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Saving Lives, Saving Men with John Henry Parker · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this
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Speaker 1: show five four, three, two and one. Our folks, welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have back John.
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Speaker 1: Henry Parker, John, welcome back.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, good to see you again.
0:27
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. John is a modern author, behavioral analyst, and
0:30
Speaker 1: a former marine focused on trauma, recovery and veteran transition.
0:34
Speaker 1: As co founder of Harvesting Wisdom, he's known for his
0:37
Speaker 1: narrative approach to helping individuals navigate personal, professional, and military
0:42
Speaker 1: to civilian life challenges. He is the author of, most
0:45
Speaker 1: recently Men Harvesting Wisdom, a transformational guide to self leadership
0:50
Speaker 1: that blends the hero's journey with his ten Heroic Dimensions framework.
0:54
Speaker 1: Designed is both a book and a workbook. It invites
0:56
Speaker 1: readers into deep reflection and action, empowering them to cover
1:00
Speaker 1: their own answers and actively shape who they are becoming.
1:03
Speaker 1: He's also the author of Be the Dawn in the Darkness,
1:07
Speaker 1: all Right, John. Obviously, just a little bit about you.
1:10
Speaker 1: Reminder listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
1:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was raised in southwest Phoenix and I reside
1:20
Speaker 2: in outside of Reno towards Lake Tahoe. Okay.
1:25
Speaker 1: All right, so obviously we're gonna we're gonna get into
1:28
Speaker 1: the book and harvesting wisdom. But before we do, remind
1:36
Speaker 1: some of our readers and share with our newer, newer
1:39
Speaker 1: listeners rather how this all started for you, How this feel,
1:43
Speaker 1: this interest passion took hold.
1:49
Speaker 2: Well, I when I think back, there are a number
1:51
Speaker 2: of events, but the original, like gestalt, like that activated
1:56
Speaker 2: this whole thing, actually was a five minute conversation in
1:59
Speaker 2: Okayawaja before I was separated from the Marine Corps to
2:03
Speaker 2: become a civilian. Two weeks prior, I met this warrant
2:08
Speaker 2: officer at the USO. I was there having a bunch
2:11
Speaker 2: of beers with my buddies, talking about what we're going
2:13
Speaker 2: to do when we get out, and this warrant officer,
2:17
Speaker 2: who was actually an enlisted person who went back to school,
2:20
Speaker 2: came back in as an officer very special designation in
2:24
Speaker 2: the military. They are typically mentors and technical advisors. They
2:28
Speaker 2: have a little gold bar with red squares on them
2:31
Speaker 2: so you can spot a mile away. So he's at
2:34
Speaker 2: the bar listening to us talking about getting loud, right,
2:38
Speaker 2: And when I went to the bar to get another
2:40
Speaker 2: picture of beer, he said, Hey, I understand you're getting
2:43
Speaker 2: out in a couple of weeks. Mind if I give
2:44
Speaker 2: you some advice. And I'm like, absolutely, sir. And you
2:48
Speaker 2: listen to a warrant officer and he said, you're gonna
2:52
Speaker 2: get out, and you're going to go home in a
2:53
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. And it's not going to take more
2:55
Speaker 2: than a couple of days or a couple of weeks
2:56
Speaker 2: to realize that the world doesn't need another hard ass
2:59
Speaker 2: marine could parachute out of helicopters at night and put
3:02
Speaker 2: a round down range, you know, and carry big heavy packs.
3:06
Speaker 2: You know. The world's got enough people like that, you know.
3:09
Speaker 2: He said, If I were you, I, instead of just
3:12
Speaker 2: sitting here laughing and drinking with your buddies, I'd go
3:15
Speaker 2: to the closest bookstore and I'd go to the self
3:18
Speaker 2: help section and I look at every spine on the shelf,
3:21
Speaker 2: and I'd take a bunch off and I'd walk out
3:24
Speaker 2: of there with three books, you know, and I'd start
3:27
Speaker 2: reading about who you're becoming. I'm not going to tell
3:30
Speaker 2: you what to buy. And I didn't even know what
3:32
Speaker 2: the self help section was. And on the Marine Corps base,
3:35
Speaker 2: they don't have bookstores. So we had to take a
3:36
Speaker 2: taxi six miles away to the Air Force base because
3:39
Speaker 2: they had a bookstore. And so I went through all
3:41
Speaker 2: the different spines. I had to ask the lady tell
3:44
Speaker 2: us where the self help section is, and I know,
3:46
Speaker 2: I had a big, old stack, and I walked out
3:48
Speaker 2: of there with Thinker and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill,
3:51
Speaker 2: The Magic of Thinking Big by Schwartz, and Psycho Cybernetics
3:56
Speaker 2: by Maxwell Maltz, you know, and Maxwell Maltz and Psycho
4:00
Speaker 2: was such a strange title. I had to look at it,
4:03
Speaker 2: and when I realized that he was a plastic surgeon
4:05
Speaker 2: who made people beautiful but they couldn't see it, it
4:09
Speaker 2: struck me that this was the perfect book because I
4:11
Speaker 2: was impeccable in this uniform, but I was all kinds
4:14
Speaker 2: of broken and traumatized from childhood to adolescents to the
4:20
Speaker 2: military stuff. So it just jumped off the shelf. Literally.
4:25
Speaker 2: I got to have this once. I understood what it was.
4:27
Speaker 2: So that's really what the stimulus was. Because I wasn't
4:31
Speaker 2: going to therapy. There's no way, you know, like my mentality.
