Resilience, Trauma & Healing: The Todd Blyleven Story

In this episode of The Asset Mindset Podcast, Daniel Fielding speaks with Todd Blyleven, former professional baseball player and hero who saved lives during the Las Vegas shooting. Todd shares his powerful journey through resilience, trauma, and healing—highlighting the role of mentorship, EMDR therapy, and community support. He opens up about learning to ask for help, giving yourself grace, and controlling your trauma sphere. Todd’s story is an inspiring reminder that mindset, love, and vulnerability can transform even the darkest moments into personal growth and strength.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Asset Mindset Podcast

01:00 Todd Blevins: A Life of Resilience

04:46 Overcoming Darkness: The Vegas Shooting Experience

10:26 Acts of Bravery Amidst Chaos

15:40 The Aftermath: Coping with Trauma

20:35 Finding Help: The Importance of Support

26:26 Understanding EMDR Therapy

31:15 Processing Trauma: The Mind's Defense Mechanism

39:09 The Power of Mentorship in Healing

46:41 Finding Strength in Community and Support

52:35 Navigating Life's Journey: The Trauma Sphere Concept

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LinkedIn: https://www.toddblyleven.com/

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Produced by Security Halt Media

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Asset Mindset Podcast, where we don't wait for opportunities, we create them. I'm your host, Daniel Fielding, former Green Beret and author of The Asset Mindset. Each episode we dive into the mindset, habits, and mission-driven thinking that turn everyday people into high performers and real life warriors. And today we have a real life warrior who went and saved a lot of people's lives and risked his own life. But this isn't just about motivation. This show and this podcast is about transformation. If you're ready to stop playing the victim, take ownership, start building the life you were meant to lead, then let's gear up because your mindset is your greatest asset. And let's go and meet today's very special guest, Todd Blevin. I'm so happy to have you here, Todd, because you show what people can do, no matter who they are, where they are, and when things happen, you can step up and make a difference in the world. So why don't you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what you've been through?

The Vegas Shooting Night

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Well, thank you, sir. I I really appreciate uh everything you've done to uh secure our country's freedom, to give us the ability to have a podcast like this, uh, and all the sacrifice that your boots uh have done to just help us walk forward in our lives. So thank you to you and your uh brothers and sisters in arms and today's military and first responders that do that every day to put themselves out there for us. So God bless you and thank you for everything. Um yeah, uh, you know, I I grew up uh playing professional baseball. I was in a professional baseball house. My dad uh got inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. Um, super amazing guy, uh incredible athlete on the field. He was a warrior, you know, you cross that white line and he'd get into that gritty mode, like, don't take me out. I'm a warrior, you know. So um, yeah, I was raised around that, around men and women in the sport of baseball alone at the professional level, that were always high achieving, always expecting perfection. Um, you know, learning how to def uh deal with defeat on a pitch-by-pitch basis, to losing a game, to then persevering and coming back and challenging themselves through the next day's training to just be better every day and secure their place in that highest uh level. Of course, it was baseball, right? It was a sport. Your lives were not on the line, um, not like what you guys went through and what our military or first responders go through uh every day. But it was a it was a challenge of that mental aspect of always trying to just find your success. And so I was raised in that that no blood, no foul mentality, no stopping here is what my dad would always tell me when I'd be chasing him up the hill. And I'd be like, Dad, can we stop? And he'd point to a sign that says, No stopping here, let's go. Um and so I I learned that uh that that learned how to be the beast um through that. I had grandfathers that were present in my life. I I mentioned them a lot. Um, you know, aside from my dad taking me everywhere when he was playing, he was a very present father, but my grandfathers were too. Uh one was a gunny in the Marine Corps and uh career career marine, uh, and another one uh that my grandmother ended up marrying was career navy, and he was a weapons specialist uh down in Camp Pendleton and Career Navy. And so I grew up around you know being a devil pup and wearing fatigues and an old war helmet and drinking from old canteens and uh Vietnam blankets, you know, digging trenches and ever all that stuff. So I was either gonna be a Marine, that was my goal, or I was gonna play baseball. And uh my intent in joining the Marine Corps was to go in and serve probably eight years and then come out and and and join some form of law enforcement. Uh the higher in terms of the service, the better. So um, but baseball was my choice. You know, I I was given that that ability uh to go out and dominate in the game, and I played uh professionally and then became a major league scout after that. So uh truly blessed. I've been around some incredible people that have opened up their doors to shape me uh to who I am today. But there's all those knockdown moments like you just mentioned, you know, and how do you persevere? Do you let yourself just sit in that, I call it like the suck, the the time that you're just that silence, that darkness, and you let it just eat at you. And how do you get yourself to stand back up and get that boot to move forward and the next one to follow and and trust that process and persevere? And that's hard. That's it, it it's harder, I think, than running back in to save people. It's harder than going in to get the when you're shot at, or running and you know that there's bullets flying behind you. It's a harder thing to get yourself back up. And so I've learned that through many different aspects of my life, most importantly, you know, from the Vegas shooting on October 1st, 2017.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, that's what a tragedy that was. And it's so sad the tragedies we have in our country, you know. And I think a lot of the attention that ends up focusing on evil and the bad things, but there's a lot of love too. There's a lot of love in the world. And they're both out there, good and evil, there's a battle going on. But what do you want to focus on? Yeah, evil things may knock you down. You may have a traumatic experience, but how you react from that? I mean, Charlie Kirk is a prime example. Look how much love now has spread out in the world. How many people are sending love and prayers and finding credit? Like there's there's so much positive energy. Granted, it's horrific and it's horrible, and it never should have happened, and it's tragedy. But do you want to stay stuck on the tragedy or do you want to look at the wonderful things? You know, there is that battle. And I like where you take tragedy and you put it into the triumph. You talk about that a lot. Can you explain more in detail about that?

