The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 259. Marcus & Amber Capone: On Ibogaine, Veteran Suicide, PTSD Treatment & Brain Health

Starting point is 00:00:00 It was after Marcus' service that things started to really unwind. He really struggled when he transitioned into civilian life. I knew that he was grappling with thoughts of suicide, but I felt like Western medicine had no more options for us. Based around suicide in the military, I mean, we've actually lost more military service members to suicide than we have in combat. We've lost individuals that died by suicide, over 150,000 compared to just over 7,000 that were lost in the battlefield.

Starting point is 00:00:25 So that number is just staggering. That number is real. If you look at modern medicines approach, most of what they offer people that are in that condition are coping mechanisms. I was prescribed antidepressants for years. And we know now that antidepressants work for maybe to 30 to 50% of the population. What do we do for the other 50%? What would you say to the audience that's listening to this that would be great ways to maybe throw up a flag that someone might need some help? Some of the red flags that I could identify in hindsight would be...

Starting point is 00:00:55 Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Breka, where we go down the road of everything, anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's only my three third-person shoot podcast. So this is one of those in-between podcasts. But welcome through the podcast, Marcus and Amber Capone. I am so psych to have you guys on here.

Starting point is 00:01:30 You know, my only regret was in preparation for this podcast, I watched your documentary. And I wish I had watched that before. before I had DJ Shipley on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. I don't think it was out yet, actually. Okay, that would be a good excuse. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:48 Okay, then good. November 4th, it started. Oh, okay, so he was on before November 4th. Yeah, but let me tell you something. That was an eye-opening documentary for me, because I think a lot of people, and if you haven't watched in Waves and War, you have to watch it.

Starting point is 00:02:07 I'm going to put a link in the show notes below. My wife watched it. I watched it. Incredibly impactful podcast. And not just if you are married to someone who's a service member or former Navy SEAL, but anyone who is struggling with mental illness addiction, this is just such a life-changing moment for a lot of these people. But before we talk about the documentary and there's a lot we're going to unpack today,

Starting point is 00:02:37 I wonder if you rewind a little bit and just talk about, your journey, what led up to this documentary about IBA game? How much time do we have? Could be here for a few hours. Much as you want. We already talked about him running long on podcasts. First, Gary, just thank you for having to see. We're super stoked to be on the show.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Yeah, I'm very excited to get into whatever we're going to go. And I know it feels like you're ready to rock. So if you want to. Totally honored to be here. I echo everything. Marcus just said. And, you know, we've been together for a very long time, almost three decades. So that's why there's a lot of content.

Starting point is 00:03:13 But it was after Marcus's service that things started to really unwind. And leading up to his exit from the military, we had spent so much time apart, like up to 300 days a year that I didn't really know him anymore. There's a lot to that. But all to say that he really struggled when he transitioned out of the military into civilian life. And I was desperate to help. him because I didn't want to lose him.

Starting point is 00:03:43 But I felt like Western medicine had no more options for us because he had tried several things. And he can talk more about, you know, how when you try and try and try again and don't receive a result, you can become very desperate. So I knew that he was grappling with thoughts of suicide. And I was just willing to try anything. And I did it as much to forgive myself if the one. worst happened as I did to help him because I didn't think anything would help at that point.

Starting point is 00:04:17 But it did. And I think that's what's so important about this documentary is I don't want it to be pigeonholed as like the savior of our service members. I wanted to be broadened so that people that are struggling with psychiatric illness or conditions like depression, crippling anxiety. you know, what this seemed to do was unlock the reasons behind it, which is what I found out, found really fascinating about the documentary because, you know, if you look at modern medicine's approach, and this is not to dog on modern medicine, most of what they offer people that are in that condition

Starting point is 00:05:00 are coping mechanisms. Symptom reduction. Yeah, you've got a heavy backpack on, you can just get stronger. we don't know how to take it off, right? And I think one of the tipping points for me watching the documentary was listening to DJ Shipley talk about how he saw a post that you had done with him

Starting point is 00:05:22 and you were just being like very vulnerable. We did a PSA. So we had lost, Gary, we had lost a few teammates to suicide in the weeks leading up to the PSA. And I just said, I kind of broke down. and I said, is this the next wave of what we're gonna witness? We fought 20 years of combat. If you come home with all your digits and all your toes,

Starting point is 00:05:46 that's a good thing. Many of us are coming home with hidden wounds of war and that's, you know, hidden wounds of war, but also some, you know, let's throw in some childhood stuff there. Let's throw the wartime stuff where there's trauma, whether it's brain trauma, TBIs, through concusses, concussions, et cetera. And then let's throw transition in there

Starting point is 00:06:04 and it's very difficult to diagnose a person. That's what, you know, if you go on to go back to Western medicine, we don't want to dog it here. They want to take a single diagnosis and a single drug and it's very easy for a doctor. But someone like me who has these complex cases or if you wanna call comorbids, I was prescribed antidepressants

Starting point is 00:06:23 and traditional talk therapy for years. And we know now that antidepressants work for maybe to 30 to 50% of the population. Yeah. What do we do for the other 50%? If we went over- Right, exactly, treatment resistant. So if we went out on a mission, they said,

Starting point is 00:06:38 hey, 50% of you are not gonna come back, that's not a good number. Right. But we're doing that with our current approaches to mental health care, or brain health now, right? We're kind of moving away from the term mental health, more to brain health, because we're starting to see this is a biologic issue, not, you know, quote unquote,

Starting point is 00:06:55 a mental issue. And so not everyone, half of us will not respond to these. And so what do we have available, right? There are some FDA approved treatments now. We'll get into what, you know, worked for me. But as I said earlier, before we got on the show, you know, IBEgaine was just one of the spokes. There's a lot of spokes to this healing process, right? And there's a hub in the middle.

Starting point is 00:07:15 And we just have to have access to things that are available and available for us. And we just can't put a box around what has been introduced to us almost 30 or 40 years ago. I call it old technology because really that's what it is. Yeah. And you're right because, you know, I come from a data science background. And so sometimes you have to take a step back and just look at. at the outcomes, right? And some of the most alarming statistics I've ever seen in my lifetime, and hopefully I don't misquote these, were based around suicide in the military. I mean, we've

Starting point is 00:07:47 actually lost more military service members to suicide than we have in combat. Significantly more. Like four times as many. That is mind-numbing. Well, if you do- Amher and I are racing too. You want to say. You got it. If you actually do the math over 20 years of combat, where we lost just over 7,000. service members in combat. During that same period of time, there's roughly 20 veterans per day that have died by suicide. But independent reports show that it could be double that or higher because they're not taking into account people who have died maybe that aren't registered in VA care or deaths

Starting point is 00:08:28 of despair, like overdoses or liver failure, you know, whatever from coping. medication and over-medicating. So when you actually do those numbers, 20 to 44 per day, I mean, it could be over 150,000 lost in the same period of time to suicide. When compared to the 7,000, it's staggering. And that's also not taking into account people that are suffering with suicidal ideation or barely white-knuckling life. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:58 So 20 times the amount. So we've lost individuals that died by suicide over 150. And a lot of individuals, over 150,000 compared to just over 7,000 that were lost in the battlefield. So that number is just staggering. That's the one that just, that's the one that's mind-bole-me-out. It is. And most people don't know that number. And every time we say that number, I kind of pause to let people really absorb that.

Starting point is 00:09:22 Because when you think about it, you know, we spend the money, we go to war, we do what we believe is right. We lose over 7,000 individuals. We lose over 150,000 to sue. Like, what is happening, right? There's obviously, there'll never be a single answer. There's a lot of answers to that, but that number is real. It means statistically speaking, you have a greater chance of dying by suicide entering the military than you do of dying in combat.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Correct. And that is, and multiples. And that's where I think sometimes the data becomes very sobering. You know, we do this at Maha Action Committee. I chair Bobby Kennedy's Maha Action Committee. Just taking a sober look at the data, we spend $5.5 trillion a year on health care, where the sickest, fatest, most disease-ridden nation in the world.

Starting point is 00:10:14 Three-quarters of our military age, men and women don't qualify for military service due to poor health. You start looking at the outcomes. Then you say, okay, what we're doing is not working, right? And this isn't the blame game. You know, it doesn't make you anti-science, but what it just says is we need to open the door for two some alternatives.

