Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - He Scheduled His Suicide for Midnight | Matthew Griffin | Ep. 453

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Matthew spent six years in the Navy as a Search and Rescue swimmer. Then fifteen years as a cop — Virginia Beach, then undercover narcotics in New Hampshire during the opioid epidemic. He worked under a different name for years. He wrote a book, The Journey to Midnight, about the night he planned to kill himself. Now he talks to cops and veterans about it. This one covers why suicide is so high in law enforcement and the military. Trauma stacks up and you never get the time to process it. The "unfit for duty" label that ends careers, so nobody asks for help. A fatal wreck on Route 101. A man who shot himself three feet away. A two-and-a-half-year-old, a blind cord, and thirty seconds in a car that Matt still hasn't let go of. His chief checked on him one day, then went home and killed himself two hours later. What he did with that is most of this conversation. The Journey to Midnight: https://a.co/d/03SCujlF Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter here:  https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Today's Sponsors:  Montana Knife Company:  https:www.montanaknifecompany.com Betterhelp:  https://www.betterhelp.com/clearedhot

Okay, got the red smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. About a fist away. Stay about a fist away from that. Yeah, I think we're a little bit lower than that. I think we're about 18. I think 2017, 18 were our two, at least first responder-wise, were our two biggest years. We had like 250 in law enforcement as first responders.

And I think that's where the 22 a day came out. But I think it started to kind of decline down to about 18, 18 and 19. So I thought the 22 a day was associated with veterans, not even just. Just veterans, yeah. Yeah, not even counting the first responder word is that. Correct. Yeah, first responders is about one every 15 hours, is what I, is the research hours. Hours?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Because you typically have about 200 plus a year. Yeah. The highest year was 2017, which I think was like 250. Yeah. I know the goal, everybody's goal is to try and get it below 100.

So we could both speak to our military experience. Yeah. I have no experience in law enforcement. I'll throw this disclaimer out there. At least that I'm aware of, neither you and I or a doctor, or an expert in psychology. Why do you think that number is so high in the first responder law enforcement world based off your experience in that occupation?

Oh, dude, I mean, how much time you have? Like, this would be a long podcast. We jump into that. I think that we get a clean bill of health when we come into it. And for the most part, we go through the psychological, everything else. You've got to be fit for duty in order to come on a job, whether it's as a veteran or, as a first responder.

So you come from a pretty good place, typically. You're not coming from background where you had or sustained a significant amount of trauma because for the most part, if that happened, there's a lot of law enforcement involved in your life and things like that. So for the majority of the guys that come into the first responder, the veteran world, a lot of times they come from a good place. And then they sustain a high level of traumatic incidents over a long period of time. And everybody's different with their traumatic experience.

I think, like for me, you know, the two of us go to a two and a half a girl that's dead in the car. it's going to affect us differently based on our past based on whether or not you have kids i have kids whether or not things like that have happened and what happens is the typical human being in a in a lifetime we're going to see like five of those they're going to see five times they're going to call 911 they're going to see somebody get punched in the face and those those five are going to hit them hard the problem is is that the average amount of time it takes to process that they say is like around 10 days or so you don't get that 10 days of process let's say it's a you know a fatal car accident

or any type of unattended death type of call. And it starts to stack up. And so when you don't process it when you just leave it in what they call the amygdala, and you're just, you've got all this death, all these traumatic things. You start to see the bad side and how quick life is, and it really takes a toll on you. And I think that's the chaos that we sign up for, but it starts to change you a little bit. You start to look at things a little bit differently. You start to come home and see, you know, different aspects of life and whether or not you have a faith element to you

or whether or not, you know, life is random. Either one of those is going to cause you a lot of stress because, you know, for example, I remember I was working patrol and a lady was driving home. She was texting her husband, hey, turn the oven on to 3.15. I'll be home at 15 minutes. And 18 wheeler came across the road, wham, head on, killed her. So I got there. Husband showed up because people were calling like, hey, your wife's car is out on 101.

and he showed up and he's just screaming. She just, look, she just showed, she just texted me. That's not her. And it's like, yeah, that's her. And so I'm sitting right there talking to him trying to explain, hey, this is your wife. Matter of fact, that's your wife's nose right there. And I don't want you to look at the car. I don't want you to look inside that.

I was going to say, what's the move there? Do you try to separate them from the scene, get them out of a visual? Right. Because they're going to be in a head space. And they're not going to let you. Yeah. You know, they're going to try and fight by you and everything else, but you want to do everything you can not to not I mean because you don't want the last thing that they ever see of somebody to be a nose on the ground and a leg over there and to look inside the car would be completely traumatic so whether or not he was able to see some of the other things just as much as I could I tried to keep him away from that car and when it finally hit he just collapsed on the ground so I just sat there and held him and you know and so things like that like you pour yourself into somebody and and and yet I saw what was in the car I saw the nose there I saw the wedding

band on on the ring there I saw the text message on her phone saying you know and so you get home at night and you're like wow like that like that whole family for the rest of their life that day is going to hit hard forever for you you got to move on you got to go to the next day or even at the end of that here's another great example man today's episode is brought to you by montana knife company and I don't know what to say about this brand other than to start with I just love the people that are behind it I'm on their website right now and it's great rotating through its banner and it's showing they just had a film with uh brandon and cam haines you can go and watch that directly they had some of their skinning blades i believe it just flipped

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Built in Montana bringing jobs back to Montana, vertically integrating, just crushing American production, the way that I would love to see a lot of other brands. do as well. Montanaknife company.com. Go get you some. I was the SRO coming up from Virginia Beach. I went from Virginia Beach Police to Key New Hampshire. It stands for school resource officer for people listening. So school resource officer is the police officer that's in the school 24th, not 24-7, Monday through Friday. I was going to say that'd be weird. Yeah. Yeah. So money through Friday. That'd be dope on weekends. Pull that thing a little bit closer to you too. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I keep sitting back. This guy. And so if you sit back, just pull it with you. Okay. Yep.

So money through Friday, you're assigned to the school. So all school year long, there's a there's a police officer in the school and that they call it the school resource officer so i was doing that in the winter time it was christmas vacation there's no school so i'm back on patrol and i'm on midnights because i wanted to have some weekends off to maintain my schedule and i was sitting at a i was sitting at a duncan donuts and kean and call came out right around the corner for a screaming domestic and when i tell you like i'm closer to where the coffee shop is i was right there so i go up the back of the stairs and i came up made a left turn i was in the kitchen and i could hear the screaming in the bedroom. And so I peeked to the right, right in front of me is a young man

sitting on the couch. I couldn't see the girl that was screaming because my vision was just going right through here from the kitchen. And he's got the gun right here. And so he looked at me. I looked at him. I said, man, stop. Don't do this. Like, let's take a breath. Let's figure this out. So not to interrupt you. So you get this call. You didn't even need to get into your car. Right. Essentially. And I'm just curious. So if the door is open as a responding officer, you based on the call, do you have authority to enter right there? Yeah. So we hear, so, so she calls 911, right? So we have, we have what we call exigent circumstances. And she's screaming on the back. We can't get anything ping to the address. So

back doors open. So I go up the stairs. Yeah. So there's like what they call exigent circumstance. Yeah, I'm just curious. If the door was closed, would you have had the ability to kick it if you need to? I mean, if I heard the screams and I heard someone in danger, yes. Okay. But I didn't hear anything. So I didn't know the apartment set up. So I was just going in like what was like stairs. And so the stairs led up. And I was still thinking there was still going to be a door to go into different apartments. But it was kind of like the backside and it walked right into the into the kitchen.

Okay. Landed me in the kitchen. I look right. Dude's right there. He looks, looks at me. And I'm like, man, please stop. Let's take a breath. Let's not do this.

And I started an inch a little bit closer. I could hear her screaming. Started an inch a little bit closer. And I could finally see it in his in his eyes that he was going to do this. And so he looked at her and I kind of moved for him. And he pulls the trigger and essentially blew his brains all over my shirt. I don't know it sounds crazy, but it was like slow motion. Like everything kind of happens in slow motion when things settle down like that.

I feel like I saw the bullet imprint coming out the other side, but it never came out the other side. And so like there's just there's a blood everywhere, he's agonal breathing, everything else. So I grab her, I get her out. And as a... the male involved with the deed? He's the male involved. So she's screaming out. So the backstory behind this is they go out and she sees a, no, he didn't go out. She went out with her friends. She saw an old boyfriend and was hanging out with him, talking to him and friends in town had texted him and said, hey, just letting you know that your fiance, wife, or what I can't

remember what their relationship was, is out here hanging out with another dude. And it happens to be her ex-boyfriend. So they get in that verbal domestic over the phone. She comes home. So I get her. So I scoop her up as soon as he shot, as soon as he shoots himself, I scoop her up and I get her out. And then I go back in there and I start doing like CPR and everything else. And so ambulance comes, takes him out. And now here's to segue back into our conversation.

So he gets out of there. And now that's my scene. So there's only what, three, four police officers and keys. So I've got to maintain that scene until, you know, homicide detective gets there from the state, which is going to be a couple hours. And because again, you know, I mean, it's an attended death. I watched it.

So it's not going to be anything suspicious. But I also got to have, you know, somebody get called out. So I sat in this house for the better part of about two hours looking around, seeing the pictures on the wall, these two, looking through, you know, photos. I'm sitting there in a house where this man just, you know, he wound up passing away in the, in the, at the hospital. And then not on top of that. So I, again, I still got brain matter. You know, there's just stuff everywhere. I really not brain matter.

But like, there's just blood everywhere. and whatnot. And so after that, I had to go find his father and I had to tell his father. So I just, I just witnessed this, which is, which is traumatic. I felt like, you know, at some point, maybe I shouldn't have creed forward to him. Maybe I shouldn't have done what I did. Maybe I should have just sat there? Maybe I should have backed out? So you play all these scenarios in your head. Well, should I even gone in? Should I just stay outside and let them work it out? Did he, did he pull the trigger because of me? So you run these scenarios in your head over and over again. And then you're compounded with the trauma of looking at a happy life that you're sitting there for two

hours and then going to tell his father that hey you need to get to the hospital immediately like your your son is probably not going to make it how far away from him were you i mean from me to you me three feet and what are you doing that moment i mean to go a different direction because some people will i don't know the correct verbiage and i'm not trying to diminish or demean anyone but they don't have they have the desire to do so but not the willingness so they'll go suicide by cop right and at that distance. I mean, your reaction time, if he had appointed that at you. I wasn't even, I didn't have my gun out of the holster. Because for a typical domestic, it's not going to be, you know, you're, you're mediating a situation and trying to separate parties, get them to, you know,

cooler heads prevail. So that's what I was thinking. You know, screaming typically means that they're fighting, not with a gun. There was nothing that indicated that this was a, that there was a firearm or anything else. And so I didn't even, I didn't even clear leather. We got up there and I'm, I'm presented with this. And I'm like, dude, stop. Let's just let's, let's, and I wanted to, you know, hands, let's just relax to take a deep breath, let's move on. And, and he's screaming at her, looking at me. And again, like I said, I started an inch closer, and that's when he pulled the trigger. And, you know, you eat that for a little bit. Did I do, did I do the right thing? Should I have done that? You know, is he still here if I didn't show up? And so you eat that

a little bit. And then you combine that with, you know, I'll be honest. I mean, there's a photo album sitting on the on the coffee table right there. And I started looking through it. And you, and you imprint those pictures of them combined with the last picture I have of him. And I'm doing, you know, agonal breathing, whatever that's called it. No, it's, yeah. And, you know, you eat that for a little bit. And, you know, those are the things that happen. And you've got to be ready.

So my shift wasn't over. So I go and I tell dad, get to the hospital. And I still got to answer calls until 7 a.m. because there's nobody that can come in to help. And I'm not going to leave the other two guys on their own. You know, one's an older guy and one was a young rookie. So I'm not going to leave them. If there's another hot call, I've got to be there to back them up.

And I knew who else was on shift. They're not going to, I'm just, I'm not going to go home. Like, hey, sorry, guys. I got to. Why is the expectation, knowing that statistically you will encounter so many more significant events like that than the average person, why is the expectation that you're just going to be okay with it? I don't understand. To me, that seems like a very large leap in logic that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Right. And I don't get it either, but I can explain how we got there. So just like I was saying, you come. on to the job and you get a clean bill of health and you have to because you're going to carry a weapon you're going to make decisive decisions you're going to be a critical decision maker and things like that so you've got to be of a right mind and a sound mind when you come on the job and if you have the ability to take somebody's life and you're seem to be unfit for duty then you can't carry a gun you can't go answer calls for service and so the problem is is that over however number of years

if you raised your hand and said, hey, that call right there really kind of messed me up. I'm starting to have a little bit of nightmares. I'm not feeling so good about it. And you go and sit down with somebody and say, listen, I didn't sleep at all last night. Like, I keep replaying the bullet what I feel like coming out his temple. And I keep seeing the picture of them sitting at the Boston Red Sox game on the third photo of the photo album. That counselor is going to look at you and say, you're not fit for duty to go back on the road to go to another critical event. because, again, trauma stacks on top of each other.

And so you get this unfit for duty eval. You're not out of work. You're not in trouble, but you're not able to go back to work. So they put you in what's called a light duty status. So, you know, in Keene, so Virginia Beach was 1,500 cops. Keene, New Hampshire was 4550. So 4550 cops, everybody knows that you're unfit for duty. You got the guys that you go to choir practice with that are all like, hey, man, we need you back.

Now I'm covering your shift. I have my son's sporting event. You need to suck it up and get back to work, man, because you're causing overtime for everybody else. Yeah, but let's pull on that string a little bit more and follow this. So say somebody recognizes that pressure, whether it's passive or just straight on the nose overt. And they know they're not doing well.

So they keep going to work. And they end up burning somebody down when they shouldn't. Right. And they can directly tie that back to those situations that we're stacking on top. Now your entire professional. and the department is going to get immediately thrown in front of the bus. Happens every day. So.

And that's the slice of pie that they're eating every day. And they're saying, we're going to fall on this side of the fence every single time because guys aren't willing to raise their hand and say, listen, I'm struggling. And they're not willing to let down their, their co-workers. They're not willing to raise their hand and go get put on light duty. They're not willing. When you're unfit for duty, you're not eligible for promotion most of the time. you're looked at as you're being weak, you're not being strong, you're not of the mindset that

needs to supervise other people. And so there's a lot of different aspects from a law enforcement standpoint that are going to, they're going to hamstring you essentially. And so even if you come back, everybody knows, well, hey, he just had an unfit for duty. He just went and saw the counselor. So maybe he shouldn't be going to these calls or everybody's going to look at you a little bit differently. And so your promotional processes is up and like there's just nothing good that comes from an unfit for duty other than you getting the help that you need. And nobody sees it like that. I would say a start is to change the name of that.

Yeah. To begin with. Yeah. And I don't have an answer in real time thinking about this. But that's definitely, yeah, the unfit for duty is an nomiker that nobody wants to carry with them for sure. Right. Right. You know, and I think too, like, I mean, there's, again, I've been on, I've been on this, this law enforcement thing.

My, my, my best friend. And, I mean, he took his life in 2017, which I'm sure we'll get to as a big part of the book. And I've been on this past since then. and I really think that things happen, right? And we're in a job where things are going to happen. Whether you're a veteran, you're a first responder, you're going to do things and you raise your hand, you subscribe to the fact that you're going to be in harm's way.

But what we don't do a good job of is you're going to, actions are going to happen. And then you're going to have thoughts about that. And those thoughts are going to become behaviors. And I think if we can get it where it becomes, thoughts. If we can capitalize on that, when it becomes thoughts, those thoughts don't become behaviors. Those behaviors are a coping mechanism like alcohol, extra marital affairs. All these things are going to cause you problems. You're talking about breaking the chain earlier on.

Right, right. If you can hit it inside of that, like, I don't know, let's call it 48 hours, 72 hours. So you have a fatal car accident, like the 101, you know, one-on-one thing I was just telling you about. Let's say an older guy comes to me the very next day says, hey, Griff, hey, hey, man, I know you're out at that call last night. I just want to let you know there are some avenues for you to get some help or to talk to somebody about what you saw. I'm not saying that you need to, but I just want to let you know that they're out there. And this is, this is, and we're going to clear the path for you to be able to go get that help. It's not going to count against you.

You're not going to have an unfit for duty. But if you just want to, if you just want to air out some stuff, here's X, Y, Z for you. And, you know, and I think that's a way to go about doing it because before you know it, for me, you wind up internalizing it. And internalizing me is that I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about it a little bit more than I should have been thinking about it. And, you know, next time I go out to one-on-one, guess what I'm seeing? I'm seeing the nose on there.

Next time I go in that area, guess what I see? I see that kid pulling the trigger right there. Let me ask you this. And again, not to interrupt you. No, no. You say your words were, you were thinking about it more than you should. Says who. Yeah.

Yeah, good point. You know, it's one of the things, I'm good friends with a lot of law. Nelson, allegedly. Yeah. The guy who sometimes is working as a sheriff named Nelson. Right. Yeah. And since I've known him, he did some drug task force stuff.

God bless you. Patrol. I wonder what sheriffs call. I don't think they call patrol. I think that's a police. Sheriff deputies, right? Yeah, but I don't know if they call it up being out of a battery. He's driving around.

Montana and a truck. Not a bad dig. He's a detective now. But, and through him, I met so many other officers, both. on the PD side. So up here we have the KPD, which is actually, if we were open these windows,

you'd be able to see it. Yeah, yeah. And then the SO, which is down there. I'm trying to remember, the shit they talk to each other is fantastic. They're like, we take over where the sidewalks end.