Aftermath, Darkness, And First Support

EMDR Explained And Healing Work

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah. Uh thank you for bringing it up because uh you're so right. And um, you know, when those moments happen and you're knocked down and you can you you're stuck in that. Let me back it up. When I went through um when I went to Vegas, I was in a place um emotionally and even through my marriage where things were not going right for me. Like my definition of success was not, it was very skewed. You know, I I didn't know what it was supposed to be. When I got done playing baseball, I went through a depression, right? Similar to our our men and women and and that are wearing our military uniforms or first responders that come out, or really anybody that has this lifelong dream of being something and now they have had to shift in life. And and you go through this depressive state, like, okay, it's not going to happen for me. Now what do I do with the rest of my life? And so you're constantly battling yourself for that definition of success. And I think that in itself can play a lot into your relationships, the friends you hang out with, the times that you might be like drinking too much or doing other things because you're trying to like mask where you are in your life and you're unhappy with yourself. And what I didn't realize was that in that moment of darkness, back before all the shooting and everything else, I had so many people that were trying to lift me up and show me a better path to my faith. Right? I'm a big faith believer. Uh, you know, it's my center, it's my beacon of strength. But there were, there were other things that I could have latched on to where I was doing things right. I was positive. I'm a good person. I love life naturally when I wake up. But it was the part, the darkness, the pieces that I latched on to that I was upset about more in my past or blaming others that kept me in that depressive state a lot. So moving forward, uh, we moved to Texas uh in 2017 from Southern California. And we had just moved here, and I, you know, my relationship was going south with my wife. Um, you know, we had just been arguing, things like that. And we thought, let's go to Vegas to rekindle our love. Vegas was always the place that we would always go naturally. I mean, you go and you're having fun. And we had been to that three-day country concert uh multiple times. And um, I think you know, going there, especially with a group of friends that we had always gone with, we consider them family, young adults that we had celebrated their 21st birthday there, not not too like a couple years prior um with, and we were the aunt and uncle uh to all these kids, like, and then we had some people our age uh that were that we also considered family. Um, and to be there in that moment when you're just everything was now together. Like there was love, there was happiness, that music was going on. I'm listening to Al Dean sing. I love Jason Al Dean, all these things. Law enforcement was in it, you know. You got three security officers or two officers in the security guard off to my right. They're like doing their thing, they're having fun. And then the shooting starts, right? And now all of a sudden your life changes forever. Everything that you ever thought was innocent in your life is completely stripped away. It's all gone. It'll never, ever, ever be the same. But in that moment, you have a choice, right? You have a choice to persevere, run, fight, flight, all these things. So I opted to get everybody out. We got everybody out. At that point, when I got everyone out to the east side of the venue, uh I saw a man coming out carrying a woman that had been shot. When I ran to him to help her lay her down, she took her last breath. And that was hard, right? Now all of a sudden, like it wasn't, it was real. We were scared out of our minds, running with bullets flying behind us, people were dropping at our sides. All I was praying for was to get my wife out and get her back to her kids, our kids. But then all of a sudden, to lay that woman down and and to know that she'll never breathe again. This really happened. Okay, I need to do something. I can't stand it. I can't stand by on this. So I ran over and give my wife a kiss and told her to keep running north, told my group to keep going, and then I ran back in. That was hard. That was a hard decision to put myself now below everything else that truly mattered inside, and that was getting people out and getting them to safety. And if I fell that night, I was willing to take that sacrifice because I was about to do the most bravest right thing in my life. And that was everything to me in that moment. And so each time that I ran back and forth, and I'm not going to go into all the details and the gory stuff by any means for your listeners, but each time I ran back out with someone in my arms that was gripping me as much as I was gripping her or him to get them out. Like they had me as I'm running them out over my shoulder, they had my back, or as I held them in my arms, they were gripping me. They had me. And it was almost like this cohesive thing between the two of us where I was going to get them out, but they were going to make sure that I got them out. So when I got them out, though, and I laid them down, even with some of the hardest moments when I lost a woman and she took her last breath, and I'm standing over her, and that's my 13-second memory every day. All of a sudden I see something fly by my right side on my on my iPad, my uh peripherals, and it's three men running in through the gate, right, to go back in. And the inspiration, right? And that's what I that's what I tell people is even in that moment of complete terror, and it was horrible. You know, we had over, I think, 400, 500 people get get uh were injured. We had over 58 people lose their lives. I held three of them in my arms at night, two more that I carried out uh lost their lives in the hospital later on uh the next day. So even in all of that, the inspiration though, because yeah, I was probably one of the first ones to run back in through the gates, but as but as those eight hours went on, thousands of people came out of hiding to come back to help the hundreds on the ground. And that inspired the heck out of all of us that were going back and forth, because each time I still get goosebumps over it, that moment of pure exhaustion, that moment of darkness, the terror, the evil, the suck, like everything about it. You'd see somebody running or you'd see a group of people carrying someone out. It's like instant adrenaline, instant motivation, instant love. Love will win at the end of this damn thing. We are in a battle to fight and combat this evil, right? And in that moment, I'd never felt so strong in my life. I'd never felt so wanted, right? I was there in that moment and I did everything I possibly could to help save lives. And at the end of the night, um, towards the end of the night, we're we're over at Tropicana and we're protecting about 150 people in the back entrance of this corridor uh on the back side of the building because there was a shooter that was supposed to be in the building and and somewhere, right? So law enforcement scattered. There's me, a marine, a fire captain from San Francisco, and an off-duty EMT, and about four others. I don't know who they were, but these three individuals had been with me for a couple hours as we were going back and forth over to the venue until we got over to Tropicana, where they were staging uh to put people into ambulances at this point. So now we're all inside, right? And we're barreling through doors because there were two corridors. We're looking for a shooter. So I'm hitting this door, not knowing if there's gonna be something on the other side. The EMT had my wallet, because God forbid I get hit. At least they're they're gonna, you know, that guy that first breaches a door, he's the most vulnerable at that time. But I was willing to hit that, and we're finding all these people, pods of people piled up on on top of each other because they were running and scattering and hiding in all these places. So we're finally, we get all that we get these things cleared because we wanted to clear these corridors, make sure that we had men positioned down at the end of these hallways at these exit points, and now we're gonna focus on on these 150 plus people on these corridors. Well, then we hear there's a man with a knife at the end of the hallway. So here I am, I'm running down this hallway, right? My