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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This podcast is designed to help with suicide prevention. That is the #1 goal! This is also a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
The early podcast episodes are a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Discusses my own suicide ideations and attempt that I struggled with for most of my life. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures.
Hosting guests who have overcome suicide attempts/suicide ideations/trauma/hardships/difficult situations to fight through it, rise up, and live their best life. Real life stories to help others that are going through difficult times or stuck without a path forward, understand and learn there is a path forward.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 55: Bombs, Books, and Brain Rewiring with Cole Grace
Cole Grace shares his journey from combat veteran struggling with PTSD to mental wellness advocate, offering practical tools for managing mental health and improving quality of life through his book "Internal is Greater than External: Calming the Chaos Within."
• Combat veteran who performed route clearance and IED disposal in Iraq
• Experienced "little T traumas" in childhood that created patterns of people-pleasing and anxious attachment
• Developed severe physical health problems after radiation exposure during military service
• Struggled with addiction after doctors stopped prescribing pain medication during the opioid crisis
• Used self-help resources and personal writing to overcome negative thought patterns
• Wrote a book that emphasizes the importance of prioritizing internal wellbeing over external achievements
• Developed practical techniques including gratitude practices, positive affirmations, and personal mission statements
• Advocates for neuroscience-backed approaches to changing thought patterns
• Currently lives in Costa Rica after receiving 100% VA disability rating
• Emphasizes that mental health practices must become lifestyle changes to be effective
You can find Cole's book on Amazon by searching "Cole Grace" and follow him on YouTube @Seagrace21 or Instagram @Seagrace2180_.
Go to https://www.brandonheld.com and subscribe to my podcast and support the show!
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
BrandonHeld.com iPad drawing for Life Coaching clients
Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy. I got a great guest today. His name's Cole Grace. He's a combat veteran and I've been so excited to talk to him that I tried to get him on earlier, but our schedules just didn't align. So we finally got to it today. We finally have time to get him on earlier, but our schedules just didn't align. So we finally got to it today. We finally have time to get together today, and he's a, like I said, a combat veteran who struggled with PTSD for over 20 years, and he wrote a book about practical ways to manage your mental health and improve your quality of life, and we'll get into all that later. So let's just start with introduction. How are you doing today, cole? I'm doing great man.
Speaker 2:I'm visiting back in Michigan. I live in Costa Rica right now, so visiting family, but I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:Oh, sorry, you have to be in Michigan. I'm from Ohio. I'm an Ohio State fan. He knows that we just play with each other, all right. So give everyone, like a couple sentence, overview of who you are and what you're about.
Speaker 2:All right, A thousand foot view? I don't know. I've lived a lot of lives already, Started off in young childhood. I was born in Houston, Texas, and my dad was doing hurricane work. He's sober now, but at the time he was an alcoholic and drug addict, and so my years zero to four before my parents divorced was a little tumultuous, but it wasn't anything crazy. There was no like physical abuse, sexual abuse or anything like that. I'd call it big T trauma. And then from there life normalized out. Around eight years old I met my stepdad. I went through school, played sports, Joined the military so that I could go to a college that I wanted to go to.
Speaker 2:That was before 9-11, right before 9-11 happened, Ended up deploying in 2005 to go to Iraq as a route clearance or IED disposal team and then returned home from Iraq with chronic illness, systemic problems and different things that were service connected and eventually was medically discharged in like 2008 and I went back to school through like vocational rehabilitation for computers something that was a little more schedule friendly or lenient with being able to work from home, and I worked back for the government lenient with being able to work from home, and I worked back for the government in the general schedule as a civilian and I was an IT project manager for it's called TACOM LCMC it was a life cycle management logistics for the army. And then I continued to have the stomach issues and issues that I had after service and they didn't get better and they were deemed to be permanent and total service and they didn't get better and they were deemed to be permanent in total. And then I was retired from federal service and 100% permanent in total from VA in like 2020 and then I moved to Costa Rica in 2022 and was divorced in 2024, wrote, finished writing the book in 2025, published it. Then I've been doing podcasts and speaking about the book and mental health and trying to normalize the conversation around mental health.
Speaker 1:All right. So yeah, that's a lot to chew off there that we can dive into. Let's just start with childhood. I always like to start there with everybody. I know you gave us a little. You had a dad that was an alcoholic at the time, but you weren't abused or anything like that. But just talk through your childhood and the environment you were in and what frame of mind that put you in to lead you into adulthood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, there's like some little T traumas, things, my dad being an alcoholic and drug addict. And then at six weeks old I had surgery like pile of stenosis, but he wasn't very present and just dropped my mom off at the hospital with us. And so my dad had an impression on me and that when we were four I lived with grandmas. So it was me trying to get my way and my mom would say no, and I'd go to grandma and get my not knowing much any better, but getting through like kind of that stuff, with not really having authority or any type of, I'd say, stability. And then we went from four to eight same thing, moving around, a lot, changing schools, but nothing major.
