When David Berez speaks about his life, you can't help but lean in closer to catch every word. His narrative is a vivid tapestry woven with threads of service, sacrifice, and the relentless pursuit of growth. Join us as this former EMT, law enforcement officer, and emergency manager opens up about the highs and lows of a life dedicated to helping others, and the profound impact mentorship and resilience have on shaping our destinies. David's personal anecdotes from the chaos of frontline emergencies to the quiet introspection of retirement pull back the curtain on the often unseen struggles of those who serve.
If you enjoy our content, sign up for our Patreon and get access to additional content, bonus episodes, and access each episode before they drop on Spotify or iTunes.
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We greatly appreciate you and your support, so please remember to LIKE, FOLLOW, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE!
Grab a copy of David’s new book now!
A Resilient Life: A Cop's Journey in Pursuit of Purpose
Make sure that you follow David on all of his social media channels!
Instagram: dberez
LinkedIn: David Berez
Produced by Security Halt Media
When David Berez speaks about his life, you can't help but lean in closer to catch every word. His narrative is a vivid tapestry woven with threads of service, sacrifice, and the relentless pursuit of growth. Join us as this former EMT, law enforcement officer, and emergency manager opens up about the highs and lows of a life dedicated to helping others, and the profound impact mentorship and resilience have on shaping our destinies. David's personal anecdotes from the chaos of frontline emergencies to the quiet introspection of retirement pull back the curtain on the often unseen struggles of those who serve.
If you enjoy our content, sign up for our Patreon and get access to additional content, bonus episodes, and access each episode before they drop on Spotify or iTunes.
Patreon: securityhaltpodcast
Instagram: @securityhalt
X : @SecurityHalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
We greatly appreciate you and your support, so please remember to LIKE, FOLLOW, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE!
Grab a copy of David’s new book now!
A Resilient Life: A Cop's Journey in Pursuit of Purpose
Make sure that you follow David on all of his social media channels!
Instagram: dberez
LinkedIn: David Berez
Produced by Security Halt Media
I learned it as I went. I built this ship as it was sailing out in the sea and I just remember one of the biggest things I always joke about is you know, on a SF team you have 18 echoes which are your communicators. There's like the common guys and they're always about the computers, all the electronics, all the radios, and 90% of the job is just making sure that the corduroy and everything is plugged in the right place, everything is neat, orderly. And I never do that, or I wasn't that way at first, and then I realized I'm like fuck, you know they're right, 90% of this job is just making sure that the cords are laid out perfectly and you have everything plugged in right. So I just remember every time like give me a neck over here, something's wrong and it's just they just unplug it and replug it back in. I'm like fuck how you doing today, man.
Speaker 2:This was my Turbie. Keith memorial was behind me.
Speaker 1:But you know a lot of people give that guy you know and rest in peace. That dude was a true patriot. I don't know he. He was in so many USO shows and I remember the one time I was in country and he was actually in our area in Ramadi, I was like man, whatever, I'd rather get some extra sleep, yeah. So yeah, he did a lot, man. He did a lot, especially in those early years of GY.
Speaker 1:A lot of dudes who were really dedicated to making those trips abroad and shit. Man, you know, we made fun of it when you were a grunt, but it meant a lot to a lot of people being able to take a minute and go listen to some music that you enjoyed. So yeah, it takes people out of the moment, exactly, yeah, and in that time period, dude, that was the most unifying moment our nation's ever had. Like, since I've been alive, all of us can remember where we were for 9-11. All of us like I know it was a concrete memory, concrete event that occurred and I'm like, okay, you know what? Like it's time to be yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can actually talk about that on the podcast if you want, because I was a responder for that.
Speaker 1:Dude, let's dive in. Welcome to SecureDomit podcast Today's guest, david Perez, former first responder law enforcement officer. And then you did emergency management for the local township, right, yes, up until recently. Awesome man. Thank you for being here, man. You know, we kind of focus a lot on veterans, we kind of focus a lot on active duty and I was ignorant of how little support our first responders had when it comes to mental health.
Speaker 2:I didn't know it's been really helpful Until I started talking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I started talking to some local deputies and they're like no dude, we can't talk about this, we talk about it, we lose our jobs, yep. So thank you for being here to talk about your journey, man. So let's dive in.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate the opportunity to sit down and talk with you and obviously recently got to know each other and I'm so excited about that because they think you're such an awesome person and the work you do is phenomenal. Your history is phenomenal and now I just will probably get into it in a little bit, but so proud to be on this book journey with you, with the power of our story, so yeah, man it's just great to be in the same place, absolutely so where do we begin here?
Speaker 1:Take it all the way back to the very beginning, because that part hooked me when we talked earlier, telling me like dude, you've been a man of service your entire life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I started when I was 14 years old as a volunteer EMT, which is three-wild, that's nuts dude.
Speaker 2:It was a way to get out of my house. You know, my house was a bit of a shit show growing up and a little tumultuous, but I recognize now as an adult it was probably pretty normal. But as a 14-year-old kid you just you don't know what normal is and I was like man, I can't, can't, spend so much time around here. But yeah, my dad bounced by the time I was 13. And then he was just kind of in and out a lot, trying to I don't know what the heck he was doing, but not a good role model for me. And then at 14, he was like I just need something. I need something to hold on to. You know, I love my mom and my sister, but I just needed more than what was going on inside the four-year-old's of our house.
Speaker 2:So I joined the rescue squad as a junior cadet I think they called her at the time and by the time I was 16, I took my EMT class and 18 was a heavy rescue operator. And you know, it was great, great, I mean. It set me on the trajectory for life Such really great adults as mentors there, and I was doing it with a couple of friends that were my age. So it was yeah, it was really positive experience and kept me out of enough trouble. I certainly found my own along the way as well, but you know, it kept me out of enough trouble where it's. I think I've could have gone in a very different direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of parallels there in my life. I wish I would have had that. But young men struggle, man. We struggle so much, especially when that father figure is either absent or is volatile and is a violent predator or somebody that you can't run to for guidance and mentorship. And if you didn't have that program, who knows, who knows where you could have gone. And that's a story for so many men. So many of us get to that point in life as a young man and we fall by the wayside or, by the grace of God, we entered a military or police force.
Speaker 2:So that's definitely had some mentors there, and you know two of them specifically. I still consider fathers to me today, one of which has since passed. The other I still reach out to on Father's Day. Wish me happy Father's Day. That's where I was raised.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool, Dude. That's more cool. That's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2:It worked out really well yeah. It was out of swing and drugs on a street corner, so I took drugs.
Speaker 1:It's a testament of the power of kindness and generosity and of you know that they weren't your biological fathers, they didn't owe you that, but they saw the importance of mentorship and giving back to somebody, a young man, that needed guidance, and that's beautiful, that's forging a family that's thicker than blood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I completely agree. The whole place, the whole volunteer rescue squad, was a family, and so many of us are so close today and we look back on that moment and that experience and where we are now compared to where we all came from. Everybody's got a story right Like this. There's nobody that doesn't have a story. It just depends on what your version of it is and, yeah, it's just super cool that that was a starting point for me and without that experience, I would have not gotten to college, probably because I had to graduate in high school with a 1.8 GPA and I loved algebra so much.
Speaker 2:When I was in high school, I had to take it twice.
Speaker 1:That's okay. Yeah, I felt like Billy Madison my senior year high school because I was taking like freshman math just to graduate Same here, same here.
Speaker 2:That was not. That was when we all have strengths and weaknesses. That wasn't even that didn't register on either scale. For me was the math.
Speaker 1:So yeah, shout out to Windsor High School and Windsor Colorado for not giving two fucks about this case, and I went to East Windsor High School, East Windsor, New Jersey, and they had the same zero fucks to give. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Dude, I reflect back and I didn't know anything about how school systems are structured. I didn't understand, like hey, why wasn't I given the opportunity to go to these high science classes, or, like you know, and teachers are overworked, teachers are overworked.
