Security Halt!
The only Mental Health podcast that shares honest and authentic accounts of living with mental health issues, that's also hosted by individuals fighting the same fight you are!Providing information and resources for help with a heavy dose of humor and entertainment. Helping you find hope and the strength to fight on.
Security Halt!
Episode 190: Nigel Fischer, Resilience and Recovery After Military Service
What happens when a decorated military career transitions into civilian life? Join us as we unpack this challenging journey with Nigel Fisher, whose candid reflections on mental health and the overwhelming influx of resources faced by veterans provide a heartfelt focus for the episode. Nigel, along with insightful contributions from Donald Dunn and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, shares the importance of mental resilience, the necessity of seeking help, and the power of sharing personal stories to navigate the emotional hurdles of leaving military service.
Through vivid personal anecdotes and expert insights, we uncover the vital importance of cognitive health, sleep, and self-care for veterans. From innovative treatments to holistic approaches, our discussion explores strategies to improve long-term well-being. Hear firsthand how multidisciplinary teams and non-pharmaceutical interventions can combat cognitive decline and aid in recovery. Dr. Mark Gordon's groundbreaking methods and the crucial role of proper nutrition and sleep hygiene are just a few of the impactful topics covered.
Finally, discover the transformative power of music and community with the Guitars for Vets program. We highlight the therapeutic benefits and emotional healing experienced by veterans who embrace new passions such as music and bow hunting. Listen to stories of personal growth and find inspiration in the unique approaches to post-traumatic growth provided by organizations like Nodens Outdoors. This episode is a rich tapestry of personal experiences, expert advice, and practical tips designed to support veterans in their journey towards a fulfilling civilian life.
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.
We greatly appreciate you and your support, so please remember to LIKE, FOLLOW, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE!
Patreon: securityhaltpodcast
Instagram: @securityhalt
X : @SecurityHalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
Follow Nigel on LinkedIn and click the links below to find out more about Guitars for Veterans and NODENS Outdoors.
Check out Dr. Mark Gordons website too!!
Produced by Security Halt Media
security podcast.
Speaker 2:Let's go with a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands, a man who's been trained to ignore ignore weather to live off the land job was disposed of enemy personnel to kill period.
Speaker 1:Nigel fisher, welcome security podcast man. Um, like every other soft professional, you're very humble, you. You, on our first introduction, you don't say a lot, but you say enough to leave a lasting impact of like okay, this individual's got a story. So today, man, it is, it is your. We are talking all about you, your service, transition and life after the military, because, in my experience, what's been most helpful and most impactful for everybody transitioning whether you're medically retiring, retiring after 20 plus years or just ETSing the best advice and the best information is from the people that actually went through it. So today we're going to gleam from your experience, from your journey, and hopefully help those that are about to embark on that wonderful transition period. So, nigel, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Brother, yeah, man, thank you so much, danny, when you first invited me to come on and we had a chance to chat, like it's so much of a journey and so, like I found myself reflecting a lot on like some of those moments of my own experience that I go yeah, that is worth sharing with other folks to give them that hope, um, to understand that there is, you know, a vibrant life.
Speaker 2:You know, on the other side of the transition and it it's so confusing because there's so many resources like flying at you and it just kind of gets lost in this. This noise sometimes, I think, and sounded like you know when we talked the first time and, of course, all your other guests, you know when we talked the first time and, of course, all your other guests. You know, when I listen to podcasts, like we have a lot of commonality and I was just listening to the most recent one with you and Jason talking about motorsports and everything, and I got really pumped up. I was like man, I'm going to go out and, you know, take advantage of that program and go drive a race car. And he's like, yeah, no, you don't get to be in this. I was like dang it.
Speaker 1:I was like I got mad skills, bro, like I've been through how many driving courses. Right, you haven't met me yet.
Speaker 2:I'm actually a pro driver in my mind in the privacy of my home, right. So I was like damn, this still sounds super awesome and I find so much value in the guests that you have on. So I'm not going to lie, I'm a little bit nervous, like how am I going to live up to? You know what Jason's got going on and you know some of the other folks that you've had as guests recently but now man just really want to share. You know it's super normal under abnormal circumstances to have the feelings that we do Right and that's it.
Speaker 2:And I know sometimes people say that, like you know, when we're talking about PTSD as an example, people go, oh, it's a normal response to abnormal circumstances, and it's absolutely true. It's taken me a long time to really embrace that and get comfortable with it myself and I work in nonprofits serving veterans. That's what I do and it's something we talk about on the regular. And you know I just I want it to be like that genuine heartfelt message to folks. Um, and I'll give uh, give an example of something that I've embarked on recently.
Speaker 2:Uh, for myself, and I think it's a common veteran sentiment of, well, somebody else needs it more. Right, it goes back to that mentality of we're always trying to help our team and, like you know, especially leadership roles and I'm sure you got a million stories of the same way right, where it's like limited resources or whatever. Well, the team goes first, you know, as a leader, like you know, they get their resources whatever it is first and I'm good, yep, yeah Well, how long until you're not good, um, you know. Once you are, though, it's it's not when you want to be familiarizing yourself with what's available and the people that they really do care and are out there to help all of us right, like and they're not doing it a way of like these poor veterans, you know, like absolutely.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's never from a point of like pity or looking down on anybody, but what you just said is so true when we look at our force, especially within soft. We we created these hyper individuals are hyper focused on their team because we read concepts like the mission, the men and me Like. We take these things like leaders eat last. We take all these concepts and we hyper focus on the importance of putting the men and the mission first. So it's no, it's of no shock that our team sergeants, our senior NCOs, our sergeant majors, are the ones who are really the most at risk and the ones dealing with the most.
Speaker 1:And that old saying is so true hurt people, hurt people. So no wonder your sergeant majors and your team sergeant are grumpy, they're angry, maybe they go off the handle and maybe they say things are really freaking hurtful and you take it to heart, but you don't realize, behind all that machismo, all that stoicness, is somebody that's really hurting, because they put you and every one of the guys that came before you up front and they're constantly taking care of individuals and when they go home they're just sitting there and the only thing that's available is maybe drinking, maybe just all those other biases, but it's a hundred percent true. We get to the point where we just we'd rather care and put you know the treatment deserve, the ones that deserve the treatment, are the younger guys. Those guys will. We'll get those guys taken care of. Hey. Cw four, cw five, e eight it's like CW4, cw5, e8, you know, it's like you guys deserve care too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's so hard to decondition ourselves, you know, not in a selfish way, but to recognize like I am not having to provide for that team in my current role as Nigel a civilian.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I need to provide for my family you know what I mean and the folks that, uh, I care about. Yes, I want to help them out, but, uh, something that that really sticks out to me, um, with those feelings of you know, putting the team first is, uh, what you mentioned. Longevity of service adds to, you know, potential for saturation at a, at a you know, denser degree. I don't know, words are not my friend this morning. You know like I can't apply all these years of you know education and stuff to getting the right words to come out right now.