4:34
Speaker 2: You know, men don't go to therapy, Marines don't go
4:37
Speaker 2: to therapy for a lot of reasons, you know. But
4:41
Speaker 2: self help became my therapy. And that's how I got
4:45
Speaker 2: into this field. And miraculously, like six years later, I
4:51
Speaker 2: went to work for a best selling author named Tom Hopkins.
4:54
Speaker 2: For a few years, I went to work for Tony
4:57
Speaker 2: Robbins and Jim Rohn and or to the Brian Tracy team.
5:02
Speaker 1: How does one get that job?
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Speaker 2: It's funny, I think you asked me that this last
5:07
Speaker 2: time we talked, how do you get into this field?
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Speaker 1: No? Not well the field, yes, but I think I
5:13
Speaker 1: want to set the foundation for listeners. But how do
5:16
Speaker 1: you get a job with Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn.
5:21
Speaker 2: Well, it turns out it started with Tom Hopkins, who
5:24
Speaker 2: was at the time in nineteen eighty six, was the
5:27
Speaker 2: world's leading sales trainer. And after I got out of
5:31
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps, like I didn't have any skills and
5:34
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to be a cop. I wasn't going
5:36
Speaker 2: to be a correctional officer. I wasn't going to be
5:38
Speaker 2: a fire jumper with the fire department because I could parachute.
5:41
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to do any of that because I
5:43
Speaker 2: would just know i'd screwed up. Because I don't like
5:44
Speaker 2: these hierarchical military kind of environments where you're on a
5:49
Speaker 2: pecking order, right. So I got into sales because they
5:52
Speaker 2: would train you. So my sales manager one day walks
5:55
Speaker 2: in I'm working at this random sales job, and he
5:58
Speaker 2: brings in this book called how to Master the Artist
6:00
Speaker 2: Selling by Tom Hopkins, and I realized that I was
6:03
Speaker 2: in sales, but I didn't know what I was doing.
6:06
Speaker 2: And then I started looking through this book and I thought, oh,
6:08
Speaker 2: I can learn how to understand the psychology of what's
6:11
Speaker 2: going on here. And in the back of the book
6:13
Speaker 2: it said his corporate headquarters was Scottsdale, Arizona, and that
6:17
Speaker 2: was like three miles address was literally three miles from
6:21
Speaker 2: where I was working. So I called up and I'm like,
6:24
Speaker 2: I want to talk to your sales manager. I'm looking
6:26
Speaker 2: for a job, and they're like, we're not hiring. I
6:28
Speaker 2: didn't realize that every time Tom did a seminar a
6:31
Speaker 2: couple hundred times a year. Everybody wanted to come to
6:33
Speaker 2: work for Tom Hopkins, right, So I just kept calling
6:37
Speaker 2: they said no, no, no, And then finally I went
6:39
Speaker 2: to the I was in a kmart or something like that,
6:42
Speaker 2: or a target. It was a book called The New
6:44
Speaker 2: Sales Professionals by Nick Salerno, and there was a chapter
6:49
Speaker 2: called you Know with Tom, about Tom Hopkins, and it
6:51
Speaker 2: had this guy Ron Marks brings in the champion song
6:54
Speaker 2: record and plays it for the audience. And I'm like,
6:56
Speaker 2: who's Ron Mark? So I called Tom Hopkins International back
6:59
Speaker 2: and I said who is he? And they said, well,
7:01
Speaker 2: he's the guy who does all the marketing for Tom.
7:04
Speaker 2: What's his number? So I called Ron up and I
7:06
Speaker 2: bugged him for a couple of months, but I was
7:09
Speaker 2: just I was just looking for a job. And finally he,
7:11
Speaker 2: you know, he says, what I tell you, we're not hiring.
7:13
Speaker 2: I said, well, Ron, we should probably get together so
7:16
Speaker 2: when you are hiring, you'll know who to call. And
7:19
Speaker 2: he said, he said, finally you closed me. When can
7:22
Speaker 2: you get in my schedule? And that's how I got
7:25
Speaker 2: the job. That's kind of a roundabout story, but that's it.
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Speaker 1: I love that. That's amazing.
7:31
Speaker 2: And then I started I started listening to Tony Robbins
7:34
Speaker 2: and Jim Rohan while I worked for them, and then
7:37
Speaker 2: I went to my first seminar with Tony and it
7:39
Speaker 2: all just kind of cascaded into this, you know, career
7:42
Speaker 2: for about thirteen years.
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Speaker 1: What a great story. But you can see clearly how
7:51
Speaker 1: you have this uh tenacity? Yeah, you that certainly is
7:59
Speaker 1: very I'm sure in a number of situations. Okay, so
8:04
Speaker 1: you get out, you've got this passion. How do things
8:07
Speaker 1: unfold for you? You start working? What does it look like?
8:11
Speaker 1: What do you start to do? Well?
8:13
Speaker 2: I just I had a very limited vocabulary. Obviously in
8:16
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps, I had a very limited compartmentalized amount
8:19
Speaker 2: of emotions I would allow myself to express. And I
8:23
Speaker 2: had a lot of rage. It's really useful in the
8:26
Speaker 2: military if you've got a lot of rage, right, but
8:28
Speaker 2: it's not useful when you get out. So so I
8:33
Speaker 2: my mentality by going to work for all these these
8:36
Speaker 2: folks was I need to model success. I don't understand
8:39
Speaker 2: how to walk, talk, dress, communicate in the civilian world.
8:44
Speaker 2: So I thought, go work for these authors so you
8:47
Speaker 2: can hang out with their best presenters and just model
8:52
Speaker 2: success and that because that's what Tony Robbins teaches, model success.