Speaker 2:And back then they were. I graduated high school in 93, it was still a trade back.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I just realized like hey, like you know what, like I look back and I'm like you know they were, they were trying. I can't say they were trying their best, but boy, they were trying.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny because my freshman year, when I took algebra one, my the algebra teacher her name was Ms Lukacek and I think it's shareholders now. She had married at some point during that year and I hated her. I hated everything about that class. I hated her. I hated what she treated me, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me was failing that class no, and then taken again next year and passing it. And I literally thanked her at the end of my sophomore year after I took it again and I was like you know what?
Speaker 2:I would have not had any success if I didn't do this again and show myself that I could. So it was like that first transitional moment in my life where I was like I hate you, lady, why did you fail me? But honestly, she did the right thing and the confidence that you build after succeeding, after failure, I think is is awesome and we take that through the rest of our lives and everything we do. But that I wish I had the language for it at the time. I think it would have felt better about it.
Speaker 1:I had a similar experience. I can't remember the lady's, the teacher's name, but she had labeled me and, of course, like that, I think these teachers don't really know when there's something going wrong at home. Right, I think if they would have like paused and really looked at the situation, because I was a shitty kid in class, 100% admitted it, but that's because I was living a nightmare at home. I think that's a lot of kids, if they're acting out, there's something wrong.
Speaker 1:But we had become such volatile enemies, me and the science teacher. She's like you know what, you're done, you're out of here. Like if you're going to get, if you're going to pass this class, you're going to take all the, I'll do the lesson plans and you're going to take it in detention. And I was like, bet, lady, and I'll pass it, I'll pass it. I was like, screw you and your class, you send the work to me and I'll do it in detention. And I, for the rest of a year I remember like I didn't go to that classroom, I just did that class in detention and I passed it. And I was like, yeah, I showed her in reality Like dude, I didn't prove shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she, she taught you a lesson there, a good one for sure.
Speaker 1:I'm going to succeed despite you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy High school was a trip man I had it's a wild place and I don't. You know for me like it was. A like you just said, what was going on at home. Nobody ever asked the question. And B the other thing was I, looking back, have undiagnosed ADHD and I think most I don't know there's a lot of people in your world in mind that are in that same boat and we didn't have the language for it. Back then. There was no such thing. No, it was just a crazy kid in class, or you know the troubled kid, or not living up to his potential kid. That was us. You know it was a wild experience, but I'm just it's cool that they have language for it now and it helped the kid.
Speaker 2:But for us we were just spaying eating glue, you know.
Speaker 1:Raw dogging life with ADHD.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, man. I wish I knew that, what I knew. Now life would be different, but I wouldn't change anything I've got now. So, yeah, yeah. So that was high school, high school was. I graduated high school in 93. I don't remember much of my high school graduation. So I was hammered and I yeah, it was bad. And I remember my father showing up to high school graduation and I was so drunk I didn't talk to him. I probably yelled at him and walked away. I really don't remember much. I know I was there because there's pictures, but zero recollection. Then college was interesting. I got into Hofstra University. I know you're not supposed to use the R word in life, but I got into what we called the retard program back then.
Speaker 1:A prestigious program, exactly.
Speaker 2:I recognized the insensitivity in 2024 to saying that. But that was 1993. And I it was not insensitive then but it was called New College, called after England's like 200 year old New College program. And I went into the division of special studies Because I was certainly special, and so to actually start the college program in September, I had to go there in early August and take statistics and research methods because I was such an idiot I didn't even know how to like use the kiosk in the library, so it was literally like a six week college prep course before you could actually start college. Nice, if you passed that you could stay.
Speaker 1:So I stayed there I did four years at Hofstra.
Speaker 2:I graduated with a BAC that was higher than my grade point average, and then I moved on to law enforcement after that. But college was a trip I don't remember much of that either.
Speaker 1:Great fun. I thought it was awesome. It's just something you had to get through in order to get into the police department.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. But college was great. I, I, just I worked at the public safety department. There I don't know what we really what we did kind of check lock doors and that kind of stuff. And then we worked at the on campus bar, which was useless and, but the best part, best job I ever had at college was we, my fraternities at Ville divisor. The faculty advisor was the guy in the ID office at school. Yeah, you can see where this is going. So the ID cards at the time they had a magnetic stripe on the back and that stripe was your meal card for the school and there was no checks and balances, so you would just swipe the card, you know, add whatever numbers you want into that for that person's meal card and they'd have free food. It was the shady stuff that went on in that place was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable. I think the statute of limitations is up so I should be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is fun. This allegedly happened.
Speaker 2:Exactly Allegedly A friend told me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was college, great friends. There's still some of my best friends today that graduated there in 97 after four years, believe it or not. And I did an internship after college, thanks to one of my fraternity brothers, chris, at the New York City Medical Examiner's office. I got more education in one year there than I did in the rest of my entire life. Oh yeah, it was pretty wild. That was from the fall of 97 to, I guess, summer of 98. Yeah, just before, just till June of 98. And that was an interesting experience. I met some great people there. One of the investigators, shia Robowski, who will come up later again in conversation, and I forget the other guy's name, I don't remember. But the head medical chief medical examiner was really cool dude. He let us do everything. We went to all the scene investigations, we did the autopsies. It was really awesome.
Speaker 1:Oh, no way.
Speaker 2:I mean it's New York City, right?
Speaker 1:So it's like if you can see everything I've seen it it's crazy Straight out of college too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. So it's funny because when I went into college I wanted to be a doctor. My mom was like, yeah, that's not going to happen. But I really wanted to be a doctor, coming from all that EMS experience and I had a sickly childhood up to the age of about seven, seven and a half, when I had my tonsils and adenoids removed. So I always respected that.
Speaker 2:Doctors and nurses thought they could fix anything, especially kids. So I wanted to be a pediatrician and took my first bio class it was actually botany study of plant cells in first semester, freshman year of college, and that went about as well as algebra. So that didn't pan out. But so when I found out that my buddy Chris, his aunt, was working for the New York City Medical Examiner's office, she was like half cop, half doctor as an investigator for them. I was like Dan, this is the coolest job ever, it's the best of both worlds, absolutely. But yeah, so that was. But I ended up not going that route. Obviously it was just an internship and then I started with Seaside Park Police Department as a special down in the Jersey Shore the summer of 98 and summer of 99. Damn. That's how I got started. We had the MTV Beach House there at that time.
Speaker 1:I was going to say.
Speaker 2:That was pretty cool. Carson Daly was still the VJ Looking back.
Speaker 1:Those were high times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. A carbon elector, I think, was also a VJ Back then. It was wild yeah.
Speaker 1:It's always been a crazy place for summertime and, of course, when the Jersey Shore crew.
Speaker 2:Train wreck rolled into town. That has changed that, that that town completely. Yeah, sometimes you know for the better. Obviously the income there is good, but but man, it is. It's a wild place, but we had fun. We had fun, you know, walking the boardwalk, tossing people off the boardwalk.
Speaker 1:No way, oh, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:There was always a class one which was at the lowest level. There's in the Jersey. We have class one and class two, special police officers. Now Recently there's a class three, but that's a whole different animal. The class one is you have like a week of training. You learn how to handcuff people and you learn how to use a side handle baton called PR 24. And but you didn't have a gun. So because it was like going like a week of training and you learn how to write a ticket, you learn what the local ordinances was and stuff.
Speaker 2:And then there was always a parking attendant guy which was one of the class ones who would drive around a Cushman cart. For people that don't know what a Cushman cart is, it's a three wheeled, three speed manual like work cart. I don't even remember how to describe it. Nypd actually still uses them in the housing authorities, no way. And a little sliding doors on it in the back was just a trunk, and so the responsibility of the guy doing the parking enforcement was to fill the trunk with ice before they headed out. And every time that there was a party to break up, underage kids or whatever, confiscating beers, that went back into the back of the Cushman cart where the ice was. It was an interesting, interesting place to work and you can get away with it. Back then you couldn't do that now. Yeah, but that was interesting.
Speaker 2:We break up parties and the guy who's the who's the host of the party and of course they would always send out the hottest girl. And I was like you're not the host of this party. You were welcomed here with open arms, but you're not the host. So the line was listen, you guys don't want to get in trouble. Give us all the beer. We're going to shut this down. So there's no alcohol. You're all underage. But if you're still here at 4 am when we get off work, we'll be drinking your beer at this beach.
