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heCast Episode 111

Seb Lavoie on Leadership, Mental Health, and Resilience Under Pressure

Season 1 01:13:49 January 13, 2023
Listen now 01:13:49
heCast Episode 111: Seb Lavoie on Leadership, Mental Health, and Resilience Under Pressure

About this episode

Episode 111 of heCast features Seb Lavoie in a wide-ranging conversation about leadership, mental health, resilience, service, and the challenges men face in the world today.

Seb Lavoie served in the Canadian Military and went on to a long, decorated career with the RCMP. He is a coach across multiple disciplines and the CEO of Raven Strategic. In this episode, he and Mike discuss service, discipline, mental health, modern challenges, and how we can better respond to the pressures of life.

This conversation explores strength, perspective, motivation, and the practical work of building resilience in difficult times.

Listen to heCast, the official podcast of HeChangedIt.

Download the HeChangedIt app for more tools, content, and support on your mental wellness journey.

Read transcript

Transcript supplied via Spotify RSS.

Welcome to. He cast the official podcast of

he changed it. As always, I am like Schism as

always I'm excited to be here to talk about the ins and outs of

the nuances and to get conversations going out in the

open about men, mental health, mental wellness, and the plight

of the man. In in the 2020s boy, we're in

the 2020s, how crazy is that? And when it comes to, I love it

and I hate at the same time I Love it because we have never

been so technologically advanced.

We have never been so openly Advanced to the exchange of

ideas in so many different ways. But I ate at the same time

because I don't know that I've ever experienced life in a time

where things are more polarized and and things are being

challenged in ways where there are people who are, we've never

been so connected. But at the same time, there are

men out there who have never been so alone and with the he

changed it team and what they're doing.

Trying to bust through all of that, I am so honored to be even

a small part of what he changed. It is trying to do, we've got

all sorts of things going on. Listen, if you haven't

downloaded the heat change adapt.

What the heck? Are you waiting for, please go

to whatever app persuasion that you are.

Whether you're the Google, or your the, or your the Apple, no

problem. Each one of your stores.

Have he changed it? Search?

Each ancient download the app, it's free.

Lots of resources on there and you ain't seen nothing yet.

Just some great stuff going on. Also, if you wouldn't mind

liking sharing subscribing, this podcast, we would appreciate

that as well. Let's get the the numbers up a

little bit, so the masses can be helped that much more.

Now, that being said, the housekeeping is out of the way.

I am really, really excited about today's guest on, he cast.

First and foremost, we just went through at the time of this

broadcast. We went through Remembrance Day,

in Canada and, and other, another number 11s of course.

Is seen all around the world and I'm a big lest we forget guy.

I the idea of these markers, I don't even want to call them a

holiday. I don't think that's the right

connotation for, but these markers that we have as a planet

that Remember, and we're supposed to let that remembrance

kind of permeate, that's why that holiday on the eleventh

hour of the eleventh month. Eleventh day, that that, that

idea was created because we as a society did something so heinous

that we wanted to always remember.

So we would never do that again and the idea of less we forget

and that if we forget history repeats itself, man, that when I

look at what's going on in the world right now, it's like, now

we forgotten some of these things but at the same time,

when I think of somebody who has served, I just always the great

formulas that I have. I have never known personally,

what it's like to be in a war situation, I've never known what

it's like to to have freedom for me, I look at this polarization

that we have right now that there was a reason that that

exists is because of the freedoms that we have.

And we live in such an amazing Society, me personally in

Canada, but there are places around the world that have had

unprecedented Freedom. When you look at world history,

and the reason for that is because it's been fought for.

And anybody who serves, I always have the deepest respect for the

gentleman that we have today. Several avoid who is going to be

on here, several, assemble, avoid, pardon me is a shining

example of that, but here's a guy who not only has sir Served.

He is taking that serving of what he has and what he has

experienced and taking a look at what's going on around him.

When it comes to mental health, I cannot wait to get into this

conversation with him because we are learning about what PTSD is.

And, and I look at Sab and what he brings to the table when it

comes to insights and intelligence.

And I'm just so, so grateful that he has taken time out of

his busy day, to be part of, he cast Seb.

Thank you so much for being on he cast today.

I just I can't I can't tell you how grateful I am.

When you heard about what he changed, it is doing you jumped

up immediately just like you did volunteered to serve your

country. You jumped up and said, oh, I

want to be a part of this and and and we're so grateful for

that. What was it about?

He changed it that you heard about that, you were so excited

about Yeah. And I can t thing that really

addresses, men's Wellness Falls right into right into my my

field of Interest, right? And doing it with people to have

such a such a meaningful impact on the collective on the men's

Collective. I mean, this is, you know, feeds

right into the concept of synergy.

I mean, doing meaningful things, with meaningful people.

I mean, I'm in. Well, we're so grateful for it.

Let's start at the beginning Seb.

You know, let's let's talk about your credentials and where and

what you've done and because I mean I hate using the term

decorated when it comes to military service.

I again, just like I don't want to call Remembrance Day a

holiday. I am I don't even know what the

word like the the reverence that I have for folks who are willing

to just to do what you've done, you've done.

What you've not, just put your hand up to serve, but you've,

you've really gotten into it, not that anybody who doesn't

volunteer. Here has gotten into it.

But at the end of the day, what can you tell our listeners and

viewers about what it is that you've done over the course of a

25-year career? So just just to clarify.

I I'm in awe I'm in awe of people sir that served in the

military and served in the in the current War, the past

conflicts and those who will in the future.

However, I can't take credit for that because I certainly missed.

You do the conflict because I released from the military in

2000 in 2000 yen. And soda right before 9/11 so I

did not serve overseas. I did not see combat operation

from a military perspective and it doesn't take away from, you

know, the service and wanting to be there.

Being willing to be there. And the reason why I'm saying

this is because I don't want people out there that are

serving and never seen combat to think that they're they're

obviously not what they're doing isn't righteous which isn't the

case at all. But there is a human experience

associated with combat that I have that I have not been privy

to in the Three context. Okay yes, so I will not take

credit where credit is in do in 2001 I engaged in the I left the

military and engage into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And I spent 20 years in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I

did anything everything from Patrol function to covert

specialized section to a the Emergency Response Team which is

are the equivalent of the SWAT team.

Really it, which is a Tactical Unit.

I spent 12 years on Time emergency response.

Team has spent seven years as a team leader on the team.

And I eventually would retire as the sergeant major for the

division. So the province of British

Columbia. So I was attached to the

commanding officers office as an advisory and seal.

So if we think if the if command thought well this is a great

ideal, they would run it by step to see if actually it was, you

know, where the wheels meet the pavement.

And my job was essentially to bridge the gap between the rank

and file of our 80 to 100 or so employees.

And Command and vice versa represent command with the rank

and file so that we could bridge that Gap.

So, I spent two years in that position, I released from their

Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2021, I went on a venture of my

own Discovery on a path. That wasn't so lit up and I just

took a giant, you know, a calculated risk and I just loved

it ever since. So I now have a company called

raven strategic, that does all kinds of stuff from security

Consulting to No speaking to guest, speaking appearances, to

the list, goes on, and on one, on one coaching, with with, with

people of various backgrounds. And and the idea is just try to

get somebody that's so used to pursuing excellence and, and

being able to draw Excellence out of other people, to help

people manage their own lives, or some of the goals that they

might have in, in the work. That's required to get to him.

So, that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last two

years. I appreciate very much the you

know the humbleness that that you do have here I want to talk

a little bit about before we get into some of the the mental

health aspects that that you are so passionate about.

So you served in the military and then moved over to the RCMP

what you know, you've got two organizations there that are

very set in their ways. Very strong, very disciplined,

very systemized. What served you, what skills did

you have in things that you had learned and gone through that

through the military? What what skills did you bring

with you to the RCMP? That served you over there and

were there any conflicts, were there ever any things that where

you're like, oh well, you learned it this way for so long.

And then when you moved over this new system here you found

to be a little bit. Well different in any way that

might might have caused a little bit of Discomfort.

Yeah absolutely. So I would say, my biggest

takeaway is having the ability to be comfortable with being

uncomfortable in my military career.

I've done some very difficult courses.

You know, courses that started with 36 people and 13, graduated

those types of numbers. Those types of attrition rates

and I essentially became the person that believes in himself.

Psych, I knew that I could do the things and I knew that no

matter how hard those things were that I would be able to do.

And I knew I establish a process in my mind on how I was going to

accomplish something. So if I set forth to do

something that was critically important, I knew exactly how to

go about taking step by step, one day, at a time and taking

incremental step towards success.

So we really establish a pattern of excellence.

And it also is Polish my ability to be stress inoculated so to

speak, you know, why? It didn't matter.

All elevated the stress was I made chaos organized.

That's what I was good at controlling chaos as far as

having it down side is certainly did.

When I initially started culture shock?

No, not really, but not nothing. That it is not, not in that

respect, but what ended up happening is, I was when I went

to the academy and Regina I was fresh out of the military and I

was put in charge of the of our troops, which was the right

marker, which is the person that's essentially in charged a

true. And that person basically leads

the troop through the training, Evolution and practice, and

extradition extra that. And one of the things that I was

not aware of is there are other ways to lead, then the

old-school old-fashioned militaristic way and autocratic

kind of leadership. So yes, I was very caring.

I had a degree of it. Intelligence.

I wasn't, I wasn't like a brute by any by any stretch of the

imagination, but I certainly did brutish things at time when the

stress was elevated on everybody and not, you know, there was

some contention or whatever. So looking back at this, after

developing as a leader over the course of 20 years, I look back

and I'm like shaking my head going man, I made so many

leaders leadership mistakes at the time, you know?

And yes I'm not dwelling on this but is just a realization that

you know, perhaps and An average every time I've had the chance

to have a conversation with somebody that wasn't my troop

when I was the teeth. The deleter.

Even though they assessed me really high, I could have done a

lot better and I always tell them that.

You know, I apologize if I was a bit of a brute, I obviously

wasn't where I needed to be as a leader and it took me years to

understand, you know, to know what, I didn't know at the time.

So now if we fast forward this to a post-war.

So I've gone in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And conflicts. Yep, the leadership in the

Canadian Forces and I'm I'm gonna use the Canadian Special

Operation command. For example, like this is where

I would take my leadership example.

Not from you know, necessarily the regular Rank and files.

Although there are great leaders in there also, but it has more,

it has more of a sort of free thinking, like we want our

people to be able to think to be critical to be able to conduct

critical analysis, and be able to problem solve on their own,

okay? And so So this is more the type

of leader that I became over over the years.

And so I connect more with that with that sort of, you know,

leadership. And so if I could go back in

time, I would do things a lot differently from that

perspective, instead of having the old school or E conflict,

this is how we lead in the military.

And this is all things done, you do things because I say so you

know, versus having an Engaged troops and and making decision

problem solving together kind of thing.

So I love that we're talking about this because I mean,

Easily, you know, with this, this show our aim and all of the

the expectations that we have, we want to change the world.

That's that's literally what we want to do.

We want to change the world and part of in that changing of the

world, we look back to where we were and where we are now and

the transformation that's happening, then we see where we

want to be. I think about situations like

like stereotypical situations, we've talked a lot about locker

rooms, we have had folks on here who have talked about, You know,

military and things like that. You think about the old-school

stereotypical ideas and I love the fact that you are, your kind

of alluding to the idea that, you know, you were brought into

a world that maybe we might think of the stereotypical, you

know, military or, you know, locker rooms places like that

and and the evolution that's happened and the critical

thinking part that you're talking about here.

Now that that leaders, you know, and not just leave.

I think everybody thirsts for that right now.

Because at the end of the day, there's so many voices that are

just coming at us and the idea that that critical thinking.

I mean I don't know if there's a better skill that human beings

can have. I think about my granddaughter

right now in the world that she's going to be inheriting.

I think I don't know if there's a better skill that somebody

could have right now in the polarized times that we live in

than critical thinking. Yeah absolutely and I would say

I would say Beyond critical thinking I would say having the

ability to physically critically critical and conduct critical

analysis. You know.

So one of the things that I sort of I think is very, very

important is to have the wheels to the pavement type experience,

some academic knowledge as well, right?

So are you you need to be able to bridge that Gap because if

your is few, spend a life a life time in Academia, a lot of the a

lot of the problem solving that you will be doing would be

inoperable in the field and when I say the field I mean in life,

right? You you haven't experienced it

from the ground. From the wheels to the pavement

type. So having the ability to have

some level of Academia which, you know, reinforces the

principle of critical analysis but also of sourcing your

information. And who said, what and

peer-reviewed material, and that kind of stuff is critically

important, but also and I'm not suggesting that somebody

necessarily has to go to school, is just having an understanding

that, that's the case, right? Where are you getting your

information from and how valid is it?

And then from there having the conversation about, you know,

the A reality because this is what happens in reality.

So how do we marry up the to? Yeah.

And so and so given him all the tools on the academic side and

none of the operational tools doesn't work given him all the

operational tools and under the academic tools doesn't work.

So it has to be there. It has to be like everything

else in Balance. Yes, well, I mean, okay, so my

background is, I came in, I'm from the financial service

business and what I got into the business.

I remember somebody a mentor of mine saying to me, hey, when

your plumber, Giving you investment advice, it's time to

get out and I didn't know what that meant.

And then in, I've seen so many bubbles be created and burst in

that time. And before a bubble burst,

whatever it is, whether it's a real estate one, whether it's,

you know, whatever you want to talk about, what's going on with

crypto. The.com Revolution, back in the

in the late 90s, all of these things before the bubble bursts,

you get an incredible amount of layman talking like, They're

experts about things and I mean I see I've seen that in so many

different ways and when you start seeing the Layman talk

about things and all they're doing is they are parroting

things that they have heard but they have no academic knowledge

like you've said or or even the operational knowledge, that's

where you realize, okay. It might be time to really

observe what's going to happen here because the pendulum might

swing back did I just not describe two or three things

that are going on right now in the times that we live Right

now. Yeah absolutely.

And you know what's interesting is humans have a limited

capacity for complexity, right? Because we need we need to be

able to make sense of our world and it is absolutely asinine

that we're even here in the first place.

Sort of spinning around the sun on a ball of water, let alone

all the things that we have to make sense of.

And one of the propensity of the brain is to oversimplify

everything so that we may understand it.

