16. Brage Garofalo

In this episode of Making More, Billy Fischer sits down with Brage Garofalo for a powerful conversation about transition, identity, service, and the deep human need for belonging.

Brage has spent years supporting veterans, first responders, elite operators, and high performers as they navigate the difficult space between who they were, who they served with, and who they are becoming next. Drawing from her background in clinical research, her work in mental health, and her commitment to those moving through major life transitions, Brage brings a deeply compassionate perspective to what happens when structure fades and the uniform comes off.

Billy and Brage explore the loss of tribe many veterans experience after service, the emotional and intellectual side of transition, and why rebuilding community is just as important as building a resume or LinkedIn profile. They also discuss leadership lessons from military teams, the importance of psychological safety, and what business leaders can learn from people who have been trained to operate with trust, humility, loyalty, and mission focus.

The conversation also takes a memorable turn into open-water swimming, including Brage’s story of participating in the Frogman Swim under the Golden Gate Bridge, where a mysterious bump in the water became a vivid metaphor for fear, focus, and the instinct to keep moving forward.

At the heart of this episode is Brage’s answer to the title question: she wants to make more of a difference. Whether through supporting someone in transition, helping a veteran feel less alone, or simply leaving the world better than she found it, Brage reminds us that meaningful impact often begins with showing up for people when they need a tribe the most.

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Making More, the podcast where high-performing business owners and visionary executives share how they're building more than just bottom line. I'm your host, Billy Fisher, an engineering leader and business and executive coach, and I'm guided by a personal mission to help leaders create clarity, build forward momentum, and make more of what matters most. Today's conversation is one I'm very excited to have because we're going to dive deep into transition, purpose, and identity with someone who spent her career helping some of the nation's most elite operators navigate life after service. My guest, Braze Garofalo, is a clinical researcher, a licensed therapist, a board member of the Navy Special Operations Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting Navy EOD and divers and their families. And she was also the co-founder of a nonprofit that helps veterans, first responders, and high performers rediscover belonging and balance after their uniform comes off. We will talk about loss of tribe, the courage to slow down, and how true strength often begins when structure fades. Brage, welcome to making more.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Thank you so much, Billy. It's so exciting to be here. I've really been looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Oh, it's going to be a fun conversation. You and I share uh a background, a history of swimming, and you have gotten to swim open water. And I just think there's there's so much that can be learned from the tenacity and the endurance that comes from open water swimming. So I hope we can use some of those metaphors today.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Absolutely. In fact, I swam this morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

You did. All right. Was it in a pool?

SPEAKER_01 1:45

It was.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

All right. Very good.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Two dark face swimming in the bay.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Very good.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Feeding time.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So I want to walk through your story because it is a very unique one and sort of the kinds of people that you have been able to serve in your career. Because a lot of people probably go their whole lives without even meeting these types of people. But you have found a way to serve the elite special forces operators of the U.S. Armed Forces. And so I just want to understand how did you come into that line of work? How did you come to get to know that path? And where has it taken you?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

So good question. It happened by accident. So rewind about 11, 12 years ago, uh a good friend of mine at the time, her son deployed to Afghanistan right after 9-11. And he did um, I think two tours. He came back, and when he transitioned out, it was an incredibly bumpy transition. At the time, there weren't um the number of service organizations to support veterans like there are now. So he was having a really difficult time. He had uh severe PTS, and finding him a traditional desk job wasn't really an option for him. So she and I tapped into our LinkedIn networks and essentially, like a patchwork quilt, if you will, put together a transition plan for him in terms of resources for his PTS, um, resources for his physical health, and then resources for finding him meaningful work. And so going through that and tapping into our network and talking with different people, we were able together to be able to put together a transition plan for him. And by the time we were done, I sat back and I thought, that is one of the most gratifying experiences I've ever had. And I remember um, and this was during, I can't remember if it was the first or second term of President Obama and um his wife, and I believe it was Jill Biden. So they were both um talking about getting involved and supporting veterans. And so I went online looking for organizations that supported the transition of veterans. I found a couple of them. I signed up, having no idea what I was doing. I was essentially flying by the seat of my pants. And I've been doing it ever since. And every so often I would get an operator that would cross my path, predominantly uh team guys, Navy SEALs. And there's a lot of information about Navy SEALs and how they operate in terms of their training tempos, the training that they have to do, their expectations, the deployments, and so on and so forth. So I think at the time I knew that they operated at a much higher level, a higher frequency, if you will, than those of us who that are mere mortals. And so I would try to do my best to be able to support them. And I found an organization called the Honor Foundation, and they are a transition institute that supports operators as they transition out of the military. And at the time, they were primarily supporting Navy SEALs. So I reached out to the VP of PeopleOps, which is uh which was Phil Dana at the time. Shout out to Phil Dana and Joe Musselman, and talked with them about and did you know my own quote unquote cup of coffee in terms of learning about the organization and the curriculum and how do they support them and what do I need to be thinking about to be supporting uh these types of operators because it's different in terms of how they think, how they approach things, how they problem solve. So my 30-minute call with Phil turned into an hour and a half, and I slowly started to get involved with the Honor Foundation as a volunteer, and then talking with Joe and with Phil, um, learning what the vision was for their mentor program, and then worked with Phil to not only build out their mentor program, but then, you know, three years thereafter, I managed and led their mentor program so that I was, you know, up to my elbows in working with operators and really understanding, you know, their perspective, what their needs were, and how to best support them.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