boots, my size 14 boots are like clomp, clomp, clomp all the way through. And I'm a big dude, so I'm coming up now. I see that this guy is like wielding this knife, and people are backing up, and I'm yelling, good guy, bad guy, good guy, bad guy, about 20 feet from him. And he raised up his hand just enough, and I was able to grab him and throw him up and disarm this guy, right? Crazy. You go from all this other stuff barreling through doors, you're disarming this guy with a knife, and then about I don't even know, 20 minutes later, SWAT comes in. We end up putting all these people, and finally, after a while, they come up to me and a couple other guys and say, Sir, you can stand down. I had blood all over me on my left side from carrying all these people. I thought I had been shot at one point. All these things. Um when you hit, and I know that a lot of your listeners are gonna resonate with this. After that adrenaline is done and you realize what just happened, man, there's no darker place. There's no there's no quieter, like silentness. The moment of silence is what scared the heck out of me. And but I had people come up and like they didn't want to see me on my knees, so they were literally total strangers just lifting me up and giving me hugs and embracing me in that moment. And that togetherness as a human being, that's what we're here for, right? You have those those micro little pieces of evil that groups they try to recruit from, thousands and thousands of people to try to get that one person that's going to go ahead and do the evil act, right? Out of the 999, one is going to actually do that. But the other 999 are kind of like they still got a little consciousness to them. They're like, well, I'm not sure. But then you have 999 million people that are good, that just want to live life in a loving and caring way, to support each other, to help their mankind, their neighbors, their brothers and sisters out to have success so we can all wake up and have a smile on our face. And I realized in that moment I was not alone. Right? I didn't know how to get out of this though. And so when I got back to Dallas and I'm sitting in my truck, I got a call from uh Army Ranger that said, Hey brother, um I did three tours in combat. I'm a friend of your dad's. My name is Lee. I've seen what you've seen in terms of the the destruction of what one man can do to another. I want to give you a 72-hour survival guide, and this is what's gonna happen. You're stutter, you're gonna start studying your speech. You're gonna have this headache in the back right side of your skull, you're gonna lose sleep, you're gonna have nightmares, you're not gonna, you're gonna get irritated, you're gonna be irritated. You're not gonna know like what your next step is going to be like. He said, I am here for you, and he called me almost every hour. All of a sudden, my buddies that were DOJ, FBI terrorist task force, LAPD Metro, fire captains, like people were calling me and saying, Hey, brother, like, how are you? You know, we've been in that dark place before. This is what's going on. Here's my story. I started learning more about my best man that was career law enforcement, and ended up, you know, a liaison with FBI and all these crazy things. Total badass guy started sharing his like work life with me and some of the things that he had he still thinks about today. And um, it was so impactful where men were just melting in front of me, showing their vulnerability, and a guy that grew up with this no-stopping here mentality, no blood, no foul, fall out of a tree, get back up, dust yourself off, right? I knew now that I needed to kind of let that guard down and I needed to accept that advice. I needed to be able to understand that I was hurt. I wasn't physically I wow, I blew my left shoulder out, I had two hernias, my left hip, my right knee, and my I tore my rotated cuff on my right. So I was hurt physically, but I was okay. I didn't get shot. I wasn't what happened to some of those other poor people. Um, so in my mind, I was just damaged. Uh, but I was really hurt in my mind, I was really hurt in my heart, I couldn't talk, I couldn't think, and I had to be a dad. I had to go to work in two days. I had to be a husband that was trying to rekindle this relationship and actually. Be a real life person out in the real world. I didn't get debriefed. I didn't get a chance to go and take 30 days off, right? We had just moved. I had mortgage payments, all these things that were now compiling on me. So in the end, I woke up about four o'clock in the morning a while back. Now I realized I wasn't alone spiritually. I knew that I was not alone. I had a dream that in my mind solidified that I was not alone that night, that I was shielded. There was a reason that I was, I'm a big dude wearing a cowboy hat running in multiple times. I carried over 30 people out to safety. There's a reason that I was not shot. But in the end, I had this dream and I woke up and I looked at myself in the mirror, Daniel, and I was like, I don't even know you. You're lost. You got to listen to this advice. So I searched EMDR therapy. Um, that was the biggest advice given to me. Uh try to find someone that that specializes in. It's good for combat vets, it's great for first responders, good for people that have mass trauma. I found a therapist after a couple tries. It took me a couple tries. I I persevered. I'm not gonna stop. That's my mentality. You can't stop in that. If you decide, okay, let's go, I'm gonna walk tall again, then let's do this. I'm not gonna just go halfway because like I was uh I've I've mentioned before and other uh podcasts and other stories when I've been asked this question, athletes, when they're hurt, they go on the DL or IL they call it now, they fix themselves up in the training room. Why? So they can get back out and perform at their best and do their job because they love it, but that's also their livelihood, right? Why don't we do that here? Why don't our vets take care of themselves and say, hey, I'm messed up, man. I'm not the same guy or same woman that I I was when I joined or whatever else. Yeah, I went through a bunch, but so did my comrades, so did my teammates, my brothers, my sisters, or whatever. Why is it that law enforcement, why are there so many suicides that we feel like we need to we need to do it all ourselves because we're knocked down and poor us? Get your ass back up. The toughest thing you could possibly do is go like this. I need help. That's not a sign of weakness. It's not a throwing the white flag in. That's saying, hey, I want to get back to the strongest individual that I possibly can be. So how do I do this? And when you do this, you open up opportunities, like I mentioned earlier, for all your brothers and sisters, all your people that you never ever thought were ever hurt in their lives to come forth and say, I've been there. I've got a relatable experience, and listen to me. And all of a sudden, now the more stories that we tell, podcasts like yourselves, or you know, that you're putting out, people are listening to this, and you're creating a survival guide for someone to learn how to say, All right, I'm not alone. This guy did it. Look at how strong he is now. He was strong before and he got his ass kicked, and now he's down, but he went like this. And now people came to his side to help him. Maybe if I do that, people are going to come to my side. And if they don't, there's other resources out there, right? Go to your church, build your pal support group first. There's therapy, but you can do this. And that's what I realized, and I haven't stopped. Um, and I'm just so blessed that again, like my dad, like my grandfathers, they were there for me, they shaped me. So were my pals in a time of total darkness. They they lifted me up, they carried me when I couldn't walk, and they got me back on my boots and uh and pushed me forward. So yeah, I'm just so lucky to to have them and and uh and not stop.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah, and we're lucky to have you here, and all those people were lucky to have you there. Um we in the world are lucky to have men like you, because we need men like you, people that are gonna raise their hand, volunteer, step up, or when things get tough, they're willing to do what's right. And I think you had one of those amazing life moments where you realized the world and love and fellow man and Christ did gave his life so that we could all be here and be forgiven.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

