Shawn Ryan Show - #110 Tu Lam - Call of Duty & The Way of Rōnin

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Tu Lam is a former Army Special Forces Green Beret and CEO of Rōnin Tactics. Tu Lam escaped communist rule in Vietnam as a child and would ultimately immigrate to the United States and serve in Special Operations for over 20 years. Today, he continues to run Rōnin Tactics and is widely known for his appearances in the hit video game series Call of Duty. Most recently, Tu Lam has authored The Way of Rōnin, an incredible chronicling of his life and work. The book is available now to preorder. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://mypatriotsupply.com https://betterhelp.com/shawn https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" Tu Lam Links: Preorder The Way of Rōnin - www.harpercollins.com/pages/way-of-ronin Train - https://www.ronintactics.com IG - https://www.instagram.com/ronintactics X - https://twitter.com/ronintactics FB - https://www.facebook.com/people/Ronin-Tactics/100064816893518 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGbWCJCruG_3HlRlMaIq6xA Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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New Umbrell Daily UV Moisturizer, now available online or at your local retailer. To Lam, welcome to the show again. Thank you. It's good to have you back, man. It's great to be back. But so you were actually, if I remember correctly, you were the last episode that we recorded in the attic of my house.

So things have developed a little bit since the last time you've been here. And things have also developed quite a bit with you since we've sent your last episode. And we'll get into some of that but I'm not gonna give you a full intro cuz you don't really need one but Just for the audience if you didn't see his first interview, which I can't imagine anybody that hadn't but retired Special Forces operator Tom one of the top tactical trainers in the country a call of Duty character to include being on the cover,

which we'll get into. And now, author. So you got the new book out, The Way of Ronan, which will be coming out on May 21st. Yes. We'll probably release this right before then. Just for, what is the book about? Is it your life story? It's about my life story.

It is? It is. So that'll be linked in the description so everybody can go get a pre-order or if you're watching this after the time of the release, just order it on Amazon. Please pre-order. But yeah, I can't, I, you know,

dude, I'm so honored that I got one of the, that's like the first copy, right? You got the very first copy. The first copy. I pulled it out of your mailbox. Yeah, cause I was doing an interview. And you were doing your interview and I was at your house with Katie and Ruthie

and they asked me to walk, walked all the way down to your mailbox. Literally, that long driveway. And it was there. Yeah, man, so you got the first copy. Very honored to have the first copy. So I'm going to need you to sign that. Yes. And then it'll get framed and put into the museum

that we're building here. But so today's interview is gonna be, I wanna talk to you a little bit about the Call of Duty stuff, I wanna talk to you about what inspired you to write the book, you know, your life story and get it out there. And then what I'm really looking forward to talking to you about is we've both been on a healing journey since our last interview. We both have gotten into

psychedelic therapy. We've explored all kinds of other things that work. And I can't just, you went full into that and you came out a new man. And so I really want to dive deep into that. But first, before we go any farther and get into the weeds, I have a Patreon account. There are top supporters. They've been here since the very beginning, even before the podcast ever even started.

And so one thing that I do for them is I give them the opportunity to ask the guests a question. And so this question is from Greg. And basically what he's saying, this is a long question, but basically what he's saying is a long question but basically what he's saying is he knows that you train a lot of law enforcement and what he's asking is it kind of goes along with our EDC pocket dump but what Greg is asking is you're around a lot of law enforcement you train a lot of law enforcement are law enforcement saying that they are worried about the uptick in crime that's been happening?

Are you getting any inside gouge on what those guys are worried about and if they think crime is going to continue to get worse? So, you know, training literally across America, to West Coast. I I'm very intimate with You know SWAT teams Street officers patrol officer all of them highway patrol Counter-necotics and I work with a lot of task force and I tell you the the main concern Is they don't have the support You know political

is they don't have the support. Political repercussions from doing their job, arresting a person, they can lose their badge. If they shoot a person in self-defense, literally, they can lose their badge. Border patrol, they can lose their badge. They forcefully stop immigrants. That was the main concern that I saw across the police departments was that if they do

their job, they'll be scrutinized. Now there was a few incidents where officers on the side of a road and they get ambushed. When I was in New Orleans, I was training their counter-necotics teams in Baton Rouge and we left New Orleans that morning and a cop got shot in the face. Are you serious? Yeah, literally got shot in the face that morning as we're moving to Baton Rouge because he was controlling street traffic Do I think there's an uptick in crime if you don't have the proper law enforcement in place that can execute their jobs

You're gonna have uptick in crime. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah What so the so the biggest concern for law enforcement is that their legs have been chopped out from under them. They have no support from political figures. They have no support from their leadership. And depending on where they're working, they don't have any support from the local community because they've bastardized them. You know, do you see, do the police or the law enforcement guys that you're training,

I mean, are they worried about an uptick in crime? What do they say they do now? That the, I mean, how are they, I couldn't imagine being a cop today. I could not imagine it. But what do they, I mean, you see this happening all over in certain states where department stores are just getting ransacked by thugs, you know, and there are states now, I think that if your home is being robbed,

if it's not a light threatening situation, don't even call the police. They're not gonna respond. I mean, what are the cops doing now in place of what they used to do, which is fight crime? You know, I work with some of the best in the nation, man. And I tell you, these are great Americans. And you know, yeah, they don't have the proper support,

but they're gonna do what they do to protect their community. And I worked around some of the best, and I tell you, like, yeah, you take away their budget, you take away their support, but these are great Americans. They're gonna do what they do, regardless of your support. But it is a concern to me, to me as a civilian, is that, okay, so if police officers can't respond to their community because their hands are tied, budgeting, manning issues, whatever,

so who's going to protect the civilians? Well, that's kind of what I'm getting at. I mean, nobody that's I? Nobody is gonna protect him. I mean it's it's a you know, I think that a lot of people are you know, there's that old saying you reap what you sow and I think a lot of people are feeling that now especially the ones that are trapped You know where they live that that had that big, you know, the big defund the police movement.

It's not working out so good. Better luck next time. You know, and people always say, hey, I'll call the police. Okay, so let's just even talk about history. The LA riots, everybody knows about the LA riots, I'm gonna bring it up. You know, there were certain portions of the city that was shut down. You're like, hey, I'm not gonna get to you. There were certain portions of the city that was shut down.

You're like, hey, I'm not going to get to you. So these Koreans are on the rooftop with guns trying to protect their business from getting burned down because they were told nobody's going to come for you. So what about the civilians is what I say. And one of the things I do is I train civilians I train our law by since because they need to help and they're the ones are going to be the first responders Protecting their family. Yeah and themselves law enforcement. Yes, that's your job. You're not gonna get to them in time I'll tell you that yeah. Yeah

Touchy subjects man touchy subjects, but thank you for answering Greg on my patreon so One last thing and then we get into the weeds You this is probably the only reason you came back here, but you know everybody gets a gift Yes, and I know you'll smash those Yes. And I know you'll smash those. Made in the US. Teen night. Hey, they're still legal in all 50 states.

It's been about two and a half years since you've been on and they're still legal in all 50 states. And these gummies are bigger. Yeah. They're like bulkier. They're like commando gummies. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.

Yeah, so since the last interview, things have kind of blown up for you, it seems like. And you're already a Call of Duty character. Now you're on the cover of Call of Duty. You got your new book out, The Way of the Ronin, and I mean, things are just going really well for you. And, you know, before, I just wanna say, you know, it's just nice to see somebody with a platform like you have that is still a very good example to today's youth.

Thank you. And there's a lot of people that have been on the show that I say that to, but you know, I just, I really mean it. And when we, when I look for guests, you know, and we're going to do a life story on them, I look for somebody that's going to be a positive example to the world. And you just, you have it, man. Like you're a great example. You have a great message.

It's all about love and healing. And it's just, you're doing great things, man. Thank you. So thank you. I appreciate that. But Call of Duty. Okay. I appreciate that. But Call of Duty, on the cover, how did that happen? Man, first is a blessing, right? When I say that working with Infinity Ward was a blessing, it was really cool to even experience that in a lifetime, right? To be doing motion capture to put me in this tight suit with these balls and literally

I go out there and I feel them, right? How to kill people with weapons. It's fun. But the thing is, we were working with them and we built a close relationship with them. They scanned me in the game at Modern Warfare 1, season 3. I came into the game. And my character was really popular. When I say I was the number one downloadable character

in Modern Warfare. And they called me back to Hollywood, and I was filming Modern Warfare 2, right before it was coming out. And at that time, they were like, too, this is an L-shaped intersection in a hallway. How would you attack it? And I'm like, how many guys I have? Two guys.

