Latest / The Junto Podcast / E24: From Blackhawk Pilot to Fire Breathing: A Coach’s Bold Path to Mental Wellness

Transcript

E24: From Blackhawk Pilot to Fire Breathing: A Coach’s Bold Path to Mental Wellness · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Hello, America. Welcome back to the Junto Podcast, and this is episode 24,
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and today we're talking to my friend Pat Towery. So who is Pat?
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First, Pat is a national board certified health and wellness coach.
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He's got his own practice called Patrick Towery Consulting, LLC.
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And he delivers mental wellness and leadership coaching to partnered college
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fraternity chapters, as well as individual college students.
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And then his credentials, You may wonder, why is he qualified to do health and wellness coaching?
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Well, he's got a Master's of Science in Healthcare Leadership from Brown University.
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He's got an Advanced Study Certificate in Leadership Psychology from Cornell University.
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I mean, that's also the alma mater of my good friend, Dan Reach.
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And he graduated cum laude from Bucknell University in 2013. T.
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Pat is also, and this is, well, I don't think this is how we met,
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but Pat is also a former Army captain and UH-60 Blackhawk pilot,
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which is cool enough on its own.
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And then the really cool thing though, and we'll get to this in a little bit,
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is he is also a professional fire breather.
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Yeah, it's awesome. And among his other endeavors, he's a boxing ring announcer for TCB fights.
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What does TCB stand for? Taking care of business.
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Elvis Presley, baby. I'm going to get that tattoo pretty soon with the lightning
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bolt. You do it. I'll do it. Let's do it.
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And he's also training to be a yoga teacher. So good people.
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Pat's got a lot of stuff going on.
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And we're going to talk about it. Hold on. We'll probably have to do this whole
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fucking thing over again.
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Okay, Pat. So I guess first and foremost, what brings you to Atlanta, Georgia?
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Edgar, this is my life isn't real, bro.
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I can't believe it. But I was here to execute part of a contract I have with
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the fraternity at Georgia Tech.
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So, believe it or not, there's a fraternity chapter on campus that is not required
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to have an outside advisor.
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They're not required to have a wellness coach or a therapist.
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They want to incorporate mental wellness into the fabric of their fraternity.
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So I work with them, not just providing one-on-one coaching with their members,
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but I'm doing new member education.
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I'm meeting their pledge class. I'm putting them through really tough workshops
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and putting them into manufactured conflict where they must use interpersonal skills.
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They have to use the communication tools that they're being taught it's not just a lecture.
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But maybe the most important thing that i can say about what i'm doing with
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this chapter is that the the most important thing that happens in any intervention
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that indicates whether or not it's going to be successful or not.
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It's not the letters behind someone's name. It's not the modality that's used.
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It's not the clinic that it's associated with.
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It's the relationship that the person receiving help has with the provider.
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That matters so much. I work with these young men to create a wellness committee inside of the chapter.
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I get members from every year group or every pledge class that comes in and
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is a representative of that little microcosm within the chapter.
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And I train them on high-risk behavior awareness, mental health first aid,
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resource triage, how to approach somebody and talk about really difficult things. Yeah.
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And we meet weekly. We screen members for not just who's suffering,
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but also who's underperforming or who hasn't been challenged.
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When we think about wellness and health, I think health might be the absence of illness or disease.
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Wellness is this internal resource, this renewable that allows us to thrive.
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And these guys are not just working with high-risk people in the chapter.
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They're working with the common member. They're working with that guy who's
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at like an 80% solution and just needs some tools and some support and someone
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to challenge them and equip them to get from 80 to 85,
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maybe 90, maybe 100.
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Together, we collaborate on brief interventions, and it's all member-driven.
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They're the ones that are coming up with the solution.
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I'm there as an advisor. I have good anecdotal experience to draw on.
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I have good experience to maybe offer them as suggestions, but they know the
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culture and the health of their chapter way better than I do.
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It's way, way better than, you know, any, any therapist.
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Let me go back. Cause something you said, I think is very interesting is that this is not a mandate.
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Assuming some thing that the
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college is pushing that you have to have this or you have to have that.
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So there's some forward-thinking leader in that somewhere in there who said,
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yeah, let's get us a health and wellness guy.
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So who is that guy and how does he fit into it?
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They have, like, is that like a... It's something that the whole chapter kind
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of demands of itself. Yeah.
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There's this permeable culture of excellence, I think, that this particular
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fraternity chapter that I'm working with has that recognizes the benefit of
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having healthy relationships with one another.
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Having members who are thriving academically, thriving socially,
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that are going to really tough school.
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Georgia Tech is insanely tough. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
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When they have structure to work off of, to accelerate the growth within that
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chapter, they're able to do some really remarkable things. Their GPA is incredible.
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Their collective GPA, it's better than any GPA I think I've ever made in my life, bro.
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Their social experience is off the charts. They're doing some really amazing
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things together that, quite frankly, I think are at risk of disappearing from college culture.
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Some really good things that I think make our country great. Yeah. Yeah.
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This is something that they want. It's something that they have been looking for.
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I think it's really interesting that when I was college-aged.
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Man, I was out of control.
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I didn't have—obviously, I wasn't in a fraternity of like-minded guys either,
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but—well, I was. I was in the Army.
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But that's not where you go for your health and wellness, your mental wellness.
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I think it's interesting that at this young age, now, yeah, early to mid-20s, whatever, I imagine.
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You're getting a lot of, yeah, 18 to 21-year-olds. Okay, so early 20s and late teens.
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I think it's interesting that they even recognize the value because this is
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something that some people have to go to their 40s and 50s before they realize
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this is a very important aspect of life.
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That's pretty good. I mean, that's good on them for looking ahead like that.
