#98 Jonathan Wilson - Navy SEAL Operator

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  On October 2nd.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 0:16Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Tic Tac. Lace up and get your game on because the Tic Tac lineup just got a new teammate. Dr. Pepper Tic Tac. This new double threat puts two of your favorite flavors into one box of mints. And when two iconic flavors come together, the result can only be iconic. Score big. Try Dr. Pepper Tic Tac today.

• 0:54Shawn Ryan?

  You know, there are a lot of people out there struggling these days with mental health. The suicide epidemic just continues to rise, especially in the veteran community. And, um, and they're at the top of that list. And that's my community.

• 1:19Shawn Ryan?

  And man, it seems like no matter how much I try to shine a light on that or publicly explore different treatment options or things that might help, it just doesn't seem to be enough. And, uh, that's sad. But it doesn't mean I'm gonna quit trying. And that's what this next episode, at least the back half, is all about. It is about a former Navy SEAL. His mental health struggles when he left active duty. Actually, even while he's in active duty and what he's doing now to make a difference.

• 2:01Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, I think this is another one of those things

• 2:07Shawn Ryan?

  that if it takes off,

• 2:11Shawn Ryan?

  could very well be the answer to all this shit. So, please pay attention.

• 2:20Shawn Ryan?

  And I want to say one other thing, you know, this guy, this isn't a nonprofit, this is a for-profit, but the message is just incredible. And to get this thing going, he needs some big investors. And so if you're somebody listening to the show and you have deep pockets, then I suggest you head down to the description, look at Envy Health. If you need a connection, hit me up, I'd be happy to make it. Ladies and gentlemen, it was a real honor to be

• 2:59Shawn Ryan?

  able to interview and get to know this man. Please welcome, former Navy SEAL, Mr. Johnny Wilson, to the Sean Ryan Show. Hey, one last thing. This Envy Health, it's not just for veterans. This is for everybody. It's a real problem, and this is a real solution. Check it out.

• 3:29Shawn Ryan?

  Johnny Wilson, welcome to the show, man. Thanks, brother. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Hey, it's my pleasure. So, we got connected through Eddie Gallagher. That's right. And Eddie called me up and told me, "Hey, you've got to meet this guy Johnny Wilson. He's got this new tech coming out, and it is saving tons and tons of veterans' lives." You know, there's the big suicide epidemic happening within the veteran community. And, um, and so it took a long time for us to finally get to this point, but I love what you're doing, man. I really respect it. It's needed, and, uh, it's an honor to have you here. I appreciate it, brother. Thank you.

• 4:10Shawn Ryan?

  So, we're going to dive into all of that. It'll be typical life stories, starting at childhood, going through your entire career, and, and what led you into Envy Mind Health, which is, which is the tech platform that monitors, just brief-

• 4:28Shawn Ryan?

  What, like a three sentence snapshot before we get started?

• 4:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So we take biometric information from watches, voice, and it's basically predictive analytics. We tell you where you're trending in regards to your mind. Are you up? Are you down? No judgment. We give you a team swim buddy component to support you on this journey because we isolate when we don't do good. Like you and I are best friends. You reach out. You're going to say you're fine. And I know you're lying, but I don't know how to help you. So the whole premise is for us to try to take advantage of technology to help with mental health.

• 5:04Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that is really unique. That's, I can't wait to get into that. But let me give you an introduction here real quick. So Johnny Wilson, you're a former Navy SEAL. You're a family man. You've been married to the same woman for 20 years. Congratulations.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  Thank you, man.

• 5:23Shawn Ryan?

  That never happens, especially in the SEAL teams.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:27Shawn Ryan?

  You are a father of five. You spent time at SEAL Team Four and SEAL Team 10, multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. You then became a success, a successful equity trader. For who? Who was it?

• 5:42Speaker 05

  It's a small company. You probably not heard of Goldman Sachs?

• 5:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:47Shawn Ryan?

  And co-founder of the SEAL Future Foundation, which led you into your new venture, the founder of Envy Mind Health, which we just spoke about recently. And your real passion now and mission is to put a big, as big of a dent as you can into the veteran suicide epidemic.

• 6:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, 100%. Thank you for that.

• 6:10Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. We've got a lot to cover.

• 6:12Speaker 05

  Let's do it.

• 6:13Shawn Ryan?

  But before we move on,

• 6:15Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 6:16Shawn Ryan?

  Got, everybody gets a gift.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Sweet. Thank you. I can't come returning.

• 6:23Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, right on, man.

• 6:26Speaker 05

  So that logo right there came to me in a psychedelic journey.

• 6:30Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  Native American chief stuck it in my forehead. And if you look into what the feathers mean in the Native American tribes, it's for warriors and the different paintings, the different colors signify if you've been wounded, if you've taken lives. So the red feather, a red dyed feather means you've been wounded in combat.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  And I think we all, not just veterans, we've all been wounded, so.

• 6:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yes, we have. That's very cool, man. Thank you.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  You're welcome.

• 7:00Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta open that.

• 7:01Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:02Shawn Ryan?

  You have to.

• 7:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Sweet.

• 7:08Shawn Ryan?

  So those are Laird Superfoods Performance Mushrooms.

• 7:13Speaker 05

  Gummies?

• 7:14Shawn Ryan?

  And those are Vigilance League Gummies. Legal in all 50 states.

• 7:18Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:19Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Thank you, man. I appreciate it. You got some stickers in here, too?

• 7:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, there's some stickers, but.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Sweet.

• 7:25Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, yeah, I thought you might like that Laird Superfoods.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  All of it, dude. Thank you.

• 7:30Shawn Ryan?

  Performance Mushroom, since we're both, uh, we both, how do you say it? Dabbled in psychedelic treatment.

• 7:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:37Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, have, both of us have received a lot of benefits, which we found out at breakfast this morning.

• 7:41Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 7:42Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool. But, um, so I'm gonna start this interview off with a Patreon question. Patreon is, they're our top supporters. Um, everything, that's, they're the reason I'm sitting here and the reason you're sitting here, so I always give them a opportunity to ask the guest a question. So this is from John Phillips, and it's very relevant to what we're gonna be talking about. "In reference to transforming mental health care for veterans, what is not being done that should be done?"

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Hmm, God, there's so much there.

• 8:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 05

  Um, I think the easiest thing that we can all do, and it's not that easy, is change the conversation, right? So there's so much stigma around mental health right now, specifically men's, but veterans' mental health. We don't talk about what's going on. We're ashamed. The system pushes us down when we start talking about, hey, I'm not doing well, or we raise our hand. So we're taught from day one not to raise our hand. We gotta break down that stigma. We gotta change the conversation. We gotta own it when we're not doing well, create a tribe around us that supports us, and then we can push forward. It's okay to suffer. Like, we all, every single one of us, every single person on this planet has or will suffer mentally at some point.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Lose a family member, a best friend, alcohol abuse, relationships, job loss, it doesn't matter. Let's talk about it. Period.

• 9:09Shawn Ryan?

  That's great, man. You know, it's.

• 9:13Shawn Ryan?

  The old excuse of the VA system not working, I mean, that's that's been out there forever. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows the VA sucks. They don't really do anything. They overprescribe, but you know, because that came to light, all these different there's so many other avenues out there, you know, and and to veterans or anybody that's listening, but especially veterans, there are so many nonprofits and so many different avenues that you can go down to improve your state of mind that they're really

• 9:57Shawn Ryan?

  the help's there. You don't have to go to the VA. You can go do psychedelic treatment. You can go to Envy Mind Health. You can go, there's it would take all day to list all of the different nonprofits and organizations that have been set up to help with veteran mental health. And so all it takes is a little bit of research and somebody is willing to help you.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  That's right. And to your point this morning at breakfast, you're willing to help yourself, right? So I was in that mindset of blaming everybody at one point. It's this person's fault. It's this system's fault. And it just dawned on me, it's like, dude, it's not them, it's you. Like, if you want change, then go do something about it. Go take care of your own stuff. If you want to do it on a bigger scale, then great, create something. The VA has some really good people working there. Like, we're not gonna, I'm not gonna sit here and say, hey, the VA, I think it's challenged. I think it's overtaxed. I think it's constrained 100%. But there's good people that want to do something about it. We're gonna try to figure out how to work with them because they are supporting

• 11:08Speaker 05

  tons and tons of veterans, largest mental health or largest medical system in the world. So we can't just, in my opinion, push them aside and say, you guys, you guys it up.

• 11:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 05

  I think what we need to do is like, okay, who are the advocates in there? They're gonna fight tooth and nail for what they believe in? Is it aligned with what we believe in? Let's go do it.

• 11:26Shawn Ryan?

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

• 11:49Speaker 05

  Me too, by the way, for like, for probably five years. So probably exact same story. I couldn't find freaking parking, right? I showed up an hour early, man. You know how we are. We're gonna show up early. Couldn't find parking. I had to park a mile away, walked into this VA, showed up and I get basically talked down to by the, the receptionist for being late. I was, I'm out.

• 12:13Shawn Ryan?

  My doctor came out in a dirty sweatpants suit.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:17Shawn Ryan?

  And, and asked me why I didn't go to medical in the middle of an operation on an injury that I was talking about. And I said, you know what? Barely spoke English. I said, you know what? I don't need to be here anymore. I'll pay for my own medical. Thank you. Fuck off. Goodbye.

• 12:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:32Shawn Ryan?

  And, but maybe they've improved.

• 12:37Speaker 05

  There's some good folks there. I think, I still think it's challenge, brother, to your point. And I mean, that's the whole idea for Envy. Let's say, let's create a system from trusted people, like folks from like us that have been through it, that have lived through it. And then let's go take it to them so they can figure out how to support dudes that isolate. I was one of them. I was isolated in the mountains of Colorado, right? Like, I don't want to be around a VA, but maybe I still need services. Well, how do we support that dude? And majority of guys like us, you got a farm, you got land, we, we want our privacy, man. So how does a VA system support that? Why aren't we using technology? Hop on a telehealth call. Look at the dude's biometrics. Is the dude drinking? His face off? We can tell. Like, let's go figure out how to support each other. Not

• 13:19Speaker 05

  stay back in 1960 where we have to go to these institutions, sit down, can't find parking. And, I mean, yeah, I get what you're saying. And I'm, I'm the same mindset, but we're starting to reopen those conversations. I think we have to, so.

• 13:33Shawn Ryan?

  Good, good. Well, we'll get more in the weeds on that. But, so.

• 13:39Shawn Ryan?

  Want to do a life story, you know, we always start a childhood. It's amazing to me how many people have dealt with childhood drama and and and the amount of people that we that this show has helped by opening up to that trauma is like incredible. So that's where we always start. So anyways, I know you grew up in Fort Hood, Texas.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 14:08Shawn Ryan?

  Let's start there.

• 14:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I don't remember much from that chapter. We were there for a few years, but my dad was Army. He was, uh, he was an MP in the Army. Uh, met my mom before I came around. I think he was on a deployment to Panama. Uh, the country, not Panama City, guys and gals.

• 14:27Speaker 05

  But they met and then they came back and had me and, um, we were there for about two years before we picked up and went back to Panama. He took a deployment there and I that's when I could start remembering a couple of things here and there, right? Like not much, but that was a cool experience in my life to live in a tropic area, to meet my mom's family. Like I don't remember much. It's hazy. But I remember enough to know like, okay, I'm a little different than everybody else, you know, in the sense that we're on the outskirts of the jungle, essentially where my mom lives. There's no power. Her family was out there. She was one of seven.

• 15:04Shawn Ryan?

  So your mom's Panamanian?

• 15:05Speaker 05

  She's Panamanian.

• 15:06Shawn Ryan?

  What timeframe did they meet?

• 15:08Speaker 05

  They met in, uh,

• 15:09Shawn Ryan?

  This is like the Noriega days?

• 15:10Speaker 05

  The seventies. Yeah. The seventies, yeah.

• 15:14Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then I came shortly after.

• 15:18Shawn Ryan?

  So you, so you lived in Panama too?

• 15:20Speaker 05

  I did. Yeah. And I didn't go back for a long time. I know we're jumping around here, but I went back when I was in high school. That was there was a couple. I mean, it was a cool experience, but I wanted to get back to my girlfriend. So I left early, but nevertheless it was cool to see my uncles and my aunts and I mean, just think, no power, there's no hot water or my mom, my mom's family, like we're out there on the, on the, in the sticks. And I'm playing with this pig with my little sister. We don't speak Spanish. Uh, so everybody's, you know, I'm drinking beers and my uncle's at like 13 because no big deal. And we're playing with this pig and, um, next thing I know, my uncle comes out with a pistol and shoots it right in the head. And they start chopping this thing up and they throw it in a cauldron.

• 16:01Speaker 05

  I thought this was a pet pig. That's dinner. That was the first time.

• 16:07Shawn Ryan?

  Right in front of you?

• 16:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, my sister was five years younger than me. She was like six. She started crying. I'm like, oh shit.

• 16:12Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, but, but that's where, that's the early days. That was, you know, my folks took me there for a few years and there's some interesting, there is like one early memory that just still I sit with from Panama. And after that, we went to Maine, but it was a weird, my first vivid memory was we were, and I don't know how this fits in, maybe the spiritual stuff that we got into in plant medicine later. But I believe I should have died when I was a kid. We were on some cliffs. My dad was, we were skirting

• 16:52Speaker 05

  some cliffs. And there was an outcrop over the ocean in Panama. And dude, I slipped and I like, no shit was falling. I'm not, like, this is the clearest memory. I can still see it today. And I don't know how, dude, but like, I got picked up and put back on that rock.

• 17:14Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 17:16Speaker 05

  I was young. I remember it clear as day, dude. I was gone.

• 17:19Shawn Ryan?

  That whole experience. Well, so you?

• 17:22Speaker 05

  We were at the beach and there's where we were at, there was some jagged rocks and cliffs. And so we just went out there and what I remember and it's still like, I mean, it's pretty clear for the most part, but I remember my dad and we're just like kind of walking through the cliffs and nothing too sketchy. We're just kind of going around it and pretty high up. And I just slipped and I start going backwards. And I talk about you get a flash, you know, like right before death, like there's a flash, people that have near death experiences, they witnesses flash and there's like this ecstasy and some say it's close to, one of the plant medicines, 5MEO, gives you this similar experience.

• 18:03Speaker 05

  There's been some research out of Michigan on it, but I saw that flash and I didn't know what it was. But the next thing I know, I was back on that rock. And my dad was just kind of scooting along, didn't even notice it. And I just didn't think anything of it. I was just a kid. I was like, well, let's just keep going with my dad and kind of mention it to him. But, I mean, in his head, that's not logical, right? Like, he probably just thought, oh, you almost slipped, got it. Like, you fell a little bit, picked yourself up. But I was off that cliff, man.

• 18:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:35Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  So, I don't know, divine intervention, God, higher power, that was my first experience with it.

• 18:45Shawn Ryan?

  What do you believe in? Are you Christian?

• 18:47Speaker 05

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

• 19:21Shawn Ryan?

  So, what do you?

• 19:23Speaker 05

  I believe in God.

• 19:24Shawn Ryan?

  Where you're at today, what do you think that was on that cliff?

• 19:28Speaker 05

  I, I believe God picked me up, put me back on there, because there's still more to be done.

• 19:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wasn't your time?

• 19:34Speaker 05

  Wasn't my time.

• 19:35Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you know, stuff like that is just, it can't be explained.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  No.

• 19:44Shawn Ryan?

  And it's, it just fascinates me.

• 19:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:47Shawn Ryan?

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

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 20:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I really want to get into the continuation of consciousness, life after death, like, it's, uh, it's just something that's always, how could it not interest you?

• 20:16Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:16Shawn Ryan?

  You know, but, but, um,

• 20:20Shawn Ryan?

  So it didn't even register, didn't register with anybody, just you?

• 20:25Speaker 05

  No, I don't think anybody saw it.

• 20:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  Just me.

• 20:28Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 20:29Speaker 05

  I try being like a little kid, three, four years old, telling that to your dad, right? Like your son right now, I mean, I know he's two, but hey, dad, I just was completely off this cliff. And you're just like, yeah, okay. Yeah, no, come on, we gotta get going, we gotta go to Chick-fil-A.

• 20:44Shawn Ryan?

  Man, man.

• 20:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:47Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So then you moved to Maine.

• 20:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:51Shawn Ryan?

  When did you, how old were you when you got to Maine?

• 20:55Speaker 05

  So I was five at the time, and that's when my sister came along.

• 20:59Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  So she's five years younger than me, Jennifer, and she's tremendous. She's a, again, there's a lot of trauma in my life, self-induced. And she's a great, she's a great sister. I wasn't there for her, like, and we'll, we'll touch on that, but love her to death. She came along, back then, I did not love her. And I was a kid, so I was, we, we had these marble fights. It was a one-way fight. I would just chuck marbles at my sister. I was a dick. She has a scar to this day, beautiful woman, but there's a scar. And she's quick to tell you how she got that scar. That was the old Johnny Wilson's curveball.

• 21:38Speaker 05

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

• 22:03Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it was great. There was a cool playground at the base of Stephen King's house. So he had this huge gargoyle, like wrought iron fence mansion with steeples. It's exactly what you would think when you think of haunted house. That's his house. And you come down the hill and at the base is this huge playground that, you know, Bangor had, the municipality or the, the city had put money together and put this cool, like playground. So that's what we did as kids. We just rolled out playgrounds, a wooden playground and. Hang out there and look up at Stephen King's place thinking geez, that's something going on in there. It was like a murder. We all had these little stories as kids that we'd talk about because we knew he was the horror author. And I think It had come out and some other cool movies, so. Oh, man, man.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I was there until I was about 10. And then where'd you go? Then he took orders to, um, to Holland. So we, um, there's a base, like a multinational base there called Absent. And, um, a bunch of folks from that area, uh, from Europe that get stationed there. So all walks of life, all different units. And he got stationed there. So we lived in the Netherlands for about four or five years. And that was a really cool experience for me, man. That's where a lot of people think I, they say I like nice things. I'm fancy. Like I like going over to Europe. And I was like, that's where I got it from. Like my time in Europe was awesome.

• 23:30Speaker 05

  And I only wish I was older because, you know, I was just hitting my stride when we left, 14. Started talking to some of the girls around there. I was like, oh, we've got some local girls. I got German girls, Netherlands girls, Belgium girls. I was like, this is heaven. And then let's go to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was like, no. Um, but it was fun. It was a cool experience, um, living there. The school was neat, all different, again, ethnicities, all different parts of the world. So, you know, there wasn't too many Americans there and I thought that was pretty cool. Got folks from France and other parts of the world. So it was, it was a really interesting chapter. It sounds like there was a fight there. Oh, yeah, yeah, there was. That was my, so in, yeah, what year was that?

• 24:16Speaker 05

  I was probably like 12 at the time. No, I was younger than that, actually. Um, so where my dad was stationed and for, and I know you know this, but there's like military housing, right? So we had military housing there and there were townhomes and outside of our townhome just happened to be the playground, the park area. So we played soccer because you're in Europe, you don't play football, you play soccer. And we're out there playing soccer and there's some older, like, local kids that used to come in and they were assholes. And I had finally just, you know, I think I was getting a little courageous, maybe, you know, the balls were dropping and I said something. I was on my back like that. This like, I was 12, maybe 10, 11, something like that. This kid was like 14, had me on my back

• 25:00Speaker 05

  and was just wailing on me. It was my first fight.

• 25:03Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 25:05Speaker 05

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

• 25:32Speaker 05

  But it's where I started like realizing like, dude, that sucked. You didn't like that. Change it. What can you do to change that outcome? What can you do? And that's where we got into like karate and jiu jitsu, but it was one of the first lessons learned in my life was just like, dude, that was miserable, that was embarrassing, there was a whole crowd. I mean, it was like the freaking movies, like there was a crowd around us chanting and I was just getting wailed on. I couldn't do anything about it, so change it. It was the biggest takeaway for me in my childhood.

• 26:07Shawn Ryan?

  That right there.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:09Shawn Ryan?

  You know, we had, uh,

• 26:13Shawn Ryan?

  we had talked downstairs about childhood trauma, you know, and, and how a lot of the guys, a lot of the people, not even just men, uh, who come on the show experience and, and, and some type of childhood trauma and, man, I just had no idea like how many kids have to go through that. And, um, you had brought something up that...

• 26:43Shawn Ryan?

  You've, it sounds like you've carried throughout your entire life of having to impress your old man, or thinking that you need to impress your old man. And that is, I think I cut you off down there because I wanted to talk about that here because I think a lot of people have that too. I'm, I'm one of them. I never would have become a SEAL had it not been, oh, I have to do this because I have to impress my dad. And, um, and so it drove me in a lot of ways, you know, and, um, but it also, it was a,

• 27:23Shawn Ryan?

  it's a special kind of relationship. And so I was hoping you could open up on that a little bit.

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• 28:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, all these

• 28:32Speaker 05

  perspectives, like angles I couldn't see before came from plant medicine. So I want to start with that because if I, I truly believe if I wouldn't have done some of these different psychedelics, I wouldn't be able to have seen, you know, my dad and our relationship and understand the traumas that he had when he was growing up. So he, he's a good dude. Like I, I love my dad. Loving him to death and I'm grateful for everything he's taught me, the goods and the bads, right? Because all of it had to happen to get here, right? Where we're at today. But, uh, our relationship was challenged, right?

• 29:11Speaker 05

  He, he didn't have, his dad wasn't present. So I see that and, you know, I'm no psychologist, but where's his example? You know, he had a step, stepdad come into the picture. Um, but where's his example? And I don't know the relationship between my grandmother and my, my grandfather, my, you know, my step grandfather, but, but they were grandma and grandpa. But I, there's probably something there because it bled down into the generational thing into my father. And I blocked out a lot of that stuff. In fact, I don't remember, I didn't remember most of it. My sister was the one that pulled me aside, went to, how do you not remember any of this shit?

• 29:51Speaker 05

  That, that like, you're, you know, you and dad and mom and dad and I don't know. Looking back, I, I realized we compartmentalized shit really good and we, we tucked shit away that we don't want to deal with. And that's probably what happened, but back then I couldn't see it until plant medicine. What kind of stuff? Um, there was like yelling, screaming, I mean. Between your dad and your grandparents? No, my dad and my mom. Okay. Yeah. And, and then it, you know, came to me like you're, you're trying to figure out, when we get to high school, I'm trying to figure out who I am as a man and testosterone is starting to flow through the body and you think you're bigger than you are and your dad is your dad.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  And there's a couple of times that we got into it and, um, you know, laid hands on me and there's one incident, hopefully he can laugh at this today. I sure as hell can, but I've done psychedelics, he hasn't, and we're still working on dad. But he, I had some Jordans or something at the time, right? And, uh, he had come home from a deployment because my parents' relationship was falling apart and he was taking these deployments. And he threw all my kicks to go cut the grass. So there's a couple of things fucked up here. I should have probably been cutting the grass, right? All of that. But you took my Jordans to cut the grass, dad? Come on, man. So I said something and he, he kind of fucking grabbed me and threw me up against the wall

• 31:18Speaker 05

  and, and, uh, yelled at me and I called the cops on my dad. And I watched him get arrested and taken away. And I didn't, you know, that was a Tuesday for me. Like, I was just like, no big deal. Like, that's just, that's normal. It's, it's not normal, but it's okay. Right? I don't know the relationship you had with your dad, but I can look back now and be like, okay, that's not normal.

• 31:46Speaker 05

  But it is okay. It happened. Let's, let's work on unpacking what's going on there. So, uh, there wasn't too many incidences like that, but my, I blocked out a lot of the, the shit between my mom and my dad. And I didn't realize it until, uh, my sister pulled me aside and was like, no, they used to get into it. My dad used to yell at her. I mean, they used to fight a lot. I was like, I don't remember any of that.

• 32:10Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 32:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:12Shawn Ryan?

  Totally just.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  Blocked it out.

• 32:14Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So what is it? What is it about you and your dad's relationship that made you feel like you had to?

• 32:25Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's, it turned you into an overachiever.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:28Shawn Ryan?

  And I think that happened. That's what hap- that happened to me. So I'm, I'm curious, you know, what, I mean, you became a SEAL, successful guy on Wall Street, started a nonprofit. Now you're on this new medical,

• 32:42Shawn Ryan?

  uh, NB venture, you know, with, with, with, with mind health and, I mean, your track record is just,

• 32:54Shawn Ryan?

  you conquer everything that you put your mind to.

• 32:58Shawn Ryan?

  And it sounds like you're attributing some of that towards.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  To dad.

• 33:02Shawn Ryan?

  Your dad.

• 33:03Speaker 05

  Our relationship for sure. Uh, it's a great question, dude. I'm curious, like, on your end, you're in a, like, I'll share what I think, but I'm curious, you know, what you attributed to with your relationship. I, uh, I don't know, despite everything I just described, like, despite me, you know, him not being home on these deployments, me being the man in the house, you know, or thinking I was the man in the house, despite the tension between us, he's still your dad. Like, he's the male figure in your, your relationship, or in your, in all your relationships, he is the alpha and, I don't know, man. It's a great question. I.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  Maybe I was just seeking his approval, right? Like, I just wanted him. I didn't want all the other stuff that was happening. I just wanted to have a relationship where,

• 33:57Speaker 05

  you know, he was proud of me. Uh, and I know he, he was. I can see that now. I couldn't see it back then, right? All I saw, all I could fixate on was like,

• 34:07Speaker 05

  the, the tra, the drama, and some of the others, the trauma that was happening. But I think it was that I was, I couldn't see, I had blinders on and I wanted his approval. And it was there, probably. I just couldn't, I didn't know how to receive it.