What's important to? Stand.

Is that our pursuit to try to understand?

Everything does not work and it will never.

So what we need to do is we need to go from the unconscious

incompetence stage 2D conscious and competent stage that is a

major step forward. Once we are consciously

incompetent, we know to look for things when they happen, we know

that there's probably more to the story, we know that we need

to be informed and that we need to speak to Subject matter

expert or read about it or do something that is more in depth,

right? The problem is most humans don't

realize that we do that so they continue to be unconsciously

incompetent as humans so they literally don't know what they

don't know but they're also not interested in knowing if they

don't know something whereas if you don't if you know what you

don't know you can go to the person that know it and have the

information. So the goal isn't to assimilate

and have the information available readily.

Available to you because you somehow know something about

everything because that we know that that's impossible, because

there is so much, but knowing that we are literally

incompetent. Most of the time is, is step one

to taking ownership of that and taking control of Our Fate as

humans. Once we established that then we

can start looking at, who knows what?

We don't know and finding the information That's almost

biblical, you know, isn't it? Isn't that a proverb somewhere?

The wise man is the one that knows that he's a fool,

something like that. I and I, you know, this I'm

going to marry that to the fact that I love this gig that I do

so so much because I love talking to people who are

smarter than me. And that's, that's the vast

majority of people out there when I hear someone like

yourself who has delved down this Rabbit Hole, as far as you

have Seb, I just appreciate these little bite-sized.

Pieces of information that you can give that my mind can

assimilate like that is a very simple concept that I can apply

to my life and I can I can use it as a lens.

When I'm when I'm when I'm looking at something or

pondering something, that is a very simple thing that can be

done. I think that's the mark of a

good leader, is being able to simplify things and bite-sized

things. So the masses can understand it

and apply it. You have seen in your life

between the military and the RCMP.

P. I mean, it's really two separate

careers by the way, I also not for nothing but our audience is

going to want to know the secret to the Fountain of Youth.

You clearly have it. Uh huh.

I'm having live the lives that you've led up to this point.

Oh my goodness. The two careers that you've had

and and looking the way that you do and having the mindset that

you do the fresh mindset, I'm going to ask you this for

personally, how much work has it taken for these two careers to

not have beaten the crap out of you and for you to Be who you

are. Today obviously, you've taken

care of yourself physically, but also mentally as well.

What are some of the secrets that you have?

What are some of the the parts of your journey that have kept

you healthy that way? Yeah, I mean, there's I think

it's a conglomeration of things, right?

You are correct, then that my job requirements, always

involved physical abilities, right?

So I was always a physical person as a youth I played

outside. You know, we are the generation

that didn't really have, you know, anything until later in

our, in our teenage years ago, video game specific about

exactly and no cell phones and everything.

So I did a lot of physical Endeavors.

I certainly was very passionate about About physical fitness

because I think it's highly underrated and benefits on the

mine and the emotional. Well Wellness is undeniable and

and and it was very important to me but also I was you know

grounded in a purpose and that is a massive.

It's a massive sort of pillar of the resilient scheme, right?

So having the ability to what it is that you are doing, is it

truly meaningful for you? And if it is truly meaningful

for you then you are passionate about doing it and it Longer is

work and then the down sides that are coming along with it

are easier to negotiate second. I never let any of my careers to

find me regardless of how much I loved my careers.

I never was a cop or I never was a, you know, a military guy.

I just so happen to work in the military.

I just so happen to work in the police force.

But even when I was, you know, proud to be a team leader on the

Emergency Response. Team, I was Seb, I wasn't, you

know, an emergency team leader, whatever the case may be.

But and I think what we're seeing in policing is people are

spending 30 years in there and the job defines them, they're

nothing without it, and then they leave or something happens

that interferes with this. And when we talk about PTSD, we

can talk about, obviously Sanctuary trauma or they or they

they are wrong or they feel they're wrong by the, by the

organization or they are actually wrong but your

organization and everything and that takes a chip of the old

block. It's actually affecting their

their persona it's affecting their identity, which this Never

a thing for me. So, physical fitness was

prioritize, always mental and intellectual development was

prioritize always. So, I push myself outside my

comfort zone. Not just physically, but

mentally always, I never let myself be comfortable.

So, I did it allowed me to learn about the tools that I can use

to preemptively address some of the, some of the things that

would affect me either mentally or emotionally.

See the problem is when it comes to policing, when it comes to

military when it comes to anything really even in In any,

in a corporate setting, people don't invest in their.

Well, Wellness ahead of time, there are reactive they get

themselves all stressed out and all caught up in everything and

eventually when it catches up to them, they're like, okay, now,

what and what am I supposed to do with this, although the punch

you prepare for is much better than the punch, you're not

prepared for so, preemptively addressing some of those things,

and having your key people around and understanding what it

means to have meaningful people and supportive people around you

and and literally discarding the People that are bringing nothing

positive to your life and you cannot bring anything positive

to and really be a little bit selfish in that self-care.

Okay? And when I say selfish is

eventually, obviously if a friend calls you and they're in

needs up, this is not what I'm referring to here.

I'm referring to, you know, to blood-sucking vampires.

That everything is negative and everything's everybody else's

fault and they're deflecting everywhere.

And while these leeches are absolutely over everybody in

life, and how do we And generally, it takes people until

their 40s to realize that happens.

It's important to do that earlier.

It's important to teach that to her kids, so that they

understand, somebody might weigh you down forever, if you don't.

So, having the right people around you, having the right

purpose, being engaged, physically, mentally, and

emotionally learning things. Being outside in nature,

connecting with nature, connecting with freakin animals.

Like, for all I care, you know, like just having meaningful

things in your life and my life was like that.

Additionally, I had a very, very difficult upbringing and lots of

adversity. So we know that adversity is

almost always directly correlated to resilience if the

person doesn't go the other way. So it can create growth or it

can create another another set of issues in my case, it was

growth, that it created. So yes, a very adversity sort of

written youth, which, you know, built a foundation that I could

take a hit, you know. And so, let me give you an

example of this. It's just, I just returned from

a trip overseas. So I was in Haiti.

Give you a little, a little piece of the landscape in Haiti

right now. 65 to 75% of the of the capital Port-au-Prince has

and gang control. Heavily armed gang control.

Okay, they have two ports. The weapons are coming you know

probably from the states in there and we're talking about

high-tech Weaponry there's daytime gang rates going on in

the cities there is you know, factions Beware there shortage

of fuel gas food. There is, I mean, 10,000 cases

of Cholera over the last year, death 1500 abductions of

domestic. Essentially domestic in nature.

So people being abducted from the from the streets to be for

ransom and and so that the gangs can, you know, get some money.

So this is the landscape over there right now, there's hardly

any government, its lawlessness, lot of snacks over there.

Okay so I'm having a conversation.

Relation with a bunch of people in the cons in the context of a

paper. I'm writing and I have this

conversation and we start talking about mental Wellness,

we start talking about mental emotional wellness.

And as soon as I start talking about that they're looking at me

weird and eventually we come to the suicide piece, right?

And they're like and and they look at me shocked.

Why would anybody do that? Why?

And I'm thinking to myself. Wow.

Like this is very telling. Yep, this is very telling so I

look deeper into this. I'm like okay, let's have a look

because perhaps to just unaware, right?

So I I put my iPod, I pulled up a peer-reviewed article and it

says sure. Enough 8.6 percent per 100,000

habitants do you know what it is in Canada?

12.7 or something, right? It seems like nothing, but think

about this, a four percent average.

Over 100,000 people is a massive difference and these guys

compared their lives with ours. And and again, this is not about

invalidating, how people feel here and all this good stuff,

but it is a reality people, react adversity, builds

resilience, and then more comfortable that we are.

And the more Or comfortable comfortable that we keep

ourselves in, it doesn't help us at all in fact and so for me it

was absolutely a shock to see that a third world country

afflicted by all those things. And you know, one of the, one of

the lady I was there. She was pretty smart.

They're all educated and she was pretty small, pretty smart.

And she said something along the lines of we don't commit

suicide, we get suicided, you know, and it made for a funny

moment. But Man, but he go.

But it goes to show what a perspective on life though.

Like, sure laugh at that, you know what I'm saying?

And how real was it? What she was saying was tongue

in cheek, but it was every bit as sobering as to how real it

is. You know?

And, and I mean, yeah, I the idea that as comfortable as we

are, it also gives us puts us in in Jeopardy of these types of

trappings of This is just the human mind biology, all this

kind of stuff. I think about that though.

I also think about there being opportunity, like, for guys that

are listening to this right now that are facing some sort of

adversity, whatever it is, you know, you know,

relationship-wise, it could be, you know, job.

The idea of a purposelessness, whatever.

Whatever that is, there is a switch in our brain.

If I'm hearing you right? That we could flip to go.

Wait a second. How we're feeling right now

actually could be a springboard. Word into something great.

You talk about the idea of resilience will many times that

resilience can lead to not just survival, like, we're talking

about with the good people of Haiti, but it could lead to us,

giving ourselves a bigger better, more fulfilled life,

whatever that looks like. The anxiety that you're feeling

right now listener. Whoever you are or whatever it

is, that you're feeling myself. I woke up this morning with some

anxiety, that happens that anxiety.

We can actually, if we have an awareness and this is to go back

to your original point, Point. The idea that we actually become

aware of these things that we have some of these critical

thinking ideas where we're not just being sheep.

You know, when we're we're told to go where where, you know, in

a rut with our head down but if we actually pop our head up and

become aware of these things, the moment we're aware that

there's adversity of any sort. We can realize that is also

opportunity to get better if I'm hearing you, right?

Is that, is that a my on or am I way off?

No. Absolutely, absolutely.

Everything is an opportunity for growth and it starts with its

start. With priming your brain for so

right? And so if I, if I look at

something and I and I and I first see it, as the biggest

challenge I've ever faced, and my first reaction is this is

going to destroy me, this is going to destroy you period.

But if you but if you start with the mindset that this is going

to be difficult and I will work through it and regardless of

what life throws at me. I will work through it.

Yeah and if I need some help it's fine.

Like there is nothing this is not again in validating.

What people are feeling if they need?

Um help if they need somebody to guide them or whatever, the case

may be, but at the end of the day, they still have to make a

decision. And that decision has to be.

This will make me stronger and as tacky as it sounds, it's the

only way to prepare for the next hit because my my issue isn't

the fact that we can sustain a hit.

I when I prepared my guys on the team, I prepared them to have a

10-year career in tactical operation and have thousands of

called under their belt, right? So I prepared them to go to a

call get cleared from it. All the good stuff come back,

return to a call. Come back return to a call and

so on so forth. Okay.

So this is where the bucket Theory where your add drops of

water and the water rises until it starts overflowing, unless

you ditched a bucket every single time.

Okay, so, that's the idea. The idea is in, can you take a

hit? The idea is, can you take 400

that? Is that is the idea, right?

And, and it's not about being fatalistic, and it's not about

being neurotic, it's all about. Knowing that regardless of what

happens to you for as long as there is, hope there is, there

is life. And there is, there is an

opportunity there. So in 1957, I think a scientist

by the name of Kurt richer. I believe was his name led a

group of scientist and they conducted testing with rats.

Did you ever hear the story? It keep going, is I think this

might be I think I know what your we're going to hurt us.

But keep going, sure. So, this was Norwegian

Norwegian. Rat domesticated, rats and wild

rats. Okay?

So they had, they had a baseline of both.

So, they take the and this is long before Peta, and and animal

protection groups, and quite honestly, you know, the best way

to honor the sacrifices, to remember, what the study

actually said at the end of the day.

So mr. Rich Turner and his team took

the Norwegian domesticated rats, and they had him swim in the

water and a bucket of water. And it and they let him swim

until they essentially drowned. And it has to wait, okay?

The majority of them were between 40 and 60 hours.

Okay, so they swam and stayed at the surface for 40 to 60 hours.

Yeah. Then they conducted the same

test with wild rats within 15 minutes, most of them were dead,

Okay? So they looked at this same

physiological disposition, same the species.

So, to speak everything except one group as domesticated.

The other group was not Yep. And so they came to the

conclusion and I think it's fairly it's it has to be fairly

accurate. I mean, they came to the

conclusion that the wild rats felt hopeless and didn't see a

way out of this and quit. They just let themselves round.

They just quit to just stop. Stop swimming and let themselves

around. Now, what's interesting with

this? And somebody might say, well,

maybe that's not the case. Okay?

So let's listen to what what they continue doing.

So, they took wild rats, and they put him in the water.

Let them swim. About 10 minutes, take a took

him out, put him back in, 415 took him out, put him back in

for 30 took him out. And eventually, they would also

be able to swim between 40 and 60 hours because they were now

stress inoculated and they knew it was feasible.

There was a way out, right? They had hope.

Okay, so at the end of the day, hope respective drives hope so

they're domesticated rats that are, you know, obviously used to

being caged and all this stuff. Had a different perspective than

the wild rats that are free to go.

Everywhere they go and all of a sudden they were restricted in

their movements. Yeah.

Okay. So perspective drives hope when

there is hope there's survivability yeah, period.

So all of this came together and it is exactly the same for

humans, it's exactly the same. So when we're seeking

perspective, we need to be seeking Spective from people

that have built that have it worse than us, and the goal is

not to invalidate our own feelings or own emotions.

Know the goal is, let those emotions flow through.

You respect that, you know what, no matter how bad other people

have it, for me. This is a bad day today and I

understand that. However, if I was to compare my

day with, you know, a different set of circumstances the 20s

right now. Yeah, that's it.

Get your, get your perspective from the people that have it

worse than you and then start seeing the hope, you know, it's

almost like when things are going wrong in your life,

there's this Dark Cloud following you everybody around.

You can see that the cloud ends but you cannot because it's

right above you, yep. I we talk a lot about gratitude

on this, on this podcast. I mean and I mean, you know,

I've said it many times gratitude is a silver bullet.

It simply is the action of gratitude you know, being

artificial artificial. Like we're you literally just

set yourself up at the beginning of the day and you make yourself

come up with three things you're grateful for, you know like like

not even you're not in this place of gratefulness, something

amazing just happened in. You're feeling the Rays of Hope

and love. And warmth and gratefulness that

just naturally have. No, no, you're feeling like crap

and at the beginning of the day, you come up with things that

you're grateful for begrudgingly, even guess what?