And, you know, it's just stupid. Bluebird lands in the bird bath. Totally. But like, of course, mutually supporting at all times. And I don't think people

understand what it's like to come upon a scene where there is, a loss of life of a child. Violent ejection out of a vehicle, not let alone the damage of seeing somebody in the vehicle, but the ejection from it. And I don't, where, who is to say how much of that is the right or wrong amount to think about that? Yeah.

Because I'm grateful that most people don't have that many significant events in their life or catastrophic events. Sure. I wish it was zero instead of. four or five, but you put, you know, triple digits of those. I think you'd have to be a sociopath to not spend some time thinking about it, which is also not who I want having a badge and gun. That's right. That's right. That's absolutely right. So I just don't understand how that occupation is expected to just be okay with that, because they'll say the same thing. That was the first call

of the shift. Right. And then they might go to something super passive and then on the computer pops up a DV and they're hauling ass off to that DV. A lot of the times because we're rural

up here, these guys are one z-to-sie for a lot longer than they're going to be at like the VB. I mean, you know the deal. VB-1500 people. I was just there. Big city-ish. You know, I just also just came from Chicago, bigger city-ish.

Yes. So they're going to have backup real quick. I mean, one of the guys who, I do jitzu with, he started jiu-jitsu because he was literally in a 30-minute fight with a dude on the side of the road until he heard the sirens coming his direction. That wasn't the last call of his night. No. I don't, how? How is it even possible that the expectation be levied that you deal with your shift, whatever happens, go get a good night's sleep afterwards and then just come in the next day as if those things are not going to impact? I don't understand that. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't either. I really don't. And I've said this many times. I don't believe that we should have men and women doing 25 years in law enforcement. I don't believe it. I don't believe it's sustainable. I've had that conversation with guys I used to work with as well. And I'll phrase it through the lens of combat exposure.

Do you think there is a point where it goes too far? And they all almost say the same thing. And my answer to them is the same too. while you were doing the job, you would recognize you had reached a point where it was diminishing, but you would fight tooth and nail to stay on the job. Right. So now looking at it from a distance, you can say, hey, maybe this would be better for you. And the person you're talking about is just giving you the biggest middle finger they can because they want to stay in it. Well, and the biggest lie that, you know, the biggest lie that we tell other cops and other veterans,

this is all you're ever going to be good at. And I was told that, you know, when it was time for me to leave after, you know, Dr. Brian died. And, you know, my time was up in the undercover world. And I was on midnight patrol and I was unhappy. I was divorced. I was, you know, basically homeless. And, you know, when my time came, they're like, well, what are you going to do? And I said, I didn't know. But the, the blessing for me was that I was at rock bottom. And rock bottom is a pretty stable place to rebuild from. When you're, when you're mid-career and you're a detective and you're making okay money, it's really tough for you to just stop what you're doing. You know, you're middle, you're middle age now. You're in your mid-30s, the low 30s. This is your career. This is your

path. And you've got this pension that's waving over your head. And everybody gives you, everybody gives you the stats and, you know, work 25 years. You're going to be 50 years old. And you're going to ride off in the sunset and drink my tides on the beach for the rest of your life. Except the stats show that most cops died about 57 of heart disease. Dude, 100%. So your sunsets is seven-mile stroll. Yeah. Nobody, when I signed up to be to be a cop, they're going to say, hey, just letting you know that. that you're only going to get about 18 months after a 25-year career because that's the life inspector.

It's like 57 and a half. And 55's, you know, 56 your age. They also didn't say there's a 67% of divorce rate. Yeah. So you're not even going to get your pension because nine times out of 10, you're going to be splitting it with somebody. And that's not going to afford your life. And I don't want to diminish any of those things. You know, the people wanting to do a full-length career fully support it.

The pension fully supported. Yeah. Signing up for doing the job for the right reason. fully supported. But people who all they have is that argument, that sunk in cost fallacy, well, you've been doing this for so long, why would you throw it away? I don't say this negatively, and I wouldn't have recognized this when I was younger, but that is a pure sign of insecurity. That's right. You are actually taking the easy road. Because, yeah, you may economically earn way less if you left the occupation and figured something else out. But you might add 30 years to your

life by not destroying your endocrine system or doing shift work. My God. So again, some of the guys I train with, I think they've gone away finally from the gnarly. They were on the rotating shift like every 45 days. Zombies when they would go from nights to swings. Right. What? Right. The whole body's tone off. It's like, yes, it is. You see them in class and they're just drew. I'm like, hey, man, are you Okay. Maybe you should go take a nap instead. You don't have to be here. Go go get some sleep. Well, they'll be like this. I just got off shift. This is the only time I have to train. Like the maths are still going to be here, bud. Right. Go get some sleep. Right. Right. Yeah. There's so much more out there. It's, uh,

you know, and here's like the other thing too that I've really started to realize over the last, the last little bit. And, you know, I was saying to, um, Nelson. Nelson. I was saying to Nelson, you know, I realized that like I created an identity. And a lot of us have created an identity. And a lot of us have created an identity that that supported us and it helped us survive for the longest time, right? So like I was a warfighter, I was a crime fighter, I was an undercover cop like that. The identity that I created for myself served me really well. But what it didn't serve me and was when I became a civilian. You know, so I have a full-time job now. And, you know, those people haven't seen the same

things that I've seen. They haven't done the same things that I've done. And I can't hold that against them. But yet I'm still sitting with my back and watching the door. I'm still, I'm still scanning rooftops every time I walk outside. So the identity that I had no longer serves me, and I really had to take a deep dive. And thankfully, I began really help with that. And I was a huge skeptic of it before I went down. And, you know, and while I was down there,

that's really where I started to realize. Like, listen, like, I've got to do a deep dive on who Matt Griffin is. And I'm not a cop anymore. I'm not a veteran anymore. Or I'm a veteran, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a Saras Swimmer. That's not who I am anymore. That's who I was, but my value has to be, has to be different. And I would find a way inside of any conversation inside of five minutes to let you know what I used to do. And why? Do I not have value just sitting here at this table? Like if I told you

that I was a, you know, I probably wouldn't be on this podcast if I was bagging groceries at Walmart. But my value. It depends. Tell me more about your background. That's right. And so like, you know, I had to make a decision that my value was not being an undercover cop. that my value was being exactly who I am right here today. And that in turn was a tough decision for me to make. I began thankfully helped me that because it was kind of a pattern interruptor. But that gave me two things that I feel like a lot of first responders need to hear. And that is we confuse helping with being needed.

And we've done that for a long time. You go to a call. I help you with your stolen bike. I'm going to help you with your stolen bike. I go to domestic. I'm going to separate you two. Cooler hazard and prevail. You're both going to say thank you the next day or a week later when I see you again.

And so my value is tied into helping somebody else. When you get out of law enforcement, that value is still, you're still tied to that. So your access to other people is all kind of, anywhere that needs help, you're trying to find it. And you're trying to give too much. And for me, like, I had to really look at that because that wasn't sustainable. And it wasn't a valuable way to go about life. And it wound up, you know, I wound up jumping through jobs because, again, I couldn't afford life. I got four boys.

I'm divorced twice. And, you know, pensions don't go. that far. Yeah. No, your life has costs. You throw something else at you, food for thought,

just listening to you talk. When you were describing the job, so you started off with Sarswimmer and then police officers and undercover. Yep. You use the term, that's who I was. I would challenge you to think about it

through the lens of that's what I did. Right. So that has helped me very deeply. Yeah. And I always tried to remind myself of that the vernacular that you choose to use or the way you talk to yourself or externalize it is powerful.

Yeah. I never wanted to be who I was. Yeah. Because it wasn't. Right. It was just what I did. Yeah. And that really helped me, let me be clear. Didn't make it much easier. But it helped me not attach my entire identity to it. I know, we all know. Anybody who comes from a background, and I'm not going to say I'm innocent of this as well, that comes from a background that could be considered to have some level of notoriety, you figure out ways to weave it into conversations when you're a less mature, probably younger man. I can't speak for women. Right. I'll assume.

It's the same thing. And when you distance yourself from that, it's a beautiful thing. But it forces you to figure out who you are, not what you did. Yeah. But that's a tough one. And that the language is very powerful in that. Yeah. Couldn't agree more.

And again, like I said, it just gave me the ability not to have to match people's energy. And I, you know, when you show up with value, you get to decide who gets access to you and where you put your energy and what the return on that investment is going to be. Yeah. You know, whereas before it was like I was giving my energy to anybody that asked. And that's not a good way to go about life because you're going to burn yourself. And unfortunately, people are going to take advantage of that, of that energy and that access, too. So do you find that that attitude, which is a spectacular attitude, by the way, it's way better than being a vampire in every respect of people's energy, time, money, all assets, all those things.

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I probably should be going and doing this, but I'm so tired from giving back. Right. That's a powerful. Yeah, that's a powerful question. And I don't know because I don't come from that world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a powerful question.

I would say there's definitely the aspect of that. because you're it's a really enticing excuse and who's going to argue with that you're like mad really yeah let me just tell you what i did today and you go pop pop pop what are they going to do what are they going to say you didn't do enough right fuck off yeah yeah seriously exactly it's like yeah they're going to say you know what yeah have the mitai don't go to the gym go don't take a nap you don't need to go train but you got i mean it's where where's your heart at you know what are you what are you trying to accomplish and when it's when you're helping because you decide on that, then that's a different, that's a different avenue when you're helping somebody

else because that was a choice that you made rather than what was required from you internally and externally. I think it's a different, a different aspect. And it's been like I've been with my current job now for over a year, which is for the first time since I retired in 2017. And that's, that's a big deal. Being able to to look and say, it's okay that they weren't cops. They weren't veterans. It's okay. They may not understand what I, what I went through. They may not understand, you know, my life look like. But that doesn't make them any less valuable than I am. Isn't it a beautiful thing that they don't? It's a beautiful thing that people don't have those experiences. And I don't really know what the right way to say this is. I'm just going to try and say it the best I can

because I'm still kind of processing a lot of things that are happening. But I work so hard in my life to measure up to other people, you know, and just the way I grew up, you know, my dad really always wanted me to be the best at whatever it was, whether it was lacrosse, whether it was football, where the private school that I got a scholarship to go to, you know, the Navy thing and then undercover. It was always a competition with everybody else. And when I finally let go of that, even with speaking, being, I mean, I would watch video after video on how to be a good public speaker, how to be a great, like the ums and the rights and getting rid of that and emotional pauses. And I wanted all this stuff because I was comparing myself to other people.

And then when I let go, trying to compare myself to other people and I just became, more authentic about my own story and who I was, it seems like, and I don't even know what the right way to say is, but it seems like the things that I wanted that I no longer care about are not coming. Like this show is a perfect example, right? Like, I would have killed to be on this show with you, you know, two, three years ago when the book first came out. Did you reach out then? I think so. Yeah. I'll go back into our Instagram messages. I'll call you out right now. You miss every shot you don't take some. That's right. That's right. You know, and you know, sending another message and just saying, hey, is there any chance to add that?

I'm just glad I saw it. For people who reach out to me over Instagram, I do my best. Same thing with emails. Like, I'm sorry. Yep. I would say I'm a two-person team, but only one of us seems to put into work. Right. Did you say half?

Yes. Can we agree on a quarter? That's fair. Okay. Can we settle on a quarter? Yep. We're working on. Work in progress.

He's like a large piece of marble that I'm chiseling away at. All right. I like that. It's still in this square form. At least I'm marble. this time. It used to be Plato or clay. So it's not marble. It's Plato that's been left in the sun that has a, it can be confused for marble, but it just doesn't have the strength. Stale Plato. Yeah, exactly. White, sun bleached. I love it. The speaking one's interesting. I do a good amount of

public speaking and it's one of my favorite things to do because I, I just, it's a chance. I view it as teaching. Yeah. And I really started enjoying it when I went back and was a Bud's instructor. because you were forced to get up in front of the students. And it was a really cool environment. One, they're kind of contractually obligated to pay attention to you. Right, they have no choice. Some fantastic tools if you catch somebody nodding off that I still haven't been able to replicate

in the civilian world. Yeah. If you want to go to sleep when I'm talking in the civilian world, I'm not going to dump a buck of water out of you. Right. You want to pull out your phone while I'm speaking? Totally. Go ahead. Yeah.

I'm not going to smack it out of your hand. Totally. I'm not going to smack you with it once they hold on forward. Yeah. Even though that would be pretty dope. If I could find an organization that would let me do that. Just once. A bucket of water is all I would do.

But I found that I've really, really enjoyed it. And the more I did it, and I'm sure this is true for you too, it's like anything. And I've seen, or read stats, you know, people fear public speaking more than they fear death, which is a little bit bizarre because I can think of many other things. Absolutely. Involving alligators and great white sharks and being chased by tigers, all sorts of shit. I can think of that would be way worse than public speaking. Right.

But they just don't have any reps. So I think what they're saying is it's fear of the unknown and probably fear of the judgment of a large crowd. And they forget that almost everybody else in that room would never switch places with them and they would have the same experience if they were up there. To get to the point of it's about reps. And the more reps you get, the more comfortable.

And I got hundreds of reps when I went as an instructor. On an audience, and again, I wasn't thinking this in my head. I look back at it now. that was the place where I got to the mindset of, if you know your material, just go be yourself because I've never been successful trying to be somebody else. And that, I'm not saying there is no value to those videos that you are watching, but it edges people away from being who they actually are. Can you apply the advice that they're giving you to being yourself?

Yes. But I would highly advise people to never try to be something. that they aren't. And so I can tell right off the get-go just from us talking, you don't say um, you don't say right. When you have something to say, you just say it and then... But I am constantly working on that. It's a tough one. The word I am trying to remove from my vocabulary right now is like. Like, I caught how many... Like, you know what I'm talking about, Matt? Like, Michael, you know, like your generation. I don't know why I'm changing my voice, by the way,

but I just feel like your generation sounds like. Be more feminine for my generation. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. like when you respond so people can understand how annoying it is? No, I already do that. Like what? Yeah, exactly. Right.

I did, ums. It's a tough one. I did ums. And when I caught myself on the ums, I record all my presentations that I do. And I caught the ums and I changed the ums to write. Okay. So, right? Makes sense, right?

And then I caught the rights. And from there, that's where I really started. And honestly, breathwork was a big piece to the puzzle too. A lot of people think it's an emotional pause, but really it's just me breathing. And I forget to breathe a lot of times when. when I'm speaking, when I'm doing something, I know my material. And everybody asks me, like, do you memorize everything? No, it's my life.

It's my story. So I don't need to memorize it, but I do work on the transitions. And just like you said, I thought when I, you know, I was an undercover cop, you put me in any scenario, you put me the janitor on to be comfortable, put me the CEO, you know, CEO of a company, I'm going to be comfortable. So I thought I could just go stand up in front of people and speak. And that's just not the case. It's a craft.

And anybody that's passionate about doing anything well in this world, when you stand up in front of an audience for the first time and you look out there. Assuming you can see them, you might be blinded. Right, right. And then you look at the recording. You're like, oh my gosh. And I looked at it as a crap. And I still look at it as a crap.

It is. The only difference for me now is that my level of authenticity is so much higher. Where, for example, I was in Atlantic City yesterday. I spoke yesterday afternoon. And I would have stressed out because I messed up dates for, you know, for this and that. So they took it from an hour and a half. And they said, all, I gave you an hour block. I'm like, that's great.

You're still paying the same amount of money, no problem. But what that did for me in my head was, what am I cutting out? Because I have it down to almost a minute of where I'm saying what. I mean, inside of about five minutes, I can start at 11 and I can be done at 12, 29. And I know without watching a clock, I'm going to be right around that. Yeah, you have a pace and a rhythm to it. And I know where the emotional pauses are going to be. I know when I'm going to speed up.

I'm going to slow down. And when we went to an hour, I would have stressed out hard on what to take out and what not to. And what I don't stress out anymore. It's, and what I realize is that some people are going to gravitate to my story right now. Some people may never gravitate to my story because they got other things going on in life. And it may hit for other people in six months from now. And that's okay. I used to get evals at the end of it.

I don't know if this is the same thing. But I would get, let's say I have 500 people. 499 are fives out of five. That one would come back as a one. And I'm like, that motherfucker. We call that a negativity bias. Let me guess. You would spend and invest more energy in the one.

than the $499.99, I would take $499 and put on my backpack, and I would stare at this and see if I could, see if I could figure out who the running was from. You know what I mean? And it's like, I'm going to find this dude. And you know what? Nine times at a 10, it was probably he just thought a one was the highest instead of a five, you know? No, there's always somebody like that. Yeah. I mean, you've already nailed it.

You can't be everything for everybody. Michael, what was it two weeks ago? We read the most fantastic good reads reviews. Did you get it? We're not going to read it again. because you're going to frame it, right? Oh, that's right. I am telling you, I will pay you.

It was a one-star skather. Really? And I want to frame it and put it up in the studio. Maybe not on camera. Let's not get too crazy. Actually, Michael, we will have the edge of it on camera. Perfect. Would that be the digital representation of edging for the audience?

Because they would see. I don't think you want to see what the digital representation of edging. I don't actually. So you can keep that in your Google search history. But. there's a couple ways you can look at it. I used to do exactly the same thing. You would just disregard a absolute tsunami of positive feedback for somebody in the audience

who is probably having a bad day and their feedback. Not that I haven't given bad speeches for clarity. There is bad feedback can be completely legitimate. And I'm fully open for any type of constructive, feedback at all time. Sometimes it's difficult to process in the moment, but I work hard on it and I will get there. Not all feedback that is negative is constructive in nature.