Speaker 2:And then finally, around eight years old, we were in the same school system for a while and started to normalize out, and so I didn't really put any anything into that, like I didn't really think that there was any effect from that, but it did develop into people pleasing because my dad disappeared right after the divorce and wasn't around but he'd have other families like stepchildren. So it was like, from a small kid's point of view is that he can be with other families but he can't be with me and it was more like I didn't. Really it would have been toxic if he was with me. It was good that he wasn't with me, but at that time through my mindset it was like did I do something wrong? Am I not lovable? And so I've had to work through that, coming out as people pleasing and like an anxious attachment style with relationships and things like that yeah, you say that it didn't really have an effect on you and then you go into the effect it did have on you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and once childhood.
Speaker 2:It took a lot for me to come to the realization. Today I definitely realized how impactful the small things were. I'm saying at the time before, like even took Iraq for me to even look at mental health and then once I started to look at the mental health, I didn't want to look at anything but Iraq. But eventually, now as a more grown more, I realized how impactful some of those little T traumas were, actually more impactful than the big T traumas because they happened at such an early age and your formative years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a lot of people's story right, and I'm doing this podcast at almost 52 and I'm meeting a lot of people my age or around there and everyone went through life just living life, trying to survive or do the best they could, whatever the case was. And then it took them a little while to say, oh shit, I'm a little fucked up, I need some help. And then when they got that help, they realized, when they look way back in the rear view mirror, it affected them much more than they ever thought it did. View mirror. It affected them much more than they ever thought it did, myself included. So that's why I like to break it down and get everyone the details as best as we can, so that way they can maybe see if they're younger than us or whatever their situation is that?
Speaker 2:Oh shit, I went through that too, and that's what I like to talk about with people is that like how I ignored it and I distracted. The book I wrote is called Internal is Greater than External Calming the Chaos Within. And then we spend a lot of time like chasing down an external checklist that we're programmed to think that's what's going to make you happy is if I get the house, get the job, get this, get that, and we don't ever take the time to ask what we want inside and be authentic and like work on the internal stuff. We just if I get this external thing, then I'll, I'll feel better, and it's not the case.
Speaker 1:When I left my home, I was a people pleaser. I was someone that got along with everyone. Right, I even jokingly called myself a chameleon, because whatever type of group of people I was around I could get along with and I always was focused on all right, what am I going to do for a career? How am I going to get educated? How am I going to make money? All that stuff. And I didn't really focus on how can I be a better person? So much because I thought I was already a good person. Right, I already. I grew up in such a shit environment that I already thought I was a good person because of who I was comparing myself to and in some ways, that stunted my growth. I think that's a great point.
Speaker 2:It's really hard to compare and everybody's journey is different. Sometimes, growth for me somebody might already be where I'm grown to, but the amount that I've grown is what I need to look at, and not necessarily where I came from. And well, I'm doing better than my parents did. Like that could be a low bar, depending on what you grew up in. One of the concepts in the book that I talk about is continual learning, and I think it's important to set iterative goals and to not. There's never a place where you've arrived and okay, now I'm good, I don't have, I can let go of the wheel and I can just coast. This becomes part of your lifestyle and becomes, you know, part of something that you do on a daily basis is like for me, gratitude and some of the things that I do. It's not just to make myself feel better and then, once I feel better, I stopped doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it definitely has to. It's like fitness right In eating. It has to be a lifestyle. Anything you do temporary and you stray away from, you're going to lose it. Those are all very good points and I think we all, even myself included when I was younger I always talked about growing and getting better and being better. But that's such a general generic term. You can think, oh, I'm going to college, so I'm getting better and I'm being better. Or oh, I'm advancing in my work and my career, so I'm getting better and I'm being better. There's a lot of stuff you need to work on yourself or if you're a father or a family man or a mother or wife, husband. There's so many other facets of becoming a better person and continuing to grow and be a better person and I think that sometimes gets lost in the translation.
