleon, trying to find what my place was in the world, but really just being who people wanted me to be so I wouldn’t get hurt, so I wouldn’t get abandoned, whatever else. And that eventually pushed me towards the military. As quickly as I could get out of where I was and joined the military; scored really well on my ASFAB. Roman Roberts:    00:01:53    And they basically said, Hey, what are you interested in being? And I said I, I don’t know. I just want something that’s going to get me connected. And you know, I’d only watched military movies. So I’m like the guys who are out there on the front lines fighting and the recruiter basically said, hey, well, I have this job it’s called a human intelligence collector. And you have all the aptitudes for it. You scored high in it and we’re offering a $10,000 bonus. So at 18 years old it sounded super great to me. And so I took off on it and really and truly it was a great decision; I call it divine intervention because it really was the perfect choice for me. I had had chameleon into different environments, so that had helped me when I became an interrogator. Roman Roberts:    00:02:36    And it was just really great. The only downside to it was doing all of that, manipulating those people, being involved in those interrogations time, over time, working with special operations, deploying time, over time. It really took a toll on me. And when you mix that trauma with the trauma from being a foster kid, I just packed trauma on top of trauma for like a 20 year period. And so that’s really rough when you do something like that. And then it proceeded to get worse in the subsequent years. And then I jumped into transitioning out and that’s when it all really came to a head and I really had the opportunity to deal with it because my identity was always wrapped up in being a soldier. I was Roman the interrogator. Then I was Roman the really good interrogator. Roman Roberts:    00:03:22   And so that just became who I was. And I never really said who Roman was because I never really had to. And then I got out and all of that collapsed in on itself. So it was like, well, who is Roman? So, then the path began and that’s where transition got a little rocky for me. And I went through a lot of ups and downs from alcohol to pills, to stepping out of my marriage to almost committing suicide, very rough path inside of there. Eventually got it together by actually asking that question, going to therapy and saying, who is Roman and doing the work actually really, and truly interrogating myself, communicating with myself and saying, okay, this is who Roman is. And Roman’s a person who likes to help people who is also a really good communicator and likes the analytics side of the world. So how can I mix all of those together? And that’s where business and business consulting came into play. So that’s the high, or I guess the mid-level view.  I threw a little bit of detail into that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:04:26    No, that’s good. That’s good. And I think your story is actually probably a somewhat common story with people in the military who get out of high school, they joined the military and their whole identity for a good portion of their life is as a soldier or as a Marine or whatever branch it is that they joined. But that’s our identity. They are in the military and when you’re in high school, you don’t really have an identity. You don’t know who you are, you might be the star quarterback or something like that. And that might be your identity, but that’s something that lasts for a couple of years. And then you’re not that anymore unless you’re stellar and you go off to college and you play there, but that’s probably few and far between. So I think your story there is probably pretty common where people start off and they’re like, Hey, I’m a soldier and that’s my identity. And then they stay in 20 years or whatever the time period is that they stay in. And actually, if they stay in for 20 years, they’ve been a soldier longer than they’ve been anything else in their life. Roman Roberts:    00:05:40    I actually have a really big and so I’m not against that. I’m a Veteran, right? Like I get it. I’m not against these Veteran outreach communities or these Veteran programs or any of that. The statements, some of the same as I’m about to say is going to assign some controversial, but just because you’re a Veteran doesn’t mean that that’s your only identity. That’s a piece of who you are. And I think too often when we transition out, we say I’m a Veteran. And so then that just becomes who we are. Every introduction is I’m a Veteran. We lead off in it. It’s our headline on LinkedIn. It’s all these different things. And that’s great. I’m not saying forget about your time in the military. I’m simply saying it’s a chapter of your book. Roman Roberts:    00:06:22    So we have to change the narrative to stop being so set on, I’m a Veteran, that’s a piece of who you are, who are you really? And you’re a compilation of multiple pieces. I’m a Veteran, I’m a foster child, I’m podcaster, business consultant, I’m a former interrogator, I’m working on my books. So one day I’m going to be an author. All of these are pieces of who I am. It’s not everything, but all of those linked to a core thing. And that core thing is service. I am a person who likes to serve other people. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:58    Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point, it’s a chapter in your book and in your story of your life, if you want to call it that and your book is still being written that book of life is still being written. There’s new chapters being written every day. You’re going to maybe have children, get married all these things are going to happen. And so now your identity is as a husband or a wife or as a father or mother whatever the case may be. You’re new chapters keep getting written every single day in this book. And so you can’t end the book with, I’m a Veteran and period end of story. Close the book. There’s a whole lot more under the surface there. So let’s go back to your transition out of the military. You mentioned that it was a rocky transition. You were in for how long, how many years? Roman Roberts:    00:08:00    Eight years. I did six years active duty. And then I did two years as a contractor working with Mar Sock and Helmet. So essentially I said, you know what, I’m going to transition out of the military. I’m not going to be in the military anymore. I then immediately jumped on a plane and did the exact same thing I was doing in the military. And so when I came back after doing that for two years, nobody pictured me as a soldier. I was supposed to have transitioned out already. I was supposed to know how to be a civilian, but I had spent two years doing the exact same thing and really, and truly doing it in a hostile environment. So for sure, I was even less than really a transition Veteran because for two years I hadn’t even been in America. Roman Roberts:    00:08:42    So, it was really rough in the sense that I didn’t pay attention during a cap. I truthfully, and I said this on another podcast the other day, and I don’t mean it to bash the military, but a cap was a joke. I mean, I literally skipped two days of it to go drink. It was a joke and everyone was like build a LinkedIn profile. So you’d build one and it was complete garbage. And knowing what I know now, like I could have capitalized so big on the LinkedIn market and things like that. But the point being is none of it was really actionable. So I was in there, a guy who had done six years was drinking, I can do whatever I want mentality. Roman Roberts:    00:09:26    And I was sitting right beside people who’d been doing it for 20 years or Staff Sergeants at like 10, 12 years who had their wife beside them helping them with this process or their husband with them helping them with this process. And here I am like this kid, and then I find out two days into my transition that my buddies hooked me up with a chance to go overseas as a contractor doing the exact same thing for even more money. So now I’ve completely tuned out. I have no clue what’s happening in this whole event. And I think it’s a disservice that happened too commonly in my timeframe of getting out. I got out in 2013 and that was really big. Then I think it’s shifted a little bit now that’s not as true, but I think it still happens. Roman Roberts:    00:10:15    It’s still as a common tale, it’s just not as common. And so I think for me the biggest issue that I have with transition is that we haven’t really taught Veterans how to take it seriously. Now on the back end, there are people like myself Rob Rands, Rich Cardona, there’s all kinds of people who are now becoming vocal about what their transition was like and telling their story and stepping into their sectors. Me and business consulting and finance and people in media, social media, people in marketing people in all these different avenues who are starting to say, yeah, look, these are the mistakes I made. These are the things I did which wasn’t a common thing. So I love that the transition has now become us outside saying, Hey kid, come over here. Roman Roberts:    00:11:09    I have a van with candy. And we get there, we shine flashy things at them to get them to come over here and listen to what we have to say, because really and truly nobody was saying it to us when we got out. I think it gives me hope, but it also hurts. That’s what the transition was like, it was awful for me. I went to go apply to jobs in banks and I had no clue how to tell my experience. I was a trained communicator, done thousands of interrogations all over the world and couldn’t even translate my skills to a civilian employer. I had no clue how to do it. So I’m over here telling a bank manager, I’ve been to breaching and clearing courses. I know it’s like to do CQB like this. Roman Roberts:    00:11:55    Dude’s, I have no clue. What are those, is that a finance term? What is that? And so when we don’t teach those things, it really hurts. And the ACAP program wasn’t teaching that at the time, then I don’t know what it’s like now. I’ve been separated from that piece of it for too long. I do know that people coming out still do have very generic cookie cutter resumes that are tailored towards government jobs that probably wouldn’t pass the hiring systems for most companies or organizations. But at least there’s someone on the back end to pick them up and say, Hey, this is bad. When I got out, nobody was there. And I don’t know that I necessarily would have listened because two years straight in Afghanistan really took a toll on me. Roman Roberts:    00:12:45    So I honestly spent a year just drinking and playing PlayStation in my house and traveling places and just being ridiculous. Which I guess people were like, Oh, well you were entitled to it. You spent two years out there, but it also wasn’t good for me. It just perpetuated the cycle. And I went from drinking a lot to hardly drinking at that time. The bro vet was a really big thing. The drinking and like, ah, yeah be a Vet, rock the t-shirts and do this. And don’t let somebody step on you and say, fuck them and stuff like that was the culture. And it was a disservice to the entire community, in my personal opinion. And that’s not to say that it doesn’t have a place, I’m not bashing every person who does that. I’m not bashing the clothing companies, but those were marketing strategies. And every Veteran getting out, didn’t realize that that was a marketing strategy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:48    As opposed to the way they’re supposed to live. And all of these transition programs that are out there a lot of times, from what I’ve heard and what I’ve experienced, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. It’s like, you’re not going to absorb all of this information and they can hand you all these packets of information with resources that are available for careers or education or whatever other benefits you might have available to you. But how much of that are you really absorbing and really understanding, especially when there’s so many conditions on some of these things, like if you served for this long and then you get access to these different benefits. And if you served deployed or whatever the different benefits are available to you and under certain circumstances or whatever. Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:49    And it’s just so hard follow all of that stuff. And I know for me, when I was going through some of that debriefing type stuff, I was just like, I don’t care. Let me out, I’ll figure this out when I need to figure it out, but there’s so much stuff I know I missed that was available to me. And I’m only finding out about some of this stuff now, and it’s almost 10 years later that I’m actually like understanding, Oh, geez, there’s these programs available. Or I could have been collecting some disability benefits for all these years and didn’t even realize it, but because I just didn’t pay all that close attention to it. Roman Roberts:    00:15:33    And do you know what, that’s a huge one that you just said the disability thing. So for me, I’m actually just now in the process of filing, right? So I started a year ago and they had tons of issues. They actually still are having issues finding my medical paperwork. COVID hasn’t helped that at all. But the point being is, nobody said, Hey, you should really take getting your benefits serious to me. I thought I shouldn’t take benefits because that’s money that’s allocated for people who have lost their legs, who have all these major injuries. But what I didn’t realize is by filing it now, you get a rating of some sort that helps you as you’re trying to do other things, job preference, housing, things like that. But it also gives you the ability to go to the VA whenever you need help. Roman Roberts:    00:16:25    And especially as you get older. It gives a way for your family to have a means to take care of you because some of those injuries can add up over years. But if it’s not taken care of upfront, the process is a lot harder than what it would be had I just done it within the first 90, 180 days after I got out. So I think really and truly one of the biggest things I wish that I had known and somebody had actually, and when I say somebody, not the person in the military or the person who comes up and speaks for five minutes and says, this is what it is and hand you a packet. I mean, I wish a real Veteran had come into the door, maybe with some tattoos on them someone that I could relate to and say, Oh, I understand this person. Roman Roberts:    00:17:12    Right. And go, Hey, don’t be an idiot. This is going to help you go get it. And this is how you do it. And oh, by the way, this is even easier. And now all the Veterans that I know myself included, if they’re in, if they were in those types of conversations, they didn’t given their number, their LinkedIn profile, their email, all that information right there. And I guarantee you, they can work faster than the VA system or whoever you’re trying to go. They can help you jump through 90% of the hurdles that you think you have to go through on your own. So I wish that the system would have allowed more time for that. And still to this day, I wish it would, as opposed to, we’re trying to catch all the people on the back end. Because it’s like fishing with a hole in your net. You’re going to get some, but there’s still people who aren’t going to get the help they need. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:03    Yeah, for sure. And I want to go back to one of the things that you said before, and I liked that you made this point that you were thinking that the disability benefits are there for the people who lost their legs or an arm or something like that. While that’s true, that is certainly what it’s there for. If let’s say you have PTSD, and there you can get disability rating for PTSD. Sometimes when you are struggling with these mental health issues, it’s hard to keep your focus, to hold down a job and things like that. And this disability rating that you could end up with bridges that gap for you so that you can focus on getting better, as opposed to having to worry about getting better. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:56    And how do I keep the lights on, how do I keep a roof over my head and not wind up being one of these homeless Veterans who’s out on the streets because I can’t hold the job. It’s not a selfish thing to take these disability benefits. I think it actually would be more selfish if you refused it and needed it and wound up becoming one of the 22 a day or wound up on the street needing even more help to get yourself cleaned up and all this other stuff. So, I definitely think if anyone’s out there who’s on the fence, like, “Oh, gee, I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t do it because someone else needs it more than me.” Well, you might need it too. Roman Roberts:    00:19:44    You don’t even know, you think, Oh, it’s normal. The ringing in my ears is normal, right? The back pain is normal. The knee pain is normal, right? Oh, those are all breaking. My nose is normal. That doesn’t have a major significant impact in my life. Long-term my nose is set. It’s still straight. It has an impact like you’ve created trauma in the body and trauma stays from somebody who’s gone through it as a child and as an adult trauma stays in the body and you actually have to work at getting it out. Whether you go through a holistic medicine therapy, pharmaceutical meds, whatever it is. I’m not so much condoned. I’m not so much for pharmaceutical, but my point being whatever that method is, it costs money. It costs time. Not every job is going to be okay with you taking that time all the time. They may say that that’s allowed, there’s just certain instances where you can’t and the military mindset is I’m going to push through and I’m going to make it happen, and I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to do all this stuff. And while that’s great, and that will help you in your future career path, whatever it is, you got to realize that the reason these services are in place is because the need has been established. We know that Veterans have a need for this stuff. Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:01    For sure. If you need this stuff, go out, get it and take advantage of it. Like you said, the need’s been established there. We know that Veterans need this assistance. And so use it and go with that. Going back to your transition, it was a rocky transition you jumped off the deep end there where you went from your time in the military, you were contracting, but essentially doing the same job. And then all of a sudden, one day you flip the switch and now you’re just Joe civilian, not in a hostile environment, you’re in the United States in a relatively safe place, presumably. How did you ultimately overcome all this stuff? So you spent a year on the couch playing PlayStation and drinking and all this other stuff. How did you end up getting over all of this? Roman Roberts:    00:22:05    So for me, honestly, the, the year that I came back and didn’t do anything that was really bad for me. Because it’s set a bar for me. I stopped working out as much as I should. So that affected me negatively. I was drinking a lot more, drinking not very healthy for people who haven’t dealt with their trauma. I’m not saying you can’t drink. I still drink. I don’t drink nearly the way that I used to, but truthfully, we should be telling people. And I was actually talking about this on a podcast with Rocco the other day. Like we should be telling people how to drink responsibly and not this call your buddy, do you have a number in the phone? Can you get the staff duty? Can you call your Veteran buddy? Roman Roberts:    00:22:49    No. Are you in the right mental head space to drink five beers? And if the answer is no, then don’t drink five beers. It’s that simple. And that wasn’t what I was doing. So essentially, I was waking up in the morning and pouring myself a bourbon and coffee when I was spending that year. So now I’m having to transition out of that as I’m going back into the workplace. So that wasn’t just one day I stopped drinking bourbons in the morning. It took time. And then there was still phasing cycles. And I was working in an environment where drinking was a big thing. There was still a big drinking culture for my first job. And so all of that put together just kept pushing those traumas. Roman Roberts:    00:23:34    And it led me to a place where I stepped out of my marriage. I almost committed suicide. And when I got to those kinds of lines, I went to the therapy. I went and talked to somebody and it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it was really one of the things that had to be done. And the thing that I think people do is in Veterans, especially they go to therapy and they know the answers to get out of the therapist office. I know what to say to get a therapist to back off and sign my papers, everyone’s done it. And I say, everyone, that’s a broad generalization, but a lot of people have done that to continue doing what they love to do. And especially in the Veteran multiple deployments world. Roman Roberts:    00:24:19    So for me, I had to really sit down and say, okay, therapist, I’m going to tell you everything. And we took it all the way back to me being in foster care. And they were like, dude, you should not. They were like, nobody flagged any of this. And I was like, yeah, I didn’t tell anybody about any of this. And they’re like, you’re supposed to, this is really bad for you. You can’t keep the same way as you can’t walk on a broken leg. You can’t go through life without addressing the traumas. We got to stop this whole Veteran shaming bullshit. There’s no other way to say it. You didn’t deploy a special operation. You’re not a bad ass. You didn’t do this. You’re not a bad-ass. I know cooks who have been in some of the worst situations you could possibly imagine. Roman Roberts:    00:25:07    And nobody would think, Oh, well, that cook is the person who would have been in that. But the point is that trauma is trauma. And it’s not mined to rate. It’s not anyone else’s to rate; it’s for you. And the people that you’re working through it with to work through. So it’s okay. Your trauma may be from being on a deployment and hearing about a friend dying; you may have been there, but that’s okay. Like that’s still a trauma and that’s still something you have to work through. There’s no scale for it. It’s just, we’re humans and we go through shit and we have to deal with it. And that’s what essentially I did; I started talking to people, I started going to therapy. I started journaling, I got back to religion. Roman Roberts:    00:25:52    One of the big things for me was I got away from the pharmaceutical pills. So I was taking all the pills that they give you. The sleeping pills, anxiety, pills, all of that. It was not helping me. I think if anything, it was really making it worse for me. And I think now a lot of Veterans are starting to notice that, and they’re starting to build programs to help with that and things like that. I moved the extreme route we’re more organic, natural foods, holistic in the sense of I don’t really like down to cold medicine unless I really have to, I think the other day I took ibuprofen for the first time in five years. So, literally none of that I do natural treatments, teas essential oils, things like that. Roman Roberts:    00:26:40    And that works for me. I’ve got more mobility in my leg. I do yoga meditation. And so I had knee injuries, got more mobility than I ever had running on par times to what I was running at my peak in the military. And I’m now multiple traumas years older. Still able to run at that rate. And it’s one of those things that the pills, the things that they’re doing are Band-Aids in my opinion, and the therapy. Really unpacking those issues is the key to it. The journaling was a big key for me. And it’s still a big key journaling is a big part of my life. Literally I’m looking at my desk right now and I’ve got the six different journals that I’m actually going to start a journaling series on. And I’m going to talk about all the different journals that I’ve used over time that have helped me, and then do video walkthroughs and show the pages and things to show those to Veterans and just people in general to say, Hey, these are journals that worked for me. You should try them out in your life. And you know, no promotion by the organizations, just me saying. Scott DeLuzio:    00:27:46    Right. Absolutely. I think that’s a great thing to do, to share with other people, because some people I know myself, I started journaling recently and I almost felt lost when I first started. I was like what do I even write about what do I do? How do I do this? It’s just like, writing down your thoughts and stuff. Roman Roberts:    00:28:10    Because there’s no wrong way to do it, but if you don’t have, so for me, one of the first journals I started with was the mind journal. And that journal has a lot of prompts. So it’s a half and half book. The front half has prompts the back half doesn’t. And so essentially, your training wheels there. And so they walk you through it, and then you get the back half to do it. And then you can say, do I want to move to like a free journaling, free writing? Or do I want to go back to something with a little more structure? Because there are tons of structured journals that give you the prompts that give you the gratitude and things like that. And I think for me that that was huge. Roman Roberts:    00:28:46    Because it allowed me to get my thoughts down. And I think for a lot of Veterans I can’t tell everybody’s story. And just because journaling worked for me, it may not work for you, but it definitely allowed me to clear my head. And I think the biggest thing was, I just didn’t clear my head. We just have this go, go, go mentality. And we just never took the time to clear our heads. We did what we had to do, we did quick release almost. We did a split second decompress, and then we turned the pressure right back on. You’ve got to do some long-term decompression. For a lot of us, we’ve been through a lot of traumas of some sort. And so that’s really what it was for me. Roman Roberts:    00:29:29    It was just slowly but surely unpacking. And even now, I don’t have near the moments that I used to. I snapped on my mother-in-law when the first Memorial day came around and looking back on it, why did I do that? That’s so horrible, but I wasn’t in a good place. It was over something stupid, like a song was playing and she was talking and I was like, shut up. I’m like, what in the world? But it was because I hadn’t unpacked any of this. I think that’s the thing, whether it’s through journaling, I’ve noticed a lot of Veterans are starting podcasts and talking and there’s a project refit that’s letting people jump on for radio check-ins and they have conversations with other Veterans. So whether it’s you talking to yourself or you talking to someone else, you have to have the conversation of some sort, and I’m big on communication. So I’m a little bit biased obviously. But there has to be some form of communication because that’s the only way you’re really going to get it out there. And unless it’s out there, it’s bottled inside of you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:36    And I do want to get back to that point, but one thing that I you briefly touched on before, and I want to just make sure I reiterate something here for anyone who is listening, who is still in the military who is either deployed or stateside, wherever you happen to be, any medical issues that you have, medical, mental health issues, any of those issues that you have, make sure those things get documented in your medical record. It makes it so much easier. Going back to our conversation about the disability and things like that. When you really realize that you do need to file for disability claim, if that stuff’s not in your medical record, it becomes exponentially harder to file for that disability claim, and so make sure you document all of the little things that might come up because you never know when one of those little things builds up and builds up and builds up; your knees start hurting, your back starts hurting, things like that; document all of that stuff to make sure that it all gets documented, even though it might be a pain in the ass to go to get it all documented, make sure it gets done. I can’t stress that enough. Roman Roberts:    00:31:54    No, exactly. I mean, the big part to that is don’t worry about the stigma. Get it done. I’m not saying to milk it and nurse it and do what isn’t there, but if it’s there, go get it because otherwise, you’re trying to fight almost a losing battle.  And not to say that the system is out to say you don’t have it, but the system is there to make sure that the money is allocated properly. Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:24    And one of the things that they have to do is verify that the injury was service-connected. And if there’s nothing about it in your service record, it’s going to be harder to link that to your military service. So just do it, take care of it and make sure it gets in there. And then you don’t have to worry about it quite so much later on. So that was a little sidetrack, but I wanted to get back to talking about having these conversations, the importance of having these open and honest conversations with other people, and I imagine this type of thing would start with being honest with yourself. Looking in on yourself, like you were saying, when you went to therapy, you could have very easily just said all the things that checked all the boxes on the therapist checklist and got you out of there. Scott DeLuzio:    00:33:22    I know when I got back from deployment, they had the I don’t even know what they call it, but we have to meet with the mental health professional. And I answered all the questions just to get out of there as quickly as possible pretty much. And that was probably the wrong thing to do looking back on it. I had experienced quite a bit of stuff that probably needed to be dealt with, but I just wanted to get out of there. And again, there was that stigma. I definitely was not being honest with myself or with the people that I was speaking with. What about these conversations? What is the importance of these types of conversations that we’re talking about here? Roman Roberts:    00:34:11    The importance is that you can’t really heal unless you have them, right? First and foremost, my marriage was falling apart, now I have a three-year-old son. If I had not addressed this stuff before having my son, life for him could be very different. And that actually hurts me to say out loud, this is actually the first time I’ve said that statement out loud right now that I reflect on it. I’m like, dang, that’s actually pretty harsh, but that’s the truth of it. And that’s the hardest part. Having the conversation with yourself is the hardest part and getting yourself to be open and honest with all of the people, especially when you know how to say the answers to get out of it. Roman Roberts:    00:34:55    So it’s really the first step, because you hear me now, right? You hear me having this conversation and if you go back and you look on my LinkedIn, or you go check out real talk with Roman, or wherever I’m at on any social, you’re going to see me telling this story and being open and authentic about it. And you’re going to hear a very similar track on any of these, but the reason that that’s the case is because I had the conversation with myself. I had the conversation with my therapist. I went from being a person who had to pour a drink to remember my buddies, to being able to sit outside and tell people who’ve never met them and are never going to get to meet them. I didn’t need alcohol to do it because I was in a good enough place to where I could just have the conversation. Roman Roberts:    00:35:43    And that’s really what it’s about. Do you want to be that person always depending on some crutch? Whether it’s CBD, alcohol, just getting out and shooting guns. I’m not saying any of that stuff isn’t bad in moderation. You can do anything in moderation, but the point being is we use them as crutches too often. And until you get comfortable with yourself and you get comfortable with the things that have happened to you and the things you’ve been exposed to, then you’re going to use everything around you as a crutch. And you’re going to take it out on people and people are going to start knowing. When I first came home, my wife would always introduce me with the preface of, I just came back from a deployment. Roman Roberts:    00:36:27    And basically saying, he’s probably going to say something out of line and don’t hold them accountable or he’s going to just be mean and walk away, or he’s going to just sit in the corner and drink. It sounds so horrible. And it sounds like the stereotype you see on TV, but truthfully, that’s what I was doing. And until I had that conversation with myself, I wasn’t able to see how, and this is going to sound harsh, but how disgusting it was to be that person who could go to a restaurant like a Benihana’s. And I’m there with my wife and a bunch of other people, and I’ve been drinking all day. And then I make an ass of myself at the table. Roman Roberts:    00:37:12    I just kept drinking the whole time I was there. I mean it, there’s no reason for it. It doesn’t make any sense. It perpetuates the bad stereotypes that Veterans have. It’s not an accurate representation of who we are. It’s just an accurate representation of us not dealing with the traumas that have come our way. And that’s my biggest thing. You can’t actually show up your best for your work for your family, for yourself until you actually have these conversations and they’re going to be hard and they’re going to suck. The first time I talked about all this stuff, it was hard. The very first podcast I was on, I was fumbling my way through it. Now I’m just like, whatever, bring it on. I’m like, yeah, yeah. Roman Roberts:    00:37:58    I got drunk at a restaurant as a man and asking myself, it happened. I can’t change that, but I can definitely say, Hey, don’t be like me. And hopefully one Veteran hears it, or one person about to transition out and goes, you know what, I shouldn’t or they rethink that whole idea of, I don’t rate going to the VA. No, it’s called Veterans, right. It’s for Veterans, right? You’re all Veterans, you all rate it. So, don’t be ashamed to go do what you need to do, because you already gave everything. You had to be a part of this to help the country at a time of need. Whether you joined at a time of war or not, you joined and quite possibly could have died. It’s in the back of everyone’s mind who’s ever been in the military, right. Roman Roberts:    00:38:49    The point being is now you’re out of it. And you have to reintegrate into society. You have to, and for millennia, for as long as soldiers have been fighting in wars, wars have ended and they’ve had to reintegrate into society. And it’s always been a challenge. And we haven’t gotten it right throughout history. We’re still working to get it right. And that’s okay. But if you don’t figure it out for yourself and you don’t start having these conversations, then you’re not going to be able to show up, to help the next Veteran through and to make this incrementally better. And I think the one thing every Veteran has in common is we want to serve our community. We want to help our community. We want to help our brothers and sisters in arms. So, that put your own mask on before putting on someone else’s. Deal with your stuff. And then we can start making the overall Veteran affairs system better. We can start making the overall Veteran community better, right? You can start becoming a part of outreach programs like Veteran or project refit or healing heroes or any of these places, and actually do it. You can start the next podcast that Veterans listen to. But until you deal with it, you’re not going to be able to do it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:40:00    It’s going to be so much harder for you to do anything and function in society, if you’re not dealing with the issues that you have going on. If you have PTSD or you have other issues going on, you’re not going to be able to be on top of your game, as much as you might think that you can just muscle through it and just drive right through and get everything done on your own. You’re not going to be as effective. Roman Roberts:    00:40:35    And then that’s the other bad part, because we’re set up to win. Military Veterans are set up to win nine out of 10 of us. We are set up to figure out how to adapt to the scenario and overcome it. So you can be physically or mentally out of sorts and still show up and outperform everybody inside of your job. I know it because I did it. I was literally a mess, but every person who worked with me was like, Roman knows everything about this. Roman is a guy promoted above peers. And it’s a common military tale, but eventually you get to a place where all of that is not going to sustain you because it gets overwhelming. It builds so much until it has to explode. And if you’re not taking the time now to start releasing it, and that’s why a journal now. Roman Roberts:    00:41:30    That’s why I continue with it because it’s a continuous valve for me. I don’t always write 20 pages inside of a journal. Sometimes it may be three sentences, but that three sentences is a release. And it’s getting some of that off of me and getting some of that out of me, it’s making it where, when I deal with the next thing and every podcast that I do, this is another form of journaling for me. This is therapeutic in its own way. And it’s just finding what that is for you and really pushing through and driving on and clearing the air about what’s going on inside of yourself. Scott DeLuzio:    00:42:05    Now looking at your current career, the things that you’re doing now how are you using the skills and whatever you’ve gained through your military career? How are you using all that stuff now in your current career? Roman Roberts:    00:42:22    So it’s tied into everything I do. I do business consulting where I help organizations increase their profitability and productivity through their written procedures, the business processes that they have. So the way that they operate, how they operate and not all of it is the cookie cutter, Oh, be a better leader, right? Not just that military end of it because there’s a lot of military consultants who are doing that. Saying how to build teams you have the team of teams and you know, even in Jocko, Willink and Echelon front, things like that, and those are not bad programs, but that’s not the main core of what I’m doing. I have a lot of business certifications, Six Sigma, PMP, Agile Auditing all these different things. Roman Roberts:    00:43:10    And so what I try to do is incorporate both pieces of it. So I was an interrogator in the military, communicated to some of the hardest situations possible. And when you look at business, all businesses are communication and 90% of their issues are due to a communication breakdown, whether it’s inside of their policies and procedures, the way that their teammates communicate with each other, the way that leadership communicates down, the way that the mission statement is communicated to the public. All of those things. And so what I do is I basically integrate and look at what they’re doing and say, Hey, your written procedures could better align with what your mission is by doing this. And then keeping it in accordance with ISO 9,001 or as 9,100 or Sam C or ANSI or whatever standard that they have in place, and that they want to be relevant to. Roman Roberts:    00:44:02    So I mix that military knowledge of SLPs and things like that into how current civilian regulatory regulations are and how through me going through multiple forms of interrogation, both written and verbal, how those statements can be better put together. So I rewrite policies. I help organizations build out their strategies having through the lens of both tactical and business. I’ve worked with nonprofits, I’ve worked with fortune 500 companies. I’ve worked inside of global organizations. I’ve done it all. And so I’m able to take all of those different pieces and turn it into a comprehensive package, a comprehensive way to say, this is what the problem is, and this is how we solve it and it’s not just be better leaders. While that can be a piece of it. And that’s an important part. Roman Roberts:    00:45:00    That’s definitely not the entire scope of it. And I’m not going to say, okay, let’s all get the paintball guns out and let’s go run like some tactical drills. That has its place. And sure you can pay somebody to do that. That’s not what I do. I sat down and I use the interrogation skills that I’ve gone through and that I’ve picked up over the years to find out the problems in your business. Then I use the business skills, like the Lean Six Sigma black belts and all of those different things, those certifications that I’ve acquired over the years to then link those problems to a military and civilian based solution that incorporates the best of both worlds. And then I teach those strategies to the actual organization so that they can do it. I try to focus with small and mid-sized businesses because they don’t have the same budgets to allocate to turn every one of their employees into a black belt or things like that. And truthfully, if I gave every single one of them, the black belt curriculum, they still wouldn’t execute inside of their organization the way they need to, because the way that fortune five hundreds and large companies implement all these strategies is completely different than the way that a nonprofit focused on foster care is going to look at them. And so instead of overwhelming them with the tools that they don’t need, I basically customize it to what they do. Scott DeLuzio:    00:46:25    That’s awesome. I think it’s great that you’ve found something. You alluded to this earlier in the episode, but you found something that you’re able to marry all the skills that you have and in all the background that you’ve gone through your military career throughout your whole life really, and you’ve turned it into something that you can actually do to help other people. That’s your gig is you like to help people. So and it seems that’s exactly what you’re doing, helping out these businesses and helping out people along the way. So is there anything else that you wanted to talk about in terms of advice for Veterans or people who might still be in the military, maybe in the last six months of their career transitioning out soon; any other types of advice that you might have for those types of people. Roman Roberts:  Get LinkedIn Roman Roberts:    00:47:30    and actually use LinkedIn.  I’m talking, get on there and start adding people. And right off the top of my head, Rich Cardona, Rob Wrens, myself, you can add me, until I hit the capital, keep adding people. But, James Corbin, like all these different people, I literally have tons of names running in my head. They’re all rambling together, but essentially find those Veterans who have been out for a while and who have been figuring it out and start seeing, because the one thing you’ll also notice is a lot of the Veterans on LinkedIn are posting about how to do LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is a very strong tool, and it’s not a strong tool in the way that the military set it up. Roman Roberts:    00:48:22     Write your resume, put it out there and just copy and paste it. Your resume and LinkedIn are two totally separate things. So LinkedIn is how everyone translates the resume into you as an individual. They’re seeing you every day showing up on the platform. I encourage everyone to show up every day on the platform, even if it’s just a post one thing or two to reply to a couple of people. That’s still content. Actually get on LinkedIn and utilize it. You actually get LinkedIn premium for free as a Veteran, when you get out, there’s a program that you can go through where you basically get a free year subscription to LinkedIn, which means that you will have premium access. So you can literally message anybody on the platform. Like nobody’s off limits. You don’t have to be connected with them or anything. Roman Roberts:    00:49:09    So you can start reaching out to people to learn all the tips and all the tricks and all the things you need. People are actually really friendly on LinkedIn. That sounds so cheesy, but they really are. It’s one of the few social platforms where people do connect and build the relationships offline. It’s not Instagram where people are just trying to build a profile and get to an influencer status. There are people who do that. But predominantly that’s not the way that the platform is set up and that’s not the way that it works. And so actually use LinkedIn, if you were six months, if you’re six years from getting out of the military, just literally today, if you’re listening to this and you don’t have LinkedIn, or all you’ve done is you’ve put your name and you got like 25 connections, get on there and start really using the platform, playing with it. Roman Roberts:    00:49:58    I know everyone listening on here, scrolls through some form of social media for at least an hour a day, right? Like nine out of 10 people. So she switch that hour of Facebook over to an hour of LinkedIn because you’re going to start seeing the Veteran resources, they’re all going to start popping up. And because LinkedIn will automatically figure based on your job experience where you should be connected to.  So they’re going to start recommending other Veterans to you. They’re going to start recommending communities to you. The Veterans of Afghan Wars, the Veterans of Iraq Wars, the aviation flight group, whatever it is, all those groups exist. There’s an interrogation group inside of LinkedIn. So find that group that fits who you are, and literally go in there and say, Hey, I’m transitioning. Roman Roberts:    00:50:46    And whether you say you’re transitioning in six years or six days, people will start giving you resources. And it’s one of those give, give, give platforms. And I love that. And I think that a lot of Veterans don’t think that they can post all of their military background on there. So they get nervous in that sense. I’m not saying put classified, but definitely you can still post on the platform and people will know who you are and understand what you’re doing or other people will go, wow. That’s not what you put on here. Let’s rephrase that right here. What you’re trying to say. And just play with the platform, learn it, and get connected with those people. I’m connected with Veterans in all 50 States and we weren’t in at the same time, we didn’t serve in the same things. Roman Roberts:    00:51:31    And obviously my podcast helps. I get to connect with Veterans in that way, but they all are doing crazy things on LinkedIn. One of the guys that I just had on my show, he actually just did a program that I didn’t even know existed. And it basically provides suits to Veterans when they transition, male and female, it gives them a suit so that they have one for their first interviews. So he’s in North Carolina and he did an event, gave out tons of suits, basically him and that organization, he basically opened up his office and all day it gave out suits like that. That’s the stuff that’s out there. Those are the things and you’re not getting it from somebody who’s in an ACAP classroom checking their block to run through it, to get their paycheck. You’re talking to Veterans who are giving you the time on the platform because they actually have a passion for doing it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:52:20    You are the second person in as many episodes to mention that as your advice to people who are transitioning out to get on to LinkedIn. So two for two, I think that it’s probably worth checking out for anyone who’s out there who doesn’t have their LinkedIn profile filled out who doesn’t have all their background on there. Obviously, like you said, don’t put classified information on there, but definitely fill it out, use it to the maximum potential take advantage of that free LinkedIn premium, if you’re eligible for that definitely take advantage of that. Definitely great advice. I think making those connections and especially in this day and age with COVID, it’s hard to network in person. So if you can do the online networking and use LinkedIn to get in touch with people and make those connections that you can make connections in the industry you want to get into or whatever, just through even secondary and third connections. Scott DeLuzio:    00:53:34    You might have somebody there who can introduce you to somebody who’s in that industry and can help you get the foot in. Roman Roberts:    00:53:43    And they actually have really good jobs. So they have a job section where the PR companies post and they actually have a really good job section. A lot of big companies are on there. A lot of small companies that are on there and it’s actually just really well set up it navigates really easily in the app. So if you’re looking for a job, when you get out of the military, it’s another thing as opposed to just going to USA jobs or Indeed, or monster, like not saying those are bad, but it’s definitely an all-in-one shop and those are nice. Scott DeLuzio:    00:54:18    Absolutely. Well, Roman, it has been a pleasure speaking with you today. Where can people go to get in touch with you and find out more about your podcast and everything else that you do? Roman Roberts:    00:54:28    So LinkedIn is obviously one, Roman Robert’s just look me up and then any social platforms Real Talk with Roman, whether you search the hashtag or you do just a search Real Talk with Roman, you will find me except for Twitter, Real Talk with Roman but still same thing, right? If you type in real time or Roman also show up, because the hashtag and then podcast Real Talk with Roman. And then my consulting business is BlueSphinxConsulting.com. You can definitely go check that out. There’s also a link to my podcast there as well. Whether you want to shoot me a message for your organization, or you want to shoot me a message just to connect. I am always up to talk to anybody about anything. I think you never know what a conversation can lead to, so you just gotta have it and find out. Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:15    Again, thank you for joining us and sharing your story, sharing everything about your background, your history, really great information. So thank you again. I appreciate it. Roman Roberts:  My pleasure, man. Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:32    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ DriveOnPodcast.

