From the Military to Mental Health: Daniel Hamilton on Stress, Service, and Endurance

In this episode, Coach Hannah sits down with ultra runner, military veteran, and licensed counselor Daniel Hamilton to talk about identity, service, and the challenges of transitioning from high-stress environments to everyday civilian life.

Daniel shares his path from running competitively at King College in Bristol, Tennessee, to serving in the military, and eventually building a counseling practice dedicated to helping those who carry heavy stress in their professions.

After leaving the military, Daniel experienced firsthand how difficult the transition to civilian life can be. The structure, camaraderie, and constant challenge of military service can be hard to replace, and many veterans find themselves searching for something that provides the same sense of purpose and intensity.

That experience ultimately led Daniel to found Moving Forward Therapeutic Services, where he works primarily with veterans, law enforcement officers, and first responders. His approach focuses on helping people move forward through stress instead of staying stuck in it—often using lessons drawn from sports, discipline, and endurance.

In this conversation, Daniel and Coach Hannah discuss:

• The identity challenges that can come with competitive athletics and military service
• Why many high-performing people feel most comfortable in stressful environments
• The difficult transition from military structure to civilian life
• The importance of authentic connection and community after service
• How endurance sports can provide grounding and perspective

Daniel also shares why he stepped away from racing and how becoming a father reshaped his outlook on competition and identity. Today, he focuses on raising his kids to see sports as something to enjoy, not something that defines them.

For veterans, runners, or anyone navigating high-stress careers, this episode offers an honest conversation about purpose, resilience, and what it means to keep moving forward.

Learn more about Daniel Hamilton and his counseling practice at movingforwardhelp.com.

Right, that's us done. If that was useful… share it. Stick it in your club WhatsApp, send it to that mate who's always getting injured three weeks before race day. You know the one ;)

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See you on the next one.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello listeners, welcome back to the Maximum Mileage Running Podcast. This is a special episode, not following our typical bi-weekly structure, just because I wanted to get this one out as soon as possible in conjunction with our announcement that our guest today, who is Daniel Hamilton, is also going to be partnering with Maximum Mileage as our partner licensed professional counselor. So he has a vast array of experience dealing with people who are struggling with a variety of different issues from addiction recovery to working with veterans who are dealing with trauma to athletes who are just struggling to achieve their best and overcome any kind of psychological barrier that may be keeping them from giving their best performance. So we are so lucky and fortunate to have Daniel on the team, and I really hope that you enjoy this episode. It's not super edited, and I'll be honest, Daniel is an unedited kind of dude. So I was trying to do him justice by making this one as authentic as possible. I hope you enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Welcome back to the Maximum Mileage Running Podcast. Today we are fortunate to have Daniel Hamilton as a guest on the show. And a little bit about Daniel. Daniel Hamilton is a licensed professional counselor, U.S. Army Warrant Officer, and competitive trail and ultrarunner. He holds master's degrees in clinical mental health counseling and school counseling and has more than a decade of experience working in trauma, addiction recovery, and crisis intervention. As an endurance athlete, Daniel competes at a high level in trail and ultralunning with multiple race victories, course records, and a ranking among the top ultra runners in the United States. Today, he combines his backgrounds in athletics, military service, and mental health to help people build resilience, overcome challenges, and move forward with purpose. Daniel, we are so glad to have you on the podcast today. I actually know you or our listeners from our days together at King College, now university, in Bristol, Tennessee. So, how's life been treating you?

SPEAKER_03 2:28

Life's great.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Right, exactly. It was it was an intense program, and you know, we went from I I think it was NAIA when I was there, and then it became NCAA Division II. Was it NAIA? I guess. Were you you were a senior when I was coming in as a freshman, is that right?

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Yeah. It was so I I wasn't like I wasn't a great runner in high school, but I had a really famous track coach, and he knew all the big schools coaches. So I was recruited because of him by like NC State, UNC Wilmington, App State, like all the big cross-country programs in North Carolina. But I kind of figured I wouldn't survive at schools like that when I visited them. So once I came to King and it was in AIA, dining hall was like 100 yards from my room, and the gym was like 100 yards the other direction. I figured that was probably the best place for me. And so yeah, it was in AIA for two years, and then we went to D2, and then we were D2 my senior year as well, and I went through a coach change too, which was we can talk about the middle strain that that was, but it was a different kind of intents the entire time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, I didn't even know that about I I didn't think about. I guess you and Carrie, you know, on the team, we had a mutual friend and another athlete on the team, Carrie. You guys were the same year, I guess. So you both experienced the change from our prior coach whose name what is his name? I can't I I mean, I'm sure he's Peter Dalton. Peter Dalton, yeah, but like who was before that?

