113. Shawn Ryan: Beating Addiction, Military Industrial Complex, Trump Presidency Outlook

Former Navy SEAL & CIA operative Shawn Ryan opens up about his journey from elite warrior to rock bottom and back. Watch as he shares his battles with PTSD, addiction, and near-death experiences - and the unconventional path that saved his life. Plus, insights into the military-industrial complex and why traditional veteran care is failing. A must-watch for anyone interested in mental health, healing trauma, or understanding what really happens when the uniforms come off. Listen to "The Shawn Ryan Show" - New episodes Mondays! YouTube: https://bit.ly/4flFHrc Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4fITrfH Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4fpG58o Join Shawn Ryan's "Vigilance Elite" on Patreon for exclusive content!: https://bit.ly/3CixZQ5 Connect with Shawn Ryan: Website: https://bit.ly/4hJRPnt Instagram: https://bit.ly/3YOCmKu Facebook: https://bit.ly/48EXcAl TikTok: https://bit.ly/3UKdMsF X.com: https://bit.ly/3UO39VR LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3UIJTsO 00:00 ​Intro of Show and Guest 04:24 ​Impactful Guests on Shawn Ryan’s Podcast 07:15 ​Difference Between US SEAL Teams 10:00 ​Preparedness for (and Experiences on) Real-Life Combats 22:10 ​Misconceptions and Underestimation on Afghan Armies 28:10 ​Operation Red Wings 30:30 ​War is a Business 33:25 ​The Control of Big Food and Big Pharma 37:07 ​Trump: War Would be Done before I Step into Office 39:45 ​How Will the Ukraine War End? 41:18 ​United States’ Involvement in Wars 45:55 ​Shawn’s Experience on PTSD and Operator Syndrome 54:25 ​Experience in Medellin and Battling with Addiction 1:00:29 ​What Pushed Shawn to Get Help 1:06:55 ​Psychedelic Therapy and Ibogaine Experience 1:20:05 ​Experience of Dying 1:28:17 ​Shawn’s Belief in God 1:31:52 ​Profound Realizations being on Death Bed 1:33:18 ​Losing His Addictions after the Experience 1:35:32 ​Shawn’s Friend that Went through the Same Psychedelic Experience 1:38:17 RFK Jr.: FDA’s War on Public Health is about to End 1:40:56 ​What Does This Election Mean to Shawn Ryan? 1:49:15 ​A Day in the Life of Shawn Ryan 1:54:13 ​Final Question: What does it mean to you to be an “Ultimate Human?” GET GARY'S WEEKLY HEALTH & LIFESTYLE TIPS! https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU EIGHT SLEEP - USE CODE “GARY” TO GET $350 OFF THE POD 4 ULTRA: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E BODY HEALTH - USE CODE “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD – 91 ESSENTIAL MINERALS IN EVERY PINCH!: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa STRENGTH TRAINING EQUIPMENT - TAKE YOUR STRENGTH TO THE NEXT LEVEL!: https://bit.ly/3zYwtSl COLD PLUNGE - DIVE INTO OUR LINEUP: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp KETTLE & FIRE BONE BROTH - USE CODE “ULTIMATEHUMAN” FOR 20% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/3BaTzW5 SHOP GARY'S AMAZON PICKS: https://theultimatehuman.com/amazon-recs Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM ET on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Connect with Gary Brecka: Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H X.com: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. It is not intended for diagnosing or treating any health condition. Always consult a licensed healthcare professional before making health or wellness decisions. Gary Brecka is the owner of Ultimate Human, LLC which operates The Ultimate Human podcast and promotes certain third-party products used by Gary Brecka in his personal health and wellness protocols and daily life and for which Ultimate Human LLC and / or Gary Brecka directly or indirectly holds an economic interest or receives compensation. Accordingly, statements made by Gary Brecka and others (including on The Ultimate Human podcast) may be considered promotional in nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Pharmaceutical companies and the food companies basically paying off the FDA politicians to vote a certain way. Same thing with war. Vote this way, we want to prolong this war, we're going to develop more supplies for it. It just makes you wonder if any of the elites have our best interests at heart because in our industrial food supply, the majority of our nutritional research is funded by Big Pharma. I don't think it's about ending it, but it's business. You were dealing with some pretty heavy mental illness. It's still just not in vogue to ask for help. Everything that you've worked so hard to accomplish, you're at the apex of what you do, and now, nobody cares because you're not in that anymore. There goes my whole identity. You have to learn how to reinvent yourself. They call it an ego death.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Tens of thousands of our military men and women that are permanently on the chemical hamster wheel, which is further destroying their life. Why are we preventing people from accessing these kinds of therapies? What really did the trick was psychedelics. The most profound experience of my entire life, and I don't say that lightly. For you and military men and women that are in your group, what does this election mean to you? Part of the reason we got to where we were is because people in this country are scared to...

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Today, we are thrilled to have a remarkable guest on the Ultimate Human Podcast, Sean Ryan. Sean's journey is one of resilience, purpose, and relentless dedication. From his days as a Navy SEAL and a CIA contractor, to becoming a powerful voice in the veteran mental health community. Through his acclaimed show, The Sean Ryan Show, he's given a voice to the raw experiences of veterans shedding light on PTSD and the healing potential of alternative therapies like psychedelics. Today, Sean will take us deeper into his story. He's going to share the profound ways that his spiritual journey, mental health advocacy, and commitment to self-resilience have shaped his life and his mission. Join us as we uncover powerful insights into what it truly means to be an ultimate human. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything wellness, longevity, anti-aging, biohacking, and everything in between. And every once in a while, I am blessed enough to have a truly iconic guest on the podcast, not just a guest that is known to the world, but a guest that has had experiences in life that are just so uncommon, but yet so profound. And today is one of those rare moments on the ultimate human where we get to have a really, really impactful guest with an incredibly special and not very common background. Welcome to the podcast, Sean Ryan.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Hey, thank you. It's an honor to be here.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  It's an honor to have you, man. You know, you know, military icon, you know, your, the work that you do for veterans, the awareness that you brought to post-traumatic stress disorder, and even being very authentic about your own journey. You know, I find it very, very inspiring. And, you know, if you've ever watched my podcast, and my audience knows, and it sounds like I'm just repeating the same old line, but so often the people that I have on this podcast that I feel are making the greatest impact in the world are people that have solved a problem in their life. Right. And whether it's post-traumatic stress disorder, or, you know, alcohol addiction, or a relationship issue, or they had chronic Lyme disease, or whatever it was, and they,

• 3:37Speaker 01

  and they solved that issue. And because of that journey, they're making a massive impact in the world. And I think you are definitely one of those people that turned a very storied, you know, military career into an impactful message. And I, and I just want to say on the eve of Veterans Day, what, Veterans Day is the 11th, what's today?

• 3:59Speaker 00

  The 8th.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  The 8th. Okay. So it's March 8th. I mean, it's, I can't think of a more impactful guest to have on the podcast. So I'm just, I'm so excited. And sometimes, you know, I tell my, I tell my friends and family this all the time. Like, I don't feel like I work a day in my life because I really get to sit down with inspiring people like, like yourself. And so I've watched a lot of your podcasts. I mean, lots of people have watched a lot of your podcasts. And this is a very self-serving question, but of all these incredible military stories, incredible feats that you've had on your podcast.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  What is the biggest standout for you? If there was?

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Guest wise or or or subject wise?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I would say let's do guest wise and then let's go into subject wise.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  I mean, guest wise, military guys, man, there's so it's.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  There's so many, that's what I was saying.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  That's hard. That's a really hard.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  We were actually just talking about the the sniper that did a 2.1 mile shot. And and and made a kill. I mean, these are the kinds of stories you'll find on this podcast. If you're not familiar with Sean Ryan, you should be. And just the infinite amount of complexity of that, you know, 10 10 second bullet trajectory. But you've had so many of these icons on and you even started a foundation to preserve these stories.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Right? I didn't start a foundation. I help with a couple of different nonprofits. But I think the I think there's been a couple. There's been a lot of really big impactful stories on the show. So I don't want to. I don't want to say my favorite one.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because that doesn't sound good.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  But some of the most impactful ones that I think there were was earlier on in my podcast, I had this guy on DJ Shipley, SEAL Team Six guy. Really like poured his heart and soul out and I mean, talked about his suicide attempts, talked about his infidelity and the challenges that his wife and him went through, talked about. He talked about a lot of stuff that that that that that is really important that it's it's a peek behind the curtain that nobody gets to look at. And another guy that I think is is you got to meet DJ, by the way, you guys would get along.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 6:21Speaker 00

  Really good.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Is he a science nerd?

• 6:23Speaker 00

  He's a he's a health nerd.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Is he? Okay, he's my guy then.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  And a beast.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  But another guy, Tom Satterley, one of my favorite humans on the planet. He was. He was a Delta guy. I'm sure you've heard the story about Black Hawk Down back in Mogadishu. And he is, a lot of people say that kind of the main character in that movie was Tom. Tom was a really junior Delta guy at the time and, and went through that. Talks about it very, very in-depth, very detailed and, and served all the way through. You know, O E F O I F and just a, uh, just a awesome human being.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  But, but there's been, there's been a, there's been a ton of.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Cause I always wonder, you know, when you see these elite special forces and you were SEAL Team Two and SEAL Team Eight, right? And for folks that don't know the difference, I mean, we always hear SEAL Team Six, but what, what are the difference between the, the, the different SEAL teams? And what are the, what are the numbers really indicating a specialty?

• 7:32Speaker 00

  So the, yeah, the numbers, so you go through BUDs, everybody, you go through BUDs, you go through S Q T. Everybody becomes a SEAL and then, so all the odd number teams are on the West Coast. All the even number teams are on the East Coast out of Little Creek, Virginia or Dam Neck.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  West Coast teams are all out of Coronado, California. And then there's an S D V team that's out of Hawaii and that's the, like the mini submarines. But, and then SEAL Team Six, so you get through, you go to a regular SEAL team. And either go east or west coast or Hawaii. And then you, I don't know what it is now, but you used to, you could basically kind of do one enlistment or two platoons. Two platoons means two deployments. And so after you do two deployments, then you can screen to go over development group. And so screening is, is, it's kind of a series of things. It's an interview with your current

• 8:32Speaker 00

  command. It's, it's a physical fitness test. It's a, it's a you go interview over a, a development group and, and, and they kind of see, you know, if they think that you would be a good fit. And so that's, that's, if you're going to make it a career, that's the next step.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  And what is that? What is that kind of career? When you say be a good fit, be a good fit to continue being a SEAL?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Well, so when you go to development group, you go through a whole nother training course as well. So, so, um, so you go to the SEAL teams, you, you do your deployments and then basically you try out, it's a tryout for the next level.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 9:15Speaker 00

  So, yeah, so.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  So there's another level above like the SEALs.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  There's like the ultra SEALs.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  I mean, pretty much.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  They're like super SEALs. Um, you know, I, I, I've, I've heard you, um, you know, talk about some of your real world, um, experience. One in particular was Haiti, I believe where you guys were, um, you know, patrolling at very low altitudes and the, I mean, Hollywood has kind of sensationalized that, but, um, this was a very troubled part of the world. Um, you know, at that period of time and a very ruthless part of the world. And I don't think that they really wanted us to, to, to be there. Um, and can you talk a little bit about that experience for, you know, for folks that have never actually faced combat experience? Um, to me,

