Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #305 Finding a Path Forward w/ Jonny Wilson

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Jonny Wilson is another fresh face to the show. He found out as a teenager visiting his dad in Saudi Arabia that he wanted to be a Navy Seal. He accomplished that goal and thrived there. Following that stint, he discharged and was introduced to finance at the prestigious Goldman Sachs under the guise of it being like “the teams”. After losing a buddy from the service, Jonny was called back into the teams to keep contributing. Following his next exit from the teams, he was called to create a nonprofit helping fellow Seals exit their service, Seal Future Foundation. Through this foundation their team is exploring and advocating for stem-cells, alternative treatments, and plant medicines as treatment for their afflictions.    ORGANIFI GIVEAWAY Keep those reviews coming in! Please drop a dope review and include your IG/Twitter handle and we’ll get together for some Organifi even faster moving forward.   Connect with Jonny: Website: INVI MindHealth - Seal Future Foundation  Instagram: @thesealfuturefoundation    Show Notes: Shawn Ryan Podcast #34 Cody Alford Spotify Apple KKP #251 Michael Higgs Spotify Apple The Mission Within Soltara Healing Center       Sponsors: Organifi Go to organifi.com/kkp to get my favorite way to easily get the most potent blend of high vibration fruits, veggies and other goodies into your diet! Click that link and use code “KKP” at checkout for 20% off your order! Ra Optics Better sleep, more melatonin, blue blocking… These guys and Matt Maruka are the best around when it comes to blue blocking glasses that look sharp. Head to RaOptics.com and use code “KKP” at checkout for 10% off.  PaleoValley Some of the best and highest quality goodies I personally get into are available at paleovalley.com, punch in code “KYLE” at checkout and get 15% off everything! Bioptimizers To get the ’Magnesium Breakthrough‘ deal exclusively for fans of the podcast, click the link below and use code word “KINGSBU10” for an additional 10% off. magbreakthrough.com/kingsbu  To Work With Kyle Kingsbury Podcast   Connect with Kyle: Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service App  Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys - @gardenersofeden.earth  Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod  Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site    Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn’t.

Welcome back to the show, everybody. Oh, there's that stretch. Friday morning here. Day after I just podcasted. Well, I don't know who to say I just podcasted with. I just, just podcasted with Robert Forte, who will be next week's show. Somebody I've been wanting to get on for quite some time. And then this episode, just as in yesterday,

podcasted with Johnny Wilson. Johnny Wilson is a former Navy SEAL. He's a, we have a couple of mutual friends, but one of my close friends, one of his close friends as well, Craig Nuremberg, who's listening to this podcast and is a fucking awesome human. Thank you for the intro.

Introed me to Johnny back in the day at the farm, maybe a couple of months ago. And I learned that Johnny comes through Austin every now and then. And so I figured we could get one face to face and we did. And so this is an awesome, fucking awesome interview. We dive deeply into Johnny's experience in life growing up, getting on the teams, buds, all the stuff you'd want to hear about from a SEAL. But really, you know, diving into his success post and what has really been transformative for him in that space and his wife and his family and all sorts of good shit. So, uh, I loved this podcast

with Johnny Wilson. Uh, he's doing some really fucking cool shit right now with technology and his ability to help prevent suicides among his brothers as well as help the common folk. And so I'm going to be a Guinea pig, my wife and I, uh, uh, and I, with one of his companies as common folk. I was laughing with him because I just got a SimTool watch. It's been a minute since I've run any kind of smart technology, and there's a lot of reasons for that. First and foremost, I feel like having worn an Aura and a Whoop watch side by side for years on end that I figured out what my HRV score is going to be, what my sleep score is going to be, all that stuff. I know when I'm in shape, I know when I'm out of shape, but I'm pretty fucking out of shape. And when I was in the UFC, I worked with a central watch back in the

day in their heart rate strap, uh, when I was doing altitude training and working with Victor Conti. And that was awesome. They were the, the who's who he had all of his athletes working, uh, mostly boxers at the time. But a lot of his athletes were working with their technology. And I loved it. So I said, what's the latest, greatest? The Suunto Peak 9 Pro. And of course, all the shit's estimations.

If you read Unplugged, you can see by my buddies, Dr. Andy Galpin and Brian McKenzie, you can see just how flawed a lot of the technology is. Even the best of the best technology is still flawed. But that said, it's a guesstimation, right? And so one of the things that the new Suntote watch does is it guesstimates your fitness age. So comically, I've been getting back into running since attending, um, God, Dr. Romanoff. What is it called? Pose method.com. Since attending an event with pose method, a running seminar, really, I've been excited to dive back into running and I've been running pain-free and injury-free, which is fucking bananas at 41 and being relatively out of shape,

out of shape for my own wellbeing or my own, my own standards rather. And this damn watch, I've run three days straight because I haven't fully recovered. Every time it estimates my VO2 max, and then it estimates my fitness age. And so at 41 years old, it estimated me at 49, then at 50, then at 51. And thank God I went for a walk today and it put me back at 50 years old. So I think it's comical, but it's, everybody's got to start somewhere. And I'm just pointing this out. So if you, if you get one of these things and you're like, what the fuck, man, it's been, it's been a good joke. Uh, bears, you know, my son just turned eight and he says he wants to have a birthday party for me to celebrate my 50th now. So everyone's getting a good fucking laugh out of it. But I bring up that, uh, uh, because of the fact that

Johnny's doing some really cool shit with tech that is going to save lives. And, um, and I think it's really fucking important. We dive into that at the end of this podcast, but, uh, I had such a blast with Johnny. He's he's, we didn't even get into it. I mean, it is truly these, this podcast and the next, uh, consider them teaser trailers for more conversations to come. Uh, we'll have Johnny back on. We'll have much more to discuss. He's got some really cool events, fundraisers coming up where he's going to do some wild shit. I don't even want to mention it right now, but just the thought of it makes my fucking body cringe. Um, he's done it in the past and he's doing it. He's fucking like any good former SEAL, going to ramp it up and do even more. So I'm amazed by him and truly honored to be able to

sit with him face to face and get to know him better. One of the conversations we didn't dive into is he's now homesteading on five acres in Colorado. And that's something that I really want to dive into. If you listened to last week's episode with Joel Salatin, you'll understand why I think a lot of people are getting the itch to do that. And I just want to hear the wide variety. There's a million ways you can slice that pie. There's a million ways you can decide to tend your land differently. And I'm just curious. I'm curious to know. I'm curious to share info there. He's also an avid hunter. I found out post-show. So hopefully I will be able to get, nothing would be better to me

than going on a hunting trip with Johnny and his crew and just fucking recording a podcast there. Some of my favorite podcasts with Joe Rogan are the ones in which where he's out with the guys or they just got back and they talk about, you know, all of the experiences on that trip as well as any random other thought that pops into their head.

That's really what being a fly on the wall is all about, listening to great conversations and being in the room for them. And that's what podcasting offers. So you guys are going to love this episode with Johnny Wilson. I certainly did. There are many ways you can support this show.

First and foremost, share it. Now I say this every episode. This one in particular, I'm already thinking of who to share it with because I say this every episode, this one in particular, uh, I've already, I'm already thinking of who to share it with because I, we all have friends, um, that were in armed forces and, uh, on paper, a lot of them look great. And, and a lot of them don't know about these options. A lot of them are still tied to the VA. And if you fuck off and take cannabis, for instance, um, that can disqualify you from, you from your ability to get treatment through the VA.

And a lot of the treatments through the VA, for better or worse, are standard Western American model. And those don't seem to fucking work. They absolutely do not work. They don't work for the general population and they do not work to fix anything with the people that have been in harm's way. So share it with your folks that, you know, you know, we're in armed forces, men and women, and it doesn't matter what branch they're in. It doesn't matter what level, you know, they don't have to be special operators or any of that shit. And hopefully some of this lands for them as potential options for them in the show notes. I'm going to link to, uh, the place where Johnny Wilson had his first

psychedelic experience I have had. And I, and I fucking, I'm sorry that it pains me to realize I don't remember the gentleman's name who I interviewed or the name of the place, the facility for that matter. But I will link to it in the show notes. Jose will find it and we'll find that podcast as well because they're doing great work and proof's in the pudding with what happened with Johnny and a lot of his friends. So I believe there is access for people too who don't have military experience now at that facility. And as always, Sultara.co. Sultara is the who's who.

They are my favorite place to go for ayahuasca. They fly in Shipibo shaman trimesterly. So once every four months, they'll fly in a new couple. Corindero and Corindera that I've worked with are Amerigo and Olga. They're from Peru. Shipibo, Amerigo,

the man has been training in this and guiding people as a maestro for 29 years. His wife for 15, Olga. The only reason she has not been as long as him is because she was raising their kids. And that's a fucking fantastic reason. She put being a mom first, and now she is steeped in the medicine and every bit as magical as her counterpart. And I've heard great things about the other people that they've brought through there.