That's right. And sometimes you can tell that people are just miserable in their station in life. And I actually hate that for people. I don't want anybody to be like that. But if you can start to at least ask yourself, how do you think this person's day was going when they wrote this? What headspace would I have to find myself in? We're talking this Goodreed Reeds review.

Yeah. Five paragraphs, Michael, do you think? Five paragraphs? Come on. Oh, dude. Six, seven, eight. I mean, glorious. Frame it for a second.

Like, reframe it. Like, think about it for a second. Oh, it's simple. You're taking so much time out of your day. That's what I'm saying. What headspace would you have to be in? Yeah. And how unhappy would you have to be to dedicate that?

I thought you were saying reframe the message. I can do that as Andy. go fuck yourself. No, no, I'm saying. Like, think about them for a second. Like, they just took hours probably out of their day to write seven paragraphs. Like that's, I say the same thing for cops. At the end of the day, we just spent four hours.

Like, let's say I had a four hour block and I finished out the day. You got a two-hour ride home and you just spent 20 minutes writing down what you didn't like about my presentation. What does I say about you as opposed to what it says about me? It's tough. But again, with getting a little bit more experience and understanding, it helps round the edges on that negativity bias. And the reason I want to frame that and we're absolutely going to is it's a constant

reminder of be careful taking the feedback and criticism from somebody whose life or situation you wouldn't switch with. Without a doubt. And it doesn't diminish. And again, constructive feedback. Hey. And actually removing some of the words that you had mentioned from my speech came from people listening to the show saying you have comfort words.

And so I try to cut it out. And I caught myself the likes. And so, man, that first week, I've only been working on it for a couple of weeks, but I feel like I am doing, God damn it. Hold on. How do I say that? I feel as if I'm doing better. Yeah, no, you are.

But it's not that like. You know, in the context of a sentence, obviously that's what I meant to say. It's the comfort like at the end. It's the lazy like in between the transition words. I'll 100% take that feedback on board because that is constructive. And I agree that would be better in a more efficient way to communicate. and get your message across. The, hey, Andy,

fuck you and everything about your book. Okay, first, I'm going to read this for purely entertainment. Because now I'm finally at a place where I'm going to let go on my side of the tug of war rope on that one. And I'm not going to try to figure out who it is and argue with you. I'm just going to let go of the rope. And I'm going to read this for my own entertainment. And we're going to frame it as a reminder. There's somebody out there who hates your guts.

And it actually doesn't have anything to do with you. Dude, and all it is is a reflection of them. I know. You know, and once you look at that way, man, that's okay. Like, I, you know, I've been working really hard on my social media, you know, and I'm up to 2,000 followers on Instagram, which is a lot for me, man. Like, I don't.

Dude, that's awesome. You know, like, and I finally got my first hater. And I, you know, and I was happy. Do you know what destroys haters, though? Yeah. Kindness. Yeah. You know, he said, congratulations.

It was a picture of me from, it had nothing even to do with the post, right? It was a picture of me with, with, you know, I think, like 10, of weed that I see is way back in the day. I had to, you know, the beer wasn't, wasn't gray. And he's like, congratulations, hero. You stole somebody's marijuana and money. It's like, okay, great. I'm like, all right.

Oh, thanks. You know. That is the response. It's right back. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And okay.

And they'll twist into orbit, man. But I was honestly, I was more excited that I finally have risen to a level where somebody needs to hate on me. And I was like, damn. And I texted my girlfriend. I was like, baby, I got a hater. And I was happy. though because all it is it's just a reflection to them yeah you know what I mean and and we do that a lot

in the police world in the veteran community too you know sometimes like I try to say this to a lot of my younger badges that that call me and I work with and I always say listen somebody else's success is not a reflection on you or your lack of success it's just their success when you speak on it it becomes a reflection yeah on you so stop speaking on somebody's life well and they want to say, if your experience is anything like my own, they want to say, you're only successful because of, fill in the blank, badge, Saras Swimmer, team guy. Maybe I can't sit here and say that that didn't help. I can't sit here. And I'm not going to take back those experiences, by the way. And I believe I've earned them. Correct. And I tell people this too, because I'm not a

fan of how everybody uses their experiences. As soon as it crosses the line of truthful or not truthful. I have an issue with it. I'm not necessarily going to address it, but that's where my line is. Up until that point, your experiences are used, yours to use as you want to. When you start lying, I have a problem with it. As should everybody have a problem with it. Absolutely. As should the communities have a problem with it because it degrades and it muddies the water for everybody out there, especially when they're allowed to get away with it in a public facing environment. Yeah. But beyond that, do what you want to with the experiences you've earned. Right. Absolutely. Because you earned them. They're yours. They're yours to do, you know, and I also think

when I left law enforcement in 2017, I really have a pot to piss in, and I didn't really know what I was going to do. And like I said, I felt like I looked back now and that was a blessing. But the amount of guys that said, hey, what are you going to do? And then, you know, very slowly I got a job. And I started to make a decent amount of money and things started happening. There was ups and downs over the last 10 years. But guys want to knock that down because I think it's a reflection on them. They thought about leaving. They thought about doing X, Y, and Z. And and they've got to find a reason why they're not doing it. And if you don't do it the right way in their minds, then they don't have to go do it. And, you know, same thing with writing a book. You know, everybody wants to say like, oh, like, you know, writing a book is, you know, it's not that hard. You can use AI now.

It's like, I didn't use any AI in mine, you know. And I wrote every single chapter, probably, I wrote every single chapter probably 20 times. I would write a chapter and send it in my ghostwriter. She would send it back with corrections. And then I would get up onto a flight or wherever I was going. and I would read the chapter, and the chapter didn't say what I wanted it to say. I would delete it without having it anywhere, and I would start over.

There's easier ways. Yeah, I know it's crazy. I just knew I had one shot to tell my story and to tell Brian's story, to tell Benny Jr. story, to tell, you know, so many cops that there's light at the end of the tunnel, man, it's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way. I knew that I had a responsibility to tell the story. And I just wanted to make sure that it came across the way that I wanted to come across,

And it took me 18 months to write it. Yeah. You know, I felt like, I felt there was a lot of weight to, to push a message of hope inside of a profession that typically doesn't want to hear that hope. Yeah. What's life like as a star swimmer before you became a cop? How'd you get into that line of work? Yes. So, yeah, I got out high school.

I went to a private high school in northern Jersey on a lacrosse. and football scholarship. So I went to school with people like Christina Ricci and Jamie Siminoff and a lot of, and I have absolutely no idea who those people are. Christina Ricci was Wednesday from the Adams family. I know who that is. Okay. And then Jamie Siminoff, uh, owner, creator of ring doorbell, been on the shark tank multiple of the times. Don't watch it. So I'm one of six kids. I was, you know, grew up in a certain way. And, and so had no business spending $60,000 a year to go to high school and it wasn't a boarding school. So I got the scholarship to go there. And, and so I looked at it, I was like the first scholarship

class. And so I didn't, I had to learn how to, how to walk like Rich Kids. I had to learn how to kind of talk like that. I was going to say, how did they respond to you? They didn't like me. And I wasn't one of them. They had grown up together. And so, but, you know, I'm a very faithful guy. And I look back when I wrote my book, I looked back at chapter one and I looked at chapter you know, 12 and like, well, like chapter 12, I'm not alive. Chapter one doesn't happen. Like I, if I didn't know what designer drugs looked like, if I didn't, if I didn't walk and talk and do the same things that I did during those four years. Anyway, all that to say is that when I got done with that, I didn't want to go to college. I didn't want to run that back. I felt like that was

my first undercover operation. Did they accept you any time during that four year time period? My senior year. Yeah, my senior year, I became the senior class president. I was a captain of the football and lacrosse team. And that was when I finally, you know, I felt like I had a role. I felt like they gave me a role. Like I was bridging the gap between smart kids and athletes. And so even though I was a scholarship kid, they knew me for three years. So I was able to bridge that gap between because we had athletes and then we had really smart kids and most of the time it was hockey lacrosse that's what they're they're specialized in and swimming and then we had all the all the really like high high level smart kids and so I felt like they trusted me because they knew me for three

years but I also was able to bridge that gap between the two so I get in the Navy and I remember that you know the commercial said let the journey begin I'm like awesome I'm so tired of being in Maristown New Jersey I want to get out I want to see the world I want to see everything that there is to offer me. And I remember going in and I said, all right, I need a good job. I don't need a great job, right? You're a recruiter's a wet dream. Oh, man. I said, listen, I don't want to be a Dexiemann, but I don't want to be a nuclear technician. I said, where's something on the upper level of that? And he said, what about a sonar technician? I said, well, tell me all about that. He said, man, you're literally on a surface ship. Dude, your job is so easy.

Like, you've got to get through a long, hard school. But once you're on a surface ship, like, dude, you're not going to beat a submarine. So nobody really cares. Like, if you're They see you jumping off. They're going to jump off too because that means the torpedoes coming to hit you. I'm like, I don't think that's how that works. They don't take that how it works either. But I subscribed to the book. I was like, cool.

Like, that's great. It's like your potter combat system. So you're going to be, you know, you're not going to be in engineering. You're not going to be in a room with no windows. Right, right. And so I go out to San Diego. I become a sonar tech. I get to the USS DeWirt, FFG 45, down in Mayport, Florida.

My best friend, Adam, there were six of us in a two-bedroom apartment. You know how it works, right? like everybody, you know, puts the money. Yeah. So Adam and I were surfers. We love, we love the beach. And the absolute tenant, I can never remember his name, but just a good dude. Like he was, he was an enlisted officer.

Mustang, yep. Yeah, he did like, see him in Animal 21 or something like that. And he, uh, he comes to us. He's like, he's like, hey, uh, you guys want to, you guys want to be SARS swimmers? Sure. Like I thought I was a collateral duty. Like, no big deal. He said, all right, muster up tomorrow.

Let's go, you know, do your PT test and everything else. And so we do all that. And we get to, we get to SARS school. was like, you guys are going to be there for the next eight weeks. I'm like, whoa, whoa, time out. You didn't tell me we're TAD now for, he's like, well, you can come home if you want, like on the weekends, but you're going to stay there Monday through, you know, Friday or Saturday. Is it a new designation if you make it through that?

No, so, but like they'll TAD you out to different places they do, like workups. So you're still, you'll still at Sonar Tech. Yeah. But they'll like, so let's say like the GW battle group, they don't have enough SARS swimmers to go through their workups. Like I wouldn't go on a deployment with anybody else. But I was the primary star swimmer. Adam and I were primary star swimmers for the Dwork.

And then any like the destroyers, let's say guys were on the year, guys got injured. You would go with them. Interesting. And so, yeah, so we got done with that. And I loved it, man. I loved being in port. I loved the train that we did. I loved the swimming.

I love the running. But again, I didn't, you know, I never subscribed to like wanting to be a star swimmer. I never had that type of mentality. behind me to do that. And, you know, I would say like on day, on day two, so Monday was obviously an eye-opening day. They had a bunch of guys. And I remember them just screaming,

don't be last, don't be last. We did our first three miles. And they're like, do we say three? When that's six, so we went again. And day two, I got my first DQ. And they pulled up, a diver came up from underneath me, grabbed my carabiner and dunked me in the water.

So what did I do? And so I got my first DQ. And I was going to quit. I was going to say this. I'm done. Like, you only get two DQs to the eight weeks. and Adam said to me, he said, do, just go tomorrow. Let's split a picture of Budwatcher on the baseball, because Wednesday is hump day.

The baseball would stay open to like 2 a.m. or midnight or whatever it was. So, all right. And so I didn't quit on Wednesday and went and had a picture of Budwatcher with Adam. And then after that on Thursday, he's like, dude, just make it a Friday night. Let's split another pitcher of Bowfowder. So I never made it. I always say, like, I never made it eight weeks. I just made it to Wednesday.

And then I made it to Friday. It's funny how that happens if you don't keep it. track of the calendar. Dude, and I never even looked at it. It was just, all right, this is what I need to do. I need to get it to Wednesday, split a picture of Boat Watcher. And then I need to get to Friday. And that mentality right there saved my life in 2017 when I wrote my suicide note. But yeah, back to answer your question, I mean, it was, I thought it was good. I thought it was fun. So what do they use the star swimmers for? Did they get you guys up in the helicopters and you out there anytime they're doing, is it when they have people in smaller boats? How do they know when

to launch you guys up there in the burdens. Yeah. So typically what our responsibilities are are any men overboard. Any flight ops? We got to be in like a shorty wetsuit in the hilo hangar in case, you know, a plane goes down. You know how many planes went down in my career? I think zero.

Zero. So we'd sit there and we would play like, you know, NHL hockey or whatever it was. I'm like, and just in a shorty wetsuit just pulled down. So that was our, that was how we stood watch. So I wouldn't have to do sonar tech watch and I would sit in the flight deck. We'd just go 12 on, 12 off. And if there are flight ops, sometimes it's six on and six off. whatever the flight ops were.

And then the most fun that I ever had was we would do what's called an exercise torpedo. So we would plan like we were fighting a submarine, like whatever war games. We would shoot what's called an exercise torpedo, which has no, you know, inert, right, inert. Yeah. Was it actually blue too? Yeah, so it blew out, yeah.

And so we would get on the rib and we would have to hook on to the exercise torpedo and ride it back to the ship. And so you're just bobbing along the water, man. It's fun as shit. All right. And that was really it. Can't say they've ever rid in a torpedo. Yeah.

And that and then like Visibor's Search and Seedrus. So we did we did kind of drug ops. So we were just always right there. We were part of one of us was either Star Sworn or the other one would be on VBSS. So we'd be part of the teams that would take down the little go fast that were coming. So that was really it. So it was pretty, I mean, the hardest part was really going through the training and then maintaining it. So like every six months, I think it was, maybe every quarter you had to go through and do your tests and whatnot and just requalify.

And basically it just holds and, you know, because somebody has drowned. like they're overboard, they're going to grab a hold of you and you just got to swim up underneath them and do certain holds and things like that. People don't realize how dangerous a drowning person is. I had no idea. They, the, there's actually some pretty scary stats about the number of people who have been killed in the attempt to assist. They both end up dying.

But, and I don't think they're trying to kill you. I think they're just in full reptilian brain. Your life, I'm dying. They're climbing you. Yeah. They just climb you. Yep. There's an evolution in buds.

It's called life. Yeah. And I mean, this is worth 30 years ago at this point. Do you go underneath and like have to put them in a hole and say like, count down survivor? No. So it is to the best of my memory, it's a one to one ratio, one instructor, one student. You go out there. There's an instructor in the water.

You swim up to them. You turn around. And then they start the test. And I think you go four times. And there's one of them actually on one of them you don't turn around because they go passive. Yeah. And that's actually very difficult as well to get somebody up who is not wearing positive buoyancy. and you're dragging them to the side.

Yeah. I feel like you only get one of those, though. The other three a little bit more akin to a rodeo ride. Yes. Yeah. And yeah, we're talking. Over the top, grab alligator roll the whole night. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't teach you how to save anybody's life.

It's actually more, I think, an evolution for the instructors. Yeah. Which I'm fully supportive of. Yeah. But, yeah. Some large eyes in the pool. Yeah. So, we would have the, like, so again, you got, you got to, you're a,

snorkel, the fins, and everything else. So like when you get about, you know, three, four feet away, you go underneath the water and then you come up on the back side of them and you just put them in a hole. And I can't remember. I used to do it on my kids like, you know, and I grab them like, calm down, survivor, calm down like that. What's wrong? Calm down, survivor.

But then you go, if they got you, you would just take them underwater, which I always had a problem with that. I'm like, all right, so they're drowning and then they grab a hole to you. And then so like you would, you know, you would pop up over the water and then go down. You go. So they let go. Yeah. They climb you like a raft.

Right. When you're up on the surface. Right until you're going to go in it. And they're like, yeah, we're all done. Well, it's a change in behavior, I think, is what you're trying to elicit. Okay. How long did you stay in the Navy? Six. Okay. Yeah, I did six. And then I put in for Seamanatman at the end of it, got waitlisted and went up to Virginia Beach. My brother was in Chesapeake. So I actually recruited out of Chesapeake. Because I stayed after I graduated high school, I went down and worked out with him for a little bit.

And I remember him saying to me, he was like, well, what are you going to do, dude, if you don't, if you don't get this. I said, man, I really thought about that. At that point in my life, anything I put my mind to I kind of, you know, I had achieved. And so I was just thinking I was going to get the call any day that I was going to go to CMA 9-21. I was going to go out to college for three years, coming back as an 0-2E. And that was the first time I thought about it. He said, well, it's Friday night. They're doing a PT test for Virginia Beach. I was like, oh, that's not a bad idea. Like I'm a pretty active guy. I don't want to sit in a desk. I don't want to, you know, do sales. Now I'm in sales. So it's just funny. But, and so I drive down to Burrneck, down to Lita, and I get down there,

and there's like 1,500 people, like 2,000 people for 35 spots. Like, 1,500 people. Yes, for 35 spots. So at Lita, there was a line, almost like it was a concert. It was almost like you're at the deli counter. They're handing you a time to come back to do the PT test. Wow. Which is unbelievable.

I remember calling my wife at the time. And I said, baby, I'm not going to get this. There's a lot of people out here for 35 spots. And I was actually just joking about that. So in Atlantic City, there's a Virginia Beach Cobb. And we all know the same guys. And I said, do you remember? He's like, yeah.