Speaker 2:But like that, that density of experience is really what we see, I think, as we get saturated and when there's no pressure relief valve over time, that's where it contributes to, you know, something more severe and I equate it no different, especially for folks in the soft community we're all familiar with, like overuse injuries, right, and you know we get out there, we hit it hard again and again and again. And you know you get that repetitive motion overuse type injury. Yeah, it starts slow but you don't treat it oftentimes until now it's a true injury and a limitation on your skills and your ability to perform and accomplish the mission skills and your ability to perform and accomplish the mission. Well, mental and emotional health, in my mind is, is no different right.
Speaker 2:If we take those small opportunities, uh, to care for ourselves, it's not being selfish. It's actually quite the opposite, in my opinion. And the reason why is because, like, if I, if I don't PT and I get out of shape and I don't maintain my skills in a team environment, um, I'm going to be a liability to the team. Well, nobody's going to fault me when they go. Oh man, nigel's out there getting after it today. Physically, man, like love seeing the effort he's putting into just being at the top of his game. That's what the sentiment would be, not that guy's being selfish because he's working on himself to be a good teammate, right?
Speaker 1:Like nobody would ever say that.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, like, let's change the discussion about how we go about maintaining ourselves mentally and emotionally, and it takes that same type of work and whether that's, you know, reading a book. I'll share this one from, you know, an old friend of mine, dan Sheehan. You know, like, this book came out like a long time ago, right, and I was thinking to myself what, what does Dan have to say to me? And not meant to be a plug for the book, sorry, I just, you know, instinctively I saw it sitting on the desk and I'm like there's a great example. Uh, right, next to me is like he wrote that book I think it was 2012, 2013. And it was about, you know, kind of the early thoughts on moral injury, survivor's guilt, you know things like that. And I, he asked me to read it, you know when he was just getting ready to start marketing it, and I read that thing cover to cover on a flight, I was going out of the country somewhere and I read this thing and I was like dang, I got some work to do that I had pushed down for the sake of maintaining that commitment of like being that leader that is invincible. But we're not, and the sooner we realize that we put in that day by day little bits of work, now we can get closer to achieving what we think we're achieving, in that sense of being this, you know, mind, body, spirit, uh, super intact, ready to go at all times type of person. So, like, I don't know if you ever read that book, but it's a, it's a good one.
Speaker 2:Um, I got a million others too. There was another one, uh, by a gentleman named Donald Dunn and it was really just like a, uh, a way for him to share his own perspective, as, as he's struggling through, you know, those mental and emotional challenges, post-service, and it just really raw and I like reading those things. They're, they're challenging. Um, that's how I try to tap into that frequently. I wouldn't say on the regular this is definitely not every day, right, busy life but I do dedicate time to hearing other people's stories because it helps me get into their story and then I can identify in my own life. I go, wow, have I been? Have I been doing that? Have I been hiding from my own truth? Um, you ever talked to a Lieutenant, colonel Scott man, he does the last outplay.
Speaker 1:I had him on the show a while back and uh, he should be coming back on to talk about his uh, his, uh, his next uh book that's coming out soon yeah, nice, he's a good dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love scott man. What? A great dude. Um, yeah, I learned from him like there's, and I'll probably butcher this up. So, uh, you two can laugh about me when you have as a guest on the show next. Uh, he'll be'll be like oh man, nigel, you let me down?
Speaker 2:Um, no, he would never, say that actually, um, but yeah, he, uh, he talks about, uh, you know two stories that, uh, we're afraid to talk about, right, like the one that we're afraid to tell other people. But, more importantly, the one we're afraid to tell ourselves, and that really sits with me when I think through my own journey, is that's what I was running from for a long time. You know, I transitioned seamlessly from the Marine Corps. After 20 years, retired, went right into the civilian world, uh, invited to participate in other government activities.
Speaker 2:You know continuing that skillset and that you know I, um, I, you know I'll be really upfront, so that you know nobody mistakes me. For, like I was not a team guy like down in the weeds at MARSOC when I was there, right, like I was a major, I was the a team guy like down in the weeds at MARSOC when I was there, right, like I was a major, I was the operations officer of the battalion. So it was a different experience. But then when I left and you know I was on the other side of the Marine Corps and I was working, you know, supporting national security or cornermen, as a civilian. That's when, for for me, special operations really took off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in seven years of doing that, um, I spent five and a half years roughly deployed oh shit and in some pretty gnarly places, um, you know multiple different countries in Africa, um, of course, pretty much every location of intense activity in the middle East. Uh, during the time in the you know the 20 teens, you know, uh, before I, I eventually departed that community in in the beginning of 2020 and went to work at Amazon because I realized I was outliving my utility at that highest level of the game, if you will, and it was because I hadn't taken the time to fully care for myself. I thought I did. I was getting after it physically, Like the other day I saw, you know, a silly selfie I'd taken for my wife when I was in Niger and, uh, one of my favorite things to do to just get my head right each day was when I had time.
Speaker 2:It would be like 120 degrees and I'd be on the compound like working out in the sun, you know, just like Ranger panties on, you know, and that's it. You know, like thinking I'm, I'm keeping after cool guy workouts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like I'm by myself out here getting it in the sun, and you know but, I, look back, dude, I was like man, you were a beast, bro, and I was like but here's, here's the truth. I was hurting bad, I was hurting so bad, and so it's like bittersweet looking back and seeing that photo, just incidentally, and I go what was it that was causing me to hurt self? Because I wasn't telling myself the honest truth about the extended years of constantly living in fight or flight mode and that, in my mind, needed to be a normal, comfortable place, and that's something I think you and I had chatted a bit about it when we first got a chance to meet and chat. Was that um, we get programmed, for very good reason, to be comfortable living in fight or flight. Yes, we have to. That has to be comfortable and normal to do the job to protect national security.
Speaker 2:Now, when we look at on the other side, when we transition to the civilian world, we pick up some negative behaviors that we think are positive, because we have this capacity mentally, emotionally, physically to take on anything, and so we fill our days or at least I did with all these things and I just keep taking on more and more and more.