Speaker 2:I think you can also be very highly productive in an external sense work or whatever it is. I was, and this is part of the reason how I justified having an addiction for a while is because I can function. I go to work, I pay my bills, I do everything. It's not affecting me, so it's fine. You can do that same thing, like, yeah, I might be a little angry, angry but, and snap every now and then, but I, but you're a good person most of the time. Yeah, but you can still work on that. Yeah, that's the ego, like the protecting yourself, and maybe you are good in those areas, but you can still work on your reactivity and not being so reactive or not letting things sway your emotions so much so you. So there's always work that can be done.
Speaker 1:We totally took a sidebar around it. But I'll backtrack a little bit. It's hard to let it go because when you bring up some of this stuff and some of these points, I can't help but talk to them. Oh yeah, and let's go back then. So you get out of school, and did you go directly into the military out of school, or how'd that go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in order to go to the university that I wanted to go to in July of 2001, I decided to sign up Army National Guard so that I could go to college still the university that I wanted to go to and it wasn't like wartime or anything. So I'm just going to pay for college. Good to go Signed up for the combat engineers, because it was a big bonus. So it's not this patriotic story that I'd like it to be but that's what it is.
Speaker 1:It's not for everyone, so it's yeah.
Speaker 2:So then September hits. Like a month and a half, two months later, september 11th, and I haven't been to bootcamp yet. So technically I could have opted out without being AWOL. But I still went to bootcamp in like March of 02 and then came back, but I didn't deploy. So I was, went through bootcamp and I had this when am I going to get sent over there on my head looming over you? Yeah, yeah, while I'm working. And I went to college, but I didn't do. I drank a lot, got like a 1.1 GPA. They didn't even get reimbursed by the military for that semester, so it was like didn't help me to go to school. I still had the debt, so it was dumb. I was 17, turned 18 and got a loan. I worked at home for a little while, living with my parents, and then in 2004, I found out I was going to Iraq. I lived in an apartment or somewhere else too for a little bit.
Speaker 1:That's good information. You had a plan, you had an idea. It got derailed a little bit. Also, you weren't living up to your end of the deal, maybe because of what was looming over your head. Maybe it gave yourself an excuse or an out to maybe not try as hard or work as hard. I don't know. Only you really know what was going through your head at that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and doing some reflection on that, there was a lot of self sabotage even in high school, where I'd find a way to, I guess, my standard my parents if you get all, you have to get all C's or better and so I'd find a way to get one D plus and get myself grounded.
Speaker 2:Or going to school I'm smart enough to. When I went back to school after the military, I carried a 4.0 for a long time and graduated with a 3.8, 3.85 or something from with a bachelor degree. I'm intelligent enough to do it, but I'm I self-sabotaged when I was younger due to the stuff from my father and then my stepdad was a police officer and we butted heads a little bit when I was younger and it was a lot of discipline and not really understanding. But maybe my behavior was due to any trauma. So it was just kind of like a carrot stick and if you do good you get rewarded, and if you don't do good you don. So it was just kind of like a carrot stick and if you do good you get rewarded, and if you don't do good you don't. It was I learned to just keep emotions to myself and try not to get caught and not get in trouble.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of men are taught that anyway, even not just by fathers, but by mothers, because men are expected to be in control of their emotions. I did a podcast I haven't released yet, it will be coming out soon with Dr Gloria Vanderhorst, and what she talked about exactly is men. Our boys are actually born with a wider emotional range than women, but we're taught by our mothers and fathers to restrict it so much. That's why we grow up to be like we are and we don't share our feelings and we don't share our emotions. And obviously we pay for that because so many of us have mental health problems and are suicidal.
Speaker 1:Women do commit suicide. I'm not saying they don't. They think a lot of them think I've seen this a lot on social media and stuff that men are just crybabies about their mental health, that women also have mental health problems, if not worse. But out of every 10 suicides, eight of them are men. So that's something you can't just ignore. We're not saying our mental health is worse than anyone else. I'm just saying we take it farther, we end our lives, and that's the thing that I'm trying to stop here and this is the reason I want to help people and I'm sure what you want to do too 100% and especially like looking into that.
