#378: Nick Norris — Navy SEAL and Athlete on Training, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Healing

"I’ve shared that a lot more openly, and it’s been one of the best medicines that I’ve found. It’s liberating. Talking about grief has been something that’s unlocked a lot of happiness for me." — Nick Norris Nick Norris (@nick_norris1981 https://www.instagram.com/nick_norris1981/) is a graduate of both the United States Naval Academy and Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL (BUD/S) Class 247. Upon completion of SEAL training in 2004, Nick assumed progressively higher positions of leadership within Naval Special Warfare. His deployed roles included combat advisor to Iraqi and Afghan military units, Cross Functional Team Leader, and Ground Force Commander during combat operation in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Nick was most recently assigned to Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command — SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) as Officer in Charge prior to transitioning off Active Duty. Originally from Chicago, Nick received his Bachelor in Science from the United States Naval Academy in 2003 and his Masters of Science in Real Estate from The University of San Diego in 2013. He is the Executive Director of the C4 Foundation http://www.c4foundation.org/, which provides support and resources through science-based programs to active duty Navy SEALs and their families and is a Board Member of Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions https://vetsolutions.org/, a non profit focused on ending the veteran suicide epidemic via resources, research, and advocacy related to psychedelic assisted therapy. Nick is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Protekt Products http://www.protekt.com/, a wellness company that is committed to positively impacting customer health via both personal care products and nutritional supplements. Both Protekt http://www.protekt.com/ and the C4 Foundation http://www.c4foundation.org/ value the power of time spent in the outdoors and the positive impact it has on overall well-being. Please enjoy! Click here for the show notes for this episode. https://tim.blog/2019/07/18/nick-norris/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description This episode is brought to you by LegalZoom https://www.legalzoom.com/. I’ve used this service for many of my businesses, as have quite a few of the icons on this podcast including Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame. LegalZoom https://www.legalzoom.com/ is a reliable resource that more than a million people have already trusted for everything from setting up wills, proper trademark searches, forming LLCs, setting up non-profits, or finding simple cease-and-desist letter templates. 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• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, I would have seen an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:23Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:06Tim Ferriss?

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• 1:51Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Last year, I focused on dramatically improving a few things, surprise, surprise, most notably, the quality of my sleep, which seems to affect just about everything. This led me to revisit, you name it, my daily routine, morning routine, exercise, diet, all the way to what I slept on. And I end Ended up getting all new beds here in Austin, Texas, including mattresses from Helix Sleep. Helix has built a sleep quiz that takes two minutes to complete and they use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress. Whether you're a side sleeper, hot sleeper, cold sleeper, or you like plush, you like firm, with Helix, there's no more guessing or confusion.

• 2:32Tim Ferriss?

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• 3:20Tim Ferriss?

  Well, hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job every episode to interview and deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out how they do what they do. This episode, we have a real treat, someone you may not have heard of. I believe this is his first-ever podcast, Nick Norris. In my mind, he is the ultimate quiet professional, probably the most understated person I've ever had on this podcast. He is an 11-year Navy SEAL officer. He served with Jaco Willink at SEAL Team 3. You may recognize that name, Jaco. Also, another person who made their podcast debut here. And on top of that, he is a world-class athlete, which I didn't really fully appreciate until after our conversation.

• 4:04Tim Ferriss?

  Startup CEO and board member of the C4 Foundation, which is a new foundation that focuses on supporting active-duty SEAL families, and you can find that at c4foundation.org. We talk about a lot in this episode and cover a lot of ground, ranging from his training tips, physical training tips. This human has no physical weaknesses. It's really impressive.

• 4:28Tim Ferriss?

  To post-traumatic stress versus post-traumatic growth differentiation, talking about how you separate those two, talking about, say, traumatic brain injury and the links to depression, evidence-based treatments, including some very new treatments for depression, PTSD, and chronic stress. Many people don't realize that approximately 20 veterans and active-duty military personnel kill themselves every day. That means that suicide has killed far more veterans than any enemies whatsoever. And it is a quiet crisis and a quiet epidemic that I wanted to address on this podcast. There are lots of tactics, lots of stories.

• 5:09Tim Ferriss?

  Let me give you a bit more bio on Nick. He is a graduate of both the United States Naval Academy and Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL BUDS Class 247. Upon completion of SEAL training in 2004, Nick assumed progressively higher positions of leadership within Naval Special Warfare. His deployed roles included Combat Advisor to Iraqi and Afghan Military Units, Cross-Functional Team Leader, and Ground Force Commander during Combat Operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Nick was most recently assigned to Naval Special War for Basic Training Command, SEAL Qualification Training, SQT, as Officer in Charge prior to transitioning off of active duty. He's also co-founder and CEO of Amavara, a sunscreen company that has invented a new mineral sunscreen technology to protect both consumer

• 5:51Tim Ferriss?

  health and the environment. You can find more about that at amavara.com. Let's talk about some of his physical accomplishments, which were sent to me after this podcast, but just very briefly. He raced as a member of the US team in the 2007 Adventure Racing World Championships in Scotland. He's raced in multiple races of this type that are multi-day world-class expedition-length races. He has also completed ultra-distance trail-running events between 50K and 50-plus miles in length. He competed, as related to indoor skydiving, in the 2018 Sakura Cup Invitational as part of the US Dynamic four-way team. That

• 6:32Tim Ferriss?

  was Japan's very first international indoor skydiving competition, a very high-level, international, dynamic flying tournament that showcased the most talented wind tunnel flyers in the world. And as it relates to bouldering, so rock climbing, he has personally contributed to the development of the Southern California bouldering areas and has climbed a V11 with the goal of climbing V12 this year at age 37.

• 6:57Tim Ferriss?

  To put that in perspective, that places him pretty squarely in the top 0.1% of climbers worldwide. And you can find Nick on Instagram @nick_underscore_ Norris1981 on Instagram. So with all that said, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Nick Norris. Nick, welcome to the show.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 7:23Tim Ferriss?

  So I thought we could start with Tokyo. And it is certainly one of my favorite places, having spent a good amount of time there. And I told you, as we were having brunch a little earlier, to save the story, because I don't like to hear things a second or third time when I'm having these podcast conversations. But it seemed like there was quite a bit to dig into. So your first trip to Tokyo, what took you there?

• 7:49Speaker 03

  So I went out there with a four-person team to compete in a dynamic four-way wind tunnel competition called the Sakura Cup.

• 7:58Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so the Sakura, or Sakura is the cherry blossom, but what on earth? I heard wind tunnel. Then there are a bunch of different phrases associated with that that make no sense to me and sound vaguely obscene. What was it?

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Okay, so dynamic four-way is a discipline of wind tunnel flying that, you know, it probably started, and I'll probably butcher this, people will correct me, but

• 8:24Tim Ferriss?

  That's okay, the internet's good for that.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Right, six, seven years ago, maybe longer, where, you know, guys, you know, predominantly in Europe, these guys whose team name was the Skywalkers, they started flying a lot of tunnel time. And you get bored just kind of doing normal vertical formation skydiving. So like static formation building for time. And I think they started moving around the tunnel with like two people, and then adding three and four. And then this thing has blossomed into a full-on discipline where you compete in two different, I guess, formats. You do a series of speed rounds. So you have, I guess, a

• 9:07Speaker 03

  A number of different movements, either in a vertical plane or a horizontal plane, that are predetermined and you fly them in, you have three of those in succession, three times for time. You enter the tunnel and then exit the tunnel and then you get a time and you compete against each other.

• 9:25Tim Ferriss?

  So you have to hold a specific position for, for increasing periods of time?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  So you're moving the entire time. So think like synchronized swimming, but flying around in a high-speed column of air, in a, like a glass cylinder.

• 9:39Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Fishbowl. So you do that and then the other portion is an artistic round. So you do a, a 90-second artistic round.

• 9:48Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. So that's like a breakdance battle.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, they actually call it battling. You get, you battle against another team.

• 9:56Tim Ferriss?

  What would people want to search online to find videos of this? Are there any particular videos or search terms you suggest people start with if they want to see what this actually looks like?

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Oh man. So if you put D4W, like wind tunnel into Google, it'll pull up a whole bunch of videos. And there's some super elite flyers that we saw out in Japan that were way better than our team. And even if you look at the Sakura Cup Wind Tunnel Competition, there'll be some videos of the rounds that were flown. It's like, like really, really impressive athletes in a very fringe, outlandish sport.

• 10:33Tim Ferriss?

  So you, you have a whole range of, of skills and attributes that you've developed. And we shall not name the person who will not be mentioned, who's sitting also in the room with us. He is a snake eater in the shadows who prefers to remain as such. But he described you initially to me in a number of very sort of laudatory ways. And then he said, he doesn't have any physical weaknesses. Yeah, it's really annoying. And so I thought we could shift to another area that you've explored quite a bit, which is, I'm going to prompt and then we can jump into it because I said, save it, save it, save it for the podcast.

• 11:17Tim Ferriss?

  Let's talk about moonboards. What on earth is a moonboard?

• 11:21Speaker 03

  Okay, so a moonboard is a, it's a thing that was created by a very famous rock climber whose name is Ben Moon, out of the UK. And Ben is like, I mean, he's like OG, like, strong rock climber, super inspirational. You know, did some of the hardest sport climbs in the world, and some of the hardest boulder problems in the world. And Ben started a company called Moon Climbing, and he, he has this really famous place called The Schoolroom in the UK. It's his training gym. And he had this thing, a board, a templated board that has

• 12:02Speaker 03

  holds on it that never change. So he has these problems that have just been there forever. Like, some of the hardest problems, I think, he said he's ever done are on this board.

• 12:11Tim Ferriss?

  How big is the board?

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Oh, man, and I'll be off on that.

• 12:15Tim Ferriss?

  Just roughly, yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  So it's probably, uh, three, so maybe 12 feet long. I think it's set at a 40-degree angle, so it's overhanging. So it's like three consecutive sheets of plywood, maybe a touch more. And it's gridded, so, uh, set distance in between each bolt hole. And Ben created a specific set of climbing holds with a compass rose on them.

• 12:41Tim Ferriss?

  With what on them?

• 12:42Speaker 03

  A compass rose, so like a north arrow. So you would go, he basically told you where to set, you know, this number hold, in this orientation, in this grid square, or in this bolt hole. And by doing that, you set the board a certain way, and he was able to create boulder problems that people could replicate all over the world by just building this exact copy of his moonboard. And it's caught on like wildfire. In the climbing community, they're all over the place in commercial climbing gyms.

• 13:14Tim Ferriss?

  Where's the strangest place that you have used strange or atypical place you've used a moonboard?

• 13:20Speaker 03

  So I, on active duty, built three moonboards. I built one in Zamboanga in the Philippines. I built one in Ramadi, Iraq, and then I built one in Zabo Province at a fire base called Nabahar.

• 13:35Tim Ferriss?

  How long does it take to build a moonboard?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Well, I had-

• 13:39Tim Ferriss?

  Once you've had, once you've had a rehearsal on, on one or two?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Um, so I'm a terrible carpenter, so I'm really good at convincing people to help me do other things that I can't do. So I had a talented group of CBs, uh, combat construction guys that I convinced to, uh, shirk all their other responsibilities and build a climbing wall in the middle of combat zones.

• 14:02Tim Ferriss?

  So let's talk about these, these two disciplines just to start with because I, I find that generally, well, I find it interesting how someone like yourself looks at different disciplines and I'm fascinated with high performing cohorts of people in any discipline, right? It really doesn't matter. It could be carpentry, could be rock climbing, could be painting. It just really, the, the discipline itself is less interesting than the, the commonalities among the, the top performers. So if we look at, for instance, the synchronized swimming in an air column, what separates, it could be in any of the different formats you described, doesn't have to be, uh, it could be in the battle format, could be in

• 14:45Tim Ferriss?

  any, any of the different formats we, we discussed. What separates the good from the truly exceptional? Like, what are the characteristics or the, the defining practices, anything that you've been able to pick up since you are very accomplished in this area as well as in climbing? Yeah, what separates the good from the great?