It's it's so fascinating to me. I mean, we talk in the corporate world about high performance teams, and we use that as sort of a buzzword, but like there is no such thing as the high performance team like a US Navy SEALs team or a Delta Forces team. Like that is next level, like the type of training, like you said, but not only that, like the type of decision making that they have to make is in a true life or death environment. Um, you know, you you can't you can't match that in a boardroom. You can't match that in um, you know, in a nonprofit. It's just it's it's a different uh way of life, right? And so I think you're exactly right. The fact that you were able to come into that space, see that need, see the the requirement for a special kind of emotional and intellectual connection with these individuals. Um, and so thank you for just being able to provide them with that type of support.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I really enjoy it. It's uh one of the things that uh gives me such great joy uh is being able to support these men and women that are transitioning out.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

You had a little uh history as far as your your work career in clinical research, I think, for cancer patients. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yes. I spent 25 years doing clinical research in the the biotech pharma space with the last 10 years um having a focus on oncology.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay, very good. Any lessons learned from that field?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

A lot of lessons. Um I think in terms of leadership, the most important fundamental component to leadership, I think, and you see this everywhere on on LinkedIn and and other forums, is really about leading by example and leveraging your team and their strengths and letting them sign, uh letting them shine. So the the old adage, a rising tide lifts all ships, is very true. If you leverage the strength of your team and you let them shine and you empower them to make decisions and you lead by example, you roll up your sleeves with them, they will work um infinitely harder than if you just tell them what to do and you silo them and you, you know, just limit, you know, what they can do and you don't empower them. And you know, I saw a lot of that in in all the companies that that I worked for, is there were some really exceptional leaders that you know learned how to step out of the way and say, you know, it's on you and I'll be your wizard behind the curtain. And then you see, you know, the the flip side to that, which you know is you can be somewhat unfortunately, you know, toxic and restrictive.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Yes, I think I I always try to model myself when I was in leadership positions at Toyota to be the type of manager or supervisor that was multiplying the efforts of the team. So I want to make sure that like what I'm doing is helping them grow. It's helping them get opportunities that they haven't had before. And then when the lights go off and it's just me in a room with other leaders, it's about showcasing their talents and helping lift them up so that they might might not have a place in this room yet. But I want to try and carve that path so that they get there. And so that was always kind of the way in which I led. It was it was from a little bit of a place, I've talked about this before on the podcast, that was kind of against the Toyota Way, where the Toyota way was always customer first, right? About taking care of the customer, taking care of that that downstream user of the forklift in our case. But for me, it was always about taking care of my people because I felt that if I took care of my people and my my people were were well looked after, like they're gonna take care of the customer automatically because they're being supported in ways that that lets them sustain that.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