• 34:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:21Speaker 05

  I'm curious, what about you?

• 34:23Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, kind of the same. I mean, I know what it was, but it was, you know, I, I'm one of three. I'm the oldest.

• 34:34Shawn Ryan?

  And I just never really felt good enough. You know, I know I was a, I was a challenge, uh, for my parents. And, uh, you know, I didn't make good grades. I wasn't an athlete. My brother was an athlete, a really good one. Uh, he made phenomenal grades. My sister was good at everything that she did. And I kind of half-assed everything, you know, from in my childhood and, and the stuff, even the stuff that I really wanted to be good at, like wrestling, I wasn't, I was average. I wasn't great, but, um, you know, and so,

• 35:17Shawn Ryan?

  I saw a lot of

• 35:21Shawn Ryan?

  attention being spent on my siblings.

• 35:23Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 35:24Shawn Ryan?

  And not a lot on me. And that's not their fault. I, I, if I wasn't good at something, I would lose interest. And, and my priorities were as women and partying by the time I got into high school. And so, um, me and my dad were always getting it to it. I mean, my dad is my hero. And, uh, still to this day. And, um,

• 35:50Shawn Ryan?

  but by the time I, we, there was an, there was an argument. And, uh,

• 35:57Shawn Ryan?

  There was an argument about me going to college. And he wasn't gonna pay for it because my grades are shit. And, and I said, I don't really give a shit. Because I'm not gonna go, I'm gonna go be a Navy SEAL.

• 36:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:15Shawn Ryan?

  And, and, and that.

• 36:21Shawn Ryan?

  It was the only thing that I ever put my mind to that I knew I was like, this is, this is what's gonna make my dad proud of me. You know, I watched him, I was in baseball, he always coached my brother. I was involved in this, he was always more, it seemed, appeared to me that he was always more interested in my brother's activities, cuz he was good and I wasn't. And, and so that's kinda how it started. That's the only reason I made it through BUDs is I wanted to quit. I just, I was too weak to quit and not call my dad. It sounds weird I'm saying it like that, right? Cuz honestly, once we got into Hell Week, I really didn't give a shit about being a SEAL anymore.

• 37:04Shawn Ryan?

  It was only the fear of me calling my dad and saying, hey, I fucked this one up too, I quit. You know, there's your loser son, not good at anything. And so that, that kept me in. It was, I, I can't make that call.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:21Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and then, and then it just went on to everything that I've ever done. You know, there's always a portion of it that's like, watch this.

• 37:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. Dude, it's interesting, right? Like, it's, it's, it's a negative reinforcement tool, like.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  And I'm, I'm all about the positive, like, I'm the positive guy, like, you're with my kids, you struck out, cool, like, let's, let's work on the.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  But you see it a lot with our community. We're not unique in this sense. Like, a lot of dudes that come into the SEAL teams, at least that I know of, had some challenging upbringings. Like, and those are the ones, for the most part, that succeed. It's like not wanting to make that call. Like, it was the same thing. And let me, you said something too, like you were challenging, "Oh, buddy, I was too, man." So like, you know, like, "I love my dad. I realize how hard I've made it on my parents. Holy shit. I like to party. I got arrested a couple of times." Like, dude, the list goes on and on. I was a troublemaker. So I appreciate my dad was trying the hardest he could with what he had, right? Like, what he was taught

• 38:35Speaker 05

  and the things that he was being given. And like, I'm so grateful for his love and the support. And, you know, at the time, it didn't feel like it was support. I know it was.

• 38:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  And then you mentioned earlier that, you know, everything that I've done, it's been successful. And there's a lot of failures peppered in there. And I'm pretty sure that's the same with you. Like, so.

• 38:57Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 38:59Speaker 05

  But again, then it goes back to something unique to us is like, failure is just like, let's pick ourselves up. And I see this with guys from our communities. Like, let's pick ourselves up, quickly learn what happened, and let's get right back at it. And, but, man, that thing's been peppered, shotgunned with failures.

• 39:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  So I appreciate you saying that. And I know it's true for you too. So, you know, it's awesome to see what you're doing.

• 39:22Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Thank you. But, so, sorry, Maine. We're in Maine.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:31Shawn Ryan?

  And getting into high school.

• 39:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, I was still young at the point. And then we kind of wrapped up Maine and went to Holland. And Holland was cool. I think we kind of walked through some of the experiences there. It was really interesting being in that multinational school. I just learned so much from so many different people and saw the unique cultures. And I really appreciate, like, my crew moving forward from that point on. We ended up moving to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. And I lived in Clarksville, Tennessee. I went to high school at Northeast High School there. But my crew, because my lens was different from my time overseas. Like dude, we were, we had a black dude, a Panamanian dude, a Puerto Rican dude, a white dude. Like, we didn't see any of that stuff back then. I don't know how it was for you, but it was just like,

• 40:18Speaker 05

  you're a good dude and you like to do stupid shit. Like, let's be buddies and let's go do this stupid shit together. And that's exactly what we did. And that crew is, is awesome. They all ended up, they were army brats as well. And they all ended up, uh, serving and, you know, one of the guys, uh, Terry, uh, he lives right down the street. Actually, he's, uh, he's getting his PhD at Andy. Um, because he wants to continue to serve. He's gonna do some mental health, uh, therapy and, and, uh, is working at, uh, again, his PhD at Andy right now. And the other guys are great. One guy's still in, he's in the Navy. Uh, he's an EOD guy, so he's, uh, he's deployed with, uh, uh, special forces group right now. So I'm always getting the photos of those guys.

• 40:58Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, but that crew in high school was, man, we did it. I don't know if you had a pod, but we did, us four, five, did everything together.

• 41:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:08Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of stuff were you into?

• 41:10Speaker 05

  Uh, I played football and, um, where I went was, I'd say it was probably predominantly black. Um, and I only bring that up because it made dudes like me look good on receivers. So we had Travis Stevens, who ended up playing at UT and I think went to the NFL. Like, he's the running back. Nobody gives a shit about Johnny Wilson on the,

• 41:32Speaker 05

  so I'm catching balls and it's just like, dude, that guy's a good receiver on the stats, but, um, people quickly realized when we went to college, like, that dude's not good.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  But I played football. Um, there's a park right by our house that we all used to just, you know, have parties at, like, bring booze down there and have bonfires. A lot of guys had farms, so a couple of our buddies had farms. So it was just like, it was literally parties every weekend.

• 42:00Shawn Ryan?

  This sounds like a very similar upbringing to mine.

• 42:05Shawn Ryan?

  Very similar.

• 42:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:08Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, you got arrested a couple of times.

• 42:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. So.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  Man, that was, that's some of that shotgun pepper failures I was talking about. But so, well, I'll take a step back and I'll hit that question. So my dad was stationed, I mentioned he was kind of bouncing out and doing the deployment things. He was stationed overseas and this is pre-war, this was in the 90s. And he was in Saudi and he said, hey, you're, you're gonna come visit. And I was like, dad, like, dude, I'm in high school, I got a girlfriend, man, it's, it's the summer, I wanna hang out with my friends, I don't wanna come see you. He was like, cool, you're still coming to visit. So I was pissed, but I flew to Saudi. First couple of days, I just acted like a punk, like trying to show him that I was upset, ignoring him. And he's just being a good dad, like taking me, introducing me to folks.

• 42:58Speaker 05

  And like on the third or fourth day, we're driving on base and I'm in the passenger seat, just looking out the window, and I see this gate closing, like blacked out gate with barbed wire fence. And I'm looking in there, there's a bunch of dudes with no shirt, jacked, tattoos, beards. I'm like, dad, what, who are those dudes? And I thought they were SEALs. My dad corrected me after I shared the story before, he's like, dude, that was 5th group. And I was like, okay, I thought it was SEALs, but it makes better, better story for, if it was SEALs. But nevertheless, it was the 5th group dude. And my dad took me over to introduce me to those guys and they took me under their wing, man.

• 43:37Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, they let me hang out, I got to ask questions. I'm like a 14-year-old kid. So I wanted to be special forces and inevitably, inevitably that evolved to being a SEAL. But, I mean, I was working out those guys. From what I remember, they had guns out, cleaning, and they were talking to me about their missions. It was so cool.

• 43:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, you got to do that at 14?

• 43:57Speaker 05

  14. So when I came back home, I mean, life was like, kinda like you, it was like, boom, this is what I'm gonna do. And I sucked at swimming. I mean, I was good at it, but I wasn't great. But okay, I gotta be in the pool all the time. What are you gonna do? Go be a lifeguard. So I became a lifeguard. I lived fourteen miles from the base. Cardio was horrible. Still is, still is horri- horrible. So I would ride my bike to, to lifeguard and then I would ride back. Football practice, I would run two miles to football practice and run back just to try to get ready for, for buds because I didn't know what to expect. All I had was that, uh, I think there was a SEAL workout program. You probably had it too.

• 44:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 44:38Speaker 05

  Yep. Pushups, two, twenty by twenty pushups.

• 44:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. Yep.

• 44:43Speaker 05

  Yep. So my whole life became.

• 44:46Shawn Ryan?

  So sophomore in high school, because what, that's about fourteen, correct? Is that right?

• 44:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, it was my sophomore year.

• 44:53Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, sophomore year in high school, you already, you've got it mapped out.

• 44:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:57Shawn Ryan?

  You're gonna be some kind of special forces guy.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  Yep. At a vault, I came across a book before there was, um, all the books and movies on team guys. There was one from Vietnam and I was like, oh, I think it was the men with green faces. I read that book and I was like, okay, this is what I want to do.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  And that's what I did. I worked my ass off, like, not too hard, uh, but hard enough to get good grades. And, um, wanted to, at the time, I wanted to go play football. Remember I was looking good. So some of the academies were like, hey man, this guy might be good. That didn't work out the way they thought it would, but I ended up getting, uh, an offer to go to the academy.

• 45:38Shawn Ryan?

  The academy?

• 45:38Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:39Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. Like the naval academy?

• 45:41Speaker 05

  The naval academy. And I couldn't, so what they do at the academies is they have prep school. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but.

• 45:48Shawn Ryan?

  I am not.

• 45:49Speaker 05

  So it's essentially how they red shirt athletes. They send you to prep school, get your grades, uh, get you prepped for the rigors of the academics, but you get to play ball against the other prep schools. So you get to play ball against MAPS, which is a military academy prep school and the naval academy prep schools, NAP. So I ended up getting accepted, but I had to go to NAP's first, which was awesome. I was in Newport, Rhode Island. Um, but that was kind of the path that was laid out for me. So got accepted, going to naps. You got a couple of weeks off before you leave. I lived in Clarksville, Tennessee. Let's go celebrate. Come down to Nashville because where else are you going to party in Tennessee?

• 46:31Speaker 05

  Second half, I can't remember the bar, but there was a bar with four stories of different things like country, rock and roll, like techno. I just remember that's, that was our spot.

• 46:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's probably still there.

• 46:42Speaker 05

  I guarantee it is dude. And I didn't get two steps in that door before they saw that janky ass fake ID card I had. And got hemmed up. That was the first time.

• 46:55Shawn Ryan?

  What was the second? Was it back to back?

• 46:58Speaker 05

  It was back to back.

• 46:59Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  I'm such an idiot. So I got arrested, big dude. He was like six, three, six, four, black guy, former marine. He's like, you're a fucking idiot. Like, and I was like, I just got in the naval academy. I was talking my way out of it. And he was like, you know what? I'm going to give you a chance. Like, don't do this again. Like, you got your whole life ahead of you. You're going to burn that bridge. You're such an idiot. I was like, thank you, sir. And went back to Clarksville and pouted and was just like, hey, I'm not doing anything for about three hours. And then my buddies were like, finally broke me down. I was like, let's go party. A week to the day, dude. I'm in Nashville again with my buddies. I stumble out of a bar. This time I get into the bar, stumble out of the bar and I bump into that cop.

• 47:43Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  Out the back door. And I took off, man. I saw him. He saw me. He went to grab me. I was like, and I took off and I started running and I'm like, in my head, I was like, we're already team guys. Or at least we're starting to think like team guys. I gotta hit the river. I gotta get to water. I'm such an idiot, dude. I'm a kid, had no idea what I was doing. I come around the corner. I remember Hooters being right there. Cause I remember looking in. Come around the corner and I hear.

• 48:11Speaker 05

  And there's a chain link fence in front of me and I'm like, okay, I gotta jump that, but there's barbed wire. They were doing some work up there and I'm like, holy crap, I'm cornered. I still hear this and then it stops and I turn around and there's like horse patrol. Got me cornered. That cop runs up. I was like, damn it. Put my hands up, grabbed me, snatched me. He was like, this time you're going to jail, son. Made the call. My dad was like, nope, I'll see you Monday. I'm not picking you up. So I stayed there over the weekend and I don't know if they've improved the fucking prison here or the jail here, but I hope to God they have. That thing was disgusting.

• 48:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 05

  Vile. But I spent the weekend in jail.

• 48:48Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 48:49Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 48:50Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. I'm curious why you, so why did you pick the Naval Academy? I mean, if you're that into boozing it up, you're picking pretty much the strictest.

• 49:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:03Shawn Ryan?

  University possible.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  That's a great question. In my head, I just, I thought, I started talking to people, like usually when I get my head in, you know, I get something in my head, I'm gonna go out to the people that are actually doing it. So I reached out to a couple of folks and just asked them, like, hey, if I wanted to be a SEAL officer, like, how would I do this? And like, well, academy gets more billets. So that's probably the thinking. I started thinking, I thought it was most prestigious. It was also free and I wasn't getting scholarships everywhere else. I guess I could have got a ROTC scholarship, but once they said yes, I was like, I'm all in. Here's the thing, man, those guys and gals at the academies drink just as much as, if not more.

• 49:49Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 49:50Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. They're partying and it'll come out. I went to the academy, but not for long.

• 49:55Shawn Ryan?

  Um.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  Um, but they're partying just as much, man. Yeah.

• 50:02Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. Well, so what, what is it? I've not talked about the Naval Academy at all. How is it showing up there?

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Dude, I hated it. I hated it, man. Um, I have a problem, as we talked about with my dad, like, just in general with like, like, leadership and hierarchy and structure, like, I know, I mean,

• 50:30Speaker 05

  I realize we went into the military and there's, that's all there, but in the teams, it's a little bit different, I would say.

• 50:35Shawn Ryan?

  It's not really there.

• 50:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I showed up to the academy and how it's structured is you show up for plebe summer and you got basically six, eight weeks of boot camp. And I've done boot camp three times now. I did it at the Naval Academy Prep School. I did it at the Naval Academy Plebe Summer and then I did boot camp proper. So like, but this one was the worst. So you show up and you have other classmates called upperclassmen. So you're the lower class, upperclassmen, as your plebe summer instructors. So the thing about this, like, what type of people, and I'm not, like, there's some great folks that go to the academy, a lot of people that play sports, but then there's

• 51:15Speaker 05

  a small group that are smart, maybe never had power before, and now have power. And man, the, if you want to see abuse of power on a scaled level, go to the freaking academy and watch these kids that have never had power before, light into this class of people, like the new class that's coming through. And I just, I struggled with it, man. I hated every bit of it. I, the whole year, it's like that. You got upperclassmen just lying into you and I had massive egos, like these, I mean, the list goes on and on. But push all that aside, I think it's an amazing institution

• 51:56Speaker 05

  that's doing great things, putting out good leaders for the most part, not always, but for the most part. Um, and it's set up to really help, you know, the next generation of good dudes come in. And some of the best officers I had in the teams, I don't know how you feel about this, came from the academy.

• 52:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, I think the best officers I had were Mustangs.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:19Shawn Ryan?

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

• 52:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 05

  Well, dude, I think, I think I lost the fire.

• 52:57Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 52:59Speaker 05

  A little bit into it. Like, I got kicked out of the academy for drinking, right? Like, I was partying my ass off. Like, my grades, I barely got into the academy from the Naval Academy Prep School because I was at Thame Street, which is downtown Newport, like, partying with my friends. Like, you needed 2.0, dude. A 2.0 to get into the academy. It came down to my last exam because I was fucking off so much.

• 53:20Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 53:21Speaker 05

  Like, I buckled down for that exam because I knew what I needed to get. And I was like, I'm smart enough to do it when I have to, but my priorities shifted, man, if I'm being honest. And um, I think me getting kicked out of the Naval Academy was the best thing for me. If I would have made it through the Naval Academy, I would not be, I would not have been a SEAL. None of the other stuff would have happened. I guarantee it, man. And by me getting kicked out, I struggled immensely for, for a few months. Like, was down on myself, didn't think I could amount to anything. I started believing what other people had told me throughout the years. You want to be a SEAL? Like, you know how hard that is? Like, are you sure you can do that? I started believing all that. And then one day I just woke up and I was like, enough. Like, I need to get back on the fucking horse.

• 54:05Speaker 05

  Like, I got bucked off, my own doing, but nevertheless, I got bucked off and I'm sitting on the ground for the last three months. Let's go. Like. And I started, I enrolled in the community college, started getting good grades. I started working out. I stopped the booze and I stopped hanging out with my, my good but degenerate friends. They're still good friends, but they're degenerates. Um, and I just got super laser focused on making this happen. And brother, I got told so many times, no, like there's no way you got kicked out of the naval academy. You can't even enlist in the Navy. And I was like, no, there's gotta be a way. And I fought tooth and nail just to be given a shot to enlist in the Navy. Um, but yeah, that's.

• 54:45Speaker 05

  I think I thought, in my head, I thought you go to the academy, you get a good bill, you get an education. Like the reality is, is like, I got in and I just was like, let's go versus enlisting. And, um, yeah, looking back, it's, it's probably the best thing to happen to me because I wasn't, I thought I was ready. Enlisting and I wasn't.

• 55:07Shawn Ryan?

  You met your wife?

• 55:09Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 55:10Shawn Ryan?

  In Annapolis. Were you in the, was she in the naval academy too, or?

• 55:14Speaker 05

  No.

• 55:15Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you guys meet?

• 55:17Speaker 05

  So I had gotten kicked out and I'm, I'm trying to get back into the naval academy. So after I feel sorry for myself for those few months, I go work, I gotta pay the bills. So I work at a, um, I work at a bar, Griffin's. So, uh, there's a bar down there. It's no longer there, but I bounced there for a bit, bar backed. And I was, uh, I was working one night and they came in. So her and her friend came in and, um, I was flirting with both of them, if I'm being honest. My wife always lets me know, like her friend had some gum and I took it from her. But inevitably the energy and the attention focused and kind of hit it off. And she wasn't at the academy. She lived there. Um, her family's from there.

• 56:03Speaker 05

  And we started dating. And I mean, we dated for a while. We moved in together in my, in her mom, mother-in-law's apartment. While I was training and getting ready for, for now buds, because the academy said, no, you're not coming back. So I was like, all right, we're enlisted now. And, uh, we had about six months and I'm living in her basement, just training. And, um, yeah, it was, she's a great woman, man. And I couldn't see it back then. I could see it. She was, she was beautiful. She was smart.

• 56:40Speaker 05

  I just, um.

• 56:42Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't appreciate it.

• 56:44Speaker 05

  I didn't, thank you. I didn't appreciate her, man, for a fucking long time.

• 56:50Speaker 05

  For a long time, dude.

• 56:52Shawn Ryan?

  We've been married for 20 years.

• 56:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:54Shawn Ryan?

  Congratulations.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  Thank you, dude.

• 56:56Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. What do you think the...

• 57:04Shawn Ryan?

  It's... It sounds like you guys have been through a lot of ups and downs and we'll get through that, but what do you think the secret to a successful marriage is?

• 57:14Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 57:17Shawn Ryan?

  There's not a lot of people that have been married for 20 years straight.

• 57:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 05

  There's a couple of things, dude, and we touched on them, so I'm gonna pull, it was from a different conversation you and I had, but options, like, if you put options on the table, like, there's always an out, right? Like, but if there's only one option and it's us staying married, like, that's a big thing, and like, my whole life is, I've done that. If there's an out, dude, it's human nature, you're gonna do the easier thing. Start in a business, you give yourself an out, you're gonna go do the easy thing. You got a steady paycheck or startup. Well, at some point, it's gonna get easier to do the... I think that there's only one option, man, right?

• 58:03Speaker 05

  That's how I think about things. And then,

• 58:08Speaker 05

  you know, respect and, and grace.

• 58:14Speaker 05

  I didn't respect her. I don't think she respected me. We didn't have grace for each other's shortcomings, and we all have them, and it compounded, right? Like, it just got big and hairy and, and, um,

• 58:29Speaker 05

  I mean, it, it ended up, we ended up figuring it out, but man, there were some times, brother, where, I mean, my buddies know, like, there were some times.

• 58:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean,

• 58:43Shawn Ryan?

  how did you, how long, how long did it take? When did you figure it out?

• 58:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:47Shawn Ryan?

  But you've been married for 20 years, what year did you guys start figuring it out?

• 58:53Speaker 05

  Um.

• 58:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, it was probably two thousand twenty. So.

• 59:06Shawn Ryan?

  Sixteen year mark.

• 59:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. What was it?

• 59:12Speaker 05

  So for, I mean, she's been through everything. We had, we had a kid. Um, and went to BUDs, right? We got married. I went to O S A school. Um, I met her. We had been dating for a while, as mentioned, went to boot camp, but then I got A school and she came down. We got married because we wanted her to come out and. So she was there. We had a house out in town, so all the buddies from BUDs would come over and we're having parties. She's been through that, you know, Iraq, multiple times, Afghanistan, Africa deployments, uh, South America deployments, like.

• 59:46Speaker 05

  I mean, the road show that we're always doing, like always on the road.

• 59:52Speaker 05

  And when I got out.

• 59:55Speaker 05

  Um, we thought we made it. I'm, you know, I'm kind of hopping around here, but the Goldman stuff and like living in New York and finally having money. We never had money.

• 1:00:05Speaker 05

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

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Stayed with me. Um, but it was plant medicine, dude.

• 1:00:35Shawn Ryan?

  It was.

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, for me, I, I was at a low point. I moved out. And, you know, I'm pretty sure we'll, we'll get to it, but, um, I did it and I came back and she, she saw me do all the things, dude, like T M S, uh, trans. Uh, magnetic stimulation, talk therapy. That doesn't work for me. The V A didn't work for me, like. Um, started doing everything, like all these new wazoo things that were coming out and, um, I inevitably did plant medicine and I'll share that story. But I came back and I was like, sweetie, this is real. Like, something's changed. I can fucking feel it. I'm telling you, this is, this is it. And she had her wall up, and rightfully so, man. I've beaten, I've beaten that woman down so many times,

• 1:01:18Speaker 05

  like, with words and actions and behaviors.

• 1:01:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm not, cool. I'm not gonna let you in. Like, that wall's been years, 16 years in the making.

• 1:01:33Speaker 05

  And then she ended up doing plant medicine in 2020, dude, and...

• 1:01:39Shawn Ryan?

  Same here?

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  No, I, two years later. Took two years because, one, it's like, this is witchcraft. Like, what do you, I can't believe you did this. Like, what the hell? And, and then you start seeing the, some of the, the changes in my behavior. I'm not drinking. I, I didn't drink for like, three, four years after that.

• 1:01:56Speaker 05

  And then, really, she wasn't in a good place either. And she was like, I, I wanna go. So we set it up. She went to Costa Rica and did it with some beautiful women down there. They had it set up. And it was so awesome. Those ladies are best friends to this day. And she got tremendous healing from her childhood and, you know, some of the relationships she's been in. And, and now we got a, like, kind of, clear slate. And we came back, and that's the first time, Sean, that I've ever been in a relationship in my life. I had five kids at the time.

• 1:02:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. That's...

• 1:02:32Shawn Ryan?

  16 years. You guys stuck with each other, unhappy.

• 1:02:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Shawn Ryan?

  Who knows what all happened? We'll get into it, but, and then, plant medicine.

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  Plant medicine, man.

• 1:02:44Shawn Ryan?

  Just split you guys wide open. That's incredible.

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Shawn Ryan?

  That stuff works wonders, doesn't it?

• 1:02:52Speaker 05

  It's amazing, man. We've, we got a lot of mutual friends and... Dude, we've, Alison and I, she's got a nonprofit, the whole project that helps women.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  The women, the stories, like, there's some, there's some dark things in this world, dude, and there's some really hate, hatred and nastiness that's happened to some of these beautiful women that are just struggling and don't know how to get out of these dark places. And it's beautiful to witness like her take what she's gained from that and like push it forward. And she's helped hundreds of women now go through plant medicine, coaching, treatment, integration. And it's just like, God, it's a blessing, dude.

• 1:03:36Shawn Ryan?

  How did your kids act when you guys connected?