It's just a very well held, you know, top down, bottoms up place to go because you have incredible food, organic food. You have air conditioning in your room. It's easier to get to than Peru. And, you know, their board, it consists of guys like Dennis McKenna and Garber Mate and their integration before, during and after is bar none, hands down the very best

that I've been able to witness and participate in. So if this stuff calls to you, depending on what is the medicine that's calling to you and depending on your history of psychedelics, you can select. And that's really cool. There are options, but you want to make sure those options are vetted by someone you trust, by many people, hopefully, who you trust that have been there. And I can't speak highly enough about Sultara. And even though I'm drawing a blank on the name still, I know the place that Johnny went to has a lot of credibility. share it with friends. Number two, support our sponsors. They make this show fiscally possible. They put bread in my pocket so I can take the time necessary to spend all the time, not just podcasting, but researching, diving deep into the topics that I cover. Every one of these sponsors has been hand-selected either from me or my team. And if they're selected from the team, I try it first. I'll try it and I'll try it out and I'll really deep dive it the

same way I did it on it to understand, does this work? Is this something I'm about? Does it flow with the arc of what I'm trying to portray and give to people as tools that can help us along our path? And I have some of my longest sponsors here, a returning one from before in Raw Optics, but Organifi.com slash KKP. As you know, as I mentioned, every podcast, these guys are continuing all year long to hook you guys up with my favorite products at the end of each month. All you got to do is leave us a five-star rating. That's it. You go to show iTunes or Spotify, leave us a five-star rating with one or two ways the show's helped you out in life. And the better the review, the better the chance that you're going to win. That's just the nature

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magbreakthrough.com slash kingsboo. All that's in the show notes. You can one-click it and don't forget to use Kingsboo at checkout for 10% off. And without further ado, my brother, Johnny Wilson. Yeah, I got old buddies of mine, Johnny Stoltz from ASU. Okay. Johnny just has a good ring to it. Oh, yeah. You know, I got into, when I got to Goldman, people were particular about it. They're like, hey, what's your name? And I'm like, honestly, it depends on what I'm doing, man. If I'm out with the boys, having a good time, it's Johnny. If we're having a good time, I guess if we're in this setting, Jonathan.

I didn't know how to respond to that because, I mean, Allison calls me a shit ton of other things too, you know what I mean? And it makes people uncomfortable. They were like, what is your name? I was like, fuck, I don't know. It's John, Johnny, Jonathan. Just the fact that they're raising the question tells you that they've got a stick in their ass about,

about that. Right. 100%. Yeah. It's like, you wouldn't even, you wouldn't even think twice there, but,

but obviously that's a quite an uppity place to be in. So we're going to dive into that. Obviously we're going to dive into the seals and all that good stuff. But, but one of the things, you know, listen, I forget, I really wish I fucking remember the seals and all that good stuff. But, but one of the things, you know, listen, I forget,

I really wish I fucking remember the name of the guys right now. Um, there was an amazing, my buddy, Eric Vaughn, who was in the text thread that you got to meet. It was an EOD. Uh,

he sent me this awesome six hour podcast. Wow. Um, that was with, uh, uh, former, former,

former sniper. And it was fucking rad, but it was the fucking full gauntlet of this guy's career. Sure. It was really cool. Obviously, we don't have six hours, but one of the things I appreciated about that podcast was he really talked about his upbringing,

and I think it was like Tom Berringer's sniper movie where he was like, I'm going to fucking do that. Yeah. Was there any moment in your childhood where you realized this is something I'm going to do, and you even knew where you were heading? Yeah. Oh, was there any moment in your childhood where you realized, like, this is something I'm going to do, and you even knew, like, where you were heading? Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

So for me, it was high school. My dad was based overseas. He was in Saudi at the time. This is obviously pre-war. This was 90s. I had my first girlfriend, and he was like, son, you're coming to visit me. It's been a year since I've seen you. And I'm like, dad, I'm back in Tennessee.

Like, we've got barn parties. It's summertime, first year of school. I got my first girlfriend. He's like, I'm not coming to visit me. It's been a year since I've seen you. And I'm like, dad, I'm back in Tennessee. Like we've got barn parties. It's summertime, first year of school. I got my first girlfriend. He's like, I'm not coming to see you. I lost that battle, obviously. And he sent the ticket because we're not, obviously, back in the 90s. Old school, yeah. Yeah, so I got the ticket, and I was like, god dang, here we go.

So being the teenage boy that I was, pissed off. I show up to Saudi, and I'm just being a dick to him the whole time, like just ignoring him, like trying to let him know, like, I didn't want to be here. That trip changed the course for me. Like that is the trip that set me down this path. So day one, asshole, he's introducing me to everybody, letting me be the egotistical prick that I was at 14 or however old I was.

Day two, same thing. Day three, I drive onto the base, and I look to the right, and this gate's closing. It's a blacked out wire gate. And I see it closing. I see all these dudes in short shorts, no shirts, jack tattoos, beards. I'm like, dad. And it had nothing to do with the fact that they had no clothes on, but I was just like, I was intrigued. I was like, dad, what was that? It stands out like a sore thumb. Oh my God. You're on a base and everybody else is high in tights, especially an army base. And he's like, those are the SEALs.

And back then there's no Tom Clancy movies. There's none of that. I'm like, what's a SEAL? And he had to proceed to tell me what a SEAL was. And he was in the army. He was an MP. For me, I thought I wanted to be a Green Beret. I fell in love with that culture.

So he came in and awesome dad that he was like took me introduced me to these guys those dudes took me under their wing they're cleaning guns they're lifting they're asking me about what I'm going to do with my life and I knew right then and there I was like that's what I want to be the culture the feeling you got of being a part of that I was just that was the moment for me

seeing a bunch of dudes with no shirts and short shorts on it was the playing with the boys scene where they're all fucking hitting volleyball. That's right, yeah. Yeah, there is a, I think for, and we'll dive into this too, you know, the post-career. I had my buddy on the podcast and went on his and played the NFL. And there seems to be a thread there, you know, like whether it's, it's high level athletics, you know, NFL fighting, whatever, even, even college level, right.

Where, you know, when it ends, shit goes awry. But I think the one, you know, as I, as I look back on my own, I had a, it was a harder fall for me ending my football career than it was when I finished fighting. And that's because I had plant medicines when I finished fighting and I didn't when I finished football. But one of the things that I missed the most was the camaraderie. Like it was that team atmosphere that you're speaking of. That was such a fucking draw to get into. Talk a little bit about, you know, like obviously you can spend a whole podcast talking about training and shit like that. But, you know, Bud seems to be like one of the premier fucking ways to weed out the week and not even not even necessarily the week. Cause it's, it's, you know,

from talking to buddies like, um, God, how am I fucking forgetting his name right now? Lead instructor at the range, Jeff Gonzalez, who's a seal, right? He's like, he's like, I wasn't that great of an athlete. I just had no quit. Like I, there was no stop. Right. So talk a little bit about training for that, preparing for that. And what was that like mentally? Yeah. Um, so we started and there was roughly 216 guys in our class. Um, and when

you lined up the dudes, you show up and I was six foot six, I probably shrunk a little bit. Uh, so back, I don't know, six, six, one, six foot. So I wasn't the biggest guy. I was in pretty good shape, but I wasn't in that fucking great shape. And as I saw the other 215 dudes out there, I was intimidated. There were some studs, the guys that were like 6'3", just no ounce of fat on them. And you start fast-forwarding through that training, and those dudes were the guys that were quitting. And I don't know why, but the guys that I picked, the guys that I was like that NFL, like former NFL guy, the NCAA athlete, like all the studs in the, those guys were getting weeded out really fricking fast. Don't know why. We had a lot of NCAA guys make it through in our program. The guys I didn't pick, the guys that I picked to drop day one were the stubborn sons

of bitches that probably dealt with a lot of adversity growing up. Uh, those guys were the ones left standing 16 of us, uh, out of the two 16, a lot of luck involved with that. Absolutely. Tons of luck. Like good dudes got hurt, broke clavicles on the last day of training out on San Clemente.

A good buddy of mine eventually made it, but 16 of us made it through the first time. I mean, it was insane. And then again, you look at that, that crew, it's not the crew you would have picked.

It's the crew that nobody would have picked. So when it was all said and done, and I, and as I mean, it was insane. And then again, you look at that, that crew, it's not the crew you would have picked. It's the crew that nobody would have picked. Right. So it was all said and done. And I, and as I thought about it, we talk about it all the time. It's like, why, why was it like, how did we make it? And it was just what your buddy said. Um, I looked out in that ocean and knew quickly, like I did not want to be on a ship. And if I gave myself an out, like, Hey, you know, if you don't make it this time, you can come back. If I gave myself an easier path, there's no doubt in my mind, I would have taken it. It's just human nature in my, all those dudes gave themselves one option. Like you're going to make it period or you die. So I guess there is two options, but we're not going to die. Some guys have, but nevertheless, like that, those were the two options, the guys that made excuse. And again, it's not, I'm not ridiculing them them i'm not talking down to them i don't know why i had this ability

to just like be stubborn as hell as my wife would call it or just like push through adversity i don't know what it is but those 16 guys gave themselves one option yeah and you don't need to like disclaimer for the guys that didn't make it you know like the the the excuse armchair quarterbacking an excuse from here, you'd be like, oh, yeah, that guy wasn't cut out for it. Or, you know, everyone's got a fucking excuse. Or, you know, probably quit and everything he did. And fuck no, he probably was great at everything he did.

And in that moment, the fucking pressure is unlike anything else. I can tell you, like, my last fight in the UFC, I quit inside. I was like, this is my last. I was walking out fucking so nervous and nothing was hitting. I kept getting taken down. He set the record for most takedowns in a fight. And the quit, it wasn't quit like I give up, I tap. We went the distance.