Garrett Fitzgerald from MyMilitaryBenefits.com talks to us about everything from education to employment opportunities for veterans. Links & Resources MyMilitaryBenefits.com CollegeRecon.com CareerRecon.com My Military Benefits on Instagram My Military Benefits on Facebook College Recon on Facebook Garrett Fitzgerald on LinkedIn Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there, click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email lists. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Today my guest is Garrett Fitzgerald. Garrett is the owner and founder of mymilitarybenefits.com and collegerecon.com.  We’re going to be chatting today about the services that they offer to Veterans. So welcome to the show, Garrett.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:01:01    Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I developed, CollegeRecon and My Military Benefits back in 2013. I was just graduating college.  While I was in school, my plan was always to join the military in some way, whether it be through ROTC or the officer program.  My junior year, I ended up getting sick and I ended up in this whole issue and as a result, military wasn’t a good pathway for me. So as I was looking to graduate and what path I wanted to go, I still was always drawn to that military service. And so I had friends at school who were Veterans and friends from high school who had gone into the service. And a lot of them had always told me that when they go in, their primary reason was to earn GI Bill benefits, go to school at no cost or little cost and start their lives that way. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:01:50     What I found was that years after high school, a lot of these men and women who are coming out, were looking to go and find educational opportunities, but they don’t really have the support that they need. So we developed CollegeRecon as a resource to help them find those institutions and resource information that they need to make more informed decisions. And back then in 2013, I was 21 years old and decided that I would try this venture opportunity. Over the past seven years, we’ve grown our team.  We have some really skillful and experienced people that have come from some of the biggest military publishers in the country.  We have social media departments, marketing departments, sales, and IT development.  So there’s partnerships, things like that that have come online over the past couple of years that have really made this quite the journey; a lot of ups and downs, but we’re really excited about what we’re providing the military. And obviously, My Military Benefits coming online in 2018; there’s just a lot going on as we try to help Veterans with finding information in an impartial and secure environment; so that they can make those informed decisions that they need. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:56    Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I know from my own military career when I was getting briefed on some of the resources that were available, things like the GI bill and VA benefits and other things like that; it was all like drinking out of a fire hose.  Everything just was thrown at me all at once. And not all of it applied to me right in that moment.  Some of it was stuff that I needed to just keep it in the back of my mind for something that could happen down the road.  It was just a lot of information, plus dealing with returning from a deployment where there was that added stress. So your mind is not exactly in the right place or state of mind at that point. Scott DeLuzio:    00:03:46    So, it was very difficult for me to keep track of all of the things that were available to me.  Quite frankly, there’s a lot that’s available to Veterans and when you’re thrown all these packets of information that could change from year to year, it’s hard to keep track of all that stuff. So, that’s why I wanted to have you on the show because your website, My Military Benefits, and CollegeRecon, they keep up with the changes that are going on in the different benefits that are available to Veterans and as new things come out, you guys are putting that information out there in a format that seems to me is easy to digest and keep up to date with all of that information. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:04:39    Yeah. And with for example, Taps, I’ve heard horror stories for the last seven years about Taps and how it can be. I’m sure certain people find value in certain areas.  I think you hit it on the head where some of the information that they’re providing, might not be relevant today. So I may be looking for a VA home loan or educational opportunities, but I’m not looking to buy a house or go to school right after my service.  I’m not going to register and store that information for later. So what CollegeRecon, My Military Benefits and these brands that we’ve been cultivating over the last few years, really our primary goal has always been again, I’ll mention that many times. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:05:19    I’ve already mentioned that in the past and I’ll continue to mention it, but our goal is to improve outcomes. So with collegerecon or if you’re going to My Military Benefits, the information and resources that we’re providing, we provide that extra layer of data and reference,  content or information in and of itself that allows these Veterans, service members, spouses dependents, anyone who qualifies for benefits earned in service.  We provide them access to that helpful information to ensure that they’re utilizing those benefits to the best of their abilities, they’re getting the most out of what they’ve earned.  Like I said earlier, we have reference content about things around VA home loans and personal finance.  We’re launching a new brand here actually in November, called CareerRecon. And we’re doing that as a joint venture partnership between our organization and Echelon Front Overwatch, which is a C-level executive recruiting service for Special Operations Veterans. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:06:15    So we’re going to come together and create something similar like CollegeRecon, where we’re allowing Veterans the opportunity to access information and resources about transition into whether it be in education for college recon, employment or career recon. My Military Benefits is providing you that data and information that you can always go back to. You’re not having to surf some government resource website and deal with the government ease.  You can get it in an easy to read environment where you’re not being bombarded with display advertising and selling yourself as leads to all these different companies. With that trusted brand that we’re building, we allow Veterans to not only find that information, but then we can even introduce them to organizations that we’ve vetted and feel comfortable with.  One of the ways that we’ve established our brand is we actually work with a partner in the line, different organizations like the American Legion, Student Veterans of America,  we’re an approved tool with the Army National Guard, so their education service officers are able to use CollegeRecon Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:07:12    as an approved resource to help service members who are looking for degree programs, because really if you take a step back and look at the market over the last five to 10 years, and I’m sure you’re aware of this but there’s been a lot of issues with predatory recruitment practices of universities, programs that prey upon Veterans to see that those dollars in those services that they’ve performed. So we take the market and we try to remain as impartial as possible, but also provide universities that are looking to recruit Veterans specifically within the CollegeRecon market is we allow them the opportunity to get in front of Veterans, talk about their programs, surface their opportunities, but allow the Veteran to control that conversation and if they want to reach out to that school. So, whether our school works with us or not, whether any sort of client wants to work with us or not, we list schools, we list companies, we list all those at no cost.  Veterans can come in search and understand what programs are available, and then if they want to reach out, they can do so and they’re in control of that communication up until the point where they’re starting to talk to the school. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:20    Right. And that’s nice because there’s no pressure there. You’re not being hounded by recruiters or whoever the people are, who are working for these organizations, these colleges or whatever. You’re not being hounded by these people just because you put your name out on some site somewhere and now your phone doesn’t stop blowing up with text messages and phone calls and emails and everything else that just tends to get annoying. So that’s a great thing to have, great resource to have is all that information that you’re talking about without the risk of getting bombarded with all this stuff.  Now I know there’s a lot of things that are out there, in terms of benefits for Veterans Scott DeLuzio:    00:09:11     and My Military Benefits, I know, through looking at the site before we started recording, I was telling you I stumbled across your site before we got introduced and just looking up different benefits that are available to Veterans just on my own. And I know there’s a ton of stuff that’s out there as far as Veteran programs. If I’m a Veteran and I know that there’s stuff that’s available to me, but I don’t even know where to start looking, is it maybe disability benefits? Is it a home loans? Or, if I don’t know what I don’t know, what is it that I could do in terms of going to your site to find that type of information? Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:10:02    Yeah, that’s a great question. So, we oftentimes find, whether you’re a Veteran, a service member, a spouse who may be looking for their own opportunities or help trying to help their spouse who served, we have opportunities and information that you can review at any point in your transition. So oftentimes when you’re getting out, like one of the first things that you should do is understand what is your career, because in the end, everything comes down to what your career path will look like. Does that start with an education, did you enlist right out of high school? Did you get some college experience or college credit and then decide to enlist or become an officer? Whatever it looks like, if you’re looking to get a master’s degree, a certificate, associate’s, bachelor’s, whatever it might be, you need to understand what it is that you need in order to qualify Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:10:47     and start down that path that you’re looking for from a career standpoint. So if you take a step back and look at it from colleges, sort of that starting foundation that you need as you, as you transition out, depending on again, on what career you’re looking for. So college Recon, for example, what it can help you do is obviously understand what those benefits are on a state level, national level. You know, we find that a lot of Veterans that we’ve spoken to or worked with in the past have,  you know, wrongfully paid for some amount of school when they actually could have qualified for either a state or a federal benefit,  there’s scholarships and tuition discounts for military, that a lot of people aren’t aware of. So we provide them that access. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:11:27    In addition to like private schools, a lot of people, a traditional student who was looking to go to school, they may only choose or even decide between public schools because they can’t afford the private option. For Veterans with the yellow ribbon program, again, scholarships and reduced tuition for military credit, for military experience, where you can start as a sophomore and in many cases, those opportunities and that information you can find on collegerecon, you can find that on government websites as well.  It’s not like hold the secret key to that, but that is that information is so critical because we want you to get started on that pathway to career success. And if it is education as the foundation and that starting point we want to make sure that you’re getting, if you don’t have to pay anything out of pocket, you shouldn’t pay anything out of pocket, just like a basic allowance for housing, you can get your housing paid for. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:12:12    And a lot of Veterans, they don’t understand that, and that’s no fault of their own.  Oftentimes, like Taps, if you’re just checking out, because it’s not relevant at that time and there’s just too much information during a very busy time of one’s life.  Coming to these digital resources that we’ve created that are totally free, accessible on your phone, desktop anywhere.  You can start to digest this information, save data, things like that, so that you’re starting to create that pathway to that career success. So whether it be education or you’re starting looking for a job, if you’re looking to buy a home, if you have a disability rating, you think you might be eligible for more, we can help with that. So we have trusted partners that we work with so that you’re not just going and typing in VA disability claims clicking on the first ad Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:12:59    you see. You don’t know where that information is going. Do you trust that brand? Do you trust the resource you’re reading? So with collegerecon and My Military Benefits being that trusted resource, we have writers who are spouses and Veterans. A lot of people within our team have been through that process. And a lot of our PR and our partnerships, those organizations do a great job as well, but maybe don’t have the digital exposure or ability to connect with such a wide audience that we do through these digital outlets. So, we have tens of thousands of people a month reading our information, signing up for tools, connecting with universities, with career recon coming online here next month, we’ll have employers, staffing and recruiting agencies that are looking specifically for Veterans. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:13:44    So, really our end goal is to be the number one transition service for anyone leaving the military or transit. You may have left the military five years ago. You went to school when you’re always transitioning. So now you might be transitioning into the career world and you know, what sort of jobs should I be looking for? What questions should I be asking?  Leadership training and things like that we can offer you access to those programs and everything we do is military centric. So you feel at home while you’re reviewing our information, because it’s not made for the general public it’s made for the military. Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:17    Right. And that’s great too, because like you said, it is tailored for the military community. And some of the information, when you’re going out looking for home loans or for things like that, it’s different information out there specifically for Veterans in terms of the programs that are available for them that they could take advantage of and even things like disability benefits and stuff like that. That’s a different world from a civilian to a Veteran and depending on what circumstances they find themselves in. So, all of that is great information to have, especially with a military centric focus.  We talked a little bit about careers and a little bit about the education, post military career, but I know there’s one thing that I know you guys do cover on your site and that’s personal finances. Scott DeLuzio:    00:15:16     I know some military and Vets are traditionally just terrible with their finances.  You hear stories of the Private who gets his first paycheck probably ever in his life and thinks he’s rich. And then he goes out and buys a new $30,000 car at 28% interest. And just stories like that are all over the place. And I don’t know how many people who do those types of things, but I’ve seen some big-time bonehead purchases in my time in the military. And I guess my point is that there are far better ways to use that kind of money and at much lower interest rates, especially for Veterans. There are a lot of programs available to the military and Vets that many people in the military community just don’t know about. Like we mentioned before, the VA home loans, retirement savings, healthcare, taxes, all these different financial topics.  There are specific things that people who are actively serving in the military, maybe who are deployed or are Veterans that they need to know about. So, what kind of information is out there for Veterans, in terms of the financial side of things? Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:16:28    Yeah. I think looking at the market today and you can go to different military publishers that are in service organizations, the VA there’s plenty of information that I don’t think that’s necessarily the problem it’s how that information is transmitted to that audience.  With our stance we’ve taken or we have the methodology that we want to bring people in, cultivate that community, and provide them access to resources, information that they find relevant, military centric. It’s when I say relevant really it’s relevant to their particular time within that transition cycle. So with personal finance, that’s probably the one area that is always relevant. I mean, it’s an in-service, it’s relevant prior to service and after service.  What we do is by putting information out there, whether it be through newsletters tools or just content, and all of our content is optimized for search. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:17:27    So if you’re ever wondering like, Hey man, I might’ve come across college regarding My Military Benefits.  If you search for a specific term, like yellow ribbon colleges, bestseller in colleges for Veterans, that’s the sort of information that we try to show up within the search. And then when you come to our platform, by reading that information, you then find other relevant resources, articles that you can continue to review and learn more about your services and different offers and opportunities that are out there. So within personal finance, VA home loan is a huge component of that. It’s one of the biggest purchases you can make. And I really look at career and education as central to that personal finance discussion, as well as we have plenty of Veterans who haven’t used or utilized the benefits that they’ve earned to their fullest potential and ended up paying out of pocket expenses or careers where they get out of the military and end up getting a job versus going and trying to pursue a career. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:18:24    They might’ve thought I don’t want to go to school for four years, but we’ll, Hey, because of your military experience, you’re able to earn 45 credits. Well, now you’re starting off as a second semester sophomore, you just cut that time almost in half.  Then there are two year schools, things like that, there are so many opportunities that affect your pocketbook. And that is our central focus trying to drive everything back to your pocketbook and ensuring that you are putting yourself in the best position financially, whether it be looking to go to school, planning, careers, asking for salaries, raises, job transitioning.  Those are all super important, as well as the obvious VA home loan, disability ratings, and claims and what sort of money you’re owed, but it all comes back to benefits like that. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:19:08    You know, 85% of Veterans,  we ran a poll years ago, 85% of our audience who had served, served primarily due to the benefits that they earn. So again, from personal finance to home loans, to career opportunities; but the big one is the GI bill and their ability to go to school, especially today with how expensive education is.  I do believe it all ties back, every step of the transition in some way affects your financial wellbeing today or 10 years from now. So providing them information and resources to ensure that they’re making informed decisions in those areas, obviously impacts them in a lot of ways, but primarily financially. Yeah. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:50    Right. And one thing too that I think some Veterans don’t realize, talking about the education benefits, is that those education benefits are not just for traditional four-year colleges that you might go for an accounting degree or something along those lines. Those benefits can be applied to a trade school.  We had a Veteran on a few months ago who used it to become a yoga instructor. You can use it for all sorts of different things. So, just because you don’t feel that a four year degree is the right move for you for whatever your career path is; it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have no benefits available to you.  You still can use those benefits for trade schools or other types of schools that can get you those types of careers that you’re looking for. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:20:49     And that’s what we always talk about, when you’re starting to look for your educational opportunities, there are questions and things that you need to ask yourself to ensure that, if you come back and you’re from let’s say Kentucky and you want to go to the University of Kentucky because that’s the brand name school, that’s what you think of when you’re thinking about a college, you might not be aware that within let’s say you live in Louisville within 50 miles of downtown Louisville, there might be 15 private, liberal arts colleges or universities. And again, they’re private, but they’re just as affordable as University of Kentucky. And a lot of ways with yellow ribbon and they might have better degree programs that are aligned for what it is you’re looking to do as a career. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:21:27    They may have Veteran service centers or things like that that are more helpful to whatever it is that you need as you look for the correct opportunity and certificates are a great example.  Veterans who are coming out, they have the opportunity to go and earn a certificate and get into a trade. Oftentimes in high school, I think one of the biggest issues today is that there’s a stigma around going to a two year school or getting to be a plumber or a technician. When in reality, they oftentimes earn more than someone who had, let’s say a four year liberal arts degree.  For Veterans, they’re not in that high school mode they’re adults they’ve had real world experiences. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:22:10    They’re trying to earn money now and build a family or own a home, whatever it might be. Well, that trade route looks pretty attractive. You don’t have to deal with people just don’t really care about the stigma, which is great. So we do try to surface opportunities like that. We work with a culinary Institute and massage therapy organizations. So those certificate programs are incredibly valuable and it really just depends on what it is you want to study. So my advice always is don’t just go to the big brand name school, because Hey, I can get in or Hey, they accepted me. That’s not important. What’s important is what you want to study because you know what you want to do after you graduate. And if that means a two year school, if that means a little private liberal arts college down the street that no one’s heard of, that’s fine, do that. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:22:56    That’s what’s setting you up for success. Don’t be drawn to the big brand name school and oftentimes it’s a bigger student population. You might not get the services and attention that you’re looking for.  There’s so many opportunities out there; there’s thousands and thousands. We have 3000 schools in CollegeRecon in the search platform. So you can go through and discover all those universities. You’d be shocked. I’m sure if you’re in Texas, you want to look through our system, and you’ll see that there are hundreds of schools within Texas that you may never have heard of. And if you look at their Veteran service offerings, it’s impressive. They do a lot for Veterans and military and even spouses and dependents of service members. They’re there for those individuals. You may not get that at a big school. A lot of schools you will. But, I always just try to emphasize that there are so many opportunities out there and don’t just limit yourself.  It really does come down to, you need to know what it is that you want at the end of that educational journey. So whatever that is, then find the best path for it. And that’s what collegerecon can help you do. Scott DeLuzio:    00:23:57    Yeah, absolutely. And I like what you said about some of the trade schools route that you might be able to go, and a lot of people don’t really think of that, or like you said, there’s some stigma associated with it, that it’s maybe not as good of a job that you might get with a four-year degree, but some of these four year degrees that you end up with may not have job opportunities even available to you depending on what your degree is. So, some of the trades, plumber HVAC, or electrician, anything like that, those jobs actually are paying really well. And there’s nothing wrong with going that route, especially if you had some background, doing some of that type of work while you were in the military, that’s only going to help you afterwards. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:24:56    I think it’s a good point that you bring up too, because we do see Veterans also, like I might’ve had this MOS, or I was doing this in the military; so this is what I think I need to do this going forward. If you didn’t like that, or that is not what you’re limited to, you’re starting over. Once you transition out, if you want to go be an accountant, if you want to be a doctor, but you weren’t a medic, you had no medical background, a nurse, whatever it might be, you have that opportunity. I want to make sure that when Veterans transition out, they know that they’re not pigeonholed to whatever they had in a previous life or whatever they did in the military. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:25:27    You can use the information and resources and skills that you possess from your service, you can use those going forward. But again, it is almost like a clean slate. Like you have the opportunity now from a financial perspective, you can go to Harvard or you can go to a two year school, you can go to a school of $60,000 a year or $10,000.  You earned it so make sure that you make the most of it is what I always try to emphasize. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:53    Yeah. And really, there’s nothing wrong with recreating yourself and coming up with a new direction for your career. Take a look at me just as an example. I went to a traditional four year college before joining the military, got an accounting degree, then joined the military as an Infantryman, which has almost zero direct correlation to any civilian jobs, unless you’re like a mercenary or something. So those jobs are few and far between. I develop software now, for my professional job and run a podcast. So, you don’t have to be pigeonholed into whatever it was that your MOS was.  Maybe you really enjoyed it and maybe you were an MP and you really liked the police work and you want to be a police officer. Scott DeLuzio:    00:26:55    Well, great. You already have that background.  But maybe you did something else and it just wasn’t all that interesting. It sounded great when you signed up or it was just the thing that was available to you at the time. And given your qualifications or whatever, and you went with that, but it wasn’t really what you wanted to do, but now that you’re out, you have the benefits available to you to go reinvent yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. So, this is a lot of great information.  I think the Veterans who are out there who are struggling with their transition, who want to make more of themselves and make more of their career than maybe what they are doing; they definitely need to go check out My Military Benefits.com, college recon, and coming soon career recon, which by the time this episode comes out, probably will be available.  I don’t want to make any promises though because things happen. So, check it out any ways, I’m sure it will be coming out around the time that this episode comes out anyways. So, that’ll be great. What other things do Veterans need to know about their transition, about the benefits that are available to them, about what they can find through your services? Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:28:24    Yeah. So, when you look at the transition and a lot of times it starts with Taps, so that’s what sometimes I hear and I didn’t go through Taps, I’ll preface it with that, but oftentimes it comes across as it prohibited me from excelling in my transition and I would look at it and say, well, let’s not blame Taps. Let’s look at the transition as a whole. And the transition doesn’t start the day you walk into Taps, it may start six months prior. If you know you’re getting out, start to put a plan together, start talking to transition counselors or people in the field, people back at home who might be in a career that you’re interested in and start talking to them about what their day-to-day is like. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:29:02    If you want to job shadow, there’s so many Veterans, if you ask for that access to a specific opportunity, whether it be a shadow, whether it be just information about what the day-to-day looks like in a specific career, I’m sure you can find it. So as you start to put that plan together, I think too many people look at it shortsighted. So, they’ll be like, I want to go again to the University of Kentucky or whatever school it might be. And I’m not thinking past that. I’m going to go to that school because that’s a good school. And that’s where I want to go. Well, do they have the degree that you want? Do they have the degree field? You may not know exactly what you want to study, which is totally fine. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:29:41    And a lot of people will say that’s so hard. There’s so many people, I think more than half the people who graduate from a university, end up doing something that is far away from what they study. I was in marketing and now we’re running this whole military publishing and marketing company, but it’s very different from what I studied. So I think, you can’t use those things as reasons for not successfully transitioning or finding new ways to adapt. So six months prior to transition, I would start looking at what sort of opportunities are you looking for? Are you looking for a specific career? Did you not like what you did in the military? And that’s fine, but find out what that passion might be and the best way to do that is network and resources. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:30:22    And we haven’t talked a lot about networking, but that is such a critical part of this. And the military community is a great network.  There’s tons of websites out there and publishing groups and Veteran service organizations that can help. Just the community in and of itself, there’s a lot of companies looking to hire Veterans. So there’s no shortage of interest in helping and assisting Veterans with the transition. You just have to know where to look and you have to look at trusted agents. We talked earlier that there are those companies out there that are in a lot of ways, preying on those benefits.  You just have to be sure that you’re using information and resources that you trust. So, with that six months out, looking at those career opportunities, finding a university or a certificate program or whatever it might be, that’ll allow you to start down that career path and things can change. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:31:10    It is not set in stone. In six months from transition, you might have a plan that’s laid out and it looks great. And then two weeks before you’re out, something may have come up and you’re looking at a new opportunity. That’s fine. This is not set in stone. Don’t think of it that way.  Just make sure that you make the right decisions about things; there are big decisions. Do you need to take responsibility like buying a home? That’s not something you just do on a whim, you need to make sure that you have and understand what your benefits are, what you can afford.  I know COVID has thrown a lot of people into disarray about what they can afford. So take that stuff into account. I think just putting a plan together and making sure that it’s not set in stone in such a way but that it is laid out that you do have different pathways. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:31:56     Find that end goal and then, what do you need to do to get there? And that sounds cliche. And everybody says that, and everybody thinks that, but you can get there much easier if you have the information and resources that you need and you’re not just making decisions based on something you may have heard from Taps three months ago, or that one of your buddies said, this is what you should do, go out and find that information and research it. And that’s what we do. We try to provide that impartially and easy to read and trusted.  Collegerecon, My Military Benefits, you can follow us on Social Media; you can sign up for our newsletter; you can just visit the website. There’s tons of reference information and then what’s nice about it is beneath that information and resources we have tools that can provide you access or introduce you to organizations and companies and Veterans service organizations that help you with whatever it is you’re looking for. That’d be VA home loans, employment opportunities, education.  You just have to make sure you’re working with someone that you trust.  That would be my advice. Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:54    Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned, networking; networking is a great thing to do to get your foot in the door; maybe it’s an industry that you’re trying to get into, or trying to find out more about a college or whatever the case may be, but what are some of the challenges that some of the Veterans might face?  Maybe some of the people who are still serving there in that six month window before getting out, what are some of the challenges they might face with doing some of that networking?  Let’s throw COVID out of the way there, because that’s a challenge for everyone, but there might still be some other challenges with networking and what’s the best way to go about doing that and getting in front of some of those people. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:33:41    Yeah. I think oftentimes people think of networking and they think, it’s like high pressure, awkward situations. They think of career fairs and education fairs. And I’m sure you’ve been to them. I have as well.  They’re tough. Oftentimes there’s usually more agencies and companies there than Veterans, so it can be rather odd and uncomfortable for people. So, they’re great if you find value, they’re awesome. But I wouldn’t rely on those established settings to network.  LinkedIn is great. I would be working LinkedIn and you don’t have, as a Veteran, I think oftentimes people think, well, I’m a Veteran, I can only work with Veterans or find Veterans who are willing to help me. It’s completely the opposite. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:34:26    As a Veteran, everybody for the most part wants to help you in some way, like whatever it might be, if you need it, if I don’t know you and you reach out to me on LinkedIn and you say, Hey, I’m interested in entrepreneurship.  Or if I worked at an ad agency and say, Hey, I really want to go into advertising. I don’t know anything about it. I’m about to get out. I know we don’t know each other. I serve, this is where I’m at right now. I’m just looking for some help, like any guidance on what you would do. I have to believe that 80% of the time you’re going to hear back from them, whether it be them individually or say, Hey, I know somebody who can help. Veteran service organizations are great. They have community networks, things like that. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:34:58     I think LinkedIn is such a valuable tool in that regard. And then finding information like you can find oncology kind of My Military Benefits. That’s great on those social platforms.  If you have an idea of what you want to study, or I would say, I want to be a nurse, for example, you can go to LinkedIn and you just filter by Veterans served in the military and is currently a nurse you’ll find thousands and thousands of people.  You may be connected through another connection.  So there’s opportunities to meet those people. But I think today it’s become much more digital focused. And there’s just so many opportunities to network in such a way where you don’t have to do it face to face Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:35:38     so even with COVID, I almost think that it is a mute point because you can do it via LinkedIn. You can do it by email, phone calls. You can go and job shadow someone.  I wouldn’t limit it to what Taps talks about are these career fairs for Veterans because they are dying out for sure. I don’t see them as often.  There’s just so many people out there that are willing to help whether they’re Veterans or not. I just think one of the key takeaways is I wouldn’t just limit it to Veterans. Veterans are great at helping Veterans. I’ve seen it time and time again, but I’m a perfect example. I’m not a Veteran and our entire company is dedicated to helping Veterans. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:36:17    So, I wouldn’t limit it to that. There’s tons of people out there that are willing to help find that career field or even that industry that you’re interested in. And that’s the perfect part, if you find an industry, like nursing and you go talk to a few nurses or you shadow, or you start to learn more about what the day-to-day looks like, and you’re like, Hey, I could never do those hours or, I don’t like this part of the job.  That’s great. That’s not a failure, that’s a success; you’ve found out what you don’t want to do, now go find the next thing.  I think that’s super important. Scott DeLuzio:    00:36:46    Yeah. I like that you mentioned LinkedIn, it’s a good tool because if you go and search for somebody who’s in that field that you may want to shadow, or you want to talk to get more information from, they show you the second level, third level connections that you can then reach out to someone who’s in your network who can then make that connection for you and help you out. That can help grow your network as well. And then get you to a faster decision, whether this sounds like something that is good for me or no, this actually seems like it’s not a good idea for me. And let’s move on to find something else. So, all that’s really great information.  I love the piece of advice and everything like that. So with that, is there anything else that we could do to wrap up the segment in terms of where we can find more information. I know you briefly mentioned the websites and everything like that. Do you want to just mention those and any social media? Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:37:58    Yeah, I appreciate it. So, yeah, CollegeRecon.com, My Military Benefits.com, soon to be careerrecon.com, which should come out in November.  All those platforms they’re providing you resources and tools and information that you need in order to make informed decisions and improve outcomes.  That’s the most important part. So you can find us through Google search going directly to those sites. We do have social channels, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and then if you go to our websites, you can also sign up for our newsletters and we just provide you helpful information. It’s weekly and monthly information on benefits, new opportunities that we’ve come up with through partnerships and different organizations we work with. Garrett Fitzgerald:    00:38:36    Discounts, things like that, just helpful information that affects you personally, career-wise, educationally. And again, most importantly, it always comes back to your own personal wellbeing and personal finance. So, any of those resources, you can sign up for everything and you’ll get helpful information into your inbox periodically. Scott DeLuzip:  Wonderful. Well, Gary, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today.  The website,  My Military Benefits.com, CollegeRecon.com, careerrecon.com. They’re all going to be linked up in the show notes. So if you’re listening to this, you don’t have to jot down any of this stuff. It’s all right there in the show notes, you can go click over to that later.  We’ll have all that information there. And, again, I really enjoyed the conversation. It’s been a pleasure.  Thank you very much for sharing everything with us today. Garrett Fitzgerald:  Yeah. I really appreciate the time. And, hopefully, we can help some of your listeners with some of the decisions that are upcoming. Scott DeLuzio:  Great. Thank you again. Scott DeLuzio:    00:39:39    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcasts.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @DriveOnPodcast.

This episode was recorded live at a ceremony on Veterans Day 2020 at the Pueblo El Mirage Veterans Day celebration in El Mirage, Arizona. Thank you to the staff and everyone involved to put on such a great event and make me truly feel welcomed in your community. Links & Resources Resources for veterans and their families Episodes referenced in this speech: [Equine Therapy] Hope And Healing For The Veteran Community with Jennifer O’Neill [Art Therapy] Healing Through Artwork with Edward Santos [Outdoors] Using The Outdoors as a Healthier Coping Mechanism with Brad Noone [Positive Outlook] Choosing To Find The Good with Julian Torres [Dealing with Cancer from Burn Pits] Burn Pits, the VA, and Keeping a Positive Attitude with Wes Black [Yoga and Music] Finding Purpose Through Yoga And Music with Steve Alvarez Transcript This episode was recorded live at a ceremony on Veterans Day 2020 where I had the opportunity to share my story and the stories of several of my past guests. It was an honor to share these stories with this audience and I’m pleased to be able to share the stories with you on this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. First off, thank you for being here and for having me. My name is Scott DeLuzio and I’m an Army veteran having served for about 6 years as an infantryman in the Connecticut Army National Guard. During that time I deployed to Afghanistan, so no I wasn’t just a weekend warrior. I’m also the host of a podcast, called the Drive On Podcast. I’m assuming everyone is familiar with podcasts. If not, you’re listening to one right now because I’m recording this speech for an episode. Anyway, I started the podcast about a year and a half ago after hearing about how many problems veterans are having after getting out of the military. Homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, not understanding the benefits they have access to, and worst of all, veteran suicide.  I’ve personally known veterans who were affected by all of those issues and then some. Our company was lucky enough to not lose any soldiers while we were in Afghanistan. But after we started losing them to suicide at home, I felt like something more needed to be done. That was the kick in the pants I needed to get the podcast started. We’ve all heard the statistic that 22 veterans commit suicide every day. That number is a tragedy and it shows that, depending on which report you read, veterans take their lives at a rate that’s about twice as high as their civilian counterparts.  So this is why I started my podcast. I wanted to shine a light on these issues and talk to some veterans who struggled with addiction, homelessness, suicide attempts, and any other issues they had. The thought I had was that chances are if one veteran struggled with an issue, others could be struggling too. And if one of these veterans managed to find their way out of that dark hole – kicked the addiction, repaired their marriage, got off the streets, or chose to live instead of die – I figured their story might inspire other veterans to do the same. It might give them reason to believe that there’s still hope for them. I’m not alone either. Countless post 9/11 veterans and civilians have stepped up to help out veterans in one way or another. There are others who do podcasts that are similar to mine. Some volunteer with nonprofits geared towards veterans. Others have become therapists and work to help vets get over the mental hurdles they’re struggling with.  One thing I have noticed since joining the military is that we like to take care of our own. Even complete strangers will help each other out because of the bond that we all share as veterans. I’ve never seen anything like it in any other group of people. It truly is amazing. Fortunately, we also live in a time where even civilians are proud to help out veteran causes too. I feel bad for those of you who came back from Vietnam just to get slapped in the face for the sacrifice you made.  Do we have any Vietnam vets here? Well, welcome home and thank you for your service.  The reason why I’m singling you out is because that 22 veterans per day number that I talked about, is largely made up of veterans from your age group. Something like 60% of them are around your age. There is a common misconception that it’s the younger vets in my age group and younger that make up the bulk of that number, but it’s the other way around.  I don’t know all the reasons why your age group is disproportionately represented in that statistic. But I can’t imagine getting spit on when you got home while being called a baby killer helped the mental health of people who just experienced the horrors of war first hand. There probably wasn’t the same level of care for veterans when you got home as there is today. Veterans from your era probably just sucked it up and learned to live with the burdens of war that they carried with them. I mean, that was the mindset wasn’t it? Suck it up, be a man. Then after decades of just living with it and not dealing with the issues properly, well what can we expect? The mind can only take so much abuse before it just wants to quit.  Look, I’m not trying to say one era of veterans is any better than another. Hell, it was a lot like that when I got home in 2010 too. Sure, we had mental health screenings when we got home, but we weren’t exactly encouraged to be 100% truthful. While it wasn’t explicitly stated, the direction we got was to just check the box that you met with the therapist and get back to work. And there was a bit of fear there too. We didn’t know if we got flagged by mental health whether or not we’d be able to come back and do our jobs, so it was better to just deal with it on our own. Or so we thought anyway. In 2010 when I was in Afghanistan I was deployed as an infantryman with the Connecticut Army National Guard like I said before. My younger brother SGT Steven DeLuzio was also deployed as an infantryman with the Vermont Army National Guard. The units were part of the same brigade so we deployed together, although we were stationed about 80 or 90 miles apart. It was definitely stressful for us, but I can’t imagine what it was like for our parents, my wife, or even my brother’s fiance. This was going to be my brother’s second deployment, so he knew what he could expect, but this was only my first. And not only was I leaving a wife at home, but our first child was born just a few weeks before I left. He’s here with us today along with my wife and two younger children that we had after I returned home. I did my best to prepare for the worst before I left. I took care of all the tangible things, I made sure my will was complete, my life insurance was squared away, and all that stuff you don’t really like to think about but you do because you’re a responsible adult. I tried not to dwell on that stuff too much though. I knew we were headed for a dangerous area, but the last thing I wanted to do was worry about getting injured or killed, and I definitely didn’t want to worry about my brother. Afterall, he’d be fine, it wasn’t his first rodeo. So that was late 2009 in early 2010 our units landed in Afghanistan. Fast forward to August of 2010. My unit was running a series of missions in different parts of the country assisting the Afghan army. We were training their soldiers, and then going out on raids to flush out Taliban fighters for several weeks. On August 22nd 2010, we were on a mission going door to door through a village. Mud huts, goats, dogs, and other animals wandering everywhere. Believe me, you haven’t seen poverty until you’ve been dropped into the middle of a random Afghan village. Anyway, we had a relatively successful mission where we found some of what we were looking for and began to head back out of the village. Around that time I got a call on the radio saying that the commander was looking for me. Now, I was just a Sergeant, and if you know anything about the chain of command you know that it’s rare that the commander would come directly looking for a Sergeant without going through the chain of command. Usually when this happens you either did something really well or totally screwed something up. I couldn’t think of anything particularly good that I did, so my head started spinning trying to figure out what I did wrong.  Then it dawned on me that maybe a Red Cross message came through to tell me about something that happened back home. I had elderly relatives, maybe one of them passed away. I had a young child and a wife, maybe something happened to them. Eventually I meet up with the commander, ready for either getting chewed out, or some other devastating news from back home. When he had me sit down to talk to him, I knew I wasn’t getting chewed out like I was actually hoping for. I remember him looking me in the eye to tell me that my brother’s unit was ambushed and that my brother was hit in the ambush. Immediately, I thought to myself that my brother probably needed some help – maybe he needed an organ or blood donation. My head started spinning thinking about the logistics of how fast a helicopter could get me out of there to where he was so I could help him.  But I didn’t totally understand what the commander was saying. See, not only was my brother hit, he was killed in action. Naturally, when I heard this I broke down. That was my little brother that I felt a responsibility to protect for 25 years. I remember when we were kids my dad used to ride us around on his back like pony rides. One time my brother was just old enough to be able to sit up on his own and we both were on my dad’s back for one of these pony rides. We had a bunch of Legos on the floor, which I’m sure did wonders for my Dad’s knees and hands. But at one point my brother started to fall off my dad’s back. When I saw this, instead of letting him slip off and land on the Legos, I swung myself around him and landed on the Legos with him on top of me to shield him from hitting the bricks.  Another time, when he was a freshman in high school and I was a senior, there were a couple sophomores or juniors who were picking on him. I walked up to them, asked what the problem was, and they scattered. I tell you those stories because it wasn’t just me feeling the responsibility to protect him. It was my job. I protected him no matter what. Hell, my first thought when I found out he was hit was how I could help him. But here I was feeling like I failed him when he needed me the most. My grieving was cut short though because maybe 20-30 minutes after learning of his death, our own unit came under fire from several directions. RPGs, or rocket propelled grenades, and AK-47 rifle fire were popping up all around us. I had soldiers that I was in charge of, and I needed to get my head back in the game to make sure they were doing what they needed to do, and were positioned where they needed to be. The fight was short lived because we had air support in the area which took care of a good portion of the problem for us and we either got the rest or caused them to retreat.  After the fighting stopped I looked around at the Afghan soldiers and our interpreters who were with us and I felt an enormous amount of anger and hatred build up inside of me. My wife’s here, you can ask her – I wasn’t a hateful person. Yet here I was hating people I barely knew. I hated them for not taking care of their own country. I hated that despite 9 years of American intervention at that time their country was still a disaster, which made it necessary for people like my brother to come there to die.  Luckily I was able to escort my brother’s body out of Afghanistan the next day, and be home for his funeral. I don’t think that hatred would have served me very well in that country any more. On the flight out of Afghanistan, I watched the transfer case my brother was in like a hawk. I played the scenario out in my head that if anyone so much as sneezed near it or even brushed up against it, I would jump out of my seat and pummel them for disrespecting him. Between the hatred and the aggression towards people who I didn’t know, and for things that they had no control over my head was not in a great place. Needless to say, when I got back home my head was screwed up. I had next to no time to grieve the loss of my brother, and what’s worse, my mind was in survival mode having basically started my journey home right off the battlefield. When the firefight started my grieving essentially stopped and I wasn’t able to pick it back up again because my mind stayed in that heightened sense of alertness. My mind was made up during that firefight that my parents wouldn’t receive a second folded up flag, and I guess I maintained the vigilance without regard for the emotional side of what I was experiencing. Instead, I struggled with drinking too much and sleeping too little. The only way I’d get a full night’s sleep was by taking sleeping pills. I was angry, anxious, and depressed all at the same time. I was constantly on edge – one day I was out shopping at a local Walmart and I suddenly realized I didn’t have my rifle with me and I freaked out.  When I first got back from Afghanistan we had a mandatory mental health screening, which I definitely lied through my teeth to get through because I didn’t want to have to talk about feelings or any of that other sissy nonsense. I didn’t want to be in that screening any longer than I had to be. Fortunately, I have a saint for a wife who eventually encouraged me to get help when it became obvious that I wasn’t breaking out of that funk on my own. So, I went to therapy at the Vet Center consistently for almost 2 years after getting home. I stopped going to therapy shortly before moving out here, but there’s not really a hard end date on this sort of thing. We’re all a work in progress, and just like you go to the doctor every year for a physical, it isn’t a bad thing to check back in with a therapist from time to time to make sure your head is on right.. When I first called the Vet Center in early 2011, I honestly had no idea what to expect. Was I going to be sent to some loony bin, a nut house, or whatever you want to call it? Was I going to be kicked out of the Army? I had no idea, but I knew I had to do whatever I could to work my way back to be somewhat closer to the man I was before. I’ll tell you though, after I made the call and scheduled an appointment I felt just a little bit better. It was like I knew I didn’t have to carry the weight of the world by myself on my own shoulders anymore. Sometimes we think that we can carry the weight of the world by ourselves, but it doesn’t make sense to do that all the time. Think about if you were in combat and an overwhelming enemy force was about to overrun your position. You’d probably call in for air support or some other backup, right? You wouldn’t fight it out on your own if there were other options would you? It wouldn’t make sense. The same goes for these mental health sessions. If you can handle it on your own, great, more power to you, but when you start acting like someone you know you’re not then it’s time to call for backup. And I’ll admit that I was a little nervous going into the first session, but it turned out that it wasn’t scary at all. It was just two guys talking. My therapist was a combat vet too, so he could relate  to some of the things I was going though.  But, enough about me. I’m here to let you know that there are options like this for you. Maybe not you specifically, but maybe a friend, or a loved one needs some help, so hear me out. And yes, even for people who have been out of the military for many years, there is help. Despite how society made you feel when you got back, you don’t have to suck it up and carry the burden by yourself. On my podcast, in addition to veterans, I also talk to service providers who work with veterans in a variety of ways. One of these people I spoke to was actress Jennifer O’Neill, who now runs an equine therapy ranch for veterans. Horses will react to their human handler’s emotions, so if you’re angry, or acting a bit out of control, the horses won’t respond the way you want them to. They’ll avoid you, and you won’t get them to do what you want them to. You have to get your emotions under control in order for the horses to follow your commands. This type of therapy makes you more aware of your emotions – you start to learn when you’re getting upset and you learn to calm yourself down before you get out of control.  Another guest I had on the show was a veteran friend of mine who talked about his struggle with depression after returning from Afghanistan. He tried the talk therapy, which was OK but it wasn’t quite doing it for him. He found out about a veteran art program, and since he grew up watching Bob Ross paint happy trees, he figured if Bob Ross was as happy as he was painting, he might as well give it a whirl. It turned out that one painting lesson made him fall in love with art. He went out and bought all the art supplies and got to painting and his depression seemed to start fading away. Eventually when he painted all the landscapes he could think up in his basement, he wanted to get outdoors, so he started taking some of the most beautiful photos of sunsets, beaches, forests, and anything else you can think of. To him, he’s happy when he’s creating beautiful art whether it’s painting or photographing. Another veteran friend I had as a guest on the podcast has described the outdoors as his church, his therapist, his doctor, and his gym. It’s a place where he can be alone with his thoughts and address the things that are bothering him. He mountain climbs, whitewater rafts, hikes, goes snowshoeing, and anything else you can think of that’s outdoors. Again, he does this to cope with the issues he had after serving overseas. One veteran I spoke to on the podcast lost both of his legs in Afghanistan. That’s enough to break even the toughest of individuals. But he chose to find the good in life. He looked at it like he got a second chance at life, and chose to make the most out of this second act. Since losing his legs he’s even scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. A soldier who served with my brother, actually the guy who held my brother as he died in his arms, was on the podcast talking about his battle with stage 4 cancer after being exposed to the burn pits in Afghanistan. Again, you’d think that he would be down in the dumps over what essentially amounts to a death sentence. But you’d be wrong. I swear I never met a more positive person in my life. He’s a husband and a father, and even when he’s completely exhausted from the chemo treatments, he still gets on the floor and plays with his son or chases him around the yard. He’s a firefighter too, and he gets right back to work after his chemo treatments. Stories like his can bring hope to people who are struggling. Another veteran friend was dealing with depression and anger as well as experiencing a number of health issues after years of treating his body like crap during multiple deployments with the Army. He started doing small things. Little incremental changes to change his attitude. Like many of us, he developed a cynical attitude in the Army, and realized he needed to work on a more positive outlook on life. He got into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and yoga. Both of which he said put him in a very cathartic state because he forces himself to have to live in the moment. He became very aware of the here and now. No matter what’s going on in his finances, his love life, his job, or social life, he’s on a mission when he’s practicing those. At that moment, nothing else matters because he’s focused on the moment he’s in and not worried about that deadline that’s coming up next week, or the argument he had with his wife. It lets him live in the moment. All of these stories have one thing in common and it’s that the veterans in these stories have all made a choice to not let their hard times get them down. They made a choice to be happy. It isn’t easy, and there are sure to be ups and downs from time to time, but that choice is what’s keeping that statistic from ticking up to 23 or 24 veterans a day. I know it’s easier said than done. Heck I struggle with it myself too, but when I hear stories like theirs, I know there is hope.  There is hope for you too. Thank you.