And I would clear the hallway the way I would normally clear a hallway. And we'd clap scep there, enter a room, control the room, dominate the room. So they had all these cones and I would do these drills. And man, I tell you, I was 45 at the time when I started filming, right? And I tell you, man, the older you get, because they made me do these movements.

Right? And I'm in this tight, and it's really hot in there. And they got cameras all over me. And they have grid squares on this floor. And you have to perform these movements at a certain grid square. And you look at these huge monitors, it's a different world with your avatar. And it had this speed bar, right?

And gradually it will pick up the speed. So literally at one point I was sprinting to try to keep up with that speed bar. And it's a lot of movements. And it reminded me back on the teams. Like I would have to go through the shoot house, perform over and over and over. And yeah, we did that.

And my character became really popular. And the vice president wanted to do something nice for me, I guess. It was just totally a surprise. You didn't know you were going to be on the cover? I knew, but they didn't really say it yet. I kind of like, okay, why are you giving me so much attention?

And I would capture these movements and there was a certain point where, you know, they, after the photo shoot, so I had a photo shoot, they redid my whole costume. What is really cool about the whole thing, Sean, is like, you know, I'm a really big samurai fan. And, you know, I study samurai philosophy and, you know, it's part of who I am, Bushido. And, you know, Masashi Miyamoto, the Ronin, you know, he kind of influenced me to be a Ronin in this modern world. What I'm saying is the teachings of Five Rings issued

rule. He broke down fire, water, earth, ground. He broke down void. These five teachings that kind of guided me through life. Infinity War, so it was my, man, it was my anniversary. So my wife and I, we flew out to Malibu Beach to hang out at this Airbnb, literally right on the beach, beautiful. They actually filmed that movie Spanglish with Adam Sandler, literally right in the house that we stayed at. They modernized the house, but that was the house, literally. And we would hang out on the beach in Infinity Ward.

Man, they're in Hollywood. That was the house, literally. And we would hang out on the beach in Infinity Ward. Man, they're in Hollywood. They drove out. One of the guys met me. He talked about the Book of Five Rings. He asked me a few things. And when they put my character on the title in Modern Warfare 2, season two. Season two, they redid a whole

world around my character. Ronin, so when I say that, so Modern Warfare, they did a whole world where it was Japan, right? And it had the teachings of the five rings in there. Wow. You know, and I tell you, man, like, it's very humbling to think, like, you know, my story. Like, I found Bushido at a very young age. You know, I told you a whole story on the last interview.

But now that code of ethics, of warrior, man, is being shared to the world in the most popular view game platform Right and you know for me to be my character Ronan, but also to give philosophy to the world That's amazing I did not realize that you know something else that I think is really neat that the Call of Duty did is a I mean they really It's you it's your weapons that you designed. I mean how they really, it's you. It's your weapons that you designed. I mean, how many Ronin weapons are in the game

that you use, or your character? Just about every one I use, they have created that weapon. Which ones are they? You know, we used M1A. That's on the game. We used the M4 rifle. That was simply how I would rig it up. You know, the teams, right?

We would rig up our rifles a certain way. And they literally configured that rifle with the camouflage, my pistols. It's your products, though, correct? It's your products though, correct? It's your design? It is. So what they do is their artist takes the original design and through copyright and all that,

they have to protect their company and they will change a few things on it. So my signature on my rifle is I have a gold bolt with a dragon symbol on it. It's a nickel boron bolt, but it have a gold bolt with a dragon symbol on it. It's a nickel boron bolt, but it's a gold bolt. Something I wanted that's unique to me, and it was certain camouflage pattern. They put that on a game.

That is really cool. With the optics that I usually run. Very, very cool. Very cool. You know the swords. Yeah. So I want to tell you, these swords were handmade for me by this blade maker in Japan. His name is Kiku.

Kiku has, dude, he's like three years backlogged. We met when I was filming for the History Channel Knife for Deaf. He asked me what sword would I like him to make for me. I asked him to make two washi-tashi swords. Washi-tashi in the samurai sword line is the, so you have your katana, which is a sword, and your washi-tashi, which is a short sword. Muromotsu Masashi wielded the short and the long sword,

and he called them heaven and earth. Interesting. So I asked Kiku to forge me heaven and earth. Two washi-tashi swords. What I'm saying is those washi-tashi swords got scanned into the video game. And that's what my character uses to hack up people. So when I was doing motion capture,

they had these Kali sticks, you know, the Filipino one sticks. And you know, when I worked Kali, I was in the Philippines, you know, doing PSD work for General Walsh back then and training their counter-terrorist units. And I would learn Kali and knife fighting from the Filipinos.

So here I am in motion capture studio, killing this guy with two Kali sticks, doing Kali, and that translated to my swords on the game. Very cool, man. It's very cool. That has to be, I mean, the video game industry, from what I understand, is bigger than the music and movie industry combined. It's one of the biggest entertainment industry in the world.

And you are on. Don't quote me on this, but it has to be at least one of the most one of the most popular games in the world. Call of Duty, the Call of Duty franchises. Everybody knows what Call of Duty franchise. And even me, who I'm not a gamer, but I have played it. And just to see their version of you running around, doing your thing, that has to be just pretty surreal. You know I want to share with you this story man like so when I was little I was really into GI Joes right so I read GI Jo comic books and guess

who's my favorite character Storm Shadow the right? I was so drawn to Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. The two ninjas, if you guys don't know G.I. Joe. Somehow I became a ninja. Interview King. Right? Because when they designed my character, he looks like a ninja. Yeah, he has night vision and all that. That's what a ninja would use nowadays, right? Yeah. Yeah, he has night vision and all that. That's what a ninja would use nowadays, right? Special operations are ninjas. So the thing is, man, they put a ninja in a game. But back when I was young, I idolized GI Joe.

And somehow I became the modern day GI Joe. So it's just kind of funny. That is very cool, man. But let's move into healing. So at the same time when you left, I think shortly after that, maybe, I don't want to speak for you, but we both wound up in a dark place at some point in time.

And we both had found and researched psychedelics. And I think we both, at the end of, I shouldn't say the end of our journeys, because it never really ends until it's over. But you seem to be a new man now, and I know that my healing journey continues to change me. And so I want to get into, I think the book was probably part of the healing process, am I mistaking? The book's part of the healing process.

So I want to get into, you know, what kind of things you've done to heal your mind and your body. And to start with that, I'd like to start with your daily routine because you are a very disciplined individual. You spend a lot of time working on yourself, both your mind and your body and your family. And so I'd like to, you know, I know you have a rigorous meditation pattern.

And so let's start with daily routine. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We all carry around different stressors, big and small. And at times we keep carrying them around rather than processing them and letting them go. Keeping everything bottled up can start to affect us negatively. Therapy is a safe place to get things off your chest. Therapy from BetterHelp is helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself.

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You know, the morning routine is the most important routine. And the reason why is it sets up the framework for the whole day. And a lot of guys, we don't place energy on the morning routine or importance on it because we are so reactive to our day. Being proactive to your day sets up a mindset, a routine, a ritual of discipline.

So the morning routine is not easy. It's not easy. And I plan it so it is not easy. It's not easy. And I plan it so it's not easy. 4 o'clock in the morning is not easy for anybody to get up. I choose to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. And the reason why at that time is the brain is still half asleep. So you're still at slow brain waves.

So long as I don't spark my dopamine release, which is getting on the phone right away, turning on TV, stressing out, long as I don't do that, I'm still at that slow brain wave. So literally, I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, brush my teeth, I let my dogs out, and I have the bio mat. So then the bio mat basically, it grounds me. So when I say that is, you ever woke up

and instantly you had anxieties? All the time. Yeah, me too at one point. So that's the nervous system getting taxed, okay? And what you gotta do is you gotta really focus on your nervous system, not your thoughts, your nervous system getting taxed. Okay? And what you gotta do is you gotta really focus on your nervous system, not your thoughts, your nervous system. Okay, so that's your nervous system, the anxieties.

So initially what I do in the mornings, I wanna ground myself, so meditation. Meditation's so important because you're dropping that brainwave to slow brainwaves, but you're conscious. And when you're able to do that, you're able to kind of reprogram the subconscious. You're able to influence that. And that's the program.

That's 95% of how your day goes through the subconscious, your program. So that's what I focus on first, mind. So you get up at 4 a.m. and you get on this bio mat and the bio mat resets your frequencies. I have to breathe into it. So basically there is a breathing practice that you have to do. Meditation is a breathing practice. For me my breathing practice is I go off an old Hindu breathing practice. I have many breathing practices but in the morning what I want

to do is I want to go into deep inhales and long exhales, right? And that's the Hindu, but what the Hindu is they roll their belly. It's almost they roll their belly on the way out. So when you roll your belly, belly to spine, what you're doing is you're activating the lower abdominal. We breathe very shallow in our day. In our upper lungs, we don't breathe. And majority of our energy is stored within the solar plexor.