It starts to rewire things, it just does.

And this is another version of gratefulness is, is being able

to look at somebody's example, the perspectives.

You talk about these different perspectives.

That are there, what it could be or what it has been in the past,

you know? What you've gone through that,

kind of a thing to reframe that perspective and to add some hope

into it. And also, by the way, I have

seen Achievers, do things that the, you know, the thinker's

couldn't even fathom. And the reason that the

Achievers have done, it is because of mindset, because of

Hope because of the things that you're talking about here.

Their super powers are silver bullets.

I love that we're talking about this.

I especially love that we're talking about this in the

society that we live in right now.

Fascinating times, you know, for the for folks who are aware and

looking around and being introspective and and

retrospective. And and and and and and looking

at where our culture is at right now, fascinating times, I'm a

gen xers and I remember when we were growing up some of the

things that we thought that the Baby Boomers did and it was like

you know what no we're going to change these things.

We're going to change these things.

We're gonna you know, us Nirvana, listening,

flannel-wearing coffee. Drinkers is how I like to refer

to us and and some of the things that we said we're going to

change. I do not believe that.

If you would have told us in the coffee shop back then that the

generations after us are going to be coming along.

They're going to literally tear the way that we live apart.

They're going to look at the way we live the way that we've been

taught to live under a microscope and they're going to

completely tear it apart and we're going to get into cancel

culture. All of these things and and the

liberal aspect of things are going to actually call into

question freedom of speech with, with us growing up.

It was the right. That was, you know, that, that

was the conservative Wing was, was, was trying to get rid of

freedom of speech and all of that kind of stuff.

We saw it in music and all this other stuff.

Now we're seeing it from the liberal side of things because

of the idea of not wanting to hurt feelings and all of the

sensitivities and all that and we're seeing freedom of speech

challenged and And and these are some of the things that are

causing, you know, this comfortable Society where our

suicide numbers are our mental health numbers are through the

roof compared to some of these places you were talking about

that have actual life and death perspective.

I've just done a lot of talking here but I know I'm setting a

table for a conversation that you are very very, very well

versed in talking about but just to give us growing up us g.i.,

Joe Levin, kids that just love this stuff growing up, could we

even fathom? That this is the life that we

would have in our 40s and 50s. No, but here's what, here's

what's interesting with that, with this, with this prospect

it's okay. So we all got to where we are on

account of how we were raised and how we grew up, right?

And then when we got there, what did we do?

We started raising our kids and we're like, I want to prevent

them from having any of the adversity that I went through.

So basically I'm like, okay, hold on here.

So let me get this straight. I understand that you want your

kids safe. We all want our kids safe.

If like you, you know, we obviously that's okay.

However, the reason why you are the person that you are today

and you have the strength that you have today is because of

what you went through. If you prevent all adversity and

take it out of your kid's life, you are not given a gift gifting

them, anything quite to the contrary.

And so, that's exactly we as a generation and we need to take

some ownership on that. We did that to this current

generation. Yeah, we did that.

Yes, don't feel, don't let them Is no deflection here.

That's not look around and going, you know, like, whose

fault is that? And how did that happen?

We did that. I love this.

Yes. So you know understanding that

yes there is a measure of measures that were there is some

measures that we should take to keep our kids safe.

For example. Like we were a driving in the

back of a pickup while the driver was drunk and we had no

seatbelt and you know, those things obviously physical harm.

Those types of things we understand.

Same with the bully is MM. You know bully is MM actually if

we don't interfere with it has a potential when their little

brains are not fully developed has the potential to hurt them.

A lot more than Create growth, right?

So we know that. So we have to interfere with

that and I'm totally good with that.

Yes. However, there's a lot of the

natural things in life that we want to take away from them and

they should experience themselves.

Like, perhaps, you know, if the kid is 9 and you were getting up

in the morning to help them, get dressed and everything, you are

not doing it correctly, okay. Now is the time to teach them

the skills and to say okay man you're on your own.

Yeah good to go let's see it. Okay yeah and this is just a you

know a Example that I'm taking, but obviously, we try, we over

this generation overprotected, our kids, and our kids are now

suffering, they're suffering because we overprotected them,

and that's pretty evident. And so, you know, I would say we

need to, we need to kind of balance the pendulums a little

bit, but now it's obviously difficult thing.

When once an entire generation is affected now, it changes

things. But now where they are seeing is

what we are seeing as a society. As a collective is we're

starting to see See a shift where people start to find the

balance a little bit again, right?

Like, and it's slow, and it's painful, but it but it seems to

be happening. And hopefully it does before we

as a Humanity self-destruct. Because the world is in a, his

in is in a poor state right now. Well, if I'm being honest and

daughter, my four-year-old granddaughter is my favorite

thing in the whole world. The Delight that she brings to

me, is just I've I've I've never experienced anything like that

before. We have her, she's four years

old, we have her in MMA. Okay, so she plays has a place

called Bushido here in Kelowna. You know, they've got a bunch of

UFC fighters have actually come out of there and they have these

amazing kids classes. And I remember saying to shout

out to David Lee who, you know, he runs to she do.

And and I said to him, when we put a Lara in there, for the

first time I said, hey do you guys give like, does every all

the kids get like participation Awards and all that stuff I

asked about this because, you know, this is something

obviously that I I think Rings true to what you're talking

about here. He's like, no, I'm like awesome

because she needs to know what it's like to lose.

She needs to know. Like if she is, she's a

competitive kid and she's got a lot of potential and so she

needs to know what it's like to feel.

What it's like to lose and mma's a perfect example of that

because you're tapping out all the time.

You're, you know, you constantly have to tap out and I just love

the character that that builds into people because when you

have to tap out, You learn, you know, Jerry Seinfeld's got a

great great theory about this. When it comes to ski looks at

skateboarders, he's driving by see these skateboarders.

He was just to learn one. Kickflip on a skateboard, you're

falling, you're getting bloody knees.

Your do, you know, you have to do it thousands of times before

you get it right? And he looks at those keyboards.

Those skateboarders are going to be okay in life.

And I think we need a little bit more of that and and you're

right. I mean that's it, is it is, it

is our wanting to Shield. Old people like my dad.

He grew up in horror. He grew up in horror.

He was a living like a man when he was 15 out of his house

because of the horror, he grew up in, and as a result of that,

I didn't see one drop of alcohol in my house growing up.

Personally, I just didn't I'd go over to a friend's house is like

oh, what's that? Like okay.

I just I didn't know and it was because my dad wanted to meet to

Shield me from what he experienced, amazing sentiment

natural sentiment. But sometimes we throw the baby

out with the Water. And I'm glad you brought that up

here. This, this kind of awareness are

the things that we need to talk about.

I want to bring it back to mental Wellness for a second

because you have a fascinating perspective on these things in

the military more. So in the RCMP, I mean we've

seen as this new generation has come up, there are benefits.

I don't want to just crap all over.

I mean, the idea of bringing mental Wellness to the Forefront

of things that are important. And and I mean, it son.

It's unprecedented in North Erica.

You know, the studying the knowledge that we have on this,

the fact that it's in in your, in our faces, like, I think

about some of the entertainment that's out there that even just

delves into mental wellness and mental health.

Did you see that shift in that Evolution happening?

Maybe in the military but more. So in the RCMP, did you see

there being more of a focal point between the old stereotype

of. Okay, let's fill the bucket.

Let's just, you know, bury it down, bury it down, let it fill

up, whatever. And then that's when the heart

attack happens. That's when the suicide happens.

That's when the violence happens.

Whatever it is. Did you see that Evolution right

in front of you? Did you see it happening?

Where you aware of this happening going where?

Okay, yeah, people are emptying out their buckets more.

Yeah, absolutely. What I would, I did witness is a

shift from something that was heavily stigmatized to

something. That was not only acceptable,

but expected, right? And I would say that this

probably happened 10 years in my career.

Are you say between 7 or 10 years of my career?

So it would have been like, 2008 roughly 2008, 2009 is where we

really saw an uptick in in initiatives, not only from an

organizational standpoint, but also a shift in the in the

people themselves because everybody is seeking like who's

doing what for mental health. But at the end of the day, what

are you doing for mental health? Like you as an individual, like

be a leader in that, right? What do you do to?

What do you do to support the people?

You work with? What do you do to make somebody

feel accepted when the person leaves and leaves a room?

Are you, you know, out there, you know, bitching about them

doing this and that, and whatever, and then, and then

they can feel that there's a variety of different things that

are that occurred over, that course.

I'm not suggesting that all those practices are completely

done. But what I will say, is that

over the course of the last 10 years, there's been an an

incredible increase in generating awareness.

And and, and Andy stigmatisation process with respect to mental

health and there is been, you know, a lot of arguably

sometimes, maybe overdiagnosis stuff some of the post-traumatic

stress disorders or even occupational, stress injuries.

Sometimes you don't have post-traumatic stress injuries.

Your life is miserable. That's different, right?

And I think, and at that point, that's a good news at times,

right? I guess, certainly we need to

understand. There is a, there is a inherent

sacrifice that occurs for anybody.

Jumping in the sort of a the First Response World.

However having had a life-changing experience,

doesn't necessarily make you have PTSD.

And now once you have that, what we find difficult, is to help

the person out of that. Because it's it, at one point,

it becomes defining. And if it does not for

everybody, but for certain people, they can become

defining. And if it become defining, then

there are stuck in a vicious cycle.

Cycle that they are keeping the two ends of that Loop together,

an account on account of, that is the evil, you know, and

sometimes the evil you know is better than the evil, you don't

know. So for you to take steps that

are incredibly uncomfortable to get yourself out of a certain

predicament sometimes is very, very difficult.

It's actually can be more difficult than staying in their

status quo and so I went on a tangent here, but yes, the

answer is becomes comfort food. It's we learn to tolerate the

things, we hate sure it can. Absolutely can.

Yeah, because it explains, it explains some of our struggles.

You know, I really like this example from Jordan Pederson,

speaking about a client that when his office in the client

said, you know, mr. Peterson.

I'm depressed and, and Jordan was telling the story on one of

his one of his guests speaking, appearances.

It basically says to the clients start digging into this a little

bit. And, you know, says, you know, I

lost my mom and I lost my job, and I lost this and that, and

Jordan's kind of shaking his head.

You know, he's an emotionally intelligent man and he's just

kind of shook his head there and he's like, I got a good in the

bad news. The good news is you're not

depressed. The bad news is, your life is

miserable. You know, and a but what in and

what ended up happening is actually the person that was

seeking the help was actually was actually comforted by that.

Okay so I'm not depressed. It's normal for me to feel this

way. Yeah, there is Epson flows, on

the emotional side. In life, things will hit you.

Yes. And when they do, it's not going

to feel good and it will take time to overcome them but you

can and when you do, you will be stronger for it.

So it's not a matter of panicking when something.

You. It's a matter of allowing it to

flow through you for the time that's required.

Provided that the time that's required is reasonable and give

yourself a chance to get better before you start panicking about

your State of Affairs, right? And pigeonholing you and letting

you sit like you say, I'm just going back to the how you

started this. Don't let it Define.

You don't let it become your identity.

Don't let it become who you are. And the awareness of somebody

saying to me, like if I'm OK, if I got a big piece of food on my

face, I want someone to tell me about it.

You know, I want to be aware of that, so I can do something

about it. And I think that that is a

silver bullet as well as is helping each other, become aware

of these things, but us doing that self-discovery, that

personal responsibility T, you know again back to the back to

the beginning that problem solving we, but many times we

just aren't we don't wake up. And and these moments it's

conversations like this that that help people wake up, I hate

on slippery time gets. When we when it comes to these

things there's a couple things I want to get to PTSD.

You were talking about PTSD. You saw really at the end of the

day, you saw the idea of PTSD go from you know a text.

To becoming a buzzword to becoming a common phrase that

the masses have heard PTSD in the news, a lot, these days

here, I've watched you post on this, by the way, slab

Commander, right SLA on Instagram.

That's the best way to find you is.

Let's laughter SLA, VC M. MD R is that what it is SLA.

VC cmdr cmdr, right? Yeah.

Okay good. And that's what people want to

find Seb, please. Please go check out his insta.

It's it's amazing. It's inspiring, it's insightful

and it will it will. It will shake things up and help

create some of these moments where we need to be aware.

I just, I'm so inspired by you semi really, really, really am?

I appreciate you so much. I've watched some of your posts

recently when it comes to What's the best way to set the table

for this? I think there are some people

out there who are helping others, who might have some

mental health duress, wave the White Flag when it doesn't need

to be waived. And and and there's some

alarming things going on when it comes to that am I am, I am i

setting that table, right? Yeah, I'm not sure which one of

my post I post a lot, I'm not sure which one of my boys were

referring to this book, The made program or where I'm going with

that. I mean, I look at I look at the

eye. Dia of folks, with mental

Wellness issues, that are being given that, you know, the the

incentive almost or the, the, you know, the instructions,

right? I'm not a big fan of the book

that when the Final Exit book that teaches you, how to kill

yourself with showing up in the public library in the nineties,

I that that is not. I'm not a fan of that and I'm

not against free speech, of course, that kind of a thing.

But I also don't want to put poison in children's hands

either. So that's kind of where I'm

going with this and I know that you have very strong opinions

when it comes to that as well. Yeah, where to start.

What kind of alternative galaxies are we in that people

as Associated to an organization whose sole purpose is to assist

Veterans Post Service suggesting to those same veterans, that it

should be taking their own lives on account of not being able to

overcome their PTSD, which by the way they got, as a result of

server then country overseas. Are you kidding me?

And where is your emotional intelligence?

And where is your common sense? And why are you in the position

that you are currently in? It is absolutely asinine further

to that when this came around, was there a big uproar of the

government level, like, was all the bells and whistles whistles

activated and we must investigate this to the, you

know, to the deepest, the deepest of our abilities to make

sure. Because if one person Person was

offered that how long has that person work there?

You know, many more have been. I just I don't know that I can

find a word to say, how Despicable of an act, this can

be how truly despicable that is and you know what, wait till we

find out that some of these people actually did go through

with it because we do not know for the time being.