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I really have to commend them.
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I think by partnering with my private practice, they've been able to bring me
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in and it's become normal and accepted for me to be within their living environment,
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to be working with them, to work within my scope of practice and support those members.
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I'm a little covert, right? I think about some of our maybe key leader engagement
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experiences we might have had in the army about building trust and rapport with partners. Yeah.
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And that's essentially what I'm doing. I'm going to the chapter house to interact
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with the guys, asking them about their goals and aspirations and how maybe a
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dimension of wellness fits into it.
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Maybe sleep hygiene. That's huge.
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You remember how sleep deprived you were? Like when you were 18,
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19 years old, you were in the army too. So holy smokes.
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I go to their social events as appropriate, right? Like I'm not there for the whole time.
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But interestingly enough, you go to these social events where there's,
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you know, maybe a party or some social gathering to like watch football on a
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projector on the side of a house.
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And they are, they're ready, I think, to start talking about things below surface level.
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They're they're well they're well beyond just the
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weight tops right like how are you doing doing fine they're ready to have deep
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meaningful conversations i would imagine to be a good counselor or not counselor
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but coach you you have to know you have to know more than just the surface level
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about them so to be in that environment yeah that gives you the insight so you can see,
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maybe even when somebody's telling you one thing in a one setting and then doing
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something else in another city.
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I make so much progress going to the football games and going to the tailgate. Yeah.
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Right? Like, that's where I think a lot of guys feel very comfortable having
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me. Yeah. That's their environment.
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I was drawn to, can I tell you how I was drawn to this? Yeah,
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dude. Dude, I wonder if you're interested in this or maybe the people listening. No, yeah.
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I mean, that was going to be a question was, how'd you go from being a Black Hawk pilot,
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to health and wellness coaching for young
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people bro it's all connected man when i
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was a black hawk pilot in the army there was
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i remember this army
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captain like walking outside of it was
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like brigade headquarters or a hangar or something he has it's like a combat
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infantryman's badge master parachutist he has an 82nd airborne division combat
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patch on right he stands out yeah so i see this dude He looks kind of familiar.
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We make eye contact and start chopping up. And he was like, hey,
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you know, you don't happen to know Bobby Towery, do you? And I was like,
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yeah, I know him very well. He's my dad.
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He said, I was his personal security detail back in 2001.
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This captain started off as an infantryman, probably painting walls in my dad's
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office and just hating him.
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But he went from protecting my dad. Well, hold tight. Back up.
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Go ahead. And your dad was? Colonel Bobby Towery. Yeah.
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An amazing human. Yeah, definitely. I know you love your dad.
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Tell people who he was. Servant leader. I think that comes to mind.
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So he did a career, right? He retired as a colonel. Colonel,
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yeah. Yeah, career guy. He was incredibly compassionate.
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He was a very thoughtful man. Very kind.
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He would always take on these projects of supporting people that were just scraping rock bottom.
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And he would see where he could fit himself to go help them out.
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So you get it honestly. It's in the genes.
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Thank you. Yeah, that's good. I had great examples of parents, man.
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That's good. I had mom who was just a phenomenal mother. She was a great volunteer.
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She has all these awards and recognitions from like Sergeant Major Daly.
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I remember she has something from him back when he was at like Force Com.
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They had such a healthy relationship with one another. Yeah.
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And that was the only example that I knew.
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Growing up, I didn't know that. That's fantastic. I didn't know that kids grew
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up with parents who divorced or were parents who didn't mesh well with one another
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or had different parenting styles.
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My mom and dad worked together as a unit. Yeah, that's good.
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Phenomenal human beings. That is awesome.
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I'm sure everyone would know they had some God.
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My dad passed away unexpectedly in 2019 running a race.
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It was called the Great 38. He was raising money for disabled college students at Ole Miss.
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His last moments on earth were spent giving to a community that he could go help and support.
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He died doing something that he loved.
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Yeah. Well, that's tragic, but fantastic that he was doing his thing, doing what he did.
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I have, I have so much admiration for him.
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When I, I was still in the military when that happened. Yeah.
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And in fact, that was kind of the catalyst that made me realize that I'd spent
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a long time away from home.
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I'd done everything I ever wanted to do in the army. I'd done everything I ever
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wanted to do in a helicopter and more.
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Like I did some stuff I did want to do as the, the army was like,
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how would you like to do the same thing?
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Over again but bigger we're not
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going to pay you anything extra either could be
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could be likened to groundhog day the bill murray
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movie i think that helped me just make
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a decision that it was time for me to come home so yeah let's get back to
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the captain that worked for your dad and he and
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so he helped inspire you so this guy started off
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as a infantryman he was a private like you know
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protecting my dad and then yeah he commissions
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he goes to he goes to graduate school he becomes a
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licensed clinical social worker right and
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this guy's a man's man right he's a
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he knows how to speak and talk to soldiers he comes from i mean he comes from
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the the culture that i think you grew up in as a as a young infantryman yeah
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we have i think as soldiers we We have a unique way of talking to one another and interacting.
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Like our social norms are just so off the wall compared to other cultures.
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And this guy just, he got it. He wasn't shocked by anything we ever said.
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He might have engaged in like some of the tomfoolery, right? He was about it.
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He built a lot of trust and rapport with me. One, that relationship with my
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dad, but two, him showing up and just being about it.
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As a clinician, he was also a non-rated crew member.
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So this guy was a therapist and he was flying with me in the aircraft part of the crew.
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He was in the medic seat. He was on ICS comms.
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He was calling me. I remember running some, landing some familiarization with
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that local hospital in Colorado Springs.
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The name escapes me right now, but you know which one I'm talking about.
