Latest / More Than Before / Wild Man at Heart | Aaron Smith on Suffering, Breathwork & Redemption

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Wild Man at Heart | Aaron Smith on Suffering, Breathwork & Redemption · More Than Before

• 0:06
  This is more than before with Nathan Cook.
• 0:10
  Hey everyone, I'm really excited for my guest today.
• 0:11
  He's actually in studio with me right now.
• 0:14
  I absolutely love his journey. It actually reads quite like a
• 0:17
  movie script. A marine deep sea welder,
• 0:20
  spearfishing guide, free diver, entrepreneur, psychedelic
• 0:24
  healing facilitator. I'm really excited to jump into
• 0:27
  his story because it's rare to meet someone one who has lived
• 0:31
  so much life that he has lived. And I'm really excited to dive
• 0:35
  deep into his story, both literally and figuratively, to
• 0:39
  explore more of his journey of how he became more than before.
• 0:43
  Welcome in my good friend Aaron Smith.
• 0:45
  How are you, brother? Pretty good man, good to be
• 0:47
  here. Good live in skin. 4:30 I love
• 0:50
  it. It's funny because I meet people
• 0:52
  that are really daring. They're willing to go out and do
• 0:55
  things and as soon as it comes to video, they're like, Nah man,
• 0:58
  I'm good. They shy away, huh?
• 1:00
  They shy away. How do you feel?
• 1:01
  How do you feel around video? Pretty shy.
• 1:04
  Pretty shy. Yeah, man, I love your story.
• 1:08
  There's, there's so many cool places where we could start.
• 1:11
  Let's start here. Where do we meet?
• 1:12
  Because I think that's kind of a cool story.
• 1:15
  I I wanted to get fit and get into shape.
• 1:18
  And a good buddy of mine was like, hey, you should do this
• 1:21
  thing. And he ended up tricking me.
• 1:22
  Oh yeah. To to get into the pool with
• 1:24
  him. I thought we were gonna swim
• 1:26
  laps, but no, we were gonna. We're gonna spend our life
• 1:28
  underneath the water. Mr. BK Yeah.
• 1:31
  The sea. Yeah, yeah, man, he definitely
• 1:33
  brought us together and it's one of the owners of Deep End
• 1:36
  Fitness. But yeah, I met him when I
• 1:38
  signed on to Deep End to be a licensee and kind of try to
• 1:42
  stand it up in Portland. I remember running our first
• 1:45
  session and he introduced me to you.
• 1:46
  And definitely share a love for the water, to say the least.
• 1:50
  It seemed like the first session we ran, I didn't really know
• 1:52
  what I was doing but we're getting into, but it kind of
• 1:54
  helped us do that so. That makes me feel better that
• 1:57
  you didn't feel like you knew what you were doing because I
• 1:59
  didn't feel like I, I didn't feel like I knew what I was
• 2:01
  doing. And then on top of that, I'm
• 2:03
  hearing your credentials of like deep sea welder and spearfishing
• 2:08
  person. And I'm just like, dude, this
• 2:10
  guy's the real deal. Like, what did I do?
• 2:12
  I did whitewater rafting when I was in college.
• 2:15
  Like, woo, yeah. It, it was, it's, I don't know.
• 2:19
  There are people that you meet. You can tell me if I'm
• 2:21
  absolutely crazy because of your background, but there's people
• 2:24
  that you meet that you instantly have this bond, this connection,
• 2:27
  this brotherhood with. And it's weird for me to say
• 2:30
  because I never served military wise, but there's a bond that I
• 2:34
  feel with certain guys where I feel like it runs deep, like
• 2:37
  military like. Yeah, like.
• 2:40
  They're an arm. Like I didn't, I may not have
• 2:42
  like seen the stuff that you've seen, but I feel at times like I
• 2:45
  feel like I'm in the trenches with you.
• 2:48
  I've never looked at it like that.
• 2:49
  I always looked at it like, you know, you, I always call people,
• 2:53
  you know, guys I meet that I kind of click with or you're
• 2:57
  Wildman, you know, and I you can sense it about people, you know,
• 3:00
  I just like a knack for adventure or whatever it is.
• 3:03
  I don't think you need accolades to be a Wildman like I think you
• 3:06
  need, it's just a, it's a kind of a light you carry, you know,
• 3:11
  just like you got a knack for adventure or a knack for
• 3:13
  anything, you know, just curious, you know, about the
• 3:15
  world. Those people just kind of raise
• 3:16
  your energy when you're around. I mean, it's just like a share.
• 3:18
  It's a mutual like, all right, we're going to get into
• 3:20
  something today. I don't know what it's going to
• 3:21
  be. Don't die.
• 3:23
  That's the only rule, right? I can't tell you how many times
• 3:25
  I felt like that with you of like, oh man, what are we
• 3:28
  getting into today? You, you program a workout and
• 3:31
  I'm like, I think we're all going to die today.
• 3:33
  Yeah, yeah. Try not to be too masochistic
• 3:36
  about it, but. Which is funny because you think
• 3:38
  someone else is really difficult to, to like to do their workouts
• 3:42
  that they program. And then you do when you're
• 3:44
  like, oh, this can't be that bad.
• 3:45
  And then you have people, because I've had people do this
• 3:47
  that are in classes with us and they're like, dude, that was
• 3:50
  literally the most brutal thing that I've ever gone through.
• 3:53
  Like I've had, I've had guys like that.
• 3:56
  I don't know if I ever told you this, but I had a guy that
• 3:58
  showed up because you're like, yeah, man, I'm not going to make
• 4:01
  it out tonight. We're just going to cancel
• 4:02
  class. And he was already out there.
• 4:04
  And so we ended up, we ended up going through a workout and he
• 4:07
  stopped halfway through the workout.
• 4:08
  He's like, yeah, man, I forgot I got to go to something that's.
• 4:11
  True. It was like, I know you, I see
• 4:14
  you. I think that's the hard part
• 4:16
  because it's the, the water's so humbling.
• 4:19
  That's where the difficulty in programming comes because you
• 4:21
  don't want to run people away. You know, like the, the water
• 4:23
  gives life and the water's really kind to your body.
• 4:25
  But the wall, the water can also drown you.
• 4:28
  You know, there's, there's that aspect too, which we don't do a
• 4:31
  deep end fitness. We know we take care of
• 4:33
  everybody, meet them where they're at.
• 4:34
  I guess there's a fine line. There's there's a fine line
• 4:38
  between life and death. It's called the surface of the
• 4:41
  ocean or any kind of water. I love that you say Wildman that
• 4:45
  like you, you attract people that you're kind of like, which
• 4:50
  is good and bad at the same time.
• 4:53
  Sometimes you look around and you're like the how did I get to
• 4:56
  these people? But there is something to be
• 4:58
  said about this idea of attraction that we really do
• 5:01
  surround ourselves with people that are like minded, that are
• 5:03
  like us. And this Wildman thing is truly,
• 5:07
  they like you look at all the people that are around you.
• 5:09
  They're wild people. I I I've never considered myself
• 5:13
  that till I knew you. I was like, yeah, I guess I am
• 5:15
  kind of a a wild person. Is that, is that something that
• 5:19
  you've always had in in life? Like who were you growing up?
• 5:24
  Douglasville, GA Take us back there.
• 5:26
  What? What were you like as a child?
• 5:28
  I was kind of a chameleon, you know, I moved around my whole
• 5:30
  life with my my family and my mom was in the military and so
• 5:34
  is my dad. They were both in the army.
• 5:35
  Mom was in intelligence and my dad was groundside, and so, you
• 5:38
  know, we moved every from Colorado to Germany to Kentucky
• 5:42
  to Florida to Georgia, all over. We settled in Georgia, though.
• 5:45
  It was interesting moving around a lot because it made me very
• 5:48
  good at mirroring people. That's a good tool to have if
• 5:52
  you're trying to meet people, you know, And it kind of made me
• 5:54
  an extrovert because it's just like, it was what I'm forced to
• 5:56
  do. Like I had to meet people all
• 5:57
  the time. Not on purpose, but I found
• 5:59
  myself with different groups of people in my school.
• 6:01
  It was like I could relate to everyone.
• 6:02
  I had a little piece of something that related to
• 6:04
  everything. So it was just like, it made it
• 6:06
  really easy to bounce around and just fit into all the different
• 6:10
  crowds, man. Yeah.
• 6:11
  And like, I love them all. What was what was school for
• 6:14
  you? It was school kind of like a
• 6:16
  playground to explore social and like interactions.
• 6:19
  Or were you actually a good student?
• 6:22
  No, I was a classical island man like I I didn't really take
• 6:25
  things serious, you know, but that was like a, you know, as I
• 6:27
  like reflect on that now. It was just, I was a clown
• 6:30
  because it was a coping mechanism.
• 6:32
  If I can make people laugh is very disarming.
• 6:34
  Yeah. You know, and it was really
• 6:36
  like, if I could get you laughing, I would be super self
• 6:39
  deprecating about things, you know, like it didn't have a lot
• 6:41
  of self esteem, but like I could definitely, I could use that to
• 6:45
  my benefit, you know, when I needed to.
• 6:47
  And I don't know, I just just kind of worked out and I got
• 6:49
  into everything and I'm like, I, I don't know Wildman early on.
• 6:53
  Well, yes, Wildman from birth. Yeah, for sure.
• 6:57
  I always find that there's some lessons that we take from our
• 6:59
  parents when we're younger. Obviously that's that's kind of
• 7:03
  a, it's kind of a funny thing to say, but we do carry a lot of
• 7:07
  baggage, whether that's good or bad, from our relationship with
• 7:11
  their parents. What, what was your relationship
• 7:12
  with your parents like and what were what were some of the
• 7:14
  things that you learned from them over the years?
• 7:16
  I mean, I'm a relationship with my parents was, it was awesome.
• 7:20
  Like parents was so loving, you know, very different.
• 7:22
  My mom's very much, she's the fighter of the family.
• 7:25
  My dad is a conflicted hippie for sure.
• 7:27
  Like they're both military, you know, but my mom's definitely
• 7:30
  all, she's all loving all teeth at the same time.
• 7:32
  She will bite you. And my dad's very just kind of
• 7:36
  live and let live. And, yeah, different things I
• 7:38
  took from them were like, be kind when, you know, my mom
• 7:42
  taught me kindness, but also be a rattlesnake, if that makes any
• 7:47
  sense. Like don't mess with people, but
• 7:50
  demand respect, you know, and like, don't, don't get trampled
• 7:53
  on. Just like he's very much a
• 7:55
  rattlesnake. That's the best way to describe
• 7:57
  it. Not looking for trouble, but
• 7:58
  you, you have found trouble if if you provoke us, you know, and
• 8:02
  my dad was complete opposite, you know, he just kind of all
• 8:04
  love, you know, they're all, all the workout.
• 8:07
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:07
  I just kind of this easy going. Got me into music and yeah, just
• 8:12
  just amazing guy, man. What did you, when did you get
• 8:14
  into me? Like there's, I find that
• 8:16
  there's kind of this, this stage in life, especially for people
• 8:21
  that are musicians, that they go from the love of music to the
• 8:25
  love of creating music. When did that kind of transition
• 8:28
  happen? That's like one of the reasons I
• 8:30
  got out of the Marine Corps, man.
• 8:31
  Like I wanted to play music. I remember, like, telling my
• 8:33
  boss I was like, he's like, he's like, you're going to re enlist,
• 8:35
  right? I was like, oh, Oh yeah, I'm
• 8:37
  definitely getting out and playing music, man.
• 8:39
  I want to be a rock star. Oh yeah, I'm definitely leaving.
• 8:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just kind of the need to
• 8:48
  create. I feel like the military is very
• 8:51
  structured and there's not a lot of room for creativity in there.
• 8:56
  There's a little bit, but, yeah, I think if you're going to be a
• 8:59
  creator, it's kind of outside the box.
• 9:03
  Yeah. And yeah, that's just what led
• 9:05
  me down the path to actually playing.
• 9:07
  But I've listened to music my whole life.
• 9:08
  My dad used to. He'd have me sit in the living
• 9:10
  room and you have two sets of headphones.
• 9:11
  And we, like, listen to music at night.