But there was a quit in the sense of like when I knew I wasn't going to win, it was kind of like just making through. I'm just going to fucking make it through this and not have to worry about it again. So like that level of pressure, and I hadn't done that in any other fight in my history. And that's when I knew I was done,

you know, but like it does exist when you apply ridiculous amounts of pressure in extreme situations. And I can see that like, you know, the fucking probably went on to do other great things too. Oh, a hundred percent. Those guys are great.

I still stay in touch with some of them, some of the best dudes out there. so again, like, um, not sure why some were able to push through and some weren't. Like, I don't think anybody, the Navy's probably done, you know, tons of gallop studies trying to figure this out, and they still haven't. Like, you're not going to be able to figure this out. This goes down to mental fortitude, toughness,

and being able to push through in that exact moment. And there's times when I, like, there was one time when I thought about it. So, third phase, where you're out and doing land warfare and then the last block of third phase, they fly you out to San Clemente Island, no oversight, just some pissed off instructors

that really are trying to weed out the dudes. And oh, by the way, our San Clemente Island trip was January, which means we just got back from Christmas break, which means we also just got back from Thanksgiving. And those guys purposefully, it was the best tactic ever. They let us get fat and happy. We went back home to Tennessee, ate turkey, came back,

and they're all chills like, hey, we're on the final stretch, boys. You guys just take it easy. Like, we're not going to beat you anymore. And they let us get soft. Went off to Christmas. We came back. Still nice. Hopped on the bird. Flew going to beat you anymore. And they let us get soft. Went off to Christmas. We came back. Still nice. Hopped on the bird.

Flew out to San Clemente. We get off that bird. And I proceeded to get my ass handed to me for one month straight. All of us. It beat the living piss out of us. Like, I mean, I've never taken a beating like that. And I probably never will. And that was the first time.

San Clemente in January. So off the coast of California. It's just haze. It's raining. It's fucking cold. I remember I had a pallet on my back and we're doing these aircraft like runs up the hill. And if you lose, you got to do it again.

So it's like a quarter mile up, quarter mile back and you're just sprinting. So you're not, you don't have to do it again. And I remember doing it freezing cold and thinking, fuck, I don't know if I can do this. And it was just a fleeting thought, but it was just like, dude, get it out of your head. But it came to my, it came right through. And I remember it.

I'll never forget that moment. It was the time that I, there was a decision and I was like thinking about like just calling it. Ended up obviously not, but that's the time when I quit, man. And I probably was, you know, 10 pounds of Turkey and ham and cheesecake. So that was, they, they took that weight right off me in like three days. They beat the living piss out of us. That's so funny though. I mean, it's like a, when I walked on at ASU, I didn't get a chance to talk to my coach,

my old strength coach about this until years later. He, uh, he won strength coach of the year at ASU. And then again, at the Carolina Panthers. Only got to do it in NCAA and NFL. Coach House. And I was telling my strength coach I was training with at the time, Jesse Burdick, I was like,

you know what this fucking guy did for the walk-ons? Like we had to fucking, and it was nothing compared to seal shit, but we had to do walking lunges, 110 yards, goalpost to goalpost, and then backwards lunges. And then we did 45-degree lunges,

which effectively doubled the fucking length of the field before we got to run our 40 time. Oh, my God. So like an eight-second 40. I was like, who's fucking battery-ass? I'm surprised I could run the 40. You know what I'm getting at? Yeah.

And he was like, oh, yeah, of course. He was like, I was trying trying to get you guys to fucking quit you know that's all he cared about right but it's he put thought into that on how can I fucking destroy

these guys and it's clear that somebody is sitting back you know probably drinking a beer saying how can we fuck with these guys the most 100%

yeah they're always and those guys were drinking and I got a good friend that was there I hated this guy. He was the chief there on the island.

I mean, I fucking hated him. And we'll get to this. He's in the plant space now. And every time I see him, I just tear up. I give this man the biggest hug. I love how much he loves now. He's just thriving. But back then, he was an asshole.

I mean, there's times when he come out and he'd be in his like completely stark naked with a bottle of jack and i'm like fuck here we go and i'm and you're caught too because the island's small you come out and you got to be a chow and you're you got to run past the instructor barracks and all of a sudden you see this instructor i won't say who it is but you see this instructor just like stark naked bottle. He's like, Johnny, get over here. I'm like, no, because I knew that I was like, I'm not eating breakfast. I'm about to get my ass beat. And who knows like how drunk he is. Is it going to be a 10 minute beat? And he goes off and does something else. It's going to be an hour long beat. I have no idea. So yeah,

it's so funny to your point. Like, uh, there's guys sitting around like with and without alcohol thinking about how to make this shitty as shitty as possible well talk about your experience because i know from you know there was a big there was a gap there right where the seal team wasn't necessarily in combat and then shit hits the fan in at 9-11 and then all everything changes so talk about your time in where, were you a part of that transition? Was it balls to the wall right when you got in? What did that look like? Yeah. Um, so we got in and it was, uh, they upped the tempo. We were just kicking off the war and, uh, normal deployment cycles are extended. They cut it in half or training cycles and then we

deployed. So, um, we, we showed up, started training and probably eight months later, we're in Baghdad, uh, at the beginning of the war. And, um, we're part of a task force that was literally going out every night. I mean, it's what we wanted back then. Like that's what we all fought to become and do. And it was honestly, it was, uh, in that point in my life, it was like pure ecstasy. It was, uh, it's what you do. You've poured every ounce of sweat energy into doing. And then when you finally get to do it and be a part of a team that is doing the exact same thing, you get into that flow state where you're just like, you don't even talk anymore. You're just like kind of

reading off of each other and taking down targets. It was just like pure, pure ecstasy. Um, yeah, we were out doing multiple targets, uh, a night at times and then, um, probably a little overeager, um, trying to get out there and try to, trying to find, um, death and destruction, if you will, like trying to, uh, you know, back then, I'll be honest, trying to get kills. Um, and, uh, we quickly started realizing, I mean, we found success there, but quickly started realizing like, wait a second, we're starting to make some mistakes here, right? Like, um, we haven't been at war in a very long time and we're using tactics that are fricking dated. These are Vietnam era tactics where we're using tactics that are freaking dated these are vietnam

era tactics where we're taking down targets uh in this hostage rescue manner like we're running into these buildings and there's no hostages there like we're why would we use this tactic like we're getting hurt people are dying um and it actually took a unit uh on the army side they got it they just unfortunately were trapped. There was a barricaded shooter, and it was a trap. They came to target, and those guys were waiting for them. They barricaded themselves in the corners. They started realizing what our tactics were,

so they started maneuvering around us. And those guys, those Army dudes entered the room, and they just started taking heavies, and it was a huge ambush on those army guys. They lost half the team that night. Shit. Yeah. Half the team.

And we had been talking about, wait a second, why should we be doing this tactics? But we were stubborn back then. Alpha males like, Hey, I'm not wrong. You're wrong type mentality.

And it took that event for us to take a pause and be like, wait a second, what are we doing here? Like, why are we sprinting into buildings? And we completely revamped how we operated. pause and be like, wait a second, what are we doing here? Like, why are we sprinting into buildings? And we completely revamped how we operated. And I think the rest of my life, that was probably one of the biggest lessons for me was like, you know, you may be at your peak, but the environment changes and you need to change with it. If you don't, you're going to get crushed. So be at your

peak at all times, but constantly optimize or evolve to whatever the battlefield gives you. So for us, it was pretty, I mean, it wasn't simple, but we started looking at what other units were doing. What are the SWAT guys back in the States doing? They're doing call-outs.

They're like, they're getting on bullhorns and like, wow, they're not running in because they know like there might be some dude in there that's high off drugs and it's just going to start shooting. So he's like, wait, why don't we do that?

Or instead, like, why are we blowing every fucking gate? Even if the gates closed, dude, like gates were like open, right? I would close the gate, throw a slap charge on it and then blow it. Like, I look back and I'm like, what were we doing?

We were doing it on the door. We blew everything up, man. This is like, if there was a fucking cat walking by, I would have probably thrown a slap charge on that and blew that fucking cat up. But so we blew everything up. And if you's like, there was a fucking cat walking by. I would have probably thrown a slap charge on that and blew that fucking cat up. But, um, so we blew everything up. And if you think about that for two seconds, it's like, well, if you blow something up, everybody in the neighborhood is going to hear it. The other combatants are going to hear it. They're going to start coming. We were always in firefights. So, um, yeah, we started just like the gates open,

or let's see if we can, if the doors open and start walking in. And we started being the quiet professionals that we, we, we became like, you know, we weren't out to, to, to go and kill people. We're out to, to like really optimize the machine that we were. And now it's like, let's take dudes off targets because that's Intel that we can gather from them. We can find more bad people instead of just killing everybody that came in our, in our site. So we were at it for a long time.

I got back and we ended up training right, right, right again. And a couple of months later, we're back in Baghdad, a different task force going after a different group of people, but same thing. Just, it was cool to see the evolution of us when we first showed up. Unfortunately, it took like death and on our side for us to, to witness that and see that, but then to see how we just constantly evolved. And those, those boys are still doing it. I've been out of the game for a while, but they're just constantly with technology without just what's going on out there

and just evolving the machine that they are. And it's just so cool to watch. Yeah, I think Paul Cech talks about this from like a health and wellness standpoint, but he says, you know, oftentimes crisis is the necessary driver for somebody to actually make change. You know, like it's finding out you have cancer

or finding out you're diabetic and they're going to fucking amputate a foot before somebody will actually do the hard thing and actually shift gears. And I can imagine in your setting, you know, especially from like the top down perspective, like you guys are all highly intelligent, highly trained individuals, the best of the best. And you've still got people that are saying like, this is the way that we're doing it. This is the way it's been done.