Speaker 2:the masculinity piece is that I've learned that true masculinity, if you look at stoicism and Marcus Aurelius, is actually understanding and being in control of your emotions, not ignoring it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely agree. I have never been that man. I just didn't tap into my mental health problems as much and where it was rooted until I got older. But shit, if I wanted to cry in front of my wife, I would cry. I didn't care. It's not like I was a blubbering baby that did it all the time or anything. I've never been one really to hold my emotions back. It actually for a long time made it hard for me to identify with men, because men are so closed off and men are so reserved and don't like when we tell stories. We give the bullet points of a story and it was always a little more open and giving and I would talk about a little bit more, not quite to the extent of the other extreme, but more than men. And so I just never. I never jived with men for a long time because I didn't understand why they didn't make a bigger effort to be more communicative and open, and it took me a long time to understand that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I grew up with my mom and my sister for a long time and then, like I said, my stepdad in the picture we didn't die under get along that great as far as he was hunting and fishing more and I was a sports and athletics man and he had a dry sense of humor and I was a smart ass. So a little different, it wasn't anything bad but, like I said, it just wasn't there. So I definitely had a lot of female friends as I was older and connected more on the emotional hand. But but then military, I learned to kind of stuff it and how to repress all emotions so that I could function at a top level without worrying oh no, if this happens, if you can't do that. So boom, I got to disarm this bomb. I got to be very this and no emotion, just logic or whatever robotic and I thought that was like I learned a hack, like a life hack, like holy crap.
Speaker 2:But actually those things bubble back up and then they're hard to tie back to the event. Like you said, it seems like it's the road rage right now. That's pissing me off. It has nothing to do with iraq, yeah, but actually it's the fact that guy made you feel unsafe and it's not a direct connection. So it's really hard to walk those things back, especially if you have multiple trauma areas, like I have the childhood or combat or the chronic illness and so I have to look into a couple of different buckets when I'm trying to walk something back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great points you just made there. So let's get back into your path. You finally get deployed. Tell everyone what that was like, what you went through there and how that was affecting you at the time.
Speaker 2:Fear of the unknown. You just make up the worst case scenario in your head. So I hate the time between when I know I'm going to have to do something and when I have to do it. Okay.
Speaker 1:And that time I hate that time.
Speaker 2:It's a horrible time, yeah. So that time sucked. And when we finally got over there, you do trainings not really can't prepare you for what you're about to do Getting you learn a trial by fire, and it seems at first, how am I going to make it through a year of this? Our first people were killed within the first two months and when we were there, that happened and that created like a really big perfectionist, negative self-talk inside of me. It's like if you make a mistake, people die. So I'm very tough on myself, and that carried on beyond that and it no longer served me in my civilian life. We'll get getting that later, but, yeah, that that happened.
Speaker 2:And after a while, though, it becomes normal and you start to adapt to this new life, this new area of operations, and now things are normal. What outgoing sounds like versus what incoming sounds like you're not just, it's weird. You can differentiate the bang and you're like, oh, that was outgoing, it's not's weird. You can differentiate the bang and you're like, oh, that was outgoing, it's not a big deal, that was us shooting that. And other people who are newer to the base are like. So it's this weird thing when the crazy becomes normal and then, when you get back into the normal, everything seems crazy. It's weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I want to backtrack a second, when you were talking about the military and stuff teaching you how to compress your emotions compartment, same thing for me. The military did it to me Some days. I came in to work visibly upset and she would ask me what's going on and I would explain oh, I'm having these problems with my wife and we have two kids together and you need to focus on work and smile and be happy and all this bullshit. And I was just like, all right, I had to do it because it was my career. So I figured out how to do that. But man, it was not healthy for me and I ended up getting divorced and all that.
Speaker 2:I can't talk to my boss, my leadership or anybody, and I'm just told to deal with it. It's really difficult, anybody, and I'm just told to deal with it. It's really difficult. We're very like output focused society, not realizing that if you don't take care of the machine that's doing the output, it's not going to continue to. I was gonna, oh, it's gonna break down at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah totally correct and I even I thought I was winning by showing up to work, by because I didn't even want to be there. I was going through whatever I was going through and I wanted to be at home working on that issue, that problem. But instead I was doing the right thing going to work so I could provide for my family. And then I'm basically told you got to shut it down while you're at work, and that was hard for me to do at first. All right, so anyway, that was another. We're taking this podcast all over the place and it's fine. I like it's. Yeah, it's not normally how I do it, but it's good to mix it up every now and then.
Speaker 2:So I knew we're gonna have a good convo yeah, exactly, all right.