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Oh, Tom Merle.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

That's right, that's right. He was so nice. He like Facebook me and was encouraging. I'm like, who's this dude? But I was like, okay, but yeah, he was super nice, but you know, that's gotta be really difficult. Your Buddhist, he was he's Buddhist, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

So he was Buddhist, and then we had Peter, yeah. Which was like, he's like the opposite of Buddhist, he's he's the opposite of Buddhist.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

That is absolutely correct. Yeah, I was thinking how I was injured a lot in my freshman year, and Coach Merle, he like Facebook me and he's like, You should do yoga. That is making more sense now because you're telling me that he's Buddhist. So that's cool. But you know, let's like rewind. You were in high school. Where did you grow up again? Because we had team camp, and I thought that was where you were from, and because you were so familiar with the trails and the area and everything, but where are you from exactly?

SPEAKER_03 5:38

So, okay, so all the way back, I from zero to ten, I was in Tanzania. That's yeah, my parents were missionaries out there, and we were in North Tanzania, so it was kind of near, I mean, in in Africa terms, it was near Kenya. But it was on the it was near the Maasai steppe, which is like where all the great runners from that part of the country come from, other than Ethiopia. And then you got some like Sudanese guys, and but anyway, so when we moved to the States, my dad moved us straight back to Franklin, North Carolina, because he said it looked like Tanzania. He liked the mountains. And Franklin was like 30 minutes from Nanahela Outdoor Center, the Nanahela River, which actually just as like a segue, the guy that just won the Medal of Honor for the Army was giving it at the state of was given it at the State of the Union. He was from there too.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Oh, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Yeah, there was a lot of really good endurance athletes and military personnel from the area that I was in. People were always going into special operations or running at an elite level, going professional. In high school, it was I was on an adventure race team with two of the teachers, and we were like sponsored for that. So I got to experience a lot of kind of like mountain endurance athletics because that's all there was to do. Um, so it was Franklin, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Okay, cool. Back to Tanzania. Do you feel like being in that environment where there's so many, I mean, that's like the Mecca for amazing runners. Do you feel like you were influenced to go into that there, or did it start more so when you were in Franklin, North Carolina?

SPEAKER_03 7:37

In Tanzania, in Africa, running takes on a um, yeah, I don't know if you've traveled internationally, but if you're American, the first time when you when you're overseas, the first thing people ask you about is football. Right? You must know everything about football, and you probably know a lot about it. Well, being looking like me coming from Tanzania, everyone's like, oh, you must be a fast runner. And so that's kind of what all coaches and all parents just decided I was gonna be a fast runner, and I mean I wasn't, I didn't have a super low resting heart rate, I didn't have a crazy good VO2 max. I just tried really hard. Um, and people believed in me. And Tanzan being, you know, I wasn't born in Tanzania, but everyone said I was like from Tanzania, it helped, it kind of pushed me into running.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

I think your story is so interesting. You know, I I forgot the piece about you being from Tanzania, but it also seems to like you were guided in that direction, and I think I think you have a genuine love for running too, but did you ever feel forced into it?

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and I would say up until my senior year of college, it was probably dysfunctional. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself mentally in a really short amount of time, but it was my entire identity. You know, and it it made bad races really, really bad, and good races like amazing, almost like manic depressive kind of kind of deal.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

You know, I understand. I I did not have running as my identity like you did growing up, but it became my identity, but I can definitely emphasize that feeling of when it's good, it's great, and when it's bad, it's it's really, really bad. And having that kind of up and down all the time, and then coupling that with changing coach and you know outside pressures to be successful, that's got to be really, really hard. And do you feel like you chose a smaller school because you just kind of wanted to go someplace and discover yourself a little bit more away from the eyes of everybody who wanted you to be a certain way?

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Absolutely. It was it was a very like self-preservation kind of move for me. I just had a feeling that if I got on a roster with 60 runners, I would feel lost.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I can understand that. I think about how you know I I looked at King and I looked at Milligan, Mill, you know, I looked at smaller schools because I wasn't, hey, we didn't have a really impressive track cross-country program in high school because I was basically a one-woman show cross-country team, but going to other schools and listening to coaches explain the dynamics of the team and everything, it almost felt like they're going to whittle you down, whittle down the team to see who's healthy enough to get to the start line. And I mean, it's really tough because you almost feel like a piece of meat when you go to college visits, and it's like survival of the fittest, literally, you know, that's really, really hard. Did you did you feel like that when you were recruited by Coach Merle?