• 9:14
  And I just, like, remember that I'd make me listen to all the
• 9:17
  Pink Floyd albums and like, anything you had, you know, from
• 9:19
  that to Enya. And yeah, it's a throwback for
• 9:22
  people don't. Don't go Google it.
• 9:25
  Yeah. Enya is wonderful now, but I
• 9:29
  just remember, you know, listen to music with him all the time
• 9:31
  and everything was cool. Like he did, he didn't.
• 9:35
  I loved, I love my dad because he's like, he's not trying for
• 9:39
  anyone. Like he's just like, if it
• 9:40
  sounds good to him, it's good enough, you know?
• 9:43
  And like just just amazing man. So he could take in everything
• 9:46
  and like, he kind of sent that down to me so I can listen to
• 9:49
  all kinds of music. Yeah, I find that with people
• 9:52
  that were raised kind of in that generation of just kind of
• 9:54
  flowing with things and even with you in life, it seems like
• 9:57
  you've kind of just flowed with the situation.
• 9:59
  You've you've gone, you've you've stepped up where you
• 10:02
  needed to step up. So 17 years old, you enlist into
• 10:06
  the Marines. Not not exactly the the thing
• 10:09
  that everyone goes, I'm going to do this.
• 10:11
  It's not true. There's boy, I know lots of
• 10:13
  guys. So like I'm going to go into the
• 10:14
  Marines, but they don't end. They don't end up doing it.
• 10:17
  They don't especially at 17. What led you to do that?
• 10:20
  Like what? What was going on in your mind
• 10:22
  at that point? All my friends were going to go
• 10:24
  to school. I, I had good grades, but I
• 10:29
  didn't want to go to, I just didn't want to go to college,
• 10:31
  man. And like, I didn't feel like I
• 10:33
  had the money or the resources to do it.
• 10:34
  And so I had like tried to enlist in the Air Force and they
• 10:40
  didn't take me. You know, they were just like,
• 10:41
  you had asthma as a kid. And I was like, you're right, I
• 10:43
  did, but I'm good now. And they're like, well, that's
• 10:46
  too bad. So I was like, I walked right
• 10:48
  outside their office and right next door to the Marine Corps
• 10:51
  and they were like, you got any problems?
• 10:53
  And I was like, Nope, not at all.
• 10:55
  Perfectly healthy human being right here.
• 10:57
  It's lied through my teeth. And and another thing that kind
• 11:02
  of like started that my next door neighbor, Bob, I kind of
• 11:04
  call him my godfather, but he's my dad's best friend at the
• 11:08
  time. And he was a Marine and you
• 11:12
  know, he would just, he'd constantly talk at me.
• 11:16
  He was just like, because I told him I was going to join the Air
• 11:17
  Force, and he was just like, he just gave me this sad face and
• 11:22
  he was just like. We don't let people join the Air
• 11:24
  Force. No, no.
• 11:26
  So he would, you know. Respect to every brand he talked
• 11:28
  to me. Yeah.
• 11:30
  So away I went, man way. I went to the Marine Corps.
• 11:33
  That's crazy. Yeah.
• 11:34
  And did you specialize in the Marine Corps or were you just in
• 11:38
  general Marine Corps? No, no, no.
• 11:40
  I was just just general Marine Corps.
• 11:42
  I was avionics tech because my dad was ground side and my mom
• 11:46
  was an intelligence person. They were like I told him I want
• 11:52
  to be O 311 and they they didn't they didn't Co sign that.
• 11:55
  They're like, no, absolutely. Still 17 years old so.
• 11:58
  They had some say in that. For sure, they had a lot and I
• 12:00
  tried to try to run that back with them and they just like
• 12:04
  they weren't budging, but that's all right.
• 12:05
  And it like it led me to avionics.
• 12:07
  Ended working on C1 thirties. And you know, as soon as I got
• 12:11
  through school and I got through there about 2004 and like from
• 12:14
  there we were off to the races with Iraq and went over there
• 12:18
  twice. And yeah, it was an experience
• 12:20
  man. Met some guys from Ugandan army
• 12:22
  over there. It was a trip.
• 12:23
  Definitely not in direct combat. Just just hanging out on all
• 12:27
  Assad, working on planes and living life, man.
• 12:30
  Important war, you know? What were some of the early
• 12:32
  memories that you had kind of going into the Marine Corps that
• 12:35
  were there any moments of like, what have I got myself into?
• 12:38
  Like I think I may have bitten off a little bit more than I
• 12:42
  than I should have. No, I never felt like that.
• 12:45
  Like I, I was, I don't know, it was a ball of excitement.
• 12:49
  Yeah, happy to be, you know, yeah, it was really strange
• 12:53
  because, you know, for me it was like I was super young.
• 12:55
  Like I think back now, I was like, man, 1718 years old, you
• 12:59
  know, got no idea what I was doing over there.
• 13:01
  And I remember doing just sitting on a security post with
• 13:06
  a, a guy from the Ugandan army was like 44 years old, you know,
• 13:10
  and this guy, he was legit. I was like, oh, this guy, this
• 13:13
  guy's fought some fights, you know?
• 13:15
  And like, he even said it. I'll never forget.
• 13:17
  That guy's name is JJ. But I was like, so far away
• 13:20
  from. I was like, I could be my dad,
• 13:21
  you know? Yeah.
• 13:22
  And just, like, just being out there with him was cool.
• 13:24
  What? Were some of the lessons you
• 13:26
  learned from JJ? To live every day to the fullest
• 13:28
  makes like he lived his life like he was not promised
• 13:30
  tomorrow. And just to really appreciate
• 13:34
  what you have, you know, even if it's a little bit, you know, I
• 13:37
  was just like, I don't know. This is coming from a guy who
• 13:39
  didn't have a whole lot, you know, he'd had us it like he
• 13:41
  provided for his family by serving in this military.
• 13:44
  And like, you know, I don't know too much about Uganda, but like,
• 13:47
  they've been in civil war for a long time.
• 13:49
  It was really interesting for his perspective, you know.
• 13:54
  And then just, yeah, outside of that, they put me on security
• 13:57
  because I, like, I was not smart enough to do my job yet.
• 14:00
  So new, like, you're going to go do this for a while.
• 14:03
  You and this group of people, you know, so they sent us over
• 14:05
  there to do that. And I was like, awesome.
• 14:06
  Sweet. Yeah, cool story, bro.
• 14:09
  Yeah. But yeah, you know, I got out of
• 14:12
  there and went back in 2007, I think, and then I was actually
• 14:17
  working on aircraft and stuff. And that was, that was a little
• 14:19
  bit different. But not a lot of sleeps like 12
• 14:23
  on, 12 off, you know? Yeah.
• 14:25
  And doing a job that I didn't care to be doing really.
• 14:27
  I realized that it was like, OK, avionics is not my specialty,
• 14:30
  might be somebody's specialty, but today for me, you know, so.
• 14:34
  That's something that I've noticed a lot throughout your
• 14:36
  entire life is that you've not been shy about changing course
• 14:42
  when you need to change course. No, no, you've.
• 14:44
  You've you've been able to adapt.
• 14:46
  I love the I love the the idea of chameleon.
• 14:48
  It's funny because I've talked to a lot of people that have
• 14:51
  asked me, you know, what were you like Nathan, as a kid?
• 14:52
  And I'm like, well, I feel like I was kind of a chameleon.
• 14:55
  I feel like I was the guy that kind of blended in and I could
• 14:58
  get along with anyone. And I've always seen that as
• 15:00
  kind of a good thing. And yeah, you know, it's funny
• 15:02
  because I've said that to a bunch of people and they're
• 15:04
  like, yeah, don't, don't use that analogy.
• 15:05
  Chameleon doesn't sound good it. Doesn't right?
• 15:07
  It'd be fake, but it's not. It's not.
• 15:09
  No, it's, it's just being able to blend it in your, in your
• 15:12
  environment. I think that's one of the things
• 15:14
  that both you and I have in common is that we both are, are
• 15:19
  pretty decent at a lot of things.
• 15:21
  And it's a connection point for a lot of, a lot of interactions
• 15:25
  that we have with people. How has being multifaceted
• 15:29
  allowed you to connect with people?
• 15:30
  Because a lot of people say, well, you know, just master one
• 15:33
  thing, focus on one thing, get really good at one thing for
• 15:36
  your entire life. That's the only way to be
• 15:37
  successful that that is a way to be successful.
• 15:41
  But I think you can also be really successful if you find
• 15:43
  different points to be able to connect with people.
• 15:46
  How has been able to connect with people from different walks
• 15:50
  of life and you know, from different aspects of from points
• 15:55
  of interest of, you know, hobbies and those kinds of
• 15:57
  things? How has that helped you?
• 15:58
  That's kind of always been my focal point, man.
• 16:00
  Is this, like, I think it's one of the drivers for doing new
• 16:04
  things and trying new stuff is just the ability to relate.
• 16:07
  Because I think like beyond all these things that we do, it's
• 16:10
  just this like that's what's important.
• 16:13
  And it's just like, if I know, if I can relate to what you've
• 16:16
  experienced, like that's commonality, you know, And like
• 16:19
  it's community. It's just like we can share the
• 16:21
  fact that we both love the water.
• 16:23
  And it's just like, you know, from experience, like that
• 16:25
  feeling and it like generates just a liveliness.
• 16:28
  And I always wanted that for people.
• 16:29
  It's one of the things that helps me in EMS now.
• 16:32
  You know, working on an ambulance is like, that's the
• 16:34
  best part. Regardless of where this person
• 16:37
  is at in their life, they're on there.
• 16:38
  They might be in the worst moment of their life and like,
• 16:40
  I'm in the back of this ambulance.
• 16:41
  Ambulance with them. And what are we gonna talk
• 16:43
  about? We're gonna talk about sports.
• 16:45
  Probably, Maybe, maybe. But.
• 16:48
  Rarely. Yeah, it's just like this person
• 16:50
  don't wanna talk about sports right now and I don't follow
• 16:53
  sports. I've never been like nothing
• 16:55
  against it. I love sports to death, play all
• 16:57
  kinds of them. I just.
• 16:59
  You're you're enough to be stupid.
• 17:01
  Like when you're in a conversation, you're like, yeah,
• 17:04
  yeah, I was dribbling the ball and then threw a touchdown.
• 17:06
  People like, Oh yeah, we found you out and I'm the.
• 17:08
  Worst, I can't spectate, man. Like I hate watching people do
• 17:11
  things that I like to do. Like there's a yeah, I just
• 17:15
  can't do it. But I don't know.
• 17:16
  It's just like, it helps that, you know, at the core of it,
• 17:20
  it's just like you, you have a story.
• 17:22
  And like, when I can relate to that man like I can, the energy
• 17:25
  raises. You just don't get a blank
• 17:26
  stare, you know, And I don't ever want to give people a blank
• 17:28
  stare when they're telling me about something that they really
• 17:30
  love. I want to relate to that and
• 17:32
  just like and be able to live through their, their process,
• 17:35
  you know? Of that it's so good.
• 17:36
  So you so you get out of the Marine Corps and where do you
• 17:40
  run? Dude, I, I got out to play
• 17:43
  music, right? So my, my friends had a cool
• 17:46
  band. I just kind of jump in with them
• 17:48
  and, and start playing music and realize that like, man, this,
• 17:53
  well, this is really cool. You're really broke.
• 17:55
  And it was just like, I'm working side jobs so I can stay
• 17:58
  out all night so we can play music or practice or whatever
• 18:00
  we're going to do and start playing shows.
• 18:02
  I, I struggled and like, I probably work 3 or 4 jobs,
• 18:05
  different ones like throughout this process and it's like I'm
• 18:08
  back home and I love to party. Like I just like, I mean
• 18:12
  everybody who knows me knows that it's just like I love being
• 18:15
  around people so much. I mean, it's such an extrovert
• 18:17
  and because I get energy from it and I mean, it's not all about
• 18:20
  me. It's just like the experience of
• 18:22
  it all. I realize after a while like
• 18:24
  that doesn't serve very well for longevity, you know, so.