You know, it's crazy. I like it. Again, looking back, it blows my mind, but like you're in a room of alphas and there's hierarchy, which throws everything off. People don't want to be wrong because you want to get, I don't know why the reasons, maybe promotion.

Maybe you don't want to be embarrassed around other leadership. Nevertheless, like, I think it came down to egos. Like dudes were just like super like, no, that wasn't me. That was you. Um,

no, that wasn't me, dude. That, that was you. We talked about this. What that forced us to do is like clearly set expectations. Like,

Hey, let's, what is your job here? Like what's all of our jobs here. And let's agree to what that is. And then realize battlefield is going to shift. And then we'll evolve our jobs, our roles and responsibilities. And we'll agree to it again.

And we're going to fucking make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Like let's own those mistakes so that we can acknowledge what happened and then evolve this machine. So if there is a mistake that happens, why did that happen? Oh shit, we're doing an old tactic. Let's modify that tactic. Let's train to see if that's a better way of doing business. And if it is cool, then we're going to take that tactic and then we're going to share with the rest of the forces. And this is our new SOP. And it was just happening at such a rapid rate. It was really, I mean, again, it was just, it was amazing to watch, but when we first showed up egos, you know, rank,

it really stubbornness, it forced a lot of people, unfortunately to get hurt. But in quick time time we started doing the after action reviews which i'm pretty sure you're familiar with after every mission we'd get back no matter what happened dude got hurt didn't matter we'd walk in with all our kit and just go through like what actually happened man and then if this is a better way of doing business cool this is our new sop i wonder if i want to go a couple of ways. I wonder if that helped with, with, um, processing some shit. Obviously that's not going to fucking do the work that the plants did and the shit that we're going to dive into. But I wonder if just being able to talk about how shit

went down was a little bit of a lift as opposed to just moving on to the fucking next thing and not discussing it. Yeah. And it wasn't perfect and it probably still isn't right like um there's new leadership that comes in um you lose some of the the tribal knowledge or you know why we consider the elders not a good turnover so i imagine there's some of that repeat mistakes happening uh but to your point yeah it was therapeutic when when we had the real conversation so again if if we're in an after-action review and we're not having the real conversation, I mean, you see it. Everybody's just like, what the fuck?

That's not what happened. We're just sitting around the room like, okay, now we're wasting our time. We're not learning anything from this. But when we had the right team leadership, we created the right environment where people weren't going to get scolded. That was the other thing.

If you raise your hands, I got fucked up, and then somebody comes over the top and is like, yeah, you did. I was like, I'm, I'm never sharing again. Yeah. Everyone else just fucking buttons up the second they see their buddy get fucking laid into. No, that was Johnny. Yeah. So, but when we created an environment, it was, it was pure, pure magic to watch. Like the guy's just like, yeah, I fucked up. I was supposed to be covering on this. And then something caught my attention. I let that dude go. And that's where we learned. That's where we optimized for sure.

Yeah, a couple of the really good points you brought up in there was like, one, obviously Jocko wrote a whole fucking book on it, Extreme Ownership. But like, you actually say yes. Like, yeah, that's me. I did that thing and you own it. The other piece that reminded me of Dr. Will Tegel

who passed away recently, but something he used to talk about was every year the Muskogee Creek Indians would sit with each other and come to new agreements, new agreements in their marriage, new agreements in their roles in the tribe, new agreements with their kids and what the expectations were. And he's like, think about it. He's like, you were married to your wife before you were married. You were married when it was just you guys.

You were married when you had Bear. You were married when you opened the marriage. You were married when you closed the marriage. All these different agreements you know, when you closed the marriage. You had all these different agreements, right? They're completely different people. The environment changed, you changed. Yeah. And requires new agreements. It requires, you know, outlying, like, what are my needs now? And what are my expectations? And how can we fulfill those for each other? Dude, that's amazing to hear. I'll do a little digging and homework on that. I want to read about that. But to your point, you get married and then, you know, there's some expectation. You probably

didn't sit down with your old lady and was like, Hey, this is, this is my job. This is what I'm going to do. This is your job. But I mean, regardless, there was probably some expectations, even if they weren't spoken. And now you fast forward and you got kids. I mean, you're in a completely different environment, you know, careers taking different directions. And how are you holding yourselves to those same expectations? How can you, the environment's completely shifted. So, I mean, you see it in business all the time. I spent time, you know, in finance and, and, uh, people get into these shouting matches, egos get involved. And it's like, I look back and I, you know, I, I coach some of the folks, some of my teammates is like, if we just sit down and just like agree to what our jobs are, I bill bellichick do your fucking job well what is our job and if we know what our job

is then we can do it and then when a mistake happens because we all make mistakes cool then we own it and then we fix it and we keep doing our job better than we ever could before but it's not how business works uh unfortunately so um no expectations no agreements tons of chaos um and um tons of opportunity to fix it if they just took the chance, I guess. Yeah, the hard conversation, the hard look at yourself. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Well, let's talk about, you know, life leaving the seals. And you went back a second time, right? I did, yeah. Yeah, so talk a bit about that. Oh, man. The great transition. Yeah, the great transition. There's been a few great transitions in my life.

We'll get to those. Um, yeah. So again, like rewinding with my dad, see a bunch of dudes with no shirts, like want to be a seal, became a seal. Like that's my whole life purpose. I didn't know how to swim. I became a lifeguard. My cardio was out, you know, trash. I used to run four miles and back to football practice. Uh, that's what I wanted to do. And then I became it. Um, and then, and you know, like when you get to that level, you're pretty damn good at it, right? Like you're constantly training. That's all you do. But what you're not good at is everything else, right? Like I was not a fucking good husband. I wasn't present. Uh, we're training all the all the time. When we're gone on deployments,

like I seldom reached back. Like I wasn't a father. And this first, you know, 10 years in the military, my wife and I get back from deployment and like we hadn't seen each other and boom, the stork would come. We got another kid on the way. So we had five kiddos. Wow. Yeah, dude. Congrats. Thank you. Oh, it's the best best question i just had some graduations this week that just gave me butterflies like we're still go sleeping with number two i'm like oh god i did it's chaos but it's like it's the best like i wouldn't trade it for the world i love every second of it now and i couldn't see it before man and we'll we'll get to all that but um but

you know allison pulled me aside and she's like you're just not you're not here like and. Like, and I'm proud of you and we'll support you, whatever you decide to do. Like you want to continue on this path. Like we're always behind you, but, um, we don't know you, your kids don't know you. You haven't been here for birthdays, Christmases, and we're not faulting you. We're just calling out the facts. And, you know, back then I was full of rage and anger coming back to back deployments. And I, you know, I kind of walked away. I was like, you know, what the fuck?

I'm providing for this family, and again, I just couldn't see it. But she planted a seed, and I walked away, went on a train trip, and I was just constantly thinking about it. I was like, wait a second, you know what? She was right. Those kids do deserve. I was coherent enough and, uh, was able to think clear enough to know that those kids and then that woman deserved a

partner. So we made the choice to get out. Um, didn't know how to get out. All I had was my tribe and I got back from a deployment and then had a couple of months to find a job, you know, meet people, network. I mean, these are things that I didn't know how to do, dude. And back in 2010, there was no, you know, there wasn't that many nonprofits helping out. There's, you know, the government and the military didn't have a program in place to help. And it was kind of like, go through this checklist, admin, medical, and once you're good, then you're out of the Navy. We're all set. That's essentially what happened. And, um, my dad's enlisted. I was enlisted. My dad was, um, I was born in Texas and we kind of moved around and ended up in Tennessee, went to high

school there. And my, you know, my, my, uh, mom has a degree. My dad doesn't, um, we didn't, you know, I just didn't know like what I was capable of, but I knew I liked to shoot for the stars. Like if somebody else can do it, I can fucking do it. And I'm going to fight to do it better. So I had a buddy as I'm kind of networking. He's like, well, what about wall street? And I was like, uh, I mean, tell me about wall street. What's that about? It's like, it's kind of like being a team guy because the high risk and you're trading stocks. And I'm like, dude, if it's like being a team guy, that's what I want to do. Let's do it. And, uh, I went in, I interviewed and, um, got the opportunity to trade on a desk there. And I remember, uh, coming back on my first day. So a couple of things happened.

My father-in-law was like, Hey, Princeton, New Jersey from wall street is like an hour train ride. It's not a fucking hour train ride. It's an hour 45 all in one way. So, so I was doing that every single day. Uh, but first day I'm going, I'm eager. I'm excited. Uh, I'm still not like fully out of my mind from war. So like little things that I didn't know back then, like putting myself in a corner, hypervigilant, looking around on the trains. Like I didn't know all these things were happening behind the scenes, but show up to Wall Street, get there, do my first day, staring at Bloombergs, like, man, I made it, right? Like I did it.