• 1:03:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, dude, it's so funny. Like, it's funny now, looking back, because they joke about it. It's like, oh, we've never seen you guys. But that's some real shit. Like, if you unpacked, I was like, wow, you've never, you've never seen mom and dad? Like, we don't really remember those times. And there's one store where I knew this stuff was real. And I had my oldest daughter and my oldest son, and we're, we're seeing a friend in Brooklyn, at Brooklyn Park. And we're sitting there in the park, and it's a beautiful day, man. There's trees out there. This guy sits, we all lay down, and we're all just talking. And this guy was one of the first guys to invest. He donated

• 1:04:23Speaker 05

  some significant money alongside Tim Ferriss for the John Hopkins study. So he was one of the pioneers, frontier leaders in this space. And he looks around, and he looks at my son JD, and he's like, JD, how was it growing up in the house with, with your old man? And without missing a beat, my son, he's witty, but it was true. He was like, he was an asshole. I was like, fuck. And I just started weeping, man. Because I was an asshole. Like, I did have those walls up. I did have an example and was mimicking that despite not liking it, right? And he was like, how about now? Dude, I'm about

• 1:05:07Speaker 05

  to cry right now. He's, he said he's, he's, it's different. He's, he's full of love, and, and he's happy.

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  Man.

• 1:05:31Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome, man.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  That shit is real. Plant medicine, I mean, the research, look at it, it is changing generations. Like, I was on a path with my family and they were gonna do the exact same thing that I taught them.

• 1:05:44Speaker 05

  And now we lead with love in our house, man. And it's not fucking perfect, dude. Let's not pretend it is, right? It's not. We still get into it, we still argue, but, I mean, it's almost instant where you're just like, "Oh, yeah, that was me, I'm sorry." Or, what I usually do, just fucking around, is like, "Hey, that was you." You're such an idiot.

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  But the kids see that now and they're on a path and we're using words we've never used before. Like, my son, JD, he's 18, he just blasts texts off on the family thread, "I love you guys." What 18-year-old do you know, boy, do you know that's doing that? I don't know too many, man.

• 1:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  Me neither.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  I wasn't that kid.

• 1:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  Me neither.

• 1:06:29Shawn Ryan?

  That's pretty profound.

• 1:06:33Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 1:06:34Speaker 05

  Thank you, man.

• 1:06:35Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's get back into, let's get back in gear here. So, you're going to BUDs.

• 1:06:41Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:06:42Shawn Ryan?

  How did that? You go to A-school first.

• 1:06:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:48Shawn Ryan?

  Do you wanna talk about A-school, or should we go straight to BUDs?

• 1:06:50Speaker 05

  Well, it's just one thing in A-school, I met my, one of my best friends, Zadok Morgan, from Montana, Hales from Montana, Forsyth, Montana.

• 1:07:01Speaker 05

  Little did I know, we were gonna be lifelong friends. I'm actually hunting with him and his boys in two days.

• 1:07:09Speaker 05

  But they had a, I forgot the name of it, but you remember, uh, when we showed up to boot camp, they had a, like, a workout session for, for guys that wanted to be Special Forces EOD? I can't remember what it was called, but we had that at A-school as well. And I show up the first day and there's just a bunch of folks that wanted to try out for these different units and I can just tell, like, no, these guys, in my head, I was like, "They ain't gonna make it." And there was one dude, and I started gravitating towards him because he could actually do the workouts, he was doing more than most, and we became best friends and...

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  I have a pattern here, uh, at this point, and it's about having a good time. So shifting sands on the base is a little local like bar. And I had my Jeep and me and my buddy would go down there on Friday's quarter beer night in A school and just get hammered.

• 1:08:03Shawn Ryan?

  Where is this?

• 1:08:04Speaker 05

  It's on the base. It's on damn neck.

• 1:08:06Shawn Ryan?

  What was your A school?

• 1:08:07Speaker 05

  OS, Operation Specialist.

• 1:08:09Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I was.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  Oh, no shit.

• 1:08:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, damn. I was over at Peabody's.

• 1:08:15Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, Peabody's. Oh, my God. I'm surprised you didn't get shot.

• 1:08:21Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  Oh, man. Yeah, we stayed on base, man. We thought we were being smart, but I mean, after that, we, we probably spent like 20 bucks with at quarter beer nights a lot. I knew this guy was gonna be my best, one of my best friends. Um, and he, he was a class ahead of me, so he took off, kind of got the lay of the lands in, in BUDs. And then I showed up a week later and now we became roommates and, uh, just waited till the class filled up and idle hands, brother. Idle hands. I got, we got really close to not ever being a given a shot to try out for BUDs.

• 1:08:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:08:55Speaker 05

  Self-induced. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:08:59Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. So for those that are listening, A school is a, it's basically your, your job training for, for the Navy. So back in those days, you go to A school. They force you to go to A school to go to BUDs because then when you quit at BUDs, because what it's like 80% attrition rate. Um, then you fill the needs of the Navy.

• 1:09:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:24Shawn Ryan?

  With your A school. So that's what that is for those that are listening that don't know. So you get through A school, you show up to BUDs.

• 1:09:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 05

  Show up to Bud's, we're waiting for the class to fill up, we're doing our like in-doc workouts and

• 1:09:43Speaker 05

  um, it's our birthday weekend, the weekend before we actually class up.

• 1:09:49Speaker 05

  So the weekend before we start, uh, uh, we class up, it's my birthday and his birthday, his is on the 18th, mine's May 16th.

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  So, I mean, we gotta celebrate, right? So let's go to a Padres game and have one beer. So we go to a Padres game and those beers are massive. Like, I don't know if you've been to a ballgame, but like, these are like, they're huge. And one became two, two became three. And we were rolling with a buddy of ours, John Parker. Uh, John ended up getting medically discharged, broke both his legs in hell week, and still finished, man, stud of a dude. But John, Zade and myself hopped in his truck and it's us, you know, the bench seat up front, so us three up there. John had a beer and then stopped drinking and then Zade and I were antagonizing. Let's go out, let's, let's go to the Irish bar, I forgot what it was called in San Diego.

• 1:10:41Speaker 05

  Go to the Irish bar and we closed that fucker down. This is Sunday night, dude. We start the next day. I know. I, so stupid. Peppered, peppered with failures, man. This is one of the bad decisions. Um, we start driving back and Zade and I are fucking around in the passenger seat, John Parker's driving and we're hitting each other and screwing around and he's hitting us like, knock it off, you guys are fucking idiots. And we're coming on the bridge, Bay Bridge. And he slams on the brakes and we hit the glass and I'm like, what the hell, man? And there's a guy there with his hands up, right in front of the car, coming on the Bay Bridge in Coronado. It was a cop. There was flares.

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  There is a suicide attempt happening and they had the bridge closed, closed off and John, because of us, almost ran over a cop.

• 1:11:31Speaker 05

  This is the night before we start.

• 1:11:35Speaker 05

  I can laugh about it now, dude. I wasn't laughing about it then. John gets snatched out of the car. Parker gets snatched out of the car. We get pulled out of the car with the cops. They're like, "Hey, you guys been drinking?" John refuses to blow. He gets arrested. He hadn't drank, but one drink, like God's honest truth, or at least that's what I remember. Earlier in the night, but he wasn't chanting it. He gets arrested. Zay and I get thrown in the back of, cuffed and thrown in the back of a cop car and we're waiting and they're just dealing with John and they come to us and we start lipping off right away. Like, "You can't do that." He's like a pre-law major, thinks he's smart on law and he starts like yelling at this guy. He's like, "Are you fucking kidding me? Like, knock it off or else I'll take you two to jail." He's like, "You know what? I'm gonna do you one better."

• 1:12:19Speaker 05

  So this guy drives off the Bay Bridge, takes us down into Barrio and drops us off. We're like three hours out from classing up. We gotta be at muster. Three hours. We run up to like a taco shop. There's a drive-through and we start yelling, "Can we get some water?"

• 1:12:37Speaker 05

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

• 1:13:22Speaker 05

  And I slip. And I just, all the way down, I am cut up, dude. I'm bleeding everywhere. He comes down naked. Zay picks me up. He's like, "You okay, dude?"

• 1:13:35Speaker 05

  Naked. I'm pretty sure there's like, security cameras and dudes like in security was like, "Hey Mike, come over here and check this out. Look at these two dudes."

• 1:13:43Speaker 05

  And he's like, "You alright?" I was like, "Oh man, I'm all banged up, man." "I'm bleeding everywhere. We can't get in the water." He's like, "Yeah, yeah. No kidding, man. The sharks would tear us up." We didn't know any better. So we go try to find our clothes, man. So our plan was to swim across, get on base, get our uniform, dude, and then come back the next day. It took us forever to find our clothes and we had just left. We would have never found it, man. I had no idea where we were at.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  We finally, we finally find it. We come out and we're waiting, like, we're just waiting for a car. The new plan is, is we're gonna basically hijack a car.

• 1:14:19Shawn Ryan?

  Genius.

• 1:14:20Speaker 05

  Genius plan. It all made sense at the time. This little Hugo, you remember the Hugos?

• 1:14:24Shawn Ryan?

  I gotta be honest, I can't believe Mexico isn't in the story right now. That's all right. It might just pop up.

• 1:14:30Speaker 05

  I got kids. I had to modify it a bit.

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  Now, it's not in the story, but there were Mexicans in the story.

• 1:14:39Speaker 05

  So this little Hugo comes putting up right at us and we stand in front of him, we stop. And it is full of some Mexican workers, hard hats and everything. They just got off shift and we're like, "Hey, we need to get to the bridge." They're like, "No, we can't. There's no room." It's like, "No, like, you're gonna take us to the bridge." They're like, "No, mister, please." And it's like, "We're not asking." So these guys are just like, "Fuck." So we hop in and like, we're all jammed in this little Hugo. Hugos are like the size of like, the seat. Like, we had seven, eight people in this thing, me and him, and Zayn's not a small dude. And they drive us to the bottom of the Bay Bridge and the new plan is, is we're gonna get on the opposite side of where the jumper is and the cop cars are.

• 1:15:21Speaker 05

  As we get close to where the incidents happened, we're gonna low crawl past them and then continue on with walking across the Bay Bridge and then get into base.

• 1:15:32Speaker 05

  So that's what we do. We get on the bridge, we start walking up. All of a sudden dude, Dukes of Hazzard style, like over the top of the Bay Bridge, this cop car catches air, I swear to God, catches air, lands, turns like sideways, guy comes out with the flashlight on a shotgun right in our eyes. I go to jump off the bridge. I'm like, I'm getting in the water. I go to jump and as I'm going, like hands off, Zade grabs me. First time he saved my life. Because we weren't over water, we were still over freaking land. Whoa. Grabs me, I grab on, pulls, pulls me back in. He was coherent enough to do that. That's the first time. It's happened a couple of times. Cop comes closer to us, he's like,

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  get your hands up, higher, higher. And then you see the, the flashlight start lowering it. And it goes down. And the guy, we can't see him. I really can't see him. He's like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. How did you two get back here so fucking fast? It was the same cop that had us earlier. He's like, what the fuck are you two doing? Like, we gotta, we, you know, we gotta get to Buzz. He's like, you know what, man? Hop in the car. I'm gonna take you guys there. This dude, with like 40 minutes to spare dude, put us in the car, drove us to the gate. We were too embarrassed or afraid or scared to go through the gate. So we hopped the fence, we go to the barracks. Somebody saw that, called the cops. But nevertheless,

• 1:16:58Speaker 05

  we go in the barracks, we change, we show up, we think we're, we're good. There's cops looking for whoever hopped the fence, but I'm like, we, we made it dude. We're at formation. And we're doing roll call, head count, and we're down a man. And they're, the instructor's like, we're down John Parker. Who the fuck was with John Parker last night? I looked to Zade and he looks to me and we're like, dude, hold ground, hold ground.

• 1:17:25Speaker 05

  And I have a, I have an issue with lying. Like, I'm like, dude, I can see this unfolding really bad if we don't come forward quick. So I'm like, fuck. And then Zade sees me, so he does it. They pull us in there to the instructor room in there and they start yelling us, "Where the fuck is, what did you guys do?" And

• 1:17:45Speaker 05

  one of the instructors stops everything. He's like, "Oh, my God. Smells like a whiskey factory in here. You boys been drinking all night?" I'm like, "Oh, God, we're done." So we tell them what happened. They're like, "You guys are done. Like, you guys are out of here." Like, "Go back to the class. We'll let you know, but you guys are done."

• 1:18:06Speaker 05

  So, all that work, man.

• 1:18:09Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:18:09Speaker 05

  And I thought, "You idiot, you did it again." Like, "You did it again, man. You worked your tail off to get into the academy. You worked your tail off to get into BUDs, and here we go again."

• 1:18:24Speaker 05

  And we just put our head down and we got beat before class. We had to show up an hour early and got our asses beat. Just Zade and I, with all the instructors. We got beat an hour after class for all of First Phase to Hell Week. And the worst thing that they made us do, man, to this day, the worst thing I've ever done, is hand-write and hand-number a 5,000-word essay. Like, I don't know if you've numbered that, but it takes hours. We had to sit there and, "One, two, three." It takes forever, man.

• 1:18:54Shawn Ryan?

  Every word?

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  Every word.

• 1:18:55Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. I'm gonna have to try that sometime.

• 1:18:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a, it's a form of punishment that I don't wish on my worst enemy, man. But, uh, they gave us a shot. They, they let us try Hell Week and we got through and they pulled us aside afterwards and it was like, "We liked you guys, and we're gonna see if you guys could figure it out. If you could, we'd keep you, and if not, you're, you're gonna quit anyway," so it didn't matter to us, and

• 1:19:23Speaker 05

  uh, it all worked out in the end, man.

• 1:19:25Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you. What happened to Parker?

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  So Parker was given a shot too. Um, he, he, they ended up taking blood and he had not drank in it long enough where there was no alcohol, so they let him come back into the class. Uh, he got to Hell Week, um, went all the way through Hell Week, but broke both his legs and got medically discharged. So he's off doing good things now. I think he's working with his dad's business in Texas, if I remember correctly. Don't quote me on that, but he's a pretty successful dude, too.

• 1:19:53Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. Well, on that note, let's take a quick break and then we'll pick it up back at BUDs.

• 1:20:02Speaker 06

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• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  On October 2nd.

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Ravenette.

• 1:20:48Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what...

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:21:06Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Johnny, we're back from the break. We're just wrapping up Hell Week in BUDs. So we'll pick up there. Before we move on, Hell Week is always a... People are just fascinated with it. So what were... What are some memorable experiences that happened to you in Hell Week that just stick out?

• 1:21:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, man.

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  I think, for me, I don't think I've been more nervous in my life than the night before Hell Week. Like, sitting in that tent, sleeping. I don't know how dudes passed out. There was guys snoring in there. I'm like, dude. I'm sitting there on edge, antsy, just like, oh, dude, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. Here it is. And I just remember looking down, up and down the tent. There's dudes passed out, snoring. I'll never forget that. And then boom, it happened, right? Like, the breakout for me was... That was one of the most memorable because... I mean, one, I knew it was coming. You heard about it. You've seen it on Discovery Channel.

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  But until it happens, like, you just don't know, right? And then a machine gun going off with the blanks. Everybody yelling at you, flipping cots, and there you go. Here we go. And I remember looking up and down, and there's a photo of me in the front leaning rest with just water hitting the, spraying with the hose. And I had the biggest grin ever, like, it's finally here, like, the crucible's finally here. I finally get to do it, and I love that photo. I don't have it framed, but I look at it quite, you know, as I go through some of my favorite photos. It pops up every year or two. I'll probably gotta frame that one because that, that for me, that emotion, that feeling of working your tail off, almost flubbing it up

• 1:23:01Speaker 05

  with the whole, you know, Hugo Bay Bridge jumping incident. But then finally being able to be in it, like, you earned it. Now let's see what you can do with it. And that was probably the most memorable for me.

• 1:23:17Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any portions where you thought you were gonna quit?

• 1:23:21Speaker 05

  Not in Hell Week, but in third phase.

• 1:23:25Shawn Ryan?

  Third phase?

• 1:23:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:27Shawn Ryan?

  No way.

• 1:23:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, San Clemente.

• 1:23:30Shawn Ryan?

  You went all the way to third phase and then thought about quitting?

• 1:23:33Speaker 05

  There is a fleeting moment, man, where... So it was, it was the time of year, and we had Thanksgiving off. And instructors are super nice to us. They're like, "Oh, you guys are just gonna go to San Clemente. Take your time and, you know, enjoy the holidays. When we come back January, it's gonna be, we're just gonna, it's a gentleman's course out there." Psychologically, they had planted that seed, and I had no idea what they were doing. Thanksgiving, come back. We do a little bit of workouts between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. And then we go off for Christmas. I'm crushing pumpkin pies, like, eating turkey and ham, ice cream on top of my apple pie. We come back and it's still playing the game. They're like, this is, you know, they're just gonna go out there, we're gonna do some demo, it's gonna be awesome.

• 1:24:17Speaker 05

  We land on that plane and they beat the living piss out of us from the second we got there until like the second we left. And it was raining, it was January, you know how, how SoCal is, so it's just, it's cold, not too cold, but cold enough where you're miserable. And you're completely soaked from this drizzle that's happened in this marine layer and, and you're running up and down with the pallets on your back. And I was like, this is by far the worst part of BUDs for me, like, and it didn't help, like, the instructors had carte blanche out there. So like, there's no, the command's not there, they're not overlooking the instructors. So we had one dude who is a good friend now and he's a coach in the plant medicine space, but back then he was the biggest drunk.

• 1:25:03Speaker 05

  And he would first, like, every morning we wake up and we'd have to figure out a way to get to the chow hall without running into instructor Burns.

• 1:25:12Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:25:14Speaker 05

  And we'd like kind of maneuver out, like, where is he, see, and then we'd take off and all of a sudden you hear him, he'd be in the, in the trees, behind a, like, behind the trash cans, he'd be under, like, I was just like, dude, this dude's everywhere. And he would beat the living piss out of you all breakfast, you wouldn't get breakfast. And I hated it, man. I was like, dude. So every bit of that was just horrible for me. I hated it. And there was times where I was like, I don't want to do this, man.

• 1:25:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Was that targeting you?

• 1:25:40Speaker 05

  It was everybody.

• 1:25:41Shawn Ryan?

  It was the whole class?

• 1:25:42Speaker 05

  Felt like me, but it was everybody.

• 1:25:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. Well, see, you, you get through BUDs, you go through SQT, what team are you going to?

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  I go to four.

• 1:25:54Shawn Ryan?

  Four?

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:25:55Shawn Ryan?

  How was it arriving at four?

• 1:25:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, they took our tridents, put them in the birdcage, said we, we didn't earn shit and, um, and then we hopped on the road, man. It was a condensed, I don't know if you were part of that, I think you were, where they were condensing the workup cycles, but we were, we were going to Baghdad and we were leaving in nine months.

• 1:26:19Speaker 05

  But it was fun, man. I had a couple of brothers there with me from BUDs and, you know, the old guys were pretty good. They were really focused on, hey, we're going to war, so they weren't assholes.

• 1:26:31Shawn Ryan?

  No hazing, none of that?

• 1:26:33Speaker 05

  There were some, there was some, yeah, but I don't think, hearing some of the other stories and the other teams, like I think we got off easy.

• 1:26:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 1:26:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't know how it was for you. Like, how was, how was it for you?

• 1:26:45Shawn Ryan?

  It was, I deserved everything that came my way, so.

• 1:26:50Speaker 05

  Ladies and gentlemen, the next congressman from the third district of Tennessee here.

• 1:26:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:57Speaker 05

  Politically.

• 1:26:59Shawn Ryan?

  No, I mean, you know, when I showed up, it was, it was, uh, the older guys in my platoon when I showed up had, had really bad hazing experiences and they decided that they weren't going to do that to the, uh, to the new generation. And then, and then I got cocky and, uh, and I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter a couple of different times and, and eventually wised up, so.

• 1:27:33Speaker 05

  I mean, it was there, it was happening where guys were slipping up. Um, and they do the fun, like, it wasn't fun, it was still hazing, but, um, I think it was a little lighter, they liked us, still beat us, but, um, again, like I've heard some horror stories. Now, there was one incident, we were in Land Warfare and me and that same dude, Zade, fucked up.

• 1:27:55Shawn Ryan?

  You guys were on the same platoon?

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:27:57Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:27:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  And, uh, same troop, he was in a different platoon, but, um, we were big hunters and on the army base there in Fort Chaffey, Arkansas, there's like this huge impact zone where they drop bombs and it's off limits. There's a lot of like ranges that are off limits. Well, Zade and I would take one of the side by sides and just go out there and hunt. And it started off like, hey, let's get one for the platoon or for the troop. And we'll, we'll butcher it up, we'll bring it back and we'll grill and we'll have the other platoon grill while one's out doing runs and vice versa.

• 1:28:39Speaker 05

  And we're eating fresh venison, it was awesome. Second weekend, I mean, we went through that like that, a couple of runs, all the meat was gone. So let's get a couple more. So the second weekend, we go out there and we shoot a couple more, uh, on the first day. And then we're not wanting to butcher up all these animals. So then we let's just take like the hindquarters and the backstraps, the good meat. And then it became, let's just take the backstraps. And then bloodlust set, set in dude, and we just started killing everything.

• 1:29:09Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:29:09Speaker 05

  It got bad. So bad that um, Monday morning, we're back on the ranges and he elbows me and I look at him, he tells me to kind of look up and I look up.

• 1:29:25Speaker 05

  And I see turkey vultures circle and I start counting like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 15 different sites. Where we had put down deer and taken the meat off of it. Well, somebody saw us running around doing this, reported it to the game warden. We're sitting there counting this and the instructors come out and it's like, hey, who was out shooting freaking deer this past weekend? And Zayn and I put our hand up. He's like, you dumb asses. Like the game warden is on his way. Like he'll be here this afternoon. You guys have a couple hours to go get all the carcasses and we're gonna blow them.

• 1:30:07Speaker 05

  It's 100 degrees out there and it's only the weekend, but by the time we get to the first carcass, it is covered in maggots. And it was one of the most vile things I've ever done in my life. The thing, you're just picking these up and you're like throwing them in the back of the trailer and you're going from site to site. You're just kind of honing in on like, okay, that those vultures are right there. There they are. And then we pick it up. Dude, it was disgusting. You're covered and it was nasty, man.

• 1:30:32Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet.

• 1:30:33Speaker 05

  We get it to the site, we blow that thing up, all the evidence is gone. But dude, we got beat for that one. And rightfully so. They beat the living piss out of us.

• 1:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  What did the game warden say?

• 1:30:42Speaker 05

  Uh, he was friends with everybody and like, let me just say like, I would never do that now. I, I have such respect for like hunting and harvesting and a different point in my life. Um, so I respect like when we go hunt, we, we harvest everything and it fills our freeze, our freezer with elk or deer. And back then we were just, I was an idiot. I'll speak for myself. Um, game warden was friends with the instructors and by the time they get there, it was all cleaned up. He basically pulled us aside. So don't ever do that shit again. Like people are watching you guys. So.

• 1:31:15Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 1:31:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:31:19Speaker 05

  So stupid.

• 1:31:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:21Speaker 05

  Largest year I ever shot there was from there and I got it, I got it somewhere. I'm not gonna say where.

• 1:31:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:28Shawn Ryan?

  So you, so condensed, condensed workup cycle, workup cycle, for those that are listening that don't know, that's basically the training that you do before you go out. It's, it's the training you do with the people you're going to go to war with before you actually go to war. So they condensed it down to nine months.

• 1:31:45Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:31:45Shawn Ryan?

  It's usually, usually a year and a half.

• 1:31:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:31:49Shawn Ryan?

  It's usually eighteen months.

• 1:31:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:31:52Shawn Ryan?

  An eighteen month cycle with a six month deployment. So, I mean, did you feel, did you know where you were going?

• 1:31:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were going to Baghdad.

• 1:32:00Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that feel? I mean.

• 1:32:02Speaker 05

  I mean, it felt awesome, right? Like it's, everything that we've done has been to go to war.

• 1:32:11Speaker 05

  And, you know, again, I look back, I mean, you're answer, I'm, I'm answering that question from like the twenty-two, twenty-three year old kid that has worked his tail off to do that. Uh, looking back, my views maybe have changed a bit, like, but I, you know, that's who I was back then and I was so pumped, man. We were all pumped.

• 1:32:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:28Speaker 05

  Um, so I think we were really teammate at the time in Baghdad. Pretty sure we did. Um, I can't remember, but we got in and there was two different task force that we were associated with. So we split the troop up and we just started getting after it and it was, it was, I mean, it's kinda like the movies, man. We were going to, we were talking about it earlier, going into solder city. Like that thing was, that thing was a hornet's nest. And on one of my first mission, I'm the lead, lead Vic driver, right? So I'm mobility, I'm driving, I'm in the lead vehicle and I got this really good dude next to me. He was our troop chief, um, Hertzog. He came from Dam Neck. He was, he was our troop chief at the time.