• 18:28
  It lowers the life longevity. Yeah, man, that after a while I
• 18:32
  was just like, I got to change things up, you know, I had a
• 18:36
  close friend make it through the MARSOC program or mean special
• 18:39
  forces or special operations, you know, he was trying to
• 18:41
  convince me to get back into actually, because I was, you
• 18:44
  know, I was about that. I was just like, man, I'm about
• 18:46
  health and like just driving things to the edge, you know.
• 18:50
  And so I started doing kind of like a train up working with the
• 18:55
  4th Recon out of Marietta, GA and they were going to send me
• 18:58
  to basic reconnaissance school and I was going to get an
• 19:01
  assessment after that. And I, I went to a, a
• 19:06
  mountaineering training with them and came back and was
• 19:08
  pretty stoked about it. And then they were just, you
• 19:11
  know, they were just like, you need to be a reservist for two
• 19:13
  years with us and then we'll give you an assessment.
• 19:15
  I was like, oh, I'm gonna be, you know, I'm gonna be too old
• 19:18
  by then for me, you know, and like, and it wasn't I one thing.
• 19:22
  Another thing I realized about myself is just like I'm not
• 19:24
  patient at all. Like I was very, very much like
• 19:28
  instant gratification, Like what's gonna what's gonna be a
• 19:30
  change now? Because I have to get out of
• 19:31
  here and I end up on a whim with my buddy just moving to Florida
• 19:35
  and meeting my wife, man, I met my wife Tiffany, and that really
• 19:39
  like just changed everything about me.
• 19:41
  You know, I get still coolest, coolest person.
• 19:44
  I coolest human I've ever met and I love her to death.
• 19:47
  But yeah, we wore I don't know how.
• 19:48
  Like we both wore bandanas and my friend thought we would be a
• 19:51
  good couple because of that. I was like, that's not, that's
• 19:54
  not how you match people. You have a red bandana.
• 19:56
  Yeah, a red bandana. You guys would go together
• 19:59
  really well. Yeah, and like.
• 20:01
  Like fire and oil sometimes. We you ever seen each other for
• 20:08
  a while And I was just like, she's always, I don't know,
• 20:10
  she's just, she's probably the reason I'm alive.
• 20:13
  Like not, I know, not kidding. You know, like that person.
• 20:16
  She's kept me on the on a good path, like since meeting her.
• 20:19
  And she's the one who led me to underwater welding.
• 20:22
  Like I was like kind of really down and out and like didn't
• 20:25
  know which direction to go. And I was doing like again,
• 20:29
  doing side jobs, working in aviation again and just really
• 20:34
  misaligned. I mean, mainly because I I like
• 20:37
  working with people more than I like working with machines with
• 20:39
  my background has always been fixing things, you know, and,
• 20:43
  and I was like, I got to change this stuff.
• 20:44
  She's like, I went diving with her one time.
• 20:46
  She was scuba certified and went diving with her and her stepdad.
• 20:49
  And she's like, maybe she'd do underwater welding.
• 20:52
  And I was like, yeah, maybe I should, maybe I should let's go,
• 20:55
  you know. And so I end up going to school
• 20:58
  for this man and like, it's like a, it's like a six month
• 21:01
  program. It was a trip, you know, it's
• 21:03
  just what it is. You do deep water training, you
• 21:06
  do basic underwater welding stuff, a lot of PT in the
• 21:10
  morning. It was a lot of definitely lost
• 21:13
  a few years off my life going to school.
• 21:15
  So you got to be there at like 4:00 AM for PT and you just get
• 21:19
  in the river and swim and then you go to class for, you know,
• 21:21
  12 hours and did that, you know, like just consecutively five
• 21:25
  days a week, you know, and got out of that.
• 21:27
  And I really had a hard time after that man, like the the
• 21:31
  dive industry, you're told to going through dive school, is it
• 21:34
  like you're going to have this, you know, everybody's like
• 21:36
  underwater welding that pays 1,000,000 bucks, you know, an
• 21:38
  hour, like whatever, whatever people say extreme.
• 21:43
  Extreme opportunity for death. And so because of that, you're
• 21:45
  going to get paid Buku bucks. Yeah, nice.
• 21:48
  Thought not a reality, you know so my first job when I got out
• 21:52
  of that man, I couldn't find work and I was diving for golf
• 21:55
  balls. Seriously.
• 21:56
  Yeah, for. Sure, like.
• 21:57
  Going out to golf courses in Florida.
• 21:59
  I was gonna say Florida. Is the place to dive for golf
• 22:01
  balls alligator? Like infested, like lakes on
• 22:05
  golf courses. I was like, what a opportunity,
• 22:07
  you know? So you're just diving in black
• 22:10
  water, just kind of feeling around, hoping your hands don't
• 22:13
  get hit by a snapping turtle or Gator.
• 22:15
  Do you ever do you ever meet one?
• 22:16
  No, I mean. I knew I've seen him in the
• 22:18
  water and like, I would get in and just be like, oh cool, I'm
• 22:21
  the only one out here. So if something does go
• 22:23
  sideways, it's just me. Like this is greatest job ever,
• 22:27
  you know, but I had a real, I had a real God moment, man.
• 22:32
  And it was interesting. I was like really down and out.
• 22:34
  So I'm doing this, I'm working in a restaurant and like out of
• 22:39
  dive school and just the only job offers that I had were
• 22:43
  making like $10.50 an hour as a underwater welder.
• 22:47
  And it was just like, what did I do?
• 22:49
  I just spent $30,000 on this. But I was smart enough to go get
• 22:52
  my scuba, scuba certification too as a dive master.
• 22:56
  You know, the God moment came in really down and out.
• 23:00
  I took a chance on myself and I looked up what's called Offshore
• 23:05
  Dive Charters with Dan Lindley, and he, he ran a dive charter
• 23:08
  out of Jacksonville. And I remember just walking out
• 23:13
  on this dock asking this guy for a job.
• 23:15
  I was like, hey, man, I know you got a dive charter.
• 23:17
  I'm a dive master. And I was like lying through my
• 23:19
  teeth. I was like, I'm pretty
• 23:20
  experienced, you know, and know what I'm doing.
• 23:23
  That's how you get into it. Yeah.
• 23:25
  And like he's. Like, well, my dive master
• 23:27
  didn't show up today, man. He's like jump on board.
• 23:29
  And you know, I showed him my certifications and like, so I
• 23:32
  went out, you know, as the dive master.
• 23:34
  So I'm like in charge of taking care of some of these people and
• 23:36
  like under his wing, obviously in the deckhand that was on
• 23:39
  board and man, my first day like, but it it was all me.
• 23:43
  You know, that's where the God moment was.
• 23:45
  It was just like it was me, me and God, you know, it was just
• 23:47
  like I took a chance by myself and it like worked.
• 23:49
  Little did I know is gonna be like the craziest day of my
• 23:52
  life. So, you know, we go out and I'm
• 23:56
  nervous is all get out and like the my job is to actually set
• 24:01
  the anchor. So we're going like 1212 to 20
• 24:03
  miles offshore, which is like, I've never been that far
• 24:06
  offshore. You can't see land anymore.
• 24:07
  It's like we're on this big boat.
• 24:09
  There's a whole bunch of people that are super pro and got all
• 24:11
  their gear and stuff and me and I'm like, I know what I'm doing.
• 24:14
  Yeah. Got all my stuff from.
• 24:18
  School And you know the deckhand hands me the anchor and I like
• 24:22
  jump into the water and they're going to drift me over this
• 24:24
  wreck and drop me in The first thing that happens is my mask
• 24:28
  flies off my head and like immediately start
• 24:31
  hyperventilating underwater because this anchor's dragging
• 24:33
  me to the bottom was smart enough to like reach up and I'm
• 24:35
  like grabbed and I caught my mask so I was able to get my
• 24:39
  mask back on as I'm trying to equalize and getting stunk to
• 24:41
  the bottom of the ocean and not panic and which by the way for
• 24:45
  those of. You that don't know what
• 24:46
  equalizing is? What what happens if you don't
• 24:49
  equalize? You.
• 24:50
  You just. Blow your eardrums out.
• 24:51
  It's painful. You hear a squeeze pop and
• 24:54
  that's, that's all she wrote. You don't know, You get her to
• 24:57
  go to the hospital. Yeah, it's not good.
• 24:58
  No, it's not very fun. But yeah, man.
• 25:01
  So I get dropped down on this, you know, wreck.
• 25:04
  And I'm just trying to get my stuff together, not panic and
• 25:08
  die, you know, and I miss the wreck.
• 25:11
  So I have to use a lift bag on my, my tech rig, which is not,
• 25:16
  you have buoyancy compensator usually or BCD, but I didn't
• 25:20
  have that. So I just have a tank and
• 25:22
  basically straps that hold this tank onto my back and then my
• 25:25
  regulator and I, so I lift back this anchor back up and the boat
• 25:28
  captain sees the anchor come back up and I come back up and
• 25:31
  they get me back on board. And he was, he's pissed cuz he's
• 25:34
  just like, you're wasting my gas.
• 25:35
  It's $700 in gas. Every time we go out.
• 25:37
  I could just feel the energy, you know, that's, it's like, oh,
• 25:40
  what did I just get myself into? You say they dropped me down
• 25:42
  again. I'm able to get the anchor into
• 25:44
  the wreck. Well, then it rips through the
• 25:46
  wreck and goes right by my face and almost kills me and I'm like
• 25:49
  under water, just like, what am I doing down here, You know?
• 25:53
  So I have to flip this thing up again and like again, just death
• 25:56
  eyes, just daggers, you know, from everybody and everybody's
• 25:59
  pissed. And so the third time's a charm.
• 26:02
  You know, I get this, this anchor into the wreck and I go
• 26:04
  back up doing good. All right, You know, back up on
• 26:07
  board, everybody's down spearfishing and people start
• 26:10
  coming back up. You know, I'm in charge of
• 26:11
  taking their spear guns. And like there's, you know, two
• 26:13
  kinds of spear guns. You have a traditional just one
• 26:16
  that shoots A spear and then you have power head spear guns and
• 26:18
  those shoot like a 357 bullet. So you're shooting fish with
• 26:21
  bullets. It hits the primer on the
• 26:22
  bullet. Bullet shoots out and and kills
• 26:25
  fish. One of the guys on the boat,
• 26:26
  Major, was Dan. Dan, the boat captain's best
• 26:29
  friend. He comes back up on board and he
• 26:32
  takes the cartridge off the spear gun and puts it in his
• 26:35
  sleeve. And I don't know anything about
• 26:36
  powerhead spear gun. So I'm like, cool man, do what
• 26:38
  you do. And I grab his gun.
• 26:39
  I was like, good job. And he, like, hands me his fish.
• 26:41
  He gets back up on board, sits down.
• 26:43
  I go back to what I'm doing probably like 30 seconds.
• 26:45
  A minute later, like a gunshot goes off.
• 26:48
  I, like, look back and there's people on board laughing.
• 26:51
  And I'm just like, I don't know what's.
• 26:53
  I don't know what to do with that, you know?
• 26:55
  Yeah. So I'm like, OK cool man, I'm
• 26:57
  experiencing. Gun charts are bad things,
• 26:59
  especially in the middle of the ocean.
• 27:00
  So like, I'm just like you. Know what happened?
• 27:02
  Whatever. I go back to what I'm doing and
• 27:04
  I start seeing blood trickle down the deck of this boat.
• 27:06
  I turn around man and he's in this He's in a chair and took
• 27:09
  the top of his wet suit off and what happened is the the
• 27:13
  cartridge he got primed and it shot the bullet through the
• 27:16
  backside of his right femur. MMM And he's bleeding, but this
• 27:20
  is a a dark skinned guy, man, and he is ghost white.
• 27:22
  I walk over to him and, you know, I'm like, Major, you OK.
• 27:26
  And he's just like, I just want to go home.
• 27:27
  He's just repeating himself. He's in shock.
• 27:29
  Yeah. I'm like, oh, you know.
• 27:30
  Oh no, this guy's shot, you know, and I didn't see an exit
• 27:34
  woman. So it was hard to tell that
• 27:35
  like, you know, I didn't kind of, I kind of pieced it together
• 27:38
  later, but I was like, oh, he's shot, run into the captain and
• 27:42
  like, and then he goes, you know, into 911 mode and calls
• 27:46
  the Coast Guard and he's like, we got to go.