We have that ability to walk in that light, and that's what you did that day. You were like, Okay, you love your wife, you love your kids. I don't question any of that, but you know what was more important for you at that moment, and I'm sure your wife loved and hated that about you, because I've heard that line, like the things I hate about you, I love love about you. But seriously, you did the greatest act you could to help complete strangers that needed it, that were hurting. And I know those moments that you had as hard as they were, you even said it yourself, the love that was there, the love of the people running back in, the embrace that you felt of the other people, that genuine gratitude grasp of love and like thank you so much. I mean, I'm preaching to somebody who knows, but for the audience, those moments, and you may have them happen in your life, they may be coming, they may have already happened, but when they come, really open up and accept them and realize in that moment what you're experiencing is something special. It can be horrific, but even in the most horrific events, love is still there, and it's incredible if you can realize that. But afterwards, you're probably gonna be a little bit wounded. We all get banged up. The struggle for the human being and our existence is real. We all struggle, you know. Nobody has it all made. There's only one perfect person, as far as I know. So um, yeah, I I want to go back real quick too, um, before I forget the EMDR, I know what it is, but for the audience listening, when you went through EMDR, can you talk about what that was, how it helped you? And so if someone is maybe curious or going through some trauma, they know, oh, this is an option.

Mentorship And Everyday Leadership

Wake Up Calls And Asking For Help

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Yeah. Uh thank you for bringing that up too, because I love to put uh the light on that because it's a great tool to use to help us uh get through our trauma and learn how to walk with it. But before I do that, I think it's important in just listening to you articulate those thoughts that the listener, whoever's listening right now, you don't have to go through a shooting, you don't have to go through combat to have the trauma to raise your hand to say, I need help. It it doesn't, it could be a car accident, it could be something you're just struggling with, it could be you're in a depressive state, it could just be that you're not down for a little bit and you just don't know how to get back up. It's okay to raise your hand, it's okay to ask for help. Um, but the other person that's watching someone that knows they're going through a struggle, reach out. Have that courage to reach out and say, hey, are you okay? Do you want to talk about something? Like, what's going on with you? No, no, listen to me. Just talk. I'll listen. If you're gonna listen to someone, just truly listen to them and let them talk. Because sometimes that can be just as powerful as a as a love and effect as what you and I or or anyone else has gone through in those dark moments. So I I love where you went with that. EMDR. So when I went, I didn't know really what it was. I knew it was some form of like there's three different versions of it that a therapist that's trained. And I think too, when you're finding a therapist, find us somebody that's uh that has relatable experience, that's worked with uh, like for me, I needed to find someone that worked with combat veterans or first responders that had seen the somewhat of the terror that I had seen. Every circumstance is different. It's all based on your own uh upbringing and what you can comprehend, of course. So it's all different and relevant. I'm not comparing apples to apples, but you want to try to find somebody that that you can speak to because my first time, Daniel, when I went to a therapist, she was well put together, very dressed, nice, very professional. I couldn't open up to her. I couldn't share eight seconds of what I was about to like unload and needed to unload with her. I was gonna destroy her world. In my mind, she could have taken it, and I tell people, I'm not disrespecting her or her profession. She could have totally taken it and maybe been an amazing therapist for me, but I wasn't comfortable with speaking to her. She was a bit more like talking to my mom. I just couldn't do it, right? And sometimes you can't talk to your family, sometimes you can't talk to your wife or your husband about it because they're so close, and maybe they've never experienced anything like what you're going through emotionally or physically or through that turmoil. So you got to find somebody that that first that therapist that has that experience. Then when you find that person, you need to have this kind of third 30-second to one minute vetting, kind of like looking at them. Are you comfortable with their appearance? Are you comfortable with the way they talk to you? Are you comfortable with the way that we're looking at each other eye to eye? Are you do you like their voice? Like there has to be all these checks and balances that go in because you're about to unload every dark secret of your life to them. And I was super confident. I found a woman out of Plano, Texas. Her name is Diane. She doesn't like to be recognized. Um, she's in her own place, but she's from Wisconsin. She's an amazing, amazing angel of mine. She had worked with tons of combat vets and different people. She could handle what I needed to throw at her. And so we started EMDR. And what she did was she gave me two river rock paddles. Now she said, there's this eye movement stuff. It's a light that goes side to side. We could do that one. She goes, but I don't think that's going to be good for you, not with what I needed to do, not with my trauma and the lights. That wasn't going to be good because I had seen a lot. Then there's an uh an audio version that I guess it's like uh little beeps and things that go back and forth that you could put on like a headphone. But she said, I think you're really going to be comfortable more with the river of the rock paddles. And what they were, they're like little river rocks that had uh wires attached to this controller, like a phone, and she would control the volume of the vibration, and it it vibrated right and left like a heartbeat. Okay. So I'd I'd feel this like it just buzz, like, real soft and faint. Obviously, it was in my hands. I had control of it, and it would be nice and slow, and then she started asking me questions like, hey, okay, so now that I've got this thing going, and the idea is that it's knocking your brain from right to left, okay? And the way she described it made total sense visually to me. In in a moment of trauma in crisis, in in whatever you happens to you that you normally can't control, you can't take, your brain will basically shut a drawbridge behind those memories that you saw, that you can't process right away without going absolutely insane, and it protects you. And