Like at that time, everybody wanted to be beach cops. The Norfolk guys weren't getting paid that much. And, you know, so everybody wanted. to be beach cops. And, and yeah, and so I, uh, I just kept making it through to the next stage. And on a Friday afternoon, I got a call. They said, we're off in the new spot at the 36th Virginia Beach Police Academy. They're like, congratulations. It's like, dude, I'm like, thank you so much. I'm, I'm really waiting for the Seaman-Admo thing to come through. How much time do I have? Not the time to say that. Yeah. I said, how much time do I have until I get to give you

an answer? He's like, well, it's 405. We'll give you about 55 minutes. You can call me back by five. And that's how I became a cop down in Virginia Beach. Where do they send you for the Academy? Right there. Alida. Oh, sweet. Yes, right there. So they run their own academy, and they do it every six months. And so, yeah, and then, yeah, then from there, I went into the third precinct.

And, yeah, yep. How was that being a cop there? I feel like you're dealing with a lot of drunk team guys. Dude, so, like, that's a second precinct. Yeah, you do. Yep. Yeah, there's a lot of that. I'm not saying I have any experience with that.

Yeah, I mean, hypothetically. CP shuckers and the block and everything else down there. Yeah. Yep. Good, good times, man. Good, good times. But thankfully, I was off in the third precinct, and we had a lot of sectioned-housing, a lot of drug work and things like that. That's where I wanted to go. I chose that. And I loved it, man. I loved every minute of it. You know, about two years in is when the trauma finally hit. And I know that's, you know, what we were talking about a little bit. But I was part of a COP squad, like an undercover squad that was taken down or looking at like trap houses. What's a CLP squad? Community-oriented policing. Gotcha. So basically what you're doing is you're looking, one, you jump hot calls in any of the Section 8 complexes.

So you're assigned basically to those areas. What's a hot call? So what they call a code two call. So any robbery, anything violent, anything, you know, you're trying to make arrest. You're trying to diminish the crime in certain areas. Okay. And so you're not assigned like traffic calls. You're not assigned like accidents or stolen bikes or things like that.

Gotcha. And so it was Christmas Eve of 2003 going into 2004. And so I was driving in a Lake Edwards. I was on Hampshire Lane and I was in like an undercover car. What I was doing was going to this address. It sounds crazy to a lot of the cops out here, but you used to be able to do a trash pull. And today, that's a note.

But what a trash pull was is you could take somebody's trash. They put it on the road. On the curb? On the curb. So it wasn't at Fifth Amendment? Amendment violation? No, so it was a Fourth Amendment, yeah. A fourth, that's right, yeah. So you could take their trash as long as you could say that that's exactly the trash. So we would. As long as it was on the curb. For whatever reason, the Fourth

Amendment ends at your curb. That's right. That's right. And so we had done a trash pull. We got some stems. We got some stuff like that. So we had to corroborate that with people coming and going. So I don't know why I draw the short straw. So I'm out there. And so I'm driving over to that address. And on the right side of Hampshire Lane, I see my buddy Ben, who's in the Navy with me down in Florida. And so he's out front playing with the little boy. And I never, you know, so I pull over. I'm like, oh, man, what's up? So, so we start talking, hanging out. He's like, meet my son. This is Benny Jr. I'm like, wow. He's like, you're a cop. And he's like, yeah. He's like, you're up in Norfolk. He said, yeah. And he said, come on inside. Meet, meet, Brittany. Meet, you know, meet my other son.

And, and so he's like, what are you doing for Christmas? I said, man, I got to work. I'm the young badge. I got to, I'm right around the corner. I'm writing down, you know, plates of the stash house. Kind of going through people's garbage, not a big deal. Yeah, no, we deal. Yeah, just rummaging through trash and just doing what we do as cops. And he said, well, man, come on over. We got to spread. I got a, I got family coming up. You know, we got tons of food. I said, all right, cool. And again, this is like four blocks from where the house was. So went over, had had food with him and little Benny Jr. was in the kitchen. He's cutting up Christmas cookies. I remember going in there, right? He's like, that two and a half. He's on the stepstool. So he turns and my gun's right there.

He's like, you know, like the eyes just go out of you. And he's like, dude, are you? And he just had that two and a half-year-old voice. He's like, are you a cop. I said, yes, sir. It's like, that's so cool. And so fast forward now to Christmas or to New Year's Eve. And I'm at the same house. And I remember waking up on New Year's Eve and being excited, right? Because we never got New Year's Eve. Like I was a young guy, like a Navy base.

Like, we never really got that. And so I was going out with all the fellows that night. We were going to go to a club. We were going to drink. We have fun. And so, but I had to work until about about 6 o'clock. I think it was like 8 to 6 to 6 I had to do on. on New Year's Eve. It was here that'll work on New Year's Day. So I'll do New Year's Eve and then

have New Year's Day off. That's 100% to move. Yep. So I go out there and I'm sitting there and I remember just being excited, you know, like thinking about what I was going to wear that night. Like all these different things going, you know, they're just stupid. Like the last thing I was doing was focusing on this drug house that I'm sitting in front of, right? Like the last thing. And right about 430, man, the call came out and it was just what they do in Virginia Beach is they tone you out. So like if you get, you get tones, it's a hot call. So there's code one calls, which is like the hottest of the hot. So the tone comes and then the call comes after? Correct. So it kind of perks the ear up a little bit? Correct. So if you're just driving patrol, you have, you have zones, right? 325,

320. So you understand like where your zone ends and when the next zone is. So you get assigned your calls through your, through your computer. You just hit, you know, if it's not a code call. But when a code call comes out, do do do do do, units 325, units 326 respond to a robbery, and such and such. So anybody hears the code, the tones are like, oh, they turn the radio up. Yeah, that makes sense. And so, so, so I'm sitting there. It's about 4.30 and all of a sudden the tones come out. Now, and I'm not, I'm not his own unit.

So the tones came out, do, do, do, do, do. Unis 325, units 326, respond to 767, Hampshire Lane, two and a half-year-old Code Gray. And I remember sitting there thinking, man, that's a really shitty call for New Year's Eve. Co-grave means unconscious, not breathing. Two and a half-year-old, I was like, man, that's a really shitty call. And I sat there for about 10, 10 seconds, about 20 seconds.

seconds and all of a sudden right about that 30 second window all of a sudden it hit like damn 767 hampshire lane two and a half year old that's got to be fucking benny junior so drop the car in a drive full free got mode pull right up onto the front lawn go running inside um ben senior my buddy was out on out on the ship brittany's standing there screaming she's got the baby in her arms she's got the phone in one hand and she's pointing into the bedroom she had gone and taken the six-month-old and went into the bathroom to take a shower. She put Willie Wonk in the chocolate factory on in the bedroom for Benny Jr. And Benny Jr. being the monkey that he is climbed up on the windowsill and he grabbed the blind cord. Oh, no. Yeah. And he wanted to swing off and get to the dresser

and it clupped him. Yep. And I didn't know this, but like, apparently like 20 to 30 kids a year. I mean, I don't know if it's any more, but I want to research it. I mean, I don't think they've changed. I have just thinking right now of the blind cords in our house. Yeah. It's a contiguous piece. Yeah. And so it caught him. So went right to work.

Cut him down. I started doing CPR. And man, I, so I grew up Irish Catholic in Jersey, right? So I'm a Notre Dame Irish fan. But I had to go to church every Sunday in order to go to my football game, go to my cross games, everything else. And I remember praying. I was like, I'm doing CPR.

I'm doing my 15 twos. And I said, God, don't take this little boy, man. I'm like, don't do this. And, you know, I did my first rescue breath. And then on the second one, I got a breath and right into my mouth. And I remember saying, oh, man, thank, thank you. And I kept going with CPR and everything else.

And then it dawned on me later on. That was the last breath that he ever took. And as the ambulance guys got there and I kind of rolled off and there was scotch sparks on the wall where he was trying to get down. And that, man, it ate on me. It ate on me so bad. And a lot of people don't realize like, all right, yes. But I sat in my car for 30 seconds.

and that decision to sit in my car and not respond, even though it wasn't my call, but not to go there when the call came out. Like nobody on this side of heaven could tell me that if I didn't respond when that call came out, that I couldn't have saved his life. 30-6th is a long time when it comes to CPR and things like that. And man, that ate me.

And so Ben's coming back in, so they called him. They got him back in. So he's on his way. So Brittany, she says to me, she's like, can you help me out until, you know, until Ben comes back. I said, yep. So I wound up going to the morgue and helping her,

and I wound up dressing little Benny Jr. in a Spider-Man costume, you know. And meanwhile, in my head, I'm saying to myself, I did this. Like, I'm at fault. Like, that was the first time I felt catastrophic failure in my life. And, man, I ate that for a long time. And I didn't sleep.

And I couldn't tell anybody. Like, I'm not going to tell, you know, my buddy, when it comes back, like, hey, I was around the corner. I was four blocks away. And I sat there and I didn't go. You know, so I ate that. And I would wake up almost nightly with a nightmare of getting there. And, you know, I was doing CPR and then Benny Jr. would wake up.

And so the only way I could fall asleep was if I drank. And so I was really, you know, I mean, I drank in the Navy, but I was more about life surfing and, you know, being out of the boys and whatnot. But I really started drinking. And my wife at the time, my boy's mother, she, and it didn't help that my oldest one was right about that age, same blonde hair. know, Benny Jr. was blonde hair, blue eyes. Mine was blonde hair, brown eyes, but same age. So every time I looked at him, I'm seeing Benny Jr., right? And I'm freaking out every time I can't

hear him. I would walk into the house, and I would put my, you know, to make sure he's good. And so my wife said to me, she said, let's, let's get a change. So yeah, that's a good idea. And that's how I made it up to Key, New Hampshire. And so, and that's how it became the SRO. So everything kind of circles back because I didn't want to do anything crazy. Like, I'm like, you know what, I've lived the crazy life. I've done a lot of, you know, a lot of cool things. Let me just be the SRO and that's how I started coaching lacrosse at the high school and building in these kids. And then the opioid epidemic hits in like 2014, 2015, 2015. And I wasn't, like, King of New Hampshire is a small town. Everybody knows each other. Everyone went to high school together.

Like, they all know each other's families. And so the opioid epidemic hits and all these people are getting hooked on pills, getting hooked on fentanyl and overdose it. Ohio and New Hampshire, are like the two leading states for opioid overdoses. And chief comes to me, he's like, hey, dude, like, you're not from here. Nobody really knows you. You're a good cop. I want you to go undercover. And I was like, man, I don't know.

You know, I'm pretty happy with the money through Friday, you know, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. And so I wound up going undercover. And I started seeing all these kids, you know, overdose and whatnot. And really the ends kind of justify that means what I mean by that is we had all these rules that we had to follow. Like, number one, we were working. day shift, which never made sense to me. Like, okay, so drug dealers only to sell drugs during the day.

Like, that doesn't make sense to me. That's correct. Crime is on banking hours. Right. After 5 p.m., they clock out. Yeah, it's like, all these things, like, we couldn't change locations. So let's say, like, you're my target, right? And you're going to serve me up with whatever.

If you call me, you're like, hey, we're not going to meet at the gas station. We're going to meet at Walmart. Okay, that's one change the location. If you change the location again, deals off. And like, that never made, they never jive. Like, okay, well, they're doing that because they know. that we have surveillance set up and things like that. So all these different things like just never made sense for me. And, you know, I got to a point where like I was just, I was just ate up with it.

And I really forgot how to be Matt Griffin. And I had cornrows in my hair. You know, I got tattoos all over my body and I had a lip ring. And it's from a high and tight Navy guy that. A lip ring? I had a lip ring. Yeah. How'd that feel when they put that sucker in? You know, so my ex-wife and I are very good friends now. I don't. I don't. want to say very good friends. We're very amicable and she's been a great mother to my kids. And I'm going to say this and she'll probably laugh, but she may not. But we got into an argument and I was in Newport, Rhode Island. And we got an argument. And I said, you know what? This is really going to piss her off. And so I went and got a lip ring. I got it.

You couldn't think of anything else that might have pissed her off. That's what I decided that I was going to do. And I remember coming home and I walked in the door and I was gone for like two weeks. And she's like, please tell me that's not real. And she like grabbed at it. And she started crying. And I was like, that didn't turn out the way I wanted it. But that's why I got a lip ring. Okay. Yep.

Yep. All right. Yeah, the bad decisions that we make. But yeah, and so I really forgot how to be Matt Griffin. And I think a lot of people can resonate that with the job. We start to put so much time and effort into who we are in the job that we forget who's at home. You know, I always say one of the biggest regrets that I had was being C.J. Davis and not remembering how to be Matt Griffin. I'm assuming that was your undercover name.

Yep. Yep. And, you know, I remember coming home one night, and we had, I hit like two kilos and got like a gun, like $72,000 in cash. It was just a great day. And I remember saying in her, I'm like, hey, let's take the kids the Longhorn. Let's celebrate. She's like, baby, we can't afford that. I'm like, well, shit, I got thousands of dollars to buy money, right? I got an escalate out here. I can't go to Longhorn with my kids. And, you know, you're like, she's like, no, like, that's too. hundred bucks that we don't have. Like I can barely I can barely pay the cell phone bill and get food on the table. I'm like, dang. You know, and then you, then you just start wanting to be that person more than you want to be who you are, you know. And I can remember so many times that we'd have date night set up and somebody would call and say, hey, man, we need you for him and for hire. Can you do

that? I'm like, hell yeah. It sounds like fun. Hey, send the babysitter home. I got to go to work. You know, or I got to work or I got to date night. I lay out four phones. I'm not paying attention. and I don't think anybody you know we don't do it purposely but before you know it don't do it accidentally either don't do it accidentally either yeah yeah and not to take you back to it but how did you get past what work did you do to get past Benny Jr. man I you know I tried everything under the sun the the first time that I got eight hours of sleep was a counselor that I was working with again I had to do a counselor and pay on my own because I needed to do a counselor and pay on my own because I knew that I was struggling. I met in my wife at the time. Yeah, you wanted to keep it away from

the department size. So I had the envelope from the wake and it sat right on my desktop or right my my side table for years. And it's just so, but now I can't find that, which is weird. After the divorce, I couldn't find anyway. But my wife at the time was like, you need some help. Like you're up all night long and you're going to work and you're running and gunning. And you got no sleep and you're drinking too much. And so I found, I found, I found, I found, I found a counselor that would take me. And remember she said, I'm going to try something new. I said, okay.

And she puts these two black balls in my hand. I'm like, stop it. I'm like, hold on. I can't do this. Let's just talk about the most. I was going to say, I had to look over at Michael. As far as ways that you could start stories that are getting to get Michael and I's attention, sir, you have reached the apex.

That's it, right? And so I was like, all right, I'm down, I'm done and try something new. And she takes these two black balls out. and she puts them in my hands. Are there words that you could use other than that? That's the only way to describe these things. Dark orbs? They are, they are black balls and she puts one in each.

And then they start to vibrate. They start to vibrate. I said, you've got to be shitting me right now. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, stay with me. It's called EMDR. I was like, I don't know what this is called, but whatever it is, this is not. I said, is the door going to open up and guys are going to be laughing?

Did they find me? They find out that I'm going here. And sure it up, man. She called it EMDR. And so basically what they do is they take you through like you're a critical incident. And it retrained your brain that at nighttime, this is what she said to me at nighttime when your brain goes there, it goes back to your happy place. So while the ball's vibrating in your hands, right? I'm sure there's better ways to go about doing it.

Here's the thing. I don't think people should lie, but you can describe this story differently. You could say two paddles that don't look anything like black balls are in your hands. So we have two rather large ping pong balls. Exactly. But so we get done with this. I shit you not. That night was the first time in years that I got eight straight hours.

I called her the next day and I said, I don't know what kind of voodoo you did, but I slept eight straight hours without waking up. She's like, yeah, she's like, I retrained your brain. So I got a lot of help there. And yeah, and then, you know, unfortunately, the undercover life took my marriage and I'll take a lot of responsibility for that. And January 5th of 2017, my divorce was finalized.

The one guy that checked on me was my chief and my partner, Brian. And so Brian would always send me a text message. Hey, you're good, straight. And if I said I was fine, feeling is the need of expression, he would call. And so March 9th of 2017 was my 15-year wedding anniversary. and I got into work and started the prostitution sting and somebody knocked on the door. Like, hey, man, Chief wants to see you. I'm like, what does Chief want?

So I get down there. Again, my divorce was just finalized. There's a lot of things going on. I mean, I don't have any money. Like, you go through a divorce, there's a lot of things. There's just so much chaos at home, man. 10 out of 10 don't recommend. Absolutely.

And so just, you know, at one point, I had $1.13 in my checking account. You know, my son's asking me for food, and I have no ability to get it. It was just a traumatic, terrible time in my life. I don't recommend it to anybody. So I get down to his office and I knock on the door and I'm trying to read them. Like, are we Brian and Matt right now or are we chief and detective? And he's like, have a seat. Also, never a good opener.

Or I should say, it's, there is official business about to be conducted. Could be a good opener. But usually if it starts with that, that's not awesome. That's not going to work for you. Yeah. And so I'm thinking like, okay, cool, do I need my union rep? Yeah. And he said, he said, man, you know what today is, right?

Referring to what would have been my 15-year wedding anniversary. I was like, yeah, man. He's like, are you okay? Are you good? You said, you've got a lot of people that are relying on you to run this operation. Are you okay? And I said, yeah, man, I'm straight. He said, Griff of Mass you one more time.

He said, if you're not medically prepared, you're not physically ready. So tell me now, and if you're not, it's okay. I'm going to comp you out for the day. I said, Brian, I'm good. He has ability to raise one eyebrow. and he raised the eyebrow, sat there, who kind of looked awkwardly that you're checking. I was like, well, good, is that it?