• 27:47
  And like there's people stranded from the boat, There's people on
• 27:50
  the wreck still. So I'm like scrambling to get
• 27:53
  all the all these people up, got to go out and rescue two guys.
• 27:55
  It wasn't a nice day. It was like 3 to 5 foot rolling
• 27:58
  swells and like just just a rough day, you know.
• 28:01
  So I dragged these guys back in. And the thing about people who
• 28:03
  dive, they don't dive every day, you know, so it's not something
• 28:06
  they're they're doing on a regular basis.
• 28:07
  So drag them back in. And then I got to go down to the
• 28:11
  wreck. And, like, that was just funny
• 28:13
  because you can't use words down there.
• 28:14
  So I'm, like, screaming bubbles at people and, like, they're
• 28:17
  just looking at me. Like, what are you talking?
• 28:19
  You know, like, go away. You know, like, we're hunting
• 28:21
  right now. You're scared of the fish.
• 28:22
  Yeah. I know, right?
• 28:23
  We get them back on the boat and like, I'm in charge of the
• 28:25
  manifest. So like, and like I have a sheer
• 28:28
  moment of panic because I know there's 12 people and like I'm
• 28:33
  just counting and recounting and recounting and recounting.
• 28:36
  And like Dan's like, are we up? Are we up?
• 28:38
  Are we up? And I'm just, I'm counting 12.
• 28:41
  There's 12 on them. Dude, we got 12 right now.
• 28:44
  I'm asking him. He's like, why are you asking me
• 28:45
  if we got 12 people? Like you should know this, like
• 28:48
  count, you know, and I'm like, but you know, we had everybody.
• 28:51
  So just like, so we're not going back in and meet Coast Guard and
• 28:55
  Coast Guard took care of him and got major where he needed to go.
• 28:58
  I got tipped out really fat from everybody that day made like
• 29:01
  1000 bucks. It was pretty cool.
• 29:03
  He was just like, you got a job, man.
• 29:05
  Nice. Yeah.
• 29:05
  That was my that was a wild day. And that was and that was a.
• 29:08
  Start to a friendship with Dan for a while for sure man and
• 29:11
  I've. Seen Dan recently when I went
• 29:13
  home, when I, me and Tiffany went back to Florida recently,
• 29:16
  he was just randomly in the Marina that we were sitting at a
• 29:19
  bar and I was telling this story to somebody else and they called
• 29:22
  him and he came out and that was it was a cool reunion, man,
• 29:25
  nonexpected. Like brought me to tears for
• 29:27
  sure. Like he's like, let me fix some.
• 29:29
  Part of the story of some of the yeah, he's like, the guy didn't
• 29:32
  believe. Me, you know, and I was just
• 29:33
  like he was like he called him and he sure enough comes out of
• 29:35
  his boat that's so crazy there's.
• 29:37
  Have you always had an affinity to the water?
• 29:39
  Because I feel like the water just calls to you.
• 29:42
  In fact, I've. I've heard you say that the
• 29:44
  water is therapy very much like it's it's very much a healing
• 29:49
  tool for many people. What has been your relationship
• 29:53
  with water throughout your life? Yeah, I've been in it my whole.
• 29:56
  Life like I, I this I can remember being three years old
• 29:59
  in Germany at a place called Swimbod and my dad making me
• 30:04
  jump off high diving boards like a like a toddler, you know, and
• 30:09
  I just remember like standing on these diving boards and going to
• 30:11
  this massive water park and like from that moment it was just
• 30:14
  like I, I love the water, you know, and I've almost drowned a
• 30:17
  few times for drown. I have a drowning like my mom.
• 30:20
  I came off a water slide and I'm underwater looking at my mom and
• 30:23
  she didn't know I came down the slide.
• 30:24
  So I'm like under, they're just like, oh, I'm going to die right
• 30:26
  now, you know? And I'm like, she's not going to
• 30:28
  pick me up. This sucks.
• 30:30
  What a way to go. But no, I mean, it's like a talk
• 30:33
  about a feeling of abandonment. Dude, yeah.
• 30:35
  Yeah, got some issues there, probably.
• 30:39
  Yeah. It's always been in my life,
• 30:40
  man. Like as far back as I can
• 30:41
  remember. I feel at home in the water, you
• 30:43
  know, like I've always like jumping off things into water,
• 30:46
  you know? We didn't have dive teams in
• 30:48
  Georgia. There's no such thing as that
• 30:49
  down there. Or water sports, for that
• 30:51
  matter. Yeah.
• 30:52
  But yeah, it was just that's my place, man.
• 30:55
  It's my home. I don't know.
• 30:56
  I don't know what why I'm like that, but it's just like so
• 30:59
  revitalizing and like you feel naturally high when you come out
• 31:02
  of the water If you do a workout.
• 31:04
  It's like one of the big things for deep end fitness for me is
• 31:06
  like if I can relay that to people, like they would
• 31:09
  definitely come do it on a regular basis.
• 31:11
  Yeah. You know, it's just the it's the
• 31:12
  after effect. It's like how you carry yourself
• 31:14
  through the rest of the day. You're not sore, you're just not
• 31:16
  worn. It grounds me.
• 31:18
  It makes sense. It makes.
• 31:19
  Sense I think to anyone who's actually done something like
• 31:22
  deep end fitness or something like an extreme water workout,
• 31:25
  yeah, there really is something about it where where I don't
• 31:29
  know it it kind of resets a little bit of reality for you.
• 31:34
  It puts into perspective a lot of things.
• 31:36
  Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting because you know,
• 31:39
  when we would start a class and we're we're doing Bob's, which
• 31:42
  Bob's essentially you're just holding your breath, going down
• 31:44
  to the bottom of the pool and then your ears going up and
• 31:47
  down, take a breath. And it's just this repetitive
• 31:50
  thing. And when you first start doing
• 31:53
  Bob's, like when you first Start learning how to do it, it's you
• 31:57
  go into panic mode. Oh, yeah.
• 31:58
  And because you're at the bottom of the pool and you're like,
• 32:01
  what if I don't come back up? What?
• 32:03
  What if I run out of air? Which is really stupid if you
• 32:05
  know that the mechanics of it, you're not going to run out of
• 32:07
  air, Right, Right, right. No, it's just all mental, right?
• 32:10
  It's all mental. But after you get into this
• 32:13
  swing of doing it, you get into this repetitive motion of going
• 32:17
  up and down, you know, we've, we've done it before for 20-30
• 32:20
  minutes, if not longer. And the longer you do it, the
• 32:24
  more you get into this rhythm where you just become really
• 32:27
  internally focused. You kind of gather your
• 32:29
  thoughts. It's forced meditation.
• 32:31
  It's forced meditation. Which you know is interesting
• 32:34
  too, because you know, you, you got into free diving and what,
• 32:39
  what, what led you to free diving?
• 32:41
  Because you know, it kind of has this, this apex of getting into
• 32:44
  the water. And then all of a sudden you
• 32:46
  start really finding yourself, I feel like, because of the water.
• 32:50
  How did how did how did free diving come into play?
• 32:53
  Like I'd been out here for a. While and I was working in
• 32:55
  Oregon City at a paper mill, there was a free diving shop
• 32:58
  down there. And it's just like I've always
• 33:00
  been a water person. And I just stopped in there and
• 33:02
  I met this awesome guy named Dan Simrod and he ran it and him and
• 33:08
  his wife Thalia at the time were, you know, just running
• 33:10
  this dive shop. And like, who knew, like, you
• 33:13
  know, 10 minutes from where I'm working right now that there
• 33:16
  would be a dive shop for free diving.
• 33:17
  I was like, I didn't even, I was like, when we moved up here, I
• 33:20
  was like, OK, my water life is done.
• 33:22
  Like, nobody gets in the water up here.
• 33:23
  You know, it's cold, it's miserable.
• 33:25
  Sure enough, they're there, you know, and I was just like, I
• 33:28
  want to do this. And yeah, I started going down
• 33:33
  the pipeline to become an instructor for PFI.
• 33:35
  I got to like an assistant instructor position before Dan
• 33:39
  actually sold the company or off recently moved to Hawaii and
• 33:43
  moved away. But I got to teach alongside him
• 33:45
  and our mutual friend Dylan. Dylan's an instructor for Ida
• 33:50
  and PFI and yeah, just, it's incredible, man.
• 33:53
  It's like all the things I was doing before without all the
• 33:56
  gear, and that's why everybody's just like that.
• 33:58
  Free diving is crazy. I was like, now free diving is
• 34:00
  simple. Like free diving, you just hold
• 34:02
  your breath and go down, you know, I mean, there's a lot more
• 34:04
  to it than that. But it's just like at a
• 34:05
  baseline, it's, it's you, you know, and it's like what you're
• 34:09
  talking about. It's forced meditation, man.
• 34:11
  And like people don't, I don't think a lot of people know that.
• 34:13
  They think it's just like, that's that's just crazy.
• 34:15
  I was like, no, it's complete control.
• 34:17
  And it's just like, that is a control over your mind is like a
• 34:20
  beautiful thing. It's like when you can quiet all
• 34:22
  the things that's it's not. I feel like it takes forever to
• 34:25
  get to mastery. But like people who do it the
• 34:27
  best or masters of their own mind, you know?
• 34:29
  Yeah, masters of the panic button, as we say.
• 34:32
  Well, there's this. There's a.
• 34:33
  Surrender, that kind of happens with it.
• 34:35
  Yeah. You understand kind of your
• 34:36
  ability and where you can push and and where you need to pull
• 34:40
  back. And there really is an awareness
• 34:42
  that happens when you're in the water, which is which is kind of
• 34:46
  crazy and it's hard to describe unless you've gone through it.
• 34:50
  You know, there's, it's not as crazy as it's going to sound
• 34:54
  what I'm about to say, but you and I have experienced something
• 34:58
  that majority of people don't really experience, I would say
• 35:01
  in the world shallow water blackout.
• 35:06
  I had an experience. With a, a shallow water blackout
• 35:10
  where essentially I, my brain just said, no, you don't have
• 35:13
  enough oxygen. We're gonna we're just gonna cut
• 35:15
  everything off and we're just gonna go into to South salvage
• 35:18
  mode. Do you remember the lights?
• 35:20
  Going out I do I I. Remember so crystal clear and it
• 35:24
  was, it was weird. It was the most relaxing.
• 35:26
  I, I cannot, I cannot even say there was a moment in my life
• 35:30
  that has that has been more relaxing than that moment.
• 35:33
  And I remember talking with people that watched me when I
• 35:36
  was, I was doing a 50 underwater 50M crossover in a pool.
• 35:41
  And I was almost to the end, I was almost there.
• 35:44
  And I was just, I was just so relaxed and gliding through the
• 35:47
  water and, and the people that were watching me, they're like,
• 35:50
  yeah, like you just look so peaceful, like you've been down
• 35:53
  there for days. Like you could have been.
• 35:54
  Yeah, like you could have done an extra 50.
• 35:57
  And I, I remember that moment of like, oh man, like I, I'm almost
• 36:02
  there and you know, your, your body starts doing a little bit
• 36:05
  of like, hey, no, this isn't good.
• 36:07
  You need some air. But to me, I was like, I've done
• 36:10
  this before. This is good.
• 36:11
  Like I've, I've felt this before.
• 36:13
  I hadn't felt that before. I became very attuned to that.
• 36:17
  But there was, there's just a moment where like you're, you're
• 36:20
  there and then you're not. Mm hmm.
• 36:22
  And you're waking up. It's yeah.
• 36:24
  And then you're. Waking up.
• 36:25
  Just someone going wake up. But yeah.
• 36:30
  BK was over me when when that happens.
• 36:34
  Our good friend BK. That guy, yeah.
• 36:36
  That guy, he's a. He's a lifesaver, quite
• 36:38
  literally. Yes, he is, but it's.
• 36:42
  It's interesting going through that, you know, people say that
• 36:45
  it's really peaceful to to die in the water.
• 36:48
  I I would agree with that. There's there's something about
• 36:51
  that that is just so serene. I'm curious for like you've had
• 36:54
  a couple experiences like that, but what, what have those
• 36:59
  experiences taught you about life?
