TrueLife - Diego Ugalde - The War, Terrible, Beautiful, Unending

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Diego Ugalde Today, I have the profound honor of welcoming a true embodiment of resilience, leadership, and transformation—Diego Ugalde. With over 20 years of service, including 15 as a Navy SEAL, Diego’s career was forged in the crucible of challenge, failure, and ultimate triumph. Rising through the ranks to become a Senior Chief Petty Officer, he served three combat tours in Iraq and participated in over 250 highly classified missions, earning multiple commendations for valor and excellence.But Diego’s story doesn’t end on the battlefield—it evolves into something even more profound. Scarred and weathered, yet standing with a triumphant smile, Diego embarked on his greatest mission yet: to discover his True Self. Through years of introspection, psychedelic therapy, and spiritual growth, he has transformed his hard-earned lessons into a new purpose—to serve others by unlocking their potential as conscious leaders and collaborative teams.As the founder of The Trident Approach, Diego blends the wisdom of the SEAL Teams with deep insights into human connection and spirit, creating elite leadership programs that emphasize teamwork, communication, and purpose. Through this work and his storytelling platform, Warriorside, Diego inspires individuals and organizations to find victory not just in the professional arena, but in the journey of life itself.Diego’s message is clear: greatness lies not just in individual strength but in the synergy of shared purpose and service to others. Please join me in welcoming a true warrior, leader, and visionary, Diego Ugalde.http://linkedin.com/in/diegougaldethetridentapproach.comhttps://www.amazon.com/Leading-Deep-Psychedelic-Conscious-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0CQDTKWB7/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2U2QFD0TR2ZRP&keywords=Leading+from+the+deep&qid=1702909203&s=books&sprefix=leading+from+the+deep,stripbooks,149&sr=1-3 One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. Hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back.

I have with me today, ladies and gentlemen, an incredible honor of welcoming a true embodiment of resilience, leadership, and transformation. The one and only Diego Yucalde. With over 20 years of service, including 15 as a Navy SEAL, Diego's career was forged in the crucible of challenge, failure, and ultimate triumph. Rising through the ranks to become a senior chief petty officer, he served three combat tours in Iraq and participated in over 250 highly classified missions, earning multiple commendations for valor and excellence. But Diego's story doesn't end on the battlefield. It evolves into something even more profound.

Scarred and weathered, yet standing with a triumphant smile, Diego embarked on his greatest mission yet to discover his true self through years of introspection, psychedelic therapy, and spiritual growth. He has transformed his hard-earned lessons into a new purpose, to serve others by unlocking their potential as conscious leaders and collaborative teams. As the founder of the Trident approach,

Diego blends the wisdom of the seal teams with deep insights into human connection and spirit, creating elite leadership programs and emphasize teamwork, communication, and purpose. Through this work and his storytelling platform, Warrior Side, Diego inspires individuals and organizations to find victory not just in their professional arena, but in the journey of life itself. Diego's message is clear. Greatness lies not just an individual's strength, but in the synergy of shared purpose and service to others.

Please join me in welcoming a true warrior, leader and visionary Diego. Welcome to the show, my friend. How are you? Good. How's it going? What's happening? Oh, man.

I'm stoked to be here. I'm stoked to talk to you. What an incredible time we live in, man, right? Well, there is only now. It's easy to get caught up, though, in these ideas of uncertainty. When you start looking at, oh, what am I going to do tomorrow? You know, I heard a great quote that was, something along the lines of depression is being trapped in the past and anxiety is being trapped

in the future. So this idea of now is right on point, man. Yeah, you're right. It's very easy. Mostly I think because we haven't learned, or especially growing up, we don't learn. Like our teachers generally speaking in our culture don't know this. So we're taught about the past and ruminating over the past and worrying about the future is like survival skills somehow. But I think what you're talking about is, what we were just talking about before you got on, where we got on the episode on the episode is like there is just new understanding. And then I think our culture is shifting where parents are going to be teaching their children like this fundamental understandings, like some of the rare few core truths.

There only is now. So maybe there, maybe it's time for a shift. What do you say? man i think we're in the midst of probably the greatest shift of our our generation in our lifetime man like just if you just look at each individual as an example man like look at the shift that you've created like you've gone from sort of being molded into this warrior maybe you were a warrior as a kid we could talk about that but all of a sudden shifting into more of like a someone who's beginning to pass down lessons through wisdom through rights of passage on

some like that's a profound change man like that maybe let's just talk about that like how did that shift man like you you've you have lived multiple lifetimes it seems like to me like what was this latest shift like for you man as far as i know like who hasn't lived multiple lifetimes um what do i know i mean like whatever it doesn't matter but uh it's it's funny because i can look back and see like these threads throughout the course of my life that I was in some ways and certainly not always, not academically speaking or whatever, but in some ways it seemed that my, I just had some sort of sense of curiosity that was different and what a notion of a hint of possibility of something that could actually exist. And in other words, like maybe I was,

I had some level of wisdom, which was different. I'm not saying greater or whatever. It was just different than most people my age. And then, but whatever, I didn't know what was going on. I was just like this little kid or whatever. And then, you know, just attaching to, like, for example, the whole idea of becoming a Navy seal and all that stuff and thinking that was like the epitome of all things.

And then discovering that it wasn't at all. like at all and it was almost like a crisis which kind of occurred when i retired because it took me so long to become a seal and i broke so many bones and failed so many tests and did all this stuff and i finally made it and i finally you know i did this whole thing and but when i retired i had this idea that that there would be some sort of celebration like that came out of from the sky and out from the earth you know about like you did it dude yeah but there was nothing it was total silence And in that silence, I received, you know, guidance from a voice I've been kind of hearing sporadically throughout the course of my life, but I didn't really pay much attention to it.

But this time, this was one of the times that it stuck with me is that everything I've been pursuing in my life had been external, like titles and all that, qualifications, everything. And it said, but the one place you haven't looked was within you. And the crazy thing was I didn't even know what that meant. I didn't know what it meant to pursue anything inward. And then we happened to stumble upon psychedelics and they're like, oh, okay. This is what inward means.

And I had some sort of faint idea of what, what the verb of pursuing that actually means. I didn't fully know, and I don't fully know now, but when it came back to me the idea of pursuing inward, and I was like, oh, okay, this is kind of what I think they mean. So at least I had some sort of pathwork ahead of me to work through. But, yeah, I had no idea because I've been living in my thinking mind all my life. And totally unaware when I was connecting with my,

deepest guidance from my truth. I was unaware that those things were different whatsoever. So, yeah, psychedelics helped with that for sure. A lot of what you're saying resonates with me and a lot of people I've spoken to. And maybe it's this time we're going through, but

in your voice, I'm curious. Like, you've faced some probably horrors. Everybody's faced a lot of demons. But I think the path you have chosen has shown you some real life or death demons that were probably scared to live bejesus out of you, man.

Was there some, is it, is it fair to say, and I don't know if it is or not, but is it fair to say that the fear you felt when you started looking within instead of listening to this voice inside was just as frightful as some of the real life adventures you've been through and worn? Yes and no. Nothing I experienced in my life prior to facing myself was even close to the fear that I experienced. when I was sitting with myself as I am, not how I wanted the world to see me,

not how I wanted to see me, not the potential of what I could be, you know, if I just keep doing this, I'm maybe better, but just like right where I am naked, like the whole thing. But it wasn't just imagery, it was like shame and shortcomings and all that stuff. That level of fear that I experienced in that moment,

there was, you know, been shot at. I've almost killed my friends in a Humphi rollover accident. I've almost died probably three or four times in training. We trained pretty serious. All of that stuff was child's play. Child's play compared to like this visceral, like the essence of fear, real fear. I didn't even know what, well, that's, maybe that's not fair to say, but I don't think I even knew what deep fear actually was until that until some of those moments and it was just yeah kind of a game changer so I have been afraid before maybe maybe didn't seem like it was that big of a deal to be honest with you things that I felt like I was completely capable well

Well, one, I didn't, I'm thinking out loud here, of course. One is maybe I had never really experienced true fear because I didn't allow myself to be afraid, you know, on the battlefield or whatever it was because of all the things, you know, not letting anybody down. I'm in a. I'm not supposed to be this, all, all the stuff. So I put up barriers so that I wouldn't experience fear. And I genuinely, I don't think I really did. Like I said, I was very surprised.