• 15:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, so there's a number of things, but I think time together as a team, being able to read people's body language, flying in a wind tunnel, I mean, you start to see how people telegraph certain movements and you learn that through repetition and just time together. So I mean, I think that that time as a team, that kind of, I guess you can call it that kind of stress inoculation, you do it so many times that you can just see, kind of predict where people are going to go just by how they look moments before they do something. So I think that's one of the biggest kind of attributes that, you

• 15:48Speaker 03

  know, the high, high-end teams have. And then, you know, I think the other thing is just their ability, in that discipline, their ability to move constantly, like no hesitation, moving almost with no fear that they're going to impact each other. Because you're talking about flying in a very confined space at very high speeds and you just trust, like you have total trust that the guy that's in front of you or behind you is going to do his job really well.

• 16:21Tim Ferriss?

  What, when you say high speed, for people who have no exposure to this, because for instance, I've spent one or two sessions in a single day at an iFly facility, I want to say in the East Bay, in Northern California, many, many, many, many years ago, which was a phenomenal experience, but I was so concerned with just not eating it face-first into something that I wasn't paying much attention to.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Valid concern.

• 16:43Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to speed. I don't think my input would have mattered. But so what is, what is high speed?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  So like a lot of wind tunnels will fly anywhere between 150 and maybe 170 mile an hour wind. So they're, they're pushing vertical wind speeds at like 150, 170 miles an hour. And when you're flying in that wind, you're not going 170 miles an hour, you're flying, you know, upside down or right side up in a vertical orientation. And, I mean, when you see like the guys that are really, really good, I mean, they're moving, they're probably going, I mean, maybe...

• 17:22Speaker 03

  20 miles an hour, I mean 30 miles an hour of like closing speed. So like really fast. I mean, you can get going if you were in the sky, like jumping out of an aircraft. I mean, you could be moving 120 miles an hour over ground. If you were in one of the orientations you're flying at in the wind tunnel.

• 17:42Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. So you'd be covering, we were talking a little bit earlier about wingsuits.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:47Tim Ferriss?

  And for those people who haven't seen a wingsuit, A, it's terrifying. B, the humans tend to resemble flying squirrels. There's a high mortality rate. And then there's another term for it, which is proximity flying. Why is it called proximity flying?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Okay, so I will say this for the record. I don't base jump. I never have, and I don't proximity fly, but I have a bunch of friends that do. So it's flying very close to like land masses. So when you base jump, you know, the guys, you watch guys wingsuit very close to the side of a mountain ridge line.

• 18:25Tim Ferriss?

  And what can their, and you mentioned, I suppose, just moments ago, 120 miles an hour. So are they achieving those types of speeds?

• 18:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, even, I mean, probably faster. So they, you know, their glide ratio over ground is like three to one or higher. So they're, they're traveling three feet for every foot that they descend. So like really fast speed over ground.

• 18:51Tim Ferriss?

  If we look at, at rock climbing, to, to throw the same question out there. And you could use a specific example if you wanted in terms of picking someone who you recognize as an elite climber. But if, if we try to separate the inborn attributes that allow them to be superior climbers, right? Much like you would, I can't learn to have my ankles seemingly dislocate like Michael Phelps. So that's, that's unlikely to be something I can train for.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 19:21Tim Ferriss?

  But there are different training approaches or ways of looking at, say, bouldering problems or other things that might allow people to progress faster and develop faster than others. What are some of the differentiators that you've observed in exceptional climbers versus people who are just kind of like me in half of the things I do, like permanent blue belts? Who never quite graduate.

• 19:48Speaker 03

  You know what, I think it's an innate ability to just try hard, like try very, very hard. And, you know, that sounds easy, but it's much more difficult in practice. You know, you look at, you know, there's a guy named Adam Andra, who, you know, arguably is the most talented or the strongest rock climber in the world. Just amazing to watch the guy climb. And you can see the level of tenacity, like just the, the, the way that he approaches climbs, where he just does not give up. It's just a relentless pursuit of perfection, and like an endless pursuit of perfection. And the guy is magnitude stronger

• 20:28Speaker 03

  kind of than the average, you know, even elite level climber, and is still, just, I mean, trains tirelessly to get better. And, uh, yeah, I think that it's that, that, that grit, that ability just to continue to persevere, which, you know, is a huge standout attribute.

• 20:46Tim Ferriss?

  Is that something that you can develop? I mean, is there a sort of mental theater in which you, how you speak to yourself allows you to do that, or, or helps you to do that? I'm just wondering what, if people wanted to try to develop the ability to try harder, which, which I think can be done. I mean, I think that there's, there's, there are certain presets.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:10Tim Ferriss?

  Right? But then, if you are training in just about any sport or, or area with, say, a coach who believes you can exceed what you take to be your limitations, then you can begin to sort of instill the, like, conditioned default of trying really hard, right? So I think there are probably things that you can do. How do you approach, say, a new problem that you've set out for yourself? Cause I know that you have, have explored some virgin territory when it comes to bouldering problems. Uh, maybe first you could explain to people who, who don't rock climb or are familiar with it, like what is bouldering?

• 21:52Tim Ferriss?

  And then when you're tackling a new problem, like what is your, what is your internal? Voice sound like when you're when you're tackling something that you know is probably going to be pushing your level a bit?

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so to start bouldering in the realm of climbing is like powerlifting as it relates to weightlifting or weight training. So, small, very intense, technically difficult pieces of terrain that you're climbing with no rope and crash pads laid out underneath you. So, you're not soloing, doing something that's death defying. You know, most of the time it's, you know, less than 15 feet off the ground. So, it's a very high intense pursuit in climbing as opposed to sport climbing or traditional climbing, which is a little bit longer, more endurance based. You know, for me, it's, I know that tenacity or the ability to persevere is something that's, I'm in control of.

• 22:49Speaker 03

  And, you know, I was never the most talented athlete growing up. You know, I just, I always, I wrestled as a young guy and I didn't have the innate talent that a lot of my peers had, but I knew that I could work hard and I could do all these things in the off season and even during competition to, to, to help get me closer to be on a level competitive playing field as these other people. So, I approach bouldering in a very similar sense. You know, I'm shorter, I have shorter arms, I'm probably a little heavier than the average boulder.

• 23:22Tim Ferriss?

  What are your dimensions, just for people wondering?

• 23:25Speaker 03

  So, I'm five foot six, I have a negative two ape index, that means my wingspan, my arms are five foot four, so I'm shorter, stubby arms, and I weigh in anywhere from like 160 to 165 pounds. So, I'm not heavy by any means, but in the realm of climbing, I'm a little bit heavier for my size.

• 23:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  So, I feel, I like, I have focused.

• 23:48Tim Ferriss?

  And it gives not obvious to people just based on the context, you're also, I mean, that's a lean, that's not a donuts and Dr. Pepper 170.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  I've been trying to get my legs to be smaller so that I weigh less, Tim.

• 24:07Tim Ferriss?

  Okay, so, so you have this variable, which is sort of training intensity and consistency, which is under your control, unlike some of the... Sort of innate talent that other people might have. And then if you are, just from a, from a psychological perspective, when you are getting ready to attempt, whether it's the first time or the fifth time, a very hard route, how do you prepare for that? Like in the, in the minutes leading up to it? What does that look like?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  So in, in the moment, if like before, I'm going to give something like a red point attempt, like try to actually climb the, the line, uh, try to clear your head. I mean, it's a huge mental game. When you get to the point where you've done all the moves, you're strong enough to do it, there's, there can be a big mental block. And I think a lot of athletes experience that, you know, kind of in the kind of higher echelons of performance. So I think clearing your brain and, uh, not letting that be the, the limiting factor. I think leading up to that, uh, it's practicing grit and kind of that try hard in all of the structured training that I do leading up to that moment. So, uh, finger boarding is a way that you, you can train your fingers, you know, your

• 25:21Speaker 03

  tendons, connective tissue to be stronger. Uh, you know, in every fingerboard workout, you know, trying to apply that level of grit, that try hard, you know, hang on things that might hurt my skin, um, or just be very, you know, rigorous and tough on me, uh, trying to put that same level of intensity into every training session, trying to get like high quality training, not just volume of training and checking the boxes.

• 25:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, this is, this is what I was hoping we'd, we'd explore a bit because I mean, repetition, like practice does not make perfect.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  No, perfect practice makes you perfect.

• 25:55Tim Ferriss?

  And I think a lot of a quote that I'm going to butcher the name, I need a classic scholar in the room, but Archilocus, I think is one of these old, uh, old names that is difficult to know how exactly, at least for me, how it was pronounced, but the, the phrase is we do not rise to the level of our hopes or expectations, we fall to the level of our training. And so if you haven't stress inoculated, as you mentioned, uh, it's very difficult to execute when you're actually trying to push yourself to. A performance rep, right? He said, let's talk about clearing your mind. Practically, what does that look like? Because a lot of people get wrapped up, right? They put in a ton of

• 26:36Tim Ferriss?

  practice and then it's time to go out and perform. And you've no doubt seen this. And I mean, we're going to segue to military shortly, but whether it's in sports, in any high performance situation, you see people who do really well in training and rehearsal, and then they freeze.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:55Tim Ferriss?

  And then you see people who are the opposite, who do really well under pressure. And they may not in training be the standouts, but then when it comes to actual performance, for any number of reasons, they are kind of in pole position. So how do you clear your mind?

• 27:11Speaker 03

  So for me, the things that are the times where I've performed my best, I've actually used visualization. I have actually adopted that successfully. And it may not work for everybody, but I literally try to visualize myself climbing through all the movement that I know I've done. I've practiced in the past and I've successfully executed it. And watch myself climb through the entire boulder problem. Even to the point where, you know, I will find myself moving my hands in the positions that they should be hitting each specific hold. You

• 27:54Speaker 03

  know, just grabbing the air. And just recently, and like I'm, I'm constantly trying to pursue a higher level of bouldering. And I'm not by any means the strongest boulder in the world. But just recently, I had this kind of breakthrough experience on a really hard boulder problem for me. And right before I did it, I had been visualizing literally the entire day leading up to it. And then just sitting down and breathing, you know, a couple big deep breaths and just trying to like empty all other thoughts out of my brain.

• 28:28Tim Ferriss?

  And we're gonna, we're gonna segue into how the military entered the picture in a moment. But what other, what other physical feats are you proudest of? This could be military or it could be civilian. If, if, actually, let me put this different, different way because you're so understated. If someone else were to brag on your behalf, I might have to pull in some reinforcements here if, if necessary. But what other physical feats or whether it's in competition or otherwise, are you, are you proudest of?

• 29:00Speaker 03

  So the prelude to that is that I've surrounded myself with people that are better than me in every athletic pursuit that I've, you know, fallen in love with.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  So some, beyond climbing, I mean, climbing, I've surrounded myself with very talented people. And very proud of some of the progression I've seen in that sport. Prior to that, I, I got way into like longer distance running. You know, I ran, you know, 50K, 50 milers, like a lot of trail races. So I did my first 50 miler on the East Coast when I was at the Naval Academy with a handful of friends. And, you know, didn't know what to expect and, you know, that was a big accomplishment for me. You know, more mentally, you know, it wasn't that you were going super fast or you're going to win the race. It was just kind of persevering and varying. It was the grit that you had to show through that.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  I've competed in some multi-sport races, like adventure racing back in the day. Did a lot of like one day, two day, three day races. Raced in Eco Primal Quest back in 2002 in Telluride, Colorado.

• 30:13Tim Ferriss?

  What is that?

• 30:14Speaker 03

  It's a, so Eco Challenge was made famous by Mark Burnett. And I think it was developed after the Raid Galwa. So all mapping compass, a team of three or four people. And normally one person of the opposite sex and it was all manpower.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  Movement over terrain, paddling, hiking, mountaineering, mountain biking, just puts you out in the middle of nowhere, in like the most epic places in the world. And it was, it was, sleep deprivation is factored in. And I think that's what drew me to it more than anything else. I mean, I knew I wanted to, to go to BUDs and be a SEAL and like, I figured this was probably the best kind of train up for like, mental toughness that I could do. So I got way into it when I was at school.

• 31:03Tim Ferriss?

  So how did you end up becoming interested in becoming a Navy SEAL or being directed towards that territory at all? I mean, how did that all start?