• 37:01
  And, and like, hear me out too, by the way, you might be
• 37:04
  thinking when I ask Aaron this, that, oh, this is like one of
• 37:07
  those, you know, you, you go to heaven and you meet God.
• 37:10
  And like, it wasn't like that for me.
• 37:12
  It was, it was just like you're gone for a second and then
• 37:15
  you're back. Yeah, it was.
• 37:16
  It wasn't like a, you know, it wasn't the the seeing.
• 37:19
  The Kingdom and the gates and the whole walkthrough.
• 37:22
  You weren't getting the tour? No, I couldn't.
• 37:23
  You didn't get the Grand Tour. Oh man, maybe I should be.
• 37:26
  Worried now I didn't I? Didn't get the tour.
• 37:30
  Thanks, Aaron. Now I'm questioning the validity
• 37:32
  of how how faithful I am. No, Yeah, on.
• 37:39
  What did you learn from those? Experiences.
• 37:41
  I mean like I can speak. To what you're talking about as
• 37:43
  far as the you're just there and then you're not and like doing
• 37:47
  like prolonged breath holding and like being on the real verge
• 37:50
  of that. It's kind of like to me,
• 37:54
  everything just shuts down and they got a really cool video of
• 37:58
  me doing a breath hold for like my the Max I could ever do, you
• 38:02
  know, like the the longest breath hold I could do.
• 38:04
  And when I came up my eyes were they look completely I look like
• 38:07
  a shark, like my eyes were completely dilated and I had
• 38:09
  this like maniacal laugh because I was just trying to stay
• 38:12
  conscious, you know, and just like sombing out and like real
• 38:16
  shaky and just like I made it. Good job.
• 38:19
  Probably killed a lot of brain cells in this experience.
• 38:21
  But no, you know, like, there's like, like sheer panic moments
• 38:28
  like this. Is it kinda a few of those?
• 38:32
  You know, I had one when I was in dive school, actually.
• 38:34
  I got wrapped around a, a pylon doing training and like, you're
• 38:40
  like 40 feet down and it's like blackout water.
• 38:43
  So you can't see anything. You're just working down there.
• 38:47
  My feet got swept out from under me and I'm trying to hang this,
• 38:51
  this pile piling jacket. And that's what we would use to
• 38:54
  pour concrete in as we do like concrete pilings underwater.
• 38:57
  And yeah, my feet got swept out and like a sheer panic, man.
• 39:02
  Like, and granted, like I'm on an umbilical.
• 39:05
  So like I'm connected to the top and like I can talk to my, my
• 39:09
  communications guy and, but like, I just sheer panic, man,
• 39:13
  like hyperventilation, like I can breathe.
• 39:16
  That's what's weird is it's like when you panic, all that goes
• 39:19
  away and like your world gets super small and it is, it is
• 39:23
  terrifying, dude. Like you feel like you can't
• 39:25
  breathe and your everything just shrinks in and it's just like
• 39:29
  we're in no matter how much you breathe in, it doesn't matter.
• 39:32
  And it just keeps collapsing in on itself and collapsing in on
• 39:35
  itself to you stop, you know, And it was just like, eventually
• 39:40
  it's weird. I'm seeing like photo
• 39:41
  luminescent algae and stuff in the water.
• 39:44
  So I'm sealing these streaks and I'm like, I'm going to die.
• 39:46
  Like I'm really going to die. This sucks, you know?
• 39:49
  And it was just like, but I didn't, I was just like, and
• 39:51
  then after that becomes comes the peace and like the
• 39:53
  rebuilding. So it was like a complete
• 39:55
  breakdown and then a rebuild up in my head.
• 39:57
  It was like, OK, I can get myself out of this situation,
• 40:00
  you know, feel up, get myself around here because I'm getting
• 40:02
  pinned against this wall by the current.
• 40:04
  And it was just, yeah, it was a nightmare.
• 40:06
  But I've witnessed that in other people.
• 40:08
  You know, while teaching diving, I've witnessed people panic.
• 40:11
  I had a good friend named Katie and she was teaching her to dive
• 40:16
  and she had a panic attack underwater.
• 40:18
  And it was just like dragging this person back to a line to
• 40:21
  safety and just staring at them and just like getting them to
• 40:23
  slow down. It's like you're still
• 40:24
  conscious, you're still in control.
• 40:26
  You're not going to die. It's all good.
• 40:27
  We're still here. Like you said, it's just like
• 40:29
  you're here 1 moment and then you're not the next.
• 40:31
  And it's really calm. Like there's no, it's almost
• 40:34
  less. Like it's like somebody turned
• 40:35
  the TV off, you know? Yeah, that's what it feels like.
• 40:38
  That's a. That's a good way to describe.
• 40:39
  It just like and then you. Wake up and you're like looking
• 40:41
  at somebody and you're they're like, hey, hey, what's going on?
• 40:44
  You're like, I I don't know. I don't know what just happened?
• 40:47
  What's got. Yeah, what?
• 40:48
  What happened to me? I knew what happened and I was
• 40:50
  like, no. No it.
• 40:53
  Happened to me. Oh no, you're back.
• 40:55
  You're all right. But it's it's.
• 40:56
  Interesting though, because there's also these, this dynamic
• 40:59
  within your life that I've found that you you walk through really
• 41:02
  difficult things, you've gone through really difficult things
• 41:06
  in your life. And it's allowed you the ability
• 41:09
  to speak into other people's lives and to really become a
• 41:11
  guide for other people to overcome and to walk through
• 41:15
  some really painful things. What has been your relationship
• 41:19
  with pain and suffering? Because pain and suffering, I
• 41:22
  feel like is, is something that we've talked about a lot off
• 41:26
  camera and just in life of just, you know, what is, what's the
• 41:29
  point of suffering? Because there's a lot of people
• 41:31
  that suffer in life. What?
• 41:33
  What have you found to be the purpose of suffering in your own
• 41:37
  life? I want to believe.
• 41:40
  That suffering always has a good lesson at the end of it.
• 41:42
  What I've seen on the anvils is that not, that's not always the
• 41:44
  case with everybody. If anything, it teaches you that
• 41:47
  you, you are in, in a lot of cases, you are in charge of your
• 41:51
  own suffering. Like, and it's, I think it's
• 41:54
  that whole analogy, like pain's inevitable, but suffering is an
• 41:57
  option, you know, And like that, this is one of the truest
• 42:00
  statements I've ever heard. And it's just like to be able to
• 42:03
  differentiate between that, you know, it's just like you do have
• 42:05
  a choice. And a lot of time we get, or me
• 42:11
  personally, like I get stuck in these cycles where it's just
• 42:13
  like, this isn't going to change.
• 42:14
  You know, it's one of the reasons like I've, I've done
• 42:16
  different things and I've had to change is because I feel that
• 42:20
  constant weight. I take a lot of pride in what I
• 42:22
  do and what I realized it was just like, no matter what I do
• 42:25
  in my life, it's like it doesn't fill the backpack.
• 42:27
  Like it doesn't, it doesn't fill that emptiness or that void at a
• 42:32
  a lot of the time. So it's just like, regardless of
• 42:33
  what accolade you give me, nothing's going to fill that.
• 42:36
  And that Keith has kept me in a search for a long time.
• 42:40
  And it's like, so from the outside, people are like, this
• 42:42
  is really cool, man. You're a really cool human
• 42:44
  being. I like, thank you, man.
• 42:45
  I wish it wish that impacted and I wish I felt that it's a void,
• 42:50
  you know, like that's not, it's unfillable.
• 42:53
  And that to me is the suffering, like the suffering for me is
• 42:57
  just like that, regardless of any gift that you give, like
• 43:00
  nothing can fulfill me on this earth.
• 43:04
  The things that do fulfill or just what I was like, instead of
• 43:07
  searching for purpose, it's like, I just want peace, you
• 43:11
  know, and and that's hard to I was just like, can you bottle
• 43:14
  that? Can we bottle that along with
• 43:16
  sleep, sleep and peace? I was like, I'll take those two.
• 43:19
  You know, those are the hardest things to cultivate, man.
• 43:23
  And like, I think we get, I get lost in that.
• 43:26
  Like, it's what I strive for. You know, it's like, well, I
• 43:29
  want all these experiences and I like wanna, I really thoroughly
• 43:32
  enjoy. I want to squeeze all the areas
• 43:34
  out of life, right? What I'm starting to realize,
• 43:35
  though, is this like, there is no, there's no end to that, you
• 43:40
  know, like I could have everything I want tomorrow and
• 43:42
  then like, maybe the next day or a few weeks after that, it
• 43:45
  would, like, normalize and it would be like, oh, OK, what's
• 43:49
  next? So it's just like, I don't know,
• 43:50
  I just feel like a little kid. Yeah.
• 43:51
  Just walking around in God's garden and like, he's like, all
• 43:54
  right, we're gonna give you this thing.
• 43:55
  We're gonna, we're gonna test you here, you know, And it's
• 43:57
  just like, Dang it, you know, it's just like, like I'm a super
• 44:02
  appreciative. It's such a gift, man.
• 44:03
  This life is such a gift. But it's a tough gift.
• 44:05
  Yeah. It's not a easily.
• 44:08
  I don't think we're on an easy journey.
• 44:09
  I don't think we're here for that reason, though.
• 44:11
  Yeah. I love what you say because you
• 44:14
  know, I meet a lot of people, especially within my industry
• 44:16
  of, you know, everyone wants to find out the purpose and the
• 44:18
  meaning of life. And I love that you.
• 44:21
  I love that you just said this, that that peace is the desire
• 44:24
  over purpose, finding peace within life, E within in the
• 44:30
  hard times. Suffering, you know, it's, it
• 44:32
  doesn't always have to be extreme suffering.
• 44:34
  I think sometimes we, we try to measure suffering by how, how
• 44:39
  difficult a situation is. Yeah.
• 44:42
  Versus just suffering is suffering.
• 44:45
  It's just it. And I love what you say too.
• 44:48
  It's about are you defining it as that?
• 44:50
  You don't have to, you know, pain is pain.
• 44:51
  Everyone's going to have pain. But are you going to choose to
• 44:54
  define that as suffering? Or is it a moment in time where
• 44:57
  you can shift and change? I love that you say that.
• 45:00
  You're one of the few people that I've met that have done
• 45:03
  like a dark retreat. For those of you listening, I, I
• 45:08
  think would be pretty crazy because it it literally takes
• 45:12
  all the senses away from you and it just leaves you with your
• 45:15
  thoughts. Explain a little bit about what
• 45:17
  that is and what, what have been some of your takeaways from
• 45:21
  going through that? Yeah, sensory.
• 45:23
  Deprivation. Probably the the most impactful
• 45:27
  thing in my life that I've ever done, you know, dabbled in
• 45:33
  psychedelics and, you know, continue to facilitate that.
• 45:37
  But darkness is way different. You know, it's completely sober
• 45:41
  in your own mind and you're in a really comfortable room.
• 45:44
  And Scott and Jill Berman, they're amazing people are in
• 45:47
  Nashville. And go see him if he can.
• 45:50
  But yeah, you just, you know, you go into this room and for,
• 45:52
  you know, for me it was a five day adventure of my own mind.
• 45:57
  And you're well fed in there. You don't have a watch or a cell
• 46:01
  phone, but so you don't really know what time it is except when
• 46:05
  they drop off food in the evenings.
• 46:07
  For me, it was like 5 to 7:00 PM.
• 46:08
  So I knew kind of gauge. I'm a very visual learner.
• 46:12
  And you know, going through this experience, I slept really good
• 46:15
  for the first day. But after after the first day of
• 46:18
  sleeping, you don't sleep anymore because your fatigue
• 46:22
  comes from being in this world. It comes from stimulus like your
• 46:25
  brain is working to take in all the stuff around you.
• 46:27
  And when you remove all that, your brain is free and you're on
• 46:31
  your own mind now, you know, So it's just like you go from, I
• 46:34
  don't want to say everything in the world's a distraction
• 46:36
  because it's not. But a lot of things in your
• 46:37
  world are. And when you remove those
• 46:39
  distractions, all you have is your own thoughts.
• 46:41
  So like a lot of people distract themselves because their
• 46:44
  thoughts are self deprecating or you know, like name it.