Speaker 1:So you go to war. You did anyone die like in your presence? Did you see someone get killed in combat in your presence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there was two people that died on a mission that was in our group. It was IED hit a vehicle. Two people died and the other two were injured, yeah, and it had to be medevaced. And then another guy was shot in the neck, was killed and we had to clean out his tank afterwards too. I was on that mission. I was on another mission where a guy got hit with IED and had a huge chunk of shrapnel in his neck, walked out in the back of the tank with that. He didn't die, but it was pretty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an image you can't lose. I was fortunate in for whatever reason, I didn't get deployed to Iraq when I was in the army and I joined in 2003. I was in during that timeframe. I know why I was a food inspector, I had a cake job and they took volunteers to deploy, and enough people volunteered that no one was ever forced to go. I never went to war.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to go to war. I had other friends who had been there and been through it and now they had trauma and PTSD from being there and I thought I, like you, I'm a perfectionist, so I didn't want to be in that situation because, also like you, I'm harder on myself than I think anyone else can ever be. So if I were to ever do something that would cause someone harm or even God forbid death, I don't even know how I could deal with that. So I kept myself out of that situation. But I had good friends. I had one friend.
Speaker 1:He joined the army to be in the infantry, to go to war. That's exactly what he wanted to do, and he was telling me some of his stories. We were actually in the Air Force together. We both were in the Air Force first, then Army later, and he literally was shooting in gunfights and the people right next to him like on his side, touching his shoulder, getting shot, dying right next to him. The bullets are literally inches away from taking his life, but he lived through it. But obviously you, no matter how hardcore you are, that stuff hits you, that affects you.
Speaker 2:It'll catch up, and what I did was not as much direct contact, but we did like bomb disposal before they had the robots.
Speaker 2:oh, it was a vehicle that would drive up and it would has, like metal detector, ground penetrating radar. It drives, it finds a bomb, id marks it. It has radio jammers too so that the guy trying to set it off isn't able to set it off unless it's like directly wired. And then the second vehicle pulls up, called a buffalo, and it has a big hydraulic arm on it. And he's the man at those arm grab machines, yeah, but he just so.
Speaker 2:He disarms the rounds from the trigger and then I pull up with c4, I get out and I collect it for evidence and put the rounds they whatever they use for explosives on the side of the road in the ditch. Typically, if we're off to the side and I put a c4 charge on it with a time fuse, pull that, go hide and then let that blow up, go back, inspect the hole, make sure everything blew up and then we go to the next one. So in doing that I've been sniped at, shot at and damn, had some things happen there. So it's more hyper vigilance for me. I mean crazy hyper vigilance where I noticed like the smallest detail of something changing and like I've had to try to get over that. A lot of them. You don't have to pay attention to that that much and have the constant fight or flight ready to go yeah, so I mean that.
Speaker 1:So obviously that has an effect on, would have an effect on anyone's mental health. I really don't care who you are. There's no way around that. Maybe you even still have nightmares today of being shot at in your sleep, I don't know, but it's something that would be really difficult to live with, for sure I got done with iraq in 2005.
Speaker 2:At the end of my tour I worked with a vehicle that used radiation. It's called the neutralizing ieds.
Speaker 2:With radio frequency they're trying to figure out a way to get rid of ieds without having to be exposed, like I was so much. And so we also did convoy security, where I'd ride out and about a thousand kilometers out in front with a pair of Hummers. I'd be the front Hummer or the second Hummer and we'd both ride in a thousand kilometers out in front one kilometer out in front and we would basically be trying to set off any ambushes or look for visual signs of IEDs before the main body of the convoy got there. The radiation machine didn't have a weapon on top of it to defend itself and they brought it to where we were in Ramadi, where we were like you can't drag that thing down the road, it's going to get smoked, like it looks different than any other vehicle. And what are you? How are you going to? If you get engaged? How are you going to protect yourself? I mean, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They decided to use the same concept as we did with the convoy security and they asked them what the safe range was on their radar, their radiation beam or whatever. They said it was 500 meters. It's effective at 500 meters and I need 300 meters from a bomb if it goes off. So I was just we'll stay like the same thing, like a thousand or a kilometer out front, and then we'll be in the security escort, this vehicle.
Speaker 2:Well, this vehicle couldn't go down the little roads cause it was massive. It had a like fission or fusion generator in, or whatever one, and would make this radiation and spray it at the ground, so we could only take it down the main supply route. It would overheat within an hour. So at the time it seemed like an easy mission, but I'm riding out in front of it and getting rid of it. So I, after I start having stomach problems and this is the last 90 days of my mission, of our tour, and I started having stomach issues and I went to the med place a couple of times while I was over there, got back, continued having to go to the emergency room with these horrible episodes of stomach nausea, pain, vomiting, and so eventually they thought it was like ulcers or something, but it continued to happen, and so they medically discharged me in 2008 and then in 2000, like 20, they gave me a hundred percent permanent total.