Or if somebody does it certainly isn't me if might be known in

the course of the investigation, whatever the case may be, But

men think of it think of this it is absolutely asinine

Preposterous it is absolutely the most destructive thing that

we can do for every living veteran that's ever sacrifice

for this country. So with that is now what do we

do with that? Well a we find who was told this

we follow up with everybody who was told this we follow up with

everybody to ensure that nobody has kind of gone through with

this or what Of mindset, and they should be getting all the

treatment that they can buy the highest levels of

professionalism to overcome. The hurdles that are going to

come from receiving validation, that probably you should kill

yourself. It is completely completely

insane. There is zero amount of of

critical analysis that will change our insane.

This is quite to the contrary. It just reinforces it more and

more. And so, I've had that Aaron's

reach into me. Typically that were offered made

that were offered made and the Damage that's caused could

foreseeably be. Basically, you cannot, you may

not be able to change. It may be completely, you know,

irreversible is the word I was looking for.

Yeah, I was going through my head and French and English and

all the other languages I know and I'm just kidding.

But yeah like it, you know as serious as the topic is Is it is

it how many of those veterans have received information that

you can turn around right? And I would say if they are

listening, I've had people from the Veterans Affair.

Really thoughtful people reach out on certain things to say,

Hey, you know, heads up, you know, you have a friend here,

that's struggling, whatever it. And they're not divulging

Secrets, but they're simply saying they've read a post or

something, and I would be looking into women, whatever.

So there are a ton of caring people that work for Veterans

Affair, there is no question, are they burocratic lie,

completely stifled and just just like any other government

organization in this country like we literally can't do

anything. About red tape every 10 feet and

we're basically, were, are due processes are kind of like,

turning and aircraft carrier around, instead of a speedboat,

and is just takes weeks to do it, right?

Or, or at least that's the story.

So yeah. So aside from the fact that is

completely unacceptable. Now, actions to be taken, find

out exactly who was offered that, if anybody was taking,

they the biggest piece that's missing in Canada and I would

say North America, Typically is accountability.

Yes, accountability. And when I say accountability

man your organization did that the accountability that comes

along with with proposing that our War veterans.

Commit suicide. I don't know if you can overcome

it as an organization I don't but definitely it should happen.

So once once we figure it out, what's figure figure out the

cases, we need to be digging and digging and digging.

This is kind of like you know a lot of the a lot of the say

sexual assault cases or whatever.

For you you on Earth one. And next thing you know, there's

100. Yep.

And and they all need to help that they need so that they can

overcome whatever the repercussions of that were.

And so it's a big big project but it has to be dug up.

Yes you can't you can't you can attempt to say that there was

only two and then sort of put the carpet on top of it and say

yeah everybody else is really quiet and unless somebody

volunteers the information, sometimes the damage is so

critical. Or catastrophic that people

cannot even speak to it. Yeah, so it's not necessarily

that everybody's going to be volunteering to come out and

say, yeah, this happens. This happened to me.

Also that's going to be your job to be, to be basically

conducting audits on the cases and having the conversations

with the right people to try to find as many as we can.

And then from there, there has to be an accountability that

sets a very, very strong message to anybody else that might one

day. Consider doing something that's

stupid. Yes.

Said, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you talking about

that. This today, you're right.

There are some things like this. Can't be a Band-Aid.

The only way to clean a wound is to dig Around, clean it out, and

he lit properly suture it properly and that's what needs

to happen here. You know, when we heard about

what you're talking about here, the idea of this of this program

again the made program is not Everything has good intentions

are many things. Most things have good intentions

in how they're set up but they can be used improperly a

chainsaw as an invaluable tool. It can save somebody months and

months and months and months of work considering technology that

used to be available on the homestead.

It literally can be a lifesaver, but a chainsaw can also do a

tremendous amount of damage if it's used improperly and it only

takes one person using it improperly to really, really

make a mark like this. I'm going to sew the idea of

Folks, we had a, we had a gentleman who has been on a

self-discovery is very similar to yourself actually.

He's got a, the intellectual mindset, the Tactical mindset

and, and he has suffered with depression for 45 years and has

gone through every single. I'm not going to say, as far as

he's concerned, every single therapy that there is available

when it comes to depression and he still has it.

Is he throwing in the towel? No, he's looking at.

This is like, it's his life. This is how he can contribute to

society. He's also extremely well

educated. He's extremely successful in our

culture and he's a beacon for other people who have this type

of almost like you said, irreversible depression.

And I think about some of these people who are out there, where

if we just gave the proper support and Care rather than the

idea of okay, just throw in the throw in the towel, I just

appreciate your perspective and you and I wanted to give you the

ability to talk about this because I know it is something

that is What's your heart? Now that being said, you know,

we're getting closer to the end here.

You woke up inspired this morning and I want to talk about

that anytime someone's inspired. I want to pay attention to that.

Where are you at right now? Where are you going with your

with your business, with your movement, with all of these

things? What are some of the things that

you're dealing with right now? So Mmm.

Yeah so I should sort of I think there was a perfect storm that

that triggered some some deep deep introspection.

Very early this morning to my partner's, dismay free coffee

introspection. Pretty much much free coffee.

Probably three hours, too early. But you know, coming back from

Haiti having had that at that, this was my second trip in a

year coming back from their having that perspective and then

last night. So I'm taking a master's of

International Security Global counterterrorism right now and

I'm doing a master's of of that. And and we have a cohort that

disgust disgust Things on a secret on the secure medium, and

we're kind of chatting about, you know, sort of the the, the,

world's landscape so to speak. And there's, it's an

international degree. So there's people from all over

the world and there's a lot of Scholars in that group and it is

absolutely fascinating, you know, to see the perspectives

and and some of the political geopolitical landscape and

issues and things. And at the end of the day, it's

way too complex for most people to even fathom what's going on

in the world right now. So we again will try to and that

includes me by the way and we will try to, we will try to, you

know, simplify it so that we can make sense of it.

But ultimately it what it did to me.

Last night I think is really, really exposing that I what you

know that it basically made me consciously incompetent right in

a realm. And so and so this morning I

woke up with an epiphany and I'm like how many other things are

we actually Lee. A prison of like a mental and

emotional and intellectual prison of and how many other

things that are made up or, or conjured up by us as humans or

that we were told like anecdotal stifling or anything like that

that we were, we a deer through on account of this is the way it

is, or instead of challenging. Absolutely everything.

And I, when I say challenging, I don't mean necessarily in a

physical way. But how do I as a human being

start challenging? My own thought process because I

can control. What everybody else is doing.

And this is essentially what people are pushing, conspiracy

theory or doing. It's like, wow, I'm going to

tell you this, and this and this were you guys doing about it.

It's like, what are you doing about the information that you

have? So, I'm lying there in bed and

I'm like, I want to know everything.

I'm watching this show on Netflix, it's called ancient

apocalypse. Have you watched that?

I haven't watched it yet? No.

Oh my God. You like, you need to watch

that. I tell I meant that its title

loan. I meant it's completely insane.

It's basically, it has to do with lost.

Shins and like the relationship between them.

And there is there a bigger picture here in is there is

there, you know, was there Humanity 16,000 years earlier

than what is known from, the article archaeological

standpoint, all the stuff and there's a ton of absolutely

compelling evidence and there's a ton of circumstantial evidence

and it's great. It's a great show.

But again, exemplifies like do we know what we know or don't or

do we just believe what we think we know and so all those things

all magic in this morning. I I said I am so curious.

I just want to know everything like I do not I don't like

mystery. I want to know everything.

How am I going to? I'm not going to know everything

and then I'm like okay I don't know if you read my post about

going one step at a time and not seeing the outcome so I'm like

okay yeah yes yeah so I'm basically I applied my own

Theory to my own question this morning.

I'm like okay the fact is I know.

So take for example like take a bit of a segue here so you have

somebody that has a PhD in And Affairs for example, like Asian.

Yes. You know, Affairs and and you

have somebody that has say Wells world's PhD, the person that has

the PHD in Asian Affairs is likely to know more much more

than the person that has a PHD in World affair, because it's

more of a either more of a generalist, right then.

So they didn't dive into it nearly as in death specific.

Yeah. Exactly.

So now we are talking about to, Two levels of Scholars that are

very elevated. But this guy would say no you're

wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

So what do you actually know? Okay, so if we take this as a

base premise, there is no way we can get there.

There's no way as individual humans, we cannot it's

impossible. Like we can't know everything

about everything at all. In fact, we can't have any level

of expertise to speak of on anything.

So my thing was, what if we took ourselves from Just incompetent

to consciously incompetent. That is a massive, massive step

forward, because at that point when the need arises for me to

know something, I know that I can go out and seek, right?

No. Whoever the expert of the person

is in a certain field of endeavor, and I can learn so

much more about this and now I made myself smarter closer to

knowing things but we know that the end goal of knowing

everything is impossible. Oh, okay, so it's more about

taking incremental steps towards knowing more and more, and more.

And then I just went into this sort of, you know, Loop of

thinking about all the things that I was thinking in my head.

So some of them were just okay. So let's talk about

overthinking, for example, as a concept, sure, and since I've

been a boy people have always been told over thinking over

thinking is bad, right? You overthink like Is it going

to get messed up? And you're not going to be and

so I'm sitting there and I go. Okay.

So all those sort of think tanks that are that are doing a lot of

thinking that are doing a lot of critical thinking and everything

that come up with Solutions or hypothesis is or whatever.

The case may be yeah. Are they not overthinking right?

And so well, I mean some of them just can't stop their brain from

thinking I'm one of them. Hey, so I started thinking I'm

like okay, is it possible? That everything we know about

overthinking is wrong, is it possible that if somebody is

over thinking, but they have to ability ability to manage the

information that comes out of it on the other end.

It's no longer overthinking. It's now introspective thinking,

and it's now critical thinking, and it's not critical analysis,

like what different differentiates it to.

And I mean, perhaps one of your one of your listener is, is a,

you know, a master or a PhD in Psychology and they will be able

to break this down for us. Sure.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, My thing is so somebody

and if you see the way humans act in general, they will say

well I'm an over-thinker anyways.

Okay. So now so now they deflected all

responsibility on a known condition that defines them.

And they take in the tools away from themselves to do anything

different. Because they believe that,

whatever it is, that there are doing is detrimental.

What kind of prison is that? What if dangerous one it is?

What if you stopped listening Lying to everybody saying that

overthinking is bad and you started looking at ways to

maximize and optimize your potential as an over-thinker.

Could you make your life that much better?

And I'm going to go ahead and propose that.

Yes you probably can. Wow, right.

And so how it starts with you realizing that you are in a

matrix. You know, you are you are in a

prison and really don't look for anybody.

That's responsible For keeping you, there you are keeping

yourself there. So the type of awareness within

the overthinking, it's an awareness that lights up, so

it's not an autonomic, or it's not a, it's an awareness within

the overthinking. You just, you just have

essentially in the context of critical thinking, you need to

understand that everything, you know, needs to be challenged.

Everything, you know, needs to be challenged.

Is there a better way to do this?

Is there a better way? Way to be, is there a better way

for me to think? Do all the things that I think

and does Everything? Is Everything linear?

You know, is everything linear is everything like one thing at

a time. Like could we not go circularly

like, why are we and we're set in our ways but you're suing

your seeing it. When you're doing multi multi

cultural communication or anything like that, you're

starting to see that other people in other parts of the

world are processing the world differently, right?

And so it opens up the fact is The minds work like a, it works

like a parachute open and once but the problem is is we want to

stop everything from spinning because we want to be in

control. Yes, but you are in control,

you're in control of challenging.

Your thoughts, you're in control of challenging your emotions,

you're in control, our overriding things that you've

been told for years on account of.

Maybe this isn't the case, you know, and take it.

Take care of an example, very concrete example.

Okay, for miles in a, in a, in a For minute for a mile was

impossible, until absolutely until a course, it was broken by

somebody that theoretically defies the laws of physiology of

human physiology, right while, okay?

So that would be the case. That would be good.

If it was the case except 30,000 people broke it since so what

happened there because nobody had before that, well they

started it was outside the box. The box was broken.

The jail was it that the Bars were taken off in the person

came out, right? And so, yes, So my realization

this morning was like you don't need to know everything, you

don't need to be perfect which you need to bring yourself to is

to realize that if you question everything and you enter aspect

on everything you can pursue Excellence at, you know, you can

pursue Excellence, intellectual excellence and emotional

Excellence, get out of the boxes that other people are painting

around you so that they can make sense of the world.

That was my realization this morning and I mean it goes far

deeper than that but we don't want this podcast to be four

hours long. Hey, I do I cannot wait until he

changed. It becomes what it's the

potential. It's realizes its potential.

I can't wait for that, because I am the fan of the long for my, I

believe that this is where, you know, dialogues and and

communicating begins. I begin to believe it begins at

this. Right here, we're not at that

place yet. They like the our to the

hour-and-a-half kind of a thing. So we have to do this but that

being said you have set the table to say, okay.

So you've got to come back and I got to tell you on a personal

level. I can't thank you enough.

I'm speaking on behalf of my wife and her team.

Now I can't thank you enough for how much just you, even taking

the time to look at what it is that he changed his doing.

We can't I can't tell you how much it means to us that you and

who you are and all that you do. Appreciate what we're doing, it

knowing that people, like, you love what we're doing and

support what we're doing at our cheering us on that gives us

that hope that you're talking about that perspective, that we

need. Because it ain't easy that, you

know, the, the one of candies mentors said the said to her,

you know what, it isn't low-hanging fruit, but the

orchards are full. And I've used that example

before here. They said that to her as a means

of Hope having you on here, cheering us on the idea of

wanting to change the world. To get release these but, you

know, get rid of these bars really sees prisons that, that

so many men are in right now and you are a champion for that.

Thank you so much for supporting what he changed, it does.

So yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

You guys are great. Well, we appreciate that.

So so much. I'm going to switch back to me

then you and I can do our goodbyes privately they go by so

fast. I can't believe.

I literally I, you know, you know, full disclosure.

I woke up this morning with Anxiety, going on, man.

There's lots of stuff going on at that time of year.

All of these things. I was flat-out little bit

intimidated by Seb. Seb is a, you know, obviously

how impressive he is so exciting to have a conversation where I

can actually hang with someone like him.

Very, very, very appreciative of everything that he is doing.

Please please, feel free in the descriptions that we have here.

We're going to have all of the links to everything.

The best way to get ahold of him, the best ways is Instagram.

That's the best way to get ahold of seven.

