Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Big Pharma to The Front Lines of Fire - A Journey of Transformation and Healing with Kara Henning

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Kara Henning is a former pharmaceutical sales rep who transformed her life in the wake of a mental health crisis while in the middle of the Covid 19 Pandemic. Kara shares her raw and inspiring story, starting from the high-pressure world of pharma sales, known for its tight dresses and high heels, to her drastic decision to leave everything behind - job, home, company car, all of it. Kara's story takes a remarkable turn when she steps in as a head chef at Heroes & Horses, run by Micah Fink. This experience became a crucial stepping stone in her life, leading her to embrace wildland firefighting, where she has just completed her first season on an engine team and now has aspirations to join a wildland helicopter attack team. Kara openly discusses her embrace of psychedelics as a tool for healing and growth, sharing experiences from Ibogaine trips in Mexico, Peyote ceremonies with Native Americans, to Ayahuasca retreats with fellow first responders. Her commitment to suicide prevention and mental health advocacy in the wildland firefighting community is not just a career choice but a life's purpose. The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Hello, everybody, and welcome back. Today's episode, you know who it's brought to you by. It's brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Let's go to their website right now and see what they have to offer. The rotating banner is back. The first thing I'm looking at is Hippo Elite, which is an ultra-limited coffee collaboration. With Tim Kennedy. Interesting.

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And then, oh, man, I posted about this the other day. BRCC did a documentary. The Siege at Kaysan. Grab a cup of coffee, sit down, watch that sucker. These people, I swear, they need a wheelbarrow for the size of their balls. I just don't know how they get around. Unbelievable. As we scroll down, there's the banner, not a banner, it's a sliding bar from light to dark coffee.

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My guest today is Kara Henning. And our communication started off over an email. And I'm just going to read to you a little bit of it right now because it caught my attention. And I think you'll understand why immediately. She spent 20 plus years of her life chasing money as a pharma medical sales rep. Yep, she says tight dresses, high heels, and cupcake delivery runs. I am sure you have seen my fellow high class street hookers all the time in primary care doctor's offices. And I've seen them on TV shows, specifically the one I'm thinking of was painkillers by Peter Berg.

And it really focuses on the role of this individual in our medical industry and ecosystem, if you will. had a COVID career crisis, full mental breakdown. Obviously dealing with that, she had no job, no home, no company, no car, no health care. Run out of U-Haul, moved to Montana, volunteered at Heroes and Horses run by Micah Fink, which I have had on the show. Fantastic episode, even better mustache from that individual. Legendary Dick Broom. I mean, Wyatt Earp would be, you know, praising that man's stash. working there as a in the kitchen dove in to psychedelics um two ibegain trips peyote with native

americans iawasca with first responders getting ready to go to three weeks in the jungle at a women's retreat in peru with nine ayahuasca ceremonies and then lateral to life to becoming a woodland firefighter or i'm sorry not woodland wildland firefighter maybe there's some overlap there because i feel like wildland firefighters fight woodland fires but you know sometimes words escape me. I couldn't respond fast enough. Yes, I want to talk to this person. This is exactly why I love hosting this podcast. Interesting people talking about things that have happened in their life, what they did with them, how they grew, how they moved through them. And I'm going to shut up. Let's get into us. Episode 320 with Kara Henning. Enjoy. I'm looking at danger close now. I've never seen somebody,

there's two pages there of notes, right? Yeah. Front and back? Uh, front, back. Holy fuck. Something that was rewriting. Because I, like, I feel like it's such a big opportunity. I'm like, I just don't want to, you know, I really want to stand up for our first responders. What if I don't want to talk about any of the stuff you have written down? Then we'll wing it.

All right. Pull that sucker closer to your mouth. A little bit closer. You can rotate it too. Just rotate it. There you go. Very directional. Awesome.

Yep. Where would you like to be? begin. Because I know where I want to start. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Where'd you get that hat?

Always taking shit for this hat. I take a lot of shit for this hat, actually. Let me tell you why. Yeah. Thirsty? No, you'd probably never catch a seal wearing one. Yep. The closest I ever got, and this was one I was brand new, I had an all black hat with a black

trident embroidered on it. So it was like black on black? And then eventually Everybody kind of threw those away a little bit It's an odd showpiece, if you will. Yeah. Tell me the backstory. A girlfriend gave it to me.

Where'd she get it? I don't know, actually. I can guess. Yeah, yeah. Being in a dude maybe. I mean, let's hope it was singular. I mean, there's the option. It could have been plural.

It might have been. Yeah, I started kind of leaning into first. first responder, veteran PTSD work. And she's like, I just want you to have this hat. I think you should have it, like just kind of randomly. And I was like, okay. It was after you kind of started focusing on the post-traumatic stress. Yeah.

Post-traumatic stress. Okay. Started kind of getting into that world. And she's like, I think you should have this hat. And I was like, okay. And I felt very weird wearing it. It took me like probably a year before I even got comfortable with it. Okay.

Because it brings attention and, you know, asked a lot of questions and I wasn't sure how to navigate those questions. But the more I started like growing into my journey, my purpose, the easier it was for me to start conversations. So now I use it as a great conversation piece, whether it's someone that's served or someone that, you know, just wants to know why I have it. Do people ask you if you are a seal or were a seal? Yeah, more than usual, which to my understanding, there's no female seal that they know of. Yeah.

Can I offer a suggestion? Yeah. Say yes. Okay. You were in Bud's class 221. Okay. That would have been a summer class. So you went through, I'm going to give you details so you can get past the initial question.

So you were in class 221. That would have been, let me see here. So classes a year. That would have been in 1998. All right. Let's say you started with, call it 210 people, 30 graduate. It's not a big deal. Let me see here.

He started off. Michael, what do you think? Pick a number between one and ten. Do you want to turn your microphone on before you actually say that? Go ahead. Let's try this again. Let's be adults. Seven.

Good. Thank you. Okay, so seven. So you started off on the West Coast. Yeah. Here's a problem, Michael. Seal Team 7. And this is how you catch motherfuckers.

They'll be like, yeah, I was at Seal Team 3 in Vietnam. I go, really? In Vietnam in the 70s. So like, yeah. I was over there with Team 3. I was like, well, can you help me with this little conundrum? And that is Siltian 3 was created in 1980. So how exactly were you serving with them in 1970, fill in the blank?

So pick another number between 1 and 10. Two. Okay. East Coast, one of the originals created in 1941, January specifically. All right, so you spent your time on Little Creek. Okay. You stayed in for, call it eight years. Got a little bit of post-9-11 time in there.

to Afghanistan, deployment to Iraq. I like it. Do you want to be enlisted or an officer? Officer. I mean, that's a shitty choice, but okay. Got out as a lieutenant. Sounded good. Yeah.

You got out as a lieutenant after doing your OIC tour. And there you go. Just make shit up. Yeah. But you'll be okay with the vast majority of that information. All right. It's enough. There's a lot of tell.

So those are the first, I mean, any seal would say, hey, what bud's class are you in? That's the initial one. Sure. And it's amazing. People start saying one fox trot Charlie Alpha. I'm like, oh, oh, yeah. Or my blood's class was classified.

Like, oh, fuck, here we go. And then it's what team are you at and where was that team at? So there you go. You're ready. Nice. Use that if you want to. Don't if you don't. I'm not responsible for anything that happens after you say yes to somebody about being a seal.

Sure. And those were just suggestions. Okay. It works as a good defense mechanism too. I think it guards off men a little bit. You think so? You know, you're like, she's probably banging a seal. I'm like, let's go with that.

Yeah. I don't know if that defends you against anything. Maybe. You know? Intimidation a little bit. You haven't met many seals, have you? A few. Yeah.

There's a lot of them that you wouldn't be intimidated by. That is true. You know what I mean? A few that I meet, I'm like, well, wouldn't have seen that coming. Some of them are more gelatinous than others, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a nice way of saying they're fat fucks, but my word. not yours? Yeah. Okay. Your email when you reached out was fascinated to me. And I'm actually very fascinated. I hope we can talk a little bit about what you did before going into the Wildland world.

Sure. And I do definitely want to talk about why you chose to do that and the journey you've kind of gone on when it comes to first responders, post-traumatic stress and all of those things. But talk to me about the first 20 years of your professional career. Sure. Because I was instantly like, okay, we should have a chat. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's an interesting story. So I grew up Detroit suburbs, not a ton of money. Whole family, school teachers have always been the black sheep. Money was always a topic of frustration. So when I was young, I'm like, I definitely don't want to be broke. Did you realize that you were broke when you were young? A little bit, yeah. Like comparatively to other people?

Yeah, not, you know. I was a little bit lower than most of my friends. Like we'd go skiing and my mom would be like, no. You know, like I got invited to go to homecoming early when I was young and I was super excited. And I wanted my mom to like, go take me to the mall and buy a dress. And, you know, I wasn't happening? Yeah, she's like, how many lawns are you going to mall? You know, I'm like, oh, it's not what I was hoping for.

But, you know, I was always hustling, always chasing a buck, paperouts, babysitting, working in the mall, like, anything I could do, turned into waitressing and whatnot. not so always on the run for money. In hindsight, do you view that as a good thing that the work ethic and the realization that if you want something, you're going to have to hustle and work for it? Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's so important to understand the value of money. Yeah.

And as much as I wanted to grow up with a silver spoon, the one thing I always say is I am so grateful. I am not Bill Gates' daughter because how would you ever know if a dude really loves you? How would you ever know that people are beyond? a guy. How would you know that anybody is actually treating you like a normal human being? Yeah. And I can't, I mean, I think it's safe to say that Bill Gates has like nuclear grade autism. Yeah. Like national defense levels. So, and I'm sure there was a portion of his life where he, I mean, I think there was a time where he was the richest man in the world for a long period of time. But I don't think he was born that way. So at least he saw the change and what that was for him and his life and things that he interacted with.

If you're born into that, I don't know if you actually have a real. optic on the world around you. Stuff. Yeah. And I've heard stories too where people are like, oh, I just get invited because I'm going to pay for dinner and, you know. That sucks. Yeah.

That sucks. That sucks. But I think as a chick, dating, it sucks even more. I mean, it's tough. I mean, I'll have to take your word on that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the value of earning money and learning how to balance it, budget it, is incredibly

valuable. So I appreciate that. I would agree. So when it came time for college, I almost went into the Air Force that was kind of on the radar. Military was always interesting to me. Love the discipline. Loved just a lot of kind of what it stood for. But I'm like, I think I'm going to go business instead.

So it's one of those situations where you're going to go, you know, business, Air Force. I'm like, I'm just going to do business. I'm glad I did because it got me to where I am. Right out of college fumbled quite a few times with random jobs, you know. And that was a hard lesson because I thought I had this golden ticket. I'm like, here I go. You know, I'm going to have all this money. I've got this business degree.

It's going to be great. And it was a very hard five years post-college. Eventually, I got into United Healthcare, worked for two years on the insurance side as an account manager, had to, worked in the small business segment where I would renew small business accounts. And that gave me a taste of kind of inside, outside sales. And from there, I was. at my dentist office and getting the cleaning. I just asked them, I was like, hey, do you guys have, like, you know, like reps that come in?

I had some friends that had done pharmaceutical sales that were going down that route. I'm like, do you have, like, those kind of reps? And they're like, we do, you know, a few of them. And they gave me five or six business cards, called all of them. You know, I was in my young 20s, didn't really know how to network too well. And, you know, nothing happened. And then sure enough, like six months later, my dentist called me. And he's like, hey, you know, do you remember you're asking, blah, blah, blah.

someone's got opening, you know, can we connect you together? I'm like, absolutely. So from there, I started my medical career more on the dental side. Okay. So you were essentially a pharmaceutical rep in the dental sphere? Yeah. Have you seen the Peter Berg Netflix series Pain Killer? Mm-hmm.

And this is the optic that I have no idea whether or not it's accurate. And for anybody who hasn't seen it, fuck, it's great. It's about the Sackler family. I see. Yeah. Well, it's kind of about the Sackler family. It's kind of about OxyContin. It's kind of about how it destroyed people in the addictive nature.

And it's kind of about how they sold that to doctors. And I will broadly describe it as they went and found ecologists, it seemed like, young women who were motivated. to sell and earn money. And I don't know where any of the legalities lie with all of this, what you can do and what you can't do, but it seemed like they would start off relatively poor, and then they were in a Porsche. And then they had people working underneath them,

who had people working underneath them. And I'm just curious, what was your experience like? Yeah, very much. Very much so. In my letter, I think I use the term street hooker. You did use the term street hooker. Yeah. A classy one.

So as a rep in the dental space, what were you actually selling? Was it equipment or was it medication? All across the board. I had changed companies quite a bit. So I first worked in Chicago, then I went over to New York, then went over to California, and then Arizona. And probably around like the three to five-year mark as a sales rep, it turns into Groundhog's Day. You either want new products or you want new territory lines. Like if you're doing the same thing over and over, it's hard to hit those numbers.

With the same people over and over, I'm assuming too? Yeah, yeah. So you want change. So my original company that I started with was dental whitening, was their claim to fame. But we had a catalog with over 200 products and more on the supply side, so not so much pharmaceutical. Okay. Second company I jumped to was more of the traditional pharmaceutical. Nestle owned us.

It was the parent company of Elkan. They have all the eye drops. So if it was glaucoma medication or post-LASIC surgery, prescription eye drops for allergies, that's where I was at. So as somebody, let's go to the start with the dental world. So you're trying to grab or monopolize a few minutes or an hour of the dentist's time to pitch him on particular things. And are you guys straight commission based? That one was.

Actually, I had a little bit of a base. Some companies are 1099 where, you know, if you're selling like an x-ray in a hospital, you might be just straight commission and get a huge commission. You mean an x-ray machine? Correct. Okay. Yeah. So there's a mixture.

It just depends on the company. Most of them have a decent base, but they're going to give you some really good commissions or bonuses. so you're obviously going to, you know, jump for those carrots more. And then how about when you transition over to the more pharmaceutical-centric side? Same thing? Yeah. Good base. So in the, it seemed like, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the painkiller series, it seemed like the rep was getting a scrape every time the doctor was writing a script.

Is that correct? Usually, yeah. Okay. Yeah. They'll have numbers, you know, they're well documented of where the numbers. are coming from. They can see who's writing them. And you have specific sales goals, too.

Does the doctor get a scrape? Usually not. Okay. I feel like that would be totally fucked up. And in the same breath, I feel like that would fit directly into our current health care system. Yeah, it seems like it. There are ways to get a kickback if you're a speaker for the company.

Which that is in the painkiller series as well. That's actually how they saved OxyContin. and it started blowing up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I should take a pause and say that, you know, I'm probably going to talk some shit today about Big Pharma, about reps, about VA, about doctors.

Right now with that. And I've worked with very nice people, very nice sales reps, you know, very nice managers. So I try not to talk in op, excuse me, in absolutes that everyone's a dickhead. They're not. But there are plenty of dickheads in there. And it's more so the higher up you go, the worse it gets. And like anything, you know, you need that year over year growth, 10%, 20%. You know, I remember the last company that I was with, we had a medication for gum disease,

and it was COVID. And we had a great team. We bonded very well together. But I sat down with my boss and, you know, it was like, as everyone's planning their new year, like the boards are forecasting, all these people that are tied into vaccines or anything with COVID, no one's going to say, hey, you know what, we've made like 50% growth this year. Like, let's just sit this one out. Like, we're good.

Like, let's just take it, you know, let's just take it on a zero percent, you know, year over year. Like, no, it's- Bottom line is not going to accept that. No. Board's not going to accept it. Got to make more money. And it's just, it always comes down to more, more money. I mean, the first few years that you start a brand new business, your sales numbers that year over the previous year are going to be spectacular. Thousands of percent growth.