8:56
Speaker 2: So that was my whole strategies. I've got to go
8:58
Speaker 2: learn how to walk, talk, and act like a professional presenter.
9:02
Speaker 2: And I've never presented to an audience in my lifetime,
9:04
Speaker 2: so it was a very terrifying experience, but I was
9:08
Speaker 2: used to that, so it was kind of like, Okay,
9:11
Speaker 2: this is what's next. And so that's how I really
9:13
Speaker 2: got into this, and my career just kind of took
9:17
Speaker 2: off from there. And then I became a behavioral assessment
9:19
Speaker 2: analyst after really understanding my own traits and looking at
9:26
Speaker 2: my communications style, I just really got impassioned with that.
9:29
Speaker 2: And I've been a behavioral assessment analyst for thirty five
9:33
Speaker 2: years and I've done tens of thousands of these assessments.
9:36
Speaker 2: So it all just started with that five minute conversation
9:39
Speaker 2: with the warrant officer. So I feel like I've just
9:41
Speaker 2: been paying it forward every since. And then, long story short,
9:46
Speaker 2: my son went in the military and it did two
9:49
Speaker 2: diplomas in Afghanistan, and he came back all kinds of
9:54
Speaker 2: just broken, traumatized. It's a really difficult time in my
9:58
Speaker 2: life in his life, and after making it through Afghanistan
10:02
Speaker 2: and he was killed on his motorcycle, suddenly, you know,
10:07
Speaker 2: adrenaline seeking, you know, just just intoxicated dealing with trauma,
10:14
Speaker 2: you know, and that that just kind of brought my
10:16
Speaker 2: life to a complete standstill, you know, and I dropped
10:21
Speaker 2: out of being a consultant and I just I became
10:24
Speaker 2: the Wounded Healer for about ten years, literally just adopting
10:29
Speaker 2: traumatized at risk veterans, and it was it was my
10:35
Speaker 2: way of moving my pain, so it didn't eat me alive,
10:39
Speaker 2: and it gave me a purpose. And then as I
10:42
Speaker 2: started working with literally thousands of veterans over the last
10:45
Speaker 2: thirty five years, you know, but mostly and more intensely
10:49
Speaker 2: after Danny's passing, you know, I started correlating what I
10:54
Speaker 2: was hearing, and I was starting to understand that there
10:57
Speaker 2: there are themes to transition, there are themes to dealing
11:01
Speaker 2: with crisis and change, and it all centered around this
11:05
Speaker 2: constellation of identity, mission, meaning, and purpose. You have an
11:09
Speaker 2: identity when you're in the military. You can see it clearly.
11:12
Speaker 2: You have a daily mission that's assigned, and you have
11:15
Speaker 2: a great deal of meaning and purpose of protecting the
11:18
Speaker 2: people around you. Like in the Marine Corps there's a
11:20
Speaker 2: code unit, Core, God, country, your unit, first people around you,
11:26
Speaker 2: then the Marine Corps, then your God, then your country.
11:28
Speaker 2: So that all added up. But I was noticing that
11:30
Speaker 2: there's a brokenness when people get out. They don't tell
11:33
Speaker 2: you you have to reinvent yourself. And then over thirty
11:37
Speaker 2: five years, those four dimensions transformed into ten and that's
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Speaker 2: the work that I just published called The Men Harvesting Wisdom,
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Speaker 2: the ten Heroic Dimensions of Transformational self Leadership.
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Speaker 1: Just talk about the title of the book, Men Harvesting Wisdom.
12:02
Speaker 2: Wow, I registered that domain in like two thousand and
12:06
Speaker 2: nine when it first woke me out of my sleep.
12:09
Speaker 2: I'm like, I got to own that back when you
12:12
Speaker 2: first could buy domains, right like two thousand and nine,
12:15
Speaker 2: twenty eleven or something like that. I'm going to do
12:18
Speaker 2: something with that someday because it just really spoke to me.
12:21
Speaker 2: That's really what we're hopefully trying to do as we
12:24
Speaker 2: get older is harvest the wisdom. You know, it came
12:29
Speaker 2: from a quote. Wisdom is a result of good judgment.
12:35
Speaker 2: Good judgment is a result of experience, and experience is
12:38
Speaker 2: the result of bad judgment. So I've always had this
12:43
Speaker 2: harvesting mentality, so that just really naturally fit.
12:46
Speaker 1: And so.
12:48
Speaker 2: My wife has been telling me that I should write
12:50
Speaker 2: Harvesting Wisdom because what I'm doing is for men and women.
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Speaker 2: But I don't think it's a good idea for me
12:57
Speaker 2: to try to communicate what women should try to do
13:01
Speaker 2: to improve their life. I understand men, and I understand
13:03
Speaker 2: how to help them pull themselves to the notthole. So
13:07
Speaker 2: that's really men. Harvesting wisdoms just spoke to me because
13:11
Speaker 2: it's a very specialized element. You know, and and and
13:16
Speaker 2: and men are in trouble. You know, That's the way
13:20
Speaker 2: I look at it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's a theme in your work, if I
13:28
Speaker 1: may say so, and correct me if I'm wrong here.
13:30
Speaker 1: But in the other interviews you've done, and when you
13:34
Speaker 1: speak and in your writing, is you you state and
13:41
Speaker 1: you say you don't you're not telling anyone what to do.
13:46
Speaker 1: You know, you're inviting them, right, you're guiding them. And
13:50
Speaker 1: similar similarly to that warrant officer, Right, he didn't tell
13:55
Speaker 1: you what book to He was suggesting you, you know,
14:01
Speaker 1: look at some books. And he also you also said
14:05
Speaker 1: he said something that I thought was interesting is again,
14:08
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong here, Think about what who
14:11
Speaker 1: you're going to become.