A hundred percent. I I could not agree more.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I know I've had this debate with many people. It's it's just kind of a it's a philosophical difference, I think. And you have to decide in in your life which path you're going to be on. And people have had great success going customer-focused approach. You think Amazon and Jeff Visos, they are 100% like customer focused. That's that's their their core value and what they put on the walls, even. But for me, it's about taking care of the people that you're charged with leading. And I think that that's maybe very similar to what the military um, I think, um, holds dear when they're you know taking care of protecting a unit or a squadron or whatever it may be. Um, you know, you've got a mission, sure, but number one, the mission is to get everybody home.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yes. Simon Sinek, he's one of my favorites. Um, and I'm gonna paraphrase this, but he essentially said that if the employees love what they do and they believe in what they do, then everything else will be showcased from there in terms of their output, their um, the way that they engage with one another, their level of engagement, you know, with the organization. And I really believe that it's true. It all boils down to how they're treated. And then in in the book Leaders Eat Last, there's, and I think you and I have talked about this, there's a section in it where Simon Sinek talks about creating that safe environment for employees where they come into the workplace as a father, as a mother, as a wife, as an aunt, as every entity. And they don't lose those personas when they walk in the door as an employee. They just put on yet another hat. And it's really up to the leader to embrace all of that and create that safe place like they would have in their personal life, where they're allowed to make mistakes, they're allowed to share opinions, they're allowed to, you know, respectfully push back and say, I don't think this is a good idea because, and I that that piece of the book has resonated with me in terms of how I view organizations and how I want to be as a leader, no matter what the forum is. I want that safe place. I want my team to feel that they can come to me and say, I don't agree with this, or that they can make mistakes without the fear of being punished. And I just I think that's really powerful of just creating that environment to say, you know what, we're all going to fall down, myself included. It's how you choose to pull yourself back up that matters and did you learn from it?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Mm-hmm. It's such a dangerous thing in the workplace or in government office, even when um the people doing the work don't have the power or the safety to speak up and and raise a concern to to disagree.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Um, you know, I think you get into this this unfortunate cycle of just people being yes men, yes women, and they they just want to reinforce what the what the boss is saying. And um it's just such an unhealthy thing when when the top leaders don't get pushback and don't raise the voices of those within their organization so that you can get um kind of the the true landscape of what what is the problem, what are we gonna do to solve it? Um and so you know, I was I was blessed at Toyota in many ways because we had um overall kind of the the value of respecting people. And that was that was something they they did put on the wall. It's like they actually had marketing come in and an artist and they they wrote it on the wall. It was very important. And so I think you know, when when you hold that value up, a lot of good can happen. But it's just you you can't do it in a way that it's cynical, where you're you're putting it on the wall, but you're not really living it. You're you're not really uh embracing that across all levels. And so I think um that's what I look for now in in coaching relationships is leaders that truly understand that, that want to hear that feedback, because I know I'm going to give it to them as a coach, but it's about the people within their organization when they give it to them. Are they going to respond the best way to that feedback?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Right. It's one thing to talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah. I want to talk about another book that you recommended to me. Not not enough people recommend books. So if you see me on the street, recommend a book. But it was uh Sebastian Junger's uh The Tribe.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

And uh it was a quick read, like you said. It didn't take much to get through it at all. And it was such such an important one, though. Um, and again, going back to the military service, and and I haven't talked about it much on this podcast, but I had uh dreams of military service growing up. I had uh aspirations of following in my dad's footsteps. He's a Vietnam vet, he was an aircraft mechanic and a career Air Force um retired master sergeant, in fact. So I grew up when that career was over. He was he was already out of the Air Force and moved on to his next next thing in life. And uh he he still had model airplanes, though, and he had pictures on his walls and he took us to air shows. And so I grew up learning all about airplanes, and it was a passion of mine. I wanted to be a pilot. I got to go to school in Florida on a college scholarship with the Air Force uh to go to like the best aerospace engineering school in the country, and uh was so just delighted at everything that was falling in place. I thought this is it, this is this is perfect. And then uh went to field training in the summer of 06 and spent four weeks at Tyndall Air Force Base, and it was life-changing, just a fantastic training environment. Um they say that training is the closest thing you can get to war, and I won't go anywhere near saying that I was it was like I was at war because it wasn't. No one was trying to kill me, but it was just that that constant just immersion in a truly disciplined environment and just so much from a leadership standpoint that you can gain from that. You know, you think even like the leadership labs that you get to do, just physical, physical fitness and physical challenges and and solving a problem while you are like the most stressed out you've ever been. And I just again I I get to now live kind of um live, what what's the phrase you get to live vicariously, I think? Yeah, through through all of my college classmates now that got to go and actually be pilots. And I get to see them and see what they've accomplished. My dreams died um on an interstate on the way home from field training, and I was in a car accident, and just a long story of it, I got medically disqualified after that and lost my Air Force scholarship, lost that, lost that path of a career. And so when when I told you that story before, um, you're like, you lost your tribe. And I was like, I've never thought of it like that, but I kind of did. And I think um, you know, so many veterans that have gone on to serve and then have gone on to foreign combat and um built those military relationships with their brothers and sisters that come home and that's gone. You lose the structure, you lose the camaraderie. And what what are you left to transition into? And I'm just so thankful that organizations like the ones you've been a part of are there to try and give them something back so that they can acclimate to civilian life.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