that's why you get the the knocking in the back of your skull after going through a horrific event, because your brain is trying to figure out how the heck am I supposed to let you start to remember these things and let you process to where you're going to be able to live and function in real life. And for me, after that after Vegas happened, I was seeing, like I could remember I yelled at a guy. Why was I yelling at a guy? Where was I at? What time of the night was that at? I remember the beginning. I didn't really remember other areas of it. The middle, the end, they were kind of miscombobulated. I remember seeing like putting a woman into the back of a pickup truck. I remember the driver. We actually got a chance to reconnect later on. Um, yeah, through his friend and everything else. He was a marine that stole a pickup truck, and pretty incredible. They ended up giving, I think Chevy bought him a pickup truck after. It was super cool. He commandeered this thing. But like I I remember these glimpses of the night, right? And then through EMDR, what those paddles did was she would ask me questions that would take me into one minute of time, and she would pause me in that moment and say, Okay, in the very beginning, what was what was the weather like? Did you feel a breeze? When you got done dancing with your niece and you heard the first singular gunshots, where did your eyes go? And we I would I would focus in that one minute of time and process that and the whole time she's turning the volume up. So the vibrations got bigger and faster and faster and faster, which started to lower the drawbridge, which allowed this piece of memory to float out into the front part of my skull or wherever it went, who knows? Because I got a brain that size. So who knows where it went. But all of a sudden now I'm crying. And I'm I'm talking about it. And so when when I got to a level of where my anxiety was like, okay, like now she can feel that she turns the volume down, the drawbridge goes back, it closes everything else back in, she turns it off, I hand her the paddles, and then we did talkative therapy for the last 20 minutes or 10 minutes of the session. She would share her faith. She was faith-based, which I wanted. She would talk about different teachings that she had learned, different relatable experiences, and we would talk about that moment. And the way she cut she thought about that was we just took that memory, as I processed that memory, stuck it in a little black box, put a number on it, number one, and stuck it on the shelf. And then we our goal was to try to put line those shelves up with, like, you know, all you guys have the challenge coins, which I'm starting to collect now because I'm getting more and more, uh, which is cool. But all these boxes would be lined up on my shelf and they would be all in chronology chronological order, and that was the goal. So I knew walking out of that first session, this is gonna be exhausting. I'm gonna I'm gonna cry. I've never really cried in front of anybody before. I'm not a big crier guy, but I'm gonna start to become more vulnerable. And then all of a sudden, now through thank God, like people were reaching out to me on Facebook and telling me what they what I did. I started to timeline, put pieces together, confirm things, validate things where I was at, sending pictures to people, really investigating, putting time and effort into my healing, which is a huge thing. You can't just all of a sudden it's not going to happen in one night. There's no magic pill you take. It really, like, I thank God I didn't get into drugs. I didn't, you know, I didn't believe in that. I wanted to do everything naturally. I didn't go drinking. I wanted to sustain from that. I wanted to purely just use my own strength inside, my strength with my faith, let it carry me. I prayed every day. And finally, over the course of about a year and a half, I was able to put all those boxes, the I'm gonna say probably the majority of those boxes in chronological order, remember the majority of everything I did, process, cry, think about it, and all of a sudden it made me stand back up again. And I became the beast that I wanted to be before, but now I walk with peace, which I actually wrote a poem on called Beast in Peace. But I got into poetry, I got into like the softer side of me. I wrote songs, Christian songs, country songs, um, a few that have been performed, which is pretty awesome. But it'll it unlocked a whole new side to me that uh I think that always been there. I just between like me getting in my own way and then not allowing me to heal and learn how to walk with my trauma instead of just bury it, I learned how to become stronger now and recognize when that trauma was coming back on me. What did I do? Like right now, we're coming up on the anniversary of that night. And I'm I've been feeling it for three weeks now, and progressively I get more irritated. The dogs drive me crazy, like my work drives me crazy. That's on me. So I need to slow down, right? I need to just relax, allow that, allow myself to breathe. I need to be able to feel that angel wrap his arms around my wings and remember that I'm okay, grab a hold of my my thoughts, control my stuttering of speech because that happens when I get really anxious, put myself in a safe place, but remember that I've already checked my tough box off. I'm not weak, I'll never, ever, ever, ever be weak again in my life. Nobody could ever say that I'm weak. And now I gotta rely on that strength. My peer support group that's there all the time. I call my pals, my faith, and I know I can go back to Diane or a therapist and talk to somebody and realize that I'm just in the training room again, fixing my arm up so I can get back on the mound and throw. You know, so yeah, that's that's what EMDR was, though, and that's how it helped me.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Oh, that's great. And thank you for sharing your story. I mean, you are an inspiration. You really are. Inspiration for protecting others, and inspiration for learning and growing, uh, inspiration for healing. Sharing your story is powerful. And I know you know this because you had people that came to you and shared their story, and like you shared with the audience. Wow, like that. I didn't know that about this person, or they're sharing you, you're not alone. So when we all struggle, pretty much anything you're going through, listener, or have gone through, someone else has done something similar. Yes, we each walk our own path, we have our own journey, but you know, sometimes the road has the same turns left and right, and you can learn from others. So let's talk about mentorship, because it sounds like in many ways having somebody there to help mentor you, whether it be inspirational with your dad and trying to be the best you can be at whatever you're doing, whether it's being mentored on healing, how important is that? And what can you share with the audience about your mindset and mentorship?