The first time I'm being shot at, I was like, like, I didn't even care. I'm like, this guy's shooting at me. Like, that's how I felt. And so maybe I would have been afraid if I knew how to feel or if I allowed myself to feel. But I didn't. But with psychedelics, like particularly with Ibrahim, the game, I didn't have the strength, the experience or the know-how or the development to hide from that fear. I mean, that blasted through everything.

That was just me and me. It was like the core of my essence, looking at the core of my essence, sort of thing. Obviously, that wasn't entirely true because I wouldn't be afraid at all if it was just me as I am. So there was, I think it was just this other thing. I didn't have the ability to protect myself from it. Like it was just like this celestial whipping. Selectual whipping. I never heard that before.

Yeah. It's just what comes to mind when I think about, you know, my experience of really being afraid. Wow. And so, yeah, so it was beyond my ability to protect myself. I had no protection in a way, in a way. Yeah. What prompted the first few experiences with psychedelics for you? Was I began the first experience for you? Or like, what sort of prompted this? I need to figure something out. I'm going to, I've heard about these. Maybe you could tell me about your relationship with psychedelics, how it started. Yeah. So when I retired, we started a leadership development. company that tried an approach that you mentioned in the beginning. And we're in operations for about a year. And one day one of my pathfinders came to me is also a former seal is like, hey, man, I'm not coming to work next week. It's an organization that takes seals down to Mexico and

treats their traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, addiction, suicide, all that stuff with psychedelics. And I was shot because that was the first time I'd ever heard of psychedelics being used in the context of mental health. But at the same time, I didn't care at all because I knew he was smacked up pretty good with PTSD. He was addicted to Ambien, TV eyes, like all the things. I was like, bro, can't wait to see you and get back? So he left, and a week later, he comes back and he had a light in his eyes and a vibrancy to a smile like we had never seen before.

I mean, even his skin color was different. And we're like, bro, what the fuck happened? And he's like, man, I got no words. was life-changing. I got to introduce you to these people. So not long after that, I went down to Mexico, and I was just observing other team guys going through, and I just literally watched them saving lives out from under my nose. And I've always been involved in medicine, deliberately. So I was like, man, I would love to be able to help you guys, but I don't know anything about psychedelics and they're like, well, we have an extra dose of 5MEODMT if you want to try.

And I said, I said, well, I'm not in the military anymore, dude, let's go. I'm not going to get like a urinalysis testing you get kicked out. So I went through 5MEO DMT that morning. As far as we know, it's like the most powerful psychedelic in the world. And I didn't know anything about anything, really. So I didn't know what it was to resist. I didn't know what it was to have expectations. Like I didn't know any of that.

So I was, my first 5MEO experience was what I always hear about what people hope to experience with their 5MEO journey. I had it all. It's 15 or 20 minute journey, but I experienced all of it as far as I can. can tell them. And yeah, it was in that moment where I learned everything I thought about who I am and the world around me was all bullshit. And the first words that I was able to utter when I came out of the medicine was how can I help? This was the mission within, by the way, with Martine Polanco. And he was like, well, you come down here every weekend. We've got a waiting list over a year long. Want to come down and support. Love to have you. So I started going down as kind of like a

veteran liaison kind of thing but i always wanted to do more and martin eventually ended up telling me about the idea of being being a psychedelic integration coach and that was super cool for me so i went to being true to you became psychedelic integration coach and i've been doing that for a long time um but yeah so that was back in it's so funny because it just seems it's like an entire lifetime ago but it was only 2019. It's like just happened. But so much has happened in like my transformation and integration work and all this stuff.

It just feels like it was 20 years ago in many ways. But very, very lucky to be on this path. Man. You know, it's some people live their whole life in a moment. And I can't help escape the idea of like, how fast change can happen, whether it's on a battlefield, in a marriage, in any relationship, especially a relationship with psychedelics.

Like, how do you integrate such a profound change? Like, maybe we could just stick with this for a moment. And like, if we talk about that 5MEO, you're talking about a lifetime of change in like 10 minutes. Does that mean the way you see relationships, the way you see yourself? Is that when this new Diego began to emerge? Or was there an insight about relationship? Maybe we could talk about the transformative power of that, man. It wasn't a lifetime of change because it took years.

Right. It is taking years. Yeah. This, you know, it was more of like it was just an awareness. Hey, but it was more than awareness or maybe, honestly, maybe it was the essence of awareness because it showed me, hey, you're not this thing. This is not the surrounding that you think it is. But that was accompanied by my state of being shifting in the medicine.

So while I was in the medicine, I was in a state of deep understanding, deep understanding, deep. clarity, alignment. You know, my logical awareness was in alignment with my state of being. And then when I came out of the medicine, my logical awareness was way up here of like, hey, I am all that is. But my state of being was like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, I knew it then. I didn't know what it was when I came out of the medicine, you know, and I was sitting there

in Mexico on the beach again. And so then it took all this time. and it's still taking all of this time to bring my state of being up to my logical state of awareness to where I'm in fully in balance with the idea that I am all that is. So obviously there's like a huge still disparity, but the disparity is way smaller than it was before I did the meta because I wasn't even aware of it. And so the reason why this is helpful is that when I experience moments of anything, anger, frustration, or even like the illusion of happiness sometimes, you know, not that it's not possible, but sometimes it'll be like an illusion of happiness, all those things. And I recognize it.

It is helpful to remind myself what I have experienced. through the medicine and some of the things that I've done to integrate so that it helps bring me back to center and as well, there's still more learning to go. So, you know, so it's just in the medicine, I think that it has the potential to bring the essence of awareness. But then out of the medicine, you come back to Earth, you come back, but just armed with like new hallways to explore. that I'm telling you I never considered, and even though those hallways existed, for one, and I certainly didn't even consider even walking down those things that I didn't know existed. So it's helpful in that way. Yeah, man, thanks for sharing that.

I, you know, it seems to me that when I look back at my life or a lot of the people whom I love and care about, this thing called shame is a real motherfucker, man. Changes your life and it warps you and it twists you in ways that fucking, boy, hold you to the ground if you let it. How did this experience, or maybe how have these experiences that you've been working? You've got a new book. You've been helping other people.

This term called integration, man. Can you explain to me and my audience how your relationship with shame has changed? I used to think that shame was what it was, almost like the, if I was ashamed of something, I would always be ashamed. if I was angry about something, I would always be angry until it kind of settled,

but it would still be anger there. How my relationship has changed is, at least for me. And nothing of what I'm saying, by the way, is as far as I can tell truth. This is just my perspectives in the way that I'm experiencing things. I don't know that it's correct or whatever, but it just seems to be in alignment with where I am. so far. It's one of a little disclaimer for anything I say. But now I have come to see things like shame and toxic anger as teachers. If I am ashamed, then that means that there's something that I don't fully understand, like fully, fully understand. If I'm toxicly angry, anger is

perfect. It's just as far as I can tell, just like happiness or joyfulness or whatever. It's it's a gift that I've been given as a human to be able to experience and leverage and learn from and that kind of thing. But toxic anger, you know, being addicted to anger or not knowing what else to do so then I'll be angry kind of thing that's that stuff isn't necessarily as readily apparent in helpfulness so now I see those things as components as components of parts of myself that I have the opportunity to look into and see what is out of balance because I can't be ashamed if I really know, if I deeply know, and I can't be toxicly angered, if I deeply understand things.