Speaker 1:And, sure enough, they showed up.
Speaker 2:It was outstanding Without the, without the dude's hosting the party, of course. Yeah, we had a good time.
Speaker 1:It was like the best job straight out of college.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. We had a blast.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Again, you couldn't get away with that today. I don't advocate for it, but we had fun and it was all good back then. Different times.
Speaker 1:Different times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I went to the police academy. I'm going to do that. I'm going to be in the police academy on December 6th or something of 99 graduated in June and then I got hired full time and he's wins her police department December 8th of 1999. Oh wow, it's been 20 years in one month there before retirement.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was a good time Right before 9 11. Like yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's where some of this medical examiner's office stuff comes back into play. Yeah, I left. I started each one, sir, december 8th, I said 99. And then, for I guess, was September 10th of 2011, sorry, 2001. I was working midnight.
Speaker 2:I went home that morning of September 11th and got into bed. It was weird. You know, like for anybody that's been on the law enforcement side and I'm sure the military side too, that if you're doing a night shift or a night tour, going to bed in the daylight is not really conducive sleep to the function. So you have a couple of beverages and try to knock yourself out. I didn't do it that morning, which was weird, like it was just beautiful.
Speaker 2:Everybody remembers September, september 11th, 2001. It was a beautiful Tuesday morning, absolutely gorgeous out, not a cloud in the sky, it was warm and I was like you know what, it's just so peaceful. I left the windows open. I didn't have anything to put me to sleep, I just kind of lied in bed, stared at the ceiling and drifted off. And remember the phone ringing. I looked over, which was weird, because nobody ever called me. The only person that would have called me wouldn't have been in an emergency. Everybody knew my schedule. I looked over at the clock and the clock said 9-11 am and I was like who the hell is calling me? It was like super. I remember it was crystal clear, my sister's like you got to turn on the TV.
Speaker 2:You got to turn on the TV. I'm like what? I thought it was dreaming, it was bizarre. So my sister for some clarification or context, I should say is a nurse and she was living down in Charlottesville, virginia, with her new husband and family and I was like you know, I worked last night. What are you doing? She goes, you got to turn on the TV. Something happened. You got to turn on the TV. So me, I thought first of all, this is a dream, like I didn't even realize it was real. And I'm like, who got shot? Was it one of my guys? Like is it on the news? You know that type of thing.
Speaker 2:And so I'm fuddling with the TV. I got it on and I'm like, oh my God, what is going on here? I was like I got to go. She's like where are you going? I'm like I got to go to work, so hopped in the car with all my gear, called my mom on the way. She begged me not to go to work. She said you'll never be the same. You'll never be the same. I was like interesting. But I was like I got it, sorry, got to go. And I rolled into the parking lot Same time my partner did.
Speaker 2:We never, we didn't coordinate that, it was just kind of a thing and we went in. We had all our stuff together. We had like a battle plan. We were talking in the parking lot before we went inside, because the way our department works like if you come to them without something in hand they're just going to take a hike. And so we went up to the attendant troll attendant like listen, what are we doing? He's like for what? For what? For what?
Speaker 2:I was like you know, there's a plane just kind of crashed into the World Trade Center Buildings, fell down, little thing. And he's like, yeah, we've been watching the news. I was like well, what are we doing? And he's like kid, not our city, not our problem, geez. So again for context, we are about 53 miles south of New York City in the town I worked in and grew up in, and there's a bypass that goes from one side of town to the other. You could see the smoke from the top of the bypass, like that's how close we are to Manhattan, and he's like, yeah, kid, not our city, not our problem, got you Backed out of his office like Homer Simpson backing into the bushes.
Speaker 2:My partner and I hopped in my truck with all our bags Actually, we changed first because we didn't want to have any department logos on us, so we used like union logos and we put our PBA shirts on and we hopped in our car with all of our personally owned gear and nothing department issued, and we went up to Jersey City, hopped on a fire boat and they took us across the river to help out. So, yeah, so that was an interesting, interesting experience. You know, I struggled to even look at the pictures and talk about it for a long time and it did change me. My mom was right, it changed. But I look back at it now as a positive experience because it was who I was to be able to do what.
Speaker 2:I could to serve others. But what was interesting is when we were there for that full day and night, we came back home. I, my partner and I go back from there. I went back the next couple of days but we ended up having to go back to work. So we worked a three on, three off schedule. So we got back to work that third day and the boss was like I talked to my office.
Speaker 1:My god boy. So never talk to you about the weather, for some reason.
Speaker 2:So it's like, yeah, just so you understand that you guys are under an IA investigation for fell into obey orders and you're going to get jammed up. So we ended up getting written up and they're like, if you go back, you know now you're really in subordinate and it's gonna be a problem. So, yeah, it was crazy, but that is was actually. The traumatizing piece for me was that I couldn't go do my job. They failed to allow me to go have a heart and do my job. And at that time and you're probably in this category, like my friends that were still swirling around in their what they're going to do when they grow up they all joined the military, they all figured it out and that was they're going to be their mission for, you know, as we now know, the next 20 years. And you know my other PD friends from other departments. They were all on rotations, going in and out of there.
Speaker 2:And I'm just sitting at home watching the shit on the news and I literally started to fall apart from it. It was bad because I felt so helpless and hopeless and it was just weird. It was all consuming for me. But I think why I wasn't able to talk about it for so long because I felt like an outsider to the whole thing and it was, I don't know, it was just weird. But I look back on it now. I'm happy that I had the experience that I did and I no longer revel in the experience that I didn't have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, dude, that's dude. I talked to a lot of guys and I don't know about that police chief or your superior ever got a chance again to you? Probably didn't. Like. Destiny only comes, you know, around us very, very seldom. Get those opportunities to act, get those opportunities to be a man of action and don't miss out on it. And you didn't. You didn't, you answered the call and that's why all of us, nobody wants to miss out on a mission, nobody.
Speaker 1:And it's hard to explain the kids. You know they're young, that are, and I saw it happen, especially my last rotation. It gets. It's tiring over and over and over and kidding up, going after and fucking doing your combo checks, doing your PCC's, pci's and getting on the bird and going and going and going. And I would see a couple of these uplift kids because you know SF teams are augmented with, you know, additional infantry guys or your uplift. You know they're security on missions, they'll, they'll be part of your machine gun teams.
Speaker 1:But everyone wants to know all these kids to be like I don't know if I'm, I want to go back out. It's like okay, destiny's calling, greatness is out there. You never know. You never know when that mission is going to be the one fucking mission where, holy fucking shit, you missed out. You mattered. You could have been one more guy in the fight and that could be for anything, any line, any the firefighters experiences, police officers, any, no experiences. Like when something great comes your way, don't dodge it. You fucking find a way to help out and you did that shit.
Speaker 2:You actually phrase it. It's not a selfish thing, it's not like, oh, I want to make sure that my name's on the plaque on that wall. It's about being counted, because you don't know what your task will have been that could have positively affected the outcome of the whole thing. Exactly, it's not about you, it's about everybody else and what you may have done for the success of everybody else and personally for me. Like if something goes sideways and I wasn't there and I opted not to be there, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Yeah, there's no way, knowing that my presence not that I'm some crazy hero, but my presence, my actions that I would have taken may have been different, may have changed the outcome.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you've got the training, you've got the skill, you're able-bodied Like. Those are things and those moments in life, the people that could have helped, the people that could have done something, but told the lie and listened to rules and listened to oh, don't do this because technically they'll regret it and they themselves will have moral injury. I wish I could have done something. It doesn't come back. Time continues. The greatest thing, the greatest thing, the most valuable resource, but the most brutal, brutal thing is time, and those events where we can be of service don't come around that often.