The Trauma Sphere Method And Grace

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Well, thank you for your kind words, first of all. I appreciate that. Um, I think I, you know, I was put in a place to do the right thing, and I'm just happy that I was able to do that. Um but you know, mentorship is is key to I think anybody's survival. I think when we as mentors walk the walk that we talk, right? We talk the talk, we walk the walk. We have we're beacons for others that uh aspire to get to that point. We're just being good human beings. That's all we're doing. You brought up Charlie Kirk earlier, you know, and and what he I think represented in just trying to get people to have conversation, right? Whether you believed in What he was, his his conversations or not, he was sparking good positive conversation, and he was a Christian. And so there was there was this positive power through him. You saw him, you knew that he walked the walk, he talked the talk. He meant no harm to anybody. He was he meant all positive thoughts. And I think that's from a mentorship side, that's where that's where we need to be. So from a mentor side, I think we need to recognize people that maybe are struggling around us, whether it's our workplace, whether it's our former our former military uh uh teammates or our first responders or our general family, friends, whatever that is, and just making sure that they know you're there. The I think the hardest part in being a mentor is also knowing when to back off and allowing your actions to speak for your words. And that's where I went before with just making sure that you're being a good human being. On the other side, when you're down and you have those individuals that are there, those rocks, those PAL systems, those are the ones that I think you got to make sure you're doing your research to to um to find those relatable mentors, those people that you you aspire to be like, and have have have realistic expectations, right? Have those realistic goals. It's like being on a highway. If I know that I want to get to the end of end of the road, that's where my goal is. I have I can't just drive there for 600, 700 miles. I gotta get off, I gotta get gas, I gotta get food, I gotta go to the bathroom, I gotta let the dog out, I gotta let the wife out, I gotta let the kids play around, I gotta stay at a hotel, I might have to work, right? There's all these expectations, there's all these realistic things that happen to us in our life that are gonna stop us from traveling down that highway of getting to where we want to go. And I think if we recognize that, that every time we get off is an opportunity to slow ourselves down, to focus and accomplish one thing at a time that gives us success, that allows us to bow our chest, that allows us the confidence to get back on that highway to go. I think mentorship is a lot like that. I think as we approach being a mentor for somebody, it's not trying to get them to the finish line right away. It's these micro little success points that we can instill into them to get them off their knees, to then get them to bow their chest up, right? To then make sure that their feet are grounded, to make sure that they have a visual in front of them that it's clear, it's successful, and there's a smile and love, you know, that they have now. And now it's pushing them forward and getting them off the diving board or whatever visual you have. So I think it's just making sure that those mentors that we have are mentors that are going to positively move us forward in a pace that we can digest, that we can have success with and start to build our own internal strength. So yeah, mentorship is is super hard. And sometimes you don't even realize that you've got one sitting right in front of you or you've had one for years, right? Um, you look back and maybe even think, God, well, that guy was a jerk. But wow, the life lessons he just taught me. Holy cow. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, hindsight's 2020, you know, as they say. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