If you just meditate, breathe into it, you'll feel, oh man, I feel something here. Well, that's the anxieties and that's the nervous system. So you have to be able to breathe into that. So if I do that every single morning, what am I doing, Sean? Creating a habit. I'm reprogramming. Every morning.

Reprogramming every morning. My mind. How long does this take you? You know, I started off, you know, I've tried to be overachievers sometimes. I started off 30 minutes and I couldn't get thoughts out. It got louder for me. But I would sit there every morning at four o'clock in the morning, man. And I sat there for three years, failing every day.

Thoughts, thoughts, I would come out. But then I think about it, it's like, how much stuff have we seen on the teams? Like, you know, like my background wore, like how much stuff have I seen? Yeah, there's a lot of thoughts there. So I let it man, I just let it run, you know? And there was a certain point

where my meditation practice caught up, the skill. And I'm able to let go of thought and breathe into emotion. That's how you actually move energy. So in the morning when I ground myself out, if I feel anxieties, that's gone by the time my day hits. See, if you wake up in anxieties, dude, if you don't do anything about it, it drags on all day, doesn't it? And what happens when you have anxieties dude, if you don't do anything about it it drags on all day doesn't it? Mm-hmm, and what happens when you have anxiety say tax the nervous system. It puts you in a state of survival. You're not present You know We talked about this yesterday

I believe in about meditation and some of the you know, I was doing great, it's pretty much completely fallen off. And, you know, when I was getting, when I felt like I was getting good at it, it was, somebody at one point along the line had told me, thoughts are like clouds, they just pass through. And I could get to the point where all of my thoughts would pass through, and then I would go into this, I guess it would be a meditative state,

and I wouldn't know how long I would be there. And once, until I came back to them, once I realized, it's kind of like a realization for me, like, oh shit, I have no more, like, all the thoughts are gone. That to me was kind of like the signal, like, all right, you're done for today's, today's meditation is wrapped up, you can move about your day. And then it kind of fell off and I tried to get back into it.

And, you know, I don't wake up with anxieties every morning, but you know, there are, there's especially being a business owner, you know, it's, it's things come up, you know what I mean? A lot. And as I'm sure you can relate and, and being a pub public figure, things come up a lot, a lot of hate comes towards me. Also a lot of love, but as humans, we gravitate towards the hate. It's just how we're programmed, right?

And so I'll get there, and a lot of times, I wind up in this wheel where I cannot, it's somebody's coming at me or whatever it is. And I wind up in this wheel and I feel like by sitting there not doing anything, it makes it worse. Does that make sense? And so I get frustrated, I leave my meditation,

and I just go about my day, because it gets that off my mind rather than sitting. Can you relate to that at all? Okay, so deeper than that. Thoughts, thoughts, feel, emotion. So let's just say you wake up with anxieties. That's an energy and an energy wants to stay alive. It needs to stay alive.

And how do you feel energy? Through thoughts. So let's say you feel anxiety as you wake up and you're like, oh, man, I got this meeting today. I got to talk to this guy. Oh, God, I got to take my kid here. You have a lot of daddy duties, or you have a lot of life duties. So that attaches on to

the emotion. If I was to tell you let go of thought and focus on feel, we have three minds. We have thoughts, we have a heart, and we have our gut. The gut and the heart can be trusted, the mind can't be. So when you're hearing thoughts, let it go and focus in on feel. When I wake up and I have anxieties right away, I could feel it, right? And I still have it sometimes today. But when I wake up and I feel it, I thank it, because I can release it now. And literally it takes me 30 seconds. Wow, 30 seconds.

30 seconds to transmute that energy. You can't kill energy, you can't just eliminate energy. Energy's forever forever our soul energy Right is forever But what you can do is transmute energy Transmute, okay, so Let's go back right go back in time where you had a bad relationship Right. She broke your heart. Mm-hmm

Fast forward that a year later, you don't care. You don't even care. Time heals things. So you transmute it through time. But what if I tell you, you can transmute it faster than that. Instead of suffering for a year, you can transmute it within, I don't know, minutes. So transmuting energy is that you got to feel energy. So energy wants to be felt. You know, look, every day I'm telling you, Sean, it took me literally nine and a half years to figure it out.

In the Green Berets, you know we're really good at intelligence and understanding the situation. And what happened if the situation, the enemy is you? You know, we're trained how to find, fix, and kill the enemy abroad, but what happened to the enemy is you. So you got to find the patterns. So the pattern was the anxieties in the morning, okay?

The patterns was thoughts that controlled me throughout my day. And thoughts are tied to emotion. And the more thoughts I have, the more emotions I'm going to feel. So if I can let go of thought and let that emotion pass like the clouds, then it doesn't affect you. Religion-wise, I'm a Christian.

I believe in Jesus. But I also believe that there were great that walked this planet that taught us about God and healing and stuff like that. And Buddha is one. And Buddha taught us about letting go. But what if I tell you I don't know how to let go? And Buddha taught us about letting go. But what if I tell you, I don't know how to let go.

Took me nine and a half years to understand it. Interesting. What else do you have in your morning routine? So after I meditate, for now I meditate two hours. Two hours? Two hours. So four to six is meditation. Because I know I can program myself.

I'm not only working on programming around myself for that day, I'm working on trauma as well. I have a lot of trauma. So I work on that. So whatever energy rises, I breathe into it, and I let it go through the biomet. So that biomet moves energy. So if I'm able to drop into delta brainwaves

and be total conscious, imagine if I'm injecting positive aflamation into it. So I'm hearing positive aflamation, bypassing my conscious mind, and programming my subconscious. Very interesting. So is it two hours exactly of meditation? Yeah, I set a timer. Okay, okay.

I set a timer and usually why I do for two hours, that's long meditation and I like long meditations now because my practice is there for it? But when I first started, it was two minutes, five minutes, if I can just not talk to myself or think. And now I can go up to two hours without thought. Wow, wow. So after meditation, then I go upstairs and I change into my workout outfit. I got a gym downstairs and I start cardio.

Cardio in the morning is so important because what it does, it moves the left and right side of your brain. If you're doing alternate movements like stair stepper, if you're walking, if you're running, the alternate movements, the alternate movements, it pulls you into the present moment, right? That's why I like cardio.

And also cardio is great in the mornings because I do what's called fasting cardio. So the older you get, what? Your metastasis slows down, right? When you get off the teams, your metastasis slows down, whatever your lifestyle is. For me, so I fast, I started fasting around six o'clock at night.

So no carbs and no sugar at noon. Carbs and sugar, if I was to consume it in the morning, carbs I consume in the morning. And then around noon, it's just protein and vegetables. Nighttime, no carbs, no sugar. So when I wake up in the morning, I'm deprived of what? I've been fasting, so I'm deprived of carbs and sugar. And I hit cardio right away, and if fat burning's on,

man, it burns straight to your fat. Nice. You're not burning sugar, you're not burning through carbs. Nice. So cardio in the morning. So after I do cardio in the morning, usually it's long cardio. And I don't listen to music. And I don't listen to music.

I either don't listen to music, and I'm just trying to be present with quietness, or I listen to podcasts as that improves me, or I listen to philosophy, or I listen to lectures about neuroscience. I listen to something that improves me as a human being, religion, God. I listen to all that in the morning.

Because in the morning is about positivity. And after cardio, I cold plunge. So after you induce all that inflammation, right? Cold plunging gets rid of inflammation. You know, inflammation can lead to heart attacks, right? So cardio, weight training, it causes all that. So what I do is I cold plunge. I cold plunge for five minutes.

You cold plunge for five minutes? Yes. I cold plunge for five, after like a minute and 45 seconds for me, my body goes numb and I'm, you, and I'm fine. But that first, you'll hit fight or flight, when I say that, it's you'll hit survival, where you feel like you're going to die. Your mind is going to say, hey, get out, right?

And that's what you want, you want to push through that, because on the other side, resilience, and on the other side, it's like dopamine release in a positive way. So imagine, so I co-plunge at five minutes and then I get out and I don't jump in a hot shower, I let my body warm up itself. So I'm shivering as I'm eating breakfast and I eat a healthy breakfast and I go to work. So that's my morning.

What do you eat for breakfast? You know, a healthy breakfast. Just steak, egg, you know, when I bulk, right? Just because I'm in Hollywood now, I have to keep a certain image. So I have to eat a certain routine. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. So how long does your routine take before, how long are you spending on yourself before you go to work? Four to nine. Four to nine. So five hours of self work. And that's just in the mornings. Very interesting.