The second year, you're going to trend more towards reality, but you're still going to have hundreds percent growth, you know, assuming you're running your business well. So, you know, expecting a 10 to 20 percent year over year, that's not that bad when you start. But didn't you do this for almost 20 years? Yeah. How did you maintain those numbers? And that's why I left. That's what I'm fascinated in. How far do they push it?

Real far. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Sales are up is only as good as their number. And I've lost jobs. I've kept jobs. They're merging. They're changing. If you get a new product that helps, but it is brutal.

And you get into some pressure cookers. And, you know, you're in it. And I don't think people are really compromising that much, but I mean, they have a goal, and the goal is to get in there. And, you know, women that, I used to get asked as a sales rep, you know, people in the office say, like, do you have to be attractive to be a pharmaceutical rep? You know, I get that question a lot. And, you know, the unfiltered answer is absolutely sex cells. I don't know. It's true. How often, though, and we can use this broadly, I'm not asking you personally, but how often would it go to that point? You know, flirting, you know, you're always in a dress, you're always looking good, you know, schmoozing the doctor. Doctors like to talk to pretty girls. Now men do really well, too.

It's a different advantage. Men do well with the women at the front desk. The guard, the century. Yeah. There's different, yeah, absolutely. It's like there's different ways to get into the office. So, you know, maybe a girl can be, you know, super cute and charming and, you know, charismatic. because the doctors are just in their grind, you know, and in their defense, they're in a shitty system.

You know, the average primary care doctor has seven minutes, you know, they're burning through 40 patients a day, and you just don't have much time. And the doctors might have, you know, $500,000 in loans. Yeah. It's very common, you know, so it's like they're part of the system and they're sucked in. I had one doctor. I used to work for Envisaline in Los Angeles. This one doctor killed himself. He was in the pressure cooker, and that was his only way out.

And it's sad. And that debt passes down to your family. Does it really? It's unexcusable. Yeah, with medical. So if you did it for 20 years, looking back on it, how long of that would you say that you enjoyed it? Maybe 30%. I mean, there were some good times.

Don't get me wrong. I was living in New York City in Manhattan. I had a company car, SUV, parked in a garage that was $800 a month just to park it. I mean, people don't have cars in New York. I had an expense account. I took a top doctor out to Nobu dropping $3,000 down for her and her 10 family members, you know? Like, I went to all the best restaurants in New York. Like, I had some good times, but you're not out with your friends.

You know, it's still work. You still have business to do. And you're also filtered, you know, where it's like, like, somewhere in my head I got it that I had to be like the weather lady, where it's like hair's good, body's good, like we're happy, we're presenting. Like, you're never having a bad day. Nobody cares. Don't talk about religion. Don't talk about politics. Like, let's just keep it nice and vanilla.

Everyone's happy. And the longer I got into it, the worse it got. And I think for me at the very end is like when I tapped out is when the pronouns started coming in. Whereas like, this is what I'm not going to fucking do. Like I've been filtered for so long and I don't feel authentic. And the more and more I saw what was behind the curtain, I'm like, this is a dirty fucking business. And I don't feel good about myself. And I was single, always having a hard time dating.

I was really picky. I didn't want to date a guy that, you know, made less money than me. I'm making like 150-ish, give or take, 120, somewhere around there. So that eliminated a lot of people. But I'm not into social media at all. Never have been. You're not missing out on anything. Nothing.

But if I was, my life probably would look pretty perfect, you know. 10, 20% of the time, I was happy. Great girlfriends, going to brunch, taking awesome vacations, but 80% of me was kind of miserable. You know, you have to go to eight offices a day. You're driving around. You're trying to just navigate everything. And it's just a grind.

And you're fake. You know, I'm like, I just want to be authentic. So, like, when the pronouns came in, I just felt like I was tiptoeing on everything already. And I think that's just what tipped the scales. I'm like, I got to get. get out of this business. Like, I just can't do it. And the sales reps joke around about the golden handcuffs. You know, we're like, how are you going to get out? How are you going to get out? You know, and it's, you can't necessarily make lateral moves. It's hard. It's really hard.

And so the last company I was with, they had all kinds of drama with the DOJ. They were going through a lawsuit, ended up settling, you know, for 300 million. It was a third time they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. What were they doing? Well, the first time companies switch and merge and, you know, they just move the money. It's all the same shit. So the company originally started off as J&J, obviously, you know, the opioid situation, moved over to Valiant, which was huge, like, scandals, insider trading, like all kinds of stuff.

The third one that I was with, the DOJ got them for withholding a diabetes medication, and they did 800% markup. And, yeah, and a bunch of, like, 15 reps. Yeah, 15 reps got fired. I had to do, like, depositions. It was a year during COVID, too, when the lockdowns were. And I just had some, those interviews put me in a tailspin, and I had some personal stuff happening, too,

where I went into a full fucking spiral. Like, it just was like the perfect storm. of two things happening. And I was like, I've got to get out. I've got to get out. And so fire was interesting to me. I took a EMT course and I was working at the same time. I was failing miserably.

I'm not really book smart. Like when I went through all the pharma trainings and whatnot, sometimes you're there two weeks, sometimes you're there month. You know, you have to learn all the science and so you can detail and whatnot. I was always about. bottom of the class. I was, you know. Do you have to learn the science or you have to be able to to repeat what the science says? Kind of both. You have to go toe to toe to with doctors. So they can call bullshit pretty well. And some doctors do it on purpose. So like, I'm going to fuck with this

chick, like, see what she knows. Going backwards to the dinner you're talking about where you're, you know, at Nobu with the doctor and 10 family members, what is the expectation on both sides of that from the doctor and from the rep? The rep is, I'm assuming, looking to get out of the doctor prescriptions or using their item. Yep. The doctor is just there for a free meal. I mean, it's like, yeah. I mean, there's obviously no written contract.

Is there a handshake? Like, how does this go down? And I asked that because you weren't the only rep, and I'm sure that they went to dinners with other people. So what, it's just like you get like a hard maybe, I mean. Yeah, you're closing them. You know the numbers, so you're always following up. And you might have a book of business that's 100, a kind of,

accounts, 200 accounts, but it's kind of the 80-20 rule. You're really only usually targeting like the top ones or the ones you think you can move. A lot of them are duds or maintenance or whatever. But those top ones, you know, you go to dinner and you better be in there Monday or Tuesday like, hey, how are we doing this week? What are the surgeries looking like? Or what kind of patients do you have? Or you work with their office staff to flag charts of patients that might be candidates. And so usually a-

Holy shit. Oh, yeah. There's a whole thing. I mean, you're buttering up the office staff to, like, navigate. So, like, the cupcakes and donuts and coffee thing is real? Oh, 100%. 100%. Yeah, in painkillers, when the two chicks are in the red dress and they're like, I'm like, I was cringing.

I think that's when I stopped watching it because I'm like, this is just. A little bit too close to home. Yeah, I'm like, this is me. I'm like, I just hated it. I hated it at that point, you know. Random non-sequitur question. How could you date a guy that made less money than you? I would amasculate him.

Because it's like, I need you to be a value ad. What if he was a value ad in some other way? He could be. He could be. Yeah. And I'm super open to that now. Absolutely. There's some amazing people out there.

Like some crazy deep thinkers, probably philosophy major. Fucking huckin lattes at Starbucks because I don't know what you get for a philosophy degree. Yeah. I don't know. I just was curious about that. Yeah. It's not something I've ever, I don't know, I guess it's the expectation that the guy is supposed. I don't think about that stuff that much.

I think as a chick, like, you're always kind of trying to date up a little bit, I think. But you're only talking about one perspective, and that's the monetary. Yeah. For me, it is Fabio, but he was homeless. Hard pass. Michael, do you know who Fabio is? Yeah, you've asked me this before. Okay.

God, he wouldn't have known. By the way, his pronouns are Hishim. Perfect. So he shim? Yeah, shim. Okay. I didn't want to say she because that would have been. He, she?

Yeah, he shim. Okay. Yeah, I think, you know, I was a brat. I was a total brat when it came to what I wanted in life, what I was chasing. Yeah. You know, money, it buys comfort for sure. Not happiness, but comfort, yes. Money buys things and some things can provide comfort.

Yeah. But not in your loneliest moments. No. not at all, not at all. And I think I thought it would. I was like, well, if I can just finally. I think a lot of people think that. Yeah, I want a nice successful man, makes a little bit more money, you know, and then

I'll be on the up and up. And, you know, we're just sold this fake bill of goods where it's like, what you're going to do is crunch some widgets every day, make a bunch of money, get a house, 2.5 kids and the white pick a fence and happily ever after. And it's just not the case, you know. And I think after a while, I'm just like, chasing money, chasing money, and I felt like I had an old soul. I'm like, I can't fucking do this.

Like, I need to have some value for myself. Do you ever think the white picket fence and the 2.5 kids, do you ever think that ever was good enough? Or is that just the bullshit that people said so nobody would ask them more questions? I think it's the bullshit. Yeah, I don't. I think it's a bullshit. And the statistics, I think that are, most Americans are divorced.

obese and less than $1,000 in the bank account. Yeah, it's rough. What's the saying? Nine meals away from a catastrophe, which is essentially three days. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the way, like, unless you kind of push. That was the American dream.

Not for, I would say not for my parents. Yeah. Maybe not completely for theirs, but I think definitely the generation before that. Husband's working. Wife stay at home, like you said, the 2.5 kids, which I'm not sure how that's possible. You know, cooking dinner, martini in your hand when you get home. And like, that's fulfillment. I don't know if it ever actually was.

Yeah. I think we just tell ourselves some bullshit stuff to justify our own problems and situations. Yeah. We do. We do. And you know who really fucked this up as women? Women kind of fuck themselves with this whole expectation. So I just want to be clear, even though our voices don't sound alike, that that was not me that said that.

and it wasn't Michael. Yes. Coming from a woman. I'll own it. It's a cautionary tale. I've seen women just be like, I can have it all. You know, I can do it. I can have the business.

I can have my family. I can have my husband. It's like, you can try. You know, you can try. But what you should do is put yourself in that top 1%. You know, I'm not saying it can't be done. Yeah. But you are setting yourself up for such high expectations as a female.

And I've seen women just like abandon the career and do like, I'm going to do the stay at home mom and just lean all the way into my family. I've seen the reverse of that. People who think since birth. And I have what I'm about to say, I don't have any judgment against this. And if people feel this way, pursue your dreams. But I know a lot of people who said before they had kids and were a stay at home mom that that's all they wanted to do in life. And at a certain point in that journey, and I'm only repeating what I'm only repeating what. I have heard people say is that they felt like they lost a sense of who they were, a lost,

a sense of their purpose. They felt like they were invisible in the world. And it was horrendous, horrendous amounts of unhappiness. And I don't want that for anybody. Yeah. I've seen it play out both ways. Yeah. You know, because if you're a woman trying to balance all three, the one girl I work with

specifically, she's like, you know, I feel like I'm 30% everything. She's like, if I was, I would love to half-ass every departures. She's like, but I'm like 30% wife, 30% mom, 30% employee. She's like, I'm not even fucking crushing it in one department like I'd love to be. What was the other 10%? Oh, I don't know. Oops. Not working on math.

I'm just saying something was left out there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Like I said, remedial table. No. Oh, yeah. Maybe she's just leaving the last 10% for the unknown.

That's what I would do. Yeah. But it's a tough kick for a woman. And the ones that do stay at home, they're like, well, I'm just a stay-at-home mom. It's like, not just. Like, there's so much honor in that. I think life is a tough gig for everybody, male or female. I think that, and I don't know where the different roles and responsibilities and expectations came from.

Well before my time. Yeah. But stuff was passed down. Yeah, life is going to kick you in the teeth regardless of what you do and, you know, what side of the gender line you fall on. And depending on how many lines you think that there may be. Yeah. It's a weird world that we live in. I mean, there are lessons, you know, obstacles away.

Yeah. Big believer in that, you know. You got to get off victim. My pet peeve is victim. Feeling like you're a victim? Yeah. How do you, how do you, when somebody has been the victim of something, how do you justify that thought with them?

Say they're a victim of domestic violence or assault. I mean, they have been victimized. Yep. How do you approach them and try to talk them out of that victim mindset? You got to do the work. 50% of every problem is yourself. I would say that's a low percentage for most people for most problems. Yeah.

I mean, you have to realize like, okay, where did I misstep in this equation? You know, if someone's... So I'll add a variable to this. It's a kid that's being abused by their parents. They didn't misstep. Yeah. I'm just curious. Yeah.

It's tough. I mean, it's, it's, I think you're allowed to be a victim for a little bit because you absolutely were. You know, I know you've said in the past, you know, your trauma. You are not responsible for the trauma that happens to you, but you are 100% responsible for dealing with it and what you do with it. And that's how I, like, I mean, how, God, I hate the statistics on the abuse of children. Yes. Oh, it's like I would love for somebody to try to justify to me, um,

beating the shit out of a kid. Oh, they just, they wouldn't, they wouldn't be quiet. Maybe because they were hungry or tired or they wanted your attention or love, whatever it may be. But you can't also then take that abuse and justify when you have your own kids treating them in the same way. It's tough. It's easy to say. I think it's very difficult to do. And I would agree that you have to do the work. And I think what's challenging is some people can get more out of less work. And for some people, it's a lifelong never-ending process. Yes.

Yeah. I've been through a decent amount of therapy in my life. Just kind of checking in like a bad breakup or, you know, in a tough funk. When I left New York, I moved to California. It was the first time I tried to get out of pharmaceutical sales. I really went into like a dark, dark place. Took Laxapro for like four months. I didn't even know what that is.

SSRI, antidepressant. Okay. One of the most popular. How do that make you feel? It's weird. It takes the swing off things. I heard somebody recently say, I liked how they described it,

that if you're at a 1 to 10 scale, it kind of just pushes you into the 4 to the 6. It's like, let's take the 1s and the 3s off and the 7s and the 10, so you don't have those big swings. So kind of just flatline. Yeah, it's like you just got like the, when you bowl and you have your bumper lanes in, it's like, let's just put some barricades in so you're not just, like, swinging high and low.

But you're also not feeling a lot. I didn't like it, and you have to be so careful when you drink on it. This is the one thing people don't talk about. It's on the bottle. It's, I mean, do the pill bottle. Yeah, yeah. There's. Yeah.

Yeah, it needs to be discussed more because so many people that take it, are also drinking to try to soothe. And that's what we're taught. Like that's the acceptable medication is drinking. And it's not helping. But when you're on those medicines, it is detrimental. And what does it do?

Does it make you have high and low swings, even though the medication is supposed to prevent that? Yeah, I've been told, and I didn't sell SSRIs before, but I've, you know, no friends that have and whatnot. But if I was told that when you drink, it's almost like wiping it out. like you didn't take the medication that day. And you are supposed to titrate on and off of those.

Like cold turkey is not a good idea. When you start to titrate down and wane yourself off, that last step is the most crucial that people also don't talk about. And they say like if a person falls down the stairs, it's usually on the last step because they're like, oh, I got this, I'm good. And the last one gets you. Yeah, kind of the same thing with getting.

getting off those meds, like you have to be so careful, so, so careful with that, so careful. How was it for you coming off of them? How did you actually, how did you make the decision that you wanted to? I knew I was in a dark, dark place. So I had, I was working two jobs. I worked in a cigar bar in New York as a while,

which was super fun, I had all this extra cash, I had no life. I was doing pharmaceuticals in the day, this cigar bar at night. I'd gotten into a bad real estate deal, years back on this pre-construction condo. And so I was in a lot of debt. So I was like, I'm going to have to just get a second job.