Speaker 1:That's our most valuable commodity, for sure, yeah, and you can't trade it, so you got to use it, no fuck no, yeah, man, and kudos to you for finally being able to see that, because that quarterbacking, that's a bitch, that's a thing that haunts all of us. If a mission doesn't go right, oh, it's all on me. No, it's not all on you. You're part of a team. You're part of a squad, a platoon, a freaking detachment, part of a company. It's not all on you. Looking back is the worst thing we can do and assess failure Like dude. Live the fight another day. Didn't go your way in this time. Okay, we'll do better next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd rather have a regret of action than a regret of inaction.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that's a whole thing of it and that sucks for those guys. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and it's funny because it's like something that never came up in our agency anymore. We got the. My partner and I ended up getting those. There's 9-11, the black I don't even know what they're called the ribbons I guess that NYP was wearing. It's just a black ribbons, it's NYP, nyp, nyp, and our agency wouldn't let us wear them. Not crazy. They wanted absolutely nothing, no discussion, nope, you guys can't wear this, sorry.
Speaker 1:God, that's been wild. That is wild. That's one of those like, hmm, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta wonder what goes through people's heads from. The excuse was well, it wasn't department issued.
Speaker 1:Oh no, what is exactly what we were just talking about? Yeah, that understanding that they missed out on the opportunity to be of greater service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to be part of something better than themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, man, I agree, and that's, that's the beauty of it, and it's it happens all over, like it could be a random crime, and then people it's. It's something that we're missing now as a, as a society. It's more important to do this, more important to film it.
Speaker 2:Fuck that, yeah, get your hands dirty, man Get in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get in there to help help people and it's it's polarizing. I'm seeing it. Forget the name of the gentleman Former Marine stepped in to help.
Speaker 2:In New York, in the subway In New York. Yes, killed the guy. Yep the guy the guy died in his yeah Cost of the 100% trying to do something to save somebody's life, and now, they're shoving it up his ass.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But you know what? I'm right there. I'm not going to let some innocent bystanders die 100% agree 100% agree.
Speaker 2:He did everything as he was trained to do. Sorry, the guy was succumbed to the event. But yeah, yeah, that Daniel Penny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So somehow drug that out of the roll of decks. But yeah, he man it's. I'd want that guy by my side any day of the week, absolutely, and you know, I'd go to bat for him as well, and I can't believe what they're putting him through. And yet every turd that comes into Manhattan right now, they're just cutting them loose and Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after assaulting officers. That's the thing that. That blew my mind again. So many people are are watching. Men and women that stood up raised their hands, say how am I going to be of service to my city, to my brothers and sisters, the people that live here? And they're sitting there again just filming, just watching. Nobody is stepping up.
Speaker 2:In that moment I'm a friend in my my graduate class that there's three of us that were having this conversation about two months ago. The whole concept of service and duty and civics is just gone. Yes, it's so weird Because we were there was to word. You know the probably the mid to older range of our class all 50-ish plus or minus and some of the younger kids in class that are in like their mid to late twenties couldn't understand some of the conversations when we were talking about duty and service in class and we're just, they didn't, weren't able to wrap their heads around why somebody would do that, voluntarily, do that kind of work, and we were like, wow, this is an interesting conversation and yeah, it's. We are missing that right now. I think it's being pulled from school curriculum duty and service and it's being they're inserting anti-American stuff into it. I don't want to get all political or philosophically political, but so many Marxist principles that they're adding to our public.
Speaker 1:Dude, you're in the right show for this. My man, you are right here. You're poking at some things now, and it's and it's always people that have never left the United States, that have never seen other countries, never experienced what it's like to live without, without American culture, correct, yeah?
Speaker 2:If you think it's so bad, here I got a fucking place that can send you. You would be back in three hours bro.
Speaker 1:Dude, absolutely Literally, the things that made us an amazing culture are are being whittled away. And it's not, and it's by design, it's by design, it is.
Speaker 2:And I don't understand it. I mean, it's got to be just power that people are seeking because there's no other logical reason other than it's personally self-serving. Yeah, you know, with some hope that some you'll be at the top end of that. It's not even a hierarchy, because it's just going to be a top end and a bottom end, and I think there's something to be at the top end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, we're doing away with the things that make us Truly care for each other as a society. Yeah, we're realizing. We're realizing police officers, we're realizing first responders and glorifying violent crime, which is, to me, is insane, and this whole divide and conquer thing.
Speaker 2:It's just a race to the bottom. Yeah, because there's nobody that wins from it, even the people that think they're winning. Yeah, it's literally just a race to the bottom, and you may be the last one down, but you're going to.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, yeah, it's never going to be enough. It's constantly pushing the agenda forward and then maybe it'll backslide a little bit, but it's coming right back, yeah, and the crazy thing now we're villainizing Christianity and I'm seeing that and I'm just like dude, this is insane. This is insane.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting you bring that up. So I was raised Jewish, my family was Jewish and so, jj, christian values are kind of all parallel in that we all come from the same guy, even though he's split off. Yeah, it's Crap. Where was I going with that? So when I look at the current situation following the Israel Hamas situation, there's people that are rooting for Hamas that wouldn't last five minutes in their presence because they are everything that Hamas is against and would kill them on site, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm scratching my head like what do? This is so bizarre.
Speaker 1:Dude, it's insane, so bizarre. It blows me away the ignorance that is tied into this whole thing. I'm like they would A have no problem setting you on fire. They would A have no problem stoning you to death, beating you in front of your family or just slitting your throat. And people are just rabidly advocating.
Speaker 1:We just had a man, a young man, set himself on fire and I just cannot wrap my head as a protest, yeah, in front of the embassy, the Israeli embassy and I can't understand how somebody can get so wrapped up in something. That is absolutely ridiculous. And San Francisco just recently had a vote to end the war. That was the other thing. The city government got together, they held a vote and I'm like this hasn't done anything for the conflict. To think that Hamas is a peaceful, loving, kind group is one of the dumbest fucking things. I don't get it.
Speaker 2:I try really hard, especially at this stage in my life, in looking at things through this positive psychology lens that you and I are both so deeply involved in. I try to take a step back and rationalize things, not for agreement, but at least for understanding where other people are coming from. The whole concept of meeting somebody where they're at that I can't get there on this one. There's just nothing about it that I can find any rationality in whatsoever other than just sheer stupidity and ignorance.
Speaker 1:It's just I have sympathy, empathy because I feel sorry. People are so lost that they're latching on to a message that makes them feel like they're righteous, that makes them feel like they are fighting for good, but they don't do enough, but they don't see that's inconsistent with their own values Exactly, and they don't do enough research, they don't sit down and look at it and everything's about oppressive people that are oppressed and colonizers.
Speaker 1:And the reality is, what is your plan of action? If you're going to do away with colonizers, if you're going to take this whole thing back, what are you going to replace it with? What are you going to replace it with? Yeah, history is filled with cruelty, filled with conquest, filled with I mean, columbus did not do great things to natives that he found.
Speaker 2:That's a fact.
Speaker 1:The way they systematically just wiped out natives. That's horrible, but that's the reality of history, and to try to reverse it and to try to glaze over it and just remove it and say we did it, we're not going to talk or celebrate Columbus and he doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2:The problem is just as the old saying goes, and I don't remember who coined it originally. I actually think it may have been Elie Wiesel, who said if we fail to understand and appreciate history, we're doomed to repeat it. You repeat it. Yes, and that was a Holocaust thing. That was long after Columbus, but it's a universal thought. If we get rid, I get not having deities and statues and whatever. If you want to put them in a museum rather than in your town center, whatever, I get it. But it doesn't make the history go away Exactly, and we need to still not celebrate in terms of having a cake with candles on it, but we need to celebrate that it existed.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't get it, I don't get it, but they want to rewrite it in their own version, so it serves them.
Speaker 1:And that's. It's important to understand the severity, the brutality, the painful truths. But that's history. We don't change things to make ourselves feel comfortable. That's the problem. We're seeking comfort or discomfort, in truth, and we're never going to be a great country and a great nation if we're not willing to embrace and say you know what? These were the Founding Fathers, these were the principles of the time. There is greatness in these ideals. So being wishy-washy with our own policies and the things that made our country great is going to lead us to destruction, and I think it is. Yeah, I agree, the Constitution is an amazing thing, but when you poke at it and you call it racist and you call it antiquated and you have to remove it, then we're getting into very dangerous territory. Dangerous times lie ahead, and I mean that.