SPEAKER_03 11:49

No, not at all. I uh man, when I went to App State, I do believe so. They took me to a football game, and and it was when App State beat Michigan, I think. And it was like this huge party, and like all the cross-country people were together. I saw the coach for 10 minutes, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

No way.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

He just kind of gave me or gave me over to the cross-country guys, and you know, the night progressed from there. And when I came to visit King, Coach Merle was there. He kind of sat down with me on the outside outside of a bench, and he was kind of like, you know, I think if you came here, you could get better at running, but you would definitely graduate. Do you wanna drive around Bristol? What do you want to do? And I spent the whole visit with him. One on like one-on-one.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

And I was like, this is it. I'm going, I'm like, Yeah, that worked for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what a different approach. And I appreciate the humanity in that story because yeah, I mean, did you feel like your academics were kind of shaky and that you needed a little bit more of a smaller classroom, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Oh, yeah. I was homeschooled in Tanzania. So, you know, my my dad graduated high school and had a little bit of college. My mom didn't graduate high school. And they were homeschooling me in a foreign country. So I didn't have good math. You know, that's just something you gotta learn from someone that knows math. Unless you're like an Einstein type person. I didn't have great grammar. I could write creatively, but man, I could play sports because I my mom would like put me in a room to homeschool every day, and I would crawl out the window and be running around. Our we lived on a Swedish compound and we'd just run around, I'd run around all day. And it was like enjoyment running, not a sport. And so, yeah, it the combination of academics being shaky and just being used to like running for fun. Very similar, and this has to do with psychology, very similar to why the Scandinavian countries are clean, sweep in the Winter Olympics. You know, I'm probably gonna get the ages wrong, but they don't even compete until they're like in their teens. And it's like mandatory that they do three sports a year. So you're because it shapes like you know, it shapes people's psychology better for competition.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

You think having more than one sport kind of equips you better? In what way would you would you think that it shapes you better psychologically?

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Well, the worst thing that can happen to a young kid is getting injured, having an overuse injury, because they don't have the coping skills yet to deal with it. You know, kids blame everything on themselves, and and something's wrong with me if I'm hurt. And so, like for with baseball, for instance, you've got kids that are pitching having you know major league size injuries in in middle school and high school. And having more than one sport, it makes you adapt mentally and physically to different things, and it it makes a more well-rounded athlete.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I can understand that. I didn't know that about Scandinavian countries kind of promoting that multi-sport skill set. I'm just putting the pieces together that your story is really intricate.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sorry. Also ADHD, and I jump around like crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

No, I think that keeps it interesting, you know, and how hard that must have been to be homeschooled, to have ADHD, to have parents who I'm sure they meant well but weren't equipped to maybe educate you to the best of your ability, and then coming to America and having to figure it out and just kind of go from there. And you know, I can see why sports and running became your identity because that's what you were good at, and that was your ticket. So then when you like you said, if you got injured, it how do you cope with that? Did you experience injury early on?

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Uh yeah. So I a little bit about the mechanics, you know. I I'm fairly flat footed but bow legged. And I know because I was a sales rep in the shoe industry or the running industry that you you know you you average the two. So I technically had an eye high arch because I was bow-legged, but I was always put in a structured shoe, and so I had terrible IT band problems. But the way that I would rehab my IT bands was running barefoot on soccer fields. I'm a new running. Yeah. And no, you know, people only looked at the foot or the knee or the hip. They didn't look at the whole system. And yeah, so I naturally went to trail running because you're always striking four foot, four foot, you know. If you can take 10 steps over an obstacle, you can take 20. And so you're always kind of running within the range of your mechanics, and trail shoes are generally race shoes are neutral. So, yeah, I don't know if that answered your question.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

No, it does answer my question. I I was just thinking about you know, barefoot running, that was the craze, what, 10, 15 years ago. And I'm sure there are people who's still very loyal to it. And I'll honestly say when I had IT band syndrome too, and I was on those soccer fields at King, and I was running barefoot, and it was like a euphoric moment of aha, this actually feels right, you know. And I was like, I was actually saying to Coach Don, I don't want to go back to wearing shoes, I just want to run barefoot all the time because it felt so much better. And you know, having a shoe on and everything, you over stride, it changes your biomechanics and your knee, your ankle, your hip, everything. Did you have a similar experience?