14:13
Speaker 2: Start reading about who you're becoming.
14:16
Speaker 1: That's very powerful, it was.
14:17
Speaker 2: It was the shortest motivational speech I'd ever had, and
14:21
Speaker 2: I and I shook his hand. I never saw him again,
14:23
Speaker 2: can't remember his name. And I would love for him
14:26
Speaker 2: to be listening to this or watching this and to
14:28
Speaker 2: call me up, because he changed the trajectory of my life.
14:31
Speaker 2: And that's how life works. So I, like I said,
14:34
Speaker 2: I've been spending my my years paying that that valuable
14:40
Speaker 2: lesson forward to just anybody who will listen. Quite frankly.
14:46
Speaker 1: So, okay, so you decide you're going to write this book.
14:51
Speaker 1: When did you decide you're going to write this book?
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Speaker 2: Well, it took me. My first book was called Transitioning Veterans.
14:58
Speaker 2: It's an audio book. It seems like about every three
15:01
Speaker 2: years I get I can do I can write a
15:03
Speaker 2: book because I spend the first year so agonizing over everything,
15:07
Speaker 2: and then I spend the second year kind of just
15:09
Speaker 2: beating things to death, you know, and and then it
15:14
Speaker 2: turns into a table of contents, and then all of
15:16
Speaker 2: a sudden, things start to flow. So after I wrote
15:21
Speaker 2: Be the Dawn in the Darkness, the very last chapter
15:24
Speaker 2: is called Harvesting Wisdom. If I were to give my
15:27
Speaker 2: twenty one, twenty year old version of myself some advice,
15:30
Speaker 2: it would go as follows. So naturally the next book
15:33
Speaker 2: needed to be Harvesting Wisdom.
15:38
Speaker 1: All right, So these the book is kind of outlined
15:44
Speaker 1: around these ten heroic dimensions. Yeah, and this is you know,
15:49
Speaker 1: for me, it's one thing to read these and they
15:52
Speaker 1: sound great. This is not easy stuff to do. I mean,
15:55
Speaker 1: you walk up to anyone right on the street. Most people,
16:00
Speaker 1: you ask them what their values are a lot of
16:04
Speaker 1: most people probably don't have a clue. Honestly, a lot
16:07
Speaker 1: of people don't. How do you value? Right? So this
16:13
Speaker 1: is not this is this is you got to wrestle
16:18
Speaker 1: with this stuff, right, This is hard. This is intense stuff.
16:21
Speaker 2: It is. And what I what I did is basically
16:23
Speaker 2: is I've just been thinking about I don't really do
16:25
Speaker 2: one on one work with with men right now any longer.
16:28
Speaker 2: I just went to a triple bypass surgery thirteen weeks ago,
16:32
Speaker 2: right because I've been normalizing stress my whole life and
16:35
Speaker 2: then working with stressed out traumatized people thirty five years
16:40
Speaker 2: and I and I and now I've realized that I
16:43
Speaker 2: need to I need to really write about my experiences
16:45
Speaker 2: and see what I can do to convey this to
16:47
Speaker 2: a to the bigger audience, you know, of people around
16:50
Speaker 2: the world, you know. And so I got sidetracked when
16:57
Speaker 2: I thought about my bypass surgery. What was the question?
17:00
Speaker 2: What was the thought?
17:01
Speaker 1: Well, just as an aside, how are you now?
17:04
Speaker 2: It's like it never happened. It's amazing. Wow, I got
17:07
Speaker 2: my chest cracked open and and it's healing up, and
17:11
Speaker 2: I just I feel like I didn't think I was
17:14
Speaker 2: gonna make it. So when I woke up, I was
17:16
Speaker 2: happily surprised. Right, oh my god.
17:22
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds like a whole other podcast that.
17:24
Speaker 2: It's a whole tributary over here.
17:26
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, well, great to hear. You're you're doing well, John.
17:29
Speaker 1: All Right, So we're talking about these ten dimensions here.
17:33
Speaker 1: Let's why is identity, I mean, why is it important identity?
17:39
Speaker 1: And what is identity?
