Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
From Burnout to Breakthrough: Navigating Growth, Responsibility & Mental Health in the Veteran Space
In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, hosts Deny Caballero and Gordon "Gordo" Hurley dive deep into the real-life challenges and victories that come with transitioning through different seasons of life—especially for veterans and creators navigating the pressures of personal growth, mental health, and professional development.
🔥 This episode unpacks:
- The struggle and lessons behind burnout and recovery
- How to harness self-trust and resilience in high-pressure environments
- Scaling your passion without losing your purpose
- The role of technology, community support, and accessible resources in mental wellness
- Balancing entrepreneurship, military advocacy, and professional life
- Why honoring military history matters in today's digital age
Deny and Gordo open up about the highs, lows, and everything in between—from building their platforms to advocating for the veteran community. Whether you're a creator, veteran, healthcare worker, or someone simply seeking growth and purpose, this episode delivers raw insight and real-world strategies for thriving.
🔔 Don’t miss out—hit FOLLOW, LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to support the mission and never miss an episode that empowers your journey. 💥
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Chapters
00:00 The Journey of Growth and Technology
06:00 Healthcare Challenges and Recovery
11:55 Building Skills and Scaling Efforts
18:45 Navigating Life's Seasons
24:42 Balancing Personal and Professional Life
30:45 Finding Daily Wins
40:23 Future Aspirations and Community Support
Instagram: @securityhalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Gordon on LinkedIn and check out ATW today!
LinkedIn: Gordon Hurley
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gordonhurley/
Instagram: atw_alltheway
https://www.instagram.com/atw_alltheway/
Website: alltheway.team
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent, it's hosted by me, Danny Caballero.
Speaker 2:Your studio is looking fucking legit right now.
Speaker 3:It would look better on the camera, but it's too much. It's too much technology, because it makes sense how one person is. It's 10,000 hours to become a professional and it's like each discipline, like photography, videography, sound, color grading, editing.
Speaker 2:It's a lot, man, it's a lot. We don't give ourselves enough time to like look back at where we started and like in this journey and be able to say like hey, man, like you're crushing it, you're doing a really good job. Like you started this with just fucking a Yeti microphone and a shitty Logitech camera. Like you're doing it, right, yeah.
Speaker 3:Look at this, it's it. That's the hard. That is the hard part, though, like I don't know, I think from the previous job, right we're wired for it's never like enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:There's always a point to improve. So that goes like hand in hand with the conversation I wanted to have today about like burnout and what that's like. Is this light too bright, you think, or what? I can turn it down really quick.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's good man, we'll roll with it. The lighting's all right. Yeah, you're like dude, you're already late In the moment situation. Gordon Hurley, welcome back. How you doing, man? I'm good brother, I'm good Dude. It's awesome seeing you fucking kick ass Our brother from up north, our northern cousins soon to be bitter rivals.
Speaker 3:It's going to be one of them oh man, dude, tell me about this.
Speaker 2:Uh latest meet you had yeah.
Speaker 3:So the we got a new veterans affairs minister, so a new secretary of veterans affairs is what you guys would call it right, and uh, the, because we had the government shake up. They just moved everybody around. So the the previous back minister I was speaking with for the last year um, she was moved and it was like right at critical junction where I've got like good solid stuff that I can bring to them, not just like talking, but like hey, fyi, I have two doctors doing doing ganglion blocks for members right now and I think it's important that Veterans Affairs be made aware of this. And obviously, deep down, I'm like this is like your guy's jam, right, but it's neither here or there. So I went and they did the cabinet shuffle. I got pushed to the new fella and I briefed him and it went over really well. I think it went well. I think I'm getting better at just like expectation setting and just letting go and being like dude, you know your stuff, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to trust ourselves when we dump in in in a new, new position, a new environment, new profession, and realize that, like we have what it takes. So he's like that, that critic, the inner critic, no matter where we go. But it's even more so. I deal with it. Um, but there's proof in the pudding, right, people are, are listening, People are tuning in, people are resonating with your message. They're seeing what you're doing and that's growing day by day.
Speaker 3:man, like you're crushing it, it's working, thank you. I think it's a. I think it's not not me doing it for this reason, but I think like, deep down underneath is that like because I have no control of how messed up everything is and I see like suffering and I see answers to it and that messes me up from being in the military too. We're watching like organizational failures and like not being able to do anything about it. Is that like maybe me putting my effort into this is my way of like coping with how insane it is?
Speaker 2:I don't know it had, we haven't we? It's been a minute since we caught up.
