From Trauma to Triumph—How Struggle Builds Unshakable Strength

What if the hardship you're facing isn't bad… it’s just asking you to get stronger?

In this powerful episode of Freedom Fighters, we sit down with a former track athlete, high school teacher, and Air Force officer who’s spent decades studying what helps people thrive—not just survive. From running in -20° windchill to parenting with purpose, this conversation unpacks how pain, perseverance, and preparation collide to forge a life worth leading.

It all started with one brutally honest lesson from his old coach: “There’s no such thing as bad weather—just soft people.” That mindset would go on to shape everything: his leadership style, his parenting philosophy, his mission in the military, and his relentless pursuit of raising strong kids in a softening world.

We explore the grind behind growth, the science of post-traumatic growth, and how to train your brain (and your kids’) to get better at hard things. This episode isn’t about parenting tips or motivational fluff—it’s about building a legacy through discomfort, daily reps, and deeply held values.

📌 Key Topics:
 ✅ Why preparation matters more than conditions
 ✅ The mental shift from surviving to thriving
 ✅ How post-traumatic growth is biologically built into us
 ✅ Why the military is investing in performance psychology
 ✅ The difference between therapy and thriving
 ✅ Raising strong kids in a world that avoids struggle
 ✅ How bedtime stories can literally rewire your child’s brain
 ✅ Using mission statements to lead yourself and your family
 ✅ Practical tools for building character through story
 ✅ The difference between perception and perspective—and why it matters
 ✅ Why rhythmic breathing isn't about stress relief—it’s about stress mastery
 ✅ How to “manipulate” your kids (ethically) to teach them better habits
 ✅ How to apply pressure without breaking your kids
 ✅ Why choosing your struggle is better than trying to avoid pain altogether

This one’s for the parents, leaders, and freedom-seekers who are done playing soft.
 Listen now—and start building the kind of strength that lasts.

🎬 Chapters:

00:00 Education and Early Life Experiences

04:39 Psychology and Performance

10:01 The Shift in Psychological Focus

14:35 Post-Traumatic Growth and Resilience

20:58 Understanding Post-Traumatic Growth

25:57 The Science of Growth Through Struggle

31:11 Raising Resilient Children

36:52 Character Development Through Storytelling

41:25 Navigating Mental Health and Counseling Stigmas

51:15 Understanding Perception vs. Perspective

51:54 New Chapter

56:37 The Importance of Mission Statements

01:01:03 Finding Meaning in Life's Challenges

01:08:18 Ethics in Manipulation and Influence

01:13:29 Navigating Ethical Dilemmas

01:18:09 The Role of Struggle in Growth

Transcript

Talk a little bit off camera about me, tell me your story. All right. So, um, let's see this like, man, where do I, where do I even begin? Um, right now I'm at, uh, at off at air force base and so, uh, the fan of the advocacy intervention specialist, uh,

at Alport Air Force Base and my colleague, Dave Beckent, who's an organizational psychologist and I are co-founders of the skills group. So we do management leadership training and we have also a car, Dr. Dean does a lot of work. She's a great gallops, strengths specialist. And how in the world did we get here? I started, I'm from South Dakota and got my, went to Jamestown College in North Dakota.

usually impress people with that. you don't know that's the Harvard of the Midwest, the Harvard of the Dakotas. Seriously, I went to Jamestown because my high school coach was up there or was from there and I didn't have a lot of prospects. My father passed away when I was 15 and didn't have adequate life insurance so my mom started having to work.

Three kids, suddenly all of these worldly possessions that they'd acquired from a house, three acres of land. He was a business owner, had a bar with his brother, and my mom ran that throughout her 20s. And he worked at a meat packing plant. But in the 80s, everything was crapping out.

Mid-80s you had the farm crisis, was community right outside of Sioux Falls where we lived in. Then you had a meat packing plant industry was in turmoil. And then my dad has cancer and it dies and while the union's on strike doesn't have adequate insurance. And so there's this all this trauma. And so my mom ended up selling off everything and working in grocery store deli, the high V chain. Cause if you could work regular time.

insurance. So in the meantime, my dad's sick and he's dying and they send me to the Catholic school in the city. Sioux Falls considered a city when you grow up in a small town of 900 people. because she wanted to keep out the nuns should straighten me out. Not that I was a bad kid, I was just kind of mischievous. I'm doing some things that I'm not going to share on camera.

and mischievous and so sent me and so went to college, Jamestown College, got my bachelor's in psychology, history and political science, got a certificate in secondary education, got a certificate in coaching, which sounds like a lot, but I went to Jamestown, North Dakota. There wasn't anything else to do except to study and to train, so I did a lot and when I graduated I started teaching.

back in Sioux Falls and uh the Catholic school. Yep. At the Catholic school, right? And so, I felt like a complete fraud much of the time because you gotta understand, I wasn't a great student. I mean, it wasn't terrible. mean, I mean, the top 90 % of possible, you know, it's like where where I sat but I didn't realize uh the education I got at at

And also there was a change, right? When you start finding something you're interested in, it's like, can really get into this. Most people say, I'm not a reader. I don't like to read. Like you said, we found something you're interested in reading. Much of the time it's like, cause once you find something, it's like, oh man, this is great. Yeah. You can't put it down. And I think most of us can think of like what one book kind of really made me a reader. Um, uh, but anyway, so started teaching coaching.

Coach I coach track and field. Yeah, so I was in college. It was a foreign meter hurler. I'm take you back there coach Reno You know, it's right after Christmas break and we're looking at the board says six easy miles You know dressed for the conditions know it's going to be 22 below with the wind chill, right negative 22

We came over thinking maybe we're going to do some strides in the gym or something, right? We just came back from Christmas break and the coach comes out and he's like, oh no. So by that time, Coach Greeno, he was already in his late 60s and he had two knee surgeries. So he kind of hobbled when he walked and he kind of had this squeaky voice, Vince Lombardi type mentality, you know, that comes from coaching for decades in the Dakotas. He comes wandering and he's like, boys.

Stop your bitch. He goes, there's no such, I'm like, coach, it's like 20 degrees below zero. And he's like, Sutter, there's no such thing as bad weather. Just soft people. And I'm like, yeah, like I told you, I grew up in the tropical Dakotas. Now I'm taking a look. So I'm taking a look and I'm like, oh.

I think, what are we gonna wear? But coach, it's really cold. And I'm not the only one. A couple of other guys are kind of chirping in. And he looks us in the face he's like, boys, you can run in anything if you dress warm. And we're like, but coach, and he gave us the hand and kind of waddled back to his office.

I went to Jamestown, I didn't get issued anything, right? We got Champion Cotton Sweats, it was the same size for me as a distance runner and forward and hurdler as it did for my roommates, which were shot foot throwers, right? So everybody got the same oversize. And then we got these orange plastic jackets. Because in 1990, we didn't have Vortex, it was plastic, you know? School colors were black and orange. But I think it's because so that we can be seen while running on the roads.

So we went back, I remember going back, putting on socks, putting on a bandana, you know, over my face so that, you can handle that, gearing up and running and bitching the whole world. This is crazy, this is nuts, I can't believe this, right? And at that time, we were bitching because we thought the coach was talking about the weather. It took me some time to realize he was teaching his boys about life.

We have all sorts of green-oisms too. Some that I could share with you, others that I can't.

I realized that there really is no such thing as bad weather, right? Weather's not good, it's not bad. It just is. What's that Shakespeare quote? Something, it's neither good nor bad, it's just our thoughts that make it so or something. Exactly. now you take a look at a young guy in his early 20s, and at first I'm bitching, I'm complaining, but it wasn't until the end of the season which I was better prepared.

Actually running and conditioning gave me greater confidence that when the weather conditions were bad in the spread which they always are for attract me I always felt like I was prepared for it because man I trained in worse conditions than this right it wasn't any soft lead up and was like you're to throw in and And the interesting thing is is we don't determine whether something's good or bad. don't weather's not good or bad if it doesn't fit what I want

We got good, people say, oh, we great weather today. Well, yeah, cause it's not rainy. But if you want it rain, then you'd say it's bad weather. The farmers probably complain of it. Yeah. So, yeah. So it's like, there's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people. And you can run in anything you get dressed for it. realized, yeah, I could run in temperatures that were like with the windshield up to 20 below, you year up. And so I later took that on. mean, Hey,

If I can do it physically, maybe emotionally, you know, if you dress and you prepare for the conditions, you can handle just about anything, right? And sometimes it's just getting through it. And then you find that you don't know when the growth is going to pay off. So I went back, started teaching high school, but was really interested. Why is it that some kids performed and others didn't? As dads, as parents, we see that.