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Yes, exactly. Until I started running in well, we also do you remember the shoe store we went to? I don't know if y'all continued to do it, but we went to foot that uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know now from being a sales rep, that was a store that catered to a lot of people that needed specific support shoes for physical therapy. And so they're gonna come from that kind of that so they put me in a Brooks adrenaline all the time, and it's a great shoe. I just didn't need the structure, and when I got the structure, my IT bands were just gone. I would just uh you've got yeah, you you and I are no go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I was just gonna think about the Brooks adrenaline, it's got the built-up, you know, the arch obviously, and that's tipping you out even more, so it's stretching your IT band even more. So, yeah, that would not be good for you at all.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

What were you guys? Neutral, neutral is the way to go. I run in ultras now, I love them.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

But yeah, I have ultras too, and I cycle back and forth between them because I'm on the treadmill a lot because it's snowing and icing a lot, and you know, a lot of people are like, Oh, I can't do treadmill running with ultras. I don't have a problem, but it's almost like I feel if I take the ultras on the road, I'm gonna jack up my body pretty immediately. Do you have a similar experience or do you kind of stick to trails? What surfaces do you run on?

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Uh I try to run on grass as much as possible now. When I do run on road, I have a more a little bit more of a maximalist ultra. Also have some topos. Even as I say this, like, which is a part of psychology we can talk about being a sponsored runner, it's hard for me to answer brand questions because I used to only talk about certain brands. Right. And so it like create there's a hesitation in the back of my mind.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Are you sponsored anymore? Like, do you have any restrictions on what you can talk about in terms of brands?

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Nope.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

You know, that's the thing when people look at YouTube videos of athletes and they're like, oh wow, they run in this, and that's great. It's you know, they're so restricted to what they can talk about based on contracts and things that people don't even think about. But yeah, let's like talk about. Well, first of all, I want to go back to the coach shift, but I do want to talk about your running career and the psychology psychology associated with that. But talking about college going from Coach Merle to Coach Dalton. You know, we're not gonna disrespect anybody here, but what was the change in coaching philosophy that you found challenging?

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Well, first of all, any change at all, you know, running. in college was my entire identity. If I if I won, I was on cloud nine for weeks. If I lost I had to go to like mental health at King. I mean it was bad. Coach Merle managed it pretty well. So when he left it was like my world was over. And then Peter came and I had to get used to a new guy and I I did well and benefited a lot from his coaching philosophy. It was my it was kind of my inability to like make a shift that was hard on any anyone's coaching philosophy. You know I just didn't handle change well. And so that was the hardest part about going through the coach change. Peter's philosophy Tom's philosophy was like you know what do you want to do running? Peter was more like directive and was open to feedback but very structured but Peter's philosophy was the same as my high school coach who sent like runners to Yale NC State that ended up running at Adidas. He had like one of his cross one of my call high school coach his name was um coach Morgan at one point he had a cross country team and a high school team and how many five guys were under 1610 in the 5K like our four by eight in high school broke theirs record but it took like you know we had to have four guys under two minutes to break their record. So I came from a stud high school and then I went to Tom and he was helping me a lot with mental health but then with Peter I had to go back into trying to be a stud again. Because he was first he was starting out his career and the only way he was going to get to a big program is having good runners.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah that makes sense yeah I was thinking back to a long run we did on the Virginia creeper trail I remember we started at Abington you know you go through the woods and then there's the where you cross the road that's not it's like before Alvaredo do you know what I'm talking about and I remember we got to that point and there's like a portage on there or whatever and I remember you the group of guys they were running in front of us the girls and you just like you just stopped and you just said not today and you like I think you just went back and I thought what's going on but it's like I could tell that you were emotionally dealing with something but you just you knew your body also and you you just shut it down and I I was curious at the time but I also respected it because I thought he's dealing with something and I don't know if you remember that at all maybe you know that wasn't the only time where you shut down a run because you weren't feeling it that day but do you remember that yeah I do what was going on like psychologically um I I wasn't running well I didn't feel good I was burnt out and Spencer Fran Spencer Fantom was crushing me all the time and he's like the nicest dude ever and that only makes it worse no he's like the most even killed person.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah and you know but not long after that you know I broke the school record to 10k out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Well that's wild so I mean usually you read about burnout and everything and how you know burnout versus overreaching do you feel like you were in the overreaching and you just needed to pull back a little bit and then you were able to like you said break that record yeah and that's so it wasn't even fast like it wasn't even a great 10k but people were happy with me you know and I was in a very dysfunctional mindset so I really cared about what people thought it's so hard in college because you're you're set up for failure because you are so much is how you feel about yourself. Everything revolves around your performance and you're maybe you're in an office with a coach and they're threatening you if you don't do XYZ your scholarship is gone or it's reduced you know is how can how can kids in college not have psychological problems with pressures like that I don't know if that's normal today and if that happens a lot but you know that's one thing I've learned in mental health is everyone has bad mental health at some time some people are just better at hiding it. Do you feel like that is why you chose that field in mental health people who tend to have mental health issues go into mental health to learn what's going on with themselves do you feel like that's kind of the avenue that you took absolutely yeah I also had a good mentor within the psychology program right that's like gonna be a common theme throughout my life is that I need a good mentor to kind of stay motivated and Kevin DeFord was was head of the psychology program and he kind of took me under his wing so that was another that was another factor but but yeah big time you know I no running was the reason I made it out of Franklin a lot of people just go live at NOC in L outdoor center where we ran and like I was a Whitewater kayaker too.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