There are so many different organizations that really um help put that back together for them. Because even if the veteran stays within a hub of a base, you know, like in Coronado or Virginia Beach or, you know, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where there's operators, the commonalities, that's where the the two roads diverge because the active duty are still active duty. And as the veteran transitions and moves further and further away, the dialogue is different, the language is different, um, the interests are different because the veteran is no longer going on the same training, um, training excursions where they're not going on missions and they're not doing the same, the same activities. And so the tribe might still be there per se, but the tribe really isn't there like it was. And so, how do you create a new tribe, a new community that's just as meaningful and just as supportive and still reflects that structure that they had, um, even though they're on two separate paths. And so that's something that has been really important to me. I think what you know, what the the transition pieces in the organizations do that are out there, like they've got it locked down to a science. Like it's a well-oiled machine. But my focus when I'm working with my guys on transition, like we'll go through the technical pieces of you know, learning how to network and how to have a cup of coffee and working on the resume and a LinkedIn profile and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the pieces that I focus on most are the intellectual and the emotional piece of the transition. Because if you're not in the right headspace to transition and you've got other stuff going on in the background, you know, and peripheral noise, or you're getting medically discharged and that wasn't your choice. And so you, you know, there's that lack of control piece, then you're not going to have a successful transition because you're so focused on everything else. And so for me, my job that I've kind of given to myself is to make sure that that my guys are in the right headspace and thinking about it in the right way, and that they know that they have the support and that they're not alone. What I have found, and I I find this to be highly ironic, is they spend their entire career as part of a team. Like Navy SEALs, for example, they call them team guys, team. Everything is done together. I mean, they're all in lockstep at some point in time and they do everything together. When they transition, All of a sudden it becomes, you know, an individual sport. So, how do we go from functioning as a team to yeah, no, I'm just gonna do this all by myself? And it all boils down to ego, really, is I've got this, I can handle it, it's not a big deal. Well, it is, and if you don't know where to start and you don't have anybody that you can lean on, it's gonna be a real challenge. And then you start to spiral, and it's not uncommon to hear about operators that spiral where their transitions are just horrendous. And it's all because they're doing it alone, they don't have a tribe, they don't have anyone to lean on. And, you know, it's it's a very stressful time. They're losing their identity, they're losing their community, they're losing everything uh that they have known for the last 10, 15, 20, 30 years. It's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

It is. Where do they find accountability? Is it is it through relationships like with you, or is it is it through people in their lives that maybe weren't in the military? And can they find it like they had when they were in the service?

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I think that sometimes they can. And it's it's not I I think that they can. It's knowing how to put together the new tribe and knowing that. So one of the things that I think is really important is building your own personal board of directors, or as my girlfriend likes to call your own personal mafia. And these are people who are part of your inner circle who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear, who will say, This is how you need to be doing it, this is what you need to be thinking about, and don't bother with that. You know, think about this, don't do that. And if you can find people with whom you really trust that you can call when you're having a really bad day. So, you know, for an operator to call another operator and say, my day just went off the rails, this other operator understands exactly what that means. And so that's the kind of community that I want them to be able to have once they they walk out of the door of the army, of the navy, of the Marines, of the Air Force, is to be able to say, I have people who understand me, who speak my language.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

And do though those networks are the relationships there lifelong that you you found, or do those relationships kind of fade as they pick up their post-military service life?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

They can be lifelong. I mean, so there's a whole community now of operator, of veteran operators who have transitioned out. And you know, I have one friend who was Navy EOD, and he's in uh a particular job that has him traveling around and it is in the defense space. So when he goes to trade shows and he goes to different conferences and meetings, he's plugging right back into his community. He gets to see a lot of his old friends and which he keeps up with, but now he gets to see them and spend time with them. And so they're out there. It's how do we make sure that they're that the veteran that's getting out has that connection, has that introduction, knows that that community exists, and that you can just pick up the phone or you can send a text and just be like, today just was awful and be able to talk about it. And the person on the other end is like, oh dude, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

I think it's something that people that didn't serve in the military, myself included, I don't know if we could ever understand um kind of what that relationship is like when you're you're leaning on somebody in a in a life or death environment. But um I I am happy to hear that it can be a lifelong relationship that you get to continue um you know having that person as a support person, as a as a sounding board, whatever it may be. But I wonder if because I don't want to diminish, everybody's got a story, right? Whether you were in the service or not. So so leaders that weren't in the service, what lessons can they take from these uh brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and and can they adapt that kind of a relationship to business?