Speaker 2:A revisionist philosophy is not necessarily helpful. You can tweak things, you can make them better, but without foundation you can't build the house Now. You can restructure the walls once you've built it because it didn't work Great. You want to make this room bigger, that one smaller Awesome.
Speaker 1:But getting rid of the foundation makes the whole thing crumble yeah, it's the feel-good mentality, rather than wanting to be of service to the entire nation. Again, that's the problem. We want to say things that make people feel good rather than enacting policies that are meaningful, that are helpful and don't get me started on the amount of money that flows out of our country to make other nations great again. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's funny. It kind of brings over this full circle. On the law enforcement side, the greatest I don't say the greatest, because it's the complete opposite the most prolific saying is we do it this way because it's the way we've always done it. That's all. That absolutely drives me insane, but it's like the complete opposite of what we're talking about. You can't have that either, but you got to keep the basics and build from them rather than just it's crazy.
Speaker 2:There was I'm not going to use your name because I don't think it's fair there was a guest presenter for one of my classes last semester and in her field of study she is very. She questions the law enforcement purpose to a degree that is probably less than helpful in conversation. I'm just trying to be around the bush on this one a little bit only because I'm still in the program, haven't graduated yet and I just want to make sure it's all cool. So at the end of her presentation last semester, she representing a philosophy and said that if we don't get what we want sometimes we just have to burn it down, figuratively or literally. And I'm actually. The reason I'm looking off to the side is that I have the quote hanging on my computer and I couldn't believe that this was a well-known, well-supported, successful academic who is putting forth this message If we can't get what we want, we need to just burn it down, figuratively or literally, and that's division 100%.
Speaker 1:Rather than coming together and having civil discourse. I'll be the first one to say, hey, I don't have it all figured out, but I have some valid points, and I know you got valid points. I mean, I agree 100% of what you're saying. Person over here on this side and person over here on this side, let's sit in the middle and let's talk what works best for all of us, and we don't have people are willing to do that on any side. Nope, nobody's doing that. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:We're talking about very smart, very well-educated, big-name people here, and what are we doing?
Speaker 1:Exactly, Dude. How did you find your way into positive psychology after being a police officer?
Speaker 2:So that was a dark moment actually, and I think for a lot of people, that is the transition. It's the recognition of the dark moment in a positive way that makes a transition. So for me, I retired January 1st of 2020. So if we do the math on that, it was a couple of weeks before the pandemic and a couple of weeks, two, three months before George Floyd situation, which completely upended society, and I have my whole thoughts on that too. But I don't know, maybe time for another show.
Speaker 2:But I found myself lost and confused and I didn't regret retiring, but I didn't necessarily retire with a mission or a purpose that was fueling my soul or fueling my why. And through the pandemic, I found myself in almost a rebellious state, beyond the politics of it, it was like my rebellious state. So I went outside, I was in the woods, I was making sure I wasn't quote unquote stuck in my house and I wasn't going around coughing on people, but I wasn't going to yield to this idea that you need to be cooped up until we tell you you can't be cooped up anymore. To me, it just it wasn't OK, it's insane. Yeah, it was absolutely insane. And as my grandparents were Holocaust survivors and my great grandparents were Holocaust perishers. So for me, like I felt the burden of that being told, I couldn't leave my house because it there was some. I know people are like, well, this dude's nuts, but there was some levels of comparisons there that I felt I needed to push back against, and so that that was number one. And then number two was the George Floyd thing, where you're having all the civil unrest. And here where I live in central New Jersey, trenton is in the county that I live and work in, or worked in, and all of my folks, my people, were battling the civil unrest in Trenton. And if people weren't familiar with Trenton, it's a three and a half square mile city, capital of New Jersey, with one of the most violent crime rates in the country, and so these guys were really getting it handed to them. And I felt like a turd sitting on a couch at home listening on my scanner and I started to lose my marbles. And then you know what cops do or military folks do when one of your guys are in trouble or stressed out, you bring him a case of beer and live on the front porch, right, like that's how we handle things. And so I was. That's like all I felt I could do to be part of.
Speaker 2:This goes back to what we're talking about before, about being part of the mission. I was missing out, not because it was a choice, but just by design, and but it was a recent design, like I was only out, you know, a few weeks at that point and I can't believe that I wasn't part of this mission and in protecting the county and the city and it was just very difficult for me to process. There's some other familial pieces involved in there. We had a family cousin that kind of was claiming to be part of Antifa and actually wrote on a social media post which I still have a copy of, even though he took it down about how you know you just you have to kill cops and you know cops are the end. I'm like, it's like cold.
Speaker 2:I'm like bro, I fucking bet, you understand. He goes well. If you weren't my cousin, I'd do you personally myself. Gotcha, Do your parents know this.
Speaker 2:Like fuck, what are we doing here? So, yeah, it was wild, but it but it. It hurt and really negatively affected me. And this was family, so like and family were relatively close with. So I was like you know how do I process and handle that and am I really the? And I started thinking of myself as the enemy, because maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture here, and so it took some time to like work through some of that work, through the anger. I was also working through the grief of not being a cop anymore. You know that transition is tough and you add the pandemic and all this civil unrest on top of that, you're like we mess.
Speaker 2:So then my buddy, danny, was really struggling and he was having betrayal issues from every aspect of his life. He was having it from society because he was, he was a cop locally in Trenton and he was having betrayal issues with society. He was having betrayal issues with his department because he was one of these guys that would like bust down the chief's door, tell him to go f himself and here's how we're going to do this. And he got away with it for his entire career, like because he was always right, but he was always able to justify that he was right to. So he was just really well respected and but the department started pushing back on him no, we can't do any of that and because of everything's going. So, he lost society, he lost his department. Then, when he lost his authority with the department, he also lost the respect of his guys, so he felt betrayed by them or this is his version of it, by the way. Yeah, this is, I don't know how, what the reality at this point is. But and then he was also managing betrayal at home and that is what tipped him over the edge. Unfortunately, and July 29th of 2020, he couldn't fight that battle anymore, not even for the sake of his own kids, and he took his life. So it was a moment that, unlike other moments of my life of impact, this is a moment that I won't ever be able to forget.
Speaker 2:It was about 6.15 in the morning. I was out for a bicycle ride on a road cyclist. He was out for a bicycle ride. My buddy, sean, calls me like 6.15 in the morning and Sean is an intelligence guy for another local department and I'm like everything all right, dude. Like. For him to call me at 6 in the morning was incredibly unusual. He's like you good. I'm like good with what he goes. Uh, oh. I said uh, oh, what he's like you don't know. I'm like no, what? Because I'm retired right Like I'm not in the inner loop anymore. These guys are all still working. And he's like where are you? I said not for a bike ride. What's, why are you acting so weird? He's like you alone. I'm like it's 6.15 in the morning on a fucking bicycle. Yeah, I'm alone and your fat ass ain't coming out to drive at me.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm alone.
Speaker 2:Um, he's like, where are you? I'm like, uh, in front of this building and he's like, stay right there, I'm going to be there in five minutes. I'm like, stop, what happened? Yeah? And he's like it's Danny. I'm like, what about him? And he tells me what happens.
Speaker 2:So I literally just kind of crashed and burned right there on the spot and it was a really, really tough moment. And now, in hindsight, I'm so grateful for the way he had handled that. Yeah, because he did it right. And I went to my way home on my bike and, you know, melted into my bed after that. But what I realized in those moments of processing all that was few things. One is damn how come I didn't do more to stop this, because there's a little bit more to that story I can add some context to. And shit, if it wasn't him, it was probably going to be me. Yeah, because I was not doing well. I started fights at home all the time, my relationship with my kids was falling apart. I was a complete train wreck.