And then I go to work, right? And, you know, fortunately I get to work with my wife and stuff like that. So I go to work, I handle all that, and I break out around two or three, and then that starts my weight training session. I do cardio in the morning. I do strength training now. So then my strength training is just about an hour, two hours, hour and a half.

When I say that, it's stretching and, you know, all that, and the weight training starts. And then, right before I go to bed, I preheat this infrared sauna. You know, it's a portable sauna, right? I preheat it to 170 degrees for 30 minutes, and I meditate in it for 30 minutes. That's a lot of self care.

You know, a lot of self work, man. That's amazing. Yeah, because I realized at a certain point I wasn't happy and nothing got made me happy. Like when I say it, I saw after the show, you know, everything was going great because, you know, I was growing in business, I was growing, but everything was external. I was working on myself through meditation, but dude, you know, meditation can only take

you so far, right? And at that point, I didn't realize that childhood trauma has a lot to do with your current state of mental health. You know, and I had a lot of trauma. I was born in war, I escaped genocide, I was left for death in nearly 30 days, we escaped on the boat, refugee camps, parents divorced, racism. Like I had all those trauma before I even hit seven years old. Before even the analytical mind was even developed, it went straight to my subconscious.

So why am I saying this? Is because we have a mental health crisis in America, right? And we need to do something about it. And self-work helped me. Veterans, we've been at war for what? 20 years. It's 20 year war. It's time that we heal our country.

It's time we heal. Like, I don't think we heal it after the Vietnam War. What was... So you've been on... When did we meet? It was about two and a half years ago, correct? Yeah, it's like that. It was about two and a half years ago,

give or take, a couple months. You came on years ago, correct? Yeah, it's like that. It was about two and a half years ago, give or take a couple months. You came on the show, we release it, business explodes. We both went and did a psychedelic therapy right around the same time. And I can't, I think I went first. Did I go first? Yeah, I wanna tell you, man, like you were an influencer for me to do it.

You went first, so I want to remind you. So, you know, we had our interview and you came back and you know, you and I became friends and you told me your thing about doing that. And our number one of your guests, you know, kind of ran that foundation and you went underneath that program. And man, the episodes you release,

you know, it helped me, right? And also at that time I was interested in it because my meditation, dude, it only can take you so far, seriously, right? And you went to Mexico, you came back, you shared your experience, you and back, you shared your experience. You and I, we shared, you know, we talked on the phone and you helped me, right?

You helped me get into the program. You sent me the link and I went to Mexico, because of you. And I tell you, man, like, I'm gonna share my experience about Mexico. You know, I never did. Never, never did. When I said as I heard, you know, my voice is sort of turning against me.

It was telling me to do things. And that's what happens. There was a certain point that your nervous system gets so taxed. And anxiety is there so much thoughts thoughts get latched onto emotion. Thoughts and emotion is connected, right? So your mind and body is connected. So it has to support whatever you're feeling. And at that point, man, I was bad.

So here I am, I go, you know, Lerlis, I think is right after you. And I go to Mexico. There was two Navy guys, a Marine and an NFL. He did a whole career in the NFL. So imagine the TBI. And Ibogaine was the treatment. So Ibogaine is off of the iboga root from Africa and what it does, they call it the

tree of life, the root. But Ibogaine, it had the abilities to kind of remap our brain, right? Helps TBI, helps trauma, right? It is one of the most aggressive treatments out there. So I went down there, I loaded up on a van, was moving south into Mexico. I don't even know what I was doing, man.

I grabbed my phone, log in waypoints, like in case we made contact, right, with some drug cartel, and you know, and then we ended up at the safe house. It looked like a CIA safe house, at least, you know, right on the beach, same place you were. And you know, you sent me pictures, so I knew where you were sitting, looking at the beach underneath

the overhead. So I knew what you were doing when I was there. And I tell you, man, I want to go straight to the treatment. You got doctors, you got everything there is legit. It's in a safe house and it happened at night, so they saged the area to get rid of whatever bad energy. And we prayed. We invited God, Jesus, and love. And then I took the Ibogaine, and they had these little

pills, and I'm really sensitive. So it hit me faster than any one of them. Right. And I remember like the Navy guy was right next to me and he had the huge mirror like you talked about. And my face started shifting and I wanted to see my face warping then but I started getting nauseous. I started vomiting over myself. I laid down. Right. And I put that mask on. I think I was Man, I tell you, man, like everybody else had these amazing experiences. All I felt was like fucking pain and misery for 15 hours. You know, the worst I ever felt. And, um, man, there was a certain point where I felt like somebody was ripping out my hair. When I say that is, you know, I had all these really negative thoughts, you know, and it was consuming my mind.

And I felt like some old guy, like literally I felt him on my chest ripping my hair out, but he was actually pulling out these negative thoughts. And I mean, thousands, hundreds of thousands of thoughts. It was all negative, you know. It started off with my military career. I could feel it literally as he was ripping it. I could feel thoughts and emotion.

And it was just, oh, it was just anxiety. Like if I had a gun there, I would have ended it. That's how horrible it was for me. Wow. And it, you know, every anxiety, everything I felt, loneliness, everything just kind of rushed. And then, man, you're so nauseous, right? Like under that, you know, any movement,

you're so nauseous, I'm bombing. And the things I'm seeing that's coming out of me, it's not, it's not this world, you know? You know, it's evil stuff. And dude, around six o'clock in the morning, you kind of come to, and literally I could almost see the smoke on the ground from us. And all of us are exhausted, like we just went to war.

And man, I started crying and I wanted to vomit. I remember that freaking stupid, freaking African music was going. I had enough, so I ripped off all my stuff, all my heart monitor, I ripped it all off. I ripped out my IV. I was done. And of course the paramedics grabbed me and put me back down.

But then I was done. I was worse off than I ever was. The voices was so strong now. They carried me. Two guys carried me to my room. They laid me in bed. The walls were moving. Everything was energy. If I had a gun, I would have ended it. It was horrible. And I, man, it was horrible. So then our mutual friend in Mexico came in and he's like, you feeling all right?

I was like, no. No, I'm not good, man. And he said, well, if it makes you feel any better, Sean was worse off than you. And I don't know, man. I instantly feel better. Great. I instantly feel better. Great. You know, I instantly feel better. I'm like, really? Are you serious? Sean was worse? And he's like, dude, he was a lot worse. And I don't know. I just felt better. I'm happy I could take a small part in that.

I was still in it for a long time, so they actually had to put me down with some sleeping pills. I cried sleeping because I didn't know how I can live like this. The voices were strong, man, and that energy was dark. So I fell asleep, and I woke up the next morning and it looks like a scene out of The Christmas Carol. You ever seen The Christmas Carol

when he jumps out of bed? He's like, oh, it's Christmas day, right? And he's all happy. I jumped out of bed and I didn't hear her voices anymore. And I opened up the window, I'm right on the beach, I could hear the beach, the wind was blowing, I was, I was saying, oh my God, it's a beautiful day. And I literally almost, I ran outside,

I jumped on the, like I felt the grass. And the palm trees and earth. You know, it was beautiful. But then that, within a few hours, I had to, you know, smoke the 5-Me-O DMT, that toad venom. And tell you the truth, I was petrified of that toad venom stuff. I was last in the order, so I'm hearing everybody outside.

You know, it can be loud. Mm-hmm. Right? It can be scary. So it was kind of like the gauntlet. So I'm the last one. I come out and there's this big stone frog looking at me. And you know, he looks like a crack pipe and he gets it and handshake. And he gave me the full dosage. You know, like you, I saw the light and I came through and everything became one and

I asked to get hit again. He hit me again, I went back through and what I would say I felt, I didn't see anything. People say they saw all this images. For me, I didn't see anything. The only thing I felt was love, man, like love at a level that no human being can ever love you. And I knew it was God. You know, and I was kind of floating out there, because you kind of lose sense of your body.

Right? You're out of your body. And I felt gravity pull me back to my body. At that point I wasn't so much pain anyway, so I said, I didn't even know who I was talking to. Talking to God, really. I was like, what the fuck you want me to do? What's my purpose. And clear as day, you know, it came through me through like a thought.

And it said, well, you're a celebrity now, why don't you make your words count? So, um, you know, I've been trying to make my words count ever since. Do you think your words didn't count before you did this? Because, too, you've always had a very positive, encouraging message. I didn't talk about God. This is true. You know, there was a lot of Asian philosophy and you know, philosophical, martial art stuff.