It's the way it is. So finally, I quit the cigar bar after three years. I'm like, I got a, you know, I was single, having a hard time dating. I'm like, I will be the lady in the shoe if I stay here in New York and whatnot. So I remember a girlfriend, we were going to go to Miami. Bags were packed. I had to just drop my dog off at the time who's since passed by. just had to drop her off for the weekend and I couldn't like I had everything ready to go and I was

on my couch and I just had to like just drop the dog off get to the airport and you got this and I just called her and I was like I just can't do it I can't do it and she's just like you can't you know and it's like and I like everything in my body just wanted to but I just was all the way drained I also picked up a nice little adderall addiction, which didn't help. And I had stopped the Adderall as well. How long did you take that for? Probably two years, maybe. How'd you get started on it? A friend gave me. No, it was definitely prescribed to you. Yeah, yeah. Friend gave me one. And my heart was racing. I was actually in Egypt. Why'd you take it? Well, I was traveling, and I was super jet lag.

It was a really hot day. We were on this long tour. And I remember we were in the shop, you know, like a tour or a shop, whatever. And I was so dog tired. Like, you know, when jet lag just hits you. I was so dog tired and it was, you know, there are three of us total.

And so I said to the two of them was like, listen, guys, like I can't even stand up right now. I'm so tired. I'm going to go just sit in the tour bus and like just like, I wasn't going to nap, but I'm like, I just, I got to shut. You were going to nap. I was going to try.

Yeah. I didn't know if I'm not a great napper, you know, but I was like, I at least got a, like, I can't stand up. I'm so fucking tired right now. Yeah. And she's like, well, why did you just take one of my adderals? You know, and I was like, oh, okay, you know. And then it's like anything, you know, it's your lips.

It's so good. All of a sudden my heart was like, you know, it was like, bing, you know. And then, you know, the side effects is, you know, so she gave me a handful, you know, and whatnot. And I've always been. She's not aware that this is. a prescription drug that has like severe. She was a pharma rep too. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. And yeah. Yeah. So, you know. So how did you get your Adderall post that handful then?

Just go to a doctor, you know, tell him you got it. So you actually got a script. Oh, yeah. Got my own script. Piece of cake. What did you tell them? Can't stay awake. I have narcolepsy.

Yeah, just restless, fidgety, can't concentrate. They're like, okay. You know, like. No problem. They just pass it out like candy. Is that because they have a rep that sells Adderall and the more that they prescribe? I think they just, if a patient is on a prescription, that means they have to come back. God, I don't think that is a good design for our medical system.

No, I mean, whether you like it or not, surgeons need people to operate on. Doctors need patients coming in and out of the door. Like it's the dirty part of the business. But it's true. This is even more fucked up. So fast forward to my recent like full mental breakdown when a lot of stuff was going on about two years ago, three years ago. I had a situation kind of a lot of things here. So one of my favorite speeches is by Steve Jobs.

I don't know if you're familiar about connecting the dots backwards. I am familiar with who Steve Jobs is. I'm not familiar with that particular speech. So I believe it was a Stanford commencement speech. I can find on YouTube. Great thing. He talks about like just don't stay in the box. Don't say vanilla.

Stay wild. Challenge everything. Just go for it. Like get after it in life. Like fuck the norms. That's great. And he says, you know, as you push forward, you'll make these dots. You know, but when you look back, you can just connect the dots to your life and be like,

oh, this got me to that, that got me to this. Yeah, you won't see it in real time moving forward, but with the ability to look backward, I see what you're saying. Yeah, so it's a big thing. So as I tell these stories, so I'm like, oh, this is a dot I should probably add. So I might kind of jump around all over the place.

So, yeah. So your original question was... Adderall. Yeah, Adderall. Oh, what got me there? Well, I have more questions about Adderall. Like, one, when did you realize you were addicted? Oh, right away.

Yeah. Right. I mean, it was like the first one. Yeah, it was the first one. Because it's, every chick doesn't want to be, like, fat and tired. And those are the two things. It takes what your appetite. Did you know that there are other ways to not be fat and tired than Adderall?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was always a runner. I, you know, I was, I played basketball, ran track. Like, I loved running. I loved working out. It was super into spin and whatnot. But, like, if you just want, like, that edge, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, takes you to the next level. So then when did you realize it was a problem and you needed to stop?

When I, I had three scripts in New York. From different doctors? Yeah. Yep. I had a regular script through insurance. I had a cash pay so they like wouldn't track the insurance and then, you know, I was just a cash, like I was like, oh, I don't have insurance, just cash pay. And then the other one was a fake name. So like and and after a couple of years or two years, year or whatever, those three bottles like wouldn't get me through a month. It's just like anything. You're going to build a tolerance. I was going to say, how much were you taking? I mean, obviously, like how much?

I mean, three, you know, you have your quantity of probably 60 in one prescription. So. 180 pills? Yeah, quite a bit. And so I remember just, you know, trying to. So you were taking like six of those a day? A couple in the morning. Because you're going to go up down, up down, up down.

So it's like, you know, I got to, here's two more. You know, it's lunchtime or here's two more. It's evening. Especially working two jobs too. How'd you get yourself off? I, by the grace of God, have, I probably should have been in rehab at least like three times in my life. Addictive personality. I've dabbled with drugs.

It's, you know, something. I've, you know, struggled with. But for some reason, I just have that moment where it's like that come to Jesus moment. It's like, you got to get your fucking shit together. And this is the moment right now. So I've got like a crystal clean record, you know, no DUIs, no felonies, no nothing. As a sales rep, you would lose your job if you got a DUI, you know, felonies like you're out. So it was always that kind of kept me buttoned up.

But it just was a moment where I'm like, what are you going to do? you're going to get a fourth prescription. Is that what we're going to do? Like, is this the plan, you know? I've struggled with Adderall. I've struggled with marijuana. Same thing. Old school ecstasy.

Same thing, you know, just running hard after like two years. And it's like, what are you doing? Like, it's the challenge. What is old school ecstasy? I have no experience with it whatsoever. So there's different forms of it now, but it's like this is like 20 years ago, you know, in the rave days. and the glow sticks and the, you know, pre-fentanol.

God, I would be so scared to take any pill or drug these days. I don't see how anybody is not terrified. Yeah. It's almost, you know, I've had conversations with people who have children. You know, you could talk to your kids about drugs and alcohol and sex and driving and all these things. And your hope is like, please don't fucking do all for at the same time. I mean, should we be giving testing kits to our kids? Probably.

Even though you're telling them, please, like, trying to educate them. on the risk and the danger. I wouldn't, I mean, mortified. Yeah. I mean, some guy or girl that I don't know is just going to give me this

and I'll meet you in a target parking lot. Yeah, I'm sure it's probably, he looks like an honest guy. Yeah. You know. Someone just, I heard on a podcast that, uh,

sometimes people are lacing fentanyl and joints. So you're just smoking a joint. And I was like, but why would you do that? Oh my God. I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's to get them hooked or to make it stronger. or so you buy that same brand again?

You know, that's, I have those questions too, but. Hard pass. Yeah, it is terrifying, terrifying to know what's out there these days. Well, it's a voluntary ecosystem. You know, it is a choice. Yeah, it's tough. It is a tough choice. Just because it's voluntary doesn't mean that it's easy.

Yeah. Well. But you can really increase your odds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the testing strips is the way to go. That's an interesting conversation at the very least. I mean, should they be available at public schools?

Don't ask, don't tell policy. I mean, I don't know the answer. Yeah. Yeah, I don't either. But I have very open and honest conversations with my kids. And I remember in high school seeing weed. I don't think I ever saw cocaine. I never saw that I'm aware of.

Pills or people taking pills. I think I was well into the military. before I even heard the term like oxy. Booze, I mean, that was kind of like what kids had access to. Like, you got your 40 of old English. I look back and I'm like. Zima. I mean, both of those is like, hey, you want to go to the hardware store and drink paint thinner?

Yeah. I mean, it's probably, if you looked at it, of a 70% overlap in ingredients. But, you know, I talked to my kids. Acid, cocaine, crushed ketamine. Weed. There's some flaming pink thing out now. I just heard this too. I'm like, what?

I don't remember the name of it, but yeah. There's a lot. It's a rough world. I don't know how you navigate that because as a kid, of course you're going to experiment. You know, and I know two stories where it was literally the first pill and the kid died. Yeah. You know? I don't know the answer.

I don't know. It's a more complicated time that when I grew up for sure, though. I do not know the answer. the best I'm hoping for is super open and honest conversations with my kids and I just try to educate them about the risks of that stuff. We talk about stuff like how would you know? Yeah. Is it worth the potential risk for the, I don't know what the potential gain would be, I guess the satiation of curiosity. Yeah, I don't have the answer.

Well, and as a society, we're like, well, if it comes from a doctor and it's a pill, it's okay. That is That is incorrect. Yeah. That's like, yeah, that's where we are.

If that was the case, we wouldn't have a documentary series about the Sackler family. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hopeful that the Supreme Court

pierces the veil of bankruptcy on that one. Did you hear their plan on how they're going to pay it off? No. So the estimate is they made somewhere between $20 to $30 billion and they agreed to pay $8 billion,

but it was over an extended period of time. So they could actually pay it using the interest on the money that they already have. So they could make the payment whole without actually feeling any of the impact. It's disgusting. It is. It's so disgusting.

It's, yeah. I get so bitter about it. Well, you were saying before that you saw behind the curtain and how horrible it was. What did you see when the curtain came back? Just, I mean, I've seen stories, too, of, like, what reps do. Like, back in the day, I knew a rep gave a farm. pharmacist, a really nice camera. You know, he just had a baby, of course.

You can go and document it, whatever. And it was just a backdoor deal where the reps like, listen, when this comes through, I need you to push everything to this product. And the pharmacist did. And the sales rep makes this number. You know, I've seen sales reps. Sometimes you sell something that's over the counter. It's not a prescription.

Sales reps, if they're real close to, like, hitting their number, it's the end of the year. You're trying to make presidents club or a big, big bonus. and you're like this shy, you know, and they'll rank you too of like top 10 we'll get this trip. And if you're sitting at number 12, you're like, oh, I got to get this, you know, they'll just go out and buy it, you know. They'll buy themselves. Yeah, yeah, drop, you know, a couple grand. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, they are cheating the system, you know.

That's what happens when you create systems like that. Yeah. Where you're publicly ranked and there are incentives on the line. You're fishing with dynamite. Yeah. Or reps buddy up to the doctors. Like maybe a guy's always going fishing with a doctor and they're just like this. You know, they treat them like family.

You know, I know one girl, the doctor's like, I'm going to need you to help me move this weekend. And she's like, um, okay. You know, he's like, you want that business. Get over there. Like it's just, yeah, it's, it gets, it just gets dirty. It gets worse and worse. Some people have like affairs. Like it's, you name it.

It happens. It's just, it's a very dirty business. Do you ever know of any reps getting arrested for legal activity? Not firsthand. I know a guy that blew the whistle on a few things and made millions. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Off-label use. Yeah. Somehow he coordinated. Like, I don't know how he, because we're all the reps are like, how did he do that? You know, like, but yeah, he, he partnered with the right people and blew the whistle and made millions. So how did you know it was enough? How did you know you're like, I just cannot operate in this pond anymore?

It was kind of a combination of things. So I was in a tailspin mentally. I knew I had some shit going on. And I was like, let me just reach out for some talk therapy. because I'm like, I think I'm going to go into a tough situation here. What started your tailspin? I had had, so 2016, I think it was. I was living in L.A.

Third-story corner unit apartment. I lived next to a huge field. One night I'm on a conference call. It's like 4 o'clock. It's dark winter. Tank top, yoga pants, ponytail, not doing naked cartwheels or anything around. And the scaffolding, so this construction comes up, there's scaffolding like just right, I mean right on top of me.

I could like almost from me to you. These guys work seven days a week, whatever. They're just always there. And I would have to go up and down the stairs, like pass them or whatever. And I just, you know, these guys were a part of my life. So I'm looking at the, I'm looking out the window, and I see these shoes on scaffolding facing me. And I'm like, that's kind of weird.

I was on this conference call. I was like, I don't know. and they're kind of like shuffling. I'm like, that's super weird. And so I look up again, and as I'm looking up, he's unzipping his zipper, taking his dick out. And I'm just like, and I just froze. Like, I start shaking.

I, like, grab my phone, could not dial 911. And I'm just like, and I just, like, had my phone, and I'm shaking. I went like this, and then just, like, close the blinds. And it did a number on me. It fucked me up. Now, to backtrack in high school, I had plenty of times where I was followed home a couple times, walking, driving. A guy just popped up as I was, like, sitting outside my apartment one day with high school girlfriends. Guys would be, like, jacking off in their cars.

That happened a few times. What? Yeah. None of this bothered me. Michael, I told you about that behavior. I can't help it. He's got a release. I mean, what can the guy do?

Privacy of your own home, please. God, we've had this talk. So, yeah, so none of that bothered me, like, in high school, whatever. It didn't bother you that you walked by some dude just jacking off in his car? No, because we were in high school. I remember one time I was in Daytona Beach. It was like me and my two girlfriends, and, you know, they were like, you know, beautiful blondes or whatever. And this guy, like, had his windows down.

He was just, like, you know, just driving by and we were like, oh, gross. to be like, lose, you know. That's actually called a sexual predator probably more than anything because he was, he was getting off on the fact that you guys were seeing it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That was a twisted person. So that, whatever reason, it just, it were just like creepy, loser didn't, didn't affect me.

When this dude was outside my window, whole different story because. Was he looking at you through the window? Oh, yeah. It was right at me. He was just, I was the target. God, human beings are so fucking weird. I was a target. And so it did a number on me because I was like, oh, fuck. And here I am this like, bad ass bitch, making my money. I'm independent. I got my own shit. You know, and it just, in that moment, my independence was stripped from me. It was all taken away. And then I started doing the plan B. Like, well, what's the next thing? Like, you know I'm here. I'm a sitting duck in this apartment by myself. I don't have a gun.

I don't know what to do. You know, I'm like, I don't have any family around, you know. I don't have a brother. Like, I don't have a cousin, like nothing. I have some girlfriends. How many stories was the building? Three. So you're on the top one?

Yep. Yeah. And so. I've already thought through several situations that I think would work well. So it just, but for me, I started spiraling because I'm like, are you going to grab like another construction buddy tomorrow and kidnap me the next time I'm walking my dog and like take me somewhere and chop me up. in a basement or chip me off to, you know, some sex trade?

Like, what's next? You know, because I'm, like, I do not fucking feel safe here. I don't want to speak for you, but it sounds like you felt like you didn't have any control. Absolutely. And as a control freak, that was a huge problem. Huge problem. One of my doctors was in the military in Iran. He was really into guns and whatnot.

And I remember talking to him. I was like, I think I might need a gun. And he's like, okay. So we went shooting and I like a couple days later I put like the target practice on the window and I was just like fuck you. You know like that's like the only sliver of control. I could get back in the situation. But I just buried it, you know. And the problem with type A people, I always say this.

If you're a first responder, if you're military, you know, you're real good at getting shit done. You know, you tend to like have that high drive and you're good. the problem is that you're good at burying shit too, like real good. And so this is why I don't really like talk therapy for first responders or veterans. Depends on the person. Yeah, I try not to speak in absolutes because it does help. I know you've mentioned it's helped you. So I'm not saying it doesn't work.

I just think maybe 80% of the time it's not going to be enough. And so I tried talk therapy. I tried talking through it. The crazy thing is after that construction guy, it happened two more times with different neighbors. Dick bandits? Yeah. Yeah. And I just, and I didn't even tell anybody about the other two because I'm like, they're going to think I'm like.

So, yeah. If you think you're not telling those other two stories, I don't know where you think you are, because let's get into it. First off, did you see the construction worker ever again? Well, I called my landlord and I was like, I didn't know what to do. And he's like, well, what did he look like? I'm like, it was dark, jeans, you know, hazard jacket. Yeah. He looked like maybe he was, you know, brown skin.