• 46:49
  Well, why do you distract yourself?
• 46:51
  You know, like a lot of things, you don't to.
• 46:53
  Face. Yeah, a lot of things you don't
• 46:55
  want. To face and a lot of things like
• 46:56
  you're not even aware of it usually like what's one thing
• 46:58
  for me is it's like I don't even realize what certain things are
• 47:01
  distractions, you know, just like going through life, you
• 47:04
  know, being in that room, you're completely, you know, in your
• 47:07
  own world. And as it progressed for me, I'm
• 47:11
  very visual. So everything would appear in
• 47:14
  pictures. So by the end of this
• 47:16
  experience, like the room is not dark anymore.
• 47:18
  Like I'm this room is like lit, lit up and like I'm seeing a lot
• 47:24
  of different things, you know? But the one thing that it really
• 47:26
  shifted my belief paradigm, man, more than anything, it was just
• 47:29
  like people say that, you know, like they've felt God and, and
• 47:32
  seen God and was just like to sit in the presence of creation
• 47:36
  for me, which was very real, like you to me, man.
• 47:42
  And there was 2 presences. There was a masculine and a
• 47:45
  feminine side of this presence, you know, and the masculine was
• 47:48
  in, you know, the visions that I saw while I was in there.
• 47:52
  I get too psychedelic with this because it's pretty much what it
• 47:55
  was like. It went from zero to to 11 teen.
• 47:59
  Yeah, the dial was way past 10, which is crazy for a lot of
• 48:02
  people to. To to think about that because,
• 48:04
  yeah, it's it's you're not taking anything.
• 48:07
  You're just in a dark room. Yeah.
• 48:09
  And is it is it is exactly what you said, sensory deprivation.
• 48:15
  And and I think you can also I not that I've done that
• 48:19
  specifically, but even breath holding, like there's a certain
• 48:23
  euphoria that kind of comes from that.
• 48:25
  And our bodies are pretty crazy like that.
• 48:27
  Yeah, that you experience that Yeah.
• 48:29
  And the euphoria just. Builds in there.
• 48:31
  It's in waves like it it started out really small and by the, you
• 48:35
  know, the 5th day of this like I really wanted to come out of
• 48:38
  that room and you're not stuck in there.
• 48:40
  By the way, don't let you're not locked in this room like you can
• 48:43
  walk out at any time. You'll be on 100 acre property
• 48:46
  on the side of a mountain. It's it's serene, it's
• 48:48
  beautiful. It's a perfect place to do this.
• 48:50
  But through the progression, like I was dealing in my own
• 48:52
  thoughts. And like what it does is like
• 48:54
  when you don't have a distraction anymore, you do have
• 48:57
  to face the things about yourself that you don't like is
• 49:00
  usually you can just pick up your phone or say what time is
• 49:02
  it? Or go brush your teeth or eat
• 49:03
  something or workout or name it, go to work.
• 49:07
  It's like, take away all that now It's like, what do you do?
• 49:09
  OK, cool. Your schedule took an hour and a
• 49:11
  half. Like, the reality is you could
• 49:13
  probably do everything you needed to do today in an hour
• 49:15
  and a half. And then now what?
• 49:17
  Now what are we going to do? And it was like, you start to
• 49:19
  realize it's like, man, you really program your day.
• 49:22
  If you just fill it, You fill it with all these things, you know,
• 49:26
  And it's just like, it's funny, like I, I get stressed out at
• 49:31
  times. It was like, oh, my day is so
• 49:33
  packed with things. Like, no, I choose to fill my
• 49:35
  day with things. And like, this is this is my
• 49:38
  fault. So I induced my own suffering in
• 49:40
  a lot of ways. Yeah.
• 49:42
  But when you're not, when you don't have that anymore, like
• 49:44
  here's where the gift of the darkness is so beneficial is
• 49:48
  just like when you're stripped away from all of that, you get
• 49:51
  to the thoughts that underwrite it and you're kind of like
• 49:53
  subconscious and things that bother you.
• 49:56
  And when you have nowhere to run and everybody talks about like,
• 50:00
  oh, you just got to face down your demons and they're like,
• 50:02
  OK, yeah, that's easy talk. That's tough talk.
• 50:05
  Tough talk. Hard to really do though, right?
• 50:07
  So when you when you actually sit, have to sit for me was
• 50:10
  compulsion, man. And restlessness always pervade
• 50:13
  in my life. It's probably the reason I am
• 50:14
  the way I am it to not be able to go anywhere with that feeling
• 50:18
  of just like, oh, I got to do something or I'm missing out on
• 50:22
  something or I'm not enough or name it.
• 50:26
  You know, whatever drives you in this world to be who you are,
• 50:29
  you know, or figure out who you are.
• 50:31
  When you can't run from that anymore, you crumble to it.
• 50:34
  And like the crumbling, you realize that this was is a very
• 50:38
  it's not a bigot monster as you thought.
• 50:40
  And like it hurts and it's painful and you sit in that
• 50:43
  emotion for a while. And I remember sitting there for
• 50:45
  like 2 hours on the floor just like waiting for Scott to show
• 50:49
  up in the evening time. So I would kind of know what
• 50:50
  time it is because by day three, you're not really sleeping.
• 50:53
  You're in and out of sleep awake.
• 50:55
  Who who knows? And you're in the dark and like
• 50:58
  in your it is a very comfortable room by the way.
• 51:00
  You start to you feel your way around the room and you can hear
• 51:02
  your own voice. So your voice bounces off the
• 51:04
  walls. You know where the bathroom is,
• 51:05
  you know where the bed is. You get lost sometimes though.
• 51:08
  Sometimes I thought I was going to the bathroom like run face
• 51:10
  first into the wall. I'm like, oh, what wall is this?
• 51:12
  OK, I'm way off target here. Missed, missed the map.
• 51:15
  But it like, you know, I figured out a lot of things about myself
• 51:18
  in there. One of the bigger takeaways was
• 51:20
  people tell you, you have to love yourself 1st and like to
• 51:23
  really experience that. Man was is is something I wish
• 51:27
  for everybody. I feel like this world would be
• 51:28
  a lot better place if people got to experience that will carry
• 51:31
  themselves different. And it's it's fleeting and it
• 51:34
  doesn't last forever. The experience in there like
• 51:36
  it's, you know, I would say I want to go do it every year at
• 51:39
  least, but I appreciated my life when I was in there.
• 51:43
  And it is such a gift. The way it shifted my belief
• 51:46
  paradigm, it shifted my relationship with God.
• 51:48
  It told me that like it really, I am good the way I am.
• 51:53
  Like I was like, this life is a gift and you're welcome.
• 51:57
  And and this is an awesome feeling, you know, and it's just
• 51:59
  like I'm here, you know, like they're more than anything.
• 52:02
  I was just like to feel that it was just like this presence,
• 52:05
  whatever created us is like, I'm here with you and you're not
• 52:08
  alone through this. But don't get off the roller
• 52:10
  coaster ride, you know, like you, you asked for this, you
• 52:15
  know, and like a lot of people say, I didn't ask to be here.
• 52:17
  I didn't ask to be alive. And it's just like it's a ride,
• 52:19
  you know? Yeah, it's, it's been
• 52:21
  interesting. To know you over the years,
• 52:22
  especially more recently, kind of with what you were talking
• 52:26
  about of just being connected with God, that's been a journey
• 52:30
  for you throughout your life. How, how has faith really
• 52:35
  changed for you throughout your life from, you know, what was,
• 52:39
  what was faith like as you're growing up to kind of where you
• 52:41
  are now where you're really owning your faith?
• 52:43
  I think my faith as a kid. Was pretty nonexistent, man Like
• 52:46
  it. I grew up and, you know, going
• 52:48
  to different churches and stuff, Baptist and my parents end up
• 52:51
  converting to Catholicism and get on them in like it's, I
• 52:56
  think I understood the community aspect of it as a kid.
• 52:59
  I just like couldn't, I was too fixated on everything around me
• 53:03
  and like just living and like experiencing it all.
• 53:07
  There was just like I didn't feel like at church.
• 53:09
  I just couldn't vibe with it. It was really strange for me,
• 53:12
  you know, I was like, I wanted to believe it.
• 53:14
  And like, I've always known that.
• 53:16
  I've always felt like it, you know, God's real, you know,
• 53:18
  like, and I say that because in like in my, in my worst moments,
• 53:21
  from when I was a kid to now when I'm the most scared I've
• 53:24
  ever been, when I was terrified, it's just like, OK, what do you
• 53:27
  do when that happens? It's like tough talk when
• 53:29
  you're, you know, riding high and like life's going good.
• 53:32
  But who are you when you're scared to death?
• 53:33
  You know, it's just like you're praying for a way out, you know?
• 53:36
  You know, you know, I've had a few experiences doing stupid
• 53:40
  things in my life where it's just like, I came really close
• 53:43
  to death. And in those moments I made a
• 53:45
  pact. I was like, oh, you're real.
• 53:47
  This is real. And I was like, don't let me die
• 53:50
  in such a stupid way. And I was like, I would redirect
• 53:52
  my life, you know? And it's like, so I've had all
• 53:54
  these moments and it's like I still battle with it though,
• 53:57
  which is it's insane. You know, it's just like, you
• 54:00
  know, the, like the whole thing, like ye have little faith.
• 54:03
  And it's so funny. Like, I always hear that playing
• 54:04
  out in my mind when it's like, I'm going through a tough time
• 54:07
  and it's just like, I want to get angry.
• 54:08
  And it's just like, I don't understand.
• 54:10
  It's just like, oh, but like when you've prayed for mercy,
• 54:13
  it's past, you know? Like those moments have passed,
• 54:16
  have they not? It's like, yeah, you still.
• 54:18
  You still don't have faith. Yeah.
• 54:20
  You know, And it's just like, it just comes and comes and goes,
• 54:22
  you know? And I think it's a constant for
• 54:24
  me. It's just a constant trying to
• 54:25
  remember, you know, it's just like, oh, yeah, you got me.
• 54:28
  Yeah. I'm batting 1000 here.
• 54:30
  I am, I'm about to turn 40 this month, man.
• 54:34
  Like turn 40 in a few days, actually.
• 54:36
  And it's just like, I think it's like there's days I want to get
• 54:40
  off the roller coaster and it's just like, no, it's like you've
• 54:42
  got to got to live. Yeah.
• 54:45
  Done some living, you know, How is it?
• 54:47
  How's your life going? You know, it's just growing
• 54:49
  stronger over the years, you know, And I think it does
• 54:52
  because you, you think more. I think you're just engaging the
• 54:54
  world when you're young. And then as you you start to
• 54:57
  age, you start, I don't know, you start wondering more.
• 55:00
  You know, it's just like, I have more questions.
• 55:01
  And now. Yeah.
• 55:02
  And I used to have, you know, used to accept the world as it
• 55:05
  was. And I was like, well, this
• 55:06
  world's kind of crazy. Just just a little.
• 55:10
  Bit, yeah. Kind of off.
• 55:11
  Target. Are we on target?
• 55:12
  Is this how it's supposed to be? That's another thing that came
• 55:14
  out of the darkness, man. It was just like one of the most
• 55:17
  powerful lessons was a voice that told me that you are good.
• 55:21
  The way you are in the world doesn't need to be fixed.
• 55:24
  The world is how I made it, and it's not your burden.
• 55:28
  You don't have to carry that, you know, cuz I like I, you
• 55:31
  know, my wife knows that about me a lot more than anybody.
• 55:35
  It's just like my my packs heavy man.
• 55:37
  Yeah, you are. A massively empathetic person
• 55:40
  like, yeah, like that does. That word doesn't even do
• 55:43
  justice for you. You just feel things like, you
• 55:47
  know, you know, I've known you for a couple years now, and
• 55:49
  that's something that I've noticed about you is you.
• 55:53
  You truly do feel what other people are going through.
• 55:56
  Like you physically feel it. Whether you know that's physical
• 56:00
  pain or whether that's the mental anguish that people go
• 56:03
  through you, You really do empathize and you feel those
• 56:08
  things. Yeah.