• 31:19Speaker 03

  You know, I, somebody mentioned this, this community within the military, the SEAL teams, when I was in like, 7th grade. And before that, I knew nothing about, you know, the SEAL community. And I think I, I've always been really good at setting goals for myself and just working really hard to achieve these goals. Cause I didn't have a lot of innate talent. And I think I fixated on that as a really kind of almost unattainable goal when I was seven, in 7th grade. And, you know, just latched on to it. I mean, I just wanted to achieve that. And I had a lot of people that were naysayers along the way that doubted my ability to go and do that. But I knew that I was in control of my destiny.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  You know, I could put the structure together to achieve all the small goals that would lead up to, you know, ultimately, ultimately realizing that, that bigger goal.

• 32:09Tim Ferriss?

  How did you end up having even the concept of structuring it in these, these incremental bites, taking this large goal and breaking it down? Is that something that your parents demonstrated? Is it something mentors or coaches demonstrated? Where, did it come from? A book? I mean, where, where did that come from?

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. So my dad was, was instrumental on that. Growing up, so my dad was a college football player, firefighter in the city of Chicago.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Really like addicted to fitness, like really into like calisthetics and weightlifting. Got me into that when I was pretty young and he, I can visualize it right now. He had all these like motivational quotes written in like calligraphy up on the wall in the basement in Chicago and he'd always quote Vince Lombardi and, and really push me to just try hard and start working out because you know, he was, he was all about discipline, you know, setting these goals. So I like, I probably embodied that because I was just in that environment with my dad and I looked up to him a lot.

• 33:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. I mean, I would imagine with the weightlifting, I don't know, and you mentioned wrestling as well. I mean, at least for me, where a lot of the kind of methodical tracking began was with training and weight cutting and so on, because you wanted to have a training log of some type, right? To track, to track progress. So you have this, you have this dream that is kicked off in some way around seventh grade. When does it start to become a reality?

• 33:49Speaker 03

  You know, I think I went to the Naval Academy, you know, was accepted to the Naval Academy, started down that path and then super competitive from the Naval Academy to get a billet as an officer into the SEAL training pipeline. So I think it started

• 34:04Tim Ferriss?

  Billet is like a position?

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, like an opportunity, like you get one slot to go and, and attempt the training. So I think at school, that's, I started to build this like really cool camaraderie, like a fraternity with the guys who were all competing for that finite number of spots into the SEAL pipeline and

• 34:29Speaker 03

  You know, I think back, I think I got hooked on that brotherhood, like the fraternity that you had, a bunch of guys that all aspired to do the same thing, all sacrificing to achieve that one goal. And I would probably point back to that moment or that period in my life as kind of that was when I really start seeing it manifest as reality.

• 34:51Tim Ferriss?

  Is there any aspect of BUDs or any part of the training slash vetting process that you expected would be most difficult or that you were concerned about?

• 35:04Speaker 03

  I was always concerned about the cold. I'm a pretty thin guy. I don't have a lot of insulation in my body. And I remember going through some screening events at school and getting extremely cold. And so that was something, you know, it's probably in the back of my head is a big fear, like, would I get too cold? Like, would my, you know, my mind, you know, quit on me in that scenario? Because it starts to really test you. You know, I think beyond that, I was never that good of a swimmer. I have kind of an example. When I was a junior in high school, I was a Chicago Park District lifeguard on the lakefront,

• 35:47Speaker 03

  you know, the shore of Lake Michigan. And the senior guards used to make me wear a rescue buoy out when we'd go and do swims because they thought I was going to drown. So I was a terrible swimmer, never swam until I had to. My dad actually was the one that told me, you need to go get a job. So go be a lifeguard. It pays really well and you get to hang out at the beach. I'm like, great. Well, I don't know how to swim, so I need to figure that out. And then even at the Naval Academy, I mean, I think my senior year, I probably swam like four times in preparation for BUDs. And thankfully, you put fins on after like the first week of BUDs and you do all your swimming with fins.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  So I was a fairly good finner, but I was a terrible swimmer.

• 36:38Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned a term earlier that I think is worth exploring a bit. That's stress inoculation. Could you talk about, maybe give some examples of that? And maybe also some misconceptions. I mean, for instance, one that came up yesterday when we were having dinner was cold exposure.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 37:03Tim Ferriss?

  And I was actually, I've never really thought about it, but the counterintuitive aspect of that example, I think, is worth mentioning too. So what is stress inoculation? And where do people sometimes get it wrong?

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Yes, I mean, in its simplest form, stress inoculation is just exposing yourself to, you know, stressors through experience to get you more comfortable. So you can inoculate yourself to stress in pretty much any environment that would impose it. And I think the example that we are talking about, the misconception that we were discussing yesterday was cold exposure or exposure to heat. You know, if you put yourself in cold water, thinking that you're going to build up this tolerance to the cold, I think it's actually, it actually works against you. You could be more susceptible to hypothermia.

• 37:56Tim Ferriss?

  It can backfire.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  And then the same thing with hyperthermia.

• 37:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  You know, you get heat stroke once, you're going to, you could be a victim of heat stroke repeatedly.

• 38:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's actually ended up happening to me with heat specifically. I've never told our mystery friend sitting here this before, but the, I was a subject, I volunteered to be an experimental subject in testing at Stanford where they would, because I wanted, I wanted the data, right? I'd always been susceptible to heat. And I wanted some, some hard numbers on how susceptible I was, or if I was, like what the actual problem was. And so they put in, it's about as pleasant as it sounds, an anal probe, which is like to measure core temperature. So it's like 18 inches long or something like that. And then they had new technology, which is an esophageal probe.

• 38:46Tim Ferriss?

  So you also had like an 18 inch probe going down your nose, down your throat to try to get close to your heart. And then they'd put you in full military gear with a weighted rucksack helmet and put you in a sauna on a Incline treadmill and just march you to heat exhaustion.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  Sounds awesome.

• 39:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it was about as pleasant as it sounds, but I ended up being more sensitive over time, which I didn't expect, right? I thought, oh, this is gonna be like building up a base suntan and it just so happens it's not true for everything.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:19Tim Ferriss?

  There's someone who's, who may be a a a character in the story of stress inoculation and your exposure to that, I suppose, pun intended, who's been on this podcast before. Can you describe how you know Jocko Willink?

• 39:39Speaker 03

  So Jocko and I served at SEAL Team Three together. So when I was a new guy, he was the sister troop commander. And he and his troop went to Ramadi that summer and then we were deployed about 20 kilometers to the east of Ramadi. So I worked up with Jocko and then Jocko took over our training detachment on the West Coast for the SEAL Team. So when I was a platoon commander, I took my platoon through the entire training cycle under Jocko's guys. So he was the the individual that was charged not only with running training for everybody, but specifically

• 40:24Speaker 03

  vetting and mentoring the officers that were going to be taking, you know, deployable elements into combat.

• 40:31Tim Ferriss?

  So you are, there are a whole slew of reasons why I was eager to have you on the podcast. You've been highly successful in multiple fields. You're well respected in multiple fields, certainly as a physical performance specimen.

• 40:49Tim Ferriss?

  As the snake eater put it, sort of irritatingly well-rounded and also one hell of a nice guy, which makes it harder to find that bothersome. I should say, but, and it's more of an and really, because I think it's so common. You've had some challenges since leaving the military.

• 41:10Tim Ferriss?

  That I thought would be worth getting into. And I wanted to sort of paint a picture of a lot of your accomplishments first because I wanted to establish that context. But can you talk just and we'll of course dig into a lot of the details, but there've been a lot of highlights along the way, but what did you experience after the military?

• 41:30Speaker 03

  So I left active duty service in 2013 after several deployments into combat. And everything was actually great initially. I left because of my family. My wife and I have been with each other since high school and we had just had our daughter in 2012. And that was for me, the catalyst that was ultimately going to, you know, help me make the decision to choose my family and get out of the military at that point. So I transitioned into the private sector, initially in a commercial real estate brokerage, which is, you know, super high stress. I wasn't making any money whatsoever.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  And in like kind of the polar opposite of the SEAL teams and the military combat units in general, I was, I was by myself. I was kind of alone on an island, responsible for my own performance. I didn't have any teammates to look to. There was, you know, little to no camaraderie. And, you know, I kind of carried on with that career until we started the, you know, the current company that, that I'm running, you know, sunscreen company. And, you know, I'd say it was probably 2017. So four years elapsed before I really, I kind of had a moment, I guess a moment of

• 42:59Speaker 03

  clarity for myself where I realized like I wasn't, I just didn't feel myself. And, you know, it's difficult at times to put it into words, but I, I remember my family was away on a trip and I decided to stay home to work as was the normal for me at that point. And I just kind of was feeling total apathy, you know, for things that I really.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Find passion in like climbing, like had zero interest in it. Would find myself driving to the gym and sitting in my truck for like an hour. Like not wanting to to go in and do something that I I normally love. Um, was becoming a little bit more aware of kind of feelings of anger, agitation, edginess in conversations with people. I, you know, I'd be in a normal kind of one-on-one meeting with somebody and with a really nice person. And there's no reason why I should be feeling angry or irritated. And I would have to excuse myself for meetings and didn't want to interact with him. And it was like 180 out for my normal personality.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  I mean, like I, uh, yeah, I was just very confused. You know, I've always been a very even keel, nice person, you know? Don't look for conflict, try to, you know, I walk away from fights. I mean, normally if I, I mean, I was the guy that was just very even keel and even tempered. And, uh, um, I would just find myself getting just very angry all the time. And I think it was bleeding into my personal life with my, my wife and my kids. You know, just no, uh, he, no ability to cope with kind of distractions in the house. I just felt overwhelmed, almost on edge all the time. And, uh, you know, I, I got to a point where I, I just didn't know how to fix it.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  You know, so I, you know, I talked to some people and just asked them if they felt that way.

• 44:59Tim Ferriss?

  So, so former SEALs?

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe some buddies of mine, like guys that had exited the military at that point. And, you know, some guys shared, you know, blood work, um, and testosterone count as, you know, potentially that's an issue. So I remember going in and get a full, getting a full battery of blood work done. And, uh, you know, my testosterone was fine. It was like very healthy. And I remember kind of having a one-on-one with the physician that I was seeing and described everything that I, I kind of described in brief just now. And, uh, and they, they framed it as depression. And I, I said, that's crazy. I'm not like, I'm not depressed. Like I just don't feel myself. There has to be something else wrong.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  I'm not locking myself in a dark room and I, you know, I just, that's, that's not me. And, uh, you know, they, they were. You know, insistent in a way on trying to put me on a serotonin drug, on an antidepressant.

• 46:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, SSRI, yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Correct. And I, you know, there's nothing wrong with it, but I just, for me personally, I just didn't want to.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  I looked at it as like a Band-Aid fix. I just, I didn't think it was gonna help me get back to the person that I knew I was. So I just, I tried to go out and find other things, something else to snap me out of it. Besides, like, you know, 40 ounces of coffee every single day to try to like wake me up and actually get me motivated.

• 46:34Tim Ferriss?

  At that point, I mean, how long were you in that wandering, searching, sort of coping but not having returned to normal you? And it doesn't have to be exact, like for how long were you on the search for some type of fix before you found anything that helped?

• 47:00Speaker 03

  You know, it probably took me, you know, six months or so.

• 47:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 03

  Trying to, I mean, it was kind of a frustrating process of trying to vet the blood work and, you know, just see if it passed, see if I would just get back to normal, and I wasn't getting back to normal. And I, you know, I ultimately found something called personalized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. So it's a mouthful. I kind of stumbled upon it by accident. I had connected with a doctor in San Diego that had been doing it for depression.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  And

• 47:41Tim Ferriss?

  What is the acronym for that? I mean, it's a form of TMS.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  So it's P R T M S. Yeah, just a very focused form of TMS. You know, they did an EEG initially to kind of look at your brainwave activity and then treat frontal lobe with some magnetic pulses to try to, I guess, like retune the piano.

• 48:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 48:03Speaker 03

  And I had talked to some veterans, actually talked to a marine, and then a couple SEALs or former SEALs, you know, off active duty. This was all kind of post-active duty service. Where it worked for them. I mean, they felt like It it kind of snapped them back into the person that they were so they could get on a healthier track. I mean, because ultimately, the way I I looked at it is, hey, I just need something to make me feel myself, or I can sleep again, where I could start eating healthy again, or I can exercise, or actually have a passion to exercise again. Because those are like the core foundational pillars that have been, I mean, that's that's been my foundation.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  That's the reason, you know, I've been able to stay healthy. It's because of my diet and sleep and exercise. But I just, I need something to kind of like help push me in that direction.