CAPT John “Coach” Havlik, U. S. Navy (Retired), is the CEO of JRH Consulting, offering individual/team consulting on building and leading high-performance teams. He is also the Special Advisor for Giant Leap Consulting. He retired in 2014 after 31+ years of distinguished military service, 29 of those years in the Naval Special Warfare (SEAL) community. John enlisted in the Navy in 1982, and was subsequently assigned to the U. S Naval Academy as a swim coach/physical education instructor. He was later commissioned as a naval officer via Officer Candidate School in 1984. He successfully completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training in 1985. His subsequent military assignments included a full range of duties in the SEAL community, to include the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He commanded several times, and completed numerous deployments in key leadership positions to named and contingency operations around the world during his career. John’s book, coauthored with his WVU buddy Bill Treasurer, is The Leadership Killer: Reclaiming Humility in an Age of Arrogance, which focuses on humility as the fundamental leadership attribute. Links & Resources CoachHavlik.com LeadershipKiller.com John Havlik on Twitter Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there, click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Hey everyone. Today, my guest is John Havlik, who is the CEO of J R H Consulting who offers individual and team consulting on building and leading high performance teams. He retired from the Navy in 2014 after over 31 years of distinguished military service, 29 of those years in the Naval Special Warfare Seal community. So welcome to the show, John, it’s really a pleasure to have you.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background? John Havlik:    00:01:16    Alright, Scott, thanks for having me on. A good afternoon everybody or morning, wherever, whoever we’re talking to.  I appreciate the opportunity to be on here today. It’s not much more past that intro that you said. I was of an Army brat, I was born in Germany. My dad was stationed over there and settled in Maryland for his final assignment before he retired. And then he went to work in DC for 20 years. So we settled in that area. So, I grew up on the Army base, Fort Meade, Maryland right nearby. So I have a big Army background and when the service selection came up, I decided to go Navy. So, nothing against the Army. I love good guys, but I wanted to try something different. I went to school and went to college in West Virginia on a swimming scholarship; did pretty well there. John Havlik:    00:02:18     I graduated, started coaching. Actually one of my first opportunities was to be a coach at the Naval Academy assistant. So I had no intention of ever going into the military to make it a career. I thought I was going to be a coach, but this came up and I took advantage of it, but the catch was, I had to join the Navy. And so nine of us, nine different sports we had to go to boot camp and not get in trouble and graduate and get assignments too. So we eventually all made it to the Naval Academy and coached in our different respective sports. And so when I was there about nine months after I’d been there, I was on the pool deck with head coach and this handsome, good looking guy comes walking down the deck and he introduces himself. John Havlik:    00:03:13    And as he seemed like a really nice guy, and I was asking the coach what does this guy do? And he goes, Oh, he just checked in, he’s working upstairs in the front office. And I said, what is he doing in the Navy? And he goes, Oh, he’s a Navy Seal. And I was like, what’s a Navy Seal. And my coach had to explain it to me. So I had no clue what a Navy Seal was. So, it’s a pretty interesting, and he became a good friend of mine and we work out together and then the coaching thing started. I didn’t see that being my long-term goal. So I decided to give the Seals a try and get my commission first through officer candidate school with a guarantee to go to Seal training afterwards. John Havlik:    00:03:59    And so everybody at the Academy was all on board with it and did everything, sponsored me and helped me to go through the paperwork, the layers of bureaucracy you have to get to go through, but it all worked out. And so I left the Academy, got my commission and then went to Seal training; somehow made it through. I did end up doing 29 years of it and loved every minute, good times and bad times. And enjoyed it. I’ve worked with some great people and did some fun stuff. So it was well worth it. And then I retired and just transitioned. And so my transition has been hot and cold.  I didn’t really want to do a government job. John Havlik:    00:04:51    I didn’t want to do a contractor job. I wanted to do something different. And so, I got into the public speaking aspect and a good friend of mine from West Virginia has his own consulting firm. So he would bring me in every now and then I talked to seminars and presentations he had and I did that and I guess being retired, I can work when I want. So I did that. Scott DeLuzio:  And it’s a nice thing. John Havlik: It’s kind of nice, and I kept myself busy in public speaking. I was never very good at it. I’ve gotten a little bit better, but it’s super difficult; but it’s a challenge, so I enjoy it. I do it when I can. John Havlik:    00:05:40    I did it for a couple of years. And then my buddy asked me if I wanted to co-author a book. And I said, sure, absolutely. So, we did that; it took about a year to write the book and then the whole release aspect and everything has just been very cool about that. Never thought I’d be an author. And so, my friends were asking me, what are you going to do next? And so, that’s a great question; somebody mentioned going back to school. And I said, well, I got the GI bill and I need to use this thing. So I decided to enroll in a doctoral program and I’m going for my doctor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. And it’s not been easy.  It’s very challenging. Very rewarding, very cool at the same time, but they do not make it easy for you. So I’m about a third of the way through that right now. And finishing up the academic side of the house and then I’ll go into my dissertation phase of it. But a lot of what I do in the program, I reference all my military experience and try to share it with the class. So that hopefully brings you up to where I’m at. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:01    Yeah. And you mentioned how it’s not necessarily an easy thing to do, going through this doctoral program, nor should it be really because otherwise everyone would be doing it. Right. John Havlik:    00:07:13    No, I know Penn doesn’t make it easy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:17    Yeah. I mean, it’s really the same thing as Seal training, you don’t want  every sailor out there to be a Seal because they’re not all cut out to be a Seal; that’s what part of the selection and the training is all about is to just get the top notch people. John Havlik:    00:07:34    Well, I mean, I’m very appreciative of Penn bringing me in, and I’m a part of the program. Luckily I’m not the oldest student in the class; my class does look at me like, what are you doing? You know, shouldn’t you be retired and just playing golf and doing other stuff. And sometimes I go, I’m writing, I could be playing golf instead of writing a paper, but it’s very rewarding to me. And I want to keep learning and I want to keep growing and I still have a lot to offer. So, it’s unique and challenging. And I think that’s what I’ve really tried to do since leaving the military is do things that are unique and challenging, and this is definitely challenging and a very unique experience at my age. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:21    Yeah. That’s great. Actually, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on as a guest, the first reason anyways, is we briefly chatted last week and before we started recording today, some of the research that you’ve been doing, in your doctoral program, was on the deployment stressors and performance, burnout prevention. Could you tell us a little bit about that research and the type of stuff that you’ve discovered, through this research? John Havlik:    00:08:52    Yeah. We had to do our literature reviews. I was very intrigued on a presentation one of our professors gave. She did her dissertation on stress and burnout and chief medical officers. And so the idea that stress and burnout just knocked me over because you can apply it to the military side of the house very easily.  As an athlete, I experienced it as a coach, I experienced it and you see it in business. So there’s a lot of avenues. You can go and take stress or burnout, but when I did this literature review, I really wanted to emphasize the deployment cycle. And everybody who has deployed knows the stressors started the minute you’re going on deployment. Everything starts coming in on you. John Havlik:    00:09:51    And there’s a lot of programs gotten better over the years pre and post, but there wasn’t a lot. I wanted to know how people get through deployment because no deployment is the same, everybody’s is totally different and how you get through it isn’t the same. And when I was doing the research, most of the research was post-deployment and identified that about 20% of folks that returned from a deployment have some kind of mental health issue. And I get that and I said, well, what about the other 80%? What are they doing? And as we well know, no deployment, whether you’re in a combat zone, rear echelon, rear peacekeeping, humanitarian, combat, it’s all different, various links. John Havlik:    00:10:49    How did you get through it, how do people get through it.  It’s not really heavily researched and I read a very good article and it offered up some stuff, but unfortunately my professors are like, a lot of your stuff is personal reflection. And I was like, well, there’s not a lot of research, so I have to sell it. It intrigues me. I know not everybody goes through the same way. I mean, somebody who sits on a base, a year on a base and doesn’t leave the wire and how do they stay engaged? How do they not get burned out? I look at what I did, and how I got through my deployments of various lengths and you did the same thing. And everybody else, it’s an interesting topic because I think I can take it into a lot of different areas. So that’s where I’m leaning right now and professors are trying to lean me in another direction, but we’ll see how that goes. Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:56    Well, it sounds like an interesting topic, where you’re heading with this, and one of the keys I would think would be identify the 80/20 split; identify those people who come back with some sort of mental health issues. And then the other people who come back with not really so many mental health issues. Secondly, I would think that some of the techniques that can be used to either help prevent those issues in that 20% from cropping up, could be stuff that you learned from studying what the 80% that come back with little to no issues, or maybe to help them cope with these  issues after the fact. What has your research found with regards to identifying those two groups of people, but then also, what are some of the things that they’re doing, some of those techniques that can help with the mental health issues, either to prevent them or mitigate some of that after the fact? John Havlik:    00:13:11    I think the big one, it’s not earth shattering to me, but it made sense when I was reading one article that says the common thing, whether it’s pre-deployment, deployment, post- deployment is folks are just reluctant to ask for help, because they don’t want it to negatively affect them in their career. And in some of the more formal ways of dealing with stress go on your chain of command, getting help, of course, going to see the doctor, or if you can’t sleep, they will give you some Ambient or something like that. But the general consensus was, it seemed like people were waiting until it was almost too late; things have escalated, they become unmanageable and that’s when they really have to go get help and the fear of asking early to get help and having a somewhat negative effect. John Havlik:    00:14:19    And I think the big thing is you don’t want these for me. I never wanted anybody to say I didn’t carry my load, and I never wanted to be sent home from deployment early. And I think those are some common themes that you would get if we interview folks, is I gotta get to work. I can work through this, you know? And so that was kind of where the problems that got identified post-deployment was because they waited too late. And it became unmanageable. I think some of the things that the non-formal side of the house or nontraditional to me was I always heard, get into your battle rhythm as soon as possible, find out your routine, find your place in it. John Havlik:    00:15:09    Your niche in command, what are your do outs? When are your meetings? What are you going to do? What are your responsibilities; get into that as soon as possible, because once you find that, then you can figure out when can I go work out? When can I go eat? When can I go to the exchange or when can I sleep, all that other stuff? So that was one of the big things that you would hear, just finding your place in getting your battle rhythm going as soon as possible really helps you set the tone for your deployment, but you can get burned out doing the same thing over and over again. So everybody has a different time and maybe I need to alter my battle rhythm or for me, it took me half a deployment to figure out when I should I work out before I went on shift or after. John Havlik:    00:15:59    And after it took me half a deployment to figure that out. It kind of broke things up. And I think some of the other things are a sense of unity, working with your peers, especially I worked with a lot of Army and I was often the lone Navy guy in the organization. And it was me just looking for another Navy person to talk to get a sense of, they call sense of belonging or sense of having a peer nearby where you can go just talk Navy or Hey, you got a different uniform, can help you out too. And at least on one deployment I had, I worked with fifth group and on one deployment and with very small group of Navy folks, and we would have a Navy night, we would just go to the DEFAT, just Navy and get away from the Army, and it was cool, it’s just, get away from the Army oversights. John Havlik:    00:17:10    So it was little things like that, depending on where you were at, the exchanges MWR facilities working out is huge. Fitness is a big factor in hope. Folks stay engaged, can take care of themselves. Two areas I didn’t even go to, didn’t want to apply because there’s a lot of conflicting research out. There was alcohol and tobacco and I’ve never been a smoker, but I know a lot of guys, a lot of folks start smoking more and I’ve been on deployments where alcohol was not allowed and I’ve been on deployments where alcohol was allowed. And it’s a fine line of when it’s available, whether you’ve used it or not. And then when, of course, in Iraq and over in Afghanistan, you can’t drink, you know? John Havlik:    00:18:15    So, I didn’t even go there because there was a lot of research on that and maybe it’s something I look into further, but it’s just all these little things, seeing the chaplain was a great opportunity, at least for me, the fifth group, chaplain was a good guy. I liked the workout and he’d always come up and give me a hard time. And I gave him a hard time, but he was a good guy, and he was ranger qual and real gun-ho guy. So, if you competed with him in the weight room, he liked you, and you could talk about him in this way of just decompressing a little bit. And Oscar always asked how I was doing, because I was a deputy commander and he’s like, you okay, sir? You know, the Army taking care of you. Yeah, I got it. I got it. You know, so it was good, but those things like that I think are just real important. And some of the things that I found got folks through their deployment. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:09    Yeah. So it seems like the fitness and comradery in that sense of belonging and togetherness seems like those are some things that can really help people getting through the deployment. I know you were saying, a lot of times people don’t want to be that person who gets sent home from a deployment or whatever. We were talking before we started recording here, my own personal experience with my brother passing away while we were on deployment, he was killed in action. I was sent home the day after he was killed, I was actually on the same flight out of Afghanistan that he was.  He and the other soldier who was killed that day. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:59    We all flew out together. I know what you were saying. I didn’t want to leave, I had my guys there, I had my people that I was in charge of. I didn’t want to leave them alone. I didn’t want to leave them stranded without me being there because God forbid something happened to them.  I don’t know that I would have forgiven myself for not being there to help them. At the same time, I also knew that my head was just not in the right place. I had to keep myself together for the last little bit that we were on this mission, as we were engaged in a firefight, as well. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:44    Shortly after I found out about my brother and to dump my personal issues aside for a little bit to go back in and take care of my guys and make sure that they had what they needed and that they were positioned in the right place so that God forbid we didn’t end up sending anyone else home in a flag draped box or whatever. I knew after getting home that I just wasn’t going to be very helpful over there.  I knew my head was just not in the right place. And I think there’s something to be said for the people who want to tough it out and go back and be with their guys and not leave their unit. There’s also something to be said for looking in on yourself and recognizing that whether or not you’re going to be able to be effective in your job and taking the help when it comes. And I had the opportunity to stay home afterwards. And I think I chose correctly by not going back because I don’t know that I would have been in the right state of mind to be able to continue with the job that we had. John Havlik:    00:21:53    Yeah, absolutely. My first deployment, I was the deputy commander with the fifth group in and of this taskforce and my mom got real sick when I was over there. And in the process, she’d been read her last rights twice, and just like everything you’re getting emails and communications weren’t that great. So you’re trying to get the line back to the States to find out, to talk to everybody what was going on, what are the doctors saying? You know, and everything in me, the boss came in and he was like, look, you’re no good to me, so you got to go home, and I did, and I got home early and about halfway through I felt horrible about it, but I also needed to go home and I couldn’t come back because things were bad at home. John Havlik:    00:22:42    And I had to take care of that, but there was just that guilt of, I loved what I was doing. I loved being overseas but I had to go home and take care of family stuff. And before my mom had some quality time with her and she passed away a few months later, but I got home and then the next thing I’m like, I need to get back, come from starting to okay, when can I redeploy again and do the other stuff. And luckily I was able to go back a year later, but it all adds up. Scott DeLuzio:    00:23:16    It does. And I know that feeling too, because when I got back about a month or so after I had gotten back, I turned on the news and there was CNN or whatever video of right outside of where our base was.  We were right along the Pakistan border, along a major border crossing where a lot of the shipping trucks and cargo trucks and things like that come into Afghanistan. And that was one of our jobs just to secure that area. And there was a situation at the border where Pakistan basically shut everything down. And there were trucks that were backed up miles and miles away. And they were all like right outside of the base basically where we were stationed. And I was like, man, I really need to be there. But at that point there was nothing I really could do. It was tough to see that stuff going on the news and everything like that. John Havlik:    00:24:14    I feel bad because somebody had to go relieve me that wasn’t ready to go. And then, it’s that sense of, Hey, I didn’t finish up what I started and people were like, what are you doing back? Or I thought you were going for… And I didn’t really get into the details of anything, but you don’t know it gets back and forth of work, passing away. John got sent home early, why, it was not because of performance. It was because of family, and it’s hard. It’s definitely hard. Scott DeLuzio:    00:24:49    Yeah. And sometimes there’s just things that you have to take care of and you’re not going to be the right person for the job. If you’re not taking care of that stuff back home, John Havlik:    00:24:57    This was perfect. He just came in and he says, when I’m not around and you’re in charge and you’re a mess right now.  I just didn’t know what was going on. Everything from home was bad and I’m trying to do my job and he’s like, dude, just go home. We’ll live without you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:17    Yeah, exactly. So, I mean there’s a lot of different things that are going on that people experience and we all have our own different perspectives. And so, the research that you’re doing to identify some of this stuff, I think is good stuff to talk about. And I think we need to also realize that it’s okay to have different experiences or at least different outcomes.  Even if you have two people who are in the same situations and they were exposed to the same combat or deployment or whatever. They both could come out on the other end with two completely different experiences where one could have some mental health issues and the other one doesn’t. So it doesn’t make you any weaker or stronger, depending on which side of that coin you fall on. It’s just, people are different and they experience things differently. John Havlik:    00:26:10    Yeah. I would always wonder if maybe my research will come up with the ideal deployment length, because as we all know, everybody had different lengths they were overseas. And  so maybe there’s a way of, Hey, this is perfect. This is the right time and other stuff. So I don’t know. Scott DeLuzio:    00:26:33   And hopefully something like that does come up. I don’t know if length of time is necessarily the right metric to use for that.  Maybe it is. I don’t know, I haven’t done the research like you have into all of this stuff, but I would imagine someone who experienced some traumatic event on day one could be just as likely to come home with some mental health issues as someone who didn’t experience a traumatic event until 110 or something like that. John Havlik:    00:27:08    They did some of the research I looked at it; it didn’t just have to be a traumatic event. You know, it just could be day to day problems back home and you’re 10,000 miles away and you can’t do anything about it and the same stuff adds up. And then even if you’re in a non-combat role, you get thrown into a traumatic event or something like that. I tell everybody, I go back to my hooch and I live 50 yards from the wire and they were mortaring everywhere. It was indiscriminate care. So, I could go to bed even though I wasn’t really in a combat environment. And I was stationed in Ballade and there was an indoor pool I used to go swim at. John Havlik:    00:27:58    And in three weeks after I redeployed my NCO that I worked with said, Hey, they mortared the pool. Just through a random round hit went through the lifeguard’s office, so, you know, it all adds up. I mean, combat definitely intensifies it, but just the day to day aspect of being overseas and privacy, I don’t know how you did, but I didn’t know the person you share in time different work schedules. I mean, nothing was perfect and nothing added up. So it’s just a lot of things you sacrifice overseas.  It’s part of being on being on deployment. Scott DeLuzio:    00:28:45    Yeah. For sure. And yeah, like you said, privacy is definitely an issue, you don’t really have a space to yourself. I mean, our setup was a little bit different. We had these basically plywood huts that were set up and we had like plywood divider walls, but you could see over the wall, so it wasn’t like really private. It was like enough that you can change your clothes in private. And someone’s not staring at you while you’re changing in your corner or whatever. But it was privateish I guess. You never really had complete privacy over there. John Havlik:    00:29:22    No, it was a different experience. I can’t really explain it to people. It’s just you have to experience it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:29:33    One of the other reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast was to talk about your book that you coauthored. The books named, The Leadership Killer Reclaiming Humility in the Age of Arrogance. The book focuses on humility, is that right?  As basically the fundamental leadership attribute? John Havlik:    00:29:56    Yeah, yeah, yeah. My coauthor was a fellow West Virginia grad. So he was a diver. I was a swimmer, so he has his own consulting firm now. So, he’s been very good with me again, I think I mentioned earlier, he brings me in and I special advise. So I write blogs and talk to his seminars and stuff in great opportunity and it’s been fun, but he wrote four books and might write a fifth. And so he says, Hey, we would talk as we were prepping for these events, we always highlight what just seemed like every week now you see military, which is a lot of military leaders getting relieved and everybody kind of knows why, it’s not rocket science, but then he was a corporate business side of the house. John Havlik:    00:30:55    So he saw the same thing. So why do these leaders, good leaders do these stupid things and things that they know better? And we started talking about the term hubris and excessive arrogance, self-confidence and I think it’s just the people just for me, my 2 cents on it was I didn’t think you’d get caught or nobody would say anything. There you go, your mirror, you should be relieved just for thinking that, so we talked about that and so we tried to do that as hubris is kind of the theme of what makes good leaders go back and how to control that, how to check it and then how to remain a good effective, humble leader. Scott DeLuzio:    00:31:55    Yeah. So what is maybe one piece of advice that you can give people, leaders especially to maybe stay more humble and keep their ego in check to be good leaders. John Havlik:    00:32:10    Well, I thought it was always really good and military, at least I saw it in the Army. I saw it all over, but you know, the top three, when I got up executive officer and then commanding officer, there was always a top three, the CEO, EXO, and then the command master chief senior, or command Sergeant major, the senior enlisted of the unit. And I always thought the most effective units were when the leadership triangle worked and talked as one. And the message was the same.  They talked and Sergeant major, the mass command master chief walk around, they talked the same message to the skipped or talked about, or the XO was enforcing the day to day operations. And so, I always thought that was when I became a CEO. John Havlik:    00:33:09    I told my XO and my senior enlisted, you gotta call me out when I’m stepping over the line, or my head’s getting too big, you know?  I think it’s real important that you have a check, you find a check, someone that you trust that can call you out when you’re getting too big or getting a head of yourself. And so, we always try to tell folks that whatever position you’re in, whatever organization, you always need somebody watching your back because when we try to identify everybody looks out front, tend to forget their flanks and especially in the rear and that’s where you need to have your check. Always watching you having a good 360 rounder keeps you in your scope of responsibility, so to speak. Scott DeLuzio:    00:33:58    Yeah. And you don’t want to have, a yes man, working for you or yes woman, who’s just going to agree to every idea you have and everything that you come up with and everything you say, just agreeing with it, as opposed to on the flip side, having somebody who is willing to challenge those ideas when they think that there might be something wrong with it. John Havlik:    00:34:22    And that’s what I felt was very effective. And I felt it was really good. I tried to implement when the leadership was good. It seemed like those guys would go in the morning and the afternoon, close the door and just talk things out, you know? And that was really the, Hey boss, you’re thinking like an idiot, I don’t think he wanted to do this, you just talk it out. And then when you open the door, you walk out unified with a common goal, a common message. And so you don’t confuse the command, and everybody knows what you’re doing, why you come to work and what you’re going to do. And I thought that was very effective. And that’s what I tried to do. But I also mentioned, if he disagree with me, then let’s talk offline. Scott DeLuzio:    00:35:11    Right. For sure. Yeah. John Havlik:    00:35:12    That’s where the confusion really comes in with two different messages. And if there’s any doubt, no doubt raises when CEO’s saying one thing, the X, was like, what are you talking about? I don’t think that’s what we talked about us not going. And so, yes men are great.  You want some people to boost you, but in reality, you really need somebody who can call you out and say, no, you’re not doing that. So, but do it in a closed door. Scott DeLuzio:    00:35:45    For sure. And if they start challenging you in front of other people in front of the whole organization, or whatever the group of people is then that’s probably where the ego starts coming in. And on the leader side where you’re not going to challenge me and you’re not going to make me look like an idiot, I’m going to put my foot down and this is how it’s going to be kind of thing. I could imagine. John Havlik:    00:36:07    Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I did learn that early in the Seals. The guys are always quick to tell you you’re wrong, you know? So you had to come down to understand that, I’m sure it was same in the Army. I got in a platoon, I walk into the platoon space and I did everything wrong, and I was like, well, you can do better. You’ll get a commission. And here’s the paperwork do what you gotta do. But I think in reality, I think what I found with the guys, they appreciate it when you ask them their 2 cents on something, because you’re all working towards a common goal and I think they were professional enough to know not to do it in public because that’s really where you raised out. John Havlik:    00:36:57    And when you’re trying to sell yourself on an op, you’re briefing. I used to see it all the time. You know, you’re briefing somebody who’s going to make a decision on what unit is going to execute the op, especially a lot in special ops, because I’m not going to go with the Army or I’ll go the SF guys or no, I’ll go Seals, last thing you want to do in front of the guy, making the decision is adding confusion on their part because you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re not talking about same sheet of music. So it was real important. Talk together, have the one voice. Scott DeLuzio:    00:37:31    Yeah, for sure. So it sounds like a great book with a lot of information in terms of how good leaders go bad and what you can do to correct the course there. I’ll have a link to that in the show notes so people can check that out if they’re interested. Anything else that you wanted to talk about in terms of maybe going back to your research or anything else with the leadership or your time in the Seals? John Havlik:    00:38:07    If somebody has got a good topic for a dissertation, I sure would appreciate it. I’m trying to figure that out right now.  I love my military time, I really wish they would establish a program where we, as a retiree could throw the uniform on every now and then just take those staff jobs and nobody wants to take, but still be involved because 30 years’ experience, see you later, you know? And well, yeah, there’s a lot to do, but I do I miss the guys. I think that’s the biggest part. I miss the guys the most and the locker room. That environment atmosphere is good, but it was time to move on. I enjoyed every minute. School has been as good. John Havlik:    00:38:56    And the challenge of the COO aspect.  I think the big thing we try to tell everybody, Bill and I is find yourself a mentor, find a good check. And the biggest leadership thing I always felt most effective was getting out of my office and going down and talking to my sailors on the deck plate where the work was being done. And I found the department heads, the information flow was getting filtered a lot. And if I wanted the honest to God truth about what was going on in the command, I had to go talk to the sailors. And one of my first XO jobs, I started hearing things about leadership at his command doesn’t know what’s going on. And I was like, I used to say that when I was a JL and now they’re saying, I’m leadership. John Havlik:    00:39:52    So, what don’t I know. And so what I found very effective was getting out of my office and just going down and talking with my sailors and asking for honest feedback, which is very hard for a leader, because you’re not always going to hear what you want to hear and you have to keep an open mind. And what I found, it was a commitment on my part. So you have to make the commitment and you have to take the time to do it and be consistent about it. And I used the weekly cleanup field day on Fridays to walk around and talk to my sailors. But what I found over time was they warmed up to me big time and we used to just have good discussions, you know? John Havlik:    00:40:41    So if you want to tell him why you do things at the command, or what the boss is thinking about, it’s from the horse’s mouth, and they can give you feedback about it and you may not want to do that. Sir, there is a better way of doing it. And what’s great about it is I got feedback. And then I go right up to the talk to the old man about it, and he appreciated it. He loved it, because we were getting good, honest feedback from the sailors. So I always try to say the best thing I ever did as a leader was to get out of my office and just go down and try to talk to my troops or sailors even when I was deployed.  The only way I ever got to know anybody, being the chief of one Navy guy, I had a big Army staff was I had to go knock on doors and I had to learn Army. John Havlik:    00:41:29    And I can tell you the Army doesn’t give you a loan. A lot of time when you’re deployed to get into the seat, so to speak. Hey, at 20, 48 hours, you don’t know your job, you need to leave. It was a big transition, but it’s just those little things that just go down and learn your people, talk to your people, listen to what they have to say, take their feedback. And I think people really appreciate that opportunity to talk to the leadership one-on-one and where there’s no filters in between. And it was great. It was great for me. I learned so much and it was a practice. I tried to take home with me wherever I’ve lived. Scott DeLuzio:    00:42:06    Yeah. And that’s good advice. I think, not just from the military standpoint, but I think for any organization, if you’re in a factory and you have the management and the factory and you have the people on the shop floor or whatever assembling products or whatever they’re doing, you gotta get out of your air conditioned office and go down on the shop floor and talk to the people who are doing the work and see what is actually going on. Messages do get filtered and for one reason or another, I don’t know all the reasons why they do get filtered, but they do. You need to get out of your day to day routine, even if it’s once a week; you go out and just chat with some people, to see what’s going on. John Havlik:    00:42:55    I mean, it was real important. And I tried that my last deployment I was there when we shut down Iraq; so, it was a senior Seal officer over there shutting down everything, special operations. And I can always remember, President Obama with Prime Minister Malakai on TV, we’re going to be out of Iraq by the end of the year. It was October. And I’m like, shit, that doesn’t give us much time. So, the general looked at me, he goes coach and make it happen. We had two months, so we had just like everything and there was shit everywhere, and we had to account for, and we had to move it in, everybody’s leaving and going home and we still got stuff to do. John Havlik:    00:43:45    And I found it very effective and I had different services, different ranks on the staff that had to execute this plan is, getting everybody out. And I think it worked real well. We communicated, got on the same message and things change, especially as we got closer, got into December, it was changing hourly, you know? And so we spent a lot of time at the embassy that changed. So I think the big thing was effective. Talking to people, don’t just want to send an email out or whatever. If you can get out there, talk to your people, take advantage of it. And I grew as a person and as a leader too, which was really good for me. Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:27    Yeah. That’s great. Well, John, it has been a pleasure speaking with today.  Before we wrap up, where can people go to get in touch with you, in terms of your consulting, find out more about what you do there and where to find your book. John Havlik:  you can go to <inaudible> dot com. That site is not ready to go back up again, then redesigning it and stuff. So it should be up by the end of the week. There’s ways of contacting me there. If you want to get ahold of me, the book, leadershipkiller.com, you get a background on that. You can order the book online and sign audible too. So we’ve hit all the right avenues for the both at <inaudible> and Twitter and that’s about it, and like I said, anybody got a good dissertation topic. They send it to you and Scott and you send it to me. I appreciate it. Scott DeLuzio:  Yeah, absolutely. I will forward any of those topics over to you. So, thank you again for joining us. I really enjoyed the conversation and I think you had a lot of good information, from your research and also from the book and also your experience as a Seal. And thank you for joining us. John Havlik:  Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:45:53    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at DriveOnPodcast.