So that's what led me to get my first master's, which was in clinical social work at the University of Missouri. So I went to the University of Missouri and got my my degree master's in social work, spent the next several years, most of it under the umbrella of charter behavioral health system. So I did some inpatient counseling, unit work, work to outpatient counseling, people with problems, know, billing and that kind of thing.

And one of my frustrations though, and then I was also working for the state of Missouri, the very violent psychiatric population in the Biggs Forensic Center. That's how you met Tanner. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the Biggs Forensic Center, the clientele was either guilty by reason of insanity or they were accomplished by receiving a trial. wow. And my unit was the BA, Biggs 8, which was the Ingramantum Court. So while most of their units were separated by a son, your mental health

and you're in and you're conflict with the law. Mine was uh danger management board. You're just too violent to be anyplace else in the building. So, we have a mix of temperaments. Yeah. Yeah. That's a bit of a I assume security there was pretty. Yep. You got staff. You got AIDS. If you think about uh like the

shows one flew over the cuckoo's nest or the old ones where the aides are all wearing white you know apparel and stuff like that well there's a very specific reason for that right it's not just for TV it's because of all of our monitors

And so when you would see a rush of movement, your folks in the control room couldn't tell what they're really looking at. But if they see a rush of white, that's when they would call their codes. Huh. Code red, B8. Yeah, because you'd see the rush of white, the unit staff at the time making their way in. We don't have that problem anymore. Yeah, we don't. We don't. We don't. But I think they still, you know, that's a good question. It's been a long time. It's been, you know, decades since I've been back.

I wonder if that's one of those things like the really analogy about the monkeys. They're not analogy was the test for the monkeys were climbing up a ladder to get a bundle bananas and every time they climb up and they get sprayed water and they start replacing the monkeys until none of the original subset was there but they still kept yanking everyone off the ladder. They still are white but no one knows why. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

I was interested, but I was getting a little frustrated, especially with the, I saw when I was working in the mental health outpatient. Let's say, Ryan, you come in and you say, hey, Dale, I got a problem and I need your help. I'm like, all right. See, we run on a medical model, counseling psychology does. So you come in and you say, hey, I got a problem, I need your help. I say, great. Do a little assessment, do some paperwork, let you know you've got great insight. Ryan, you don't just have one problem, you actually got five problems.

I'll go back to your childhood. I'll find problems you didn't know you had. But don't worry, I'll get you to normal before your insurance runs out. Managed care will give me about 10 sessions, right? Now, I joke a little bit about that, but there are some more serious conditions and things like that. I've worked in that field a long time. But there is a little truth to that, because we've been studying it for so long. Why does managed care happen? Well, it's because they're studying it. They're researching it. At what point?

You know, can we get over many of these, most all of these conditions? And that's the dirty little secret about psychology.

still though, been studying it like crazy. However, we have a lot of theories that work for most people most all of the time. And that's actually what is going on, right? And so that's why with a lot of confidence I can say, hey, I can get you to normal.

Now one of the problems that I was having, and again this goes back to me being a collegiate athlete and being a coach, just because you're normal, just because you don't have problems doesn't mean to thrive. Just because things are good doesn't mean you're having great success. We kind of got this idea of what we understand as a baseline. We don't go seek help when we have

seek help when we're really in a spot. Just because I don't feel bad doesn't mean I'm thriving. Just because I don't have problems doesn't mean I'm excelling. And that was my frustration. And I was kind of in that quagmire, and this was about 1998, 1999, when a high school buddy of mine

Castle, Dr. Castle. He's actually working on his PhD in biochemistry. And the school he went to is, you guys are probably more familiar.

Yeah, so the Air Force was paying for his first PhD and he's like, you should look at the Air Force. Now my first thought again is like the military is not going to want me, right? I'm a social worker. I was a high school teacher and I take one look at my history and go, put it to the side because if we bring this guy in, he's going to have our military personnel in share circles holding hands talking about the

you So I'm like, dude, this is not, why would the Air Force want me? He goes, well, all we ever talk about, his response was all we ever talk about is performance, performance psychology. He goes, and the Air Force is looking into that. I said, they are? He said, yeah, and they got social work positions. Who? Yeah, I'm like, yeah, let me take a look at that. And I, again, I was in Jefferson, I was in central Missouri at the time. So this is pre-Migalovania.

This was pre-911, interesting. So I took a look and came on and off it was my first assignment.

So, and that actually happened to be a big blessing because in 1999, the field of psychology took a little bit of a shift. I told you before, you know, I can get you to normal before your insurance runs out of that. But the reason being is because since really the Institute of Mental Health, which stood up right after.

have been studying what's wrong with people very diligently and how to get them there. We've been studying it since World War I. You have certain issues, conditions, leads you to be traumatized, we get you to not be traumatized anymore. Well, I was taking a look and in 1999 when I came into the Air Force, Martin Selig came the president of the American Psychological Association. Now, this was an interesting time because he challenged the field of psychology. He understood we've been studying what's wrong with people.

A lot of our education, self-esteem, all this stuff didn't come from studying high performers. It came from studying what's wrong with people. And so much of psychology follows a medical model. How to keep me so you don't feel bad, not how to help you thrive. And until Martin Seligman challenged the psychological community, let's start applying the science of psychology.

to these outliers of higher performance. What makes life worth living? It's thriving. Now there were some pockets of that, but it wasn't getting funded. And so what gets funded gets most all of the attention. Fortunately also, I was in the military. The military was looking at that. Dr. Hamilton had come on in 2000, 2001, shortly after September 11th.

and said hey we got this playground he was also interested in it and so started exploring that in the Air Force here at Offutt Air Force Base there were several programs that we did under the SOAR excellence program that was recognized as Air Force best practices but never really expanded because you've been in it's like you get a couple of really talented people really thriving on

something and then as the as your counted NCOs or officers leave this great program you got started with or something. Yeah and not everybody has the same knowledge same background. So yeah so that that's what I did then from 2000 or from 99 through 05. Started really studying that and so that became my interest that performance positive psychological stuff. 05 separated

is in 2002, went through, three, went through divorce. and, in five, I had an assignment to Guam, but that assignment would have cost me primary, custody of my boys. Right. I had, like everything was pretty much split. were with their bottom on Mondays and Tuesdays, awkward situation. decision making everything else was, you know, you have that Antoine.

I would have lost custody of my boys. I wouldn't have had them. know, it have been splitting weekends. None of that. And in my admission statement that I identified, when did the relationship get rocky when we were having problems? You know?

nation's most successful life enhancement programs through speaking, writing, coaching, and consulting into be a living example of a fitness and character. Three years into this mission statement that I crafted. So it made for a very simple decision. I mean, it wasn't easy. This was my career, but it was very simple. World class father was came before, you know, everything else. So for me, it's like, all right, and then what else does a world class father or like going into, you know,

remarried and I found somebody else. Even when going through the divorce, people were like, hey, why do you have a husband on there? You're divorced. As I was helping other people write their business, they were like, well, I don't plan on being single forever. And how does a world-class husband handle the history that I had? Do they bring the previous baggage in? No.

So it's really having a mission statement is really useful in helping you guide. you unpack that? just spitballing off your guys around 2002 that you came up with this.

You hear more of it today, but 20, 25 years ago, that wasn't as big of a thing. What drove you to come up with that? Well, actually truth be told, I was helping people craft their own mission statements as a clinician because my clinical style was more coaching, mentoring than it was a tell me about your feelings. So I was actually helping people for about a year.

year and half, their own mission statements before I crafted my own. Talk about the height of hypocrisy. We preach and promote. But yeah, so I'd actually known about its value. During that time, Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was really popular. We were talking about Stratcom earlier. Stratcom had a very strong professional development program.

and actually they had the Cubby series and so that was something a lot of people were doing there. It's like I was watching it make a difference you know and then who's the author of A Purpose Driven Life? Uh we're recording. Yeah right and so yeah and I think his book came out though about quite a bit later but again you find you start finding having sense of purpose having a sense of meaning it kind of helps helps make all your decisions big and small.

One thing you talked about it kind of in passing a few times is the disconnect between normal and abundance or whatever word you want to use. You know, living the extraordinary life, beyond what's normal. That's my biggest issue with psychology. Like I can't just, I would love to go to somebody.