• 48:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's, you know, what you're describing, certainly, I I've never been in the military, but for people who've listened to the podcast for a long time, or or read any of the recent books, I mean, I've had many extended bouts with, certainly in retrospect, what I would call depression, and seems to be a family, there seems to be a software component, like what I came preloaded with, just has maybe a few unusual lines of code in it. But there there's also the the the large behavioral piece. And one of the, one of the trickier aspects of for some people, and this was, this has been true for me as well, is that

• 49:38Tim Ferriss?

  if if humans are kind of reward and punishment, sort of incentive driven machines, if the reward that you received from activities that were good for you, right, in part, the the joy of rock climbing, let's just say, disappears, right? So you have this like anhedonia, this inability to feel joy. The normal kind of feedback loops that that help encourage you to follow these beneficial

• 50:09Tim Ferriss?

  Patterns of behavior can kind of slip through your fingers.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 50:13Tim Ferriss?

  Right? Because you're just, you're not getting the payoff. You're not getting the initial drive and you're not getting the payoff. So the, the PRTMS is really interesting. This is something that actually came up not too long ago, very briefly with a physicist who was on this podcast, but we didn't get into it because he had no personal exposure to it. He was just very interested in the science.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:36Tim Ferriss?

  How, how quickly did you see a response to that?

• 50:41Speaker 03

  It was crazy. It was like immediate for me. So I'll, I'll frame it. I, I walked into this, this office and I was in a terrible mood, like very antisocial, just in a very low spot. And I actually was very agitated with the guy who was kind of bringing me in and asking me the questions. Didn't even want to deal with him. And they did an EEG and sat me down and I went through my first battery of treatment. And then I guess the way that I, and I reacted to it. I've talked to other guys, maybe that didn't have the same type of reaction, but it was almost like a sense of being caffeinated. Like when you drink, you haven't drank coffee for three weeks and then all of a sudden you have, you know,

• 51:26Speaker 03

  a double shot of espresso. Just feel like super on point and kind of a way, a wave of calm where like all those feelings of agitation and anger like subsided. And it was crazy. Like I did not expect that to happen. And I had to back it up. I mean, after, you know, it would fade and then I was going in pretty much five days a week for like 30 minutes for six weeks or so. And then I was good for a while, probably for like six plus months.

• 51:57Tim Ferriss?

  Okay. So the flywheel was spinning at that point. Like you had enough momentum. I know this is metaphorically speaking, but at that point, the durability, you needed to, so you had five, roughly say five times per week for, what did you say? How many weeks?

• 52:11Speaker 03

  About six weeks.

• 52:12Tim Ferriss?

  Six weeks. And at that point, then the durability of effect seemed to be about six months.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  You know what? It did it. Like it took effect. And then immediately, you know, I started sleeping better. Sleep is the root of everything, I think, as it relates to at least my experience with this mental health.

• 52:30Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  As I slept better, I just felt better. The apathy went away. I was more excited to go, you know, climb, more excited to spend time with my, my wife and my two kids. And then it was this positive feedback loop where it just kind of kicked, it jump started me into a track that I had been on, but I had just fallen off of.

• 52:54Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, the, the, it strikes me that you needed the, in, in a way, the, the reboot or the tuning.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 53:02Tim Ferriss?

  So that you could have a sort of quote unquote, normal window within which then you could make the decisions you would have made normally.

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 53:12Tim Ferriss?

  Does that make sense?

• 53:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, perfect sense.

• 53:14Tim Ferriss?

  Like the, the, the PRTMS doesn't, doesn't, it doesn't make the longer term, regular behavioral decisions for you, but it opens a window in which you can make those decisions for yourself.

• 53:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:28Tim Ferriss?

  Which is true of a lot of, of some of the, the treatments that I find more interesting for this is that they're not sort of causal in and of themselves. It's not one and done, but it opens in a window of opportunity within which you can make decisions with sort of your mind in a better, in a more focused place.

• 53:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:53Tim Ferriss?

  Since the, the, you mentioned, you mentioned sleep and this is another variable that has just become over time, more and more interesting to me. I mean, certainly you're no stranger to sleep deprivation and we can certainly talk about that. And there were, I mean, long periods of time where I used stimulants and caffeine to self-medicate. And it works for a while, or at least it makes you feel like you're being productive for a while. What, what types of systems or habits have you built around sleep? Or are there any other tools or resources that you found helpful for sleep?

• 54:40Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, so trying to get sunlight in the morning. Um, I, you know, going through the, the TMS battery. I mean, that was a very positive habit that was formed because of that treatment. You know, the doc said, I need you to get at least 30 minutes of direct morning blue light exposure. Um, to kind of kick your, I guess, your circadian rhythm into, uh, into alignment. So you actually get tired. You start to, uh, you know, produce the, the chemicals internally that you need to, to actually fall asleep and get restful sleep. So that was a big one. I, I started, I was cognizant of how much time, uh, I did not spend in direct sunlight.

• 55:22Speaker 03

  You know, with no glass in between me and the, and the blue light. You know, once I started actually, uh, looking at that, I would, you know, make a point of getting outside and, and, and doing that. Um, I don't know if this, it, it has impacted like positive quality of sleep, but I, I drink a lot more water. Uh, every morning I drank 32 ounces of water, no fail. Um, sometimes I don't want to, but I do. And I, I've become more cognizant of just being more hydrated. Uh, I've supplemented with vitamin D, even though I'm, I'm getting sunlight. Uh, that seemed to help. Uh, and then caffeine intake. I mean, I, I love coffee.

• 56:02Speaker 03

  It's, I think it's, it's an amazing, uh, performance enhancing drug as it relates to climbing. Uh, it's probably the best, like best that I've found. Like drink a cup of coffee and you just focus and you perform well. Uh, I've gotten into a habit of not drinking it later in the day. And not drinking it at seven or eight o'clock at night.

• 56:22Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I was gonna say, I don't want to take us totally off the rails, but one of the things you mentioned, uh, during lunch that I, I, I never would have thought of in a million years. You're talking about.

• 56:34Tim Ferriss?

  Heading out to climb in the middle of the night with headlamps.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 56:37Tim Ferriss?

  And I was like, what? Why would you do that? And you're talking about the temperature and how your skin is just tighter, more resilient. You can climb more effectively.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Way better to climb in the cold.

• 56:47Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So I can, I can see that being maybe not the ideal time to down a whole lot of coffee.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  And I definitely had fallen victim to drinking coffee at 11 o'clock at night.

• 57:01Tim Ferriss?

  You know, I want to, we're going to keep going. So you can think of any other things that might have helped as it relates to sleep, but the sun exposure first thing in the morning and not having anything between you, even if it is say, panes of glass.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 57:15Tim Ferriss?

  Is something that a number of guests on this podcast have mentioned. I only thought about it right now because it's been a while, as being instrumental in completely

• 57:27Tim Ferriss?

  changing the trajectory of their physical life. Like Rick Rubin, legendary music producer, has very similar practice, like at least 20 or 30 minutes of direct sunlight every morning. That doesn't mean it has to be sunny out also. Like it can be overcast. It just means being outside. And shortly thereafter, along with other things, I mean, he lost 100 plus pounds, right? But that was sort of the, the first domino, which was a daily ingredient, first thing upon waking that made a huge difference. When do you stop drinking caffeine during the day? Or have, what are the rules you've set for yourself?

• 58:03Speaker 03

  So it's been recently, it's been better. I actually have fallen into drinking butter coffee first thing in the morning and I don't drink coffee after that. So I might have that at like 8am and then it kind of has forced in like an intermittent fast, like a short term fast where I feel focused throughout the day and don't need to drink coffee in the afternoon. I would feel, you know, prior to that, I would feel kind of this afternoon like energy dump and like feel like I need to drink more coffee to go climb or do something, you know, be, be productive. So that's helped. So I tried to cut it out completely. You know, after my morning coffee, I'm not touching it again.

• 58:46Tim Ferriss?

  It's, I've noticed, I think this caffeine piece is really key for a lot of people, including myself. And I've noticed, for instance, there are certain things, we're going to talk about this, that are sort of harbingers, or like the canary in the coal mine, as it relates to possible periods of depression, or apathy, or anhedonia, all these things. And that, for me at least, caffeine can precipitate a lot of it, right? Because if, for whatever reason, I'm consuming too much caffeine, too late, too high quantity, what does that start to affect? It starts to affect sleep. Even if you're in bed for eight hours, you may have very disrupted sleep. And then it becomes this vicious cycle that tends to exacerbate

• 59:30Tim Ferriss?

  all of the things that you're trying to avoid. Yeah. Right? And so for me, also combining, say, extended exercise at some point in, say, the afternoon, gives me a break from my habitual caffeine consumption window, right? So, and if that makes any sense. No, it definitely does. Because as a, as someone who's effectively worked by himself, which I think is problematic in a lot of ways psychologically, for 20-plus years, like, okay, well, I go to a coffee shop, go to a restaurant, and a lot of these places, it's an endless cup of coffee, or it's, and endless refills with iced tea. You gotta get your money worth, right? Yeah, yeah. So you end up, it's like, okay, over a handful of hours, at least I

• 1:00:14Tim Ferriss?

  would, I'd drink like 15 cups of iced tea, or like seven cups of coffee. Strong. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I realized at one point, I went to this, I did this, this retreat at one point, where I had to dial down my coffee and get to the point where I wouldn't have these withdrawal headaches. And then I came back and just went straight back into my normal routine of like inadvertently consuming six cups in a day. And I thought to myself, holy shit, like, is this, was this my normal? Right. No wonder I was so, like, anxious and had so much trouble sleeping. And so for me, this is a long, roundabout way of saying,

• 1:00:55Tim Ferriss?

  You can, you can use all the meditation apps and take all the supplements and do all these things to decrease your anxiety and improve your sleep. Or you can just have like one or two cups of coffee in the morning and not have sex.

• 1:01:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. I would much rather perform a little bit like at a lower intensity in the evening when I work out.

• 1:01:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Than suffer the consequences of having caffeine that late in the day.

• 1:01:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, a lot of, I, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not a former military, but I've spent a lot of time with former military and a lot of guys seem to experience this tired and wired phenomenon where they'll, they'll try to go to sleep and then suddenly they're wide awake.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:01:40Tim Ferriss?

  And they have this surge of cortisol like late at night as opposed to early in the morning when you're evolutionarily designed to have this surge of cortisol so that it liberates glycogen. You get a spike in blood glucose and then bam, you're awake.

• 1:01:57Tim Ferriss?

  And some folks, and I don't know if you've ever bumped into Kirk Parsley, he does a lot of work with guys.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  I know Kirk.

• 1:02:06Tim Ferriss?

  You do.

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Tim Ferriss?

  So he's, he's worked on some interesting concoctions for sleep and you know, phosphatidylserine is not a replacement for cutting back on your caffeine consumption, but can help blunt that cortisol release.

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Tim Ferriss?

  Prior to sleep. Anything else that you found helpful for, for, for sleep or rest?

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  So funny enough, I, I tried a supplement, a magnesium supplement called Calm.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  It had actually worked for me very well. I mean, like I would drink it at, in the evening and I would start to yawn, you know, and actually feel like I wanted to go to bed. And that was such like a, before I kind of went through that initial battery of, of TMS and kind of getting myself back on track, like I could, I don't think I, I couldn't recall the last time I like, I actually yawned and wanted to go to sleep. Like I would force myself to go to sleep because that was just what I was supposed to do when it was really dark and my wife was in bed and the kids were asleep, you know, and I, I'm sitting there wired, like working or just laying on the couch staring at the ceiling.

• 1:03:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  So it was, yeah, pretty interesting. I mean, the TMS definitely like it, I'm like, man, I'm tired, you know? And then I, I turned to that magnesium supplement and it actually, I thought that was pretty helpful.

• 1:03:22Tim Ferriss?

  It's one of the biggest bang for your buck supplements for sleep that I've come across. And there are a million variations of magnesium, three innate citrate, and it is, there are a million different varieties, but the calm product's pretty good. It does have a strong flavor to it, generally.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  The raspberry lemonade, I think.