Ryan Britch, an OEF veteran, talks about his experience with PTSD and how prolonged exposure therapy helped him overcome it. I really appreciated Ryan’s willingness to be open about his experience with PTSD and how he worked through it. He also shared how he found a new sense of purpose after leaving the Army through his involvement with a volunteer group, the Peace Corps, and eventually in his current role at IAVA. Links & Resources Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) IAVA Quick Reaction Force Call Center Information 855-91-RAPID Take Action through IAVA – contact your representatives to let them know how important various veteran issues are to you. Scott’s Note: This is really quick and easy to do. Just enter your name, email, and home address then click send. A message will be sent to your Senators and Representative for your district. It takes less than 5 minutes total. Prolonged Exposure for PTSD VA Info Guide Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act Clay Hunt Act Wes Black Episode 13 discussing his experience with cancer and burn pit exposure. Episode 14 discussing his experience in Afghanistan and the day my brother Steven DeLuzio was killed in action. Valerie Palota Episode 27 talks about her experience losing her son Josh to suicide after his struggles with PTSD. Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Hi everyone, today my guest is Ryan Britch. Ryan served with my brother in Afghanistan back in 2010 with the Vermont Army National Guard. He currently works for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.  Ryan, it’s great to get you on the show and to chat with you. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and what you do with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America? Ryan Britch:    00:01:11    Scott first, it’s a pleasure to be on the show with you and thanks for creating this podcast and sharing all these stories for fellow Vets. So, my name is Ryan Britch. I grew up in very rural Vermont and graduated high school in 2009. I joined the Vermont Army National Guard because I wanted an adventure and grew up poor wanting to go to college. So, I thought it’d be a great opportunity for some college money.  I joined Alpha Company, 3rd of the 172nd about two months before we were supposed to deploy to Afghanistan. I was assigned to be a saw gunner and third platoon first squad alpha team. Your brother, Steve was my team leader. Also in our team was Corey <inaudible>, he was our RTO and then our grenadier, Jesse Garcia.  Steve was a pretty unique leader, made a really conscious effort to share his knowledge with us and to ensure that we were always safe from digging foxholes, eating chow, prolonged four hours of guard duty out at the Op or joking around and playing basketball. Ryan Britch:    00:02:15    Steve was always with us. So, I’m always very thankful for the experience to be in Steve’s team and for everything that he imparted on me. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:26    Yeah. That’s awesome. A little background there and that personal story too. We had spoken last week, and you told me a little bit about his impact on your life and everything.  I shared that with my parents over the weekend and it was good to hear those types of stories; who he was and who he’s impacted throughout his life. Because, you know, as people grow up and they become adults and they move on their own path, you don’t always know all of their friends and everything like that, and so it’s cool to hear these stories from people who knew him. That was one of the more selfish reasons why I wanted to have you on the show and talk with you, even though we talked the other day a little bit, but one of the reasons, there are a few reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast, but one of them is that when we spoke last week, you told me about some of the therapy treatment situation that you went through after getting back, the Prolonged Exposure therapy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:03:29    Would you mind going back a bit and telling us about what prompted you to start seeking this therapy and then we can get into what that’s all about and everything. Ryan Britch:    00:03:40    Yeah, sure. I think I’ll backtrack a little bit first and really just highlight how the war impacted me. And I think my deploying to Afghanistan left a profound impact on me and not necessarily the combat and the posttraumatic stress and the moral injury. But I think the men that I was exposed to and I’ll use that terminology because this is back in 2009 women are allowed to be in combat arms. I never had the chance to serve with women. So I’m sure there’s some great female leaders out there in the Army, but I’ve just never got to serve with them. So I’ll talk about the men that I served with and particularly the Green Mountain Boys. And there were a bunch of troublemakers and at the same time they were intelligent, humble, composed professionals. Well-read, hard drinking, skiers, outdoorsmen, adventurers, wholesome, mountain men. Ryan Britch:    00:04:37    and sometimes they were abrasive and would often resort to settling disagreements with their fists. We spent a lot of time drinking and getting into shenanigans sometimes; probably more than time we spent honing our military skills. At the same time, they were men of virtue and they left an unspeakable impact on my soul. And I don’t think I ever felt more home my entire life, but at the same time, I think that the love that we had for each other made the pain of losing a brother, even more soul ripping. When I came home, I was pretty lost. I was very irritable, unsure where I thought life was going to take me, pretty angry and numb at losing Steve and Tristan. Ryan Britch:    00:05:27     I hope that the war would kind of become like everything else in my life, distant. And it took a really long time for me to come home. I think PE was definitely one of the right steps for me. So, I had done a pretty good job of managing my adjustment issues after coming home from Afghanistan. I felt like I had things really under control. It wasn’t until I went to a New Year’s Eve party in Burlington, 2018. So, this is eight years after my deployment to Afghanistan. It was a great night. There was a live band, people were celebrating, we had a few drinks; I’m a big gin and tonic guy. So, I had a few gin and tonics and at midnight the balloons came down, people were cheering, people were kissing. Ryan Britch:    00:06:18   I felt like I was on cloud nine and then a couple seconds later after the balloons came down, people started popping the balloons. And that was the trigger to what I now know was a flashback.  I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced one yourself, but it’s a pretty horrifying experience. All of a sudden, I had this wave of all these unwelcome memories come rushing into me. And it felt as if I was in combat again, you know that feeling when the Valley you are patrolling and just erupts in fire and my mind was telling me to seek cover. At the same time, I knew that I wasn’t in combat, I knew I was at this venue at a New Year’s Eve celebration. I felt very helpless. There was nothing I could do. So, here I am at this venue, just hysterically and uncontrollably sobbing and bawling my eyes out. Luckily my best friend and my ex knew what was going on and they got me outside into a cab and they got me home. And the next morning she was like, you need to go get treatment. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:33    Yeah. And that there are so many different things that are triggers. And I think we talked a little bit about this last week, but everything from sounds to smells to feelings, other senses, they all are really closely tied to your memories. I think I told you this story last week. My wife was cutting some peppers in the kitchen. And just the smell of it brought me back to my grandfather’s garden, when I was a kid. And that was a good pleasant memory. It was a fun time. It was a happy time. Things were good. But it brought me back there and I was like, keep chopping those things, Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:16    because that’s a good thing. That smell had a positive connotation associated with it, but there are things that smell, sounds, sites, things like that, that are definitely tied to those negative emotions; a firefight that you were in or especially a firefight that was traumatic where you lost somebody in that situation, that is tied to those memories as well. And when you start hearing sounds that remind you of that, it definitely could take you back. So, at this point you’ve realized there are some issues going on and you start going, it was at the VA that you went for this treatment. Is that correct? Ryan Britch:    00:09:01    Exactly. So Prolonged Exposure is actually like the perfect treatment for what you’re talking about now, those unwanted memories that are coming up from a traumatic experience that you’ve had, and there are a lot of triggers; smells, as you highlighted, sounds, are the other triggers and Prolonged Exposure is one of the two evidence-based trauma-focused psychotherapies that the VA offers in order to help Veterans identify it and fix the root cause of posttraumatic stress, which is those traumatic events.  I reached out to VA pretty much. And it was either the day or the day after that had happened. It took a couple months, you gotta do your intake, your assessment, and you gotta wait until there’s a therapist who’s available, unfortunately.  It was a huge staffing issue at that VA, but it’s there, it’s an issue that they’re very well aware of. Ryan Britch:    00:10:03    And we’ve got some legislation that we’re trying to fix that staffing issue, but I finally got set up with a mental health professional at the VA. I met with her, I think about twice a week, doing 90-minute sessions; I did that for about 16 weeks. Depending on your schedule, work or family obligations, they might ask you to come in once a week, might schedule you for a longer or shorter period of therapy. And your therapist will go over your specific goals, your specific experiences and topics that you’re going to cover over each session. That’s a much laid out process and you know what you’re going to be getting into. And my therapist even gave me homework to take home for Prolonged Exposure is definitely what I would classify as high risk, high reward. There’s a really high dropout rate because it’s hard. You have to deal with all these repressed memories that you’ve had from really traumatic experiences. Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:11    and what is the process like? I can tell based on our conversation, I know more about it, but for the people who might be listening in and are not familiar with what Prolonged Exposure therapy is all about, what does that process look like? Ryan Britch:    00:11:29    Yeah. There are two main aspects of Prolonged Exposure and the first is what they call Imaginal. This is like a repeated retelling of your traumatic memory or numerous traumatic memories, as most of us, combat vets have. So that’s the first person retelling of your trauma, to your psychotherapist. Each session you could retell that trauma, 10, 12, 15 times, and the focus is really spent on bringing the intimate details of these memories that you block out, memories like what type of footwear the dead insurgent had on, or what they looked like once when you saw them. So very intimate details. There were things that I had completely forgotten probably most that I had avoided or blocked out, but it was a really interesting experience, retelling the trauma that you experienced in such a detailed manner. It’s crazy the memories that you block out and what that feels like when you retell them and they come back to you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:53    Yeah. Your mind can do some crazy things too by suppressing some of these memories. And I don’t know, I’m not a doctor and just for a clarification for the people who are listening neither are you, and so, what you’re talking about here is from your own experience with this and your own personal background, not any medical or technical stuff that goes into this outside of your own experience. I don’t want listeners to think that you’re the subject matter expert on this, that you’ve created this therapy, or a form of therapy or anything like that. You’re talking from your experience, but your mind can certainly suppress lots of different things. And I don’t know if it’s for self-defense mechanism to protect you from too much exposure to this bad stuff, or whatever the case may be. Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:51    But it certainly can affect how your mind works and you can get five people who were exposed to the same situation and you’ll have five different ways that they tell you that the situation went down because their memories just played different tricks on them. It’s kind of crazy when you see all that happening, but then you go through something like this and some of those memories start coming back out. Ryan Britch:    00:14:27     I couldn’t agree more and that’s actually avoidance right there. That’s one of the five symptoms of post-traumatic stress. I think you’re right. It is a self-defense mechanism that our brains will block out those memories so that it is our unhealthy way of trying to move on. Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:47    Yeah. I’m sure it serves a purpose. If we were doctors with a little more knowledge of the situation or whatever that we knew what was going on with the brain, I’m sure there’s a purpose. Our brain is conditioned to protect us, to get us through a situation. You’re good friend just dies in front of you or something like that. Your brain has to do something to get you through that situation so that you don’t become the next casualty in that situation. So, the brain does some crazy things. And I learned about this with my wife. This was a little over two years ago now she started having some seizures, first time ever that she was having this. Scott DeLuzio:    00:15:40    and afterwards, after she got out of the hospital and everything, her brain just wasn’t connecting.  She was having trouble forming sentences and things like that. And just the way the brain works, and I know these are two separate things. One is a traumatic experience that you had versus a trauma to the brain itself. But when your brain goes through a trauma of any sort, it’s not going to come out on the other end functioning a hundred percent the same way that it was before. Ryan Britch:    00:16:16    Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think that’s one of the key aspects of a Prolonged Exposure is teaching your brain to gradually confront those situations rather than avoiding them. Because if you’re just going to block them out, they’re always going to be there unless you confront them and deal with them in a healthy way. That’s the only way that you’re going to move on from your trauma. Scott DeLuzio:    00:16:40    When you are going through this, you said, in some cases you’re being exposed to the thing that triggered this event that this trauma, many times over and over and over in the same 60, 90 minute sessions or whatever they are. How soon after you started going through this did you start noticing that these outside influences were not affecting you the same way that they did at that New Year’s Eve Party? Ryan Britch:    00:17:21    It was gradual, but it was very evident by the end of the six weeks. And sorry, I forgot to mention the other aspect of Prolonged Exposure, but that’s the in vivo experiences. So the first part of PE is doing the imaginable. So that’s retelling the traumatic memory, but then the in vivo exposure is when you gradually go out and confront, whether it’s the situations, the places, the things, that are reminders to you of that trauma that you experienced. And so for me, that was kids crying, balloons popping, fireworks, getting caught in traffic. So what they do is for homework, they’ll obviously start you out with a very low risk assignment. So you’ll go on YouTube and watch a video of kids crying for five to 10 minutes. Ryan Britch:    00:18:20    You do that for as long as it takes until you start to feel so stressed where you can’t do it anymore. The next week, you’ll probably bump that up to like 15 minutes and you keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. You might watch a YouTube video of balloons popping, and then maybe like the next week you go out and try to pop some balloons yourself, or watch some YouTube videos of fireworks and then go out on July 4th and then see them in person. And these were really intimidating things for me.  I couldn’t even be around my niece and my nephew growing up because when they cried or even when they played, it remind me of seeing dead and dying kids in Afghanistan. Ryan Britch:    00:19:09    It was such a weight off my chest going through this program. It was a life altering experience. I can go out on July 4th now. I used to have to either lock myself up in a basement or go camping in the middle of nowhere on July 4th, so I can get away from fireworks and not able to spend time with my family. So it’s a really amazing experience. You might be familiar with the cap scale. So, I believe it’s the clinician administered PTSD scale. So it’s how your mental health professional at VA will measure your PTSD. Before I started treatment, I was in the eighties. And so that’s severe for posttraumatic stress; by the end of the 16 weeks, it was down to single digits, that’s nearly undetectable. So for me, it was just a life changing experience and one I’m very thankful for. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:02    It sounds like, in your case anyways, it worked wonders, from going to where you had to lock yourself away on the 4th of July to being able to go out and experience it and the fireworks and all the other things. I’m sure that the same type of thing would happen for people who have trouble with being in crowds or other things like that, where they can solely and gradually work their way to getting more and more comfortable with being around other people being in crowds and in whatever. So, there’s lots of issues that come to mind when I’m thinking of how this type of a therapy and this exposure to these stressors would help. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:56    It seems to me, just hearing your story, that it will really work wonders for lots of people, but like you said, it’s not easy. It’s not a simple thing to do. And so we do need to be careful about this and do it under some sort of supervision with mental health professionals and not just have people go out on YouTube and start watching videos of balloons popping and guns being fired off and all this other stuff, because that might send them down the wrong path and we don’t want to do that. So definitely, go to the VA, check out other mental health options that are out there and work with them, work closely with somebody to do it the right way so that you’re not leading yourself down the wrong path and unnecessarily torturing yourself with that type of thing. Ryan Britch:    00:21:57    No, you’re spot on. I think you mentioned this earlier that it’s not a one size fits all approach. And so PE worked wonders for me, and it really changed my life. It might not work for everybody. Everybody has different traumas and different experiences and different things will work for them. So there are a variety of different treatments and therapies that are out there. If you want to go use an alternative therapy, all the power to you. In my experience, I really loved my VA psychologist. She was wonderful, very culturally competent. She knew everything there was about military and veteran culture. She’s been doing this for years, very trained and professional, and very thankful for the experience. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:38    Now, we also talked last week when we were on the phone, chatting with each other that you told me about how after getting back from Afghanistan, getting out of the Army, you felt like you needed a sense of purpose, and you had that little hole. And I think a lot of people who are recently separated from the military, they feel like they’re missing something, missing that sense of purpose. You ended up with the Peace Corps, which took you to Africa, took you all over the place. And so, take a step back and talk a little bit about what prompted you to get involved with the Peace Corps and what you ended up doing with that. Ryan Britch:    00:23:32    I’m coming home from Afghanistan. I joined for the GI bill, so I wanted to go to college. I applied to UVM, got in, I think the year after we got home, it was a pretty rough start and I had a lot of adjustment issues. I don’t think I slept for two years, 2.0 average. So I was getting straight Cs. It was a pretty rough experience. On a whim, I just started volunteering with this alternative education program called Youth Build, for high school dropouts, young adults who’ve had minor run ins with the law. What they do is they spend half their time in the classroom doing the basic reading, writing, and math skills they need for their high school diploma or GED. And then they spend their other half the time on construction sites getting a certificate. Ryan Britch:    00:24:23    I spent a year with these students mentoring them on construction sites, in the classroom, and then every other Friday we’d go on a volunteer service project. I think working with these students, I got to see that a lot of them were just dealt a bad hand, bad childhoods. A lot of them had posttraumatic stress too from having messed up parents and messed up childhoods and really bad experiences. I got to see the positive impacts of my relationships with these students. And I think volunteering with the organization really helped change my life around. I started sleeping, my stress disappeared, I brought my GPA up to a 4.0, and I think it was that experience that had re-instilled my sense of purpose and sense of belonging again. And one of the things that led me to the Peace Corps. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:13    I think you touched on a couple of points there that are worth mentioning. One is that sometimes when we hear PTSD and we just instantly think military people who were deployed in a combat zone and those are the only people who can have PTSD, and that’s not necessarily true. You can be in a car accident, you can grow up with abusive parents or you could have experienced all sorts of assaults, sexual assault, all types of things that go on could create PTSD. It is exactly in the name; it’s post-traumatic stress. And after a trauma of any sort, you can come up with this type of stress and so I think that’s important to point out too, so that we don’t have that stigma just attached to military service members, Veterans, and things like that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:26:13    The other thing too, that you’re talking about is that sense of purpose and how that helped reduce some of your stress and reduce the issues that you were having that you were working through and how volunteering for this organization helped you out to get through some of those issues. And I think that’s something that I think is not valued enough these days is the volunteer service. When you started volunteering, you didn’t necessarily, based on what you said anyways, I don’t think you were necessarily seeking out a way to reduce a stress. You were just doing it because it was a thing that you wanted to do, but as a result, it helped you with some of the issues that you were going through, your sleep and your stress and other issues. You ended up getting into the Peace Corps. What brought you specifically to the Peace Corps? Ryan Britch:    00:27:25    You hit it right on the head there. I was pretty naive to the idea of help yourself by helping others. And to be honest, my first six months, the organization was part of an internship for college credit. And I started out with me just wanting to get some work experience, and I really found out the benefits of volunteering and spending time with the students. With Peace Corps, I was looking to continue serving and wanted that sense of purpose. I had studied French in college and I was supposed to go to Cameroon, but in 2015, Boca Harambe was becoming active and they canceled the program in Cameroon and said, well, we have a spot open for you in Swazi land. Ryan Britch:    00:28:09    And I was like, well, even though I don’t even know where that is, but sure. The big issue in Swaziland is HIV and gender-based violence and the highest rate of HIV in the entire world, especially among young and pregnant women. There is a really unhealthy culture of rape and gender based violence there, and women are really encouraged to stay at home, to cook, to clean, and are very dependent on a man. And so there’s a huge culture of relying on McCombs sugar daddies. Often the men have multiple concurrent partners. There’s a lot of abuse going on, interesting power dynamics. And so HIV is just run rampant and very similar to youth builds, these kids didn’t have good mentors, unfortunately HIV, before PEPFAR, which was a program from George Bush, and the introduction of antiretroviral therapy. Ryan Britch:    00:29:09   A lot of the older generation died off in Swansiland by and from HIV and AIDS. A lot of these young kids didn’t have role models to look up to. And so I was working for a male mentoring project there called Glauca Envotsa, which just in the local dialect means to build a man, really awesome organization, taking young men, giving them a positive third space. So that’s a way from school and away from work where they can come and be themselves in a healthy environment away from any potential abuse that’s going on at home, being away from a drunk uncle, giving them a space where they can learn what it really means to be a man, how to interact with a significant other, taught them business skills, life skills, also really encouraged condom awareness and male circumcision, which reduces the transmission of HIV up to 40%. So, an amazing program. Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:14    That’s great. And you still found a way to serve, even after the military through this. And I think that’s great too. So, I applaud you for that. And I think the people who are coming out of the military finding a hard time, trying to get that sense of purpose and that meaning and still want to serve and give back to other people, this is another option that sometimes might get overlooked by some people. Ryan Britch:    00:30:48    It was an amazing experience. I spent two and a half years living in rural Africa and in a cinderblock shack. And sometimes it was pretty rough, not having water, electricity; I had to wash all my clothes by hand. So it was an interesting experience, but one memory I’m very thankful for. I met this African farmer, named Jacob and Jacob was actually the COO of this local company that ran sugar cane Safari retail operations throughout South Africa. And in Swazi land, Jacob was a former Colonel in the South African defense force during apartheid. He fought in an angle and Bush war. So we definitely bonded over being former soldiers turned farmers. So, he’s a pretty jolly guy. He’s got a big Santa Claus belly and a pretty ruddy complexion from spending so many years in the African sun. Ryan Britch:    00:31:46    And we built a really close friendship and South Africans, they love to host. And I honestly, I can’t quite describe the feeling of a hot shower, freshly brewed cup of coffee and in a proper meal after spending months in the Bush. He was a great host, but I remember, one night after polishing off a couple of bottles of red wine, Jacob asked me into his study, and there on his bookshelf where some pictures of him and his buddy on APCs in Angola. He spent a decade fighting there. He showed me some framed metals he had for Valor. And it was a really personal moment for him. And I don’t think he had many fellow Veterans to share that with, being a farmer in South Africa. I looked into his eyes and it was clear that he was in a lot of pain and he started to cry and we hugged and it made me think that Jacob’s war was 40 years ago, he was in Angola back in the eighties. Ryan Britch:    00:32:46    And I think then that’s when it clicked for me that the war is going to be with me for the rest of my life. But it’s not going to prevent me from achieving what I want up. He was able to get advanced degrees in business and soil science, and he married the love of his life. He has a beautiful family and yeah, the war might be with me for the rest of my life, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be able to have a long, happy and meaningful life. And I think I spent a lot of years trying to become that person I was before the war. I don’t think that you can ever really heal from the war. I mean, you’re not going to be the same person you were before. I think you got to come to terms with the person you’ve become now and try your damn best just to carry on and live a happy and long and meaningful life Scott DeLuzio:    00:33:37    Well said! I think that’s a hundred percent true. I would suspect that some of the issues that people are having are trying to get back to that person that they once were before the traumas of war took place. And they’re swimming upstream. It’s an uphill battle and it’s not an easy thing to do to get back there. In some cases it may not be possible nor should it be, I don’t think. We all have had experiences throughout our life, good and bad that shape who we are. And we just sort of have to accept the fact that this is who we are and try to make the best of it. Don’t get down on ourselves. Don’t blame people for what we are, what we’ve become, try to make the best of the situation, the hand that we’ve been dealt, if you will, the situation that we find ourselves in, make our future, brighter by learning and growing from these experiences. We don’t all learn from good experiences. Scott DeLuzio:    00:35:01    We learn from bad experiences too. We grow and we come better people because of it, depending on what we do with those lessons that we learned, or if we learn anything from them at all. You definitely did that. Ryan Britch:    00:35:21    Well, I think you’re describing post-traumatic growth, the idea that you can come out of a traumatic experience, and once the dust settles be a better person because of the suffering you went through. I think people, often they’ll be more spiritual, they’ll be more connected, the deeper meaning of life. They’re going to have a greater appreciation for life, and you’re not really going to sweat the small things. So I think that it is very possible to become a better person, a more developed person after traumatic experiences. Scott DeLuzio:    00:35:51    I think you just need to let that growth happen and instead of fighting to get back to who you were, you have to allow that growth to happen and see the positives from the situation. I lost a brother and that was a pretty traumatic experience to me. I’ve talked about this a little bit before on the podcast, but shortly after finding out that Steven had died, probably within a half hour or so, our unit started getting attacked from insurgents that were in the area. And I had a squad to lead. I had to go in and take care of that and make sure they had everything that they needed, that they were positioned where they needed to be all the things that a squad leader does. Scott DeLuzio:    00:36:43    I had to drop my emotional baggage on that Hill and leave it there and go take care of my guys, because I don’t know if I would have been able to forgive myself if I let my emotions overtake me and something happened to them because I wasn’t fully there. I very quickly had to move on from that negative emotion that I was having, not to say that I didn’t still have them, but I had to push through the cloud that was there hanging over me and see the situation for what it was. And I had to get clear on things real quick. Ryan Britch:    00:37:32    I’m sure it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Scott DeLuzio:    00:37:34    No, it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but that moment changed me forever. From the time that I found out that he was killed to the time that I got off that mountain, I remember details from that day, like they were yesterday. So we’re talking about how our mind and our memory do crazy things, one person going to have a traumatic experience and completely forget certain things of it. And then someone else who over 10 years later still has very vivid memories of that experience. It’s really crazy how the mind works. It’s an interesting thing, actually. So switching gears a bit, one of the other reasons I wanted to have you on the show was to talk about what you do with the Iraq and Afghan Afghanistan, Veterans of America. When we spoke last week, you told me about some of the legislation that you were working on getting pushed through and how people can get involved with the various legislation that is being proposed now and in the future. Could you tell us a little bit about all the things that you do and how people can get involved? Ryan Britch:    00:38:54    Yeah, so, 2015 we lost the mortar man in our platoon to suicide, Joshua Perlata; and good buddy of ours, Wes Black, diagnosed with very aggressive cancer. And I wanted to go down to DC and advocate on behalf of the men and women that I served with. I was really lucky to find this great job working for IAVA. So my official title is Government Affairs Associate. What I do is I research a variety of different issues that are affecting post 9/11 Veterans. We go up to the Hill and advocate for the healthcare and benefits that the post 9/11 Veterans need. So IAVA, we’re the largest post 9/11 Veterans service organization, we have 425,000 members across the country. We’re usually more of an online based organization, but we do have two in person advocacy events every year. Ryan Britch:    00:39:58    We call them our storm in the Hills. So every Spring and every Fall, we’ll bring in members from across the country, spend about a day, give them advocacy skills, then we’ll take them off to the Hill. They’ll meet with their elected officials and talk about the issues that are most relevant and the issues that they’re really passionate about. It’s always an amazing experience. I think it’s pretty powerful to be able to take a personal story that you have and go up to the Hill. Not many people can say that they’ve gone to lobby their congressmen or their Senator about an issue that is so important to them. So beyond the advocacy, IAVA, we also have a 24 hour resource referral and peer support line called Quick Reaction For Us. Ryan Britch:    00:40:43    If you’re a veteran in need of housing, you want to be connected to benefits, or if you’re just looking for a peer to talk to, it’s a great resource to reach out to. Everybody who works for the quick reaction force is a fellow veteran. All of them are certified counselors. They know exactly what you’re going through. So, if anybody is in need of talking to one of our QRF specialists, they can be reached at 855-917-2743 or 855-91RAPID. You can also check them out on our website as well. If you’re looking to talk to somebody later, it’s a great resource for Vets and definitely, I’m always there for you if you’re needing any assistance. Scott DeLuzio:    00:41:21    I will have a link to the IAVA website and also to the quick reaction force, some information about that. I’ll have links to that all in the show notes for this episode. I’ll also have it up on the veteran resource page that I have on the Drive On Podcast website, where you can go and check that out. So, if you are not sure about it and you don’t want to just pick up the phone and call, and you want to find out more information about it? There’s a link going to be there, that you can go and check that out and you can see if it’s the right thing for you as well as plenty of other resources that are out there. Scott DeLuzio:    00:42:02    So, ultimately I want to help get people in touch with the right resources. So, whether this is the right one for you or not is up for you to decide, but it’s definitely going to be an option that’s on our website with resources. You spoke about Wes Black earlier. I had him on the show last year. It was around this time last year, the time that we’re recording anyways, by the time this episode comes out, it’ll be a few months later. So, he served with you in Afghanistan and his message was really inspiring, talking about the burn pit exposure that he went through. So inspiring that I look back at some of the stats, the downloads and episodes and of the two episodes that I did with Wes last year, those are the two of the most listened to episodes that I’ve ever had on this show. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:03    So many people resonated with it, they really liked his message and how positive he was. He’s really a great guy and has a really great message. For anyone who wants to go back and listen to those episodes, those are Episodes 13 and 14. You can go back to look for those. You mentioned, Josh Perlata. I had his mom on the show a few weeks later. She talked about the issues that he was going through after getting home and how unfortunately he ultimately took his life. That was a hard episode to listen to; the struggles that not only he was going through, but also what she’s going through after losing her son in that manner. So really lots of traumatic things have come out of war. Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:07    A lot of times, we just think of war as the traumas that are involved with war as the combat, the shooting, the grenades, the missiles, the bombs, whatever, as those things are pretty traumatic because they’re high impact and they literally can blow up in your face in a moment’s notice, but there’s these slower, ticking time bombs, if you will, that also have a big impact and not just on the soldiers who are on the battlefield, but on their families and their communities and their friends and everything else. Wes with the cancer that he’s fighting, this is now 10 years later that he’s struggling with this and going through all of this and it’s a terrible experience to have to be going through. If you go back and listen to that episode, the positivity just is oozing out of this guy, it’s crazy to be given this kind of diagnosis, this cancer diagnosis that is not a good outcome expected for him. He’s still probably top 10 positive people that I’ve ever met in my life. Ryan Britch:    00:45:29    I’d say number one, Wes is a pretty rare guy. And I was speaking earlier about the band. I was exposed to an Alpha company and then how they were just men of a virtue. And it was very, very rare to meet somebody like Wes, his positivity is infectious. He will always be positive no matter, if we’re pinned down by the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, or if he’s battling Stage 4 colon, lymph node and lung cancer; he’s a really, really rare character. I’m very thankful that they he’s in my life. Scott DeLuzio:    00:46:07    Yeah, absolutely. I think everyone who he has met and interacted with is better off for knowing him. I know, after speaking with him last year on the podcast, some of the things that he was talking about, I just changed my perspective on things, changed my perspective on life. And I feel like I’m a better person for just having that two hour conversation with him that we broke out into a couple episodes here. Just getting the opportunity to speak with him was a blessing, and then the flip side to that is it almost is like two sides to a coin, where there are people who experienced the same deployment, same situations, a lot of them, obviously each individual has different experiences, but where two people can take two different paths. Someone like Wes is a fighter and is a positive, upbeat kind of guy. That’s just who he is. And that’s great. On the other hand, there’s someone else who wound up going down a much different darker road and you never really can tell what way people are going to go with that type of stuff. Ryan Britch:    00:47:34    I think that’s human nature. We all deal with things differently. And you also have to factor in your childhood experiences, what adverse things happen to you before you even joined the military. And also Veterans, aren’t a monolith. We all deal with things in a different way. And I think that kind of leads into our suicide prevention efforts. IAVA is championing one of our top priorities since we passed the Clay Hunt Act years ago. Every year IAVA does an annual survey where we poll our members on a variety of different issues. So everything from the GI bill, experiences using VA healthcare, the VA home loan, and we always ask about suicidal ideation, and it’s unfortunately a statistic that continues to grow year after year. Ryan Britch:    00:48:24    And I believe it’s 44% of our members report personally having suicidal ideation since leaving the military. And that’s a 13% increase in just the last six years. Shockingly two out of three of our members report personally, knowing a veteran that they served with, who has died by suicide. This is a statistic that continues to grow year after year. It’s very clear that we need a different approach. IAVA worked very closely with Senator Tester and Senator Moran on the Commander John Scott Hannon Act. Commander Hannon was a Navy seal who, after he got out, moved back home to Montana and was really active in Veterans mental health initiatives up there, and unfortunately lost his battle to suicide a few years ago. This legislation is named after him. Ryan Britch:    00:49:21    I guess the main provision of the legislation is that it would establish a community grant program, very similar to the VA housing initiative SSVF. So it supports services for Veterans and their families, a really powerful program, completely eliminated veteran homelessness.  VA calls it a functional zero. Veteran homelessness still exists, but it’s essentially very close to being eliminated. I’m sure you’ve heard this statistic that 20 Veterans suicide are Veterans die by suicide every year. I’m sorry, every day. And 14 of those Veterans aren’t even in VA care. We have to find a way to address those 14 out of the 29 that aren’t even getting VA care. So, this grant program would address the Veterans living in the local communities. These community based nonprofits who interact with these Veterans on a daily basis would be able to get them the services that they need if they don’t want to go to VA for whatever issue that they have. Ryan Britch:    00:50:27    It’s beyond just the community grants. So there’s additional funding for camp therapies. Those are alternative therapies like yoga, acupuncture, Reiki therapy, nutritional counseling, also some additional staffing plans that help fix the shortage of VA mental health professionals. I think if a clinic has a couple of psychologists, they’re going to be overworked and not providing the best possible care that our Veterans deserve. This legislation recently passed the Senate. The House Veteran’s Affairs committee just had a hearing on it yesterday. We’re pretty hopeful this legislation is going to be passing in this Congress before the end of the year. So, we’ll definitely keep you updated on the happenings. Scott DeLuzio:    00:51:15    Yeah. And this episode won’t be coming out for a few weeks. So we’re recording, it’s actually September 11th today when we’re recording this episode. It won’t be coming out until sometime closer to Thanksgiving time period. So, definitely keep me posted and I’ll put something in the show notes, if there’s any positive changes that come out from this. If they pass it in the House, that would be great. Obviously, we all know that the steps of all this, so there’s obviously one more step to go through to get the president’s signature on that bill to make it official, make it law. When all that happens, assuming it does, I don’t want to jinx it by saying anything here, but let me know, and I’ll update this episode of the show notes and everything to let people know that’s another thing that’s out there for them to be able to help out. Scott DeLuzio:    00:52:19    So, we covered quite a bit today. We talked about the Prolonged Exposure therapy; we talked about finding a sense of purpose through the Peace Corps, your role now with the Iraq and Afghanistan, Veterans of America, and a little bit of reminiscing on some old friends and things like that too. So we touched on quite a bit today and it’s been a pleasure having you on the show, speaking with you. I really appreciate you joining me, but before we wrap up, is there any place that people can go to find out more about how to get involved with some of these legislative initiatives that you guys have going on where. There’s a place that they can go to their senators or congressmen and things like that. Ryan Britch:    00:53:16    Yeah, Scott, that’s a great question. And we actually have a webpage you can reach@iva.orgtake action. I’d happily provide you with a link, so you can include it in your podcast notes so Veterans, their families, Veterans supporters can go to our website, access our take action page. We actually have, prewritten emails to your elected officials, whether that’s your congressmen or your Senator on a variety of different issues. So that’s our legislation on burn pits and airborne toxins, combating suicide, ensuring that women Veterans get the same health care that male Veterans do, education benefits, empowering Veterans who want to use medicinal cannabis. Scott DeLuzio:  I’ll definitely include that link in the in the podcast notes. Ryan Britch:  And definitely if you’re interested in getting involved with IVA legislation, definitely visit our website and you can take action. And these prewritten emails are a great resource and would love to have your support on all of our priorities. Scott DeLuzio:    00:54:24    Great. And again, all of these things that we talked about, I’m going to have links in the show notes, including, the different legislation that we talked about. I’ll try to have links to all that. So you can read up on it, educate yourself, see if that’s something that you want to get involved with and do more to help push these things through. I’ll put all that information in there. So, again, it really has been a pleasure speaking with you, Ryan, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your personal story. I know sometimes that’s not the easiest thing to do, but that’s certainly is beneficial to a lot of people. So I really do appreciate that. Thank you for everything that you do; really appreciate it. Ryan Britch:    00:55:13    Scott. It’s been a pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:16    Before we wrap this episode up. Ryan had shared with me after we stopped recording a story about my brother and his time in Ramadi during his first deployment. And the story was a really good story, and it tells a story of the harsh realities of war. And I wanted to share that with you. I know we wrapped up the episode already, but it was such a good story that I want to cut it in here at the end so that you can hear the story and some of the realities of the things that go on with the people who are on the ground, fighting the war. It’s a really good story. Like I said, hopefully you’ll take a second to listen to it. I’m not a long story, but it’s a really a good and powerful story. So hopefully you take a second to listen and get something out of it. Ryan Britch:    00:56:14    So, I forget when exactly it was during a deployment, I think early in the deployment. So probably like March, April timeframe. We were on our FOB in Afghanistan, and I think we were in the showers. I noticed that Steve had the face of a woman with a shroud tattoo on his shoulder. And I was curious, so I asked him about it and he told me the story.  When he was in Ramadi, and it was 2005, 2006, and he was driving his Humvee and there on patrol was this female civilian.  She just ran out in front of his vehicle, waving her arms at him, and she stopped them, stop their patrol and warned them about an IED roadside bomb that was buried up in the road ahead. And essentially the woman saved his life, probably the lives of everybody in his vehicle or the lives of everybody in a vehicle, in his patrol. Ryan Britch:    00:57:12    And, I think Steve and the entire platoon were pretty thankful for this woman warning them. And so they went back later that week and tragically, they found that the woman and her entire family beheaded. So he told me that was the reason behind the tattoo. He had her image permanently and memorialized on his back to highlight her sacrifice for life, for his, and probably one of the most profound stories I had ever heard from Steve. He just wanted to highlight, permanently what this woman, who didn’t even know him, wasn’t even his same religion or nationality, she gave up everything to save his life. Scott DeLuzio:    00:58:06    Not just her life, but it was from what I understand that the whole family, her whole family paid the price for it, her decision to save these people who she didn’t even know, and you’re right, it is a very powerful story. And it does tell some of the horrors of war and having that type of experience and seeing it, I can only imagine what it felt like to see that this family was slaughtered for helping these Americans. Uh, gosh. I don’t even know, it’s just a terrible situation. I really do appreciate you sharing that story. It’s a difficult story. I think it’s good for people to hear what goes on over there, because there’s the saying “War is Hell.” It really is not a fun, happy time. Ryan Britch:    00:59:24    Yeah. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have guys like Steve watching out for me. Our entire deployment, Steve watched very closely over me and the other guys. I’ll never forget in June, our platoon had just dismounted from our trucks and pretty close after dismounting, we heard the whips and the cracks of bullet’s flying by us and almost instinctively Steve had grabbed me and he pulled me behind cover to our M wrap. And you just look to me, and he said, “don’t you fucking move.” And he was always looking out for us. And I think the safety of his men was always more important than his own. And it’s rare to find leaders like that. Somebody will give everything for you. I’m very thankful for my short experience with Steve. Scott DeLuzio:    01:00:22    I think that comes from his years and years of playing hockey, where he was sort of the enforcer on the ice. He consistently had the most penalty minutes and he’d be the guy who knocked people off their feet and he was just there to make sure…he was a defenseman. He was making sure his goal was protected and his teammates were protected and things like that. He was a bruiser. He definitely could throw his weight around. I thought he was a huge guy, he wasn’t, he wasn’t the biggest guy out there, but he knew how to use his weight and knew how to throw it around. Ryan Britch:    01:01:09    It’s real. And I think I was probably 140 pounds soaking wet back then. Scott DeLuzio:    01:01:15    Yeah. Well, he did bulk up during that deployment and leading up to it. He definitely bulked up, but he wasn’t always that big. Being his big brother, I remember him as a little runt, so I can pick on them for that. Ryan Britch:    01:01:33    And I think that’s one of the reasons I looked up to Steve the most is because he was the skinny, young guy on his deployment to Iraq. I think I really looked up to him because he could empathize with me and where I was in the platoon. I was young, I had just turned 19. So a young, private first class and I think he looked out for me and stood up for me because he was in my shoes. And so it was really refreshing to have a leader like that. Scott DeLuzio:    01:02:08    He had that tough side where he could definitely be a bruiser and he could definitely throw his weight around and he could take care of people when he needed to. But he also had a, a lighter side to where he could make you laugh no matter how bad you were feeling. I just know from my experience. I know that that’s just how he was. It wasn’t just like a family thing where he just would do it with us, but he would do it with other friends and family and stuff like that. We’d be sitting around talking about something mundane and boring to him or whatever. And he would just completely fall on the floor and pretend like he passed out sleeping and he would just get everyone cracking up because he was like, I’m done with this conversation, I’m out. Scott DeLuzio:    01:02:57    And he would just fall on the floor. It didn’t matter, like a tile floor, hardwood, it didn’t matter what it was. It didn’t have to be like a soft padded carpet floor and he would just plop right down and everyone would just be cracking up because we knew Steve was done.  He didn’t want to talk about this stupid thing. Ryan Britch:  He was always pulling pranks and I think it was really refreshing. Ryan Britch:  And I don’t know if you ever read any Vonnegut, like Slaughterhouse 5 or Catch 22. So it’s like this dark humor I’ve really only found from those WWII American authors. I think it’s a pretty rare perspective to have after going through really traumatic experiences. So Vonnegut, he was an Army infantry guy, got captured, was a prisoner in Dresden when it got bombed.  So he used this black satire as a way to cope from the war. And I think that was something very helpful for our deployment. Steve was always there pulling pranks and cracking jokes, especially in the darkest moments. We could be on an LP getting snowed on and he’d be cracking jokes and smiling. And so I think sometimes that’s the best way to process something really awful is being able to find the humor in anything. Scott DeLuzio:  Yeah, for sure. He definitely had that great sense of humor and could really use it, and it would sometimes get annoying, but he definitely knew how to get to people, how to push their buttons and get them to laugh. Ryan Britch:  That’s what a younger brother is good for. Scott DeLuzio:  Yeah. Well, alright. Ryan Britch:   Scott, I really enjoyed this. Scott DeLuzio:  Yeah. I really appreciate you sharing that story as well as well as all the other stories that we talked about today. So, I really appreciate it. Scott DeLuzio:      01:04:56    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. Scott DeLuzio:    01:04:59    If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @driveonpodcast.