I'm like, I have looked taller than, I'm like, I have no fucking idea. It was so, it was so they, you know, called the police and they're like, oh, who was out there with their dick? You know, like, no one's going to be. Oh, that was me. You know, like, that's not happening. So, like, it was a huge waste of time. and they're like well we're going to take notes on that i'm like dude i'm still fucked in this house like i'm fucked in this apartment like this is not good do you consider

calling 911 i tried that day but couldn't i just couldn't even dial the notice i mean like later in the day oh uh cops could have gone and figured out what construction crew was like working there they could have talked to you know there's some ways you could have probably worked through it probably could have like i i just was so shucking up that yeah yeah yeah so the second time it happened, I was working out, and it was like way across the field. And I see this guy, like, leaning against his window, and he had those mirrored closet doors, you know, that are like all, like, you know, sliding glass closet doors are all mirrors. So he had those, and he's, like, sitting. And I can see, like, his butt. Like, he had his pants pulled down, like, leaning against the

window. And I, like, had just got done working out. And I, like, look over and I'm like, why is that guy sitting there with this like ass on the window ledge. I'm like, that's super weird. And then he was just sitting there. And then like the like things started clicking. I was like, oh my God, he's got his pants down. He's got his dick in his hand. And there's the mirror looking at me.

Like I didn't even think you could see me. I was like, whoa. And then the third time was a different dude on his balcony, live with this girl. friend like I kind of whatever I had just gone out to let my dog out I closed the doors

I was going to bed I turned off all the lights and I went back in and I forgot something I think it was going to get some water or something so I went up to the front and I remember him out there like brushing his teeth on his balcony I'm like that's a random place to brush your teeth but whatever and so as all the lights are off I'm like walking in and there he is just

fucking stroking it I'm like I'm like, I'm like, I'm like looking for the camera. So his name is Jack the Ripper. He's more of a nighttimeer. I mean, that one seems like he just caught somebody in the middle of some personal reflection time. I don't know if that was targeted towards you, but you have horrendous luck. Yeah. Or timing or the combination of both.

Yeah. You know, but I'm a big belief, like I've always been super, super spiritual, really spiritual. How does that tie into what we were just talking? Well, just that I'm like, I think things happen for a reason. So you got Jack the Ripper, Jason Cockhorn in the mirror, using Fieldcraft to, like, go backwards and the dick bandit on the scaffolding. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know if Jesus would approve. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I don't think so. But I look back. I'm like, it helped me on my journey. And I'll kind of get into psychedelics in a minute here.

And horse therapy. Those are two things I really want to talk about. Not at the same time, right? No. Okay, just true. No, not a good idea. But, you know, in that moment, like I checked in with a therapist. It wasn't really going.

Nothing was happening. Nothing was really releasing. If you're going through like a breakup or something, you know, you lost your job. I think maybe talk therapy can kind of help. But it just, it wasn't doing it for me. Depends on the person. That's true. Yeah.

Trauma is not the scale of justice that I think people would want it to be. And what I mean by that is it doesn't seem to be equally applied. You can have six people who experience the same thing. Yeah. And they will have six versions of their truth and their experience. And it's like, how can you argue against that? And also the weight or outcome of that from what that trauma may do to them is very, it's very different. Yeah, how you process it.

It is. I don't come from that world. I don't know how well that is understood. But, you know, I don't know. At my own, and again, I was never really, I don't feel traumatized by my military time. I feel like I'm a better version of myself. I've been we were asked to do some really abnormal shit. But, you know, one of the things that we used to do is sit down and talk about it a lot.

After every military operation, you're probably going to have an AAR, an after action review. And you go through, you know, all five phases and you talk about it sequentially. What do we plan to have happened? What actually happened? What do we do, right? which for clarity is we spend the least amount of time on that and then what we could do better. It's not meant to be a therapy session by any stretch, but if you think about it, it's a group of people who have a shared experience, but different outcomes from that, and you're kind of reliving it a little bit, and you're at least talking about it, and you're bringing things, not everything, obviously, and it's not a, I'm not saying it is therapy, but I think it can be therapeutic. Yeah.

And I just think it really depends. And I think it's so variable on how you grew up, how much past trauma you're bringing into your current. in future trauma. It's just, I wish it was this scales of justice and it was equal, not that the scales of justice are equal, but as a metaphor, because then at least I think we'd have a better template on how we could assist people.

Well, I had so much guilt about it too, so I buried it, you know, for a couple of years. Jilt about what? Just that I couldn't get past it. Are we talking about the dick bandits? Yeah, I'm like, you had some dick bandits outside your window. It's not a big deal. You had a dick bandit, Jack Cockburn was in the mirror,

and Jack the Ripper was on the top when I'm like nobody sexually assaulted you nobody hit you nobody abused you you know you weren't rapes you weren't molested

like fucking get over it there's so many people we're stories yeah who gets a fuck in my head what's the metaphor though comparison is the thief of joy yeah so who cares

what other people experience it's okay to be more impacted by something that somebody else it might hit them like teflon and then slide off. I think that's a mistake that people make. Why am I feeling this way? I shouldn't be feeling this way.

Look at fill in the blank and they're fine. Yeah, yeah. You got to be cautious with that. Absolutely. It's horrible pattern. But I think, you know, a big reason I wanted to come on is on the show is to fight for first responders. And it, and military too. There's obviously a lot of crossover there. But it takes so much courage just to raise your hand and just be like, I might need some help here. It is so hard to do.

because you probably have guilt or you don't know what to do or maybe you try talk therapy once or twice, which obviously isn't enough, but you got to share your story. And that's what I want to do here today is just, you know, you never know who's listening. I've been to enough of these events like wellness. And some people hear a story and they're like, I didn't think about that or I didn't think about, you know, that makes me feel better or I felt that way too. So the more people can talk about when they raise their hand, why they raise their hand, the fumbles, the wind, the wind. what helped, what didn't, you know, there's so much strength in sharing a story. Since those three instances, have there been any more random dick encounters? I don't think so.

Not that I know. We can put that to bed. Thank God. Let's put that to bed. Yeah, but I thought too, like in those moments, you know, I would think, like, if you could just turn, I've always been a pretty private person, and it's not that I have much to hide, but I'm just like, I just don't feel like putting everything out in the world. But I'm like, if you could just reframe yourself like Kim Kardashian, that's the problem would go away.

If you could just... I'm not understanding that metaphor. If you could just welcome, like, oh, look at me. I'm, you know, just like, she just is so thirsty, like, just bring that attention. I think it's all fake, though. It is. Do you think she's a happy person at the end of the day? Absolutely not.

But... That would be my suspicion. Her brand is look at me, you know, I want you to masturbate to me. Like, yes. You know, like that is kind of her. For clarity again, that was not me speaking for Kim Kardashian. I'm sure she didn't. And it wasn't Michael either.

I've heard she's a very nice person. So, you know, I don't mean to like totally not her. The worst part about the Kardashian, what would be the best way to call this, the Kardashian effect is that, That lifestyle has become a role model for young women. Absolutely. And I don't think it ends anywhere good. Nope. No, but that's kind of what we're taught.

And so, like, I remember telling myself, like, a couple guys had their dicks out. It's not that big of a deal. If you could just get yourself in the Kim K mindset and just welcome the attention. and and strive for it, you know, like she wants followers. She wants that lust. Like, she, that is what she, that's her brand.

And for me, I'm like, just fucking switch your mindset. Like, just get over it. Just fucking get over it. If only were that easy. Yeah, and it's not. So. So I hijacked you before. You were in a tailspin.

Yeah. I understand now three contributing factors that said tailspin. Yeah. Tell me more. So you're going to a sailspin. Yeah, fast forward to it. So I was living out in Cave Creek, Arizona, beautiful area. How did you find your way out there? Kind of random. I was leaving Los Angeles.

I'd gone through a breakup. I was staying in Airbnb. Wasn't into my job. Like, I just was ready to rebrand. And I was like, let me just see, like, what a house rental would look like in Arizona. Went on Zillow. I knew the instant that this was my house when I saw it. I was like, this is my house. This is my house. I talked to the landlord. I was like, hey, I'm trying to get to Arizona.

I don't have a job yet. I got a couple of things brewing, but, you know, I saw this house really like it. Maybe in two, three weeks I'll have something, you know, whatever. So he's like, okay, we'll just keep in touch. Calls me a couple days later. He's like, hey, I just want to let you know. I've got a few people that want to see the house this weekend. I was like, I'll take it.

Like, sight unseen, signed it, didn't have a job. Like, I just knew it was my house. I loved it. I love that house so much. I moved there with nothing except a semi-truck full of plants and a couple of minor things. Slept on the floor for a while. Rebuilt it. You know, like just bought on my furniture for this house.

Like, I loved it. People called me Snow White because I'd have all these animals like mule deer and Havillina and like roadrunners and bobcats. A little bit. Yeah. I had bird feeders. And then the deer would come by and like empty the bird feeder. You're not snow white. You're called a food source.

Totally. We're going to take a step back here because you tried to slide something by there, by me there. You said a semi-truck full of plants? Oh, yes, I did. I did, yes. You're just going to try to bring that up in that way and just hope that I didn't catch that? Yeah, yeah. So I turned into the weird plant lady.

Because a semi-truck doesn't mean you started one day and then a week later had a semi-truck. Yeah, yeah. When did you start collecting plants? I was living with a boyfriend. I was not into his house. He lived in these townhouses that were like right on top of each other in a huge fish bowl. And I didn't want to be that chick that's like, we need to move. Or like, I want to redecorate.

Like let's repaint. Let's do, da, da, da, da, da. Like, you know, I just was like, just, you know, don't be that chick. So I loved being outside. And so eventually I was like, I'm just going to start gardening. And so I'm out as a sales rep, you know, doing my calls and whatever. And I would just like swing by a garden shop and maybe buy, you know, a plant. I would come home with one or two plants every day.

Fast forward, like, a year later, I have all these plants, and I loved it. I still love plants to this day. So I built my garden just kind of trying to make a space at a house that I wasn't really that into. Okay. Yeah, that's not crazy at all. Yeah. You know, I don't have kids. You know, it's like this is kind of like my hobby, you know.

And I loved it. It was outdoors, and, you know, I would watch them grow, and it just, it was very soothing. to me. So I've got this huge garden, you know, moved to Arizona, drive this semi-truck, full of plants, just me. It was pretty crazy to this house in Cape Creek, and it was so beautiful. I loved it. Fast forward two years out of nowhere, unbeknownst to me, what happens? So I have a full acre in this house. It's a desert setting, very open, beautiful. landlord decides to put two houses, boom, right up against the windows. Fast forward to my flashbacks.

I'm like, I got fucking construction workers right up in my business. And I was like, just take a deep breath. I was like, okay, or you're going to get through this. Like, this is your dream house. I was just renting. You know, but I was like, this is your dream house. And I love that house so much. I'm like, you can get through this.

Like, you're going to trigger on, you know, construction workers outside your door all the time. And I just knew. I was like, this isn't going to get good. So I was like, let me just, let me just reach out and get some, like, talk therapy brewing in case shit kind of pops off. So I reach out on my insurance card, you know, insurance-based therapist. Only two called me back. It was so hard to even get someone to call me back. The first one was doing a study.

It just didn't sound good at all. Second one, I was like, eh, okay, whatever. And they're like, okay, so the thing with this program is an. order for talk therapy, we need you to be on a prescription. And I was like, requirement. Requirement mandatory. And I was like, yeah, I was like, that does not sound normal, you know, like that's the first red flag.

I'm like, not good at all. But I was like, eh, okay. All right, fine. So, you know, they're like, okay, what script do you want? And so I had this talk therapist who was not really much of a therapist and not great. You know, you get good therapist, you get bad therapist, she was on the bad side. But once every three months,

I had a 20-minute call with the doctor that would write the script. Knew nothing about me. It was just... So, telehealth call. Yeah, you're billing two, you know, insurance scam, whatever. So I was like, okay, it's like, well,

what script would you like? And I was like, that's a really weird question to ask the patient. Absolutely. You shouldn't be... It's, yeah, all kind of wrong. So I'm like, well, I've got Adderall or Lexapro. Like, you want the upper or you want the downer? You know, I'm like, I'm not really a fan of Lexapro.

I'm not sure how I felt about it. You know, the whole reason I got off Lexapro is because I moved. And I made so many life changes that I was like, I think I'm okay. And that things worked out. But I was like, I guess we'll go with Adderall. And now when I left New York, I made a promise to myself that I would never take one of those fucking pills again. And here I am. I mean, you could get the script and just flush it down the toilet.

Could have. Yeah. Yeah. And, but it's, you know, the devil got me, you know, so. How was that first one back? Good. It tastes good. Taste good. Taste good when it hits your lips, you know. And walking around watering fucking 300 plants for a couple of hours. Yeah. Just like, look at all this energy I got. You know, like. And so, you know, I have these construction workers outside. I'm kind of triggering. I've, I've always leaned more into me. marijuana than drinking. I mean, I still drink here and there. But so the problem with marijuana is that it smells a lot, you know, and so in a perfect world, I would just love like old school joint, smoke it, great. But, you know, the whole neighborhood knows you're smoking or whatever.

You can try like gommies or edibles. Yeah, not as much. I'm not really into edibles. It would be a much better fit, you know. It's a different ride for sure. Yeah, yeah. So not my jam. So I started vaping.

Now, vaping is huge concentrations. I mean, you're getting into like the 27 person. Like, it is, to any vapors, oh, it is so concentrated. Oh, it'll put you on Pluto. Yeah, and you're building it, tolerance. And so I was hitting the Adderall, hitting the vape pens, and threw myself right into psychosis, started hearing voices. And I was like, holy shit.

What were they telling? you? At first, it kind of felt like Twitter, but like live audio. There was always like one or two. Like people were just reading their tweets? Almost like you're at a restaurant and someone's kind of like, oh, what are they ordering? Or, oh, what are you wearing? Oh, you're leaving the house kind of late today. Like, shouldn't you be leaving earlier? Could you hear it clearly? Yeah. Yeah. It was usually like two people, male, female, two female. Like, it was always two, it wasn't one person. It was always like a side conversation. Literally where you'd be like, it's like are their neighbors it's like somebody you know like I don't I don't get it so so

apparently Adderall and vaping per the doctor could give you hallucinations some people see them hear them whatever and I was very open that I was doing Adderall and vaping for over a year none of this you know came up and so the more of the voices came in you know she's like you you know, I was like, am I schizophrenic? Like, I don't know. And she's like, I think we should switch you. You know, like, let's get you off the Adderall. Puts me on three schizophrenic medications.

And mind you, I'm in a full fucking tailspin with these construction dudes. I got all this stuff going on at work. The DOJ, I'm depositions. I'm waiting a year. Also in COVID, you know, am I going to lose my job? Or is the world going to blow up? We're all going to die. Like, it just was the perfect stuff.

storm that came together. And so... If you don't want to ask you, like, what was the lowest point of that? Of, like, the voices? No, just, like, where you were at the lowest of the low, like, what did that look like? Just not knowing if I'm schizophrenic, you know? I mean, that's the thing. Like, doctors toss out these labels, like, oh, you're bipolar or you're schizophrenic,

or you're, you know, multiple personality. Like, that's the thing with our health care system is these people throw out. labels and it's like you might not be the best person to diagnose this situation and I think it was really like should I be in a straight jacket you know because I kind of feel like maybe I should so you were starting to question oh yeah absolutely I was like I might be fucking schizophrenic you did you ever talk back to the voices yeah yeah oh yeah I started screaming because then they got worse and worse. So at first it was okay, like kind of just chatter, like the peanut gallery, just kind of always like on your shoulder, you know. And then, so I ended up leaving that house,

moved from Cave Creek down to Central Phoenix in a different house. And that house had super bad energy. There was this super creeper dude that, oddly enough, used to go around to the neighbors with his dick in his hand. And I'm like, what? Like, you. He had these like Somalian prostitutes that came to the door. They thought the house was there. This girl would like knock on the door. She's like, this is my house. She's like, where's Larry?