• 1:33:14Speaker 05

  And on the way out there, they're burning tires, early warning signals, letting everybody know the Americans are coming. We do what we gotta do. Um, hit the target, come out, we're driving and I'm looking to my left and I'm like, oh man, that's strange. What are those things? And I'm like seeing like little flashes. It felt like an eternity. To me, it looked like fireflies. It wasn't, obviously. It was gunfire. And Ed basically like hits me upside the head. He's like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Drive. And then it all like, it's like, like the tunnel vision came out. I'm like, oh my God, we're getting shot at. You hear like ting ting ting. I'm like, oh shit. And just take off.

• 1:33:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:33:56Speaker 05

  So one of my first missions. I was like, had no idea what was going on. All the training in the world. I'm like, hey, there's fireflies in Sodder City. How cool is that?

• 1:34:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, let's rewind. So you landed Baghdad.

• 1:34:08Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:34:08Shawn Ryan?

  What year is this?

• 1:34:10Speaker 05

  This is oh, five, oh, six. I'm pretty sure. Maybe it was six oh, seven.

• 1:34:14Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:34:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Shawn Ryan?

  So you landed Baghdad. What is, what's the mission? What are you, what are they briefing you guys up on?

• 1:34:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we're going after, uh, we're doing raids. We're working with two different Iraqi units. So we partnered with, uh, some partner forces, ICTF and the ERU. And we're just going after guys that are cell leaders, like IED cell leaders. Um, basically anybody in the target set in that vicinity that we were working in. Uh, so dudes that were killing other guys. And that's, yeah, we split off into those two groups and we started doing like, it felt like missions every, maybe every other night, sometimes two missions a night.

• 1:34:55Shawn Ryan?

  Right off the bat?

• 1:34:56Speaker 05

  Right off the bat.

• 1:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's go through your first mission. Just as a, as a brand new guy, you've only been at a SEAL team for nine months.

• 1:35:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:04Shawn Ryan?

  Now you're in the thick of it. And I mean, that was a very hot time period.

• 1:35:11Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  That first one, man, uh, it was a Hilo op. So, you know, we came in and I was with one of the assault teams. And so just did the brief. We hopped on the birds, did the rehearsals like we always do, and then hopped on the bird and went to target. And, um, we do the, you know, one minute out. Everybody's getting gear ready. I got the night vision on and we're, we're, I'm looking around the helicopter and, uh, seeing the TL is what they're doing, my TL. And I'm basically just going to be on his hip and haul, and hauling ass to, to the door.

• 1:35:50Speaker 05

  Um, to the breach point.

• 1:35:52Speaker 05

  And then I'm peeking my head over the, so we were in Blackhawks and the doors are off and I'm peeking my head over the side and I see like gunfire coming up. That I knew was not uh fireflies, that was gunfire. And dudes are like shooting, we land and we immediately go to cover, right? Like, so I, I mean, we're taking fire and I go high behind the smallest little berm. It felt like the smallest little berm. It really was. I was like hiding there, like trying to like get behind this thing. And um, I mean, we're all engaging and we're starting, comms start coming up and we're starting to move, maneuver to target.

• 1:36:32Speaker 05

  And um, I get a tap on the shoulder and I'll never forget it was, this guy ended up going to damn neck. I want, he's still in, I'm not gonna say who it is. Great dude. He was awesome. He was the TL. And he taps me on the shoulder. He's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm taking cover. And he's like John Wayne gun hanging. And he's like, dude, let's go. Just calm as can be. And I'm like, literally cowering, like my whole 180 body behind this thing. And he just walks off and I'm like, oh, okay. And I started like, the blinders came off and I was like, okay, fire over there, taking fire over there. We're not, there's nobody shooting at us right now. It was like all around me, but not towards us. So we start walking. I run and he's walking. He looks at me and I see him shake. I could see the nods.

• 1:37:17Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:37:17Speaker 05

  He's just like such disgust and disappointment.

• 1:37:23Speaker 05

  That was, I mean, that was it. We blew the front door. Back then we were blowing everything through a slap charge on the gate. Like gate was open, let's close the gate. Let's blow the fucking gate.

• 1:37:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:31Speaker 05

  Doors open, let's close the door. Blow that. And then we took down the building and uh, I mean, it was, everything clicked after that moment when he was like, let's go. It was just like right back into the training. Okay, got it. Like we're in patrol now. I'm covering down, like we're flowing. It started to get into that flow state. Where nobody was saying shit and it was just, I mean, it felt like an orchestra, dude. It was just like, it was happening. The music was happening. People were lining up. Nobody was saying anything, you know, execute, execute, execute, boom. And we're in the building and now we're flowing off each other's hips and taking down rooms and hopping back in the train.

• 1:38:12Speaker 05

  And the next thing you know, target's secure. And I was just like, damn, that's fucking awesome.

• 1:38:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:38:21Shawn Ryan?

  Did you engage anybody on that first op?

• 1:38:23Speaker 05

  Not on the first one, no.

• 1:38:25Shawn Ryan?

  When did you, how many ops went through before you?

• 1:38:29Speaker 05

  It was, it was probably like a third or fourth op when we, when we started engaging and S- Solder City after that was every night. Like when we were in Solder, dude, we were shooting um in the turret. Buddy was lead turret gunner. Um, I remember when I first engaged, he was lead turret gunner and same dude Zadok. We had just got the mini guns in the, in the lead turret. Do you remember this?

• 1:38:54Shawn Ryan?

  We never had mini guns.

• 1:38:56Speaker 05

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

• 1:39:24Speaker 05

  And this fucking turret went.

• 1:39:28Speaker 05

  It took down telephone, light posts, buildings, like everything started collapsing in front of us.

• 1:39:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:39:38Speaker 05

  Everything started collapsing, dude. That was the first, I'll never forget. That was hilarious, dude.

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  But that's Zade. Zade's a, he's a good man and uh he does funny shit all the time. You just gotta spend five minutes with him and you're gonna laugh.

• 1:39:52Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:39:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54Shawn Ryan?

  So what was the op?

• 1:39:57Speaker 05

  Uh, most of what we did was we were going after high uh like HVTs, so high value targets. Um, and for that first deployment, it ranged, um, it ranged from.

• 1:40:12Speaker 05

  Again, I mentioned like IED cell leaders. So like we were going after the big wigs that were like the, the, the bosses for these different cells.

• 1:40:20Shawn Ryan?

  Was it capture kill?

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  It was.

• 1:40:22Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys doing? Capturing or killing?

• 1:40:25Speaker 05

  It was, it was both. It was both.

• 1:40:30Shawn Ryan?

  What was the determination?

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  Um, if, I mean, back then it was, it was prior to Obama coming to an office. So we had like, you know, if there's a threat, if you feel there was a threat and you can take it and it evolved. I don't know if you were deployed during that time, but then it was like, you know, you gotta, they gotta point a weapon at you. You gotta be fired at first. It got really squirrely. People were getting hurt because they're second guessing their training. But back then it was like, if you felt like you were-

• 1:41:01Shawn Ryan?

  You needed to take a shot. You could do it.

• 1:41:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. For example, the first dude, I was a recce, I was on the recce team and we would use telephone, like tent poles and put them on these, these contraptions that opened up and they had teeth. So the buildings overseas were flat, as, as you know, but we would basically raise this device. It would capture and we'd have a soft caving ladder and we would climb to the roof and secure it that way, like secure the target building or climb the target building. And we started taking down the targets from the roof, but we would climb the target building and the dude we were going after just to happen to come out the top. He was like, there's a cupola and door right usually on these buildings. And he

• 1:41:45Speaker 05

  came out and we ID'd him and put him down right away. And that was the first dude I killed.

• 1:41:54Shawn Ryan?

  Let's get a little more descriptive.

• 1:41:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we go in, he comes out, he's running and he's hopping over a building and it's from me to the door. So like, I don't know, 10 feet away and just put the laser on him and I forgot about this. The boys-

• 1:42:19Speaker 05

  I yell, "Freeze." Oh, my gosh. I forgot about this, dude. Oh, my God. The guys gave me so much shit. They said, "We heard you for fucking miles away." Like, "The blocking forces heard you." I said, "Freeze!" And that dude kept, that dude kept running and, and, uh, put him down. And I hopped over. Where'd you hit him? I hit him in the back in the, like, he was kind of running sideways, so like, rib cage, and, uh, he went down. A couple shots in him. And I hop over, the buildings were set up where the roofs were kind of, there was like a wall around, maybe a four-foot wall around the roofs of these buildings, so you would have to hop over.

• 1:43:01Speaker 05

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

• 1:43:45Speaker 05

  I believe there's a spirit in us, and I watched that leave his soul, like, his soul leave his body. What did it look like?

• 1:43:52Speaker 05

  It, um, it was, it was more the eyes. So his eyes just instantaneously lost life, like, and I've seen it with some animals before when I, because I hunt quite a bit, but I've never seen it like this. And it was just him breathing out, I'm on top of him. And, um, I could tell it was about to happen. You know, the, the breathing started getting complicated. And I just sat there and I watched him in his eyes for like 20 seconds, and it just went gray, like, that gray. And, um, heard that last gasp.

• 1:44:33Speaker 05

  And to me, like, there was, there was nothing that left. Like, I didn't see anything that left, but I felt it. Yeah, it was an intuition and I could feel the energy shift. I mean, he was done.

• 1:44:48Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you stop and look him in the eyes? Do you know?

• 1:44:54Speaker 05

  I don't.

• 1:44:55Shawn Ryan?

  Was it curiosity of what it would look like to see another man die?

• 1:44:59Speaker 05

  It's, it could be that, um.

• 1:45:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know, man. Like, I was standing over top of him and then I've seen him, like, I see him. I seen that guy. I mean, he was a horrible dude. He killed thirty-plus Marines. He was, he had a bomb shop. They were killing dudes left and right, so, um, he needed to go, right? Like, he needed to leave this earth. But I still see him. I see him when I do plant medicine and sometimes I see him when I dream. Like, when I'm in dreams, I see that and I've actually had a conversation with that dude, like, never said a word in, in, in my dream, but we had, like, a conversation. Um, so it doesn't haunt me?

• 1:45:49Shawn Ryan?

  Like telepathic type conversation?

• 1:45:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like, I'll be, I'll be dreaming and he'll come to me and we'll talk about, like, without saying a word, we'll talk about what happened, like, we'll talk about, like, how he had gone to the darkness and was doing dark things. Uh, we'll talk about, like, that his spirit left his body and he's now in a holding pattern, if you will, uh, until he's repopulated into this earth, like, I've, again, I've never, I lost my faith until that very moment and then I was like, holy shit. When I saw his, his spirit leave, when I felt, not see, when I felt his spirit leave for me, I was just like, okay.

• 1:46:34Speaker 05

  I believe, like, there's something here. I believe, like, I lost it for.

• 1:46:39Shawn Ryan?

  So you, hold on, so, this is a profound moment.

• 1:46:43Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:44Shawn Ryan?

  So, the same, at the exact same moment you killed a man, your first man, is the same moment that you've reconnected with your relationship with God?

• 1:47:02Shawn Ryan?

  I've never heard that one before.

• 1:47:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Shawn Ryan?

  How often do you see him?

• 1:47:12Speaker 05

  Maybe half a dozen times a year.

• 1:47:16Shawn Ryan?

  Do any of the others come to you?

• 1:47:18Speaker 05

  Uh, there's one, so we had a slap charge through on the front door, blew it and

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

  she doesn't come to me. There was a woman behind the door and it blew her face. I mean, it was fucked up, dude. That's more of a nightmare for me. Like, I see that quite, I see that face and I just feel so horrible. Like, that was, I mean, that's unfortunate and I don't mean to sound callous here, like, that's the, that's what, that's war, that's, you know, bi- that's collateral. But that bothers me, man, as I've matured and grown, grown older and wiser, I think.

• 1:48:03Speaker 05

  I, I, I start seeing some of these moments, like that one specifically, where I'm just like, man, we've, we ruined that woman's life. We, we ruined a lot of people's lives. We were doing a good thing, getting people off this earth, but there is collateral damage in that.

• 1:48:20Speaker 05

  Who's to say what's appropriate and what's not, right? Like, hey, yeah, we shrugged it off back then and compartmentalized everything, but brother, that, you know, for all the veterans out here that have done something similar, like,

• 1:48:34Speaker 05

  it'll come back out. It comes back out, so make sure you're prepared to deal with it. Like, have a network of guys that you can talk to, gals that you can talk to, a therapist or,

• 1:48:49Speaker 05

  because all the stuff that you tucked away and you didn't want to deal with, it's, it's gonna over, overflow at some point and it's gonna cause catastrophe if you don't, if you don't get ahead of it.

• 1:49:01Shawn Ryan?

  What is it like when, when you see her?

• 1:49:04Speaker 05

  I, I know exactly, I mean, it's like reliving that moment.

• 1:49:07Shawn Ryan?

  It's not like

• 1:49:10Shawn Ryan?

  a conversation?

• 1:49:11Speaker 05

  No, this is, this is more sheen it up to my knowledge, living. Um, whereas this one is like, the, the first dude was a guy that I witnessed the spirit leave. This one was just.

• 1:49:28Speaker 05

  It was probably the first time in the teams where I was like, man, that is, that's pretty gnarly. Like, that's, I grimaced and was like, that's, we fucked her face up. Like, her face was gone.

• 1:49:37Shawn Ryan?

  You weren't proud of it?

• 1:49:38Speaker 05

  No. I see it. I mean, we're in between two buildings, there's helos flying. I remember looking up, there's helos flying above. We blew the frickin' building and she comes out of the smoke.

• 1:49:53Speaker 05

  Um, and I just remember, like, through the cloud of smoke, she comes out and you can just see, like, her face is gone, her eyes gone, her face is fucked.

• 1:50:03Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:50:03Speaker 05

  And, uh, the human-to-human connection, like, we're all humans here. Like, I got hit with that in my heart. I was like, fuck. Like, this, push all the stuff that's going on right now aside, like, we're in war, we're going after bad dudes, like...

• 1:50:22Shawn Ryan?

  This wasn't supposed to happen.

• 1:50:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I see that one quite a bit, actually, man.

• 1:50:28Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. I'm sorry.

• 1:50:36Shawn Ryan?

  With the man you killed,

• 1:50:39Shawn Ryan?

  it sounds like he's talking about reincarnation?

• 1:50:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, um...

• 1:50:46Shawn Ryan?

  How long do these conversations last?

• 1:50:51Speaker 05

  I don't know how to judge time when I'm, when I'm on medicine. I don't know if you feel the same, like, it feels like an eternity sometimes. And then I'll look at the watch and it's been 30 seconds. I'm like, shit, I just took this thing. And then it's, it's kind of the same in, in the spirit, in the dream world, right? Like, I'm dreaming,

• 1:51:11Speaker 05

  it feels like an eternity of us sitting there, having conversations. And it's a specific guy, it's not others. It's just, I don't know why this one, maybe it was the first, maybe that's where faith came back into me. I, I don't know why, dude. But we don't say anything. It's almost like we sit here, we stand and say everything without saying anything.

• 1:51:32Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting you say that. I just interviewed, uh, by the time this comes out, this interview will be months. Uh, in the past, but I just interviewed this guy, Joe McMonigal.

• 1:51:46Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:51:46Shawn Ryan?

  Have you heard of him?

• 1:51:47Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:51:48Shawn Ryan?

  Have you heard of remote viewing?

• 1:51:49Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:51:50Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. So, remote viewing, so you've, you've seen like some true crime.

• 1:51:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Shawn Ryan?

  Whatever, Law and Order, I don't know.

• 1:51:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:59Shawn Ryan?

  Every once in a while they'll bring in the psychic, right?

• 1:52:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Shawn Ryan?

  And it's, oh, it happened over there in the corner and, uh, the woman used a knife and the bodies, you know?

• 1:52:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that shit's real. And so Joe McMonigal was the first remote viewer ever for the, that the US used. He was the first guy through the Stargate program.

• 1:52:21Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 1:52:21Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, anyways, when he talks, I talked to him about

• 1:52:28Shawn Ryan?

  this kind of stuff and, um, and, and, and if we all have these abilities. And he believes that we all have the ability, but that it has been diminished over time as technology, uh, has come about and phones and TV and radio and, and, and even just

• 1:52:50Shawn Ryan?

  society, you know, with, with human connection and, uh, but he basically says, you know, in the, in the beginning days, you know, before there was language, that's how we communicated. We would just fucking grunt at each other and point at shit, but you knew. It's almost as if language has, has slowed down the communication process.

• 1:53:12Speaker 05

  Interesting, man.

• 1:53:13Shawn Ryan?

  And because we were so, we were, it was just instinct and it was just, you know, I mean, shit, we only use 10% of our brain, right?

• 1:53:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:25Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, but, but that's it, it, that's how he kind of describes.

• 1:53:32Shawn Ryan?

  It's just interesting. And then you're here a couple of weeks later telling me, hey.

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  Dude, that's, have you ever had, I went to, I went to a university overseas and like, I ran into a dude.

• 1:53:52Speaker 05

  That's in the program with me, so we're in the MBA program.

• 1:53:56Speaker 05

  Didn't say a fucking word, but knew this dude. Like, I know you, dude. And I didn't know him. He's, he's English from the UK. He's got a marketing company, but like, everything in me went off. I was like, dude, you know this guy? And vice versa, he said the same thing. Like, he ended up working on the business with me at school. So, Envy Mind Health, we worked on it together and like,

• 1:54:20Speaker 05

  it's like we knew each other. And I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Like, I've never met the fucking dude. And I wonder, like, I've read there's a book called Many Lives, Many Masters. I don't know if you've read that, but it's a doctor that interviewed people

• 1:54:35Speaker 05

  that basically talk about reincarnation. So, he'll, he'll sit down and interview them and they'll tell them very descriptive things that have happened in the past. But they're like a poor woman from a third world country that's never been to this other country. But she's describing like histor- or they start speaking a language. Again, poor like third world person that doesn't speak multiple languages, but just starts speaking fluent languages and starts describing something that happened in ancient Egypt that only like sophisticated scholars have access to. And so, they talk about these, you know, past lives, which you were talking about earlier. And I start to wonder, man, it's like, I've had dreams about like us.

• 1:55:19Speaker 05

  I think we are a different class. I think we are warriors of us fighting in generations past as knights. Like, is that a dream? I don't know, man. Like, because it feels so real in the moment. If I'm on medicine, on plant medicine, it's wild.

• 1:55:35Shawn Ryan?

  It's like you're tapping into...

• 1:55:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's like you're tapping into a different consciousness.

• 1:55:44Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:46Speaker 05

  I mean, is that how, I'm curious, like, what's been your experience with, with medicine? And have you had

• 1:55:56Speaker 05

  that kind of different conscience wavelength that people talk about?

• 1:55:59Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And

• 1:56:05Shawn Ryan?

  sometimes I still question it. You know, is, is that, is that real? Is that?

• 1:56:14Shawn Ryan?

  But, you know, I don't...

• 1:56:20Shawn Ryan?

  Man, it's hard, it's hard to describe, but you know, cause I've talked about my, uh, couple of my journeys before, but when I do medicine,

• 1:56:32Shawn Ryan?

  I don't get a lot of visuals. I don't necessarily relive events from the past, but it is a lot of communication happening.

• 1:56:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:44Shawn Ryan?

  And the, and the communication that's happening is, is,

• 1:56:51Shawn Ryan?

  how do I describe? It's almost like a download.

• 1:56:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Shawn Ryan?

  It's like,

• 1:56:58Shawn Ryan?

  okay, so if I'm gonna load a new program into your computer, it would take me forever to talk about, you know, to teach the computer how to utilize the program and all that, right? Whereas, whereas when you just stick in a thumb drive, it just gets it.

• 1:57:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:17Shawn Ryan?

  And that's how I feel

• 1:57:20Shawn Ryan?

  plant medicine works on me is there's not a whole lot of communication. Things just all of a sudden become clear.

• 1:57:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:29Shawn Ryan?

  Does that make sense?

• 1:57:30Speaker 05

  100% dude.

• 1:57:32Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, it, it would be, it would be like,

• 1:57:38Shawn Ryan?

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

• 1:58:02Shawn Ryan?

  my experience has been with plant medicine thus far.

• 1:58:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. I, I agree, man. Like, I think about my life post-plant medicine and like the path I'm on. I'm not a tech guy. I don't know AI and machine learning, but like, the idea came to me for Envy. Like, there's a better way to help people. Like, why aren't we doing this? And,

• 1:58:28Speaker 05

  it was similar. It was like, boom, here's the idea.

• 1:58:31Shawn Ryan?

  It's an elevated.

• 1:58:35Shawn Ryan?

  Intelligence.

• 1:58:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, there is one journey and not to go down this path.

• 1:58:46Speaker 05

  But I'll just share this one story. I kind of just was on doing some healing for myself and the medicine took me into this spot. And I just remember. I remember it being a little hazy. And there was people outside of the haze and I can see the people, but they couldn't see me, but they felt me there. And I was like, dude, this is what it must feel like. When people talk about like ghosts or something, or like they felt something, or there's a specter in the room, or you know. I felt like I was that. I could see everybody. In this other dimension or world, I don't know where I was at. And they could feel me and they could tell something was off. There was like an energy shift here in the room.

• 1:59:30Speaker 05

  It was, it was like, again, we talk about it's just, it's an intelligence that it's hard to describe. People are probably listening as like, what the fuck are those two dudes talking about?

• 1:59:40Shawn Ryan?

  They're absolutely thinking that. It's, it's like. Instincts that were never there, all of a sudden are there. And the instincts that you have already are. Supercharged.

• 1:59:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:54Shawn Ryan?

  And.

• 1:59:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:56Shawn Ryan?

  That's how it is with me.

• 1:59:57Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:59:59Shawn Ryan?

  But back to, let's go back to Iraq. So. You've just shot your first man.

• 2:00:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:06Shawn Ryan?

  And.

• 2:00:08Shawn Ryan?

  What happens next on that op?

• 2:00:10Speaker 05

  Um.

• 2:00:13Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know immediately that was the cell leader?

• 2:00:17Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:00:18Shawn Ryan?

  When did you find that out?

• 2:00:19Speaker 05

  When, when I got over top of him. Yeah. And.

• 2:00:26Speaker 05

  Uh, we, you know, we did SSE, so just took all the, I mean, there was a treasure trove of stuff in there. So we got that and um, I think it was a vehicle op. So we just pulled the VIX right up and uh, target was secure. We loaded everything into the VIX and uh, we took off and

• 2:00:47Speaker 05

  dude, it was, it was, it was nothing like to me. It just felt like I did my job, right? Like it was like, okay, let's uh, let's go back. Let's go get some chow, debrief, get some chow and let's do it again tomorrow.

• 2:01:01Shawn Ryan?

  Did you feel a overwhelming sense of accomplishment?

• 2:01:05Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:01:07Shawn Ryan?

  Were you trying to dub it down and act like it was no big deal?

• 2:01:11Speaker 05

  Absolutely, but the, the boys were just like, congratulations, man. And it was just celebrated. And I mean, I was glowing, I was beaming inside, right? We signed up for this. We finally did what we signed up for. Um, I didn't show it. I was just like, oh, thanks, man. Like, no big deal. We're just doing our job type mentality. We're super humble, but inside I was just like, yes. Hell, yeah.

• 2:01:36Shawn Ryan?

  Did what I came to do.

• 2:01:38Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah. And.

• 2:01:43Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take before he showed up to you? He came to you?

• 2:01:50Speaker 05

  I was a mess, man, and didn't know why. And I think we compartmentalized everything. Like, we tuck everything away. And like I said earlier, like, it's gonna come out at some point, right? Um, I didn't see him until I did my first journey.

• 2:02:06Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 2:02:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that was 2018. I mean, it was 10 plus years later, 12 years later.

• 2:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:18Speaker 05

  And he just came to me and it was peaceful and I apologized for ending him, but he apologized for the hatred he created. And again, we're not talking. We're just sitting there and I was overwhelmed with like shame and I don't know why, but I needed to kind of release. Um, and that's how I felt doing it. And um, it was like a weight off my shoulders, man. It was just like, you took another human's life, right?

• 2:02:52Speaker 05

  And it doesn't, it still doesn't bother me. But there was just a release that kind of set me free in other regards in my life by having that communication with that, with that spirit. And that's what it is. It is spirit to spirit, man. Like, our bodies are laying down if we're, like, I know you've done it, but it was our spirits talking, communicating.

• 2:03:16Shawn Ryan?

  That's fascinating stuff, man. Thank you for sharing that.

• 2:03:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:21Shawn Ryan?

  I appreciate that.

• 2:03:28Shawn Ryan?

  So ops every other night?

• 2:03:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:32Shawn Ryan?

  All in Solder City?

• 2:03:34Speaker 05

  It was all over. Uh, the boys did a pretty gnarly op. I wasn't on it, but they went down in a Jaff.

• 2:03:42Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 2:03:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. And that was a hornet's nest. These guys stumbled on a pretty big Al Qaeda training camp and two days later, like, Spectre Winchester, like, ran out of ammo multiple times and Apache was shot down. Like, the deployment was real.

• 2:04:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. Those guys got into it. I think there was, like, when it was all setting down, it was like 600-plus casualties. Uh, KIA on that.

• 2:04:10Speaker 05

  It was real.

• 2:04:10Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:04:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. And the missions were, I mean...

• 2:04:16Shawn Ryan?