And it's a, it's a rabbit hole from there.

Once again, please download the heat change the app.

If you haven't already, lots of good things coming, like, share

subscribe. He cast to everybody that you

know, that is another episode of he cast the official podcast of

he changed it. My name is Mike Chisholm go

change. Something

Read along with this episode

A source transcript is available for this conversation.

Open transcript

Meet the guest

Seb Lavoie

Seb Lavoie is a retired RCMP Sergeant Major and the founder of Raven Strategic. His work focuses on leadership, resilience, mindset, emotional control, pain management, recovery, and helping people navigate adversity with strength, perspective, and a willingness to act rather than remain stuck.

Read transcript

Transcript supplied via Spotify RSS.

Welcome to. He cast the official podcast of

he changed it. As always, I am like Schism as

always I'm excited to be here to talk about the ins and outs of

the nuances and to get conversations going out in the

open about men, mental health, mental wellness, and the plight

of the man. In in the 2020s boy, we're in

the 2020s, how crazy is that? And when it comes to, I love it

and I hate at the same time I Love it because we have never

been so technologically advanced.

We have never been so openly Advanced to the exchange of

ideas in so many different ways. But I ate at the same time

because I don't know that I've ever experienced life in a time

where things are more polarized and and things are being

challenged in ways where there are people who are, we've never

been so connected. But at the same time, there are

men out there who have never been so alone and with the he

changed it team and what they're doing.

Trying to bust through all of that, I am so honored to be even

a small part of what he changed. It is trying to do, we've got

all sorts of things going on. Listen, if you haven't

downloaded the heat change adapt.

What the heck? Are you waiting for, please go

to whatever app persuasion that you are.

Whether you're the Google, or your the, or your the Apple, no

problem. Each one of your stores.

Have he changed it? Search?

Each ancient download the app, it's free.

Lots of resources on there and you ain't seen nothing yet.

Just some great stuff going on. Also, if you wouldn't mind

liking sharing subscribing, this podcast, we would appreciate

that as well. Let's get the the numbers up a

little bit, so the masses can be helped that much more.

Now, that being said, the housekeeping is out of the way.

I am really, really excited about today's guest on, he cast.

First and foremost, we just went through at the time of this

broadcast. We went through Remembrance Day,

in Canada and, and other, another number 11s of course.

Is seen all around the world and I'm a big lest we forget guy.

I the idea of these markers, I don't even want to call them a

holiday. I don't think that's the right

connotation for, but these markers that we have as a planet

that Remember, and we're supposed to let that remembrance

kind of permeate, that's why that holiday on the eleventh

hour of the eleventh month. Eleventh day, that that, that

idea was created because we as a society did something so heinous

that we wanted to always remember.

So we would never do that again and the idea of less we forget

and that if we forget history repeats itself, man, that when I

look at what's going on in the world right now, it's like, now

we forgotten some of these things but at the same time,

when I think of somebody who has served, I just always the great

formulas that I have. I have never known personally,

what it's like to be in a war situation, I've never known what

it's like to to have freedom for me, I look at this polarization

that we have right now that there was a reason that that

exists is because of the freedoms that we have.

And we live in such an amazing Society, me personally in

Canada, but there are places around the world that have had

unprecedented Freedom. When you look at world history,

and the reason for that is because it's been fought for.

And anybody who serves, I always have the deepest respect for the

gentleman that we have today. Several avoid who is going to be

on here, several, assemble, avoid, pardon me is a shining

example of that, but here's a guy who not only has sir Served.

He is taking that serving of what he has and what he has

experienced and taking a look at what's going on around him.

When it comes to mental health, I cannot wait to get into this

conversation with him because we are learning about what PTSD is.

And, and I look at Sab and what he brings to the table when it

comes to insights and intelligence.

And I'm just so, so grateful that he has taken time out of

his busy day, to be part of, he cast Seb.

Thank you so much for being on he cast today.

I just I can't I can't tell you how grateful I am.

When you heard about what he changed, it is doing you jumped

up immediately just like you did volunteered to serve your

country. You jumped up and said, oh, I

want to be a part of this and and and we're so grateful for

that. What was it about?

He changed it that you heard about that, you were so excited

about Yeah. And I can t thing that really

addresses, men's Wellness Falls right into right into my my

field of Interest, right? And doing it with people to have

such a such a meaningful impact on the collective on the men's

Collective. I mean, this is, you know, feeds

right into the concept of synergy.

I mean, doing meaningful things, with meaningful people.

I mean, I'm in. Well, we're so grateful for it.

Let's start at the beginning Seb.

You know, let's let's talk about your credentials and where and

what you've done and because I mean I hate using the term

decorated when it comes to military service.

I again, just like I don't want to call Remembrance Day a

holiday. I am I don't even know what the

word like the the reverence that I have for folks who are willing

to just to do what you've done, you've done.

What you've not, just put your hand up to serve, but you've,

you've really gotten into it, not that anybody who doesn't

volunteer. Here has gotten into it.

But at the end of the day, what can you tell our listeners and

viewers about what it is that you've done over the course of a

25-year career? So just just to clarify.

I I'm in awe I'm in awe of people sir that served in the

military and served in the in the current War, the past

conflicts and those who will in the future.

However, I can't take credit for that because I certainly missed.

You do the conflict because I released from the military in

2000 in 2000 yen. And soda right before 9/11 so I

did not serve overseas. I did not see combat operation

from a military perspective and it doesn't take away from, you

know, the service and wanting to be there.

Being willing to be there. And the reason why I'm saying

this is because I don't want people out there that are

serving and never seen combat to think that they're they're

obviously not what they're doing isn't righteous which isn't the

case at all. But there is a human experience

associated with combat that I have that I have not been privy

to in the Three context. Okay yes, so I will not take

credit where credit is in do in 2001 I engaged in the I left the

military and engage into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

And I spent 20 years in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, I

did anything everything from Patrol function to covert

specialized section to a the Emergency Response Team which is

are the equivalent of the SWAT team.

Really it, which is a Tactical Unit.

I spent 12 years on Time emergency response.

Team has spent seven years as a team leader on the team.

And I eventually would retire as the sergeant major for the

division. So the province of British

Columbia. So I was attached to the

commanding officers office as an advisory and seal.

So if we think if the if command thought well this is a great

ideal, they would run it by step to see if actually it was, you

know, where the wheels meet the pavement.

And my job was essentially to bridge the gap between the rank

and file of our 80 to 100 or so employees.

And Command and vice versa represent command with the rank

and file so that we could bridge that Gap.

So, I spent two years in that position, I released from their

Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2021, I went on a venture of my

own Discovery on a path. That wasn't so lit up and I just

took a giant, you know, a calculated risk and I just loved

it ever since. So I now have a company called

raven strategic, that does all kinds of stuff from security

Consulting to No speaking to guest, speaking appearances, to

the list, goes on, and on one, on one coaching, with with, with

people of various backgrounds. And and the idea is just try to

get somebody that's so used to pursuing excellence and, and

being able to draw Excellence out of other people, to help

people manage their own lives, or some of the goals that they

might have in, in the work. That's required to get to him.

So, that's pretty much what I've been doing for the last two

years. I appreciate very much the you

know the humbleness that that you do have here I want to talk

a little bit about before we get into some of the the mental

health aspects that that you are so passionate about.

So you served in the military and then moved over to the RCMP

what you know, you've got two organizations there that are

very set in their ways. Very strong, very disciplined,

very systemized. What served you, what skills did

you have in things that you had learned and gone through that

through the military? What what skills did you bring

with you to the RCMP? That served you over there and

were there any conflicts, were there ever any things that where

you're like, oh well, you learned it this way for so long.

And then when you moved over this new system here you found

to be a little bit. Well different in any way that

might might have caused a little bit of Discomfort.

Yeah absolutely. So I would say, my biggest

takeaway is having the ability to be comfortable with being

uncomfortable in my military career.

I've done some very difficult courses.

You know, courses that started with 36 people and 13, graduated

those types of numbers. Those types of attrition rates

and I essentially became the person that believes in himself.

Psych, I knew that I could do the things and I knew that no

matter how hard those things were that I would be able to do.

And I knew I establish a process in my mind on how I was going to

accomplish something. So if I set forth to do

something that was critically important, I knew exactly how to

go about taking step by step, one day, at a time and taking

incremental step towards success.

So we really establish a pattern of excellence.

And it also is Polish my ability to be stress inoculated so to

speak, you know, why? It didn't matter.

All elevated the stress was I made chaos organized.

That's what I was good at controlling chaos as far as

having it down side is certainly did.

When I initially started culture shock?

No, not really, but not nothing. That it is not, not in that

respect, but what ended up happening is, I was when I went

to the academy and Regina I was fresh out of the military and I

was put in charge of the of our troops, which was the right

marker, which is the person that's essentially in charged a

true. And that person basically leads

the troop through the training, Evolution and practice, and

extradition extra that. And one of the things that I was

not aware of is there are other ways to lead, then the

old-school old-fashioned militaristic way and autocratic

kind of leadership. So yes, I was very caring.

I had a degree of it. Intelligence.

I wasn't, I wasn't like a brute by any by any stretch of the

imagination, but I certainly did brutish things at time when the

stress was elevated on everybody and not, you know, there was

some contention or whatever. So looking back at this, after

developing as a leader over the course of 20 years, I look back

and I'm like shaking my head going man, I made so many

leaders leadership mistakes at the time, you know?

And yes I'm not dwelling on this but is just a realization that

you know, perhaps and An average every time I've had the chance

to have a conversation with somebody that wasn't my troop

when I was the teeth. The deleter.

Even though they assessed me really high, I could have done a

lot better and I always tell them that.

You know, I apologize if I was a bit of a brute, I obviously

wasn't where I needed to be as a leader and it took me years to

understand, you know, to know what, I didn't know at the time.

So now if we fast forward this to a post-war.

So I've gone in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And conflicts. Yep, the leadership in the

Canadian Forces and I'm I'm gonna use the Canadian Special

Operation command. For example, like this is where

I would take my leadership example.

Not from you know, necessarily the regular Rank and files.

Although there are great leaders in there also, but it has more,

it has more of a sort of free thinking, like we want our

people to be able to think to be critical to be able to conduct

critical analysis, and be able to problem solve on their own,

okay? And so So this is more the type

of leader that I became over over the years.

And so I connect more with that with that sort of, you know,

leadership. And so if I could go back in

time, I would do things a lot differently from that

perspective, instead of having the old school or E conflict,

this is how we lead in the military.

And this is all things done, you do things because I say so you

know, versus having an Engaged troops and and making decision

problem solving together kind of thing.

So I love that we're talking about this because I mean,

Easily, you know, with this, this show our aim and all of the

the expectations that we have, we want to change the world.

That's that's literally what we want to do.

We want to change the world and part of in that changing of the

world, we look back to where we were and where we are now and

the transformation that's happening, then we see where we

want to be. I think about situations like

like stereotypical situations, we've talked a lot about locker

rooms, we have had folks on here who have talked about, You know,

military and things like that. You think about the old-school

stereotypical ideas and I love the fact that you are, your kind

of alluding to the idea that, you know, you were brought into

a world that maybe we might think of the stereotypical, you

know, military or, you know, locker rooms places like that

and and the evolution that's happened and the critical

thinking part that you're talking about here.

Now that that leaders, you know, and not just leave.

I think everybody thirsts for that right now.

Because at the end of the day, there's so many voices that are

just coming at us and the idea that that critical thinking.

I mean I don't know if there's a better skill that human beings

can have. I think about my granddaughter

right now in the world that she's going to be inheriting.

I think I don't know if there's a better skill that somebody

could have right now in the polarized times that we live in

than critical thinking. Yeah absolutely and I would say

I would say Beyond critical thinking I would say having the

ability to physically critically critical and conduct critical

analysis. You know.

So one of the things that I sort of I think is very, very

important is to have the wheels to the pavement type experience,

some academic knowledge as well, right?

So are you you need to be able to bridge that Gap because if

your is few, spend a life a life time in Academia, a lot of the a

lot of the problem solving that you will be doing would be

inoperable in the field and when I say the field I mean in life,

right? You you haven't experienced it

from the ground. From the wheels to the pavement

type. So having the ability to have

some level of Academia which, you know, reinforces the

principle of critical analysis but also of sourcing your

information. And who said, what and

peer-reviewed material, and that kind of stuff is critically

important, but also and I'm not suggesting that somebody

necessarily has to go to school, is just having an understanding

that, that's the case, right? Where are you getting your

information from and how valid is it?

And then from there having the conversation about, you know,

the A reality because this is what happens in reality.

So how do we marry up the to? Yeah.

And so and so given him all the tools on the academic side and

none of the operational tools doesn't work given him all the

operational tools and under the academic tools doesn't work.

So it has to be there. It has to be like everything

else in Balance. Yes, well, I mean, okay, so my

background is, I came in, I'm from the financial service

business and what I got into the business.

I remember somebody a mentor of mine saying to me, hey, when

your plumber, Giving you investment advice, it's time to

get out and I didn't know what that meant.

And then in, I've seen so many bubbles be created and burst in

that time. And before a bubble burst,

whatever it is, whether it's a real estate one, whether it's,

you know, whatever you want to talk about, what's going on with

crypto. The.com Revolution, back in the

in the late 90s, all of these things before the bubble bursts,

you get an incredible amount of layman talking like, They're

experts about things and I mean I see I've seen that in so many

different ways and when you start seeing the Layman talk

about things and all they're doing is they are parroting

things that they have heard but they have no academic knowledge

like you've said or or even the operational knowledge, that's

where you realize, okay. It might be time to really

observe what's going to happen here because the pendulum might

swing back did I just not describe two or three things

that are going on right now in the times that we live Right

now. Yeah absolutely.

And you know what's interesting is humans have a limited

capacity for complexity, right? Because we need we need to be

able to make sense of our world and it is absolutely asinine

that we're even here in the first place.

Sort of spinning around the sun on a ball of water, let alone

all the things that we have to make sense of.

And one of the propensity of the brain is to oversimplify

everything so that we may understand it.

What's important to? Stand.

Is that our pursuit to try to understand?

Everything does not work and it will never.