And yeah, that leads you to God. And that's a practice. But I pursued violence at one point, you know. Yeah, I need to talk about God. I need to walk in that path of that. And that's what I came to realize, you know. So I came down, entered my body, I cried, you know, on the beach, reborn. What's that even mean? So I come back home, you know, and the thing about these treatments, it remaps your brain. So you don't have any more like negative, like you don't hear the voices. You go into what's called honeymoon state when you come back.

Like if you go in these treatments, you got to make sure you come back to a peaceful environment or it can fuck you up. I didn't come home to a peaceful environment. I had to jump right into it. For me, that was the first time that, man, I just didn't know what to do anymore, right? There was so, the trauma, whatever happens, it burns from your frontal lobe right to your rear. So that, you know, coming back home and having to deal with certain traumas, man, you, it

can really mess you up. And you know, when I came home, it really messed me up. It put me on a man. It put me on a horrible path. I was worst off now. What do you want to go into what you came home to? No. OK. No.

But the thing about that is like, you know, everybody has, you know, nobody's perfect. You know, we made mistakes in the past. I tried to write my past. I couldn't. And the thing is, man, it burns, man. It burns right into your subconscious after this treatment. Think about it, you remapped your brain.

You came home and it, I don't know if it's a deeper scar, but I tell you, like, I was worst off than I ever been. And I want to tell you, man, like at that time, business was growing. Clients were growing. My training was successful. I'm going to cover a call of duty, photo sheets, sponsors. Ben Sile was in hell.

You know, and I put on a good face, right, where spec ops guys were good at that, putting on a mask. So I did. I put on a mask. I went out there and smiled in front of the people. But inside, I'm dying. I went to, dude, I spoke to a thousand narcotics officers, standing there talking about motivation and happiness.

And inside I'm not. Right, even at the Vets' Gala when I was the keynote speaker, they asked me to speak, so I'm gonna speak for the people, I'm gonna speak for us so we can get our treatment. But dude, I wasn't, I'm not 100% healed. Right, so I'm being this person that I wasn't healed, you know? And literally I was on a photo shoot

for a call of duty in Utah. And the very next day our friend, our mutual friend flew in to give me the 5-MeO because I was that bad off. The five MEO, the toad venom. So I came home, man, and he saved me. How did that differ? How did that, one, this was the actual,

real toad venom, correct? The organic, yeah. Before, in Mexico, was the synthetic. How did that differ? Different. Was it different? Anything that is human or man-made, it doesn't have the God in it, the spirit. When you eat a plant, it came from our organic root

that was made by God. God is in all things. So when man makes it, it's not from God, it's from man. When I smoked the organic 5-MeO DMT from our mutual friend under ceremony. When I say that, you gotta open up that space, there's certain process to do this in. And you know, messing with the spirit world,

you don't wanna fuck around. You wanna come in and protect it. So he protected me. Man, I died. You know, and I went through that light again, fell God, cried, came back down, came back up. So I did it eight times. And what you do is, so the 5-MeO is such a strong DMT, it's very fast acting.

Dude, it clears energy. So within our energy centers, right, you got your chakras, right, very Hindu in teachings, but you got your center line, energy centers, your root chakra, your heart chakra, all these chakras. And what happens is energy gets stuck within our solar plexus. You ever feel tight around here, Sean? All the time. All the time, right?

Because that's where the energy gets stored. So that's why meditation is so important for you. So it gets stuck right here. So what am I telling you? Your energy never even makes it to your heart. So are you saying energy, is it initiated in the gut? Well, that's where the trauma is. So we want to clear negative energy.

You want to clear negative energy. So if this is negative energy that's stored in the gut, you got to breathe into the gut, right? And what I found is, dude, that's so, like you could be a meditator for 15 years and maybe you get to 10% of your trauma. Fuck that. I need to fast forward this process,

so that's why psychedelics is important. Can you go through the chakras? Do you know them all? You know, you have to shoot, I don't know any name, but you have your root chakra, which literally in your groin area, You know you have to shoot I don't know any name, but you have your root chakra, which Literally in your groin area, and you have another chakra in your navel and then your solar plex and then your heart and then up in your

Your your upper lung area here, and then your throat So there's seven chakras mm-hmm, and then you have you have the enlightened chakra to kind of over your head, you know, because energy kind of drapes over like a waterfall around you. You know, and people tell me, man, gosh, I get so many people tell me, oh, don't exist, energy, God exists. God is the purest energy. And we are just a ray of light that's connected to the source. So you're energy. So if energy is stuck here, you need to know a practice of moving energy.

The ancients, our ancestors, knew this practice. How do you think we get disconnected from the source? That's an interesting way to put it, that the chakras are aligned and that we are all energy connected to the main source. We had spoken about this yesterday. You know, Sean, beautiful family. You have a beautiful family, man, and I met your kids. And at that age that they're in, they're connected.

They're not impeached by trauma and the impurities of this world. So that's your chakras. So that's why you see a child always happy and playing and talking to themselves, because that's the way we should be. We should live in that state of joy. But we can't because we store energy here. First, we don't know how to release. If I say, hey, if that energy is there, let it go, Sean.

How? Okay, first. Second, are you even believe? Do you even believe that everything is energy? Not everybody believes that. Everybody sees this physical world as it. And you know what? You got a right to believe what you believe.

But if you want to clear energy, you got to believe in energy. Right? So if it's here and it's impeding, how can you ever, your center vessel, ever have connection to the source? You're impeding it right here and here through thought. So you can never hear the source. And you ever had your, okay, you ever had your son misbehaved and there's no sense talking to him right then? Yes, I have. So what about Sean who is angry and has anxieties and don't want to sit still in meditation? You

ever think you're going to hear the source? No. Okay. So, you know, it's in the Bible, sit still, know that I am God. God is everything, but you have to sit still. And that goes back to meditation. You know, people try to throw meditation on me as like a religion. Oh, he's Buddhist. No, I'm Christian.

I meditate and it makes me a better Christian. Seriously. Yeah. So, yeah, that's how we lose to source and also our choices. We got free will. Think about this, Matt. If you sustain trauma and neglect from zero to seven years old in your subconscious mind before you even can think, and that's 95% of your program.

Don't you think you're kind of behind in life? You think you're going to believe in God unless you're raised in a family that teaches you God and values? What happens if you're not raised in that? What happens if your background's about survival? It's different upbringing, right? You think we have free will? That's a deep question. So I feel that God controls all things,

controls all things, you know? And I think that we have free will in the choices we make. Do you choose the source or do you choose desire, your desires, your personal desires, which is for us is sin, really. You choose God or you choose, I feel like that's our freedom of choice. It's interesting you say that. like that's our freedom of choice. It's interesting You say that I've thought a lot about this I mean, it's one of the what paramount questions of all humans and Christianity and probably every religion

Do we actually have free will and I've actually come to the exact same conclusion I think the only thing you can control in your life is whether you believe and accept God or if you don't. That's it. There's no other. I don't think there's any other free will. And you're the only other person that I've heard say that. Talk to a lot of people about this offline, and, uh, because I think it's one of the most fascinating questions, but... You know, I don't want to say... How did you come to that conclusion? Working on myself.

You know, I have a choice. Okay, so, I'm going to geek out here. Star Wars, right? Jedi's! And so, right? Jedi. And so after the Jedi War, look, I don't even watch Star Wars, but I know the storyline. So you've got these warriors, these elite warriors that come back after war.

And some of them, they reach a still point. Do you choose the light or do you choose the dark side? And there's two practices. Do you practice the light, which is spirituality, God, or do you practice darkness? Right? Sin. What do you live in? And it's kind of like the jadis, right? They come back and you have one that talks about Zen and being focused in humanity and compassion and other ones destroying the universe. When we got out of service, the team guys, man, we all reached a point of,

I call it a distill point, where you have to make a decision. And you and I have peers that went down the dark side, drinking and womenizing, where did it lead them? It usually leads them to suicide. And then you got guys like us who like, you know, look, we're not perfect, but man, we're gonna spend the rest of our lives

trying to be, at least, right, and following the word of God. So that's the light and the darkness. And I feel it's very like, you know, Star Wars in that, you know, analogy, you know? And I see it in our peers. You know, when I see my friends turn dark, their eyes turn dark.

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and use my code Sean to save 15%. You know, so. Psychedelics though. So then the 5-Meo DMT, you know, he really kind of gave me a bandaid. But I will tell you, I don't know how to navigate that. So when I say navigate, there's a certain surrender that you have to do to these psychedelics. And at that point in the game, I didn't know how.