It's just not possible. I can have the experience of being angry, and it comes and goes like a wave. It'll be fine back to zero or balance. But if it lingers for any length of time, then there's just something. So I'm grateful for shame. I can genuinely say that I've had real huge moments of despair, you know, especially over this year. And at the same time, because of all this integration work and elevated states of consciousness and this stuff, like,

listen, this feels really crappy right now, but the only thing that this is is the doorstep to real transformation. so I'm glad to be here. Like, that's a real thing. Yeah, it's, it always gets me to think about how growth and comfort can't coexist, man. We spend so much of our lives, like trying to be okay and like, oh, it's all good, you know, making up all this shit in our head with this internal dialogue that goes on. But that's how you know you're at that doorstep, man. I love that analogy.

The doorstep of transformation is accompanied by this overwhelming partner of despair on some level. And how do you integrate those things, man? It's like this feels like the worst thing ever. You know, then you start thinking about these language, like the only way out is through. You know, and it's, I feel like on some level, it's only through this awareness of this evolution of awareness that you can see how close you are to this change, man. It's, is there something that comes to mind when you talk about this doorstep of transformation? It seems to me it's not your first time at that door. You know, we get better with experience.

You know what I mean? Maybe you could share like a different story about being on that doorstep and finding the courage to walk through, man. Is there another story you could share with us about being in that spot? Yeah. So right around this time last year, actually my daughter moved to New York City, I live Diego and she moved to New York City just to go like really live. So it was really cool. Just exploring, discovering out on her own for the first time. She was 19 years old. And, you know,

I've been in the military, of course, so I had left her to go to war and all those things. but this was different and it was yeah anyway she was gone I was excited and I missed her all of the things she was becoming her own human being really

really and I went to go see her in the city during Christmas and she had only been there for like two and a half months and she already owned the city like she knew all the subway. She didn't have to look at her phone or anything like that. She just knew what

side of the street to get in on and all the things she did. She didn't have to look at the schedule. She took me places. She didn't always go and she just, she was networking. She was introducing me to all these people. And I remember her walking ahead of me. And I had this moment of like, this girl is going to evolve someday so brightly that I won't be able to see her one day. like she's just going to be this thing. And that was a really beautiful emotional moment for myself. She didn't know I had it at the time. But anyway, not long after that, it was January.

And I had this, for whatever reason, I just had this really overwhelming feeling that something really crazy was going to happen this year. I had no idea what it was. I couldn't tell. But anyway, I called her up and I talked to her about it. And she's like, oh my God, I got the same feeling like I might have to leave New York like at a second. And I was like, well, who knows if this is anything? But if it is, we should kind of come up with a consolidation plan, you know.

And she's like, yeah, let's do that. And I'm like, well, let's do this. And she's like, well, I'll get back to you. Meaning she wasn't entirely sure that she needed to consolidate with me if like the world was going to end. And I was like, whoa. I was like, where on this come from? Because, dude, me and my daughter are tight. I don't know a father and daughter who are closer than she and I are.

And I was like, whoa, what's that? But I just let it be, you know, because I don't know what's going on. So I just, whatever. And then a couple of weeks later, I found it. I'd go down to Peru five times a year with a Roe Karch project to bring veterans down there so they can go through ayahuasca and that kind of thing. But I was like, hey, I'm going to Peru on this day. I come back and meet you in New York.

York, do you want to do this in February? And she's like, let me get back to you. And I was like, well, OK, now this is something. And she's like, well, she told me that she had to cut the umbilical cord from me and not for me and her mom. It was like, she's like, you have no idea how much presence you have and like literally every decision I make in my life like it's crazy. And but then she also.

gave me the idea that she didn't have to speak to me again, like ever. And I was just, whoa. I just had recently left my marriage. And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things for me that I had never been alone in my life. Like I met my ex-wife when I was like 19 and we never left. And so here I was 49 at the time. never experiencing this whole idea of being alone and I was alone and I was really,

really alone. Like my daughter, even my daughter was full for all. I didn't know why she didn't want, but I didn't have anybody. And it's so crazy because some people know this really well, but not me. I didn't have this in my experience. So I'm sitting there on the beach and there are people everywhere. And I'm like alone, really alone. And it hurt bad.

Like it was emptiness. It was sadness. It was me kind of ruining in my mind. I'm like, where did I go wrong? Like all the things. And when it really, really started to hit, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I don't know what this is. I just haven't learned yet.

It's not even possible to be alone. I have had this experience of that I am all that is. And I, if I want to, right now I can just sit and imagine like a huge fire hydrant fountain just erupting within me full of nothing but loving. It would be real and complete and fulfillment. it. So I just let myself feel deeply, deeply, deeply alone. And I can tell you that I've had experience over the course of my life of having kind of my heartbroken ways. It lasted years, years, like over 10 years, I've had my heartbroken and suffered in that moment for that particular heart rate for over 10 years.

And this was worse than that. And it lasted a month because I just kept letting it come. I didn't believe it as it was true. I didn't, I knew, I already knew that it wasn't true that I wasn't alone. But I just allowed myself to feel this illusion of being alone. So the one thing is you're talking about the whole idea of walking through this doorstep is one is just fully allowing all of this. no protective mechanisms, just fully allowing it. And number two, just remaining curious.

Because I could only suffer because I don't know something. But if I remain curious, the lessons are just all around. It's just easier to see the solutions when you're curious rather than a state of, well, I know what this is, so I'm all good. And it's like, you can't see anything. So being in those two states, I'm telling you, I was. really hurting but for like a month and and then I was well and then like two or three weeks later she's like man I don't know what the hell that was but I miss you dad

I'm like I miss you too you know we're back to wrong in fact she lives in Hawaii now yeah and she she asked me two weeks ago to move in with her so it's like yeah Yeah, you know, yeah. Such a magical place, Hawaii, man. It's awesome. I'm super stoked. Thanks for sharing that, man. There's so much in there.

Like the idea that we're part of a whole system, the fucking father-daughter relationship. I love my daughter in so many ways. Like it's, it's psychedelic because there's no words to explain how massive it is. You know what I mean? And it's fun to think about how that relationship can blend. But it's also painful to think about this girl's going to leave me one day. She's going to find somebody else. I can't believe that's out of control, you know, but it's, it's there.

It's crazy to think. Well, it wasn't even about finding somebody else. It was like ascending to a whole other dimension. Okay. Like that kind of thing. To me, I don't, I don't care whether she finds somebody else or not. But I mean like her, like just her expansiveness. I don't need to be human anymore.

I'm done. On to the next one. Like that kind of thing. you know. Yeah. She's huge. In some ways, I feel like what you're describing is like a right of passage. I don't think you can get to that right of passage unless you've been through enough of the meat grinder, you know, this thing of life where be it despair or be it tests, you know, it seems like there's just everything is a test on some level. But at a point in time, you know, you got to sit in

front of the sense. Maybe that's what it sounds like to me is that you had to sit with it. How long can you hold this thing for? Do you see what you've gone through as a right of passage? It is a right. That's what the right is, I think. A right of passage. It's got to be some kind of testing, earning. Yeah.

It's the struggle. Yeah. What role do you think our culture plays in that? You know, when I look at the way we're brought up, at least in the, in like, the United States. States, there's a lot of the Western world. You know, you, you, at a young age, you go to school where you sit in front of an authoritarian figure. You sit down, you got to ask permission to go to the bathroom. You got to, you know, you start learning the rules of our authoritarian culture

on some level. And it, it individuates you on some level. And sometimes that's good. It's good to be an individual and try to figure out how to make your way in this world. But what you're describing is a whole shift in consciousness where you realize that you are God on some level. You are part of this entirety on some level. Like, is, is, do you think that this way we're teaching, we're teaching is going to change? You know, the whole way of education, this whole way of learning is changing from an individualistic way into a more holistic way? I think so.

and I think it's because we are learning the lesson. So you might have heard, you know, the universal keep teaching you as long as it takes you learn the lessons. And I think that you're asking how does the culture contribute to it? I think our culture contributes to our collective awakening through the struggle of like this illusion of egoic alignment or attachment. So our culture exists, I think our parents exist, to just drop these huge learning bombs on us.