• 10:03Speaker 01

  it's fascinating because I, I feel like you can train yourself for just about anything, but I would imagine that no mission goes exactly like you, you plan. I mean, you, you, you have to find yourself in a place of the unknown. Um, and this place of the unknown has got to be one of the darkest, most frightening places because usually the types of unknowns that someone with your career would find would be things that could end your life.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  Right?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  It's a metaphor for business and it's a metaphor for life. It's a metaphor for relationships. Because you know, like when a mother has a baby, there's no manual on how to raise the child. When you know, when you get into a marriage, there's no manual on how to have a good marriage. We start a business, there's really no step by step manual on how to grow a business. And we, I think in life, we find ourselves in so many places of the unknown. Like we started out with one intention. You guys go in with one mission.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  And then holy shit, things don't go as planned.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  And maybe my exit strategy is now I don't have it any longer. And the support that I thought I was going to have is no longer with me. And you know, I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit about when, when your training takes you to a place where you're outside of your background, you know, and you're prepared. I'm excited to offer you free access to my premium membership, the Rule Brecka. As a Rule Brecka, you'll be able to join me for monthly Q and A sessions, VIP access to all the challenges I host and advanced access to my most exclusive content. To get your free 30 day trial of Rule Brecka, head over to joinrulebrekkas.com.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  That's joinrulebrekkas.com right now. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  In training, you want to talk about? No, I want to talk about it in real life, real combat. Okay. Cause you're, you're one of the few that's actually seen real, real combat. And, and I was listening to some of your, you know, your Haiti stories and them. And they were just terrifying about, you know, how roadside bombs were taking out your guys and, and you're flying at very low levels, which is very dangerous. You know, I imagine small arms fire could get to you at those, at those levels. So I mean, you're, you're in a constant state of fight or flight.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  I'd love it if you could talk about a situation that you found yourself in where you were truly in that unknown. Like, I didn't expect this.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Maybe I didn't train for this. Maybe the exit I planned is cut off and now what, what do I do?

• 12:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, there's a lot of those. Um, so.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  I was hoping there was only like one or two, but.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  No, there's a lot of them. But, uh, yeah, you know, I actually, um, I didn't, I didn't do a whole lot in Haiti. It was, um, it was 2004. There was a lot of civil unrest there. Um, Aristide was the president at the time. He got yanked out. Wasn't me. I would have loved to have yanked him out.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of your guys yanked him out?

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it was, I think it was Team Six.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  But, um, we were basically going to all these outer cities in Haiti, uh, to kind of get a pulse on what the rest of the country was like. Outside of Port-au-Prince, the capital. And it was just, there was, I mean, no shots were fired. But a lot of prisons, uh, were not functioning and prisoners were, you know, criminals were just everywhere. There were a lot of bodies, uh, kind of floating around and stuff on the shore. But, but the majority of my combat stuff was all Afghanistan, Iraq, uh, Yemen. And so what's one I haven't talked about in a while?

• 13:53Speaker 00

  We did this one, I was at, um, this is actually when I was at the CIA. We were at a, I think it was around 2012 timeframe. I don't know how.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause after the SEALs, you went into the CIA.

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So around 2012 timeframe, there, I don't know how closely you followed the war, but there was a area of Afghanistan. It was supposed to be the, what was basically getting ready to happen there. It was going to be the biggest, uh, offensive push by the US Marine Corps since Fallujah. And everybody knows, everybody knows about Fallujah. Fallujah was, um, by far the bloodiest, deadliest, uh, battle of, of both, both those wars. And so. Big push to go and, um, and kind of push Taliban, Al Qaeda out of, out of, uh, the cities there.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  When you say push them out of the cities, you're going in to kill them.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, not me. I'm, I'm agency.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  No, you've never heard anybody.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Way back.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  No, you're.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  No, we're back behind.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  We're in the thick of it, but, but, you know, we are, that's not my job anymore, you know, is, is to go in and, and do that. Honestly, it never was. That's more of a infantry, uh, conventional type operation, but, but anyways, uh, before that push, uh, even got, kind of got started, it was just a couple of teams of us, uh, embedded down there to, to do surveillance and do some liaison stuff with, with the local government down there. And in, in basically just collect intelligence and so, but one thing that we, we kept fucking up. Can I say that on here?

• 15:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can say fucked up.

• 15:45Speaker 00

  Uh, so there's, there's some things when you're working intelligence or, or surveillance that are just, it's just a no-go. Don't ever be time, place predictable. Don't, don't take the same routes. Don't take the same routes at the same time. Don't, don't have different routes into wherever you're going. And when I had gotten there, uh, there was just a big bombing. It was horrible. A lot of, a lot of agency personnel died. Basically they had a double agent come in, uh, present a fucking birthday cake to the chief of station. A lot of, a lot of people at the agency get like kind of attached to, to their assets. And, um, emotionally.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And he was a true double agent.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  So he was trusted by the CIA.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  The cake. Yep.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  And, but he was. And he took himself out too?

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, and he took out, took out all the leadership, took out.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Took, took a lot of people out. And, uh, so that had just happened when I showed up here and I'd, I'd said, hey, we're time and place predictable. The fuck are we doing?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  And, um, of course, nobody wanted to listen because, um, when people like me come around for those type of operations, a lot of times I think we get in the way, but there's a reason we're there. That's why. And, um, nobody wanted to listen. Next morning we got up. Boom, uh, there's like a hundred and something Taliban fighters on the other side of the river. They know exactly where our compound is. So they, they started hitting the compound. We're in a little house.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Woke up in the morning, you're in a little house.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  A hundred heavily armed fighters out there.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  And shots just start coming through the house and uh, there's only a couple of us. And so, uh, the, the reason we knew there was a, over a hundred Taliban fighters is because, uh, we had drones on station and they were reporting in. And so, um,

• 17:45Speaker 00

  that wound up going until about midnight, uh, that night, they started maneuvering around. They, they got in this big, uh, probably 10, 15 story building, started shooting at us from over there. And, um, nobody would come get us. So.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I thought, that's a, that's a great question.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  But, uh, it just wound up being, wow, we didn't have a lot of supplies.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Meaning a lot of bullets.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Bullets. Oh, we didn't have a lot of anything. And, uh, yeah, so it was a lot of switching, switching out people on the roof and, and burning classified materials and thinking, holy shit, we're gonna fucking die here. I knew this was coming. We were time and place predictable and, uh, the, the British actually wound up coming in around midnight to, to get our asses out of there.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  British special forces.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Just British army, not British special forces, the big, the big machine rolled through the town and, uh, got our asses out of there.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Wow. Now, how do you, how were you communicating with them? I mean, how did radios, sharing intelligence, you were with?

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Well, there was a, so remember there were, they were getting ready for the biggest offensive push, uh, since Fallujah. So there was, there were some Americans around. There was a big, uh, there was a big, uh,

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Kind of ISAF base.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Uh, close by that had Polish special forces. Uh, those guys were going out, getting some like every night, multiple times a night.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Really?

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Uh, and then, and then.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Just getting engaged.

• 19:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, they were. I don't know what they were doing.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  But they were going out a lot.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:32Speaker 00

  And, and, um, and then, uh, was big Brit base. So the British, British army came in and pulled us out of there.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  But, but, uh, when I could go in.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  But they were, you were able to hold off a hundred armed soldiers for on dusk, I mean, daylight to date.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  It wasn't like, it wasn't like they were like right outside the door, you know, we couldn't, we couldn't even see the hundred Taliban fighters who were amassing on the other side of this river.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 20:05Speaker 00

  That we were on. It was, it was, we started taking contact. Then they started, then they infiltrated that building that I was telling you about. There were, you can find this. I should find the clip and send it to you.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  But, um, but, uh, they were hitting us from that building and then they were sending teams around. Kind of this neighborhood. We were kind of like in a, it sounds weird, but it's the only way to really describe it, uh, in terms that Americans would. Be able to kind of understand it. It would be kind of like a, a small gated community, but we only have one little section of it. And, uh, so they were, they had guys coming around the walls, like trying to figure out exactly, you know, which little area was ours. And then, and then when they pinpointed it, they got on that massive building and started shooting RPGs, um, small arms fire.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  RPGs?

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, they, they sent the local, um.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  We sent some Afghan forces to go try to take care of it and they're dropping grenades off the top story of the building, um, trying to kill those guys who were coming up to get them and, and, uh, yeah. Wow. And, and you know, I think for people that weren't really close to that war, following that war, I mean, most of us get our information from the media, which is probably 2% of that is accurate. Yeah. I'm giving them a, I'm giving them a win. Generous. Yeah, I'm giving them, I'm just kidding. I'm giving them a win, you know, um, I'm feeling kind of bad for him in the wake of what just happened. So. Oh, don't feel bad. Yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  You haven't sent any flowers out to? No. Dear, no? I'm trolling all the, uh, mainstream now. I know. Or the legacy media. Earlier. I like trolling them now. Yeah. You've never watched, you've never watched so much MSNBC in your life, have you? No.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  That's okay. If you gloat over the, over the meltdowns, it's all right to, it's all right to take, take a victory lap. But, um, you know, when, when I, I think a lot of times, you know, over here, you know, the populace thinks of, you know, the Afghan armies, you know, they're like a bunch of just ragtag kids, you know, with the bandana, barely know how to shoot a gun, you know, they're probably working in the supermarket and then at night they're fighting and, and, um, you know, as, as I watch your podcast and hear some of the stories and they're a lot more sophisticated and, and, and even a lot more trained, um, than, than I think the, the average person believes that they are. I mean, it's, I, I

• 22:42Speaker 01

  think the average person, they see a lot of these videos on TV. Nobody's in the same uniform. Their trucks aren't, you know, perfect governmental vehicles. Everybody's kind of hanging on the back of a pickup truck and it just looked like a bunch of loosely gathered drinking buddies with a, with a rifle, but it's not like that. No. I mean. Not at all. I mean, you gotta, you, I think of, uh, something that Americans, uh,

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Grossly underestimated is, is, um,

• 23:13Speaker 00

  is the Afghan army and, and the people that are fighting over there. And I think where they really mistake it is just because those people don't have, you know, they, they live without a lot of things, doesn't mean they're fucking stupid. Or doesn't mean they're not effective. And so, you know, I think a lot of Americans are like, oh, that's, that guy dresses like that. He doesn't have the proper equipment. He doesn't, he can't bullshit, man. Those people are extremely resourceful. Uh, they're very intelligent and, and, and they're very effective. And

• 23:49Speaker 01

  And I think that's a huge misnomer, right? That they're just a bunch of dumb hillbillies.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Well, there's also the experience too. I mean, you can take, you can take a guy like me that spent 14 years in and out of there. Well, 14 years in and out of there is nothing compared to just 14 years straight or over 20 years straight. Or, or some of these older village elders that have been there since the Russians invaded and been through that. And then now all the way through this. I mean, I come home, you know, I do a six month deployment. I come home, the agency, I go 45 days, maybe 60 days, come home. Those, they live there for 20 years. They don't, they don't go on vacation.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  They don't go home to their families back in the States where everything's fine. They're just gaining all of that experience throughout those years. So their commandos are more experienced than ours.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Wow. I think that's a real level set as to what we face because I, I think it was always shocking when we would hear these stories of mass casualties or so many, you know, of our, our, our military men and women, you know, not coming home. You go, how, how are we not just steamrolling over these people? I mean, we're the largest military force on the globe. We're the most sophisticated. We're the highest, highest trained. And then we, we, this should have been a, you know, virtual walk in the park. Is that a lot of, because there's also a political war keeping you guys from doing what you really need to get done? Or is it because they were a lot more formidable than, than you thought, or than, than our, than our military brass thought?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Can you, can you, so like I'm seeing like where we, were we, did we underestimate them? Is basically what I'm saying, you know, or I, I've also, again, through your podcast, I've seen a lot of stories where the guys on the ground, the, the, the fighting forces wanted to finish a job, but for political reasons, they had, they couldn't engage, or they were redirected somewhere else. And, and it, you know, it seemed like there was this tug of war between the command at the very, very top, sort of running things maybe out of Washington. And I don't profess to be a military scholar by any means, but you know, running things out of Washington, you know, and then what was going on in the

• 26:20Speaker 01

  ground. And sometimes we just didn't give our guys the authority to just finish the job. Yeah. Would you agree with that?