Speaker 1:I had 90 for a bunch of years yeah, I had to work for years to get to 90. I got out in 07 I had 10, which is to me mind-boggling. How do they even just give me 10? Because, yeah, I didn't go to war but I got fucked up by the army. I mean, my, my back was so fucked up, my knees, my, my forearms, I had tendonitis in both my elbows. I had to go to physical therapy for both of my elbows for tendonitis while I was in the army and they gave me 10%. It was mind blowing 10%.
Speaker 2:There you go, yep.
Speaker 1:That's the first one they throw out there.
Speaker 2:See if you'll just take it and go away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so eventually, after reapplying, if you will, and they took me up to 60 and then I reapplied again and they actually denied me, but I appealed it and when I appealed it they jumped me up to 90. I'm at 90 now, finally, but it's just crazy, the hoops they make you jump through to get there yeah, it seems to be the pattern.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter how slam dunk of a case you have, they're gonna give you a low wall and then if you try to give you another, maybe an increase, and then if you try it again, they're gonna try to be like don't even try it, we're're going to deny you completely or reduce you and you're like what? And then if you appeal that and do whatever, you usually can get the appeal and then from getting from 90 to a hundred was, it was hard, so that was. I ended up having to use a lawyer and stuff and it was 15 years of whatever.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I want to try that eventually, but it was just like I want to say two or three. I'll say three years ago I got to 90. Oh, I'm not ready to push it just yet, cause they're just going to be like we just upped you. But in some years, if I'm still alive, I'm going to try again for a hundred.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and they try to do that to scare you from doing it. They're like we gave you an idea. That's good enough, it's so. It's so. Mafia like man no, it's.
Speaker 1:I mean it's strong army. I think it's a thing people don't understand, like a lot of military people, yeah, we joined the military for whatever reasons. Let's just say college was a reason. Or let's just say you didn't have anything else going on in life. Whatever the reason is, at the end of the day you end up loving the brotherhood of the military. You can't help but love the United States and in some cases you get to the point where you're ready to die for your country, Even if that wasn't the reason you joined. You drank the Kool-Aid you bought in and that's the way it is. But then we see how the government treats military people and then people wonder why veterans are so anti-government or don't like the government. They think, oh, the government gave you a job, they're giving you benefits, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, they don't see what we see from the inside.
Speaker 2:And we don't even want to necessarily ask for help or even admit to a problem sometimes, let alone once we do it, to be told it's like a mind, I'm not going to cuss whatever.
Speaker 1:It messes with your mind. You can cuss yeah all right.
Speaker 2:It's a mind fuck. When they mess with you. They make you think it took me forever to even apply for it. Then I apply for it and then they like deny it and you have to appeal it. It's like a rebate. Most people won't even do the appeal because now they feel stupid. Or I took a lot for me to get to the point where I wouldn't even admit that I had ptsd and now you're kind of like making me second guess things or the stomach issues with the radiation and being like that's because you have ptsd and I'm like come on, like what?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, it's pretty sad and pathetic, frankly, and it not even just that I'm talking about like the way we're treated as soldiers when we're in, and like how you can get in trouble for getting a sunburn, for example, because you're quote unquote damaging government property. Come on, get the out of here. It's my buddy. Yeah, I'm out in the sun. Who doesn't get a sunburn?
Speaker 2:what the hell I got in trouble when I had the stomach issues because it was similar to like severe constipation or like heat, like some sort of not heat stroke but a heat injury yeah throwing up. I'm having stomach pain and like really bad nausea and I am dehydrated now because I've been having this for a long time. So I go to the thing. They're like it's dehydration and cramps. So my sergeant's going to write me up because I had to go two times to the emergency with the stomach pain.
Speaker 1:It's damaging government property.
Speaker 2:You need to make sure you're properly hydrated. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:I've been in pretty great shape most of my life, except for when my health has not allowed me to do it. But when I was in the Army I was a machine and I would go to PT in the morning and I would be nauseous and I wouldn't be able to do well at PT at 5 am, like imagine that. And so my starting first class, he comes up to me and he's what's your deal? Why don't you want to work out and do PT? I said because I'm nauseous, man, I get sick. I don't know why. I don't know what's causing it. I was like what do you think it is? And he goes. I think you just don't want to do PT.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at this guy. I'm like I'm in 10 times fucking better shape than you and you're talking about I just don't want to do PT. And I said all right, what happens when I go to the doctor and I prove to you that there's physically something wrong with me? What are you going to do? Then he goes. Then I'll apologize. So I was going to the doctor. I finally got a scope down my throat and it turns out I had upper hiatal hernia in my stomach and it was making me nauseous in the morning. So I go back with him with this proof from a doctor that motherfucker didn't apologize.