• 1:03:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's got a strong flavor to it, but it really does help with sleep.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Tim Ferriss?

  And for people who are struggling, that's potentially worth experimenting with. I will add a caveat to that. Then maybe I'm speaking specifically to you, my fellow Americans. More is not necessarily better with magnesium. And if you overdo magnesium, there's an increased likelihood of disaster pants. So just follow your label directions so you don't foul out would be a pro tip. What other rules or practices have you built into your life to either keep? Well, let me ask, ask the question. So you go through the PRTMS, you instill these habits.

• 1:04:33Tim Ferriss?

  Have you had any recurring bouts of challenges with what you might term apathy or depression? Or has that gone away entirely?

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  No, absolutely.

• 1:04:43Tim Ferriss?

  You have had.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not an end all be all. There's no magic pill.

• 1:04:46Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Speaker 03

  You know, what has been, I guess, the most impactful part of that whole experience? You know, beyond the treatment, and probably even more so than the treatment, you know, the first, you know, period of time that I went in for the TMS, I ran into like three or four guys that I hadn't seen in years from the teams, like in the waiting room, you know, and a totally discreet building, like you would never run into anybody there.

• 1:05:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, right. There isn't a Starbucks in the lobby.

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  The lobby conversations with, you know, you know, my boys, like guys that I, I, I served with in the teams, I hadn't seen in forever. Was killer. I mean, like, people, we were in a place, I mean, I think part of it is like, we have mutual respect and trust and loyalty to each other. And you were in kind of a safe place with safe people. To share like very, very similar experiences and like that shared experience and just talking about it. Was probably the most like beneficial part of the entire thing. You know, because I had, I had three or four guys immediately that I could reach out to.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  Uh, and talk to as soon as I felt myself starting to slip.

• 1:06:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  You know, I think, and it also kind of served for me as a, it was kind of that shove in, in the back. To, to open up to some people that, that I was close to that, that weren't, you know, people I served with in the military, you know, my, my wife. Who actually opened up to me and told me that, you know, this wasn't something new. She had noticed it for years. And it was probably a point of contention and, uh. And trouble in our marriage from time to time that we'd had to struggle through.

• 1:06:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. If, if you don't mind, I mean, because of people listening, there, of, of all the people who are listening to this, there, there are going to be people who are like, listening with the fascination of watching like an exotic animal in a. In a zoo where they're like, I've never experienced that. This is interesting. Then there are the people who've experienced it directly.

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Tim Ferriss?

  In some way. Uh, whether it's just down periods, extended funks or clinical depression or really. Extreme varieties of that, which, which we can talk about. And then you have the people who may have not experienced it directly, but they've been affected. Because someone, a close friend, a family member, what was, if you, if you don't mind me asking, I mean, what was it like for your wife? Having this experience with you or Vicar, I mean, being with you while you're going through it?

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, uh. Probably very frustrating for her for years. I think probably a lot of our arguments and not, you know, we love each other. We have a very healthy marriage and, you know, we have two wonderful kids. But, you know, we got, you get into arguments, right? And I think I, you know, there was probably a lot of frustration because she saw me differently. I mean, she even, you know, her own words at times were, you know, you're, you're different. You're, you're not the same person that I married. And I think part of that was probably the separation, right? I mean, there was long periods of time, both in training and then deployment,

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  where we just didn't see each other and you do that repeatedly. I mean, I did it three times. There's guys, you know, from our community and, and other branches of the service that have done it, you know, 12 times, 15 times. And, uh, you know, you know, I thought I knew myself and I, I'm like, I didn't change. I'm the same person. But she kind of watched this and was just frustrated because it was like I, you know, I couldn't see it. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror and see the changes that she saw because she would be removed from me for, you know, eight months. And then all of a sudden, you know, it's like, it's like not seeing your, your six month old for two months.

• 1:08:53Speaker 03

  And the little guy or girl has changed considerably, right? Because you were removed from them and they went through this, this period of transition or change. Um, so, I mean, I, I actually have, I feel terrible that she had to go through it. Uh, and I didn't recognize it. And I think part of it is I just, I probably was in denial. I mean, this is probably another whole, uh, channel of conversation. But, I mean, I, I think society, especially the community that I came from, you know, being in the military and the SEAL teams, like I, I saw it as weakness, right? I didn't even want to think about, like, I don't have a mental health issue. I mean, in society, it's like, it's painted in such a negative light.

• 1:09:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  That, you know, I did everything in my power to A, ignore it, or B, just pretend that it wasn't, wasn't there. Like, don't be, not be honest with myself because I don't want to show weakness.

• 1:09:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, totally. And, and it's, it's worth noting that.

• 1:09:56Tim Ferriss?

  This is not a small issue, whether and by this, we could be talking about depression, but we could be talking about sort of mental health related problems and challenges in, say, the US as a whole, certainly globally, but I'm more familiar with the state of affairs in the US where it's something like 20 to 23 is the range I hear most often veterans commit suicide, is it daily? So I mean, far more loss of life, sort of after service than during Yeah, it's terrible. active service. And last year, if we're taking it outside of the, if we're taking it outside of the

• 1:10:37Tim Ferriss?

  context of the military, but still there's a huge overlap because a lot of returning vets are prescribed, say, synthetic opioids and so on. I mean, you have more synthetic opioid related deaths, I want to say in 2017 than all the casualties of the Vietnam War. Yeah. When you put it in perspective. And these are common issues. They're very common, but the illusion of the perceptual illusion that's created because relatively speaking, few people talk about it publicly. Right. Is that you, if you're feeling depressed or fill in the condition that is stigmatized, you feel maybe uniquely flawed, or you don't want to admit that it's an issue because

• 1:11:21Tim Ferriss?

  you think you're one in a thousand people. Yep. Who would possibly have it, and it's just not the case. Go get a pill and fix it so you don't have to talk to anybody about it. Yeah. And, you know, in some cases, the medications can be incredibly, incredibly helpful. Sure. But at the same time, I think that it's one tool in the toolkit. Right. And a lot of people will be non responders or very short term responders to some of the medications. Some of these alternative tools are, I think, very, very important. So what are some of the signs? Because we were chatting about this last night where I was saying, you know, in my mind, as someone who's seen family members

• 1:12:06Tim Ferriss?

  Really affected by, say, depression specifically. And friends, certainly, I mean, my best friends, just again, to broaden things a little bit. So people realize the pervasiveness of this. It's like, one of my best friends in high school offed himself by the time, before he graduated from college. Best friend from Long Island died of a fentanyl overdose. You know, aunt recently died of alcohol and Percocet, about a year ago, overdose. And two of my best friends in college killed themselves within a few years of graduation. And these are, these are like fancy, I went to some fancy schools, like, that's not, that shouldn't happen.

• 1:12:48Tim Ferriss?

  And so it shows that like, these issues also, like, do not discriminate, right? Because in part, I think they're a byproduct of the human condition, but also a lot of modern societal factors, right? So like, these things don't care how fast you are, they don't care how athletic you are, they don't care how, how much or how little money you have, they don't care what race you are. And that's, that's, that's part of the reason I care so much. And to wind back to what I was gonna ask, because I think it's important, and as context, last night, I was saying that there are, in terms of people who are directly affected by this, there are people who will end up at some point experiencing, say, depression

• 1:13:33Tim Ferriss?

  or chronic anxiety, or something that just feels off, right? They don't feel themselves and they don't know how to get back to themselves. But there are the people who haven't yet experienced that, there are the people who are in the middle of it, sort of in the trough of sorrow, like, there's this period of maybe despair, despondency, apathy. And then there are the people who are in a good place currently, but who dip in and out, right? So you mentioned, like, when you start to see sort of symptoms.

• 1:14:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Tim Ferriss?

  Or like, the telltale signs, like, oh, a storm is brewing on the horizon. What are those for you?

• 1:14:09Speaker 03

  Well, so I think that the people that have experienced it and are willing to talk about it and share, maybe even unsolicited, you know, with people that they know, care about, trust, I mean, I think that's one of the biggest.

• 1:14:26Speaker 03

  Things that we can do to kind of help those people that maybe are ashamed of it, see it as weakness.

• 1:14:32Tim Ferriss?

  Yep.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Because it, I mean, that for me, I mean, it helped me open up and I've had some pretty gnarly people from the teams that I look up to, open up, you know, after having that kind of shared conversation of experiences. So I think that's, that would be a huge part of it is just, you know, the people that are brave enough to share it and not feel like they're exposing themselves as somebody that's weak is, is a big thing. You know, the, the symptoms are different for so many, for, for different people, right?

• 1:15:04Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for you.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  So for me personally, you know, frustration and agitation are probably like the two core kind of telltale signs. So for instance, Tim and you and I would be talking to each other.

• 1:15:19Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  And you might not even be talking over me or interrupting me, but I, I will stop almost as if I'm like, I'm irritated that I'm not getting my thoughts out fast enough. I'm not, I can't kind of finish my train of thought and, and I become visibly agitated and irritated. And my, you know, my brother-in-law that spends a lot of time with me at our, our company, he's, he's been really good at picking up on it. I mean, he's actually, will be in conversations where I know I'm not feeling myself and I might not even, I might, well, I'll say, I'm not feeling myself. I have not even realized that I'm falling into a bad spot. And he'll pull me aside after a meeting and he'll say, hey, man, I,

• 1:16:04Speaker 03

  you just, you, you should take off. Just relax. Like, I got your back. Like, you don't have to be here right now. And, and I think it's because he's recognized that pattern.

• 1:16:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:16Speaker 03

  And it's going to be people that are closest to you, right?

• 1:16:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And, and you know, you, you remind me of, of something just because,

• 1:16:26Tim Ferriss?

  I feel like we have some maybe shared DNA might be put, I mean, as a species, obviously, but the point of maybe is like, I am not able to do one tenth of the things you're able to do, but I do have some shared history in terms of experience with these things, right? And if having a teammate like your brother-in-law to flag things when your self-awareness is kind of dimmed is really valuable. And you don't have to wait for like a guardian angel to fall out of the sky. You can go to your friends and say, look, I just want to, if I could ask you for a favor, I will, I will not get upset. Well, maybe I will a little bit, but I'm giving you permission in advance because you're my friend. Like if you spot

• 1:17:11Tim Ferriss?

  any of these things, or you think I'm really not being myself, please bring it up. Yeah. And like encourage the people closest to you to do that, because they will, you know, sort of like having someone who's specially trained to diagnose certain conditions that you are unable to see yourself. Yeah. It's very, very valuable to have, have those people. So frustration and agitation. The biggest ones, for sure. Yeah. So for me, just for people out there, I mean, this is, and this is something I've had to learn over time is like many, many, let's just say at least three or four days of continuous fatigue, even though I appear to be getting enough sleep.

• 1:17:56Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Is another one. And the, the, the unhelpful response to that is just to say, fuck it, I'm going to double down. Let me have four triple espressos and just power through whatever this is, which magnifies the problem. Your sleep's wonderful then. Yeah. Then your sleep's fantastic and it gets a lot better. That's, that's sarcasm. So kind of flagging that and realizing.

• 1:18:26Tim Ferriss?

  The world's not going to end if you need to take like three hours to go for a long walk. Or to, what I will usually try to do is kind of work up. One historical mistake that I've made is if we're looking at say Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right, you've got physical safety, shelter and all this stuff down at the bottom, food, and then it goes all the way up to self-actualization. I've found it often unhelpful to try to sit down with a journal and figure out like the existential underpinnings of why I'm feeling off. It's like, no stupid, like sunlight, right?

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  Simple stuff.

• 1:19:05Tim Ferriss?

  Simple stuff, right, like sunlight, maybe you get too grumpy if you try what everyone seems to be doing, like intermittent fasting. So you should probably, maybe you should just have a meal when you wake up. Yeah, like, let's, rather than trying to sort of unravel some Gordian knot of like philosophical complexity in your head, which you think is going to solve your problems, maybe you just need like a handful of macadamia nuts and a cold fucking shower. And like, that's actually.

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  Pick it up the next day.

• 1:19:31Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and creating space for that, right, in response to the fatigue, but having that as a red flag and also trying to train people around me or ask people around me, whether it's family member, it's a girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, to flag that.