I thought he was going someplace else. You are aware that everybody has the ability to raise one eyebrow. I feel like it was just my ex-y-s that I had. Okay, just saying. And that was plural. I don't think this is a meta-human skill. You can just kind of read. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't do it. You need to practice. Yeah. All right. Yeah. And so the one thing I didn't say was, hey, dude, how about we get done with this operation? We chop it up today.

We go have a cold one. And two hours later, Brian went home and shot and killed himself. The chief did. Yeah. Yeah. And this is March 9th. This is what would have been my 15-year wedding anniversary. He took the time to check in on you.

Yeah. And I didn't check back. Well, I'm not so sure. We're deep into the world of conjecture at this point. Yeah. Go right this, like this. Like this? There you go.

Perfect. Nope. Nope. Still there. Sometimes it's there. Michael, you didn't even tell me? Piece of shit. Shit.

Be honest, I didn't know this. Yeah. I mean, we're deep into the world of conjecture, but my guess is he would have told you, I'm fine. Or let's focus on you. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I look back on that.

Let's take a whole other direction. Let's not even look at the suicide. How many leaders are watching this podcast right now? And how many guys have come to them and given them a day, this is a year from now, or a year ago today, I was in a car accident, a year ago today, this, or six months ago, how many leaders take the time? He took the time, I mean, how would he, you know, other than me, have saying that at some point to him, yeah, March 9th is going to be a shitty day.

You know, he took the time to make a note, check on Griff on March 9th. Like, that is so powerful to me. And maybe it's not powerful other people, but it's so powerful to me that he took the time out of his day to write that down, to remember it, and then to come check on me on that day. And paying it forward every time I have a conversation with somebody, and they, you know, somebody that I know or whatever, and they say, yeah, you know, August 16th, my son, such and such, write it down on my phone. Check on Andy on August 16th. You know how much that meant to me that he checked on me on that day? And imagine how much

it would mean to somebody that you work with, hey, man, I know today's a crappy day for you. I just want to let you know that I'm here, man. I can hold space for you if you need it. And I'm going to add to that because I'm going to ask you a question first. How long after that meeting did he kill himself? Two hours. Do you think he knew he was going to do that while he was sitting with you? Yeah. I think so too.

Spending all of your energy on other people is not an excuse to not spend the energy on yourself as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely right. And like you said, the checking in on people, it could have, life-altering impact that nobody could understand unless they're in that place where they have a date like that and somebody does care. But it is an excuse and a horrible one to pour everything that you have into other people and not take care of yourself. I bet you he did know that he was going to kill himself two hours later.

He left his gun, badge and radio. his office. 800% new then. Yeah. What were you guys able to determine that had led up to that afterwards? That's a great question, man. We have gone back and forth. There was no note.

We, there's a lot of different theories. Was he in a stable relationship? Was anything? He was on his second marriage. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody really knows.

You know, there's a lot of conjecture and I wouldn't, you know, I don't want to, I don't speculate. It's not worth speculating, yeah. There's a lot of, a lot of, I mean, everybody's got an opinion on, on it. you know for me here's what it did for me so that was march 9th of 2017 he was about he went to norwich university he was part of the schools and i can't remember if i'm saying that right but it was a very prestigious part of norwich university i feel like there's a movie about this yeah yep um so he's a very so it was like 5-8 he's like probably 240 nothing but muscle cauliflower ears like he's he's a quiet one

right he's the one that you don't mess with uh wrestler i mean just a bad dude just a bad dude like i was i've always been a mouthpiece especially like in the undercover world like i'll you know you're gonna check me inside of a set and i'm getting served up like i'll deal with that but i always knew that he was he was there the back was there if we went to call together i'm like i'm good no matter what because he's gonna he can clear a room and what it did for me was it changed my view on suicide up into that point suicide was always a weak thing there's always like now that's not how we do things like that's that's the weak way out and that moment when brian took his life it wasn't suicide anymore.

I looked at it as a sacrifice. Like he was not weak. There was nothing weak about him. So what was it? So why did he do it? And in my head, and again, this is the trauma talking. I changed it from suicide to a sacrifice. And if you think, if you look back in my life,

my whole life has been a sacrifice from, you know, from going to this private high school that I didn't want to go to, to, you know, to the Navy, to undercover world, to Virginia Beach, to Benny Jr., to everything to everything. And I said this was the logical next step. If that was what Brian did, this was my logical next step, too. You connected that in your head. Yeah.

And I said, you know what? Because think about it, I'm failing my children, the divorce. You know, back up a little bit. I always have a screenshot. I had $1.13 in my checking account. I have an autistic son. And he came to me one night and we ate a lot of ramen. So my ex-wife was a stay-at-home mom.

So when you get divorced and she's a stay-at-home mom for 12 years, and I, you know, made X number of dollars. And I also had a lacrosse business on the side that was, that was failing. But the course don't care about that. So like my child support was more than I was essentially, I was making. And even my attorney was like, I don't know how I can do this. I'm like, you know, I don't know what to tell you. And so my autistic son came to me.

He was like, I had any chance we have anything other than ramen noodles tonight. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. And I walked down to the ATM and I put my card in. And I was like, let me just post out 20 bucks. I'll go get a slice of pizza. I'll get a couple slices of pizza. in like a two liter soda. And it spit my card out.

And I was like, man. And it said I had $1.13 in my checking account. And I remember the feeling of saying to my son, hey, man, we got to eat ramen noodles again tonight. Maybe next weekend when daddy has you, we'll be able to get it in the catastrophic. Like I felt like I was always failing them. You know, it was no longer like dad's succeeding at everything. Dad's a cool undercover cop.

Dad's this, dad's that. Like dad's taken down in car. cartel members and Hells Angels and everything. Now it was dad sucks. And that's the way I felt. I felt like I was failing them. And I felt like I was making bad decisions in life. I felt like whereas like when I was switched on, like I couldn't make a bad decision. And I felt like every decision I was making was a bad decision. And when Brian left, it was like all of a sudden I got it. And on March 17th, I woke up and I said, I'm done. I said, today is my sacrifice. Today's the day that I'm going. And I spent the next, well, I started the morning by cleaning up. And my,

my little one bedroom apartment was a mess and there's just shit everywhere. And so I started cleaning because I didn't want cops to come in, you know, see that. I was a slob and whatnot. So I started cleaning. And I spent a couple hours, write my suicide note. What'd you write in it? Where? What? So first paragraph was to my sons, to my sons, you won't understand. I know this. But please understand that I love you more than anything. You're my light and bad times and my sunshine every morning. The second paragraph was to their mother. And I won't repeat that because it was just angry. Third paragraph was... Can I make up stuff for the supplement? You fucking cunt. Yeah, exactly. Like it was angry. It was angry. And then the third paragraph was,

you know, just to just life itself. Like I just, I felt like, you know, my time was over. It was, you know, the show must go on. So I didn't want to fail anybody anymore, and the show must go on. The show must live on. And then I went for a walk, and I decided that midnight, I was going to take my life, I was going to pull the trigger a minute. I just something felt right about the zeros and the clock. And so about 11, 11, 10, 30, 11 o'clock I got my Yukon at the apartment that I had.

And I started listening to Music in My Life, like 311, Blank 182, and like chili peppers, all the songs that, like, that I grew up. with and I had my phone on Do Not Disturb and my gun on my note and at 1113 my phone rang and I didn't know in 2017 if you called twice inside of a minute it would break through yeah right and it scared the shit out of me so it was my buddy Ben not the same Ben from the Navy yeah right Ben who's my best friend now my kid my uncle Ben and just my dude he's a lieutenant deputy chief captain I don't know what he is now but he's he's high up he's got all the stars yeah man he's my dude he is my guy and So he said, and I interviewed him in my book, and he said, yeah, I called the first time.

I went right to voicemail. And I was like, well, and he didn't leave a voice mail. He's like, let me fucking call this guy back. No, first off, nobody leaves a voicemail for their friend. Right. You immediately redial or you text. Right, exactly. So he calls back and it was some rap music that I had.

And so I grab it. And he's like, hey dude, he's like, St. Patty's Day. I want you come over to have a cold one with me? He's like, I'm trying to get a hold you all day. You good? And I said, yeah, I'm going to come over at a cold one. I said, I guess I'm going to take care of the night, bro. tomorrow. And now Ben is not an I love you person, right? He's not an emotional person. Like,

you hug him. He freezes up. Bad dude, man. Just an awesome dude all the way around. Like another another beast of a man when it comes to fighting and who he is. And he said, Griff, before I let you go, bro, let me tell you two things. I said, yeah, yeah, go ahead. He said, number one, I want to tell you that I love you. And I remember how that hit, man. I remember like that just broke the barrier that I had up. And he said, number two, I want to tell you that I know you're struggling right now and I want to tell you that there's lightning in the tunnel and as you're going through this I'm here for you and about 1115 I made the best decision of my life and that decision was if today's a good day to die so is tomorrow and that mentality came from start school just make it

Wednesday and I just made it one more day so I went over I had to beer with them which I could say the night got better but it didn't and uh somebody I put out a bolo saying that I was that was driving drunk and cops it was just a mess they're just never It never ends, you know, I mean, when it rains and pores. But on March 18th, I made the same decision. I said, today's a good day to die so is tomorrow. And March 19th, I woke up and I said, all right, March 20th, March 21st. And very slowly, I didn't need to say that anymore, but I liked that I was living 24 hours to 24 hours.

I liked that feeling. I liked how that fit. And so I changed that mantra after about, I'd say probably about a week or two. And I said, all right, well, today I'm going to do something good for myself. Some days I go to the gym, some days it was, it was read something. some days it was it was it was just get out of bed sometimes I'll get back to bed and I'll try to think about what I did good for myself for that day and I couldn't think of anything so I'd roll my fat ass out of bed I'd wrap out like 50 push-ups or I do some pull-ups I remember one time I did the

pull-ups on some little bar that you had in the thing and it broke I like videos like I fell on my ass I was like here I'll try to do something good for myself and I'll lay on the goddamn floor it's better when they flat back it and they get the feet come out in front yeah and then about about three months of doing that, I change it to the mantra that I live with every day. And every day, I try to find an opportunity to do something good for somebody else. And I love that. And in, you know, and God works a mysterious place, man. He really does.

So I look. And on the flight here, I was tired. I didn't sleep last night. I was nervous about this. You know, podcast or because I was saying this to Nelson. He's like, you nervous? I said, yeah, a little bit. You know, keynotes, I know exactly what I'm saying.

I know my transition and I practice it. I don't know what we're going to talk about. I don't know where we're going to go. That makes too of us. You know what I mean? You know, I don't know where, you know. And I always feel like I have a responsibility to, as somebody out there, need to hear, put the gun down, put the note away.

Like, let's make it one more day. So I always feel that weight when I go on a podcast or whatever. Because there's a lot of people that are going to listen to this. And I want to know that there's hope. But, but, you know, I changed that. to oh so i was saying on the way here yeah if i hear yeah so again like i didn't sleep well last night i was nervous and i got on the flight and and for so reason when i was packing up and we packed one pair of underwear so i was like i was asking my girlfriend i'm like can you is there a

place like near where i'm saying that like the hotel because there's no areas here so i say at this place downtown and she's like yeah you gotta you gotta go to the jc penny so i had to like jog the jc pettine's you know or uh walmart right but i don't have a car so i had to uber into my hotel and And I was like, all right, baby, find some place close. So I jog over the JC Penny. So I got some skivies on now, thankfully, thankfully for everybody. Thank you for that. Yep, no problem.

Yep. And so on the first leg of the flight, right, I was texting, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm like, you know, like, I'm flying across the country. You know, this, I got no underwear on. Like, you know, I'm tired. And it just means you travel a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. So I get on the second flight. I shit you not, right? And I'm going to give him a shout out. So if Austin is listening, man, I just want to give you a shout out. So he sits down next to me. He's a dude from Louisville, Kentucky. And I'm only just jovial guy, big dude.

And he started talking. He was going on vacation here in Calispell. And so we started talking. And I don't know how it came up, but he's like, what are you doing? I said, I'm heading out here to be on the podcast. So what's your podcast about? I said, well, I was a cop and sustained a little bit of trauma. I lost a partner.

He's like, I lost one of my best friend a couple years ago. And he said, he was the best man in my wedding. He died unexpectedly. And come to find out that his best man took his life. And so we started talking about that. start talking a little bit like, you know, sometimes, you know, we just start talking about that. And so we spent the entire, so Brian's bad number was 1111. So every time I see 111 or 1111, I know that he's watching me. And so about three quarters away through this flight, Austin says

to me, he goes, you know, my daughter's right there going on vacation. He's like, it's just a, it's just a crazy story. But she was born on 1111. And it's one of my favorite numbers. And he said, you know, you probably noticed my wife two seats up. She turned around and said, hey, it's 1111. and I love you. I said, I said, man, I just need a minute, man. I said, I just need a minute to just compose myself because here I am thinking about how tired I am.

Thinking about being tired and the thing that I asked God to bless me with. Like how disrespectful am I to feel exhausted from something that I've asked God to bless me with? And it was like, it was one of those moments where I just say, appreciate you being there, man. And I know that Brian is watching. in this conversation. I know that he's sitting right here because he showed me that 1111 that was him

and man it was just you know that's the way things have been working and I mean it just to me it just put all that breath of hope and so to circle it all back to how I got through Benny Jr. I had to look at I had two choices to look at it I could look at Benny Jr. at the judge jury and execution of my life and why me and why does my life suck why did I have to be there why didn't I go in that 30 seconds. Or I can look at Benny Jr. as a lesson of my life. And I look at Benny Jr. as him breathing hope in that last breath into my body. And so every time I had the blessing and the opportunity to be on a podcast like this, right,

the blessing and the opportunity to talk to somebody that is struggling. Because again, vulnerability always leads to vulnerability. I always think about Benny is there, Brian's there saying, hey, we got another. one. You know, we just saved another one. And that's, and it's changed the whole frame of it. Like I used to, I used to, you know, for the longest time, I was like, man, why did that have to happen to me? Like, that was just such a shitty thing to have to see. But, you know, and I'm not here to say, you know, it's his time or this, that, the other. But all I know is that once I turn Benny Jr. into a teacher and once I partnered with him for the rest of my life and I looked at him as

being there with me, I look at Ryan as being there with me, wherever I go and whatever I'm doing. And they have their hand on the things that I'm doing, it gives me a little bit of peace and gives me a little bit of hope for tomorrow and whatever that looks like and however that goes, you know, and it's just amazing how those situations have come along. How long after you wrote that suicide note was it before you shared it with somebody? Not like physically handed it to him. Damn it. I said the word like again.

The book. It was the book. So how far was that though beyond? Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by Better Health. What a great sponsor that naturally just aligned. I didn't actually choose this order, but it fits in perfectly with the conversation that Matt and I have been having. We're getting ready to go into the summer. May was last month.

I did a specific read about it being men's mental health awareness month. Let's be honest. Every month should be mental health awareness month. I can appreciate that we highlight certain groups inside of that, but I think we could all use a reminder at all times. Summer up where I live in Montana, the days. are longer. I feel more productive. It's a lot easier to get out and do things because you're more highly motivated. But it also really helps to check under the hood at those times. And I was going to say everybody can benefit, but I'm just going to bring that back a notch and talk about myself.

I have had in my own life times where I don't have the answers to what's going on inside of my own head. And I've needed to reach out to talk to a higher level of care. And I have done so through counselors and therapists. Some of the most impressive people that I know, walking on the earth have done exactly the same thing. And it's so easy to say that asking for help is a sign of weakness. But the reality is this. It could be one of the strongest things that you could ever do for yourself and for those around you, especially if those people rely upon you. So in the summer, I can do a whole lot. But in the winter up here, shorter days, less vitamin D, sun's down early in the afternoon, comes up late in the morning. It's just tough. So I try not to wait until things get bad.

before I take a peek under the hood, right? The analogy I've used many times, you don't have to wait for the check engine light to come on to pop the hood and go see a mechanic. It's not magic. There's a lot of work that needs to be done and most of that occurs after the sessions that you're having with whoever it is that you are talking to, but it can have lifelong impact and it can change the trajectory of your life. And again, I'll speak only for myself. It's done exactly that. Better help does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short question helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience in industry leading match fulfillment rate means that they typically get it right the first time. If you're not happy with your

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Back to the show. Almost five years. Did you tell anybody in the meantime? So my second ex-wife found it. And she found it in my notes section because I had it on my notes section. Because I had written it down. I hadn't written it. But I didn't want to keep that.

I didn't want people to find that. So I can't remember if I crumpled that up or what I did with the But like, I appreciate she think the second paragraph was for her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can spend a whole other podcast on that. Yeah.

Because, you know, when you have a good woman, right, and you have a good woman for 15 years, it takes care of your children, what do you do? What do you do? You find the opposite. You know? And that's what I did. And, yeah. So let me ask you this.

In all those years. First of, I'm very glad you. didn't make that decision. Me too. Now that you have those years behind you, how do you think your friends and family would have responded to that note?

It just would have transferred pain. That's all it would have done. It would have taken the pain that I had and given it to them. And that's all it would have been, you know, like I say all the time. I think that's what it always does. There's a crack in a photo.

Yep, you tell yourself in that moment, I am taking the burden off other people, but instead you're actually transfer it to them 100% yep and the thing is the problem with that mentality is like I can say that and we can say that because we have a rational brain when there's not a rational when there's not a rational brain you think the only possible outcome for you is to alleviate what they're going through you know and I always say my message to anybody just make it another day and celebrate that make it an hour if you need to make it an hour make it a minute if you need to make it a minute and celebrate that

And, you know, when I started, and I know this sounds, I know it sounds dumb, but like when I started doing like finding an opportunity to do something good for somebody, like I started looking for that. A lot of times like misery loves company, but so does positivity. And so, you know, the thing with that was when I started to focus on that, like the goodness came back to me. And it was just the, so at nighttime I would journal. And I started journaling because I read this study that said like if you if you write things down, it takes it from the medulla, puts it into. the prefront the core test and helps you process stuff. Like, cool. Like, I'm going to do that at night.