I could have just moved there and this is no like people I met some of the happiest people on earth when I lived there during the summers but I I was scared not progressing and so you know I'd see people live there work their kayak and then sell Christmas trees during the winter in Atlanta and that was just kind of what they did and I could have done it too but I wanted to go to college I wanted to be the first one of the first people in my family to graduate that really requires a lot of courage you know to believe something that is comfortable but kind of guaranteed you can try something and put yourself out there.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

And obviously you had struggles and it wasn't smooth sailing I almost I'm saying this from personal experience but in my life I feel like with whatever psychological crap that I've got that I've got going on I tend to replace one bad stimulus in my life that causes me stress with something else when that one ends and it's almost like I have this stupid innate need to have some kind of stressful thing in my life and I don't know if that's even like a diagnosis but I think about your story and I think about how you've had the stress of running and performing and then you know you graduate and then you go into the military and you've got this whole new humongous stress on you or is that what humans tend to do is just seek out that familiar familiarity even if it's not even a good familiar I think I think productive humans tend to do that.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Interesting why why do we do that I think it it I think a lot of people either have trouble being in balance unless they're stressed out. I also think that biologically we have been we have been physically stressed out a lot longer than or a lot worse than we are now we're set up for a lot more physical stress and now everyone's lives are psychological stress but with psychological stress we feel like that we have to have it in order to survive but we really need the physical stress to survive.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

That's so interesting so we've almost kind of evolved to to really crave that stress because that's what we had before it's being replaced with psychological and at least the physical stress I mean you've got the adaptations of being healthier I guess because you're literally having to become a fitter human and the psychological stress is just pumping your body full of hormones that make you fat and make you feel awful all the time yeah I'm not like putting anybody down at all but that's the truth right oh yeah yeah absolutely a lot of pharmaceuticals even make you gain weight and what is it doing it's redu it's reducing your mental stress and you're gaining weight you know so then you get trapped in a box of well I can't move now but I'm numb so for people who you know they're stressed out like that and I mean you do you deal with people where what would you prescribe for that person? Would you say yeah you need to be on some kind of medication or would you say let's think about a way to help you get over this issue through some kind of natural physical exertion exercise what do you tend to kind of prescribe people well I can't I can't prescribe which is nice because I think we rely far too heavily on pharmaceuticals but I have psychiatrists that I refer to and they're not medication heavy psychiatrists.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