Speaker 2:You know what it is, at least for me, what I realized it was a safe place, mentally and emotionally, to hide from my own truths and that, uh, when you sit and like marinate, you know, on that you just go, on that you just go. Oh, okay, I gotta, I gotta take some time. I have to give myself some grace that, like the marine corps, the us government did not take the time to decondition or deprogram, program that strength for that environment, to turn it into a same skill, different strength, by coming down out of that fight or flight mode 24 7 and then honing everything I'm doing with focus and intensity, but in a controlled, you know, boundary, boxed out realm where it's like, okay, I'm going to give and I'm going to focus and I'm going to operate with precision in what I do for the benefit of others In my case, you know, serving a nonprofit but I cannot lie awake at night waiting for what's coming next. Um, and that's hard.
Speaker 1:It is really hard, man. It is, but I have to. I have to give you mad props for being able to have the ability to see that. Um, I, I didn't see it. I didn't understand the concepts and I lived in, and it's partly I understand it now because I grew up in an environment where I was constantly in fight or flight. So when doctors talk about living with the Bayer syndrome I grew up that way I knew that to be my normal.
Speaker 1:But when everything fell apart, I didn't understand what was going on. It was just an attack on all systems and it wasn't until I sat down with individuals and explained it's like this isn't a comforting thing. You're not supposed to be in this heightened state. You're not supposed to feel this way. It's like, oh, okay, well then, I've been living this way my entire life. It's like so many of us we don't have in, like I, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I have a really poor connection, uh, with my own body, understanding the, the, the symptoms of being in constant stress.
Speaker 1:Like I, I had a very poor understanding of how my body functioned, what it really meant to be restful and get sleep.
Speaker 1:So being able to key on all those things like that and understanding like, okay, something isn't right, like we. We all know what it feels like to get into a firefight. We all know what it feels like to get that amped up. But that's not part of your everyday life. You're not supposed to jump into that feeling every single day from time to time, and it's not normal to have the highs and the lows of walking into the front door and just crashing, just just completely falling down and sleeping for four or five hours and then waking up you're like, oh shit, and then you're dealing with insomnia and it's just to me. Looking back on that life, it is so insane that nobody taps you on the shoulders and says like, hey, um, you're about to transition, we got to put you through this clinic that's going to address these issues, Um, or that they don't identify individuals that come with that sort of a primed uh, fight or flight response and we just so many of us are living life like that.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, yeah now and it's, um, you know, I when I um, that it takes me back to when I got wounded, you know, in iraq in 2007. Uh, because and there there's a small bit of a story here that I think illustrates our progressive growth in knowledge over time but 2007, we're in the midst of the surge in Ramadi and all that type of stuff, and I get blown up and I come back home and I'm having neurological issues and all sorts of weird stuff going on. I wasn't knocked unconscious. I get hit by a huge piece of shrapnel that didn't open me up, but it was like Andre the Giant with a sledgehammer just swinging that bad boy as hard as he could and just obliterated my shoulder. And so the docs, they're just obliterated my shoulder Right and you know, so the docs, they're all fixated on the shoulder and they go.
Speaker 2:Well, did you lose consciousness? And I go no, okay, well, there's no need to worry about TBI. Wait, what I was like? I was within the blast wave of this IED and everything Right Like it. It almost blew me off the, the boat. We were on the euphrates, on a, you know a, and like you know, thank god, I had my like cow tail, like hooked on the rail of the boat because I, you know, I'm all kitted up and I, you know, I got my horse collar on and I'm like, oh yeah, that'll work. You know, like, go to the bottom of the euphrates like, with all my kit and everything, I'm probably like 350 pounds. This will save me, yeah like that'll save me naked.
Speaker 2:You know, and I don't have use of my dominant arm, my left arm, and you know, like it was just crazy Right. But that's not what the story is about. The story is about like this gigantic apparatus we've built as a country to help in those moments and like I come back and I'm going through the Naval medical system and you know, see the specialist, see that specialist for like years man and people like couldn't figure it out and they go, well, you know, they repeat with the TBI thing and I go that doesn't make sense to me, like I'm I'm just not understanding, but I'm not a doctor, right, well, it took until like within the last few years where I'm speaking with people because our understanding of like that repetitive um concussion type of event is TBI, just a different format of injury. It's repetitive small bit. And that's where I take it back to when we're talking about overuse injuries and those really insidious onset type of things that can impact us huge lifelong.
Speaker 2:And I don't think I've ever shared this outside of you know, just a couple of people, because it's been pretty recent recognition for me. But like I'm terrified of my brain function as I age, like I'm going to turn 50 next year and I know that, like physically, I can still go out and get after it Not to the degree I could when I was 25 or even 35, but you know, I'm maintaining those aspects of my health and I'm real conscious about what I put in my body. I try to be very meticulous with my sleep but I've noticed like I have these moments where I can't find words and it gets real frustrating and it's almost what I would. I would liken to my observations of aging grandparents when they start having the onset of dementia. It's like you just you get and then you get angry. Yeah, and that doesn't add the same thing.
Speaker 1:I had the same thing when I was going through my treatment, when I was going through my worst and shout out to speech doctors they don't get as much credit as they deserve. Because that was one of the main things. Cognitively, I was not the same person. And you look back and you try to find an index event Like what was it? What was the event that when I came back from my last deployment, I was not the same person?
Speaker 1:But I know now that it's a culmination of things. It's one more drop in the bucket, one more drop, one more thing and everything piles on over and over and over until you can't go anymore. And I had the same problem which led to the anger, which led to me being more frustrated, which got me to the point where I couldn't talk and I had to write everything on a whiteboard. If we were, you know, marital problems, that's one of the big things. So me and my wife would get into these arguments and I'm sitting there trying to be, you know, mindful of everything they're trying to teach me and I'm sitting there writing everything on the whiteboard, which of course, pisses her off because she thinks I'm sitting there being a smart ass and I'm like no, you're like.
Speaker 2:I'm going to write this down for you so you can understand it better.
Speaker 1:You're moving so fast that before I can't keep everything in my head, because I want to have the ability to do my rebuttal, to be able to say like, well, no, this is what, what I'm feeling this, why? And she's moving, it's like chess with a chess master. These are all the reasons why you're fucked up and wrong and I'm like, well, hang on a second, I have to be able to to process this and and I remember feeling so fucking lost, I'm like I'm broken, I'm never going to get this back, I'm never going to be able to read again, I'm never going to be able to sit here because I would. And I know for a fact. My teammates were like what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Because I would print out emails and have to highlight everything line by line and then take hours to write up an email response back. And the reality was I just needed to go to a treatment center where it was multiple different practices. All of these individuals were working as a team to treat me. I mean, you have your, your trainers, you have your sleep doctor, you have your, your speech pathologist, you have your psychologist everybody's there working as a team, multidisciplinary team. Finally, thank you, working to help you, the individual.