Speaker 3:Oh, I wish I could give you a bro hug about your baby too. Dude, um, the elbow, it doesn't like seed correctly, so I've lost like range of like. See, this one can like hyperextend that's max for this one. And they're saying like the this forearm doesn't like seed correctly with the back one and we're just trying, I don't know. I don't know if it was the right decision or not, like if I should have tried peptides beforehand, or I don't know.
Speaker 3:And our health care system, dude, I went I asked my doctor, but it's a teaching doctor, so it's like he has university students doing their placements and like qualified, and then they deal with you, but then they go report to him to make sure that, like, what they do is correct. And uh, I went to go ask and I was like, hey, what about this? And they're like, he's like I don't know anything about that. I'm like I know, well, I get it, but can you ask, like the big doctor? And then he came back and was like, well, it's not really in the scope of like, like, yeah, go get surgery, and then that's it. So it's uh, it's okay, I'm having faith, man, I'm getting all. I have all my shit together. I'm sleeping correctly, eating correctly, I've dropped a lot of drinking. Um, good, good and yeah, it's the most important stuff. It's like get back to basics. You know what I mean and how do you get better. So sometimes it takes longer to recover, but we'll see.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's one of those things where you have to let go the expectations of like being, that idea of being. I'm gonna be 100.
Speaker 3:Everything should be perfect well that was what I was like doing, uh, acceptance therapy, therapy, and like chronic pain therapy with my psych, and it really pissed me off because I'm like Tom Brady played football until he was 45. Like, what are you talking about? I'm 39, 38, 39 years old. Like no, we can talk about that after. And she's like, well, maybe this is just like this, the new you. It's like fuck you lady, fuck you. I'm joking, sorry, you can believe that out. Obviously, you stupid bitch it's like that meme.
Speaker 2:Tony stark built this in a fucking cave.
Speaker 3:Rebuild me back stronger we were so lucky too, like I don't know what it was like at your units, but we had a human performance cell, awesome staff, awesome staff, like they would leave there and then go work in nhl teams and stuff like that yeah and uh same, I have nothing now, so it's just like oh, and the veterans affairs coverage is good, you know, I mean if you figure out it all on your own, but it would be nice to have someone just be like all right, man, this is what we're gonna do, we're gonna have this course of action instead of me being like peptides, eh, hmm I feel that so much.
Speaker 2:I look back with regret like just you fool, you had it all quite spoiled quite spoiled, such oh dude, just absolutely spoiled, and rightly so.
Speaker 2:And I would like to to think that more people are taking advantage. I think they're. They're the cultures change people understand that, like, if you want to be a performance driven person in this career field, you have to take advantage of every resource. And when you have these shops, when you have these you know Thor three you have to utilize them. You have to utilize them and maximize your ability, even if it's doing things like going down and getting a nutrition plan, because, hey, what you eat, what you put in your body, is just as important as the workout that they print out for you. They have everything and they need it. They need that if you're going to be operating and in special operations, you 100 deserve that. And one thing that I always like it always bugged me, was hearing how they were always having to fight for a budget. Like it should be on the top of the budget.
Speaker 3:You should it almost be like the, the regular military, is top of budget. You know what I mean like, and you don't know what, and when you hang up the boots like you're gonna want another life, you know, I mean, I haven't. I went to go play flag football and I pulled myself out like a week before because I had a avulsion fracture in my foot. That's like a Lestronk injury and it like turf toe, super crazy bad. And uh, I couldn't do it because uh, like arthritis, like pain, I couldn't like plant and think of like, oh, I'm gonna have a cleat on and I played sports my whole life and it's like I've had all these things like just like taken away and I'm left with mobility exercise, yoga, gentle yoga. I'm an old boy now, but that's what happens when you get ridden hard and putting away dirty a few too many times. You know, sleep, damn dude. I can't believe how I treated my body. Yeah, dude, my mind.
Speaker 2:And I will. Um, I have to give a shout out to this new company. I will. I have to give a shout out to this new company I just found, stoned Ape. They're nootropics for sleep, dude. If you're a new parent, you know intimately the dreaded nights of not being able to go to sleep. But we finally have a good sleeping pattern, a really solid sleep routine. Couldn't go back to sleep. My insomnia came back, like I'm pretty sure you've dealt with that and uh, that stuff. Holy shit, like last night was the first night I got like fucking solid seven hours of sleep, like perfect. I was like damn.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like an aggressive roller. I need a big reset. Are you sponsored by them or what Do you want to know?