  600-plus KIA?

• 2:04:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, you can look it up. It's, uh, Nijaf. You won't hear anything about Team Guys, but, um, because we don't talk about it. The guys that did it doesn't show up. The Green Berets took credit for it.

• 2:04:30Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:04:32Speaker 05

  Which is cool. I always, I always mess with, with the guys. You guys are always taking credit for, of course, we gotta write books. You guys are always taking credit for what we're doing, man.

• 2:04:43Speaker 05

  But...

• 2:04:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you know what, like all the things, there's so much funny shit that happens on these ops too. So I always like, we always talk about taking the bad dudes off and it was awesome. We took some really gnarly dudes off target, killed some really bad people that shouldn't be on this earth anymore. What I always loved was like the shit that happened on these ops, like, because everybody sees the movies and thinks we're like, we're awesome. Keanu Reeves clearing houses, right? Like, look at these guys, these guys are sick. It was like dudes were tripping, we were fighting, like, rolling around, disappearing in shit creeks, like, because we couldn't see them on the nods, people would take a step and completely disappear in shit. Because they used to have these troughs, we're all

• 2:05:27Speaker 05

  like, it was just, we'd make those dudes right on the outside of vehicles because they stunk so bad. But that's the stuff that I always think about. It's not all the, you know, the work that we did. I'm proud of what we did, but it's just like, I love seeing dudes and just like, you remember that time, dude?

• 2:05:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:05:47Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 2:05:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. All right, so let's wrap up, let's wrap up your first deployment. You're coming home, you got a wife, how many kids at this point?

• 2:05:59Speaker 05

  Uh, two, with a third on the way. Yeah.

• 2:06:05Shawn Ryan?

  How's the home life?

• 2:06:07Speaker 05

  I thought it was fine, but now I'm smart enough to realize it wasn't fine, right?

• 2:06:15Speaker 05

  Like, I didn't know how to juggle all of it. And I didn't know what good looked like, to be honest with you. Like, we talked about it. I, uh,

• 2:06:28Speaker 05

  I mean, I loved being a team guy. It's everything I wanted to be. And like, the tribe was close, the women were close. Like, but like, we have some toxic behaviors and patterns in the community that can go off the skids fast. Like, our drinking, like, I think we were all alcoholics. I really do.

• 2:06:50Shawn Ryan?

  Definitely.

• 2:06:53Speaker 05

  The fighting, like, we'd go into towns and just like on workup trips and fight, but that was normalized. Like, hey, that's what you just do.

• 2:07:02Speaker 05

  The aggressiveness, I was aggressive. I wasn't. I was short. I didn't. Like I was, I started getting in this mindset. I was just like, you're one of the troops, like. Fucking do this. Like, why aren't you listening to me? Like, I didn't know how to be in a relationship, man.

• 2:07:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:23Speaker 05

  Um, and I was, it was easy to hide behind a job. He's, oh, we gotta, you needed somebody to go to school? Yeah, I'll go to that school. Because I don't know how to be at home with my wife.

• 2:07:34Speaker 05

  Um, and I don't know how to be a father either, dude. I did not know how to be a father.

• 2:07:39Shawn Ryan?

  How was your wife handling that?

• 2:07:42Speaker 05

  Man, we would fight, argue, um.

• 2:07:48Speaker 05

  There wasn't a relationship there, man. It was just like, we're, we're kind of stuck. We got kids.

• 2:07:56Speaker 05

  Um, we're passionate, so there'd be flare ups, it'd be good, you know, but then it'd be right back to, to our baseline, which was pretty shitty. And that was the, that was normal.

• 2:08:11Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any

• 2:08:14Shawn Ryan?

  relationship with your kids at this point?

• 2:08:18Speaker 05

  It was superficial, man.

• 2:08:20Shawn Ryan?

  Just going through the motions?

• 2:08:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I don't know what that was. I don't know if that was, it's probably a culmination of things, right? Like.

• 2:08:29Speaker 05

  We start getting cold and callous because of the things that we do, the things that we've seen, the things that we've caused, like. Relationships with our fathers, like, definitely a factor in that and how we think about things. The aggressive behavior of being a team guy and like, wanting to fight and fuck everything.

• 2:08:49Speaker 05

  Um, it was just all those factors weighing in and I felt like a, just an empty shell. Just going to church and going to the games and lying next to my wife in bed and I wasn't there, dude. I was never there.

• 2:09:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:12Shawn Ryan?

  So let's get back. What kind of schools were you going to?

• 2:09:16Speaker 05

  Sniper school was probably the biggest. I did comms, but sniper was, yeah, so wrapped up first deployment. And I was one of the guys that got to go to sniper and that was a fucking blast.

• 2:09:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 2:09:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. Another story. So we, we show up and, um, I couldn't shoot to save my life, dude. The Navy marksmanship, like I just couldn't do that. And I, I'm pretty confident my buddies helped me get into sniper school. I'll leave it at that.

• 2:09:48Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, you couldn't pass the regular Navy marksmanship?

• 2:09:51Speaker 05

  Dude, I was struggling.

• 2:09:52Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:09:56Speaker 05

  So it came down-

• 2:09:57Shawn Ryan?

  And they sent you to sniper school?

• 2:09:58Speaker 05

  So I passed it when we were back at, but for whatever reason, the pressures of being at Atterbury, like you gotta do it again. And I couldn't freaking do it. I failed the first one, second one. I think it came down to the third one and, miraculously passed.

• 2:10:18Speaker 05

  But we start off and, you know, Zade was my sniper buddy. Again, he shows up everywhere.

• 2:10:24Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:10:26Speaker 05

  So we're, we're a sniper pair and we just start crushing it. Um, we ended up getting an honor man and honor pair. So, um, I, I attribute a lot, like me getting an honor man to him because it's easy to pull the trigger. It's really fucking hard to call wind and this man grew up calling wind in Montana, right? Like born in Wyoming, he knows how to call wind. So like, I'm just sitting back and he's just dropping these, all I'm doing is this. So I ended up getting an honor man, but it was because of that dude. While we were there though, man, we had a good time.

• 2:11:03Speaker 05

  You know Wally?

• 2:11:05Shawn Ryan?

  I do.

• 2:11:06Speaker 05

  Okay, there's two little, uh, well, they're, they're both little guys, but good dudes. One lives here.

• 2:11:11Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:11:12Speaker 05

  The other one's still in.

• 2:11:13Shawn Ryan?

  He lives here?

• 2:11:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:11:15Shawn Ryan?

  In tennis?

• 2:11:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, Nashville.

• 2:11:17Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't know that.

• 2:11:17Speaker 05

  Pretty sure. I, I was friends with his younger brother. Uh, Brad Wall, Walla Wander, and he was a riot, um, stud, fastest runner, he's like strongest dude. He's just a good, good dude, but we, we went to buzz together and we became so close that he knew kind of my things. So he knew how to make me, like I was super ticklish. We're in a govvy van and I'm laid out in like the second row passed out and this dude hops on top of me. And just sticks his daggers, his fingers into my ribs and I just like reaction, boom, kick out the govvy window. Right on top of a cop car was just next to us, just pure chance, man.

• 2:12:01Speaker 05

  He hits the lights and I'm like, holy shit. I said, everything starts coming to you and I see an exit. I was like, take the exit, take the exit. Takes the exit, that cop slams on the brakes and I was like, go, go, go. We find a parking lot, we parked the car and we were all hiding in there. I see this cop like rip past us and we're like, okay, I think we're clear. He's like, what, what's going on here? There's all these kids, like college kids going into this building and I was like, well, let's check it out. I mean, we gotta kill some time anyway. We can't drive, like they're gonna, got an APB probably on this fucking big govvy van. So we go in there and it's an art show, like a color art show and there's a keg in there. So we start drinking and looking at all the art and, um, we're all, there's probably like 10 of us in there just fucking around, drinking too much.

• 2:12:43Speaker 05

  Finally they're like, get out of here. You guys are assholes, like drinking all our beer. You're not even supposed to be here. So we get kicked out of there. We get into the govvy van and we drive, uh, to the university town. Um, I think it was University of Indiana. Um, there was like a college bar scene there and we hop into the first bar and I go up to the bar. And this guy just elbows me like hard as hell and I'm like, what the hell, man? He's like, what the hell? Really? And he walks away and I was like, what the fuck was that? I started like talking to a buddy and I had a tap on the shoulder and it's that same dude and he just punches me right in the chin.

• 2:13:23Speaker 05

  The bar separates. There's like ten fraternity dudes in this guy and then there's like six, seven of us in this bar because a couple of team guys went to another. And they separate the bar and it stops and I'm yelling at him, he's yelling at me. He's like, he hit me, like blindsided me. And all of a sudden I see a little head in the audience or in the crowd, starts spinning around. And Wally pops out of the crowd, looks up at this dude, just cocks back, boom, knocks him and the bar erupts, dude. Like, we're all fighting, we go back to back. Uh, we're fighting our way out. One dude gets hit over the head with a bottle, gets knocked out, one of our guys. So Zade picks him up. He's got, he's got this big collar shirt. I forget what they're called. Seven Diamonds? Did you ever have one of those?

• 2:14:09Speaker 05

  No. Fifteen years ago, these, these things were like John Travolta shirts. We're making the rounds with big eagles on them and stuff. We all had them. And he had one of his white and threw our buddy over his shoulder and um, we all like kind of made an exfil, went our, went our separate ways. Some guys hopped in the river or towards the river. Some guys went in other bars. Well, we got away. Zade had to fight his way out. He was the last dude with, because he realized our buddy was knocked out and he picked him up and the bouncers were right there. And it's like, if you guys come at me, I'm gonna knock you guys out and like, takes a couple fake swings and takes off. And they chase him and he hides behind uh, our gully van, sticks our buddy underneath the car that was knocked out.

• 2:14:53Speaker 05

  And he's calling us, trying to find us. And I keep getting these calls, but I'm in another bar already. And I'm like, dude, I'm like, hello? I can't hear you, man. We're at this bar. And I keep hanging up on him, like five, six, seven, eight calls. He's furious. It was one of those cowboy doors to get into the bar. That fucking door swung open, slammed. I look back and it's him and he's covered in blood. And he comes over, he's like, Johnny, you motherfucker, I'm gonna kill you. And all the guys were like, no, calm down. We frickin'.

• 2:15:22Speaker 05

  He came over to try to, he was pissed. That was one, that was one of the times that I thought he was gonna, he was gonna take a swing at me. They parted us. We call new guys, they come pick us up. We're like, dude, let's just get out of here. This is a shit show. Everybody's pissed off at everybody. Let's just get back before we get in more trouble. Monday rolls around, instructor sergeant, master chief sergeant was the, the head dude at the sniper school and he pulls everybody up. The vans are behind him, the ranges are behind him. He's talking to us, the whole class is in front of him. Jake's shooting eye is completely sho- like swollen shut.

• 2:15:59Speaker 05

  And he looks at us and we got like scars, bloody, like black and blue. And he's like, you fucking idiots. I swear to God, if you guys would have messed up one of my govvy vans, I'd kick you all out of here. The van that I kicked out was literally right behind his head. The window was missing right behind his head.

• 2:16:20Speaker 05

  Oh man. So he disappeared, didn't notice it. Everybody was like, go hop in the van, go take it in to get it fixed. So we got it fixed and never, he was never the wiser, but.

• 2:16:32Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:16:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:16:33Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:16:34Speaker 05

  Just another one of those stories.

• 2:16:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:38Shawn Ryan?

  So you get back to the team.

• 2:16:39Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:16:40Shawn Ryan?

  Right? Honor man sniper school. Where are you guys going on the next deployment?

• 2:16:45Speaker 05

  Going back to Baghdad.

• 2:16:46Shawn Ryan?

  Same spot.

• 2:16:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:16:49Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go right there.

• 2:16:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, that one was TF17. It's one of the task force and we were going after Iranian influenced targets.

• 2:17:00Shawn Ryan?

  What is, what is TF17?

• 2:17:03Speaker 05

  So task force were part of JSOC.

• 2:17:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:17:06Speaker 05

  So we were, we were working for JSOC at the time.

• 2:17:09Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:17:10Speaker 05

  And it was unilateral, so we were going out as a crew, not with a partner force and getting after it.

• 2:17:19Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:17:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. And it was, it was another good deployment, man. Same type of op tempo, sometimes one a night, sometimes two a night, sometimes one every two days, but.

• 2:17:31Speaker 05

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

• 2:17:53Shawn Ryan?

  Any specific operations you want to get into that were impactful or

• 2:18:01Speaker 05

  You know, there was, there was, I mean, they were all, not all.

• 2:18:07Speaker 05

  They were pretty good ops. I mean, nothing specific that stands out. I mean, we were, our tactics had evolved. Like, back when you and I first started, we were like hostage rescue screaming in and dudes were getting hurt. And I think from what I understand, like, there was a CAG unit that got completely annihilated on a barricaded shooter. And they were doing the hostage rescue tactics. And I think that's where we revamped everything and started pieing and clearing rooms and buildings that way. So I just thought, like, I didn't know any better. I just did what we did. This was the teams and you're a new guy and you shut up and you shake your head and you get it done. But second deployment

• 2:18:49Speaker 05

  is when we were like, oh, dude, this makes a lot more sense. Like, if we're getting shot at, why are we running in there? If there's a hostage, cool, we'll go do that. But we weren't doing too many hostage rescue missions. So like, let's just sit on the outskirts and call them in. If they don't come in, let's just have them drop bombs on them. It's like, this makes more sense to me.

• 2:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:12Speaker 05

  So it was cool to see the evolution of war from when we showed up with Humvees with no doors, to us taking IEDs, to us putting, like, steel on the bottom to protect us, to them using the barricades to shoot in IEDs, to us putting armor on the side, to them putting bombs on parachutes over bridges and dropping on, to us completely evolving. It was a dance, man. It was, like, you got to think quick. And we were just constantly evolving with the enemy. And it was, it was, to me, it was just fascinating to watch how fast that happened. I mean, The technology we had when we first showed up was not that great and to think of where

• 2:19:57Speaker 05

  it's at today in that short time period, that wasn't, I mean, it's been 20 some odd years. I mean, it's gotten crazy.

• 2:20:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what I hear. It's

• 2:20:07Speaker 05

  It's gotten crazy.

• 2:20:08Shawn Ryan?

  Really evolved.

• 2:20:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:10Shawn Ryan?

  But previous deployment, you weren't a sniper. This deployment, you are a sniper. I mean, how did that change your role in the team?

• 2:20:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I ended up becoming a TL. So I was a recu team lead. That was awesome, man, because I'm a spider monkey. I like to climb and our whole team would, um, would do that. So the enemy would evolve barricade, the front door, back door, the entry points. Cool. We got a recu team up top. We'll clear from the top down. And that was some of the coolest missions, like where we got to be kind of the breacher, if you will. And like the door on top is always open, right? So we'd come through and we'd have lasers, silenced pistols and clear the, the top of the roof. And, you know, summer months dudes would be in there sleeping. So we'd be able to kind of take those dudes off if we needed to, or, you

• 2:21:02Speaker 05

  know, neutralize dudes if we had to. But for the most part, the coolest thing we got to do is just clearing buildings from the top down. Like open that cupola door, come down to the top floor and just clear. Everybody's still sleeping, man. It was so easy. And then we come down and sometimes I remember one mission, we came down and cleared the third floor, second floor and the first floor and the whole, the whole crew was just sitting there. Like the guys we were going after were sitting there watching TV, had no idea we were right behind them. Just sitting there. And then we'd take care of business, open the door and I was a smart ass. I'm, I've always been a smart ass. I'm like, hey, uh, everything's done, guys. You can go home. Like, thanks for showing up. Like the assault TTLs and this whole team was like, fuck you, Johnny.

• 2:21:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. But that was, I mean, there was no one mission that stood out. It was just, for me, I love to see, I like to see, my brain is analytical. I like to see systems. I like to see how to improve systems and to see that happening live, right in front of your eyes and us be sophisticated enough as a team, be like, hey, that didn't fucking work. Like, why didn't that work? Hey, why don't we try this? That's a great idea. Let's try that. That evolution happened so fast in real time. It was so cool to watch. And I think that for me is helpful with this business. Like, we built something and it was shit, right? Like, it's, it wasn't good.

• 2:22:34Speaker 05

  We got feedback. Take your emotions out of this. Let's evolve the tech. What do you need? Oh, this isn't important to you? Cool. This is? Cool. No emotions. Tell me it's a piece of shit. Let's evolve it. And we keep going. And, I mean, I think I shared with you, last year was a tough year for a lot of startups, us being one of them. We're resilient. We won't stop. And we'll inevitably figure out how to help with this suicide epidemic, like, no doubt. And it's not going to look like what it looks like today. I promise you that. So, not to go on a segue there, but I think that's where I learned how to do that so well. It's just like, you gotta be quick on your feet. You gotta pivot fast. And I think the team's taught us that, for sure.

• 2:23:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, definitely. Well, Johnny, let's, um, let's wrap up your second deployment, unless there's anything else you want to cover.

• 2:23:28Speaker 05

  No, I think, uh, no. Now we're all good there.

• 2:23:31Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 2:23:32Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 2:23:34Speaker 00

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 2:23:45Speaker 01

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Ravenet.

• 2:23:51Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stall, you freeze in there, that's what?

• 2:23:55Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 2:23:59Speaker 02

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 2:24:00Speaker 01

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 2:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys out there are worried about brain health? You know, all we hear about is fitness. Everybody's getting ready for bikini season because spring's right around the corner. I'm personally more concerned about my brain. You look around, you see all these brain diseases that are getting out of control. I'm going to take everything I can to improve the health of my brain. And I'm going to tell you about my five favorite supplements from Laird Superfoods that help with brain health. All right, the first thing I do every morning is I have Laird Superfood Creamer. It's got adaptogens and functional mushrooms, which are great for brain health. I put this in my tea, tastes amazing. Who likes vegetables?

• 2:24:50Shawn Ryan?

  Cool, me neither. That's why I take Laird's Daily Greens. Just pour it in a cup, shoot it real quick, you got your daily vegetable intake. Plus, guess what? Yep, that's right, functional mushroom extract. There are six different kinds in here. Once again, great for brain health. After Greens, we got Daily Reds. This one doesn't actually have any functional mushrooms in it, but I can't stand beets. I think they taste like shit. And so I take one scoop of this, put it in my water, and I don't have to eat beets anymore. All right, we're winding down the day now. This is the next supplement I take every single night. Laird's Sleep and Recovery helps me sleep, helps me recover from my daily workout. And guess what? Yep, you're right, it has mushroom extract. Guess what? It's good for your brain.

• 2:25:35Shawn Ryan?

  And I save the best for last. Most of you know this, my favorite supplement at Laird's is Performance Mushrooms. Has a ton of mushroom extract. Super, super good for your brain. Take it every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. These are my five favorite supplements from Laird Superfoods. You can go over to lairdsuperfood.com, use the promo code SRS, save 20%. Ladies and gents, I would not have partnered with this company if I didn't believe in them. They take the cleanest ingredients. They try to source everything in America, unless they find a better ingredient that's more quality somewhere else. I think we can all appreciate that.

• 2:26:18Shawn Ryan?

  Once again, lairdsuperfood.com, use the promo code SRS, that'll save you 20%.

• 2:26:26Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, we're back from the break. We just wrapped up your second deployment. And before we move into your augment, I'd like to talk about the operation that you were on with Mike Day.

• 2:27:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I wasn't on that specific mission. Our team, yeah, so just to be clear about that, we were, our troop was stationed in Baghdad and that troop was, I think that platoon was, where were they? Oh, man, I can't remember where they were at, but we had just wrapped up our last op and that one was going live. And I mean, we're all the same team, same deployment. Like, I knew Mike, I knew that crew. I didn't know him well at that point. I got to know him a hell of a lot better later. But to witness or listen to that shit go down, dude, and I had no idea. It sounds like the guys there, a lot of my buddies

• 2:27:45Speaker 05

  were there as well. Like, how they described it, they didn't even know he had fallen through the crease of the door. So I guess what happened was, from what I understand, hearing from the guys that were there, barricaded shooters, they went in and he ended up getting shot and fell through the crease and the guys had backed off. So he was in there, the enemy thought he was dead. And he was shot 27 times, I believe. Yeah.

• 2:28:16Speaker 05

  So this dude, Mike, the chief of the platoon, shot 27 times. They do a head count, realize he is, uh, missing. They realize he's still in there. Again, the enemy in there is barricaded. They're shooting out at the platoon. Mike comes to, took a lot of rounds in the plates, but also, uh, other parts of his body. Um, comes to and, and kills everybody in the room.

• 2:28:44Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 2:28:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. So he, so he kills everybody in the room, uh, and basically walks out. The guys receive him, put him on a medevac, they take him out and, um.

• 2:28:55Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys were in the room?

• 2:28:56Speaker 05

  I think there was three from, yeah. And don't quote me on that again, I wasn't there, but this is hearing from the buddies. Like, we had a bunch of new guys that showed up to team four at the same time and they were in that platoon. And a couple of old guys that I became really close with kinda shared the story with me. But the dude walked down after being shot 27 times. Isn't that crazy?

• 2:29:18Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:29:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. Mike Day committed suicide. I believe it was last year.

• 2:29:29Shawn Ryan?

  It was. If I remember correctly, I didn't know Mike, I knew his brother.

• 2:29:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:29:38Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, but he had just released a book.

• 2:29:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:29:43Shawn Ryan?

  Am I right?

• 2:29:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, from what I understand, he just released the book and he had some, I think we all carry demons. Um, I got to know Mike really well because of the nonprofit, uh, that I started. And a lot of folks knew Mike and wanted to help Mike. And you and I talked about this at breakfast, um, you could throw all the resources in the world at a dude. But if they're not ready to receive, if they're not in a good place to, to commit to fucking doing healing, and not to say he wasn't, he just had a lot going on. It was challenging to support him. And part of it was, he, at times, it felt like, from my perspective, he didn't think he needed the help.

• 2:30:28Speaker 05

  There was a handout, I don't want the help. And there's other times that he took it, right? So he was a complex human and I imagine what he went through kinda layered into that complexity. But when I heard he took his life last year, man.

• 2:30:45Speaker 05

  I remember we were actually on a call with my team. So the Envy team and that happened. I got the text and I was just like, I gotta go. Like, I just, I just had to fucking walk away. Like, I needed to go outside. The thing is, and you know this, man, it's like, those calls happen three, four, five times a year now.

• 2:31:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, so not to, to get too far ahead of ourselves, but like, yeah, he survives that. You know, stays in the teams. Like heals up, tough son of a gun. Heals up and continues to do the job and then he retires and, started sharing his story. It was inspiration to me and others, like, I mean, getting shot 27 times, surviving, killing everybody, all the bad guys in the room, walking out, like, you're a fucking tough dude, right? And he would share that story and what it taught him and I learned a lot from him and again, I started becoming close with him through the nonprofit.

• 2:31:52Shawn Ryan?

  What drew you close to him? What was it about Mike?

• 2:31:59Speaker 05

  There's a couple of things, man. One is I saw myself in him in the sense that like, I had the same mentality at one point that I don't need the help, right? Like, so I gravitated to the guys that I thought I needed help, probably because I saw myself in a fucking mirror. So he was pretty messed up. Like, I think alcohol was a pretty big issue at points, and I know he, you know, at points he did, he kind of cleaned it up, but other points he struggled with it. But everybody knew he needed help and we all tried.

• 2:32:35Speaker 05

  And again, at times he took it, so I think for me it was just, I always go to where the biggest issue is. And at some points over the last decade, Mike was at the top of that pyramid.

• 2:32:52Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Yeah, that was a...

• 2:32:58Shawn Ryan?

  I think that was a surprise to a lot of people.

• 2:33:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. You know, there's some folks like,

• 2:33:08Speaker 05

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

• 2:33:20Speaker 05

  was like, it's only a matter of time. And I didn't know him well enough to have that perspective, but,

• 2:33:27Speaker 05

  yeah, it caught me off guard, man.

• 2:33:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I'm sorry.

• 2:33:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, same, man. It's same to you. I mean, it's our community and it's hard to witness our brothers taking their lives, dude.

• 2:33:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yes, it is. And we'll, uh, we'll dig more into this.

• 2:33:50Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:33:51Shawn Ryan?

  I have a lot to say, but we'll wait.

• 2:33:53Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 2:33:54Shawn Ryan?

  So you get back from that deployment and then you do an augment.

• 2:33:59Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:34:00Shawn Ryan?

  What is an augment?

• 2:34:01Speaker 05

  So at the time, Dam Neck was allowing some of the guys from the teams to come over and augment their deployment. So if you were thinking about screening over there, they'd let you come over. Uh, if you just wanted to augment and go on another deployment, they'd let you come over for the most part. So I got to augment one of the squadrons there and it was an awesome deployment. We got one of the Omega stations and we were in Kabul. It's a four-month stint. I mean, it was, it was great. Uh, different mission set, like there's a secret squirrel type mission set where we're growing out beards and wearing garb and snatching dudes off of streets.