So yeah I'm always going the the sports balance route the let's talk about you know how you're hurting your own life the benefits the stress of your upbringing have given you and how that's going to help you progress. That's why my counseling agencies called Moving Forward Therapeutic services you know a perfect example is I have an army buddy that died this last week. I'm so sorry Daniel yeah and he he was an avid scuba diver so we went up we went up to New Jersey we went to his funeral last weekend and his mom gave me all of his diving gear right well that's what's gonna get me through this I'm gonna start scuba diving we we got to check back in with ourselves and just start doing something you think just staying frozen is the worst thing you can do if you're in some kind of psychological situation.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Absolutely yeah the terror of failing or I and I don't know what your terror is but of not having stress maybe has gotten me to this point and now it's like well you know I'm making decent money I don't have to run what do I do now when you've lived your life stressed out it's almost like you're losing something when you're not that's really that's profound you know a lot of what you've said is almost like anything could be converted into some profound bumper sticker or whatever have you but that yeah that really resonates with me and my fear may not be the same as yours but it's not my fear is almost like what have I done you know is it enough and am I proud of it and and but I guess legacy which is pretty typical I guess for people in general but you know why do you talking about the stress and how humans they seek out physical stress and then andor replace it with psychological stress you know do you feel like that was basically why you entered the military because you were seeking out that next source of stress or was there a different reason? Did you was it purely patriotic I want to serve my country which is wonderful was it a mixture of things well I do know I do know what it looks like when not a lot of people in a country join the military for one so I've always been I've always liked the military but yeah I I enjoy learning something new and we know that and and and I know that now because with ADD and ADHD you have improper blood flow in your brain which makes your dopamine levels kind of wacky right and dopamine is released when you're learning something new or doing something random even if you even if you go and do a workout and you flip a coin on what workout you're gonna do the chance of that coin makes a bigger dopamine release I think about that and I'm like I need to know I need structure and I need you know I'm the opposite if I had that level of uncertainty it would be releasing whatever is the antagonist for dopamine in my brain.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Yeah yeah and um well you would technically when you did have something random have an even bigger dopamine hit because you hedged all your bets on it being consistent. So dopamine they call the go or no go chemical the common misconception is that endorphins are what we're craving endorphins are just a byproduct of whatever you know that it makes you feel good. Dopamine is what gives you that like surge to accomplish things yeah and so joining the military for me was a whole new series of dopamine hits one new crazy experience after another yeah and the military really throughout their training it's designed for you to be just a little confused do you think that veterans once they leave the military not having that dopamine fix is part of why there's you know depression and other things happening within absolutely I've experienced it myself you come out of the military and you go to your first job and you're around you know a bunch of people that you haven't done pushups with you haven't you know seen crying or hope you know nervous hoping you see everyone as putting on a front and you're like what you know am I ever gonna meet someone like me again yeah you you got to see people out there very most vulnerable in genuine state and yeah when we you go to a regular job everybody else is putting on a front that's what we're conditioned to do and that's got to be so wild to experience you see people being genuine and then you basically enter this new life and you have to relearn everything and you have to think about people's motives and all this other psychological interoffice warfare that's so unnecessary and it's you know you have people in the military who are risking their lives every day and they don't have time for that mess.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

And that's got to be exhausting. Yeah or it's like funny how much how little you have to do sometimes in the military you know and in civilian jobs it's like you've got to always be productive there's no there's no like laughing about the reality of the day to day anymore in your own perception that stuff exists you just have to find it or make it go ahead yeah that's why I first place I went was I was a counselor in the state prison system in Florida and Georgia what was that like chaotic and stress one what a lot like the military to another yeah did you like it yeah for a while basically like let's unpack this a little bit in that role you're counseling inmates right yep okay and the inmates are coming to you with psychological problems that they've been diagnosed with or something happens in prison where they are sent to you with like against their will what kind of person would you get all the above I specialized in a dorm of the most violent inmates so I had about a uh I had three bays 60 per bay so I had 180 violent inmates to assess at least once a week what did assessment look like did you observe them did you interview them both what what did that mean are you suicidal or homicidal next okay that that question that clears up a lot yeah yeah it uh it's rough what is I knew I had to leave I I knew I had to leave when I stopped you know feeling you stopped feeling period yeah I was just like you know I think about people who are in jobs maybe they're dealing with like I don't know helping kids they're going through abuse or animals or something or something like what you just described in your role and I wonder how do they deal with it every single day and is it better to just become numb and go through emotions or you know do you do get emotionally involved every single case because that too would be exhausting but you say when you became numb to it that's when you knew it was time to leave yeah and a lot of these guys are and rightfully so because in the military I went through a part of training where you're in a POW camp

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Okay. And you had to do the inmate things. You were taught to stay alive. So I related, but I knew I was being manipulated.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

So your whole life has basically been this psychological study, and you've been put in all these different situations that to me seem abnormal, right? But it's almost like maybe maybe that's normal for everybody. Everybody's in psychological situations, but yours seems so much more extreme, you know, being in the military, being in these coaching situations in high school and college where you know you were dealing with a lot internally, and you're basically competing with your teammates.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it grounds me. Even in trail running, I would be, I would put myself in first within the first hundred yards, and I would hold it the entire day.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

I mean, I can tell because you have a lot of top finishes for your trail running. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 45:36

I would either win or I would drop out.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Like, no, I get it. I know when it I've dropped out of races before, and because I was at the top of my game, and when I knew it wasn't gonna go well, I was like, what's what's the point? You know, and that's what dropped out because it was too crushing to deal with the failure. But with trail running, you know, you put yourself out there in the lead immediately. What component, I guess, if you were assessing yourself, you know, a psychological assessment, what component of your personality made you do that? Was it just fear of failure? Was it just survival? Did you go into that kind of survival mode? Were you I have to be first? Because I feel like I go into survival mode.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

I would say mine is fear of failure. Failure of being perceived as a failure.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Do you do you still race?