However, I can't, it's expensive. I'm not going to pay $150 to sit on the couch for 45 minutes an hour. Maybe I'm just cheap, I don't have that diagnosis that can get insurance to pay for it. And then I don't have to pay a $3 copay or whatever it is. And so it's that disconnect of I'm too cheap to pay for it, but I don't have the insurance that would pay for it.

think you would prevent problems from happening. And I think that's where that life coach thing started to come into play a lot more. I just feel like medically they should offer some kind of life coach. know some, like my company I'm sure offers three free per year or something. haven't looked into it, but.

What can be done, I guess, for the person that wants to exceed more in life? And then do you see a change in the medical field going more to that let's help people excel? I think there's a couple of interesting models out there that's...

that's really conflicting and fighting. So I think your audience is probably more towards the mentoring, the counseling. If your company has an EAP or an employee assistance provider, then you know they can provide that counseling and it's already covered.

and in therapy I gotta be careful with this because we have in the mental health field you have a high rate of depression anxiety you get a lot of

So lot of your clip, not a lot, I think it's like with anything you've got good performers and bad performers. Why isn't some people going to certain professions and certain fields? It's like, I would like to help out other people, but I want to help make people better. Like for me, I was always interested in performance and thriving. But so much, there's a lot of people who go into that and say, well, I want to go into this because people are interesting and I'm a mess and I want to figure out how to get myself un-messed. And I thought they would all get weeded out. And unfortunately they didn't.

And they don't and so what I found especially in the arena of mental health or at least early

Because if you were going into mental health and you had your own issues, you were not attracted to the military. In fact, you would have some hangups with the military in the military.

So, but when it comes to having a sense of guidance, I mean, there's great mentors, coaches, life coaches, you know, people you admire, groups of people do the kind of things that you guys are doing. It's like, wow, you got tracked together. So just asking that vulnerable question, how'd you get there? How'd you deal with your struggles? How'd you deal with your trials? It's the thing everybody has trials and tribulations. And the more you push yourself,

the larger the problems become. mean, dealing with them is the same. Like I had an 18 year old and I was horrible in this when she was probably 12, 13. Like she's worried about, I don't know, make up something stupid. And I'm like, this is nothing. Like there's no reason to be stressed about it. But where I was failing to think about it was that's very real to her as a 12 year old.

The stress that's causing her, even though I think it's nothing, is very real to her. And so as you grow to see them business and life and stuff like that, I don't think the feeling of the stress changes. It's just helping the problem is that you're dealing with. And so, yeah, well, here's one of the things you have to choose your stress because our body is designed for performance. Right. You guys have heard of PTSD, right? Yeah. Have you heard of post-traumatic growth?

I've heard there's been studies on it recently. Yeah. Well, I didn't discover about post-traumatic growth until, you know, I separated in 05, started, you know, focusing on performance psychology and my old mentor, Ken Homayathi, brought me back to family advocacy, doing the outreach to the education promotion. My job is to study what makes relationships great, how to raise great kids, and then share that in the Air Force. And I thought I'd be doing that for a few years because I'd just started.

PhD in Human Capital Management, which I'd love for you guys to call me doctor the rest of the seminar, but it'd be unethical. Because I didn't get an extension on my dissertation. So I finished with a very below-debate master's degree, or what academics call EBD. I got a couple publications, published in a couple of works during that time.

It was actually in that research right so it wasn't until 29 2010 that I realized what the heck is this construct post-traumatic growth. Is that when it started coming out? No no Tetsuchi and Calhoun had been studying that and their first publications was the year 2000. Okay so I know there was a study and I don't know when it came out.

Vietnam veterans yeah so people John McCain people that was in Hanoi Hilton and stuff like there was more senators from the Vietnam era military era yeah that had like John McCain by the best known name that had post-traumatic growth like you would think someone that was in Hanoi Hilton tortured yeah

So he had all these things but he had another starting to call post-traumatic growth. so another study like in 1981 so this was part of this study. They published it in They've been following POWs right. 61 % said they were better because of the experience.

Victor from close man, man search for meeting. I mean, that's that, was a, that was an expected read. My boys have read that book, you know? Um, yeah. Uh, so in 81, they found that 61 % said, yeah, I'm better because of the experience, not in spite of it, better because of it. Um, and, 18 % experience what we now call PTSD at that time, weren't calling it PTSD. And there was some, some consideration that, um,

there's like a head trauma and stuff like that involved with that 18%. Now that doesn't mean that that 61 % are all like, hey, life is great and wonderful. No, some of them still had some anxiousness and anxiety, still had some physical injuries that they were working with. But what they talked about when it came to growth was, hey, you know what? I don't sweat the small stuff anymore. Things that bother other people don't bother me that much. Their risk tolerance was a lot lower. So they were, you know, so you had actually more millionaires.

self-made millionaires, also more business failures, but also feeling I've got the self-confidence, the self-efficacy that, hey, as bad as this is, I can make this work. I'm gonna just keep moving forward, because how bad can you hurt me? I'm a POW survivor. And so what you find is, yeah, even with their physical ailments. So that's post-traumatic growth. And one of the interesting things is when we look at traumatic experiences,

When you take a look at the outliers, people that have great lives, these outliers, once we started to apply the science of psychology to that population, we started researching them rather than just leaving them for motivational speakers like Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins. What we found is that they're not there in spite of life difficulties. The stories look good. It's like, wow, look what they were able to do, how they were able to pull themselves up, or how they were able to navigate this in spite of this difficulty. Guys.

time and time again, they're actually there because of those difficulties. The very same experiences that individuals that are experiencing lasting problems say, because this happened to me, and I'm using it now as an excuse for being stuck, because this happened to me, I'm this way. Isn't there a study with twins on that? They follow like five sets of twins or something. Someone's highly successful, the other twin is like...

you know, down in the dumps or whatever. And they asked them, are you this way? And they said, because my family, you know, both of them said the same thing. And, know, it was on multiple. Oh, yeah. You know, I am this way because my parents suck. I am this way because my parents suck. know, maybe that is the answer. My parents are too hard on me or whatever it is. Yeah. But you can.

And so that's what we said earlier. It's not it's not the weather that's good or bad. It's your perception of the weather and then how you how you how you you handle it, how you deal with it, how you condition for it. Right. Absolutely. And so that study, I'm not really familiar with the twin state, but it sounds like, you could do that with about any family. Yeah, I don't know what any successful individual. I don't know if it's a real study or someone just made up a story for. Yeah,

Yeah, so post traumatic growth, it's a very real thing. And then we used to take a look at human condition. We're actually wired and designed to get stronger, to get better, to grow from difficulty challenge. It's requirement. growth is a struggle is actually a biological requirement to grow. I mean.

I think one of the most common examples is physical activity. You can know how to to get stronger, but you don't get stronger by knowing it. You gotta go do it. And you don't just do it and show up. You gotta do it until you hurt and then do another set. Do a rep until you feel like you can't do anymore and then you still do one or two more. And that's where that pain, that struggle, your muscles tear, but then they heal back.

What's the same thing if you want to learn to do anything? Do you have a pen? Yeah, so this was an exercise, you know, that I had to drop a pen over a thousand times before I got this first spin. Now lot of people can do that. I remember when I was in high school, I knew a couple of guys that were in debate and they in class, man, they just looked smart because they could do the spin toilet for all.

And so remember going home and trying to, I couldn't do it. And so I'm like, all right, well, I'll do this because I can do this, right? This was easy. But everything from the spin twirl.

to, in learning, you have to keep doing it so that that area keeps getting stimulated. And pretty soon, the brain goes, well, Dale keeps firing the Aries in this area here, constraining himself. Only then does it send the, what's it, myelin? Yeah, exactly. Only then does it send the neuro steroids and the hormones responsible for myelinating that pathway.

but it doesn't myelinate until it is extremely uncomfortable. So myelination learns from extreme discomfort. The problem is, what myelinates doesn't care if what is myelinating is helpful or not. So when people go back and they replay an event in experience, well, to some degree you actually relive it. We know that the body responds and every time you go back and you replay it, depending upon the interpretation and then your interpretation of the meaning of that.

is actually then what drives your feelings, right? Not the event itself. Is that part of, if I'm not psychedelics, the stuff that they're doing a lot of studies on, lot of veterans with PTSD are going, am I never doing this? And they're basically causing the brain to fire new pathways and circumventing the trauma, if you will. Is that kind of similar to what you're talking about?

I don't know that specific, but it sounds like it would be. It sounds like they would be going back so that when you go back and you replay it, don't have, many of us think we see the world as it is, and there's an instant in which we interpret it. We make a quick assessment.