Speaker 1:And that's when I realized, okay, downstate, downregulate, be able to get my thoughts gather myself before I and have the intention, okay, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to have this discussion, but then throwing the concepts like mindfulness, and I never. I blew off mindfulness the first time they brought it up to me. I still remember it. I talk about it all the time. So that doctor was like, hey, we're not gonna be able to take care of this pain. Maybe it's a real possibility, but we got this thing called mindfulness. I just remember being the biggest asshole and just being like fuck that, I'm here for fucking surgery. I'm here for you to fix the physical, because that's what we hyper focus on. But that cognitive piece we don't have to surrender and say like, okay, there is a way through it, there is an absolute way through that.
Speaker 1:Nigel and I believe it Talking to and again I'm plugging this man, dr Mark Gordon, one of the few individuals that have been on the forefront of this fight, helping guys with what we're dealing with that cognitive piece, his brain, his, uh, and it's all based. You're not taking copious amounts of pharmaceutical drugs, you're taking fats, you're taking supplementation that he provides with. I mean, he he's not going to just give you the supplements and just be like, no, you'll sit down and he will give you the literature to read. Hey, this is what I'm recommending. This is what I helped with thousands of other soft individuals get their ability back.
Speaker 1:Diet's a huge factor being able to get away from an inflammatory diet, being able to give yourself the foods and the oils that you actually need. Never in my life took the omegas that I needed. Never in my life looked at frigging cod liver oil or fermented cod liver oil all these different things. I'm like you know, when we think of supplementation, we think frigging Jack 3D. When we think of supplementation, we think, uh, frigging Jack 3d and we think protein.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get my creatine man, yeah, which is important by the way without all the other nonsense, exactly.
Speaker 1:But yeah, if you, if you haven't um taken a time to to, if you haven't taken the time to check out Dr Mark Gordon, I highly highly recommend it. He works with our community, works with us as individuals. I just referred one of my other Marsauk Raider friends to him because his coverage on TBI, the documentary he did, is called Tales from the Blast Factory. I'll send you the info after the episode and, for those listening um, I'll have that and information on how to contact Dr Mark Gordon. And millennium health. Uh, because if you're dealing with the same issues that Nigel and myself have dealt with, cognitively, that's an important piece. As you age, you want to be able to be the same individual and not be limited and guess what, guess what? Here's the other factor that nobody's talking about Dementia, early onset dementia. These things affect our community as well. If you're not taking care of yourself, don't just take my word for it. Go do the research, go do the research. Here's a sad lived experience. If you haven't been doing the research, if you haven't been reading, if you haven't seen the testimonials from individuals who are dealing with it from the family member's perspective, all it takes is just one day of doing the research and finding how many within our community are dealing with this and what can we do about it?
Speaker 1:We can change how we eat. We can change how we go about our daily life and we can cut things out like alcohol. We can cut things out like chain smoking. We can cut things out like using recreational marijuana and actually using it. If you want to use it as a medicine, use it as a medicine, yeah, but not use it recreationally, because guess what? I don't use Tylenol recreationally and I experienced that myself.
Speaker 1:This is me advocating for something that I did myself.
Speaker 1:If I'm not willing to drink beer and drink liquor, just to drink it and be drunk all the time, or just have a couple at home, that's my choice.
Speaker 1:And I'm making that choice because I'm informed and I want to do better for my health, because I already have a lot of the merits on the health side. So just those easy things we can all do to preserve our cognitive ability. And you hit it up earlier, nigel sleep, sleep, holy shit, like that's been the last big key thing, like there's this entire week. I prioritize my sleep, like Okay, normally I like to go to sleep around 8 and then wake up at 4 or 5, get after it no, wake up without an alarm, yes, and then continue to do my morning workout. I've realized that if I work a little bit harder, I can do all my post-production stuff, I can take care of my clients, I can take care of everybody that has do-outs from my end that can still wake up a little later, get a little more sleep and still function better, like we have to be. It's that part of the equation of being an active participant in your own recovery.
Speaker 2:That's so many of us are missing yeah, yeah, yeah, like, and so many things that just, man, I feel like we could do like 27 different podcasts just of the topics and concepts that we're talking about, but you know, like that we don't.
Speaker 2:We don't have time for every neat aspect of the conversation today, um, but something that I think is worth highlighting is, um, what you said about your sleep and you know, trying to get to bed around eight, and I've learned more and more over time while it.
Speaker 2:It at first felt a little silly like, oh, I'm some old man now, you know like going to bed at eight o'clock. But I will tell you what, for both me and my wife and my wife's uh, uh, combat veteran as well, she served in the army and she's a nurse practitioner currently so, like we nerd out together on health stuff and, um, we've really been interested in sleep and as we explored with ourself, you know doing ourselves doing that like and of one experiment. You know doing ourselves doing that like end of one experiment. You know, like. Let me test this on myself when I go to bed at like eight or nine at night, consistently, I am waking up before my alarm by like five minutes, just enough to not have that trigger of like, and I hate that word but I guess it's useful and I just used it and you know.
Speaker 1:So I guess it it does make sense in this case of like you know your alarm screaming at you.
Speaker 2:Well, what do alarms mean? Well, most cases it's like bad right. So no matter how I change the tone of my phone to wake me up even the soft birds, you know chirping and everything to wake me up even the soft birds, you know chirping and everything it's still like annoying as hell for me. I get so like just mad. But I noticed more to the point when I, when I'm very deliberate with my sleep hygiene and and sleep schedule, I entered that state of waking, refreshed, waking earlier, waking slightly before my alarm, and I feel very pleasantly and calmly alert as I start my day and then my whole day is way more productive because I'm releasing positive hormones, good feeling hormones, not those stress hormones that fight or flight that I really think there's an element of your alarm going off to wake you up that that initiates that response. Uh, no matter how pleasant it is, so like, it seems like such a little thing, but that's been my personal experience and it sounds like for you. You know that same type of like earlier sleep cycle is just way more effective the next day for your energy, your mood, and you know there's plenty of research that does say you know, when you get hours of sleep prior to midnight, you know, based on your normal circadian rhythm, that can never fully be overcome. Circadian rhythm that can never fully be overcome. Uh, no matter how adapted we think we are, it is extremely stressful when your sleep is not within that like sweet spot, right, um, and I find that eight to 9 PM it's given me those good hours that count more. So like, yeah, if I were to wake up at two in the morning and only get six hours of sleep from 8 pm until two, I'm still going to be far more energetic and productive the next day than if I go to bed at midnight and even sleep until 8 am. Yeah, because those hours after midnight just don't get you the rest and recovery.