Speaker 2:But you know, prior to the actual event you know he had, he was posting all this crap on social media, which was also unlike him. So he and I had these great conversations and that was a Tuesday, by the way, as well and Sunday night he and I were texting and I'm like, dude, I don't know. I'm like dude, I don't like what's going on with you. Let's grab some lunch this week and let's sit down and talk. So we made a liquid lunch date for Friday. Obviously, that never happened. And he's like I'm good, you'll know what I'm not good when the text messages stop and when the sorry, when the social media posts stop. So that was, that was a Sunday and, like I guess, sunday night, monday, social media stopped. It was bizarre. So you know, I wish I saw that and I didn't.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't think we could ever stop people's intentions. I don't think that's possible. I think if you're there in an intervention moment, maybe, but when somebody's so committed to easing the pain in a way that is so catastrophic, like that, I think it's just a matter of time, no matter how many times you stop, you know, intervened in the meantime, it's a challenge. Now you can. I would never say don't try to help somebody, right, like we have to help people. There are people, yeah, but you can't feel guilty when that help wasn't enough.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's a very important message that we need to echo and let people know that we, you know, and I know this firsthand peer-to-peer support is vital and you engage, and you engage and you're there and you're sitting in those Zoom lobbies, yep, thursday night support group and, hey, nobody shows up. A few people show up, but when that one person doesn't show up and you get that message, it's not your fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or you try engaging with your friend playing video games, going out hanging out. It's not your fault. You did everything you could. You made yourself available. You made a time for the individual. It sucks, it's painful, but it's not your fault.
Speaker 2:The way I add from all that was do like you're saying, do everything you can because you just don't know. If anybody else is, yeah, and you may be the one, and I found out later I was the one, because at the funeral people like I don't understand never saw this coming. I'm like what the red flags were fucking everywhere, Everywhere.
Speaker 1:Literally everywhere.
Speaker 2:And what I found out is nobody was having the conversations with him that I was having, and I was shocked by that, completely blown away. Shocked, because I was not his best friend. We were close, we were good friends, our kids were friendly, they went to school together, but he wasn't my best friend and I wasn't his, so I was floored when his best friends didn't see it coming. Yeah, or his family.
Speaker 1:Is that mask? We get really good at wearing that fucking mask, you do.
Speaker 2:So that's what? So the answer to your original question or brings back full circle is that's what got me into positive psychology was I was at home after that event that day, that night so that was two, that was a Tuesday, the 29th of July 2020. And that night, just before dinner, was not hungry obviously, when I get emotional like that, I don't eat and I was sitting at the table and I, at that point in my retirement, which was like six months in my retirement, I already started writing. It's almost like a cathartic process. You know, when you're in public service, regardless of what it is, you don't know how to have an opinion, public one, right? So there was a lot of crap stored up in this little noggin of mine and I had to get it out. Yeah, and just instinctually, I felt so much better that it lives on a piece of paper next to me than curling up in my head. So in that work.
Speaker 2:So when Danny passed that night, I had written a poem-ish, but like an article poem type thing and published it on LinkedIn. And I think within 24 hours it had like 15,000 hits on LinkedIn, which is especially you know that long ago already is a big deal before people really were diving into LinkedIn in our community. And then it hit some local media, hit some national media and now there's, like I don't know, like 100,000 views of this, of these words, and but at that moment somebody saw it locally and said, damn, I think Dave's got a problem and reached out to what was our newly minted resiliency program in New Jersey, and the chief resiliency officer for the county that we all worked in was a good friend of mine, Michael, and Michael calls me, I guess 24 hours, 48 hours later, and said you all right, I'm like, yeah, I'm sad, but I'm okay, he goes. I don't think. So I'm going to come over and we're going to go for a ride. I'm like, no, I'm good. He's like well, we can either go for a ride for lunch or we can go for a ride for a 30 day vacation, you choose. So I got lunch, sounds good to me. So we went out to launch locally and we met this guy, pastor Barry, who is, you know, a supporter of the resiliency program local, I don't want to say none, I don't know what a Christian pastor, I don't know what version of Christianity, and he has his own church type thing, and we had a really nice conversation and Michael was telling me about the resiliency program that we just put together in New Jersey and he's like I think it's important that you be part of this Because it'll help you and it'll give you the opportunity to teach others.
Speaker 2:So resiliency program here in New Jersey is a multi level generational down of the Army's comprehensive soldier fitness program, where they get a two week program to master resiliency trainers and they teach all the folks in the Army. That started in 2008 with Dr Marty Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania. Shortly after that, the Air Force said I think we can do this a little bit better because they got nothing else to do. And sorry, Air Force guys, and they did they. So the Army did it as a officer to enlisted program and it had its benefits. But it became a check the box thing over time and the Air Force seemed to split it where officers were teaching officers and enlisted were teaching enlisted. It seemed to be a pretty good fit. And then the FBI National Academy took it over to do a law enforcement version of it and so National Academy Associates provided that training to a bunch of folks in New Jersey and then it's been filtered down. Now in New Jersey the resiliency program has taught every. All. 36,000 cops in New Jersey have had the resiliency framework and we have 1200 we call RPO resiliency program officers. Those are the instructors and the asons and they're sold at a couple of the original MRTs left that haven't retired since. So that's kind of what was happening and I really want you to be part of this program. I think you would be a good fit and you're retired so we can now start bringing retired folks into this framework, because we're recognizing literally by your example, by the words you wrote, that your commitment to this job and our people doesn't end when your plaque goes on the wall. So it was a way to bridge those gaps, which meant a lot to me for many reasons, but it also saved my life.
Speaker 2:So the resiliency program is a three day version of positive psychology that Marty and Dr Salomon and a bunch of people have been working on since around 2000,. 1998 to 2000 is kind of when everything developed, and so that's how I got into it and I recognize that this was a great direction for me to go and I could use all of this really cool stuff to support people and to allow people to thrive rather than just survive. And but the resiliency course wasn't enough for me. I wanted to know why does this work? Yeah, I needed to understand where this was coming from and why was this shit so fucking effective? And why are we just learning about this now? And the technology has been around since Aristotle and 1200 BC or whatever his years were, and not BC 80. But why are we just now talking about this? And so I found on let me rephrase that go back a step In the resiliency program.
Speaker 2:One of the books that is referenced in the three day class is Marty's book Flourish. If you haven't read it, it's truly the introduction to positive psychology and I can't recommend it more. But in the book he talks about the MAP program, mapp, the Master's of Applied Positive Psychology program that he started 20 years ago at the University of Pennsylvania along with the programs director, dr James Poloski, and they are still going strong with this program, and I was like damn, I should apply to that and I did the first round. I didn't get in, which was my fault because my hadn't been in school in 30 years and when I was there it wasn't really successful, as we've spoken about, and so my application looked like it was written in crayon and I'd white out on it, whatever. So I applied again, with a little bit more support and guidance in the application process, and this is what life looks like in 2023, which was what I applied and let's give this a shot professional way and I got in, which was awesome. So now I'm in that program, master of Applied Positive Psychology, university of Pennsylvania dumbass door kicker in an Ivy League institution, get in a graduate degree there. It's been a trip, but yeah, it's awesome and the framework of it has changed my life.
Speaker 2:And for those that don't understand positive psychology, it's not happyology, as people may refer to it, as it is the study of happiness. It is the study of well-being, the science of well-being. But where traditional psychology is therapeutic, is, like you know, negative one to zero so you can survive, positive psychology is more of a coaching style. It takes you from zero to positive one, beyond us survive and into the thrive mode for hence the book. First, so that it just it called me. You know it's not a religious guy, but it's funny because right now we're doing a project on calling and mission, but the I found it to be the calling for the next chapter of my life. It is service, it is duty, and I'm going to use this to give back to the people that are struggling the most in my world, which is the guys and girls that are still doing active duty law enforcement.
Speaker 1:So you're still right on that and I think guys like us are the perfect vehicle to teach. Oftentimes, I've found people that love to teach it. They don't apply it, they don't use it in their own lives, they don't need it when they don't have that need. And I remember like I I intimately saw this with somebody that was working with. It's like wait a second, you're great at talking about it, but you don't practice it, you don't use it. Yeah, but oh, because it's not a. You've never been in that situation where you actually needed it and believed it and worked it, and that's when I realized it's and that's why I'm a huge advocate for mindfulness.
Speaker 1:I still forget that mindful minutes my favorite thing to do. I like to show it to the world because there is more in line Once we stop and look at there. There's more mindfulness and more positive psychology embedded in our lives than we think Correct, and guys and gals are like no way, Danny, I'm like dude, I will show you mindful walking, no different than when you're out there stalking, and every sniper had intimately knows this feeling of walking in the woods, slowly and methodically, lifting one foot, placing it down. You're not thinking you're practicing mindfulness, but you are. You are 100%.