SPEAKER_03 46:44

No.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Do you miss it?

SPEAKER_03 46:47

Every day.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Why why do you think you've stepped away from that? Is it just because your professional career is taken on more or is there another reason?

SPEAKER_03 46:59

I have kids. I have a five-year-old and a ten-year-old boy. And I don't want to I don't want sports to be their identity. And I don't want them to see sports being my identity.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

So you're sacrificing what you love to help them just grow up, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Like Scandinavian kids. I'm doing it with my own family.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

Do you do they do any sports?

SPEAKER_03 47:30

They do, if they want to. We ask them once. And if they don't want to do it, they don't have to do it. So far, my oldest sits at his younger brother's practices and reads. My youngest just did had his first wrestling season. He's had two soccer seasons. He's doing track right now. I coached him one time in soccer. I played a lot of soccer too. I could have probably played college soccer as well. I was recruited like in the ninth grade. You know, I was starting to get, but but I coached, I I coached him one time or two times, and it just got to be such a big deal where they were asking me to coach challenge teams and and asking me, because I still I do play soccer on a in a Mexican league down here in South Georgia. But it was just getting to a point where it was about me. And I was like, you know, and then and then my kids were like kind of lost interest.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

That makes sense. But you let them, you let them just move on and you get enforced them. And yeah, I feel like maybe it's a generational thing, but in our generation, parents like pushing their kids, and maybe that's still prevalent, but I feel like with younger people now, they are given more freedom, and you know, a lot of older generations are like, oh, this is a terrible generation because they don't have any self-discipline because they're not forced to do anything. Like, what are your thoughts on that? Do you feel like having a strong arm, I guess, and and making your kids do things even they? I mean, it sounds like you're the opposite of that, but do you feel like your kids are missing out on discipline at all?

SPEAKER_03 49:34

Or what have you ever heard of the term shifting baseline syndrome? No, what is that? It is the tendency for the previous generation to feel like the current generation has no hope. Oh. And I I think it comes from a feeling of like kind of being put up on the shelf. You know, like I can't figure out technology, or the world is changing so fast that I'm not keeping up. And so I have to find fault with the people that are keeping up.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

That makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

And so when I start to go down those roads of like, are they missing out on discipline? I have to check myself and say, Am I do I do I am I having shifting baseline syndrome right now?

SPEAKER_01 50:33

That makes a lot of sense, yeah. And I think that can be applicable to so many different areas of life, not just kind of generational differences. But let's talk about your practice a little bit more. Do you do you predominantly help veterans or do you help people, all different kinds of people?

SPEAKER_03 50:59

I I live in a rural area, 35 minutes north of Tallahassee, Florida. And so in a rural area, you kind of have to be able to see anyone. I do see a lot of veterans, and that's kind of veterans, law enforcement first responders are my are my favorite, but I I just I have to see anyone and I'm trained to see anyone. I just don't do marriage counseling.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

I refer out for that.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

So with with veterans in law enforcement, military, any kind of high stress career, would you say that you're running your competitive background or obviously you you understand the stress of having those in your life? How do you how do you counsel people with those kind of backgrounds? I mean, I'm sure that their presentations of whatever they're dealing with are slightly different, but it seems to be like there is this common thread of seeking out that stress, and when it's removed, something psychologically becomes very off-pilter. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_03 52:19

Yeah, definitely. I I don't pretend to know what they're going through. And I listen. You know, you're like, Okay, I'll I'll show you who the boss is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

Do you think we as civilians kind of keep our distance from one another as self-preservation because we don't want to have that kind of visceral connection with other people? Do you think it's a bad thing that people don't have the connections that you see in the military? Like I think about what you've experienced and you know, being that familiar and close and having similar struggles and connections with people, that seems so intense. And I think that as humans, maybe we don't have the processing skills to really connect with other people on that level every day.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