Speaker 2:Because it's just, you can't fight nature. You know it's like millennia of just being encoded in our DNA. You know sun goes down, that means slow things down, rest. Sun comes up, be active and go, do that. We are, you know, we are not nocturnal creatures by nature and so I think just those subtle little things that we can adjust make all the difference.
Speaker 2:And it's hard when you're younger, it's hard when you're in that special operations environment because you don't have control over that. Yeah, you may be able to bed down and get you know, hours of pillow time, but that doesn't mean it's restful. And all the while cortisol is spiking, inflammation is happening, and you know thank God that. You know we've done so much research in nutrition that we keep feeding people seed oils in the military and all these inflammatory right Like we know the answer, but it's like, oh yeah, prison food is good enough for you and it's like man, if we really wanted to dial in our operators, we would dial in every aspect and I know you know like JSOC is at a different level in that regard than you know WhiteSoft units. But still, like, so much progress has been made and I'm thankful for that Um and and individual knowledge based on the research and proactive nature of a ton of nonprofits out there driving these conversations, because the medical community always wants to do randomized clinical trials and they want to do all these things that are useful and they're important, but they take forever. It's like government bureaucracy, it's just this endless journey to get an answer we should have five years ago.
Speaker 2:Well, there's something to be said for that anecdotal evidence and that's, I think, what we're really messaging here today is like try some things out that are reversible, right, like it's a two-way door. If you don't like going to bed at 8 PM, like you can easily reverse that. Like you're not going to do a ton of harm by making slight changes to your sleep schedule. If anything, probably going to benefit. So why not try it out, based on positive results from others sharing their story?
Speaker 2:I mean, when we were still serving on active duty, we would never hesitate to be like man, I really liked the way you do that thing, whatever that is. And it could be something simple, like maybe a guy's having a hard time with a very basic technical thing due to you know just their own level of experience, or what have you. But then they see that more experienced dude ahead of them and they go hey bro, like how are you so fast on whatever that is that you're doing? And they go oh, let me show you. And oh, by the way, I've been doing this for like 10 years, more than you, so it's just muscle memory for me due to repetition, right, we wouldn't hesitate to seek out support to be at the top of our game in that environment. Um, so like, let's do that now Like we're still a team, right, we're just, uh, we're on the other side of that scary, invisible wall of service and what the other side looks like.
Speaker 2:But I think it's awesome that you've got this platform to share these anecdotal stories and evidence that we can go hey, sleep change work. For me it's not the total answer, but also anti-inflammatory nutrition and fueling of my body. That also helps tremendously because it impacts my brain health. So what else can I do? And something that I would share is like to that point of me kind of being scared, quite honestly, like terrified, of early onset dementia where my body is still, you know, doing great things for me, but I'm terrified my brain is going to turn to mush and I'm going to be this like person who doesn't know loved ones and friends and can't function.
Speaker 2:And I, so I I took the first step. I was at a conference. Uh, when you and I were chatting initially about coming on the show, I was in Denver at a university of Colorado for partnerships for military and veteran health and, uh, it was really cool, the people that I got to meet there, the stories I got to hear from other veterans and, just so happens, on that same campus at university of Colorado and Aurora um, they have the Marcus brain Institute and I ran into some veterans that were going through the program and one was, you know, an old, old, great guy.
Speaker 2:You know, and he's like dude. I was there for Guitars for Vets. I'm national director of advancement at Guitars for Vets. That's that's what I do daily is serve veterans through this amazing program which, if we get a moment to chat about it more, you know I'd love to share it but I really want to.
Speaker 2:You know, I want to shout from the rooftops about Marcus brain Institute real quick, because that that other guy like me, in the same place as me came up to me because of guitars for debts and his positive experience in the program. But then what we really got to talk about that was impactful is I was like well, what are you doing here? You live in Tennessee, as he had shared with me briefly. And he goes oh, I'm doing this outpatient treatment for TBI and it's over here at Marcus Brainyard Student. I go all right, tell me more.
Speaker 2:So ultimately I end up meeting the director of clinical operations and we just chatted for a few minutes and she asked me she goes have you considered something like this? Like I don't know, but I am right now, in this moment, please tell me more. So we set up a call and and did just a, a kind of an informal screening and she goes like you're, you're lighting up, like on all the categories here, you know just from our conversation. And I go okay, um, you know, I, I like to, I like to be an overachiever, but maybe not so much in this moment. Right, like dang, um, okay, so what?
Speaker 1:do we do from here?
Speaker 2:I'm winning. Oh wait that that's actually.
Speaker 1:Should actually like a 0% score, not a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:All right, wrong, wrong, wrong direction on the spectrum. Um, so she goes hey, you should. You should really consider applying. So I'm taking the first step. Um, excited to embark on that journey where, much to your point earlier about having all of the specialists together, sounds like a very similar program that you participated in.
Speaker 2:But Marcus brain Institute, they, they bring all these folks neuropsychologists, neurologists, you know, cognitive behavioral therapists, all these people and they go hey, this may be a little uncomfortable, but you're going to sit in this panel of folks but you're only going to tell your story one time and I was like, yes, finally, damn it. Like why can we not figure this out? Because when I got blown up, it was okay, wait for a month. You're going to go to the psychologist, meet with a psychologist. Next month's appointment, you know, like it's a different psychologist, cause I'm at like Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego and like I just got so pissed every time. Somebody was like so what are you here for today? And I'm like, are you going to be freaking, kidding me? I've been coming here for two years.
Speaker 2:I got like this stack, like this thick of doctor's notes, you know, and like been poked with needles from head to toe that you know determine the connectivity of my nerves, and like MRIs and all this nonsense, and like it just kept like dying out until one day and this is just a funny tangent neurosurgeon best, best in the world kind of thing had done some, you know who knows whatever, the most renowned, I don't know but he had done this fellowship and done these crazy brain surgeries and they hadn't even tried to put me on any type of medication at this point. And, uh, I go into this guy and he goes, yeah, so I think, since we can't really determine what's going on here, we need to do exploratory brain surgery. And I was like fuck you. And I walked out and he was like what, come back here, major. And I'm like no, you're not hearing me. Like we're not doing exploratory brain surgery, I'll find some exploratory like medication or something that's reversible.