Before we move on, that's a great point, because when you, for me included, I don't know anybody that hasn't faced the death experience. And not everybody that I know had a great experience on both Ibogaine and Five, but especially the Five. five. It takes a lot of courage to willfully die. It takes a lot of trust. I mean, how did you... I feel like you don't get a full breakthrough unless you have the courage to die. And I think a lot of people that go and they're hoping to get healing from Vive don't have the courage to let go and die. And I don't say that lightly.

I'm not calling anybody a, you calling anybody a wuss or scared. I mean, it's the most frightening experience of my life because you, in are 110% certain you are dying. And it takes some people a long time to actually have a breakthrough on five, and some people break through on the first time. I broke through on the first time, but I let myself die. What was it for you that Like I broke through on the first time, but I let myself die. What was it for you that did you willfully die?

Not at that point. And I didn't know how to die. So then that happened, and then, you know, being at the Vets Gala, being the keynote speaker, man, it introduced me to that community. Like, I got the best healers in the world. I got right there meeting them. And one of the guys that I met, I'm going to secure the location because it's

a very close-knit community of SpecOps guys. And they have these safe houses that we go to around the world that I don't want to expose the location. But there was a guy I met, and he was a healer using Wachuma. What is Wachuma? Wachuma is a masculine psychedelic cactus. So you heard of Atahuasca. So Atahuasca is a vine in the Amazon.

And like I said, each psychedelic or each plant has a spirit. It has a spirit. So when the toad entered your body, that was a spirit entering your body. It feels different. So the feminine plant of Atahuasca from the Amazon Vine, it's a feminine teacher. So they call her grandmother. And what Chuma's grandfather plants, so in the healing process, a grandmother, how would she heal you? She'll

yell at you and be mean to you, really, but she'll end up loving you. She loves you. And then grandfather sits you on his lap and say, yeah, I too messed up, man, and it's going to be okay. So a compassionate psychedelic plant. So what Tumor was found by natives. When I say that, during the expansion west, they're wiping out Native Americans. They're killing generations of them. There was this story of a female. She was in the desert and she was dying of dehydration. She's running away from the westerners who wiped out her village. And she was illusional.

And then she saw this cactus. And the cactus said, drink me. So she did. She cut open the cactus. And she saw visions. And the vision was, take me back to your people and let me heal you. So for generations, this cactus has been healing natives.

I mean, think about the trauma they've been through. So the healer that I was introduced to, he's a white guy, long, white hair. He looks kind of like Jesus, you know, skinny guy, you know. But the natives go to him as the healer. So this guy is legit. He's known around the world. Here he is, my friend.

So, you know, I went to, so I've been doing what Chiuma nine times now, right? So you drink, I went to... So I've been doing Wachima nine times now, right? So you drink... So there's this cactus, and they brew it into a tea, right? Under the full moon. So there's this whole ceremony behind it and everything. So they brew it under full moon, and then I drank like three cups of it.

So they open up the ceremony. We go to this retreat, you know, that's the supposed location, and they open up the ceremony with clear into space, only invite God, Jesus, love. You know, He opens up the corridor. And that's really important because you and I, okay, if I was to say analogy-wise, you and I are sitting underwater, we're all underwater, and you know things move underwater and things brush up against you.

There's always things in this empty space that's not empty, if you believe in energy, right? So we drank it, the cup, he basically closed off that space of negative energy, can't get into the space. And what it does, it's so bitter. Like this cactus, dude, it's nasty stuff, right? It's just really bitter.

But the bitterness, what it does, it stirs up your lower abdominal, stirs it all up, right? And there's a certain point where it goes up, it goes up right into your, your solar plex area. And then it bottoms out, basically it drops out and your heart opens. Right, it's really weird. Like when I say the heart opens,

if I was describe it, the heart is the biggest mind, the biggest muscle. When I say that is energy-wise, the heart produces more power, more energy that radiates out from this chakra than any other chakra. What is the feeling like? I mean, when you, we've spoke pretty in depth about a blocked heart. And I remember talking to you the first time you came back from doing cactus. And I have very suppressed emotions.

I have very suppressed emotions. It's hard for me to, how do I say this? I feel like I've become, my heart has become calloused and it's very rough and I don't feel a lot other than anger. And I'm not saying I'm angry all the time, but that is, it's like I'm missing emotions. At some point in my life, I have lost the ability to feel certain emotions. And, you know, I do feel gratitude,

and I do feel happiness. I'm not going to lie. It's especially gratitude. It's not often and it's far and few in between. So when you say that the heart unlocks, are you feeling all of these emotions? No, what I feel is the heart is outside my physical body. It radiates, the energy radiates outside my body. I can actually feel the heart energy radiating outside my body.

Okay. So heart opens. So the whole thing about this whole treatment, right, so it's not just decalc— Hold on. Is it like an intuition? Like you feel the energy going out? Is it love? Is it gratitude?

Is it rage releasing? What is the feeling? Expansion of the heart. Expansion of the heart. So would you say it's intuitive? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel?

What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel?

What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel?

What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? outside the body. Okay. Right. So then it goes, okay, so now you open up your heart chakra that bitterness dropped out. So now those emotions are going to start going up. Right. So all your suppressed emotions that you push down into the lower root chakra, now it's going to start coming up and imagine hitting your heart. So the practice in the Hindu is that you got to go into, you got to find the steel point. So steel point is on a deep inhalations and long exhalations, you let go of thought and you focus on the feel. There's no thought there. You're just feeling that emotion, and you breathe into it, and you roll your belly, right?

And once that medicine drops out, I would tell you there's a certain point on the deep exhale that the body takes over. So if, you know those vacuum bags, and you pack clothes in it, and you suck out all the air for the vacuum? Well, imagine when you're deep breathing, there's a certain point where all that oxygen

can suck every portion of your lower, like you can feel it leaving. So what you're doing is moving energy. At that point in my knowledge of the cactus, energy start moving. So literally, it is energy. It's a surge of energy. It looks like a bolt of lightning, right? So there was a certain point where I would lay there and I would sit straight up because

the energy just locked me straight up, right? You know, slam me back down on the ground and it would rotate my shoulders, right? You know, pull, it looked kind of like the exorcist, but totally not. I'm conscious. And it was slamming back down to the ground. And there was a certain point, like throughout my practices, I would say about my sixth time I was in, I knew how to control energy. So as this energy surged, I would move, like jujitsu,

I would just move and play around with the energy. And then there was a certain point where I found my steel point, where energy's just moving through you, and you're're sitting it's almost like a mountain and wind right blowing through I felt that and energy was literally just moving through my body right and uh dude I want to tell you man like at these treatment centers dude I had a damn neck red squadron operator. I had a C squadron operator from the unit.

I had my ex-teammate. These are the baddest dudes I know on the planet, like this group in these units. And they're there. They're there, man, like trying to find God. And you know, I know you and I, we talked about this. Do you think it's a coincidence that you and I are in the same journey? And every warrior that we know that was worth a shit is on the same journey?

I told you, like, if God, if there's a holy war, wouldn't God wake up as a warrior's verse? And I'm seeing these, my peers there, and dude, they're petrified. This Red Squadron, damn that, holding a cross, shaking, because we're about to drop in. So dropping in is when we are in this room and we're all meditating together. And when you get

the same people in the same room in the same frequency breathing it changes the game right he moves energy so there was a certain point man that um so I want to say this was my seventh time and it was telling me I needed to go deeper. Going deeper is inhalations and exhalations all the way to your abdominal. And I exhaled out and I had no more air. And I heard the voice telling me to go deeper. When I say the voice, it's the cactus, it's the spirit.

And you don't hear a voice, you just know what to do. You don't hear anything, you just have a feeling. It's like a bird had a feeling how to fly when he kicks off the nest, and the mother didn't teach him how to fly. Right? I just had a feeling to go deeper. It got to a certain point

Where I had no more air and it said go deeper so I knew what it meant He was telling me to die Can you imagine like Inhaling in your nose and exhaling out to the point where you have no more air and you continue to go until you die or pass out. That's what it's telling me to do, to die. Man, you know, I'm at this treatment center and I had my wife back at home and I literally said goodbye to her because I was going to die.

So I got in, man, and they got all these tribal instruments. And what it does is they play these tribal instruments when you're breathing, this Hindu practice, and it moves energy. So vibration, sound, moves energy. It helps that, it moves that trauma through your body. And this medicine's telling me to die. Man, so I inhale in, and I got scared, so I exhale out, and I'm like, okay, okay, I'm gonna die now.

Right, and I got scared again, so it took me a few rhythms in order to say, okay, I'm gonna die now, right? You know, I got scared again. So it took me a few rhythms in order to say, okay, I'm gonna die. So then I exhale out, man. If I was to like put an image on it, it's like we're free diving down deeper, deeper into the ocean. And as you off gas, right, at some point you start trickling, right?