Starting point is 00:10:34 And was this kind of where that that journey began with a wife trying to save her marriage and her husband. Because she loves you. And I love her. And I think that Navy SEALs probably epitomize the generation of men that are just supposed to suck it up. And I think they also epitomize the mentality of most men, just suck it up. I mean, you're not calling your buddy and telling them,

Starting point is 00:11:07 I feel so vulnerable when I'm thinking about taking my own life. We're not good for asking for help. Yeah, that's right. We don't want to show weakness by saying, hey, I need help with this. Whatever, it could literally be, it could be anything. I got this, I'll figure it out.

Starting point is 00:11:21 But there's only so many things we can figure out on her own. You know, we have a, saying the SEAL teams, we have like this buddy check. You're always with your buddy. From day one at buds, you never go any, you never go six feet

Starting point is 00:11:33 outside of your buddy. From the day you start to the day you graduate including underwater when you're diving, you actually have a lanyard that's attached to you. So if you and I were dive buddies,

Starting point is 00:11:42 I would have the clipped on lanyard or rope and you'd have it clipped on, we would never be six... More than six feet apart. More than six feet apart underwater. It's very anti-COVID. It's anti-social distance. Maybe it should have been six and a half.

Starting point is 00:11:56 Yeah, you'd have been sick and a half. Because COVID only goes six feet. 100%. No matter what. Six one, it can't. for sure. But that's the idea, right? You have this buddy now,

Starting point is 00:12:07 but all of a sudden now you're not supposed to rely on that buddy when you're struggling internally and you're dealing with, you know, if you want to call it the demons, the darkness, the pain, the depression, the suffering. You can figure it out on your own. I think we just have to get out of that mindset because who can really do things just by yourself on your own, right?

Starting point is 00:12:24 You've built the ultimate human, have you done this solely by yourself, and do you have an amazing team that's behind you and that's doing this and doing this, and doing that. All by myself. They just sit here and running.

Starting point is 00:12:33 She's actually not on the computer right now. She's probably scrolling, right? They're in-smen. But we always need individuals and help. And I've had, luckily, I've had a guardian angel that has been my swim buddy for so many years from the day we've met. And it took me a while initially, Amber says it well,

Starting point is 00:12:53 where we like to white knuckle life, meaning just like we just wanna hang on and we're really good at pain, right? You almost like thrive through pain, but sometimes that pain is not good for your spouse, your children, your friends, your coworker. Or for you that matter. And if you don't fix us, everything else doesn't get fixed.

Starting point is 00:13:13 We can't put on your own oxygen mask first. Yeah. And so I think we're getting better at that. I think, you know, what you're doing is literally saving so many human lives, Gary, and we're trying to, you know, you are. You know, what you're doing is opening up, you know, just people's minds to different ways,

Starting point is 00:13:30 is to look at taking care of themselves and taking care of others. And we have a trouble admitting it, but we are also saving people's lives, right? We're not just saving the individual. We're saving the families and we're saving generations. Because if I can take care of my kids and we raise them in a way where they're good, honest, hardworking individuals and they're good people, then they're going to pass that along to their children and to their children. It definitely stopped trauma cycles for our family.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Yeah. and reduced generational suffering. And I think that's one of the things that I've witnessed is our community, the SEAL community has a very high threshold for suffering. Almost embrace the suffering or needs suffering for fuel. And I think that a lot of the spouses too are very used to handling a million things and being really tough. And for me, I realized that it didn't matter how tough I was.

Starting point is 00:14:26 I was, we were inadvertently bringing our kids along on this insanity quest. You know, it just felt like it didn't matter how tough we were. It was impacting them and it would impact generation. So back to your original question where you said we put out this PSA, Marcus did somewhat unwillingly film a video with me. Yeah. Where, you know, really it was just when Vets was getting off the ground and we needed to start sharing the message, start raising funds. And so we did this video that DJ and Patsy saw. And that

Starting point is 00:15:01 really is the essence of the video. The basis of the video was this radical vulnerability, which was very against the grain for our community. And it was one of the good ideas I had. I always say Amber's, Amber's right usually 98% of the time. And the 2% I always, you know, I feel real. I feel like, you brother. I'm in the same house. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, I just said, And Amber, we should, we need to get this message out better. And I said, I think we should do, you know, let's do a video, let's do a post. Let's just talk about if someone's struggling that they're not alone. We've been there.

Starting point is 00:15:32 We've had friends that have been there, been to the edge. Call a buddy, check on them. Or raise your hand and go ask for help. And that was the whole premise behind the public service announcement. And it wound up again. DJ's wife picked up the phone. They were watching it one night late in bed. And DJ, you know, DJ will tell you this,

Starting point is 00:15:51 and we'll try not to say anything that no one else has come public with, but he just said, as we have many times, just started bawling because he said, everything that I was talking about was exactly what he was experiencing. And he thought he was the only one in the world, right? You know, he's a tough son of a bitch,

Starting point is 00:16:08 an amazing human that was dealing with this. Yeah. And a similar story is when I went to, one of the first times I went to see a psychiatrist on the West Coast, and I was struggling, I was still on active duty. I went in there and I sat down with him and I said, you know, here's what I'm dealing with

Starting point is 00:16:26 and I don't know why. And I said, you know, I'm sorry, I'm sure you don't get this. And he said, Marcus, just stop right there. You're over the 200th seal that has come in to talk to me in like the last couple of weeks. Like there is something significantly going on. He goes, I'm not sure what it is. He's like, I'm sure you guys just have PTSD.

Starting point is 00:16:47 Like that makes sense, right? You guys been to war. He goes, but you're not the only one. And it kind of gave me a little bit of relief knowing that, okay, I wasn't the only one out there. I think it was probably not a couple, 200 in a couple of weeks. Well, okay, maybe in a couple of months. A couple of years, maybe.

Starting point is 00:17:05 Are you judging me right now on film? No, I just, no, I think. Thank God Sage is not on this podcast because she would be doing the same thing. But the point to that maybe was a couple of years. there were many more that came in to talk about the exact, and it was the exact same things. It was like anger, depression, anxiety, anxiety attacks.

Starting point is 00:17:26 I can't stand in line at Starbucks. Sleeping issues. The sleeping issues, the headaches. It was just kind of everything across the board, very similar. And so when you hear someone talk about that, like I did on the PSA, and you're in the receiving end listening, you kind of just break down and go,

Starting point is 00:17:43 oh my goodness, like what he's talking about is, He could almost see inside me, and I'm not even next to him. I'm 3,000 miles away. Right. And D.J. had heard about it, and Patsy reached out. But so many people heard that PSA. And I'm sure, look how many people DJ has saved now, right? Just through him going through his own healing process and talking about it,

Starting point is 00:18:03 and individuals reach out to him all the time, right? Yeah, he's a great orator. Now, did you and DJ know each other before? We did. We served together at Silt Team 10. We served together at Dev Group. And then, like everybody else, they go off. their ways when they transitioned.

Starting point is 00:18:17 He started a very successful business. I went into finance and we kind of reconnected after so many years and started talking about some of this stuff. And now we're doing kind of some work together. You know what's really interesting is this dovetails perfectly with my career in the mortality space because one of the things that we knew was that if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy

Starting point is 00:18:40 in half, and I mean in half, at any age, you would put them in isolation. and this is where we get broken heart syndrome right you mean a couples that are married 40 50 60 years one spouse passes we know what happens to the other spouse right and what what would happen there that was the first time in half a century that they were put in isolation and and I think a lot of the root of of the skyrocketing rates or suicide is they're they feel so isolated right like DJ said I'm the only one you're the only one, you know, we're the only ones. And so we just suffer in silence until literally can't

Starting point is 00:19:20 take it any longer. And Gary, the other thing is to a very common practice when guys get out of the military, whatever branch, right, you know, my community, the SEAL community, but every branch, we like to kind of run, turn our back and like do our own thing. And again, we don't want help. I don't want to talk to the guys. I mean, I separated for the guys for years just because I didn't, you know, kind of you feel ashamed a little bit. You're not doing well. You don't want to let anyone know. It's the isolation.

Starting point is 00:19:51 So guys wound up moving to like Montana, Idaho, these places like up in the mountains by themselves. And they cut off from the world. And as we know, those are the worst thing that you can do. Right? Community is really everything. Connection, community. Right? You know, it used to kind of be hippie, hippie-dippy to talk about that.

Starting point is 00:20:08 Yeah. Commune community. However, as you're standing here here here. A lot of you guys on the video called it, this hippie shit. He's like, Yeah, so he's a hippie shit and see if it works. Maddie said that, Maddie Roberts said it in the movie. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:19 But it is a little bit like that initially, but it's very real. We need people, we need our partner. Like I was able to be away from Amber at 300 days a year and I had the guys and we were doing our thing. But now, like if I go away for like one or two days, like it kills me. Yeah, I'm the same way with my life.