But if they're changing the meaning of the experience, it's kind of like exposure therapy. For one, you can desensitize yourself because you keep exposing yourself to an event that at one time was traumatic because of the one-time experience. Well, now you start building more more moments of having that same experience or a like experience without the bad outcome. Pretty soon now this becomes your new pathway.

It's interesting as we're talking about this, thought about it. Cap yet that has nothing to do with we're talking about. Dakota Myers, the Marine, got the medal, he's one that he was an advocate for and he did it and went to Mexico or wherever he went. So I just find it funny, I read recently, he just re-enlisted in the Marines a couple, a weeks ago, month ago or something. And so here he is like talking openly on podcast about.

drug use and know, and now he wasn't there. He had a breaking service, now they just allowed him back in the Marines. just find it funny, obviously he's a medal runner, a recipient, and there's a lot of good publicity from it, yeah, interesting. So with us being business owners, real estate entrepreneurs, a lot of

stuff that I'm kind of working through and trying to figure out is setting up our trust and how we can set up, know, I feel responsible for my kids, kids, at least have a leg up. we've seen how detrimental a handout is for, for kids, especially. And so one of, one of my biggest fears is providing them with too much support to where they don't have a path, you know, the opportunity to go through those life struggles and develop the character needed to preserve it.

So in, I think this is obviously more common when you talk about like Bill Gates and, know, Warren Buffett and all the substantial amount of money, but Warren Buffett's, he's leaving 1 % of his wealth to his kids. And he's like, that should be more than enough for them grants still a billion dollars.

But his kids were like 70, so... Yeah, now, right? So, not as applicable to us with younger kids. But what do you see as far as the silver spoon being detrimental towards kids? Or you see a lot of stories of young athletes that get up into the pros and then they blow it all, or lottery winners, you know, it's all insane.

Well, there's a lot to it back from that because there's so many different studies and so many different things going on from the lottery winners to the kids.

It's, it's, one thing is you can teach your kids about money because, well, we don't have any money.

It becomes tougher for a parent to say, I'm not going to buy that for you because I'm not going to buy that for you. Oh, you can go for it. But I'm not going to. You're right, I can. I can, but you can't. You're right. I can, but I'm not going to. And that's a little bit tougher. And I think as parents, we all want our kids to have a better life than we have. But we've operationalized that in giving our kids an easier life.

And I was telling you about the psychology of focusing on giving our kids a better life so we're giving them an easier life. We want them to be happy, so we're doing the things that will make them happy. instead of doing, in the process of trying to make happy people, we're trying to remove difficulties and challenges and not realizing that's the very thing they need to have early to be happy later.

because the toughest thing a 12 year old experiences, you were kind of talking about it, it's like her clothes or makeup, something like that. But that's because that was the toughest thing that she'd had up until that point. And then the next tough thing will be the toughest thing. And if she has, and this is what we learned from the folks that experienced some sort of trauma, the post-traumatic growth.

They had something that also was so traumatic and so difficult. One of the things they had to learn to do was accept it. man, I can't change this. All I can change is me and how I react to this traumatic experience. Those that can't accept it, they tend to tumble off. Mis-expectations has us all the time asking why. I'm now drifting off from your criminal talk about the kids, you know, for raising the kids...

I'm a big advocate. Well, you can either you give them tools and experiences or well or and as often as possible. So sometimes they're too young to really

and there are only four. So how do I teach them about choosing good friends? Because we know how to make money, how to make decisions are reflective on your friends. Do I make teller 12 and they're making friends? So one of the things that's really useful is taking advantage of the storytelling, the stories at night. If you've got toddlers and really young kids, well, we know that bedtime reading is an incredibly useful tool. One, it's part of the routine. It settles them down. It's prepared for bed.

consistently brush your teeth, let's read some stories or go to bed. Well, now you're also reading your reading them stories. You're having that connection at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how, how mean or bad mom or dad was. We're now reading, we're having this wind down time. Grabbing this connection time. So if you're a busy parent, make sure you're carving out time at the end of the night to make that connection with your child.

And it starts early, but it can continue on. My boys continued to do it in the high school. And that's why, that's one of the things with Riley, decided that he was going to, I shared with him, decided he wanted to go live with his mom, go to high school in Spearfish, South Dakota. I was like, no.

No, we need to keep this routine that we've got. But so you kind of have this nighttime connection. The other thing is the most prominent information out there on academic success is early and frequent reading.

Well, if you're reading with your children every night, they start picking up on that. They find that it's cool. And so some of the books that you read are going to be these early readers books, right? The big pig, Danza Jake, know, they can start to do that. But then also make sure that one of the stories, even when they're really little, because it's just, they're just making a connection with you, is on character. About the character, you know, the traits that you want them to have.

And so that at night before they go to bed, they can get the same message each night, every night, over and over and over and over and over again. So that by the time they're 12 and they need to make a decision on, you know, how to choose a friend, well, they've already made that decision hundreds of times. And so it seems pretty simple to them. It doesn't seem simple to their friends. Otherwise, if you're waiting until then, then you have to deal with that moment.

So when teaching them about financial responsibility, you can have their characters do that in the stories. And I think I talked about this a little bit off camera, but with my boys, with my dad hadn't passed away when I was 15. My dad died, my uncle Dale, whom I named after, passed away a month after he did. Both my grandfathers were gone by the time I was 12. So for me, I'm like...

I'm not gonna live long, right? For me, I had 42 was the height of male adulthood. I didn't project myself getting up much past 42. And I was 15. And so that I kind of set as my mark that my boys are ready for the world. Being a history major, I studied that, well, we're only a few generations removed from.

15 being old enough that you can continue on with high school. You can start working. Since we've been giving our kids an easier life, we've been removing all the very things, the struggles and challenges that helped them to mature and grow. So now the first time they experience something that previous generations experienced earlier, they can't handle it. Academics do this too. They're calling it ad-holt-essence. And it's what they're seeing in 20-somethings in college and how they handle the world.

that previous generations experienced at 16 and 17. And so they were ready for

It's like an extension. And don't tell me college teaches you about the world. We pay for that experience now. Well, we pay for college too, but I mean, what is it? It's an all-expense resort, know, and in hall-inclusive, you pay for a dorm, you got a dorm, you got food facilities that are open at all times. Oh, it's all your same-age peers all up and down that road.

This is awesome. you want to go to a climbing wall? Here you go. Some universities have lazy rivers in them. You know, it's it's an all expenses paid inclusive resort. And they think that's work because they go to class 10 hours a week. They're expected to be in seat. they study on their own, you know, a couple of hours anyway. So don't totally we push that off. So one of the things coming back, I'm bouncing all over the place.

Yeah, but with the childhood thing, frequent early stories, and that's why I'm writing the character collection, right? And each one of the characters right now in the stories that are about to come out this week, by the end of week, is Sophie, is my second oldest. She's the little girl for Sophie to go for. Eloise the bunny, she's my five-year-old granddaughter.

Luke is the youngest. He's a little badger character and then Arthur is just a wild woodland character kind of a cross between a a bear and a squirrel. So, we call him a woodland wonder because there's already the Arthur character from PBS. I don't want to get into any trouble but but you know, that's Riley's son's name is Arthur and so each one of them are representing different character traits under the

the rubrics of psychological capital, which are four constructs, hope, optimism, efficacy, and resilience. So each one of them exhibit one of those specifically. But as they go through in these stories, they run into things that help them to develop their character.

so that individuals can read that book and when their kids are little, we had pre eight pre name understanding. You read it and instead of reading Sophie, you read your child's Now their child is experiencing what Sophie's experiencing, but it's their name. So they feel a greater attachment. And then that area of the brain is though they're actually having that experience is triggered. So it, so it imprints stronger. So if you're reading a book like that and all four characters in there,

exhibit different character traits. Right now each book has a different character with a specific, yeah, so each one is a main character. And then I've also got a series that right now is just in writing for active duty folks who get deployed. And so there's kind of a preface so that our folks, let's say you're getting deployed, it's like, well, man, I just got to get through my deployment. And so you FaceTime your kids and you call them and say, hey, how are you doing? What was your...

You know, if they're real little, they're just squirreling all over the place. And you feel like, and you can't, you can't discipline your kids. So you feel like you can't parent your kids. No, no, no, no. If your goal, as mine was, is to have your kids ready for the world by 15, you know there's certain character traits to have them in their possession by the time they're 15. So then they're ready for the world. Right? Now I'm not.

I'm not having to teach you and tell you. You've got the character traits and I'm asking you, what, do think that's good choice? What are a couple of other choices? know, give them a couple of options to solve every problem. That was the goal at 15. So you start telling them, you start reading these, the stories of the characters, so they start to develop those traits. I haven't lost, the one that I'm doing for military. So.