Feel like you’re experiencing burnout or just don’t have enough time in the day? This episode will give you tips and strategies to help avoid burnout in your life. Links & Resources A Better Place Consulting on Facebook A Better Place Consulting on Instagram Bunny Young on Instagram Bunny Young on YouTube Bunny Young on LinkedIn A Better Place Consulting Website Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there, click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out, if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. My guest is Bunny Young, who is an Army wife and founder of A Better Place Consulting, where she teaches burnout prevention strategies to military and law enforcement personnel. So welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Bunny Young:    00:01:03    Yeah, so I think you nailed it with Army wife. I’m a third generation, actually fourth generation Army wife, granddaughter daughter, and great-granddaughter. So, we have a Fort named after our family.  I’d say it’s definitely the Army in my blood.  I’ll be the first one to harass anybody who’s not Army. And the first one to stand up for anybody who messes with any of us.  I often tell people I hold the highest-ranking position in the United States military and that’s wife. I can speak to anyone in any certain manner and the repercussions will be pushups upon my spouse, not upon me. So I went to school to be a therapist. That’s when I got my master’s degree; I lived in China for about a year. I volunteered in Ecuador at an orphanage and just really through those experiences was exposed to a lot of trauma. Bunny Young:    00:02:05    And when you grow up in a military family, there are certain things that seem par for the course for you. And when you’re asked to give a sit rep, it’s like just the basics. It’s no feelings, no emotion. The worst thing my father ever told me was that he was disappointed in me and that’s just because of the trust and respect that was built. But my entire childhood was definitely built on these core values and service to a purpose higher than yourself. And I have a heart condition. So, I know everybody’s going to give me a hard time about this in my family, but the Air Force turned me down because of my heart condition. I’ll have I scored really high on my ASFAB and so the way that we figure it out is if you’re brilliant, you can go Air Force or Chair Force, as we like to call it. If you’re brilliant and strong, then you can go Army. If you’re not brilliant, but strong, you got Marines. If you’re not brilliant, not strong and you can swim, it’s Coast Guard. And if you’re not brilliant, not strong and you can’t swim. It’s the Navy. Scott DeLuzio:    00:03:16    That’s an interesting hierarchy there. I like that. Bunny Young:    00:03:19    That’s how the recruiters figure it out. That really brought me to this aspect of an organizational psychology approach, where a lot of people were burning out because of their professional demands and then having marital or familial issues because of the stress of their professional demands, whether it be first responders or military, or just a job in corporate America and also being able to tie the purpose.  I don’t know a corporate situation that puts you through the brainwashing that the military does in order to say, the life that you had prior to when you step foot off of that school bus with your rucksack and everything is over, we own you now. And here’s your new definition, here’s your new identity, here’s your new call to life. And I think that’s also something that a lot of families struggle with because as a spouse, you’re supposed to be the most important thing to your loved one. And as coming into this, I understood that it was going to be the Army before me and the Army before our children. And it all changes in a matter of a moment. So, just the two people that laugh when I make plans are God and the Army. That’s really my background and kind of the approach that I took was how can we bring basic training and the thought process around core values, purpose, mission, vision, and your abilities and your MOS into a work-life alignment. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:07    So, how do you do that? What does that process look like where you bring these values together and work towards the goal of ultimately reducing the amount of burnout and the overall stress and creating a better wellbeing for these individuals. Bunny Young:    00:05:29    So, if you go past six years in the military, PSY OPs is going to show you that if I asked you what your core values are, they’re going to be the military branch that you serve, core values, you have fully adopted that identity, which makes transition back to civilian life very difficult. It’s very difficult to find a company that stands at that high level of core values. And so from a civilian side, we help individuals identify what their core values are. What’s going to make them feel fulfilled in life. And from the military side, being able to hear the only time that I really feel fulfilled is when I’m flat on my belly, looking through a scope and how do we apply that to the civilian side to say, basically that’s a career in law enforcement or special ops within law enforcement and first responders, or as a trainer, but even that sometimes doesn’t fulfill you. Bunny Young:    00:06:33    And so it’s that constant analysis and self-awareness and that’s really something that is difficult when you’re transitioning out of the military is that self-awareness. Nobody asks you what you think. And so, to be able to say, how do you feel about this, is very difficult and in the civilian life, believe it or not, we’re not asked what we want to be when we grow up anymore. We’re not asked what we think. You’re given this onboarding procedure that is like drinking out of a fire hose to say, here’s all the boundaries. And here’s all the things that are important to our company, but nobody says what’s really important to you and that’s supposed to be what your therapist deals with. And so, when we infiltrate companies, we say, no, you’re a human and we have to address the human aspect of it. Bunny Young:    00:07:25    And even from the military aspect of it, we’re doing more proactive planning. So, to hopefully decrease the amount of military and veteran suicide and to combat post traumatic stress, because that’s really where you’re supposed to be fine. Well, on the therapeutic world fine stands for F’d up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. And we’ve found even from the structure of support groups sometimes where you’re coming in and it’s like, well, I had this blow up next to me and I was shot 15 times. And then you’ve got somebody who just suffered the trauma of just watching somebody die. And it’s like, your broken arm doesn’t necessarily hurt any less than my splinter, but the structure of the current support groups or the support groups of the past can feel a little bit like I want to use an inappropriate word, but like a pissing match. Bunny Young:    00:08:25    That’s not what we want. We want to create an environment where it feels open and we can share, and we’re not retraumatized by sharing and not feeling like our feelings are valid.  My husband and I had this conversation the other day because I was in a car accident last year and I have posttraumatic stress around driving. I had post traumatic stress from a sexual assault prior to that. And my neural pathways didn’t differentiate those two things. They just process them together as if in the car accident somehow I was retraumatized and our daughter was just messing with me and I walked out of her room and she jumped on my back and I immediately had a reaction that most of you probably can empathize with of I got her off of me and was not in my body at that moment. Bunny Young:    00:09:22    And so I had to sit down and have a conversation with my husband and he’s comparing that I was just in an accident. I know people who are blown up but my body and my brain don’t know that. And so how do we approach it from the human perspective and identify that each human is different. And regardless of the fact that we’re all going to have the same uniform, we’re all going to have the same haircut. We’re all going to have the same credos; we are different humans. And how do we process that? Scott DeLuzio:    00:09:49    Right. And so, I appreciate you sharing the story of your experience and how different situations can create some sort of post-traumatic stress in different individuals where one person may have had post-traumatic stress from watching someone blow up or themselves getting injured, or even in your case, a car accident or a sexual assault or something along those lines, those all are traumatic events. And if you were to take any one of those and look at them in and of themselves, they’re all traumatic. It makes sense that there would be some sort of post-traumatic stress that happens during those. And so, just because you weren’t blown up in that car accident, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t deserving of, I don’t want to say recognition because that’s not the right word, but the treatment that comes with the posttraumatic stress. Maybe it comes from some sort of counseling or therapy or whatever the case may be but you’re just as deserving for something like that as someone else who was in combat and saw atrocious things happening as well. Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:14    It makes that that type of thing happens. I appreciate that you shared the differences between the different levels that people might think of, but they’re not really different levels; they are really one in the same. Bunny Young:    00:11:31    Yeah. And one of my favorite therapeutic sayings is, I have not walked in your shoes, but I’m willing to sit here and listen to you helping me understand what that felt like. And sometimes that’s just a magical space. And for Army families that are listening to this and military families that are listening to this, there is something called compassion fatigue, or secondary trauma, where no, you were not there, you were not deployed with your loved one, but you are experiencing secondary trauma from watching your loved one go through the struggle of this trauma. And so those are both very real things and whatever route you feel necessary in order to get support, my encouragement would be to get support. It doesn’t make you weak. In fact, I think for the most part I’ve experienced, it takes more courage and bravery to sit down and say, I’ve got stuff going on, then it does to say, I’m fine. Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:33    For sure it does. Yeah. The easiest thing you can do is just ignore things and keep doing what you’ve always been doing, but it’s not always the right thing. And sometimes it’s hard to admit that you have a problem with some post-traumatic stress or whatever your individual case may be and to go get that type of help that you need. It’s not the most comfortable thing to do.  I will say from my own personal experience, once when you do pick up the phone and make that appointment, and you actually verbalize saying that whatever the problem is, it does feel like a weight’s being lifted off your shoulders. It did in my case anyways, where I picked up the phone, I called and I immediately felt like I’m no longer carrying this weight by myself. Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:26    I now have somebody else who’s going to be there. I haven’t necessarily met with the person yet, but I have that person who’s going to be there. Who’s going to help me carry some of it and figure out what to do with it too, so it’s not constantly sitting on my shoulders. So, that’s another analogy that people can make as well, whether or not they are in the midst of trying to decide whether or not they want to go to therapy or whatever treatment type thing that they need. It could actually be very beneficial. We’re here really talking about burnout and how you help people with the strategies that they can use to prevent burnout. Before we started recording, I was looking at your bio and you have quite a lot going on between running four companies currently, I think is what your bio was saying. If you run four companies and you’re also a mother with two kids and an Army wife, and I have to imagine there’s probably other things going on, but I also imagine that at some point you felt burnt out yourself. Have you ever dealt with the burnout and how did that look? Bunny Young:    00:14:45    Oh, I would say dozens of times I think I have a PhD in burnout just from experience. We did an analogy of how many tours of burnout I’ve had. It would be a lot; so, I think a lot of that goes to not being able to differentiate what my emotions are versus what I’m experiencing from others. And as a therapist, it was very difficult for me, especially in social services to separate my emotions from that of my clients. I cared too much and that some people will be like, that’s not possible. Well, when it negatively impacts your health, your wellbeing and your ability to function. Yes, it is possible. And so, there’s five stages of burnout and the first one’s that honeymoon stage. And so, if we want to take it through a military analogy you’re going to be deployed to Kosovo, right? Bunny Young:    00:15:46    And so there’s that initial dump of adrenaline. It’s like, yeah, we’re going to go do this, and it’s your body’s natural reaction to be like, yes, this is going to be hard. This is going to be stressful, but I’m doing this with my brothers and sisters. And let’s go do this. And then we get into the stress phase of burnout, and then we get into the chronic stress phase, and then we get into actual burnout. And so this is where you start to see the disengagement. And this is where you start to see more of the agitation and more of the person’s not who they once were. And then you get into the habitual burnout, which is not a place that you can never return from, but it’s a place that ends up having possibly permanent impact on your mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing, and a person who is in habitual burnout, is not fulfilling their potential in a way that is prioritizing their own health. Bunny Young:    00:16:58    And so, I often tell people when you think about burnout; you think, Oh, it’s the worst thing in the world? Well, burnout is something that we all experienced at certain periods of time, I’m sure after watching Princess Bride for the 15th time with my daughter, I’m a little burned out of it. Like that’s okay. And just to be over it.  But if I’m sitting there and start to just not even have those associations or feelings or responses, and I’m not even engaged with the movie anymore, I’m not even engaged with her and I’m not laughing. I’m not experiencing the emotions. And after the movie’s done, I’m just kind of a shell of myself. And all of my reactions are pretty extreme. Like it’s either zero reaction or extreme. That’s a sign of habitual burnout, and you can see that with multiple tours and multiple deployments in quick and rapid succession. Bunny Young:    00:18:00    Then you can also see it in individuals that have been at a job that they don’t feel fulfills their calling and fulfills their purpose. And they end up applying themselves initially with that excitement and honeymoon phase of, Oh, this is going to be such a well-paying job. And then very quickly years, if not sooner down the road, they’re in habitual burnout. And it doesn’t always have to go in that order. I mean, this is an order that some therapists somewhere put together and said, here are the phases of burnout, but you could easily jump into habitual burnout, and then find some kind of vacation and get back into just chronic stress. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:48    So, you can jump between these stages, but these are the different degrees of burnout that you might be experiencing. And the honeymoon stage that you’re talking about that first stage actually sounds pretty fun to a lot of people. This is like, yeah, it’s going to suck, but I’m going to enjoy it. It’s almost like the basic training. If you’re looking forward to going to that, it’s like, it’s going to suck, there’s going to be people screaming in your face or you’re going to be tired and dirty and all this stuff, but when you’re going through that, it sucks, but you can look back on it later and be proud of the thing that you accomplished, whatever it is. I use basic training as an example, but there’s plenty of other things that suck. There’s “embrace the suck” mindset. Bunny Young:    00:19:39    There you go. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:41    And it’s perfect. It’s a perfect analogy. That’s for the honeymoon stage. I can definitely see how people slip into these other stages that I wrote down here, and especially with the disengagement that you’re talking about when you get to that burnout stage, that is definitely a thing that people deal with. So, how do you balance these things? Everybody has a lot of things going on in their life. They oftentimes don’t feel like they have enough time to do all of the things, whether it’s their job or their family or other things in between that they don’t have time for all of this stuff. How do you balance all of these things so that you can avoid burning out? Bunny Young:    00:20:30    So I don’t balance anything. I align it. I think balance is BS because if you think about a Teeter Totter, somebody down somebody up, I’ve never been on a Teeter totter where we’ve been able to perfectly balance it. And me being six foot three, I’m normally the one who is sitting on their butt on the bottom as the person is teetering high up in the air. So, I like to think about alignment when you wake up. Your first priority is always to yourself, even as a soldier as you know, a military service individual, your first priority is to yourself. You cannot be the best that you can be without being the best mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And so, we’re bringing a lot more meditation ironically enough, starting with the Marines on the meditation and being able to have that self- awareness and self- awareness is different than thinking for yourself. Bunny Young:    00:21:35    And because we would never ask a Marine to think for themselves, but it’s an awareness of what’s going on. I know the comments you’re going to get on this podcast, and I just can’t wait for it, especially from my own Marine friends; they know I love them. So, being able to be aware of your physiological reactions to stress and to emotions and how you wake up in the morning, and then also what you’re saying to yourself. So that moves into self-management. So, you go self-awareness and self-management, and then after you have those abilities, and you’ve taught that to everybody on your team or your unit, then you go into team awareness and team management. And this is where I can look at my battle buddy and know when there’s disengagement, when there’s habitual burnout and when I know that they’re not going to be the best for that day. Bunny Young:    00:22:36    And then I need them to get their shit straight so that we can move on. And so we have this culture of suck it up and we’re changing that, and that is being changed because there’s only so many times that you can suck it up. And so being able to move through that self-awareness, self-management team awareness, team management. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing that I’m going to do is make sure that I’m doing a meditation. I have a journal; I’m doing some fitness. I try to fill all four parts of the self, which are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, and whatever spiritual means to you, even if it’s just, this is my rifle, there are many like them, and this is the only one, this one’s mine, that’s spiritual for some people. Bunny Young:    00:23:32    For others, it may be prayer. And so that’s the four parts of the self, and that’s really to make sure that those are in alignment and then the rest of your day align it around through that focus. What gets you through the day? I’d imagine, because I have not been there in anyone’s boots on the battlefield, but what gets you through the day and pulling that trigger are your battle buddies. And in knowing that ultimately, you’re fulfilling a higher purpose and that’s what gets you through all the rest of the tough crap. And so if you can align your day on, I’m going to get through the tough stuff and not say that my whole day is going to go to crap because I had this bad experience, but that I’m still here and I’m going to go home and today’s going to be a better day. Bunny Young:    00:24:20    We have this amazing capacity to change our minds and our attitudes in the blink of an eye. And so you choose what you’re going, what your perspective is going to be. And that is how you can wake up and say, today’s going to suck. I need a cough drop and I need some tissues because I’m not feeling well. No one’s going to bring you cough drops and tissues in the sandbox, it’s not going to happen. So what are you going to tell yourself so that your day can get better from there? Scott DeLuzio:    00:24:54    There’s something I heard a little while ago, to kind of put what you were saying into some sort of perspective about not letting your day just go to shit because something bad happened. If someone wants to give you $86,400, and I know that’s an oddly specific number, but bear with me. If someone gave you $86,400 today, I’d imagine you’d be very happy with receiving all of this. So you’d be very happy, but then all of a sudden someone came around and stole a hundred dollars from you. Would you throw away the rest of the $86,300 to go chase after that hundred dollars? No, you wouldn’t. That wouldn’t make sense because you’re leaving a whole lot on the table to go chase after that hundred dollars, but we all have 86,400 seconds in a day. And if someone stole a hundred seconds of happiness from you in that day, would you throw away the rest of the day? Just because someone decided to take away a couple minutes of happiness from you? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And so, to what you were saying about how you can’t just throw all that away, while you’re going through your day. Bunny Young:    00:26:19    Remember that the six inches between your ears is precious real estate, and don’t let somebody live rent free in your head. Also, when somebody says something to you that pisses you off, chances are the meanest voice that you have ever heard on the face of this planet comes from that voice in the back of your head. And so, take stock in and why what they said pissed you off, and either agree that they don’t need to be a part of your life or deal with the trigger that just happened in the back of your head. Scott DeLuzio:    00:26:52    Yeah, absolutely. And how could people deal with some of those triggers that come up? Bunny Young:    00:26:59    I mean, for me, sometimes it’s so funny. I have a variety of exercises for this, but sometimes I tell people to imagine that the voice in the back of your head is just that shitty roommate. And you just tell them to go to the room, shut the door, and you don’t want to talk to them anymore. And it’s a funny analogy, but at the same time, that’s fine. For Harry Potter fans, I often think about the Albus Dumbledore scene where he takes this memory or whatever, and he pulls his wand and pulls it out of his brain and throws it away. And I’ve literally done this at a stoplight and the guy next to me looks to see where the litter was that landed out of that. And so, what I say to the person is, thank you for that feedback. Bunny Young:    00:27:49    I’m going to need some time to process that, or I don’t necessarily agree with what you said, but I respect your ability to have that opinion. And we went through this with the Kaepernick situation. I was hot. We have a thing in our household that says, we interrupt this marriage to bring you football season. I am the football fanatic. My husband, not, he doesn’t really care. So, my husband and my dad are over and it’s Sunday afternoon and I watched this go down and I am just fricking hot. And my husband and my dad just looked at me and they’re like, Nope, that’s why we do this so that he has the ability to take a knee. If he wants to, it’s his freedom. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, that’s human perspective. Little did I know, come to find out that he actually went to a veteran and said, “I want to make the stand, but I want to do it in the most respectful way possible.” Bunny Young:    00:28:48    And I don’t think sitting on the bench is, and he actually received that feedback that taking a knee would be the most respectful way to bring awareness to that. So, just when somebody says something and you want to react, it’s okay to react, but don’t react with emotion, react with information. I needed more information in that moment rather than just getting totally hot. First off, I’m sitting there ready to go to blows because it’s my family that you’re disrespecting. And my family has a completely different perspective than I do. Secondly, I didn’t know this person’s story who is doing this. I knew why he was doing this, but it wasn’t his intention to disrespect our flag or disrespect our country. And so, I think that there’s in this world, it’s a really incredible time to be able to just say, what did you mean by that? Scott DeLuzio:    00:29:46    Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, especially these days, it needs to happen more often because people are very quick to jump to conclusions on all sorts of issues, whether it’s political or social issues that are going on, people just jump to conclusions. They assume that the other people have the worst of intentions and they don’t. I have to imagine that most people are probably pretty good people. There are definitely some people out there who have bad intentions, and they actually want to see the world burn, but I don’t think that that’s the vast majority of people. Bunny Young:    00:30:22    Well, and with burnout, to your point, as far as the hundred dollars, how much money did I just burn and how many seconds did I burn going to coaching Kaepernick, first off, he definitely didn’t hear me; none of my teams have ever heard me, but I’m the best coach in the world. That’s the thing, check your emotions and how much you’re dumping into that, because that can significantly save you time and energy in the burnout space. Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:55    Exactly. Yeah. Because you end up losing more than that in that analogy, you ended up losing more than that hundred dollars, because someone stole that hundred dollars from you, but you ended up losing 200, 300, 400, 500 as you’re chasing it down and trying to, like in your case, yelling at the television about whatever was going on, you ended up losing more than whatever was initially lost, instead of the flip side to that is, Hey, I don’t really agree with that. That sucks, whatever the thing is and just let it go. Bunny Young:    00:31:35    And what are you modeling for your children and how many seconds are you stealing from other people? Because how many of us leave work pissed off and come home and take it out on the closest things to us. So, my husband calls me on it all the time because I’ll come home and have a shit day. I’m in a crappy mood, but then here’s the service dog behind me. I crawl in bed and just cuddle with him. He’s the best thing since sliced bread. My husband’s like, why does he get that treatment when you have a crap day? But I’m having to deal with everything else. And I’m like, well, you know, I don’t know, he’s cuter. So, just think about that from a real estate perspective, from your own brain and then how it impacts those around you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:26    So some of the things that you were talking about earlier, the morning routine, maybe the meditation, the journaling, the spiritual, whether it’s praying or whatever the case may be; all those things are good ways to start the day. What about for somebody who already feels like they don’t have enough time in the day and it feels like that’s just adding more things onto their plate and that might sound a little cumbersome to them. What would you say to people who feel like they don’t have enough time in the day for really anything? Bunny Young:    00:33:04    So what are you going to say no to? Your calendar is yours. There’s a magical white space on your calendar sometime in the next few weeks or months or whenever it is. And so, if that’s where you start by planning to wake up at 5:00 AM, New Year’s resolutions, it doesn’t matter. You can start tomorrow. So, when I was diagnosed with my heart condition, if you knew that your time on earth was limited, what would you stop doing? And stop wasting time on right now? And I guarantee you, if you’re like me, Facebook would be the first thing to go. If you have a digital wellbeing app on your phone, how much time you waste on social media and email and all that kind of stuff, I check my email once a day, once every couple days; you emailed me, there’s an autoresponder that just says good luck and Godspeed, Bunny Young:    00:34:06    if you’re going to get a response to this. And so, it’s like email doesn’t make me happy. Facebook really doesn’t make me happy. And so what are you going to stop doing? You have the same amount of time as Elon Musk, Dwight Eisenhower, any of these individuals that, yes, I’m an Ike fan. Go ahead and leave your comments on that too, but he’s a better golfer than you. So, that’s the thing I had a friend of mine, my company sent me journals and different kinds of professional and personal development products to try out. And ironically enough, I had this journal that was sent to me and then a lawyer friend of mine was like, you need to start using this journal. And I had the same response of, when would you like me to start taking the time to write down my thoughts and put little, pretty hearts next to it. Bunny Young:    00:35:01    This is not middle school, I’m an adult. I’m not doing this. The key thing about the journal is that every morning and every night there’s gratitude. So, every morning and every night I’m starting and stopping my day with what I’m grateful for, huge mindset shift and in today’s targets, there’s only three instead of a to do list that’s a mile long. And so, I think that asking yourself what you’re willing to stop doing in order to prioritize what you want to be doing and what you want to be left with that legacy. You know, they talk about the dash on your tombstone. So do you want that dash to be that you pull 8,020 hour weeks? Or do you want that dash to be that you never miss a softball game or baseball game that you’re staying frozen too. Bunny Young:    00:35:55    This is me personally at the top of my lungs to my kids last night. I’m so glad that you weren’t there to record this. Those are the things that, what was I actually doing at night that prevented me from doing that watching, I don’t know what we were watching, drunk history, I think is what we were watching. It’s hilarious by the way, if you ever want to waste some time on your life, but like at the same time, drunk history versus my kids stop telling yourself that you don’t have time for it because you do have time for it. You have the same amount of time as the rest of us. And remember that you may have some more time than other people around you. And so it’s not so much about making time. It’s about making an impact. Scott DeLuzio:    00:36:39    That’s a great way to put it. When you’re talking about people who are working 80 hour weeks, or long hours and they’re just slightly slaving away in killing themselves, basically just through this work; they don’t wind up any happier, they maybe have a bigger paycheck than you or I or somebody else and that’s fine. That’s nice. I might be able to buy a fancy house and fancy cars and clothes and all this other stuff, but when do they get a chance to enjoy any of that stuff and actually sit down and relax and just be present in that moment. And so, that doesn’t necessarily contribute to their happiness. They may feel like it’s going to, but it doesn’t always. Scott DeLuzio:    00:37:36    So some people have their happiness strictly tied to money and more power to them, but not in the military. They probably don’t have a family of their own or not a great family life to begin with. And so, where they’re not focused on building their relationship and spending time with their kids, singing songs from frozen or whatever the case may be, they’re not there present in that moment. So, I love how you put that, that was really well put. Bunny Young:    00:38:17    Quick trick is, I guess now it’s your OCP is slide journal, and when you’re sitting there waiting, because you never sitting around and waiting in the Army, right? Just write notes to yourself, to your kids, to your family, get the stuff that’s in between your ears out on a piece of paper. The other thing is switch your cell phone, the black and white mode. It makes it less attractive. And it’s a huge psychological shift when you open your phone and it’s in black and white, and it reminds you that you’re trying to break up with that relationship and that codependency on your phone. It’s very easy to make phone calls in black and white, because remember we used to do it when cell phones first came out and all the way back when we had landlines and rotary phones and all that kind of stuff, but switching your smartphone and turning it into a dumb phone by making it black and white and shutting off the mobile data, you can still make phone calls and texts. And then what else do you really need to be doing in that moment? What else could you be doing that would be making an impact instead of just wasting time? Scott DeLuzio:    00:39:30    Yeah, that actually hits on a point that I’ve been toying with, the idea for myself of ditching my smartphone and just going back to an old dumb phone that flip phone, you can make phone calls. And if you needed to text someone, you sat there and tapped the numbers 27 times to get through the letters and everything like that. That would really reduce the amount of screen time that I have in my day. I haven’t pulled the trigger on that yet and made the switch, but it’s been something that I’ve been considering for a little while now. But you’re right. We do spend too much time doing things that don’t matter, Facebook, games on your cell phone, Angry birds, whatever people are playing on their phones; it’s stuff that just doesn’t matter. Scott DeLuzio:    00:40:23    And so when you do that, it takes up time and time is a valuable resource and once when it’s gone, you can’t get it back; and so when you find how much time you’re actually spending doing these things on these screens and devices, you’re absolutely right. I don’t it could hurt to reduce the amount of time that you’re spending on these things. So, is there anything else that you had that you wanted to talk about? I do want to give people a chance to find out more about where they can get in touch with you and things like that, but, was there anything else that you had that you wanted to cover before we wrap up? Bunny Young:    00:41:08    You know, as we’re recording this for five or six months into COVID and this pandemic, and also a lot of civil unrest. And so, we put together the team, and I put together this e-book called “How to Stay Sane During Insane Times.” The one thing I want you to know about that book is that it’s free and it’s an eBook. You download it; it has video content in it from my life. And it’s there to try to help you cope with whatever it is that you’re going through. And I know that this is not going to be the last insane time that we have. And so, being able to offer you that resource is an honor and a pleasure to be able to do that. And I hope that thousands, hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of it, because sometimes when you feel like you’re in the foxhole and you feel like you’re totally alone, if somebody just handed you a shovel, you can either stop digging, or you can figure out how to get your way out. And so, if that eBook is not your resource, find your resource, Scott DeLuzio:    00:42:19    And this episode is scheduled right now anyways, to be coming out a couple of weeks after the election in the U.S. So, hopefully the eBook is not needed in response to that election, but you never know, these are crazy times 2020 has been crazy. And you never know. So, anyways, thank you again, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Could you share where people can go to get in touch with you, find out more about what you do, maybe a website or things like that? Bunny Young:    00:42:52    So, A Better Place in Consulting.com or BunnyYoung.com. Will both take you straight to that eBook. And you can hear Guinness dreaming in the background. If you want to connect on Instagram, it’s @ bunnyhassixlegs because I have a service dog. I’ll also make sure that I give you all the links for the social, for those that are driving while they’re listening to this and just want to be able to get it afterwards. But, if you message me, if you comment on something that’s on social media, I’ll be there for you. I have no problem making sure that I’m that person that you can rely on. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:34    I will have links to all of this your website, social media, where to find the eBook, and everything else that you do. I have all that linked up in the show notes. So, everyone can find that, please don’t crash while you’re driving trying to write this stuff down. It’ll all be there for you later. So, thank you again very much. It’s been a pleasure and I really do appreciate the information that you had to share with us today. Bunny Young:    00:44:04    Thank you so much for having me. Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:11    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, Drive On Podcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Drive On Podcast.

This episode is all about Veterans Day. In the COVID era, many schools are cancelling their traditional Veterans Day assemblies, so I thought I’d put together a little something that parents and teachers could use. In this episode: History of Veterans Day How we celebrate Veterans Day Difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day Why we celebrate Veterans Day on November 11th Ideas for celebrating Veterans Day Links & Resources Anthem Veterans Memorial Arlington National Cemetery Celebrate Veterans Day with Your Children Military Themed Pumpkin Carving Stencils Transcript This past Memorial Day I did an episode that talked about what Memorial Day was all about, and probably more importantly what it isn’t about. Considering tomorrow, as of the date that this episode will be released, is Veterans Day, I figured I would do a similar episode today. With all of the kids who are doing some sort of remote learning, homeschooling, or some other variation on what we might consider a normal education experience, I thought an episode like this might be good for all those teachers and parents who may not be able to do a Veterans Day assembly like they had done in previous years, and also for those who just want to know more about Veterans Day. Veterans Day is observed on November 11th each year in the United States. It is a day where we pause to give thanks to everyone who served in the United States military and celebrate the  sacrifices they have made for us, and the freedom they fought for. Originally, Veterans Day was known as Armistice Day. Armistice Day was created to celebrate the end of the fighting in World War One. The fighting in that war ended at 11 o’clock on November 11, 1918. In other words, the fighting ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month. Across Europe, the day is still known as Armistice Day, and it’s known as Remembrance Day in Canada. They’re different names for essentially the same thing. So, you might be wondering, if Armistice Day was created to celebrate the end of World War One, why is it now called Veterans Day, since Veterans have fought in other wars. Armistice Day became a legal holiday in 1938 20 years after the fighting ended. That’s the speed of the Federal Government for you. A few years later the United States entered World War Two. That war was even more significant in terms of the number of deaths and wounded American troops. World War One had about 117,000 deaths while World War Two had about 405,000 deaths. World War One had about 204,000 wounded, while World War Two had about 671,000 wounded. There was a movement that started in 1945 by a World War Two veteran named Raymond Weeks to expand Armistice Day to celebrate all veterans, which started to gain momentum. Eventually in 1954 Congress amended the name of the day to Veterans Day so that the day could recognize veterans from all eras, past, present, and future. Again, the Federal Government is amazingly efficient when it comes to these sorts of things, aren’t they? This time it was only 9 years after that movement started, so it’s progress I suppose. In 1968 a Uniform Monday Holiday act was put into effect, which made three-day weekends for federal employees on several holidays including Washington’s birthday in February, Memorial Day in May, Labor Day in September, as well as Veterans Day and Columbus Day in October. Yes, both Veterans Day and Columbus Day were celebrated in October. Each of those holidays were to be celebrated on a Monday, which in effect would create a three-day weekend for federal employees and anyone who followed the federal holiday guidelines. The reason for this was to encourage people to travel on their long weekends rather than just getting a random day off in the middle of the week. It actually sort of makes sense, because when people have an extra day off on the weekend they’ll be more likely to take a weekend trip somewhere, which encourages them to spend money on touristy stuff, hotels, entertainment, restaurants, and things like that. So Veterans Day observations were moved to the fourth Monday in October starting in 1968. So why do we celebrate it on November 11th now? The reason why is because it was such an unpopular change to the holiday that Congress moved Veterans Day back to November 11th starting in 1978. November 11th, afterall was the date that fighting ended in World War One, so by moving the holiday, it lost some of its historical significance. Moving the holiday back to the 11th continued to recognize veterans as well as the historical significance of the day. Really, the day has two purposes. One to serve as the anniversary of the end of the fighting in World War One, and the second is to celebrate veterans for their service. Now, while I’m on the topic of the purpose of the holiday, I want to bring up something that I talked about in the Memorial Day episode I did a few months back. I want to reiterate this point again in case you missed that episode. There are several military holidays throughout the year, which honor different groups of people connected to the military, and I don’t know if it’s patriotism or confusion, or whatever but people have a tendency to thank veterans on all of these military holidays. In particular I’m talking about two holidays. Veterans Day, and Memorial Day. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Veterans Day is celebrated on November 11th, and is a day to thank military veterans and service members for their service. Memorial Day on the other hand  is celebrated on the last Monday in May. This is a day to honor and remember all of those who died while serving their country. The reason why I bring up the difference between these two holidays is because when you thank a veteran on Memorial Day, it is looked at as an odd thing to do from the veteran’s perspective. That day isn’t for us. It’s almost like if I were to wish you a Happy Birthday on someone else’s birthday. That would just be weird wouldn’t it? I mean it’s the thought that counts, but I probably could have waited a little while for your actual birthday to wish you a happy birthday. It’s the same idea with Memorial Day. That day is for honoring the people who died in war. Last I checked, I still have a pulse so I don’t fit that criteria. However I, and others like me, do fit the criteria for the veterans who are honored on Veterans Day. Most veterans won’t have a problem with being thanked for their service on Veterans Day. As a matter of fact, most enjoy the celebrations that occur on Veterans Day. With that said though, there are some veterans who don’t like the attention they get on Veterans Day. It may bring up bad memories for them and be hard to deal with, so thank a veteran but if you notice that they are uneasy when you offer your thanks, you may want to back off a bit with that particular veteran. Don’t feel bad about it, just sometimes veterans have done things that they aren’t particularly proud of and holidays like this bring up bad memories. You didn’t do anything wrong or inappropriate by offering your thanks, it’s just not something that particular veteran wants to acknowledge. No big deal, just move on. On the topic of celebrations and customs, every Veterans Day, there are ceremonies and parades all throughout the country, although I don’t know if it will quite look the same this year. Arlington National Cemetery, where service members from every one of America’s major wars from the Revolutionary War to today’s wars are buried, holds an annual service at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Schools across the country hold Veterans Day assemblies, which will probably be less common of an occurrence this year, but hopefully will pick back up next year. Additionally, parades are held in communities throughout the country, in which veterans from all generations as well as members of veteran and other patriotic organizations march. Some parades end with speeches by local veterans.  In addition to the parades and ceremonies, there are other ways you can celebrate Veterans Day. Some people put together care packages for deployed troops, which not only is a good way to show your appreciation, it also can provide some much needed supplies to service members who can’t just run out to the store to pick up a few essentials. Some people visit veterans’ hospitals to brighten the day of the veterans there who may not have family nearby, or at all. For parents and teachers, you can do patriotic crafts with your kids or students. I’ve even seen some pretty cool looking pumpkin carvings with soldiers and American flags that could be cool to try. If you do something like that, be sure to take a photo and tag Drive On Podcast in your social media posts, I want to see what you come up with. Other people will invite a veteran to speak to their community or organization. I’m actually giving a talk on Veterans Day this year to a nearby community, which consists of mostly older veterans but they wanted to get the perspective of a veteran from the post 9/11 era, so I’ll be talking to them about that. If you work in an office you can take a little time out of the day to acknowledge the vets in your office. Maybe it’s something as simple as sending an email out reminding everyone in the office who the veterans are so that everyone can thank them for their service, or bring in some patriotic themed snacks to show your appreciation. Or, if you know of veteran owned businesses in your area give Amazon a rest and go shop with them for a change. Some businesses may even offer special discounts to veterans on Veterans Day as a way to show their appreciation for their service. I mentioned earlier that Armistice Day was originally celebrating the anniversary of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when fighting formally ended in World War One. Traditionally, a pause is given at 11am on Veterans Day to honor and remember those who served with a silent thanks for our freedom.  And if you haven’t heard of this, there is a cool memorial in Anthem Arizona, which is designed to let the sun’s rays pass through in a certain way so that it creates the Great Seal of The United States on the other end of the memorial. This happens at 11am every Veterans Day. Thanks for listening. Hopefully this episode provided some background on what Veterans Day is all about, and gave you some ideas on how to celebrate the veterans in your life.