Speaker 1:Cause that'd be sweet.
Speaker 2:Do you promote great green beret companies like house Gilgan, house right there, amazing woodwork, wow. But, um, and I don't, I don't do affiliate links. So if you're listening, just know that, uh, I will never give you a 25% discount code, but I will do so. We'll promote great stuff and if they partner with me, then maybe, but I get paid first. Motherfuckers, but, uh, you can go out there and check them out yourself. No discount code. Um, go check them out. Worked really well. Um, also doing their energy, doing their energy and uh, let me tell you like it's, it's a great.
Speaker 2:uh, I don't do pre-workout anymore for the gym but, uh, yeah, their energy blend with, uh, my protein before the gym and that was nice. It felt that instantly. Um, but yeah, I don't do affiliate because I've I gotta make content for myself for my own shit. I don't have time to sit down and do content on the hopes that you might go shop for them. So now I'm just giving it to you for free Go shop for them.
Speaker 3:If you want them, go get them my own like private life, business wise, is I'm handling social media and I'm doing I used to ship off a bunch of graphic design work for like I'll just be like okay, I trust this person and this person's asking me and I'm like I have no time for this, so go see this person. And then it all kind of came together where I was like why am I not just asking these people if they'll work for me and then just employing them, you know, I mean like getting them as a contract, but me, if I have the work, instead of just handing it off, just like be the in between? And then that started like I have a radio commercial that's on uh, the city's uh radio waves right now. I recorded it, edited and produced here in the basement, did uh, we're doing a video forum, a gofundme video posts, social media strategy, marketing. It's basically everything I'm doing for myself.
Speaker 3:Right that that we've find out like how does this all work? And it's not uh, it's a very valuable skill that not a lot of people know or know it well. So, and my wife's like dude, stop buying camera gear. So I'm like putting it all to use. I'm using it all.
Speaker 2:Dude, it's funny. Um I I don't know if you you, I think you follow the Special Forces Foundation. Yeah, if you've noticed that their social media has changed drastically it's really good, I'm running it now. Oh, really, I'm the new public relations social media wonder kid over there. It's working. But it's like you find yourself having to create these skill sets from nothing. You, you dive into this world and minus nothing.
Speaker 3:You're a meathead.
Speaker 2:You're like a meat titan coming from the special forces going to a computer that's why I see, like in both of our uh endeavors, like we we've been in this thing fighting and learning tooth and nail, and it's beautiful to see, like when your friend succeeds, when he's doing well, and you're like seeing it work for them, you're like, oh, fuck, yeah, dude, like that's, that's the thing, your page is working, dude yeah, I gotta, like I said, we gotta do a call afterwards so I can pick your brain about.
Speaker 3:So all the stuff that you've learned points, you know.
Speaker 2:Transitioning people hey, reach out, ask questions yeah, there's so many people coming into this space, but it's filled with that ambiguity. But, dude, at the end of the day, just reach out, just call because scaling, dude, I need to bring in more people, like that's the thing I realized. Like I need another, at least one other person, maybe two, um, and it's like, but I want passionate people from the community. I don't want to go for a and nothing against somebody that's hustling from another country on Upwork or Fiverr, but I want somebody from the community. I want somebody that has a passion for this and says hey man, I want to start my own business, but I want to learn underneath somebody. I want to learn about podcast production, like, because, let me tell you, I am grinding to like fucking 3am on some nights. Some nights it's a 24 hour process and it's like fuck, it's time to scale.
Speaker 3:I signed up at my college here in town because they take businesses to their interns at and like that's a big uh, it's only five weeks, I think. Um. But I went back to the school and I told them like, hey, this is the deal. Like, you come work for me for five weeks and then I will download everything I have to you and you can go off as a junior graphic designer and make a lot of money if you want. It may not be doing the cool art doodles that you like, but, uh, I don't know, I like money, so when I retire I'm gonna do more. That's bad. It's not the content. I want it. This will allow me to make the content I want to create and still have like a life. You know what I mean. There has to be. I do do it.