Like I'm 1%, dude. And, you know, coming home, I was like, man, I can't believe we've done this. Like I'm just like somebody from nowhere, like got an opportunity to be on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs. And you fast forward and it's like two weeks and four weeks in, I'm doing that same trading ride. And that thought starts shifting like, Hey dude, you made it. Why do you feel this way? Like, why are you not like excited? Why are you like starting to feel these new emotions that you can't describe, which later come to find out where depression and anxiety attacks starting to

creep in from my time overseas. Um, everybody's telling you, congratulations. Why are you now considering like leaving your wife and blowing everything up, like leaving your family? Congratulations, dude. You're part of the 1%. And, um, I started talking to other buddies. I was like, are you going through this too? And I was like, yeah, man, this is like, I don't know if we fit out here, man. You get back from war, and there's no acclimation period, and now you're in a suit.

And my first suit, dude, to kind of segue real quick, when we were in the teams, we were doing some PSD, so security stuff for some of the, you know, anybody that came in, the dignitaries from the U.S., president, vice president, and then other countries as well. So we had suits, but the suits, the coat top had to be, or the blazer had to be a little big so we can hide our weapons. So you've seen the photos, you see these guys in suits and they got glasses and, and there's guns tucked away. Well, that's a suit I wore day one to wall street. Right. And like not even halfway

through the day, my boss looks at me, like writes down a number. He's like, go, go fucking see this guy. And I was like, what did I do? He's like, you need a suit. So he sent me to his tailor and I'm like wearing like a $99, which is cool, man. I dug it. I love that story, but I was wearing a $99 suit and they, they were like, you can't wear this on at Goldman, man. Like, so he kicked me off and off the desk and I had to go get a suit. But, uh, back to kind of the story, I was just, I don't know, man, all these things started creeping in. And albeit that, you know, the world was telling me it did it and I was making money for the first time in my life. I wasn't enjoying a single bit of it. I ended up, a friend of mine, a buddy of ours, Nick Check, was killed on a hostage rescue mission. I remember going home

that night. I was watching it on the trading floor. I'll never forget. I was like literally facing this way and the TV was right there and I see this happening and then the texts start coming through like, hey, because they don't tell you who it was, but then they started coming through and I was like, fuck. I went home and I turned to my wife and was like, I just can't do this. I'm going back in. And so I quit, called my boss and I didn't know if I can come back in. Like, right. So I'm like, I quit, don't have a job now. I'm like, all right, shit, I should have probably secured a job or like figured out if I can

come back in before I quit my job. But here we are. So I had some good mentors that pulled some strings for me. And the next thing you know, I'm back in the teams. And then a couple months later, I'm off on deployment again in my happy place. Again, like doing what I was probably put on this earth to do at that time or so what I thought at such a high cost that I just thought that's how it was wired. So family and everything was just deteriorating behind the scenes. One beautiful event that came from all that was just the awareness that it's not just me.

There's a gap here. And there's like what I always say, if there's a gap, there's an opportunity or an obligation. So we started the Seal Future Foundation, me and a buddy of mine. And for me, it was just like bitching to him. I was living on his couch on Astor Place because I couldn't make that fucking commute every day into Wall Street. So I'm living on his couch and I'm just complaining. He's like, Johnny, I know you guys.

Like you guys have so much potential. I think this is like, I don't know if there's an acclimation period or you just need mentorship, but like you got to find the right team and the right company and the right mentors. But like, no, dude, like don't, like you guys do fit out here.

In fact, you guys are leaders that can add so much to these different companies. It's like, I'm telling you. So I'm complaining. He's kind of talking me up and talking our community up. And then, you know, I realized that. That's so true.

Like what other group of people have been able to operate at that level under extreme duration of stress and make some quick thinking decisions. And if they were the wrong decisions or right, make another decision and constantly creep towards mission success, knowing that's the most important thing. What other group of people would sacrifice themselves for their,

for their brother? I was like, man, these are things that people absolutely should know about and we could add value. So we created the seal future foundation in 2011. And that was initially just to help dudes with a job placement and mentorship. We did communities and I don't want to get too far ahead, but we inevitably started a, uh, a wellness pillar. Um, unfortunately a good friend of ours committed suicide on our watch and, and that's what set me down on this next path in my life. So. Yeah. Well, we're, we're, we're, uh, we're right on track. I don't know if you, if the leaning on Allison for strength

in her own journey, uh, comes before this, this, or it tails in, uh, we'll just hold that in your mind's eye and, and steer the ship where you want it to go. Yeah. Well, let's, let's spend time on the, on the foundation and kind of what we've done and what this new team is doing. They're crushing it. So, um, initially,

like I think our first event we did in Greenwich, Connecticut. In fact, I know our first event we did in Greenwich, Connecticut. And, um, we didn't know what we were doing,

like 501 C three. How do you set this thing up? A bunch of knuckleheads. Just, we, we didn't know how to do it, but again, like there's only one outcome.

Like you got to figure the fuck out because there's people like me that are starting to now have anxiety attacks and suicide ideation. And then we started losing dudes. We got to figure it out for the, for the brothers, for their families, for, for this country, for this world, because these people deserve to live a healthy and happy life post what they've did for all of us. So we figured it out. First dinner, Greenwich, Connecticut, like massive, just like not our place, not our environment. Good people, like all polished up, a lot of like Easter colors in there.

And I'm just like, we're all in black suits. You can pick out the guys. We're nervous. Like we used to do missions. We've done hundreds of missions and like we're nervous in this room. But that group of people changed our lives. We raised four grand at that event. And I'll come back to that. And I'm so grateful for that four grand dude, but we got some leaders. So one of our board members came out of that and he's been instrumental in the success of the Seal Future

Foundation. And just kind of a teaser. And again, grateful for that $4,000, grateful for allowing us to be in somebody's beautiful house in Greenwich, raising awareness. We just did an event in New York, raised over a million dollars. We did a Nobu event in Malibu with a couple, like, I think it was like a dozen people

and the team just raised a million dollars at that event. So this thing is like, we had a vision we built it and we've turned it over to the next generation of war fighters and they're growing this thing and it's so cool to watch um so those initial pillars inevitably uh came to a point where we thought we were helping the community like getting guys jobs but we weren't healthy. Like we, I think a lot of us in this world have addiction, not just to, to drugs or alcohol, but to behaviors, to women, to just, just tons of addiction. And just like the nature of what we used to do, uh, created some really bad habits for us. Um, so we created this wellness pillar, as I mentioned, unfortunately, um, after a buddy

of ours committed suicide and we were supposed to meet with him on Monday I think it was Monday morning um we had a meeting to help with his transition and then the weekend before he shot himself on FaceTime with his old lady and that was the first of many dude and I've when it was all said and done, I did 16 total years in the service. I lost a lot of friends like we all have to combat and I've lost more friends now to suicide. Dude, just this year alone, we lost three. One of our first chiefs, you probably heard of Mike Day. Mike Day was one of our first chiefs.

He got shot 27 times on the last mission, 27 fucking times, another barricaded situation. They thought he was dead in the room. He picked up his gun, 27 times shot, killed everybody in the room, walked out to the helicopter and flew home. Damn. Dude, hard dude.

And he was going around the country sharing his story. And we all have our challenges. And unfortunately, he couldn't overcome those. And he took his life, I believe, last month. And it was just like, I mean, we got to do something about this. So I lost more guys now to suicide than I have to war. The wellness program is just, it's now run by a younger seal who's just he's crushing it he was a wrestler I think at Oklahoma he's got so much passion for the community and the boys

and what we initially put up he's grown so initially we had just a diverse group of providers like we weren't going to pigeonhole ourselves into just one one area we wanted to see what worked that's something we always do is like let's go explore what's working like right now they're telling us like it's ssris and talking to a therapist then why isn't it fucking working why are buddies on 16 ssris they're on stackers why are they talking about still committing suicide when they got the solution so um we just started looking everything out there what's this hbot stuff oh that seems cool there's some cool research around this.

Like, okay, what's this stem cell, like for the guys with messed up, like me with messed up backs from like, you know, helo incidences and crashes and like just from jumping dozens and hundreds of times. Okay, that seems to be working. There's some cool research around that. Like what's some of the traditional or holistic medicine that we can explore? Okay, this seems really fascinating to me. And that's inevitably where we got to plant medicine was I was one of the first guys, uh, you probably know Marcus Capone. Uh, if you don't, Marcus is a

former team guy that's doing a lot in this medicine space. Good dude. Um, and, uh, he ended up going with another team guy down to Mexico. It's, you know, Ibogaine. And, um, so you fast forward, I don't know, maybe a couple months. And I see a dude that I hadn't seen in probably a team guy hadn't seen in probably two years. And the last time I saw him, he got kicked out of the SEAL teams. He was on the bin Laden mission. So he got kicked out of SEAL team six, got kicked out of the SEAL teams. He was on the bin Laden mission. So he got kicked out of SEAL Team 6, got kicked out of the SEAL teams for drinking,

got kicked out of the Navy for drinking, and then was back home in his mom's trailer, like contemplating taking his life. He's like, I went from the peak to now this. So last time I saw him was super obese, probably like, you know, 5'9", 200 and something pounds. Didn't look healthy, was boozing hard. And I walked away with some buddies. I was like, dude, I don't know if we'll ever see him again, but we did. And I didn't

realize it was him. So this dude runs up to me and gives me the biggest hug. And this dude's like glowing, like the energy off of this. I was just like, what the fuck? And I was still back in my life. What is this? I got my walls up, man. Don't hug me. What are you doing, man? I don't know you. You got long hippie hair and you're like, you're literally glowing right now. I've never seen anybody glow. And he gives me a hug and he looks me in the eyes. He's like, dude, you don't know who it is, do you? I was like, no, dude, it's, it's Nick. I was like, what? Uh, and I was like, what happened to you, man? Uh, and he proceeds to tell me, he's like, well, I got introduced to plant medicine and, uh, I did Ibogaine and I've done,

you know, psilocybin since then. And I'm just like inching further back. I'm like, what the fuck, dude? And I said, Nick, it was Will. And I'm just like, dude, Will lost his fucking mind. He's talking about psychedelics and I'm still in the mindset, like majority of this probably country. I think we're doing a lot of advocacy now and changing it. But I was back then in 2018, I was like, dude, that's a drug. Yeah, you're going to ruin your fucking mind.