And we either learn and transcend and grow, or we whatever, happen. Who knows what happens, but it's only because of that struggle that we can learn anything at all. So it's like, for example, I didn't show up to medical school. And let's just say on the first day, the professor, they just write down all the questions

and all the answers that you could possibly have on the medical board to get your PhD. And you can sit there and study all of that know it let's say it takes you a year to learn all the questions and all the answers and you take the test and you're like okay cool and then you show up to your first day and you got to take care of little five-year-old who's got 102 fever like what do you do it's like i don't know anything like you have to go through all the things so that you know why that's the answer and awakening is the same way it's not

just about I was saying before about like this this logical awareness being out of balance with my state of being I had to learn learn learn so that my state of being could actually come into the same neighborhood as is my logical awareness so that I am in a state of maybe knowing and so yeah I think our our culture contributes to just throwing out the test or throwing us the test by saying hey, you're you and you're all the things. We have to do all the work to undo that. We can keep it in her pocket,

but we know that there's a deeper truth to that. And it takes all of that to actually experience this. You can't read it. This podcast isn't going to help you any. Sorry. Also, my book isn't going to help you at all. Do you have to, man, you have to be in the mud. You've got to do it for it to really make sense.

I just want to say one word. And the reason why is our language is so not good enough to actually describe what these things are. We don't have words in our language to actually describe being. We don't have words in our language to actually describe stillness. we don't have any words in our language to actually describe letting go. But because those are the words that we know, like, I know what letting go is. You just don't deal with it. Like you don't have to deal with it anymore.

You just let it go and you just walk away. Like that's what letting go is. So you can't convince people, hey, what you think you know, you don't really know. And it's not that it's my job to do that. It's not. But it is our business if we choose to bring those elements so deep. within our experience that we're like, oh, this is stillness. Like, this is what it is.

We can do that if we want to, but it's so hard. You guys are like, hey, this is what stillness is. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know what that is. It's like, okay. I think it speaks like that particular few moments that you were talking speaks volumes of ceremony because we can talk about words and definitions and even though we say the same word, you and I have total definitions, but it's another thing to say like, hey, let me show you.

And then you can decide if you know, it's sort of like when they would talk about the Elucinian mysteries, people would go and they would watch this thing happen. And even though they may explain it in a different way, they have an experience that transcends language and they share it together. It sounds to me that's a lot like what might be happening in some of the people you're helping or maybe happen in yourself. It's this, it's this shared experience through shared sacrifice, man. And that sounds almost alien to the rest of the world right now, at least in my life, when I started thinking about how many shared sacrifices have I had in my workplace? How many shared sacrifices have I had in my family, man? Not many.

Not many. How can you have any relationships if you don't have that shared sacrifice, man? How can you have a relationship if you don't have a shared? I think it just, what that does is just kind of demarcates like the depth of the relationship. Yeah. I think if you have, if you are simply able to hold space, which may not be a sacrifice, like that's, there's relationship there. I don't know.

It feels like I have to think a lot about this. Or sit there. Yeah. Sit a lot with that. Because there is no no relationship. We're all connected. We're all one and all that stuff. I mean, right now there's like little energy

layers between you and like everything. Totally. So what is the relationship really then is the can be a question? What is the relationship? that you're having. Because wouldn't it, aren't we always in a state of relationship?

And maybe the suffering is the illusion that there isn't. Like, I'm not in a relationship with this person. Like, oh, isn't that sad? Like, well, what if I just sat with this and just connected with them and recognized that, that also, who knows what that is? But what that could also be. but a lot of suffering I recognize is just the disconnection from truth. So just the mind, really.

If you understood truth, there would be no suffering in that way. What do you think of when you look at the Trident approach and the programs that you're building and the integration that's beginning to happen in the world that you are beginning to build for yourself and others right now, what would you say the purpose of it is? Connection. I think to my awareness, the most powerful medicine that exists for humans is connection, even more than psychedelics, even more than retreats and all this stuff. Well, the most healing component of retreats themselves, I think, are connection.

And I say that for a lot of reasons. One is we always take video testimonials. of people before and after their retreat experience. And every single time, it's like, the question before the retreat is, you know, what would make this a successful retreat? And not every single time, but a lot of times they're like, well, it's already a success.

The people that I meet here and connect, I met here and connected with here and all this kind of stuff, or I can already tell that no matter what happens from this point on, this retreat was a success. I hear that. That's the most common response to that question. And so what the Trident approach is for is not only to connect with community, but also for to help people find their own way of connecting inwardly.

Like I was kind of posed with, you know, at the end of my career as a seal. no one's path is going to be like mine is, but it doesn't matter. They have their own path. And if I can just hold space with them or we can just hold space with them, they'll find it. They'll find it on their own and in their own way. And so connecting with the self. And then connecting with the self on that level, it changes the game on connecting with

community because it's a different connection. It's a totally different connection. knowing that that exists within you, you can see that it exists within everything. So you're not connecting with people over like football games. You're connecting with them over some sort of element of love that you share or experience that you share. It's a whole other.

I mean, you just look at somebody's eyes for a moment. And if you're both playing the same game, man, like deep. deep connection can happen in that place when you have two deeply self-connected people in that way. It's like you almost hear the sound. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a Clint Kyle comes in from the psychedelic Christian podcast and he says, I think that's why we struggle to maintain relationships outside of our socioeconomic context,

a perceived lack of shared needs and experiences. I agree, man. what do you think about that, Diego? Perceived lack of shared needs. I have to read that. So it's probably very simple, but I have to read that really slowly. A perceived lack of shared needs and experiences. Yeah.

So if I'm reading that right, then that means it's the illusion that we lack sharing of needs and experience. Am I reading that right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. that goes to illusion perceived. So it's not aligned in truth, which I think that's, that's what he's saying is,

yet we agree. Yeah. Yeah. Clint Kyle's is an amazing individual, man. Thanks Clint for chiming in right there. I do. It is this, and then that kind of gets us back to this idea of perception.

Like a lot of the times we perceive this thing to be a problem. We perceive this thing to be something that is worth value or not worth value. And I think psychedelics on a lot of levels changes that perception. It allows you to sneak up on shame or guilt and not have to have them sit on your shoulders, man. But you can sit down next to them and be like, what's going on here? What are you guys so ashamed of? You know, you can almost talk to yourself in a third person perspective. It's wild.

As the observer, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I think these elevated states of consciousness allow us to see beyond construct of the mind, fear and all the things, and see what is. And then when you see what is, you see a lot of things, but most of it's all okay. It's okay. It's just the mind that is just like busy, busy, busy creating and generating. but I think it's busy creating so that we can learn.

That's the big mystery to me is why it's like a lot of this is about relearning what, potentially relearning of what we've already known. Well, maybe it's just as simple as so that we can more deeply understand it, more deeply learn it like we were talking about probably 20 minutes ago. And maybe that's just it. I don't know, sure. No one does. No one does. But there's there is this when we talk about this evolution of awareness, once you see something, it's very difficult to unsee it. You know what I mean by that? Like once every, a lot of people can handle. Yeah. The really cool insights you get about yourself.

Like, oh, you know what? I'm pretty awesome. I do this thing. That's really good. But when it shows you this part where you're really fucking up in life, whoa, that can be a banger, man. Like that can be like, okay, I don't want to see this anymore. But you can unsee it because you've already seen it.

Do you think that on some level this is why maybe psychedelics aren't for everybody? Or maybe in your opinion they are for everybody. But can it be something that causes more trauma in people? I think it exploits. for some. I don't know if that's the right word, but maybe. It exploits a trauma that they've been avoiding. So I've been involved.