• 56:10
  Yeah, I, it's how I connect with people, you know, you know, they
• 56:15
  say suffering is a choice, man, but like, seeing people suffer
• 56:18
  sucks, man. And it's just like you feel for
• 56:21
  them because like, I on one hand, it's just like, I want to
• 56:24
  help this person. On the other hand, I was like, I
• 56:25
  can't help you. I can't.
• 56:28
  I can do things that mitigate that suffering for a moment, but
• 56:31
  I can't change. I can't change your story.
• 56:34
  And like, that's the that's it's like a very hard thing to sit
• 56:37
  with sometimes, you know, and that's where the pack gets my
• 56:40
  backpack gets heavy is just like, you know, I stared in this
• 56:42
  lady's eyes the other day and like, probably 1 of the hardest
• 56:46
  situations I've ever seen a human being go through, you
• 56:49
  know, all I can do is show up. Yeah.
• 56:51
  And I can sit here and I can witness it.
• 56:53
  And I'm witnessing you go through this hardest moments of
• 56:56
  your life, you know, and, and and I don't have a solve.
• 56:59
  And not having a solve was enough.
• 57:01
  And it was just like the way, you know, she was just like, you
• 57:05
  know, it was a small thank you on a Gurney and in a hospital
• 57:10
  and knowing that the situation is probably not going to change.
• 57:12
  And I was just like, you know, I was like, you have to fight for
• 57:14
  your life, dude. I was like, I can't do it.
• 57:16
  Yeah. And I was like, I'm here for you
• 57:18
  now and I'm witnessing it. And I feel terrible.
• 57:20
  I feel terrible for you. But I was like, you are strong
• 57:22
  enough to do that. Yeah.
• 57:25
  And I was like, and I was like, no one's told you that.
• 57:27
  And like, no one's like, seeded that in you.
• 57:30
  And I was just like, and I don't think anybody can.
• 57:32
  And I think that has to be built by yourself.
• 57:34
  You know, the whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps I
• 57:37
  think is like good tough talk sometimes, but not reality.
• 57:41
  It's like we think we do it all alone, but we don't.
• 57:43
  Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, it's so important.
• 57:45
  To have a community, it's so important to surround yourself
• 57:48
  with people. In fact, you know, even looking
• 57:50
  at your journey of everything that you've gone through, it
• 57:52
  really is surrounded by community.
• 57:55
  You not, not, only, and we've talked about this before, it's,
• 57:57
  it's not just that you find community, but you really do
• 58:01
  build community around you. And, you know, I want to ask you
• 58:06
  this because I think that this is kind of a big question.
• 58:08
  And I I don't know if necessarily you have the answer
• 58:10
  to this, but, you know, what do you say to the person that tends
• 58:14
  to carry the world on their shoulders, everyone else's
• 58:17
  problems, and they just can't let it go?
• 58:20
  You know, you, you know, especially with people that are
• 58:23
  in emergency services where it's really hard, it's easy to say
• 58:28
  like, yeah, when you step over the doorstep of your house, then
• 58:31
  you just leave everything behind.
• 58:32
  You leave work behind. That's not really true with
• 58:35
  therapy or, or anything that deals with anything emotional or
• 58:40
  pain. What do you say to the person
• 58:43
  just that has that extreme capacity to empathize with
• 58:46
  others and just can't shut it off?
• 58:48
  They want to help the world, but but they can't, right?
• 58:51
  Because at the end of the day, everyone has the choice to make
• 58:54
  improvements. They have they have the
• 58:56
  opportunity to become more in their life than they ever have
• 59:00
  been. But a lot of people choose not
• 59:02
  to grow. A lot of people choose not to
• 59:04
  become better. What do you say to the person
• 59:06
  that empathizes so much with people that want them to become
• 59:09
  better, but they, you know, they don't have control?
• 59:12
  There's a fine line. Between empathy and enablement
• 59:18
  and it's understanding that, which is it's a difficult thing
• 59:21
  to understand. You know, in my life it was
• 59:23
  just, I mean, it's shown its face so many times.
• 59:26
  It's good to care deeply for other people.
• 59:28
  I look at it as just like I will show up for you forever.
• 59:32
  I will. I will.
• 59:33
  I will. I'll be here and I'll walk with
• 59:35
  you through whatever you want to go through.
• 59:38
  But you guys show up too. I was like, you got to show up.
• 59:40
  And I was like, I can't walk for you.
• 59:42
  I just can't. I was like, I wish it was that
• 59:44
  way. And like, as an empath, like, I
• 59:46
  wanted to be that way. I was like, I want to fix your
• 59:48
  problems and not for me. I want to fix your problems.
• 59:50
  You don't have to suffer. Yeah, but I can't.
• 59:52
  Yeah, I can't do that for you because that's not what I was
• 59:55
  put here for. I was put here to walk through
• 59:58
  this stuff with you when I was writing music.
• 59:59
  It was just like, I'm thinking about.
• 1:00:00
  I was playing music yesterday and it was just like people show
• 1:00:04
  up and walk through the gates of hell with you and they don't ask
• 1:00:06
  for anything. It's like they're doing that so
• 1:00:08
  you can see that ability in yourself.
• 1:00:10
  No, it's not so much about them. It's like.
• 1:00:13
  I'm here for the ride, man. And you're not alone.
• 1:00:15
  We're we're going through it, but let's go.
• 1:00:17
  Yeah. Like we can't, can't stop, can't
• 1:00:20
  turn around. Yeah.
• 1:00:20
  It's like already here. And it's just like, and for
• 1:00:24
  people that just like feel deeply for other people, man,
• 1:00:27
  that's a heavy, it's a heavy backpack to carry.
• 1:00:29
  But you know, it, it's really, there's a lot of stuff out there
• 1:00:33
  that's just like, you know, you got to take care of yourself and
• 1:00:35
  like, what does that mean? You know?
• 1:00:37
  Yeah, it's like it's easy to the self-care, the self.
• 1:00:40
  Love kind of thing. It's, it's very, there's not a
• 1:00:43
  lot of good definition around it.
• 1:00:45
  What does that actually mean? What is it?
• 1:00:47
  What does it actually truly mean to care for yourself?
• 1:00:49
  Because some people think that they're caring for themselves
• 1:00:51
  when they're putting themselves in the grave.
• 1:00:53
  Caring for yourself. Isn't so much about doing
• 1:00:55
  something, it's about it's not a physical thing to me as much as
• 1:00:58
  a mental thing. One of the gifts that I have, I
• 1:01:01
  feel like I have is I, I can really harness feeling like the
• 1:01:06
  feeling of pain or the feeling of suffering or abandonment or
• 1:01:09
  neglect or all the, all the bad things, right?
• 1:01:11
  It's like I can feel that when, when I hear people talk about it
• 1:01:14
  and the pain with that and I can encompass like I can really feel
• 1:01:17
  it. We got to be able to set it
• 1:01:19
  down, you know? And it's just like, that's not
• 1:01:25
  your reality, you know? Yeah.
• 1:01:28
  It's like you can almost bring feelings to life, man.
• 1:01:30
  Like, that's why emotions are so powerful.
• 1:01:32
  I don't think, like, we we don't understand so much of whatever
• 1:01:35
  emotion is, you know? And there's a lot of people out
• 1:01:38
  there just have the ability to like, manifest that, like anger,
• 1:01:41
  you know, like you ever think about things, like you Stew on
• 1:01:44
  something and you get really worked up, you know, you start
• 1:01:46
  spiraling out and then, like, before, you know, you're in the
• 1:01:49
  kitchen eating something to self soothe.
• 1:01:52
  Yeah. No one's, no one.
• 1:01:53
  No one listening has ever done that here.
• 1:01:55
  No, no, people are. Completely different man.
• 1:01:57
  Like that's I noticed that about myself.
• 1:01:59
  That was a learned trait for me. It was like when I get really
• 1:02:00
  angry, I'll try to eat something to self soothe and like, but you
• 1:02:05
  know, I've met I've met a friend and I told him this the other
• 1:02:07
  day and he was just like, oh man, I'm complete opposite.
• 1:02:09
  He's like when I get angry, he's like, I just don't eat.
• 1:02:12
  It's like I I refuse it. He's like, even if I'm hungry,
• 1:02:15
  I'm just like, no, I'm not gonna eat.
• 1:02:16
  That's so funny. Not gonna eat.
• 1:02:17
  Today I'm just. Gonna that's me, yeah.
• 1:02:19
  Yeah, I don't want to eat. Anything, huh?
• 1:02:21
  Yeah. Well, you know, it's
• 1:02:22
  interesting. Because I've talked to I've
• 1:02:23
  talked to my wife about this, that there's there's a because
• 1:02:26
  she she almost looks at it in the fact of like, oh, you're not
• 1:02:29
  eating. So you're just doing it like in
• 1:02:31
  spite or something like that. It's like, no, it's not doing it
• 1:02:33
  in spite. Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  But what it is, it's a, as I look at my world and I've
• 1:02:38
  defined it as this, I've over the course of time, as I've
• 1:02:42
  recognized this in me, when I get frustrated and I stop
• 1:02:45
  eating, I do it because it's a source of control.
• 1:02:50
  It's it feels like the one thing I control.
• 1:02:53
  Oh, yeah, here you go. Here's something to eat.
• 1:02:54
  And I'm like, no, I'm not going to eat.
• 1:02:56
  It's my decision to control because it's, it's one of the
• 1:02:59
  few things sometimes that I feel like I can control of when I eat
• 1:03:03
  or what I'm going to eat. Like, no, no one's going to make
• 1:03:05
  me eat. You've had such a cool story arc
• 1:03:09
  throughout your life. There's been a lot of change.
• 1:03:11
  There's been a lot of development.
• 1:03:13
  And by the way, if you guys are watching this, I want you to
• 1:03:15
  share this with a friend because there are so many things that
• 1:03:19
  Aaron has said that can it can easily be relatable, but it can
• 1:03:24
  also be transformational for people to be able to take a step
• 1:03:27
  from where they are right now in their life to really making that
• 1:03:30
  decision of growth, taking taking matters into their own
• 1:03:34
  hands. In fact, that I want to I want
• 1:03:36
  to kind of land the plane on that specifically.
• 1:03:39
  You've grown a lot in your life. You've made a lot of changes
• 1:03:42
  earlier. You know, I said you've you've
• 1:03:45
  it seems like you've been able to shift.
• 1:03:47
  You're really good at shifting and kind of that chameleon piece
• 1:03:50
  of going, OK, this, this is just the next thing.
• 1:03:52
  This is the next evolution. This is how I need to change in
• 1:03:55
  order to become better. Have you always been a growth
• 1:03:59
  minded person of looking at opportunities and saying, man, I
• 1:04:02
  want to grow through this or I want to learn from this?
• 1:04:05
  Or you know, is that something that's been developed?
• 1:04:08
  Because if it's been developed, how would you encourage people
• 1:04:11
  right now that maybe are stuck in their life that they haven't
• 1:04:15
  had someone say, hey, your life is your life.
• 1:04:18
  You got to take control, meaning like you've got to make the
• 1:04:20
  decision. It's kind of like faith.
• 1:04:22
  You can come and believe in Jesus, but at the end of the
• 1:04:25
  day, you got you got to start making changes in your life that
• 1:04:28
  reflect that decision to follow right.
• 1:04:31
  What what is that? What would you tell that person
• 1:04:33
  that says, you know, I want to make a change in my life, but I
• 1:04:36
  just I'm having a hard time letting things go.
• 1:04:38
  If you look at it from like just.
• 1:04:39
  A reality standpoint, right? You're literally one decision
• 1:04:43
  from a different life. Like you really are, you know,
• 1:04:46
  and like, are the decisions you make on a daily basis, Do they
• 1:04:49
  keep you in this cycle? You know, because I've, I've
• 1:04:51
  been there a million times, man. It's just like I've woke up and
• 1:04:54
  went to the same job or the same career and it's been and and
• 1:04:58
  really been like, well, maybe today is going to be the day
• 1:05:01
  that it changes, you know, and like I've played that I've beat
• 1:05:05
  that horse dead. Hope I know something someone.
• 1:05:07
  Else gonna change, don't. Get me wrong, Like, you know,
• 1:05:09
  hope is a wonderful thing, man. Hope.