• 26:27Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah. I think.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  And is that part of why I just drug on and drug on and drug on?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Well, I think it drug on and drug on because war is a business. But in the beginning, I mean, I don't think, it's hard to say. I would say that the, that the disconnected upper brass of the military, the, the DC crowd definitely underestimated the capabilities.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Guys that are actually on the ground experiencing what's going on may be underestimated at the very beginning, but quickly became a new reality when you did see what they were capable of. So now what changed the war? I don't know exactly what the turning point was, but, but you know, at the beginning, there were, it did seem to be that we were there for the right reasons. The RE, the ROEs were loosened up. They made sense. They leaned on the benefit of the US service member, you know, and, and, and at the beginning

• 27:42Speaker 00

  of the Afghanistan war, that was, that was a, a, and always should have been a special operations war. Very.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Strategic, precise.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah. But it, it, it, you know, at some point in time, the big machine wanted to come in.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Then in came all the bureaucrats.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  And then the whole, everything changed. And I think that, I think that change happened right around 2005. I think that Operation Red Wings, that was, you'd be seeing the movie, The Lone Survivor.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  That was that operation. That time.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  What was that one about?

• 28:27Speaker 00

  That was, so there they'd inserted a team of snipers on a mountain top to overwatch a valley. There was a, a HVT down there that they wanted or something. I can't remember exactly. Goat Herder sent, went up the mountain.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  Found the sniper team, kind of by accident. They made a judgment call. Hey, let them go back. He went back and then a whole army came and, and killed everybody on the sniper team except one guy who got away. We sent some helos in, is, is a QRF. That's a quick reactionary force, kind of like a backup. And those helos got shot down. Was the biggest, the biggest loss in SEAL Team history until Extortion 17.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  So that operation.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  And that was a SEAL Team, SEAL Sniper. They were just what? Just overpowered?

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, they were, they were, there was, I mean, there was only four of them, you know?

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Danny Dietz, Matt Axelson, Murphy, Lieutenant Mike Murphy, and then Marcus Luttrell, who was a survivor.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  And then, and then the helos that got shot down to come in, to come and reinforce those guys.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  And so that was a lot of controversy around that operation within the SEAL Teams and within Special Operations. My team was actually the one that went in to relieve those guys. SEAL Team Two went in to relieve Team 10 after that had happened. And, and they just shut down all, all operations. It seemed like.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 30:12Speaker 00

  When I went, I mean, we just kept.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  We we would kept putting putting in these packages for operations going after people. And it was, everything was getting denied. And I I

• 30:28Speaker 00

  just being there at that time and knowing what everybody was doing before then versus after. That may have been a turning point. It did get very political. There was a

• 30:40Speaker 00

  lot of politics being played between upper leadership at the SEAL teams versus SOCOM and

• 30:49Speaker 00

  I I think that may have been part of it. The other thing I think that happened is is Dick Cheney and Halliburton.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Really?

• 30:58Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Wow, because you said, you know, war is a business.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  War is a business.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  And sadly, you know, there is a military industrial complex.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And a lot of it's privatized. And I don't think that

• 31:12Speaker 01

  you know, most of America's even where of the money that's made from foreign wars. I mean, you know, you often wonder like, what is our interest? And just continuing these endless wars. I mean, we we've we've gotten so many of them in the last three years. And I'm sure you have an opinion on that, and I'd love to hear it. We didn't have any for for four years. And then now all of a sudden, you've got conflicts in Israel and you you've got, you know, conflicts in Iran, and you've got conflicts, obviously, in Russia and Ukraine. And it seems like the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket quick. And we pull out Afghanistan, we leave eighty three billion dollars of our military equipment, which I saw the parade that they yeah, were kind enough to do the other day. I mean, and but this

• 31:57Speaker 01

  this military industrial complex, I mean, what what's behind that? Who's who's driving the the private companies are that are pro war? Because

• 32:08Speaker 00

  I mean, it's it's a, yeah, that's that's who's driving it. I mean, back then, you got to look at where Dick Dick Cheney.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  You can just call him Dick.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  He is a fucking dick, isn't he?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  It is.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  But uh.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yep. So if you just want to say dick, I mean, we'll, we'll know who it is. You can even call him the dick, big dick.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  But uh, he was CEO of Halliburton and Halliburton was the logistics company. Halliburton KBR is, was the logistics company that put in all logistics for uh, Operation Iraqi Freedom and, and the Afghanistan war. And so what does that mean? That means, that means they are the ones building all of the barracks. They're building the chow halls. Any, any infrastructure that needs building, KBR builds it. KBR delivers the mail. KBR cooks the food. KBR cleans, has the cleaning crews. KBR does, has the fuel points. They deliver the fuel.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  They have every possible logistical thing you can think of was done by KBR. In two different wars and the vice president of the United States was the former CEO of Halliburton when that happened.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  So now you can see, you know.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  The conflict of interest.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  I mean, we see, we see the same thing, you know, I'm, I'm much more cognizant of the food supply in our country, but it just makes you wonder if any of the elites um, have our best interests at heart because you know, in our, in our industrial food supply, the majority of our nutritional research is funded by big food, big pharma. Which is what we were talking about earlier. That's why Lucky Charms are listed as more nutritious than grass fed steak. You know, the majority of our um, research that gets approved through the Food and Drug Administration, you know, funded by um, um, big pharma, which actually leads to the, the drugs, the food makes us sick and the drugs fix what the food, well, they prolong what the food causes. And it's why we have.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Sixty five, almost seventy percent of our diet coming from highly processed foods. You know, because you when I think when private enterprise is allowed to influence public policy, especially in war, I mean, people are dying for that. You know, I had a podcast guest on the other day that said, you know, we've privatized the profits, but we socialize the expense, meaning the profits go to private enterprise, but the expense goes to the American taxpayer, expense goes to the people. And you see this over and over again. I mean, see the pandemic. You know, where did the, where did the profits go and who picked up the bill?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, when we know where the profits went and that, you know, the taxpayer picked up the bill. And I just didn't have as much of, you know, a non myopic view into into wartime, but it doesn't, it doesn't surprise me that, you know, you have people that stand to make billions of dollars, you know, off of a war that, you know, is either unnecessary or could have then been done in a much different way.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, think about it. I mean,

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Ukraine is gotta be the same thing. I still haven't figured out Ukraine.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's the same. It's the same thing. I mean, you're talking about the pharmaceutical companies and the food companies basically paying off, what, the FDA politicians to vote a certain way? Same thing with war, right? So you got, I mean, oh, we left all those helicopters and, and tanks and everything over in Afghanistan, right? You don't think that, I don't know, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, all these places were like, oh, just leave that shit there. We'll build you new ones. You know, we have all this extra equipment, extra equipment, cool. Send that over to Ukraine. We'll build you some new shit. You know what I mean? And so that's how it happens. It's a vote this way. We want to prolong this war.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  We're gonna develop more supplies for it.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. How do we, how do we spend a hundred and ten billion dollars? Or maybe even more. I've even heard two hundred billion dollars.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  And things are at a stalemate. Like, what did we get for $110 billion? Did we get any, any, any shift in the dynamic of the conflict? Or did we just basically kick the can down the road and we still have this prolonged stalemate?

• 36:37Speaker 00

  I don't think it's about ending it, you know? I think, I think it's about its business. And so it's, it's, it's, it's all of these companies selling their technology and their, their, their wartime products, their weapons, their bullets, their, their radios, jammers, logistics companies, all of that, you know? They want the war to continue moving on so that, because that's their business. And if there is no war, these guys aren't making any money. It's just back to research and development.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Do you think Trump's gonna put an end to that? I know you've got to be pretty pleased with him.

• 37:10Speaker 00

  I hope so, man.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Events of the last week.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  Some big promises, but I mean, look, it's already happening. I mean, shit, it's been what? Two, three days since the election?

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  And Hamas has already said, we're done. We're, we're done. I saw that come out in Newsweek.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I'm hoping that we can believe those. Yeah. Some of these positive messages that, you know, Hamas is saying, hey, we're, we're, we're gonna close up shop and, and Iran is going to, you know, engage in ceasefire talks right away. I mean, those are really positive things because, you know, I think, you know, again, I am not a war historian or, you know,

• 37:53Speaker 01

  you know, profess to know anything about wartime strategy. But, you know, when you, when you have these, these big countries and they think that there's feckless leadership, there's like an open, you know, an open door with there's no consequences. At least they know that there's gonna be consequences. And so they're like, you know, we don't want any part of that. We got, you know, two, three months until shit's really gonna hit the fan for us. Let's come and have, you know, peace talks.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Putin's already wanted to come to the table with negotiations. I mean, when I interviewed Trump, he said that war would be done before he steps into office. So.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  I remember he said that. That is a bold statement. I mean, I know. That is a bold, bold statement. I mean, because the bull is in Iran. Putin, they don't seem like they've been to anybody else's agenda.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Now they'll bend to a two by four to the face.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  But I don't think that, you know, really tough talk like, don't, I know, I really don't think that those things really frighten them.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  So to see them move this fast is, is, is pretty interesting. So, I mean, what do you have? Are you aware that we have US military special forces in, involved in those conflicts right now? I know they're in the region, but they say that we don't have our special forces and our men and women in harm's way. And you're not seeing like the death tolls clicking on, on the media. But I can't imagine that there's conflicts of this scale and that our men and women are not involved.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  I'm sure there's a couple.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  But there's definitely going to be a couple in there, but I don't, I don't think that there is a large majority of, of US personnel in harm's way in, in Ukraine.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Well, at least I'm happy to hear that. Are you hopeful that this thing can be resolved? I mean, from where you?

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  And, and, and how does it end? Do they, they annex some territory to Russia? And, and Ukraine slightly shrinks in size. They have to leave NATO like. I'm always curious to figure out, like, you know, there, there sometimes seems to be such an easy solution. And that's a very myopic view to ending this war. And you'd think, why didn't somebody think of that for the last several years? While we're funding hundreds of billions of dollars.