Speaker 3:Clearly, it's a part of my why and I'm about to drop another history video today and I like the marketing aspect. I think I'm really really good at sitting with someone and helping them figure out their why, and I can do that in a business, and then I can do it. Okay, what's that? Business to business, business to consumer and business to yourself. So you come up with your mission, vision, values for your business. It's like, hey, this is what it looks like, this is the backbone, this is the core, and then you can employ other people because you have these packages where you can say, okay, graphic designer, like, look, I just need 100 posts on these six topics, this is my brand identity book. Go create like five, report back to me and then be a creative director. I think when I'm retired for the second time, I will do, uh, art like myself. I just don't have time to illustrate for like 16 hours. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I miss the freedom of being able to go capture my own still. Like photography became something that I leaned on as a hobby and it became something that, like I always had passion for it, but I never gave myself the ability to see myself as somebody that was worthy of having these aspirations. And then I leaned into it and then I started gathering equipment and buying things that I wanted to do. I bought an Olympus camera and full, fully like decked out suite of uh lenses because I liked Olympus cameras. Like I didn't want to do the video I wanted to focus on taking still doing wildlife and did a perfect place to do it, in Floridaida and destin, just doing beach shots going out, exploring, and like that became something that, like I loved. But then the podcast became like my absolute, like a like addiction. Like I had to continue doing it, like that was my, why my mission, previous job, yeah, like it became something that like okay, now I have to move away from my olympus camera because, like I can't have all this and then justify buying a Sony. It's like fuck, dude. But even to, right now I love creating content that's for the community by somebody from the community.
Speaker 2:It's what I say Like you're not getting something that's created by a kid who never served in the regiment and never served and never understood, like and like I feel like I have a good eye when I'm creating, but what I really want to do is fucking create my own shit, my own, be able to go back to just doing photography, being able to go back and just capturing. But it's like you're married to this passion. That's like a 24-7 endeavor. I can't take time off. Like I only have enough time in the day to like be a new father, be a husband and then do everything for not only my show but all the other shows I produce. So it's like fuck, right now I'm like getting to this point of like gotta scale, scale, buddy.
Speaker 3:I gotta scale, I gotta bring somebody to be the ceo, you gotta be the visionary, and it sucks and a lot of like we're control. For us, even like, if you don't have pts, uh, if you've soldiered for that long at whatever level, at an intense level, like you know, control is like the most important thing and it's now you're giving up control of your art, of like your or what you think is yours, when it's just like whoa, calm down, I give. Now I have, luckily, I've recruited two graphic designers and a video editor. Oh shit, and uh yeah, and it's I haven't like fully employed them yet. They just all got like piecemeal and it's um, that's where I can like that's the same thing we're talking about right now is like what I'm trying to do in life because I can't do the 1am uh work. I can, but it just like messes my life up and I'm not. I think I've come to terms with more with where my body's at my mind, like I said, I'm always like I'm strong, right, and that's almost the worst part is that it's strong to a fault where it's like okay, now you've, you've dropped other things off this of your life to accomplish these, these tasks, right, so we should. We can get into that and we can like bang on 20 minutes so you have some like good instead of just ban. It's good banter, but like, if you want to have a concentrated conversation about like burnout, I'm yeah, dude, let's dive into that. Man, yeah. So, like I said, it goes hand in hand with what we're talking about right now and me learning, uh, different perspectives and how to handle my life better.
Speaker 3:And I thought about you because it would be the best way to have this conversation and I and it was in December I was listening to Tony Robbins. I was listening to it was just like a short, you know what I mean. It just came on and he was talking about how there's like seasons to life and there's seasons to everything you do and that's like the patterns of life, which are seasons spring, summer, fall and all sorts of things. But, like you were always, if you're not aware, you're always going to be doing the same thing. You're always going to be falling in the same pattern. And December timeframe, man, I was like, oh, it was all messed up. I was all messed up. I had surgery, I got married and I did all this other stuff. So I used Quentin Tarantino. We started at the end. Rewind back to January.
Speaker 3:I had a great idea to start a webinar and get world-class experts on and get the news out to people about alternative therapies, let alone for veteran healthcare, but for the general population, and I raised all of them on myself. I ended up raising like 40 grand. It was like probably more, but it still was a lot of money and I hate asking for money, too and I had to do all the graphic design for it. I never knew what Zoom platform that like hey, all these people from the community sponsored it, so it's like it's more tangible that they're going to absorb it. And with that, though, it came a lot of responsibility where I was like, oh, I don't want to, I want to make sure that this is awesome for the guys, like not only for the community, but these people paid me money, and that is a lot of stress. It's like allostatic stress. How do you weigh that? You don't. It's just like a bunch of factors.
Speaker 3:So, graphic design, learning how to use Zoom, learning how to do the thumbnails, learning how to schedule people, and then, on top of that, to write constructively, cold emailing people like a world-class expert takes time, and I didn't respect. I didn't respect a lot of these things. I thought I was just like, oh, I got it, yeah, you got it, bro, but that's going to take five hours and I wouldn't understand that. Um, so I did all that and then that went into the summertime. I finished school, I did a practicum with a uh or an internship with a charity. I ran all their social media for that and then I was doing t-shirts on the side this whole time.