17:40
Speaker 2: Well, it means a lot, you know. In the time
17:44
Speaker 2: we have, I think I could give you a quick
17:46
Speaker 2: run through the ten dimensions, like real quick. Okay, So
17:50
Speaker 2: I basic break it down into ten dimensions, and you
17:52
Speaker 2: can either go to ten dimensions all sequentially like some
17:56
Speaker 2: people do, or you can focus on the one to
17:59
Speaker 2: three dimensions that need the most attention right now and
18:02
Speaker 2: triangulate how to deal with change and transition in a
18:07
Speaker 2: way that's meaningful and that all the other dimensions tend
18:09
Speaker 2: to light up because you're focusing on what's relevant. So
18:12
Speaker 2: the ten dimensions starts with identity, which is I break
18:15
Speaker 2: it down into really know yourself, which is your condition's self,
18:20
Speaker 2: which is all the experiences we've had, all the experiences
18:23
Speaker 2: we've avoided in our lifetime. That creates a conditioning of
18:27
Speaker 2: who you are. Then you have your ego, which kind
18:30
Speaker 2: of looks like the same thing. You develop an ego
18:32
Speaker 2: from that. And then you have alter egos, those personas
18:35
Speaker 2: that we dawn when we need to go do big
18:37
Speaker 2: things like speaking in front of a group or doing
18:40
Speaker 2: something crazy. You know, we can don this alter ego
18:44
Speaker 2: that can help us get through things. And then there's
18:47
Speaker 2: the masks that we wear that are helpful to kind
18:51
Speaker 2: of keep people at bay, but if you wear them
18:54
Speaker 2: too long, that can become a problem. So that's how
18:56
Speaker 2: I'm defining the dimensions of identity. There's lots of other
18:59
Speaker 2: ways define it. I'm just simply saying and trying to
19:02
Speaker 2: be very specific and clear about these aspects because they
19:05
Speaker 2: have been the topic of conversations with a lot of men. Okay,
19:10
Speaker 2: And once you have that identity a little bit more understood,
19:13
Speaker 2: you can look at your values. When your values are clear,
19:15
Speaker 2: your decisions become more clear, especially if they're difficult. So
19:20
Speaker 2: there's little values inventory, and there's lots of great values
19:23
Speaker 2: programs that I can recommend that are really in depth,
19:27
Speaker 2: but I just give a little quick, you know, values inventory,
19:31
Speaker 2: so you can identify, you know, your compass, like what's
19:35
Speaker 2: driving your vision and your and your and your and
19:37
Speaker 2: your and your choices. Once that is established, and we
19:42
Speaker 2: get into meaning, what's your existential why? And the next
19:46
Speaker 2: one is purpose, what's your existential how that you're going
19:48
Speaker 2: to accomplish your why? And then from there I talk
19:53
Speaker 2: about self care because if you don't take care of yourself,
19:55
Speaker 2: you're not going to make it for the long haul.
19:57
Speaker 2: And I break it down into self care into physical, emotional, spiritual,
20:02
Speaker 2: and financial. So you got to get these things right
20:05
Speaker 2: so you can take care of yourself and that's what
20:07
Speaker 2: I'm relearning with my recent surgery and everything. And then
20:11
Speaker 2: after that comes So these are all the first five
20:15
Speaker 2: or internal dimensions, and now we get into the next dimension,
20:19
Speaker 2: which is roles. What are the relationships you got to
20:21
Speaker 2: get right in your life as a father, as a
20:26
Speaker 2: significant others, as a sibling, you know, And how can
20:30
Speaker 2: you really focus on what helps deepen your meaning in
20:35
Speaker 2: your life? You know? And then once you have that,
20:38
Speaker 2: what's your vision of the future. How can you get
20:41
Speaker 2: clear on that? And there's exercises to do that, and
20:43
Speaker 2: then from there execution, how are you going to execute
20:46
Speaker 2: that vision? And then the ninth dimension is something nobody
20:51
Speaker 2: really talks about. It's an inoculation for when we bump
20:54
Speaker 2: into resistance is called willingness. Willingness isn't about being willing
20:59
Speaker 2: when you're will It's about being willing when you're unwilling.
21:03
Speaker 2: When it's cold outside and you don't want to get
21:05
Speaker 2: out front of the covers, that's when you encounter resistance.
21:09
Speaker 2: But if you're inoculated and you really understand it, you're
21:12
Speaker 2: going to throw off the covers and start walking, you know,
21:15
Speaker 2: instead of hitting the snooze button. So willingness is a
21:18
Speaker 2: very important part because if we lay there for too long,
21:21
Speaker 2: we'll start having this stink and thinking that talks us
21:23
Speaker 2: out of what we said we were going to do
21:25
Speaker 2: and who we said we were going to be. And
21:28
Speaker 2: then the tenth dimension is legacy. How would anybody even
21:32
Speaker 2: know you existed? Like what are you here to leave
21:36
Speaker 2: behind as a map and a compass? So those are
21:39
Speaker 2: the ten dimensions. And like I said, you can go
21:41
Speaker 2: through sequenceally or you can say, man, I need to
21:45
Speaker 2: get back in touch with what's meaningful to me. Like
21:47
Speaker 2: I talked to a lot of men that are like,
21:48
Speaker 2: is this all there is? I'm sixty years old, you know,
21:51
Speaker 2: and I've got a good career and I got this
21:53
Speaker 2: and that, But you know, I've got nothing. Nothing seems
21:57
Speaker 2: to matter. I feel numb. Well, focus on meaning in purpose,
22:01
Speaker 2: focus on your values. Does that make sense?
22:04
Speaker 1: It makes a lot of sense. And I'm just thinking
22:06
Speaker 1: each one of those, you know, a book can be
22:09
Speaker 1: written around each one of them. I mean, like I said,
22:12
Speaker 1: you know this, I've spent a lot of time thinking
22:16
Speaker 1: about each of these and it's not easy for a
22:19
Speaker 1: number of reasons. Just going back to values. For example,
22:23
Speaker 1: you said there were a number of ways to look
22:25
Speaker 1: at that. But for our listeners, values can you know,
22:29
Speaker 1: one could value health or adventureism, right, one could value
22:35
Speaker 1: courageousness or financial independence, one could value relationships, on and
22:40
Speaker 1: on and on. But knowing what those are, being able
22:45
Speaker 1: to identify those is another thing.
22:47
Speaker 2: Right, Well, why that's why I just provide a values
22:52
Speaker 2: assessment where you can just check off and you can
22:54
Speaker 2: pick the top five you know that are most important,
22:57
Speaker 2: fit the top five that are kind of important, and
23:01
Speaker 2: then once you start associating with those fundamental values, it
23:07
Speaker 2: then creates a set of lenses that you start looking
23:09
Speaker 2: at that shade what brings meaning and purpose to your life.