• 2:34:45Speaker 05

  So for me, as, you know, somebody that wasn't over at Dam Neck, but got that exposure, it was, it was, it was awesome to kinda see the things that they were doing and how they were doing them and the resources they had to do them with. So we spent, yeah, I guess all in all was probably 20-plus missions while we were there over the span of four months. So it wasn't as frequent as it was when you and I were in, uh, in early, in the early 2000s in Baghdad. But nevertheless, like there were cool missions, well thought out and like, I mean, one of the dudes we snatched off target, we were just like sitting in one of these little Jundee VIX, you remember those vans?

• 2:35:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:22Speaker 05

  And we're all in there going through checkpoints, all garbed up with like turf as drivers. And we're just sitting on the side of the road and he's supposed to be there like two hours ago. His pattern of life was coming out of his house and I was asleep, dude. I had passed out and all of a sudden, one of the dudes just opens the door and he had an MP7. Like, and I'm like, what's going on? I see him step out of the car, grab the dude and throw him in there, close the door. And I was like, all right, we're on our way. That dude ended up being an Al Qaeda dude with dual citizenship with another country.

• 2:35:55Speaker 05

  Germany, and it was a pretty big target we pull off. And this guy was a treasure trove, treasure trove of intel.

• 2:36:03Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:36:03Speaker 05

  I was passed out.

• 2:36:07Speaker 05

  I didn't do much.

• 2:36:08Shawn Ryan?

  Go team.

• 2:36:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:36:10Shawn Ryan?

  What, I mean, what was, what were some of the differences? So for those listening, damn, that is SEAL Team Six. What were some of the differences that you noticed from coming over from Team Four over to Team Six?

• 2:36:26Speaker 05

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

• 2:37:03Speaker 05

  So for me, yeah, I think it was just, you know, discipline, maturity, and just the shit that we were doing, like I was doing, getting into trouble wasn't prevalent there. Guys were laser focused on the job.

• 2:37:15Shawn Ryan?

  Nice, nice. You know, usually when guys do a deployment with them, that fires them up. But you get home from that and you separated.

• 2:37:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:37:26Shawn Ryan?

  Correct?

• 2:37:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:37:28Shawn Ryan?

  What, what was the determining factor?

• 2:37:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, so there was, I actually had screened, so I tried out.

• 2:37:40Speaker 05

  And I did the PST or the PRT score, my scores were fine. But at that time I had a financial, like my, I almost had to foreclose on my home. So the command was like, you got too much financial shit going on. Get this in order and re-screen. And for me, I was just like, I, I'm going to get out. So, I mean, I wanted to go there and unfortunately like I got myself into a pickle with, um, with the house that we bought in Virginia Beach and almost foreclosed on it. So.

• 2:38:14Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:38:14Speaker 05

  That was, that was probably the determinant factor.

• 2:38:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:38:18Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:38:19Speaker 05

  So when that happens, I fail and I fail fast. I fail a lot and I fail fast. So I don't know if that would be a failure or just a different path I had to take. Nevertheless, so I was like, what's next? Um, I still had a couple of years that I had to fulfill. And for me, it was like, okay, let's set our eyes on, on corporate America. I don't even know what to do out there. I don't even have friends outside of the teams. Like I'm from Clarksville, Tennessee. Uh, I did have my degree, so I started looking at like, well, if I'm going to be a high performer here, where are some of the other industries? And this isn't the right way to think about this. After starting a nonprofit that helps SEALs transition and find their next purpose,

• 2:39:00Speaker 05

  I highly recommend any veterans, don't like map out what you think is like the high performing groups, like Wall Street and consultancy companies, man. Like there is something inside of you that you're passionate about. Like figure it the fuck out. Like if you like making coffee, like go buy a coffee roaster and like read everything about it. Watch YouTube videos and open up a shop like. Because what I did is I was like Goldman Sachs Equity Trading and Team Guy. In my head, it was like both high risk. That's what I want to do.

• 2:39:32Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know anything about finance?

• 2:39:35Speaker 05

  Zero.

• 2:39:36Shawn Ryan?

  Obviously you're in foreclosure.

• 2:39:37Speaker 05

  I mean, I had a foreclosure on.

• 2:39:40Speaker 05

  Obviously not, Sean. Obviously not, man. Yeah. But again, like, I'm like you, like you shared with me how this whole thing, like, I, I was, it was the library area, right? So I'd go to the library and start reading up on things.

• 2:39:59Speaker 05

  Start watching videos. And I thought that's what I wanted to do. The whole premise for the SEAL Future Foundation, the organization we created 12 years ago, was to help guys get mentors so you can ask the stupid questions. Like, get relationships with jobs and businesses so you can go sit in the seat. So you're not like Johnny Wilson, like signing on the dotted line and then showing up day one as an equity trader, like, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't even know what this job is. Right? We always talk about finding your purpose and passion and your team. And I, I still believe that to that day, like to this day. Go pursue whatever you're passionate about, man. Whatever that is, that's probably your purpose.

• 2:40:45Speaker 05

  And then find your tribe. Like, find good dudes and gals that you can trust. So, so that's what I did, man. I laser focused on Goldman and Wall Street and I just went after it.

• 2:41:00Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's, it had to be more than that. What did, I mean, where do you, you started at the library, but did you need a degree?

• 2:41:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Business school, came in MBA. I ended up, just at the same time, like a lot of these big companies started hiring veterans. So Goldman actually started the first veteran program and I was year one. So it's an internship. They brought on like 16 veterans. And if, I'll tell you a stat here in a second, and this will be telling, but 16 veterans and we showed up and we basically went around all of Goldman to the different departments, like, sales, trading, asset management. Like, and we just sat, you know, a couple hours with each and it clicked at some point. For me, it was equity.

• 2:41:52Speaker 05

  Equity guys were like, I mean, they were athletes. They're not like the brainiacs. They're not doing derivatives and shit like that. So I was like, okay, this could be my tribe. Like, they're close enough, right?

• 2:42:04Speaker 05

  So they offered me a job and I started and then you gotta get licenses, like you said, series exams, et cetera. It was all fine during the internship because I would show up at like nine, have breakfast with a couple mentors or had duty interviews. The internship was set up nice to like give you exposure, but it wasn't set up in a way to help you understand what your job's gonna be. So I'm like meeting with the CEO of Goldman and the executive team and showing up to the desk whenever I want, high fiving dudes and they're asking me stories and I'm telling them stories and then I go to lunch with somebody else and then, so when I got the job offer, I thought that was the job, man. Like I thought I was just hanging out.

• 2:42:49Speaker 05

  Little did I know that when I moved up there after the teams, I moved to Princeton, New Jersey because my father-in-law lives there and I promise you, he told me it took 45 minutes one way to get to the city, it takes an hour and a half one way to get to the city on the trains. So my life became get up at 3:35, like haul ass into the car, drive to the Princeton Junction, hop on a train, train to the path in Newark. I had to wait 15 minutes for the first train from Newark to World Trade Center. I'd come out, I'd pat the Horse Soldiers like statue, they got this huge brass statue, so I just tapped the horse in the ass, that was just kinda like my little thing.

• 2:43:32Speaker 05

  And I walked to 200 West Street and I'd get to my office like right before six. And you'd sit there trying to just learn things, work with analysts, and then you start trading. And the day would end at four for the markets, but the day would just begin for traders because you're going out with clients now, right? So you're spending time with one client, two clients, three clients, like going out to multiple dinners and that shit was not fun for me, man.

• 2:44:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:02Speaker 05

  Part of why I got out, you asked, you know, a few minutes ago, like what was the tipping point, like what was the trigger? And one was like, I wanted to go to Dam Neck and that door closed. The other was I wanted to be with my family, right? Like I hadn't, at that point, I still had not figured out how to be a husband or a father and I started maturing enough to realize I did wanna do those things. I was gone more on Wall Street than I ever was in the teams.

• 2:44:27Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 2:44:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:44:29Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:44:30Speaker 05

  I started, I stopped coming home because I couldn't do the hour and a half home at like nine, 10 o'clock at night, only to wake up at three. So I'd sleep in my buddy's place. Brian Martelli, he was a Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank sales trader. And he was like, just come crash in my apartment. And his apartment was nice because he did well for himself. But apartment in New York City is tiny. So he had a loft that literally had like maybe three and a half, four feet. And I would just climb up there on a ladder, kind of roll into bed and, and then wake up at five just to get to work on time. And I did that for a month until, um,

• 2:45:08Speaker 05

  until Nick Check died.

• 2:45:11Speaker 05

  So I was sitting on the trading floor and I, at that point, I was just miserable. Like in my, I was, I just, everybody congratulated me. He was like, Johnny, you made it. You're part of the 1%. You're working at Goldman. You were a SEAL. And all the things that I had compartmentalized and put away started flooding out.

• 2:45:30Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 2:45:31Speaker 05

  My job sucked. I hated my job. I just hated it. I didn't want to do it. I felt lost and I felt trapped. Because now I got money coming in and we got bills and we got a house that we shouldn't have bought and all these things. And I was sitting at the desk and, um, I get the text and then I look up and they're talking about a Navy SEAL died. And then the texts start coming through and I was like, I didn't know Nick that well. We were at four together before we went to Dam Neck.

• 2:45:58Speaker 05

  But that was my tipping point to leave Wall Street and come back in.

• 2:46:03Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 2:46:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:04Shawn Ryan?

  So you, how long were you at Goldman?

• 2:46:07Speaker 05

  There for about a year and a half. Yeah.

• 2:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  So you did, you went to school, got your MBA,

• 2:46:16Shawn Ryan?

  then passed whatever you needed to pass to become a what?

• 2:46:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, trader.

• 2:46:19Shawn Ryan?

  Trader.

• 2:46:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:20Shawn Ryan?

  Worked there for a year and a half.

• 2:46:22Speaker 05

  Then bounced out.

• 2:46:23Shawn Ryan?

  And said, I'm going back.

• 2:46:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:26Shawn Ryan?

  What was it? What brought you back?

• 2:46:32Shawn Ryan?

  Did you miss the job? Was it?

• 2:46:36Speaker 05

  Dude, I didn't think I fit out here, man.

• 2:46:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 2:46:39Speaker 05

  I couldn't. I missed you guys. I missed my brothers. I kind of missed the purpose, right? Like, we're doing some strategic missions. It felt like you had an impact on the world. Like, maybe that was naive of me to think that, but I really think we were doing good. It was good versus evil when we were having some say in that. My new purpose was make as much money as possible. My new team was, not all of them, but potentially would stab me in the back if it meant they had a better outcome on returns or their P and L looked better than mine. Because how Goldman works, dude, if you're bottom 20%, they fire you. Like, it's unspoken. And, I mean, I don't know if that's still the case.

• 2:47:22Speaker 05

  And let me pause right there and just say Goldman was great for my family. Goldman did great things for me. It helped me kind of break through some barriers that I had. It wasn't a good fit for me. The role wasn't a good fit. The industry, like, there is some aspects of it that I really enjoyed, and I could have done something better in that industry. I just didn't have a mentor to say, Johnny, you're not a trader, man. You're a sales guy. Or Johnny, you're not, you shouldn't be trading equity, man. You should be doing X. Or, you know, think asset management. It's a little more lower key. It's just, I didn't know what I was doing, man.

• 2:47:56Speaker 05

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

• 2:48:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:48:22Shawn Ryan?

  So did you go right back in?

• 2:48:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, so Team 10.

• 2:48:26Shawn Ryan?

  How did your wife feel about this?

• 2:48:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a great point.

• 2:48:31Speaker 05

  So I made the decision to quit. I told my boss and then I told my wife. Yeah.

• 2:48:38Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta be shitting me.

• 2:48:39Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:48:40Shawn Ryan?

  Does she have any idea?

• 2:48:41Speaker 05

  She saw me struggling, she saw the pain. But she also realized we had buried a lot of friends over the last 10 years, whatever it was in the teams. And we got, we got out alive, right? So although our marriage was, was just that, just kind of a, in namesake, it wasn't really a true definition of a marriage. Um, we were still together and I was still there and I was still technically a father and I was still technically a husband, right? And then I dropped that on her. For the first time, we're making money. For the first time, we're able to do things in our lives. Like, we got away and you're still alive.

• 2:49:25Speaker 05

  And now you're telling me you're going back in? Yeah.

• 2:49:30Shawn Ryan?

  How many kids did you have at that time?

• 2:49:33Speaker 05

  Um. At that time, we had them, we had them all.

• 2:49:39Shawn Ryan?

  All five?

• 2:49:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:49:40Shawn Ryan?

  So you got a wife, five kids?

• 2:49:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:49:43Shawn Ryan?

  And you're ready to go back into the SEAL teams, go to war?

• 2:49:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:49:47Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. What was the conversation like at home?

• 2:49:50Speaker 05

  It wasn't pretty, man. It was, um, I mean, looking back, I'm trying to put myself in. It was selfish what I did, man, if I'm being honest. Like, I could have figured out something else. Back then, I felt like that's, you know, we talk about purpose a lot and I think I abused that notion of purpose and like, and sold the idea that was the only thing I can do so that I could justify my, my behaviors and actions. And the reality is, is that's, that's a load of shit, if I'm being honest with you. I, as a man, I should have figured out how to fucking provide for them in a setting that allowed me to succeed and I couldn't figure it out.

• 2:50:34Speaker 05

  In fact, I, I ran to the easy button, if, if I'm being honest with you, man. So that conversation wasn't pretty, man. She, I mean, divorce was thrown out, like, but she stuck with me, dude. And here we go again, take two.

• 2:50:51Shawn Ryan?

  How'd your kids handle it?

• 2:50:54Speaker 05

  No, that's a question I'm gonna ask him when I get home. I've never asked that, man. I'm curious to hear, especially the older ones, because the younger ones were really young at the time, but the older ones were, I guess, what, 13 and seven? So I'm pretty sure they had a strong opinion.

• 2:51:14Shawn Ryan?

  How many of their births were you there for?

• 2:51:17Speaker 05

  I was blessed, dude, all of them.

• 2:51:18Shawn Ryan?

  All of them? Good for you.

• 2:51:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:51:21Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 2:51:22Speaker 05

  The teams were good in that regard.

• 2:51:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, they let me and it just lined up. So I was able to be there and, yeah.

• 2:51:33Shawn Ryan?

  You got a lot going for you, man. Got to see all your kids born, married 20 years as a SEAL. Never happens.

• 2:51:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:51:43Shawn Ryan?

  But, so you're back in.

• 2:51:46Speaker 05

  Back in.

• 2:51:47Shawn Ryan?

  What's it like going back in?

• 2:51:49Speaker 05

  Well, I knew all the guys, right? So I go to a team where my buddy was there and he pulls me in and they're about to deploy. So like, dude, it happened like that.

• 2:52:00Speaker 05

  I show up, they're prepping for deployment, Team 10, and there's a couple troops going over, Afghanistan, Iraq, or not Iraq at the time, Afghanistan, I think Africa. And then there's a South America deployment. It's like, Johnny, you're just coming back in, you missed workup. Like, let's get you on the South America deployment. I said, yeah, it's perfect. So I got there and probably three weeks later, I'm heading down to Colombia. And it was just an admin. I had to go through maps again to make sure all my stuff was good. But three weeks and then I'm in Cartagena, man. And I was one of the older guys, so inevitably that role shifted into like,

• 2:52:43Speaker 05

  I became an LPO at Team 10 when I got back. But those deployments, we got to train with the local Colombian Special Forces group and those guys are out there doing the drug warfare and that shit is real, man. I mean, that is terrorizing this country. Back then, it wasn't fentanyl, but, I mean, those guys were consistently just like chopping away at these camps, these labs and demolishing them, like huge amounts of drugs. And didn't even put a dent in the system.

• 2:53:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:19Speaker 05

  Didn't even put a dent, man. Uh, so we did that and then we did Chile. Chile, if you've never been, man, I highly recommend you take your family down there. It is beautiful.

• 2:53:29Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 2:53:30Speaker 05

  It's gorgeous. So, uh, it's on the coast, on the western side of, uh, of South America. It's a longer, um, country that goes down to Patagonia. And it's like California coastline, man. California weather, except you don't have California people. You probably do now.

• 2:53:47Shawn Ryan?

  That's a plus in my mind.

• 2:53:49Speaker 05

  We probably do now.

• 2:53:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they probably flood there too.

• 2:53:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:53:55Speaker 05

  But it was great, man. We, you got the Andes right there. So if you wanted to ski, cool. You had, uh, back then I was drinking. So like wine was, you know, you had the red wine from Chile. You got Argentina steaks. And we stayed at a hotel, uh, right there on the beach and worked out of the embassy and trained the local Chilean, uh, kampfes, uh, so local Chilean seals. And those guys are still my best friend. Every Christmas that, uh, the commander sends me a bottle of Pisco Sour, which is this really sweet lemony drink that'll fuck you up.

• 2:54:28Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:54:29Speaker 05

  So I just have, I don't drink anymore. So I just got a stash of these like cheap bottles of lemon liquor. Um, but that was great. We trained those guys and, um, did some cool, you know, land warfare type training. But that's where I learned how to surf. It was like every morning I'd wake up, go surfing and then go train the guys. It was awesome.

• 2:54:47Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:54:50Shawn Ryan?

  Where do we go next?

• 2:54:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. So after that, uh, next deployment was, was Africa. So I went to Uganda. Um, and that was interesting. So I was stationed, um, well, the, the team was out of Africom and,

• 2:55:08Speaker 05

  and, uh, we were working out of Calampala, which is the capital and in Tebe, which was a little beach town. So that was the Boca Huron thing that was just kicking off and we were training the local forces there and I, through that deployment, we're, there's some guys out there at a corpsman and we're doing a lot with, um, the orphanages and, and in my head, I don't know what it was on that deployment, but there is a point where I was just like, I'm getting out again.

• 2:55:40Shawn Ryan?

  What was it?

• 2:55:40Speaker 05

  I don't know, man. But it was that deployment. I think it was being away from my family in Uganda, not doing the job. So there was two deployments in a row where I was not doing the Iraq intense raids, hostage rescue that we were due. We only did a couple of those, but that we did. And now I'm surfing. It felt like I was, I was doing something wrong. Right? Like my family's back home and I'm surfing in Chile eating. I got $140 per diem a day. And now I go to Uganda and yes, we're training, but on the weekends we're going out to the clubs. And, you know, it just, for me, I was just like, I gotta, you committed to this family thing

• 2:56:24Speaker 05

  and you're, you copped out again.

• 2:56:27Shawn Ryan?

  That was it.

• 2:56:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's time to do it.

• 2:56:32Shawn Ryan?

  What, what kind of clubs are in Uganda?

• 2:56:37Speaker 05

  They were, they were sketch. They were sketch. There was a, you know, Pete Van Hoosier was the CEO, CEO of, I said CEO, CEO of Team 10 when the, when the helicopters went down. And then he went over to, to the command and was the CEO of Damac. Well, his son came through and is a SEAL and he was my, my new guy. So he was the JG, he was the OIC for our, our trip to Uganda. So it was fun to watch him like have a great time in Uganda. And I would live vicariously through his stories, but Uganda for me, I was it. I was like, this has been a great experience. I'm grateful for the time and the team, but it's time to, to mature and let's do the next chapter.

• 2:57:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, did you have, so you got home from that deployment and then what, how did your wife handle? I mean, did she even want you home?

• 2:57:35Speaker 05

  I wish she was here, man, because I don't know.

• 2:57:40Speaker 05

  There's days that she probably did. And there's days that she didn't, man, and um. It all came to a head when I came home the second time, right, like, and I. I got a job at a company called Capital Group. It's a great organization, man. Um, they're in finance as well.

• 2:58:00Speaker 05

  And I can get behind their mission, like, it's it's genuine. It's a private company. It's a three trillion dollar company. Yeah.

• 2:58:08Shawn Ryan?

  Whoa.

• 2:58:08Speaker 05

  Um, it's in the asset management world, but it's about people saving for retirement. It's about like people. Changing their outcomes for the future. And as somebody that never saved for retirement, like. Dude, I I can get behind that mission. I I was that person that I'm trying to educate. I was that person that didn't save a dime and was blown and said I couldn't afford it, but I'm out buying, you know, Starbucks and.

• 2:58:32Speaker 05

  So I got behind the mission and I I have been blessed to be a part of that great organization for a while. But I did the same thing I did. I hid behind the job, right? And I was on the road, flying and talking to companies.

• 2:58:46Speaker 05

  I was gone all the time and that's when everything fucking went downhill and.

• 2:58:54Shawn Ryan?

  How did it go downhill?

• 2:59:02Speaker 05

  There's a lot there, man. It's um.

• 2:59:06Speaker 05

  When you're with somebody for as long as you are and you don't even fucking know them.

• 2:59:12Speaker 05

  And vice versa, she didn't know me. And honestly, like, there was so much resentment. And I would use the word hatred.

• 2:59:22Speaker 05

  Like, in our relationship, it. It was all a facade, man. It wasn't real. We put on a good show. We played the game when we had to, but there was nothing there. There was zero, zero dude, zero love in that relationship. And, um, and then you compound that with me now the second time dealing with all my shit. Like, I didn't believe in PTSD. That shit ain't real, man. That's not real. TBI, yeah, like, we got blown up a few times in Iraq, but dude, that's, it's not me. It's you, Sean. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, get out of my face. All of that came out. And that is real, man. I went into a dark depression.

• 3:00:07Speaker 05

  I hated my wife.

• 3:00:11Shawn Ryan?

  When you say you hated your wife, I mean,

• 3:00:17Shawn Ryan?

  what kind of actions does that translate to? What is the home life like? Get a little more descriptive.

• 3:00:24Speaker 05

  I'm not present, man. I left.

• 3:00:27Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you go?

• 3:00:28Speaker 05

  I've got an apartment right down. I was making enough money where I can go float an apartment right down the street.

• 3:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  So what prompted that?

• 3:00:36Speaker 05

  Man, it was, dude, there was a lot, man. There was, there was behaviors.

• 3:00:42Shawn Ryan?

  So you leave the teams to go back and be with the family? I mean, what did you, did you attempt to be a good husband or a good father at all? Before you moved out? Or is this?

• 3:01:00Shawn Ryan?

  You just fell right into this?

• 3:01:07Speaker 05

  I think I attempted it, man. I like, I tried.

• 3:01:12Speaker 05

  But then I just kind of threw my hands up. Like, again, I thought.

• 3:01:19Shawn Ryan?

  Did you throw your hands up because she wasn't responding to your attempts? Or did you throw your hands up because you didn't like being a family man?

• 3:01:33Speaker 05

  No, I love being a family guy today. Now that I know how to do it. Like, maybe back then it was partially that, dude. Like, I didn't know how to do it and I...

• 3:01:48Speaker 05

  It was... I didn't know what to do, man. Like, I wanted... Like, I told you with that story earlier. Like, if you don't like the outcome, change it, right? Like, I didn't know what are the other outcomes in that situation? There's two. It's binary.

• 3:02:02Speaker 05

  But it's not. It's not that easy, man. These are super complex. These are relationships, right? And if there's a spark of love in that thing, and there has to be, man, because you wouldn't have gotten together if there wasn't, then you got enough to work on. I just didn't know how to do it back then. So I left. Went to an apartment.

• 3:02:27Speaker 05

  And then I ran into a team guy, buddy of ours that... Do you know Will Chesney?

• 3:02:34Shawn Ryan?

  I've never met him, but I know who he is.

• 3:02:36Speaker 05

  Great human being. But when I saw him, like, I thought he was gonna get kicked out of the... I mean, he was already kicked out. Let me apologize. Like, kicked out for drinking and of the teams. And he didn't look healthy, man. He was obese. He'd been drinking a lot.

• 3:02:54Speaker 05

  I see him and he...

• 3:02:58Speaker 05

  I just remember thinking, like, I... You know, like I said earlier, like, I don't know if I'm gonna see that dude again. Like, the suicide thing, like, I... That crossed my mind when I saw him. I don't know why. I do know why, but I don't know if it was real or not. It wasn't. But then I see him in this low point in my life. Like, thank God I was mature enough not to drink. Like, because if I would've drank, I would've... I don't think I'd be here today, dude.

• 3:03:23Shawn Ryan?

  You weren't drinking then?

• 3:03:24Speaker 05

  No, I stopped. Like, I had enough sense to stop all my drinking.

• 3:03:31Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:03:32Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:03:32Shawn Ryan?

  What about drugs?

• 3:03:33Speaker 05

  No drugs.

• 3:03:34Shawn Ryan?

  No pills?

• 3:03:35Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:03:35Shawn Ryan?

  No prescriptions?

• 3:03:36Speaker 05

  Nope.

• 3:03:37Shawn Ryan?

  No sleeping meds?

• 3:03:38Speaker 05

  Man, that suffering was real and I felt every bit of it, dude. Like, and I wanted to hop in the bottle. That was my norm, right? But for whatever reason, I think God or the divine, the spirit, the power to be,

• 3:03:52Speaker 05

  you're not gonna do that, and I didn't.

• 3:03:54Shawn Ryan?

  So, hold on. When did you quit drinking? In the teams?

• 3:03:57Speaker 05

  No, that was, that was right when I got to, to Capital Group. So, that's when we were out on the second time.