Speaker 3:I had like almost four appointments a week to like vision therapy, uh, tbi therapy, my back massage therapy there was. It was never ending and that itself itself is like I didn't understand how much time that took, because it's I have to drive 35 minutes one way to an appointment. The appointment's 45 minutes to an hour and then half an hour back. That's two hours of your day gone and for us, a performance based individual, it's not like I just was like where is the time?
Speaker 3:And I the time was at late at night finished my projects. Like there's no're going to. If you want to do well in school, you're going to be working hard, sorry, but like you're going to be staying up late and that's the normal If you want to do anything well in life, you're going to have to put in work. So I understood that, grinded it out, did a big trip and then came home and then went to a golf tournament to go meet a big charity organizer to start like putting the birdie in his ear, like, hey man, this stuff needs to get done. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And associations are paying for this and I'm saying, yeah, I'll go do it for sure, like if someone's gonna pay for it, um, but that's all things that are taking me away from my family and I'm just putting more and more and more. And uh, then I had Dr Chris Free come up, flew him into Ottawa, I got him to go to our units and then do a veteran event.
Speaker 2:You got him to fly up. That man never leaves Hawaii.
Speaker 3:I know. So we did a sick veteran event in Ottawa too and that was all awesome. But like that was all on me to do and I actually had help with the graphic design, but like I still made a poster at first, took me two days, and then I sent it to my buddy. He owns a defense venture capitalist firm, one9, glenn Cowan. He's a cool dude, he's a JTF squadron commander and now he does investing. He has a marketing team and I'm like okay. He said yeah, hell, yeah, I'm going to help you, man. And I sent my poster and the guy was like he said something about he's like why would you pick this picture of him? Like he looks like he's a serial killer or something like that. And it was just like I'm a junior graphic designer and, uh, his team I'll send you it after so you can put it up as we're speaking Made the poster dude, and it is so sick. It is so sick. Made me feel whatever, humbled. I get it, but at the same time I invested a fuck ton of hours to make that thing and it's just like, yeah, I get it, wash it, but whoa, and I'm away from my family. I come home.
Speaker 3:A week after I come home, I start setting up for the Afghanistan Memorial mobile exhibit. We have one war museum in Canada, in Ottawa. There's a lot, probably, but there's one prominent one. Then there's an Afghanistan mobile exhibit that was sitting in a museum for two years not getting shown. The point of it was to get traveled around. I got all the money for that, figured out the place for it to go, figured out the schedule, volunteers, graphic design, media, um, social media as well, and like the allostatic load at this point is huge and, just like you know, the more you learn about social media, the more you almost like regret because you're, uh, you're missing out on opportunities where you could really capitalize and like feed the beast algorithm and it's easy, right, but all that pressure is getting on.
Speaker 3:That finished and, uh, the next day I had a family start flying in for my wedding, which was that saturday, that was a t Wednesday. They flew in Saturday. I got married the Friday. After that I got elbow surgery and like the thing that hurt the most, too, is my wife. She was like, okay, dude, um, awesome, but like time to be at home with like us and like work with us. And I was like, damn dude, that shit almost made me cry, because that was the point of leaving. The military was like, well, there was no war going on and I want to be normal, I want to spend time with my family. And it's like I fell into the same pattern the same season, the same, the same thing, the same thing, workup, training, right, you go to work, or you go to work and uh, courses, okay, there's never like downtime. It's not like the regular military where I was playing cards on the stairs and like weeks on end with nothing happening.
Speaker 1:It's like okay, you're on a horse at the company area.
Speaker 3:So it's course to then pre-deployment training to deployment, to then, three weeks off at home, to like drink your face off and like crawl into a hole. And then the cycle continues, and continues, and continues. And when, when I first left the military, I flipped the house. I was a general contractor, the whole thing like HGTV style, and it worked. But I finished it with getting a shoulder surgery and then knee surgery within three weeks of each other. That was all when I was leaving the military. So, even though I left the military, I'm doing the same same pattern man the same pattern.