Yeah, man. Burn holes in your brain. Exactly, dude. So I walked away. And again, I always talk about planting seeds. I mean, he planted a seed. And, you know, as the founder, one of the co-founders and the CEO at the time of the nonprofit,

I was like, well, I mean, I owe it to, I told the board members all the time, we have to explore everything. And now I'm putting up this wall. I was like, let me just take a look at what's going on here. And as you know, better than I do, like the research is just like mind blowing. When you start looking at the research compared to all the solutions out there, SSRIs to, I mean, for the different symptoms that a lot of us have, PTSD, depression, anxiety,

I'm like, wait a second. Like, how is this not out there? How are we not like on hills right now yelling? But I was still a little skeptical, still had that like, you know, dare mentality. Like we don't do drugs here, but was starting to get in a real bad spot personally. So again, super successful. Everybody's patting me on the back. You got a lot of money.

And I just got to a spot where suicide ideations became like a normal thing for me. Started thinking about it heavily. Hated my wife, hated Allison. I didn't, just didn't want to be with my family. And it wasn't me, it was them. Or so I thought. Left, I got an apartment, just abandoned. Again, dude, you're at the peak, man. You're the 1%. Why are you feeling this way? So it got so bad that I finally just kind of caved.

I was like, what do I have to lose? I'm thinking about taking my life. I'm like, I don't fit in out here. I don't like people. I'm hypervigilant. I want to fight everybody. What do I have left to lose? So I reached out.

I was like, where did you, tell me more about this. Where did you do this? Next thing you know, I'm on a plane, like literally the next day, fly down Mexico and have no idea what's going on, but I trust my brothers. Um, I didn't know any of these other fucking people, but I trust my brothers and, um, I took the pill and, uh, I took the medicine. Ah, dude, you know where I'm going with this. Um, man, it was one of the hardest experiences of my life and yet the most blissful and beautiful and loving experience I've ever had. And I remember just like going through it and, um, you know, I did Ibogaine the first night and that was hard. I was at war. Like I was fighting demons.

I was pulling some darkness out of me. Literally in my head, I was pulling like, as I was purging, throwing up, like darkness was coming out of me and there was demons all. I mean, it was dark. Not everybody's experience was like that. Some have beautiful, pleasant experiences. I'm happy for you. Mine was not that, but I'm so grateful for it. And I just pulled all this darkness and hatred and shit. And I was able to kind of see for their first time, like, yeah, your dad and your mom got divorced and yeah, your dad wasn't the best dad. And like, you blame him for a lot of things. He tried and he tried with what he had

and he didn't have a father in his life. And so give a man some grace. Like he didn't know what he was doing. Just like you don't know what you're fucking doing, but just, you know, he tried with what he had. And same thing with my mom, all the things. I was like, man, my mom's tough. She's at the house right now.

I had my oldest son graduate. So it's been great, but our relationships blossom. Same thing. She's Panamanian. I'm half Panamanian. Those women are feisty. Those Hispanic women. She took some shit out on me.

I love her to death. She's an amazing woman. Whoopi with the chancala. Oh, yeah. I got my daughter. I have five kids as mentioned. Most of them look like my wife. They got blonde hair, blue eyes, red hair.. I got my daughter, so I have five kids as mentioned. Most of them look like my wife. They got blonde hair, blue eyes, red hair.

And then I got Charlie. Charlie has the Hispanic blood flowing through her. She's got the dark complex, and she's always talking about the chancleta. She's running around like she's my mom and my sister to a T. So feisty. So, yeah. But that experience, man, I, I, I started seeing as like you, like, how can you, like, how can you go through life, like judging and hating everybody? Like, like

you have never stepped a day in their shoes. You don't know what they've been through. You've just now witnessed what your parents have been through. I saw it clear as day. I saw like their upbringings. I saw when I was a kid, it was clear as day. Like the love that they poured into, I'll never forget this. My third birthday, it was crystal clear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cake. Like I still remember it. I see, I saw everything as clear as could be. And I felt that love. And I just had these walls up. And right then and there, I decided, I was like, you know what? This isn't the way to live. It's the alternative. We lead with love here. And it felt like an explosion when I thought that.

I mean, literally. I mean, the energy that came off of me. And I mean, I was in it for a while. The other guys are bigger boys. One of the dudes is a good buddy of mine. He's from Montana. He's a cattle rancher. He was in for like three hours.

I'm like, what the fuck? I've been in it for like 12 hours, man. I'm like fighting for my life and demons and his, he saw a blue Buffalo. I'm like, but, um, but those guys were in and out and I was in it. And then the next day I kind of just walked around and was reflecting and just like trying to like understand what just happened as you, you know, obviously I know you, your experiences as well. And I'm interested to hear your first experience, but for me, like, I was just like dumbfounded. I was like, man, there is so much more to this. And it all starts with love again. The next day we did five MEO and, um, was this the place that's just, uh, South of San Diego? Yeah. Okay, cool. I, I, I'm so bad with names, but I had one of the, one of the practitioners on the podcast, Martine. Okay, cool. I'm so bad with names, but I had one of the practitioners on the podcast.

Martine? No, I think it was a different guy. But yeah, Martine. I think Martine was supposed to come on the podcast. Okay. It's a guy from, he was in the service. Oh, okay. Yeah, there's some good dudes that have now dedicated their lives to healing. And I think a lot of us are doing it in some way, shape, or form.

Those guys are all in. And it's so great to see the community come together. And I mean, we're just going to, after all this, you know, decades of war, we're just going to have guys consistently needing the support of, in my opinion, the plant medicine. And it's so cool to see how we've all, like, it doesn't matter what color skin you are, what side of the house you're on. Like we're all coming together and pushing this because we see the benefits of it. So 5MEO for me, dude, like was, so now you did your, like this massive Ibogaine journey. And now they're like, hey, smoke this toad. I'm like, what the fuck, man?

Two days ago, but I did it. And it's funny too, because these two, like for people that don't have any experience, like you're selecting arguably two of the hardest, I've talked about fucking that length about ayahuasca. And it's certainly in a league of its own. And yet it Boga and Ibogaine last can last a lot longer than ayahuasca and can be just as purgative if not more. Right.

So there's a, it's going to ring you the fuck out. Oh yeah. And then five of me. Oh oh is like ripcord out of body experience 15 minute blast off zero to a thousand you know all in an instant you know it was wild and to your point you're just like okay so now they're lighting the flakes of the poison of this toad i'm like how did i get here but i'm here and we're gonna you know you know, I'm going to trust the system. I trust the brothers. And here we go.

Inhale. And to your point, you just kind of like lay back, put your mask on. And I'm just like anxiously like, what the fuck? What the fuck? And then just gone. Like it was a rocket ship. Like I was, I mean, I was sitting there in the presence of, you know, to me, what I believe now is like, God is everywhere. And I was in the presence of that. And I see, and I'm not trying to get

religious here, but I see these different religions all in what I was able to experience and just be at, you know, this beautiful, blissful place that it's hard to describe. I mean, it was, yes, it was white, it was light, but it was the emotions, the feelings. Like I just, for the first time, again, I go back to, I felt love for myself. And then, I mean, I just started whimpering. I was just crying, rolled into a dog. And I just like kind of had a release from years of trauma

and hatred and anger and just let it all go, man. And it was beautiful. And they asked if I wanted to go again. And in my head, I'm always like, so this was interesting. Like the ego, like, which has kept us alive, right? Like there's a place for our ego. It's like, dude, you got other people waiting. Like, what are you doing?