SPEAKER_02 26:47

That's an excellent point.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I think to some extent, yes, because you have that, you got the trust, you have the the leadership, you have the loyalty, and in in the business world now, there's not a lot of loyalty to an organization per se. It's not like it was, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, but there's loyalty to your team. And I think as an operator or even as a veteran, I'll just because they all show up. They have learned how to show up for their team and be part of a team and respect the team. Um, and so I think that there's a lot of different takeaways that veterans bring to an organization that's ingrained in them at this point. So it's it is the loyalty, it is the critical thinking, it's the problem solving, it's how do we do this as a team? How do we learn from our mistakes and make sure that we've got all the right pieces in place at the right time? And they all come plug and play with that, with that ability to really lead large, small, large teams, small teams. They work incredibly well independently. They are really good at problem solving and working through, and you know, with their critical thinking, working through a process. Is this gonna work? Is that gonna work? Who do I need to talk to that's smarter than I am, that knows how to help me put this piece together? And they're very humble. Every veteran that I have ever worked with is very humble. You will never see somebody that just assumes that they're the smartest person in the room. And they don't want to be the smartest person in the room, as neither do I. I never want to be the smartest person in the room. And if I am, we are in trouble. And so they all come plug and play with these wonderful qualities that any organization would be lucky to have. Because you can teach certain um ideologies and um philosophies to somebody in college. But a college graduate that's never served and certainly never deployed doesn't understand what it looks like to work as a fully functioning team, to really understand what leadership looks like and what problem solving is really about. And it's sometimes problem solving is about leveraging your relationships, it's not about a specific task per se. It's who do I know that knows more about this? How do I make that connection for my team? And you can't teach that in college.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

No. Outside of those that are that are uh trained to go into the service as an officer, you you really can't, you know. Like you said, it takes it takes deployment, it takes years of service. And uh Again, I I wonder like we would uh be better off if we went back to a model where that was kind of like a requirement. Now, again, I don't think we need to bring the draft back or anything like that, but just there are uh a certain subset of the population that is far away from that service mentality. And it it's all about all about me, all about the individual. And uh I think as a society, we've kind of lost that that tribe mentality, that that service over self mentality, and uh and and it shows.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

The one thing that you will hear consistently out of a veteran's mouth is we. So in one of the exercises that we'll go through is a mock interview, and you know, tell me about a time when you did X, Y, and Z. And their response is, well, we did this, because they operate as a team. And what's really difficult and oftentimes uncomfortable is saying I and putting any kind of attention or focus on themselves in terms of what they did and what their contribution was, even though it's very necessary, because as a hiring manager, you need to be able to see what was their contribution to whatever um you know experience or skill set that that's you know they're talking about on the resume. And it's it takes a lot of coaching to be able to shift the the mindset from we to I, to say, well, you know, in this particular instance, I led this team doing X, Y, and Z and getting them to shift away from the we I've always had that too.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

I wonder if it was maybe just the way that my dad had kind of raised me, uh, just having that that we mentality, that that service mentality. I even now like I'm a I'm starting my own business, I'm a coach, and certainly we're a part of a larger uh group of coaches at focal point. But at the end of the day, I I'm the coach. It's gonna have to be me that provides the service to you, and I'll still find myself using like well we offer things like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

I do the same thing with my clients. So um I I just want to just clarify I'm not a licensed marriage family therapist yet, I'm an associate. Uh yeah. So I have a registration number so I can practice, but I'm not fully licensed. So I just want to put that out there in case anyone from the BBS is listening. But I I approach my clients and even the the guys that I work with the same way, I always speak in we. And one of the reasons I do that is because I want to make sure that they know that they're not alone. Because oftentimes, you know, when I'm working with an operator, they think that they're the only ones who are going through this and having these particular feelings. And no, you are absolutely normal. You are where you're supposed to be. Transitions are ugly and messy, and it's okay to feel exactly how you're feeling when you're feeling them, but you're not alone. And so if they don't have a fully formed tribe yet, then I'm the de facto tribe. I insert myself and I'm like, we. And so I will approach everything that we do when we talk about it. I'm like, well, we need to do this and we need to be thinking about this. And I'm like, but by we, I mean you, but I'm still like you're stuck with me. Um and I do that with my clients as well. Is, you know, we need to be thinking about this, we need to be thinking about that. And by we, you need to be thinking about this. And here's these are going to be our treatment goals that we are going to be putting together. And by we, I mean you, you know, but it's still the we are in this together. You're not alone. You don't have to do this alone. So I'm a big fan of the we statement, even though when you're interviewing for a job, it needs to be the I statement.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah. I want to talk about one of your I statements. It was a story you share with me uh about a swim you took, I think uh around the Golden Gate Bridge. Um, and maybe uh an encounter you had during that swim, a little bit of a frightening encounter.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