Yeah, I think people I think people put on fronts a lot you know, I I I struggle with being too open sometimes with with people. And I think, you know, once you've like I said, once you've reached a level like that with someone, you create like a different subculture, and it's hard to beat people like you. You don't know whether they miss it or not, or what their experience was in it. But I do think that people put themselves in a almost like a social deficit with social media.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

I agree. Um I find myself becoming generic with my personality and social media sometimes, and I think you know, I'm trying to appeal to so many people, and it doesn't sometimes it feels disingenuous because you're trying to be liked and it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_03 55:26

Yeah, I think it makes you a social it uh not you but like people in general, it makes you a social junkie. Yeah, you know, you're just like looking for the next fix, just like we did in Ronnie. Yeah. And that's dangerous because you know, at any moment it might be there, it might not. That's a very precarious way to live.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

I think for our listeners, if anybody can, anybody's listening, they're listening to what Daniel is saying, and they are tired of just encountering people, social media personalities that seem to have some kind of front, and it does seem disingenuous, and maybe you as listeners are struggling with something. You don't have to have been a veteran, but veterans are definitely encouraged. I think you should definitely think about getting in touch with Daniel Gilleton, and because obviously you can see he is being very real, very vulnerable right now, and I think that we all need a connection that is completely just real, right? And I definitely encourage listeners to reach out to you if you do any kind of outreach that's not just local to where you are. Do you do phone counseling, email, video?

SPEAKER_03 56:52

Yep, all the above.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Awesome. I'm going to put your information in show notes and everything, but just so people listening, maybe they can they're listening and they can search it on their own right now. Can you just list that again?

SPEAKER_03 57:08

Yeah, uh moving forward therapeutic services. Or if you just put in Google Daniel Hamilton LPC, Bainbridge, Georgia, or Daniel Hamilton LPC or Moving Forward Help.com. You can also find me on Psychology Today.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

I think what you've said has been really helpful. And I I do hope that people who really, really want to connect with somebody and not have any of the BS, I think they need to get in touch with you. And you know, if you feel like, as even a runner athlete, because that's generally what our audience is, if you feel like you're caught in the cycle of seeking out your next stressful dopamine fix and you kind of oscillate between these high highs and these rock bottom lows, you need to talk to somebody and kind of figure out what's going on and how to balance things out so that living is more sustainable and not such a struggle all the time. And I think Daniel's your guy, so please, people who have questions, reach out to Daniel.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Awesome, thank you. Uh, one more thing about running. Yeah, uh mentally don't get fixated on a distance. Run a 5k and get faster, you know, 10k and or go do a 50 miler and walk a lot. Don't all distances have the something about you that they'll improve.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

I agree so much. I have a lot of athletes who are doing ultra marathons, and I feel almost this pressure to sign up for an ultra marathon to feel like I'm in there with with them and I'm yeah, they can sympathize with them more because in the moment that's what they're doing. But you know, I honestly just want to improve speed right now, and I I feel like that's where I'm at emotionally, physically. I agree. Don't ever look down on people who are doing 5k, 10k, and they're trying to dig deep and get the most intensity out of themselves that they can. There's such value in that for sure.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

Yeah, and I was always that guy running. You could put me in any distance. I think it was the ADHD.

SPEAKER_01 59:35

So maybe, maybe, but you know, I know that you're not racing right now, and you say you miss it every day, and that's really hard to deal with. But I I hope that you're still able to at least like run and get that that enjoyment from it still.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Yeah, my boys ride mountain bikes. I got um I've I've got them some pretty nice mountain bikes, and I run along with them while they mountain bike. I don't wanna I don't wanna mess with their growth plates with a lot of running right now. Yeah. So, but yeah, they ride their bikes a lot, probably five times a week, hour or more.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Cool. Well, it's so great to catch up with you. Is there anything else that you want to add?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

No, it was awesome to see you. Thanks for what you're doing. Thanks for coaching runners, and I think I think you have a very well-rounded mindset when it comes to coaching. You would have to to get through the program we went through. So I wish you the best of luck.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Thanks so much, Daniel. And yeah, same to you because I think you are really putting value out in the world with your whole philosophy and really getting down to the basics of listen, everybody's basically over stimulated with fake social media, all the rest of it, fake personality fronts, and yeah, I got rid of all my just so you know I'm not a hypocrite.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

I have a LinkedIn for my business, but I got rid of all my social media while I was in the army. Okay, it's all gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

And people can get in touch with you through the website, though, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:22

Yes. Cool. Yep, psychology today, moving forward, therapeutic services.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

Alrighty. Thanks again, Daniel.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

Yep, later.