This isn't about you. Come on, man. Like you're going to do it and you're going to fuck it up. And I'm having this like internally in my head. I like talking to my ego I'm like whoa like I just kind of it's like okay maybe I don't do this and you know I was like you know what Johnny like you always do this you do you do things for everybody else like this is about you like focus on you right now took the other hit and um dude I proceeded to throw up everywhere. And, um, I was just so embarrassed. I was like, Oh my God, you idiot. Like fucking ego is right. Like, why'd you do this? Now you gotta,

you gotta throw up everywhere. And I have my mask on and you gotta throw up everywhere. And I was just like, you know what? Fuck you. Like enough. Like I've had enough of you, man. Like this isn't about you. And again, like you start making these hard decisions to choose love over hatred. You start making these decisions to say, you know what? We're good on the't about you. And again, you start making these hard decisions to choose love over hatred. You start making these decisions to say, you know what? We're good on the ego right now. And boom, bliss. And I just, again, I just got put into this place of just pure love. I had my family there with me. I had everybody was connected to me and I just felt nothing but pure ecstasy across everything. And I just laid there for 15 minutes and just enjoyed the release and the cry

and came out and i'm a bit of a jokester i took the mask off and i look around i'm like oh where'd uh where'd the throw up go and they're like what throw up i was like oh my god you fucking ego i didn't throw up they're like no i was like this motherfucking ego um but dude it was so funny i had not thrown up but i had i was actually one of one of my largest journeys with psilocybin i had uh that exact experience where i had puked literally all over the fucking the room you know and like like the tosh came in to check on me and and fucking you know just all ultimate cleanup you know it's in the carpet it's in the bed it's in my fucking. And then I snap out of it and I look at the puke bucket and there's like a little bit of spit and a couple of snoozes. And I was like, you gotta be

fucking kidding me right now. You know, I think that there's, there's a, there's a thread, like there's a common thread through many of the different medicines. One of which is you don't want to be cared for, right? Because babies need to be cared for. And it's such a mind fuck to have to be cared for again. Like I'm an adult now. I'm a man. I don't need people to fucking care for me. And you get humbled when you're put back in that position.

But there's sweetness in that, right? Oh, my God. Big sweetness in that. Yeah. And just imagine like this room of like, yes, you have the providers, you have the coaches, but then you have these war-torn veterans, like team guys, and just all walks of life, all different branches, just like you can see it in their face. Like they've seen it, they've done it, right?

And then they pick you up and they cry right there with you, right? And they release right there with you and they give you everything they have in their body. And it's just like, oh my God, this is the way, this is the path, man. How, how we not led with this fraternity? How are we so off track right now? So again, I go back to this community, my wife, and she'll come up here in a second. Like she has a nonprofit, the Hope Project that's helping women so veteran women spouses because a lot of the spouses get overlooked and oh by the way my wife went through this shit because of me right like she has tons of trauma because of me she's got her own trauma growing up too and um but she had her experience dude and um don't want

to get too ahead of myself but like she had her experience after me like fighting and like telling her for a year and you got to do this. She didn't believe it. She was resentful. Why do you guys always get the treatments? Why do you guys always get to walk on stage? Why do you guys get like, what about us? That's been here the whole time with your kids, like waiting for the call every fucking deployment to see if you're alive or not. Why don't we get support and um for us we were in connecticut at the time and you know i had

i had what i would call relapse in the sense that um if the environment's not prepped if you're not integrating you're going to go back if your environment's like tough then you're going to go back to that place or at least that's what happened to me so she wasn't ready to receive i didn't prep her for that. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. It was 2018. There's no, like, I didn't know integration code. So here we go, and we're just, like, right back after it.

After, like, a couple months, like, the medicine did everything it could, and it just, like, I had created an environment that was just too hard to overcome. But I realized, like, that's a powerful tool, and we need to, you know, at some point revisit that, and I opted to do it again. And when I did it again, she came back, she goes, I want to do this. And she went with a beautiful group of women's. We had a gold star wives here. So people that had lost their spouses overseas,

we had people that were veterans themselves. It was an all women's retreat and she came back. And again, despite having five kids and being married for damn near 20 years, like, we were never in a fucking relationship, never. Even after I did the medicine, like, we were still wearing that because she wasn't ready. There was 18 years of trauma. She came back, dude, and the first time we've ever been in a relationship,

and it was just beautiful, and it's not perfect. I don't think, you know, but my God, like like to see where we are today, the parents that we are, the relationships that we have with each other and with others and the service that we're providing. Like I feel so blessed and grateful to be introduced to this space and to see her thrive now. And she's helped dozens and dozens of women with severe trauma. And she's working with other benevolence.

I think you know Jesse from Heroic Hearts Project. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've been on. Those guys are great. Yeah, he's a good dude. Although he's Army, so not that good. But they actually just officially partnered with their nonprofits last week.

Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. That's great to hear. Yeah. So what a blessing, man, like this journey that we're on and the continued service that we get to do. Yeah, brother. That's incredible.

One thing I do want to get into, and maybe it's not time yet, but you've done some pretty fucking insane shit to generate eyes and donations and things of that nature. Yeah. So back in 2018, we partnered with Whoop. And this is when they probably had five employees and were on the verge of bankruptcy. They're in a different place now, obviously. I think they're a $3 billion company. Yeah, sober October helped them a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Dude, that's great. I, so, you know, I, I mentioned the plant medicine like was a huge catalyst to my healing. The other thing was the data, right? So I became fascinated with my data, um, back in 2018, 19. And I would just look and I was like, okay, I'm not doing well today. What are the things that I can change this equation? Like maybe it's an ice bath. What does an ice bath do to me if I do that consistently for a month? Oh, damn. Okay. That improved my heart rate variability. My heart rate came down. My sleep's improved. This is cool. What can I change now? Well, let's do the different psychedelics. Like what does psilocybin do to you? And I just started being the beta test. And then we decided to partner with Whoop when I shared

with them what I was doing. I was like, have a non-profit we're helping thousands of seals if they give us approval i would love to use this as a couple things one is an early warning signal so i can see the dashboard of all my guys uh and unequivocally we could provide better service to those dudes because i mean when dudes were in the trash it's not hard to see through biometrics like you're not getting sleep you're probably not doing good why are you not getting sleep three three days a row? Because you got in a fight with the old lady and you're living in a hotel and you're boozing it up. Cool. You want us to help you. Let's call it out. Let's figure out what's going on and see if we can fix it. So that's one way we used it. The other way was just like teeny, like test and evaluate, like all the different things. Like I said, it's

like, oh, cool. This is working for Johnny, but what works for Johnny doesn't work for Kyle. That's cool. This works for Kyle, but Johnny doesn't work for Kyle. That's cool. This works for Kyle, but what doesn't work for Kyle? And we started realizing like, holy shit, medicine is somewhat personalized, right? Like we're all different animals here. So yes, there are some things that can probably help the masses, but there are some specific things that help each and every one of us. So I'll hit the event really quick. In 2018, through with the partnership of WHOOP, we said, okay, how do we raise awareness around mental health, TBI?

And at the Seal Future Foundation, we decided to do a skydive into San Diego, into the ocean there, swim in two miles, which became a hell of a lot longer, and I'll explain that here in a second, and then run 100 miles with plates. And it was more of like a walk run if we're being completely transparent here.

Still, it's 100 fucking miles after the swim. My knees throbbing just talking about it. So we do the, we get on the plane and the guys are like joking with me. It was me and two other team guys. And they're like, Johnny, where are your fins? And I'm like, oh, dude, I planned this thing. Like we're riding this current in, it's going to set us down on the wave. Like we're not even going

to have to like exert any energy and we need to conserve it. Um, and they're like, oh, okay. Like obviously you didn't learn anything from combat. You never leave your gear behind, but good luck with that, buddy. And I was just like laughing. I was like, dude, I planned this. Like we're taking off in 30 minutes, 30 minutes comes and goes. And I talked to the pilot, what's going on? I was like, oh, we're on a weather hold. I was like, oh shit. Like, what do you think? I was like, it's probably going to be a two, three hour weather hold. I'm like, oh my God, the currents have shifted in three hours. And that's exactly what happened. So we skydive in, the skydive was the last coolest thing of this whole event, hit the water. And as soon as I hit the water, like you could feel the current pushing you out

to the ocean. I'm like, oh my God. Dudes put their fins on, they got on their backs and they just like crossed their arms and they just started like barely kicking. And I went into like a Michael Phelps, like 25 meter all out sprint as hard as I could for two miles. When I got out of that, dude, I mean, that was one of the hardest things I'd done in a very long time. I didn't have an ounce. It felt like I didn't have an ounce of energy.

I low crawled. There's film. I'm a low crawling. Those dudes are long time. I didn't have an ounce. It felt like I didn't have an ounce of energy. I low crawled. There's film. I'm a low crawling. Those dudes are walking out. I'm literally low crawling out, like just trying to catch my breath. And it's all on camera. Like men's health picked it up

and some other groups. And I'm like, this is so embarrassing. And they're like, well, we've got to get our gear on. We're going to go. I was like, guys, I honestly need a few minutes. Like I'm telling you, like I need to eat something. Like the fuck the goo packs. I don't want any goo packs. I need a pizza or Chick-fil-A. And I just started just eating everything. And I felt the energy come back and we threw our gear on, we threw some plates

and then we ran a hundred miles. Um, and what was awesome, um, was Jews just started showing up. So we're like mile 30 in this like old timer shows up. He's like, Hey, you guys, the team guys. I was like, yeah. I was like, I'm a former team guy. Like Bud old timer shows up. He's like, hey, you guys the team guys? I was like, yeah. I was like, I'm a former team guy. Like Bud's class 180. I was like, oh, fuck. He's like, you mind if I run with you? Like, no, man.

And he started running. And then we do another 10 clip. And then all of a sudden another group of dudes like, hey, you guys, you guys the team guys? You guys mind if we run with you? And it was so cool to like, I'm getting chills just thinking about these guys just popped in and like didn't want anything in return. They were just like, it was just about the community, the brotherhood and what we were trying to raise awareness for. And those dudes just like, Hey, I'm good. I'm going to pop out here and just disappeared. And I remember one of the old timers and I was just like, Oh man, I wish I would've got his name. Like I never thought I would see him again.