Speaker 2:He didn't say shit, so yeah man, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1:It's just crazy how dumb some of these people are. All right, so anyway, let's get through this story so we can get to your book. So you got out of the military.
Speaker 2:I got out of the military and I was like a pizza cook delivered shingles on roofs for a little bit while. I'm getting stomach sick and so I'm getting less hours. I'm getting leave without pay. It's tough. And then my shingle place shut down and I actually went on total disability due to unemployability and social security disability at the time Cause I had the history of missing work and the leave without pay and so I got that in like 2010. And then I went through vocational rehabilitation program through the VA I think that's got a different name now, but it's still the same as you looked it up. Anyways, went through that and went back to college and I was getting my associates and I did an internship with the government at TACOM and was hired through that internship permanent, and was hired through that internship permanent and then worked there from 2012 until 2020 when I was medically discharged and then in 2021 I got the 100% actually Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:and then, obviously somewhere along the way, when now we're in 2025, you decided to write a book. How did that come about? What led to you writing this book?
Speaker 2:While I was working for take home and I started I mentioned about addiction I started to. I was going to the hospital for the stomach issues and they would give me usually pain medicine, nausea medicine and an IV and I'd be better within an hour or two and that would happen like once or twice a month, once a month, maybe once every couple months when the opiate crisis hit, like 2013, and they stopped giving pain medicine for anything. So I'd go there, they give me like nausea medicine, send me home, and I'd still be in pain. And I went to the streets and I started taking the pain medicine when I didn't need it. I was like remodeling the house, we got my back hurts, I'll take it. And so I became physically addicted. I went to rehab for nine days and while I was there, I had a book called unlearn your pain and depression that was given to me by one of the counselors, by Dr Howard Schubner, and that the pages were jumping out of the book at me. It was about mind-body connection. It was about core beliefs that are formed from your zero to five and childhood stuff, the little t-trauma stuff, and that I made that connection, that, oh my gosh, holy crap, a lot of the stuff that I have problems with are from my childhood, not necessarily all from combat. Actually, a whole bunch of it's from childhood, wow. So as I'm doing that, I'm reading a bunch of self-help books.
Speaker 2:Now that I'm out of this, and then I'm starting to write. I'm like man, I got to write my own book. I start writing my own book and outlining the chapters, but then negative self-talk having problems in my marriage and who are you to be writing a book? You're not a doctor, you're not a psychologist starts kicking in and fear of vulnerability now I don't want to deal with anybody's comments and family or anybody when I talk about things, and so I'm just gonna. The book was a nice healing exercise. I'm just gonna leave it at that. I'm all. I'm Christian too.
Speaker 2:So I felt this calling from God to write the book. And then I'm'm like shelving it and I'm feeling this no, you're not supposed to show. What are you doing? This is not part of what you're supposed to be doing. But my marriage is falling apart too, so it's not. I'm not very calm.
Speaker 2:So writing a book called like calming the chaos within I'm like dude, imposter syndrome is real. So after the divorce, I started going back through the book to follow some of the things that I wrote about and should try to apply them and see if that's gonna help me out of my depression that I was in and just not being motivated, not doing much. So I did. I read the book and was going through my own things. I'm like, well, this stuff's still really relevant and I didn't realize how much of it, how close I was to finishing. I was like 80% done and so I started finishing it and it only took me like three months or so to finish and publish it. So I wrote a lot of it and just shelved it due to a lot of negative self-talk sure all right.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's not something you hear very often, frankly. You don't hear someone writing a way to help people and then they have to refer to their own writing to get them through a difficult time. So if that's not proof positive, it works, then I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:So I'm telling you they're easier, they're practical things and once I started getting to it, it's like the gym though like the reference you made that there didn't, I didn't do like a set of positive affirmations and then come in and have a proverbial mental six pack. You have to work and put in some work and it has to become part of your lifestyle for it to really start to affect the changes. But it's easy to apply and when I started doing it, yeah man, it worked, it worked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if any listeners or people have heard some of my other podcasts or not, but it's definitely a large belief in mind that you can rewire the brain. I have definitely done it. I know multiple people that have done it. It's not an overnight thing. You can't just click your fingers and your brain is rewired. But the more you change the way you think, even if you catch yourself in moments and you consciously say I can't think like that, I have to think this way until it becomes nature, until it just becomes the way that you think it works, man, it works.
Speaker 1:I've attempted suicide. I've had a gun in my mouth a second time, almost wanted to kill myself. I didn't. I lived through a suicide. I didn't pull the trigger.