• 1:19:47Speaker 03

  Well, I think it brings up the, the importance of a strong community.

• 1:19:51Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:52Speaker 03

  You know, not, it might not just be your spouse or your, you know, your family member or your friend, like finding community in something else is a great kind of second line of defense.

• 1:20:05Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

  Or even first line of defense. I mean, I spend a lot of time, you know, climbing and training with people. I probably spend as much time with them as I do at work at periods in my life.

• 1:20:16Tim Ferriss?

  And these are, these are, I should also suggest to folks, because I've voluntarily self-isolated a lot historically. That's just been like, okay, if it's my problem, it's my problem. I don't want to be a burden. I also don't want to be embarrassed, so I'm going to isolate and sort this out myself. Sometimes that works. A lot of the time, it backfires and just exacerbates the problem. So you can, when you're talking about support systems, I know, because I have been this person, that a lot of people out there are like, that's great, but what if, like, I live by myself, I work by myself, I don't have that support structure.

• 1:20:57Tim Ferriss?

  You can actually sort of rent friends and support structure. What I mean by that is that, as one example, humans are weird creatures, and like, we're not all rational actors, even though a lot of economists would love us to be like rational robots, like, doing our various things. It's often not the case. And humans, for instance, will work a lot harder to avoid losing a hundred dollars than they will to earn a hundred dollars.

• 1:21:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:21:26Tim Ferriss?

  And so you can, this is something I've done, which is pre-book group activities, whether that's like a dance class, or a Brazilian jazz class, or fill in the blank, like, some type of group activity, pay for it in advance, so that you're going to feel like a schmuck, and you're going to have that loss aversion. And you've just, you've stacked the deck in such a way that makes it more likely you will not self-isolate, right?

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Tim Ferriss?

  And then you can create that structure. If you don't have it plug and play, ready to go, if you don't have like, five people around you who are immediately available, you can't, it is something you can engineer, is what I'm trying to say.

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I'm lucky in that regard. I mean, I have I have people that I've surrounded myself with that that love me and care about me. Um, and I know that's not the case with everybody. So.

• 1:22:22Tim Ferriss?

  Now, nonetheless, you were at one point with the commercial real estate. It sounds like sort of lone wolfing it.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:22:29Tim Ferriss?

  And even though you had family and so on, you felt isolated.

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:34Tim Ferriss?

  At times, right?

• 1:22:35Speaker 03

  Yes. I isolated myself too.

• 1:22:38Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. So how, how have you corrected that? What, what steps have you taken to correct that?

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I, I think at the time I was rationalizing that I had to work really hard to take care of my family. So I, I was literally, I left the military to be with my family, yet I was ripping myself away from my family. Um, under the, the guise of I'm, I'm doing this for you guys.

• 1:23:05Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:23:06Speaker 03

  So I think it was, it was having to, to man up and realize that it's a cop out. You know, I, I was pretending like I was, it was easier for me just to focus on work.

• 1:23:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  Then to invest in my family, invest in those people that care about me.

• 1:23:22Tim Ferriss?

  So this, this makes me want to return to a question that I would imagine some people have who are listening to this, which is, why did you suddenly have this, this apathy and this depression? Like, what were the causal factors? Like, we're talking about how to address it, but like, why did you go from having none of that as part of your history to suddenly having that?

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Tim Ferriss?

  Experience? Like, what do you think contributed to that?

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  So I mean, it's a multiple factor situation, right? I, uh, you know, you can point to kind of the, the stress, right? Chronic sleep deprivation during military service.

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  I, I did have exposure to, to blast. And I was in two IED strikes, like vehicle IED strikes, um, in 2006. And then, you know, as a member of a SEAL element overseas, we were explosively breaching. So, you know, that concussive element may have had something to do with kind of this later term.

• 1:24:22Tim Ferriss?

  In terms of like TBI, like traumatic brain injury?

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, I think all that stuff. I mean, I mean, lack of sleep is a TBI.

• 1:24:28Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  In and of itself, you don't have to be exposed to an IED blast to have a TBI. I mean, that, uh, Just repetitive, small concussions. I mean, pro athletes, football players, hockey players, you know, have CTE, which is a form of TBI from repeated concussions, you know, both mass, major and minor.

• 1:24:50Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51Speaker 03

  Right? So I think that that all contributed to it. But I think the thing, the most common thread that I've picked up in conversations with other buddies of mine that have transitioned and have felt similar things is this, this kind of loss of community, like loss of brotherhood, like loss of purpose, you know, losing the identity of, of being a member of this team of people that love and care about you and have your back no matter what. And, I mean, will give their life, you know, to protect yours. I mean, it's like, like really heavy,

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  right? I mean, that's the reason, you know, when we lose a guy overseas, I mean, I'm.

• 1:25:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:40Speaker 03

  I mean, I get, I get like a physical reaction to it is like the, the, the pure, like, I call it love now, and I never use the word love either, Tim. Like, I, in most of my life, until recently, I, I, I just rarely use the word love. Never told guys that I served with that I loved them. And I've tried to make a point of, of saying that more often because like you have this deep sense of love. And then all of a sudden, I transition and it's gone.

• 1:26:08Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Speaker 03

  And I don't have any, I mean, you know, I have my wife and I have my kids and I love them and they love me. But like, I don't have that brotherhood anymore. And, and I've talked to more guys that like, they go, you go through this transition, whether it's at retirement or five years into a, a career in the military.

• 1:26:29Speaker 03

  And you miss it. It's like this void in your life. And I think that that is probably, it's probably one of the biggest contributing factors to kind of me going through this, this frame it as depression or whatever. But yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it's taken, it's taken some years of being kind of introspective and unders trying to like ask the why to get to that conclusion. But, you know, it's surrounding myself with more people that I do consider like one of my boys, like a brother that I love and they love me. You know, both at work in kind of my new life and this, you know, in pursuit

• 1:27:10Speaker 03

  of entrepreneurship, but also kind of reconnecting with guys that I served with. I mean, I've probably reconnected with more buddies from the teams in the last two years than I had done in the four years prior to that.

• 1:27:28Tim Ferriss?

  This is worth spending a little bit of time on. One of the things that has helped me quite a bit when I'm feeling, seeing the storm on the horizon, like spotting some of the symptoms or having people point out the symptoms to me, or I shouldn't say the symptoms, like the telltale signs, right? That, that something might be coming, which you can sometimes kind of head off at the pass. I mean, it's not inevitable that when you spot something coming, it has to arrive in full, at least in my experience. And I haven't had, I would say, like, I used to have probably two major extended depressive episodes a year, something like that. And I haven't had anything that I would characterize as a major depressive episode probably in the last four or five years. So like, there

• 1:28:11Tim Ferriss?

  are, there are levers you can pull and systems you can put in place that work really effectively. And, you know, one of them for me, and this ties back to what you were just saying, has been When I'm unsure of, and I'm looking at it through a slightly different lens, but practically, I think they're very similar. When I'm unsure of what to do to get myself back to normal, reaching out to old friends or mentors to say thanks for something, right? Like, somebody from college you were really close to, or someone from high school you

• 1:28:52Tim Ferriss?

  were really close to, childhood, a former coach, a former professor, whoever it is, could be anyone, a family member you haven't talked to in a few years, right? And just reaching out to reconnect and say thanks for something, or to tell them that you love them, or whatever it might be, has a real re-tethering effect. Yeah. That is really grounding. And the fact of the matter is, like, what we take to be normal right now in most modern industrialized countries, and I'm not saying there hasn't been a lot of good that has come from globalization and industrialization. I mean, if you read Steven Pinker's, I think it's Angels of Our Better Nature, a lot of this becomes clear.

• 1:29:35Tim Ferriss?

  Like, we are living, in some respects, in a golden age with respect to all sorts of societal problems and forms of violence and so on that were much more prevalent in pretty much every historical era up to now. That having been said, the nature of, like, hominid cohabitation has sort of been fractured in the last century to a point where what we take as normal, which is this default isolation, and at most nuclear family, sort of cohabitation, is pretty abnormal.

• 1:30:15Tim Ferriss?

  Like, it's sort of like the last page in a 700-page book that chronicles human evolution, right? And so if you want to take, so in a sense, like, feeling depressed, or isolated, or anxious, is a very natural response to unnatural sort of recent developments. Yeah. And if you want to counteract that, you need to develop these sort of countermeasures, right? And be more proactive in creating what A thousand years ago would have just kind of fallen into your lap because it would have been something you experienced in your daily course of living. So, reaching out to people for when I start

• 1:30:57Tim Ferriss?

  feeling myself dip, whatever, however that manifests, very often I'll start reaching out to people I haven't connected with in a long time to say thank you or express my gratitude or love to them in some way. And it's remarkable how much of an effect that has and how quickly the effect can send.

• 1:31:17Speaker 03

  Couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I literally, I've done that recently with a couple of close friends, guys that I was close with, you know, while I was on active duty, I served with overseas, then just hadn't talked to them in years. I mean, seven years. And then all of a sudden, you know, actually having the courage to reach out to them, knowing that, you know, if they really do care about you and love you, they're not going to judge you for the lapse in communication. And that's, I don't think I've, in not a single instance that I've reached out to somebody that I had lost contact with, had they ever kind of received me poorly.

• 1:31:55Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Speaker 03

  And it's awesome, right? I mean, I feel like we didn't skip a beat. You got another friend, you can actually show gratitude for who they are and what they did for you. And it's, it's pretty, it's pretty badass. I mean, it's awesome.

• 1:32:10Tim Ferriss?

  So, speaking of badass, Seth, part of the reason, I was eager and excited to have you on the podcast is, A, I'd heard a lot about you, just as from the perspective of like badass motherfuckery, which I found interesting in and of itself as a, you as high performer, but the, the combination of that and the openness to come on and talk about these things, I really wanted to magnify through the podcast because.

• 1:32:53Tim Ferriss?

  This is not uncommon. And, you know, people who might hear this are, I think, accustomed to, as I have been, as we all are, to seeing sort of the Instagram highlight magazine cover version of other people's lives. So you hear the stories and it seems like these titans of industry, these Navy SEALs, these fill in the blank that you might aspire to be more like, have none of the challenges that you're experiencing yourself. And so it can become very easy to just assume that you're some broken toy without a fix that can lead to a lot of despair and ultimately suicide and all sorts of awful things. And like you said, in certain communities, whether

• 1:33:38Tim Ferriss?

  that's yours, or I have friends in law enforcement, within which they're effectively not allowed to have mental illness or challenges with mental health. Yeah.

• 1:33:54Tim Ferriss?

  These are, in some respects, like the exact places where people feel least likely to, or are open to talking about these things, is where they need to talk about them the most. Absolutely. Right? And so I wanted this to, you know, not just provide, you know, an example of a very high performer who's willing to talk about these things openly, but also to give people some tools and approaches. Yeah. Which you've developed and found, which I've also, over time, it's taken me an embarrassingly long time to fucking figure it out. But I'm hoping to short, you know, having you on will help kind of shorten the learning curve, or steepen the learning

• 1:34:34Tim Ferriss?

  curve for a lot of people. What would you say to folks out there, men and women, because certainly this does not, these types of challenges do not care about gender or anything else. No. What would you say to someone who's really struggling right now? Is there anything else that, or anything that comes to mind offhand that you would, that you would say to them?

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  I mean, I would say you're not alone.

• 1:34:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:58Speaker 03

  Don't, you're not weak. You're not broken. You're not different. You know, I've, I've been through some terrible times dealing with this and I'm dealing with it. I'm not ignoring it.

• 1:35:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:11Speaker 03

  You know, I'm confronting it face on, just like I would anything else.

• 1:35:15Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:16Speaker 03

  Um, and I'm not broken. Like I feel very effective in what I do day to day. And I would say, you know, don't, don't fall victim to kind of the definition that everybody in society has put on. You know, mental illness is, is it being a badge of weakness? Cause it absolutely isn't.

• 1:35:34Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:34Speaker 03

  It just is.

• 1:35:35Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And you know, it's, it's, it's one of those phrases also that it's just.

• 1:35:42Tim Ferriss?

  Could use a rebranding, right? In the sense like mental illness just sounds so bad. It's like, oh, he's, he's fallen, fallen ill with a bout of melancholia or whatever. It's like, oh, wow. All right, what's wrong with that fucker?