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I do. You know, I think we've been lied to about the reasons that were over there. So I don't know, you know, exactly what it's going to take to end it. But, but I do think that I've read and I've interviewed some people that say that, that the, the, the, the, the region that is being fought over is extremely rich in natural gas. And so, you know, while.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  It's kind of funny while the Democrats all are, you know, pro Ukraine, let's go, we gotta do this. I think the real reason that we are there or that we are aiding that is because I think that

• 40:57Speaker 00

  if Ukraine holds on to that, we will be the ones to build the infrastructure to pipe in all the natural gas into Europe. Now, if you remember before, that was Russia that was piping in all that natural gas to Europe. Trump had even said, you guys are stupid. Your enemy is supplying you with your energy supply. So, so while, you know, this seems while the Democrats or the previous administration or whatever the fuck you want to call it, you know, paints it out as some kind of humanitarian mission. I think the real reason that we were there is to actually build the infrastructure around those natural gas reserves to pump that into Europe because that boosts our economy.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  That is, I mean, whether you agree with it or not, hey, big surprise, US is involved in another fucking oil war.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Or, you know, I guess not oil this time.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, look at the Keystone pipelines.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  I mean, but, but it also puts a major dent in Russia's economy. Because if they're not supplying all of Europe with natural gas from, from their pipeline. And US builds the infrastructure in Ukraine

• 42:05Speaker 00

  to pipe in the natural gas, well, then, I mean, that's, that would be, that would be amazing for our economy. You know, I don't, I think that would be a hard sell to a lot of people in this country.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  So would getting back to being energy independent on our own soil.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Well.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Which is a cool concept.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  Not necessarily because, because what I'm saying is we own the, basically what I'm saying is because of all the money that we dumped into Ukraine and because of all the, you know, because how involved we've been in that war. We have to be paid back somehow. We didn't just give them however.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  I hope not.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Hundred hundreds of billions, hopefully not.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, hopefully got an IOU.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  But you know, that might seem like chump change compared to the natural gas that's going to feed Europe that we're going to take control of.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:53Speaker 00

  And so I think that that plays a little bit more of a role than people might be aware of. Uh, than just, hey, this is, I mean, look, it's, it's fucked up what Russia did. They're trying to take land that doesn't belong to them, but.

• 43:08Speaker 01

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• 43:50Speaker 01

  and support for your gut health by feeding beneficial bacteria. In my opinion, hydrogen water is by far the best water you can drink. And with the Echo Go Plus, you can take it anywhere. Visit echo water.com, that's echo water.com and enter the code ultimate 10 for a special discount and elevate your hydration game. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. And I, and I remember when they were, I, I still remember very vividly when they were amassing along the border. And I was like, what do you think is going on? They didn't really hide it. It wasn't a clandestine, like, you know, in the dark of night, kind of, you know, surprise raid. I mean, they built forces up right on that border.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  For months and um, I, I, well, I mean, I remember Biden talking about it, but that's probably not a good reference, but, you know, he was like, you could just do a small incursion or whatever he was, whatever he, he was saying, but it seemed like, you know, we were more aware what was about to happen, that we were like shocked, oh my gosh, I can't believe that they actually went to Ukraine and they've been putting tanks on the border for the last four months.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  And you know, I always know that there's more than meets the eye. And when I meet people that have profound depth of understanding and knowledge, like, you know, I listened to Bobby Kennedy talk about the history of how, you know, in his words, the US really put them in a position to have no choice. And it's such a unique perspective, but it's he lays things out in such a beautiful manner about, you know, how we refused certain treaties and they we had we had made agreements with Russia not to allow certain things to happen, like certain countries to join NATO. And then when we recanted on those, you know, we're somehow like surprised that they're behaving that way. And, you know, I didn't

• 45:44Speaker 01

  intend to start this podcast and talk about the Ukraine war. Seriously, I'm like way out of my topic zone. But, you know, just to have you on here and get some some insight into it. But I want to rewind the clock a little bit and get and get back to, you know, your story, because your story is fascinating to me. That when you got out of the military, and you were dealing with some pretty heavy issues, mental, mental illness, you know, some psychological issues. And we were talking in the kitchen before we came in here about how it's it's still just not in vogue to ask for help, still not in vogue to, you

• 46:28Speaker 01

  know, raise your hand and say, I'm not okay. It's usually the families or spouses or, you know, someone close to them that really tries to reach out and get them help. And I think there has to be a dynamic between somebody that is so highly trained, like a member of a SEAL team, and is has seen that kind of combat. I mean, these, these are the men of men, right? And then to come back and have to be vulnerable. I wondered if you, if you talk a little bit, cause you've been very vocal about PTSD and very vocal about your journey. And I wonder if you might even talk about your journey and some of the issues that you solve. I love your psilocybin journey, by the way. I mean,

• 47:10Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm, I am fully on board for the psychedelics for the, you know, versus the chemicals, synthetics, the pharmaceuticals, and some of the other treatments that we can do ketamine under medical supervision to, to address the severe inflammatory conditions in, in the brains of a lot of these, these soldiers that are really causing them to be tormented inside of their own bodies.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  So if you, if you wouldn't mind, I mean, I'd love to talk a little bit about your, your journey with that and how you solve that problem.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  Sure. Um, where would you like me to start? Do I want to talk about how bad it got?

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I want you to talk about, as comfortable as you are talking about how bad it got because that's, that's the problem.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Right? And, and

• 47:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Good news is that, I mean, here you are today.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Right? So, yeah, you know, I think there's just a, I mean, to kind of try to put it into a perspective that you might understand. I mean, it's very obviously you've done, you've done extremely well. You're at the best at what you do. You've built a fucking entire empire that is extremely impressive.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Me?

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Thank you. Wow.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Now.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  That's really kind of you.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Now I'm going to take all that away.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Please don't.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  Right now. And you have to figure out how you're going to make a living, feed your family. What are you going to talk about? What are you going to tell people you do? You're proud of what you built, right?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:35Speaker 00

  So that all goes away and you're just nothing. You have no idea where you're going to take the rest of your life. You know, these guys, most of these guys are under 40 years old, you know, so they still have their whole life ahead of them. So you're dealing with that, number one. Everything that you, that you've worked so hard to accomplish.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  All the cool stories, you're at the apex of what you do. Nobody's better. You've reached, you've reached the ceiling. Yeah. You know, and now, nobody fucking cares because you're not in that anymore. It's not relevant. And that's, you know, I think you see that a lot with pro athletes when they retire, when they get hurt, when they're done. You know, it's like, well, there goes my whole identity. And so you have to, you have to learn how to reinvent yourself. On top of that, you're also dealing, you guys were talking about this earlier, addiction to adrenaline and the fight or flight response. I mean, busy minds, you know, you, you, you're always, I mean, I, I still love a good adrenaline rush, but I mean, when you come out of a

• 49:40Speaker 00

  job like that, and I don't know what the chemicals are, you would know a lot more about that than I would, obviously, but you know, it becomes that adrenaline dump becomes an addiction. And so you, you are subconsciously looking for ways to kind of fill that void when you're not on deployment. And then when deployments are all, one of the, when they're all over, it, it, it is, it's a, it's, you get anxiety knowing that you're not going to feel that again. You're not going to feel that, that, that,

• 50:19Speaker 00

  it's not even a rush, man. It's, it's, I mean, when you, when you are involved in heavy combat, it is, I mean, it's just,

• 50:36Speaker 00

  it's primitive, man. It's primal. It's, Yeah. It's, there's nothing in the world like it. It is like, I mean, you are.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  As weird as it sounds, it is a fucking amazing experience if you survive it and walk out of it. And that's all you want to talk about. And that's all you want to feel. And that's all you want to do. And so that's, I mean, that's, that's the reason I got out of the SEAL teams is I wasn't getting enough of it. Really? Yeah, that's a big reason I got out. Why you weren't being deployed as often? I wasn't good. I talked about Afghanistan earlier, you know, and that, that when I got there, things had kind of changed. Started getting political. Bureaucrats started getting in. I mean, when I went in, I wanted to go out every night, multiple times a night. All I, that's all I wanted to do was go out. On patrol, you mean? And go like, go to, go to war. Really? On patrol, combat. Combat.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  And, uh, and I just, I wasn't getting enough doses of it. Wow, that's incredible. My guy can, I, I, I'd be the opposite. I'm like, I want to go home. Well, but I mean. Me because I don't have that training. Yeah. I mean, you gotta, you gotta remember too. I mean, it's years. It's for me, it was, you know, I joined the Navy, went through BUDs. BUDs is six months if you make it through. For me, uh, without any hangups, uh, almost nobody makes it without any hangups. So you're looking at a good eight months. I would say eight to nine months would be average just to get through BUDs. Then you go through SQT. That's SEAL qualification training. There's

• 52:15Speaker 00

  another four or five months. Then you get to your SEAL team. You think you're a badass. Guess what? You're not. You got another year and a half of training at your SEAL team to go, just to go to the fucking war, you know? And so you're looking at a good three, three and a half years of training just to get the opportunity to go to war. Wow. So you're ready by the, or you think you're ready by the time you get there. But, um, and so I'm, I'm kind of going through, back to what we were talking about. I'm kind of going through like all the things that guys deal with. Then there's, then there is PTSD, which, um, now they're saying special ops guys, it's called operator syndrome. They're

• 53:00Speaker 00

  kind of starting to transition that. But, you know, it's, it's survivor's guilt. It's all my friends that are now dead. Mm-hmm. Oh. I'm not saying me, but you know, people, oh, I had to kill a woman. Oh, I had to kill a kid. Oh, fuck. That person was probably innocent. You know, I mean, all the shit that you see. And so there's, so there's just, uh, the, the stuff you were talking about earlier with sleep. Nobody, nobody I know that comes from this job. Sleeps.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Or sleeps well. And, and because you're, you're in that constant state of, of, for lack of a better term, paranoia, even though once you've done it for so long, it doesn't seem like paranoia. It's just, it's just life. And so when you

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Even that long after.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  And so, you know, when you get home, your identity's been stripped. You have all these chemical imbalances in your brain. You've seen more trauma than just about anybody on the planet.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  Um, and, and and then your own injuries, you know, that you're fighting as well with, you know, banged up knees or, or heaven forbid amputees, you know, stuff like that. And so these are all the things that, that are kind of going through your head. And so for me, when I left the agency, uh, I was looking for that adrenaline. And so

• 54:34Speaker 00

  I moved to Medellin, Colombia and, um,

• 54:40Speaker 00

  found that adrenaline by

• 54:44Speaker 00

  getting involved in cocaine rings and

• 54:47Speaker 01

  What brought you to Medellin? You just went there?

• 54:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  And, um, yeah, I was there for, uh, right about in and out for five years.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  And, um, and realized I had a, a,

• 55:07Speaker 00

  Was really scared in the line there, OD'd a couple of times and pulled through that. And I never even did drugs as a kid.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Did you do them, you know, it wasn't your military service? I mean, obviously you're not doing drugs in the military.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  No.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  After you got out.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  It just, just, it just.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Life's just not exciting anymore. So you got down to Medellin with a buddy of yours or something and?