Speaker 3:So, and I have close friends that work within the charity scene and, uh, they're both have burnouts and, like I see it, it's more. It's more common that people think because you're kind of like trying to draw blood from a stone on a lot of fronts when it comes to raising money and putting effort into the thing that you think other people would value and the Afghanistan exhibit was, it was awesome, right, but like I think there should be way more national pride and I think there should be way more value to our military forces. And it's like I got a up close personal look at no, they don't. Like I have to do all this crazy stuff and it's cool, it's actually works into my business model now, but at the time, again the allostatic load, like where does that get placed? The emotional value of like I've had friends that died in Afghanistan. A bomb exploded my face in Afghanistan. I know tons of people who died in Afghanistan. Like it was very close for me to to do and it was a good opportunity to grow, but damn dude, I burned down hardcore. And like to have my wife say to me that at the end and she's like she wasn't angry because like that is that's the worst part is that, like the, the fight I was doing, the sword I picked up is like it is a valiant effort and that's cool. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:But like I did it, I did that for 15 years, man, and you and I have said I'm talking to myself like you did it, dude, like it's cool, you can focus on other stuff and instead I like put myself back into it and into saying veteran advocacy is like how much change do you think you're going to make with changing a government or a large charity and I've had to figure that out over the last year or two where it's just like whoa, they're not thinking about the same things that I'm thinking about and their value isn't valuing the same. It doesn't mean they're a bad organization, but like it's not aligned with what I'm. I'm trying to get people to not kill themselves and, uh, finding all that L man was just like it was too much. And then the surgery surgery, and I realized like wow, you just and I took a lot of reflection time to take it on and just digest it and dude, the guys who told you they get burned out for like four years of like trying and trying and trying and trying.
Speaker 3:It's like you can implement this right now, within like a year of hearing this, and just like shrugging it off. As the normal soft guy like I can do anything. I'll climb that mountain, I'll do whatever you tell me to do, but at what detriment? Your body, your mind, your family, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I feel that so much, man and I, I tell you like, if I can get to the gym, I know, know I'm going to win the day. Like you got to find that one thing you can do for yourself. That's why it's like the morning thing, so you try to put it off for the afternoon. It's a 70, 60, then becomes a 40, 30% chance you'll get there. Like that's how I stave off the burnout. Like, get to the gym in the morning, wake up at four if I I need to, 3am. Like, and here's why, like I'm a big believer, like some days, some days, like I follow every episode with a blog post. This week I'm going to have to jump all my blog posts at the same time because my best this week was 70%, 65%. Like I do, I love writing, I'm passionate about writing. I like digging in.
Speaker 2:I did a recent post about blast wave injury because I know that's important and it's one of the things I realized while I was going through my downward spiral. I went to figure out what the fuck was going on TBI, traumatic brain injury. Love to write about that stuff, but you have to. How much time do you have in a day to write? How much time in a day do you have to create content? How much time in a day do you have to record a podcast? And then, how are you going to win and feel successful when you look at your downloads and uploads and they're not hitting the metrics you need them to?
Speaker 2:Oh shit, I'm not getting enough followers today. All that shit's running through every single entrepreneur's head and, bro, I'm right there, I'm right, fucking there. I get hit with the DMs, with somebody talking shit about me, of course, and all that shit feeds into the fucking burnout. Working hard just to fucking put good shit out there, dude, fucking, find the win. Find the win for the day. Yesterday I got to help a good friend of mine. She was struggling and she reached out. Just helping somebody that I know personally, a friend that's willing to reach out, and she's all the way in Germany. That recharged my batteries. Being able to give back to a friend, that was a win.
Speaker 3:But it's like you're right. My, it sounds lame and I'm like I'm not working out every day. I wish I was. But like it again, like I've put myself, I've painted myself into a corner of amount of work, but I've respected, I've respected like the timings to it, where it's just like four hours of concentrated work, of like sitting in front of computer, like my brain working stuff starts like petering off at the end.
Speaker 3:So I know you know what man like this is the time to go do the do the other tasks too, like maybe you go deliver, uh, go to the post office, whatever. I kind of like manage it that way. But my biggest one is sleep, where I'm like I try to keep them like very small, like atomic habit. Use like the ramp, ideal, the idea where it's just like dude, can you just be in bed for 8, 15 and I am, and it's like okay, that means I can do the other stuff and then I can start adding other stuff. Can you make sure your, your meal, your meals, are in check? Yes, okay, that's a huge one.
Speaker 2:I, I fucking. I miss meals. This meal is like a motherfucker. Uh, it's, uh, it's almost 11. The only thing I've had to have to eat and drink. I haven't drank my. I had one thing of water and my protein shake this morning damn.