I'm like, he's not here, girl. And this is not your fucking house. Like the stuff I can't, that's what I'm like, I probably should write a book. But I don't know. So when I moved to that house, the voices got gnarly. Like. Did they ever say cool or interesting shit? No.

Like judging. Judging. Oh, fuck. Judging. Like your worst inner voice. your worst inner critic. Just like, like, you think of like the nagging mother-in-law, like just on your shoulder all the time, all the fucking time. So I had done, so I quit those therapists and I was also doing a year of EMDR.

So for people that don't know, it's kind of using like a tool, pen, or an object and you're talking through a past situation. I've heard it's highly effective. I have too. Yeah. For me, I think it was good. I wouldn't say it's great. Better than just talking, though? Better than talking. It was like 22 appointments over a year, dropped 10,000 on it. Great lady. I think it helped a little bit. But I mean, that's a lot of time, a lot of money. And we talked about the voices. She's like, you are not schizophrenic. She's like, you're too old. You're not meeting the demographics.

She's like absolutely not 100% you are not. I got two other opinions. I got a brain scan. I was in a car accident in college and I had a bunch of staples in my head. I had completely forgotten about it. But I was hearing on podcasts a lot about TBI and whatnot. So I'm like maybe this is triggering voices or maybe this is, I don't know, something. So I got a brain scan, $5,000.

And they're like not schizophrenic. Absolutely 100% not. I didn't know that would show up on a brain scan, actually. They told me so. May or may not be true. I mean, it's so hard to navigate medical situations, you know. You can Google and get 10 different answers. You know, you can ask people and get 10 different answers.

So I was... I also think you have to be careful how much time you spend on there. I'm trying to find a way to restrict WebMD from my wife's phone. That would be a good idea. I just had a surgery about a month ago. in emergency surgery, and she admitted to me a few weeks ago that while I was under, I was under for about two and a half hours, she was down a fucking deep, dark rabbit hole of everything, because I had an intestinal blockage.

She's like, it was cancerous lumps, and all of these things. And then Dr. Grimes, I was like, he's okay. Yeah. Meanwhile, she's just been just, oh, my fucking God. Yeah, yeah. Great resource, but also, too much. Take it easy, you know. Too much. Too much. Yeah. Yeah, you got to be careful with health care. You got to be careful with it. So it's tough. So yeah. So the EMDR lady had said to me, she's like, you know, you might have, she's like, you might have pierced a veil of another dimension or a world. I'm like, is this going to take another year in 22 visits to 10,000? Because I'm fucking tapped out. Like I'm fucking tapped out. I'm fucking tapped out of.

I've been to all these fucking doctors. Like, I've done all this shit. You know, I'm like, I'm like, and I did so much ecstasy back in the day. I'm like, maybe I fried something. If that's the case, I'll own it. And I just need to fucking know. Like, these voices are not going away. You know, it had been like two years of voices.

Were they constant or would they just come and go? Kind of come and go. Yeah. If people were around, they weren't there. And people are like, what's just your inner dialogue? Or, you know, they're like, people like, maybe you have like a psychic or gifted ability. I'm like, oh, God, I'm fucking Harry Potter now. You know, like, woke up with this power.

I'm like, it's just a lot to navigate. Alex Bernstein wrote a book called, I think it's called Tell Your Children, about going into psychosis with marijuana specifically, which is something people don't talk about. Rogan's talked about it a few times. Rogan's stance on weed has really changed over the years since I have known him and listened to him talk. Yeah. He used to be, and I'm speaking broadly and not trying to speak full.

for him, he was very like everybody should be smoking weed. There's no downsides to it. And now he takes a much more measured approach to it. Yeah, that conversation, I think, was a big turning point for him, which like everything, there are no absolutes. Yeah. You know, some people should not be doing it. I think he recognizes the burden that is associated with the size of his platform as well.

He's got to be real cautious with what he advocates for. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And like advocating for people to eat right and work out. fire away anytime you want to. You know, what's the dangers of weed? Red lights flashing.

Yeah. And he pushes psychedelics too. He does. He's open about his own experiences. And I think it has had a very positive benefit in his life. I think what he is trying to do is express those benefits and the positivity it has had without advocating for everybody using them. Because I have heard him throw some warnings out.

there like, hey, I mean, psychedelics, as with everything, don't have 100% success rate. It can snap you into pieces as well. It can. It can. And if you're not going to do the work, it's a waste of time. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, and I've done, I'm going to Mexico next week. I'll be doing my second ayahuasca.

I did Lakota Sweat Lodge. I'll be doing another one next week. Did some peyote in a teepee, two trips of Ibogine down at. The mission within down in Mexico, a lot of the seals go. How much of that stuff are you going to do? Honestly, I think everything in my life has happened for a reason. And a lot of it is just maybe I'm the guinea pig of mental health, like what to do, what not to do. You know, a lot of trial and error.

I ask for a specific reason. I know people who have gotten lost in the drugs. Yep, you can. And their journey becomes, they now start defining themselves. They're so enlightened. Yeah. And I'll be honest, you know, the backyard shamans who are going, you know, and doing ayahuasca by an Airbnb pool down in Temecula, not saying that there couldn't be value derived

from that, but when I hear people who are on their eighth, ninth, 15th cycle through it, it's like, what is this actually that you're seeking? It can be cult. It can be a cult vibe for sure. Well, it becomes their personality, too. They're the enlightened, you know, they know more than you. They've seen more things than you. And it's like, okay, maybe you have.

but I feel like you started this journey because you were trying to maybe find something or heal something in and of yourself. And now it's just all about the plant medicines, as they call them. Yeah, you have to be careful. It can be an identity. So for me, I think of psychedelics as it's not a magic wand. No one's getting fixed. No one's getting healed, solved. It will give you a couple pieces of information.

And from that, you have to go home and do the fucking work. and that's what a lot of people don't do. And that is what really bothers me. And this kind of ties into the victim that you see, you know, I see it in first responders, see it in military, see it in just regular civilians. It's like you're stuck on victim because you like the attention. And what's probably going on is you're lonely, you know,

or you're looking for a tribe or you're, you know, it's... I mean, if we want to be brutally honest, there is a slight reward mechanism for people in that space. Yep. Yep. So you have to be careful. For me, it's helped me do the work internally. And I think the big thing is that I just, I didn't, a lot of my, I have a lot of anger, anger towards the government for, you know, a number of reasons, but a lot of anger towards the loss of privacy. and as you know cameras are everywhere everything is exposed um it's helped me do the work on releasing my anger and you have to dig into it and it's like okay i'm like you know i don't want to be looked at i don't want to be creeped on you know i don't want dicks outside my window but like let's dig into it a little bit

more why don't you like that i'm like well i don't like being observed because i don't always feel good enough and I gave myself this term of like the B plus syndrome where it's like I know I'm good I'm kicking ass on a lot of things but if you could just be like a little bit better like that A girl gets a ring you know that A girl gets a husband that A girl gets the promotion or you know like

I just felt like I was always stuck at B plus and talk therapy never got me to any of these deep perspectives. So how did you get yourself out of that low point? You were talking about the EMDR. Yeah. Because also at some point in this, you made a transition to the sweatshirt you're wearing. Yep.

Wild and Fire. Yeah. Not exactly the same thing you were doing before. No. In that world. Not at all. So talk to me about how you came out of the bottom of the sine wave and found yourself in the wild and fire world.

I, so I was in my EMT class. And I was 44, I think, at the time. I'm 46 now. That class is like mostly 19 year olds. You know, they're pre-med or they want to be EMT or they want to go into fire, you know, different things. So for me, you know, especially in the farmer world, we're studying, you know, the book and all these things.

PTSD comes up and it's just like a paragraph. And it says you're much more likely to die from suicide than on the job. And like my jaw hit the floor. I'm like, who fucking put that in print? Like, how did that even make it into print? You know, and I had a great instructor. He was super just passionate stand-up dude. You know, I was like, hey, you know, he talks up being like a grief counselor

because you're with all these dead bodies and, you know, I'm like, where's the like grief counseling section or like, how are we handling like PTSD? Like, where's that? You know, he's like, well, you just learn on the job. I'm like, you learn on the job from people that want to kill. kill themselves? And he's like, yeah. I was just like, not fucking cool. Like, you're, like, I'm 44 and I could barely navigate this, let alone a 19 year old, you know, and I hear the stories of like sleeping in the rig and, you know, you're taking a obese person down the stairs,

God forbid you drop them because they're going to throw a malpractice on you and you might lose your house. And like, all these things, I'm like, what the fuck? Like, it, And it got me really mad. Like the mama bear came out. I'm like, you can't throw fucking 19 year olds into this situation. Like, this is not okay. You know, and I think of myself, like, dropping three grand for doctors at Nobu. And like, these 19-year-olds are going to lose their house because they worked a 48-hour shift with no sleep and accidentally like a handle slipped.

And you dropped an obese person. I'm like, this is so fucking wrong. Can they actually sue the individual like that or would it be the department or organization they work with that would absorb the liability? In that class, they said individual. No, I can't speak to this as well. So I think you'd have a real hard time, you know, like police have qualified immunity. Yeah. I feel like you'd have a real hard time getting anybody to do that job if your personal assets were tied to a mistake.

I think if you were working for the government, you know, first responder, law, fire. I think you're covered by your organization. A lot of ambulance companies that are a contract. You know, they're subcontracted that are not actually a government employer. Yep. So that's where that might pertain just to the like EMT contract people. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know enough to answer that. I don't either, yeah.

But it was a threat, you know. And one of the instructors is like, you know, you got to take like meticulous notes and he's like, I'll be in the back. Like you're looking at the old lady that had a stroke and I'm just typing away every single detail. Like, she's going to come from me. I know she's going to do malpractice. And like, I just remember looking at him being like, that is not a good mindset to begin. Like, just assuming everyone's going to try to take your house.

I'm like, it's a very defensive and anxiety-ridden mindset for sure. Yeah, it's like, I just, that just doesn't seem right. So it put a fire in me just to like stand up for first responders more. And then I, during COVID, I fell in love with horses. I started paddleboarding on Salt River in Arizona. They have tubing shuttles there as well. And so these tubers would come in and it would get real sloppy, whatever. Well, the shut down during COVID.

So paddleboarders had the place to ourselves. And all these wild horses would come out. And we'd see like 100 wild horses. Like it was spectacular. As the season ended, they drain the water levels. And so the season ends around October or so and it gets cold and whatever. And so the season's ending. I was like, man, I just seem more like horses in my life.

And the girlfriend next to me, she's like, there's a horse rescue not that far from me. I'm like, what? Like I was there next week. Start volunteering, spent two years, you know, Friday and Saturday evenings, volunteering there. They have 80 horses. They were super dialed into kids, you know, special needs, autistic, foster, you know, you name it, like really good with kids. They did not have much of a footprint with first responders or veterans. So they're trying to kind of get more momentum there.

I was on the committee, started to network, connected with a lady that, so this was like North Scottsdale area, connected with a lady up in Prescott, which is about hour and a half north. Very familiar. And she was working with the VA, and she had some stuff going on. She had her own organization. And so I was just networking with her, and she's like, why don't? She's like, we have two weekend events coming up. She's like, why don't you come and you can see what we do? I was like, oh my God, I'd love to.

Like, yeah, how did you? And for me, I thought, like, the VA is the perfect place to start. Like, that's where the veterans are. That's, like, that's who you want to work with. Like, how did you get in there? Like, tell me everything. So I worked the two events with her and then jumped on a phone call, like, maybe a month later. And there's a handful of people.

And she's like, and she's like, and she's like, guys, I'm going to, you know, I'm just at a point where I'm like, I'm ready just to kind of coast off into the sunset. So I think I'm going to shut down this 501c3 unless anybody wants to step up. But I think I'm going to dissolve it. And we're all just like, oh, that sucks, you know? Like it was just crickets. We're like, okay, we all got off the phone, you know, hung up. And I just thought about it that night.

And I'm like, you know, I hate my job. I know I got to make some changes. I'm like, I called her back the next day. I'm like, I'll try it. I'm like, I'm going to give it a shot. So became the president. Oddly enough, the name was Heroes and Horses, based out of Arizona. And it was me and one other dude, shout out to Peter, who he did marketing and kind of helped with the websites.

He was a retired law enforcement officer, was also working at a university. And it was just him and I. Everyone else bailed. And for those that don't know, a 501C3, it's like running a business. You got to hire. Oh, it is a business. Yeah, I mean, you got to hire a grant writer, an accountant, social media person. Like, it is so hard to build those teams and to get the right fit.

And then you got to get your donors. And it's not a game I'm that interested in playing, but I was the president for six months and then eventually shut it down. But it opened a lot of doors for me, and it was a great experience. So I quit my job. Fast forward to March. my lease was coming up and I was like I'm not signing this lease again you know I was just trying to figure out ways to get out of my job and whatnot it was like put in the you know the square and the round peg I'm like it's just not fitting I'm like how am I going to get out of pharma like I just

can't do this anymore and the voices were so bad and I was like yelling back and whatever and I just thought I'm like and I honestly think a lot of people probably would have killed themselves in that situation. It was that fucking bad. It was torture every fucking day. Every insecurity. It just was like death by a thousand paper cuts, one after another. So I just thought I was like the only way you're going to overcome this criticism that you seem to be hearing is to be your best authentic self. And so I'm like, I'm just going to try to be the best person that I can. And I'm passionate about first responders. I'm passionate about better mental health, better PTSD options. I'm like, I'm going to lean all the fucking way into this.

So my lease came up and I had nothing except this charity. I remember like just kind of screaming back at the voices and I was like, just fucking take it. Like just fucking take all of it. Take this fucking house. Take these fucking plants. Take that fucking, just fucking take all of it. I'm like, I will live in a fucking tent. I don't fucking care.

Like, fuck you. Did you have a tent? I got one. But I, you know, I... Just check it. I mean, let's not make promises we can't deliver on here. I know. I was like, oh, I need a tent. Yeah.

But we're planning. So, so surrender everything. Quit my job. You know, I... Stepped into the abyss. Totally. And it's like, oh, burn the ships. Burn the ships.

I'm like, no, I sank the fucking island. Where it's like, boom. and like start swimming, bitch, just start swimming. I was like, oh, you know, and I was drowning. Yeah. Drowning. But I, so as a new president of Heroes and Horses, I was like, why, well, let me go to my website. And I'm like, do, do, do, do, do Heroes and Horses. And I'm like, well, this is amazing.

Like, look at this website. You know, I was like, oh, my God. And it was Montana. And I was like, so in an attempt to go to your website, you surfed over to Micah Think's website. I sure did. I sure did. Shout out to Micah. Oh, he's doing good.

things. Legendary mustache on that man. Yes, yes. Unbelievable. Well, we're talking like Wyatt Earp would be jealous of that man's mustache. Yeah. So I talked to the C.O. Mark Davis, awesome dude.

We talk in February and I was like, hey, you know, oddly enough, I'm the president, Arizona, blah, blah, like, we have the same name. What are you guys doing? Like, I'm in way over my head as this president. Like, I need to know everything and anything. And he's like, you know what? We have like volunteers in the kitchen in the summer. That's our season.

Like maybe you should, you know, come by. I was like, okay. So ended up, you know, I got scheduled for a week. I surrendered like everything, gave all my plants away. Oh, God. Don't. I love them. People like, what are you going to do with their plants?