So what we need to do is we need to go from the unconscious

incompetence stage 2D conscious and competent stage that is a

major step forward. Once we are consciously

incompetent, we know to look for things when they happen, we know

that there's probably more to the story, we know that we need

to be informed and that we need to speak to Subject matter

expert or read about it or do something that is more in depth,

right? The problem is most humans don't

realize that we do that so they continue to be unconsciously

incompetent as humans so they literally don't know what they

don't know but they're also not interested in knowing if they

don't know something whereas if you don't if you know what you

don't know you can go to the person that know it and have the

information. So the goal isn't to assimilate

and have the information available readily.

Available to you because you somehow know something about

everything because that we know that that's impossible, because

there is so much, but knowing that we are literally

incompetent. Most of the time is, is step one

to taking ownership of that and taking control of Our Fate as

humans. Once we established that then we

can start looking at, who knows what?

We don't know and finding the information That's almost

biblical, you know, isn't it? Isn't that a proverb somewhere?

The wise man is the one that knows that he's a fool,

something like that. I and I, you know, this I'm

going to marry that to the fact that I love this gig that I do

so so much because I love talking to people who are

smarter than me. And that's, that's the vast

majority of people out there when I hear someone like

yourself who has delved down this Rabbit Hole, as far as you

have Seb, I just appreciate these little bite-sized.

Pieces of information that you can give that my mind can

assimilate like that is a very simple concept that I can apply

to my life and I can I can use it as a lens.

When I'm when I'm when I'm looking at something or

pondering something, that is a very simple thing that can be

done. I think that's the mark of a

good leader, is being able to simplify things and bite-sized

things. So the masses can understand it

and apply it. You have seen in your life

between the military and the RCMP.

P. I mean, it's really two separate

careers by the way, I also not for nothing but our audience is

going to want to know the secret to the Fountain of Youth.

You clearly have it. Uh huh.

I'm having live the lives that you've led up to this point.

Oh my goodness. The two careers that you've had

and and looking the way that you do and having the mindset that

you do the fresh mindset, I'm going to ask you this for

personally, how much work has it taken for these two careers to

not have beaten the crap out of you and for you to Be who you

are. Today obviously, you've taken

care of yourself physically, but also mentally as well.

What are some of the secrets that you have?

What are some of the the parts of your journey that have kept

you healthy that way? Yeah, I mean, there's I think

it's a conglomeration of things, right?

You are correct, then that my job requirements, always

involved physical abilities, right?

So I was always a physical person as a youth I played

outside. You know, we are the generation

that didn't really have, you know, anything until later in

our, in our teenage years ago, video game specific about

exactly and no cell phones and everything.

So I did a lot of physical Endeavors.

I certainly was very passionate about About physical fitness

because I think it's highly underrated and benefits on the

mine and the emotional. Well Wellness is undeniable and

and and it was very important to me but also I was you know

grounded in a purpose and that is a massive.

It's a massive sort of pillar of the resilient scheme, right?

So having the ability to what it is that you are doing, is it

truly meaningful for you? And if it is truly meaningful

for you then you are passionate about doing it and it Longer is

work and then the down sides that are coming along with it

are easier to negotiate second. I never let any of my careers to

find me regardless of how much I loved my careers.

I never was a cop or I never was a, you know, a military guy.

I just so happen to work in the military.

I just so happen to work in the police force.

But even when I was, you know, proud to be a team leader on the

Emergency Response. Team, I was Seb, I wasn't, you

know, an emergency team leader, whatever the case may be.

But and I think what we're seeing in policing is people are

spending 30 years in there and the job defines them, they're

nothing without it, and then they leave or something happens

that interferes with this. And when we talk about PTSD, we

can talk about, obviously Sanctuary trauma or they or they

they are wrong or they feel they're wrong by the, by the

organization or they are actually wrong but your

organization and everything and that takes a chip of the old

block. It's actually affecting their

their persona it's affecting their identity, which this Never

a thing for me. So, physical fitness was

prioritize, always mental and intellectual development was

prioritize always. So, I push myself outside my

comfort zone. Not just physically, but

mentally always, I never let myself be comfortable.

So, I did it allowed me to learn about the tools that I can use

to preemptively address some of the, some of the things that

would affect me either mentally or emotionally.

See the problem is when it comes to policing, when it comes to

military when it comes to anything really even in In any,

in a corporate setting, people don't invest in their.

Well, Wellness ahead of time, there are reactive they get

themselves all stressed out and all caught up in everything and

eventually when it catches up to them, they're like, okay, now,

what and what am I supposed to do with this, although the punch

you prepare for is much better than the punch, you're not

prepared for so, preemptively addressing some of those things,

and having your key people around and understanding what it

means to have meaningful people and supportive people around you

and and literally discarding the People that are bringing nothing

positive to your life and you cannot bring anything positive

to and really be a little bit selfish in that self-care.

Okay? And when I say selfish is

eventually, obviously if a friend calls you and they're in

needs up, this is not what I'm referring to here.

I'm referring to, you know, to blood-sucking vampires.

That everything is negative and everything's everybody else's

fault and they're deflecting everywhere.

And while these leeches are absolutely over everybody in

life, and how do we And generally, it takes people until

their 40s to realize that happens.

It's important to do that earlier.

It's important to teach that to her kids, so that they

understand, somebody might weigh you down forever, if you don't.

So, having the right people around you, having the right

purpose, being engaged, physically, mentally, and

emotionally learning things. Being outside in nature,

connecting with nature, connecting with freakin animals.

Like, for all I care, you know, like just having meaningful

things in your life and my life was like that.

Additionally, I had a very, very difficult upbringing and lots of

adversity. So we know that adversity is

almost always directly correlated to resilience if the

person doesn't go the other way. So it can create growth or it

can create another another set of issues in my case, it was

growth, that it created. So yes, a very adversity sort of

written youth, which, you know, built a foundation that I could

take a hit, you know. And so, let me give you an

example of this. It's just, I just returned from

a trip overseas. So I was in Haiti.

Give you a little, a little piece of the landscape in Haiti

right now. 65 to 75% of the of the capital Port-au-Prince has

and gang control. Heavily armed gang control.

Okay, they have two ports. The weapons are coming you know

probably from the states in there and we're talking about

high-tech Weaponry there's daytime gang rates going on in

the cities there is you know, factions Beware there shortage

of fuel gas food. There is, I mean, 10,000 cases

of Cholera over the last year, death 1500 abductions of

domestic. Essentially domestic in nature.

So people being abducted from the from the streets to be for

ransom and and so that the gangs can, you know, get some money.

So this is the landscape over there right now, there's hardly

any government, its lawlessness, lot of snacks over there.

Okay so I'm having a conversation.

Relation with a bunch of people in the cons in the context of a

paper. I'm writing and I have this

conversation and we start talking about mental Wellness,

we start talking about mental emotional wellness.

And as soon as I start talking about that they're looking at me

weird and eventually we come to the suicide piece, right?

And they're like and and they look at me shocked.

Why would anybody do that? Why?

And I'm thinking to myself. Wow.

Like this is very telling. Yep, this is very telling so I

look deeper into this. I'm like okay, let's have a look

because perhaps to just unaware, right?

So I I put my iPod, I pulled up a peer-reviewed article and it

says sure. Enough 8.6 percent per 100,000

habitants do you know what it is in Canada?

12.7 or something, right? It seems like nothing, but think

about this, a four percent average.

Over 100,000 people is a massive difference and these guys

compared their lives with ours. And and again, this is not about

invalidating, how people feel here and all this good stuff,

but it is a reality people, react adversity, builds

resilience, and then more comfortable that we are.

And the more Or comfortable comfortable that we keep

ourselves in, it doesn't help us at all in fact and so for me it

was absolutely a shock to see that a third world country

afflicted by all those things. And you know, one of the, one of

the lady I was there. She was pretty smart.

They're all educated and she was pretty small, pretty smart.

And she said something along the lines of we don't commit

suicide, we get suicided, you know, and it made for a funny

moment. But Man, but he go.

But it goes to show what a perspective on life though.

Like, sure laugh at that, you know what I'm saying?

And how real was it? What she was saying was tongue

in cheek, but it was every bit as sobering as to how real it

is. You know?

And, and I mean, yeah, I the idea that as comfortable as we

are, it also gives us puts us in in Jeopardy of these types of

trappings of This is just the human mind biology, all this

kind of stuff. I think about that though.

I also think about there being opportunity, like, for guys that

are listening to this right now that are facing some sort of

adversity, whatever it is, you know, you know,

relationship-wise, it could be, you know, job.

The idea of a purposelessness, whatever.

Whatever that is, there is a switch in our brain.

If I'm hearing you right? That we could flip to go.

Wait a second. How we're feeling right now

actually could be a springboard. Word into something great.

You talk about the idea of resilience will many times that

resilience can lead to not just survival, like, we're talking

about with the good people of Haiti, but it could lead to us,

giving ourselves a bigger better, more fulfilled life,

whatever that looks like. The anxiety that you're feeling

right now listener. Whoever you are or whatever it

is, that you're feeling myself. I woke up this morning with some

anxiety, that happens that anxiety.

We can actually, if we have an awareness and this is to go back

to your original point, Point. The idea that we actually become

aware of these things that we have some of these critical

thinking ideas where we're not just being sheep.

You know, when we're we're told to go where where, you know, in

a rut with our head down but if we actually pop our head up and

become aware of these things, the moment we're aware that

there's adversity of any sort. We can realize that is also

opportunity to get better if I'm hearing you, right?

Is that, is that a my on or am I way off?

No. Absolutely, absolutely.

Everything is an opportunity for growth and it starts with its

start. With priming your brain for so

right? And so if I, if I look at

something and I and I and I first see it, as the biggest

challenge I've ever faced, and my first reaction is this is

going to destroy me, this is going to destroy you period.

But if you but if you start with the mindset that this is going

to be difficult and I will work through it and regardless of

what life throws at me. I will work through it.

Yeah and if I need some help it's fine.

Like there is nothing this is not again in validating.

What people are feeling if they need?

Um help if they need somebody to guide them or whatever, the case

may be, but at the end of the day, they still have to make a

decision. And that decision has to be.

This will make me stronger and as tacky as it sounds, it's the

only way to prepare for the next hit because my my issue isn't

the fact that we can sustain a hit.

I when I prepared my guys on the team, I prepared them to have a

10-year career in tactical operation and have thousands of

called under their belt, right? So I prepared them to go to a

call get cleared from it. All the good stuff come back,

return to a call. Come back return to a call and

so on so forth. Okay.

So this is where the bucket Theory where your add drops of

water and the water rises until it starts overflowing, unless

you ditched a bucket every single time.

Okay, so, that's the idea. The idea is in, can you take a

hit? The idea is, can you take 400

that? Is that is the idea, right?

And, and it's not about being fatalistic, and it's not about

being neurotic, it's all about. Knowing that regardless of what

happens to you for as long as there is, hope there is, there

is life. And there is, there is an

opportunity there. So in 1957, I think a scientist

by the name of Kurt richer. I believe was his name led a

group of scientist and they conducted testing with rats.

Did you ever hear the story? It keep going, is I think this

might be I think I know what your we're going to hurt us.

But keep going, sure. So, this was Norwegian

Norwegian. Rat domesticated, rats and wild

rats. Okay?

So they had, they had a baseline of both.

So, they take the and this is long before Peta, and and animal

protection groups, and quite honestly, you know, the best way

to honor the sacrifices, to remember, what the study

actually said at the end of the day.

So mr. Rich Turner and his team took

the Norwegian domesticated rats, and they had him swim in the

water and a bucket of water. And it and they let him swim

until they essentially drowned. And it has to wait, okay?

The majority of them were between 40 and 60 hours.

Okay, so they swam and stayed at the surface for 40 to 60 hours.

Yeah. Then they conducted the same

test with wild rats within 15 minutes, most of them were dead,

Okay? So they looked at this same

physiological disposition, same the species.

So, to speak everything except one group as domesticated.

The other group was not Yep. And so they came to the

conclusion and I think it's fairly it's it has to be fairly

accurate. I mean, they came to the

conclusion that the wild rats felt hopeless and didn't see a

way out of this and quit. They just let themselves round.

They just quit to just stop. Stop swimming and let themselves

around. Now, what's interesting with

this? And somebody might say, well,

maybe that's not the case. Okay?

So let's listen to what what they continue doing.

So, they took wild rats, and they put him in the water.

Let them swim. About 10 minutes, take a took

him out, put him back in, 415 took him out, put him back in

for 30 took him out. And eventually, they would also

be able to swim between 40 and 60 hours because they were now

stress inoculated and they knew it was feasible.

There was a way out, right? They had hope.

Okay, so at the end of the day, hope respective drives hope so

they're domesticated rats that are, you know, obviously used to

being caged and all this stuff. Had a different perspective than

the wild rats that are free to go.

Everywhere they go and all of a sudden they were restricted in

their movements. Yeah.

Okay. So perspective drives hope when

there is hope there's survivability yeah, period.

So all of this came together and it is exactly the same for

humans, it's exactly the same. So when we're seeking

perspective, we need to be seeking Spective from people

that have built that have it worse than us, and the goal is

not to invalidate our own feelings or own emotions.

Know the goal is, let those emotions flow through.

You respect that, you know what, no matter how bad other people

have it, for me. This is a bad day today and I

understand that. However, if I was to compare my

day with, you know, a different set of circumstances the 20s

right now. Yeah, that's it.

Get your, get your perspective from the people that have it

worse than you and then start seeing the hope, you know, it's

almost like when things are going wrong in your life,

there's this Dark Cloud following you everybody around.

You can see that the cloud ends but you cannot because it's

right above you, yep. I we talk a lot about gratitude

on this, on this podcast. I mean and I mean, you know,

I've said it many times gratitude is a silver bullet.

It simply is the action of gratitude you know, being

artificial artificial. Like we're you literally just

set yourself up at the beginning of the day and you make yourself

come up with three things you're grateful for, you know like like

not even you're not in this place of gratefulness, something

amazing just happened in. You're feeling the Rays of Hope

and love. And warmth and gratefulness that

just naturally have. No, no, you're feeling like crap

and at the beginning of the day, you come up with things that

you're grateful for begrudgingly, even guess what?

It starts to rewire things, it just does.

And this is another version of gratefulness is, is being able

to look at somebody's example, the perspectives.

You talk about these different perspectives.