We don't think, well, hey, your nighttime routine is reading books. Why don't you just record yourself reading the book and flipping the page? Now, each night before your child goes to bed, they still have that same night, character-based stories, story time with mom or story time with dad. You're playing it and there's a, you know, and it cues you when to turn the page so the child can turn the page. But dad's reading the story.

and they're turning the page. once they get up, here's, let me take a look here because these are the ones that I'm really excited for. So.

How long have been working on this? This I've been working on. Actually, it's been an idea for years. And I've been telling people to

So here's like story number five, and I'm calling it the character audiobook series because you create your own audio.

So you do it first when you got the book, you're sitting down with them. So, and there's a parent monologue that the parent can read into that. So it's like the child when they're little, it's like, oh, that's talking to me before story time, the same kind of little breakdown you would have. And it's like, hey, so here's an example. Hey, they're a brave heart. Today I saw something that made me smile. Someone who didn't give up, even when I got hard. They messed up, they got muddy, tired again. And that reminded me of Sophie the Goat.

She had a really big idea, but things didn't go quite right at first. Want to hear what happened? And so you can actually read that in before you get deployed. then, so Sophie the Gopher woke up with a plan. I'll dig the best tunnel that ever began. It would twist, it would turn, it would loop like a vine, and it goes on. But it's about, you know, this digging in and being persistent. So there's that.

I this comes out this week. Oh this one here, the other, the other stories are coming out this week. The one with the use of the grandkids. Um, this one is probably going to take a few more, uh, probably another month because I'm going to want, this week around the time this comes out, right? Yeah, that would be pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty close. So it's a, yeah, it's a, and it's a picture book. It's designed for the three to seven, uh, range. And so they can kind of flip them. So how do people find

Are these on Amazon? they? Yeah, yeah, they'll be self-published on Amazon. Links in the description. This is all self-figuring out. So this was, and this became my, I needed to start writing it down because my son Taylor, he's like, Dad, you should, you gotta put down those books, you gotta put down the stories. And he thought I was reading them somewhere. I'm like, no, I just kind of made them up.

Well, when I have a family, I want you to read these stories. Going back a little bit, we talked about kind of how the stigma around counseling is detrimental and you see it movies all the time, the, you know, laying on the couch and just complaining about problems. I mean, like you talked about parental principle maybe is that there is a certain percentage of clinicians that are

Probably not doing the best for the clients or the patients rather. Do you think that the stigma around it is accurate or is it kind of an unfair assessment of when people need to go out and get help? And especially we talk about mental health and military, which is a huge issue. It is kind of an issue. I we're seeing a lot, we're seeing that stigma being taken away.

In fact, we now have a population that they're using their mental health as an excuse for a reason for bad behavior, stuff like that. So yeah, they'll go to a counselor, but they're going to a counselor because I'm seeing a counselor and this continues to give me... But then others that don't, it's like, well, what if I go to somebody and they tell me to do something? Some people know what to do. They just don't have the...

you know, they don't have that extra push or gumption to do it. So I think for some, you know, there are some bad clinicians out there and there are, I think what's happening a lot is people are going to clinicians that aren't good for them. Right? I mean, what vehicle do you drive? Four Taurus. Okay. So why don't you have an F-150 truck?

That's a question. If you're not hauling stuff, it's like, man, that's a lot more gas. You have what fits for you. It's kind of like, well, what vehicle?

small SUV. Why? Well, because that's the best fit for me. If I got into a sedan right now, I'm like, oh, this isn't a good fit for me. Well, it's sometimes the same. I don't know if that's the best analogy, but it's kind of the same thing for therapists. Now, you hop in and you start talking to therapists and you think they're all the same.

You think their style is all the same. So if you're going to go to a therapist, think find one that's whose style matches your goals and your objectives. And do you think that, I mean, maybe it's a chicken and egg scenario, but because of this perpetual victimhood of people coming and just, you know, looking for cop outs, is that causing clinicians to kind of be dismissive and then lowering their standard of effective care?

that's a good question. I mean...

You've talked on several things I could get in trouble on. We start talking about victim with culture and yes it exists but what percentage we can't globalize it you know what percentage of it is you know.

taking a look at all of that. Well, and I think that to say the victimhood culture, like you said, there's people that use it a lot. And for my time in the military, came in 2013 and got out in 2023. During that time, we called them the sick call bunny, you know, because they're just constantly finding a reason to get out of PT in the morning to go to sick call and, you know, whatever.

And I can't do that because of my anxiety or whatever. And it's becoming more and more common because it is without excuse because we do prioritize mental health more. then in order, think it's because it's more social, socially accepted. Like it's talked about more. So, right. Right. And because you can't just, there is an ethical issue with having to differentiate, oh, they're just faking it and then something happens and you know,

So I understand that perspective, but it's like in real estate, we have professional tenants, people that learn how to the system. know that when they don't have to pay their rent, the people that learn to beat the system make it much more difficult for the ones who are truly trying to provide good service. So you're talking about these, you know, the sick call money, that person that's always sick. What percentage is that? And what happens is you start projecting that as being the whole group.

Rather than just follow him. It always seems like more than it actually is. Yeah, yeah.

So I guess ask and take from another area. How do you find a good clinician? How do you find that person that's right for you? Well, I think you gotta take a look at your goals and your objectives.

If I'm making a recommendation, for me, it's the methodologies that they use. Because sometimes you'll have like clinical social workers such as myself, you we have two years, we get licensed, licensed and you've got a counselor, but most of my counseling experiences, the therapist comes after my schooling, right? So there's not a lot in the schooling because there's so many other things that need to be, so many other classes, programs, and things like that in the education.

How do you find one? I think you gotta take a look at what your goals and your objectives are. For me personally, the most effective tools out there, anything under the cognitive behavioral models are the most effective. And I'm a big fan of the ACT or the active commitment therapy style.

One is you kind of, acceptance and commitment. So you have to accept the situation is what it is, right? mean, early Stoics in your religious, know, everything from Buddhism to Islam to Christianity has some version of acceptance, which itself is an incredible superpower.

We had the serenity prayer. Lord, help me to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Now, the whole prayer itself is a beautiful prayer, but we mostly noticed that one point. So, the acceptance community says, hey, what are your goals? What are your values?

where you're going and then accept your current situations, your current difficulties. Mindfulness is very highly involved in the ACT.

cognitive behavioral theory, a CBT model, is your activating events, then your beliefs of those events actually drive how you feel and what you do, which is why we can all experience the same event and have very different responses to it. Why? Because your interpretation of it is, God, why in the world is that guy being such a jerk? And you're like, oh man, that person was probably just busy. You're gonna be irritated and angry, and you're gonna be like, just blow it off.

your beliefs, the meaning that you make.

how you feel what you do predominantly so and intuitively we know that and intuitively you already know that because if we're going to

Dude, we go out and have a drink and be like, Dale, did you thought about it like this? I know what you, I'm hearing what you're saying, what think, you know, we can or did was, it right? But did you think that maybe he meant this or he meant that? Because intuitively, you know, that if I change the way I think about the situation, I'll change how I feel. So we do this all the time with others, but we are terrible advice takers for ourselves because I feel it and boom, because I feel it, must be real.

And because I feel it strongly, ooh, it must certainly be the truth. And it's not. It's just that belief, that B between the A and the C. It's that B that's driving the C. That's what we always try to tell our kids. Tell them, your feelings are real, but disassociating the behavior that comes from the feelings. Like you can be angry. Being angry is a feeling. Punching the wall is a behavior associated that you're...

You're saying I did it because I'm angry. No, you did it because you're an idiot.

But and so that's what we try to disassociate the behavior from the feelings. Yeah. Now I want to encourage you to you wanted to have emotional control so that they can feel bad but make sure they're feeling bad to the right degree right as their self-sacrifice. How do we be being angry is easy but being angry the right degree in the right way for the right reasons for the right purpose that's not so easy and that comes with how do I interpret each situation and know that like my boy was like okay

So what are three ways to look at this? And how might you respond if you have felt that way? So everything from the stories to then some of their early life experiences condition them to see it and know that different feelings can be associated from the same event seeing it different ways and Not a clinical way, but in a fun playful way, you know taking the stop

No, I was gonna say I heard something similar to that recently instead of talking directly to your kids about them Talk to them about their friends because they're more They'll be more giving with information and then ask them well, what's three things your friends?

defensive and yeah it just played off from what you were saying. That's a really that's a good one I'm I'd always ask them what are three things you would do I guess I would sometimes do that when we when my boys were little and again I was trying to get them ready by 15.