And I also went into the Wildland Academy. It's Arizona Wildlife Academy. It's in Prescott. It's one week. So I went into the Academy. It's super hard to navigate a red card. to get into fire teams. It's very hard to navigate.

What is a red card? It basically, usually you get sponsored by an agency. It could be BLM. So that is your chance to go into the academy, the red card? You can go into the academy without a red card, but to get hired by a forest or organization. You have to have a red card? You do, yeah.

It's like this sponsorship. So very, very hard to navigate. So I had gone into the academy, and I was also talking to Montana. and it was interesting because the instructor at the time I showed him the video of Heroes and Horses, was very impactful, and he was retired hot shot and he had, you know, the granite 19 passed in Arizona and he was tied to that and whatnot. So it was one of those moments that was interesting because I was like, should I, like, I've only got one week in Montana or I can try to get this red card,

like, which one do I do? And he's like, he's like, you got to go to Montana. And I was like, whoa, like I did not. expect him to say that at all. He's like, there's always going to be fires. It is true. Yeah, I was like, wow. I was like, okay. So I was like, I'm going to go all the way into Montana. Like I only

have this one week, whatever, rented a U-Haul, because I had no car, you know, threw a bunch of stuff in storage that was valuable. So you drove an empty U-Haul? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I had a bunch of shit in there at a tent, you know, and so whatever, yeah. You could put the tent up, fully

expanded in the back of the U-Haul. Yeah. I like this. It worked out well, yeah. Michael, road trip. Who's ready? Who's ready? Yeah, so I had a, you know, I rented a U-Haul for a month. It's like $400 and then you got to do your mileage and stuff. But I ran the numbers of like how I was going to get to Montana, whatever.

It's like, oh, months sounds good. I'll be there for a week. I'll stay an extra week or two and then drive back and whatever. So as I'm there that week, you know, and I had waitress a ton. I worked in banquets, catering, hotel resort management. like I knew how to work food in large scale, but by no means I'm not a chef. Had a little bit on homeschooling on Food Network, but not a chef. So I'm there for the week.

They fire the chef for destroying a couple of cars, a couple other things happened. And it's like, okay, you know, what are we going to do? And so I told him, I was like, listen, I got my summer open. I need to fucking learn because I'm the president. We both have heroes and horses. You know, I'm like, I'm in over my head. So like any information I can get will help. So I just wanted to be a sponge and just learn from the pros.

So I was the head chef for the summer. And I mean, I was, it's the hardest thing I've ever done. How about like all the voices and stuff that were going on? Did they follow you to Montana? They did. Yeah, not as bad. They really started to decline. I think the more I grew into myself and started feeling better about myself,

the more they reduced. They still linger a little bit. And I'm like, I don't know if this is like permanent damage. To this day. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know if it's permanent damage or if it's something else. You know, I'm kind of still working on that. But, yeah, I don't know.

So I'm in Montana and that was such a good experience. You know, when you're in the kitchen, you hear the side comments. And I think the most heartbreaking thing was all the talk of suicide. The guys that had attempted, friends had. You know, obviously it's 20 to a day, probably, closer to 40 when you mix in some fentanyl. Like, you're never going to get those true numbers of what they really are. Well, how they got to the 22 is very flawed as well.

I think they only canvassed the highest number I've heard was 30 states out of the 50. And it was an incomplete data set to begin with. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you'll ever get a true number. Yeah. You know, I'm so skeptical. I don't even really trust Google anymore. I'm like, ready to put my tin foil hat.

If you go on the Internet, what I don't know if people realize, you'll find what you're searching for. Yeah. Your confirmation bias, yeah. Absolutely. Well, there's just, my personal belief is that the internet should come with an IQ test. Yeah. Idiots get dial-up.

Smarter people get broadband. You still have access to information, but anybody with an internet portal can create a website of their belief system and people get fooled. People get tricked. And if you're just, like, if you go there with a confirmation bias, and it is the first thing that you see, whether it's true or not, you're going to be. you're going to believe it. So it's just something, it's a tool that is only as useful as the person wielding it, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yep.

Yep. Great resource. Like, I mean, I look at my own children, 18, 2018 and 15. I watch them teach themselves things on YouTube. Yeah. Which is an amazing tool. Yep. I, at their age, would not have been teaching myself things.

Like, what does titties. com net when I put that in. I mean, I'm just being honest. I'm glad I didn't have the internet at that age. Yeah. I would have a file folder that probably says like homework. And it wouldn't be homework in there. No.

But it's amazing. And I wouldn't want to rob them of that tool. I literally have my son did his first day of college yesterday. For the week leading up to it, he was doing math, college math, um, workshop and practice homework on YouTube. Like, fucking awesome. Don't take that tool away. But just be careful.

Yeah. It's like a scalpel. You can cut yourself the right things or you could cut somebody by accident as well. You got to use it for what it's the most altruistic intended purpose. It is. Yeah. To be careful. Yeah.

So the first responder thing is really important to me. At that horse ranch, there was also a wellness seminar every year where they would have one day for law enforcement and then one day for fire. The first day I heard law enforcement. enforcement, my chin just dropped to the ground. And they would do rotations of like different segments and breakout sessions for like 45 minutes or an hour. And I remember this is in the thick of Black Lives Matter where cops had, you know, they were just getting shit on left and right. And there's still people. And yes, there's bad cops.

There's bad everything. Bad doctors, bad postmen, bass, you know. Priests. Yeah, everything. Yeah. I always ask people this. Like if you were going to judge one particular occupation, first provide me an example of one that is pure. Yes.

And you cannot. So there's a therapist that's in front of these law enforcement. And she's like, okay, we're going to run the scenario. I want you to call out what you respond to. You run to the edge of a cliff. There's a dog and a human. You can only save one. Who do you save?

And the whole audience is like, dog. Like crystal clear all at once. Dog. And I was just like it was just like the hammer dropped. I was like, holy shit. And you think about it. It's like, because they just see the worst in humans. Yeah.

The worst. The worst. And it's heartbreaking. They respond every day, all day to people's worst case scenario. Worst. And statistically, one of the speakers said, you know, shout out to Mike Carlton. He works the gang unit in Tempe's retired sergeant. And he saw so much of a need for better mental health that he just stepped up as a leader and he does presentations.

And he really had a big impact on me. And he said, you know, an average human has five to seven PTSD events in a lifetime. First responder in a 20 year, 25 year career has 400 to 500. So that checks out from what I've seen anecdotally with my friends. Yeah. You're just as a first responder, you're not meant to process that much shit. And you get those type A's that just keep burying. They just keep burying.

And to raise your hand and ask for help takes so much courage. And it doesn't always go well. Sometimes you're ostracized. Sometimes you don't get the promotion. Sometimes you get fired. And so for me, I was like, I want to, today I am here to fight for first responders. And to share my story and to at least just give them maybe a couple different options than talk therapy. You know, it's, I was at one event where the therapist had a son that served in the military was all fucked up.

And she was the EAP counselor for the group. And it was like, not to call bullshit here, but like, you're the resource to help these guys, but like, you can't even help your son. Like, may not be a good or ethical approach to treat your own child. True. And not everyone wants to do the work. So, but to me, it just kind of outlined like, we need better options. So while I was at that horse ranch, I got certified in horse therapy, equine therapy. I'm a big fan of it.

And so one of the biggest reasons I think it's great is you're going to put your phone down. You're going to get into nature. You're going to see the sun. You're going to get some fresh air. And horses are incredibly intuitive, which I didn't really understand because they're like, oh, they're prey animals. Like something's going to take them down. I'm like, like what? A mountain lion?

Like, what's really going to take a horse down? You can look a horse in the eyes and tell that there's more there. Oh, yeah. They can feel a fly dropout. Like, they are so intuitive. So what's interesting about horse therapy is it gets you in nature, gets you grounded. You might do things like they'll say, like, okay, what I want you to do in this arena is kind of just connect with the horse. And you do a little grooming or whatever.

It's like, I want you to build an obstacle course of it. your life and you have all these like hula hoops and cones and like different things they're like take me through your life of four points highs lows whatever you want it to be just build you know build a little path and you're going to walk through with a horse and you're going to just take me through your life and so some people do good stuff bad stuff whatever like i was you know molested here or somebody killed themselves here or i got the best job ever here like whatever it is but it gives that therapist a little bit of a template and you're not that one-on-one one And, you know, in the therapist's office, like, tell me how you feel.

Like, it's just very different. You're not a clinical setting. Yeah, it's very different. And the stories that come out are crazy. Like, one is, you know, one guy was doing a session for kids, and it was a group session. And for whatever reason, it was like this divine intervention day. And everyone canceled except this one girl. She's supposed to have close-toed shoes, and she forgot.

Her parents didn't, you know, whatever. So they're like, all right, I guess we're still going to try the session or whatever. And so she's kind of quiet and timid. And so the horse ends up stepping on the corner of her toe and stays there. They are not light. No, not light at all. And horses are kind of no, like, to get off. You know, they're super intuitive.

So sitting there on her foot and then, you know, the guy's like, that horse's foot's on your foot. And she's like, yep. He's like, does that hurt? She's like, yeah, it's a lot. You know, it's like, is there somebody else that's hurting you right now? She's like, yep. You know, it's just like, and then like another story where it was a husband, wife, child, pristine, perfect. You know, they're just all the way buttoned up, everything looks perfect.

They come in for three sessions. First session, no one says a word. little miniature pony comes by, shits on the dad's shoe. Nothing said. Family comes back. Nothing said again. Horse, little mini, shits on the dead shoe. I like this horse.

Yeah. And I'm surprised. I was like, you know, we're learning about like horse therapy and whatever. I'm like, and I'm looking at it as like huge failure. Like, no, you have to like talk about things on the first one. They're never going to come back. You're going to lose them. Like, what a failure.

Like my mind was going in a very different direction. They're like, nope. Let it play out. Let it play out. Third time happens again. And it turns out he's molesting the little girl. And it's just like there's just stuff like that where it's like you can't make that stuff up. You know, like there's just an intuition there. And it's so for me like if you're not into talk therapy or if it's not working for you, like try horse therapy. It is pricey. It's usually like $2.50 an hour. However, there's tons of ranches that have first responder, military, might be free, might be a small co-pay. So I would always say, like, just do your research. Reach out to a couple ranches. Ask if they have scholarships. There's one woman in North Scottsdale. She's got a ranch. She's a former firefighter, paramedic. She's super religious and, you know, spiritual unto God. whatnot and she went to kill herself she went to this field to commit suicide she was you know in in the thick of it and so and that day as she went to kill herself all these wild horses came and

surrounded her and she's like god told me like you're not going to kill yourself today you're going to turn this around and she turned that land into a ranch and now helps others and and just things like that like you can't make up you know so you know and and do you know and Different ranches have different vibes. And you might not, just like therapists, you got to interview them. It's like dating. You got to go to two or three. Like get different consults.

Like some ranches have different vibes. Some are a little bougie. Some are a little hillbilly. Like you might have to go to a few different ones. So I'm big into horse therapy as an option. Psychedelics I'm into too in the right setting. Well, where did the psychedelics your journey into that start? Was it pre-Montana or post?

Post, which is interesting. So Easter Island has always been my dream trip. I'm like, I'm going to go to Easter Island before I die for sure. They usually don't have direct flights. A lot of people do a layover in Peru. So I was like, oh, Peru, I'll probably do some ayahuasca, maybe like talk to some ancestors one day and then go to Easter Island. Like, that's all I kind of thought about it.

But while I was in Montana, two guys, one guy had previously gone to Mexico for Ibogaine and another was about to go. And it just, like, really sparked my interest. And I was like, interesting. I'd heard Rogan talk about Ibegan a little bit. And for those that don't know, in the stacking order, ibogaine is like they call it like the stern grandfather. It's like the strongest.

You should be hooked up to EKG. There's cardio concern. So you want to be in the right hands. And there are plenty of shady people that will take your money. You have to be so careful when you're in the psychedelic space. Like, always go on a reference. someone that you know directly that you talk to. Don't Google.

Don't go to a website. Don't talk to some shaman on the phone and be like, I got good vibes. Like, don't do that shit, because there's a lot of bad players out there a lot. So the Ibigame thing piqued my interest. And I was like, this is very interesting to me. And so I reached out to Dr. Martine Polanco,

who does the mission within stand-up doctor, awesome dude. I thought maybe I'll just volunteer in the kitchen just to kind of network, sort of like I did at Heroes and Horses, get some information. And the more and more I thought about it, I'm like, why don't you just try and handle your own shit? And so I did, and I had a very interesting experience. So with Ibegene, you tend to see, like, visuals,

and it kind of comes in, like, a rotation, and you might see three times. So something might present itself three times. And they say that you can, sometimes they're really dark trips, they're not fun. Like, death of the ego happens a lot. Like, it's, it can get dark or it can be beautiful.

Ancestors can come to you. Like, I've heard all different kinds of stories. So for me, I only had two images pop up. And so they say, if you get spooked, like, just, like, put your hands over your face. You have an eye mask on it, like, put your blanket over your head just to kind of signify, like, I'm not, I don't want to see this. I'm not into it. So I see this. The first vision I have is a super,

creepy skeleton and he's in this gray business suit that's like falling off of him and he has a clown mask on that is like dark and gnarly he's got like bugs he's like strung out clown like super creepy and he's like kind of floating towards me and I'm like oh fuck this is like looking at his mask I'm like this is this is not good it doesn't this is not like the rainbow and puppy dog vibe and he's trying to like pull his mask off and he's and you can't hear real well but you'll hear like it's kind of blurry and fuzzy of like what the words are and he's like going down like this it kind of sounded he was like saying like pull my tab and I'm like I don't what does he say like pull and then I'm like is he trying to like pull his zipper and like take his dick out no I swear to God I was like this motherfucker

put your dick away no so so I was like I couldn't really understand but um I was like I don't know what this is and I was like I don't want to see this I'm like I got spooked I got spooked and so kind of presented three times. I'm like, I'm not into this. Like, don't take the mask off. No, no, no. And then the second thing that I saw, the only thing that I saw was a,

it was like a 1970s style wildland firefighter patch. And it was green and yellow, which are like the uniforms. And as soon as it kind of came in, I'm like, that's it. That patch right there is worth this whole experience. Because I had just wrapped up in Montana, and I was like,

I was dissolving Heroes and Horses of Arizona. I was in way over my head. It wasn't going to work out. I'm like, and I told the founder, too, like, it was the worst handoff, like, known to man. And it is what it is. But I was like, there's a 50% chance this is going to crumble. Like, I'm going to give it my best shot. I'm going to Montana.

I'm learning from the pros, but, like, I don't know how it's going to play out. Some things are meant to be. Totally. But it got me where I am and, you know, super grateful for the experience. But it was rough. But so I saw that wildland patch. I was like, should I just like rebrand and like do a new 501c3 or should I go back into wildland? Like I don't know which way to take this.

And when I saw that patch, I was like, wildland, like you belong in the fires. So for me, that was huge, so big. And then fast forward to the summer, I had my first season stationed up in Utah in Heber City, stunning place. And like, I just, there's a lot of suicide in wildland. And a big reason is because they, You get laid off and it depends on how you're hired if you're seasonal or permanent. It's very complex. But you're going to have 13 weeks to four months off at least.