So I started writing down. The good deed that I did for the day, something I want to work on, something I'm grateful for. Three things every night. Try to work them down. And, and dude, what I could say, I don't know if anybody else wants to try it or not, but I'm going to tell you, I mean, I had $1.13 in my checking account. And it's only nine years ago. From that moment, from changing how I looked at life and waking up,

looking for an opportunity to do something good, right, to sign a book over to all. Austin today, you know, and him to, and I mean, we bro hug. We just met on a flight. We bro hug like we were best friends. He's got my cell phone number and we're going to keep up. That means the world to me. Did you kiss him on the cheek? I might have. I might have. I'm just saying, you want to freak somebody out? Just come a little. She's like, I'm Italian. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Make eye contact though. Honestly, though. Here's the funny part, right? So, so, so, I mean, we're like, we bonded on this flight, right? Like, both of us were like, this was meant to be. For sure. And then we get off the plane and like, his family doesn't know that.

He doesn't know what just happened like two seats behind about like the 11-11, like his best friend, you know, little Z. And so like, I, bro, you got myself and his wife's just looking to be like, what the fuck? And he's like, this is my father-in-law. I'm like, nice to meet you. Like, hi, awesome. I'm going to catch up with you a little bit. And they're like, what just happened? You know?

Sometimes that's how it goes, man. Yeah, man. So, but I'll tell you, man, like that's been the game changer in my life. And I was on, I was with Marcus, Marcus LaTrell. And he said to me, he goes, dude, that's, it's scientific. It was the first time I ever heard him say that. Like, he was, he's like, it's called neuroplasticity. And I never heard that term before.

First off, Marcus is not a goddamn scientist. No shit. All right. Right. And maybe it wasn't Markis. Maybe it was Melanie. Matter of fact, I'm not so sure she's a scientist either. I think they're using the right terms, though.

Yeah. One of them said is neuroplasticity. And they basically said, you know, neurons are fired together. They wire together. And when you do something good for somebody else, right, you wind up focusing on. on it and that's what you that's what you look for and that's what you find it's like it's like a dope when i would go out to try and arrest somebody for dope guess what i find i'd find dope when i go to buy a car and it's a lime green hatchback this what i see all day long i see lion green hatchback

yeah and and and that's what's happened in my life man and like that's that's really been the go-to for me so when when i have a day or or when i when life kind of hits hard or i'm in a bad season i just i just look for an opportunity to do something good man or to make somebody else's a day a little bit better when you focus on that like it's just it just changed a lot that's coming back to me a lot how do you view that dollar 14 now are you grateful for that day so man i couldn't so it's a dollar 13 sorry no no rounding it up yeah yeah i say it because because i found i don't know why but the other day i googled 113 to see what would come up and first peter 1-1113 is prepare your mind for action and i was like man that's so amazing that's so

amazing. I look at that as the biggest blessing that I had in my life, you know. Not in the day, though. Not in the day. And that's it. And that's the story of life, right? You're this two shall pass. Things are going to happen, whether it's good or bad. And you're going to go and you're going to be in a season. If you're in a season right now, I promise you, if you're making another day, there's a blessing around the corner. There's lessons and there's blessings. And if you give the opportunity to learn from whatever it is, whether it's the critical incident, whether it's the shooting, whether it's a traffic accident, whether it's a fatal. If you look at that situation from a post-traumatic growth mindset or just from a mindset of that you want to learn what your body did

inside of that you're going to have a blessing down the road from that again i always say like 300 400 500 critical incidents are shitty things that'll waste from a wisdom standpoint you know there's a lot of blessings inside of that how you how you look at life how you treat your family how you treat your friends how you go about your life how you how your body reacted whether it slowed down where it sped up whether you pie the right way whether you didn't do this whether you didn't that like there's so much wisdom that you can take from that why not take every aspect of that from it to move forward to the next one um it gets tough because sometimes it gets worse before it gets better yeah and that and that's a tough one riding the bad day after the bad day feeling like

you're just sliding down the ski slope i'm always uh i've only ever spoken super vaguely about my divorce mostly because my ex doesn't have a platform and i'm trying to be respectful right same yep I didn't leave with a whole lot more than $1.13, you know, the $1.13. I was going to say $1.14. I don't know why keep rounding it up. Yeah, I like that. So wealthy is the $1.14. That's the neuroplasticity mindset.

You rounded up. It wasn't a whole lot more than that. Yeah. I couldn't. Now, many years later, I am grateful for how humbling that felt. Yeah. And how helpless it felt, hopeless. Yeah.

Because you can get lost in the, that. Or you can use that as a springboard. It just, it doesn't feel like it has any bounce in the moment. Yeah. And I don't know how to describe that to people because it probably is going to get worse too. Yep.

And that's a long road to hoe. And inside of the worst, there, I mean, it can keep getting worse. But inside of that, there's lessons inside of every one of those days, man. And like, and I, you know, you know, not to go, not to go completely faith on you, but like I just feel like God is going to, sometimes he's going to push you in a direction that you wouldn't have otherwise gone because he knows where he needs you to be. And the longer, the longer you go down, the longer you're on this train, the more expensive it's going to be to get back. And until you start to look at it, for me, at least until I started to look at it and said, all right, God, what do you want me to learn here? Where, where, you know, what I realize is that the storm didn't break me.

It built me. Yeah. You know, it didn't destroy my purpose. It doesn't have to wash you up on the rocks. Yeah. It didn't destroy my purpose. It revealed it. Like, without Benny Jr., I'm not here.

I don't have the circle of family and friends and people around me that I love so much. I don't have, you know, the blessings of my life, the peace that I have. I don't have the opportunities that I have. I don't have, you know, anything. And, yeah, I mean, I just. there's just so many blessings that have come from the lessons that I've had, you know. Yeah, you have to stay the course, which is an almost impossible task when you're at the bottom. Yeah.

And you get to a place where you don't believe that a blessing or whatever reward or, you know, whatever long-term goal, you arrive at a place where you convince yourself, it's not possible. and then you start looking at decisions that are totally irrational. I don't, I mean, I'm not an expert in suicide. But, you know, as we mentioned earlier, breaking the chain earlier on, I don't know if anybody wakes up and arrives at that irrational state. And I say, I'm not sure because I know that TBIs, brain injury type stuff, can flip things very quickly.

Yeah. But what you're talking about in the, at least the law enforcement profession, seems to be a longer link of chains. It's build up. as opposed to you wake up one day and you are in that irrational place. It almost is as if you assist yourself to getting there. So breaking that chain as early as possible. Right.

I mean, think about like thoughts become actions. Especially repeated thoughts over a long period of time. Yeah. And again, you don't have to, we're not saying, I'm not saying, you've got to go and seek out a counselor, but at least have a conversation about it. Have a check in with it or status check or whatever you want. Do what Ryan do.

Send a text message. You good? You're all right? You need something? You want to have a cold one tonight? That's it. And, you know, check it on your younger guys. And if you're in a season of hurt, just know that, you know, there's a lesson that can turn into a blessing at some point. Because it will pass, man. There's good days and there's bad days. And you can make it to tomorrow. How did Brian respond when he found out about the impact that that double call had? Oh, Ben. Oh, Ben. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I interviewed. So years later, obviously. Years later, he was like, man, I remember that night. I remember making that call, and I had no idea the gravity of it.

And it was interesting, he's an atheist. And I call myself his daughter as Godfather. And, you know, and he, I mean, he's like, I'm just so glad that I kept, I kept, so. So about a, I don't even know, I don't even time wise now. Like, I get time wise messed up. But like, when I had another place that I was staying at that I didn't have to pay rent at it, it fell apart and I remember like hesitating to give him a call because I didn't have any place to go right in the state and uh and I wound up giving him a call and I know he had two little girls and we've got

a wife at home like they got families they got lifetime and I didn't want to say hey can I stay with you for a little bit can come take a shower and I remember calling him saying that and do said right why are you even calling just drive here and I remember how that that said on me you know and that's the man he is and that's why I feel like more cops should be like him, you know, and it's just sometimes we don't see each other for six months, and we're both New York Giants fans, you know, we're just, we have a lot in common, but we see each other and it's just right back there, man, and now it's, it's commonplace for the two of us before we love God, man, I love you, love you too, bro. And just he'll, he'll, he'll be my dude through and through for life, you know. I can tell you as somebody who has tested the theory, unfortunately, of not telling people you care about deeply that you love. love them every time you see them or talk to them, especially dudes are just different. Yeah. I can go six months without seeing a good friend. And about 42 seconds.

Right back. And it's literally 42 seconds. Women, different species. The data is back on the number of words used per day. Like, I get it. I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole. Right. But I tell you what you'll live with if you don't say the things.

Right. And it's regret. Yeah. And it sucks. Yeah. And you'll regret it probably every day for the rest of your life. Yeah. More than you would regret telling your buddy that you love him.

And he looks and he goes, shut up, fag. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's the worst you're going to get. Right. Don't be gay, dude. Yeah. It's like, hey, man, it's 2026. Be gay if you want to.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's a new day and age. Yeah. And I do, man. You don't get to tell me how gay I'm going to be, sir. Right.

Right. Right. And again, I mean, you just those opportunities, man, like, don't, don't waste them, you know. They're fleeting too, and they're so fast. Everybody listening, they know when I talked about, you know, divorce and when we talk about like all the things happening, everybody has a name in their head that pops up. You know, just reach out, say two things. Lay at the end of the tunnel and I love you. And if people do that, you have no idea how many lives you're going to save.

Yeah. For sure. How was the experience to write in the book for you? I mean, it was awesome. Book number two is going to be called The Journey to Ibegain. Trevor. Why are you going on all these journeys? Man, I know.

Honestly, it's fun. You know, I mean, are you wearing a bow tie? Come on, you want to hear the story behind it? First off. Hold on. We have a gray blazer. I think this is a pink vest. It is underneath.

It's actually mauve. I don't know if we're going to talk to each. I'm going to call it salmon. I thought we could be gay. Listen. there's gay and then there's what you're wearing in this author picture. Yes. So we'll call it salmon vest.

We'll say salmon. I like salmon. Long sleeve blue checkered shirt. Yep. And a bow tie. Yep. Who picked this outfit? I sure did.

That was all me. Did you not have anything else in your closet? The best part of that is that I cut my hair for that. I had a man bun too. You mean on the back of your head you had a man bun? Not on that picture, but right before that I had. had that same outfit with a man, but I, so you're telling me you stood in front of a mirror with this on and said to yourself, this is what I'm going for, nailed it. Absolutely, man.

That bowtie was hot. So here's the deal with that, right? So when I got done, check it out, check it out. I got to tell a story behind it. Okay. And that's why it's on there. So when I got done with law enforcement, I became, I started training law enforcement, undercover survival, undercover opportunities, things like that. So is this what you wore when you were undercover? That's not what I want. So my buddy Byron Boston, who owns professional law enforcement training, great friend of mine, he calls me, and I created a class called Fighting Fentanyl. And he said, all right, your first class is going to be in Texas, in El Paso, Texas.

He said, you want a 511 shirt? And I said, no, I said, I'm going to do something different. Pair it with cargo pants, too, probably assault boots of some kind. Exactly. Maybe or maybe not blouse the pants. Right, exactly. Yeah, like the standard issue for instructors. And I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, totally. So, so that's how I showed up. I showed up with a man bun. I showed up with a bow tie. Showed up with my salmon. That's the, that's the exact outfit that I wore to my very first presentation. Clip on or real bow tie? Clip on.

I wasn't that. That was that cool. Pussy. Yeah, I had no idea how to write. I tried to, I bought one. I bought one. I bought one and I googled how to do it. Good luck with that.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I think it's actually the only move. Unless you grew up wearing ascots. for Sunday dinner. I don't think. Yeah. So, dude, I walk in, I walk in. I've got 50 cops from, from El Paso, right? All, all undercover's, all doing things. So, so Tony is the, the coordinator. She texts Byron in the first 15 minutes, like, who the fuck did you send down here? Like, he's in a bow tie and a man bun. What were you wearing for pants and shoes? We had to tie the ensemble together. I'm pretty sure I was in, like, khaki pants. Yeah, I think I was, I think I was, I think it was, I think it was, um, the loafers with the little tassels. I tell you, it was a hot outfit.

It's powerful. Yeah. So I walk in and these dudes are like, who in the fuck is this dude? And so I start talking. I go into some of my videos and all of a sudden you see me. I had cornrows in my hair. I had a lip ring. I've got tattoos.

I got full leg sleeve, full arm sleeve. And so you see me in an undercover capacity. And then I completely flipped the script on it. I'm like, when I walked in here, what was your opinion to me? Your same opinion right there. Yeah. I said, now you just watch that video. And do you think those two people match?

Nope. So what I did, I just undercovered you. I just gave you what I wanted you to see. And I just watched every one of your eyebrows when I walked in here. Eyebrows went up. You judged me. You looked at me. You said I was preppy.

You said I was weak. You said I was this, this and this. And then you just watched that video on that screen. And you saw me fight. You saw me, you know, pull my gun. So, like, someone tried to check me. Like, who the fuck are you checking? Why are you checking me?

Because I'm white. And, like, just flipped a script on somebody else. And those two people don't match, do they? And that's called undercover. being able to flip that script and be able to give you what I wanted you to see when I wanted you to see it. And that's what I did to every single one in these classrooms. You can see that everybody would sit back like, who, okay. Now I'm going to listen for the rest of the day because he just got me.

Listen, you can describe it however you want to. You can go back to it. You can describe it every you want. You have weird taste and clothes. Yeah. And I'm here for it. Yep. I'm not going to verbally judge you.

I have thoughts. I'll keep them to myself. Yep. Yep. I don't know if I have the confidence to wear a salmon. And so here's even better story, right? So like I didn't have any shirts that I wanted to wear. So I went across the road and I said, I just need something that doesn't look cowboy that just looks.

And I asked the girl that said, can you guys help me? I just need, I'm wearing jeans and a shirt and I don't want to wear a t-shirt. And now that you're in a t-shirt, I'm like, damn, I should just want a t-shirt. And this is what I picked out across the street at, oh, it's the Western store. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, I had to get underwear too. I went to J.

There you go. I got my undies, got my skivies, and I got a button down. Isn't it amazing, though, how using the exercise that you did, whether intentional or I'm still 38% of me is thinking you're making this story up. You just have a collection of bow ties at your house, which I'm totally fine with. I think I still have that one. Why wouldn't you? It's amazing.

It is amazing how people, you can go both ways with it. They'll completely dismiss you and think you are capable of anything. or you wear that to, let me see how my imagination weave together, a yacht party. I don't know what, and they'll think you're a multi-million dollar CEO, right? So you can go so far over the edge and they will think you're capable of so much more or completely ignore you in that moment based off of what you. And we're also susceptible of that too. Yep.

Yep. So, and now, I mean, it's just a plug for people to buy the book because you can't see the picture unless you buy the book. I mean, I'll put this thing right up on the internet right now. Now. So. But yeah, book was good. Book was good.

I really enjoyed the process of it. I wish I knew, and I know you just wrote yours, you know. Listen to your process, too. Yeah, I'm excited to read yours, man. Don't get your hopes at try, you know. You're hit a 10. Let's get you back at about a four. I wish I had the information now that I had when I was writing that.

Like, I didn't know what an ISPN number was. I didn't know that I had a 10 pack of them. I didn't know. Like, you know, I self-published thing. the lore because nobody knows who the fuck Matt Griffin is. And so like, you know, I remember reaching out the publisher, they're like, yeah, we don't know who you are. Like we don't really care.

I'm like, okay. And now I'm so glad I did because I'm able to bring my book anywhere, bring them to conferences and, you know, I can kind of control it a little bit. Yeah. But, but yeah, it was a good process. And now going into my second book, I got all the chapters lined up,

the journey to I've again and what I did with that. And the documentary is gonna come out soon. So Trevor gave me the ability to finish film, Slater, who was down at Ambio. He took a lot of great videos for me. So I just had Jonathan on two weeks ago. Oh, you did? Yeah, he was great.

Okay. So I never met him. So Marcus connected me with Trevor. And I remember I'd never heard of Ivy Game before until a year ago when I was on his show. And actually, I'm like, spell it for me. Like, I've never heard of this. And I had some turmoil at home with my autistic son. And I said, well, if he's going to, if he's going to, if he's going to, if he's going to

work on himself, I've got to work on myself too. Because, you know, healing is not linear. Like, just because I speak about trauma doesn't mean that it's not going to hit me and I got to continue to work on myself. And so that's a, which is a dark night in December where I reached out to, you know, to Melody and Marcus and they connected me with Trevor and I was ready to go. And so in March, I went down and the blessing, Trevor gave me the ability to film and to March of this year. March of this year. Okay, so this is fresh. Yeah, March. Very fresh. And, you know, and I was, I tried to be really respectful of the process, too, because I really didn't know what was going to happen. I did the pre-integration and everything else, but, I mean, I was a battle.

That was an absolute battle. That's what I've heard from a lot of people. So here's, and this is the only way I can describe it. So, like, when you do, I've done all the different, like I've done EMDR, I've done ART, which is like a cellular resolution where you can change. So ART is pretty cool. Like your brain doesn't know the difference between a real memory and a fault and a fake memory. So you can, really?