Well, this community is small. Come to find out he's, he's one of the elders in the plant medicine space for our community. And I remember just coming across and we see each other. It was like, oh my God, it's been so long. He just like gave each other the biggest hug. And he's helping so many guys, not just in the, in the SEAL teams, but just all the different branches and doing tons of great work in this space. So we raised, you know, back then, I think it was like 70 grand or so, and it was a big deal. Ended it california burrito which was amazing and and i look back and um you know this new venture i have in the mind health um i was like you know that was something special like suffering together like through workouts whatever like builds that camaraderie like pushing

yourselves to the brink along with other people is like what made me have my brothers. And they're literally brothers. There's no other way to describe them. They're not friends. To put ourselves in that situation and come out of it together has just created bonds that are just unbreakable. So we decided to do it again. So for Envy Mind Health, we're going to raise money around suicide prevention. Sharon in Wyoming this year, Veterans Day,

we got five total other dudes and me. We haven't started training, but we will. Exos, who does a lot of the NFL stuff, they're partnered with us. So they're sponsoring us. We're going to fly out there in a couple of weeks in Scottsdale and they're going to put us through the ringer for the first week and they're going to give us our curriculum nutrition.

And then, um, we're going to train for this gnarly event. So we've already done a two mile swim and a hundred mile run. You can't do that again. You've already done it. So we got a round table together and we're like, well, how about a 10 mile swim? I'd be fucking dead. I would be dead. There's no two ways about that. So we're going to do a 10 mile swim in a, we're going to hope, we're hoping to, uh, to skydive into Yellowstone.

We got to get approval for that. If not, there's tons of other lakes up there. Swim 10 miles and it's 206 miles to the town of Sheridan from the, from where we get out of the water. So we're going to do 200 miles and probably 206 miles because we got to get to the town and then we're going to have a big festival party. Just bring all the community together, like this cool, awesome group of people that are super passionate about mental health and you know, all different walks of life, the plant medicine folks, the team guys, the traditional diet,

and we're just going to have a great time and, and celebrate whatever awareness we can bring to the, to the cause. So. That's incredible. One of the dates on that November 11th veterans day this year. Wow. Come on up,

man. Oh, that sounds like a fucking hell of a trip and it's going to be nice and cold for you too. And that's, I know average temp is 44 degrees in that water. I don't even know if we can do this. But to your, like, I mean, we all just like, yeah, we'll do it.

Didn't even think twice about it. Haven't talked to Exodus about it. Like, you know, you tell somebody else that outside of like with our backgrounds, like, what? Is that possible? Like, are you sure you can do that? And it's just like, again, like, yeah. We'll see. see yeah there's

only one way yeah that's the whole idea behind this thing let's push ourselves to the to the limits and past them and uh we'll figure it out god that's fucking incredible we'll talk talk about uh envy mind health yeah yeah um so envy um well i'll take a step back i mentioned the process at the Seal Future Foundation, and we were just measuring how these different treatments were working on the guys, had the dashboard. And I thought, wait a second, can we do this with other people? Because how many billions of people are suffering with some type of mental health issue, disorder? Like, is there a way to leverage technology and specifically biometrics, wearables to help

us understand our mental health? So I didn't know the answer to that, but I saw what we rudimentarily built at the foundation. We had, you know, people monitoring. I was like, man, with technology, we can do this. So I went back to grad school and I have no business again, but I shoot for the moon. You know, Texas, Tennessee, like really, like just always are striving for the next thing.

So where do you go? Well, you go to Oxford, right? Of course. So Oxford has a really cool MBA program. It's a two-year incubator. We were one of the few projects selected. So I got a group of guys. I got a French rugby captain was in my class and he's super passionate about this because

his mentor committed suicide in the French rugby team. And then there's a lot of suicides happening with that transition we talked about. So he was on the team. We had another veteran. She's phenomenal. Um, she worked for the agency for a bit too. So she gets this and she's had her own trauma and just a really cool team of people from diverse backgrounds that realize like, Hey, yeah, we're all suffering. Even though we're different walks of life, we're committed to helping us figure this out.

So we worked on Envy two years at Oxford, launched it last year. And what it is, is we're kind of like the Strava for runners. I don't care what device you have. We capture 70% of the market. So you got a Garmin cool or a Ring cool. We scrape some information that you give us access to. We roll it up with our algorithm

algorithm to what we call mind score but more importantly we give you trend lines so you're trending in a direction and mental health or mental wellness is over a longer period than say recovery right so we're going to see where you're trending so now you get to understand where you're at we build community around this again so like just like in the seal teams we had swim buddies so i have on my app right now i got all my teammates monitoring me and they also get alerts from the app if i start going sideways they're going to get an alert uh and if it gets severe enough the algorithm's smart enough to tell you it's like hey johnny's not in a really bad situation you need you need to get a a hold of Mesa. But the other thing we're doing

is we're building mental resilience. So like, let's get to that individual before they get to that spot. And then let's get back to our prime where like, we don't fall victim to that. We catch it before that. And then we just keep optimizing and improving. So that's my goal is to help people with the resilience.

The other cool thing that's done is it measures the impact that all the solutions are having on you. So, you know, you do psilocybin, like what does that do to your physiology? Well, let's see. And let's see, you know, how long those effects last. And let's see that compared to traditional medicine. And let's see that compared to an ice bath or compared to the sauna or compared to nutrition. And in enough time with enough data, we're going to be able to tell what works for you in that specific scenario.

So right now we're focused on the veteran first responders. We're talking to Austin fire department, Boston, their police. Like we want to help those people that are in situations that are high stress, there's high suicide, but let's get back to what we used to be super resilient creatures. Let's, let's make sure if we do slip, that we're able to catch each other the way that we used to. And then let's find out what solutions work.

So we're working with them, working with some of the foundations. And my goal is just to like scale this to everybody that wants to, to just have a better understanding of where they're at. No judgment. We're all going to have our ups and downs, but let's understand how we constantly optimize. So that's what we've been doing. Um, we're running around the country, raising money for this, uh, actually the world. I'm in France next week. Um, and, uh, I'm going to stop at nothing. And again,

there's only one option here. The world deserves, um, better tools, better systems. And I'm going to stop at nothing. And again, there's only one option here. The world deserves better tools, better systems, and I'm going to stop at nothing with my team to figure this out. That's so fucking rad. I mean, that literally was my job at Onnit. Director of Human Optimization. It was just being the office guinea pig. Oh, dude, that's awesome. Run fucking every N equals one, go to the supplement conferences,

combine all the new and novel things to make something unique that no one else had, and just try it on first size. And then like Sasha Shulgin's inner circle, you know, spread that out to Aubrey and ETG and the other rest of the crew and see what are the results in the gym? What are the results in the bedroom? How do you sleep at night? You know, figuring out all this shit and that's how we'd make new products, you know, but it's, it's cool because you're making this available to everybody and starting with where it's needed most. But, but the fact that this is something that an everyday Joe can say, yeah, man, I'm fucking hate my job. I've got

a, not a great relationship with alcohol or with my wife. And I don't know the first thing that's going to help me. Where do I fucking start? Right. Yeah. You got all the, you know, just a laundry list of things that can work. I do. It's I, I, again, I get chills thinking about it and this is my life's mission now. Like I'm going to stop at nothing. We have, we have a universities we're partnering with. So Austin's one of them. We're going to do the data collection around the Ibogaine study that they're going to do.

Uh, and potentially if not Ibogaine, another psychedelic. Uh, so we have to get approval by the university, Robin Carr Harris. We've been in talks with them at UCSF. Adam Gazelli supports us on the board. Uh, Adam Gazelli runs Neuroscape at UCSF. Adam Gazzelli supports us on the board. Adam Gazzelli runs Neuroscape at UCSF and Robin works under that team. And those guys have taken digital therapeutics through the FDA approval process. So for me, it's like, I don't want people using the app. I just want people to understand where they're at and how we support each other when we get to

those down points and we will, and then what works for us. So I think that the opportunity is endless. I mean, adolescents do like with the pressure that the kids have today with social media, bullying and all this other stuff, like, and I don't know how we do this, but as a parent,

like, I don't know if like, it would be good to know that my son or my daughters, my sons or daughters are not in a good place. Like, you know, when I was a teenager teenager i didn't say shit to my parents yeah and i don't know how they would feel about that my son who just graduated high

school yesterday has done medicine so he'd be like yeah i love it dad this is amazing two years ago like fuck you get away from me right yeah yeah so um yeah that's that's the path i call it the war path and the obligation that we have to make something. And it's cool to hear that that's what you used to do because it's the funnest job in the world, man. Yeah, absolutely, brother. It's so good. You get to take it out to everybody, too. It's been great having you on the podcast, brother.

We'll do it again. Where can people find you? Where can people get a hold of you? And where can people support you? Yeah, I would just direct everybody to NVMindHealth. And it's inv M H.com. Um, and then obviously we have envy mind health on all the different social media platforms. Um, I still have stigma with social media as a former team guy. So I'm like trying to figure out how to use LinkedIn, but our team, uh, has a page and,

uh, I, I am out there somewhere. Awesome. Yeah. Johnny, it's been fucking great having you and we'll for sure run it back. You know, the path that you're on is one that you cross a lot of ground very quickly when you're on this kind of trajectory. So I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about here

in a relatively short period of time. For sure. Thank you, brother. Thank you. you