One thing that I know from marketing and advertising, if there's a message you want your child to have, right, you introduce it to them. Something that's important enough for you sit down and talk to them about it. And then as a parent, think our job is done. No, no, no, no. If you want your child to behave the way you desire, and you're sitting down talking to them, in the next 24 hours, put the message and the desired behavior in front of them five more times, indirectly, right? So it's in the story that you're reading later that night.

It's that, hey guys, could you be quiet? I need to talk to your mom. And they're like, what is he saying? You know, now they're in on the conversation. Because you just deliberately made a scene about them being quiet because you got something important to say to their mom.

I don't want you guys to hear this. You they're coming in. Or you sit down at the dinner table and you go, hey, I had this interesting thing that happened today. What do you guys think? What interesting thing happened to you? And then you share that story there. You're watching TV and you pause the TV and you say, hey, do you know why this is your Uncle Wade's favorite part of the movie? It's because every time Hercules keeps getting knocked down, he gets back up, he doesn't quit. Anyway, look at me.

—----------

You know, because my brother, their uncle Wade, he's always super cool. You know, he didn't get married until late. He's the one that bought him a battery operated Jeep and every loud toy that I didn't want him to have. You know, so like, hey, what do you... So did they pay attention to that at night? The other thing is, now we have this. It's like you ask the older sibling, hey, maybe you can help me out. How do you think your sister can handle this? I got this video.

Now she's watching the video, but the area of her brain that's being stimulated is one for attention and learning, which is in the pre-film cortex. If you ask her, hey, honey, there's something I want to talk to you about. I think you need to hear from me or you can watch this video. Well, right away they're like, this is comfortable. Yeah, and that area of the brain gets triggered because her heart rate changes. So the blood's flowing to the amygdala, which is that fight or flight response. And so they're just wanting to get through it.

So the area the brain is going to retain isn't being stimulated. Now if you ask them for their advice, now they're thinking differently and that area is actually getting programmed. Kind of similar to, and that's what made me think of that, that specific example was triggered when you were talking about the friends. You know what really helps out is when you ask a younger kid, hey, I'm gonna share this with your sister. I don't know if you're old enough for this yet, but maybe you are. I want you to watch this, right?

or any idea that you want to talk to them about. That's incredible. On manipulation. I do have question about that, but first, we're talking about how different people can experience the same event. Do you believe there's an important distinction between perception and perspective? Perception and perspective. Yeah, so the example I've heard this, I don't know if it was a humor man or what, but they're talking about

car accident yeah absolutely he's doing a good job of bringing a lot of stuff to a practical usable level absolutely and and it was something about you know if there's a car accident and two people witness car accident you know one will say that there was you know a dog in the car and it was a red car and it hit the you know purple truck whatever

And then the other person will say, dog in the car hit the purple chariot. it's, basically the difference of, if I think of perspective as where the two people are standing, he saw the dog first, this person saw the vehicle first and then, and then notice the drivers, but the perception, you know, comes down to more of what caused the accident. Well, the dog was in the way of the field of view and they caused the accident. So in looking at any kind of issues, especially we talked about,

kids are raised experiencing the same traumas, how their perception of an event is chained by their beliefs and their...

prior experiences, whereas the perception or perspective of the events is from their lens. And so two people can witness the same event, but they have different things that they notice first. So have you, I might be going off on a tangent, but. Well, I think I was wanting the differentiation because I'm certain there is. That would be something for me to explore because right away when you say that, know there, I believe there's probably a difference.

But I would blend up. And I think typically they are blended. And the distinction to me, I just try and think of like, I think of the perception as the angle of what you're looking at things and.

or the perspective and the perception is your internal beliefs of the situation. Yeah. Yeah. So one does influence the other. your perspective would influence your perception. Yeah. You said something I want to... But it doesn't determine. simply influences. When Tanner asked you that question, you responded back, I have to look into it. I have to study that.

So you're already established in your career, been doing this for over 25 years. How do you stay at the cutting edge of, because there's no.

There's no external thing pushing you to further your education. There's come a problem with doctors in general is you got your medical degree 50 years ago and you haven't taken another class since then. So how do you stay relevant in your job so that you provide the best care for your patients or, you know, just watching podcasts or whatever it is, what's kind of your, your take on that?

Well, for me, what I do is not a job. The job is how I am who I am. I mentioned my mission statement before. Before I got into this this avenue, I was an officer in the Air Force when I wrote in my mission statement, I'm going to be a world-class father.

husband, friend, and leader, and I'm going to provide the nation's most successful life enhancement programs through speaking, writing, coaching, and consulting, and to be a living example of fitness character, Olivia's 413, right? It is what you will see in the beginning. And that's a faith statement that kind of encompasses everything. So you have, like in all things through Christ, it structures me in your- Yes. In your- Yep. Yeah. And my buddy Pat and I, we call it the silent 10. 10 words, you know, we-

we didn't, but when we were track across country runners, know, getting Catholic high school, we just had to do this. Like instead of a high five, you know, this would be our 10 and it'd be, but we didn't connect. That was your silent 10 and it's like it's 413. So, but yeah, so it was, it's the mission. So going back to your question, it's really the mission statement. So I don't just, you know,

try a certified Myers-Briggs trained facilitator and I can use the tools, but that's not the only personality tool, right? If I wanted to be good at understanding personalities, I might get into this one system and become an expert in the system. But my goal is not to be an expert in the system. My goal is to provide the nation's most successful life enhancement programs. So what other tools are out there that are like the Myers-Briggs? You've got the disk, you've got the...

Gallup strengths, there's a lot of correlations and a lot of stuff in gallup strengths who's using what and so it's like keep exploring keep exploring keep exploring I've got there's a lot of clinicians out there getting my model of methodology is more coaching and mentoring as a you know if I'm doing any kind of clinical work and I don't do much of that I haven't done much of that for quite some time well

that I would call clinical accounts. I do couples counseling, relationship counseling. I refer to my model more as coaching. Clinically trained, used to do much more therapeutic style modeling.

Is there an important distinction between being a clinician, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, other than just the degree level? Okay, so yeah, there is the degree level. I don't know if I was really clear in my description earlier, but yeah, so you've got your therapists. There tend to be master's level licensed therapists, right? And there's a lot of colleges all over having different kinds of

counseling degrees. Now many people want to get into counseling and then they are a little dissatisfied when they get this counseling degree that there's no money and no jobs because your insurance companies won't pay for many of them. Right? If you want, you've got to kind of be what it's kind of referred to as the big three social work, psychology or psychiatry. So that's why for a long time active duty military, don't, they don't, you could be a little

but they don't hire therapists, right? So you come in as an officer, you're an officer, you're social worker, you social work billets, psychology billets, psychiatry billets, because of the education, the testing, and so it's just more, there's a credibility issue there.

So social workers, other counselors, they tend to be master's levels, two years of education, they get licensed, they do it, they may follow a particular model or methodology, therapeutic model. Psychologists, PhD level, they're more specialized, they've done a dissertation and become an expert in a small narrow window, and maybe then also some training on particular therapeutic models. And then psychiatry, well that's your medical provider.

They're, you know, they got a medical degree and they focus on psychiatry. And you mentioned before, when we talked about the dissertation that you wanted the knowledge that could be acquired through going towards your doctorate, but you didn't really care much about that, you know, PhD at the end of your name. Is there,

I is there a categorical difference between having that PhD at your name that you've seen in practice? Or is it the, you believe in the good that you're able to provide? Believe me, I wanted the PhD at the end of my name. You definitely want that because that's a mark that says, you've done this, you've checked it off. But, help me understand the question. So for example, right now I'm

studying for the LSAT to go to law school and I don't intend to ever be a practicing attorney. don't know that I'll ever, you know, try and pass the bar, but I want the knowledge that can be acquired by going to be my JD. And if I get all the way to the end of my senior year and decide that I'm not going to finish that last year, I've acquired the knowledge for it.

to me, my values, that's enough for me. That JD is nice, know, looks nice in your name, but it's not something that I attach a ton of value to. And I'm just curious how that works in the medical field. that, and you're in the PhD and then also the institution you get it from matters. Yeah, it does. It does because there's a certain assumption that's going to come whether you've got it or you don't. And.

For me, I pursued it because of my interest to become, know, to provide the nation's most successful life enhancement programs, through speaking, writing, coaching, consulting. My goal was not to get a PhD, but I still ran into the same, I'm an idiot, I'm a loser, I don't get this. And yeah, it was very, very rigorous, you know? And so.