Starting point is 00:20:36 I'm like a little baby. Yeah, me too. I'm so attached to her. It's so crazy. 100%. And so we need our, I couldn't imagine Amber not being here. Yeah. And so we don't love our kids being out of the house.

Starting point is 00:20:51 But what we do love is, you know, we have our businesses, we have our charity. We get to travel together for everything. If we go fundraise, Amber's, you know, speaking at Harvard tomorrow, I get to go with her and hang out. And I'll work them from my laptop. I'll do my calls, but we get to be together. So we make them little vacations. That's so good. If you know me, you know I don't.

Starting point is 00:21:13 recommend anything I haven't personally tested. That's not a marketing line. That's just how I operate. I've been on the road my entire career, different time zones, brutal schedules, no margin for days off, and so I'm constantly testing what actually works in my own body. NED was something I keep coming back to. It's the molecule your cells used to produce energy and repair, and it declines faster than most people realize. When I found symbiotica's liposomal NAD, the absorption technology is what got my attention. I tested it. I felt it. And it's been in my bag ever since. I'm always involving what I put in my body, and this one has stayed on the list. I'm genuinely excited for you to experience it.

Starting point is 00:21:50 This is the standard we hold every product to before it even reaches you. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. But I think the big, big overlying theme that I want to make sure doesn't get masked on this is like, this is not just germane to PTSD from wartime or to Navy SEALs or service members. Like your case is so much more common, you know, the situation. albeit maybe from a different source, but I mean, the byproduct is the same. And so there's somebody that's listening to this

Starting point is 00:22:20 or as a loved one that's listening to this that is like, well, you know, my husband or my wife wasn't in the service, but it's that isolation. It's, and I'm sure that when you unpack this on the Ivigain journey, which I really wanna talk about, and I wanna broaden the topic,

Starting point is 00:22:37 but when you unpack this on the Ibegan journey, you realize maybe it wasn't just, specifically things that you witnessed in combat, which I think everyone pinpoints as that's what caused it, and that's isolated to just those kinds of guys, right, that witnessed these horrific events or, you know, just in the interviews, it reminded me of that question that they asked where, and they're like, how many drinks do you have a week?

Starting point is 00:23:05 One to two, three to five, seven to nine, but they were talking about how many times was your life in peril. how many times were you actually at risk of being maimed or killed? And they got the 51 or more. And he was like, yeah, 51 or more. I mean, I got goosebumps. I just got goosebumps too. You're talking about like the pH-9, right?

Starting point is 00:23:24 Like some of these symptoms rating scales that they ask you these questions. Yeah, yeah, but it was in the movie. Look at the goosebumps. And I was like, 51 or more. Like, I've never truly thought that I was going to lose my life. Like, death was eminent ever. So mine's zero. But someone that's had this 51 or more times,

Starting point is 00:23:44 that was just very similar to me. It is. And, you know, we talk a lot about the PTSD label because I think it's, I think it can be overused. And Amber's done a good job, I think, of explaining this where guys I worked with, we, I mean, we wanted to go overseas, right? Like, we wanted to fight for our country. We wanted to do the things that we had trained for.

Starting point is 00:24:11 for 300 days a year, why we were gone. So I think I still really struggle, and I know many of the guys do. It's like, do I really have PTSD? Or is it some of the stuff we experienced when we were children? Maybe it was definitely some of the blast exposure. Like there's a lot of data now showing that,

Starting point is 00:24:29 again, talk about mental health versus, you know, moving into brain health, you know, maybe our circuits have been jacked up a little bit, right? And some of those parts of the brain are turned off 100%. repeated micro trauma. You know, subconcussive blows. We talk about mild TBI, potentially worse than just, say,

Starting point is 00:24:46 having a single concussion. And these are reflecting themselves through depression, anxiety, panic attacks, potentially drinking or substance, you know, other substance use disorder. Yeah. What would you say, you know, haven't been so close to somebody that went through this,

Starting point is 00:25:04 like what are some of the warning signs that are not so obvious? obvious if someone has a rampant drug or alcohol problem or something very, very obvious. Is it, would you say, is it them becoming more reclusive withdrawn? Like, what would you say to the audience that's listening to this that would be great ways to maybe throw up a flag that someone might need some help? Generally speaking, I would say everyone that comes through our program, for example, wants to get unstuck.

Starting point is 00:25:39 They want to feel again. They want to live again. They want to be excited for something or feel like they belong to something. And so some of the red flags that I could identify in hindsight would be, yeah, becoming more isolated. Marcus has always been a high performer

Starting point is 00:25:55 since I met him when he was 20 years old. He was very goal-oriented, very active. And those things really dissipated. He no longer set goals or surfed, played golf, you know, things that used to, I don't even know. So it's like passion for life. Yeah. Go to the gym, like simple, you know, simple things. I didn't have passion for anything.

Starting point is 00:26:18 I didn't want to get out of bed. I mean, I had definitely diagnosed clinical depression where for days I did not want to do anything. I didn't want to speak to anybody. I would turn my phone off. I wouldn't answer text messages. I have like over 600 on my phone right now. Well, that's a different reason. The different reason.

Starting point is 00:26:36 Hopefully you are going backwards, guys. It's a terrible podcast. It's not personal. Anybody out there listening. But, you know, I really did have all the things. And that's what happens when you get into these dark places where you just don't want to do anything. And all the things that I really enjoyed just kind of went away. So then how did the solution become Ibegame for you?

Starting point is 00:27:01 I almost want to say by accident, but I don't think anything happens by accident anymore. We've all starting to see that maybe this is all in motion for a reason. It was what was presented to us. So we had a friend who was in a similar, let's say going through a similar journey as I was in terms of many years of combat, actually many more years of combat than I had, and was just struggling with the same, exact things that I was. So depression, anxiety, rage. And he had talked about suicide and he had found I began

Starting point is 00:27:46 through his best friend who was a doctor and said, you know, I was at a conference and I talked to this doc who thought maybe this would be helpful to veterans that were struggling with. At the time, this is like 2000, 17, so he didn't know. He just figures PTSD, I believe, at the time. Maybe traumatic brain injury, mild traumatic brain injury.

Starting point is 00:28:10 And of course, the doctor, who was a seal, can I say his name? Sure. Yeah, so Dr. Kirk Parsley, who's just a, we call him the sleep doctor. He's an incredible individual. He actually left the military because he couldn't practice what you preach. Wow. Good for him. These guys, you know, testosterone levels are 300 at 25 years old.

Starting point is 00:28:31 or 30 years old, there's an issue there. He needs hormone replacement therapy. Right. So all these things, some meditation, maybe breathwork, because meditation sounds weird. Right. The graybeards, as he called them, didn't want to listen to him.

Starting point is 00:28:44 So he left and just started his own practice because he said, I want to help these guys. I want to help my brothers, and he got out, and he's doing it now. He's really successful, Kirk. And thank you if you're listening out there, Doc. But Doc got him, after talking to this quack doctor about Ibogaine, he said,

Starting point is 00:29:00 hey, maybe you should try this. maybe you should go to Mexico. It's legal down there. And it can help, according to him. Well, it did. I mean, that first seal. That first seal. Dr. Parsley helped one other seal.

Starting point is 00:29:14 Oh, okay. Now, do you remember there was a scene in the film with a gun and an empty bottle of whiskey? Mm-hmm. Okay, so a little bit more context on that scene. I had gone to bed, and I woke up middle of the night, and I heard men's voices. Marcus wasn't in bed. And I tiptoed down the hall and this guy was in our house.

Starting point is 00:29:38 And I thought maybe he'd had a fight with his wife. And he needed Marcus. But what really happened was he knew Marcus was in a bad spot with this gun and empty bottle of whiskey and he came to help him. That's the only reason that he knew Marcus was struggling because we would have never said

Starting point is 00:29:58 that we were needing help other. Otherwise. So when he came back from Mexico after having this experience, his wife reached out to me and said this could help Marcus. And it was actually 2016. I approached Marcus about this. And he said that's absolutely crazy. No, we live in, you know, the most medically advanced country in the world. Nothing I can get in Mexico, you know, that I can't find here. And that's at the point where I'd been on years of antidepressants. Yeah. Other mood stabilizers. I'd been to, I think, five brain clinics up until that point. Well, that was the point you started going to brain clinics.

Starting point is 00:30:41 Because we knew he needed something. He had been on, you know, several different antidepressants. He was very reluctant for many years to, you know, go on pharmaceuticals, finally relented. And then sort of went on this pendulum swing of zombie monster, zombie monster. zombie monster. Like it was just, there was nothing present about him. No in between.