But you are going from 100 at a fast pace and you're just, you flip it into reverse on the same day. Like once the season ends, you do 14-day roll. They come rolls. There's like a 14-day assignment, 14 hours a day or 16 hours a day. It is ground and pound. It is a young man's game. but you're so you're just in the thick of it and then all the sudden you get laid off and it's like oh go live your life but it's like you just put your life on hold for six months like you barely have time you can only have you know three days off between these 14 day rolls depends on the fire season last summer was super mild so it's a little bit different but you're either so busy balls to the wall like so tired fatigued everything goes on hold your personal life your friendships your finances opening your mail everything. And you're just dog tired. And everything suffers. And so when you get into this

off season, if you don't have a life or you're going through a divorce or you're, and the pay is shit, you know, it's, it might be going back to $12. There was a little bit of a Band-Aid where first year we'd get $15 an hour. I mean, you're making nothing and you're sacrificing everything. there's a death is on the table you know people die often but the suicides are bad too and it's like this is not okay like it's not okay and i say the same thing about military like these people that are willing to give their life they need better things than a bullshit eap lame-ass talk therapy session it's not good like this is not good enough so for me sharing my story, I'm like, I'm just trying to break trail.

I am trying to give other options and share a story. Don't take those fucking pills. Don't take them. You're solving nothing. Tony Robbins just went on record saying that the SSRIs are doing nothing. It was on the cover of Newsweek. It's like you're not fixing anything. It's just a band-aid.

You've got to get to the root of the problem. Have you considered that it's not the job that actually might be causing the damage, that they might have been damaged before the occupation and are drawn to it. Yeah. And that's a big thing, too, especially with the military is, unfortunately, like, a lot of shit happens in the military, deployments or whatever, and that's horrible. A lot of times it's, why did you get into the military?

A lot of times it's childhood stuff. Let's, let's be honest here. The vast majority of the military does not their job to experience combat. Yeah. About 10%, maybe 15% of the military. slowly realize. Has a job that is designed to engage in direct combat role. A small percentage of that 10% to 15% will actually do so.

The number of war damaged veterans, I often feel like, exceeds the number of people who experienced war. Yeah. So is it the system or is it the person? Could be. I think both is the answer to a degree. I think that, you know, the truth is if there's A and C, B is, probably a more applicable answer.

But I think it's, I think it's more complicated than do more than talk therapy, do more than the EMDR and don't take pills. I think it's, I wish it was precise. I think it's far more blurry than that. Yeah, you got to dig into yourself. You have to have those like unfiltered, deep conversations that are not fun. And if you don't and you work your way into a job like the wild and fire and you end up making the horrible decision to end your life, can that be held against the wild and fire occupation? Or is that a mechanism of if you don't deal with your trauma, your trauma is going to deal with you?

Fair enough. It's tough. Yeah. It's tough at the end of the day. I would never say that those occupations don't leave a mark. my question is how much of a mark and what can be done with that i feel like a better person and a better version of myself because my military experiences not a worse one and i do know people that were destroyed by it um one of my closest friends uh it's it's something that i wish

people would talk about more the the negative side of the psychedelic rainbow as i'll describe it hey just go down here and uh you know do the dietta take the medicine uh what do the guys get and they do uh usually iwaska paired with five m eODMT afterwards come back do the work you know counselor all these things and they don't talk about the people that it doesn't help yeah um and a very close friend of mine and a very important mentor in my career went through multiple iterations of going to the I mean from what I've heard about Ibe game it's not a fun ride I have zero experience with any psychedelics but I have not I have heard that is not one that you would probably take if you were looking for a relaxing journey into what did the therapist say to you maybe you pierce the

veil pierce the veil of another fucking you know dimension probably Iby gain is not the one to do that on but he went back and back and back and I know so many people who've said they've go to these ceremonies and they'd never had the desire to drink again or that changed their relationship with the substance that they were using. He had the exact opposite experience. He was drinking again within 72 hours and ended up taking his own life. He was trying to do the work. And then you take a little deeper look at the person and you can blame it on the military. He could blame it on his post-military experience. He didn't have the easiest laps around the track before all of that. And it's the one of the

my concerns about psychedelics, it is so commonly focused on only the positive, these revelatory earth-shattering, life-changing experiences. And that's not all it is. It's not always good. And, you know, we're in for a rough road because I've heard, like, in Portland, there's people charging $10,000 for psilocybin trip. I'm like, that is so, that is so beyond greed. You should not be paying $10,000 for a mushroom trip. That is criminal. Aren't mushrooms legal there? Yeah.

Couldn't they just go buy some mushrooms for, I don't know what mushrooms costs? I have no experience with them either, but I feel like it's less than 10 grand. You know, you're going to get bad players in the game. I've heard horror stories of people in a tent in the corner, you know, shitting themselves and throwing up with like no supervision, no integration before or after. Like there are a lot of bad players in this field. a lot. And so it's not for everybody.

It's not. You know, it comes down to you got to do the work. So is the wild and stuff what you thought it would be? Are you going to continue with it? Yeah, I'd say at least two or three seasons. Not forever. I mean, I'm old. Like, it is a young man's game.

You know, as old as you think you are? Yeah. But I'm keeping up, you know, I can keep up. But I think the best thing to do is to wear the boots, you know, and do peer support. and really understand what a season of wildland fire is like. And be an advocate for change and be the example. And so that's what I'm trying to do is just kind of explain my journey and where I've been and the pitfalls and just be an advocate for other options.

What do you, what would you recommend for the first responder world? What would you like to see them change about what is currently offered? at least consider like equine therapy something different than because and I've been to therapist too the one that's like pierced the veil she's like ah we don't you know we don't really do a lot of first responders like they are tough cases you know they talk about their brain scans and whatnot and like the ring of fire where everything lights up and it's they're tough cookies and I just wish they had other options then hey go talk to somebody because it's usually going to lead to pharmaceuticals. intervention where it's like let's just get you on a couple pills you know or when you go to the VA there are some nice VA doctors I I know one in Phoenix she's awesome but there's a lot of really bad ones and they give the same menu where it's like okay let's get you some ambient for sleeping let's get you some Adderall for up let's get you some Xanax to mellow out let's get you some lexopro for those depressions oh you got some cardio concerns we'll throw you know and it's like

That sounds like hell on earth. It is. One of the guys that came through in Montana, I knew this answer. He was on 32 pills a day. I asked him, I was like, how much did you pay for those prescriptions? He's like, zero. I was like, I knew. I knew he paid zero.

I'm like, I personally, this is me being bitter betty. I think the VA is a pill mill. I think you go through and you just get pills. It can be. Yeah. Not for everybody. There are exceptions. I've been known to talk shit about the VA from time to time.

And what I don't do is a good job of painting the other side. There are a lot of people who've gotten fantastic care from the VA. That doesn't make the news. But the 32 pill guy who eventually decides that he's going to suck start a pistol instead of brushing his teeth in the morning, that's going to make the news. And it's going to vilify the VA system writ large. And I don't know if the VA system deserves that necessarily. There have been some horrendous incidents where they fell short.

But to use an example that you used, the Black Lives Matter movement that vilified the entire occupation of policing was not an accurate portrayal of the occupation of policing. So I think we have to be really careful. Yep. Because unfortunately, negative stories and experiences seem to garner more attention than the positive. Yeah. And you're going to get those victims, too. I mean, there was a couple that came through Montana that summer. You know, nothing is perfect.

So you're always going to have some fails here and there. But one guy in particular was, you know, military and then went on to be a firefighter. And he ended up leaving early and he was a little bitch. Like just whining about every single thing. Posting, posting, posting, posting. Talking shit on this is a waste. Like, it's just like. But probably goes from program to program to program to program.

Exactly. He's a professional broken person. Yeah, he's a professional victim, and he's never going to change. And you'll see that in the psychedelic space. You'll see that in the talk therapy. Like some people get that victim label, and they really just want attention. They're probably lonely. And my heart breaks for them.

That sucks. But like running this victim is not helping anybody. It's not. So I think you got to do the work, whether you like it or not. It's true story. How you do that is your business, but I just wish that for first responders especially, they had other options. And not even first responders like dispatch. They get so overlooked.

They're answering phones all the time. I knew a lady that she would drive around. She'd be like, oh, yeah, there was a murder there and then a stabbing there and then a suicide there. And then somebody killed their dog. And they never know the end of it. Like they just answer the call. say things they really don't want to hear like, oh, just shot my wife.

You know, it's just like, you know, and they don't know how it plays out. Like, did the wife die? Did she make it? Like, the first responder world breaks my heart. And these people are, it's their, they're dialed into this community. It's where their kids go to school.

It's where their house is. It's where their community is. So for them to have raised their hand takes so much courage. And to get shot down or in a, it's devastating. We're like, we'll just find a new job. It's not that easy.

It's not that easy. It's not that easy, but I'm also not going to blame the infrastructure completely. I've had a lot of conversations, you know, with veterans specifically. Like, what is the role of the military? How much should they be responsible on somebody's departure? Are they even capable of providing? what may be needed. And I land on, I don't think they are,

because they're not designed to do so, which is the same thing for not coming from the world, but it appears to be there are some similarities in the first responder military world. So who does that leave it with? There's the individual. The military, thankfully, has an almost endless supply of NGOs,

non-government organizations or service-based organizations that are there and ready to help, which can be gamed, and that's how you can end up with the professional victim. In my experience, from what I have seen, first, if you recognize that you need more, you can find it. But it's probably not going to come from inside of your organization. But I bet you there is an organization that exists in that world between, I'll use the military, discharge from the military, integration into the VA and the non-government organization or service-based organization.

Maybe that even sits in between. Military, service-based VA. I just, I think the last stat, I saw there's over 40,000 service-based organizations. Yep. And some of them are just like concert tickets. Some of them are. But a lot of them aren't. And I don't want to quantify and say, well, most people don't take the time or this, that, or the other.

A lot of the times, the person who needs the help the most, is not actually looking for that solution in and of themselves. They want it presented to them. They want it done for them. And that's not the recipe. And my heart breaks for the first responders because I have a bunch of friends who are in the first responder world. One of the things that I usually ask them, we have conversations about this too. Like, hey, man, do you have a social circle outside of work?

A lot of times the answer is no. And that's where I start people when they ask me for advice about these occupations. I was like, how can I do this and not burn out? I love doing this. I love being involved. I love giving back. Try to have a social circle outside of work. Because if you come from the world I came from,

it was insidious in nature, not intentionally, all day at work. And then the same social circle was the guys afterwards. So what would we do after work? We'd fucking hang out and drink and talk about work. So it was a work, work balance, not a work-life balance. And you can lose yourself in that. And being proactive.

I don't know where we got to this place where you only go and seek help when you realize you're standing on the abyss and you're about to fall into it, maybe take your car in for an oil change before the transmission locks up. You know, it's, the help is out there. There are people who will bend over backwards and give you everything that they have to help you, but they don't know who needs help unless that help is asked for. Yep. So.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you're so dialed in, if that's your only world, you're so scared to lose it. You know, or get ostracized. Yeah, but what's the... But you do need to branch out. Well, let's lay out some options. You're afraid of being ostracized.

You're afraid of losing your job. But you're not afraid of putting a gun in your mouth and leaving your family and friends and loved ones behind. That's not right. That's not an objective look at the things that are actually in front of. front of you. If my, if my choice was for my kids and they came to me and said, God, I love my job, but if I keep doing it, I'm going to kill myself. I would fucking stop everything that I was doing to try to figure out something else that they could do. I mean, explore every other option. And who cares how much you love the job? I bet your friend's family and loved ones would rather

have you around than be able to introduce you as Bob the fireman or first responder or paramedic or whatever it may be. It's not worth it. No. It's, I heard a cop at a wellness seminar explaining. He's like, you got to remember suicide, you're not trying to kill yourself. You're trying to stop the pain. And the pain is that bad. It's like in your. Yeah, but you're passing that pain onto other people. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate everything that you do in the first responder world, especially, the letters that you read, the people that come on. Those stories are helping more people. So from the bottom of my heart thank you for all of that it really means a lot you have a wide range of of people and discussions and i think it's awesome but um i just lost my point of thought but yeah it's it's incredibly valuable of everything that you're you're doing and it's appreciated how are you going to know it's time to stop doing psychedelics uh how far are we going to go down the rabbit yeah i have uh so i have you're going to put like beads and shit in your hair and carry around a

cane and like look like a female Gandalf and like guide people through the Hobbit Shire? I mean, how far are we going to go with this? Yeah, he has to be careful. So I'm hopefully going to land on a helicopter team this summer for fire. It's kind of coming together. There's a few things brewing. I'll probably know in the next four weeks or so. But I do have a trip to Peru where I'm doing three weeks.

It's women's group isolation in a hut. Sounds like a recipe for violence. Yeah, nine ayahuasca. Ceremonies. Did you know, you want to hear a stat that doesn't make any sense to me? The highest cohort of individuals, couples, when it comes to domestic violence or lesbian couples. Really? Yeah.

You know what that means? Women are fucking crazy. Certifiable. 100%. Michael, don't double check that because I might have made that up. Yeah. You're just going to lock yourself in a tent with women and do nine ayahuasca ceremonies? Yeah.

How do you, I mean, why that many? How do you know that two's not enough? It could be, yeah. But how would you know it? Because you're obviously paying for nine, so I bet you're going to do nine. Yeah. Yeah, I think a part of me is like I, and then after that I go into the fire season and it's all, you know, you just. Assuming that you're able to walk, talk, and act like a human being after nine of those things.

Yeah, we'll see if I make it out. But what do you want to get out of that? That seems to me to be very aggressive. It is. It is full throttle. For me, I can't shake this B plus syndrome. I have really analyzed where the fear in my life is. And the first time I went into the Wilden Academy,

I let go of the fear of death. I'm like, you're going to have to be comfortable with death and possibly dying. I'm like, okay, I'm okay if I die. So you're not afraid of dying? No. I don't want to die, but I'm okay with it. You should not be doing any wilden fire then.

Fear of death is a natural mechanism that is telling your body to pay attention about what's going on because it has a high consequence and high risk. I was always terrified when I was base jumping. Like you're zipping up, your suit, and you're getting rid of it, and you're fucking max heart rate and your mouth is dry and you're terrified. My go-no-go would be if I ever got to a place where I wasn't like that, I was going to walk away from it because it means I'm not paying attention. It means I am not objectively looking at this situation and making decisions that are going to sustain. my life versus doing something dumb that's going to take my life. There's nothing wrong. Let me ask you this.

Do you think that there are any seals out there that are actually not afraid of death? They ask us to do some wild shit. I don't want to actually go in the field with somebody that says to me, I'm not afraid of death. One, you're probably lying. Two, if you are actually not afraid of death, you're a sociopath. Because it means the natural alarm bells in your body are not working properly. I would sit with that one for a bit. Yeah.

You can accept and understand the risk associated with your job, but it's a natural thing to be afraid of death. It's about what you do with that fear, not erasing it. It's a good perspective. I get that. Yeah. I think, so the first year I really analyzed, like, fear, death, where that comes in. Second year, I really went into money.

I let go of the need for money, of chasing it. Of course, I, you know, money is helpful. It's not like I don't need money. Makes a world around a little bit. Yeah, need a little bit. Need a little bit. I like to eat. Yeah.

Food is good. Yeah. So that, but where I need to work on is love. Like, I am pretty blocked of just not quite being good enough. And like, that's where I really need to do the work. And I have been. What does the ayahuasca provide for you in that realm, though? A lot of love, like loving yourself.

accepting yourself, knowing that you're good enough, like a lot of internal love. It provides that love for you or tells you that you need those things? I think it kind of points you in that direction. Like, and it helps you really realize that like you have to love yourself more. Like you are, and you hear this a lot where it's like you're constantly beating yourself up. Like you love everybody else except yourself. Like, why don't you just love yourself? So it sounds like you already know what you need to work on.