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St. Francis. I think that's it. I think it's St. Francis. Pull it up, Jamie.
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Yeah, I don't have Jamie. I can't pull it up while we're talking.
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I've been there with my wife. I should know. Here we are. Like this is,
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this is a real, this is a real life or death situation.
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Granted it's training, but we're doing dangerous things on daily.
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And he is in a position where we are working together.
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We have good crew coordination. He has trust and rapport with me. It is St. Francis. It is.
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Apologies to St. Francis. We, uh, we had a pretty strong in ground effect when
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we, we came in. They were like, it's too strong.
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I wasn't on the controls when that happened.
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But we started developing that professional relationship with one another so
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that when I needed support, when I needed some mental health care,
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I think I've been briefed like a thousand times on like, you know,
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where the clinic is and where, where's the embedded behavioral health and what
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they do. And here's the number you got to call.
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And everybody has to have that, uh, that, that crisis card on them.
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Right. Like there's so many things that are just thrown at us that like,
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uh, I, I, I maybe knew about it, but that I had a, I had a tangible relationship
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with this man. Yeah. Yeah.
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And when I, when I shot up that proverbial red star cluster, right.
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And ask for help. Here I am. I need somebody to come to me.
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I need somebody to come help me out right now where I'm at. He showed up.
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And we developed a good therapeutic relationship with one another.
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He would do sessions with me in the morning, and then we'd go to the flight line.
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That instilled a lot of confidence in me. we weren't
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we weren't quite simply
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you know processing right we were also doing some
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things that were a bit more forward thinking action
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oriented performance based it made that resource a lot more palatable to me
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you know whatever the crisis card is the clinic those were all things that I
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knew about that wasn't for me it was for
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It was for the guy who's like actually like in trouble.
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That was for the guy who he really needed it.
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I didn't really, I just needed something to like take the edge off.
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Right. That's what I was telling myself. Yeah.
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Going through that relationship. Right. And, and still doing like cool army
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things and, and uncovering a lot, rebuilding,
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getting stronger, becoming a better version of myself because of the work that we did, that's,
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really attracted me to the field of men's mental health yeah and i started thinking,
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why don't we have something like this outside of
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the army why don't we have something like this where
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community health workers are going into the
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places where people live and and socialize and build up a real relationship
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with them why don't we have like medical professionals that are doing this with
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high schoolers or you name any other community, like any sort of like communalism.
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Just a second. I think you said a thing there, a real relationship.
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A lot of people in any field, but the medical field, it's only superficial. It's sterile.
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It's very sterile and that doesn't do anything.
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I mean, yes. I mean, yes, there's a level of professionalism that you need to have.
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But there still needs to be a genuine relationship. Hell, even just training
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people to build relationships.
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It's not just I'm the instructor. Let's do this. Bang, bang, bang.
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But I think in the medical profession, that's lost. It is.
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One of the things that it was brought up like it was novel.
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The idea of compassionate care being the new wave of health care.
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One of the things that we studied in Brown, like being compassionate and wanting
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to not just feel for the person,
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but also be part of the solution and understand the situation and the emotions
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underlying that situation is
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something that isn't taught very well amongst medical professionals. Yeah.
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I think it's starting to become part of the development of doctors,
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of nurse practitioners.
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I've got to imagine, Pat, that part of that has to do with just personality.
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Some people just aren't, I don't know, I don't want to say friendly, maybe empathetic.
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Not that they're psychopaths, but I have some pretty cold, stone-faced doctors and nurses out there.
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I have too. I think a lot of us can draw on experience of going into a very
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cold, soulless exam room, right? Well, most hospitals are cold. Yeah.
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I do think that our healthcare ecosystem, it's hard for me to call it a healthcare
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system because it looks nothing like a system. It is a constellation.
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It is. Yeah, yeah. It's very fragmented.
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It is such a difficult environment to navigate around.
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When you're in it. It's like they don't tee up medical professionals for success.
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I even think about maybe therapists or social workers that still have to consider
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volume and are under pressure to just get as many people in throughout the day.
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There's some benefits to that. You're You're serving more people.
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Your revenue is increasing, right? You may have better profit margins, but it takes away.
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There's the old quality over quantity that don't make you money. Quality of care, man.
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Yeah. It's one of the things that is becoming a key performance indicator for
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a lot of healthcare companies now is how is our quality of care?
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Are we having consistent, positive healthcare outcomes?
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That's how I got interested, right? I had a very tangible relationship with
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this guy who I think helped me make some big life decisions and just get better.
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You've heard, as iron sharpens iron, so does one man another. For sure. That was him.
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He was iron for me. He helped me. And so was he, he sounds like he could have
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possibly been a little bit of a therapist and a little bit of a mentor.
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Certainly. Yeah. Certainly.
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He's one of those, he's one of those national treasures, man.
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You know, one of those studs that you meet in the army that you're just like
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this, this is an amazing human being.
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No, they're out there, especially in the army. I know that we talked about that
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earlier today, how there's some, the most toxic leadership I've ever seen in my life.
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But then in the same platoon or the same company as one of the superheroes that
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is the greatest guy alive, you know.
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It's crazy. It's crazy. It's weird. The army's weird. It's unique.
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I don't think there's any other functioning infrastructure organization out
24:24
there in American society that is that socialist.
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No, no other organization could function in the same way that the military functions.
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I don't even know how we kept our top spinning sometimes.
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I'm not here to complain about the military, though. Yeah, yeah.
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I do that. I do that so much.
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I've been out for a while and it still grinds my gears when something happens.
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I need to practice letting go.
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Well, speaking of letting go, I enter into this very successful therapeutic
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relationship. I'm starting to have positive healthcare outcomes for myself.