Yeah, it's called ART. It's pretty bad. It's not going to change. who died, who delivered, and things like that, but you can change your response. You can create like a director's cut, which is pretty badass, right? And I like that. And so I've done all these different things, but the biggest issue I had with all of these different modalities is that somebody was guiding them.

And so when you read people really well and like your survival is based on reading people, you kind of know what they want you to say. And so I always felt like I had a balance. Like, all right, cool. Like it's, you know, it's Friday and here's my, I can either be here for an hour. I'm not going to be here for two hours. But I say what I really want to say, what I should say,

I'm going to be here for two hours. Or in a rubber room. Right, exactly. Or being in an unfit for doing. Extended stay, non-consensual. And the thing about Iva gain is that it's you against you. You take your four pills, your four doses,

and you're in the recovery or the therapy room for the next 12 hours. Man, it's you against you. Your brain goes, and everybody's like all these visions and everything else. And like, I'm only going to speak from me. I don't, you know,

everybody's journey is different. But for me, I think the visions, I had all these expectations of where, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to talk to Brian. I wanted to talk to Benny Jr. You know, I wanted all these different things to have my father passed away in 24 and I wanted to talk to him. And I didn't get any of that. What I got was everything that I needed.

And from the moment from 10 p.m. until noon the next day, I felt like I was, I was an egg that got smashed on the ground. And all the pieces just over the next month, two months just started being put back together. And I've had no desire for alcohol. I've had no desire for lust. That's the first time that I said that, man. My burn sheet, like, I've struggled with that in my life. And that's been a hard thing for me to, I don't even know why. I just said that.

I haven't said. So lust was a big thing for me. We're all people, man. Yeah. And, I mean, what's the actual definition of lust? Yeah. I mean, I know what it is for me and I know what I struggle with. Yeah.

And those, you know, and everybody's dealing with shit. Yeah. I think the fact that you can say that is a very positive sign. Yeah. And I wanted to let go of the identity that I created that didn't serve me. And then the last, the fourth thing on my burner sheet was to let go of anything per separating me from my relationship with God. And I remember going through it. And I remember kind of being disappointed with some of the visions.

I'm like, well, like, I felt like I was just battling, right? Because it's dual action. So you take off the mask and you're like, I'm a macrubre. and I'm hearing, I'm hearing, I'm hearing, like, so you know where you're at. And then, and then, like, for me, it was like taking the elevator down. So I'm taking the elevator around. Like, all right, let's go. Let's go some places.

Go, let's go do this. Let's fucking go. And it was like, all right, like, where are we? And the biggest thing for me was at the end of it, like they call it purging. Like, I just call it vomiting, man. Like, it's probably the most, most intense vomiting you'll ever hear in your life. Like, I feel like, was everybody vomiting on ID? Yeah.

I mean, I felt like I heard everybody. vomit. Jonathan didn't bring up that part. Dude, I'll tell you, it is not vomiting. Do you mean the end of the ride, everybody? No, at the beginning of the ride. Really? Yeah, so they call it purging, right?

Post pills, though? Yeah, post pills. Post pills. So burn ceremony was eight. You take your first at the burn ceremony, right? So that's your flood dose. 845, you take your next one, 915 and 945. So you take four doses.

And then you go at 10 p.m. You go down to the therapy room. And you're there for the night. They got crazy-ass music going, the beady music and everything else. just chaos. You got you got a rattle. I broke my rattle. I'm rattling. And like, so again, I feel like I'm in decent shape. Some of the other guys weren't in good shape. So I felt like my body was metabolizing it. So like when we walked from the living room down to the therapy room, like I kind of felt like I was drunk. I'm like, oh shit, like this is hitting now. So I'm shaking

the fucking rattle, bro. And the rice is coming out. And I'm thinking I'm envisioning the rattle, the rice coming out. And so I'm shaking it. Rice is flying everywhere. They come over like. here's a new rattle. But so I mean, I was right off the rip. I was out. And my buddy next to me, he vomited first. And when I tell you, like, he missed the bucket. Give a bucket next to you.

He missed it. It was all over the place. He was just talking to dinosaurs. Just braw. Dude. And I'm telling, like, when I finally purged, I felt like I was ripping my esophagus out of my belly. Like, it was not like.

This is why they leave it out of the description. Yeah, that's probably why they leave it out. Yeah. I wouldn't put that in the marketing material. No. No, but it was. probably the hardest I've ever vomited in my life when I finally let go. If I had to do it again, and I don't know if it's some, I may do it again at some point because I, I feel like I could,

I feel like it gave me so much. I feel like I could go down and now that I, all this, if I was to do it again, I would have purged sooner. So I was a big into the breath work. Is that part of the entry into the ride for lack of a better term? No. It's just a physiological reaction to the idea. It's a physiological reaction, at least it was for me. And so like, I was a big, I've always been big in the breath work. So like, you know, on the SWAT team, like, we go to the house, like, just box breathing. Every time I go to speak, box breathing before I get in. And so I don't know if I, if I go back, I'm going to purge earlier on.

The moment I would have any type, like I felt like I was going to go, I would take my mask off and like, all right, I'm going to box this out. And I would box breathing and I would get through. Did it just feel like general nausea? Yeah. Like you want it like if, so you have, you're a tactic too. So like as you move your head, so you can't walk to the bathroom. Somebody's got to care. Like essentially like, you just got to look down and close your eyes and they got to walk into

the bathroom because you're a taxi, which basically means like you're not drunk, but like your eyes are here and you move here and you move back here and you're stay over here for a second. And then you're back here, your eyes stay over here for a second. Yeah, totally. You're on the ride. Yeah. So, and you're just, there's no equilibrium. And so you don't want to move. And if you know, you know, you know if you do move, it's going to come. So like, you're just kind of, at least for me, I would just box, breathe this out. And so every time I got that, I would take my mask off. I'm like, all right, four seconds in. So I'm doing it back and forth. And I'm like, well, fuck, like, how long am I doing it. I had no concept of time. So when I finally purged, I don't know when it was, I was like,

I'm done. I can't hold this anymore. I'm just going to let it go. That's the moment that like, everything started really started to happen for me. So when I put the mask, I purged and I didn't have anything to bail out of. So like, you bail out, take your mask off. I'm like, okay, I know where I'm at. For me, I put the mask on, the elevator would take me down. And then I started to feel sick. Like, you know, so when I finally, when I finally did that, the elevator would go down and I had a conversation with Jesus. And I called him Ivan because I thought it was just like the Ibegain and I didn't want to say Ivigand because it's tough word to say. So I called him Ivan at the time. It was just, but anyway, he wasn't wearing. I don't know. Like you couldn't, I couldn't see him as a person. It was like more just

kind of like almost like a feeling of thought. Like and the only thing for me that was live action was for better for worse like in the therapy room like you had the nurses station all the way over here. And I'm always tucked into the back corner by the fireplace. They had two candles in the fireplace. I felt like it was a fucking bonfire. Really? Yeah. And every time I took out my mess, I'm like, I can't look over there. Like, I feel like it's going to burn me.

Wow. But there are squares, kind of like, there's squares in the wall. Those squares turned into a combination of a word search and wheel of fortune. And so my conversation with Jesus went like this. And I'll paraphrase it because I know we're probably at four hours for this podcast right now. But I'll paraphrase it. Most of my life, I've always said, like I grew up Irish Catholic. And after Benny Jr., I really kind of investigated my faith.

I was a detective. I'm like, all right, I'm going to investigate my faith. And so I'd always say to people, yeah, man, I got a relationship with Jesus. Wherever I go, he rides shotgun in my car. They're just kind of one of the things that I'd always said. And as we get into the end of the journey with Ibegain, the voice, the feeling was, hey, man, it's not your car. and you're not the one driving. If you want to go where I'm going,

you need to get my car. If you want to keep driving and go, you know, but I'm not the one that's riding a shotgun in your car. You're the one driving. You're the one choosing where you want to go. You're the one competing with everybody. That's where you are.

And from that, I took my mask off, right? I was like, that hit me hard because I was the one driving choosing the coach. locate, I was always comparing myself. And that's basically what he, and so as I took my mask off on the wall, there's all these different letters. And the word aware came up. And I was able to pick it out.

And so the A and the E fell off. And what was left with war. And without the mask on, I felt like Jesus was saying to me, you've been at war with yourself and your decisions that you've made with Benny Jr. with Brian with everybody else. you've been at war with yourself for the longest time. A war ends today. Brought the A and the E down and it was a war ends. And you're like, the war ends today.

Let it go. Whether you made a good decision or a bad decision in the past, regret and shame is from the devil, you make your decisions based on being aware today. Be aware of the blessings that I've given you. Be aware of every ounce of food I put on your table, every clothing in your back, every ounce of electricity that powers your house. Be aware of those blessings. Stop saying you're present.

Like stop being unauthentic with that stupid present bullshit like oh I'm present I'm trying to be more present like stop being that be aware just be aware of everybody in your life your four beautiful boys your autistic son your your your current girlfriend like all be so aware of how many blessings that I've given you and he said your war is over and number one and two on the burn sheet he said lust and alcohol he said he said you purge those out Unless you go back to them, you won't have a problem. He said, your identity, said number three, which is my identity. He said, your identity has been white, choose wisely. And that gets me emotional to say because I didn't really know what he meant in that, in that moment. And I'm starting to feel that now. And I'm starting to work through that a lot on the back end here. And I still, I'm still writing a lot and journaling a lot about choosing wisely on my identity,

who I want to be for this next 47 years, if I'm blessed enough to have another 47. And then number four, he said, which. which was, you know, take away anything that keeps me from you. And he said, one and two are really going to help with that. So let's start there. And then he said, I'll see you again. And that, but the choose wisely part, I still don't, I still don't have a good grasp on that. What I, what I do believe, at least a portion of that was I had performed for my whole life to get my worth, from my value. And we talked a little bit about that from the identity, but I was always performing and I wasn't being authentic to who I was. And my value was

on how good of a speaker I was, how good of an undercover cop I was, and just trying to show up with value and not matching other people's energy. Just be exactly who you are, what I bless you with, and be aware of all that blessing. And go about your day like that

and watch what happens to you. And so far, man, it's only been two and a half, almost eight weeks, and man, it has made all the difference in the world so far. I'm still choosing wisely. And I'm still very cautious on what and how I do. like I've met with multiple different counselors. I've also just done a lot of internal searching on what and who I want to be for my children.

My 12-year-old said to me the other day, we're out lunch with a friend. And my friend was like, you know, what do you think? And I said, you know, I feel like, I feel like it's been a really good process for me. And Micah, my baby, he said, my dad has not raised his voice once since he's been home. And I didn't even notice that. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm Irish Catholic. Like if I'm gonna tell you one time to take out the trash like the second time it's gonna be loud

It's gonna be their a door may come off the hinges that's just who I used to be and yeah I don't have that anymore like it's not it's not in me like that anger is not there anymore and But I don't know you know and I'm gonna keep going with that and I just feel like It needs to be said more that I began can help man because I went down there a full cynic that this was gonna help and there was six other first responders that I went with and every one of them is feeling the same way. We keep, we keep up a lot. I'll be curious to see where you land with the identity piece as you put work into it. I, uh, I wonder what's more valuable, understanding your identity or understanding your purpose. Mm. You know, and that's a great point because I was right. Well, identity is tough, right? Because I think that is almost always tied to a title. And I don't know

what I want to do with the rest of them. I truly don't. Well, I take that back. I know exactly. I know exactly. exactly what I want to do the rest of my life. I don't know how. I don't know if that is a name tag or a hat or a uniform. I just, I want to be a value add to the world around me. How I do that,

I don't know as is as important. Yeah. And if I am prescriptive in the how, I think that leads me to a boxed in identity. And I don't, I don't want to be that. Yeah. Or have that.

Powerful. Because I don't think it matters. I think the purpose matters more than the identity. And think about this, right? And that's just such a powerful statement because think about what you just said. Like, I want purpose. Yeah. And we had purpose.

Whether it was, you know, for you, the team, for me being an undercover cop and team, right? Like, I had purpose. I had clarity. I had mission. And I had a team. You leave that. And guess what goes away? Well, until you think.

figure out how to provide it for yourself. Right. Because in the environments you described, it was largely boundaryed by a machine that was run and managed by other people. And that's totally okay. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But if you spend your formative years in that machine and you get used to solving problems, you leave that machine and you realize you have to find your own problems to solve.

And that is a jarring, jarring jump between the two. And it took me years to figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. It's powerful though, right? Like to like, you know, we leave this job or we leave this profession and we love that purpose. We love that mission.

We love that clarity. We love that team. We love, you know, like I say like, like I don't miss the job. I miss who I was on the job. Yeah. You know? And like if you asked me who I was for the longest time, it was a patch. It was a star swimmer.

It was an undercover cop. And the process, I think for me, the process is trying to figure out not who are trying to be like I still don't yeah it's a tough one it is because I don't who I want to be I care more about how I am yeah and how I and because who do I want to be that that leads me to this place of a baker I cook I bake cookies or it leads you back to a role no it's a title yeah and I don't like that yeah um my life looks so different than when I was in the military yeah And all the things I do now, I would have never guessed that I was going to do when I was in. And I enjoy being in that place now because I still don't know where it's going.

Sure. And that's okay. Because I know how I want to conduct myself as a person along the way. Yeah. And that's what I focus on. Not, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm spitballing this in real time.

I've never had this conversation. So I don't know the right answer. But I'm very hesitant when people ask me, you know, hey, what do you? I'm like, I own a coffee shop. It's the easiest. But it's a great. Yeah. They say, how's that going?

And I say, it's great to sell an addictive product. And I say, oh, that does sound about right. You know? But that isn't who I am. Right. How I conduct myself, though, and, you know, and the how's of who I am and how I show up. That's what's important to me. I don't give a shit about the how you show up.

Yeah. I love that. But that's not, I mean, that's not identity to me. Because if you sell, I don't know why I keep using the term baker. By the way, I have watched a lot of the great British Bakeoffs. not a big deal. Prue just left the show. Prue has drifted just left the show. I'm emotionally still getting myself there. But then there's some weird expectation, fill in the blank with any job title. There's some weird expectation of what people think you're going to be like or what you may

like or who you're going to be or behaviors. I'm not interested in any of that. Yeah. So yeah, I don't put any effort into the destination. One of the things where like when I've been I've been journal and obviously a lot and one of the things like is I started re-examining you know each day so like I go 24 hours but 24 hours and I started looking at it's 24 hours less like this is this is so like like the evolution of time for me has been a big big deal right I had no concept of time while I was on on my journey I had no watch I didn't know if we were allowed to ask what time it was like other guys asked like hey what time is it's like I didn't know we were allowed to do that so I I didn't know if it was 12 midnight or if it was 11 a.m. Right. There's no, there's no light in there. You have

no idea. So I didn't know if I was on this journey for, I didn't know if like, I was the last one to leave the therapy room. When I finally like kind of came to, I looked around. Everybody else is upstairs having, having watermelon like smoothies and shit and like enjoying life. And I'm like, why didn't you have to wake me up, man? Like I'm, I'm hungry too. But I think that for me, like it was, it's just been one less day. And and that's kind of changed a little bit of how I, how I go about things, right? And, you know, let's say it's 57 for me, right? If I, if, you know, for example, my mom, my mom's 86 years old. And if I see my mom, let's say I see her twice a year. And let's say she lives another 10 years. Let's say she lives still 96. That means that I only

have 20 more time to see my mom. That's a hard thing to say. But that also gives you the ability to kind of look at like how you live in your life and what you want to do with it. And that's a, I think that for me is an important aspect to it. You know, I wasn't a good father when my boys, when I was, I mean, when I was the UC guy that was running around, like, I wasn't a good father. I missed a lot of lacrosse games. I missed a lot of football games. I missed a lot of strings concerts.

You know, I wasn't the dad that I needed to be. And now I'm trying really hard to do that. And you know what? It's a lot of sometimes I've got to eat my own, my own shit sandwich because I, I, I'm sleeping in the bed that I made. And, you know, as much as I want to be that father that. that, hey, listen, you need to listen to me. Well, you know what?

I wasn't here to discipline you early on. So now I'm sleeping with what I made. You got to cash the checks you wrote, man. Right. And so I've got to eat that humble pie and say, man, I'm going to work every day to be the best version of myself to be the best father, the best person, the best, you know, the, you know, and I look back and I like, nobody remembers how much dope I seized. Nobody remembers how much, how many arrests I made. what they remember is how I treated them. And, like, thinking about that is a big deal to me.

Because if I can be the best father and I can leave a legacy through my children, that's really important to me. And I don't want my legacy to be, he was, he was a great undercover cop, but he was a shitty dad. Like, that's a shitty legacy to leave. I would much rather than say, he was a shitty cop, but he was a great fucking dad. And once you make that decision, man, that's, I mean, I'll sleep with that all day. You know, he was a great fucking dad. Like, I'll sleep with that.

That's no problem because, you know, nobody remembers how many arrests you made. But I promise you, my legacy with my children are going to live on. It's the difference between what you did and who you are. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm choosing wisely. Do you do the 5MEO DMT? So here's, I did.

And you know what? This was the medicine for me. And it took me a long time to, not a long time, this took me, have you ever met Slider? No. Okay. So, so Mark Keller, he goes by the name Slider. He is, he's just an amazing man. Navy pilot, works for MBO.

And so me and him just mine were out of the get-go. And so I got down there. So 5MEO, I have this breakthrough with I began, right? I have this conversation with Jesus. I woke up at like 1 a.m. and the Ataxia was gone and I'm eating a cinnamon bun for the first time

and I have it on video I'm like this fucking cinnamon bun is amazing like it is the best thing like the smile's ear to ear and like my beard's up here my hair's all over the place and so the next day is it's 5MEO

and I was terrified of this people were like this is a rocket ship from what I heard dude somebody like I had a vision in my head that I was going to be strapped to a rocket ship I was going to hit the sun and I was going to be fucking rainbows and unicorn like coming out of that.