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:55Tim Ferriss?

  And whereas it's like, in, in some respects, I mean, you have mental illness, right? But you have mental injury too, right? So there can be, and a lot of people experience these, uh, whether it's single acute events, it kind of, uh, that, that have a traumatic impact and, and, uh, and lead their life to take a 90 degree turn. Uh, or as you, as you put it, there can be these, these repeated, uh, exposures to different types of stressors, whether it's traumatic brain injury or sleep deprivation or otherwise. And in, in some respects, I mean, it's, we, we tend to think about, I think the like mental illness in a very abstract way.

• 1:36:39Tim Ferriss?

  In so much as it's like, oh, there's something wrong with our mind. And therefore it is somehow less legitimate than like an Achilles tendon sprain.

• 1:36:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:36:49Tim Ferriss?

  But the fact of the matter is like the brains and organ, it can be damaged very easily.

• 1:36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:54Tim Ferriss?

  Things like dehydration dramatically increase the likelihood of some type of sort of neuroanatomical injury. I can say from firsthand experience, having done lots of stupid things as a wrestler, cutting tons of weight. And similarly, it's like you wouldn't be ashamed to go to an orthopedist to look at like plantar fasciitis.

• 1:37:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:37:15Tim Ferriss?

  Chronic, right? Or acute, like Achilles tendon tear. Like, no, you wouldn't have any shame associated with that. And similarly, I'm not saying flippantly that you should just brush aside any concerns about how things will be perceived. Because I think that over time, this will become a broader conversation as more and more people come out of the closet, so to speak, with something that I think is actually the, the rule, not the exception.

• 1:37:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:37:45Tim Ferriss?

  Certainly.

• 1:37:47Tim Ferriss?

  That like these are, these are experiences and conditions and injuries that can be rehabbed and they can be prehabbed also. Right? So you can do things to fix it. You could also do things that make you more resilient and less susceptible.

• 1:38:02Speaker 03

  Yep. Well, here I'd say this too, like these issues that we've been talking about. I almost look at them as like the currency that I, you know, I paid, I'm paying for the growth that came out of all these experiences. Right? And people, people talk about post-traumatic growth. I am so deeply thankful for the experiences that I had in service to this country. And I know it's struggle to find another guy that served, guy or gal that served in combat

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  in defense of this nation, that doesn't feel like they are a better version of themselves because of it. And this is, this is a small price to pay. You know, I'll deal with it. It's just like the pro athlete that has, you know, some jacked up knees and shoulders now. But do you think that they would trade all those days of glory competing in athletics?

• 1:39:00Speaker 03

  Because they, they knew that they were going to be injured? Do you think that they would like give up all of that glory for, um, you know, maybe healthier knees and shoulders? I guarantee you, every single one would be like, no, I'm glad. You know what? I'm, I'll deal with it. You know, the experience that I was able to draw and the growth personally that I was able to pull from those experiences, it's, you can't put a price tag on it.

• 1:39:21Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. And I think that's true also for, uh, I think it's personally, I think it's very true for sort of less obvious examples. And by obvious, I mean less

• 1:39:35Tim Ferriss?

  high-profile examples, right? So it's like, I think that if, if I look at, for instance, uh, now that I know them as adults, like some of the mentors who had the biggest impacts on my life. I mean, really, it's kind of a fork in the road. They led me down a much, much better path, uh, type of impact on my life. And I look at the teachers and I look at the writers. Now that I've gotten to know some of these writers personally, I've realized how the, their, their superpowers in some sense were forged like from a lot of their greatest pain and their traumatic experiences. And like without those, they would have been unable to develop the things

• 1:40:21Tim Ferriss?

  that made them who they are and enabled them to actually put a positive dent in the world, which does not mean you have to impact 10 million people or 100 million people or a thousand people. It could just be like your kid.

• 1:40:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:32Tim Ferriss?

  Which is, there's no just, right? That's a big deal. Uh, that your...

• 1:40:39Tim Ferriss?

  Like your gifts are, and I'm not, other people have said this to me, Graham Duncan on the podcast, and quite a few people have said this, because I'm fortunate that people speak quite openly in this forum, that like your, your, your greatest talents are right, they're right next to your greatest pain. Like, they're not diametrically opposed, they're actually integrally related, right?

• 1:41:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:02Tim Ferriss?

  And so, one thing I've tried very hard to do also is to look at some of these experiences, be like, okay, like, I've had some very, very dark periods. How can I make that part, not divorce it from myself, not hate that part of myself, not try to compartmentalize it and lock it away, because I will say, you're, you're going to deal with it, whether you deal with it or not. What I mean by that is, like, you can choose to sort of look at it and, in the light, and incorporate it, and sort of thank it in some ways, for what it's taught you and enabled you to endure, so that you can help other people to do the same. Or you can lock it away, and you can have it manifest in the anger and frustration,

• 1:41:47Tim Ferriss?

  or these, you can have it kind of seep out through the cracks, and deal with it in a much more complicated way. So, so for me, it's, it's, in it, it is in a way, putting on, not necessarily rose-colored glasses, but looking for the silver lining, and trying to look for, like, the gift that is attached to the pain.

• 1:42:07Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Diversity tempers.

• 1:42:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:09Speaker 03

  Right? I mean,

• 1:42:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:42:11Speaker 03

  My, some of my greatest lessons learned, both in the military and outside of the military, have come through, you know, pretty serious failures.

• 1:42:20Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:21Speaker 03

  Um, I mean, I, if you asked me about the, the number of times that I did great things as a leader in the teams, sometimes it's tough to even come, I'm like, I have to actually, like, think very hard about, like, the good things. I mean, I, because, like, the things that resonate with me are those times that I, I screwed something up.

• 1:42:40Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:41Speaker 03

  And I, you know, I got a pretty stern talking to from, you know, the troop commander that was in charge of me, and I, I fixed it, and I moved on, and I grew from the experience.

• 1:42:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Uh, what other, what other habits or tools or, or

• 1:43:02Tim Ferriss?

  Practices have you incorporated that have become more important to you or you've recognized as more important after having these various experiences and realizations, aside from the PRTMS?

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  Um, I think learning to, so not just share my, you know, if I'm feeling off, sharing that with people, I think just being more open and communicating, you know, grief that I've, I've kind of like swallowed and kept kind of hidden away. I think I've, I've lost a bunch of friends in, in combat, but I've also lost some very close family members, my younger brother, a father, and I never, never talked about it, I never talked about them.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  And recently I've, I've been in situations, I probably opening up to people and becoming more, you know, honest and vulnerable with people. I've, I've shared that a lot more openly and it's been one of the best medicines that I've found. I mean, it's almost, it's liberating, you know, talking about grief has been something that's unlocked a lot of happiness for me.

• 1:44:23Tim Ferriss?

  How did you decide to do that? I mean, was there a particular conversation or a particular day when you're like, fuck it, I'm gonna talk about this? I mean, what, if you, if you did it for so long, right? Like what was, what was the catalyst?

• 1:44:37Speaker 03

  I was for, like, so, to be frank, I was kind of forced into it. I belong to entrepreneurs organization, San Diego chapter, and I, I joined about a year and a half ago and put into a forum, like seven, eight guys or gals, all entrepreneurs. And we went on a retreat and in that construct, which is, you know, all in confidence, you know, sharing top and bottom 5% of your life, you know, I shared what we, you call lifeline. So it's an exercise where basically you walk from like, kind of the beginning of your life to where you are present day.

• 1:45:19Speaker 03

  And it almost looks like a, like a cardiogram, right?

• 1:45:23Tim Ferriss?

  Up, down, up, down, up, down.

• 1:45:24Speaker 03

  It's like a seismic, you know, script out. Yeah. So.

• 1:45:31Speaker 03

  I, so I was kind of forced into talking about like, you know, some very shitty times in my life. And talking about losing guys overseas and riding home with a bunch of casements and, you know, putting myself in, uh, you know, putting myself in people, like, like seeing myself in, in some of the guys that it, that died because they were in, you know, very similar places in life. You know, compared to me at the time that we lost them. Um, you know, it wa- it was like the most therapeutic, uh, experience, being forced to share that.

• 1:46:15Speaker 03

  And, and having, you know, uncomfortable, to say the least, and I'm not a very emotional person. But, but it was like the, doing that, being forced into that exercise, has made it so much easier to, to share, like, more openly with people. It's like every time I talk about it, it gets a little bit easier. Yeah. And to the point where now I can actually talk about it and I'm not a mess. Like, I remember the first time I talked about, um, there's a guy, his name was Brendan Looney, that we lost in a, a Black Hawk helicopter crash in September of 2010 in Afghanistan. And he was killed along with eight other US service members. And, uh,

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  every time I talked, and I didn't talk about it for a long time, but I, like, I saw, I saw myself in Brendan. Brendan was newly married, I was newly married, young Naval Academy officer. I went to the same school. And, uh, I, I, you know, I flew home with, with him when, when he went back to, to Baltimore and spent time with his family and got to see, you know, his high school, which was a private Catholic high school, which I went to a private Catholic high school. It was just like, like, it, it resonated with me. It impacted me tremendously. And I, I don't know, I've lost other guys that I've been close to, but for some reason, it was like I, it was almost like watching your own funeral. Um, which was super heavy.

• 1:47:44Speaker 03

  And I just refrained from talking about it. And, uh,

• 1:47:50Speaker 03

  You know, the first time I did start to share it and I talked about it, it was just a complete mess, like, like snot and like, like couldn't stop crying and like, it's just like, I've never, I haven't been like that. I mean, probably the last time I was like that was like at my, my brother's funeral. And, uh, I, I find myself now being able to, I mean, to talk about it, to talk about it in this forum, like, it's almost like I'm comfortable, like, I like, like I'm, I'm dealing with it, instead of just kind of keeping it suppressed. And it's, I think I'm better for it, you know, and I, and actually, talking about it, it keeps, you know, his memory alive. And I think it's

• 1:48:33Speaker 03

  the, it's the, it's the biggest show of gratitude that you can, you can give to somebody that, you know, that has sacrificed at that level, is to keep their memory alive by telling their story and talking about how much they meant to you.

• 1:48:52Tim Ferriss?

  And, uh, you've made so many really important points. Uh, I'd love to just repeat a few of them, because, uh, I want, I want people to remember at least a few things that you, you just mentioned. One is that the expression of grief, how the expression of grief has given you access to greater joy and happiness. Uh, just so I don't sound like I'm interviewing myself, this entire conversation, I'm not gonna get too deep into it, like, I didn't, there was a period of like 25, 30 years when I did not like cry at all. Funerals, you

• 1:49:32Tim Ferriss?

  name it, no crying until about five or six years ago. And accessing that, uh, you know, what I always considered to be a negative or weak or fill in the blank, bad adjective emotion, has unlocked so much of the top line, in terms of the...

• 1:49:56Tim Ferriss?

  Peaks of what you would consider positive emotions?

• 1:49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:59Tim Ferriss?

  It's it's been this entirely unexpected, for me, consequence.

• 1:50:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Tim Ferriss?

  All right, of that. And if people are entrepreneurs, I mean, that seems like reason, just that exercise alone seems like reason enough to join the EO. And I certainly have no dog in that fight. I'm not paid by the EO. But I have, I do know a lot of people who have really, really benefited from the forum structure.

• 1:50:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:27Tim Ferriss?

  And for a lot, it seems like for a lot of people who join something like that, and I'm sure there are many different alternatives out there, I just happen to have been told of the EO forum structure a fair number of times. For a lot of folks, it seems like it's the first time when A, they have the sort of comfort of speaking to a small group of people on a similar path with, in confidence.

• 1:50:55Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:50:56Tim Ferriss?

  Right? Explicit confidence.

• 1:50:57Speaker 03

  You feel protected, right?

• 1:50:58Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, explicit confidence.

• 1:50:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:00Tim Ferriss?

  And second, where they also feel a beneficial level of peer pressure to be fully transparent.

• 1:51:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:08Tim Ferriss?

  Right? And that's an incredible combo.

• 1:51:10Speaker 03

  It's like competitive, right?

• 1:51:11Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:12Speaker 03

  The deeper one guy goes, you want to like one up him or her and go deeper than the next.