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I'm having better overall well-being.
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And I think coming to understand myself a lot more and how I can thrive in this
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world. But when I made the decision to get out, I certainly talked about family being part of it.
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I talked about not really being incentivized by career aspects.
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I just wasn't interested in
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what was being offered to me. I was satisfied with everything I had done.
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I was also a little banged up, dude.
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I'm very fortunate to have gotten out of the military alive.
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I had some medical issues going on. Some things that happened to me overseas that...
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Was just not fit to continue to be of service, especially in leadership role
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when I am physically struggling.
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God, I remember my plan was after Afghanistan, I was going to go directly request
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to go to a warrior transition unit.
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That was my plan. I needed time to heal physically. I had a decent amount of
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orthopedic stuff going on with me.
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And I say all that to say this, getting out, becoming a veteran,
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becoming eligible for VA healthcare as an end user.
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One of the things that the VA did really well with me was integrate me as a
26:37
patient into a clinical resource team to address chronic pain.
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I had a doctor on the team I think he was board certified as a pain doc,
26:50
if I remember correctly.
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I had a pharmacist, I had access to an herbalist, access to a psychologist, a nurse case manager.
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An occupational therapist, and a health and wellness coach, national board certified
27:08
health and wellness coach.
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And together they collaborated with
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me on how i wanted to receive treatment
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and care the relationship that i had with
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that health and wellness coach i think
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allowed me to start taking agency of my own
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health vision my own aspirations and
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how that might fit into my purpose
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having purpose i think allowed
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me to just drive my
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own participation in in the treatment process my
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my motivation my consistency having a
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wellness coach there to help extract
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some of that intrinsic motivation within me and put
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together a specific measurable attainable
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realistic time-bound plan with steps like actionable thing not just aspirations
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but like here is it's like a smiak package right like it's we are going to action
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this and and she was going to be there to kind of like provide overhead coverage
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for me and i i think that that.
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That allowed me to start looking at that profession of health and wellness coaching
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as something that was real, that it was producing good health outcomes for me.
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I'm still very privileged to be able to continue to meet with that health and
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wellness coach that helped me get through a very difficult time.
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Well, I wouldn't have guessed.
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I'm still, I've been retired for five years. I'm still not signed up with VA or whatever. I don't.
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Need help man i'm i'm so i don't
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know man i just i i'm surprised that they have a health and wellness coach amongst
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that crew of the team you just called out yeah pain management doc sure i know
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they do that but in my experience from well people i know from from your past,
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just keep you on meds and that's it but
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this sounds like you had a much much better experience When all of those providers
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are collaborating together and that wellness coach is essentially being a great
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advocate for the patient and sort of steering the direction of how that treatment should go.
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One of the things that happens very often is a reduction in the amount of medication
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or the number of medications used for the veteran.
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You've probably seen it happen over and over again where a veteran goes to the
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VA and they have a problem and they got to go address something else, right?
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And they get prescribed more medication. And that has effects on one another.
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And they're not always synergistic. Sometimes they're deleterious.
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And now you need some other medication to combat that effect. Right.
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Yeah. Now that's been, that's been the semi-recent history of the VA as pumping dudes up.
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I mean, throughout the global war and all that stuff. These health and wellness
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coaches that I'm privileged to belong to, it's a novel profession.
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The National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching, I think,
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started really getting traction in 2018 when they partnered with AMA,
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American Medical Association,
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to start creating a national board certification through MBME.
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They're the same people who do like NCLEX and the MCAT. It's a very rigorous
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board certification exam that,
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along with some of the other requirements that they have with their education,
31:00
how many coaching hours you do.
31:03
Your background going into that profession,
31:07
I think it helped legitimize what a lot of us probably had already known,
31:14
that when you engage people in a certain way.
31:20
Motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry. When you take a vested interest
31:24
in somebody and you're not just prescribing or giving the solution to them,
31:31
but asking them to collaborate with you,
31:34
it can produce some amazing results.
31:37
And it doesn't have to exist in that cycle of illness. It can exist beyond that.
31:44
So those two things meshed. Mental health,
31:48
meeting people where they're at, and coaching
31:51
being forward-minded being
31:54
action-oriented having a real actionable plan
31:58
and not just not something
32:01
that was unattainable unobtainable yeah prescribed by a doc god i don't know
32:07
if you've ever had the experience of like maybe a provider saying you know just
32:10
you need to stop eating red meat okay yeah sure doc that's gonna happen well
32:15
let me tell you about my most recent primary care guy,
32:20
his habit was to tell me, well, you're just getting old.
32:24
Every time I went in with a problem, that was his answer. And I was like, Don, that's, that, that,
32:32
doesn't work. I'm 53. I'm not 72. How can you get better if that's the answer?
32:38
Right. No, that's exactly. He retired.
32:41
Thank God. Thank God. No, blessings. Unfortunately,
32:45
I have a friend and a client who comes out here who's an orthopedic surgeon
32:51
and, you know, just for my ankle situation, you know, I got my primary care
32:55
guy. Well, you're just getting old. You need to slow down.
32:58
That's not my life. I can't slow down. I have things
33:01
I have to do i have to walk in the woods i have
33:05
to climb mountains i have to run and gun and all that shit that we do here he
33:10
just didn't get it you have a part of my story too bro yeah we we were both
33:15
in the army at the same time i think we might have had overlap in masri sharif maybe at one point,
33:23
but that's not how we met we i remember the first time meeting you was at a
33:28
low light shooting course where I got humbled.
33:35
I learned so much about myself.
33:39
You were able to take me through this really high pressure task of shooting
33:46
and start introducing more stressors and turning off the lights,
33:49
making me move around the environment.
33:53
I love that. I started getting into shooting beyond the profession.