And then you have to off gas, right? At some point you start trickling, right? And then you have to off gas. And then you could see darkness. You know, when I say darkness is, dude, I have my eyes closed, wear a mask, right? But I could feel it engulfing my body. And man, I kept on exhaling. I got to the point where you can almost, I felt like I needed to urinate on myself.

Like I was dying. I was losing control of my body. I was going there. For the first time, man, I saw my first vision. What did you see? Well, at first I felt my ancestors. I felt them. You know, in the deep around went, dude, I saw a garden open up.

And I saw Jesus. And I saw Buddha and I saw Krishna. All the saints. It was exactly how I thought Jesus would look. And I kept on going deeper in the hole and I died. When I said I died, this man, I exhaled out and to the point where literally I passed out. But what happens is the body resets. So there was a certain point when I was dying, I was dying, and I kind of saw the visions

and the deeper I can go, I can kind of see more of it, that unveiling of what's on the other side. And your body resets. So basically, I had my eyes closed, right? So then I felt like defibrillator hit me and my heart opened up again. And I was breathing and then this time my body was just shaking, or trauma was leaving, right?

I hit that point of surrender. Clear as day, die again. So I died again and my heart exploded. Die again, died again, died again. I don't know how many times I died. And then I got to a certain point and said, okay, okay, that's enough. And I went out.

What would you see? Was it the same experience every time you died? I said, that's enough. And I went out. What would you see? Was it the same experience every time you died? No, after I died the first time, it was like, I just triggered. Now I know how to release. Now I know how to release. And my body was releasing energy

and everything was moving through me. But that was the point. There was teaching me all this time, nine times it took me, right? It was teaching me to die. And I was shaking. Anyways, I got out, I ran outside because you gotta ground yourself.

When you say ground yourself, it's you gotta touch earth. And you know, earth was pulling energy from my body. You know, people that has gone through this healing would know what that feels like. You know, you're literally just pulling energy. Like the earth is absorbing. Yeah, you're shaking and it's pulling energy. You can literally feel it. And that's the trauma.

And I heard from the healer, this is not yours to keep. It's the earth, give it back. You know, we came from our dirt and we will return to dirt, our physical body at least, our souls eternal. So here I am now, I know how to release and then with the bio mat that was there, I know how to release. And then with the bio-mat that was there,

I move energy. And I tell you, man, it's like, so remember I told you the nervous system attacks? So imagine you're getting wind up. That's why they say, oh, you're all wound up, right? And it literally is, your nervous system is wound up. So every time you're shaking or releasing, you're unwinding that nervous system.

Bro, I used to get up almost every morning with anxieties. Almost every morning. And I'm a big disciplined guy. Still, I was failing. That's why you need the psychedelic, because it speeds up your meditation practice by freaking 20 years Now I know how to do it Okay, so then I went outside and I told the healer He told me to die and he looks at me. He's like, uh-huh Just normal like that. I'm like, so I did. He goes, uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I'm like, what's that mean? He goes, well, actually, that's an old Hindu practice. Yogis used to do the same practice without being on psychedelics. Can you imagine right now,

you're sitting there off- gassing until you pass out? So painful right here. It's so like, like drowning. You know that pain you feel in your lungs? Yeah, that's the pain I felt as I was dying. Taking my last breath. So man, I died and I died again and then I started seeing, you know R.M. is your friend, he always says, I get the download too.

You know, I don't even know how to take that. Besides I am connected. Do you think he'll do it again? Yes. So, you know, one of the things I do is, you know, I have a lot of work to do still. Thank you for saying I've gone a long ways, but I have a long ways to go still. I sit in the spring and fall with Wachima. As the sakuras are blooming in the spring, I will sit with the medicine.

And as the leaves turn colors in the fall, I will sit with the medicine. And I do that because it's very samurai, right? But literally that's the time I need to process and train. Because the medicine teaches you, you take it back to your everyday life. Then you come back, it teaches you another lesson, and you take it to your everyday life.

Okay? So now I knew how to die and surrender. So I thought that I knew it all. I thought the medicine taught me when it needed. The thing about the medicine is the ultimate kung fu teacher. Kung fu lesson, seriously, you know. When I say is the kung fu lesson is who's mightier than he who controls his own mind is mightier than a thousand times a thousand, man, a thousand. Like that's an old kung fu lesson.

And it was trying to teach me this. But I already died. So in my mind, I won this war. I know how to release. So the last day, you know, we drank more cactus than we ever drank that day. And you're on your third day, so your heart is fully dilated, open. So this means you can drop in really easy, right?

Really easy to that steel point. I thought I knew it all. So I went in and it was telling me to die. So I'm like, okay, in my mind I knew my body's going to reset. So I started off gassing and at the point where your body resets, this time it didn't reset. I knew I was gonna die. So I off gas again and waiting for that body to reset and my lungs were hurting like I had no more air and I'm trying to push push push and he wouldn't reset. Every time I would come out of it, my body would start shaking, but I wouldn't reset as in I wouldn't die, my heart explode, right?

So I'm like, what is it? Because the plant is always teaching you something. What are you showing me? So it says, go deeper. So this time I went deeper and my ancestors showed up again. And they were in this Vietnamese, we call it al yai, this outfit, the ceremonious outfit.

And I felt like it was my grandfather, he told me to die and hurry up because he was very impatient. I felt like it was my grandfather. He told me to die and hurry up because he was very impatient. I felt that. So I off-gassed and then this time my body wouldn't reset and I got to a certain point where I just couldn't do it. And I tried to kill myself, like literally I really did, but there was a certain point of consciousness that I knew I had maybe a little bit more in me.

So, you know, like God is in everything, right? So why not in you? So why are we looking for everywhere else when it's right here? You know, and that's what the cactus taught me. And now I apply to my everyday life. I do stay away from the hard psychedelics these days. I don't need it.

The hard ones is 5-MeO, Changa. I don't know what's the other one. So I smoke Changa. Chang don't know what's the other one. So I smoke Changa. Changa is this fast-acting DMT, but it just attacks you different. You'll feel this energy move up your spine, near your energy center, you know, to clear that energy. It's a ride.

It's a ride. It's a ride. But you know, that's what I, man, that's what I've been doing since our last conversation, you know, and in between that working on myself and also working on my marriage, you know, like, just trying to be a better person for my wife, you know. You know, I want to talk about this, man. Like, when I was, okay, in your, like when I was in my 20s, I first came to the teams, dude, the teams, and I'm pretty sure it's the same with the Navy, like the A-teams, dude, high divorce rate, right?

Like very high, especially young age on the teams. You're always gone. Yeah. In Okinawa, it's gone 10 months out of the year. Right? And so, you know, when you see the older guys on the team, man, they're barely holding a marriage together. They're not happy. They're a bunch of alcoholics. Right? And you're just a young team guy. Like, you don't think you're going to end up like them? Yeah. You know, and I serve a whole career on the teams.

And I would tell you, like, marriage was really hard, because to be at a certain level in the military has got to be about you. To sharpen that sword has's gotta be about you. To sharpen that sword, it's gotta be about you. Like to go to our training and all that, you're always gone. If you want a career or you want to excel in that, it was about me.

And Ruthie, man, she was a strong girl. She put herself to college. She used to work at a gym as a desk receptionist. Like she started from the bottom, you know? And as I deployed, she got her master's degree, you know? And I never even like, because I was so stuck in my own lane, war, hate, that I ever even like take time to go,

wow, you sacrifice a lot. Right? So I continued to do my thing. And when I got out, man, I hit my dark time. And I couldn't be that guy that I used to be. I had to take a step back. And man, she stepped forward. You know, for me, she has a mastery in business and accounting.

She built her company, like logistically. You know, I'm defaced, but man, she runs, like she does all the background, you know. I couldn't do without her. And as we, when we first got out, I was going through depression, I was, you know. And for the first, man, for three years, she was in and out of the hospital, you know.

She had a lot of medical issues. She had a tumor that they found. So a lot of surgery, man, and you just kind of see your wife, like, her health isn't all there. And you realize it's all, like, temporary, right? So that kind of started changing me in that aspect. I wanted to be better for my wife, you know. How was your relationship now after all the different ventures you've taken for self-healing?

Oh man, our marriage is the best it's ever been, seriously. You know, financially we're successful, but also to work with my wife, like your business partner, and you know, we respect each other's lane. She supports me in everything I do. She's my best friend. And man, just to have that moment with her every day, it's amazing. And she's an amazing business person. We go into these big business deals and these big time CEOs and

president of big companies and she usually gets what she wants, you know. Well, you know, she's honest and she's a good person. She knows what will work, but yeah, she usually get what she wants and she's the reason why I'm better today, right, because I wanted to be better, but also like business is her. You know, I'm truly grateful. And I'm so happy for you guys, man. You are a, you're a new person. And it's, you're a lot happier.