23:13
Speaker 2: So this is just a way to crack the door open,
23:16
Speaker 2: you know. And there's just so many great values assessments
23:19
Speaker 2: out there that are big and deep and awesome, you know,
23:23
Speaker 2: like the Barrett Values Institute. You know, it is a
23:26
Speaker 2: good example. You know, There's just there's so many of them.
23:30
Speaker 2: So this isn't this is an invitation to start looking
23:34
Speaker 2: at values.
23:37
Speaker 1: So pulling back you with your experience working with men,
23:43
Speaker 1: you realize that there were a lot of men who
23:48
Speaker 1: maybe were directionless, and so in a sense you what
23:52
Speaker 1: created this compass map in a way, what did you
23:59
Speaker 1: hear are you hearing or seeing from men that inspired
24:03
Speaker 1: you to do this type of work?
24:09
Speaker 2: Well, again, it started with identity, mission, meaning, and purpose.
24:12
Speaker 2: And I've worked with a lot of non veterans. This
24:15
Speaker 2: is this is men and and and as a behavioral
24:18
Speaker 2: assessment analyst, I work with men and women in my career,
24:22
Speaker 2: but I chose to focus in and men have very
24:25
Speaker 2: specific needs, you know. And and the identity mission, meeting
24:31
Speaker 2: of purpose was my go to for twenty five years
24:35
Speaker 2: because it just took people out of danger it, you know.
24:38
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example. I talked to a lot
24:40
Speaker 2: of men who who are really really suffering and they
24:43
Speaker 2: don't know if they want to be here anymore, you know.
24:45
Speaker 2: And one of the quickest ways to get back to
24:47
Speaker 2: what they value and what brings meaning to their life.
24:50
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll just I know their kids' names. I'll just ask, well, so,
24:54
Speaker 2: what's your daughter's name again? Oh? It was Grace? Oh okay,
24:58
Speaker 2: And I see their face just flush a little bit,
25:02
Speaker 2: just like thinking about their daughter, his daughter. And I'm
25:04
Speaker 2: all say, well, were you there when she was born?
25:07
Speaker 1: Oh?
25:07
Speaker 2: Yeah? And you can see the lines coming off the forehead,
25:11
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, just like, tell me about
25:13
Speaker 2: that experience. I mean, what was that? Like do you
25:16
Speaker 2: remember the time when you looked in her eyes and
25:18
Speaker 2: she looked in your eyes and you knew that it
25:20
Speaker 2: was a connecting moment, like this is a conscious little being.
25:24
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a moment. And all of a sudden,
25:27
Speaker 2: the voice tone drops and I'm like, and then when
25:30
Speaker 2: it's appropriate, I just want to remind you a few
25:32
Speaker 2: minutes ago you were talking about whether you wanted to
25:34
Speaker 2: be here or not, and now what are you experiencing?
25:37
Speaker 2: And so getting men in touch beneath the trauma, beneath
25:43
Speaker 2: the numbness, and helping them associate with something that's real
25:47
Speaker 2: that it means something to them. And that's where I
25:50
Speaker 2: go is I need that. I need to help them
25:54
Speaker 2: find that deep connection. And I'm not doing the work.
25:57
Speaker 2: I'm just guiding them. And they fill up the content.
26:01
Speaker 2: I go in empty and I feel what's going on
26:04
Speaker 2: up with where they are, and we typically we start
26:07
Speaker 2: deeply in those kinds of moments. So then when that
26:11
Speaker 2: dimension of what you value and what brings meaning to
26:13
Speaker 2: your life, all of a sudden, they know they've got
26:16
Speaker 2: to be here and we jump into purpose. So these
26:19
Speaker 2: are really designed like if you ever heard of the
26:23
Speaker 2: Hermetic principles, So Hermetic principles aren't designed to use one
26:26
Speaker 2: at a time. They use an opposition to each other
26:29
Speaker 2: and that's where the power lies. So when you're able
26:32
Speaker 2: to identify one to three dimensions that really light up
26:36
Speaker 2: for you. The synergy and the oppositions of those, they
26:40
Speaker 2: create motivation.
26:43
Speaker 1: What is happening now in our culture and maybe this
26:48
Speaker 1: has been going on for a long time that is
26:52
Speaker 1: causing men to have this what absence, to feel this emptiness.
26:59
Speaker 1: And I say that because you might be aware of
27:03
Speaker 1: there's this new documentary on Netflix by Louis Thureaux where
27:09
Speaker 1: he looks at a lot of these social media male
27:16
Speaker 1: social media influencers who are for most intents and purposes
27:21
Speaker 1: kind of proposing this to toxic what's been called toxic masculinity.
27:26
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you were talking about this today,
27:28
Speaker 1: But why are men lacking this? Wow?
27:35
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm the right person that answered that,
27:38
Speaker 2: but I can give you my sense.
27:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, well come on for years, Yes, I want to
27:44
Speaker 1: hear what you have to say.
27:46
Speaker 2: Well, the very first line in the book man harvesting
27:49
Speaker 2: wisdom is Men are in trouble. Men are in trouble.
27:56
Speaker 2: The old models don't seem to fit. The messages are mixed.
27:59
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it says. But what we all have
28:02
Speaker 2: in common is that we were all boys once. That's
28:06
Speaker 2: where the book starts. We were all boys once. It
28:09
Speaker 2: doesn't matter about how you identify it really doesn't. We
28:13
Speaker 2: were all boys once, you know. And quite frankly, I'm
28:20
Speaker 2: betting on humanity finding a way through this because it
28:23
Speaker 2: doesn't look good. It looks bleak, you know. And I
28:26
Speaker 2: actually put down writing this book in twenty twenty three
28:30
Speaker 2: in November because of the conditions of the world and
28:34
Speaker 2: world events that were going on. I'm like, why am
28:37
Speaker 2: I even writing this book? Nobody's going to read it.