No, I I I'm so proud of you, brother. You know, I really am for what you're doing, what you've been through, and shedding light still, shining bright. People have a hard time doing that, and they will get stuck in the dark place. And I'm proud of you for raising your hand and getting help. I'm proud of you for sharing your story. Those are all brave acts, and those are amazing things to just do and show others because you are a light leading the way for others to follow. And I think that's fantastic. And you are leading so much light that I want everybody listening right now, you need to pause, go in the description, and find out about Todd. Check him out, see what he's doing. And also, of course, follow, like, and subscribe. It costs you nothing to give us a follow or to help us out and help the algorithm because you know what we're doing? We're spreading positivity and light in the world. So give us a like and a share, please. And also, Todd, isn't there something that you're being recognized for right now? Something going on in Dallas that I think is amazing and well deserved. You could have been nominated for something or you're up for an award.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Crazy. Yeah, I'm up for the Can Do Spirit Award from the City of Dallas. Uh, so it's me and a couple other people. And if you go on to um I think it's dallascando.com, um, you can check it out and vote for me. But uh yeah, it's such an honor to even just be nominated for that. I don't know who nominated me, but uh I got a call and said, yeah, City of Dallas is nominated you as this uh candidate for the Can Doer Award uh for 2025. And yeah, super privileged and honored. Um, I think those those come with uh with all the hard work that we do, uh being a good human being, uh treating people with respect and kindness, looking people in the eye when you shake their hand, saying yes, sir and yes, ma'am, respecting where they are and who they are. I think people want that, right? We all want to be treated with respect and kindness, and that's where we've lost our way a little bit in this world. Um so I I'm just super humbled to to be a part of that and and be nominated for such a esteem award. So thank you for bringing that up.

unknown 45:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Thank you for being the person that you are. That way you're nominated. That's incredible. And we need more people in the world like you. And I think there's a movement where people are starting to wake up and they're starting to see the light and realize they can take ownership of the world around them and contribute to making it a better place. Because the only way evil can win is for good men to do nothing, or women, you know what I'm saying. So anybody out there that gets upset, like good people have to do good things and good works in the world, otherwise it's just gonna go to darkness. And we don't want that to happen, and I don't think God's gonna let it happen anyway. So we just need to pull together, love each other, and make change. So with people that are you think right now maybe asleep or just stuck in a comfort zone, what would you say to them to kind of wake them up so that they can live a life that's more inspiring or shedding light and positivity?

Closing Reflections And Calls To Act

SPEAKER_00 46:55

You're not alone. Uh I and I I know you've heard that before, and you do feel isolated, like you're the only one going through what you're going through. And whether it's financial troubles or depression, you're going through marriage issues or relationship issues or family issues or work issues, and things are strapped. Whatever that situation is, it has you completely knocked down, there is a light there. It's going to suck for a little bit. It's it's okay. Embrace this. God's not going to put things on your shoulders, He doesn't think that you're going to be able to handle. You're going to handle this. You've already achieved, we've gone through COVID. We've you're living, you're breathing, right? So you're going to be able to stand back up. And the first thing though is ask for help. It's in our nature as human beings to help others. And yeah, you might get some people that turn their turn their their way when they know you're coming. Those people aren't going to be people you want in your lives, anyways. Why do we live for others? Live for yourself, right? Be a good human being. So in that moment, ask for help. Think about ways that you can ask for help. If you don't have anybody in your life, there's nobody in your Rolodex, call me. Get in touch with me. I've got a huge network. We will make sure that somebody is connected to you. I do that all the time. There's always, you just got to tell your story. Tell your story, start talking about what's really hurting you, and people will be there to help you. You know, when I got back from Vegas, my daughter asked me. She said, Daddy, she said, with all the bad things that just happened to you, how do you start, how do you keep believing in the good? And I said, Baby girl, it doesn't matter how many bad people you see on TV or in social media or anything else, good will always win. Because there's more good people in this world than there are bad. We will always win. And so when you're down and you're in that quiet space and that silence, break the silence, put some noise on, turn on your favorite song, go on a drive. Whatever that is that brings you happiness. I've done videos on this before. Think about little babies and when you hold them for the first time and their little toes and squeezing their cheeks and things like that. Get to a point in your life, and you can do this quickly. Get to a point in your life where you can step outside and you can breathe. Control your own environment, create that strength and that barrier around you, put that armor back on, stand back up and challenge whatever the hell has got you knocked down and persevere and win. It's just like when Rocky was was was not wanting Rocky II didn't want to, you know, battle, he didn't want to fight because his wife wasn't supporting him, and then she says, Rocky, win, and all of a sudden he like starts chasing chickens and he beats up like it's just great Cinderella story. But own your own path. Don't let someone else dictate that for you. You know, get back up. So yeah, that's hard though. We've all been there. Every single one of us has been knocked down, you know, and and uh look at where I'm at, look at where you're at, doing this incredible podcast. Um we all can achieve success. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