I can see it. I mean there's a there is a piece about you now that that I didn't see before and Just I'm really happy for you Thank you. I appreciate that but to let's take a quick break when we come back. I want to get into How the book helped you with your healing journey how the book helped you with your healing journey. Those of you that have been around SRS for a while know that we take mental health very seriously here. So seriously that in almost every episode, you'll find a segment where we discuss

how to improve your mental health. And part of improving your mental health is keeping your mind sharp. And part of improving your mental health is keeping your mind sharp. And part of keeping your mind sharp is giving it the fuel that it needs to balance energy, focus, cognition, and just regenerating your brain. That triggered me to go on a journey to find the supplement that supports brain health with the cleanest of ingredients on the planet. And I found it. I was actually going to start my own company and do this,

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Let's get back to the show. All right, too, we're back from the break. We had just gone over a brief summary of your entire healing journey since we spoke or since you were last on the show. And the one portion that we have not covered is is your new book The Way of Ronan and how that kind of played a role in your healing process. It was literally after

our last interview you know that I started writing my book. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, I wrote three chapters of the book, and then I got with a major publishing company, Harbor Collins, one of the biggest published companies in the world. And I got with them because I needed to understand that landscape. I don't know the book, I'm not an author, right?

And to now. So'm not an author, right? Until now. So with my busy schedule, man, at that point of my, in Ronan Grove, we were in a new city every other week, training law enforcement, and we were building our company, manufacturing engineers, very busy. And I was writing a book, right? So I used to, like, write the chapters, and I'll submit my chapters to, like, a ghostwriter.

I hired through the publishing company because the ghostwriter knows how to put the fonts, the proper format, they know the landscape, and that's why I hired it. And it got to a point, man, it was just taking a lot of time to write the book. And I needed to streamline this process with my traveling, with running a business, with everything else.

So I got with my ghostwriter, we would do a Zoom call every week, or every other week week for a year. So the book took a year to write and under the contract had it been this amount of words and you know this is the book they wanted and like so we signed a contract with Haber Collins. The reason why I wrote the book in the first place is, you know, man, like when I shared my story with you, and you know your platform, it's great.

You know, you're doing great stuff, and you have a lot of subscribers, you know? And man, you know, a lot of people reached out to me. You know, just thank me for your show, you know? And just to be, you know, as open as I am, sensitive, you know, just thank me for your show, you know, and just to be, you know, as open as I am sensitive, you know, sometimes, but to share my journey. And I realized that, you know, and this happened, you know, so two and a half years of it getting emails

about the show still, you know. So why not help others? You know, like, why not write a book that's in detail about your struggles and your mistakes and your life and purpose driven by a warrior's perspective? The Way of Ronan, you know, Harvard Collins. At first I wanted The Way of the Tiger.

The Way of the Tiger, why? Yeah, that was the name of the Tiger. I was born in the year of the Tiger. All right, all right. But they quickly said no. So I'm like, what are you guys thinking? They're like, can we tie it into Call of Duty? Because you know, call of duty is the biggest franchise. So I'm like, OK, the way of Ronin.

And you know when I wrote that title, The Way of Ronin. So Bushido is the way of the warrior. Bushido, the way of the samurai. And they had a code of ethics that they had to live by, Bushido. The code ethics in war is you got your teammates back, you're going to die on the battlefield for this cause. And after 100 years after war, stating periods Japan, can you imagine these are peaceful samurais now, they don't have war-stating Takagawa yet, so you brought peace to 250 years of war.

And they were reflecting on the war-stating periods of Japan and what it means to be a wartime samurai. These are peacetime samurais. So in the book of Hakkakura, they wrote what it meant to be samurai. And the very first word, bushiro, was ever written in history in Japanese literature, bushiro. But that happened like 150 years after war, staying periods, Japan.

During war, stating periods, there was no such word as Bushido. The war-stating Samurais only knew as the Wei. The Wei is like, you know, when you enter a door and you got a clapture sector and you got to support the number one man going through the door, his six, you're gonna die for that. There's no code for it. There's an unwritten rule, right?

So in war-staying periods, it's only known as the way. But then I took deeper meaning to that, like Christianity, the way. God, the flow. Wu-Wang, the effortless way. It's Lao Tzu in Confucianism, in Taoism, he talks about the flow, surrender, and to the flow of the universe, right? And before everybody says,

oh, that's hokey pokey, right, whatever. The Tao La Jing that was written by Lao Tzu, is the most translated text in the world next to the Holy Bible. And it was written 500 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. And he talked about the way. So I put the way, because in my path as a warrior, I found God.

Did that help you heal by revisiting your entire life again, putting it into text? At first it put me into like, man, because the shadows, you know, and emotions come out and you're trying to be as detailed in these descriptions as much as you can remember. And a lot of them, man, it's trauma. Yeah. So that's surface. But you know as well as I do, journaling helps trauma healing.

And I didn't know at the time, but as I was writing, I was healing. I was putting that emotion onto words. Yeah. I did have a breakdown after the book where I had to retreat to sit with psychedelics and kind of growl myself. The book wasn't easy to write. Do you have any... I mean, you're putting something in print that you can never take back.

And does that bring you any anxiety? Of course. Getting ready for that release? Of course. Yeah. You know, I've been meditating on it and I've been praying on it that people would take these words and apply it to their life to better themselves, because that's what the word is about.

What part of that book brings you the most anxiety that people are going to read, that you're thinking, maybe I shouldn't have put that in there? No, like my childhood, you know, people, you know, I actually, you know, because I'm on social media, you know, I am an influencer. And if you're successful, people are going to like you or hate you.

And I had people tell me that I never escaped from Vietnam, I was never on a boat, but here I am. I have pictures of it. People told me I was never this, never that, but never served with me. Or people would tell me who I am or what they think I am, and they saw me at a certain point in my career. And I'll tell you, my whole career, my military career, was all that outstanding.

I wasn't the most stellar soldier. I have my traumas and I have my mistakes too. So that's what I see coming out of it. Haters are going to hate. The people who support you are gonna support you. And it's up to me on how I choose to navigate that. Last question, then we'll wrap it up.

You mentioned you want people to learn from your mistakes and that you put your mistakes in that book. What do you think the biggest mistake of your life has been? You know at one point I was consumed by a lot of hate. You know how you talked about your heart when there's a shield around it and you can't feel? Well I had that my whole life as a child too. And I think back on my history is like, dude, you're born in war.

Your family was ripped apart. They got put in prison camps. You escaped genocide on a fucking boat, left for dead for 30 days when you're like three years old. That's what the world gave me. And then in refugee camps, we barely survived and we made it to the states where spit on, flicked off and told we're nothing. Even in the military, I was told I was nothing.

So the thing is this, it's like, when the world gives you shit, do you give the world shit? Do you just let that defeat you? Or do you rise up and be something more? And my book was kind of like that. I didn't know I was rising up to be more, but I did. And God gives us a choice, and I didn't know at the time,

but I chose to be a warrior, right? And you know the path of a warrior, man, that's the steepest mountain you can climb. And you fall, you make a mistake, you fall, it's death. Like when we come out of the battlefield, in our minds, if you lose that battle inside, it's death for us. Because we go there. And you know, and I saw a lot of my teammates, you know,

got out and they suffer and they went down that route and I lost them. So my book, you know, if I'm able to kind of heal myself through meditation, through spirituality, finding God, through psychedelics or whatever, all that stuff I'm talking about in here. Apparently I did something right. Then why not give that gift or that answer

to people that are suffering in this world? It's not just soldiers that are suffering, veterans. We got a mental health crisis in America. So why not let people heal? And I talk about, like, my journey to healing, trying to be a better person. I'm not that great. I'm not saying I'm perfect.

But, man, I'm a human being that tries. Once again, man, you got a great message, and a lot of people are gonna read that. We get a lot of emails too, you know, from your episode. Still to this day, two and a half years later. And it's one of my favorites. But man, I just, I want to say thank you for coming back on. And again, it's an honor, brother. And man, I can't wait. I can't wait to get this one out there and I can't wait to see how the book does.

I know it's gonna do amazing. And I love you, bro. I love you too, my brother. You are an outstanding, just great human being. Thank you for being who you are. Today's show is sponsored by HelixSleep.com. Sleep, especially as you get older, is so critical, especially that deep, comforting sleep. Go to HelixSleep.com and take the sleep quiz.

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