• 55:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it started with a buddy. It started and I started going to Cartagena with a buddy and then, and then, and then I just started flying solo down there and started kind of building a lot of contacts and stuff. But got really addicted to cocaine, had two pretty close calls where I overdosed.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  And this is just from, just used it for too many days too often. It was just too much.

• 55:59Speaker 00

  Coke all the time.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  Just coke all the time.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  I remember, I was always paranoid that I was, turns out coke makes you paranoid, but.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Who knew?

• 56:09Speaker 00

  But.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  THC, same thing.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  But now I remember my best friend was with me down there. I would always get worried that I was.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  There's a good friend.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And he's dead now.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  But he said, you don't need to worry. You don't need to worry about your OD and on, if you're on speed, you don't need to worry that you're OD and unless things start to slow down. And I was like, huh, all right, I guess that makes sense. And then I remember the first time I felt that things started slowing down. My speech was like, sounded like that fucking scene on Old School where Will Ferrell's like. It's, it was everything just slowed down. My voice slowed down. My brain was moving faster than I could talk. I couldn't talk. And, and.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  And were you really, you were really, really wired at the time?

• 57:06Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  So just your central nervous system was just absolutely.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Yup.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Frying.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  Done.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  And, and so the. The vision starts to narrow.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Yep, yep.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 57:16Speaker 00

  Vision barro- the vision narrowed and uh, and then I woke up on the, on the floor of a club.

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Of a club?

• 57:24Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  Woke up on the floor of a club that didn't do it. Uh, that was actually my very first time doing coke. But then, then it started hap- then it happened two more times after that, years after that. And um, and uh, so I realized I have a problem, had a problem, uh, left Columbia. Kind of got ran out of there actually, but, but um, left there, moved to Boca Raton, Florida. And kind of kept at it there. Thought if I removed myself out of that environment, that I would clean it up. Uh, stateside, which, which I didn't. And um, and then there, uh, had a suicide attempt.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Where I just, I just completely, just kind of, not kind of, lost hope. I mean, my routine, Gary was-

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Lost hope that you would get out, that you would solve it.

• 58:21Speaker 00

  I just didn't care anymore, man. Like, all my friends were still involved in the war.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Either it, in the SEAL teams or a development group or in the agency. And to hear like, what those guys were involved in and what they were doing and I wasn't there.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Then why couldn't you have stayed? I mean, why, was it your choice to leave after you died?

• 58:46Speaker 00

  I mean, it was my choice to leave.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  It was your choice.

• 58:48Speaker 00

  And uh-

• 58:49Speaker 01

  But then you also missed it.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I missed it. And uh, and I really, I missed it for a long time. And so,

• 58:59Speaker 00

  um, it ruined all my family relationships just because I was, uh, when I was, I was drinking more than a fifth of vodka a day. I would wake up, uh, my whole freezer was just completely packed with vodka mini bottles. My glove compartment, my car was packed with vodka mini bottles. Everywhere I went had flask or mini bottles. And um, and that's how I would get through the day, drinking that. And then at night, uh, when I would go back home, I would just pull out a fifth and-

• 59:32Speaker 00

  Tug on that until until the lights were out. And while I was tugging on that, I would take Ambien, Xanax, Valium, Lorazepam, Hydrocodeine, anything I could to keep my mind from just going all the time.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  And how were you able to get that? Just dealers would put get their hands on it?

• 59:54Speaker 00

  Um, well, I worked overseas and, uh, you know, turns out that, uh, most countries you don't need a prescription to get whatever you want. So I would just go behind the counter and tell them what I want and throw it in a in a shopping basket and stock up and bring it all home.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:00:14Speaker 00

  And, uh, you know, I had done that for years and, um, so I had stockpiles of it, uh, at home. And then, and then I was also, you know, when I did finally start to to kind of get some help and I started going to therapy. Um, I mean, I would get it prescribed, you know, pay, can't sleep, need some Ambien. Here you go. Oh, here's some Selenor. Here you go. Here's this. Here you go. I mean, it wasn't, they weren't giving me everything I wanted, but they were definitely, you know,

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  I, I could get it.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  What made you raise your hand?

• 1:00:50Speaker 00

  What made me raise my hand?

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Enough. I want help.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Couple of things.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  The

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  what got me out of Columbia is I went home to visit my, uh, family. And, and I, when I started ODing, uh, I would call my dad and like me and my dad are really close. And, uh, I would tell him, it had, and I need to get the fuck out of here. I'm not going to make it out of here. I wouldn't tell him what I was doing, but, uh, he was, he knew and he was worried. And I went home to visit him and, uh, in a super small town in Missouri.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  And, uh,

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  And I don't even know what happened, man. I just, I know me and my dad were supposed to go to a Cardinals baseball game the next day. And I, I must have blacked out.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  You OD'd again? You took the drugs with you?

• 1:01:52Speaker 00

  I blacked out. Yeah, I would, I would bring them everywhere. I couldn't, I couldn't. I can't sleep without, I can't, I can't sleep without them.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Hmm. Oh, these are prescriptions, so you can take them through an airport and all. You weren't taking like coke and stuff like that?

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  No, no, okay.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  No, no, uh, drug trafficking.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  But, um, but I would, yeah, would just, I was like a walking pharmacy for benzos and opiates. And, um, and sleeping pills. And

• 1:02:23Speaker 00

  I woke up and my dad was standing over my bed. And I, he was like

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  tearing up and I, I just could tell he was like, he didn't know what to do. And, um, and he wanted me to get some help. And so at that point, I wasn't gonna get any help, but I was like, all right, maybe I should like move out of Columbia.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:48Speaker 00

  And so I did. And then, uh, and then the second kind of wake up call was, uh, my suicide attempt. Again, don't really know what happened. I was at Blue Martini in Boca Raton, Florida, and the next minute I'm upstairs waking up uh, in my bed alone and my whole house smells like gasoline. Came downstairs, saw a Glock on my bed. Or I'm sorry, on the couch, uh, which I never, and it's not the Glock that I carry, uh, or carried, uh, for, for, for personal defense. It was something that I had pulled out of a safe.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  So probably was gonna do something there and then, uh,

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  But you don't even remember that?

• 1:03:38Speaker 00

  I don't. And then I walked out to my garage. And I touched the garage door and I was hot to the touch. And I was like, oh, fuck, what is that? Is there a fire in there? And um. I remember thinking if I open this door and there's a fire in there, it's gonna get a big rush of oxygen. It's probably gonna fucking kill me. So I opened it.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  And nothing happened, but my car was running in there. And uh. I drove a uh an Audi A eight at the time. And seat was all the way reclined back. So I. I pulled in the garage, closed the door, left the car running, decided I was lights out, let the seat down. Somehow I fucking woke up. The it was so hot that the uh exhaust melted a hole in the fucking gas. Tank and the gas tank was leaking onto the exhaust uh muffler.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  And there was like a little bitty like fire in there. So um. So I called my best friend uh. Dave Rutherford. And kind of told him. You know, the situation I was in. Then I called uh. A really uh good friend of mine out of Boston who helps veterans. Um, she's like an angel to. A lot of people named Peggy Matthews and then I called my my therapist in Boca and they were all like. Yeah, you uh. That's what that was.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  And um.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  So you think you pulled in. Prepared to do it and then something.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  Got you up and you just went upstairs and went to bed. And just don't recall that.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  I think that was God.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  And probably fumbled around the safe and got the gun out and.

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  I think I.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Thought about it there.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  This is what happened, pulled in the garage um. Had an argument with somebody that um I cared about a lot. And then left the bar, pulled in the garage, was gonna kill myself there, went into the into the living room. Pulled out the gun.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Took all my clothes off on the couch and then probably passed out there and then went upstairs to my bed at some point at the night. And so that was another wake up call. And, um, and, um, so I made a promise to my therapist that I wouldn't drink vodka anymore. And so, uh, I had, I had successfully transitioned to wine.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  And, um, so then, and I was good, you know, it, it, I started getting my life back together. I quit all the benzos.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  By yourself, you were actually strong enough to get off of those by yourself.

• 1:06:31Speaker 00

  Got off all the benzos.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Those are really tough.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  For the most part, I got off all the benzos. I had, I had my emergency stash. So, yeah. And, um, and then I met my wife, uh, who's, who's been sober for 14 or 15 years now. And, um, and that obviously helped a lot. And then, and then, um, in the last three years, what really, you know, what really like did the trick was psychedelics.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that I want to go down that road because you went out of the country, um, to, to do this and it wasn't just the psilocybin, you did other, other treatments.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  But I remember you describing it as pretty instant, like, um, meaning the, the, the impact of the treatment and, uh, came back and just sort of knew the difference between what was poison and what wasn't. And you said, that's poisoning me, that's poisoning me, that's poisoning me, but you just were clear about it. And, um, so tell, talk, talk a little bit about that journey because clearly you are in a very dark place.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  So yeah, I just, I kept interviewing, uh, I mean, you know, my interviews, I, I interview a lot of former colleagues and, and, and warrior elites, we'll call them that. And so, you know, in my, in my interview process, this, I, I talk about, we, we do a life story. This is how you grew up. This is what you experienced in combat. This is how bad it got. This is what got you through it. And then, and then we talk about their, what they're doing now, their business to help elevate that. And so in these, in these interviews, uh, first guy that I talked to was, uh, Eddie Gallagher, who had brought up psychedelic therapy. And I was like, huh.

• 1:08:30Speaker 00

  This shit sounds like it's for hippies. And, um, and then another guy came on to talk about it. And I was, and it, it, and then another guy came on to talk about it. Then, um,

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  You were in the thick of it then, when you were even running. Wow.

• 1:08:45Speaker 00

  And so then, uh, I had mentioned DJ earlier, DJ, uh, interviewed him and, and, uh, he was kinda like,

• 1:08:54Speaker 00

  it was sinking in, but after I interviewed him, um, he had, he was like, hey, you know, I know you're considering this, like, you should really fucking do it, man. Psychedelic stuff, it's, it works. And I understand, I understood some of the science behind it at this time by now too. So, so I booked, um, I booked a trip and, and went down to Mexico to do an Iba game and five MEO,

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  therapy treatment and, and

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  And how are those done? IV?

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  No, um, you go, so five MEO, you smoke, it's a toad venom. The Sonora Desert Toad, I think is where it comes from. So you just

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  I always wonder who figures this shit out. Who like found the first toad and was like, hey, frankly, you know, let's, let's, let's, let's crush him and smoke him and see. Wow, that really made me feel, you know, like ayahuasca.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  You know, it's, it's deadly poison.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  I think a lot of people are saying the same thing about some of the stuff you're talking about.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  This is very true.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know. And then so you smoked that in Ibogaine. I think it comes from a root in somewhere in Africa, Gabon, or I can't remember. But but that is like it came in a capsule. And so

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  the Ibogaine experience was like 12 hours. I don't know how in deep depth you want me to go on that.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  But was it 12 hours of like a trip like you were on mushrooms or LSD like a like a trip?

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  It's a trip.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  It's a trip.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  It's a trip.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  And I mean, I've never done ayahuasca, but a lot of some people swear by it. Some people are very afraid of it. You know, for me, the jury's still out on it. But but just because I don't know that much about it, to say one way or the other, but I have seen stories of people, excuse me, very credible people that have had these incredible journeys, like life changing, like what I feel you're about to describe. And where they were really in a dark place and really couldn't figure it out. And and I'm and first of all, thank you for being so vulnerable and really describing that that that situation like that. I know it must be tough for you to even think think about it.