That's why it's a little bit easier, I think, for me, because of why I went for the PhD. And this was the, that was one of the vehicles I used. Now, if you want to use law school as a vehicle to get there, you're going have to ask yourself, how much am I willing

you know am I going to get that kind of return back on my investment. Now I had the post 9-11 bill and so the military helped pay for the predominant part of this PhD which is another reason why I feel you know a certain amount of loyalty and commitment to continue to work with.

Department of Defense, you know, I'm still I'm using this because I got paid to do that if I were paying for it on my own I probably would have just Doubled down on what I was was and continued to do which is reading lots of books as consuming books and a high rate we talked a lot about you know about reading and listening And maybe some other classes stuff like that

But I don't know if that helps out because it was the avenue that worked for me because I had it. Right. Well, the segue that I'm getting to, are you familiar with the movie Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey? So my favorite movie, I'm still trying to get him to watch it, so I'm going put it on your list too. But in the movie, he's

astronaut and he's faced with the opportunity to fulfill his life's purpose of going, you know, in outer space and going on this big mission. But in doing so, he left his kids under the care of his father and there's a whole, I mean, general relativity concept and time dilation and he winds up losing 50 years and comes back. His kids are grown and all this stuff. And so one of the notes that I have was in relation to Man's Search for Meaning and

that life's meaning is not always found in personal achievement but in responsibility to others. And because you already had outlaid or laid out your...

purpose or mission statement, you had a core set of values to weigh every decision that you were making against that. And if pursuing, know, going back to school again and going to PhD or whatever that was didn't fit that mission statement, then you have a lens of what you can make that decision. I think too often people don't have any set of core values to weigh that decision off of. But I'm curious of your thought about that in relation to the man search for meaning. Oh, I absolutely agree. I think that's why

faith and organize people like, well, you don't have to have an organized religion to have a relationship with guidance. Yeah, but what's your framework, right?

What rules, you know, I have a mission statement which helps me and it's influenced by, but what's kind of creating the guardrails so that you, you know, that helps you decide what is your sense of meaning and your sense of purpose. You mentioned Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Fantastic, fantastic read. I encourage anybody who watches the podcast and I encourage everybody else to read the book. One, it's an easy read too. know, especially the first half. Yeah.

part yeah well that's what he's because he's the father of logos therapy right purpose through therapy and and I've seen a lot of people just be frustrated but once you said once you have a sense of purpose that you start and you then you start moving your actions towards that purpose all of a sudden it's like they start to clear up for their mind is not busy thinking about all this other crap

and overthinking what might happen or could happen, they now have this sense of purpose, they've got this sense, and it changes the direction of their thoughts thus it changes how they feel and what they do.

And I, the sense of purpose and meaning, Victor Frankl's book can kind of also help you get there. I use Stephen Covey's model of having a personal mission statement. There's a lot of tools out there. Well, and some of the powerful things, if I'm not mistaken, was Victor Frankl, like right at the beginning of when he went into the camp, he threw away his wedding ring. One, because he knew that they were going to steal it from him and cut his finger off for it. And two, it was

like a token of acceptance that his wife was gone. And I think that through that and then maintaining the positive, like positivity, they've done many studies on how the people who made it out of there were the ones that were certain that they were going to from the beginning. And they lived every day knowing that they were going to get out.

And so, I mean, some people call it manifesting, some it's, you know, opportunity searching, but I think that there, there's been a lot more studies now as far as the body's ability to heal itself through that power of positivity. Yeah. And thinking or even having meaning of reason for living goal from day to day. Right. It's like, you know, those that chose to help others that chose to be, you know, the bulk medic or whatever.

It's like, okay, they tended to self-sacrifice themselves and it's like, my gosh, you're on the cusp of death, but yet you're giving your share, your portion to somebody else. How in the world did they sustain? Well, they're sustaining because of that sense of spirit, because of this sense that actually fills me. I think, I don't wanna confuse my stories, but I'm pretty sure it was in Victor Frankl's...

Revelation which one of the guys that he observed me just like he had he was done with it. He's like I'm out of here

I can't stand this anymore. And you know, people is like, I can't stand this anymore. I'm just done with this, right? Kind of like, I'm just exhausted. I just want to quit. I just want to give up. And they watch him like, erratically leave the barracks. They thought he's going to run for the fence. It's his death by suicide. And so they kind of followed him up, but he didn't take off, right? He actually didn't move to the side of the barracks and just kind of put his back against the wall and just kind of leave now. By the time they got to him, he died.

And he just quit living. And I'm pretty sure it was in Victor Frankl's book, but the author had said, that's what I knew that, you know, it's kind of, it's a decision. Three stories from like personal money. my senior year, there was the second day of my senior year, walked into the school and my first out of period teacher died. He was older.

pray in the 70s or something like that. Anyhow, his wife called to school and I went to Catholic school as well. She called to school, I told to school during the conversation, I don't know if I could go on living without him. She died that same day. And then both my grandmas, one of my grandmas, she was 40 when she had my mom.

So she was older. She always told me, I'm gonna live to be 100. I'm gonna to be 100. I'm gonna live to be 100. She made it, you know, 97, 98 something like that. And then she died right before her 98th birthday. But the night she passed, my mom was there and she said, you know, mom, you lived a

And she passed away 30 minutes later. My other grandma, she was passing away. And so I got the phone call. you know, my mom was passing away. I said, I'm going to go try to make it there before she goes. Anyhow, she was about to go to a coma and she heard him saying, Ryan's on his way. She, in my opinion, waited to pass away until I got there.

And as I was leaving the hospital after getting there, she, uh, like, don't think I was out in the parking lot when she passed away. So it was just like, I do believe that, like I said, just from those three personal things that I've gotten to witness that the mind is super strong in that, in that regard, like when it's your time, it's your time and you know it and you can, you have some say so to some degree in that. So I'm reading a book right now.

experiences and talking about like going through the tunnel and you know they all they all have similar stories and they take the scientific approach saying well it could have been this but you know

You know, this is the testimony of this person and they have so many cases of it happening over the last, I 40 years. And I mean, the overall theme of the book is like, it possible that all of these experiences of people who have never met in opposite parts of the world had a similar experience and they're all justified by science? And so I like that kind of stuff. the one thing that

With all the training and knowledge that you have, is it something that you feel like you can turn off or do you have this constant, you're constantly reading people? Yeah. Well, I think that it helps and it hurts because everybody's reading people all the time. Right. And that's one of the crazy things. It's like a lot of issues with psychology is like, well, you know, I'll think about something. I'll think about it over and over and over over again. You say, well, just stop thinking about it.

Yeah, all right. But I'm going to think about it. I'm to experience it. So turning it off, I think it helps me to make assessments. But we're always reading. And that's one of the interesting things about the human condition. We're always trying to interpret what's somebody else thinking? What's their motivation? We're and so, yeah, I use it and I got it turned on a lot.

So I think it's helpful because it helps you understand everything's to degrees. Right. Well, then, I mean, is there an ethical boundary there, too, where, you know, if I want my kids to continue doing something and I just decide to give them an every single time I do something I like, is that, you know, is using the bank theory, right? is there using classical conditioning, even if it's not with malice, with, you know, manipulative intention, is that an

issue. That's a good question because I think we live our whole life using the information we have to try to get the results we you're always manipulating everything in some some way shape or form. All the time. Yeah so we're always using what we know to get what we want right. Whether consciously or subconsciously.

Yeah, and I think the answer that I have for myself, which I don't know if it's right or not is intention is if the intention is Is good at which I mean there's much deeper conversation there, but oh, yeah Who says your intentions? Yeah, exactly. Are you using it for good for evil? Yeah Chris boss

never split the difference. Love that work. Now I'll share that with folks for communication. So you can use it to improve your communication. And what I like about that is they understand the person. But then it's like, well, are you using it to manipulate them? Are you using this technique, which works really well, maliciously or not?

You mentioned that one of the funny stories in the book is where he's out on a boat with Sam's son and one of his coworkers and the guy's literally using Chris Voss' technique against him on the boat, know, manipulating him, just asking all these open-ended questions. Finally, his son Brandon's like, has enough. He's like, dad, are you not realizing what he's doing to you?

Yeah, that's it. So that's something to do because in some people it's just in their nature, which is why they're a success and they're a natural success. Sometimes they're just naturally successful because we stumble on certain methods or something like that. That is how that person is. So one of the writing questions, I got a bunch, but I'm filtering through them.