• 1:51:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it gives you permission.

• 1:51:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Tim Ferriss?

  It gives you permission. And there's a book for people who maybe struggle with this. There's a book that I have only read bits and pieces of, but I know that it's been tremendously helpful to a few friends of mine who have lost family members and had perhaps not come from highly expressive environments and have really struggled to kind of metabolize the experience on grief and grieving. It's a very generic, boring sounding title, but exceptionally well-developed book for people who may want to explore this.

• 1:51:59Tim Ferriss?

  So that that was the catalyst. That's, yeah, sometimes you need...

• 1:52:04Speaker 03

  A bunch of people that didn't serve in the military and it took them to kind of force me to, to, to deal with things that, you know, I had been suppressing for a very long time.

• 1:52:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's, that's really powerful. Yeah, I think we've, we've covered so much. And I mean, there, there are all sorts of other things we could talk about. Now, I mean, we are going to mention, and I'll mention a number of foundations that, that both active, former military, non-military can look to if they want to support sort of you and your brothers and sisters, both within the SEAL community, outside of the SEAL community. So we'll, we'll talk about that. Are there any other, I want to mention a few sort of adjunct therapies that I think are worth researching for people who are either affected

• 1:52:57Tim Ferriss?

  directly or affected by loved ones who struggle with some of these, these challenges we've discussed. But any, any other resources or suggestions, books you've found helpful, if any, really anything at all that in, in terms of tools, you would, you would recommend to folks. It doesn't have to be fancy. It could be something very simple, like the simple but underestimated in its impact, like the 20 or 30 minutes of sun.

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I mean, so, you know, we, I know we started with, with rock climbing.

• 1:53:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:34Speaker 03

  And that's a big part of my life. I mean, I have a true passion for it. It makes me, it gets me excited. Like, I would much rather do that than go, you know, on a European vacation, you know, staying at the best hotels. Like, I'd rather go sleep in the dirt and go climb boulders someplace. You know, I think it's just finding a, finding something outside of family and/or work that you're just stoked on.

• 1:54:00Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:01Speaker 03

  So, you know, climbing is a big part of my life. I will say this year, a good friend of mine, David Wells, who is a, you know, former pitcher, threw a perfect game as a Yankee, nickname's Boomer. He's a phenomenal human being. He has been there for me through thick and thin, you know, going through some very low points. You know, he's opened up his checkbook to help fund some of these alternative kind of like catalyst treatments. And David took me to a piece of property in Michigan that he owns to go bow hunting. And I grew up gun hunting in Illinois, you know, just for like bird hunting, you know,

• 1:54:46Speaker 03

  normal, you know, normal midwestern hunting and had never picked a bow up. And I'm afraid that I'm like drinking the Kool-Aid because it's like, it's like climbing, like it is, you, it will consume your life. It's like a perpetual pursuit of perfection that you'll never attain. And like, it was super therapeutic for me. It was cool to pick up a bow. And like, you don't have to go out and hunt. You could pick up a recurve or a compound bow and go to the local archery range. And like, the breathing, I mean, I don't even want to pick up guns anymore. Like, I don't shoot, but going into the backyard and shooting arrows

• 1:55:29Speaker 03

  into a speed bag is, was super therapeutic. I mean,

• 1:55:35Tim Ferriss?

  I'll second that. Hugely therapeutic. I do think the breathing is a big piece of it.

• 1:55:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:40Tim Ferriss?

  You really have to pay attention to sort of the rhythm of the process.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:46Tim Ferriss?

  Right? And there's also something, not to stretch too far, but there's something innate, you know, over, let's call it hundreds of thousands of years, it might be more, sort of evolution, that has made holding and practicing with a bow gratifying on a level that sort of exceeds, like, it's more than the sum of its parts, if that makes sense.

• 1:56:12Speaker 03

  It's kind of like, it's like a tie back to like, the warrior roots, right?

• 1:56:16Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:18Speaker 03

  I mean, I would, you know, I'm a total novice, like, you know, the target needs to be like, 20 yards from me, for me to be like confident I'm hitting anything.

• 1:56:28Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:28Speaker 03

  I'm no Tim Ferriss.

• 1:56:29Tim Ferriss?

  Well, no, no, no, no. I'm definitely, this is yet another example of where I've stalled at Blue Belt.

• 1:56:38Speaker 03

  So I would say that, and this is something else that I wanted to, you know, say before we left today is I, you know, I had the honor of serving with some of the most brave human beings that were not Navy SEALs during my time overseas in combat, like in Iraq in 2006. I served with both 32 and 35 Marine Corps infantry units and, I mean, was able to like stand in combat with some of the most heroic human beings ever. And there's a lot of those guys and gals out there. I just, I don't want, you know, the SEAL teams

• 1:57:19Speaker 03

  and SOF in general is in the spotlight a lot, for better or for worse. And there are so many people out there that have served this country with, you know, more courage and honor than, you know, you know, I could ever, can admit to, to serving, you know, during my own time. That I, I want to make sure that they, people understand that, that there's a lot of remarkable human beings out there. And, you know, my hope is that, you know, being honest today allows, you know, some of those folks out there that are

• 1:58:00Speaker 03

  total badasses to be able to come forward and, and, you know, talk to their, their buddies and, and, you know, keep themselves healthy.

• 1:58:09Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and their families.

• 1:58:10Speaker 03

  And their families. And you know what? We're lucky within the SEAL community. We have a lot of benevolent support through great organizations. And I just, I just don't, I think it would be a tragedy for these other, you know, veterans to not receive that same type of support. So it's just, it's, you know, I, I consider myself like a conventional SEAL. Like I, I served a lot in daylight combat and alongside conventional efforts during General Petraeus's counterinsurgency doctrine. And, you know, I just, that's where, you know, kind of my, my heart and soul as a SEAL was, was serving on the battlefield during the day with, with very brave men.

• 1:58:56Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I'm so glad that we were able to do this in person for a million reasons. And let me mention a few organizations that people can take a look at if they would like. And I've had some exposure to a number of these. So the Navy SEAL Foundation, which is a four-star nonprofit on Charity Navigator, which we could discuss in a separate time, but you can check out the Navy SEAL Foundation at NavySEALFoundation.org. There's also the C4 Foundation, which supports active-duty SEAL families. It's C for, letter C, number four, Foundation.org. And I will link to all these in the show notes, so people don't have to scribble down notes. So I'll come to the URL for that in a minute.

• 1:59:40Tim Ferriss?

  But Special Operations Warrior Foundation is another, and the Station Foundation. I want to mention a few other things, and these will all be in the show notes at tim.blog/podcast, where you can just search Nick Norris, and all of this will pop up, of course, links to everything. People who are interested in a few other adjunct options, potentially for, say, treatment-resistant depression, I would encourage to take a look at. It's not a panacea. There is some addictive potential, so you should read the indications, speak with a doctor, but ketamine can be one very powerful tool, particularly if you are at a point

• 2:00:25Tim Ferriss?

  where you're suffering from the very bottom, meaning suicidal ideation, is one tool that has proven from a research perspective and is legal and available in clinics around the United States. And was only actually recently approved for nasal administration as well. I think is very worth investigating for people who are really in a dark place or know someone who is.

• 2:00:57Tim Ferriss?

  There's a documentary called Trip of Compassion, which I just put out. I do not make any money from it. I did it pro bono to help get this film out, which covers specifically addressing PTSD. And using tools, including psychotherapy and MDMA, there are some veterans in that documentary. And that's also a therapy that is currently going through phase three trials. So people who are interested in learning more about that can go to maps.org and look for the phase three trials related to MDMA assisted psychotherapy. Nick, people can find you on Instagram, @nick_underscore_ Norris1981.

• 2:01:41Tim Ferriss?

  And your company, which I would have already mentioned at this point in the introduction as well. Can you just give us a short description of your company?

• 2:01:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we have a sunscreen company called Amavara. And we invented a zinc oxide only product that we have some provisional patents pending on. So basically, it's a healthy sunscreen, healthy for you and the environment. And the differentiator for us is that we've solved all the poor aesthetic issues that zinc has. Typically, it makes your skin white. It feels terrible. It's thick and greasy. We have a product that goes on dry and clear and is super gnarly, water resistant. So if you're an athlete, I mean, we're endorsed and partnered with the North Shore Lifeguard Association out of Hawaii.

• 2:02:31Speaker 03

  So like kind of the special operations of the lifeguard world. I mean, I have a profound level of respect for those guys. I mean, they put themselves in situations that I can't even imagine. And they've used our stuff and it's the only sunscreen that those guys use, so.

• 2:02:50Tim Ferriss?

  And I have a bunch at home as we speak. And people can learn more about that at amavara, A-M-A-V-A-R-A dot com. Do you have any closing comments, requests, anything at all that you'd like to say before we wrap up?

• 2:03:07Speaker 03

  I mean, I just, I appreciate you giving me the platform to, to share this. You know, if anything, I mean, we talked a little bit about it yesterday, you know, hopefully it's a message of hope. And hopefully relabeling PTSD and mental illness and whatever other label people have placed on, on these issues.

• 2:03:31Speaker 03

  Relabeling them in a positive light and looking them at them as a, you know, it's a currency that, that people have paid for some great personal growth in other areas of their life.

• 2:03:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think I, I feel very confident that certainly if we discard my, my long-winded soapbox moments, I think you did, I, I think that you delivered upon that really well today. And I do think it's, it's a message of hope. That's why I wanted to have this conversation and record it and share it. And

• 2:04:05Tim Ferriss?

  the fact of the matter is, you know, if, if, if so many people, not just you, like you're one example of someone who's been a, at the top of, of many different disciplines and I know scores more, some of whom are, are still too embarrassed or unwilling at this point, which is totally fair to talk about it publicly. But if, if people who are at those levels are experiencing these things and contending with them, just as hundreds of thousands or millions of people are who are listening to this, there doesn't have to be on top of the challenge, which is manageable and addressable

• 2:04:44Tim Ferriss?

  of developing the habits and putting together the group activities and maybe joining a forum and so on. You don't have to add shame to that to solve list. That's, it's, it's not just unhelpful, it's unnecessary.

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  If anybody shames you or looks at you in a negative light because you've come forward.

• 2:05:10Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:11Speaker 03

  They, they, you probably don't have any room in your life for them.

• 2:05:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. This is, this is really.

• 2:05:18Tim Ferriss?

  Especially after speaking and writing publicly about this, the, the number of people who've come forth to me publicly and in private, the types of people, the, the broad spectrum from sort of private, say, you know, single mom, all the way up to Fortune 500 CEO, leads me to believe that the, these are challenges which are the, the norm.

• 2:05:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:05:49Tim Ferriss?

  And that there need not be any shame in it, and there are tools that can help. And I think that, you know, hopefully, there, there are others out there who are also having these conversations, but at the very least, you being willing to come on and talk about this means a lot to me. Certainly, I mean, I could have used hearing you at many points when I was struggling in college and at other times, and so hopefully it'll catch, catch some folks and show them that, you know, not only there's their light at the end of the tunnel, but there are very practical steps you can take, tools you can use that can aid you along the way.

• 2:06:29Speaker 03

  I'm here for you, buddy, if you need me.

• 2:06:31Tim Ferriss?

  Thanks, brother. Likewise. And to everybody listening, I'll mention again, the show notes will have links to everything that we discussed at tim.blog/podcast. You can just search Nick Norris and the episode with all links will pop up. And until next time, thank you for listening. Be safe, stress inoculate, pay attention to sleep, and see you next time. Hey, guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend?

• 2:07:13Tim Ferriss?

  And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. In the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

• 2:07:58Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Last year, I focused on dramatically improving a few things. Surprise, surprise. Most notably, the quality of my sleep, which seems to affect just about everything. This led me to revisit, you name it, my daily routine, morning routine, exercise, diet, all the way to what I slept on. And I ended up getting all new beds here in Austin, Texas, including mattresses from Helix Sleep. Helix has built a sleep quiz that takes two minutes to complete and they use the answers to match your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress. Whether you're a side sleeper, hot sleeper, cold sleeper, or you like plush, you like firm, with Helix, there's no more guessing or confusion.

• 2:08:39Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:09:24Tim Ferriss?

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• 2:10:09Tim Ferriss?

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