Renita Kalhorn talks to us about her experience coaching high achieving executives at Fortune 500 companies as well as those in Special Operations. She talks about the ways that many of these “alpha” personalities get in their own way when they become too mission driven and don’t focus on the big picture. To be successful you need to be agile and be able to switch between a hard hitting approach and a softer touch. We talked about some of the parallels between entrepreneurs and special forces operators, who tend to be resourceful, resilient, not fragile, and look at the challenges they face as a way to get stronger. For leaders and managers, one of the keys to success is managing your ego and being open to feedback. We talk about all of this and more in the episode. Give it a listen! Links & Resources Renita Kalhorn on LinkedIn Renita Kalhorn on Instagram Renita Kalhorn on Twitter Jocko Podcast episode discussed in this episode Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Hey everyone. Today, my guest is Ranita Kalhorn who is a leadership coach and mental trainer who works with fortune 500 executives and Navy Seals.  Today I’m going to talk with her about how she helps those high achieving individuals succeed. So, Ranita welcome to the show. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Renita Kalhorn:    00:01:06    Sure. Well, I’ve been coaching for over 10 years now and in the beginning I was working more with corporate professionals at the fortune 500 organizations, but as time went on, I  went back to my previous life, which was working in dot com or more entrepreneurial organizations. And I started shifting my coaching more towards the entrepreneurs and CEOs who are starting new companies. So, I basically had experienced across the whole spectrum from the large fortune 500 global multinationals to the tiny startups just beginning. And then as you mentioned, I also work with Special Forces. So, I’m working with future Navy Seals, over probably 500 Navy Seal candidates at this point. And I’ve also worked with active duty Green Berets. So, I often talk about the parallels between the Special Forces and entrepreneurs, because both very much have to be agile, have to be nimble, especially in the world that we live in now, which is so uncertain and so turbulent and just  looking for the best practices to share across both groups. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:21    Yeah, that’s great.  That’s a good background and a lot of stuff that you are doing certainly pertains to more than just the Special Forces; probably could pertain to a good deal of people who are coming out of the military and the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is because of your experience working with these high performing individuals, whether it’s people in the military or the corporate world.  The people you work with tend to be the alpha personality types. And I think a lot of the people who are in the military, a larger percentage anyway, of the people who are in the military will have those alpha characteristics versus the bulk of the typical population as a percentage. So, I figured this would be a pretty good fit for the audience that we have here on the show.  One of the things that you talk about with these people is how they sometimes end up getting in their own way, tripping over their own features, or becoming their own roadblock in a way.  What are some of the things that those alpha personalities do to get in their own way? Renita Kalhorn:    00:03:34     Well, the first one that comes to mind is that they are too mission-driven, which might sound funny to someone in the military. Who’s very much all about accomplishing the mission. And so, what I’ve noticed is that, of course the mission is important, but sometimes the quickest way to accomplish the mission isn’t just to go from point A to point B. What I mean by that is increasingly what I’m seeing in the world in general and in the military world is where it’s not just about going in and taking out the target. There’s a lot more emotional intelligence involved. There’s a lot more diplomatic conversation negotiations, actually having conversations with people or it could be internal where you’re trying to get resources from someone up above you who manages those resources. And so, what I’ve seen is people who have this sort of alpha personality are very focused on achieving the goal. They’re just so laser focused on the goal that they’re forgetting the human connection side, and if they could make that human connection first, then they would reach their goal much more easily, much quicker in many cases because they’re so mission-focused, that don’t achieve their goal. Scott DeLuzio:    00:04:59    And one of the things that I noticed when I was deployed to Afghanistan  back in 2010, one of the things that we were told was we were given this information about a counterinsurgency strategy, which was all about going out and meeting with the people the local people, the residents in the area of our operations and  trying to win them over, win over the hearts and minds and things like that. And I’ll be perfectly honest as an infantry man, our job that we trained for, it was kicking in doors, shooting bad guys. That’s what we trained for. And then you started coming out with all of this; to us, it sounded like some froo froo nonsense. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:49    We have to go and talk to these people and try to win them over and not kick the doors in and things like that. It just didn’t quite sit right with us. And I think that’s what you’re talking about here, where we felt like our job was to go and kick the doors in and shoot the bad guys and do all that heavy lifting stuff and not deal with the softer side of things. But, as it turns out, that’s actually the right way to achieve that goal of going against these insurgents that we were trying to fight against was we really needed to gain the support of that local population. So it sounds like that’s sort of what you’re talking about here Renita Kalhorn:    00:06:35    It is. And I can sympathize because if you’re not trained for that, dealing with humans from a different culture, strangers, you don’t know what could happen, and so it’s natural to default to what you’ve been trained for, what you know works.  I think what people are going to have to learn now, this is in the military and there is a certain agility to go into a situation and know when do I need to be decisive and just be target focused. And when do I need to be able to relax, focus on building rapport, connecting with this person, because what if you connect with someone in that village and they give you this valuable Intel, because they trust you because they want to help you and you wouldn’t have gotten that otherwise. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:27    Yeah, exactly and that’s what people ended up finding out is that’s the type of thing that ended up happening.  They would find out that, “Hey, these Americans are treating us pretty well here that we were safe, relatively safe, or getting the things that we need to fix up our village and maybe even building a school to educate our children and that type of stuff. And you know, they would attend to start to provide some information to the Americans. Renita Kalhorn:    00:08:04    And there’s an example that I like to give that just demonstrates an emotional intelligence. So, let’s call them the Special Forces guy goes in, he’s got his gun, he’s got his sunglasses on, he’s standing tall and he’s talking to the villagers. You can imagine how intimidating that is. The other Special Forces guy goes in. He takes off his sunglasses. He kneels down maybe to be at the same height. He puts his gun down. Just these little physical gestures, they communicate, I want to connect with you. You can trust me. And so that’s the  emotional intelligence, emotional agility that people are going to need to develop to be successful. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:51    Yeah. I remember the first time we went into a village and we walked in one of the houses; we were invited in, but it was set up a meeting where we were going to go talk to one of the villages, the people in the village that was near our base. And when we walked in, we all took off our helmets, which was weird in and of itself. And then we had a place outside where we had somebody  standing over us, standing guard over our weapons. So we didn’t even have our weapons with us. And that was just, to me, a nervous thing.  But we did it to show we trust you; you can trust us. Like we’re not here to cause this type of chaos that you might have experienced in the past with other people who might have come through here, including the Russians back years ago and things like that. So, you can trust us and that’s sort of what we wanted to get across and it ended up developing a pretty good relationship. Renita Kalhorn:    00:09:56    Oh, I’m sure. I love that. Because you put aside your own comfort, you probably would have been more comfortable with your helmet, with your weapons.  Right? Scott DeLuzio:    00:10:03    Yup. For sure. Renita Kalhorn:    00:10:06    That’s a great demonstration of just putting aside your own comfort to create trust. Scott DeLuzio:    00:10:12    So, let’s talk about it transitioning people who might have already transitioned out of the military, who might be carrying some of their leadership experiences into the corporate world, or people who are thinking about transitioning soon.  How can they translate some of this stuff?  I know all the examples that we’ve been giving so far have been military focused, but how can they translate this stuff into a career focus where they can apply this to their career? Renita Kalhorn:    00:10:45    It seems to be a big challenge for the military as a translator transitioning out of active duty.  I’ve helped quite a few clients make that transition because everything the military personnel does is very useful in a corporate environment. It’s just a matter of changing the language. So I’ve seen many resumes that are full of military acronyms and terminology. And yet I know that what they’re doing is very valuable in a workplace. So that would be the first step, really just understanding what the essence is of what I did. I managed resources, I made decisions under high stakes pressure.  I dealt with difficult personalities, whether they’re in your own team or on the enemy side. So all of these skills are very relevant. It’s just a matter of framing them because we can say that there’s people in the business world they’re a little bit intimidated, or as soon they see something that they don’t understand, they’re just going to shut down all that this person doesn’t have what we need. And so, the burden is on you, the military person to make your experience relevant to the HR person that you are speaking with. Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:10    I was actually listening to a podcast earlier this week. It was the Jocko Podcast, which I’m not sure if any of the audience is familiar with, but he’s a former Navy Seal who has started a consulting business and he has other things going on as well. But one of the things that they were talking about on this particular episode was about how companies hire people. And a lot of times they go out and they’re looking to hire people who have certain experience or they worked for a competitor and things like that. And then they go out and they’re looking for things like that, but that’s not really what is going to make these people successful in the organization. It’s going to be things like,  their character and are they willing to go the extra mile and be a team player and things like that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:10    And that’s sort of like what you were talking about when you’re talking about people who are looking to transition out of the military. They have a lot of this experience of being a team player and thinking outside the box and all that stuff. And if you don’t lean into that and use that to your advantage on your applications, resume, whatever the case may be, you’re probably doing yourself a disservice I would think. Renita Kalhorn:    00:13:40    Exactly. I would think that you have as a military person, all this experience, getting people to do something they may not inherently want to do. That’s a hard life in the military. And yet you got all these people to do these things synchronized or to focus on one target. And so that’s a very valuable skill to bring to the business environment. So, it’s your job to tell the stories that illustrate that skill. You can’t just tell somebody, “I can do this.” You need to tell the stories. And that’s really where I’ve seen clients succeed is when they’re able to go from just saying, “here’s what I did or here’s my job description. And then here’s what I actually did in terms of, here was a situation, here was the challenge we had. Here’s what I did, or my team did. And then here are the results that we produced.” Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:38    I think that’s the key takeaway here is you can fill out your resume and put in all the technical things that you did on the paper, what your job description was, but that doesn’t fill in the blanks to the person who’s hiring you, who’s reading that resume, that doesn’t fill in those blanks for them. And you’re basically assuming that they know what you’re talking about and that they’ve done those things too and they weren’t in your shoes necessarily unless they happened to do that same job in the military at one point in the past. But do you really want to bet on that? That’s what they had, that type of experience. So, you know, you’re absolutely right. You do want to tell the story of what it is that you did and how that applies to this job. That makes a ton of sense. You talked a little bit earlier about some of the parallels between entrepreneurs and Special Forces and military personnel. What are some of those parallels between those two groups of people? Renita Kalhorn:    00:16:02    So the ability to go in knowing that the plan is not going to survive first contact, and that’s just what’s going to happen. So you try something, it doesn’t work. So, you try something else that doesn’t work, you try something else that doesn’t work. So, entrepreneurs really need to hone that ability to be resourceful and bounce back quickly. That’s what I’ve seen in the military is that they’re just trained to do that. They’re not even saying, “Oh, shoot, it didn’t work.” They’re just like, “okay, that didn’t work now.” The best entrepreneurs naturally have that. And then I help the ones who don’t naturally have it to develop it, to develop that mindset. Scott DeLuzio:    00:16:47    Yeah, for sure. And I think as an entrepreneur myself and coming out of the military, I know that sometimes, in my business, I’ll try to launch a new product and maybe that product launch didn’t go quite as well as I thought it would. And then it’s like, okay, well, I can sit here and I can continue doing the same thing over and over again. And it’s still not going to work, or I can try to figure out what went wrong and I can try to adjust course and try something new.  That is certainly a way to think about resourcefulness, but it’s also a little bit of resiliency, where people are able to bounce back from setbacks and I think that super. Renita Kalhorn:    00:17:36    I would add on that is, sorry I spoke over you. So, the piece I would add onto resilience is being even anti fragile where not only are you bouncing back from challenges, you’re actually using them to get stronger.  I think the next phase that we’re in now in this world, that’s going to have so many challenges where it’s not about, can you survive this challenge? It’s how can you use this challenge to be even stronger for the next challenge that is guaranteed going to come? It’s just a totally different mindset. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:13    Yeah. And that is actually a good segue into the next topic that I wanted to talk with you about a little bit here. You’ve talked about some of the traits that leaders need to have in order to succeed in what you call a volatile, uncertain, complex ambiguous world, which this year certainly has been full of a lot of uncertainty and volatility with COVID and businesses getting shut down.  And actually, the day that I have this episode scheduled to be aired is going to be election day. So, there’s more uncertainty there as well. So, what do leaders and teams need to do to be able to adapt to this fast changing and uncertain world that we’re living in? Renita Kalhorn:    00:18:57    So what they really need to develop is, I mean, there’s so many ways to answer this question. Basically, they need to be able to be more open to feedback. Now, everybody hearing that as like going to be nodding their head. But what that really means is they’re going to have to manage their ego because it’s really ego that keeps us from taking feedback and doing something with it. And the quicker we can take feedback and incorporate it into our behavior, change direction, maybe give up something we put already a lot of effort into make those changes quickly in an agile way.  That’s what’s going to be really important for leaders and then to develop that in their teams as well. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:46    Yeah, for sure. One of the things that I’ve seen lately in society, in general, not necessarily in any particular class, but just in general in society is a lot of a victim mentality that people have and something doesn’t go right.  I was talking about how a product launch doesn’t go right  and sometimes people, instead of trying to figure out what went wrong and focusing on that,  on how to make that situation better, they whine and moan about how it didn’t go right. And it’s really a counterproductive mentality. It’s like, “Oh, I tried everything. I did everything I thought I should.” Well, there’s obviously something else out there. There are very successful product launches out there and it just so happened to be that yours didn’t hit the mark. So, there’s something else that you need to try. So, yeah, but I haven’t seen a lot of that going on lately where people just don’t take ownership and responsibility to try to figure out what went wrong. Renita Kalhorn:    00:20:55    Yeah. I think, there’s just all kinds of factors that are coming into play, but our society in general is just very much about instant gratification. We just want things yesterday. I mean, look how fast we expect things. And so, we expect that to happen in our projects, in our work as well. And so, we’ve  developed this muscle, this reflex, where we need it instantly, and that’s not going to serve people who really want to do big things because big things are not going to happen instantly. Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:28    No, for sure. They take time. And I think that’s a problem too, that people have is exactly what you said that they expect this thing to happen right now.  You see people who,  seemingly are overnight successes and it’s like, well, why can’t I be like that? Why can’t I be an overnight success, but what they don’t see is that the overnight success took decades sometimes to become an overnight success. So, you just haven’t seen all of the work that went into it; sometimes it’s their time in the military or whatever, Renita Kalhorn:    00:22:00    You’re a magazine cover about somebody who’s just still struggling, right. Or a podcast where somebody hasn’t made it yet. All that activity is the iceberg under the water. And you don’t see that until somebody has what others consider a noteworthy success. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:18    Yeah. And I shared this on this podcast a while back, probably a few months ago, but there was a talk that I gave a few years ago where we’re talking about success in this overnight success type of phenomenon. And I equated it to a bamboo tree. When someone first plants a seed for a bamboo tree, they have to water that seed almost daily for about five years for the seed to start growing and start to take root. And after that five years, the seeds finally start to break ground and after it breaks ground within about a month and a half or so, the tree will have grown about 80 or 90 feet. Scott DeLuzio:    00:23:15    And so it seems that that’s in my mind, the overnight success where the first time you’re actually seeing this tree is when it’s breaking ground, when it’s coming up out of the earth. And then next thing you know, a few weeks later, it’s towering high above you.  What you don’t see is all the work and effort that went into weeding the area around it and watering and all the other things that people would need to do to make sure that this tree had an opportunity to grow in that scenario. So I like to equate the bamboo tree to that overnight success phenomenon. It’s really not an overnight success. It really does require a lot of effort to be put into it, to get to that point. Renita Kalhorn:    00:24:00    Yeah. And there’s another trait that the military people have is that they’re used to training. They’re used to doing things that are “boring” in the name of training, in the name of habituation. They know that repetition done right, is very important. You don’t want to go out and be shooting weapons after one or two times. I just want to mention this to the audience listening that that is a trait that you have that is quite uncommon or often uncommon in the workplace. And so that’s something to really notice that you do well and to show people how that will serve them, but just as this ability to do what’s “boring”, it  goes along with that instant gratification. I don’t want to do anything that’s boring. I only want to do new stuff, whereas Instagram, and I want it now. Scott DeLuzio:    00:24:57    Yeah, for sure. Let’s see the Amazon order it today and have it on your doorstep tomorrow morning or something like that. It’s that instant gratification. It’s like, I want it now type of thing you mentioned earlier that leaders need to be open to feedback and manage their egos.  What do leaders or managers of people get wrong about feedback when they receive feedback? What do they do wrong with that feedback? Renita Kalhorn:    00:25:30    Well, I talk a lot about our biology.  It really comes back to basic survival instincts. Our brain is just focused on survival even though in the world today, especially once you’re out of active duty, there are very few threats to your physical survival. And yet all of us are seeing potential threats in our social environment. And one of those threats is to our status, our standing, either in the group or whoever we’re talking to or interacting with. And so if somebody is telling us we didn’t do it right, we could have done it better. We did it wrong. We made a mistake. Those all get translated by the brain as a threat to our survival because hundreds of thousands of years ago, if we made a mistake, that very much was a question of survival. And so, I think we’re just still wired that way to see any sort of questioning of our ability to do something right as a threat. And so that’s why people just react and they don’t actually go past the reaction to be rational and think about the actual information they are getting. Scott DeLuzio:    00:26:45    And so how can these people, these leaders get more learning out of their mistakes. How can they learn from these mistakes if they’re always in that defensive survival mode that you were talking about? How they can learn more from this? Renita Kalhorn:    00:27:03    Good question? I think one way to  trick your brain is to ask for it actively. So, if you ask, I was just talking to Dave Cooper, a former Navy Seal. He used to put out the plan and say, all right, what did I miss? There’s sort of this presumptive question. Have I missed something? What is it? So, leaders could be doing the same thing, just ask, “what did I miss?” or “what did I get wrong here?”  or telling them proactively, “okay, I screwed up. Here’s what I did. Here’s what I’m going to do differently going forward.” And so in a way you’re just owning that mistake. And I think by doing that, it’s a way of maintaining that sense of status and still opening up a safe space for people to give you feedback. Scott DeLuzio:    00:27:59    And I think that ownership mentality where you take ownership of mistakes that were made or negative feedback that you’ve received, things like that when you have that mentality, and it combines itself with that survival mentality that you had talked about just a little while ago, you don’t want those mistakes to happen again. And so, you’re going to come up with ways to make sure that those things don’t happen again as opposed to getting defensive about it and trying to stop  that negativity and that harsh feedback from coming to you. I was talking about this the other day.  Years ago, our house got broken into and a lot of people will be like, “Oh, I feel bad for you” and all that  stuff. Scott DeLuzio:    00:28:56    They feel sorry for all the things that they lost and they’re just sad and upset about all of that. But instead, one of the things that we did was we made sure that we had a security alarm and that we made sure all of our doors were locked at night. And we made sure that there were lights on and all the things that you’re supposed to do. We just were lackadaisical with some of that stuff beforehand. And it bit us in the butt and that was our fault. Renita Kalhorn:    00:29:28    Way to use the mistake, that’s what a business leader can be doing as well. Scott DeLuzio:    00:29:33    Exactly. You know, I think that it illustrates that you can use that same mentality for really anything.  If you’re in your business and let’s go back to a failed product launch, okay. Instead of crying about it, let’s figure out what went wrong and what else could we do to make this better?  Look at all the things. Renita Kalhorn:    00:29:56    Really good mindset to develop it. This is just information. So if you were playing basketball, you went to shoot the basket, it just bounced off the back board. You don’t get mad at the back board, right? It’s just information. You didn’t get it in the basket. And yet, somehow when we’re dealing with people, we take it personally, like we create a lot more of a story around it. And so if you can just get into the habit of just saying, this is just information, maybe you don’t like the way it was delivered. Maybe it was a little harsh, it’s still valuable information and it’s way better than nothing Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:36    It is for sure. And taking that information and using that information is only going to help you. And if you dismiss it or you get angry about it or whatever the case may be, it’s not going to help you. It’s there; you’re spot on with all of this. Renita Kalhorn:    00:30:59    You do that if you do get mad. So, if you show people that if they give you feedback, they’re not going to be rewarded for it, or they’re going to be punished for it. Then you’ve just killed your information source. Scott DeLuzio:    00:31:12    Exactly. Yeah, that was a good point there. The next time that there is something going on that someone sees a problem they’re not going to raise the red flags about whatever that problem is, because they know that you’re going to fly off the handle. And they’re not going to want to give that information to you. They don’t want to be on the receiving end of whatever the backlash is for that. Renita Kalhorn:    00:31:36    So just to add some nuance to this, sometimes there are leaders who will say, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions because they get tired of people just whining about problems, but there’s a middle ground between that because you don’t want people to just not tell you when there’s a problem that maybe needs your attention. So you need to bring some nuance around it. Here’s the kinds of problems to bring, here’s what I’m looking for from you in terms of when you bring me a problem, get as far as you can in solving the problem before you bring it to me, tell me what you tried, tell me what didn’t work, what did, right? So, there’s a lot of nuance that I think leaders could also be bringing into their communications instead of this all or nothing approach. Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:19    And I think another thing too, that leaders can do to help mitigate some of these potential problems, where people are coming to them with this negative feedback, is to trust in their employees and trusting their teams more. Allow them to make decisions on their own. And that way they can own those decisions. What I was talking about before is when you own something and it doesn’t quite go right, you want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. So, you’re going to make sure that the process or whatever the thing is that you’re doing, you’re going to make sure that it’s right on track. And so, if you’re giving some responsibility to your subordinates and you’re allowing them to make the decisions without necessarily getting the buy in or the feedback from the whole organization or from their bosses and things like that, it allows them to try things. Sometimes they’re going to fail. Sometimes they’ll make mistakes and it’s not going to quite work out. But when they do that, they’ll be able to learn from those mistakes and get better over time. And so they’ll be invested in making sure that the problem doesn’t happen again, as opposed to being able to just point the finger up the chain of command, if you will, to someone else because, “Oh, well, he told me to do it that way.” Renita Kalhorn:    00:33:42    Right. And another phenomenon I see is sort of the CEO, is hero, or the leader’s hero, where they feel like they need to rush in and rescue their team. And so they don’t really allow their team to develop the skills of handling problems on their own. So, I love the idea of extreme ownership that Jocko talks about where everyone on the team takes ownership of a problem and when you do that, you just raise the tide for everyone. And now your ability to handle problems is just at a much higher level. Scott DeLuzio:    00:34:17    And when everybody is taking ownership of the things that they’re responsible for, it will make the end result be so much better because they don’t want to fail and it goes back to that survival mode where they don’t want to end up losing their job because they are screwing up all the time. They’re going to make sure that, okay, is this really the best decision? Is this really the best move to make? Let’s make sure that it is. And we’ll dive into it from there, but when you don’t have that survival instinct where you want to protect your job or your position; if you just didn’t care because you’re passing the buck off to somebody else; well, that’s the type of work that you’re going to end up producing. Renita Kalhorn:    00:35:05    Well, I would add some nuance to that as well. So when I work with high performers, it’s not about coming from a place of fear. So a fear of losing something of making a mistake, it’s more about moving towards something. So, my clients want to develop this inherent desire to perform at their best, just for the inherent joy of performing at their best. And then, you take the fear out of it. It’s just like, I want to figure out the best solution to this problem, or this problem is going to help me become a better performer, a better decision maker, a better whatever. Otherwise your people are focused on self-protection, and once you take away the thing that they’re not afraid of losing, then you lose their desire for progress. So, I would love to see more people develop this inherent love of the process, love of growth for its own sake, because that’s really where we are in the world. Now we have this luxury of being able to express ourselves to our full human potential. You don’t have to worry about survival. Scott DeLuzio:    00:36:19    And that growth mentality too, especially like you’re saying these people are not necessarily worried about the failure aspect of it; they’re looking to grow. And that includes the people who are on your team.  I know in the military, we all tried to build each other up and help each other out. It’s not like you want to go into combat with a suboptimal team. You don’t want to have someone who is not as good of a shot as it could be, or who hasn’t had the amount of practice and exposure to the real- life scenarios.  You don’t want those types of people on your team. You want the best and the fastest and the strongest and all the other things that you could throw at it. Scott DeLuzio:    00:37:10    You want the absolute best on your team while you’re going into these potentially life and death situations.  It makes a lot of sense to do the same thing in a business scenario where you want to have an A+ team. You want to have the best people supporting you on your journey through whatever it is that you’re doing.  If there’s infighting and there’s all of that corporate politics that sometimes goes on that’s not helping anybody except for the one individual who might get ahead because they stepped on somebody’s toes or whatever. Renita Kalhorn:    00:37:52    Very shortsighted because nobody can get anywhere today without a team. And so, I have seen A+ players who together do not make an A+ team. And so that’s the challenge I’m focused on now is how you get A+ players to be an A+ team where they really do see that by lifting the others, they’re just going to lift the level of performance for everyone. And it can be hard because of the egos because of the need for personal recognition.  But those who have been on an A+ team, as you know in the military, there’s nothing like that. And that’s just exhilarating. Scott DeLuzio:    00:38:33    And so how do get these A+ players to work together to form that A+ team? How do you go about doing that? Renita Kalhorn:    00:38:43    So, you need to create psychological safety, which is basically making people get out of survival mode so that they’re not focused on status, or autonomy or getting things done quickly, right? There’s always somebody who just wants to do it themselves, because they think they can do it best. So you need to create a place that’s safe, where everybody actively wants to find the best solution. And they’ll have the patients; they’ll be willing to have conflict, to have healthy, productive conflict, because they know it’s going to produce the best ideas and solutions. And so you have to create an environment for that. The leader has to create that environment and also not be saying, “well, you missed the deadline! So there has to be a balance between giving them space to have this healthy conflict, try different things, experiment, make a mistake and say, “okay, I made a mistake.” What did you learn from it?  So, there are all these things. All the information is out there. There’s no shortage of information. It’s how do you actually execute on that? And I would say it starts with the leader. The leader has to actually practice what they preach. So if they want people to make mistakes, they have to make it safe for people to experiment and make mistakes. Scott DeLuzio:    00:40:04    Yeah, for sure. And showing people how to react because it’s inevitable. No one’s perfect. Everyone’s going to make a mistake at some point; but showing your team and your people how to react when you do make a mistake, is important too, to lead by example, like you just said. I think that’s a great way to put it.  Is there anything else that you would tell people who are in the process of transitioning out of the military or just recently got out of the military?  They’re looking to get into the civilian world and work, whatever type of job. What type of things would you tell them as advice to help them in this transition period? Renita Kalhorn:    00:40:53    I think at a mindset level, I would just want to encourage them because I have seen a lot of military people who feel discouraged because their skills don’t seem to be recognized in the corporate or business world. And that’s just not the case. It’s just simply a gap between explaining or telling it, helping people understand what you can do. So, first of all, you have a very valuable transferable relevant skill.  That’s the first piece. Then you’re now your job is to understand how to communicate, what you can do to the people who, who can hire you. And so just to be very tactical about it, I would sit down and just write down all the stories of what you’ve done, the times that whether it was a mission and you got people on board and there were all these challenges and you just had to be very resourceful in finding solutions or talk about resources. Renita Kalhorn:    00:41:57    That’s a very valuable skill for the business world. Talk about all the resources you manage, whether it was equipment, whether it was people, whether it was weapons. I had one client who was a Captain who managed basically a town. She was literally the equivalent of a mayor. And so, she was managing all the facilities, all the utilities, all the conflicts. I think what people really need to do is sit down and reflect on all their experience and just write it down as scenarios and one that will help them realize, “wow, I did do a lot.” Plus, they did all of this with all the different cultural aspects, geographic moving, probably weather, there’s all these challenges that they overcame that people in the business world don’t even have to deal with. So they need to really figure that out for themselves, because what I found is most people don’t know their own experience as well as they could, because they’re just living it and then they’re moving on to the next thing. So I would just create a list of all the situations that you’ve handled, the results that you produced. And then that’s a great thing. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:17    Yeah. I think that’s a perfect start to that for these people who are either just getting out of the military or have been out for a little bit and I think doing stuff like writing down the times that you maybe you went out on a mission and things didn’t go quite as planned, like you said,  your plan is not going to survive the first contact, something is going to go wrong at some point. And what did you do about it? So, to show that you can think outside of the box and adapt to difficult situations that that’s certainly valuable. Talk about the people that you’ve managed, if you were in a leadership role,  you likely had plenty of people reporting to you. Talk about that; how you manage people even on a lower NCO level, you still have a decent number of people who are reporting to you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:15    And at times you may have even been in a position where you had many people. I know, as a Sergeant in the Army, I sometimes had 40 or 50 people that I was responsible for on certain missions where I was in charge of the mission and we’d be out. And we’d have people from our platoon, we’d have civilian contractors, we’d have a bunch of people who would be in this scenario, including local Afghans and things like that, who we were in charge of. So, you keep all of those people in mind and think about what it took to lead that mission and what you needed to do and how that could possibly translate to your civilian career that you’re looking for.  This was really great information and, it’s really been a pleasure speaking with you. I want to give you a chance to let people know where they can go to find out more about what you do and how to get in touch with you if they’re interested in speaking more with you about this type of thing. Renita Kalhorn:    00:45:28    I think the best place is to find me on LinkedIn. That’s where I’m most active. I’m posting daily, talking about leadership, about managing teams, about creating psychological safety.  So, connect with me there, follow me there, engage in some of the posts and, if I can be a support to you or your team feel free to reach out. Scott DeLuzio:    00:45:55    Yeah, for sure. And I’ll have a link to your LinkedIn profile and all your social media profiles and things like that in the show notes. So, people can find it there.  Again, thank you very much for taking the time to share this information with us. I really did enjoy the conversation that we had and hopefully this will help people in their civilian careers as they’re transitioning out of the military. Renita Kalhorn:  Thank you. Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ DriveOnPodcast.

Laura Briggs talks to us about a great way for military spouses and veterans to start their own freelance careers through her nonprofit Operation Freelance. Links & Resources Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business (Book) Laura Briggs on Twitter Laura Briggs on Facebook Operation Freelance Operation Freelance on Facebook Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there, click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit DriveOnPodcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us today. My guest is Laura Briggs. Laura teaches others how to build their own businesses from home and is the author of Lunch, your own freelance writing business. Laura also runs, Operation Freelance, which is a nonprofit focused on creating business opportunities for military spouses and Veterans. So, Laura, thank you for joining me. Why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Laura Briggs:    00:01:11    Sure. I had every plan in the world of becoming a professor. I’ve done everything for my PhD except my dissertation. Then I met and fell in love with a man in the Navy. So as is often the case with military spouses, our career gets a little bit turned upside down. Through many PCs I realized that I was going to have to have a career that was a little bit more flexible.  Tenure track professor at one university just wasn’t going to work with the Navy’s needs. And so, I started freelancing as a side hustle and grew that to a full-time business that followed me over the last eight years. And now on both the business and the nonprofit side, I teach other people, not just how to start, but also experienced freelancers, how to scale, how to decide what your business is going to look like for you and have it work for your life and not the other way around. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:01    Awesome. Yeah. And that sounds like a common thing with other military spouses, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show is because I live near an Air Force base. So, a lot of our neighbors and friends are in the Air Force and through talking with them, getting to know their families and everything, they find it difficult for the spouse. So the one who’s not in the Air Force whether it’s the husband or the wife and in whichever situation they have, they find it difficult for that spouse to find a good job because they end up moving every couple of years. Employers don’t tend to be too keen on hiring someone for a year, a year and a half or whatever the case may be for a professional job. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:45    Like in your case, you’re saying that that’s not exactly something that was in the cards for you with your career path. They want to know that this hire that they’re making is in it for the long haul, which totally makes sense. So, what I wanted to talk to you about was Operation Freelance and it seems like it’s a great way to help out some of these spouses start businesses that they can do from pretty much anywhere as long as they have a computer and an internet connection, they can probably do it from just about anywhere. So, could you tell us a little bit more about the Operation Freelance and what sparked that and what it is that you do? Laura Briggs:     00:03:29    Yeah. I’ve come across so many spouses in this situation where they’re either unemployed or they’re severely underemployed because they’re very highly educated. Lots of them have tons of experience. And if they’re lucky, maybe in one move or base where they’re at, they have a really great job, but then they find it hard to sustain that when they move somewhere else. And so I coach freelancers one-on-one on the business side and for about a year and a half, once a quarter, I would take on one to two military spouses totally for free to teach them the same things I was teaching my paid students, but just to help them get a jumpstart because I’ve been there. And my only regret is that I wish I’d started sooner in building something for myself that was really flexible and was freedom-based. And so, I realized quickly at the end of 2019, I opened up applications for my one or two spots in January. Laura Briggs:    00:04:20    And I had like 52 applications overnight. And I’m like, “yeah, this is bigger than what Laura can just do on an ad hoc basis. And I was really lucky because that same month I had been invited to travel out to Upwork’s global headquarters in San Francisco. That’s the biggest freelance job board site in the world. I’ve had a really good relationship with Upwork as a freelancer. And they had invited me to talk about something else. They wanted to hear about my freelance journey, how I’ve used the site, what has this meant for my life? And at the end, I casually mentioned like freelancing has opened all these doors for me. The latest one is starting a nonprofit, and it was really crazy. I came off stage and someone’s like, the new Upwork CEO wants to talk to you. And they pulled me in this room and she’s like, we want to give you $20,000 to jumpstart this this year. Laura Briggs:   00:05:04    Would you be able to take on more people this year, if we did that? And I was like, Oh, I was going to take a full year just to file all the paperwork, build the board of directors. So, we have moved at warp speed. We are almost done with our first cohort of 10 freelancers. We have some incredible people in the program who are getting new opportunities for themselves. They’re building confidence, they’re bringing home extra money. A lot of them are spouses that are reentering the workforce after just doing jobs to make ends meet or not being employed at all. And so, we’re opening up applications right now. We’re accepting applications for our fall cohort of members. And it’s just been a real joy to be able to do this and to give back in a bigger way, rather than just helping one or two people. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:51    Yeah, absolutely. And that seems like a great trajectory that you’re on and being able to get that benefit of helping out more people than you originally started off thinking that you’d be able to do.  It is amazing. So, I think that that’s really great. And I know the people who are looking for this type of work to be able to do some sort of work from home, especially on a military salary, which, I don’t care what rank you are, you’re not raking in the big bucks with a career in the military. And that type of thing sometimes it is necessary to have a second income in order to afford the housing. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:39    Especially if you’re off base or something like that, you may not be able to afford it with the cost of living with all the food and utilities and everything like that. I know there’s pay that the military gives for housing and things like that but there’s expenses. You have kids and you have all this other stuff that goes into it. And when you’re not making a ton of money in the military, one salary sometimes it’s just not going to cut it, especially in certain areas. So, this is really a great opportunity for a lot of these military families to be able to branch off on their own and start something that they can take with them and not have to leave behind. Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:23    Because a lot of these transitions where they’re moving from one place to another is hard enough as it is, they have to leave friends behind or things like that, but also to leave behind a career that you’re working on and building is even harder, I can imagine. So, now there’s all sorts of things that people can do while they are working from home. What does the process look like? I’m not talking about like, if you’re going to be a writer or a bookkeeper or whatever, I’m not talking about specifics on that. What is the process to get started with a freelance business for someone who maybe never really thought of this as a potential avenue for them? What are some of the steps that they’re going to have to think about? Laura Briggs:     00:08:08    Yeah, I think the first one is what do you already have experience in? And if that answer is something where you’re like, I have experience, but I don’t want to do that anymore, then that’s also helpful to know as well. And then also, what are you interested in learning? Because one of the things that’s unique about freelancing is you don’t have to go back and get a four-year degree to feel qualified enough to do the thing. We have access to so many different online courses, free podcasts books, and things that can teach you how to do the actual service area. So, it comes down to what are you interested in? What would light you up to learn about? And so that’s usually where we start and then we match that by looking at people’s past resumes to start pulling out skills that they have from other jobs or other volunteer positions that will also translate really well over to being a freelancer. Laura Briggs:     00:08:58    So anything, project management, all your soft skills, like communication and prioritization, meeting deadlines, collaborating with diverse teams. A lot of times people don’t think of these as well. Yeah, but I did that like in a dentist office. So, what the heck does that have to do with graphic design? It actually has a lot to do with graphic design. Because you’re used to working in fast paced environments with a variety of different type of people, achieving goals and deadlines that does really transfer over to a freelance business. So, once you know what you’re interested in, we encourage our participants to go out there and take a look at market demand and see what your competition is doing. Is there enough of a demand for you to step into the marketplace? Is there some way for you to be unique and not just a generic provider of services? Laura Briggs:     00:09:41    And you also want to think about your goals too. For some people, you know, I did this full time for eight years, that was the right fit for our family at that time for other people, what makes freelancing such a good fit is because it’s so flexible. You can do it five hours a week. You can do it 50 hours a week and anything in between, but you have to know what that looks like for you so that you can adjust your schedule accordingly to do enough time on the marketing end to actually have clients and work on client projects. Scott DeLuzio:    00:10:08    Yeah, for sure and that’s something that I think people who are getting into a freelance type job don’t really foresee as being the situation where they’re going to have to deal with the marketing and the accounting and all the other things that go into running a business but that’s not always going to be the case. There are situations, you know, I own my business that I have outside of doing this podcast. I started off doing website design, type stuff. And it was just me, building websites for mostly small businesses around the area that I lived in. Then it started to grow and it got out to businesses in other states and all over the place. Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:00    And what I started to learn is that I can’t do all of the things on my own. So, it required me to outsource some of the work to other people, other developers, some of the marketing type work and all that kind of stuff. For someone who is in this position where they’re looking at starting a freelance business but they might feel like it’s overwhelming. I can’t do this all on my own. What kind of advice would you have for someone like that? Laura Briggs: 2    00:11:32    Yeah, it is owning your own business, which when you think of it, from that perspective, it can be kind of overwhelming because everything is on you. You have to create your own paycheck. You also have to pay your own taxes. You have to figure out what tools and materials and software you already have versus which ones you need to invest in. And so, what I always tell new freelancers is don’t overthink it. You do not need to act like you’ve been in business for five years when you’re just getting started. So, you don’t need a huge fancy website. If you really can’t afford that, then build an amazing LinkedIn profile, establish a profile on Upwork. I didn’t have a website for three years, so you don’t need one. And I was telling people to just start small, and then once you have the revenue coming in and your confidence is growing from doing that, that’s when you can start thinking about how do I invest in different tools that are going to help me get to where I want to go? But the most important thing as a new freelancer is that drive a really good pitch and work samples. Or if you’re in a category like virtual assistant or project manager where you wouldn’t really have work samples, how can you get some early experience to have some really amazing testimonials to bolster you into those first couple of jobs? Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:41    Yeah, that’s great advice. Whenever I’m looking for someone to help me on a project or whatever, I like to see some of their prior work, if it’s maybe a graphic designer or a marketing company or something along those lines, I want to see, get a feel for the type of work that they do, what kind of quality they have. So having some sort of a portfolio, if you will, to put out there, even in, like you said, even if it is on a LinkedIn profile or Upwork or whatever the profile may be is fine, as long as you give the people an opportunity to take a look at what it is that you do and are capable of. Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:21    So that’s really good advice. When these people start off, freelance businesses, and this could be anyone, not just a military spouse or a Veteran or anything like that, but when people start off a freelance business, a lot of times they think small, I feel they think like, well, it’s just me. So, it’s not going to grow to be this big company where I now have employees, and that might be the case where they don’t want it to grow. They want it to stay small because they don’t want to deal with the hassle of payroll and taxes and all this other stuff that they have to deal with if they have employees and benefits and all that kind of stuff. But there’s going to be the other side to where there’s going to be some people who get to a point where they’re doing more and they can do more than they have the capacity for it, and they want to grow it, and they want to keep servicing more people. Like in the situation where you found yourself, where you were only planning on helping one or two people, and then now you’re helping dozens of people. Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:29    How can someone scale and grow their business, especially when they may not be in the same location for long periods of time. So, they’re not going to set up a brick and mortar store off base or anything like that. What kind of things can people do to help grow and scale that business? Laura Briggs:    00:14:49    Yeah, there’s a really important mindset that happens when you go from being a beginner to being what I call a more intermediate freelancer. And that’s when you really have to start thinking of yourself as a CEO and questioning all of the things that you do on a daily basis that were necessary for you to do when you got started, when you have enough revenue. Some of them are keeping you from bringing in more money, right? So, if I’m spending time managing my calendar or answering emails that could really have a canned response, or that my virtual assistant could respond to, that’s not a good use of my time. So, start thinking about what things you could pull off your plate after you’ve been at it for a while and make your process as fast as possible. And I often hear from freelancers, “well, I don’t want to subcontract to other freelancers to do my client’s work.” Laura Briggs:    00:15:35    And I always tell them, you don’t have to, I don’t work with other writers. I write all the work for my clients’ projects, but do I choose all the keywords? Do I pick all the titles? Do I pull all the resource links and proofread them? No, I do the part that I do, which is the writing, and I can outsource some of those other things to make it faster or more effective for me to write. And I think that really helps you as you scale. And for me, it was focusing in on a niche. If I tried to do four or five different freelance services, it’s really hard to schedule your day. So, when you can pick one type of client or one type of project that you’d like to stay focused on, you can get that one streamlined and optimized as much as possible. Scott DeLuzio:    00:16:16    Yeah. And that brings up actually an interesting point that I wasn’t thinking about, until you just mentioned it. Focusing on a niche, a specific type of client that you’re looking for can be tremendously beneficial to your business. You could become known as the writer, in a writer’s case, the writer for law firms or something like that, whatever the case may be. And you’re narrowing down to a very specific market, and there’s not as big of a pool of customers in that market, but your marketing message is going to be on point to cover those people and you’re going to be talking their language when they come to your website, they’re going to be like, okay, this person knows what I need, and they’re going to go most likely go with you, as opposed to someone who’s just more broad in general and can fill a Jack of all trades kind of category where they can handle and any type of customer and some people shy away from niching down to a specific audience because they’re afraid that they’re just not going to get any customers. Scott DeLuzio:    00:17:37    Have you seen that to be the case with any of the freelancers that you work with or what have people tended to be drawn towards, as far as their businesses? Laura Briggs:   00:17:50    You can definitely go too narrow if there’s not enough of a demand for what you offer. But what I like to do is start by being a generalist, see how you feel though, projects and people that you work on or work with that you go, “I don’t ever care to do that again. That’s not my niche, or that company was way too big. And so, there was too much red tape to get through to effectively communicate.” File that away mentally. And it’ll help you whittle down what your niche is, and you can always expand your niche back out, right? So, if you go too narrow, when you realize there’s not enough, you can always go one level up. So, there’s really two ways to niche by project type or by client type. And then you can also niche by both of those, right? So, for years I wrote blogs for law firms. So, I was very niche, but just like you said, that made the clients who landed on my LinkedIn profile, my Upwork profile, getting cold pitched from me. They were like, “Oh, this is the person to go to for this service in my industry. I can really trust this person.” So, it is a careful balance, but I like to start general and then start to narrow down. And that way you can find your sweet spot in there. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:57    Yeah, absolutely. And another guest that I had on the show a few months ago, her business started off as a SEO consultant, search engine optimization consultant. And she narrowed her focus down to just the wedding industry. Things that, revolve around the wedding industry are the types of clients that she takes. And so, it’s very narrowly focused, but it’s still broad enough. There’s a good number of clients out there. There’s the florist and the caterers and the photographers and the wedding venues and all the other things that go into it. So, there’s still a good number out there but she’s getting her foot in the door, being known as the wedding SEO kind of specialists. So, it’s a good way to think about it too. Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:52    And I like how you described it as starting off more general and then getting an idea for the types of clients that you want to work with, types and probably even more importantly, the types that you don’t want to work with. So, you don’t make that mistake and go down that road again. You have talked in the past about some of the issues that some freelancers face and more on after they’ve been established a little longer in business. What are some of the issues that people might be able to expect to see in the future? And then, what can they do about these types of issues? Laura Briggs:    00:20:32    Yeah, the big one is overwhelmed. So, I like to tell the freelancers that are in the like $60 to $80,000 a year revenue mark, what got you here isn’t going to get you there. So, a lot of them are looking to scale past six, they’re looking to give themselves a little bit of a cushion to accommodate for taxes. And some of the things that we pay as self-employed individuals, and we don’t have health insurance unless it’s through our spouse or something like that. So, I’m doing all the things in your business doesn’t work. So usually it is almost always coming to terms with the idea of hiring at least one virtual assistant. If you’re not going to hire subcontractors, I think another one is saying no to clients, because the way that you grew your business was probably just, I’m so grateful to have anybody say yes to working with me, especially when you’re a beginner. Laura Briggs:     00:21:21    And then what you come to find out is you can’t afford to work with everybody and you have to be selective. I tell freelancers all the time, the only things you control are your time and your energy. And if you give both of those to the wrong people, you will feel drained, exhausted, not want to be part of your business at all anymore. So, knowing when and how to say no to people, ideally you want to say no to them before you’re under contract with them. But I also work with a lot of six-figure freelancers who are navigating challenges with communication, with enforcing contracts, with scope creep and people who are pushing the boundaries with what’s being asked. And so, there’s a big role that advanced freelancers have to pay and play when they jump into these teams as an outside party. But you might be stepping into a team that’s totally dysfunctional with project management skills. And so, you’re not just there to deliver the thing. You almost have to be like, “okay, guys, we’re using a project management tool and this is the flow that we’re going to turn things in.” And I think that catches some advanced freelancers by surprise, because it’s like, “well, you are just hiring me to write blogs or create social media images or whatever it might be,” but you often have to play that blended role of service provider and strategist all the time. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:34    Sure, absolutely. And you talked about that overwhelming feeling where you can’t do all of the things in your business and you mentioned a little bit about outsourcing some of that work to a VA. How would you go about doing that if you don’t have anybody?  VA being a virtual assistant, not the Veterans affairs, in this particular episode is what we’re talking about. So what would you do to find somebody, if you don’t know someone who is capable of doing that type of job? Where did you go and find somebody and what are some of the things that you should be looking for in a VA? Laura Briggs:  00:23:15    The first step is figuring out what it is you want to offload, because that will determine that second step of who are you going to hire? One of the biggest mistakes that people make is thinking there’s this magic unicorn virtual assistant that does all the things and does all of them extremely well and can take them off your plate tomorrow. And it just doesn’t work like that. So, bucketing your tasks together. My online business manager, Melissa, who’s also a military spouse is really good at setting up systems, keeping things organized and streamlined. And so, she manages all of my podcasts. She manages all of my email newsletter. She manages posting things in my Facebook group. Those are different tasks and software, but they’re all very related because they’re a consistent process of the same thing that happens every week with different content. Laura Briggs:    00:24:01    And so you’re looking for a person who has the skill set to think about somewhat related things together and be able to claim ownership over it. There’s my favorite way to find new VAs is always going to be through referrals. So if you know of somebody else who is an online business owner who leverages VA’s, I would ask them first and say, if you don’t know someone personally, do you have a recommendation of a place I can look, there are a couple of places that for free will allow you to post a job. And it’s a qualified pool of virtual assistants that are paying to be in that leads community. And I’ve had really good luck there.  I always go first to our military spouse, remote working groups on Facebook, because I’m always going to try to give the edge to someone in the military community before I open it up to the rest of the world. And so that’s another nice way to give back to recognize there might be somebody who has these skills and maybe isn’t formally calling themselves a VA yet, but could with some training step in. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:01    Sure, absolutely. Yeah. And in the intro, I briefly mentioned that you wrote a book and what prompted you to write that book so that the Launch, your own freelance writing business is, the name of the book, what prompted you to write that and, and get that out there. Laura Briggs:    00:25:25    I used to be a teacher as I think I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. And so, I was also a graduate student.  I had a lot of colleagues from those worlds who saw my freelance journey go from one or two clients to I have to leave my day job because I’m fully booked. They were all very curious about what that process looked like. And I couldn’t do any more coffee chats. Like everyone I knew was like, Hey Laura, can I pick your brain? I was like, okay, guys, I got to put this together in a thing. I’m going to make it affordable for you to get a lot of my advice.  I went out and got a literary agent. We were actually trying to sell another book, which is my second book that’s coming out in October of 2020. Laura Briggs:    00:26:07    And my agent was pitching this book everywhere. I was a debut author. It’s a really hard time to break in as a debut author. And one publisher came back and said, we really like Laura, but we have this other book that needs to be written first in our catalog, a beginner’s book on a freelance writing business. Would she like to do that? And my agent was like, let’s do this. You knock them out of the water, blow their socks off with how good you can market this thing. And I bet we can sell the second one. And so that’s exactly what we did. And I’m really glad I wrote the beginner one first, because there’s been a lot of people who have been able to leverage that resource who are at more beginner point. And I really just wanted people to have access to a resource that was less than $20. That with a little bit of DIY work on their own, they’d have a guidebook of the mistakes I wish I’d avoided. And some of the things you can do to supercharge your success when you get started. Scott DeLuzio:    00:27:01    So what are some of those mistakes that you wish you avoided? Laura Briggs: 2    00:27:05    Yeah. Taking on the wrong clients, huge one. I mean, we’ve all done it. And every freelancer will bring on some of the wrong clients. I think another one for me was believing that, especially as a writer that I needed to have been published somewhere else before selling work to clients and the three work samples that I used to land my first several dozen jobs were never published anywhere. I just made blogs like; this is my writing style. It’s never been published anywhere, but if you like what you see, and that was a big wake up call for me. I didn’t actually need to hold myself to this much higher standard of, I’ve got to go back and get an MFA. And I’ve got to be published in a magazine before I can ask other people to pay me for my work. So those are two and the third one, which sounds so silly, but it is the number one thing that holds people back. Laura Briggs:     00:27:52    They just don’t start. There’s always a reason, well, maybe in three months or maybe when this thing happens. And I think one of the things that’s interesting about the pandemic is don’t you wish you started sooner, right? If your job was in question before the pandemic, you gotta really think about, I think more people are aware of that now, how do you build multiple sources of income so that if you take a big hit on one, you get laid off, you have a family business that struggles for several months or goes under. That’s the way I like to think of online business. And so, don’t wait to get started. You’ll never regret getting started, but you will regret not getting started.  I actually bought that book or that course two years before. And there was no good reason for me to sit around and write my pitch that would have taken me two hours over the course of that two years. So just take the forward action step. You can always decide with very little money or time invested; this isn’t for me. That is not true of a brick and mortar business. After you’ve taken out a loan, signed the lease, done all these things. Scott DeLuzio:    00:28:56    Bought the inventory and all that stuff. And that’s one of the reasons why I liked the idea of going into business for myself and doing the type of work that I do is because I can work from home, as long as I have a computer and an internet connection pretty much good to go. It makes it easier, like you were saying earlier, that you can just pick up and go, if you want, you don’t have to work 80 hours a week. You can work 10 hours this week or take a vacation and not work this week. It’s really up to you. It’s not to say that it’s easy and that you can just not work and money continues to flow in. You still need to do the work Scott DeLuzio:    00:29:47    but you have that flexibility and that freedom; there’s no boss that you need to report to that’s going to tell you no or whatever. You can have a little more flexibility in your life which, for my family and our lives, just makes more sense. I would imagine, for military spouses who are looking for some type of employment where they need to be sort of flexible where the military dictates where you’re going to be when you need to be there and that type of thing. Having a freelance job in your back pocket that you can rely on for some income sounds to me like a great way to go. And it’s primarily why I wanted you to be on the podcast to talk about that type of thing. I really do appreciate everything that you’ve talked about with us today. It’s really been a pleasure speaking with you. Where can people go to find out more about Operation Freelance, see if they can get involved with that and your book and everything else that you do. Laura Briggs:    00:30:55    So, the website URL that will take you directly to the Amazon page for the book is freelance writing101.com and then Operation Freelance is@operationfreelance.org. And you should be able to subscribe, you can also usually find our application form for our next cohort. If you are interested in applying, we just ask that you’re military affiliated caregiver, Veteran, military spouse, it’s open to all, it’s a completely virtual training and it’s 90 days. And it’s been really cool to do so. I hope that more people will apply and we’ll have more in the program. Scott DeLuzio:    00:31:30    And so we’ll have links to all of this in the show notes to get people in touch with you, for applying for the cohorts and to hopefully grab your book too, and read that in the meantime. If they miss the cutoff for a cohort or whatever, they can jump in and get started, but we’ll have all that in the show notes, so you can check that out there and definitely check out both of those and get in touch because it seems like a great way to make a little extra money, and potentially a lot of extra money depending on how much time and effort you want to put it in. So, thank you again, Laura, for joining us on the show today. Laura Briggs:  Yeah. Thank you. Scott DeLuzio:  Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @DriveOnPodcast