Yes. So I did it was um the frogman swim, which was a fundraiser for the Navy SEAL Foundation. And we were swimming under the Golden Gate Bridge, and I was literally surrounded by Navy SEALs, and apparently also by a harbor seal in the water. I'm almost positive that's what it was. That's what I continue to tell myself. So I'm halfway underneath underneath the bridge, and I feel something bump me, and it bumps me on my leg. And it's like the most terrifying feeling. Like when you jump in the water in the bay, you know that you are smack dab in the middle of the food chain. Like you know where you are and where you fit, but you compartmentalize it and you ignore it, and then you just focus on the task at hand, which is just swim from point A to point B. So I'm swimming, I get bumped, I scream. And they're as part of the safety that they have, they've got kayakers that will follow swimmers. Well, my kayaker, I mean, she looked like she was all of 12. Like if I had been attacked by a shark, there was literally nothing that she would have been able to do to help me. So I scream, she asks me what's wrong. I'm like, something just bumped me. And, you know, her response was, oh, that well, that sucks. Well, yeah, kind of. So I continue to swim and then I'm bumped again on my arm. And so now it's no longer professional courtesy. Like now this animal knows where I am and came back a second time to see like, am I a competitor for food? Like, am I food? What am I? What's gonna happen? And so now I'm like really freaked out. And I one of one of the other swimmers, uh a team guy was swimming next to me and asked me what was going on. And I told him, and he's like, Well, that sucks. Yeah, it's consistent. You know, the whole time I'm thinking, what happened? And then he like swims away, and I'm like, Well, what happened to this whole leave no no one behind mentality? And I was like, apparently that only happens like you know, in when you're downrange, like when you're getting bumped by an animal and possibly eaten like it's every man for himself. And then the animal came back a third time and bumped me on my leg again. And at this point, I am freaked out to the nth degree. And I have never swam so fast in my entire life. I didn't even care what my stroke looked like. I didn't care if my head was in the water, I didn't care about anything. All I could focus on was getting the hell out of the water before this animal came back again. And you could see the shadow of the animal as it's swimming away underneath me. And I'm pretty sure it was a seal. I'm not 100% sure, but like I'm almost positive it was. I mean, like if it were a sharp, like it probably would have taken a bite to see what I was. Like that's kind of what I tell myself.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

So I got out, I finally got out of the water, and as you can see, like I'm intact, but yes, you get in the water and you know that you are literally in the middle of the food chain and you don't have a say. So it's just literally every man for himself when you get into the bay.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

For sure. Holy cow.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

It it did. And so again, like you get in and you know that there's stuff happening below you. Like, you know, it's like there's this whole ecosystem, this whole community happening below you.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

You just don't need water.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Just don't think about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Just don't think about it. Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Just keep swimming.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

All right, Brage. I'm gonna ask you the title question of the podcast. It is a fill-in-the-blank question. So making more blank is most important to you at this point in your life and career.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Making more for me, every day is I want to make a difference. I want to make more of a difference. Whether it's in somebody's life or in a certain situation, I want to be able to leave the world a little bit better than how I found it. Whether it's small or a big impact, that's what I want to make more of. Of more of an impact to say, yes, I took from the world, but yes, I gave.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Making more differences in people's lives. And tell the audience now how they can connect with you and learn about the differences you're making as a marriage and family therapist.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

So anybody that wants to chitty chat, I you can reach out to me on on LinkedIn. Um and then you can also reach out to me at um my uh practice where where I am working, it's uh bGarefollow at therapyinmotion.care. And I'm happy to to chitty chat anytime. And if you're interested in talking about transition or tribe, you know, please reach out. I'm happy to support you in in any way that you need.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

Great. It's been my absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much and take care.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Thanks for listening to Making More. If today's conversation sparked something in you, let's connect. You can find me on LinkedIn and threads at coachfisherfpt or by visiting billyfisher.focalpointcoaching.com to learn more about how I help leaders create clarity, build momentum, and make more of what matters. This recording is copyrighted by Engineers Consulting Incorporated. Until next time, take care.