I've held space or coached well over 400 veterans and executives and mental health clinicians up to this point. And I have seen, okay, this is, we don't have to do this anymore. But the only reason why is because their clutches on resistance are so deep and fear is so deep. And attachment to the illusion that they know something is so deep. Those things exist, I think, for everyone on some level. For example, I've seen many, many deeply religious people go through psychedelics.

and become more aligned with their religion. And it's like, yes, this is the way. This is my way. And then I've seen, if I had to generalize, there's really two groups of people that I've found, if they're not for them, these are kind of common. One of them is deeply, deeply religious people. So I've had deeply religious people get closer to God through psychedelics,

and I've had deeply religious people being like, I'm going to hell. I should not have done that. What are you guys trying to do to me? All the things. Well, what is that? It's the mind. That's it.

But there's so much fear in there. And same thing with like smoking 5MEO. It's just like almost like smoking crack. You smoke it out of a glass pipe and all this stuff. And so people were trying to recover from a crack addiction. Like that's not the best thing for them for all the reasons. You know, this is no judgment zone over here. Like I genuinely believe that.

I don't believe anybody's doing anything wrong if psychedelics are not for them. It just is as it is. So it's just the idea of if psychedelics show something that make someone feel uncomfortable, to me that's the gift. But you have to learn, like deeply learn the truth in that it is a gift. Because if you can't see it as a gift, if you see it as a gift, if you see it as like the end of it, oh, this hurt me and that's the end of the story, then yeah, that can be brutal, super hard.

That's why you don't force anybody going to psychedelics, because when you're standing at the precipice of all the idea of all of power, for example, that's not a little place to be. And if you're experiencing that precipice of all that is, and somebody made you go there. Yeah, that's a huge, that can be a huge breach of trust and all kinds of things. So it has to be, you know, on their terms. It has to be.

And we're always learning. So just because something isn't for you in this moment doesn't mean that it won't be for you. And vice versa. Just because something is for you today doesn't mean that you need. to do this stuff a couple years. It doesn't mean anything. I'm talking about now. It is now.

So I realized that I talked myself into losing what the question was. No wrong answer, man. Not at all. Yeah. The idea of psychedelics not being for everybody or, you know,

reflecting to us this trauma that becomes gift. Like that sounds like psychopathy to some people for me to tell you, hey, my son died. It's one of the greatest gifts I've ever had. Like it makes me want to cry when I say that, but it's fucking true. People hear me say that. They look at me like, you're a, you're a lunatic. How could you know, how dare you? Like these sorts of insights can have radical ramifications for the people around you that love you. You know, and if you, people don't know what you're talking about. I mean, you sound like, in my case, when I say that, like people look at me different.

from going forward. So on some level, it's like, okay, do you talk about these insights? Now all of a sudden there's these stigmas around you. I'm sure that you probably have multiple stories that are gifts to you that would sound incredibly, you know, it would sound incredible to people. Like, that's not a gift. Like, that is, that's ridiculous. But do you think it's sort of these revelations that could cause this movement in

psychedelics to be put back in the bottle? Does that kind of make sense? I know it's kind of a broad question. but it's taboo in some ways and it makes people feel really, really uncomfortable. They're already uncomfortable. They are uncomfortable. That's the thing.

It's not about, as far as I can tell, I just talk about my experiences and that's it. And people can, it doesn't matter what they do. It really doesn't matter what they do. It doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't matter what they think. It really, really doesn't matter at all. This is just my lived experience.

And if I am inspired to talk about it, then that's it. It's perfect. If people don't understand me, believe me, they didn't understand me anyway before because I didn't understand me. And I was just talk box, Navy Seal, you know, I was so lost. no idea. You know what I mean? So if they understood the me that was lost, what does that mean? And what does that even matter? I wouldn't say that I'm like necessarily found or I know exactly where I am now, but there's a comfortability and not giving a shit. If people don't understand the things that are the most significant, most powerful, most loving, most useful elements of my

cellular development. Fuck do I care. How could they anyway? I was so happy when I saw the sunrise today. All right, cool. Yeah, I saw that sunrise too. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't, two different. The question can be, can I just sit here and hold space and just hear you and just be with you.

I don't have to understand what it means that you're okay, that your son died. I don't have to understand that. I just had to do if I want to, just be here and just hear you. that's it. It's all we have to do or not. Whatever. But don't stop yourself from saying, I'm not going to tell you not to stop,

but I'm not going to stop myself anything because I'm worried about what someone who has no clue if, for example, for example, they have no clue. I'm not going to limit myself to fit into their box because I'm busy in many ways, not always, but in many ways dismantling every single box. That's not true.

I'm busy dismantling some boxes that exist in my life. So I'm certainly not going to live in somebody else's box. No, I'm not here to live in other people's boxes. I exist as I am. Yeah, it's well said it. I think it is sort of if I broaden out that question a little bit, like it seems to me, maybe because we run in a lot of similar circles in that we are big fans of psychedelics helping people overcome trauma.

And one of those areas seems to be with veterans and helping out, helping find a way forward. If you look at incredible people like heroic hearts and so many incredible people out that they're doing things. in the last wave of psychedelics Diego there seemed like there was this giant anti-war movement but in this particular wave when I look at a lot of the maybe LinkedIn or just the Facebook groups

or I'm right here in San Francisco there's a lot of psychedelic societies out there you don't really hear the clarion call for anti-war is that something that you have noticed in the circle of people you're with or is there psychedelics creating again the sort of anti-war theme What's the relationship between psychedelics and anti-war, in your opinion, moving forward?

That's crazy. That's such a good question. I haven't thought about it. And I think the reason why I haven't thought about it because I haven't experienced, I haven't, every once in a while, you hear people like, well, if everybody did psychedelics, it wouldn't be war anymore. Every once in a while you hear that. But it's not the overwhelming message.

It's about how do we take care of these people that were there. that to me being in the bubble that I exist in that I am aware of that's the overwhelming message how do we take care of people who are there which really interesting that you say that because it's not about wars bullshit we need to yeah again little pockets of like you shouldn't be allowed to be a politician unless you do psychedelics kind of thing which obviously I don't described to but um but yeah it's just interesting to notice it's just how do we psychedelics are more about how do we take care of the people that were there but the thing is i quite like where psychedelics are at the moment like for me it was this is very popular but i was really happy when

the fda shot down MDMA they're like oh we need more You know, because I don't know a single thing. I don't know a single thing within the government that's run well, not anything, not education, not health care, not politics, not the military, not anything, not the food. I mean, McDonald's is legal, but mushrooms are illegal. Like, that is enough for me to know these people don't have my best interest at art. I don't want the government to be involved in controlling what comes out of the ground. they've proven to me how they roll no thank you i'm going to continue doing my stuff over here

we're going to continue doing our thing you know you guys do your old smoke screen about certifications and licenses and all the stuff great as if two to 400,000 people weren't killed every year in medical malpractice you know what I mean just like crazy Oh, thanks. I think it's perfect as it is. I don't want it to get. These people are not in my corner or the entities of them are not on my corner. But if I got them individually, I bet we would have like the best hug and the best laughs, you know. It's just weird, but whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great point, man.

I think that's that is a very valid astute point that what are they running well? probably nothing I can think of that that well either. And sometimes I think it's about supply chains and it's about centralization. And if it can't be chopped up and put into the supply chains that are currently at hand, then it's not going to be available for everybody. You know, it just seems that that on some level. You recently have been going around and giving some talks, man,

been really well received. I know you had one in Coronado and you have a really cool team behind you, man. What's that all about? This is really cool. So it's called Warriorside. I'm super stoked about it. I was given a keynote in Las Vegas six or seven months ago. And I'm like dropping like a huge bombs of like transcendence and all this stuff. And I've looked at people, people are in the crowd on their cell phones. And I'm like, how can they be on their cell phones? Like this is like interesting shit, man. I finished the talk and I'm just like, oh, whatever. And then I had another keynote to do in Alaska. And I finished developing it and a friend of mine called up. She's like, how's it going?