• 3:04:05Speaker 05

  And I, and I drank, but once all this started happening, in my head, I was like, if I drink, I'm gonna make some horrible decisions, man. Because I have a tendency, you've heard some of the stories, to make some stupid decisions. And that's all fun and games because we can talk about it, laugh about it now, but any one of those could have changed the rest of my life. Like, the buds thing, you don't go to Seals, like, trying to jump on for, like, the list goes on and on and on. It's funny now, but the reality is it's not. If I would have done that in this scenario, dude, I don't know if I'd be here right now. And that's, that's what's, what's going on through my head. If you have these dark thoughts now, man, and you mix that with booze and pills, like, you're already thinking about suicide ideation, dude.

• 3:04:48Speaker 05

  You feel so bad for yourself and like, that you fucked everything up. And you don't even like, I don't even know, dude, I don't even know how I got there.

• 3:04:55Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, the, the, it just shows like, how disconnected you and your wife were.

• 3:05:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:05:00Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Was she sober?

• 3:05:02Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't think she was.

• 3:05:05Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I mean, you guys were...

• 3:05:09Shawn Ryan?

  That's pretty fucking distant.

• 3:05:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:05:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were, there was nothing there, man.

• 3:05:16Shawn Ryan?

  What about your kids? What were they seeing?

• 3:05:20Speaker 05

  They saw exactly what I, what we just described, man. They saw zero empathy, zero love, zero grace. Fighting, me peacing out, coming in, pretending to be a dad at a couple events, and then going back to my apartment and...

• 3:05:40Speaker 05

  But the the Will Chesney thing, the reason why I bring that up is because I described when I saw him last, and then I see him in the midst of all this, and I don't know who that guy is. He's beautiful, like, the man is glowing, long hair, lost sixty pounds. I had no idea who it was, and he proceeds to tell me about plant medicine in two thousand seventeen.

• 3:06:03Speaker 05

  That's how I got introduced. In my head, the judgment came, I was like, this dude's fucking crazy. Did psychedelics, like, I don't care what you look like, I don't care how good you look, man. I mean, there was something there, it was enough to plant a seed for me to walk away. And then come back and, um...

• 3:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  What time span are we talking here, from?

• 3:06:25Speaker 05

  Two thousand seventeen.

• 3:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  Overweight?

• 3:06:27Speaker 05

  Oh, this is probably like, a year.

• 3:06:29Shawn Ryan?

  In one year?

• 3:06:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. He was glowing, man, like, I've never seen a human glow before. I don't know if you've experienced that when you've done the medicine, but I didn't know what I was seeing, man. He looked, he was radiant.

• 3:06:44Speaker 05

  But he proceeds to tell me this plant's a seed, I think he's crazy, but I go on the computer, I start looking at the research, PTSD, TBI. I start going to the VA, like, tried once, that failed, I couldn't find parking, I got yelled at, I'm like, I don't have to deal with this, I'm out. I go to a talk therapist, trying to save the marriage, like, I am just, I am so angry, dude, I am just like, I don't want any part of this, I quit the, I quit that.

• 3:07:09Shawn Ryan?

  Was she in talk therapy with you?

• 3:07:10Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 3:07:13Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:07:19Speaker 05

  And then, I thought...

• 3:07:21Shawn Ryan?

  What, what was it that, what was the point?

• 3:07:27Shawn Ryan?

  I'll tell you, man, it sounds like a lot of shit lined up for you, but at what point did you?

• 3:07:35Shawn Ryan?

  Did you and your wife simultaneously decide, let's try to make this better?

• 3:07:41Speaker 05

  The point was when I got

• 3:07:45Speaker 05

  to a spot where I was like, if I don't do the plant medicine, I started reading it, learning about it and believed in it enough to be like, I have nothing left to lose. Like, I really think if I don't do this, I won't be here much longer.

• 3:08:02Speaker 05

  And I hopped on a plane and did I began and did five M E O and came back and was like, it was me. It wasn't you. I'm sorry. I'm the fucking asshole. I've always been the asshole.

• 3:08:21Shawn Ryan?

  How did she respond to that?

• 3:08:26Speaker 05

  She was like, fuck you.

• 3:08:29Speaker 05

  You know, our women, dude. She was, I don't believe it. You're full of shit.

• 3:08:36Speaker 05

  Uh, but it was real, man, and um,

• 3:08:42Speaker 05

  it was real. And it gave me, what I recognize now is it gave me the opportunity to stop the bad behaviors. It gave me an opportunity to get the the addictions. I think we're all addicts in some way, like to behaviors, to porn, to actions, to alcohol, to drugs, to, to crush those addictions. It gave me perspective that I never had before, man. Like it, again, like, oh my God, just change the angle that you're looking at this problem set enough and you're going to see it in a completely different way. I was like, whoa, holy shit, I can see your point. I could never see other people's points before.

• 3:09:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, and then, um, but she had her wall up and rightfully so, right, man? Like, I had, I helped create that wall.

• 3:09:39Speaker 05

  So, after, you know, just a certain amount of time, it was like of her saying, "No, and you're a liar, and you're just gonna relapse back to your old behaviors." Like, that's what happened, so. There's, there's a lot we've learned since 2018, when I did the medicine, about integration, like, creating the environment for you to be received, prepping your partner, so when you come in, like, they know how to, like, respond to you. You're gonna be different, man.

• 3:10:10Speaker 05

  The resentment was high with her, like, "Why do you always get the treatments? Why do you always get the healing? Like, I was there with you." Right?

• 3:10:21Speaker 05

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

• 3:10:48Speaker 05

  Like, probably about six months, seven months, I was like, "Listen, I'm losing some of these things, I didn't integrate, I didn't, I, I know, I see the power of this tool, I'm gonna go do it again."

• 3:11:02Speaker 05

  And when I did it the second time, she came back, we were in a way better place, like, getting closer to kind of working through some things, and then she received me the second time. And then, you know, it's not a panacea, let me, let me state this, so for folks that are listening, I know you've had a lot of folks talk about psychedelics on your podcast, you've talked about your own journeys, like, this isn't an end-all, be-all, man. I think this is just a tool that you can use to really give you an opportunity to reset, reframe the way ahead. I truly believe that.

• 3:11:39Shawn Ryan?

  I'm with you.

• 3:11:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. But, if you don't take advantage of that, then, like, you could end up going back down the same path you were, and, so I feel that we learned a lot from that first one, the second one she was prepared for, softer landing.

• 3:11:57Speaker 05

  And then she got to a point where she wanted to go.

• 3:12:01Speaker 05

  And I shared with you at breakfast, and I'll share with everybody now, when she came back from that treatment in Costa Rica. Dude, that was the first time in my life, and in hers, if she was here, she'd tell you that, that we were in a relationship. We had five kids at the time, dude.

• 3:12:19Speaker 05

  And it's not perfect today. But by God, like, there's love in the relationship.

• 3:12:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's just like, there's understanding, there's grace, like, we support each other. We actually fucking like each other, dude. It's awesome.

• 3:12:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:44Speaker 05

  It's fucking awesome. Like, I like her. She's a cool person. She's doing great things. She came back, she started her own nonprofit to help women in this space, like, The Hope Project, and she's helped hundreds of women now, like, that have trauma in their lives, severe trauma, versions of trauma, like, you were in the military, your spouse in the military, your family member of first responder, law enforcement, like, she's helped all these beautiful women, like, dude, that's awesome.

• 3:13:12Shawn Ryan?

  What's the name of her nonprofit?

• 3:13:13Speaker 05

  The Hope Project.

• 3:13:14Shawn Ryan?

  The Hope Project?

• 3:13:15Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:13:17Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good name.

• 3:13:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:13:22Speaker 05

  So that's...

• 3:13:24Shawn Ryan?

  How did you reconnect with your kids?

• 3:13:28Speaker 05

  They know we're in this space now, right? Like, we talk about it, we advocate for it.

• 3:13:38Speaker 05

  I apologized.

• 3:13:41Speaker 05

  I thought that was the right thing to do. Like, they probably had no fucking idea what I was talking about, right? Like, "What are you talking about, Dad?" Like, "No, you're fine." Because they're kids, but the reality is, is I saw it, and I knew it, and I apologized to them.

• 3:13:54Speaker 05

  For not being there, for not being the best version of myself for them, for not being present.

• 3:14:02Shawn Ryan?

  Did you apologize to them all individually?

• 3:14:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, individually, together. I do it all the time now, like...

• 3:14:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:14:10Speaker 05

  I'm just, like, people that know me now know that I'm a, for the most part, I am a ball of love, dude, I...

• 3:14:18Speaker 05

  I'll tell them I love them all the time. I'll be driving, dropping them off at school and I was like, nope, forgot to hit the power window and they're walking away. I was like, Charlie, I love you. Just like, fuck, damn. I don't give a shit, dude. I throw it out. I don't care who sees it. I hug. I try to get kisses. They're getting older now, but dude, you're getting showered by dad's love, man. Like I missed out on too long for me to not take advantage of it now. And I do, dude. And I love them to death. They're such amazing souls. And I credit, again, I credit Will with introducing me to this and Plant Medicine for giving me an opportunity to rewrite this chapter that was written for me,

• 3:15:02Speaker 05

  man. I was heading in a direction. We've seen it a lot of, no judgment, man. But we've seen that path and a lot of our friends have gone down that path. And I thank the Lord that I was just given an opportunity to do something different.

• 3:15:24Shawn Ryan?

  You've created a hell of a wave. Then you started Seal Future Foundation.

• 3:15:30Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:15:31Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about that. How did that start?

• 3:15:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. So when I was at, so if we rewind a bit, I was at Goldman and I realized how hard it is to transition, right? So the big foundation at the time was the SEAL Foundation. And they weren't focused on transition at that point. And I was beating a drum like, hey, this is hard, not just for me, other dudes too. I've talked to other guys and it's a real struggle to go from purpose and teams to, to this, whatever this is. This feels like a zutus. Let's, let's do something about it. And at the time, they weren't positioned nor wanting to. So that's why we started the SEAL Future Foundation. And it was me and the guy's apartment that I lived in, Brian Martelli.

• 3:16:17Speaker 05

  We lived, I lived at his apartment and we were eating pizza one day and he was like, Johnny, like you guys are so talented. Like you guys can get plugged in anywhere. Like you're a resource because right now these companies, they go to business schools, they go to these Ivy Leagues, they all pull from the same different pots. They need to be pulling from you guys. You guys are adverse. You guys think on your feet quick. You guys are resilient. Like, how do we do this? And I was like, and in my head, I'm like, I don't fit at Goldman. Like, I'm talking about all our struggles. This sucks. And so the combination of the two is like, okay, a lost dude transitioning, no mentor, doesn't understand where he fits. And on his, through his lens, he was like, dude, you guys would be crushing if we can get you in the right spot. That's how the whole idea came to be.

• 3:17:03Speaker 05

  So we did a 501(c)(3) in New York in 2012 or maybe early 13. And our first event, brother, we raised $4,000.

• 3:17:16Speaker 05

  And $4,000 is a good amount of money, but we've done events where we've raised over a million dollars now, like one single event. So I appreciate the hard work that everybody that was a part of it early on, like poured into that thing and the failures that we had, the shortcomings. There was times when we thought about folding the thing. And, you know, it was just always like, no, the community needs it. Let's just keep growing. And it went from scholarships for guys wanting to go back to school to my buddies saying, I don't want to go to school. I want to be a lead climber, Johnny. I was like, all right, cool. We'll give you a scholarship too. Let's change the bylaws.

• 3:17:51Speaker 05

  To job placement, let's find the companies out there that are like-minded, where our guys can fit and then we can create mentors so that they can succeed in their transition. So companies, and then in 2017, Bill Mulder was supposed to talk with us. And over the weekend, I believe he committed suicide. So I think it was, I think we were supposed to meet with him Monday and I think the weekend, that weekend, he committed suicide. And that was the first dude, at least that I was affiliated with. I don't, for me, I consider that somewhat on our watch. Like we were going to help him with his transition. So as mentioned before, we lost a lot of buddies to suicide.

• 3:18:37Speaker 05

  And

• 3:18:39Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, we lost a lot of buddies to battle and Bill was the first in 2017 and today, I don't know where you stand with this, but for me, I've lost more team guy buddies to suicide than I have to combat.

• 3:18:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:54Speaker 05

  So that's when we created the Wellness Pillar. So Bill was, we're like, we're missing the mark. We can't put guys in jobs if they're not mentally, physically, if they're just not sound. So we started off throwing wearables on dudes. The wearable that we used gave us the dashboard, so I could see hundreds of team guys and guys gave me access. They're like, Johnny, like, you can check out our data. And I was like, I'm gonna use it as an early warning indicator. If you're not doing well, I'll reach out. Cool. That's what we did, man. I had all the team guys, stoplight method. If you're in the red, we can just tell those dudes are not doing well and reach out, man. Sean, how are you doing?

• 3:19:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm good, brother. Sean, how are you doing? Yeah, man, I'm fucking good, Johnny. What's up? Like, Sean, like, what's up? Ah, what? Your fucking biometrics are telling me something's off. What's going on? It's like, oh, dude, I'm lost my job. Dude, why don't you tell me, man? Like, we're so proud. I don't know if it's the community, males, what it is, all of it probably, society. We're so freaking proud that we're killing ourselves. Like, the stigma around mental health, like, we don't talk about it because there's shame, you're gonna get punished for it in the teams, we're out in corporate, you're gonna not get promoted. Like, it's killing people. And our little nonprofit,

• 3:20:21Speaker 05

  that's the whole idea for Envy Mind Health, would use a wearable and just track dudes and check in on them. That's what we did.

• 3:20:28Shawn Ryan?

  So that, that started in the Seal Future Foundation?

• 3:20:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just piecemealed it. Like, you got a Garmin watch. Basically, we threw a Garmin watch on every dude and we would just look at it. And I said, I sat there and I was like, wait, if we can do this with our community...

• 3:20:43Shawn Ryan?

  What were the indicators?

• 3:20:45Speaker 05

  Heart rate variability, heart rate, sleep, like, the phases of sleep, deep, REM, light. And we would just look, like, where are you at? Like, where have you been? And then where are you at today? And you can see if dudes are, like, trending downwards. You knew something was wrong.

• 3:21:02Shawn Ryan?

  Who's monitoring this?

• 3:21:04Speaker 05

  I was.

• 3:21:05Shawn Ryan?

  You're personally monitoring?

• 3:21:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. We had a team page. When it was all said and done, there was over fifteen hundred people on the platform.

• 3:21:15Shawn Ryan?

  So you, hold on, so you have a baseline?

• 3:21:18Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:21:19Shawn Ryan?

  You have a baseline knowledge of what each, each team guy's heart rate is, what else?

• 3:21:27Speaker 05

  Uh, heart rate variability, so the variations in your heart. The higher your heart rate variability number, the healthier you are technically, but regardless, like your, your background, your history, you know, your, your gene pool is different than mine, so your baseline's gonna be different than mine. All we care about is your baselines. And then the algorithm will just pick up, from the device that we use, would pick up where you're trending. And, and dude, here's the other thing, it's like, we can tell, like you're, if you had a Garmin or Apple, it tells when you go to bed, right? It can tell if you're drinking. Alcohol is a poison and it could pick that up. It takes four days, four days to get back to your baseline after one drink of alcohol.

• 3:22:07Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 3:22:08Speaker 05

  Four days, man. So, so if you think about it, you're staring at like data, guys are getting one, two hours of sleep a night, and historically they get eight. For three, four, five days in a row, they're only getting a couple of, something's, something's up. It's not, it's not rocket science here, like you can easily tell when something's awry.

• 3:22:28Speaker 05

  I was manually doing this, like, I didn't know what I was doing, dude. I was just looking at data and I said, okay,

• 3:22:37Speaker 05

  why aren't we doing this on a bigger scale with other populations? Like, besides team guys, with all the veterans, first responders, long, humanity. Like, why aren't we using technology when it comes to mental health? If I'm like, kind of figuring this out, piecemeal, with like, a wearable and...

• 3:22:53Shawn Ryan?

  This is just your, I mean, where does this come to you from?

• 3:22:57Speaker 05

  I, dude, I, I stumbled into it, man. I was looking at my own data. When I did my IBAGAIN journey and the numbers skyrocketed for the better, like my heart rate variability tripled, my sleep became consistent, and my deep and REM went from minutes to hours. And I thought, okay, if I can measure the impact of a psychedelic intervention, why aren't we measuring the impact of an SSRI? Why aren't we measuring the impact of anything you do, the food you take? Can we do that? And the answer is yes. Do I know how to do it? Absolutely not. And that's when I went back to Oxford. Well, I went to grad school. I went to Oxford because they have an incubator MBA program

• 3:23:40Speaker 05

  to help companies like mine get off the ground. So we worked on the program for two years, trying to figure out how do we take this idea or this like rudimentary thing that we built at a nonprofit? And let's create a for-profit business that can help humanity with their mental health. So that's the whole genesis for Envy Mind Health.

• 3:24:01Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, damn. So you started it. So he's, hold on, let's backtrack. We're getting way too, way too ahead here. So you started using Garmin watches and Apple watches at Seal Future Foundation.

• 3:24:17Speaker 05

  We used the Whoop device. You're familiar with Whoop?

• 3:24:20Shawn Ryan?

  I've heard of it.

• 3:24:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what we used.

• 3:24:21Shawn Ryan?

  It's like a Fitbit kind of, right?

• 3:24:23Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:24:24Shawn Ryan?

  And so all this data is coming into whatever, something that you guys can monitor.

• 3:24:31Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:24:32Shawn Ryan?

  Are you still with Seal Future Foundation?

• 3:24:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:24:35Shawn Ryan?

  You are?

• 3:24:36Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:24:36Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:24:37Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:24:40Shawn Ryan?

  Today?

• 3:24:41Speaker 05

  No, so probably two years ago now. Well, about four years ago, we started the process of turning it over. I wanted to focus on Envy and try to build this tech. And honestly, me trying to do too many things wasn't doing Seal Future Foundation justice. So we got a good guy, Paul Toma. He's the new CEO. So he was working at the organization at the time, and he elevated to CEO. And then I stayed on as the chair for a bit and then completely walked away.

• 3:25:14Shawn Ryan?

  That's pretty big. You built a hell of a nonprofit and then you just walked away. No pride, done.

• 3:25:25Speaker 05

  There is ego, man, if I'm being honest, but I also had help from plant medicine, dude.

• 3:25:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:30Speaker 05

  If I hadn't done plant medicine, I probably would have held on to that thing. But in my head, I truly believe what we did there, we can replicate on a bigger scale. Like, I think we've done tremendous, and that team has done. The group that's at SEAL Future Foundation now is crushing it. They're doing great things, they're growing, they got a medical board, they're, they're doing awesome for the SEAL community. What I wanted to do was help everybody else. And I knew we could do it, I didn't know how. And we're gonna figure it out. But I couldn't blow up SEAL Future Foundation and start letting, you know, first responders in there and adolescents. It's like, that thing needs to live and support our community.

• 3:26:13Speaker 05

  I was a bit, if I'm being completely honest, I was a bit

• 3:26:19Speaker 05

  bothered by all the resources that we get, you and I, for being a SEAL.

• 3:26:26Shawn Ryan?

  I'm with you.

• 3:26:27Speaker 05

  And I do think that those resources that guys like us, when they get out, have access to, actually hinder us in some regards. Because we have endless resources to bear, like, we have endless handouts. So although I'm extremely proud and still do believe that these foundations have a strong place for our community, I do also think, like, some of us were really good at what we did because when we're in a corner, like, we figure stuff out. And when you're not in a corner and you get a handout, a $10,000 check here, you know, this resource here, that, we lose the edge that we had. And I struggle with this.

• 3:27:09Speaker 05

  I wonder if, if that's a good thing or a bad thing for our community to have all these resources. Regardless, at some point, I saw these marine grunts that lost half their platoon. In Fallujah, they didn't have 70 nonprofits to support them?

• 3:27:25Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you know what? Thank you for saying that. Because I've been saying this shit for a long time. That the... And look, I don't want to downplay the special operations community. But there are a lot of other units and a lot of other men and women who weren't a part of that. Who've experienced just as much trauma, if not more. I mean, talk to a fucking Marine grunt who was on the Fallujah invasion. And talk to them about trauma.

• 3:28:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:28:01Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and when I say that, I'm not saying, oh, we need to compare trauma. Because I think that's horseshit too. Everybody processes stuff in a different way. But there are so many, so many organizations that are only set up to help the soft community. The special operations community. And these other guys are being... They're being forgotten about, you know? And it's fucking sad.

• 3:28:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:28:39Shawn Ryan?

  It's really fucking sad. Because we have enough. We have enough. You know, and it's... I see it everywhere. I mean, part of it may be, I think that... I mean, guys in the special operations, the people that served within that, under that umbrella. Have a unmatched... There's just a lot of drive there. Otherwise, you would have never made it in. But then you look at civilians that are starting things. And it's everybody wants to... Everybody wants to help the special ops guys.

• 3:29:21Shawn Ryan?

  And now it's starting to be, everybody wants to help the Team Six and Delta guys. And fuck everybody else. And it's because...

• 3:29:32Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know why it keeps happening, you know, but you never see anything that say, "This is for the Marine grunts. This is for the Army infantry. This is for the conventional guys. This is for the pilots. This is for the," you know, you don't hear that shit, man. And it was all of us out there.

• 3:29:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm right there with you, dude. It's just...

• 3:29:55Shawn Ryan?

  It's fucking sad.

• 3:29:57Speaker 05

  It is. And like, we, last I checked, there was 70 nonprofits for Team Guys. Seven zero.

• 3:30:05Speaker 05

  Dude, we have endless resources and like, the guy, like you said, the grunt that was patrolling in daylight that lost half his platoon, and then now lost the other half to suicide, they don't have anything. They don't have a nonprofit for that man because they're not, what, they didn't do the sexy missions, or there isn't movies made about them, like, so, again, I go back to, I'm so proud of what we've created. As I look at it now, the whole nonprofit community for Team Guys, I wonder if we're...

• 3:30:40Speaker 05

  I don't know how to say this, like, what made us so good, what made you so good at what you did, you took into this job and created this, right? You had to be in a corner, you had to have no money, you had to figure it out on your own, and you did. Like, what I did was hustled and created things and figured it out and created relationships and built things, but I, and that was just what got us through the teams, I think. Now, we don't have that anymore, man. Like, now it's like, "Um, I'm struggling right now. I'm just gonna call this nonprofit."

• 3:31:15Speaker 05

  Dude, I think you gotta figure it out. Like, fight for it. Figure it out, because once you do it once, then you'll do it again, and it just keeps getting better, and you're gonna find the success that you've earned. I don't know, man. So...

• 3:31:31Shawn Ryan?

  You, I see what you're saying, and I will say it. I don't, I think that there are...

• 3:31:41Shawn Ryan?

  People who will make a career out of post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and you could make a career from bouncing around to nonprofit to nonprofit, especially that they're 70. You can get vacations. You can get all your med shit done. You can get your fucking house paid off. You can get all of it. You know, I want to go on a hunting trip. Cool. I want to go get, you know, and, and, and you see it.

• 3:32:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:32:13Shawn Ryan?

  You, you, it's, you see them bouncing around, you know, and, and, and, not making any real improvement.

• 3:32:23Speaker 05

  Yep. Well, I, I think, you know, part of Envy's thought process is like, they deserve help too, right?

• 3:32:35Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:32:35Speaker 05

  And put whoever you wanted or they. I don't give a shit, to be honest with you. Because your trauma and you got it is different than my trauma, which I have. But we still could use benefits from some of the resources, right? So like, Envy is a for-profit, but we've also created a, a new nonprofit action arm to help first responders, law enforcement. There's more suicides, I don't know if you know this, by firefighters than there are veterans.

• 3:33:02Shawn Ryan?

  Does not surprise me.

• 3:33:03Speaker 05

  Isn't that blow your mind? Like, I just, the type of person I am is when I see shit like struggling, people struggling, or shit going sideways, like, let's go figure out how to solve that problem, and that's what we're doing.

• 3:33:18Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man. You know, in my mind, I mean, I want to get more in the weeds with this

• 3:33:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:33:25Shawn Ryan?

  technology, but, you know, in my mind, all 70 of these nonprofits should be buying those devices

• 3:33:33Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:33:33Shawn Ryan?

  and passing them out to their people.

• 3:33:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:33:36Shawn Ryan?

  Is that a thought?

• 3:33:38Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Mama Lee, Mark Lee's mom. Um, we talked with her about bringing this on, so we're gonna do a pilot with them. And um, we're still early stage and how tech works is like you got an MVP and you gotta like test that and make sure everything works. And I'll walk through all that here in a second. But that's always been my idea, man. Like, our beachhead is like, let's go to the veteran nonprofits. Let's start there. Let's go to the municipalities and sheriffs departments, police, firemen. Like, let's teach them about mental resiliency from team guys. Because if we say mental health, there's a stigma. But if I say mental resiliency, like dudes are like, oh, that's cool. Like, it's the same fucking thing. But I'll play with words if I need to to help,

• 3:34:22Speaker 05

  help solve this problem. So we go in and we talk about mental resiliency and like, I want to just keep going from there and there. We'll keep learning. We'll keep the algorithm. We'll keep iterating. And I really do think we can predict when guys isolate and gals isolate, because it happens with women as well, before they commit suicide. Get to them, get their team out there to support them. Like, if it's you and I, you reach out. And maybe that's enough to change the outcome. So.