Starting point is 00:31:05 No in between. Yeah. And two switches, on and off. That sucks. That was it. So we knew that wasn't working. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:13 We knew talk therapy wasn't working. You asked me what were some of the red flags. I actually was noticing red flags that were unrelated to PTSD, if you will. Yet that was his primary diagnosis. And one of the things that I remember vividly was him trying to put Christmas tree lights on a tree. And he couldn't figure out where they stopped, where they started, where they plugged into the wall, how they plugged in together. This was like a neurological issue. And another instance, he was like wide-eyed, sweating profusely, trying to get out the door for a flight.

Starting point is 00:31:55 and he couldn't like figure out how to pack everything. It was like he couldn't figure out how, you know, he wanted to. And he just, it was pitiful. So I thought this is a brain thing more than it is an emotional thing. Yet he's being treated solely with talk therapy and antidepressants and wondering why he can't get better. Like this feels wrong. This feels, there's more to this story. Now my dad happens to be a football coach.

Starting point is 00:32:23 we met because my dad recruited him to play for him. And my dad always downplayed concussions. But one of his friends in the sale teams had taken his life, and his wife had his brain autopsied, and it came back that he had interface astroglyle scarring, and what I'd heard to be stage 1, CTE, chronic traumatic and orthopathy. And so I started doing this research

Starting point is 00:32:47 and realizing that there's a linkage between, you know, some of these issues he was clearly experiencing, and repeated head trauma. Marcus not only had 15 years of tackle football, he had 13 years working with explosives as a breacher. And so I started to realize maybe my dad, maybe I should look beyond what my dad had to say about concussions. And I became terrified.

Starting point is 00:33:10 Wow. Because it felt like a terminal diagnosis. Like there was no solution. There was not even a diagnosis, let alone a treatment or a cure. And so I thought, we've got to get him off of these pharmaceuticals. and into more innovative things. There's another part of the story that I won't get into now,

Starting point is 00:33:29 but I had gone down this rabbit hole of advocating for our son who experienced a significant plethora of illnesses and diagnoses. Unrelated to everything he's going through. Unrelated. But I had begun to pull back layers. I had begun to advocate for my child. Good for you. And I was ready to do the same for my husband.

Starting point is 00:33:51 And I was at least not going to go down without a fight. And so I just started putting the pieces together and thinking we've got to have a different approach. We've got to at least try. And so I had gotten Marcus into a clinic in California. He was doing some imaging and more functional medicine type treatments. He was also doing hyperbaric oxygen and magnetic therapy on the brain. And that was really all I had left because he said no to Ibigen. So I was like, okay, well, let me try all these other more.

Starting point is 00:34:21 forward-thinking approaches. And those really didn't help. In fact, in some ways, I think it made him worse. And so it was just through sheer divine intervention that I re-approached him about Ibegain, and I did it in a way that I'd never done it before, just love and grace. And I ditched the guilt and condemnation and shame that I had used previously. And I really just committed to meeting him where I was at. So we were doing a lot of this.

Starting point is 00:34:53 Yeah, of course. Of course, and the more one side, you know, you kind of get what you receive. So the more one side gives, the other side gives. And so when Amber, I think, fell more to receive mode and allowed me to kind of meet her halfway, our relationship got better and I started to listen. Because initially, when I first thought about Ibogaine,

Starting point is 00:35:13 it was a pure ego thing. Like I'm, you know, across my arms, I'm not doing that. It's a psychedelic, it's a drug. It's, you know, I grew up going to Catholic, Boy's Catholic High School, this is weird. This is hippie shit. Yeah. But so then I started doing my own research.

Starting point is 00:35:27 And the more you start going down the rabbit hole with the research, these things have been around for thousands of years. And in the last hundred years, they've actually have some research around it. And individuals were getting better. We're not talking about small percentages, like large percentages of individuals who utilize these in the proper way get better. And so the more I researched, the more. more I felt comfortable knowing, oh, wait a minute, this is not a drug. This is a medicine. This is a

Starting point is 00:35:55 treatment that could potentially heal whatever I'm dealing with. And that's what allowed me to be a little bit more relaxed and accepting and say, okay, you know, this is something that I would absolutely look into. I'm a little bit like you, probably, if you tell me it's going to make me bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, you know, hurt less. Like, I'll try it. Yeah. Let's, you know, I'm a getting hit. Even the hippie shit. Yeah. Even the hippie shit. And so in a roundabout, long way, winded way of answering your question, it was, that's how we got to Ibegain because it could have been another medicine, right? It could have been something else, but that was the one that this individual turned his whole life around with.

Starting point is 00:36:36 And so you trust your brother, right? You trust your friend. Yeah. And so I said, you know, I'll give us a shot. I mean, some of the people that I hold in the highest regard, the respect the most, have done this. And I've never had negative comment. come back about it. Some of the experiences are vastly different,

Starting point is 00:36:54 but the outcome seems to be all very similar. And the underlying theme is, I now understand why I am the way I am. And I think that's a huge relief, right? When you can identify, finally identify the villain. It's like having a flu for half of your life. And then a doctor says, oh, you have influence A, you can take this

Starting point is 00:37:21 and it will kill influence A. It's like at least you know what it was, you know, what it is. And what I found really fascinating was how different everyone's journey was. I mean, similar contacts, but very different journeys. It's subjective.

Starting point is 00:37:35 Yeah. Right? Because we're subjective. I'm different from you. Yeah. Genetically, we look different. We're different from Amber. We're going to have different experiences.

Starting point is 00:37:44 Yeah. That's what, you know. And, you know, it's a childhood trauma. Is it from your career? Is it from previous marriage? Is it from how you were raised? You know, what your life experiences from repeated head trauma. There's so many things that put people in this position

Starting point is 00:38:00 and they find themselves exactly where you were, where they went all through the conventional route. And I think the inability for conventional medicine to help a lot of people in this position is much bigger than we think. But people feel stuck in the system because there's not an alternative. certainly not one that their health insurance will pay for.

Starting point is 00:38:21 And that kind of traps them into a certain vertical. That's a big deal. That's a whole other thing we can talk about when I was talking about commercialization. Yeah. You know, that's, we, you know, what is one of these journeys cost out of pocket? We have special pricing for the veterans that we support through our program, but someone that is doing self-pay would spend between $8,500 and $10,000.

Starting point is 00:38:41 Okay. Now, and you compare that. I mean, Ibegain is actually used mostly for addiction disruption. When you compare that to a 30-day inpatient stay with, you know, the abysmal success rates, it's really a drop in the bucket. And it's a drop in the bucket to give someone their entire life back. Yeah, no doubt. Because it does have this really innate ability to provide a different perspective or concept of, you know, why, you know, these struggles exist. And then it's doing something really incredible on a physiological level as well, which you also saw in the film.

Starting point is 00:39:15 with the Stanford study. Yeah, you know, it was really, I think what the film does really, really well is it takes the context of what you're saying and it puts it in a visual way. Your animators did an incredible job. It was just, you know, listening to the voiceovers of DJ, for example,

Starting point is 00:39:34 just walking through the different points in his life and how he would tie something that happened as a child. I remember talking about the incident where, you know, he's mowing the lawn and his father, who was this big imposing figure, came, he busted the lawnmower running over a route, and the dad came sprinting at him, and he just went into a rage,

Starting point is 00:39:55 and he picked his lawnmower up and literally just smashed it over his heads to bits. And the fear that he felt and the rage that he saw in his dad's face, he felt it as if he was still the 10-year-old version of himself, and then he was able to immediately draw forward, like 25 years and see that he had smashed his daughter's dollhouse. Yeah. And he could see himself. And he felt the pain through his daughter.

Starting point is 00:40:25 And he was like, whoa. And that's the power of it, is that you get into these, when you get into the experience, you witness potentially some of these incidences from different perspectives, first person, second person. And you can feel potentially the pain that you're causing someone, So for instance, I had a judgment experience during my experience that I was constantly judged.

Starting point is 00:40:52 And everything is like hyper, you know, it just compounds everything that's going on. Yeah, like you're very aware. You're so aware, you're there. And I was judging Amber and the kids. And it was like this weird thing that was going on. It seemed like in eternity, and I was judging and judging, but I was doing the judging.

Starting point is 00:41:10 And then all of a sudden the perspective completely shifted. And I was just, judging myself. Oh. And so, and then that went on. And I was feeling like the pain and the rage of this person.

Starting point is 00:41:24 I was feeling the pain of my rage judging me. And I was getting judged as I was watching myself judge them. And I could feel it and it hurt. And I just said, that's it. I will never do that again.