And I'm like, it's going all right. I mean, I created it. I'm happy with it. But I kind of did something like this in Vegas. And she wasn't all that big of a deal. And she's like, well, tell me about it. Well, tell me your thing. So I told her.

And she's like, it's an amazing story. Just switch up the order in which you tell it. Put part four and part one. Put part one back in part four and switch two and three around and see what happens. It's exactly what I did. I went to Alaska. I told the keynote, but switching all the order arounds, we had people crying.

Everyone was laughing. I got a standing ovation when I left the stage for the first time ever redoing keynotes for seven years. It just so happened that two people I coach flew out to Alaska to see me speak. So I took them out to dinner to say, thanks for coming along with a freaking Alaska. And but I had to talk to one of the guys because a couple months before that, he sent me in Texas, said, dude, I'm being hunted.

And there was a picture of a bear in the wild. But he didn't respond to me. And I was like, what the hell happened? Like, did you live? Kind of thing. So anyway, he's, so he's sitting next to me. I'm like, bro, tell me the story. So he's like, yeah, I got on this plane and it dropped me off in the middle of Alaska

somewhere to go on a five. day bear hunting trip after the first day i picked up the trail of a bear and on the second day i realized that the bear was hunting me and i was like what and he's like man every single time a twig broke i didn't know if i was going to get my head like lopped off by a claw he's like i didn't know how to sleep i didn't know when to sleep and he would be i don't know if this is on video but he was like i would look over the horizon and all of a sudden i would see the top of the head and the eyes from left and right and like spot me and then slowly like submerged and then like an hour later like all the way across the field he would see the same bear doing this whole thing and so then it

became like this strategic game of who's going to kill who first and he knew that the bear was using wind direction and defilates and all these things and so he pulled out a map and he's like well he's going to come get me here and he ended up finally killing the bear. And the whole time, me and the other person I coach were sitting on the edge of our seats. Like our food has been sitting there for 30 minutes and we didn't care, man. We were just like, oh, my God. And then so, but as he was telling the story, I was thinking like, man, people would love to hear these stories. Like they would love to hear this story because a lot of times we get stuck in life and we sit, cubicles, all the things. And that these experiences are being had out there.

What if we got veterans out on stage to tell their most powerful, vulnerable, live, transformative visceral experiences purely for the purpose of connection? Because so many humans die from suicide every day. A lot of times it's because of this whole aloneness. And what many, what everybody goes through are these traumatic life experiences. and they happen in the confines of the mind and nowhere else. We're not like to your point, like I can't share this to somebody with somebody

because they're going to ostracize me. They're going to think I'm crazy. So we are literally telling stories that make other people think that we're crazy just for the purpose of connecting with those people. Like, you know what? I know exactly what that's like. So creating community.

And so that's where the whole idea of Warriorside was born was with that bear story. And we had like a soft opening in Coronado. It was, it went super, super well. We got a lot of lessons learned. So we've teamed up with really, really powerful storyteller, storytelling trainers. And we just have veterans. We're going to put together our first cohort.

We're going to go through storytelling and training. And then our first huge grand grand opening is March 29th at the House of Blues in San Diego. It would be like the Batman lights and limousines and everything. And we're going to go up on stage and tell our. most powerful stories, but they're going to be guided by incredible storytelling training. And then the cool thing about that is when the veterans leave Warriorside, I mean, I've been paid $25,000 to do a keynote talk before. So we're given that ability to every veteran who comes through a warrior side training program so they can take those stories and talk to Apple

and Google and all the people like we have and earn either supplemental or primary income, whatever it is. So it's it's helping them. And then plus we're trying to really inspire people, you know, before social media and TV and even radio, we sat around the fire and just told stories that meant something to us. So it's really great. Super cool. Our websites are being developed right now. We have a nonprofit aspect of it, in a for-profit aspect of it. Those should be done this week. yeah it's super great it's really really cool yeah it sounds contagious to me the same way a wildfire spreads so too to our stories and you know it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see that the storyteller has evolved from the taylor swift or this idea of a musician that travels around

you know and it's sort of reverting back to the older days where the storytellers move around like i i i've can see, like, I can see what you're doing as becoming sort of the event of the week or the event of the month or, or the new sort of entertainment. And why not? Like, that is the thing we've lost, is the power of stories. These stories guide us who we are. These stories guide where we can be. They enlighten our imagination and they allow us to find a way forward when there seems to be a wall, man. I'm so stoked for you guys and your team of what you're doing. And I can't wait to, to hear more about it. You know, I'm hopeful to see you guys telling stories at Psychedelic Science 2025. I'm going to be a beautiful venue for you guys to be at. And it's just exciting to me to see

it. How, how with the websites coming up and stuff like that, is it going to be something that goes on the road? It's going to go from like San Diego to Atlanta to New York and like different feature like that. Is that sort of the structure of it? Absolutely. We're going to, for example, like, hey, Chicago, if you're a veteran, you've got a story you want to tell, we're going to be in Chicago in two months. If you want to be a speaker, submit, all of them will be accepted into the story training platform.

You'll break off in the groups. They're going to sharpen their story. And then the ones who kind of emerges, the best stories are going to, we're going to have an amazing venue, whatever that is. You're going to get up on stage. They're just going to tell their story. just as it is for what it is. And that's it.

And so everybody who gets involved is going to leave with a refined. Because so for example, when I started this, I didn't know anything about the moth. And then I learned about the moth. And I'm like, oh man, the moth is exactly what I'm trying to do. And so I suppose the difference between us and I've been to a couple of open mics at the moth

is the moth is something really precious, like super, super precious that we won't be doing and one of the precious things that the moth does is somebody's got the courage to just get on stage and tell the story to people they don't know and you can see they're trembling and their lips are shaken and they forget their lines and all this kind of stuff like it's it's totally beautiful to see somebody just being like I'm here and I'm doing it and you know what I mean it's it's super great word's said on the other on the other end of the spectrum is it's polished,

but like forged through iron and steel. It's not classy by any means, but it's not there, they've done this. They've had experience, you know, they've had to do this thing. So we're not gonna have to struggle with the storytellers. They manage their way through the story. It's the standard is elite storytelling.

is what it is. So I suppose that's just a different, although, you know, the moth is incredible. And they have very, very elite storytelling. In fact, a lot of the storytelling training we're getting, we're getting from the moth. So it's just little nuances and then are focused on batteries as well for the time being. Yeah. It seems like so much of the stories we tell deal with these deep, rooted fears we have and one of those seems to be uncertainty when you were telling the story about your friend and the bear like I couldn't help but think like man that that sounds like uncertainty to me like an uncertainty is sort of like a wild animal right like if you allow uncertainty to start taking over parts of your life or hunting you you think about it all the time and you're paralyzed

what is your relationship with uncertainty and how has it changed over the years yeah uncertainty was weakness to me. Because I have always been taught that knowledge is power, which means if I don't know that I'm weak. And if I am weak, what value do I have to the tribe? And if I don't have any value to the tribe, you know, they can kick me out. And in many ways, I experience that on levels of being kicked out of the tribe.

I mean, even in my own family kind of thing. So the whole idea of experiencing this state of uncertainty was not a good place to be, like even down to survive. Am I going to survive? Now what I've come to understand about uncertainty is I don't know shit. I don't know anything, dude. Like, I think I know some things, but maybe, you know. Like, I know the alphabet.

bit. And I know like this, we call this a water bottle and it contains water that I can drink it. But beyond that, what I mean, what do I like, what do I know? It's not much. And what I see in this illusion of knowledge is power thing is that I was like putting all my chips an illusion in the hope that nobody would see through my bullshit or that I wouldn't even see through my own I didn't even want to, I didn't even want to look at it myself. But now I see uncertainty as like, oh, cool. Like, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be because I don't know any of this anyway. So I'm more close to the idea of truth than I ever was.