• 1:11:25Speaker 01

  But they literally they said it was like flicking a switch. They actually were able to, as they describe it, almost get out of their own body and look at themselves and and be really honest with themselves. And it was like they actually had an honest evaluation themselves like I'm really fucking this up. And I'm or you know, these are the behaviors that are really causing me to stay in this constant wheel of despair and disappointment and I'm not getting any traction in life. And they said it was so clear.

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  So it's fascinating to me, you know, and you said you you know, a little bit about the science. Is that of the psilocybin or the?

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  The way, the easiest way for me to explain it and, and, and I could be wrong, but this is what I've learned through my interviews is that, you know, the older we get, the, I think it's obvious, right? The more, the older we get, we see with our parents, right? The more set in their ways that they become.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  I'm that way. Um, I think we're all that way. But the way, uh, that, that it was described to me several times is that the, the, is the, um, the neurons in your brain travel back and forth through the default mode network.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:44Speaker 00

  And so that's what from the, from the front of your brain to the back of the brain. And it wasn't always like that. So, so, so right now for me and you, our neurons are just going, you know,

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  back and forth.

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  Back and forth. And that's how they're communicating. But when we were young, we had all these other neural pathways that these neurons were using to communicate and get information to wherever the hell it needs to go. Well, as time goes on, those pathways start to close up. The neurons get lazy. They're like, oh, we're just going to go to the default mode network and we'll just communicate this way. And so now you get stuck in your ways. You get stuck in that same hamster wheel.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  That habitual pattern.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  And so to my understanding, basically what, um, some psychedelics do is they actually put a, a block in that default mode network. So they're not just going back and forth anymore. Now all these neurons have to find new pathways or reopen old pathways in your brain that haven't been used in years and years and years.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  And so you, so these neurons are, are, so it's opening, it's, it's literally unlocking your fucking brain.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Wow. And did you feel that that was going on during this 12 hours? Were you frightened or paranoid? Did you feel like terrified or like your life was going to end or anything like that?

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  I think calm. I was pretty calm. I mean, um.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Were you aware of it?

• 1:14:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  Like you're aware.

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  So that's the other thing is, is, uh, They, I was, I was a little nervous that I would wind up in some type of a mental.

• 1:14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, like a persistent vegetative state or something. Yeah.

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  But, but you know, you're, you're, you are wired up to an EKG and an IV, but that's to get you out of something if, you know, if something goes wrong. And, um, and so, so you can be in the middle of your experience, having your experience. And then, you know, the nurse or the doctor comes around and like shakes you and they're like, hey, you doing all right? And you lift up your eye mask and you're out of the experience. Like, yep, all good, buddy. Going back in. Yeah.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Really like that?

• 1:15:05Speaker 00

  It is like that. It is like you snap out of it. You know what I mean?

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  That is wild.

• 1:15:09Speaker 00

  It's almost, I mean, for me, it was almost like, it was almost like I had to concentrate to get into it. And, and if I want, you know, cause you got.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  Kind of surrender to it.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  Twelve hours. You gotta take a pee break and all kinds of stuff. So, um, so yeah, you, you can, you can like snap out of it.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  It sounds like you kind of liked it or you were curious about it.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  I was.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, I can tell. You know, you, you put the mask back down and you're like, I want to see where this goes.

• 1:15:38Speaker 00

  Yep. Yeah. Yep. And, you know, I, I saw a couple of things, but I didn't like relive any super traumatic events. It was more like, the way I'd describe it is, uh, it was like, it was like I had two rows of TV screens going through my, like, vision with my eyes closed. And so it was, it was just lines of them. And in each TV screen was like, something that had happened in my life. And there was, there didn't seem to be like any, it wasn't in chronological order. It wasn't like from age, you know, uh, from birth to now.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  It was just a bunch of, it was like somebody just put a bunch of life events on a deck of cards, shuffled them up, put them in a line and said, hey, we're going to send these through Sean's brain. And so there was shit that was like, stuff that had happened with my dad back in the day. Stuff that happened in Iraq, stuff that happened. When I was a teenager, stuff, you know, and it was

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  And did you feel like you're like, I'm seeing that. I remember that.

• 1:16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it was weird because every time I would try to jump into that specific experience like, oh, fuck, I remember that. I want to relive that. Or, or, oh, that was anytime I would try to concentrate on any specific event, everything would go away.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Oh, dude, that's the ultimate torture.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so I would have to concentrate on not trying to concentrate on any particular memory. So that they could just all filter through and, and I don't know what the hell that means.

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  But it was stuff that was, that I hadn't thought about in, in years.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  But he was accurate. They, these were vivid memories like as it was, you were like, I definitely remember that.

• 1:17:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:17:29Speaker 01

  You know, that was my, that was my best friend. I forgot about him. Like, yeah, that kind of stuff. Oh, I mean, I forgot I had that girlfriend in.

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  College. Like, wow.

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  It was almost like my brain was just sorting through like thousands and thousands of memories. And then there was like some, um, stuff that just still doesn't really make sense to me, like some fear and loathing in Las Vegas type shit. Like it was walls of stuffed animals and I was on some fucking horse. Like it was weird.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 00

  I don't know what that was, but, uh, woke up this. So that was about a 12 hour experience and, um, woke up, went downstairs. You have a gray day. They call it a gray day after it's like the worst hangover you've ever had in your life. And, um,

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Like actual headache, pain.

• 1:18:17Speaker 00

  Horrible, dizzy.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  Vomiting, like horrible, just.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:18:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  And that lasted day.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  I mean, yeah, and when I got up to go to the bathroom and I looked at my eyes and I remember thinking like, my eyes look different. And, uh, and they looked lighter and, um, and, uh, and sure as shit, I came home from that and one of the, the first thing my wife said to me was your eyes look lighter and the whites of your eyes look white, whiter. So it wasn't just me and, um, So after that, though, we did the I beg and then after that you have the you have your day off and then you do the five M E O D M T. And the five M E O D M T when I mean, that is

• 1:19:11Speaker 00

  very short experience, maybe fifteen minutes tops. But the most profound experience of my entire life.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:19:22Speaker 00

  It was, and I don't say that lightly.

• 1:19:25Speaker 01

  Even more profound than the one you just described?

• 1:19:28Speaker 00

  More profound than my kids being born. Like it was so intense. And so revealing.

• 1:19:41Speaker 00

  I it's I mean, I still remember it like.

• 1:19:46Speaker 00

  It it's it's a death experience. So for me.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  Is it something you'd want to do again?

• 1:19:51Speaker 00

  I've done it a couple of times since.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:19:54Speaker 00

  But it's I wouldn't say it's a good time, you know, it's not like.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Cause you said a profound experience, meaning like this stands out to me.

• 1:20:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is.

• 1:20:04Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  You've had some experiences too.

• 1:20:07Speaker 00

  It's a death. Father. It's a you you die. That's the only way to describe it. You die. You don't think you're dying. You know, you're you die. You think you're dying. Like, nobody can convince you otherwise. It's not like.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  I'm actually dead.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  I'm paranoid, you know, pull me out of this. No, it's I'm fucking dying and I'm like, nobody's, there's nothing that can happen. And so.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  But you're conscious, but you're aware that you're dead. So you accept that?

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  You have a that's pretty much. I know it sounds really odd, but.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  Once you accept it, is there is it? Is it the profound sadness of the things you didn't get done in your life, the things you didn't say?

• 1:20:56Speaker 00

  Okay, it's the complete opposite of that. So when you're dying. It is it's they call it an ego death, but you.

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  First you kind of go through, and this all lasts maybe like thirty seconds, maybe.

• 1:21:19Speaker 00

  But you.

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  First you go through the, holy shit, I'm dying and there's nothing I can do. And then it's, and then it's, oh shit, who am I leaving behind? I can't leave them behind. And so for me, it was my wife and my, I think my son was like six months old. He was right around six months, six months old at the time. And so I just like was grasping on for anything to try to, to try to live for them. I was like, I can't fucking leave my wife and kid here. This place is a disaster. And, and, but you really, you, you, you think you're departing. And, and then eventually you do give up.

• 1:22:08Speaker 00

  But I will say like, you know, at the beginning you'd asked me, you know, about combat experiences where I thought I was gonna die. And I've been through a ton of those, but nothing like this.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  This was more profound than that.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:22:24Speaker 00

  You are.

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  You've accepted that you're either dead or you are about to die.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  Truly accepted.

• 1:22:30Speaker 00

  It was the most anxiety, most fear, most sadness that I'd ever felt all, all at once. And, and then you. I don't think any, everybody can get to this because I know, I've recommended this to everybody that works for me. I've recommended it to all my friends. It's, it was, what it's done for me is just so, so profound. And.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Even though it, the experience itself is horrible.

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because of what happens on the other side. And, and so if you can get to the point where you can muster up enough courage to just die.

• 1:23:11Speaker 00

  Then you, you, you like fucking cross over into this new realm.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:23:16Speaker 00

  And.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Once you surrender and say, okay, God, I'm ready to go.

• 1:23:20Speaker 00

  And the minute that that, that happens, like you cross over and.

• 1:23:28Speaker 00

  Man, this stuff sounds weird and I always thought this shit was all for hippies, but it's not. And uh, but you know, you hear people talk about energy and that person has a bad energy and that person has a good energy and, and energy is everything. You see that uh, if you come out the other side, it, it is. I mean, a lot of people do it on a blindfold and a lot of people say that they say that they see they go through a wormhole. They see the big bang. They see, um, they see uh, family lineage. They see friends that have died in combat, you know? I didn't, I wanted to do it without the eye mask.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:24:10Speaker 00

  And I remember looking out over the uh, ocean down in Mexico. And I remember

• 1:24:21Speaker 00

  every time I do a psychedelic uh, experience, it's always very, I don't get a whole lot of visuals. I get a lot of intuit, intuition.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:24:30Speaker 00

  And

• 1:24:33Speaker 00

  I could see

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  energy flowing from islands to the ocean, to the beach, into the air, up the trees and the leaves. And it was, it was, it was, you hear a lot of people say, oh, we're all one. Everything's connected. There's a oneness. There is a fucking oneness, man. Like

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:24:55Speaker 00

  You can see and feel intuitively the flow of energy, of positive energy and, and, and at the same time, I s- I, I could feel and hear like the earth's vibration.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:25:16Speaker 00

  And you are just.

• 1:25:19Speaker 00

  You are so in tune with nature, God,

• 1:25:26Speaker 00

  whatever you want to call it, the universe. I mean, it's if any evil, any negative energy, any evil came into the, into your field of view, it would, it would stick out like a spotlight in the darkness. And, um, and it, it,

• 1:25:46Speaker 00

  you know, and on the other hand, it makes you realize that there is definitely, uh, life after death. There is, there is, we're all going somewhere.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, are you a man of God? Are you?

• 1:26:00Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26:01Speaker 00

  Are you?

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:02Speaker 00

  Good for you.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Saved at a Promise Keepers convention, 20,

• 1:26:09Speaker 01

  1994, how many years ago that was?