Starting point is 00:41:39 Like I don't ever want Amber or our children to feel that pain. that I'm experiencing right now in judgment because that's what they must be experiencing, right? So I was feeling that and I came out, so I'll never do that again. What kind of super intelligence is that? It's wild.

Starting point is 00:41:56 I mean, I don't even purport to understand it. I mean, we don't either trust me. You know, I consider myself above average intelligence, but I mean, we've only scratched the surface of the power of the mind. You know, I mean, you know, they say we only use 10% of our brain capacity, but I think we've only scratched

Starting point is 00:42:13 the surface of the mind. mind, but what's really fascinating is you're actually using the best vehicle, which is your own mind, to heal the vehicle that's damaged, which is your own mind. I mean, what better resource than to tap into your own innate ability to heal yourself? And that's it, Gary. And you do it every day, right? You do use supplements and nutraceuticals and things, but there are supplements, right? They're not, right? But the things you're doing are healing the body from the inside. And that's what this does. some doctors say it takes what, this is what therapy is trying to get to, right?

Starting point is 00:42:50 Talk therapy, different cognitive behavioral therapy is trying to get to the root cause, trying to get in your mind and figure it out and have you see it. Ibegaine does that in a few hours, so you have to be prepared, right? So what you're trying to work on with a therapist for five or 10 years,

Starting point is 00:43:06 which that judgment issue probably would have taken you five to 10 years. Right about now he's coming into the solutions, I'm great. Remember to say I'm perfect, Derek. But think about trying to do that for five or ten years, except solving it in six to eight hours. Yeah. And that's the beauty of it.

Starting point is 00:43:25 And that's the difficult part. I think that science or, you know, PhDs have trouble wrapping their heads around where we're just saying, well, we just want to see the mechanisms with action. Of course. The brain is it working on. But there's just other underlying things that are happening that make these subjective experiences so powerful and so healing.

Starting point is 00:43:44 So light changing. And how long, did you go down with him? I didn't, but I did go down the day after. Okay. And I had a complete freak out on the plane. What have we done? You know, you're so desperate to save the person you love. I also didn't think it would work because so many things hadn't worked.

Starting point is 00:44:03 Yeah, I'm on my way to Mexico to see my husband after a psychedelic trip. Like, is this really where we are? I can imagine what you're thinking. It was terrifying. And then everything started to come undone in my mind. Like, what have we done? This is it. If I see him, I'm going to know immediately if it worked, if it didn't.

Starting point is 00:44:21 I'm going to be devastated and I've got nothing left. Luckily, when I saw him, I knew immediately it had worked. And the first thing he said to me was this is it. This is exactly what his former teammates needed. And how did you know? His countenance was back. I had known him since before he was. seal and the things I loved most about him had disappeared.

Starting point is 00:44:48 So when I saw him again, it was like immediate. Yeah. Exactly the way I remember him. I see a glow on individuals. I mean, we see it now, you know, thousands of individuals over that we've seen on a Monday that go through treatment and come out on a Friday. On a Monday, they just look, you know, some of them are gone. They're not even looking at you, right?

Starting point is 00:45:07 Because they can't. They're just, they're really, you know, broken in some ways. They're just hurting or searching. Their eyes might be dark. They're not talkative. They're not happy. They're not making jokes. Yeah, DJ's why I talked about that.

Starting point is 00:45:19 Yeah. What's just why same? Patsy. Patsy, yeah, she talked about how she walked up, looked them in the eyes and knew. You can just see it. And we call the glow effect. You can see the individuals almost literally looks like

Starting point is 00:45:29 they have like heat radiating from them. Their skin looks like they just... Well, their spirit has just been like... You know, they just reversed aged by 10 years. You just look good and healthy, and your eyes are open and you're happy. And so you go on a Friday, say a group of five to six veterans that we give grant scholarships to, you know, in the van, maybe no one's talking to each other. On Friday, they're telling jokes and they're exchanging numbers and they can't wait to see their wife and their kids and, like, go do the things that they wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:45:58 It's a dramatic change. It's just awesome, just a witness. That's amazing. And Sean's a part of this philanthropy too, right? Because it's in English, you and Shipley and everyone. And yeah, Sean, you know, and again, we can speak about it because Sean is, you know, he's talked about it on his show. And he says he was in a similar place, right? For years he didn't feel. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:46:21 He was just kind of just white-knuckling it and going through it and absorbing the pain of everything, thinking like this is normal. And, you know, he said, you know, he was right after his experience, he was out on a bench overlooking, just like looking out at the ocean. He said, man, I haven't done this in 15 years. He's like, I haven't just stopped and looked and just been present and realized how like awesome life is and earth is in the water and just being outside and seeing green grass and blue sky. Like these are the things that, you know, they call it an awakening.

Starting point is 00:46:57 It kind of wakes you up to, you know, people say, wow, I didn't realize the apple was so red or an avocado was so green or orange and just smell so good. Wow. And that is not like one person. that is everybody. That is amazing. If your energy is low during the day, the problem usually started the night before. Sleep affects focus, mood, metabolism, literally everything, and most people never learn how to properly support it. Our free sleep challenge is April 29th and 30th,

Starting point is 00:47:25 and it's designed to teach the basics of better sleep in a way that's realistic and easy to apply. If learning how to sleep better feels like the right place to start, we'd love to have you join our challenge on April 29th. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So what would you say to, you know, families that are struggling with similar situations about this? I would say think outside the box. You know, that's one thing about our community is we take care of one another

Starting point is 00:47:53 and we're taught to think outside the box. Now, Marcus was a really great soldier in that he did go to his appointments and he did take his medicines. but when he got off of pharmaceuticals going into Ibane. You have to get off everything. You have to titrate. And that can be for individuals, literally we've had some that been on them for 15 or 20 years.

Starting point is 00:48:16 Imagine titrating off of that or coming off in cold. Wow. Of course, some individuals. And also telling your VA doc, hey, I'm going to titrate off the needs and go. Yeah. Try to explain to a doctor that you're going to do your own. So you just got to do it in silence.

Starting point is 00:48:27 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he hasn't been back on them. So, you know, that sort of. conventional, we're going to just try this, really helped open up a life that I could only dream about. I was just trying to keep him alive, but didn't realize that he hadn't actually been living.

Starting point is 00:48:46 And so, you know, the connection that we have in all the life that we're creating now, the people that we've been able to help through the work that we do would say the same. It's one thing to have a pulse. It's another thing to live. Yeah. And that started the kind of the idea around vets, you know, when Amherst, saw me, we embraced, we cried. I didn't even say I'm better. She can just see that. I just said literally the first words where this is exactly what the guys need. Like we have to figure out a way to help them. Someone paid for my treatment. And I knew that these are expensive treatments. And it's not covered under insurance like you were talking about because they're not FDA approved yet

Starting point is 00:49:25 here. We're working on that. But I wanted to pay for somebody, right? I wanted to get somebody that opportunity to heal like I did because I was in such a dark place. And I said, man, if there's so many individuals that I know and have very close friends that were in the exact same spot, and if they can't afford treatment, well, what's going to happen to them? And so that's what was, that was the idea around how do we do this and how do we pay it forward. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:52 So what does life look for you guys, like for you guys now outside of I have a game? Like what are you building together? What are your goals? Yeah. path of you on. There's a lot happening, Gary. Yeah. And this is,

Starting point is 00:50:06 there's a lot in that supplement bag right there that you're going to throw up here. We should talk about that. We're going to talk about that too. That's hilarious. I got to clear everything off of here. And I brought that as just a funny, you know,

Starting point is 00:50:16 as a funny joke, I figured you'd get a kick out of it and say, you need to throw that in the garbage. Oh, that stuff's really good. But anyway, we'll get to that. We have a lot going on. So we initially started vets and received our 501 C3.

Starting point is 00:50:31 charity status in 2019. And just from day one, I mean, it was just Amber and I were working seven to, you know, it's like building a business. So seven days a week, all hours of the night. That's why I have over 600 text messages. Yeah. And we've been doing that for years and working with Stanford and Ohio State and Hopkins and just studies and policy work at the state and federal level. And that's just going. We have a full team at vets. And Amber could talk more about that. She's the CEO. I chair the board there with some amazing individuals that help just to keep it on track. And then the success we had there at vets,

Starting point is 00:51:06 I was approached by, you know, entrepreneurial individuals, one in particular, Grant Verstandig, who's just an amazing human. He dropped out of Brown his freshman year to build, to fix health care

Starting point is 00:51:18 because he had his like 15th knee surgery and it just kept getting worse. 15th knee surgery? Just, yeah, and this guy is like, you know, Mets is smart, just brilliant and just tried to solve the problem through technology and communication, better communication with doctors.