The closer I get to uncertainty and just remaining in a curious state rather than the illusion of knowing. So it's not like it's comfortable all the time. but I can rest in the discomfort in the idea, the notion that I'm actually closer to truth, being in that state of uncertainty than otherwise. So it's one of those tradeoffs are like, okay, cool. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. And this is a lot of butterflies and a lot of tension, a lot of stuff. If I can just let this go and just fully allow myself to be in uncertainty.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's bliss. but I haven't yet experienced like this extended prolonged state of bliss in uncertainty because this humanness always kind of reaches it back in. I've got to let it back out again. Pulls me back in. I got to let it back out again. Still have a long way to go.

Yeah, it's so interesting to me to not only ask that question, but to think how uncertainty has this negative connotation, but curiosity has this positive connotation to it. Like they're kind of the same things. away right they both hold different energetic vibrations uncertainty um you know less than and curiosity to me is vibrant yeah it's it's like wild in endless possibilities kind of thing um at least in my mind that's how I hear those or that's how I feel those words. Uncertainty.

It's like, oh, oh, curiosity, hey, baby, you know. Yeah, I love all the wordplay. Like I, that's why it was always so hard for me to even now go to a therapist. Because if you break that word in half, it's called the rapist. You know what I mean? Like when you start. You're going to go to the rapist? Really?

don't you ever already have a problem? I don't go to wait for. It's weird to think about all the language that's in front of us and start to thinking about what does that really mean? And when you started talking about uncertainty, you're like, I'm like, oh, yeah, you're right. That's like a negative right at the beginning of it. Of course it's going to have a negative charge to it.

It's crazy to think about all these things that maybe we don't take time to really contemplate, right? Our language can be wicked. Yeah. I dropped the soup. Oh, you loser. You absolutely slut. Where in other language, it's like the soup fell for me.

It's just not this ownership of damage where in a lot of the like the talking heads and the messaging that I hear about like highly elite performers and things. It's like, no, you take, you know, yeah, I don't want to drop the soup. We don't drop the fucking soup, man. You know, it's just like, too, man. You know, it's like just this complete, just right detachment from the human condition as if it doesn't exist. So yeah, our language can be, we were talking about celestial whipping earlier. It can be just like this little snap of like, I can't believe you're just a human being right now. How do you live with yourself?

And it's just like, oh, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be that way. And gosh, man. And because our brain is a supercomputer, as far as I can tell, you know, it just downloads whatever you put. So if I don't, if I'm not good at remembering things, there it goes. My brain's like, okay, we are not good at remembering things. Right. Right in the code.

Yeah. I have to be very careful of how I use the language that I need to function in my own society. And sometimes I'm aware, and other times I'm totally not. Who knows? But yeah. Yeah, it's a great point. The words we use describe who we are. They also regulate us to the patterns that we've had, that we will have,

and that we're constantly having. It's Mesmering. I had a question coming in here from Desiree Torres, from Palm Desert. She says, the Navy SEAL ethos is about resilience and adaptability. But how do you balance the need for control? with the acceptance of unpredictability in both combat and life? Yeah, that's interesting. That's a good question.

I wish I could read it. We're continuing to refer back to it. But because it seems to be a couple of different levels to that. One thing. So the SEALs as generally speaking, okay, as a whole, not everyone is like this. but it's like crazy how aligned and attached to ego the seal community is. And at the same time, there coexist some really cool concepts that they deeply understand,

which is, you know, no mission survives the first gunshot or Mike Tyson's, you know, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth kind of thing. They deeply understand that. So there is no, there is no attachment to control in a way. way in a seal operation. What we do is we plan for the worst. We hope for the best. I'm not saying that's how I am now, but that's how we did in the teams. We plan for the worst and we hope for the best and we go. We know that when first contact is made, we're just going to have to flow off of each other. And that's what all the training is for. So I was gone 300 days a year sometimes when I was in

a platoon because we were training, training, training, training, training, training over and over and over again to be like oh sudden an ID just went off and wherever the helicopter just crashed like what are we do now like that was just ingrained into how we operated so that when those things happened in combat it wasn't like how could this happen it was not that was like bomb went off we're responding we're flexing or whatever it is and it was just part of the natural flow of movement. That was one aspect, I think, to our comment, but it seemed like there was like two or three more in there. Yeah. I think it's a good answer. Let me, let me continue to go because I got a few of them stacking up over here. This one comes to us from Ryan from Ocean's eyes. He says, you've stood face to face with death in ways most people can't imagine.

How is this proximity to mortality shaped your understanding of life's purpose? I don't know that I could answer what life's purpose is. And I mean that. I think life's purpose is to grow and to develop and learn, I think. But when I was physically face-to-face with the idea of dying, to me, that was the end of the book. Like, that was it. That's just the end of it. So I better not die.

That was when I was connected to the idea or this ego awareness, like limiting ego of awareness. But then when I came to elevated states of consciousness into the idea that most like, you know, they say one of the laws of the universe is what exists has always existed and has, there was no beginning or no end, which means that I can't really ever die. And in some ways, kind of doesn't matter. which is hard for people who don't have, we were talking about before about words. It's hard for people who don't have the visceral experience of what it is to be endless, to tell them that it's okay.

Like it's totally okay. It all just is as it is. So I'm telling you, if you don't have that experience, like you can probably be listening to me like, this guy's like that shit crazy or whatever. Which, whatever, it's fine. And not that I know anyway. I don't know this for sure. But the anchor point that I use is I'm better off now than I have ever been.

And I can say that genuinely so. My eyes have a vibrancy. My smile has a light in it. My skin color is different. My state of being, my lightness, all this stuff is completely in a different state than it was before I found all these things earlier in my life. and so it's worth it to me even if I'm on the wrong path

to be on this path because it's just a better experience. There's no question in my life. I'm living a better experience now and I was 10 years ago. This whole idea of fear of dying and all the things. So I don't, as far as I can tell, as far as I can

tell, as far as I can tell, I don't have a fear of dying. And it doesn't matter in this sense of the purpose of life because all I have to do is if I want to is to continue to learn and grow, which is kind of happening anyway. Like I could sit on the couch for 20 more years and there would be some growth and expansion that would be occurring there.

It wouldn't look the same as if I was meditating and climbing mountains and surfing and all that stuff would be different, but I would still be growing. So maybe it helps understanding. what I think I understand about dying and that it's all okay. I don't have to worry about their purpose of life. Like I don't have to worry about it as long as I'm existing, which I'm going to be anyway. I will be.

I'll just be. You don't have to do anything else than that. Yeah. I got an awesome one right here from Uncle Dave 404. He says, Diego, on the topic of climbing mountains, what's more difficult? Climbing the mountain or getting the rock out of your stuff?

shoe. It depends. It depends on the mountain, bro. Because there are some mountains where you can't get your shoe to rock off your shoe. It's hilarious, right? Thanks, Uncle Dave. Yeah. There's sometimes, they're like, I don't have, I can't.

If I wanted to, I couldn't do it. Get the rock out of my shoe. I just have to deal with it, you know. It's such a pain in the ass, though, right? Every step. Like, God, damn, this thing's killing me. The mountain's okay with this. fucking rock on my shoe, man.

It's a good metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then the other metaphor that can be, that could be with this is because they're legitimately sometimes don't have the opportunity

to get the rock out. If you don't have, or you don't have the ability to control the situation, how am I with just the rock just being here? And slowly gnawing away at different levels of my skin or bleeding and all the stuff happen. Emma, can I, how am I?