• 1:26:12Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  1994, I got, I got saved at a Promise Keepers convention. I went and,

• 1:26:16Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, in 1994, I was in grad school and it was in Soldier Field.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  I gave my life to the Lord and, uh, it was, uh, they used to have a movement called, uh, Promise Keepers, might still be around. But my lawyer tricked me into going to this, it was, it was a Christian men's event and I didn't know that. And he told me it was like a motivational thing to go see these motivational speakers and it was a, um, this movement called Promise Keepers. And I'll just never forget, I mean, I, I joined hands with 70,000 Christian men and started to say the Lord's prayer and I just fell apart and went down to the stage and gave my life to Christ.

• 1:27:00Speaker 00

  Well, why, why did your attorney think that you needed to go to a?

• 1:27:04Speaker 01

  Cause he's, uh, but he was, he was a, you know, a really strong Christian guy and, um, and, uh, I thought I was fucked up, but after your story, I feel pretty good about myself. I feel, I feel actually really good. I'm just kidding. Um, you know, um, yeah, I was in, I was, I was in grad school and, you know, I was just, Typical, you know, self centered and, you know, I wasn't doing anything crazy. We was partying a little bit. I was, you know, I was going through grad school and had a decent relationship with a girlfriend at the time and ended up becoming my wife back then.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  And he, he just was a really powerful Christian. He was like, hey, I want you to come to this, this event. I think you, you know, I think you really love it. He's motivational speakers. It's so inspiring. And I thought it was gonna be like one of, you know, like David Goggins kind of, you know, on the stage telling you to get your shit together. He wasn't around then, but, um, so I was like, okay, you know, I'll, I'll go. Um, and it was a very profound experience for me.

• 1:28:13Speaker 00

  Man, good for you.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  But I didn't mean to interrupt you, but so you say you're convinced now that there is something on the other side.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I didn't, uh, I mean, now I'm a believer in Jesus and, um,

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:28:28Speaker 00

  And, um, but at that time I just realized, honestly, like I, it made, it took me, this sounds weird because it made me a better person, but it, it kinda took Jesus and God out of the picture for me. Not that I was like some stand up Christian man or anything back then. Obviously I wasn't, but,

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  A few bumps on you.

• 1:28:50Speaker 00

  But I was like, man, I always wondered about this. Now I know that's not real. That's what I thought. But, um, but coming out of that, you know, uh,

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Gosh, you must be so profoundly sad. Like in that moment.

• 1:29:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I mean, I, I did feel the presence of my best friend, Gabe, who, who died when I was, he was down in Columbia with me for a while. Another SEAL that I worked with at the agency as well. But, but anyways, I, I got home and I told you that my wife, the first thing she had noticed was, uh, my eyes were like my, uh, were lighter brown and my whites were whiter and, and, um,

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  And I went down there to be more in the moment too with my son because I was I'm a dad now. And you know, I know a lot of business people struggle with this. How do you I'm in love with my business. I'm sure you are too. And so it can it can be a challenge to turn it off at night and be in the moment with the wife and kids.

• 1:30:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:02Speaker 00

  And and that bothers me when I can't do it.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  There's always something to do.

• 1:30:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. And and it bothers her too. It took me right back into the moment. I was able to shut it off. It made me more it it it. All these weird things happened that I wasn't expecting. It made me way more efficient and productive. I was getting like a week's worth of shit done.

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• 1:31:51Speaker 01

  Did you just realize what was not important?

• 1:31:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  I because I got to imagine on your. You know, deathbed. You know, people that are processing their life.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  They they can't go back and redo it now. You know, it's at the end, but they maybe you get a chance to consciously look back. But you got a chance. You got a chance to consciously look back and then go fix it. And I think that's what sounds so profound about your experience because I saw someone on Instagram the other day and it was a it was a pastor. He was delivering a graduation ceremony and he talked about how many times he'd been at the bedside of a a man or a woman in their last moments. And

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  he talked about the typical things that you would say, you know, they weren't like, hey, bring my trophies by so I can see him one more time. Or can you wheel me down to the garage so you so I can be around the car collection? You know, I just want to see it one last time and

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  you know, remember, remember when we took that company public and we sold it? It was, he said it was, it was all just about love.

• 1:32:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  And the only people that he he he said it was the one common thing, you know, like the only people they wanted around were the people that were really, really close to them. And maybe at that moment, they appreciated them the most. But you got the enviable opportunity to go back and maybe fix it.

• 1:33:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  So you're super efficient, right? How about, you know, is addiction still knocking at the door?

• 1:33:27Speaker 00

  No, no, that's, this is the, this is the, I did not even go down there to quit drinking because like I had said in my fucked up mind. I was fine because all's I was drinking was a couple of bottles of wine a night, not vodka.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Well, you're him and a Colombian bam bam and vodka. I'd say you're in a good place, you know?

• 1:33:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Relatively speaking. But but you know, I mean, so.

• 1:33:54Speaker 00

  I lost like all my addictions and so I was still taking Adderall. That's gone. I was smoking cannabis to go to sleep. I quit that for about six months. Now I'm back.

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, but sleep's like the one thing I just cannot.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  I'm gonna hack it for you, man. When I go on your podcast, we're gonna take the clip from this podcast where you couldn't sleep and you're gonna be like, holy shit, I'm sleeping like.

• 1:34:22Speaker 00

  Good, good.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  I got you, brother.

• 1:34:25Speaker 00

  I'd still, I'd still used Benzos here and there, gone. Sleeping pills, gone. Booze, gone. And there was sugar, gone for about, for about six months. And so.

• 1:34:41Speaker 01

  Sugar's back too.

• 1:34:43Speaker 00

  Sugar's back. Sugar and cannabis are back. Caffeine was gone for a long time. Still don't drink coffee. Now I'll have tea. But, but, you know, it, it, it wasn't any effort either. It was just, it was just, it was like my mind got a download. And, and, and it was just, this shit's poison. This is poison. This is poison.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  But crystal clear.

• 1:35:12Speaker 00

  Don't do it. And it, it wasn't like, there was no urges. There was no cravings. There was none of that. It was just, I'm done with this shit. I'm not, I'm not drinking anymore. And so this February, this Valentine's Day will be three years.

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:35:30Speaker 00

  Since I've had a drink.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  That's amazing, man. I mean, like I said, for the, for me, the jury is still out on those. I, I, I don't have my arms around it enough, but I've had people like yourself credible that have had these just profound experiences.

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  That is an amazing story and, and I'm sure that you now know other people that have gone through the same thing that have had similar.

• 1:35:52Speaker 00

  Tons of them. Wow.

• 1:35:54Speaker 01

  It's incredible.

• 1:35:54Speaker 00

  I know a guy, really good friend of mine.

• 1:36:01Speaker 00

  I get I I'm just gonna say it cuz it's helping so many fucking people, man. But this guy was blown up in Afghanistan, uh, survived the worst. He he was in the worst car bomb that I've seen somebody actually live through.

• 1:36:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:36:19Speaker 00

  I'll put it that way. Um, basically turned a Toyota Land Cruiser inside out and he lived through that. He drove over a uh, he got hit by a suicide bomber.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:36:31Speaker 00

  Then, fast forward, then he got shot in the head in a road rage accident. Uh, with a thirty eight special, lights out in the middle of the road. Still has shrapnel in his brain. And so, um, I'm really good friends with him. I he was a he was a former Green Beret, worked with him at the agency. And and when he got shot in the head, I I had gone down to help him, help him and his wife. Um, and he's just been struggling ever since. Well, his wife called a called me and my wife one day and she was saying that he is bedridden.

• 1:37:12Speaker 00

  Five to six days a week, can't get out of bed when he can get out of bed. His vertigo is so bad, he has to walk around with a cane. He can't go outside without sunglasses on, even on a cloudy day cuz his light sensitivity is so bad. We haven't had sex in over two years. And I'm thinking, holy fuck, man. And I had told him about this therapy several times. Um, called him up, connected him with some people. Uh, got him down there super fast. And he fucking walked out of that exact same experience that I did. Left his cane there as a souvenir for these people. He's like, I don't need this shit anymore.

• 1:37:55Speaker 00

  Went home, fucked his wife, doesn't need the sunglasses anymore, isn't bedridden. This was probably about six months ago, still doing great today.

• 1:38:04Speaker 01

  Wow. That is incredible. Yeah. That is incredible. I mean, this is so far outside of the ultimate human. That is, that is just incredible though, man. And you know what? I think my intellectual curiosity really wants to dig in. I'm going to go down the rabbit hole on this because, you know, RFK, he posted a statement. I thought it was pretty badass. And he mentioned psychedelics and I don't know if you saw this, but, but he has said, "The FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes the aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Big Pharma. If you work for the FDA and you're part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you. Number one, preserve your records. And number two, pack your bags." Damn, I love that guy. I love that guy too.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  You know, because when you have people in your condition and your friend's condition, when we have tens of thousands of, you know, our, our military men and women that are permanently on the chemical hamster wheel, which is further destroying their life. And there's something that an adult can do to make a sound decision for their own body with a full understanding of the consequences. You know, why are we preventing people from accessing these kinds of therapies when they, when all they have is a persistent vegetative state like what your friend had basically found himself in? Yeah. That's not living. I mean, you're alive, but you're not living. Yeah.

• 1:39:54Speaker 01

  And, and I'm, you know, I'm a big fan. I remember, I remember during COVID, there was the right to try. And, you know, this was only for the people that were in the darkest parts of their life. They were in the ICU with pulmonary fibrosis. They didn't have modern medicine, had nothing left to offer. And things started parachuting in like stem cells and exosomes and nebulized exosomes. And people were coming off of ventilators and respirators and, and fibrotic tissue in their, in their lungs was actually becoming healthy tissue. Things like, like medicine would have told you could have never happened. You know, nerves are remylinating and, and things like that. And, and I, and You know, to me, the pace of medicine is is slow because we have to move at the pace of

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  the regulatory environment, which I totally understand and embrace because can't have a, you know, a bunch of charlatans just putting random stuff into human beings, but um, but it's really, you know, it's really profound to know that it can have that that big of an effect on somebody's life. Um, I want to sort of pull us out of the hole for a second. I I know that you've, you know, you got to be really happy with what what happened in this last election, but for you and military men and women that are in your group, I mean, what is, what does the future look like for you? What does it mean to you? What is, what does this election mean to you?

• 1:41:23Speaker 00

  Man.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  As far as the direction of the country and.

• 1:41:26Speaker 00

  Oh, you. I mean,

• 1:41:29Speaker 00

  I could tell you, you know, when, when, when they pulled off the win, Trump and Vance, I got, I gotta tell you, man, like, I did not realize how much baggage I was running around with on a daily basis.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  Were you an angry little smurf?

• 1:41:45Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I've been trying to, I just couldn't, I couldn't understand, like, what the fuck we were doing. Like, like, how are we gonna send the Taliban $80 million a week? Did you know that we were doing that?

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:42:01Speaker 00

  We were sending the Taliban $80 million a week in cash, in cash.

• 1:42:08Speaker 01

  For what?

• 1:42:09Speaker 00

  Great question.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  No, we already gave them $83 billion of equipment.

• 1:42:13Speaker 00

  A week.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  Maybe they needed the fuel.