What do you see in this world through your line of work or perspective that is broken and you believe is beyond repair? What actions or mindset shifts need to happen in order to change or repair that in society?

What stuff in our society is broken?

Yeah. I mean, I think some of the common themes that we see coming up is the effect of fatherlessness in homes and, you know, trauma responses. You know how

parenting how important parenting is at a young age that you've talked about I think that us looking at the education system and the influence it has on our kids and their beliefs and how they see themselves growing up as well as the subconscious things that they're picking up from the shows and YouTube videos and stuff we are very protective about those things I don't know what the one-size-fits-all societal fix for all that is. I don't know either especially with the prevalence of this. Why did the problem

not to pick on the questioner, but I think the problem with society isn't a question. And what I mean by that is like, we always put everything in our perspective. And like, we're always right versus searching for what right is. And so when you ask that question from that frame, you're saying that my way is right and everybody has to.

fall in line with my way of thinking and I guess that's my problem. I'll pick on a miracle of this with our always pushing our doctrine out to all these other nations is we're telling all these other nations that their way of life is wrong. Their religious beliefs are wrong. Their, you know, social context is wrong and ours is right. So we're going to make you like us versus

just being a melting pot that America was formulated on. So, you know, that's my soapbox for the moment. So, yeah, I I don't disagree at all. We talked before, before the podcast about, you know, the

And that's one of my favorite parts of studying for law school is just that I like studying them I don't like being in yes, absolutely Yes, but I think that it's important to study them because we don't know how we'll react in a specific scenario unless we've already addressed it like if you know if you're

working out track and field, you don't know how to jump over that hurdle unless you've trained for it. And so the same, think is true with your mindset of being ready for these kinds of ethical dilemmas because they're constant. And we talked about the more drastic examples of if you could cure cancer, but one of your kids had to die, would you do it? then there's obviously the trolley problem, which, are you familiar with that? So basically there's one person stuck

on a track and then there's five people stuck on another track and the train's heading towards the five people. Do you change the direction of the track to go towards the one person, you know, rather than kill five? And the whole, I mean, there's utilitarianism and de-intelogica.

was it deontological? I think I said that word wrong. But is of decision-making. I think that identifying those things and bringing that all back to...

raising lions is about practical ways to be better parent to the kids so that they grow up to think on their own two feet. there's a lot going on and I don't even know how the world would keep up with this kind of stuff. When I say this kind of stuff I'm talking about the technology.

in its vibration our knowledge based on the technology to I know I thought great of that like I gotta know it all because it's all in my fingertips I watched a podcast last night before and I'm Googling stuff in there like or not going to HPT and like going way in depth on all this stuff yeah doesn't really matter

it's just and then yeah and I'm doing that while my wife is next to me playing a game and we got the TV on and we're watching it, you know, the latest Mission Impossible. we're ready when we go to the theater. You know, and there's and there's and there's no there's no connection there. Yeah. My wife was reading something. Yeah. don't know what she was reading but yeah, it is interesting that we do that. I got the TV. got this going. My wife's reading next to me. We're all

We're all kind of going in different directions. Even though we're in the same place. It's funny talking about the mental health institutes. Nicole and I were watching a show last night that was talking about it and they were talking deeply about the presence of demonic spirits in those facilities. And my mother-in-law worked at one for many years and just through God's grace alone, wanted to, her and my father-in-law moved up here.

And the week after they moved up here, one of her coworkers was stabbed and died at the facility. so we, Mr. Nicole, I've been talking a lot about, you know, the presence of demonic spirits and that, and that, you know, it's not the people themselves that are inherently bad, it's their spirit. And obviously us coming from a more religious background, I do believe that there's a lot of truth to that.

So, I mean, what should people be doing in their daily practices to combat those inner demons that, you know, if they don't build up the resilience to, we'll overcome them. Oh, are we actually talking like demonic possession kind of thing? I think there's a range there. There's a huge range because there's just our psychological discomfort. I don't know if you noticed, I don't know if that came up because of...

the Saint Benedict medal that you observed that I was wearing. But Saint Benedict is the patron saint of education, but it's also his name that's invoked in the Benedictine order that does the exorcisms and the Catholic faith. And the prayer is actually on the outside of the medal itself. So each of these letters represent the start of a Latin verse that is designed. It's like, how did it go?

The Holy Spirit lead me, may the dragon always follow or never be behind me, Satan be gone. What you tempt me is, do not tempt me with your vanities. What you offer is evil, drink from the poison cup yourself. So those are the essential English words that come from the Latin verse.

And that's what's often invoked in exorcisms. And so it's interesting you said to me, because the breakfast group, the guys I get together with on Fridays, we were just talking about that. Ted Plunkett brought that up in one of the chapters we were on about.

There's something out there and it's beyond the understanding. mean psychology we'd like to say again we we know it works for most people most of the time but our dirty little secret is we the field of psychology doesn't know everything about everything.

So there's some interesting stuff out there. I think too, you know? But that's where I think being spiritually healthy, having good faith, having good community makes it really helps to protect you, think. I agree there. Well, I hear my dog barking and scratching and everything else. It's normally pretty quiet, but it's a little noisier this one.

So I know Tanner's got 200 questions on his phone, but I do. Part two after the book release. Do you have anything? guess, how do you find the, if I'm watching this and I want to see your books, how do I find them? So I just go to Amazon. Yeah, that would be it. mean, this was, is the first time I've even talked about it because I haven't even been published. The only ones that buy them are just my kids. Yep.

Yeah, we need a tangent. We do a lot of just one-on-ones and we love to go on tangents So we appreciate the insight and glad we were able to get you on. There's so many different reasons. You kind of touched a little bit on education. Things changed through the 90s and 2000s.

you know, focus on kids being healthy and happy and emotions and basically we started making life easier for them, removing the obstacles, the very challenges that they needed. So rather than giving them, know, pushing to point of almost being frequently uncomfortable, we've taken away the discomfort. And so, yeah. So I think the answer to the last question that I had.

To me, it sounds like everything that you're doing with the books and everything, putting those into daily practice of, keeping positivity and positive character building, you know, in front of the kids is probably, I would say the most important things I gathered from this. think, think appreciating that struggle is normal, actually struggles are requirement. So what is it you want to struggle at versus I don't want to be uncomfortable.

Because the new study in research on stress, well, stress is coined, was first coined observing a rat's reaction to being stabbed. It turns out they don't like being stabbed, whether they were stabbed with a hormone or they were stabbed with a saline solution. So the reaction was the same and they called it the stress reaction. Well, in most of the medical research on the pot.

response to stress isn't even done with humans. It's done with cats, rats, and dogs. And then they extend it to humans. Because the difference between humans and animals is when you are experiencing something stressful is you change the meaning and you change your biological response. The performance of an athlete versus somebody who's anxious, the anxiety response is almost identical.

except for I shouldn't say the body response when you change the heart rate to go from being a little bit erratic kind of that startling and you're and you're you're you're breathing shallow well that's why rhythmic breathing works not because the rhythmic breathing calms you down you don't want to be calmed down rhythmic breathing your breathing rhythm talks to your heart your heart rhythm goes from being erratic

sending all, shutting down your, closing up your vessels and sending the blood flow to the amygdala so you got this automatic fight or flight response. But your rhythmic breathing then changes it so that your heart rate is still at like 110 beats per minute, but it's in rhythm, which is synced up to what we see with high profile athletes. When you're in flow.

when you're losing time because you're excited about something. This is excited. This is anxious. physiology isn't much different except for your heart rate. And once your heart rate changes, the blood goes to the prefrontal cortex. And now you're seeing things on the periphery. What other options are there? And so like everything from world-class athletes to our special forces folks.

Rhythmic breathing is so important, not because they want you to be less stressed. They want you to be better stressed. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the big thing. We don't want to have, we don't want fewer problems. We just want to be better at handling problems. But we've had a society where we're like, okay, well, we don't want people to feel.

stressors and struggles. I think we're gonna have a bit of a shift and if we don't, only those of us that understand that struggle and challenge is part of the growth process, we're going to continue to develop our environment, our communities, our kids, and you're gonna get a greater and greater deficit. It goes back to choose your heart, right? Yeah. It's funny. I owe it. Anyhow, yeah.

how things resonate with you here and it's so much. I've said on the podcast so many times, I didn't even realize like that I've stolen it from other people. So yeah. Choose your suck. And that was one more officer had used that term. I'm like, I want to start stealing. Well, now I really appreciate it. Pleasure meeting you. Pleasure chatting.

Yeah, absolutely man.