Earl Breon, a USMC veteran and host of the Burden of Command podcast joins me for a rather unique episode – the first for this podcast anyway – where we do joint collaborative episode. In this episode both Earl and I introduce ourselves to each other’s respective audiences so that you can learn more about us, our stories, and what we have to offer to you as a listener. I would encourage you to also check out his podcast Burden of Command wherever you listen to podcasts. Links & Resources The Burden of Command Podcast Leadership Phalanx Extreme Ownership – by Jocko Willink LTC David Grossman Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so, already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so, it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so, that you get notified of new episodes as soon as they come out. If you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email list. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Hi, my name is Scott DeLuzio with the Drive On Podcast, Earl Breon:    00:00:49    And my name is Earl Breon with the Burden of Command Podcast. Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:53    And we’re doing a joint episode today where we’re combining forces and this episode will be played on both of our podcasts today. So, we’ll do a little back and forth and get to know each other and we’ll be able to tell you a little bit about ourselves and if you’re not familiar with us, you’ll learn a bit about us through this episode and a little bit of what we got going on. So, Earl, I would say welcome to the show, but it is also your show as well. So, we’ll skip over those formalities, I suppose. Welcome to our show, right? Yeah. So, let’s jump right in. Scott DeLuzio:    00:01:39    We had been talking offline a little bit, but before we started recording and we’re talking about a few different topics and I think all of these topics are really important topics that each of us have some experience with. But one of them that I thought was especially important is the topic of the transition out of the military. I know a lot of people get out of the military and when they’re in that transition period, it almost feels like a light switch is going off where they have this military identity, they’re either a soldier or Marine or airman, whatever the case may be and then the next day they wake up and all of a sudden they’re a civilian, and now they have to figure out how to go back and navigate civilian life. You have an interesting story about that. Would you mind talking to us a little bit about that story a little bit about how that went for you? Earl Breon:    00:02:37    Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking, and I’ve shared this story I think at the beginning of my podcast, but it’s good to revisit and for your listeners, my story is not the stereotypical story that’s out there right now, where we have a lot of say Navy seals and Air Force recon and Rangers that are writing books, and they’ve got all these glorious metals and combat experience. I served pre 9/11, and my career was abruptly cut short due to the anthrax vaccine situation. Essentially I went through the medical board process, having some issues and the Navy board came back and said, when you’re in weather you don’t have to worry about passing out when you run well, being a Marine, you do have to worry about passing out when you run my CEO made it very clear. Earl Breon:    00:03:26    And so, he processed me for an administrative separation. So, I went from being a Marine to being told you’ve got 10 days and you’re no longer a Marine. And I didn’t have a lot of time to really process it. You know, I wasn’t looking forward to an EAs date. Luckily, I got into some of the transition classes and that helped me get a job in federal civilian service eventually. But in between I had to stop; I was working at a faucet factory in Northern Michigan, my wife’s hometown, and it’s stuck with me. They’re going from this rigid, structured kind of environment where you could rely on the person next to you to being in a place where people showed up to work late, they took off early, and it just grated on me and then eventually getting into the federal workforce, I saw some of those same things. And I’m like, this is your starting time you’re supposed to be here then. And I was working with a Navy veteran and he’s like, son, you gotta realize you’re not in the Marines anymore. Well, dang it. Shouldn’t everybody show up to work on time. That’s something, I think. Scott DeLuzio:    00:04:38    Exactly. Earl Breon:    00:04:40    It took me a while to come to grips with, he was right. I’m not in the Marines anymore. I had to adjust my thinking and I’ll tell you I’m sad to admit that I took a little too far the other direction. Because it was like four or five years down the road, I was working with an air force veteran for the first time. And he’s like, you were in the Marines. I was like, yeah. Why? He’s like, well, you don’t act like a Marine and that stung. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:08    Right, Yeah. Because once a Marine always a Marine. Earl Breon:    00:05:12    So, y’all struggled with that balance for a little bit of finding where in the civilian world, where that line of not being the stereotypical Marine is versus being able to hold people accountable. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:26    For sure. Right. And that’s a struggle that a lot of people go through when they come out. I have posted a question on a Facebook group a few days ago just asking, what are some of the biggest troubles that people have when they get out of the military? And one of the most common things that people were posting was just dealing with civilians and their mindset and their attitude about things, like you were saying about work and things like that. And the other was just that readjustment period and trying to find their place in the world. And the missing the comradery that you have in the service and so, your story is probably not too far from what a lot of other people are going through. And that’s why I wanted to bring it up because, I feel like some people might be sitting there thinking, Oh, it is just me. I’m all alone in this, but that’s not the case at all. There’s a lot of people who are going through this, so, that’s really a good background on you and your situation was like when you got out of the military Earl Breon:    00:06:45    Now really quick, for my listeners, I want to give you the same courtesy here. Take a second, introduce yourself really quick, give your backstory and who you are. Scott DeLuzio:    00:06:58    Yeah, sure. So, hi again, my name is Scott DeLuzio. My podcast is the Drive On Podcast and I served in the Connecticut Army National Guard as an infantryman for about six years. I got in around 2005, and for the most part, it was just the one weekend a month, two weeks a year training that the national guard does. We had some state level things that we got called up for natural disasters and that type of thing but nothing too crazy. And in late 2009, we were getting ready for deployment to Afghanistan and I should preface this by saying that my younger brother was enlisted in the Vermont Army National Guard, also, infantryman, and our units fell under the same brigade. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:04    So, despite the fact that we were in two separate States, we all fell into the same brigade. And then that whole brigade was deployed to Afghanistan at the same time. So, him and I both we were located in different bases, different parts of the country but we were both deployed to Afghanistan at the same time. We get to Afghanistan in February 2010. And by August, 2010, my brother was killed in action; and so, that’s a big part of my story and my background after coming home dealing with the mental health issues that just naturally come with being in combat and also dealing with the grief of losing a loved one and all the complications that came with it is a big part of my story and where I got the incentive to try to help other people out because  it really wasn’t easy for me those first few months, even the first couple of years after coming back home with dealing with things like the stresses from combat some of the moral injuries that you might have. Scott DeLuzio:    00:09:18    We talked about that before we started recording a little bit which I’m sure we can jump into that topic too, because that’s an interesting topic and dealing with all that stuff and then the thing that really eats me up inside is seeing the number of veterans who are committing suicide on a daily basis. The company that I was in was fortunate enough not to have any combat related deaths over in Afghanistan, but since coming back home, we’ve lost several soldiers to suicide. And to me that’s just unacceptable. Like there needs to be more going on and more to be done about that. And that’s the basis for why I started the podcast a little over a year ago now is that I know there’s people in the VA there’s people who are out there, mental health professionals who are well meaning they’re doing their jobs, are doing the best that they can, Scott DeLuzio:    00:10:17    maybe they just don’t have the resources they need. Maybe they don’t have the availability to help everyone and do all the things that they need to do. So, I figured, I’m just one person, how can I reach the most people out there? And I figured, Hey, start a podcast. It’s pretty accessible, it’s free for anyone to listen to. And I’ll talk about things like, what you talked about in your little intro there; talk about the transition periods, the struggles that people go through and bring on real people, not people who have only experienced this stuff in the classroom. People who’ve actually experienced it in real life, bring them on and talk to them in person talk about their experiences, what they went through, how they overcame these things, or if they haven’t overcome them, what they’re doing to work on that, to get through there so, that the people who are listening know that they’re not alone, that there’s other people out there who are going through the same things Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:16    and for the people who have come through this, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that there’s better solutions than some of those permanent solutions that sometimes people decide to choose. So, that’s me in a nutshell a little bit about my background and everything. Earl Breon:    00:11:37    I love that. And it’s great. I want to touch on all those, but if you don’t mind you know, there’s one static question I ask all the guests on my show and I’m sure my listeners are eager to hear your response. When you hear the term Burden of Command with all of your experiences you just shared, what does that phrase mean to you? Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:59    Burden of Command. That’s a good question. The first thing that just jumped in my head was, so, the day that my brother was killed, my commanding officer was the one who informed me that my brother was killed and having known him, my commanding officer and been on a friendly basis with him and everything, that had to be one of the hardest things that he had to do. I never really spoke to him about this afterwards. I feel a little bit bad about that, but I never really spoke to him about it, but that had to have been one of the hardest things that he’s really had to do is sit down with another soldier and tell him that a family member was killed. Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:53    Not a friend, not a distant relative or something like that, but it’s like the little kid that you grew up playing in the backyard with, he’s not a kid anymore, he’s gone and so, I think of the reason why I tell that is I think of this burden that these people who are in charge in the leadership positions that they need to put aside their own emotions and their own personal feelings about certain situations and do what’s right for the people who are in their command and take care of those people. That’s a heavy burden to carry sometimes. And I think it’s not an easy job; obviously, someone has to do these types of things and there’s other situations out there. I use one from my own personal background but there’s other situations where the leaders have to take charge and put their own feelings and personal situations aside to be able to lead their people, but that’s kind of what jumped in my mind when you said that phrase and hopefully that’s an acceptable answer for what we’re talking about here. Earl Breon:    00:14:17    Definitely. I mean, that’s what I tell folks there’s no right or wrong answer. I’ve gotten a lot of different answers to that question, again for my listeners, they’ve heard, I’ve had your dad on the show, Mark DeLuzio, he introduced us. And I’ll say the same thing to you that I said to him, sorry for your loss. You know, we talked about that comradery and that brothership, but for you, it was a literal brothership. And as much as it hurts, I’m empathizing with you here on that, as much as it hurts to lose a I’m using air quotes here, brother, as we use the term in the service it had to be a whole other level losing a literal brother. Scott DeLuzio:    00:15:00    Yeah, for sure. And I remember I think I might’ve just been in shock like the whole next day. The next day, if anyone’s familiar with this, it’s called the ramp ceremony where they bring the bodies onto the plane to be flown out of country. And there’s a ceremony where lots of officials, there were generals and there were people from other countries, other soldiers from other countries and civilian contractors and things like that all came to pay their respects. Think of it sort of like a wake the way you traditionally would see that. But you know, I was just in shock that day and I had a complete lack of emotions. Like I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t angry. It just was like emotions were just shut off, I think for me, and it was a surreal kind of experience going through all that. So, anyways… Earl Breon:    00:15:58    Yeah, well, I don’t want to hog up all the time since especially this being a joint show. So, where would you like to take the conversation now? Scott DeLuzio:    00:16:08    Well, you had mentioned that you wanted to talk a little bit about the moral injuries and things like that earlier, before we started recording. What were your thoughts on that? What did you want to say on that? Earl Breon:    00:16:21    Well, it’s something I wish more employers and just leaders, period wrapped their minds around. It’s an interesting concept and I heard you talk about it a little bit, so, I know you get it, but you know, for the listeners who haven’t heard me talk about this before, they call it moral injuries because while there’s no physical assault, pain going on your brain lights up the same as if you’ve had some kind of physical stimulus and it creates that type of pain. When we’re talking about things like veterans’ suicide. (A) It’s not all combat related (B) it’s not all limited to the time and service, and (C) it’s real. And it’s like any other injury, right? Earl Breon:    00:17:12    You know, if you get a small fracture in your shin, that’s not going to do much. If you get a second one, that’s going to put you at more risk of total breakage. But as these things compound, you end up with a total breakage, and that’s where we get folks who end up, as you mentioned, committing suicide, the ultimate way out. And, especially in our world, in the veteran world, a lot of people think it’s automatic. You were in the service, you were overseas, you have seen some stuff, you’ve got to have all this baggage. And, I’ve heard employers verbally say, I’m a little hesitant to hire veterans because the whole PTSD thing. Well, not everybody has PTSD and not all PTSD is combat related. You’re just as likely to have somebody with PTSD because they were a victim of childhood rape or something like that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:18:12    Even a car accident or something like that. Like you could get into an accident on the way to work and then you have some issues where you can’t drive down that street anymore, because it just is too much for you to handle. And it’s definitely not limited to combat veterans or veterans of any sort. Earl Breon:    00:18:36    And this has given the skill set to be able to deal with that. You wouldn’t tell a victim of sexual assault; I’m not going to hire you because you might have PTSD. So, why would you say it to a veteran? But it’s a skillset that a lot of leaders need and it is empathy. And I think that’s the thing that shocks a lot of people when they hear veterans talk about this is that’s why we use the term brotherhood.  We love one another. And are you familiar with the works of Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman? Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:12    I’m not, no, but I’m making a note now to check it out. Earl Breon:    00:19:17    He’s great. He’s a I think the term that they coined for him as a combat psychologist, he’s an army veteran. And he really studies the question that got him going was how one can human being kill another human being. And he goes through the whole thing and he’s got all these statistics. He shows that all through history, even in war humans will go out of their way to not kill another human being, even in combat. While these incidents from the civil war the rifles were double loaded and they weren’t used on the battlefield, double loaded Romans not using the Gladius the way it’s supposed to. They were taught to stab instead of a slash, but they would slash going back to that with that brotherhood. Earl Breon:    00:20:12    We saw a sharp increase in PTSD rates going from WWII, and there was a slight increase in Korea, but there was a sharp increase in Vietnam. And he says that the really big difference in there was mobility, right after WWII, arguably soldiers saw much worse atrocities, whether you were in the European or the Japanese theater of the war, you saw more terrible things then what you saw even as bad as Vietnam was the difference was that comradery, when it was over, you got put on a ship, you had a couple months steaming back to the USA amongst your brothers and sisters. And there were some in the nurse Corps at the time, sisters to decompress and talk about it. In Vietnam, you were literally in it one day on a plane and back home the next, and you had no decompression time, Scott DeLuzio:    00:21:15    Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s something that people are seeing these days too, where they’re coming back from overseas and they’re not getting the time to have that decompression at least maybe not a sufficient amount of time for that decompression. And I think that’s something as a society we can probably have a little more empathy for. I know my return back home was definitely abrupt.  I was out running a mission and then the next day I was on a plane on my way back home. And granted that the flight from Afghanistan is not the quickest flight around back home or whatever. But still, I had very little time with any other soldiers that I knew because after I left the mission that I was on, I was basically with other soldiers but I didn’t really know any of them. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:21    And so, I didn’t really have anyone I could talk to that I trusted and knew and things like that. And the next people that I saw that I could talk to and I really trusted was my family when I got back home. And that to me was a problem because I didn’t have that chance to decompress and turn off. And when you’re in a combat environment, you’re on alert 24/7, pretty much you’re in that always on always ready mode. You’re always head on a swivel. You’re looking for potential problems. And then you come home and people might expect you to just flip that off, like it’s a light switch and you really need a dimmer. You need something to slowly turn it down to a lower level and you need to be able to handle that with people that you trust and know, and who also have been through the same experiences as you. So, that’s very true. Earl Breon:    00:23:16    Yeah, and that’s extremely valuable, and again myself right. You know, I was pre 9/11. I never saw combat. I had a lot of training, just in case it ever happened. But even though I’m a veteran, I’m never going to fully identify with it. And we see that a lot in the veteran community and this lack of understanding about how different people are affected differently. I always get a kick out of and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the fireworks, holidays, 4th of July, things like that, you always get somebody who’s well-meaning, that’ll pose, Hey, think of veterans as you’re setting up your fireworks, this could trigger something. And then you get some salty crusty veteran and it’s you don’t know the difference Earl Breon:    00:24:02    between a Roman candle. And it’s like, that’s not the point.  You have been able to process that and at the very least think you’re okay, there are veterans that just the slightest noise, what happened and it sets them off, and I’ve heard, again, I’ve talked with veterans, I’ve heard, sometimes it’s a smell, there is a guy, he was in a particularly what’s a good way to put this fecal infested area of Afghanistan. And he said, to this day, anytime somebody around just passes gas or like if there’s a baby and they fill their diaper, whatever, just that smell of that fecal matter takes him right back to where that area was. So, you never know, what’s going to set somebody off. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:00    Yeah. And they’re the senses that we have are very strongly tied to your memories and the thoughts that you carry with you, things like smells and sights and noises. I had somebody else on the podcast that had talked about how he was in Vietnam and he later went on to learn how to fly helicopters in the army. And he was on a training mission where he was flying the helicopters, a live-fire training mission, and the sounds of the guns going off and the explosions of the missiles and everything else that he was shooting off triggered a PTSD attack on him and brought him back to being in Vietnam where all these explosions and gunfire and things like that were going off. And it was really hard for him to go through all of that and live through that. Scott DeLuzio:    00:25:57    All of these senses sounds, sights, smells, tastes even could bring you back to something, even myself. I was listening to a song a few months ago that I hadn’t heard since I had been in Afghanistan. And it took me right back to the last time that I remembered hearing that song. And I was like, I felt like I was there. Like I was actually in Afghanistan and it was kind of an interesting thing to see that powerful effect of how closely memory is tied to those senses. Earl Breon:    00:26:35    Well, yeah. You know, and that’s the thing is our brains are weird, wonderful things, right? Like so, what we do a lot here at the leadership failings we do leadership and tie it in with diversity and inclusion training. Our kind of standard motto, if you will, is if you understand all the things it takes to be a good leader, you understand how important diversity and inclusiveness is to build a strong functioning team. And we talk about a lot of these same things as far as from the employer standpoint and how our brain works with neuroscience and those biases.  And there’s some crazy research you’re talking about the senses; there’s a gentleman, John Barge out of Harvard, and he’s almost made a game if you will, out of finding what influences human decision making. Earl Breon:    00:27:38    And he did this one study where he proved through this study, that the temperature of your drink influences how you view your next interaction.  If you have a cold drink in your hand, you’re more likely to view your next interaction a little bit more harshly, a little bit more coldly, in his specific scenario, he was talking about the likelihood of hiring someone. And so, leading up to that question, he would give people random drinks. Some people, it was cold, some people it was hot and there was a direct correlation. If you gave somebody a cold drink, they were more likely to not hire that person. If he gave them a hot drink, those feelings of warmth and love and calmness and all that we talked about being warm and fuzzy, they were more likely to hire that person. That’s not something you think about. Scott DeLuzio:    00:28:35    Yeah. And then, tying all this back into a leadership standpoint is that, I mean, you’re not dealing with robots here. You know, you’re dealing with living, breathing human beings and they have their own backgrounds, their own stories, their own unique set of circumstances that make them who they are and you might look at someone who was in the service and a veteran and say, “Oh, well, I want to stay away from that person because of the PTSD aspect or things like that.” They might be unstable or whatever, but they bring a lot of other things to the table, and you can’t dismiss them for one thing that may or may not even be an issue. You know, it’s just a little bit of a bias that you might have. And so, we all have our own unique set of issues that we’re carrying around with us, whether you served or not. And I think that’s just something that you have to learn how to work around. Do you have any background on that and anything that you want to add to that? Earl Breon:    00:29:48    Well, you know, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, it is a bias and the hardest thing for us to do is get people to admit that they have biases. You know, we’ve seen classic example, few years back, Paula Dean, she tried to admit and come clean that maybe she had, or that she had used some racial insensitive language, 20 years ago. Nobody found this, nobody stumbled upon it. She admitted it and apologized for it, but she got beat over the head. And basically, Paula Dean went from being everywhere to now, you hardly ever hear of her. But it shouldn’t be okay to admit these biases because we all have them. And if your bias as a hiring official is, I’m not going to hire veterans because I don’t want to deal with these issues. Earl Breon:    00:30:38    Okay. Fine. Be forward about that and talk to people. Right. Educate yourself. What is it that is unique about veterans and how can you better lead them? Because like you said, we bring a ton of skills. You know every one of us we have, as we talked about in the opening, there’s a set of standards that we love to live up to. We’re going to show up on time. We’re going to do the job to the best of our ability based on the guidelines that are set out in front of us and we’re going to bring a set of leadership skills to the table that most of the people on your team, whether they have a college degree or not have never been exposed to. I mean, you know, for instance you take a Marine versus a straight out of college, that out of college is going to be good, but you’re passing up on a lot of experience, leadership, adaptability, all of these things. And companies like Google just did this whole, over the past six, seven, eight years on their hiring practices. They’ve stopped looking at GPA. They’ve stopped looking at your level of degree and all that. And they look for, are you dependable? Are you adaptable? Can you get along? Do you have teamwork skills? And they show that those are much more valuable and much better indicator of somebody’s success as an employee. And we bring all of those things to the table Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:09    Yeah. Well, there’s always going to be exceptions for every rule, but yeah, I think you’re right. You did hit the nail there on the head that most of us will be coming out of the military with those types of leadership traits. And one of the other things too, that I don’t think a lot of people realize, I know this is true in the army. I don’t know about the Marine Corps, other branches of the service, but in the army, they always told us that you should be able to do that job above you and the job two jobs above you and including your own and everything below you is in terms of the rank structure and I found that to be very true when I was in Afghanistan. Scott DeLuzio:    00:32:54    I was a team leader on paper that was in charge of three or four guys at any given time but realistically we’d go out on missions and sometimes I would be in charge of the entire mission and I’d be in charge of 20 or 30 guys at that point. So, I was doing much more than the job that I was supposed to have “on paper.” There’s that adaptability that you were talking about where just because something changes and a situation comes up, you need to still be able to do whatever job is presented to you. If everyone in an army unit goes out and does the job that they’re doing on paper they’re in charge of X number of people and they’re doing whatever their job is. Scott DeLuzio:    00:33:54    and then an enemy attack happens and someone gets taken out, you have to adapt right away. There’s no transition period there. It’s now you’re stepping up into that next guy shoes and taking over his job because that’s just how things have to happen. And if you don’t, people are, if you hesitate, people are going to end up getting hurt and so, with that sort of training, a lot of veterans I think, are going to have that mindset where that’s not in my job description, but it’s still a job that needs to get done and I’m going to do it because I see it needs to be done. And I’m just going to take care of it until it gets done. I think that’s something that people will miss out on if they pass over veterans for the fact that they’re veterans. Earl Breon:    00:34:44    Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I like to throw in movie quotes because a lot of people’s experiences with the military are through movies. And for the folks who are having trouble, maybe completely grasping on what Scott’s talking about here, they have that great scene in the movie, We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson where they’re doing the landing for air Cav. And like, he just walks up to the skid plate and he slams the Sergeant on the chest, you’re dead. And he points to the corporal and says, you’re in charge. What do you do? And he hesitates, he smacks him in the chest. So, your dead, and he points the next guy and says, okay, he’s dead. What do you do? And yeah, you’ve gotta be willing. We do the same thing, in the Marines we talked about, everybody’s a leader and we’re supposed to hold each other accountable and it’s true. Earl Breon:    00:35:33    And I think that’s another thing in the civilian world where it’s kind of an irony. Because yes, we have a rank structure we’re supposed to respect the rank and the command, and maybe the army is a little bit different, but in the Marines, if you see somebody, it doesn’t matter if you’re a private and you see somebody who’s not doing something right. You have a responsibility to look out for them and say something. And in the corporate world, they’re almost religious, we’re going to stick to the chain of command. And if you jump at it, it’s this Cardinal sin. Or if you talk above your pay grade, how many organizations have you ever been in where the janitor feels free to talk to the CEO? Scott DeLuzio:    00:36:17    Right, exactly. Yeah. I mean, other than are you done with that? Can I take that for you? You know, that type of thing, like outside of that, but there’s very little interaction, but one of the things that you have to do is be able to trust your people and interest them to make decisions on their own, delegate decision making abilities to those people because otherwise you’re going to start creating some bottlenecks at the top and things are just not going to get done. You have to allow people to be able to make those types of decisions. And that’s something that I noticed in the army is something that was very heavily relied upon is the ability for the boots on the ground, the people who are actually in the mission, not the higher ups, the commanders and all the brass who were sitting on the sidelines, who were just hearing what’s going on over the radio. Scott DeLuzio:    00:37:14    They weren’t necessarily making all the decisions. They might chime in from time to time, if they have something pertinent to say, but with our missions that we’d be on, we’re on the ground. We make the decisions as we see it. And I was a Sergeant an enlisted rank and sometimes I was the highest-ranking person there, and I was making the decisions on what needed to be done. And so, that’s not the case in every situation there; there’s usually people who are higher ranking out on these missions, but it’s not always the case. So, they rely on the people who are there to make those types of decisions. And I think that’s something that could definitely be applied to the corporate world. Especially with your audience, the people that you’ve talked to on a regular basis here, it seems like that’s something that they need to be able to let go of and allow those people to take charge and take responsibility for those types of things. Earl Breon:    00:38:19    Yeah, absolutely. I served in peace time and to make it worse, I was weather. So, I was I think the army used the same acronym. I was opposed personnel other than grunt and, you know, but you’re right. I mean, even in my situation, I was in weather and I was in Biloxi when hurricane George hit. Here I am a 19-year-old, just freshly promoted. No, I hadn’t even been promoted Lance corporal yet. I was still an E2. And it was my turn to do the brief to the major general to start air force general in charge of the whole base. And my responsibility was giving him a brief on the hurricane track and make a recommendation on what we should do with the millions, maybe even close to a billion dollars’ worth of material and personnel we had on base. Not many corporations are going to invest that level of authority in somebody who has been with the organization less than six months. And in some cases, they shouldn’t, but in some cases they should because that instance, I briefed out what was going to happen. And we were able to bug out and lock things down and get aircraft out and Biloxi took pretty close to a direct hit and it was the right call. They could have easily said, look, I’m a major general, I’m the CEO of this thing. Come on. Scott DeLuzio:    00:39:32    Yeah. What do you really know? Come on. Yeah. Earl Breon:    00:39:34    But, he listened and again, I think that’s the thing that a lot of people don’t get about military service is yes, the rank is there, almost more of an administrative purpose. Everybody has the same responsibilities and on the same mission and looking for the same things. And you have to have that boots on the ground. Just imagine if you get into an altercation and well, “Hey, this machine gun nest isn’t where Intel said it was, I’m going to have to adapt the plan. Let me call HQ. HQ has got a call set com, set coms, got a call from the Pentagon. t would be terrible. Before anybody even got the message up the chain hustle, lesson decision came back down, right? Scott DeLuzio:    00:40:19    Yeah. That machine guns gone by the time that message gets to the president or whoever all the way at the top of the chain that is going to, that it’s going to get to. And then it has to work its way back down. So, yeah, that would be a terrible situation. But the other thing that it does by allowing the people who are on the ground, who are on the front lines, if you will in and taking, being able to take responsibility and make their own decisions is it makes them take ownership of the situation too. And so, when they see things start to go sideways, they know, okay, this is on me because this was my call. This was my decision, my idea, or whatever to go about this route. And you know, they’ll take ownership as opposed to pointing fingers at somebody else, which we all know it doesn’t really solve anything. It doesn’t fix it, the situation, but when I see that things are starting to go sideways, they’re going to make darn sure that they’re going to fix it and they’re going to, they’re going to make it work, you know? Earl Breon:    00:41:23    Yeah, no you know, a hundred percent and I get pushback on that. You know, when we’re talking to folks, they’re like, well, you know, I just, I don’t have, I don’t have people on my team that I can trust that level of. Well, that’s your fault. Scott DeLuzio:    00:41:36    That’s the leadership problem. Earl Breon:    00:41:39    If you don’t have those people on your team, you did a shitty job of putting your team together, Scott DeLuzio:    00:41:42    or training your team. You know, maybe you have a bunch of junior people who are not capable of doing that, but they need the training. So, invest in the training, get them the training that they need. If they need experience, get them experience, hold their hand for a little bit to get them trained up to the point where they can make these decisions and you’re confident that I don’t want to say that they’re going to make the right decision because you can’t have an absolute, a hundred percent guarantee of that all the time but that they have the ability to make the right decision. And if they don’t have that ability, then like you said, you made a poor decision in creating that team, right? Earl Breon:    00:42:21    No. And we talked kind of poked funded Navy seals earlier but there is a Navy seal, Jocko Willink. He and his friend Lane Bev, and they wrote the book, Extreme Ownership, fantastic book, it was a fantastic book, but even he had to go on this mission afterwards, because what happened was a lot of people read the book and he heard extreme ownership is I need to say, it’s my fault. And you had a lot of people’s going to say, it’s my fault. It’s my fault. I take ownership. That is kind of what I was saying. But you still have to do kind of what you’re talking here. You still have to do that analysis. Sure. It’s your fault. As a leader, you should have put your team together. Earl Breon:    00:42:59    You should have made better decisions. You should have given better instructions. You said that all these things, but you have to go deeper and figure out why and why, where you failed the team. And even if the team failed, like we’re talking about here, even if Tommy didn’t do his job, you still failed because you didn’t understand Tommy’s capabilities and you didn’t put him in a position to succeed. You put him in the position to fail. And so that’s the thing with ownership. It’s not just, it’s my fault. It’s yes, it is your fault. But do you understand why it’s your fault? It’s a question. My wife asks me all the time. Do you understand why, what you did?  And that goes back to the whole thing where wives are much smarter, and better leaders than we give them credit for. Scott DeLuzio:    00:43:46    For sure. Absolutely. You’re not going to catch me saying anything other than that. Earl Breon:    00:43:52    But I mean, it’s the truth. You don’t understand what you did? When our wives ask us that we feel challenged. I mean, me, I know I do. When my wife asks me, I was like, wait, of course I do. But I really don’t. You know, and in my mind, I don’t have a clue, but when we talk about ownership, it’s not just saying yes, it’s saying yes, and I’m going to figure out what went wrong and I’m going to take the responsibility to make a corrective action moving forward. As you mentioned, do I need to train somebody up more? Did I do a terrible job at what the expected outcomes were going to be? Did I just pick the wrong team? We’ll go back to the moral injuries and tie that in. Did I not understand that Johnny’s dad is in stage four cancer and could die at any second, but you put a high stress task on him. That’s not the time to put people in high stress. Scott DeLuzio:    00:44:45    Right? Exactly. Yeah. That’s for sure a great point. I don’t think people think about that. They might sit on a pedestal or whatever. They might sit there looking at wargaming look at all the pieces of their puzzle and looking at them at the individuals that they have on their team as tools a means to an end, to get a particular job accomplished or job done. And they may not be thinking of, Oh, well, like you said, Johnny’s dad is going through cancer treatment and he’s probably stressed out. Or his wife just had a baby and he probably didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, those types of things. These are people, like I said before, we’re not dealing with robots here that are just tools that accomplish jobs. Earl Breon:    00:45:37    One of the reasons veterans have some of the stigma that they do is the homelessness piece, right? You know, there’s a large segment of veterans that are homeless. Well, why when you go back and you look at how in the early stages of the global war on terror, the standard method of treatment was here, take a fist full of pills until the pain goes away. And we’re just going to keep giving you a fist full of pills, and then you get people addicted to pills, and then you realize, Hey, it’s not a good idea to get people addicted to pills. And so, we’re going to stop giving you pills. Now you’ve got a whole bunch of people who are addicted to opioids, but now they have no way of getting opioids when you don’t take the time to fix the addiction that you created. And then you just expect them to fend for themselves. Scott DeLuzio:    00:46:37    Yeah. It’s the law of unintended consequences where you’re trying to fix one thing and you don’t look two or three steps down the road to see what problems are going to end up coming up from all of this. Earl Breon:    00:46:54    There’s a lot of things, this will show my nerdy side, I was a big Star Trek fan and  they’re talking about tri-level chess on there. We got a lot of people, especially when it comes to these types of issues, they’re playing checkers when it’s a tri-level chess kind of game. Scott DeLuzio:    00:47:13    Okay. Yeah, yeah. Earl Breon:    00:47:15    We need to do some deeper thinking and deeper understanding and that’s why shows like Drive On, I’ve listened to several episodes, haven’t listen to every one, but your show Drive On with some of the guests and some of the topics you’ve talked. It is a great service and I really hope and believe that some veterans have heard that and hopefully made some better decisions because of the information you shared. So, I appreciate you doing that and taking that opportunity. Scott DeLuzio:    00:47:46    I appreciate that and even for people who are not veterans who are like we’re talking about here in a leadership role where they might have veterans on their team, or they might have people who are going through a stressful time, maybe it’s grief, or the loss of a loved one, or some other situations that they’re going through. The topics that we talk about on my podcast might help bring some understanding to the human side of things and really I’m trying to reduce the stigma around the mental health topics and other things that traditionally, like I know growing up, just suck it up and deal with it and move on with whatever it is that, in some cases, you just gotta suck it up and deal with certain things, but there’s other situations where that’s not the right attitude to have and there might be a fine line there, but to help people understand what’s going on I think is a big goal of mine help people get a better picture of the mental health that were issues that we’re facing. Earl Breon:    00:49:01    Yeah. Well, you said the key thing right there, a few episodes back I had the fortune of interviewing Jason Armstrong, the chief of police for Ferguson, Missouri. And we started talking about mental health a little bit, obviously around race issues and all that. And he told me they had an officer involved shooting. It was a couple of his officers. He was, I think deputy chief outside of Atlanta and they put out a call for mental health services. And he said, the first thing I did, as soon as I got his, I responded to everybody make me an appointment. And he said, the whole point was I wanted my people at my department to see from somebody in senior leadership, that it was okay to take advantage of. And that’s what we need more, I believe in the veteran community, we’ve got a lot of great personalities. Earl Breon:    00:49:54    We’ve got a lot of very influential people and some of them are doing this, but we need more to sit back and say, look, you’re here. And General Mattis tried this in a way, several years back, but it got taken out of context. The thing is, you’re not broken. You’re not weird. You’re not weak, you’re not any of these things you’ve seen. You’ve seen stuff that most human beings shouldn’t see even exposed the situation that most human beings should never be in. You shouldn’t be ashamed of the fact that you need some help coping with that. And so, we need more people in positions of authority to tell people how to tough it up, suck it up, put their arm around her shoulder and help them find help. That’s how you’re going to help bring 22 a day down. Scott DeLuzio:    00:50:50    Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I I’d like to see that number go away entirely. That’s a big number to chip away at, but every number that we can bring it down, everyone that we can bring it down is great. But yeah, you’re absolutely right with that. Earl Breon:    00:51:10    Yeah. I follow a lot of the folks. I think it was Tim Kennedy, Mr. MMA, Mr. Everything. And he even said, you know, I’d be lying to you if I said that there were times in combat where I didn’t freeze and get stuck behind a wall because I couldn’t get myself to move. Everybody goes through it. You’re in terrible situations. And it bugs me to no end when we see other veterans eating our own. Scott DeLuzio:    00:51:46    Yeah. For sure. And one of the things that I like to do on my podcast is get very personal what it is that I’m talking about. And I’ll tell the stuff that’s not the pleasant pretty stuff and I’ll talk about my own experiences. I’ll talk about how I went to go get some counseling after I got back from overseas.  I don’t really want to use the term lead by example, but like to show people that it’s okay to do that, I’ve done it and I didn’t come out as some weak sissy whatever, like I feel like I came out actually stronger. Scott DeLuzio:    00:52:29    We talked about this on my podcast too, one of the earlier episodes where it’s not selfish to take care of yourself, because if you’re dealing with things, mental health issues or any other kind of health issues and you’re dealing with these things and you don’t take care of them, they’re going to end up making it so that you can’t do your job, you can’t take care of your family. You can’t do the things that you need to do. You can’t be present for different things. So, it’s not selfish for you to go talk to somebody, to a counselor or to focus on yourself for a period of time, because you need to in order to do that, it’s kind of like the example of when you get on an airplane and they tell you about the oxygen mask set, dropped down, and they tell you to put your mask on first before helping others. Scott DeLuzio:    00:53:20    And if you’re sitting there flying with kids, you might think, well, I’m going to do anything to protect my kids. But if your kids are scared, now that these things are falling out of the ceiling and they’ve never seen them, and there are noises that they’re not familiar with. And you try to put that mask on them and they’re fighting you along the way. You don’t end up getting a mask on. Well, both of you are going to pass out and then you’re no good to them. You’re not going to help them out at all. So, put your mask on first, take care of yourself first, and then you can help them so, that you both don’t end up in trouble, same thing in combat, if someone gets shot or is wounded or whatever you don’t just run out to go help them as much as you might want to; you take care of security first, make sure that that threat is eliminated. It’s out of the way. And then you can go help that person make sure you get rid of that. You take care of security first and make sure you do it quickly but take care of it so that you don’t end up becoming a casualty as well. But now somebody else has to go out and drag you out from the danger zone as well. Earl Breon:    00:54:24    A hundred percent. And you said it right there, when you went, you felt kind of stronger on the backend and the airplane analogy is great. Another one I like to use is, and it’s something that most of us in the military know what I mean? You can’t tell it, but looking at me now, I’ve been out for 20 plus years. So, not as lean and mean as I used to be, but before the anthrax issues hit, I was fairly big into bodybuilding. And you know how that process works and anybody who’s into lifting weights knows. When you lift the weights, you put a heavy strain on the muscles and you tear and fatigue them, right? And then we know that we need to take supplements to help aid that healing process. So, when the muscles grow back, they’re stronger, bigger, healthier. And so, you can do more going forward. Your mind is a muscle. It’s the same thing. These things that we went through are putting our minds under immense stress loads. They’re getting broken down in a lot of different ways going and seeking help. It’s like taking that supplement. You get through there; you can deal with it. Now you understand more of what you can deal with. So, your mind comes out stronger on the other end, and it’s not a fluke that you felt that way. That’s actually what happened. Scott DeLuzio:    00:55:30    That’s showing that it worked. Exactly. Earl Breon:    00:55:33    And so, we know this about fitness. We know this about muscle building. We know this about all this good stuff. We just got to transition. Hey, the things that work for physical fitness work the same for mental fitness and see those services, there’s the veterans suicide hotline. There’s a what is it? 22 kills is another one that’s out there. The VA offers a host of services, take advantage of those. Scott DeLuzio:    00:56:04    For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that’s the best thing you could do really. And if you feel like you don’t want to put that burden on anyone else. That’s what those people’s jobs are. They’re there for that; that’s what their purpose is. And by denying that, then the ability to help you is kind of denying them their purpose in life. They’re there for that. So, take advantage of it; I don’t think there’s any problem with that. Earl Breon:    00:56:33    I agree. I agree. Scott DeLuzio:    00:56:36    Okay. Earl Breon:    00:56:37    We’ve been talking here for about 50 minutes or so, Scott DeLuzio:    00:56:40    Yeah. It seems that way. Time does fly when we get going on some of these topics and I probably could talk about this for quite a while. I think for this episode anyways, it’s probably a good point to wrap up. What do you want to give people who are may be listening on my podcast, where they can find out more about your company and what you do and your podcast and everything like that. So, if they want to tune in, they can find it there. Earl Breon:    00:57:07    Sure. Appreciate it. My company, my partner is an army veteran. We were the Leadership Phalanx. We rely heavily on some of that Spartan iconography there that is so popular in the military. The podcast that I produce is called the Burden of Command podcast. You can find a link to it there on that show. And yeah, if you want to reach out to me, typically on my show, I give out burdened.command, but given what we’re doing a burden.command@gmail.com, but given what we’re doing here, if there is a veteran, especially a veteran who’s listening, but really anybody who’s dealing with some of these issues, I’m not going to be able to talk intelligently about combat related stuff because I’ve never saw it. Earl Breon:    00:57:59    But I do understand some of these other things that are going on, I’m not a trained clinical psychologist or any of that, but, I could be a sounding board if you just need somebody to bounce ideas off of, or just talk to Earl@leadershipphalanx.com is my personal email address and feel free to hit me up there. And if you need to talk, we can work them in setting up a zoom call or something like that. But, if you’re suffering if you’re on the edge, reach out to me. Scott DeLuzio:    00:58:28    Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate that you’re putting that out there. Earl Breon:    00:58:34    No, absolutely. And for my listeners on the Burden of Command, how can they find your show and get in touch with you? Scott DeLuzio:    00:58:41    Yeah. So, again, it’s Drive On Podcast. You can go to DriveOnPodcast.com and you can find all the recent episodes listed on there. I have them broken out by category. So, depending on what your into what you want to listen to you can check out those various categories and you can just listen to those episodes that are related to that topic, as opposed to chronologically on all social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all those platforms, all @DriveOnPodcast and you can find contact information on the website and where to subscribe and listen to the podcast all right there. Earl Breon:    00:59:22    And please listeners, make sure you do that for both of us subscribe, rate, review, do all that good stuff. I don’t think people who don’t do podcasts, they have a hard time understanding how important that really is right with the algorithms. Scott had some great guests every time you rate and review one of those shows it gets them more exposure and same thing on my show. So, please do that for us. We’d really appreciate it for sure. Scott DeLuzio:  Absolutely. Yeah. That would be a huge help to do that. So, thanks again, Earl for joining me and I’m glad to be able to join you as well. It’s a great conference conversation. Earl Breon:  Yeah, no, absolutely. And thanks for the folks listening and thank you for coming up with this idea. We kind of glossed over it, but just when we were talking to Scott, it’s like, well let’s do a joint episode. And so, we did this on the fly and I really hope you all enjoy it. And for my listeners really thank you for sticking with us. I hope you enjoyed this format. Definitely let us know. And on my side, I’ll just sign off with, I’ll look forward to speaking with you again in the next episode. Scott DeLuzio:    01:00:39    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @DriveOnPodcast.