Speaker 2:At least you got your gains in a little bit, even lean but it's like dude, like look how much, and it's an obsession, it's it's um, I got hit in the inbox, it came off, I don't know. I'm thinking now. I don't think this gentleman meant anything by it, but I read it in a tone like who the fuck are you? How did I like? Why the fuck are you Like? Why the fuck are you doing this? And it's almost like how are you able to do this? I'm not able to do it. How are you able to do three episodes a week? And I'm like, motherfucker, I don't see an option. I don't see a fucking option. I don't, I don't like any.
Speaker 2:If you have notoriety, if you have a giant studio behind you, they can fucking launch an app. They can launch a fucking podcast and two days and have over a million downloads. We saw it with a hawk to a girl. If you have notoriety, if you have some sort of claim of the fame, you can fucking just climb the charts. I don't have that shit.
Speaker 2:I have a passion for advocacy, sharing good stories and helping people understand that your military service was a great chapter, but it's not the only chapter in your book and I love highlighting stories of people succeeding after the military Very small, niche, audience very small.
Speaker 2:But I'm passionate about it and I try to branch out and punch up and bring in different guests from different walks of life because I apply, I want to appeal to everybody that wants to hear good shit. But that means I work hard. That means when somebody can afford to do one episode a week, I have to fucking hustle to put two to three. Some weeks I don't, but I'm not going to tell the competition that I take a knee every once in a while, especially around the holidays. No, I got to fucking maximize and fucking do everything I can to punch out as much as I can but good content out there and hopefully it resonates and I feel like it has. And I think that it's growing and I'm seeing that between my different channels and seeing the downloads grow on a week-to-week basis. But it's understanding that, like dude, if I take a week off the downloads go away.
Speaker 2:The people move on. They find somebody else. There's a direct correlation Right.
Speaker 3:There is the beast that needs to get fed. It's like right right now I'm trying to do okay once every two weeks, I can guarantee a history.
Speaker 2:Uh, those are great dude holy thanks.
Speaker 3:I think, just like you, man, I think there's a niche where it's like how fat do you want to get? First of all, and second of all, I enjoy learning and talking. It's easy, easy for me. You know what I mean. And if I talk it and no one talks about Canadian military history in a cool way, no one's saying like, oh, serge Lac-Médaille from Quebec City like went and stormed the trench and killed 56 Nazis, like hell, yeah, you know what I mean. No one talks about that. We just talk about like, oh, our military is broken, sexual assault, like we suck, we don't make our nato gdp. It's like okay, well, we have a country that's actually steeped in military history and I think it's fucking cool to kill terrorists so in all shapes or forms. And daddy canuck has been handing out fades for a long time, so you should be proud of it yeah, we have to highlight and promote the goodness within our service, like it's not just all.
Speaker 2:Like recently here in the States we've been highlighting the, the effectiveness of Doge and the firing and holding military officials accountable, and that's needed, but at the same time, like we can focus on some good too. Like I I hate general I barn find there's no, there's no reason why I should have had a negative interaction with that piece of shit. But even I did. A seventh group soldier should have never had a negative fucking situation with that motherfucker and I did. And that dude's a piece of shit, bar fine. I can't wait for them to fucking drag you and skull Fuck you.
Speaker 2:They don't do that in canada, dude.
Speaker 3:and it's sad too because, like, as I'm reading history, I'm like, hmm, there's a lot of things that are like replaying over and over again. So that's fine with me. It's endless content. Someone's got to talk about it. I enjoy it. It's like a part of my passion. Head on over to my website and buy a t-shirt.
Speaker 3:I'm going to try to get in our px, but I don't know if I'm going to be like too, uh, x-rated, because our px is like tiny dude, it's not like america px, america px hell yeah, put it like yeah, america, you want this for $5? Okay, just like, but that's a $2,000 TV. Um, so we have a thing up here called the Canucks, and I started seeing they started carrying apparel brands, one of them that I know and then another one I don't know, but it's like a police officer who created a company for PTSD awareness and that's really cool, that's awesome, that's really cool. What Can't we have? It's just like more coming to be where I'm like okay, and I sent out the initial email to just be like the press check of saying, hey, man, like, I can guarantee you quality, apparel Quality. I know I was in the army 15 years. I know you guys sell. I can guarantee you quality apparel with cool graphics that people will be proud to wear, and it's going to be made by a veteran in Canada. I don't know how much more I need to sell it than that and show them like the graphics, because the graphics are cool and like my market segment isn't just to be like blood and guts and killing terrorists and stuff.