Why does being told that nine more times increase the likelihood that you'll be successful doing the work? I think there's a part of me that just there's so much noise in the world right now of like social media and this and that. And I'm like, I just want to take a time out and really just get into my shit. Like why do you really think you're not good enough? Why do you really think, you know, and I had in college, I had, a roommate every year and one of, they always had eating disorders

and I would always be around guys who'd be like, Kara, girl, I gotta talk to you. I'm like, yeah, what's up? They'd be like, you gotta hook me up with your roommate. You know, it was like, I was always like the Ginger Marianne syndrome, you know? And like, I was like, God damn it,

they always want the hotter girl. You know, so I just think like, you know, my parents, divorce, dad had an affair, you know, we're all good now and everything's fine, but like, I think that has a little bit of like, you know, if my mom was a little bit better, dad wouldn't have had that. Or, you know, if you're a little bit skinnier, like the college girls, you know, then you just, I think there's some work to do on being good enough.

And it's something I have to really work on. And the ayahuasca or I Begin allows you to access that space to do the work? I think so. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Again, zero experience with. Yeah.

And it's, you know. Because I feel like you've, I mean, again, and somebody with no experience. I feel like you've identified the path forward. Yeah. I think for me, the isolation to just really like no phones, phone shut off, like, just sit with it. You know you can do that now, right? Yeah. True. True.

The stuff you're talking about social media and the anxiety from that, it's a voluntary ecosystem. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying it's easy to put it down because I'm a, I mean, again, it's pros and cons. I have connected with people that I haven't talked to in years. Yeah. And then I get into arguments with idiots that I don't know. for shit I don't care about. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like being Santa Claus at the mall and, you know, have the you have like aligned 50 deep of kids, but instead it's just people that want to shit on you like, you're racist, you're fat, you're old. It's just like, okay, next, next. I would consider getting in that line, actually.

Yeah. I would actually, I would volunteer to sit on the chair and be like, fuck you, hold on, I guess something on my pocket, fuck you. Yeah. Yeah. I just was having like, and I'm not even on social media, but I mean, LinkedIn, that's not really social media.

But I mean, some people might say it is, but whatever. I don't know what I don't read comments or what. It's just a business. I don't know. But I... How will you know when it's time to stop? I think this is going to be it with Peru. Hold on, though.

What criteria will let you know what it's time to stop? Because the easiest thing to say is, I think it's going to be this one. I'm not there yet. I think it'll be the next one. Yeah. How will you know? That's a good question. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, I could. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Something to think about. You know, I know it ends, it ends in March when the fire season picks up, and that'll be a good seven months of, you know, of nothing. Yeah. Just grinding back in fire.

But I'm hoping that I've tried on enough shoes to help others, too, where it's like, okay, this was my journey. Like, I did this or this helped me or this didn't. And just to kind of be able to speak to that. It's fair. Yeah. And I'm asking for my own curiosity. Yeah. Psychedelics scare the living shit out of me.

Yeah. And I don't know why. I don't want to be on the cult circuit. You see that. You know, people are going one thing to the next to the next to the next, and it's never going to end. Yeah, the next thing you know you're locked in a room with nine women do and Ibeacon, you know? Weird.

Yeah. Yeah. I hope Peru is it. Like maybe a little maintenance here and hopefully not. But I don't know. I don't know. But I do know that. Maybe sit with it and define your finish line.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah, what does the wind look like? What's the goal? What's the objective that you want to achieve? Because not that that would like solve any or all problems, but if you don't know where the end zone is, you can't really score a touchdown.

And then if you're the one moving the yard line to use another metaphor of a sport, I know almost nothing about because I just don't, apparently it's the playoffs for football. Yeah. I was telling me that, I was like, that's odd. I didn't even know it was football season. Thank you for, let me know who wins the Super Bowl.

Yeah. You know, defining an end state or a goal, maybe that can help with deciding when to move on to the next. And a big thing for me is finding a life partner. You know, that's a big one. And I love, I just heard your wife. She's the best. I love the way that you just, like, love on her.

Like, it's so cool. It gives me such hope that, like, there is goodness out there. And I see it in a few friends and whatnot, but not enough. I think the biggest thing that Leah helped me with when I went through my divorce, which was horrendous. And I'll say in the same breath, I'm sure it was for my ex-wife as well. I am not trying to paint myself as somebody who got the short end of the stick. There's two people, one on each side of that equation. But that was the time in my life where I had the lowest view of who I was as a person.

And I would sit there and ask myself, am I actually, worth being with somebody. Would anybody want to be with me? Do I have, do I bring any value to anything? Like my kids, am I good enough person to be an example for my kids? Am I a good enough person to even be a father for my kids? I think the most valuable thing that Leah has done for me or did for me during that time period was changing the way that I talk to myself. Yeah. And showing me that I was, in fact, good enough to be of value to somebody else.

It's a fucking dark place to be. Stuff. And that's my biggest battle. It's like I'm at this point in life where, and I remember, too, like trying to date as the farmer rep where it's like, you know, I just, I wasn't, I didn't feel authentic, you know? And it's like, how are you going to fall in love when you don't even love yourself and love your life?

And so I'm trying to really, really. really be as authentic and as loving to myself, love myself all the way through of what I stand for, what my career path is, what I'm doing in life. Yeah. And I have such an open slate doing the van life and I'm kind of, you know, in the gypsy mode. But like, I would love to build a life with a partner. And now that money is not a big part of my life, like that really kind of opens the door to awesome guys that I've probably overlooked.

Yeah. So I think, you know, the short answer would be like, oh, if I get, you know, life partner husband, you know, for sure that would be the end of, you know, that would be the goal. But I don't want that just to be like, okay, once I get married, you know, then we're done. But I would say, you know, finding a partner would be a huge win for me. But I've got to just knock it off with this B plus shit. It's like you are good enough. Like not every guy is going to look for the better deal. You know, I think dating apps are just detrimental.

I'm both sides, you know, like... Don't participate in it. Yeah, I quit dating two years ago, you know, and I have... That's probably not going to help you find your life partner, but I mean... No, probably not, no. You're looking for a life partner. I'm in this fucking closet by myself, and I'm, like, really having a hard time meeting people. I did a year sober, you know, like, just like, no dating, nothing.

Like, just get into yourself and, like, really dial in and, like, just love yourself. Like, love who you can become, you know. What if you can't get to that place? I think I'm pretty close. I'm really hoping Peru, like, really solidifies it. I ask because I don't think perfection is possible. No. And you're setting a high standard for yourself, which I think everybody absolutely should.

Yeah. But I think it's okay to not be perfect. Absolutely. But you have to be able to look in the mirror and be comfortable with that. The only advice I would give you is don't look for somebody, that you think is going to complete you? No. I don't think it's like that.

I think at best you can be two puzzle pieces that actually fit together, but you can't really, you can't expect somebody else to provide for you what it is that you're looking for in yourself. I think that in the long run that doesn't work. No. It's a compliment, not a completion. Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Have you ever considered that you are good enough? Yeah, but like not all the way. No. Yeah. That first part of the answer was the only part you needed. Yeah. Now you just got to work on taking a pair of scissors to the rest of that sentence.

Yep. I'm not so sure. Iby Gaines going to do that for you. I've done a lot of... Especially in the lesbian thunderdome. I mean... Which is that... Please tell me that's the name of the retreat.

Yes. Okay, good. I'm just checking. It's fantastic marketing. Michael's researching right now and signing up. He's him. He's him? Yeah, that would be the goalposts, I think.

Yeah, what are you going to do when you meet somebody who was like you're the most amazing person that I've ever met? How are you going to justify that with how you talk to yourself? Yeah. Well, I think for me, they've got to be a friend first. That's the only way you can vet them. You know, how do they treat their friends? Are they dating 10 chicks? Like, I don't want to be number nine in rotation.

You know, that happens a lot. Chicks do it too. Yeah. You know, chicks do it too. So for me, it's like got to be a friend first. And I can really build from there and then see where it goes. What if you meet some hot dude first? He's like, I don't know.

Like, this friendship thing sucks. I was hoping for a little bit more. Yeah. Go get it, dude. Over there. Not here. Okay. It's a weird approach.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, do like a record check on them to make sure they don't have a history of pulling their dick out on people because... Yeah. We don't need that. The statistical likelihood of you encountering that is way fucking beyond the norm.

I don't understand how that has happened. I don't know. What have we not covered on your robust series of notes? You have me looked at it a single time? I know, right? Take a look at it. Did we not get anything? Let's see.

Oh, I'd say one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from the Academy, from one of the instructors that said... because there's a lot of deaths, you know, and when that happens, there's a lot of this, you know, finger pointing. Like, well, he didn't do this. He didn't do that. And it was stand tall in the truth. Yes. And that's probably one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten.

And I've used it at least 15 times in the last couple years. And it's like whenever you have anxiety or you're taking a big risk or something's not feeling right, it's like, no, just take a deep breath, stand tall on the truth. And so that was a big one. Okay. Oh, I didn't talk about Kareem. I just have a connection to the 13 that passed in the Afghanistan withdrawal. One of my college roommates was...

At the airport. Yeah. One of my college roommates taught him, Kareem and his younger brother, Stephen. And that withdrawal was heartbreaking. It was, but what I'll add to that is people love to blame it on the Biden administration. and it was shit planning and execution for multiple administrations before. Oh, yeah, both sides. He's responsible for the decisions he made in the chair while he was president

and everybody else is responsible for the decisions they made leading up to it as well. Yep. Yeah. So Kareem, it's, so I knew when he passed, it was sad. You know, my girlfriend's like, here's a foundation, if I want to donate. You know, he was my student. It was heartbreaking. But while I was in Montana, this was super crazy.

I couldn't stop thinking about him one day and I was like I just like I can't stop thinking about him and like we finished all the stuff that day and I googled him and like took this screenshot of a picture I'd never seen of him and it was August 9th and it was the day that his brother

older brother went to his grave site and killed himself and I'm just like the fact that like how did I think of that you know it was crazy And then fast forward two weeks later, the actual withdraws either August 21st or 26. I'm forgetting the date.

Can you look that up, Michael? But on that day, I was in Montana, Micah's Ranch, and I was like, how can I honor, you know, this day, this anniversary? It's really big. And it was like kind of raining and the storm passed. And all of a sudden there's this huge double rainbow. And I was like, holy shit. And in my resignation letter in my pharma days, I wrote this letter. And do you remember the double rainbow guy?

He went viral like 10, 15 years ago. I have absolutely no idea you're talking about. Okay. This guy was like, he's like super chubby. He was either in Yellowstone or Yosemite. He was a previous firefighter and just pulled the rip cord, ran into the woods. And so one day he's sitting in his trailer, like beat up shack. And he looks out and he sees this.

double rainbow when he records it. And he's like, double rainbow. Like, it just went viral. It's hilarious. I certainly have not seen that. Yeah, I will have to send it to you. But, like, it's just something I connected to. And I was like, he's the firefighter that just pulled the rip cord and ran away. And so he ended up dying COVID, which was sad.

But to see that double rainbow in the ranch at Montana, like, it just brought so much to me. So I just have a big connection to the Afghan. I understand withdrawal to veterans and then also first responders. August 30th. What's the final day it looks like? Feb 29 to August 30th. Yeah. So it's just a sad day.

It is. I mean, every day is a sad day. There's good days too. Why is every day a sad day? Just the suicides. That just breaks my heart. It breaks my fucking heart. Yeah, but are you going to let that be bricks on your shoulders?

or are you going to use that as a fire to change who you are and what you can do with what you want to do? The latter, absolutely. So I'm here today. You know, as I was leaving pharma, you know, I'm like, I just know my life's purpose is to fight for first responders. It's interesting you bring that up, though. I mean, every day could absolutely be a sad day for everybody because you could find something that would rob you of your ability to want to do anything. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest mistake people can make.

you know the suicides I don't understand how people come to a place where they make an irrational decision and it seems rational to them. I think I have an understanding of how you can get to that point. Yeah. Never been there myself so I can't talk about it from a first person perspective but

I think the bigger question is how do you do something meaningful with those actions that they took and not forget them? And it's not by every day being a sad day. It's by becoming the best version of yourself humanly possible and not ruminating on the fact that every day

could be a sad day and living your life to your fullest because from the military world, if people, you know, you can pick any day, soldiers have been killed every single day of the calendar year to include a leap year. So you could spend your day only looking backwards and, oh, I have, today I'm going to mourn this person.

It's, you know, maybe go live your best life and realize that they gave all of their tomorrow so you could have today and live your life that way as opposed to, the weight and burden of guilt and shame. True. It's tough. Yeah, be the example.

But you have to do something with it. Agreed. What else you got on that paper? Where on there is the guys with their dicks out? That should be an entire page. Probably, yes. I'm actually considering framing that behind Michael. He would appreciate it.

You can have it. Well, no, just the section about the guys with the dicks out. I was going to blow that up and put it now. Oh, I would say if you are passing by, Boise, Idaho. Boise? Idaho. Boise? They have a wildland firefighter foundation. They do an awesome job supporting community, more than the government. They have pictures of every fallen wildland firefighter. They do a tremendous job of helping the community. It's a little sad, a little heavy. I go there after the academy every year to put some respect in there and put some love on them.

But it's run by Burke Minor. He's an awesome dude. His mom started it after a fire killed 14. firefighters and she saw the need and kind of stepped up so they're doing great things if it's somebody that you you know if you feel a connection they also have a on youtube uh series uh warriors of the west and it's like six series that maybe eight 10 minute video but just kind of chronicles the life of a wildland firefighter little things that they that they do um so they're just doing good things so i want to shout out to them right on well we have been at this for like two hours and 40 minutes Goes fast. What do you want to close it out with?

Just to look for the love. That's a big thing that happens in the psychedelic world is like love. Oh, I know. They won't shut the fuck up about it. Embrace the love of the goddess. Embrace your feminine divinity. And it's like, okay, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm guilty of getting stuck on the anger.

The anger can fuel you. You get this race. You know, and you're like, let's do something. And it's like, let's just like switch gears and like, let's go for the love. Like lean into the love. Be the helper. Be the good person. Don't be so fucking bitter.

You know, I was getting super bitter towards the end of pharma. And it was like just really at myself. Yeah. So, yeah, I just say look for the love. Okay. Do you have that website yet? Of. Lookforthe love.

Oh, not yet. I mean, this is a business idea, real time. I mean, I don't have Michael buy that shit like in the next five minutes. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're not on social media. People do want to reach out to you work and they find you.

They can find me on LinkedIn. Assuming I don't get kicked off. I did get a no-no letter. Really? What did you do? I just push the envelope of, like, what you could say. As I was leaving my old life. What did you say?

Don't be a dick. Oh, no. I've definitely said that on there. Yeah, I don't know. Well, you don't know exactly what it was, but they just gave me this letter, and I reposted it, and I apologize. I said, you know, your house, your rules. I get it. So, but my door is always open to first responders or military.

If you want to just throw out some questions to equine therapy or psychedelics, like just get some information. I don't read comments. So to the people that leave nice ones, thank you. To the people that leave shitty ones, fuck you too. But I do read the DMs. So. Okay. On LinkedIn?

Yep, on LinkedIn. Which most people really don't really send them. But if they're like, hey. I think you have to pay for them at some point. I think you have to be a connection. I always accept connections. So, yeah. But I would say if they want any insight, doors always open, just send me a DM on LinkedIn while I'm still there.

Fair enough. That's all I got. You ready to go Brave the Montana Blizzard? Yeah. Which I am curious to see what it looks like when we leave. I know. We had a hard time. We had canceled flights.

Airbnb pipes froze. almost tipped over on the way here. You're glad you should be glad you weren't here like four days ago. It was legitimately negative like 33, 35 with some wind chill. Yikes. Yikes. It's not the best. No. It's not the best.

But also you'd be surprised how many people are. They're just kind of live in their life. Yes. Fewer joggers during those times. Yeah. Makes sense, yes. Well, cool. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time. Of course. Appreciate everything you do. Thanks for the love for first responders. Back off on the love stuff, right? a little bit more of the anger fan. There you go. Get better.

Thank you.