34:00
And that became one of the ways that I started connecting with,
34:03
with other people that really became a therapy for me, right? Trigger therapy.
34:08
That is real. It's real. It is real. I think that inspired me to start being
34:14
a lot more adventurous and taking on recreational therapy, like doing things
34:19
for the sake of enjoyment,
34:22
doing things because it brings me joy, skills, attainment,
34:27
going through something hard and overcoming it.
34:30
Look at a lot of the things that I think I've done with Osprey shooting solutions
34:34
and, and, and, and really maybe believe or that, that that's not the right word.
34:43
There's real experience in overcoming some hard shit, especially when other
34:47
people are watching you and you've got, you know, big Sarge yelling at you behind. Yeah.
34:52
It's always under scrutiny when you're, I always close my dust cover now, man. That's because.
35:00
Not for any other reason it's just a good habit dude that's one of the ways
35:06
that i will connect with with men the guys that i'm supporting is i'd like to
35:12
do experiential workshops right and,
35:16
use different tools maybe some stuff that we were introduced to like the after
35:22
action review It's a very novel and profound thing in the professional and corporate world.
35:28
They're starting to use it more often in engineering, aviation, healthcare.
35:35
We did it all the time. That was a norm for us. For everything.
35:40
It is a very effective, healthy communication skill to have.
35:43
It is a great. So, for people listening who don't know what it is,
35:49
it's a way to assess performance and leave personality and ego at the door.
35:56
You speak to what was supposed to happen. Then you speak to what actually happened, sometimes different.
36:04
Were we successful and by what measure? What do we need to change in order to
36:10
be successful in the future?
36:12
And this is something that I think it's overlooked quite a bit,
36:15
mostly because we just want to get through it, right?
36:18
You AAR everything. You AAR PT, you know?
36:23
What are the things that we're doing well that we need to continue to do?
36:26
What are the things that have become our norms, our rules, our rituals,
36:31
our routines that become the ethical foundation of how we do business?
36:36
When that communication skill is implemented over and over and over again and
36:43
it becomes a norm, you have the ability to start extracting data and make informed
36:49
decisions about what to do in the future.
36:51
You also have a sterile environment to not finger point or blame.
36:58
Yeah. It provides you what Amy Edmondson would call a psychologically safe space
37:04
for anybody in the organization.
37:06
It could be, I'm thinking in Army terms, it could be your assistant gunner or
37:15
it could be your platoon sergeant.
37:17
It could be anybody within that organization that saw something and had something to contribute.
37:25
It allows us to not just be psychologically safe, but to maximize efficiency going into the future.
37:32
Yeah. A lot of us say, go ahead, man. And a good thing for a team is you can
37:36
get different perspectives.
37:38
Because if you're a security element on the right side of the objective and
37:42
somebody, two totally different ballgames that you're looking at there.
37:46
It's the same game, but you're seeing it from different perspectives.
37:49
So you get to hear what they actually had going through their brain.
37:53
And you're over here asking quite like what what's going what's
37:56
going on yeah yeah that gives you a lot of perspective so
37:59
i use tools like that yeah then i make
38:02
people do difficult things i make them do fun difficult things yeah
38:06
and they they grow from it they extract lessons from it and then they get to
38:12
implement it throughout the rest of their collegiate experience it becomes a
38:16
core memory I think when you have this thing that you're doing that's just so foreign, perhaps,
38:23
to the academic environment, it's not a lecture.
38:26
It is an experience that you're having that you have to work through,
38:32
that you have to overcome, that you have to achieve.
38:35
I look back at our experience, maybe doing a dynamic two gun where I think I
38:41
started getting into a more polished groove of being a shooter,
38:45
having put in a little bit of work with you, a little bit of work on my own.
38:50
And I just, I felt like a very capable shooter.
38:55
Certainly I have light years to go, right? Like I have so much opportunity for
38:58
growth, but that was something that I can look on and be proud of.
39:04
And for the men that I work with in these fraternity chapters,
39:07
they have that too. I do some fun stuff, man.
39:12
Them through a scenario it's a life raft
39:15
scenario and there's like 10 people
39:18
on this life raft right but only
39:22
five can stay on and i put and
39:25
make it impossible they have to choose who is
39:27
going to stay on the life raft and who has to leave and i i
39:31
put guys in there like in this theoretical scenario of a murderer convicted
39:38
murderer but he is the only person that can drive of the boat a chaplain who
39:45
has done nothing but godly things throughout his entire life,
39:49
but he is not going to contribute to getting
39:52
the team back people are going to have to take care of him because he's an old
39:55
age a mother a father with a checkered past like i make it impossible for them
40:01
but it's fun to see them communicating kind of frantically with one another
40:07
about who's who's going to live and who's going to die.
40:10
And when they inevitably come to too big of a friction point to move beyond,
40:15
I can introduce maybe a healthy communication skill, maybe a way to facilitate
40:20
group inputs, maybe a way to do some mission planning together.
40:25
When they have that structure and can operate within it, bro,
40:29
they know who's going to live and who's going to die on that life raft.
40:34
As you're saying that, I'm thinking, how can we do that in real life?
40:38
You want to do some stuff together, man?
40:41
I'm telling you right now, I've been eyeballing a boat for a couple years now. A 16-footer.
40:50
Don't fit 10 people. I'm just saying. I want it to happen.
40:54
We could make it a practical exercise. I want it to happen. I want it to happen
40:57
in Sardis Lake next to the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss.
41:00
I want to put some guys through a challenge.
41:05
Yeah. Some badass stuff that I think you can certainly help me provide.
41:11
Oh, man, it could be done.
41:14
Man, we could go down to Baton Rouge, down to LSU, maybe run some Swamp Ops.