Speaker 2:And mindfulness is just really training your brain for a focal point. Yes, so when you're in that, so I gosh my mindfulness stories. Go on, not necessarily in a positive way, and you're going to hate me.
Speaker 1:Those are the great lessons too.
Speaker 2:You're training your brain for the focus and it's okay to wander when you're having these mindful moments, when you're meditating that is akin to the adversity in your life is when your mind wanders and the power is in bringing it back to the focus.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it took me a really long time to understand that, and we can go back to the stories in a minute. But the yeah like that is that training part, that's the overcoming that adversity, that is the growth power is bringing yourself back to center. So if you don't allow your mind to wander or don't recognize that it has, that's where you're failing. Yep, but like you said, when we're in action, in service, and we're having that stalking moment, or you know, on the law enforcement side, when you're investigating a case and you're dialed in almost in those flow states that you don't even recognize, those are mindful moments, yep, and you are training your brain to stay on task. But again, it's okay to wander, yeah, but then come back and that's where you're at, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the more you go in and out like that, the less wandering you'll eventually have.
Speaker 1:Yep, so much of my life, when I was really struggling, when I was at my worst, I didn't understand that I was never fully present. I didn't understand, like, because we're taught to always be looking at the next mission, next forward thinking, forward thinking. And then, because of what you're trying to repress and traumatic events, that past pulls you and constantly pulling you back. That's what guys drink, that's why guys can't sleep, so you're never living here in a moment. You're either in the future or in the past. And I never understood what was going on with me until I started practicing mindfulness. I still started pulling that strings because you know, and shout out to again, to Laurel Ridge, mission Resiliency, save my Life, to where I first got introduced to the concepts of mindfulness. But again, that's just one teacher, one instructor, one mental health provider, and she didn't have the answers to everything. I was like, hey, I only know this much, but so go look it up, go read into it. And that's what I did.
Speaker 1:And once I started pulling those strings, then one thing led to another. It led to a course, it led to getting instruction from individuals that were just absolutely dialed in. That made such a huge impact and I came to understand like holy shit. A lot of my issues are because I'm not aware of the present moment, how important that is, and it's just like I'm not going to stress about this shit anymore. I'm going to live six months in advance and then judge myself for things that happened decades ago or in the last deployment or the previous deployment. The only thing I can affect is here in this moment and you can't necessarily.
Speaker 2:you can plan for the future, but you can't affect it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen. You can be prepared to tweak it along the way, but the unknowns are just that, the unknowns, exactly. So I think that's what we do now, yeah, so yeah, I agree. That's the whole mindfulness thing, man. It's wild, though it's not something that I ever considered or thought of, had any introduction to touch points with anything like that before I started school last year, last fall, and before we start our before immersion week. So it was still like early August we started getting like preschool assignments, preterm assignments, and one of the things was to meditate for, forget what the timeframe was, but for the one week and you had to listen to these like belts, holy cow, it was like dripping water on your forehead. It was horrible.
Speaker 2:The professor was Dr Michael Beam from Universe, pennsylvania, awesome, awesome guy. Of course I didn't know him then, but all we knew of him was this literature we got and what's the word Like gifts, not gifts? The MP4 is of bells ringing and him, like you know, telling you at the beginning and end what you need to do with this one. So the first time I did it I laughed through. I'm like, what am I doing here? This just seems so stupid. And then the second time we were on vacation that week and I was sitting in a hotel gym, it was dark and I put on these bells, I sit there quietly, I start listening I started freaking the fuck out. I literally lost my marbles because I was reflecting back on a ton of shit that I hadn't prepared myself to reflect back on and I didn't know that was going to happen. I've never done this shit before and, holy cow, what a horrible experience that was.
Speaker 2:And what I found out for me what worked for me and then I wrote a paper about this was I felt a loss of control during the mindfulness practice, and that's where I lost my completely lost my marbles.
Speaker 2:But so then what I did is I converted the act of meditation to mindfulness as the greater picture. I took out the word meditation from what I was doing, cause for me that was not only ineffective, it was harmful, and so I ended up doing this mindfulness training while working out. So when things did pop up, when things did get dark, when things got hurtful, I put that energy and to lifting more weight than I've ever had lifted ever in my entire life, which taught me two things. One is your limits are far beyond what you think they are as far as your physical activity. And two is I was able to channel that stress and that tension through the mindfulness in a way that I could not have done just sitting in a dark room, and it helped me work through that learning process and now I just completely see the value of those focal moments. I think it's so important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it's wild. It's wild, but again, I was the same way and man, having lived it every single day since I started really devoting myself to it, teaching it, coaching people with it. Mindfulness is a powerful ally to deal with so many things, even chronic pain, it's true.
Speaker 2:It's true, it gives you an ability to reframe the sensations and if you can reprocess the pain as something you can use for positive outcome, it no longer has that negative association to it and then you'll thrive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just being able to have first body scan, that I allowed myself to be vulnerable and really present and really, hey, you're laying down in this moment, guy, you're laying down what hurts. Scan your body, let yourself feel, and then that mindful walking piece of actually touching, pain touching and then it dissipates. And that's the perfect word, the ability for pain to actually dissipate, and you let it go. Let it go, don't hang on to it. If you're telling yourself you're constantly in flame, constantly in pain, you're hanging on to that.
Speaker 2:And that's a metaphor for the emotional side as well. Right, yes, so that works both ways.
Speaker 2:And to get all science geeky on your first second the whole idea of neuroplasticity, where you can retrain your brain to recognize sensation, either physical or emotional, in different ways and process it in a new direction. Obviously, that all comes through habit. For me it doesn't happen on its own, but it is possible Because our brain is a victim of what we give it. So it's garbage in, garbage out, just like a computer. But if you're putting what you want into it, it will give you that same thing on the other side. Now, if you're only putting shit into it, if you're putting this pain hurts, this pain sucks, this pain is going to kill me, then that's what it's going to give you Yep. But if you're telling your brain, wow, this is what it feels like, how can I repurpose this to service me, that it'll give you that too, yep. And that's the whole mindfulness thing. I'm learning a lot about it. I'm not at your stage yet, but I'm getting there, certainly get a greater appreciation for it, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it's wild that there's so many similarities in our stories and our journeys, because I'm in the same thing. I'm at Arizona State working towards my degree in Paws of Psychology, and I was searching everywhere Because there's nothing wrong with getting a normal everyday psychology degree, but I've done all this work in mindfulness. I was like there's got to be something that takes into account what I'm experiencing, what I'm seeing, the lives that I have seen changed. And sure enough, I found that program in Arizona State and I was like, okay, this is for me. So I'm super excited and can't wait to see what the next I'm glad I had somebody to share the journey with, because I am the first police officer in the MAP program no way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first ever police officer in the MAP program. There was one other law enforcement officer, eric Patterson is an FBI agent and so he did it a couple of years back and for him there was a Coast Guard rescue jumper. There's been some military folks along the way up on the first street cop to have ever gone through this and it's been such an awesome experience and getting it right from the horse's mouth, from Marty himself, it's just such a super cool opportunity. And when you were talking about finding something that was beyond normal psychology if there is such a thing, you're right, there's nothing wrong with psychology but it's therapeutic, and Marty talks about this all the time is when you look at DSM-1 and DSM-2, which are the original psychology Bibles, those were very Freudian. They were very what does he call it? A germ oriented? Something is a germ and here is what it does and potentially how you can fix it. So, but it was all very basic. So that was one and two. And then DSM-3, four and five were just collections of mental disease possibilities. There's no diagnoses, and that's right, it's all diagnoses. There's no treatment in DSM people that aren't familiar with that, the diagnostic and statistical manual for psychology and so when DSM-5 came out, marty and a colleague of his from University of Michigan, christopher Peterson, who has since passed they're like this is great, like this is a great Bible for us, but it's all looking at things negatively, it's all looking at things as a disease, as a problem, and what, if not everything, that goes wrong with us is therapeutic.