Speaker 2:But anyway, to the point of Marcus Brain Institute, super thrilled that I will have that opportunity to now explore this multidisciplinary, multi-specialist panel treatment plan over the course of three weeks from folks not only recently through the program but years after. They go dude, like hands down, like you must do this. You are exactly where I was at before I went through and now I'm measurably better. I'm not perfect. I can never undo all the damage that's been done, but I'm so much better and I have hope because I have skills I can use daily to continue to strengthen my brain. So that's where I'm excited when we get to it to talk about what we do at Guitars for Vets, because it's very innocuous and not like a treatment program.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I felt like you had some awesome comments and I'm like, all right, let me shut up.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what our, our, our soft professionals and military veterans are dealing with. You know, cognitive impairment, dealing with TBI, that's what we need and it's look, I, I understand how painful, how freaking frustrating it is having to go into a doctor each and every day, trying to get there because I didn't know what I was dealing with and I was selfish in my approach where I wanted the physical body and then lying and not giving my therapist any truth to what I was really dealing with, because that's the shit I don't want to face. Fix the physical, fix the physical. But then the cognitive is getting worse and worse and worse. I'm like, okay, well, who can get me help for this? Who's going to refer me?
Speaker 1:And it takes going into the clinics. It takes going into the doctors and being vulnerable, telling the truth, telling them what you're dealing with a hundred percent, both at the mental health clinic and at the physician's office. You have to be vulnerable enough to tell the truth, because that's when things change, that's when people start referring you to the right doctors, when you start telling them hey, there's a five alarm fire going on. Yeah, all aspects of my body, mine, my, my mental health, my physical, everything's fucked. And you have to be that honest and that authentic with your approach, because they're not going to sit there and do anything for you when you keep walking in there saying, nope, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine yeah like, if you're fine, why are you here?
Speaker 1:yeah like yeah, no, no, it's just this, it's just, it's a statement from the get-go so be willing to freaking, put yourself out there and tell the truth of what you're dealing with. Because the truth is they're not going to just say, oh, there's all these treatment centers and we're going to send you to all is. They're not going to just say, oh, there's all these treatment centers and we're going to send you to all. No, they're not going to. There's how many of you. They're only going to send individuals or start working and getting you to those treatment centers like the STAR program or PrEP. If you present to the provider that you have issues that they cannot help you with and they have to send you somewhere to get that help. And I'm here to tell you that my life now, just like Nigel just shared.
Speaker 1:Once you have that meeting with somebody that says, okay, yeah, we are equipped to deal with these issues, hope comes back.
Speaker 1:You're happier because you know there's something that can be done to relieve the anguish you're going through. So you never back down from a firefight, you never back down from going into the unknown. Find that courage, find that brave, bold spirit that you've always demonstrated in the face of adversity and freaking danger, and go ahead first in your healing because guess what, at the end of the day, whether you're a 10-year military service member or a 20-year and you retire out fully after you go, after you're out, the access to care is not the same. You're going to have to hunt. You're going to have to find benevolent organizations. You're going to have to find resources on your own. You're going to have to beg and crawl through the internet and look for individuals to have the resources and look. I can point you to all of them and you're not alone on this journey. But it's infinitely easier to get the help you need before you get out you don't have to sit there on on an email traffic with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I got resources for days that I can share with veterans but like, at what point in that moment of need does a veteran actually come into contact with me? I mean this is awesome. Like I'm sure there's going to be a ton of people that listen to your podcast because it's freaking amazing.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I hope that that message really gets to people and shoot email me like legit, like, if you're listening to this, email me. I'm a real dude, I will reply and I may be able to refer you to a service that I'm aware of. That is quality and may be able to help with what you're dealing with. I also may not be able to, I don't know, but I um, that's my commitment. My skin in the game is, um, you know, I don't know everything by any means, not even close, but I'm well connected with a lot of other folks that are also well connected, and that whole, like family, that constellation of resources is out there. But, yeah, absolutely, man, like don't wait, though of resources is out there. But yeah, absolutely, man, like don't wait, though, because thankfully, we are not in 2007, where I was dealing with that nonsense on active duty not say there aren't stories out there like that still but I found that folks that I've known recently separated. Their experience separating in 2020s was way different than me separating early 20 teens, you know, and so I know progress is being made. The VA is making progress.
Speaker 2:I'm very proud to be on a resource network with the VA because I'm I'm one of their biggest critics. But I also serve and lead in nonprofit world serving veterans. So I see like infinitely more um personal experiences than just my own and I'm grateful to the folks you know that are working on that. Veteran experience at the VA because they genuinely do care. Veteran experience at the VA because they genuinely do care Like I have a meeting after this with the VA as part of my work and partnership with them to do exactly that continue that feedback loop of hey, here's what we need to see different and here's how we would like to see it different.
Speaker 2:And being that advocate, that voice for veterans, so that, hey, you get better care than we got in our generation of warfare and service, which is awesome. At some point you're going to transition. We got to make sure that the VA healthcare system is keeping up and I believe they're genuinely trying to get better, but they're not there yet Right, and that's where the nonprofit world really comes to help be alongside, not mutually exclusive, they. They can exist very comfortably together. Um, and so I'm very thankful for those resources and that's one like I do want to dive into real quick Cause I feel like it's kind of a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like it's, it's um like. How did you get involved in this space? How did that become your next chapter in life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like my entire life. You know I was raised early to be a very service oriented person, to be a human being that gives more than they take, and that was, that was the way it raised, it was my family values and I'm very grateful for that. So even from a young age I was volunteering in the community, um, enlisted in the Marine Corps when I was 17,. Right as soon as I graduated high school, uh, my parents, um, my mom, my dad, my stepmom they were all cops, you know, public servants, and so you know I lived in that environment the entire time growing up. So it was like deeply ingrained in me to just give, give, give. And you know I've interacted with folks and helped inspire, you know, the creation of a nonprofit out in California while I was still serving, and so it's just really been ever present in my life, uh, finding those additional ways, you know, informally as a volunteer even to serve. Well, at some point um, guitars for vets became aware of work I had been doing when I was at Amazon and in partnership with military and veteran-related nonprofits, and that was something that was kind of like a collateral duty. It was an option available within programs at Amazon for outreach into the community, and so I got really involved in that and I really was excited about the veteran-related stuff in particular, because it's just so near and dear to my heart. And so I get in this conversation, I get a call hey, you know, like to talk about all the things you're doing and see, you know, would you be interested in coming over and working here? And I was like, man, this is such a great opportunity to go from like an Amazon man, I was leading buildings and it was that same level of stress that was present in the military and in the U S government after the military. And then it was just another phase but in the corporate world of being in fight or flight 24 seven and I was like I can't do this anymore. Now I'm, you know, more than 30 years of organizational leadership in all these realms and I just go, I'm getting smoked, like I can't do this anymore. I need a change.