That are there, what it could be or what it has been in the past,

you know? What you've gone through that,

kind of a thing to reframe that perspective and to add some hope

into it. And also, by the way, I have

seen Achievers, do things that the, you know, the thinker's

couldn't even fathom. And the reason that the

Achievers have done, it is because of mindset, because of

Hope because of the things that you're talking about here.

Their super powers are silver bullets.

I love that we're talking about this.

I especially love that we're talking about this in the

society that we live in right now.

Fascinating times, you know, for the for folks who are aware and

looking around and being introspective and and

retrospective. And and and and and and looking

at where our culture is at right now, fascinating times, I'm a

gen xers and I remember when we were growing up some of the

things that we thought that the Baby Boomers did and it was like

you know what no we're going to change these things.

We're going to change these things.

We're gonna you know, us Nirvana, listening,

flannel-wearing coffee. Drinkers is how I like to refer

to us and and some of the things that we said we're going to

change. I do not believe that.

If you would have told us in the coffee shop back then that the

generations after us are going to be coming along.

They're going to literally tear the way that we live apart.

They're going to look at the way we live the way that we've been

taught to live under a microscope and they're going to

completely tear it apart and we're going to get into cancel

culture. All of these things and and the

liberal aspect of things are going to actually call into

question freedom of speech with, with us growing up.

It was the right. That was, you know, that, that

was the conservative Wing was, was, was trying to get rid of

freedom of speech and all of that kind of stuff.

We saw it in music and all this other stuff.

Now we're seeing it from the liberal side of things because

of the idea of not wanting to hurt feelings and all of the

sensitivities and all that and we're seeing freedom of speech

challenged and And and these are some of the things that are

causing, you know, this comfortable Society where our

suicide numbers are our mental health numbers are through the

roof compared to some of these places you were talking about

that have actual life and death perspective.

I've just done a lot of talking here but I know I'm setting a

table for a conversation that you are very very, very well

versed in talking about but just to give us growing up us g.i.,

Joe Levin, kids that just love this stuff growing up, could we

even fathom? That this is the life that we

would have in our 40s and 50s. No, but here's what, here's

what's interesting with that, with this, with this prospect

it's okay. So we all got to where we are on

account of how we were raised and how we grew up, right?

And then when we got there, what did we do?

We started raising our kids and we're like, I want to prevent

them from having any of the adversity that I went through.

So basically I'm like, okay, hold on here.

So let me get this straight. I understand that you want your

kids safe. We all want our kids safe.

If like you, you know, we obviously that's okay.

However, the reason why you are the person that you are today

and you have the strength that you have today is because of

what you went through. If you prevent all adversity and

take it out of your kid's life, you are not given a gift gifting

them, anything quite to the contrary.

And so, that's exactly we as a generation and we need to take

some ownership on that. We did that to this current

generation. Yeah, we did that.

Yes, don't feel, don't let them Is no deflection here.

That's not look around and going, you know, like, whose

fault is that? And how did that happen?

We did that. I love this.

Yes. So you know understanding that

yes there is a measure of measures that were there is some

measures that we should take to keep our kids safe.

For example. Like we were a driving in the

back of a pickup while the driver was drunk and we had no

seatbelt and you know, those things obviously physical harm.

Those types of things we understand.

Same with the bully is MM. You know bully is MM actually if

we don't interfere with it has a potential when their little

brains are not fully developed has the potential to hurt them.

A lot more than Create growth, right?

So we know that. So we have to interfere with

that and I'm totally good with that.

Yes. However, there's a lot of the

natural things in life that we want to take away from them and

they should experience themselves.

Like, perhaps, you know, if the kid is 9 and you were getting up

in the morning to help them, get dressed and everything, you are

not doing it correctly, okay. Now is the time to teach them

the skills and to say okay man you're on your own.

Yeah good to go let's see it. Okay yeah and this is just a you

know a Example that I'm taking, but obviously, we try, we over

this generation overprotected, our kids, and our kids are now

suffering, they're suffering because we overprotected them,

and that's pretty evident. And so, you know, I would say we

need to, we need to kind of balance the pendulums a little

bit, but now it's obviously difficult thing.

When once an entire generation is affected now, it changes

things. But now where they are seeing is

what we are seeing as a society. As a collective is we're

starting to see See a shift where people start to find the

balance a little bit again, right?

Like, and it's slow, and it's painful, but it but it seems to

be happening. And hopefully it does before we

as a Humanity self-destruct. Because the world is in a, his

in is in a poor state right now. Well, if I'm being honest and

daughter, my four-year-old granddaughter is my favorite

thing in the whole world. The Delight that she brings to

me, is just I've I've I've never experienced anything like that

before. We have her, she's four years

old, we have her in MMA. Okay, so she plays has a place

called Bushido here in Kelowna. You know, they've got a bunch of

UFC fighters have actually come out of there and they have these

amazing kids classes. And I remember saying to shout

out to David Lee who, you know, he runs to she do.

And and I said to him, when we put a Lara in there, for the

first time I said, hey do you guys give like, does every all

the kids get like participation Awards and all that stuff I

asked about this because, you know, this is something

obviously that I I think Rings true to what you're talking

about here. He's like, no, I'm like awesome

because she needs to know what it's like to lose.

She needs to know. Like if she is, she's a

competitive kid and she's got a lot of potential and so she

needs to know what it's like to feel.

What it's like to lose and mma's a perfect example of that

because you're tapping out all the time.

You're, you know, you constantly have to tap out and I just love

the character that that builds into people because when you

have to tap out, You learn, you know, Jerry Seinfeld's got a

great great theory about this. When it comes to ski looks at

skateboarders, he's driving by see these skateboarders.

He was just to learn one. Kickflip on a skateboard, you're

falling, you're getting bloody knees.

Your do, you know, you have to do it thousands of times before

you get it right? And he looks at those keyboards.

Those skateboarders are going to be okay in life.

And I think we need a little bit more of that and and you're

right. I mean that's it, is it is, it

is our wanting to Shield. Old people like my dad.

He grew up in horror. He grew up in horror.

He was a living like a man when he was 15 out of his house

because of the horror, he grew up in, and as a result of that,

I didn't see one drop of alcohol in my house growing up.

Personally, I just didn't I'd go over to a friend's house is like

oh, what's that? Like okay.

I just I didn't know and it was because my dad wanted to meet to

Shield me from what he experienced, amazing sentiment

natural sentiment. But sometimes we throw the baby

out with the Water. And I'm glad you brought that up

here. This, this kind of awareness are

the things that we need to talk about.

I want to bring it back to mental Wellness for a second

because you have a fascinating perspective on these things in

the military more. So in the RCMP, I mean we've

seen as this new generation has come up, there are benefits.

I don't want to just crap all over.

I mean, the idea of bringing mental Wellness to the Forefront

of things that are important. And and I mean, it son.

It's unprecedented in North Erica.

You know, the studying the knowledge that we have on this,

the fact that it's in in your, in our faces, like, I think

about some of the entertainment that's out there that even just

delves into mental wellness and mental health.

Did you see that shift in that Evolution happening?

Maybe in the military but more. So in the RCMP, did you see

there being more of a focal point between the old stereotype

of. Okay, let's fill the bucket.

Let's just, you know, bury it down, bury it down, let it fill

up, whatever. And then that's when the heart

attack happens. That's when the suicide happens.

That's when the violence happens.

Whatever it is. Did you see that Evolution right

in front of you? Did you see it happening?

Where you aware of this happening going where?

Okay, yeah, people are emptying out their buckets more.

Yeah, absolutely. What I would, I did witness is a

shift from something that was heavily stigmatized to

something. That was not only acceptable,

but expected, right? And I would say that this

probably happened 10 years in my career.

Are you say between 7 or 10 years of my career?

So it would have been like, 2008 roughly 2008, 2009 is where we

really saw an uptick in in initiatives, not only from an

organizational standpoint, but also a shift in the in the

people themselves because everybody is seeking like who's

doing what for mental health. But at the end of the day, what

are you doing for mental health? Like you as an individual, like

be a leader in that, right? What do you do to?

What do you do to support the people?

You work with? What do you do to make somebody

feel accepted when the person leaves and leaves a room?

Are you, you know, out there, you know, bitching about them

doing this and that, and whatever, and then, and then

they can feel that there's a variety of different things that

are that occurred over, that course.

I'm not suggesting that all those practices are completely

done. But what I will say, is that

over the course of the last 10 years, there's been an an

incredible increase in generating awareness.

And and, and Andy stigmatisation process with respect to mental

health and there is been, you know, a lot of arguably

sometimes, maybe overdiagnosis stuff some of the post-traumatic

stress disorders or even occupational, stress injuries.

Sometimes you don't have post-traumatic stress injuries.

Your life is miserable. That's different, right?

And I think, and at that point, that's a good news at times,

right? I guess, certainly we need to

understand. There is a, there is a inherent

sacrifice that occurs for anybody.

Jumping in the sort of a the First Response World.

However having had a life-changing experience,

doesn't necessarily make you have PTSD.

And now once you have that, what we find difficult, is to help

the person out of that. Because it's it, at one point,

it becomes defining. And if it does not for

everybody, but for certain people, they can become

defining. And if it become defining, then

there are stuck in a vicious cycle.

Cycle that they are keeping the two ends of that Loop together,

an account on account of, that is the evil, you know, and

sometimes the evil you know is better than the evil, you don't

know. So for you to take steps that

are incredibly uncomfortable to get yourself out of a certain

predicament sometimes is very, very difficult.

It's actually can be more difficult than staying in their

status quo and so I went on a tangent here, but yes, the

answer is becomes comfort food. It's we learn to tolerate the

things, we hate sure it can. Absolutely can.

Yeah, because it explains, it explains some of our struggles.

You know, I really like this example from Jordan Pederson,

speaking about a client that when his office in the client

said, you know, mr. Peterson.

I'm depressed and, and Jordan was telling the story on one of

his one of his guests speaking, appearances.

It basically says to the clients start digging into this a little

bit. And, you know, says, you know, I

lost my mom and I lost my job, and I lost this and that, and

Jordan's kind of shaking his head.

You know, he's an emotionally intelligent man and he's just

kind of shook his head there and he's like, I got a good in the

bad news. The good news is you're not

depressed. The bad news is, your life is

miserable. You know, and a but what in and

what ended up happening is actually the person that was

seeking the help was actually was actually comforted by that.

Okay so I'm not depressed. It's normal for me to feel this

way. Yeah, there is Epson flows, on

the emotional side. In life, things will hit you.

Yes. And when they do, it's not going

to feel good and it will take time to overcome them but you

can and when you do, you will be stronger for it.

So it's not a matter of panicking when something.

You. It's a matter of allowing it to

flow through you for the time that's required.

Provided that the time that's required is reasonable and give

yourself a chance to get better before you start panicking about

your State of Affairs, right? And pigeonholing you and letting

you sit like you say, I'm just going back to the how you

started this. Don't let it Define.

You don't let it become your identity.

Don't let it become who you are. And the awareness of somebody

saying to me, like if I'm OK, if I got a big piece of food on my

face, I want someone to tell me about it.

You know, I want to be aware of that, so I can do something

about it. And I think that that is a

silver bullet as well as is helping each other, become aware

of these things, but us doing that self-discovery, that

personal responsibility T, you know again back to the back to

the beginning that problem solving we, but many times we

just aren't we don't wake up. And and these moments it's

conversations like this that that help people wake up, I hate

on slippery time gets. When we when it comes to these

things there's a couple things I want to get to PTSD.

You were talking about PTSD. You saw really at the end of the

day, you saw the idea of PTSD go from you know a text.

To becoming a buzzword to becoming a common phrase that

the masses have heard PTSD in the news, a lot, these days

here, I've watched you post on this, by the way, slab

Commander, right SLA on Instagram.

That's the best way to find you is.

Let's laughter SLA, VC M. MD R is that what it is SLA.

VC cmdr cmdr, right? Yeah.

Okay good. And that's what people want to

find Seb, please. Please go check out his insta.

It's it's amazing. It's inspiring, it's insightful

and it will it will. It will shake things up and help

create some of these moments where we need to be aware.

I just, I'm so inspired by you semi really, really, really am?

I appreciate you so much. I've watched some of your posts

recently when it comes to What's the best way to set the table

for this? I think there are some people

out there who are helping others, who might have some

mental health duress, wave the White Flag when it doesn't need

to be waived. And and and there's some

alarming things going on when it comes to that am I am, I am i

setting that table, right? Yeah, I'm not sure which one of

my post I post a lot, I'm not sure which one of my boys were

referring to this book, The made program or where I'm going with

that. I mean, I look at I look at the

eye. Dia of folks, with mental

Wellness issues, that are being given that, you know, the the

incentive almost or the, the, you know, the instructions,

right? I'm not a big fan of the book

that when the Final Exit book that teaches you, how to kill

yourself with showing up in the public library in the nineties,

I that that is not. I'm not a fan of that and I'm

not against free speech, of course, that kind of a thing.

But I also don't want to put poison in children's hands

either. So that's kind of where I'm

going with this and I know that you have very strong opinions

when it comes to that as well. Yeah, where to start.

What kind of alternative galaxies are we in that people

as Associated to an organization whose sole purpose is to assist

Veterans Post Service suggesting to those same veterans, that it

should be taking their own lives on account of not being able to

overcome their PTSD, which by the way they got, as a result of

server then country overseas. Are you kidding me?

And where is your emotional intelligence?

And where is your common sense? And why are you in the position

that you are currently in? It is absolutely asinine further

to that when this came around, was there a big uproar of the

government level, like, was all the bells and whistles whistles

activated and we must investigate this to the, you

know, to the deepest, the deepest of our abilities to make

sure. Because if one person Person was

offered that how long has that person work there?

You know, many more have been. I just I don't know that I can

find a word to say, how Despicable of an act, this can

be how truly despicable that is and you know what, wait till we

find out that some of these people actually did go through

with it because we do not know for the time being.

Or if somebody does it certainly isn't me if might be known in

the course of the investigation, whatever the case may be, But

men think of it think of this it is absolutely asinine

Preposterous it is absolutely the most destructive thing that

we can do for every living veteran that's ever sacrifice

for this country. So with that is now what do we

do with that? Well a we find who was told this

we follow up with everybody who was told this we follow up with

everybody to ensure that nobody has kind of gone through with

this or what Of mindset, and they should be getting all the

treatment that they can buy the highest levels of

professionalism to overcome. The hurdles that are going to

come from receiving validation, that probably you should kill

yourself. It is completely completely

insane. There is zero amount of of

critical analysis that will change our insane.