41:23
Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of good opportunity out there.
41:26
I like that scenario where somebody's got to go.
41:29
That's the hard stuff, right? Then if you put that on a committee of people,
41:34
then they'll bicker about it. But what if one guy's responsible?
41:37
You know, I love that stuff. That's good. I do too.
41:41
I really enjoy being able to, so, so those workshops are fun,
41:46
but I think what may differentiate some of the stuff that I do is.
41:52
One, empowering the members of that chapter to take agency over the culture,
41:59
to empower them to have this palpable sense of caring for one another,
42:06
a real sense of brotherhood, something that's not just a motto or some box to check.
42:12
Well, and that thing, and look, you know, I'm not a big fan of like boot camp
42:15
type train, you know, that kind of thing.
42:19
But there's a fact of the matter is, is when you do hard things together,
42:23
you build bonds. That's just the way it is.
42:26
I got a friend of mine, Chad, who runs a company who they do crazy,
42:30
crazy stuff where they walk 24 hours nonstop. Nobody's allowed to sit down, that kind of thing.
42:36
I got another friend that does some similar trekking and outdoor stuff.
42:40
And these people were all friends for life after that, just because they did a hard thing together.
42:46
And my friend, he said something a minute ago, maybe think of it.
42:50
My friend Nathan, he does a podcast. And on his last one, he said, it was just very simple.
42:56
He's like, hey, don't expect hard things not to be hard. That's why they're hard.
43:01
Because he was talking in reference. Hearing people kind of moan and complain
43:07
about the elevation change on this one trail or something.
43:10
And he's walking by and he's hearing them and he's like, yeah, this is a hard event.
43:16
So you want to talk about something hard, maybe something that is going to be
43:21
a core memory that you are going to remember for the rest of your life.
43:25
What if in that 24-hour walk, you had to walk across broken glass and come out unscathed?
43:33
What if you had to walk across fire? You'd lose people, bud.
43:37
Yeah, it's probably not the right target. Yeah, no, no. You'd lose people on that.
43:42
I am a certified madman. Dude, I do some wild stuff.
43:47
Okay. Well, that's a good segue speaking of fire. Now, good people,
43:51
you heard me read Pat's bio a little bit earlier.
43:55
He's health and wellness, and he's got all this education, and he is a frigging
44:01
highly trained certified fire breather.
44:04
And yes. And yes, it's what you think.
44:07
What I'm saying. What I'm saying is exactly what you think. Like a performance
44:11
artist that you would see at like a circus or like some kind of arts festival or something.
44:18
What do they call the things with the fire? Torches.
44:21
Torches and just spitting fire all over the place. That's awesome. Thank you.
44:26
How did you get to that? You're a part of my story, man.
44:30
I love it. I think I entered into that low light shooting course as an overconfident
44:37
man, right? Like I just thought like I had my, I had my shit together. Yeah.
44:43
And then you wrecked it. Dude, you crushed my dreams. But you showed me that
44:51
education is available. It's out there.
44:55
If you want to learn how to do something, there's probably someone out there who can teach you.
45:01
There are instructors teaching all sorts of amazing life skills that can push
45:09
you to be better, maybe in something that you're already doing.
45:13
Man let me go down like a little bit of a rabbit hole
45:16
i want to give you credit for for one
45:19
being the first class i think i took outside of your normal like pretentious
45:26
academic institutions that i had like historically gone to a little bit of like
45:31
grassroots there right like people showing up to share the knowledge of what they got.
45:38
I think one of the most important things I can.
45:44
Say is that really shaped me as a person is hitting rock bottom as a teenager
45:52
and deciding to put down the shovel and stop digging.
45:58
I got sober when I was 19. I was in college.
46:01
I had a few more years to go and it
46:05
was very privileged to have some things to
46:08
support me along the way outside of my program of recovery i i was on the rugby
46:14
team that gave me something to do on saturdays right they gave me practice you
46:21
know after classes were done it that helped fill the void of what alcohol was doing for me.
46:26
Right. I was in army ROTC. So I was filling the void of whatever drinking I
46:32
might've done at like five 30 in the morning, but it was real.
46:35
I'm doing on field training. These things were very helpful for me in setting
46:40
me up for success beyond just maybe a traditional path to recovery.
46:46
One of the things that I think I gained interest in to help find some of the,
46:54
maybe the excitement that I thought it was missing were these fire performers.
46:59
And they were just, they were manipulating fire and commanding it to do what they wanted.
47:05
And I became wildly intrigued with it.
47:09
And I just thought, you know, maybe one day, right? Maybe one day.
47:13
Well, I took your class. And I think maybe I took a few more of your classes
47:18
and started taking even more shooting courses. Shooting was kind of like my
47:22
thing for a little while.
47:23
I really need to start taking some more shooting classes, by the way. I'll be back here.
47:28
I think the next thing I did after shooting was I was like, you know,
47:32
I want to learn how to breathe fire.
47:36
There's six certified fire breathing instructors in the world. Oh my God.
47:41
One of them lives in Star Mississippi, which is like, it's like two hours away from me. Nice. Yeah.
47:46
So I, I took the leap of faith. I took the class.
47:49
Now I got to wonder, what's the regulating agency for fire breathers?
47:54
It's the, uh, Flow Arts Institute.
47:56
There's, okay. There's a little bit of rub there that, dude,
47:59
it, it, it gets so nuanced that is fire breathing really a flow art.
48:04
It's more of a fire manipulation art so
48:08
this does fai kind of constitute the
48:11
governing ethical body of fire breathing i can't
48:14
believe we're talking about like an ethical board of fire breathing yeah
48:17
like who who runs this man earlier like
48:20
going to our weekly anarchist yeah like you just think this is a skill that's
48:26
been the passed down generation the generation right like there There are records
48:30
of men who would hold on to hot coals with their bare hands and extinguish the flame.