Speaker 2:And my mom had passed away last fall as well and it really it was tragic and it was very traumatic because she and I were so close and somewhat unexpected. I mean, yeah, she was aging, but my mom was a beast man. She used to run marathon back in the day and like she was a cop and like she was just, she was my hero man and uh, so we were just super close and it hit me really hard and it brought up, you know, a lot of past things because I found myself feeling like I let my mom down in a lot of ways and I'm like she was infinitely proud of me and all the things that I did with my life in a positive way. But I couldn't help but feel like, man, I let her down. I should have talked to her more. You know all the natural feelings when you can't anymore.
Speaker 2:Um, but it brought up, then took me back to like losing friends, you know, throughout the course of my career, folks that died in combat, uh, folks that took their own lives, and I started having all the survivor's guilt, you know, like it brought it to a head and and that's when I sat down and I went through last fall with uh Scott, you know, and his workshop, uh, you know the the hero's journey and generosity of scars workshop and that was really impactful for me to help me address, uh, those truths.
Speaker 2:But, you know, fast forward to getting into the nonprofit. That was like the journey that led up to it. Right, like it was all these things that are interrelated and it came together and I was super excited and I go, wow, I'm going to take a huge cut in my compensation and it feels great Like I know my day, each day now going over to Guitars for Vets is going to be spent doing meaningful stuff that directly is going to benefit and support veterans that are walking in the same journey and they're searching for something that can help. And a little bit about the program, because I think it'll come all together.
Speaker 1:And I think I answered your question about like how get there right, I guess all those things um, I'm on the consciousness like the neurons are like.
Speaker 2:But like it was really attractive to me because the program, of course a hundred percent of it, you know being offered, being offered by a nonprofit is free to the veteran and it's 10 weeks of beginner guitar lessons. You know, we have these selfless, amazing volunteers that provide these lessons at local chapters all across the US. We've got, I think this week the number is 143 chapters, because we are growing weekly. We've got like over a hundred chapters waiting to be created because, like, even though we've been around 17 years, we're still growing to try to meet the demand and the need for these services, right. So anyway, back to like. The format, right, is a weekly guitar lessons and I'm proud to share that Like, I was not a guitar player, I always wanted to play guitar. I was that guy. I was like oh, it'd be super cool to like play around the campfire and stuff.
Speaker 2:But, dude, it's taken on so much different meaning for me in my current life because I signed up for the program too.
Speaker 2:No way as a veteran, because I was like you know, and it kind of goes back to that. You know, like I got to be able to do everything my team can do, you know, and I got to walk a mile in their shoes and I was like, well, hey, this is a great time to apply that, and I would love to play guitar. Let me go through this program. I graduated from the program last night and, uh, nice, you know, at the end you get a brand new guitar and all the accoutrement to go with it. You know, and that's really like people see it, because we kind of call it a graduation and make it special and uh, people think that's like, oh, oh, well, the program's over now you got beginner guitar lessons and a brand new guitar for free.
Speaker 2:No man, that's the whole point behind our chapters, right? Is? It's free of charge? Like there's no requirements, there's no mandatory activities. It's a group of all of us that took the opportunity to learn the guitar to help this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sitting around the campfire is super cool, but you can go on the internet and very rapidly find the amazing research out there on the benefit of music. Oh, we're going to play music, playing music and the positive impact that has on your brain health long term and even instantaneously, your mood, your emotions. So really the magic happens for us once we get to the graduation because now it's like you've got skills where you understand this instrument and you can just enjoy the moment of learning different ways to play it and then we all can come together and like so all these past graduates that are still living around these chapters they come back for jam sessions and learn new songs together and go to community events like a county fair, and they'll schedule time to play on stage because they've continued to improve their skills. And I never thought I would be so proud of a seemingly simple achievement, kind of in my mind, in the grand spectrum of things I've done and accolades and achievements and stuff, one of the things I'm most proud of is this guitar sitting right over here that I earned by investing in myself and caring for myself through this great organization that that offers that and man it is.
Speaker 2:It is so cool to be able to just reach over at any moment during the day, grab that guitar, pick it up even if it's for five minutes between you know, doing some awesome work and strum that guitar and play around with some different sounds and chords and go. Man, that felt great. I know this tool, I know this instrument and then I can just as quickly put it down, but it's always there right beside me. So I've got it handy Right. So I was super proud, like the joy was true joy.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like, oh, I'm getting a medal today, great, who cares? Like I found some of my medals the other day. I was like for the first time in my life they look foreign to me. I was like what is that crap? You know, and it's still meaningful. I'm not trying to diminish those things because they are important to many folks, but in the moment they were important to me. And now, as I look back, something like this guitar and something I am doing currently every day and will for the rest of my life, not only for the health benefit of helping this thing repair itself and be happy and healthy, but it's a lot of fun, man, it's so cool there's.
Speaker 1:There's multiple aspects to being a man, being a warrior and being well-rounded, that we don't talk about the awards, the accolades they were meaningful aspects of our service. But as we move through our life you have to adapt, learn new things, study new concepts, like we were not meant to be simple-minded creatures. The the great thing about being a fully well-rounded warrior is you pick up different concepts of life as you move through different phases. I never thought I'd be reading books on a daily basis and exploring different concepts, getting into poetry, wanting to write, exploring all these different things that people were so quick to say, well, that's not for you, that's not meant for you, you're not, that's not for you.
Speaker 1:Kids like you go to the military. Well, yeah, kids like me do go in the military. Kids like me you know they can fucking excel in the fucking military and you know what. They deserve to read poetry. They deserve to understand and find the connection of roomie no-transcript, if that amazing like connection like does not bring something profound within you and said like holy shit, I exist in this time period where I was able to take this book before I was even a hundred percent healed, before I even started my own journey, but knowing the importance of, of like, oh, the significance of this, holy shit, a kid from panama brought to united states, gone through the hardest fucking military training you can think of, and now you're in afghanistan, trudging along in an area where this world-renowned poet came from, it's like, holy shit, that's pretty fucking badass, like that's.