• 1:05:11
  Hope is a cool. It's such a powerful energy and
• 1:05:14
  a thing to have when it's used in the correct way.
• 1:05:17
  Yeah, but hope isn't a. Strategy.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah. And you know, that's like.
• 1:05:20
  I mean, in the professional world, it's just like that's
• 1:05:22
  that's that's said too. And you're right, man.
• 1:05:25
  Like we, you know, it's like I was picture from a God
• 1:05:28
  perspective is like, OK, we could do this easy way, or we
• 1:05:31
  can do this the hard way. We can do it the fast way, or we
• 1:05:34
  can do it like we can drag this out.
• 1:05:36
  We can I use like, I just look at it as like, I'm either gonna
• 1:05:40
  drag you kicking and screaming, but you're going anyway.
• 1:05:42
  So you're gonna change. But it's just like it can come
• 1:05:45
  at your detriment or you can just make the change now because
• 1:05:47
  it's like, you know, when you're misaligned and you can feel it
• 1:05:50
  internally, you know, like I could feel it when I would work
• 1:05:53
  on machines versus talking to people or working with people.
• 1:05:55
  It's like I love working with people.
• 1:05:57
  I get so much energy from that because I just like, I don't
• 1:06:00
  want to be the star. I just want to be a piece of it.
• 1:06:03
  We are, we're here for each other, man.
• 1:06:04
  Like that's we're all we got, you know, and it's just like the
• 1:06:09
  people are built different. You like, I understand that I'm
• 1:06:11
  not everybody else. I'm just me, but I can only you
• 1:06:16
  can only go against the grains. You know, you can swim upstream
• 1:06:18
  for a while, but you're going to get tired, silly salmon, you
• 1:06:21
  know, And like, if that is you, you know, if you really do need
• 1:06:24
  to change, you know, you can start with small things.
• 1:06:26
  It can just be one thing that you change.
• 1:06:28
  It doesn't have to be some, you know, one thing.
• 1:06:31
  Good thing of in this in the psychedelic field that we, you
• 1:06:34
  know, we're taught and it's just like I learned from a guy named
• 1:06:37
  Mike who teaches holotropic breath work.
• 1:06:42
  And he always says he's like, hey man, if it's a good idea
• 1:06:46
  today, it'll be a good idea tomorrow.
• 1:06:48
  If it's a good idea tomorrow, it'll be a good idea a week from
• 1:06:50
  now. It's a good idea a week from
• 1:06:52
  now, a month out, six months out.
• 1:06:55
  And he's like, that's a good idea.
• 1:06:56
  And he's like, think about that, you know, before you make a big
• 1:07:00
  life changing decision and, you know, throw a grenade in dear
• 1:07:03
  life. Yes, they're.
• 1:07:03
  Just grenade your. Life, you know, it's just like,
• 1:07:05
  hey man, if they sometimes that's how it's got to be though
• 1:07:07
  there's some people who got sometimes you learn Hardaway a
• 1:07:09
  career change at 39 years old, man, I was making really good
• 1:07:13
  money. I don't make good money anymore.
• 1:07:14
  My wife's sitting across the table for me at night like you
• 1:07:17
  got into you're an EMT now, huh? And she's super stoked suit, you
• 1:07:22
  know, super supportive, but it was just like, hey, that
• 1:07:24
  paycheck don't support, you know, and it's draining on
• 1:07:27
  every. Aspect, it's draining on the big
• 1:07:28
  count, it's draining on the emotionally and it's really
• 1:07:31
  hard. Man, like, you know, Saturday
• 1:07:34
  morning is going to be a tough start for me and it's OK.
• 1:07:36
  You know, it's like what I do say is just like, if you are
• 1:07:39
  dealing with this and afraid to change, when you do change,
• 1:07:43
  accept it, you know, like really eat it.
• 1:07:45
  And it's, it's hard to own it, man.
• 1:07:47
  Like it's really hard. Like I on on your, you know,
• 1:07:51
  what I'm learning right now is just like who are who I am on my
• 1:07:54
  worst days. And I was just like really
• 1:07:56
  trying to work with that. It's like, who are you when
• 1:07:58
  you're tired? It's one thing to be 100% and
• 1:08:00
  like cheerful and happy go lucky, but who are you when
• 1:08:03
  you're you're worse, you know, and that's the thing you got to
• 1:08:05
  work on. Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  It's like that's how you build yourself to be a strong human.
• 1:08:08
  I think it reminds me of an old. Phrase that I heard in my
• 1:08:11
  martial arts days, which was you're only as good as your
• 1:08:14
  worst days, which is true. And you know, I've, and I've
• 1:08:16
  heard that in military terms too, you know, you always
• 1:08:20
  default back to your basic training when you don't have
• 1:08:24
  sleep. And that's the person that shows
• 1:08:26
  up. That's the person you got to
• 1:08:27
  work on the, the person, you know, with kids got 4 kids right
• 1:08:30
  now. So sleep is sleep is
• 1:08:32
  questionable at times. And then, you know, doing the
• 1:08:35
  podcast and, you know, inviting crazy wild men over at, you
• 1:08:39
  know, 4:30 in the morning to record.
• 1:08:41
  That's right. There's there.
• 1:08:44
  Is there's a level of like, who am I going to show up as today?
• 1:08:49
  And it's it is a it's a decision where you say, OK, so if even if
• 1:08:54
  I don't show up today as 100% the best version of me, how can
• 1:08:58
  I make that version just a little bit better?
• 1:09:00
  Yeah. How can I be a little bit more
• 1:09:01
  attentive? How can I be a little bit more
• 1:09:03
  patient? How can I be just one iota
• 1:09:07
  better? Yeah.
• 1:09:08
  And I think that's something that's really cool about you
• 1:09:10
  that I've always loved, is the fact that you truly do want to
• 1:09:14
  grow. You want to be a better version
• 1:09:16
  of yourself today than you were yesterday.
• 1:09:19
  And it doesn't have to be a huge change.
• 1:09:21
  You don't have to grenade your life every single day.
• 1:09:23
  No, But. There is something.
• 1:09:25
  Important to be able to have that introspect and to be able
• 1:09:29
  to reflect back on your life, to say, OK, this is this is where
• 1:09:31
  I've been. This is what I've gone through.
• 1:09:33
  Yeah. And this is really who I am.
• 1:09:36
  And these are some of the things like you were saying earlier,
• 1:09:38
  there's a lot of things in our backpacks that we need to
• 1:09:40
  unburden, we need to take out of our backpacks.
• 1:09:43
  And some of us carry more than others.
• 1:09:46
  But it's about learning. How can you stay focused enough
• 1:09:49
  on what's in right in front of you?
• 1:09:51
  Yeah. Say, how do I show up in this
• 1:09:53
  moment? And you, I feel like you're
• 1:09:54
  really good at that, Aaron. I've really loved just getting
• 1:09:58
  to spend some time with you, brother, learning more about
• 1:10:00
  your story, who you've become throughout your life.
• 1:10:03
  I do want to ask you one more question here before we kind of
• 1:10:05
  wrap up. You really do have this amazing
• 1:10:09
  ability to be present with people.
• 1:10:12
  You have this amazing ability to just love on any person no
• 1:10:18
  matter what they're going through in life.
• 1:10:21
  Why is it so important to love on people?
• 1:10:24
  It's like the whole like you. Know love thy neighbor as
• 1:10:26
  thyself, that core of it. It is our purpose.
• 1:10:29
  Like it, it underlies everything regardless of your life
• 1:10:33
  circumstances or who like what you've had to go through.
• 1:10:37
  It's weird. This world feels like a dream at
• 1:10:39
  times, in a nightmare at at times and it's just like the
• 1:10:42
  only thing that is real is US. Just like alone is darkness and
• 1:10:48
  together as light and we're in the light, you know, like I
• 1:10:53
  think 2 two of us being together in the same room.
• 1:10:57
  There's light there, there's God, there's and like, that's
• 1:11:00
  the purpose of it. Like that's the purpose of this.
• 1:11:03
  And this is like setting all the other stuff down and just
• 1:11:05
  realizing it's just like we're experiences together.
• 1:11:08
  And when like you experience this and I experience this, this
• 1:11:11
  is real. That reminds me of the the.
• 1:11:12
  Whole thing of, you know, we're two or more gathered yeah.
• 1:11:15
  And and that's and that's kind of a core piece too, like, and
• 1:11:18
  that's and that's kind of the way that I've always operated in
• 1:11:21
  my life is, you know, whenever I'm meeting with someone, just
• 1:11:23
  welcoming God, welcoming, welcoming Christ into the
• 1:11:26
  conversation to say, OK, so you know, what are some of the
• 1:11:28
  things that I can do or some of the things things that I can say
• 1:11:32
  in order to pour into this person's life or maybe it's not
• 1:11:34
  even me pouring into them. Maybe it's just me being present
• 1:11:37
  with them. Yeah, man, which?
• 1:11:38
  That this holds a lot of power. Yeah.
• 1:11:40
  And it's like it's all that's needed.
• 1:11:42
  It isn't an answer. Usually my wife tells me that
• 1:11:45
  where anybody She's like just need you to listen, man.
• 1:11:47
  Like you don't got to fix everything.
• 1:11:48
  You know, She's so right. And you can't.
• 1:11:51
  Like, that's the hard part about being us is like, we want to fix
• 1:11:55
  it. Yeah.
• 1:11:55
  Because you get outside perspective.
• 1:11:56
  In somebody'd life, you know, Yeah, you see, you see their
• 1:11:59
  blind spots. And we all got them, yeah.
• 1:12:01
  But it's just like, maybe that's not their, it's not your
• 1:12:03
  purpose. Like purchase is just to be so
• 1:12:05
  often in my life. There's there's moments where
• 1:12:07
  I'm like, man, I really want to be able to help this person fix
• 1:12:10
  this person. And you know, you fill in the
• 1:12:12
  blank and at the end of the day, God just says, no, just show up.
• 1:12:14
  I didn't call you to fix the person.
• 1:12:16
  I'm there to fix the person. Christ is Christ is the, you
• 1:12:18
  know, propitiation. He's, he is the, the, the final
• 1:12:22
  covering for someone's life. He's the one that's supposed to
• 1:12:25
  guide people back. And it's just us saying, hey,
• 1:12:28
  you know, I know. A guy.
• 1:12:29
  I want, I want to introduce you to a guy and I just want to, I
• 1:12:33
  want to be here. I want to be here for you to
• 1:12:35
  walk with this journey to, to fall on my face with you as you
• 1:12:39
  fall on your face, to figure out, OK, how?
• 1:12:41
  What does this look like To walk with life, walk with intention,
• 1:12:44
  to walk in faith when everybody can just be.
• 1:12:47
  It kind of reminds me of what you.
• 1:12:48
  Were saying earlier too about that hole.
• 1:12:50
  You know, you try to fill up that hole in your life and
• 1:12:52
  you're like, well, I just can't fill it up.
• 1:12:53
  All that hole is a guide size hole.
• 1:12:56
  And the only thing that fills that hole is God.
• 1:12:58
  And so when you, when you let God in and you say, OK, God fill
• 1:13:02
  that part of my life, then you become whole.
• 1:13:04
  You know, we are, we're perfectly imperfect and what
• 1:13:07
  makes us perfect is coming back and having God inside of us.
• 1:13:12
  It's it's inviting Christ in and saying, OK, now I'm in a place
• 1:13:15
  where I go, OK, I'm, I'm whole. I'm whole because I'm actually
• 1:13:19
  reunited with the creator. I'm back where I'm supposed to
• 1:13:21
  be. This is community.
• 1:13:22
  I love that that's. So.
• 1:13:23
  Good. Yeah.
• 1:13:25
  For all of you listening, I really want to encourage you.
• 1:13:26
  Make sure you take a little bit of time to reflect on this
• 1:13:30
  episode. There's a lot of really cool
• 1:13:31
  things that Aaron shared, and I want to encourage you.
• 1:13:33
  Share this with a friend, like subscribe.
• 1:13:36
  Remember, we're trying to grow the channel so that we can help
• 1:13:38
  other people become more than before.
• 1:13:41
  Until next time you remember to be more, see more, and
• 1:13:43
  experience more than before.