48:39
There are legends and myths of men who would put fire in their mouth and extinguish it.
48:46
This is something that human beings have been doing for quite some time,
48:50
but it's always been a little esoteric.
48:53
It's been secret knowledge passed down from one person to another.
48:56
Yeah and that's very much i think
49:00
the way that it was well sure like and and
49:03
old school circus like it was just family business
49:06
you know axel bats and friggin fire breathers and all that stuff so that's that
49:12
was family business very much all the things that i think i had seen where i
49:17
was like i want i want to learn how to do that well you can't there's there's
49:22
there's a plethora of instructors out there,
49:25
I think that this isn't necessarily just in the fire performance field,
49:29
but really almost anything where if you're interested in it,
49:33
there's very likely somebody out there who wants to help you develop in that skill.
49:38
For sure. I would hope that taking my courses made you and everybody else that
49:44
does understand that you can do it.
49:47
Because you see a guy on YouTube, a professional shooter doing a thing,
49:51
doesn't mean you can do it. Yeah.
49:54
Frank Proctor, here I come, man. Yeah, man.
49:57
You can do it just because. You just got to put a little bit of effort into it.
50:02
Make it a priority, you know, at least for a while. If it's a hobby,
50:06
yeah, you still got to work and do your thing.
50:07
But anybody can do any of this stuff.
50:11
You can cascade and build on it too, right?
50:14
Like I remember, you know, going through like introductory pistol course with
50:19
you and then polishing skills up with that. and then going to maybe a dynamic
50:23
pistol course after that, much in the same way.
50:27
I learned the basics of fire breathing, fuel safety, all the crazy science behind it.
50:35
I was able to maybe start getting a little bit of practice in absent of that
50:41
instructor, albeit safe environment.
50:44
When I was ready to take it to the next level, I came back to Atlanta and I
50:49
met another individual. His name is Lior Littman.
50:52
He is a very interesting guy that I think has served as an example of men who
50:59
did not, or I just say people, I mean to use gendered language, people who...
51:05
Did not take the main street path.
51:09
Lior, he's another one of us. He was a combat search and rescue officer for the IDF.
51:17
And I think typically those guys, when they're done with their military service
51:22
in Israel, they go into politics or they go into business.
51:27
Join the circus, bro. Nice.
51:30
He brought his talents over here and he's doing some really incredible work
51:34
with fire breathing, fire eating.
51:37
He has a litany of other skills that I've seen him teach other people.
51:43
He has leadership workshops.
51:46
He served as inspiration for me to start pushing the needle,
51:49
I think, on choosing my own path and taking part in what I consider to be my real purpose.
51:58
I think my real purpose in life is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and people about me.
52:04
It is simple. That is my moral compass. That's my azimuth.
52:10
If it is something that I can fit myself, not force, but fit my talents, my resources,
52:19
my interest to go serve humanity and to go serve my God, then it's probably
52:25
something that is in alignment with my own purpose.
52:29
This is something that I should probably do.
52:31
I remember a phone call And maybe three years ago, it might have been a text
52:39
message conversation, but I was like, hey, Edgar, look, I got some news.
52:44
You know where this is going.
52:46
I just got accepted into this congressional fellowship,
52:49
and I'm having some trouble committing to it because I have an opportunity to
52:55
stay here locally and be a part of the private sector and really disrupt the
53:02
mental health industry completely in a positive way.
53:07
And I don't think you ever told me what to do, but you did provide a good sounding
53:11
board. I think you did provide a good reflection for me to, to see that that
53:19
might not have been the best use of my talents.
53:21
Probably could have done it. Probably wouldn't really frustrated and burnt out
53:24
though. Yes, you could have done it. You'd be driving around in a Mercedes AMG right now.
53:30
Wouldn't be here. Yeah.
53:34
Of Washington DC. I know. What if that congressman just traded stocks really well?
53:41
What if, man? What if? What if? Yeah, man.
53:45
You were part of the constellation and network, I think, of bold people that forged their own path,
53:55
that were successful in spite of the obstacles that were presented to you that
54:00
served as peers, mentors, and role models for me.
54:04
To go do the same, to take that, that big leap of faith and venture away from
54:08
maybe all the things that my peers were doing.
54:11
Maybe take a, a step away from what was safe.
54:15
I've been through, I think I've been through some heroin things in my life before
54:20
some, some real scary life or death scenarios.
54:26
And I think being in some of those moments, it may have felt like Zen,
54:32
like I was meant to probably be there to overcome it, to survive.
54:37
I'd made peace with my God. I'd lived a life that was worth living.
54:43
And I think I can look back on all those instances that I was able to make it
54:52
out of and see myself grow stronger from the scar tissue that might've developed from it.
55:00
That scar tissue does not make me weaker. In fact, it is one of my greatest
55:04
gifts that I can offer to my fellow humans.
55:09
I'm not in a life or death scenario anymore,
55:13
but this is probably one of the scariest things I think I've faced in my life
55:20
in going into private practice, venturing out alone,
55:26
doing something novel in mental health.
55:29
Being a professional artist, a fire breather, right?
55:33
To use that to help convey a message of inspiration and hope,
55:40
it is incredibly scary for me.
55:42
I think because that purpose is real now.
55:47
I am living my purpose and I don't want to mess it up.
55:53
Things are, they're tough. I have failures every day.
55:59
I pick myself back up. I continue to grind. Yeah. I keep forging a way forward.
56:07
Now, what an interesting way to do it, man. Fire breathing is awesome.