Starting point is 00:51:34 And he built a business called Rally Health, and they partnered with United, and the rest is history, of course. And then he approached and just said, dude, the work you're doing with veterans is, like, incredible. I'd love to support that work. But as an entrepreneur, how do we do this for the private sector? And so we started it, we founded a company called Tara Mind.

Starting point is 00:51:54 I'm the founder and CEO, along with Grant. And we figured out a way to take individuals, who are struggling that don't respond to antidepressants and introduce them to advanced mental health care through FDA-approved treatments, right? Wow. TMS-Saint protocol, through IV ketamine, and we do that through employee benefit plan.

Starting point is 00:52:16 So we're selling this to like J.P. Morgan and, you know, the Googles of the world and Walmarts and the labor unions, right? And so these are the groups that are just taking what we originally never even thought about, just starting out with veterans and now taking it to the private sector. And so that, and we're doing that all,

Starting point is 00:52:31 through data. Everything's driven by data. So we're identifying individuals through AI, through other kind of fragmented data sets. We're making sense of all that data through kind of longitudinal structured data. And then we're showing these companies like, hey, you have all these individuals that've been on antidepressants for years. They're not getting better. You're wasting money, right? Let's focus on these individuals. Let's get them to the right treatment. Plus, they're also powder gigs. I mean, potentially some of them. A hundred percent. They're the ones that end up in the east. They end up on disability. So we're getting ahead of that.

Starting point is 00:53:05 And then eventually, of course, you know, our vision, of course, is like on the monitor. We'll get into biomarkers. What's the right treatment for the right person at the right time? So that's my commercial business, Tar Mind. And so we have vets. I have Tar Mind. What else, you know, I know you want to talk about a few other things that we have while we're not working 24 hours a day. I know.

Starting point is 00:53:25 You guys are busy, dude. I thought I was busy. So I talk about this. I mean, you know, we have a lot. lot going on. We do have a lot going on. So Marcus and I have been in build mode. And that has kept us trapped behind a laptop for

Starting point is 00:53:39 the majority of the last eight years or so good too. There's nothing like building. I don't care what anybody says about being a business with your spouse. Best thing I, best decision I ever made. Yeah. Really best decision we love it. We don't ever fight. We agree on everything. You can have a shitty day at the office and have a great day at home.

Starting point is 00:53:57 That's right. You can separate business from you know from your private life. It hasn't always been roses, but it's definitely been very gratifying. And I feel that it really is, you know, my life calling, Marx's life calling. And together we hope to break free from the laptop in 26. The film has heightened the awareness around this topic, but really just broad mental health beyond the veteran community. And so we're actually launching a podcast this year. All right.

Starting point is 00:54:31 We've banked a few, right? Yeah. We did. We've banked 10. We have two more. We had to work through some legal stuff that we've done. So we'll shoot those two more in the next few weeks. But talk about it.

Starting point is 00:54:44 What are we going to, what are we doing? What do we help to accomplish? If I'm passing through Dallas, I'd love to jump on there. I just invited myself on to the podcast. Please. We'll have to check. We'll have to check with the team to make sure that you have to go through the DD process. We would be honored.

Starting point is 00:54:59 Yeah. But no, the idea is really just to continue speaking to this topic and bring hope to people that they really can transform their lives. Marcus came home from a driving school, defensive driving school, very early on in his seal career. I think that the lesson he shared with me pertains to life and not only what we've done and are continuing to do, but to anyone. And basically what he said is, do you know why individuals wrap their car around the lone tree in a field or the lone telephone pole on the side of a road? because that's what they're staring at when they start to spiral out of control, to spin out of control.

Starting point is 00:55:35 So a person overcompensates two or three times to steer towards the pole when they have so much open room to just make one adjustment and you pass the pole and now maybe you're sick. But we overcomensate because we're staring at that thing

Starting point is 00:55:50 and we actually drive to the thing. Wow. So I told Amber this. Now she uses it for every. What an amazing metaphor. I realized during our spiral that I was becoming so focused on the proverbial tree that I didn't realize I was surrounded by an open field of possibility

Starting point is 00:56:11 and where did I want to steer. So regardless of how crazy things had gotten in our personal life, I was just intent on steering towards where I wanted to end up realizing that I had an entire field. And anyone can do that. That's a great metaphor, yeah. So it's just the, you know, just being in the business of encouraging people to transform their lives and drive where they want to go. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:36 We focus too much on the problem. Yeah. You know, Andrew, and Andrew Huberman does a good job talking about. He's been talking about it recently about how individuals just, they get stuck in the loop, and part of this is mental health. But the loop is just you keep thinking about the bad thing that's happening. I've got to raise money or my kids doing, instead of driving to the open place to say, hey, let's get out of this loop, right?

Starting point is 00:57:00 Let's move to the open space, the open space being healing, whatever that is or whatever you're going on. And I think that's just such a good metaphor for really everything. And that's what the podcast will touch on. That's so awesome. And I think you guys are amazing with the podcast. So what else?

Starting point is 00:57:16 What else we have? Well, we are working on a buck. We've been working on that for a little while. Oh, right on. We've been approached by so many people to write a book and we're just like, ah, you know, books are... It's a lot tougher than people think. It's tough and it's also from our community, from the steel community, although there has been a lot of books written, it was a bit shunned or even still a bit shunned. And I think there's a way to do in a way not to do it.

Starting point is 00:57:41 And I think we've done a good job. I've definitely done a good job because I don't love the spotlight. I'm decent at speaking and getting out there and doing it. but you can do it in a way where it's not about you. And there's so many individuals that out there and they write about me, me, me, this, and I did this and I did that, and I've been to war.

Starting point is 00:58:00 And I never wanted to do that. And so we put off a book forever because that's not what we wanted to do. But what we've realized is the more we talk and the more we get out there, the more people hear our story and it gives them hope. And so the book, there might be a chapter

Starting point is 00:58:16 about the SEAL teams in the book because people do want to hear that and that stuff is exciting, but that's not what the book is about. It's really about our life and our healing and where we started, and it'll be a chapter. If there's eight chapters, it'll be a chapter probably on college life and growing up and maybe some about the sale teams. It would just be more about what Amher and I are doing now and our lessons learned

Starting point is 00:58:36 and how do we pay that forward? How do we help individuals? How do we help couples stay together? How do we help children deal with, you know, potentially their dad not being in the military away at work, but maybe being a banker who's gone, you know, 100 hours a week, right? So it's extremely relatable, and so we're super excited about that. And that's, we're working with situations.

Starting point is 00:58:54 Yeah. That's amazing. So let's see what we got in a bag. Oh, man. Oh, yeah. So, Gary, I thought it would be a great idea because we travel literally. We live in Dallas, but we're probably there, not even half the amount of time. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:11 And Amber bought me these packing cubes for my clothes, but I wanted to packing all my supplements. They're packed in my overflow pink cubes. They're packing her pink cubes. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to bring this to show. So your wife's not the overpacker in this relationship? No, she's not. He's going to get a kick out of my travel stuff.

Starting point is 00:59:31 And he's going to also say yay to some of this stuff and nay to some of it. I just think it would be hilarious because like you said, on the road, it's hard sometimes to get a good meal or do this or do that. Marcus is very committed to showing up for himself every day. He's very disciplined. he's very into... This is just that got a very Navy SEAL vibe to it just already, you know? Right, so, like, I mean, if you want to go

Starting point is 00:59:56 through this stuff here, right? So, like, of course we need, like, some of the best beef jerk you could find. I found this on a flight once, and I was like, oh, God, I got to ride. As soon as I get home. Huge fan. We're going to give that a 10.

Starting point is 01:00:06 I got some nuts. You may tell me that, like, I may... Yep, yep, give that 10 as well. That's awesome. Who doesn't need their electrolytes? Like, I got to put my electrolytes every morning. I have to have creatine because, you know, Creaton, we're finding out, is really good for you.

Starting point is 01:00:20 Very good for you, excellent cognitive function. Of course, you know, free range, like try to get the best protein supplements from... Some grass-fed. Grass-fed way? That's great. Yep. Actually, the CEO, the founder of Momentus gave me some stuff, so I have to, you know, take some of that. Cool, great brand.