• 3:34:50Shawn Ryan?

  Man, do you think, are there any other nonprofits looking at this?

• 3:34:58Speaker 05

  Um, well, we're working with, University of Texas is doing psychedelic research. So we're gonna collect the biometrics for them. So there's gonna be a cohort going through that has treatment-resistant depression. They're gonna use, I believe, psilocybin to combat that. And then they're gonna do their research. Envy's gonna come in and collect the baseline biometrics, your heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, etc. It's gonna collect it when you do the intervention. So when you do the psilocybin, what changed? And then how long does it change for? So we're doing that with UT on two studies. The other one's ayahuasca. We're doing it with a company called the Wholeness Center in Fort Collins.

• 3:35:41Speaker 05

  So we're going to collect biometrics for the research they're doing around psychedelics. We're talking to hospital systems because if you think about ER doctors burnout, like that's real, suicide's a real thing for ER rooms, like mistakes happen. If we can predict when people are exhausted and burning out, we can pull them off the front line, they can rest. So we're preventing injuries, like the possibilities, dude, if we can figure this out, when we figure this out, I think we can take this in so many different directions.

• 3:36:09Shawn Ryan?

  How far has this developed from the initial idea?

• 3:36:12Speaker 05

  We're probably three years into development. Actually, four years now. So two years at business school. We hired a tech team, we built all last year, I'm sorry, two years ago and all last year. We got a prototype out last year. I think I shared with you, last year for startups was a really rough year with the markets, the financial markets behaving the way they were. So we paused our raise. So we basically battened down the hatches of the business and said, hey, we don't have money to keep iterating on the tech. We're just gonna save resources and then we'll pop out when it's a sunny day. And two weeks ago was a sunny day for us. We relaunched our raise and raised a good chunk of our $3 million. We raised 1.8 million of it.

• 3:36:57Shawn Ryan?

  So you're about two thirds of the way there. What do you need, what do you need $3 million to do? What are you gonna do with that money?

• 3:37:04Speaker 05

  Most of it's R and D, right? So we're gonna, the next phase of this business is we're gonna partner with the hospital systems, like I mentioned. We're gonna partner with businesses. West Point is potentially one of the groups that we're gonna have a partnership with. We're gonna sit down with those groups and give them the tech. We're gonna do tests. So like one group has the swim buddy concept, a team concept. One group doesn't. You have your own information and we're gonna start testing. And then they're gonna provide us feedback. The feedback we get from them, we're gonna go to our tech team and say, hey, this is the feedback we're getting, guys, this sucks. This is good, they want this. And we do sprints. So it's about a one month sprint for the tech team to build out the technology. So we take those iterations and we go back to market.

• 3:37:48Speaker 05

  All right, how's it look now, guys and gals? Okay, here's what we learned. We gotta remove this. They don't like this anymore. The algorithm's being, uh, is pretty sophisticated, but we're still like a little off. We go back to the tech team and we keep iterating until we have like a viable product that people would pay for. So I'm also thinking hospital systems, like, think if you're a doctor and I'm your patient. Historically, we only meet once a month, right? That's, you get bill, like, insurance billable, whatever. But if you had all my biometric information and all your patient's biometric information, you can prioritize the threat. Like, who are the people that are struggling? Who do I need to have a conversation with?

• 3:38:32Speaker 05

  And oh, by the way, I'm prescribing medicine, maybe. Or maybe you're not, but let's assume you are. You prescribe a pill. What's the impact that that pill's having on them? Now you have all this data in front of you. You can make better decisions.

• 3:38:46Shawn Ryan?

  Can, hold, hold, I'm, my mind's going like a fucking thousand miles an hour right now. Can, can you get insurance companies to pay for this?

• 3:38:54Speaker 05

  So there's something called remote patient monitoring. I'm disabled, I'm 100% disabled, um, and, um, why I share that with you is because we're a small business, disabled owned veteran business. So, um, there is a couple of things that we're looking at. The VA has contracts for companies. They actually recognize there's an opportunity with tech here. So they're putting out bids for contracts like us. So we have a preference to potentially win those bids, man. Um, but when it comes to insurance, two people on our team have had a past business around insurance. How this works is you have a telehealth call. Our algorithm can timestamp the second you have that telehealth call.

• 3:39:37Speaker 05

  So the second it ends, it's basically just accounting, uh, and then we tell, we send that in and you get reimbursed by the insurance companies for that specific line item. So maybe it's like a check and call, 40 bucks. Cool. Uh, you get two calls a month to, to just, uh, 15 minute calls to make sure the tech that they're using. Maybe they have, uh, medical devices used, so you get 20 bucks for those. We timestamp all those. We send you, the doctor, the invoice. You never had these codes before and you were never receiving this money? Now we sent you the invoice. You send it in to the insurance, 30 day reimbursement. We take a cut out of that.

• 3:40:21Speaker 05

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

• 3:40:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, makes perfect sense. You know, so are these actual, is this, is, is that it?

• 3:40:49Speaker 05

  No, so this is, uh, so what we did is we built, we're a software company. There's no hardware, so we don't have a device. But what we do have is API, which means we wrote a code that plugs into your Apple Watch, to your Garmin watch, to your wearable tech. And then we worked with doctors, like the lead psychiatrist from Walter Reed. We worked with other doctors and they helped us weight all the biometric information that we were pulling. We rated it into an algorithm, weighted it. And then it runs on big data sets and we look at like correlation between what we've created and our assumptions and depression and anxiety. And so this algorithm, we need more data,

• 3:41:32Speaker 05

  but this is basically telling you when you're, when you're, when you're well and when you're not. So how we interface with the user is an app. So right now you plug in the app, you have a wearable, it pulls the biometric information and you have a quick questionnaire if you want, three questions. If you want more, you can. Hey, how you doing today? Like what's your libido feel like? And you just rate it. Our algorithm has taken your biometrics and comparing it against your questionnaire, which is built off of something called a PHQ9, which is a depression type scale. So it's a medical scale that they use. We whittled it down and reworded it with our doctors. But now your algorithm is looking and saying, okay, this is how they responded. Here's what their biometrics, here's the synergies, here's the correlation.

• 3:42:15Speaker 05

  And then you keep using this device long enough, it's starting to learn when you're well and when you're not. When you're not doing well, it alerts you. It alerts your swim buddy if it's worse. In a future state, if you have a doctor you like, we can put the doctor on the platform and it will alert him or her.

• 3:42:32Speaker 05

  This whole thing was, yeah, I mean, it's basically the SFF idea, but we've created a software algorithm which uses machine learning to learn from your behaviors, learn from the biometrics, and then build a community around you.

• 3:42:46Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, wow. Let's talk about the Swim Buddy method. What did you mean by that?

• 3:42:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. So as you know, in the teams, we all had a swim buddies. You're never further than six feet apart. When we built this thing, we rolled up all the information I mentioned, heart rate, heart rate variability, and sleep into what we call a mind score. So you get a mind score. And that's your baseline. You know, over a certain amount of days, you get a baseline and how it deviates up and down tells you how you're doing. I thought that was the secret sauce. I thought people were going to get excited about that. But we questioned a bunch of veterans and the thing that they responded to positively most was having a swim buddy. So I was like, well, explain that. You know, we're doing questions, interviews, and they're like, well,

• 3:43:36Speaker 05

  I wouldn't, I don't need this and I wouldn't pay for this. But if you tell me I can hop on and help my teammate, I'll do this all day long. And I was like, holy shit. Of course, like, you're not going to do it for you, but you'll do it for your teammate. That's essentially what happened. Like 90% of the people that were on the platform, like the swim buddy is the best thing you got going. And what that means for us is like, you guys both have the apps. If you're not doing well, it alerts me if I'm your swim buddy. I get a text, hey, check in on Sean. Sean's, you know, mind score decreased by 10 points today. Well, that's odd. That's usually if it decreases, it's usually one or two points, not 10, something's up. I pick up the phone and I call you or I text you, what's going on, dude?

• 3:44:21Speaker 05

  And you probably lie to my face initially, like we always do, maybe not. But nevertheless, it's forcing the conversation in the moment.

• 3:44:32Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:44:35Shawn Ryan?

  How do this one, how do you determine who the swim buddy is? Do you take?

• 3:44:39Speaker 05

  You can pick it. So it has to be in your iPhone or your, your Android. So it has to be in your contacts. And in there, you just pick whatever you want and you can have a team if you want. So I mentioned the doctor, but think of like a sports team, man, like a captain, they have all their, their, you know, their folks data on there. So we had, um, a good friend of mine at Oxford, he was a French rugby captain. And he lost his mentor to suicide and they, they said, nobody saw it coming. So he worked on the project with us. But he wants this for his guys because suicide is pretty big in the sports world. And I didn't realize this rugby, they're taking CTE,

• 3:45:19Speaker 05

  head injuries, they get out, they lose their purpose, everything's structured and then boom, you gotta figure it out. So, so, um, you can have that dashboard and you can just monitor everybody up to however many people you, you want. And there's ways to kind of de-identify the data too. So maybe you're a business owner and your employers are like, fuck, no, I don't want Sean to have my data. But you're like, I still want to see how my overall company is doing. We can remove names and just give you trend lines. So your business, maybe this division is doing, they're crushing it, their overall mental health is, is higher, it keeps increasing. This one's going down for some reason.

• 3:46:02Speaker 05

  You might want to check in with the, with the division there and figure out what's going on. So.

• 3:46:07Shawn Ryan?

  So is this, is this on market?

• 3:46:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're, we're in the app stores.

• 3:46:13Speaker 05

  What I would tell everybody is like, we are, we are in an MVP, which is like minimally viable product. We just put it in the app store to prove out the concept. This next iteration, so the next year, we're gonna go back to refining everything and then we'll start investing in making it look nice because for me, I don't want to invest in the UI UX of the interface until we understand that this is exactly what people want. And then we can make it look pretty. So we're tight on, I mean, $3 million for a startup is not a lot of money. So we gotta be very diligent with that. And I think the strategy that we have going to these companies, learning from them, reiterating on the tech and then giving it to the world is the idea.

• 3:46:56Shawn Ryan?

  So is the app for, is the app?

• 3:46:58Speaker 05

  It's free on the app store.

• 3:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  It's free. So how does the business make money? How are you gonna keep this thing going?

• 3:47:03Speaker 05

  Insurance.

• 3:47:04Shawn Ryan?

  Insurance.

• 3:47:05Speaker 05

  Contracts with companies. So like, if you think first responders again, if we talk about the sheriff's department, we're talking to a sheriff's department in Colorado and one in Wyoming. Suicide rates in those states, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska are really high. So we're gonna go in and provide the tech, the dashboard for them. They would pay us a user fee per user and we sell tranches. So maybe it's 20 blocks of users, they pay us. And then we provide support for them and support in the mental health of their communities.

• 3:47:37Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 3:47:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:47:40Shawn Ryan?

  This is awesome.

• 3:47:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, dude, it's.

• 3:47:44Shawn Ryan?

  So what happens if, what happens if 250,000 people that watch this episode go to the app store and download the app? Is that doing anything? Does that get the needle moving?

• 3:47:57Speaker 05

  That's a great question, Sean. I would say if they did that, absolutely. But you're on a journey with us right now, right? Like, so my ask would be, don't download the app and judge us out of the gate. Like, help us build this app to be exactly what you want for your mental health. Like, we're on this journey together and I've always built companies like that or businesses or nonprofits like that. So you sense the hesitation, but at the same time, if people are willing, they'll be like, yeah, I'll download the app and provide feedback and stick with you as you grow and trust that you're gonna figure this out, then join the app. If not, then.

• 3:48:36Shawn Ryan?

  So you hear that. If you download the app. You're helping develop the product. It's not quite ready yet.

• 3:48:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:48:45Shawn Ryan?

  So don't get pissed if it doesn't work perfectly right off the bat.

• 3:48:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. But you know what does work perfectly, dude? Well, it's not perfect. The swim buddy aspect of it. So that shit's real, man. Like, that works right now. So be prepared. Like, if you're gonna sign up for this and you're gonna put your best friend on there, or your spouse, or your kid, like, whatever it is.

• 3:49:10Speaker 05

  It's not sexy, again, like, the user interface isn't beautiful. So don't think of us as an Apple. We're a small startup, and I'm a team guy. I'm not a tech dude, but we'll figure this out. I promise you that. But when your buddy's not doing well, like, be prepared to actually step up. So don't download this app if you really are not prepared to help your friends, right? Because that's a big commitment. We all say we want to help, but the second you get the alert, like, okay, now what do I do, right? And that's the next phase of the business is we're introducing solutions.

• 3:49:42Shawn Ryan?

  What is the name of the app?

• 3:49:44Speaker 05

  Envii Mind Health. I-N-V-I, Mind Health. Yeah.

• 3:49:51Shawn Ryan?

  So if I go and I download this right now.

• 3:49:53Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:49:54Shawn Ryan?

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

• 3:50:15Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:50:18Shawn Ryan?

  And vice versa.

• 3:50:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:50:19Shawn Ryan?

  It's that simple.

• 3:50:20Speaker 05

  It's that simple, dude.

• 3:50:21Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:50:21Speaker 05

  And the algorithm isn't 100% yet. We're doing some other cool things with voice, like pitch. I'll come back to that, but we worked with these doctors, we're weighting the algorithm, we're testing the algorithm. You need to use, we need people to use the app for the algorithm to learn, right? That's how these things work. Uh, that's how these things work. So if 250,000 people downloaded this thing, like this algorithm be like, it's been like, we got like 600 users on the platform right now, right? Uh, since we launched, so it's like slowly learning 250,000 people, it's gonna start learning a shit ton if you use it. If you use it for a day and then give it up, then it's not. But by you downloading and sticking with it and sticking with us, it's gonna help. We start iterating, we start learning, we start getting closer to, more accurate to how

• 3:51:06Speaker 05

  you behave, because how you behave is different than me. This isn't a generic algorithm. This is an algorithm for Sean. This is an algorithm for Johnny, because we're all, our mental health journey is different. And then it starts learning with you and it starts recommending things for you too. So we're not at that phase yet, but we're gonna introduce solutions next, right? So think breath work, like you gotta step out of the room or something like that. Think medicine, plant medicine, we can introduce that as a, hey, you're about to do a plant medicine journey, let's measure the impact that that has on Sean. And now we can start learning the algorithm will say, okay, historically, when Sean Ryan isn't doing well, in this scenario, he's tried X, Y, Z.

• 3:51:49Speaker 05

  His biometrics increased when he did X, Y, and Z, they actually decreased. And it starts learning what works for you, man. And the future state of this, where I wanna take this and my dream is something we, there's a tagline in medicine called personalized medicine. So now the AI interface, the algorithm is basically learning what works for you and then it recommends the thing that works for you best in that situation.

• 3:52:12Shawn Ryan?

  So you basically have a functional doctor in your notifying you all the time.

• 3:52:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:52:22Shawn Ryan?

  Telling you what's best for you.

• 3:52:24Speaker 05

  And, and dude, we can introduce humans, because I do believe like the swim buddy is a really powerful tool, right? But maybe we're over our skis and me trying to help you, like the shit that you're going through is too complex, like I'm not a doctor, right? It could scale up if we wanted to, to a provider. So yes, we have the machine learning AI component of this, it's helping you, it's, it's recommending things for you, but sometimes you just need to talk to your fucking doctor. And we can get a doctor on that platform for you, like your doctor if you wanted. So again, we're super early stage as a startup. Um, you know, we're two years into building, actually building the technology. But we just raised some money and we're gonna keep going at it. You know how resilient

• 3:53:08Speaker 05

  we are and we're gonna learn from the communities that we support and I've already seen the end state of this, man. Like, I've dreamed about this. I shared that with you over breakfast, just kinda like how you shared about this. We will figure out this problem, man. It is one worth figuring out. Like, mental health is suicides, depression, anxiety, like, there's billions of people suffering from some mental health disorder, dude. We gotta do better and we're not gonna stop till we improve it.

• 3:53:36Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that is, uh, you are one innovative son of a bitch. That is, uh, wow.

• 3:53:44Speaker 05

  Thank you, man.

• 3:53:45Shawn Ryan?

  That is, that's impressive, brother.

• 3:53:48Speaker 05

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

• 3:54:28Shawn Ryan?

  Man, what about, so, I mean, how does it, how does it work? Are you taking investors?

• 3:54:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:54:39Shawn Ryan?

  This is something I have no experience in.

• 3:54:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:54:42Shawn Ryan?

  So, I am, I'm curious, you know? I mean, you need another 1.2 million, right?

• 3:54:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:54:47Shawn Ryan?

  So, how does it work?

• 3:54:49Speaker 05

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

• 3:55:20Speaker 05

  We're not going down the VC path, venture capitalist path quite yet. We're staying close to just like high net worth individuals that have a passion for this.

• 3:55:31Speaker 05

  So one guy that's invested, his wife works at the VA. She's, she's a nurse and she, she does the telehealth call specifically for mental health. So she's helping us think through this problem set. She's passionate about it. He's passionate about it. Another guy, his family struggled with mental health in their, in their family. Another guy that's potentially investing, he's going to invest a big amount, lost his daughter to suicide last year. So we want people that believe in us, that are successful, that can help us take it to the next level. And then, you know, support, educate us, tell us what's working, what's not. Like we're small, we're trying to figure out the social media game. I suck at social media, dude.

• 3:56:12Speaker 05

  Holy fuck, I suck, but we'll probably bring somebody on to manage that and kind of share all the successes and failures that we're having and provide that feedback. If there's people that care about this space, want to help, like reach out, like we would be honored. I don't know how to, I don't know how else to ask, brother, but I appreciate you asking me.

• 3:56:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I mean, it's important. You gotta, you gotta get the capital to get this thing going.

• 3:56:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's right.

• 3:56:49Shawn Ryan?

  Man, is there, is there anything else this thing does? This is incredible, man.

• 3:56:54Speaker 05

  Oh dude, voice, ready for this?

• 3:56:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, let's hear this.

• 3:56:59Speaker 05

  So with, right now it's 13 seconds, but with you talking for 13 seconds, we ran an algorithm against pitch on a big data set. So data sets are like, like universities, we, university, and there's like organizations like the, the English, the London, I don't think it's the London. I forgot the proper terminology, but they have big medical data sets. This one in particular has information on around depression, anxiety. So they had people, patients fill out forms, but they also recorded them. So you have tens of thousands of people that did that. Well, dude, this AI is, this shit is, it learns fast, right?

• 3:57:44Speaker 05

  The algorithm that we have learns fast. So with a 13 second clip, dude, we can tell if you're depressed or not. Wow. 13 seconds, man. And, and we're at 80 some odd percent accurate right now, which isn't good enough, right? Like, we gotta get, we gotta get more accurate than that. But like, what are the applications that we can use that for, right? Like, I don't, well, the easy one is the doctor. Like, you're having a conversation, telehealth, it runs the algorithm in the background and tells your, you know, hey, Sean Ryan's, your patient's depressed today. Here's the back data, because they're wearing the wearable, here's the back data on what they've been, their baseline's down significant and they're depressed. Great, I know something's off, let's have a conversation. What's going on, Sean, is saying you're down, you're depressed today?

• 3:58:28Speaker 05

  What's, what's up? Let's just cut to the chase and stop bullshitting, right? Yeah. That's one aspect. And the one I think about is children, right? Like, I have five kids, that's important. My son, he's thriving now, but there was a time during COVID when he was a freshman in high school where he suffered immensely. Like, my wife and I were sleeping outside of his door, thinking he was gonna harm himself, man. It was not a pretty time in our relationship.

• 3:58:55Speaker 05

  In our family relationship. And I, I wonder about that application. Like, now we know something's off, all the bullying taking place. Like, all these parents are like, losing kids because they didn't see it coming. Well, maybe now we can see it coming, because we can tell if they're getting bullied in school, because we can tell if they're depressed. We can run algorithms on, dude, almost anything. Social media, like, we can run algorithms in the background to see how you're behaving on it, how people are behaving towards you, if you're being bullied. Same thing with the app, like, how frequently you use an app? Like, that's important information. What app are you using? Normally, you're doing your meditation app, all of a sudden you stop.

• 3:59:37Speaker 05

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

• 4:00:02Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that is... That's really something, man.

• 4:00:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  That is very innovative.

• 4:00:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I appreciate it, man. And we, I mentioned, oh, go ahead.

• 4:00:16Shawn Ryan?

  You go ahead.

• 4:00:17Speaker 05

  Well, I was just gonna say, I mentioned we started, when I left the SEAL Future Foundation, we started another nonprofit, like, a few of us ran a race last year to raise money for that, for that nonprofit. It's called the Invisible Wounds Foundation. And that was stood up to help first responders, law enforcement, to all the other communities, like, you know, like, the Marine grunt, the Army infantry, like, this is for everybody else, not just team guys, not just special forces, this is for everybody else. And so last year, a bunch of us ran and swam 211 miles. Eddie was one of them. But we raised a bunch of money, and what we're, what the foundation does is it helps with

• 4:01:02Speaker 05

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

• 4:01:36Shawn Ryan?

  Eddie had mentioned it to me.

• 4:01:39Speaker 05

  Okay. So we ended up doing, we're supposed to skydive in, but it's super windy in Montana, so we jumped in, and there was a couple of team guys, a Green Beret, and a civilian ran, ran part of it with us. So we took helos, and we jumped into the river in Montana, and we swam 10 miles. And it's cold, this is November.

• 4:02:02Speaker 05

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

• 4:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  We floated.

• 4:02:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then we all got out and then we proceeded over the next couple of days to, to crush out, um, the run, walk, run. And it was awesome, dude. Like I needed that for my own mental health to get put in the wringer again and do it with good buddies. Right? Like, so Eddie was there, another buddy, Aaron, James. Um, there's a bunch of good dudes. One guy, uh, I won't share his name. He doesn't, he doesn't like me sharing it, but he was a damn heck dude. And, uh, good friend of mine, he jumped out of the Hilo and broke his foot and still ran the whole thing.

• 4:02:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. That's badass.

• 4:02:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. But then we wrapped up on Veterans Day and did a big dinner and shared in Wyoming and raised a good amount of money for, for the nonprofit, man. So.

• 4:03:02Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 4:03:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:03:04Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you. So I know my audience and they're going to want to help. So what can they do?

• 4:03:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, if you are one of the groups that we talked about, or if you're struggling with mental health, like, reach out. The website is NVMH.com. That stands for NVMindHealth.com. Like sign up. Like do this with us, man. I just, I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I was suffering, man. You heard my story. And there's a lot of us suffering out there and we gotta change that stigma, dude. And so let's build this thing together for us. And download the app, mess with the app, give us feedback on the app. If you're an investor, cool, like reach out. We'd be honored to have a conversation with you.

• 4:03:53Speaker 05

  Um, but this isn't a shakedown. I'm not trying to take money from folks. Uh, we just want good people that care about this mission and want to get behind us. Is that fair?

• 4:04:03Shawn Ryan?

  That's fair, man.

• 4:04:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:04:04Shawn Ryan?

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

• 4:04:26Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's big. That's setting a lot of pride down and

• 4:04:32Shawn Ryan?

  for something that's bigger.

• 4:04:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:04:36Shawn Ryan?

  I just, I mean, that couldn't have been easy to do. I know that's gotta be your baby and

• 4:04:43Shawn Ryan?

  good on ya.

• 4:04:44Speaker 05

  I appreciate it, man. I appreciate that.

• 4:04:47Shawn Ryan?

  Some tough decisions, but...

• 4:04:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. That young crew that's in there is solid.

• 4:04:52Shawn Ryan?

  That's good.

• 4:04:53Speaker 05

  The board that, that, those are my friends. Like, that board is solid. They're like senior executives, CEOs, like, that organization is doing tremendous things and doing way more than I ever could have, right? Like, the one thing I loved about the teams, I didn't like a lot, but one of the things I loved about it was like change of command every few years, right? Like, it gets fresh energy, vigor, new perspective, and at some point, I'll turn over Envy too, once we build it into a monster. Mark my words on that, man, like, because I want to do what you want to do. I want to sit in my, my place in the mountains, your place out here in the farm and enjoy my family and all the good work that we've done.

• 4:05:34Shawn Ryan?

  There's nothing more important than that.

• 4:05:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:05:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know? You can have everything in the world, but doesn't mean shit if you don't have anybody to share it with.

• 4:05:42Speaker 05

  That's right, dude.

• 4:05:43Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, well, Johnny, man,

• 4:05:49Shawn Ryan?

  it's an honor to know you, man. It's, uh,

• 4:05:53Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't know you at all. I didn't even know what you looked like, you know what I mean, before this morning and, and, uh, man, I'm just, I'm really happy that we met and, uh, I'm honored to, to get your story out there and, uh, this is phenomenal. Envy is phenomenal. Thank you.

• 4:06:13Speaker 05

  We're just getting started, brother. And staying right back at you, man. Thank you for everything you're doing and how you empower others like me. It's an honor, man. Thank you.

• 4:06:21Shawn Ryan?

  I appreciate that. Best of luck to you.