56:11
Dude, I don't know if there's any other way for me to live life, man.
56:16
Well, I'm a strong believer that if you're doing the right thing, you'll know.
56:23
And look, I don't get deep into religion. Everybody knows that I'm a Christian,
56:27
but I think if you're doing right, it'll feel right. And I don't just mean superficially.
56:34
You know what I mean? You'll know you're doing right.
56:37
Until it feels off, keep doing it.
56:41
I think that's the way it is. I do too.
56:45
And if you think fire breathing is an avenue for you to reach people or just whatever.
56:53
It is. I don't think that's a bad thing. It is, man. I was talking about your
56:57
episode on counterculture. Yeah.
57:01
Diving full into being an artist, specifically fire art. God, who does that?
57:10
Well, I always, usually when I say artist, I usually say starving artist.
57:15
Yeah. You don't know too many wealthy artists.
57:19
I'm living anyway. Firewalking instructor, teaching people how to break arrows
57:25
with their necks. There's...
57:30
This feels right. Yeah. I know I can look back on my own life and see how empowering
57:38
it was for me to walk through fire unscathed.
57:44
To God. Literally. To do these things. You say madness. Every time I like do
57:49
some. I do. It's madness. Every time I post something.
57:52
I'm not going to walk on glass or through. It is. Or breathe. It is. Dude, it's so.
57:58
God has not called me to do that. I may not intuitively know how I'm going to
58:06
get there, but it feels right.
58:09
This feels right. I don't know anyone else who's providing any of these services
58:14
in this capacity or who's able to go reach maybe these countercultures of college fraternities,
58:22
of artists who may not have had the same level of access or maybe privilege
58:28
that I had to grow as a leader, right?
58:32
Like, man, the Army gets you a PhD in getting stuff done. For sure. For sure. Yes.
58:38
It is an honor and a privilege to be in this space and a heartfelt thank you
58:43
from me to you for helping me take that leap of faith just by being you.
58:49
Yeah, well, thank you very much for that, Pat. Yeah, man.
58:52
Now, look, I'm not hippy-dippy and all that shit, but yeah, like follow your dream. Like literally.
58:58
Is it that simple?
59:00
Almost. Almost. Simple. If you cut through the noise, man, it's that simple.
59:05
But it's not easy. There's just so much noise, and that's the hard part,
59:09
is cutting through the noise.
59:11
Whatever you perceive pressures from...
59:15
And your family or your whatever profession you think you support,
59:18
your peers or all this and that. It's really all noise, man.
59:23
And you said the piece that matters to get right with your God.
59:27
And once you're, nobody's perfect, but you'll know the way.
59:34
You'll find the way.
59:38
If you go away that don't feel right, then it's probably not right. Not difficult.
59:42
Everything's everything's difficult but if it doesn't feel right to you it's
59:47
probably not right I do not regret the past nor do I wish to shut the door on
59:50
it it is yeah no that's experience man and all the Cornell and Brown and all that the experience is,
59:58
that's the juice man the degrees are just
1:00:02
paper the experience is the juice it is at
1:00:06
the end of the day those are things that I'm
1:00:09
using just to help propel this message and go serve people
1:00:12
it is uh it it may
1:00:15
look like i'm a pokemon collector right yeah i'm just
1:00:18
going after yankee schools yeah but
1:00:22
that gives you access to a whole nother group of humans who who do look at those
1:00:27
things and think oh well because nobody because nobody in that in that world
1:00:32
would give me any a second look because i don't have any degree from any place a lot of my My peers,
1:00:39
it's interesting to call my classmates peers. I think so highly of them.
1:00:44
I think a lot of my peers may not have had access to somebody like me who had
1:00:50
real examples of grit in their life, real hardships.
1:00:57
Who to his face, real struggle, I think. Right. And I hope I'm not framing that
1:01:03
in a way that is discounting their life experience, but they don't.
1:01:07
Generally speaking, if you're talking Ivy League type schools,
1:01:13
generally speaking, those are from a little more well-loof.
1:01:16
They have their own version of hardships, so just different than somebody who
1:01:21
grew up in the beginning. Certainly.
1:01:22
It's mutual access. they get they get exposure to the things i can bring to
1:01:27
the table i get exposure to the things that they can bring to the table even
1:01:32
think about the artists too like this mutual access,
1:01:36
this community we're helping each other grow yeah absolutely that's that's that's
1:01:42
brilliant man well that's funny that's funny speaking of the artist community my daughter,
1:01:47
said no we've just been having this conversation over the past few days she's
1:01:50
trying to Create a little collective around here of, you know,
1:01:55
to try to bring the local artists together to do things.
1:02:00
Amazing things will happen. It's a larger scale.
1:02:03
It's not just you sitting in your basement doing something, but you get to share
1:02:07
it. Once you share it with someone, it grows.
1:02:11
Amazing things can happen from that.
1:02:14
I have to admit, Edgar, one thing that I think I can probably get better at
1:02:19
is probably maybe time management.
1:02:22
I got to jump on. Yeah, you got a call coming. Yeah. We got a wellness board
1:02:28
that is, they're waiting on me. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was at 8 o'clock.
1:02:33
My bad. I wonder if I told you 8.
1:02:37
So, folks, this has been Pat Towery. I'm going to put all his socials in the show notes.
1:02:44
And feel free to reach out. If you've got comments on this, please send them.
1:02:50
Other than that, check out the calendar or the OSS homepage.
1:02:54
We've got October filled up, and we've got land navigation coming up in December,
1:03:00
so please check it out on twoteamguys.com.
1:03:03
Other than that, good people.
1:03:05
Thank you for sticking with me. I appreciate you all. Thank you.
1:03:08
Music.