Speaker 1:My life was at so many lows sometimes I literally thought I can't even tell you how many times. Why am I here on this earth? Why am I here? What am I doing? Why do I even need to be here? Why do I? Who cares if I'm gone? I don't care if I'm gone, and I haven't thought like that in years and it really was just a rewiring of the brain of focusing more on the good things that I have in life and the positive that I have in life, and also that positive thinking brings positive attraction. And literally I have the best marriage and relationship I've ever had in my life, financially, career wise all that I'm doing the best I've ever done in my life and I have this podcast, I'm a life coach and everything's just so great that it's just like I have to attribute it to the belief that thinking positive and being positive and believing in positive thoughts is what got me to where I am today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, and that's why I want to talk about the self-sabot. It's because of negative thoughts and negative loops that I would put myself in, and then it was subconscious, not aware of it, and then I end up failing and attracting those negative things. And I want the listeners to know as well. Yes, I've also had suicidal ideations and been suicidal, and I can work mental health stuff and be in the most positive mindset and let my stomach go off for three days in a row or something like a week in a row and I am like I'm over it and those questions start coming why are you doing this? What are you even here for?
Speaker 2:So a lot of the things in my book they answer those questions preemptively, so that you have ammunition when you are in the throes of it. You work on it when you're not obviously suicidal, but then, when you do, you can reassure back to your gratitude Generally, you can reassure back to your positive affirmations. You can look at your mission statement and it answers a lot of those questions that would pop up in my head. What are you even doing, bro? Well, just end it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've talked to so many people who have been through this at this point and I'm sure I'm going to talk to many more throughout the life of this podcast and so these are just the people that I connect with and I get to talk to. So who knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of people hell, I don't know that go through these same things, these same thought processes, and they need help, like what your book has to offer. Let's tell people how can they find your book.
Speaker 2:All right, simply just go on Amazon and search Cole Grace, and the first thing that should pop up first or second thing is internal is greater than external calming the chaos within. And that's on Amazon, and you can find me on YouTube, it's just at Seagrace21.
Speaker 1:All right, so we should follow each other on YouTube, by the way. Yeah, for sure, if you don't have Instagram.
Speaker 2:I do, yeah, I'm on Instagram too. I think that one's Seagrace2180 underscore.
Speaker 1:All right, let's follow each other there too. I think that one's seagrace2180 underscore. All right, let's follow each other there too.
Speaker 2:So anyway, great insight, great conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew this was going to go this way. That's why I was excited to do this with you, and I have been since the first time we talked and met. I appreciate you coming on my podcast today and sharing your journey and providing this book for people that are going through problems, that they need to learn and understand how to get through these problems, and you've given them a way to do that, so that's awesome. Anything else you want to leave with the people before we sign off? Yeah, I think the last thing I think I want to leave with the people before we sign off yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:The last thing I think I want to say is, for a long time, I thought that a lot of this gratitude and these things were like feeling based and they were weak sauce that like, oh, so I just think positive and my life's going to be better. But it's actually backed by neuroscience and there's a lot of like science behind it that, like, what you think about is what you actually see, and then you try to reinforce your beliefs. So if you believe you're not worthy like, you're gonna act that way and when you maybe reach success, you're gonna self-sabotage because you don't feel worthy of it. So I think that there's a lot of science behind it. And and if you're one of those people that think this is stupid, I'm not just going to be able to change the way I think and then it's going to change my life, but it will.
Speaker 1:Completely agree. I have a brother that's 10 years younger. I've been telling him this for years and he is exactly what you just said Just doesn't believe. Just because he changes his frame of mind is going to change his life. And I keep trying to tell him it is. You got to listen to me, it is. And what's funny about him is he's flat out admitted I'm the person in his life that he respects more than anyone else that he knows in his life, but for some reason he won't listen to me when it comes to stuff like this, so it's a little frustrating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, listen to this guy. Maybe you'll listen to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't even get him to listen to my podcast. He's listened to some episodes, but I want him to listen to all of them. Anyway, it's been great having you on, cole. We got to get out of here. So, for my listeners, please go to BrandonHeldcom and click on subscribe to podcasts. I'm looking for subscribers to subscribe to my podcast and I do give a couple episodes a month that are only for subscribers, so you have to be a subscriber to hear those episodes. Also, I'm on Instagram at BH underscore life is crazy, and then I'm on YouTube, brandon Held, underscore life is crazy. For Cole and myself. It's been great having you here listening to us, and we'll talk to you next time. Who is the crown that fits through the cage as we put the wheel upon the stage?