Speaker 1:That's the types of things that we should all be looking to experience, understanding the importance of music and and why it's so therapeutic, why is it so fucking profound? A lot of us, if you've gone to a treatment center, you've experienced that moment where we're going to do music therapy, and then you're like, oh, okay, and you, you know, you, you waltz in there and you kind of half-ass it and you try it out for a little bit, but then, before you know it, you're engaged and it's because it's part of the human experience.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean, like music transcends culture, like it's been around for yeah, I couldn't even tell you how long music's been around, like since you know, we were dwelling in caves. Probably people you know figured out that things sound different when you beat on them with a stick or whatever and people started making music. Um, because it was, it was a way to tell a story, it held a motion, it signified important events, it was a way to share oral history through song.
Speaker 2:I mean, and that's the cool thing is, there's so many different aspects of music and one of the things I really love is, you know, I had some fear and trepidation of not being perfect, you know, and being able to play the guitar. But it's so cool when you're with other people, like everybody remembers, when they were also not great at playing the guitar, even if they're phenoms now Right, like they just got to know man, phenoms now right, like they just gotta know man. And I had a cool opportunity recently to be hanging out with, like current touring artists that are big names and I just happenstance had an opportunity to be chilling with them and I was like over in the corner, like kind of away from where they were writing some songs, you know, and I'm I'm like quietly trying to practice my guitar A couple of them came over and they're like hey, what are you working on?
Speaker 2:You know, we didn't really know each other and, uh, I was like oh, I was just kind of like messing around with this E minor chord progression, trying to make music, and they're like that is so cool, man. They're like awesome, you're doing great. And I was like really. And they were like yeah, no, it actually sounds really good.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was like, well, nothing compared to you guys, you know, and they were like dude. I remember sitting exactly where you're sitting right now, feeling the same way, like man. It's a journey. We all had to start somewhere. None of us, like, came out of our mother's womb, ukulelele in hand, just like going to town or whatever.
Speaker 2:So they got not and I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. But the grace, you know that, um, just you know, knowing what I was experiencing, they were just so cool about it and I was like man, I really felt good, and that's what I love about music is I think so many people, um, feel that way where, like they, just proud to see other people embarking on that journey, so, yeah, I mean can't speak highly enough about it. Uh, I don't want to ramble on about guitar and stuff, but it is a huge part of my life with what I do daily. And the other aspect I want to share and it's kind of the final thought on my mind anyway, um is what I would hope to just get out there into the universe and hopefully, you know, get through somebody's car stereo while they're listening to your podcast on their commute or whatever is. Um, it doesn't matter what thing you gravitate to, and the example I'll use is another nonprofit that I am the executive director for, which is Nodens Outdoors, and it is focused on soft and intelligence community veterans and we serve a very small cohort for almost an entire year, every year, of only eight folks from that community. Oh, wow, and it is a post-traumatic growth journey like insane.
Speaker 2:Um, we have two week long retreats and it's all centered around bow hunting and it's all centered around bow hunting and man. So here we've got special mission unit folks coming through this program like we couldn't do like normal hunting, because it would just be a hunting trip. Right, like no. The goal is we want folks that have never operated a bow before, never hunted with a bow, because now that's like the framework for just us getting together and getting to know each other and earning trust and sharing vulnerably how we're doing. But, like, the growth happens through that connectedness, not the bow specifically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, are there therapeutic aspects of breath control and all the marksmanship things that also apply to bow and not just, you know, firearms? Sure, but the real value is that intimacy and it a totally different but awesome way to connect intimately. And so folks gravitate towards that boat, they gravitate towards guitar or outdoors. Those are all just different frameworks of personal interest that bring us together once again as a team and as a community. And we get to know a new team, we get to know a new tribe and as we make ourselves trusted and trust the group, no different than any unit. When you first report there, there's that every day is selection kind of mentality.
Speaker 1:You're already there every day. Yeah exactly Every day is a tryout.
Speaker 2:But once you get through that and we let the guard down and we get to know each other, that's when the real healing begins, because everybody has that story that they don't want to tell themselves, nor do they want to tell anybody else. So if I could send one last message, like with an asterisk and an exclamation point and underlined it is it doesn't matter as much what you do, but please get out, get moving, get outdoors, find a community of folks local to you, find that nonprofit fly fishing adventure, hiking adventure, whatever it is. It's not the adventure itself, it's the people that you're going to be there with. So even if it seems a little cheesy or hokey or something at the outset because it's not exactly the way you would do it if it was your- nonprofit or whatever, but just like give it a shot, because I've found so much enjoyment by serving veterans through, you know, a variety of means or a variety of environments.
Speaker 2:But also now I'm really interested in going out and taking part in these activities because I'm seeing the benefit Like it made me so happy with the other veterans last night. Uh, one guy, former army, like putting neuropathy in his hands and he stuck with it and we found adaptive ways for him to play the guitar, you know, and when we were standing there together last night he was just so happy that he overcame those challenges. So it's any challenge right that shared experience together really brings us together.
Speaker 2:And then now we connect in a meaningful way and and it really is a journey right, I've been taking steps like that in small part for years, but really finally, at this moment, I'm in like overdrive of let me take care of myself mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, emotionally, physically and, uh, I find my physical performance goes through the roof when my brain is right and I'm sleeping, so it all goes full circle so dead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nigel, thanks so much for coming on today. Man, this has been freaking awesome. Uh, real quick, what are the name of the two non-profits so we can get them out there?
Speaker 2:Certainly so. Guitars with an S for like it is for you, uh, that's the etsorg Um. Guitars for vetsorg is the website address. And then also no, dens sounds like the. The word no like don't do it. Dan's like, uh, somewhere you go curl up in the woods to sleep and then outdoors, nodens, outdoorsorg. Um. We're currently in the middle of our program for 2024 um, but for all the soft veterans out there who find that might be appealing, we'll be opening up intake forms again on our website, uh, towards the end of the year for next year's program. So thank you so much for the opportunity Always.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to have you back, man, because we just barely scratched the surface.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'd love to come back after I go through the three weeks at MarketSpring Institute, so maybe in six months or something I can come share more on that journey specifically, or something.
Speaker 1:I would freaking love that Again, that information for both those nonprofits will be at the episode description, as well as a link to Dr Gordon's website, because we all got to take care of our brains. If you're listening out there, please take care of yourself. Get healthy. There's so many things we can do or cut out of our lives to take that one bold step forward to being better. Take care of yourself and we'll see you all next time. Until then, please listen to your first sergeants Today's Friday. So you're going to get a safety brief anyway, so be good Right on. If you like what we're doing and you're 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 Bye, thank you.