Kevin Rose talks to us about a rather unique approach that helps veterans learn to de-stress and be more present in the moment. The technique involves the use of predatory animals like tigers, bobcats, panthers, bears, and other animals who have the potential for being extremely dangerous. I mention this so that you realize that this is not to be done on your own. This technique needs to be done under the supervision of professionals like our guest Kevin Rose. Do not attempt this technique on your own. Links & Resources Catalyst Refuge Website Catalyst Refuge on Facebook Catalyst Refuge on Instagram Catalyst Refuge on Twitter Catalyst Refuge on YouTube Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out, if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcast.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email lists. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio and now let’s get on with the show. Hi everyone. today, my guest is Kevin Rose, who is the founder of The Catalyst and author of the book, The Catalyst Experience, How Rescued Tigers Heal Trauma Scarred Souls. So, Kevin, welcome to the show. I think I may have gotten some people’s attention when I mentioned tigers and the title of your book. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background and what it is that you do. Kevin Rose:    00:01:09    Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Scott.  So, I am a manual therapist. I’m licensed as a massage therapist and I’ve been doing that for about 25 years. And I noticed many years ago that I could help people relax but there was something missing. And I’m going to take you through a really quick rundown.  I started a program, started actually right after 9/11 when I felt like I was called to do something for those returning home from war and the program eventually became The Catalyst and The Catalyst is a human-animal interaction experience where we bring people face to face with tigers to help them relax. Now I know that sounds perhaps a little reverse, but it actually works.  The way it works is I work with a rescue animal sanctuary in the town where I live and I teach a very simple technique to help people relax. Kevin Rose:    00:02:17    So when someone shows up, I’ll have them think of something stressful, be able to feel it in their bodies. And then what we do is we work through the animal sanctuary and we go from enclosure to enclosure and as the person is feeling whatever they’re feeling, whether it’s anger, fear, whatever the emotion is, the animal will literally begin to mirror whatever that emotion is. They may start pacing, growling, moving away. Then I teach this really simple technique and as soon as the person begins to ground, which is what this is called a grounding technique, when they begin to ground into the present moment and settle, they watch the animal mirror that as well. So, it’s literally a live biofeedback, but we’re working with all kinds of animals. And what I found was, I started working with alpha predators, in order to match the dynamic that I experienced working with combat vets. Kevin Rose:    00:03:22     I had the opportunity clinic where I worked many years ago.  The doctor provided free programs for returning Veterans to help reintegrate. And what I noticed, as I mentioned earlier, was I could help people settle down. I could help people calm down, but then when they got up, it was like the stress just shot right back up. So I thought there’s gotta be some way to change this dynamic and long story short, it was actually working with tigers working with wolves first that brought me that awareness, but then working with tigers that really helped to change that dynamic in the brain literally. Scott DeLuzio:    00:04:07    Okay. So, this might just be me but the thought of working with some of these large animals doesn’t give off much of a Zen or calming vibe to me.  I think my blood pressure was rising as you were talking about working with some of these animals. So how does that work? How does the whole process work? Where are you in the enclosure with the animals? Are you just outside the enclosure or what is that process look like? And how does being with some of these alpha predator type animals help to teach people how to calm themselves down? Kevin Rose:    00:04:52    So if I can explain a couple things really quickly about why we are in heightened states of alert, and one reason is there is a functional, a structural component in our brains called the reticular activating system. Now what this reticular activating system does is it takes in all the environmental information and it processes it into basically one of two groups. It’s either known or unknown. And when that unknown gets signaled, what the reticular activating system does is it throws up a warning called the fight, flight, or freeze response. You’re familiar with that, right? So, the fight flight or freeze response now puts you in this place of reaction. You have to be ready for everything. And so, but what happens is if you’re in this constant state of alert, basically the fight or freeze response gets stuck. And so even when you’re in a calm situation, you’re heightened in that fight, flight, or freeze response, because you’re always ready for something to happen. Kevin Rose:    00:06:10    All right. So, what I found was, and I’ll tell you a quick story.  I had the opportunity to work hands on with wolves and I entered the enclosure with the wolves with other people having been a little training beforehand, but it’s a place called Wolf park. And it’s an anthology park where they study the wolves in their “natural habitat.” So, there’s a main pack of about seven wolves in a 25-30-acre enclosure. And so, they study them. How they hunt, how they mate, how they interact with each other. And so, I’m walking into this enclosure and my role there was to actually work on the wolves with whatever their injuries were. So, I’m walking into this enclosure and I look down this hill and there’s this pack of seven wolves flying up the hill at me. Kevin Rose:    00:07:09    Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a wolf in real life, but they’re about 150 pounds and are massive animals. And they’re all coming up the hill tongues hanging out focused on me because I’m the new guy, right? So, you can imagine my fight, flight, or freeze response is way high. Okay. So, they approached me and they come around me and because I’m so nervous, they start bumping and grounding because my nervousness is actually heightening their response. And I’m challenging the hierarchical situation by my heightened presence. So, I had to do something. I didn’t know what I should do, but the voice of my grandmother comes into my head. She taught me this technique, which I’m going to teach it in a little while, but she taught me this technique, how to use my senses and how to ground into the present moment to settle myself. Kevin Rose:    00:08:04    So I thought, well, that’s all I can do here. I can’t run obviously. And so, I start grounding myself. And as I did, the wolves just began moving away. They dissipated, they just oil and water. They just moved away. And I thought, wow, that is amazing. I wonder if I could do it again. So, I got myself all riled up again, and sure enough, they came right back around and started circling being bumping and grounding. And I grounded myself again, as soon as I did, they moved away. And then this time they allow me to work hands on with them one at a time coming up one at a time. And even the alpha submitted himself to me that day to work on, which is pretty amazing because I could keep myself grounded, they felt comfortable. So, the reason I started working with tigers was the availability. Kevin Rose:    00:08:53    I began volunteering at this animal sanctuary because I was looking for a place to do this. And I spoke to the owner and told her, “I have this idea for this project. I want to offer it free to combat Veterans. It may sound a little weird, but here’s what I want to do.” And her father was a combat vet who committed suicide as a result of PTSD. So, the doors were opening as they came. So, I started working with these tigers. And here’s what happens when you’re around a tiger. You’ve probably never been close up to any big alpha predator like that. Correct? Scott DeLuzio:  Right. Kevin Rose:  Right. So, what happens is when we step into this enclosure, we are not in the enclosure, we’re up next to the fence. Kevin Rose:    00:09:44    And when we step into this area where we’re that close to a tiger, what happens is your fight, flight, or freeze response naturally goes up? I don’t have to elicit it. I don’t have to tell you to think about anything other than something I always say, bring the stressful thought to mind and that’s as far as I have to go. And so that’s just natural excitement, whether it’s excitement or fear, it elicits that fight, flight, or freeze. And when you’re in that state, I teach this really simple technique that brings you down really quickly. And you begin to see and notice how the tiger reacts and responds to where you are. Does that make sense? Scott DeLuzio:  I think so. Yeah. Kevin Rose:  And so,  it’s not about creating fear, but what it is about is replicating a feeling. If I can replicate a feeling of stress that you’re dealing with constantly, anyway; if I can replicate it really quickly and in a relatively safe and controlled environment, then I can show you how to systematically turn that down. Kevin Rose:    00:10:56    Every time it comes up, the body choose us, it’s got biological cues. So, when you’re hungry, what do you do? You eat. Thirsty, drink; when you’re tired, you sleep. You don’t really think about those things. The body just gives a cue, and then you follow that cue. Well, stress and pain are the exact same. Wait, the body is just trying to get your attention and it gives you a cue. So, it begins to elevate that stress level. But what we’ve learned in this culture is to immediately go to our brains and try to figure it out. What that does is it just adds to the stress. Because if we ask our brain a question, it’ll give us an answer, but it’s probably not the most workable answer. So, when you’re cued, then the best thing to do with stress and pain is to follow that cue and go back into your body. Kevin Rose:    00:11:59    That’s all your body’s asking you to do when you get stressed. So not asking you to do anything else, but to come fully present in the moment and just like hunger, thirst, and fatigue, if you don’t listen and respond with eating, drinking, and sleeping, your body will speak louder until you do; it’s the same way with stress and pain. But if you hear that cue from stress and pain or feel that cue, and you totally become grounded in your body, the biological cue begins to satiate. Now it may come back, right? Eating, drinking, and sleeping. We don’t do that one time in life, and then it’s over, right? So, it’s a repetitive process, right? And so that’s what I teach is this is not a onetime thing. This is a repetitive process that when you begin to identify the cues, you have a way to change that dynamic.  Can I teach you this, Scott? Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:59    Yeah. I think that would actually be very helpful to people who might be listening to this and not necessarily have the ability to, if they don’t have access to a tiger or other things like that? So, where they can maybe practice this type of thing on their own. Kevin Rose:    00:13:18    Absolutely. So, do you have anything there to drink with you? Scott DeLuzio:    00:13:22    Yeah, I do. Kevin Rose:  Awesome.  What is it in the cup? Let me see what you’re like a water bottle. Okay, great. I just want to know Kevin Rose:    00:13:29    to be able to reference it correctly. So here you can just set it down for now, but the way I’d like to start is just feel yourself sitting in the chair, wiggle your toes a little bit. When you wiggle your toes, what that does is it brings your awareness all the way down through your body, right? This is step one. Your body is just calling you inside. Hey, just come in. You wiggle your toes. Now, as you’re sitting there feeling the chair against you, bring to mind something that creates stress. Scott DeLuzio:  Okay. Kevin Rose:  You have something. Scott DeLuzio:  Yep. Kevin Rose: All right. Now, as you’re thinking about this stressful thought, begin to notice, where do you feel the stress in your body? Where does it translate for you? Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:13     In my neck, actually, as soon as I thought of that thing, it was in my neck that I literally had a pain in the neck. Kevin Rose:    00:14:26    So if I were to ask you to quantify that zero out of 10, zero being not stressful at all, 10 is excruciatingly stressful. Where would you say it is in this moment? Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:35     Right now, it’s a three or four. It’s not super stressful. Kevin Rose:  Yeah. Very good. So, pick up the water bottle. Kevin Rose:    00:14:44    Yup. Hold it in your hand. And I want you to really bring your awareness to your fingertips. Notice the texture of the bottle. Notice temperature. Scott DeLuzio:  Okay. Kevin Rose: I want you to take a drink. And as you’re drinking, tastes the water, smell the water, listen to the sound of the water going down your throat. Scott DeLuzio:  Right. Kevin Rose:  And bring your awareness back to your fingertips. Really notice the texture of the bottle. Now, zero out of 10, measure that again? Scott DeLuzio:    00:15:13    The stress it’s not, I’m focusing more on the water bottle now than the stress. Kevin Rose: So how is the pain? So yeah, it’s like not there. Kevin Rose:    00:15:28    Here’s the thing. This isn’t a trick. We’re not distracting you away from this stress. This stress actually distracts you out of your body. All I’m doing is bringing you back in. Scott DeLuzio:  Right. Okay. Kevin Rose: So, using all five senses at once, what that does is it brings you fully present in your body. And so, when you do that, then the body goes just like you’ve had a good meal, a nice long drink, a nice nap, whatever it is, right; same reaction and same response. And so that’s what I teach people. When they come and work with me, I teach people on the phone. I teach people on Zoom.  However, the mechanism is just this simple. It’s no more complicated than this, but what happens is if you begin replicating it throughout the day; so for example, I wear a necklace, not as a fashion statement, but what happens is I feel that necklace touching my chest. And when I do it reminds me to ground. It reminds me to wiggle my toes, engage all five senses when I’m in the car, start getting heated from the traffic immediately that’s my cue, wiggle my toes engage all my senses. What do I see, smell, taste? And as you do that, you drop back down into the body and the distraction in the brain begins to quiet. Okay. Scott DeLuzio:    00:17:04    So I previously had someone on the show who talked about using horses for a similar form of therapy that because a horse mirrors your behavior the same way that you were talking about here. So, that was, for anyone who might want to go back and listen to that episode. So, that was episode 54 with Jennifer O’Neill.  You can go back and listen to that if you want, after listening to this episode. But, for example, if you’re being standoffish and the horse will display similar behaviors  but if you’re being calm and relaxed, the horse will be more approachable and it sounds like, well, I’m sure there’s more to it than that. There’s a lot more to it, but it is pretty simple. Yeah.  In a nutshell, that’s sort of what we’re talking about here.  It seems like that’s kind of the same situation that you’re talking about with the tigers and the wolves and other animals that you’ve worked with. Kevin Rose:    00:18:03    I’ve worked with horses and dogs and it works with all animals, right? We’re not limited because at the sanctuary we have monkeys and fox and birds and there are all kinds of animals and the difference is with the predator animals, they don’t back away. And so, with a horse if you’re upset, a horse will back away from you. A tiger will do just the exact opposite; it’ll come towards you.  And so, what happens is the reason that I was so focused on doing it with combat Veterans is because in combat it’s in your face all the time. Right? I mean, it’s a constant thing. So, I’m working with the alpha predators. What it does, is it really kind of elicits that core feeling, whereas with working with prey animals, it seemed to me that you had to actually work harder to access that. Does that make sense? Scott DeLuzio:    00:19:14    Yeah, it does.  I think, in a way too, with combat vets who, like you said in combat, you’re always on, it’s 24/7 kind of in your face type of thing.  If your reaction to being around a tiger or an animal like that is causing that tiger to come towards you and start acting a little bit more aggressively or whatever the case may be towards you.  It’s definitely going to make you have to rethink what it is that you’re doing in your own response. So that negative thing that tiger kind of acting more aggressively towards you is not going to continue happening. You can get that to maybe back away or de-escalate the situation. I’m sure that’s very similar to what happens in everyday life, where there aren’t these big predators looking around; well, not the furry ones now there may be a semi on the highway that you’re passing and that could be even more dangerous. Scott DeLuzio:    00:20:33      Is there something about you, you mentioned that all animals have some sort of senses like this, but is there something about working with these types of animals specifically that works for people versus maybe some other options, like maybe talk therapy or other animals, like the horses that I mentioned or dogs or anything like that? Kevin Rose:    00:20:54    Yeah. You know, I always say to people look, do what works for you. Right. Do what works for you. The only thing that I’ve noticed with this work is that it gives you a really grounded place to start from. So, if I teach you how to ground, right. If I teach you, and if you do talk therapy, you do whatever therapy. If you don’t stay in your body and you don’t stay grounded, then everything becomes mental. And so, I’ve witnessed not just in other people, but in my own self, I can create some fire just by the thought process. You know what I mean? And so learning how to ground into your body, learning how to ground in the present moment, when you do that, and you use that as your core functioning place, everything added on to that is going to be so much more effective. So, I don’t say that it’s a fix all by any means, but it’s an excellent place to start. Scott DeLuzio:    00:22:03    Yeah. That makes sense. And the way you described it, when I had the water bottle in my hand, I was feeling the texture of the water bottle and tasting the water and feeling it going down my throat and all that, that kind of stuff. And literally being present in the moment that feels like a meditation type practice. Is that sort of what you’re talking about? Kevin Rose:    00:22:27    Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve tried to meditate and I can do it some, but who has time anymore? So that’s the downside. I hear people say, I just don’t have time and whether you do or not, that’s irrelevant. So, my whole approach was what can I share with people that they can do at any time in the day?  I’m doing it right now while I’m talking to you, because I’m always trying to ground myself. And I said, my grandmother’s voice. So, my grandmother taught me this when I was 12 years old. And she taught me because she saw that I was having challenges in everyday life and at home and at school and all of that. And she just showed me this. She had a 50-acre farm and we used to take all the walks. Kevin Rose:    00:23:16    And so she showed me this in nature. And I think that’s the key to this is nature is always going to be truthful. It may not always be nice and fluffy, but it will always be truthful. And so when you learn the lessons there, I believe it’s so much more powerful, but she taught me this and I was doing this for years and didn’t even really know what I was doing until I started developing this program. And I needed something quick that people could do right now in the moment. So yes, it is a meditation and yes, that’s where people are reaching for when they meditate. At least that’s what I believe is to remain grounded. So, having something that’s accessible that you can do all the time, I think is super important. Scott DeLuzio:    00:24:10   It seems like that. And I know that there are people who, especially combat vets who are coming back and early on, when they first get back,  people tend to think, “Oh, you should just be able to act normal again, you know?” And just why do you have to be on alert all the time? Well, because for the last six months, nine months to a year, whatever the case may be, you were in a combat zone and you had to be on all the time. And it’s hard to just turn that off. So of course, learning a process like this, to be able to de-escalate yourself and ground yourself down to a better baseline level,  could be especially helpful for those people who are just returning from overseas where they were constantly on. And quite frankly, even while they are overseas and while they are deployed having this ability is also super helpful so that when they come off of patrol and they’re there on their base in a relatively safe and secure area, they’re not constantly on high alert and they can allow their brain to take a little vacation for a little while., anyways, not saying that they need to totally turn off, but Kevin Rose:    00:25:32    Right. And that, you know, and the thing about it is there are a lot of great points there. We, I actually did a program at Lemoore Naval station with the doctor that I worked with him. We were working with guys that were being sent back and,  you know, they were saying, look, I, I can’t get to call,  because I’m going back into this and it left an impression on me. But I remember thinking, I remember even saying to one guy, this isn’t about zenning out. It’s not about that.  how much more effective are you when your call, right? You can be, you can be totally heightened, but calm at the same time. And so, we taught them this, and that’s what we said. And even if you can’t do it, you know, if you can’t do it all the time, at least when you’re down, it can give you some way to just create a moment of relief. Kevin Rose:    00:26:30    And that’s the biggest thing too, is you come home and people are like, well, why can’t you? Well, because you’ve been on red line for however long you were deployed. People don’t understand that. And it actually was the impetus to create the program because I saw that people didn’t understand that. And at the time I didn’t want to see anything close to what the Vietnam Vets faced when they came home with the public sentiment. I wanted to be able to create something that could teach how to come back, reintegrate with as much as possible. I think that it’s actually a crime that we send people to war and don’t do this immediately when they come home.  I think that’s something we owe as a public, we owe anybody that risks their life for this country. Scott DeLuzio:    00:27:29    Yeah. And this actually answered my next question that I wanted to segue into, but you did mention earlier in the episode here that you felt like you were called to service after 9/11 to help these people who were coming back from Iraq, Afghanistan, wherever they were deployed to, and that’s something I feel like is missing these days. A lot of times people who feel like they have something to offer and provide that service to these people who are sacrificing quite a bit to go and defend us.  I certainly thank you for doing that, especially, you offer the service to combat Veterans for free. So,  it’s not cheap to keep tigers around or anything like that. And I know you’re using the sanctuary, but still there’s a cost involved there and it’s not probably insignificant either. Kevin Rose:    00:28:45    It’s the least that I can do.  It is my service to the country.  I wasn’t in the armed forces.  I always felt like that as a citizen that we contribute.  I’ve had really generous benefactors that have helped take care of some of the overhead. I’ve been able to teach classes and things to keep money coming in to help the sanctuary. They are great people. They take animals from adverse situations and give them forever homes. So, their overhead is high. It’s not cheap but it’s all done in service. So, it is absolutely our pleasure and yes, it’s always free to combat Vets. Scott DeLuzio:    00:29:37    That’s wonderful. So, with that said,  it’s been a pleasure speaking to you about this today. And I want to give you the opportunity to let people know where they can go to find out more about what you do, about The Catalyst and your book and everything that you do, where they can go and find more information about all of that. Kevin Rose:    00:29:59    So everything can be found at on my website, www.CatalystRefuge.com. So that’s CA T a L Y S T refuge, R E F U G e.com. And there’s a link to the book and things like that on the website. I wanted to share one more thing with you. Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:23    Yeah, absolutely. Kevin Rose:    00:30:24    So, a lot of times when I talk about this, it seems a little woo for lack of better word. And so, I always want to throw in a little bit of physics. Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:38    Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Kevin Rose:    00:30:40    Are you familiar with the phenomenon of resonance? Scott DeLuzio:    00:30:46     Not intimately, but I know enough about it. Go ahead. Kevin Rose:    00:30:52    So if I may just really quickly, so there’s two objects that are attuned to the same frequency. If one object begins to move or oscillate, the other object will eventually begin moving an oscillating at that same pace. So, this is a physics phenomenon. So, an example of this is when you have two acoustic guitars in a room, you can pluck the string. And if they’re tuned to the same key, you can pluck the string on one. And the string on the other guitar will begin to resonate and make that sound without being touched. In an airplane, they attuned the metal to a different frequency of the engine, because if they didn’t, it would break apart in midair, right. That’s resonance. So, the reason I bring this up is because what we’re doing when I’m working with people, I’m actually bringing myself to that person’s frequency showing them a different frequency, and then we’re both going there together. So, we resonate, right? So, if you think about it this way, when you walk into a room and it feels weird, you’ve had that before, right? Tense, whatever, you can feel it, you don’t even know these people, but you can feel it, that’s resonance. But if I walk in this room and I ground myself, what happens is the person outside is already attuned to the same frequency, but they begin to feel my grounding and it invites them to oscillate at that same pace. So, when I teach one person go home, Kevin Rose:    00:32:40    they oscillate at a different frequency and their family, their friends. Do you know what I mean? So, it’s like this passing on of a different way of being. So, I just bring that up because that’s really what we’re trying to do is not just change and help one person, but when you help one person, it affects everyone. Scott DeLuzio:  That’s great. And having that kind of almost infectious result, where it can spread the benefit to other people where that same kind of vibe is being felt by other people that’s phenomenal that that can happen. I can assume that only can help family lives and work situations and things like that. So, that’s wonderful. So,  again, thank you for joining us, sharing about what you do. Scott DeLuzio:    00:33:41     Again, the website is CatalystRefuge.com. I’ll have links to that in the show notes so you don’t have to stop your car to write that down, and I’ll have links to all your social media, YouTube page and all that type of stuff in the show notes as well. So, people can go check that out and check out your book too. If you’re interested in that, I’ll have a link to that in the show notes as well. So, thank you again, Kevin.  It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. Kevin Rose:  Hey, thanks for the time Scott. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Scott DeLuzio:    00:34:16    Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to check out more episodes or learn more about the show, you can visit our website, DriveOnPodcast.com. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ DriveOnPodcast.

Bradley Hecker is a law enforcement officer and an EMT who teaches law enforcement and military personnel the mental and physical skills they need to execute their missions. We talk about becoming mentally resilient and how to get back into physical fitness. Links & Resources Brad and Bash Brad and Bash on Instagram Brad and Bash on Facebook Transcript Scott DeLuzio:    00:00:03    Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting Veterans after they get out of the military. Before we get started, I’d like to ask a favor if you haven’t done so already, please rate and review the show on Apple podcast. If you’ve already done that, thank you. These ratings help the show get discovered so it can reach a wider audience. And while you’re there click the subscribe button so that you get notified of new episodes. As soon as they come out, if you don’t use Apple podcasts, you can visit Drive On Podcasts.com/subscribe to find other ways of subscribing, including our email lists. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And now let’s get on with the show. Hi everyone, today, my guest is Bradley Hecker.  Bradley is a law enforcement officer and an EMT.  He also teaches law enforcement and military personnel. So, the, the mental and physical skills that they’re going to need,  in order to execute their missions.  so Bradley, welcome to the show.  maybe you can tell us a little bit more about your background,  what you do and how you got started doing what you do. Bradley Hecker:    00:01:09    Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.  so, it all  started right after high school. I grew up in a house with a dad who was a cop and a grandfather who was an Army medic. So, I knew I wanted to do something along those lines,  right out of high school. I went to an EMT course through college, and that sort of started to steer the path of the lights and sirens. The high intensity stuff was fun  and I worked on the ambulance for a few years. I had quite a few new EMT students coming onto my ambulance. And I noticed a trend of more and more EMT students who are graduating, were telling other EMT students to ride on my ambulance. And I was very good preceptor and I realized there was something there about teaching that I was good at. Bradley Hecker:    00:01:56    So I started teaching EMS and while all that was going on, I finally got the call from the state law enforcement agency that I worked for saying, “Hey, come on down,  start the process.” And I went forward through the process and fast forward now I’m an EMT still. I actually am the team medic for a special unit that I serve on with my law enforcement agency. So, it all  came roundabout and it’s really cool to start one place, change paths, and then it all connects together. So that’s  the journey that I’ve been on. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:33    Yeah. And that’s awesome to see how all of that blends together and how the skills that you took from one part of your life and you were able to apply that to your current career and what you’re doing now. So that’s pretty awesome to see how all of that blends together. Bradley Hecker:    00:02:49    Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a crazy journey so far and it’s been a pretty short one. It hasn’t been all that long, but it happens all very fast. Scott DeLuzio:    00:02:57    And so what is it you’re, Scott DeLuzio:    00:03:00    into now? I know you do some training with some of the EMTs or you’ve done that in the past, but what is it that you’re doing now in working with the military law enforcement to keep them on top of their game? Bradley Hecker:    00:03:16    Yeah. So after realizing that I was a pretty good instructor and getting a lot of that, also none on the law enforcement side, whether it was helping someone prep for qualifications or someone had a fitness test coming up and I was helping them prepare for that. I started a company called Bread and Bash with a friend of mine Bash from back in high school,  who is purely civilian, but I needed someone who understood the finance world and understood the legalities of starting a company and insurance. And I was strictly the operation side of things. And I said, “Hey, I have an idea for this company,  in a state like New York where firearm laws are very strict and you can’t exactly get the opportunities to train like you could outside in another state. I saw the opportunity here to start this program and see what we could do. Bradley Hecker:    00:04:02    And it started off in the beginning with just civilians and law enforcement, military and military personnel that were interested in taking a class, but it wasn’t mandatory. It was just, “Hey, if you want to get better at running an AR platform of the pistol shotgun, anything of the sort medical”  they could, and slowly it evolved into them bringing that back to wherever they work, whether it’s a law enforcement agency or a unit they’re a part of, depending on what branch they’re in. And they said, “Hey, you guys gotta check this out.” And then they sent cadre members to come to the class. And once their cadre saw what we were doing. They said, “you know what? We’ve got to get a contract on with these guys.” And it’s been pretty cool. Recently, we taught a New York city corrections department, which is the second largest law enforcement agency in New York.  We taught their transport division, the AR platform from the get-go. And they’ve never touched one before we put it in their hands. And we taught them how to not only feel confident with it, but confident enough to use it,  as opposed to their sidearm, that became their new primary tool. So, it was a very cool thing to take someone who’s never seen that and make them feel comfortable with it and use it should they need to. Scott DeLuzio:    00:05:13    And so is there a physical component to what you do as well, nutrition, fitness, that type of thing as well? Bradley Hecker:    00:05:24    We do a lot of it. It all comes together because unlike conventional, I won’t use names of other companies, but some of their classes are very static, stand still at a target. That’s not the reality of it. And I wouldn’t say that majority of people listening to your show, who’ve been out there, whether they were combat arms or support MOS,  they understood what it was like. They went through basic, they learned to be a soldier first. And going through all those challenges, they realized that was a big part of it. The entire time you have to be physically fit and physical fitness leads to mental fitness, right? When you are struggling through your day, that’s a very challenging goal. If you get into a very sedentary lifestyle, you don’t really have any mental fitness to gain through each day, but establishing a goal like physical fitness, which may not seem like much, it may be the same routine that you’re  doing, but it’s a challenging goal. Bradley Hecker:    00:06:17    And putting yourself through that keeps yourself mentally fit. So having that physical and mental fitness is a mandatory requirement, especially in today’s world right now, with the way things are going at any second, it could basically turn into a combat zone, a war zone on a smaller scale for that officer who’s out there.  So, it is super important to keep your head on a swivel and maintain that level, if not exceed that level, that you’re already at a physical and mental fitness to get there. So, a lot of the drills we run,  they’re not static at all. It requires dragging a dummy 50 yards and then taking shots from different positions and then pulling someone out of her car and carrying them 30 yards forward. And we do a bunch of different drills to  simulate what they would experience in real world and hopefully,  over prepare them. So whatever they do experience is not as bad Scott DeLuzio:    00:07:08    And I guess the goal is to never have to actually use any of this type of training in a real world environment where you’re actually dragging someone out of a car or whatever the case may be, where they’re injured or incapacitated in some way. So hopefully these people never have to use it, but the mental preparation that they need to get into so that they know what to do. So they don’t freeze and panic that’s certainly valuable, but also realizing how much of a physical challenge it is to do that type of thing, is probably a challenge as well for a lot of these people, and probably an eyeopener,  if they’ve never done some of this stuff with dragging a dummy, or whatever. Bradley Hecker:    00:07:55    It definitely is. And I think for even some of the guys who are like total meatheads in my classes; they’re showing up and their shirt is ripping right off their body, but they don’t realize because they’ve been used to conventional weightlifting, which is not the reality of dead weight of a person.  So, you have to really teach your body to work in different ways. And there are certain suggestions that I make, I personally do Brazilian jujitsu twice a week, just because you hit muscles you’ll never hit besides learning a martial art learning to grapple, which is extremely important because every noncompliant arrest and law enforcement goes to the ground. So that teaches you to use your body in a different way than you’re used to. And obviously it’s a major part of fitness. My first few months in Brazilian jujitsu, I was so sore because I’ve never experienced muscle soreness in that way. Scott DeLuzio:    00:08:46    Yeah. And from what I understand too, is that they’re using muscles that you just don’t typically use in those types of movements when you’re on the floor and doing a jujitsu that way. So, a lot of the listeners of this show are Veterans, and I  want to circle back to some of the fitness aspect of it. And it’s because when you’re in the military, there’s a big effort probably very similar to the law enforcement. There’s an effort to keep folks in shape but after you get out of the military, you sort of have to rely on your own willpower.  People can come up with all sorts of excuses. Like they just can’t find the time, or they can’t afford a gym membership, things like that. So what advice do you have for people like that who might be in that type of situation? Bradley Hecker:    00:09:36    I think the most difficult thing is once you find yourself in that situation, the longer that you’re there, the easier it becomes to find those excuses, like you just mentioned, whether I can’t find the time or I can’t afford it, there’s always a way when you want it bad enough, there’s always a way to get whatever you want. And physical fitness is something that I look at quarantine right now. How many gyms have been closed across the world at least this country alone and people are making it work and you’re finding different ways? The most important thing I would say is if you’re not motivated enough, and you were reliant on whether it was an NCO who was on you about physical fitness or find that battle buddy that was the whole thing that kept you going, then you relied on your battle buddy. Bradley Hecker:    00:10:20    And they relied on you; find someone in the outside world. And if necessary, I think it’s even better to find someone who is in that same lifestyle that you were in, because they’ll understand it. A lot of people are not going to understand, not having the motivation or not understanding why they can’t get someone motivated the same way a drill Sergeant could in basic. That’s a very intimidating thing. And most people don’t understand that mentality and they need that extra push and it’s not wrong to need that extra push. It usually is why people are shaped in such a disciplined way after that.  Once you fall out of it, because slowly they start to give you that freedom. And once you have your own true freedom, you get that DD214 and now you’re on your own. Bradley Hecker:    00:11:03    Again, it becomes very easy to say, you know what, I just got out a week ago. Why would I work out right now? I want to enjoy myself a little bit. I want to start drinking beer nonstop; I get it. So, it’s very easy to find yourself off that routine. And I would say the battle buddy is probably the number one option to keep yourself motivated. And it’s also going to keep you even motivated because if someone else is having the same issue and you’re pushing them, that’s motivation for yourself without realizing it because you’re trying to get them to the gym. So, you just trying to get them to the gym means that you’re going to have to be there too. Scott DeLuzio:    00:11:36    You can’t get to the gym and then not show up yourself. That would be the wrong thing and the gym could be good and I’m not knocking getting a gym membership at all. But one of the downsides is you could be faced with a situation like we’re in now where gyms just have to be closed and you can’t rely on the gym to be there.  I also see how it can also be used as a crutch or making that a crutch, maybe in more of an excuse to not exercise for example, if it’s snowing outside and you don’t want to get in the car and drive to the gym, so you’re just going to stay in your nice warm bed or maybe you only have an hour to exercise or something like that Scott DeLuzio:    00:12:24     and it takes you 15 minutes to drive to the gym, “Oh, I’m just not going to do it tonight.” You can almost use the gym as an excuse to not exercise.  If you allow yourself, the gym is good and it should be something that you continue to use if that’s what you want to use for exercising. But don’t let that become an excuse either to not exercise  if it’s snowing out and you don’t want to drive there, it doesn’t mean that you can’t find some exercises that you could do at home and stuff like that to continue to exercise. Bradley Hecker:    00:13:02    Absolutely. I think the original fitness was calisthenics. It started off with people walking, right? People running, their training. If you’re training strictly for a sprinting marathon runner thing, you don’t need a treadmill. You’re just running on the ground. If you’re training for weightlifting and you don’t have weights, get creative; what objects are around you. And the nice thing about objects around you that aren’t conventional weights is that weight distribution isn’t there. So now you’re getting that new muscle soreness that you never experienced before. You’re lifting awkward objects, a backpack filled with heavy textbooks that maybe your kid uses for school. You’re using them for weightlifting. You have options like that as well as just pushups. How many times did you have to get on your face? You know, that’s exactly what it is that they work for a reason and there’s different kinds of pushups. Bradley Hecker:    00:13:51    And that luckily in today’s world, YouTube is a wonderful thing and there are so many things that you can learn off of YouTube.  Exercises you didn’t know existed, even stretching when you feel that tightness. And you’re like, “wow, I didn’t know that was possible to get rid of!” You learn it because of YouTube. I would say a majority of people learn a lot of things through YouTube now that they didn’t even learn in school or in a classroom environment, that goes a long way, but you can definitely get creative. And like you said, it becomes another reason to say I’m not going to work out since the gym is closed. And that’s where that determination is going to come in. And if you don’t have it yourself, find someone else who’s going to push you equally and use that together. Scott DeLuzio:    00:14:32    Yeah. And so, you briefly mentioned a little bit earlier about how exercise and your physical fitness can have some pretty significant benefits outside of the obvious physical  benefits.  Could you talk a little bit about that? Some of the mental and things like that that come from  exercise and being in good physical shape. Bradley Hecker:    00:14:57    Yeah, absolutely. So starting off, like I mentioned earlier, when you are physically fit, you are going to be mentally fit now, not completely mentally fit, but you are going to start to increase your mental fitness. There can always be certain distractions that are always going to stay there, right? That are going to affect your mental fitness, but accomplishing a difficult task helps you feel better about how your day is going, any difficult tasks. So, if you had something at work, a project at work that has been on your mind for a long time, once you accomplish that project, it’s a relief. It’s a let go. And that’s exactly what physical fitness can do. It. There are a lot of stressors that can build up in the human body. And physical fitness is actually one of the number one ways, according to studies to release those stresses, you release a lot of the chemicals that are bottled up inside the brain, similar to when you experience certain things in life that cause that same chemical release. Bradley Hecker:    00:15:57    So physical fitness is an easy way to target because we know exactly what’s going to happen when you work out. On top of that, there are a lot of times when you’re feeling down, you’re feeling out and you’re feeling sluggish is the number one thing that happens. A lot of people feel sluggish. And especially if you were in the military and you remember what it used to be like when you could run. And now you’re walking up one flight of stairs and you’re huffing and puffing; you’re starting to say. “what happened?” And I think a lot of times what deters people is they try to get back into it and they forget the struggle that it took to get to that point. And they start right from where they left off. And it’s a big setback because you say, “I can’t do this. This is too much!” Set those small goals. And those small goals will add up to where you were at. And along the way, each one of those small goals that you accomplish are another thing that make you feel better and feeling better leads to that better mental fitness. Scott DeLuzio:    00:16:47 &nbs