28:39
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. The world is going to shit. And
28:43
Speaker 2: it took me a few weeks of having a petty
28:46
Speaker 2: party to really just like, I don't want to do this.
28:49
Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to do this to
28:52
Speaker 2: I woke up one morning saying, well, until the world
28:54
Speaker 2: actually does go to shit, what can I contribute? What
28:58
Speaker 2: in the world can I do? And that's when this
29:00
Speaker 2: started bubbling up through me. Because I work with all
29:04
Speaker 2: kinds of men, you know, and it's just what I'm
29:09
Speaker 2: trying to do is get what I'm specifically trying to
29:12
Speaker 2: do is I'm providing a map and a compass with
29:16
Speaker 2: the ten heroic dimensions for men to be able to
29:19
Speaker 2: find themselves when they're dealing with crisis, change and transition.
29:25
Speaker 2: So for the last thirty five years working with men,
29:27
Speaker 2: my mission has been incredibly simple, and it still is
29:32
Speaker 2: save lives, help men thrive, keep families together. That's like
29:38
Speaker 2: an easy true north. Right.
29:43
Speaker 1: You have all these like really intense philosophical what sentences
29:53
Speaker 1: that are so profound, that are so weighty, right, I mean,
30:00
Speaker 1: this is this is the stuff that lives are made of.
30:04
Speaker 1: Find your purpose, find your meeting. Come on, that's hard,
30:11
Speaker 1: but amazing, Right, that's not easy stuff. A lot of
30:15
Speaker 1: us don't know what our purpose is. How do you
30:20
Speaker 1: how do you invite someone to begin to look at that?
30:23
Speaker 1: And you're just talking about the child being born and everything,
30:27
Speaker 1: But how do you begin that discussion with someone?
30:33
Speaker 2: Quite frankly, you gotta go in empty. You got to
30:36
Speaker 2: set down all your expectations, you got to set down
30:39
Speaker 2: all your training and what you're supposed to do and
30:41
Speaker 2: say and all that stuff. You got to fill yourself
30:43
Speaker 2: up with what's going on in the moment with the person,
30:47
Speaker 2: you know. And this is this is really interesting. I
30:50
Speaker 2: just had somebody bring this out to my attention this morning.
30:53
Speaker 2: My great aunt Gladys, who we talked about in our
30:56
Speaker 2: other interview about being the down in the darkness years ago,
30:59
Speaker 2: she taught me about the law of reciprocity, like make
31:03
Speaker 2: a good living in your day job, but when you
31:05
Speaker 2: volunteer your time to help other people. And I volunteered
31:07
Speaker 2: probably twenty hours thirty hours a week for the last
31:10
Speaker 2: thirty five years helping men, you know. And so basically
31:16
Speaker 2: she said, Number One, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna
31:19
Speaker 2: paraphrase the look because I'm put my spin on it.
31:21
Speaker 2: But number one, show up. Most people don't. Number two,
31:26
Speaker 2: do what you say you're gonna do. Most people don't
31:30
Speaker 2: do that either. You know what I mean, show up.
31:32
Speaker 2: I mean I've had a lot of men say what
31:33
Speaker 2: do you want from me? Why you being nice to me?
31:36
Speaker 1: You know?
31:37
Speaker 2: And that's what I mean showing up. Do what you
31:39
Speaker 2: say you're going to do. Number Three, give a shit
31:42
Speaker 2: or don't help like really care about the outcomes for
31:45
Speaker 2: the person, or just nicely kind of help them on
31:48
Speaker 2: their way to somebody who can help them. And the
31:51
Speaker 2: fourth one is ask nothing in return. So what starts
31:55
Speaker 2: with men is just starting where they are and filling
31:58
Speaker 2: yourself up with what's going on and getting a sense
32:02
Speaker 2: of the gravity and the consequences. And I'm not a therapist.
32:05
Speaker 2: I'm not a trained therapist. I've been doing this for
32:08
Speaker 2: a long time, keeping it really quiet, like I've worked
32:13
Speaker 2: for best selling authors and I don't want to be that.
32:16
Speaker 2: That's not my thing, you know. I like under the hood,
32:19
Speaker 2: behind the scenes, leading the applause, and that works for
32:23
Speaker 2: me and guy, the best part about this is something
32:27
Speaker 2: I had to reconcile. I don't hear from the guys
32:30
Speaker 2: that I work with sometimes for two, three, five to
32:32
Speaker 2: five years, they just drop out. And I used to
32:35
Speaker 2: get kind of a hurt, you know, But what happened
32:40
Speaker 2: is they got lit up with who they're becoming and
32:43
Speaker 2: they and they just started focusing on living their life
32:46
Speaker 2: and it's nothing personal. And when I bump into them
32:49
Speaker 2: a big hugs, it's like, wow, man, how you've been
32:51
Speaker 2: doing Like we were like we were never separated. So
32:54
Speaker 2: that's really the kind of the signature I think if
32:57
Speaker 2: of this work is people get loot on fire and
33:00
Speaker 2: they just start running towards who they're becoming.
33:03
Speaker 1: Why what's driving you to do this?
33:07
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, I was a wounded healer for
33:11
Speaker 2: a long time after after Danny's passing, and because of
33:15
Speaker 2: my my my background with my dad being a marine
33:18
Speaker 2: and you know, violent upbringing and violent neighborhood, and you know,
33:24
Speaker 2: my my I Glad has always told me you're gonna
33:26
Speaker 2: do something extraordinary with your life. And I believed her
33:29
Speaker 2: because she said it. I just never knew what it meant.