I did that once on a patrol. This was a long time ago. I was 18, 19 or something. I was, it was before I was with the SEAL teams. I was a quorum with the Marines and we were in the middle of like Jordan or something. And so I was a medic for the Marines. And we were, I mean, I'm telling you in the middle of nowhere. Kind of near where Moses got the Ten Commandments, actually, now that I think about it.

just and I was with attest to the mortar platoon and the mortar mortars are like these big iron guns that shoot these big huge explosive rounds and when you shoot these exploit these explosion the the the shot happened so violently that you need like a steel base plate on the bottom of the gun for the earth to support the recoil of the big explosion of shooting off this round into the sky. And so there are different sizes of guns and different sizes of rounds and different sizes of base plates. So I had this one base plate that was probably, I don't know, nine inches by 10, I don't know, something.

But I put it in my cargo pocket and my pant leg. And we just started on this like 14 mile walk. and the base plate had these like little sharp points in there to help it dig into the ground on the first shot so that you can always have a stable shooting platform. Well, those hooks were starting to wear away in my leg. And I had just recently gotten kicked out of seal training not long before then. And so it was, I was going through all these emotions about not being good enough and all this. this stuff. And I said, well, I have every opportunity to pull this base plate out of my cargo pocket and just hold it, but I'm not going to. I'm going to sit here and see how tough I am.

And I walk for 14 miles with this steel hooks digging gouges out of my thigh. And when we were done exactly what I thought was going to happen, happen. I pulled the base plate out and there was blood all over my leg. And it was funny because I was like, I am tough enough to do like it. You know, it was all an illusion. It was all crazy. It was just a ninth year old kid who didn't know anything about anything or 20 year old kid who didn't know anything about anything.

But it's funny because this is like the rock. Like, can I just, can I just sit here? Because I could have just been sitting there just being like, oh, this hurts. Like, what am I going to do? And absolutely suffering the entire way, like the essence of suffering the entire way. This shouldn't be happening as it is. But back then I was just, I'm not saying that I was. was in an elevated state of consciousness, I was not, but just the mindset that I have of,

of like, whatever I'm going through right now is making me stronger. There's still like an illusion, but it just enhanced my experience, is all I'll say. It's interesting. Like that, you know, if you look back at some of the native traditions in lieu of a psychedelic experience, or you might even say a psychedelic experience can be an ordeal. And that sounds like an ordeal to me. You know what I mean? Like some, if you look back in some of the traditions and stuff like that.

Yeah. So vision quests are all about sweat lodgers. Right. Near death experiences. I mean, Eckhart totally, he found his way. He didn't, he didn't find his way through psychedelics. It was all. Right.

He was just getting his teeth kicked in, hardcore, where he finally just broke. And then he became aware. Yeah. So yeah, you definitely don't. So I just had a psychedelic experience a couple days ago without any medicine, which is huge. It just happens, especially if you're curious and aware, or set the intention to be aware and remain curious.

A lot of really cool, profound insights can happen because it's not necessarily the medicine that I'm aware of. because I don't I don't see it for example like the mushrooms are teaching me. I think that the mushrooms are kind of like a key to a box that is within me that I have, that is me. They are not teaching me. They're allowing me to learn from myself, from myself. And which means that if those keys don't exist, that awareness is still there anyway. And then the challenge can become, can I open.

these boxes without medicine. Doesn't matter if I can or not. It's just a question. And then can I live in a state where these boxes are mostly always open? It doesn't matter whether or not I can. It's just a question. But yeah, there's no need for psychedelics, but they're helpful. It can be helpful. Yeah. Yeah, they seem like a way to sort of, you know, and then, once you become, you know what, it seems to me like, like it's becoming comfortable with the

environment. The first time you go somewhere, you're just, you know, in awe of it. And there's that famous quote by McKenna that says, you know, death by astonishment. Like, you know, when you feel like open the door and like, whoa, you like, he's like, just relax, become comfortable with the environment around you. And then you won't be so astonished by the things. And you could find the path, maybe bring something back. But yeah, once you start, once you start building a relationship with alternative states of awareness, it's almost as if there's a living language around us trying to contact us, trying to speak to us, trying to show us some of the answers to the problems we have.

You know, I always give the example of sitting outside and noticing this flower that it climbed up a tree and thinking to myself, how does it know how to produce that flower at a 40, degree angle on August 3rd at 2.27 p.m. Like that's that's intelligence. And if that's true, you know, maybe these, and maybe it had to curl around that branch four times the same way I had to have my heartbroken. Like there's a, there's some, there's some real language that's, happening between you and the environment in real time if you're willing to pay attention to it. Is that too crazy? No, uh, not at all. There's, man, I just saw this video. yesterday, it's about a cuckoo bird and how the mother cuckoo bird will fly into a different

bird's nest and lay her egg and then just leave. And then the bird comes into the nest and it's like, oh, I got another kid, I guess. And they sit and they just, and then the cuckoo bird egg hatches first and the moment that baby cuckoo bird is born and is start to get to get fed by this

other species of bird it begins to push the other eggs out of the nest to where they fall to their death so that it is the only one that is taken care of like how fuck does it know to do that? Yeah. Like it is just in

like it is like in their DNA like I got to kill all competition and then the mother continues to feed this cuckabird and and cougar bird I'm just learned all this stuff yesterday and I wouldn't say I learned it like who knows but the cuckabird bird like grows to like full size within a couple of months and it's like four times as big as the mom is but it's still like super weak or whatever so the little tiny baby like only almost like a little tiny bird, like a finch or something, is like feeding this huge gigantic bird. And it just ends up flying away. It's like, where'd all my kids go?

It's crazy. But yeah, it doesn't. It's helpful in thinking about our minds are the only ones that process thing is good or bad. The universe just is as it is. We would see that as, I would see that as a human being. But I like, that is the most treacherous species. stare like, are you kidding me? All Cookerogers need to be killed kind of thing.

The universe is just like, what? Hey, this is just how it is, man. It's nuts. Yeah. Crazy. It blows my mind to think about, man. Diego, fascinating, man. We blew through like an hour and a half, like it was five minutes, man.

You and I got another, hopefully we can still make the next episode coming up on the 10th, man, and we can revisit this right here. But as we're beginning to land this plane, man, like, I was hopeful that you could tell people about the book, where they can find it, where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about. Thank you. Leading from the Deep is on Amazon.

The full title is Leading from the Deep and Navy Steel psychedelic approach to conscious leadership. So it's on Amazon and paperback hardcover and we just released our audio version of it not long ago. So that's there. The Trident Approach.com, all three words, the Trident approach. That's for our coaching aspect. And we do leadership events, keynote talks, leadership retreats, all based around, you know,

Navy SEAL perspective combined with elevated states of consciousness and how you lead the self and teams. We also have just recently begun doing psychedelic retreats down to Peru with native shaman and this stuff and going through psychedelic experiences to see how not only it relates to healing and learning from the self, but how all that information can lead to becoming a better leader for your organization. That was like really super powerful. And then, yeah, Warrior's side just got started.

So we're creating our nonprofit so that we can fund the training of the veterans who are going so that they can tell their stories and go out into the world and making helpful income with their lived experiences. And, yeah, like I said, our first show was March 29th of the House of Blues in San Diego. And super excited about that. Tickets are going to be going on and sell for that later this week, actually. Yeah, all over the place. I spend most of my time on LinkedIn. that's like my social media thing

and choice I suppose that has to change but anyway yeah awesome man awesome I feel like we just scratched the surface and we won't be back on the 10th we back on the 18th I think is the correct date I got to double check that but for everybody within the sound of my voice

everybody that participated in today go down to the show notes check out the book reach out to Diego he's over on LinkedIn we'll put all the links down below if you're interested in getting some tickets for the warrior side we'll make sure that we have We'll blow that out with that's coming up and Diego, hang on briefly afterwards, but to everybody within the sound of my voice, man. I hope you have a beautiful day and thank you for hanging out with this.

That's all we got. Aloha. Appreciate you, brother.