This is quite to the contrary. It just reinforces it more and

more. And so, I've had that Aaron's

reach into me. Typically that were offered made

that were offered made and the Damage that's caused could

foreseeably be. Basically, you cannot, you may

not be able to change. It may be completely, you know,

irreversible is the word I was looking for.

Yeah, I was going through my head and French and English and

all the other languages I know and I'm just kidding.

But yeah like it, you know as serious as the topic is Is it is

it how many of those veterans have received information that

you can turn around right? And I would say if they are

listening, I've had people from the Veterans Affair.

Really thoughtful people reach out on certain things to say,

Hey, you know, heads up, you know, you have a friend here,

that's struggling, whatever it. And they're not divulging

Secrets, but they're simply saying they've read a post or

something, and I would be looking into women, whatever.

So there are a ton of caring people that work for Veterans

Affair, there is no question, are they burocratic lie,

completely stifled and just just like any other government

organization in this country like we literally can't do

anything. About red tape every 10 feet and

we're basically, were, are due processes are kind of like,

turning and aircraft carrier around, instead of a speedboat,

and is just takes weeks to do it, right?

Or, or at least that's the story.

So yeah. So aside from the fact that is

completely unacceptable. Now, actions to be taken, find

out exactly who was offered that, if anybody was taking,

they the biggest piece that's missing in Canada and I would

say North America, Typically is accountability.

Yes, accountability. And when I say accountability

man your organization did that the accountability that comes

along with with proposing that our War veterans.

Commit suicide. I don't know if you can overcome

it as an organization I don't but definitely it should happen.

So once once we figure it out, what's figure figure out the

cases, we need to be digging and digging and digging.

This is kind of like you know a lot of the a lot of the say

sexual assault cases or whatever.

For you you on Earth one. And next thing you know, there's

100. Yep.

And and they all need to help that they need so that they can

overcome whatever the repercussions of that were.

And so it's a big big project but it has to be dug up.

Yes you can't you can't you can attempt to say that there was

only two and then sort of put the carpet on top of it and say

yeah everybody else is really quiet and unless somebody

volunteers the information, sometimes the damage is so

critical. Or catastrophic that people

cannot even speak to it. Yeah, so it's not necessarily

that everybody's going to be volunteering to come out and

say, yeah, this happens. This happened to me.

Also that's going to be your job to be, to be basically

conducting audits on the cases and having the conversations

with the right people to try to find as many as we can.

And then from there, there has to be an accountability that

sets a very, very strong message to anybody else that might one

day. Consider doing something that's

stupid. Yes.

Said, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you talking about

that. This today, you're right.

There are some things like this. Can't be a Band-Aid.

The only way to clean a wound is to dig Around, clean it out, and

he lit properly suture it properly and that's what needs

to happen here. You know, when we heard about

what you're talking about here, the idea of this of this program

again the made program is not Everything has good intentions

are many things. Most things have good intentions

in how they're set up but they can be used improperly a

chainsaw as an invaluable tool. It can save somebody months and

months and months and months of work considering technology that

used to be available on the homestead.

It literally can be a lifesaver, but a chainsaw can also do a

tremendous amount of damage if it's used improperly and it only

takes one person using it improperly to really, really

make a mark like this. I'm going to sew the idea of

Folks, we had a, we had a gentleman who has been on a

self-discovery is very similar to yourself actually.

He's got a, the intellectual mindset, the Tactical mindset

and, and he has suffered with depression for 45 years and has

gone through every single. I'm not going to say, as far as

he's concerned, every single therapy that there is available

when it comes to depression and he still has it.

Is he throwing in the towel? No, he's looking at.

This is like, it's his life. This is how he can contribute to

society. He's also extremely well

educated. He's extremely successful in our

culture and he's a beacon for other people who have this type

of almost like you said, irreversible depression.

And I think about some of these people who are out there, where

if we just gave the proper support and Care rather than the

idea of okay, just throw in the throw in the towel, I just

appreciate your perspective and you and I wanted to give you the

ability to talk about this because I know it is something

that is What's your heart? Now that being said, you know,

we're getting closer to the end here.

You woke up inspired this morning and I want to talk about

that anytime someone's inspired. I want to pay attention to that.

Where are you at right now? Where are you going with your

with your business, with your movement, with all of these

things? What are some of the things that

you're dealing with right now? So Mmm.

Yeah so I should sort of I think there was a perfect storm that

that triggered some some deep deep introspection.

Very early this morning to my partner's, dismay free coffee

introspection. Pretty much much free coffee.

Probably three hours, too early. But you know, coming back from

Haiti having had that at that, this was my second trip in a

year coming back from their having that perspective and then

last night. So I'm taking a master's of

International Security Global counterterrorism right now and

I'm doing a master's of of that. And and we have a cohort that

disgust disgust Things on a secret on the secure medium, and

we're kind of chatting about, you know, sort of the the, the,

world's landscape so to speak. And there's, it's an

international degree. So there's people from all over

the world and there's a lot of Scholars in that group and it is

absolutely fascinating, you know, to see the perspectives

and and some of the political geopolitical landscape and

issues and things. And at the end of the day, it's

way too complex for most people to even fathom what's going on

in the world right now. So we again will try to and that

includes me by the way and we will try to, we will try to, you

know, simplify it so that we can make sense of it.

But ultimately it what it did to me.

Last night I think is really, really exposing that I what you

know that it basically made me consciously incompetent right in

a realm. And so and so this morning I

woke up with an epiphany and I'm like how many other things are

we actually Lee. A prison of like a mental and

emotional and intellectual prison of and how many other

things that are made up or, or conjured up by us as humans or

that we were told like anecdotal stifling or anything like that

that we were, we a deer through on account of this is the way it

is, or instead of challenging. Absolutely everything.

And I, when I say challenging, I don't mean necessarily in a

physical way. But how do I as a human being

start challenging? My own thought process because I

can control. What everybody else is doing.

And this is essentially what people are pushing, conspiracy

theory or doing. It's like, wow, I'm going to

tell you this, and this and this were you guys doing about it.

It's like, what are you doing about the information that you

have? So, I'm lying there in bed and

I'm like, I want to know everything.

I'm watching this show on Netflix, it's called ancient

apocalypse. Have you watched that?

I haven't watched it yet? No.

Oh my God. You like, you need to watch

that. I tell I meant that its title

loan. I meant it's completely insane.

It's basically, it has to do with lost.

Shins and like the relationship between them.

And there is there a bigger picture here in is there is

there, you know, was there Humanity 16,000 years earlier

than what is known from, the article archaeological

standpoint, all the stuff and there's a ton of absolutely

compelling evidence and there's a ton of circumstantial evidence

and it's great. It's a great show.

But again, exemplifies like do we know what we know or don't or

do we just believe what we think we know and so all those things

all magic in this morning. I I said I am so curious.

I just want to know everything like I do not I don't like

mystery. I want to know everything.

How am I going to? I'm not going to know everything

and then I'm like okay I don't know if you read my post about

going one step at a time and not seeing the outcome so I'm like

okay yeah yes yeah so I'm basically I applied my own

Theory to my own question this morning.

I'm like okay the fact is I know.

So take for example like take a bit of a segue here so you have

somebody that has a PhD in And Affairs for example, like Asian.

Yes. You know, Affairs and and you

have somebody that has say Wells world's PhD, the person that has

the PHD in Asian Affairs is likely to know more much more

than the person that has a PHD in World affair, because it's

more of a either more of a generalist, right then.

So they didn't dive into it nearly as in death specific.

Yeah. Exactly.

So now we are talking about to, Two levels of Scholars that are

very elevated. But this guy would say no you're

wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

So what do you actually know? Okay, so if we take this as a

base premise, there is no way we can get there.

There's no way as individual humans, we cannot it's

impossible. Like we can't know everything

about everything at all. In fact, we can't have any level

of expertise to speak of on anything.

So my thing was, what if we took ourselves from Just incompetent

to consciously incompetent. That is a massive, massive step

forward, because at that point when the need arises for me to

know something, I know that I can go out and seek, right?

No. Whoever the expert of the person

is in a certain field of endeavor, and I can learn so

much more about this and now I made myself smarter closer to

knowing things but we know that the end goal of knowing

everything is impossible. Oh, okay, so it's more about

taking incremental steps towards knowing more and more, and more.

And then I just went into this sort of, you know, Loop of

thinking about all the things that I was thinking in my head.

So some of them were just okay. So let's talk about

overthinking, for example, as a concept, sure, and since I've

been a boy people have always been told over thinking over

thinking is bad, right? You overthink like Is it going

to get messed up? And you're not going to be and

so I'm sitting there and I go. Okay.

So all those sort of think tanks that are that are doing a lot of

thinking that are doing a lot of critical thinking and everything

that come up with Solutions or hypothesis is or whatever.

The case may be yeah. Are they not overthinking right?

And so well, I mean some of them just can't stop their brain from

thinking I'm one of them. Hey, so I started thinking I'm

like okay, is it possible? That everything we know about

overthinking is wrong, is it possible that if somebody is

over thinking, but they have to ability ability to manage the

information that comes out of it on the other end.

It's no longer overthinking. It's now introspective thinking,

and it's now critical thinking, and it's not critical analysis,

like what different differentiates it to.

And I mean, perhaps one of your one of your listener is, is a,

you know, a master or a PhD in Psychology and they will be able

to break this down for us. Sure.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, My thing is so somebody

and if you see the way humans act in general, they will say

well I'm an over-thinker anyways.

Okay. So now so now they deflected all

responsibility on a known condition that defines them.

And they take in the tools away from themselves to do anything

different. Because they believe that,

whatever it is, that there are doing is detrimental.

What kind of prison is that? What if dangerous one it is?

What if you stopped listening Lying to everybody saying that

overthinking is bad and you started looking at ways to

maximize and optimize your potential as an over-thinker.

Could you make your life that much better?

And I'm going to go ahead and propose that.

Yes you probably can. Wow, right.

And so how it starts with you realizing that you are in a

matrix. You know, you are you are in a

prison and really don't look for anybody.

That's responsible For keeping you, there you are keeping

yourself there. So the type of awareness within

the overthinking, it's an awareness that lights up, so

it's not an autonomic, or it's not a, it's an awareness within

the overthinking. You just, you just have

essentially in the context of critical thinking, you need to

understand that everything, you know, needs to be challenged.

Everything, you know, needs to be challenged.

Is there a better way to do this?

Is there a better way? Way to be, is there a better way

for me to think? Do all the things that I think

and does Everything? Is Everything linear?

You know, is everything linear is everything like one thing at

a time. Like could we not go circularly

like, why are we and we're set in our ways but you're suing

your seeing it. When you're doing multi multi

cultural communication or anything like that, you're

starting to see that other people in other parts of the

world are processing the world differently, right?

And so it opens up the fact is The minds work like a, it works

like a parachute open and once but the problem is is we want to

stop everything from spinning because we want to be in

control. Yes, but you are in control,

you're in control of challenging.

Your thoughts, you're in control of challenging your emotions,

you're in control, our overriding things that you've

been told for years on account of.

Maybe this isn't the case, you know, and take it.

Take care of an example, very concrete example.

Okay, for miles in a, in a, in a For minute for a mile was

impossible, until absolutely until a course, it was broken by

somebody that theoretically defies the laws of physiology of

human physiology, right while, okay?

So that would be the case. That would be good.

If it was the case except 30,000 people broke it since so what

happened there because nobody had before that, well they

started it was outside the box. The box was broken.

The jail was it that the Bars were taken off in the person

came out, right? And so, yes, So my realization

this morning was like you don't need to know everything, you

don't need to be perfect which you need to bring yourself to is

to realize that if you question everything and you enter aspect

on everything you can pursue Excellence at, you know, you can

pursue Excellence, intellectual excellence and emotional

Excellence, get out of the boxes that other people are painting

around you so that they can make sense of the world.

That was my realization this morning and I mean it goes far

deeper than that but we don't want this podcast to be four

hours long. Hey, I do I cannot wait until he

changed. It becomes what it's the

potential. It's realizes its potential.

I can't wait for that, because I am the fan of the long for my, I

believe that this is where, you know, dialogues and and

communicating begins. I begin to believe it begins at

this. Right here, we're not at that

place yet. They like the our to the

hour-and-a-half kind of a thing. So we have to do this but that

being said you have set the table to say, okay.

So you've got to come back and I got to tell you on a personal

level. I can't thank you enough.

I'm speaking on behalf of my wife and her team.

Now I can't thank you enough for how much just you, even taking

the time to look at what it is that he changed his doing.

We can't I can't tell you how much it means to us that you and

who you are and all that you do. Appreciate what we're doing, it

knowing that people, like, you love what we're doing and

support what we're doing at our cheering us on that gives us

that hope that you're talking about that perspective, that we

need. Because it ain't easy that, you

know, the, the one of candies mentors said the said to her,

you know what, it isn't low-hanging fruit, but the

orchards are full. And I've used that example

before here. They said that to her as a means

of Hope having you on here, cheering us on the idea of

wanting to change the world. To get release these but, you

know, get rid of these bars really sees prisons that, that

so many men are in right now and you are a champion for that.

Thank you so much for supporting what he changed, it does.

So yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

You guys are great. Well, we appreciate that.

So so much. I'm going to switch back to me

then you and I can do our goodbyes privately they go by so

fast. I can't believe.

I literally I, you know, you know, full disclosure.

I woke up this morning with Anxiety, going on, man.

There's lots of stuff going on at that time of year.

All of these things. I was flat-out little bit

intimidated by Seb. Seb is a, you know, obviously

how impressive he is so exciting to have a conversation where I

can actually hang with someone like him.

Very, very, very appreciative of everything that he is doing.

Please please, feel free in the descriptions that we have here.

We're going to have all of the links to everything.

The best way to get ahold of him, the best ways is Instagram.

That's the best way to get ahold of seven.

And it's a, it's a rabbit hole from there.

Once again, please download the heat change the app.

If you haven't already, lots of good things coming, like, share

subscribe. He cast to everybody that you

know, that is another episode of he cast the official podcast of

he changed it. My name is Mike Chisholm go

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