33:33
Speaker 2: So there's a lot more to that. But what drove
33:36
Speaker 2: me is after after Danny, you know, passed away, I
33:39
Speaker 2: just I just started adopting veterans to to move this
33:44
Speaker 2: pain and and and now I don't suffer from trauma.
33:48
Speaker 2: I don't suffer from grief and loss. My I think
33:50
Speaker 2: trauma and grief and loss mature if we if we're
33:54
Speaker 2: if we're lucky, and if we do our work. That's
33:57
Speaker 2: really what I'm proposing is there's a there's a method,
34:00
Speaker 2: there's a path, there's a methodology that you can use
34:03
Speaker 2: a framework this map and compass to find yourself and
34:08
Speaker 2: to help you get yourself out of danger. Do regardless
34:11
Speaker 2: of what seasons of life that you're going through with
34:13
Speaker 2: there's we're either preparing for, going through or coming out
34:16
Speaker 2: of some form of transition.
34:20
Speaker 1: You know, as we kind of wind down here, John,
34:23
Speaker 1: what you're doing is it's amazing. It really is, and
34:28
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, and it's freaking inspiring. It really is. And
34:35
Speaker 1: you know, you say you're not a therapist, and I
34:37
Speaker 1: know you're not a therapist, but the way you're going
34:40
Speaker 1: about this overlaps with the way a lot of very
34:46
Speaker 1: seasoned therapists work by going and empty, which is a very,
34:54
Speaker 1: i think a very difficult skill for many people to honor,
35:00
Speaker 1: because a lot of us want to go in with
35:02
Speaker 1: all of our knowledge, all of our books and all
35:05
Speaker 1: of our suitcases filled with our interventions and techniques and
35:08
Speaker 1: aphorisms and stoicisms, and we're going to help someone and
35:12
Speaker 1: change someone. But it's very different when you're going in there,
35:15
Speaker 1: as you said, empty and having the confidence and the
35:22
Speaker 1: belief in what that can imply and pull forth is amazing.
35:28
Speaker 2: Well, I think I have a really major advantage. I've
35:31
Speaker 2: worked with a lot of therapists, and as a behavioral
35:34
Speaker 2: assessment analyst, I've trained a lot of therapists to how
35:36
Speaker 2: to use behavioral assessments, So I really, I really appreciate
35:40
Speaker 2: the difference between what a therapist is doing and what
35:43
Speaker 2: I'm able to do because I can disclose my personal
35:47
Speaker 2: stories in great detail, which sometimes is the only thing
35:51
Speaker 2: that will get What I'm doing is I'm helping these
35:55
Speaker 2: traumatized at risk men get to neutral They don't have
35:59
Speaker 2: to like me, they don't have to trust me, just
36:01
Speaker 2: want to get them to neutral. If I can share
36:03
Speaker 2: some of my background in my stories, then we get there,
36:08
Speaker 2: and that neutrality leads to rapport, which leads to trust,
36:12
Speaker 2: and so I've got I think I've got a bit
36:14
Speaker 2: of an advantage because a lot of therapists that I know,
36:16
Speaker 2: they just it's just inappropriate for them to get into
36:19
Speaker 2: their story when they're focusing on someone else. So I
36:21
Speaker 2: think there's a difference and a real value in helping
36:25
Speaker 2: people once I get of somebody. It's hard enough to
36:29
Speaker 2: get a man to ask for directions, let alone a
36:31
Speaker 2: veteran to ask for help. Once I get him to
36:34
Speaker 2: the point where we're really doing some deeper work. I
36:38
Speaker 2: can introduce them to the therapist, I can introduce them
36:41
Speaker 2: to the VA.
36:43
Speaker 1: It's funny that you use that kind of stereotypical truth
36:48
Speaker 1: about men, right, They hate to use they hate to
36:50
Speaker 1: ask for directions, and yet you developed the map and
36:54
Speaker 1: a compass.
36:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very private, it's confidential. Nobody needs to know
36:59
Speaker 2: you're getting help, right, right?
37:01
Speaker 1: Really, John, love it? Love it? How do people learn
37:04
Speaker 1: more about you? And the book? The book is called
37:07
Speaker 1: men Harvesting Wisdom. What's the best way?
37:10
Speaker 2: You can go to men Harvesting Wisdom dot com And
37:13
Speaker 2: that's a landing page on Harvesting Wisdom dot com and
37:16
Speaker 2: you can see the work that I do. And it's
37:19
Speaker 2: on Amazon and I'm recording the audiobook right now, so
37:24
Speaker 2: it'll be it'll hopefully be done by the end of May.
37:27
Speaker 2: And I'm also creating a field guide for individual and
37:31
Speaker 2: group work where it's going to take the book and
37:35
Speaker 2: it's bringing it into a field guide to where you
37:38
Speaker 2: can have exercises with groups to actually work through each
37:42
Speaker 2: of the ten dimensions. And there's a whole there's a
37:45
Speaker 2: process behind it that's really kind of cool, awesome.
37:48
Speaker 1: We'll have all that linked up here at the show
37:50
Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. John, awesome,
37:54
Speaker 1: love it again. You're an inspiration and appreciate you being here.
38:00
Speaker 2: What's good to see you again. You know, maybe we'll
38:02
Speaker 2: do this next time. For the next I'm sure we will.
38:05
Speaker 1: Sure we will love to have you back and take
38:06
Speaker 1: care of Thanks.
38:07
Speaker 2: Bye h.