No, and it can start, you know, you get some self-awareness, you realize, shit, I need to work on this, or I need to work on that. Everybody right now, you, me, all the listeners, we know there's one thing we could do better today. One thing. Just do the one thing, and then you're gonna feel a little better and you can start building momentum. Or I love to also tell people do the next kind thing. Whatever's happening in your world, somebody asked for something, or just to help somebody, even if they don't ask, make a phone call and just say, Hey, nothing important. Just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. Or, hey, you're calling a loved one, hey, just wanted to call and say I love you. Yeah, like those little things, just do the next kind little thing. Send some love out in the world. It will change someone else's life, but more importantly, it's gonna change your life, and you're gonna be able to do more of that, and you're gonna build momentum in a positive direction. And you're absolutely right, Todd. People get knocked down. We can't beat ourselves up. It's part of the experience, it's part of growth. We are growing, we are here to grow, to learn. That is part of God's plan is to grow and be better. So just step up and do it. I'm just honored to have you here to share your story. And again, I'm gonna say I'm proud of you for sharing your story the way you do, because a lot of people don't have the strength to do that. And they do exactly what you said. They try and wall things off, box it up, have a shell that they just have you can use whatever analogy you want. And you have to break through that stuff, break through the crap, break through the darkness, let the light shine, and you can do it. So before we wrap things up, because I know we're getting a little closer to the end here, about an hour, and I know we could probably talk for two or three hours. But uh I want you you've been doing an amazing job sharing your story and sharing nuggets of knowledge in this world for others to be able to be more positive and have a better, better mindset. Can you leave the audience with something as far as a tip or trick, something with the mindset and how you're able to shift or what you've learned, or something that they can walk away with that maybe they could put in practice in their life today?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Yeah. Uh thank you for asking. Um, so I wrote a book on this. Uh, it's a short guidebook. Um, we're getting ready to uh launch a volume two uh with more expanded uh information. But essentially, what I've developed and call uh what what it's called a trauma sphere. So everything that happens in our lives, bad things, um things in our past, things that are happening to us right now, they all kind of for me, they float into this sphere. Okay, and that sphere could look like a shiny object. It could be all look like a soccer ball, it could be have fire around it, whatever that looks like to you, but that's your trauma sphere. Okay. So everything right there, it's out in front of you. It's you can't touch it until all of a sudden you put yourself in an anxiety type uh part of your life, something happens, you start thinking about things too much, you don't focus on yourself, then that trauma sphere starts to back up. Or in that moment of darkness, when something happens, like it did with me in Las Vegas, that trauma sphere is sitting right on your shoulder and it's kicking you in the back of the head, and that's all it's doing. And you don't have control of that trauma sphere, and the closer it gets to your body, the more dangerous it gets. So part of this whole healing process was learning not how to hide my trauma, not how to bury it, put it into my gut, throw it behind me, walk away, because that's always gonna come back. That trauma sphere is like, I think about like Iron Man. It's gonna like shoot back out, it's gonna hit you on the way, and it's gonna hurt. And it does hurt. Going through depression, going through that trauma, it hurts. So, how do we control this? How do we learn how to walk with it? So, if that trauma sphere is out here, what are you doing today to recognize? Okay, yesterday I took on two new work projects, I didn't really get much sleep, the kids were driving me crazy, I didn't give myself any self-grace, I didn't allow myself to slow down, and I got really irritable, and all these things were moving up, and I was going, da da da da. And all of a sudden, that trauma sphere now is sitting right here on you. So, what can you do today to start putting hands out, building new techniques to start pushing that out? And for me, I went to church. I find my grace there. I find that I try to go there, I let everything go. That's my safe place. That is one hand that comes over to me. I step outside for a second, I pray for a minute, I even if you're not gonna pray, step outside, enjoy the leaves on the tree. Think about separating your mind mentally from the place you are right now to allow yourself to escape the moment, control your breathing, and then turn around and get back in because even that little bit of control that you just regained about yourself, push that trauma sphere back out. Now you're re-entering that space. Go into a bathroom if you're at a concert, allow that silence to happen just for a minute, control yourself, and then come back out and approach things. If you're in an argument with somebody, stop for a second, relax, let that 30 seconds of silence somewhere in the garage or outside or in your car, let that happen. Let your heart rate come down. Now you've pushed that trauma sphere back out. Now you're gonna tackle that in a more strategic manner, which is gonna be more controlled, right? The other part is my pal support group. If that doesn't work for me and I can't do it myself, I'm gonna call my buddy. Hey, Woody, man, I'm I'm really struggling right now. I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling alone. Talk to me. Okay, let's just talk. That 30 minutes of conversation, I got to allow myself to do that. Every no, nothing else matters. I'm gonna let myself do that. There's another arm that just came over my shoulder to help me push that trauma sphere out so I can walk with it. So those are intangible ways between your therapy, your therapist, your faith, whatever that means to you, that self-preservation, that slowing yourself down, that prayer, that belief, and then your pal support system, those three pillars can help you push that thing back out. But own your trauma sphere. It's a living and breathing and real thing. And if you don't own that and it keeps just coming back on you, then you're just always gonna be depressed. You're always gonna be in that darkness, you're gonna turn to drugs, you're gonna turn to the bottle, you're gonna turn to other things that you don't really want your life or your son or your daughter to ever go through, right? So control that traumasphere, push it back out. That's probably the biggest advice is, and you know, and then also give yourself grace. Man, we're human. We are not perfect. You're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna feel like you're on top of this world, and you're gonna make the dumbest mistake, and you're gonna get mad at yourself, and you're gonna think you just broke everything, but you didn't. You just got off the highway for a second, and you're, you know, get back on. You got your goals, be a good human being, but control your sphere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Yeah. I I love that um you have that analogy of driving down the road because that's what we're doing. We're in this journey of life, and sometimes, yeah, you have to take a detour. There's a pothole, there's an accident, you need gas, like you said, you need to refuel, take a break. And I think it's so important as well that you said grace. You need to give yourself grace. We all need to do that because nobody's perfect. We're all gonna make mistakes. It's the truth. That's what happens. Give yourself grace. Understand you're not perfect. Do your best to be the best human being you can, but don't beat yourself up over and over again. Nothing productive will come from it. And I do love to also share the reframing. You can change things like I am going to learn from this. This is a bad thing that happened, it's gonna make me stronger. Change your thoughts. You change your thoughts, you'll change your beliefs. You change your beliefs, you can change your life. It's incredible. And definitely take ownership of your life. Surround yourself with good people, be in positive environments, and be an asset to others. And most importantly, own your power.