Speaker 3:It's like I want to sell stuff and the only way to sell stuff is you have to have things that are like neutral enough that the entirety will get behind and buy. So I'm trying to be not as segmented to special forces and I sell stuff back to our units all the time in the special forces. So I'm not worried about that. But like, why can't I sell at that? You know what I mean like and I've been. I don't know about you, but I in can't.
Speaker 3:I guess a big difference can united states like not a lot of people are doing what I'm doing right now, or if it is, it's a very small amount. So it's like I, no one is doing it and I'm in bolded by like okay, I'm doing it and if I have people like, make a bad, a rude comment or a bad comment. It's's like well, no one's even doing this stuff, so like I don't think anybody has a say, because if no one's talking about our history, if no one's producing like cool ass shirts, then like what do I have to worry about? I?
Speaker 2:should just keep doing me.
Speaker 3:And that's it there's.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've seen anybody with your style and the way that you're doing it and you've got the aesthetics down. You've got the the um, the persona for it Like you. You have the camera presence for it. You have like, so kind, right, you got great voice for you, just the songbird of our generation, and I think it's it's it's new content that doesn't come across. My feed doesn't come across, and in social media at least, I haven't seen anything like it. So I think you're onto something, man, and I'm really excited to see where that goes. And we just kind of fucking continue supporting each other and, uh, who knows, you'll uh you'll be the next, uh successful veteran entrepreneur that we can all rally around, hopefully yeah because it'd be nice to fucking see.
Speaker 2:See what it's. It's nice when the boys make it, when one of your friends makes it, like you make it too, and it empowers you to keep going and then continue on your journey. And I firmly believe that we're only a fucking you know. You never know when you're going to get your next big break, where you're going to get that final fucking cult following, and next thing you know, you're face down in a pool of your own vomit in Las Vegas with tons of illicit drugs and naked midgets around you, and that's all.
Speaker 3:I'm saying that's what I came here for. That's what I came here for, that's all I'm saying. That's what I came here for, that's what.
Speaker 2:I came here for Gordo. It's a fucking pleasure having you back on, brother, for our audience. If they want to check your stuff out, where can they go?
Speaker 3:Instagram is atw, underscore all the way. Website is wwwallthewayteam. I'm not rich enough to own the dot com. That's about it. You can find me on LinkedIn, Gordon Hurley. If you have any questions about psychedelics, you'll. You're going to see a lot more of me this year. I just got asked yesterday by Maps Canada to be a guest speaker on their so Maps Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelics to be a guest lecturer on their so maps multidisciplinary association psychedelics to be a fucking huge a guest lecturer on veterans and psychedelics.
Speaker 2:So walk in there with your own boombox playing that old-timey intro music, I think I'm just gonna do psychedelics.
Speaker 3:Hello yeah, hello like why are you dressed like that? Why are you? We said you're a guest lecture, like where'd the pipe? Colors maintain yeah, hello class, like. Stop referring to them like that, please bring your own chalkboard.
Speaker 2:That's always a classy move.
Speaker 3:Uh, just a bunch of different types of psychedelics. Y'all ready to go to school? Come for a ride with.
Speaker 2:Uncle.
Speaker 3:Gordo.
Speaker 2:Fun fact all of you have already ingested enough psilocybin. Yes, these drinks are delicious, yeah, they are. And in five, four, three, two, one. Bro, thank you so much for coming on today. Can't wait to fucking have you back on so we can bro out some more. It's great to have you as a reoccurring guest. I finally have my Joe Rogan rogues gallery of dudes. I can bring back all the fucking time. So there we go.
Speaker 3:I need to know are you still thinking of doing something in person at some point?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, dude, if once we get out of our current state of Alabama and I can go back to Florida, uh, then I can go back to having my, my in studio presence. Right now, the, uh, the, the studio is, you know it's. We're in a smaller place, so it's's all remote, but I don't mind it, because that allows me to fucking go aggressive and go hard. Rather than focus on having to pay for flights and all that stuff. I can get cram in 15 sessions all in one day. No, it'd be too fucking much, but I do like to schedule as many as I can throughout the week. That way I can continue feeding the machine, the content machine.
Speaker 2:So if you're out there listening and you're enjoying it, head on over to Apple and Spotify and give us a five-star review. Help us grow, help us continue to scale and get bigger. I really need you. Come through for Papa. Papa comes through for you. Yeah, thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care, um. Yeah, thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform If you want to support us. Head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash setcoffpodcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhallcom for exclusive content resources and updates and remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