Speaker 2:So he was having this conversation with somebody and he was offered a large sum of money to come up with an alternative. And so he calls Chris Peterson and the two of them take three years through this grant that was offered to them and they came up with something called character strengths after the three years and I have the books in here it's called character strengths and virtues. Sorry, I just tried to blank on the title. And so character strengths and virtues is what they ended up writing after this three year period, and character strengths is the positive to DSM. So the character strengths only measures the good parts of you, and it started with virtues. So there's six virtues that are universal across every metric of society, any culture, any country, any religion. Six basic virtues, and in those six basic virtues they identify 24 character strengths. Again, they're universal across any metric of society, and that's how they built the concept of positive psychology. That was back in 1996, I believe, through 99s, when they wrote that book.
Speaker 2:I did the work and wrote the book, and then, in 2000, when Marty became the president of the American Psychological Association, is when they said this is how we're gonna change things, this is how psychology is going to move forward. And we're not gonna look at everything from a disease perspective, because not everybody's therapeutic. Some people just need to understand how to do better. And that's what positive psychology is. It's taking you from that zero to positive one, and it's a way to see the world through an optimistic lens, where not everything is dark, roomy shit and not everything is a medical problem. Sometimes you just need to kick an ass.
Speaker 1:Dude, yeah, and you don't have to identify with a diagnosis. It's like that's our personal identity. I think we can overcome these things. You can work through them, you can get and it's not a magic wand approach, it's not a magic pill, it's understanding. It's a journey. You have tools that you have an understanding. Get back on the road. It's a mindset shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah dude, and it's just that simple and it's funny. We just had this conversation with some classmates last night. Some guys were like it seems like this is just really common sense and how do we have to have an? Entire field of scientific study to like realize this common sense Be nice to people. It makes you feel better you know gratitude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the concept of gratitude, yeah, the three blessings exercise. If you go to bed at night thinking about the great things that happened to you that day, you're gonna sleep better and you're gonna wake up more positive. It's just literally that simple.
Speaker 1:Man yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I think, the other thing that I really have dove into and really appreciate is Dr Kristen Neff's work on self-compassion. Because we don't have that man, we don't cultivate that. As veterans, as active duty first responders, we are the first people to be of service, to be kind and loving towards everybody else. Like well, damn near give the shit off our people, give the shit off our back to help somebody have a better day. But when we look in that mirror we fucking hate ourselves and we were self-deprecating and we cut ourselves down. It's like why? It's crazy.
Speaker 1:But everything that she wrote, everything that she put in her studies when I started practicing it and realizing that, like holy shit, regardless of who's around me, for the rest of my life, the number one person that I'm gonna always be with is me. And if I am constantly destroying myself, constantly just berating myself, what is that gonna give me? Like, where's my self-compassion? Where's my ability to look in the mirror and see the truth that I'm a great human being, that I'm of service, I'm kind to people. I don't always get everything right, but more often than not I do some really great shit for people. I help others, I'm a loving husband, I'm a good friend Like holy shit.
Speaker 1:Those are all things I could never say never, in a million years, thought I'd be able to say that to myself and feel it and understand it. And more of us, especially as men, get over it, start working on self-compassion. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:It's a lot more rewarding and it stays with us longer than self-esteem.
Speaker 2:Self-esteem leaves us when we fail 100% it leaves us high and dry. Yeah, certainly it does. And that brings me back to two thoughts Like what is the oxygen mass concept? Right, it's all of these great things for people, but when you're sitting in the airplane and they go through all of those safety procedures with you, you aren't shit to the fucking person sitting next to you If you don't put your mask on first, right, because you're gonna.
Speaker 2:you're gonna gag out before you can help the person sit next to you. And that's life. That's just life. You gotta get your shit together so make sure you can help and continue to serve others. And my mom always told me, as I was a young kid go out and do your thing. But when you wake up in the morning and you look at yourself in the mirror when you're brushing your teeth, be proud of the person that is looking back at you. And when you go to sleep at night and you're brushing your teeth and you look in the mirror, be proud of that man standing on the other side of that mirror. For it, that person's proud of you for what you did that day. And if you can live by just that simple concept, you don't have to be spiritual, you don't have to be anything other than just good. Just be good to yourself and you'll be good to others. And it's positive psychology.
Speaker 1:Dude, I couldn't think a better way than the end episode. Your mom's words are vital and more people need to hear them. Man, that was powerful and that's. I say the same yeah, I'm gonna continue. I'm not gonna add to it, because that's perfect.
Speaker 2:She'll be proud.
Speaker 1:I lost my mom early on.
Speaker 2:So she was a good, awesome person and I'm glad to bring her into the conversation because that means a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh, she did a heck of a job, David. I know she's with you. That's a beautiful lesson to end on. Thank you so much for being here, man. Matt, we didn't even mention your book. What's the name of your book?
Speaker 2:A book A Resilient Life. Have you seen it? I don't have anyone here. A Cops Journey in Pursuit of Purpose. I'll send you a Awesome. I will send you a copy, number one. I will also send you the links for it on Amazon or Barnes Noble.
Speaker 1:And it's a Perfect. I'll put that on the episode description.
Speaker 2:Down below. And yeah, it's a. I don't wanna say it's a biography, even though it's biographical. It just talks about my journey and the positive psychology techniques that I used along the way, before I had a language to give to them and I finished writing it and published it like the week before school started. So, there is going to have to be a version two to it at some point.
Speaker 2:That actually adds the science behind everything that I wrote. But yeah, it talks a lot about positive psychology. At the end it talks about life lessons on how you can then convert your own thinking in a way that is gonna be productive for you, but it also shares my experiences. It talks about 9-11. It talks about really funny stories of crap that happened at work that you probably can't share on certain media platforms, allegedly.
Speaker 2:Allegedly happened at work Some of the stories that we did a reference are in there as well seaside stuff. But yeah, it's just about my journey and it's kind of version one because, again, I wrote before I started school this year or last year and I feel like this is the beginning of chapter two in that journey. Heck yeah. We'll see where life goes from there, and I think we should also. Can we talk about the other project or no?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's public and what isn't. So, yeah, those of you that aren't familiar, danny and I met through an organization called Power of Our Story, which is Sarah Carell's organization, and she has brought together a bunch of veterans and first responders that are all on healing journeys together of various kinds, and some people are at this point giving back, some people are still in the healing process and figuring out what their journey's gonna look like in the end, and Sarah has brought together the idea of putting all our stories together in a book, which is gonna be really super cool. Just happy to work with you, my friend, on that. So I think it's gonna be a lot of fun and we're all gonna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, likewise, brother. It's gonna be great being able to. I mean, we got a lot of amazing individuals that are contributing their stories in order to help others, to give hope and to give a voice, because a lot of times we do we keep it to ourselves, we keep our trauma, our pain, and we just feel like nobody wants to know about it. Well, one of the greatest things we can do to help others and give hope is to show our stories, to talk about what we went through and, more importantly, how we overcame it. So I'm extremely proud to be part of this program, to be able to write a portion of my story and to share it with everybody, and the benefit of this, I get to meet amazing people such as yourself, david. Thank you so much for being here, man, and I can't wait to have you back on when we publish this amazing book. I think it's gonna be great and help a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope so. That's the whole point, right Like so. It's not about the story itself. I think the story is a platform for how, as you put it, the overcoming process and the survival piece. We're not doing it alone and everybody's got a story. But everybody can have that me too moment and relate to somebody else, a version of somebody else's story, and I think it's so important to recognize that, whatever you are fighting, whatever you are battling, you're doing it with a lot of other people. You just may not know it.
Speaker 2:So, hopefully, a journey like this, sharing our stories. Storytelling is cathartic for the writer, but it's also a learning process for the person that's learning about it. So it's great to be able to have that positive influence on others and hopefully people's journeys will feel less siloed and less solitude by having participated in their journey with ours.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you so much for tuning in, guys, and we'll see you all next time. Take care, We'll see you, David. Thanks, buddy. ["tune In"]. If you like what we're doing and you enjoying the show, don't forget to share us. Like us, subscribe and head on over to our Patreon, where you can be part of our community and get access to all of our episodes as soon as they drop. And remember we get through this together, Take care. ["tune In"].