• 1:42:15Speaker 00

  A week, we did.

• 1:42:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:42:16Speaker 00

  And, and so I started, you know, sending up flags through my podcast on that, got a lot of politicians involved to try to cut that funding. But basically what it was is, is we, we were sending, basically, we were funding Afghan NGOs or, or nonprofits.

• 1:42:38Speaker 00

  Without looking into them at all. And so the Taliban, I can't, I can't remember the exact number. It was like 900 new NGOs uh since the like within the first year of the Afghan withdrawal. And those were all set up by Afghans. And so I don't want to go too far into that.

• 1:42:58Speaker 01

  It's it's unbelievable.

• 1:43:00Speaker 00

  Taliban, sorry, not set up by Afghans.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  You have leakage like that and nobody, you know, you always hear about the uh, you know, the $5,000 toilet seat that made it through the government. But but to think that there's holes that big that could be filled.

• 1:43:14Speaker 00

  It's crazy, man.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:15Speaker 00

  You know, and and and then to see people not want to give it any light a day because it makes their, it makes their guy look bad. It's like, do you have any fucking people are gonna die? Like 9/11 was a $500,000 budget. We're sending them $80 million a week. How the fuck do you think this is gonna turn out?

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:37Speaker 00

  You know, and it was that, it was the border. It was, it's Ukraine. It's, I don't even know why I'm saying was because all this is still going on. But yeah, it's, it's our power grid. It's the Chinese state. It's, it's our, our, our um. The hell am I trying to say? Our uh, the supply chain. You know, do you know about the power grid? How vulnerable that is? Our water supply like.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  It is unbelievable how, you know, I, I, I'm not a doomsdayer, but I, I have an off the grid place in Colorado. That's, you know, solar fed electricity, glacier fed spring water, well and septic, um, no bunker. But um, we've got our own little 50 acre slice of paradise out there. And I'll tell you what, I'm happier out there than I am in this beautiful place in Miami.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  And it's super basic, you know, I got a frigging, you know, I, I've, I've got a propane stove and a little fox that comes on to the, you know, porch every night. And I get this free loading deer that eat my flowers every day. Um, and it's just, it's amazing. I have the razors that you just rage around the mountain. They got a shooting range on the back of the property. And um, it's at 10,500 feet when you spend the summer up there and then you come back to. Miami to sea level, you feel like, you know,

• 1:44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44:59Speaker 01

  You just got limitless pill, you know?

• 1:45:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  It's my workouts for like four or five weeks are credible.

• 1:45:05Speaker 00

  It's like simplicity.

• 1:45:06Speaker 01

  So asleep. Yeah, but it's it's simplicity. I was talking actually to Devon Levesque about this and he's got this incredible micro farming concept that he's building these communities around, you know, animals that are, you know, being raised and then, you know, turned into food and and raising your own vegetables and and, you know, growing your own food and building a community around it and having these membership clubs that are actually built around sort of getting people back in touch with nature and into into a community where you're just doing the basic sauna, cold plunge, you know, conversation, clean whole foods.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  And in and an environment where you're back in touch with nature and I so identify with that because nothing makes me feel better. None, none of all this fancy equipment. I probably got a million and a half dollars worth of equipment in this apartment, but then put on a 20 pound rucksack and and go in for literally a four mile walk in the woods.

• 1:46:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Speaker 01

  Not even kidding. Like I get back from that and I tune into myself and I'm like, holy shit, I feel amazing. I put on a heavy vest and a pair of boots and I grabbed the water bottle and just did this little four mile hike and I wasn't even trying to like, you know, bust my own balls. I wasn't trying to push myself still hard to, you know, to, you know, even improve my fitness. It's just walk in the woods with a 20 pound rucksack.

• 1:46:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, you realize how simple that is. And, you know, there's a lot of evidence now that exercise is more impactful than SSRIs for treating, you know, depression. Like they say, you want to, you want to fix somebody's depression, push them in cold water.

• 1:46:51Speaker 01

  Right? Push a sad person in cold water and see if they're still sad when they get out, you know? It's, it's, you know, and it just reminds me so, so much how, you know, just getting back to the basics can be so profound.

• 1:47:04Speaker 00

  Can I just, can I say, as we're talking about, you know, what the election meant to me?

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09Speaker 00

  And I just want to say, you know, That I think, I think part of the reason we got to where we were is because people in this country are scared to tell the truth and to stand up to shit that they don't like.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:47:26Speaker 00

  And here we are now, right? We got, we got through that four years, which was a fucking disaster. And, but you know what it was? It was people like you and people like me and Rogan and Lex Friedman and all these podcasters.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:47Speaker 00

  Who, well, actually, I can't even say all these podcasters. A small handful of podcasters who, who don't care what people think of them and aren't scared of what might happen for just asking at, and Tucker, asking questions, just asking questions, the right questions and standing up against this shit, just, just from talking on a podcast. You know, and, and so, and I think it's podcasts that pulled us out of this because the mainstream media was putting out garbage, I mean, was, still is.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  I just saw an announcement today of a reporter that just announced he's gonna write a hit piece on me, did one on Rogan, one on, uh, Joe Dispenza, did one on, uh, like Huberman and A.G. Greens and now he's like, you know, just made the announcement that I'm his next.

• 1:48:39Speaker 00

  Congratulations.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. So I feel like I kinda won the lottery. I'm like, wow, somebody actually wants to do a whole journalistic, do it on both of us.

• 1:48:48Speaker 00

  But what I want to say is, I mean, we're all still here. None of us are in prison. None of us are dead. Our businesses are all exploding because we did that. And so when it starts to get tough again, don't be a fucking pussy and speak up and, and, and say what's on your mind.

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:07Speaker 00

  You know, and, and maybe we won't wind up here again because that's what happened.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  I think that's a, that's a very valuable lesson learned. Look, and this is, this has been amazing. I wanted to make sure that before we. Close things out that I, I talk about your, what's a day in the life of like your daily routine look like now? I mean, because the drugs and the alcohol are gone, the benzos are gone, the Adderall is gone. All of those things that sort of blurred the lines between daytime, nighttime, reality and fiction, those are, those have all moved out of your life. You got two beautiful kids. In an incredible marriage, I hear you speak about your wife and you hear the changes that you went through when your son was born. So what is it, what is, what is a day in the life

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  look like now? I mean, do you have a cold punch routine? Do you have a morning routine? Do you have a exercise routine?

• 1:50:04Speaker 00

  I have a light exercise routine, but.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  I think a Navy SEAL would have a pretty intense exercise routine. You feel like you exercised enough back in the day that you're good?

• 1:50:14Speaker 00

  Pretty much.

• 1:50:15Speaker 01

  You banked it?

• 1:50:17Speaker 01

  But. You put so many deposits?

• 1:50:19Speaker 00

  No, I do, I do a light workout every morning. And then to be honest with you, Gary, me and my wife are really trying to just figure out our big goal this year was health.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  That's awesome. I'm glad to be a part of that journey, man.

• 1:50:34Speaker 00

  We have tried.

• 1:50:37Speaker 00

  I mean, we, we don't know where to look, man. You know what I mean? So, so we've really, we've cleaned the diet up, started going to a what natural, what are they called?

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  Naturopath.

• 1:50:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, naturopath doctors.

• 1:50:54Speaker 00

  I don't know if you've, I'm not plugging them, but it's helped me a ton. The Yuka app, have you heard of the Yuka app? It's like this app you put on your phone, you can pretty much scan.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I've seen that. It tells you what, what the contents of the grocery are. Yeah, I didn't know it was called Yuka. I have seen that before. It's actually pretty good.

• 1:51:11Speaker 00

  Tells you the additives, what the additives do to you.

• 1:51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:14Speaker 00

  And so, I mean, we've just, we, we found that app. We went through our entire kitchen in like one night.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  So good.

• 1:51:21Speaker 00

  Scan and everything, throw just about everything out, all the shit we thought was healthy, turns out is horrible for you.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  Oh, it is, yeah.

• 1:51:28Speaker 00

  So we started doing that.

• 1:51:32Speaker 00

  We're really just trying to clean it up, man, and figure out.

• 1:51:37Speaker 00

  I mean, it's like every day now, I feel like I hear somebody, you know, dying of cancer or.

• 1:51:42Speaker 01

  Highest rates of childhood cancer.

• 1:51:45Speaker 00

  You know.

• 1:51:45Speaker 01

  In history. It's it's it's almost a one in two now.

• 1:51:48Speaker 00

  So we're trying to clean it up, you know, and and I think we've done. I know we've done a really good job because I'll taste foods that I don't eat anymore after doing this for. Six to nine months and I'll taste the fucking chemicals in there.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, Devon and I were literally talking about how your palate changes and like when you eat whole foods, you crave whole nutritious foods. And without going too deep down the rabbit hole of the science behind it, but we have a hormone in our body released in our gut called GLP one. And essentially, it's the it's the satiation hormone. It tells us that we're full and, you know, big pharma also makes it. Semaglutide, you know, Wegovy, Ozempic, but. You you you can raise that in response to really whole nutritious foods like what we had in the kitchen before we came in here. And highly processed foods, you know, unnatural flavorings, food additives, colors, dyes, preservatives.

• 1:52:42Speaker 01

  You know, chemicals, synthetics, artificial sweeteners, those don't satiate us or our body doesn't recognize them. So the brain doesn't think you've eaten. And so it needs you to eat more because it needs the nutrients. I mean, it's it's an infinitely. Complex but very intelligent. Organ and it knows we haven't gotten enough nutrients. So I mean, you're gonna you're gonna eat again. And if you keep eating the same processed shit, I mean, this is why the obesity pandemic is what it is. We want to push down on the obesity with. Weight loss drugs instead of pushing up on obesity with whole foods. You know, you look at videos from, we talked about this too, you know, from.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  You know, JFK, you know, like you, you look at high schools in the, in the 50s and the, in the 60s, play find the fat person. Like they just weren't, they're all fit. They're doing muscle ups and climbing up the walls with their little hand dolls and, and running a mile and, you know, under seven minutes and everybody's fit and lean and, um, and you know, now we've just, you know, we're the sickest, fattest, uh, most disease ridden nation in the world of all the civilized nations.

• 1:53:55Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  But, um, but this was, this is just been incredible, man. I'm, I'm, first of all, I'm very excited and I'm, I, I take, uh, great pride in, in you trusting me to be a part of that health journey. I'm excited to talk about that on, on your podcast. Um, but before I wind down every podcast, I last, I ask all my guests the same question. Um, and there's no right or wrong answer to this question. And it's, what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

• 1:54:26Speaker 00

  What does it mean to be, to be an ultimate human?

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Cause I think you're an ultimate human.

• 1:54:30Speaker 00

  I think to be an ultimate human, you have to constantly think about how you're going to leave this world a better place than when you entered it. Uh, be a good husband, be a good father. If you're not either one of those, then find somebody to mentor and make them a better person.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  Wow. That's amazing, man. Well, I mean, this has been incredible, Sean. I, I, I want to have you back sometime, man. Your, your, your journey is astounding. You made a huge impact. Um, and my audience is going to absolutely love this. Thank you for coming on, man.

• 1:55:04Speaker 00

  I appreciate it.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  And as always, that's just science, guys.