Starting point is 01:00:39 I got a little bit of fiber in here. Sometimes this gives me a little bit of a bellyache, but I have it. And this is just pure fiber? Yeah, I get some pure fiber. I also have some collagen in there. Okay. Again, some of these things, you might say more,

Starting point is 01:00:51 who throw that shit away. I'm not sure about that brand. Yeah, it's got some dairy, some, some, some, some dairy stuff. Oh, dairy digest. Dairy digest. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:00 A ton of vitamins here, Rotari, I got omega-3s. I have more digestive enzymes, CO-Q-10. I take all this stuff for my liver. I've had some high liver enzymes come back, like over the couple of years. Milk this is great for the liver.

Starting point is 01:01:15 You know, so I've like got some stuff. that I can just kind of clean out liver. You pick one all form of CO-Q-10. I don't know if you recognize this product. That's a great one. That is a must. It is a clean-mus.

Starting point is 01:01:26 H-2 tab. You know, we're at home. We have our home system that we have all our... And it adds hydrogen to the water? That's great. I got some vitamin D. D3 with K2, which is also amazing. And in fat because it is a fat-soluble vitamin,

Starting point is 01:01:40 so I don't know this brand, but it appears to be well structured. We can work on the brands. I do take a low dose, just have a little bit of thicker blood. So, you know. Regular therapeutic phlebotomy is really good for that too.

Starting point is 01:01:52 Just regular, regular blood dumps. There you go. I mean, I have to have some bone broth for the road. Excellent. Is this a powdered bone broth? Powdered bone broth? I love that.

Starting point is 01:02:02 It looks like you haven't dug into this in a little while. This one's looking a little rusty. Okay. That one's a little bit of, like some of these things don't think they gave you that when you got out of the service. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 01:02:11 It's like an MRI. Yeah, yeah. There's sentimental value to that somehow. Oh, and then I take, I have two different. different types of methylene blue. I have a liquid kind of dropper at the house. I don't want to take the liquid on the road,

Starting point is 01:02:22 so I have these. These still turn my urine colors. Yeah, yeah. At least it's- You can't get away with peeing on the toilet seat, that's the problem. That's how my wife bust me every time. Because I used to be able to deny it, but now if it's blue, no deny it.

Starting point is 01:02:36 I thought you'd get a kick out of this stuff. That is awesome. We'll go through and tighten anything up that needs to be tightened up Burberine. I'm a huge fan of Burbarine. Actually outperforms metforms metformin as a glucophage and some studies. Great for blood sugar control.

Starting point is 01:02:50 Yeah, that's great. I love that you have a survival meal pack that you take with you too, because if you're going on commercial flights, I mean, the garbage that they feed you on airplanes. Hey, do you want these pretzels and crackers? No, I don't. They actually get mad at me

Starting point is 01:03:04 because I also sometimes I'm like, I don't need a hot towel either. Just like, we're good. Is it true that water, ice, coffee on airlines is just absolutely hideous? Oh, my God. I mean, if you actually knew what they made that out of, first of all, it's all just straight tap water.

Starting point is 01:03:21 But, and the coffee is really garbage. But it's mainly like, you know, they're making this all with just unfiltered tap water. And, you know, I tell people if, you know, a few things that you can do to sort of biohack your life. But the first moment that you have any kind of disposable income, the first thing you should do is water filtration. I mean, there's, we're what, 65% water?

Starting point is 01:03:48 And if you look at the amount of toxicity that comes through the water supply, you know, not just fluoride, which is categorizes in neurotoxin, but chlorine fluoride, it's called PFAs, these polyfluoral alchols, trace pharmaceuticals, microplastics, you know, all of this stuff. In something that is not immediately toxic doesn't mean that it's necessarily harmful. It sounds like a scare tactic, but the truth is we're just trying to get around the system. But water filtration's huge.

Starting point is 01:04:20 So, you know, the nice thing is in airports now, you can't carry bottled water with you on the plane. You can get it on the other side of the security. But I'm seeing more glass bottled water choices. And most of them have the filtered refillable stations. Yeah. So if you just throw an aluminum bottle in your bag and then fill it up before you get on your flight,

Starting point is 01:04:40 I mean, some of those containers will hold almost a liter of fluid. I mean, that's perfect. you know, while you're on a flight. I might even, the only thing I might add to that would be some, like a mineral salt, like, like a Baja Gold. I've heard you talk about that. Yeah, yeah. Would you replace the electrolyte with that?

Starting point is 01:04:57 Yeah, because those electrolytes are heavily focused on the big ones that are, the consumer knows about, potassium, magnesium, sodium, which are certainly electrolytes and you certainly need those, but you really need 91 trace minerals. You know, our soil has been so depleted, you know, a lot of, a lot of the challenges that we have are mineral deficiencies. And mineral deficiencies manifest themselves in all kinds of ways. Brittle bones, osteopenia, osteoporosis, migraines. A really interesting study in the Wiley Journal of headaches about migraines and sodium.

Starting point is 01:05:32 I get them. Yeah. You do? And I've heard you talk about Baja. And so now that we're here in person, I'm... You get them the morning? It's the first thing I'm going to do is take... I get them throughout the day.

Starting point is 01:05:41 Okay. I get them pretty regularly. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, just remember. that pain cannot come from the brain. So even though it feels like the migraine is coming from your brain,

Starting point is 01:05:53 that's not possible because the brain has no pain receptors. So it actually can't generate a pain signal. So even though you feel like the pain is coming from the brain, it's not. It's coming from the covering of the brain called the Dura. And that's where it's fraught with pain receptors. The Dura hates two things. It hates being stretched and it hates being contracted.

Starting point is 01:06:13 And what determines whether or not it's doing that, is the sodium gradient, the osmotic gradient. Great study in the Wiley Journal of headaches for anybody that wants to doubt that just by adding mineral salt to your water, you can very often fix migraines, go read that study. Perfect.

Starting point is 01:06:28 It was an inverse correlation between sodium and migraines. You know, it's just given the body the raw material it needs to do its job. So what is your supplement pack look like? Mine doesn't look like that, Gary. She's got like two. Mine looks similar to yours. I have stolen her claustrum, which she just found out today.

Starting point is 01:06:47 Oh, really? I'm guilty of being all in and what I'm all into. And I feel like building bets has really shifted my focus away from myself. It's something that I also hope to work on this year. It looks like you take pretty good care of yourself. I do. I do. But admittedly more for vanity purposes than help right now.

Starting point is 01:07:08 We love walking together. Yeah. Yeah, that's a thing I was going to ask you. Like, what are your, what are your, daily has because you know i i built a business with my spouse as well and by the grace of god it was successful um so i know what that struggle is like and um there's no separating your business from your personal life so if you're starting a business with your spouse just know that you're going down that road um if you want protein to build lean muscle but without the caloric impact or need to

Starting point is 01:07:39 cut you need perfect amino it's pure essential amino acids the building blocks of proteins in a form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as way, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. But you know, I think I've learned that the best relationships in my opinion are the ones that have gone through everything that's meant to tear them apart but they're still together it's like two imperfect people that just refuse to give up on each other you know and at no

Starting point is 01:08:28 point would that hit the bliss point right um but you know there's nothing better than succeeding together right that is the i think one of the greatest gifts for any any marriage any couple is to have the wins and the losses, you know, going through those together. And one of the things I think Sage and I learned was, we read a great book called Rocket Fuel. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's a very simple book, but it's a quick read, but it talks about a integrator and a visionary and the importance of having both because I'm very much of a visionary. but I also create so much dust, right?

Starting point is 01:09:15 And I throw up so many ideas and she's very practical, very organized, very regimented. And so we would butt heads all the time in the business. Sounds very similar. Do you guys need to read this book, man? Okay. If your marriage is at a nine, it just took it to a 10. Rocket Fuel.

Starting point is 01:09:32 I'll take 15% of everything comes out of it. But this is called Rocket Fuel. It's just a simple book. And what it did, it literally reframed. the way we looked at each other, right? I saw so much value in what she was providing and she saw so much value in what I was providing because she was like, you know what,

Starting point is 01:09:55 I can't make the phone ring, I can't make people walk through the door. And I was like, I can't pay the bills. We would be absolutely broke. Or our credit would be in the absolute time. Oh, we need to read that. Yeah. And it made me realize the synergistic value

Starting point is 01:10:10 of both of us rather than, and just my independent value for bringing in all the business and coming up with all the ideas. And I was like, all you have to do is send the checks, you know. And I oversimplified what she did. She oversimplified what I did. So it was great book. I don't give any marriage advice,

Starting point is 01:10:29 but I will toss that one out there for you. We'll definitely read that. I think that we're the same in terms of just really complimenting each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yeah. And at one point realizing that we were in such a scorekeeping contest. Oh, gosh. So that's exactly what we were doing.