That's what I thought in my head. I was terrified. So I asked, I'm like, can I go first? And another guy was like, I'm going first. I'm like, all, you go first. I'm going fucking second. Somebody else was terrified. Yeah, I'm terrified of this.

So I hate it. And it zips me up. But it was a feeling. It wasn't visual. It was like a kaleidoscope of like black and white. And I'm laying there and like I can still feel my body. And I start coming back and I said, because you can do two hits.

The second hit's going to zip you out, right? Like, it's going to compound. Just straight into orbit. Straight into orbit. So I'm laying there and I'm praying. I'm like, all right, like, am I going to take the second hit? And I just felt like, all right, like, I think I'm good. Like, I'm not going to hit the second hit.

So Slaughter comes and he's like, you're like, hey, dude, like you're back in your body? I said, yeah, you want the second hit? I said, no, I think I'm good. You're like, you sure? I say, yeah, I think I'm good. And I get down to bring somebody else down and I immediately regretted it. Immediately felt like I bailed out of myself. Like I spent all this money to come down here.

I spent all this money to do this shit. And I just fucking bailed out on myself. So everything that I just learned about myself in Ibegain, all erased. And I'm in a funk. Like, so this is our last night there. That whole night, like I went off to my room. And like I'm just trying to like bring myself back into everything like that happened. And I'm going to focus back on that and not on the on the 5MU.

Yeah. And the next morning, I'm one of the last one was to pack up. A slider comes into my room. He's like, dude, you good? He's like, you're all right. I said, man, I'm not. Man, I got to be honest with you. I said, I feel like I bailed out.

I feel like a bell down on the 5MEL. He said, dude, listen to me. He said, that's what the medicine wanted you to do. And you've got to have, so there's two things in your life. You've got to have your mind's going to tell you to do something, and then your intuition is going to tell you to do something. You've got to listen to it. And so what the medicine wants you to do,

it wants you to feel what it feels like to have disappointment and to have regret. And so feel it and be part of that. And when he said that, man, it just took all of that worry away. I was like, okay, all right, cool. Like, I'm going to go with that. And honestly, that was a big deal for me because I felt like I let myself down. And so the medicine was saying, like, you're not going to take that second hit because

I want you to feel like you let yourself down. And I want you to experience that from a fresh mindset and a fresh perspective. And that was really big for me. And that's what led me into letting myself down and that performing worthiness that I was able to kind of really carve out for myself from an identity standpoint. And I was so locked in that I bailed on myself and that I didn't get the most out of it. And, you know, and that was a big deal for me because I felt really regretful when it happened. And, you know, I don't know if I'll ever go back to do it again and whatnot.

But like I needed to feel what it felt like to let myself down and I need to explore that emotion. Because, you know, when you're, when you're a high performing person and you don't hit it and you don't hit the mark, whether it's a quota in sales, whether it's, whether it's, whether it's, whether it's, life, whether it's whatever you do and you don't hit it, how you deal with yourself when you let yourself down is a big deal for us in our community and what we do. And I had to earn that and I had to sit with that. And that was probably one of the biggest benefits of the week is sitting with the letting myself down and how I'm going to go forward with that because no longer having to perform for it and really looking into myself on who I am and what I'm about, like that was huge for me and it's really helped me to move forward in my life to what's important.

Nobody's going to want to hear that. They're going to want to hear, you figure out who you are after your greatest success. No, it's more when you figure out when you fall short, you are looking in the mirror. That's right. And that hurts a lot more than success. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's failure is an opportunity to learn what didn't work.

Yeah. Everybody celebrates success. But, you know. Which you should. You should celebrate your successes as well. I just think there's more to be learned in the failures. Absolutely. I mean, got to.

Yeah. You know, and again, it's how you look at that. Did you, is it, is it really a failure or is it an opportunity to learn what didn't work? Is it an obstacle or is it an opportunity? Is it pain or is it progress? Those are the choices that you make every day. It's how you go about the mindset that you have going into, the perspective that you go into it and look at it and say, okay, cool, I can, I can, I can do this a different way. That was a failure.

It just showed me, all right, that shit didn't work. You know, I've had, I've had own team businesses in my life that have failed. failed. You know, and not to say that my speaking business is succeeding, but, you know, every time... You seem to be doing a lot of speaking, so I think you're doing okay. I'm sitting right here with the man. And, you know, every one of those businesses, I learned how to file for an LLC. I learned how to create a website. I learned how to market. I learned how to, you know, do social media. And I'm never going to pay for followers. I'm never going to do the things that I learned early on. Like, the people that follow me, we engage with each other. And it's a community of people that I love

but they love me and we talk. And like, it's just, it's successful because it, because it means a lot. And it's not fake. It's authentic and it's real. And I love that aspect, you know. Those are all learning lessons that I got from failing before. Yeah. One of the very common trappings that I see in the digital world that we live in is people pursuing the size of the community or audience.

People can interchange whatever word that they want to. I think the connectedness is way more important than the size. Yeah. If you had a million followers, but no connection to any of them. And they're just observers. Maybe you live a wildly extravagant life, which if you do, awesome.

Awesome. And if you're putting that out of mind, great. Yep. And for you, social media is purely an expressive outlet. Fantastic. I'm not here to judge anybody's life. But if you gave me a choice between that or 10,000 people, that you were actually connected with.

I'm going with the 10,000. All day long. Every day. Dude, because you know what? Like, coming back from Ivigaine in a first responder community that has never heard the word before, guys have come out of the wool works

that I haven't seen or heard from in six, seven years, hey, dude, when you get back in a king, any chance we can sit down and have a cup of coffee, I want to hear about it. That shit would be buried inside of, inside of, you know, fake followers or a botch or whatever. You know, it's, it's unbelievable how many people have come out like hey i need to i need to learn a little bit more

about that you know i also had to protect myself a little bit too because i still wasn't sure how i want i want to be respectful to the medicine respectful to Trevor and ambio and everything else i don't want to tell people hey this is what it is because i still don't know you know just talk about your experience right and i say like you know one of the things i say now like how much do you want to know because people are genuinely curious and and but they don't need to hear that you know i bailed out on 5MEO. They don't need to hear, you know. So, but man, it's just, it's, it's just really showed me how many people are struggling in the first responder community and where, you know, I'm, I'm so grateful that Trump or President Trump signed the executive order to, to, to expedite.

I still, I still think we're five years off. I was talking with Jonathan about that. He was less fired up than I thought. Yeah. And for rightful reasons. Yeah. Five might even be a Aggressive? Aggressive. I really hope that executive order wasn't peacocking. Yeah. Because it is a great headline. Yeah.

But if anybody reads that and thinks this stuff is going to be available, it's not. There is a very long path that it has to take. And I hope that it helps too. I'm not even going to sit here and pretend that I understand any aspect of that system or the power of an executive order. Right. Right. Again, same. Same. No clue. I hope it helps and I hope it wasn't peacocking.

Yeah. But what I can say that it did was it opened up a lot of conversations. And I think that's the powerful aspect of it. And from that, I think a lot of the places that are available like transcend and Ambio and Mission Within. And there's a lot of places that are down there that have openings and have time. And there's a lot of there's a lot more around it now. that's a lot more availability because of those conversations now. And I think that's great. And I think if we can move that into the first responder community,

and I think it's going to help out a lot. I really do, man. And, you know, one of the things that I'm working on is, you know, and you appreciate this, man, we got out of the military, we had tap classes. And, you know, when you get out of law enforcement, you might have had tab classes. You didn't get tap, yeah.

I got all the signatures. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'd sit there for two weeks, man. Yeah, me too. Yeah. But in Long Force of Man, you get a sandwich platter and folded flag, and then they restrict your assets. They walk you out.

I thought you'd get a watch, too. No, I wish. Trash. Yeah, it is trash. Some shit time. It's like 50 bucks. Oh, yeah. And they shut down your access card at much.

So you can't even come in the back door anymore, man. I just spent 25 years here or whatever it is for these guys. And so what I was putting together is what's called tag. So the tap tag, transition assistance, guidance. And just talking a little bit about what life looks like on the other side. You know, so many guys have this vision of what's going to happen when they turn 50. It's just not that. You know, you've got to build a resume.

You've got to look at what jobs are out there and what you can do and what you can't do. And what's, you know, from an identity standpoint, too, but also from, you know, there's so many questions I had. And nobody answers those questions because the moment you walk out that door, you're not relevant anymore. You're not part of your phone's not ringing off the hook because you're not the SWAT commander anymore. you're not the undercover guy, you're not the midnight, you know, lieutenant. And you're kind of left your own devices. Also, start looking for those answers before you get out. Right, right.

I'm not saying don't do your job. Yeah. Crush your job, whatever it is, but. Prepare it. Yep, just prepare. Yeah. Have your kids read the book? What's that?

Have your kids read the book? Yeah. Yeah, my older ones. My 21 and my 18. I don't know my 18. We've talked a little bit about it. My 21-year-old definitely has. And we talked about it.

He, uh, it's, it's helped our relationship a lot. So he took the brunt of a lot of it. So he's, he's a great kid, man. He's down at Florida Tech. He's going to be an aerospace engineer. And man, he, uh, he was a finalist for an internship going into a senior year. And he didn't get it. They actually told him he was too experienced.

I'm like, ah, but, um, great kid, man. One of the smartest, sharpest kids you'll ever meet. Um, he, he got the brunt of it, man, because he was, you know, he was 10 to 12, 14 years old during this time. He's in the process of becoming a man and I failed him. And before I left law enforcement, I remember asking him, I said, man, you okay with daddy? He's not a cop anymore and I'll never forget this. He looked at me and he said, I just want you to be happy again. And that broke me, you know, for a kid to see that, right?

And I think you always think that you hide all these things. You hide the arguments between mom. You hide all. No, no, you think. You think you do. And he saw it all. And man, he is one of my biggest. biggest advocates now. And I got an 18-year-old and a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old. And 14-12 have not.

Probably for the better. Yeah, probably. Give him a little bit of time. Yeah. Yep. But we, I mean, we have a lot of real talk. And we talk about, we talk about life. We talk about obstacles. We talk about the things that are going to, you know, that are going to present themselves. I mean, my autistic son, he struggled with some bullying. My 18-year-old struggled with that as well. And you've got to have real conversations. And if I sit here and I say, well, don't be like Susie, don't get like John here, don't be like this person, right? Then if they are, they're not going to come to me and talk. So let's have an honest conversation about what that looks like for you going forward and just know that I've been there, I've done it, I've been down

bad past, I understand what that looks like. And all I'm asking you to do is just give me a shot to talk to you and help you out. And I know I wasn't there, but I'm here. And I'm going to continuously be here. And my phone's always going to be on. And I'm going to be a good dad. And even sometimes it's going to hurt, you know, like I'm struggling a little bit with my autistic son now, but I can't stand by. And, and, and, and, you know, I'm, and, you you know, allow, I got to be, I got to, I got to, I got to, I got to, I got to, I got to, I got to, I can't allow him to do certain things and create narratives. And, and he can, he can hurt, you know, kids can hurt you know, but just what my past was is not, you know, it's not my present. And I got to

remember that. Yeah. So, so, so second book, when's it coming out? I don't know. I have all the chapter's ready so the documentary uh the journey to i began on youtube uh and my socials we're trying i really wanted it for here we got the trailer release so you got to take a look at that okay um and i thought i thought that came out really good so my girlfriend is the executive producer for newsday in new york city so she's one like emmy she's phenomenal so she's helped out a lot with it and uh we got did all the interviews uh one of the guys that i went down with he had some major tbi as a firefighter he actually went down and did down in Virginia Beach there's a there's guys that I think you know they do m-E-R-T it's like a magnetic something I'll I'll tell you the name well okay he sent me the name

so we interviewed him as well because when he came back his brain scans completely different and so that was really powerful and then and then just the process so all the interviews are done all the films done we just got to cut it put in certain places and then we'll have a couple A couple rounds. It's a documentary before a book. Yes, documentary for the book. And then I created from that as I've worked through. So again, like I'm a writer.

I like to write. I feel like it's powerful. So what I did was I created an eight-week identity reconstruction manual how I followed it through. Like week number one, like let's name what type of person I am, what I did and who I was and, you know, that kind of stuff. And each week had a different theme. And so I created that to combo with the documentary or also just to use. and, you know, as you transition out. So that's the first step.

And I kind of, I take on a lot of things. Like, I'm one of those people like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. Like, on the way here, I was thinking, I was like, man, I had this vision of like, of like creating a stage performance of me having the conversation, me as one person, me as me as Matt, and then me as, you know, the Ivan or Jesus. Like, creating it. It's just how my brain goes. I got to focus on one thing in a time and get it, get those.

things are knocked out but um documentary first workbook attached to that and then um and then and then we'll then we'll go to the book because a book will be a i really want to take my time with that again document is only going to be 45 minutes 55 minutes i want to give first responders the ability to say okay cool what is i again where do i get it what does it look like to go down there i wouldn't have gone without without understanding all those things and i really needed to understand what it was because again i didn't know and I'm not going to go to another country to do an illegal drug without having all the knowledge and everything else. So I want to give first responders the ability to have that knowledge before they sign the check,

seven, four, five, six grand, whatever it is to go down there. So I want them to have that and then I want to take my time. And I think that's going to be powerful to, you know, over the next year to really look at, all right, did I continue to not drink? Did I continue to not have any desire for alcohol? Did I continue to not have any lustful actions in my head and body? and, you know, how has my relationship been with Jesus? Did I did?

It has anger stayed away from me, have all these different things. And I think that will be powerful to say, okay, cool. In a year from now, that's what it looked like. And here's what happened. Here's what didn't happen. So that'll be the next thing. Obviously, there'll be a third book where are you going to journey to. It's going to be the journey to somewhere.

It's got to be, right? Got to be. You know, but I, you know, the journey to midnight and then midnight to medicine. So, like, medicine to what? Like, it's got to be something like, medicine to like skydiving, like near skydive. I've actually never caught a fish either. So maybe... Have you ever been fishing?

So I've been fishing twice. And I got... Ben took me. My... Ben from... He took me twice, man. And a... And a fish hit my...

Hit my bait. And he's screaming, set the hook. I'm like, the fuck does that mean? So I didn't know that. Like, nobody told me that. So I'm like, set the hook. And by the time he said, real back. Too late.

It was done, man. He already snacks and took off. Yep. It'll be the journey to somewhere. Yeah. Cool. Yep. We'll be on it for almost three hours.

How can people find you? Author Matthew Griffin across Instagram and Facebook. And then MatthewAgriffin.com is my website. My cell phone number's on there. My email's on. Ballsy. Yeah. I mean, honestly, you know, I'll give a shout out to a guy named Bert.

I've never met Bert. I've never met his. I don't know his last name, but he called me maybe a month or two ago. And if it doesn't say spam likely, I'm going to pick it up. And I picked it up. And he's like, oh, ha. He's like, you said you would answer. And I do.

and he said, man, I'm having a hard time. And we talked for 20 minutes. You know what was really a blessing behind that is I was cooking dinner for my boys and they got to hear the conversation. That's cool. And I didn't even see that, but my age, you know, I was like, wow, Dad. Like, that was pretty awesome, man. And I'll hold space for anybody.

You know, I just don't want the same situation having with Brian to them. So, yeah, Matthew A.griffin.com. and then the book is called The Journey to Midnight, and that's all my socials. Cool. What do you want to leave people with, man? It's okay to not be okay. It's just not okay to stay that way.

You know, if you're in a bad season, know that you can make it to Wednesday. Split a pitch of Bud Watcher. Check on your friends. Know that if someone that gives you a date, check on them. You never know what you can. You just tell them, hey, there's light at the end of the tunnel. And just most importantly, man, there's hope.

You know, if you tried everything else out there, I begin is not for everybody, but it was for me. And if you tried everything else and you lost hope, give it a shot, give me a call. You know, I'll tell you about my experience. And I hope that you give it a shot, man. There's hope out there for you. Yeah, don't let the economics be the barrier either.

There are ways and programs that people can help. Absolutely. Don't sit there and say to yourself, I can't afford it. So I'm not even going to try. That's a total fucking cop out. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. That's it, man. There's light at the end of the tunnel. And I hope people see from this conversation that there's hope. And I'm proof of that nine years ago. I had $1.13 in my checking account. I'm here in Montana. And I'm just, I'm blessed and grateful. With a shirt and underwear.

No bowtie, though. I don't know if I would have had you on if you caught you in a butt and been like, nope, this dude is not. Psychopaths radar going off. You don't often see people. It puts the lotion on his skin. I mean, how many bow ties do you see in day-to-day life? You just don't see them. You don't see it. Yep. But the person you're imagining in your mind's eye with the bow tie is the person you see wearing one.

That's right. That's right. Yep. Yep. Michael, who was the last time you saw somebody in a bow tie? Man, I don't know. Have you ever? He's never left Montana.

Have you ever worn a bow tie? I have worn a bow tie. You did? See, that's what I'm talking about. I feel like prom or something. Yep. Damn right you did. If I got you one, could I force you to wear it for shows?

I guess. Clip on a real one. Well, if we didn't get a real one, it would never look like a bow tie. I don't care how many YouTube videos you'd watch on how to tie a bow tie. Yeah, it's fucking tough, man. I don't know how we go off track. Thank you for making the trip out, though. Thank you very much for having me.

It's been really grateful. My pleasure, man.