Starting point is 01:10:43 Yeah. And such like this like push, pull. We're headed towards the same finish line. We have the same goals in mind. But we were fighting each other all the way there. And it's like if we just got behind one another. Yeah. And really celebrated and leaned into those strengths and weaknesses,

Starting point is 01:10:59 how much more impactful could we be. And I think that's where we're at now. We're each other's biggest fans now. I mean, we really compliment each other. I mean, I tell Amber every day how perfect she is and how amazing she is. And you're, you know, I just, I can't. Well, now I got it on tape and on video. 100%.

Starting point is 01:11:15 This woman is the one for sure. You know, it's funny, we did exactly the same thing because what I found we would do is we would always kind of want to prove the other one wrong. So if I had an idea and she said no, and I did it anyway, and it failed, then she would hold it against me. If it succeeded, I would hold it against her.

Starting point is 01:11:37 And then what I realized was if we would just do these together, and then what happens is the wins you celebrate together and the losses are sort of outside the castle walls. Yeah. Because you both made the decision to take a step forward in one direction or another. If it doesn't work, there's no finger pointing because you both agreed on it.

Starting point is 01:11:59 So now that becomes something that's, it's not a bone of contention anymore because I didn't decide to do it and you said no or you decided and I said yes. You know, it's it. And then when you make it, a decision and it works out, then you both celebrate the victory. So you end up only celebrating the wins and the losses are kind of outside the castle

Starting point is 01:12:19 walls instead of in there where they poison everything else. And it was such a simple thing for us, would have made a massive difference in how we operated together. And it also was the tipping point for our business. It just skyrocketed. I believe that. I do. And I appreciate you sharing that.

Starting point is 01:12:37 I think, too, the work that you're doing is so important, is just so fundamentally important. The work that we're doing is helping give people their lives back. Same for you guys. And I think that there's just this innate responsibility and sort of answering the call. I don't feel like we stumbled into this. I feel like we are on a divinely appointed mission that is such an honor to serve. So we might as well serve together. Yeah. Well, listen, I think what started as you know, a wife's silent struggles and a husband's silent struggles, you have had the courage to, you know, put it out there in the public domain and be vulnerable, which led to this documentary, which is an incredible documentary.

Starting point is 01:13:27 I mean, I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Oh, thanks. And it was, it was, it was well narrated. It was well-rated. It was entertaining. I found myself being very curious about, you know, what was going to happen. I've identified with each of the parties. It shed more light on the discussion that I had with DJ Shipley,

Starting point is 01:13:46 which was one of our top podcasts. I only wish I, like I said, I wish I'd come out earlier before I'd been on the pod with him or had him on the pod. But what I really found was how applicable it is to everyone. even though it was the seals. You know, I think men in general want to suffer in silence. And I think a lot of wives will very often hit that wall and they'll leave before.

Starting point is 01:14:20 Yeah. You know, and the solution could be two steps away, right? You're on the 98-yard line and maybe you only need to move two more yards. Yeah. You know, and the fact that you guys did it and succeeded, and you can see how many people it's inspired, you know, not the least of which are the characters in the documentary.

Starting point is 01:14:42 It's an absolute must watch for anyone because there are the people that are not struggling that know someone who's struggling. And there's people that are struggling because I don't think anyone watching this podcast now does not know a single person in their sphere of their life. You say that all the time, Gary, that mental health, brain health doesn't discriminate.

Starting point is 01:15:02 Yeah. It's either you or it is. is one degree of separation. We're starting to find that out. If I'm speaking to a room, I always say, hey, raise your hand. If it's not you, that's why you don't have to raise your hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:12 But if it's one degree of the separation, almost at least half the individuals, usually more raise their hands and say, oh yeah, I know somebody, it's either my child or my spouse or my friend. And that's how you really move the needle. So congratulations to you both. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:15:26 So, you know, I always wind down my podcast by asking my guests the same question. I'll ask it to you individually. And if you've watched it, you know this is coming. but there's no right or wrong answer to this question. But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I knew you're going to ask this question. I actually got asked it on a podcast and I was like,

Starting point is 01:15:44 wait, that's not fair. That's my question. I struggled. Yeah. Well, I'll try not to struggle, and I thought I had a good answer last night, but I'm going to, I'll talk through it because it has to do with curiosity.

Starting point is 01:15:59 And I think being curious is one of the, one of the biggest attributes that we can, we can have as individuals, as human beings. And why I think curiosity is so important is because we're stuck in our ways, we're stuck in our old ways, we never change, we never evolve, we never innovate, we never progress. And if I was stuck in my ways,

Starting point is 01:16:25 I would have never gotten better. I would have listened to the doctors that I've always been told for many years from when I was a child that if you just listen to your doctor, doctor and you do this this way that you're supposed to get better. And as a good soldier, I wasn't getting, you know, I was doing everything I was supposed to do, but I wasn't getting better. So for me, being curious and wanting to get better and thinking unconventionally and trying to

Starting point is 01:16:50 solve the problem through curiosity is what enabled me and amher to be where we're at today. So I think curiosity is the first thing as an ultimate human. You could always be curious as a lifelong learner. I I think we should just never stop. And for me and Amber, you know, we have that type A personality. I always say a close friend of ours, always say send it and I love that because I struggle with the term balance

Starting point is 01:17:22 and I don't, I think it's very difficult to be balanced where you're trying to succeed and excel in life. And so if you're getting into something, if you wanna be a good student, you wanna be a good podcaster, you wanna be a good seal, a good banker, a good teacher, you have to send it. You have to go all in.

Starting point is 01:17:41 You have to, right? And especially early on in life, you have to make sacrifice. Yeah. Right? And it's earlier on in life, it's easier to sacrifice

Starting point is 01:17:57 because you can make mistakes, you may not have a family, you may be able to focus on yourself a little bit more. As you get older, you can have some balance, use your network, use your influence that way. But you got to send it. You got to go all in. And it's the only way to get things on, you know, hard work, determination.

Starting point is 01:18:14 All that stuff is very real. And so for me, that's what it means to be an ultimate human. And how about you? All right. Well, Marcus told me that this was coming. So I have given it a bit of thought. And there are a couple of things actually that I didn't say in the podcast that I would like to touch on in terms of being an ultimate human, but my real answer is going to follow these two

Starting point is 01:18:35 things. Number one is that when I approached Marcus in love, because I had given myself love and grace and really by the grace of God had ditched the resentment that had built up over years, he responded. So I think there's so much power in love. And as humans, we need to feel that. I think that real strength is in vulnerability. So, you know, when you say like big Navy SEALs are on camera, being so raw and honest, that's why this is resonating with people. Yeah. Because it's, it really is the, the most organic form of strength. But I think that what really I feel it is to be an ultimate human is to consider this. We think that we're human beings in search of spiritual experiences but we're really spiritual beings having human experiences i think and so i think to be an

Starting point is 01:19:35 ultimate human you really have to tap into that spiritual feeling of of love and in and and this radical vulnerability yeah i think that's where true connection is made yeah you know and connection and community we know are one of the fundamental necessities to a long, healthy, happy life. So that's a great answer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:20:07 This is going to touch a lot of lives. I will put in the show notes links to their contact. Where does my audience find you guys if they want to find you? So the Capones.com. The Capones? Very simple. That's easy, dude. We have no one to forget that.

Starting point is 01:20:23 We grabbed that domain name. We made sure. Oh, you got the Capones.com? Yes. We sure did. Wow. I'm as far as that one's still. I'm a few people, but it worked out.

Starting point is 01:20:31 Yeah. We had threatened a few people. We had some payoff. But hey, you're Navy SEAL service. And then, of course, our organization is vettsolutions.org online. And we didn't talk much about vets, but we are sponsoring veterans five or six per week every week. Wow. Who are going to Mexico to receive the same opportunity that Marcus did.

Starting point is 01:20:53 and we're having a tremendous success. So the organization really is the lifeblood of the film and of our lives. So About Solutions.org. Yeah, it's really important to talk about that. We live and die by philanthropy. And our mission at Vets continues on by individuals that are willing to partner with us, to support us. And so, you know, if individuals want to get involved, as Amber mentioned,

Starting point is 01:21:21 you know, look into what we're doing and reach out. Oh, yeah, my audience definitely will. So Marcus Namer, thank you guys so much for coming on the old an honor podcast. This is great. Yeah, thank you. And until next time, guys, that's just science.

The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 259. Marcus & Amber Capone: On Ibogaine, Veteran Suicide, PTSD Treatment & Brain Health

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.